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Nancy Grace

New Jersey Firefighter and Mother of Three Vanishes

Aired November 01, 2006 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, GUEST HOST: Tonight, a heroic New Jersey firefighter, an Army vet, now a possible victim, vanishing from her New Jersey home. Tonight, the desperate search for a young mother of three, Margaret Haddican-McEnroe.
And to California. A 51-year-old school bus driver with access to young kids in custody, caught with more than 10,000 alleged child porn images on his computer. The investigation turns up evidence now linking him to the molestations of scores of young girls around Los Angeles and Orange County.

But first tonight, to New Jersey, the search for a missing mom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had run out of baby formula the other night, went to the store and got that and then came back. And I went back out and I did another job. And when I got back, she wasn`t there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Hi, I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell, in tonight for Nancy Grace, who as we speak is helping Hurricane Katrina victims. Nancy is physically rebuilding homes in Mississippi, and we certainly applaud her efforts.

Meantime, a tragic mystery in New Jersey as a beautiful, really beautiful 29-year-old mother of three goes missing, vanishing without a trace. Her husband says he came home to find their infant baby girl all by herself. The husband also says his wife, Margaret Haddican-McEnroe, had been suffering from post-partum depression, but the missing woman`s father says he saw his daughter the day before she disappeared and she didn`t seem depressed but was instead agitated. The dad claims his daughter told him she wanted a divorce.

Now, for the very latest on this still unfolding mystery now in its 22nd day, let`s start with Court TV correspondent Jean Casarez. We`re delighted to have her here in our studios tonight to bring us the very latest on this case -- Jean.

JEAN CASAREZ, COURT TV: Thank you, Jane. You know, as her husband said -- we just heard him say that the morning of October 10, his wife allegedly called him, saying she needed baby formula. He went to the supermarket, he got it, he brought it home. He says that`s the last time he ever saw her because he went to do a landscaping job after that from 1:30 to 3:00. When he got home, she was gone. But he did not report it to police until 48 hours later.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, apparently, authorities -- and this is sort of breaking news -- have said that the receipts that they`ve gotten match up with his story, so that, in fact, he did go and get that baby formula when he said he did. So that`s good news for him.

CASAREZ: Exactly. They found the formula in the home. They just needed to make sure he bought it. They said he did. But I think there is a concern that he didn`t report it for 48 hours.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And Jean, let`s listen to the husband himself speak to our show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was just upset over stuff that was going on with her -- my stepdaughter. At first, I thought she just left and she`d come back. But as more and more time goes on, I don`t know.

She could be almost anywhere. She`s got friends and family throughout the country.

We had our share of problems, but everything seemed to be working out with my stepdaughter and stuff. So it seemed very good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let`s go straight out to Mike Brooks, who is a former D.C. police officer who also served on the FBI terrorism task force. Thank you for joining us tonight. Authorities are asking for our help, this show, the NANCY GRACE show. Apparently, A, this woman enjoyed watching the show. So theoretically, she could be watching tonight. Also, they desperately want the public`s help. They`ve gotten very few tips at this point.

How effective can the public be in situations like this, based on your experience with past cases?

MIKE BROOKS, FORMER D.C. POLICE, SERVED ON FBI TERRORISM TASK FORCE: Jane, it can be very effective, especially if people are watching and maybe they might recall seeing something. They may have seen a woman like this because they said that, you know, she`s only 5-foot-2, 110 pounds. And they the description of what she had on. She had on an Army -- she had on pajama pants, an Army T-shirt.

But what I find interesting, Jane, is that they also said that she had a black Army military-style coat and a bag. A black duffel bag with additional clothes was also missing, which I find very interesting because that -- you know, and law enforcement is going to have to figure out whether or not there was foul play involved or she left of her own volition.

And the other thing we haven`t heard anything about and authorities haven`t said anything, is, you know, was there any sign of struggle in the house? That would be very interesting, and that would lead them to foul play. But law enforcement still have her classified as a missing person.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, there are so many bizarre circumstances surrounding this case. Let`s go out to Pat Brown, criminal profiler. First of all, according to her dad, the day before she went missing, she came over to him and allegedly, according to the dad, complained about her husband, saying, I want a "bleeping" divorce, or words to that effect. What does that tell you, as a criminal profiler? Because the husband is saying, No, we didn`t have an argument. She was upset, but she was upset about one of the kids.

