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Nancy Grace
Burned Body Identified as Missing Teen Cheerleader
Aired August 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 to the heartland. A 14-year-old Kansas cheerleader leaves home for a party, never seen again. Less than 48 hours after her first day of high school as a freshman cheerleader, she vanishes. Cops on high alert for a new model black SUV possibly linked to the cheerleader`s disappearance. In the last 24 hours, we learn the location cops tried to keep secret, where an unidentified body found hidden, five miles to the west of city limits, there behind an asphalt plant and huge mountains of gravel.
Bombshell tonight. In the last hours, that body officially IDed as the missing cheerleader, 14-year-old Alicia, still wearing one shoe, her body charred, burned beyond recognition. A positive ID only made possible through dental records. Who murdered 14-year-old cheerleader Alicia? Who hid her body in the night at an empty asphalt plant? We want justice!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE SIX, KANSAS ATTORNEY GENERAL: The body located Tuesday west of town in the asphalt plant has been positively identified as the body of 14- year-old Alicia DeBolt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My baby girl. It`s heartbreaking!
SIX: Alicia was reported last to have been seen Saturday night around 11:00 PM.
GRACE: A 14-year-old Kansas cheerleader leaves home for a party...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... picked up by a 19-year-old male friend driving a small, dark SUV.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were not heard from again.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She didn`t call.
GRACE: She never made it to the party.
SIX: We do not believe that this was a random act of violence.
GRACE: Burned -- the 14-year-old girl had been burned beyond recognition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That young man she got in a car with, he was obviously the last person to see her alive.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After all, she didn`t get to the party.
GRACE: (INAUDIBLE) say random murder? Random? You don`t find the body hidden or secreted away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s certainty that this is the body of Alicia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s hard on everyone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`ll get through it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And tonight, live, Pittsburgh. Mommy, with two children in tow, ages 5 and 1, shoplifts condoms from a local Rite-Aid. It gets worse. Then Mommy gives her 5-year-old boy away on the bus. That`s right, the 25- year-old mom, Porchia Scoggins, gives the baby away to a random passenger she meets on the bus! Hey, Mommy, you can forget those condoms! You won`t need them where you`re going, the all-female prison, Mommy!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A Pittsburgh woman faces charges after allegedly leaving her 5-year-old son on a bus with a complete stranger.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was shopping.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pittsburgh police arrested Scoggins, accusing her of stealing from a downtown Rite-Aid and then leaving her 6-year-old boy with a stranger on a bus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was headed home. The bus got pulled over. They took me off the bus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police say Scoggins admitted to leaving her 5- year-old with a stranger, directing the stranger to take her son to a friend`s house in the area.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They handcuffed me, arrested me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police say before that arrest, Scoggins gave her 6-year-old boy to a stranger on that bus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Scoggins also allegedly admitted she didn`t know who the person was or where they were headed. She`s charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, as well as retail theft and resisting arrest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. A body found hidden five miles west of the city limits, behind an asphalt plant and huge mountains of gravel, in the last hours officially IDed as the missing Kansas cheerleader, 14-year-old Alicia, still wearing one shoe, her body charred, burned beyond recognition. Positive ID only made possible through dental records.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIX: A body was found at the asphalt plant.
GRACE: We now learn that location police tried so hard to keep secret.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is an asphalt production plant, physically (ph) consists of several piles of rock and other material.
SIX: Tragically, Alicia was identified.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were able to get dental records to make the ID.
SIX: Anybody who has information, anybody that called or texted her, please report that to local law enforcement.
GRACE: Why am I not hearing a word about the 19-year-old man that took her to the party?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not, based on our preliminary work, believe it was a random act of violence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s no doubt in my mind that this was a sexually motivated crime.
GRACE: Here, great pains were taken to, what we have been told, hide the body and burn the body. That says they knew her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone familiar with the area brought her there in an attempt to dispose of her...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... dispose of her body and make it unrecognizable, cover up evidence of -- I believe, of sexually motivated crime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight out to Dale Hogg, managing editor, "Great Bend Tribune." Dale, I understand the body was burned beyond recognition. No way could a family friend or relative make an ID of the little girl, no way anyone could identify her by looking at her, comparing her to a photo, such as somebody at the morgue. You had to do a dental comparison. How do you know she still had on one shoe?
DALE HOGG, "GREAT BEND TRIBUNE" (via telephone): Well, I haven`t heard that officially, but we`d heard that through a number of -- the rumor mill, the Great Bend High School and the FaceBook pages and that sort of thing. (INAUDIBLE) sort of stuff has come up. But it took so long to identify the body by the dental records because the personnel were not on staff there at the -- in Wichita to actually handle the autopsy as they (ph) needed to be -- needed to be done (ph). (INAUDIBLE) bring the correct personnel in so they could get the autopsy done correctly.
