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Nancy Grace

Baby Keegan Found, Kidnapper Arrested

Aired April 18, 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, Houston suburbs. A 3-day-old little boy literally snatched from his mother`s arms outside the pediatrician`s after a first checkup. Mommy then gunned down in the parking lot, as many as seven rounds fired, as baby Keegan, just 3 days old, stuffed into a blue Lexus.

Even after sustaining multiple gunshots, the 28-year-old mother, screaming "My baby, my baby," tries to actually get into the Lexus to take back 3-day-old Keegan. The Lexus runs her down. Kicker, the perp, the perp who guns down a young mother, steals the baby and goes on the run, a 30-year-old woman.

Bombshell tonight. After we report the story last night as it is breaking, in the last hours an arrest goes down. And in a stunning twist, the alleged shooter a female registered nurse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Breaking overnight, a 3-day-old infant ripped from his mother`s arms.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kidnapped after his mother was shot and killed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming out of the pediatrician`s office.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gunshots erupted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She just started shooting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This mother received up to seven shots.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Witnesses heard the distraught mother scream, "My baby, my baby."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The child was then put into the suspect vehicle. The car sped away, knocking the lady to the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A SWAT team later surrounded a nearby apartment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police recovering the baby five hours later.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators have made an arrest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Verna McClain, a registered nurse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who confessed overnight.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ms. McClain is currently charged with capital murder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The arrest report said that the suspect`s sister told police that the suspect had talked about adopting a child soon.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she told them she did this because she wanted to have another child.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The child is being reunited with its father. On the same day that he recovers a child, he loses a wife.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: And in the last hours, this is what we learn from a police presser.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She did have a miscarriage. She needed to justify having a child to her soon-to-be fiance. They were going to get married in May. And she had led him to believe that she was pregnant and had a child, so she needed a child. She needed to produce a child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. Live to the Houston suburbs, a 3-day-old baby boy literally snatched from his mother`s arms outside the pediatrician`s. After we report the story last night as it is breaking, in the last hours, an arrest goes down. And in a stunning twist, the alleged shooter who takes the baby, guns down the mother, getting off at least seven rounds, and goes on the run, a female registered nurse.

We are taking your calls. And also taking your calls tonight is a special guest. Joining us out of Houston is Brett Ligon (ph), the Montgomery County district attorney. We`re going to be going straight to Brett.

but first, let`s catch it all up. Jean Casarez, legal correspondent, "In Session" -- man, what a night, police working `round the clock to catch this woman. Take a look at this registered nurse. But uh-uh. No, no, no, no, Liz! I want to see the shots of this woman -- not just her mug shot -- there you go, the shots of her on line, on her dating Web site.

All right, hit me, Jean.

JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": All right. This is Verna McClain. She`s 30 years old. She has been charged with capital murder in the state of Texas. It is eligible for the death penalty. And Nancy, Montgomery County sheriff`s department is saying at this point she acted alone.

GRACE: You know, that`s incredible to me. Last night, we were hearing that a male jumped out of the car, ran around, got into the mom, Kala Golden`s, red pick-up truck and took the baby`s car seat, leaving behind the base of it.

Everybody, you`re seeing video, live video at the time it went down, of the shooting death outside the pediatrician`s office of a young mom clutching her 3-day-old baby boy.

Taking your calls, everybody. But first, to Brett Ligon, special guest joining us, the Montgomery County district attorney. Brett, thank you for being with us.

BRETT LIGON, MONTGOMERY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Yes, ma`am. Good evening.

GRACE: Your people working `round the clock. When I heard that the perp was on the run and that the mother`s blood allegedly was visible on the side of the Lexus, I could not imagine who would so coldly gun down Kala Marie Golden and take her baby. And then, according to reports, as she`s trying to get the baby out the car, shrieking "My baby, my baby," the car actually hits her as it peels out of the parking lot.

LIGON: Well, you know, first off, let me say -- I can`t say enough about the efforts of Montgomery County law enforcement. Between the Montgomery County sheriff`s department, the Texas Rangers, Montgomery County SWAT -- we had units from the district attorney response team -- there were actually three separate scenes that were worked.

