Return to Transcripts main page
Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
Murder Trial Underway; Urgent Hunt For Killer; Definition of Rape. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired September 13, 2017 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST (voice-over): Fifteen years old and missing for a month.
JASMINE BLOCK, ESCAPED FROM KIDNAPPERS: It was the longest time (INAUDIBLE) days of my life.
BANFIELD: Sometimes, they do come home, and Jasmine Block is proof.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tied her up with zip ties.
BANFIELD: Kidnapped, beaten and repeatedly raped, police say she finally made a break for it.
J. BLOCK: I`m not a good swimmer.
BANFIELD: And swam, yes, swam, to safety.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re going to help you now.
BANFIELD: But her story of survival is only just beginning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought I heard her call my name before.
BANFIELD: The disappearance of Holly Bobo had investigators stumped.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`ll never give up until you`re back home with us!
BANFIELD: But almost four years after she vanished...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is a three gallon bucket sitting here upside down in the woods?
BANFIELD: ... hunters find her body. Now prosecutors say they found Holly`s killer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) blanket, finds her head and fires a shot.
BANFIELD: And say he is his own worst enemy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He told me that he was going to tie me up just like he did Holly Bobo and nobody would ever find me again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I`m scared.
BANFIELD: One moment, a mom of three is home with her toddler. The next, she`s attacked and killed. The baby`s still in the home. But the home
invaders left a digital trail of clues. Have you seen this car? And have the killers struck before?
Plus, he`s been called the Stanford rapist. Now he`s literally a textbook definition. Brock Turner served just three months for a drunken sex
assault that hospitalized his victim. See how his mug shot will now live in infamy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Good evening, I`m Ashleigh Banfield. This is PRIMETIME JUSTICE.
The odds are grim, the stories bear out, when a child goes missing, there`s a slim chance with the passage of time they will ever be seen alive again.
Just ask the Ramseys or Marc Klaas or John Walsh. But sometimes, those odds can be beaten. Just ask the parents of Elizabeth Smart.
And today, you can ask the parents of Jasmine Block. Jasmine had just turned 15 one month ago when she disappeared from her home in Minnesota.
For 29 days, her family feared those stats, but for 29 days, Jasmine was not dead and would come back.
But Jasmine was suffering an unbearable hell. Police say a family acquaintance lured her away from her home, restrained her with zipties,
locked her in a closet in his home and repeatedly assaulted her both physically and sexually. And he wasn`t the only one. Police say he had
two friends join in on his sick and twisted plot.
But Jasmine got her break when the three men left her alone just long enough to make her escape. And it was like something out of a movie. She
bolted from the home and made it six-and-a-half miles over land and water, mostly swimming along the shoreline of a lake. She had knocked on
countless unanswered doors before she realized she would have a very long journey to safety.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did you think that was a good time to get away?
J. BLOCK: Because they were gone. And they said that it would be about an hour until they`d get back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know how to swim?
J. BLOCK: I`m not a good swimmer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You must have been really scared.
J. BLOCK: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Once out of the lake, it was not long before a farmer found Jasmine and rescued her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looking out here in the grassland here, she was up so I could see her, but I couldn`t tell what it was. When she came walking out
of the grass, I went, Oh, my gosh, you got to be kidding me. It was great. It was just a great feeling. And I get in the pickup, We`re going to help
you now, so...
Anybody can call 911. It`s just I was in the right place at the right time. It was like somebody shined a big beam of light on me yesterday for
some reason. And I don`t know, it was -- it was -- I was kind of on an high all day long yesterday, so...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Within a few hours, a rogue`s gallery was released by the police -- Thomas Baker, Joshua Holby and Steven Powers. They have been charged
with multiple counts of kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct and false imprisonment.
Drew Lee is the co-host of "Justice & Drew" on KTLK, AM 1130. He joins me from Minneapolis.
Drew, if you read the story on paper, you wouldn`t believe it. And if it weren`t for the police coming forward and saying this happened and Jasmine
herself coming forward and saying this happened, you wouldn`t believe it. Take me through this crime. What happened?
DREW LEE, CO-HOST, "JUSTICE & DREW," KTLK AM 1130: It really does sound like something out of a gruesome horror movie that I would never want to
watch.
Jasmine was home alone on an evening. It was around 11:00, 11:30 at night when she went outside and came across this family acquaintance. He had
told her that he was having some trouble with his son, needed her help to help kind of get his son under control, that he was misbehaving and wasn`t
listening to her.
