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Nancy Grace

Suspected Child Killer Gives Birth Again

Aired November 21, 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 truly shocking story of death and birth. A Nashville woman gives birth to a brand-new beautiful baby. But what is normally a joyous event has investigators alarmed. The birth could land the mom behind bars. That`s because this 29-year-old mother is charged with killing her own 6-month-old daughter, and she`s also suspected of killing other infants, as well. Her bail conditions prevent her from being around kids, but she keeps having child after child. Now prosecutors want her in jail.
And a pregnant North Carolina mother and championship cheerleader found murdered inside her Raleigh home, her 2-year-old little girl found unharmed at the crime scene. And the investigation and search for her killer.

But first tonight, in Tennessee, a suspected child killer gives birth again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prosecutors drove home the point that autopsy reports revealed that Ward`s 6-month-old daughter, Stephanie, was smothered four years ago. She`s also been accused of killing Stephanie`s infant brother prior to that, as well as the child of a friend.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Good evening, I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell, sitting in tonight for Nancy Grace. We begin with a story so mind-boggling that you literally need a timeline just to follow the tragedy. Three children are dead in separate incidents, and a 29-year-old mother is suspected. In fact, she was convicted of her daughter`s death on a controversial theory called the "rule of three," which we will explain. That conviction was then overturned, and now Vernica Ward Calloway (ph) is awaiting retrial. But -- get this -- she keeps having babies, possibly defying court orders that she stay away from children.

For the very latest on this twisted and really tragic tale, let`s go straight out to Kevin Miller, a reporter for Nashville`s WTN radio. Kevin, what happened in court today?

KEVIN MILLER, WTN RADIO: Well, Jane, it was a strange day in court today. We had a scheduled hearing about a bail violation, and Vernica did not show up. So we waited for a couple of hours, and then all of a sudden, we heard the judge, the public defender, the prosecutors went back into the back and we learned that there were -- apparently, she had some medical condition that prohibited her from showing up.

Yet it was kind of strange. Earlier on, at 1:00 o`clock, the prosecutors had found out that she had been admitted to a hospital, she`d been released. They`d called the hospital and found out -- and they`ve questioned the people that had treated her. They asked them whether or not there was anything preventing Vernica Ward from coming to court today. They said no. Then a couple hours later, we hear from the judge that she has a medical condition prohibiting her from showing up today to possibly get her bail revoked. And 9:00 AM Monday, the judge, the defense and the prosecution and Vernica Ward will settle this for once and for all.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. So they`re going to be back in court on Monday. That is the bottom line. And we want to stress that this woman is not convicted at this point of anything. She deserves the presumption of innocence. We have reached out to her attorney, who did not comment, but that`s a standing invitation. We`d love to hear their side of the story. But we must examine this very important issue tonight.

And I got to tell you, Kevin, you need a scorecard to keep up with this. And it`s just absolutely amazing. Now, she has had five babies. Two of them have died. She is under suspicion in two of those cases. Two of the children have been taken by Department of Children`s Services. One she just gave birth to October 31 is in the hospital as we speak. Apparently, Department of Children`s Services will take custody of that child.

My question to you, Kevin, where are the fathers and where is the extended family in this ongoing drama?

MILLER: Well, that didn`t come out in court today, Jane. And you do mention the one child that is in the hospital. That was a point of contention because according to prosecutors in court today, they heard that Vernica allegedly tried to violate this order to stay away from children by hospital security. They were so alarmed by this, this is what this hearing was about today. The defense jumped in, led by the Davidson (ph) County public defender -- the Davidson County public defender, and said, Well, that`s ridiculous. Department of Children`s Services have a plan. And then the judge calmly calmed both sides down. But it was very emotional today in court.

GRACE: Well, you know, Jean Casarez, Court TV correspondent, who were always delighted to have with us to shed light on all this -- you`ve covered so many cases. I mean, this woman has been ordered to stay away from children. But in effect, since when you give birth, you are with children, is this criminalizing childbirth? And what does it do to the kids? I mean, they should be breast-fed. They need contact with their mother, and there is this instinct even with the worst mother to be with your child.

