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Nancy Grace
Hospital Camera Catches Mother Trying to Choke Infant
Aired March 19, 2012 - 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, Orlando, Florida, Hospital South. A young new mom tries to strangle her newborn baby six times. Repeat, six times there in the hospital.
Bombshell tonight. It`s all caught on tape. That`s right, Mommy, you`re busted!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Florida police have arrested a woman allegedly caught on tape trying to strangle her baby girl in a hospital.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alexis Felton entered her 11-month-old daughter`s pediatric intensive care unit here at Florida Hospital and tried to choke the life out of her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: According to Felton`s arrest affidavit, the attempted murder was captured by surveillance cameras.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators say Felton disconnected the wires connected to the child. She then reached down to choke the infant not once but six times. The baby kicked and was choking and gasping for air. But on her fifth attempt, the child reportedly went limp and monitors alerted nurses.
Cops say the only time the mom stopped was when she thought someone was entering the room. After police arrived, they said Felton told them she didn`t want her baby to live in pain anymore.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And tonight, a mother of five trying to make extra money, looking for recyclables, finds the usual cans, bottles, trash, and a plastic ziplock bag containing a child`s six severed fingers! Tonight, where`s the child that goes with the fingers?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Passing by and decided to check these dumpsters near the entrance to the housing complex.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I look for bottles and cans to recycle and I give them away to the old people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She says she found a few recyclables but also...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I found a little plastic ziplock bag, and I thought were ginger root and starting to dry out. I threw them in my purse.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gina (ph) went home. Then later that day, she took the ziplock out of her purse.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I was (INAUDIBLE) and I just -- I knew for a fact that those were fingers when I seen the fingernails.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Turns out they were human fingers that Gina found in the dumpster.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were preserved, also, in the ziplock bag.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police sources say there were six fingers, and based on lab results, police believe the fingers belong to a little girl about 2-and-a-half to 4 years old.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight, live, Orlando. A young new mom tries to strangle her newborn baby six times. It`s all caught on tape. That`s right, Mommy, you are so busted!
Straight out to Deborah Roberts, news anchor, Florida News Network. Deborah, what happened?
DEBORAH ROBERTS, FLORIDA NEWS NETWORK (via telephone): Well, it turns out she had brought her child in for a respiratory issue, which seemed pretty standard. But it ended up being a case of attempted murder. She was seen...
GRACE: To Natisha Lance...
ROBERTS: ... on videocamera -- I apologize.
GRACE: Go ahead, Deborah.
ROBERTS: No, I think she was seen on video surveillance camera going into the baby`s room and attempting to strangle her six different times.
GRACE: To Natisha Lance on the story. Natisha, explain exactly what we know tonight.
NATISHA LANCE, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: What we know, Nancy, is that this 22-year-old mother goes into her baby`s room, attempts to strangle her six different times. Before she does this, she looks around to see if there`s anyone there.
On the third time, a nurse comes into the room. Nothing seems to be amiss. The nurse leaves the room. You can see the baby kicking, gasping for air, trying to cry out. And on the sixth time, Nancy, is when this baby -- you see her hand on this video reach up to her mother`s hand, trying to get away, again, kicking, gasping for air.
And then the baby goes limp, and then an alarm sounds and that is when nurses in the hospital come to the mother`s aid, come to the baby`s aid. And the mother says, quote, "She`s having another episode."
GRACE: To Dr. Bill Lloyd, board-certified surgeon and pathologist, joining us tonight out of Sacramento. Dr. Lloyd, I recall ICU very well. My twins were in ICU for weeks and weeks and weeks. I don`t understand -- ICU, especially in the neonatal unit, is pretty open. How could the mom have gotten away with this without anyone seeing it?
DR. BILL LLOYD, SURGEON AND PATHOLOGIST: Well, this is the issue with the modern health care system we have now, Nancy. For this 11-month-old child, nearly a year old, brought in with an acute respiratory problem, probably put into a unit with 20 or 30 beds, maybe one or two registered nurses and a handful of orderlies.
And so they have cameras in the rooms and they have telemetry monitoring devices to cover for the absence of these nurses. It`s only when the alarms went off after the baby was choked that the nurses came to the rescue.
GRACE: Everybody, we are taking your calls. Take a look at the young mother, age 22, Alexis Felton, caught on tape right there in the hospital trying to strangle her baby.
