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Nancy Grace
Pregnant Woman Found Dead in Her Car
Aired August 16, 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, Columbus suburbs. A mother of two, 9 months pregnant, just days away from giving birth, leaves her home for a cleaning job and then she vanishes without a trace. Within hours, the search for Deanna takes an unexpected twist, the 23-year-old found dead in the back seat of her Ford Taurus, no sign of trauma to the body whatsoever, her unborn baby girl, Mabel, also dead from lack of oxygen.
Bombshell tonight. Investigators swarming the home of an unidentified doctor just three miles from the crime scene. Suspicious tire tracks found all around Deanna`s Ford Taurus. Cops tonight convinced she did not drive the car there herself, nor was this the scene of the death. Why is the body positioned in the back seat? And why is a local doctor taking center stage?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A horrifying mystery in Ohio has left two young children without their mother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is how it started, a 911 call saying something`s out of the ordinary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a car out here just west of my house, real dark tinted windows. I was a little bit afraid to walk up to it. I think there`s people in it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Inside the car, a woman`s body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just weeks way from giving birth to a baby girl.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-three-year-old Deanna Ballman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) that just shocks me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two sources say Ballman had responded to a Craigslist ad for a cleaning job.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened between then and now is still a mystery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police carried out several large evidence bags, along with computers and what looked to be a small camera.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And right now, it really is just a mystery.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hitting so close to home.
911 OPERATOR: Do you think someone is in the vehicle?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought there was (INAUDIBLE) tinted windows.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her body found in the back seat of the car. The question, why?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. Live to Columbus suburbs. A mother of two, 9 months pregnant, literally days away from giving birth, leaves home for a cleaning job, and then she vanishes without a trace. The search for Deanna takes an unexpected twist, the 23-year-old found dead in the back seat of her Ford Taurus.
Why is the body in the back seat? And why is a local doctor taking center stage? Why did police take a camera out of the doctor`s home?
And if you saw that shot of her car -- let`s see that aerial shot of Deanna`s Ford Taurus -- it was parked off the road. There you see it, under those trees. Cops are convinced she did not drive the car there herself. Very unusual. There`s no signs of trauma to her body. If she had been asphyxiated, strangled, stabbed, shot, there would have been obvious signs of trauma to the body.
But tonight, this young mom, set to give birth in just days, died some other way, a very difficult way to trace, her body positioned in the back seat of her Ford Taurus and left there in that spot.
We are taking your calls. I want to go straight out to Jean Casarez, legal correspondent, "In Session." What do we know, Jean?
JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": You know, Nancy, we got to tell everybody Deanna was a member of the Colorado National Guard. She got the award of the National Defense Service medal for her work with the Guard, was divorcing her husband, had just moved home to Ohio, thought she could make it on her own by cleaning homes.
But here`s what`s so interesting. They`re saying that it may take 8 to 12 weeks until they determine a cause of death. And Nancy, you know what that can mean. That can mean toxicology testing.
GRACE: That`s exactly what it means. And I`m wondering how, Jean, a local doctor fits into this scenario.
To John Phillips, joining me from KABC. John, I also know that she was on the phone, I believe with her mother right before she goes missing. And the mother heard some sort of a skirmish or a cry, a female voice crying out in the background when she was talking to her daughter, Deanna, right before she goes missing. She was never heard from again until her body turns up.
JOHN PHILLIPS, KABC: Yes, that`s true. The timeline started around 3:30 in the afternoon, which is when Deanna took her kids over to Grandma`s house to drop the kids off there, so Grandma could watch the kids while she responded to this Craigslist ad.
She told her mother that it was to clean a house, to make some extra money. She then calls the mother back. The mother doesn`t hear back from her until just after 8:00 o`clock at night, when what you just described happened on the phone. She told her mother that she wasn`t feeling well. She was feeling sick. And before the phone conversation ended, she heard a woman screaming in the background and a scuffle, and the phone call ends.
And that`s when she calls 911, the mother does.
