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Nancy Grace

Veterans ID`s Stolen; Girl Gone Missing in North Dakota

Aired May 24, 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, the search for a 3-year-old little girl intensifies. Little Reachelle Smith was taken from her North Dakota home by a 22-year-old man posing as her father. Tonight: He is found parked in a van in the midst of a national forest, apparently dead from a self- inflicted carbon monoxide inhalation. And tonight, outrage -- millions of veterans who risked their lives for our country`s identities stolen, the worst ID heist in U.S. history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m not surprised that these types of ID thefts happen. I`m kind of surprised that they would have this many pieces of personal information on one disk in one location, where it could be easily stolen by any third-rate burglar.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Good evening everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Tonight: You are in contempt! A government analyst broke the rules, taking home personal data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and now 26 million veterans in danger!

But first tonight, the search for a missing 3-year-old North Dakota girl, the kidnapper dead by his own hand. But tonight, where is little Reachelle? And tonight, we are taking your calls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Smith was living with her aunt, Who is her legal guardian. Leigh Cowen has been dating the aunt and was staying with her, but it was last Tuesday morning that the aunt noticed Smith was missing from her bed. Cowen said the girl was with his mother at the Minot Air Force base.

After about four more days, the aunt got suspicious. On Monday, she awoke to find Cowen gone, having stolen her 1995 Chevy Astrovan. It was then that the aunt called police and the alert was issued.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re just going to continue to follow the leads, follow the searches, sit down and meet, decide what direction we`re going to go next. There`s no magic crystal ball to that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Where is 3-year-old Reachelle? Out to KXMC-TV reporter Jim Olson. Jim, maybe I`m crazy, but did I just hear after four days, they got suspicious, where is a 3-year-old girl?

JIM OLSON, KXMC-TV: That`s correct, Nancy, and...

GRACE: OK, you know what? Maybe they all need to just go to jail until they can sort out what happened! Let`s start at A and go to Z. Tell me what happened.

OLSON: Well, let me try to lay it out for you as best I know, from the what the police told us and the reporting we`ve been able to do on it. It started a week ago Tuesday, so eight days ago. And what happened on that day, according to the custodial mother, Stephanie Smith, is that she put her daughter to bed, Reachelle Smith, and the next morning, she was not in her bed. And at that point, the custodial mother was told by Leigh Cowen that he had taken the daughter, the young girl, to his mother`s house at the Minot Air Force base and not to worry. And apparently, that had happened before, and so the mother was not overly concerned, who is actually the girl`s aunt, but her custodial mom. I don`t want to get you confused here.

But so that`s why, we`re told by police, there was no alarm sounded by the parent as to where her girl was.

GRACE: Right.

OLSON: It wasn`t until that she realized her van had been stolen and Leigh was no longer around...

GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa!

OLSON: ... that she knew there was a problem.

GRACE: Whose van got stolen?

OLSON: I`m sorry? What?

GRACE: Whose van was stolen?

OLSON: It was Stephanie Smith`s mother, the -- or van, rather -- the custodial mother. And that`s that teal Chevy van that was the subject of the Amber Alert for a certain amount of time until it was discovered yesterday.

GRACE: Jim, let me get this straight. Joining us from KXMC-TV, the news director, Jim Olson. Jim, let me get this straight. The little girl`s mother apparently gave her up. She`s living with a custodial parent, right?

OLSON: That`s correct.

GRACE: All right. So this guy, Leigh Cowen, takes the 3-year-old from the home to his mother`s house -- that`s his story -- and leaves her there. But that`s OK, because she`s visited there before. No problem, right?

OLSON: That`s correct. That`s what we`re told.

GRACE: Fine. And nobody gets worried until four days pass?

OLSON: Yes. I think it might have been more like five, but yes, that`s what the police told us. And of course, that was the question we all had when the Amber Alert was first issued, was what took so long for this to get going? And that was the explanation.

GRACE: What`s the lady`s name, Stephanie Smith?

OLSON: Stephanie, that`s correct. Stephanie Smith is the custodial mom. She`s the sister of the biological mother, Samantha Smith, both of whom...

GRACE: Has anybody heard phrase "child endangerment"? OK, how long has this little girl been missing?

OLSON: Well, since the previous Tuesday, so we`re on the eighth day right now.

GRACE: Whew! Eight days. All right, give me the whereabouts, where the van was found.

