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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
House Of Horrors, New Fears After Three Bodies Found At Home; Deadly Date, Woman Found Dismembered After Online Date. Aired 6-8p ET
Aired July 30, 2018 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
[18:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fear of aspiration.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right. Thanks to my panel. I appreciate you guys. Crime and Justice with Ashleigh Banfield" is up right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s not like road kill.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The discovery of three bodies inside Weldon`s home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He does have a kind heart. He really does.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These days, you don`t know who you`re living next to. Anyone could be anybody next door.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A young woman disappears after an online date, later found brutally dismembered. Now court documents reveal bizarre items found
at the alleged crime scene. Are they connected, and what do the accused killers have to say?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You wouldn`t ever think that you`d see your best friend on a missing poster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`ll be able to get into your Facebook account, they will be able to get in all of her social media.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is out there, potentially abducted, because he is not one to just leave and not let people know where she is going.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I need a police and ambulance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A woman called 911.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My husband`s been shot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who shot him, ma`am?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was he killed, because he bought video porn?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RITA COSBY, GUEST HOST, HLN CRIME AND JUSTICE: And good evening, everybody, I`m Rita Cosby in for Ashleigh Banfield, this is "Crime and
Justice." Tonight the man with his own house of horrors is connected to two other disgusting crimes. Stewart Weldon was arrested back in May for
kidnapping a woman in his car. And then police found the bodies of three other women at his home.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first time that I smelled the stench was Wednesday evening when the garage door was open completely. That is when the stench
came out and was from the garage. And it smelled like road kill or something that died on the road and was wet. And myself and five other
people was like, oh, my god, that is a really bad smell.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: And we still do not know how they died or whether Weldon killed them, but now we know that he has been linked by DNA evidence to two
separate sexual assaults, a woman at a homeless shelter back in 2009 and a second woman who came forward last year. Tonight, Weldon`s only charge for
that kidnapping, and Weldon has pleaded not guilty, but does the evidence suggest he has a history of targeting women, and will he be held
responsible?
I want to bring in our panel on this. On the phone, we have Stephanie Barry, she is reporter for the Republican and MassLive, also former NYPD
detective and law enforcement consultant, Tom Verni and defense attorney, Brian Claypool.
Let me bring in Stephanie first, this started with a routine traffic stop. Take us from there, Steph.
STEPHANIE BARRY, REPORTER, THE REPUBLICAN AND MASSLIVE: Sure, so, on May 27th, Stewart Weldon was pulled over during a traffic stop. It didn`t go
well. He fled from police. They ended up cornering him. He ram the cruiser, and they had to wrestle him to the ground. So on that day, the
woman in the car, who was his live-in girlfriend and mother of his children, reported that he had been holding her against her will and
abusing her sexually and physically, so he was charged with that crime.
Three days later, his mother, with whom he lived at this house of horrors that you described, called police and said there was a foul smell emanating
from somewhere on her property. So police went there on May 30th and subsequently discovered the bodies of three dead women in the house and
around the property.
COSBY: So they find the bodies of these women. Where does it stand right now, in terms of identifying them? And Stephanie, how long do they believe
those remains were there of these three separate women?
BARRY: Well, hard to tell. So, in terms of how long they had been there and how they died, that has not yet been released. It`s still in the hands
of the state medical examiner`s office. And it`s unclear when that information will be made public, but I can tell you that they were in
various states of decomposition, and at least one of them was found -- her skeletal remains were found buried underneath a shed.
COSBY: Stephanie, describe how they finally put him together with some of these other cases. Because and I`m going to get to it in a moment, because
there`s a long rap sheet, but tell us how they sort of pinned him now back to these other cases, where it seems like justice was never served for
these four women.
[18:05:08] BARRY: Yes, so the timing of that gets a little tricky. So, stay with me for a minute. The Weldon case becomes very high profile, the
search becomes high profile. At the crime scene, the investigators in early June were talking and one of the state crime lab employees said, I
think this man`s name rings a bell. And I think there was a case out of Chicopee, which is a neighboring City for Springfield. So they called over
to Chicopee Police and said, fax us over the profile.
So, as an addendum to that file is a codis report, a DNA match, that matches Stewart Weldon`s DNA profile to a 2009 rape and a 2017 rape. So
one year earlier, a woman went to Chicopee police and said this man took me to this home, he duct-taped me at my mouth, he tied me up, he raped me
repeatedly. And the Chicopee police tried to identify the house, concluded that the crime occurred in Springfield and said, it`s not our jurisdiction,
call Springfield. So this latent DNA information was just kind of out there in the wind for a year or longer.
COSBY: Unbelievable. And I want to put up his rap sheet, because it goes on and on and on. There are just so many things in his history that it
took many, many pages. This is just page 1, everybody. Let`s show page 2. And then it goes to page 3. And then it goes to page 4. It is an
unbelievable history that this man had. Tom Verni, you got to be as a former NYPD detective, you see this, this really stinks to high heaven for
so many reasons, Tom?
TOM VERNI, FORMER DETECTIVE, NEW YORK POLICE: Yes, I mean, this is what we would refer sometimes to as a menace to society. This guy`s been arrested
numerous times in the last couple decades. He is not that old of a guy. Clearly has a penchant for violence. And now we`re at the point where we
have multiple people dead. So clearly something has to be done here. I feel so awful for these families, multiple families that have to go through
this and now we`re going to have to sit through a trial with this maniac sitting in the courtroom.
Luckily, look, they have him, and they`re going through the motions and hopefully it will come to conclusion where he is locked away for the rest
of his life. And no death penalty up there, so it`s going to a situation where hopefully, he is locked away for decades until he is no longer --
COSBY: Let`s hope so, especially when you hear about sexual crimes, and you know this in particular Tom.
VERNI: Infuriating.
COSBY: You covered a lot of them, there is such a high rate of recidivism.
VERNI: Yes.
COSBY: When you are dealing with sexual cases too so. This is are what we know. Makes me wonder what else we don`t know.
VERNI: And violence against the police. And he has numerous charges in the past of attacking police officers. Again, there`s something clearly
not right with this guy. And now it`s to the point where we have now multiple fatalities. It is just unreal to me.
COSBY: And what about the finger-pointing between the different departments? Because Stephanie was reporting, one department had some
details and also there`s such a sensitivity with women too, when something like this, men and women, when they`re victims of crime like this, they
don`t often come forward. They first did, and they didn`t want to go to the other jurisdiction. But it sure sounds like and I hate to say this, I
love the cops, but it sounds like they dropped the ball in this case.
VERNI: Yes, me too. Well, this is one of those classic cases where we talk about a disconnect between departments. Some of the departments are
so silo and insular from one another. The left hand doesn`t know what the right-hand`s doing sometimes, and they can be right next door to each
other. Literally right on the same border, but two different departments. And so, I would hope that a lesson to be learned here is that these
corresponding jurisdictions will talk to each other a little bit more now than they ever did before.
COSBY: And he is so saying he is not guilty. I want to play a little bit of -- this is Stewart Weldon in court, waiving his right. Let us take a
listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Docket 183571, that charges you with kidnapping --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We would waive a form of reading of the charges. We request a plea of not guilty until this time. Mr. Weldon is aware of the
nature as well as the elements of the complaint. We agree that the bail be set without prejudice at this time. Mr. Weldon has entered his plea of not
guilty and looks forward to addressing these charges in the future in court, as well as addressing bail at a later date.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: And I want to bring in our Brian Claypool who is with me. Brian, you hear this, you saw how many pages. I mean, we do a lot of stories on
this show, but it took four pages to show his rap sheet, including assaulting officers. So many things in his background. He says he is not
guilty. The bodies just happened to show up at the house he lives with his mother. The odor, the timing. How do you defend this guy?
BRIAN CLAYPOOL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I`m a criminal defense lawyer. It looks bad, it smells bad.
COSBY: It smells bad in more ways than one.
[18:10:00] CLAYPOOL: No pun intended, but proving beyond a reasonable doubt in a courtroom when you have two bodies that where the evidence has
waned away and has probably been buried in the ground for years, it`s going to be hard to have a medical examiner come in and exhume those bodies and
take a look at it and try to connect some physical or forensic evidence to this young man Weldon.