[20:00:08]Because it was a family acquaintance, because it was somebody she knew, she got in his car, and that`s when things went totally awry. He
ended up taking her to his house, tying her up with zipties, and as you detailed, holding her prisoner in a closet most of the time for 29 days.
BANFIELD: So the police were very clear with the press, as were Jasmine and her mom, which is the only reason we are discussing this publicly and
openly. Otherwise, the policy is clear. You do not name victims of sexual assault. But Jasmine and her mom have come forward and they have been very
clear and very open with these details.
Jasmine was taken to the home, allegedly, of Thomas Barker, this family associate. And ultimately, if I`m not mistaken, he shared that home with
Joshua Holby, this co-defendant. And Joshua became part of this plot immediately. Ultimately, what happened in that home?
LEE: The details are very disturbing, so I want to let you know that before I lay these out. There were multiple sexual assaults over the
course of the 29 days. Jasmine indicated to police that he engaged in sexual intercourse, quote, "from the front and the rear" multiple times.
He forced her to engage in oral sex on at least 10 occasions over the course of that 29 days.
The other -- something -- the other defendant, Holby, did not apparently engage in that sexual activity with her. But while she was tied up with
zipties, she was held captive in a closet. At one point, she alleges that the men tried to drown her. They put a duffel bag over her head and held
her down in the bathtub, but she was able to get just enough air and hold her head up just enough to foil that attempt.
Another incident, she was tied around her neck with a rope or a cord and forced to stand on a bucket, and then he forced her off that bucket and
there was a period of time where she said she was unable to breathe. They forced her to snort lines of white powder. She wasn`t sure what it was,
but she was forced to snort lines of white powder.
And perhaps most disturbingly, she was forced to -- there was alcohol forced into her rectum by one of the men while she was being held captive.
Just a gory and gruesome list of allegations that these men did to this poor girl.
BANFIELD: At 15, the fact that she was able to outline so clearly the incidents against her by count and by person, specifics is remarkable. The
fact that she has been able to lead them to her captors -- she was a big part of their capture, all three of them -- is remarkable. The fact that
she made it those six-and-a-half miles mostly swimming is remarkable.
I want to ask you about one fact in this case that I find even perhaps more remarkable, and that is that while she was captive somewhere in the back of
that house or even in the closet, that house had a visit paid to it by authorities. Police were there while she was there. How did they miss
her?
LEE: She was held in a part of the house way in the back where she couldn`t be heard, she couldn`t be seen, and at least at the time, the
captors thought she wasn`t able to escape. Most of the time, they had her locked up in a closet.
So -- and this was a very high-profile missing persons case in this small town. It`s about 130 miles southeast of the Twin Cities. So everybody
knew that this girl had gone missing. Everybody had seen her pictures.
So it`s not surprising that police were perhaps doing some door-to-door sweeps and just maybe asking questions, but not really probing too much
further into what clearly didn`t look to them at the time like a very suspicious situation.
BANFIELD: You know, 29 days is a long time. And at that point, clearly, they have to look after this person. If they kept her alive, they had to
be feeding her. They had to be looking after her in some respects. What did police say about -- did they try to starve her at any time? Did they
keep her regularly fed? What did they do in terms of caring for the person they were victimizing regularly allegedly?
LEE: Jasmine says that there were no attempts to starve her. They did feed her food various times. It was mostly Taco Bell or other forms of
fast food. They -- they were taking care of her.
It`s unusual that there were these attempts on her life at some point, with the apparent drowning and the attempt to hang her from the cord around her
neck, yet they still took care of her.
[20:10:00]So I`m not sure what that indicates about the state of mind of their captors, but clearly, there was some confusion going on with how they
wanted to treat her over the course of this 29 days.
BANFIELD: So, you know, we`ve heard about the zip ties. I don`t know if it was for the entire 29 days that she was ziptied or if they had changed
the way they restrained her at different times, but there was at least this one moment where she did get away.
It is odd to think at this point, Drew, that they would leave their captive unrestrained and unsupervised with that perfect window for the escape. Do
we know anything about the details of how she actually made it out of that house?
LEE: We don`t know a lot about the specific instances of what was going on specifically when she was able to escape. She was told -- she told -- the
captors told her that they would be gone for about an hour. And that`s when she knew she had the window of opportunity. She had the opportunity
to get out.
