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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
Mystery of the Missing Co-Ed/Teen Accused of Killing Stepmother. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired April 06, 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): Into thin air.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It makes me kind of worried to go around by myself at night.
BANFIELD: A beautiful student vanishes, her truck seen at night near an orchard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just appears like the car got stuck.
BANFIELD: What happened next is anyone`s guess.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is footprints walking away from it.
BANFIELD: Is her mom now getting texts that her daughter has been kidnapped?
A devastating call to 911, a wife dead, a son on the run.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My son has killed my wife!
BANFIELD: Did his 17-year-old take a bat to his newlywed wife?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s been hit in the head. She`s dead!
BANFIELD: 35 million reasons why sometimes bail can`t be too high.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The rich do get to buy their way out.
BANFIELD: A woman posts a record amount to get out of jail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many, many, many, many (INAUDIBLE) hundreds of millions of dollars.
BANFIELD: But police still say she killed the father of her kids.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s facing the rest of life in prison, if convicted.
BANFIELD: He claimed he was just trying to stop a shoplifter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The individual who was assisting the customer was armed.
BANFIELD: Now police say his crime fighting went too far.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He could have dialed 911, called the cops.
BANFIELD: Shot at nine times, the teenage thief is now dead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Murdered my son.
BANFIELD: But should the good Samaritan be charged?
And not your finest hour, fella! Cameras catch a hothead as he freaks out on a clerk, all this over a pack of M&Ms!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Hello, everyone, I`m Ashleigh Banfield. This is PRIMETIME JUSTICE.
It is the stuff of mystery novels and blockbuster thrillers. A beautiful young co-ed disappears in the blackness of night. Her last trace is a
grainy video showing her truck rolling ghost-like along a field.
Only this is no movie, this is how Ally (ph) Yeoman vanished, and no one has seen her for a week. They found her truck, though, stuck in the mud
right there where they saw it on the video, an empty orchard in the middle of nowhere. And perhaps the strangest detail, there was only one set of
footprints that led away from the scene. And right now, police aren`t saying if they`re Ally`s. But they are talking about her cell phone which
was found in the field not far away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF DEAN PRICE, GRIDLEY-BIGGS POLICE DEPARTMENT: She is a very active in -- with her phone and social media, and so this uncharacteristic. Again,
that creates the urgency. We have to use all resources to get this young lady reunited with her folks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: And so as people search for Ally on this one-week anniversary of her disappearance, the police are searching somewhere else, the place she
was last seen before driving off in that truck. She had dinner with her friend`s father and then went back to their home. His kids and another
couple came over, too. But by 11:00 o`clock at night, Ally was heading for home despite that tempting offer to stay over on the couch. She was due on
shift the next morning. But she did not make it home.
Joining me now, senior writer for "People" magazine Steve Helling. Steve good to see you. Thanks for being with me tonight. What happened here?
And how much do we not know?
STEVE HELLING, "PEOPLE": Well, there`s a lot that we don`t know, and the reason why is the police are really holding everything pretty close to the
chest. So we`re not seeing exactly what`s going on, and we`re not -- we`re not hearing all the details. But what the cops have said so far is that
she`s missing. We don`t know why. We don`t know who. We don`t know where. So it`s just a big question mark right now.
BANFIELD: And so are there any sightings? Has any tip come in? Is there sort of any lead helping them get closer to finding her?
HELLING: Well, they`re getting some tips, and of course, there`s this surveillance video of the truck driving. But really, we`re not seeing as
many as what we normally see in a situation like this. Normally, you hear dozens and dozens and dozens of tips, and police just aren`t getting those.
BANFIELD: So Steve, this new information that`s come in tonight -- the FBI have actually served search warrants on that home where she was before she
went missing, the friends and their dad with whom she spent the evening. But we`re a week out. Why didn`t this happen right away?
HELLING: You`d think that would have been the first thing that they would have done, you know, backtrack and figure out where she was last seen and
who she was last with. You know, police have said that, you know, they`re not naming anybody as a suspect or as a person of interest. And right now,
this man, his kids, the other people that were there are all just considered witnesses at this point.
So perhaps the police know something that we don`t know and perhaps they know that this wasn`t something that they had to do right away.
[20:05:04]BANFIELD: I do find it weird. I always say when someone is missing, you know, the family blankets the airwaves, desperate to find
their loved one. We can`t get them to return our calls. They`ve asked the police to tell the media to stay away. The police aren`t returning a lot
of our calls, either.
This one`s a real tricky one, and we`re hearing these weird conflicting reports about text messages that are coming in to Ally`s mom saying she`s
been kidnapped. In one report, the police say that`s confirmed. In another report, the police say it`s hogwash. What is it?
