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Nancy Grace
Missing Army Wife Reportedly Pregnant by Boyfriend, not Husband
Aired March 04, 2011 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MIKE BROOKS, GUEST HOST: Breaking news tonight in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. An Army wife and mother, 5 months pregnant with her second child, goes missing without a trace. Twenty-one-year-old Bethany Decker last seen entering the family`s apartment. Three weeks later, her car is still in the parking lot and there`s no sign of Bethany. Her husband, an Army specialist, deploys to Afghanistan, but something is missing. For the first time, his wife doesn`t make it to the airport to say good-bye to him.
Brand-new developments just coming in tonight. Investigators execute a search warrant, cops searching the home of the last person to see Bethany before she vanishes. In a shocking twist, it`s the father of Bethany`s unborn child. And get this. According to reports, it`s not her Army husband.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-one-year-old Bethany Decker, five months pregnant, and lives on her own here in Ashburn.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was either neighbors or a friend, police are saying, that saw her going into her apartment or was at her apartment on January 29th.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: It took three weeks for her to be reported missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three weeks, no one has seen her since.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her husband, Emile, had just deployed with the Army National Guard to Afghanistan on February 2nd.
GRACE: The husband is over in Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is in the Army, serving our nation. Yes, that`s where he is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators say Bethany did not see her husband off at the airport when he left overseas.
GRACE: Why didn`t she go see him off?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great question. I don`t know. We would like to know the answer to it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The biggest question right now is, is he the last person to see her alive?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have been in contact with him and we`re going to have further contact with him.
GRACE: Was she missing before he left?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is very concerned about Bethany`s whereabouts.
GRACE: Where is 21-year-old co-ed Bethany Decker?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROOKS: Good evening. I`m Mike Brooks, in for Nancy Grace. A pregnant Army wife goes missing without a trace in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. We`ve just learned cops have searched the home of the last person to see Bethany before she disappears.
For the very latest, let`s go out to Emily Bay-bay, staff writer for "The Washington Examiner." Is that the way to say your name, Emily?
EMILY BABAY, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: It`s Babay.
BROOKS: Babay. Babay. All right. So what`s the very latest going on right now in Ashburn or out in the Fairfax area?
BABAY: Sure. There are reports out that police have searched the home of someone who may have been a boyfriend of Bethany Decker, the 21- year-old Army wife who has been missing since the end of January. So far, though, police have been completely silent on any tensions in the relationship between Bethany and her husband. So it`s a little bit little unclear what that status is right now.
BROOKS: So where is this residence, this apartment where they searched?
BABAY: Sure. They lived -- Bethany was living in Ashburn, Virginia, and there are reports that the search took place in Centreville, Virginia.
BROOKS: OK, so how far is that from Centreville to Ashburn? I mean, Ashburn, I believe, if I`m not mistaken, is in Loudon County and Centreville is in Fairfax County.
BABAY: That`s correct.
BROOKS: So what`s the distance between the two?
BABAY: I am not sure exactly how far apart they are. Looks like...
BROOKS: Looks like about 10 miles.
BABAY: Yes.
BROOKS: About 10 miles. OK. Now, straight out to Alexis Weed. Alexis, what do we know about the last time that Bethany was seen by anyone?
ALEXIS WEED, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Right, Mike. Well, according to "The Washington Post," there was a search warrant that was issued so that the search could be performed at this boyfriend`s home. According to reports, the search warrant says that the boyfriend is the last person to see her on January 29th. Previously, we had been told that it was a friend who last saw her, Mike, at her apartment in Ashburn.
BROOKS: OK. Friend, now boyfriend. But Alexis, she`s married, I thought.
WEED: That`s right, Mike. Her husband is deployed right now in Afghanistan. He left on February 2nd for his redeployment. He was home in January for about a month.
BROOKS: Now, what do we know about this guy?
WEED: Well, we know that -- the husband, Mike?
BROOKS: No, the boyfriend.
WEED: We know very little, Mike, about the boyfriend. Right now, we don`t have our hands on a copy of the search warrant, but as far as "The Washington Post" is reporting, this was a boyfriend and this was the father of her unborn child.