COSBY: Although, you know that sometimes you can find evidence even years later, we`ve got the DNA, we`ve got some pretty sophisticated tests, if
they can indeed pinpoint it. I mean, the location is pretty significant, Brian, you seem to be discounting that.
CLAYPOOL: Well, look, if the jury trial was going to be based on inference, then you`d get a guilty verdict.
COSBY: What, it just happened the bodies just happened to show up in the house? Like magic?
CLAYPOOL: You can argue that until the cows come home.
COSBY: But a jury is going to hear that and not believe you.
CLAYPOOL: Jurors are going to be looking the fact that, where is there any DNA evidence connecting Weldon to any of these two women. The tragedy here
too, Rita, bad news, is you don`t have the two prior women -- you don`t have Weldon prosecuted for those other two prior crimes, because much like
the Cosby case and Harvey Weinstein, you would have been able to introduce those convictions possibly as evidence in this case as well, which would
have helped to get a conviction. So it`s still a daunting task to get Weldon convicted.
COSBY: But you know that there`s probably many other cases. If you look at this guy`s rap sheet and again, we don`t know, but there`s such a high
recidivism rates as we go back with sexual assaults and you look at the proclivity and the fact that he is brazen enough to go after officers, Tom.
This guy`s got such a huge rap sheet. There`s probably more and I bet you they`ll come up with more details once they determine cause of death. That
may be tough, as you point out, Brian.
VERNI: Yes, I mean, he brings up a good point. Each of these cases in upon themselves is standing on their own, you know, facts and evidence,
right. So, here as you mentioned, you`re going to have to make the connection. I think it`s not a surprise these bodies are sitting under his
shed in his own backyard. So one could actually say, he is the one who did it, but like you said, you`re going to have to connect the dots here.
COSBY: Is he going to blame it on his 70-year-old mother?
VERNI: Yes, right. Exactly, I`m sure he would. He probably throw his mother under the bus if he could.
COSBY: yes, he probably throw anybody under the bus.
CLAYPOOL: Somebody else could, who else owned the house before him? I don`t think he owns that home?
COSBY: And somebody else conducted the sexual assaults that they`re pointing to him at also, Brian?
CLAYPOOL: Well, that is where the dots start to get connected.
COSBY: You have to come a better one on that one guys. Stephanie, let me go to you. Stephanie, real quick, on the case of the background of this
guy, what I think is so bizarre, as we show this rap sheet, that Brian and Tom are all looking at it, going, whoa, it keeps going. He is described
as, quote, a ladies man and a nice guy.
BARRY: Well, I think, you know, one of his childhood friends made that kind of glib remark and that may have been true when they were teenagers,
but I do want to point out more importantly, the D.A.`s office and the police department has indicated there are more women out there, they`re
going to bring additional charges. They haven`t come yet, but there`s a pattern here, and the 2017 victim, who was passed off by Chicopee P.D. has
since come forward to Springfield P.D., and I would be very surprised if she wasn`t among a new crop of charges -- a new crop of allegations by
additional women, you know, up to ten, perhaps, who have very similar stories to tell, and very similar profiles. He preyed on women with drug
addictions who were vulnerable. So it`s going to be a familiar story by the time all is said and done.
COSBY: And certainly a repeated pattern certainly says something. And let`s pray that there`s justice for those victims. Thank you.
Normally if you find an apartment full of beanie babies and toys, you`d think that the kids lived there, but if that same apartment has a meat
grinder and shackles, it does not paint an innocent picture at all.
And if the tenants are charged with a gruesome murder, it makes you wonder just what exactly was going on. Details on this house of horrors coming up
next.
[18:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSBY: And this is Rita Cosby in for Ashleigh Banfield. Tonight bizarre items have been found in a Nebraska apartment where Sydney Loofe may have
spent her last night on earth with a Tinder date. And her date`s 51--year- old roommate. And Sydney turned up a few weeks later, but she had been dismembered and thrown in trash bags and left to rot in a field. So when
the focus turned on Sydney`s date bailing and bailey`s older roommate Aubrey Trail, the duo apparently took to Facebook to defend themselves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We spent the last few days watching ourselves being slammed and crucified -- watching ourselves being slammed and crucified in
the newspapers, news and everything else, so, we thought it was time to have our side. If we make a slip on this video and say something that you
find it incriminating, please let us know. I pray for Sydney, I hope she found some.
[19:20:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m Bailey, I add her in Tinder and few other names, I met her on a Tuesday, had a great time. We hit it off.
Picked her up the next night at her house. I mean, I haven`t heard from her since. I just -- I really don`t even know what else to say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish Sydney the best, but as far as the police department, (BEEP) you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: Ooh, some heated language there. Well, Bailey said she dropped Sydney back at a friend`s house, but then her roommate reportedly started
talking about a weird sex fantasy game and how Sydney had been strangled by an electrical cord. But months after Sydney was found dismembered, the two
roommates were charged with her murder. And now Aubrey Trail is facing the death penalty. And his defense team is hustling to protect the bizarre
items that he kept in his house, like antique toys, meat grinders, beanie babies, and also shackles.
And joining me now to talk about all of this on the phone is Paul Hammel, he is a reporter for the Omaha World Herald. Also medical examiner and
forensic pathologist Dr. William Morrone and defense attorney Brian Claypool is still with me. Paul, this is such a weird story. Take us back
from the beginning, how Sydney met Bailey and how it seemed like she thought she was going on a date.
PAUL HAMMEL, REPORTER, OMAHA WORLD HERALD: Yes, it`s been a bizarre case from the beginning. You know, at some point, Aubrey Trail called me and
other media said, hey, I killed this woman. So that marked the first time in my career somebody`s called from jail and said, I`m the guy, but yes, I
think, you know, Sydney Loofe was from a small town in Nebraska and looking for a friend or companionship, and got on Tinder and thought she was gonna
meet somebody named Bob Audrey, not Aubrey, Audrey, and ends up with these two people and ends up dead. You know, it`s an awful crime, a shocking
crime for our state.
COSBY: Yes, it sure is. And the first sign, she doesn`t show up to work. Give us a sense of when everybody else realized there was trouble.
HAMMEL: Oh, I think people realized that pretty quickly, you know. She was a very dependable worker, as her co-worker said, probably going to be a
manager one of these days. And then when she didn`t show up, the alarm bells went off and the FBI got involved. There were a lot of searches all
over the state. They used cell phone records to locate where they found the body and they were searching out there for more than a week, for not
only her body parts, but for other evidence.
COSBY: You know what`s so heartbreaking and I want to put up, this is what is believed to be the last photo of her. And it`s so sad. A picture up on
snapchat. She looks so excited, was thrilled to be sort of having this date, looks happy, and that is indeed sadly the last image of beautiful
Sydney alive. Going on what she thought was an innocent date with somebody and a second date that she was excited about.
I want to play, this is some of the comments, because it`s so whacky, these things on Facebook. And here`s a little bit more of Aubrey and Bailey
talking. This is before they`re charged, but they are just rambling on and on what`s reported to be Facebook.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning Lincoln and Omaha, and probably several other places. This is Aubrey Trail and this is Bailey, I guess you also
know her as Audrey. If we make a slip on this video and say something that you find incriminating, please let us know. As far as I know, I`m not
wanted for anything. I`m a person of interest and I`m not really running from anything. I pray for Sydney, I hope she is found soon. I wish the
family the best. I`m sorry that she wasn`t with you on thanksgiving. And that is pretty much all I can say for now. Here`s Bailey to tell you
whatever she wants to.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m just -- kind a want to tell you what I`ve already told the Lincoln police more than one time. I went to take her home and
she asked me to drop her off at a friend`s house, so I did so. I gave her my number. We were planning to go to the casino that weekend. I mean, I
haven`t heard from her since. I just -- I really don`t even know what else to say.
[18:25:06] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish Sydney the best, but as far as the police department, (BEEP) you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: Paul Hammel, that was before they were charged. And I know that you had a series of weird conversations with them, and I want you to tell a
little bit about that, but also the significance of some surveillance footage, because this is what I think really sinks them, because they`re
buying particular items and this is while Sydney is alive. Talk about that.
