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Nancy Grace
Half-Ton Woman Too Fat to Kill?
Aired September 26, 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, Texas. The unthinkable -- a morbidly obese woman tips the scale at over 1,000 pounds, her 2-year-old little nephew found beaten to death. Her defense? At 1,100 pounds, she`s too fat to kill.
Bombshell tonight. She is so morbidly obese, it takes 10 grown men to saw through the house to move her. She testifies from her own bed at her own murder case. Tonight, a half-ton accused killer, a little boy beaten to death, and to top it all off, now she recants, claiming she`s really innocent, too fat to kill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A morbidly obese woman, almost 1,000 pounds, says she crushed her 2-year-old nephew to death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the world`s heaviest women.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She can`t sit in a chair like you and I can. She can`t sit in a couch like you and I can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because she`s too fat to get out of her own house.
GRACE: Well, then, how did she kill the baby?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She lost her balance and essentially fell on her nephew.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First, blow a wall out of her home. Next, bring in a forklift with pallets and cushions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They had to build a new courtroom for her because she was so large.
MAYRA ROSALES, ACCUSED KILLER: I should be punished. I did wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, the medical examiner said it absolutely is not physically possible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The injuries on the child just don`t match up with what she said happened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This child died of blunt force trauma.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was covering up for somebody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight. Live to Texas. A morbidly obese woman tips the scales at over 1,000 pounds, her 2-year-old little nephew beaten to death. Tonight, a half-ton accused killer, a little boy beaten to death, and to top it all off, now she`s recanting, claiming she`s really innocent? Forget about her confession, she`s too fat to kill?
We are taking your calls. I want to go straight out to Dave Mack, morning talk show host joining me from WAAX. Dave, what do we know about her condition of being morbidly obese?
DAVE MACK, CLEAR CHANNEL WAAX: She`s the half-ton killer. She weighs 1,100 pounds, Nancy, and she claims that that makes her too immobile to have killed now (ph).
GRACE: Too immobile to have killed? but It`s my understanding that the boy was crushed, also beaten. Let me ask you this, Dave Mack. Can she feed herself?
MACK: Oh, yes. She does a great job feeding herself. There`s no problem there. The problem is...
GRACE: So her arms and hands are working correctly? She can absolutely feed herself, can she not?
MACK: Yes, ma`am. They -- they -- when they`re right in front of her, she can -- but she doesn`t lift them up.
GRACE: Everybody, we are taking your calls. We are live in Texas, where a woman claims she`s too obese to kill, yet gives a stunning -- a sick and stunning confession to the beating of her little nephew.
To Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter, Radaronline.com. She confesses. She`s at home, most of the time, alone with the little boy. And as a matter of fact, Alexis, CPS, DFACS, Child Protective Services, has been in the home many, many times about this little boy, have they not, Alexis?
ALEXIS TERESZCUK, RADARONLINE.COM: You`re exactly right. They`ve been there three times. They were called about abuse of the little boy`s sister. They came out. They confirmed there was abuse, but the woman said -- their mother, who is Mayra`s sister, said, Oh, I`m going to be leaving them in the care of somebody who`s more responsible than me. And she left them in the care of her 1,100-pound sister, who couldn`t get out of bed, who couldn`t take care of them at all.
GRACE: And now the boy is dead. Now that she -- the child is in the care of this woman, the boy is dead.
Out to the lines. Deborah in Texas. Hi, Deborah. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, she beat that little boy because he was probably taunting her, and she couldn`t get up to help him when he needed something. And she just needs to face up to it.
GRACE: Why do you say that, Deborah in Texas?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I went through a case like that with someone accused me of burning (ph) my grandkids, and it was because they were mad at my daughter. And they review cases that they should review, and the ones that -- they don`t review cases they really should and (INAUDIBLE)
GRACE: Well, what`s interesting to me, Deborah in Texas, is that having prosecuted so much abuse on children, so many child homicides when I was a felony prosecutor, I always find it -- I started to say disturbing, but it`s actually disgusting...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s it!
GRACE: ... regarding how many times Child Protective Services does not intervene. They don`t take the child out of the home. They know the child is getting beaten. They know the child is getting abused. They leave the child in the home. Then the child ends up dead.
