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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
Pregnant Mom And Her two Daughters Vanish; Jilted Woman Says Bad Sex Led Up To Killing. Aired 6-8p ET
Aired August 15, 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: Thanks for watching. I`m B.D. Wong. Good night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If somebody has her, please bring her back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A pregnant woman vanishes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They went on foot. They went in a car. They went somewhere.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And her two young daughters are gone too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She wasn`t here. The kids weren`t here. Nobody was here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But there are no signs of violence at the house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is what`s tearing me apart.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With all the mom`s valuables left behind.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want them to come back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened before the Watt`s girls disappeared?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had an emotional conversation, but I`ll leave it at that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And are they in danger tonight?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This has to stop. Like, somebody has to come forward.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I killed my boyfriend in self-defense. And then because he was twitching and I knew he was going to die anyway and he was
making funny noises and I shot him a couple more times.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was convicted of killing her boyfriend. Shooting him right in the face. Now she is getting a second chance at freedom with
a brand new trial.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was obviously very happy. It was something that was very special to me and for my life.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But this time around, it`s not just self-defense.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She sees his arm moving across the table towards a gun. She picks it up and she starts shooting. And she ends up shooting six
times.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is ripping from the Jodi Arias playbook and weaving their dirty sex secret into a motive for the violence. Will it
work or is she doomed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were only two ways he was leaving this condo that night. Either shoot his boyfriend or in a body bag.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You cannot tell someone a wrong for protecting their children. He is here what he is supposed to do to our kids.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She gave a beggar some change before the man forced his way into the women`s restroom and tried breaking into his daughter`s
stall.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The only thing that goes to my mind is what would he have done if he got in?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That father took justice into his own hands.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel bad that the man ended up dying in the process.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, why did he speed off and change his story?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t feel like he did anything wrong.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are arrested for aggravated assault involving serious physical injury.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And should he have to pay for what he did?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now he is a criminal for protecting his child? That is not fair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST, HLN CRIME AND JUSTICE: Good evening, everyone. I`m Ashleigh Banfield. And this is "Crime and Justice," a dark mystery in
Frederick, Colorado, the kind of place that does not see stories like this. A mom and her two young daughters seemingly vanish out of thin air in the
broad of daylight, leaving nothing behind, not a clue as to what happened. With a grieving father and husband left behind in a very empty house.
And that mom is pregnant with baby number three. Investigators are working around the clock, trying to figure out what happened on Monday morning, the
day they were last seen at that quiet little home. Chris Watts, says he left early for work and left his wife, Shannon in bed, Shannon nearly four
months pregnant, with a doctor`s appointment scheduled for later that day, but she would never show up. And when she didn`t return her husband`s
calls or the friend she was supposed to meet up with, the alarm bells started going off. That husband told the "Today" show how it all played
out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS WATTS, HUSBAND OF MISSING WOMAN: I texted her a few times, called her, didn`t get a response. That was a little off. And then her friend,
Nicole, showed up about -- a little afternoon, I can see it on the doorbell camera. I was like, something`s not right if she is not answering the
door. She said the car was here. I have to go home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: When the police came to check the house, they didn`t just find Shannon`s car, they found a lot more. All of her valuables, her keys, her
phone, her purse, even the little girls` medicine, but there were no signs of foul play and there were no signs of Shannon. And there were no signs
of those two little girls. With me now, KLZ 560 radio host, Jenna Ellis, also retired FBI special agent, Maureen O`Connell and defense attorney and
CNN and HLN legal analyst, Joey Jackson.
Jenna, let me first go to you. They`ve been holding pretty up-to-date news conferences with regards to where this Watts` family is. What`s the very
latest?
[18:05:00] JENNA ELLIS, ATTORNEY AND HOST, KLZ RADIO: The very latest are the details that we really don`t have any information from the Frederick
Police Department as far as what could have possibly happened to Shannon and her two little girls, Bella and Celeste. The Frederick Police
Department did put out immediately a bolo or be on the lookout.
And so far the details are very concerning, that there really is no evidence that the police are getting yet to trace anything that may have
happened to Shannon and her two little girls. As you indicated, Ashleigh, everything that a normal person would have taken with them, including her
purse, their daughter`s medication, her keys, any of her valuables, all of those things were left at home. And so there`s no trace and no sign at
this point of what may have happened.
BANFIELD: And Chris Watts, who is now left behind in that home, without his pregnant wife and two children, says the last he saw anyone was just
after 5:00 a.m., heading off to work. Shannon is in bed, they have a conversation. She says she is taking them to a friend`s house later that
day. The girls are seen on the baby monitor. Does he know anything else after that?
ELLIS: Well, so far, the husband, Chris Watts, has not indicated much to police, other than the interesting fact is that he did say they had an
emotional conversation. He didn`t claim it was an argument, the night before that Shannon disappeared. Other than that, he and also friends have
said this is very a typical behavior of Shannon to just leave with the children, especially being 15 weeks pregnant. So that is really all he is
really telling police at this time.
BANFIELD: So, Christopher Watts has also spoken with the press. When a reporter asked about that very issue that Jenna just mentioned, that there
was some kind of an emotional argument, this is how he phrased it. And it is interesting. I want to remind you, though, that Chris Watts is not a
suspect in this case, Chris Watts, has not been charged in this case, but this is what he said about his wife and daughters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there an argument before she left?
WATTS: It wasn`t like an argument. We had an emotional conversation, but I`ll leave it at that, but it`s -- I just want them back. I just want them
to come back. And if they`re not safe right now, that is what`s tearing me apart. If they are safe, they`re coming back. And if they`re not, this --
this has got to stop. Like, somebody has to come forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Well, someone has to come forward and maybe someone has seen something. You had a chance to look at the photographs. But here is a
more clear description of what Shannon Watts actually looks like. Her photo was there and there are the specs, she is 5`5", she was a 148 pounds
and her hair is dark to black and her eyes are hazel.
You`ve seen the pictures of the little girls, Celeste also goes by Cici, she is only 3 years old and little Bella is 4 years old. Possibly all
three are together. But if you`ve seen anything without question, call your local police right away. Jenna, one other question. They believe
that these little girls, one, maybe both, might be in ill health. Is that because of the medication or is there something else we just don`t know?
ELLIS: At this point, that has been raised as a concern, according to the Frederick Police Department. And likely that is because of the medication
that was left at the home and certainly nothing has turned up that we`re aware of locally yet as far as any sort of refill or any indication that
the girls are getting the medication that they need.
BANFIELD: The FBI is now on the case as well. And Maureen O`Connell, I want to bring you in to this conversation. At this point, as a retired FBI
special agent, I can only imagine that this is a very high priority. Not just because there`s a missing woman, but because she is pregnant and there
are two missing little girls as well, and seemingly not a trace. Can you help me to understand immediately what steps the FBI might be taking?
MAUREEN O`CONNELL, RETIRED FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, the first thing is they`re trying to hammer down the husband`s timeline. They`re going to
account for every single minute for the last -- since they went missing on Monday morning. Secondly, they`re going to be interviewing every one of
her friends. It is not reasonable to assume that a woman is going to leave her home for more than five minutes without her cell phone, her keys, her
purse and with her children, especially if the children need medication. There are red flags all over this scenario. And they`re going to hammer it
down to the very details and, through that, they`re going to find some good information, hopefully some actionable intelligence that they can work
with.
