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Nancy Grace

Schenecker Pleads Not Guilty to Murdering Her Teenagers

Aired February 17, 2011 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, live, upscale Tampa suburbs. Police race to an exclusive gated community and a 3,000-plus- square-foot home. A beautiful 16-year-old girl sitting at her computer, doing homework in her own bedroom, dead, her little brother 50 feet away dead, gunned down in the home`s three-car garage, still sitting in the family SUV.

Who`s the gun-wielding shooter that claims the lives of two innocent teens? It was Mommy, Mommy lounging by the pool out back, wearing her house robe, covered in blood. Why? She says because they talked back.

Bombshell tonight. In the last hours, Mommy in court in full shackle, cool as a cucumber, eyes closed throughout the hearing, not even giving the judge the courtesy to look up at the bench! And even after cops say Mommy confesses in detail, she pleads not guilty! Her high-ranking military husband a no-show in court. And in a stunning twist, with nearly million dollars in assets, Mommy uses a public defender. That`s right, us, the taxpayers, pay for a million-dollar mom`s defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) Julie Schenecker.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The new (ph) Tampa mother charged with killing her 16-year-old daughter, Calyx, and 13-year-old son, Beau.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) court`s now in session.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ms. Schenecker is charged with two counts of murder in the first degree.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sixteen-year-old Calyx.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shot her twice in the head dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defense enters a plea of not guilty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And 13-year-old Beau.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She shot him in the head twice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defense enters a plea of not guilty to each count.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The case could land her on death row, if she is convicted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police say they found a note she had detailed how she killed the kids.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was covered in blood from head to toe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And told police why.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For being mouthy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said they were, quote, "mouthy."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Detectives say Schenecker left a suicide note, that police also seized several items from the home, including five spent shell casings.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) not guilty (INAUDIBLE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: And tonight, live, Boston suburbs. A woman minding her own business gets the shock of a lifetime. She spots a female hand and foot sticking out of a loaded dumpster. Police race to the scene, that dumpster transported to the medical examiner`s. The story gets worse. Mommy`s 2- year-old baby boy also dumped in the same trash bin with Mommy. Breaking tonight. We learn cause of death. And as we go to air, a man on the run.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know there is a killer on the loose in this region. It is an unsettling story to report, unsettling story for this region.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maria Avelina Palaguachi-Cela was 25. After an anonymous phone tip, police found her body in a dumpster behind her apartment, and they found her son.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the dumpster was also an additional body of her toddler son, Brian Palaguachi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s one of the most heinous crimes we have covered as a newspaper in quite some time, certainly one of the worst involving a child.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a terrible crime scene, especially when you think of what happened to a small child and his mom. And I think that gives, I think, the investigators and the police the resolve to make sure that they work very hard to as quickly as possible get somebody off the streets who would do that. I mean, who would do that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight, live, upscale Tampa suburbs. A beautiful 16- year-old girl dead at her computer, doing homework, her little brother gunned down in the home`s three-car garage. Who`s the gun-wielding shooter that claims the lives of two teens? It was Mommy! Why? Mommy says they talked back.

In the last hours, Mommy in court. Even after cops say she confesses in full detail, Mommy pleads not guilty. And in a stunning twist, Mommy uses a public defender. That`s right, the taxpayers pay for million-dollar Mommy`s defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Julie Schenecker to the podium, please.

GRACE: Thirteen-year-old Beau, 16-year-old Calyx, brother and sister gunned down. And who is the shooter? It`s Mommy!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An unthinkable crime in Tampa.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Florida mom pleaded not guilty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defense enters a plea of not guilty to each count.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officers found Julie Schenecker her sitting on her back porch, covered in her children`s blood.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ms. Schenecker is charged with two counts of murder in the first degree.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re obviously going to be held in jail without bond.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She eventually told police she shot them because she was tired of them mouthing off, talking back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police say this was premeditated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She bought that gun.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Days prior.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A .38-caliber pistol that she used.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This vicious, horrible act.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To kill her two children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s definitely going to be a mental defense.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) not guilty at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No excuse (ph).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls. Straight out to Steve Helling, writer with "People" magazine, in court. So she kept her eyes closed the whole time, wouldn`t even look up at the judge?

STEVE HELLING, "PEOPLE": Yes, she did. And there`s no telling why she did that, but she was looking down or else her eyes were closed the whole time.

