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Nancy Grace
Zahra`s Stepmother Changes Story Again
Aired November 08, 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, North Carolina. A 10-year-old little girl snatched from her own bedroom in the dark of night. The little girl, Zahra, completely dependent on two hearing aids, can only walk with a prosthetic leg after losing her left leg to bone cancer, vanishes into thin air, her bedroom empty, prosthetic leg missing, hearing aids left behind. Last person to see little Zahra alive, stepmommy.
Stepmommy gets rid of Zahra`s mattress just 48 hours before finally reporting her gone. Little Zahra`s prosthetic leg found, discarded in brush off a county back road, and a bone believed to be Zahra`s discovered. K9s, police, search teams, backhoes swarm the family home and start digging, ripping out sheetrock from Zahra`s bedroom wall.
We obtain exclusive letters written by stepmommy from behind jailhouse walls, saying what Adam Baker did to his little girl was quote, "horrifying," admitting stepmommy`s a pagan worshiper, obsessed with Halloween, vampires, the dark arts, complaining about pictures of herself on TV and about having to cover up tattoos and her beloved body piercings. Stepmommy admits she wants to be a TV star and whines about missing her waterbed. Then stepmommy changes the story, claiming she found Zahra dead.
Bombshell tonight. Stepmommy changes her story yet again, claiming Zahra was actually sick for at least two full weeks, yet stepmommy never took her to the doctor, claims she was afraid to call 911. As stepmommy breaks down in tears behind jailhouse walls, she claims she, stepmommy, was the one beaten, not Zahra. She swears she told police places to find Zahra. Does that mean the child was dismembered? This as we learn police break apart the Bakers` bathroom, sinks, commodes, showers, tubs. Did they find blood evidence? This as, finally, the biological mother surfaces from Australia. Tonight, what happened to 10-year-old Zahra?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMILY DIETRICH, ZAHRA BAKER`S MOTHER: Unless you understand the story, you don`t understand the pain. I never gave my baby up. And I`m so angry she was taken away from me like this!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An exclusive interview with a cousin of Elisa Baker.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never once did I imagine that a member of my family would be in such a tragic situation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A gold locket and a few photos are what Emily Dietrich has clung to for most of Zahra Baker`s life. She will cling to them tighter for her daughter`s death.
DIETRICH: It was his responsibility to take care of her! (INAUDIBLE) always love her, always in my heart!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can a loving father begin his 911 call with, Hello, how you doing?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And in these letters, Elisa Baker writes that she is the one who had the black eye and the bruises, not Zahra.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, she wrote the ransom note. She has no credibility. I think she`s nuts!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "I have told the cops everything I know about what`s happened to Zahra."
DIETRICH: I pray to God that she had enough of me in her to never do that, to call that woman her mother. I never got to say good-bye! Barely got to say hello!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And tonight, live, Utah, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of a gorgeous young stockbroker, mother of two, 28-year-old Susan Powell, last seen when Daddy suddenly announces, midnight on a Sunday night, he`s taking the boys, ages 4 and 2, camping in the snow -- repeat, camping, midnight, snow! Then Daddy says when they get back home, Mommy`s just gone -- poof! Vanished!
Well, tonight, Josh Powell, the estranged husband, breaks his silence, blaming who? Susan Powell herself, claiming she, quote, "absconded" because she`s sexually and financially motivated and is embarrassed to come home. Tonight, where is mother of two Susan Powell?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Josh Powell has finally spoken out, giving an extensive interview to "The Salt Lake Tribune." Powell says Susan Powell is, quote, "extremely unstable." He says his wife, Susan, quote, "knows she will be chewed up like hamburger" when she comes back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have any idea what happened to her?
JOSH POWELL, HUSBAND OF MISSING WOMAN: No. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Powell (INAUDIBLE) answers.
POWELL: She`s somewhere. We just miss her. We don`t even know where to start looking. We want her back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What does he know?
POWELL: I don`t know where she`s at.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s just like he just pushed her aside or something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Susan Powell`s father-in-law, Steve Powell, saying he believes Susan ran off with a boyfriend. He says people wanting to find his daughter-in-law`s body to produce closure are, quote, a bunch of morbid [expletive deleted].
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I still need to know where my daughter is.