HELLING: Well, everything that I`ve seen and everything that I`ve heard -- we`re having the same problems. Nobody is returning our calls. And
normally, in a missing person situation, they want everybody to know what`s going on.
But what police have said -- and they have confirmed the existence of these messages that have been sent through some sort of masked IP address with a
computer, so you know, it`s very hard for them to trace it. So I don`t believe that it`s hogwash because the police have confirmed this to
multiple media outlets.
BANFIELD: OK. So I want to play something from Lieutenant James Casner with the Sutter County sheriff`s office because he described the scene --
which I think everybody wants to know, what are the details of that truck because that`s sort of the last spot we know she may have been. And here
is what he had to say about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LT. JAMES CASNER, SUTTER COUNTY SHERIFF`S OFFICE: There is no indication that there`s struggles or any indication that anybody was injured or
anything like that. It just appears like the car got stuck, somebody was climbing in and out of it. It was muddy, and there`s footprints walking
away from it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Want to bring in James Gagliano. He`s a retired FBI supervisory special agent. Maybe you can help me get to the bottom of why I find this
so mysterious. First and foremost, why no attention from the police? Why no attention from the parents? Does that strike you as odd?
JAMES GAGLIANO, RETIRED FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: No, it really doesn`t, Ashleigh. It`s a fascinating case, very perplexing, but I think
what`s important for your viewers to understand is the FBI doesn`t work missing person`s cases. That`s a local matter. And as of yet, they`re not
willing to call it a kidnapping case. So as such, the only thing that they`ll do is they`ll provide some material support, which -- you mentioned
the search warrants that were executed at the home in northern California. The FBI`s evidence response team handles that. They`ll help...
BANFIELD: But a week late. Why a week later? I mean, my God, if there was anything nefarious, that`s a lot of time to clean up.
GAGLIANO: Yes. And you`re right about that. Now, understand that the investigators at the local, state and federal level had been looking at
what`s called "digital exhaust," and every time that young woman put on her cell phone, every time she went through an EZ-pass lane, all that stuff,
she uses her laptop, that`s digital exhaust. They`re doing -- they`re putting together a forensic template of where they think she might be right
now. But I think it`s just still too soon for them to be able to characterize it as a kidnapping.
BANFIELD: OK, so there is one element that I find sort of fascinating. Her ex-boyfriend, Leo Almonte, had something to say about where she might
have gone, what she might have done if it isn`t a kidnapping, what might her thought process be, where may she have gone. Have a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEO ALMONTE, ALYCIA YEOMAN`S EX-BOYFRIEND: She just does what she wants to do, and she`s free-spirited, yes. She pours out her feelings on me, like,
what`s in her mind, like, her stresses and stuff like that. And maybe she just wanted -- went over there to maybe go for a walk and clear the head.
And from there, I don`t know what happened. Like, that`s what we`re trying to find out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: OK. So that got me thinking if that was just a walkabout, late at night, which I find very strange for a young woman who has a shift the
next morning, in a dark field, halfway -- almost halfway between where she left and where she was headed -- I think we have the map that might show
before you see these tire marks. You see the bottom, the house last seen? That`s where she was. She drove that line. She ended up at the truck
found. She was headed for home in Gridley, California, a little bit more than equidistant, but not that far off.
But there is something else that`s nearby, the Feather (ph) River and the Oroville dam. And if that sounds familiar to you, you probably saw the
Feather River and the Oroville dam on the news in the last month because the waters were raging. The waters were flooding. The dam was cresting,
and that may have made the banks nearby a little bit weak, maybe damaged. Maybe a walkabout -- and I`m only spitballing here, James -- maybe a
walkabout might have ended up being a very dangerous thing to do in a place like that.
GAGLIANO: Sure, and I think that her ex-boyfriend actually characterized her as a free spirit and said that she liked taking off on her own and
doing her own kind of thing, had her own kind of mindset.
I think what`s going to be important here is to use all that human intelligence and for the investigators to put that together, try to figure
out what her propensity was for being gone for a couple days. I mean, to miss two shifts of work, the family was obviously alarmed by. They`ve got
to use that. They`ve got to package that together and come up with some investigative clues and then sort through all the noise because some of
those leads just aren`t going to pan out anywhere.
[20:10:06]BANFIELD: Yes. One other quick question. Steve Helling, it`s my understanding that when you use tracking dogs, those footprints become
very significant. Do we have any idea what the results of the tracking dogs actually were? Did the tracking dogs come to sort of an end? Did the
footprints come to an end? We certainly see the tire tracks. What about those mysterious footprints?
