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Nancy Grace
Pregnant Bride-to-Be Murdered
Aired July 03, 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: Tonight, live to Charlotte. A 25-year-old bride- to-be, just a few weeks pregnant, works the late shift at a family-style restaurant Friday night, but then she never comes home. Her blue Chevy Cavalier also gone.
Bombshell tonight. A frantic 911 call, and then a tip leads to an isolated dumpster and the body of Danielle Watson, Watson stabbed two dozen times about the neck, chest, stomach, hands, buried in her wedding dress. But tonight, we investigate the clues left behind.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-five-year-old Danielle Watson was two months pregnant with her first child.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She wanted to be a mom so bad. She wanted to have so many kids.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the first time, she hears the baby`s heartbeat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keith had been on the phone with Danielle when he said he heard a commotion. He then called 911.
911 OPERATOR: Charlotte 911.
KEITH SMITH, FIANCE: My girlfriend -- she called me and hung up abruptly. And I can hear her yelling in the background.
911 OPERATOR: What`s your girlfriend`s name?
SMITH: Danielle Watson. She gets off at 9:00, and she should have been home hours ago. But she called me from work, and I`m concerned. I think maybe somebody`s trying to rob it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But officers wouldn`t get to Danielle Watson that night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A trash collector discovered Watson`s body near a dumpster at the Stonecrest shopping center.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She had been murdered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The cafe had been robbed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And her 1997 baby blue Cavalier was gone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The crimes are connected.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police rolled out crime tape and began their investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re getting a lot of people asking what happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight, live, Charlotte. A 25-year-old bride-to-be, just a few weeks pregnant, works the late shift at a family-style restaurant Friday night. But she never comes home, her blue Chevy Cavalier also gone. Then a tip leads to an isolated dumpster and the body of Danielle Watson, Watson found stabbed two dozen times about the neck, chest, stomach, hands, ultimately buried in her wedding dress, the dress she never got to wear.
But tonight, we investigate the clues left behind. Straight out to Michael Board, WOAI. Michael, first of all, what led police to this isolated dumpster?
MICHAEL BOARD, WOAI: Well, the very first clue that police got in this case was Danielle Watson`s fiance calling 911, saying, You know, I think that`s something wrong. I just got a very strange call from my fiance. It was like -- like a butt dial, like there was something going on in the background, but you couldn`t really tell what it was. Nobody was speaking into the phone.
He thought it was very strange. He thought he might have heard screams and was a little bit worried, like any fiance would be about his fiancee. So he called 911, told 911, you know, There`s something going on. Can you send an officer --
GRACE: Well, hold on! Hold on, Michael. I want to take a listen to that 911 call. Take a listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: Charlotte 911. Do you need police, fire, or medic?
SMITH: Police.
911 OPERATOR: Where do you need police?
SMITH: 7930 Rea Road.
911 OPERATOR: Is that a house or an apartment?
SMITH: It`s a business. I believe it`s being robbed.
911 OPERATOR: What`s the name of the business?
SMITH: Flying biscuit.
911 OPERATOR: Why do you think it`s getting robbed?
SMITH: My girlfriend works there. She called me and hung up abruptly, and I could hear her yelling in the background.
911 OPERATOR: What`s your girlfriend`s name?
SMITH: Danielle Watson. She gets off at 9:00. She should have been home hours ago. But it did sound like there was some type of commotion in the background. She called me from work. And I`m concerned. I think maybe somebody`s trying to rob it.
911 OPERATOR: OK. All right. I`ll go ahead and enter a call, have an officer go out there and check it out. What`s your name, sir?
SMITH: My name is Keith Smith.
911 OPERATOR: And what`s your phone number? OK, I`ll go ahead and enter a call to have an officer go out there and check it out. We`ll give you a call back when we find out what`s going on.
SMITH: Thank you very much.
911 OPERATOR: You`re welcome.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: So that`s the first we know that anything is really wrong. Back to you, Michael Board. What happened then?
BOARD: Well, here`s where it took a tragic turn. That address that was given to the 911 dispatcher, that`s actually the wrong address for the restaurant. So the dispatcher sent officers out to that location, which ended up being a private residence. They didn`t find anything going on there, and they didn`t check back with the fiance to see, you know, maybe it was at a different address. They never checked it back. They just dropped the call altogether.