But even going back to that, Montgomery County has a reputation for being a very, very safe community. In fact, last year, we only filed four murder cases in a population of about a half a million people. So you know, obviously...

GRACE: That`s a...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: That`s a low crime rate. And see, Brett, this is just the kind of guy you are. Instead of taking any credit for yourself, you`re pointing out the Rangers, the sheriffs and everyone else who worked this case all during the night to make this arrest.

Brett, who is this alleged suspect, Verna McClain, a 30-year-old female nurse?

LIGON: The information that we have on Ms. McClain at this time obviously is what we would have publicly. I know there was an allusion to the fact that people had looked at her FaceBook account, those types of deals.

And what I think is important for people to understand as far as law enforcement`s efforts, the call had initially dropped around 2:30 yesterday afternoon of the disturbance there in the parking lot. So literally from 2:30, a quarter `til 3:00, up until about 10:15, 10:30 last night, every bit of effort was focused on seeing if we could find the child.

Obviously, you`ve been involved, Nancy, with cases like this. Sometimes, they end not so well. But the sheriff`s department probably had 40 people on the ground. Of course, the Rangers had assets out there, and so did we.

And for those four or five hours -- when you saw SWAT being deployed, I know all those guys personally, and almost every single one of them is a father of children. They were -- to a man, it was, Find the kid, find the kid, find the kid, whatever we can do to find the kid.

So you have that five-hour period of time where law enforcement is acting and they are investigating, but the primary purpose was to find Keegan. And of course, we did.

GRACE: How did you go about finding her? We were getting all kind of reports during our live show last night regarding the tag plate, the description of the perp. We were told it was an African-American female perp with gold or blond hair, which suggests that she was wearing a wig at the time.

And I`m wondering about those accounts of a male being in the car that runs around and grabs the carseat. You know, if you look at her book-in shot, if you look at her across the parking lot and her hair is so short, I wonder if some people believed she was a male.

LIGON: It`s quite possible. You know, you never want to comment on what somebody`s vantage point was...

GRACE: Yes.

LIGON: ... until you`ve had the opportunity to address them. After the initial case is forwarded over to the district attorney`s office, and you have the opportunity to review all the witness statements, then at that point, it`s oftentimes what`s in the fog of war, as you well know, becomes a little more clarified. And then a witness will tell you, Well, here`s what I said, that I had this vantage point. It appeared to be this or it could have been this.

And so the fact that you have an eyewitness statement that sometimes doesn`t lead you down the right direction -- well, as you know, that`s part of what good law enforcement does. It puts the boots on the ground and it runs down all the leads. And I can tell you...

GRACE: Hey, Brett, we`re just showing video right now of the -- I believe the SWAT team. Let me see that again, Liz -- with -- it looks like automatic weapons outside -- it looks to be an apartment complex, a lot of them converging there.

How did the arrest go down? Is that what I`m seeing? I assume it is because I see a gun trained on a window and a door.

LIGON: No, what you`re seeing right there is Montgomery County SWAT. We had received information that the vehicle that was believed to be involved in the incident -- that the vehicle was there. And of course, we`re there and we can see the vehicle, and there`s, you know, red liquid believed to be blood -- you know how us lawyers talk, believed to be blood.

And so the vehicle matches the description. The plate gets us to that physical address. But what you also have to realize is, as this situation was evolving, Montgomery County SWAT commanders Zainer (ph) and Salter (ph) obviously are concerned about the child.

So whether it`s a hostage situation, a barricaded suspect situation -- and so SWAT wanted to make sure that the child was of paramount importance. And so what they did know was...

GRACE: Oh, man! Brett, how close it could have been for this child, as police, SWAT, sheriffs closing in. But when it boiled down to it, Brett, the reality is that if she had known, if the perp had known how close you guys were to getting that baby and busting her, that baby`s life hung in the balance.

And when I think about it -- Brett, I believe you`ve got children, am I right?