POWELL: She`s somewhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. Stepmommy changes her story yet again, crying crocodile tears from behind bars, claiming Zahra was actually sick for two full weeks, yet she never took her to the doctor and said she was afraid to call 911. Right!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DIETRICH: No idea how it feels. It hurts enough that it`s numb, that I always had the hope one day that she`d come to find me, and it`s gone!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first time we`re hearing from the little girl`s mom.
DIETRICH: I never got to tell her I was proud of her!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Natisha Lance, you got an exclusive interview with the cousin of Elisa Baker for the first time stepping out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She repeatedly has said that they didn`t kill Zahra. Maybe it`s not impossible that she found Zahra deceased for about two weeks with what appeared to be a virus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "We really didn`t kill her, but what he did after the fact is kind of horrifying."
DIETRICH: I have no words for that woman. I have to do this for her and I have to find justice for her!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That from the mother, who has not seen her daughter in years, finally surfacing.
Straight out to Natisha Lance, producer on the story. Natisha, we understand that Zahra`s stepmommy is crying crocodile tears behind bars, claiming she`s the one that was the victim, she`s the one covered in bruises, not Zahra. Is that correct?
NATISHA LANCE, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, Nancy, this cousin who we spoke to, this is now the second time that she has visited Elisa Baker behind bars, and it`s more of the same story that we have heard before from some of these letters. She is blaming Adam Baker, saying that she is so disappointed that he has left her to take the fall and be the one behind bars. She also says that she would have called 911, that she found Zahra dead, but she was scared to call 911 because her daughter had called social services on her in the past.
GRACE: Jean Casarez, legal correspondent, "In Session," I hardly think that the new story that the stepmommy`s telling from behind bars is more of the same. In fact, now she`s saying it through her tears behind bars that the child was actually sick for weeks on end, but nobody took her to the doctor, and stepmommy says she was afraid to call 911?
JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": That`s the story, that there was a virus, she was sick for two weeks, which is, coincidentally, Nancy, two weeks between the time she was last spotted in the furniture store and October 9th, when the 911 call was made. And when she was found dead, quote, unquote, she was too scared to call authorities.
GRACE: And isn`t it true -- to you, Ellie Jostad -- that she also says, let me add through her tears behind bars, that she has told police places -- P-L-A-C-E-S -- places to find Zahra`s body. Does that mean the child is dismembered?
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Yes, well, you`re right, Nancy, that is what the cousin says Elisa Baker told her. She says that she`s -- Elisa Baker is saying that she`s told the police where to look. She sent them everywhere. And she did use the word places, plural, to look for evidence.
GRACE: And of course, now we know that the biological mother has surfaced from Australia, claiming she couldn`t find her daughter for all these years.
To you, Jean Casarez, how long has it been since she has seen her own daughter?
CASAREZ: A long, long time, Nancy. Emily Dietrich is her name. And you really have to listen to her story to understand it. She didn`t give up custody, she gave the child to Adam Baker because she was sick. She had post-partum depression. But then she says that he basically kidnapped Zahra. And after that, she tried to find her, did find her short periods of time, but never dreamed she`d gone over to the United States.
GRACE: Well, she`s been here for years. Can you tell me, Jean, does she ever go to police and file a case against the father, to try -- I mean, you know, Jean, what do you think I would do if I went home and I found out the twins were gone, that my husband had taken them? Do you think I`d just walk up and down the neighborhood and go, Hey, John David, Lucy, where are you? No! No! I would call police and we would find the twins. Did she go to police to try to find her daughter?
CASAREZ: I don`t see that effort that was made. I see excuses that - - didn`t have the money, didn`t have the means, that the investigative authorities are different over in Australia, so the answer`s no.
GRACE: Well, let`s find out more. We are taking your calls, but first I want to go to a special guest, Robert Ovadia, senior reporter with 7 Network Australia. He interviewed Zahra`s biological mother. Tonight, as all the facts are changing on us once again, to Robert Ovadia. Robert, thank you for being with us. What did you learn from Zahra`s biological mother, her real mother?
ROBERT OVADIA, 7 NETWORK AUSTRALIA: I have to say, Nancy, I`ve done this job a long time and you tend to get a fairly good read of people. And I hear certainly criticism, and she has heard criticism, too, from around the world that she hasn`t done enough to track down Zahra, hadn`t done enough. People were asking where she was.