Why she wasn`t restrained and why she wasn`t kept in the closet over that time, one can only speculate. Perhaps they had been holding her captive
for so long that they just started to get a little lax with taking those sorts of precautions, for lack of a better word.
BANFIELD: And certainly, Drew, to be clear, we don`t know. Perhaps there`s a detail the police aren`t telling us at this point. Maybe she was
restrained and was able to free herself. Maybe the closet seemed to be locked, or maybe she was able to get out in some way. Clearly, there`s
still a lot that we don`t know about this crime and this escape, correct?
LEE: 29 days is a long time. And it`s a long time to learn about your captors. It`s a long time to learn about your environment. Perhaps she
had seen something that her captors were not aware of regarding the security of the house and the security of where she was being held. And
when they left her for an hour, she took that opportunity and very heroically, very remarkably, she was able to travel those 6.5 miles, get
across a lake that is about a thousand feet wide east to west, and double that north to south, and fortunately found this farmer just working out on
his farm who immediately knew who she was, or understood that this was the missing girl that had been so highly publicized for the last month.
BANFIELD: I want to play a little bit from the chief, who spoke -- Richard Wyffels -- about the conditions that she had in the closet and how they
kept her alive, like you said, with Taco Bell. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, were they feeding her?
CHIEF RICHARD WYFFELS, ALEXANDRIA POLICE DEPARTMENT: They did feed her. They did not starve her. They did feed her food, various things from Taco
Bell to fast food, different things from time to time. I don`t know about how regular or anything of those natures. They did keep her in a secure
part of the house where she couldn`t leave, in the back part of the house, oftentimes in a closet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Hearing those details, Drew, you can imagine what her mother`s reaction was. I want to play for you what Sarah Block, Jasmine`s mom, said
about this period of time where she had no idea she`d ever see her child again. Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH BLOCK, MOTHER: It was the longest 29 days of my life. He goes, Sarah, we found Jasmine. And at that point, I pretty much tuned him out
because I was, like, hysterically crying. I was (INAUDIBLE) on him, like, Where is she? Where is she?
They all came in to see Jasmine. They said this case is going to be their case of a lifetime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: With me now, former sex crimes prosecutor Dan Schorr. Boy, this case is right up your alley. And I think the first question I have for
you, when Drew outlined those two incidents that she allegedly suffered at her captors` hands, where they put her in a duffel bag and put her in a
bathtub under water -- she said she could get her face enough above the surface to survive that. They also allegedly put her on a bucket, tied a
cord or a rope around her neck and kicked the bucket away, and she for a point of time couldn`t breathe. To me, that sounds like attempted murder.
DAN SCHORR, FORMER SEX CRIMES PROSECUTOR: It does because you can`t imagine any scenario where they would have let her go after doing all this
conduct for a month because she`s obviously going to go to law enforcement. It`s a high-profile case. So eventually, you would think in a case like
this they would have tried try to kill her and those allegations are that they did.
BANFIELD: But no attempted murder in this -- in this charge list.
SCHORR: But often, there`s initial charges that are brought to detain people, and then there might be an indictment or a superseding complain.
Ultimately, they`ll probably bring attempted murder charges. But remember, she can get -- because she was assaulted for so long, there could be
consecutive time for every single act of sexual assault. So there will be enough charges to put them away for the rest of their lives.
BANFIELD: Hundreds of years.
SCHORR: Absolutely. So...
BANFIELD: Hundreds of years.
SCHORR: So whether they add attempted murder or not, when you have that many sexual assaults over almost a month in sadistic fashion...
BANFIELD: Just quickly since you know so much about sex crimes and the sadistic nature of how they prosecute these crimes when they`re doing them
-- do you think it`s possible that those instances maybe weren`t attempted murder but were an attempt to terrify her so that she wouldn`t run? It was
a torture, it was a psychological game they played with her to show this is what can happen to you if you run?
[20:15:06]SCHORR: It`s possible. But on the other side, they could never let her go without getting in trouble for all that they had done. So you
would think that at some point, they would have tried to kill her. And that might have been the beginning of the attempts to kill her. There`s no
way they could have just released her at some point because...
BANFIELD: It`s amazing that she was that terrorized and still took that opportunity to get away. So many kids wouldn`t.