Meanwhile, this beautiful woman, Danielle Watson, is lying, dying in a dumpster behind that restaurant where she was a manager.
GRACE: To Ellie Jostad. I want to go through that confusion on 911 and how the whole thing unfolds.
What we know is that this 25-year-old bride-to-be, now buried in the wedding dress she never got to wear walking down the aisle, is murdered, stabbed two dozen times about the face, the neck, the arms, the hands, clearly defensive wounds, a tip leading to an isolated dumpster where her body was found.
Ellie, take it from the top.
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: OK, Nancy. Well, after Keith Smith, the fiance, got this phone call that sounded really strange -- he says he doesn`t have caller ID, he wasn`t really sure who had called him. But as the time is going by, he`s texting, he`s calling Danielle. She`s not responding. He`s getting more and more worried.
He called 911 and said he believes that his fiancee called him while she was in the process of getting robbed at her business. So the problem here, though, Nancy, the address he gave the police -- some say it sounds like the right address. The dispatcher says that he heard it differently.
The two addresses are four miles apart. So the cops went to the wrong address, which is actually just a private residence. They knocked on the door, got no answer, and that was dropped from that point on.
GRACE: So didn`t they have the wrong address and they had the wrong name of the restaurant? Instead of Flying Biscuit, they went to something like Plum Biscuit?
JOSTAD: Right.
GRACE: He tried to find it, he couldn`t find it, and then just gave up?
JOSTAD: Yes. That`s what it sounds like, Nancy. And it wasn`t until there was a second 911 call six hours later, when somebody realized the business has been robbed, that the police really respond to the correct location. So all this time went by before police were notified that there was something seriously wrong going on.
GRACE: Dana, let`s see a map. I want to see how far away police actually were from the location where the fiance is trying to get them to. Everybody, you are seeing shots of a 25-year-old restaurant manager, soon to be wed, the bride-to-be ultimately buried in that wedding dress, her body found with multiple stab wounds.
Joining me right now is a special guest, Keith Smith. This is Danielle`s fiance who tried desperately to direct cops to the right location.
Keith, thanks for being with us. Keith, when you first got the call from Danielle, what did you think, she had pocket-dialed you? What did she say? What could you hear in the background?
SMITH: Well, I can`t be 100 percent sure it was her. I mean, now, with hindsight, I`m pretty sure it was. But I couldn`t hear anything. It just happened to be about the time that she would normally call when she was leaving work. And it was just a scuffle. You couldn`t make anything out. I mean, I could -- I could make out voices, but I couldn`t tell what anybody was saying.
GRACE: Do you have star 69? Could you have dialed it back to see if it was her?
SMITH: I could have, but that didn`t cross my mind because at that point, you know, you don`t think --
GRACE: Yes.
SMITH: -- the worst is happening. You just think that, OK, you just get some weird phone call.
GRACE: Yes, you just think you got a call where someone had pocket- dialed you. But you said you think you heard a scuffle in the background and voices? What kind of voices, male or female?
SMITH: It was a female voice, and the only word I could make out was "kitchen."
GRACE: Kitchen. Everybody, with me is Keith Smith. This is Danielle`s fiance. He receives what sounds like a pocket dial around the time his fiancee is headed home from work. She never makes it home. Then a tip leads police to an isolated dumpster, where her body is found, multiple stab wounds.
Out to the lines. Let`s go out to Rosalie, South Carolina. Hi, Rosalie. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. How are you? I was just wondering, does -- maybe the boyfriend, the fiance, had a girlfriend, and maybe she freaked out because they`re getting married and attacked her, since he heard a female voice?
GRACE: You know, to Dr. William Marrone, medical examiner, forensic pathologist, toxicologist, joining us tonight from Madison Heights.
Dr. Marrone, you have very carefully studied the autopsy report in this case, 25 stab wounds. I find it very difficult to believe that a female could have inflicted that type -- well, first of all, nobody knows anything about the fiance having a girlfriend, number one, other than the one he planned to marry.
But let`s just look at what we know, two dozen stab wounds to the neck, check, abdomen, hands. The black apron she typically wore was wrapped around her face. I don`t see how a female could have done this to another female, Marrone.
DR. WILLIAM MARRONE, MEDICAL EXAMINER/FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST (via telephone): (INAUDIBLE) either. It is somebody with much more strength and somebody who`s very angry. And the autopsy specifically says stab wounds. Stab wounds are deeper than they are long, and stab wounds are more of an angry kind of thing. Somebody`s over you, and it`s a powerful thing.