Unleash the lawyers. Joining me out of Orlando, Mark Nejame, Orlando, Mark Lippman, Chicago, Jennifer Smetters.
First to you, Mark Nejame. The fact that she said, when nurses came running in there, Uh-oh, the baby is having another, quote, "episode" shows me that she had the wherewithal to lie.
MARK NEJAME, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, yes, but that really is irrelevant as it relates to what was really going on in her head. This is a sick woman, without question. But the fact of the matter is there`s a -- you know, history is full of...
GRACE: Why is she a sick woman?
NEJAME: Sorry. Well, you have -- history`s full of infanticide, and we have to find out what the reasons are. You know, was she doing this...
GRACE: No, no! No, no!
NEJAME: ... because her child was a nuisance...
GRACE: No, no! Wait, wait, wait, wait...
NEJAME: Hold on. Was she doing this because...
GRACE: ... wait, wait...
NEJAME: ... the child was a nuisance...
GRACE: No, Mark!
NEJAME: ... or -- or was she mentally disabled?
GRACE: She doesn`t have a history. She has no history. I don`t even know...
(CROSSTALK)
NEJAME: ... she doesn`t have a diagnosed history.
GRACE: ... talking about...
NEJAME: She doesn`t have a diagnosed history. Nobody`s gotten to it yet. You don`t go out in the middle of the hospital and try to kill somebody. If you wanted to kill the child, she could wait until the child was out of the hospital and kill her. She could have strangled the child before the child went into the hospital.
There`s much here which we don`t yet know. Investigation is appropriate. We need to find out what was truly going on with this mother before we jump to conclusions about what was really going on here.
Obviously, it was horrendous. But we don`t know what kind of psychiatric issues are attached here. We need to find out, appropriately so.
GRACE: Are you through?
NEJAME: I was just giving you a shot now. I thought, you know, you wanted to say something.
GRACE: So I`m going to take that as a yes.
To Marc Klaas, president and founder of Klaas Kids Foundation. Let`s deal with the truth, all right? Let`s talk about what really happened. I`m going to go to Marc Klaas and Pat Brown, criminal profiler and author of "Only the Truth."
Pat, in stark contrast to what Mark Nejame just spouted out, there is no long history of infanticide with this woman, all right? This woman acted normally in the hospital. She`s a new mom. And when the nurses came rushing in after her sixth attempt to strangle her child, she immediately lied and said, Oh, the baby`s having another episode -- of the Mommy trying to strangle it, is the only episode I know of, Pat Brown.
So all this about her being ill -- I don`t know anything about that. There`s not one shred of evidence to support that, Pat Brown. But infanticide is extremely common, and not every mom has a mental illness.
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Well, let me jump to conclusions for him. This is hands down Munchausen syndrome by proxy, where a woman gets a thrill out of the power and control she gets when she causes her child to be sick or she kills it.
Either she gets people to rush in and go, Oh, you know, the baby is dying, and poor Mommy -- or there`s an emergency incident, she`s having an episode, she gets lots of attention. And sometimes they go on to kill their child so they get even more attention.
This woman is attempting to either harm her child for attention or murder her child for attention. She`s very, very dangerous. This is a psychopathic female serial killer. And if she has more children, she`ll do it to them, too. Some of them go and kill five, six, seven of their babies because they love the whole process of the child becoming ill or dying of SIDS, and then, you know, she gets a great funeral and then they get pregnant and start all over again.
Very, very dangerous woman. It`s very methodical and premeditated. Munchausen syndrome by proxy hands down.
GRACE: OK, Marc Klaas, president and founder of Klaas Kids Foundation -- of course, the defense lawyers are already tuned up with their usual symphony of obviously it`s a mental illness. Well, obviously, to me, she`s caught on tape trying to strangle her child.
Now, that`s what defense lawyers always say when somebody`s cold busted, all right? They`re insane. If they`re not cold busted, then they say it didn`t happen. All right, I know it happened six times. Marc Klaas, help me out.
MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Well, first of all, we`ve got a situation where defense lawyers seem to live in an alternate universe where there`s an excuse and a justification for everything. And then we have psychiatrists who bolster these claims.
