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Nancy Grace

State Police Search Home of Local Cop in 4th Wife`s Disappearance

Aired November 01, 2007 - 20:00   ET

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

PAT LALAMA, GUEST HOST: Breaking news tonight in the case of a missing mom, the fourth wife of a veteran police sergeant, who vanishes into thin air in the Chicago suburbs. Multiple police officers, search warrant in hand, swarm the home of 23-year-old Stacy Peterson, Peterson on her way to meet up with family early Sunday but then never seen again, police also taking two vehicles from the family`s driveway. According to reports, the police sergeant claims finding his wife`s car at a local airport the night she vanishes and now says she left on her own. And the investigation goes on in the mysterious death of wife number three. What happened to Stacy Peterson?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just outside Chicago, a police sergeant whose wife disappeared last weekend thinks she ran of with another man. No one has heard from Stacy Ann (ph) Peterson since Sunday. She`s Sergeant Drew Peterson`s fourth wife. The police searched their home today and seized two cars, and they`re reexamining the strange death of his third wife now, who died in a bathtub that had no water in it when the body was found. At the time, her death was ruled an accident.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LALAMA: And tonight: Murder on 5th Avenue, Manhattan, a prominent realtor to the stars and former manager of legendary punk rock band the Ramons found bludgeoned to death inside her exclusive, posh, and well- secured Manhattan high-rise, Linda Stein found lying in a pool of blood in the middle of her living room with blunt force trauma to the head and neck, her death ruled a homicide. No signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle and no burglary. So who killed Linda Stein, and why?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Brash and bold, Linda Stein first made a name for herself as the manager of the legendary punk band the Ramons. She then shifted out of the music industry into the high stakes world of Manhattan real estate. Her daughter, Mandy, made a gruesome discovery. She found her 62-year-old mother dead in a pool of blood on the floor of her penthouse apartment, where she lived alone. Security at 965 5th Avenue is tight. Doormen monitor every visitor. Even the side door is locked. But private detectives were examining this area very closely. Police say there were no signs of forced entry and no murder weapon was found.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LALAMA: Good evening. I`m Pat Lalama, in for Nancy Grace. First tonight, breaking news, police searches go down at the home of a missing mom and police sergeant`s fourth wife.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: State police continue to search for Stacy Peterson, the 23-year-old wife of Bolingbrook police Sergeant Drew Peterson, Stacy last seen Sunday morning by her husband, according to police, Peterson, about 5-foot-2, brown hair, brown eyes, weighing in about 100 pounds, police say Stacy last seen wearing a red jogging suit, this afternoon police reportedly executing two search warrants but say they don`t have an arrest warrant for husband Drew Peterson, who is not a suspect, reports also claiming two cars from the household, a 2002 Pontiac and a 2005 GMC are taken into police custody, Peterson telling the Associated Press he believes Stacy left him for another man but believes Stacy`s safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LALAMA: Lots of brand-new and important information, so let`s flush it out for you first by going to Jennifer Golz of "The Naperville Sun." Put it in perspective for us, Jennifer.

JENNIFER GOLZ, "NAPERVILLE SUN": Well, it seems like we`re already starting to have some conflicting reports from the husband based on now what`s going on. And just earlier, maybe even as short ago as, you know, 12 to 24 hours ago, police were making a plea for Stacy to contact them, almost as if they believed she`s still out there, she -- you know, Just please call home. Please make sure you`re OK. But then today, they go ahead and execute these search warrants. So it definitely sent a different message this afternoon as to what direction this investigation may be going.

LALAMA: Very interesting. Jon Leiberman from "America`s Most Wanted," what can you tell us about these search warrants?

JON LEIBERMAN, "AMERICA`S MOST WANTED": Well, Pat, right now, state police are going through the Peterson vehicles. They`ve also been through the home and taken some things out of the home. What they want to know, Pat, is which of two scenarios is at play here. Number one, of course, that Stacy left, she was upset with her marriage, she wanted to leave and that she took up with another man and left. Family and friends say, though, that`s unlikely because she was a great mother. She has two little kids, and she wouldn`t have been done that.

The other scenario, of course, Pat, the much scarier scenario, did she meet with foul play? And is her husband involved? What scares me, Pat, is this document right here. This is the order of protection that Drew Peterson`s third wife took out against him shortly before she was found dead in the bathtub. Let me just read you, if I can, Pat, one quick...

LALAMA: I`ll tell you -- I`ll tell you what. I want to hear all about that. Don`t put that thing down. But let`s just go back to a couple of things happening right now, and then we`re definitely going to get into that.

Kathy Chaney from "The Chicago Defender," there`s a new search location tonight, is there not?