OLSON: The van was found yesterday in the noontime at a national wildlife refuge about 20 miles northwest of Minot. And inside of it was the body of 22-year-old Leigh Cowen. And the autopsy -- preliminary autopsy proves -- it was just released in the last little while -- that he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. And of course, the assumption is that it was a suicide case. And so that`s where we stand.

Now, the police aren`t ready to say that he definitely is the person who abducted this girl or did anything to her, and of course, they can`t really say that until they find some more proof. But obviously, he`s the number one suspect...

GRACE: Jim! Jim!

OLSON: ... but there are other players in this, and there are other leads that they`re trying to track down.

GRACE: Jim, Leigh Cowen is how old, 22 years old?

OLSON: That`s correct.

GRACE: All right. He tells people he takes the girl, and now he`s found dead in the van in the middle of this national refuge, right?

OLSON: That`s right.

GRACE: Carbon monoxide poisoning. Any knowledge of the girl? And how far away from the van was the home where the girl was taken?

OLSON: Only about 20 miles or so, a fairly short drive. And it`s a secluded area where the van was found. It was found -- discovered by workers at the wildlife refuge, as I understand it.

GRACE: Let`s go now to Captain Al Hanson with the Minot Police Department. Captain, it`s real pleasure to have you with us. We are all concerned tonight about this 3-year-old toddler, Reachelle Smith, not reported missing until at least four days after she was gone, by her custodial parent, Stephanie Smith. Tell us what you`re doing to find this little girl, Captain.

CAPT. AL HANSON, MINOT POLICE DEPARTMENT: Once we received the information at about 3:30 on Monday afternoon, we instigated the Amber Alert, and we started to do interviews with people that we thought were subjects of interest. We were started to look for that van and Mr. Cowen. Since that time, we have done a whole number of searches, including searches of our river system that runs through the city, as well as foot searches of parks and places where they frequented.

GRACE: Everyone, we are taking your calls. We are trying to help in the effort to find a missing 3-year-old girl out of North Dakota. Her name, Reachelle Smith. Now, listen to this. She`s only 3-foot-4. The little thing is only 40 pounds. She has brown eyes and straight, light brown hair. Her name, Reachelle Smith. Look at this little girl.

The man that we believe abducted her was a friend of the family. He was found dead, likely at his own hand, by carbon monoxide poisoning in a van. Where the van is found in a national refuge, no sign of the 3-year- old girl.

Do we have Marc Klaas yet, Elizabeth? Let`s go straight out to Marc Klaas. He is the president of Beyond missing.com, and he`s a crime victim himself. His own little girl, Polly, went missing, as well. Tell us what we need to know right now, Marc Klaas.

MARC KLAAS, BEYONDMISSING.COM: Well, what we need to know right now and what people have to understand, Nancy, is that police are going to investigate certain things. Number one, they`re going to look at the family because that`s where the numbers are. Then they`re going to look at friends of the family, peripheral contacts, registered sex offenders that live within the community, and then the most difficult scenario of all, the stranger scenario. So it`s not a surprise at all this would be somebody close to the family.

Here`s what one hopes. One hopes that they have brought bloodhounds in and that they`ve put bloodhounds through that van and that they may even have been able to pick up some kind of a signal or some kind of a scent of this child and that that will bring them to them. We`re hoping that they`re using military commitment, night vision goggles, if they`re going to be searching this location in the evening, infrared heat-sensing devices, so that they might be able to find the warmth of a body someplace.

But I think they`ve got to grill this family. This is absolutely insane that this girl could be missing for this amount of time before anybody bothered to report her missing.

GRACE: To psychologist Dr. Jeff Gardere. Jeff, why is it tonight, for instance, Marc and I are so incensed about the custodial parent not reporting her missing for four days? Because right now, we need to focus on where is this girl. It`s a 3-year-old little girl. If, God help us, she`s still alive, that`s where the focus is. Why is it that we need to look somewhere for blame? What is that?

JEFF GARDERE, PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, first of all, a custodial parent is still a parent. And even if this child were brought to the grandmother, to Cowen`s grandmother, then she would have to check and see, Well, how`s she doing? She`s been gone for a day. She`s been gone for two days. What`s going on? Let me check on my little girl. And we don`t whether that`s happened. So of course, what we do know is there may be some sort of connection, and this is where we have to start. This is where we have to look for her. Marc is completely accurate on that.

GRACE: Marc, go ahead and give us the statistics.

KLAAS: Well...

GRACE: How soon after an abduction is a child typically killed?

