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Nancy Grace
Who Took Michaela Garecht?
Aired February 03, 2011 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Vanished into thin air.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look for her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just need to kind her.
GRACE: So many cases --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`re still looking.
GRACE: -- so few leads.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.
GRACE: Missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s our duty to find her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The witness had seen the suspect on NANCY GRACE.
GRACE: There is a God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The NANCY GRACE show was out there for us.
GRACE: Found alive.
Fifty people, 50 days, 50 nights.
Let`s don`t give up.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHARON MURCH, MICHAELA GARECHT`S MOTHER: A week before Michaela was kidnapped she woke up at 5:00 in the morning and sat down at the coffee table and wrote a poem. She told me that she had written it about people who had been kidnapped and who were being held captive. It has always seemed to me like it must be some sort of a prophecy or premonition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): It was supposed to be a quick trip, friends taking their scooters to the local market to buy candy and soda. But 9-year-old Michaela Joy Garecht never came back.
MURCH: If Michaela hasn`t seen the effort to get her back, she will see, and she`ll know how much we love and care about her, and how much everybody else out there cares about her, too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michaela Joy Garecht and her friend hopped on their scooters Saturday morning to go buy soda, beef jerky, and taffy at the local convenience store. After buying the snacks, the girls realized one scooter is missing.
MURCH: Michaela spotted it in a parking lot next to a car and went to get it. And when she bent over to pick up the scooter, a man jumped out of the car, grabbed her from behind, threw her into the car, and took off with her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police track down lead after lead without success, but investigators don`t stop trying to find Michaela.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a tremendous effort. And the 16 years that I`ve been with the police department, I`ve never seen the community come together like this.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP (singing): You better watch out you better not cry --
MURCH: We had some really strong leads over the years. And we have a number of things in the investigation that I still have questions about. But I do think that, perhaps, my daughter might still be alive and might come home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you see a girl, you know, at a gas station, in a car or something that looks like Michaela, or vaguely resembles her, just walk up to the car and say, "Are you Michaela?"
MURCH: I keep hearing the words that she said. It`s about people who are kidnapped and being held captive, not people who were kidnapped and were killed. An amazing poem for a 9-year-old.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: Every day 2,300 people go missing in America. Disappear. Vanish. Their families left waiting, wondering, hoping, but never forgetting. And neither have we.
Fifty people, 50 days. Fifty nights, we go live spotlighting America`s missing children, boys, girls, mothers, fathers, grandparents. Gone, but where?
Tonight, it was a Saturday morning, San Francisco, California, suburbs. Nine-year-old Michaela Garecht and her little friend drive their scooters to buy snacks -- soft drinks, candy. Now, when they come out of the convenience store, the scooter`s gone.
The girls split up to go searching. Suddenly, the little friend hears screaming and actually sees Michaela being forced into a car. The driver, a male, speeds away.
Tonight, who took 9-year-old Michaela?
Jean, what happened?
JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": It was the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Nancy, November 19, 1988. And Michaela and her little girlfriend, they were so excited because the supermarket was just a couple blocks away. But they rode their scooters.
Michaela had never done that before. She`d never gone to the market. And they went inside and they got soda, beef jerky and Laffy Taffy. And they came out and they started home, and then they realized, oh, no, we forgot the scooters.
I want to go to Henry Lee, reporter for the "San Francisco Chronicle," joining us tonight from San Francisco, author of "Presumed Dead."
What happened, Henry, when they went back to try to find those scooters?
HENRY LEE, REPORTER, "SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": Well, Michaela went and realized her scooter wasn`t where she had left it. And she did see the scooter a couple feet down near a car. And when she went to pick it up, a man came out from behind, snatched her, and took her into the car and drove away.
And her friend and mother and the rest of the world have not seen Michaela since. Very, very tragic case, indeed.
CASAREZ: So, her little friend, when she saw this and heard this, ran back into the supermarket, Henry. And who did she go to and what happened then?