There is absolutely no doubt that 15-year-old Jasmine Block is a warrior and is a survivor. But how is she going to cope with this ordeal? How
will she heal? Going to talk to a rape survivor in a moment, Cheryl Hunter, who went through something similar, about what Jasmine was dealing
with in those 29 days and what she`s going to deal with for the hundreds and hundreds of days she has left.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:20:06]UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After 29 harrowing days, Jasmine Block is safe and has been reunited with her family. She was kidnapped, held
against her will and repeatedly assaulted during her captivity. Barker tied her up with zipties. And then he, his roommate and a friend over the
next several weeks repeatedly assaulted Ms. Block and threatened her with weapons.
When Jasmine escaped, she bravely ran from door to door of nearby properties trying to find someone to help. She eventually swam across a
portion of Thompson (ph) Lake in Grant (ph) County to a residential area, where she located a man and asked him to call 911.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Police in Minnesota -- you heard them -- a 15-year-old girl abducted, held captive, sexually assaulted, physically assaulted for a
month, but she escaped and made it to safety, and three men are now charged in the crime. But it could be a long road to recovery for Jasmine not just
physically but mentally, as well.
I want to bring back Drew Lee with a few more details. Drew, the third person in this crime -- it`s sort of astounding -- Steven Powers enters the
picture two weeks in. What`s the story with that?
LEE: I don`t know much about Steven Powers. He is also charged with the one count of kidnapping, with the one count of criminal sexual conduct in
the first degree, fear of great bodily harm. The family acquaintance Thomas Baker and his roommate, Joshua Holby, both in their 30s, Steven
Powers just 20 years old. It`s not entirely clear what the relationship is between Thomas, Joshua and Steven.
BANFIELD: It`s sickening. No matter how you slice it, the three of them engaging in these crimes allegedly all together. Like you said, Holby, the
roommate of Barker, not charged in the rapes, and apparently, Jasmine herself saying he did not engage in the rapes at this point. But those
other two, Powers and Josh Barker -- or Thomas Barker both charged in the rapes. It`s just unbelievable that they would sort of do this team play
over the course of the month.
Real quickly, the allegation that Thomas Barker is a friend of the family and that he was the one who grabbed her and ultimately got her to his house
-- there`s another connection that`s bizarre here. He only at 31 years old is reported to have six kids, one of them a baby, a little one. And he is
also reported to have a son I think somewhere around the age of Jasmine, who Jasmine knows, and used that son as a ruse meaning, Jasmine, come to my
house, I need you to come and talk to my son So-and-So. He`s not behaving. Is that bearing out in some of the evidence?
LEE: We know that there are some behavioral issue. We know that there are some illnesses, some mental illnesses that are possibly at play here with
Thomas Barker. And knowing that, you can kind of speculate that with those children that perhaps there were some behavioral issues that were known
about this son, if Jasmine was indeed friends with this son. So it`s not too surprising to think that her being a friend of the son, thinking that
he is acting out, that he`s misbehaving, that he is perhaps having some sort of episode, would be inclined to want to help that friend.
BANFIELD: Did you do the math on this one, Drew, at 31 years old with six kids and if one of those kids is Jasmine`s age, somewhere around 15, it
means he himself was probably starting to have children starting around the age of 15. It is just sort of an uncomfortable notion all around when you
look at the details on this man`s life as they`re being reported.
Let`s talk about the hero, as well, in this story. Jasmine, hero number one. And then the farmer, the farmer who found her. Talk about that.
LEE: He ended up finding her -- he saw a young girl running towards him soaking wet, not wearing any pants. Turns out in the swim across the lake,
she had lost her pants. She had lost her shoes. At last report, authorities were still looking for those pieces of evidence -- saw her,
recognized her as the missing girl, ended up putting her in a truck. And then, amazingly, right around that same time, Thomas happened to drive by
this man`s property. Jasmine recognized the vehicle, told the farmer, told Earl that, That`s my abductor. He`s out there looking for me right now.
He called 911, immediately relayed that information to the police, and the police were able to very quickly find this vehicle, follow this vehicle,
call in backup because it was considered to be a dangerous apprehension at that time.
BANFIELD: Boy, I`ll say.
LEE: And because of her sharp eye and his quick thinking, they were able to find and arrest these suspects very quickly.
[20:25:04]BANFIELD: They got them. They caught them. Stand by for a second, Drew. I want to bring in Cheryl Hunter. She is a sexual assault
survivor and a trauma recovery expert. When she was a teenager, she went to Europe hoping to be discovered as a model, but instead connected with
two men who kidnapped, rape and beat her.