BANFIELD: So my assumption, Maureen, is that they will cast the net very wide, but they will also do some very quiet surveillance as well. And I
should reiterate again, Chris Watts, this husband, is not a suspect. He has not been charged, but are they putting him under the microscope without
him even knowing it?
[18:10:02] O`CONNELL: Well, it`s not so much putting him under the microscope, Ashleigh. It`s much more a case of you have to check people
off the list before you can move to these other areas. There are all these concentric circles in an investigation. And you start initially very close
to the vest and then work your way out. But in order to work your way out, initially, you have to scratch these people off the list.
Now the FBI is involved. The local authorities are involved. They are going to work in concert. They`re going to be lockstep together, doing a
great job. And believe me, we take this stuff seriously. These are the type of cases that we live for. We all want to help so much. And everyone
is going over and above and beyond to bring these people home safely.
BANFIELD: Wow. And no one probably wanting that more, at least from the appearance of it, than Chris Watts, this husband, who spoke again with a
local reporter, making a desperate plea for the return of his family. Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WATTS: If you`re out there, just come back. If somebody has her, just please bring her back. I need to see everybody. I need to see everybody
again. This house is not complete without anybody here. Please bring them back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Jenna Ellis, back to you for a moment. There something very curious about the pattern of events. And I want you to help me get through
this sequence of how she was discovered gone. There`s something odd in that sequence. And I`m not sure if it`s just me or if there`s something
more to it.
Chris Watts leaves at 5:15 in the morning. She is in bed. They have a quick conversation, he says, something vague about her going to visit a
friend later and the two little girls are asleep on the baby monitor. The next thing that happens is a friend, a friend who had dropped her off at
the house the night before, at 2:00 in the morning, after what`s called a work retreat, a traveling work retreat, calls her the next day. No answer.
No response.
Calls the police immediately and goes with the police to the home for a welfare check. All the while, Chris Watts, the husband, is not part of
that. He is watching this happen on the ring camera outside the door. Do I have that right, Jenna? Because it looks odd to me that the first call
would not be to the husband to say where is Shannon? Why is she not answering? You need to come home and we need to find her, but the first
call was to the police.
ELLIS: Yes. That is very odd. And usually friends can call the police. And certainly, here in Colorado, where I`m a local attorney, I practiced in
criminal defense as well as prosecution. And so in the sense of a friend calling, it may just be the case that this particular friend didn`t have
his phone number. I mean, these are all the things that so far the facts, we just don`t know yet.
What was the reason that the friend was immediately concerned enough to call the police rather than even wait until later that night? Something
was going on probably in the friends mind to raise that level of concern. Maybe it was a close enough friend that Shannon had, that type of
relationship that was always immediately texting and calling back. So that timing is correct. And I think that you`re right, Ashleigh. That
certainly does raise some red flags and as police investigate, the FBI is now more involved. Probably more of those detail will come to light.
BANFIELD: Joey Jackson, this has now moved to a missing person`s case to something in these community, they call a danger missing person`s alert.
Significant?
JOEY JACKSON, CNN PRIMETIME JUSTICE GUEST SHOW HOST: I think it`s significant. Because it goes to show maybe nefarious conduct, right? A
person could be missing, but now they`re suspecting some type of wrongdoing. And that is a problem, I mean, you know we can take solace in
the fact that we have the FBI, a top law enforcement agency, in a contrary to the case. I think they are very experienced with this. But it`s very
confounding. I think, Ashleigh, they`ll look certainly at her concentric circle, family members, her friends, who she is in communication with, who
her enemies might be, who might wish her harm, what`s going on in that household, what was going on with her associates. And hopefully by that it
will get some leads, but you don`t expect a person with two children who is pregnant to go and just disappear.
BANFIELD: And leave everything.
JACKSON: No, you don`t.
BANFIELD: So curious, then there`s also this. If you look at this community, it looks to be an upscale community. These days, so many of
these kinds of communities have camera`s everywhere, they got surveillance cameras, they got ring.com. They apparently, themselves, had some kind of
camera in their doorbell, because it was Chris Watts who had said he watched as the best friend and the police came to do the welfare check.
So, that has to be a trove of information. You don`t just disappear out of a house if there`s a camera rolling on the exit.
JACKSON: You know, so true, Ashleigh. It is like they say, technology being a blessing and a curse, it`s amazing now with surveillance everywhere
how that can be so helpful to law enforcement. And let`s just hope if it wasn`t their particular surveillance that other surveillance may capture
clues to lead them in the direction of what may happened.
[18:15:04] BANFIELD: Maureen O`Connell, real quickly, BOLO, a bolo, be on the lookout, has been issued. But in this case, they don`t have a car.
They don`t have a specific vehicle, because her vehicle is still at their home. What can you do with that on a BOLO, if you don`t have the vehicle
to look for?
O`CONNELL: It`s an almost impossible scenario. They are, for sure, going door to door and trying to get any type of surveillance camera activity.
But my understanding is from a report I read earlier is that it was not apparent that she left through her front door, Shannon, that is. So, this
whole thing is very, very interesting. And I think that you -- it did not go unnoticed that -- exactly what you said about the husband and his
timeline and all those red flags there.
BANFIELD: Yes. I hope that ring.com, if that is the kind of camera they had, that the ring camera they have can help them with some part of this
case. But I should remind you again, Chris Watts at this point is not a suspect. He is not charged, but they`re looking at everyone, as you all
said. My great thanks to Jenna Ellis and Maureen O`Connell, thank you. I am going to ask Joey, to stick around if you would, please.
Tonight there`s a case where testimony has begun. You may recognize the name, Shayna Hubers, smiling in court. It`s a murder trial. She is
accused of shooting her boyfriend to death. But now she is saying she is, in fact, the victim here, pointing to that boyfriend as the real bad guy.
And all of it, when you put it together and hear the details that are coming up reminds us a whole lot of Jodi Arias.
[18:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: She is the woman you just might love to hate. The woman who told police herself that she shot her boyfriend in the face, giving him the
nose job he always wanted, but did Shayna Hubers deserve to be hated? Deserve to be convicted of murder for a second time. Because now that her
new trial is under way, she is giving the jury a whole new story that makes her more of a victim than murderer. Certainly not the cold-hearted killer
girlfriend bent on vengeance, who fired six bullets into Ryan Posten`s body before eventually calling 911.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Campbell County, 911.
SHAYNA HUBERS, SUSPECT: Ma`am, I have -- I have a -- I killed my boyfriend in self-defense.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where are you?
HUBERS: Ma`am I killed him in self-defense.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Hold on. Hold on. What did you kill him with?
HUBERS: A loaded gun in the house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tell me where the gun is right now.
HUBERS: The gun is in the house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where are you right now?
HUBERS: I am standing about ten feet from his dead body.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Are you sure he is dead?