LEE: Well, she did make a 911 call that, herself, this little girl, did not hear for many, many years until later within she was on a news program. Very traumatic, to have a little girl see her best friend just kidnapped by a stranger in broad daylight in Hayward, California. Very upsetting, indeed.
CASAREZ: All right, everybody. I think we have got that 911 call. This is from 1988, when Michaela Garecht was reported missing from that supermarket.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
DISPATCHER: What`s your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. Yes, we need a police car here right away. We had just kidnapped --
DISPATCHER: What happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He picked up a little girl.
DISPATCHER: Do you know who the little girl is?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her friend is right here. She was with a friend.
DISPATCHER: All right. How old are they?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How old are you?
She`s 8. How old was your friend?
She was 9.
DISPATCHER: Did you see what kind of car they were in?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had seen it earlier. It was a white guy. He was hippy-like. I had seen him drive by. But she says it`s kind of like a brownish, burgundy car.
DISPATCHER: A brownish, burgundy car?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I think it was more burgundy.
DISPATCHER: Which way did it go?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Which way did it go?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know. I saw it go --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It went down -- what`s that street right there? Tamarac?
DISPATCHER: Down by Tamarac?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Uh-huh.
DISPATCHER: And it turned on Tamarac?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Uh-huh. It`s going towards -- probably like up towards Whipple or something.
DISPATCHER: Up Whipple or Tamarac?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Down Tamarac.
DISPATCHER: OK. The Mission Boulevard is right in front of you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
DISPATCHER: It went south on Mission and it made a turn at the lights?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, there`s no lights. We`re right down here at Rainbow Market, right here at the grocery store.
DISPATCHER: Yes, I know. I know Rainbow Market, but where did it -- all right, so they just saw it going south on Mission?
DISPATCHER: Right, she had just seen it leave and she was really scared. She just came in.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
CASAREZ: That is chilling.
We are taking your calls live tonight. And we are very grateful to be joined tonight with the mother of Michaela Garecht, who is joining us from San Francisco, California, Sharon Murch.
Sharon, thank you so much for coming on tonight. I have so many questions to ask you, but first want to know, how did you find out that Michaela went missing?
MURCH: I was in the kitchen washing the breakfast dishes, and Michaela hadn`t been gone for very long, not long enough for me to worry about her. And I heard shouting outside.
And Michaela`s dad was working on the car in the driveway, and he came into the house and poked his head in the kitchen, and said, "Somebody snatched Michaela up at the market. I`m going up there."
And Trina (ph), Michaela`s friend, had called her father from the market, and he had driven by and had told Michaela`s dad. I had no idea what it meant, that Michaela was snatched. I could not possibly imagine that somebody had actually taken her and left with her.
But I called 911. And when I did, they -- I said, "Somebody said my daughter was snatched at the market." And they said, "Are you Mrs. Garecht?" And that`s when I knew that something really bad had happened.
CASAREZ: The little friend that Michaela was with, which was I think her best friend in the whole world, she was the only one that saw what happened, right?
MURCH: Yes, she is.
CASAREZ: And initially, the 911 call that we just heard was made from the grocery store attendant.
MURCH: Right. That`s true.
CASAREZ: As the days went on, was Michaela`s friend interviewed? And they believed that some erroneous information had gone out over that 911 call as far as descriptions?
MURCH: Yes. The initial description was that it was a burgundy- colored car. And when they sat down and questioned Trina (ph), actually later that day, they asked her about it, and she said, "Well, what`s burgundy?" And it turned out that it was more of a tannish-gold or butterscotch-colored car. So, in those early -- in those early moments when everybody was out looking for her, they were looking for the wrong color car.
CASAREZ: And what was the description of the abductor that Trina (ph) gave to authorities?
MURCH: She said that he was 18 to early 20s, that he had long, stringy dark blonde hair, severe acne, almost like boils. And she said -- she described his eyes as being very striking. She said they were like fox eyes. She said, "He looked right at me, but he didn`t see me."
CASAREZ: All right.
And everybody, we have got the lead investigator on this very active case. But first, we want you to listen to another part of that 911 call.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
DISPATCHER: And it was a white male?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it was a white male.