KATHY CHANEY, "CHICAGO DEFENDER": They`re searching a retention pond by the Bolingbrook airport that is near the couple`s home, so they have a dive team that`s out there searching around that perimeter.

LALAMA: Do they have any reason to go there, or are they just taking a wild guess?

CHANEY: Well, the police are being tight-lipped about what they`re looking for and what they have found, so it`s a big mystery for us.

LALAMA: Heather from Missouri. You have a call. How are you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I was wondering, why isn`t he named a suspect? And what -- have they checked into what happened to wife number one and wife number two?

LALAMA: I`m sure they`re going to do that. Mike Brooks, why don`t they name him as a suspect at this point?

MIKE BROOKS, FORMER D.C. POLICE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, apparently, they don`t have enough right now to name him as a suspect, Pat. But they had enough -- there was something during this investigation that came up that would lead them to this house to execute the search warrant on the house and to seize these two cars. And also, there had to have been some information, maybe the fact that her -- that -- which I find ironic -- he found the car at the airport...

LALAMA: Right.

BROOKS: ... and it`s not too far from where this retention pond is that they`re looking in tonight.

LALAMA: Let`s go back to that car at the airport story. He`s claiming that he actually, after speaking to her on Sunday night and felt she was leaving him, that he went to the airport and found her car.

Jennifer Golz, what can you tell us about that?

GOLZ: (INAUDIBLE) off the phone with Illinois State Police shortly before this, and they said that, no, the car was at the home.

LALAMA: Very interesting.

GOLZ: So there`s conflicting reports.

LALAMA: OK. All right. So authorities are saying the car was at the home...

GOLZ: Yes.

LALAMA: ... which conflicts with his story. All right. And now, what about questioning? We know that he has been not named as a suspect, but what happened today? Did the police want to speak with him? And did that actually happen?

GOLZ: They did speak with him. When they executed the search warrant this afternoon, they did take him in for questioning, and that`s all it is. As far as my understanding, he is at home currently now.

LALAMA: But he did answer questions.

GOLZ: Yes. And police have said all along that he has been cooperating.

LALAMA: OK. Kathy Chaney, you know, he apparently has said that his wife was troubled over the death of her sister, that she was taking some medication to help her depression, that he thought she might be leaving with another man. These are all reports and interviews he`s done. Do you know anything -- have you been able to scour that town and find out? Did anybody think that she was depressed?

CHANEY: No. Her family members are saying that they`ve had some trouble in her marriage. She did talk about some abuse. But it`s unclear whether it was mental or physical abuse. But she wouldn`t leave her kids. She would not leave her kids at all.

LALAMA: All right. Joanie from Texas. A question?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I want to know if they`ve looked into the past to see if there was any kind of domestic violence from the neighbors, and from police to see if there`s anything to lead them to follow to be -- for her to become missing.

LALAMA: Well, John Leiberman from "America`s Most Wanted," that kind of goes into this issue of the restraining order on the last wife. Now, there are family who say that she was very unhappy, that they weren`t having a happy marriage. We know that the third wife died. But it -- he was not attached to that. It was ruled an accident. But now you have the actual wording from the restraining order. Can you give us some insight into marriage number three?

LEIBERMAN: Absolutely. Marriage number three, very rocky. And right now, prosecutors are going back because wife number three was found in a bathtub. It was ruled that she drowned. There was no water in the tub at the time that she was found. And now prosecutors are going back to see if, indeed, the accidental death ruling was the correct ruling, or if it was something more sinister than that.

Let me read you this, though. The order of protection filed by wife number three shortly before she was found dead says this. "He wants me dead, and if he has to, he will burn the house down just to shut me down." I`m reading from the court document now. It says, "I believe he will do this to me. He just doesn`t care if he lives or dies or if I live or die." That`s a scary document, Pat.

LALAMA: All right. Let`s make sure that people understand that is wife number three. We`re not talking about the current wife, who we are still trying to find.

Daniel Spitz, medical examiner, what are they going to be looking for in the house and in the car? What`s important?

DR. DANIEL SPITZ, MEDICAL EXAMINER, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, any kind of blood evidence is going to be important, any potential weapons, other evidence. You know, DNA and trace evidence is going to be difficult because, obviously, he lives in the home and it`s not going to be that helpful. But any kind of blood or body fluids, anything to indicate some kind of foul play occurred. But it doesn`t look like they likely found much, and there may be a separate crime scene, if, in fact, there is a crime scene.

The big thing here is that that wife number three, people don`t just drown in the bathtub unless there`s some underlying medical condition. So that really, really concerns me.