HUBERS: He is dead, ma`am. He is definitely dead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. And how long ago did you shoot him?
HUBERS: I don`t know. 15, 10 minutes, not even that long.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 10 or 15 minutes ago?
HUBERS: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: The self-defense argument did not work for her first time around. That jury convicted her of murder, the murder of Ryan Posten. And
they sent her to prison for four decades, but thanks to a juror who failed to disclose that he, himself, had a conviction, Shayna Hubert gets another
crack at freedom and she seems to be pulling play after play from the Jodi Arias handbook. Not just saying that she was abused by the man that she
loved, but that he gave her grief about how she performed in the bedroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID ELDRIDGE, SHAYNA HUBERS` DEFENSE ATTRONEY: Miss Hubers is not guilty of this tragedy. She was privileged to act in self-protection. She was
acting under extreme emotional distress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I want to bring in my panel here, Jesse Weber, host of Law and Crime network following this case, also jury consultant and body language
expert, Susan Constantine is on it and defense attorney, Joey Jackson is going to weigh in as well as to whether he thinks this new story will work.
But first, to you, Jesse, what a surprise. I mean, this a whole new tact from trial number one.
JESSE WEBBER, HOST, LAW AND CRIME NETWORK: It really is. We didn`t hear anything in the first trial about this abuse that she suffered as a child
and, let alone, this horrible, torrid, sexual affair with Ryan. We heard details that I had no idea about, that she couldn`t get an orgasm and
needed to have a special injection to help her. I mean, these are details that I don`t know is just clouding what the real facts are.
BANFIELD: It`s Jodi Arias times 100.
WEBBER: It really is.
[18:25:00] BANFIELD: So, let me get this straight.
WEBBER: Sure.
BANFIELD: You correct me if I am wrong. But there was a lot of trial evidence on trial number one whereby it was just he went for the gun first.
I grabbed it. I shot him. It was violent. He had been violent with me. And the jury didn`t buy it, mostly because of what she did in her
interrogation tapes, which I`ll get to in a moment.
This time around, they`ve got a whole new narrative. I wasn`t so good in the sack and he was mad at me for that. Is that really the direction
they`re going?
WEBBER: Well, when you look at the crime scene, there`s not much evidence of a struggle. So, what are they going to go with? Let`s understand what
the whole relationship was like beforehand. He was abusive. He told her that she couldn`t even talk to him 25 percent of the time. Let`s limit how
much she can actually speak to him. While they`re in the same room, she claimed she was forced to text him if she wanted to speak to him. So, all
this is all coming in and also this history of her having been abused which leaves in the mind of the jurors a question about what was the condition
mentally of this woman when the shooting happened?
BANFIELD: So the headline on trial number one was I gave him the nose job that he always wanted. That was what she said to the police during the
interrogation. And the headline on trial number two is, he came after me violently, because I wasn`t good in bed. Let`s go back to that
interrogation, though, because it will feature heavily again in this trial. The moment she told the investigators about the nose job and a few other
choice little pieces of information. Have a look at how she put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUBERS: One of the last conversations that we had that was good was that he wants to get a nose job. And I gave him his nose job that he wanted. I
think that is why I shot him in the head. I shot him six times. I shot him in the head. He fell to the ground. He was like this. His glasses
were still on. I shot him a couple more times to make sure he was dead. I didn`t want to watch him die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I shot him because I didn`t want him to die. That is a whole other argument I`ll get to in a moment. There`s another little factoid
that doesn`t play in well for Shayna Hubers. And that is, that the night that this all happened her loving boyfriend, Ran Posten had a date planned
with someone else, and not just anyone else, a very beautiful someone else? Miss Ohio. There she is, Audrey Bulty, Miss Ohio, 2012.
That was the date he was going on the night, he, instead, was shot six times and died in a pool of blood. I want to show you some difficult
pictures to process. So, if you`re squeamish at all, I would look away. The crime scene shows where Ryan Posten was shot dead and how he ended up.
This was the aftermath. In the foreground there was a dining room table littered with all sorts of (inaudible) he had been sitting in that chair
presumably and was shot over that dining room table if Shayna Hubers story was accurate and the mess that was left behind was significant, and
palpable. You can see the evidentiary marks and all this was ripe for a trial, trial number one and trial number two.
Susan Constantine, I want you to jump in on this if you will. Not good when someone else, who is exotically pretty, Miss Ohio, is on the docket
for a date the night that all of a sudden things get ugly between the two of them.
SUSAN CONSTANTINE, JURY CONSULTANT AND BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: Yes, you`re right about that, too, Ashleigh. You know, that gives motive. And if you
look at, Ashleigh, when we`re looking at Jodi Arias, it was the same kind of scenario, right? So Jodi was jealous, because, why? Her boyfriend was
going to go meet another girl. She didn`t want him to go on vacation. So what happens? She made darn sure that wasn`t going to happen. So, there
is no doubt in my mind after listening to all the evidence and reading everything about this case, I don`t think she has a chance. No way, to be
able to win this trial.
BANFIELD: OK. So you brought up the Jodi Arias. I brought up Jodi Arias. Why don`t we just show the comparison of Jodi Arias. And I am going to
start with one of the things that Shayna Hubers did during her interrogation when she thought no one was listening. Aren`t those always
the best clips to run? When that person does not thinks anybody could hear, what does that person do, say or sing? Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining. This is the day of our dear savior`s birth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: The songbird is now locked up. That`s Jodi Arias doing the very same thing that Shayna Hubers would do years later. But the most damning
thing of all might just be what Shayna Hubers said on 911 contemporaneously. The moment this crime was happening, she`s on the phone
describing it to a shocked operator. Listen for all these cues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ma`am, and then b he was twitching and I knew he was going to die anyway and he was making funny noises. I shot him a couple of
times just to kill him because I knew he would have been
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m sorry. You said you shot him a couple of more times after that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How many times did you shoot him total?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Because he was twitching and you knew he was going to die so you shot him again?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had to make sure he was dead because he was twitching so bad, and I didn`t want him to lay there and twitch.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you shot him instead of calling 911?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do what? Yeah, I did because I knew he was going to die anyway.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was pretty bad. He was like he was just twitching and he was pretty much dead and I shot him just so he`d stop twitching.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Joey Jackson, I shot him not to put him out of his mystery, but I wouldn`t have to watch him die. He was twitching so I shot him. Even
the 911 operator said you shot him instead of calling 911? You shot him a couple of more times after that? That`s got to be the nail in the coffin.
JOEY JACKSON, LEGAL ANALYST, CNN AND HLN: I think even without this, there`s a nail in the coffin. So let me give one you more comparison to
Jodi Arias, guilty, right?
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: Not yet.
JACKSON: Guilty the first time. And I think she`ll be found guilty the second time. You know, we know a juror violation, can`t have those
violations, can`t have convicted jurors. But the reality is that defenses have to make sense. You have motive here, absolutely. You showed it with
Miss Ohio. You have opportunity. She`s there. There`s the gun.
BANFIELD: You have an admission I shot him after he was down on the floor because he was twitching and dying, and I didn`t want to have to watch.