HELLING: Well, that was the first question I had. When I heard about these footprints, I wondered, Well, where do they stop? And yet that`s
another thing that police aren`t telling us right now. Again, it`s close to the chest. And so, you know, we can assume that they got some
information from it, but whatever they`ve got, they`re not telling us.
BANFIELD: All right. So I want to bring in my attorneys tonight, defense attorney Marie Napoli and former prosecutor Dan Schorr.
Here is the one concern that I have. And I think, look, as attorneys, you may have it, but I think as also parents and human beings you would have
it. The minute you have these sort of mysterious suggestions that she might have gone on a walkabout, she`s a free spirit, one set of footprints,
do the police pay less attention? Does this become less prioritized than, say, other missing persons?
DAN SCHORR, FMR. PROSECUTOR: Well, they`re not going to not take it not seriously just because of a comment from the boyfriend. But I`ve
investigated missing person`s cases as a prosecutor and in the private sector, and I keep going back to those text messages that reportedly might
have had demands from would-be kidnappers. We don`t know if that`s true. And if they did receive texts, we don`t know if those texts are legitimate.
But if they were or if they think they were, it makes sense to stay quiet a little bit and deal with those texts, try to respond rather than doing a
big media canvassing as you would do if you had no lead. So that might be part of the investigative strategy. We just don`t know.
BANFIELD: But at this point, you know, look, that house where she was, her friend`s father`s house where they all spent sort of an evening together,
not a late one, it was 11:00 o`clock at night. You would think they`re lawyering up if the FBI showed up and said, We got a warrant.
MARIE NAPOLI, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I think so. And what I find very strange is that the one set of footprints, if they were hers, why are they
searching the house? If those footprints were hers, they would be searching the area where the truck is, not having a search warrant for the
house.
BANFIELD: So I`m going to play devil`s advocate. I am neither a police officer nor a lawyer, but if they were hers, wouldn`t you want to know what
the last thing she was up to would be, and the last place they know her to be would be that house.
NAPOLI: But are they canvassing where the vehicle was and that whole area and where the phone...
BANFIELD: That`s the hard part. Look at it. It`s literally an orchard. It`s a field. They had to drag that thing out of the mud, put it up on a
flatbed, get that truck out of there. It was literally stuck in the mud.
The interesting thing about the ghost-like video -- the ghost-like video showed her sort of raging (ph) into those tire tracks. She had been
driving along a levee. Well, I won`t say "she" because the ghost video doesn`t show who was driving, but it snaked around the gate and then drove
sort of up onto a levee. And the last thing they see is the truck on the levee, and that`s where I say it`s ghost-like, right there...
NAPOLI: Right.
BANFIELD: (INAUDIBLE) indicator going around the fence. The next thing they know, it is down off the levee. It is in the thick deep mud, and
there is just that one set of prints.
Going to have to leave it there. My thanks to Steve Helling. So appreciate you tonight. And also James Gagliano, retired FBI special
supervisory special agent. Hopefully, we can get some answers at some point soon to this mystery.
A woman brutally beaten and shot in her own home. Her husband finds her crumpled body in the family`s garage and the odd behavior that caused him
to look to his own son for answers.
Plus, caught on video, police say an unhappy shopper freaking out on a store clerk, throwing a tantrum that got real violent. So what exactly was
it that got him so upset? Can you spot it on the counter? Look close. We`ll tell you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:18:30]BANFIELD: Bradley Bryant hasn`t been married very long. In fact, at 11 months, you could still call him a newlywed. And by all
accounts, he and his bride Katherine were pretty happy. But you know that one line in your vows that you expect will be forever, `til death do us
part? It came much sooner than either of them expected, and the person that torpedoed that happy union may end up being the person they least
expected.
On Tuesday, when Bradley got home from picking up his daughter, he says his son Joshua was acting strange, muttering something about his stepmom
Katherine leaving the house for better cell service.
Dad got a pretty funny feeling something wasn`t right, and that is when he found Katherine dead in the garage, her head smashed in. Here is what the
911 operator heard.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: 911, where is your emergency?
BRADLEY BRYANT: Oh, God. Oh, God!
911 OPERATOR: Listen to me. Where are you at? What`s going on?
BRYANT: My son has killed my wife.
911 OPERATOR: He killed your -- how did he...
(CROSSTALK)
BRYANT: My son...
911 OPERATOR: OK, how did he kill your wife?
BRYANT: I don`t know. I just found her -- he had a crazy story, and now he has stolen the car. And I went looking for her, and she`s in the garage
and she`s been hit in the head. She`s dead.
911 OPERATOR: OK. So she`s not breathing at all?
BRYANT: No, she`s dead.
BANFIELD: OK.
BRYANT: Oh, God!