BROOKS: Now, back out to Emily Babay. Emily, how long do we think that she`s known this guy? She was married. She still is married. Her husband is deployed, you know, over fighting for our country. And she`s got a boyfriend? What do we know?
BABAY: Right. Right now, we don`t know a whole lot. We know that she is, in fact, still married and that this search warrant is the first mention of the boyfriend`s existence.
BROOKS: Now, Alexis, do we know what agencies are involved in this? I know Loudon County and I`m sure Fairfax County. What other agencies are involved in this?
WEED: Well, Mike, right now, we`ve heard that there -- the Loudon County officials wanted to bring the husband home. That`s what we were reporting yesterday. They wanted to get him to be released from the Army to come back from Afghanistan so that he could be questioned in person. We don`t know if that is in the works right now yet, Mike.
BROOKS: I want to go straight out, joining us by phone from Dallas, Texas, Patrick McLain. He`s a former military judge and former federal prosecutor. Patrick, thanks for being with us.
PATRICK MCLAIN, MILITARY LAW ATTORNEY, FMR. PROSECUTOR (via telephone): You`re welcome. Good to talk to you.
BROOKS: Patrick, so what is the process if she is missing and we don`t know if there`s any foul play -- we`re going to talk about that in a minute. But he`s husband is over there. His wife is now missing, been missing. Who is it up to -- who makes the decision whether he will come back to the United States or not?
MCLAIN: The military authorities. The local authorities will request it, and almost in all cases, the military would grant a request to bring a witness or a suspect back for further questioning.
BROOKS: Now, is it his commanding officer? He`s with the Army National Guard.
MCLAIN: Yes.
BROOKS: So it would be up to the commanding officer for him to come back.
MCLAIN: That`s right. He has the authority to do so. And it`s the general policy in the military to cooperate with authorities.
BROOKS: I want to go back out to Alexis Weed, producer for NANCY GRACE. Alexis, has the husband been cooperating with law enforcement and the military?
WEED: Yes, Mike, we`re told that the husband is cooperating. We`re told that he`s anxious about trying to assist in any way that he can with the investigation.
BROOKS: I want to go straight out to the lines. Joining us from Illinois, Elaine. Thanks for calling.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Mike. I think you are just awesome! I think you work so much. And I want to say your wife is a very lucky woman!
BROOKS: Well, I`m not married, but thank you very much anyway.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, that`s even better!
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. Anyway, I was just going to ask, is anyone -- do they -- I`m sure they have done this already, but have they -- has she had any activity on her credit cards or anything like that?
BROOKS: Back out to staff writer for "The Washington Examiner" Emily Babay. Emily, any activity at all on her credit cards, cell phone, anything at all like that?
BABAY: No. In bank records, credit cards, her cell phone, there`s been no activity since January 29th.
BROOKS: I want to go out, joining us, always a special guest, Marc Klaas. He`s president and founder of the Klaas Kids Foundation. Marc, always great to see you. What does that say to you, Marc, no activity at all, no credit cards used, no cell phone, no ATM?
MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Well, it`s nice to see you, Mike. It`s a fallback position, it seems, for law enforcement to say that a missing adult is missing because they want to be missing. And we know, I think just from the programs that we`ve done here and from other evidence that we`ve accrued over the years, that if somebody disappears and their bank account is not accessed, their FaceBook or their MySpace pages are not accessed, they`ve left their cell phone behind, they don`t contact anybody, they leave children behind, then there`s probably something much more than a voluntary disappearance.
And I think that we need to investigate and we need to sort of address that with a greater sense of urgency than has been done in the past. I for one am absolutely astounded that it took 21 days from the time that she was last seen to the time that she was reported missing to the authorities.
BROOKS: Marc Klaas, that is a great point. And I just -- when I first heard about this last night on the NANCY GRACE show, I couldn`t wrap my head around it. Alexis, let`s go over quickly kind of a timeline, if you will. And what is the family dynamic here? It just seems very strange to me.
WEED: Well, Mike, she was last seen on January 29th.
BROOKS: right.
WEED: We also know that her husband when he came home at some point in January, that the couple went vacationing together in Hawaii, where Bethany`s father lives. They were there from approximately January 18th until to January 23rd. They came home and then stayed at Bethany`s maternal grandparents` home together. And the grandparents last saw her on January 28th.
