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Dr. Drew
Inmate Claims to be Prince`s Son; Prince and Michael Jackson`s Parallel Lives; Girl Fight in Bathroom Ends in Death; Sheriff, DEA Now At Paisley Park; Mom Leaves 6-Year-Old In Burning Apartment. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired May 10, 2016 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: An inmate, a federal inmate, has come forward claiming he is the biological son of Prince. He wants some DNA testing to
prove he is the musician`s, he says, sole surviving heir. So the man is serving time in Colorado on weapons charges, yet claims that his mom met
the singer in a hotel in Missouri in 1976.
JOHN HILBERT, CO-FOUNDER, HEIR HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL (via telephone): We were directed to a young man who we felt had his story add up.
KEVIN FRAZIER, CO-HOST, "ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT" (via telephone): I know there`s a young man in New York that has been talked about -
HILBERT: No, that`s not the person that we have spoken with. Under Minnesota law, a child or an issue of Prince would take it all and he would
trump everybody who is a sibling -
FRAZIER: OK.
HILBERT: -- or first cousin -
FRAZIER: OK.
HILBERT: -- or even parent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DREW PINSKY, HLN HOST OF "DR. DREW" PROGRAM: We have breaking news tonight. WCCO is reporting that over a dozen police cars just broke
through the ga--well, went, entered through the gates of Prince`s Paisley Park home. We will have more on that coming up.
But first tonight, a 39-year-old federal prison inmate says he is Prince`s biological son and the, quote, sole surviving legal heir. This man, Carlin
Williams, has hired a legal team to stake this out.
Joining me, Sara Azari, defense attorney; Loni Coombs, former prosecutor, author of "You Are Perfect and Other Lies Parents Tell"; Jon Lieberman,
investigative correspondent -- Jon, what can you tell us about this guy?
JON LIEBERMAN, INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Drew, we`ve been digging into this guy. We`re learning a lot about him and about his mother. His name,
as you mentioned, is Carlin Williams. His stage name, actually -- he`s a rapper -- stage name, Prince Dracula. He claims that he is Prince`s
biological son, and his mother signed an affidavit that says in July of 1976, she met Prince in the lobby of a Kansas City hotel, they drank wine,
they went upstairs, they checked into their room, they had unprotected sex. She says she hadn`t had sex with anybody for six weeks prior, and she
didn`t have sex with anybody during the entire term of her pregnancy.
Now -- this is interesting, Drew -- Mr. Williams actually came forward about a decade ago to the same attorney who is now representing him telling
this same story. At that time, the attorney didn`t take the case because he said it couldn`t be corroborated. Now he has taken this on and Carlin
Williams claims that a DNA test will in fact show that he is Prince`s biological son. And if you look at this guy`s rapping web pages, his music
web pages, he makes many, many references to Prince and many references to being Prince`s son as well. He`s in prison, in super-max. He`s
essentially a career criminal. He`ll get out of prison in 2020, Drew.
PINSKY: Let`s throw up a split-screen. I`ll show you.
Ladies, what do you think here? Does this -- see any family resemblance? I don`t. I do not get it all. Now he is an inmate, Loni, but that doesn`t
make him any less entitled to the claim, right?
LONI COOMBS, FORMER PROSECUTOR, AUTHOR: That`s right. It doesn`t matter what you`ve become, what you`ve done with your life. The law is very clear
in Minnesota, if there is a child, everything goes to that child, and that would be this person. It`s going to come down to that DNA test.
PINSKY: Sara, that`s the law. Is the law good, just? Do you think we should try to change that law?
SARA AZARI, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Look, I -- unfortunately there`s no morality clause in the law, but I think these laws are archaic. I think a lot of
the laws in the probate area and family law area are very one-sided, and I think men are being, you know, short-changed left and right in this
equation. He -- where has he been all these years? All these decades? You know, where is the child support petition? Where is the music career
support petition, since he is a rapper? And yes, he can go from prison to Paisley Park, but I think Prince is going to be rolling in his grave over
this.
COOMBS: I don`t get what you mean by men are being short-changed.
AZARI: Well, I think they get the short end of the stick, I should say. They are -- in family court, for instance, with these formula, with
dissolutions, they end up having to be one in the paternity suit.
COOMBS: But the interesting thing about this case is, look, this kid -- "kid" -- tried to come forward earlier but no attorney would take it, they
didn`t want to take --
PINSKY: Why?
COOMBS: -- this on when he was alive, because they probably figured there`s hundreds of people out there making this claim, and it would have been
harder to get a DNA test done when Prince was alive.
PINSKY: And by the way, it`s not super-compelling when the mom says, Jon, I didn`t have sex six weeks prior. She could have been pregnant at the time
when she had --
COOMBS: Already.