And I think that there`s way too much power sometimes (INAUDIBLE) psychiatrists, and what we see is terrible people get away with very little consequences to their actions. I wish that people could be judged on what they do, not on what other people (INAUDIBLE) motivation for them doing it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Felton`s first appearance was continued, but the judge said the multiple attempted murder charges against her should only be one count.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I find that they`re no different than a person that takes a gun and shoots a person six times. It`s not a different count for each bullet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her aunt and cousin don`t think she deserves to be behind bars.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not something that someone just was evil and they just woke up today and wanted to strangle a kid. That`s not the case!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The case, they claim, stems from years of abuse that Felton herself suffered at the hands of other family members.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was never allowed to play, never allowed to do anything but sit in one chair at all times.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She has been, you know, isolated, mistreated, abused, neglected her entire life!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And these family members believe that`s why Felton lashed out and tried to kill her baby.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Florida Hospital South. These arrest papers indicate she repeatedly choked her baby while in the pediatric intensive care unit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When police detectives came here to the hospital to investigate, they quickly realized all six choking episodes were caught via surveillance camera mounted in the room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At one point, the baby went limp and nurses finally realized something was wrong and rushed in to save her. Family members told me the baby was taken to the hospital in the first place because her mother hurt her at home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m not surprised. It`s been something that`s been going on for a while.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Florida police have arrested a woman allegedly caught on tape trying to strangle her baby girl in a hospital. Police say Alexis Felton was seen on camera attempting to choke her 11-month-old baby, who was in a pediatric intensive care unit, not once but six times.
According to police, after the fifth time, the baby was heard gasping for air and can be seen kicking its legs. Cops say the only time the mom stopped was when she thought someone was entering the room.
Authorities say on the sixth attempt, the baby was unresponsive, but hospital monitors alerted nurses. They rushed in and saved the baby. Felton has been arrested and charged with attempted murder.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Florida police have arrested a woman allegedly caught on tape trying to strangle her baby girl in a hospital.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Entered her 11-month-old daughter`s pediatric intensive care unit here at Florida Hospital and tried to choke the life out of her not once but six times.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then reached down to choke the infant. The baby kicked and was choking and gasping for air. The baby was unresponsive, but hospital monitors alerted nurses. They rushed in and saved the baby.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alexis Felton is on suicide watch at the Orange County jail. Felton has been arrested and charged with attempted murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And she is held without bond.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The baby is now under the supervision of the agency.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was the best course of action for this child, and that really could be even a response to (ph) termination of parental rights.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: She`s on suicide watch? Why is it they always say they`re going to kill themselves, but then they try to kill somebody else?
Back to Deborah Roberts, news anchor with Florida News Network. Deborah, are there any other children? Has this mom been investigated for any other infant deaths?
ROBERTS: No, she has not. She doesn`t have any other children. But she did have one prior incident with DCF in May of last year.
GRACE: What happened?
ROBERTS: The baby was hospitalized for a breathing problem, but the doctor they consulted at that time did not feel the child was being abused.
GRACE: So the child has been treated for breathing problems before.
To Caryn Stark, psychologist. Sounds like the breathing problem -- she`s got breathing problems, all right. She can`t breathe because she`s got a finger necklace. Her Mommy has her hands wrapped around her throat. Caryn Stark, what is Munchausen by proxy?
CARYN STARK, PSYCHOLOGIST: Munchausen by proxy means that you decide your child has all kinds of illnesses, Nancy, and it`s really because you want the attention and you would like to have the illnesses to get that attention so, you put it on your child. Regular Munchausen means that you come up with an illness.
I want to say about insanity that it`s very, very important to remember that there`s a difference between having a diagnosis and knowing the difference between right and wrong. She was checking the cameras, so she knew she was doing something wrong. But she was really getting excited about doing this.
GRACE: Out to Mark Lippman, the defense attorney joining us out of Orlando. What about it, Mark Lippman?
MARK LIPPMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, you know, addressing what Mr. Klaas had said earlier, where this woman was a serial killer -- I think that`s farthest from the truth. She needs to be treated, find out what exactly happened to her and why she decided that this extreme act would be looked upon as something OK in her world.
GRACE: You know what?
LIPPMAN: It`s not our world, it`s her world.