GRACE: OK, that`s what I don`t understand, Dale. Why are you -- what`s your explanation about why it took so long to compare dental records?
HOGG: Yes, that is -- that is...
GRACE: That takes about five minutes.
HOGG: That is correct. Well, the -- well, I don`t understand how the forensics process works. But I do know that they had taken the body to Wichita Tuesday after they found it (INAUDIBLE) about 4:00 o`clock in the afternoon. And they -- (INAUDIBLE)
GRACE: Well, Dale?
HOGG: ... completed the autopsy then...
GRACE: Dale? Dale? Dale?
HOGG: Yes?
GRACE: Have you ever been to the dentist and had an X-ray made of a tooth, possibly a crown or a root canal? Have you ever done that?
HOGG: Well, yes, I have.
GRACE: Well, that`s how it works. That`s all it takes -- boom, 1, 2, 3, it`s over. I don`t understand what took so long. And I also don`t understand where is the missing shoe. With us, Dale Hogg, managing editor of the "Great Bend Tribune."
Out to Pat Brown, criminal profiler and author. Pat, this is not random. Where is the 19-year-old man that she left with at 11:00 o`clock at night? Where is her other shoe? I guarantee you it`s in somebody`s car or trunk.
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Yes, you (INAUDIBLE)
GRACE: And why? Why was the body burned? A random killing? You don`t burn the body, you leave it in a dump. You leave it where you left it. You don`t go to all this elaborate drama to hide or secret the body off behind an asphalt plant and burn it.
BROWN: That`s exactly correct. If this girl got out of that 19-year- old`s car, for example, they had an argument, and somebody else grabbed her and sexually assaulted her, he would have just tossed her on the side of the road. Somebody went to a lot of trouble, likely a place he was very familiar with, where he thought he was going to really get rid of all that evidence. Sometimes they actually overdo it, and in overdoing it, they make a big mistake. So I think it`s going to be very easy to identify who was involved in this crime. And yes, you`re quite right. I`m guessing that that shoe is sitting in somebody`s vehicle, or at least it was for a period of time.
GRACE: OK. This is days later. This little girl disappears just before her dream comes true being a freshman cheerleader. No way was she going to miss Monday morning at school! But no, Saturday night, she goes to a party at 11:00 PM, a 14-year-old girl. Her curfew is midnight. She never calls home. That was the family rule. So to my mind, between 11:00 and 12:00, she is murdered.
Straight to Clark Goldband. Clark, explain to me why, why, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday -- why am I just getting a positive ID? How much time did cops lose trying to get an ID?
CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, Nancy, as we understand it, there where this took place in Great Bend, they don`t have the kind of facility to make this kind of an explanation. So they had to send it to the capital...
GRACE: Put him up! Put him up! Clark, they don`t have a dental office there in Great Bend? They don`t have a dentist?
GOLDBAND: Oh, I`m sure they do, Nancy, but...
GRACE: That`s not true!
GOLDBAND: ... but that`s as law enforcement explained it in press conferences, saying they wanted to take this to the capital and have the KBI handle this. In fact, the AG there in Kansas says he will personally handle prosecuting the case.
GRACE: We are taking your calls live. Now, one thing I do understand, Eleanor Odom, Atlanta felony prosecutor -- Eleanor, you want the body processed in a certain way. You want every square inch of the body processed, maybe for touch DNA, for hair, for lint, for fibers, for anything, bodily fluids, possibly sperm, whatever. But just to give the family a positive ID, that could have been done in 20 minutes, Eleanor.
ELEANOR ODOM, PROSECUTOR: Exactly, Nancy, and I`m wondering why the secrecy. Maybe the cops were trying to hold back some information in the search for the real killer, too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The search for the real killer, as opposed to the fake killer? Explain.
ELEANOR ODOM: Well, I mean the person who actually did that. And this 19-year-old is clearly a person of interest, but did he kill her? We don`t know just yet what he did with her once he took her.
GRACE: Out to the lines. Diana, Washington. Hi, Diana.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy.
GRACE: Hi, dear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) nice to talk to you.
GRACE: Likewise. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, I have a two-parter. And first of all, my prayers go out to the family. And the first question is, did the mother or anybody in the family know this 19-year-old? And the second part of the question is, why on earth -- and maybe you can put this out there more. Why on earth would a 14-year-old go out at 11:00 at night, go the opposite direction or head the opposite direction to a party, and then double back towards there, and then her -- when her curfew is in an hour? I`ve got a 16-year-old I wouldn`t let that do -- I wouldn`t let her do that.