It was a white guy, huh?
OK. It was a white guy, kind of like dirty-ish blonde hair. He had a mustache, White. All I could see was him sitting down in the car. I had seen him drive by.
DISPATCHER: OK. Now, on the car, is it a sedan-style car, station wagon?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, it`s kind of --
DISPATCHER: Four door?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It looked like it was four door, kind of a like a burgundy car. But it`s dirty.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
CASAREZ: All right. I want to go to Rob Lampkin, who is the lead investigator on this case. He`s joining us from Hayward, California, Hayward Police Department.
Inspector Lampkin, thank you very much for joining us.
How active is this case right now?
ROB LAMPKIN, INSPECTOR, HAYWARD POLICE DEPT.: Well, this case has always been an active case, and it`s just very much in the hearts of anyone who -- in Hayward who were -- the police, the whole community. You know, Michaela, she could be anyone`s child in this community. And it`s always been an active case. We never considered it a cold case.
CASAREZ: How many persons of interest have you had in the last years?
LAMPKIN: Well, thousands. We continue to get tips, you know, every month.
We`ve had, you know, ourselves, over 13,000 tips. A lot of them are very viable.
The FBI, as well, has another couple thousand. And we are working to consolidate those leads.
Because if you know back then, nothing was really computerized or anything. So now a big step we`re taking now is to consolidate everything where we can cross-reference all of the thousands of leads that have come in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: FBI agents brought in football star Joe Montana and his wife, Jennifer, a television celebrity, to ask for the public`s help.
JOE MONTANA, FOOTBALL PLAYER: You people out there are the most important. The FBI, the local police can only do so much. They need other people`s eyes. And if you see something suspicious, please call.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MURCH: All we`re asking is that he drop her off on a corner somewhere where there is a phone nearby, and tell her to wait five minutes so he can get out of there before she calls home. And we can go and get her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The missing girl is Michaela Garecht, 9 years old, in the fourth grade, scheduled to sing solo in the Christmas pageant.
MURCH: If Michaela is out there and can hear me, I want her to know that I would like her to come home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was nothing complicated about this kidnapping. It was a straight snatch.
DISPATCHER: What`s your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, yes. We need a police car here right away. We had just a kidnap.
DISPATCHER: What happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He picked up a little girl.
DISPATCHER: Do you know who the little girl is?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her friend is right here. She was with a friend.
MURCH: She went with her friend to the neighborhood market on a Saturday morning. They rode scooters up there. And when they went inside, they left the scooters outside the door. When they came out, one of the scooters was not where they left it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A few feet away, a man was holding the scooter and said, "Come over here. You can get it." When she approached him, he grabbed her, threw her in the car, drove away.
MURCH: The car that Michaela was kidnapped in was described as a tannish or possibly with primer on it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was afraid that she was going to get in trouble for losing somebody else`s scooter. And when it was found, she said, "Oh, boy." They found the scooter, so she ran over to get it, and he grabbed her.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez.
Michaela Garecht, she wasn`t by herself. She was with her little girlfriend when they went into the supermarket to buy their soda and their candy and their beef jerky.
But when they came out, one scooter was still there, but the other scooter was gone. It was by a car, and that is how it is believed Michaela Garecht was lured into the car by an abductor.
I want to go to her mother, who`s with us tonight. Sharon Murch, the mother of Michaela Garecht, joining us from San Francisco.
Sharon, I want everybody to know exactly where this happened, because many people are watching tonight. And this was in Hayward, California. What was the name of the supermarket at the time?
MURCH: At the time the supermarket was called Rainbow Market, and at this time it`s called Mexico Super.
CASAREZ: You know, to Rob Lampkin, the lead investigator of this case, joining us from San Francisco, Hayward Police Department.
You know, what surprises me is, I looked on a calendar, and this was the Saturday before Thanksgiving. That`s normally such a busy, busy day with so many people, but, yet, as interviews were done and people were tried -- the witnesses were tried to be found, only her little friend was the one that really saw what happened.
