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Nancy Grace

Women Who Kill

Aired September 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: Snapped. We investigate women who kill, moms, girlfriends allegedly committing unthinkable crimes against husbands, boyfriends, children. Did they simply snap, or is it something far more sinister?

Tonight, first to Arizona. A young entrepreneur goes missing, but when friends go to search his luxury five-bedroom home, they find his hybrid car still sitting there in the garage, wallet, laptop, cell phone placed neatly in the home office. Only one thing out of place, his dead body!

Surprising evidence leads police to suspect number one, a beauty queen turned singer turned jilted lover, Jody Arias.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A friend of ours is dead in his bedroom. And we hadn`t heard from him for a while.

JODY ARIAS, CHARGED WITH MURDER: I really don`t remember the day at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We think he`s dead. His roommate just went in, and he said there`s lots of blood.

ARIAS: I didn`t hurt Travis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Viciously murdered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is dead. He is in his bedroom.

911 OPERATOR: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the shower.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stabbed 27 times.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who do you think (INAUDIBLE) him?

ARIAS: I have no idea.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His throat slit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was the relationship ever violent?

ARIAS: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He has an ex-girlfriend that`s been bothering him and -- and calling him and slashing tires and things like that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jody, were you ever afraid of Travis?

ARIAS: I`ll pass on that question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His roommate went in. There`s blood in his bedroom, behind the door, and probably -- and then he said it`s all over. And then they went in the back room (ph), and he`s in his shower.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Explain that your DNA was found at the murder scene.

ARIAS: The explanation for that will come out soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: I want to go straight out to Christina Estes with Newstalk 550. Christina, what happened?

CHRISTINA ESTES, NEWSTALK 550 KFYI (via telephone): As you mentioned, Travis`s friends had been trying to reach him for days. He was actually set to leave the next day for a trip to Cancun. He hadn`t been responding to phone calls or texts.

One of his friends went to his house, found the car there, his wallet, laptop. Inside the bedroom came this foul odor. They went inside the bathroom, and that`s where they found Travis slumped in the shower. He`d been dead for several days, shot once in the face, stabbed 27 times. The medical examiner says the fatal act was the stab wound to his heart.

GRACE: Come on, Pat Brown, criminal profiler, author of "The Profiler" -- 27 stab wounds? That`s a rage killing. That`s what I call a sweetheart murder. You have to be very intimately involved physically with your victim to stab them 27 times.

PAT BROWN CRIMINAL PROFILER: There I`m with you, Nancy, because, I mean, this is a -- nobody who just comes in to commit a robbery needs to do that. This was a very directed crime. I -- you know, this guy ticked her off and she was going to get the last of him. She`s a very narcissistic personality disorder, and when he rejected her, she says, I`m going to win. And she did, over and over and over again. So absolutely, a very personal crime.

GRACE: You know, to Vinnie Politan, host of HLN`s "PRIME NEWS" and "SPECIAL REPORT." Vinnie, she told cops at the very beginning that they had broken up, that she hadn`t seen him in some time. But then that one piece of evidence. Describe it, Vinnie.

VINNIE POLITAN, HLN HOST: Well, there`s photographs. There`s photographs of them that were supposed to be erased, but they were found by investigators. And Nancy, the thing that strikes everyone about this case is the woman you`re looking at, Jody Arias -- we`ve covered so many cases, Nancy. This is one of the scariest alleged killers who I`ve ever come across.

GRACE: Why do you say that, Vin?

POLITAN: The allegations of shooting someone in the face, stabbing them 27 times, slitting the throat from ear to ear. And then you listen to her in this interview, and it`s like nothing ever happened, Nancy. It`s like...

GRACE: Vinnie, she`s...

POLITAN: ... Travis was such a great man...

GRACE: ... as cold as a cucumber. Oh, yes, Travis was a great guy. Now, according to his friends, Vin, she was crazy about him and had turned into a jilted lover turned stalker. Don`t go anywhere. With me is Vinnie Politan.

