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Nancy Grace
Newborn Twins Found Dead in Mother`s Car Trunk
Aired January 13, 2012 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEAN CASAREZ, GUEST HOST: We begin tonight with breaking news. Live to Iowa. A 22-year-old woman shows up at her shift at a convenience store. She`s looking beautiful. You see, she`s pregnant with twins. But when she comes back just two days later, an employee notices she doesn`t look pregnant anymore. Well, that co-worker called police. Police questioned the mother-to-be, Jackie Burkle. But what police find next just shocking, two newborn girls allegedly murdered.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Heartbreaking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shocking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Discovery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two newborn.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two newborn twin baby girls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Murder in the first degree.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Found dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two counts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are two counts.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The discovery of the newborns inside the trunk of this car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Allegedly belonging to the baby`s own mother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She didn`t intend for the kids to live.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Burkle`s co-worker called police.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Investigators now believe the children`s mother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This woman...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This woman...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This woman...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is responsible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They noticed Burkle no longer appeared pregnant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Burkle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gave birth to twin daughters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you`d hope that the people with troublesome or unwanted pregnancies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charged with two counts of murder in the first degree.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would understand that there are options.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Facing a mandatory life sentence in prison.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They do believe these were premeditated crimes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Good evening. I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session" on the trueTV network, in for Nancy Grace. Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
A shocking discovery, two newborn girls found dead in the trunk of their mother`s Capri. Prime suspect? You got it, the mother!
Let`s go straight out to Joe Gomez. He is the senior investigative reporter from KTRH Newsradio joining (INAUDIBLE) Joe, what happened?
JOE GOMEZ, KTRH: Well, Jean, 22-year-old Jackie Burkle was pregnant with twin girls. Jackie apparently worked at a local grocery store. And whenever anybody would ask her if she was expecting, she denied it. Then one day, Jackie showed up to work, and her co-workers noticed something was different about her. She had lost a lot of weight. She was no longer pregnant.
Thinking something was amiss, somebody called the police. And when they arrived at Jackie`s home, they made the gruesome discovery, her two newborn baby girls found dead in the trunk of her car!
CASAREZ: All right, everyone, we`re taking your calls. I want to go to Alexis Weed, investigative reporter for Nancy Grace. Let`s start from the beginning. She worked at a convenience store, a grocery store. She`s 22 years old. She`s just starting her life. She graduated from high school in 2008. So on Thursday, she shows up to work very pregnant, right?
ALEXIS WEED, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Right, Jean. She shows up for work. She`s clearly pregnant. As Joe Gomez said, she had talked to co- workers, so we`re hearing, and said that -- oh, yes, she denied that she was pregnant. Then, Jean, she doesn`t work on Friday. She returns to work for her shift, which we believe started at 6:00 o`clock in the morning, and a co-worker notices, Wow, this girl doesn`t look pregnant anymore.
CASAREZ: Wow. So this person then calls the police. Alexis Weed, what happens after that? The police are called. What do they do?
WEED: Right. The police go over to her home. They do a welfare check on Burkle. Then Burkle says -- well, she agrees that she`ll go to the hospital. They said, Have you been pregnant? Did you deliver babies? She says, well, she`ll agree to go to the hospital for a blood test. Jean, the blood test showed that this woman had been recently pregnant.
CASAREZ: All right. Well, that`s a big one right there. Joe Gomez, going back to you, what about an autopsy and a cause of death of these two twin baby girls?
GOMEZ: All right, now, Jean, medical examiner is running several tests on these two little angels. We don`t know exactly the cause of death yet until some results come back in. That could take anywhere from three to six weeks.
CASAREZ: All right, everybody just joining us, two twin baby girls, newborns, born -- prosecutors say born alive because (ph) their mother, a 22-year-old young woman, Jackie Burkle, now faces double homicide charges.
So to forensic pathologist Howard Oliver, joining us tonight from Los Angeles. This is telling us that prosecutors are saying these babies were born alive. How can you determine during an autopsy if two babies were born alive, or if they were born deceased already?
HOWARD OLIVER, FMR. DEP. MED. EXAMINER, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: At autopsy, when you examine the lungs, you`ll find that there was air in the lungs, in the alveoli.
CASAREZ: And that tells you right then. So it`s a very easy diagnosis.
OLIVER: Yes, that the babies took a breath.
