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Nancy Grace
Wal-Mart Surveillance Video Shows Mother Abandoning Boy
Aired June 19, 2008 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight. Who is this baby? There in the fabric department of a local Indiana Wal-Mart, a 2-year-old toddler boy discovered wandering the aisles all alone, abandoned, in his backpack a handwritten note. Police are combing the note for clues. In the last hours, police release grainy surveillance video of the suspected mother leaving the baby, actually shooing the baby away when the little thing tried to run after her. Who left their own baby boy to fend for himself in a crowded Wal-Mart?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This video could be the missing link to what has been a mystery in Frankfort. In this Wal-Mart surveillance video released by Frankfort police, you can see the woman they believe left a 2-year-old boy in the store with a backpack and a note saying she could no longer care for him. Police are not sure if the woman is the boy`s mother, but they believe she could have answers they`re looking for.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can see that the child is out of the cart and running after this woman, and she`s gesturing for him, looks like, to stay. Then it appears that she`s trying to lose him by going down through different aisles within the store, eventually leaving the store without the cart or the child.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Lock them up and throw away the key! And tonight, live to the pristine beaches just north of Washington state. Police discover a real- life Dexter (ph) at work, dismembered body parts, five severed feet, wash ashore, still unidentified. And PS, they don`t match. Each foot is from a different victim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bizarre situation of severed feet turning up, a sixth human foot discovered in the area over the last 11 months. A woman found the limb. The limb was wearing a man`s size 10 running shoe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A mystery involving feet, Human feet washed up on beaches in the last several months, all the feet still in sneakers, seemingly just floating to shore. What`s even more bizarre, there are no markings to suggest the feet were cut off.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On the cliff (ph) side, a little (INAUDIBLE) by the rock here. They thought it was possible until they said how the bones just were, like, straight across, and that didn`t seem the same (ph).
They said that when a body`s been in the water for a long time that they just -- you know, it separates. The bones separate. And it didn`t because they were still attached to the foot that was inside the shoe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The foot total is now six, five right, one left, and found up and down the coast. And the lack of concrete answers leaves many people wondering if accident, foul play or something else is going on around the water of Georgia (ph) Straits.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are reviewing all missing persons files. We are exploring the possibility that it could be people who may have drowned. It could be missing fishermen. It could be the remains of people who may have died in a plane crash. We`re also looking at the shoe, the mate, where the shoe was produced, where, when and where it was sold, to shed some light on the identity of these people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Tonight: There in the fabric department of a local Indiana Wal- Mart, a 2-year-old toddler boy discovered wandering the aisles all alone, abandoned. In the last hour, police released grainy surveillance video on the suspected mother leaving the baby, actually shooing the little baby away when it tried to run after her. Who is this baby?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New developments in the story of a 2-and-a-half- year-old toddler boy abandoned at Wal-Mart. Police have released store surveillance video that shows a woman putting a child into a shopping cart, bringing him into the store and then appearing to intentionally leave him behind. According to authorities, the women even had to go through the effort of walking down different aisles to avoid the child, with the child running after her. Police are still trying to get information from the child, who at this point has only been talking about his favorite cartoon characters and television shows, and nothing about his family.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) talk about different cartoon characters, Spongebob and Bob the Builder and I think Nemo, but still doesn`t -- or isn`t saying anything about his family. We want to know, you know, the circumstances behind, you know, this child being left at Wal- Mart. I mean, is what`s in this letter true, or is there something else that`s going on here that we`re not aware of?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight out to Devon Scott with WIBC radio FM 93.1. Devon, what`s the latest?
DEVON SCOTT, WIBC RADIO FM 93.1: Good evening, Nancy. The latest is, is as you said, in the last few hours, Frankfort police have finally released the surveillance tapes from a week ago tomorrow. This is from the Frankfort Wal-Mart. And it starts out with -- you see the woman come into the Wal-Mart. She gets a cart, and the little boy`s with her. And then a few shots later, you see her basically trying to kind of run away from him. She tells him to stay. She kind of gestures at him to stay in the aisle, and then she starts going down different aisles, kind of -- almost as if she`s trying to lose him. And then finally, she comes out of the store alone and leaves in a light-colored van.