GRACE: Mark Lippman -- Mark, I promise you -- I promise you -- if someone tries to strangle you six times, if police for some crazy reason in Orlando decide that they, instead of prosecuting the case, are going to seek treatment and find out what`s wrong with the attacker, I will personally come down and lie on the courthouse steps until there`s an attempted murder charge. And I hope what you just said doesn`t come in for the defense!
To Jennifer Smetters, family law attorney. What about it, Smetters?
JENNIFER SMETTERS, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: You couldn`t be more right, Nancy. This is -- this is -- you don`t look and investigate as to why a murderer or an attempted murderer attempts to kill. The bottom line is, is that this woman had the mental capacity to check cameras. This woman knew what she was doing.
And this poor baby had a history of being hospitalized for the exact same thing, probably an attempted strangulation before. This woman does not deserve our sympathy. The baby does. And thank goodness for the cameras in that hospital. Best witness.
GRACE: Matt Zarrell, she`s so right! Matt Zarrell, explain why was the mom was being videotaped to start with, to catch the six attempts at strangling the infant.
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Well, Nancy, what happened was is that they have cameras in all of the ICU rooms. And what happens is, is that because they have cameras in the ICU rooms, they just happened to catch her.
Now, she went out of her way to check multiple times. Each time she went back to choke the child, she went in and checked to make sure no one was watching when she did it.
In fact, the sixth time that she did it, she allegedly put her hand over the child`s mouth to make sure nobody heard her cry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: According to police, after the fifth time, the baby was heard gasping for air and can be seen kicking its legs. Cops say the only time the mom stopped was when she thought someone was entering the room.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alexis Felton is on suicide watch at Orange the County jail. But Orlando police believe she was homicidal on March 12th when she entered her 11-month-old daughter`s pediatric intensive care unit here at Florida Hospital and tried to choke the life out of her.
According to Felton`s arrest affidavit, the attempted murder was captured by surveillance cameras. Investigators say Felton disconnected the wires connected to the child. She then reached down to choke the infant. The baby kicked and was choking and gasping for air.
But on her fifth attempt, the child reportedly went limp, and monitors alerted nurses. Felton reportedly told them, She`s having another episode. But after police arrived, they said Felton told them she didn`t want her baby to live in pain anymore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And she is held without bond.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This afternoon, Felton`s first appearance was continued, but the judge said the multiple attempted murder charges against her should only be one count.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I find that they`re no different than a person that takes a gun and shoots a person six times. This is not a different count for each bullet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today a relative told me Felton`s baby has been in and out of the hospital her whole life, but by appearances, she was born a healthy, full-term baby girl. When Eyewitness News went to Felton`s last known address to ask about her daughter, we were shouted away.
Are you Alexis` family?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No! We need you to get off the property!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: DCF opened an investigation in May of last year involving a hospitalization of the same child who is the victim in this case. That investigation was closed, but the baby is now under the supervision of the agency.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Most definitely, we will be exploring what we feel is the best course of action for this child, and that really could be even a response as to termination of parental rights.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even though Alexis Felton is locked up at the Orange County jail accused of trying to kill her 11-month-old daughter six times, her aunt and cousin don`t think she deserves to be behind bars.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not something that someone just was evil and they just woke up today and she wanted to strangle a kid. That`s not the case!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The case, they claim, stems from years of abuse that Felton herself suffered at the hands of other family members.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was never allowed to play, never allowed to do anything but sit in one chair at all times.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She has been, you know, isolated, mistreated, abused, neglected her entire life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And these family members believe that`s why Felton lashed out and tried to kill her baby last night at Florida Hospital South. These arrest papers indicate she repeatedly choked her baby while in the pediatric intensive care unit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When police detectives came here to the hospital to investigate, they quickly realized all six choking episodes were caught via surveillance camera mounted in the room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At one point, the baby went limp and nurses finally realized something was wrong and rushed in to save her. Family members told me the baby was taken to the hospital in the first place because her mother hurt her at home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m not surprised because it`s been something is that`s been going on for a while.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: A young new mom tries to strangle her newborn baby six times. It`s all caught on tape. That`s right, Mommy, you are so busted!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She was passing by and decided to check these dumpsters near the entrance to the housing complex.
