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Nancy Grace
Indiana Mom Admits Killing 3-Year-Old
Aired December 22, 2010 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEAN CASAREZ, GUEST HOST: We begin tonight with breaking news out of Indiana. A young mother down on her luck decides to leave family and friends. She finds refuge through a local church, moving into a shelter with her 10-year-old daughter. But when the mother`s family reports them missing-- you`re not going to believe this-- it is also revealed she has a 3-year-old son.
OK, but the family says they haven`t seen the little boy for nearly a year. Why? Because he`s dead! So why didn`t somebody call police sooner? Maybe because investigators have just uncovered the remains of a small child in a tote bag hidden in a closet, the remains believed to be the missing 3-year-old boy. Why? The mother tells police she couldn`t take the toddler`s temper tantrums, force-feeding him olive oil and vinegar until he stops breathing. So why do autopsy results released late today show his larynx was crushed?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It started out with just a phone call, and it just completely unraveled into what we now are looking into as a child death investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That phone call to police was from a concerned friend.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They hadn`t been able to contact mom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Someone who had not seen the 31-year-old Latisha Lawson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They hadn`t been able to determine the welfare of these two children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her 10-year-old daughter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her 10 daughter (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Or 3-year-old son.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But her son was not.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: During questioning, Lawson told police, quote, her son was "with God." According to court documents, Lawson said she couldn`t take her son`s tantrums, gave him olive oil and vinegar until he stopped breathing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She wrapped his remains in a blanket, and she placed that body in a closet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: During questioning, police asked Lawson if she knew at the time she had murdered her son. She answered, "Yes."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Good evening, I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session" on the truTV network, in for Nancy Grace. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. A 3-year-old Indiana boy missing for months. When police finally track down the mother, there hidden in a closet, the remains of a small child.
For the latest, let us go straight out to Elizabeth Fields, reporter with CNN affiliate WANE. Elizabeth, what is the latest tonight?
ELIZABETH FIELDS, WANE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jean, like you said, we did get the autopsy results back today saying that this little boy died of asphyxiation, with compression on his neck. He was found in a Fort Wayne home earlier this week. And police say that they have every reason to believe that his mother is the one that killed him.
Like I said, it started Monday night, even more bizarrely, when police said that they had a whole missing family that they were looking for, a 31- year-old mother, her 10-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. Family members said that they hadn`t seen them since September, maybe October, and they hadn`t seen this little boy since before that.
Later that night, the mother and the daughter were found and they were found safe and sound. But that little boy was nowhere to be seen. During questioning, police asked her where that little boy was. She told them that he was with God. And she told them it was because she couldn`t take his temper tantrums that she gave him olive oil and vinegar until he stopped breathing, and that she did all of this in November 2009. So now she is in jail and she is facing child neglect charges until DNA results can confirm that this little boy`s body is, in fact, her son`s.
CASAREZ: Out to Mike Wilson, reporter and anchor of WOWO Newstalk 1190 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Who exactly went to police on Monday saying this family was missing?
MIKE WILSON, WOWO NEWSTALK 1190 (via telephone): Well, as it turned out, it actually was a local pastor who had put them up at a house on Wabash (ph). And that local pastor went to police, said, Look, this is what we found. We`ve got a woman that`s here, you`re looking for her, and was able to help at that point to locate just the woman, and of course, her daughter, who were found safely at that home on Wabash.
CASAREZ: Well, Elizabeth Fields, reporter at CNN affiliate WANE, isn`t it true that Monday night on local television, your station, you publicized this missing family for anyone that had any information?
FIELDS: Yes. Exactly. At that time, police told us that they believed all three of them could be in some sort of danger, but they put a special emphasis on that little boy. They said that they really believed at that point that some sort of foul play had come into play and that at the very best, he was in immediate danger. All three were unaccounted for.
CASAREZ: Elizabeth, set me straight here. Where does this roommate - - there was a roommate, a former roommate of this mother. Where does she play into this? Did she go to police, too?
FIELDS: We believe so. We believe that she went on a separate account at a different time. Family members reported them missing, but she had come forward to tell them what she had known about a possible body in there. The reverend or the pastor that we had mentioned, he said that he had no idea that there was a roommate even there.