GRACE: You know, Diana in Washington, a lot of people have been throwing their hands up in the air, going, Why -- - why was she allowed to leave the home at 11:00 o`clock to start with? Now, number one, we are not blaming the mom and dad, all right? We`re not. They are not responsible for this. But the question remains about letting a 14-year-old go out at 11:00 -- leave the house at 11:00.
To Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst and author. What about it, Dr. Bethany?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Well, my best guess is that because she was 14, she was very vulnerable. And 14-year-olds can be groomed by someone who wants to molest them. And I think the perpetrator had a jealous sexual obsession with her and perhaps burned the body not only to destroy forensic evidence, but because perhaps there was a sadistic act inflicted upon her or he was jealous and wanted her to burn, baby, burn.
GRACE: In the last hours, a positive ID has been made on an unidentified body. It is, in fact, 14-year-old cheerleader Alicia DeBolt. She was found burned beyond recognition, still wearing one shoe. Tonight, we want justice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... goes missing from her small Kansas town...
GRACE: A body has been found.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... positive identification was made, and that tragically, Alicia was identified...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The search for Alicia has stopped. There is no longer a missing persons search.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The case is being treated as a homicide.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A body of a young woman has been found.
GRACE: This is the body of the 14-year-old cheerleader, Alicia DeBolt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our baby girl. It`s heartbreaking!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tammy Conrad says her 14-year-old daughter left their house in Great Bend around 11:00 o`clock Saturday night with a 19- year-old man. The two were supposed to meet another friend and go to a party. DeBolt never showed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not believe that this was a random act of violence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone was familiar with that area. They knew where this asphalt plant was. They knew where they could go take this body and try to burn and dispose of a body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is a tragedy, of course, when anyone is killed. But when a young 14-year-old child is lost to the community, I know Great Bend feels that. I know Alicia`s classmates feel that. And law enforcement, of course, like all of us, want to work as hard as we can on this case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The search for Alicia DeBolt officially comes to an end. In the last hours, a body has been officially identified as that of the 14- year-old cheerleader. The little girl`s body was burned, charred beyond recognition. A positive ID was only made possible through dental record comparison.
Out to Dale Hogg with "The Great Bend Tribune." Are cops revealing whether the burning was the cause of death, or was the little girl burned post-mortem?
HOGG: No, they`re not, Nancy, but they have been playing their cards pretty close to the vest as far as releasing details. I`m speculating that they have more information that they`re not releasing, but they have (INAUDIBLE) investigation.
GRACE: To Dr. Robert Kaufmann, doctor of internal medicine joining us out of Atlanta. Dr. Kaufmann, it`s great to see you again. Doctor, how will they determine whether the burning, the charring was the cause of death, or was it done post-mortem? Because that`s going to tell us a lot about our killer.
DR. ROBERT KAUFMANN, INTERNAL MEDICINE: Well, what they`ll do is look for areas of trauma, like a blunt trauma to the head or to the chest or broken bones because that...
GRACE: You know, I couldn`t get that. You said blunt trauma to the head or the what?
KAUFMANN: Or broken bones. So if they have a broken bone or blunt trauma to the head, a head injury or a broken neck, that would assume -- it would have to be before the fire occurred.
GRACE: OK. Now, Doctor, what about a stabbing or a suffocation?
KAUFMANN: Those two would be obvious. You`d see puncture wounds. Even though they`re burnt, you still see -- you do have some organs left. And the interesting thing is, they still had a shoe on there. That means that didn`t totally melt because of the fire, so that means the body was more intact than you`d think.
GRACE: You know what it says to me, Doctor?
KAUFMANN: What?
GRACE: It says that somebody meant to burn her up but didn`t have time to make sure that she was really consumed by the fire. And also, I`d like to find out, Doctor, which we don`t know right now -- was she burned there at the asphalt plant or somewhere else, then transported there? Because I`m telling you, Pat Brown, there`s a vehicle out there with loads of forensic evidence in it. Loads!
BROWN: Yes, I`ll tell you something else, is that I don`t -- I`m not quite sure what she was wearing when she left the house. But if you find a girl who`s wearing a pair of pants and a pair of, like, tennis shoes when she leaves the house, almost...
GRACE: She was.
BROWN: Yes. OK and...
GRACE: She was wearing white classic tennis shoes.
BROWN: OK.
GRACE: She was wearing bluejean shorts...
BROWN: There we go.
GRACE: ... gray Jayhawks sweatshirt.
BROWN: There we go. You know what that proves to me?
GRACE: Yes.
