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Nancy Grace

Attorney for Teen Killer of 9-Year-Old Says She Needs Immediate Psychiatric Treatment

Aired November 23, 2009 - 20:00   ET

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


MIKE BROOKS, GUEST HOST: Breaking news tonight, Missouri. A 9-year- old girl vanishes walking home from a play date at a little friend`s house. The search comes to an end when cops are led to the body of Elizabeth Olten in the woods near her own home. The murder suspect, a 15-year-old girl. Tonight, disturbing new photos emerge taking us inside the mind of the alleged child killer. We have the shocking photos.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Breaking news in the case of 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, who cops say was brutally stabbed and strangled to death by 15-year- old Alyssa Bustamante. Disturbing photos have just been obtained from an affiliate allegedly showing a scary side of the 15-year-old charged with premeditated first degree murder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This wasn`t a game of hide-and-go-seek gone wrong, that this was actually something ridiculously more serious than that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s charged, mind you, with first degree murder and an armed criminal action. And in the indictment, they allege that she strangled, stabbed and cut the little girl`s throat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bustamante`s attorney says he wants the 15-year- old sent to a psychiatric hospital, arguing the teen is showing signs of severe depression and has cut herself with her own fingernails while behind bars.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is somebody who has an anti-social personality. She`s not normal. She wouldn`t go ahead and do the type of things that you a teenager would be doing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A friend of Bustamante claims Bustamante once said she wondered what it would be like to kill someone. Authorities say they were told the same thing by Bustamante after she was arrested for murder.

NANCY GRACE, HOST: We are learning there is evidence that she lured the little girl, a little 9-year-old girl, into the woods, that she had dug a shallow grave several days before in anticipation of murdering this little girl, Elizabeth Olten.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: And tonight, the brutal murder of 5-year-old North Carolina girl Shaniya Davis. Arrest warrants reveal little Shaniya raped and murdered the very day she`s seen on surveillance video at a local hotel, Shaniya in the arms of 29-year-old Mario McNeill, charged with murder one and rape. In a shocking twist, Shaniya`s own mother accused of selling her little girl for sex, leading to Shaniya`s murder. As her grieving family and friends say good-bye, we want Shaniya`s killer brought to justice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, you`re Mario McNeill?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you Antoinette Davis?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re charged with first-degree murder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You did engage in human trafficking with a child as the victim.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re also charged with first degree rape of a child.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re also charged with felony child abuse.

ANTOINETTE DAVIS, SHANIYA`S MOTHER: I woke up this morning, and my daughter was not in the house. I don`t know if she walked out or -- I don`t know what`s going on, but she`s not here.

GRACE: Stunningly, no murder charges against the mother yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What they`re looking for is evidence to prove the link between the trafficking and then the ultimate murder. They`ve got to have evidence. You can`t just say, Well, she trafficked her out, and thus anything that happened to the child is on her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe she didn`t have ill intent. She could be accused of bad judgment.

GRACE: They don`t need Mommy`s cooperation to prove this case. They took 11 bags of evidence out of Mario Andrette McNeill`s car. He`s now charged with murder one, and she handed the baby over for sex!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thousands of mourners gathered to pay their last respects to Shaniya Davis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He did this for a reason. (INAUDIBLE) a hole in my heart (INAUDIBLE) and I believe you`ll be waiting for me. I`ll see you when I get there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: Good evening. I`m Mike Brooks, in for Nancy Grace. Breaking news tonight in the death of a 9-year-old Missouri girl, Elizabeth Olten. Disturbing new photos emerge taking us inside the mind of an alleged child killer. The murder suspect, a 15-year-old girl.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you`ve ever had somebody go in and just reach inside you, pull your heart out, that`s what it`s like!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New details emerge in the case of 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, who police say was stabbed and strangled by 15-year-old Alyssa Bustamante. A friend of the teen girl defendant claims Bustamante once talked about what it would be like to kill someone. The friend said Bustamante seemed like an ordinary girl but allegedly spoke about suicide and depression frequently.

JENNIFER MEYER, ALYSSA`S BEST FRIEND: I was at her party, and she kind of just took me off to the side randomly, and she`s, like, you know, I wonder what it would be like to kill somebody, because I guess she was mad at one of her friends there. But it just seemed kind of strange, but you wouldn`t logically think one of your friends would kill somebody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authorities say Bustamante has a history of mental illness, including receiving in-patient mental health treatment for a suicide attempt two years ago.