CASAREZ: All right. To Sheryl McCollum, crime analyst, director of the cold case squad, Pine Lake PD -- all right, here you go. You`ve got a crime scene investigation that is spanning a year. This mother says, I fed him -- I fed him olive oil and vinegar because I couldn`t take his tantrums. But yet his larynx is crushed. Where do you start this crime scene investigation? Is it at the original home that the roommate says is the location of the homicide?
SHERYL MCCOLLUM, CRIME ANALYST: Well, you`re certainly going to start where the body was found, but then you`ve got to work backwards. I mean, you`re not talking about a primary crime scene. If you`re talking about 10 months and she`s been transient the whole time, you don`t know where the primary crime scene may be. So you`re going to go to every location we know that she`s lived. The problem, too, Jean, you know, vinegar doesn`t crush a larynx.
CASAREZ: Right. Exactly. Inconsistency. You`re exactly right. Mike Wilson, reporter/anchor WOWO Talk 1190 AM, do we know how many locations that this woman carried this dead little 3-year-old in a tote bag throughout the course of a year?
WILSON: No. Throughout the course of the year, we don`t, and police haven`t released that information yet. And they`re probably still finding out at this point because, apparently, she was relatively transient in nature, with this local pastor helping her out to put her up in that house on Wabash. She also showed up to that church trying to find some help, as well, obviously, with the winter weather getting colder and she was starting to move around.
So we`re still looking into that and trying to find out exactly how many locations there were and which locations they might have been at, and if she actually had the body at one location and stayed there or she moved that around with her, as well.
CASAREZ: To Elizabeth Fields, CNN affiliate WANE -- we want to tell everybody we`re taking your calls live tonight. But Elizabeth, I have one question. If she originally put the body in a blanket and put it in a closet of one place that she was living, do we know when she switched that to the tote bag?
FIELDS: We don`t know that exactly for sure. And again, the pastor told us that when she showed up with him, she didn`t have any bags that would have been large enough for her to hide a body in. So we`re not exactly sure when that happened, either.
CASAREZ: And how old is her living daughter, Kiara (ph), 10 years old?
FIELDS: That`s correct.
CASAREZ: All right. Let`s go out to a caller. Sherri in New York. Hi, Sherri.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
CASAREZ: Thank you for your call. Your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Where is the mother and the father`s family throughout this time? Didn`t they notice the child was missing or the children were missing?
CASAREZ: Well, that`s a really, really good question. To Elizabeth Fields. The family came forward, but what about for the last year? Why didn`t they talk about this missing little boy?
FIELDS: Police gave me the impression that it may not have been that they just haven`t seen them or that they hadn`t had any contact at all, but that the family and the mother was being more evasive than anything. So again, the contact was pretty little, but they were here in Fort Wayne.
CASAREZ: Well, let`s go to the lawyers. To Kelly Saindon, family law attorney tonight out of Chicago, Illinois, Daniel Horowitz, defense lawyer out of San Francisco, and Alan Ripka, defense attorney out of New York.
To Kelly Saindon. What we understand is that she told the pastor`s wife, I had a second child, but I gave him up for adoption. This little 10-year-old girl that is now in the hands of child protective services -- in my opinion, she`s lucky to be alive tonight.
KELLY SAINDON, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: I absolutely agree with you. And I feel so horrible for that girl because we don`t know what she went through. We don`t know what she saw. It`s very possible she`s going to be called to be a witness in a case against her mother for the murder of her younger brother.
CASAREZ: Yes. Very, very true. Ten-year-olds can be witnesses. To Daniel Horowitz, defense lawyer. Before you say that she has mental issues, I`m going to say she was pretty smart, you know, Daniel, because normally, people take a body and they put it in a dumpster or they put it in a field or a long ways away where no one can find it. She kept it with her. Who`s going to find it if you keep it with you?
DAN HOROWITZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, but Jean, she`s not trying to get away with this crime. I mean, she tells the police that she killed this child in a crazy, horrific way, with olive oil and vinegar. That makes no sense. That`s inflammatory. I think she`ll be found to be schizophrenic, severely mentally ill. It`s a tragedy, but it`s really a tragedy that we didn`t find out about her problem and help her before we lost this little child.
CASAREZ: Well, Alan Ripka, she said to investigators, You know what? I couldn`t take the temper tantrums anymore, so I killed my child. That sounds like someone that knew right from wrong and just didn`t want to be bothered.
