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Nancy Grace
Boyfriend of Missing 17-Year-Old Ohio Girl Under Suspicion
Aired June 28, 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, Ohio, a gorgeous 17- year-old co-ed, honor student, number one in her class, volleyball star, last seen there in her own home with her grandmother, midnight. Next morning, Grandma wakes up 6:00 AM, Abbi`s gone, vanished without a trace.
Bombshell tonight. As the parents of 17-year-old Abbi break down, begging for her safe return, police want answers about mysterious text messages. Tonight, where is 17-year-old Abbi?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She just has to come home. It`s -- it`s just getting too hard not for her being here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Breaking news, police desperately searching for beautiful 17-year-old Ohio girl Abbi Obermiller. Abbi`s parents believe her 20-year-old boyfriend, Bobby Young, is connected to her disappearance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know that Bobby Young got some text messages that indicated he knew who was picking her up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Young telling local paper "The Norwalk Reflector" that he believes Abbi is OK and painted himself as being caught in the middle, with the media making him look like a, quote, "horrible person."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There may be foul play here someplace in here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Law enforcement says Young has refused to take a polygraph and say Young has been hampering the investigation, charging him with obstruction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And tonight, live, rural Oregon. A 7-year-old little boy goes missing from his own elementary science school fair, never seen again. Tonight, why do police insist the stepmother take a second polygraph? How -- how -- does a 7-year-old boy go missing from his own elementary school classroom?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The mother of a missing 7-year-old boy from Oregon says the last three weeks have been the worst hell a parent could ever feel.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just have this overwhelming feeling of guilt for not being there to protect him!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... seven-year-old Kyron Horman. He was driven to school by his stepmother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is the last person saying that she saw him walking down the hallway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kyron never made it to class after his school science fair June 4th.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This will not become a cold case for us. We will continue to investigate this case until we have it solved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. Live, Ohio, as the parents of 17-year-old Abbi break down, begging for her safe return, police want answers about mysterious text messages. Tonight, where is 17-year-old Abbi?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seventeen-year-old Abbi Obermiller was last seen in her grandma`s home. What happens next to the honor student is unclear, police launching a wide-scale investigation, trying to determine how a beautiful 17-year-old girl could just disappear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She left a note behind that we didn`t initially find. It was hidden in a notebook. There were some problems with the boyfriend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police calling 20-year-old boyfriend Bobby Young a person of interest. Cops say the boyfriend knows more than he`s telling.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do believe that Bobby does know where she`s at.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) prior to his disappearance, Young sent Abbi a string of text messages. But Young allegedly claims he had no contact with her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have no idea where she is. I have no idea where to start.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Young now charged with obstruction of justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Number one in her class, a volleyball star, her dream to become a researcher in oncology, to actually find a cure for cancer. That`s who 17-year-old Abbi is.
Straight out to Phil Trexler, reporter with "The Akron Beacon Journal." Phil, what`s happening?
PHIL TREXLER, "AKRON BEACON JOURNAL" (via telephone): Well, unfortunately, Nancy, not a lot is happening in terms of finding Abbi. The beat goes on here. It`s been 21 days now since she`s disappeared. It`s become a case of a runaway child who has spun out of control here. There`s a lot of curious circumstances surrounding her disappearance. She`s not the type of girl who would not call or contact her parents. Her boyfriend, Bobby Young, is acting awfully strange. He`s now charged with obstructing the investigation into her disappearance...
GRACE: Whoa! Whoa! Wait a minute! Phil Trexler, explain to me what you mean by that? The boyfriend is arrested for obstruction?
TREXLER: Yes, he initially told the police that he had no contact with Abbi, but then lo and behold, there`s text messages there between the two the night that she disappeared. So he`s clearly not cooperating with the police to the extent that they want. He promised to take a polygraph test and backed out of it. This is -- there`s a lot of curious circumstances in this case.
GRACE: To Ellie Jostad, our chief editorial producer. Ellie, what more can you tell me? I want to hear about the night she disappeared. I understand she is at her grandmother`s home.
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Right.
GRACE: The grandmother sees her as late as midnight there in the home. Nothing`s unusual. Grandma wakes up 6:00 AM, she`s gone! How does that happen?
JOSTAD: Right, Nancy. Well, what police say is that they believe after the grandmother went to bed, Abbi exchanged messages with that boyfriend, that he sent her a message saying something to the effect that she should leave. She said...
GRACE: Whoa! Wait!
JOSTAD: Yes.
