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Nancy Grace
Body Found Near Idaho Falls May Be Missing Utah Woman
Aired April 26, 2010 - 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, live, Idaho. As we go to air, we learn human remains found, the skeletal remains of a female, an adult female, now discovered. Is it missing 28-year-old mom of two Susan Powell? Powell last seen by her husband and two little boys when Daddy suddenly announces around midnight he`s taking the boys, age 4 and 2, camping in the snow at midnight at an undisclosed location. He says when they come home, Mommy`s gone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A body found in the woods in Idaho. Could it be that of missing Utah mom Susan Powell?
JOSH POWELL, HUSBAND: We just miss her, and we want her back. And I love her, and my boys love her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are they doing?
POWELL: They`re doing OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have any idea what happened to her?
POWELL: No. Thank you. And any help to try to find her would -- would be appreciated. So really, that`s all. We just -- I mean, she`s somewhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And breaking news tonight in the search for 2-year-old Florida girl, Caylee. Six months of searching culminate when skeletal remains found in a heavily wooded area 15 houses from the Anthony home confirmed to be Caylee. A utility meter reader stumbles on a tiny human skeleton, including a skull covered in light-colored hair, the killer duct-taping and placing a heart-shaped sticker directly over the mouth, then triple-bagging little Caylee like she`s trash.
Bombshell tonight. Did a female FBI agent sabotage the murder case against tot mom? Her DNA found on the duct tape binding little Caylee`s skull. And in the last hours, we confirm a mystery hair discovered on plastic found at the crime scene just feet from 2-year-old Caylee`s body, both scientific lab results giving the defense the trump card when tot mom finally goes to trial.
And tonight, more late-night pillow talk between tot mom and another female inmate, the inmates revealing tot mom says she soaked a rag with chloroform and placed it over little Caylee`s mouth to knock her out so tot mom could party, the female inmate divulging that and more about tot mom behind bars. And it`s all caught on tape. Tonight, we have the video.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New documents just released in the Casey Anthony murder case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... the unknown strand of hair found near Caylee`s body...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was hair attached to the duct tape.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... but hair analysis...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Newly released documents show the FBI tested a hair found on a plastic bag at the remains site.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s what they`re going to try to find out, if they can link Casey to that scene.
CASEY ANTHONY, CAYLEE`S MOTHER: I`m trying to make sure that I`m not going to give anybody anything else to throw against me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hair found at the crime scene doesn`t match either Caylee or Casey Anthony.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... reportedly doesn`t match any officers who are working the remains site.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Casey Anthony maintains her innocence.
CASEY ANTHONY: My entire life has been taken from me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defense has maintained that someone else put Caylee`s body in the wooded area and could use this tiny five-inch-long hair as proof.
CASEY ANTHONY: Even though I`m giving them nothing, they`re still doing it!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A jailhouse friend of Casey Anthony`s telling an amazing story...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She told us Casey Anthony talked to her about using chloroform to knock out Caylee so she could party.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She would put it on, like, a rag, like, a washrag, and put it over the baby`s face, so she`ll inhale it and that would will her out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did she say what she used to knock her out?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can`t pronounce it. Chloro foam...
CASEY ANTHONY: I`m not in control over any of this!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. Live to Idaho. As we go to air, we learn human remains found, the skeletal remains of a female, an adult female, now discovered. Is it missing 28-year-old mom of two Susan Powell?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The body`s badly decomposed, but police say skeletal remains are likely female. A stranded motorist made the grisly discovery. Local police contacted Utah investigators working on the Powell case. Idaho Falls is -- get this -- 213 miles north of Salt Lake City, where Susan lived. You may remember cops say her husband, Josh Powell, rented a car after his wife disappeared and took a mystery trip, driving several hundred miles before returning the car.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know there was quite a huge effort out in the West Desert looking for any sign of her. Is that where you were camping?
POWELL: I just have to go get my boys. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight out to Jean Casarez, legal correspondent, "In Session." She`s on the story. Jean, what`s the latest?
JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": You know, Nancy, from the very beginning, we had heard that if anything had happened to Susan Powell that we would find out once the snow was melted. Well, Nancy, it`s that time, and a female`s decomposing body was found in the Idaho Falls area. And Nancy, it`s about three-and-a-half hours from where Susan Powell lived and was last seen.
GRACE: To Jim Kirkwood, reporter with KTKK Newsradio, joining us out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Jim, thank you for being with us. What condition is the body in?
