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Nancy Grace
Mother Indicted in Baby Microwave Death
Aired December 07, 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. And today, the state announces it will seek the death penalty.
And tonight: She was drunk, drunk on vodka, four times the legal limit. Here`s the problem. She is a 2-month-old baby girl in Colorado who nearly died of alcohol poisoning, vodka in the baby bottle -- also back in court.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 3-week-old baby, and it`s burned to death like that? Come on! You know, that`s crazy. It`s ridiculous. Somebody wasn`t watching the baby. Three weeks old, the baby can`t do nothing, you know? What were you doing, Mom? That`s all I want to know, what was she doing?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHINA ARNOLD, CHARGED WITH KILLING BABY IN MICROWAVE: 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.
Our belief at this time is that the burns which caused the death of Paris Talley could possibly be from an appliance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: China Arnold (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?
ARNOLD: They told me it looked like somebody had cooked her. I don`t know why!
I didn`t kill my baby!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Death by microwave -- it doesn`t even sound real, but it is all too real and in a court of law.
Out to Cathy Mong, reporter with "The Dayton Daily News." The state announces it will seek the death penalty. What happened in court?
CATHY MONG, "DAYTON DAILY NEWS": It was a grand jury today, and they indicted China Arnold on aggravated murder, and also with the death aspect (ph) because it was a child under 13.
GRACE: So I understand the aggravating circumstances, that the victim is a child under 13 years of age?
MONG: That`s right.
GRACE: Let`s go out now to a special guest joining us, a spokesperson for the prosecutor`s office. Bob McCulloch is joining us by phone. Mr. McCulloch, thank you for being with us. It`s always...
BOB MCCULLOCH, PROSECUTOR`S SPOKESMAN: My pleasure.
GRACE: Thank you, sir. It`s always tough to try a mom. Very often, the jury`s innate feelings that a mom would never do anything to hurt their own child gets in the way of a true verdict. Emotions rule the courtroom. How did the office go about deciding to seek the death penalty in this case?
MCCULLOCH: Well, in this case, Nancy, the Montgomery County prosecutor`s office follows a procedure very close to mine, and I know Matt Hack (ph), the prosecutor there, very well. We`ve had a occasion to discuss it on many occasions. So what would have occurred is over the past 15 months, the investigation is -- or the case is investigated from every possible angle to gather as much information as possible as to the cause of death, the manner of death, the circumstances surrounding what went on earlier, later, in between, where the evidence points, to whom it points, to whom it doesn`t point, gather everything you can, even to contact the defense and ask them if they have any information they want the prosecutor to consider.
And when all of that has been gathered and put together, they`ll make certain that there`s sufficient evidence to make a murder first degree case and that special circumstances or the aggravating circumstances set out by the statute exist. And in this case, as you mentioned, that`s that the victim was a child obviously well under the age of 13, and that makes it a death penalty case.
GRACE: Bob McCulloch is with us from the prosecutor`s office. Bob, exactly how old was the baby?
MCCULLOCH: The baby was 28 days old.
GRACE: Also with us tonight, a renowned pathologist, forensic pathologist, Dr. Jonathan Arden. Dr. Arden, how long -- putting a child of this tender age in a microwave and turning the oven on, how long would it take for the child to die?
DR. JONATHAN ARDEN, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, clearly, Nancy, nobody knows the answer to that precisely because nobody has experience with this and nobody can do these experiments. But the only analogies I can make are really going to be fairly graphic, and that`s to cooking things in a microwave oven. If you think about that experience, a small baby is likely to be able to receive severe if not fatal injuries in a fairly short period of time. I would estimate a minute or three, certainly within four, five, six minutes would be more than enough time of exposure to that kind of radiation to cause serious injury, serious damage, and to raise the internal body temperature, which in and of itself could be a harmful or a lethal mechanism.
GRACE: And interesting. Dr. Arden is with us, forensic pathologist. When you put something in the microwave, just common everyday experience is it cooks from the inside out. This child, this baby girl, had no visible signs on her outward body, to my understanding, to show that she had been burned, that she had been harmed in any way.
ARDEN: I think you`ve hit another important point there, which is that the microwaves actually penetrate through the substance of whatever is being exposed to them. It`s different mechanistically from how heat affects things from the outside in, when you think about putting something in an oven versus a microwave oven. The microwaves actually go through and through act on the atomic level to increase the energy, which then causes the changes that we think of as heating and cooking.
