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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
High School Violence in Mississippi; Child Thrown Out of Car in Police; Manager Charged in Employee`s Suicide; Family Killed; Johnny Depp Dollar Mess; Amazing Money Moment; Shocking Accident. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired February 02, 2017 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST (voice-over): Teenagers behaving badly, fights in school all too common across the country. Now a teacher says the kids run
this high school from hell because teachers just can`t punish them like they used to.
A police chase ends in disaster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For it to hit that hard, that`s pretty amazing.
BANFIELD: A car flipping, crashing, catching fire, a little girl thrown from the window as the car takes flight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He abandoned that child (INAUDIBLE) and it (INAUDIBLE)
BANFIELD: But the driver takes off, the 7-year-old left to fend for herself.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: just Looking at this scene right here, it`s just -- it`s chilling.
BANFIELD: A teenager bullied to the brink at school and at work. But when he takes his own life, his manager is arrested. Could she really be
convicted of manslaughter?
911 OPERATOR: Does it appear that she`s been shot?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BANFIELD: If money is the root of all evil, police say this woman dug down to the core.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had deposited that money into an account, discovered that the balance of that money was gone.
BANFIELD: She was arrested for killing her husband and her girls as they slept!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) blood and (INAUDIBLE)
BANFIELD: But police say the reason she killed the kids can`t compare to the quarter million reasons she killed their dad.
JOHNNY DEPP, ACTOR: I`m Captain Jack Sparrow.
BANFIELD: He plays a pirate on the big screen. Now his managers say Johnny Depp spends money like a drunken sailor. It`s an epic battle.
Johnny says his money men lost him a bundle. The managers say he blew his own fortune. Take a tour through the homes, the yachts, the private
islands that may have Johnny on the financial brink.
And caught red-handed!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I found this $20 bill.
BANFIELD: A 7-year-old sleuth solves the crime of a lifetime.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was tons of money with red dye on it.
BANFIELD: Bank robbers foiled by exploding dye and a pint-sized hero.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wanted to do the right thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Hello, I`m Ashleigh Banfield. This is PRIMETIME JUSTICE.
There are days when I will admit I sound like a broken record. I am frustrated with teenagers who think the rule the roost, especially in our
nation`s schools. The problem does not seem to be getting any better. In fact, over the last few decades, we have all been forced to watch as
students toss F bombs at their teachers, hit, shove, fight and bully people into violence.
And it seems that our teachers are losing the upper hand. They have lost their ammo, and they`re losing the war. And today, yet another example of
kids and one Mississippi high school so out of control that they have been flagged now by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
That group says arrests at Terry high school -- arrests! -- have increased more than 400 percent in the last three years. And at least one teacher
says it`s because they just cannot discipline students like they did in the past, that the kids are running Terry High School. It is so bad, it`s been
called the high school from hell. And if you need an example, here`s Monday.
(VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: You want more proof that the students are running the show at Terry, Mississippi? Former student Melody Thompson (ph), whose stepmom
teaches there, said this of the teacher`s plight. "They can`t -- they just can`t seem to send them to the office and have them written up or have them
taken care of or go to detention. Like, the teachers have to be there to monitor them for detention. They have to do all the paperwork. And it is
creating a workload that the teachers can`t keep up with."
If the students are running the school with teachers who can`t discipline them or are too afraid to step in when there`s a fight, what can be done to
protect other kids at Terry High School? And how many schools out there are in the same boat?
[20:05:04]Delesicia Martin is the superintendent of education for the Hines (ph) County school district. That`s where Terry is. And she joins me from
Raymond, Mississippi. Superintendent, thank you for being with me. My first question is a simple one. What happened to the kids in that video
from Monday? What kind of discipline did they get for it?
DELESICIA MARTIN, SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION, HINES COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT (via telephone): Well, of course, I can`t tell you specifically what
occurred with those students on Monday. But I can assure you that any time a student violates our code of conduct in that manner, we have disciplinary
infractions up to and including arresting the students, suspensions. We have a restart placement, which is our alternative school setting, as well
as expulsion, if it`s necessary to do that.