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BANFIELD: When the police arrived, they called that a homicide. Bradley told them his son had taken off in his expensive white Infiniti, and when
they caught up with that boy, Joshua spilled the beans, confessed to the police that he`d hit Katherine with a baseball bat before taking a rifle to
the back of her head.
[20:20:10]Joshua Bryant has been charged with first-degree murder, and even though he`s 17 years old, Joshua Bryant has been charged as an adult.
I want to start with Deputy Chief Tim Dorsey with Edmond, Oklahoma, Police Department. He joins me now live. Deputy Chief, thanks so much for being
with me tonight.
Can you explain...
DEPUTY CHIEF TIM DORSEY, EDMOND OK POLICE DEPARTMENT: You`re welcome .
BANFIELD: ... to me what that scene was like when the officers got there?
DORSEY: Well, it was obviously a chaotic scene, and then once they got inside and located the victim, just a very bad, sad situation.
BANFIELD: And other than the unusual behavior of the 17-year-old son, Joshua, and the fact that he had left in that very expensive car, was there
anything else that led that father to believe his son, his own son, was capable of this?
DORSEY: Not that we know of at this time. We just were going off that information that he provided to us, and it made sense at the time. And so
that`s the leads that we followed there and went forward with that.
BANFIELD: Deputy Chief, there is this one very distressing detail that it would be lost were it not pointed out before you hear this 911 call, and
that is that this dad had picked his 8-year-old daughter up and brought her home. And so she is there. And in fact, she can be heard in the
background of part of the 911 call, and it`s terribly distressing.
I want to play that moment. I want to ask you something about it afterwards. Here`s that part of the call.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: You said he hit your wife. Do you know what he hit her with?
BRYANT: I don`t know! I don`t know. She`s laying in the garage. She has the -- something over her head, and I lifted it up. her head is smashed so
bad.
911 OPERATOR: OK. Like a tarp over her head?
BRYANT: No, a blanket.
911 OPERATOR: OK. Do you have, like, a license plate number by chance?
BRYANT: I don`t know right now.
911 OPERATOR: That`s fine. That`s fine. OK.
BRYANT: Call your mom, tell her to come get you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mama, come get me, please!
911 OPERATOR: OK. How old is your son?
BRYANT: He`s 17.
911 OPERATOR: 17? What`s your son`s name?
BRYANT: Joshua Bryant.
911 OPERATOR: Josh Bryant?
BRYANT: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Deputy chief, that is very distressing to know there is an 8- year-old girl within the vicinity of this scene. Do you have any idea if she witnessed that carnage in the garage?
DORSEY: I`m not sure. I don`t know exactly what she saw.
BANFIELD: Tell me about catching up with Josh Bryant. It wasn`t but I think a couple hours before, you know, authorities were able to find him in
that Infiniti, right?
DORSEY: Yes, ma`am. Just with today`s technology, phones, different things like that, we were able to track him, to locate him going up the
interstate heading out of Oklahoma into Kansas, and so we tracked him. Thought we`d notify different law enforcement agencies along the way, never
were able to locate him.
He turned around and started coming back into Oklahoma, at which time, one of the agencies in Oklahoma, Blackwell Police Department -- we notified
them and they were able to locate him and arrest him without any...
BANFIELD: And how`d that happen? Yes, I`m curious about that. Was it just a routine traffic stop and they said, Come with us, young man, or what
happened?
DORSEY: No, I don`t know the full details of the traffic stop, but I`m confident it wasn`t a routine traffic stop because they knew who they were
looking for and the seriousness of the crime. So I`m sure it was what we would call a felony traffic stop, bring him out of the car, put him down on
the ground, put handcuffs on him. But no -- no resistance.
BANFIELD: The handcuffs. I think that`s a critical detail. If he`s in handcuffs,and he is led to a cruiser and he is put in the back of a
cruiser, he is in custody, correct?
DORSEY: Yes.
BANFIELD: So Deputy Chief, as I understand it, he gave quite a detailed confession, timeline, moments where he rested and pondered, I think two
separate moments where he rested and pondered for five minutes what to do next.
Ultimately, he told you all of this as a minor, a 17-year-old without parents present, and he was indeed in custody, which is critical in
California code. That could be very -- or Oklahoma code, rather. That could be very difficult when it comes to a court of law using that
confession. Was this a concern of the authorities talking to him without his father present?
DORSEY: No, it`s not a concern in this case because a 17-year-old can be charged as an adult with a first-degree murder like that, and therefore, he
was able to waive his rights.
[20:25:06]BANFIELD: Charged, yes, but can they be interrogated at 17?
DORSEY: Yes, ma`am.
