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Nancy Grace

Blood Found in Dittmeyer`s Car

Aired April 26, 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. The parking lot of a high-end ski resort, 6:30 AM, police race to the scene to find 20-year-old Krista Dittmeyer`s Nissan Sentra still running, doors wide open, lights on, hazards flashing. But looking inside, police see the car`s not empty. Krista`s 14-month-old baby girl strapped in the back seat, in her toddler carseat, left alone, Mommy gone without a trace.

The night before, Krista calls her mom and dad. Everything`s fine. Eight hours and 16 miles later, her car and baby abandoned in the resort parking lot. Family convinced she`s forced out of the car and forced to leave the baby behind. Cops insist they believe Krista is still alive.

Bombshell tonight. Investigators find traces of blood inside the abandoned Nissan tonight. Where -- where -- is 20-year-old Krista?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The investigation is continuing into the whereabouts and condition of Krista Dittmeyer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A passerby discovers an abandoned baby in the back of a Nissan Sentra.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police just announcing that they have found traces of blood inside Dittmeyer`s abandoned car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The engine still running, but nobody else in the vehicle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If anyone at all remembers seeing her at any point at all, please let us know any details!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Krista Dittmeyer`s car was found here in the parking lot of the Cranmore ski resort.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Inside, her 14-month-old baby girl still alive, found in her carseat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s nothing in her background that would suggest to us that she voluntarily absented herself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone somewhere knows what happened to the young woman.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Meantime, investigators were here on the scene, looking for clues or evidence as to where Dittmeyer may be.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one has come forward and said they saw Krista in that parking lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: And tonight, live, New Orleans. Daddy comes home from the night shift Easter morning to pick up his two little boys. But when he gets there, both boys gone, last seen just before church time, walking the neighbor`s dog. Then both boys and dog vanish into thin air. Breaking tonight -- 24 hours later, one of the boy`s pants and a dog collar discovered near the boy`s home. Tonight, where are the two little brothers?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two young teen brothers disappear on Easter.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Aaronne Russell, Aaronne Mitchell.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The two missing boys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The boys, both named Aaron, seemingly fall off the face of the earth after leaving their dad`s home to walk the neighbor`s dog.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) at all. I called (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don`t return and family calls police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had to call the special diver (ph) unit from the fire department to help me out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The brothers` own father says he finds a pair of shorts from one of his sons and a dog chain around the area the kids go missing, but no sign of his sons.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So they do have diving units out there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An eyewitness says the boys were walking back towards the neighborhood. With over 100 registered sex offenders in an 11- mile radius, questions swirling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight -- 6:30 AM, police race to a high-end ski resort to find 20-year-old Krista Dittmeyer`s Nissan Sentra still running, the door wide open, lights on, hazards flashing. But looking inside, police see the car is not empty. Krista`s 14-month-old baby girl left alone, strapped in the back in a carseat, mommy gone.

Just in as we go air, investigators find traces of blood inside Krista`s abandoned Nissan.

Straight out to Joe Gomez with KTRH. Joe, blood inside the Nissan Sentra? Where? Where in the car is it?

JOE GOMEZ, KTRH NEWSRADIO: Nancy, this is a bone-chilling development. Nobody wanted this to be discovered. I mean, right now the local sheriff says that blood was discovered in the Sentra. We don`t know how much blood was discovered or where it was discovered, but this is a local sheriff saying this. Now, key investigators won`t confirm or deny reports that indicated there was blood in the car. But Nancy, if this is the case, this means that poor Krista could be in real danger.

GRACE: Well, you know, Joe -- put him up! Gomez, I can tell you this much. When a young mother leaves her child, her 14-month-old baby strapped alone in a car seat with the car running and flashers on, I told you last night she`s in trouble. I don`t need blood in the car to tell me something is wrong! Now, Gomez, don`t get me started with me tonight because last night, a male attorney said, Oh, I think she had a rendezvous. Word to the wise. A new mom is not having a rendezvous with a baby strapped in the back seat of the car at 6:30 in the morning, all right? That`s just a news flash, all right?

Something was wrong last night. Something`s been wrong since 6:30 in the morning. And what`s so confusing -- out to you, Bonnie Druker, former crime reporter, joining us tonight -- Bonnie, what I can`t seem to get is a clear timeline. Now, this is a single mom that works as a waitress. She`s got a 14-month-old baby. Let`s see a shot of the baby, Liz. The baby is in the back seat.