LALAMA: Yes, well, it is being -- it`s being re-looked at, which is important. But again, we have to distinguish that, you know, that is a different wife. But obviously, it`s important stuff, which brings me to Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst. You know, we do have to look at the big picture without convicting someone before they`ve ever been charged. But what`s important? What stands out to you here?

BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: The big picture, I understand from the wires that wife number three found out that he was cheating, and when she would question him, he would beat her. Wife number four, according to a relative, said he was following her around. She wasn`t allowed to have friends. She couldn`t have a social life. She always had to be with him.

That`s a pattern of having to control a woman. Did he marry her because she was 30 years younger? She was 17 and he was 47 when they married. As she started to get older and she was no longer under his control, did he start to become destabilized and then tried to control her even more. And I think it`s really important to note that pathological jealousy is often a precursor to homicide.

LALAMA: Very interesting. Paul Henderson, prosecutor, Julia Morrow, defense attorney, and Richard Herman, defense attorney, we`re going to let you guys have at it. Let`s start with Paul. Your take on the events today, in terms of the searches and what that means, you know, to our viewers when the cops go in with their search warrant.

PAUL HENDERSON, PROSECUTOR: Well, it`s pretty ominous. And right now, you know, my heart goes out not just the to the missing woman but her friends and family, too, because they`re really victims, too.

Let me tell just you, now, they may not be calling him a suspect right now, but judges and prosecutors are not in the habit of issuing search warrants like this in order to exonerate people. Given the history and the pattern of behavior that he`s got in the past, this doesn`t look like it`s moving in a very positive direction for the missing woman and her family. I think he`s got some tough questions to answer.

LALAMA: Let`s hear from counsel on the other side. Julie? Or excuse me, it`s Julia. Got that wrong. Forgive me.

JULIA MORROW, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: OK.

LALAMA: I didn`t have my glasses on. Go right ahead, Julia.

MORROW: That`s OK. Well, actually, I`m that concerned about these search warrants. I mean, that was Stacy`s house, too.

LALAMA: Yes?

MORROW: No, she lived there. She`s an adult. That`s her home. She`s a missing person. And they think that, you know, her home might yield clues as to where she is. I don`t think that necessarily means that they`re solely focused on him right now.

LALAMA: What do you think, Richard?

RICHARD HERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, first of all, I hope she`s OK. But you know, if you look at her, those eyes remind me of that Jennifer Willbanks a little bit. But I`m not going there right now.

LALAMA: Is that the runaway bride you`re talking about?

HERMAN: Yes, something like that. But listen to me. You know, you read from that order of protection that was issued for wife number three, but if you read a little further, you`ll see that that order of protection was taken out seven days later on consent. It was destroyed. So that meant nothing.

LALAMA: Jon Leiberman, is that true?

LEIBERMAN: That`s correct.

LALAMA: Is that true, Jon Leiberman from "America`s Most Wanted"?

LEIBERMAN: That is the case. But there was a follow-up order, as well, that makes even more allegations against Drew, as well.

LALAMA: All right. You know, I want to ask Kathy Chaney real quickly -- you know, is it -- what do we know about this depression, about their marriage? I mean, are people in that community talking or are people afraid to talk because it`s just too incendiary, at this point?

CHANEY: People are saying that they see the couple all the time. Couples have their ups and downs. But they walk around the community with the kids. They pet the dog. They just look a regular happy couple.

LALAMA: Mike Brooks, do you agree or disagree that search warrants are -- I mean, you know, is this -- does it look bad? It`s a good point made that it was her house, too, but what does this tell you when we`re moving in with search warrants?

BROOKS: Well, it has to be signed by a judge, Pat. And one of the other things -- some of the other thing`s they`re possibly looking for that -- you know, maybe to help this guy`s story that there was another guy, is going in and taking a look at the computer -- they probably shared a computer -- any kind of phone records that they have had on her from her cell phone, to see if she had any communication with some other guy, as he`s claiming. And also, what kind of communication did they have between each other over the computer while he`s at work, when she`s at work, those kind of things. Those are some other things they`re going to definitely be looking for.

LALAMA: Bethany Marshall, I think it is fair to analyze her, as well. You know, she was very, very young when she started dating him. He was married. She was 17. He claims she checked it out with his department to make sure there wasn`t anything illegal about it, forget, you know, the fact that he was married. But you know, and obviously, losing a sister is a horrible thing. Is it possible that she could be vulnerable, that she could be the kind of person that picks up and leaves and decides, I`m out of here?

MARSHALL: Well, you also have to remember that her own mother disappeared, and so she was very vulnerable and alone in the world. And perhaps that`s why he chose her, because he could assume power over her. If they came to me for treatment, she was young and vulnerable, increasingly depressed, and he said, Oh, she`s depressed, her mother ran away, she`s cheating, I would assume that he was trying to discredit her to have control over her, to triumph over her and to degrade her, which often is a precursor to homicide or at least the type of abuse that leads to homicide.

