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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
Missing Woman`s Final Call Ends in Screams; Dismembered Body in Freezer ID`d; Home Depot Sued Afte Boss Kills Employee; Million Dollar Lawsuit; The Hunt With John Walsh; Death by Text Trial. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired August 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)
[20:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kor Xiong has been tethered to this bench since last Friday, watching detectives as they scour his neighborhood,
willing himself to believe his daughter will come home.
KOR XIONG, LUCY XIONG`S FATHER: I don`t know what to do!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fresno detectives suspect foul play in Lucy`s disappearance because of a phone call she made to her boyfriend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This isn`t right. This is isn`t what she would do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The abuse of a corpse.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The body of Shannon Elizabeth Graves, who was reported missing by her family.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Graves`s boyfriend, who is a suspect in this case, had come here to his friend asking to store a freezer in this home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had awakened her about -- sometime between 2:00 and 3:00 in morning, got on top of her and with his hands, he strangled her to
death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His hopes were shattered, but they were hopes that existed in his mind, not from anything that she had led him to believe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After killing her, he then undressed her and undressed himself and he had sexual intercourse with her body.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Andrea Polito hasn`t picked up a camera to shoot a wedding in early two years.
ANDREA POLITO, WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER: Because I felt completely dead! You know, it -- it was my passion!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She says she was forced to close her business and give up her dream job after a dispute between a client went viral.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you say and what you post on line has real world consequences.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The couple can appeal, and there`s challenges in collecting the million-dollar verdict.
POLITO: It means to me that I get my name back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOEY JACKSON, HLN HOST: A pleasant good evening, everyone. I`m Joey Jackson, sitting in tonight for Ashleigh Banfield. And this is PRIMETIME
JUSTICE.
A 20-year-old California woman is missing tonight, and there`s growing concern that Lucy Xiong could have met with foul play. You see her there.
Now, she vanished just after midnight on Friday. Lucy had come home, gotten into an argument with her mom. Her mom -- the argument was because
she was out late, and she suspected that Lucy had been drinking. So Lucy then she walked out and vanished thereafter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHIEF JERRY DYER, FRESNO POLICE DEPARTMENT: She may have been abducted. She may be missing. There may be foul play involved beyond what we know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JACKSON: Lucy`s boyfriend says that she called him around the time of her disappearance. Now, he said that she seemed surprised by something, and
she screamed and then the line went dead. Now, about that same time, police got a call saying a woman was drowning in a nearby canal. And so
far, there have been no signs of Lucy anywhere. Police also say that her credit cards have been used about a dozen times by multiple people since
her disappearance. Now police and family are searching for answers and are asking for help.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) I don`t know what to do! Please come home!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JACKSON: Liz Kern is the news anchor for KMJ news radio. She joins us from Fresno. Nice to have you with us. So take us through the latest in
the story. What do we know? And are we any closer to finding out where she is and what happened?
LIZ KERN, KMJ RADIO: Well, Joey, as you said, she did come home on Thursday night, got into the fight with her mom. Her mom was upset because
she`d been at the coast (ph), she`d been drinking, was tipsy. She left the house around 2 -- 12:30 AM on Friday morning. She was upset.
About 10 minutes later at 12:40, she called her boyfriend. They were on the phone speaking. And the boyfriend said that he could hear gravel
crunching as she was walking and she sounded winded. The next thing he heard was her scream. She actually swore, and then the call dropped. And
that`s where the concern is.
Now, he went to his -- her parents` house in central Fresno -- he lives in a town called Clovis -- and told the parents what had happened. Now, it
was nine hours later that they reported her as being missing.
Police chief Jerry Dyer said that in that timeframe, they`d actually received a call about 24 minutes, but they didn`t know that it possibly
could have been related -- a call at 1:04 in the morning saying that there was a person reportedly drowning in a canal at McKinley and 1st here in
Fresno. And they said, you know, Is this a possible connection? Do we think that she could have possibly drowned, you know, been walking on the
canal, slipped and fell in and the cell phone had fallen?
You had mentioned about the credit cards being used. Two suspects that Fresno police say that they are looking for used credit cards that day and
the next day in Fresno`s Tower district and in the city of Madera (ph). And they`re trying to find those two men to find out if they were involved
in her abduction or possibly did they find her purse or some, you know, item that she`d had the credit cards in.
[20:05:06]They don`t have a -- you know, they don`t know when those cards went missing, and they`re hoping for maybe -- you know, that would be clues
to her disappearance.
JACKSON: Yes, that`s significant, Liz. And as you`re speaking, we have the screen there. It shows where the canal is. It`s about three miles
from her home. You know, it gives an indication of the general area there in Fresno where she was reported. So the police don`t know.