KLAAS: Sure. In abduction homicides, 74 percent of the children are going to be dead within three hours. So you know, you put this little girl to bed at 10:30 at night. She`s not there the next morning, that`s going to be a big red flag. And to just dismiss that for the next several days makes absolutely no sense. The chances of recovering this child alive, at this point, I think are minimal, not that we shouldn`t continue to look and hope that we can...

GRACE: But there`s still a chance, Marc...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: There`s still a chance that this nut could have let the girl off at a Wal-Mart or a Kmart or God knows where. He could have -- even if he molested her, God forbid...

KLAAS: We should never forget Elizabeth...

GRACE: Yes.

KLAAS: We should never forget Elizabeth Smart and we should never forget Tamara Brooks (ph). Children do come home.

GRACE: Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our number one priority is Reachelle. Anyone who knows Reachelle would agree with me there is a brightness to her. Reachelle has a natural ability to make people around her laugh and smile. Reachelle always gives hugs around to everyone, no matter what your mood is. She will make you feel as if you are the only one that matters to her. That`s how big her heart is.

Whenever a camera is around, Reachelle was always ready for a picture to be taken. She would literally jump in front of the camera and yell "cheese," even when the lens cap is on. A few of Reachelle`s favorite things would include puzzles, learning the alphabet, learning her numbers, and to run outside to let loose on her energy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: No offense, lady, but why did you wait four days to report the girl missing? Now her face is plastered all over national TV. This girl has been gone -- she`s 3 years old -- since last Tuesday! Her name is Reachelle Smith. She`s missing in the North Dakota area.

Let`s go to the lines, Elizabeth. Let`s go to Bonnie in Illinois. Hi, Bonnie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. I would just like to know what is being done to this supposed custodial mother right now.

GRACE: Good question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who is beating the questions out of her? Because you can`t tell me that she doesn`t know something. So that`s what I want to know.

GRACE: Captain Alan (ph) Hanson, Bonnie has an excellent question. What has the custodial aunt had to say? Has she been questioned?

HANSON: She has been questioned at least twice, to this point, and probably will be questioned some more in the near future.

GRACE: Has she taken a polygraph?

HANSON: No.

GRACE: Captain, look, I know that you`re hurting just as much as everybody else that hears about this story. Let me ask you about Leigh Cowen, now the dead man, that we think took the girl. Where is his mother? He said he dropped the girl off at his mother`s house to visit. Where is she?

HANSON: She is currently in a small town outside of Wichita, Kansas.

GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! When did she pick up and leave and move to Wichita?

HANSON: She left Minot Air Force base temporary housing unit last Thursday, which would have been -- or excuse me, Friday morning, early Friday morning of the 19th.

GRACE: OK. Captain, why -- the girl went there Tuesday, and she picks up and leaves the state on Friday? Why?

HANSON: Well, I believe, at this point, that the story that Mr. Cowen told the custodial mother was false. We find no evidence to believe that the story that she was given was truthful at all.

GRACE: So you`re telling me the little girl never went to visit with Mrs. Cowen.

HANSON: That`s the belief that we have at this point, yes.

GRACE: So Captain, let me just get my mind around this. So while the mom sat at home and did nothing, the girl had actually been missing since Tuesday?

HANSON: Actually, Tuesday about 10:30 PM is the last time the mother saw her, yes.

GRACE: Everyone, we are asking for your help tonight. Ellie (ph) -- here`s the tip line, 701-852-0111. Can you please help us help police to find this 3-year-old little girl out of North Carolina? (SIC) She`s been missing since last Tuesday. The man we believe took her has been found dead at his own hand, carbon monoxide poisoning, in the middle of a national refuge. No sign of this girl.

Very quickly, to tonight`s "Case Alert." Sex, murder, videotape -- a Missouri couple accused in the rape and kidnap, the murder of a 41-year-old woman, all captured on their own videocamera. The manhunt for Richard Davis and Deana Riley goes on. Police say there`s also a possible victim, second victim, of this heinous crime.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Investigators got an answer and more questions when they discovered Cowen`s body inside the abandoned Chevy van on the Lake Darling refuge. Now the biggest question of all: Where is 3-year-old Reachelle Smith?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are looking for this toddler, we believe in the North Dakota area. Let`s go out to Gwen in Canada. Hi, Gwen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. How are you ?

GRACE: I`m good, dear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do like your show, and...

GRACE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... I just wanted to mention something. If this little girl is indeed found alive, which I certainly hope she is, would she be returned to this caretaker mother? Because what kind of a mother, regardless of whether it`s an appointed mother, would be -- not phone her little daughter and say good night? Can you please answer me, Nancy? Thank you very much.