CASAREZ: To Pat Brown, criminal profiler, author of "The profiler," joining us from Washington, D.C. So these babies, it is believed, were born in the home, the home she shares with her mother. She`s 22 years old. But somehow, Pat Brown, they got into the trunk of the car.
Now, if you were processing this crime scene, what would you be looking for? And we know search warrants have been executed. They have been sealed by a judge. We don`t know what the search warrants say. But what would you be looking for?
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Well, everybody who`s ever had a baby knows that that`s not a clean and neat experience. There`s always a lot of fluids coming out with those babies. So somewhere in that house, there has to be some evidence.
Now, she may have had them in the bathroom. That`s very common. That way she can wash everything down and sometimes do a pretty good job of it. Often, babies are drowned right there in the bathroom, sadly, in the toilet or in the bathtub, or they just smother them. So they probably are going to find evidence because I doubt she`s going to be that great at cleaning every single speck away.
And you know, it`s really sad because some women out there, even though they could give those babies away -- people say, Well, they have these laws, you can given the baby away -- well, they know that. It`s not that they know that. They can give a baby up for adoption, but they don`t want to deal with it. They don`t care about the babies. They just think the babies are an inconvenience and can just be eliminated and they can go back to their regular lives.
CASAREZ: And prosecutors are saying this was intentional homicide, that this young mother, Jackie Burkle, knew full well what she wanted to do, that she wanted to kill them.
The question is, if she killed them, how did she kill them? Back to Howard Oliver, Dr. Howard Oliver, former deputy medical examiner, forensic pathologist. The autopsy was held. A cause of death is pending furthering (ph) chemical and tissue sample analysis.
What does this tell you the cause of death may be, something other than suffocation or breaking the neck, for instance?
OLIVER: The cause of death is most likely suffocation. It`s usually how it happens. But you still have to rule out other causes, like drugs given to the baby or broken bones, like, for instance, like you said, the neck or the back. It`s just preliminaries.
CASAREZ: So you think that even if the cause of death was very certain to be asphyxiation, suffocation, breaking the neck, they still would send it out for tissue and chemical analysis to determine finally and exclusively the cause of death?
OLIVER: Yes, definitely. It`s just like the tests for HCG for the mother to prove that she was actually pregnant. You have to go through all these steps to rule out things, just as you do to rule causes in.
CASAREZ: Dr. Oliver, we`re learning that once they did that welfare check at the home of the mother, that she then consented to go to the hospital to do a blood test, which showed that she had recently been pregnant. So that confirmed what the employee was saying. What is the hormone that they`re looking for, or hormones, of a woman that was most recently pregnant?
OLIVER: They`re looking for human choreonic (ph) gonadotrophin...
(CROSSTALK)
CASAREZ: And in plain English? What is that in plain English?
OLIVER; It`s called HCG. It`s a hormone that`s made by the baby in the placenta when you`re pregnant.
CASAREZ: All right. And it is obviously elevated then for a woman that just had a baby, or twins.
OLIVER: Yes. Normally, it isn`t there at all.
CASAREZ: All right, to Alexis Weed, NANCY GRACE producer. What do we know about this 21-year-old mother, 22-year-old? She lived at home. How many family members lived in that home?
WEED: Right, Jean. We know that she at least shared the home with her mother, as well as other family members. We don`t know who those other family members are. We also asked police whether or not she was home alone at the time that the babies were born. That they wouldn`t tell us at this point.
CASAREZ: To Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, joining us tonight, author of "DealBreakers." She didn`t live alone. She didn`t live with a boyfriend. She lived with her mother. How does the mother not know that she is so pregnant that she could give birth to live twins?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: That`s what I find so fascinating about this story, Jean. One of the things we know about mothers who commit infanticide soon after birth is that during the pregnancy, they deny the fact that they`re pregnant. They do not even want to know that there is a fetus in them.
Pat Brown brought up the fact that these women don`t want to give over the baby and they don`t take advantage of safe haven laws. The reason they don`t do it is they don`t even think they`re pregnant. They don`t process it. So they don`t want to know it. So by the time they give birth, it feels like a thing or two things coming out of them that just have to be thrown in the trash or disposed of.
The big question, as you just brought up, is OK, so Mom doesn`t want to know she`s pregnant. What about Grandma? Where were all the other family members, and why did they collude with her in avoiding and denying this pregnancy?
CASAREZ: Well, Bethany Marshall, with what you`re saying, that she -- she doesn`t want to be pregnant, doesn`t realize she`s pregnant, all of that, then how can she intentionally kill them? You`re saying that that`s an excuse, that she couldn`t have intentionally killed her children.