JEAN CASAREZ, COURT TV: Interesting issues you bring up. First of all, there were conditions of bail, and they are that she has to be employed, she has to live with her mother, and she`s not supposed to have contact with children under the age of 13. So inferred within that last condition right there is that you can`t get pregnant because then you would be with a child under the age of 13. And I think attorneys would believe that could be unconstitutional, to disallow someone to have a child, but it is a condition of her bail. And the defense is saying she has not violated that bail. The prosecution is saying, No, she sure has, and she needs to be back behind bars before her next trial.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And of course, this case is so important, but larger issues like reproductive freedom and constitutional rights are also important. And I want to go to defense attorney Randy Zelin on that. I mean, if you criminalize childbirth, do you take away every women`s rights.

RANDY ZELIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Absolutely. When you look at the essence of bail, what is it -- what is bail designed to do? It`s designed to ensure that a defendant shows up in court, and on occasion, to make sure that someone is not a danger. Well, clearly, there`s no issue as to whether or not this woman will show up to court, with the exception of today. On the issue of danger, clearly, you can deal with that. She can have the child and the child can be removed and put in a safe place somewhere else in the hospital, turned over to the appropriate child services bureau. So you can address those two things without infringing upon a woman`s right to have a baby.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And without traumatizing the baby by keeping the child away from the mother. We are very, very delighted to have with us tonight Dr. Bruce Levy, medical examiner from Nashville, Tennessee. Good evening, sir. You testified at her trial, where she was convicted of killing her daughter. And of course, that conviction later overturned because the courts ruled that the prosecution shouldn`t have argued this controversial "rule of three." What is the rule of three, and do you believe in it? And if so, why?

DR. BRUCE LEVY, MEDICAL EXAMINER, TESTIFIED IN 2002 TRIAL: Well, hi, Jane. The rule of three is basically a rule that was created by some forensic pathologists that say when you`re dealing with multiple deaths of infants in a family that are unexplained by autopsy and investigation, that you would typically rule the first death as SIDS. If you had a second death, you would rule it as undetermined. And if you had a third death, you would call it a homicide.

And it`s just not a theory that I really tend to subscribe to. My basic problem with anything that appears like a cookbook is it`s exactly that, it`s a cookbook. It stops you from thinking through each case. When you have the death of multiple children in the custody of a single person, each time you have one, your suspicion is going to get higher and higher. But you also have to think of, if you`re dealing with all biological children, is this a case where you`re dealing with some subtle genetic disorder?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, of course, we`re not dealing...

(CROSSTALK)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`re not dealing with all three biological children. Correct me if I`m wrong.

LEVY: Exactly. In this case, we have one of the children who is completely unrelated to Vernica Ward or anybody else. And that`s clearly a very significant factor in this case. Unfortunately, the courts have said that you can`t use that in determining the death of Stephanie, who was the third child that died. You can`t go back and look at the death of these other children, which really is against what we do as medical examiners because history is critically important in these cases. The problem being that you can smother -- intentionally murder a child by smothering them and leave no physical findings at autopsy.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, that`s what I wanted to ask you. There`s no way to separate Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS from a smothering? There`s no mark that a person leaves if they kill a child, as opposed to the child dying of SIDS?

LEVY: But that`s the problem. Not at autopsy because -- think about it. An adult can literally take a pillow and put it over the face of an infant or pinch their mouth and nose shut and leave no physical findings at autopsy.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: That`s...

LEVY: So it will look like SIDS. And what you have to go back to is the investigation of this death, and that`s where what`s happened in the past can become incredibly critical, and was in this case.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You`ve raised so many important issues. And we`ve been talking to psychotherapist Lauren Howard before the show about a case that was very similar that she experienced. And let me put this into context so that we keep track of this because it is so complicated. It had a lot of us confused throughout most of the day as we tried to figure out exactly what happened when.

OK, three babies died, 17-month old Stephen in `96 -- that was Vernica`s child -- 4-month-old Alexis, a friend of Vernica`s -- in other words, she was baby-sitting for a friend of hers when that child died in `97, and Vernica was, according to prosecutors, the only adult alone with that child when she mysteriously died. Then 6-month-old Stephanie in 1998. And that again was Vernica`s child.

Now, three children in her orbit die. Two of them are hers, one`s the child of a friend. Is that a bizarre, crazy coincidence or is that murder?