GRACE: Malice, or premeditation can be formed in the blink of an eye, in the snap of a finger, the time it takes you to raise a gun and pull a trigger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The highway patrol investigator said that five days before the murder, on a Friday when school was out, she went out into the woods and dug two graves. Five days then passed, the weekend. She went back to school for three days before the night of the alleged murder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bustamante`s attorney says the 15-year-old`s mental health is still an issue, asking the judge to place Bustamante in a psychiatric hospital after showing signs of depression and cutting herself since her arrest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She killed for sport. She killed for a thrill. She`s a cold-blooded psychopath, no remorse, no guilt. Maybe she`s watched one too many slasher films and says, That`s the kind of thing I want to do because that`ll give me the fun which I don`t get out of normal teen activities!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: I`m Mike Brooks, in for Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us tonight. And we`re taking your calls live.

I want to go straight out to Ladd Egan, joining us by phone from Jefferson City, Missouri. He`s the news director and anchor of CNN affiliate KRCG. Ladd, what is the latest going on right there today in this little town?

LADD EGAN, KRCG ANCHOR (via telephone): Well, the latest today, Mike, is that we are waiting to see if the judge is going to approve a petition to get Alyssa Bustamante moved from an adult county jail to a mental hospital, to some sort of psychiatric evaluation, whether that be within the Department of Mental health or a private hospital. He has said that since she`s been taken into custody -- this is her public defender -- he says that Alyssa Bustamante is showing signs of severe depression and anxiety, and that since she`s been taken into custody, they`ve had to trim her fingernails because she`s been using those to dig at her arm. So we`re waiting to see if she`s going to be moved.

BROOKS: Well, Ladd, you know, you say that they had to trim her nails because she was digging at her arms. Doesn`t she have a history before of self-mutilation, if you will?

EGAN: She does have a history. In fact, even on her on-line profile on YouTube, she listed one of her hobbies is cutting herself. She also says that it`s one of her hobbies to -- killing people. But two years ago, we know that she attempted suicide. She spent 10 days in a hospital. And since then, court testimony revealed that she`s had intense, almost daily counseling for those suicidal thoughts.

And what`s interesting is that in court, they said that she never talked about hurting others, that it was always about hurting herself. But today, we heard from friends that, you know, up to January of this year, she had told friends that she wondered what it would be like to kill someone.

BROOKS: That`s -- that`s -- so she definitely is a danger to herself and others. That`s FaceBook and MySpace photos of murder suspect Alyssa Bustamante.

I want to go out to NANCY GRACE producer Ellie Jostad, joining us from New York. Ellie, try to give us a background, if you will, of Alyssa Bustamante`s mental health history, because -- Liz, put that picture up of her -- the two pictures that we were just talking about a minute ago. We see this picture here of her with her finger to her head. But then we see a picture of her looking, you know, relatively normal, you know, with it looks like -- in some politician`s office. And it`s -- to me, Ellie, you know, with her mental health history, it`s just amazing that we`re seeing basically two sides of this little girl.

ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Exactly, Mike. And that came out in court last week. As Ladd Egan mentioned, they described that earlier suicide attempt. They described the therapy she was on. They also said she`d been on Prozac since that suicide attempt in 2007. However, Mike, her high school principal testified, said she got As and Bs in school, there was never any problems, no disciplinary action taken against her. However, he did mention that the only unexcused absence she`s had this year was the day after Elizabeth Olten was allegedly killed.

BROOKS: So that`s the only unexcused absence.

JOSTAD: Right.

BROOKS: So it`s not like she was never -- not showing up for school all the time. But you know, she also has friends. In fact, one of her friends, Jennifer Meyer, was on the CBS "Early Show" this morning. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEYER: In one conversation we had back in January, she just pulled me off to the side and basically told me -- you know, she said, I wonder what it would be like to kill somebody. But I thought it was kind of strange, but I just dismissed it, I guess. I wouldn`t really think that my best friend would do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: That`s Alyssa Bustamante`s best friend, Jennifer Meyer, on the CBS "Early Show."

You know, we really do need a shrink on this case. I mean, joining us is Michelle Golland. She`s a psychologist and expert on Momlogic.com, joining us from Los Angeles. Michelle, this little girl -- oh! Isn`t somebody noticing her cries for help?

MICHELLE GOLLAND, PSYCHOLOGIST: Right. They seem so obvious to us. And again, if anyone was monitoring her FaceBook, they would have also seen this. I mean, clearly, this is a young girl who is seriously ill. I mean, of course, she needs to be -- have an evaluation and some psychiatric treatment. I`m surprised that it`s taken this long in the court system, truthfully.