What I`m trying to figure out is, did she have to go to work that morning? Where could she have been going? And not only that, this car was found 60 miles away. It suggests to me that she may have been taken and forced to drive to that location. Why would she be out in the car to start with at 6:00 o`clock in the morning, really 5:30 in the morning at best, unless she was going to work?

BONNIE DRUKER, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, that`s why police say that it is a possibility that she was abducted. But Nancy, this was a neighborhood, this was a town that she was used to. She grew up about 20 minutes away. She lived in Portland, which was an hour away, but she had friends there. So it was not out of control that she was actually going there to see her friends. She last spoke to her mom at 8:00 o`clock the night before, and at 6:30, she went missing.

GRACE: Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Bonnie, I was told last night that she spoke to her mother at 10:30 PM.

DRUKER: 8:00 PM. We have to clarify.

GRACE: Well, you know what? You know what? That changes things quite a bit because a lot of time passed between 8:00 PM and 6:30 the next morning.

Not only that, we know the ski resort was closed. Ski season was over. It was also next to an exercise gym, but the gym wasn`t open yet. We also know that that gym was not one of those 24-hour, seven-day-a-week things where you go in with a pass. This was a gym where you had to go in during certain hours, completely different scenario than many of us had first believed.

We also learned during the night, after our show last night, that a pond was drained, a retention pond was drained last night. What do you know about it, Gomez? And don`t start up about her having a rendezvous!

GOMEZ: Nancy, I`m not mentioning a rendezvous. She`s in real danger, by the way. The pond that was drained was located just a few feet away from the car. Right now, investigators say they didn`t find any evidence at all in that pond. But they`re also being very tight-lipped in general about, you know, any kind of new evidence or new leads that they`re following up on, Nancy.

GRACE: Another issue I`ve got, Bonnie Druker, is -- let me see a shot of the black Nissan, Liz. It`s kind of hard to tell. We had a call about this last night. In this shot, it looks like the front driver`s side is crunched in. And I was wondering if -- you know, the scenario where someone intentionally bumps into your car or cuts you off, then you have to get out of the car. Ladies, don`t get out of the car! I`m just wonder if that scenario took place.

But Bonnie Druker, you`re telling me that there is no damage to the car? Are your absolute sure? Because it looks to me like the front left side has a dent in it.

DRUKER: Well, you know, Nancy, I did speak to Kayla (ph), Krista`s sister, today, and she`s the one who said -- you know, she watched the show last night and she said there is no damage to that car. Police aren`t saying at this point.

GRACE: All right. I wish I could figure out where the blood was. I mean, there`s some innocent explanations for blood, but not very many. Also, they say it appears to be blood.

Out to the lines. Phyllis in Florida. Hi, Phyllis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. My comment is, if, in fact, there was an accident, could she have maybe hit her nose on the steering wheel and that could have been a cause for blood?

GRACE: Phyllis, my question exactly because we know she`s pulled over. We see that there`s snow on the ground. Was there ice on the road? Was she out trying to get help and someone took her? Who put on her flasher lights?

And another thing -- to you, Gomez. Do we know if the driver`s car seat had been moved back for, for instance, a male to drive it, as opposed to her? I believe she`s only 5-2.

GOMEZ: Well, that`s right, Nancy. You know, I mean, once again, investigators are not revealing any information. Was the driver`s seat moved back a bit? Was she actually driving the vehicle? These are all questions that investigators refuse to field. I mean, they`re not revealing any new evidence, any new leads. They`ve been very stubbornly tight-lipped about this. They`re keeping the cars very close to their case, Nancy. They say it may compromise the case.

GRACE: Well, we`ve also...

GOMEZ: But you`re right to ask that question.

GRACE: We`ve also learned overnight that they are saying that they have gotten the phone records and that they have been extremely helpful. I can only assume -- out to you Sheryl McCollum, very quickly, crime analyst, director of the cold case squad at Pine Lake PD -- that it`s giving them a timeline. Wouldn`t you think that`s what they mean by the phone records...

SHERYL MCCOLLUM, CRIME ANALYST: No question.

GRACE: ... have been very helpful?

MCCOLLUM: That`s being helpful. But also, who called her and who she called. Nancy, if she was having trouble with that vehicle, she would have been calling for help. No mother with a 14-month-old child drives to a desolate parking lot 50 miles away for help!