PINSKY: Yes.
COOMBS: Right.
PINSKY: I understand, subsequently --
LIEBERMAN: Well, absolutely, Drew. I mean, yes, that`s not the most compelling, you know, piece in this affidavit. But, she is trying,
obviously, to point out the fact that she -- that it has to be Prince`s baby. And obviously, you know, the DNA test will bear that out.
PINSKY: Well, there will --
LIEBERMAN: It`s interesting, Drew, that --
PINSKY: Yes, Jon. Go.
LIEBERMAN: Yes, yes, the willingness -- that`s what I was going to say, the willingness for her, and apparently also she had some details that other
people who haven`t been intimate with Prince wouldn`t know. Although the more we hear, the more we hear that lots of people were intimate with
Prince over the years.
PINSKY: All right, on the phone, I have John Hilbert. He`s co-founder of Heir Hunters International. It is a company that seeks out and finds heirs
to estates. John, tell us what you can about the person you`re vetting and why you believe he`s a likely candidate.
HILBERT (via telephone): Well, Dr. Drew, thanks for having us on. I can tell you he`s in his mid-30s. He was --he grew up in the Midwest. His
demeanor: he is rational and he seeks no fame or wish to show up on the courthouse steps. It`s not a publicity stunt. He was consistent in what
he told us and his story checks out as far as our investigators are involved.
And very importantly, he agreed to consider our position, that is, our credibility as a company must be maintained. We have a professional
reputation to protect since it precedes our interaction with missing heirs, who are very skeptical at our first initial meeting, therefore he agreed
there would be no rush to the courthouse and he would give our staff time to investigate and sift all the facts regarding his legitimacy in a
coherent manner so we could advise him on the likelihood his claim would be accepted by the court. So he`s perfect.
PINSKY: So, John Hilbert, are you saying that this guy you guys are pursuing has not yet presented himself to the court, but you`re doing your
due diligence and you will be presenting this guy?
HILBERT: That`s absolutely correct. The judge gave us, to his credit, four months to come forward, and he also ordered that DNA test be taken and
typed from Prince. So, it`s a perfect situation for us. We can do our due diligence. We can -- we`re hoping to do it anonymously if we get the
opportunity, and then we`ll come forward.
PINSKY: And John Hilbert, just out of curiosity, do you get some sort of percentage of whatever is claimed? Is that how you guys --
HILBERT: Yes. We always come with a percentage. Out of our percentage we pay for all the costs. We pay for the legal fees, the genealogical
research, the travel, the DNA testing --everything comes out of our share of the estate.
COOMBS: I have a question for you, John. What is that percentage, in your area of practice?
HILBERT: It depends, it depends. We always try to get a third, and that`s what we always begin with.
PINSKY: All right, next up, I`ve got Prince -- thank you, John -- Prince and Michael Jackson. Side by side, we`re going to look at these two and
ask the question, did these superstars live parallel lives? To some extent we have answers to that.
And still to come, a bathroom catfight ends in death, and wait until you hear what medical experts say actually killed the teen. Back after this.
(PRINCE MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: It`s not as much that Prince was this guy who was a drug fiend. He`s a guy who was trying to manage this injury --
PINSKY: OK, so, now we get stuck in this cycle of pursuit and increasing pain, and then he has withdrawal, more pursuit, and now he`s in big
trouble. Who is to blame, the doctor that prescribed the medication to someone else? The person who puts their name on that bottle? Or the
addict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPAKER: Involuntary manslaughter is on the table for these people. If they were diverting drugs to Prince, they were --they
could potentially be brought up on charges for unintentionally killing him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Then we just talk about this with Michael Jackson. Same story.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: Prince and Michael Jackson in many respects lived parallel lives, marked by a deadly mix of an apparent dependency and enabling by their
inner circles.
I`m back with Sara and Loni. We are joined by Dr. Robert Huizenga, physician, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at UCLA. He himself
has cared for celebrities. I also have Brian Todd, CNN correspondent, who has been covering the Prince story.
Brian, there`s some breaking news there at Paisley Park, tell me what`s going on.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yes, Drew, we found out a short time ago from a law enforcement official that agents from the DEA and
the Carver County Sherriff`s Department are at Prince`s house this evening, and they got there apparently late this afternoon, executing a federal
search warrant. The Carver County Sherriff tweeted a short time ago that this was part of the investigation, but they are really not giving much
more information than that. But we do know now that agents of the DEA and the Carver County Sherriff are back at Prince`s house executing a search
warrant.
