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Nancy Grace

Mom Accused of Microwaving Baby

Aired November 28, 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, a stunning case out of Ohio, a 26-year- old mom charged with death by microwave, her 3-week-old baby girl found dead. The local coroner`s never seen anything like it. P.S., Ohio is a death penalty state.
And tonight, a young Army nurse goes missing right here on American soil, in Colorado. And we want to help find her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... China Arnold charged (INAUDIBLE) Your Honor, on aggravated murder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was suffering from severe burns, and she was dead when she got to the hospital.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 3-week-old baby and it`s burned to death like that? Come on! What were you doing, Mom?

CHINA ARNOLD, ACCUSED OF MICROWAVING BABY DAUGHTER: They told me that it looked like somebody had cooked her -- I don`t know why!

I didn`t kill my baby!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. I`ve seen a lot of homicide cases, but never, never a death by microwave, much less with a 3-week-old baby girl.

Out to a reporter with WDTN-TV, who broke the case, Libby Kirsch. Welcome, Libby. Tell us the facts.

LIBBY KIRSCH, WDTN-TV: Well, Nancy, this is just about as appalling as you can get. What we know is that a 28-day-old baby was brought to Children`s Medical Center here in Dayton 15 months ago. The baby was dead on arrival, and immediately, doctors there knew that something wasn`t right. They called homicide detectives and an investigation was launched. That investigation took more than 15 months to get an arrest.

GRACE: Libby, why so long?

KIRSCH: Well, that`s a good question. It`s one we`ve been asking ourselves. What homicide detectives and prosecutors tell us is that they`ve been working on the case non-stop. We heard nothing about the baby`s death since about two months ago, maybe, when we started making more inquiries. And ever since then, things really started to take off, and this arrest was made yesterday.

GRACE: Libby, what can you tell me about the condition of the baby`s body?

KIRSCH: Well, from what we understand, doctors at Children`s Medical Center knew that the child was injured, but what was distinct about the injuries are that they weren`t visible from the skin. A normal burn would leave welts, blisters, and this was nothing like that. So a lot of people were...

GRACE: Dear God...

KIRSCH: ... stumped initially.

GRACE: ... in heaven! Because -- so I guess, Libby, one of the things that took so long just -- I`m just deducing here -- is they couldn`t determine the cause of death. I mean, very typically, when a child is -- in a home setting, the child is beaten or the child is asphyxiated or the child is drowned. With a beating, the injuries are obvious from the outside. They`re very obvious or become obvious within a couple of hours or with an X-ray. With asphyxiation, a simple look at the child`s pettichiae (ph) -- the blood vessels in the eye explode when someone is smothered or asphyxiated, from the pressure. You look for that. And of course, if the child is drowned, there are obvious symptoms. So I guess it took a while to figure out why the child died.

KIRSCH: This death certificate took more than a month for the coroner`s office to complete, and I think they did have to do some research with other coroners across the country to try and figure out what these injuries on Paris Talley were.

GRACE: You know, I like that, the fact that the coroner actually brought in experts from outside. This is not a time for a territorial turf war over the cause of death of a 3-week-old baby girl.

Out to a special guest tonight, Dr. William Morrone, a medical examiner and toxicologist. Dr. Morrone, thank you for being with us. What injuries would you expect to find in a child -- I`ve never even said these words in one sentence -- microwaved to death?

DR. WILLIAM MORRONE, MEDICAL EXAMINER/FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, thank you for having me tonight. It`s really important to understand the way microwaves work when they cook. You don`t see things on the outside, so you`d have to do a thorough autopsy first, and then you`d begin to see things that you didn`t expect or don`t recognize.

GRACE: Like what?

MORRONE: Just like cooking a breast of chicken, you`d see a different texture. This is a 10-month -- excuse me -- this is a 28-day-old baby and the tissues are soft, tissues are thin. There shouldn`t be any firmness or hardness to a baby this size. And you begin to see things, you say, I don`t know what this is.

GRACE: OK. Let me be more specific. If you did an autopsy on an infant that had been placed in a microwave and cooked, what would you find as internal findings on that autopsy? There were no visible signs of injury on the outside, the epidermis of the child.

MORRONE: Microwave energy is very specific on moisture content and depth, and I would expect to see damage in organs or concentrated areas that are very high moisture content, like blood. Blood is 83 percent water. So coagulate?