BANFIELD: Without any concern at all for a motion to suppress later on? I mean, listen, this crime -- it`s handed in a gift-wrapped bag with a
confession with every detail, including the bat, the rifle, the hallway that he apparently says he walked down to get that rifle, the moments where
he sat, where he sat, why he sat, what he thought before he actually allegedly pulled that trigger.
If you can`t use that confession, can you still solve this crime?
DORSEY: I think we can, but I think we`ll be able to use the confession.
BANFIELD: So one other question -- I think this is the biggest one. I mean, it is -- it is a triple question mark for so many of us who have read
the details of this. It seems everything has an answer except the most important thing, and that`s why. Did he say anything to officers about why
he did this, what triggered it, what made this happen?
DORSEY: No, that`s the difficulty of the whole case. We`re all having a hard time understanding why. You know, give us some reason. Was there an
argument? Was there a disagreement? Did you not like each other? Give some reason to possibly do anything like this. And there really hasn`t
been anything, and so that`s hard for all of us to understand and...
BANFIELD: What were his answers to those questions? Were they -- did -- was he silent? Or did he -- I mean, clearly, the questions were asked,
right?
DORSEY: Yes. He was just pretty straightforward with what he did, and so he laid it all out there and with no real explanation or motive.
BANFIELD: So the answer to the -- was there an argument? Was that answer no?
DORSEY: Correct.
BANFIELD: And when he was asked...
DORSEY: No conflict.
BANFIELD: No conflict. When you asked about the relationship...
DORSEY: He couldn`t explain...
BANFIELD: Sorry?
DORSEY: No, he -- there was just no real reason, no -- he couldn`t give a reason that this occurred.
BANFIELD: And the relationship...
DORSEY: He just basically said, I just...
BANFIELD: ... question -- did he answer...
DORSEY: No problems.
BANFIELD: ... what his relationship was like? No problems.
DORSEY: No problem.
BANFIELD: So it sounds like somebody truly snapped. Do we know if he had a medical condition, a developmental disability, any kind of medications
that he might have been taking on a regular basis and was either on or not on at the time?
DORSEY: I don`t know a lot of that, but this is still ongoing. You know, we can learn more information over the next few days, several months,
however long it takes. So at this time, you know, that`s the information we have. And although there is no motive, no explanation, that`s what
we`ve got. It`s hard to understand.
BANFIELD: Hard to understand. You took the words out of my mouth, Deputy Chief Tim Dorsey. Thank you so much for being with us tonight, and good
luck as you ponder the rest of this case and that answer, the why.
I also want to bring in Dan Schorr and Marie Napoli on this one. Can you answer that question that I asked before? 17 years old, that is a minor
child no matter how you slice it. You can charge him as an adult. You can convict him as an adult. Can you interrogate him as a child without his
parents present when he`s in custody?
SCHORR: My understanding is you can. You still have to, obviously, read him Miranda rights, but he`s old enough to knowingly waive those rights and
talk to the police.
BANFIELD: At 17?
SCHORR: That`s my understanding of the law.
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: ... you think you could fight that as a defense attorney if (INAUDIBLE)
NAPOLI: I think you could make the motion, but I think you`re going to lose on that one. What I don`t think you`re going to lose on is bringing
an insanity defense.
BANFIELD: He ran. Consciousness of guilt. He ran. He took the car. He left.
NAPOLI: This child just snapped. There seemed to be no reason for his behavior.
BANFIELD: I`ve people drooling in court that can`t prevail on insanity.
SCHORR: There`s also no history of psychiatric illness...
BANFIELD: Nothing.
SCHORR: ... from what we`ve been told. But...
BANFIELD: Which you have to have.
SCHORR: But when there`s a strong case like this, he will raise the psychiatric defense because he has no other factual or legal defense, from
what we know.
NAPOLI: No, I`ve worked -- I worked for mental hygiene legal services and I`ve seen horrible murders because of people snapping and going into the
mental health system. And this to me seems like one of those cases...
BANFIELD: (INAUDIBLE) yes.
NAPOLI: ... because there is no reason for it.
BANFIELD: Tough row to hoe, I`ll tell you. Holy moly. Thank you. Thank you all for that.
In a southern California 7-Eleven convenience store, customer sidles up to the desk, wants to buy a 75 cent bag of M&Ms and decides to pay for it with
a credit car.
But the clerk tells him the card is declined. Sorry. Police say the man then begins to argue with the cashier and then starts to get pretty hot
about it, assaulting him. He hits the clerk in the head. He slams the register and the printer to the floor. And for bad measure, he throws
bananas at the other cashier and then pushes the second register off the counter. If you do the math on the electronics that were damaged, all and
all, it was about $700 worth of mess created over a 75 cent bag of M&M. If you recognize that guy, they are looking for him, and the advice is you may
not want to be near him given what we see on tape.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: You can run but you can`t hide, not even in a Florida swamp.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Police north of Tampa and their search canines found a suspect deep in the water and grass of swampy pond that was all caught on the
officer`s body cam.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn`t do nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why are you hiding in the pond?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stand up. Stand up.