BROOKS: I want to go back out to Ellie. Ellie, give me a little bit of background on her. She`s being raised by her grandmother right now?

JOSTAD: Right. Right. Her grandmother has had custody since about 2001 or 2002. Apparently, according to the testimony in court last week, her grandmother provided a happy, stable home for her. Now, we know, however, that her father is serving a 10-year sentence for three assault charges. Her mother, as well, has had some run-ins with the law, including a DUI and an arrest for I believe it was marijuana possession.

BROOKS: Now, does her mother have any contact or any visitation at all with her?

JOSTAD: Yes. Apparently, she does have a relationship with her parents. Her father is -- it`s through an aunt, obviously, with him incarcerated. But apparently, she does have some contact with her mother, as well.

BROOKS: Now, when was she first diagnosed with any kind of mental illness, if you will? Was it prior to the suicide, or was it the suicide that was finally her -- you know, her call for help?

JOSTAD: Right. That`s not 100 percent clear, but it does appear that that suicide attempt is what started the intensive therapy she was receiving. And by the way, Mike, in court they testified that her family was participating in that therapy and was apparently supporting her.

BROOKS: But who is watching her MySpace page? Look, she`s only 15 years old. I don`t want to sound like the, you know, grumpy Uncle Mike. But with everything we see with these social networking sites, you should have to be at least 18 to even be on these sites! That`s my opinion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her mom, I mean, she`s a wreck. She`s -- like I am. And her dad`s a wreck.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEYER: The last time I talked to her was about two days before everything occurred. And we were talking about a Halloween party that I was going to have, and she was telling me that she was going to come down and stuff. But then she kind of changed her mind, and she`s, like, Well, maybe you can come up to my house. And I was, like, Oh, well, that would be fun, you know? And she started, you know, talking about how she wanted to go to this party with all these, like, drugs and stuff like that. And I`m, like, Well, I`m not into that sort of thing, you know? And she`s, Like, well, I can just bring them to your house. And I have a little brother and sister, and I was, like, I don`t think that`s a good idea. And then she started kind of getting angry and that was pretty much it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: I`m Mike Brooks in for Nancy Grace. And we`re taking your calls live.

Let`s unleash the attorneys. We`re going to have a good time with them tonight. Joining us in Atlanta, Eleanor Odom, prosecutor in one of the best counties in the -- prosecutors in Atlanta in Cobb County. Also Peter Odom, defense attorney from Atlanta, and Randy Kessler also joining us here from Atlanta. All right, Eleanor, what are the charges that this 15-year-old girl are facing right now?

ELEANOR ODOM, PROSECUTOR: Well, certainly, right now, we`ve got a kidnapping charge. We`ve got a murder charge. And depending on any injuries that are found on the body, there could be other types of assault charges. But I mean, we`re looking here at murder, and you know, the premeditation that you clearly see in this case is really strong for the prosecution. The defendant actually dug two graves ahead of time, Mike.

BROOKS: So you know, Peter, I know what the defense is going to do. And Randy, I`ll include you in this, too. I know what they`re going to try to do. They`re going to try to say that this is a troubled 15-year-old girl who, you know, has a lot of issues, has a lot of background issues, didn`t stand a chance, product of a broken home. But if you dig two graves, to me, that sounds like you`re on the verge of being a cold, calculated killer, Peter.

PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Michael, I`m going to use the words that you used to describe this young girl. You said that -- you described her as "this little girl." The psychologist described her as seriously ill. She is a severely disturbed child, and the system should treat her as such. We do not convict the mentally ill in this country and we do not convict children. And that`s where my defense would be coming from.

BROOKS: What do you think about that, Randy? You know -- you know, I never agree with defense attorneys and -- because I want to see justice for that poor little 9-year-old girl who was lured into the woods by this girl, by the (INAUDIBLE) 15-year-old girl. But I don`t know about this one, Randy.

RANDY KESSLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, the question isn`t premeditation. That`s if it was impulse murder or passion murder. This one is, Is she crazy? Is she insane? Look at the pictures you`re putting on TV right now. She blurred the lines of fantasy and reality inextricably. She crossed the lines back and forth. There`s no question she couldn`t separate reality from fantasy. That`s one of the main ways to prove that she was insane. This wasn`t temporary insanity, this might be permanent insanity.