And of course, you could then be doing damage internally to organs that are not directly exposed to the heat, and you might not see anything externally. And again, you not only have the damage to the organs, the vital organs such as the heart or the brain that are going to be very susceptible, you also have the effect of raising the internal temperature, which in and of itself can be a way that somebody dies.
GRACE: With me right now is Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst. Bethany, the act of putting a child in a microwave -- it`s -- I`ve never even imagined it before.
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: You know what`s frightening, is parents are the perpetrators in most cases when a child under the age of 5 is killed. And often, when a child is killed, what happens when the mother is the perpetrator is the mother is striking out at the child to get back at the father.
And I wondered -- according to one news report, the dad reports he left the house at about midnight, came back at 6:00 in the morning. And I wonder if that mother placed the child in the microwave, put her finger to the button, threatening the dad, You better not leave, and if the motive was to get back at the dad, a moment of impulse, pressed it for a second, and one second was, of course, a second too long.
GRACE: Let`s go through the facts. Back to Jane Velez-Mitchell, investigative reporter. We know the little girl, 28 days old, was DOA, dead on arrival. Now, according to Dr. Jonathan Arden, our forensic pathologist, to put a child in the microwave and turn it on, the child would be dead in a matter of moments. I`ve heard a range from experts to under a minute to up to three minutes within a microwave would kill a child. All right. So the child is dead when they get to the hospital. The timeline -- what do we know, Jane Velez, happened in the hours before the child was taken?
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, Nancy, the way I understand it is, the mother and the father of this child went out and they left the baby with a baby-sitter, who happened to be the sister of the father. They say they went out, they did whatever they did, they came back and the child was fine. At that point, it gets late in the evening. The father then leaves between 11:00 PM and midnight, and goes out and then comes back at 6:00 in the morning and falls asleep on the couch.
And then he says, when he wakes up, he notices the baby is cold and there`s a bruise on her cheek, and they apparently both take the child to a local hospital in the Dayton area, and the child, as you mentioned, is dead on arrival. So very suspicious behavior in general -- I mean, going out in the middle of the night and then coming back at 6:00 in the morning, unless he had a job. But once again, he is not considered a suspect in this case, the mother is.
GRACE: I want to go back to Bob McCulloch. He`s a spokesperson for the prosecutor`s office. Many months passed before formal charges were handed down. Here in my hand I`ve got what is called your complaint, your bypass (ph) case. And I notice in here, Bob, that on page two, it states that there is physical evidence, to wit DNA. And also in this complaint filed there in Dayton, Ohio, defendant admitted committing the offense to a detective.
So you know, there are a lot of ways to admit to something without making an out-and-out confession, such as, hypothetically, The baby was cold and I wanted to warm it up in the microwave. It could be a myriad of statements that are tantamount to a confession. Do we know what her words were that she stated to the detectives?
MCCULLOCH: Let me say this, Nancy, that no prosecutor involved directly in the case -- and I`m not involved directly in the case, I need to make that clear -- would comment on the evidence...
GRACE: OK.
MCCULLOCH: ... that`s going to go in.
GRACE: Fair enough. Fair enough.
MCCULLOCH: But you`re absolutely correct on that point, that, you know, the statements that may be in that affidavit are conclusions filed by an investigating officer. And any statements she made, if she made any statements will be, of course, developed throughout the trial of the case. And it`ll be up to a jury to decide if they are admissions, if they`re confessions, if they are incriminating statements, if she even made any statements.
GRACE: And I understand -- is she not on bond tonight? No bond, or is there a million-dollar bond?
MCCULLOCH: It`s my understanding that there is no bond in the case.
GRACE: Let`s go out to the lines...
MCCULLOCH: But certainly, she`s confined. If there is a bond, she hasn`t made it.
GRACE: OK. OK. Yes, she is in jail tonight. And very interesting, Cathy -- before I go out to the lines, Cathy Mong is with us of "The Dayton Daily News." What do you know, Cathy, about any alleged statement that is tantamount to a confession and what that DNA may be that helped them identify the mom as the alleged perpetrator?