GRACE: OK. She pleads not guilty, and she`s using a public defender. That`s a defense attorney that the public pays for, the taxpayers. That`s for indigents. She`s got nearly a million dollars in assets.

HELLING: Yes, but you have to keep in mind that those assets are split with her husband. And right now...

GRACE: So? OK.

HELLING: ... he`s not even going to court with her.

GRACE: So she`s got a half a million dollars in assets.

HELLING: But can she get her hands on it? How much is her house worth? There`s all these questions. So it`s hard to say exactly how much money she has liquid that she can use.

GRACE: Steve?

HELLING: I`m just saying.

GRACE: Yes, you are. But Steve, public defenders are for people that really don`t have any money. This woman brings home about $3,000 a month in rental income! She`s got rental homes -- rental homes, Steve Helling. She`s got rental homes!

HELLING: Well, yes. Clearly, they have lived a life of comfort and they`ve had some money. Whether or not...

GRACE: Did you see that house?

HELLING: I did see the house.

GRACE: Show him the house. Is that a pool in the back? I don`t have a pool. Do you have a pool?

HELLING: Yes, I do.

GRACE: Do you have an indoor pool? An indoor pool?

HELLING: I`m not -- anyway, but you know, the point is...

GRACE: An SUV? A three-car garage? You see that thing in the back? That`s a pool, Steve. Look at that thing. There are palm trees in the front, a three-car garage. Her husband is high up in the military intelligence. And I`m paying for her defense?

HELLING: Well...

GRACE: Why am I working two jobs to pay for her?

HELLING: Well, Nancy, as you know, the defense is going to be...

GRACE: I`m not kidding!

HELLING: I understand that.

GRACE: She kills her two kids -- she kills her two kids, and now I`ve got to pay her defense. She won`t look the judge in the eye. Did she say anything at all? Did she manage to eke out the words "Not guilty?

HELLING: No. Her attorney was the one who pled on her behalf. She didn`t say a word while she was in court.

GRACE: To Matt McClain, news anchor, WFLA 970 AM joining us out of Tampa. Weigh in, Matt.

MATT MCCLAIN, WFLA 970 AM: Yes, Nancy, I will say that Steve mentioned a few moments ago about not really sure what type of assets that she had as far as cash in the bank. And I know that in just the statement that she actually released and gave to the clerk of the Hillsboro County court system, you know, understandably, yes, she is sharing this with her husband. But we`re talking about $20,000 in a bank account. We`re talking about $14,000 in a savings account. You`ve got a lot more other things, 120 grand in market accounts, in IRAs and different types of cash assets.

And yes, Robert Frazier (ph), a public defender, has been hired upon her behalf because that`s what the judge ordered, going against what the clerk recommended was that she not receive a public defender.

GRACE: And this doesn`t even include that her husband makes over $100,000 a year, OK? That`s one little fact we`re all missing out on. And they were married at the time of this incident. I know he was a no-show in court.

But Jean Casarez, legal correspondent, "In Session," let`s hold what just happened in court. We know she signed a detailed -- she gave a detailed confession, but she`s pleading not guilty. Jean, take me back in time. What happened that day when her son was into soccer that afternoon?

JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": Start from the beginning. She was driving her son to soccer practice. She had taken a gun that she had purchased just days before. The carton and the instruction manual were found in the bedroom later. She took that gun in the car, and she shot it once through the windshield, the second shot into his head, the third shot into his head. He was dead.

She drove back home, parked the car in the garage, left him there, went in the house, went upstairs. Her daughter was working at the computer, shot her once in the head, the second shot in the face. But her daughter was found in her bed later with a blanket over her body.

GRACE: So police get there and she`s sitting in the back yard, lounging by her pool, lounging poolside in her house robe, covered in blood. And when police ask her why, go ahead, hit me, Jean. I`m sitting down. What did she say?

CASAREZ: Because they were mouthy. They talked back. And then when there was a search of the home later, they found a lot of writings that she had made about the massacre that she was going to do, that she couldn`t do the weekend before because she had the cooling-off period, the three-day wait for the gun purchase, so she had to postpone it a week.

GRACE: I can`t even imagine that week where you`re taking care of your children, you`re fixing their dinner and you`re checking their homework, driving them back and forth to school, you look over at them and go, yes, about 72 hours, you`re dead.