ALAN RIPKA, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, you know, it`s certainly an admission that could be used against her in a court of law. What I say is, she may not have been the one who actually killed the child. When you admit something, you come up with another excuse -- I gave the baby oil and vinegar. But the baby had a broken neck. Why tell them something that they -- that she knows they`re going to find out isn`t true? There may have been help here, a boyfriend or friend or something else that she`s not talking about.
CASAREZ: All right, but the fact is there is an inconsistency right off the bat. And was this even a true confession? Because the medical autopsy reports that just came out late this afternoon show otherwise.
Let`s go to Marla in West Virginia. Hi, Marla.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I actually have three quick questions. One, how would the oil and vinegar actually kill an infant? Two, where were any support system? And three, does a safe haven law not apply to that child, where she could drop the child off at a fire department, hospital, et cetera?
CASAREZ: All right, good question. First let`s go to Kelly Saindon, family law attorney out of Chicago, Illinois. The safe haven law -- could that have been an option here?
SAINDON: Certainly. And this woman, especially with the case of the pastor helping her, if she couldn`t handle this 3-year-old, she could have absolutely reached out for help, and certainly, she could have left him and then protected and not gone so far as to murder her son.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police have arrested an Indiana mother of two after she allegedly admitted to killing her 3-year-old son with olive oil and vinegar because she couldn`t take his temper tantrums.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They hadn`t been able to contact mom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thirty-one-year-old Latisha Lawson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They hadn`t been able to determine the welfare of these two children.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her 10-year-old daughter or 3-year-old son. What happened next no one could have predicted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An Indiana mother is in police custody after police say she admitted to killing her child with olive oil and vinegar and stuffing his body in a closet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police found them at a house on Wabash Avenue.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do believe that that child had been deceased for several months.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: During questioning, Lawson told police, quote, her son was "with God."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Instead of contacting EMS or obtaining medical attention for that child, she wrapped his remains in a blanket and she placed that body in a closet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Olive oil and vinegar, and stuffs his body in a tote bag for all these months? I want to go out to Elizabeth Fields, reporter, CNN affiliate WANE. Have police described for you at all this tote bag, or have you seen it for yourself?
FIELDS: I haven`t. And that is part of the investigation that they`re keeping very quiet and not releasing many details about. Again, I go back to this pastor, who was able to tell us and give his firsthand account. And he said that he was in the house for several times, three or four times over the course of the weeks that she was there, and he didn`t see anything like that and didn`t smell anything, either, for that account.
CASAREZ: And that brings us to Howard Oliver, forensic pathologist joining us tonight from Los Angeles, former deputy medical examiner of Los Angeles. So many questions to ask you. But first of all, this woman went into a home that is being built to be a halfway house for the church and for men that get out of prison. The pastor went into the house at least three times recently to do work on the house, but he says he never smelled anything. At this point, would there be a smell of decomposition, after a year, or is that over with?
HOWARD OLIVER, FMR. DPTY. MEDICAL EXAMINER (via telephone): That smell of decomposition would be completely gone by now. The smell of a human body is very distinctive. It`s very odoriferous. It`s something you wouldn`t forget. If he wasn`t able to smell the body when he went in the house, then it had been dead for several months and probably mummified and dehydrated.
CASAREZ: Doctor, I want to ask you, the cause of death released late today from autopsy just done, asphyxiation due to compression of the neck. Does that correlate with you to a baby being fed olive oil and vinegar until it couldn`t breathe?
OLIVER: Not at all. If the baby was -- the olive oil wouldn`t do anything unless it went down his lungs. He might, you know, suffocate on it that way. The vinegar would put him in metabolic acidosis that (INAUDIBLE) a PH problem. According to the findings at autopsy, what has happened to that baby was that it was choked to death. The larynx was probably crushed and the hyoid bone was probably broken, which is how they were able to determine the cause of death, death by choking with the hand.
CASAREZ: Right. So her confession yesterday was not a true confession.
I want to go back out to Mike Wilson, who is reporter and anchor for talk radio WOWO in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The caller, Marla in West Virginia, asked about a support system of the family. She left her family, right, voluntarily left them at least two months ago.
WILSON: Yes, she had been having, apparently, some familial issues there because, yes, she had reported that she had basically just turned her back on her family. And they reported not seeing her since September or October. And I think -- you know, it`s tough to speculate at this point on exactly, you know, what happened between the family, why the family waited several months before contacting authorities and reporting her missing. So you really don`t know about the support structure. You don`t know about the mother and the father.