LAMPKIN: And that`s correct. I guess the -- either witnesses didn`t stay around, or anyone might not have saw what happened. Or it just was a day where, I mean, no one was paying attention.
People weren`t aware of what was going on around them, or aware of their surroundings. And I think that`s a problem. People don`t -- people are just narrow-minded and they do what they`re doing, and they`re not aware of everything that`s going on around them. And that could have been a problem back then.
CASAREZ: You know, you talk about all the persons of interests that you have had through the years. You still have persons of interest. I understand you even have a top five list.
Well, I`ll tell you who stands out to me. It`s someone that I think a lot of us are familiar with. It is a kidnapping case that was major news a few years ago, the case of Phillip Garrido, who allegedly kidnapped Jaycee Dugard 18 years before.
But to Rob Lampkin, our research shows us that Phillip Garrido was about 16 miles away from where Michaela was abducted. He was in a halfway house in 1988 on December 19th.
Is that correct?
LAMPKIN: I can`t really comment on El Dorado County`s case, but I`ve seen a timeline. And, you know, the property that was searched that everyone knows in Antioch is only probably about 30 miles away from where we are, but it`s -- what the Garrido case, with the Phillip Garrido, we`re in a holding pattern with that, because, understandably, El Dorado County, they`re getting ready to take their case to trial against Phillip and Nancy Garrido.
And they`re keeping a lot of information close, understandably, because they don`t want to compromise their case. But, you know, we haven`t -- like I said, we`re in a holding pattern. There`s not a whole lot we can do at this point but wait for that case is done.
CASAREZ: And by the way, everybody, today in court, Phillip Garrido was found to be competent to stand trial in the kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard, who lived and survived.
To Rob Lampkin, isn`t it true, though, that you actually executed a search at his home after he (sic) was kidnapped?
LAMPKIN: Yes, that is correct. And the reason we did that, after consulting with the agencies that went before us, they were looking specifically for items related to their own cases. And, also, we learned that a subterranean search wasn`t done, and we wanted to make sure we used ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs to make sure there was nothing beneath the surface that might have been missed.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DISPATCHER: What`s the friend`s name?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Michaela.
DISPATCHER: Michaela?
Michaela.
What`s her last name?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Garecht.
DISPATCHER: Garecht?
MONTANA: You people out there are the most important. The FBI, the local police can only do so much. They need other people`s eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nine-year-old Michaela Joy Garecht and her friend hopped on their scooters Saturday morning to buy soda, beef turkey and taffy at the local convenience store.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michaela left her scooter at that door. And when she came outside, the scooter was gone.
MURCH: Michaela spotted it in the parking lot next to a car and went to get it. And when she then told her pick up the scooter, a man jumped out of the car, grabbed her from behind, threw her into the car, and took off with her.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CASAREZ: Michaela Garecht, 9 years old.
It`s a very famous kidnapping case. You`ve probably heard, it is unsolved. She is missing.
We`re taking your calls live.
I want to go out to Julie in Missouri.
Hi, Julie.
JULIE, MISSOURI: Hi. How are you?
CASAREZ: I`m fine. Thank you for calling.
JULIE: Yes, I was wondering, have they ever shown the picture of Mr. Garrido to the little girl that witnessed the kidnapping?
CASAREZ: Well, I`m so glad you asked, because, Julie, we put together some pictures. I want you to just look at this.
First of all, we have got a picture of Phillip Garrido back in the day when he was young. And we`re going to put that side by side in just a second with a picture of what the playmate said was the man that abducted Michaela Garecht.
You look for yourself. You look at those.
On the left side is Phillip Garrido when he was young, back in the `80s. On the right, it is a sketch of what Michaela`s playmate said the abductor looked like.
To Pat Brown, criminal profiler, author of "The Profiler."
I say there`s a striking resemblance. What say you?
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Well, it`s pretty good, but, you know, the problem we always run into is, you know, witness descriptions, even though this little girl seems to have done a pretty good job of it. You know, we`re never quite sure how accurate they are.