GRACE: No, they don`t, Sheryl McCollum. Another piece of the puzzle, as we have learned, that she was in that area, 60 miles away, the day before. What does it mean? Maybe nothing. But did someone see her there? Was she meeting somebody there? Did she meet somebody on the Internet that turned out to be a predator? We don`t know.

But what I do know is this mother, according to her family, would never have left that little girl, just 14 months old, alone in the back seat strapped in a carseat.

I`m going to go to Marc Klaas, president and founder of Klaas Kids Foundation. Marc, also, police are saying tonight that they have no reason to believe she`s not alive. What does that say to you?

MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Well, there`s no proof. I mean, that`s the thing. There`s no proof that she`s dead. There`s no proof that she`s alive. So one has to assume that she`s alive.

But Nancy, I`d like to point out that in that same region in the Northeast, there have been a couple of similar instances of attractive young woman who have disappeared after abandoning their car on the side of the road. The first one was Maura Murray in Haverhill, New Hampshire, in 2004, and the another one in Montgomery, Vermont, was Brianna Maitland, also in 2004. In both of those instances, the keys were still in the car, the cars were off to the side of the road, and neither of those young girls has ever been found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCOLLUM: Three FBI agents arrived here at the Conway police station, another set of boots on the ground in the frantic search for Krista Dittmeyer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 6:30 in the morning, a citizen saw a vehicle with its flashers on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cops have reportedly collected physical evidence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of those items is Dittmeyer`s car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don`t know if she drove the car or someone else drove the car.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Was Krista Dittmeyer forced out of her car and forced to leave her baby behind?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her abandoned vehicle with the flashers on in the parking lot of a ski resort.

MCCOLLUM: Here in the ground are the tire marks believed to have come from that car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are still looking into whether she was there or just the vehicle was there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her 14-month-old beautiful baby girl strapped to a carseat in the back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the time that the vehicle was found, the ski mountain had closed for the season.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mommy is nowhere to be found.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have searched the vehicle and seized evidence inside that belongs to her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reports investigators have found traces of blood inside Krista Dittmeyer`s auto.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls live. Here are another couple of questions for the cops. First of all -- I`m going to it to you, Bonnie Druker. In the Northeast, there are tolls everywhere. How can you drive from New Hampshire to Maine 60 miles without hitting a toll? And not only that, what about those cameras? Cameras are everywhere, at every red light, on the interstate. Were there no cameras at tolls or along freeways, the way they are in the rest of the country? I mean, are they harvesting all this photographic evidence, these possible images?

DRUKER: Police say there is no video. But Nancy, we just got an e- mail on our BlackBerry from one of the producers, and they were saying that there are actually seven gas stations between Portland and that ski hill. Can you believe that?

GRACE: Yes, I do. That was one of my questions. And I`m wondering, which, if any, were open 24/7 and may have seen her. There are only certain routes between point A and point B. For her to get to that remote area, that ski resort area, from her home, there`s not a whole lot of different routes she could have taken. I`m wondering if they have put that out.

Marc Klaas, you`re a big advocate of involving truckers in the search for missing children. What do you make of this?

KLAAS: Well, I absolutely am, Nancy. And we know that this is a force of more than two million men and women who have constant contact with each other via their CB radios, and they can be a huge advocate. They can be a huge force of first responders in these types of situations.

They could network with each other to see if anybody had noticed that car, had noticed that woman, had noticed that baby, had noticed any kind of unusual activity whatsoever. We could also go back to these gas stations and see if they had any surveillance film that might have caught passing vehicles. That might help put the timeline together, as well.

And I agree with you. There are cameras absolutely everywhere in America these days, and they should be able to help put together a timeline using those technologies.

GRACE: We are taking your calls. Out to Patty in Texas. Hi, Patty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. And God bless you for all your work.

GRACE: You know, Patty, I appreciate that. Thank you. What`s your question, dear?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, my question is -- I think I heard that she was in that area the day before?

GRACE: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can`t figure out why she would go back again. And I`m wondering if the police might be checking her FaceBook to see if she was getting messages and maybe somebody abducted her the night before and took her car and left it out there with the baby in it.

GRACE: Excellent question. To Joe Gomez, KTRH. Joe, what do we know? Is she on FaceBook? Is she on Twitter? What do we know?