BANFIELD: So here`s the problem. The police are frustrated. The Southern Poverty Law Center is frustrated. Everybody seems to be frustrated that
stuff like this ends up with cops coming to the school and arresting them for disorderly conduct.
So I guess my issue is, are the teachers being asked to bear the brunt of this horrible behavior, with all of the increased paperwork, with all of
the overtime hours to go and monitor detention, if that`s what happens with these kids? Or now are we starting to foist it off to the police to do
that?
MARTIN: Absolutely not in the Hines County school district. And you know, it`s interesting that you indicated that you have spoken to one teacher,
and I`d love to have the opportunity to speak with that teacher, as well, because at Terry High School, as well as at our other high school, we pay
an individual each morning to do detention. They receive a stipend each semester to take care of that.
Now, can teachers choose to keep their detention in their classroom? Absolutely, if they would like to do that. But there are procedures in
place for that. So I have spent the last 17 years in the Hines County school district, actually spent two years of that time as an assistant
principal at Terry High School. And here in the Hines County school district, we have very clear-cut policies and procedures as far as...
BANFIELD: I want to ask you if one of those policies and procedures is zero tolerance because if anybody brings a knife to school, at most
schools, they have zero tolerance. You`re out. What about the weapon of violence? Is there a zero tolerance policy for kids doing that?
MARTIN: Absolutely. We do not allow students to have weapons in our schools. And also, we don`t...
BANFIELD: No, no! No, no! I`m not talking weapons, I`m talking violence, using your fists...
MARTIN: Oh, absolutely!
BANFIELD: ... using your feet and using your body as a weapon.
MARTIN: Absolutely. And (INAUDIBLE) why Southern Poverty has indicated to you that we have a high percentage of students who are being arrested
because, no, absolutely, we don`t tolerate that type of behavior in our buildings. And if a student fights in our schools, unless there`s some
extenuating circumstance, those students are arrested. Those students are suspended. Those students can be sent to alternative school, which is
called a restart center, which I would say is an award-winning, our restart center here in the Hines County area. We have all of those options for our
teachers.
So if -- I would say that as far as disciplinary actions are concerned here in the Hines County school district, we ensure that our students are safe.
We want to make sure that our teachers are safe. And we don`t tolerate that type of behavior. So I think that`s why you`re hearing a lot of
information from Southern Poverty concerning the arrests because...
BANFIELD: Well, speaking of that...
MARTIN: -- if you commit a crime in our schools, you will have some type of a consequence to that.
BANFIELD: There are some other fascinating issues with the Southern Poverty Law Center, what they`ve said. And actually, to address that, I
want to bring in Steve Perry, who`s a school principal and an educator. He joins me from Middletown, Connecticut.
Steve, thanks for being with me. I want to read something from a woman named Lydia Wright (ph) with the Southern Poverty Law Center. She said
this to WJTV, and I think it is really telling about a lot, what`s going on here. She said, "Students weren`t getting arrested for bringing weapons to
school. Students weren`t getting arrested for drugs on campus. Students were being arrested for typical adolescent misbehavior." And she was
referring to a video that showed two girls fighting, and actually then trading blows with the school resource officer.
Steve, you`re about my age, and I can tell you one thing. That is not typical adolescent behavior, in my books! What am I missing?
STEVE PERRY, CAPITAL PREPARATORY SCHOOLS: Well, the truth is that kids have always fought in school. That is something that we have always seen.
It wasn`t just invented by this generation. What we have, however, seen is a rash or an increase in the violence in the schools, not just in Terry
High School but throughout the country, not just in urban high schools, but in schools in general.
And it`s due in large part to a number of factors, not the least of which is, obviously, sometimes, our parents are not doing what we need them to do
to make sure that their children come to school with the right frame of mind. But also, within the schools, when the children don`t feel safe,
when they don`t feel like the adults who work there are going to stand up and make sure that they don`t have to take matters into their own hands,
and they don`t (ph).
So in this particular situation, as I watched the video, only the video and nothing else, I was surprised at how far removed the adults were from this
situation. This is a situation in which it could only get worse until the adults are in a better position to make a better decision.