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: Just to that I can go out on a high note. These are the text messages that came into court today from a friend. Shayna texts her
friend, when I go to the shooting range with Ryan tonight, I want to turn around, shoot, kill him, and play like it`s an accident. The friend says
in another text there`s a fine line between love and hate.
And Shayna says my love has turned to hate. Well, it goes on and on from there. But, wow. This is another one. Shayna says to her friend, who is
a dentist, Ryan`s been begging you to ask if you could do his veneers. Please F them up and make him look ugly so he can never get another girl.
I hate him. I hate him.
Shock, maybe not. Jesse Weber, thank you so much, Susan Constantine, thank you as well. And Joey Jackson, I`m going to ask you to stick around, if
you will. How far would you go to defend your teenage daughter`s honor? Really think hard about that, because that`s the question Arizona parents
right now are considering after a Phoenix dad was charged with murder for allegedly beating a man suspected of targeting his 16-year-old daughter in
a bathroom.
Is this a case of vigilante justice gone wrong or is it cold-blooded murder? And how will a jury feel?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:35:05] BANFIELD: It was supposed to be a pretty quick stop, a dad picking up his teenage daughter and her friends at a convenience store on
the side of the road. But that stop was less than convenient. In fact, it ended up traumatizing and it ended up deadly. Because when the driver`s
daughter went in to the women`s restroom, a random man tried breaking into her bathroom stall.
[18:40:02] Just minutes before he has been outside, begging her dad for change, and when Melvin Harris found out what his daughter went through, he
had something else he wanted to give to the beggar, a deadly beat down. Witnesses say he punched Leon Armstrong in the face, kicked him, stomped
him before speeding off with his daughter and her friends and leaving him on the ground.
The vigilante father is now facing assault and murder, and it could land him behind bars for 22 years. And with a fiance who is nothing but
grateful for what he did to protect his daughter`s honor.
DIANA JACKSON, MELVIN HARRISS` GIRLFRIEND: The only thing that goes through my mind is what would he have done if he got in. If you knew there
was a known problem, why not fix it before it got that far? I would have done the same thing. I don`t feel bad at all for his actions. I feel bad
that the man ended up dying in the process. I do.
BANFIELD: I want to bring in Sergeant Mercedes Fortune. She`s the Public Information Officer for the Phoenix Police Department where this happened,
also, former Arizona Police Officer Brandon Tatum, and Defense Attorney Joey Jackson. I am going to ask all of you to weigh in on this, but first
to you, Sergeant Fortune. Some of the facts in the case -- this is very troubling to hear.
Because the man who allegedly did this to this man`s teenage daughter had finished whatever he was doing and had moved on. Is it now really up to
the surveillance tape at the QT to try to help put the pieces together, or have you even had a chance to look at it?
SGT. MERCEDES FORTUNE, PUBLIC AFFAIRS, PHOENIX PD: So the interesting part about this case is that there is no actual surveillance video that captures
the actual incident or the assault that we are speaking about. There is a video inside, obviously, of the victim and the suspect. You know, it`s
based on witness statements as well, and the evidence that was found by officers that, you know, helped them develop that probable cause to arrest
the suspect.
BANFIELD: So, Sergeant Fortune, have the witnesses and some of the video that you`ve seen, clearly there`s not video covering every part of this
fact pattern. But with the evidence you know so far, does the story of this father play out the way he tells it?
FORTUNE: The facts are that the victim did, in fact, go into that women`s restroom. Yes, that is a fact. And he was outside of that restroom when
the suspect confronted him about that. After an initial -- you know their confrontation with the suspect outside of this convenience store. That`s
when the suspect approached him and that`s when the assault happened.
BANFIELD: And the daughter, the teenage daughter who was in that stall and presumably was quite fearful of this victim, Leon Armstrong, trying to
rattle his way into that stall. Did she have corroborating witnesses in that bathroom as well?
FORTUNE: There was another female with her. I don`t know if she was inside the bathroom as well, but there was another -- one of her friends
was with her.
BANFIELD: One of the most critical questions in this case, Sergeant Fortune, is what the father, Melvin Harris, says happened first. He claims
that Leon Armstrong, after rattling the bathroom where his daughter was locked inside, swung at him first and that he responded with another punch,
kick, and stomp that ultimately killed him.
Do you know that fact pattern to be true, that the perpetrator in this case was the beggar instead of the father? Do you know who threw the first
punch?
FORTUNE: According to witness statements, it was the suspect that actually began the assault. And again, based on witness statements and the evidence
that was found by officers, that`s what the arrest was made on.
BANFIELD: So when you say the suspect, it`s hard in this case because if Leon Armstrong were alive, he would be a suspect for what he did in the
bathroom. But you`re referring to the father defending his daughter`s honor as the suspect that he threw the first punch. Is that correct?
FORTUNE: Again, we have to be objective as police officers. We base all arrests on facts, and the facts in this case are that the suspect
physically assaulted and caused the death of the victim.
BANFIELD: So Joey Jackson, that`s a critical issue in this case, because the defense that Melvin Harris, this father, had mounted from the beginning
was he swung at me first and we only both had fists. Nobody brought a knife to that fight. Nobody brought a gun to that fight. And that this
would have been unintentional, but he defended himself as well as his daughter`s honor.
[18:44:52] JACKSON: Absolutely. That`s the narrative. So I think there are two things critical here. Number one, the back story is so important,
why, because we know what this person who is now dead did. We know the attack upon the daughter in the stall. We know that that gets you to the
mindset of who that individual is that you`re dealing with.
So when you get out of the car to confront him, you`re in a heightened state of alertness. As a result of that, a fight ensues. And we don`t
know. Surveillance will dictate specifically what happened, but you may have a very good self defense claim even if the suspect threw the first
punch. What happened thereafter?
Even if you threw the first punch, you are entitled to defend yourself thereafter. So let`s reserve judgment. See what that tape says. But I
think certainly, you can have a valid and viable self defense.
BANFIELD: So if he doesn`t have that punch on his side, and it`s just him against the jury, I did it. I defended my daughter`s honor. I was livid.
I was seething with anger. Any one of you on the jury would be. I have a question for you after the break. What is the key to defending this dad?
If you were in that jury box, how would you feel about that dad?
Are you, yourself, a dad or a parent? Could this man walk out of court a free man? That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:50:00] BANFIELD: We`re still talking about that Arizona father who took the law into his own hands, beating the man who tried to break into
his teenage daughter`s bathroom stall. But he beat that man to death. And now, that dad is charged with murder. The question is whether he`s just a
good dad who did what any parent would do to defend his daughter`s honor, or whether he`s a cold-blooded killer who thought he was above the law.
I want to bring in Brandon Tatum. Brandon, with your experience as a police officer, there were no weapons brought to this moment, fists and
fists alone. The dad says that the perp swung first. The evidence right now does not support that. But the man died five days later. And again,
no weapon was drawn. Does that make any difference at all?
BRANDON TATUM, FORMER POLICE OFFICER, ARIZONA: No. It doesn`t make a difference. And I think the distinction that we have to make is that we`re
looking at two different incidents. You have an incident where the gentleman was trying to force his way into the stall, which is a separate
crime and a separate investigation.