GRACE: Also -- out to you, Melissa Neeley. Hold on, Kelly in Michigan -- Melissa joining me from WLW. Cops are convinced she did not drive her car to this location. She wasn`t there meeting someone or there for any nefarious reason. In fact, they`re convinced the car was taken there.
One of the things they think that, Melissa Neeley, is because they found suspicious tire tracks all around her car. And if you look at its location, you can see why there shouldn`t be tire tracks around her car. It`s off the road.
MELISSA NEELEY, 700 WLW (via telephone): That`s correct, Nancy. She was found in the back seat of her car, leading investigators to believe that she did not drive there. And the owner of that property and investigators, as well, identified vehicle tracks from another car, not her Ford Taurus, which she was found in.
GRACE: You know, Steve Kardian, former police detective, that has become quite in vogue, to use tire tracks. In fact, very often, you`ll see cops getting plaster markings of tire tracks so they can compare it to the other tires -- for instance, the tires on her Ford Taurus. Explain why this is important, Steve Kardian.
STEVE KARDIAN, FORMER POLICE DETECTIVE: Well, Nancy, they`re going to take imprints of the tire tracks that are around her car. If they have a vehicle that either is owned by a doctor or someone he`s associated with, they`ll be able to identify and place that car at the scene of that secondary crime scene.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Kelly in Michigan. Hi, Kelly. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. How are you, Nancy? My question is...
GRACE: I`m good, dear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... did she make it to the house to clean the house? And if she did, did she finish the house with (ph) cleaning and was on her way out?
GRACE: Jean Casarez, what do we know?
CASAREZ: ... that`s a question of fact right there. She was three miles away from the home. It was the second time she was to go to the home. So she`d been there before. But was she on her way or was she on her way back?
GRACE: What do we know about the doctor whose home was searched, Jean?
CASAREZ: Well, we know that when her body was found, he was at work. He is a practicing physician in the area, someone that is very respected, has been around for a long time. But he`s also someone that has had a number of law enforcement calls to his home, maybe 10 or more in the last few years, which is a little questionable right there.
GRACE: You know, you`re right. I want to go now to Mary in Colorado. Hi, Mary. What`s your question, dear?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. Thank you for taking my call. I have a few things to say, so I`ll try to hurry. First things first. Please, please, everybody listening, don`t do things from Craigslist. There are too many reports of stuff happening bad to people. Please be safe.
Second thing, Nancy, thank you for doing all that you do. I watch you all the time.
Third thing, did she have any cash on her possession, a check from the person`s house she cleaned? Oh, gosh! This is so sad that, you know, people are just getting murdered and murdered and murdered so much more!
GRACE: You know, and what`s even more disturbing, Mary in Colorado, is she is days away from giving birth, Mary, just days away.
You know, to Dr. Michelle DuPre, medical examiner, forensic pathologist joining us tonight out of Columbia -- Dr. DuPre, I want to talk about the body. Now, this close to giving birth, you might be able to believe that some accidental cause happened. Maybe she had a heart attack. Maybe there was some problem with the pregnancy that we don`t know about. Maybe she had developed gestational diabetes. Maybe she had high blood pressure and she had a stroke.
But that would have been able -- that would have been determined in the initial autopsy. They need eight more weeks. That`s typically what we hear, as Jean Casarez pointed out, when they are looking at toxicology or poisoning.
DR. MICHELLE DUPRE, MEDICAL EXAMINER (via telephone): Yes, Nancy, that`s absolutely correct. All of those reasons you listed would and should have been found at autopsy, if they existed. My thought is probably they are looking at toxicology, either some type of drug, or perhaps as you mentioned, poisoning.
GRACE: You know, another thing I`m wondering about Dr. Michelle DuPre, is a roofie or GHB, Georgia homeboy, gamma hydroxy butyrate, the date rape drug. What about that? Will that show up in an autopsy typically, Dr. DuPre, or do the coroners have to be tipped off that that`s something they should look for?