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Well, he`s going to say that because, obviously, if he`s going to admit they had an argument over a divorce, then fingers are going to be pointing at him.

And let me tell you, Jane, there`s a ton of red flags flying up here, which the police have got to be focusing in on the husband for these red flags. One is the fact that he says -- you know, he doesn`t report this woman missing for 48 hours. And yet, this is a woman he says is depressed and suicidal. Now, if my wife were depressed and suicidal and walked out of the house, in her pajamas, mind you, not even getting dressed, and walked out in her pajamas to disappear into the neighborhood, I`d be frantic because I`d think, Oh, my God, she might have gone out to kill herself. How I don`t know because women usually kill themselves in their homes. But I would be frantic. But he`s not frantic. Is he an uncaring husband, or does he know exactly what happened to her and needed 48 hours to cover up all the evidence?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right, but don`t we have to be a little bit careful because sometimes a person can be guilty of bad judgment or just not using their head? Yes, of course, he should have immediately called authorities, but maybe he was embarrassed. Maybe he wanted to save her embarrassment because she was this heroic volunteer firefighter who was known for rescuing people and having saved lives, and maybe he thought it would look bad for her. So apparently, he did call around to some friends. This is an absolutely fascinating aspect of the case.

And I want to go back to Jean Casarez because you have covered a lot of trials where this whole issue of not calling authorities right away comes into play. Sometimes, it leans towards innocence, but sometimes it doesn`t.

CASAREZ: You know, it`s very interesting. I did a case in Florida. It was the Warren Gello (ph) case. Court TV viewers will remember that case. And the husband -- and we got to remember, the husband here is not a suspect, he`s not a person of interest. But police are also saying no one is excluded at this point. But in the case I covered in Florida, the prime suspect that became the defendant was the husband. He did not report his wife missing for about 48 hours, I think. And his reason was that she had done this before and he thought maybe she had left.

Well, that became the thrust of the prosecution`s case. They would put witnesses on the stand to develop the theory that she never left the home, she was never one to veer away from home at all. And in the end, obviously, it wasn`t good for that defendant.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Right. Former prosecutor Lisa Pinto, given what Jean Casarez has just said, shouldn`t one of their first jobs be, Well, did she ever try to leave home before? Did she ever walk out depressed or suffering from post-partum depression and just take off?

LISA PINTO, FORMER PROSECUTOR: I agree with you, Jane. Let`s not lynch Mr. McEnroe just yet. There are two other men involved in this equation. Remember, there was a custody battle involving the oldest child, the stepdaughter that`s referred to in the video. There was a bitter custody struggle over that daughter. Then there was another father of her second child. I don`t know what their relationship was like.

I certainly would want to know from friends, neighbors, relatives, did post-partum -- for I have had three children, and I can tell you it gets increasingly worse with each child. It builds. You do feel sad, lonely, depressed. Maybe she went for a two-day walk. If she did, Margaret, please phone home and give your family a break.

But I don`t think we can start lynching the husband just yet. He`s not a person of -- he`s not a suspect, he`s not a person of interest. And frankly, he looked pretty credible to me in that interview.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely, he deserves the presumption of innocence. He is not considered a suspect. Let`s listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What would you tell her if she`s watching?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To call somebody or to have somebody else call someone, anyone, or just come home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And if she needs some time away, it`s OK, but just call.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, just call. Let`s -- let`s -- we all miss you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: October 10, Margaret Haddican-McEnroe was reported missing. Actually not reported until the 12th. The 10th is when her husband discovered her to be missing, at approximately 3:00 o`clock in the afternoon. On the 12th of October, he reported her missing officially to the Warren township police department.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And let`s go straight out to Marc Klaas, who is president of Beyondmissing. He is a crusader for victims` rights, having lost his own beautiful daughter to violent crime. Thank you so much for joining us tonight, Marc. You yourself experienced this very common phenomenon of when a tragedy occurs with a family, the authorities look at everybody in the family. You experienced that yourself. What is that process like?

MARC KLAAS, BEYONDMISSING.COM: Well, it`s a very difficult process, but if law enforcement explains it to you and explains that the statistics are going to move their suspicion in your direction, then it`s incumbent upon you and other family members to do everything you can to clear yourself from suspicion so they can then move their resources into whatever actually did happen.