MARSHALL: I`m saying of course she intentionally killed them, but during the time she was pregnant, she knew -- it`s like disavowal. Disavowal is when you know something`s happening but you deny it at the same time. Say you`re walking down the street, a car careens towards you, you think you`re going to get hit, but a part of you says, Oh, that car`s not going to hit me. That`s disavowal.
So she knew it and didn`t know it. So what happens is, when you disavow a pregnancy, that interferes with all the planning necessary to give the child up for adoption or to take advantage of the safe haven laws. And she probably manipulated her mother into colluding with her and denying the pregnancy.
CASAREZ: Sounds like there`s a defense in there to me.
We`ve got a very special guest tonight. It is Mr. George Parnham. He is a defense attorney out of Houston, Texas. You know the name because he is a very famous attorney representing Andrea Yates, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity for killing her children.
Mr. Parnham, thank you for joining us. How would you defend this woman with the facts we have at this point? Because she took those be babies and we`ll (ph) say she allegedly put them in the trunk.
GEORGE PARNHAM, FMR. DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR ANDREA YATES: Correct. I think what needs to be done is conduct a thorough investigation of this woman`s background, both her mental history, as well as any type of bizarre behavior that might give rise to a suspicion of some type of mental illness. But a very thorough involvement by law enforcement and the psychiatric community needs to take a strong look at this before people rush to judgment on an incomplete fact situation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a heartbreaking discovery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Breaking news. Police make a shocking discovery, two newborn twin baby girls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two newborn baby girls found lifeless.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Found dead inside the trunk of a car.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) the murder charges she was facing in the death of her newborn twins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Burkle was charged with two counts of murder in the first degree, which are class A felonies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And investigators now believe the children`s mother is responsible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A tipster allegedly calls police to let them know a co-worker who appeared pregnant suddenly doesn`t look pregnant at all.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was alone when she gave birth to the twins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did certain acts to make sure that the lives of the newborns were terminated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Burkle`s mother, Natalie Ault (ph), who was in the courtroom, sent this statement. "This is only the beginning of a very long and painful process."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session," in for Nancy Grace tonight. For those of you just joining us -- she was a 22-year-old girl at the beginning of her life, working in a convenience store, not far away from her home, actually, went to the convenience store every day and worked. Her co-workers asked her if she was pregnant. She denied it. She said no, she wasn`t.
But suddenly, she came to work on Thursday very pregnant, didn`t come to work on Friday, came to work back again on Saturday, wasn`t pregnant at all. And one of her co-workers, who we could be calling a hero tonight, in a sense -- he called police because he felt or she felt -- we don`t know who it was at this point -- that something was very, very wrong.
To Alexis Weed, NANCY GRACE producer joining us out of New York. Do we have any idea how those twin baby girls were found dead in the trunk of her car?
WEED: At this point, no, Jean. We know that she gave birth in her home. We don`t know if she was alone or with another family member, another person, at the time of the birth. But we don`t know how they got there.
CASAREZ: You know, this reminds us all, right, of a case that we know very well. Prosecutors in the Casey Anthony case believed that a deceased Caylee Anthony was in the trunk of Casey Anthony`s car.
To Marc Klaas, joining us tonight, president and founder of Klaas Kids Foundation, joining us from San Francisco. Marc, prosecutors are saying this is first-degree murder, it`s intentional homicide. There is a million-dollar bail on this young woman. Why? Why would a young woman not only kill one but kill twins that she`s just given birth to?
MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Well, quite frankly, Jean, I believe we`re looking into the dark heart of a monster. She admitted that she intended to end the babies` lives and was not at any time intending that they would live. So she was carrying a couple of secrets.
She was supposedly carrying the secret that she was pregnant, but she was also carrying the secret that she intended to murder the children as soon as they were born, despite the fact that Iowa is one of 49 states with safe haven laws, meaning that newborn infants can be turned over, no questions asked.
And it`s also a state where she had an option to put the children up for adoption. Those were never considerations for her. Her intent all along was to murder those children. That`s why it`s first-degree murder, and that`s why she should fry in hell for all eternity!
CASAREZ: Which brings us to the challenge of the defense. I want to go to the attorneys tonight, including George Parnham. With us is Alex Sanchez, defense attorney out of New York, and Meg Strickler, defense attorney, joining us tonight out of Atlanta.