GINA ROSE VENDEGNA, FOUND THE FINGERS IN A ZIPLOC: I look for bottles and cans to recycle and I give them away to the old people.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She says she found a few recyclables but also --
VENDEGNA: I found a little plastic Ziploc bag. And I thought were ginger root starting to dry out. I threw them in my purse.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Gina went home, then later that day she took the Ziploc out of her purse.
VENDEGNA: I was drinking a soda and I just -- I knew for a fact that those were fingers when I seen the fingernails.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Turns out they were human fingers that Gina found in the dumpster.
VENDEGNA: They were preserved also in the Ziploc baggy.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police sources say there were six fingers and based on lab results police believe the fingers belong to a little girl about 2 1/2 to 4 years old.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HLN HOST: We go live, a mom of five trying to make extra money by looking for recyclables finds the usual, trash, cans, bottles, and a Ziploc bag containing six severed fingers from a child believed to be a little girl. Question tonight, where is the child that goes with the fingers?
Joining me Dave Mack, morning talk show host, joining from WAAX.
Dave, what do we know?
DAVE MACK, MORNING TALK SHOW HOST, CLEAR CHANNEL WAAX RADIO (via phone): You know, we know very little, oddly enough. Weigh know that Gina Rose Vendegna found six fingers in a Ziploc baggy at the Kukui Gardens Housing project, which is right there on Liliha Island, and, you know, there`s no body attached. There`s nothing more than fingers. It`s just the fingers. And they have no idea of how long they`ve been there. They don`t know anything right now, Nancy.
GRACE: So my understanding is that a mother of five is out looking for recyclables. She routinely does this trying to make extra money so she dumpster dives, she goes behind buildings looking for whatever she can find, and what she finds -- out to Dr. Bill Lloyd, board certified surgeon and pathologist -- is a Ziploc bag containing six child`s fingers.
Dr. Lloyd, number one, how can they determine that it is approximately a 2 1/2-year-old baby girl?
DR. BILL LLOYD, BOARD CERTIFIED SURGEON AND PATHOLOGIST: X-rays of the fingers will give you the dimensions of the bones and that will identify the normal developmental milestones for both the gender and the age of the victim.
GRACE: What would you find -- I mean how would a baby boy`s digit be different from a baby girl`s digit?
LLOYD: We know that the fingers grow longer in girls than boys. This is why they say that the fingers that they found most likely represent a younger girl or an older boy. Also now there`s going to be blood, whether it`s dried out or moist blood in those fingers, and there will be a lot of clues there with regards to DNA evidence that they can use hopefully to track down where this other child may be.
GRACE: Stacey Newman, what I want to know about tonight is not so much about the fingers. I want to know where is the baby girl that goes with the six severed fingers.
Stacey Newman, what do we know?
STACEY NEWMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via phone): Well, Nancy, they are trying to investigate this right now and piece together just who could this child be. What we do know is if this child is a girl, her age would be between 2 1/2 and 4 years old. If the child is a boy, the ages would be somewhere up to 5 years old, 3 and 5 years old. Now they`ve gone through missing people`s reports and we`ve also heard at this moment there`s no current missing child`s report which may lead to be much more difficult to make a positive I.D. on who this child is.
GRACE: The woman states that she was searching through a trash bin at a Honolulu apartment complex and she finds this, originally thought that the digits were ginger root. They are from a young girl. A military lab unable to clearly decide whether it is a girl or boy.
Why is that, Dr. Lloyd? Couldn`t they tell girl or boy from DNA?
LLOYD: Well, not necessarily the DNA, Nancy. We`re still talking about the examination of the fingers themselves, and it`s not until adolescence or adulthood when the characteristics of the bones become more definitive as this is a female, this is a male. But you mentioned the DNA and of course there`s important evidence there that can be used, specifically what we call mitochondrial DNA which can identify gender.
GRACE: Right now it`s a big aloha from Hawaii. We find six severed fingers belonging to a child in a Ziploc bag. As of tonight reports police already have narrowed down important aspects of who the fingers may belong to.
But it`s my understanding, Dave Mack, there are no missing children there in the Honolulu area that would match up to the fingers?
MACK: They have absolutely no idea. They`ve had time to look and they checked in the missing children. They`ve checked the hospitals for reports of any child that would have come in there with injuries that would be indicative of losing six digits. Right now we -- they haven`t told us exactly how the fingers were removed and what kind of condition they were in other than to know that they were leathery, that they were not in the best of shape when they were found inside that baggy.