JIM KIRKWOOD, KTKK NEWSRADIO (via telephone): They`re indicating it`s badly decomposed. And they`ll have to do some tests, I guess dental and DNA, to find out if this really is Susan.
GRACE: OK, Jim -- Jim Kirkwood with KTKK Newsradio, joining us there out of Utah. Jim, when you say it`s badly decomposed, do we know if there`s any soft tissue on the body?
KIRKWOOD: That they`re not really releasing a lot of information about because the police are holding things close to their vest. It -- they`re saying it could be weeks or months before forensic tests are back. But they`ll do a dental right away, Nancy.
GRACE: Right.
KIRKWOOD: They`re going to know really quick.
GRACE: To Dr. Michael Arnall, a board-certified forensic pathologist. Dr. Arnall, it`s so important if there is soft tissue, skin, muscle on the body, because you`re more likely to get a cause of death, as opposed to a completely skeletonized frame.
DR. MICHAEL ARNALL, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: That`s exactly right.
GRACE: Explain.
ARNALL: Well, if you`ve got soft tissue, you would be able to see evidence of a knife wound or gunshot wound. You may see evidence of natural disease or cancer...
GRACE: Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Dr. Arnall, please. Just give me a tiny break tonight. This lady did not go out into dense foliage and heavy woods and die of cancer, OK?
ARNALL: Well...
GRACE: Back it up!
ARNALL: ... you don`t know that she didn`t have -- you don`t know that she didn`t have cancer and committed suicide through an overdose or something.
GRACE: Yes, I agree with that. I agree with that. But nobody -- I doubt this adult female went off into the woods to just die like a sick dog, OK? I don`t think that happened. But if there`s tissue, soft tissue, skin, muscle, what more can we learn from the body, as opposed to when it`s completely skeletonized?
ARNALL: There are innumerable observations you can make on the tissue themselves, not the least of which is assisting in the identification of this individual.
GRACE: What about dental?
ARNALL: Dental examination might take an hour for an experienced forensic dentist.
GRACE: About an hour?
ARNALL: They could make a comparison with pre-mortem -- the X-rays from the family dentist. They could make that comparison in perhaps an hour and have a positive identification if they had X-ray records on the teeth from this individual`s family dentist, yes.
GRACE: And Doctor, it doesn`t necessarily mean that you have to be missing a tooth or -- it could go by caps, crowns. All type of dental features can help identify you positively, right?
ARNALL: That`s exactly right. The shape of the cavities, the shape of the crowns -- maybe this person had dentures. So any type of dental restoration is helpful. Even without dental restorations, the presence of wisdom teeth or the absence of wisdom teeth can also be used as identifying factors.
GRACE: And especially with teeth that are even slightly misaligned. You know, for instance, they cross in the front or -- a host of misalignments can help make a positive ID on a body when you don`t have DNA, when you don`t have soft tissue, is that correct?
ARNALL: That`s exactly right.
GRACE: With me, Dr. Michael Arnall, board-certified forensic pathologist, an expert in his field, out of Denver, Colorado, joining us.
Back to Jean Casarez, legal correspondent. Jean, I want to go back to the discovery of this body. An adult female, everyone, has been discovered in the Idaho Falls area. It`s only about three hours from Utah, the Utah location that Josh Powell, Susan Powell`s husband, says he last saw his wife alive. Who discovered the body, Jean Casarez?
CASAREZ: Well, it was someone that was working in the area with those wind turbine units. And they were trying to get cell phone reception, so they actually were just walking through this very rural area and came upon this body.
But Nancy, it is a heavily snow-filled area. And if snow has been covering that body for months, since December 6th, for instance, and it just began to melt, then some of that decomposition that we hear could be pretty severe may not be quite as bad. Some of the body could have been preserved.
GRACE: Back to Dr. Michael Arnall. Given the fact of Jean`s reporting of the heavy -- the deep snow that is just now thawing, is there a chance, Dr. Arnall, that she may have actually been preserved, frozen, in a sense?
ARNALL: If this person went missing December 7th and has now been discovered in a snow field in April, there`s a significant chance that that person would be quite well preserved. If this person is skeletonized, that may actually suggest that this person has not been in the snow but actually was there before it snowed. So they may actually use that as information which allows them to determine how long this person has been present. If they`re not preserved, they likely were there before the snowy season.
