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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield

America`s Nightmare; Shocking Discovery; Victim or Monster?; Undercover Sting

Aired June 28, 2017 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the condition of the body, it looked like she`d been there for more than just a day.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST (voice-over): Mystery unfolding in a Walmart bathroom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There wasn`t any signs of death in the bathroom, any indications of how she might have died.

BANFIELD: A woman found dead behind a locked door.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had an ID on her and her cell phone.

BANFIELD: What`s baffling is that she`d been there for days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then we got ahold of her family and identified her that way, as well.

BANFIELD: Like a natural disaster, the body count is rising. In one town, they rolled in the mobile morgues just to keep up. But this disaster is

manmade, attacking America through the tip of the needle. A controversial solution?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This room is the only thousand or so square feet in the whole of North America where you can legally inject heroin or cocaine in a

safe way.

BANFIELD: Let the junkies shoot up with a nurse standing by.

He`s been charged with six rapes and possession of child porn. Still, Jake Ewing (ph) is beloved in this town, with yard signs, a Facebook page and a

GoFundMe account in the thousands.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ll still support Jacob 100 percent.

BANFIELD: Despite four public trials, support for the accused rapist is overwhelming.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe Jacob to be innocent.

BANFIELD: Remarkable story of survival. A speeding bus takes out a man just crossing the road. While he never saw it coming, how in God did he

walk away?

Department store Santas beloved in America, but this old St. Nick has just been arrested. And if you have little girls, you`re going to be mad.

Locked up in prison stripes, when these inmates had their chance to escape, they instead saved the guard who collapsed. Think that`ll change their

sentences? The sheriff joins us live.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: Hello, everyone. I`m Ashleigh Banfield. This is PRIMETIME JUSTICE.

The bodies are stacking up floor to ceiling, and there`s no more room in the freezer. That`s what they`re whispering around Akron, Ohio, tonight,

as they watch a mobile morgue quietly roll down their streets and into the center of town.

That`s what it`s come to for the people of Akron, and you can thank heroin for that ghastly sight. It`s no wonder they need a mobile morgue there.

According to reports, they`ve had at least 15 people die from an OD in just the past two weeks. There isn`t one politician, widow, orphan or EMT who

is not desperate for a solution tonight.

But there`s one solution that is geared only for the desperate, supervised injection facilities. You heard right, it`s a place where junkies can take

their poison, get a free needle and a nice warm nurse to watch over them as they get high but don`t die. If some lawmakers get their way, these places

would be legal and maybe coming to a neighborhood near you.

But make no mistake, other lawmakers say, Not on my watch and not in my budget. But the idea is getting some traction even from the American

Medical Association.

This is already happening in Canada. I want you to take a look at an injection center in Vancouver.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This room is the only thousand or so square feet in the whole of North America where you can legally inject heroin or cocaine in a

safe way.

So in this room, there are 12 booths. Addicts from the street bring the drugs that they`ve purchased in here. They sit in a booth. We provide

clean equipment, and a nurse sits at the station to observe the addicts using and to see if they stop breathing and start to die, that they can be

revived.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eight hundred people use these booths every day. The atmosphere is clinical, each spot disinfected as soon as its occupant

leaves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Before this place was here, there`d just be, like, 30, 40 people crowded in the alley doing it. And there was needles all over

the place, a lot of ODs.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are nurses on site to revive users who stop breathing and even help them choose the safest vein.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: That Vancouver center is actually a model, a model for centers being considered from Seattle all the way to Boston and Philadelphia.

Joining me now, Mayor Svante Myrick. He is the mayor of Ithaca, New York, and he supports those safe injection sites. Washington state senator Mark

Miloscia -- he is opposed to safe injection sites, and he`s proposed a bill banning them. And Sheriff Richard Jones is with the Butler County, Ohio,

sheriff`s office. He`s on the front line every day of this heroin epidemic. He`s also opposed to those safe injection sites.

[20:05:02]Gentlemen, thank you all so much. I`d like to start with you, Mayor Myrick, if I can. Ithaca -- this is what you want to see in your

city, safe injection sites. Why?

SVANTE MYRICK, MAYOR, ITHACA, NEW YORK: Oh, gosh, no, it`s not what I want to see. It`s obviously nobody`s first choice. It`s not what any of us

want.

But what I do want is to save people`s lives. We had 60,000 people die last year in America from opiate overdoses. This is more than have ever

died in any given year from car accidents, from drug overdoses, from gun violence.

This is one idea that can save a few lives, more than a few. Where it`s been tried in 110 places around the world, it`s been proven to save lives,

reduce overdoses, reduce HIV and hepatitis, and reduce the number of people going to treatment.