GRACE: We`re taking a look at the video -- a look at the video. It has just been released by police to try to figure out who left this little boy alone in a crowded Wal-Mart.
To Major Jeff Ward from the Frankfort Police Department. Major, thank you so much for being with us. What more do we know, after seeing this video? What can you deduce?
MAJ. JEFF WARD, FRANKFORT POLICE DEPARTMENT: We can tell that this van may be a Honda Odyssey. We`re not sure of the year, maybe a 2000, 2002 model. I want to take this video and get it sharpened somewhere, cleaned up a little bit, and maybe we`ll get some more detail out of that. As far as -- so far as anything else, we`ve just been able to determine that the person appears to be female, possibly Hispanic, and maybe in her 30s.
GRACE: Interesting. In that jurisdiction, are illegals allowed to have driver`s licenses, Major Ward?
WARD: I don`t believe so.
GRACE: So this is someone, most likely, that is registered with the Domestic violence.
WARD: She could have.
GRACE: Have you guys been pursuing that avenue, to try to find her through the driver`s license through the Department of Motor Vehicles?
WARD: Well, it`s kind of tough to do without, you know, some kind of...
GRACE: (INAUDIBLE)
WARD: Yes, to get a better shot of what she looks like. And if we could actually slow this thing down and maybe get a plate number because there`s a shot where this car (INAUDIBLE) come up near the building. And you know, if we could ever get some identifiers, yes, we could do that.
GRACE: Out to Vince Velazquez, homicide detective, Atlanta metro area. Vince, how do you go about enhancing the video? What do you do?
VINCE VELAZQUEZ, HOMICIDE DETECTIVE, ATLANTA METRO: Well, the FBI`s really good at enhancing video and they have the means and capability of doing that, and I`m sure that`s an avenue they`re going to explore. But definitely, enhancing a video to try to get a tag number, perhaps on a van, or confirm that it is a Honda Odyssey, I think that`s an important piece...
GRACE: How do you go about determining what kind of vehicle it is? I mean, they can`t pick up the exact make. What do you, just compare it to thousands of cars until you figure out exactly what it is?
VELAZQUEZ: Well, I think once you enhance the video, if you think it`s a Honda Odyssey, it would be very easy to go to a Honda dealership. And you know, you could get a 32-year ASC-certified mechanic to tell you that that is a Honda Odyssey. Not that hard.
GRACE: Major Ward, what do you, look at every detail, such as the grill, the headlights, the taillights, to determine exactly what kind of minivan it is?
WARD: Yes, we would do that, and we would be looking for damage, too. I mean, we would want something to try to match this car up with, you know, the suspect car or another car that we might come up with. A good source do this, you know, for identification of a vehicle is a body shop, which we use quite often to do that. Most of those guys are...
GRACE: Excellent thinking. Excellent thinking.
To Marc Klaas, child advocate and founder of Beyondmissing.com. You know what`s amazing to me, Marc? I`m sure you have a lot of different impressions on this.
Everybody, this little boy has been found abandoned at a packed Wal- Mart in Indiana. Now, in the last hours, police have released grainy surveillance video showing who may be the mom actually shooing the little boy away, 2-and-a-half years old, when he tries to run after her.
Marc, we all know what happened to John Walsh`s little boy, Adam. There, and I believe it was a Kmart, but it was in a big department store, the little boy is alone for just a few moments at the video area, playing a video game, as I recall. Boom, he`s gone. He`s dead.
MARC KLAAS, BEYONDMISSING.COM: Yes, Nancy, that happened to be a Sears in Hollywood -- in Hollywood, Florida. And you`re right, those scenarios are very similar.
But I have a very different take on this. The little boy is consistent with a child from the Guatemala region, which I believe is where the note said that they were from. And I think that this could very easily be a desperate act of a desperate mother just trying to find a life for her son.
She`s obviously unsophisticated. She didn`t realize that there were surveillance cameras that were tracking her every move. And you know, there`s been such a demonization and vilification of undocumented immigrants, illegal immigrants, in this country that she may very well have felt that she had absolutely nowhere to turn.
But you`re absolutely correct about the fact that just for those few moments, that if the wrong person had seen that little boy, he could easily have wheeled him out into oblivion. I think it`s a good thing that that didn`t happen, obviously.