BROOKS: But you know, I want to bring in Pat Brown, joining us from D.C., criminal profiler and author of "Killing for Sport." Pat...

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Yes. I`m disagreeing with that last statement wholeheartedly. Look, she knew exactly what the difference between fantasy and reality was. The problem is, she was bored with fantasy and she wanted reality. She wanted to find out what it felt like to kill somebody because she wanted the real thing.

And if you go by that argument, that because she had a bad background, because she has these disturbing thoughts, that she`s mentally ill, well, then Anthony Sowell, who knocked off all those women and buried them in his house, that guy, the serial killer, is just thinking just the same way, well, then he`s -- well, we`ll just put him in a mental institution, too. Let`s put all serial killers in a mental institution.

This girl was on her way to becoming a serial killer. Two graves. She had in her head another body for the future. That would make her a serial killer. She`s a cold-blooded psychopath, and nobody`s recognizing it!

BROOKS: And Pat, it`s thought that she lured this 9-year-old girl into the woods after digging two graves in the woods the day before!

BROWN: Absolutely. This was totally planned out. She knew exactly what she was doing. And by the way, Mike, those -- even that suicide attempt and all that stuff, those aren`t cries for help, those are cries for attention. She likes to manipulate people. And my guess is the problem is people minimized a lot of the things she did in the past -- pathological lying, manipulation, lack of remorse, no empathy, all of that minimized as she was growing up, and she turned into a cold-blooded killer at the age of 15.

But that`s what she is, and she`s not treatable. So you put her in a mental institution, give her all the help you want, and she is what she is and she`s not going to change.

BROOKS: And you see her right here. This is -- we`re looking at video from YouTube of Alyssa Bustamante shocking herself.

So I want to go back to Michelle Golland. Michelle, we see all this behavior. You know, I`m not going to...

GOLLAND: Right.

BROOKS: A lot of people will say, Oh, she`s just -- this kind of thing, shocking herself, that`s just -- oh, she grows up in the country. She`s just a bored young teenager. But...

GOLLAND: Right.

BROOKS: ... from what we`re seeing of her mental history all along...

GOLLAND: I mean, I must say, I agree with a lot of what the profiler said. And I think we need to really look at what her mental state was, but it doesn`t mean she shouldn`t be punished fully for the crimes.

BROOKS: We`re going to talk more about that. And we`re taking your calls live when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Social networking sites are allegedly painting a dark portrait of the 15-year-old teen girl accused of murdering Elizabeth Olten.

GRACE: A 15-year-old girl is the murder suspect? Not just murder, premeditated malice murder one suspect! This was planned?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bustamante now facing life in prison without parole for allegedly strangling and stabbing Elizabeth Olten.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s clearly facing the possibility that she will spend the rest of her life in jail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: This poor little 9-year-old girl. She thought she was playing with one of her friends. She winds up dead in a shallow grave in the woods near her home -- premeditated, brutal.

I want to bring in Dr. Michael Bell. He`s the chief medical examiner for Palm Beach County, Florida. Dr. Bell, this little girl was stabbed, strangled, had her throat slit, 9 years old. What kind of death did she go through?

DR. MICHAEL BELL, PALM BEACH CTY CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER: Well, I`m sure she suffered quite a bit. The strangling would have involved choking, perhaps suffocation, producing hemorrhages in her eyes. And then probably, the final blow was the stab wounds and the slit throat.

BROOKS: You know, one of the pictures we`ve seen tonight is her with a knife had her hand. And this knife that she has in her hand, it`s one with the little -- what looks like a partly serrated edge. I can tell you, they make a nasty, deep cut. The forensics in this case, Dr. Bell, there on the scene, they`ve just -- I mean, no defense at all. This was a cold- blooded, brutal murder, Dr. Bell?

BELL: Yes. I would agree.

BROOKS: I want to go back out to Ladd Egan. Ladd, you`re there in Jefferson County, Missouri, joining us by phone. What is -- I mean, this is a community of only about a thousand people. We`re talking everyone knows everyone else. You know, everyone knows everyone else`s business. You know, did people know that this girl was crying out for help? And how`s the community taking all this right now?

EGAN: Mike, they are in shock and -- but they have been in shock for a month since the authorities found the body of 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten. And they found that body because Alyssa Bustamante led them to the body. So they`ve had a lot of time to think about this, to talk about it. And you know, it`s just -- it`s the story of two worlds. On the one hand, they say it was a loving home and she got the help she need. But on the other hand, people are saying, clearly, there were signs all over the Internet that something was wrong. And now we`re hearing from the friends today that she was talking about these things. So yes, people know everybody, and it is a shock.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: New details emerge in the case of 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten found murdered after vanishing while walking a quarter mile from home to a friend`s house.