GRACE: Wa-wait! Ellie, what do you mean "leave"? Leave the home, leave the relationship? Run away from home?
JOSTAD: Leave the house.
GRACE: (INAUDIBLE) date?
JOSTAD: Leave the house.
GRACE: Leave the house for what, a date or run away from home?
JOSTAD: Well, it`s not really clear. We do know that she had been arguing with her parents, apparently a big part of it about her relationship with this boyfriend. So he tells her leave the house. She writes back in a text message, "Head toward Main Street, right?" He responds, "Right." Now, when police talked to him, he claimed that he hadn`t had any contact with her, which is why he`s now charged with obstruction.
GRACE: Joining me right now is a special guest, in addition to Abbi`s parents, Rose and James Obermiller, Sergeant Jim Fulton. He`s joining us out of Norwalk, Ohio. He`s with the Norwalk Police Department. Sergeant, thank you so much for being with us. This whole scenario is really spine- chilling to mothers and fathers everywhere. When I put my twins to bed at night and a few hours pass, I expect them to be in their bed when I go back and check on them. Between the hours of 12:00 AM and 6:00 AM, you don`t expect someone to go missing from their own bed, Sergeant. What do you know? What can you share with us?
SGT. JIM FULTON, NORWALK POLICE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): Well, I don`t think that she left -- that she was abducted. She left, what we believe, as willingly. We base that on the fact that her mother had contact with law enforcement, we know, on the 4th of June. She spoke with an officer about what she could do to get her daughter to come home. The daughter was staying at the grandparents` home, and Mom wanted her to come home.
At that point, she was told that she could file an unruly juvenile report with the sheriff`s department, the (INAUDIBLE) county sheriff`s department here. The officer also talked with Abbi and explained to her that Mom wanted her to come home, that she would have to go home, that she`s 17, she has to abide by the rules of the house and do what her mom says.
GRACE: Well, Sergeant Fulton -- with us, everyone, from Norwalk, Ohio -- missing from her grandmother`s home in the middle of the night is a 17- year-old, in my mind, superstar, number one in her class, a straight A student, a volleyball star. And you hear people joking about, yes, I want to find the cure to cancer. This was this little girl`s dream. She wanted to be a researcher in oncology. How does a girl, a shining star like this, never been in a minute`s trouble, disappear in the middle of the night?
Joining me right now, two very special guests, in addition to Sergeant Jim Fulton -- his staff working `round the clock, trying to find this little girl -- Rose and James Obermiller. This is -- these are Abbi`s parents. Mr. And Mrs. Obermiller, thank you for being with us.
JAMES OBERMILLER, FATHER: Thank you.
ROSE OBERMILLER, MOTHER: Thank you for having us.
GRACE: I just can`t imagine -- as you may know, I have twins. I can`t imagine pouring all my love, all my hopes, my dreams for their happiness into John David and Lucy, and then at 17, Lucy just goes missing.
ROSE OBERMILLER: It`s hard. It really is. I mean, it`ll just tear your heart out. Being a parent, you know exactly what I`m talking about. If they get hurt, you know, you`re right there over top of them.
GRACE: You know, Mrs. Obermiller, I kind of take it personally, I kind of resent it when people suggest that she`s some out-of-control teenager because my grandmother helped raise me. I mean, my whole life, we were in and out of my grandmother`s house. We spent the night there all the time. Of course, you wanted her at home. But just because she was staying at her grandmother in no way suggests that this was an out-of- control teenager. You can`t be number one in your class and be out of control.
ROSE OBERMILLER: No, Abbi was very in control. Abbi knew what she wanted to be. You know, she had big plans. She just wanted to, you know, get away from, you know, the country life where we live. She wanted to be in Norwalk with her grandparents and with her nieces and nephews, and they just wanted to go out and have a good time.
But she would still call home and ask, Well, Mom and Dad, can I go out with Bobby tonight and go to the baseball game or something? She was still asking permission to go, you know, with him to go to a baseball game or something. And yes, we would give her permission. She`d call us and let us know when she was leaving and when she was coming home.
GRACE: Hold on. Hold on, Mrs. Obermiller. Elizabeth, please put up the tip line. David, put up the tip line pronto, 419-663-6780. Take a look at Abbi Obermiller, a 17-year-old girl. She`s missing out of Ohio, number one in her class, a volleyball star, got a smile that just lights up a room.
Back to Rose and James Obermiller. When did you first learn that grandmother wakes up 6:00 AM, she`s gone? Ms. Obermiller?
