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Nancy Grace
Body Found in Suitcase on New York City Sidewalk
Aired December 23, 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. Customers at an exclusive world-renowned Italian restaurant get the shock of a lifetime when a neighbor runs inside to call 911. Why? Well, outside on the busy sidewalk with holiday shoppers, an abandoned suitcase. OK. But a woman`s leg is sticking out of that suitcase. The female victim has been strangled to death, wrapped in a garbage bag and lying in a pool of blood, all in a zipped-up suitcase.
In a major development tonight, surveillance video. You see it. Study it for yourself. It becomes the key to cracking this case. Right now, police -- they are looking for this man caught on surveillance video casually strolling the street, wheeling around what police say contains the dead body. Tonight, where is the suspect caught on video? And who is the lady in the suitcase?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It happened around 12:15.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A woman.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A woman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A woman.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pronounced dead on the scene.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A woman`s body was found inside that suitcase.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Surveillance video.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here it is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Help identify the man.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wearing a dark knit hat with a leather jacket he has on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He (INAUDIBLE) dark-colored case near a stoop and then stopped. Three people walked by.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then he pulled the suitcase past a dark-colored SUV and right out of the sight of the camera.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s very strange.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cops have made no arrests.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then I guess maybe no one noticed it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The medical examiner says she was strangled.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This block is relatively quiet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The many questions in the case remained unanswered.
(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. At this hour, police on high alert, searching for a suspect caught on video wheeling around a suitcase later found to be hiding the body of a young woman strangled to death.
Let us go straight out to NANCY GRACE producer Rupa Mikkilineni. Rupa, what is the latest tonight?
RUPA MIKKILINENI, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, Jean, I am standing right here in front of the very building in this tree-lined neighborhood, lovely neighborhood, Jean, just a few yards away from the famous Italian restaurant Rao`s, where celebrities dine every evening. A body in a suitcase was found in this very spot where I stand.
That`s right, Wednesday morning, midnight, just after midnight, a report comes in to the police, a 911 call, from the restaurant of Rao`s. Apparently, just a few minutes earlier, a passerby was walking along, saw this suitcase, thought maybe there was something valuable in the suitcase, opened it up, opened the zipper up, and a leg pops out. He runs panicking to the restaurant and calls 911. And later, police are on the scene. They open the suitcase up, and it`s a dead body of a young female, Jean, 28 years old.
CASAREZ: Now, let`s start from the beginning here because we see this surveillance video. We see this man. Where does this video come from? It`s surveillance video. It`s a city street. Holiday shoppers. Who had surveillance video?
MIKKILINENI: That`s right. So the surveillance video comes from a residential building right here behind me. You`ll see it. And actually, I`m in the spot where this man, caught on this surveillance video, is dragging a suitcase along. And you see this for a few minutes in the surveillance video.
Then you see him pause right here, just behind me, for about 60 seconds. He pauses while three people, you know, holiday shoppers, people in the neighborhood walking by. He pauses, you see him lift up his collar. You see him wipe his face, adjust himself a little bit, looking perfectly relaxed, actually. And then as they pass by, then he continues to move on, dragging this suitcase. And a few minutes later, just a little bit further down, where the camera (ph) -- he goes off camera, Jean. And that is when the suitcase is abandoned, left behind. And then a few minutes later, a neighborhood passerby walks over, finds the suitcase and sees the leg popping out of the suitcase.
CASAREZ: You know, Rupa, I saw that, too, on the video. He wipes his face. Rupa, it is freezing temperatures. You see what the man is wearing out there, a jacket, a scarf, a cap. He`s working up a sweat because he has a body in the suitcase.
Naomi Goldstein, former producer for NANCY GRACE. Thank you so much for joining us. Late today, autopsy results were released of this body. What do we know at this point?
NAOMI GOLDSTEIN, FORMER NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, Jean, you know, I have to say, we`ve covered a lot of stories together both here at NANCY GRACE and both at truTV, as well. And this is one of the more tragic ones I`ve ever seen. This 28-year-old woman in the prime of her life was strangled to death.
CASAREZ: She was strangled to death. But Naomi, even more than that, what we`re hearing is that there was blood in that suitcase, right?
GOLDSTEIN: Yes, there was pools of blood in the suitcase, and also, apparently, on the sidewalk surrounding it a little bit. And there`s believed to be some sort of head trauma on the victim, as well.
CASAREZ: So strangulation, but head trauma, as well, and the body of an adult female. Rupa, do we know how old at least this young woman is?