GRACE: I don`t care where she`s from. I don`t care if she`s legal, illegal. I don`t care if she is from the red planet. She left the baby alone in a crowded Wal-Mart.
KLAAS: Right.
GRACE: How is she not to know that some pervert wouldn`t pick the boy up, torture him, molest him before we found his body parts in the middle of a river? I mean, you don`t have to be from this country or a legal alien, a citizen, it doesn`t matter. Every mother knows not to leave the baby alone in a shopping area.
BROOKS: Well, she may have very well felt that she had no options. That`s all I`m trying to say. It was not an intelligent thing to do, and it was not the right thing to do.
GRACE: Well, take a look at her!
BROOKS: Well, I...
GRACE: She clearly is well nourished. They have enough money to feed the child. She`s driving a Honda Odyssey. She`s well dressed. She`s got her hair pulled back. She`s neat. She`s clean. She obviously has not missed a meal. So clearly, they can afford to feed the baby. So where are you coming from?
BROOKS: No, listen, I don`t know where anybody else is coming from. I don`t think that there`s been a scenario that`s been put forth yet that really makes any sense in this situation. Was the little boy kidnapped? Was it a desperate situation? You know, who is the little boy? Who is the mother? What I`m saying is that the little boy looks like a child from that portion of the world and that that`s consistent with the note that she sent and that it very well may be what I`m saying. I think that that`s as possible as anything else.
GRACE: OK. Agree. To Bethany Marshall. What do you think?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: I have to respectfully disagree with Marc Klaas, and I`ll tell you why...
GRACE: Well, I agree it may be a desperate act, but that doesn`t justify it. I agree, yes, it may be desperate, but that doesn`t make it OK.
MARSHALL: It may be desperate, but it is a mother`s job to be resourceful and to take care of her child, and she completely relegated that care to strangers. An if we want to take a cultural perspective, the Guatemalan community here and in Guatemala is very tight-knit, very supportive, a faith-based, Christian community. This mother could have gone to her pastor, her priest, relatives, and found the support she needed. So why didn`t she?
It begs the question in my mind, if the dad had left a year ago, if we can even believe that, did the little boy remind her of the dad, so she wanted to get rid of him? Or was she reluctant to place him with relatives because she simply did not want him in the environment?
You said earlier in the show something about she wanted him to get lost. That to me seems the most clear motivator, possibly, is she just wanted him to get lost.
GRACE: Out to the lines. We are taking your calls live. To Ron in Indiana. Hi, Ron.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Nancy.
GRACE: What`s your question, dear?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve got a couple of questions.
GRACE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Here in Indiana, they say that, you know, you can drop your child off if you`re not able to take care of your child, that you could drop your child off at a Wal-Mart or a fire station or whatever as a safe haven, anything that`s a safe haven. One is I want to know if that`s true. And the other question is, if this mother is ever caught for leaving this poor innocent, cute little boy at a store, can she face any charges?
GRACE: Oh, Ron in Indiana, she can definitely face charges -- child neglect, endangering the welfare of a child. There`s a host of charges she can face. And we are assuming this is the mother. This may not be the mother, but many people are assuming this is the mother.
Everybody, you are seeing, grainy surveillance video that`s just been released by Indiana police of a woman leaving a 2-year-old baby boy alone in a packed Wal-Mart. The little boy tries to run after the mom and she shoos it back, turns it away.
Back to you, Major Jeff Ward. You guys have safe haven, correct?
WARD: Yes, we do.
GRACE: Of course, that wouldn`t qualify -- Wal-Mart wouldn`t qualify, but explain in a nutshell how that works.
WARD: Safe haven is a law that allows a newborn within 30 days to be taken to a medical facility, not someone who`s 2-and-a-half years old. Doesn`t apply to this boy at all.
GRACE: So does not apply to this boy. She has to put it up for adoption, if she wanted to get rid of it.
Quickly, let`s go to the lawyers. Joining us tonight, Randy Zelin out of New York. Also joining us tonight, Joe Episcopo out of Tampa area. To you, Joe. What charges could she be facing?
JOE EPISCOPO, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, first of all, it`s good to see the child could end up with someone that wants him. I wouldn`t prosecute her at all, I`d just deport her. I don`t think...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: I don`t believe that was the question, and we don`t know if she`s illegal.