GRACE: OK. Dr. William Morrone is with us, medical examiner and toxicologist. And Doctor, before I would put a case to a jury, a murder case, I would have to visit for a long time with the medical examiner to try to convince him to explain to me in lay language, not doctor or lawyer language, what happened. And let me just ask you, were the internal organs cooked? Is that what you`re trying to say?

MORRONE: You would expect internal organs close to the surface to have the appearance of being cooked, if they`re a high concentration of water that makes up that tissue. But what causes death is that these proteins, in a sense, become non-functional. The tissue, the fluids, they become non-functional. Things don`t work at that temperature, and that`s what would cause death. You`d try to reproduce that.

GRACE: What kind of pain would someone suffer from injuries like this?

MORRONE: Burning, terrible burning.

GRACE: From the inside out.

MORRONE: Excruciating pain.

GRACE: Oh, God! OK, let`s bring out the lawyers. Daniel Horowitz is with us from the San Francisco jurisdiction. Rebecca Rose Woodland from the New York jurisdiction. Welcome to both of you. To Daniel Horowitz. Why the mom? What`s your defense?

DAN HOROWITZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, you know, defense lawyers have to almost be heroic to take a case as bad as this and put on the table, Well, there might be mitigating factors. But I would approach this case by telling the jury the truth about this mother to explain why she would have done what it seems like she definitely did. And then if the law allows...

GRACE: So you`re just immediately giving up and saying she did it?

HOROWITZ: Nancy, it seems so obvious that she did. Why lie to a jury and alienate them?

GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa! I really hate to do your job for you, Dan, but how about pointing the finger at somebody else -- the baby-sitter, the dad? There were three kids in the home. Not that I believe any of that...

HOROWITZ: Nancy...

GRACE: ... but come on! At least give the woman a fighting chance!

HOROWITZ: The fighting chance is to be honest. If you sell a jury with something that`s nonsense and they throw it out, as we learned in the Peterson case, then you have nothing left. The best thing to do is to be truthful. Say, Look, if she had emotional problems and the law allows this to become an involuntary manslaughter, which I think another baby microwave case ended up being, then you`re really defending your client honestly. To say she didn`t do it when there`s no one else who`s a reasonable suspect, you`re just throwing credibility out the window.

GRACE: Look, you`re preaching to the choir here. I just never expected from Daniel Horowitz for you to advocate just tell the truth. What about it, Rebecca?

REBECCA ROSE WOODLAND, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Look, I completely agree with telling the truth, but how do we know yet what the truth is? I don`t know yet that this woman did this. We know that there were three people, three adults in the home at various times prior to the child being brought to that infant care center where they declared the child dead.

Now, I agree, if the woman did this, there might be mitigating factors in her emotional state. She may not have intended to kill. She may have, like this man in Canada, put the child in the microwave to warm it up. He put a baby in a freezer to reduce the child`s fever. We don`t know this.

But right now, at this point, how do we even know she was the one that placed the baby in the microwave? She`s saying she didn`t kill the baby. Maybe it was Terrell, her boyfriend, who has an extensive criminal history. Possibly it was the baby-sitter. Maybe her door was open.

GRACE: I knew...

WOODLAND: I mean...

GRACE: I knew one of the two defense lawyers would go with the "SOD" defense, some other dude did it. OK...

WOODLAND: It may be.

GRACE: ... thank you, Rebecca, for restoring my faith in the defense bar.

Take a listen to what the mom had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARNOLD: They told me that it looked like somebody had cooked her and -- I don`t know why! I don`t know why anybody would do that to her!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Let`s go out to the lines. Sonya in New York. Hi, Sonya.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. How`re you doing, Nancy?

GRACE: I`m good, friend.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m just wondering, I mean, is -- is she on kind of drugs, or is she addicted to something? I mean, I just don`t understand. Did she leave the baby alone with someone that they would just want to just put her baby in a microwave?

GRACE: You know, that`s a really good question. Let`s go out to Pat Lalama, investigative reporter. What do we know about the mom? And in just a moment, we`re going to have her lawyer with us. Pat Lalama, what can you tell me about the mom?

PAT LALAMA, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Here`s what we know, Nancy. She`s got three other children, ages 4, 7, and 9, but Terrell is not the father of those children. We do know that she does have her own criminal history that we understand, Nancy -- and I`ve got it right here -- includes forgery and abduction. Of course, that doesn`t mean she`s inclined to kill the child.

GRACE: Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wait! Did you say abduction?

LALAMA: Yes, I did. We kind of glossed over that.