And then after, subsequently after the scenario is over, the dad then comes and approached the man outside after the fact, gets into a physical
altercation, knocked the man unconscious, hit him several more times, which resulted to his death. So I think that, you know, the clear charges that
they made against him, secondary murder, seems to be appropriate based on the facts alone.
BANFIELD: You know, Joey Jackson, if we were to take a poll of everybody watching right now, I suspect we would be shocked by what we hear. The
fact pattern, if what the witnesses say is clear, is clear cut second degree murder no matter how you slice it. But jurors sometimes don`t
always follow the facts, do they?
JACKSON: They do not. And I think you want to appeal to a juror`s emotion. And you want to say that it`s not two separate incidents. This
is one incident. This is a situation where what would you do if it was your precious daughter that was exposed to that, if it was your sister that
was exposed to that, some kind of untoward and inappropriate behavior, and to defend that person`s honor.
And for you, as a result of that, to be facing a murder charge, who amongst you thinks that it`s fair that you should be put into that situation. Who
amongst you thinks that it`s appropriate to go and do whatever you want to do to a 16-year-old without any repercussion, without any accountability?
I am not suggesting that vigilante justice is right at all, but I`m suggesting to you is that he did what any man, woman, or child would do
under the circumstances. He doesn`t deserve to be prosecuted. And you ladies and gentlemen, hold the key for that fact.
BANFIELD: And then you cross your fingers and hold on to that Hail Mary.
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: We are going to nullify and we`re going to send him home. And it happens. It happens.
BANFIELD: That`s why you`re the professor. You put the fancy words on it called jury nullification. But what it is is that appealing to our better
angels and saying, look, you would have done that too. Joey Jackson, thank you for that. I`ll ask you to stick around. Sergeant Mercedes Fortune,
thank you for your time as well. And Brandon, I want you to stick around as well.
You know those security check lines that we always have to go through at the airport? Normally, they are mind-numbingly dull. Not at Newark, no.
Not at Newark. Who wouldn`t want to be in a dance-off with the TSA agent? You`re going to see it all, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:55:00] BANFIELD: Got one more thing for you tonight. Airport security checkpoints are not normally where you would expect to see people
cutting loose. But you`ve got to check out the scene at Newark International Airport, where a little boy who had just cleared security
decided to challenge the TSA agent to a dance-off.
And it was on. I hope the dancers, if you don`t already know are doing excellent renditions of the floss. You must ask your fortnight champion
child about the floss. No doubt, your kid has done this in every public place where you have been. And now it`s on national TV, the floss. I know
it well. Next hour of Crime and Justice starts right now.
1900
WALSH: - traumatic situation, and you had the minor children also on- scene, too. So, definitely going to be a long road for this family, but I`m sure that the neighbors in the community will band together to help
them through this horrible situation.
BANFIELD: Well, Deputy Chief Andy Walsh, maybe you can step in at this moment. It`s always tragic and difficult when children are involved. And
in this case, the reports are that these children were witnessing this stabbing attack of - and I`m assuming it`s their mother, but maybe I`m
wrong.
Can you fill in some of the blanks Deputy Chief, and let me know what the story with the children was?
WALSH: Sure. First, it`s the echo of the sentiments that Sergeant Cino performed for Oakley (ph) in this incident. And you`re right, the four
children were present at the time that the attack was occurring inside the house, and then during the officer involved shooting, they were there.
BANFIELD: And then, afterwards, what happened? Were there family members? Is someone looking after these four kids? And all four of them witness
their mother nearly being killed, and then, obviously, this man? And I don`t know if he`s their father, but they witnessed him being killed?
WALSH: Yes. Well, they were there on-scene. What their view of the officer involved shooting part is something that we`ll go through the
process of seeing what they did witness. But they`re safe with family members, and their mother is still in the hospital and making a recovery.
BANFIELD: And do you think she`s going to make a full recovery, Deputy?
WALSH: Well, I believe, you know, after being stabbed multiple times and the way she was victimized, I don`t think she`ll ever be the same, and
neither will Sergeant Cino after having experienced this. But at the same time, you know, she`ll hopefully be back on her feet and be reunited with
her children quickly.
BANFIELD: And let me talk to you a little bit about Sergeant Cino. I mentioned before that she`s being hailed as a hero for more than likely
having saved this woman, this mother of four`s life. And I want to play some of that body cam video of hers. Again, it`s from her perspective.
And I just want to warn you, this is very difficult to process this, but I think it`s helpful because the question I have for you Deputy Chief is what
does the sergeant go through now? She doesn`t just go back to work the next night. She`s got a long road ahead of her, not of just protocols, but
also mental health and the environment that she`s been put through.
WALSH: Yes, it`s a great point. I mean these are things that, you know, officer involved shootings are portrayed, you know, in the media very often
when they occur (ph). And you know, body cameras play a large role in that now, and people get to see the world through a cop`s eye, and we`re able to
provide that type of footage.
So these are traumatic experiences. You know, the sergeant, along with all of our other officers, we, you know, believe in the sanctity of human life.
And in a case like this, she had to shoot one human being to protect another. And then the recovery process from that, both mentally and
physically, will take some take, but we have a police employee`s assistance program that is actively involved with all employees who are involved in
critical incidents like this. And she`ll go through their critical incident review process that we have in here.
You know, although the circumstances in this case are pretty clear, you know, as to why she needed to use deadly force, she`s still going to have
to tell the story from her perspective. And that`ll be part of the review process which will take some time.
BANFIELD: And just listen in at the end of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANIELLA CINO, SERGEANT, LAS VEGAS METRO POLICE: Metro Police. Drop the knife.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I mean she - Deputy Chief, she barely even got that notification to Metro Police before she realized he is coming at me with that knife. He
has already demonstrated how violent he is with that knife. I want to ask you if you`ve had a chance or if anyone`s had a chance to ask Sergeant
Cino?
And this is tough, because we all the situation that`s happening in the media right now. We all know that Black Lives Matter has pointed out that
so many injustices have befallen African-American men or boys who have been shot and have been unarmed.
This is not that case, but at the same time, optics can be everything. And the facts sometimes don`t always come into play. Do you know if Sergeant
Cino had that flash before she pulled the trigged, thinking, "Oh, dear God, please don`t let me be the next media victim who loses her job in the line
of the duty," when she was thinking she had no other choice?
WALSH: You know, it`s a great point because like I said earlier on, body cameras provide a great opportunity for people to see what an officer is
seeing and what an officer is confronted with. And when you look at the images of this man standing up, covered in blood, and then coming at our
officer with a knife, it paints a clear picture as to why deadly force was a reasonable option for that sergeant in that moment.
You know, at the minute we have our officers hesitate because of what they think, someone will say, "They all know that they`re subject to scrutiny.
They all, in our agency, wear body cameras, so they know that the review process will take place. But we ask them and we train them to make
decisions, based upon the circumstances that are in front of them."
And then in this case, you know, the person holding the weapon (ph), actively engaged in harming another human being, to the extent that he was.