Out to a special guest, Taylor Searle, friend of murder victim Travis Alexander. And make no mistake about it, this was not an accidental death, this was a homicide -- shot and stabbed 27 times, found slumped over in his shower.

Taylor, thank you for being with us.

TAYLOR SEARLE, FRIEND OF VICTIM (via telephone): Yes.

GRACE: Taylor, what do you know about this woman, Jody Arias?

SEARLE: Well, I knew that Travis was trying to get away from her the last few months of his life and felt like she was a real burden on him moving on with his life after they had broken up and him becoming the person that he wanted to be.

And he was very grateful when she finally moved out of the state, and he was really looking forward to not being around her anymore.

GRACE: But why, Taylor? What do you mean the person he wanted to be? And what did she do that was a bad influence on him?

SEARLE: Not so much that he would say that she was a bad influence, but he was a very unique individual and that he was very focused on becoming the best person he could and always improving, And he was a motivational speaker, and to those around him, he was always preaching to be your best and to set goals and to improve yourself.

And he was really looking forward to having 2008 be his best year, and he was really trying to find somebody that he could settle down with and marry and have a family and really progress out of his 20s and become an upstanding citizen.

GRACE: But you said something, Taylor -- with us, friend of murder victim Travis Alexander. You said he was trying to get away from her. What do you mean by that?

SEARLE: For several weeks at least before he was found dead -- well, before she had moved, he would complain to the close people around him that she was really, in his words, stalking him and really getting in his way of dating other girls and doing all -- there`s several allegations that she either stole his journal, slashed his tires, and did a whole bunch of crazy things to kind of stay close to him.

GRACE: Well, isn`t it true, Taylor, that one night, all of his tires were slashed. He got them fixed. He moved his car the next night and he hid it somewhere else. And that night, the tires were slashed again.

SEARLE: Yes, that`s the way he told it. He never really pressed the issue on trying to pin it on her. But in his heart of hearts, to those around him, he told that he assumed it was her but really didn`t want to kick up dust by going after her for it.

GRACE: Weigh in, Dr. Paula Bloom.

PAUL BLOOM, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Oh, my goodness. I`m really trying to be like a psychologist right now, but this has such an icky factor. Her mood is so inconsistent with what she`s talking about. Listen, we`re all story tellers. We tell ourselves stories all the time. This sounds to me like she did not like the fact that he wanted to end it. He had good instincts. He was going to end it. He wanted to move forward. She didn`t like it.

And it sounds to me like, in some ways, if she did do it, she feels like she was -- it was OK for her to do it. She said, you know, I don`t -- I`m not worried about having to answer to the ultimate authority.

It`s just -- oh, gosh! I want to be able to say people cope with things in different ways, Nancy, even though I know you don`t like that. But seriously, seriously, there`s such an ick factor here. And it`s just - - it`s just a tragedy. It sounds like this guy really, really could have had an impact in the world.

And so this is why it`s really important. Just because somebody dumps you, it doesn`t mean that you have the right, that you have the claim to try to control someone else`s behavior. He was not against her, he was for him, and she couldn`t get that.

GRACE: You know, to Pat Brown, criminal profiler and author of "The Profiler." Pat, every time that she is asked a question, she`s got this -- oh, there she`s putting on makeup. I`m so glad I saw that. Got to get your makeup straight before you`re asked questions about your lover`s murder!

When she`s singing and when they ask her questions, she goes, Oh, it`s great. No, I`m not worried. He`s great. She`s not crazy, Pat, in the legal sense.

BROWN: No, she`s not, but that`s a severely narcissistic personality disorder. And she`s kind of on -- almost taken on her ex-boyfriend`s motivational kind of lifestyle. Isn`t she great? She`s smiling all the time. She sees the best in everyone, and she`s very, very positive.

But here`s what I think`s going to happen. That defense is going to eventually get to that point where that boyfriend is Svengali. In other words, he was a pushy, manipulative motivational guy. He controlled her, and eventually, she did everything he said. And that`s why he drove her to kill him at the very, very end.