DUPRE: That is something that may show up, Nancy. But again, that`s going to depend on how long ago the drug was given. It`s a rather quick- acting drug. It does not stay in the system very long.
GRACE: Gamma hydroxy butyrate, GHB, does not stay in the system long?
DUPRE: It does not. After -- after it has been given -- the effects are longer-lasting, several hours, but once that effect wears off and if the person is tested later, the drug may not show up.
GRACE: How long can you count on GHB being in the body, Doctor?
DUPRE: Again, it`s going to depend a little bit on the person and the circumstances, but a few hours.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Out to Angie in Texas. Hi, Angie. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. I`m just wondering what`s going on with this. Don`t you think Craigslist should do a little more intense study on who`s posting jobs on their Web site? Every time I post on Craigslist for a job -- and it`s not in the cleaning industry -- I automatically start getting inundated with texts or e-mails about -- which I don`t have a job in that category -- Would you -- I have some cleaning to be done. Would you like to do it?
And I have posted work on Craigslist for other people, you know, to do work for me. And they don`t ask any questions. You just post.
GRACE: You know, I`ve been skeeved (ph) out by Craigslist ever since the Craigslist killer case. But very quickly, before we go to break, Michael Hauptmann, I want to quickly ask your opinion. I don`t think that Craigslist can really be held to any duty between consenting adults advertising or not advertising or answering ads or asking qualifications. I don`t believe there`s any duty on their part.
MICHAEL HAUPTMANN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I don`t -- number one, I don`t think there`s a duty on their part. And number two, I think there`s a duty on an individual if they`re going to go someplace to meet somebody they don`t know to find out who they`re meeting and find out where they`re going.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a car out here just west of my house. I think there`s people in it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Inside the car, a woman`s body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just weeks away from giving birth to a baby girl.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks very, very suspicious with what`s going on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The question, why?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Evidence, police aren`t saying exactly what, led investigators to this home in northeast Columbus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And this is what detectives removed, several brown bags.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Along with computers and what looked to be a small camera.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The doctor who lives here hasn`t been charged, but neighbors say they`ve been monitoring his every move, calling police when he steps in and out of his house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, it really is just a mystery.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. A very unusual turn of events in the search for this 23-year-old pregnant woman. She`s just days away from giving birth. Her body is found positioned in the back seat of her Ford Taurus.
Let`s see that aerial shot again, please, Dana. She had answered, or we believe she answered, a Craigslist ad for cleaning. It was the second time she had been to the home. We have no reason to think there was any disturbance or problem there, that we know of.
To Matt Zarrell. What more do we know about this doctor whose home we believe she went to?
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Well, we do believe that she went there to respond to the Craigslist ad. The home is only about three miles away, and...
GRACE: Whoa! Wait, wait, wait, wait! Wait a minute! Matt Zarrell, look at your video. You got a problem when you see the crime unit out front and they`re bringing out big bags of stuff out of your house, all right?
Now, I don`t know what they know or what you know about this doctor, OK? But I know when the cops are taking bags of stuff at your place, there`s a problem.
ZARRELL: Well, according to reports, police say the home owner, the doctor, has been very cooperative. He is not a suspect. He is not a person of interest. But as you said, Nancy, police were seen there taking a computer tower, a laptop, a camera, a computer mouse and several brown bags out of this home, which is only three miles away from where her car was found.
GRACE: Matt Zarrell? Matt?
ZARRELL: Yes?
GRACE: You`ve covered a lot of cases, haven`t you.
ZARRELL: Yes.
GRACE: A lot of homicide cases, right?
ZARRELL: Yes.
GRACE: Is there some reason you`re choosing to leave out the fact that a lot of people had answered a lot of Craigslist ads at this house?
ZARRELL: Well, Nancy, there are reports that on three occasions, women complained of altercations with him, and two of those women say they did meet him on Craigslist. You are correct.
GRACE: Were there any police reports filed?