[20:10:12]BANFIELD: And Steve, let me -- let me ask you this. I rail a lot on, you know, students being so in control of it all and teachers
having the ammo taken away from them to deal with these kinds of kids out of control. But I think that in your background, you have discovered that
a lot of the problem stems from those kids` parents, the behavior that they may be mirroring, the social media that they`re reading of their own
parents` accounts, the language that their own parents are using.
Is this really why we`re seeing the increase in video like that in our nation`s schools?
PERRY: Well, I`ve seen in the schools -- I`m no longer a principal, I`m the head of schools of Capital Preparatory Schools. We have schools in
both Connecticut and in New York.
And what we`ve seen in our schools is an increased aggressiveness from the families to the school, a willingness to use profane language and be
disrespectful to the school.
But also, we cannot let the school off the hook. There`s absolutely no reason why children should feel unsafe in their school. The adults are
still in charge, regardless of who their parents are. So this is not -- this doesn`t have to be. It can be stopped, and in schools where the
adults are in charge, this is not typical.
But I have seen a rash -- an extreme increase in the profound disrespect that parents have heaped on the schools.
BANFIELD: It is a fascinating phenomenon. And it is so distressing. Steve, good to have you. Thanks, Steve, come back again because this is
not -- you know, it`s not a story that`s over, without question, just with this particular school.
I want to move on to a Georgia driver, if you can call it a driver, because this guy totaled a car in a high-speed chase, and there was a 7-year-old
unbuckled in the back seat. He left that 7-year-old behind injured. It`s got us questioning why he would have tried to run from the police when that
7-year-old was in such danger.
And Johnny Depp is suing his managers! He says they`re robbing him blind! Why they say he better look in the mirror when he`s talking about crazy
spending.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:16:10]BANFIELD: Have you ever tried to outrun the police? First, don`t do it. Second, don`t do it if you have a little girl who`s not
wearing a seatbelt in your back seat. That`s what Georgia state troopers say is exactly what Kadeem Fletcher tried to do. They say he was speeding
on Monday, and they tried to pull him over. But instead, he took off down an exit and tried to get away.
And the next thing that happened was this. You`re going to see the Audi`s lights that he was driving coming onto the screen, hitting a curb, flying
into a gas station, flipping, spinning a few times. Something else you should see inside that red circle. We have blurred the image, but that is
the little 7-year-old girl from the back seat being thrown out the window before that car narrowly misses a gas pump and another car and is
(INAUDIBLE) blaze (ph).
As for that little girl, she was badly injured, but she`s going to be OK. Her mom says that -- at least, she`s told our affiliate that the little
girl has a lung injury, but that she is talking. The troopers say Kadeem Fletcher didn`t bother to stick around to see how she was. He ran off.
And he`d been on the run for the past two days, as well, but just a short time ago, before air time, they caught him. They arrested him. The
officers just don`t know why he tried to outrun them, but they do say, Mr. Fletcher was driving without a license.
John Lemley is a reporter for news radio WYAY. He joins me live from Atlanta. John, there was another detail that really stood out to me. Mr.
Fletcher took off with that 7-year-old lying injured on the ground and didn`t go that far. He apparently went to a neighboring gas station to
clean up. Is that actually true?
JOHN LEMLEY, WYAY (via telephone): That is what we`re hearing right now. Yes, they first -- police first spotted Fletcher`s Audi speeding on
interstate 20 near Moreland (ph) Avenue. This is on the east side of Atlanta. And they say that`s when Fletcher took off. A trooper tried to
stop him. Officials say that Fletcher then eventually sped up, and that is when he crashed into the sign at the gas station.
BANFIELD: And you know, the other thing, John, that stood out to me as that police said that the girlfriend, whose 7-year-old child that was, was
not being cooperative. But that changed, didn`t it?
LEMLEY: Apparently, she had a change of heart, realizing that, yes, indeed, this was her child at the center of this case. She`s now being
much more cooperative, talking with police. And as you`ve mentioned, thank heavens, the girl is expected to be OK.
BANFIELD: Yes. No kidding, for her sake and certainly for Mr. Fletcher`s sake. I want to bring in Nicole Deborde, former prosecutor, Danny
Cevallos, defense attorney.