You know, we had reported earlier citing a law enforcement official as saying that investigators now want to determine whether Prince`s -- members
of Prince`s inner circle acted as intermediaries in possibly getting him some prescription medication. Investigators have told us they believe that
Percocet was one of the drugs that he was using at certain periods. They have already told us that they found opioids on his person, they found
opioids in his home, so they`re kind of closing in on this, Drew, to determine, really -- you know, they`re clearly after who got him these
drugs. I mean, he was known as a fairly independent person, making his own appointments and even making his own run to the store but what we`ve been
told is that there is so far no evidence that he had a valid prescription for these opioids, so -
PINSKY: Well, but, Brian, a valid prescription for him doesn`t mean that there weren`t other people who got valid prescriptions and diverted them to
him. They may have manipulated their way in getting -- or maybe a physician knowingly used a different name, somebody else`s name in his
entourage. Dr. Huizenga, have you ever been asked to do that? People ever approach you about that kind of thing?
ROBERT HUIZENGA, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL MEDICINE, UCLA: Repeatedly.
PINSKY: Yes.
HUIZENGA: And, by the way, sometimes we accede to that, because I don`t believe celebrities need to have everyone in the pharmacy know they have
HIV, that they have herpes, and --
PINSKY: So how do we maintain, how do you not succumb to the special needs of the inner circle and saying yes to everything they want, like opioids
and benzodiazepines, and maintain their confidentiality so somebody doesn`t swing by the pharmacy and see their name on something they don`t want the
public to know about?
HUIZENGA: Very difficult, but I think that you have to use good judgment and you can`t be wowed by these celebrities, and you can`t do everything
they ask. And when you start doing it, you`re in trouble.
PINSKY: You`re -- right. And, but you and I were talking in the green room that if you charge more than usual, if you extend your hours unusually, if
you travel unusually, you`re all -- Loni, you`re thinking hard about this - - you`re already crossing boundaries, you`re already in trouble.
COOMBS: Yes, and those are kind of the signs, the red flags, that this relationship has gone from a professional relationship to more of, like, a
personal --
PINSKY: Special. Special.
COOMBS: -- personal concierge, right?
PINSKY: Yes. That`s a very special relationship.
COOMBS: But, Doctor, I have a question about this, when -- if you say that you, you know, help these celebrities out by perhaps doing it under another
name, I thought the whole thing was keeping that database, you know, so that we can at least somehow keep track of how many prescriptions, if you
use the correct name. I thought there was some, like, legal responsibility for doctors to use the correct name as opposed to an alias.
HUIZENGA: That basically came over in the last year, because that was routinely done and now it`s only very, very rarely done.
PINSKY: And really, I don`t think anybody would -- anybody enlightened would do it for opiates and benzodiazepines.
COOMBS: Yes. Yes.
PINSKY: I can`t imagine the massive liability. Now, you were approached by Michael Jackson`s team. What did you tell them?
HUIZENGA: Well, I told them I couldn`t do it. But it was painful, because I was a young doctor, got a huge money offer, going to travel with him, all
these great-looking dancers, and, you know, who wouldn`t want to be Michael Jackson`s doctor? But then when I got in and found out what the job
entailed, you know, tears, and I couldn`t take it. But it was difficult. And you know, sometimes I thought, how can I change it? How can I make him
-- but it was impossible. He told me what he wanted. He didn`t ask for a doctor, he told me what he needed.
PINSKY: That`s not a doctor. That`s a servant, a slave. And listen, I worked at a psychiatric hospital for 25 years. We treated a lot of
celebrities. And at first I think I gave them special attention and very fast I learned that was bad for the patient. It`s bad for the patient. If
you want to be a doctor and be a good doctor to your patient who happens to have special needs or happens to be seen in the public, you`d better not be
impressed by that person. You`d better treat them exactly like everybody else. If you want to make a little bit of this and that, you know, you
help maintain their confidentiality or stay an hour after so TMZ doesn`t come by, OK. But traveling 2000 miles? I`m not so sure.
And I suspect -- I don`t know what you feel, but I suspect he had somebody there in Minnesota, right? He had some doctor doing that sort of
concierge-y service.
HUIZENGA: Almost without question. I took care of another very famous rock star, and I`m like, how did you get these prescriptions for so long? And
he said, I have a thing where it`s like fly fishing: I throw out the rod and I reel it in, and god damn, I almost always hook a doctor.
AZARI: And I remember in, you know, the celebrity --
PINSKY: Crazy. That makes me so angry, I can`t even tell you. I`ve literally had doctors lay down at the threshold of the psychiatric hospital
and go, "You don`t understand how special this person is!" and I go, "This guy`s a drug addict, get out of the way, let him get treatment, for God`s
sake."