HAMMEL: Well, yes, it`s a real mystery what they were doing in a home depot store, buying items that the police say could have been used to
dismember a body. You know, it`s a real mystery here, what they were thinking or what their motivation might have been. You know, if they`re
proven guilty, let`s make that caveat. A lot of speculation about, was it about sex trafficking or some occult thing. It`s just a very bizarre case.
And you know, you listen to Aubrey Trail and his career as a criminal has been as a scam artist and he is changed his story more than once. So, I
mean, what`s hard to get a hold on, is he telling the truth now, or what?
COSBY: Yes. Must have been just chilling to talk with him. I`ve talked to a number of people who have committed some serious crimes and it`s
always so chilling, Paul. As you look back, must be kind of horrifying.
HAMMEL: Yes, I mean, I talked to a lot of inmates, I cover the correction system here in Nebraska. And you find inmates that are straight shooters
and you find inmates that are trying to spin you somehow, trying to manipulate and trying to put a lipstick on a pig. And Trail was always --
he was always trying to figure out, well, what is he trying to get at here by saying this? And he kept promising, oh, if you do this, I`ll get you
some more information, you know. So he was always trying to cut a deal. I think his days of cutting deals might be over.
COSBY: Let`s hope so. Let`s go to Dr. William Morrone, medical examiner. Dr. Morrone, it`s just so heartbreaking when you hear the stories that
there were some items that were bought on that surveillance video. Authorities are not telling us what, but the sad thing is, she was
apparently found dismembered in a number of different locations Dr. Morrone. What do you think they may have used to commit this horrible
crime that they`re accused of?
WILLIAM MORRONE, D.O., MEDICAL EXAMINER AND FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, there`s two things that you would use out in the field. One would be an
axe, and one would be a saw. When you look at a human limb, you disarticulate it at the wrist, at the elbow, or at the shoulder. And you
need tools to do that. You need steel tools, and you need blades. It would take a long time to do that, but they will also leave forensic marks
in the bones. Just because they take the flesh off and there`s skeleton, those kind of marks show up in the bones. And that will be used as
forensic evidence against them.
COSBY: You know, Dr. Morrone, he claims, and again, his story, as Paul, who is talking, he sort of changed a thousand times, but at one point he
said it was some wild sex game, and that he used a cord to choke her. Can you prove that, Dr. Morrone? How do they prove that on her body?
MORRONE: Well, that is going to be really difficult because they said skeletal remains, which means they`re dried. In the six stages of
decomposition, they`re all the way down to the dry bones. If they used a cord to pull it so tight they broke her neck, you`ll see fractured cervical
vertebrae in the neck, but the soft tissue is gone.
COSBY: Paul Hammel, I have to ask you, because all these weird things were found in the house that they shared, the beanie babies, the shackles, and a
lion rug. Do they have kids? What were these things doing there?
HAMMEL: Aubrey Trail was a known antique dealer of some sort, at least the local antique people I talked to said he was well known. They were also
suspicious of him, because he passed bad checks, but that he likes antique toys. Now where shackles fit in there, I don`t know. And where a meat
grinder might fit in, I don`t want to think about that, but I got to think if anything was involved in this crime, they have confiscated that as
evidence. I mean, what they left behind in this apartment is probably just the debris of these two people`s activities, which were buying and selling
antiques and ripping people off.
COSBY: Well, and indeed. Obviously much more serious that they are charged with. Thank you very much, everybody.
Meantime, tonight in North Carolina, William McCullen is spending the first night of the rest of his life in prison after a jury convicted him for the
murder of 3-year-old Jordan Dumont. McCullen claimed that the child disappeared from his home while he took a nap, and his 911 call for help
was almost Oscar-worthy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Gaston County 911. what`s the address of your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Yes, ma`am. My oldest daughter, I was taking a nap, I just woke up and I can`t find her anywhere. I went to the
neighbors and they`re not home and I don`t know where she is at.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): How old is she?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): She is about to be four next month. I have a newborn with me, too, a one-year-old and I got her and I can`t find the
other one. I really need some help right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Have you looked under the beds and in the closet?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): No, ma`am. I called her name though, I can`t find her anywhere. I went next door, I`ve been calling her name
outside and I can`t find her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): She may have fallen asleep. I need you to go look under the beds and stuff. I`ve found people that way, OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Yes, ma`am. My wife`s at work. She`s about to be home and I don`t know where my daughter is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Is she a white female?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Yes, ma`am. She is wearing blue jeans and a long sleeve Mickey Mouse shirt.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSBY: Well, despite that dramatic call, McCullen later admitted to police that he had punched the girl in the stomach as hard as he could a few times
when she wouldn`t settle down to take a nap. She reportedly had more than 50 blows to her little body, as well as bleeding between her skull and her
scalp. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
And the desperate search for a missing Iowa co-ed intensified as new details about where Mollie Tibbetts might have gone after her late night
jog emerged. We got a whole bunch of them. Did she head back to her boyfriend`s house after her run? Find out next.
[18:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSBY: And I`m Rita Cosby, in for Ashleigh Banfield. Tonight reports point to a possible new timeline the night that Mollie Tibbetts went missing. She
is the college girl who disappeared almost two weeks ago while she was dog- sitting for her boyfriend. And Mollie was reportedly last seen jogging through her boyfriend`s rural town, leading some to suspect she was
abducted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I try not to read any of those rumors or anything like that, because we just don`t know.
RICK RAHN, SPECIAL AGENT, IOWA DVISION OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION: Certainly there are a number of rumors that are circulating here within the
community and we are trying to squash those rumors as much as possible or validate them as much as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: And tonight we still don`t know where Mollie is, but we might have a better idea as to when she disappeared, because Mollie`s family said she
might have sent a Snapchat later that night. And if that`s true, that means something might have happened to her while she was inside her boyfriend`s
house, and that would change a lot of the leads in this case.
And Joining me now to talk about all of this is "Crime & Justice" producer Michael Christian, and also defense attorney Brian Claypool. Also on the
phone, we have Rick Rhan. He is special agent in charge from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. And we also have with us Hope Beck. She
is one of Mollie Tibbetts` best friends.
Michael, let me start with you, because a lot of new developments. I know the whole country has been just praying for the safe return of Mollie. Now
details that really could change the timeline, Michael.
MICHAEL CHRISTIAN, PRODUCER, "CRIME & JUSTICE": That`s right, Rita. We knew before that the last reported sighting of this woman was she went out
jogging. She was an avid jogger, she ran all the time. So we knew that she had left her boyfriend`s home. She was wearing jogging clothing. That was
the last that anybody knew.
Now we`re hearing reports from her family. They say they`re getting this from police, that she may have returned to that home, she may have been on
her laptop computer doing some homework in the evening. And as you said, she may have sent a Snapchat photo to her boyfriend.
We know by the next morning, something`s happened to her because her boyfriend sent her a text saying good morning, she did not respond and she
did not show up at her job. But she may have actually been back at his home on Wednesday night.
COSBY: And the boyfriend so far, because it was his house, so far has been cleared, so it seems, right?
CHRISTIAN: That`s right. He was working at a job in Dubuque, Iowa which is about a hundred miles away. So there doesn`t seem to be any possible way he
could be involved.
COSBY: Which is so interesting.
[18:39:59] Rick Rahn, let me go to you, special agent in charge. Agent Rahn, it`s interesting, because if this is true, that the Snapchat was sent
and that she went back to the house, I`m sure that changes your investigation tremendously.
RAHN (via telephone): Well, I can tell you, Rita, that as with any investigation, we take a look at all of the data that we can. We live in a
digital world right now. And so it is not uncommon for us to take a look at cell phones, computers, social media sites. And in this particular case as
everyone knows, there`s a Fitbit involved as well, too.
So we take a look at that. We try to establish a timeline as best we can. And we feel that we have done that thus far. Unfortunately, I won`t be able
to provide you any information as to that timeline at this point.
COSBY: Let me ask you, Agent Rahn. Was there any break-in at the house? Was there any signs of intrusion at the house, now that there`s a chance
she may have gone back to that house?
RAHN (via telephone): Well, again, as much as we`d like to provide information about the investigation, we have to keep some of those things
close to the vest. And so I just cannot at this point release any information of the investigation itself.
COSBY: Obviously in a general term, you`re certainly going to search everything on that computer too and use some real good forensic experts,
I`m sure, Agent Rahn, right?