EPISCOPO: I say she should face no charges, OK?
GRACE: OK, let me rephrase the question. To Randy Zelin. If she is prosecuted, what charges will she face?
RANDY ZELIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, when you put a child in harm`s way, that is endangering the welfare of a minor. And as you alluded to a moment ago, you`ve got the possibility of neglect, abandonment. But you know something? With all of the horror stories that are out there, this child, as Joe just said, could end up with a family that actually wants him.
GRACE: You know, I love the way that you two are sugarcoating this, sugarcoating the poison pill. You keep talking about how he`s going to end up with a family that wants him.
Bethany Marshall, apparently, has own mother dumped him at a Wal-Mart, and when he tried to go with her, she made him stay.
MARSHALL: Well, and the research shows that children who end up in foster care often do not fare very well, so they have a greater risk of psychiatric issues, substance abuse problems. A lot of them end up being homeless. So you have this early trauma with this child. He`s abandoned by his caretaker in a Wal-Mart. How many times is he going to have to reassign attachment to new caretakers as he moves throughout the foster care system? It is not good any way you look at it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He hasn`t spoken much at all to anyone. So I mean, he`s 2 years old, and we don`t know anything about him. He interacts really well with the children that he`s with now., but still, you know, there`s nothing better than being with your family.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police release surveillance video of a 2-and-a- half-year-old Indiana boy being abandoned at Wal-Mart. The video shows a woman taking the child out a light-colored van and putting him in a shopping cart and entering the Wal-Mart. Soon after, the mother abandoned the child inside the Wal-Mart, where he was later found wandering in the fabric department. Police say you can even see the young boy running after this woman and the woman trying to lose him by going down different aisles in the store. Police hope this new information could help track down members of the child`s family.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Let`s unleash the lawyers. Joining us tonight, Randy Zelin, Joe Episcopo. No offense, gentlemen, but what is wrong with you? Why are you both saying the woman did nothing wrong? I`m not even going to talk about the father who abandoned the child 10 months ago, if her story is to be believed. But she leaves the baby alone in a packed Wal-Mart. Episcopo?
EPISCOPO: That`s not that unsafe. I mean, somebody found the kid. He`s in a foster home. You can`t prosecute people for "what if`s," OK?
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: You do know the story of Adam Walsh, correct?
EPISCOPO: Yes, of course.
GRACE: OK. And you`re saying nothing happened...
(CROSSTALK)
EPISCOPO: ... abandoned him.
GRACE: Yes, I know that. For one brief moment, he was alone in a department store, and he was murdered.
EPISCOPO: So we charge this lady for that thought crime?
GRACE: No, but with I`m seeing on the video with my own two eyes, Randy Zelin, is her, presumably the mother, leaving a baby and abandoning it in a Wal-Mart. It`s not what might happen. It`s what -- either I believe you or my lying eyes. She left the baby alone and drove off in a Honda Odyssey.
ZELIN: Nancy, my heart beats out of my chest at the thought of it.
GRACE: Yes?
ZELIN: I`m talking mitigation. I`m talking about the difference between what appears to be a woman who says, Someone else has to take care of my kid, as opposed to the horror stories that we hear that happen to kids.
GRACE: So you think the clerk at the Wal-Mart is going to take care of the kid?
ZELIN: Somebody`s going to find the kid, and they did.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The child, whose name is Martin, is in foster care and is interacting well with adults and other children. A fund has been set up in Clinton County to provide necessities for the child left all alone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police have little to go on to identify this boy. All he had on him inside the Wal-Mart where he was abandoned was a Winnie-the-Pooh backpack with a few diapers, two bottles and a note. The note says the boy`s name is Martin. Rosa Martinez (ph) called over the intercom for his mother. She also tried to talk to the boy, who wasn`t crying and wouldn`t speak.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The little thing wouldn`t even speak. This surveillance video shows the suspected mother actually shooing the baby boy away when he tries to run after her, driving off in her Honda Odyssey, never to be seen again.
I want to go to Dr. Michael Arnall, board-certified forensic pathologist. We`re saying he`s 2-and-a-half years old. How do we know that?