Of course, it seems pretty curious that she speaks with her boyfriend, and then some time later, close in time, about 1:00 o`clock in the morning or
so, the police then learn that there`s someone who may have drowned in the canal. So do we know, Liz, at this point, whether there`s any connection?
And also, why was it the family reported her missing -- you said it was eight hours later?
KERN: It was about -- let`s see, it was about nine hours later, actually.
JACKSON: OK.
KERN: They -- the family said she`d actually gone missing before when she was around 14. So I think they were giving her time. They didn`t actually
tell us why. The police didn`t elaborate as to why the parents waited so long. And if they`d known perhaps about that call of a person drowning
that was just about 24 minutes after her phone call went dead with her boyfriend, then that`s something they could have looked in as a possible
connection. But there was such a lapse in time between the two incidents, between the reported drowning, and then, you know, the father calls in and
tells the police that she`s missing.
So they are looking into the possibility that she did fall into a canal. They are going to have the Fresno sheriff`s office dive team members
searching the canal. They`re also employing the Fresno fire department`s camera under the water. And they`re looking to possibly lower the canal,
talking to the irrigation district, to make the search a little bit easier.
JACKSON: Those things...
KERN: So that`s one -- sorry?
JACKSON: No, go ahead, Liz. I think those things will be pretty important. I think if the fire department has equipment that can see in
the canal, and of course, if they could lower it to get a sense of whether she may be in there -- we hope not -- but I think that equipment will go a
long way.
So Liz, stay on the line just for a moment, if you can, OK, because we have CNN contributor Stephen Moore. Lots of questions for him. He joins us
from Los Angeles. He, of course, is a former FBI agent, as well as an investigator. We appreciate you being with us, of course.
STEVE MOORE, FORMER FBI AGENT AND INVESTIGATOR, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Joey.
JACKSON: So take us through -- of course. So take us through. You know, obviously, the family is besides themselves by the fact that this girl`s
missing, this young woman. So what do you do, and how do you begin to even investigate the case such that you may be able to pair (ph) her back with
her family, or worse, find out if she may have met her demise?
MOORE: What you`re going to do first, Joey, is check cell phone records. As you know, you`re going to be able to triangulate and find out where she
was at least in a general area. My guess is that at the time the phone call dropped, she certainly didn`t have enough time to get to the canal
three miles away.
While you`re waiting for that information, you`re going to have a chat with the boyfriend. And you`re going to ask him, Your girlfriend is walking
along alone in the dark on gravel and she screams and the phone goes dead, and you didn`t call the police. Why not? You`re going to ask that. And
then you`re going to really press hard on those credit cards.
JACKSON: Now, Stephen, let me ask you, on that point, obviously, you`re going to check the phone records to make sure that this call was
legitimate, it was placed at the time that the boyfriend said it was and it was for the amount of time he said it was for.
What about surveillance issues in terms of any type of surveillance that would be in the area? You know, what about search and rescue efforts? How
is that going to play out?
MOORE: Well, first of all, search and rescue -- I think you`ve covered that very well. They`re going to be going in and checking those canals.
But it`s a good question.
You know, 1st and Olive, right in that area, is -- I think there`s liquor stores around. There`s places like that. Likely, she would have picked --
been picked up on some kind of camera. And a woman walking alone at 12:30 in the morning is not going to be walking behind liquor stores or an alley.
She`s going to be walking in lit areas. So there should be some video surveillance in that area that would have picked her up if she was right
there.
I`d want to also know how did the boyfriend know exactly where she was. If he`s concerned enough to ask that and then doesn`t call the police when she
swears and her phone goes dead, it`s -- it`s -- it`s not adding up.
JACKSON: And Steve Moore, I have to ask you this before we get to two outstanding lawyers. I just, you know, want to ask you to keep focusing on
the boyfriend. Obviously, you have to because he`s a potential suspect here. We don`t know. But ultimately, you can`t particularly focus on him,
right, because then you`re going to get the argument that law enforcement was blind to other things that could have occurred.
[20:10:05]What`s your theory briefly in terms of what you believe happened?
MOORE: Well, you`re absolutely, Joey. You can`t -- you can`t just tunnel vision on him. That`s why I`m saying you`re also going to be wanting to
drag the canal and you`re going to be looking very hard at that credit card. I mean, she`s wearing a shoulder bag. So if she fell into a canal,
the shoulder bag`s going to go with her. So I`ve got a problem with that scenario.
What I wanted to do always was eliminate family immediately so that I could get to a potential outsider who did this horrible thing. And it`s fairly
easy to eliminate family and boyfriends very quickly if their stories match up and they have an alibi.