ZARRELL: Yes, Nancy. In fact, police have been called to that home reportedly 10 times, and several of those altercations involved women.
GRACE: Matt Zarrell, do you know what a JD is?
ZARRELL: Yes.
GRACE: It`s a juris doctorate. It`s not a DDS. I don`t know how to pull teeth, all right? What more do you know about this doctor?
ZARRELL: OK. "The Columbus Dispatch" spoke to a woman named Gabrielle Roush (ph), who says that she answered an ad looking for a artist`s model at that home. The man who answered the door was dressed in...
GRACE: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Matt, please! What did you say about an artist`s model? And let me just only assume that was a nude model.
ZARRELL: Well, Nancy, she was under the understanding that it was just to model in clothing. But yes, you`re right. There are reports, and from what Roush said, that this doctor did want her to remove her clothes. She became very upset. She threatened to call police. And in fact, she did call police after this incident.
GRACE: Is Jean Casarez still with me?
CASAREZ: Oh, boy! Yes.
GRACE: Jean? I don`t see Jean. There she is. Jean, who goes to somebody`s home to model?
CASAREZ: I don`t know, somebody who believes that they`re going to get some money for doing something that they freely want to do, to model in a man`s house, I guess.
GRACE: That`s certainly putting perfume on the pig. But Jean, what more can you tell me about these other women that go to this doctor`s house?
CASAREZ: Well, we know that there were at least 10 police calls that were made to the house. We know that once -- you want me to say it all? Do you really want me to say this, Nancy...
GRACE: Yes.
CASAREZ: ... because this -- OK. They go to the home, and allegedly, the doctor says, I want to draw the internal organs of your body on your outside, so take your clothes off. And it just started from there. And he asked the woman to go upstairs, which she chose not to do, and she left. And the police were called.
GRACE: He wants her to take her clothes off and draw her internal organs on what, like, her stomach?
CASAREZ: I guess so. I guess so, so he can see what they look like on the outside.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of the most important things we do in investigations is track the timeline.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s only been in Ohio for two weeks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sources say Ballman had responded to a Craigslist ad for a cleaning job shortly before she was reported missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want to know where she was from the time she was last seen until the time that her body was recovered.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. The search for this 23-year-old mom-to-be -- she`s set to give birth any day. And all of you moms out there, you know how that is. And here she is, trying to answer a Craigslist ad to do housecleaning, OK? Can you imagine, at 9 months?
I was working up until right before I gave birth. You know, Jean Casarez, I know you remember that. I was working the Wednesday before I gave birth on Sunday and was actually in a wheelchair. And here`s this mother, out trying to work, you know, just a few days away from giving birth. You think about it, Jean, how helpless and defenseless she was. Now her body has been found in the back seat of the car.
Now, Jean, I`d like to talk to you about her body being in the back seat and how, obviously, that was staged. But I want to go back to what you were just talking about, Jean. Let`s put Jean in full, please, because I want you to talk about the doctor, this doctor. Wasn`t there an occasion where he was caught hiding in the bushes?
CASAREZ: He was hiding in the bushes at some point, and reports were that his brother picked him up -- sort of in a clandestine situation.
And the neighbors said that the police detectives were asking them about that question. Now, in the timeline, when did this happen, because this -- this has hit hard, the news because this is a doctor that everybody respects, knows about and loves. And all of a sudden, a lifestyle that maybe nobody believed in or thought of was becoming reality.
So maybe he just wanted to not have the media spotlight here, or potentially, he knows that something went very, very wrong with what he did.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A 911 call saying something`s out of the ordinary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a car out here just west of my house, real dark tinted windows. I was a little bit afraid to walk up to it. I think there`s people in it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Inside the car, a woman`s body.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just weeks way from giving birth to a baby girl.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Joining me right now is a very special guest, Dave Wilcox. He`s joining me there in Ohio. And he is the person that found Deanna`s body. He found her car with her body in the back seat of her Ford Taurus.
Dave Wilcox, thank you for being with us tonight.