AZARI: They also -- this reminds me of Ozzy Osbourne, when he was going to one doctor and not telling that doctor that he got x, y, and z from another
doctor. And these doctors had no idea that he was already being prescribed --
HUIZENGA: And then finally the doctor that prescribed charged hundreds of thousands of dollars when it comes out in the LA Times, his deal to make it
all happen.
COOMBS: Well, that`s why that database is so important that they maintain the integrity of that. That`s why the doctors -- all the doctors are
informed of what`s really going on here.
PINSKY: It`s a new thing but it`s still something people can get around. And again, this combo -- I don`t know what you feel about this, Dr.
Huizenga, but I -- pretty much 100% of my patients, when they die today, don`t die of heroin, don`t die of cocaine, they die of a benzo and an
opiate combined as prescribed. Maybe in a little bit high doses. They stop breathing. I`m suspicious that`s what happened to Prince.
HUIZENGA: I would think the exact same thing happened. It`s that mixing of drugs and he maybe did some recreational stuff and he just, you know --
PINSKY: You know, first time I`ve really had a peer here sitting on the stage with me. You know, I`ve had other physicians, but I know you`ve
treated, you know, celebrities and stuff, and I`ve had to do the same thing.
Eighty percent of the opiates prescribed in the world are prescribed in this country. What are we doing? What is the plan? Do we have more pain?
Are we more enlightened with our approach to pain? Or do we just have a culture of a) fixing everything, and b) having to satisfy patients because
the patient satisfaction survey and the insurance companies demand it?
HUIZENGA: Doctors are beholden to the patients. Doctors give way too many antibiotics because patients pay money and they want to eat. Doctors give
too much pain medicine for things that are totally unindicated. And doctors accede to patients by giving them reflux medicine so they can
continue to eat poorly, and cholesterol medicine so they can have a -- it goes on and on and on.
PINSKY: Yes. Yes, yes. We can`t make the patients unhappy anymore. It`s a weird thing. We can`t set limits and then we are held accountable to
make them happy. Listen, I mean, I was saying to someone the other day, I said, listen, if you took a patient satisfaction survey in the middle of an
appendicitis, not a happy patient. But in the middle of drug withdrawal, or drug treatment, that`s the operation. It takes a few weeks.
I want to put the Gene Simmons thing up, if you guys would help me put that up here.
Gene Simmons, of course, from KISS, made waves recently commenting to Newsweek. He said, "Bowie was the most tragic of all because it was real
sickness. All the other ones were a choice." Newsweek asked, "Even Prince?" He responded, "His drugs killed him. What do you think he died
from, a cold?" Newsweek: "Are you saying you`ve never dabbled yourself?" Gene Simmons says, "I`ve never been high or drunk. I don`t care if anybody
believes it or not. It`s just a personal life choice. I can almost understand drinking or . . . getting high if it made my schmeckel bigger,
or made me smarter."
(LAUGHTER)
And that sounds like Gene Simmons, I believe him. But I will tell you what, don`t confuse why people use a substance with why they lose control
of a substance. Those are two different phenomena. They lose control because of dependency and/or addiction. They use sometimes because of
medical misadventures in pain, or surgeries, sometimes because they`re trauma survivors and they can`t regulate their emotions. They get in touch
with these drugs, they make them feel extra-good for the first time in their life, and the doctors keep prescribing.
Next up, a bathroom catfight turns deadly, but what really killed this teenager?
Still to come, a mother in big trouble tonight after police say she ran from a burning apartment, leaving her child behind to die. Back after
this.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE CORRESPONDENT: Sixteen-year-old Amy Joyner-Francis, assaulted in her high school bathroom. As classes began at Howard High
School of Technology in Delaware, a fight broke out between Amy and another student, and others quickly joined in. Some students say the fight was
over a boy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE STUDENT: She`s not a fighter and she would not fight over something dumb.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE STUDENT: I went in the bathroom, seen all this blood, I`m like, oh, man. And this is a girl, like that -- like, it`s a female!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE CORRESPONDENT: Amy was airlifted to a local children`s hospital where she was pronounced dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: That little girl got beat up inside of the bathroom. How many of y`all stopped it?
(APPLAUSE)
Did anybody stop it?
SHERRY DORSEY WALKER, JOYNER-FRANCIS FAMILY SPOKESPERSON: Now their lives are completely destroyed, and for what? A bathroom fight? Is it worth it?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: A teenage girl who died during a fight in her high school bathroom apparently had a cardiac condition that contributed to her death. So the
question is, how much punishment should the three girls who attacked her -- how much punishment should they get?