BROWN: Any time you find a girl with just one shoe on after she has been sexually assaulted, the sexual assault occurred in a vehicle because if you`re in a home in another location where you have a lot of room to work with, you pull the two shoes off and then you pull off her pants. If she`s in a car, you just pull off one shoe and you pull off the pants just enough to access what you want to access. So my guess is she was attacked in that vehicle, which puts -- I wonder who`s responsible for that?
GRACE: You know, well, I was thinking, Pat Brown, that the shoe could have come off during a struggle.
BROWN: Possible, but you know, I`m looking at a sexual assault where there...
GRACE: Why?
BROWN: ... he succeeded...
GRACE: Why?
BROWN: Well, because he went to all that work to burn her up, which means he`s getting rid of DNA evidence. My guess is he attacked her, he raped her, strangled her, dumped her and then burned her up. That would be my guess of what occurred in this particular crime.
GRACE: And Dr. Robert Kaufmann, since you have accurately pointed out that the tennis shoe was not melted and still intact, that says to me that her internal organs are still intact, which also means, in my mind, we`re going to get DNA evidence if there was a sex attack.
KAUFMANN: There`s no question you`d have DNA. And the one thing you would compare is you look for different types of DNA. Even if you don`t see semen, but if you see -- you can still check in areas for DNA. So you certainly could do that.
GRACE: Out to the lines. Sara, California. Hi, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. I love your show. My question is concerning the vehicle that they`re looking for. Isn`t this the vehicle that the young man was driving when he picked the young girl up? And if it is, why don`t they know where the vehicle is? I mean, doesn`t he own the vehicle?
GRACE: What about it, Dale Hogg? Was that the vehicle the 19-year- old man was driving when he picked her up?
HOGG: Well, that I do not know. I do know that the -- that she was last seen driving away in that vehicle. And where it went from there, I am not certain. It was (INAUDIBLE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A body of a young woman has been found outside Great Bend, Kansas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... positively identified as the body of 14-year- old Alicia DeBolt.
GRACE: ... the cheerleader`s disappearance...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She went missing Saturday, was supposed to be going to a party with a friend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The body was not able to be identified because it had been burned.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... find that burned body...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alicia was identified, and that investigation now continues.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Out to Marc Klaas, president and founder of Klaas Kids Foundation, joining us out of San Francisco. Marc, what do you think?
MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Well, I think that the police didn`t really lose any time in this investigation because they said, as soon as the body was discovered and before it was identified, that they were no longer looking for a missing person but were instead investigating a homicide case.
GRACE: You`re right, Marc.
KLAAS: And I also think -- I also think that perhaps -- perhaps there`s more than one perp involved and perhaps those other perps are juveniles, which would help to explain why there have not been any -- there has not been any identification of who this young man is yet and why the police are keeping it so under wraps.
GRACE: Put up Klaas. Klaas...
KLAAS: Yes?
GRACE: You`re absolutely correct. That would explain the secrecy, the veil that has shrouded this investigation from the get-go. And you`re also right that at the very beginning, I believe, they didn`t lose time, as I earlier was questioning about, because they said on day one, We think -- we`re not looking for a missing person anymore. They said it on day one.
KLAAS: Right.
GRACE: So they knew on day one, which only makes sense, Marc Klaas. It`s a 15,000 population. How many young women are missing? Probably only one, Alicia DeBolt.
KLAAS: Sure.
GRACE: So they knew at the get-go. And the fact, everybody, the law is regarding juveniles, as Marc Klaas is pointing out, it`s very different than when you`re talking about an adult.
Unleash the lawyers -- Eleanor Odom, felony prosecutor, death-penalty qualified, Peter Odom, defense attorney, Atlanta, Alan Ripka, defense attorney, New York. Explain it, Peter. If we`re talking about a pack of juveniles responsible for this, it`s a whole different ballgame.
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think Marc`s observation is brilliant, and it would explain a lot. If there are juveniles involved, the police would not be able to release names, and they would be very carefully doing subsequent interviews with each juvenile, which could explain the delay. And it`s a smart tactic.
GRACE: Alan Ripka?
ALAN RIPKA, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, the original guy is 19 years old, so he`s not a juvenile, so they could release his name.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE SIX, KANSAS ATTORNEY GENERAL: The body located Tuesday west of town in the asphalt plant has been positively identified as the body of 14- year-old Alicia Debolt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My baby girl. It`s heartbreaking.
SIX: Alicia was reported last to have been seen Saturday night around 11:00 p.m.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: A 14-year-old Kansas cheerleader leaves home for a party.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is picked up by a 19-year-old male friend driving a small dark SUV.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: They were not hard from again.
JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": She didn`t call.
GRACE: She never made it to the party.
SIX: We do not believe that this was a random act of violence.