DR. MICHAEL ARNALL, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, they`re going to look at his teeth. They`re going to look at his size. If they take X-rays, they may even look at his joint surfaces to see what his physical age is.
GRACE: We are taking your calls live. Out to Gabriel in North Carolina. Hi, Gabriel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Nancy. How are you?
GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love your show, first of all.
GRACE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I noticed -- OK, two quick comments. Couldn`t they enhance the video, not to get the make on the car, what about to get the make on the woman?
GRACE: To figure -- to get a better picture of her, yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
GRACE: Major Jeff Ward is doing that, and it`s suggested they`re going to then take that photo through DMV, Department of Motor Vehicles, to see if they can get a match. What`s your next one, dear?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Second one is I noticed that she`s pushing a cart. Couldn`t they get fingerprints off that cart?
GRACE: Excellent question. Major Jeff Ward, any possibility of tracking the cart and getting a fingerprint?
WARD: No. By the time...
GRACE: Yes, by the time -- yes, by the time they got that cart, 50 people have touched it.
Everybody, when we get back, to the beaches north of Washington state. Police discover a real-life Dexter as body parts wash ashore.
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED INVESTIGATOR: Shortly after 10:00 a.m., a woman resident in Campbell River located what appeared to be human remains of that of a human right foot in a Adidas black man shoe size 10.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Another human foot has washed up, that`s the sixth foot that has been found in 11 months. Nobody knows who the feet belong to or where they came from. There`s a lot of theories.
You might remember another foot was found just Monday. The latest foot had a man`s size 10 running shoe on it.
Police say they`re looking at several theories including the possibility that the feet may belong to people who died in a plane crash but that was three years ago.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 50 yards away is where the boys took off from and here we are just on the other side of this pit finding a foot. Anything`s possible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are certain things that make it seem very likely that one or more of these feet could belong to one of our four missing men.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: And apparently the feet don`t match. That means that these are from separate victims. It`s not as if from the five feet there`s one left and one right, one left -- no. That is not the scenario.
Out to Jim Goddard with News 1130AM. Jim, what`s the latest?
JIM GODDARD, REPORTER, NEWS 1130AM: Well, the very latest is a hoax. They thought they had discovered a sixth foot in a sneaker yesterday. And now forensic testing has found out that it was actually the skeletal remains of a of a dog paw wrapped up in a sock with seaweed. But the other foot very real.
GRACE: So this has gotten such recognition that someone is actually trying to copycat with a hoax. What can you tell me about the actual body parts?
GODDARD: Well, starting back August 20th last year, a mysterious discovery, a severed foot in a size 12 sneaker on one of the golf islands in the Strait of Georgia. A few days later another right foot in a size 12 sneaker was found.
Forensic tests have determined that there are no tool marks on these recovered feet. So perhaps naturally they became separated from a body. But since then, total discovery of five feet. The very latest was on Monday on a small island just south of the city of Vancouver.
GRACE: Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, joining us, forensic scientist with the Department of Forensic Science. He is the chairman at the department there at John Jay College.
Dr Kobilinsky, it`s great to see you again. The fact that they have not been able to find tool marks, that does not in any way -- it doesn`t even make sense to suggest that these feet naturally became detached from a body.
What is the coincidence, the likelihood that five different feet would come apart from five different bodies and wash ashore?
LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: You`re asking a good question, Nancy. Probabilities tell you that this is quite unusual.
Let me explain it this way. First of all, these feet washed ashore because they were housed in sneakers. The sneakers were buoyant and they were carried by currents and the weather and the wind. And so they could have traveled large distances. They were also protected from decomposition somewhat because of the shoe coverings.
The critical issue is whether they just became disarticulated. That is the bones simply came apart due to decomposition, or there was some sort of traumatic crushing or sawing or some sort of chopping, something that might explain how this would come about.
It`s a bizarre story for sure.
GRACE: So Dr. Kobilinsky, you keep saying, if they became disassociated from the body naturally, how does your foot come off of your body naturally?
KOBILINSKY: Well.
GRACE: Five different victims.
KOBILINSKY: Yes.
GRACE: All found out in the water. That is not natural.
KOBILINSKY: Well, if you assume that these people -- and this is not absolutely certain -- but if they were from that plane that crashed, their bodies, their torsos, may have been held into position with the safety belts. And so the bodies were at the bottom of the water and decomposition took place. The shoe rose to the surface and then carried by current.