RAHN (via telephone): Oh, absolutely. I mean, we have done everything that we can investigatively thus far in hopes of trying to track down and locate
Mollie, and we will continue to do so until we find her.
COSBY: Absolutely, as we all are praying for that safe return. Let`s go to Hope Beck, one of Mollie`s best friends. Hope, this mystery, it`s still
just so heartbreaking. And now as time passes too, prayers continue and I think even intensify. Tell us a little bit about your friend. Is she the
kind of person who would have just run off or done something like that? Is there anything in her background, Hope?
HOPE BECK, BEST FRIEND OF MOLLIE TIBBETTS (via telephone): No. Mollie is a very, very responsible individual. And she`s super nice and compassionate,
just someone that people look up to, you strive to be like her. And it`s just not likely any type of way that she would run off. She had career
plans. She had vacation plans. It`s just not like her to not talk to her friends or family for a while.
COSBY: What about also the boyfriend, because I do know that he`s been cleared, Hope. What do you know about him if indeed she did go back to his
house? Is there anybody, whether it`s tied to him or in the area that could be connected to the house that may lead to finding Mollie at this point?
BECK (via telephone): I, a hundred percent can say that Dalton is not involved. The boyfriend is not involved. I know him. I have seen the
relationship. It was very healthy. He`s a very nice, respectable guy.
COSBY: You know, Michael Christian, you come from a small town too. We were talking about this.
CHRISTIAN: I do.
COSBY: And this town, this community here in Iowa, it`s summer. We`re talking about cornfields. I have been to lots of parts of America as a
journalist. Huge tall cornfields and it makes me think she could be anywhere.
CHRISTIAN: Yeah. You know, you think, oh, you just check a field. But this time of year, the corn is very tall and it`s very dense. And literally,
you`d have to literally go through every row of the cornfield pretty much looking for her.
I mean, it would be very intensive. It`s corn and soybeans in this part of the country. And again, the corn is very tall and very thick, and people do
get lost in cornfields.
COSBY: Which makes it very tough. Let me go to Brian Claypool. Brian, as you hear this, what concerns me, and you know this as someone who`s covered
so many cases and represented so many folks, at this point we don`t know what happened. We pray that she comes back safely.
And you never know, Elizabeth Smart (ph), we think of these cases were kind of crazy cases as time goes by, maybe there ends up being some good news as
the family and all of us pray. But time is against her, correct? As time goes on, it`s tougher and tougher.
BRIAN CLAYPOOL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yeah, absolutely, Rita. And I think another important point in this case is, if she truly came back and there
was a Snapchat after she jogged, in my mind, that goes from, gee, this was somebody randomly trying to attack her as she`s jogging. It could have been
a sexual pervert out there who just saw a woman and tried to attack her.
It changes from that to I think somebody within an inner circle. And you asked a great question, was there a break-in? That`s the monumental fact.
COSBY: Yeah. To me, that`s the big sign now that she went back to the house.
CLAYPOOL: Exactly. That`s exactly right.
COSBY: Someone who knew the house.
CLAYPOOL: Right.
COSBY: Or if it happened to be a neighbor, somebody following her, someone tied to the boyfriend.
CLAYPOOL: Bingo. And that narrows the circle of suspects. I think it gives more clarity now on who to target. And like you said, you got to look at
that computer.
COSBY: Yeah, there could be a plethora of information there. Let`s hope there is.
CLAYPOOL: Yeah, absolutely.
COSBY: That would be great if there is. I want to go back to Hope Beck, one of her best friends. Hope, you know as we hear this, tell us a little
bit about Mollie and the type of person she is because we are all indeed praying that there`s some sort of break in the case and maybe there`s
something, as Brian has been talking about, on the computers, let`s hope so.
[18:45:07] BECK (via telephone): Mollie is one of the nicest people I have ever met. And she is one of my best friends. And I can`t -- there`s so
much I can say about her and it`s all going to be positive because she`s a positive person. And we all just want her to come home. So if anyone has
any information, I just beg you, please call the sheriff`s office.
COSBY: Well said. And I pray that somebody does call in with a lead. Thank you very much. We`re hoping for a safe return for her.
When an Arkansan man turns up dead in his backyard shed from an apparent gunshot wound, could it have been linked to his alleged porn viewing
habits? We`re going to talk about that one, next.
[18:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSBY: And I`m Rita Cosby, in for Ashleigh Banfield. In Arkansas, police say a 69-year-old woman shot and killed her husband after he bought porn.
The suspect, Patricia Hill, called 911 on herself.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): 911.
PATRICIA HILL, SHOT AND KILLED HUSBAND (voice over): Yes, I need a police and ambulance. My husband has been shot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Who shot him, ma`am?
HILL (voice over): I did.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh. Were you all arguing or something, ma`am?
HILL (voice over): Yes, ma`am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Let me try transfer you to ambulance, Patricia, OK? Is he breathing?
HILL (voice over): I don`t know. I don`t know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): You still have the gun, ma`am?
HILL: No.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSBY: Well, her husband, when deputies arrived, he suffered gunshot wounds to the upper part of the body. Officers went into the utility shed
and that`s where they actually found Frank Hill. Again, as I said, he had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the upper part and also lower part of
his body.
His wife told investigators she was upset by his purchase of video porn. Police said she canceled the purchase when she discovered it, but Frank
just ordered it again. She told investigators she asked her husband to leave the shed, but he refused.
She then went back inside the house, got a 22-caliber pistol, walked inside the shed and shot him in the head and leg. He was pronounced dead soon
after authorities arrived.
And joining me to talk about all of this is defense attorney Brian Claypool. Brian, she said I did it. I want to play that call again because
it`s so wild. This is her calling 911.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HILL (voice over): I need an ambulance and police.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): What`s going on?
HILL (voice over): My husband has been shot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): OK. And where is he shot at, do you know?
HILL (voice over): In the leg, I think.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): OK. Is the person that shot him still there?
HILL (voice over): Yes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSBY: So, Brian Claypool, is it going to be the porn defense, porn drove me to do it?
CLAYPOOL: Why are you looking at me like that?
(LAUGHTER)
CLAYPOOL: Do you think I have some history with porn here?
COSBY: Come on, time to confess (ph).
CLAYPOOL: OK. We`ll talk off camera about that.
COSBY: All right. What about this case?
CLAYPOOL: Look, this reminds me about Ambien defense that was used recently. Remember there was a murder case in Florida and the guy that shot
the young lady and killed her said I was using Ambien and it caused me to go kill her. So, look, this might give a new meaning to that heat of
passion defense.
COSBY: But it`s not the problem is. And I knew you were going to go there, Brian, because you`re a good attorney. But the problem is, she gets the
gun, she goes to the shed, tells him to leave. Then she goes in, gets the gun. Then she puts the gun back after she shoots him twice and then calls
911, as opposed to, uh-oh, what did I do?
CLAYPOOL: Yeah, but just so your audience knows, heat of passion is something really outrageous happens that make a reasonable person --
COSBY: But she`s conscious enough to take the gun and put the gun back before calling 911.
CLAYPOOL: That argument is not going to work in court, Rita, because --
COSBY: It`s going to work with the jury. Jurors are going to go, I don`t have a lot of sympathy for that.
CLAYPOOL: The key fact on whether heat of passion works is the amount of time that goes by from learning about the event. For example, you found out
your significant other was sleeping with somebody else and then within a half hour you go do something bad. Here she did it right away.
COSBY: It still not going to hold --
CLAYPOOL: I never said it is going to hold --
COSBY: You can try whatever you want to try, my friend.
CLAYPOOL: I never said it would work, but it`s worth a try.
COSBY: Wishful thinking. All right, Brian Claypool, thanks so much.
(LAUGHTER)
COSBY: Meantime, a shocking sight in downtown Denver on a busy Friday night. A joy-riding tractor thief racing down a sidewalk and up the wrong
way on a one-way street. One more thing, straight ahead.
[18:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:00:01] COSBY: And one more thing for you tonight. A police chase of a tractor, not a tractor trailer, but a farm tractor, through the streets of
downtown Denver.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)
COSBY: Well, the joy-riding tractor thief was going the wrong way down a one-way road when police decided the only way to stop him was to hit him
head on. Thankfully, the officer wasn`t seriously hurt and neither was 37- year-old Thomas Bush, who had to be tased twice before a canine was deployed to subdue him. Bush is now facing a laundry list of charges from
stealing the tractor, to, get this, biting a police dog.