Don`t you think that`s going to be the defense?

GRACE: OK, Renee Rockwell, how do you battle the physical evidence?

RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Nancy, has she -- and I love the song. Couple things we know is that she is beautiful and she can sing. But where`s her lawyer? She`s in prison clothes, and all of this that she`s talking about is coming in.

But Nancy, don`t you think that she`s as crazy as a fox? She`s talking and talking. She`s looking...

GRACE: She`s not crazy. She`s not legally insane.

ROCKWELL: I know that, but she`s not associated with any of this. All of this is coming in, Nancy, every bit of it. And she`s changed her story so many times...

GRACE: Yes, isn`t it great?

ROCKWELL: ... that maybe -- and I can`t think over this, the Christmas tune, which I like a lot. But maybe somebody in the jury`s going to think, I don`t care what anybody thinks, this girl`s crazy, and I`m not going to put her to death.

GRACE: OK. Well, I`m not surprised that you`re not going to put her to death. The mode of...

ROCKWELL: I`m talking about a juror.

GRACE: ... death penalty in this jurisdiction is lethal injection.

To Dr. Bill Manion, New Jersey medical examiner. Dr. Manion, what did we learn from the crime scene and the condition of the body?

DR. BILL MANION, MEDICAL EXAMINER (via telephone): Well, he had been dead for several days. And the autopsy revealed that the gunshot wound to the head was not a fatal wound. So apparently, he was able to -- they think he was shot in the shower, and he was able to struggle back to the bedroom, where he was repeatedly stabbed.

They then believe his body was dragged back to the shower. And as it was being dragged back, whoever was dragging him, put their hand on the wall and they left their bloody handprint on the wall. And oftentimes when a person is stabbing another person, they will cut their own hand because their hand will slip off the handle and -- and hit the knife.

GRACE: Dr. Manion, what the defense is going to have a field day with is that would she be able to drag the victim.

The trial of Jody Arias set to get under way this fall. Now, despite her defense team`s best efforts, Jody Arias will face the death penalty.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Why would a highly popular preacher`s wife shoot her husband down in cold blood, take their three little girls on a vacation, then supposedly confess? Well, that`s just the tip of the iceberg in the case of preacher`s wife Mary Winkler.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We the jury find the defendant, Mary C. Winkler, guilty of voluntary manslaughter.

GRACE: A Tennessee jury split the baby just a few minutes ago, handing down a guilty verdict against preacher`s wife Mary Winkler. As you all know, she said she had been verbally abused. He called her fat. He called her ugly. He called her stupid. So the preacher got the death penalty.

So let me get this straight, Susan Candiotti. She tells the jury her husband wanted her to dress up in shoes and a wig for sex, so she shot him dead.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, in effect. This clearly made an impact, Nancy, on the jury. Not only that, but she testified that he kicked her in the face, that he punched her, that he abused her emotionally and verbally. And even though no one else in the community saw it, this jury must have felt some sympathy. The defense attorneys believe it, that it was Mary, as they put it, being Mary. And something struck a chord with this jury.

They were convinced they would get a verdict back this day on the strength of her testimony. And in essence, they had to trash Matthew Winkler`s reputation in order to get her something other than, in effect, a life sentence.

GRACE: To you, Dr. Robi Ludwig, psychotherapist and author of "Til Death Do Us Part." You`re the specialist on this. There was no blackout. There was no self-defense. There was no trying to get him to talk. The man was lying there sleeping. If he degraded her by making her wear a wig and shoes during sex, she could have gotten a divorce.

ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Well, maybe she didn`t feel she could get a divorce. After all, this man was a preacher. He was well-received in the community. She could have felt very, very powerless. And he could have convinced her that she was, in fact, powerless. And I think by her taking the stand, too, and reporting what she did about their sex life, she presented her husband as somewhat perverted.

And so he comes off as this perverted guy who`s trying to convert his naive wife into something she`s not just for the heck of it, just because he can. And so when somebody -- in a moment of panic, you can then just want to escape, and she probably was not thinking things through at that point. But listen, a lot of wives want their husbands dead. There you have it.