Danny, stolen car the least of Mr. Fletcher`s worries today, I would guess.
DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: He`s got a lot of problems. And you know, as a defense attorney, it always boggles my mind. I mean, there`s no
point in running. It`s not like the movies. This isn`t "Smokey and the Bandit." You`re not going to get away. Eat the bust, fight it later in
court because when you engage in a police chase, bad things happen to everybody, pedestrians, defense and police.
BANFIELD: And to 7-year-olds unbuckled in your back seat. Nicole, what`s the kind of charge you face for this sort of damage, and then walking away
from her as she is injured on the ground?
NICOLE DEBORDE, FORMER PROSECUTOR: So it could be evading arrest, which is a felony. It could be aggravated assault for the severe injuries...
BANFIELD: How about endangering a child?
DEBORDE: ... endangering a child...
BANFIELD: Attempted murder?
DEBORDE: Absolutely. And whatever it was he was trying to accomplish, whether it was to go and ditch some sort of contraband that he had, or if
he just didn`t want to be stopped by police that day, he is going to have such worse consequences as a result...
BANFIELD: And a world of hurt.
DEBORDE: ... of fleeing from the police.
BANFIELD: World of hurt, as he should be for that. Thank you both.
Teenage boy in Missouri commits suicide just days before Christmas, and now in a very strange turn, his manager where he worked is being charged with
involuntary manslaughter. And the question is, did she bully him to death?
[20:20:12]Plus this...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I went to the trash can and I threw it in, and there was tons of money with red dye on it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And he goes, Dad, this whole trash can is full of money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: And the 7-year-old found that money, the find of his life. He did the right thing. So did they find the bank robbers?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Most of the bullying cases that we see these days happens at school or on Facebook, Twitter, even Snapchat. But investigators in
Missouri say although high school wasn`t easy for 17-year-old Kenneth Suttner, it was the action of his own boss, his manager, that pushed him
over the edge and led him to suicide.
Friends and family say that he`d been bullied for years at school, made fun of for his weight, for a speech impediment, for the way he walked. And
when he started working at the local Dairy Queen, co-workers say the abuse didn`t stop when school ended for the day, it continued on the job. They
say Suttner`s manager lobbed insults at him, made him clean the floor by hand while lying on his stomach, and even threw a cheeseburger at him
because he didn`t make it right.
And in December, after writing a few good-bye notes, calling his friends and family, Kenneth Suttner put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
The coroner in the case called for a special inquest, similar to a grand jury. They wanted to determine whether Suttner`s suicide was, in fact, a
crime.
After six hours of witness testimony about the extreme bullying that Suttner experienced, prosecutors decided to charge the case. They charged
the manager at the DQ, Harley Branham, with involuntary manslaughter. They decided that she was the primary actor in that 17-year-old`s suicide.
[20:25:14]As for the school, though the jurors found that the school followed policies and procedures, they said that the school negligent in
preventing the bullying. But no charges or responsibility leveled towards the school of any kind.
Allison Bennett is a friend and a former co-worker of Kenneth Suttner, the victim in this case. She joins me from Buffalo, Missouri.
Allison, thanks for being with me. How bad was it working at that Dairy Queen? What did you witness? What did you see Kenneth go through?
ALLISON BENNETT, FRIEND AND CO-WORKER (via telephone): It was very heartbreaking every time I would go in. (INAUDIBLE) worked with Harley for
about six months. And just like, every time Kenny would come in to work, she would just -- her attitude would change towards everybody, and then she
would just pick on Kenny.
And one time, she had -- Kenny was supposed to be in the kitchen training, and he had made a burger wrong and she got really upset with him and she
had threw it at him. He was standing by the first, and it hit him, and it could have easily went in the oil and splashed all over him.
BANFIELD: Was it just Kenny, or were there other targets? I mean, managers can be tough on people, but did she just target him or single him
out?
BENNETT: Yes.
BANFIELD: Nobody else? You didn`t get any kind of abuse from that manager?
BENNETT: No, I didn`t at all. It was just Kenny.
BANFIELD: What did Kenny say to you about what was going on on the job?