It`s practically an epidemic amongst DFACS, Department of Family and Children Services, and Child Protective Services across this country. And what I don`t understand is why people aren`t screaming about it tonight.
Here`s yet another child dead after CPS is investigating. Investigating what? What, were they going to go to the funeral to investigate? They had plenty of time to fix this, but they did not. Now this little boy -- he was a 2-year-old nephew, Eliseo Gonzalez, Jr. -- cause of death, blunt force trauma to the head there in Texas, La Joya (ph), Texas.
Out to Ellie Jostad. Ellie, please explain to me how her eating, how her weight has burgeoned up to 1,100 pounds, over 1,000 pounds. And Ellie, please don`t say thyroid. Don`t say that again.
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Well, Nancy, that is what her defense attorney, Sergio Valdez (ph), is alleging, that she suffers a rare thyroid condition that has caused her weight to balloon hundreds of pounds in just three or four years. He says that she has such limited mobility that there`s no way she would be able to lift her arm and strike this boy.
GRACE: Okay, Ellie, isn`t it true that she feeds herself?
JOSTAD: Yes, I believe so.
GRACE: All righty, then! There goes the defense that she can`t lift her arm.
Out to the lines. Rita in California. Hi, Rita. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. Well, first of all, when you look at the picture of this lady, she`s sitting up. She`s not laying down. I mean, does she have strength to sit up straight?
I fail to even understand how someone would admit that they killed someone if they didn`t, and turn around and say, well, now that you know what`s going to happen, now you want to change the story. That makes no sense to me.
I think she`s frustrated because of her weight, and I think that for whatever happened, it was taken out on the child. I think that even with her hands -- she could use her hand to make a blow to this child that could be devastating.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. And with me is Rita in California.
Unleash the lawyers. Burke Strunsky out of LA, senior deputy attorney, (SIC) author of "The Humanity of Justice," Parag Shah, defense attorney, author of "The Code," and Bradford Cohen, defense attorney out of Miami.
Liz, let`s hear what she had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSALES: I should be punished. I did wrong. It`s hard to lie like this, but suicide is not an option.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could they even give her enough poison to execute her? It`s a shocking case where nothing...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This thing just keeps getting stranger and stranger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is quite what it seems.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Obviously, something else was happening.
ROSALES: I should be punished. I did wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A false confession is a rarity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And a woman`s testimony...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who is covering up for who, and what`s the coverup?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is the very thing that may prevent her from staying alive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know how much longer she`s going to be around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you get convicted because of your statement, you will die in prison.
ROSALES: It`s hard to live like this, but suicide is not an option.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You`re seeing video from TLC about this very case. She`s already under the death penalty because of her burgeoning weight. She weighs over 1,100 pounds. But everyone is focusing on her and her thyroid condition and not on the 2-year-old little boy that was killed in the home, this after many trips by CPS and DFACS to the home.
We are taking your calls. Out to Tara in Montana. Hi, dear. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I actually have a comment, too.
GRACE: Okay.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just don`t understand how they can blame her weight. I was 500 pounds two years ago, and I was still playing softball. I was still active. I turned down baby-sitting jobs, however, because I knew that there was still that risk that I couldn`t move fast enough to get somebody out of a house if there was something going on.
And I don`t understand why any parent would under, you know, any circumstance say, Oh, this person`s safe when they have to cut a wall out of a house to get her out.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a tiny Texas town on the Mexican border...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have not seen obesity at this level.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... a story that caught world headlines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mom Jaime Rosales`s 2-year-old son, Eliseo, died after allegedly being hit over the head by his 1,000-pound aunt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She can`t sit in a chair like you and I can. She can`t sit in a couch like you and I can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you buy into the media hype, certainly, you believe that she`s guilty.
ROSALES: I should be punished. I did wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You are seeing video from TLC. We are taking your calls.
At over 1,000 pounds, she says she`s too fat to kill. Her 2-year-old little nephew found dead in the home. She confesses. We are taking your calls.
Back to Alexis Tereszcuk. It`s my understanding that all sorts of special accommodations have been made for the so-called half-ton killer. Tell me about her mug shot and her fingerprints.