GRACE: Gwen, you`re so right. You know what? I`m going to go to defense attorney Renee Rockwell, who has handled many a child custody dispute. Renee, back to this woman. I don`t think so. What`s your best argument...

RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No...

GRACE: ... that she should get the girl back. Go ahead, try!

ROCKWELL: No, Nancy, I can`t even take that position because...

GRACE: OK, you`re fired!

ROCKWELL: But this is a 3-year-old, Nancy. This baby can talk on the telephone. Why didn`t she pick the phone up, Hey, good night?

GRACE: OK, you know what?

ROCKWELL: One, two, three, how many days does it take? I have a big problem with this.

GRACE: You`re supposed to be taking the defense side.

ROCKWELL: Nancy, I cannot. I cannot.

GRACE: That was pathetic.

Let`s go to Steve Greenberg.

ROCKWELL: I cannot.

GRACE: Steve, why should the mother, the custodial aunt, get her back? I can`t think of one reason. And lady, I hope you`re listening!

STAN GREENBERG, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, just because she didn`t call and say good night to this young girl doesn`t mean that she`s a bad mom. She obviously seems like a concerned mom.

GRACE: Four days passed.

GREENBERG: She probably had -- well, four days did pass, and we all make mistakes as parents. I don`t know that that`s...

GRACE: That`s your best defense?

GREENBERG: ... something that she couldn`t be taught to be a better parent.

GRACE: We all make mistakes?

GREENBERG: Well, it`s...

GRACE: OK. You know, at least...

GREENBERG: We do all make mistakes, Nancy.

GRACE: ... it was better than Renee, who turned down the case!

Clark -- to Clark Goldband, our producer. What`s the track record?

CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE INTERNET REPORTER: Well, Nancy, it`s not great, but there is some hope. First let`s start with Danielle Van Dam. Of course, she was killed by the perp, who she knew, the next-door neighbor, of course, Mr. David Westerfield, and he was convicted, found guilty. Look at Elizabeth Smart. This is where we have hope. Nine months she was missing. Remember the handyman she lived with took her. But she was returned...

GRACE: Correction. She didn`t live with him. He kidnapped her and turned her into a child bride. They didn`t live together. OK. Go ahead.

GOLDBAND: Absolutely right. Sarah Michelle Lunde, unfortunately, not the same result. She was killed by the mom`s ex-boyfriend. So again, she knew of this person. So we see this pattern...

GRACE: Her body identified by a green cast, if you can imagine that. Go ahead.

GOLDBAND: And last but certainly not least, Samantha Runnion. We know all about her case, unfortunately, too well. She was taken in the front yard, but the girl she was playing with saw the perp and all the details, and that helped cops crack the case.

GRACE: I want to go back to Captain Al Hanson with the Minot Police Department, kind enough to be with us tonight. Captain, one of the callers wanted to know if dogs had been called in. You know, 20 miles doesn`t sound like a big distance between where he was and where he took the girl and where the van was discovered. But that`s 20 square miles. That is bigger than the island of Aruba, I want to point out. That`s a lot of land to cover. Have you guys brought out the tracker dogs?

HANSON: Yes, ma`am, we have. We`ve used dogs. We`ve used aerial support. We`ve used some of the technology that was mentioned earlier, as far as night scopes, and many, many volunteers.

GRACE: We`re taking a look at volunteers on ATVs right now. Where are you getting the volunteers from, Captain?

HANSON: From a number of sources. A lot of law enforcement personnel are donating their off time. Local businesses have been donating the technology to us, such as the ATVs. We`ve had horse groups that are willing to come in and use their equipment and animals to help search. The local Air Force base has been kind enough to ask for volunteers, and many have shown up from there, as well.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most of the morning, the investigators have been spent on the phone, trying to tie things together, leads, reaching out to people, trying to get answers to who may know what and where.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are trying to help police find a 3-year-old little girl missing out of North Dakota. Here she is, Reachelle Smith. She only weighs 40 pounds. She`s 3-foot-4, brown eyes, straight, light brown hair.

I want to go straight back out to Jim Olson, news director with KXMC- TV. Has there been any sign of the girl, even false sightings? Has anybody been calling in with tips?

OLSON: We`ve not received anything ourselves at the television station. Captain Hanson did mention today that they`ve been receiving a lot of calls and tips, and they`ve been following up on some. There was a search today at a small town about five or ten miles west -- excuse me, east of Minot, but that was based on tip that they had received. But no, at our TV station, we haven`t received anything specific like that.