BENNETT: He just said that he didn`t want to work with Harley. Every time he would be scheduled to work, he would ask me if he was working with
Harley. And every day that he was working with her, he would ask me to cover his shift so he did not have to deal with Harley.
BANFIELD: Allison, did you ever get the feeling that something terrible was going to happen? Did you ever get the feeling that it was so bad,
Kenny might do what he did?
BENNETT: I didn`t.
BANFIELD: No signs, no inkling?
BENNETT: He had said a few times that he didn`t want to do it anymore. But eventually, I had talked to him, like a good friend would do. And he
thanked me and everything was all right. And he`d go about his day. And I didn`t really understand why all this had happened (INAUDIBLE)
BANFIELD: What did he tell you about school? Because a big part of the coroner`s inquest, in which you were apart, was about the abuse that he
also got at school. And yet nobody is charged there. What did Kenny tell you about the abuse he suffered at school and by whom?
BENNETT: Kenny wouldn`t tell me much about being bullied at school. All he said was that, a few kids were picking on him and that he didn`t want me
to say anything. So he wouldn`t give me names, so I didn`t say anything to them. He didn`t really want me to know that part of it.
BANFIELD: Allison, I`m so sorry for your loss, and I`m so sorry that you`re involved in something as tragic as this. Thank you for telling us
his story tonight.
I actually want to get to the legal aspect of this with Nicole and Danny because when I saw that someone who`s accused of bullying someone is
charged with second degree involuntary manslaughter, punishable by up to four years, my first thought was how do you prove that causation?
CEVALLOS: There`s a troubling trend, and it`s where prosecutors and lawmakers see that someone`s bullied, they say, Gee, this is too bad.
Someone should pay. And then they prosecute someone who really didn`t legally cause the suicide because rare is the case that you can imagine a
person causes another to commit suicide, at least legally speaking, which requires more than just saying...
BANFIELD: That`s the issue.
CEVALLOS: Exactly. Yes.
BANFIELD: That`s the issue, the legally speaking. But Nicole we are in a new era where bullying is at an epidemic. It is a crisis. And a lot of
kids are doing this. They`re taking their own lives because of it.
Is this the kind of precedent-setting case that actually might start changing the way things are, that might actually have the chilling effect
on people as they go out and lash out at kids like Kenny?
DEBORDE: Well, I think it`s certainly going to catch people`s attention. And I think, really, probably what should happen is that the legislatures
should start to take into consideration laws like harassment laws that would better accommodate this kind of conduct. The problem is exactly as
you guys have described. There is going to be almost no way for them to prove that her terrible and horrific conduct caused the death of this
individual.
BANFIELD: Especially with the school also being named as being, you know, party to not having done enough. I mean, doesn`t that all sort of pile on,
whereby her defense will be, It wasn`t just me?
CEVALLOS: Yes, the scary thing is, the law -- people are demanding that the law correct every moral wrong that exists in society. It`s just not
equipped to do that. And you know where we saw that? With the Darwin Robbie (ph) case and Tyler Clementi (ph). That`s an example of an over-
prosecution that was overturned on appeal for almost exactly the same reason. And it`s that you simply cannot -- suicide is such a personal
independent choice that you cannot hold somebody else liable for it.
[20:30:10] BANFIELD: I hear you, I hear you, but it is a question I think needs to be talked about a lot more.
A Kentucky mother allegedly killed her own husband and both of her beautiful daughters. And the police think a quarter of a million dollars of
missing money may be at the root of all of this.
When it comes to money, actor Johnny Depp says, he doesn`t have any money, his managers stole millions from him. Only those managers say, Johnny Depp
is broke because he just can`t stop spending. And wait until you see his shopping list.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:35:00] BANFIELD: You know the old saying money is the route of all evil? It was money, more than $250,000 worth of it, that investigators say
is at the center of a very strange murder case in Kentucky.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Inside a home in a small town of Williamsburg, on Friday the 13th, a relative of the Taylor family found something awful inside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`ve got help on the way, does it appear that she`s been shot?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alright. Where does it appear she`s been shot at?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know. I just lifted up the covers and seen blood. I mean, that`s all I know, and there`s guns, there`s guns out.