She`s also the author of "Use It: Turn Setbacks Into Success." She joins me live from Los Angeles. Cheryl, you know, the minute we heard these
details, your story seemed to fit in terms of someone who could identify and empathize with what Jasmine`s going through.
First, take me through these 29 days that Jasmine has gone through and how she at 15 could have possibly survived it mentally and physically.
CHERYL HUNTER, SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVOR: What she must have been going through at that time is reassessing everything she knew to be real. What`s
real, what isn`t. This man was an acquaintance of the family. What does she know? What can she trust in her own instincts and not? She probably
vacillated between wanting to give up and throw in the towel, and that fight, that will to survive. And ultimately, thank God, that won. That
will to survive won out.
BANFIELD: The attempted murders -- I`ll just call them that because it sure is what they sound like, the fact that she was put on a bucket with a
cord around her neck and the bucket was kicked out from under her and that she says herself, for a time she couldn`t breathe, the other incident where
she was put into a bathtub full of water in a duffel bag and submerged in the water.
I wanted to get your thoughts on that because I`m quite sure that me, as a grown woman, would not have been able to mentally survive those kinds of
torturous episodes. She, on the other hand, not only survived it but still took that window to escape.
HUNTER: There`s something about that -- those attempts on her life. And were they really attempts on her life, or were they attempts to control her
and control the way she thought so that she never escaped? Was their intention to keep her there forever? We don`t know.
But certainly, the fact that she was able to remain resilient and have at least a spark of hope that came alive in that moment that said, No, I am
going to live, I am going to be bigger than anything that has come my way, than anything they have done to me -- that`s...
BANFIELD: It can go either way, Cheryl. I mean, you can either be terrified into paralysis by these kinds of murderous episodes, or you can
fight for your life and realize, If I don`t get out, I will never get out.
I want to ask you about the Steven Powers story. He`s the third one in this story. The police say he entered the picture two weeks in and then
joined in these crimes. So if you`re Jasmine and you`re just now coming to terms with your two-week-long hell and a new player is introduced, what
does that do to your psyche as this captive?
HUNTER: I mean, I think it probably could do one of two things, either defeat her or raise the stakes in that there`s nothing for her to lose. I
mean, I think when it came down to that hour-long window, when they told her that they were going to be gone for an hour, she`s got nothing else,
quite literally, to lose. They have attempted to kill her. They have done the unthinkable against her. And now she`s faced with this option, this
option to leave.
And I think him coming raised those stakes to a level where it became -- I don`t know what you could say to raise intolerable times two, but it became
so intolerable that there was no staying. She would rather probably die.
BANFIELD: Cheryl, I think you would appreciate this of anybody. But I want to remind our viewers that the reason that she`s identified -- you
don`t typically hear a rape victim, a rape survivor being identified in the media, certainly when they`re 15 years old. She herself with her mother
has come forward and has put this story forward. It is their choice. And thus we are telling her story for her. We would never have done it if this
weren`t their choice, her mom sitting beside her.
Just very quickly, with the 10 seconds I have left, Cheryl, your message for Jasmine right now as she goes into her next phase of survival.
HUNTER: Jasmine, you are a hero. You are not alone. You are bigger than anything that can come your way, and you`ve already proven this. Get
yourself the right help, and you can have this experience be something that propels you forward, rather than holds you back. I`m living proof of this.
You can do it.
BANFIELD: Oh, Cheryl, thank you so much for that. And I think those are just critical words for her right now. If she didn`t hear them, we`re
going to try to make sure she gets those words. Cheryl Hunter joining us, sexual assault survivor, author of "Use It: Turn Setbacks Into Success,"
thank you.
The trial of the accused killer of a beautiful Tennessee nursing student begins with chilling details of the crime never before heard. Prosecutors
say that Holly Bobo was still alive when her attackers began to drive her to the woods to dump her body.
[20:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: For nearly four years, the family of Holly Bobo lived in agony because their daughter, 20-year-old church-going nursing student, had
disappeared from the carport of their home in a small Tennessee town about halfway between Memphis and Nashville. Her brother saw somebody leading her
away from that home on that April day in 2011, but he thought it was her boyfriend, didn`t think much of it.
Turns out it was not her boyfriend. And as the years roll by, it seems like we would never find out what happened to Holly. Until hunters found her
remains, three and a half years later, in a heavily wooded area about 20 miles away from her home. And it didn`t take long before investigators
found these three, made the arrests, Zachary Adams, his brother John, and a guy named Jason Autry. All facing kidnapping, rape, and murder.