GRACE: And the whole story, everybody, remember, Josh Powell says he`s taking his two boys camping, age 2 and 4, at midnight in the snow, then can`t quite get it straight to tell cops where they went camping, the exact location, then takes off, tries to sell the house, and moves to Washington.
We are taking your calls live. To Carol in California. Hi, Carol.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good evening, Nancy.
GRACE: Hi, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My question is, if this is Susan Powell`s body, would the police have taken soil samples from her car and tires right at the beginning? And I hope they did.
GRACE: Excellent question. To you, Mark Harold (ph), former police officer, city Atlanta, joining us out of D.C. What about the soil samples?
MARK HAROLD, FORMER ATLANTA POLICE OFFICER: Well, hopefully, they did do that. It just depends on how they saw the investigation going, when they determined that she was actually missing, and this sort of thing. But it`s a great idea. Hopefully, they were that comprehensive. But you just never know what they did at the beginning of an investigation.
GRACE: We are bringing you breaking news out of Idaho Falls. An adult female`s body has just been discovered in a densely wooded area. Is it the remains of 28-year-old mom of two Susan Powell? As of yet, her husband is a no-show at the scene.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We hope to hurry up and get some information back as to who those bodies -- the bodies are. We`re hoping that with the snow melting that there`s going to be a lot more evidence turn up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police say skeletal remains are likely female.
GRACE: Is it missing 28-year-old mom of two Susan Powell?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Josh Powell`s bizarre behavior has made him the focus of the investigation into his wife`s disappearance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Susan Powell disappeared without her purse, without her cell phone. Police say the case is very suspicious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Speculation comes from Josh`s story that he took his 2 and 4-year-old son camping in the freezing cold of the West Desert on the night Susan disappeared from their West Valley home.
POWELL: We just miss her, and we want her back, and -- and I love her and my boys love her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This whole idea of leaving in the middle of a Sunday night, when it`s cold and freezing outside, to go camping and to make s`mores with two very young children makes no sense on any level.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have any idea what happened to her?
POWELL: No. Thank you. And any help to try to find her would -- would be appreciated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Right, and you can contact him in his new home in Washington.
Out to Rupa Mikkilineni, our producer on the story. Rupa, what more can you tell me regarding these remains just discovered?
RUPA MIKKILINENI, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Nancy, these remains were just discovered. We know that they are the remains of a female person. And right now, they`re looking towards trying to figure out who this could be. And it is possible that it could be Susan Powell. She literally may have disappeared around this same area, which is where Josh Powell says that he went camping.
Now, let`s go back just a little bit, Nancy, and let`s not forget the suspicious situation under which she disappeared. Josh Powell, her husband, says he took the children camping in freezing temperatures in December and then left her behind, his wife behind sleeping. Except that the next day, when she vanished, she didn`t have -- her purse was there at her house, her wallet, her keys, her cell phone. She just vanished? How?
GRACE: We are taking your calls live. Out to Claire in Indiana. Hi, Claire.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, Nancy. I`m thinking that the husband is so controlling that I would think that he would be so upset that he didn`t know or doesn`t know where she is that he would be livid instead of passive. And I also have been following your program for years, including this story from the very beginning. And the first impulse that I got was that he probably stopped along the way from point A to point B and dumped her body off, and the excuse was that he went camping. But if I were police, I would look to point B -- I would look somewhere between point A and point B.
GRACE: You know, Claire, that`s an interesting and actually highly valuable observation. I`ve always believed that the deed, if it were done in the home -- if it were -- that he drove simply to a dumping ground. And I don`t think there are very many experts who believe she was taken away from the home and killed.
We are taking your calls live. Out to Shannon in New Hampshire. Hi, Shannon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. How are you?
GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First of all, I just want to thank you for all you do for victims.
GRACE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My heart goes out to you.
GRACE: Thank you. Oh, I hear you`ve got a baby.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Well, not a baby, a 4-year-old. And I was very blessed. And my question is, how far from the dumping grounds was the body found?
GRACE: OK. How far from the dumping ground was the body found? To Jean Casarez. Was there a dumping ground? Was there a dump near there? I didn`t know that detail.
CASAREZ: No, I think the body was found where it`s believed the body was dumped, placed, put. And that was close to a roadway. But it was still a very, very rural area, about three-and-a-half hours from the last place that Susan Powell was found and seen, which was her home.