GRACE: To Bonnie Druker, joining us on the story. Bonnie, what more can you tell us?
BONNIE DRUKER, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Well, we talked about the mix-up with the 911 call. It wasn`t until 6:24 the next morning that an employee -- she was going to the store to open it, and she basically got into the store and there was no money and the safe was open and the door was open. And she called 911, and that`s when police probably got back onto this case.
GRACE: Back out to the lines. Joining me right now, Ashley, New Jersey. Hi, Ashley. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I was just wondering what the statistic usually is on husbands, fiances killing, you know, their pregnant girlfriends or significant others. And also, I mean, I watch a lot of forensic shows and I always watch your show, and it just seems to me with stab wounds, that`s really personal, for you to just sit there and keep stabbing and stabbing.
GRACE: You know, Ashley in New Jersey, you`re absolutely correct. The number one cause of death of pregnant women in America is homicide. And typically, it`s by their partner, husband, boyfriend, live-in, ex, whatever that partner may be.
However, in this particular case, with me and taking your calls tonight, not afraid of the glare of the camera lights, is the fiance, Keith Smith.
Keith, cops could actually ping your cell phone. They knew where you were at the time of the incident, and it`s my understanding you were completely cooperative with police and totally ruled out. Isn`t that correct?
SMITH: That`s correct.
GRACE: OK, I want to go very quickly to Dr. Caryn Stark, psychologist in New York. Caryn, the reality about statistics of pregnant moms, and frankly, women in general, but just before her wedding -- she`s set to walk down the aisle in a couple of days. She finds out she`s a few weeks pregnant. Caryn Stark, typically, that is when abuse does happen.
CARYN STARK, PSYCHOLOGIST: That`s when it happens, Nancy. The woman is most vulnerable during that period of time. And also, the person who gets her pregnant -- not this man in particular -- but often isn`t ready to have a baby, starts to get really anxious.
So -- and indeed, it`s much more personal when somebody stabs somebody. There`s a connection that they`re getting that`s a violent connection.
GRACE: What do we know about the murder of 25-year-old Danielle? She leaves her shift or is set to leave her shift at a family-style restaurant on a Friday night after the late shift. She never makes it home.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Worried that his fiancee was in serious danger.
SMITH: She gets off at 9:00. She should have been home hours ago. But it did sound like there was some type of commotion in the background.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-five-year-old Danielle Watson was two months pregnant with her first child.
911 OPERATOR: Is it a house or an apartment?
SMITH: It`s a business. I believe it`s being robbed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The cafe had been robbed at closing time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Went to take out the trash and found the body of Danielle Watson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never would have imagined something that sick would happen here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The body was found, and her 1997 baby blue Cavalier was gone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police have sent out an alert.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The murdered mother-to-be.
SMITH: Danielle Watson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, it`s very sad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pray to God she`s in a better place. I hope she`s happy, wherever she is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. A bride-to-be, just a few days from walking down the aisle in a beautiful wedding dress, found murdered, stabbed 25 times about the face, the neck, the arms, the hands. A tip leads police to an isolated dumpster.
What happened? Did it happen there in that family-style restaurant, the Flying Biscuit? What do we know tonight? We examine the clues that are left behind.
Straight out to Jason. Jason, what`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks for taking my call. Yes, I got a quick question.
GRACE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has the fiance taken a polygraph?
GRACE: Good question. To Sheryl McCollum, crime analyst and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute. How valuable will polygraphs be in a case like this? Although I`m pretty positive police immediately pinged where the boyfriend, the fiance, was at the time of the call.
SHERYL MCCOLLUM, CRIME ANALYST: Sure. Well, not only do they have that information, Nancy, the killer stole her car, so you`re going to have bloody fingerprints inside her car. Possibly, they`re going to be able to, you know, recover a murder weapon, as well as some bloody clothes. When you`ve got dozens of stab wounds about the neck and the chest, you`re talking about an enormous amount of blood here.
This does not look domestic to me, either, because, again, they took the money from the safe. She was connected to that safe, being the night manager. The fiance`s not somebody I would waste any time looking at.
GRACE: You know, Sheryl, let`s go over the facts again because the part about taking the car, the blue Chevy Cavalier, to me right there, and the fact that the money being gone from the safe occurs at the time of the incident, we believe --
MCCOLLUM: Correct.
