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Nancy Grace
What Is Mary Winkler`s Legal Strategy?; Jill Carroll Released
Aired March 30, 2006 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, breaking news out of Selmer, Tennessee, in the murder of a highly popular Church of Christ minister. His wife, the mother of three, Mary Winkler, waives bond hearing, waives preliminary hearing. Why? Most likely, so the public will not hear the details of the murder one charges against her in her preacher husband`s shotgun murder.
And tonight, more breaking news. American journalist Jill Carroll released by Iraqi kidnappers after nearly three months held hostage.
Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Tonight, American reporter Jill Carroll, kidnapped three months ago in Baghdad, set free. She has complimented her kidnappers effusively. Tonight, we examine the phenomenon of Stockholm syndrome.
But first tonight, breaking news out of a Tennessee jail cell, where the wife of a murdered minister sits accused of gunning down her preacher husband in the church parsonage. Mary Winkler refused a bond hearing today and prelim. Next up, grand jury. Tonight, our panel of experts taking your calls.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m prosecuting the case. It`s on track, and I`m satisfied with what it is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don`t feel that it does anyone any good to hear gruesome things about their late father.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Any evidence in this case is going to be presented in the courtroom and should be presented in the courtroom at the appropriate time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is not a circus. This is a legal proceeding. They happen all over the free world every day. And all we want is a fair trial for Mary Carol Winkler.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Was waiving that bond hearing and that preliminary hearing in court just a way for Winkler to dodge the facts coming out in open court? Let`s go straight out to CNN correspondent Susan Candiotti, joining us there from Selmer, Tennessee. Hello, friend. Bring us up to date.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Nancy. Well, it was a short hearing, and you know why, because Mary Winkler, through her attorneys, waived that right to that preliminary bail hearing. Number one, the lawyer is telling us it was because they`re in no hurry to move her, as they put it. And secondly, you also heard the lawyer say, because they didn`t want the prosecutors to put into the public record details of her alleged confession to police. Also, they said they didn`t want the family being -- hearing some of the sordid details of that fatal shooting.
GRACE: Who said that, Susan? Who said they did not want the family hearing sordid details?
CANDIOTTI: That`s her defense team, the defense lawyer and his co- counsel. And he also said he didn`t want anyone else -- he didn`t think it was -- it would do anyone any good, they said, to hear what exactly happened. Now, clearly, they can`t expect to keep the details from the public for a very long period of time, but at least in the short run, they succeeded in getting it kept quiet.
GRACE: Susan Candiotti with us there in Selmer, Tennessee.
Speaking of her defense attorney, joining us tonight, Steve Farese, her chief defense counsel. Mr. Farese, why is it you don`t want the truth made public?
STEVE FARESE, MARY WINKLER`S ATTORNEY: Oh, I`m confused, Nancy. You`re talking about the truth, and then you`re talking about a witness who would take the stand in a preliminary hearing who would testify from hearsay. Even you know hearsay is inadmissible, as far as the truth is concerned.
GRACE: Yes, Mr. Farese. I tried just as many cases...
FARESE: Excuse me. Excuse me! it`s Farese. It`s Farese, Nancy.
GRACE: Thank you. And excuse me. I tried just as many cases as you, sir, and went to an accredited law school, just like you. So let`s get right down to it. I`m not talking about hearsay. I`m talking about why you don`t want a witness to take the stand and state what your client said at the time of her arrest on murder one. That`s not hearsay! What your client said is not hearsay!
FARESE: Right. Excuse me. Does talking louder make you more correct, Nancy?
GRACE: Well, can you answer the question, sir?
FARESE: Can we speak in normal tones here?
GRACE: If you could just answer, that would be great.
FARESE: I would be happy to answer your question. Nancy, the reason that we saw no legitimate reason to have a witness take the stand is, number one, they would be testifying from hearsay what someone else told them happened. Number two, if they have an open file discovery policy, which they do, we`re going to get that information anyway. Do we want someone to say, Oh, I heard this happened to your father? Isn`t it terrible? We`re thinking about the children. We`re thinking about the parents of Matthew Winkler. And we`re thinking about our client.
GRACE: Mr. Farese, that was beautifully put, but let me re-ask the question. I`m not talking about hearsay. I`m talking about what your client said to police when she was arrested. Now, you have told us here on this show that she did not make a confession. Isn`t it true, if that police report had been read in court, it would come out she did, in fact, confess to killing her husband?
FARESE: You want to know the contents of the alleged confession?
GRACE: Yes.
FARESE: Oh, I`m sorry. You`ll have to wait for that, Nancy.
GRACE: Take a listen to this, Liz. Roll it, please.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Do you think I`m harsh and you represent people that commit murder?
FARESE: Oh...
GRACE: OK, never mind! You don`t have to answer that.
FARESE: No. I would be happy to answer that.