To Alex Sanchez. How do you defend her, presumably with the defense of insanity, when not only was there a police station across the street, but she had the sense to take the babies -- alive or dead, we don`t know -- from the house to the trunk the car?
ALEX SANCHEZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I mean, is there anybody looking at this case -- do they not understand that this woman must have had some type of severe emotional breakdown? I mean, it`s obvious on its face. I don`t know if this woman has any type of criminal background. I don`t believe she has any type of criminal background. But any person that has children and then suddenly decided to dispose of their children without any legitimate reason, you know, would indicate some type of, you know, severe emotional breakdown. And that`s going to be the heart of the defense.
But there`s another issue here. Why on earth is this woman being charged with murder right now when the cause of death has not even been revealed by the police? That seems inconsistent to me.
CASAREZ: Well, to Meg Strickler. It seems to as though it`s a very intentional act to take two children that are born alive and kill them, knowing exactly what you`re doing. Mental issues? What about that she just didn`t want the babies?
MEG STRICKLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Oh, no. There`s definitely mental issues here. I agree with Alex completely. But let me point out, when you are arrested, you`re charged by the police. This hasn`t gotten to formal charges with a prosecutor yet. And at that stage, any good defense attorney worth their soul will be working very diligently to get the background of this poor woman and understand what she was going through here.
There`s no way a normal person walking down the street would say, Oh, yes, I`m going to go kill two kids. There`s something going on here. There`s going to be a psychological evaluation done on her as soon as possible and find out what`s going on. Her hormones, if nothing else, were making her extra nuts. That has been proven. We know that with just in general anybody`s pregnant.
And something else is going on here and we need to find out. And I would pretty much guarantee if there`s a good defense attorney involved here, she won`t be formally charged with first-degree murder when this case ends.
CASAREZ: Marc Klaas, I heard you say the word "monster." Why can`t someone intend to kill their children?
KLAAS: Hey, she wanted to -- she said that she intended to kill these children! Defense attorneys live in an alternate universe where you can excuse and justify anything, even the murder of two infants! It`s unbelievable!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The discovery of the newborns inside the trunk of this car might have never been made had Burkle`s co-worker not called police after they noticed Burkle no longer appeared pregnant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If somebody hadn`t have said something, somebody from the public, they probably would have gotten away with it and never would have known.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As the reality started to sink in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will be facing a mandatory life sentence in prison if convicted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have an individual who has taken the life of two newborns.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They respond to the mom`s home, and eventually find not just one but two dead newborn baby girls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Admitted during an interview with police officers that she intended to end the lives of her children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. Burkle indicated that she didn`t intend for the kids to live after they were born.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. The heartland of America, we`re taking you to Iowa tonight, about 20 miles north of Des Moines, Iowa. A 22-year-old young woman -- prosecutors say she murdered her two baby infant twins right after they were born.
I want to go to the callers. Debbie in Alabama. Hi, Debbie.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Jean. Thanks for taking my call.
CASAREZ: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s just so many questions to this case. And just when you get through reporting about one, there`s another one that appears. And it`s so sad. And the co-worker that did report this did such a great job for doing this and -- but my question was, is how much time had lapsed from the time that she had these babies to when that they were found?
CASAREZ: That`s a great question. Let`s go to our forensic pathologist, Howard Oliver, joining us from Los Angeles tonight. Doctor, how can you determine how much time elapsed between when the twins were born and when they were -- I`m going to say allegedly killed because a defense attorney may come in with the defense that they were born deceased already. Can you determine how much time elapsed?
OLIVER: Most likely (INAUDIBLE) in this case will be from the confession of the mother. But you can also tell by body temperature, the way the fluids settle in the body, the stiffness of the limbs after death.
CASAREZ: You know, everybody, here is the timeline so you understand it. On Thursday, this young mother-to-be, Jackie Burkle, went to work at the convenience store. Everything was fine. She acted normally. She wouldn`t admit she was pregnant. Her co-workers had been asking her.
But then on Friday, she doesn`t come to work, OK? She doesn`t have to work. On Saturday, she comes back to work, suddenly a new person, looks very, very different. She`s not pregnant. A co-worker called police, and that`s how this all got going.
I want to go to George Parnham, with us tonight, defense attorney for Andrea Yates. He actually got a jury to find Andrea Yates not guilty by reason of insanity.