But you know, speaking of statistics, I think it`s important to point out that in situations like this, where people do have suicidal tendencies and do, in fact, commit suicide, the vast majority of those cases, the victim will be found within six miles of their home. The only exception to that would be if there`s one special place or a special place where they commiserate with God or -- or feel, you know, some certain kind of an affinity. So if this woman did commit suicide, she`s probably very close to home, and they should be able to locate her sooner, rather than later.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`ve got calls coming in. But first let me ask you, because you raise a very important point about the search. Let`s go to Eric Martin (ph), who is the central New Jersey technical rescue team search manager. You searched for this woman. Did you search based on what you know about her, like where she would want to go if she was feeling down and was suffering from post-partum depression?

ERIC MARTIN, CENTRAL NEW JERSEY SEARCH MANAGER: We basically search for anyone, any one subject, on a number of different criteria -- what their characteristics are, what their present history was, what they were complaining about before their point of departure. With Margaret, we`re not putting pieces together here, as the search manager. If she`s got post-partum, we put her into a category of a despondent. Despondents usually go to places of solitude. They`re within eyesight of civilization because if they do commit an act of suicide, they do want to be found. They want closure for their family. They want to find solitude.

But most of the time, the problem with Margaret is a despondent will not going away with any large sum of money, in which case Margaret did, so that`s the nightmare.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Oh, yes. Well, according to the husband, she did leave with $9,000 to $11,000 in cash, which is a fascinating aspect of this entire case.

And before we get to that, let`s go to the phone lines and ask Donna from Texas, your question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. My question is, is the husband currently the prime suspect? And if he is, has he wanted to do a lie-detector test or let the police search the home? Has he been cooperative with the police?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you know, there are no suspects at this time, ma`am, but it`s a valid question. We want to go to defense attorney Dan Horowitz. Thank you so much, Dan, for joining us tonight. It`s great to see you out there. How would you, as a defense attorney, handle the circumstances that you`ve heard thus far, the waiting two days to call authorities, for example?

DAN HOROWITZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Jane, here`s how I look at it. Let`s say he didn`t wait. Let`s say he immediately reported. Then he really wouldn`t be a suspect, except in a vague way, like the husband`s always the suspect. So what was the benefit, if he`s guilty, in delaying? Only that he could clean up the crime scene. So as a defense attorney, I would point out that as of now, there`s no evidence that he cleaned up the crime scene, that there`s any blood, that it`s even a crime scene.

The truth is, it`s just an aberration. It`s just his way of being. There`s no that evidence he did it. And I would ask hem them to give him a lie-detector test. You know, they`re not foolproof, but it`s an attitude test. And husbands and he should, and I think he is -- should cooperate fully so that the police can clear them and focus on the real point of the investigation, getting this young woman back. And we should never assume that she`s dead because we need to put our efforts to finding her, hoping that she really is alive.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely. And again, she is a fan of the NANCY GRACE show. If for some reason, she is watching tonight, please call authorities or call us. And just be careful and take care of yourself. Everybody here is hoping for you and praying for you and on your side.

Let me ask you, Jean Casarez, has the husband taken a lie-detector test?

CASAREZ: No, there`s no evidence that he has been asked to take one or that he has taken one. You know what`s interesting? They did not execute a search warrant of the home. He consented to allow law enforcement to come into the home, we understand, but they did not forensically take anything. And that`s different from a lot of cases because many times, they will get a search warrant to forensically see if they can find anything because if they would find anything, sometimes that consent is taken away, and in a court of law, the evidence would not be admissible.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Another good stroke for him. He let them in, said, Go ahead and search, albeit two days at least after because that`s when he called authorities, two days after she disappeared. Criminal profiler Pat Brown, there are some very odd stats (ph) surrounding this case. One, she disappears but she doesn`t take her car. And number two, according to the husband, she takes a duffel bag filled with clothes, along with $9,000 to $11,000 in cash that he had stashed in the home reportedly from legitimate business transactions. What do you make of that?

BROWN: Well, again, we`re seeing, Jane, the fact we have no word but her husband on this. In other words, if she had gone to the bank and been seen withdrawing money, that would be one thing. If somebody had seen her packing, if somebody had seen her driving away, that would be another thing. but to this point, all we have is the husband as the last person who saw her, as the person who says what`s missing. And that`s why he -- you may say he`s not a suspect, but I guarantee you he`s number one and he`s going to have to do some -- you know, he`s going to be looked at quite heavily here unless she pops up someplace.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Mike Brooks, former D.C. police officer, why would somebody leave and leave their car behind unless they were going to meet up with somebody else who was going to drive them away?