DAVE WILCOX, FOUND CAR WITH BODY INSIDE (via telephone): You`re welcome.
GRACE: Mr. Wilcox, we`re looking at the video right now, aerial video of Deanna`s car, a 23-year-old mom about to give birth in just a couple of days. It`s quite some ways off the street. How did you happen upon the car?
WILCOX: Well, a neighbor down the road here three or four houses, he drove by that morning and he noticed the car was kind of tucked up under this tree line, like a wind break tree line just west to the -- west to the house of the pine trees and he says, what`s the green car out there on your field by the house? I said, well, I don`t know. I didn`t know it was out there to be honest with you.
So he said, well, you better go check it out. He said, it looks like it`s got real dark windows. So I went out the back door of the house and started to walk toward to the tree line. And we`d had a lot of -- we had a big storm here about the end of June that took down a lot of trees and limbs and did a lot of damage, and I still had quite a bit of debris laying around the yard between the house and that tree line that I hadn`t cleaned up yet.
And he said he thought it was some kind of a Ford so I started to walk around of the front of it where I could get an angle to see it through all of the debris that was laying on the ground. I saw a Ford emblem in the grill and said, yes, it is a Ford. And I saw it head through the trees, it had real dark tinted windows. And it was real sunny out. It was about a little before noon, I guess.
And the windows were almost like a mirror. They were so dark tinted. So I thought, well, maybe I better go walk around and come up behind it rather than walk head on into it because I didn`t know what it was doing up under the trees. So I proceeded to walk toward the highway, the tree line runs perpendicular to the highway. And saw there`s a little -- there`s a little driveway entrance that goes down into this field between the tree line and the creek and the corn field there.
So I walked down the little incline of the old driveway that`s kind of grassed over and I got up to about 50 feet of the car and the sun was so bright, and the windows were so dark, I took a second thought about it and decided I better go call the sheriff rather than go up and, you know, check the car out because I saw it had an out-of-state plate on the back but I wasn`t sure what state because it kind of had a license cover but I knew it wasn`t Ohio plate.
So then I went -- I went -- first, I went to my neighbor`s because he`s a - - he`s a suburb policeman here. I went over there in my van first. I tried to call him first. I got his voicemail so I thought well, I`ll drive over there so I drove over there. He wasn`t home. He`d been on nights and I guess he got switched back to days. So then I came back over here and backed in on the other side of the house. And that`s when I called -- I thought I better just call the sheriff. So I called 911. And then one of the deputies got here in about five minutes.
And then he proceeded, though -- he parked, he blocked the driveway with his cruiser behind this old entranceway down by -- where the car was down in the field. And he told me to kind of stay back. So he got out on foot and went up and went around the car. And he went around the car, tried to look in. It was very hard to see in. And finally, he opened the door on it. He came back out to me and he said, well, he said there`s a woman dead in the car. I said oh, there is? He said, yes, he said, and she`s pregnant. And I said well how do you know she`s pregnant? He says, well, there`s no doubt about it. She`s very pregnant is what he told me. So that`s when it kind of all began.
GRACE: Oh, man. This is a nightmare.
With me on the phone is Dave Wilcox who found 23-year-old pregnant Deanna`s car. Her Ford parked there, as you see, tucked under a tree line on his property.
Mr. Wilcox, did you stay there as the car was processed? And what were your first thoughts when you found out a pregnant woman was dead in the car?
WILCOX: Well, you know, it`s pretty bad to find out, number one, there`s a dead woman. Number two, it`s really bad to find out she`s pregnant on top of that. And it just was kind of -- I don`t know, kind of sickening really, because, you know, I have daughters a little bit older than her. And you know, that`s what`s going through my mind, you know.
And matter of fact, my daughter even goes out and cleans a couple of houses every week. And that kind of worries me a little bit. I always tell her, you know, make sure where you`re going, and if you`re going to interview a new place, make sure you take somebody with you. Don`t go by yourself.
GRACE: Was she clothed, Mr. Wilcox?