And really, all we`re hearing from police is what`s sort of, quote (ph), known as the family. So that`s what we`re waiting to see. We don`t even know who exactly that family is. You know, is it a mother and a father? Is it a sister or brother? You know, who`s concerned about her? Who was there for her? And I think that`s still unraveling at this point.
CASAREZ: But to Sheryl McCollum, crime analyst, Pine Lake PD, joining us tonight from Georgia, I don`t care who she was around, all right? Once she killed, which she admitted, her little 3-year-old and put it in a blanket in a closet and then a tote bag, you are going to smell decomposition. You are going to know -- anybody in that home or around her -- that something`s wrong.
MCCOLLUM: It`s going to be unbearable. There`s also going to be bugs. I mean, the 10-year-old, what she must have lived with for at least a period of 11 days would be unimaginable. And I believe that`s another reason this mother kept the 10-year-old out of school, so she wouldn`t be around any mandated reporters, any counselors, anybody that could ask her what`s been going on at home.
This is a cover-up from the very beginning. She doesn`t call EMS. She hides the child. She covers the child. She takes the child from place to place to place. It is deliberate. It is a cover-up from the get-go!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Child death investigation. They hadn`t been able to contact mom. She wrapped his remains in a blanket. They hadn`t been able to determine the welfare of these two children. And she placed that body in a closet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It started as a missing persons case and ended with a child`s death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police have arrested an Indiana mother of two after she allegedly admitted to killing her 3-year-old son with olive oil and vinegar because she couldn`t take his temper tantrums.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s a shock that that was happening right there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A body believed to be 3-year-old Jezaih King was found by police inside the home of his mother, 31-year-old Latisha Lawson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We now are looking into it as a child death investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police reportedly believe that for months, Lawson carried her son`s dead body around from place to place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session," in for Nancy Grace tonight. I want you to look at this precious little face, this little boy, Jezaih King, 3 years old. Look at those eyes! Look at that little smile. That little brain knew exactly what was happening to him when he was murdered!
I want to go out to Lillian Glass, Dr. Lillian Glass, psychologist, body language expert, joining us out of Los Angeles tonight. Why would she say oil and vinegar? That`s a salad dressing. Why would she say that when the larynx is crushed? That`s what the evidence shows.
LILLIAN GLASS, PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, it`s very interesting to note that vinegar is often used as a form of punishment for children. In fact, there was a case out of Texas that said this cannot happen in day care centers because that`s what people were doing, is using vinegar to deal with unruly children.
You also have to understand that this person was also having problems financially, so maybe she wasn`t feeding the boy properly, so he was angry. He was upset. And so she got upset. She had temper issues. And she may have given him the vinegar and the oil that went along with it. And she may have choked him, as well.
CASAREZ: But...
GLASS: Out of anger.
CASAREZ: Alan Ripka, I don`t have any empathy for that. I really don`t. This little boy should have been able to live his whole life and to grow up and go to school and become something, and he can`t now. You know, I agree with Sheryl McCollum. This has been a cover-up for a long time. People had to know this. And we know from the probable cause affidavit that the roommate, former roommate, came forward to police on Monday, it looks like, to give the whole story. Are there -- could there be other charges here?
RIPKA: Well, I mean, obviously, when you have a murder charge like this, all the rest of the charges fall within it, so you don`t need much else. However, in my opinion, anyone who leaves a child in a closet in a blanket definitely has the defense of insanity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police say Lawson admitted to killing her son, Jezaih, shortly before Thanksgiving last year.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lawson said she couldn`t take her son`s tantrums.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And gave him olive oil and vinegar until he stopped breathing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do believe that that child had been deceased for several months.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Family members on Monday called police to report that Lawson, along with her two children, including Jezaih, were missing.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police asked the community to help find all three. What happened next no one could have predicted.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police say Lawson later admitted she could not take his Jezaih`s temper tantrums.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: According to court documents Lawson gave him olive oil and vinegar until he stopped breathing.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Lawson allegedly told cops where to find the body which was located in a tote bag inside Lawson`s home a short time later.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She wrapped his remains in a blanket and she placed that body in a closet.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police say it appears the body has been dead for several months.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: During questioning, Lawson told police, quote, "her son was with god."
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
JEAN CASAREZ, GUEST HOST: I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session" on the truTV Network in for Nancy Grace tonight.
Little Jezaih King, 3 years old, he hasn`t been seen since November of 2009. His mother said, well, he was adopted. Guess what? He was just found.