MONG: Right. This is being held really, really close as far as the information getting out. They want to be sure this is not tried in the press or on television. And what I know is what you just heard. There`s evidently DNA and...
(CROSSTALK)
MONG: Yes.
GRACE: And the defense attorney is with us tonight. He is a veteran trial lawyer in that area. He knows his way around the courtroom, Jon Paul Rion. This is Ms. Arnold`s attorney. Sir, you of course have the right to discovery. You have a right to know what the state is going to bring against you under our legal system. So what is the alleged DNA?
JON PAUL RION, MOTHER`S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: The discovery has not been provided yet. I think the arraignment`s going to be on the 12th, and at that time, we`ll receive the discovery. We are so anxious to receive this discovery because it`s our belief that it will, in essence, vindicate much of what we believe happened on that night as relates to China Arnold.
I`ll repeat it 20 times, there were no admissions in this case. When China was taken into custody initially, she cooperated with the police. She told them what she knew and what she didn`t know. And if that`s what they`re talking about, admission, that she stated that she was there, so be it. But that was the extent of it.
GRACE: Who else was there, Jon? I tried to pin you down on this the other night. But as the evidence has been developed and the state has now stated it is seeking the death penalty on your client, can you tell us, under your theory, who else was at home at the time the child was put in the microwave and baked?
RION: Well, again, they haven`t told us the time of death, so we don`t know what time the child passed away and...
GRACE: Well, hasn`t your client told you who was home?
RION: Excuse me?
GRACE: Hasn`t your client told you who was home?
RION: Well, we know some people that were there during the night for very extended periods of time.
GRACE: Who?
RION: We know the father was there for a period of time. We know the baby-sitter was there. There`s also some neighbors that were around. And this isn`t sort of a suburb, as many of the viewers might see it. This is a different kind of a neighborhood, and there`s people going in and out at a lot of hours during the night.
GRACE: Well, that`s really interesting because the person would have to come in, grab the baby, put the baby in the microwave, cook the baby in the microwave, then put it safely back in its bed to be discovered the next morning.
Another thing I was trying to find out the other night when I spoke with you is, this is a 28-day-old baby, it eats and nurses itself during the night. Was your client breastfeeding?
RION: She was not breastfeeding. And again, we`re not here at this point making accusations against others. We do have some very suspicious statements that have been made by other people in this case. We know, for instance, that the father has made statements contradictory to what the investigators are now saying he said, and we have the witnesses to say that. So we`re sort of curious as to what he`s trying to hide by making different statements to some people as opposed to other people.
But I need to see all the evidence before I start pointing fingers at others. I just know that China is innocent of this. We`ve established it through a series of means, and we`re ready for the fight, and we want this to go to trial.
GRACE: OK. Because you are in for a fight now that the state is seeking the death penalty.
Out to the lines. Cathy in Ohio. Hi, Cathy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. How are you?
GRACE: I`m good, dear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m just kind of curious of what kind of defense they`re planning on mounting with this.
GRACE: Well, it sounds to me like Jon Paul Rion is mounting a -- the "SOD" defense, some other dude did it, because we hear him say -- he`s not going to come out and tell you tonight. We hear him saying that there were several other people in the home, that neighbors had come in and out of the home. Cathy, you know where that`s leading, that somebody else put the baby in the microwave for a couple of moments.
Jon Paul Rion, are you willing to commit to some type of a defense tonight?
RION: Well, again, we don`t know even what the cause of death is. We know that some experts or some people are saying that the child may -- and again, may -- have been put in a microwave. If that happened, that`s a terrible way of death, and I`m awfully curious as to who would have done that. But again, we need to look at all the evidence.
GRACE: Well, hold on. Let`s clear this up. To Bob McCulloch -- he is speaking for the prosecutor`s office. Aren`t you certain of the manner of death? Is there any doubt that the child was placed in the microwave?
MCCULLOCH: I think what`s in the public record right now, Nancy, is that the victim died from hyperthermia and that those injuries -- that`s an elevated body temperature, and those injuries were sustained by the baby having been placed in a microwave oven.
GRACE: And the injuries were internal, correct, Bob? I mean, she wasn`t burned on the outside.