And then there`s the other problem. You know, an awful lot of people around the same age in the same location look alike, which is the same reason we have this problem.
You know how when we had -- you sometimes hear, oh, this little blonde girl went missing here, and she looked just like the other blonde girl that went missing, so it`s got to be the same guy. If you go into a certain area where a certain group of people are, a certain race or a certain cultural background, a lot of them just look the same.
I put up yearbook pages, just open it up, and everybody looks exactly alike from the area you`re living in. So it`s a little confusing. You can`t be absolutely sure for that reason.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MURCH: If Michaela is out there and can hear me, I want her to know that I would like her to come home, that nothing that`s transpired over the last 20 years could change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: Vanished into thin air.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look for her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just need to find her.
GRACE: So many cases.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re still looking.
GRACE: So few leads.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.
GRACE: Missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s our duty to find her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The witness seen the suspect on Nancy Grace.
GRACE: There is a God.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nancy Grace show was out there for us.
GRACE: Found. Alive. 50 people, 50 days, 50 nights. Let`s don`t give up.
SHARON MURCH, MOTHER OF MISSING GIRL, MICHAELA GARECHT: A week before Michaela was kidnapped, she woke up at 5:00 in the morning and sat down at the coffee table and wrote a poem. She told me that she had written it about people who had been kidnapped and were being held captive. It has always seemed to me like it must be some sort of a prophecy or premonition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was supposed to be a quick trip. Friends taking their scooters to the local market to buy candy and soda, but 9- year-old Michaela Joy Garecht never came back.
MURCH: If Michaela hasn`t seen the effort to get her back, she will see and she`ll know how much we love her and care about her and how much everybody else out there cares about her, too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michaela Joy Garecht and her friend hopped on their scooters Saturday morning to go buy soda, beef jerky and taffy at the local convenience store. After buying the snacks, the girls realized one scooter is missing.
MURCH: When Michaela spotted it in the parking lot next to a car and went to get it, and when she bent over to pick up the scooter, a man jumped out of the car, grabbed her from behind, threw her into the car and took off with her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police track down lead after lead without success, but investigators don`t stop trying to find Michaela.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a tremendous effort, and 16 years that I`ve been with the police department, I`ve never seen the community come together like this.
(SINGING) you better watch out, you better not cry
MURCH: We`ve had some really strong leads over the years. And we have a number of things in the investigation that I still have questions about, but I do think that, perhaps, my daughter might still be alive and might come home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you see a girl, you know, at a gas station, in a car or something that looks like Michaela or even vaguely resembles her, I just walk up to the car and say, are you Michaela?
MURCH: I keep hearing the words that she said. It`s about people who were kidnapped and are being held captive, not people who were kidnapped and were killed. An amazing poem for a 9-year-old.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: Every day, 2,300 people go missing in America, disappear, vanish. Their families left waiting, wonderings, hoping, but never forgetting, and neither have we. Fifty people, 50 days, 50 nights we go live, spotlighting America`s missing children, boy, girls, mothers, fathers, grandparents gone, but where?
Tonight, it was a Saturday morning. San Francisco, California, suburbs, nine-year-old Michaela Garecht and her little friends drive their scooters to buy snacks, soft drinks, candy. But when they come out of the convenience store, the scooter`s gone. The girls split up to go searching. Suddenly, the little friend hears screaming and actually sees Michaela being forced into a car, the driver a male, speeds away. Tonight, who took nine-year-old Michaela? Jean, what happened?
JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": You know, it`s very interesting, because the abductor was very methodical in all of this, Nancy, because one scooter was still there for the one little playmate, but Michaela`s scooter had been moved between cars. She spotted it. So, she walked over to her scooter and that`s when she was absolutely thrust into a vehicle. The only witness being her little playmate.
I want to go out to Henry Lee, reporter for the "San Francisco Chronicle" joining us tonight from San Francisco, author of "Presumed Dead." Once it was found that this little Michaela Garecht had been kidnapped, the 911 call was made, police responded immediately, right?