And so what I`m doing is not focusing on them initially just out of tunnel vision. I want the get them out of the picture so that if they`re not
involved, I can get after what`s really gone on.
And my theory, Joey -- you asked me a while back -- is somebody -- somebody grabbed her. And beyond that, I don`t want to say because I don`t want the
parents hearing it on television.
JACKSON: Absolutely. Absolutely. We appreciate that. We do. Stand by, Stephen. I want to bring in two terrific lawyers. We have Kirby Clements.
He`s from Atlanta. And of course, we have Loni Coombs, also both good friends of mine.
And so Loni, we`ll start with you. Ladies first. Just in terms of your theory here -- you heard me ask Steve Moore about it. We don`t have a
defendant because there`s been nobody arrested here. But what do you think, Loni? Is this a crime of opportunity? Is it a crime of -- is it a
crime at all? Is it a crime of passion? What say you?
LONI COOMBS, FORMER L.A. COUNTY PROSECUTOR: Yes, Joey. It`s great to see you, by the way.
JACKSON: Thank you.
COOMBS: You know, there`s really three possibilities that pop up here. One is that it has something to do with some type of family member, either
boyfriend or the family. The second one is it was an accident. She somehow slipped in. She, you know, started falling. She was screaming and
it was an accident.
The third is this more nefarious thing that somehow, someone came up on her, a crime of opportunity, grabbed her, abducted her. Either something
happened in the canal or she was taken away.
The way it sounds with what the boyfriend describes in the phone call, that he hears her sort of surprised with an expletive, that she screams, it
sounds like there`s struggling, then her phone goes dead. They haven`t been able to find her phone. The phone has not been used.
It sounds like she was surprised, and something happened to her. That would be my guess out of the three possibilities. But like you said, they
need to work all three of those possibilities. They can`t focus on just one of them at this point.
JACKSON: They have to. So Kirby Clements, let me ask you this. And we have a full-screen I want to show you of the timeline. In picking apart
the timeline in terms of her coming home, right, and then she comes home first, we see it there, 12:30. She leaves after arguing with her mom. At
12:40, she then calls her boyfriend or allegedly calls her boyfriend. We`ll find out and the police will vet that to determine if it`s true.
And then, of course, we know that at 1:00 o`clock, we get this call about someone drowning in a canal. Then we have other issues in terms of the
usage of her credit cards, and we can`t jump to conclusions as to the person who used it being the person who may be responsible. It could be
that her bag was left somewhere.
But what does all this tell you? Her credit card is used, of course, 12 different times, 10 times, and then as you see there, two times on July
31st. What say you as to what occurred here?
KIRBY CLEMENTS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I will say this because it goes back to a time when I was a prosecutor. It`s entirely plausible she could
have fallen down into the canal or just been pushed down and that the people who used her credit card just found the purse there or got access to
the credit card. They could have found the purse on her body still attached and gone through there and used that.
So what I hear right now is a major -- did anything bad -- that is, did anyone cause her death? People certainly took advantage of her death by
utilizing her credit card. But what we don`t have is the boyfriend saying he heard voices or someone else saying, Give me your money, or anything
along those lines. So at this juncture, I sounds almost like she fell and then fell onto the canal.
JACKSON: It could be, Kirby. That`s if we credit the boyfriend`s statements. And Steve Moore, our law enforcement analyst, was somewhat
skeptical of that. But again, we`re not jumping to conclusions. We`re a long ways from finding out where she is. Hopefully, she`s brought back
home and she`s brought back safely.
Loni Coombs, stand by, Kirby Clements, stand by because earlier this week, we told you about a grisly discovery and that was of a body that was found
in an Ohio freezer. An unidentified body was stored in multiple bags.
Now those remains have actually been identified as Shannon Graves. You see here there. She`d been missing for months, and investigators want to know
who killed her and why. That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:18:50]JACKSON: We have a sad new twist in a mystery we brought to you the other night. Police have identified the body that was found in a
freezer in an Ohio home. As suspected, it was indeed Shannon Graves. She`s there as depicted on your screen. She was a 28-year-old that
vanished in February.
Now, police have charged the couple -- that`s Arturo Novoa and Katrina Layton -- with abuse of a corpse. Shannon Graves had dated and lived with
Novoa in Youngstown. Now, prosecutors say that Katrina Layton assumed Graves`s identity when she went missing. They say that she moved in with
Novoa, drove her car, used her cell phone and even took care of her dog.