I have to say, in the three or four hours that I spent with her a couple of days ago, that seemed very, very much like raw emotion to me. This is a woman who says she is without means. She had post-natal depression -- post-partum depression I think you call it in the United States -- and it was a struggle for her. But she did try over and over again to follow Adam Baker and was absolutely stunned to learn only three days before Zahra was reported missing that he had gone to the States.
GRACE: But what I don`t understand, Robert Ovadia, did she ever go to police to report her daughter taken?
OVADIA: She did, Nancy. She initially went to police and went through the court system in Australia. That`s how she initially found him. She was given visitation rights for a couple of times, and then she says he took off again. When she managed to track him down, he took off again.
GRACE: Did she go to police again, Robert?
OVADIA: She went a couple of times, and that`s it. Now, there might be a few blanks in Emily Dietrich`s story that we certainly have to iron out. But she is insistent she loved her daughter, that she continued to want to see her daughter, and that Adam Baker kept on preventing her from doing so.
GRACE: You know, I appreciate that she says she loved her daughter, but I appreciate more love in action, a mother protecting her child. That did not happen! And now all we`ve got, we`ve got a prosthetic leg discarded on a county road and a bone believed to be Zahra`s. Thanks, Mom!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there any hope there that she`s alive?
DIETRICH: I don`t feel it. I reckon that mothers just have this bond with their children. And I think having any hope in me makes it hurt more. With what they`re finding and the way that they were saying she was treated, the only hope I have in me now is that she is gone so there`s no pain anymore!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shocking new claim from Zahra Baker`s family.
GRACE: Stepmommy`s new story.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They say jailed stepmom Elisa Baker claimed Zahra was sick.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sick for quite some time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that she found her dead.
GRACE: Found Zahra dead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s dead.
GRACE: No doubt!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Everyone wants me dead."
The prosthesis was the hardest. I want them to find her so we can put her to rest!
ADAM BAKER, ZAHRA`S FATHER: A ransom note for my boss`s daughter.
ELISA BAKER, ZAHRA`S STEPMOTHER: My husband works for a tree maintenance company, and our back yard`s on fire.
911 OPERATOR: Your what`s on fire?
ELISA BAKER: The back yard. We`ve got big mulch piles and wood piles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sounds like the next thing is, Let me tell you the story I made up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "Own world is so full of hypocrites."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shallow, so self-absorbed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely ghoulish.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very disturbed individual.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She knows something.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What`s the most important thing?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The truth.
DIETRICH: Hoping that you can -- we can lay her to rest with dignity that she deserves! Finally for somebody to show her love and respect!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls live. For those of you just joining us, behind prison walls, Mommy begins to cry, claiming that she has been the victim, not Zahra, tells from behind bars that she has told cops places -- in the multiple -- to find Zahra. Not only that, she claims the child was sick for weeks but she didn`t call 911 or take the child to a doctor because she was quote, "afraid."
Unleash the lawyers. Susan Moss, family law attorney, New York, Anne Bremner, high-profile defense attorney, Seattle, Joe Lawless, renowned defense attorney, author of "Prosecutorial Misconduct" out of the Philadelphia jurisdiction. Weigh in, Sue Moss.
SUSAN MOSS, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: What gets my goat is that ransom note! Stepmonster is saying that this child was so sick that she had to go write a ransom note? I mean, that disproves her story from the beginning! Let me get this straight. This kid has doctors up the wazoo, but instead of calling one, she`s just crying boo-hoo!
GRACE: You know, Anne Bremner, her lawyers, we have been told, have told her, Don`t write any more letters.
ANNE BREMNER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Right.
GRACE: What does she do? Write more letters and then talk to people from behind bars, and actually, starts crying about her plight and not Zahra`s. Now, what are you going to do with that? Because it`s all going to come in at trial, Anne Bremner, all of it.
BREMNER: It`s all going to come in at trial, Nancy, exactly right. But the question is, how do you work with it because it`s all internally inconsistent. Why write a ransom note, and then say you`re not involved and you`re a victim, et cetera, et cetera, there are places you can find the body or body parts, et cetera. We`ll see about that. I mean, what she`s had to say right now is not a lot of anything in terms of corroboration, corroboration, corroboration, which will be needed in any murder case.