MIKKILINENI: Right. Police actually do know who this individual is, but they are not releasing her name. But they have described her as a female, 28 years old, from this area, Harlem area, but also, her last known address may have been the Bronx. We know that there was a pool of blood in the suitcase.
And what`s interesting, Jean, is that when police arrived at the scene, opened up the suitcase and found the body, the upper body and head were covered in a black garbage bag, then a pool of blood in the suitcase which then later seeped onto the sidewalk, right here, right behind me. Now, this has all been cleaned up since I`ve been here. The police no longer consider this a crime scene. They cleared out late yesterday afternoon. So that`s what we`ve got.
CASAREZ: And we are taking your calls live tonight. Rupa Mikkilineni at the crime scene. It`s been released now. That is why she can stand there. But this is an area where days before Christmas this young woman was found in a suitcase.
I want to go out to Dr. Marty Makary, M.D., physician, professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University, joining us from Washington, D.C. I`ve got a really basic question to ask you. How do you take a grown woman, 28 years old -- and we see that suitcase. It`s not that big. How do you put a body in a suitcase? How do you fit it in?
DR. MARTY MAKARY, JOHNS HOPKINS: Well, the body`s actually remarkably more flexible when there`s no sense of contraction or -- in other words, when a patient`s not alive, there`s a lot more flaccicity (SIC) of the muscles. So you`d be amazed how you can -- somebody can make movements in joints that they can`t normally make when they essentially have that loss (ph) and flaccid muscles.
CASAREZ: You know, Dr. Makary, we don`t know if this body was put in that suitcase when it was alive or when it was deceased. Can you tell at autopsy -- and especially with that black plastic bag over the head, the upper torso. Can you tell if she was put in that suitcase alive?
MAKARY: Well, actually, the doctors are going to be able to tell a lot based on the moisture inside the bag, which would represent breathing while the individual was alive, when the bag was placed. You know, the head injury and then strangulation combination of injuries is a common pattern in trauma. It often happens that the head injury occurs first. The person is rendered unconscious, and then the strangulation occurs as sort of the final injury.
CASAREZ: To Marc Harrold, former officer of the Atlanta PD and attorney -- two for one tonight -- out of Washington, D.C., joining us. Thank you so much. You know, one of the cases of the many cases that I covered on Court TV, "In Session" now, involving suitcases was one where the defendant, now convicted -- actually, Melanie McGuire out of New Jersey -- shot and killed her husband, but she had to cut him up in three pieces and put him into three different suitcases that she threw out on the Chesapeake Bay. But guess what? They washed out on shore.
How do we know that there isn`t more to this? And where would you begin this crime scene investigation?
MARC HARROLD, FMR. OFFICER, ATLANTA PD: Well, it`s tough. You know, this is a situation where you have a victim who`s probably -- seems from the neighborhood. It doesn`t seem, from what people are saying, that they believe -- and they don`t know because they don`t know exactly who this is -- that the perpetrator`s from the neighborhood.
But what`s really strange with this situation is there`s a lot of other ways to have discarded this body. This person actually, in a fairly calm way, walks down a very busy street with the body in the suitcase, and at any time could be encountered, could be questioned, could be caught with that body.
So this is an idea (ph) -- this person here seems to have some other things -- is not sure if this is about publicity, if they just wanted the shock value of it. But this doesn`t seem to be the way you would do this crime if you were just trying to get away from it -- with it. So I think they`re going to find out a lot more. I wouldn`t be surprised if there`s more victims in all of this. And who knows what`s going on here with this guy.
CASAREZ: But this person -- he never dreamed there was surveillance video! He thought he was walking down the street with the suitcase! Nobody`d look twice, hustle and bustle of Christmas and presents. Lo and behold, we know of surveillance video that caught him, more or less. There may be more surveillance videos.
So to Marc Harold, are you going to try door-to-door to see where this suitcase emulated (SIC) from? And furthermore, if there was blood in it, couldn`t you have blood droplets from where it began to roll?
HARROLD: Yes. It sounded -- we first heard about the plastic bag, but now it sounds like there was more blood in the suitcase. So absolutely, you`re going to try to follow any -- it sounds like they`ve already gone ahead and cleaned it up. They don`t consider this to be the crime scene. But I guarantee you, when they first found it and they established this crime scene, they worked backwards with any physical evidence.
As far as the surveillance, a lot of people know how much surveillance is out there, how many cameras. He may not have known. But I think if you`re in downtown New York in almost any area, you`re going to believe you`re going to be picked up on some camera. So the fact that he just rolled this down the street makes me think he has got some real issues and may have even known he was under surveillance.