Then late last month, the couple allegedly moved the padlocked freezer to a nearby home, and soon after, the home owner found remains inside that
freezer and called the police.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEN EASENBAUGH, DISCOVERED BODY IN FREEZER: That`s when I saw her leg. Me and my wife were just screaming. (INAUDIBLE) came up and I went to the
front of the steps and I called 911.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JACKSON: Now we know who that body was in the freezer, and that, of course, as we told you, is Shannon Graves. Janet Rogers is a reporter with
CNN affiliate WFMJ. She actually interviewed the home owner who found the body in the freezer. And she joins us from Youngstown, Ohio. Must have
been fascinating. So please, and welcome, how was that interview and what did you learn?
[20:20:10]JANET ROGERS, WFMJ CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Joey. It was -- for people who cover news, or you know, cover motorcycle accidents, someone in
forensics or police, basically finding a body might not be as terrifying. Still horrifying, but again it might not be as scary or horrifying as it is
for a couple who`s never had to deal with anything like this.
They have an autistic son. They were going to -- she was going to make spaghetti. And so she opened the freezer lock, the three screws that took
the padlock off, so she could open it. And when she looked inside, she saw garbage bags and -- a garbage bag and a pail. And she basically thought
something was very wrong. She screwed it back on.
And when her husband came home, she said, Something is really wrong. I was going to make spaghetti for our son. He`s autistic and he loves spaghetti.
And she was going to get the meat and replace it.
And he said it took him about five minutes before he could even go look because then, suddenly, he started fearing the worst because he did know
Shannon Graves. She had spent time at the home. He thought she was a very polite, very nice woman, and was just terrified because, suddenly, things
starting adding up. She had been missing.
So when he finally got up the courage to go look in the freezer, he saw the garbage bag. He basically tried to open it. It was frozen solid. And he
said that he tried and that didn`t work. So he went and he got -- you know, he got a knife and he cut one bag. And he said it was a heavy duty
contractor`s bag. And then he got to another layer and there was another bag, and then that is when the smell hit him.
And then, basically, he cut open another bag and that`s when he saw the foot and leg. And he -- they both screamed. They went and called 911.
They have been crying. When I spoke with them on Sunday, a day after they found that body and called 911 immediately, he was so shaken. He was
crying. He broke down crying numerous times. He said, I trusted this man. I let him watch my son. My son doesn`t really bond with a lot of people,
but he liked Arturo Novoa. And he really only knew him as Anthony Gonzalez. He didn`t know him as Arturo Novoa.
So they made that call immediately. They are absolutely traumatized. He says terrifying, horrifying -- those words don`t even begin to describe how
he feels. He says they need to make up a new word in the dictionary to describe this. Sleep...
JACKSON: Janet...
ROGERS: They say they can`t get that image out of their head.
JACKSON: Janet, I couldn`t even imagine how horrifying it would be to go getting ready to cook spaghetti and meatballs, and you go to a freezer and
it`s a body in there. So I don`t know when, if ever, they`ll get over this. But we certainly appreciate your very thorough reporting on it. And
of course, we`ll keep our viewers posted in terms of, you know, what develops in the case.
I do want to turn to the attorneys, of course, Loni Coombs and Kirby. We have you there, Kirby Clements. There you go.
So I want to play a sound bite for you. And Loni, I want you to react to it. I have another sound bite for you to react to, as well, Kirby
Clements. But I want the play this sound bite and see what you think. It has to go with him being such an outstanding member of the community.
Let`s see what`s said about him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seemed like a nice guy, a legitimately nice guy to me. I mean, I never seen him mean. I never seen him raise his voice to nobody.
(INAUDIBLE) in your life.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JACKSON: So Loni, character evidence, all right? You`re in a trial setting, and it comes in. This is a wonderful guy. He, of course, would
do nothing like this at all. This is not in his MO. How do you go about overcoming that in a courtroom?
COOMBS: Well, you know, Joey, we`ve seen this over and over again. We`ve seen people who, you know, seem to be the nicest neighbor, a great family
member end up doing really horrible things.
And that`s why in this case, it`s extremely crucial for the prosecution to find out exactly what the cause of death was, how this poor woman was
killed, if she was killed. Was it accidental? Because they`re going to have to overcome the defense saying, Look, he didn`t do any of this. He
wasn`t responsible for her death. He might have moved the freezer where her body was, and that`s what he`s been charged with is, you know, doing
this horrible thing with the corpse. But the question will be, did he murder this woman?
And when you have people saying he`s this wonderful man, that doesn`t fit him, that`s why the prosecution really has to get that cause of death from
the coroner and be able to prove what really happened to this poor woman.
JACKSON: Yes, they sure do, Loni. And you know that although, again, it`s -- abuse of a corpse at this point that the prosecution is heading for that
other charge, which is murder.
COOMBS: Right.