GRACE: OK.
FARESE: You see, I believe in the Constitution.
GRACE: Right.
FARESE: And I believe in taking an oath to do what I`m supposed to do, and that`s to defend people to the best of my ability. I`m not laying out here in the tall weeds, sniping at people.
GRACE: Unless you`re going to accuse me of being a snake in the grass, waiting to pounce, like you did the other night -- although I take that as a compliment -- OK, go ahead.
FARESE: No, I didn`t accuse you of being a snake, Nancy, because --
GRACE: Don`t make me play it back!
FARESE: No. No. You can play it back, and if you play it back, I`ll be correct again. I did not accuse you of being a snake because I`m afraid of snakes.
I don`t know what`s going to happen tomorrow. If I wake up tomorrow, I will determine that at that time.
GRACE: Oh, so it`s kind of a "fly by the seat of your pants" thing. You`re going to decide in the morning after a cup of coffee.
FARESE: That`s -- I don`t drink coffee, but that`s the way I always operate, Nancy, and that`s why I am where I am today, is because I fly by the seat of my pants.
GRACE: Well, I hear that your mother agrees with me and not you.
FARESE: My mother loves you, Nancy, but I`ve had trouble with my mother all of my life.
We have something called the Constitution. She...
GRACE: Oh!
FARESE: Wait a minute. This is not "Alice in Wonderland," where we have first the punishment, then the trial. This is America. We have to -- wait a minute. You swore an oath, too, Nancy. Now, I don`t know what happens when they take you to prosecutor`s kiddie school. Evidently, they have some type of machine that removes all your compassion.
But if I`m looking into the future, I have to have some time to prepare the future.
QUESTION: Has she been depressed (INAUDIBLE)
FARESE: I don`t know. I was depressed yesterday, so I`m sure that`s possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Back to Mr. Farese. Mr. Farese, question. When I asked you the other night, did your client get a chance to visit her husband`s body before he was buried, you had not talked to her at that time. Now that you spent a day in court with her, did she get to say good-bye to her husband one last time?
FARESE: Nancy, I did get to talk to her today and intentionally did not ask that question.
GRACE: Why?
FARESE: I thought you might want to know the answer.
GRACE: Is it because you don`t want people to know that she got out of jail to visit her husband? I mean, why would you want to keep that a secret?
FARESE: That doesn`t interest me, whether she did or did not get out of jail. I`m interested...
GRACE: But you just said you intentionally didn`t ask, so obviously, you`ve been thinking about it a lot!
FARESE: No, I intentionally didn`t ask because it didn`t enter my mind to ask.
GRACE: But you just said you intentionally didn`t ask, so obviously, you thought about it, so it did enter your mind!
FARESE: Nancy...
GRACE: You`ve been thinking about...
FARESE: Nancy...
GRACE: You`ve been thinking about me a lot!
FARESE: Guess what?
GRACE: Yes?
FARESE: You`re right on both accounts.
(LAUGHTER)
GRACE: Everybody, with me is the incredibly brave attorney, Mr. Steve Farese, who is the defense attorney in the Mary Winkler case.
And let me go to Ed Sapone, defense attorney. I think you`ll agree with Farese that it was a very shrewd move not to have a bond hearing today and not to have a preliminary hearing today. Why, Ed Sapone?
ED SAPONE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, first of all, it`s not Sapone, Nancy, it`s not Saponay.
(LAUGHTER)
SAPONE: So don`t ever call me that, as you`ve done in the past, Nancy. Second of all, don`t ever yell at me. You know, now I have strength. It`s strength in numbers here.
GRACE: Strength in numbers!
(LAUGHTER)
GRACE: Hey, I`m not giving up that right, all right?
SAPONE: And I`m going to vote for Mr. Farese...
GRACE: I`m going to fight for my right!
SAPONE: And that man is doing a wonderful job, and he`s right. Why poison the well? There is a jury pool in...
GRACE: Poison the well with what, the truth?
SAPONE: With hearsay testimony...
GRACE: No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Wa-wait!
SAPONE: -- that`s permissible at a hearing like that preliminary hearing, Nancy.
GRACE: Quit talking about hearsay because both of you are disseminating falsehoods. Whatever Ms. Mary Winkler said at the time of her arrest is not hearsay, and the two of you know what the defendant said is not hearsay, what a third party said...
SAPONE: But that`s not the only thing that would be put...
GRACE: But you just said hearsay!~
SAPONE: ... into that proceeding. Yes, but the defendant`s statement...
GRACE: Why don`t you want...
SAPONE: ... is an admission from a party (ph) opponent...
GRACE: You`re not going to answer, are you.
SAPONE: ... but that wouldn`t be the only point of the preliminary proceeding. It would be that...
GRACE: I`m asking you...
SAPONE: ... and hearsay.
GRACE: ... a very simple question, Ed.