Unleash the lawyers, John Burris, definitely, Randy Kessler, Atlanta. Go ahead, John, give me your defense.

JOHN BURRIS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, obviously, this woman has some severe mental problems.

GRACE: No!

BURRIS: I think she`s disassociated...

GRACE: Not obvious.

BURRIS: Yes, she -- even though she did these very concrete acts, that doesn`t mean she`s not mentally impaired. Obviously, something`s happened to this woman over a period of time that it caused her to think...

GRACE: Yes...

BURRIS: ... so unclearly about things.

GRACE: ... you`re right. Something did happen, Kessler.

BURRIS: Something did. She...

GRACE: She decided she hated her children and she killed them, Randy Kessler.

RANDY KESSLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, there you go.

BURRIS: That`s not normal.

KESSLER: You just proved an insanity defense because anyone who kills their children because she doesn`t like them can`t be sane.

GRACE: Yes. You know what? That`s the biggest crock, the biggest crock I`ve ever heard you say, Kessler. You know that being hateful and malicious does not equal insanity!

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first time we saw her, she was a mess.

GRACE: There`s Mommy, shaking and trembling and all wide-eyed and crazy-looking. I bet she wasn`t like that when police picked her up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly how you`d expect someone to look who`s accused of executing her children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Beau`s body found in an SUV in the garage, Calyx in an upstairs bedroom. Tampa police say their own mother, 50-year-old Julie Schenecker, shot and killed them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defense waives oral reading, enters a plea of not guilty to each count.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sixteen-year-old Calyx.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not guilty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And 13-year-old Beau.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not guilty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She said that they were mouthy to her and that`s why she shot them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This mother, who purchased a gun, separated her children so she could get surprise on both of them, shot multiple bullets into their heads.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls. But first to Steve Helling, writer with "People" magazine. And I`ve got your article. You`ve devoted a lot of time to the father, Parker Schenecker. He was a no-show in court today. What`s his deal?

HELLING: Well, you`ve got to remember, he`s a victim in this case, as well. He`s lost his...

GRACE: Yes, he is.

HELLING: ... two kids. And you know, I think at this point, it`s just too soon for him to go and to see her and to be supporting her at this time. So he`s -- he was with friends and family today. He just wasn`t going to go to court. That just wasn`t going to happen.

GRACE: Has he been in touch with her since she`s been behind bars?

HELLING: No. He hasn`t because there have been no visits by him. Her family has visited her in court -- or I mean in jail, but he has not. And you know, he`s just -- there`s been no phone calls. Right now, he`s dealing with his grief and he`s dealing with his kids. So there`s no chance that he`s going to go to visit her in jail anytime soon.

GRACE: You are seeing -- we`re seeing video of the father, Parker Schenecker, at his children`s funeral. I can hardly even say the words. This article is hitting the newsstands within hours. It`s "People" magazine. Parker Schenecker remembers his children. He says, "Calyx and Beau were typical kids who lived exceptional lives. Calyx excelled in her advanced classes, in sports, track, cross-country. Beau was all boy. He was proud to have just made the soccer team. What I will remember most about Beau is his smile and his sense of humor. I will forever miss my" -- I can`t even read it!

HELLING: You know, Nancy, everybody talks about these kids being mouthy. And I talked to dozens of people who said these are not mouthy kids. These were good kids. These were average kids, the kids you`d see anywhere. So I hate seeing them called mouthy because they just weren`t.

GRACE: Well, let me tell you something. Mine are 3, and they`re already talking back. And I am so happy because they`ve got a spine. They know what they want...

HELLING: I wonder where they get that from, Nancy.

GRACE: ... whether I want them to have -- whether I want them to have it or not. But they`ve got spirit. They`re strong! And I`m so happy. They say, Mommy, I told you -- whatever. And a lot of times, I just start laughing. I know that`s not the appropriate response. But I just don`t -- you know what? I`ve got to go to a shrink. You`re a writer, I`m a lawyer. What do we know?

Out to you, Mark Hillman (ph), clinical psychotherapist. I don`t like all this crazy talk because this mom planned this whole thing. Jean Casarez is right with all of her details. She had a waiting period before she could get the gun. She planned this whole thing.

MARK HILLMAN, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: One hundred percent, detail by detail, she planned this out. What teenager doesn`t give a little pushback, even as you mentioned, a 3-year-old giving pushback.