(CROSSTALK)

LALAMA: ... abduction.

GRACE: Abduction is a little more serious.

LALAMA: Right. And we don`t have the actual circumstances of the abduction, but we do know this is in 2000, Nancy, and she got five years of what they call community patrol, which sounds to me a lot like probation.

GRACE: Community service.

LALAMA: He`s got domestic violence, stolen property and theft. Now, again, I mean, we can`t jump to the conclusion that either one of them killed their child.

But I do want to tell you this. She is -- her story`s a little bit inconsistent because the cops have said they believe the father was not home, that the father came home at 6:30 in the morning, found the child unconscious. Then they both took the baby to the hospital. She, I understand, has said that`s not true, that he was home with her, sleeping. So that`s a big problem right there. And allegedly, there was a baby- sitter the night before, which would have been Terrell`s sister. And there`s some inconsistency about that, as well, so...

GRACE: Like what exactly?

LALAMA: One of your guests -- well, the inconsistency being that, you know, the baby-sitter watched the child for a while. And then suddenly -- and then that the mother found -- you know, when she got the child back, didn`t notice anything wrong with the child. But some are saying that the baby-sitter wasn`t really there. So you see -- I think one of your guests was right. We really don`t know the exact timeline...

GRACE: Who was in the home.

LALAMA: ... and who was there when it mattered.

GRACE: Libby Kirsch...

LALAMA: But let me just say real quickly...

GRACE: Sure. Go ahead.

LALAMA: ... the three children -- I`m sorry, Nancy. The three children -- the cops say they do not believe the children could have had anything to do with this.

GRACE: I agree, especially for the 4 and 7-year-old, you know, and very likely for the 9-year-old.

LALAMA: Right.

GRACE: Back out to Libby Kirsch with WDTN-TV in Dayton, Ohio. Libby, what else can you tell us? Was the dad, the biological dad there when the mom came home the night before?

KIRSCH: Well, from what we`ve been told by both investigators, prosecutors and by China Arnold herself when our station interviewed her, China and Terrell went out for drinks the night before, and China doesn`t really remember much after they got home. So there`s some confusion on China`s part as to what may have happened.

GRACE: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. If she can`t remember -- you know, her lawyer is with us now. He`s a veteran trial lawyer. His name is Jon Paul Rion, joining us out of Dayton, Ohio. Mr. Rion, thank you for being with us.

JON PAUL RION, CHINA ARNOLD`S ATTORNEY: Sure. A pleasure.

GRACE: I`ve heard some of your statements on behalf of your client. They were convincing. They were eloquent. I`ve got a few questions for you.

RION: OK.

GRACE: If she says that she can`t remember what happened when she came home from having drinks, then how does she know the baby was fine when she got home?

RION: Well, I don`t know if that last statement of yours is particularly true. We know that she got home. We know that when she got home that there was an argument involving Terrell. We know that Terrell stayed there, and we have witnesses to show this. And we know that China went to sleep.

Now, a lot of the times, the police should be looking at whoever discovers, who finds the baby. That`s usually the first suspect. In this case, it was Terrell. Terrell was the one that, when he woke up at 6:00 in the house, that he discovered this baby and called up to China and told her that, Hey, it looks like something`s wrong. But he said it in such a way that China really didn`t take it all that seriously because he didn`t seem all that concerned. And it was only when he said it again, maybe with a little more acting or a little more meaning this time, that that time, she started taking it seriously, and at that point, she rushed her child to the hospital.

She has a very clear recollection of many of the events of that night. And as soon as we are able to show the entire case, I think it`s going to become clear that, actually, she did not do this. There`s no motive. And I think the science is going to show that it wasn`t her. Where she`s placed in the house, who she`s placed with, the witnesses that were in the house at the time are going to start pointing towards someone other than her.

GRACE: OK. Question. Was she -- does she have complete recollection after coming home that night after having drinks?

RION: When you say complete recollection -- she remembers coming home. She remembers being there. She remembers going to bed and she remembers waking up. And when she woke up, she discovered a nightmare...

GRACE: OK.

RION: ... and that nightmare was that her child was not breathing, was not alive.

GRACE: When she got home that night, was the baby asleep?

RION: The baby -- these are the facts that we`re looking into. I don`t think that -- the baby-sitter was still there. I think she went up to bed. And I think when she came down the next morning is when all of this was sort of discovered.

GRACE: Did China, your client, Ms. Arnold, China Arnold -- did she check on the baby when she got home?