GOMEZ: We know that she does have a FaceBook page, Nancy. And I`m going to tell you something. These are unconfirmed reports right now, but we know that she posted on her FaceBook page about a few -- about -- sometime in April that her car had been broken into, and she had been getting very harassing phone calls from somebody, some stranger. Now, these are unconfirmed reports, Nancy. This is just what we found on the FaceBook page. We couldn`t find any police reports to substantiate that claim. But it`s something that`s out there at least, Nancy.

GRACE: OK, take a look at this. Look at this post. "Definitely come visit Friday. We will be in Conway in the evening to pick Shanell (ph) up at 4:00." OK, hold on. Hold on. Bonnie Druker, where is that in relation to where her car was found?

DRUKER: That is a very good question, Nancy.

GRACE: Let`s see a map, Liz.

DRUKER: That is a very good question, Nancy...

GRACE: So exactly where was her car found?

DRUKER: Her car of found in the parking lot of the ski resort.

GRACE: Right. Yes. I think we`ve established that pretty well! But it`s in Conway. And what was the day that she went missing?

DRUKER: They say she went missing at 6:30 that morning. I mean, it could it have been anywhere between...

GRACE: Day, day, day, D-A-Y, day that she went missing.

DRUKER: Right, but it could have been anywhere from the time she spoke to her mother at 8:00 PM Friday until 6:30 Saturday morning.

GRACE: OK. Right there -- listen, Sheryl McCollum. She`s saying she`s going to be in Conway Friday evening. She goes missing Friday evening. Her car is found 6:30 AM in Conway. How do I know she ever even went home?

MCCOLLUM: Exactly. It sounds to me like she was there and her car had stayed there. But again, Nancy, what they need to determine is who took that car there because you have an eight-hour period of time that somebody could have kidnapped her, hidden her. The car is still running, the lights are still working, the flashers are still working. The car wasn`t there more than four hours.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A young mom is missing and...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Missing without a trace.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened to 21-year-old Krista Dittmeyer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I believe she`s out there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators here on the scene looking for clues or evidence as to where Dittmeyer may be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-year-old Krista Dittmeyer has disappeared.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She last spoke with her mother Friday night, a conversation that didn`t seem unusual.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything was OK. Everybody said that Krista didn`t seem distraught or anything like that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just hours later, her car was found in this parking lot.

GRACE: The engine is running. The flashers are on. The door is open.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her sleeping daughter inside.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police believe Krista`s disappearance is a crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls. Take a look at Krista Dittmeyer, a 20-year-old young mom working to support her daughter. According to police, the baby`s father not a suspect, was in a different area at the time of the incident. Missing, her car found on the side of the road, hazards on, lights on, door open, baby strapped in the back of the car.

We are taking your calls. Out to Sandy in Illinois. Hi, Sandy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.

GRACE: Hi, dear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My mom and I watch -- we watch your show every night.

GRACE: Thank you, dear. Thank you very much. And thank you for calling in. What`s your question?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you just actually answered it. We were wondering if, you know, the baby toddler had -- if there was any kind of custody issues or anything like that. And my second question was, did they find any footprints around her vehicle?

GRACE: You know, that`s a great question because it was snowy. To Bonnie Druker. What do we know? I understand the car was parked on pavement, but there was plenty of snow. And I`m also curious as to what led them to drain that pond.

DRUKER: Well, the pond is very close to the parking lot, so that`s why they drained the pond. And as we mentioned already, there was nothing found in that pond.

GRACE: We are taking your calls. Straight back to Joe Gomez, KTRH. I understand that the only toll road in the area would have been I-95, and she would not have taken that to get to Conway. No major roads between Portland and Conway, all local routes, and no photographic surveillance.

GOMEZ: It`s a mystery, Nancy. It truly is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her car is up there at that ski resort. That puzzles me. It seems like to me it might have been dumped.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If there are security cameras in that parking lot that might help the police, that would certainly be valuable, if they were on. It might not be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What happened to 20-year-old Krista Dittmeyer?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her car and infant daughter were found in a parking lot at the base of Cranmore Mountain Resort in Conway.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Aerial and ground searches are underway.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Investigators were on the scene, draining a small pond to look for evidence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re going to follow the evidence wherever it leads us.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police filed search warrants for two vehicles including Krista`s.

KAYLA DITTMEYER, SISTER OF MISSING YOUNG MOM, KRISTA DITTMEYER: She never abandoned her. So we knew something -- someone has taken my sister somewhere.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: As well as cell phone records.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have received records from the phone carrier and we are forensically analyzing those records.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Everyone is waiting for answers.