LAUREN HOWARD, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Well, it`s certainly suspect. Listen, SIDS is not a bona fide disease, it`s a syndrome. And it`s not really a medical syndrome, it`s a title for a circumstance, a syndrome of circumstance. And yes, as he mentioned, it can be caused but a genetic disorder that would occur within -- from the same biological parent, right? I mean, that would be passed on genetically and it could create self- asphyxiation which would look like SIDS.

When it occurs in this case, where it`s two of her own children and her neighbor`s child, it`s certainly not genetic. So -- I mean, but we call it SIDS. It`s not a disease, it`s really -- what it is, is, We don`t know why this baby died. Nobody knows what causes SIDS. That`s the whole point.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: It`s so shocking upsetting because, I mean, these little babies are so beautiful, and here we are talking about death. And it`s very depress. Dr. Bruce Levy, medical examiner, Nashville, Tennessee, she will undergo a retrial. And now that they cannot use the rule of three, her defense attorneys have said that there is a very low probability that she is going to be convicted of anything because there`s no evidence. Would you agree? What argument can the prosecutors use now, if they can`t use history?

LEVY: Well, what they`re going to -- I mean, what they`re going to have to go by are the facts of the case that`s before them, which is the death of Stephanie, the last child that died. And there is quite a bit of information, not just the autopsy itself, but also interviews that the forensic pathologist who conducted that autopsy had with Vernica Ward and her mother regarding that death. And those are issues which I can`t discuss right now but will come out in trial and will go to why we ruled this death as a homicide. And there is no doubt that she murdered these children.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Why do you say no doubt when we`ve just spent the last few minutes discussing how it`s almost impossible to tell the difference between SIDS and a suffocation?

LEVY: Well, you know, you have to look at -- you know, now we`re crossing back into history. But if you`re just looking at the case of Stephanie, you have the death of an infant, and in the interviewing that was done between the forensic pathologist and Vernica, there are quite a bit of inconsistencies and issues that were raised in that, and things that I can`t discuss right now.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I guess a lot of it...

LEVY: If you go back and look at the history, and you say to yourself -- you have three dead children, one has absolutely no genetic relationship to the other two. And you have to look at, well, what are the chances that an infant dies from SIDS? Now, what are the chances that it happens three times in a row, where one of them is unrelated to the other two? And you`re looking at odds that -- you know, I wish I was playing the lottery with those odds because I would win the lottery long before this would happen to me.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: The irony is, it sounds like you`re going back to the rule of three, the very thing that the appeals court said you`re not going to be allowed to use.

Jean Casarez, you`ve covered so many trials. This is sort of like a Catch-22. I mean, in order for it to make sense, you have to look at the past, but the courts are saying you can`t look at the past.

CASAREZ: Well, Jane, I read the entire appellate decision, and I see an avenue that the prosecutors could use. It`s called "prior bad acts," and what it means is that in the law, if there are some prior bad acts that this defendant was involved in that are so strikingly similar in many ways, they`re allowed to come into the courtroom, not to show that she committed this murder but to show motive, intent or absence of accident. Prosecutors tried that before with intent, but the appellate court left it open that they could go with another theory. And I think absence of accident, that the two prior deaths show an absence of accident in regard to the third death...

VELEZ-MITCHELL: They did that in the Michael Jackson trial. They had the prior bad acts segment, which of course, was very controversial.

Let me go to Paul Henderson, San Francisco deputy DA. Your reaction to that? I think it`s fabulous recommendation to go as past acts, not as rule of three.

PAUL HENDERSON, SAN FRANCISCO DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: I think so, too. I think what you`re going to see is an examination of all of these incidents, each one analyzed. And there is some statistical relevance as to the likelihood that these deaths occur again and again and again. And it`s not so much just the rule of three that leads us to an inference of guilt, it`s all of the other circumstantial evidence, like her testimony with the other witnesses that`s going to be presented in the trial, that could convict this person again, the second time that this case is tried.

I think the real issue with the first case was that -- the thing that the appellate court challenged was the scientific nature or the absence of the scientific nature for the rule of three because with this rule, the courts couldn`t determine whether or not there was a margin of error.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Gotcha. It`s almost like logic, not science.

