Return to Transcripts main page

Nancy Grace

Missing Children

Aired February 20, 2006 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, countless missing children across the country, so many cases, so few leads. Tonight to Florida, the so-called Sunshine State, but not for families looking for their girls, their boys, who vanished days, months, even decades ago. Tonight, you help us make a difference.
Tiffany Sessions, a co-ed at University of Florida Gainesville, goes for a jog, as usual, Tiffany never seen since, over a decade later. And Colleen Perris, aspiring 18-year-old south Florida actress, Colleen heads to a baseball game to meet her family. Colleen never shows up. Six years later, police, family still searching for clues. And also tonight, 18- year-old Yansis Juarez of Miami went missing from her own home.

Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Tonight, a special trip to Florida, where we put three missing people investigations under a microscope, three hard-to-crack cases. Colleen Perris, an aspiring actress from near Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Colleen now missing more than five years, not seen since she went to a family meeting, a baseball game. Plus Yansis Juarez, just 18 when she vanished from her own home, Miami. Was a cult involved?

But first tonight, Tiffany Sessions. A young co-ed at University of Florida goes for a jog nearly 20 years ago. Tiffany never seen again. There have been over a thousand leads in Tiffany`s case, but tonight, still no Tiffany. Will you help us make a difference?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY SESSIONS, TIFFANY`S MOTHER: Her roommate called and said that, Mrs. Sessions, I think we have a problem.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That sounds like something out of an "X Files" episode, but you know, the fact of the matter is, is she literally just vanished. I mean, she has no -- she left no physical evidence.

HILLARY SESSIONS: It just takes my breath away that she`s been gone for that long. She was my only child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: So many years have passed, that pain still very much alive in her parents` hearts and souls. Nothing left but this, a flyer. Where is Tiffany?

Straight to CNN correspondent Susan Candiotti. Welcome back to the show, friend. Bring us up to date.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Nancy, this happened back on February 9, 1989. And it was a normal night for Tiffany Sessions. Normally, however, she would go out for an evening power-walk with her roommate. This night was different. This night, she went alone because her roommate was studying, had a lot of college homework. So she went out around 5:00, 6:00 o`clock. A couple hours later, her roommate discovers, Where`s Tiffany? She hadn`t come home. She immediately called the police, who got right on the case, called her parents, who are divorced, let them know what was going on, and the search was on.

But what was particularly tough about this is that they looked for clues, and everything had been left in place at her college apartment. Her keys were there. Her purse was left behind. Her car was there. But no sign of Tiffany.

GRACE: Keys there, purse there, car there. Susan, before I go delving into the facts of this girl any further, let me just ask you this. What is it about the state of Florida? Remember Ted Bundy ended up there? Wasn`t he in Gainesville in one of the sorority houses? Isn`t that where he committed some of his murders?

CANDIOTTI: It was, but not only there, some other places, as well. And then you had another case a few years back similar, where college students seemed to be the target of these -- of the attackers.

GRACE: Oh, yes, Danny Rolling (ph). I remember him. And now we`re talking...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: ... convicted serial killer. So looking at the time, very quickly, Susan Candiotti, is there any chance that this girl, Tiffany, fell prey to one of the serial killers there?

CANDIOTTI: Well, there`s always a chance of that. And in fact, police did look for years at someone who is currently doing time in prison by the name of Michael Knickerbocker (ph), who had, in fact, according to authorities and others, had written a letter saying that he knew something, he knew who did this, and in fact, attempted to claim some responsibility. But when police followed up -- and they have time and again -- they just couldn`t draw any connection. However...

GRACE: Well, that really doesn`t even make sense, Susan, because if there`s no connection, then why did it take them years to rule him out?

CANDIOTTI: Well, they kept going back to him because there was still some interest in him and some allegations that he might be involved. Nevertheless, there does not seem to be any, although Tiffany`s father, Patrick, still thinks that perhaps he might have something to do with it. And that`s because, in past, this man has claimed responsibility, then taken it back, or claimed in other cases that he had nothing to do with it, and then...

GRACE: Oh, gosh!

CANDIOTTI: ... and then confessed to some crimes in jail. And so he thinks, in particular, there`s a chance that maybe he did have something to do with it.