MCCULLOCH: Well, as I said, I would not go into the specifics of the evidence at all, under any circumstances. And the discovery will, of course, be provided to the defendant. And as I mentioned earlier, I assume he was contacted -- the defense was contacted by the prosecutor to say, Look, if you have any exculpatory evidence or anything you want us to consider, either exculpatory or in making our determination as to whether to seek death, then let us know.
GRACE: What about that, Jon Paul Rion?
MCCULLOCH: So I assume that information has been provided.
GRACE: Did you present anything at the grand jury to suggest to the grand jury before they indicted that your client was not guilty.
RION: We offered to meet with the prosecutor and the investigators this week. We offered to meet with them last week. We offered to meet with them...
GRACE: Did you present anything at the grand jury?
RION: Excuse me?
GRACE: Did you put in evidence for your client at the grand jury?
RION: Well, you`re not going to put your client in the grand jury when she`s facing the death penalty.
GRACE: Evidence for your client -- did you put any witnesses or testimony before the grand jury?
RION: We offered to meet with the prosecutor. We offered to share with them our entire case, and that was declined.
GRACE: All right. So I think that means, everybody, no, but that is not unheard of. In fact, it`s very rare the defense does put in evidence at the grand jury phase, not unusual.
Very quickly, to tonight`s "Case Alert." Officials just released results in the autopsy report on James Kim. A San Francisco man, a gadget guru, he struck out alone in blinding snow to save his own family, their car stuck in a remote and snowy road. He was found dead, bringing an end to what authorities called an incredible effort to stay alive to save his family. Cause of death, exposure, hypothermia. His wife, Kati, daughters Penelope and Sabine, miraculously safe, in good condition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Kims did nothing wrong. They thought that they were going on a road that would get them to the direction they were going. James Kim did nothing wrong. He was trying to save his family.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: 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: You would expect internal organs close to the surface to have the appearance of being cooked.
GRACE: What kind of pain would someone suffer from injuries like this?
MORRONE: Burning, terrible burning, excruciating pain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back. The state has announced it will seek the death penalty against the 26-year-old mom charged with death by microwave in the heating death of her child just 28 days old.
Let`s go out to the lines. Tia in Ohio. Hi, Tia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are you, Nancy? How are you?
GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. I would like to know exactly what hard physical evidence does Dayton prosecutors have to determine that this 28- day-old baby was put in the microwave?
GRACE: Oh, number one, we know there`s a coroner`s report, an autopsy report. We know that this coroner brought in experts from around the country to take a look at the child. I know, Tia, that you`ve probably used a microwave before and are familiar with microwaves heating from the inside out. They know that the child had got -- had a high body heat.
How would they know that, Dr. Arden?
ARDEN: ... body temperature, perhaps in the emergency room, perhaps in the death scene, if they did an investigation there. I mean, that`s a pretty simple procedure. Usually, a rectal temperature is done post- mortem.
GRACE: But if the child was DOA, Wouldn`t the child by cold by that time, her body temperature have dropped?
ARDEN: Depends upon how long the child had been since death and also what the ambient temperature was. If the child had an elevated body temperature prior to death, for some period of time thereafter it will remain elevated, if you catch it early enough.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She loved her child more than she loved herself. She wakes up in the morning. She finds -- after the father says that the child (INAUDIBLE) 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Imagine how you`d feel as the child, helpless and trapped inside a microwave!
Let`s go out to the lawyers, Stacy Schneider, Greg Skordas, Greg out of Salt Lake City, Utah, Stacy in the New York jurisdiction. You know, Stacy, don`t you just hate it when your client doesn`t really give a confession stating, Yes, I did it, lock me up, but instead they say things like, I didn`t mean to do it, I didn`t know it would kill the baby?
STACY SCHNEIDER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Those kind of statements, Nancy, are the exact same thing as giving a confession. But I have a lot of problems with this so-called confession that she made in this case because I have in my hand -- and you have it, too, Nancy -- a sworn statement by a detective who investigated this case that China Arnold admitted committing this offense. Now you have her defense attorney saying she at no time made any admission whatsoever that she committed the offense. And that`s going to be a battle de jure in this trial because a sworn statement from a detective and a lawyer on the other hand saying that never happened, I`d like to see how that would shake down in court.