GRACE: And to Captain Al Hanson, the 701-852-0111 number -- what is that?

HANSON: That is the direct police department number. It rings into our central dispatch that`s answered 24/7.

GRACE: Did this guy, Leigh Cowen, now dead -- did he have any haunts where he would go, like a certain bar, a shopping mall? Did the guy have a job?

HANSON: There is no evidence of a job. He did have some places that he frequented, and we`ve been checking into them as best we can with the information that we have.

GRACE: Wait a minute! He`s 22 years old. He was living there with the custodial aunt. What was he doing all day long besides thinking about snatching a 3-year-old girl?

HANSON: Well, that`s one of the questions that we`re trying to figure out.

GRACE: Let`s go to Danielle in Pennsylvania. Hi, Danielle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are you?

GRACE: I`m good, dear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know that the police said they spoke with Stephanie on several occasions. My question is, did they ever ask her if the girl has been away with family members or friends this long before? And if so, did she ever talk to her in between that time and not find it odd, more, like, two days later or one day later?

GRACE: OK, I`ll hold that thought and we`ll ask the captain when we get back, Danielle. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I must stress that Reachelle does have asthma and on occasions will need a nebulizer life treatment. She will know them as treatments. Reachelle has never been away from us this long before, ever. So, if someone does have her, please return her as soon as possible. We all miss her very much, as she is our peanut.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: "She`s our peanut," your peanut that you didn`t bother to call about for four straight days. The child was missing four days before she was actually officially reported gone to the police.

And to top it all off, this little girl needs one of these: an inhaler. She has asthma. And if she is alive tonight, God help us all, she needs this desperately.

We are taking your calls. Let`s go straight out to Leslie Snadowsky, investigative reporter. Leslie, can you make sense of any of this tangled- up living condition? You`ve got the mom abandoning the baby, the mom giving the baby to the aunt, the aunt becoming the custodian, the live-in takes -- explain.

LESLIE SNADOWSKY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, "NEW YORK POST": Well, Samantha is the biological mom, and the dad supposedly lives in Colorado somewhere. As you`ve discussed, Stephanie, the aunt, is now in charge of the little girl and invited Leigh Cowen to come stay with her in the house.

Now, Leigh Cowen told authorities that he believed that he was Reachelle`s dad, even though he was privy to biological tests that showed otherwise. I don`t know why he was going around saying that he was the dad.

GRACE: Well, was he crazy? Was he crazy? Did he really believe he was the child`s father?

SNADOWSKY: Well, say he believed it. Then what`s he doing living with the sister? That`s kind of weird, too. But he actually had a little record, as well. He was on probation for property theft in Ward County and he was being supervised in Fargo. But when he failed to report in, there was actually a warrant issued for his arrest, so he was running from that, too. Also, authorities said he did have a drug problem.

GRACE: What kind of drug problem?

SNADOWSKY: I wasn`t able to find that out, but...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: What about it, Captain, did he have a drug problem?

CAPTAIN AL HANSON, MINOT POLICE DEPARTMENT: There is some history of it on his record, yes.

GRACE: Well, are we talking about pot, crack, heroin, what, prescription drugs, alcohol? What`s his problem?

HANSON: I guess I don`t have that information in front of me, Nancy. I won`t be able to answer that.

GRACE: And, Captain, it doesn`t matter now: He`s dead. He apparently committed suicide, everyone, in the middle of a national refuge. Now, how hard is it going to be, Captain Hanson, to search for this little child in a national refuge?

HANSON: It`s going to be very difficult.

GRACE: What do you need tonight, Captain? What do you need to try to find this girl?

HANSON: We would need some information that could help us narrow down the search area and concentrate our efforts in the place where we believe she may be.

GRACE: Renee Rockwell, you have handled child custody cases, kidnapping cases, murder cases. What scenario is playing out in your mind, based on the facts that you know?

RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, based on these facts, if somebody maybe has this child -- let`s say that this pervert or whoever this was that took this child maybe has given this child to somebody else, it`s not too late.

If the child is still alive, they can come forth. Just drop the child off at a hospital, at any police agency, no questions asked, if the child`s still alive.

GRACE: You know what, Renee? You`re right. I mean, look at Elizabeth Smart. People always complained when they see her and her family on TV. But the reality is: She is a child kidnap and molestation victim, and she is speaking out and showing other victims that you can survive, and you can be strong, and you can you go on with your life, so it is not over yet.

Let`s go to Bobby in California. Hi, Bobby.