BROOKS: That`s exactly right. I mean, in this kind of area where she lives, it`s -- you know, it`s not an urban city where there`s a lot of public transportation. So she had to get away from there somehow, you know, unless she just went ahead and walked away. But why would you take with you $9,000 to $11,000 and extra clothes unless you had already a plan?

And that`s one of the other things that law enforcement is looking into is -- you know, is who did she know? Are they all in place? Maybe there were some other people that she had been planning this for quite some time. That`s what they have to come to the bottom of. And hopefully, the husband is being forthcoming on giving them all the information they need, and they`re going down the check list of other friends and associates and they`re covering all their leads and they`re interviewing quite a few people to find out exactly how she did leave and if there was a plan to meet somebody and have her taken out of the area.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: A total mystery. So many questions.

To tonight`s "Case Alert." A person of interest under arrest in last week`s California wildfire that cost the lives of five hero firefighters, Raymond Olyer in custody on charges of setting two previous wildfires in the state this summer. Investigators believe the latest fire was arson, deliberately set in conditions to create maximum damage. The deadly blaze spread across 40,000 acres near Palm Springs, destroying dozens of homes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I actually think that she -- she wants to come back now, but she -- she might be afraid to. And she has no reason to be afraid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because she`s been gone so long.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, a lot of people are looking for her, and she might be a little freaked out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell, sitting in tonight for Nancy Grace. Where is Margaret Haddican-McEnroe? The 29-year-old beauty is a hero firefighter and the mother of three who simply disappeared more than 20 days ago. She has not been seen or heard from since. Her husband says she was suffering from post-partum depression, but her dad told the NANCY GRACE show that she told him she wanted a divorce the day before she vanished.

Did she just pick up and leave, or is she the victim of foul play? At this point, this is still considered a missing persons case, as authorities try to solve this puzzle.

I want to go to Jean Casarez because we were talking about the whole alibi. Now, his alibi matches up. He`s gotten the formula. There`s a receipt. Then he goes and does landscaping, and that matches up, too. People said, Yes, he was landscaping. He comes home at 3:00 o`clock and finds his wife missing. But that`s all based on the assumption that he came home at 3:00 o`clock and found his wife missing because he didn`t call police for two days.

CASAREZ: That`s right. That`s right. And I think that`s probably one of the main questions police have right now, why didn`t he call police for 48 hours? Could be that he was humiliated that they were having marital problems and maybe he thought she was going to come home, just didn`t want to go to the police, or just as Mike Brooks said, could be trying to clean up the scene.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: We talked to her father. Let`s hear what her dad had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My gut feeling is -- I have some inconsistencies in my mind about from what I understand has happened. If she took off, we find it -- I find it and my wife finds it very hard to believe that she would just up and go and leave her three young children. And I also am concerned that she`s wearing knee braces on -- one on each of her legs the day before. And for her to leave the house without taking her car and walking has me concerned that perhaps she was abducted, kidnapped, some form of foul play.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And let`s go to psychologist Caryn Stark. You heard the dad right there. He doesn`t think that she would leave her children, especially since the 9-year-old celebrated a birthday, she turned 9, during the time the mom has been gone, and the youngest had a christening.

CARYN STARK, PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, it doesn`t make a lot of sense. Even if she had post-partum -- if anything, post-partum is an obsession with an infant. Usually, the parent is overfocused on the infant. So it`s hard to believe that she would actually walk away from her children.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Warren township did some preliminary investigation into her cellphone record to see if they could locate her. She had left her cellphone behind. It was damaged earlier in the week. She did not take her cellphone with her, did not take the family vehicle with her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell, in tonight for Nancy Grace. Where is beautiful 29-year-old mother of three, Margaret Haddican-McEnroe? She is an Army veteran and a hero firefighter who vanished in early October and hasn`t been seen since. Her car was left at her home, and her husband says he came home to find their 6-month-old baby all by herself. The big question, what happened to her?

And I want to ask Mike Brooks, former D.C. police, as well as formerly on the terrorism task force of the FBI. How do authorities kind of go from a missing persons case to a criminal investigation? When do they make that switch, and how do they make that switch, based on what criteria?

BROOKS: If they think there`s been any violence whatsoever, Jane, anything at all that would lead them to believe that it was -- there`s some kind of foul play involved, anything at all, you know, from anything that they might have seen in the house, any statements, any inconsistencies from the husband anything at all, any leads that they might come across that don`t just -- don`t jive with his story, with the timeline that they`re trying to put together now, they would go ahead and maybe declare this, you know, a missing person.