GRACE: And Joe Lawless -- Joe joining us from Philadelphia -- she says she`s helped police, she`s told them places to find Zahra`s body. Does that mean they dismembered the child? And also, just because you tell cops a bunch of malarkey and send them on a wild goose chase, like tot mom, Casey Anthony, that doesn`t get you a gold pass out of jail. In fact, what that looks like is that she`s leading them on and lying to them.
JOE LAWLESS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, I`ve been on your show for years, and my stock saying is even a fish wouldn`t get caught if she kept her mouth shut. I don`t know why she`s talking at all. I can`t rhyme like Sue. I agree with Anne. She should just shut up.
GRACE: I know, but that`s no defense at trial. We know that. How do you work with this? What can you possibly say to a jury?
LAWLESS: You shrug your shoulders and argue reasonable doubt. That`s all you have.
GRACE: Yes, well, do that and march straight to the North Carolina death chamber!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ten-year-old girl Zahra Baker.
DIETRICH: Unless you understand the story, you don`t understand the pain.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "I swear I`m going to launch a campaign for people like us, the freaks of the world, I guess."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have new evidence that`s led them back to the family`s home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They started digging.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Digging with a backhoe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Started digging.
DIETRICH: I never gave my baby up. And I`m so angry she was taken away from me like this!
911 OPERATOR: She has one leg?
ADAM BAKER: One leg, yes.
911 OPERATOR: That`s partially amputated?
ADAM BAKER: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A piece of evidence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "I`m sick of being ridiculed for being me."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Out to Starla in New Jersey. Hi, Starla.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. Absolutely love your show.
GRACE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have two quick questions.
GRACE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, I`m not understanding the proper procedure when the police showed up initially, when the yard was on fire, and they waited to check on the boss`s daughter to make sure she was OK. Did the police officer make any contact or any type of motion to check on Zahra that evening?
GRACE: Good question. And hold onto Starla because she`s got another question. Jean Casarez, I don`t think police had any idea they should go in and check on a child in the residence.
CASAREZ: I don`t think so, either. They were there for that fire, that fire that may be very significant, that was inside the back side area of the home, the back yard.
GRACE: OK. Starla, what`s your next question, dear?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The last question is for the mother, the biological mother that said she gave up custody. She -- Zahra was nowhere to be found. She finally found her and she had a few months of time with her, and then she skipped again. If she knew her baby`s father was going to skip around town, why did she not, when she had the few months with her, take or be more proactive to take over custody then?
GRACE: Let`s go out to Robert Ovadia. He is the senior reporter at 7 Network Australia. He has interviewed Zahra`s biological mother in depth. You know, that`s a good question, Robert Ovadia. When she had the child, when she found the father the first time, why not take steps then to pin him down and get custody?
OVADIA: That is something that we`re going to have to ask Emily Dietrich. She insists that she did follow him around the country and was none the wiser when she initially caught up with him after several months. She said she was still suffering from post-partum depression when she did. She never officially gave up custody to Adam Baker. She just said, Hey, you take care of him because I`m in no fit state to do so. She said she couldn`t possibly anticipate that he would then skip around the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DIETRICH: I still have things of hers which have made it even harder because it made me want to find her even more. (INAUDIBLE) and hoped that today was the day that something would come up.
OVADIA: But you did find her three days before she was reported missing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s dealing with the likely loss of her daughter, a daughter that she`s chased through the years, chasing Adam Baker around Australia and then to America.
EMILY DIETRICH, ZAHRA BAKER`S MOTHER: The prosthesis was the hardest. I want them to find her so we can put her to rest.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: This cousin has not turned these letters over to police but what we did find out from the jail is that the jail is now making copies of all of the letters from Elisa Baker.
UNIDENTIFIED ELISA BAKER`S COUSIN: Our first concern is that Zahra`s body will be found soon since she is believed to be deceased, and that all of the truth will come out.
DIETRICH: Hoping that we can lay her to rest with dignity that she deserves. Finally somebody will show her love and respect.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: When you looked into Elisa`s eyes, you saw her face-to-face in jail, did you believe what she was telling you?
UNIDENTIFIED ELISA BAKER`S COUSIN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Which is what?
UNIDENTIFIED ELISA BAKER`S COUSIN: That they didn`t kill Zahra.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like I said, my lawyers don`t tell me all the world is saying but if it is anything like these letters, OMG.