GRACE: The Olten family knows this 15-year-old girl.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The children played together. Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A YouTube profile and twitter page giving insight into the mind of the 15-year-old female murder suspect. A YouYube page allegedly from the 15-year-old female suspect show her hobbies, including killing people and cutting. Not only that, but a twitter page allegedly from the teen girl suspect contains disturbing quotes, including discussions of addiction and terrors.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is somebody who has an anti-social personality. She`s not normal. She wouldn`t go ahead and do the kinds of things that you think a teenager would be doing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She killed for sport. She killed for a thrill. She`s a cold-blooded psychopath. No remorse, no guilt. Maybe one who`s watched one too many slasher films and says that`s the kind of thing I want to do because that`ll be the fun, which I don`t get out of normal teen activities.

JENNIFER MEYER, ALYSSA`S BEST FRIEND: One specific time it was on her birthday. I was at her party and she kind of just took me off to the side randomly and she`s like, you know, I wonder what it would be like to kill somebody. Because I guess she was mad at one of her friends there. But it just seemed kind of strange, but you wouldn`t logically think one of your friends would kill somebody, you know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE BROOKS, GUEST HOST: I`m Mike Brooks. We`re taking your calls live. Thanks for joining us. In fact, out to the lines. Terry in Tennessee. Thanks for sticking with us.

TERRY, CALLER FROM TENNESSEE: No problem.

BROOKS: Terry?

TERRY: Yes.

BROOKS: Hi, terry.

TERRY: Hi. How are you?

BROOKS: Good, thank you. Your question or comment, dear?

TERRY: OK. It`s actually one great big question. First of all, despite her having the mental illnesses and obviously what looks like from the pictures a double personality, can she still get off from that because of the mental issues, which I still don`t feel that regardless she should get out? She took someone`s life.

And second, what about these Facebook and MySpaces? Why are they not monitoring this and catching people talking like that on their Web sites and their Web pages?

BROOKS: You know, those are two great questions, Terry. As a matter fact, I was going to go next, and I`m going to go right now to Eleanor Odom, prosecutor from Cobb County, Georgia.

Eleanor. OK. I know we`re probably going to have an insanity defense here because we`ve got the public defender, who`s going to say this girl didn`t stand a chance and because of her mental history. What do you think about that?

ELEANOR ODOM, PROSECUTOR: Well, Mike, I`m sure that`s what they`re going to say. However, you need to look at, did she know the difference between right and wrong at the time of the crime.

BROOKS: That`s absolutely right.

ODOM: Depression`s one thing. Anxiety is something else. But what did she know? What was her mental state at the time of the crime? And everything seems to be pointing to the premeditation. And it seems to be that she is competent while she`s committing that crime.

BROOKS: And Peter, you know Eleanor makes a great point. And that`s the whole thing. The difference between right and wrong. And if she went out in the woods and dug two holes and lured that little girl, 9-year-old little girl, out into the woods right by her house, she knew the difference between right and wrong.

PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: But Michael, you know, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Just because she`s able to show some rational thinking doesn`t mean that she`s sane. Look at the pictures you`re showing. Look at her history. This is a disturbed child.

As heinous as this crime is, we don`t change the rules because of the brutality of the crime. The government`s rules are we do not put insane people through criminal prosecution. And this disturbed child should not be put through it.

BROOKS: But the question is -- and I don`t think so, Peter. Was she insane at the time of the murder? You know, for all the other things, that`s one thing. But did she know right and wrong? I say that she did. All these pictures we`re looking at. That`s Facebook and MySpace photos of murder suspect Alyssa Bustamante.

I want to go out to Randy Kessler. Randy, we look at these. And as the caller talked about, we look at all these social networking sites. Somebody should -- first of all, the people closest to her -- her guardians -- should be looking at what she`s doing on the computer.

I don`t care if it`s social networking sites or someone else, because there`s predators all across the board. But could they be held responsible since twitter -- she was putting this on twitter and all these pictures on Facebook -- could they be held responsible at all for any part of this?

RANDY KESSLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No. I think morally they may feel some obligation. But you know, you said earlier they shouldn`t be allowed to be on twitter and Facebook. But the truth is by letting them be on twitter and Facebook we at least have a chance to catch them or predict or see something might happen.