SAPONE: Go ahead.
GRACE: That is, do you agree that it was a shrewd move on Steve Farese`s part not to have a prelim? That`s a yes or no.
SAPONE: Well, you have to define shrewd. I think it was intelligent. It`s a waste of time to go through it. The judge is going to find, clearly, there`s enough evidence to go forward. And so why put...
GRACE: OK, let me see if I can...
SAPONE: ... poison in the well, Nancy.
GRACE: ... get (INAUDIBLE) from Peter Elikann, Peter Elikann, veteran defense attorney out of the Boston jurisdiction, handles a lot of high- profile cases, including homicide cases. Peter, let me see if I can rephrase with you people. What is...
PETER ELIKANN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: OK, Nancy, you`re allowed to yell at me and raise your voice to me because I`m like a punching bag.
GRACE: Thank you, God.
ELIKANN: So it`s fine.
(LAUGHTER)
GRACE: Peter, does -- let`s remove it from the Mary Winkler case. What is the advantage to a defense in waiving a prelim?
ELIKANN: Nancy, normally, the conventional wisdom is you almost never want to waive it. I mean, that`s an opportunity for you to find out information about the case. You can ask questions. You can cross-examine, rather than just say we`re going to waive all that and you can just have a secret grand jury hearing, where we stay out of it, we can`t argue, we can`t ask questions, et cetera. So this is kind of against the conventional wisdom, but I don`t know what Mr. Farese knows, so maybe he knows more than what I do.
GRACE: But Peter...
ELIKANN: But generally, we love these preliminary hearings, Nancy. So this is unusual.
GRACE: Yes, it gives a huge, huge advantage in cross-examining future state`s witnesses, unless you don`t want what`s in those police reports to be made public at this juncture. Do you see my reasoning, Peter?
ELIKANN: Yes, I do. It`s going to come out anyway, though. So that jury pool is going to get polluted or hear that information down the line, regardless.
GRACE: I want to go now to a very special guest joining us, Dr. Bruce Levy with the Tennessee state medical examiner. He is the Tennessee state medical examiner. His office performed the Winkler autopsy. Dr. Levy, thank you again for being with us tonight. I thought a lot about what you said last night. And let me get my mannequin here. I want to ask you a couple of questions about the shot to Minister Winkler.
DR. BRUCE LEVY, MEDICAL EXAMINER: Sure.
GRACE: You told me last night it was a shotgun blast, correct?
LEVY: Correct.
GRACE: Now, is that why there was no exit wound?
LEVY: That is true. As you know from your experience as a prosecutor, shotguns contain many, many different small pellets in it, and as a result, there is very rarely any exit wounds.
GRACE: Now, one thing we like to do as attorneys in court is use the physical evidence to our benefit. Now, Elizabeth, let me get a shot of this. For instance, if the wound had gone -- a full shot, please -- from bottom -- you said lower back, correct?
LEVY: It was the middle of the back.
GRACE: OK, middle of the back. Center, right or left?
LEVY: It was closer to the center of the back.
GRACE: Closer to the center of the back. Now, if you had a different kind of gun, you would have an entrance and an exit on the other side. And from that, you could tell the trajectory or the angle of the bullet.
LEVY: That`s correct.
GRACE: And that will tell you where who was at the time of the shooting. Were they standing? Were they sitting? Generally speaking. Was there any angle...
LEVY: Well, I mean, it`ll really -- sorry, it`ll really tell you the direction of the bullet through the body. It`s hard just from that to put together exact positions of whether someone was in one particular position or another.
GRACE: You`re right because you never know if someone was sitting, standing, lying on the bed, for instance. Was he in the master bedroom, Dr. Levy?
LEVY: That`s what I`ve understood from the news reports, that he was.
GRACE: Now, did a medical examiner, investigator go out to the scene?
LEVY: Not in this case.
GRACE: OK.
LEVY: This would have been handled by the medical examiner`s office in Selmer, Tennessee.
GRACE: Ah. So they did send an ME, ME representative. Now, you said you could not tell the angle. Did you tell me that last night?
LEVY: That`s right, because also with shotgun wounds, you end up with this billiard-ball effect. As all of the pellets hit each other, they go scattering in a variety of directions, and it`s nearly impossible to tell the main direction of the shot.
GRACE: So let`s say we`ve got a shot, since we don`t know the angle, going directly into the back, in the center of the back, close to the middle. We don`t have an exit. What can we learn? Tell me this. What organs were damaged by this explosion of pellets inside the minister`s body?
LEVY: Oh, there was damage to many of the different organs within the chest and abdomen.
GRACE: Describe to me as best as you can, Doctor -- with me, everyone, a very special guest from Tennessee, the Tennessee state medical examiner. How long did he live after this shooting?