GRACE: OK. Hold on. Let me go back to Goddard with 1130AM.
Jim Goddard, how did they work up most of the DNA profiles? Have they compared them to the people in the plane?
It`s my understanding the people who went down in the plane were four men and one of these feet is from a woman.
GODDARD: Yes, and they`ve managed to do DNA testing, I believe, on three of the feet and there is no relationship to the missing men.
GRACE: OK, Dr. Kobilinsky, I`ll give you a moment to digest that.
I`m going to Susan Allen, joining us. She`s the associate professor in the Department of Earth and Ocean Science at the University of British Columbia.
Thank you so much for being with us, Dr. Allen. Question, how do you look at the currents and determine from where the feet may have come?
SUSAN ALLEN, ASSOC. PROF. DEPT. OF EARTH AND OCEAN SCIENCE, UNIV. OF BRITISH COLUMBIA: Well, one can look at the currents in many different ways but the currents in the Strait of Georgia, especially the surface currents, fluctuate in time due to the winds.
And so over a period of weeks, the currents can come from the north, come from the south. So it`s very difficult to track back to where these feet came from in the Strait of Georgia.
GRACE: Well, what do you believe? Where do you think they -- where do you think they originated?
ALLEN: I think they originated either in the Strait of Georgia or in one of the river systems that flows into the Strait of Georgia, because surface currents in the Strait of Georgia tend to flow out. Water at surface tends to flow out of the Strait of Georgia, not into the Strait of Georgia.
So these are probably in the water somewhere in the river system or into the Strait of Georgia itself.
GRACE: Back to Dr. Michael Arnall, board certified forensic pathologist. The information at this juncture is that the body parts are not from the open ocean. What does that mean?
DR. MICHAEL ARNALL, BOARD CERTIFIED FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, remember that she said the surface currents generally flow outward. And they said that these feet went to the surface because the shoes were buoyant.
But if the foot was attached to the leg that may well have been negatively buoyant. That may well have been lowered down in the level of the water. It was only after the foot passively became detached from the leg that the foot and shoe became positively buoyant.
So there`s been an assumption here and I`m not so sure that that assumption is necessarily accurate.
GRACE: I agree with you. I find it very difficult to believe that these feet have come, disattached to the body, by natural causes, especially when there is no record of five different people going down in the water.
Back to Susan Allen, what do they mean specifically by saying the feet have not come from the open ocean? What does that mean?
ALLEN: That means it`s unlikely that these feet came from the Pacific Ocean through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and into the Strait of Georgia. They most likely originated in the Strait of Georgia system.
GRACE: And to Jim Goddard, do we know -- other than the one crash that we`ve already ruled out because the DNA doesn`t match the crash victims -- do we know of any other boating or plane crashes in that area in the water to which we can attribute these body parts?
GODDARD: Well, maybe not a specific incident but the RCMP as of August last year said that they had 2,300 -- more than 2,300 missing person cases that they were investigating and if there were, say, you were kayaking on a remote river somewhere not from the coast that had an accident, and you weren`t reported missing or maybe reported missing, if there is a matching DNA sample, nobody would know that you were the person who went.
So whether there was a specific accident right on the water, we`d probably know about that.
GRACE: Exactly.
GODDARD: . but when you have more than 2,300 missing person files to look at the circumstances could be just about anything.
GRACE: We are taking your calls live. Body parts, washing up on pristine beaches just north of Washington state.
Very quickly, as we go to break, at your request, here are the latest pictures of the twins.
There is little Lucy having her organic carrots which she hated. Here I`m feeding her in the floor.
There they are at sleepy time.
John David has learned how to open a drawer.
Lucy sits up. Can you believe it?
There they are ready for bed.
I`ll be posting these on the Web for you tonight. I hope you like it.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is (INAUDIBLE). I was sending out a special salute the troops to my friend Damon Montgomery stationed in Iraq.
Thanks for the good job you`re doing. Keep up the good work. I hope you come safely from your friends and family from Gulfport, Mississippi. We love you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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UNIDENTIFIED INVESTIGATOR: As part of our investigation, we`re reviewing all relevant missing persons file. And in the early 2000 we embarked on a full review of all missing persons we had on file.