[20:25:03]JACKSON: So Kirby, I`ll turn to you. And I want you to react to this sound bite because they have quite a bit of evidence on him, including
a set of keys to that freezer. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA LANTZ, YOUNGSTOWN CITY PROSECUTOR: There was a padlock at the bottom of the freezer. The keys for that padlock were in Mr. Novoa`s possession
at the time of his arrest. He denied or disavowed any knowledge of any freezer and never moving anything, contrary to what multiple witnesses say.
But (INAUDIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JACKSON: Short on time, Kirby, but defend that. How do you defend that?
CLEMENTS: Well, I think that the main question is what`s inside of that freezer and how did it get there? And insofar as having the keys, yes, he
had the keys. But you know, people have keys on their key ring. I got, like, 15 keys. I don`t know what half of them are for on my key ring, so
that he had it doesn`t really mean anything. And the next part is he may not still be responsible for her death. Maybe he was locked -- she was
locked in there by someone else, and he just happened to have the key. So right now, it`s a whole lot of guesswork.
JACKSON: Always a question of fact for a jury. So Loni, stand by. Kirby, stand by. We`re moving on.
A beautiful young woman is murdered by her supervisor. And you know what? Her killer is locked up, but could there be employer responsibility for her
death, as well? We`ll discuss.
[20:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JACKSON: In Wisconsin, a double killing that left a young woman and her unborn baby as the victims. Now, here`s what happened. A manager who worked
at the Home Depot, you`re looking at him there, and one of his employees attended a wedding together. Now, the boss wanted to date her. She turned
him down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAY PELRINE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY (voice-over): He wished it to be more and wanted it to be more and hoped it would be more. And he invited her to a
family wedding that was going to be taking place in Door County this weekend. But he expressed purpose of hopefully having that relationship go
to a more romantic level that he wished, but she clearly did not wish.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JACKSON: So after the wedding, they went back to the hotel, and that`s where Alisha Bromfield went to sleep. Soon it went horrifically downhill
for the 21-year-old Alisha who was seven months pregnant at the time. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PELRINE (voice-over): He had awakened her about sometime between 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning, got on top of her, and with his hands he strangled her
to death. After killing her, he then undressed her and undressed himself, and had sexual intercourse with her body.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JACKSON: Now, Brian Cooper was convicted in the death of Alisha and her unborn baby. He was given two life sentences without the possibility of
parole. He appealed the verdict and a state appellate court says that that request is denied. But the story isn`t over and others could also be held
responsible for the mother-to-be`s death.
Dan O`Donnell is the host of the Dan O`Donnell Show on News/Talk 1130 WISN. He joins us from Milwaukee. So, please take us through it. What`s the
status of the -- this is civil liability, right, for monetary damages. Who is being sued and what`s the status of it?
DAN O`DONNELL, HOST, NEWS/TALK 1130 WISN (via telephone): The status is that this is a lawsuit against Home Depot as well as a number of
contractors in which the mother of Alisha is claiming that, because Home Depot, which contracted through a company called Grand, to operate its
floral displays, its garden supplies at Home Depot stores in Illinois, that because it continued to employ Brian Cooper even though Home Depot and
Grand`s management teams both had adequate knowledge that he was acting incredibly inappropriately around a number of his employees, not just
Alisha, but a number of other girls, that they were in effect negligent.
And because he had access to her and was actually technically, according to the lawsuit, on the clock, as was she as Home Depot employees are
contractors at the time, that they are in fact liable for her murder.
JACKSON: And take us through that. My understanding is that initially, the complaint was filed, and then the appellant court said that, you know what,
you don`t have a case. It was dismissed. And then ultimately it`s reinstated now. So, take us through that process and where are we?
O`DONNELL (via telephone): Yes, that`s right. The original district court said, no, there is no case, you can`t sue Home Depot here. This was -- Home
Depot didn`t have a realistic enough responsibility just by employing this guy. Because obviously, who could predict that he would go off and strangle
this woman?
However, it went up to the appellate court level. The appellate court said, no, we`re going to reinstate this because the plaintiff, the mother, should
have a chance to make her case. Now, she did so.
And Home Depot actually just filed about a month ago, a little more than a month ago, they just filed an answer to this complaint in which they`re
saying, look, we just contracted with this other company, Grand, which actually employed Brian Cooper and also Alisha Bromfield, so we have no
responsibility, this is one of our contractors.
They basically answered every point that the lawsuit raised with, at no time were any of these people employed by Home Depot.
JACKSON: Absolutely. That`s my understanding of it. So the legal beat will continue. Dan, stand by. I want to bring in the lawyers on this because
there is a lot of legal questions here. Of course, we`re not talking about the criminal elements of it anymore, Loni Coombs and Kirby Clements, we`re
talking about civil.