BANFIELD: Sheriff deputy responded. And when they arrived to Courtney Taylor`s home, she was standing there, staring at them, with a gun pointed
at them. A deputy shot at her twice. And when emergency workers responded, they testified that Miss Taylor said to them, just let me die. But Miss
Taylor survived.
Taylor`s husband, Larry, and her two teenage daughters, Jessie and Jolee, did not survive, they were found shot to death in separate rooms in the
house. The deputy say that their mom admitted to the killings. So why did she do it? They say she told them it was all about money.
BILLY CORRELL, DETECTIVE, KENTUCKY POLICE DEPARTMENT: Courtney stated to me that she had deposited that money into an account and she had recently
discovered that the balance of that money was gone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Balance of that money, how much money? Nearly $270,000. But what about those daughters? If they weren`t part of any money disappearing, why
on earth would they be killed? The deputies say that Miss Taylor told them she murdered the daughters because she didn`t want them growing up without
a mother.
Sheriff Colan Harrell is at the Whitley County, Kentucky Sheriff Department. He joins me from Williamsburg, Kentucky. Sheriff, did she give
a full throated confession to all of this recorded on videotape to your deputies?
COLAN HARRELL, SHERIFF AT WHITLEY COUNTY, KENTUCKY SHERIFF DEPARTMENT: You`re asking was it recorded on tape?
BANFIELD: Yes.
HARRELL: No, it wasn`t.
BANFIELD: What was the confession? What manner did it come? What did your deputies get from her?
HARRELL: Well, the deputies received a call at about 10:12 p.m. And they responded to Taylor residence, which is approximately one-fourth of a mile
south of Williamsburg, Kentucky in suburb community. They talked to individuals there, and then entered the residence.
Once inside the residence, they met by Courtney Taylor. She had a weapon in her hand and pointed it in the direction of the deputies. And Deputy
Sanders fired at her twice, striking her both times to the front of the body.
BANFIELD: Sheriff, when did she tell your deputies what she had allegedly done? When did she admit the crimes?
HARRELL: She admitted to this later in an interview with the Kentucky State Police. They conducted the investigation at my request due to a deputy
being involved in the shooting. It was some -- I believe 3 or 4 days later.
BANFIELD: What did she say she did? How did she say she went about these three murders? Tell me what she said she did to each of her victims.
HARRELL: What steps did she take?
BANFIELD: Yes.
HARRELL: I don`t know in what order that she murdered them. I suggest that she probably shot Larry first, her husband.
BANFIELD: As I understand it, they were all sleeping in their buds. Were they shot individually in the head?
HARRELL: They were in three separate beds, all three of them were shot in the head, and they appeared to be asleep.
BANFIELD: So not one of these victims woke up to hear the carnage that had been going on prior to their own murder?
HARRELL: It didn`t appear so, no.
BANFIELD: So, no signs of struggle from these daughters if, in fact, they were the second and third victims?
HARRELL: No, there was no sign of struggle.
BANFIELD: What happens now? Where is Courtney Taylor?
[20:40:00] HARRELL: She was reprimanded to the Whitley County jailer after the hearing, preliminary hearing, and the jailer is trying to make
arrangements for her to be lodged in the state penitentiary in reference to her condition.
BANFIELD: Yeah, I would imagine her condition is remarkably distressed, given the fact that her entire family is gone, and that she is facing
charges of murder, three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder by the way for the shots against the sheriff`s deputies. Sheriff Harrell,
thank you very much for being with us. I appreciate your information.
Danny, this is a confession in detail to these police officers. I mean, can you get past that?
CEVALLOS: As long as the confession was made knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily, and there was no police coercion, and the police have to prove
that by a preponderance of the evidence, then this confession will likely come in and it doesn`t look good for his defendant.
BANFIELD: Does not look good at all. Thank you for that. You know, we here at HLN, we take our reporting very seriously. We want to clarify a story
that was the "Nancy Grace Show" back in September 1st of 2016 about a 14- month-old girl. Her name was Daily Lynn Torres and a dentist named Dr. Michael Melanson.
Nancy Grace reported that she died in the dentist`s chair. We want to clarify that the report by the the medical examiner indicates that she died
at the hospital approximately five hours after a dental procedure began.