HENDERSON: Exactly.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: To tonight`s "Case Alert." The manhunt for a Georgia man, an accused child molester suspected of faking his own death. Julian Pipkins charged with molesting the 12-year-old daughter of his fiancee drowns, quote, unquote, in a fishing accident just days before trial. Pipkins and his 17-year-old son were in Galveston, Texas, when he was reported missing by his son. That young man has since recanted the story, telling police his father is alive and hiding out somewhere in Texas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Family members listened as testimony continued in the murder trial of Vernica Ward. Ward is accused of killing three infant children, two of them her own. Ward actually gave birth to five children. Paternal relatives Vanessa Scruggs (ph) and Linda White (ph) have temporary custody of 3-year-old Stephen and 2-year-old Paul.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`re great. They`re happy baby boys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell, in tonight for Nancy Grace. We are talking about a really tragic, disturbing and mysterious series of child deaths that authorities say point to one woman, 29-year-old Vernica Ward of Nashville, Tennessee. Why does this woman continue to have child after child, even as she faces the prospect of a long prison term, if she is ultimately convicted? And why has the court system let her remain free to conceive?

And Jean Casarez, we were talking about this. There were two opportunities really for the courts to rule, Hey, you`re staying behind bars pending trial or pending retrial.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Right. What happened was, she was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in 1999. She was then released on bail, and following that is when she violated that bail by getting pregnant. So it was rescinded. She went to trial. She was convicted. The conviction was overturned. Then she was charged again with first degree murder to go at it again, but she`s released on bail a second time. And now she just had a child in October.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know, instead of saying, Hey, you can`t be around children, and then sort of threatening all of our reproductive rights by saying, You`re in violation of a court order when you give birth, why not just keep her in jail so that she cannot conceive? Wouldn`t that be a smarter idea all the way around?

Investigative reporter Art Harris, you`ve been tracking this case and you say there are possibly some similarities to other serial murders? And I again caution, she has not been convicted of anything. We`re talking theoretically here.

ART HARRIS, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: That`s right, Jane. This is either a terrible tragedy or you have a serial baby killer, you know, on your hands. And you know, from the serial cases I`ve covered -- go back to the Wayne Williams case in 1981, where he was accused of killing 28 young men, children, young boys, and they could not try him individually on 10 of those cases because there was not enough evidence individually. But if you put them together, you got a pattern of evidence -- where, how they were found, how they were -- you know, the method of death.

And in this case, if there is some similarity that the pathologists can come up with between the children and possibly the motive -- I mean, look at the Susan Smith case. It turned out that, you know, the children who died in her car -- she had wanted to have a relationship with a man and felt that they were a burden. So perhaps one of the things Dr. Levy is not telling us is the motive here that they may know something about.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You raise an important point. Why, why, why? We will get to that. But the phone lines have lit up. This has really touched a nerve with people. Linda in Canada, your question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Jane. My question is twofold. Where are the fathers of these children, and why no involvement in their lives?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Kevin Miller, WTN radio reporter, you`ve been tracking this. How many fathers are involved and where are they? And these two children that were taken away by children`s services, are they with those fathers?

MILLER: Jane, that`s a great question. And all day long in court, talking to people on the defense, talking to people on the prosecution, there was a lot of confusion about the number of kids that she`s had. So we still don`t know, and we don`t know where these kids are. It`s a very confusing case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But how can a baby be suffocated without leaving any marks? The experts testified today that, tragically, that can be done in several ways, but none so perfect that today`s sharp scientific investigative techniques can`t uncover.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today, Tennessee`s chief medical examiner Dr. Bruce Levy even gave his opinion about how long it took Stephanie to die.

LEVY: It has been shown that it could take anywhere between around a minute-and-a-half, give or take a few seconds, to cause what we would refer to as a flat-line EEG.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell, in tonight for Nancy Grace. Will there ever be justice for thee infants who died under mysterious circumstances? Two were the children of a Nashville woman named Vernica Ward, the third child the daughter of a friend of Vernica`s. Prosecutors say Vernica was the only adult present when that baby girl mysteriously stopped breathing. Now, was it a bizarre coincidence of three children dying from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in her orbit, or was it murder? And of course, a big question when you`re trying to answer that whole issue is motive.