GRACE: Burned. The 14-year-old girl had been burned beyond recognition.
MARC KLAAS, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, KLAASKIDS FOUNDATION: That young man she got in a car with, he was obviously the last person to see her alive.
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER, AUTHOR OF "THE PROFILER": After all she didn`t get to the party.
GRACE: And did he just random murder? Random? You don`t find the body hidden or secreted away.
KLAAS: If there`s certainty that this is the body of Alicia --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s hard on everyone. We`ll get through it.
SIX: Alicia was reported last to have been seen Saturday night around 11:00 p.m. She was reported to have voluntarily left her home. On Sunday, sometime after noon, about 1:00, her mother did contact the Great Bend Police Department.
The police department responded. And after that an investigation was begun and the local law enforcement and the KBI have been, again, working tirelessly since the family reported her missing.
That investigation continued and on Monday, about 3:00, a media alert was issued and some of those details have been provided to you. On Tuesday, August 24th, about 1600 hours, a body was found at the asphalt plant west of Great Bend by an employee of the Venture Corporation.
It was the body of a female. The body was not able to be identified because it had been burned.
The body located Tuesday west of town in the asphalt plant has been positively identified as the body of 14-year-old Alicia Debolt. A Great Bend resident, a student at Great Bend High School.
I`m asking all Kansans and everyone to hold this family in their prayers, to consider and hold Alicia`s classmates at Great Bend High School in their prayers. And we are asking today that you respect the family`s privacy.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls live. Out to Sarah in California. Hi, Sarah. OK. We`ve lost Sarah.
SAMANTHA, CALLER FROM NEW JERSEY: Hi, Nancy.
GRACE: To Samantha in New Jersey. Hi, Samantha.
SAMANTHA: Hi, Nancy. I was curious to know how authorities came to the asphalt plant. I could just hear him say that an employee found the body. What else I wanted to know is -- does the family know or have a relationship with the 19-year-old?
GRACE: Good question. What do we know, Clark Goldband?
CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER, COVERING STORY: What I can tell you is the mom of this 14-year-old girl Alicia knew the plans according to reports.
Now it appears she may have known this 19-year-old casually. It`s not clear the extent of how well she knew him however.
GRACE: You`re talking about the mother or Alicia, the 14-year-old student?
GOLDBAND: I`m talking about the 14-year-old child, Nancy. I also --
GRACE: Well, I guarantee you this much. Whoever comes and picks up Lucy from the front porch, I`m going to know them inside and out.
GOLDBAND: Well, we also have some news, Nancy, on that asphalt plant I can tell you about. The area where the body was found, as we understand it, is not locked at night. There is a fence according to reports but it`s not locked.
Also, Nancy, our staff talked with an employee at that asphalt plant today and we learned there are no surveillance cameras there at the plant.
GRACE: You know -- back to you, Dale Hogg -- I understand why I lost Sarah in California. We took her question and we went to break.
Dale, we were talking about the vehicle. And as you were fading away into the music, Dale, you said something about the 19-year-old was driving that vehicle that night?
DALE HOGG, MANAGING EDITOR, GREAT BEND TRIBUNE (via phone): Yes. He was driving the vehicle that picked her up but it has not played into the investigation so far.
As far as from what I`ve been told and what I`ve heard, the vehicle is no longer an as aspect of this investigation.
GRACE: Oh really?
HOGG: And as far as the evidence --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: OK. That`s kind of a big deal. To Andrew Scott, former chief of police, Boca Raton, president, AJS Consulting. You know at the beginning they were all into this dark colored SUV, a small, newer SUV, dark with silver trim and chromed wheels.
Now we`re hearing from Dale Hogg not so much anymore. That says to me that they`re not focusing on the young man who picked her up?
ANDREW J. SCOTT, FMR. CHIEF OF POLICE, BOCA RATON, FL.; PRESIDENT, AJS CONSULTING: That may not be the case, Nancy. And I`ll say that the car that they`ve described may be the car that she was picked up in but may not be the exact car that the gentleman -- the individual, the young man, picked her up in.
And so therefore they`ve kind of removed that from the eye of the public because they probably either know where that vehicle is or -- in fact, I`m certain they know where the vehicle is or they`d put out a different description.
So that`s the way I`m looking at it --
GRACE: Got it.
SCOTT: -- from my law enforcement perspective.
GRACE: Good point, Andrew. To Kerry, Massachusetts. Hi, Kerry.
KERRY, CALLER FROM MASSACHUSETTS: Hi, Nancy. I just wanted to tell you from good people come great things. And that`s my testimony out to you and your little ones.
My question is, do local jurisdictions have the power to impose mandated curfews to minors? And if not should they?