I want to go out to Elizabeth Fields, reporter for CNN affiliate WANE. Where was this little boy found?
ELIZABETH FIELDS, REPORTER, CNN AFFILIATE WANE: He was found in a Ft. Wayne home on Wabash Avenue which is where the family had been staying for just a matter of weeks. She apparently had been moving around from place to play and this was her last known location.
CASAREZ: And to Mike Wilson, reporter/anchor at WOWO News Talk 1190. How did police go to that home? And is that how all it happened? It began on Monday, right? This began to unfold on Monday, culminating with the autopsy today and report.
MIKE WILSON, REPORTER, ANCHOR, WOWO NEWS TALK 1190: Yes, that`s actually -- I mean the timeline is the interesting thing here. You know you`ve got a family that hasn`t seen Latisha since September or October. They hadn`t seen the boy for 10 months or more. And a local pastor who is watching his television actually saw that -- got word that Latisha Lawson and her family was missing.
He helped police locate her. And while that`s happening, you`ve got authorities talking to a woman who`s described as the roommate telling police that Latisha Lawson has the body of her toddler stashed in her home. You know then you got police finding the next day, you`ve got police finding Lawson and the daughter safely in the home on Wabash, but immediately suspected foul play, not knowing what happened to the 3-year- old boy.
CASAREZ: So a member of the -- of a Ft. Wayne, Indiana, congregation went to their pastor saying, there is a young woman with a daughter, and she needs a home. We need to help her. The congregation decided, we`ll put her in a home that is being built to be a halfway house.
Well, that pastor saw on the news just a couple of days ago that this mother was missing. And that`s how this all began to unfold.
I want to go out to Kelly Saindon, family law attorney. Is this a case of insanity? Because you work with children all the time. Or is this a case of someone just not wanting to be bothered? So figured out a plan to kill the child and to hide it so nobody would ever find it.
KELLY SAINDON, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: I don`t think it`s a case of insanity at all. I absolutely think it was premeditated. I don`t doubt that she probably poured olive oil and vinegar in this child`s mouth, and she probably crushed his throat when she was trying to make him swallow it.
She knew what she was doing. She admitted she couldn`t stand his tantrums. She moved the body around so she was trying to hide the crime. So this isn`t something that just struck her at the moment and she lost her mind.
And I don`t agree with defense counsel that she`s going to be diagnosed as schizophrenic. And I don`t believe insanity`s going to hold up. She knew what she was doing. She tried to hide it. She planned ahead. And she admitted in her interview with police that she couldn`t stand this child, and she didn`t want to deal with him.
CASAREZ: And guess what? Indiana has the death penalty.
Now right now, everybody, she`s being held on a type of abuse charge, abuse of a child causing death. It is first-degree felony. It is 50 years. But once they formally identify this little body that they are saying is 3-year-old Jezaih King, that is when it is believed those charges will be upgraded.
To Barbara in New York. Hi, Barbara.
BARBARA, CALLER FROM NEW YORK: Hi, Jean. What a wonderful holiday gift, to have the opportunity to speak with you again on Nancy`s show.
CASAREZ: Thank you, Barbara from New York. Thank you for calling. Your question.
BARBARA: I`m trying so hard to stay in my front-row seat here, but I don`t know, what can we do as a society? It seems like we`re losing control of these wonderful, precious angels that are continually --
CASAREZ: Yes.
BARBARA: -- being murdered by their parents. The anger comes out in you because you don`t know what you can do. But I have to go back to the beginning. It seemed like we`re using this woman who traveled from here to there. She had no one. There had to be someone.
CASAREZ: Yes.
BARBARA: Someone had to miss this little child. I wonder what his life -- what was happening. And they didn`t care enough. And then those of us who are not close to the situation wish we could do something and we can`t. So I think we need to just keep working on what we can do as a society, as a neighbor, as a human being. And as far as the charges go, you know, insanity right out the window. Forget that.
CASAREZ: Yes. You know, Barbara, you give us this huge question of what can we do?
I want to start with Dr. Howard Oliver, deputy medical director, former of Los Angeles, forensic pathologist. When this child was in the midst of being killed and the mother is admitting that, if EMS had been called -- because she also admitted she never called paramedics, could that little boy`s life have been saved?
HOWARD OLIVER, FMR. DEPUTY MEDICAL EXAMINER, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: I would think so. With the crushing of the larynx and knowledge of what happened, the boy would have been dead long before the EMS had gotten there.