BANFIELD: So the guy captured in the pond and two other alleged accomplices of his were arrested earlier. They face charges of burglary and drug
possession and hit and run among others. But the choice details here, I didn`t do anything, he says. And the police say back, then why are you in a
pond? P.S., not a good idea to be in a pond in Florida. I am just saying. Not a good idea. But that dog is on that ball.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I want to tell you another story that we`ve been following about the human remains that were discovered earlier this week in Missouri.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: They now have been positively identified as that of missing 21- year-old Jessica Runions. She hasn`t been seen since last September and just two days ago or just days ago, two human skulls were found in a wooded
area. That discovery came after a mushroom hunter had stumbled across human bones. Police say the second set of remains is still unidentified although
the family of another missing girl, Kara Kopetsky, has been notified in case it ends up being their daughter.
Kopetsky disappeared back in 2007. She was 17 years old. But here`s where this gets interesting. Both she and Jessica had dated the same young man
who has been questioned in both disappearances. Of course, the questions may continue and we will continue to ask them and we will follow that story
for you.
Another update to tell you about, the story of that Texas mother who was nearly abducted after returning home. Noticed the masked men in the video
seemingly dragging her? In that moment her fiance fired several rounds from his gun towards the suspects. That`s when they release the woman and make a
run for it.
And just when you think he saved the day, he`s arrested, and he`s charged with felony deadly conduct after police say he discharged that weapon
"recklessly." And today, we can tell you that the charges against that man, Jeremiah Morin, have been dropped, although police say the case is still
being actively investigated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: And those would be abductors, because that`s really what this is all about, right, they are still at large tonight. A known carjacker,
diaper thief of all things and not to mention known gang member, is shot and killed outside of a Walmart in the commission of a felony.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: But it was not police or security pulling the trigger on this one. Why the guy who did pull the trigger is now being charged in the
death? We`ll explain. Plus an actor on the hit show "Empire" dealing with some real life drama. Why Morocco Omari ended up in police custody?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: In Orlando, a known gang member was doing his thing, looking for trouble, finding it, and ended up paying a very high price for it.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: 19-year-old Arthur Adams had a long wrap sheet. And he was about to add to it too by carjacking a vehicle, robbing a Walmart. But as he was
loading the stolen goods into the stolen car, he met his match in Lonnie Leonard. Let me take you back to the scene of the incident after a Walmart
employee tried to stop Adams from stealing, mid crime.
A customer saw what was going on and stepped in trying to come to the rescue. That customer is Lonnie Leonard. Lonnie says things got ugly when
he says he thinks he saw those bandits reaching for a gun. He says he feared for his life, says he shot Adams dead. Nine gunshots. Adams died on
the scene.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boom, boom, boom. Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The individual who was assisting the customer was armed and used that firearm to fire on the suspect. They fled from the vehicle on
foot in different directions. And one of the individuals ended up, the suspect that was shot ended up at the Citco. Again, the individual acted
based on their belief that the individual was armed in order to defend himself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: So dead at 19. But in the case of Arthur Adams, some might say live by the sword, die by the sword. Not the Orlando authorities because
the shooter, the guy who came to the rescue, Lonnie Leonard, he is the one now facing the serious charges. Want to go right to Ray Caputo.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: He is a reporter with News 96.5 WDBO in Orlando. What charges is Lonnie facing?
[20:40:00] RAY CAPUTO, REPORTER FOR NEWS 96.5 WDBO: Well, Ashleigh, police interviewed a lot of witnesses and none of them really could corroborate
Lonnie Leonard`s story. So what he`s facing right now is some serious charges. First and foremost manslaughter for killing Arthur Adams and then
also aggravated battery with a firearm and carrying a concealed firearm.
BANFIELD: What about the young woman who was with the victim?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: There were three apparent alleged robbers, the one who died, the young woman who got away with the gunshot wound and went to the hospital
and then was caught, and then a third who never surfaced. Isn`t that young woman sort of like an automatic felony murder because her pal died in the
commission of a crime? Do we know anything about that kind of a charge for the woman?
(START VIDEO CLIP)
CAPUTO: Well, Ashleigh, I was reading through the police report today and here`s the thing. That will come out in court but right now she`s saying
that she just met the suspect, you know, randomly earlier that day and they`re like hey, come along to a ride and we`ll bring you to your
sister`s house.