GRACE: Everyone, very quickly, I want to take you to tonight`s (INAUDIBLE) We want answers in the murder of 13-year-old Georgia boy Chuckie Mauk. On this day, 1986, the little boy rides home on his bicycle, Warner-Robbins, Georgia. He stops at a 7-Eleven to talk to a man in his car. As he gets back on his bicycle, the unknown driver guns down the little boy there at the convenience store.

Look at this boy, please. Please. If you have information, call Houston County sheriff`s 478-542-2080. We have not forgotten you, Chuckie!

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CATHY MILLER, MOTHER: It`s always my belief, it`s my faith, it`s this promise that I made to Chuckie that I will do whatever for as long as I can to find out what happened to you. And my heart and in my head tell me two different things. I don`t see this going anywhere. But my belief and my faith, I have to believe it will, that someone will hear my voice or just get tired of keeping the secret to themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had a plan and she carried it out.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A Florida mom pleaded not guilty to murdering her teenage children.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mother stands accused of killing her two teenage children. She allegedly told police she shot them because she was tired of them mouthing off, talking back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Court documents reveal officers found Schenecker unconscious in the pool area, covered in dried blood.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Insanity in general is a difficult row to hoe. But certainly, in a case like this, with facts like this, it has to be a consideration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls. Millionaire mom in court, she pleads not guilty, even though we know she gave a full and detailed confession. Her husband, the daddy of her two teens, a no-show in court today as he tries to digest his two children are gone.

Out to the lines. Lynn in Texas. Hi, Lynn.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. Thank you for taking my call.

GRACE: Thank you for calling, dear. What`s your question?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have two. Number one, how long had her husband been away? And had she built up resentment for the responsibilities that he left for her? But also, have the prosecutors canvassed the drug stores around the area to see if perhaps she had a prescription drug, like Vicodin, problem, which will alter your brain path over a period of time?

GRACE: Good question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And...

GRACE: To Steve Helling -- oh, did you have another -- another question, Lynn?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With her liquid assets and all the money, was she actually into drugs as a result of being left alone to take care of all this responsibility. I don`t think...

GRACE: Those are good questions. Lynn in Texas, let me just say at the beginning that even if everything you ask is true, that doesn`t excuse what she did. But first, how long had the husband been gone. I know he was in Qatar at the time of the killing. To Steve Helling, writer with "People" magazine, in court for the hearing. How long had he been overseas?

HELLING: Well, this time he hadn`t been gone for very long. But you know, he would come and go because that`s the nature of being in the military. And we all know how hard it is on military families when the dad keeps being deployed. So this was something that had built up and it was something she would tell her friends. It was a problem for her that he was gone, but he was serving his country.

GRACE: Well, that will make a fine defense at trial, Why I murdered my teens. Jean Casarez, isn`t it true that she had been driving impaired on drugs and alcohol before?

CASAREZ: Yes. And when there were allegations of physical abuse to her children last fall, up to almost Christmas, her husband was there in Florida with her.

GRACE: Oh, you mean when she slapped her daughter repeatedly in the face?

CASAREZ: Slapped her silly. That`s right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tampa police say their own mother, 50-year-old Julie Schenecker, shot and killed them, Beau`s body found in an SUV in the garage, Calyx in an upstairs bedroom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`re here in the case of state of Florida versus Julie Schenecker.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The new Tampa mother charged with killing her 16-year-old daughter Calyx and 13-year-old son Bo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come to order. The court is now in session.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Miss Schenecker is charged with two counts of murder in the first degree.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: 16-year-old Calyx --

JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": Shot her twice in the head dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Defense enters a plea of not guilty.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And 13-year-old Bo.

CASAREZ: She shot him in the head twice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Defense enters a plea of not guilty to each count.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The case could land her on death row if she is convicted.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police say they found a note she had detailed how she killed the kids.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She was covered in blood from head to toe.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And told police why.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: For being mouthy.

CASAREZ: She said they were, quote, mouthy.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Detectives say Schenecker left a suicide note, that police also seized several items from the home, including five spent shell casings.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not guilty at this time.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY GRACE, HOST: For those of you just joining us, upscale Florida suburbs, police arrived to find a 13-year-old boy dead in the family SUV out in the three-car garage.