GRACE: -- to me, those facts alone rule out the fiance because typically --
MCCOLLUM: Sure.
GRACE: -- in domestic homicides, A, they happen in the home.
MCCOLLUM: Right.
GRACE: You might find the body disposed of somewhere else, as it was in this case, but the death occurs typically in the home. And it`s not for robbery reasons --
MCCOLLUM: Right.
GRACE: -- and the car isn`t stolen.
MCCOLLUM: And Nancy, in this case, there`s no past violence between these two people. For all purposes, they`ve never been happier.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SMITH: -- called me from work, and I`m concerned. I think maybe somebody`s trying to rob it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A trash collector discovers Watson`s body.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And alarming to those who`ve never seen anything like this so close to home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And for the first time, they heard the baby`s heartbeat on the ultrasound.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She just wanted to be a mom so bad. She wanted to have so many kids.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A trash collector discovered Watson`s body near a dumpster at the Stonecrest shopping center.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She had been murdered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The cafe had been robbed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And her 1997 baby blue Cavalier was gone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The crimes are connected.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police rolled out crime tape and began their investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re getting a lot of people asking what happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Twenty-five-year-old Danielle, looking forward to walking down the aisle in just a few days, discovers she`s just a few weeks pregnant and could not be happier, had a great job as a manager at a family-style restaurant. But one Friday night, she never made it home, her blue Chevy Cavalier also missing from the parking lot of the Flying Biscuit, a family- style restaurant there in Charlotte.
We are taking your call. And joining us tonight as a special guest, her fiance, Keith Smith, who wants justice.
We`re going through the facts as we know them. Quickly, back out to you, Bonnie Druker, is there any fact that we`ve left out? I know about the safe. I know money was missing, a couple of thousand bucks?
DRUKER: Yes, we understand there may have been a blood trail, Nancy, from the restaurant.
GRACE: A blood trail where?
DRUKER: Leading to an apartment close by.
GRACE: And I want to hear also -- very quickly, Ellie Jostad, I want to hear about the dumpster. Where was the dumpster located in relation to the restaurant and in relation to the apartment where she lived with Keith Smith?
JOSTAD: Nancy, the dumpster was behind a Chick-Fil-A restaurant. It was just adjacent to the Flying Biscuit cafe where she worked. And it was a worker who was going to empty that dumpster that discovered the body.
Now, this couple did not live together. They both lived at their families. But they did frequently spend, you know, a night or two at each other`s home. So he was expecting her to come home that night, and she never did.
GRACE: To Keith Smith, joining me tonight. This is Danielle`s fiance. Keith where was the dumpster in relation to where you lived and in relation to where Danielle lived?
SMITH: I live about 45 minutes away from the restaurant.
GRACE: OK, and what about her?
SMITH: About the same distance, just in the opposite direction.
GRACE: And what did you know about the people she worked with, Keith? What did you know about her co-workers or her boss?
SMITH: I really didn`t know anything. She hadn`t had that job very long, just a little over a month. So I didn`t really know anything about anybody.
GRACE: And back to you, Bonnie Druker. I`m trying to analyze what we know. What time did the Flying Biscuit close that evening?
DRUKER: The Flying Biscuit was set to close at 9:00 that night, Nancy.
GRACE: And Sheryl McCollum, what does all this mean to you?
MCCOLLUM: Well, it tells you that the killer had about a six-hour window to ditch her car, ditch bloody clothes, ditch the murder weapon and basically be unnoticed. So again, what we know about the fiance -- he didn`t have a car. He didn`t get to her to do anything to her. He had no motive to do anything to her and he had no opportunity to do it. The killer had her car. He`s got money from the restaurant. So we`ve got some things -- once they find her car, we`re going to have some evidence.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty-five-year-old Danielle Watson was two months pregnant with her first child.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She wanted to be a mom so bad. She wanted to have so many kids.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the first time, she hears the baby`s heartbeat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keith had been on the phone with Danielle when he said he heard a commotion. He then called 911.
911 OPERATOR: Charlotte 911.
SMITH: My girlfriend, she called me and hung up abruptly. And I can hear her yelling in the background.