LEVY: You know, there is no way to know for sure how long he lived. I mean, we know in general that people can live a matter of a few minutes after suffering a wound like this. They can live for maybe 20 or 30 minutes. Everybody is different. Every case is individual. We just don`t know.
GRACE: Did he -- was he found lying face up or face down?
LEVY: My understanding was he was lying face up. That may or may not be true.
GRACE: Right. OK. Sir, what was the actual cause of death? Did he bleed to death?
LEVY: The actual cause of death was that shotgun wound to the back.
GRACE: So he bled to death.
LEVY: Correct.
GRACE: Does all of that blood accumulate within the chest cavity? Does it come out of the mouth? I mean, what happens?
LEVY: Well, it -- you`re going to have bleeding internally. Certainly, with a large wound, you can have bleeding external to the body. If you`ve injured organs such as the lungs, you can have some blood coming out of the mouth, as well. Again, every case can be different. And I would expect, in general, in a shotgun wound case to see both internal and external bleeding.
GRACE: You said that it hit many of his organs. Which organs?
LEVY: I don`t recall specifically. I think there was damage to organs both in the chest and the abdomen. You know, there are literally hundreds of tiny pellets. They go in just about every direction.
GRACE: With me, the Tennessee state medical examiner, Dr. Bruce Levy. His office will be called upon at trial to testify to the cause of death in this case. We`ll all be right back.
Very quickly, to tonight`s "Case Alert." The search for two missing Milwaukee boys, Dre Henning, 12, Purvis Parker, 11, intensifies as police continue to search water and land. Authorities confiscated computers Dre and Purvis used just before disappearing March 19. Tonight, Milwaukee police making a plea to the abductors: Take them to a church, take them to a hospital, just don`t hurt these two little boys. If you have info on Dre and Purvis, please dial toll-free 877-628-3804. Tonight, the reward climbs to $62,000.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a homicide case, a person`s mental state is at issue. It`s an element of the offense. And I think it is the prudent thing to do to ask for a psychological evaluation. Depending on what that evaluation shows, it will dictate defense strategy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back. Today, in a very unusual but possibly shrewd move, the preliminary hearing and bond hearing for Mary Winkler, charged with gunning down her pastor husband, was waived. Next stop, grand jury.
To Dr. Warner Spitz, medical examiner and forensic pathologist. Dr. Spitz, regarding the shots that you heard Dr. Levy describe to you, what do you believe this man suffered prior to his death?
DR. WARNER SPITZ, MEDICAL EXAMINER, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, I don`t know that he felt a shot coming. He may have, theoretically...
GRACE: Suffered, what he suffered before his death with this type of a wound.
SPITZ: Oh, well, he -- of course he suffered. He had a lot of damage both inside and a big hole, or at least one big hole in the skin, depending on the distance of fire. If the shot was fired from close range, he would probably have a single large hole about the size of a silver dollar. If the shots were fired from some greater distance, he would have a lot of little holes.
GRACE: Dr. Spitz, what could you determine by the location of the body?
SPITZ: You know, I am not sure that the location of the body is necessarily the place where he was shot. These injuries, like Dr. Levy said, cause death by bleeding. Bleeding takes time to occur. This is not like a shot in the head, where the brain is involved, where he would be immediately incapacitated. He would not. So theoretically, he could have been lying on the bed and got up, tried to go to the telephone to find help and collapsed, and that`s where he`s been found.
It may be possible from the blood spatter to determine where he originally was, but that might also not be so because depending whether he was covered, and maybe in that case, there would no blood spatter.
GRACE: The reason I`m asking so many questions, Dr. Spitz, is because location, trajectory path, the angle of the bullet, all of this may go toward premeditation, and cover-up, as well.
I want to go to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, host of "Shalom in the Home" on TLC. Rabbi, welcome back, sir. Do families of ministers and rabbis feel a special pressure to be perfect? And how do they deal with that? We`re all looking for motive, not that the state has to prove it.
RABBI SHMULEY BOTEACH, HOST, "SHALOM IN THE HOME," TLC: You know, last night on your show, Nancy, as a Jew, I was told that I`m going to hell. As a religious person, Deepak Chopra insinuated I`m an idiot. So since I have nothing to lose...
GRACE: Yes, well, you and I are in the same boat, Rabbi!
BOTEACH: Exactly. Well, so let me go out on a limb here, since I have nothing to lose, and say that no matter what pressure Mary Winkler suffered as the wife of a cleric, that doesn`t allow to you shoot your husband! I don`t care if the whole community scrutinizes your moral behavior. I don`t care if you have to smile when you feel depressed. You still can`t shoot your husband over it!
Now, it`s -- sure, it`s difficult to be a rabbi, a minister because people tug at you endlessly, there`s endless needs, but nevertheless, it doesn`t excuse murder! So I don`t see how that could in any way be relevant.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: This minister lost his life, his wife now behind bars, waiving formal preliminary hearing and bond hearing today in court.