GRACE: And Jean Casarez, you say a roadway. Was it an interstate or a rural route?
CASAREZ: It was a rural route. It was nothing urban about it. It was out in the middle of nowhere.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POWELL: A lot of times, I just go camping with my boys, you know, nothing big. I just go overnight, and we do s`mores and stuff like that. And so I just went with the boys.
You know, I didn`t -- I was somehow thinking that it was Sunday. I didn`t go to church, and I -- I just missed the day and thought we`ll come back Sunday.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A female`s decomposing body was found in the Idaho Falls area. It`s about three-and-a-half hours from where Susan Powell lived and was last seen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have any idea what happened to her?
POWELL: No. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: West Valley police say Joshua Powell remains their only person of interest in Susan`s disappearance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Speculation comes from Josh`s story that he took his 2 and 4-year-old son camping in the freezing cold of the West Desert on the night Susan disappeared from their West Valley home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls live. As we go to air, we learn the body, the remains of an adult female have been discovered in rural Idaho, Idaho Falls. It`s about a three-hour drive from where Susan Powell, the 28-year-old mom of two boys, ages 4 and 2, went missing.
Back to Jean Casarez, legal correspondent, "In Session." Jean, Rupa was going through the facts of the evening Susan Powell disappeared. Since then, the husband has moved to Washington. What else can you tell me about that night and the events since then? He is the only known person of interest, to my knowledge.
CASAREZ: That`s right. He`s never been named a suspect but person of interest. I think that that night is what makes everyone remember this case because he said he took the two kids, 2 and 4 years old, snowy night - - that he took them out camping and they spent the night in the van that night, returned home, wife is gone.
GRACE: How did they make s`mores in the van? Don`t you need a campfire for that?
CASAREZ: Well, I guess you do. If you have a match and a rod and a marshmallow, I guess you could try to doing something. But one of the things that I...
GRACE: Jean, Jean, Jean...
CASAREZ: Yes?
GRACE: ... Jean! You obviously don`t know a lot about s`mores. You have to melt...
CASAREZ: I do from Girl Scouts.
GRACE: ... the marshmallows. You can`t -- OK, go ahead.
CASAREZ: Matches. You need matches. Yes, I understand what you`re saying. You need a fire. You`re right. You need a fire. But you know what everybody remembers from this case was that when her father came out begging, begging for anyone to come forward, Josh did not. He did not speak pleading for mercy, for anyone to come forward in the disappearance of his wife.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s been a long ordeal. It`s kind of like waiting to breathe again. It does feel good to be around and feel like I might be able to provide something somewhere. Perhaps it`s false hope, but it`s a hope.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A body found in the woods in Idaho. Could it be that of missing Utah mom Susan Powell?
JOSH POWELL, HUSBAND OF MISSING MOM, SUSAN POWELL, PERSON OF INTEREST: We just miss her, and we want her back. And I love her, and my boys love her.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How are they doing?
POWELL: They`re doing OK.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you have any idea what happened to her?
POWELL: No. Thank you. And any help to try to find her would -- would be appreciated. So really, that`s all -- we jus just -- she`s somewhere.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The body`s badly decomposed, but police say skeletal remains are likely female. A stranded motorist made the grisly discovery. Local police contacted Utah investigators working on the Powell case.
Idaho Falls is -- get this -- 213 miles north of Salt Lake City where Susan lived. You may remember cops say her husband, Josh Powell, rented a car after his wife disappeared and took a mystery trip, driving several hundred miles before returning the car.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I know there was quite a huge effort out in the west desert looking for any sign of her. Is that where you were camping?
POWELL: I just have to go get my boys. Thank you.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: We are taking your calls live. Back to Jim Kirkwood with KTKK.
For those of you just joining us, human remains, an adult female, have been discovered in a rural area of Idaho Falls. It`s about three hours from the Utah home where 28-year-old Susan Powell was last seen alive, to our knowledge.
Her husband decided around midnight that night, December 7, Pearl Harbor Day, that he would take his two boys ages 4 and 2 camping in the snow in freezing weather to an undisclosed location.
He says when they got home mommy was gone. She left behind her pocketbook and cell phone.
Back to Jim Kirkwood, KTKK News Radio, what more can you tell me about the area in which the body was dumped?