CASAREZ: And we want everyone to look at this video, look at this man that is rolling this suitcase down the street. He leaves the suitcase. Somebody else walks along -- because the suitcase is where the trash is left. And they think, Wow, you know, maybe something`s in there. Maybe it`s something I might want, because people throw away things. And they lo and behold find a leg that pops out when they unzip part of the suitcase.
We`re taking your calls live. Lakisha in Indiana. Hi, Lakisha.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Jean. How`re you doing tonight?
CASAREZ: I`m OK. Thank you so much for calling.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I have a comment and two questions.
CASAREZ: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My comment is that they need to be more harder with the laws on these people -- you know, people killing their kids and these men killing women -- because I mean, this is happening time and time again. You know, we need to have this stuff stopped in some type of way. And then my question was, do they know if the woman was white or black, you know what I mean? Do they know her family? You know, have they contacted her family? And what city and state did this happen in?
CASAREZ: Well, you know, Lakisha, they are in the midst of finding family right now to notify her. And Lakisha, think about it. They`ve got to tell a mother, maybe a daughter, maybe a sister, We have found your relative, your dear relative. We found her in a suitcase. That`s what they have to tell family members days before Christmas. It just doesn`t seem fair.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a look here. You see a man standing there by the steps. The man standing there by the steps has a suitcase with him. Police say there`s a dead woman in that suitcase.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody found a dead woman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This body was found in a suitcase.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In front of this low-rise apartment building.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The death has been ruled a homicide.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police hope surveillance video will help them solve the horrific murder.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Asking the public to help identify the man in this grainy video.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cops have made no arrests.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He pulled the dark-colored case near a stoop and then stopped as three people walked by.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cops have made no arrests.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then he pulled the suitcase past a dark-colored SUV, out of sight of the camera.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s wearing a dark knit hat. It`s a leather jacket he has on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The medical examiner has ruled cause of death to be neck compression. And cops say the victim, believed to be 28 years old, also sustained injuries to her head.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Days before Christmas, a woman was stuffed into a suitcase. We don`t know if she was dead or if she was alive when this happened. We know she was strangled to death.
I want to go to Rupa Mikkilineni, who is standing by live where that suitcase was found. Rupa, this case is just breaking as we bring it to air tonight. But what do we know about the victim, the young woman that was dead in that suitcase?
MIKKILINENI: We know that she`s a young female, 28 years old. We believe -- originally, the police commissioner mentioned that she`s somewhere in her late 20s, early 30s. We do believe the police have identified the victim, but they are currently trying to contact family members to let them know what has happened. So this is why they are not releasing her name at this time.
We don`t know where she`s from. We do know that her body was found in a suitcase right here in the very spot that I`m standing in tonight. We know that a passerby came across the suitcase sitting on this sidewalk, and literally minutes after it had been abandoned. We know that this suitcase was abandoned on a surveillance camera. We see the man that dragged this suitcase up this sidewalk and left it right here behind me, Jean. We have him on surveillance tape. So at this moment, police are trying to locate that man.
CASAREZ: And the body of this young woman, we understand, was fully clothed. And when that passerby unzipped that little portion of the suitcase, a leg came out with a sock still on her foot.
I want to go to the lawyers tonight -- Eleanor Odom, prosecutor death penalty-qualified, out of Atlanta, Peter Odom, defense attorney from Atlanta, and Joey Jackson, defense attorney out of New York.
Eleanor Odom, we covered together the Jessica Lunsford case out of Florida. Remember that case?
ELEANOR ODOM, PROSECUTOR: Oh, yes.
CASAREZ: Little Jessica Lunsford was buried alive with a plastic bag over her head. They were able to prove, prosecutors, in this death penalty case that she was buried alive because of the breathing, the air, what was found on that plastic bag. We don`t know about this case, but this could be a death penalty case very easily.
ELEANOR ODOM: Oh, absolutely. Plus, you`ve got potential for the torture. First of all, the fact that he desecrated the body after the murder -- I mean, it doesn`t get any worse than that, stuffing in the suitcase, as you said, and just further, as I said, desecrating the body. And it`s just -- the hideousness of this crime. And you know, Jean, prosecutors don`t have to prove motive to prove a murder. But you know, it`s probably one of the oldest motives in the book here. It could be jealousy or money. And that`s something I`d be looking at, too.
CASAREZ: That`s right. Peter Odom, I know what you`re going to say. You`re going to say that this man is wheeling down the street with his suitcase. He may know nothing. He may absolutely know nothing. Is that what you`re going to say?