LIGON: Yes, ma`am, and I know you have twins.

GRACE: And when you think about how close this father came to not only losing his wife gunned down in a parking lot, but then the baby, too - - so how did you guys find the alleged shooter? Her name, everyone, Verna McClain. How did you actually get ahold of her?

LIGON: Ms. McClain voluntarily came to the scene under -- and approached law enforcement. Ms. McClain, as well as a couple of other relatives, started communicating with the law enforcement assets that were there on the scene.

GRACE: What do you know about her? I know she is a 30-year-old female and that she is a nurse.

LIGON: That`s correct. My understanding is, is that she is a nurse, an LBN. And I believe that the mother had indicated that she was -- would do elder care and those types of deals. So I`m not aware...

GRACE: Is it true she wanted to adopt a baby, Brett?

LIGON: The arrest report that you have access to indicated...

GRACE: I do.

LIGON: ... what her -- OK. And law enforcement, obviously, the one that was questioning Ms. McClain all through the night, and so the information that she provided to them -- as you know, it`s difficult for me to comment on a statement, but the information that she was able to provide to the law enforcement suspect -- or to the police officers and the investigators was the information that we use to try her for capital murder.

GRACE: OK. You are seeing shots of the alleged perpetrator. Last night as the news broke regarding a 28-year-old young mom -- let`s see a shot of Kala Marie Golden Schuchardt, just 28 years old. Here she is at a Christmastime wedding. Her 3-day-old baby snatched from her arms as she tries to get into the Lexus to get the baby back. She is pronounced dead at Herman Memorial hospital. The baby, as of right now, we believe, has been reunited with the family.

And tonight, joining us live and taking your calls, the Montgomery County district attorney, Brett Ligon.

Tonight, the baby`s safe. But still, the perpetrator, a 30-year-old female nurse who had dreams of adopting a baby -- is it her, and is she facing the Texas death penalty?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do believe today that she acted alone. However, let me stress to you that we will not have tunnel vision on this, and the investigators will keep an open mind to ensure that there`s not another suspect. But as of today, as of right now, we believe we have the single person responsible for the death of this mother and the kidnapping of her 3-day-old child.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A 3-day-old baby boy has been found safe hours after he was snatched from his mother.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Witnesses a woman shot the boy`s mother outside of the pediatrician`s office and then took the baby.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her 3-day-old baby snatched.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This mother received up to seven shots.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was laying on the ground. She wasn`t moving for nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kala (INAUDIBLE) died of her wounds.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His mother was shot and killed...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls, and are joining your from Houston. Joining me, the elected district attorney, Brett Ligon, there in Montgomery County.

Overnight, an arrest goes down of this suspect, a 30-year-old female nurse who apparently wanted to adopt. As a matter of fact, unleash the lawyers. Joining me, Kelly Saindon, former prosecutor, Mickey Sherman, defense attorney and author, Darryl Cohen, defense attorney, Atlanta, and special guest joining us, Brett Ligon, the Montgomery County district attorney.

All right, Darryl Cohen, you`ve been on both sides, as a prosecutor and as a defense lawyer. Listen to this. And I`m reading directly from the police report that Brett Ligon referenced to. After killing Golden and kidnapping the baby, the defendant stated that she had wanted to adopt a child. Now she had the child and would need to do the adoption.

And so in -- she`s perfectly sane, Darryl Cohen. She`s saying to her sister and family, Oh, well, now I`ve got the baby. Now I need to do the formal adoption.

DARRYL COHEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, she sounds perfectly sane, but her actions show she is absolutely not sane.

GRACE: Oh, here you go!

COHEN: She didn`t know right from wrong. She did not know...

GRACE: You`re cueing (ph) it up.

COHEN: ... what she was doing. She absolutely should not have done it. But her actions show -- her actions clearly show she didn`t know right from wrong and she had insane delusions.

GRACE: OK, Mickey Sherman, so that`s how it`s going to go down. She`s caught red-handed, thanks to Brett Ligon and the Texas Rangers and the sheriffs. So here we go with an insanity defense. I`m saying the woman very likely was disguised at the time and that she knew enough to turn herself in to police. That ain`t crazy, Sherman.