WILCOX: I can`t tell you that, because I didn`t -- I didn`t see her in the car. I don`t know.
GRACE: Did police give you any indication of what they thought had happened?
WILCOX: No, not really. They didn`t say too much. You know, they were here for several hours. And crime scene investigation trucks came. And no, they really -- they really didn`t say too much at the time. Not really.
GRACE: Now is this actually on your property?
WILCOX: Yes, uh-huh.
GRACE: And the --
WILCOX: It`s just about 150 feet west of the house. There`s like a wind break tree line.
GRACE: Wow.
WILCOX: And I was out -- I was sitting on the back step talking to somebody on the phone the night before because it`d been pretty hot, you know, up close to 100 degrees. And I was sitting there talking to somebody on the cell phone. Any how, I kind of -- you know how you tend to kind of walk a little bit when you`re talking on the phone? I was kind of walking around a little bit up here behind the house.
And I remember that night it was a full moon. So it wasn`t real dark out. You could -- you know, you could see things better than normal because it was clear and it was a full moon night. And the car wasn`t sitting there about -- this was about 10:45 or 11:00 the night before because I kind of walked over that way toward the end of the house as I was talking --
GRACE: So at that time, it wasn`t there? You would have seen it?
WILCOX: Yes, I would have seen it. It wasn`t there then.
GRACE: And what time was that?
WILCOX: 10:45, 11:00 at night.
GRACE: At night?
WILCOX: Before --
GRACE: And what time did the neighbor call you the next morning?
WILCOX: He called me about 11:30 probably. Because I hadn`t left the house yet. I was in -- and I hadn`t noticed the car because, like I said, there was a lot of branches and debris left on the ground, you know, and I just -- from that previous storm. I just hadn`t walked over that way in the morning.
I sat on the back step and drank a glass of orange juice about 8:00, but I didn`t walk over that way because you`ve got to kind of have to go around the end of the house to see where that tree -- where that car was sitting.
GRACE: Everyone, our family album is back, showing your photos. Here are our Salt Lake friends, grandma Margaret Barr`s family, Judy, Sherri, Vicki and Kimberly, all celebrating Margaret`s 94th birthday this week. Wow.
Share your photos with us please at iReport family album, hlnTV.com/Nancygrace then click on "Nancy`s Family Album."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A 911 call saying something is out of the ordinary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m a little bit afraid to walk up to it. I think there`s people in it.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A mother of two and weeks from having her third child.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You think someone is in the vehicle?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought there was.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Her body found in the backseat of the car.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No obvious trauma.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is bizarre.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was she poisoned somehow?
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Found dead in the backseat of her own car.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. And with me is Dave Wilcox, who found Deanna`s body and her Ford parked on his property. He was up outside, coincidentally, speaking on the phone until 10:45 that evening. The car wasn`t there. It was put there in the cover of darkness.
To Larry Fishelson, joining me, telecommunications expert. Larry, weigh in on your observations on this case.
LARRY FISHELSON, TELECOMMUNICATIONS EXPERT: Nancy, my big observation on the case is that they took the computer from the doctor, because inside that computer you can take the hard drive and you will see every e-mail, photo, every Web site searched, done by the doctor, whether he delete it or not. So you could find out a ton of information on that computer, what type of person the doctor was, is, and the trail of stuff that he looked for that could correlate to this case, especially with Craigslist and other patterns of searches that he did in that manner.
GRACE: To Dr. Patricia Saunders, clinical psychologist, weigh in, Patricia.
PATRICIA SAUNDERS, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Nancy, I think you`re underestimating just how frightening and dangerous this guy is potentially. It`s the story about the art model case that really grabbed me. This woman was driven by her father-in-law. She was afraid when she first met this guy. He went in with her. He told him they -- the doctor said he wanted to draw pictures of organs on the outside.
He was wearing scrubs. He wanted the woman to come up into the studio by herself, refusing the father-in-law to come. They left. Now the notion of someone being fascinated with viscera is one of the signs of a sadist. Given the number of -
GRACE: What do you mean by viscera?