JIM KIRKWOOD, REPORTER, KTKK NEWS RADIO: I know the area, Nancy, and it`s an area where deer hunters, rabbit hunters, people like that go. A perfect area to dump a body. It`s sage brush, wild grass, small quaking aspen trees.
The road where she was found near is a dirt track. Just the -- just vehicles driving over it, mostly trucks out there. Not many cars. Have made a track in it. But it`s just dirt. And a perfect place to dump a body. Somebody killed the woman there and dumped her. The only question is who she is.
GRACE: When you say it is very rural, out of the way, how often is that rural route used?
KIRKWOOD: Based on -- I`m looking at the picture of it, and there couldn`t be more than a few trucks go over that in a week because it`s not a real road. Just the track where the truck tires have made two ridges in the dirt. There`s no gravel, no nothing. It`s just dirt. And weeds.
GRACE: With us, Jim Kirkwood with KTKK News Radio, joining us out of Salt Lake City, Utah.
Let`s unleash the lawyers. Joining us tonight, child advocate, family law attorney, Susan Moss, New York. Peter Elikann, defense attorney and author of "Superpredators," Boston. Out of New York, former prosecutor turned defense attorney Doug Burns.
Weigh in, Sue Moss.
SUSAN MOSS, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY & CHILD ADVOCATE: We`ll never throw in the towel searching for Susan Powell. Listen to what he says. He says any help would be appreciated.
Appreciated? This is a man who just love his wife and help would be appreciated? This guy is so suspicious no wonder no one`s going to leave him alone until we solve this case.
GRACE: To Peter Elikann. Peter, why hasn`t the husband shown up on the scene?
PETER ELIKANN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY, AUTHOR OF "SUPERPREDATORS": Nancy, as a defense attorney I`d have to concede his story is fishy from beginning to end. Nothing about it looks good at all.
I still haven`t seen any evidence against him. But his story is not good. And I think that`s what a criminal defense attorney would be looking at and pushing on.
Other than that, his behavior and the story really undermined and undercut him. But I haven`t seen any real evidence other than it sure looks fishy. And they`re going to need more than that.
GRACE: Back to my question to you, Doug Burns, why hasn`t the husband shown up on the scene?
DOUG BURNS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, he`s moved away to Washington, according to --
GRACE: So?
BURNS: -- what you were saying. Look, his behavior`s suspicious. Either he`s sort of an Academy Award-winning actor with that driveway performance or he`s just totally full of it. But the fact of the matter is, is that it`s consciousness of guilt. That`s what the defense lawyer has to overcome.
But as my colleague said, there`s no real proof, and you`ve got to just ride it out, see what happens.
GRACE: OK. Susan Moss, I`ve asked both the defense attorneys, both who have sterling reputations, why the husband hasn`t bothered to show up here at the scene, Idaho Falls.
If that was my loved one and these could be her remains, I would be there. You can get an airplane ticket and be there in a couple of hours. What`s the problem, Sue Moss?
MOSS: Well, maybe he doesn`t want her to be found. Maybe if she`s found there`ll be evidence. Maybe he knows where to look. And if he takes the wrong step, everyone`s going to know that he knows more than what he`s telling.
GRACE: Out to the lines, Shirley in Missouri. Hi, Shirley.
SHIRLEY, CALLER FROM MISSOURI: Yes, Nancy. If I have my facts right, and I think I heard Jane say something about he did rent a car, is there any way they could get that mileage and figure out if there`s any distance between where the body was found and perhaps back to his home?
GRACE: Good question. What about it, Marc Harrold, former cop, city of Atlanta?
MARC HARROLD, FORMER POLICE OFFICER, CITY OF ATLANTA PD: Yes, if the records are the way they should be, they should have that. Obviously if he`s charged by the mile they`re going to have it. They can figure out the distance -- he got the one question about is that the area you go hunting in and he immediately terminated the interview there.
So yes, absolutely, they`re going try to figure out how far he could have gone on the miles that he had in that car, maybe if there was a mileage voucher or a gas voucher, try to put it all together and see if that`s somewhere he could have driven in that rental car.
GRACE: Let`s go to Dr. Mark Hillman, clinical psychotherapist, author of "My Therapist is Making Me nuts."
Mark Hillman, it`s great to see you again. Thank you for being with us. Mark, joining us out of New York.
Mark, why do you believe he has not come to the scene?
MARK HILLMAN, CLINICAL PSYCHOTHERAPIST, AUTHOR OF "MY THERAPIST IS MAKING ME NUTS": Well --
GRACE: This could be his wife`s remains.