MICKEY SHERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It`s totally crazy. Everything she did was crazy. The perfect analogy is Andrea Yates, who serially drowned five of her children. She was nuts. A jury found her not guilty, in the end, by reason of insanity. She`s crazy.

GRACE: Well, a second jury. A second jury. OK, Kelly Saindon, explain to the gentlemen defense attorneys how wrong they are.

KELLY SAINDON, FORMER PROSECUTOR: They`re completely wrong because she has to know the difference between right and wrong. She knows killing someone is wrong. I`m sorry, she plotted between every time she pulled the trigger, she stole someone else`s baby, so she knew what she was doing was wrong.

GRACE: To Brett Ligon, Montgomery County district attorney. You have stated, at least in the documents that we`ve gotten so far, that this is a capital murder case. What do you mean by that, Brett?

LIGON: Well, in Texas law, Nancy, as you`re probably familiar, it`s also known as felony murder. For you to be eligible for the -- for a capital murder, there has to be an underlying felony that`s committed in the course or the commission of the murder itself. And so we have the aggravated kidnapping as the underlying felony offense, along with the murder. So that makes you capital eligible in Texas.

GRACE: In other words, she`s looking straight at the Texas death penalty, death by needle.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shocking shoot-out in the pediatrician`s parking lot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A 3-day-old baby boy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mom comes out with just her 3-day-old baby. Words were exchanged.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The desperate five-hour hunt for the newborn.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A new mother gunned down outside a Houston pediatrician`s office.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Something is very, very wrong here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Verna McClain.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Got out of the car and shot her target.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This mother received up to seven shots.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The woman took the baby and shot the mom several times.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Grabbed the baby from the mother`s car.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: "My baby, my baby."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: You are seeing footage from ABC`s "GMA," "Good Morning America." A 28-year-old mom gunned down, pronounced dead at Herman Memorial hospital.

We are taking your calls. Kitty in Louisiana. What`s your question, Kitty?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My question is, did she have an accomplice at the Texas pediatric center that said a woman will be coming out soon with a 3-day-old baby? And I am so glad they found the baby.

GRACE: Praise the Lord, Kitty. All right, Jean Casarez, what do we know?

CASAREZ: At this point, investigators say they believe she acted on her own, that she made those statements to her sister, I`m going to adopt a baby soon. Then she said, Now I`ve got the baby, I just need to adopt it. And it was random. She was there with the intent to abduct a child, but it was random that it was that mother and that child.

GRACE: To Joe Gomez, senior investigative reporter, KTRH, also joining us out of Houston. What do you know, Joe?

JOE GOMEZ, KTRH: That`s right, Nancy. This apparently was an opportunistic murder/kidnapping. I mean, it seems that Kala Golden must have been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

You know, Verna had apparently talked about getting a baby with her sister before this had ever happened. And of course, you also pointed out she had said that she wanted to adopt a baby. Well, she finally had baby Keegan in her custody, Nancy.

GRACE: Well, I`m taking a look -- and I don`t know if this is going to help you, Brett Ligon -- of course, you people already have all this, I`m sure. But I`m taking a look at all of her postings and comments on line. For instance, "So freakin` ready for school to start. My kids are driving me F-ing insane," and goes on and on regarding the way she feels about the children she`s already got.

And here she is wanting to adopt -- adopt -- other children. Will her statements come into evidence, Brett Ligon, regarding the fact she wanted to adopt, now she`s, quote, "got the baby" and she`ll have to start adoption proceedings?

LIGON: Well, as you know, Nancy, when it comes to admission of statements, those are ruled on by the rules of evidence. Anything that would be relevant to the determination of guilt or innocence, obviously, the judge would allow in. And so, obviously, you`d expect to have witness testimony, perhaps postings from FaceBook, all the electronic medium that`s out there now.