But so far they`ve appealed now to the public to try to get somebody to call and say I saw something, I know something about this because, you know, a child losing six fingers, somebody has got to know something.
GRACE: It`s a residence of 389 units, Kukui Gardens Complex near downtown Honolulu and Chinatown, are tonight in shock after six child digits fingers clearly from a little girl, are found in a Ziploc bag.
Caryn Stark, the Ziploc bag, I don`t get it.
CARYN STARK, PSYCHOLOGIST: Nancy, it sounds like a sandwich, that someone had so little regard for this little girl that they took her fingers and they put them in a Ziploc bag as though they were going to be meat and they were making a sandwich. Somebody really didn`t care. Terrible.
GRACE: The complex is absolutely beautiful. There`s about 20 buildings on about 10 acres and it is dotted with palm trees. There`s very, very little crime in the area. It`s almost nonexistent. The mother of five out trying to make extra money with recyclables says she, quote, "broke down" thinking about the child connected to these fingers.
So, Dr. Bill Lloyd, again, children only have their footprints taken at the hospital. There`s no way to make an identification through fingerprints. Why aren`t children fingerprinted at birth?
LLOYD: Well, fingerprint development is not nearly as good. It requires the cooperation of the person to create that fingerprint versus a large, passive footprint. Now, Nancy, this was desecrated dry tissue in a Ziploc bag. It could be a war souvenir from somebody from the Pacific or in World War II that they brought home and now they decided it`s time to get rid of the war souvenir. So it doesn`t necessarily have to be a recent development.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back. Six severed fingers found in a Ziploc bag, fingers we believe belonged to a 2 1/2-year-old little girl.
Let`s do a recap. Stacey Newman, explain how this happened.
NEWMAN: Well, Nancy, a mother of five who had been looking through a dumpster for recyclables when she happens upon a Ziploc bag. She thought these fingers were ginger root and took them home because as a gardener and a recycler she thought she could bring them home and somehow restore them and use them again. She didn`t think about it another time. Just put them in her bag.
Until she showed the Ziploc to friends, they thought maybe these were monkey fingers. But then she saw nails and said this does not look normal. She then called police and now we fast forward and found out that these are six fingers belonging to a child, two complete fingers, four partial fingers.
So what we know also right now, Nancy, is that lab experts are trying to determine if this is a little boy or a little girl. We do not know the gender at this point, which adds to the mystery. Now if it is a little girl, what we do know is she is probably preschool aged, between 2 1/2 and 4 years old. If it is a boy, he also would be about preschool aged, maybe up to kindergarten between 3 and 5 years old, Nancy.
Now also, the woman who found these recyclables said she has never seen anything like this. She was stunned at this discovery. At this lab, this lab where these fingers are, it is called the Pearl Harbor-Hickam lab. What we know is this is the only accredited lab that ID`s skeletal remains. This lab is known for IDying the remains of POWs and soldiers missing in action, Nancy.
GRACE: Ellie, what do you make of it?
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE CHIEF EDITORIAL PRODUCER: Well, Nancy, here is what we do know. We know that there are six fingers total. Two of them are complete fingers. Some of them are just -- the other four are just partial fingers. These were taken to a lab. It`s the military`s joint POW/MIA command. It`s at Pearl Harbor. They usually do things like identify the bodies of soldiers missing in action, prisoners of war.
But they took a look at these fingers and although there are some things they couldn`t determine, they couldn`t tell whether or not these came from a living person when they were severed or whether that person was dead when the fingers were removed, but they were able to tell that all six fingers came from the same victim. These are six fingers from one person. They also were able to determine that it was a child. At first they said just under 10 years old. They were able to narrow that a little bit more.
They determined that if it was from a boy, and they couldn`t determine gender to a certainty, but if it was from a boy, it`s a boy about 3 to 5 years old. If they came from a little girl, it`s a girl between 2 1/2 and 4 years old. So they were able to determine that. Now what they`re going to do from this point going forward, they`re going to do DNA tests, see if that perhaps matches any missing people, anybody that`s in the coded database.
They`re going to try to figure out whether or not this child is a child that was reported missing from the area. So far they haven`t been able to match any missing person reports to these fingers. To determine who the victim might be.