HIILLMAN: Well, certainly he is protecting himself. And the forensics will play out the way they`re going to be. Obviously, he knows something. But my concern is a husband or a father takes a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old camping at 12:30 in the morning in freezing cold weather on December 7th?
How come Child Protection Service is not involved with this? And I would do a background check on what`s going on in the state of Washington. He is clearly suspicious.
Is that the remains of his wife, Susan Powell? That we don`t know. But his behavior, like the other defense attorney said, is very suspicious. Where`s Child Protection Services?
GRACE: Good point, Mark Hillman.
To Sue Moss, I see where he`s got a tiger by the tail. He can`t hold on, and he can`t let go. If he doesn`t go to the scene where the body is found, it suggests that he knows it`s not her.
If he does go to the scene without police supervision or direction, they would say how the hay did you know how to get there? So what do you think?
MOSS: But you`ve got to do something. This is somebody who he pledged to love for the rest of his life. This is someone who he had two children with, who he says he loves very, very much.
If that woman`s so important in his life and his children`s life is missing, you do whatever you can to help her, to find her, to bring justice.
GRACE: Back to Rupa Mikkilineni, our producer on the story. Rupa, regarding what was left at the home, I know her pocketbook was left behind when she disappeared. What else? Tell me the circumstances.
I recall when the cops got there he had a big fan blowing on a wet spot, a big wet spot in the carpet, and he would not explain it to police.
RUPA MIKKILINENI, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: RUPA MIKKILINENI, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: That`s right, Nancy. When police got there to the house to search for the family -- because all of them at that point were missing. Josh Powell was out camping, and they didn`t know where mom Susan Powell was.
They had to break into the house through a window, and when they got into the house they saw a big wet spot on the carpet with two fans blowing as if there had either been some kind of a water leak, which is doubtful, or some type of a cleanup had happened.
GRACE: Well, they could determine whether there was a water leak and forensically.
Out to the lines, Jessie, Oklahoma. Hi, Jessie.
JESSIE, CALLER FROM OKLAHOMA: Hello, my little favorite victim rights fighter.
(LAUGHTER)
GRACE: Hi, Jessie. Thank you for joining us tonight.
JESSIE: Hi.
GRACE: What`s your question, love?
JESSIE: Well, the girl from Missouri covered it a little bit about the car really has me baffled. Have they isolated that car and checked it for forensics?
GRACE: Oh, I know the answer to that is yes. And he rented the car, to my understanding, Jean, was it after police seized his mini van or before?
JEAN CASAREZ, CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": No, I think it was after. And you better believe they have all those records. But remember, charges have not been filed so a case has not been filed, discovery hasn`t started being released. So we are not privy to those results.
GRACE: That`s right, Jean. We don`t know the half of it. And again, Josh Powell not a suspect. He is only a person of interest in this case.
Everyone, as we go to break, I`m wishing a thank you from the bottom of my heart to nurses Olympia Slaughter and Christie Blackwell for taking such great care of my father, Mac, at Coliseum Hospital.
And to you, Daddy, please get well. The twins need their granddaddy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Casey, where`s Caylee? Where`s Caylee?
CASEY ANTHONY, MOTHER OF CAYLEE ANTHONY: I don`t (EXPLETIVE DELETED) know where she`s at.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just smiled. It didn`t bother her.
ANTHONY: She`s the most important thing in this entire world to me.
CINDY ANTHONY, CASEY ANTHONY`S MOTHER: I still believe my daughter.
GEORGE ANTHONY, CASEY ANTHONY`S FATHER: I believe in my daughter.
LEE ANTHONY, CASEY ANTHONY`S BROTHER: I believe everything that my sister tells me.
ANTHONY: They`ve already said they`re going to pin this on me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The charges against her are --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Overlapping layers of duct tape.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Child abuse.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Try to pin it on Zanny the nanny.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: First-degree murder.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Traces of chloroform.
ANTHONY: Regardless of how it happened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They found the body.
ANTHONY: I will lie, I will steal, I will do whatever I can to find my daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh no, but they don`t know if it`s perjury or not, right?
ANTHONY: In my gut she`s still OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But they have directly connected some things they found on the body --
CINDY ANTHONY: There`s no evidence that Casey has ever done any harm to her child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some things they found in her home --
ANTHONY: The media`s going to have a freaking field day with this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s pretty cut and dry at this point.