The other thing here is the police are claiming there`s a DNA connection in this case, there`s DNA evidence connecting this woman to committing this crime. What kind of possible DNA can the state have...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: ... asking that earlier. Cathy Mong knows only what we have here. And let me throw this out to Jane Velez-Mitchell, investigative reporter. I mean, the child did not have outward injuries. Do we have any idea what the DNA evidence is?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: No. We do know they seized the microwave. They may have found something inside the microwave itself. And this is a mystery. Nobody knows what the motive is. Why would a mother do this? She apparently very much wanted a baby girl, even though she has three boys.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(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.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Additional evidence that has come our way, additional witnesses have come forward. Our belief at this time that the burns, which caused the death of Paris Talley, could possibly be from an appliance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: As you know by now, a stunning case out of Ohio. A 26-year- old mom charged with death by microwave, her 28-day-old baby girl dead, obviously from heated internal organs. She showed no sign of injury on the outside of her body.
Let`s go back to her defense attorney, Jon Paul Rion, joining us tonight out of Ohio. Question: What does your client do for a living?
JON PAUL RION, ATTORNEY FOR MOM ACCUSED OF MICROWAVING BABY: Well, at the time that this happened, she was going to college full-time, studying psychology at Sinclair Community College. She was also working full-time at a waitress at Bob Evans` restaurant. It seemed like she had her life pretty well together.
GRACE: You know, it really does. How was she handling all that and the mother of three?
RION: She had a strong family support. On your last show, I think her mother, the grandparent of the child, was on, and, you know, her entire family is very supportive. And they also live close to each other.
GRACE: Right. Did she have any problem getting into school or getting a job with a prior conviction?
RION: Obviously not. She was in college. It seemed like things were going well for her, and getting a full-time job and serving the community, as well.
GRACE: How old was she when the abduction of the elderly woman went down?
RION: I don`t know the exact age. Probably 21, I think, but I`m not sure.
GRACE: Now, I`m not quite clear on what happened. It`s my understanding that, in 2000, she approached a 72-year-old woman claiming to have a gun, made the woman give her a ride. Is that basically the extent of it?
RION: It`s better than that. First of all, there are no injuries. She just wanted a ride to the mall. She admitted that. And...
GRACE: Well, has she ever seen one of these, Jon? You just like hold your thumb up or you stand by the street. Or there`s the public bus thing. You know, I take it here in New York. But why would she go up to a 72- year-old lady and tell her you`ve got a gun?
RION: Nancy, what people do in their early 20s, I don`t know, but we`re not here for that.
GRACE: I don`t know. I was at law school with two jobs at that age.
RION: We`re here to make a determination as to whether or not a person can get a fair trial, to make sure she does, and to make sure an innocent person isn`t convicted.
GRACE: That was just a few years ago. She`s only 26 now. She was 21 then.
RION: Nancy, we`re here to make sure an innocent person isn`t convicted of a crime, and we`re here to make sure that a person isn`t falsely charged, falsely convicted.
GRACE: OK, fine, fine, fine.
RION: OK.
GRACE: Jon, did the boyfriend, the baby`s father, did he stay the entire night in the home?
RION: He was there for an awful long period of time.
GRACE: The whole night?
RION: We know that, when she went to sleep, that he was there.
GRACE: OK.
RION: And we know that when she woke...
GRACE: And you know what? We`re going to go straight into a commercial break, OK? I get it. You say he was there for part of the night. Was the baby awake when they got home?
RION: Let me just finish. We also know that she was asleep when he came back. And so those are the facts that we have right now before us.
GRACE: OK. Repeat: Was the baby awake when they got home from their night out?
RION: It depends who you ask, and we`re getting contradictory stories.
GRACE: Well, what does your client say?
RION: Well, again, we`re going to try this case to the jury. And we`re going to let all the case...
GRACE: Did she feed the baby during the night?
RION: We`re going to let all the evidence come out at that time.
GRACE: Did she feed the baby during the night?
RION: Again, Nancy, I`m trying to make sure...
GRACE: OK, never mind. All right. Thank you.
Out to Tammy in Indiana. Hi, Tammy.
CALLER: Hi. My question is: Isn`t it a mother`s responsibility to protect her child? And the other thing, if she was -- she had to be there all night, the way it sounds. Why didn`t she do anything to protect the child?