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No, because he`s got to know something. He`s carrying a suitcase that probably weighs a lot more than just having...
CASAREZ: Think about it!
PETER ODOM: ... clothes and shampoo in it. But...
CASAREZ: Think about it!
PETER ODOM: But his wheeling the suitcase doesn`t necessarily prove that he`s the killer. Now, it`s pretty incriminating, I grant you that, Jean. But it doesn`t necessarily prove that he`s the killer. And it`s going to be very difficult to show the circumstances of this death until we know a lot more about the forensics. And even though motive doesn`t have to be proved, it`s going to very difficult to get a death penalty prosecution without having some sort of motive. We know so little at this point, it`s very difficult to speculate.
CASAREZ: This case is in its infancy. But to Joey Jackson -- all right, I`m going to be the defense attorney for a second. Maybe this guy was paid off to wheel a suitcase. Maybe somebody said, You know, man, can you just get rid of this suitcase for me? Here`s 20 bucks. Here`s 50 bucks. It`s Christmas.
JOEY JACKSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It`s certainly possible, Jean. It`s highly unlikely, though. And just regarding the death penalty, in any other jurisdiction, it certainly would be probable that that would occur. Unfortunately, New York got rid of it in June of 2004. There were some issues as to its constitutionality.
And it really goes to Lakisha`s question, Jean. When she called, she talked about the harshness and this really needs to be punished. But the problem is, is that the legislature has to come up with a statute that would be, you know, declared constitutional. As it stands now, based on the jury instructions, it was deemed unconstitutional, which, depending upon your stance, could be considered unfortunate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authorities have released surveillance video of the suspect seen carrying a suitcase later found to contain a young woman`s dead body. Reports have emerged a black garbage bag was covering a portion of the victim`s upper body and head, while blood was pooled inside the suitcase and on the sidewalk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The many questions in this case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Video that police want you to pay close attention to.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Remain unanswered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want to know who that guy is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A woman`s body was found stuffed in a suitcase.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With that big suitcase.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And now police are searching for a suspect.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you recognize this man?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seen on surveillance video rolling the suitcase down a sidewalk, reportedly moments before the body was found.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session," in for Nancy Grace tonight. All I can say -- the person that came by after that suitcase was abandoned and thought, Wow, maybe there`s something inside, I might want it -- I think they`re a hero tonight because if they hadn`t opened that suitcase and that leg hadn`t popped out, you know what happens when the garbage truck comes? We may never have never solved this case and a family may never know what happened to their victim.
We are taking your calls live tonight. Lori in Alabama. Hi, Lori.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, Jean. I`m glad to get to talk to you, hon.
CASAREZ: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you have a merry Christmas.
CASAREZ: You too, Lori.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looks to me like every few steps that guy pulling the suitcase -- looks like every few steps, he stops and looks around at the suitcase to check it. And then he looks all around. Looks like somebody would have -- if I saw somebody looking that suspicious (INAUDIBLE) I`d call the police.
CASAREZ: You know, Lori, you are doing what Nancy has always told me -- and it just has stuck with me. The devil`s in the details, and that is true in whatever case we look at, whatever case we focus on.
To Pat Brown, criminal profiler and author of "The Profiler," it`s consciousness of guilt, right?
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: What?
CASAREZ: The way he looks around, the way he`s wheeling that thing, and then he stops...
BROWN: No.
CASAREZ: ... and he looks around.
BROWN: No, I think everything here is very practical. I think what we have is a violent psychopath who got into a fight with a woman. He killed her, and then he got stuck with this problem. He said, Oh, my God, I`ve got a dead woman in my apartment. What am I going to do? And he had to get her out, so he went and got himself some luggage or he had some, put her in it. And he has to get her far enough away from his apartment so people don`t say, Hey, you know, it must be that guy right there because, you know, here`s -- here`s the suitcase, here`s the apartment.
He had to drag her down the street. It`s a lot of work. I think he`s stopping to catch a breath because he`s pulling something heavy, look around to make sure nobody`s paying attention to him because he`s -- he`s just doing something practical. He`s got to get rid of a body. And eventually finds a place and dumps it and walks away. I just think that`s -- - he`s doing what he has to do -- psychopathically, but he has to do it.