911 OPERATOR: What`s your girlfriend`s name?
SMITH: Danielle Watson. She gets off at 9:00 and she should have been home hours ago. But she called me from work, and I`m concerned. I think maybe somebody`s trying to rob it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But officers wouldn`t get to Danielle Watson that night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A trash collector discovered Watson`s body near a dumpster at the Stonecrest shopping center.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She had been murdered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The cafe had been robbed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And her 1997 baby blue Cavalier was gone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The crimes are connected.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police rolled out crime tape and began their investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re getting a lot of people asking what happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: After police find dishevelment there in the Flying Biscuit -- the safe is open, money is gone, a blood trail is discovered -- a suspect emerges.
Back out to Bonnie Druker. Bonnie, what do we learn?
DRUKER: Nancy, we learn that a suspect has been developed, and it happens to be a man that works with Danielle Watson. They were working together for about two months. He works in the kitchen of the Flying Biscuit.
GRACE: So all this suspicion that was initially thrown on to fiance, the boyfriend, it was completely unfounded.
DRUKER: Completely unfounded.
GRACE: Because he had absolutely nothing to do with this and was actually helping to make the plans for their wedding in just a few days.
You know, I want to see the photos of her trying on that wedding dress, again, Dana. This woman set to walk down the aisle in just days. She never got to wear that dress down the aisle. Instead she was buried in her wedding dress. The fiance, devastated, completely cooperative with police and now a suspect emerges.
And when you learn what I have learned about this suspect, your stomach is going to be in a knot. Because this entire thing, the murder of this girl, a bride-to-be, just a couple of weeks pregnant, could have totally been averted.
To Ellie Jostad, I want you to tell me about 22-year-old convicted felon Mark Cox and how a judge, Judge Alma Hinton, fits into this scenario.
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE CHIEF EDITORIAL PRODUCER: Nancy, when Mark Cox started working at the Flying Biscuit, he`d only been out of jail a little over a month. He actually committed a robbery back in 2008. He actually robbed a Sonic restaurant where he worked under very similar circumstances. It`s about closing time. He held his fellow co-workers at gunpoint and he robbed the store of a couple of thousands dollars.
Now, after that, he got a suspended sentence from that judge you mentioned. He then went on, however, just about a year later to commit another breaking and entering robbery. He robbed a man who was reportedly trying to give him kind of a fresh start, offering him a place to live. When that man tried to kick him out, he responded by breaking into that man`s house.
So after that second crime, he does finally get sent to prison. And he got out on November 1st, just before this murder.
GRACE: But what I need to hear, thought, Bonnie Druker, in addition to what Ellie has just correctly told me, is where Judge Alma Hinton fits into the scenario?
DRUKER: Well, there was a suspended sentence on the 2008 charge and then in 2009 he was back in jail. And then he got out of jail three years later.
GRACE: So the judge lets him walk, a suspended sentence.
Unleash the lawyers. Let`s talk about what a suspended sentence is. With me Kelly Saindon, former prosecutor, Chicago, Renee Rockwell, veteran trial lawyer, Atlanta. John Manuelian, defense attorney, L.A.
All right, Renee. Let`s just talk about what is a suspended sentence.
RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, you`re technically on sentence, you`re under sentence but you have no supervision, you`re not on probation, you`re reporting, you`re not being monitored. You`re not coming in to pay, you`re not being drug tested, you`re under sentence fictitiously with no supervision. You`re serving a prison sentence --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: So bottom line it is, for instance, a guilty plea with absolutely no repercussion, you go, yes, I plead guilty, but then there`s no sentence, you don`t go to jail, you`re not on probation, you don`t pay a fine, nothing. You just walk out of the courthouse.
ROCKWELL: No supervision.
GRACE: And --
ROCKWELL: No supervision.
GRACE: And to you, John Manuelian, the reality is, Judge Alma Hinton, here`s a guy that has robbed all of his co-workers at Sonic, which is another restaurant, at closing time, takes a couple of thousand dollars, holds them all at gunpoint then he takes -- steals from somebody trying to help him and he gets a suspended sentence from Judge Alma Hinton. He walks free.
On his next offense, he does a little time, he`s only out a week. He got the lightest sentence he could possibly get. Why?
JOHN MANUELIAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, a suspended sentence, I disagree with the other commentator. A suspended sentence, there is probation, you do have to report, there are terms and conditions, you`re just not given a frozen sentence and told to do whatever you want. That doesn`t happen. You`re supposed to report to the probation department. And if there`s any problems, there is a probation violation hearing in which a judge could send you to prison on that suspended sentence. That`s why it`s suspended. It`s technically a frozen sentence until you mess up.