CASAREZ: All right. You wouldn`t -- so you don`t think that would have saved the life.
So to Lillian Glass, clinical psychologist, to Barbara`s huge question, how can we as a society stop this? People knew what happened. Finally the roommate goes to police on Monday, a year and a month after it happened?
LILLIAN GLASS, PSYCHOLOGIST, BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT, AUTHOR OF "TOXIC PEOPLE": It does take a village. We all need to be involved in other people`s lives. We all have to be vigilant. And she made such a great point. Because if somebody would have reached out, this could have been taken care of a lot quicker.
CASAREZ: So do you think the roommate is scared? Or do you think she is harboring a criminal? This is her roommate. So why turn her in, right? I mean, which way -- because she can be charged.
GLASS: Exactly. It could have been a lot of things. She could have been threatened by the mother. Again, this mother had a temper. And that`s what got this little boy in the situation in the first place. The mother`s temper. And I also agree that I don`t think insanity`s going to work here.
CASAREZ: Right. To Vandra in Kentucky. Hi, Vandra.
VANDRA, CALLER FROM KENTUCKY: Hi.
CASAREZ: Thank you for calling tonight. What`s your question?
VANDRA: My question is, I just don`t understand a lot of these young women and older women that`s having children. You know, if you can`t handle the temper tantrums, there`s so many places that you can take the children like to the hospital and to the police stations, you know, where they can get the love and the care, and someone can adopt them that need kids and want kids.
Like myself, I can`t have children. And there`s places out here that can help you when you can`t deal with that. So what she`s done, there`s no excuse for it. And I just hope God has mercy on her soul.
CASAREZ: There is no excuse for it. You are so right.
Kelly Saindon, family law attorney. There are families out there that would have, in a second, adopted this little boy. Is it education to not truly allow your child to be adopted or to give it to at least a foster home of someone that could care for it.
How do you solve it?
SAINDON: Well, I think it is education. I think it`s putting out there that these people aren`t alone. That these women that don`t want to deal with children, they don`t necessarily have to. The issue on this, though, that she didn`t want to deal with her temper tantrum of the 3-year- old, remember, she left the 10-year-old alive.
So I think there`s a little more going on to this. But yes, it`s educating these women that can`t handle the pressures of parenting. Men, too. And telling their options, to let the children get away before they get harmed.
CASAREZ: Well, you know, tonight we`re talking about justice. Justice for Jezaih King, 3 years old.
To Howard Oliver, former deputy medical examiner of Los Angeles. The medical examiner`s office today said that they didn`t even try to determine when this little boy died.
Could you do that by bringing in forensic anthropologists or more detailed or even as a forensic pathologist yourself, could you do that?
OLIVER: No, not at this point. That means the baby was fairly mummified at this time. And the tissues were all dried out. You can determine cause of death fairly reasonable -- in a fairly reasonable manner if it`s fresh, if it`s been a number of hours or a few days. But it sounds like the baby`s been dead for about 10 months. So you can`t determine with any certainty as to time of death.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The child`s death.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police have arrested an Indiana mother of two.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Child death investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She allegedly admitted to killing her 3-year- old son, Jezaih King, (INAUDIBLE) allegedly wrapped the body in a blanket and put it in the closet.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: An Indiana mother.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thirty-one-year-old Latisha Lawson.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: In police custody.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And she couldn`t take her son`s tantrum.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Admitted to killing her child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do believe that that child had been deceased for several months.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Lawson told police, quote, "her son was with god."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She wrapped his remains in a blanket.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Gave him olive oil and vinegar.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Gave him olive oil and vinegar until he stopped breathing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She placed that body in a closet.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: During questioning, police asked Lawson --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She admitted --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- if she knew at the time she had murdered her son.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Lawson allegedly told cops --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Yes, she answered. Yes.
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CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session" in for Nancy Grace tonight.
The mother in all of this, Latisha Lawson, 31 years old. She`s in custody tonight, $2500 bail. So for $2500, this woman could get out. All right? The charges now, abuse causing death.
I want to go out to Elizabeth Fields, CNN affiliate WANE. Do we all know when this came down and police went to the home where she was living in. She was then taken to the station as a victim because she`d been missing, it was a missing family. Did she go in a squad car? Did they take her in a police vehicle?
FIELDS: It is my understanding that she did go in a police vehicle. That 10-year-old daughter was put into a separate vehicle. And she was taken into state custody.