GRACE: Speaking of Tiffany`s father, he is with us right now. Joining us is Patrick Sessions. Patrick, it must be so heart-rending to believe that some nut behind bars could hold the key to answers about your daughter`s disappearance.

PATRICK SESSIONS, TIFFANY`S FATHER: Yes, it`s incredibly frustrating because we just can`t get him to talk, although he has talked to other people in jail. He`s talked -- sent letters to the police department. I think there`s a good chance he was involved.

GRACE: You do? You do?

PATRICK SESSIONS: The police will tell you -- yes. Yes.

GRACE: Well, wait a minute, Patrick. Let me just take this from a legal strategy point of view. Did he know any details that had not been released to the press.

PATRICK SESSIONS: Yes.

GRACE: Really?

PATRICK SESSIONS: And he`s talked about some -- he`s talked about some things in the letter that he sent to the sheriff`s department, where he intimated he was someone else that was in jail with him, and it was so dumb that the detectives working the case actually recognized his handwriting. So we know he wrote the letter. He admits he wrote the letter. Now he says he didn`t mean it.

He also vehemently denied for over 15 years killing a 7-year-old girl, Megan Renault (ph), in Stark (ph), and last year he confessed. Just the same as he`s, you know, denied everything to do with Tiffany, he denied Megan, but he confessed it to last year.

GRACE: Mr. Sessions, does he fit into the timeline? I mean, was he out of jail...

PATRICK SESSIONS: Yes.

GRACE: ... at the time Tiffany went missing?

PATRICK SESSIONS: Yes, he was. He was released from a sexual offender program...

GRACE: Oh, good God in heaven!

PATRICK SESSIONS: ... two months before Tiffany...

GRACE: Released from a sex offender program! OK, wait a minute. With me is Tiffany`s father. We`ll shortly meet her mother. But I`ve got to go to my friend and colleague right now, Marc Klaas. Marc Klaas is not only the president of Beyondmissing.com, his daughter -- beautiful on the inside and the outside -- Polly, was taken by a sex offender out of her own home, molested, and murdered.

Did you hear that? Did you hear this guy, Knickerbocker, who knows details about Tiffany`s disappearance that were not released to the media, had just gotten out of a sex offender treatment program?

MARC KLAAS, PRES., BEYOND MISSING: Well, you know, it`s very troubling, Nancy, because in those days, in the late `80s, we were not treating these guys as seriously as they should have been treated. And in fact, we`re not even doing that now. In fact, most states weren`t even registering sex offenders. The public had absolutely no right to know who these individuals were. And then, you know, college campuses, places like Gainesville, are the perfect hunting grounds for these kinds of predators. You get the most beautiful and the brightest and the best kids there.

And I have to tell you, you know, Mr. Sessions has done an amazing job -- Mr. and Mrs. Sessions have done an amazing job over the years of keeping this story alive.

GRACE: And you know, the security at college campuses are basically nil. I plead guilty to having a milk crate outside the window of my dorm room so I wouldn`t have to go all the way down to the lobby to leave, could just jump out. No problem! And when I look back on it, it`s a miracle I didn`t see somebody else`s foot coming in the window one night.

So the security -- tell me about the security at her college, Mr. Sessions.

PATRICK SESSIONS: Tiffany didn`t live on campus. She lived in an apartment off-campus.

GRACE: Oh.

PATRICK SESSIONS: So there really wasn`t that issue there...

GRACE: So there was no security.

PATRICK SESSIONS: No, there was none. But she clearly was abducted while she was out power-walking, not at her apartment.

GRACE: How many times have you been back and forth down the route you believed she was jogging?

PATRICK SESSIONS: I never counted it, but I`m sure it`s in the hundreds.

GRACE: Here is what police had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAJ. JIM ECKERT, GAINESVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT: Certainly, we -- you know, we talked to her immediate friends, her associates. We talked to classmates, family. There was a man that she had a -- some type of romantic relationship with, from Miami. We flew to Indiana and spoke with him. He was in prison up there on a cocaine charge.

One concern that I have to this day is I still -- I drive home from work every day on that road, and I -- and I think about it I don`t want to say every day, but I think about it quite often. And I notice, if it`s late in the evening, there are still people walking up and down that road, jogging and whatnot at 5:00 and 6:00 o`clock at night, wearing headphones, by themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: This girl, Tiffany L. Sessions, has now been missing for many, many years, her parents still in hope there are clues to her disappearance. If you have information, dial 866-USA-CHILD, or www.find-missing- children.org. She`s been gone since 1989.