TERESZCUK: These are actually done in her home. She was so large, she couldn`t get out of the house. So the police came to her house. They brought all of their equipment at huge expense to get all that done, brought it there, took her picture in bed, you can see, and then took her fingerprints there.
In fact, as the hearing started for her case, she was giving testimony via videocamera because she was in bed. They eventually had to cut the walls, cut through the brick walls of her house with saws to remove her from the home. They built a very elaborate pallet to lift her into an ambulance to have her moved. And then they couldn`t even put her in the jail. It just didn`t accommodate it.
So when the hearing was coming up, they actually had to rebuild a whole brand-new courtroom. They had to widen doors and open it so that she just could fit in there.
GRACE: We are showing you stills of the home, but we`re about to show you video of them actually cutting through the walls to get this woman out of the home. They couldn`t take her at the jail. Apparently, it would just cost too much.
I know now how she was fingerprinted and how they got a mug shot, Ellie Jostad. But what I want to know also, what I`m really curious about, Ellie -- we all are focusing on her and her weight issue. I want to hear about the 2-year-old little boy. He`s getting lost in the sauce here. Tell me about the previous trips by Child Protective Services to the home.
JOSTAD: Well, Nancy, leading up to Eliseo`s death, there were four reports to CPS. We know three times that they investigated, and there was actually still that fourth case open at the time of his death.
Nancy, the first time that they went to this house where Eliseo and his siblings lived -- he has three siblings -- they were able to confirm abuse. The second time, they were unable to determine if abuse had occurred. And the third time, a similar situation, couldn`t confirm it.
But that third time, Nancy, they did have Eliseo`s mother signed an order saying she would not leave her children in the care of the aunt because of the aunt being so morbidly obese was unable to care for them. So the children were not even supposed to be in her care.
GRACE: Out to the lines. Roland in California. Hi, Roland. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Nancy. It`s more of a statement. I believe that the young lady that was obese was probably also abused, obviously, from her weight issue, and that she`s probably protecting the person who really has killed the child. So I believe that she should be prosecuted for the fact of lying. But also, she may actually be able to go back and look at her history, see what was going on with her that has caused her to be the way that she is now.
GRACE: Okay, Roland, interesting. I just want to ask you a question. Now she`s recanting her story, saying that it was a false confession, that she was covering up for somebody else who murdered the little boy, the 2-year- old little boy.
My question to you, Roland in California, is this. When you have a child victim such as this Eliseo Gonzalez, just 2 years old, should we care -- of course, I care that an adult suffered child molestation or child abuse, if it`s even true. Nothing in the evidence suggests she was ever a victim.
But when do you allow that to become the defense for murdering a little boy, Roland in California?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t think it should ever be a (INAUDIBLE) for a defense because I really don`t think that she physically would have been able to do it, unless she may have rolled over on him. I really do believe that she is protecting someone who probably abused her, as well. And that`s the person maybe she`s intimidated or afraid of.
GRACE: Interesting take. Unleash the lawyers, Burke Strunsky, Parag Shah, Bradford Cohen. All right, let`s hear from you, Bradford Cohen. (INAUDIBLE) follow up on what Roland in California had to say, that he believes she was abused, hence her eating problems. She now weighs over 1,000 pounds. That`s not a defense under the law, is it?
BRADFORD COHEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No. Absolutely not. No. Absolutely not. It`s not a defense. The other things he said were very interesting. I don`t think it`s a defense at all. I think the fact that whether or not she could physically do it is a defense. Although she can eat, you still have to figure out whether or not she has the power, enough power to actually hit a kid and kill a kid.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He actually had a blow to his head, a severe blow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Accused of capital murder.
GRACE: See, this woman is almost -- is a half a ton. Then how was she able to kill the little boy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a shocking case, where nothing...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This thing just keeps getting stranger and stranger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is quite what it seems.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You are seeing video from TLC. Everyone, take a look at this woman. She says she is too fat to kill. She is morbidly obese, that`s true, 1,100 pounds, over 1,000 pounds she weighs. It took 10 men to move her. They had to cut through the wall, cut through the outer brick wall of the home to move her from her bed.