GRACE: Yes, well, a lot of (INAUDIBLE) dead, but they don`t get a pump-action shotgun down out of the closet and shoot him in the back while he`s lying there sleeping.

Pat Brown, criminal profiler, I don`t think there was any panic. How can you panic when your spouse is asleep?

BROWN: I don`t see how any of this could have turned into the verdict that it did. What scares me about the whole thing is that, like you said, this is the story she gave in court, not before.

Now, look at all the time she had from the time she was arrested, the time she had in that back room with that defense lawyer, cooking up whatever possible story they wanted to cook up together for the defense. And now we`re supposed to believe this without a shred of evidence.

It could have happened. It might have happened. I don`t see how that`s evidence in a court of law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Despite the prosecution looking for a first-degree murder conviction, a jury finds Winkler guilty of voluntary manslaughter. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Mary admits that just a few months in custody wasn`t long enough sentence for what she did.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: There`s no question she murdered her children one by one, drowning them all in the family bathtub, locking the doors so the five children couldn`t get out of the house, waiting until her husband left to avoid detection, fighting to hold each one of the children under the water, the children`s bodies bruised, struggling to live. So how was Andrea Yates found not guilty?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREA YATES, DROWNED HER FIVE CHILDREN: Taking (ph) the children`s lives.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What were you thinking about?

YATES: That I had to do it!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was the reason you thought to do it the next morning?

YATES: Because Rusty would be at work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Here in the studio with me, the psychiatrist who testified before the jury under oath that Andrea Yates was not insane at the time she killed her children. We`re going to be reviewing not that sound bite, but many more like it as we progress through this evening. And we are taking your calls.

Here in the studio with me, Dr. Michael Welner. Welcome Dr. Welner. You testified in front of the jury under oath. Did that jury hear everything you heard?

DR. MICHAEL WELNER, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: No, they did not.

GRACE: What happened?

WELNER: Well, the -- what we do in the course of our evaluation may be different from rules of evidence in the court. I did have an opportunity in the course of my evaluation to interview and take in information from 29 witnesses. The court ruled that that was hearsay that the jury should not be exposed to. So that, among other things, was aspects of what influenced my opinion that the jury did not hear.

GRACE: At the time when you interviewed her -- and you talked to her for hours on end -- did Yates believe what she did was right?

WELNER: I think that Andrea Yates has come to believe what she has done was right. But I was evaluating her state of mind at the time of the crime.

And I came to the conclusion that while she believed that her children might be better off and might feel that they weren`t going to be with a bad mother and that they might go to heaven if she killed them, that her decisions, as she described them on that day, were different from the way she has come to describe them with interview after interview over time.

GRACE: You be the judge. Let`s take a listen to what Andrea Yates had to say on videotape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he knew you were going to kill the kids, would this have happened?

YATES: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And why not?

YATES: He wouldn`t have left me alone with the children.

I just waited until after he left and started to fill the tub.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was going on before that?

YATES: That`s all I thought about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was?

YATES: Drowning them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: To Dr. Michael Welner. She said she began contemplating killing the children far in advance. Significance?

WELNER: Well, what`s interesting is that in our interview, she said a couple days before. When she was interviewed in 2001, she told Dr. Dates (ph) one month before. Earlier, she told Dr. Resnick (ph) two months before. So she was aware of the important issues of her trial, and in my professional opinion, her answer was changing over time.

GRACE: Andrea Yates to this day remains at a Texas state mental health facility.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Tonight: Snapped. We investigate women who kill, moms and girlfriends allegedly committing unthinkable crimes against husbands, boyfriends, even children.

Susan Smith`s two young boys, just 3 years and 14 months old, disappear. For over a week, she claims they were carjacked. But what actually happened, the unthinkable. She herself buckles all of her children into seatbelts so they could not escape, then drowns them, driving into a local lake.