GRACE: Very good question. Out to Trenny Stovall, Trenny is a child custody advocate and an expert in these matters -- of course, if the mom was asleep, she wouldn`t know what was happening. If this happened while she was out, would the biological dad on their date that night -- she wouldn`t know what was happening. This why I`m trying to nail down, Trenny, was the baby awake when they came home? And did she feed the baby during the night?
TRENNY STOVALL, CHILD CUSTODY ADVOCATE: Very valid questions. Babies have to be fed through the night, so there`s very unlikely that a month-old baby slept for eight to 10 hours, from 10:00 or 11:00 when they got in, to the next morning. That`s unlikely.
Also, the caller makes an extremely good point. A parent has the responsibility to protect their child, responsibility to know who the caretakers are, responsibility if there are people or neighbors in and outside the house. Ultimately, she is a primary caretaker, and she is responsible for what happens to her child in the interim. So I still hold her responsible. Somebody needs to say what happened to this child.
GRACE: Out to Jolene in Pennsylvania. Hi, Jolene.
CALLER: Hi, how are you?
GRACE: I`m good, dear.
CALLER: My question is: Has anyone questioned the children? My understanding is that there were an 11-year-old, 9-year-old and a 5-year- old, or something like that. Has anybody questioned the children as to what happened that evening?
GRACE: Let`s see. They are ages 9, 7 and 4. Out to Bob McCulloch, I know you can`t tell me what these children said, but were they questioned?
BOB MCCULLOCH, SPEAKING FOR PROSECUTOR`S OFFICE: Well, it was over a period of 15 months, or a 15-month investigation. Everybody in or near that place or who had been in or near the place, I can`t imagine they would not have been questioned.
Whether they could provide any useful information or whether they could provide information that could be admitted into court, who knows? But certainly anybody nearby is going to be -- neighbors, people walking past, anybody that the police could find is going to be questioned about what they may or may not have seen, other neighbors, if their adjacent buildings, anybody who could provide any sort of information.
GRACE: And back out to the lawyer, Stacy Schneider and Greg Skordas. Greg Skordas, there is a problem trying to put children on the stand as young as 4 years old, very difficult to put them on the stand, and apparently this happened in the nighttime hours, Greg.
GREG SKORDAS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And it`s also extremely difficult to put them on the stand to testify against their mother. They were probably asleep. They`re certainly going to see their mother across the courtroom crying her eyes out. These aren`t going to be very good witnesses, even if they saw or heard something, especially a 4- or a 7-year-old.
GRACE: Have you ever put a child on the stand, Greg?
SKORDAS: I was the head of the sex crimes unit at the D.A.`s office here, and we had to put children on the stand who were victims of crimes. But that`s a gut-wrenching thing to do.
GRACE: I had to, and I hate it, hate it, hate it, but sometimes you have to, you hate to, to get a verdict that speaks the truth.
Out to Mike Brooks, former D.C. police officer, also with the feds, with the FBI for a period of time. Mike, you know, this investigation went so long, I believe it was 15 months, before a formal arrest was made of the mom. Do you think she spoke to someone? I mean, what could turn an investigation into a death-penalty indictment?
MIKE BROOKS, FORMER D.C. POLICE: That`s a good question, Nancy, but apparently the father of the child, the baby, he was cooperating with police all along and took a polygraph. My question -- and I`d like to ask Mr. Rion -- last time he was on the show, he said that she had taken a private polygraph. Has she taken one by law enforcement? He said that she would. Has she?
GRACE: Mr. Rion?
RION: We offered -- actually after this show, based on your question, we offered to submit to a polygraph. That request was denied.
GRACE: What about it, Bob McCulloch?
MCCULLOCH: Let me correct that. I mean, that can`t go. No, the prosecutor sent him an invitation, saying, "Come in and do it." He declined to present his client for a polygraph.
RION: No, that`s not true. We sent a letter -- I spoke to...
MCCULLOCH: Well, you need to get your record straight.
RION: Well, no, sir, I spoke to the prosecutor myself. We offered to completely cooperate with the prosecutor. We offered to take a polygraph from anyone that they wanted to have take it, and they declined to have that done.
GRACE: You know what? Jon Paul Rion, I would at least get to the bottom of that, because Bob McCulloch, who is speaking for the prosecution office, sounds very firm regarding the polygraph. But you know what? We`re not ending the case tonight, but one thing I want to address is Trial 101.