GRACE: You know I believe that they do because I`ve seen throughout the country -- I`ll walk into a mall and there`ll be a curfew. At this age you can`t be in the mall unattended by an adult. And I`ve heard of curfews within municipalities in towns.
What about it, Eleanor? I`m pretty sure you can.
ELEANOR ODOM, PROSECUTOR: Yes, you can, Nancy, enforce -- it`s up to law enforcement to enforce these and to work in conjunction with the parents. So the law enforcement officer has to see that somebody has actually broken the curfew. The curfew there could be midnight, for example.
GRACE: To Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalysts, author of "Dealbreakers".
Dr. Bethany, the mom and dad are getting a lot of heat -- a lot of hear -- about letting their 14-year-old girl go out at 11:00. Her curfew was at 12:00. What do you think?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST, AUTHOR OF "DEALBREAKERS": Well, I keep thinking about the definition of pedophilia where the perpetrator develops a special interest in a minor who is more than five years age -- more than five years age difference between the two of them.
And even though she`s not quite prepubescent, I keep wondering about what happened with older guys who were interested in her. And as I said earlier, the fact that she was at this age and with a 19-year-old leaves her in an extremely vulnerable position.
And this may not be an impersonal sex attack from a stranger or someone who didn`t knew her. She may have been stalked. And maybe her vulnerability was not just going out with an older guy but what about her Facebook account, her cell phone, was someone texting her?
Who took a special interest in her and then may have felt rejected if she didn`t have access to that person?
GRACE: Out to the lines, Sandy, Indiana. Hi, Sandy.
SANDY, CALLER FROM INDIANA: Hi, Nancy. Love your show. Thanks for all that you do.
GRACE: Thank you, dear.
SANDY: And actually my question was answered a little while ago by Marc Klaas because I just couldn`t wrap my mind around the secrecy with this 19-year-old. He`s not a juvenile.
But I just didn`t consider that while he may have picked Alicia up, there may have been other boys in the car with him and that they were juveniles. And that`s why all the QT with everything going on.
GRACE: You`re right. You`re right, Sandy.
Back to Pat Brown, criminal profiler and author of "The Profiler."
Pat, I want to talk about the fact that many of the neighbors have come out and said that she hung around with an older crowd.
Also, I want to talk to you about the significance. What does it tell me about the perpetrator that the body, the little cheerleader, was burned?
BROWN: Well, you know, it is one of the biggest dangers, I think, we have today that we`re allowing little children --
GRACE: Let me be more graphic.
BROWN: OK.
GRACE: How do you light a match and put it to a human body? Answer that first.
BROWN: Well, how do you rape a child? How do you rape anybody? So you`re already talking about psychopathy, someone who doesn`t consider another human being to be a human being. It`s just a play thing for them.
Especially one that didn`t want to play with you. That makes you angry. You have a lot of rage toward them. So at that point you`re really willing to do pretty much anything. And this is one of the dangers when we`re talking about our children.
You know we can`t allow them to go off with people we do not know absolutely. If the family did not know this boy`s last name, even though they might have seen him around and with other friends, the fact is the child was going to a location with people they didn`t really, really know.
But I think what happens is parents get comfortable with a kind of teenage world and they consider them just kids having fun with each other. But some of those kids are pretty grown up. They`re a little psychopathic, really adults. And that`s what they`re going to get tried as.
GRACE: Everybody, we are going to break and taking your calls. But as we go to break I want to thank you. You made "Death on the D-List" a "New York Times" best seller. Now twice in a row.
I am overwhelmed. My proceeds going to a Methodist home for the handicapped. On their behalf, we cannot thank you enough.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police charge a Pittsburgh mom after they say she left her 5-year-old son on a bus with a total stranger.
PORCHIA SCOGGINS, ACCUSED OF STEALING CONDOMS, ALLEGEDLY GIVING TOT TO STRANGER: Such a big misunderstanding.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Twenty-five-year-old Porchia Scoggins was on a bus with her two kids when the bus was pulled over by police.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Accusing her of stealing from a downtown Rite Aid and then leaving her 6-year-old boy with a stranger on the bus.
SCOGGINS: As I was headed home the bus got pulled over. They took me off the bus. Stated that I fitted the description that was shopping earlier at Rite Aid. They took me and my daughter off the bus or handcuffed me, arrested me.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: When she got off the bus she had only one child with her. Cops allege Scoggins later admitted to leaving her 5-year- old boy with someone she completely didn`t know.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Scoggins said that wasn`t a stranger, it was a friend.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Telling the stranger to take her son to a friend`s house nearby.