CINDY ANTHONY: My daughter may have some mistruths out there or half truths, but she is not a murderer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had a feeling that it might be but nevertheless, it`s just -- it`s not my place to judge her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you understand, Miss Anthony?
ANTHONY: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re really having a tough time.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls live. Stunning evidence in the tot mom case. Did a female FBI agent sabotage the case against tot mom? Not only that, mystery hair identified on plastic at the crime scene. Plastic just feet away from the body of 2-year-old little Caylee.
Straight out to Drew Petrimoulx, WDBO Radio joining us from Orlando.
What happened, Drew?
DREW PETRIMOULX, REPORTER, WDBO RADIO: Well, basically you`re talking about two different supposed contaminations here. First of all, they found a five-inch-long thin dark-colored hair at the crime scene on a piece of plastic. That was tested for the crime scene, cross tested with the crime scene investigators and with the Anthony family, and we`ve learned that that hair does not belong to any of those investigators or the Anthony family.
Also, an FBI investigator was going over the duct tape that was found covering Caylee Anthony`s mouth, and she got some of her DNA on that duct tape. They did pinpoint it to which FBI investigator it was. And those are basically the two things that we`re talking about here.
GRACE: Well, that`s a plenty because we see what contamination or mishandling can do for cases. I mean, look at the Orenthal James Simpson case, the double murder trial. Contamination was argued in that case. He was acquitted.
Do I have to say Phil Specter? He also claimed tampering at the scene on the part of the state. We know what happened in that case.
What about it, Jean Casarez?
CASAREZ: When you look at this crime scene that was so close to the Anthony home, Nancy, it`s one of the most contaminated crime scenes I think we`ve ever seen in all the cases that we`ve covered.
Prosecutors will say, though, it doesn`t make a difference because what is relevant at that crime scene is the triple bags that were around the remains, the remains themselves, the bones that were in the area, and the foliage and the roots and the vines that showed -- and the soil levels that showed how long the remains had been there.
GRACE: Ellie Jostad, exactly what do we know?
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER, COVERING STORY: Well, Nancy, we know that they actually took seven investigators who had hair that seemed to be similar to this mystery hair that was found. They pulled five hairs from each of those people, and they did comparison.
And they could not find a match to any of those people. We know it also doesn`t match the Anthonys or Caylee Anthony. So right now it`s unknown who that mystery hair belongs to.
GRACE: All right. But the big difference in the O.J. Simpson case, Ellie Jostad, is that, for instance, when Simpson stood up with the bloody glove, it was the glove at the scene the night of the murder. It was soaked in blood. All right?
JOSTAD: Mm-hmm.
GRACE: This is just a piece of plastic out in the woods. How do I even know if it`s connected to the body?
JOSTAD: Well, exactly, Nancy. And that`s another point that`s been made, is that this area, this is a vacant lot, there -- and we see it in this, you know --
GRACE: Well, isn`t it behind a school, like an elementary school?
JOSTAD: Yes, there is a school nearby. And you see it when you look at everything that was, you know, collected at the scene. There`s all kinds of trash there. There`s bottles. There`s newspapers. There`s many pieces of plastic. So it could be anything.
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers. Joining us, Susan Moss, Peter Elikann, Doug Burns.
Peter Elikann, it`s a defense attorney`s dream. Now, try to tell me in a nutshell -- I understand you`re a great orator, but in a nutshell, Peter, why is this a treasure trove for the defense?
ELIKANN: All right. Two things. First of all, the hair there brings open -- even though there`s a lot of reasons why that hair could be there, it brings open the whole idea in front of the jury`s mind, hey, there could be somebody out there, did you prove this case against her beyond a reasonable doubt? End of story. This is huge in that area.
The other thing about it, I`ll briefly say, as far as the FBI investigator contaminating the crime scene there, it contaminates the whole case because what you do then, you raise in front of the jury, look, here`s some incompetence or some malfeasance or whatever in this area.
The whole case, the whole investigation, there could be all kinds of incompetence in the whole thing. So it really does --
GRACE: Well, so Doug Burns --
ELIKANN: -- contaminate the whole case.
GRACE: Don`t you think, Doug Burns, that the defense as a pre-emptive strike needs to go ahead and get a comparison, a hair comparison to Kronk, the meter reader? That`s who the -- and some others that we believe the defense is going to use as a scapegoat, claiming they did it and not her. Go ahead and rule them out as well on that hair.