CALLER: Hi, Nancy.

GRACE: What`s your question, dear?

CALLER: Well, I`d like to find out, has this gentleman, Leigh, has he been checked for his body for any kind of a struggle, under his fingernails or any semen or blood found on him?

GRACE: What about it, Captain Hanson?

HANSON: Again, the medical examiner here in North Dakota does a very thorough job. Those issues are one that I don`t have an answer to because of it was handled by the Ward County Sheriff`s Department. But I would...

GRACE: Right. And wasn`t the body just found this afternoon?

HANSON: The body went down for the medical examiner`s autopsy this morning.

GRACE: So, you know what, Bobby, that`s an excellent question, but we don`t have the results yet.

And I want to go back to the earlier question -- I think it was Danielle`s question -- to Jim Olson, the news director at KXMC-TV, Danielle wanted to know, has the child stayed away for that long before? And did the mom typically -- the custodial aunt, in other words -- stay in touch with her by phone?

JIM OLSON, NEWS DIRECTOR, KXMC: Well, I don`t know, obviously, the specific answer to that question. I can tell you that, at the press conference -- and I believe you played a clip from it -- they said that she has never been away this long.

However, they had also told police earlier when the Amber Alert was first issued that it wasn`t unusual for her to stay with her, with Leigh`s mother, Leigh Cowen`s mother, so there`s some ambiguity there, I guess, and maybe hard to really know the exact answer.

GRACE: We have been talking a lot about the custodial aunt, but here`s what the biological mother has to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reachelle does have a very kind heart, and we do miss her dearly. Right now, we just want her home. Anyone, we just ask if anyone has any information at all, please just call the local law enforcement so we can have her home. We just want her back. We miss her and love her very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: To psychologist Dr. Jeff Gardere, no offense to the biological mom or the custodial aunt -- I`m sure they`re in a lot of pain tonight, and I hate that for them -- but nobody even bothered to check on the child, so four days passed. No phone call, no, "Does she need a change of clothes? Does she need her inhaler?" Nothing. So what`s with the "we miss peanut" crying on TV now?

JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, I`m sure they really do miss her and I`m sure they really do love her, but obviously it`s a very disorganized family, in that we`re already talking about that this is a situation of custodial issues.

But, Nancy, my real concern is that 90 percent of people who commit suicide have some sort of psychiatric problem; 70 percent are depressed. And I`m afraid that this may be, God forbid, may be a murder-suicide.

This man was very unstable if he, in fact, had this child. Why would he kill himself in the middle of this place, this godforsaken place, unless something pushed him over the edge? And I`m afraid it has something to do with Reachelle.

GRACE: To Marc Klaas with BeyondMissing.com, Marc, I thought of the same scenario. Why would the guy -- we don`t know of any history of a suicide attempt -- why would he suddenly go out to the middle of a national refuge, lock the doors to his van, and commit suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide?

MARC KLAAS, FOUNDER OF BEYOND MISSING: Well, it might be just as the doctor suggested, or it might have been that he knew what he was looking forward to with a life in prison and that basically, what -- the kind of treatment that child molesters, and child kidnappers get, and child murderers get.

But, Nancy, let me ask you this: Why is anybody even buying into this notion that the girl was last seen at 10:30 on the evening of the 16th? Nothing else that these women are saying is believable at all. Why are we just buying into this notion?

I think we should find out who the last person to see this child was that was outside of this miserable, immediate circle.

GRACE: Excellent point.

What about it, Captain Hanson? Who actually saw the girl last and the so-called guardian?

HANSON: We`re working on some of those angles, too, and I don`t have an answer specifically to that. We`re still canvassing the area, talking to neighbors and other people that might have seen her.

GRACE: To Steve Greenberg, what could be gained from the inside of the van? What could we learn forensically?

STEVE GREENBERG, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, an evidence technician should be able to go through the van and see if the girl was ever in the van, and when they were in the van, and if there was any sign of a struggle.

I, unfortunately, share the other people`s pessimism. The young man kills himself when the police start looking into the situation, and his mother blows town. What kind of a mother blows town when her son`s in trouble and when she knows that she was supposedly the last person to have this young girl?

Why aren`t they looking at the mother? And I hope they`ve got a group in Wichita, Kansas, grilling her.

GRACE: To Clark Goldband, what are the stats?

CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, it is crucially important -- and we see here, Nancy -- to issue that Amber Alert right away. There is a delay of four days. I`ll show you why.