And if you do not think that this is a headline, you`re wrong. If you think some political story out of Washington or something going on overseas is more important than this, let`s ask Tiffany`s mom. Joining me right, now Hillary Sessions. This is Tiffany`s mother. Welcome, Ms. Sessions. Thank you for being with us. Explain to me what you did immediately upon discovering Tiffany was missing.

HILLARY SESSIONS: Well, I immediately went up to Gainesville, and my husband at the time and I did a search along the path that Tiffany normally walked. And we walked on both sides of the -- of the street, and we found lots of things that we didn`t expect to find. One was a full skeleton of a horse. And you know, I literally expected to find Tiffany hurt or injured on the side of the road, but unfortunately, she wasn`t there.

GRACE: Do you believe that police at the time did everything they could to find Tiffany?

HILLARY SESSIONS: Well, I think that Tiffany`s case caught the police by surprise. I don`t think that they ever realized that a child could be missing that easily from a location in their territory. And they were totally overwhelmed by all the people that came in to help us search for Tiffy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY SESSIONS: Even today, when I`m driving down the road, I`ll look at a car and I`ll -- I`ll see somebody that looks like it might be Tiffy, and I`ll, you know, accelerate to try and get close to that person. And you never stop looking until you know for sure what happened to your child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The real frustration for family and friends is that Tiffany Sessions has simply vanished. Despite hundreds of tips, investigators say they are no closer to locating the young woman now than the day she disappeared. John Zarrella, CNN, Destin, Florida.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Tonight we put three missing people`s cases under the microscope. Won`t you help us?

The first, Tiffany Sessions. Back to CNN correspondent Susan Candiotti. Her watch, Susan -- how can her watch help the case, her Rolex?

CANDIOTTI: You know, I didn`t realize this about Rolex watches, but the serial number on -- they each have a serial number on the back. And if someone should find that Rolex watch that she was wearing, authorities could trace it. If someone for example, found it, took it in for servicing, a battery, whatever, they can trace where it was purchased, where it was last found. So this is intriguing, and we have that serial number and can show it to your viewers now.

GRACE: Got it right now.

CANDIOTTI: If they want to jot it down, there it is...

GRACE: Got it right now, Susan.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Yes, R609006, serial number Susan Candiotti is telling us about, blue-faced Rolex, silver blue-faced, 609006.

And very quickly, back to Marc Klaas. Marc, you were mentioning that the police tactics now are different than they were then. Explain.

KLAAS: Well, there were no protocols for missing persons then. Several things were different. Number one, people didn`t pay that much attention when young women would go missing. They would say they were missing because they wanted to be missing. And there were no protocols for dealing with missing person cases. And we know time that is of the essence, so every minute you lose is another minute the predator gets away with the child. So they were behind the eight-ball to begin with in this situation, and it`s really unfortunate. And again, the parents have done such a marvelous job in keeping this alive. And in fact, the information about the Rolex number could be a huge -- could be a huge break.

GRACE: And to Dr. Robi Ludwig, psychotherapist, joining me here in the studio. Do you believe Tiffany fits the profile of a runaway? I do not.

ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: No, it does not sound like she ran away, but what we`re knowing now is that runaways don`t necessarily all look alike and that there is not one specific profile for a runaway. In some cases, they could be no different than your normal teenager who gets in an argument with a parent and impulsively decides to go after an adventure. So there are some that are more severe and problematic than others.

GRACE: Bottom line, as Robi is telling us, it`s very complicated. Her apartment only about a half a mile from a major interstate, I-75. It goes from Miami all the way to New York City.

Very quickly, Renee Rockwell, how much faith can we place in a convicted killer sitting behind bars, writing letters? But remember, Renee, this Knickerbocker guy who`s committed other murders knows details that were not released to the media.

RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And Nancy, that`s how they decide if someone is telling the truth or if they`re just puffing or bragging, trying to look like a mass murderer. I mean, if this guy`s going to be in jail for the rest of his life, what does he care? And it`s just like the mother`s saying, you never stop looking. So just the very closure of it all would be satisfying. But I don`t think you can put a whole lot of faith in what he`s saying.