Her confession is that she crushed the little boy, just 2 years old, couldn`t have weighed over 40 pounds max -- crushed him to death. Now, even in light of her confession, she is recanting, claiming she is innocent.
We are taking your calls. I just went to Bradford Cohen, defense attorney out of Miami. Let`s hear your take, Parag Shah.
PARAG SHAH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I think that`s absolutely true. I mean, the force is the major issue here, if she`s even capable of it. I believe a type of re-enactment or some type of thing needs to happen to demonstrate by the defense that this couldn`t have happened, especially given the nature of the injuries.
GRACE: Burke Strunsky, what do you think?
BURKE STRUNSKY, SR. DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Well, you know that these cases, Nancy, these child homicide cases, almost always come down to the forensic evidence -- in other words, the internal autopsy (INAUDIBLE) really going to give you the information you need to determine who`s telling the truth, when these injuries occurred and how they were inflicted. And then you compare that to the statements that were given, and usually, that tells you what happened. And that -- that`s what makes...
GRACE: Put Burke up.
STRUNSKY: ... the difference in child homicides.
GRACE: I want to see him. With me out of LA is Burke Strunsky, senior deputy attorney and author of "Humanity of Justice."
Burke, what`s so disturbing to me is not only the death of this little 2- year-old boy -- because I remember my twins -- Burke, I don`t know if you have children or not, but I remember how...
STRUNSKY: I do.
GRACE: ... tiny they were at age 2. But based on the autopsy -- and you`re right, Burke, the medical examiner doesn`t lie. The autopsy doesn`t lie. Medicine doesn`t lie. That`s going to tell the tale.
What was so disturbing is that there was evidence of prior abuse, prior abuse to the boy`s skull. And they can absolutely tell that.
Isn`t that true, Dr. Kent Harshbarger, joining me out of Dayton? Isn`t that true you can date -- you can tell prior abuse?
DR. KENT E. HARSHBARGER, MEDICAL EXAMINER: Correct. There`s skull fractures that were identified as old, approximately a month old, which we do microscopically.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our opinion of Mayra was what everybody`s opinion was. It`s just shocking, and nobody can really believe that someone could sit on a kid and then kill the kid.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a tiny Texas town on the Mexican border...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have not seen obesity at this level.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... a story that caught world headlines.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You belong in "The New England Journal." You belong in the book of internal medicine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the world`s heaviest women...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She can`t sit in a chair like you and I can. She can`t sit in a couch like you and I can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you buy into the media hype, certainly, you believe that she`s guilty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is accused of capital murder.
GRACE: This woman is almost -- is a half a ton. Why isn`t she in jail?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could they even give her enough poison to execute her?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a shocking case, where nothing...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This thing just keeps getting stranger and stranger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is quite what it seems.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Obviously, something else was happening.
ROSALES: I should be punished. I did wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A false confession is a rarity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And a woman`s testimony...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who is covering up for who, and what`s the coverup?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is the very thing that may prevent her from staying alive.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know how much longer she`s going to be around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you get convicted because of your statement, you will die in prison.
ROSALES: It`s hard to live like this, but suicide is not an option.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That is video from TLC, and they`re all talking about you will die behind bars because you`re morbidly obese, this after she confesses to the murder of her 2-year-old little nephew. He could not have weighed over 40 pounds. She weighs 1100 pounds. One thousand one hundred pounds. She says she rolled over and crushed him.
Everybody is focused on her. Nobody is focused on him. Now we`re learning that DFACS, Child Protective Services had been in the home at least four times before. They had problems with the mother raising him. They had problems with the aunt. You see her here at 1100 pounds raising him.
But they left the child there and now he`s dead? I`m just really surprised that the public doesn`t go up in arms and basically storm their state general assemblies and capitals demanding that CPS and DFACS be held accountable.
Liz, let me see that video you`re telling me about. Here you see -- there is the suspect, the aunt, Mayra Rosales, age 31. There she is being lifted out of the home. Her defense, I`m too fat to kill.
Out to the lines. Linda, Illinois. Hi, Linda, what`s your question?
LINDA, CALLER FROM ILLINOIS: Hi. My question is, is she -- you know, is she being charged for the murder of this baby?