Back with Sara, Loni, and Jon. Amy Joyner-Francis did not die from direct injuries related to the beating, but a cardiac rhythm problem related to a
preexisting condition. So your heart, you know how it beats normally, can get irregular rhythms that can be unstable, that can lead to no blood
pressure and even brain death. In her case, she had something called an atrial septal defect, which is a hole between the two top chambers of the
heart. Now, in and of itself, it`s fairly benign. It was apparently a large one. You can get something called paradoxical emboli and other
cardiac problems, you can get overload of the right side of the heart. They didn`t mention that. They just mentioned a strange rhythm problem.
In all probability, if the attention had gotten to her early enough, medical attention, she would have survived, OK? So, it`s the stress of the
assault with the preexisting cardiac condition that probably resulted in her demise. And one of the girls accused of attacking Amy is charged with
criminally negligent homicide. Investigators say she is the only one who physically hit Amy during the fight. Prosecutors want to try her as an
adult. She could face eight years in prison.
So, Sara, there is no direct assault, no direct link to the beating and the death. It`s criminally negligent. Help me make those -- connect those
dots.
AZARI: I`m sure Loni is going to disagree, but I actually think this is going to be a difficult case for the prosecution to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt --
PINSKY: Stop. Loni, you agree?
COOMBS: No, I think that this is absolutely the correct charge for this case.
PINSKY: OK. And why?
AZARI: Well, the reason is because they have to show that there was either some knowledge that a typical high school fist fight is going to kill this
girl --
PINSKY: No.
AZARI: OK, or some intent. My understanding is that there`s text messages, but those text messages are really to set up the confrontation in the
bathroom, not to go kill her.
PINSKY: And about trying this girl as an adult? The girl that hit?
AZARI: Yes, and trying her as an adult is a process, because in juvenile court you have to go through a fitness hearing, and at this fitness
hearing, the judge is going to decide whether you`re fit for the juvenile system, and if you`re not fit you`re going to be tried as an adult and
you`re going to go to adult prison. So it`s far different from going to, you know, youth juvenile hall. But there`s factors that determine whether
you`re fit or unfit for the juvenile system.
PINSKY: Jon, the court documents call this fight a planned confrontation. They got a lot of text messages and social media. What did they find
there?
LIEBERMAN: Well, they found, as you mentioned, this was a well-orchestrated attack. These girls allegedly planned this out up to 20 hours before by
exchanging text messages, making the plan. This was not a spur-of-the- moment fight. We should also point out, Drew, that the medical examiner was clear: This young girl does not die if she`s not pummeled in the
stomach and in the head. This heart condition doesn`t kill her unless it`s brought on by the stress of the physical beating. That`s right from the
medical examiner`s --
PINSKY: I think that`s right, Jon, but let me flip it around and say, the beating would not have killed her had she not had this occult cardiac
condition.
LIEBERMAN: That is probably true as well, and of course that`s the other side of it. But one thing is this, Drew. This was a vicious attack. I
mean, the court documents show that two of these teens stood by videotaping and watching and cheering on their friend while she allegedly pummeled this
innocent 16-year-old who ended up dead.
PINSKY: Loni?
[19:30:00] COOMBS: And Drew, this is why I think it`s time for this charge. I understand, it will be a difficult legal argument, but we have teenagers
over and over again, committing these very physical, violent assaults against each other, and it`s time for them to recognize, this is not a
video game, this is not a cartoon. When you get somebody down on the ground and you are kicking and stomping their head and stomach area, it`s a
very violent attack, and yes, somebody could die from that, they could. And that`s why it`s negligent homicide, not murder. Murder would be, hey,
I went in there, I intended to kill her. Negligent homicide is, I`m doing something that`s dangerous, she could die. I might not intend for her to
die, but if she dies, guess what, legally, you`re going to be held responsible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that`s the issue, though, is that, would she have known with some reasonable certainty that punching and kicking would cause
this girl to die? I tend to disagree.
PINSKY: No. I`m sure she didn`t know she was going to kill someone that day, though, I don`t think she actually thought about it. But maybe --
Sarah, to make a case, maybe that`s Loni`s point, kids need to be thinking about that when they start punching. Could I have killed that person?
COOMBS: Right. Because the way you put that question is, you said, she didn`t intend that day to think, I`m going to go kill somebody, no, but
what I`m doing is extremely dangerous, it`s extremely violent. Should I be doing this? Could somebody end up dying? Yes, maybe I shouldn`t do it.