CASAREZ: All right. Daniel Horowitz, defense lawyer. What that tells me is right from the beginning, she was in custody, taken in a police vehicle. We know she was read her rights after she got down to the station. She waived her rights. And she consented as well as the pastor did to the search of the home.
You`re not going to get anything suppressed here.
DANIEL HOROWITZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes. I mean, you know, it`s interesting, Jean. Your analysis is right on. She was a suspect right from the get-go. And they knew what to do.
But I have a question for you because I`m not getting something. The police are looking for three people. The 3-year-old, the 10-year-old and the mother. And yet this child has been missing for a year. Who knew to look for three people and didn`t speak up all these months saying why is the 3-year-old missing? I don`t get that.
CASAREZ: All right. To Mike Wilson, reporter, anchor WOWO Talk 1190. Who exactly went to police on Monday and what did they say?
WILSON: Well, on Monday, like we said earlier, it was the pastor that actually talked to police. He saw the reports on television that people were looking for her.
CASAREZ: But how did the reports get on television?
WILSON: The reports got on television when the police put the reports out there. The police said that they were looking. Once the family reported --
CASAREZ: But who? OK, family.
WILSON: -- the family missing.
CASAREZ: Family reported, OK. So Daniel, that`s how it started. The family went to police and said we can`t find the rest of our family. There`s two of them. There`s a mother. There`s a daughter. And you know what? We haven`t seen the little boy in over a year.
Now, Daniel Horowitz, whether the family knew or not of what she did, that`s an open-ended question. And why didn`t they call in a year?
HOROWITZ: Right, exactly. Seems like a very strange situation. And if we look at that part of this case, we may get some insight into this mother and have an idea as to why she was so out there that she would commit such a heinous act.
CASAREZ: All right. Let us go to Rachel in Pennsylvania. Hi, Rachel.
RACHEL, CALLER FRO PENNSYLVANIA: Hi, Jean. Thanks for taking my call.
CASAREZ: You`re welcome. Thank you for calling.
RACHEL: My -- first of all, I want to thank you and Nancy for being the voices for these little angels who`ve been silenced too early. It disheartens me up like your previous caller. I can`t have them as well. And I sit here and watch and just wonder what is wrong with people that they get in these measures?
But my question is, this 10-year-old little girl, what was told to her? What did her mother say to her happened to her little brother? She had to have been in the house when this was going on. She had to know that he all of a sudden wasn`t there. Why didn`t she go to somebody at the school? A neighbor? You know, where was the support for this little 10- year-old? What was told to her?
CASAREZ: And what did she see? What did she see?
Rachel, I want to tell you that Nancy is resting tonight, but she really wanted to do this story. She called me up this morning and she said, "We have to do this story because we have to get justice for this little boy, this precious, precious little boy."
To Elizabeth Fields, reporter, CNN affiliate WANE. Do we know anything about Kiara, a little 10-year-old girl that many say is lucky to be alive tonight?
FIELDS: Well, again, I default to Pastor Harris`s comments to me because he, again, saw this all firsthand. He told me that he did see the little girl with her mother but that she was very quiet with him. Whenever they were all together, the mother did most of the speaking. She didn`t say a word. And he even described her as looking scared most of the time.
CASAREZ: To Lillian Glass, psychologist, does that tell you that little girl was abused?
GLASS: That makes a lot of sense. When you look at the pictures that you`ve been showing on the screen, you can see how the 10-year-old loved her little brother. She`s sitting -- he`s sitting on her lap. And she adores him. And this must be devastating for her.
CASAREZ: Absolutely devastating. She`s with child protective services tonight.
Virginia in New Jersey, hi, Virginia.
VIRGINIA, CALLER FROM NEW JERSEY: How you doing tonight? My question is that if they are saying that the little boy was missing since November or Thanksgiving of last year, now we just had another Thanksgiving, Christmas.
CASAREZ: Yes.
VIRGINIA: Where did the grandparents really think that this child was? Because during the holidays, we are all with our families. So during that time, what were they thinking?
CASAREZ: Bingo, Virginia. That is an excellent point.
Sheryl McCollum, crime analyst joining us tonight out of Georgia. The crime investigation is going on tonight. You are talking to all of these people, right? All of these people.