GRACE: She absolutely was based on her confession. But now we are hearing that she is recanting, that none of it is true. Yes, she was home at the time of the killing of this little boy. Yes, she confessed to the killing of this little boy. Yes, there are prior incidents of abuse on this child. But now she`s saying she is covering up.
I want to go out to Ellie Jostad.
Ellie, what is her defense? In light of the fact that she`s given a confession?
JOSTAD: Right, Nancy. Well, she said that she could not have killed him because she was too large and too immobile to do that. She said that she told police she did it because she was covering for her sister, the little boy`s mom.
She says that she actually witnessed the boy`s mom use a hair brush to beat him that morning when he wouldn`t eat. He was fussy and he wouldn`t eat his breakfast, so his mom allegedly beat him with this hair brush.
Now Mayra Rosales says she covered for her sister because her sister called her crying from the hospital when the little boy was there dying, begging her to basically take the rap and to say that she was the one that hurt him.
GRACE: Okay, so Ellie, let me get this straight. These are my two choices. Either the 1100-pound, as they call her, half-ton killer crushed the little boy, or the 1100-pound aunt watched her sister beat the child to death after multiple other incidents of beating the little boy in the home, did nothing, and then covered up for his death? Are those my two choices? There`s no good choice in this scenario, is there?
JOSTAD: No, there is no good choice here, Nancy.
GRACE: Out to the lines, Jewel in South Carolina. Hi, Jewel, what`s your question?
JEWEL, CALLER FROM SOUTH CAROLINA: Hi, Nancy, I hope your baby is doing fine.
GRACE: Okay, Jewel.
JEWEL: I love you show.
GRACE: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop right there.
JEWEL: Okay.
GRACE: I don`t want -- whoa, I said stop. I don`t want to rush past that.
JEWEL: Okay.
GRACE: Thank you about John David and please, please continue your prayers. Go ahead, dear.
JEWEL: I will. Thank you, Nancy. I just can`t see this woman sitting on this baby to get rid of the 2-year-old little thing that ain`t big enough to take care of itself. And momma wanting to blame her to keep from going to jail because she knows she`s not going to jail, because she is so heavy.
GRACE: You know what?
JEWEL: So what are they going to do here?
GRACE: You know what, Jewel, when I was prosecuting felonies in inner-city Atlanta, this is the scenario I often saw. I often saw dope dealers, drug lords, drug traffickers, loading down children, juveniles with dope, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, you name it.
The addict, or the customer, would come to the adult, give him or her the money, then they would go to the child and get the dope off the child. Why? Because if a child goes to jail or gets caught, gets busted, they can only do a couple of months in juvenile hall, juvie jail, where the adult, with that amount of dope, could do life behind bars.
So the thinking here in this triangle is you`ve got the dead child, you`ve got the mother, and you`ve got the obese aunt. The mother knows that the obese aunt cannot be sent to jail because she`s simply too fat, they can`t care for her. They`ll give her some alternative sentence. And she could get away, literally, with murder.
That is the defense. Herein lies the rub. Who do we believe?
Everybody, I want to remind you, Friday night`s 8:00 p.m. Eastern, "Cold Blooded Murder," gambling, jealousy. Inside the most baffling, the most heinous crimes ever committed. Cutting-edge technique, science combines with crime sleuthing. We uncover what makes the average man or woman cross the line to commit murder? Sometimes the answer is simple. Other times, the answer is never found.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Back in 90 seconds. But we remember Army Sergeant Andrew McConnell, age 24, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Army Achievement Medal, Global War on Terrorism medal. Avid swimmer, runner, aviation enthusiast. Leaves behind wife, Sarah, daughter Evelyn, parents Catherine and Scott. Five sisters.
Andrew McConnell, American hero.
Back in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mayra is stating that she lost her balance and that she actually landed on the child, crushing his head.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Mayra`s perspective was that she going to die anyway, and so she decided to accept responsibility and cover up for her sister.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You`re seeing video from TLC. We are taking your calls. She`s called the half-ton killer after she confesses to crushing her 2-year-old nephew to death. He could not have weighed over 40 pounds. We believe he weighed in the 30s.