Let`s go to Lauren Howard, psychotherapist, because I don`t even know if there`s a diagnosis for somebody who not only wants to -- allegedly, and again, she is not convicted at this point, we`re speaking theoretically -- tries to kill her children but then keeps on having other children. She has had a total of five children at this point.

HOWARD: Well, of course there`s a diagnosis. It`s called sociopath - - I mean, a person without any remorse. You know, the motive fur a parent who might, say, as horrible as it is, murder their own child, would be overwhelmed by depression, not being able to handle the sort of stress and the -- you know, obligation and the commitment and the responsibility of raising a child. But when you murder someone else`s child, that rules that out right away. So this is a person without any conscience or any moral barometer, really.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ward is accused of killing three infant children, two of them her own. Prosecutors drove home the point that autopsy reports revealed that Ward`s 6-month-old daughter, Stephanie, was smothered four years ago. She`s also been accused of killing Stephanie`s infant brother prior to that, as well as the child of a friend.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell filling in tonight for Nancy Grace. Who is Vernica Ward? And why are children around her dying? Three have died in her orbit. Is it an accident? Is it bad luck? Or was it foul play?

Now, we have to stress she has not been convicted of anything at this time, but she was convicted, and that conviction of murdering her daughter was overturned because the higher courts ruled that they shouldn`t have used this rule of three in their argument.

Now, let`s go to Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, who is a very famous forensic scientist and a very good friend. Kobi, let me ask you this question, this rule of three. Obviously, we`ve all been discussing how it makes sense, in terms of probability. But apparently, in terms of science, it doesn`t make a lot of sense. So they have knocked that out of the box. Do you think that`s fair?

LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: I do, Jane. Let me quickly explain. It`s a rule. It`s a theory. But in order for it to be admissible in a court of law, it has to be found reliable and accepted in the community. And most important, it is not based on any solid scientific foundation. So, as far as it goes, it`s a rule. It`s inadmissible.

But let me get back, Jane, to the reason for all of this. I have a feeling that what we`re seeing here is something called Munchausen by proxy syndrome. And it`s a term that describes an individual who is calling out for help, calling out for attention. And generally children are the victims.

This can go on repeatedly, and quite often these children die as a result of this suffocation. It`s an asphyxia. And as long as the mechanical device, a pillow, is soft, it`s not going to cause any kind of marks on the body, and therefore it`s essentially indistinguishable from SIDS. And that really is the murky water; it`s a medical mystery.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you know, we love to spark a good debate here on the NANCY GRACE show. And I saw Lauren Howard, psychotherapist, kind of shaking her head a little bit. Do you have any thoughts on this syndrome?

LAUREN HOWARD, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Oh, I just -- you know, to call it this Munchausen`s, I don`t see that at all. I mean, to me, this is really not a woman with a personality disorder or a character disorder or, really, there`s no other evidence that she`s got Munchausen`s. Literally, it looks to me like an impulse, a sociopathic impulse, a quiet, undetectable, not at all a crying out for help. In Munchausen`s, you see a much more -- a bigger shout, a bigger sound.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I think what`s so perplexing to everyone is we`ve heard of these horrible cases where mothers kill their own children. They`re depressed; they`re overwhelmed; they`re insane -- Andrea Yates -- but they don`t kill anybody else`s children.

HOWARD: Exactly. Exactly.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And that`s what makes this case so perplexing and makes it hard to argue a lot of what the prosecution wants to argue in court. Who does this? This is almost unheard of.

HOWARD: Well, that`s exactly right. And as human beings, we want to put her in a box. We`d all feel a lot cozier tonight if we could give her a title, if we could give her a diagnosis, if we could name her illness, because otherwise it`s incredibly frightening to think that a human being, that human nature could do something so heinous.

And you`re right: The fact that there`s another child involved that`s not of her own, again, confounds our ability to understand what makes her tick.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know, what`s really upsetting to me is that these cases now are, the first one, a decade old. The first child died in `96, the second `97, `98. And here we are in 2006 still talking about this.