But possible foul play involved, but we haven`t heard anything at all as -- such as this. And you know, with the cellphone, with her cellphone being broken -- I mean, that`s an excellent investigative tool. We`ve seen it used in a number of other cases, but that`s a dead end. And there`s been no activity, apparently, on her bank. They`ve have been checking her bank records on a regular basis, no activity whatsoever. But if you take $9,000 to $11,000, you`re going to be able to pay for everything in cash.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you`re assuming that that $9,000 to $11,000 was really taken by her. I mean, that -- it may well have been, but that`s based on the husband, and there is no way to necessarily prove it when you`re talking about cash, you know?

BROOKS: You know, that`s -- that`s exactly right, Jane. And that`s one of the first things that the investigators should do, get a subpoena, check her bank statements, check her bank records, check his bank records to make sure that the money isn`t in his separate account.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On October the 4th of 2006, the Los Angeles County sheriff`s deputies from Lakewood Station arrested Terry Lee Shields, a 51- year-old unemployed bus driver, for downloading child pornography at the Internet cafe in the city of Bellflower.

DET. BRYAN SIRKEL, L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF`S OFFICE: This is the scariest man I`ve ever seen. The images that I`ve seen, the images that my partners have seen, fellow detectives, it`s the worst we`ve ever seen. There`s pictures of children. There`s even pictures of babies as young as six months. There`s some sex acts occurring to some of the babies. You name it, and he`s got it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell sitting in for Nancy Grace, who is helping Hurricane Katrina victims. She is working hard helping to rebuild homes in Mississippi. Way to go, Nancy.

And meantime, we are tracking a truly shocking case out of Los Angeles. Authorities there have arrested a former school bus driver who they say has been tied to sexual assaults on four young girls between the ages of 7 and 14. But sheriff`s investigators are saying tonight he may have victimized between 50 and 100 other girls in cases dating back a decade.

Investigators say they found about 10,000 sexually graphic images on his computer. For the latest on this shocking and disturbing case, let`s go straight out to Samantha Gonzaga, a reporter for the "Long Beach Press Telegram."

Samantha, what is the very latest?

SAMANTHA GONZAGA, REPORTER, "LONG BEACH PRESS TELEGRAM": Today, Mr. Shields, he showed up today in court for his preliminary hearing. And apparently, according to a bailiff who was present there at the setting, although Mr. Shields only appeared for maybe about 30 seconds, he made a bit of a fuss. He complained and, she said, whined about his accommodations at his jail regarding the softness of his bed and the coldness of his cell and also added that his back was aching. But otherwise, no comment on the case.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, he`s got a lot bigger problems tonight. Let`s listen to what police had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIRKEL: This is the scariest man I`ve ever seen. The images that I`ve seen, the images that my partners have seen, fellow detectives, it`s the worst we`ve ever seen. There`s pictures of children. There`s even pictures of babies as young as six months. There`s some sex acts occurring to some of the babies. There`s bondage-type images of children. You name it, and he`s got it.

Not to mention, when I mentioned earlier, he`s the scariest man I`ve ever met, he stalks females. He videotapes them. He watches them from afar. He`s just -- that`s his type of behavior, and that`s basically what he`s all about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Marc Klaas, president of Beyond Missing, first of all, there are some heroes in this story, specifically the workers at the Internet cafe in Bellflower who went up to this guy -- he had requested a smoothie, and they noticed that there was porn on his computer. And one of them literally went out and flagged down an officer; otherwise, we wouldn`t know anything about this. I mean, we have to give credit where credit is due to these unsung heroes.

KLAAS: Well, we certainly do, Jane, because this is an epidemic in the United States. This is something that has been -- the kiddie porn industry had been almost eradicated until the Internet came along, and now this file sharing is absolutely out of control.

And the way it works is that these guys gain entree into this world, and they start sharing and getting some of these images, but then what ultimately happens is it escalates. In order to get the next level of images, you have to participate and you have to start delivering images of your own.

So it creates this environment that just spirals downhill, as little girls and little boys becoming victimized time and time again. And, quite frankly, you`re absolutely correct about that clerk at the Internet cafe. One only wishes that some of the major Internet service providers in this country had the same kind of moral character that this individual does, and we may never have gotten to this position in the first place.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And we are very, very happy to have with us tonight Detective Bryan Sirkel with the L.A. County sheriff`s office special victims unit.