DIETRICH: She was already gone when I found her. And she found me to tell her story and to find her and put her to rest.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: And it`s not just about the stepmommy, everyone, as she is crying her crocodile tears behind bars. I have spoken to relatives -- Zahra`s stepmother -- and they want to know why isn`t Adam Baker behind bars and I agree with them.
Why isn`t he? Why hasn`t he taken part in one day of searching for his daughter? And why does he drive around town with a flyer in his window that damns Zahra`s stepmommy?
I`m not saying she doesn`t deserve it but what about him? What has he done to find Zahra?
What about it, Natisha Lance?
NATISHA LANCE, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: The police have said that Adam Baker has been available when they have asked him to be places and they know how to get in contact with him now -- now that he has an attorney.
Those earlier searches that were done at the site where his job was at one point, where the wood chipper was, Adam Baker was at those searches. He also appeared early on on morning talk shows trying to appeal to the public to bring his daughter home, but again, police have never used the term with me that Adam Baker is cooperating.
The most they will say is that when they need him to be some place, he`s there and when they need to find him, they`re able to find him.
GRACE: Well, Jean Casarez, I thought a couple of weeks ago they actually said that they don`t think he`s cooperating.
JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": I think we have heard that. Let me tell you what happened this weekend. You know he was evicted from the home, the home that we have video on that shows the massive searches of drains and sinks.
Well, he moved out the family possessions that were left in that home this weekend and that included Zahra`s clothes and those games that you see on the shelf.
GRACE: I want to go to Marc Klaas, president and founder of KlaasKids Foundation. What do you think at this juncture, Marc Klaas?
MARC KLAAS, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, KLAASKIDS FOUNDATION: Well, I think a couple of things. First of all, I think that the police made a very good decision last week or perhaps it was the week before to discount the letters, and basically to discount anything that this lunatic Elisa is telling them in prison.
They`re not going to solve the crime through anything that she tells them. They`re going to solve this crime through dogged legwork. They`re going to continue going into dumps and draining ditches and digging up garbage piles until they find the truth on this.
And I also think that the biological parents of this girl, the mother in Australia and the father here in the United States, are lackadaisical and half-hearted at best. If you want to do something for a missing child, you need to have an alpha personality.
You have to follow the examples of mothers like Beth Holloway or Amber Dubois` mother, Kerry McGonigle who would put their own lives -- and both of them have -- in jeopardy to find the truth about what happened to their child.
You can`t sit around and you can`t snivel and you can`t look downward and you can`t just drive around town and make yourself available to the cops if you want to be proactive in the recovery of your child, and I`m just not seeing that in this case. Not at all.
GRACE: What you are -- what you are seeing right now is video inside the Baker home now. And as you can see, the police have torn out the wall. They`ve gone all the way down to the subfloor of the floor. Removed large parts of the bathrooms, looking for any evidence, including blood evidence, in the bathroom of Zahra.
And there you see one room they didn`t touch and a lot of Zahra`s things are still there.
You know, when I look at that, Sheryl McCollum, it just breaks my heart to see some of her little toys, Candyland game, things like that, laying there. Zahra`s gone.
SHERYL MCCOLLUM, CRIME ANALYST, DIR. OF COLD CASE SQUAD AT PINE LAKE P.D.: It`s awful, Nancy. And she`s clearly gone and you`ve got two parents that are not cooperating.
Her father makes an eight-minute 911 call, never one time asks for help. Nobody`s leading police anywhere. They happened upon the leg, they happened upon the mattress. Nobody`s helping.
But we all know the result. You know, they were both involved. It appears to be. And I believe in my heart, he will be arrested shortly.
GRACE: I just wonder if they`ve got him out right now so they can follow him around, put a GPS locator on his car. And this is one thing I agree with the stepmommy`s family about. He needs to be in jail, too. They both need to be in jail. Let them just stew in their own juices.
Out to the lines. Mickey in Texas. Hi, Mickey.
MICKEY, CALLER FROM TEXAS: Hi, Nancy.
GRACE: Hi, dear. What`s your question? I think I`ve got Mickey. Do you have a question, dear?
MICKEY: Yes. Hang on. OK. I`m sorry.
GRACE: OK. You get your thoughts together and I`m going to go to Natalie in California.