You know, I`m -- what about the insanity defense? Because if someone has the state of mind to take infants to the trunk of your car, isn`t that tough to know that you don`t know right from wrong?
PARNHAM: Well, I think we have to take it a step further. Every definition of insanity in the states -- and there are 40-some-odd different definitions -- but they all include the necessity of a severe mental disease and/or defect. Individuals that are mentally ill sufficient to do an otherwise irrational and horrible act can intend to do those acts.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two counts...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two newborn baby girls.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: . of murder in the first degree.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: . found lifeless in the trunk of a car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Found dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Class A felonies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This woman, 22-year-old Jackie Burkle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She didn`t intend for the kids to live after they were born.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The shocking discovery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They do believe these were premeditated crimes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would be facing a mandatory life sentence in prison if convicted.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The death of her newborn twins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who authorities say showed up to work looking pregnant one day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Burkle`s co-worker called police after they noticed Burkle no longer appeared pregnant.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who would want newborn twin girls dead?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez in for Nancy Grace tonight. I want to go to Alex Sanchez, defense attorney. You know, several search warrants have been executed by the Iowa State Police investigating this case. They have been sealed at this point. Now, there need to be exigent circumstances to seal them normally. Why do you think that they are not letting the returns be known?
ALEX SANCHEZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You know, they want to keep a lid on the information that`s being released to the general public. You know, this could be beneficial to the defense, too. What if there was a diary, for example, that this woman had kept in the house in which she outlined exactly what she was planning on doing with those children. Would the defense want that to become public? I don`t think so.
But right now the district attorney wants to keep as much information about this case under their control until it is absolutely necessary and legally required for that information to be turned over to the defense.
CASAREZ: All right. Let`s go to callers. Audrey in Iowa -- Ohio. Hi, Audrey.
CALLER: Hi. My question is, if she didn`t want these babies, why didn`t she just abort from the get-go? Or why didn`t she just give them up right after the birth?
CASAREZ: That is such a good question. To Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, author of the "Deal Breakers," joining us from Los Angeles. She went through -- we don`t know how many months she was pregnant, but it was full term it appears as though.
How could you not want the children and go nine months and then decide after they`re born you`ll kill them?
BETHANY MARSHALL, AUTHOR, "DEAL BREAKERS": Because to abort or to give the children up for adoption would require some planning and thought. This woman did not want to think about what was happening to her. She either denied or disavowed.
And this is why, although I love Marc Klaas, Marc, I have to disagree with you, because when calling her a monster, what you say essentially is she`s a psychopath or a sociopath and then the attorney said severe emotional disturbance, which may imply psychiatric issues.
I think we`re not going to find that she fits either of those classifications. What we`re going to find is a simple garden variety personality disorder and somebody who massively, massively defended against the fact she was pregnant so that she was able to block it out and not even think about it.
So, I mean, I think that is what`s going to come -- what has to really be thought about in terms of either the defense or the prosecution. You cannot rely on insanity because, as George Parnham said, that`s a serious or severe mental defect.
I really don`t think she has a severe mental defect or she wouldn`t be having a day job like she did.
CASAREZ: Marc Klaas, I bet you`re champing at the bit right now to get back at that. Your thoughts.
MARC KLAAS, PRES. & FOUNDER, KLAASKIDS : Well, listen, I respect the world out of Bethany. She makes so much sense. But this is a situation where she said that she intended to end their lives, and she said that -- not at any time did she intend that they would live. She premeditated their demise. She knew this was coming down the track. This is a cold, cold heart.
This is a woman who took two precious young babies and snuffed them and tossed them into the back of her car. As long as society continues to let people like Andrea Yates, people like Casey Anthony, and people like this woman get away with this kind of crime, we`re going to continue to see mothers murdering their babies as opposed to giving them up to the safe haven laws or giving them up for adoption or even, as the caller suggested earlier, aborting them so that you don`t have to face any of those other choices.
CASAREZ: All right. Let`s go to the callers. Courtney in Texas. Hi, Courtney.
CALLER: Hi, Jean. First I would like to thank you for covering Sherry Arnold`s case on your show in hopes to find her. And my question is, is safe haven law being educated in schools like (INAUDIBLE) and sex ed is?
CASAREZ: Well, that`s a good question. Let`s go back to Marc Klaas.
When you talk about the safe haven laws, they`re in every state, almost every state. There was a police department right in front of their home. What can allow the education so a mother can take her baby to a safe haven place, or can this case be differentiated because if you intend to kill, as prosecutors say, you could have every safe haven law on the book and it`s not going to help?