DITTMEYER: The only thing to do right now is to keep praying.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls live. Unleash the lawyers. Joining us tonight, famed attorney out of San Francisco, John Burris. Also with us, defense attorney, Atlanta. Also with us tonight Marc Klaas, president and founder of KlaasKids Foundation.

Interesting, to you, Ray Giudice, the Attorney General`s Office has joined in the investigation. Why?

RAY GIUDICE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Resource, Nancy. This is a very small town. This gives them statewide resources, forensic evidence, K9 dogs. Anything they need the state can give.

My understand is, the FBI has gotten involved as she drove intrastate from Portland, Maine, to New Hampshire so the FBI may have jurisdiction. That brings even more resources.

GRACE: And to you, John Burris, joining us out of San Francisco tonight, police have stated that the father of the baby is not a suspect. That he was not in the area during the timeframe.

You know, is that a ruse? Are they saying that -- have they said that in past investigations when they want a potential suspect to go under the radar, to think they are not a target?

JOHN BURRIS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Sure. I mean I think that`s a smart thing to do by the police. I mean you don`t want to telegraph your issues about the scope of the investigation around him. I think you need to know more about what was the relationship, and have they had problems in the past, are there any real custody, was there any violence of any kind.

I think ultimately the real test here is going to be in those telephone records and who she called within the last eight to 10, 12 hours. That`s going to give you a real clue about --

GRACE: Burris. Burris. Burris. It seems to me that you are in a way putting blame on her. By saying --

BURRIS: No, no blame on her. I`m not putting blame on her.

GRACE: She hooked with the wrong kind of person. And now this is what happened.

BURRIS: No, no. I`m not putting -- I`m not putting blame on her. I mean she`s clearly a victim here. But you`re trying to find out where she is. And I`m just saying the telephone record is a real clue. You have blood in the car. You don`t know how much blood is in the car. But there`s not a question -- there`s nothing she would have done that would cause her to be killed or even kidnapped in some way.

So you`re trying to find out who did it and the way to do that you got to look back at the records, you`ve got to look who she`s been with over the last week or so, just to get some sense about why she was there.

That`s all what I`m really talking, it`s a way to backtrack to see if you can identify who are the people who might have been that she`s been involved with. That`s fundamentally the most important thing you have to do.

GRACE: And to Dr. Doug Bremner, professor of psychiatrist and radiology, author of "Before You Take that Pill." Dr. Bremner, not only a medical doctor, but a psychiatrist as well.

Doctor, thank you for being with us. Doctor, what is so important about her Facebook and Twitter and why did police always look at husband, boyfriend, ex, live-in to start with? Why do they look at them first?

DR. DOUG BREMNER, MD, PROFESSOR PSYCHIATRY AND RADIOLOGY, AUTHOR OF "BEFORE YOU TAKE THAT PILL": Well, you always got to rule those out as suspects, Nancy, and the best way to find out what a person is doing is to go on their Facebook and Twitter page. That`s where people go on and make appointments to meet each other later, and say where they are.

I mean Twitter is a great way to find out where somebody is. I just tweeted tonight that I`m sitting on the NANCY GRACE SHOW live and we`re talking about Krista Dittmeyer.

GRACE: Well, you know, I was wrong on that Facebook message she left. That was from a couple of months ago. I didn`t see the date down there at the bottom. It wasn`t this Friday. So that`s not going help us at all.

To Dr. Howard Oliver, former deputy medical examiner, forensic pathologist, joining us tonight out of L.A.

Just take a look -- I believe it was either Phyllis or Patty that called in tonight -- if she had had a fender bender, and bumped her nose. Very often with a slight bump to the nose you have profuse bleeding, do you not?

HOWARD OLIVER, FMR. DEPUTY MEDICAL EXAMINER, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Yes, that`s true. And the pattern would be in droplets or pools rather than say splatter if she had been struck.

GRACE: Why is it that a nose bleed is so profuse?

OLIVER: The arteries and veins in the mucusa, the nose, there are a lot of them to warm up the air as you breathe and they`re close to the surface.

GRACE: I want to go now out to Pat Brown, criminal profiler, author of "The Profiler," joining us out of our nation`s capital.

Pat, what do you make of it?

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER, AUTHOR OF "THE PROFILER": Well, I just don`t go with the fender bender kind of thing. If she was on the side of a highway that would make sense she would be knocked off the road, she would put on her hazard lights. Sure.