And when it was first proposed to me, it sounded crazy. But the peer- reviewed science is unimpeachable. This works. It helps the people who are most likely to die in the street, to die in a Walmart bathroom where

people won`t find them for days. It`s the most likely to keep them alive until they can get into treatment.

The science says people who use these are 35 percent more likely to enter treatment and recover. So for me, 60,000 deaths is a nightmare. This is a

nightmare. We need to use every tool in our arsenal to save lives, to save these young people (INAUDIBLE)

BANFIELD: So I hear you.

MYRICK: (INAUDIBLE) answers.

BANFIELD: I hear you loud and clear. Saving lives, absolutely. I get it. That would be a way to do so. But your critics will say, These people made

a choice, and the rest of us are having to pick up all the pieces at this point.

I want to bring in Senator Mark Miloscia, if I can. Senator, the mayor makes some very good points. Not good enough for you, though.

MARK MILOSCIA (R), WASHINGTON STATE SENATOR: No. I think the mayor has it wrong. I went up and visited Vancouver. What you see there is legalized

heroin in the street, basically decriminalized. If you want to increase drug use, increase drug deaths, then you set up these sites in your city

because that`s what happens in Vancouver and will happen in any city that sets this up.

You`ll have open-air drug marts everywhere. The police will not be arresting anyone. And drug deaths will go up. That`s what happened in

Vancouver and will happen in Akron or Seattle or any other city that decides to go down this route.

BANFIELD: So Sheriff, I want to bring you in on this because you were very outspoken on the program last night regarding a city councilman here in the

United States who`s suggesting, at some point, these communities cannot afford to Narcan the same user over and over and over again, and at some

point, maybe there shouldn`t be a response to that repeat user because it`s bankrupting small town America and it will bankrupt big town America soon

enough.

So Sheriff, I want you to jump in on this legalized injection site debate because if you think about it, if it costs a certain amount of money to let

someone into that site -- and Vancouver particularly says it`s about 3 million bucks a year they spend on it -- are you not saving the money on

all the indigent care when those ODs end up in the hospital and they`re treated by big, expensive doctors and nurses? What do you say, Sheriff?

RICHARD JONES, BUTLER COUNTY SHERIFF (via telephone): No, you`re not saving any money! To begin with, I think it`s a ludicrous idea. I`m going

to send -- if they get this going, I`m going to send everybody from here and in the state of Ohio to where they have this and they can get them out

of our community.

People are fed up. We don`t have the money. We`re exhausted. The hospitals are full. How are these people going to drive home? Do they

have bus service for them? Do they give them cars? Do they give them cell phones so they can hire Uber to pick them up or something like this? Are

they going to make sure they don`t commit crimes? They`re not productive citizens! They`re not...

(CROSSTALK)

MYRICK: I can tell he doesn`t know much about -- the sheriff has a lot of questions. Those are good questions. He could answer those questions by

doing some research. The research is pretty clear.. It`s very clear. What`s most expensive is allowing these people to overdose in gas station

bathrooms, allowing them to die in back alleys. That`s what costs you in EMT services. That`s what costs you in hospital (INAUDIBLE)

JONES: No, no, no.

MYRICK: Supervised injection facilities...

JONES: No. What it is -- and I`d like to interrupt you. What you got going on...

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Hold on. It`s impossible -- guys, I`m sorry, it`s impossible to hear you both at the same time. One is on a Skype line.

JONES: OK.

BANFIELD: It`s a little tricky, but we have one audio channel. So with that claim that it`s expensive to let them die in a bathroom or OD in the

alley, I`d like the sheriff to be able to respond that.

JONES: Sure. It`s just as expensive when they go out and they have these babies that are born addicted. Who lets them drive home? Do they give

them vehicles to drive home in? Do they go ahead -- who watches their kids? They`re not productive citizens. They don`t work. They don`t pay

anything. They don`t pay taxes. And they are -- and it`s their choice! And America has had enough. So like I said, I`m going to...

BANFIELD: So Mayor...

JONES: Go ahead.

[20:10:00]BANFIELD: OK. So Mayor Myrick, I want to throw a statistic in on that. And it gets us thinking about another kind of addiction because I

get it. Some People say, Look, it may have been their choice to put that needle in their arm the first time, but once they`re hooked, they have no

power anymore. It`s a Satan like no other, heroin and all other opiates like that.

However, 88,000 people died in 2016 in the United States of America, according to the Centers for Disease Control, because of excessive alcohol

use, and we do not coddle the drunks in this country. Why should we coddle the addicts, Mayor?

MYRICK: We don`t coddle -- we don`t have supervised alcohol injection rooms. We don`t have bars where licensed professionals can distribute

drinks. We don`t have...

BANFIELD: No. I was a bartender, and I`ll tell you right now, I have no medical training when someone`s going to go out and DUI somebody. I have

no medical training when someone`s going to go out and choke on her vomit in the back alley. And I have no medical training to know when they`re

actually going to be 0.3 over the limit and will die of their own volition. No! I am absolutely not a supervisor in a bar.