Defense attorney Randy Zelin, is that because a decision was made in the court system that they couldn`t try these together? And is that fair? I mean, if it`s all part of a syndrome, why not save the taxpayers time, save us all agony, save just the nightmare that`s going on for these families and put these cases together?

RANDY ZELIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: As a practical matter, as a taxpayer, you`re right. But this is about the law and the Constitution and a defendant`s rights. And everything else has to give way to that.

But I`ll tell you what really scares me as a defense lawyer. It`s not so much whether or not common plan or scheme evidence will come in, evidence that it wasn`t an accident. What scares me is that any evidence that could come in that, since this woman has been without her children, the other children are fine. That as a defense attorney to me is the most problematic evidence that I would be faced with, if I were defending this woman.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know, the phones again have lit up. This is an issue, I think, that touches all of our hearts. No one wants to see a child harmed. Amy, Pennsylvania, your question?

CALLER: Yes, I was just wondering, this woman is African-American. And the other cases in the recent media of child killings were of white women. I don`t see a lot of people jumping to her defense, and I wonder if race has anything to do with that.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I think it`s an interesting question. I don`t really know where you`re going with that, because it never even, I think, entered the equation in terms of how we would cover the story.

But, Jean Casarez, you have covered so many stories, and, yes, environments, geographic location, all sorts of factors do enter the equation.

JEAN CASAREZ, COURT TV: Well, you know, I think she had a tremendous defense team, because when I look at this appeal and I look at all the grounds that they raised the appeal on, and they got the conviction overturned, so she had quite a defense working for her.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And how does that relate to the question, though?

CASAREZ: Well, I think what the question was, why isn`t anyone coming to her aid? Wasn`t that the question? Well, I think her defense team has come to her aid. Who else are we talking about?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And, yes, and Paul Henderson, San Francisco deputy D.A., this is a tragic case all the way around. Do you think her background is giving her any kind of sway, negative or positive, in this case?

PAUL HENDERSON, SAN FRANCISCO DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Are you talking about background with the previous deaths or her background in terms of the race association?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, the viewer raised that question, and I`m just passing it along to you.

HENDERSON: Well, I think the race as an issue has a lot less to do with it than the actual crime that`s being committed. Oftentimes as a prosecutor, when we review police reports, race isn`t a factor when we`re charging cases, when we`re trying to decide if someone is held culpable. That`s what the facts and the evidence determines. So I don`t think race is an issue when you`re evaluating who is going to be charged with murder and how those cases play out in the courtroom.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know, Kevin Miller, WTN Radio, what do we know about this woman and her background, in terms of her education, where she grew up, why this has been the trajectory of her life? We know that she had her first child in high school. Can you tell us anything else?

KEVIN MILLER, REPORTER, WTN RADIO: Jane, that remains an open-ended question. We`d hoped to get the answers from that today. I think really that she got a break in court when she didn`t show up today, and we had to put the bail bondsman on trial. And the judge had to interview him.

I mean, she really missed one today and got a pass by moving this thing until Monday. I mean, I thought for sure that they were going to issue a warrant for her arrest. That didn`t happen. As far as any of her background, there weren`t any family members that I could tell in court today, and I was there all day.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: But according to a court order, wasn`t she supposed to be living with her mother? So I believe her mother is in the area.

MILLER: That was a good point, and that was a point that the judge kept going back on when he interviewed the bail bondsman. It took him about a couple hours to show up today. And you had one of the public defenders actually admit in court that she may have dropped the ball in counseling Vernica Ward pertaining to following the motion`s instructions.

Back in 2005 in October, you had a motion that allowed her to go to work. Originally, she was on house arrest, and she had the electronic device. That was taken away on the condition that she find work and maintain the other conditions of her bail, which included staying with her mother.

We learned today from the bail bondsman that she is not staying with her mother. He testified of that in court today. And, again, the judge asked the public defender, "Did you, in fact, tell your client this?" She volunteered that she may have dropped the ball and did not specify to Vernica Ward that she had to maintain the original guidelines of that motion without the idea of the electronic surveillance and the house arrest.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: So she may have unintentionally violated some of the conditions of her bond additionally?

MILLER: Right. And that will be brought up Monday, Jane.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Well, it`s certainly a case that`s not going away.