HENRY LEE, REPORTER, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: That`s right. The officers got there very quickly, in fact, got there before a lot of the parents of the children arrived. So, they did everything right as far as the initial response, but obviously, this kidnapper, whoever he was, must have, you know, preplanned some kind of escape route, knew that busy mission boulevard would be full of cars. It was a very, again, very busy arterial road that goes east and west throughout the southern part of Alameda County. Not a trace of Michaela since.
CASAREZ: So, you sort of just evaporate with all the traffic on that Saturday before Thanksgiving. I want to go out to a very special guest tonight. We appreciate her joining us. Sharon Murch, the mother of Michaela, joining us from San Francisco. Sharon, I want to ask you, when you heard several years ago that a man by the name of Phillip Garrido was arrested, that an alleged kidnapped victim of Jaycee Dugard was alive, and then when you found out that this man was about 16 miles away living, when Michaela was abducted, what went through your mind?
MURCH: Well, there had always been, in my mind, a possible connection between Michaela`s kidnapping and Jaycee Dugard`s kidnapping. The descriptions of the cars that were used in the kidnapping was similar. The method of kidnapping was similar.
CASAREZ: You know, Sharon, I have to stop you. Look how similar the two girls look. Jaycee Dugard and Michaela.
MURCH: Yes. They did have a very similar appearance. And there had been people who had been suspects in both cases before, and honestly, my husband woke me up at 5:00 in the morning and told me that he had heard on the news that Jaycee Dugard had been found alive, and I leaped right up. And honestly, I believed that this meant that Michaela would be found alive. Particularly, because Jaycee was found so close to where we are. She was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe which is a few hours from us, but she was found right here in the San Francisco Bay area.
CASAREZ: To Rob Lampkin, the lead investigator from the Hayward Police Department on this case. Since there is an ongoing case of kidnapping against Phillip Garrido, have you not been able to go in and question him, to pointblank ask him questions about this case?
VOICE OF ROB LAMPKIN, INSPECTOR, HAYWARD PD: Jean, that`s been a big problem. And I just heard that up there (ph) had banned any other law enforcement agencies from speaking to the Garridos. And you know, quite honestly, I don`t think that their attorneys would allow it, at this point, anyway.
CASAREZ: Right. I want to go to Peter Odom, defense attorney, joining us out of Atlanta right now. Let`s look at this, legally speaking, Phillip Garrido facing life in prison, kidnapping charge, Jaycee Dugard. I don`t see a plea deal coming in this case. I mean, this is a man that allegedly kidnapped Jaycee Dugard, had two children by her, kept her hostage basically for 18 years, allegedly. So, what`s the motive for him to talk about abducting Michaela?
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, think it through. The prosecutors would have to offer Garrido some prospect of life after a long prison term. Some ability to get out and have some 10, 15 years or something in exchange for his admitting to what, you know, might be even a murder. No prosecutor, no police officer is going to make that kind of a deal with a devil like Garrido. I simply don`t see it happening. They`re not going to want to give him anything that would be worth it for him to admit to that. It`s just a difficult position.
CASAREZ: You`re right. Investigators are going to have to figure out another way if they believe he`s the man. Let`s go out to the callers. We`re taking your calls live. Karen in Utah. Hi, Karen.
KAREN, UTAH: Hi. You know, I don`t have really a special question, but I do have one question. However, I just want to say that I grew up in Northern California, and I have to say at that time, this mother did everything that was normal. There wasn`t any reason to suspect that her daughter, not like now, that went off on her scooter would not come home. And I hope that this mother understands that people are not judging her for that.
And I say that from the bottom of my heart. And just to go on to my question because I know there`s a lot of people that would like to have some say in this. Possibly, did the mother know or anybody that she remembers at the time might have heard something about anything that was odd at the time? Because things just didn`t happen back then when, you know, that you didn`t -- you didn`t hear about.
It just -- there just wasn`t like today when it happens every day, every, almost every hour that there`s something happening similar to this. I just wonder if she or anybody that she knows that she can talk to later heard anything that was unusual.