You know, they didn`t catch it, they didn`t see it. And the relatives and close friends and the guardians, they probably feel terrible. And I wish they had caught them and I wish they`d done something about it.

But you know what? If you don`t let this 15-year-old be on Facebook and twitter, then there`s even less chance of catching it. So I`m a big fan of letting people say what they want. Just loved ones, keep your eyes open. Everywhere.

BROOKS: Well, you know -- but if you`re 15 years old and -- yes, OK, it`s Uncle Mike again. Crotchety old Uncle Mike. But I`m telling you, we hear so many cases of this, Pat Brown, of these people on these social networking sites. And it`s -- you know, it`s basically easy pickings for victims.

In this case no one was out there looking out for her possibly. You know, to say maybe well, we ought to contact this woman, you know -- but then again, I think, Pat Brown, it goes right back to her grandmother.

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER, AUTHOR OF "KILLING FOR SPORT": Well, I think one of our bigger problems in society is that we seem to leave our teenagers completely alone. We don`t monitor their activities like we used to in the past. You know, in the old farming days the teenagers worked with dad out in the farm and the girls helped in the kitchen with mom.

We knew where they were and what they were doing. But nowadays they`re sort of let loose and they`re let loose on the Internet as well. So they`re able to go completely away from adult supervision, and they`re able to get involved with anything. Pornography, slasher films, gory sites, Goth sites, and then having associations and contact with people who are not healthy for them.

You should know every one of the people your child communicates with and spends time with. But do any of these parents have any clue who these kids are talking to on the Internet, what sites they`re going to and what they`re doing? Absolutely not. And parents need to step up to the plate and say look, I`m responsible for the wealth -- the health and welfare of my child 24/7. That`s my job.

BROOKS: And you know, parents, grandparents, please. I`m a former law enforcement officer. I`m telling you, folks, there are people out there, even if they`re not Alyssa Bustamantes, people who are planning or talking about killing someone, doing themselves harm -- look, there are predators out there.

If you`ve got a computer, you`ve got a child who is on these networking sites, bring the computer down to where you`re going to be down and you can look over their shoulder now and then and take a look to see what they`re doing. You have to do it.

You can`t leave it up to law enforcement. Trust me. The FBI`s trying. Its images program is working well, but you can`t get all the predators off the Internet. You have to monitor them, too.

I want to go back out to Ellie Jostad. Ellie, the jails in Missouri. Great criminal justice system there known, you know, for being really tough. And we know this prosecutor and the judge are known for being tough. But are they really equipped to handle a 15-year-old female in the criminal justice system?

ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER, COVERING STORY: Well, Mike, and that`s the problem. That this juvenile is a female. Last week in court the Juvenile Justice Authorities explained that while they do have secure facilities with alarms, with locked gates, that sort of thing -- 24-hour staff -- for male juvenile offenders they do not have a facility like that for a female that`s charged with a crime of this nature.

BROOKS: Now, Eleanor, is she going to be tried as an adult for right now, do we know?

E. ODOM: It looks like she is, Mike, because of the nature of the crime. She can be tried as an adult. And probably should be in this case.

BROOKS: Now, Ellie, has she been screened already since her arrest? Has she had a health screening, do we know?

JOSTAD: Well, it appears so, Mike. The day or so after she was taken into custody she was briefly admitted into a children`s psychiatric facility. And, you know, as Ladd explained earlier, her attorney is now trying to get her moved back into a mental facility again for further treatment and evaluation.

BROOKS: But if she -- Eleanor Odom, real quickly, if she`s being tried as an adult, will she go to a children`s mental health facility or an adult? Or does it really matter?

E. ODOM: Well, at this point it doesn`t really matter because she`s under the age of majority. So go send her to a juvenile facility right now, and if she`s found guilty then she can go to the adult facility once she reaches the age of majority.

BROOKS: Well, before we go to break we want to send out a special happy birthday to Mama Gladys in Arkansas. At 95 years young she never misses the NANCY GRACE show. She`s also the proud mother of daughter Reva and has two grandsons, four great grandchildren, and one great, great grandson.

Happy birthday, Mama Gladys.

And happy birthday to veteran Atlanta defense attorney, Randy Kessler. Here he is in his baby days, long before joining.

(LAUGHTER)

. the defense bar.

Randy, you sure were a beautiful baby. But baby, look at you now. Happy birthday, buddy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEYER: I saw that video. She told me after she took the video, you know. And she was saying that it was basically out of fun or whatever. She wanted to see her brothers get hurt. And I`m like, OK. That`s kind of strange. I don`t usually do that with my siblings but....