Seventy-five percent of abducted kids who are killed, it happens within the first three hours of their abduction; 76 percent of kids are females, Nancy; and 61 percent of kids who are abducted, their abductors had prior crimes that were violent. Very disturbing.

GRACE: Again, the tip number for Reachelle Smith, 701-852-0111. Please take a look. Can you help us?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... really relying on the public (INAUDIBLE) to come up with new leads for us to follow up on. And there have been a number of phone calls that have come in since the missing and exploited children`s information was put out nationwide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the old days, if I wanted to steal all the files of the Department of Veterans Affairs, I`d have to hire a bunch of trucks and wheel out wheelbarrows full of paper. Now, it can all be done on a floppy disk on a single drive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are showing you a live shot of the mighty USS Intrepid, the fighter ship that served our country, parked tonight in New York`s harbor.

Tonight, others that fought bravely are in trouble. That`s one of the biggest identity thefts in U.S. history and, for all people to be the victim, veterans, veterans who risked their lives for our country.

Let`s go to Steven Levy with the Technologist`s column for "Newsweek." What the hey has happened?

STEVEN LEVY, "NEWSWEEK," THE TECHNOLOGIST: Well, apparently an analyst for the Veterans Administration who was working on a project decided to take his work home with him. And what he did was he downloaded the records of 26.5 million veterans, including their Social Security numbers, their birth dates, and their names, of course, and took it home to work. And someone stole the laptop from his house.

GRACE: Steven, commonly known as the trifecta, the golden triangle amongst identity thieves. You`ve got your name, your DOB, and your Social. What else do you need? Now, this is what I don`t understand, Steven -- not to point a finger, of course; I would never do that -- but when...

LEVY: No.

GRACE: ... I go home to work on legal cases for the next show, for the next night, I don`t take the entire personnel file for Time Warner or Court TV with me. Why did this guy take millions of trifectas home with him?

LEVY: We don`t know the answer to that question. Indeed, the Veterans Administration is not giving out his name or much information about his or her name or about who this person is.

Certainly, this is against every rule of computer security to take this thing home with you. As a matter of fact, it`s against every rule of computer security to allow someone to actually download this into a laptop.

And the way computer security works, there`s best practices. In a well-designed system, if someone tried to do that, alarm bells would ring all over the building and that person would never get to complete that download.

GRACE: To the director of public affairs for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, joining us now, Joe Davis.

Joe, welcome. It`s an honor to have you on the show tonight. What have you been told by Veterans Affairs?

JOE DAVIS, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS: Well, Nancy, first of all, this is an absolute, total disgrace, and it reflects so badly on the leadership, the management, and the accountability of the lead organization that`s supposed to basically take care of American veterans for the entire country.

What we were told was that an incident happened earlier this month where supposedly a data analyst took home information it was unauthorized to do, but there`s a whole lot of holes in this question.

He was, as far we understand it, he had spent 30 years or more with the company, so he`s not a junior analyst. And, plus, he`s not taking this information home to put it in alphabetical order; he`s doing it probably for the company, so we want to know, you know, obviously, who gave him tacit approval to do it? And how are those people going to be held accountable for this disaster?

GRACE: You`re darn right, Joe. And let meet point out, everyone, Joe Davis is a veteran. He served in Somalia, in the Gulf War. He is a 24- year vet to the Air Force.

Let`s go to Peter Gaytan. He`s the director of the veterans affairs in rehab. He is also a veteran, active duty in the Air Force, `91 to `97, was at Dover Air Force Base during the Gulf War.

Sir, thank you for being with us. How is the American Legion handling this?

PETER GAYTAN, AMERICAN LEGION: Well, Nancy, thank you for taking a focus on this very important issue.

GRACE: I`m disgusted.

GAYTAN: The American Legion is taking this very seriously. We`re talking about 26.5 million veterans. These are veterans, members of America`s greatest generation. These are veterans who served in Vietnam, served in the Gulf War, who`ve served in Somalia, Korea, and now Iraq and Afghanistan.

This information opens up a whole area of possible breach of security for these veterans. Their financial records are at stake, their bank accounts, their credit card accounts.

They`re all at stake. And what the American Legion is doing is taking a proactive approach in answering the questions of America`s veterans when they`re calling us. They`re asking us, "Am I on this list? What can I do to secure my information?"

GRACE: Oh, how many people are we talking about, Steven Levy? How many veterans are at risk now?

LEVY: Twenty six and a half million records have been exposed.

GRACE: Did you say 26?

LEVY: Twenty six and a half million. Basically, every veteran who has been discharged since 1975.