If DNA was not available, we obtained familial DNA. That process can certainly take some time.
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GRACE: So obviously the officials are looking at people that went missing from land. They are not considering this just to be, for instance, a boating accident or an air crash into the water.
Right now we know of five separate victims. Their body parts, their feet washing ashore on pristine beaches just north of Washington state.
Out to the lines. Sheeba in Illinois. Hi, Sheeba.
SHEEBA, ILLINOIS RESIDENT: Hey, my husband and I just love you, Nancy.
GRACE: Thank you. And thank you for calling in. What`s your question, dear?
SHEEBA: My question is, is there any database set up where you can identify somebody by their footprint? Do they take these footprints as soon as someone`s born and they`re kept on record? Why can`t they do the same with the feet or the hands rather?
GRACE: To Vince Velasquez, what about it.
VINCE VELASQUEZ, HOMICIDE DETECTIVE, ATLANTA METRO AREA: No, there`s no database where footprints, not this country that I`ve ever heard. So that`s not even remotely possible.
GRACE: Well, I`ve got a question for you, Vince, which leads me to this. If you have a child footprint, which everyone does who is born in this country, once the child grows into adulthood, could that matched back to a child print?
VELASQUEZ: It could. It would be at the -- probably at the ball of the foot but who keeps those prints? I mean, you know, there`s no database.
GRACE: Yes, I`m just saying theoretically. Even with, say, fingerprints. If you have a child fingerprint that child goes into adulthood, can you match up the adult print to the child print.
VELASQUEZ: Absolutely. Your fingerprints are the same from when you`re born until when you die.
GRACE: I know that but have you ever heard of that being done?
VELASQUEZ: No. I`ve never heard of that being done basically because there`s a reference sample probably on file already. But if there were prints available from a child and they were compared to this person as an adult, it would be possible. But I`ve never heard of that.
GRACE: I think so, too. You simply enlarge the child fingerprint. As to footprints, Sheeba in Illinois is correct. They are taken on every child and as part of their birthing process. But it`s not part of any database such as AFIS. It`s not part of a database.
Interesting question.
To Mary in Wyoming. Hi, Mary.
MARY, WYOMING RESIDENT: Hi, Nancy.
GRACE: What`s your question, dear?
MARY: You -- it was answered before the break about the DNA part. But what I was wondering is how many more feet are going to show up? I mean this is five.
GRACE: I know. What`s interesting is these don`t match each other. It`s not like we`re finding a righty and a lefty. Remember the good old days, Mary, when only flip-flops and syringes would wash up on the beach.
Now we`ve got to worry about body parts and quite a few of them.
Out to the lines, Shirley in Canada. Hi, Shirley.
SHIRLEY, CANADIAN RESIDENT: Hi, Nancy. I love your show and I love your twins. They`re adorable. I have to tell you that right off of the bat.
GRACE: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
SHIRLEY: I was wondering, you know, is it possible that somebody in a mortuary could be doing this, you know? To get the bodies ready? And nobody would know the difference.
GRACE: What about it? To Jim Goddard, have mortuaries even come -- become a blip on the screen?
GODDARD: Well, that`s one of the urban-type myths around this. Somebody who thinks, is it, you know, some medical students playing a prank with, you know, various body parts they have lying around the school.
GRACE: Well, that was -- obviously that`s not a viable theory because cadaver parts are embalmed. I mean, you would clearly -- right, Dr. Kobilinsky? You would clearly be able to tell if something was cadaver.
KOBILINSKY: Absolutely right. It would have been preserved one way or the other.
The main question is, are there tool marks or not? Can you just explain this by the disarticulation? And I know it`s really bizarre to have five similar feet. I suspect other -- the matching pair will come up.
GRACE: Dr. Kobilinsky, I`m a little stunned with you tonight in your line of business. You know there is no coincidence.
KOBILINSKY: Right.
GRACE: . in criminal law ever, never, ever. Doesn`t happen.
KOBILINSKY: Well, I think if you flip a coin and the odds are 50/50 for each flip it`s not inconceivable to get five flips the same way. If you go beyond that it becomes very improbable.