ROSE OBERMILLER: She called right away. My father had gotten into his vehicle and was driving around Norwalk, looking for Abbi.
GRACE: Who was this? Who was this?
ROSE OBERMILLER: My father.
GRACE: OK.
ROSE OBERMILLER: My father. The grandfather.
GRACE: Oh, I can just imagine that, getting in your car and just looking, just blindly going up and down streets, trying to find her.
ROSE OBERMILLER: That`s exactly what he was doing. My husband was in Texas at the time, so I went into Norwalk right away, talked to the police department. They came in, checked out my whole parents` house, double- checked it, and she was nowhere to be found.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Abbi disappears from her grandma`s house. She hasn`t contacted friends or family since.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You want to go to bed at night and kiss her good night, and she`s not there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your imagination runs away with you sometimes and you`ve got to fight that back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s only 17 years old and was supposed to gearing up for a fun summer before the start of her senior year of high school. But now honor student Abbi Obermiller is missing and police need your help. Abbi last seen inside her grandma`s home. Police call 20-year- old boyfriend Bobby Young a person of interest and say he`s hampering their investigation, charging him with obstruction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s clear that he sent her text messages as to when to leave the house and was aware of who was picking her up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You had nothing to do with her disappearance?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Cops are -- you know, I`ve been out here every day. I let them search my home voluntarily three times before they came out with a search warrant.
She talked to people, like, in a chat room and, like, on FaceBook and MySpace and stuff. I have no idea whether or not they`ve actually checked into any of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls live. Out to Sergeant Jim Fulton, joining us from Norwalk Police Department. Sergeant, you were telling us about these mysterious text messages that your department is investigating. So the girl, Abbi, the 17-year-old, straight A student, volleyball star, goes missing from her grandmother`s house in the range of just six hours. She was texting back and forth with the boyfriend?
FULTON: Right. I don`t think they`re mysterious. It`s pretty clear that they were carrying on a conversation.
GRACE: Well, what`s mysterious about it to me, Sergeant -- maybe we differ -- is that he is texting her a location to go to and then she`s never seen again. To me, that`s a little mysterious. I also find it mysterious that the boyfriend won`t take a polygraph. Why won`t he take a polygraph, Sergeant?
FULTON: In my opinion, guilty people don`t take polygraphs.
GRACE: Well, you`re preaching to the choir, Sergeant, preaching to the choir!
FULTON: That`s why after obtaining these text messages, when he clearly tells her when to leave the house, and he tells me that he doesn`t know where she`s at or who she`s with, I don`t believe it.
GRACE: What excuse did he give for not taking a poly, Sergeant Jim Fulton?
FULTON: Oh, he said that he would be nervous and afraid. Well, I guess you`d be afraid if you`re lying. He has diabetes. He has heart problems.
GRACE: Did you say diabetes?
FULTON: That`s what he told me.
GRACE: Whoa, wait, wait, wait a minute! Marc Harrold, former police officer, city of Atlanta PD -- diabetes? That doesn`t -- or a heart problem, that doesn`t affect the outcome of a polygraph.
MARC HARROLD, FMR. POLICE OFFICER, ATLANTA: No, I wouldn`t think so. That`s the first time I`ve heard of somebody saying that specifically. I`m not 100 percent sure, but as long as you have a good baseline of when somebody`s telling the truth, you can work from there. I can`t see why those health conditions would have anything to do with it.
GRACE: With me, special guest Sergeant Jim Fulton out of Norwalk, Ohio. Also with us, Abbi`s parents, Rose and James Obermiller.
Out to the lines. Samantha in Kentucky. Hi, Samantha.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy.
GRACE: Hi, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to know why they don`t claim that they have evidence against him, enough evidence to make him take the polygraph test.
GRACE: Oh, Samantha, Samantha, you know, same thing I`m screaming, but here`s the bottom line. You cannot force somebody in this country to take a polygraph. You cannot force them. Especially if they are the target, even if they`re just a suspect, you cannot force somebody to do anything that would be self-incriminatory. So there`s our answer. Do I think he should take a polygraph? Yes. Do I think they should drag him down and make him take a polygraph? Yes. Can they? No. They can`t even try to make him take a polygraph.
Back to the lines. Out to Nally in Texas. Hi, Nally.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. How are you?
GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My question is, can`t they subpoena his phone records and also her phone records? And what about his parents? I mean, if he still lives at home...
GRACE: Absolutely can subpoena the records. You can also get a rush on it. But I imagine that that`s very likely how they found out about the text messages.