BROOKS: I just -- I just can`t get over the fact that no one -- she has a 17-month-old. And Emily, where is the 17-month-old?
BABAY: The 17-month-old is staying with her parents.
BROOKS: OK. So Alexis, did she call anybody about the 17-month-old to ask, Hey, how`s she doing?
WEED: Well, Mike, reports are that she would call about every three days to check in with her mother, to talk to her son. She was a full-time student. She also worked as a waitress. So her mother says that she had a very busy schedule.
BROOKS: You know, I mean, I`m sorry, call me a cynic. I`m a former investigator. I`m not buying the whole, Well, she`s been very busy. I know the family. They want to find out where she is just to make sure she`s OK. But Marc Klaas, I`m not buying that. I`m not buying the, Oh, well, she`s been very busy and we haven`t heard from her in three weeks and she didn`t even call to check on her baby!
KLAAS: Hey, I`m with you, Mike. I just see that there`s not really a sense of urgency in this case, that this woman has been gone for a long time, the authorities didn`t press to bring the husband home from Afghanistan more quickly than they did. It just seems to me that everything was just sort of falling by the wayside until Nancy Grace picked up the case.
BROOKS: I want to go out to Pat Brown, criminal profiler and author of "The Profiler." Pat, as always, great to see you, joining us from Washington, D.C. Pat, something`s not right here.
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Well, Mike, this is very true. Yesterday, what I said was, something`s wrong with this woman`s behavior because the family isn`t even concerned that she`s missing for three weeks. I don`t believe that she called in every three days to check in on her kid. I bet there were weeks going by. I don`t think she paid much attention to her child. The family didn`t want to admit that. And I think that that`s -- yes, she`s led (ph) herself into a really bad path with a really bad person.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing says foul play louder than no cell phone activity and no debit card activity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her cell phone, bank account and credit cards have not been used since the end of January.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So foul play has happened here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Take a look at this girl, 21-year-old Bethany Decker.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Search for a young mother.
GRACE: She`s the mother of a 17-month-old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ky (ph) misses his mother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He does ask. He says, Mama.
GRACE: She`s a full-time college student.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was studying global and environmental change.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Close to graduating from George Mason University.
GRACE: She`s five months pregnant with her husband`s child.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s going to require a lot of rest, proper nutrition.
GRACE: And she`s an Army wife. Her husband deployed to Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why hasn`t he answered the basic question that we`re all striving for? Explain the time between the 29th of January and the 2nd of February. Please explain it. What was happening? Was she with you? Was she not with you? If she was not with you, I mean, we need to know that.
GRACE: Did he know before he left that she was missing?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For three weeks, the family did not hear from Bethany, even though her mother, Kimberly Nelson, takes care of her and Emile`s 17-month-old son, Ky. It wasn`t until February 19th, when the Bales (ph) decided to stop by Bethany`s Ashburn apartment, when they saw her car still there, that they realized she was missing and filed a report.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She wasn`t there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just -- we just had a feeling. We were concerned and we filed the report.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROOKS: What a difference a day makes! I`m Mike Brooks, in for Nancy Grace. Well, just yesterday, we thought that it was a missing girl and she was pregnant with her husband`s baby. What do we find out tonight? Apparently, there`s a boyfriend. And what role does this boyfriend have in all of this? That`s -- that`s -- the big question that I want to know.
Let`s go straight out to our attorneys. Joining us from New York, noted defense attorney Alex Sanchez, and joining here from Atlanta, international law attorney and criminal defense attorney Meg Strickler.
OK, Alex, we don`t know too much about this guy so far, but if you were an adviser to him, would you lawyer up right now?
ALEX SANCHEZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: When you say "this guy," I assume you`re talking about the new boyfriend?
BROOKS: The boyfriend. Yes. What do you think? Come on!
SANCHEZ: Yes. I mean, of course, I would tell him right now, Don`t say anything. But you know, Mike, this case should serve as a lesson to all persons that are willing to jump to conclusions. Yesterday, everybody was willing to hang this husband. And all of a sudden, thank God we`ve learned some new facts. This case may be taken in a completely different direction, and I hope everybody watching this show learns a lesson about that.