PINSKY: When I first saw this, I thought it was going to be intracranial bleed, a head injury, and that`s what always worries me with all of these
fights because it`s not like "The Three Stooges". You whack somebody with a 2 x 4 and they shake their head and they`re fine. That -- even without
death, can change your life forever. Head injuries, closed head injuries, open head injuries, concussions, the (inaudible) manifestations that can
last a lifetime. So you`re right. On the other hand, what happened -- we always long for the days kids just settled things with their fists and not
with knives and not with guns --
COOMBS: But not like this. Not like when they`re down on the ground and they continuously hit them in the head specifically as opposed to --
PINSKY: Do we know that`s what happened?
AZARI: And her torso.
COOMBS: Well, that`s the description of it.
PINSKY: All right. Next up, an update on the commotion at Prince`s home. We will have a live report from Paisley Park, and still to come, a raging
fire destroys an apartment with a child inside. The mother leaves without the child. Why? Back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:36:37] PINSKY: There`s breaking news on Prince. Let`s go live to CNN correspondent, Stephanie Elam, live at Paisley Park. Stephanie, what can
you tell me?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dr. Drew, there has been a new development in a filing that was in Hennepin County, which is not where
Paisley Park here is. This is carver county, so it`s one county over here. But this is a filing that the "L.A. Times" has gotten a hold of and in it,
it says that when investigators got here after Prince was determined to be deceased, that they took the people who were here and interviewed them.
One of those people was a local doctor and through their investigation, they determined that this local doctor had seen Prince twice in April
before Prince died, including the day before he died, and that he had shown up here at Paisley Park to report, or hand over those test results to
Prince when he arrived at the death scene and that`s how he ended up in the investigation here. Just a little bit more information as to what was
going on with the DEA and local investigators showing up here again and driving in here this afternoon looking for more information to tie these
pieces together here. But we had heard reports that there was a local doctor involved and we now see that, according to this filing, one county
over, there was an interview with a doctor who worked, I can tell you, who worked for a facility not far from here in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Dr. Drew
--
PINSKY: Stephanie, thank you for the report. I want to go back to you in just a second, but what did Dr. (inaudible) just say? We both said, oh,
he`s definitely working with some other local doctor. There`s somebody else giving him medication. Stephanie, I wonder, is that county where this
filing was made where that Walgreens was where Prince is alleged to have been pacing around?
ELAM: I think it is the same county. I have to brush up on my Minnesota counties but I do believe it is the same county that this was in. I can
tell you it`s not far. I can tell you that, it`s not that far from here, based on what I`ve seen in the almost three weeks I have been here. But
what`s more interesting about this is that it`s actually naming the doctor and saying that they want to investigate further. We`ve reached out to the
facility where this doctor was working and they just said he`s no longer employed there.
PINSKY: Oh my goodness, that was rather quick. Jon Lieberman, you are an investigative reporter. See where I`m going with this?
LIEBERMAN: Absolutely. Look, you unravel a crime scene from the inside out and you look at who has been there, not saying this is necessarily a
crime scene, but you look at who has been there and this is a no-brainer and you mentioned earlier in the show, the doctor would be there. Now,
they`re going to look into his background, they`re going to look into any sanctions he might have had, and I think it`s very telling that he`s
apparently already lost his employment that quickly.
PINSKY: Yes, very interesting. They`re going to get the medical records right, they will get the pharmacy records, and then we`ll find out what`s
really been going on here, some idea of what`s been going on here. Thank you Jon, thank you, Stephanie. I want to go back now to the story of a
young woman killed in her high school bathroom. Three of her classmates could do time behind bars. Of course, I`m here with Sara, Loni, and Jon.
I want to show you something that one of the viewers sent me. It`s a message, I think it was Damien, is that right, who sent this? He said, Dr.
Drew, if it would have been boys, police would charge them to the fullest extent of the law. So, ladies, you`re attorneys, is there a double
standard? Are young women -- you`re nodding your head, Loni.
[19:40:11] COOMBS: When I was reading the facts, and I read that all three girls were sent home on probation, home with their parents. I was
thinking, if they were boys, I wonder at least if the one that was charged most seriously, and they`re trying to charge them -- would be held in
custody during the --
PINSKY: Sexism.
COOMBS: You were saying that same thing earlier, Sara. You were saying that men get treated differently in the court system. Here is another way
to look at it.
AZARI: Possibly. Possibly.
PINSKY: Why are you uncomfortable with that?
AZARI: I`m never uncomfortable.
PINSKY: All right, another point. Another point my viewers want to make is that they felt the parents of the girls should somehow be held
accountable. Is there any mechanism for that? Is that fair? Is that appropriate? That`s a little bit of a reach, no?
AZARI: And the question is, did the parents have notice that this girl had a violent propensity?
COOMBS: Well, once again, you go to parenting, should parents be on social media? Because apparently this was all planned on social media. Should
parents be responsible for what their kids are planning on social media when they`re the ones who probably give them access to the social media?