Looking ahead, Johnny Depp is spending money far faster than seems he can earn it. And that is according to a lawsuit against him. He`s gone to
virtual war with his former business managers and now all of the lavish sexy spending details as an understatement they`re all spilling out,
pouring out in fact, and wait until you see these pictures.
[20:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: He rose to super stardom with early classics like "Edward Scissorhands." Now, Johnny Depp`s former managers say he`s been cutting
through all that money like there`s no tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, if you like me, you wait for the next "Pirates of the Caribbean" instillation
with baited breath, and that latest pirate movie, I think, is number five by now. It`s on its way out this May.
And maybe not a moment too soon. Because Depp apparently needs the money. At the same time, he and his managers are waging a battle royal that was
likely impressed even Captain Jack. Depp recently sued his management group also known as TMG for mismanagement. He says that they lost him millions of
dollars. But that management company has counter sued. And it`s a whopper.
The counter sue says that Johnny Depp cannot afford the kind of extravagant lifestyle that he leads. Adding up to millions upon millions every month.
The suit says that Depp`s lavish spending includes everything from this 150-foot beautiful yacht. There is also a stunning chateau in the south of
France that`s valued at about $14 million.
And there`s a house in the Hollywood hills, also worth millions. So is the L.A. penthouse, apparently very pricey. Not to mention that pretty little
chain of islands in the Bahamas. Chain, not just one. A chain of islands. So if you look at some of the numbers, they are actually pretty stunning.
The yacht alone, just the yacht, $18 million. The 14 houses, including that pretty French chateau, $75 million.
Depp allegedly spends $200,000 per month on private planes. He apparently drinks or at least buys $30,000 a month of wine. Yummy. There`s $300,000
that goes out for a 40- person staff worldwide, and about $150,000 for round-the-clock security for himself and his kids. And then there is the $3
million he spent on a cannon that was used to blast Hunter S. Thompson`s ashes into the wild blue yonder.
He played Hunter s. Thompson, that journalist, in "Fear and Loathing." And it was a really good movie. And then I guess he wanted to help Hunter S.
Thompson achieve his dreams of having his ashes in space. Nicole and Danny, while this makes amazing television and those images are delicious, isn`t
it really hard to sort of prove mismanagement? Isn`t is easier to prove, look at your assets, look at your income.
DEBORDE: Well, I have to say that lawsuit is most definitely a shot over the bow.
[20:50:00] And what else is TMG going to say? They`re not going to say we mismanaged the money. They`re going to say, he doesn`t know what he did
with it. So, when you file a lawsuit like that claiming that somebody has been fraudulent or has mismanaged your funds, you`re going to expect a
fight back.
BANFIELD: You know when you just said what else is TMG going to say, I actually have that right here. The list is actually longer than the one I
put up on the TV. Apparently he had several penthouse lofts in just downtown Los Angeles. We are not just talking a loft, several lofts in
downtown Los Angeles. Multiple houses just in Hollywood.
He has spent millions of dollars acquiring 45 luxury vehicles. He has millions worth of Hollywood memorabilia. He spent over $10 million
allegedly just to support some friends and family, particularly his sisters and his mom over a particular time period. And apparently spent $4 million
on a start-up music label that was run by a childhood friend. It didn`t do so well.
So again, a list like that, it ain`t like this guy doesn`t make a heap load of money. Danny, Forbes had him on 2016 on the top celebrity earners at
number 46. And just that year alone, he brought in $48 million. So you start listing out the numbers in the lawsuit against him, and you start
looking at how much money he has, and there is a good fight.
CEVALLOS: Not only how much money he has, how much he continues to make. He is still a huge Hollywood earner. But in this case, he has got an uphill
battle because as you say, the accounting will be the key to the case. And I have to say that if the other side ever gets this plaintiff in a
deposition -- you like that, everyone?
BANFIELD: Adorable.
CEVALLOS: Adorable, yeah, but the problem is, he is going to have to articulate what exactly they did and what he did with his money. If he
makes mistakes, if he cannot keep track of this empire under oath, it will not look good at trial.
BANFIELD: Can I tell you I`m so glad that you just said that because.