BROOKS: Well, you know, I was watching last night, too, Alex. And you know. You know how cynical cops and former investigators are. And you know, you always think, you always think about the husband because we don`t know exactly where that timeline was of when he left, when she disappeared. But the whole thing, Meg -- she didn`t show up at the airport to say good- bye to him. Wasn`t that kind of a -- you know, a wake-up call to somebody in the family?
MEG STRICKLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That was a red flag to a lot of things that we learned today because if she`s not showing up at the airport to show her -- to say good-bye to her husband going off to war -- I already smelled a rat yesterday when I heard this story. I`m thinking, Well, wait a minute. Maybe she`s not with him anymore. And of course, when you`re in an investigation, you always look to the most immediate family members, the husband. And in this case, he`s the first obvious. Who would have thought that she`d have a boyfriend? And she`s pregnant with a second child, on top of everything else. And he`s not the father? This story gets better and better.
BROOKS: It does. And what a difference a day makes, as I said before.
Joining us in Atlanta, Dr. Doug Bremner. He`s a professor of psychiatry and radiology and author of "Before You Take That Pill." Doug, I was watching today the Nelson family during one of their interviews and press conference, and -- I don`t know. Again, call me a cynic, but there`s something about the family dynamic and the fact that it took three weeks -- three weeks -- to report her missing.
DR. DOUG BREMNER, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY: Yes. There`s something crazy going on here, Mike. It seems -- they almost sort of seem blase. And they say, Well, yes, we were a little bit concerned that she didn`t come to the airport to say good-bye to him. I think that there`s some things that this family is just not talking about. I think that there`s some tensions going on. They didn`t want to talk about the boyfriend. I learned about the boyfriend today just be reading an Internet web site where there was a commenter saying, I`m friends with her and she has hey boyfriend living with her.
BROOKS: I want to back out to Alexis Weed, producer for the NANCY GRACE show. Nancy -- I mean, Alexis, we know that maybe the boyfriend`s making some conflicting statements?
WEED: Right, Mike. According to "The Washington Post," they`re saying, in the search warrant it alleges that the boyfriend made conflicting statements to police about when it was that he first noticed that Bethany`s car was parked outside her apartment.
BROOKS: I don`t like conflicting statements, period!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When it came time for Emile to fly back to Afghanistan on February 2nd, Bethany was a no-show.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was a bit unusual.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bethany`s car was found in the parking lot of her Ashburn complex. Inside her apartment, no sign that she packed bags or had plans to leave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to locate Bethany.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No one has spoken to Bethany, who is five months pregnant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a missing person, and we`ve got to look at everything.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-one-year-old Bethany Decker.
GRACE: Now, the husband is over in Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`d like to talk to him, as well, and then try to get the opportunity to find out because he did have contact back in January with Bethany.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As soon as he found out that she was missing, he did call. He`s just heartbroken.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No one has spoken to Bethany.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I haven`t heard from her, and this is very out of the ordinary.
GRACE: Bethany Decker`s husband, Emile Decker, is serving, Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He wants to cooperate fully. He is very concerned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROOKS: I`m Mike Brooks, in for Nancy Grace. Well, a lot of questions remain unanswered about the disappearance of Bethany Decker. I know you`ve got a lot of questions, too. I want to go straight out to the phones. Thanks for sticking with us. Emily from North Carolina, thanks for calling in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey. How are you? And thanks for taking my call.
BROOKS: Good, thank you. Yes, ma`am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. My son`s also in the Army. And my dad had cancer. All I had to do was call American Red Cross. They had him home in less than a week. And that was when he was in Iraq. And I mean, it`s just that quick. And his commander -- the commander`s the one that makes the decision. And American Red Cross finds out how serious it is, they find out how serious the condition is, find out what`s wrong and everything else. And my dad had cancer, of course, so they found out how serious the condition is.
But my question is, is how did they find out that this girl -- how did they find out that this girl had -- that it`s a father -- there was a father to...
BROOKS: Alexis Weed, do we know how they found out that maybe the boyfriend is the father of this baby?
WEED: No, Mike, we don`t know at this point. We just know that "The Washington Post" is saying that the search warrants were issued, and in there is the allegation that this boyfriend is the father.