I`ve worked with you guys in the past. You are amazing. Congratulations on some excellent detective work. How did you go from catching this guy at the Internet cafe to literally finding four alleged young victims between the ages of 4 and 7? How did you identify those young girls?

DET. BRYAN SIRKEL, L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF`S OFFICE: It was tough. If it was not from the help of my fellow partners, fellow detectives sifting through all that evidence, a couple breaks, good luck on our part, as well, it would have been rather difficult, and we`re just fortunate we were able to find the four.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Mike Brooks, former D.C. police officer who served on the FBI terrorism task force, when they get photos of little girls, how do they match them up? What`s the process that allows authorities to literally connect them to living, breathing children who then speak out about what happened?

BROOKS: Well, I just want to say, Jane, my hats off to the detective and his team. They did a hell of a job. And I know L.A. County and Orange County, they have great investigators in both those jurisdictions, and my hat`s off to you, Detective.

And, you know, I know it`s still early on in the investigation, but what they want to do, Jane, is they go back, and they`ll try to develop a time line, because we`re talking 50 to 100 possible victims that this predatory animal may have out there. And, you know, and you start with one. It might lead to you another.

And hopefully this could also lead to some other predatory animals that he was sharing this information and these pictures with, that they can to, they can find out who these people are, through some of the Internet providers, and get additional cases going out of this particular case. Because, you know, as the detective said, this is one of the worst cases that he`s seen, and that`s L.A. County. And that`s saying a lot for out in L.A. County, Jane.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: It has caused outrage. The phone lines are lighting up. Levi from Tennessee, your question, sir?

CALLER: Hi, Jane. I want to know about, was he fired from his former job as a bus driver for inappropriate actions against kids?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know, he was apparently on disability. And, Jean Casarez, I want to ask you about this, because one of the things that is so astounding is that, apparently with three of these girls, he literally insinuated himself into their lives, using his position of trust as a school bus driver to kind of, not only befriend them, but befriend their parents, as well?

CASAREZ: Exactly. He got to know the families. And one girl he allegedly just found on the street. But we`ve got to remember, he has only been charged at this point with possession of child porn. That is what John Mark Karr was charged with, by the way.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Right.

CASAREZ: And the other charges, they`re doing their investigation right now. Obviously, they believe this man is serious, a serious pedophile with children, but at this point, just one count.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, you`re looking at some of the stuff that they say they confiscated from his home, candy, and you saw an Elmo doll, and this is the kind of stuff, along with a very disgusting little fact, KY Jelly.

Criminal profiler Pat Brown, how does a 51-year-old man, who is, by the way, about six feet and 350 pounds, insinuate himself into the lives of these little girls and convince them not to speak, because, according to what I`ve heard from authorities, they spoke during the course of the investigation, but they had not come up to their parents before this and said, "This happened to me"?

BROWN: That`s a good question, Jane. It speaks to the fact that he probably did insinuate himself well into the families, to the point where he could tell the kids, "You`re not going to be believed because your parents like me, and all kinds of things bad are going to happen to you if you go forward with this."

But what`s really scary to me, Jane, is the fact that this guy`s 51. And my guess is this didn`t start 10 years ago. It probably started 30- some years ago. And what is wrong with our society that we have no kind of ways to get at this situation?

Marc Klaas said it right. I mean, we have -- the Internet is just proliferating this kind of stuff. There`s really no ways seemingly to stop it. The laws aren`t good enough. And we have to really do something, because otherwise 50 to 100 victims, isn`t that a little ridiculous?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Oh, my God, it`s beyond ridiculous. It`s terrifying. And imagine all the parents in Los Angeles tonight whose children take school buses, wondering, "Well, my gosh" -- when we come back, we want to talk about, should they show this photograph to children or would that in some way disturb them or traumatize them? Should they show a photograph and say, "Hey, do you know this guy? Have you ever worked with this guy? Have you ever traveled in his school bus?"

To tonight`s Amber Alert, the search for a 16-year-old Indiana girl, Stephanie Wagner, last seen Tuesday night leaving her job at a restaurant in Royal Center, about 50 miles from the south Bend area. Her car found abandoned close to that location.

Police also searching for a dark blue Ford pickup truck owned by her co-worker who is under questioning. Wagner is 5`3", 109 pounds with brownish-blonde hair and blue eyes. Anybody with information, please call Cass County police, 574-753-2195.