SAUNDERS: The internal organs on the outside. This is Jack the Ripper kind of fantasy material. I think we may be dealing with a sexual sadist or a sexual psychopath. And I wouldn`t be surprised if there are a lot more women that we don`t know about who have gone missing that have been connected with the doctor. He was reporting late to the hospital very frequently. In fact, one of the nurses called 911 for a wellness check because they didn`t know where he was. Where was he?
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Unleash the lawyers. Anita Kay, Hugo Rodriguez, Michael Hauptman, and also joining me legal correspondent Jean Casarez, who is also a lawyer.
All right. Jean Casarez, how many women do you say answered Craigslist ads to this doctor?
JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": Well, we know that there were -- I think it`s 11 police calls that were made to his home. So there are multitudes. But with the computers that they`re taking -- and I thought about this -- there could be crimes or other alleged crimes that he potentially have committed. I mean a Pandora`s box could be opened now with the discovery of Deanna.
GRACE: OK, Hauptman, your turn.
MICHAEL HAUPTMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I`m lost. I have not heard anybody say anything that this man committed a crime. We have absolutely no idea how this woman has been -- ended up where she was or how she died. We have people referring to the doctor now as a sexual sadist and, you know, if you just want to throw out theories, we could go with alien abductions. I mean we`re just making stuff up at this point.
GRACE: OK.
Let`s get back in touch with reality, Anita Kay. This doctor has not been named a suspect or a person of interest -- of interest. But I know this. I just saw police removing big bags of stuff out of his home. I also know that she purportedly answered a Craigslist ad two times. One day, I guess, to look at the home and give a quote, I guess to clean it, and then back the next day. I know she tried to call her mother. And I believe -- correct me if I`m wrong, Jean, didn`t she say she was at the home or she was on the job or something? And then it was like --
CASAREZ: It sounded like she was and she said she was feeling dizzy.
GRACE: All right. Anita, he is not a person of interest. He has not been named a suspect. Weigh in.
ANITA KAY, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, I do think that he obviously is a person of interest. The police aren`t just -- they`re just not saying that. But he clearly is a person of interest. He might have been the last person to see her or speak with her. And they`re taking out six trash bags full of something. It`s not trash. It`s something they`re collecting. So, clearly, there`s something that they want to investigate further that was found in that doctor`s home. They took his computers.
There`s something they know that we don`t know because they`re taking things out of there and there`s something in there. Not saying he did it. But clearly he is a suspect. He is a person of interest, based on how the police are behaving.
GRACE: Hugo Rodriguez, they are very carefully, carefully stating he is not a person of interest and he is not a suspect. But let`s put what we know together. She says she doesn`t feel right. That she feels dizzy. We think she was already there at the job. We hear a woman kind of yell or cry out. The phone goes dead. Her body is found. No signs of trauma. About three miles away parked in a secluded area.
All right. Weigh in, Hugo.
HUGO RODRIGUEZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY, FMR. FBI AGENT: In the back -- in the backseat of -- that`s police double talk. He is obviously the target of this investigation. She didn`t get into the backseat of the car on her own. They are not revealing anything. If we had the affidavit for the search warrant of his house, it would be much more revealing. But they`re keeping closed ranks as to everything. This doctor is obviously the target of their investigation.
GRACE: You know, Michael Hauptman, I`m almost afraid to ask you this question because I really don`t know the answer, as I would with the other three panelists, but have police ever seized your digicam, your camera?
HAUPTMAN: I`m sorry --
RODRIGUEZ: Don`t answer that.
GRACE: Have police ever come into your house and seized your camera or your computer?
HAUPTMAN: They`re welcome to it.
GRACE: There was this one time, OK. Let me ask that to Jean Casarez. All right. That may be safer. I know she`s going to say no.