MYRICK: So why did we make alcohol legal? Because when we made it illegal in the `20s, when we prohibited it, we drove it into back rooms where we

couldn`t test it, we couldn`t make sure it wasn`t making people blind, that it didn`t have unreasonable levels of alcohol by volume, that gangsters

weren`t shooting each other in the streets in Chicago. That`s why we ended Prohibition because prohibition of alcohol didn`t work. More people were

dying.

Now we need to change our approach. Look, you are here arguing for the status quo when you acknowledge that the status quo has left 60,000 people

dead last year. That is unacceptable.

And let me say this. It`s personally offensive to me. My father suffered from drug addiction. My father was a drug addict. I spent the first six

months of my life in a homeless shelter because he was an addict, because he acted like addicts do. I have no love -- I have more reason to be

suspicious and to be angry of people who make that first choice to begin using drugs and they get swept away in a river of addiction.

BANFIELD: Senator, I`m going to come to you...

(CROSSTALK)

MYRICK: Let me just say this...

BANFIELD: Go ahead.

MYRICK: Me and (INAUDIBLE) taxpaying, contributing citizens who went to college on his own, to an Ivy League school, got elected mayor at the age

of 24. All of us paid back way more in taxes than we ever received because we were saved by a system that understood to allow your emotions, your

anger at people who use drugs, your anger at people who become addicted to get in the way of more clear-thinking judgment, right, your ability to see

clearly the programs that work and implement them based on data just because you are angry at people who use drugs.

BANFIELD: So that`s what it comes to. It comes to the data. I think it comes to the data, and there is a lot of dissension on the data in

particular because not everybody is like you, Mayor. You are an American dream, at 24 years old, the mayor of Ithaca, coming from the background you

do. I think you`re the outlier.

I think what the sheriff has said and I think what the senator is saying this is bankrupting us. People who want kindergarten for their kids may

not get it because they`ve got to buy Narcan for the addicts. And yes, we`re all compassionate Americans, but there has to be another solution.

Senator, to that point, the mayor makes a great point in that these things actually do provide some benefit. They reduce infectious diseases. They

reduce the number of OD deaths. And they actually increase treatment seekers. There`s a percentage that`s quoted -- I think it`s something like

30 percent up in Vancouver. Those who come into the addiction centers are surrounded by medical professionals. They get good advice. They take it.

Isn`t that a good thing?

MILOSCIA: Well, let`s tell you the facts. Less than 2 percent of the people that goes to these -- goes up to Insight (ph) in British...

BANFIELD: British Columbia.

MILOSCIA: ... Vancouver actually -- British Columbia, pardon me -- gets into treatment. But at what cost? We`re legalizing, decriminalizing

heroin use. What do we tell our children when we allow drug users and drug dealers to go rampant in the city that you live in? Are we going to put

these sites next to high schools?

Think about what this does. We have a system that works. We can get people into treatment. That is the solution. We need to fund treatment on

demand. That works. But we know from Vancouver, the facts are very clear, you`ll increase drug use and you`ll increase drug dealing. Property crime

will go up. And you`ll attract dealers and drug users from all across the country. Let`s not go down this path of legalizing heroin.

BANFIELD: OK, so hold your thoughts, guys, for one second because -- can you stay over the break, all three of you? This conversation is not over.

JONES: Sure, I can.

BANFIELD: I have a lot more to ask you, and particularly the question I`m going to ask you when we come back, Sheriff. I`m going to get you to weigh

in on it first.

We had a big debate for a long time about teen sex. We didn`t want to encourage teen sex, but ultimately, we threw our hands up and gave condoms

to the kids to save their lives, not encouraging them to go ahead and have sex, but we thought at least this was the lesser of the evils. So I want

to ask you that question when we come back. And then I also want our viewers to take a look at this.

[20:15:10]Unfortunately, we don`t have that moment I wanted to show you. But it`s very poignant and I`m going to show it to you right after the

break. If everyone can stick around, we`re right back with this conversation next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Welcome back. We`re talking about these supervised injection sites when we`re dealing with this heroin epidemic and people dying in the

streets, dying in bathrooms. What can we do? Is this at least one solution?

Still with me, Mayor Svante Myrick. He`s the mayor of Ithaca, New York. He supports these safe injection sites. Washington state senator Mark

Miloscia, opposed to these sites, and he`s proposing a bill to ban them. And Sheriff Richard Jones. This is the Butler County, Ohio, sheriff`s

office. He`s on the front lines every day of this crisis. He`s also opposed to these injection sites.