LALAMA: Prosecutor Paul Henderson, are you buying that? I mean, I`m just wondering, maybe -- you know, people get up and leave all the time. But do you smell something differently here?

HENDERSON: I smell something a lot differently. And this is one of my concerns. What I can`t stand to see is for the shift of blame to start changing. And we`re not going to start denigrating the victim here because she`s the one that`s missing. She`s the one that`s talked about a history of abuse. She`s the one that`s indicated to people that there was this pattern of abuse going on in her marriage and that she was unhappy. She`s the one with two kids at home, that by all accounts was a good mother and invested in her family and in her kids.

And now that she`s missing, I do think it`s an unfair comparison to try and say out of the blue, maybe she was having an affair and she`s disappeared. That`s not what happened. I don`t think that when we start getting answers in this case, after those search warrants get executed and they investigate what`s going on in that house and in those cars, I don`t think the road is going to lead us to her being in Mexico on vacation with someone. I think she really is missing, and I hope they find her, but I don`t think that she left on her own volition, based on the facts so far.

LALAMA: Julia, very quickly. What`s your response to that?

MORROW: Very quickly, he`s calling her a victim. We don`t know that she`s a victim right now. Shifting blame? Well, why are we blaming the husband? We don`t know anything. There`s...

LALAMA: Do you feel...

MORROW: ... no evidence of foul play.

LALAMA: ... he`s being blamed? Is he being ostracized unfairly, do you think?

MORROW: Well, I think, unfortunately, everyone looks to the husband when a wife disappears.

LALAMA: And that`s fair. Statistically, that`s fair.

MORROW: Well, it might be statistically fair, but the bottom line is this case alone, there`s no evidence of foul play right now. That woman wanted out of that marriage in the worst way. And her own parents abandoned her when she was young. And unfortunately, sometimes there`s a vicious cycle with abuse and neglect and she might have taken off. She`s been known to take off before, he told the police.

LALAMA: Richard...

MORROW: So we don`t know right now.

LALAMA: Richard, are you with your colleague there, Julia, on this one?

HERMAN: I am, Pat. She`s also the one taking psychotropic drugs for depression. She has a history of taking of herself. Her mother voluntarily took off and has been gone for eight years. Come on. This is probably what happened here. There`s a 30-year difference in this marriage, and it probably went bad. And you know, I hope she`s OK. I`m saying that up front. I really -- I hope she`s safe and OK. But it looks to me like she took off on her own.

LALAMA: OK.

To "Case Alert." Texas police search for answers in identifying a little girl whose body was found stuffed in a plastic storage box on a remote Galveston Bay island. It`s a girl named baby Grace, a white female between the ages of 2 and 5, weighing just 25 to 30 pounds with blond to light brown hair. She was found wearing a pink or red shirt, matching skirt, and sneakers with pink flowers. The body apparently in that box for several weeks. An autopsy reveals the unidentified girl had multiple skull fractures. If you have any information, call Galveston County police at 409-766-2222.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Breaking news. Reports Illinois State Police are executing search warrants at the home of Drew Peterson, his wife, Stacy, last seen Sunday morning, never heard from again. Police cars, K-9 units and helicopters swarm the area, police reportedly executing two search warrants. They say they don`t have an arrest warrant for husband Drew Peterson, who is not a suspect. Reports also claiming two cars from the household, a 2002 Pontiac and a 2005 GMC, are taken to police custody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LALAMA: I`m Pat Lalama, in for Nancy Grace, and we`re keeping you well informed because we understand there`s some new information about what was taken from the Peterson house. Jennifer Golz, can you fill us in on that?

GOLZ: On a press release that we have that I`m just trying to pull up right now, says that part of the search warrant executed included both their vehicles, as well as personal computers and cell phones from the Peterson household.

LALAMA: Mike Brooks, what are they going to get from that kind of stuff?

BROOKS: Oh, they`re going to -- there`s a lot of information you can get from that. You can look at any patterns, who they were talking to, what the -- kind of the tune (SIC) of it was. You know, was there -- was there a lot of anger back and forth between them? And again, this person he`s claiming that she ran off with -- was there any communication with some strangers that he doesn`t know or maybe her family members don`t know, either?

LALAMA: Jon Leiberman, I myself am a former correspondent for "America`s Most Wanted," and I know how you work these cases. And you rely on the public, and the public could be incredibly helpful in this.