CASAREZ: Well, as an attorney, I`m going to say that that`s consciousness of guilt because he knows he`s up to no good. He knows what he`s doing. He knows right from wrong, and he wants to make sure he doesn`t get caught.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police are asking the public to help identify this man in this grainy video.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Walking down the street with a dead body in a suitcase.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was 28 years old, strangled, and she had head wounds and she was still bleeding.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A woman`s body was found stuffed in a suitcase.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her body was in a suitcase.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police hope surveillance video will help them solve the horrific murder of a woman.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police are searching for a suspect seen on surveillance video rolling the suitcase down a sidewalk reportedly moments before the body was found.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s very strange for her to be in the suitcase. I mean, I guess maybe no one noticed it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody called 911 with simply a report of an unconscious female.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then they opened it, a leg popped out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The suspect passed by the camera.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wearing a dark knit hat. That`s a leather jacket he has on. He pulled this dark-colored case near a stoop.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even stopping to allow three people to walk by.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The 28-year-old`s death was ruled a homicide.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The medical examiner has ruled cause of death to be neck compression.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m here at the famous Rao`s Italian restaurant, where celebrities dine every evening. And just a few feet away from this restaurant is where a body was found in a suitcase. Now, a passerby found this suitcase, opened it up and saw a leg fall out of it, found the body, panicked and ran to this restaurant right behind me and used the phone here to call police.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session" on the truTV network, in for Nancy Grace tonight. We are in the midst of one of the busiest holiday seasons, when people are flying and suitcases are being wheeled everywhere, filled with packages and presents. And there was a suitcase being wheeled -- the case is breaking right now -- and it contained the body of a young woman.
I want to go straight out to Rupa Mikkilineni, who is standing by where that suitcase was found. Rupa, start from the beginning.
MIKKILINENI: Jean, I am standing right here in the very spot, right behind me, where a suitcase was found Wednesday, just after midnight Wednesday morning. So basically, we have a surveillance videotape that has a man dressed in a black leather jacket, tan pants, a cap, a hat. He us dragging the suitcase right up this sidewalk, right where I am, you see right along here. And then he stops for about 60 seconds to allow a few people to pass by. He`s hanging out nonchalantly, fixing his collar, wiping his brow. He`s sweating, clearly. Clearly, the suitcase is very heavy.
Then he continues on after these three people pass. He continues on for a couple of more minutes, and then he`s caught later on, a little bit further down here by a surveillance camera, where he steps off, away from the suitcase, off camera, and the suitcase is abandoned.
And here is where the police and this case gets a break, Jean. Literally minutes after he leaves this suitcase there, a passerby finds this suitcase, thinks maybe there`s something valuable in there. He opens it up, opens up the zipper part-way. And just before he opens up the entire suitcase fully, a leg springs out, pops out, shocks him. And he runs panicking to a restaurant, a little bit further down this block here, a famous restaurant called Rao`s, where he uses the phone and calls police.
When police arrive on the scene, they open up the suitcase and they find a body, Jean, of a dead female, approximately late 20s, early 30s. They now believe she`s a 28-year-old female. She`s dead. She`s stuffed into this suitcase. And they believe the cause of death was strangulation. Now, she is in a pool of blood in this suitcase, and the blood has seeped out onto the sidewalk right here behind me. So there you have it, Jean. That`s the update.
CASAREZ: And police are urgently trying to find the man in this video tonight. And another thing -- as we keep watching this video, I keep seeing more and more. I see also in this video, when he stops for a minute, that suitcase doesn`t want to stand up straight. It wants to fall over. And he has to make sure it doesn`t fall over and sort of jiggle it so it just stays put for a minute until he continues. In that surveillance video, there`s three different shots. You notice that? There`s one that`s by a fire hydrant. There`s one that`s by a stop sign, and then one by this black vehicle. So that surveillance video goes on for a while.
To Naomi Goldstein, former producer for NANCY GRACE, with us tonight in New York. What more can you tell us about this case?
GOLDSTEIN: Well, what`s very interesting, Jean, is yes, we have this surveillance video, and in today`s day and age, where there`s one surveillance video, there`s got to be more. So I guarantee you police are looking for that. And also keep in mind, where the body was found, that`s not the crime scene. So police and investigators are desperate to find out more about this man to question him, to find out where, you know, he found this suitcase, if he`s, you know, possibly involved in the crime, which is probably likely, and who else may have been involved and where the exact crime scene was.
CASAREZ: Exactly. And this surveillance video that you`re seeing right here is from "The New York Post." It is so critical to this investigation. Little did this man know that he was caught on tape wheeling that suitcase.
I want to go out to Dr. Marty Makary, M.D., physician, professor of public health from Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., tonight with us. You know, we learned late today, hours before this show started, that strangulation was the cause of death. But there was all this blood in the suitcase that was coming out on the sidewalk. They believe some head trauma. Can you just put that all together for us? Does strangulation cause any blood loss?