And according to her, she was just waiting in the car and didn`t know anything that was going on inside that Walmart. So right now she`s not
facing any charges and appears to almost be a victim in all this, you know, being somebody who may not have known what was going on and actually shot
in the leg by Lonnie Leonard as the suspects tried to get away.
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: Yeah, may not have known, I think the key there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAPUTO: May not.
BANFIELD: Marsha Adams, look, I feel for Marcia Adams, she`s Arthur`s mom, she`s the victim, you know, the dead young criminal, she`s his mom. And
she`s lost a kid, you know. So however you slice it, she wasn`t there robbing anybody, but she has lost a kid. This is what she has to say.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
MARCIA ADAMS, MOTHER OF ARTHUR ADAMS: Now all I want is justice. I don`t know what happened out here. I still don`t know. They could have dialed
911, called the cops. I`ve seen many people walk out of Walmart with things and nobody got shot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Well, okay. She has a very good point, lots of people steal from Walmart and don`t end up with the death penalty for it. But to Lonnie`s
point, I want to read from the arrest affidavit, some of things that he says he saw, it says, as the shoplifters
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Started to enter the vehicle, Lonnie said they were posturing and reaching in their waistband and under the car seats. It goes on to say,
Lonnie Leonard advised that he feared for his life when he observed them reaching for something, so he drew his handgun from his jacket and fired
several shots at them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I want to bring in Dan Schorr and Marie Napoli on this one. You heard what Ray Caputo said. That`s all fine and dandy until the witnesses
on the scene said I don`t know that that happened.
DAN SCHORR, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Right. The Walmart employee was there and he says he didn`t see them reach for anything. And let`s be clear, he does not
have a right to shoot them just because they are fleeing with these stolen diapers. He only has a right to shoot them if there is an imminent threat,
physical force.
BANFIELD: He thought -- he said reaching into the waistband, he said he didn`t see a gun by the way.
SCHORR: Right. MARIE NAPOLI, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Right.
BANFIELD: But, Marie, isn`t it a little too late by the time you see the gun?
NAPOLI: It can be a little too late. It`s really a matter of credibility. Was he really afraid that this person had a gun and was pulling one out? Or
was this an afterthought that he came up with when he realized oh, I`m going to jail for killing a fleeing suspect.
BANFIELD: Yes.
NAPOLI: . unless I.
BANFIELD: So this is Florida, okay. So this will be a Florida jury if it ever goes to a jury. And I need one answer and one answer only. Is that
jury going to say yeah, known gang member, big long wrap sheet, I`m not going to put this away, jury nullification, yes or no?
SCHORR: I don`t think there will be jury nullification if there is no reasonable belief on his part that he can prove.
BANFIELD: Jury nullification.
NAPOLI: Well, I don`t know the jury, really. It depends on the jury.
BANFIELD: It`s in Florida.
NAPOLI: Well, you know what.
BANFIELD: Gang member. Long wrap sheet.
NAPOLI: You win and lose your case in the jury selection.
BANFIELD: Grand theft, resisting officer, contempt, drug possession, fleeing police probation, violation, not to mention that day, the
carjacking, the robbery.
SCHORR: Besides him -- let`s say the jury doesn`t have sympathy for the victim who was shot, they may still not want people in a Walmart parking
lot just firing guns that could hit anybody and the police said it was reckless, the way he was firing in the parking lot. People don`t want that.
BANFIELD: Good points. Remember this guy, the former music executive, Phil Spector?
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: When he was charged with murder, he had a million dollars bond. And while he was out on trial, he got to go home and do his hair like this.
And many other different kinds of hair-dos. Even though he was facing life in prison no parole, he still got to go home every day.
But one woman in California just got one of the biggest bonds ever in the state, in fact, in the entire country, $35 million. And why that was not
enough to keep her behind bars, somehow she posted it. Want to know how? Come on back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[20:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: I have a story to tell you about a very nice young lady named Tiffany Li
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Who lives in northern California accused of killing her ex- boyfriend, Keith Green, who just happens to be the father of their two children. And this is Li`s house. Very nice. Presumably she will be hanging
out at that house as she waits for her murder trial. She`s accused of directing two men to kill Keith and then get rid of his body.
[20:50:00] He went missing last April and about two weeks later, he was found, and the murder scene was brutal, like every murder scene is ugly,
but this was ugly. His body was discovered naked, decomposing in a ditch, gunshot wound to the neck. The prosecutors say that Li worried that she was
going to lose custody of the kids to Green so she orchestrated this whole thing to have him killed.
And you would think that she would be sitting behind bars. But bond gets people out. Even when they are suspected of murder. Her bail, however, was
set extremely high in this case. Like really high, like higher than any of us watching the show could make. Probably. $35 million. $35 million bail.