To tonight`s "Case Alert," a child bride allegedly the victim of rape takes the stand at a preliminary hearing in Utah for Mormon sect leader Warren Jeffs. Today`s hearing to determine whether Jeffs, accused of arranging marriages between older men and underage girls, will stand trial. The 50-year-old sect leader was on the FBI`s 10 most-wanted list before his capture near Las Vegas in August.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... anyone who has seen or heard anything, please come forward and help find the person who murdered our daughter, my daughter. I loved (INAUDIBLE) and she`s gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell sitting in tonight for Nancy Grace. Another tantalizing and tragic mystery. Who killed beautiful, popular, and successful Michelle Young in her home in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina? The former cheerleader was not only a highly respected financial analyst; she was the married mother of a 2-year-old girl named Cassidy and four months pregnant with her second child.

The 29-year-old woman was found November 3rd in her bedroom bludgeoned to death, her little daughter found alive and unhurt near her mother`s dead body with the little, bloody footprints all over the bedroom. Court TV correspondent Jean Casarez has been tracking this case, and she brings us the very latest -- Jean?

CASAREZ: Well, you know, the latest is the home no longer is an active crime scene with investigation. The tape was taken down, so now family members can go back inside. Also, police have said up to this point that they do not have a suspect. Now they are just saying nothing. They are not saying they do have a suspect, but they are not actively saying, "We have no suspect whatsoever."

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And that is so perplexing. Let`s go to Paul Henderson, San Francisco deputy D.A. What does it mean when they say, "Well, we can`t rule anybody in, but we can`t rule anybody out"?

HENDERSON: That means that everyone is still investigating. I think this is a really complicated tragedy, and if we`re looking for answers, we`re going to have to wait a little while longer until some of the forensic evidence gets analyzed.

I think the answers are going to come more from the autopsy that`s being done, also the potential weapon that was used, if that`s been found, and also some of the evidence that`s been collected from law enforcement, like the fingerprints from the friends, neighbors and husband, the luggage that was sealed from the husband.

That`s what that means when they say that they`re waiting or not revealing information to the public. That`s what`s going on behind the scenes, that this evidence is being analyzed.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, forensic scientist, what does the death and the preliminary autopsy report tell us about the cause of death? I understand the words "blunt-force trauma" were used.

KOBILINSKY: Well, first of all, I completely agree with the analysis that we just heard. "Blunt-force trauma" to me indicates that there was some weapon that was probably used to fracture this woman`s skull. And I`m sure the scene is quite bloody, and there probably was some severe damage to the brain.

And so we really need that weapon. We need to know who held that weapon. There may be blood-spatter evidence that could help us understand the position of the victim, as well as the perpetrator. There may be other trace evidence that will help us, fingerprints, DNA. All of that is very critical to the case.

The autopsy is extremely important. We don`t know if she was molested. If she was molested, that may help us take a certain direction. If she was not, that`s another story. We know that the house was not broken into, so it`s quite possible that the person who did this was known to the victim.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Wow. It`s just so astounding that there are so many unanswered questions, and here we are, day 18 into this.

And, Jean Casarez, it just doesn`t add up. I mean, why can`t authorities tell us if they`ve cleared him, in terms of the husband`s alibi? And we want to stress he is not a suspect, he is not considered a suspect. But, obviously, he is one of the people who authorities will have to eliminate as a suspect. That`s natural procedure when a wife is murdered. They always look at the small circle and then expand outward.

But we don`t know much about his supposed trip to a business meeting. And he says he left early that evening. We have a time line that I think we can put up for you, and that time line essentially says that he left on November 2nd in the evening, OK? Then Michelle is with a friend at home until 10:30. The friend leaves.

And then the husband, the next day, calls his sister-in-law and says, "Hey, go pick up a fax at the house." The sister goes to the house, finds her sister dead in the bedroom, and her niece, 2-year-old Cassidy, unharmed, but walking around the bedroom with bloody prints. There are still many, many unanswered questions.