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SIRKEL: At this point, we`ve identified four victims, but we believe, based on the evidence, that there`s going to be more. This man that made it his passion, if you will, and we strongly believe that there`s going to be more than just the four that we`ve already identified.

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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jane Velez-Mitchell in for Nancy Grace, who is helping Hurricane Katrina victims by joining with others to rebuild homes in Mississippi, a very important cause.

In the meantime, we are following a truly horrifying and disturbing story out of L.A. A former school bus driver authorities believe sexually assaulted four girls between the ages of 7 and 14, a man they also believe may be responsible for victimizing between 50 and 100 other children.

Court TV correspondent Jean Casarez, obviously there`s a lot of parents in Los Angeles County and Orange County tonight that must be very concerned. What do you think can be done to ease their concerns, in terms of perhaps publishing routes, and dates, and times, and that kind of thing?

CASAREZ: Right. Well, first of all, he was a bus driver, we believe, for 20 years with school buses in the Los Angeles and Orange County area. Well, you`re from California.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Right.

CASAREZ: That`s a huge area right there. So you`ve got to determine what the routes were. And also, remember, all of the images they found on the search of his computer, over 10,000 -- and you know they`re trying to look at the pictures of what they have with names, go to those specific families, those specific individuals, to see what they know.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely. And I want to go to psychologist Caryn Stark and ask you about the damage potentially of showing this man`s face to a child and saying, "Honey, did you ever get on a bus with this man?" I mean, on a practical level, it could be helpful, but what about on a psychological level? Could that damage children?

STARK: I don`t think that it could damage them any more, Jane, than they`ve already been damaged, if they`ve been abused by him. And I actually think that it`s a better thing for them to identify him and have a way to be able to express it.

Children really have trouble talking about this kind of thing. They can`t express feelings; they can`t really describe what happens. And it`s no surprise to me that they didn`t hear about this from the children, because they have trouble reporting it. So I think just showing him and showing his face would be a good way to get a child to enter into a discussion and, if this has happened, to do something about it.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Detective Sirkel, obviously you are appealing for the public`s help. What would you like people to do, in terms of discussing with their children the possibility of having ridden on a bus with this man?

SIRKEL: I want them to talk to their child to see if they`ve had any contact with him, whether it be inappropriate or not. We want to know about anything.

This man is an animal, for the lack of a better word. He stalks girls. He`s video-recorded them. He does surveillance. He`s the worst we`ve seen, the worst I`ve seen.

So that`s why I keep saying -- I`ve said it before, I`ll say it again -- he`s the scariest man I`ve ever met, based on everything we`ve seen. The images that we`ve seen are horrible. The stuff that you get angry at, you can`t imagine that they would do stuff, you know, or he would do stuff to these kids or even the stuff that we believe he downloaded from other sources, you get angry at the type of images that he possessed.

So we want to make sure that, no matter what the contact was, whether it be minor or even major that these kids had with him, that we want to know about so we can attempt to help those that we haven`t already located.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And in terms of reassuring the parents, is there any plan to announce the routes that he traveled or the years that he worked, so that people can say, "OK, well, I`m going to knock that off my list, because my kid didn`t take that route"?

SIRKEL: Right now, what we`re looking at is probably within the last 10 to 11 years. All the evidence so far doesn`t indicate anything past that, so we`re kind of focusing on that.

You got to remember, with all of the images we have, and especially the stuff that we have that we know he produced, there`s a lot to sift through. And we`re pretty confident that a majority of all of his crimes that he`s committed, especially where he victimizes the children, have been within the last maybe 6 years or so.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, it`s still a pretty wide, though, net that you can throw, in terms of potential victims. Let me ask you one last question, because one of the most disturbing -- and there`s so many stomach-churning aspects to this -- is that he apparently did sort of surveillance photos and video of children when they were at amusement parks. So he was kind of like stalking them, and surveilling them, and then putting that on tape?

SIRKEL: Yes, he`s the worst kind of predator. He would go out -- if he was driving down the street, for example, he`d pick up his camera if he saw something that sparked his interest. He`d, you know, record it with his video camera. He would make notations in a logbook.

If he was at a park or an amusement park and he saw something that he liked, he would record that, as well. So there`s a lot of victims out there potentially, just based on that alone, the fact that he`s out there constantly on the prowl, if you will.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: OK. And just because -- we want to make a distinction between what you think he`s responsible for and what he`s been current charged with. What is he currently charged with, and what are you going to charge him with?