LEIBERMAN: Oh, absolutely. Did they see anything? Did they hear anything? And another thing that they`re looking for in those cell phones and computers is to construct a timeline and to see if Drew Peterson`s story about talking to his wife at 9:00 o`clock on Sunday night, and then - - you know, to see if that all adds up to either corroborate his story or contradict it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: State police continue to search for Stacy Peterson, the 23-year-old wife of Bolingbrook Sergeant Drew Peterson, Stacy last seen Sunday morning by her husband, according to police. This afternoon, police reportedly execute two search warrants on Peterson`s home, Peterson telling the Associated Press he believes Stacy left him for another man but believe`s Stacy`s safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LALAMA: I`m Pat Lalama, in for Nancy Grace. Kathy Chaney, I understand that there were also dogs at the residence today. What do you know about that?

CHANEY: Right, the cadaver dogs. They`re searching the perimeter of the house, and that`s something exactly that her father wanted to do yesterday. He said that he doesn`t believe the story that Peterson is saying and he wants the home searched. He wants the areas around the home searched. So it looks like that that`s what they`re doing, having the cadaver dogs around the home, searching.

LALAMA: Dr. Daniel Spitz, how important are those cadaver dogs in the way of forensic evidence?

SPITZ: Well, they`re going to help you find any type of human remains. That`s what they`re trained to do. And obviously, this case is not going to be prosecutable, really, unless you find the woman`s body, if, in fact, she is deceased. So the sooner her body is found, if this involves foul play, then the more information you`re going to get and the more successful you`re going to be in figuring out what happened to her.

LALAMA: Mike Brooks, what have we got if they absolutely find no shred of anything in the way of blood or any kind of, you know, body fluids? Then what do the police do?

BROOKS: Well, one of the other things they`re probably looking for inside the house today, too, is also a sign of a struggle. They`re looking also on those computers for financial information, those kind of things. And let me just talk about the dogs for just a second. There are cadaver dogs, but there are also other dogs that I know the Illinois State Police has the capability of getting, and these are scent dogs, to see if there is any scent of hers that leads anywhere outside of the home and maybe where they could follow to where it ended and then pick it up from there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cars connected to the house are impounded for forensic examination as part of the police action today. Authorities would not say what they were looking for in the house where the couple lives with their two children and two older sons from a previous marriage of Sergeant Peterson. Stacy Peterson is his fourth wife.

The police searched for clues extended to nearby Clow Airfield in Bolingbrook, where police divers took to the water. Sergeant Peterson is a licensed pilot, but officials at the airfield say that police checked their records and found no indication that he or Stacy Peterson had flown through there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LALAMA: I`m Pat Lalama in for Nancy Grace. And poor Michelle has been waiting a long time from Alabama. Michelle, what question do you have for us?

CALLER: Yes, I would just like to know, since this man whose wife is missing, since he is a police officer and, you know, police officers do consider themselves brothers, if he`s going to get a lot of slack from the other cops?

LALAMA: Well, let`s ask Paul Henderson that question, and then perhaps Mike Brooks. Paul, as a prosecutor, you know, you hear people say, you know, there`s a code of silence. You know, do you think that`s going to play into this, if, in fact, he`s guilty of anything, which there is no evidence he is?

PAUL HENDERSON, SAN FRANCISCO DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Well, I don`t think that you`re going to find that taking place in the case like this, and here`s why. This is a case of national attention already, and it`s a big publicity scene around the house and around this investigation, in part just because he is a police officer.

So people are going to be crossing their t`s and dotting their i`s as they investigate every detail of this story. And I think that`s why you see law enforcement being so careful not to call him a suspect yet until the investigation is complete and they have specific evidence, which is what they`re collecting now, and they come forward to the public, because the public and the media is going to want to know what`s going on and be kept updated.

LALAMA: Mike Brooks, I`m curious what you think, since you`ve spent so much time on many levels of law enforcement. You know, you think, oh, are they all going to surround and protect? Or, you know, I like to believe they`re going to do the right thing, again, if, in fact, he`s guilty of anything, which we don`t know.

MIKE BROOKS, FORMER D.C. POLICE: No, Pat, I think they`re doing the right thing. Bolingbrook has -- they`ve basically recused themselves of this case. The whole case is being handled on the investigative side and the evidentiary side by the Illinois state police, and they don`t play those favoritism games whatsoever.

LALAMA: Lorraine in Texas, what`s your question?

CALLER: Yes, that`s pretty much the point of my question, is why would he say such a thing like that?

LALAMA: Say such a thing as?

CALLER: As calling her, referring to her as she`s got wild eyes, like the runaway bride did.

LALAMA: OK, Richard Herman, you`re being chastised for referring to her as someone who seems like the runaway bride. How do you plead?

RICHARD HERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Look, I plead that this woman is taking medication for depression.