BROOKS: Lots of questions!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Where is Bethany?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does anybody know where my daughter is?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She hasn`t been seen since January 29th.
GRACE: She`s five months pregnant.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-one-year-old Emile Decker.
GRACE: His wife is missing. She`s carrying his baby.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When it came time for Emile to fly back to Afghanistan on February 2nd, Bethany was a no-show.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-one-year old Bethany Decker, five months pregnant and lives on her own here in Ashburn.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was either neighbors or a friend, police are saying, that saw her go into her apartment or was at her apartment on January 29th.
GRACE: It took three weeks for her to be reported missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three weeks, no one`s seen her since.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her husband Emile had just deployed with the Army National Guard to Afghanistan on February 2nd.
GRACE: The husband is over in Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is in the army serving our nation. Yes, that`s where he is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators say Bethany did not see her husband off at the airport when he left overseas.
GRACE: Why didn`t she go see him off?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great question. Don`t know. We would like to know the answer to it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The biggest question right now is, is he the last person to see her alive?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have been in contact with him, and we`re going to have further contact with him.
GRACE: Was she missing before he left?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is very concerned about Bethany`s whereabouts.
GRACE: Where is 21-year-old coed Bethany Decker?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 21-year-old Bethany Decker, who is a senior at George Mason University and is about five months pregnant, she hasn`t been seen since January 29th. That`s when she was in Columbia, Maryland with her grandparents, Evelyn and Ed Bayles, for a short visit with her army husband, 21-year-old Emile Decker. Emile was home from Afghanistan for a few weeks. The couple had flown to Hawaii to see family and then stayed at the Bayles. The family was asked not to discuss the details of that visit, but, when it came time for Emile to fly back to Afghanistan on February 2nd, Bethany was a no-show.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROOKS: I`m Mike Brooks in for Nancy Grace. If you`re just joining us, we`re talking about the disappearance of 21-year-old Bethany Decker from Ashburn, Virginia, who just disappeared. They went to her apartment. There was nothing packed like she was getting ready to leave. There`s been no activity on her ATM, her cell phone, nothing -- nothing at all. But what we have found out in the last hours, that apparently she had a boyfriend, and the question is, Alexis Weed, does the husband know about this guy?
WEED: We don`t know, Mike, but we do know that in this search warrant affidavit, as is being reported, that the boyfriend moved out of Bethany`s apartment sometime in February.
BROOKS: Now, how long has she lived in the apartment? Do we know?
WEED: We don`t, Mike.
BROOKS: Back out to Emily Babay from the staff writer for "The Washington Examiner." Emily, the timeline here just isn`t adding up. And do you know if law enforcement has taken her car to process it?
BABAY: We don`t know if they`ve taken the car to process it.
BROOKS: Is it in the lot anymore, or is it gone? Do we know that?
BABAY: We don`t know that. What we do know is that they have done extensive searching in the area surrounding her apartment. They were searching out with scent dogs in a wooded area nearby earlier this week. But nothing came up from those searches.
BROOKS: Joining us from Atlanta, Dr. Titus Duncan is general surgeon at the Atlanta Medical Center. And Dr. Duncan, please remember this face in case they ever fly me in there.
TITUS DUNCAN, DOCTOR: Will do.
BROOKS: If this was the boyfriend, when law enforcement is talking to this guy, if there had been any kind of a struggle, if he`s even involved, again, we don`t know, there`s so many questions here, what would law enforcement be looking for with him? Would they be examining his body?
DUNCAN: Yeah. If they saw him physically, then they would actually look for some sort of signs of a struggle. The most common signs you see in a struggle are if a woman is battling with a man and they had a struggle, a woman usually protects herself by scratching. They`ll scratch the face, the neck and the arms. So if they were able to see him, then they could actually see if he has any sort of trauma to those respective areas, the face, neck and the arms.
BROOKS: Now Alexis Weed, we know that they were out searching in the vicinity of her apartment. Do we know if this was just crossing the Ts and dotting the Is, or do we know if there was a lead that led them there?
WEED: We don`t know if there was a lead, Mike, but we do know that this general area, this wooded area, has been searched more than once.