Back to Sergeant Jim Fulton. Sergeant, how did you guys uncover the text messages?
FULTON: Well, just as you said there, we did an emergency request through Verizon and got those messages and actually got messages back to the 24th of May that we`ve gone through. So it`s pretty clear that he that evening told her where to go. And he won`t cooperate in the investigation. You see, it also...
GRACE: Do you have the time of that text message, Sergeant?
FULTON: They started shortly after midnight, at 0039, which is 12:39. She asked him how much longer. His response was, They`ll (ph) be in Norwalk in a couple of minutes, and I`ll let you know when to leave. She responded by saying, I`m scared. He replied, It`ll be OK, I love you. Bobby -- or she told Bobby she loved him, too, and that she`s got a really bad headache. At 0045, he sent her a message, Leave now. She responded by saying OK, or "K." And another message at 0046, Leave now. She asked, Go towards Main Street, right? And his response was yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Abbi, 5-foot10, 120 pounds, long brown, curly hair, blue eyes and wears contacts. She has pierced ears, a mole in the center of her chest, and often wears a gold necklace with the letter "A" and a small string of diamonds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 17-year-old Ohio girl is missing and her parents are begging for her safe return. Abbi Obermiller is an honor student and her parents say wanted to study to be an oncologist. She hasn`t been seen since late night June 7th. Now, Abbi`s 21-year-old boyfriend is suspected of knowing where she might be. Bobby Young`s his name. He`s pled not guilty to obstruction of justice. He says he`s fully cooperated with police and does not know where she is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Oh, really? Well, then, why did they arrest him for obstruction in the investigation? Why is he refusing to take a polygraph? The boyfriend says it`s because he has diabetes.
I want to go back to the parents of Abbi, Rose and Jim Obermiller joining us. What do we know about this boyfriend? From what I`m gathering, he certainly exerted a lot of influence over her, even telling her what to wear to school.
ROSE OBERMILLER: He was telling her what to wear, not to go to Academic Challenge, not to work dinner theater, not to go to New York with the choir that she had, you know, worked for. He told her, No, don`t go to your friend`s house, and you know, spend the night with your girlfriends. Don`t go to your grandmother`s house. He would tell her, you know...
GRACE: That must have been burned you up!
JIM OBERMILLER: Yes, it did.
ROSE OBERMILLER: Yes.
GRACE: I mean, just hearing it, And I`ve never met Abbi, it`s burning me up. There she`s the one with the straight A record. She`s the one that`s number one in her class, the volleyball star, and he`s telling her not to go to New York with her choir? What choir?
ROSE OBERMILLER: She went to New York with the South Central High School Choir. They sang at the big cathedral there. They went to see "Phantom of the Opera," just a great five or six days that they were in New York and they had a great time.
GRACE: You know, I will never forget in the 10th grade, getting to go to Washington for the first time with 4H. It was the biggest deal ever. And why was he trying to talk her out of going to New York?
ROSE OBERMILLER: He didn`t want her to be around any of her friends or -- he didn`t want his -- he didn`t want Abbi to go visit the grandmother. He didn`t want Abbi to stay at her relatives`, her cousins` house and that. He just -- he wanted her all by himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police desperately searching for beautiful 17- year-old Ohio girl Abbi Obermiller. Abbi`s parents believe her 20-year-old boyfriend, Bobby Young, is connected to her disappearance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: More than two weeks have passed since anyone has seen or heard from Abbi.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Abbi was last seen on June 7th at her grandmother`s house. Now since then, her parents have been scouring Huron County, passing out these flyers.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: We are taking your calls live, but now to Marc Klaas, president and founder of KlaasKids Foundation. He has devoted his life to finding missing teens, missing children.
Marc, what do you think?
MARC KLAAS, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, KLAASKIDS FOUNDATION: Well, I think that this character, obviously, has nothing but his own personal self-interest at heart. He`s disdainful of her loving parents. He doesn`t want her to be near her friends.
He didn`t even want her to go to New York, the most fabulous city in the world, and now her fabulous summer has been marginalized to the point where she`s sitting in a room somewhere, waiting for this creep to make good on his promise.
And I`m only hoping, and I`m quite sure after listening to Sergeant Fulton, that law enforcement has taken the steps necessary to intervene when she does show up to tell her everything is OK.
GRACE: To Lauren Howard, psychotherapist, joining us out of New York.
Dr. Howard, what`s concerning me right now, I -- know all about the batter`s women syndrome. I know all about controlling spouses, boyfriends, and so forth. I didn`t realize it could start so young in life.