PINSKY: I`m telling you, you should be monitoring your kids` social media. This is case one. Case A. Jon Lieberman, what do you say?
LIEBERMAN: Not only that, Drew, but one thing that stymied the police investigation was, there were all these kids on social media taking
responsibility for this, saying that they were a part of this, they were setting up gofundme pages for their defense and all this, I mean, that
speaks volumes about some of the young people involved here. It`s just terrible. And you know what? The reality is, if you hurt an animal, you
could get charged with more serious crimes than these kids. I mean, you know, even if she`s convicted of the criminally negligent homicide, she`s
out by the time she`s 24.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You`re assuming she`s going to be tried as a juvenile. But if she`s tried as an adult, that`s a different story.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here`s another important message I think that kids should understand --
LIBERMAN: She`s only going to face eight years, right?
PINSKY: Even as an adult. As an adult? That`s right, because it`s negligence, not murder.
COOMBS: But two of the three girls didn`t do anything. They just stood there.
PINSKY: Yes, but Loni, they stood there, they photoed the whole thing, and thank god we have evidence. Are we disgusted with those girls or are we
grateful for those girls?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think teenagers need to understand this. They can`t withhold their liability. They don`t absolve themselves of
responsibility because they didn`t actually strike a blow. If you are involved in the aiding and abetting, planning and encouraging, you`re going
to be held liable.
PINSKY: You walk up, you walk into the bathroom. Oh, my god, you hold your camera.
AZARI: But I think these girls that stood there and watched had something to do with getting the victim into the bathroom. They set up -- the
confrontation, and it was really cool to beat this girl up.
PINSKY: All right. I`m switching gears, yet again. Next up, a fire destroys an apartment. Tonight, the woman who lived here, in that house,
is accused of leaving her daughter inside while she just ran away. Back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[19:47:31] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This 32-year-old single mother has been charged with felony child neglect. Erica Rosello is accused of leaving her
6-year-old daughter, Grace, in a burning apartment. Erica claims she thought Grace was already dead when she fled to a friend`s home, but
investigators say her story doesn`t add up. They point to a neighbor who claims Erica told him there was no fire, despite the smoke billowing from
her front door. He called 911 as she reportedly ran from the building. Her young daughter was rescued by firefighters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: Erica Rosello has been charged with felony child neglect. But her mother, this woman`s mother, is defending saying Erica`s judgment was
impaired by quote post partum depression. Back with Sara, Loni, and Jon. Joining us, Thema Davis, clinical psychologist. Jon, the suspect
reportedly does have a history of depression, but last pregnancy was six or seven years ago, right?
LIEBERMAN: Yes, she does. She has a long history of mental illness and I`ll run down some of the points for you, Drew, and then we`ve got to get
into some of the discrepancies in the police report. But her says her daughter was diagnosed with PTSD decades ago, and that the PTSD was
triggered by abuse that she endured as a young girl. Then in 2010, when she became pregnant with Grace, she says her boyfriend broke up with her
and when she refused to terminate the pregnancy, that ushered in a new bout of depression and mood swings. Then she spiraled into deeper depression
after the little girl was born. She went on antidepressants. We`re also learning, when Grace was ten months old, she suffered some type of head
injury and the mom was reportedly arrested on a child neglect charge then but the charges were later dropped, and according to the mother, when this
recent fire happened, her daughter was taking only herbal supplements to treat her depression.
PINSKY: Oh. Interesting. So Thema, what do you think? So she has long standing depression, she has PTSD -- is that sufficient to trigger a
dissociative state where she walks out of a fire, doesn`t really understand what`s going on?
THEMA DAVIS, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: I think it could. It depends on the severity. We know that herbal anything does not treat post-traumatic
stress disorder or depression. And so having it untreated for years and what we`re looking at is probably complex trauma where there wasn`t one
thing, but multiple things.
[19:49:56] PINSKY: And those people can really be out of it, guys. Post partum depression certainly can be as well, but post partum depression is
one year after delivery. So the child being six, no, sorry. But let`s say that she does have significant psychiatric issues. Will that affect the
legal liability? In other words, her ability to determine right from wrong? But maybe she`s out of it, doesn`t know where she is, but still can
say, oh, I know murder is wrong.
AZARI: But here`s the thing. In Florida, they have a subjective standard, not how any mother would act in the situation but how she acted and given
her mental illness and this PTSD that she suffered from. I thought, you know what, she has a pretty good defense in her reaction to the situation.
But where she lost me is her post offense conduct where she runs into the neighbor and has the cognitive ability to say, no, my house is not on fire.
PINSKY: No fire. And, Jon, am I getting this right, that she then told her own mother that her child, the little girl was dead?