The next hour of CRIME & JUSTICE starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is accused of fatally shooting his pregnant ex- girlfriend and a police officer. Then mouthing off in court right in front of the judge. Now shocking text messages emerge in which he reportedly
tells his ex he hopes she doesn`t survive.
A young woman disappears after an online date, later found brutally dismembered. Bizarre items at the alleged crime scene. Are they
connected, and what do the accused killers have to say?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You wouldn`t ever think you`d see your best friend on a missing poster?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will be able to get into her Facebook account. They will be able to get in all of her social media.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s out there potentially abducted because she`s not one to just leave and not let people know where she is going.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I need police and an ambulance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A woman calls 911.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My husband has been shot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who shot him, ma`am?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was he killed because he bought video porn?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSBY: And good evening, everybody, I`m Rita Cosby in for Ashleigh Banfield.
This is the second hour of CRIME & JUSTICE.
Tonight, a Florida man is behind bars after allegedly gunning down his pregnant ex, leading cops on a deadly weeks` long manhunt. According to
new court documents, Markeith Loyd was fighting with his ex-girlfriend via text before he showed up at her family`s house, where cops say he shot her
and her brother. Sade Dixon (ph) was three months` pregnant.
And while her brother survived, Sade and her baby did not. And they weren`t the only lives lost. Nearly four weeks later while Loyd was still
on the run, he allegedly shot a police lieutenant who spotted him at a Walmart. Hours after that, a sheriff`s deputy died in a motorcycle
accident while he was on the lookout for Lloyd. It took another seven days to finally track down the murder suspect at an abandoned house where Loyd
tried escaping out the back before he crawled on the front door in body armor and cops finally put him in cuffs. Now he is facing a slew of
serious charges, including two murders and four attempted murders. But he is not trying to win any favor from the judge.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Bleep) you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who are you? The lady in the black dress, may have your name, please. I`m here for what? Resisting arrest? Man, (bleep)
you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: Unbelievable. I want to bring in my panel, Ray Caputo. He is an anchor and reporter for News 96.5 WDBO in Orlando. Also with me is former
NYPD detective and law enforcement consultant Tom Verni and defense attorney Brian Claypool.
Ray, let me start with you because this is such a wild case. It sounds like they were arguing about him going out on the town with some girls,
right?
RAY CAPUTO, ANCHOR/REPORTER, NEWS 96.5 WDBO: Yes, Rita. They had just recently broken up, maybe the day before and Markeith apparently went to a
club and he posted a picture on social media of him with some other women. So Sade was upset and confronted him about that, that`s when the flurry of
text messages started just before she was shot.
COSBY: And then he goes to the house, right? And one of the messages that we are seeing, Ray, it says essentially, you are not answering me. So then
he decides he is going to go to the house and confront her, correct?
CAPUTO: Yes. I mean, it wasn`t even 15 minutes after these text messages started that he was at her house. Now, apparently he approached her -- he
has had a history of battering this woman. He beat her up pretty bad about a month before, pistol-whipped her. So naturally, she knows what`s coming.
She comes out with a gun. And you know, Markeith said that he tried to disarm her.
I mean, his statements don`t make much sense. But, you know, she had a gun and he had a gun, and the brother came out too and everybody started
tussling in. And at some point, she was shot and the brother was shot as well. Sade died, the unborn child died, the brother ended up making it.
[19:05:26] COSBY: You know, it is significant, Ray. And I want to kind of take our viewers through the timeline because the shooting happens at 9:13
at the house. And then I want to put up a message that he sends her. This is a text message that he sends at 9:24, we are talking 11 minutes later.
She is shot, the brother is shot. And this is what he said. This is his language here. It says don`t know if you go make it. Hope you don`t.
Again, this is after he shot her. Told you don`t play with me and you went and got a gun on me instead of talking to me, so you wanted it when all I
ever wanted was to talk. Now we paying the price.
I sit there, Tom Verni and this is like an ungrateful, despicable human being, first of all for shooting her, and then he is like, hope you don`t
make it. I mean, talk about the brazen nature of this guy.
TOM VERNI, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE, LAW ENFORCEMENT CONSULTANT: Well, I mean, just the fact that he had a history of beating her up, you know,
shows what a creatan that he is, right. And my sincere condolences to all the families that are involved because of that maniac, in particular, the
police who are attempting to try to catch this maniac and put him away. I`m sure there`s a long line that is forming to throw the switch.
COSBY: Again, as you talk about, first of all, there`s lieutenant, a female lieutenant who thinks she has him. It`s at the Walmart and she
stops him. She is killed.
VERNI: Yes.
COSBY: Then another one who is trying to race afterwards, he is on a motorcycle, he was killed. It just shows how dangerous I think the job is
for law enforcement too, Tom.
VERNI: Yes. I mean, we were talking earlier about another case where clearly, again, when we talk about the phrase menace to society, the people
that we are talking about in some of these cases, fit that to a tee. And you can`t get any worse (INAUDIBLE). But this guy represents that class of
people in our society that really need to be in jail for the rest of their lives. Or in this case, Florida, it`s a death penalty case. So, you know,
that may be in his future potentially.
COSBY: Yes.
VERNI: Again, I couldn`t blame anybody if that`s the choice that they made.
COSBY: And I want to play a little bit of the interrogation, because again, it`s sort of this like audacity of this guy. Here is a little bit
from the interrogation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You obviously been hiding for quite a while. You have been running from place to place. You are in custody tonight for an
obviously a pretty serious offense. Can you tell us why you are in custody tonight?
MARKEITH LOYD, SUSPECT: What I`m in custody for?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are in custody for homicide. OK? All right? Can you tell us where you were all day today?
LOYD: What homicide?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: Whatever. And you know, here`s a little more too, because this really gets me infuriated. Here`s a little more of the interrogation. And
wait until you hear what he said, oh, I basically did it in self-defense.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell me what else happened. What got to the point that you had to do what you have to do? If you had to defense yourself, you
need to tell me.
LOYD: You all know Sade wend got a gun. You all got a gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right, so she pulled a gun on you, you have to do, what did you do?
LOYD: I disarmed her. I disarmed her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You took it from her?
LOYD: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what did you do with her gun?
LOYD: I put it in my back pocket, but then her brother jumped me. I guess it had fall out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It fall out. And when did you take your gun out?
LOYD: While me and him was tussling.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Who did you shoot first, him or her?
LOYD: Man --.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Him? Because he was shit, he was on you?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSBY: Man. Unbelievable. And Tom Verni, you were talking about the law enforcement officer, two of them who lost their lives. He was asked about
the first one who was killed at Walmart, and just the arrogance and the belligerence. This is a little bit more from that interrogation.
Unbelievable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Markeith, we got to know what happened, OK. We got a grieving family here for a police officer. They want to know what
happened. They deserve to know what happened. You know Sergeant Clayton was good people. OK?
LOYD: I don`t know her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know what she is. You guys went to the same school. You guys came from the same neighborhood. You know she was good
people. Tell us what happened with her. Did she draw on you first? What happened?
LOYD: You all know she drew dawn on me first.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: You know, Brian Claypool, I hear this. I get so infuriated. You put that before a jury, he is done.
BRIAN CLAYPOOL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, yes. Don`t shoot the messenger because I have got to try to come up with a defense.
COSBY: Yes. Let`s hear a good one on this, Brian.
CLAYPOOL: Well, look. The only defense you might have for him is that text message after he shot her, I mean, that`s such a deranged mind. It`s
so psychotic that it borders on possibly arguing a diminished capacity defense. That this guy has some kind of mental health defect, to be so
evil to send that text message to a woman he shot who is pregnant with a baby.
[19:10:17] COSBY: What about unremorseful? And then the way he talks also about the officer too. It is like basically I don`t know her, too bad, you
know. It`s so callous, that is hard for jury to hear. It is hear for me to hear and I`m sure our audience too. It`s so heartbreaking.