Hi, Natalie. I think I`ve got Natalie in California. Natalie, are you with me?
NATALIE, CALLER FROM CALIFORNIA: Hi, Nancy. So good to talk with you.
GRACE: Likewise. What`s your question, dear?
NATALIE: OK. Stepmom claims she found little Zahra dead. Is she saying where she found her, like locked in the attic where they left her?
GRACE: Natalie, that`s a good question. What do we know, Jean Casarez?
CASAREZ: No. But what did they take out of that house? They took the mattress out. If she had had a virus for weeks, it was the bed.
GRACE: Jean, excellent point. Let`s go to Dr. Glenn Kolansky, board certified physician joining us out of New York.
Doctor Kolansky, we have learned nothing about Zahra coming out of remission. So what illness -- not that I believe this, Doctor, but what illness could possibly kill the girl in two weeks?
DR. GLENN KOLANSKY, M.D., BOARD CERTIFIED PHYSICIAN: Nancy, I mean, basically she had bone cancer and supposedly some metastasis to her lung. But apparently she hasn`t been sick. I mean they`d be doctor records that they took her to a physician to see what was going on.
A virus is just -- I think this is a made-up story.
GRACE: I do, too, Dr. Kolansky. And wouldn`t all the relatives or at least the hospitals and doctors know if the cancer had come back? There`s no indication it had.
KOLANSKY: Assuming they took her to the doctor. We don`t know that these people even followed up with this girl to the doctor. I mean I think that she`s just been honestly abused and basically not taken care of. And if you really listen to all these stories, they`re all disjointed. They don`t make any sense. So --
GRACE: No.
KOLANSKY: Believing them, virus is just another lie.
GRACE: I agree. And why would she be afraid? To you, Paula Bloom, clinical psychologist, joining us out of Atlanta. Why would she be afraid to call doctors, to call 911, if she found the girl dead? That doesn`t make any sense.
PAULA BLOOM, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, I mean, listen, it`s like so many things. When people get in trouble for is the cover-up.
Listen, when we get blamed for something, when we`re scared, we go into self-preservation mode. I`m not justifying what she did, just to be clear. But we get into this sort of self-preservation mode. From what I understand, there was something about her daughter -- the stepmommy`s daughter had called in child services before so maybe she already had some kind of record so she was concerned.
Again, I`m not justifying what she did.
GRACE: Well, right now -- well, hold on. Hold on. I can tell you right now, DFACS, family services, had been called. Police had been called many, many times because the child would be publicly mistreated by the stepmommy, had black eyes. It would be in actual photos.
Let`s see that photo, Liz.
So I still don`t understand why you`re saying when you find your child dead, you go into, as you said, defense mode?
BLOOM: Self-preservation mode.
GRACE: If your child was ill, why you wouldn`t take it to the doctor, is that self-defense, too, Paula Bloom?
BLOOM: No. I mean, I think that just sounds like neglect to me. And these are people who have a history of kind of picking up and going, right? And when you`re getting involved with doctors and there`s documentation and who knows the whole story.
But what I`m saying is right afterwards finding her dead, if that`s what happened, she probably got really scared for whatever reason -- guilt or whatever it might be, I`m, you know, don`t want to speculate on that part. Not rational. Not rational.
GRACE: To tonight`s case alert, a Connecticut jury gives the death sentence to one of two parolees who terrorized a family of four in their own home. After bludgeoning the dad nearly to death, mommy and her 11- year-old little girl brutally tied up and raped after mommy`s forced to walk into a bank and withdraw thousands.
The house torched after mommy strangled to death. The girls, 11 and 17, died, burned alive.
Steven Hayes convicted. Next stop the needle. Lethal injection.
Doctor William Petit, the sole survivor, lives on without his beloved wife and his two beautiful girls.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. WILLIAM PETIT, WIFE, 2 DAUGHTERS MURDERED IN HOME INVASION: Michaela was an 11-year-old little girl, you know? Tortured and killed in her own bedroom, you know, surrounded by stuffed animals.
Hayley had a great future. Jennifer helped so many kids, so I was really thinking of the tremendous loss.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: She puts herself in the midst of it.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: Your what`s on fire?
ELISA BAKER, ZAHRA BAKER`S STEP MOTHER: The backyard. We have big mulch piles and wood piles.