And so as you know, a trial consists of not just witness testimony but physical evidence and those types of things.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Breaking overnight, a 3-day-old infant ripped from his mother`s arms --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Kidnapped after his mother was shot and killed --

NANCY GRACE, HLN HOST: Coming out of the pediatrician`s office --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Gunshots erupted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just started shooting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This mother received up to seven shots --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Witnesses heard the distraught mother scream, my baby, my baby.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The child was then put into the suspect vehicle, the car sped away knocking the lady to the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A SWAT team later surrounded a nearby apartment.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police recovering the baby five hours later.

GRACE: And in the last hours, this is what we learned from a police presser.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She did have a miscarriage. She need to justify having a child to her soon-to-be fiance. They were going to get married in May, and she had led him to believe that she was pregnant and had a child, so she needed a child. She needed to produce a child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: It`s our understanding 3-day-old baby Keegan is back with his family. Last night as the story was breaking and we were covering it, we had no idea that through the night police and sheriffs would work round the clock, affecting an arrest of the female perpetrator, a 30-year-old female nurse that lies in wait apparently outside a pediatrician`s office.

You are seeing right there Verna McClain, now charged with capital murder in the shooting death of a 28-year-old young mother, Kayla Marie Golden Schuchardt. She was leaving -- there she is. Photo`d with her husband, they have been married about three years. Little did they know the paradise they had created together including 3-day-old baby Keegan would end in the parking lot of a pediatrician`s office.

Kayla gunned down allegedly by Verna McClain, a 30-year-old nurse, dead set on adopting a baby.

Let`s see, what do we know about Verna McClain?

Liz, let`s take a look at her dating Web site photos.

Clark, what does she say on her Web site?

CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER, COVERING STORY: There`s a lot of things, Nancy. She says that she drinks socially. She is single. She has a dog and she`s a nurse. She says she has a car and she`s looking for a long-term relationship. She prefers not to say if she wants children and she doesn`t do drugs. She has brown eyes and has kids. Her longest relationship was over nine years.

Now, Nancy, she goes into a narrative, and I actually I have it here in my hand. I`ll read some of it. "I`m fun loving and sweet. I love to laugh. Being an RN I know firsthand laughter is the best medicine. I never expect a man to give me more than I can give. It`s pretty much 50/50. I do expect a gentleman treat me as such. I`m not just going to let you hit it. It`s not what I`m about. So deuces if you do. I do have children. If you don`t like kids, please don`t respond. I`m not looking for a baby daddy or a sugar daddy."

So, Nancy, that is what we were able to uncover from her profile on P- O-F, POF.com.

GRACE: I am a lady, treat me as such. I`m not just going to let you hit it. Not what I`m about. So if you`re looking for that, deuces. Oh, man, it goes on and on and on.

All right. To Dr. Bill Lloyd, board certified surgeon and pathologist, on another note and off this woman`s dating Web site.

To be a registered nurse, Doctor, what does it require, or to be a licensed nurse, what does that mean?

DR. BILL LLOYD, BOARD CERTIFIED SURGEON AND PATHOLOGIST: Yes, it`s an important distinction, Nancy. A registered nurse has a bachelor`s of nursing. They`ve done four years of college. An LDN is a licensed vocational nurse. Most of them have an associate`s degree, two years of training. But a registered nurse is licensed and there appears to be a lot of misinformation here. She`s calling herself an RN but everybody else says, no, she`s simply a licensed vocational nurse.

GRACE: Dr. Lloyd, the victim in this case -- actually, let me ask Brett Ligon, the elected district attorney out of Montgomery County. We`ve heard that the perp got off seven rounds. Did the victim sustain seven gunshot wounds?

BRETT LIGON, MONTGOMERY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: You know, the autopsy was performed this morning, and so I have not seen a copy of the autopsy report yet. But I do know there was multiple gunshot wounds.

GRACE: Dr. Lloyd, as a matter of fact, when paramedics and police were there at the scene, they may very well not have known how many shots she sustained. Why?