MAKARY: Well, commonly, when there`s strangulation, people can bleed internally and actually cough up blood in the struggle. Asphyxiation, for anyone that`s experienced it, is the worst feeling in the world. It`s the worst symptom any patient will describe, not being able to breathe, gasping for air. People retch. The stomach can be disrupted. And we know there was a head trauma, and that can also cause some kind of bleeding, either internally or externally, as well. So there`s a number of sources here.
CASAREZ: Could that head trauma have come from trying to get an adult 28-year-old female stuffed into a relatively medium-sized suitcase?
MAKARY: That`s a possibility. It may have -- there may have been an object involved. There may have been something used to beat this individual. The head trauma could have happened first or later. We don`t know that. We do know, however, that there were two traumatic injuries here, and they likely occurred within a few minutes of each other.
CASAREZ: Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, author of "Deal Breakers," joining us tonight from Los Angeles, your take on this horrific case?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Well, I think it`s significant that he left that suitcase to be found on the sidewalk. That is his trophy, Jean. This reminds me of the Samantha Runyan case. The perpetrator -- not only did he abduct, molest, rape and kill Samantha Runyan, but then he posed her on the side of the street, his trophy, so people would drive by and see her. He wanted to continue the excitement of the crime and to send a message to the public that he had power over the victim.
So with this perpetrator, is he sending a message to the neighborhood that he`s in charge, that he had power over the victim, that he has the power to terrorize the public? Is he marking his territory?
The fact that he put the bag over her head, it`s almost like he wanted to contain the blood for as long as possible so that suitcase could sit out there in a way to contain the excitement as long as possible, so that it would sit out there, and finally someone would find it. And the terror on the person`s face when they found that body maybe was a part of the criminal ritual.
Was he watching out a window? Did he know that there was a surveillance camera going? I think this is a whole ritualized crime, not just a homicide that was private and meant to be carried out in private and disposed of in private.
CASAREZ: To Sheeba in Illinois. Hi, Sheeba.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, dear. Merry Christmas to all the staff and yourself.
CASAREZ: Thank you, Sheeba.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have two little questions. Did he take the same route that he came with the suitcase? And also, I heard that they`re looking for places that sell this brand suitcase. Makes me wonder, is this suitcase fairly new, or is it like some of mine? You know, I have an American Tourist, but it`s getting kind of ragged.
CASAREZ: Good point, Sheeba. To Marc Harrold, former Atlanta Police Department officer and attorney. Two things forensically that I see are important. You tell me if you agree. Number one, the suitcase. And it doesn`t have to be new. Anything that can designate ownership in that suitcase -- you never know what you`re going to find that somebody didn`t take out, right? And the plastic bag -- forensically, what can you gather from the perpetrator that would be on that bag?
HARROLD: Well, (INAUDIBLE) the suitcase, if you can actually find the -- originally, the suitcase was a new suitcase. You could tell pretty easy when it`s new, even with this type of cargo in it, I guess is a horrid way to say it. But you can definitely do some types of analyses to figure that out. You know, as far as looking back -- any kind of identification, you know, you would think that the perpetrator would have the presence of mind -- he seemed pretty calm -- to remove anything else from the suitcase. But who knows.
As far as the trash bag, there may be some physical evidence left on the trash bag. There could be prints, but it`s not overly likely. There could be blood or sweat from the perpetrator. The other thing about trash bags -- and we`ve all seen some cases like this, where you can actually match the ripped-off trash bag from the trash bag reel, or however it came from, if it was attached. You can actually match up the pattern.
So if they could, for instance, go to the perpetrator`s home and find that reel or spool of trash bags, they can pull it off, sometimes you can match it as being an actual match to that set of trash bags.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police are searching for a suspect seen on surveillance video rolling the suitcase down a sidewalk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s a dead woman in that suitcase.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Medics pronounced dead on the scene.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a look now at this surveillance video. Police believe that what you`re seeing is a man drag a suitcase that contains a dead body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police were called shortly after when an area resident saw the suitcase on the sidewalk, opened it, and the woman`s leg popped out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police are asking the public to help identify this man in this grainy video, wearing a dark hat, leather jacket.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Showing the unidentified suspect walking down the street, dragging the black suitcase behind him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And stopped as three people walked by. Then he pulled the suitcase past a dark-colored SUV and right out of the sight of the camera.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody found a dead woman in front of this low- rise apartment building.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A black garbage bag was covering a portion of the woman`s upper body and head, and blood was pooled in the suitcase and on the sidewalk.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The medical examiner says she was strangled.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session," in for Nancy Grace tonight.