LALAMA: But there`s nothing wrong with that. That doesn`t make her crazy.

HERMAN: There`s nothing wrong with that, but there`s also no evidence of any foul play. There`s no evidence that he did anything to her physically. And there`s a history in the family of running away. She has her own history of running away. There`s a 30-year difference in the marriage. And, you know, these cadaver dogs outside the house, this guy is...

LALAMA: Don`t you think it`s a little unfair to imply that she`s kind of like wild-eyed and nuts?

HERMAN: I didn`t mean to go to that length there. I just said it was a similarity. You can go with it as you want. You can weigh that how you want. I`m just saying a little similarity there, that`s all.

LALAMA: Let`s see what Julia thinks about that, Julia?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Richard, I`m going to represent you. I`m here for you, Richard. First of all...

LALAMA: You guys stick together, don`t you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, Richard`s just trying to make light of what could be a terrible situation or could turn out to be a runaway bride type of situation. And I didn`t find it offensive at all, if that`s what I`m being asked about here. But I do agree with him in every respect about this woman`s history and how it is totally plausible at this point, because there`s no evidence of foul play, that she took off.

LALAMA: Paul, if you were in court and, you know, the defense counsel said that, would you scream and yell?

HENDERSON: I would jump up and make a whole scene, because, of course, we do have indications that something is wrong. First of all, one of the things that law enforcement is going to look at is she had specific plans to meet her family that she didn`t keep. Now, there was nothing going on between her and her family. They had a very good relationship by all accounts. So that`s a good indicator that something is wrong, something is awry.

And the only information that we have about her possibly running off with someone is coming from the person who is not yet named as a suspect yet, but the person that the search warrant was executed on. And I think if you look at the totality of the circumstances, you start getting a clearer picture, but there may be foul play involved. And this person is, I consider, a victim.

HERMAN: Pat, they haven`t named him a suspect because they don`t want his constitutional rights to take over. They want to keep talking to this guy. They don`t want have to Mirandize him. They don`t want him to lawyer up.

LALAMA: Mike Brooks, what do you think about that?

BROOKS: Well, I will -- it`s one of the few times I will agree with Richard. And...

LALAMA: I`m going to make note of that, OK?

BROOKS: Please do, one of the very few times, but that`s true. But there, again, he doesn`t have to continue being cooperative with them. And one of the other things that I would do, if they haven`t already done this, put him on the box, give him a polygraph, polygraph him about his third wife and the missing wife.

LALAMA: Karen in Texas, what`s your question, my dear?

CALLER: Yes, I have a question. They`re going to be checking on what he has said about her having a boyfriend and running away with him, but have they checked him about having a boyfriend, I mean, having a girlfriend?

LALAMA: Having a girlfriend? Jon Leiberman from "America`s Most Wanted," have we heard anything about what he`s been up to? Does he have somebody on side, the caller is wondering?

JON LEIBERMAN, CORRESPONDENT, "AMERICA`S MOST WANTED": Well, her family and friends have indicated that maybe he does, based on his past relationships and the fact that he met his fourth wife when he was still with his third wife. So based on the past, if you can predict the present and the future, then yes.

But where did we go wrong that all of a sudden we`re not giving the benefit of the doubt to this 23-year-old girl? That`s what she is. She is a missing woman right now.

LALAMA: But we also have to give the benefit of the doubt to the person who hasn`t yet been charged.

LEIBERMAN: Absolutely. That`s fine and everything. But let`s at least have a little bit of compassion. This 23-year-old woman as of right now is a missing woman. We need to do everything we can to bring her home or to get some information about her whereabouts.

LALAMA: Bethany Marshall, you want to weigh in on this, how we`re looking at this gentleman?

BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Well, it looks like they are trying to bring him home. They`re looking in the pond. I mean, it`s not like nobody`s looking.

And I`m going to back up Richard Herman a little here, since he is my friend, to say that, if she`s left of her own volition, and, of course, that is a possibility, where could she have gone? I mean, one place she could be is in a safe house, because if she`s there, they`re not obligated to tell the authorities or media or anyone where she is, although it`s unlikely if they`re watching TV that they would not disclose to somebody where she is.

And I would also wonder, women are at the greatest risk of homicide when they`ve threatened to leave a relationship. Who did she talk to prior to leaving on Sunday or whatever happened? Did she tell him she wanted out of this relationship? Is it on an e-mail or in a conversation?

LALAMA: The family has implied that she was unhappy and wanted out.

Tina from Idaho, what`s your question?

CALLER: I was wondering why they don`t spray the inside of the house with Luminol to see if more went on?

LALAMA: Mike Brooks, Luminol?