[20:20:12]Sheriff Jones, going to break, I asked you that question. We all debated whether condoms encouraged kids to have sex when that was the last

thing we wanted them to do, and yet we kind of just had to go with it because it stopped them from getting HIV and everything else. Isn`t this a

little similar?

JONES: No, it`s not similar at all. And again, going back to what the mayor said -- he`s not the only guy in the world that`s had -- you know,

I`m proud of him, where he`s come from and what`s happened to him. I had a brother that died. And he had cirrhosis of the liver and drugs and

alcohol. Doesn`t make me support free drugs, getting shots and passing this out.

The government should not be in this business whatsoever. That should be up to the families, the church, their loved ones, and it shouldn`t be up to

the individuals, us, to pay for their habit, giving them a safe, warm little place and a chocolate on the pillow so they can inject poison into

their veins and then go out as though we support it and we encourage it. Disagree with it totally.

BANFIELD: Mayor Svante, he makes a good point, although it sounds a bit hyperbolic with the chocolate and the pillow, but I will say this. These

injection sites -- they don`t sort of work towards weaning them off the drugs, meaning the nurse isn`t there to make the concoction for the addict,

to say, You know, it`s half methadone today and half heroin. We`re going to see how that goes. It`s really BYO. You bring your own junk. You

inject your own junk. She just makes sure you don`t die.

Isn`t there something better that we can do? Isn`t there a better model than that?

MYRICK: Well, so folks (INAUDIBLE) it`s a 25-step plan that will prevent young people from getting on drugs in the first place, treat people who are

on drugs. It`s law enforcement steps that can crack down on drug dealers. But this last bucket that is called harm reduction (INAUDIBLE) nailed it.

Giving out condoms and teaching young people how condoms work does not condone having sex. It acknowledges a reality that even though we don`t

like it, young people are going to figure out how to have sex, and it`s better if we can teach them how to do it safely.

This is the same. It`s harm reduction. And even though -- look, it sounded crazy to me, too. When they first proposed it to me, I said, I`m

not putting that in my plan. But they convinced me because they showed me the data. The data says this, that when people go into these supervised

injection facilities from Switzerland to Vancouver, what happens is that for many of them, they`re coming into contact with the only people they

will come into contact with that cares about their health.

So if you are using and you`re living on the street and you hit rock bottom, you have your moment of clarity, your moment where you wake up and

say, I want to do better. I can`t live like this. And if you go to the person that you use with and say, Can you help me get into detox? They`re

going to say, No, are you crazy? So you go to the only other person you talk to all day, which is your dealer. And you`re going to say, Can you

help me get into detox? And they`ll say, Absolutely not, right? I`m the one that sells you drugs.

But if there`s somebody else in your life, somebody who cares about you, who has been taking -- the way this works in Canada, you strike up a

relationship, a rapport. When people walk in, you say, How is that tooth doing? How`s your knee doing? Where are you sleeping now? You are still

outside? Are you sure you`re not ready to quit? That`s why folks are more likely...

BANFIELD: So I will say this, though, Mayor -- look, I`m Canadian, so I grew up with the benefit of socialized medicine. I can go get seven

different opinions for a cold, if I want. And the model there means if they`re going to spend $3 million a year on that center, it`s probably

going to be the 300 million that they don`t have to spend for the socialized medicine for that addict once he ends up OD`ing and going into

the hospital.

So I get the cost saving there. It`s not the same in the United States. And to that point, Senator, I want...

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: Well, I want to get the senator in on this. To that point, the American Medical Association has endorsed this. They like this, albeit

it`s usually the doctors in the hospitals who have to suck it up when an indigent patient comes in OD`ing and costs them a million dollars and can`t

pay for it. It`s usually the doctors in the hospital that have to eat it. But eventually, it`s the rest of us, too.

So do you think the AMA is endorsing this because there`s a dog in the fight, or do you think there`s something medical to this when the AMA says,

You know what? They have a point.

MILOSCIA: I think the AMA is completely wrong. Again, look at the big picture. We`re legalizing heroin and meth and crack cocaine use if we go

down this path. That`s what happened in Vancouver. And in fact, in Vancouver, BC, what you`re now seeing is the government`s giving the drug

addicts free heroin now, clean heroin. So now the government is in the drug dealing business.

And again, the police, the political structure -- they`re not arresting any drug dealer at all. It`s legal almost!

MYRICK: I can`t actually let that go without just challenging you. I`ve seen nothing suggesting that the government is handing out free drugs like

that. I`ve seen that they hand out the needles, the cotton and the clean, you know, supplies, but I have not seen that that Insight (ph) center in

Vancouver ever hands out free heroin.

[20:25:06]MILOSCIA: Correct, not at the Insights (ph), but the (INAUDIBLE)

BANFIELD: Wait, wait!

MILOSCIA: The government site, one block away...