Her husband, David Smith, knows firsthand the pain of a wife and a mother who murders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Tonight, bravely speaking for the first time since his remarriage, the husband of Susan Smith, David Smith, is speaking out over putting his life together again.

Thank you for being with us.

DAVID SMITH, EX-HUSBAND OF SUSAN SMITH, EX-WIFE MURDERED THEIR 2 CHILDREN: It`s good to be here, thank you.

GRACE: I want to take you back in time to October 24, 1994. The evening your children went missing. What happened in your life that night?

SMITH: Oh, wow. It`s been -- in some ways it`s been a long time, and in some ways it`s like yesterday. It`s just everything just kind of went numb. A lot of emotions, a lot of feelings, a lot of ideas.

GRACE: Well, what first happened? Where were you when you learned your two boys were missing?

SMITH: Well, I was at work, when I received a phone call.

GRACE: From who.

SMITH: Sheriff Howard Wells.

GRACE: What did he say?

SMITH: He told me that he was with Susan and that a -- someone, I think at the time someone had took Mike and Alex. And that I needed to come where they were at that time.

GRACE: So you left work.

SMITH: Yes, immediately.

GRACE: And you went there?

SMITH: Went straight there.

GRACE: Did you ever have any reason to suspect, Susan Smith, your wife, was involved?

SMITH: No. No.

GRACE: How was she acting when you got there?

SMITH: She was hysterical, she collapsed to her knees just about, I had to, like, hold her up when I first got there.

GRACE: And where were you, at the sheriff`s department?

SMITH: No, we went to the home that she had ran to.

GRACE: Near the lake?

SMITH: Near the lake, yes.

GRACE: Now what was the name of that lake?

SMITH: John D. Long.

GRACE: John D. Long Lake. They didn`t find anything at the bottom of the lake?

SMITH: No. They -- from my understanding, they searched it several times and never found anything.

GRACE: After that night, when did you first begin to be suspicious or did you?

SMITH: I never did. I believed -- I believed Susan 100 percent the whole time.

GRACE: Did she retell the story to you?

SMITH: No, I didn`t ask her much because I knew I felt that she was under so much strain and pressure that I didn`t want to keep putting -- you know, me putting the two on top of the law enforcement, I didn`t want to keep putting her through it.

GRACE: Now when did police first tell you that they were suspicious?

SMITH: They -- maybe about day two of the search.

GRACE: That quickly?

SMITH: Yes, I started hearing things, but no one ever, the whole nine days came to me and said, you know, we suspect your wife, but I would hear, you know, different bits and pieces that they were suspecting her.

GRACE: But what? What made them suspicious of her?

SMITH: Well, I think the first one was her story about how it happened, it didn`t add up from the -- from the very start.

GRACE: Because there was an inconsistency about the red light.

SMITH: A traffic light.

GRACE: She was supposed to be at a traffic light that would only turn red if triggered by another car. And there were no other cars according to her story.

SMITH: Right, right. Exactly.

GRACE: Now did that wave a red flag to you?

SMITH: Not really.

GRACE: Until they brought it to your attention?

SMITH: I still didn`t believe it. I mean I didn`t.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Then why should you?

SMITH: Right. Right. I -- it didn`t matter to me what they said about, you know, her story is not adding up or whatever. I still believed her.

GRACE: Now you took a polygraph and passed immediately.

SMITH: Right, first time.

GRACE: What questions were in the polygraph?

SMITH: About -- something about her past, of course the biggest one was, you know, did I have anything to do with their disappearance or did I have any knowledge of --

GRACE: Of where they were?

SMITH: Of where they were or anything about their disappearance.

GRACE: Now you passed on the first lie detector test.

SMITH: Right.

GRACE: Not so with Susan Smith, your wife.

SMITH: Right.

GRACE: What happened?

SMITH: She repeatedly took them, every day she had to take one.

GRACE: And that didn`t ring an alarm in your head that they kept re- polygraphing her?

SMITH: No, because I felt that she was just failing it because she was under so much pressure of -- you know, and she was still so distraught over, you know, having Michael and Alex jerked away from her. I was trying to calm Susan on how to pass this thing.