BROOKS: It`s a good possibility. And as a search warrant, if they thought there was any kind of sign of struggle, they probably would go in there with Luminol looking for any kind of blood. Even with Luminol, you can be in your kitchen and just be working with a steak, that kind of thing. It can just little bits of blood spatter, Luminol will show up, as well as if there was a crime scene and he tried to clean it up.

LALAMA: Dr. Daniel Spitz, if they should indeed -- and let`s hope it`s not true, that they should find this body in this canal, how does a body being submerged in water affect someone who has a job like yours?

DANIEL SPITZ, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, it does hinder some of the evidence that we can recover. The most it does, really, is prevent trace evidence and it hinders DNA evidence collection. It shouldn`t really hinder determination of the cause and the manner of death.

LALAMA: Jennifer Golz, could you tell us, what is it that the family has said about their daughter`s relationship with this man?

GOLZ: There`s e-mails that are being released from family and friends, some of which we received this evening, stating in there that she had written, "As I age, I realize that I may be in an abusive relationship."

LALAMA: Whoa. OK, we`ve got to weigh in on that. Paul Henderson, what does that mean to you as a prosecutor?

HENDERSON: Well, it means to me as a prosecutor that you have to look at the history, because we`re talking also about an individual with a pattern of failed marriages that includes yet another or yet a dead wife. I mean, that seems pretty ominous to me that we`re getting messages like this from someone who is saying that she`s in an abusive relationship that has plans with her family, that has disappeared.

They don`t know where she is. She hasn`t spoken to her family and friends, whom she was in contact with regularly and had no reason to break off contact with. I think all of this just sounds pretty bad. And I think we`re looking at an investigation that`s going to raise some pretty serious questions for him as a suspect in the very near future.

LALAMA: It takes a lot for a woman to leave her children, and we don`t know about her relationship with her children, but it`s a tough one to swallow.

When we come back, a prominent realtor to the stars found beaten to death inside her own exclusive Fifth Avenue Manhattan apartment.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sixty-two-year-old real estate broker and one-time rock music manager Linda Stein found bludgeoned to death. Residents of this Upper East Side co-op are shocked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I find it very hard to believe that someone got murdered here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The question is, why? A team of NYPD detectives are trying to find that out. She was a prominent New Yorker with a lot of high-powered acquaintances and friends. Over a 30-year period, she transitioned from successful manager of the Ramones to real estate broker with a rolodex of clients that included celebrities, among them Madonna.

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LALAMA: I`m Pat Lalama in for Nancy Grace. This is a real shocker. And I want to go right to Eric Williams from WBAI Radio, give us the latest on this story.

ERIC WILLIAMS, REPORTER: Well, Pat, good evening.

LALAMA: Hi.

WILLIAMS: Police are still investigating this as we speak. I had spoken to DCI, better known as the deputy commissioner for public information at the NYPD, and they say that they are leaving no stone unturned in this case. This news has sent shockwaves throughout the real estate community in this town. As most of you all can imagine, real estate is to New York what steel was and is to Pittsburgh.

Right now, what they are doing, what the police are saying, that`s what they`re doing at the moment, is that they are canvassing, they`re looking at the surveillance video. They`re questioning right now, still be up, seven construction workers who were on the scene, who were doing roof work, as well as work in the lobby, that police are on top of this and trying to get -- they`re trying to find out what the motive might be. Right now, they don`t have any suspects on hand, and they don`t have a motive.

LALAMA: It`s really amazing.

And, you know, Jon Leiberman, I`ve got to ask you, you know, this was a really secure building. You had a number of staff members. It seems to me there has got to be a witness if, in fact, there are people manning each door in order for you to get anywhere, to get two inches inside this building.

LEIBERMAN: Yes. And you would think, Pat, that there has to be some clues on these surveillance cameras, too. There are dozens of them, both outside the building and inside. And the strange thing about a motive, nothing was missing from her apartment at all, so we don`t think robbery was a motive.

In fact, when police arrived, they had first thought that Linda had just slipped and fallen, because she was laying in a pool of blood, and she had a sweatshirt hood over her head. And when police pulled back the hood, they saw the blunt force injuries to her skull, to her neck and to her head. And that`s when they knew this was murder.

But you`re absolutely right. We`re asking people to go to our Web site at AMW.com. If you saw anything, tell us, because we need to help her family, you know, get some justice here.

LALAMA: Absolutely. And you just caught me looking at her list of incredibly high-profile clients. I`m telling you, this is like -- talk about the glitterati here. Madonna, all right, in fact, I think she did her first deal with her. Here`s Sting. OK, Steven Spielberg, the list goes on and on, Bruce Willis, the list goes on and on. And as a matter of fact, Michael Douglas there, her daughter, the daughter that discovered her -- Angelina Jolie -- her godfather is Elton John. I mean, we are talking about some really high-profile people.