And for those at home, of course, that relates to monetary damages. So, is Home Depot responsible? So, Loni, I`ll start with you. You have a
supervisor who is apparently harassing an employee. They go to this wedding. She`s killed as a result of that.
The employer, Home Depot, appeared to have been on notice that he was engaging in that harassment. Did they do enough and are there viable claims
here that Home Depot will be held responsible in her death?
COOMBS: Yes, Joey, you know, it`s an interesting question because this is not just the
[20:35:00] typical -- this is the supervisor and is the company responsible for what the supervisor is doing to harass, you know, an underling? They
were away from work. They were at this wedding. And so, I think that`s why the first court that listened to it just kicked it away, kicked it out and
said, you know, that`s too far.
The court of appeals who reinstated it quoted a very interesting statistic. They said, look, in the recent years, over 60 people have been killed
intentionally by co-workers. The fact that they were outside of work doesn`t mean that we shouldn`t be holding people responsible.
And the question is, did he somehow use his position as a supervisor to pressure her to go to this wedding with him and the allegation is that he
threatened to get her fired if she didn`t go with him. He`s still using that position as a supervisor to get her to this outside event, then that
can bring in potential liability for the employers, for Home Depot and the other contractors.
JACKSON: See? And that`s exactly right, Loni. That raises the interesting question because -- and I`ll turn to you on this, Kirby Clements, because
you`re not on -- well, you`re not on the clock, number one. You`re not in your place of employment, number two.
But are you using what is your supervisory authority in the workplace to apply pressure outside the workplace? And so to what extent does that stick
or should it stick with you?
CLEMENTS: Well, working from the defense side for Home Depot --
JACKSON: Yes.
CLEMENTS: -- there are two issues. Number one, if a person is not furthering their employer`s interests, then they`re furthering their own
interests. And the employer can`t necessarily be responsible for that because if you consider that, that would say if you meet and start dating
someone who works at Dome Depot and then they kill you outside of Home Depot, then it`s Home Depot`s fault because that`s where you met them, that
wouldn`t flow.
Now I understand the idea of him utilizing his supervisory position for the purposes of trying to get her in an off campus, if you will, arrangement,
but then that also goes back to is it Home Depot`s fault or would it be Grand`s fault? Because Home Depot says we hire -- we brought Grand on.
They`re supposed to supervise this person. So, even if all you say is true, it`s not our fault. It`s the responsibility of his direct supervisor and
his direct employer, Grand. So, Home Depot kind of has two defenses.
JACKSON: They do, Kirby. You and Loni both articulate them very well. Both Loni for the plaintiff`s side and you for Home Depot`s side. But just take
a look at these post (ph) screens I want to show you, one at a time, in terms of what happened at the workplace and look at the quotes, OK?
On one occasion, you have Cooper that called Alisha a yes, S-L-U-T and a W- H-O-R-E at Home Depot Shorewood when Alisha asked him for a day off. So, that happened in a workplace. So, to what extent now are you going to say
if you`re the employer, you know this is going on, you know that they`re being antagonized.
Shouldn`t, Loni, an employer at Home Depot have the, you know, ability to step in so it doesn`t move to outside circumstances and that she`s not
dead?
COOMBS: Exactly. And I think that`s one of the things -- thank you. I think that`s one of the things that was alleged. She`d been working here for five
years. This had been going on for five years, and she had told top managers that he was verbally harassing her, that he`d thrown things at her in
public places, and she had actually asked that she not be alone with him.
So, if all of these people are on notice of this and had not taken any action, the fact that it continued into this point where it got to such a
tragic end, I can see why they`re saying, look, you should have done something a long time ago. It never would have gotten to this point. And
you were on notice.
JACKSON: And Kirby, I know you have a lot to say about that, but, you know, interestingly, we don`t have time for it. But you at home, you know, are
the jury. You can decide for whether Loni Coombs has the winning argument or Kirby Clements. Does an appellant court could even decide it, right?
District court, appellate court. So, a lot more on this story coming up without a doubt.
So last week we told you about an Ohio mom, and she was facing murder charges for allegedly smothering her three sons to death over an 11-month
period of time. Actually, it was 13 months. Shortly after her arrest, she confessed. Her attorneys now want that confession thrown out. They claim
that they want to thrown out because she had a low IQ and brain damage.
Logan County prosecutors, however, responded to that motion, and they argue this week that the doctors picked by the defense to analyze Brittany
Pilkington are nothing more than human lie detector tests in the guise of clinical evaluation. Wow. It also urged the court not to throw out her
confession. If convicted, she could be sentenced to death.
And a fight over $125. That`s right. Only $125 fee for a wedding album cover and it ends up costing a newlywed couple $1 million plus after their
online assault on the photographer backfires. That`s next.