CLAYPOOL: It is. I mean, but the argument I would make, again, I`m not siding with this guy, but the argument you got to make is his behavior is
so a typical the average human being that he needs to have a psychiatric exam to find out what is ticking in that brain --.
COSBY: But that is - he knows enough to escape. He knows enough to do it. And you have blood on your hands of two officers, Brain Claypool. This is
not some self-defense.
CLAYPOOL: You heard the initial interview.
COSBY: And he is complaining about his injury. He has the audacity to complain about his injury.
CLAYPOOL: And that is my argument. They asked him, what are you here for? HE is like I don`t know. What happened? Oh, a homicide. What homicide?
That`s the argument you can make through a psychiatrist who gives him an exam. That this guy is so psychotic that it really diminished his intent.
Diminished capacity is it diminished the intent to do the crime because he is so mentally deranged.
COSBY: But that`s over and over and over again.
Let me go to Ray Caputo. What do we know about this guy, in terms of any priors, any mental health history? I will try to (INAUDIBLE) for Brian
Claypool. Go ahead.
CAPUTO: Well, Rita, he spent 16 years in prison. And you know, in terms of mental capacity, if you watch his court hearings now, Markeith Loyd
clearly isn`t right. You know, it started off with a lot of ramblings in these court hearings. And then he is just not all there. So I mean, Mr.
Claypool certainly does have a point. It could be a valid argument. But at the end of the say, Markeith Loyd is an unapologetic bully. And he is
not a stupid man. He is very cunning and coy. And that --.
COSBY: You know what? You know what, Ray? He is not just a bully, he is an unapologetic killer. And he also left a note. I want to get to Ray,
about that note, because he left a nine-page rambling note when they finally caught up with him.
CAPUTO: Yes, Rita. See? This is a scary thing. When this was all going down, everybody in Orlando was looking for this guy, police down to the
average citizen, because he was considered armed and dangerous. And this note confirms everyone`s worst fears. And it was a matter of time before
he was going to kill again.
He said that he had nothing to lose. He said that he was going to kill again. He also blamed the media for mis-framing all of this stuff that he
had done. That, you know, saying that he was the one that shot his pregnant ex-girlfriend, which he did. But it was kind of blaming how
everything was framed.
And you know, the closest thing we are going to get to an apology from Markeith was at the end of the letter where he said, I`m sorry, Sade. I
wish, you know, I could take it all back, but that`s the closest you are going to get to an apology from Markeith Loyd.
COSBY: Unbelievable. And our heart breaks, of course, for all the families. Law enforcement as well. Thank you, everybody.
Normally, if you find an apartment full of beanie babies and toys, you would think that kids live there. But if that same apartment has a meat
grinder and shackles, it doesn`t paint as innocent a picture. And if the tenants are charged with a gruesome murder, it makes you wonder just what
exactly was going on inside. Details on this house of horrors, that`s coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:18:07] COSBY: And this is Rita Cosby in for Ashleigh Banfield.
Tonight, bizarre items have been found in a Nebraska apartment where Sydney Loofe may have spent her last night on earth with a tinder date. And her
date`s 51-year-old roommate. And Sydney turned up a few weeks later. But she had been dismembered and thrown in trash bags and left to rot in a
field. So when the focus turned on Sydney`s date Bailey and Bailey`s older roommate Aubrey Trail, the duo took to Facebook to defend themselves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We spent the last few days watching ourselves being slammed and crucified in the newspapers and everything lese so we thought
it was time we had our side. If we make a slip on this video and say something that is incriminating, please let us know. I pray for Sydney. I
hope she is found soon -- so.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m Bailey, Audrey on tinder, and a few other names. I met her on a Tuesday, had a great time, we hit it off. Picked her up the
next night at her house. I mean, I haven`t heard from her since. I just - - I really don`t even know what else to say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish Sydney the best. But as far as the police department, (bleep) you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: Some heated language there. Well, Bailey said she dropped Sydney back at a friend`s house, but then her roommate reportedly started talking
about a weird sex fantasy game and how Sydney had been strangled by an electrical cord. But months after Sydney was found dismembered, the two
roommates were charged with her murder. And now Aubrey trail is facing the death penalty. And his defense team is hustling to protect the bizarre
items that he kept in his house, like antique toys, meat grinders, beanie babies, and also shackles.
And joining me now to talk about all of this on the phone is Paul Hammel. He is a reporter for the "Omaha World Herald." Also medical examiner and
forensic pathologist Dr. William Morrone and defense attorney Brian Claypool is still with me.
Paul, this is such a weird story. Take us back from the beginning, how Sydney met Bailey and how it seemed like she thought she was going on a
date.
[19:20:39] PAUL HAMMEL, REPORTER, OMAHA WORLD HERALD (on the phone): Yes, it`s been a bizarre case from the beginning. You know, at some point,
Aubrey Trail called me and other media and said, hey I killed this woman. So kind of marked the first time in my career somebody`s called from jail
and said, I`m the guy.
But, yes, I think, you know, Sydney Loofe was from a small town in Nebraska and looking for a friend or companionship, and got on Tinder. And thought
she was going to meet somebody named Audrey, not Aubrey, Audrey, and ends up with these two people and ends up dead, you know. It`s an awful crime,
a shocking crime for our state.
COSBY: Yes, it sure is. And the first sign, she doesn`t show up to work. Give us a sense of when everybody else realized there was trouble.
HAMMEL: I think people realized that pretty quickly, you know. And she didn`t -- she was a very dependable worker, as her coworker said, kind of,
you know, probably going to be a manager one of these days. And then when she didn`t show up, the alarm bells went off and the FBI got involved.
There were a lot of searches all over the state. They used cell phone records to locate where they found the body. And they were searching out
there for more than a week, for not only her body parts, but for other evidence.
COSBY: You know what`s so heartbreaking? And I want to put up - this is what is believed to be the last photo of her. And it`s so sad. A picture
up on snapchat. She looks so excited, was thrilled to be sort of having this date, looks happy, and that`s indeed sadly the last image of beautiful
Sydney alive. Going on what she thought was just sort of an innocent date with somebody and a second date that she was excited about.
I want to play, this is some of the comments, because it`s so whacky, these things on Facebook. And here`s a little bit more of Aubrey and Bailey
talking. This is before they are charged, but they are just rambling on and on, on what`s reported to be Facebook.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning Lincoln and Omaha and probably several other places. This is Aubrey Trail and this is Bailey Boswell. I guess
you all also know her as Audrey. If we make a slip on this video and say something that you find incriminating, please let us know. As far as I
know, I`m not wanted for anything. I`m a person of interest and I`m not really running from anything.
I pray for Sydney, I hope she is found soon. I wish the family the best. I`m sorry that she wasn`t with you on thanksgiving. And that`s pretty much
all I can say for now. Here`s Bailey to tell you whatever she wants to.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m just - kind of want to tell you what I have already told the Lincoln police more than one time. I went to take her
home and she asked me to drop her off at a friend`s house, so I did so. I gave her my number. We were planning to go to the casino that weekend. I
mean, I haven`t heard from her since. I just -- I really don`t even know what else to say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish Sydney the best, but as far as the police department, (bleep) you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: Paul Hammel, that was before they were charged. And I know that you had a series of weird conversations with them. And I want you to tell
a little bit about that, but also the significance of some surveillance footage, because this is what I think really sinks them, because they are
buying particular items and this is while Sydney is alive. Talk about that.
HAMMEL: Yes, it`s a real mystery what they were doing in a home depot store, buying items that the police say could have been used to dismember a
body. You know, it`s a real mystery here, what they were thinking or what their motivation might have been. You know, if they Are proven guilty,
let`s make that caveat. A lot of speculation about, was it about sex trafficking or some occult thing. It`s just a very bizarre case.
And you know, you listen to Aubrey Trail and his career as a criminal has been as a scam artist. And he has changed his story more than once. So I
mean, what`s hard to get a hold on, is he telling the truth now or what?
[19:25:33] COSBY: Yes. It must have been just chilling to talk with him. I have talked to a number of people who have committed some serious crimes
and it`s always so chilling, Paul. As you look back, you must be kind of horrified.
HAMMEL: Yes. I mean, a talked to lot of inmates. I cover the correction system here in Nebraska. And you find inmates that are straight shooters
and you find inmates that are trying to spin you somehow and trying to manipulate and trying to, you know, put a lipstick on a pig.