LIEBERMAN: Absolutely. She tells her mom the child is dead when she doesn`t even in fact know that. And the police report is very clear that
she`s wandering around in the hallway and it is the neighbor who says, hey, it looks like there`s smoke coming out of your apartment. She says there`s
no smoke but she doesn`t even go back into the apartment, according to the police records. She leaves the building and leaves it to this witness, the
neighbor, to actually go in and rescue the young girl and discover what was going on. And we should also point out, her mother defended her in the
beginning. It`s just now that her mom is coming and saying she had all these mental disorders.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And also, right after she walks away from the fire, she catches a ride. She happens to have the cognitive ability to know
where her friend lives 30 minutes away.
DAVIS: I think the bizarre behavior actually supports the mental illness.
PINSKY: It does. It does. And really, what it makes her is an unfit parent, right? And there was a previous, I believe, felony endangerment
charge. A judge granted Erica -- I think the felony endangerment was a result of this fire -- a judge granted Erica, the mom, supervised
visitation. I meant that`s the one thing we can say here. This is probably not a mom. This is probably somebody who should be supervised.
COOMBS: Right now, the grandmother is the one who has custody of the daughter and the judge just said at the last hearing that she can have
supervised visits with the grandmother.
PINSKY: With the grandmother. I`m not sure that`s enough.
DAVIS: -- because the bond, in terms of what the child understands, it`s like, that`s my mother.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The child is asking to see --
PINSKY: All right. All right. You melted my heart now, guys. Now this grandmother, Erica`s mom, has something to say about what her daughter did.
You will hear from her after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PINSKY: Erica Rosello has been charged with felony child neglect for having abandoned her child wile their apartment was on fire. Erica`s
mother, Angelica Tabio, is defending her daughter, saying the fire was accidental and that the daughter suffers from severe depression. Take a
look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGELICA TABIO, MOTHER OF ERICA ROSELLO: My daughter is not a monster.
She said that it happened so fast, it just caught on fire. She tried using a bottle of water to turn off the fire, which made it even worse. She says
that the next thing you know, she couldn`t see my granddaughter. In her heart and in her mind, she thought that she was burning, and when she
didn`t hear her voice anymore, she thought she was dead. And she just took off running in the street and panicked. She was screaming and crying that
she wanted to kill herself because her daughter`s not alive and she could not see herself living without her daughter. She loved Grace with all her
heart and soul.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: Back with Sara, Loni, Thema, and Jon. Now, Thema, that explanation started to make some sense to me. Somebody with PTSD with
severe panic runs out in the street, doesn`t know what the hell they`re doing. I don`t call it a person of character, but I also don`t call that a
criminal, necessarily.
DAVIS: Yes, I think it`s important, when her mom used the language of her not being a monster, because I think that just promotes the stigma around
not getting help. But when we are facing a crisis, we often have to fight, flight, or freeze, so instead of freezing, she fled.
PINSKY: She fled, and she literally -- I believe the mom, when she said she thought she was dying, because PTSD symptoms have that near death
experience, often times.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But why would she lie to the neighbor? I can`t reconcile that. Why would she lie to the neighbor about the fact that
there`s a --
PINSKY: Jon --
LIEBERMAN: I`m saying, thank god for the neighbor. Thank god that neighbor was there, rescuing that little girl.
PINSKY: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I guess if she had been in there three minutes longer, she would have died in that fire. The neighbor was the one who
called 911 and who actually tried to break in and then the fire people got there.
PINSKY: So the question then becomes, should this mother ever regain full custody of the daughter or should that grandmother always have the primary
custody?
AZARI: If she`s convicted, and there`s the allegation of --
PINSKY: Just right down the line, yes or no? Full custody or not?
AZARI: I mean, morally speaking, I think she should. She`s the mother of the child.
PINSKY: Full custody?
COOMBS: You can reunite children if it`s a safe situation.
DAVIS: With treatment, medication, and initially supervision.
PINSKY: And then some kind of feedback loop where they can monitor and watch her very, very carefully. Even then, unless there`s more to be
revealed here which yet there might be, right. We`re basing it on what we`re seeing here in this few minute report, so -- good, guys. Thank you
very much. Excellent. We will continue to monitor the Prince situation. I`m actually going to be on a special with Anderson Cooper tomorrow about
painkillers, and I`m telling you, it`s about time we paid attention to those. How many times have you heard me talk about the fact that the vast
majority of opioids prescribed on the globe are prescribed in this country? We have got to talk about it. Please do DVR this show, then you can watch
us anytime. I want to thank you for watching. Thank you, panels, thank you Jon. We`ll see you next time.
Nancy Grace is up next.
END