They are also checking with hospitals. They say so far they have turned up dry on that account. They haven`t been able to determine a hospital where someone may have come through with this type of injury. They`ve also gone through the neighborhood and this is a huge apartment complex there near downtown Honolulu, near Chinatown in Honolulu. They have interviewed residents at these low-rise apartment buildings trying to figure out if any of them may have some sort of clues but, again, like I said, no positive leads at that point so what they`re doing now is they`re asking the public for help.
They desperately need tips from the public. They want to get the word out there. That`s why this is being publicized so extensively. They want to try to figure out who these fingers came from. What they`re doing right now, too, is they`re trying to figure out if perhaps somebody saw these fingers being dumped.
We don`t know if they`ve got surveillance video that would help on that score but they say that the woman who found the fingers, and this is a mother of five. She lives not far from this housing complex although she is not a resident there at the complex. They say she has been ruled out. She is not a suspect. She at this point just looks like, you know, an innocent passerby who happened to be looking in this dumpster and make this find.
And she actually, you know, at first thought it was ginger root, then thought maybe these were from an animal like a monkey perhaps. It wasn`t until that she noticed that these fingers had fingernails that she realized she better get police involved and so she called police. They now took custody of the fingers and they`re trying to figure out who they came from.
GRACE: Dave Mack, weigh in.
MACK: You know, Nancy, the amazing thing to me about all of this is you`re talking about a child`s fingers. You`re not talking about something that could have happened in a past war that -- you know, I don`t even know how long Ziploc baggies have been around. But if everything we`ve been told, you`re talking about two full fingers, a couple of partial fingers, they`re more like leather than anything else. They`re not well preserved.
I`m a little frightened or a little bit weirded out the fact that the lady took them home and only when she actually looked at them and noticed that they had fingernails that then she got freaked out. Because to be honest with you, if I thought it was something like roots or whatever and was going to be cleaning them and cooking them, I would noticed fingernails. But they said she is not a suspect, so fine.
But here`s what you`ve got. You`ve got a 389-unit complex and, granted, it is what they call affordable housing. It`s the projects and it`s in Chinatown and you`re talking about a dumpster by a playground. It just seems to me like there`s a lot of things not adding up because what child loses six fingers and somebody is not there to say what happened?
You know if it`s an adult, OK, for whatever reason they get freaky and lose a bunch of fingers through a saw or something like that, OK, that`s one thing. These are children`s fingers. They -- you know, Robert Mann is the director of forensics at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Pearl Harbor and he`s the one that has actually brought this to the forefront and said we`re dealing with at least a child under the age of 10 and that everybody is kind of narrowing it down to under 5.
If it`s a girl, 2-4, if it`s a boy 3.5. But you know what child is going around without fingers? I think somebody knows something. That`s the frightening part. Somebody knows something. Now they`ve had plenty of time to talk to everybody they can find that`s anywhere around this dumpster. They`ve got kids that are afraid to go out. There`s, of course, kids afraid to go anywhere near the playground now on top of that with nearly 20 acres and 389 units, you`ve got a whole lot of people in and out of there, and there really is no telling how long they were in there before our dumpster diver found them thinking they were roots.
There are just so many things that just don`t add up on this but, again, in North America today, or anywhere in the world people are hearing this story through your show.
GRACE: Stacey Newman, what more can you tell me?
NEWMAN: Nancy, I can tell you that testing that has been done so far has not been able to determine just how long ago these fingers were severed, and reports are a source who first saw these bones said when you first look at these fingers, they do not appear to be human which can lead to why this lady did not think that these were actually human fingers. They also did not seem to be flesh colored and were decomposing but not completely dried out.
We also know the woman who found these fingers that there was no foul odor coming from this bag, which may, again, lead to why she thought, hey, this is just ginger root. Now at this hour I would hope that the cops are going door-to-door. There is over 300 units in this apartment complex as Dave Mack told us. I would hope that they`re going door-to-door right now, Nancy, asking questions, saying, are there any children in these homes?
Are there children in these homes that are missing limbs, have any kind of injuries, maybe noticeable blood on a carpet or something to that degree? That is a lot of units. But we also have to keep in mind just because these fingers were found at this dumpster at this complex, Nancy, does not necessarily mean that these injuries were sustained at that complex. It could have just been something where somebody walked by and saw an opportunity, hey, I can get rid of these fingers in this dumpster unnoticed, it`s a large apartment complex, and could have just taken off.