LAUREN HOWARD, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: You know, it`s funny, Nancy, I remember you and I talking about this very subject years ago on a different program.
It requires a person to want to be over -- for their will to want to be overtaken. If your esteem -- your self-esteem is low, you allow someone in. You know it feels sort of Eleanor Roosevelt, quote, no one can make you insecure without your consent.
It`s the same thing with someone who is sort of subject to a (INAUDIBLE) kind of control. And there`s something in Abbi that allows -- has allowed someone to take control, if in fact that`s what`s occurred.
GRACE: Well, you know, back to her parents, Rose and Jim Obermiller, I do not blame any aspect of Abbi in the least, because women -- grown women that succeed in business, that succeed in all areas of their life can be victims of batterers, verbally, psychologically, physically.
Men that come in -- and it can be the reverse, but it`s rare -- and seem to take over their life. And they go, OK. But this girl, your girl has everything going for her. She`s beautiful, she`s a straight A student, she has great dreams, she`s athletic, she`s a volleyball star.
Tell me something, how did she get hooked up with this guy? And let me repeat, he is not a suspect in this case. He has not been named a person of interest. He is charged with obstructing in the case and not being honest with the police. But how did she get hooked up with this guy?
JIM OBERMILLER, PARENT OF MISSING TEEN GIRL, ABBI OBERMILLER: Well, when he first showed up, I was - I was nervous about it, because he`s 20 years old -- well, at that time 19 -- and she was only 16 then. And we allowed him to come to the house, just at the house, when we were there, and I guess I was just trying to keep the peace.
And it just moved on from there. I mean, they`d say, can we go here and can we go there, and I`d let things move on, and we before -- just before this occurred, it was -- it had just reached the point where I was telling that hey, this has got to stop.
We`ve got to -- as a matter of fact, I told him that I know that if I put a -- help me with the word, Nancy -- to keep her from seeing her, legally --
ROSE OBERMILLER, PARENT OF MISSING TEEN GIRL, ABBI OBERMILLER: Restraining. A restraining order.
GRACE: Like a protective order. A restraining order. Yes.
J. OBERMILLER: A restraining order, yes. Yes. And I`m not in law. But, you know, I`d mentioned to him, I said, if I do that or if I tell Abbi not to see you, you`re contributing. And -- but I was getting ready to talk to them. When I got back, I had to work. I mean, I do have to travel in my work. And -- but I was going to talk to them and then he just got ridiculous.
GRACE: Well, Mr. Obermiller, nobody can fault you at all because, you know, if you say no right off the bat then the teenager will try to go straight and do the exact same thing you tell them not to do.
R. OBERMILLER: Right.
GRACE: So if you slam your foot down at the get-go, you`re begging for problems. Trying to go along with it and hoping it would die on its own was probably your best maneuver.
So you actually spoke to him about weaning off, going away, taking it easy, taking a break? You spoke to him?
J. OBERMILLER: I was -- I had called him and told him that I knew that I could do all these things legally. And then later on that week, as a matter of fact, it was on Sunday, and he called me up and accused me of tampering with his car. Well, I was 1300 miles away from his car.
GRACE: Well, he sounds like a nut. He is, in fact, a person of interest. He is not a suspect. He`s a person of interest.
Mr. Obermiller, what was the lie he told police that amounted to obstruction?
J. OBERMILLER: Can you repeat that please?
GRACE: What was the lie that he told police that amounted to obstruction?
J. OBERMILLER: That he doesn`t know where she`s at? What else can it be? He -- you heard the --
R. OBERMILLER: Fulton.
J. OBERMILLER: Mr. Fulton tell you about the text messages and what they were. If he doesn`t know where she`s at or if he doesn`t at least know who she`s with, that`s a lie. I mean that --
GRACE: He led her -- he led her straight out of the house and somebody was going to pick her up. Do you think it was him, the boyfriend?
J. OBERMILLER: It was --
R. OBERMILLER: We can`t say who it was.
GRACE: OK. Do you think that someone is holding her right now?
R. OBERMILLER: Yes.
GRACE: Would she have allowed it to go this far, Miss Obermiller? Would she allow it to go this far with you two? Your hearts are just torn in half.
R. OBERMILLER: I think they`re keeping the media from her. She`s not allowed to use the fun. Otherwise, I know she would call home. She can`t get on MySpace or Facebook or whatever. Otherwise, you know, she`d at least talk to her girlfriends.
Her and her girlfriends, I mean, they`re extremely, extremely close. And she hasn`t even contacted any of them.