BURNS: No, I definitely agree. But, you know, what the other guest is saying is right. It`s a two-pronged attack. Number one, it`s like wait a minute, this hair doesn`t come back to my client, ladies and gentlemen.
And then number two, I think is more important, is the contamination. And you know, you don`t have to go crazy with it. You just politely suggest, look, if one thing is contaminated everything`s contaminated as Peter said.
GRACE: What about it, Sue Moss?
MOSS: No one will care about this spare hair. Don`t forget the other evidence. She didn`t report her daughter missing for 30 days. She goes out for partying. Then she blames the Zanny nanny.
There are so many other factors in this case that this is not going to make the difference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNIE DOWNING: If Casey harmed Caylee, she didn`t do it alone. I know that for sure. Casey`s not that smart.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- were involved, whether she was a good mother or a bad mother, she`d be convicted. That -- this is a homicide case, there is still no eyewitness. There is still no forensic proof. There is still no confession.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CINDY ANTHONY: We`re talking about a 3-year-old little girl.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Casey Anthony liked to party.
ANTHONY: Take complete and full responsibility for my action.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And in discovery documents, one of her friends even says at parties, quote, "the kid slept through anything."
ANTHONY: I`m sorry for what I did.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can`t pronounce it. Chloroform.
JOSE BAEZ, CASEY ANTHONY`S ATTORNEY: She didn`t just walk into Walgreen`s and buy chloroform.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Put it on like a rag, like a wash rag.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight out to Leonard Padilla, bounty who actually bailed tot mom out from behind bars.
Padilla, do you think there`s any way -- you know this case in and out -- that the jury would fall for a hair, an unknown hair, on a piece of plastic in the woods? We don`t even know if it`s connected to this case. And we know the DNA on the masking tape as just utterly stupid as that way, we know it was an FBI agent.
LEONARD PADILLA, BOUNTY HUNTER, BAILED CASEY ANTHONY OUT OF JAIL: Yes, thousands of people go by, it`s only 16 feet off the road. There`s houses and there`s kids at a school just a couple of hundred feet down the road.
And the main thing you got to remember is the makeup of the jury in Florida. It`s going to be definitely of a different mind, of a different situation than the one that tried O.J. Simpson.
You have to understand that the O.J. Simpson jury was driven by several factors that the Florida jury is not going to be driven by. So the hair is not going to make any difference. There`s too many people that go by there every day.
And I`m sure that if they wanted to spend all the money that Florida has got in their treasury, they could find out who that hair belongs to. But it`s totally unnecessary. It`s just junk and garbage out there constantly being thrown there.
People walking by there, kids running out in the forest, just not going to make any difference whatsoever.
GRACE: To the lines, Diane in Wisconsin. Hi, Diane.
DIANE, CALLER FROM WISCONSIN: Hi, Nancy.
GRACE: Hi, dear.
DIANE: We love your show. Me and my sister cheer and watch you every night.
GRACE: Thank you, Diane. And thank you to your sister. What`s your question, love?
DIANE: Well, my question, he kind of answered it. I was just concerned about if this was going to break the case. But you know, it`s just unbelievable to me that this little girl could be missing for 30 days. And I have kids of my own and my son is a sophomore in college.
And if my son was living here, when he`s home during the summer, I want to know where you`re at. You don`t come and go. And this little girl was missing for a month and the grandmother never said a word. I just think it --
GRACE: Well, and you know, Diane, I didn`t even get to play you the information, the tapes that we have of the female inmates and the pillow talk. But wait until you hear that. The -- possible discovery of Susan Powell blew that out of the water that when you hear that, Diane in Wisconsin, you and your sister are going to flip.
Tonight, has a wrench been thrown in the state`s case against tot mom?
Very quickly, everyone, let`s stop and remember Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Robert McRill, 42, Lake Placid, Florida, killed Iraq. Awarded Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, Iraq Campaign medal.
A photographer, awarded Photographer of the Year award east coast. Had many published photos, loved time with family, fishing, volunteering at local church. Remembered for his barbecue ribs.
Leaves behind brothers Michael, Ron, sister Sharon, and grieving widow Catherine, sons Brett, Brian and Joshua.
Robert McRill, American hero.
Thanks to our guests but especially to you. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