RION: It didn`t seem like there was anything wrong. The child was asleep.

GRACE: So she did check on the baby.

RION: Again, there was nothing in the house that caused her to believe that anything was going on that was improper.

GRACE: OK, wait a minute. Did she check on baby or not? Because you just said the baby was asleep when she got home. Did she check on the baby?

RION: We`re going to have to look into exactly (INAUDIBLE) I don`t have any recollection that she actually was checking on the baby. I think she went up to bed and...

GRACE: Did the baby breast feed?

RION: I don`t believe so.

GRACE: Well, did the baby not eat all night long? I mean, it`s 3 weeks old. Doesn`t it cry and eat all night long?

RION: Well, again...

GRACE: Dean (ph), you`ve got a baby. Does the baby cry all night long and want to eat?

RION: The father`s there...

(CROSSTALK)

RION: The father`s there, too.

GRACE: So well, did the baby wake up to eat from -- what time did she get home, 11:00 o`clock, 12:00 o`clock?

RION: About 11:00 o`clock is what the information we have.

GRACE: So from 11:00 AM to 6:00 AM -- 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM, the baby didn`t want anything to eat at 3 weeks?

RION: No, no. No, we believe the father was up with the child at some point during the night, and we have witnesses to that effect. And what happened after that is what we`re trying to determine.

GRACE: Who was in the home to be a witness?

RION: Well, again, I want to see the government`s case first. I want to put the government on trial first. I want to see their information.

GRACE: Smart lawyer!

RION: I think the government...

GRACE: You`re not giving anything away! We know who was home, a 4- year-old, a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old!

RION: Well, Terrell was in the house.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARNOLD: They told me that it looked like somebody had cooked her. I don`t know why! I don`t know why anybody would do that to her!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Additional evidence has come our way. Additional witnesses have come forward.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe at this time that the burns which caused the death of Paris Talley could possibly be from an appliance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Tonight, a stunning case out of Ohio, a 26-year-old mom charged with death by microwave, her 3-week-old baby girl found dead. The local coroner never seen anything like it, had to call in experts from around the country to determine cause of death.

Let`s go out to the lines. Kathy in Ohio. Hi, Kathy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. How are you?

GRACE: I`m good, friend.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I just wanted to tell you I watch Libby every morning and you every evening!

GRACE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I just wanted to know, is there any history of mental illness with China?

GRACE: That`s a really good question. And the person that knows her the very best is with us tonight, her mother. Gloria Scott, the mom of China Arnold, is with us, speaking out on her daughter`s behalf. Ms. Scott, thank you for being with us.

GLORIA SCOTT, CHINA ARNOLD`S MOTHER: Thank you.

GRACE: Has your daughter had any type of mental illness or problems? Was she depressed, have post-partum depression, anything?

SCOTT: No, China has never had mental problems.

GRACE: What do you make of all this?

SCOTT: Well, I`m astonished. When it happened, I couldn`t believe it. My daughter wanted her baby girl too bad to do anything -- to do anything like that. She would never do that to her child. Never.

GRACE: What about this Terrell guy?

SCOTT: I don`t know him that well. But he has had -- he has fought her. I`ve seen black eyes on her. I told her to stay away from him. I didn`t think he was good for her.

GRACE: Is he the father of the baby, the biological dad?

SCOTT: Yes, he was the father of the baby.

GRACE: We tried to contact him tonight. He did not give a comment. We`ll all be right back with a disturbing, heart-breaking case out of Ohio, a 3-week-old baby girl apparently microwaved to death.

To tonight`s "Case Alert." It`s over! The battle of the Christmas wreath has ended. A Colorado homeowners` association withdraws a $1,000 fine threat on a resident for putting out a Christmas wreath that was shaped like a peace sign. To homeowner president Bob Kerns (ph), merry Christmas!

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We believe that China`s completely innocent of this. If there was an unnatural cause of death, we want to know who did it. When the police told China that her child had died by means of a microwave, her reaction is, That can`t be true.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Dayton Police Department has conducted search warrants, had laboratory tests run and have done extensive investigation in order to bring us to this point. This was a very unusual injury that the coroner`s office was not very familiar with and consulted coroners outside of our area in order to come up with a plausible reason for this child to have died.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Was a 3-week-old baby girl murdered in a microwave? Her mom has been arrested. Out to reporter Libby Kirsch with WDTN-TV. Libby, it took many months for them to finally make an arrest. What made them -- what tipped the scales? Did the mom speak to someone? Did she say something to a neighbor or a friend?