[20:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JACKSON: So last night, we brought you a story about humans fighting over a photo that a monkey took of himself. The monkey selfie. So tonight, we have
another battle, and it also involves pictures. Now, this one involves a wedding photographer, a bride and a groom, that`s Andrew and Neely
Moldovan. They hired Andrea Polito`s company for their nuptial in the Dallas area.
So, after the wedding, the deal went sour over $125 that Polito wanted for the album`s cover photo. The couple said that she was holding their photos
hostage. They then went to the local media with the story. So the Polito say that the news coverage and the social media postings ruined her
business in a flash. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:45:00] ANDREA POLITO, PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER: I felt completely dead. You know, it was my passion. And I loved my clients, and I loved what
I did. It was really hard. My reputation was everything to me. And my business was destroyed overnight. I was paying cash everywhere because I
didn`t want people to see my name on my credit card.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JACKSON: So, Polito sued the couple. Now a jury has found the couple liable for $1 million in damages. Talk about choosing your battles. Andrea Polito
joins us from Dallas. She`s joined by her attorney, Dave Wishnew, I believe is on the phone.
Good to see you and thank you so much for being here and thank you for standing up for your rights. Tell us, you know, how did this have you
feeling initially when you`re being castigated in the media and the stories being told were not even accurate. Take us through that.
POLITO: It was awful. It all happened so quickly. I received a message after the story had aired from a local wedding friend saying that I need to
go to my Facebook page immediately because it was getting bashed by haters all over the place. And it was -- it was sad. I was scared. I had horrible
people writing horrible things like McDonald`s hiring now that you`re out of business and --
JACKSON: Ouch.
POLITO: -- leave nickels and dimes to JC (ph) hashtag Andrea`s poor life choices. Sorry.
JACKSON: No, it`s okay.
POLITO: It was really bad.
JACKSON: You spent so much time building your business and you know you`re doing the right thing, you`re providing a service, and then there`s this
misinformation. And you know, Andrea, living in a day and age now of social media, in an instant, right, you could just have your reputation wrecked.
You know, you got Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and everything else. So, how did you end up righting this wrong and what gave you the courage to take it
through the courts and ultimately prevail?
POLITO: It was the right thing to do. When all this happened, after all the media attention and all the story getting shared originally and all of the
bullying online, I wrote an open letter that went viral. I had so many people reach out to me saying similar things had happened to them, and it
broke my heart.
And it`s the right thing to do. People need to understand that they`re -- sorry -- that there are lives and businesses and families on the other side
of the keyboard.
And it affects people, and I hope that people just learn that, you know, if they have a bad day or something, you know, has upset them, that are other
ways to communicate instead of going online and having friends and starting a whole, you know, cyber bullying attack on a business because it affects
people.
JACKSON: Absolutely, Andrea. Of course it does. So, Andrea, I`m going to take a moment because I`m going to turn to your attorney now. And if I
could just ask the attorney -- I think we have him. Do we have Dave Wishnew?
DAVID WISHNEW, ATTORNEY FOR ANDREA POLITO (via telephone): Hi, how are you?
JACKSON: I`m very good, thank you, and thank you for standing up for truth and justice in the American way. So when Andrea came to you, what was your
reaction and what did you do to take this case moving forward and ultimately prevail through the jury system?
WISHNEW (via telephone): Well, when she came in the door, I mean, my heart broke for her. I mean, seeing a business taken down seemed like overnight.
It was just, you know, terrible to see.
But what we did was in Texas, we have a rule of procedure called Rule 202 where you can take pre-suit depositions so I could gather the evidence I
needed for what I knew was going to be a motion to dismiss based on Texas` very strong anti-flap statute, you know, a statute designed to, you know,
protect free speech.
JACKSON: Yes.
WISHNEW (via telephone): So we mounted our evidence. We bid (ph) promotion to dismiss. They appealed it. We went up on appeal. And the appellate court
affirmed the trial court`s wise decision. And then it got sent back down. And after 2-1/2 years later, we got a great jury verdict last Friday.
JACKSON: And so how did you do it? You know, I`m not the only attorney here. We have two other attorneys, Loni Coombs and Kirby Clements. We all
want to get million dollar verdicts. How did you prevail upon the jury to get them just, you know, really persuade them that this is the right thing
to do? There`s Loni and Kirby there.
WISHNEW (via telephone): Actually, this was a case about an online public smear campaign. A couple takes a fabricated story, pushes it to make it go
viral, had the means to do it because they`re -- the wife is a social media expert and blogger with, you know, 100,000 plus followers and connections.