KLAAS: Well, that`s absolutely true. But people need to be aware of these laws. And this is something that should be taught in family classes in the school system. Nebraska and Washington, D.C., are the only entities within the United States that do not currently have safe haven laws.
And in safe haven laws, typically you can take a child to a hospital, you can take a child to a fire station or a police department, turn that baby over, and there will be no questions asked whatsoever.
You will then have saved the lives of children and giving them an opportunity to grow up into safe and productive citizens.
CASAREZ: To George Parnham, joining us tonight out of Houston, will it ever get to a point -- you know, she lived with her mother. We hear there are other family members, at least her mother was there. And she`s young, 22 years old. Will it ever get to a point that a parent watching their child -- we have to presume she realized her daughter was pregnant, that there`s any responsibility on the parent that`s in the home?
GEORGE PARNHAM, FORMER DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR ANDREA YATES: Well, again, that would be an act of rationality. One would certainly expect that that factor would enter into it. But when you`re dealing with an individual who perhaps is -- and we won`t know until she`s thoroughly examined, dealing with an individual who is suffering from a severe mental disease and/or defect, then that person can do certain actions that can be interpreted as being that of a rational individual yet be totally irrational.
And I`d like to -- just one thing to Mr. Klaas said, he brought up the issue of Andrea Yates getting away with the killing of five children and that that will continue on. What does he know about Andrea Yates`s mental condition?
That`s our problem. People take a look at the fact situation, not the entire fact situation, and eliminate the middle issues surrounding the actions of the individual who finds themselves charged.
And the attitude that was displayed in that response, to me, is one of our major problems in dealing with the criminal issue and mental illness in the criminal justice system.
CASAREZ: To Alexis Weed, NANCY GRACE producer, I want to ask you, she didn`t tell the people she worked with that they was pregnant. In fact, she denied it, out-and-out denied it. Do we know anything about her home life? Do we know anything about her mother? Did her mother know? Had she been to a doctor?
We learned through the Casey Anthony trial that Casey did not go to a doctor during the majority of her pregnancy. Her mother testified to that on the stand.
ALEXIS WEED, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Right. We know only that she gave birth at home, Jean. I wish we could tell you more. We`ve been reaching out to the family all day, but we just know that she gave birth there in the home. We don`t know who was there.
But I want to point out, too, Jean, that it took three interviews at least with police for this woman to finally say, yes, well, my two infants, they`re in the trunk of my car, and it was me who did it. It took three times, Jean, over and over she was questioned.
CASAREZ: You know, Alexis, we are just learning more information, that she did talk to police three different times. And this makes it much more of a complicated case for the defense, but what is the headline of what she said in one of those interviews?
WEED: Well, Jean, the headline is -- and the way police put it, is that she intended -- she told them, so they allege, she intended to end their lives all along while she was pregnant.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two newborn twin baby girls found dead in the trunk of a car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can take that child to a safe place to save the child`s life and no questions will be asked.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police make a shocking discovery.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Newborn twins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Found dead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Murder charges.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The heartbreaking discovery.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Inside the trunk of this car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lives terminated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Newborn twin girls dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The children`s mother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 22-year-old Jackie Burkle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Intended to end the lives of her children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Investigators believe these were premeditated crimes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Murder in the first degree.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Newborn twins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Found lifeless.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Inside the trunk of a car.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jackie Burkle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has taken the life of two newborns.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Admitted during an interview with police officers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The babies` own mother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dropped her head and appeared to be biting back tears.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charged with two counts of murder in the first degree.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez of "In Session" in for Nancy Grace tonight. We`re learning more information about a 22-year-old young girl living at home with her mother, pregnant with twins, working at a convenience store.
But she`s off for one day, comes back, she doesn`t look pregnant at all. So one of her co-workers was suspicious, called police. Police went and did a welfare check and we`re now learning tonight that she actually spoke with police three different times.
But I want to go to Joe Gomez first, investigative reporter, KTRH News Radio out of Houston. When police first went to make what is called a welfare check on this young girl, what did they ask her, and what did she agree to do?
JOE GOMEZ SR., INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, KTRH NEWS RADIO: That`s still in the air, Jean. We don`t know exactly what they asked her, but we do know that she agreed to go take a blood test to determine if she was recently pregnant. They found out that she was. Then they interviewed her again, she took them to the crime scene where they discovered her two newborn angelic little girls dead in the trunk.