So cops are working on very few leads right now, and hopefully we will be able to find out who this child is and whether they are still alive.
GRACE: Dr. Bill Lloyd, what do you believe the outcome will be, and how long will it take to determine who the child is?
LLOYD: Nancy, the clues lie in that special laboratory at Pearl Harbor. Notice we had several important clues in the discussion tonight. There was no odor when the Ziploc bag was opened, and the people analyzing the specimens tell us that this tissue is all dried out. The medical term for that is desiccated. So it could be months, years, even decades old.
Now I know little Ziploc bags have been around for 30, maybe 40 years, different types of plastic bags, but someone may have harbored these tissue specimens for many, many years, maybe in a little cardboard box and then when they were reorganizing their bedroom they put them in a little Ziploc bag instead. That`s a different story that needs to be analyzed.
But back to the specimen itself. What could you do with old tissue? Well, I`ve participated in autopsies involving mummified tissue at least a thousand years old and we were able to rehydrate those tissues and be able to do a very careful analysis. The same procedures can be done for those fingers. We can find out exactly when that tissue was roaming the earth. That means we can date the blood and identify how long has it been since this was fresh blood.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VENDEGNA: And the people that I showed it to tried telling me that it wasn`t, it might be monkey fingers. And I said, just by chance, I`m going to call the police department, turn them in, let them decide. They were preserved also in the Ziploc baggy. They had been preserved. They did not smell bad. They were preserved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Gina Rose Vendegna lives near Kukui Gardens in Kalihi.
MACK: Gina Rose Vendegna found six fingers in a Ziploc baggy at the Kukui Gardens Housing project.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: On February 2nd she was passing by and decided to check these dumpsters near the entrance to the housing complex.
MACK: There`s no body attached, there`s nothing more than fingers. It`s just the fingers.
VENDEGNA: I look for bottles and cans to recycle and I give them away to the old people.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She says she found a few recyclables but also --
VENDEGNA: I saw the little plastic Ziploc bag and I though were ginger root starting to dry out. I was going to -- you know, I`m a gardener. And I recycle. I thought I might be able to restore them so I threw them in my purse.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Gina went home then later that day she took the Ziploc out of her purse.
VENDEGNA: I was drinking a soda and I`m just, I knew for a fact that those were fingers when I seen the fingernails. Yes. And the people that I showed it to tried telling me that it wasn`t, that it might be monkey fingers. And I said just by chance, I`m going to call the police department, turn them in, let them decide.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Turns our they were human fingers that Gina found in the dumpster.
LLOYD: We know that the fingers grow longer faster in girls than boys. This is why they say that the fingers that they found most likely represent a younger girl or an older boy.
VENDEGNA: They were preserved also in the Ziploc baggy. They had been preserved. They did not smell bad. They were preserved.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police sources say there were six fingers and based on lab results, police believe the fingers belong to little girl about 2 1/2 to 4 years old.
NEWMAN: We`ve gone through missing people reports and we`ve also heard at this moment there`s no current missing child report which may lead into this being much more difficult to make a positive I.D. on who this child is.
VENDEGNA: I was pretty strong as far as turning it into the police department until about the day afterwards then I broke down. Just thinking about the child. I`m a mother of five children, myself.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police have checked missing persons cases, questioned hospitals in Kukui Gardens residents and have not come up on with any leads on either who the little girl is or who did that to her.
VENDEGNA: I hope we get the person off the street. We don`t need him in this area or anywhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Happy birthday to Georgia friend of the show, Steve. Isn`t he handsome?
And happy birthday to another Georgia friend of the show, Ann. What a smile.
Let`s stop and remember Army Sergeant Paul Dumont, Jr., 23, Williamsburg, Virginia, killed Afghanistan. On a second tour. Bronze Star, Army Achievement, Army Commendation, Global War on Terrorism Service medals. Served Iraq. Loved outdoors, beaches, camping, paint ball. Family says never a dull moment with him. Leaves behind parents, Paul Sr. and Bonnie, three sisters, three brothers. Widow, Candace.
Paul Dumont, Jr. American hero.
Thanks to our guests but especially to you for being with us.
Everyone, I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern, and until then, good night, friend.
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