CEVALLOS: Deposition?
BANFIELD: That as well. That`s why you get hired here. No, his next movie is called "Dead Men Tell No Tales." But apparently in the counter suit, the
manager says that Johnny Depp can`t remember where he spends all of his money. And that just sounds to me like unless he can come up with a really
good memory in those depositions, he`s kind of screwed, isn`t he?
CEVALLOS: It`s a problem. I mean, that`s -- you know, depositions are under oath. They can be used against you at trial. And it will make a testifying
witness of any kind look really silly if you have no idea what`s going on.
DEBORDE: I think it`s going to be a tough one. I think it`s right now looking like TMG is probably in the lead. But Depp is going to have to do
some real studying for those depositions to make sure that he can answer those questions.
BANFIELD: I`m just fascinated by the list of awesomeness. And I guess if I had that kind of money, I might do that too, especially the wine part. I
like my wine. It seems fairly reasonable.
CEVALLOS: The deposition thing is my joke. I want a nickel from each of you any time you use it.
DEBORDE: Make sure you remember where you spend it.
BANFIELD: I agree. A story coming up next. Who doesn`t love a 7-year-old kid? And especially a kid like the one you`re going to meet. He made this
amazing find, a bag of stolen money. Yes, that`s the blow-up dye that the bank tellers put in. And then this little 7-year-old taught us all a moral
lesson. Wait until you hear what happened to the guy who stole it.
[20:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is an awesome place. But there is this one exit ramp you just probably don`t want to be there. Because there have
been some accidents on that exit ramp. Not one, not two, not even three, four. In a very recent period of time. And I just want to show you the
latest accident off that accident ramp.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Dang! What`s amazing about that is the Snyder Brothers Automotive parking lot where that car came flying off, apparently it`s not the first
time this has happened. They`ve been watching this happen. The most amazing part of that crash is the guy is fine. He is okay. Look at him. He almost
kisses the ground saying thank you, Jesus, I made it out of that one alive.
So you would think that the Department of Transportation is doing something about it. They are. They are assessing that ramp now. That`s it, right
there, and they`re looking at it, maybe doing some guardrails and rumble strips. I love rumble strips. It really wake you up. Maybe some signage too
to stop this craziness from happening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Anyway, poor Snyder Brothers Automotive. Going through a lot of tires. Okay. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Griffin Steele, 7 years old,
adorable, and not just cute as a button, but really like a good American. He went to the gas station with his dad. They were on the way to "Toys R
Us" as all good kids are. And he went to throw out his Gatorade bottle with the wrapper, and he looked in the trash, and oh my God, there was a ton of
money in there. Let him tell you.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN STEELE, BOY WHO FOUND MONEY IN TRASH: I had some wrapping from my Gatorade bottle. So I went to the trash can and I threw it in. And there
was tons of money with red dye on it. There was a lot of it that didn`t have any of these things on it. But I wanted to do the right thing.
BANFIELD: And the expression on his face. See what I found? Turns out little Griffin helped solve the crime because they caught the guy. They
have arrested Brian Wilson Humphries. And don`t you just love it, Nicole, when bank tellers do exactly what you`re supposed to do and they throw the
red dye pact in with the money?
DEBORDE: It worked this time. And thanks to this little boy`s sharp eye, they caught the crook.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: How do you like the fact that not all of the bills had red dye on them, but little Griffin Steele turned them all over.
CEVALLOS: You know, it warms my heart. It gives me hope. I mean, it just gives me an idea, I found this wallet on the subway, I`m not giving it
back.
(LAUGHTER)
CEVALLOS: What are you doing after? You want to.
BANFIELD: That`s our Danny. Yeah, you`ll be in a Depp soon. I got you.
CEVALLOS: Nickel.
BANFIELD: Thank you, Nicole, Thank you, Danny. Good to have you. And thank you, Griffin Steele for being so fabulous at 7 years old. You got a great
life ahead of you. Thank you all for watching, everyone. I`m Ashleigh Banfield. See you back here Monday night at 8:00 for PRIMETIME JUSTICE.
Stick around, "FORENSIC FILES" starts right now.
[21:00:00]
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