Inside, they found the girl, a young teen, 16, had been sitting at her computer doing her homework, when she was shot once in the back of the head and then after she fell, shot in the face.

Jean Casarez, what else did they find in the home?

CASAREZ: They found the box to the brand-new gun. They found the instruction booklet to the brand-new gun. And all those spent shell casings, they were all together in the bathroom. And more bullets.

GRACE: You know, back to you, Steve Helling, I`ve been looking at the photos that you guys have, that the father, Parker Schenecker, shared with you. And the one of him hugging his little girl. It says, she was a teenager, but she was Parker`s baby. She was daddy`s girl. He is beyond devastated at this.

And then the shot of Parker Schenecker with his little boy, Bo. Bo really looked up to his father, always wanted to spend time with him. They had the same sense of humor. They were so much alike.

STEVE HELLING, STAFF WRITER, PEOPLE MAGAZINE: You know, it`s heartbreaking when you really think about it, because these two children were his whole life. And they were taken from him. Just immediately, like that. And so, you know, he -- of course he`s torn up about it. But he really wants everybody to remember them as they were. And not just think of them as the mouthy kids, or the -- you know, the kids who talked back.

You know, he wants everybody to know that these were his pride and joy. And that`s why he set up a fund for them. And you know, a charity type of fund for them. He really, really loved them.

GRACE: To Matt McClain, news anchor WFLA 970AM.

Matt, drugs were found in the home. Describe.

MATT MCCLAIN, NEWS ANCHOR, WFLA 970AM: Yes, Nancy. At least two anti-depressants and a few other drugs along those particular lines. But the anti-depressants, seemingly what, if you will, prosecution is paying the most amount of attention to, and whether or not she was taking them correctly. That seems to be the biggest question that they`re kind of wondering, I guess, at this point in the investigation on their part.

GRACE: And Jean Casarez, she was shaking when she came out of the home. Why?

CASAREZ: Well, that`s an interesting point. Because somebody immediately thinks, oh, there`s a mental issue. But they`re saying that she had a previous medical condition, and that is responsible for why she shook.

GRACE: Yes, there`s no doubt in my mind with her writing that detailed -- pages and pages of explanation about what she did. And that she knew what she was doing. And I really believe if the husband had thought she was out of her mind, or she was crazy, he would have been there in court, feeling sorry for her, loving her, feeling bad about being in Qatar with the military.

That`s not what happened. His absence speaks volumes.

To Elizabeth in California. Hi, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH, CALLER FROM CALIFORNIA: Hi, how are you doing?

GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?

ELIZABETH: My question is, I`m just wondering, was there something shown in the household that led up to this? I mean, she didn`t just wake up one day and decide to harm her children this way. There had to be some red flags somewhere.

GRACE: Well, I assume beating your little girl in the face, and family children services getting called to the scene.

Jean Casarez, didn`t somebody in another car see her beating her girl repeatedly in the face?

CASAREZ: In addition to that, the daughter went to the school counselor and told the counselor she and her mother on the way to the market, she went in, got her groceries, came out, her mother started looking through her sack, she said don`t look at my sack, and her mother just started slapping her. And then the daughter said, you`re disgusting, you`re not my parent, and she just kept slapping her for 30 seconds.

GRACE: Yes, there were red flags that the mom was lashing out at the children.

Unleash the lawyers, John Burris, Randy Kessler.

None of that is rising to insanity, Randy Kessler.

RANDY KESSLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No. But it does go to show there`s something mentally wrong with her. And there`s something that we`ve got to --

GRACE: Why?

KESSLER: Why? Because that`s not what a normal, rational, sane parent does. Society should help --

GRACE: No, you know what? That`s where I think you got the problem. You`re giving mothers a different standard of proof than you would somebody else. If a stranger had walked in that home and shot these two kids, that would be the death penalty.

But everyone just says, oh, no, the mother must have been under so much stress. BS!

KESSLER: No --

GRACE: No. She`s not getting a pass. She should have been more attentive and more loving to the children. Not the one that shot them in the face?

KESSLER: It makes the defense lawyer`s job harder. Because the mother of all people should be the last person to do any harm to their child. So that makes the defense 10 times harder than if it was a stranger. No question.

GRACE: What about it, Burris?