But right now, Zachary is the one who is on trial for the murder and during the opening statements, prosecutors said he not only told friends that he
had drugged and raped and killed Holly, but he bragged about it. He bragged about getting away with it. His ex-girlfriend testifying that he actually
threatened her, too.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REBECCA EARP, EX-GIRLFRIEND OF ZACHARY ADAMS: We got into it physically. Him -- I was trying to get away. I took off running, ran in the closet. And
he held me down and had -- was trying to tie my feet up with one of his belts. And he told me that he was going to tie me up just like he did with
Holly Bobo and nobody would ever find me again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: So not surprisingly, the defense refutes all of it, saying Zach is a victim in this case. Only facing the charges because of the intense
pressure that investigators are under to come up with some kind of solution to this case.
Zach Adams is facing the death penalty. So, they don`t get serious these stakes, they don`t get more serious. Details like what we`re hearing in
this courtroom could make it pretty hard for jurors to understand why the defense maintains that their client is being railroaded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL HAGERMAN, ATTORNEY, SHELBY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY`S OFFICE: Zach feels down under the blanket, finds her head, and fires a shot, into her
head and kills her. There would be no grace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Jesse Weber is the host for lawnewz.com. He has been following the trial. He joins me now live. This is ugly. The details are sickening.
Just walk through some of the things that we are now learning that we never knew before about the moment that Holly`s still-living corpse, if we shall
say, because they believed she was dead and she was not, was loaded into the pickup and certain things were -- I guess were uttered about the plans
for Holly. What did they say in court?
JESSE WEBER, HOST, LAWNEWZ.COM: Sure. Like you said, this is a chilling case, I mean, but what we`re going to learn later on is that there`s a man
named Jason Autry that the prosecution spoke about. This is going to be their key witness because it`s his testimony that Zach Adams told him that
he raped and was going to dispose of the body of Holly Bobo.
When they were driving her and Jason Autry agreed to help him dispose the body, she was wrapped up in the blanket in the back of the truck, and all
of a sudden there were noises heard. When they checked to see what was happening, she was still alive. According to what we are going to hear
later on, she was shot in the head by Zach Adams right there with a gun --
BANFIELD: In the truck.
WEBER: In the truck. And what we found out today, there`s a whole conversation about whether or not that gunshot actually killed Holly or was
she dead before the gunshot.
BANFIELD: Because there was this notion
[20:40:00] that they heard her make some kind of a noise?
WEBER: Right.
BANFIELD: Is this before or after? You tell me if I`m wrong.
WEBER: Sure.
BANFIELD: Zach suggested he was going to gut her corpse --
WEBER: Yes.
BANFIELD: -- so if they toss her in the water, she`d sink and the gases wouldn`t pop her to the surface.
WEBER: It is crazy to even hear this, but yes, this is the narrative that is being put forward. That he called Jason Autry to dispose of the body,
thinking that she was dead. She turned out to be alive and then shot her in the head.
Now, this is very important because of those murder charges. We`re talking about first-degree murder. If you can show that he shot her the in the head
thinking that she was still alive and shattering the head, that might change the dynamics (ph).
BANFIELD: So, here`s the thing. We are talking about years later, when the hunters, the Ginseng hunters -- sort of an odd thing to hunt for, but
that`s what they were doing. When they found her remains, they were very few. Skull, some bones, really not much.
So, ultimately, what we`re talking about here, Jesse, is no DNA, no hair, no fingerprints, no forensics. What do they have on these three guys to
have them charged with the most serious charges there are?
WEBER: Right. You make a great point. The defense said in their opening, none of her DNA, fingerprints, nothing was found in his house, but what we
do know is we did find her remains, her skeletal remains, teeth, ribs. What was really depressing to hear, what was really sad to hear was they found
her lunch box, they found her panties on the side of the road. Here was a normal young girl on her way to school when all this happened.
BANFIELD: Nursing student.
WEBER: She`s a beautiful girl. What we have though is testimony that is pointing towards Zachary Adams. We saw that from his girlfriend. We know
that Jason Autry who was arrested in connection with this crime, he`s been granted federal immunity and he might be having reduced state charges. He`s
going to testify. John Dylan Adams who is his brother, if he is being called to testify, he might plead the fifth. But, it`s testimony that is
against Zachary Adams.