SHERYL MCCOLLUM, CRIME ANALYST, DIR. OF COLD CASE SQUAD AT PINE LAKE P.D.: They`re talking to everybody. They`re going to go and talk to neighbors, they`re going to talk to everybody in the family.
Again, keep in mind, they`ve seen the 10-year-old since they`ve seen the 3-year-old. So all of these things, they`ve missed Halloween, they`ve missed Thanksgiving, they`ve missed grandma`s birthday. They missed the 10-year-old`s birthday.
None of these things are adding up for people. She ditched her family because she had something to cover up. She kept the child out of school because she had something to cover up. This is so clear to me.
CASAREZ: Yes, yes. If police right now are developing with prosecutors a case for murder, premeditated murder.
MCCOLLUM: Sure.
CASAREZ: What are they going to really look for here?
MCCOLLUM: She gave you the motive. She told you why she did it. Now the autopsy has lined up, the results are consistent with what she said. He`s having a fit, he`s screaming, he`s crying, he`s yelling, so she choked him. His larynx is crushed.
It`s consistent. She gave it to you in a silver platter. She used the words, "I killed him." The roommate used the words, "She killed him." There`s no mystery here. None. Whatsoever.
And we talk about people, there should be an outreach? She had a whole congregation, Jean, trying to help her, who didn`t even know her. There`s outreach, there`s programs. She didn`t want them. She didn`t want them.
CASAREZ: Yes. And she went to a church. And you know as Nancy told you countless times, premeditation can be formed even in an instant. You don`t like the temper tantrums, they`re aggravating you, in an instant, you can form that premeditation that you`re going to crush that larynx.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It started as a missing person`s case and ended with a child`s death.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: According to court documents, Lawson said she couldn`t take her son`s tantrums and gave him olive oil and vinegar until he stopped breathing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She wrapped his remains in a blanket. And she placed that body in a closet.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thirty-one-year-old Latisha Lawson and her children were reported missing by family members Monday.
Lawson and her 10-year-old daughter Kiara were located by police a short time later. When questioned, police say Lawson admitted to killing her son Jezaih shortly before Thanksgiving last year, wrapping his body in a blanket and stuffing it in a closet inside her home.
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CASAREZ: Let`s go out to the callers, Elaine in Alabama. Hi, Elaine.
ELAINE, CALLER FROM ALABAMA: Hey, I`m wondering, you know, I`ve had a total hysterectomy. I`ve never had kids. You know I would have adopted the child, you know, if she couldn`t have handled him.
But my question is, was she on crack cocaine or meth or some kind of alcoholic? What is her background?
CASAREZ: There is -- there is no evidence that she was on anything but that she didn`t like the temper tantrums. She couldn`t take it. The little boy was 3 years old.
To Howard Oliver, former deputy medical examiner out of Los Angeles, forensic pathologist. Can a larynx be crushed if you`re putting it in a bag? We don`t know how big that bag was. Could it be and can you determine if it`s postmortem, after death?
OLIVER: Yes, it`ll be fairly simple to determine whether it`s ante- mortem which means before death or postmortem. There would be blood around the damaged tissue of the bones, but very easy to discern that it was done before or after death. It could have been broken after death.
CASAREZ: Yes. Yes, it could.
OLIVER: Yes. It could. But the autopsy would show that it was done -- the autopsy would show when it was done.
CASAREZ: Right, right. Well, that`s important forensic evidence.
Rhonda in Indiana. Hi, Rhonda.
RHONDA, CALLER FROM INDIANA: Hi, Jean. Merry Christmas.
CASAREZ: Thank you.
RHONDA: Thank you for doing the show. I`m wondering, was there a father in these children`s lives? And if so, where was he at?
CASAREZ: Well, let`s -- good question. Elizabeth Fields, very quickly, do we know anything about a father?
FIELDS: There has not been a father mentioned throughout this entire investigation.
CASAREZ: No father.
All right. Tonight, let us stop to remember Army Sergeant Steve Morin, Jr., 34 years old, from Brownsville, Texas. Killed in Iraq. Awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Combat Action Badge, and the Global War on Terrorism service medal. He also served in the Navy.
He loved fishing and football and spending time with his family. But he`s fans with the Dallas Cowboys. He leaves behind his parents Steve and Audrey, his brother, Jay, his sister, Leticia, his widow Gwendolyn and his children Brianna and Esteban.
Steve Morin, Jr., an American hero.
Thank you so much to all of our guests, to you at home. We`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then, goodnight, everybody.
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