GRACE: Was not any girlfriends. To Pat Brown, criminal profiler and author, "The Profiler."
Pat, what do you think?
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER, AUTHOR OF "THE PROFILER": Well, Nancy, it looks like one of these Romeo and Juliet things, you know, where this poor girl has hooked up with a guy who seems like an extremely controlling and creepy dude to me, and might be psychopathic since he`s willing to lie blatantly to the police, I didn`t text her, when clearly he did.
And clearly he was going to meet up with her. And when a girl goes -- wants to be with a guy like that, she`s scared, she doesn`t know if she should it, but she wants to be with him, then why isn`t he with her beloved girlfriend?
You mean to tell me that he went to get her, took her some place and has abandoned her somewhere and he`s off there? That doesn`t make a lot of sense. And she`s been abandoned by him.
GRACE: You know, it doesn`t.
BROWN: And she hasn`t been around for three weeks. It doesn`t make sense.
GRACE: And I`m thinking that at this point, she wants to come home. Somewhere, if this girl is still alive, and I pray to God she is, and there are indications she is still alive, she wants to come home.
We are taking your calls. Nancy in Louisiana, hi, dear?
NANCY, CALLER FROM LOUISIANA: Hi, Nancy. I love your show.
GRACE: Hi, dear. Thank you, and hello to all my Cajun friends.
Nancy, what`s your question?
NANCY: Yes, I was wondering, he said he had a bad heart and diabetes? And has that been proven by a doctor? And also, does she have her cell phone? Can they track her that way?
GRACE: To -- back to the parents, James -- excuse me, Jim and Rose Obermiller, what`s all this business about him having a bad heart and diabetes? He`s only 21. How does he know he`s got a bad heart?
J. OBERMILLER: I heard about the diabetes. I knew nothing about the bad heart.
R. OBERMILLER: He had claimed he had an anxiety attack.
GRACE: I doubt a doctor did either. Anxiety attack?
R. OBERMILLER: That`s what he -- yes. That`s why he was at the doctors, the hospital, the day of June 7th. They said his glucose was up, but I have sugar, too, and it doesn`t affect my judgment.
GRACE: I don`t think it would affect a lie detector test, Mr. And Mrs. Obermiller.
R. OBERMILLER: No.
GRACE: And I assume the police are tracing and pinging her cell phone, correct? They got the cell phone records.
R. OBERMILLER: I think he broke the cell phone or maybe they just shut it off, but you cannot get through her phone whatsoever.
GRACE: Let`s unleash the lawyers. Randy Kessler, Atlanta, John Manuelian, L.A.
What about it, Randy Kessler? What`s your advice to this young man?
RANDY KESSLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: My advice is that he`s at a fork in the road. And he can do one of two things. If he knows anything, come clean, it won`t be as hard on him. He`s got a long life to live. He`s got a choice to make. If he`s done something terrible, he needs to lawyer up, clam up, and see what kind of deal he can come up with.
But if he -- if she`s still alive --
GRACE: Right.
KESSLER: She could still be helped, he needs to do what he can now.
GRACE: What about it, Manuelian?
JOHN MANUELIAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I absolutely agree. He should not take that polygraph test. His lawyer should advise him to keep his mouth shut, stay away from --
GRACE: Yes, you two -- if it was your daughter, you wouldn`t be saying that.
(CROSSTALK)
MANUELIAN: You`re right. I have a daughter, but I`m speaking from a perspective as an attorney.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: You know, you two -- you both go, yes, you`re right.
KESSLER: What do you think Joran Van Der Sloot`s father told him? He said clam up and Joran didn`t and he`s in trouble. You got -- you know, you got to take your lawyer`s advice --
GRACE: He`s trouble for another murder. And he drove his father, the judge, to an early grave.
Everybody, we are taking your calls. Tip line, 419-663-6780. Many people believe this girl is alive and tonight her parents are asking for your help. Seventeen-year-old Abbi wants to come home.
As we go to break, on a very happy note, happy birthday to two tiny crime fighters, twins, Gabriella and Isabella. Born premies at just 1 and 2 pounds. They have overcome the odds, celebrating their 3rd birthday today.
They love pushing their dollies in pink strollers, helping mommy cook and clean. Their mommy, Katy, bringing them through the hard times to celebrate today.
Happy birthday, beautiful Gabriella and Isabella.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DESIREE YOUNG, MOTHER OF MISSING 7-YR-OLD BOY, KYRON HORMAN: We love him and that we need him home. And that we`re just -- we`re just not a family without him.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The mother of a missing 7-year-old Oregon boy says the last three weeks have been, quote, "The worst hell a parent could ever feel."