GRACE: But the fact that we don`t know of any crash with this many victims and why just the severed feet? Why not any other body parts? We don`t know of any boating accidents that would match up to these victims. So where are they -- what`s the origination?
KOBILINSKY: Well, again, hands are not surrounded by bouyable material. So they`re not going to come up to the surface.
The question is why five feet of the same type? That`s really the issue, and I don`t have any answer to that.
GRACE: Well, if you recall Laci and Conner Peterson, they -- their remains came. They surfaced. And they were not wearing tennis shoes. So you know?
KOBILINSKY: Yes, well, there are gases of decomposition. And.
GRACE: True.
KOBILINSKY: . any residual gas in the long in the torso will bring it up.
GRACE: So where is the rest of the body, Dr. Kobilinsky? That supports my theory.
KOBILINSKY: No. They could very well be at the bottom of this, whatever river, whatever waterway.
GRACE: OK. Very quickly to the lawyers, Randy Zelin, Joe Episcopo.
To you, Joe Episcopo, the person that performed the hoax putting animal bone remnants in a shoe, if they are caught, which they may very well be, what charges?
JOE EPISCOPO, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You know that`s -- that`s a tough one. I`m not sure that`s a crime. Why would that be a crime?
GRACE: Well, it`s clearly meant to mislead police, Randy Zelin.
EPISCOPO: Why would that be a crime? I don`t see that.
RANDY ZELIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, certainly.
EPISCOPO: Who`s saying it`s misleading them?
ZELIN: Well, that`s the thing. It`s an intent crime when you`re talking about obstruction of justice. Is someone purposely trying to screw law enforcement up by sticking a dog paw in a sneaker?
But what scares me more is the fact that you have witnesses coming forward. It`s a human foot. It`s a human foot. It turns out to be a dog`s paw.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED INVESTIGATOR: We certainly receive calls on a regular basis that have found bodies, not usually we may recover one part of the body but certainly not a number of right feet. It`s very unusual.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And we just got news a few hours ago that the sixth foot that we believed to have washed up on shore on our Vancouver Island, not far from Vancouver, was, in fact, a hoax.
It was a skeletonized animal bone, apparently, that was stuffed into a running shoe, a typical running shoe similar to the running shoes that were found with real human feet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Out to Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst and author.
Dr. Marshall, apparently there are many unsolved missing people of young males in that area. What do you make of it?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST, AUTHOR OF "DEALBREAKERS": Well, if it`s a serial killer, it`s hard to believe but if it is, he wanted to hobble his victims perhaps. Remember Jeffrey Dahmer used to drill holes into the skulls of his victims? Pour battery acid in so he could render them into zombies?
Or, the other probability is that he had a foot fetish. I mean the nature of a foot fetish is you can only achieve excitement by a body part. Not through the entire person, just the part because you can dominate over that part. That part is not going to argue with you, disagree with you, tell you what do. It`s just a foot.
GRACE: Lisa in Texas, hi, Lisa.
LISA, KENTUCKY RESIDENT: Hi, how are you?
GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?
LISA: I was wondering if all of the feet have the same amount of decomposure. Or if some of them were worse than others?
GRACE: Excellent question.
Jim Goddard, do we know?
GODDARD: Yes, species chief coroner says basically they`re dealing with skeletal remains. There`s very little, viable soft tissue. They`ve been able to do DNA testing on the first three feet.
GRACE: Right.
GODDARD: They`re still waiting for the DNA results for the last two.
GRACE: Jim Goddard, Susan Allen, especially, thank you for being with us.
Let`s stop and remember Army Sergeant Gary Willett, 34, Alamogordo, New Mexico, killed, Iraq, on the second tour. Lived life to the fullest. Love the Army, Calvin & Hobbs comics, handing out toys and candy to Iraqi children. Leaves behind mom Vivian, step dad Patrick, brother Willy, sister Renee, and 9-year-old son, Zeno.
Gary Willett, American hero.
Thanks to our guests but especially to you for being with us. And tonight, a special good night from Georgia friend of the show, Donna. And a special thank you to friends of the show, Lori Rockenfisher(ph), Paula and John Martini(ph).
For Paula and John, for this beautiful expect miracles bracelets with Lucy and John David`s name on it. And to Lori, onesies for John David and little Lucy.
I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern, and until then, good night, friend.
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