CASAREZ: You see her state of mind.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My family has turned pretty much against me and everyone is telling so many lies.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight out to the lines. Brenda in Ohio. Hi, Brenda.
BRENDA, CALLER FROM OHIO: Hi, Nancy. How are you?
GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?
BRENDA: The question I have is if he knew, the father knew that this little girl was sick for two weeks, isn`t that enough to arrest him for child endangerment or child neglect?
GRACE: Brenda in Ohio, you`re absolutely right.
Unleash the lawyers. Sue Moss, Anne Bremner, Joe Lawless.
What about it, Susan Moss?
SUSAN MOSS, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY & CHILD ADVOCATE: Absolutely. And you don`t get rid of a bed unless there`s something to dread. There`s so much more to this story with both these biological parents.
You know, that biological mother not only did she not seek custody, she didn`t even seek visitation. If she had sought visitation and they had taken the kid, she could have gotten the kid back and saved her life.
GRACE: Anne Bremner, what about it?
ANNE BREMNER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I mean, the bottom line is there`s no evidence against anybody right now, and there`s -- it`s all over but the shouting.
GRACE: That`s not the question.
BREMNER: I mean I don`t know what we have.
GRACE: That`s not the question.
BREMNER: What we have.
GRACE: The question is if you let a child be ill with a life- threatening illness for two weeks that in itself is child neglect.
BREMNER: Well, and that`s what I was addressing, actually, Nancy. I mean, maybe there`s no evidence really like we had in Casey Anthony. I mean if there`s only that she may have been ill, et cetera, it`s a pretty weak case on endangerment of a child.
GRACE: What about it, Joe Lawless?
JOE LAWLESS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY, AUTHOR OF "PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT": I think Anne`s right. I don`t think there`s any evidence. I think there`s a lot of suspicion.
GRACE: Yes. You know what?
LAWLESS: I think there`s a lot of inappropriate behavior but there`s no evidence of a crime.
GRACE: There`s no evidence that she was sick. There`s plenty of evidence that she`s dead. So you know what?
LAWLESS: There`s no question about that. But -- then there`s a question of, is there evidence to prove who did it. And we just don`t have that yet.
GRACE: Well, here`s my concern tonight. I`m going to go back to you, Jean Casarez on this.
Jean, we have so many indicators that the child`s body was dismembered. Number one, you`ve got a cadaver dog hitting on not one but two different cars. You find her prosthetic leg.
Tonight we learn investigators have found that bone -- that found the bone say it was an entire bone intact and that it is a key piece of evidence in this case. They believe it`s Zahra`s bone.
Now why would you find one bone in one place, the prosthetic leg in another place, a dog hitting on two different cars, and now you`ve got the mother saying she`s told cops places to find her body?
CASAREZ: Exactly. And that actually corroborates what she`s saying, not that she won`t be charged, not that she`s not involved, but remember about two weeks ago, she went out in an SUV, reported with investigators to the location very close to where that prosthetic leg was found and don`t forget the extensive search in the backyard.
That was where the fire was, and that was after she allegedly began helping authorities.
GRACE: We are switching gears and taking you across the country to Utah. Is there a break in the case in the search for mother of two, Susan Powell.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mom of two, Susan Powell --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Vanished from their suburban Salt Lake home.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Husband Josh Powell --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Only person of interest.
JOSH POWELL, HUSBAND OF MISSING MOM SUSAN POWELL: I didn`t do anything.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: His wife still remains missing. Now Powell finally breaking his silence, revealing he believes his wife is alive, but says Susan is, quote, "extremely unstable."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He doesn`t seem to show concern.
POWELL: I`m just trying to -- trying to figure out what I can do.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Love or care.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Stating his wife knows she will be chewed up like hamburger when she comes back and believes that less attention from the public and Susan`s own family could help bring her home.
CHUCK COX, SUSAN COX POWELL`S FATHER: I`m waiting for him to cooperate and help us find our daughter.
POWELL: Basically --
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Bottom line, Josh Powell now breaks his silence, not by talking to police but talking to the local newspaper. He says Susan Powell is alive, that she was gone, that she absconded because she was, quote, "sexually and financially motivated," and now she`s embarrassed to come back because she will, quote, "be eaten up like hamburger."