JOHN BURRIS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I agree somewhat. Look, I think you have to look at the totality of the situation. This lady is taking drugs. She may not have been taking them properly Obviously she was having real mood swings. Different. It may not be insanity, but it may be a diminished capacity argument where you reduce this down from a -- a first-degree murder down to some lesser offense.

There are all kinds of ways you have to look at this particular case.

GRACE: Diminished capacity.

BURRIS: Because it`s not normal. Diminished capacity, if you`re using drugs improperly there have been signs --

GRACE: But no murder is normal. No murder is normal, John.

BURRIS: Well, some are more normal than others.

GRACE: Some murders are more normal -- OK.

BURRIS: Look, obviously this is a mother that was having problems --

GRACE: That goes down in history. Yes, she`s a killer. That`s her problem. That is her problem.

BURRIS: Well, how does she kill the person, but the question is why and what`s her mental state at the time she did it. That`s the point.

GRACE: No. The state doesn`t have to prove motive. She was angry.

BURRIS: No, but she does -- her defense --

GRACE: She had to raise the children alone, she was mad at her husband for being overseas.

BURRIS: But her defense -- well, all of that goes to -- the defense job is to demonstrate that this is not just a first-degree murder in a case that observes the death penalty. So they`ve got to figure out what was going on with this particular woman and figure out whether or not there`s something affected her judgment, whether it`s drugs, or mental disassociation, any number of things. So I think there`s a lot to talk about here.

GRACE: To Jean Casarez, is -- yes, no, is she in a mental ward in the jail? Is she --

CASAREZ: The infirmary.

GRACE: She`s in the infirmary, OK. That means that she is not being treated as if she had a mental illness, Dr. Howard Oliver. What about it?

HOWARD OLIVER, FMR. DEPUTY MEDICAL EXAMINER, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, she could have a neurological problem from those, of course, tremors she was having, and I would think that she should be evaluated by a neurologist and a psychiatrist.

GRACE: I`m sure she has been. I`m sure she`s been evaluated.

OLIVER: And in all probability, I would think she would be in a mental ward in the facility until later --

GRACE: You know, I don`t understand it. Look, I`ve had plenty of cases where the defendants were insane. And I don`t want to send an insane person into general population because they would be tortured and mistreated. I don`t want that. But what concerns me -- out to you, Marc Harrold, you`re a former cop, now a lawyer -- is that when a mom commits a crime, everyone immediately assumes, oh, what pushed her over the edge? I don`t think that`s fair to the crime victims.

MARC HARROLD, FORMER OFFICER, ATLANTA PD, ATTORNEY, AUTHOR OF "OBSERVATIONS OF WHITE NOISE": No, I don`t either. As far as whether she`s in a mental ward or whatever, my guess is she might be on suicide watch because they found a note. But there is definitely a different standard. It cuts both ways. I think it makes the defense`s job harder. But people definitely look and think maybe there`s some justifications based on the parenting and the stress of parenting. I just don`t see it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Breaking news tonight, live, Massachusetts suburbs.

CASAREZ: An anonymous call that came in.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: There is a killer on the loose.

GRACE: A lady`s hand and foot sticking out of a loaded dumpster.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the dumpster was also an additional body of her toddler son.

MARC KLAAS, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, KLAASKIDS FOUNDATION: Somebody wanted this woman, and this young boy dead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Any leads on who the perpetrator was?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Suspects, suspects, suspects.

GRACE: The question --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who would do that? I mean who would do that?

KLAAS: Boyfriend, significant others? The little boy`s father?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The person that committed this crime definitely is close enough to this woman that could walk in and out of that building.

KLAAS: This is a sloppy case. And he didn`t take nearly the kind of care in hiding the evidence that we oftentimes see.

GRACE: We want justice.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: A woman gets the shock of a lifetime when she spots a female hand and foot sticking up out of a dumpster. Police come to the scene, take this dumpster to the medical examiner`s, and they find the woman`s 2- year-old baby boy, also dead in the dumpster.

Tonight, we learn cause of death, and a man on the run. In addition to an arrest.

Straight out to Steve Damish with the "Enterprise" Brockton.

Steve, what do you know?

STEVE DAMISH, MANAGING EDITOR, THE ENTERPRISE: That began in earnest, just a day or so ago, because the DA and the law officials around on the northeast were chasing, in their own words, ghosts. They got some bad information, they lost two days of search time. And now they believe a person they want seriously to talk to, a Luis Guaman (ph), is no longer in this country and perhaps might be in Ecuador.