Straight out to Rupa Mikkilineni, who is there at the scene where that suitcase was found. Rupa, when the second person came along thinking there might be something of value that nobody else wanted and they thought they would take it, they opened up the suitcase, and what popped out?
MIKKILINENI: A leg, Jean. A leg popped out, with a sock on it. So this was incredibly shocking, as you can imagine. And he raced down the street behind me after he saw that leg pop out, and ran into Rao`s to call 911 immediately.
CASAREZ: Do we know anything about what clothes the victim had on? Because we hear she was fully clothed.
MIKKILINENI: Right. Police are being very tight-lipped about details of this victim. We know that she`s fully clothed. That`s all they`ll say. They have not described the clothing that was -- that she was wearing. They`ve not described if any other personal items were found in that suitcase. We only know that a body covered in a black garbage bag -- that is, the upper half of the body and the head covered in a black garbage bag, a pool of blood and a body fully clothed, female, 28 years old, found in that suitcase. That`s all they`re telling us right now, Jean.
CASAREZ: You know what`s amazing is that they were able -- whoever did this, or the accomplice, was able to fit in a body with the clothes in a suitcase of a 28-year-old woman.
To Dr. Marty Makary, physician, professor of public health from Johns Hopkins University. The pooling of the blood can be extremely significant. And what does that tell you about time of death?
MAKARY: Well, the blood tells you everything about timing because the blood clots in a certain pattern. So within the first few minutes, the body releases certain factors and cells that can be identified in the blood. The blood then clots with certain clotting factors over the subsequent few hours, and then over the next few days in certain incremental patterns. So it is a very useful timeline for the doctors performing the autopsy.
CASAREZ: So do you think that this young woman was murdered shortly before her body was found?
MAKARY: It would need to be really within a few hours, or else that pooling of blood would look much different. It would have a different, very dark color, and it would not have a liquid consistency.
CASAREZ: Let`s go out to the callers. Penny in Alabama. Hi, Penny.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. Thank you for taking my call.
CASAREZ: You`re welcome. Thank you for calling.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a question. I was a medic for 10 years, and I know that the head has a lot of capillaries in it, so it will bleed a lot. Was there not -- every time that he stopped for a few minutes, was there not blood spots on the sidewalk in those areas? If not, why wasn`t there?
CASAREZ: It`s an excellent, excellent point. Naomi Goldstein, former producer for NANCY GRACE, this case is breaking. We`re not hearing anything. But do we hear at all about a trail of blood?
GOLDSTEIN: Yes, I was thinking the same thing Penny was. I`ve been looking at that video really, really closely to see if there`s been any sort of trace of blood. And I can`t see anything on the video. However, as Rupa`s mentioned -- she`s out there -- it looks like police have really cleaned that up. So we don`t know just yet. The public is still very much kept in the dark about details of this case.
CASAREZ: To Pat Brown, criminal profiler, author of "The Profiler," joining us tonight from Washington, D.C. Are you surprised that they`ve released this crime scene? And this is a crime scene. Maybe the murder didn`t happen here, but the body was found here. And blood can be microscopic. Are you surprised it`s released?
BROWN: No, not really. I think they`ve done what they can do. And I want to talk about why there`s probably no blood out there. This man -- he put that trash bag over the head probably for a good reason. When he put her in the suitcase, he wanted to make sure her head was in the bag so then he could haul it along and the blood would not come out of the suitcase.
And I want to say This is not a ritualistic crime. I have to disagree with Bethany -- not a ritualistic crime. He`s not a -- this is not a serial homicide. This man was not trying to show power, he just wanted to get this body as far away from him as he could, and hopefully, take -- somebody would take it away in the trash and then he would simply not be caught. He just wanted to get rid of the body because this was not a planned crime.
CASAREZ: Yes. And how easy could that have happened, right, if somebody hadn`t come along and opened the suitcase.
BROWN: Right.
CASAREZ: To Kendra in Iowa. Hi, Kendra.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. It`s so nice to meet you!
CASAREZ: Thank you, Kendra in Iowa. It`s nice to meet you too. Thank you for calling.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I just wanted to say happy holidays to you and all your staff. And it`s such -- you guys do such work with raising awareness for -- of all the crimes and stuff. I wanted to ask you, is there a way that the police can actually enhance the video digitally, or have they tried that yet and it didn`t work, or what?