GRACE: To Leslie Snadowsky, our investigative reporter joining us tonight, Leslie, this is how I know it to work. I recall out investigating a felony case and stupidly left my pocketbook locked in the car.

Well, 20 minutes later, everything was gone, including my badge, my I.D., my Social Security number, everything. Within two weeks, some crazy Liberian gang in Chicago had gotten like 50 or 75 credit cards in my name. That`s how it works. What do you know, Leslie?

SNADOWSKY: Well, right now, authorities are saying no one`s information has been compromised, which is a good thing. I mean, this burglary took place in broad daylight, in the middle of the day, and they`re actually saying that there is a rash of burglaries in this neighborhood, so they don`t think this was an inside job.

They don`t think the person who stole it actually knew what they were stealing. In fact, if you look at the Montgomery County Police Department`s crime analysis of that area that week, there were several burglaries and the targets were just on electronics.

GRACE: All the more reason he should not have taken it home, he or she.

Back to Steven Levy with the Technologist`s column with "Newsweek." Steven, be honest, not that you would cover for the V.A., of course, but do they have a history of, let me just say, security bad grades?

LEVY: Well, they actually do get graded. There`s a congressional committee, a House Reform Committee, which gives each department a grade every year on how well they handle information. And I think, since 2001, they`ve gotten an F every year.

I think in 2003, they got a C. But they`ve gotten Fs every other year. The inspector general of the Veterans Administration has constantly criticized them for poor information-handling.

So this has been a long-term problem. You shouldn`t be surprised at all that this has happened. And, frankly, the Veterans Administration is only one of many, many places that don`t take care of information.

The big problem is that the people in charge of information, not only in the government but in the private sector, as well, don`t suffer the consequences that the victims do, the people whose records are at risk.

GRACE: You know what? We are showing veterans walking along. One of them was walking along with a cane.

Now, what if when he gets his credit card bill next month, he`s got, say, $5,000, $8,000 American Express bill. That is what we are looking at.

Very quickly, to Norma in Tennessee, what`s your question, Norma?

CALLER: Who`s going to reimburse these people?

GRACE: What about it, Steven Levy? Who will reimburse them if this actually happens?

LEVY: Well, if this horrible thing happens and the information gets compromised to hackers, it`s not a financial loss. It`s recreating your credit record. People can buy houses under your name, and you have to unravel that. It could take years.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is 26.5 million names of veterans on one little disk or two little disks or whatever, and one person handling it? It doesn`t make any sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: The result: identity theft of over 26 million veterans that served our country. Tonight, could be losing their identities.

Straight out to Peter Gaytan with veterans affairs and rehabilitation. How do you personally feel as a veteran?

GAYTAN: Personally, as a veteran, it`s very surprising that this breach of security occurred. And the American Legion is focusing on two areas right now.

The first area is allowing the V.A. inspector general and the FBI to continue and get results from their investigation on exactly what happened and why it occurred. The second area is for the American Legion, which we`re already doing, is being proactive and answering the questions of Americans veterans and helping them understand what they can do to secure their financial situation.

GRACE: You know, Elizabeth, could you please put that screen up about what veterans can do tonight to protect their credit and their identities?

To Joe Davis, Joe, when did you serve in the military? And what is your response to this, this debacle?

DAVIS: I enlisted in 1976, became an officer in `83, and retired in 2000. And our response, along with what Peter just said from the American Legion, is the Veterans of Foreign Wars, along with all the other veterans organizations, we`re in rapid outreach mode right now, because the V.A. basically sat on this information for almost three weeks. They did not tell America`s 26.5 million veterans.

And what Steven said earlier I need to clarify, is because this involves more than just those people who separated after 1975. It could include widows who were receiving pensions, and it also could include World War II veterans who filed for disability claims after 1975.

GRACE: Thank you, gentlemen. We are going to continue to post on our Web site what veterans can do to protect their credit and their identity after serving our country.

Well, tonight, finally, some good news. We report a strategic merger of troops that an American hero is set to make. After two tours of duty in Iraq, Iraq Army Captain Frank Schafer (ph) marries Miss Lindsay Graham (ph) of Roswell, Georgia, in Atlanta. Our heartfelt congratulations.

Thank you to all of our guests tonight, but especially to our producer, Clark Goldband. Happy birthday, little boy.

Our biggest thank you tonight is to you for being with us and inviting all of us into your homes. Nancy Grace signing off again for tonight. See you here tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then, good night, friend.

END