And guess what? No problem. Li posted it. She got help from her friends. Very, very wealthy friends and not to mention very, very wealthy family.
GEOFF CARR, TIFFANY LI`S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Friends, distant relatives, business associates who were willing to risk their houses for this woman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Yes, people are risking their millions for a woman who if found guilty of murder could end up being put away for life. Do you think she
might have a reason to run away? Go somewhere, anywhere? I don`t know like China where she`s from and her family is? That`s what you call a flight
risk. Call me crazy. I want to go right to Steve Wagstaffe.
He is the district attorney for San Mateo County in California. Thank you, Steve, for being on the show tonight. Is it correct to ask for no bail and
when that wasn`t an option, you set $100 million bail, and that wasn`t an opinion either, is that the right chain of events?
STEVE WAGSTAFFE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR SAN MATEO COUNTY: That is exactly what happened.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
WAGSTAFFE: We wanted her kept in no bail. We then said if you set bail, judge, $100 million. And the judge said no, and decided to set it at $35
million.
BANFIELD: So $35 million, as I understand it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Correct me if I`m wrong, she puts up $4 million in cash, I guess she has it, and then the rest of it was posted in real estate, friends and
family. As I understand, friends, distant relatives, and business associates
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: All put up their multi-million dollar properties to get her out of jail so she could be in her very fancy mansion while she awaits trial,
is that correct?
WAGSTAFFE: That is absolutely right. Every word.
BANFIELD: They have to put up a lot more than $35 million. When it comes to real estate
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: It has to be double the amount, right?
WAGSTAFFE: That`s right. Under California law, if you want to do it that way, the equity and the property
(START VIDEO CLIP)
WAGSTAFFE: Has to be double the amount, so $31 million needs to be $62 million in equity.
BANFIELD: And is it correct they posted $66 million, I guess.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: You round it up if the properties are that expensive, what`s a few million here and there, right?
WAGSTAFFE: Yeah, when you get that high, you begin to lose count, you`re right.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: This is crazy. Steve, this is crazy. I looked at Phil Spector`s case as well and thought that was crazy. Here are people who are accused of
murder who if they are found guilty, will never see the light of day again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: And that is to me the epitome of a flight risk. Why is it not the epitome of a flight risk when you`re talking about super rich or very super
rich and famous people?
WAGSTAFFE: I agree.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
WAGSTAFFE: We think it is. We think it`s phenomenal. She comes to trial and if she is convicted, she goes to prison for the rest of her life. That`s
pretty good motive to go back particularly when you put it in the context that she was born, grew up in, and remained a citizen of China. She has
family there. There is plenty of motive for her to not want to be here and face these charges.
BANFIELD: Can you school me on something?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Because typically when a guy cover a lot of crime, I cover a ton of murder, I`m coming into year 30 as a journalist. And most of the time, I
want to say like 95 percent of the time, I hear no bond when there is someone whose up for murder one, especially death penalty because like why
wouldn`t you flight, right? Why wouldn`t you flee if you`re going to die for the crime? So what makes the difference? Why does the judge say yes for
some and no for others?
(START VIDEO CLIP)
WAGSTAFFE: Well, this judge and this case since it`s not a death penalty case, not a California special circumstance, however, so this judge felt
she was obligated to not impose no bail. She then took the approach that it`s entitled to reasonable bail. We said $100 million is where it ought to
be based on the amount of money this woman and her family and friends have. That might be motivation to not want to run.
The judge used her discretion and came up with the answer, I think $35 million, which is ten times the amount anybody has ever posted for bail in
our county. And she felt that was enough. We don`t. We think that it needed to be far beyond that. Even if she is on house arrest with a GPS monitor,
that can be easily overcome. More worry if she`ll be there when the case goes to court.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: It`s incredible. Steve Wagstaffe, thanks so much for being with us. I want to button this up by showing you the wall of sound, famous
producer`s wall of hair.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Phil Spector with all of his hairdos during trial. Look at this. This is not a joke.
[20:55:00] This is truly how he showed up in court for his murder trial and all of these appearances prior to. $1 million. He was able to get out and
live in his mansion through two trials on just $1 million bail. So there is that.
So if you`re rich and famous or you are an amazing music producer or you`re a Chinese citizen with very, very rich friends with lots of property, I
guess that`s how it works. This is Phil now. At least in his mug shot because in prison he wasn`t allowed to have his wigs. Back after this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: My thanks to Marie Napoli and Dan Schorr for sitting here tonight. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you, everyone, for being
here.
[21:00:00] We`ll be back at 8:00 Monday night for "Primetime Justice." In the meantime, "Forensic Files" starts next.
END