BROOKS: You know, I was just talking to a fire chief buddy of mine today who lived in Ashburn, and he was talking about what a nice area, Emily, that it is it. And you don`t hear about this kind of thing happening in this area of Loudoun County. Emily?
BABAY: Yes. This really is an anomaly for Loudoun County. I think it`s taken a lot of people by surprise as a result.
BROOKS: You know, he said, hey, we used to leave our door open, but the message back is, don`t ever leave your door open no matter where you live. Back out to the lines, Paula from Texas. Thanks for joining us, Paula.
CALLER: Thank you.
BROOKS: Thanks for hanging in there.
CALLER: My question is, the media has claimed recently that there is a correlation between the number of deployments and returns home to family violence. I`m wanting to know how many deployments has the husband had and if the authorities have any record of prior family violence.
BROOKS: That`s a great -- that`s -- our callers are so smart. We couldn`t do it without you. Back out to Alexis Weed, do we know if this was his first deployment with the National Guard? And any history there at all.
WEED: No, Mike. This was a redeployment for the husband. And as far as our records show, we don`t see any criminal history for him.
BROOKS: So no criminal history. Do we know what he did -- he`s a member of the National Guard so he does something else here in the United States when he`s not overseas serving his country. Do we know anything about his background at all before being deployed with the U.S. Army National Guard?
WEED: Not at this point, Mike, no.
WEED: Back out to Patrick McLain, former military judge. You know, our caller, Patrick, was talking about violence of people being deployed. Right now, as far as we know, he`s being cooperative with the army, CID, the army criminal investigation division and local law enforcement here in the United States.
MCLAIN: Well, that`s what it sounds like in the past 37 minutes of your show, Mike. A lot of people have jumped to the wrong conclusion, at least some of the media reporters, seems like we have a bigger suspect or at least a lot more information to gather.
It is correct. Your caller from Texas is right. We are seeing more domestic violence in soldiers` families, in marines` families due to the highly increased deployment tempo. This is the longest lasting war we`ve had ever in the history of the United States. We`re talking about soldiers that have been deployed six or seven times.
Looking at Emile Decker`s case, though, he`s a student at George Mason University. He`s from the Massachusetts National Guard, but he`s in Virginia because he`s going to George Mason. He`s a young guy, too. I doubt he`s been on any other deployment. Just to slightly correct the reporter, this is only redeployment in the sense he was home on two-week morale leave. So that`s what he was doing. Everyone who goes to Afghanistan or Iraq, halfway through goes through two weeks back in the states, he went to Hawaii to see his wife`s father with her, came back.
And then the only really questionable thing is, at least we`re told by the family, is that she was not there when he was at the airport saying good-bye to others. But as has been pointed out by some of your other guests, the family hasn`t given a lot of information. They`ve actually hidden some things, like where she was employed. So they`re not exactly what seems to be a very reliable source of information.
BROOKS: Alexis, is the family hiding it, or -- maybe -- OK. I can maybe understand why they would want to do that, but what do we know about her life at George Mason? Also, do we know if there were any surveillance cameras at her apartment that would show the comings and goings of her car that was parked in the parking facility adjacent to there?
WEED: That we don`t know, Mike. We don`t know if there was any surveillance. But the family has said that they are staying quiet to protect the investigation. So that`s where they stand at this point. Maybe they`re not necessarily hiding information but perhaps doing what investigators could be telling them to do.
BROOKS: Emily, are we hearing anything at all -- are you hearing anything at all about how long this relationship may have been going on? Because she`s only been married a year and a half, then she has a 17-month- old son.
BABAY: That`s correct. We know she`s been married a year and a half, but investigators so far have not released any information about how long the other relationship may have been going on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIMBERLY NELSON, MOTHER: Does anybody know where my daughter is?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kimberly Nelson is talking about her 21-year-old daughter Bethany Decker, a senior at George Mason University and is about five months pregnant. She hasn`t been seen since January 29th.
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GRACE: Bethany Decker, seemingly vanishes into thin air.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She went missing, as far as we know, February 19th, but the last time she was seen was January 29th.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bethany sort of had transient communications with various people in her family. It wasn`t unusual for Bethany to go off the grid for a little bit.