GRACE: And before we go to break and take you to our next missing persons case, final thought, to Patrick Sessions, Tiffany`s father.

PATRICK SESSIONS: Well, I just want everybody to know that we are still looking. We looked hard for a long time, Tiffany`s mother and I and all the police and the FBI and FDLE, and we`re still hoping for that break that will give us this closure. And I just would ask everybody, you know, if you hear the word Tiffany, if you think of anything that -- no matter how insignificant from years ago, please call the Achalacher (ph) County sheriff`s department and let them know.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK SESSIONS: I`m feeling tired, I`m feeling scared, and I`m feeling hopeless. I mean, I`m feeling every emotion you can feel, I think.

QUESTION: Are you optimistic?

PATRICK SESSIONS: Damn right I am. Until we find her, I`m optimistic.

I need your help. I need -- I need the word to get out on Tiffany. (INAUDIBLE) way to get Tiffany back, I`ll sell everything I`ve got.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Colleen was last seen leaving her Plantation Acres home after receiving a phone call. From whom is unknown. She was supposed to return home to go to an evening Marlins game with her dad. Instead, she disappeared. Her Mazda was found in a Tamburack (ph) parking lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Once again, a young girl from Florida missing. What`s going on in the Sunshine State? This girl, Colleen Perris, 18 when she disappeared, tip line 954-493-8477. There`s a $10,000 reward. She`s last seen September 30, 2000, Plantation, Florida.

Straight out to "America`s Most Wanted" detective and reporter, he`s a former homicide detective -- straight to Joe Matthews. Bring us up to date, friend.

JOE MATTHEWS, "AMERICA`S MOST WANTED": Well, Il tell you, Colleen come from a very nice family. She was a daddy`s little girl, 18 years old, and I think at that time in her life, she wanted to experiment a little bit about life. From what we understand...

GRACE: Oh, wait a minute! I don`t like the sound of this. What do you mean by that, "experiment with life"?

MATTHEWS: I think she was very much protected by her family, and she had a boyfriend, and one of the things that she wanted...

GRACE: Well, I mean, Joe, you can say that about anybody, for Pete`s sake! What`s the experiment there? You got a family and a boyfriend. You`re 18.

MATTHEWS: Well, at age 18, she wanted a breast augmentation.

GRACE: OK.

MATTHEWS: And she was thinking about how she could come up with the money, and there`s a possible suspect that offered her an opportunity, if she did a porno movie, where she would be able to make enough money to get a breast augmentation. And on the day of -- she was reported missing, September 30, 2000, she was supposed to meet her parents at a Marlins baseball game. At 3:00 o`clock in the afternoon, she got a phone call. And she told her mom, she said, I`ll be back in just a little bit, in time for the game. And that was the last the family heard of her or seen her.

GRACE: Well, why, Joe, hasn`t the cell phone call been traced?

MATTHEWS: Well, they attempted to do everything they could possibly do with the cell phone. One of the things, that there was a message on the cell phone that her girlfriend accessed, and it showed that this alleged suspect had called and said, Let`s meet. And -- and her girlfriend didn`t like the person, and not expecting her friend to be missing, she just erased the call because she didn`t even want her girlfriend to know that he called.

GRACE: Well, I can guarantee you this much, he called back. And what I was surprised at, your comment regarding this -- she looks like she`s 12, for Pete`s sake. She`s precious. This girl, Colleen Perris, has been missing now six years.

But you don`t find that request for plastic surgery that unusual, Robi.

LUDWIG: Well, it`s quite common these days. In fact, very often, parents in some cases will pay for breast augmentation as a gift for their child. I would have thought nose jobs, but that evidently...

GRACE: Well, I would have thought nothing. At age 18, you want plastic surgery?

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: ... high school.

LUDWIG: Well, they compare...

(CROSSTALK)

LUDWIG: They compare -- me, too. They compare themselves to models out there, and it`s aspirational surgery. They want to be like the people they admire.

GRACE: Well, another issue I have here, Renee Rockwell, defense attorney, clearly, she had met or had come in contact with -- I can just put it out there -- the wrong element. What decent man wants to involve an 18-year-old girl in a porn movie, for Pete`s sake? I can tell you right there, that should be the police number one lead.