BANFIELD: OK. So, Zach Adams has a girlfriend for a couple of years back then. Her name is Rebecca Earp. You saw a little bit of her. Here`s another
moment that she talks about what she heard the day, I believe, that Holly was killed. Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EARP: I was cooking supper and the news come on, and they were talking about Holly missing, and Shane (ph) kind of smirked and started laughing.
And Zach made the comment, he said, they`ll never be able to find her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`ll never be able to find her.
EARP: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I want to bring Dan Schorr in the conversation, too. So, listen, I`m not a lawyer, but if I were and if I were a defense lawyer, the first
thing I would say is, all these people including that lady on the stand are a bunch of meth heads, drug addicts, and they`re all trying to save their
own skin. And if that`s all you have on my guy, you better show me the goods.
DAN SCHORR, FORMER SEX CRIMES PROSECUTOR: This is an issue prosecutors face all the time. When you`re prosecuting a gang member, the other witnesses
are gang members. When you prosecute a drug dealer, a lot of the witnesses are drug dealers. So, someone who was involved in a drug-related murder,
the people associated with it also are --
BANFIELD: But at least there`s some evidence to back it up. On this one, it`s just the word of a bunch of losers and criminals.
SCHORR: The key word there is "a bunch of." It`s not just one person, it`s multiple people who are all making statements that together corroborate
that he might he have committed thus murder.
BANFIELD: Jesse, are these statements corroborating? I mean, look, sure, she`s not dating him anymore and sure, I`m sure they`ve separated. But
they`ve had three or four years to get their stories straight.
WEBER: Well, I would say I think Dan would agree with you, there`s a lot of evidentiary issues in terms of her testifying about his prior behavior and
prior bad acts. But, yes, what she testified to specifically was that this is a guy who was following the Holly Bobo disappearance.
BANFIELD: Yes.
WEBER: And he said, when he was sitting with Shane Austin, who was another suspect who killed himself in this case, oh, they`ll never find her. And he
said to his girlfriend when they got into a fight, I will tie you up like Holly Bobo and no one will ever find you. Yes, OK, this is what resonates
in the minds of the jurors when they are going to make a decision.
BANFIELD: So, you`re following it. We are going to keep touching base with you. You are just to hear what else comes up into the courtroom, because
there is going to be a lot of evidence we don`t know about.
WEBER: Absolutely.
BANFIELD: Jesse Weber, thank you for that.
This is murder mystery in Dallas that we`re looking into. Young wife and mother found dead in her own home, and her 2-year-old child is right there
with her still alive, maybe for hours. Police say she was the victim of a terrifying home invasion, but boy, do they have a clue.
Online shopping is convenient and fun, but it brings security dangers that hurt your wallet. So, first, make sure that your computer, tablet or phone
are free of malware and viruses. Run only the latest software and apps. And if you`re in a public area with wifi, be careful, because the hackers know
how to hack into them while you`re shopping. Use a credit card, too, because the card issuer is more likely to work with you if there`s a
dispute.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cyber security tip. Brought to you by Dell, more than a PC, your small business partner.
[20:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: You are supposed to feel safest when you`re in your own home. And it`s good reason that people cherish the second amendment. Your home is
your castle and bad guys do not belong there. But it is unclear tonight if Roseli Paz-Perez ever saw the bad guys coming. But they burst into her
house looking for God knows what.
And they murdered her in the process. They probably didn`t care much about her. It is a really good bet they didn`t care much about her 2-year-old
either. Because they abandoned that baby right there with his mom`s dead body. And police think that that little kid was left like that alone with
his mom`s corpse for hours.
[20:50:00] Roseli`s husband was the one who ultimately made this grim discovery after coming home because he was worried that she hadn`t returned
his calls. And now the neighbors here are on edge.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIA PEREZ, NEIGHBOR: I`m scared. I`m scared that -- I mean, I got friends across the street, but if somebody breaks into the house, if I`m by myself,
I`m scared.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I think it`s a pretty safe bet whoever did this had a dark enough heart, they`d do it again. But tonight, police released a very important
clue. Here it is. That car right there. Caught on surveillance. Caught on video making its way away from Roseli`s crime scene. It is believed to be a
black Honda Civic.
Take a good long look. Police have also been looking at a string of home invasions not far away. And just one day earlier -- look on your map --
Roseli`s killed on the bottom point right there, and those three home invasion sites just a few miles up. Might that provide clues?