We keep mentioning motive. Is there ever a motive for harming a child? And also, let`s remember, as we go to break, the state, the prosecution, is not required to go into the minds of a criminal to figure out, what were they thinking? Virtually impossible.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Three ounces of vodka. This is two ounces. This is four. This is only two. This is four. That`s a lot of vodka.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alcohol poisoning. There could be convulsions. There could be hypothermia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back. She was drunk, drunk on vodka, a stinkin` drunk, four times the legal limit, but here`s the problem: She is a 2- month-old baby girl in Colorado who nearly died of alcohol poisoning. Vodka in the baby bottle.
Out to Kevin McGlue, assistant news director at KCOL, we did some research the other night, because I did not believe you could actually smell vodka, all right? Test. Sniff test -- Bethany?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: I can smell it.
GRACE: Ellie? Come here. Yes, you can smell it. And we`re also going to see exactly what three ounces is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, definitely.
GRACE: OK, I had always heard you couldn`t smell vodka. I was trying to give these people the benefit of the doubt.
Also with me, Kevin, baby bottle. Now, see, this is the kind of thing you practice before you do it in front of a jury. Of course, we haven`t done that. I`m not going to even mention O.J. Simpson`s glove debacle. OK, there you go. Right at three ounces, this is what three ounces in a baby bottle is like, OK?
Now, just imagine that mixed with baby formula. Yum, yum. Kevin McGlue, I understand the father was a no-show in court. Tell me about it.
KEVIN MCGLUE, ASSISTANT NEWS DIRECTOR, KCOL: That`s right. They had the preliminary protective proceeding. They had that yesterday. It was moved up. The paperwork was processed more quickly than expected.
But you`re right: The mother showed up; the father did not show up. And what this process is, is basically an opportunity for the parents to contest the removal of their child by El Paso County Human Services. Again, though, they did not contest -- that being the mother -- and her attorney did not contest the child`s removal, but she is hoping to get the child back after the process now moves to mediation and/or a trial in the next 60 days.
GRACE: To Dr. Jonathan Arden, forensic pathologist, Dr. Arden, fetal alcohol syndrome, FAS, can have permanent results, permanent implications for a baby, but typically that`s when the mom gets rip-snortin` drunk during the pregnancy or just before birth. So if that can affect a child for the rest of its life, what can being loaded -- loaded -- do to an infant?
JONATHAN ARDEN, MEDICAL EXAMINER, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Nobody really knows exactly what the effects of having an infant get, as you say, loaded will be. Certainly, we know that alcohol is harmful and toxic, if taken in excess of amounts, just by ordinary adults. We have experience with that. We know that it can kill brain cells.
You have to worry about, in an infant`s developing brain, that not only will you lose brain cells, but you may be disrupting the connections that need to be made for normal development of the brain and its higher cerebral functioning, so there`s a lot of possibilities here.
This, of course, is not quite the same as fetal alcohol syndrome, where the fetus gets exposed to alcohol during the time of development, where the organs are being formed. That is truly a congenital series of malformations with long-lasting and, in fact, usually very serious effects on growth, development, higher brain functions.
GRACE: Let`s take a listen to what the mom has to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH SMITH, MOTHER OF DRUNK BABY: It was a mistake. It was an honest mistake. I had no idea that there was alcohol in the water bottle. I love my daughter to death. I would never do anything to harm her in any kind of way.
She wouldn`t respond. She was just moving her arms and her legs, you know, and her eyes were droopy. I don`t know; she just wasn`t right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Bethany, did you notice how she would not look at the camera when she spoke at all?
MARSHALL: Well, she may have been looking at an off-camera interviewer. But what struck me the most is she said, "I love the baby to death." That always worries me when someone uses that kind of language of their own child.
And what I really wonder happened in this case: Is she the kind of inadequate mother that actually used alcohol to medicate the child because the child was fussy? She went too far, and then, when the child was drunk, she had to cover up by saying that she didn`t know there was alcohol in the bottle. And then, of course, the dad took off at the hospital, so you have two inadequate parents here.
GRACE: To Trenny Stovall, child custody advocate, Trenny, medicating children to make them be quiet, giving them Benadryl or booze or something, is actually a very common form of child abuse.