Then later we found out that she admitted to killing the girls, and she had every intention of doing that while she was pregnant, Jean.
CASAREZ: Alexis Weed, let`s take it a little slower, because she spoke with police a couple of times. The second time she spoke with police -- and do we know, Alexis, was this under oath, was this a formal statement to police that she gave?
WEED: Don`t know if it was under oath, Jean, but we did ask police and they said they believed that all of these interviews were recorded, aside from the welfare check.
CASAREZ: All right. So the second one, what did she say, second go around with police?
WEED: OK. At this point, this is when police say, come with us, come along to the hospital, would you take a blood test? She agrees to take the test. The test is returned positive, yes, she was recently pregnant.
It`s only after then, Jean, that she says, OK, well, here`s the location of these infants` bodies, it`s in the trunk of my car in front of my house.
CASAREZ: All right. So, Alex Sanchez, defense attorney joining us out of New York, what are you going to do about that? She admits -- she not only admits she kills them, she admits she intended to kill them.
SANCHEZ: Well, you know, Jean, one will have to ask how reliable these statements really are. Because what if that medical report comes back that there`s no cause of death that can be determined? Will the defense come back and say, yes, she made those statements, but she made them out of guilt because she gave birth to dead children.
And she felt that she had murdered those children. Is that going to be the defense in this case? It might be if there`s no definitive cause of death.
CASAREZ: Well, to Meg Strickler, our forensic pathologist Howard Oliver said it`s very easy to determine if a child is born alive. So it`s not an issue that`s real complicated medically, scientifically. If she confesses to police and says, I did it, and I intended to do it -- and Meg Strickler, listen to this, she not only said that, she said from the beginning that I was carrying these babies, my intent all along was to kill them when they were born. That`s what she told police.
MEG STRICKLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That is what she told police. That`s what we`re being told. But also Alex Sanchez is absolutely right. Maybe these kids -- the whole time she was pregnant, she says, I want to kill them, because she had a horrendous pregnancy. And then maybe these babies were born at 26 weeks, 24 weeks, 28 weeks, where they were very small, 2 pounds.
So they may have taken a breath and then died. She freaks out. What on earth am I doing with these little 2-pound tiny, smaller-than-my-hand type babies? Throws them in the trunk in a panic. There`s a lot of stuff here that we don`t know about. And I think they were born premature because she didn`t look pregnant and then does look pregnant.
And, you know, how do you lose all that baby weight in two days? You don`t. So I think she wasn`t full term yet. All of these things will come and we will learn about it. And we can`t rush to judgment that she`s a monster. I take severe, severe issue with that.
CASAREZ: But, Howard Oliver, forensic pathologist joining from Los Angeles. It doesn`t matter how many breaths the babies take. If one breath was taken, that`s sufficient. They were born alive.
HOWARD OLIVER, FMR. DEPUTY MEDICAL EXAMINER, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: That`s correct. There will be oxygen in the lungs. And that`s really all you need. The baby legally only has to be about 28 weeks, although they can survive at even 23 weeks, depending on the technology in the community in this area.
CASAREZ: Pat Brown, this is a first-degree murder case. Prosecutors already have charged this as a double homicide. Iowa doesn`t have the death penalty. This would be life in prison. But as a criminal profiler, and putting this case together, who are going to be the most important witnesses you have?
PAT BROWN, AUTHOR, "THE PROFILER": Well, the woman herself and the simple fact that those babies were there and in existence. I want to say I totally support Marc Klaas in everything he said, including the Andrea Yates comment.
She knew what she was doing. I don`t buy that other garbage. We make choices in life. That`s what the law is about. Unless this girl was 9 years old or totally mentally incompetent, you know, she has got an IQ of 30, she knew what she was doing.
She knew enough to get a car and go to work. She knew she was pregnant. She knew she had sex. That`s how she got pregnant. She knew she didn`t use birth control. She knew she wasn`t having her period. She knew her stomach was getting bigger.
Eventually she`ll going to feel those little babies pounding away in there. You have trouble rolling over, you can`t fit in your clothes. Garbage that she did not know she was pregnant.
But she did not choose to deal with it because she didn`t feel like dealing with it. My guess is a severe narcissistic personality disorder. Mother may have the same thing because she doesn`t want to bother with things either.