GRACE: OK. Now when you hear other people refuse to take a polygraph, such as Scott Peterson.

SMITH: Right.

GRACE: How does that strike you?

SMITH: Something`s -- something is wrong. If you`ve got nothing to hide, then take a polygraph. I had nothing to hide. I -- you know, I was glad to take it.

GRACE: Now let me take you back, that was almost 10 years ago. October of `94. When did you first realize that Susan was involved? When did you find out she had made a confession?

SMITH: When I seen it on TV.

GRACE: You`re kidding?

SMITH: No.

GRACE: The police didn`t tell you first?

SMITH: No. I saw -- I saw, you know, we started hearing about an alleged confession.

GRACE: Uh-huh.

SMITH: And we were at -- we were at her parents` home, you know, I was like turning to my family and saying, you know, what`s going on, and we don`t know, no phone call, no nothing.

GRACE: You saw it on TV?

SMITH: Yes.

GRACE: Then what did you do?

SMITH: Well, then, Sheriff Wells came to the home and he announced it to the household that she had confessed and they had found the bodies.

GRACE: Well, up until that time, you thought the boys may still be alive.

SMITH: Yes, I never lost hope.

GRACE: So you realized in one fell swoop that they had been killed.

SMITH: By her.

GRACE: And Susan Smith, your wife --

SMITH: Had murdered her.

GRACE: Had done the deed. At once, just like that.

SMITH: Just like that.

GRACE: What did you do?

SMITH: I gave up. Gave up. I ran first, I just wanted to run. And I ran.

GRACE: You ran where?

SMITH: Just out in the yard.

GRACE: You ran out the door?

SMITH: Yes. I had to go.

GRACE: And where?

SMITH: I just had to go.

GRACE: Where did you run?

SMITH: I don`t remember, I just had to go, I don`t remember. I just had to run.

GRACE: In your street clothes?

SMITH: Just had to go. Just had to run.

GRACE: And when did you come back?

SMITH: My dad chased after me and caught up with me finally and we walked back to the -- to the Russells` home.

GRACE: Was it at night?

SMITH: It was dark.

GRACE: Did you go to the jail?

SMITH: No. No.

GRACE: When did you see her again?

SMITH: It was about a month later, after she had been arrested.

GRACE: What did she say, David?

SMITH: She said she was sorry. And I mean mostly that`s what we talked about was Michael and Alex. I mean I did ask her why she did it but --

GRACE: And what did she say?

SMITH: She didn`t know.

GRACE: When you look back, David, do you blame yourself? Do you think there were indicators or red flags you should have seen but didn`t?

SMITH: No, I don`t blame myself. I mean, Susan, you know, she was confidence, she was, you know, of sound mind.

GRACE: She seemed to be.

SMITH: Yes. I mean, you know, in some ways a lot of people wanted to say she had to be crazy. And I think they say that figuratively speaking.

GRACE: But not legally.

SMITH: Right. But not legally she wasn`t.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Susan Smith serving life behind bars and David Smith has since remarried and started a new family.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: "I just killed my children," she says to a 911 dispatch. Like she`s ordering fries at McDonald`s drive through. Words that send a chill down your spine. Calmly, intentionally spoken words by a mother of two.

Police raced to one of the most disturbing scenes they have ever encountered. Finally finding only one child still alive hanging on to life by a thread. The other child dead.

We learned mommy lures her two daughters into an abandoned Texas ranch, telling them she had, quote, "a surprise." Why? Debra Jeter angry over her husband filing for divorce.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thirty-three-year-old Deborah Janell Jeter committed a horrific crime. The 911 tape reveals it.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: Hill County 911, what`s your emergency?

DEBRA JETER, MOTHER KILLED DAUGHTER: I just killed my children.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: Excuse me?

JETER: I just killed my children.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: Where are you?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police found Jeter and the body of her 12- year-old daughter Kelsey in an abandoned house off of Highway 77.