SCOGGINS: I`m all, like, yes, they got -- they should have got off at my house, my address. He was my neighbor.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A Pittsburgh woman faces charges after allegedly leaving her 5-year-old son on a bus with a complete stranger. Police say 25-year-old Porchia Scoggins stole items from a local pharmacy and boarded a bus with her two children.
When authorities pulled the bus over and had her exit she had only one child with her. Police say Scoggins admitted to leaving her 5-year-old with a stranger directing the stranger to take her son to a friend`s house in the area.
Scoggins also allegedly admitted she did not know who the person was or where they were headed. She`s charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child as well as retail theft and resisting arrest.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Rupa Mikkilineni. Let me get this straight. Mommy goes into Rite Aid to still rubbers. Right? She steals -- I don`t know what`s funny about that, Rupa. She goes -- and she`s got a 1-year-old and a 5-year-old with her while she steals rubbers.
All right. Gets on a bus with the stolen rubbers. Oh, oh, and at the Rite Aid also steals a little shirt and puts it on her kid in the Rite Aid. Gets on the bus and hands the 5-year-old boy to a ran done passenger she`s never met before.
Do I have the facts correct, Rupa?
RUPA MIKKILINENI, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: You have the facts correct, Nancy. And not only this. When she gets on this bus with these two children and the bus is pulled over, and she`s about to be arrested, she not only hands the 6-year-old child to an absolute stranger but then she resists arrest.
And as she`s resisting arrest, she reaches into her pants for something. The police say, don`t reach in your pants, stop. They grab her, they cuffed her. And when they searched her they find that she has the condoms stuffed in her pants.
GRACE: OK. You know what, I don`t think she`s going to need those, Rupa, where she`s going, the big house, the big doll house. There`s no need for rubbers in an all-female prison. That I know of.
Out to you, Matt Zarrell. What more can you tell me?
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE STAFFER, COVERING STORY: Well, police believe that she knew when she got on the bus that she was going to be arrested. The bus had only gone about a mile from the Rite Aid when she was pulled over by police.
She got off the bus with the 1-year-old in a stroller. Now she did not say anything about the 5-year-old. It wasn`t until police asked her about the shirt that she allegedly stole, then she admitted that she left the child with a stranger, someone she did not know at all.
GRACE: A 25-year-old mom. Number one, goes to the Rite Aid and steals condoms. Then gives her 5-year-old boy away to a stranger, a random passenger on the bus.
To Marc Klaas, president and founder of KlaasKids Foundation. This is how children get killed, Marc Klaas. Killed.
KLAAS: Well, you know, if anybody is going to put together a book on how not to raise children, she would be the poster person for that book. This woman has a total lack of maternalism which I think, you know, speaks -- speaks to whether or not she has any right to get this child back.
Anybody that would give a child away to a perfect stranger, somebody they`ve never met before, granted most people would never harm a child, but anybody that would do that has absolutely no consideration for the welfare of that child whatsoever.
This is a dangerous woman who probably does not need to have children in her life.
GRACE: Had a prior arrest for child endangerment last year.
Matt Zarrell, do we know the circumstances surrounding that?
ZARRELL: Yes. Apparently she had an argument with someone who may have been the father of the 1-year-old. She got in a fight and she allegedly struck the father while he was holding the 1-year-old.
And then she proceed to allegedly leave the 1-year-old on a balcony where she could have fallen down a number of steps. They were both charged with assault. She was also charged with child endangerment.
But, Nancy, that case is still pending as well as this one because she does not have an attorney. The judges keep delaying the case because she does not an attorney yet.
GRACE: Don`t they have public defenders? You know what, Matt Zarrell? Nothing says classy than having a fist fight while holding your baby.
Out to the lines, Brenda in Ohio. Hi, Brenda.
BRENDA, CALLER FROM OHIO: Yes, Nancy. I love your show and I love your twins.
I have a two-part question.
GRACE: OK.
BRENDA: The first question is, when they first arrested her and handcuffed her, did she mention about the 5-year-old on the bus or 6-year- old?
GRACE: OK. What`s your second question?
BRENDA: The second question is, why is DHS letting her go or whatever you call it in Pittsburgh, the Department of Human Services. Why did they let charges go?
GRACE: What do you mean why did they let it go?
BRENDA: When she was charged before for assault.
GRACE: OK. Got you. To you, Rupa Mikkilineni, did she -- she did not mention to the cops anything about the 5-year-old. They had to ask her. I`m sorry, I can`t hear you. Rupa, go ahead.
MIKKILINENI: She had stolen also a child`s shirt. Then she explained that she also had a 5-year-old son. And then she said that she`d given him to somebody and asked that person to take them to a particular address.