ROCKWELL: And Nancy, well, of course, it does not sound good, but even though the roommate...

GRACE: Renee, you`re sugarcoating that!

ROCKWELL: Even though the roommate erased the message, he still -- there`s your person. There`s your potential motive. There`s the opportunity. I mean, sure, the police have -- and it`s not too late, either, because you know, the statute never runs on a murder.

GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait!

ROCKWELL: It`s not too late to go back on him...

GRACE: But before we put the cart before the horse and decide we`re prosecuting a murder case, there`s still a chance this girl could be found.

When we get back, we`re going to be joined by Nick -- excuse me, her father, Nick Perris, and mother, Nancy Perris. We`ll find out about where her car was last seen and all the details surrounding Colleen`s disappearance.

As you know, we here a NANCY GRACE want very much in our own way to help unsolved homicides, find missing people. Take a look at 40-year-old Mary Lands, last seen Marshall, Michigan, March 2004. There`s still time. If you have info on Mary Lands, call the Carole Sund Carrington Foundation toll-free, 888-813-8389.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I still think she`s out there somewhere. I think someone took her and they have her somewhere. I hope that she comes home.

Every September 30th, we go to church. And every year, I say it`s either going to be a celebration or we`re just going to pray that the next year will be a celebration. She`s going to come back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are looking for Colleen Perris. Colleen 18 years old when she disappeared. She disappeared, as you just heard her mom say, September 30, 2000, Plantation, Florida.

Look at this girl. She looks like she`s 12.

Back to "America`s Most Wanted" detective and reporter Joe Matthews.

What was done at the time? Now, it`s my understanding she was at home with the mom. She was supposed to go to a baseball game, family outing with the family. Cell phone rings. "Hi, Mom, I`ll be right back. I`ll be here in time to go to the baseball game." They went without her. Then when they got back, they realized she`s gone. What did police do to try to find her?

MATTHEWS: Well, first, throughout the entire game, the father kept calling and calling until the phone went dead. And that night, he called all her friends and none of them had seen her. So they immediately called the Plantation police department.

The detective, Joe Messina, was assigned to the case. And he was very proactive from day one in trying to locate her. And in locating her, you contact all friends, you interview friends to see if maybe she went away for a weekend, whatever.

GRACE: Joe, Joe, you said the dad started calling her within how many hours? Because if it`s within two hours and he`s calling her, and she`s not picking up, that suggests to me that, within two hours, it was over.

MATTHEWS: Well, that`s a possibility, because she was very close to her mom and dad, and she was the kind of kid that would call up and say, "OK, I`m leaving here, and I`ll be back over there." And they expected her to be at the game.

So now just because she didn`t show up at the game didn`t mean that she didn`t change her mind and she was with her friends. So she had a very close girlfriend and a boyfriend and they expected, throughout the game, even though she didn`t answer the phone, that she would be with them.

GRACE: Let`s go straight to Ft. Lauderdale. Standing by is Detective Joe Messina with the Plantation police department.

Welcome, Detective. What can you tell us about this case? Is it cold or is your department still looking for her?

DET. JOE MESSINA, PLANTATION, FLORIDA, POLICE: Well, Nancy, thank you for having me, first off. This is a case that I`ve had since day one. I share a lot of this pain with this family.

I`ve been looking under stones everywhere you can imagine with this case. I`ve had local agencies, I`ve had state agencies, I`ve had the FBI help me. I`ve had private investigators go over my case. I had retired Sergeant Joe Matthews go over my case. I`ve appeared on TV shows with this case.

This is not a typical 18-year-old runaway. She`s 18 years old. She left a car behind. She left money in a bank account. She stopped using her phone. She was going to be getting her high school diploma in a few days. She was supposed to meet her aunt for lunch. She was flying out to Colorado.

She didn`t disappear on her own. And, because of that, this is still an active case.

GRACE: Joining me now is Colleen`s dad and mom, Nick Perris and Nancy Perris. Thank you for being with us. I want to go first to...

NICK PERRIS, FATHER OF COLLEEN PERRIS: Thank you.

NANCY PERRIS, MOTHER OF COLLEEN PERRIS: Thank you, Nancy.

GRACE: Yes, sir. And yes, ma`am.