JETER: One of them is dead. She`s dead dead.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Her then 13-year-old daughter Kirsten was bleeding barely holding on.

JETER: The other one, she wants to be saved and I`m -- she needs to be saved.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Jeter appeared to panic, rushing the 911 operator to send an ambulance.

JETER: One of them is still alive. Hurry.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: All the while in that abandoned house the critically injured daughter is begging for help, and Jeter reassures her.

JETER: Hold on, kid. They`re coming. Tell them not to shoot me. I don`t have a gun.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: OK.

She doesn`t want to get shot because she doesn`t have a gun.

GRACE: With us right now is Lee Jeter, he is the husband of Debra Janell Jeter.

Sir, thank you for being with us.

LEE JETER, HUSBAND OF DEBRA JANELL JETER: Thank you.

GRACE: And I see that you`re positioned in front of the cemetery. I just -- now that I`m a mother of two, I just don`t know how you managed to wake up every day and keep going. How do you do it? For the sake of your one daughter that`s still alive?

L. JETER: Yes, ma`am. She is my inspiration to keep going, you know, and I got to be strong for her so.

GRACE: Mr. Jeter, how did you first learn that something was amiss the day your wife tried to commit murder on your two girls? How did you first learn anything was wrong that day?

L. JETER: Well, I was standing outside, with my cousin and a police officer pulled up and told me that my oldest daughter was being care flighted to the hospital and told me I needed to go. So -- to be with her. And -- but they didn`t tell me anything, you know, about my youngest or Janell.

GRACE: Did they tell you what had happened? They just said, your daughter`s on the way to the hospital, you got to come right now?

L. JETER: That`s pretty much what they said.

GRACE: When did you learn your other daughter had been murdered by her mom?

L. JETER: Well, I kind of pieced it together. You know, usually if there`s an accident or have you, they`ll tell you about everyone in the accident. But nobody, everyone I spoke to, nobody mentioned Kelsey. You know, they just mentioned -- they mentioned that Kirsten was in surgery and they mentioned that they had Janell in custody. And I kept asking about Kelsey but nobody knew, nobody would tell me and the sheriff`s office kept telling me that the sheriff himself was going to call me. And so I just -- I kind of pieced two and two together. And the surgeon come out and the first time I found out what had actually happened is the surgeon come out and told me that he had sewn Kirsten`s neck back together and the surgery went well. And he said --

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Wait a minute, wait a minute. He sawed her neck back together?

L. JETER: Yes, or stitched it back -- you know the inside.

GRACE: How -- what was the injury?

L. JETER: She was cut from one side of her neck all the way to the other. And her airway was cut and one of her main arteries were cut so they had to stitch those back together and then I guess they glued her neck, actually, the main cut, they glued it back together.

GRACE: Mr. Jeter, I just -- I don`t understand it. Your wife, I mean, this was not post-partum depression. You know, they were 12 and 13.

L. JETER: Yes, ma`am.

GRACE: She was angry that you wanted a divorce?

L. JETER: Yes, she -- I actually spoke with her right after they sentenced her to prison, and -- which was the first time in almost a year and she told me that she was heart broken and was hurting that bad and she felt that if she was hurting so badly, then me and the girls must have been hurting so badly so she was going to take away all of our pain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Jeter will never be able to hurt another child again. She`s serving to this day life without parole in a Texas prison.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: A beautiful Texas blonde, a mother of two allegedly ties her 34-year-old husband to the bed and during what promises to be quite a night, all goes wrong. It goes wrong all right. Hubby is stabbed 200 times, still tied to the bed. But you won`t believe what Susan Wright claims happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: To Joe Gomez, KTRH News Radio, she stabs him 200 times and her only defense is she had a break with reality?

JOE GOMEZ, REPORTER, KTRH RADIO: Nancy, this was a case that shook the Houston area. I mean, Susan Wright -- prosecutors say Susan Wright slipped her husband the date rape drug, dripped hot candle wax on his body while they were in bed and then stabbed him 200 times while he`s tied into that bed.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Excuse me, excuse me, Gomez, Gomez, Gomez, she did what?