LLOYD: Well, because some of the bullets may have entered her body and not left. Being fully clothed, it`d be very difficult to count the number of entry and exit wounds. So they were mostly concerned, obviously, about saving her life and CPR. But adding to those bullet wounds, Nancy, being struck by that Lexus as the woman was pulling out of the parking lot, was the crowning blow.

GRACE: Why do you say that?

LLOYD: Because on top of the internal injuries and the massive bleeding caused by the gunshot wounds, the damage caused by being struck by a car, head trauma, skull fractured, neck and spine injuries, could make it incompatible with life.

GRACE: To Brett Ligon, the Montgomery County district attorney, do you believe that there is going to be surveillance video? I understand that this pediatrician`s office is in an area that is just glutted with strip malls and shops. Certainly there`s got to be some video somewhere.

LIGON: The sheriff`s department was doing a really good canvass. And I can`t stress how many -- like I said, there was three separate scenes. And so you had the shooting incident that had occurred in the parking lot and it`s behind a major grocery store but it`s in front of a chain of other smaller stores. And you had the secondary scene which was the one that you have referenced the video with the Montgomery County SWAT. So there are surveillance videos or videos that you would see of a parking lot and of course then there`s a tertiary scene.

And I have not been to that scene. But we would expect to see, you know, on any case, in a major urban area like the Woodlands is, on any case that there`ll be video that we`d be able to find if not of the incident and perhaps of the traffic or of the vehicle.

GRACE: You mean like the cameras at red lights?

LIGON: The red light cameras. The chain grocery stores that are oftentimes parked in parking lots. And so those can help you within a case to establish a time line.

GRACE: You know what, Brett, I`m so glad you`re on it because remember what happened in Chandra Levy? The -- they sat on their thumbs so long that the video camera there in the lobby of her building had rolled over and started videoing again like 30 days later because they sat on their thumbs and didn`t get that video.

Good to know you`re on top of that.

Bret -- Pat Brown, criminal profiler, author of "Only the Truth," we are hearing that the perp literally tore the baby out of the mother`s arms. Then fires off seven rounds and runs over her with a Lexus. Weigh in.

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER, AUTHOR OF "ONLY THE TRUTH": Well, we`re seeing a lot more violent attacks on women since these hospitals have improved their security. In other words, these kind of women can`t go in and steal the babies anymore so they`re going straight to the mothers and cutting them out of them or killing them to get either the fetus or the infant.

And another thing that`s really interesting is fetus stealers and infant stealers and also Munchausen syndrome by proxy, women who kill their own children, are often LPN. It`s a number one choice of jobs.

GRACE: Why is that? You`re the profiler. I mean I may know the facts but I don`t understand why.

BROWN: It`s the attention getting. Women who commit serial crimes or steal babies want the attention that, well, that the baby gives them, that the funeral gives them, that the birth gives them, the excitement around that. Or when they`re in the hospital, when they pull that plug on the person, that alarm goes off, everybody comes running in, they kill their patients, they love that. They love attention.

GRACE: Mickey Sherman, defense attorney and author, I just don`t understand how you and Darryl Cohen, you`re already setting it up for some defense attorney out there.

MICKEY SHERMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY, AUTHOR OF "HOW CAN YOU DEFEND THOSE PEOPLE?": The defense --

GRACE: About insanity. I guess that`s what you always do when your client`s caught red-handed.

SHERMAN: No.

GRACE: You`ve got to say something. You can`t say it wasn`t me.

SHERMAN: Absolutely not.

GRACE: So what can you say? Insanity. I don`t see how you can say that in light of the fact this was obviously very well planned out. She sat out there in her Lexus waiting for a mom to come out alone with a baby.

SHERMAN: Jeffrey Dahmer sat and planned his crimes, he waited for men to come through the neighborhood then he chopped them up, put body parts in a refrigerator and ate them at his leisure. He planned it, he planned it in advance. Was that not insane? Of course it was insane.

You know, we take the defenses that are given to us. Defense attorneys don`t like --

GRACE: I never thought Jeffrey Dahmer was insane. I just thought he was a cannibal.

(LAUGHTER)

SHERMAN: Well, what`s the difference? I --

GRACE: Yes, and he got the death penalty behind bars.