KIRSCH: It`s a good question. And we, of course, asked detectives in the homicide department, along with prosecutors. They`re being pretty tight-lipped. Sergeant Gary White (ph), the homicide department commander, so to speak -- he did say that they got new evidence and new testimony, but whether that was from China or Terrell or somebody else, it`s unclear this afternoon.

GRACE: Do you have evidence the biological father was not in the home, Libby?

KIRSCH: I have no evidence of that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-six-year-old China Arnold has nothing to say, as homicide detectives escort her into jail. She`s booked on aggravated murder in the 15-month-old homicide investigation of her infant daughter`s death.

Paris Talley`s grave marker explains only a fraction of the baby`s short and tragic life. Paris` death certificate, filed a month-and-a-half after her August 2005 death tells the rest: homicide by hyperthermia and thermal injury. At the time, Arnold denied involvement in Paris` death.

CHINA ARNOLD, ACCUSED OF MURDER: I didn`t kill my baby.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: What do you do with somebody that microwaves a 3-week-old baby girl? I don`t know if you`ve taken it this far in your mind yet.

Out to Jon Paul Rion -- this is China Arnold`s attorney -- what is the mode of death penalty in Ohio, lethal injection?

JON PAUL RION, ATTORNEY FOR MOM ACCUSED OF MURDER: It is. And, you know, we`ve looked into this matter. And the question is: Who did it? And we`re trying to find that out. All that China knows is that, when she woke up, her child was dead, and then now, almost some 15 months later...

GRACE: That`s all she knows? She didn`t feed the baby all night long? She didn`t notice the condition of the baby when she got home from drinks the night before? Something`s not hanging together.

RION: When she woke up, and the father, who was there the whole time, when she realized that her child wasn`t breathing, she went immediately to the hospital.

GRACE: Well, why was she arrested and not the father then?

RION: Well, actually, they were both picked up. There is no evidence that we have seen that links anything to China. There`s no motive. There`s no science that would link her to this. There`s no history. There`s no psychological disorder. There`s nothing.

GRACE: OK, I`ve got a question for you. In the arrest warrant, what did police say was their P.C. for arrest, probable cause?

RION: Right now, there`s nothing that`s been filed, simply the complaint itself.

GRACE: No arrest warrant whatsoever?

RION: They have not made a statement other than what`s been stated on this show as to what happened. There`s nothing that`s been stated as to how it is that China`s been brought into this. It`s really -- I think it`s a guess. I think that there`s four or five people in that house through the given time, and they have just chosen one.

GRACE: Well, let me throw this hardball at you again. Who are the four or five people in the house? I assume you`re saying the 4-year-old, the 7-year-old, the 9-year-old, China Arnold, the mother and the boyfriend, Terrell, yes, no?

RION: Nancy, we have to -- again, I don`t want to put on the trial right now. We have a woman who`s a mother...

GRACE: It`s not a trial. It`s a simple question. Who was home?

RION: ... who loved her child, who loved her child more than...

GRACE: Why don`t you want to answer that?

RION: Well, hold on. She loved her child more than she loved herself. She wakes up in the morning, she finds, after the father says that the child`s dead, she has to deal with that grief. And now she`s being told that somebody put her child into a microwave. Imagine how that would make you feel as a mother, and that`s what we`re faced with here.

GRACE: I`m wondering why she didn`t wake up all night long to feed the baby. Was that SOP, standard operating procedure? But I understand what you`re doing.

Let`s go unchain the lawyers, Elizabeth, because Jon Paul Rion is protecting his client right now. This is what he is paid to do. He`s a veteran trial lawyer. He knows what he`s doing.

But, Daniel Horowitz, you know what he`s doing, too. He is waiting to see the state`s evidence. And don`t believe for a minute that they don`t know some of the state`s evidence, because you cannot be held behind bars for over 72 hours in this country without a P.C., probably cause, hearing. We all know that. You don`t get put in jail, the key thrown away, and you`re like, "Why am I here?" That doesn`t happen.

You know why he`s not telling me who`s home, Daniel, because they`re waiting to hear the state`s whole case so they can tailor their defense to fit what the state`s got. Yes, no, Daniel?

DANIEL HOROWITZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Nancy, I don`t know the particular attorney you have on the show, but that`s not what a good attorney does. It`s not what the best attorneys do.