To Liz Daulton with WREC radio. Liz, has a psychiatric exam been requested?
LIZ DAULTON, WREC RADIO: The defense says that a private psychological evaluation is likely to be conducted as soon as possible.
GRACE: And what has become of the parsonage?
DAULTON: The parsonage -- it`s not sure who`s going to taking over, if it`s going to be one of the church elders or if they`ll hire someone else. It`s really unclear what`s happening at this time.
GRACE: To our producer, Clark Goldband. Where is Mary Winkler tonight?
CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE INTERNET REPORTER: Actually, Nancy, she`s in the jail there in McNairy County. And while it`s not exactly the Hilton or Marriott, they do have a few amenities that I think you would like to know about.
Let`s start first with TV. She can`t watch us because they only receive TV channels that are broadcast over the air on antennae. She can make calls whenever she wants. She could call us. But they need to be collect calls. There is a legal library, Nancy, if she wants to help her attorney, Mr. Farese, with some research material. And she is able to read things from the church.
Now, I`d especially like to thank Sheriff Roten for his information on the menu. We`ve been working hand in hand this evening. And Nancy, as you remember, last night, they dined on chicken. Well, tonight we`re going Italian with spaghetti, corn on the cob, broccoli with cheese, rolls and cookies. I don`t know how nutritionally balanced that meal is, but it does sound (INAUDIBLE).
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think there`s a lot of stress in minister`s families. I`ve been a minister`s wife for 36 years, and there are stresses in a ministry family that a lot of people, laypeople, do not understand.
And I think there`s something going on in this family, obviously, that a lot of people did not know about and, obviously, something in Mary`s life that went extremely wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Something went wrong. Her husband ended up with a gunshot wound to the back staring straight up at the ceiling. He`s dead. She`s behind bars. She waived a preliminary hearing and bond hearing.
Her defense attorney, a veteran trial lawyer himself, Steve Farese, is with us tonight. Has Mrs. Winkler had any visits from her daughters? Has she gotten to see them?
FARESE: Nancy, it`s my understanding she has not. Again, she`s been trying to take this thing in the right way as to how it would affect her children. And there have been no demands to ask to see her children by having them brought to the jail.
GRACE: Steve, have you requested a psych evaluation for her?
FARESE: Is this the first time you`ve called me Steve?
GRACE: I was going to slip it by and see if you noticed.
FARESE: OK, no, no, I did. And by the way...
GRACE: Trying to butter you up for the big whammy at the end.
FARESE: I understand. Nancy, you understand, I`m in a cave for a studio here. I only have a camera to talk to. I can`t see the other guests...
GRACE: Is that a yes or no, psych eval or not?
FARESE: Say that again?
GRACE: Psych evaluation. Have you asked for a psychiatric evaluation?
FARESE: We`ve got a professional going to see her tomorrow. And I guess...
GRACE: A professional what? A professional what?
FARESE: Psychologist.
GRACE: OK.
OK, Liz Daulton, that sets me up for my last question in this segment. I was going to ask you: Where do we go next? But I guess we know where we go next. The defense will now begin to build a psychiatric defense.
DAULTON: It sounded like the defense had that in mind today when we talked to them. Attorney Bowens (ph) said something, that the mental state was an issue. They were researching the Tennessee laws and statutes of diminished capacity and insanity. He did state that he didn`t think that she was crazy; he just wanted to research the laws.
GRACE: OK, research the laws and bring in a mental health worker.
To all of my guests in this section regarding Mary Winkler in Tennessee, especially Mr. Farese, thank you.
I`m hearing in my ear we have breaking news, and we`re going right now to Nic Robertson. Nic is a CNN international correspondent.
Nic, thank you for being with us. I know you woke up out of a dead sleep to join us, and I`m very grateful. Bring us up to date.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This time, the determination is being made how to get Jill back to the United States, back with her family, what sort of flight should she be on. As of a couple of hours ago, that was still up in the air.
She is in Baghdad tonight, though. She is sleeping safely, and she has been with friends until now, Nancy.
GRACE: Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JILL CARROLL, JOURNALIST FREED IN IRAQ: All I can say right now is that I`m just happy to be free. I was treated very well. It`s important people know that, that I was not harmed.
They never said they would hit me, never threatened me in any way. And I`m happy to be free. I want to be with my family.
They just came to me and said, "OK, we`re letting you go now." They didn`t tell me what was going on. They would come, bring me my food. I would eat. It was fine. I would go to the bathroom, but I was not allowed to...
QUESTION: You feel that you are (INAUDIBLE)
CARROLL: I really don`t know where I was. The room had a window, but the glass was -- you know, you can`t see. And it`s curtains, and you couldn`t hear any sound.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Back to CNN international correspondent Nic Robertson, for those just joining us, Nic, please tell them the story. Finally, some good news.