GRACE: She was missing for three weeks. Family didn`t call the police earlier?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators say Bethany did not see her husband off at the airport when he left overseas. No one in her family, including Emile, apparently knows why.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody knows. We would love to know the answer to it. Nobody really knows what the cause of it was.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He feels quite helpless, being so far away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was happening? Was she with you? Was she not with you? We can`t answer it. It all begins was him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As soon as he found out she was missing, he did call. He`s just heartbroken.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No one has spoken to Bethany, who is five months pregnant, since a family gathering in Maryland.
GRACE: Five months pregnant with a second child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Inside her apartment, no sign that she packed bags or had plans to leave.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s so hard not knowing anything and not being able to reach her.
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BROOKS: Welcome back. I`m Mike Brooks in for Nancy Grace. I`ll tell you law enforcement, they are holding their cards very, very close to the vest in this disappearance of Bethany Decker from Ashburn, Virginia. I want to go straight out to the lines to Ebony from New Jersey. Thanks for joining us, Ebony.
CALLER: Hi. How are you, Mike?
BROOKS: Good. Thank you.
CALLER: My question this evening is, how long was the husband away on his deployment before he came back this time? And he wasn`t aware that there was another man living in the house with his wife?
BROOKS: Patrick McLain, you may be able to answer part of that. How long was he on deployment we`re not sure. But usually how long are usually the deployments before they get an R&R break?
MCLAIN: It`s probably not going to be any less than four months, more likely six months. And I can probably answer Ebony`s other question. This is an extremely common occurrence in military. This is very hard on young couples, these constant deployments, we`re in seven years of war with deployments every two years for these folks. And a lot of marriages break up and a lot of soldiers come back to find their husbands or wives with somebody else. Unfortunately, it`s a very trying on a family to have these kind of six month to 12 month deployments where they don`t see each other.
BROOKS: It is. I want to go back out to Alexis Weed. Alexis, what do we know about Bethany Decker`s social networking sites? Was she signed up for any? Any activity at all on that front?
WEED: Well, Mike, we`re learning just now through MichelleSigona.com, they`re reporting that Bethany did, in fact, have a Facebook account but it was inactive. And suddenly recently it reappeared online and that someone posing as Bethany has been chatting with her friends.
BROOKS: Wait, wait, wait a minute now. You`re telling me there was no activity but then all of a sudden there is some and somebody posing as her? Could it actually be her, Pat Brown?
BROWN: I mean, theoretically she could have run off and then decided to slowly reappear, but I don`t know. That`s why they can`t say yet whether she`s missing or she`s dead. But I want to point something else out. One reason they might know that this is -- the boyfriend is it not her husband is simply because he wasn`t home five months ago so it`s kind of obvious that he didn`t get her pregnant.
BROOKS: That`s a good point. But again, the timeline is so tough. But, look, being an investigator I don`t blame law enforcement for not giving up too much information because there are so many, so many questions yet to be asked. Dr. Duncan, while they`re out searching in the woods, what kind of things would they be looking for?
DUNCAN: Well, they`d be looking for anything, sort of signs of a struggle. Again, DNA evidence. Most commonly you`re going to see hair follicles, skin follicles or even blood. Then you can take that blood or the hair follicles or the skin, you know, back to the home and actually match those particles with any sort of items that they might have in the home. Then that will identify the person definitively. Now, whether or not that will identify who the other person was, if she had a struggle, remains to be seen.
BROOKS: I want to go back to Emily Babay. Emily, do we know when anyone last saw her at George Mason University?
BABAY: No. That`s something we don`t know. We know she was seen at her apartment on the 29th, but it`s not clear how long before that she was last seen at the school taking classes.
BROOKS: Alexis, when is the last time anyone from her family had seen her, and who discovered her car there in the parking lot?
WEED: We don`t know who discovered her car, Mike. We know that the grandparents went over to her apartment and noticed, well, yes her car was there and she wasn`t and filed that report. And also we`re also just learning now, Mike, that in these search warrants, according to MichelleSigona.com that on January 29th, the husband actually saw Bethany in the early morning hours of that day.