CASAREZ: And you know why? Because this is an ongoing criminal investigation. They don`t want to taint the memories. They don`t want to taint the statements of the witnesses, the friends or friend that was at the home that evening. They want to get all of their ducks in a row, because if this leads to a trial, the jury is going to look at all of this investigation time to see the credibility or lack thereof of the police officers and the investigators. So as soon as there is an arrest, if there is an arrest, I`m sure there will be more information.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And, I mean, some of the interesting stuff that we could learn, Art Harris, is, OK, the GPS that`s attached to the cellphone that the husband probably had when he went on his business trip, what does that show? Because now we have technology that can show where people go even when they don`t make a phone call.

Also, it was a 300-mile trip apparently that took approximately five hours, so you`re going to possibly stop and get gas or buy something. So there could be receipts; there could be surveillance footage, a lot of stuff like that, right, Art?

ART HARRIS, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: That`s right, Jane. All part of the time line they`re trying to reconstruct, you know, along with the forensic evidence. Today I spoke with Sam Pennica. He`s the director of the City County Bureau of Investigation. And they gather all the forensic evidence for the county, the state, the FBI.

They have had 19 investigators, you know, working that crime scene for 13 days, which is a lot longer than they normally do. They had to get a special machine, order one in -- that he wouldn`t tell me what that machine was for. But they are going over this with a fine-tooth comb.

They have asked for the husband`s fingerprints, his blood. They`re going over the car with Luminol, you know, all standard stuff, but they are trying to rule him out so they can look elsewhere. And all avenues are open, but you`re absolutely right: They are trying to account for what happened that night. And they have asked for anyone to come forward who has seen a car in that house or near the house between 12:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. in the morning.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And let`s go to Pat Brown, criminal profiler. A very crucial aspect is, when did this crime occur? Now, authorities haven`t said, but they have said, "Hey, look for any suspicious activity between midnight and 6:00 a.m." What does that tell you?

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Well, it`s a pretty wide window, Jane. And that`s a problem right there. But they`re going to be looking exactly at that husband`s movements, because he is probably the number-one suspect right now. Where was he? And does he have any real time line that he can stick with?

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m asking for anyone who has seen or heard anything, as trivial as you might think it is, anything, to please come forward and help find the person who murdered our daughter, my daughter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jane Velez-Mitchell sitting in tonight for Nancy Grace. Some closing thoughts on a mysterious murder of Michelle Young, four months pregnant with her second child. Her first child, a 2-year-old girl named Cassidy, discovered alive and unhurt at the crime scene, near her mother`s body.

Criminal profiler Pat Brown, two key clues that we do know: no sign of forced entry; and nothing of value seemingly taken from the home. What does that tell you?

BROWN: Well, exactly, Jane. That means probably it was someone she was in a relationship with. Doesn`t rule out it could be somebody else who was just dropping by and she opened the door. But usually women who are pregnant are killed by people they`re in relationships with because, at some point, the person who`s in that relationship with them decides, "I don`t like this relationship. I don`t like where my life is going. I`m unhappy."

So the police are going to be looking at history. Is there a historical problem in this relationship? And is that what lead to this woman`s murder?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And, Jean Casarez, there was an odd accident that they had.

CASAREZ: Yes, there was. The previous year, she and her husband were driving. They got off on the road, I think into a swamp or a creek, but survived, both of them did, but it was odd.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: It was a little odd, a strange coincidence perhaps. Lauren Howard, the child, the 2-year-old who was in that room with the dead mother, what is the psychological trauma?

HOWARD: Well, we don`t know that she was in the room when the murder occurred, OK? So she might have wandered in the room after the fact. And I`d be curious to know if Cassidy is verbal yet, because, really, with play therapy, a child psychologist could get this little girl to reenact what occurred if, in fact, there`s going to be a trauma, which would be based on a memory. But at age 2, her abstract reasoning not really yet there. If it were 3, it would be a whole different story. She`ll be OK.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let`s hope.

Tonight, we remember Army Sergeant Joseph Perry, just 23, from Alpine, California. On his second tour of duty, awarded the Bronze Star. Perry, who dreamed of enlisting since childhood, wanted to join the U.S. Border Patrol. He leaves behind grieving parties and two half-brothers. Joseph Perry, an American hero.

We would like to thank all of our guests for their insights. Thanks to you at home for tracking these very important cases with us. Nancy Grace will be back tomorrow night. So please join her at 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, have a terrific and a safe evening.

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