And Trail was always -- he was always trying to figure out, well, what is he trying to get at here by saying this. And he kept promising, if you do
this, I will get you some more information, you know. So he was always trying to cut a deal or I think his days of cutting deals might be over.
COSBY: Let`s hope so.
Let`s go to Dr. William Morrone, medical examiner.
Dr. Morrone, it`s just so heartbreaking when you hear the stories that there were some items that were bought on that surveillance video.
Authorities are not telling us what. But the sad thing is, she was apparently found dismembered in a number of different locations, Dr. Marty.
What do you think they may have used to commit this horrible crime that they are accused of?
DR. WILLIAM MORRONE, MEDICAL EXAMINER/FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, there`s two things that you would use out in the field. One would be an axe and
one would be a saw. When you look at a human limb, you disarticulate it at the wrist, at the elbow, or at the shoulder. And you need tools to do
that. You need steel tools and you need blades. It would take a long time to do that. But they will also leave forensic marks in the bones. Just
because they take the flesh off and there`s skeleton, those kind of marks show up in the bones. And that will be used as forensic evidence against
them.
COSBY: You know, Dr. Morrone, he claims, and again, his story as Paul was talking, his story has changed a thousand times, but at one point he said
it was some wild sex game, and that he used a cord to choke her. Can you prove that, Dr. Morrone? How do they prove that on her body?
MORRONE: Well, that`s going to be really difficult because they said skeletal remains, which means they are dried. In the six stages of
decomposition, they are all the way down to the dry bones. If they used a cord to pull it so tight they broke her neck, you will see fractured
cervical vertebrae in the neck. But the soft tissue is gone.
COSBY: Paul Hammel, I have to ask you, because all these weird things were found in the house that they shared, the beanie babies, the shackles, lion
rug. Do they have kids? What were these things doing there?
HAMMEL: Aubrey Trail was a known antique dealer of some sort. And at least the local antique people I talked to said he was well known. They
were always suspicious of him because he passed bad checks, but that he liked antique toys. Where shackles fit in there, I don`t know. And where
a meat grinder might fit in, I don`t want to think about that. But I got to think that if anything was involved in this crime, they have confiscated
that as evidence. I mean, what they left behind in this apartment is probably just the debris of these two people`s activities, which were
buying and selling antiques and ripping people off.
COSBY: Well, and indeed. Obviously much more serious that they are charged with.
Thank you very much, everybody.
Meantime, tonight in North Carolina, William McCullum is spending the first night of the rest of his life in prison after a jury convicted him for the
murder of 3-year-old Jordan Dumont. McCullum claimed that the child disappeared from his home while he took a nap, and his 911 call for help
was almost Oscar-worthy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gaston County, 911. What`s the address of your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma`am. My oldest daughter, I was taking a nap, I just woke up and I can`t find her anywhere. I went to the neighbors and
they`re not home, and I don`t know where she`s at.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How old is she?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s about to be four next month. I have a newborn with me too, a 1-year-old and I got her, and I can`t find the other one. I
really need some help right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you looked under the beds and in the closet?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, ma`am, I called her name though, I can`t find her anywhere. I went next door, I`ve been calling her name outside, I can`t
find her.
DISPATCH: She may have fallen as sleep. I need you to go look under the beds and stuff. I`ve found people that way, OK?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma`am. Yes, ma`am. My wife`s at work. She`s about to be home, and I don`t know where my daughter is.
DISPATCH: Is she a white female?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma`am. She`s wearing -- she`s wearing -- she`s wearing blue jeans and a long sleeve Mickey Mouse shirt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RITA COSBY, HLN HOST: Well, despite that dramatic call, McCullum later admitted to police that he had punched the girl in the stomach as hard as
he could a few times when she wouldn`t settle down to take a nap. She reportedly had more than 50 blows to her little body, as well as bleeding
between her skull and her scalp. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
And the desperate search for a missing Iowa co-ed intensifies as new details about where Mollie Tibbetts might have gone after her late-night
jog emerge. We`ve got a whole bunch of them. Did she head back to her boyfriend`s house after her run? Find out next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:36:20] COSBY: And I`m Rita Cosby in for Ashleigh Banfield. Tonight, reports point to a possible new timeline the night that Mollie Tibbetts
went missing. She is the college girl who disappeared almost two weeks ago while she was dog-sitting for her boyfriend. And Mollie was reportedly
last seen jogging through her boyfriend`s rural town, leading some to suspect she was abducted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I try not to read any of those rumors or anything like that, because we just don`t know.
RICK RAHN, IOWA DIVISION OF CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION: Certainly, there are a number of rumors that are circulating here within the community, and we`re
trying to squash those rumors as much as possible, or validate them as much as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: And tonight, we still don`t know where Mollie is, but we might have a better idea as to when she disappeared. Because Mollie`s family says she
might have sent a Snapchat later that night, and if that`s true, that means something might have happened to her while she was inside her boyfriend`s
house, and that would change a lot of the leads in this case.
And joining me now to talk about all of this is CRIME & JUSTICE Producer Michael Christian, and also defense attorney Brian Claypool. Also on the
phone, we have Rick Rahn, he`s the special agent in charge from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. And we also have with us Hope Beck,
she is one of Mollie Tibbetts` best friends.
Michael, let me start with you, because a lot of new developments -- I know the whole country has been just praying for the safe return of Mollie. New
details that really could change the timeline, Michael.
MICHAEL CHRISTIAN, HLN CRIME & JUSTICE PRODUCER: Yes, that`s right, Rita. We knew before the last reported sighting of this woman, was she went out
jogging, she was an avid jogger, she ran all the time. So, we knew that she had left her boyfriend`s home, she was wearing jogging clothing. That
was the last that anybody knew. Now, we`re hearing reports from her family. They say they`re getting this from police, that she may have
returned to that home, she may have been on her laptop computer doing some homework in the evening. And as you say, she may have sent a Snapchat
photo to her boyfriend. We know by the next morning something`s happened to her, because her boyfriend sent her a text, saying, good morning. She
did not respond and she did not show up at her job. But she may have actually been back at his home on Wednesday night.
COSBY: And the boyfriend so far because it was his house, so far has been cleared so it seems, right?
CHRISTIAN: That`s right. He was working at a job in Dubuque, Iowa, which is about 100 miles away, so there doesn`t seem to be any possible way he
could be involved.
COSBY: Which is so interesting. Rick Rahn, let me go to you, special agent in charge, Agent Rahn. It`s interesting, because if this is true,
that the Snapchat was sent and that she went back to the house, I`m sure that changes your investigation tremendously.
RAHN (via telephone): Well, I can tell you, Rita, that as with any investigation, we take a look at all of the data that we can. I mean, we
live in a digital world right now. And so, it`s not uncommon for us to take a look at cell phones, computers, all the social media sites, and in
this particular case, as everyone well knows, there`s a Fitbit involved as well, too. So, we take a look at that, we try to establish a timeline as
best we can, and we feel that we have done that thus far. And unfortunately, I won`t be able to provide you any information as to that
timeline at this point.
COSBY: Let me ask you, Agent Rahn, was there any break-in at the house, was there any signs of intrusion at the house, now that there`s a chance
she may have gone back to that house?
RAHN: Well, and again, as much as we`d like to be able to provide information about the investigation, we have to keep some of those things
close to the vest. And so, I just cannot at this point release any information of the investigation itself.
[19:40:04] COSBY: Obviously, in a general term, you`re certainly going to search everything on that computer too, and use some real good forensic
experts, I`m sure, Agent Rahn, right?
RAHN: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we have done everything that we can investigatively thus far in hopes to try to track down and locate Mollie
and we will continue to do so until we find her.
COSBY: Absolutely. As we all are praying for that safe return. Let`s go to Hope Beck, one of Mollie`s best friends. Hope, this mystery, it`s still
just so heartbreaking. And now as time passes too, prayers continue and I think even intensify. Tell us a little bit about your friend. And did she
-- is she the kind of person who would have just run off or done something like that? Is there anything in her background, Hope?