SHERMAN: No, he was killed --

GRACE: And I`m so happy about it.

SHERMAN: He was killed --

GRACE: Yes, I know, another inmate killed him.

SHERMAN: But the bottom line is like the social network site --

GRACE: Do you want me to be upset about Jeffrey Dahmer being killed behind bars?

SHERMAN: No. Not at all. Not at all. Not at all.

GRACE: He was not insane.

SHERMAN: The social network information that we see with the B roll and everything that t -- that half naked pictures, that`s going to be as relevant in the trial as whether or not Hellmann`s changes their recipe for mayonnaise. This is not who dunnit. It`s why did she do it?

GRACE: You know what, Mickey Sherman, I hear you, but, you know what, Darryl Cohen, I think her Web site are going to be admissible because if I see perfectly normal, rational activity on her dating Web site, say, the week before this, the day before this, the day of this, she is up the creek without a paddle, Cohen.

DARRYL COHEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Nancy, quite frankly I think her Web site is something that would be very helpful to her in her insanity defense. It shows that she wanted another baby. She is mad. She is crazy. She is out of her mind.

GRACE: OK, to you, Greg Kading, former LAPD detective, author of "Murder Rap," weigh in.

GREG KADING, FORMER LAPD DETECTIVE, AUTHOR OF "MURDER RAP": Well, I think there`s going to be a distinction between whether she is insane or whether that will simply be her defense. I think that her defense attorneys will give her that defense because it`s the only one that they can practically apply in the situation, like you said.

She is caught red handed. The evidence is overwhelming. Insanity is the only way she can go. Whether or not it`s true or not is a different matter.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Witnesses heard the distraught mother scream, my baby, my baby.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A woman accused of killing a mother outside a doctor`s office.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: In Texas a young mom gunned down in the parking lot shouting for her baby as her 3-day-old infant was ripped out of her arms.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Charging a 30-year-old registered nurse with capital murder --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Snatching her 3-day-old baby --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: For shooting that young mother right here in this parking lot and then kidnapping her young son.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: They say that the suspect took the baby and shot the mom.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: As the little boy was taken, gravely wounded, yet determined to fight for her newborn, the mother tried to protect her child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls. We are live in Houston. And joining us the elected district attorney, Montgomery County, District Attorney Brett Ligon.

Brett, I know no formal announcement has been made. You`ll have to study the case but you have the mode of lethal injection in Texas, correct?

LIGON: Yes, ma`am.

GRACE: There`s about 10 females on the Texas death row. How difficult is it to get a death penalty verdict on a female?

LIGON: Well, it`s been my experience from working as a prosecutor in Harris County, obviously, for many years before I became elected up in Montgomery County, that anytime sympathy is a factor, which case is typically that situation when you have a female, the age of the offender, the criminal history of an offender, and because females just don`t typically act out like males do, oftentimes there`s an absence of a long pattern of criminal history that would make a jury think that there was future danger.

The third part of the Texas death penalty for a jury to be able to assess it looks at what the future dangerousness is to the community based upon the defendant. So, you know, when you`ve got a history of a long sentence or a long line of death penalty cases against males in such a few cases against females, in those few cases were absolutely atrocious, shock the conscience type of cases.

You can see that the -- that the odds of a successful conviction against a female in any case are somewhat remote.

GRACE: You know, you`re talking about sympathy for the defendant when she is a female. To Dr. Leslie Seppinni, clinical psychologist, what about the sympathy for this mother, a 28-year-old mom?

LESLIE SEPPINNI, PSY.D., CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: You know, it`s just incredible, gunned down like a dog in the street, a mother. I mean, it`s just so incredibly -- incredibly tragic and I can`t even imagine, my heart goes out to this family and to this father. Unbelievable.

GRACE: And you know, the other thing, Brett Ligon, when you`re making the decision that you`re going to be faced with after this indictment because obviously it`s going to be indicted, when you think about the victim, the real victim here that I am thinking about is the 3-day-old boy that will go the rest of his life thinking, probably, somehow, it`s my fault that mommy died trying to save my life. And now he and his two brothers are facing life without their mother.