But who would knock her into a parking lot? And if you`re sitting in a parking, what do you need hazard lights for? Who`s going to run into you?

So I still think that that car was dumped there. I don`t believe that she was in that car in that parking lot.

GRACE: Then what`s your theory?

BROWN: I think something happened somewhere else and they dumped the car to get her away from them. And left the hazard lights on because the baby was in. And I think somebody did something to her but didn`t know what to do with that baby. So they just sort of moved the baby some place else.

GRACE: To Bonnie Druker, were cadaver dogs or bloodhounds brought in?

BONNIE DRUKER, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: They were brought in initially. And now they are not going to be brought in at this point. What we do know is that there are going to be three FBI investigators. They joined the team as of 2:00 this afternoon.

GRACE: To Tracy Sargent, K9 handler, search, rescue and recovery specialist.

Tracy, thank you for being with us. What are the common search procedures in cases like this with scent dogs?

TRACY SARGENT, K9 HANDLER, SEARCH, RESCUE AND RECOVERY SPECIALIST: Yes, Nancy. Dogs can be utilized in this situation in a number of ways. Commonly used as bloodhounds but other breeds can be used to follow the track of the missing person and in this case if Krista did, in fact, bump her nose and became disoriented and wondered away from the vehicle, dogs can be used to track her and hopefully find her in the area.

Another way that they can be used is area search dogs, let`s say, because the time and weather and other conditions, the track cannot be found by the dogs, area search dogs can be brought in and search an area. Not only can tracking dogs give us a direction of travel, of where Krista may have gone, but also they can tell us if the scent is still there.

So in this case if she was picked up in another vehicle, the dogs can tell us, I have scent here and I don`t have scent any longer. So that`s just as important not only knowing where the subject or the missing person is but also --

GRACE: Right.

SARGENT: -- if they are still in the area or has left the area.

GRACE: Or, even more importantly, I guess, Joe Gomez, if there was no scent at all around the car which would tell us more likely than not that she didn`t drive the car in that area and the dogs just hit on the car and it stopped right there.

For those of you joining us, Gomez, give us a recap.

JOE GOMEZ, REPORTER, KTRH RADIO: That`s right. It happened over the weekend. You know, this beautiful single mother, 20-year-old Krista Dittmeyer disappeared from her car in a ski resort parking lot.

Police arrived at her car. They thought it was abandoned but they peered inside, Nancy, and they discovered a beautiful 14-month-old baby girl all alone. And they were trying to find Krista.

GRACE: Everyone, there is a $3,000 reward for information. Take a look at Krista Dittmeyer in this photo. There you see her, she`s 5`2", only 117 pounds, long brown hair. Beautiful brown eyes. She was last wearing blue jeans and a designer shirt with ruffles with a black sweater. Her 14-month-old daughter (INAUDIBLE) now with relatives.

Tip line 603-356-5715.

Back to Tracy Sargent, K9 specialist. You see in the shot with the Nissan, snow is all on the ground. How, if at all, does that affect the work of bloodhounds or cadaver dogs?

SARGENT: Yes, Nancy. Weather does play a factor, and the idea that scent is a living organism, that it is born, it has a lifecycle and it died out. In snowy conditions, these conditions are actually pretty good for dogs. So the scent can, quote, "stay alive" for a longer period of time versus a hot, dry summer day. Scent will die off much more quickly.

Now in reference to cadaver dogs, cadaver dogs themselves they are going to be looking for human remain scent and that can be a number of things from blood to cadaver fluids, a body or body parts. Snow in itself does affect scent and in this case human remains.

So the scent itself will be a little bit more difficult for the dogs to find, however scent cannot be covered up by a dog scent. So --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police in Conway say this is a criminal investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a serious crime in a small community.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Dozens of tips flooding the phone lines here.

DITTMEYER: It could never happen. It`s surreal.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Two brothers just 13 years old were excited for Easter Sunday, enjoying spending time with one another.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s the two missing boys.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: That morning they head out to walk a neighbor`s dogs. But they never return. An eyewitness reportedly claims they saw the two brothers both named Aaronne in the water near Lincoln Beach.

But the brothers both got out and were walking back towards the neighborhood. Family says the brothers have never run away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The police they searched.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`ve been looking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And find a dog chain and a pair of shorts that belong to my sons.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police believe the boys aren`t in the water. What happened?