CASAREZ: Good. Good question. Well, Kendra, I want to tell you Nancy just heard everything you said, so you`re talking to Nancy, as well as all of us. And thank you for those well wishes.
To Marc Harrold, former police officer, Atlanta, and attorney. They can enhance video. In fact, it`s the FBI that really has expertise in that, right?
HARROLD: Yes, but a lot of it has to do with the quality of the video. This looks pretty grainy. It has to do with the -- how much they can zoom in. As you zoom in, the picture gets less and less -- you get less and less quality. It looks more like the dots you see when you zoom in on anything, like pixels or anything else when you get real close to a TV or a screen. So a lot of it`s going to have to do with the quality of this videotape.
As I understand it, it`s for a residential building. It`s basically, you know, garden variety videotape that they use for the exterior of the building. My guess is it`s not overly advanced, but you`re right, the more advanced or the more technologically savvy the people looking at it, whether that would be the NYPD, who is excellent, or the FBI, they can do some amazing things. But a lot of it comes back to the quality of the equipment that`s being used to record that image.
CASAREZ: You know, two things that I see in that video. First of all, I think that jacket looks really expensive. I think it looks like a very nice jacket. That`s one thing I notice. Another thing is, think about that suitcase. You know, you go to the airport and it`s a 50-pound weight limit -- if you`re lucky, 70. And it`s heavy. How much must that have weighed?
Very quickly, Marc Harrold, what are your observations of that video?
HARROLD: Well, the thing about the video is the -- you know, the quality of -- how valuable it is, is who`s looking at it. So if they show it to family and friends, they may have not seen it yet. They may know exactly who it is. If it`s a stranger perpetrator, it`s going to be much harder to use that video effectively.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A woman`s body was found inside that suitcase.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She has a black garbage bag over her head.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blood was pooled in the suitcase and on the sidewalk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who that guy is with that big suitcase.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was it murder?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A man dragged a suitcase that contains a dead body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Blood pooled in the suitcase and on the sidewalk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her body was in a suitcase.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The murder of a woman.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The cause of death is strangulation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police are asking the public to help identify this man in this grainy video.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: To Eleanor Odom, felony prosecutor, death penalty-qualified. Eleanor, Marc just had a very good comment when we went to break, Marc Harrold. He said that this video could be shown to family members of the victim. That`s an excellent point because they may be able to recognize this man. We want all the viewers to try to recognize who this could be, anybody that knows anything to call the tip line. But who else should look at this video right now?
ELEANOR ODOM: Well, the family members of the victim, obviously, that`s a good choice because it may be somebody who knows the victim very well. It could be a husband, boyfriend, whatever. But I think the fact that we`re just putting it out on air -- and the media needs to run with this because somebody somewhere will recognize him. I mean, this is -- he`s in a certain place. He`s in Harlem. He`s dressed a certain way. Somebody`s going to recognize him. So I would just flood the media with this photograph, as well as all the law enforcement agencies, too.
CASAREZ: Peter Odom, do they need to get a reward going? Crimestoppers, is that going to help?
PETER ODOM: Jean, name a case where a reward has made a difference. I mean, it gives people hope. It gives people something to put out on the air. But anecdotally, I just don`t think it`s effective. I think it`s going to be very effective to show the family members, once this victim is identified, a picture of that person because, as you know, Jean, over 90 percent of homicides are committed by a perpetrator that is known to the victim or is an intimate relation of the victim.
CASAREZ: Joey Jackson, this man -- he knows he`s plastered on television around this country tonight. What does he need to do?
JACKSON: Oh, absolutely. You know, I doubt that he`ll turn himself in, Jean. I can tell you, as a former prosecutor in Manhattan, that they have extensive resources. And the fact that this woman here, the victim, had some prior issues with the law herself, that may go a long way towards allowing them to get that information to find exactly who this person is.
CASAREZ: All right. Well, we want justice for this 28-year-old woman and for her family that is finding out now what has happened to their dear loved one.
Tonight, let us stop to remember Marine Lance Corporal Richard "Rich" Warner, 22 years old from Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was killed in Iraq. From a family of military vets, he`s remembered for his baby blue eyes and always wearing his trademark baseball cap. He loved sports, piano, comic books, fast cars and playing poker with his friends. He dreamed of traveling across Italy after Iraq. He leaves behind his parents, Mary and Pat, and his sister, Kim. Richard Warner, an American hero.
Thank you so much to all of our guests. We`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 o`clock sharp Eastern. Until then, good night, everybody.
END