I want to bring in Kate Delaney. She is an investigative reporter and a syndicated radio host. She joins me from Dallas. Do they know anything more
about the car?
KATE DELANEY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, SYNDICATED RADIO HOST (via telephone): Ashleigh, you said it best, I mean, they had it on video and
you described it to a tee. And I know that they are pumping that out everywhere they can to try to pick up any sort of lead.
And I just got off the phone probably a half an hour ago with a police officer I know, and he said they are really working this, but they`re
really tight as a drum not releasing much information. But I do know they don`t have anybody yet with that car, but they`re scouring all the
neighboring nearby.
BANFIELD: Right. Kate, so here`s the deal. It was caught on one video, right, but everybody has got ring.com these days. So many people have
surveillance cameras on their house. Have they been able to at least pinpoint a direction or get more images of this car and where it went. Can
they enhance it to see who is behind those windows?
DELANEY (via telephone): Yes, That`s what they`re looking at doing. That`s such a great point. They`ve been trying to do that, again, they`re not
releasing a lot of information on that because they want to try to get as much as they can from those different angles, as you said, because they
think they may have some others as well.
Kind of blurry, what I heard from -- and I have a family member who is a police officer, is they can`t make out anybody clearly, but who is to say
they won`t keep enhancing that and get something further?
BANFIELD: Real quick, any relationship to the break-ins that happened the day before?
DELANEY (via telephone): The neighbors are worried about that because those break-ins happened within an hour and a half of each other and seven miles
away from where Roseli Paz-Perez was found murdered. So, the neighbors think it could be related and think the police should have released
information, but the police haven`t said there`s a tie there.
BANFIELD: So, what about Roseli`s little boy, the 2-year-old? Do we have any more details about how long he was in that house and what condition he
was in?
DELANEY (via telephone): Yes. They say it could have been hours, Ashleigh. And just found him basically crawling around. As you know, she had three
children, but just the 2-year-old was believed to be there. That`s who was there when they went in. He wasn`t crying. They didn`t say anything about
crying, but just crawling around.
BANFIELD: Do we know if any of those -- there`s a couple reports out there that says she was shot, but do we know from the police how she was killed?
DELANEY (via telephone): No. All they`re saying is that she was shot and murdered. They`re calling it a murder now, but not any real details about
specifically how many times or anything like that.
BANFIELD: Let me bring in Dan Schorr real quickly. They`ve got that car, but you can`t see in the windows, Dan. But even if you can get an
enhancement and see that there`s more than one person, what happens if there`s more than one person because they point the finger at each other?
SCHORR: Right. There is going to be a prosecution by acting in concert theory that if one was participating in any way such as driving to the
scene, then they`re guilty for the whole murder. Of course, they could deny it knowing why they were going there, but if there`s a string of burglaries
and they`re associated with all of them, it`s hard to say they didn`t know they were involved in felony conduct.
BANFIELD: OK. What about that fact of the little child being left behind? I mean, tell me that there`s more to this in terms of charging --
SCHORR: Sure.
BANFIELD: -- vehicles to charge them with just in the recklessness, the endangerment to this baby, the trauma that this baby probably has been
suffering.
SCHORR: This is clearly child endangerment, but that is going to pale in comparison to the sentence for a murder charge. This is going to be a
murder charge here even it wasn`t the intentional killing because it happened as part of a felony.
BANFIELD: My thanks to Kate Delaney, our investigative reporter on this story. And we`ll continue to watch for developments on that car.
Convicted rapist Brock Turner, convicted sexual assaulter, you might say technically, and you might also say technically he`s a free man. Remember,
Stanford rape? Now, he is technically the textbook definition of rape. Whether the law said it or not. See that? That is a textbook, and that is
his mugshot. Details straight ahead.
[20:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: It`s been a little more than a year since convicted sex offender Brock Turner was released from jail. You will remember that he became known
as the Stanford rapist after he was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. Sentenced to six months, he served
only three.
But now, he`s going to be known as the very definition of rape, because his case and his face are appearing in a criminal justice textbook printed by
the University of Colorado-Denver, featuring the trial and a discussion about rape. There he is right there beside the word "rape."
It highlights the controversy that surrounded this case and the shock that many felt over his short sentence. That shock has now resurfaced. A recall
effort against the judge in the case is underway. Thank you so much for watching, everyone. Thank you, Dan, for being here. I appreciate it.
"Forensic Files" starts right now.
[21:00:00]
END