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no way this juvenile will get a fair trial in this city, county, state. I don`t know where my client would get a fair trial once this name is released and the facts of the case are released.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: I`m Mike Brooks in for Nancy Grace. I want to go straight back out to Ellie Jostad.

Ellie. Now, Bustamante -- she apparently gave some sort of confession. What exactly did she say?

JOSTAD: Well, at these hearings last week Sergeant David Rice, he is an -- he testified that she allegedly confessed to -- that on October 16th.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re dropping.

JOSTAD: . of school. She said that she dug two holes that day -- led them to the body and police say that -- she wanted to feel what it was like to kill.

BROOKS: Ellie, we`re having a little bit of problems. But I want to go back out to Eleanor.

Eleanor, you know, this insanity defense, and now with this confession, this confession, and what about what she told her little friends? Could all this come in to court?

E. ODOM: Oh, yes, it`s going to come in, Mike. And if you look at that as a prosecutor, I`m going to use it to argue the premeditation in that she did know the difference between right and wrong because she was talking about wanting to kill somebody and how we talked before about her digging the graves and she admitted.

She didn`t say oh, yes, Satan told me to do this or, you know, the people in the TV were talking to me and telling me to do this. She`s talking about what she did and what she did in preparation. Her actions also demonstrate that she knew the difference between right and wrong.

BROOKS: Well, I think right now that she knew the difference between right and wrong, but I`m sure that her public defender will do the best that they can to say she was criminally insane. But we`re going to keep you on top of this.

But we`re going to change gears here. I want to take you to North Carolina and a case of little Shaniya Davis, who was brutally raped and murdered at 5 years old. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have arrested Mario Andrette McNeill.

TOM BERGAMINE, FAYETTEVILLE POLICE CHIEF: First-degree murder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`ve apprehended him now. We`ve been able to charge him with first-degree kidnapping.

BERGAMINE: First-degree rape of a child.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He admitted he did take Miss Davis.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Murder one charges in the case of little Shaniya Davis.

BERGAMINE: Asphyxiation as the cause of death.

GRACE: Murder one warrants being served on 29-year-old Mario Andrette McNeill. Right now the charges against mommy stand as they are. She has not been charged with murder yet.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Antoinette Davis and Mario McNeill have been together. They`ve hung out together. There may have been a debt that needed to be paid. We are understanding that she may have owed him money.

BRADLEY LOCKHART, SHANIYA DAVIS` FATHER: Don`t know the whole case with Shaniya`s mother and social services at this time. I -- but I feel if they would have known they should have contacted me.

GRACE: Did anybody in your side of the family know that drugs were being sold out of that home?

BYRON COLEMAN, SHANIYA DAVIS` HALF-BROTHER: No. Not that I`m aware of.

GRACE: That was my understanding that nobody on the dad`s side knew that that was going on in the home.

COLEMAN: No, we didn`t have no clue at all because if we did we would never let Shaniya go to that type of an environment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: I`m Mike Brooks in for Nancy Grace. Well, this is one case that -- I`ve talked with Nancy about and a lot of other folks, especially some of my former law enforcement colleagues.

And Liz, put up a picture of Mario McNeill. Mario McNeill is charged with first-degree murder. This guy. This is the scumbag right here. This animal, predator. He should have been locked up to begin with. But he is charged with brutally raping and murdering this beautiful little girl.

Look at him as he stands there in jail. They`re reading the charges. When they read the first-degree murder charges and the rape charges, what does he do? He nods his head. He`s not even man enough. He`s not even man enough to speak for himself. All he can do is nod his head.

And every time I see the picture of him holding that beautiful little girl, walking in to that hotel in Sanford, North Carolina, it tears my heart out.

I want to go straight out -- joining us by phone from Raleigh, North Carolina is Gurnal Scott, reporter for WPTF Radio.

Gurnal, what`s the latest from North Carolina?

GURNAL SCOTT, ANCHOR/REPORTER, WPTF RADIO (via phone): Well, the latest, Mike, right now is Mario McNeill, the man you were just talking about there, is in central prison, sort of the main lockup here in the capital city of Raleigh.

He has the charges against him. First-degree murder, first-degree rape of a child. Plus the kidnapping charge that was always against him. He is being kept separate in the prison population because we know how prisoners don`t take kindly to those who do harm to a child. So he is right there in prison.