You know, I - I spoken to her, I don`t think that media scrutiny, review process, or any of the things that she knows she will be subjected to by
making this decision to protect another human being with her firearm, I don`t think she was concerned about the - the aftermath of it.
It was the reasonable, righteous thing to do.
BANFIELD: So, Darrin Porcher, weigh-in on this, because I can`t imagine in training nowadays, that this isn`t a big discussion. You may be faced,
like Officer Sino - like Sergeant Cino was faced, with a deadly decision, and it`s instantaneous, and you may have it in the back of you mind that,
"If I discharge this weapon, I might be the person who goes."
DARRIN PORCHER, RETIRED NYPD LIEUTENTANT: Well - well, police shootings have been an enigma in this country for years on end. And I look at police
shootings as a three-legged stool. The first component is, the assailant has a propensity for immediate danger to either the victim or the police
officer, and that danger is imminent. That`s the first leg of the stool. The second leg of the stool is, there`s an actual weapon involved that can
cause this danger.
And the third leg of the stool is, the officer has no other alternative means. This officer clearly had all three legs of the stool in place.
Therefore, this was a justified shooting. And the truth of the matter is this. I invested a lot of these shootings when I was the lieutenant in the
internal affairs crew (ph).
Your heart is beating out of your chest. When you have an assailant standing in front of you holding a knife, coming directly towards you after
you`ve given numerous commands - and this is a diametric opposition of what we saw happen up in Chicago with the Laquan McDonald shooting.
The officer had no time, and she acted appropriately, and she ultimately saved this woman`s life, as a result of her actions.
BANFIELD: So very quickly, Troy Slaten, and just a couple of seconds left. But I`m assuming that this officer will have all of the efforts of the
union behind her, as she may need an attorney at some point to represent her through all the protocols?
TROY SLATEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That`s ture. Officer Cino - Sergeant Cino here did everything right. She`s going to have the union support. She`s
going to have the community support. And she`s got the support of the police department.
BANFIELD: Well, I want to mention something as we - as we go out to break, and that is, that, since this is a domestic violence story, it`s critical
to know that there is a domestic violence hotline, and if you are watching right now, and this is the kind of thing that - it`s drawing your
attention, but there`s fear for you or others, please know that these numbers are there for you. 1-800-799-SAFE, 1-800-799-7233.
And my great thanks to Aaron Rosen, Deputy Chief Andy Walsh. Karen and Troy, I`m going to ask you to stick around, if you will, as well. Any
married person knows that there are as many good days as bad days, and that sites can be par for the course (ph). But how bad must that site have been
before a husband flew his plane into his own home where his wife and son were sleeping. Details are next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: She`s the woman you just might love to hate. The woman who told police herself that she shot her boyfriend in the face, giving him the nose
job he always wanted. But does Shayna Hubers deserve to be hated? Deserve to be convicted of murder for a second time? Because now that her new
trial is underway, she`s giving the jury a whole new story that makes her more of a victim than murderer. Certainly not the cold-hearted killer
girlfriend bent on vengeance who fired six bullets into Ryan Poston`s body before eventually calling 911.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Campbell County 911.
SHAYNA HUBERS, MURDERER: Ma`am, I have -- have a -- I killed my boyfriend in self-defense.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Where are you at?
HUBERS: Ma`am, I killed him in self-defense.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Hold on. Hold on. What did you kill him with?
HUBERS: A gun, a loaded gun in the house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tell me where the gun is right now?
HUBERS: The gun is in the house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where are you?
HUBERS: I`m standing about ten feet from his dead body.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Are you sure that he is dead?
HUBERS: Yes. He`s dead, ma`am. He`s completely dead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. And how long ago did you shoot him?
HUBERS: I don`t know. 15 -- 10 -- 10 to 15 minutes -- not even that long.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 10 or 15 minutes ago?
HUBERS: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: The self-defense argument did not work for her first time `round. That jury convicted her of murder. The murder of Ryan Poston.
And they sent her to prison for four decades. But thanks to a juror who failed to disclose that he himself had a conviction, Shayna Hubers gets
another crack at freedom. And she seems to be pulling play after play from the Jodi Arias handbook. Not just saying that she was abused by the man
that she loved but that he gave her grief about how she performed in the bedroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miss Hubers is not guilty of this tragedy. She was privileged to act in self-protection. She was acting under extreme
emotional distress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I`m going to bring in my panel, here. Jesse Weber, host on Law & Crime Network following this case. Also jury consultant and body
language expert Susan Constantine is on it. And Defense Attorney Joey Jackson`s going to weigh in as well with whether he thinks this new story
will work. But first to you, Jesse, what a surprise. I mean, this is a whole new tact from trial number one.
JESSE WEBER, HOST, LAW & CRIME NETWORK: It really is. We didn`t hear anything in the first trial about this abuse that she suffered as a child
and let alone this horrible, torrid sexual affair with Ryan. We heard details that I had no idea about that she couldn`t get an orgasm and needed
to have a special injection to help her. I mean, these are details that I don`t know is just clouding what the real facts are --
BANFIELD: It`s Jodi Arias times 100.
WEBER: It really is.
BANFIELD: So let me get this straight.
WEBER: Sure.
BANFIELD: And -- and you correct me if I`m wrong. But there was a lot of trial evidence on trial number one. whereby it was just he went for the
gun first, I grabbed it, I shot him. It was violent. He`d been violent with me. And the jury didn`t buy it, mostly because of what she did in her
interrogation tapes, which I`ll get to in a moment. This time `round, they`ve got a whole new narrative. I wasn`t so good in the sack and he was
mad at me for that.
Is that really the direction they`re going?
WEBER: Well, when you look at the crime scene, there`s not much evidence of a struggle. So what are they going to go with? Let`s understand what
the whole relationship was like beforehand. He was abusive, he told her that she couldn`t even talk to him 25 percent of the time. Let`s limit how
much he can actually -- she speak to him. While they`re in the same room, she claimed he -- she was forced to text him if she wanted to speak to him.
So all this is all coming in and also this history of her having been abused, which leaves in the minds of the jurors a question about what was
the condition mentally of this woman when the shooting happened?
BANFIELD: So the headline on trial number one was I gave him the nose job that he always wanted. That was what she said to the police during the
interrogation. And the headline on trial number two is he came after me violently because I wasn`t good in bed. Let`s go back to that
interrogation, though, because it will feature heavily again in this trial. The moment she told the investigators about the nose job and a few other
choice little pieces of information. Have a look at how she put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUBERS: One of the last conversations that we had that was good was that he wants (inaudible) he wants to get a nose job. Just like that person.
And I shot him right here. I gave him his nose job. I think that`s why I shot him in the head. I shot him probably six times. One in the head. He
fell to the ground. He was laying like this. His glasses were still on. He was twitching some more. I shot him a couple more times to make sure he
was dead because I didn`t want to watch him die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I shot him because I didn`t want him to die. That`s a whole other argument I`ll get to in a moment. But there`s another little factoid
that doesn`t play in well for Shayna Hubers and that is that the night that this all happened, her loving boyfriend Ryan Poston had a date planned with
someone else. And not just anyone else, a very beautiful someone else. Miss Ohio. There she is, Audrey Bolte, Miss Ohio 2012. That was the date
he was going on the night he instead was shot six times and died in a pool of blood.