GRACE: Well, that`s the whole point. The whole point, Kelly Saindon, is that when you get a suspended sentence, you don`t get any punishment. You basically say, yes, I did it, and that`s it. That`s all that happens. You`re not in jail, you`re not in rehab, nothing. It`s all suspended. Nothing happened.
Until now and Danielle is dead, buried in her wedding dress, because a judge gave a suspended sentence and a light sentence. This guy then reoffended, he went back to jail for a minute, he`s only out a week when he murders Danielle.
KELLY SAINDON, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: You`re right.
MANUELIAN: Yes, but again --
SAINDON: And what`s shocking about this is that the first one was very, very violent. To point a handgun at people, if you have a gun you`re intending to use it to rob your co-workers. So this is -- a suspended sentence is shocking in that case because this isn`t someone who spray painted some graffiti on the side of a building, said he was sorry, and the judge just let him go. And so the second attorney is correct. That you are monitored and if you messed up that one chance to take him away, but I`m shocked he got a first chance in this case like that because it was such an offensive crime.
GRACE: Back out to Sheryl McCollum, crime analyst, director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute.
Sheryl, could it have been anymore of a fingerprint crime? He holds everybody that he works with at gunpoint at Sonic Restaurant, all right? If you and I had been in there getting a hamburger, would have been held at gunpoint, too.
SHERYL MCCOLLUM, CRIME ANALYST, DIR. OF COLD CASE INVESTIGATIVE RESEARCH INSTITUTE, POLYGRAPH ANALYST: Right.
GRACE: He leaves with a couple of $1,000. But that time, Sheryl McCollum, he left behind witnesses. Not this time.
MCCOLLUM: Yes.
GRACE: He would not leave Danielle alive.
MCCOLLUM: He has learned, Nancy, all three of his crimes he went after people that knew him and that trusted him and were trying to help him out.
GRACE: I want to go to Kay Smith. This is Danielle Watson`s fiance. They were set to walk down the aisle in just a couple of days.
When you learned this guy had gotten a lenient sentences basically for the same type of M.O., armed robbery at a restaurant where he worked, stealing money out of the safe. I bet Danielle had no idea she was working with a convicted felon. Did she?
KEITH SMITH, PREGNANT FIANCEE WAS STABBED TO DEATH: She had no idea. And I`m sure if she knew --
GRACE: Keith, when you --
SMITH: -- she wouldn`t work there. If I knew, I wouldn`t let her work there.
GRACE: When you now realize that the suspect that is emerging has been in and out, and in and out of trouble with the law, I want to hear your response, Keith.
SMITH: Well, mind-blowing to say the least. That knot that you talk about in your stomach, I still have every single day, it doesn`t go away, it`s the most mind-blowing thing. And I couldn`t believe it when I found out. You know you just think how, how in the world does something like this happen? Who lets this happen? It just -- it just -- it just did not make any sense at all. It just didn`t make any sense.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SMITH: She was extremely excited about it. She was -- I wish I had a better vocabulary so I could make it sound much better, but she was ecstatic happy, I mean just so happy. And I was thrilled. I have always - - I`ve always wanted to be a father and I was going to get the chance to be one and we were both just thrilled.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Keith Smith will always replay the call he made to 911 late Friday night worried that his fiance was in serious danger. But officers wouldn`t get to Danielle Watson that night because of two critical communications breakdowns. The first came when Smith told the operator where she was. We listened several times and couldn`t tell if he said 3930, or 7930 Ray Road. This afternoon police said they couldn`t tell either.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve listened to it dozens of times as well. And I can also hear it both way.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Still Captain Mike Capana (ph) said officers, might have gotten to the right place if the operator hadn`t made a mistake relaying the business` name. Smith clearly said the Flying Biscuit but Campana says the operator told officers to look for the plumb biscuit. A business that doesn`t exist.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: Charlotte 911, do you need police, fire or medic?
SMITH: Police.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: Where do you need police?
SMITH: 3930 Ray Road.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: Is that a house or an apartment.
SMITH: It`s a business, I believe it`s being robbed.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: What`s the name of the business?
SMITH: The Flying Biscuit.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: Why do you think it`s getting robbed?