I want to go straight out to Dr. Kent Harshbarger, medical examiner, forensic pathologist, joining me out of Dayton. Are the injuries to the child consistent with a crushing or a beating?
HARSHBARGER: From what I`m reading, there`s more consistent with a beating. It`s not likely for someone to fall for two reasons. One, there`s multiple scattered bruises. So it`s not just one event. There`s - - at the time of death, contemporaneous with the head injuries are other bruises. So it`s not just one fall on the head of this child. There`s multiple blows from a small instrument than just falling on this child. Plus, the skull fractures are unique. To crush a skull with that much weight, it would be one linear fracture where the skull is deformed. This is -- what I`m reading, this is a smaller type fracture, it`s not from a compressive injury, like falling and crushing the head from the weight.
GRACE: To T.J. Ward, private investigator -- private investigator with Investigative Consultants International.
T.J., thanks for being with us. I noticed that Mayra would not immediately take a polygraph. This is the aunt. Why?
T.J. WARD, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: Well, Nancy, I believe she didn`t take a polygraph because, one, she was trying to cover for her sister. And obviously the truth would have come out if she had taken a polygraph. She -- apparently she`s an accessory to a crime if she knew that this crime happened by somebody else. So they need to go forth and charge her with something.
GRACE: To Wendy Walsh, psychologist and expert. Wendy is joining us out of L.A. Why would someone like this morbidly obese woman take the fall? Why would she give a false confession? And I did notice, Wendy Walsh, and I`m very rarely side with the defense lawyers, but I did notice her confession was extremely sparse. There was no detail in it. It was basically, I rolled over and crushed him. There was no lead-up, there was no aftermath. That was the confession.
WENDY WALSH, PH.D., PSYCHOLOGIST AND CO-HOST OF "THE DOCTORS": Yes, good ears there, Nancy. There are two ways to lie well. One is to give way too much information and the other is to give way too little because you really don`t know what details to add that you could be caught up in. Obviously, this woman was covering for her sister, I mean if in fact it`s determined that the sister did the murder. And I think that -- you know, I don`t know a lot about this obese woman`s mental state, but it couldn`t have been healthy, Nancy. It couldn`t have been healthy.
GRACE: So do you think that if in fact she did give a false confession it was because of, what, lack of any self-worth that she thought it was better for her to go to jail than her sister or did she believe that she wouldn`t go to jail because of her obesity?
WALSH: Sadly, I can`t imagine having this level of obesity without co- morbid depression, Nancy. I`m sure this was a very depressed young woman. And maybe she thought this was an act of love to her sister.
GRACE: Put her up.
WALSH: Who knows what weird ways people frame things. But I think that --
GRACE: Wendy.
WALSH: -- at this point, she was feeling a lot of depression.
GRACE: Wendy.
WALSH: Yes?
GRACE: Depression, self-worth.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: The very best scenario for her, she sat by while a little child was beaten over and over and over. CPS was in the home repeatedly. They left that child with these two demons, these two sea bitches from hell and they killed this child.
So back to you, Alexis Tereszcuk, Radaronline.com. Are you telling me that she sits by, she watches the baby get beaten to death? The mom, according to reports, takes the beaten baby, puts it in bed and covers it up with a blanket. When the child gets to the hospital, it`s still alive and lingers for days.
How long did they sit by while the child died from internal injuries? So I`m supposed to give the so-called half-ton killer a pass because she didn`t make the blow herself, she just sat by and then covered for her sister?
TERESZCUK: She did -- there`s a sweet little part of this that the sister -- the mother actually wrapped him in a Winnie the Pooh blanket, and put him in the bed. It was hours when the sister of Mayra actually waited before she finally called 911, saying that he was having trouble breathing.
She never said anything when the ambulance arrived, never said that he`d been beaten or given any indication what happened, just reportedly he had trouble breathing, and it was hours after the breakfast with the sister. His mother had actually left the home. She couldn`t even reach the child, he was in another room.
GRACE: Ellie Jostad, what else do we know about what really happened and why is it -- I ask again, why isn`t this woman behind bars for aiding and abetting?