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Investigators say Kyron`s stepmom brought him to school Friday morning, took this picture of him at Skyline science fair, and last saw Kyron near his classroom at about 8:45.
KAINE HORMAN, FATHER OF MISSING 7-YR-OLD BOY, KYRON HORMAN: I love you and I miss you and I would do anything to trade places and to get you home. And we`ll keep up the search and we will not stop until we find you.
YOUNG: I wish I could b there to protect him and bring him home.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That is the mother and the father of little Kyron speaking. How can a little boy disappear from his elementary school science fair? He`s right there in his own elementary school. Stepmom says she sees him walking to his class and then he just disappears.
It`s a very rural area. Who would be waiting in the wings to snatch a little 7-year-old boy from the science fair?
How, to Kevin Miller, investigative reporter. What do you know, Kevin?
KEVIN MILLER, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, Nancy, right now police continue to go over the thousands of tips that they`ve received, and in addition to that, the over 350 questionnaires from students, teachers, and staff members of Skyline Elementary, as they continue to search for young Kyron.
In addition to that, people are reeling from the interview given to "People" magazine by Terri Horman`s stepfather. He says there`s a 50/50 chance she could be charged in the disappearance of Kyron.
GRACE: Explain to me why, Kevin. Why would the stepmother be arrested? I know this much. I know she`s a former body builder. I know that she was the last person to see him. Which one is she, may I ask? Far right.
I know that she was the last one to say she saw him alive. I know he was at that science fair because a photo was taken, to my understanding, and then I know that in the days after he went missing, she was making unusual postings on either -- I guess on Facebook, saying that she was going to go work out.
And I know that in all of these questionnaires and in all of the -- the flyers that they`re putting out, that she is part of it, asking the public if they know about her.
Explain all that to me, Kevin Miller.
MILLER: Well, Nancy, her behavior has caused the police to give her two polygraphs. They`ve taken her truck twice. She`s been questioned up to six hours according to her father, several times.
You have published reports saying she`s really good with kids. The issue here, also, is the reports also we`re getting concerning the cell phone pinging, and that`s why police are at Sauvie Island taking a look for young Kyron there and again wondering where Terri Horman was and if her timeline matches up to the story she`s giving to authorities.
GRACE: Why are they concerned about her timeline, Kevin? What do we know about that?
MILLER: Well, again, Nancy, what we know about it is she was the last person to see Kyron alive and then she was the first person to pick him up along with his father at 3:45. When he wasn`t on the bus, she called the school. The police -- the police were notified by the teachers at the school.
Again, it goes back to where she was in that timeline, from 8:45, the last time she said she said good-bye to Kyron, to when he was supposed to be on that bus at 3:45. In addition to that, Nancy, you know, investigators say he didn`t show up for class as well.
GRACE: So he was missing from his very first class. And what time was that first class, Kevin Miller?
MILLER: Around 9:00 a.m.
GRACE: So she says she sees him at school at 8:45 a.m. At 9:00 a.m., he`s gone, right?
MILLER: Investigators say that was the last time Kyron was reportedly seen. They don`t identify who saw him, but that`s what they`re saying as far as confirmation of seeing young Kyron.
GRACE: OK, I`ve got another question, Kevin. With me, Kevin Miller, investigative reporter.
Kevin, did the father typically go with the stepmother to pick him up at the bus station or at the bus stop or did he go that day at the stepmother`s request?
MILLER: He was working from home and did go that day.
GRACE: Did she ask him to go? Does he normally go to this bus stop?
MILLER: I wouldn`t know that, Nancy. I`m still working on that.
GRACE: OK, Kevin, does he normally get escorted home from the bus stop? I mean, I lived in a very rural area, and we just hopped off the bus and walk home. In fact, sometimes we`d walk all the way home from school, over a mile, to get home, and nobody thought anything about it. But that was a long time ago.
Did he normally walk home un-escorted?
MILLER: He would normally have his stepmother there.
GRACE: Huh. But on that day, for some reason, the father also went.
To Marc Klaas, president and founder of KlaasKids Foundation, joining us out of San Francisco.
Marc, give me your opinion. This is your -- your expertise.
KLAAS: And I have a little bit of a different timeline. As I understand it, she was walking him to his class when the bell rang at 8:45. At that -- and they were very close to the class. At that point, he said to her, mom, I`m going to the classroom.