In other words, I want what I want. I don`t want to be pregnant. I don`t want to deal with it. I don`t want to give babies away. I don`t want to have to pay for an abortion. I don`t want to do any of this stuff. I`m just going to have those babies and get rid of them.
That is a severe personality disorder. And the woman made a choice. She`s 22 years old. She killed her babies willfully. That is against the law. That deserves a homicide charge if I`ve ever seen one.
CASAREZ: You know, you said an important word there, choice. She made a choice. She made a choice to take the babies to the trunk of the car, to -- I think that`s the biggest fact that`s working against her.
We want to remind everybody, though, that Andrea Yates was found not guilty by reason of insanity in a court of law.
But to Marc Klaas, president and founder of Klaaskids, with this particular case, the fact that the babies, brand new newborn babies, that prosecutors have shown through an autopsy were born alive, she put them in the trunk.
KLAAS: It`s unbelievable. And I can`t believe the revisionist history that the defense attorneys are already engaged in, suggesting that these babies were born dead when everything we know tells us otherwise.
But I`d quickly like to address what I know about the mind of a killer because I`ve sat in a courtroom for six months listening to defense attorneys deconstruct the last two hours of my child`s life day after day after day.
They brought their psychiatrist, they brought their psychologist. But in the end -- in the end, the jury didn`t believe it. They sentenced him to death and that`s what these kinds of people deserve.
CASAREZ: All right, Marc Klaas.
And tonight, "CNN Heroes."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUSTIN CHURCHMAN, CNN HERO: To give someone a home, it is from your heart and it`s to their heart.
You literally change their life forever. My name is Justin Churchman. I work with an organization called Casas por Christo, and they build houses in Juarez, Mexico.
After I built the first house, I just fell in love with it. It changed my heart and it changed the way I saw the world. It`s an addiction.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He organized a (INAUDIBLE) at 13 years old, led a group of Americans across the border. He built a home and he handed the keys of that home to that family in need.
CHURCHMAN: This is our first house that we built. We met this wonderful lady, and I have just fallen in live with it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): This house has completely changed my life because we are no longer cold.
JUSTIN`S MOTHER: He had a goal pretty early on that he wanted to build 18 houses by the time he turned 18.
CHURCHMAN: And my parents got behind me and supported me. And Casas por Christos supported me. And on my 18th birthday, I completed my 18th house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is absolutely a young wonder. He is changing the world one house at a time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If somebody hadn`t have said something, somebody from the public, that probably would have gotten away with it and never would have known.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our goal is to prevent tragedies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are options.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: So 22-year-old Jackie Burkle allows and agrees to go to the hospital with police to take a blood test. Blood tests show she`s recently pregnant. Then she says to police, you know, I admit, OK, I was pregnant and the bodies are in the trunk. Third time she talks to police, she says, you know what, I killed them, and from the very beginning I wanted to kill them when they were born.
To George Parnham, former defense attorney for Andrea Yates, joining us tonight out of Houston, can you take that confession and make it work for you in a defense?
PARNHAM: Well, you know, really depends on what the defense is, but certainly doing deliberate acts, saying deliberate things that may be inconsistent, can depend on, for instance, the mindset of the person at the time that that person is making that statement or at the time that person is doing that act.
I say in this case that we need not rush to judgment. That we need to take a strong look at the mental issues, if there are any, that exist in the background. This should not turn into a Salem witch trial as emotional and as disturbing and as heartbreaking as it is for those kids.
CASAREZ: It really is. It really is very, very sad. Two young souls should have been able to grow up and live. I want to give Bethany Marshall the last word on all of this.
How do we stop something like this from happening?
MARSHALL: Well, we don`t stop it by non-licensed professionals rendering psychological opinions like almost every panelist on this show. I mean, if we depict her as a monster, then we miss the non-monsters in our society who have severe psychological issues and they may be the ones who could commit an act like this. It is not just the pedophiles and schizophrenics, and maybe the girl living next door. So we have to have greater awareness.
CASAREZ: All right. Tonight, let`s stop to remember Army Corporal Nathan Goodiron, 25 years old, from Mandaree, North Dakota. He was killed in Afghanistan. He loved computers and golf, and hunting, fishing, playing basketball. He leaves behind his parents, Paul and Harriet, his brother Cauly (ph), his wife Eileen, and stepchildren, Jolie (ph) and Alexander. Nathan Goodiron, a true American hero.
Thank you so much to all of our guests and to you at home. We`ll see you Monday night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then, good night, everybody.
END