GRACE: Why?

HOROWITZ: What they do -- because you don`t want to tell your defense what you think the prosecution has because they may then torpedo you if it`s not true. What you need to do is look at the facts.

If there were two people in the bedroom who could have killed this baby, it`s OK to say maybe it was the boyfriend, but you better be careful. Didn`t I hear a statement by the mother where she said it looked like the baby was cooked? That`s not how the baby looked, according to what I understand.

Microwaving may leave some burns, but it was hard to determine cause of death. There may be things that implicate the mother that we don`t know about now that are in the arrest warrant that you mentioned. And we need to know what`s in there.

And then you don`t fashion a defense to beat the prosecution case; you put them to their proof. If they can`t make their proof, you say reasonable doubt.

GRACE: OK.

HOROWITZ: Otherwise, you go to mental state, Nancy. Why did she do it?

GRACE: What about it, Rebecca?

WOODLAND: I agree with Daniel here.

GRACE: Well, then why can`t the lawyer just tell me who was home that night? Right there, I`ve got a red flag. And I want to point out the biological father has not been charged. If he was picked up, he must have gone in as a witness, because he has not been charged in this.

And, everybody, let`s go out to Jeff Gardere. I`m going to come right back to you, Rebecca. Jeff Gardere, psychologist and author, typically when there`s violence in the home, statistically, the dad is the one who`s responsible. The father isn`t charged here.

And, Jeff, before you answer, you`re a father of -- let me see -- one, two three, four, I believe, children. They all look just like you.

JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Poor things.

GRACE: Yes. Did you hear about the last case last week up in Canada where the dad puts the baby in the freezer to cool it down? What the heck`s going on?

GARDERE: Well, let me tell you what`s going on in this particular home, OK? This is a situation of where there`s been domestic violence. There`s been isolation.

I bet you there are some issues of mental illness that no one is recognizing or talking about. There`s probably alcohol and drug abuse. And it`s a home of chaos.

This is a young woman, whether she did this or not, whether he did it or not, where she gave birth to a child at the age of 17 or 18, has had three other children since, is not married. Probably there`s poverty involved. So there are a whole bunch of issues at play here.

GRACE: Sounds to me like you`re making up a lot of excuses.

GARDERE: No, it sounds to me like this is a situation where it`s not about whether he did it or she did it, but what happened in that home? And what were the issues that led to this that led to this situation?

GRACE: That`s not the issue at all. You know what, Jeff? You`re a friend, but that`s complete B.S.

GARDERE: Nancy, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy...

GRACE: What led to the situation?

GARDERE: ... it`s not a situation of just, "She did it." If, for example, she did it, what were the mitigating circumstances? We know of domestic violence.

GRACE: A mitigating circumstance of putting a baby in the microwave?

GARDERE: The mother said that she had black...

GRACE: Yes, OK.

GARDERE: ... the whole history of domestic violence is about manipulation. The whole history of domestic violence is about forcing people to do things that normally they may not do.

GRACE: Second verse, same as the first. Thank you for the list of excuses.

GARDERE: I`m not making excuses here.

GRACE: OK.

GARDERE: This is a very complex issue. It`s not just about somebody killed this baby.

GRACE: Jeff, you know what?

GARDERE: And this happens. This happens all the time.

GRACE: It`s not a complex issue. The issue is: What happened to this baby, this baby named Paris? That`s the issue we`re talking about tonight. I don`t care about the parents or the suspect or...

(CROSSTALK)

GARDERE: But if we don`t look at -- Nancy, if we don`t look at what`s going on in these homes, more of these children will be killed. And we see the statistics increasing every year. So this is a situation of where she may have done it, he may have done it, but something really bad was going on in that house for a long time.

GRACE: You done?

GARDERE: I think so.

GRACE: OK, good.

Out to Mike Brooks, former D.C. cop and on this FBI terrorism task force. You know what, Mike? You`ve seen a lot of child abuse cases. You`ve seen a lot of murder cases, just like me. And I don`t like people suffering from drug problems or alcohol problems, people that don`t have jobs, domestic abuse. But this is about who murdered a 3-week-old baby.

Where do the cops go now? Do you really think they`ve put her in jail and haven`t released the arrest warrant and nobody knows why she`s there?