To Nick Perris, do you recall the day she went missing and you calling and calling and calling her cell phone?

NICK PERRIS: Very vividly.

GRACE: What happened?

NICK PERRIS: Well, when I left work, went home, my wife told me that Colleen had gone out and would be back to go to the game or meet us at the game. So we went ahead and headed down to the stadium.

And I tried to reach Colleen to let her know that her ticket would be waiting for her. But she didn`t return the call; she wasn`t answering her cell phone.

After about an hour or so I figured she probably went to the movies with her friends and turned her phone off or put it on vibrate, because they went to the movies often. But, by the time the game was over, the phone was going directly to voicemail.

So we went home and started calling everyone, and we found out her boyfriend was trying to get a hold of her, her girlfriend were trying to get a hold of her. So we started doing the usual panic search with calling the police department and the local hospitals.

GRACE: And what now? What now, Mr. Perris? Where does it stand now?

NICK PERRIS: Frustration. After five and almost a half, five and a half years, we are constantly looking. It`s an obsession. It`s a day-to- day search. We never give up.

Joe Messina has been absolutely marvelous in being our support and making sure the police department never gives up. But we just would like to know what happened to Colleen.

GRACE: To Nancy Perris, -- this is Colleen`s mother, everyone, joining us -- Ms. Perris, do you recall that day? What sticks out in your mind?

NANCY PERRIS: What sticks out the most is that I didn`t turn around to see what she was wearing, so when she said, "What was she wearing?" I couldn`t tell them. She was 18. She had a closet full of clothes, and I have no idea what she was wearing. If they showed me something and they said, "Is this Colleen`s?" I might not even know, otherwise, because she had so many clothes.

GRACE: Like a typical 18-year-old girl.

Ms. Perris, where was her car found?

NANCY PERRIS: It was found outside of an abandoned Wendy`s just a few miles from our home. My husband, himself, had driven up that road many times, but the car was hidden from the main street by a hedge.

GRACE: And how far away from home was it?

NANCY PERRIS: Maybe four or five miles at the most.

GRACE: When was it discovered there?

NANCY PERRIS: Well, evidently, it was given a ticket for illegal parking the next day, which we didn`t find out until it was discovered a week later. It was discovered a week later by a friend of my husband`s who was doing a sales call at the tire place there, who looked at it.

It had a very distinct license plate that ended in "PIE," he looked at the car, the little white car with this license plate, and he immediately called my husband before he even called the police and said, "I think I found Colleen`s car." But it had been a week.

GRACE: A week since she went missing.

Hey, Rosie, could you show the car one more time?

Joe Matthews, they lost about a week. And the irony is a cop had cited it for illegal parking, but what it reminds me of is the Dylan and Shasta Groene case that we`re dealing with right now who went missing in Coeur d`Alene, Idaho.

And long story short, they were right there eating at the local Denny`s, hiding in plain sight. The boy, dead, the girl, having been molested, we believe, for weeks on end, right there at the local Denny`s. Just like in this case, the car sitting right there.

Was there any chance of getting prints or any evidence from that car?

MATTHEWS: Well, there was a couple interesting things about the vehicle. The police did process it. And other than Colleen`s prints and the normal things that she kept in the car, it didn`t look like there was any foul play in the car.

And one thing I noticed is that she had her sunglasses on the console. And, to me, if you had driven the car with the sunglasses there, they would have fallen or it wasn`t the right place to put them.

So I`m assuming that she sat in the car, waited for somebody, and then left. Now, she locked the vehicle, but she didn`t set the alarm. So I`m assuming she expected to come back quite soon. And that`s basically what you got out of the car.

GRACE: Final word to Nick Perris, Colleen`s father. If you could speak out to Colleen right now, what would you tell her?

NICK PERRIS: We love you. We miss you. No one`s mad at you. We just want you to call home and let us know you`re OK.

GRACE: Nancy?

NANCY PERRIS: The same. I just, you know, the same as Mr. and Mrs. Sessions, it`s not over for us. It won`t be over until we hear from Colleen or we have closure.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Another girl missing in the Sunshine State out of Florida, now unsolved. This young girl, Yansis Juarez, missing since May 5, 2002. Last seen by her own sister leaving her own home.

Welcome back, everybody. Won`t you help us tonight?