SMITH: My girlfriend works there, she called me and hung up abruptly and I could hear her yelling in the background.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: What`s your girlfriend`s name?
SMITH: Danielle Watson. She gets off at 9:00. She should have been home hours ago. But it did sound like there`s some kind of commotion in the background. She called from work and I`m concerned. I think maybe somebody is trying to rob it.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: OK. All right. I`ll go ahead and enter a call and have an officer go out there and check it out.
What`s your name, sir?
SMITH: My name is Keith Smith.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: And what`s your phone number? OK. I`ll go ahead and enter the call and have an officer go out there check it out, we`ll give you a call back when we find out what`s going on.
SMITH: Thank you very much.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: You`re welcome.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: With me right now taking your calls, Danielle`s fiance, Keith Smith.
Keith, as the evening unfolded that evening. After you got this phone call that sounded like somebody pocket-dialed to you, didn`t think anything about it, when did you first realized something was very, very wrong?
SMITH: Well, after I got that call, I was, you know, calling her and texting her on the cell phone. Just trying to make see if that was hers. See what`s going on. You know, maybe they had to work later, whatever.
And as time kept going on, you know, you start to get worried, but you certainly don`t think anything like this happened. But right before I called 911, I called her one last time and her phone went straight to voicemail and that`s when it started clicking that something was really wrong.
GRACE: When you first learned that police had honed in on this guy, Mark Cox, a convicted felon, who had held people up at his last restaurant where he worked, the Sonic, what did they tell you about him?
SMITH: I didn`t get a whole lot of background from him initially. I think it would -- only because, you know, it`s -- everything was still fresh and they were still trying to get information. So I really think they could get a whole lot of background on him except that he worked at the Flying Biscuit with Danielle. It wasn`t until later on that I learned more about him.
GRACE: Keith, was the baby that Danielle was carrying, was it a boy or a girl, do you know?
SMITH: Well, the medical examiners said it was too early to decide, but Danielle and I were convinced it was a boy.
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers, Kelly Saindon, Renee Rockwell, John Manuelian.
In that jurisdiction, Manuelian, an unborn child equals a person, a living person. That means two victims. More than one victim means mass murder, mass murder means death penalty, Manuelian.
MANUELIAN: Yes, that does mean death penalty, but if I was a defense attorney I would argue the viability of the fetus itself. Because if you use the Roe v. Wade standard and say --
GRACE: Put him up, please.
MANUELIAN: -- that the viability -- yes? I was going to say that if the viability is between 24 to 28 weeks, she was only 10 weeks pregnant. You know that may be an argument to avoid a death penalty. That the fetus wasn`t viable.
GRACE: OK. Hold on. Let me get this straight, so even though North Carolina had a statute as do many, many states about an unborn child constituting a human life, constituting a murder. You would argue now try to argue Roe v. Wade that it wasn`t enough weeks old to constitute a human? Is this not what I`m hearing?
MANUELIAN: The law was passed in December 2011. It`s a brand-new law, so there`s going to be issues as to what is they meant by human for the purposes of pregnancy.
GRACE: It`s not brand new in our country, Manuelian. As a matter of fact, Renee. Many, many states have this statute. So it`s already been taken up to the U.S. Supreme Court and ruled constitutional.
ROCKWELL: That`s right, Nancy, fetuscide, and the offense has state that recognizes this law you definitely have the defense attorney have to be concerned about the two victims.
GRACE: Oh, yes, he better be concerned, in North Carolina about the needle, because that`s exactly what he is going to be facing in the murder of Danielle and her unborn child.
Everybody, very quickly, I want to remind you family album is back with your photos. Here are our California friends, the Katz. There`s Jane with Lynette, Alice, Daniella. They love traveling especially Disney.
Share your photos through iReport at HLNTV.com/Nancygrace. Then click on "Nancy`s family album.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SMITH: It should be gorgeous and -- things she said like a white casket and things she said they got a white caskets and it`s lice, would think carnations and we`re going to bury her in the wedding dress that she picked out. I thank God that she`s well enough we`re going to have a full open casket so you can see her. She`s beautiful. Believe me.
Danielle was about two months pregnant, according to family members. Danielle was soon to be married to fiance Keith Smith. Keith had been on the phone with Danielle when he said he heard a commotion in the cafe. He then called 911, fearing a robbery was taking place. Danielle`s family had moved from Lockport when she was a young child. Now at age 25, she was said to be very much in love and looking forward to becoming a mother.