BANFIELD: Is that the sheriff?

MILOSCIA: ... they give out -- they give out heroin. That`s right.

BANFIELD: OK, and Sheriff, was that you trying to get in on that?

JONES: Yes, it sure was. I agree with the senator that they do give (INAUDIBLE) They give methadone. They give a replacement for the heroin.

They give needles out. They do give them drugs. They give them (INAUDIBLE)

BANFIELD: Well, methadone is not heroin. Methadone is a weaning drug. It`s a treatment drug. It`s not the heroin. That`s a whole different

statement.

MILOSCIA: One block away, they give out heroin.

BANFIELD: OK, I want to bring Mark O`Mara into this conversation real quickly. He`s a CNN legal analyst, one of the smartest minds that I know.

There is this whole issue of the staff, the people who work around these addicts, who God knows what they`re coming in with in their veins, in their

hands, in their head. And these people are surrounded every day -- by the way, there`s up to a thousand people who come into this site every day, a

thousand junkies coming in with their sharp-pointed needles every day around these staff members. That`s bloody dangerous!

MARK O`MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. And from a medical perspective, maybe it is the lesser of two evils. But I`ve represented many, many, many

addicts, obviously, in my career as a criminal defense attorney, and I`m telling you it is particularly dangerous when you`re putting addicts near

each other, near themselves and others, you`re putting them in a location where they can collaborate and there are drugs because the other people,

the one who only weighs 100 pounds and the guy that weighs 200 pounds has his heroin.

So my concern with this is this would have to be almost like a supervised visitation center for those family law cases where you have to bring the

dad in to see the kids. You need to have a lot of police there. You need to have a lot of security. You need to have the cameras. You need to have

a whole system set up to try and keep these addicts, both before they`re looking to get their drugs and after they get their drugs, safe from each

other, but much more importantly, as you said, the staff who`s sitting there without any protection whatsoever trying to interact with these

people who we know are drug addicts. And we know drug addicts who will sell their own children to get their next drug.

BANFIELD: And they`ll drop their children off and abandon them, and they do it at will. Sheriff Richard Jones, I want you to have the last word

because, first of all, you`re the only one who`s not on camera with us tonight, but you are on the front lines every single day. You are feeling

it, seeing it and exhausted by it.

(CROSSTALK)

MYRICK: Nobody ever died at Vancouver. In Vancouver, there`s 13 years. Two million people have come through there. Nobody`s ever died. The staff

said people who go there, two million people and nobody`s ever died...

MILOSCIA: No, they die outside.

JONES: That`s not true. That`s not true. That`s not true. He`s not telling the truth.

BANFIELD: I can`t attest to whether no one ever dies in Vancouver from heroin. That sounds like a pretty sweeping statement for a major North

American city over three million people.

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: ... to sell this program and he`s not doing a very good job. The people don`t want it. Seventy-six percent of all the illegal drugs come to

the world -- we`re a user nation. Until we do the supply and demand, it`s going to come in. But giving drugs and giving needles, letting them come

in with their -- their -- their drugs -- and you don`t know if it`s good drugs, you don`t know if it`s carfentanyl, you don`t know what it is, and

it just sends a terrible message. Like I said, it`s a terrible idea, and law enforcement would never support this.

BANFIELD: So I have to thank all of you because if there`s one thing I can say among the voices on this issue tonight, everybody wants the same thing.

Every one of us wants the same thing. We want a better America. We don`t want people to die. We don`t want people bankrupted. And we want this

scourge gone. It`s just the differing minds on how to do it. And that is something we`re all going to have to come together on and do real soon.

Thank you to all of you. I really appreciate this.

And this conversation, without question, continues. The scourge of heroin addiction doesn`t discriminate. It affects all races. It affects all

genders. It affects every age. And sometimes, it is the youngest that are the most affected because of it.

I want to share with you the story of Lily`s Place. That`s a facility that treats the little tiny babies, the ones who are suffering from withdrawal

from the minute they enter this earth. It`s where we met a mother named Cassandra who says when it comes to drugs, she`s done it all and that she`s

now looking for the path to stay clean.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We came up with Lily, It`s a combination of things, a baby we had one time that bad things happened to, and another one of

those situations where I said, Never again on my watch. In the Bible, there`s a verse that says, Consider the lilies of the field. They neither

toil nor slumber, but God still watches over them. And so we look at our babies as little lilies.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s my little angel. I felt like she saved my life this time, you know. If it wasn`t for her, I probably wouldn`t be here. It

started when I was about 15, when my grandpa passed away. He was the one that raised me. He was like my dad. It kind of evolved from there. That`s

when I found heroin and OxyContin, that sort of thing.