GRACE: Matt Zarrell, what more can you tell me about that earlier charge where she actually got into a fist fight with somebody holding her baby, then left the baby unattended on a balcony?
ZARRELL: Yes, what`s interesting, Nancy, is that it appears that the 1-year-old was living with this guy at the time. But police noted when they spoke to her she said that he could have been one of possibly six or eight fathers of the baby. So it appears that he may have not been the father of the baby and custody was given back to her.
But, again, what`s interesting is that case is still pending. Those charges are still against her right now. And yet she had custody of the kids up until now. DFCS has taken custody since this incident.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Let`s go to Terri in West Virginia. Hi, Terri.
TERRI, CALLER FROM WEST VIRGINIA: Hi, Nancy. First I want to say that I love your twins and I think you`re awesome for what you do with -- for the kids.
GRACE: Thank you. Thank you for mentioning the twins. I`m just thinking about -- they`re almost 3 now, praise the Lord, believe it or not. Remember Lucy was born at just two pounds, and you know, every day I look at them. They`re miracles.
The thought of giving -- giving them to somebody on the bus?
TERRI: My question is.
GRACE: I can`t even get anybody to -- when I was pregnant, pregnant with twins in New York, nobody would even stand up to let me sit down on the bus much less want to give my kid to one of these creeps on a bus? No.
What`s your question?
TERRI: Why did she take her children on a condom shopping spree?
GRACE: Oh, good question. Dr. Bethany, I`m going to let you handle that one.
MARSHALL: Well, it`s hard to answer that one specifically, but what I can say is I think the reason she gave the child to a stranger on the bus is that she did not want the father of the child to have control of the child.
She`s probably been in danger of having her children removed before and this was perhaps the last, final straw and she knew she would lose her child. And there`s probably a history of neglect and abuse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOGGINS: I jus thought that I got on the bus to go home. As I was heading home, the bus got pulled over. They took me off the bus. Stated that I fitted the description that was shopping earlier in Rite Aid. They took me and my daughter off the bus or handcuffed me, arrested me.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Pittsburgh police arrested Scoggins, accusing her of stealing from a downtown Rite Aid then leaving her 6-year-old boy with a stranger on the bus.
SCOGGINS: Such a big misunderstanding.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She`s charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child as well as retail theft and resisting arrest.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Out to the lines, Debbie in Kentucky. Hi, Debbie.
DEBBIE, CALLER FROM KENTUCKY: Hi, Nancy, I love you and I love your twins. And little John David looks just like you.
GRACE: Thank you.
DEBBIE: And --
GRACE: I wish he looked like his daddy, though.
DEBBIE: But he looks like you.
GRACE: But I got to tell you, he`s already -- he`s going to be as tall as his father because he`s already above my waist.
DEBBIE: Really?
GRACE: OK. Yes. But don`t worry I still carry him around.
What`s your question, love?
DEBBIE: Why didn`t she just take these babies to the fire station or the police station and just put them out? Evidently she didn`t want them. And I might be hated, but I think they should just throw her underneath the bus.
GRACE: Yes, what I also don`t understand, Debbie, is why she`s out on bond.
You know, Bethany, if you don`t want the children, why don`t you just give them to somebody that does?
MARSHALL: Well, because although she doesn`t want them, she doesn`t want anyone else to have them. And remember when the dad of the baby was holding the baby, she hit him. So she wants control over these children even though she`s apparently neglecting them.
GRACE: Rupa, is she getting government aid? Does she have a job?
MIKKILINENI: Nancy, we don`t know if she has a job, but we do know that she is getting some government aid.
GRACE: That`s all I needed to know. Yes, no. Because you know what, Rupa? You give away these children, you`re not getting government aid any more. That`s her paycheck. That`s how she can afford to buy condoms and so forth, or in this case not afford.
Everybody, let`s stop, let`s remember Marine Staff Sergeant Kendall Ivy II, 28, Crawford, Ohio, killed Iraq. Awarded the Purple Heart. Dreamed of being a Marine since age 2. Lost his life before building his family`s dream home and restoring a 1960 Mustang for his wife.
Remembered for living life to the fullest. Loved his God, family, country, baseball, NASCAR, football, favorite team Bengals. Leaves behind parents Kay and Raymond. A Korea war vet. Brother Kevin, widow and high school sweetheart, Leann. Sons Caleb, Harrison and Gabriel. Daughter Reagan.
Kendall Ivy II, American hero.
Thanks to our guests but especially to you. And a special goodnight from friends of the show, Rema, Shakina, Kim, Tory, Jasmine, birthday girl Megan, and 21-month-old Logan.
Now that`s a beautiful bunch. And thank you, dear, for helping me with my broken foot in the hospital the other day.
Everybody, I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