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: To Michael Board, WOAI. Michael, the two little boys just before church time, Easter morning, they asked a neighbor, can we walk your dogs? The neighbor says yes. They`re never seen again. So far we know that one --

MICHAEL BOARD, REPORTER, WOAI NEWSRADIO: Vanished.

GRACE: -- dog collar and one of the little boy`s pants have been found. Now I`m not impressed at all by the fact that they were near water because this water is only about two feet deep for blocks and blocks and blocks. I don`t think that`s the answer.

BOARD: No, it`s not. And Lake Pontchartrain, it`s a very shallow lake. You have to go out several -- if you think about city blocks, you would have to go out several city blocks before you can get to an area where it would be deep. This is not like going swimming in the ocean where there`s a rip curl or a rip tide that would have pulled them out.

What I know today, Nancy, though, police really stepping up their efforts to look for these 13-year-olds. There were helicopters in the sky, boats were out there. They`re using sonar to look under the water. And cadaver dogs on the shore line. Also officers going door-to-door in that area.

Nancy, I looked on the Louisiana sex offender registry online. I could count at least nine registered sex offenders right there in that small area where the boys were last be -- where the boys were last seen. You know police are checking in with them today.

GRACE: You know, that`s a good question.

Joining us tonight, and taking your calls, is a mother of the little boy, Karalynn Russell is with us.

Miss Russell thank you for being with us.

KARALYNN RUSSELL, MOTHER OF MISSING BOY, AARONE RUSSELL: Thank you for having us.

GRACE: Miss Russell, I understand that the boy`s father had to go out looking, he could not get the police to come out looking and he, in fact, is the one that found his son`s pants and the dog collar, is that right?

RUSSELL: Yes, ma`am.

GRACE: Why?

RUSSELL: I felt that -- I really truly feel that at that point they left too early. It was still daylight for an hour, two hours. So our family and friends pretty much continued searching, we never stopped. We went further than, I believe, the local team -- New Orleans Police Department went out because his father got to the point where, you know, we didn`t feel like they died or searched the water thoroughly so he went in as well as one of his best friends went out and searched the water themselves.

GRACE: Well, thank the Lord that they did because so far that`s the only clue that we`ve got in the search for two little boys who vanished Easter morning just before church time, walking the neighbor`s dog.

Think about it. Easter morning. The father is working an overnight shift. He`s a deejay. He comes home to get the boys to take them to Easter festivities. Long story short, the little boys are gone. Aaronne Mitchell and Aaronne Russell, both gone. This happens in broad daylight, Easter morning.

To Debra Mark with 790 KABC, what do you know, Debra?

DEBRA MARK, ANCHOR, TALKRADIO 790 KABC: Well, Nancy, not only are the two boys missing we haven`t heard anything about them, but what happened to the two dogs? The two dogs were with them as well. And those dogs have been in the area since, I believe, November. So you would think that they would know how to get back home. So we have two boys missing and the two dogs.

GRACE: And if the boys had disappeared in the water which there`s no evidence that they did at all, the dogs would be there.

And Liz, please show me the water shots again.

You can see the water is two feet or less, see the dog and the people? That`s the water level. Way, way, way far out. Not at all a threat to these two boys.

To Marc Klaas, weigh in, Marc.

MARC KLAAS, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, KLAASKIDS FOUNDATION: They didn`t drown simply because the dogs are missing, too, and how do you drown dogs? Secondly, they weren`t picked up by a registered sex offender. If I were a registered sex offender the last thing I`d want to do is mess with two 13- year-old boys.

Perhaps there`s a mine shaft, perhaps there`s some kind of a hole that they went down to explore and weren`t able to get out of. But I think you can eliminate those other two possibilities pretty quickly and easily.

GRACE: Take a look at all the sex offenders in that area. Far, far more than just nine. Look at this. All the sex offenders noted in red on your map.

Joining us is Michael Gast, the founder of the National Academy of Police Diving. He`s joining us out of Davies, Florida, tonight.

Michael, thank you for being with us. Weigh in on the dive search for the boys in the shallow water.

MICHAEL GAST, FOUNDER, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF POLICE DIVING: Well, there`s really no need for a dive search if it`s less than two feet but even two feet of water is capable of hiding bodies. There`s probably something that went wrong or somebody has gotten a hold of those children but my biggest question would be the dogs but if you wanted to conduct a search you`d have to do like systemic one and you have to walk through the water.