STOVALL: And I was about to say, illegal. There`s nothing acceptable about that behavior. If you`re not ready to cope with the normal behaviors of children, then you should not have a child. But giving a baby alcohol is never OK.
GRACE: How old is your baby?
STOVALL: My baby is 10 months old.
GRACE: Out to Mike Brooks, former D.C. cop, former fed with the FBI, you know, Mike, the stories are starting to fall apart based on what we`ve heard. Mike, I tried to give the mom the benefit of the doubt. When I looked at this baby bottle, I mean, I just poured it full of three ounces of vodka. You don`t smell a thing, all right?
But think about it, Mike. Even with the nipple on it, the passy (ph), you don`t smell a thing. But, remember, the mom`s story is she opened it up and poured the water in and mixed it with formula, stirred it up really good, and then gave it to the baby.
The stories are starting to come apart. One story is they gave it to the baby in the car at 3:30 in the morning. The other story is a little different.
BROOKS: Yes, the baby became fussy, so what did they do? First of all, Nancy, these people had been living out of their car for a while, recently living with a relative. What did they do, reach around behind the seat to find a bottle? And they`d said, "OK, well, what`s this? I`m going to mix this with formula."
You know, and let`s keep in perspective: She`s 19 years old. Legal drinking age for alcohol in Denver, in Colorado, 21. And the father, he`s a real stellar performer, too, drops them off at the hospital and takes off. Doesn`t even show up for court.
Come on, Nancy. You know, you`re right. She`s giving conflicting stories. You know, this whole thing is falling apart. She should do some jail time, some big jail time.
GRACE: Jane Velez-Mitchell, explain to me what happened in court and why the dad didn`t show up?
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, you know when he went to the hospital, he dropped the mother and the child off, and then took off. And the reason he may not have come back is that the bottle of water that turned out to be a bottle of vodka was supposedly his.
In other words, he goes into the store. She grabs a bottle thinking it`s water. It belongs to the boyfriend. It`s vodka. So he may feel culpable.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: In Florida, Santa Claus definitely gives treats if you`ve been nice, but today Santa`s elves were nabbing the naughty. The elves doubled as an Orange County deputy sheriff. Sheriff Richard Lockman out with a street sign, "Help an Elf: Slow Down," an army of 12 little helpers nabbing Florida`s speed demons. They handed out 180 tickets in one three- hour detail.
Thank you, sheriffs, and merry Christmas.
Everybody, to another story, did a mom give a baby vodka in the bottle? Out to Heather in California, hi, Heather.
CALLER: Hello.
GRACE: What`s your question, dear?
CALLER: I had a quick question. I was just wondering how a baby that small, or any age, can actually take down three ounces of vodka, whether it`s in formula or not, without spitting up, gagging, or anything like that?
GRACE: You know what? I`m stunned, too.
Out to you, Kevin McGlue. Unless it had been over a period of time, I mean, how does the state allege this thing happened? And how much time are these two looking at?
MCGLUE: Well, that`s a great question, because there has not been, still to this point, any arrests connected to this case, which, again as we had talked about previously, maybe they`re trying to build a pattern of abuse, or maybe they just don`t feel that their case is strong enough.
Possibly some food for thought: For a child to consume that much alcohol, was there a tolerance built up? And oftentimes that can happen with a child who may have been subjected to alcohol in the mother`s system while in the womb.
GRACE: Kevin, Kevin, Kevin McGlue, KCOL, you`re scaring me, to suggest a baby has a tolerance to vodka, but I`ll hold that thought.
(LAUGHTER)
Very quickly, let`s stop to remember Second Lieutenant Johnny Craver, 37, McKinney, Texas, killed, Iraq. He left for Iraq the same day he signed papers on a brand new house. He never got to sleep in it. He leaves behind wife, Natalie, three children, Savannah, Caelen and Emma. Lieutenant Johnny Craver, American hero.
Thank you to all of our guests, but our biggest thank you is to you for inviting us into your homes. A special good night to New York friends of the show, with us tonight, Fred and Lynn, Debbie and Ron. I met while they were giving their support to a favorite cause of mine called The Retreat to help save battered women and children.
NANCY GRACE signing off for tonight. See you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
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