MIKE BROOKS, FORMER D.C. POLICE: Nancy, you`re dealing with two really stellar performers here to begin with, both Terrell Talley and China. But my sources are telling me that Terrell has cooperated with the police and that apparently he`s not going to be charged, because they don`t believe that he had anything to do with it, has been cooperative with police. I haven`t been able to independently confirm it myself, but he also apparently has taken a polygraph. But I still haven`t independently confirmed that, Nancy.

GRACE: That`s a really good question. Very quickly, to Jon Paul Rion, has your client taken a poly?

RION: She has, and she passed it.

GRACE: So they`ve both passed -- was it a police poly?

RION: No, we ran the test ourselves.

GRACE: Will she submit to a police polygraph?

RION: Well, the test -- let me rephrase that. The test was done by a corrections officer who is certified in doing this.

GRACE: Did the defense pay for the polygraph? That`s what I`m asking. Will you submit to a police polygraph at the police station?

RION: We have been -- initially, China cooperated with the police. They have not come to us. At this point, we need to know what they`re saying. I know what happened. I have...

GRACE: So is that a yes or a no?

RION: I know she didn`t do it.

GRACE: Will she take a poly?

RION: She`s innocent. She`s passed a poly. She`ll take a polygraph. This is not a case where we`re trying to find out what someone else is going to say and then make a defense. I`ve come out pretty straight out and very direct saying that she is innocent.

GRACE: I guess that means she won`t take a poly?

RION: Nancy, I told you that she would take a polygraph. She`s innocent; she`s innocent of this charge; she`s innocent of any charge that deals with her baby. This woman did not hurt her child. That`s what we know; that`s what`s clear.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They told me that it looked like somebody had cooked her. I don`t know why; I don`t know why anybody would do that to her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: A stunning case. A 3-week-old baby girl allegedly cooked to death in the microwave. Back to Rebecca Rose Woodland, you were going to interject?

REBECCA ROSE WOODLAND, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, you know I understand what Daniel was saying. The statement about her saying that it looked like someone had cooked her, maybe that was her interpretation of being microwaved. I mean, that could be possibly the inconsistency there. If the police are going just on that, I really find that a bit odd that that`s all they`re going on. I don`t know what they have here. What do they have?

GRACE: You know what`s odd, Rebecca? That`s not all they`re going on.

WOODLAND: I know.

GRACE: If I were a betting person, I would bet you right now, and we`re going to find out with that preliminary hearing. Let`s go to the lines, Linda in Alabama. Hi, Linda.

CALLER: Hi, friend.

GRACE: How are you?

CALLER: I`m good, you?

GRACE: Yes.

CALLER: My question is a horrific question, but it`s what appears to be a horrific crime. Where was the baby found? Was the baby in the baby bed or...

GRACE: Good question. Pat Lalama, where was the baby found?

PAT LALAMA, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: That is unclear, although the only thing we know for a fact is that the father discovered the child. I don`t have any distinct evidence that the baby was still in the microwave.

GRACE: OK, it`s my understanding that the baby seemed to be sleeping, but we don`t know that. That`s a great question from Linda, and probative as to who did this thing.

Out to Carol in Ohio. Hi, Carol.

CALLER: Nancy, my question is, how long would it take for a baby to succumb to death like this?

GRACE: Right. What about it, Dr. Morrone?

DR. WILLIAM MORRONE, MEDICAL EXAMINER: Seconds.

GRACE: Just seconds, like under a minute?

MORRONE: Seconds. The water content in the human body is 67 percent, and it goes up to hundreds of degrees, intense pain.

GRACE: You know, when you just said the baby could be dead in seconds, that one act over in a few seconds claimed the life of this baby girl. Thank you to all of my guests with me on this case. And like every good trial lawyer, we`ve got to switch files very quickly.

I want to help find a missing nurse. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Say, "Hi, mama."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sixteen-month-old Savannah is too young to understand why her mother is missing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She would be here if she could.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But her grandmother knows something horrible may have taken her away. Nonnie`s family is doing everything they can to find her..

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s mommy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... before her little girl asks where her mother is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: A missing Army nurse disappears here on American soil, leaving behind this little child, a little girl. Let`s go out to the assistant news director with KCOL in Loveland, Colorado, Kevin McGlue.

Kevin, thank you for being with us. What`s the latest?

KEVIN MCGLUE, ASSISTANT NEWS DIRECTOR, KCOL: Well, I`ll tell you what, this is really a story that has led to a lot of dead ends for investigators. Sheriff`s department officials triangulated her cell phone. They found a location near an onramp, close to an onramp, where they thought they were going to find that cell phone, did not turn up a location on the cell phone.