And with
[20:50:00] their messages and documents we received in discovery that showed their malice, their intent, and their intent to gather ammunition to
ruin Andrea`s business, to make the story go viral, you know, the media focus was on the malice, what they wanted to do. And then the horrible
things that were posted. And they started a wildfire of lies on the internet.
It brought a business crashing down. And then, you know, the self-promotion aspect of it because the bride has -- had a blog that had sponsored
postings and with more traffic comes more postings and more postings comes more money, I don`t think that the jury cared for that very much, the self-
interest and self-promotion.
JACKSON: Dave, apparently not. You must have had the jurors crying. I think it`s important here, Andrea, if I can just turn back to you, I think, you
know, this sends a message also to everyone else, right? The social media bullies who have information out there. And I think that`s why with what
you did is such a valuable thing. How is your business now?
POLITO: Well, after all this happened, I actually had to close my business October of 2015. So, right now, I`m not shooting weddings, but I`m hopeful
that I will get back and, you know, the future will be bright.
JACKSON: What message do you have, Andrea, for other small business owners like you who are trying to do the right thing, have the American dream and
ultimately comes crashing down because of social media and its misuse, in this situation? What would you advise them? Because, like it or not, you`re
the face of that to a large measure now.
POLITO: Right. I just hope that people understand that it`s okay to fight and it`s the right thing to do. And you have to fight for your passion.
That`s why I had to do this. My reputation and my name and my business after 13 years was everything to me. I feel like that was taken away
unjustly.
And I fought. And I feel like I have me back and, you know, in so many words. And I just hope that people learn that it`s okay. You don`t have to
give in. You don`t have to feel like you`re cornered. And stand up for what you believe. And I hope that my story is giving you a little bit of courage
to fight for your business as well.
JACKSON: It certainly has. It certainly has. So, we thank you very much, Andrea Polito.
POLITO: Thank you.
JACKSON: And your attorney who did a fabulous job for you. So, you know, keep going. Keep going and keep fighting. Kirby Clements, let me just bring
you in momentarily. I cut you off last time. But just with the overall thought. You think she would be able to collect on the million and was this
the right thing to do? Is it a right verdict?
CLEMENTS: I think it was the right thing to do, if someone is defaming you and saying things that aren`t true, you need to litigate that matter. She
handled it the proper way. That`s first thing. Do I think that she`ll collect? Obviously, this woman is a blogger. So it sounds to me like she`s
receiving some income.
There`s money there. I wish this poor woman tremendous luck in getting her business back on foot and hopefully maybe people seeing this will realize
that she`s an outstanding photographer and deserves not just really a second chance, deserves to get her first chance back.
JACKSON: How the world turns, right? One day it looks one way, you come back, million dollar verdict. Good stuff here. Loni Coombs stand by. You,
too, Kirby.
I want to tell you about something else. And that`s this Sunday. Because this Sunday, PRIMETIME is prime time on HLN. You`re not going to miss one
minute of it. John Walsh is back at it. He`s putting fugitives on notice in the new season of "THE HUNT." Don`t miss your chance to help bring them to
justice this week on Walsh`s on the hunt for Herman Carroll, a serial child molester who preys on young women. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Herman Carroll would make games with his daughter. He would say, for instance, on this camping trip he told her to go catch a
frog. If she couldn`t catch the frog, he gets to play with her later. If she doesn`t listen to what he says, then he gets to play with her later.
If she disobeys in any way, he gets to play with her later. He would use this sexual molestation as a form of punishment. In 1983, Herman Carroll
was convicted of raping his young daughter. He did go to trial for that, and he was sentenced to 48 days in jail and two years probation. There were
no sex offender registration laws in 1983 in the state of Illinois.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JACKSON: Herman Carroll is currently on the run.
[20:55:00] Help track him down by watching "THE HUNT" with John Walsh. That`s Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, only on HLN. We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JACKSON: In June, Michelle Carter was found guilty of manslaughter when her boyfriend committed suicide. Prosecutors said that her weapon was her
phone. And the jury agreed that her texts and a phone call to Conrad Roy, as he struggled with his decision, pushed him over edge and led to his
death.
Tomorrow, Michelle Carter will be back in court to hear her sentence, and HLN`s special coverage begins at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. Then at 7:00 Eastern,
join us for a special edition of "Primetime Justice" focusing on Carter`s sentence and what it might mean for other defendants in the age of instant
messages and social media.
On behalf of Ashleigh Banfield and the entire PRIMETIME JUSTICE team, there`s Loni Coombs and there is Kirby Clements, Loni Coombs for the
prosecution, Kirby Clements for the defense, Atlanta and L.A.
[21:00:00] And thanks to everyone there at home. We appreciate you joining us. I`m Joey Jackson. "FORENSIC FILES" begins right now.
END