To Keith Smith, this is Danielle Watson`s fiance. How did you reach the decision to bury her in her wedding dress?
SMITH: It was a combined decision with her family and myself. The place where she tried the dress on actually donated the dress. So that` s -- we had to do it that way. The only thing that could come into our minds of how to do it.
GRACE: Keith, what do you have to say to lawyers like Manuelian that suggest the baby didn`t equal a person? And there should be no sentence in relation to its murder?
SMITH: Well, when your two month pregnant fiance is murdered, you`ll change your mind.
GRACE: And back to the lawyers. Kelly Saindon, Renee Rockwell, John Manuelin. And bring in Caryn Stark, please.
Caryn Stark, this is not an issue about, yes, no, abortion. All right? That is a woman`s decision to be made, typically in most jurisdictions, within a certain period of time. I`m talking about the illegal taking of life by another, by a killer. It`s got to be recognized as a homicide under the law, to do this to an infant.
CARYN STARK, PSYCHOLOGIST: Yes. And it`s not about -- you`re absolutely right, Nancy. It`s not about whether it`s giving life or not. It`s how the couple felt. To them, this was their baby.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Worried that his fiance was in serious danger.
SMITH: She gets off at 9:00. She should have been home hours ago. But it did sound like there was some kind of commotion in the background.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Twenty-five year old Danielle Watson was two months pregnant with her first child.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: Is it a house or apartment?
SMITH: It`s a business. Business. `it`s I believe it`s being robber.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The cafe, had been robbed at closing time went to take out the trash and found the body of Danielle Watson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never would have imagined something that sick would happen here.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Her body was found and her 1997 baby-blue Cavalier was gone.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police have sent our an alert --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- for murdered mother to be.
SMITH: Danielle Watson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s very sad. I pray to god she`s in a better place I hope she`s happy, wherever she is.
SMITH: I was pretty sure that I gave the correct information. I haven`t heard the call. What`s done is done. I don`t care to --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You said Flying Biscuit clearly. I heard it.
SMITH: OK. I was pretty sure I gave correct information, but I`m also pretty sure that that whatever happened, happened right before that call anyway. I don`t fault anybody. It`s not going to bring anything back. It`s not going to do anything. But, yes, I was positive I gave correct information on that call. But I think that would -- they might have just found her body sooner.
I mean, it was really fast, but I can`t even be 100 percent sure that was her. I can`t. I mean we don`t have caller I.D. on the phone. So it might not have been her. I`m 99 percent sure it was. And I think it was her, calling me with what was happening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: His worst suspicions and fears confirmed. His fiance set to walk down the aisle in a few days, 25-year-old Danielle was later found stabbed nearly two dozen times in an isolated dumpster.
Very quickly, Michael Board, WOAI, what is the mode of execution in North Carolina?
MICHAEL BOARD, REPORTER, WOAI NEWSRADIO: It is lethal injection.
GRACE: Lethal injection. Dr. William Morrone, medical examiner, joining us out of Madison Heights. Now as a cocktail of three main ingredients. And the reality is of lethal injection. You basically drift off to sleep and you never feel any pain. You have no idea what`s happening to you. You just kind of go to sleep. Isn`t that correct, Morrone?
DR. WILLIAM R. MORRONE, MEDICAL EXAMINER; FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST, TOXICOLOGIST: It is. The first drug is set to put you to sleep. The second drug paralyzes you and then the third drug stops your heart. Very humane.
GRACE: So the bottom line is, after all the pain that he has caused to this young woman, her unborn baby, her fiance, her family, at the most he`s simply going to drift away to sleep.
Everyone, let`s stop and remember Army Specialist Gregory Missman, 36, Batavia, Ohio, killed, Afghanistan. Bronze star, Purple Heart, Combat Action badge. Loves the computers, photography. Mustangs. Volunteering to do home repairs for low-income families. Leaves behind parents Donna and James, brother, Michael. Sister, Dawn. Son, Jack.
Gregory Missman, American hero.
Thanks to our guest but our biggest thank you is to you for being with us and tonight a special get-well across the miles to Florida friends Frances Cobb and CEO, Cobb, bother recovering from surgery. They love the Florida Sunshine and their big beautiful family.
Frances and Theo, stay strong, we love you.
Everyone, Dr. Drew is coming up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern and until then, good night, friend.
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