Straight to investigative reporter joining us out of Miami, Florida, Ismael Cala. Thank you for being with us, Ismael. Bring us up-to-date.

ISMAEL CALA, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: My pleasure, Nancy. And as you said, almost four years has passed since the last time we saw -- or the family saw Yansis Massiel Juarez leaving her own house here in Miami.

Yansis was then 15 year old, and she`s born -- she was born in Nicaragua. And all what we know so far until today is that she left the house. And a few days later, the police learned about a farewell note that she left in the house.

The family said that they didn`t find the note until probably three or four days later after she disappeared. The note was written in Spanish and has been translated into English by Fernando Fernandez, the detective in charge of Yansis` case.

And what to say? It`s a Nicaraguan girl. She`s not an American, Caucasian, white female girl. She was born in Leon, Nicaragua. And as I said, she came with her father and siblings to the country claimed by Elda Rodriguez (ph), her mother, under the Nicaraguan adjustment and Latin American Relief Act signed by...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. I get it. She`s not born here. Don`t care! I want to hear the circumstances surrounding her disappearance and what has been done to find her. Can you give me that, Ismael, in a nutshell?

CALA: Yes. Well, you know, the family called the police. Probably they lost the first window, according to what the police told us.

You know, they were trying to search on their own, called the friend that she said that she would be visiting. And probably five, six hours later, they made the first call to the police, so that first window was lost to search for Yansis.

And the police, the city of Miami police detective who started handling the case. And of course, they treated at the beginning as a possible runaway. A few days later...

GRACE: Oh, uh-oh. Go ahead.

CALA: A few days later, they learned some pieces of information that got to them that were important to the case, according to what they released on a news release on May 22, 2002. According to sources, 15-year- old Yansis Massiel Juarez is part of gothic, a lifestyle that includes devil worship...

GRACE: OK. OK. Got you.

CALA: ... witchcraft, so they...

GRACE: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I`m not going to ruin this girl`s chances of ever being found by labeling her as a Goth. Half the kids in this country claim they`re Goth. That has no bearing unless it can be connected to someone that was going to meet her, take her somewhere.

In fact, it disturbs me, Renee, that her case may be shoved aside because some people think Goth is bad.

ROCKWELL: Yes, Nancy. And with the lack of resources with the police department, when you have a police department that founds out somebody has run away, sometimes they don`t put the attention needed.

GRACE: Man, you`re not kidding.

And to Detective Fernando Fernandez, he`s with the Miami P.D. in the missing persons unit, Detective, thank you for being with us. What can you tell us about the status of the case of Yansis Juarez?

DET. FERNANDO FERNANDEZ, MIAMI POLICE: The case is active. We are constantly supervising the case. I`m trying different ways...

GRACE: Well, what are you doing? What are you supervising?

FERNANDEZ: Well, we supervise, for example, if there is an application for a Social Security number, an application for an I.D. in another state, a driver`s license.

We are constantly sending the flyers through the locator system, which is a network of police enforcement, that directs a flyer directly to different law enforcement agencies throughout the country.

GRACE: Detective, Detective, where was she going when she left the house?

FERNANDEZ: She was going to a friend`s house, according to the statement...

GRACE: OK.

FERNANDEZ: ... released by her sister.

GRACE: What would her route have been? Was she walking or driving?

FERNANDEZ: She would be walking.

GRACE: OK. How far away was it?

FERNANDEZ: No more than a mile.

GRACE: OK, a mile. And where was it exactly? Was it in Miami?

FERNANDEZ: In the city of Miami, yes.

GRACE: OK. What part of the city?

FERNANDEZ: In the south end of the city.

GRACE: And how long before police started serious searching for the girl?

FERNANDEZ: Well, the report was not given to us until hours later. And after a report is taken, the first step is to put the information into the NCIC system...

GRACE: Right.

FERNANDEZ: ... which is a system that takes the information...

GRACE: Right.

FERNANDEZ: ... nationwide.

GRACE: I just wanted to know how much time passed. And, Detective, thank you for the information regarding NCIC.

Rosie, could you put up this girl`s picture again? Yansis Juarez, just 15 years old, a beautiful girl. Hey, hey, hey, the other picture. I don`t want her all Gothed up. Maybe somebody can recognize this. I doubt she`s wearing the Goth makeup today.