SIRKEL: He`s been currently charged with possession of the child pornography, in regards to the Internet cafe incident. The additional charges he`s looking at, with the one of the victims for kidnapping, and sexual assault, and possession or production of child pornography, as well as lewd acts upon a child, multiple counts, encompassing all four of those victims. He`s looking at multiple life sentences.

We anticipate a criminal filing within the end of this week; if not, early next week.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: My gosh, this is absolutely shocking and astounding. And, oh, a weapon there, as well.

Lisa Pinto, former New York state prosecutor, put this into perspective for us. In terms of your experience, how bad is this, on a scale of one to 10?

PINTO: This is a 10 and more. But what scares me, Jane, is in five minutes of Internet research, I came up with the names of three school bus drivers who were either indicted or convicted of having sex with kids on their route. And I think it`s a national problem.

If you look at the evaluation to be a school bus driver -- this is from New York State -- basically, "How do you drive? And by the way, have you ever been convicted of a felony?" Don`t worry if you have, just explain it. We need to sit these people down with people like Mike Brooks and have them give the names of 10 references who are then questioned, discussed. His ex-wife should have been interviewed. Why did she have no contact with the father of her child? What did she know that the school district never found?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: But I agree with you. But by the same token, we can`t live in a police state. And the fact is that, over and over again, we see the same exact thing, Pat Brown, and that is...

PINTO: When it comes to our kids, we can, Jane. We can police the schools better.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I mean, really, you`re talking about priests. You`re talking about people with the scoutings. You`re talking about anybody who has contact with a child over and over again.

PINTO: Pedophiles go to children, and that`s why we need to be more vigilant.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Only, yes...

PINTO: Because they have put themselves near kids, and they need to be investigated up the yin-yang. I don`t care if it`s a breach of their civil liberties. If he`s driving my kid, I want to know everything about him.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, OK, but I think we do have to worry about civil liberties, because today we`ll do it for children, and tomorrow it could be something that you care about and you being investigated. So I think civil liberties are important, and we must, must protect them, even as we protect our children.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Detectives say the former school bus driver preyed on girls between 7 and 14, and they believe many had been his passengers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It appears that he befriended the families and took several years to groom them.

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VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell, filling in tonight for Nancy Grace, who is helping Katrina victims.

We`ve been in a healthy debate over how to catch and stop these predators before they attack. I want to go to defense attorney Dan Horowitz. You`ve been listening to all of this. What is a practical measure? Because it seems that it`s the same, old story over and over again: People with sick tendencies toward children seem to gravitate toward jobs that put them in close proximity to children.

HOROWITZ: Yes, I mean, Jane, that`s a problem. You get the best people driving school buses, people who love children, but then these evil people insinuate themselves into the job culture, and they get the bona fide, you know, qualifications to do it. And we don`t seem to have the money or the investigative power to stop them before they get the job.

And you made a point also about civil liberties. I mean, a lot of this Internet pornography, we could track it, we could go to the homes of people and find it on their computers, but we don`t have the money for it, and we don`t have maybe the right to go right into the houses in time to get it.

So we have to make a decision as a society. And you know which side I`m coming out. I say that we should give up some civil liberties -- not too many, but some -- and protect our kids more, more background checks and more attacks on Internet porn, not that the porn itself is as bad as the physical act, but those who collect the porn also commit the acts.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you raised a very, very important point. I`m going to give Jean Casarez the final 10-second word. Where do you think we draw the line? How do we find a balance?

CASAREZ: Well, you know, in California, to be a bus driver, you have to have a background check. This man would come up clear in a background check. He did not have a criminal record.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And there you go. He didn`t. In fact, he was acquitted of a very minor incident involving going up and harassing a child, and he wasn`t found guilty. Amazing. Very scary story.

Tonight, we remember Marine Second Lieutenant Joshua Booth, just 23, from Sturbridge, Massachusetts, a graduate of Citadel Military College. Booth dreamed of a career in criminal justice. He leaves behind a grieving widow, pregnant with their unborn son, and a 1-year-old daughter, Grace. Joshua Booth, an American hero.

Thank you to all of our guests for their insights tonight. And thanks to you at home for tracking these very important cases with us. Please tune in right here tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then, have a terrific and a safe evening.

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