And I want to go right to Mike Brooks, because where do we begin? I mean, it sounds like it`s got to be someone who knew her. Am I way out in left field on that one?

BROOKS: Well, someone that either knew her or someone who she was familiar with, because they even have an elevator operator, Pat, in this building, and the elevator goes directly to the apartment. So what the detectives are going to do right now, they`re going to do a canvas of the entire building, of everyone who`s there, what they heard, what they saw.

And, you know, it`s right there on Fifth Avenue between 78th and 79th. All the other buildings there, too, have security cameras. So I`m sure they`ve pulled them. They`re taking them, going over them with a fine- toothed comb.

But the canvas is important and, also, talking to everybody who was on duty at the time, even all the other people who were on other shifts. There`s a super and whomever, they need to talk to them to find out if she had any enemies whatsoever.

LALAMA: Yes, and you know what? I mean, I`ve got to believe like any kind of forensic evidence is all they`re going to have is -- we`ll get to Daniel Spitz on that on the next block. I mean, it`s just shocking. And the timeline is unclear at this point, too, and we`ll get into that a little bit later.

Right now, we`re going to take you to that special, special series tonight, "CNN Heroes."

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, we all ready?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready to go.

ASHLEY JUDD, ACTRESS: For me, a real hero definitely has some sort of spiritual charge. I`m Ashley Judd, and Kate Roberts is my hero, because she has a very clear vision, which is a world free of HIV.

KATE ROBERTS, YOUTHAIDS FOUNDER: In the `90s, I was working for a leading advertising agency in Eastern Europe. I became a sort of expert youth marketer.

JUDD: By her own description, her job was to sell soda pop, bubble gum, and cigarettes to 12-year-olds.

ROBERTS: I decided to take a vacation. I went to South Africa. I saw a funeral on every corner, and I was told that one in four 14-year-old school girls were already infected with HIV. I remember the hairs going up on the back of my head. I just knew that I had to do something.

The idea of YouthAIDS was really to use Hollywood and the music industry and corporate America to reach the world`s youth with a lifesaving message.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Protect yourself, protect your friends, protect everyone`s future.

JUDD: Kate devotes her energy into making positive lifestyle choices hip, slick and cool.

ROBERTS: We have a lot of products that we are marketing and selling around the world to raise money for our programs. This is the famous (INAUDIBLE) campaign, see no evil. We have two types of tags, military style.

And then there is the actual work in the field to get people to protect themselves. What I`m doing now is selling life. It`s no different than marketing a can of soda.

If you really want to make something happen, you can make it happen. If you`ve just got the drive and the passion, it really is as simple as that.

JUDD: To see what Kate has done has been very inspiring to me. She`s relentless.

ROBERTS: Our larger mission is to change behavior worldwide, really put AIDS on the map, and make it cool to care.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LALAMA: All right, I want to go right to Doris in Kentucky. Hey, Doris.

CALLER: Hello.

LALAMA: What`s you got?

CALLER: I was just wondering if she had an ex-husband or a boyfriend?

LALAMA: OK. Eric Williams, do you know, ex-husband, boyfriend?

WILLIAMS: Yes. As a matter of fact, police and what`s been published here in the city is that she did have an ex-boyfriend, a man who she dumped last year, who apparently still wouldn`t peel off from that relationship. And this guy apparently would show up at her beach house on two occasions. No arrests were made.

Then, of course, she was wildly successful. It might very well be a rival of hers in the real estate industry here in New York. Police are looking at all of those possibilities.

LALAMA: Yes, the plot thickens. Dr. Daniel Spitz, just very quickly, a couple of seconds, blunt force trauma. Wow, what can you tell us about what that means to you who try to investigate these things?

SPITZ: Well, when you look at these things, you`re dealing with an instrument, a blunt instrument that causes trauma to the body, typically the head. The first thing they did, which is really Forensic Pathology 101, is differentiating the injuries from a fall versus from a bludgeoning, which is what they did, and they were able to rule this a homicide right away.

LALAMA: OK, stay tuned.

Tonight, let`s stop to remember Army Specialist Jonathan Rivadeneira, only 22 from Jackson Heights, New York, killed in Iraq. An Army health care specialist, awarded the National Defense Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon. He dreamed of college and becoming an anesthetic nurse. He loved life, telling jokes. He leaves behind grieving mom, Martha, and widow, Heather, also in the military. Jonathan Rivadeneira, an American hero.

Thank you to all our guests and to you at home for being with us. I`m Pat Lalama in for Nancy Grace. Thank you, Nancy. See you tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Until then, have a wonderful evening. Good night.

END