GRACE: OK. With me is Jean Casarez.

Jean, explain to me how they lost time.

CASAREZ: Well, they lost time because the bodies were placed in a dumpster, and they didn`t find those bodies until a neighbor saw limbs hanging out. And that`s when authorities were called to the scene.

But we now know the cause of death, Nancy, it was blunt force trauma to the head of not only the mother, but also her little boy.

GRACE: With me right now, a special guest, the district attorney of Plymouth County, Timothy J. Cruz.

TIMOTHY J. CRUZ, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, PLYMOUTH COUNTY: How are you?

GRACE: Mr. Cruz, thank you -- I`m great. Thank you for being with us.

Mr. Cruz, how did all of this unfold?

CRUZ: Well, it unfolded last Sunday evening, February 13th, when someone was going through a dumpster located off of Warren Avenue in Brockton, made an observation of what they believed to be a body and they notified authorities through an anonymous tip.

Police eventually went down there and went through this dumpster. And eventually what was found was the body of 25-year-old Maria Avelina Palaguachi-Cela, and her 2-year-old toddler son Brian, who was also deceased in that dumpster.

GRACE: The anonymous woman who called 911, Mr. Cruz, is there a way to trace her call?

CRUZ: No, there`s no way to trace that call. What we believe is an individual was going through that dumpster to find cans or whatever debris may have been in there and they fell upon the bodies that were in there right now.

GRACE: With us, the district attorney out of Plymouth County who is handling this case, Timothy J. Cruz.

Who is the guy that`s been arrested? What do police believe his role is? Why has he been arrested and who`s this guy on the run?

CRUZ: Well, the individual that was arrested is an individual Aparicio De La Cruz, and he was arrested last evening and had been charged for misleading a police investigation in connection with the deaths of Maria and Brian. And he`s been charged, he`s been held on $50,000 cash at Brocton District Court today, and his case has been continued for a period of time.

But the individual that we`re looking to question is a man by the name of Luis Guaman. Witnesses have indicated to us that (INAUDIBLE) -- that was his name and that he has resided in that apartment with other individuals, and that he also had taken his belongings and left the apartment sometime over the weekend but prior to the victims being discovered.

What we have found out during the course of this investigation is that some two and a half hours after the bodies of Maria and her son were discovered in the dumpster, a man using the name Segundo Castro left this country on a flight from New York City in John F. Kennedy Airport to Ecuador.

We believe that Segundo Castro is a man known to witnesses as Luis Guaman. We`ve been looking at this individual`s record. And certainly he has a record of outstanding violent cases. Right now, not only in Plymouth County, but also in New York City.

GRACE: And is he legal?

CRUZ: I don`t believe he`s legal whatsoever. We have talked to corrections, and ICE enforcement, and we also found out that no one here in the country, legally under the name of Luis Guaman. So we believe that this individual who has different names, who uses different dates of birth, who goes basically from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, from state to state, and really in that underground of people that are very difficult to locate.

The people -- that he`s dealing with. It`s a true public safety issue at this point when we`re dealing with individuals that we can`t get ahold of. And it appears that he left -- at least to New York City, at or about the time when the bodies were discovered in that dumpster.

GRACE: So he takes a plane from JFK to Ecuador just hours after the bodies are found.

Is it true, Timothy Cruz -- Timothy Cruz, the district attorney there in Plymouth County -- that the victim, the 25-year-old victim, a mother, tells Luis Guaman that she no longer loved him?

CRUZ: That was part of the story that we had received from the individual who`s currently in custody, Mr. De La Cruz. And actually I asked him one of the questions, was it some form of a triangle? And I got to be honest with you, I don`t know what a triangle would have to do with murdering a helpless 2-year-old child.

GRACE: The baby -- did they all live together? Did they live in separate apartments? What was the living arrangement?

CRUZ: They did. They did. The father of the child -- the common-law marriage, the father and the mother. The father was down in Virginia working. But he resided in that home with little Brian and Maria, and also resided in that home with Aparicio De La Cruz, as well as Luis Guaman.

So those individuals were there. And they definitely know each other. And that`s what really I think makes this tragic. The individuals that potentially knew each other are now in a situation where we have two dead people, one baby dead, and we`re trying to find the individual who has fled to another country which is (INAUDIBLE) at this point if not extraditable to the United States.

GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa. wait. Mr. Cruz, we don`t have an extradition treaty with Ecuador?

CRUZ: That`s correct. We`ve reached out to the secretary -- strike that, we`ve reached out to the Department of Justice, we`ve dealt with the FBI, we`ll continue to look into that. But it`s going to be a very challenging road to get him back. And I will assure you that -- and the people in Plymouth County that we will do everything within our power to make sure that we get justice for this little boy and for this woman, because we want to make sure we complete our investigation, we go to the next step, we get all of our forensic information done, and we will go forward and make sure we get justice for these people.

GRACE: It`s my understanding, Timothy Cruz, that she was a hard- working mom that supported two children. Is that true?

CRUZ: My understanding is that she had at least one other child which is back at her homeland of Ecuador also. And that she had been in this state of -- for a period of time and she has been living there, taking care of her young child.

GRACE: Unleash the lawyers. John Burris, Randy Kessler.

John Burris, what`s the likelihood this guy is ever going to be brought to justice?

BURRIS: Not much. The fact is, with no extradition, there`s no way to get him back. And if they would have a new law that`s imposed now, the question is whether or not it would be retroactive. So I don`t see how they`re going to get him back from Ecuador.

GRACE: What about it, Kessler?

KESSLER: I think there`s karma in the world. What goes around comes around. He`s got something coming to him. You know this was a boyfriend with a child and a boyfriend without a child. There`s no common-law marriage in Massachusetts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police are searching for a killer after the bodies of a young mom and her toddler son were found in a trash bin. Police discover the bodies Sunday night after receiving an anonymous tip about a body inside a bin behind the building where the mother lived. Police discovered the mother`s body first and the boy`s body shortly thereafter.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Out to Marc Harrold, former cop, now attorney and author of "Observations of White Noise." So how can we possibly track this guy down?

HARROLD: Well, it`s going to be tough, just like all the things we`ve talked about. There`s barriers. But the biggest problem here is the passage of time. And it has a lot to do with getting misinformation, has a lot to do with the way the bodies were found after the fact.

The biggest problem here is time. So they`re going to do their best. But the main thing I see is the delay in the initial investigation and the misinformation.

GRACE: And what misinformation was that, Timothy Cruz?

CRUZ: This individual, Aparicio De La Cruz, originally had been telling the investigators that Luis Guaman had gone to New York instead of Ecuador.

GRACE: I see.

CRUZ: He -- he also told numerous individuals that -- all that the individual had gotten a ticket to go to New York. And we found out through a subsequent investigation he told other people that he was aware of the fact that the individual had a ticket for Ecuador.

GRACE: Oh, man.

Very quickly, Mark Hillman, author of "My Therapist is Making Me Nuts."

Mark Hillman, the rage this guy lashed out with after learning she no longer wanted to be with him. What about that?

MARK HILLMAN, CLINICAL PSYCHOTHERAPIST, AUTHOR OF "MY THERAPIST IS MAKING ME NUTS": I don`t believe in a snap defense. I think this guy just completely lost it. With everyone living together I think that this crime of passion, rejection, and he just probably, you know, beat him. Unfortunately. And it`s sad.

What about TSA? Where -- how is this guy going from United States to Ecuador and not being informed and his passport being screened? And all these different personalities and identities.

GRACE: Everyone, let`s stop and remember Army Staff Sergeant Johnny Mason, 32, Rio Vista, Texas, killed Iraq. Highly decorated. Three Bronze Stars. Two Purple Hearts. Lost his life saving five fellow soldiers weeks before he was to return home. Buried at Arlington.

Remembered for a heart of gold. Making people laugh. Leaves behind parents Roger and Dina. Stepmother Georgia. Sister, Norma. Widow, Brooke. Children, Ashley and Adam.

Johnnie Mason, American hero.

Thanks to our guests but especially to you.

And congratulations to Anna Marie Willis, 2011 Miss Peach County High School.

Isn`t she beautiful? Before taking home the big crown, also awarded Best Talent and Most Photogenic.

Congratulations, beautiful Anna.

The Fourth Annual Dancing for Joan Benefit, Feb 26th, 7:00 p.m. Marietta, Georgia, raises funds to fight lung cancer. Go to dancingforjoan.org.

Everyone, I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern and until then, good night, friend.

END