I want to show you some difficult pictures to process. So if you`re squeamish at all, I would look away. The crime scene shows where Ryan
Poston was shot dead and how he ended up. This is the aftermath. In the foreground there was a dining room table littered with all sorts of
detritus. He had been sitting in that chair, presumably and was shot over that ding room table, if Shayna Hubers` story was accurate. And the mess
left behind was significant and palpable.
You can see the evidentiary marks and all of this was ripe for a trial. Trial number one and trial number two. Susan Constantine, I want you to
jump in on this, if you will. Not good when someone else, who`s exotically pretty, Miss Ohio, is on the docket for a date the night that all of a
sudden things get ugly between the two of them.
SUSAN CONSTANTINE, BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: Yes, you`re right about that, too, Ashley. You know, that gives motive. And we look at -- Ashley, when
we`re looking at Jodi Arias, it was the same kind of scenario, right? So Jodi was jealous because why? Her boyfriend was going to go meet another
girl. She didn`t want her to go on -- him to go on vacation. And so what happens?
She made darn sure that wasn`t going to happen. So there is no doubt in my mind after listening to all the evidence and reading everything about this
case, I don`t think she has a chance, no way, to be able to win this trial. OK. So you brought up the Jodi Arias, I brought up the Jodi Arias. Why
don`t we just show the comparison of Jodi Arias. And I`m going to start with one of the things that Shayna Hubers did during her interrogation when
she thought no one was listening.
Aren`t those always the best clips to run? When the person doesn`t think anybody can hear, what does that person do, or say or sing? Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHAYNA HUBERS: (SINGING)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[19:30:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- how sweet the sound that saved a wretched -- I did. Yes, I did it. I can`t believe I did that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HLN HOST: I`m not sure if she`s saying, I did it. I did it, I can`t believe it, to nailing that note on Amazing Grace, or to
killing her boyfriend, but I do know that there`s another famous songstress in an interrogation room whose tape I can`t get out of my mind. Have a
look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: O holy night the stars are brightly shining. This is the day of our dear Savior`s birth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: The songbird is now locked up. That`s Jodi Arias, doing the very same thing that Shayna Hubers would do years later. But the most
damning thing of all might just be what Shayna Hubers said on 911, contemporaneously. The moment this crime was happening, she`s on the phone
describing it, to a shocked operator. Listen for all these cues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHAYNA HUBERS, ACCUSED MURDERER: Ma`am, and then because he was twitching and I knew he was going to die anyway and he was making funny noises, I
shot him a couple more times just to kill him because I knew he would have been --
DISPATCH: I`m sorry, you said you shot him a couple of more times after that?
HUBERS: Yes. I --
DISPATCH: How many times did you shoot him total?
HUBERS: I don`t know.
DISPATCH: OK. Because he was twitching and you knew he was going to die, so you shot him again?
HUBERS: I had to make sure he was dead because he was twitching so bad, and I didn`t want to watch him lay there and twitch.
DISPATCH: So, you shot him instead of calling 911?
HUBERS: Do what? Yes, I did because I knew he was going to die anyway. He was pretty bad. He was like, he was just twitching and he was pretty
much dead and I shot him just so he`d stop twitching.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Joey Jackson, I shot him to put him out -- not to put him out of his misery, but so that I wouldn`t have to watch him die. He was twitching
so I shot him. Even the operator said, you shot him instead of calling 911? You shot him a couple more times after that? That`s got to be the
nail in her coffin.
JOEY JACKSON, HLN & CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think even without this, there`s a nail in the coffin. So, let me give you one more comparison to Jodi
Arias. Guilty, right? That`s the comparison there, right?
BANFIELD: Not yet. Not yet.
JACKSON: You`ll see the first time, and I think she`ll be found guilty the second time. You know, we know a juror violation can`t have those
violations, can`t have convicted jurors, but the reality is that defenses have to make sense. You have motive here, absolutely. You showed it,
Ashleigh, with Miss Ohio. You have opportunity. She`s there. There`s the gun.
BANFIELD: You have an admission I shot him after he`s down on the floor because he was twitching and dying and I didn`t want to have to watch.
That, to me, is the linchpin.
JACKSON: Exactly right. Exactly right.
BANFIELD: But just so I can go out on a high note, these are the text messages that came in to court today from a friend. Shayna texts her
friend, "When I go to the shooting range with Ryan tonight, I want to turn around, shoot, kill him, and play like it`s an accident." The friend says
in another text, "There`s a fine line between love and hate." And Shayna says, "My love has turned to hate." Wow. It goes on and on from there.
But, wow! This is another one. Shayna says to her friend, who`s a dentist, "Ryan`s been begging you to ask if he could do his veneers.
Please F them up and make him look ugly so he can never get another girl. I hate him." Shocked. Maybe not. Jesse Webber, thank you so much. Susan
Constantine, thank you as well. And Joey Jackson, I`m going to ask you to stick around, if you will.
How far would you go to defend your teenage daughter`s honor? Really think hard about that, because that`s the question Arizona parents right now are
considering after a Phoenix dad was charged with murder for allegedly beating a man suspected of targeting his 16-year-old daughter in a
bathroom. Is this a case of vigilante justice gone wrong, or is it cold- blooded murder? And how will a jury feel?
[19:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: It was supposed to be a pretty quick stop. A dad picking up his teenage daughter and her friends at a convenience store on the side of the
road. But that stop was less than convenient. In fact, it ended up traumatizing and it ended up deadly.
[19:40:02] Because when the driver`s daughter went in to the women`s restroom, a random man tried breaking into her bathroom stall, just minutes
before, he`d been outside, begging her dad for change, and when Melvin Harris found out what his daughter went through, he had something else he
wanted to give to the beggar, a deadly beatdown. The witnesses say he punched Leon Armstrong in the face, kicked him, stomped him before speeding
off with his daughter and her friends, and leaving him on the ground. The vigilante father is now facing assault and murder, and it could land him
behind bars for 22 years. And with a fiancee who`s nothing but grateful for what he did to protect his daughter`s honor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DIANA JACKSON, MELVIN HARRIS` FIANCEE: The only thing that goes through my mind is what would he have done if he got in? If you know there was a
known problem, why not fix it before it got that far? I would have did the same thing. I don`t feel bad at all for his actions. I feel bad that the
man ended up dying in the process. I do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I want to bring in Sergeant Mercedes Fortune, she`s the public information officer for the Phoenix Police Department where this happened.
Also, former Arizona Police Officer Brandon Tatum, and defense attorney Joey Jackson. I`m going to ask all of you to weigh in on this. But first
to you, Sergeant Fortune, some of the facts in the case. This is very troubling to hear. Because the man who allegedly did this to this man`s
teenage daughter had finished whatever he was doing and had moved on. Is it now really up to the surveillance tape at the QT to try to help put the
pieces together, or have you even had a chance to look at it?