I`ve completed a year-long rehab. I`ve been incarcerated. I`ve been at all, you know. It`s hard as an addict to be in recovery in this area. You can

step out my front door and throw a rock and hit three dope dealers. It`s something that consumes every thought, every waking moment, you know.

Like once you try it, there`s a switch or something that it just flips that switch and that`s it. That`s all you think about. It can take a spur of the

moment decision of, you know, this might be fun for a moment and your life is over. She got me back out of that relapse. So, she saved me for her and

her brother.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST OF PRIMETIME JUSTICE: Our thanks to Drew Aiden (ph) in producing that special report. Tomorrow night, a "Primetime Justice"

special. Heroin, America`s nightmare. It premieres at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. It is followed immediately at 9:00 p.m. tomorrow with "This Is Life."

Lisa Ling taking a closer look at this country`s heroin epidemic.

[20:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: There`s something about a locked bathroom door that makes us a little uneasy. Sometimes you wait your turn, sometimes you just give up.

Especially if the person behind the door is taking a really long time. In Sand Springs, Oklahoma, the woman in the Walmart restroom took it to a

whole other level.

She was in there so long the employees figured the bathroom was out of order so they hung a sign. She was in there all night and the door stayed

locked. Same thing the next day, and the next, and the next, until finally, someone did something about it and opened the door. Four days later. And

there she was dead on the floor. Again, four days later.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

TODD ENZBRENNER, CAPTAIN FROM SAND SPRINGS POLICE DEPARTMENT: From the condition of the body, it looked like she had been there for more than just

a day. She had an I.D. on her and her cell phone and then we got hold of her family and identified her that way as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: That I.D. showed her name was Katherine Caraway from Muskogee and just 29 years old. She was about an hour away from home and so far police

just aren`t sure how she died.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

ENZBRENNER: There wasn`t any signs of death in the bathroom, any indications of how she might have died.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Investigators don`t believe foul play was involved. And right now they don`t see anything suspicious about Katherine`s death, but what is

outrageous about this case isn`t about the cause of death, it`s about the fact that Katherine was inside that bathroom from Friday until Monday.

No one knew and no one even checked. Kirk McCracken is a reporter with the Sand Springs Leader. He joins me from Sand Springs, Oklahoma. So, Kirk, she

had a child, from the reports that we`re seeing. No one reported this woman missing when she didn`t come home Friday?

KIRK MCCRACKEN, REPORTER, SAND SPRINGS LEADER: Well, at this point, I haven`t heard of any missing persons report. We know that she had a son. I

got a text from someone involved in DHS who said that her son was taken into custody, DHS protective custody about a week before.

I haven`t been able to confirm that, but that`s something that`s kind of circulating right now. And that`s pretty much what we have. But as far as

the missing persons report, I don`t know that anything was filed.

BANFIELD: And Kirk, what about Walmart in all of this? It seems a little strange to me that a store would let a door stay locked for four days and

just simply put a sign on saying out of order.

MCCRACKEN: Sure. And that`s kind of been the big thing around here. You know, a lot of people have been really upset that the bathroom wasn`t

checked. It basically was one of those deals where it was just a big bunch of confusion where, since the door was locked, an employee thought that the

restroom was out of order. They put a sign on the door.

At that point, whenever people walked by the door, they just thought it was out of order, so they didn`t do anything. I know that Walmart has a

schedule where they clean rest rooms, but a store of that size, there`s a lot of managers, managers are the only ones who have the key. And it just

kind of fell between the cracks, to be honest with you.

BANFIELD: Boy, I`ll say. That`s the understatement of the year. I want to bring in Captain Todd Enzbrenner. He is with the Sand Springs, Oklahoma

Police Department. He joins me live now on the phone. Okay. Captain, here`s the weird thing. The comment from the police is that we don`t believe, we

don`t suspect foul play, but we also don`t believe this was natural causes. What was it?

ENZBRENNER: Well, honestly, we don`t know. The condition of the body indicated to us that she was using the rest room at the time or close to

the time of her death. And it`s not uncommon for people to die as a result of using the bathroom. So that`s what we had to go on right now until the

medical examiner makes a determination of cause of death.

BANFIELD: Okay. And what about the reports that we`re seeing that she had medications found I think either on her person or in a purse? Is there any

validity to that?

ENZBRENNER: That was incorrect.

BANFIELD: Incorrect?

ENZBRENNER: On her body was found a cellphone, some keys, car keys, and her I.D. and that was it.

[20:40:00] BANFIELD: No medicine in the possession of this young woman?

ENZBRENNER: Correct.

BANFIELD: Okay. So now I`m even more confused because you say you don`t believe it`s natural causes. Do you think this is a suicide?

ENZBRENNER: Well, no. We don`t know if it`s natural causes or not. It could be natural causes or it could be something else. It could be a drug

overdose even though there was no indication of that found in the room. We don`t have anything else to go on because there`s no -- there was no

obvious signs of a struggle.