OK. Jim Kirkwood, KTKK News radio, what`s the latest? Not hearing Jim Kirkwood. I`m going to go to Chuck Cox, this is Susan Cox Powell`s father.
Chuck, what do you make of Josh Powell`s statements to the paper?
COX: Totally baseless and self-serving. He`s just trying to deflect attention from himself.
GRACE: You know, I`m stunned that he would say that your daughter absconded because she was sexually and financially motivated. He also says she would chase him around the house to hurt him.
If she chased him around the house, I guarantee it was to make him to go to work, all right? He hadn`t worked in forever, was filing bankruptcy. She was probably tired of doing all the housework, all the laundry, and being the sole breadwinner for the home.
COX: I find it interesting that the first thing that he does come forward and start talking about is to blame her and try to say that she`s something less than the mother that she was and a loving life that she`s trying to be.
GRACE: You know, with me now is Jim Kirkwood, KTKK News radio.
Hi, Jim. Can you give me an update why did Josh Powell suddenly go to the local paper to claim Susan Powell is alive. He says she`s alive.
JIM KIRKWOOD, REPORTER, KTKK NEWS RADIO: I think she is -- he`s trying to divert attention from himself. I mean, the stories are silly. Mental illness? Quite the contrary. She`s obviously the stable one from the family and friends here in town. But what does the guy do? There`s a lot of pressure on him.
GRACE: Well, I find the stories not to be silly. I find them to be actually evil and disparaging.
KIRKWOOD: Yes.
GRACE: To the mother of his two children.
To Sheryl McCollum, every time he speaks, he`s digging his own grave. He gave an eight-page statement to the newspaper, Sheryl.
MCCOLLUM: Let him talk. I love it when he talks, Nancy, because he`s digging his own hole. And I say let him. When he says that she just left on her own and there`s nothing to corroborate that, nothing. No cell phone that we can`t account for, no number that she`s called. She doesn`t have a boyfriend.
But you want me to believe she left you. She didn`t take her car, she didn`t take her kids. She left her job. Not --
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Finally breaking his silence.
POWELL: We just miss her. She`s somewhere. She`s somewhere.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Powell stating his wife knows she will be chewed up like hamburger when she comes back.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you have any idea what happened to her?
POWELL: No.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I want to go to Jean Casarez.
Jean, what do we know? Tell me your synopsis of what he said. Eight pages to the local paper. Josh Powell insisting his wife Susan Powell is alive.
CASAREZ: Well, it`s really amazing that he came out. It`s not quite a year that she went missing, but he in essence blames her and blames her family for the disappearance saying that she is mentally unstable and that drove her, in part, away from the family.
GRACE: Ridiculous. There is no instability in your family, Chuck Cox. This is Susan`s father.
COX: That`s absolutely correct. Nothing like that.
GRACE: OK. Out to the lines. Nikki in Utah. Hi, Nikki.
NIKKI, CALLER FROM UTAH: Hi. How are you?
GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?
NIKKI: I`d like to know if they have talked with his young sons to find out if they recall anything of that night like him taking her or leaving something there that he shouldn`t when they went camping?
GRACE: Good question. What do we know, Jim Kirkwood?
KIRKWOOD: The one thing we have and we`re not 100 percent sure of it but it looks like the one son talks about mommy is in a cave looking at rocks. That`s the most interesting thing said by those children that we know.
GRACE: Everyone, the tip line of this case, 801-840-4000.
And Chuck Cox, please know, our prayers are still with you, with Susan and her two boys.
Let`s stop and remember Army Sergeant 1st Class Michael Benson, 40, Wynona, Minnesota. Injured in Iraq, pulled off life support at Maryland`s National Naval Medical Center. Served two decades including the first Gulf War.
Awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, loved cooking, creative writing. His wife`s letters scented with perfume. Loved spicy food. Favorite NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. Favorite sports teams, Minnesota Vikings and the Twins.
Leaves behind grieving mother Norma, brothers David, Rob and Rich. Widow Elizabeth.
Michael Benson, American hero.
Thanks to our guests but especially to you. And a special good night tonight from friends Rachel and Leslie.
Happy birthday -- happy 100th birthday to Oklahoma friend Ruby Beasley. Her secret to a long life, hard work.
Happy birthday, Ruby.
Everyone, I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