She said that she waved to him and turned around and left. Now if she was walking with him, it makes more sense to me that she would bend over and kiss him rather than wave to him, but at any rate, she then turn around and left and apparently that was the last time anybody saw Kyron.
So I would suggest that, number one, either she is involved, or number two, a local pedophile did a very, very high-risk snatch from a school just as the final bell or as the beginning bell was ringing that day.
GRACE: You know what? You`re saying something that`s really touching a chord. Because I can`t think of a single time, even if it`s just for one hour, that I don`t kiss the twins before I leave.
Normally, I can`t even let them know that I`m leaving because they go crazy. But that`s very interesting. Give me that analysis one more time, Marc Klaas.
KLAAS: Sure. Very -- yes, very simple. She said that she was walking him to the class, and they were very close to his classroom when the bell rang at 8:45. At that point, he said, mom, I`m going to class now. And she waved at him and turned around and left.
But if she was walking with him, she would have kissed him, particularly if she was very proud of the work he had done for the science fair. At least in my mind. So there was a very, very brief period of time when something could have happened to that little boy when he was completely unobserved. And I`m talking seconds.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HORMAN: We have been participating heavily with investigators. Hours and hours a day, working with them on leads, tips, questions.
YOUNG: We cannot come up with anything. It`s -- my sister used a phrase with somebody recently. It`s like a portal opened up at school and Kyron just vanished into it.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YOUNG: The worst hell I`ve ever experienced. I can`t even explain it. I -- never in a million years would I have thought we would be here.
HORMAN: Every day for us, Kyron is in it and he is in it. And it`s just in a different capacity right now. And that`s what makes it hard, is every day is not a normal day.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Right now to Matt Zarrell, what about school security that day?
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE STAFFER, COVERING STORY: Yes, what`s interesting, Nancy, is the school security was very different that morning because the science fair was before school started.
The people that come in typically would have to check in and get a visitor badge so you`d know who they were, but at the science fair, that was not in there. People could come in and out very freely.
GRACE: But I don`t understand why they weren`t there. Explain.
ZARRELL: Well, apparently what we don`t know clearly is who had access to the science fair and who didn`t. If it`s possible that a pedophile was watching these kids, we -- we don`t know because we don`t have a visitor pass to verify that.
GRACE: Out to the lines, Tara in Kentucky. Hi, Tara.
TARA, CALLER FROM KENTUCKY: Hi. Thank you for being my hero, Nancy.
GRACE: I do not deserve that but I thank you for the compliment. What`s your question, love?
TARA: I have a question. You know them, the stepmother is not showing a whole lot of emotion. And it seems to me like she took the picture to prove that she took him to school.
GRACE: That`s an interesting point. Now if we go to the lawyers, Randy Kessler, John Manuelian, I know what you`re going to say, there`s no playbook for grieving.
Right, Kessler?
KESSLER: Right. There`s not playbook.
GRACE: Just go ahead and tell me.
KESSLER: But you know what? In this guy`s first divorce, the mother of this child filed for divorce a month before the child was born. You know, there`s something wrong in a marriage when you file a divorce when you`re eight months pregnant. So I don`t know --
GRACE: You know I don`t know what happened seven years ago has anything to do with this.
What about it, Manuelian?
MANUELIAN: Well, I agree with that. You got to remember something that those are all distractions. Just because she went to the gym or she`s not crying as much as we all want her to, doesn`t make her guilty.
GRACE: Pat Brown?
BROWN: Well, I think it`s really interesting nobody is really backing Terry within the family. The stepmother`s own father just said -- they`re pointing the finger at her and the 50/50 chance should be arrested.
GRACE: Hold on.
BROWN: But he doesn`t say but she`s innocent, but she`s innocent.
GRACE: Dr. Titus Duncan, do you think a child`s body would decompose more quickly than an adult`s?
DR. TITUS DUNCAN, M.D., GENERAL SURGERY, ATLANTA MEDICAL CENTER: Yes. Children have less muscle mass than adults. It takes around about three hours to 16 hours for an adult to reach rigor mortis. But a child since they have less muscle mass, less oxygen supplied to their muscle, they will decompose a lot quicker.
GRACE: Everyone, let`s stop and remember Army Staff Sergeant Kyle Eggers, 27, Euless, Texas. Awarded Bronze Star, Purple Heart, never met a stranger. Leaves behind parents, Keith and Diane, sister Christy, widow Jennifer, sons Caden, Teaguen and Zane.
Thank you being with us. And until tomorrow night, good night, friend.
END