Brett, where is the baby tonight? Is it back with the family?

LIGON: It`s my understanding that he is. And last night finally between 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. most of us had left the scene and tried to get a little bit of sleep. And so my understanding was that the family was summoned to a local police department and so there was an interview that was taking place.

I assume that that interview has taken place and at this point there`s everything in my mind to make me believe that the fact the father does have the child.

GRACE: Yes. Well, Jean Casarez, a lot was being made, much ado, about the father not having the baby yet. He went to the police station with the maternal grandmother, the victim`s mother. But the reality is police and CPS have to investigate to make sure the dad is not involved. Of course he was not. To cover all the bases before they hand the baby back over.

Do you know, Jean, does he have his baby back?

JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": We believe he does, but you`re talking about protocol. Child Protective Services did have custody of that little 3-day-old baby because in the best interest of the child they have to make sure that it is safe for him to return to the family even if it`s a none-issue.

GRACE: You know, Joe Gomez, sometimes when I see my husband fly off on a plane to go to work or drive away, I always think what would I do, you know, especially after the murder of my fiance many years ago. What would I do it if something happened to him? How would I tell my children? And this 3-day-old baby has two brothers.

JOE GOMEZ, REPORTER, KTRH RADIO: That`s right, Nancy. He has two brothers. Two little boys, and that father has two little boys. I mean, it`s a shocking thing that`s happened to this family, Nancy. In one day their whole -- their whole path, their whole life has changed because of one person. It`s amazing.

GRACE: Everyone, we are going to break and taking your calls, but tonight, Georgia, the first state to sign a law for lung cancer awareness license plate. This has touched my family profoundly. Proceeds benefit the Joan Gaeta Lung Cancer Fund and efforts to support research for the world`s number one cancer killer. For info go to lungcancerlicenseplate.org.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE GAETA, PRESIDENT, CEO OF JOAN GAETA LUNG CANCER FUND: Lung cancer does matter. It matters just as much as any of the other cancers out there. It`s something that smoker, nonsmoker, doesn`t matter, you shouldn`t -- you shouldn`t be ashamed, and you shouldn`t let that affect how you, you know, spread the word.

First time I see it, I might choke up a little bit because my mother - - she fought it for about three and a half years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Four gunshots at first. I heard three more after that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A young mom gunned down --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw a lady fall down over here in the parking lot.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A 3-day-old baby boy snatched from his mother.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw another lady get out, I saw another guy get out of the -- the lady just shot her, was driving, and get the baby out of the other lady that was shot and they just got in the car and drove off.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A SWAT team surrounded a nearby apartment building, where they found the suspect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were able to successfully re-obtain the child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Tonight, baby Keegan is alive. All of this breaking last night during our show. The search for the baby, the horrible news we received just as I went on the air that the mom was, in fact, dead at 28. She left the pediatrician`s office after a routine visit with her 3-day-old baby boy. She had no idea lying in wait in the parking lot was a 30-year- old nurse, intent on getting her baby.

Kayla Marie Golden Schuchardt protected her baby and lost her own life.

Let`s stop and remember. Army Sergeant Adam Ray, 23, Louisville, Kentucky, killed, Afghanistan. Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Army Commendation. Always stood up for the weak, loved helping others, loved his nephew, Chris. Leaves behinds parents Jim and Donna, brother Zachary and Seth.

Adam Ray, American hero.

Thanks to our guests, but especially to you for being with us. And happy birthday to our number-one fan, a Navy vet who served in the World War, gave up a college basketball scholarship to serve our country. Even lied about his age to join the Navy. A railroad man for over 40 years. And his wife, my mom, put us all through college. Put braces on our teeth. Took us to Sunday school. And taught me how to dance.

And in the recent weeks, my mom was told she had a malignant tumor in her lung. And I saw my father stick by her. The good news is, it is benign. But through all those days, he showed me what love is all about.

Happy birthday, Daddy.

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

END