BROOKS: OK. But in this timeline, there`s so many breaks. Was there any sign of a struggle at all, Alexis, in the apartment?
WEED: No, Mike. In fact, inside the apartment, as far as reports are telling us, there was nothing at all to indicate that she had planned to leave, that there was a struggle, that anything was out of place. Everything seemed to be as should be in her apartment.
WEED: Well, you know, having a boyfriend, what does that do? It takes the heat off the husband. That`s for sure. You know, we don`t really know, do we, Patrick McLain, what his role in this is, if any?
MCLAIN: No, we don`t. And again, the fact that she didn`t show up to the airport could have a number of explanations that could be perfectly innocent, if she`s a college student and she works.
BROOKS: But, I`m sorry, if it`s your husband, you`re going to show up at the airport no matter what, even if you have a boyfriend. To tonight`s CNN Heroes.
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AMY STOKES, CHAMPIONING CHILDREN: Are you going to help me do this other one?
In 2003, my husband and I went to Johannesburg and we adopted our son.
Here you go.
HIV/AIDS has really decimated some of these communities.
Seeing all of the children and so few adults to help them grow up, with none of the adults you care about has ever lived past 35, then why would you think you can? Why would you stay in school? Why would you invest in yourself?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tell me something good that happened in school will week.
STOKES: I had to find a way to bring the caring, nurturing effect of other adults for that child to invest in themselves.
I`m Amy Stokes. I use the Internet to create a global village where the mentors and kids can interact face to face on a regular basis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. How are you?
LESLEY YANIV: How was your day at school? Did you work in the garden?
STOKES: That mentor shows up every week, a relationship starts between one person here and one person there, and then that relationship expands.
My mentor is so good, I like him very much.
Because they want to connect with that special someone, they`re going to learn keyboard skills. The skills that they will need to have jobs and to be able to do whatever they need in the future.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At first I was nervous. OK, I love you.
YANIV: Love you, too. Bye.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s part of my family and also part of my life.
STOKES: It`s a bite-sized opportunity to change the world. And there`s no commute.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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BROOKS: And now a look back at the stories making the headlines this week.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you are holding my daughter, please let her go because I`m not going to stop looking until I find her and I will find her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The person that she thought was 14 years old is not 14 years old.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She may be with an Internet predator.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s likely a child sexual predator posing as a 14-year-old boy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s my baby. She`s my oldest daughter and please, I beg you to let my daughter go.
GRACE: They always say we think it`s a runaway then the girl always turns up dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Detectives are swarming the place.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have enough information to lead us to believe that she could have been buried there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Detectives strongly believe that the body of Dawn Viens is hidden, buried underneath that concrete flooring.
UNDENTIFIED MALE: We believe she`s there.
GRACE: This guy thought he was never going to get caught.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They basically hauled away the floor. It`s all gone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-five-year-old Valerie Butler at the bar with a man police are calling a person of interest. The missing woman leaving with the man she was with at the bar and another man trailing behind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police have just announced a body has been found. Is it 25-year-old missing Missouri woman, Valerie Butler?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`ve got to look at everything. Our main thing is we want to locate Bethany.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No one has spoken to Bethany.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s very out of the ordinary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No sign that she packed bags.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I haven`t heard from her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Or had plans to leave.
GRACE: Why can`t he get back to the U.S.? His wife is missing. She`s carrying his baby.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s out in the sticks in Afghanistan.
GRACE: So?
CHARLIE SHEEN, ACTOR: I don`t believe myself to be an addict.
GRACE: Drunken coke-fueled rampage.
SHEEN: I really don`t.
GRACE: Suitcase of cocaine.
SHEEN: I`m under the influence of -- of you.
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BROOKS: Tonight, let`s stop to remember Major William Hecker III, 37- years-old from Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was awarded the bronze star, purple heart and combat action badge. He graduated from West Point, a literary scholar and English professor. Remembered as a renaissance man. He loved good wine and baseball. His favorite team was the St. Louis Cardinals. He leaves behind parents Nancy and William Jr., a retired army colonel. His brother, John, a marine pilot. His widow, Rachel, and four children. William Hecker III, a true American hero.
Thank you to all of our guests and to you at home. See you tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m. sharp Eastern. Until then, stay safe.
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