ROBERTSON: Some great news for Jill Carroll and her family. She was released by her captors. What really isn`t clear is, why did they let her go? Why today? What was the reason?
What happened was, she walked in western Baghdad into the office of a Sunni political party. That party called its boss. The boss came over, picked her up, took Jill to their party headquarters. She did something on Baghdad television, short interview. We`ve just heard some of it.
Immediately then she was taken right over to Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador here. He met with her, said she was in tremendous spirits. And that`s where she`s been, safely, we believe, at the U.S. embassy ever since.
GRACE: Nic, how was she abducted to start with?
ROBERTSON: She went out to visit an Iraqi politician. She turned up. He wasn`t there. She hung around a little while. She left. Insurgents blocked the road, pulled her out of the vehicle, threw her in the car, shot and killed her translator, and drove off with her, making demands pretty much straight away that all female prisoners in Iraqi being held by the U.S. military should be released forthwith.
That demand wasn`t met. Some were released, but there`s still a lot held.
GRACE: Nic, I know she was taken hostage January 7, this American journalist. What were the demands exactly?
ROBERTSON: Very simply, Jill Carroll was not going to be released until U.S. military handed over all female prisoners. And beyond that, if they didn`t make a deadline -- and I believe it was 48 or 72 hours -- if they didn`t make that deadline, then that was it, Jill was going to die.
GRACE: Take a listen to Jill Carroll.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: They didn`t tell me what was going on. They would come, bring me my food. I would eat. It was fine. I would go to the bathroom, but I was not allowed to...
QUESTION: You feel that you are (OFF-MIKE)
CARROLL: I really don`t know where I was. The room had a window, but the glass was -- you know, you can`t see. And it`s curtains. And you couldn`t hear any sound.
So I would sit in the room. I had to take a shower. I`d walk two feet, you know, to the next door, take a shower. I`d go to the bathroom, come back. That`s all. So I don`t know where I was or what was going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: To Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, she`s free. Why is she still wearing that garb?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Well, what came to mind for me was Stockholm Syndrome, in that, on some level, she`s identified with her captors.
Because in Stockholm Syndrome, what happens is the victim becomes inordinately grateful towards the captors if they have not been killed. So what happens is she`s probably seeing the world through her captors` eyes.
She`s not yet assimilated into the new world, the world of freedom. She`s still in the world of living in a tiny little room for three months. And the way she talks, that they treated her well, she had food, she could take a shower, she could go to the bathroom when she wanted to, she was living at a subsistence level, but she`s idealizing what happened to her.
The fact is she was in a very dangerous situation, and she`s probably at this point detached from herself, detached from others. It would be good for her to go be with her family and just let her emotions thaw out a little bit.
GRACE: You know, Nic Robertson is with us from Baghdad, Iraq, tonight, CNN`s international correspondent. Nic, Bethany`s observations, very interesting.
You know, this woman has gone on quite effusively, complimenting her captors. Hello, lady? You`ve been kidnapped for three months by brutal Iraqi kidnappers! Why is she dressed in this garb? Is she still afraid in some way?
ROBERTSON: Well, I think there are two things at play here. Number one, when she appeared on Baghdad television when we saw these pictures, she still hadn`t made it into U.S. custody. She was still out in Baghdad.
You know, those offices where she was picked up, two people, two Iraqi journalists were kidnapped just last month, and people are still waiting for their release, so she was by no means entirely safe, though she had good reason to believe she was in safer hands.
And I think the other thing here is, I`ve talked to people who have been kidnapped. One British journalists kidnapped for five days, when he was pulled out of the building and safe, he saw his kidnappers sitting there with bags over their heads. They were about to be taken into captivity, into detention.
And he said, you know, there was some of them there who actually looked nice to me, who actually fed me, who actually took care of me when the others wanted to beat me up. He said, you know, for those guys, I felt kind of sorry, so, you know, there will be mixed emotions undoubtedly for Jill at this time, but I think the key here may be she just wasn`t back in real safe hands.
GRACE: Nic Robertson, who is it that claims they took this American reporter?
ROBERTSON: You know, this was an unknown, small jihadi group. Nobody had heard of it. They called themselves Revenge Brigade. Nobody had heard of them before.
Maybe they gave themselves this name so that they couldn`t be traced. We`ve heard -- this sort of thing has happened a lot. These groups give themselves names for every sort of big operation. Maybe that just helps keeps them safer.
Nobody knows exactly who to turn to, how to negotiate with them, how to talk to them, how to win people`s freedom.
GRACE: What was the name?
ROBERTSON: Revenge Brigade.
GRACE: Revenge Brigade. You know, you said they`re a small jihadist faction. To us here, hearing this, they`re all small jihadist factions bent on revenge.
With us, Nic Robertson, CNN`s international correspondent. Let`s go to the lines.