CASAREZ: You`re right. You`re right. Sharon Murch, very quickly, is there anything that just stood out to you? Something that was abnormal in the area at the time?
MURCH: After Michaela was kidnapped, I heard a number of things that were abnormal in the area. I don`t know if I can really talk about them because they`re things that are involved in the investigation, but there were a lot of things that I heard that were strange that were going on in the area.
CASAREZ: All right. Tonight, please help us find Zachary Pittman. He`s 25 years old, and he vanished on June 24th, 2009, from Pearl River, Louisiana. He is 5`9", 160 pounds with brown hair and hazel eyes. If you have any information, please call 985-726-7836.
If your loved one is missing and you need help, go to CNN.com/nancygrace. Send us your story. We want to help you find your loved ones.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: It was a Saturday morning, San Francisco, California suburbs, nine-year-old Michaela Garecht and her little friends drive their scooters to buy snacks, soft drinks, candy, but when they come out of the convenience store, the scooter`s gone. The girls split up to go searching. Suddenly, the little friend hears screaming and actually sees Michaela being forced into a car. The driver, a male, speeds away. Tonight, who took nine-year-old Michaela?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michaela Garecht was nabbed by a man outside a local market and stuffed into his car. No one has seen her, the car, or the suspect since.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a white guy, kind of dirty blond hair. He had a mustache, white. All I could see was him sitting down in the car. I seen him drive by the first time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If it was their daughter, granddaughter, niece or nephew, what would you do and what would you ask of the people around? You`d ask for help.
MURCH: We`ve got fliers up on our windows. And, you know, the purpose of that is so if Michaela hasn`t seen, the effort to get her back, she will see, and she`ll know how much we love her and care about her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at this picture. She is Michaela Garecht, nine years old, nicknamed Kayla. Look at this picture. The man who took her looks like this. About 20 years old, tall, slim, long dirty blond hair, heavy acne.
MURCH: We`re sure that he doesn`t want to be caught, and all we`re asking is that he drop her off on a corner somewhere where there`s a phone nearby and tell her to wait five minutes so he can get out of there before she calls home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez. We have with us tonight the lead investigator on the Michaela Garecht case, Rob Lampkin, from the Hayward Police Department joining us from San Francisco. Inspector, is it true that you found a palm print on the scooter?
LAMPKIN: Yes, there was a palm print recovered from the scooter.
CASAREZ: Have you been able to compare that palm print with palm prints of your top persons of interest?
LAMPKIN: We have, but you have to remember with the palm print, we`re not sure it is the suspect`s palm print.
CASAREZ: OK. We want to show everybody, Phillip Garrido, who is facing trial now in the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping case. We want to show you the car that was found on his property after he was arrested in 2009. The vehicle that was on his property, look at this, a gold large boxy Sedan, old, tannish gold color, full size Sedan, boxy shape and body damage.
Marc Klaas, president and founder of Klaaskids Foundation. Listen to this. The vehicle that was described by Michaela`s little friend, that she was abducted in, older, tannish gold, full size Sedan, boxy in shape with body damage. Your thoughts?
MARC KLAAS, PRESIDENT & FOUNDE, KLAASKIDS FOUNDATION: Well, you know, to put a little context into this, between 1988 -- oh, my goodness. I can`t talk. Between 1988 and 1991, there were seven high profile kidnappings in the San Francisco Bay area, leading up to my daughter, Polly`s. Hers was the first one that was ever solved. There have been numerous potential suspects in all of these cases. Of these cases, two of the perps are in prison.
The guy that murdered my daughter and the guy that murdered little Ziana Fairchild and was also responsible for a couple of other crimes. So, the San Francisco Bay area tended to be a real hotbed of perversion during those years. And we were in the middle of this epidemic and people just didn`t know what to do with their children. And you could turn on the TV every year, every couple of months and see another teary eyed parent pleading for the perpetrator to return their child, and it`s something that never happened.
CASAREZ: Marc Klaas, what can you say to Sharon Murch tonight?