HOPE BECK, BEST FRIEND OF MOLLIE TIBBETTS: No. Mollie is a very, very responsible individual. And she`s super nice and compassionate, and just
someone that people look up to, you strive to be like her. And it`s just not likely in any type of way that she would just run off. She had career
plans, she had vacation plans, and it`s just not like her to not talk to her friends or family for a while.
COSBY: What about also the boyfriend, because I do know that he`s been cleared, Hope. What do you know about him if indeed she did go back to his
house? Is there anybody, whether it`s tied to him or in the area that could be connected to the house that may lead to finding Mollie at this
point?
BECK: I 100 percent can say that Dalton is not involved, the boyfriend is not involved. I know him. I have seen their relationship, it was very
healthy, and he`s a very nice, respectable guy.
COSBY: You know, Michael Christian, you come from a small town too. We were talking about this.
CHRISTIAN: I do.
COSBY: And this town, this community here in Iowa, it`s summer, we`re talking about cornfields. I have been to lots of parts of America as a
journalist. Huge, tall cornfields, and it makes me think she could be anywhere.
CHRISTIAN: Yes, you know, you think, oh, you just check a field, but this time of year, the corn is very tall and it`s very dense. And literally,
you have to -- you`d have to literally go through every row of the cornfield pretty much looking for her. I mean, it would be very intensive.
It`s corn and soybeans in this part of the country. And again, the corn is very tall and very thick, and people do get lost in cornfields.
COSBY: Which makes it very tough. Let me go to Brian Claypool. Brian, as you hear this, what concerns me, and you know this as someone who`s covered
so many cases and represented so many folks, at this point, we don`t know what happened, we hope -- we pray that she comes back safely, and you never
know Elizabeth Smart, we think of these cases where kind of crazy cases, as time goes by, maybe there ends up being some good news as the family and
all of us pray, but time is against her, correct? As time goes on, it`s tougher and tougher?
BRIAN CLAYPOOL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, absolutely, Rita. And I think another important point in this case is if she truly came back and there
was a Snapchat after she jogged, in my mind, that goes from, gee, this was somebody randomly trying to attack her as she`s jogging, it could have been
a sexual pervert out there who just saw a woman and tried to attack her. It changes from that to I think somebody within an inner circle, who -- and
you asked a great question, was there a break-in? That`s the monumental fact.
COSBY: Yes, to me, that`s the big sign.
CLAYPOOL: That`s exactly --
COSBY: Now that she went back to the house.
CLAYPOOL: That`s exactly right.
COSBY: Someone who knew the house, or if it happened to be a neighbor, somebody following her, someone tied to the boyfriend.
CLAYPOOL: Bingo. And that narrows the circle of suspects. And I think it gives -- it gives more clarity now on who to target, and like you said, you
got to look at that computer.
COSBY: Yes, there could be a plethora of information on there. And let`s hope there is, that would be great if there is.
CLAYPOOL: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I want to go back to Hope Beck, one of her best friends. Hope, you know, as we hear this, tell us a little
bit about Mollie and the type of person she is, because we are all indeed praying that there`s some sort of break in the case and maybe there is
something, as Brian has been talking about on the computers, let`s hope so.
BECK: Mollie is one of the nicest people I`ve ever met, and she is one of my best friends. And I can`t -- there`s so much I can say about her and
it`s all going to be positive because she`s a positive person. And we all just want her to come home. So, if anyone has any information, I just,
like, beg you, please call the Poweshiek County Sheriff`s Office.
COSBY: Well said, and I pray that somebody does call in with a lead. Thank you very much. We`re hoping for a safe return for her.
Well, when an Arkansas man turns up dead in his backyard shed from an apparent gunshot wound, could it have been linked to his alleged porn
viewing habits? We`re going to talk about that one, next.
[19:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:49:55] COSBY: And I`m Rita Cosby in for Ashleigh Banfield. In Arkansas, police say a 69-year-old woman shot and killed her husband after
he bought porn. The suspect, Patricia Hill, called 911 on herself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DISPATCH: 911.
PATRICIA HILL, KILLED HUSBAND OVER PORN: Yes, I need a police and ambulance. My husband`s been shot.
DISPATCH: Who shot him, ma`am?
HILL: I did.
DISPATCH: Oh. Were y`all arguing or something, ma`am?
HILL: Yes, ma`am.
DISPATCH: Let me transfer you to the ambulance service, OK? Is he breathing?
HILL: I don`t know. I don`t know.
DISPATCH: You still have the gun, ma`am?
HILL: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: Well, her husband when deputies arrived, he suffered gunshot wounds to the upper part of the body. Officers went into the utility shed and
that`s where they actually found Frank Hill. Again, as I said, he had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the upper part and also lower part of
his body. His wife told investigators, she was upset by his purchase of video porn. Police said she cancelled the purchase when she discovered it
but frank just ordered it again. She told investigators she asked her husband to leave the shed but he refused. She then went back inside the
house, got a .22 caliber pistol, walked inside the shed and shot him in the head and leg. He was pronounced dead soon after authorities arrived. And
joining me to talk about all of this is Defense Attorney Brian Claypool. Brian, she said I did it. In fact, I want to play that call again because
it`s so wild. This is her calling 911.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: I need an ambulance and police.
DISPATCH: What`s going on?
HILL: My husband has been shot.
DISPATCH: OK. And where is he shot at? Do you know?
HILL: In the leg, I think.
DISPATCH: OK. Is the person that shot him still there?
HILL: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: So, Brian Claypool, is it going to be the porn defense, porn drove me to do it?
CLAYPOOL: Hey, why are you looking at me like that? Do you think I have some -- do you think I have some history with porn here?
COSBY: Come on, tell them. Just fess up.
CLAYPOOL: OK. We`ll talk off the camera about that.
COSBY: All right, that`s related. What about this case?
CLAYPOOL: Yes. Look, this reminds me of that Ambien defense that was used recently. Remember, there`s a murder case in Florida and the guy that shot
the young lady and killed her said, oh, I was using Ambien and that`s caused me to go kill her. So, look, this might give new meaning to that
heated -- heat of passion defense.
COSBY: But it`s not. The problem is -- and I knew you were going to go there, Brian, because you`re a good attorney. But the problem is, she gets
the gun, she goes to the shed, tells him to leave, then she goes and gets the gun, then she puts the gun back after she shoots him twice, and then
calls 911 as opposed to, uh-oh, what did I do?
CLAYPOOL: Yes. But with the heat -- just so your audience knows, heat of passion means if something really outrageous happens that would make a
reasonable person --
COSBY: But she`s conscious enough to take the gun and put the gun back before calling 911.
CLAYPOOL: That argument is not going to work in court where he --
COSBY: Although, it`s going to work with a jury. A jury is going to go, I don`t have a lot of sympathy for that, gal.
(CROSSTALK)
CLAYPOOL: The key -- the key -- the key -- the key fact on whether heat of passion works is the amount of time that goes by from learning about the
event, for example, you`ve found out your significant other is sleeping with somebody else and then within a half hour, you go do something bad.
Here, she did it right away, so --
COSBY: It`s still not going to hold weight with the jury.
CLAYPOOL: I never said it`s going to hold weight --
COSBY: You can -- you can try whatever you want to try, my friend.
CLAYPOOL: I never said it would work, but it`s worth a try.
COSBY: Wishful thinking. All right, Brian Claypool, thanks so much. Meantime, a shocking sight in downtown Denver on a busy Friday night. A
joyriding tractor thief racing down a sidewalk and up the wrong way on a one-way street. "ONE MORE THING" is straight ahead.
[19:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSBY: And "ONE MORE THING" for you tonight, a tractor thief taking a joyride around downtown Denver on a busy Friday night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSBY: Well, the joyriding tractor thief was going the wrong way down a one-way road when police decided the only way to stop him was to hit him
head on. Thankfully, the officer wasn`t seriously hurt and neither was 37- year-old Thomas Bush who had to be tased twice before a k-9 was deployed to subdue him. Bush is now facing a laundry list of charges from stealing the
tractor to biting the police dog among 20 other counts. And we will see you back here tomorrow night at 6:00 Eastern Time. Be sure to follow me on
Twitter @ritacosby, and also, catch me on WABC Radio on my show "Curtis & Cosby" every weekday from noon to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Thanks for
watching, everybody. "SOMETHING`S KILLING ME" with B.D. Wong begins right now.
END