The search dogs that went out thought that they had picked up a scent, did find a scent, but that scent went cold again on an onramp, fairly close to her brother`s home, where the woman had been staying. And you hear new details now coming out that she had been to a line dancing club, a country western bar the night before in Denver and apparently had been bothered by a couple patrons who were there, two men who wanted her to go to breakfast with her, and she had refused, simply refused to go out, finally left that establishment, went back to her brother`s house the next day, planning to run errands, planning to go out and simply have a smoothie, maybe catch up with a couple of friends, and was never seen again.

GRACE: A couple of quick questions, Kevin. Was she on foot?

MCGLUE: You know, that is one of the big mysteries. It`s a situation where she left that 16-month-old girl that you had talked about, Savannah, with her brother at the brother`s home. He was going to watch Savannah along with his own children at that time.

She had left, Nonnie had left the house, but it was not clear whether or not she left on foot or was picked up by friends or by someone else. She had talked about possibly catching up with some of her friends at some point throughout the day, but nobody really knows.

GRACE: But nobody saw her leave in a car?

MCGLUE: Nobody saw her leave in a car.

GRACE: OK.

MCGLUE: And, in fact, the night before when she had gone to the country western bar, she had taken her brother`s vehicle, which he lent to her, but she did not take that vehicle to leave the next morning.

GRACE: To Mike Brooks, former D.C. cop and former fed with the FBI, Mike, a lot of people believe that a dog cannot track you once you get in a car. That`s simply not true.

BROOKS: No, not true at all, Nancy. In fact, they can pick up a scent all the way up -- they`ve got it all the way during the D.C. sniper case for just miles and miles and miles. In fact, they went to one location, it would disappear. We`d come to find out that`s where they would drop the car off everyday and get in the Metro system.

But in this particular case, no, you can pick up a scent. And as we`ve talked about in other cases, this scent can last for quite some time. So, you know, they did track her all the way to an onramp right at 470 and Kipling, which is right close to her brother`s home.

And it`s a very affluent area. I`ve been to that area many times, know that area very well, and very affluent. It just disappeared. You know, was she a victim of a random act of violence, or did she want herself gone, or was she abducted by someone she knew? It still remains a mystery until today, Nancy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Somebody`s got her. Somebody`s got her and doing who knows what, you know, to her. She would be here if she could.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nobody will forget you, Nonnie, and we`ll keep looking for you until we find you, OK? We just want you home. We just want you home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: A young mother and Air Force nurse goes missing, leaving behind an infant child. Back out to Pat Lalama, investigative reporter. Was there any fear that she would be deployed to have to go to Iraq?

LALAMA: No, she didn`t mention that. In fact, she was going to leave the service in March; she was very happy with her position. Nancy, can I just bring up, if you don`t mind, just three things I find interesting? I`d love to know what you think.

There was a gentleman who saw the flyer that you`ve been seeing on camera about her disappearance. And the gentleman called her brother and said, "Oh, by the way, I helped her get away from those two men last night." I thought that was kind of interesting.

GRACE: Anything else?

LALAMA: Well, just a couple of quick things. She was on a Lonely Heart sort of Web site talking about how hurt she was by men, and the father of her child is fighting her with custody matters, and he was just ordered to pay tons of money to her.

GRACE: OK, you know what? The money thing is an issue. The father, biological dad was apparently in Texas, that`s like 1,800 miles away. But you`re right.

And to Mike Brooks, half of America is on a Lonely Hearts Club Web site.

BROOKS: They really are, Nancy. It`s very, very dangerous. You have to be very selective about how you go about selecting a date.

But they`ve also -- the authorities in Jefferson County in Littleton have contacted the authorities in Texas, and they`ve already pulled her computer. They`re going to take a look at her computer. They`re going to look at all her financial records to see if anything of that is out of place. So they`ve already asked for help from the authorities from Texas.

GRACE: We continue with the search for Nonnie Ann Dotson, 33 years old. Info: 303-271-5612.

We stop for a moment to remember Corporal Nicholas Arvanitis, just 22, Salem, New Hampshire, killed, enemy fire Iraq. A guitarist in his high school jazz band, he joined the Army before turning 18. He leaves behind a grieving family, mom, Marine sister Kimberly. Corporal Nicholas Arvanitis, American hero.

Thank you to our guests, but mostly to you, for inviting us into your home. NANCY GRACE signing off for tonight. See you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.

END