The bathroom wasn`t in disarray. Things weren`t broken or knocked over. She didn`t have any wounds on her, obvious wounds on her body. So there was no

real explanation for why or how she died.

BANFIELD: It`s an absolute mystery and such a strange one and very sad at that knowing that she is the mother of a toddler. Kirk McCracken and

Captain Todd Enzbrenner, thanks very much for being a part of this. We`ll continue to watch to see what the answers are.

In Kansas, a high school football star is now facing multiple charges of rape. He has four separate trials scheduled and even one that`s not yet

scheduled. There are six alleged victims. Now, here`s the weird part. He has hundreds and hundreds of people who support him. Why is that?

[20:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: If there`s one thing about small town America, everybody knows everybody. And if there`s a controversy, you know everybody is going to

take a side, too. But there`s a case in Holton, Kansas tonight that a lot of people who aren`t from Holton, Kansas, shaking their heads. It`s about

this guy. Jacob Ewing, 22 years old.

He was a high school standout, star football player, wrestler. But Jake`s recent headlines have nothing to do with sports. He was just cleared in a

trial that accused him of raping a 13-year-old girl on the hood of a car in a cemetery. But his problems are far from over because he`s going right

back into another courtroom for a whole other trial.

He`s accused of raping and sodomizing two adult women. When that trial wraps up, Jake`s going to get a month or so of down time before trial

number three gets under way. He`s accused of kidnapping and rape and sodomy of yet a third adult woman. And when that trial wraps up, if his lawyer

still has any ink left in the pen and gas in the tank, Jake Ewing heads into trial number four, accused of attempted rape and aggravated sexual

battery of a fourth adult woman.

I do not know when they will try him on the 13 counts of sexual exploitation of a child involving child porn because they haven`t yet even

scheduled that fifth trial yet. But you would really think this guy would be run out of town, right? A town of only about 3,000 people. And you would

be wrong. This town instead is split with some actually donating money and posting yard signs supporting Jake Ewing in his legal mess.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM LEVITT, FAMILY FRIEND: I still support Jacob 100 percent because he is like family. I`m for the law and a law-abiding citizen, but you still

got to support the ones you love. In my heart of hearts, I believe jacob to be innocent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Nan Yates is an investigative reporter. She joins me from Kansas City, Missouri. Nan, did I hear that right? Four trials on the books and

one yet to be scheduled all for rape and kidnapping and sodomy and child porn. Do these people who support him know about all of the trials and all

of the charges?

NAN YATES, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Oh, Ashleigh, not only do they know. From what I understand from my sources this afternoon they`re packing the

courtroom. Some have even tried getting on to the jury illegally by lying.

So, you mentioned the crux of all of it. You know, I`m not sure exactly how justice can happen in this town of 3,300, but the jury pool is actually --

I think they had about 14,000. But from what I understand, my sources are telling me this is an extremely difficult and split case.

BANFIELD: That sounds hard, to have such a small town with 14,000, maybe some weird math there. But the bigger issue is in jury selection as I

understand it, Nan, half of them.

YATES: That`s the whole county.

BANFIELD: Whole county. Half of them have been excused from service, have cited that they`re either friends with Jake or they got business ties with

his successful commerce-style family or they like the fact that he was a football star. Are they going to find a jury for this guy?

YATES: It`s pretty tough. It`s pretty tough. And that`s what -- I think the prosecution is very concerned about is who is on the jury, how close they

are. They just don`t know if they`re going to be able to get justice for these girls as far as they`re concerned.

BANFIELD: The girls and the women. I mean, we`re talking about a 13-year- old girl, he was acquitted. We`re talking about six women and how many other counts of child pornography and how many children that involved,

we`re unclear, but Savhannah Jurgensmeier knows Jacob Ewing. She also knows the alleged victims. She also started a Facebook page supporting those

alleged victims. She joins me from Lawrence, Kansas.

[20:50:00] Savhannah, you are a very unique person. If it`s okay with you, I want people to know your background. You in this small town at 15 years

old dealt with a rape of your own, and you were public about it, and you felt the scourge of that town, how they didn`t believe you. But amazingly,

Jake Ewing was in your graduating class and supported you. Is that correct?

SAVHANNAH JURGENSMEIER, SUPPORTS ALLEGED VICTIMS OF EWING: That`s correct. I experienced it when I was 15 years old. At the time, I hadn`t told many

people, but in a small town, it kind of gets out. So actually I hadn`t even chosen to go to the police.

One of my friends had actually reported for me just because, you know, the word got so fast in such a small community. I think that we`ve seen a lot

of that certainly in this trial. And so to see that all happen again has been quite the experience.