KLAAS: Well, Sharon and I have known each other for a long time. She`s a wonderful, strong woman who did absolutely nothing wrong. Her daughter was with her friend as she should have been, and all I can tell to Sharon is to keep hope alive. She knows that Jaycee Dugard came home after numerous years and certainly the same thing can happen to her child.
CASAREZ: Sharon, what is life like on a daily basis? Because I know it can never be the same.
MURCH: Well, it`s always there, sometimes, in the background, and sometimes, in the forefront. I spend a lot of my time talking about Michaela, looking for Michaela. I have my own Facebook, and Michaela`s facebook website blog. And I`m always reaching out to her. And I have a hope with this show because it has been well known that Nancy Grace is doing these programs. And this isn`t the first one. It`s been on for a couple of weeks.
And if Michaela is out there, maybe she has had a chance to hear these programs are on, maybe she`s watching them every day to see if she`s going to be on, to see if we remember her, to see if we are still looking for her. And if she is out there, I just want her to know that we love her, just as much as we did on the day that she was born, just as much as we did on the day that she disappeared. And there is nothing that can change that. And we just want her to come home. I want her to come home.
CASAREZ: What do you think about Phillip Garrido? Do you think there is a connection?
MURCH: I think that there is a possible connection. And I have to tell you, the person that I want to reach out to is Nancy Garrido. I was out at the Garrido house. I saw evidence that Nancy Garrido was there in 1988. If Phillip Garrido kidnapped Michaela, I think there`s a good chance that Nancy knows about it. And there may be possibility of striking up some kind of deal with her if she`s willing to give the information. She`s the one that I want to reach out to. And particularly, I would like for them to not allow the Garridos to talk anymore. I think she needs to get out from under Phillip Garrido`s spell.
CASAREZ: Some good words. To Diane in Indiana. Hi, Diane.
DIANE, INDIANA: Hi.
CASAREZ: Thank you for calling. Diane? Do you have a question?
DIANE: Yes. My question is, isn`t there any way that they can run a BMV, Bureau Motor Vehicle check on anything him or her, the Garridos, might have had vehicle-wise at that time?
CASAREZ: Interesting question. Good question. To Rob Lampkin, lead investigator, have you been able to get into the Garrido case at all? Are you -- are the records there of what vehicle he may have owned at the time that Michaela was abducted?
LAMPKIN: Yes. I know. I`ve done a full check and pulled up everything they could that was available. And I haven`t really accessed that at all yet. Like I said, we`re still in a holding pattern when it comes to Garrido.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: These are the faces of America`s missing. Every 30 seconds, another child, a sister, brother, father, mother, disappears. Families left behind wondering, waiting, hoping. We have not forgotten.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Serina Clark vanished in 2007 from Miami, Florida and may be with her mother. Serina would now be 5 years old.
Amy Pagnac was 13 when she was last seen in her father`s car at a gas station in Minnesota. When her dad returned to the car just after a moment, Amy had vanished. Years later, the family remains hopeful for a break in the case.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The car was still there. Her book that she was reading was still there. She was not. Amy loved to read, and we used to give a lot of books so she could have a lot to read. Amy disappearing was very uncharacteristic. We were supposed to be going shopping in about an hour to buy her new school clothes. She was going to be going into eighth. When he realized, she`s nowhere around, she`s not in the bathroom, she`s not looking in the store to buy something, he was a little -- he was very panicked.
Amy was usually very happy, outgoing. She loved music, and she could sing very well. She liked gymnastics, she liked animals, and she was very interested in volcanoes because, back then, St. Helens had gone off. We`re never going to give up. We`re looking forward to the time when she comes walking through that door. All of us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David Abramovitz went missing from Morristown, New Jersey in 2003. He is about 6 feet tall and has a gap between his two front teeth.
Daniel Cantrell of Park Forest, Illinois is now 18. He went missing four years ago and could still be in the local area. His left ear is pierced. His nicknames are D and Danny.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: I`m Nancy Grace. See you tomorrow night, 9 o`clock sharp eastern. And until then, we will be looking. Keep the faith, friend.
END