GOMEZ: Yes. She -- prosecutors say she slipped him the date rape drug and dripped hot candle wax on his body and then stabbed him over 200 times with a knife. Afterwards she --

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: OK, let`s get something straight. Joe, when was the break with reality, when she slipped him gamma hydroxy butyrate, the date rape drug, or when she tied him to the bed? When she stabbed him 200 times? Or when she buried him in the backyard so that the dog had to partially dig him up? Where was the break in reality?

GOMEZ: Well, you`re right, Nancy. This all seems like it was planned out well in advance, you know? So prosecutors have a lot of -- poking a lot of holes in her defense that she was abused and this was just a crime of passion. But that what`s she`s claiming. She claims that her husband was a drug addict, he was high on cocaine, and he smacked her around and she finally had enough of it. And so that`s why she stabbed him over 200 times with a knife --

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: I guess it`s pretty hard to smack her around when he was tied, hands and feet, to the bed.

Take me back to the night of the incident, the night of the incident. What do we know for sure happened? I`m not talking about her version.

GOMEZ: Right. What we know for sure happened is that -- prosecutors know that Susan Wright had strapped her husband to the bed. We know this because there were ligature marks found on the husband`s wrist and ankles there. She stabbed him 200 times --

GRACE: Wait a minute. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa, Joe, hold on a moment. Are you telling me after they dig the guy up out of the backyard, after the dog chews off his left hand, they can still see the ligature marks on his wrists?

GOMEZ: That`s what I`m telling you, Nancy. Prosecutors still found the marks on his wrist and on his ankles as well. So they know that at one point he was tied down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: She`s called the blue-eyed butcher and for a reason. Right now, serving 20 years behind bars, Texas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Listen to this 911 call. A wife calls police to report her husband of 30 years is dead. Only problem, she allegedly kills him two weeks ago, smashing him in his sleep, time and time again, with a hammer.

Listen to Donna Williams in her own words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: 911, how may I help you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need to report a murder.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: OK. What happened?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I murdered my husband

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: How did you do it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A hammer.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: According to this court affidavit, Williams told detectives her husband had become increasingly abusive. She confronted him. She says he responded by striking her in the left eye.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: What happened?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was beating me. And I got mad and took a hammer to his head while he was sleeping.

GRACE: She went to the garage, retrieved a hammer, then returned to the bedroom, and struck him three to four times in the head, leaving him to die. But he didn`t.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: What did you do with his body?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s in the back bedroom.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She says when she returned, she found him, holding his head and still struggling to breathe. And struck him again in the head with the hammer.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: Are you sure he`s dead?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: When did it happen?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A couple weeks ago.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: What made you decide to call today?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know.

RITA COSBY, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, AUTHOR OF "QUIET HERO": Let`s go right to the daughter, we`ve got Rukiya Droste, who is the daughter of Donna Ray Williams. She is with us now here on the show.

Give us a sense, Rukiya, was your mother a victim of abuse?

RUKIYA DROSTE, DAUGHTER: I do not believe that my mother was a victim of abuse, no. Not in a way that -- not in the way that -- not in the way that people are saying or hinting toward her, not in the way that she claims she was, absolutely not.

COSBY: And how do you know that?

DROSTE: I -- you know, I lived in the house. There was a very long history of abuse in the home. There was always a lot of alcohol in the home. But honestly, you know, a lot of alcohol consumption and overuse and abuse of the alcohol was mainly done by my mom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Let stop and remember Army Corporal Christopher Coffland, 43, Baltimore, Maryland, killed, Afghanistan. Bronze Star, Purple Heart, loved coaching football, traveling the world, collecting art, restoring his `68 Camaro. Leaves behind parents Antoinette and David Senior, sisters Karen, Leeann, and Lori, brother, David Jr.

Christopher Coffland, American hero.

Thanks to our guest, our biggest thanks to you for being with us. Dr. Drew up next.

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

END