GRACE: So you wouldn`t dive at all. You would walk through it systematically like shoulder to shoulder a net fanning out or across? Is that how you would do it?

GAST: Probably shoulder to shoulder. Because there`s a lot of unknowns here. You have to have a starting point. And my starting point would probably be where the shorts were found and the dog collar.

GRACE: Exactly.

Out to the lines, Lindsay in New Hampshire. Hi, Lindsay.

LINDSAY, CALLER FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE: Hi, Nancy, you are my idol. How are you?

GRACE: Well, I certainly don`t deserve that but thank you very much.

LINDSAY: You are.

GRACE: Well, I`m good but I`m trying to not imagine going home from work and finding both of my children gone which is what happened to this father on of all days Easter morning.

Lindsay, what`s your question, dear?

LINDSAY: My question is they said there`s multiple sex offenders around that area. Now are they going to take that leash and those pants and at least try finding some DNA and questioning all those people?

GRACE: Excellent question. I imagine that the offenders in the immediate area have already been questioned.

What do we know, Michael Board, about trying to get any DNA off the pants that were found?

BOARD: Yes. That is one of the things the police are looking in. They will not confirm that the leash and the pair of pants that were found at the shoreline are actually the leash belonging to the specific dogs.

GRACE: Well, they don`t have to, because the family told me it was. And just so you know, there`s 107 -- 107 sex offenders, registered sex offenders right in that area. 107. Why aren`t they in jail? Why are they in these little boys` neighborhood? Why?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Two young teen brothers disappear on Easter. The boys both named Aaronne seemingly fall off the face of the earth after leaving their dad`s home to walk the neighbor`s dogs. They don`t return and family calls police.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The brother`s own father says he finds a pair of shorts from one of his sons and a dog chain around the area the kids go missing, but no sign of his sons.

An eyewitness says the boys were walking back toward the neighborhood. With over 100 registered sex offenders in an 11-mile radius, questions swirling.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: To Dr. Howard Oliver joining us out of L.A.

Dr. Oliver, yes/no, as best as you can, in this warm weather, in New Orleans, at Lake Pontchartrain -- it`s a lake, you don`t have a current. If they had drowned, wouldn`t their bodies have risen to the surface by now?

OLIVER: The bodies should have risen to the surface by now, true.

GRACE: And, again, it`s about two feet deep. Oh, so over a block. And then it dips off to about eight feet. But still, that doesn`t explain the disappearance of the dogs.

John Burris, Raymond Giudice. First to you, Burris, weigh in.

BURRIS: Well, I think that the kids very well could have been kidnapped by a sex offender. They could have been lured into their house by something very enticing and I think the dogs as well.

I don`t think that they drowned because that wouldn`t make any sense for the dog. And I think a sex offender could have -- or anybody could have lured them into their house and took advantage of them there.

GRACE: OK. Ray?

GIUDICE: I`m going to agree with John. And 30 years ago, Nancy, a very small man by the name of Wayne Williams abducted and murdered --

GRACE: He sure did, Ray.

GIUDICE: Thirty-two young men almost identical in age and physical description to these two young men. I never thought it could happen but he did it.

GRACE: The Atlanta serial killer. You`re absolutely right. And probably more than what he was convicted.

GIUDICE: Yes, that`s how many -- that`s right, Nancy.

GRACE: Everybody, tip line 504-8212-2222.

Let`s stop and remember Army Specialist Eric King, 29, Vancouver, Washington, killed Iraq. Awarded Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Combat Infantry Badge. Free bird. Loved living on the edge, snowboarding, making other people laugh. Leaves behind parents Eddie and Donna. The family called her Mama Bug. Sisters Dawn and Josie. Brother, Buster. Widow, Tracy. Daughters, Ashlin and Shaylin.

Eric King, American hero.

Thanks to our guests but especially to you for being with us. And a special good night to Georgia friends, Reverend David Wofford (ph), his wife, teacher, Sarah, and his mother and dad, Jane and John.

And a special happy birthday to Jane. Isn`t she beautiful?

And tonight, the Adaptive Learning Center for Special Needs Kids having a spring event, April 28th, 7:00 p.m., Eastern, dinner, dancing, Chestain Horse Park, Marietta, Georgia. Go to adaptivelearningcenter.org. Click on spring soiree.

Liz, let`s see our guests one more time. Let`s tell Jane happy birthday.

Happy birthday, beautiful.

She raised a preacher, everybody.

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

END