Linda in Arizona, welcome.
CALLER: Welcome.
GRACE: Linda, are you with me?
CALLER: Yes, I`m with you.
GRACE: Hi, dear, what`s the question?
CALLER: My question is: Why did it take so long for her to get out?
GRACE: Good question.
Nic, tell me about any of the deals, any brokerage deals, any money exchanged.
ROBERTSON: You know, nobody is talking about money. Jill says she doesn`t know how it happened. A political party that was involved in her release, they`re saying they didn`t make a deal. Nobody is talking about money here.
We just don`t know. I mean, those details just aren`t clear at this stage. Perhaps we are going to learn -- 83 days, you can bet Jill wanted to be free on day one. We just don`t know why it took so long right now.
GRACE: To our producer, Phil Rosenbaum, Phil, Bethany brought up Stockholm Syndrome. Your analysis?
PHIL ROSENBAUM, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, it seems that Jill Carroll might be suffering the Stockholm Syndrome. When she got out of captivity, she told the person she first spoke to that she promised not to talk. She promised her captors that she wouldn`t say much. I mean, she`s sounding sympathetic towards them.
GRACE: Now, there`s a shot of...
ROSENBAUM: That`s Patty Hearst, and she committed a number of bank robberies in the 1970s with the Symbionese Liberation Army. And she`s claimed the Stockholm Syndrome, as well, as her defense. It didn`t work. She spent time in jail. The sentence was later commuted.
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JIM CARROLL, FATHER OF JILL CARROLL: We got the call this morning. I got the call a little before 6:00. Jill called me directly. And it was quite a wake-up call, to say the least.
And she`s doing well. We`re glad to see her on TV this morning. She`s apparently in good health and mentally strong, and we`re all very pleased about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Finally, some good news in our arena. An American journalist missing since January 7, Jill Carroll, is safe from her Iraqi captors.
To Nic Robertson, CNN international correspondent, Nic, are we trying to get these kidnappers or is there any way to really do that? What is the U.S. government doing?
ROBERTSON: We don`t know exactly what they`re doing. What normally happens -- people who have been kidnapped get debriefed. Intelligence officials get involved. They see what can be learned, if they find the location, what can be gleaned from that building, those premises.
If they can find these people, you bet they will. They`ll want to try and bring this to justice, and they`ll want to stop this happening to other people. Kidnapping is big business in Iraq these days.
GRACE: What do you mean big business?
ROBERTSON: There`s a lot of people getting kidnapped. You know, just a couple of days ago in downtown Baghdad, kidnappers went into a store, kidnapped 10 people. An hour or so later, they went into another store, kidnapped six people. Three more later on.
They were wearing police uniforms in one case, military uniforms in another case. You know, it`s moneymaking for a lot of these kidnappers. They take somebody. They hold them. They tell the family, "Give us the money or they`re dead."
You know, just a raid last weekend released a dental technician, an Iraqi dental technician, kidnapped in the morning and his family were told $20,000 or forget it, he`s dead. He was released, luckily.
GRACE: Everyone, Nic Robertson is reporting to us from a danger zone. Nic, how do you stay safe?
ROBERTSON: We take a lot of precautions. We`re careful about what we do. We think about where we`re going to go, who we`re going to meet, where we`re going to meet them, how long we`re going to take, all of these things. And that`s what it takes to do business in this country today.
GRACE: How did you get to us tonight?
ROBERTSON: We have a satellite operation that`s right where we live, and we keep this place safe.
GRACE: With us, Nic Robertson, CNN`s international correspondent there reporting from a danger zone.
I want to go to Rajiv Chandrasekaran. He is the associate managing editor at the "Washington Post." He is a friend of Jill Carroll`s. The good news, she`s alive.
What can you tell me about Jill Carroll? Why was she there? And how did she blend in for so long?
RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN, "WASHINGTON POST": Well, Jill blended in, quite frankly, by being low-key, by dressing like Iraqis do, by traveling like Iraqis do, in nondescript vehicles.
And with all due respect to one of your earlier guests on the show, the reason she was wearing that head scarf is that a lot of American female journalists cover their hair in Iraq so they blend in. I don`t think this is a sign of Stockholm Syndrome at all.
When she went out reporting, she`d often wear what we call a hijab, a head covering. And this is something, in that neighborhood in Baghdad, a very conservative Sunni neighborhood where she was released, it only made sense for her to keep her hair covered. It`s basic safety, and it`s not something that just Jill did and does, but most female journalists who are out and about in Iraq.
GRACE: Interesting. Thank you for that.
Let`s take a phone call. Levi in Tennessee. Hi, Levi.
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. Has this woman seen a psychiatrist? I don`t think that she quite gets it, that these people would have killed her in a second. They hate America and they hate freedom!
GRACE: Interesting.