BANFIELD: So, let me ask you, Savhannah, look, we`ve heard from some of the supporters, we`ve seen the signs, justice for Jake. We heard them say, we

loved him, we`ve known him all his life. But that doesn`t necessarily mean you can`t have tough love for someone. And I know that you have a viewpoint

on guys who are nice, who don`t seem like they could be sex predators. Tell me what that is.

JURGENSMEIER: Absolutely. I mean, and knowing Jacob, he was a nice guy. This is a nice guy, but so was my rapist. And I think that it`s really

important for folks to know that and for folks especially in this community to realize that it`s the nice guys that do that. It`s not monsters, it`s

not someone, you know, hopping out from behind the bushes.

It`s not a stranger. Oftentimes it`s people that you know and love and that you think care about you. And so the conflict between loving that person

and having experienced this trauma from them just kind of that cognitive dissonance is really horrible.

BANFIELD: Savhannah, how much of this is town folks who like this kid because he was a football and wrestling star?

JURGENSMEIER: Very, very many. And also the family is from the town. They own a business in town and a lot of folks had business ties and that`s why

they were put off the jury, is my understanding of that. But, yes, everyone -- really anyone, if you say the name Ewing, even before the trial, really

everyone would know who you are talking about.

BANFIELD: I want to bring in Mark O`Mara real quickly on this. It`s that classic story of a lovable guy, of a Cosby-like lovable guy.

MARK O`MARA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Charismatic rapist.

BANFIELD: Why is it -- why is it that people can`t get their heads around the nicest guys that are also white collar criminals, too? Why can`t they

get their heads around the fact that it could be true? Especially with these many trials.

O`MARA: Well, because they want to like him, and they want to believe him. If he`s a nice guy, like a football player, they want to. What I think is

going to be devastating to the case for the prosecution is two things. One, I`m very worried about what Savhannah said about the stealth juror. People

want to get on the jury to acquit him.

(CROSSTALK)

O`MARA: That type of stealth juror can destroy a case.

BANFIELD: Can a stealth juror work both ways? Somebody wants to acquit him and somebody who wants to burn him?

O`MARA: Absolutely true.

BANFIELD: Doesn`t that cancel it out? (ph)

O`MARA: Well, no, because either one abuses the process. No stealth juror (inaudible) courtroom. You can only have it defined and decided by the

facts of the case and the law.

BANFIELD: How good are you at that when you are doing -- how good are you, Mark O`Mara, mortal being at determining that`s a liar.

O`MARA: You have to be better than (inaudible) before. That`s when we talked about (inaudible) investigation of jurors. You have to do so much

because people now know what`s going on and know how to get on a jury, know how to say the right thing.

The other thing very concerning about this case is whether or not the prosecution will succeed in getting what we call similar fact evidence. If

they get a conviction on one of these rapes based upon the evidence of the others, then they`ll get a global plea on all of them probably.

BANFIELD: Let`s go over these charges real quick. Aggravated sodomy two women, aggravated criminal sodomy one woman, aggravated kidnapping, one

count of rape, aggravated criminal sodomy another woman, child porn 13 counts. Sounds awfully similar to me, but you know what? Stranger things

have happened.

Cosby only had one additional accuser in that trial. I have to leave it there. Nan Yates and Savhannah Jurgensmeier, thank you both for being a

part of this program. We are going to watch to see what happens with Mr. Jake Ewing, 22 years old, from Holton, Kansas.

This Sunday, the HLN original series "Beyond Reasonable Doubt" takes a closer look at the 1996 Olympic park bombing. It was the first of a series

of attacks that terrorized the city and then led to a nationwide manhunt for the bomber. "Beyond Reasonable Doubt."

[20:55:00] The Atlanta Bombing. This Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Back in a flash.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: In Pennsylvania, Mark O`Mara, I got this story especially for you because I know you would love it. This almost sounds like it could be out

of a movie titled "Dirty Santa." But in a situation like this, it is actually more like the slug on a case file. The guy`s name is William T.

McKinlay, Delaware. The county police there arresting him in an undercover sting targeting pedophiles.

He allegedly sent graphic images of himself to an officer posing as a 14- year-old girl and referred to himself as "Dirty Old Santa." If you are thinking that he looks like a Santa that you take your kids to at a mall,

you`d probably be right, because investigators have confirmed that he worked as a seasonal employee at a Philadelphia Macy`s, but they could not

confirm his exact position. One question, how would you I.D. him in a lineup?

[21:00:00] O`MARA: I`m going to have my nieces visit Santa by Skype this year.

(LAUGHTER)

BANFIELD: Good idea. Thank you, Mark, nice to have you here. Good to see you. Thanks, everyone, for watching. We`ll see you back here tomorrow night

at 8:00 o`clock for "Primetime Justice" special. In the meantime, stay tuned, "Forensic Files" is up next.

END