But we are still awaiting to see if there are going to be any additional charges to the mother, Antoinette Davis. Right now she is only being charged with the human trafficking and the other charges, the other serious charges against her.

BROOKS: You know, I would love -- I would love to have five minutes in a room alone with this guy. I tell you what. And the mother. You know, what was the real relationship, Gurnal, between the mother and this predator?

SCOTT: We knew that there had been some past dealings. But it recently came to the surface that there may have been the possibility that she owed him money. And there had been thoughts that this -- the child being handed off to him may have been some kind of payment.

That hasn`t been proven in any way, shape, or form. But police are looking into that very possibility.

BROOKS: We`re going to talk more about the brutal death of little Shaniya Davis. But now, tonight`s "CNN Heroes."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Heroes.

SELENA GOMEZ, ACTOR/SINGER: Please welcome CNN Hero Maria Ruiz.

MARIA RUIZ, CNN HERO: Tonight God is calling many of you to do something. I challenge you to listen.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Maria Ruiz had no idea just who was listening. She helped the poor in Juarez, Mexico for 12 years. But after becoming a top 10 CNN Hero, ABC`s "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" decided to help her.

Before, Maria`s El Paso home was drowning in the donations she collects for the poor. Today, she has living space and plenty of storage. And the cramped kitchen where she cooked for thousands of children now looks like this.

RUIZ: It`s the whole house is special, but this is the room that I like the best.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She also received nearly $60,000 in contributions and a wider range of donated goods. And despite the extreme danger she faces in Juarez, Maria`s once monthly giveaways now happen every week.

RUIZ: We`ve been able to reach thousands of families because of the CNN exposure.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She`s even built a recreation center and computer lab that will open in 2010. It`s been a year of changes, but for Maria, the real reward has been the chance to do more for others.

RUIZ: When you give out the blessings are greater in return. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: What time did you wake up? When did you last see her?

ANTOINETTE DAVIS, SHANIYA DAVIS` MOTHER: I saw her at 5:30 last night.

UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: 5:30 last night, is that when you put her to bed?

DAVIS: Yes -- no, when she went back to bed.

UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: That was 5:00 this morning. Is that what you`re telling me?

DAVIS: Yes, ma`am.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKS: What you heard there is poor little Shaniya`s mother, Antoinette Davis, who, you know -- what was the real relationship between she and that predator that possibly she sold this gorgeous little girl to? Because she might have owed him money for drugs. We don`t know. That`s one theory, but we know that she was involved in human trafficking, selling her little girl into prostitution. Just makes you want to puke.

I want to go to NANCY GRACE producer, Marlaina Schiavo.

Marlaina, we know the cause of death from last week. The preliminary cause of death is asphyxiation. We don`t know if it was ligature, if she was smothered. When do we expect the full autopsy back including toxicology, because we don`t know if she possibly was drugged before this?

MARLAINA SCHIAVO, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER, COVERING STORY: It might take a few weeks, Mike, actually, and police aren`t actually lets on and the medical examiner is not really letting on to how long this entire investigation is going to take.

They`re still looking into possibilities if someone else was involved. Someone other than McNeill, someone other than the mother. So there`s a lot of unanswered questions, Mike, and it`s going to be more than a week or two before we find out the answers.

BROOKS: You know, and I want to know the answers because, look, I want justice for this poor little girl. You know, her mother, she`s -- I`m sorry, as far as I`m concerned she`s a piece of garbage, too. You know, the father, I feel so sorry for him, Marlaina, because he thought that Antoinette was trying to get her life back on track and he decided to go ahead and give the baby to her to let her spend some time, you know, with her.

But I`m telling you, the poor guy, we just seen him crying his eyes out and, you know, my heart goes out to him and to the rest of their family when they put her, they laid her to rest yesterday in North Carolina. And we`ll be following this very closely.

But to tonight`s heroes. Let`s stop to remember Army Private -- Army Staff Sergeant Hesley Box, Jr., 24 years old from Nashville, Arkansas. Killed in Iraq. Awarded the Purple Heart. He also served in Saudi Arabia and Bosnia. Dedicated to God, family, and country.

He always looked after the younger soldiers in his unit. He loved fishing. He leaves behind parents Barbie and Hesley. Brother Tarcus (ph) who also served in Iraq. Widow, Alexa, and two children.

Hesley Box Jr. A true American hero.

Thank you to all our guests and to you at home for being with us tonight. We`ll see you tomorrow night 8:00 p.m. sharp Eastern and until then stay safe.

END