To Mark Stricherz, he is a friend of Jill Carroll`s, has she met and been debriefed with any mental health care workers?
MARK STRICHERZ, FRIEND OF JILL CARROLL: I don`t know.
GRACE: Maybe Rajiv knows. Do you know, Rajiv?
CHANDRASEKARAN: Well, I know she`s been seeing medical personnel inside the Green Zone this evening. I presume that she is seeing some people who might be psychologists or trauma techs, but we have to remember the context in which she said these things.
She was not in the safe arms and care of the U.S. military or in the embassy. She was still in unprotected Baghdad in an office of a political party that the insurgents who were holding her felt comfortable enough with to release her to. So it`s clear she wasn`t going to be speaking openly and freely.
GRACE: Exactly.
CHANDRASEKARAN: We need to wait for her to come back to this country, to come back to her family, and then to talk about her ordeal. And I think that`s when we`ll get some true candor and honestly about what really happened there. We shouldn`t draw too many conclusions from this preliminary discussion with her.
GRACE: Well-put, Rajiv.
Back to Mark, a friend of Jill Carroll`s, how do you believe she survived? And was she concerned about her safety there in Iraq?
STRICHERZ: Oh, absolutely. She`s a very serious and smart person. I was reading one of her stories from the Christian Science Monitor from last year and came across that she had described a car that had been blown apart.
And in the back of the car was a yellow decal. And Jill was able to translate in Arabic the decal, and it was the first line from the Koran. And that really just -- she was able to put this in her story in the Christian Science Monitor, and that really talks about the type of journalist she was.
I mean, that`s a great, novelistic detail. Any good writer would have that type of detail in his or her writing, so...
GRACE: You`re right, the type of journalist she "is," thank God in heaven.
And to Clark Goldband, stats?
GOLDBAND: Well, Nancy, these stats are often hard to compile, so we`ve taken them from April of 2004. There`s a lot of conflicting information, and we`ve narrowed it down the best we can.
There are 55 hostages currently in captivity right now in Iraq; 55 have been killed. Three, we don`t know what happened to them. And Jill Carroll, Nancy, making the 201st hostage released who escaped. She was rescued.
GRACE: Quick break, everybody. As you know, local news next for some of you, but we`ll all be right back.
And, remember, live coverage of Milwaukee police officers on trial for civilian assault, 3:00 to 5:00 Eastern, Court TV.
Please stay with us as we remember Marine Private Lewis Calapini, 21 of Hawaii, remembered as always having a smile on his face. Calapini, an American hero.
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JIM CARROLL: My wish is that this joyous occasion will offer hope to all the mothers of Iraq whose children have been kidnapped. May they all be returned safely and swiftly in a matter of time. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back. Let`s go straight out to Bethany Marshall.
Bethany, what is the typical mental condition of a hostage like this?
MARSHALL: Well, there`s no one typical trauma response, but I would say, in this particular case, she probably also has something called posttraumatic stress syndrome, which is that, in order to cope with what has happened to her, she`s probably detached from herself and others, because the primary symptom of PTSD is detachment and estrangement from self and others, meaning she`s not really going to experience the full weight of what happened to her at this time.
And she`s going to talk about it euphemistically. It`s hard to know if that`s because she`s in a war zone, she`s not home yet. But I think her family just needs to allow her to talk about it as she`s able.
GRACE: Let`s go to Gwen in Kentucky. Hi, Gwen.
CALLER: Hey, Nancy. My question is: How can she glorify her kidnappers when she watched her translator get shot down right in front of her?
GRACE: You know what? You`re right.
What about it, Bethany?
MARSHALL: Well, probably she doesn`t even feel the impact of that at this point, because she is so traumatized. And she`s just so grateful that it wasn`t her. The survival instinct is incredibly strong, and it overrides all else.
GRACE: I want to go straight back to her friend joining us tonight, Mark Stricherz.
How does these questions, how does that jibe with your knowledge of your friend, Jill Carroll?
STRICHERZ: Jill, she`s a very sweet, and genuine, and energetic person. When we worked together at States News Service about five or six years ago, she used to wear this maroon jacket from her swimming days in college. And in white cursive letters was her nickname, Zippy.
And the reporters in the newsroom used to give her a little grief for having Zippy. Well, she just kind of laughed it off. And it`s just kind of who Jill is.
I`m sure her kidnappers realize this. I mean, terrorists don`t tend to kill people named Zippy. And as my boss, Leland Schwartz, said on a show a couple of months ago, you know, he hoped that they fell in love with her, because she`s such a sweet and genuine person. And I think that`s very unassuming. Her abductors probably realized this, and she probably feels some sympathy towards them, as well.
GRACE: Thank you so much for being with us. And thank you to all of our guests. Thank you for being with us, inviting us into your homes. See you tomorrow night. Good night, friend.
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