JOSTAD: Right, Nancy. Well, yes, she said, you know, that she witnessed this sister of hers beat the child with a hair brush. She says then, you know, the boy is sleeping presumably in his bed until he starts having breathing problems.
Now, Nancy, even after little Eliseo was transported to the hospital, he laid there clinging to life for two days in the hospital before he finally died from his injuries.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a tiny Texas town on the Mexican border --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have not seen obesity at this level.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A story that caught world headlines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She can`t sit on the couch like you and I can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you buy into the media hype, certainly you believe that she`s guilty.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I should be punished. I did wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s just shocking and nobody can really believe that someone could sit on a kid and then kill the kid.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know how much longer she`s going to be around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you get convicted because of your statement, you`ll die in prison.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You`re seeing video from TLC. Out to the lines. Pauline, Missouri. Hi, Pauline. What`s your question, dear?
PAULINE, CALLER FROM MISSOURI: Hi. I actually have a question in. And I`m actually quite irate over some of these comments. My question is, why isn`t she on conspiracy or something like that? Because how can you be there, see this happen, not do anything and not have charges pressed against you? And not to mention -- now in my thinking, somebody as heavyweight as she is, obese as she is, has to have a hard time rolling herself over to get in position to roll on this child? So then if she did do it, she did it on purpose.
Because you can`t -- you look at this gentleman that`s in jail now that`s trying to say that he`s too fat to be put to death. If they can take care of him in jail, I`m sure they can take care of her. And I think both the mother and the aunt need to be put in jail. Not one but both.
GRACE: You know what, Pauline in Missouri, keep calling please. I thought after the murder of my fiance that I knew all about crime and what crime victims go through. Now that I have children, it`s a whole new ball game, Pauline in Missouri, to think that they would sit by and allow this mother to repeatedly beat this child until he suffers and dies wrapped in a Winnie the Pooh blanket.
Come on, Burke Strunsky, why can`t she be prosecuted for conspiracy or at least obstruction? She took police on a wild good chase.
STRUNSKY: Well, she certainly can be prosecuted for the obstruction charge. The interesting thing is going to be whether they determine whether this child had received medical aid right away, would that have in fact saved his life?
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I should be punished. I did wrong. It`s hard to live like this. Suicide is not an option.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I wanted to make sure I heard that correctly. Thank you, Liz. That`s video from TLC where she says, I should be punished, I did wrong. Tonight we are learning her confession to the murder of her 2-year-old nephew may have been a false confession that she was covering for her sister. That she sat by while the boy was beaten to death as he laid dying wrapped in a Winnie the Pooh blanket in his own bed. Nobody did anything.
And let me also point out this would have been that we know of the fifth visit from CPS, Child Protective Services, to the home.
Joining me now in addition to Burke Strunsky, Parag Shah and Bradford Cohen, all three well known attorneys.
Paul Campos is with us. Obesity law expert, law professor, author of "Don`t Go to Law School Unless."
So, Paul, why shouldn`t she be prosecuted for obstruction of justice?
PAUL CAMPOS, PROFESSOR OF LAW, OBESITY EXPERT, AUTHOR, "DON`T GO TO LAW SCHOOL UNLESS": Well, Nancy, I think this is -- this woman has been terribly abused by her own family. I mean, clearly here the sister coerced her into making a false confession for the purposes of escaping the consequences for murdering her own child. And this woman is severely ill, very disabled, in a terrible situation, and while it`s true that we can condemn her for not having done more, well, she certainly should have done more to protect her nephew --
GRACE: Wait. Campos, hold on just a moment. You are getting very close to saying that under our jurisprudence system that there is no duty to act. That you can`t be prosecuted for failing to save someone. But here she actively lied to police. She knew CPS had been in the home about the treatment of this little boy, his abuse. She did nothing. In fact she actively lied and sent police on a wild goose chase, did she not?
That`s not obstruction in your book? And abuse is not a defense, Paul Campos.
CAMPOS: She could be prosecuted for obstruction of justice, that`s true. But what she -- what she was prosecuted for was capital murder and --
GRACE: That`s not what I asked you. She lied to police. She sat by while this boy was murdered.
Everybody, "DR. DREW" is up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
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