Jean Casarez, when police seized, pursuant to a warrant, your camera, your computer, six bags of stuff we know they`re looking for something. But they`re clearly saying he is not a suspect. He`s tied to this woman because of this Craigslist ad. What more do we know about women that went to his place and later complained?
CASAREZ: Well, we know about --
GRACE: Their allegations.
CASAREZ: We know about the woman that he wanted to go upstairs into his art studio so he could draw the drawing. But I think your caller today may have hit a smoking gun here. If she went to the home, did the services, did she get paid? Was there a paycheck found on her or not?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Investigators call her death suspicious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a car out here just west of my mouse along a row of trees, where there`s some storm damage and some trees went down. It`s down in the field, down off the road. Got real dark tinted windows.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight back out to Matt Zarrell. What can you tell me about the missing cell phone?
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE STAFFER, COVERING STORY: OK, now, police got her phone records the day after she was reported missing, the same day her body was found in the car. Now the area where the cell phone pinged is only a half-mile from the home that was searched about three miles from where her body was found. There`s actually big pond, Nancy, in that area. It was searched by divers and a helicopter in the area. A thousand mile radius of the pinged location was searched by over 100 investigators. They are still looking for the cell phone. The FBI is also involved.
GRACE: When did we get the last ping?
ZARRELL: We believe the last ping from the cell phone was around the same time that she had spoken to her mother, that afternoon around 3:30 p.m. The car was found with her body in it less than 24 hours later.
GRACE: What does that say to you, Larry Fishelson, the fact that her cell phone is missing tells me that this was not a death by accidental causes. It was not a death by natural causes.
FISHELSON: Yes, definitely, Nancy. This looks like wrongdoing here. And the whole idea with the phone also is if she has a smartphone, which is an iPhone or a Google Android, they do track every 45 minutes of the location, so that can help them. But this definitely looks like foul play here.
GRACE: To John Phillips, KABC, what more do you know, John?
JOHN PHILLIPS, HOST, 790 KABC: Well, it`s what I`d like to know is I`d like to know what is going to happen, Nancy, after this show airs and the local media has been all over this story. I want to know if there are other women that are going to come forward the police, and make their story public.
GRACE: And Melissa Neely, anchor/reporter, WLW, joining me there in Ohio. Where do we go now, Melissa?
MELISSA NEELY, ANCHOR/REPORTER, WLW: Well, I think once we get the information back from the toxicology test from the Delaware County coroner, which we will have in a couple of months, or sooner than then hopefully, we`ll know exactly what was in her system, but I think it`s also important that they find the cell phone.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a car out here just west of my house along a row of trees where there`s some storm damage and some trees wend down. It`s down in the field down off the road. Got real dark tinted windows. I was a little bit afraid to walk up to it. I think there`s people in it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. So you wanted a deputy t check it out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it`s got out of state plates so I don`t know if it`s maybe stolen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. A young woman, just 23 years old, set to give birth in just days, her body found, positioned in the backseat of her Ford Taurus, there in this off-the-road area that line of trees you are seeing, but there`s no indication on her body the cause of death. No suggestion there was an accident that there was an asphyxiation, a stabbing, a shooting, nothing.
Back to you, Jean Casarez, how far was her car and her body from this doctor`s home?
CASAREZ: About three miles, not that far. And it`s the timeline that Matt Zarrell brought up that`s so interesting, because 3:45 may have been the time that she was at that house and at 10:45 that night, the homeowner, the landowner was outside and that car wasn`t there. Combine that with the body in the backseat so if she died some place else, somebody had to drive her there, somebody had to take the person back. There could be more than one person responsible for this.
GRACE: Let`s stop and remember Army Sergeant Joshua Rimer, 24, Rochester, Pennsylvania, killed, Afghanistan. Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, Medal of Valor, loved hiking, soccer, dancing. Leaves behind parents Donna and James, sister, Shannon, widow, Anna Lisa.
Joshua Rimer, American hero.
Thanks to our guests, but especially to you.
Everyone, Dr. Drew coming up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