SGT. MERCEDES FORTUNE, PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT: So, the interesting part about this case is that there is no actual surveillance video that captures
the actual incident or the assault that you -- or that we`re speaking about. There is video inside, obviously, of the victim and the suspect.
You know, it`s based on witness` statements as well and the evidence that was found by officers that, you know, helped them develop that probable
cause to arrest the suspect.
BANFIELD: So, Sergeant Fortune, have the witnesses and some of the video that you`ve seen, clearly, there`s no video covering every part of this
fact pattern. But with the evidence you know so far, does the story of this father play out the way he tells it?
FORTUNE: The facts are that the victim did, in fact, go into that women`s restroom. Yes, that is a fact. And he was outside of that restroom when
the suspect confronted him about that. After an initial -- another, you know, their confrontation with the suspect and vic -- outside of this
convenience store, that`s when the suspect approached him and that`s when the assault happened.
BANFIELD: And the daughter, the teenage daughter who was in that stall and presumably was quite fearful of this victim, Leon Armstrong, trying to
rattle his way into that stall, did she have corroborating witnesses in that bathroom as well?
FORTUNE: There was another female with her. I don`t know if she was inside the bathroom as well, but there was another -- one of her friends
was with her.
BANFIELD: One of the most critical questions in this case, Sergeant Fortune, is what the father, Melvin Harris, says happened first. He claims
that Leon Armstrong, after rattling the bathroom where his daughter was locked inside, swung at him first and that he responded with another punch,
kick, and stomp that ultimately killed him. Do you know that fact pattern to be true, that the perpetrator in this case was the beggar instead of the
father? Do you know who threw the first punch?
FORTUNE: According to witness` statements, it was the suspect that actually began the assault. And, again, based on witness` statements and
the evidence that was found by officers, that`s what the arrest was made on.
BANFIELD: So, when you say the suspect, it`s hard in this case because if Leon Armstrong were alive, he would be a suspect for what he did in the
bathroom, but you`re referring to the father defending his daughter`s honor as the suspect that he threw the first punch, is that correct?
FORTUNE: Again, we have to be objective, as police officers, we base all arrests on facts, and the facts in this case is that the suspect assault --
physically assaulted and caused the death of the victim.
BANFIELD: So, Joey Jackson, that`s a critical issue in this case because the defense that Melvin Harris, this father, had mounted from the beginning
was he swung at me, first, and we only both had fists, nobody brought a knife to that fight, nobody brought a gun to that fight, and that this
would have been unintentional but that he defended himself, as well as his daughter`s honor?
[19:44:59] JACKSON: Absolutely, that`s the narrative. So, I think there`s two things critical here. Number one, the back story is so important.
Why? Because we know what this person who`s now dead, did. We know the attack upon the daughter in the stall. We know that that gets you to the
mind-set of who that individual is you`re dealing with. So, when you get out of the car to confront him, you`re in a heightened state of alertness.
As a result of that, a fight ensues, and we don`t know. Surveillance will dictate specifically what happened, but you may have a very good self-
defense claim, even if the suspect threw the first punch, what happened thereafter. Even if you threw the first punch, you are entitled to defend
yourself thereafter. So, let`s reserve judgment, see what that tape says, but I think certainly, you can have a valid and viable self-defense.
BANFIELD: So, if he doesn`t have that punch on his side, and it`s just him against the jury, I did it. I defended my daughter`s honor, I was livid, I
was seething with anger. Any one of you on the jury would be. I have a question for you after the break. What is the key to defending this dad?
If you were in that jury box, how would you feel about that dad? Are you, yourself, a dad or a parent? Could this man walk out of court a free man?
That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:50:58] BANFIELD: We`re still talking about that Arizona father who took the law into his own hands, beating the man who tried to break into
his teenage daughter`s bathroom stall. But he beat that man to death. And now that dad is charged with murder. The question is, whether he`s just a
good dad who did what any parent would do to defend his daughter`s honor, or whether he`s a cold-blooded killer who thought he was above the law. I
want to bring in Brandon Tatum. Brandon, with your experience as a police officer, there were no weapons brought to this moment, fists and fists
alone. The dad says that the perp swung first. The evidence right now does not support that, but the man died five days later. And again, no
weapon was drawn. Does that make any difference at all?
BRANDON TATUM, FORMER ARIZONA POLICE OFFICER: No, it don`t make a difference, and I think the distinction that we have to make is that we`re
looking at two different incidents. You have an incident where the gentleman was trying to force his way into the stall, which is a separate
crime and a separate investigation. And then after, subsequently after the scenario is over, the dad then comes and approaches the man outside after
the fact, gets into a physical altercation, knocked the man unconscious, hit him several more times which resulted into his death. So, I think
that, you know, the clear charges that they`ve made against them secondary murder seems to be appropriate based on the facts alone.
BANFIELD: You know, Joey Jackson, if we were to take a poll of everybody watching right now, I suspect we`d be shocked by what we`d hear. The fact
pattern if what the witnesses say is true is clear cut second-degree murder no matter how you slice it. But jurors sometimes don`t always follow the
facts, do they?
JACKSON: They do not. And I think you want to appeal to a juror`s emotion and you want to say that it`s not two separate instances. This is one
instance. This is a situation where what would you do if it was your precious daughter that was exposed to that, if it was your sister that was
exposed to that? Some kind of untoward or inappropriate behavior, and to defend that person`s honor and for you, as a result of that, to be facing a
murder charge, who amongst you thinks that it`s fair that you should be put in that situation? Who amongst you thinks that it`s appropriate to go and
to do whatever you want to a 16-year-old without any repercussions, without any accountability? I`m not suggesting that vigilante justice is right at
all. What I`m suggesting to you is that he did what any man, woman, or child would do under the circumstances. He doesn`t deserve to be
prosecuted, and you, ladies and gentlemen, hold the key to that fact.
BANFIELD: And then, you cross your fingers and hold on to that Hail Mary - -
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: That they say, you know what, we are going to nullify and we are going to send him home, and it happens. It happens.
BANFIELD: That`s why you`re the professor, you put the fancy words on it called jury nullification. But what it is is appealing to our better
angels and saying, look, you would have done it, too. Joey Jackson, thank you for that. I`m going to ask you to stick around. Sergeant Mercedes
Fortune, thank you for your time as well. And Brandon, I want you to stick around as well.
You know there was some security check lines that we always have to go through at the airport? Normally, they are mind-numbingly dull. Not at
Newark, no. Not at Newark. Who wouldn`t want to be in a dance off with a TSA agent? You`re going to see it all, next.
[19:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Got "ONE MORE THING" for you tonight, and it is a TSA dance party. You heard right. At Newark International Airport no less. Little
boy traveling with his family, just cleared security, and then just started doing this, just dancing. A TSA agent saw the moves and it was on. That
kid challenging the security agent to a dance off. He is good. They`re both really good. This, if you don`t know, is called the floss and it is a
dance that every single parent of a child who plays Fortnite not only knows, but sees day in and day out in public and in private. I am one of
those parents. Both of my boys, nonstop.
See you back here tomorrow night, 6:00 Eastern. Thanks so much for watching, everybody. Stay tuned "FORENSIC FILES" begins right now.
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