To Dr. Robi Ludwig, take a look at this. This is a gorgeous girl. Do you think this gothic lifestyle had anything to do with her disappearance?

LUDWIG: Not necessarily. I mean, being Goth means you have an affiliation with a melancholic view of the world. Having said that, any time...

GRACE: I thought it meant you`re mad at your parents so you wear black lipstick.

LUDWIG: Which can make you sad. You know, right, I mean, adolescents flirt with so many different roles that it doesn`t mean that she brought it on herself. If anything, just being a adolescent, a beautiful girl, can make you vulnerable to crimes and people who can`t help themselves with assaulting young, vulnerable women.

GRACE: And to Marc Klaas, president, Beyond Missing, five hours passed. Look, cases have been solved when a lot more time has passed than five hours before the person`s reported missing. But in those five hours, what are the stats, Marc?

KLAAS: Well, 74 percent of the children that are murdered as a result of an abduction are murdered within the first three hours. But I think that this case has some other interesting issues.

First of all, there`s very little resource for Spanish-language missing -- for Latina missing girls. You don`t find the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with a mirror site in Spanish. You have to depend upon the Spanish-language resources. It`s even difficult to get a Spanish-language flyer made.

What I would suggest is, if they do that, and if they start passing that around in the Gothic section of Miami, because there very well may be a connection between the things that she was interested in then and the things that she`s doing now.

There have been sightings. I would inundate that area with Spanish- and English-language flyers.

GRACE: There have been sightings, correct?

KLAAS: As I understand, there have been sightings, and they come in on rather a regular basis.

GRACE: This case is not over yet. Remember, when this girl went missing, she`s just a little girl, 15 years old. She should be on the cheerleading team and baby-sitting.

Please help us tonight find Yansis Juarez. We`ll be back with everyone on Yansis` case.

But quickly to tonight`s "All-Points Bulletin." Law enforcement across the country on the lookout for Lawrence William Fishman, wanted in connection with the 1980 Maryland shooting death of his own father, Frederick Fishman, a judge in the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Fishman now in his 50s on the lam, 5`11", 170 pounds, brown hair, brown eyes. If you have info on Lawrence William Fishman, call the FBI, 410-265-8080.

Local news next for some of you, but we`ll all be right back. And, remember, live coverage of the sentencing of the young man, Cody Posey, the New Mexico teen convicted of gunning down his family, 3:00 to 5:00 Eastern Court TV.

And tonight please stay with us as we stop to remember Corporal Brett L. Lundstrom. He`s just 22, a real American hero.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): I have this other one here. It makes me remember many things, and I feel really sad when I see her in this photo. This is all the family, her cousin. This is her cousin who was with her when she went missing. This was the last Christmas that we were all united.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Won`t you help us find this 15-year-old young girl? Her name is Yansis Juarez. She`s only been missing since 2002. There have been sights of her in and around Miami.

To Ismael Cala, he is an investigative reporter out of Miami, Ismael, what can you tell me about this international cable show called "Chat" that she actually was on?

CALA: Well, the show is about the Gothic movement and how teenagers get into that. And Yansis was particularly asked about if she had been in connection with the rituals, you know, those satanic rituals, let`s say sacrifices of animals, self-mutilation...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Well, of course this girl had not been in a satanic ritual. That`s insane.

CALA: No, no, she said -- exactly. She said that she hadn`t done it.

GRACE: She just celebrated Christmas.

CALA: Exactly. She said, "I haven`t done it, and I`m interested in learning about them." That was the only things that she said on the show.

GRACE: But wait a minute, wait a minute.

Very quickly, Detective Fernandez, if this shows with this little girl was seen all across the world, this is an international cable channel, what does that mean for your investigation as to who took this girl?

FERNANDEZ: Well, we had to keep all our options open. So with the information that we received, we have to investigate it, whether it is that she`s involved in a Gothic or that she`s (INAUDIBLE) taken by somebody, we have to make sure that we investigate every aspect of possible information...

GRACE: Well, did you? Did you investigate the show and leads from the show?

FERNANDEZ: Yes, ma`am. We investigated. We went to different locations where the Gothics gather.

GRACE: Right.

FERNANDEZ: And different locations for dancing and things like that. And we were able to determine that the majority of the Gothics are just there for the style, the style of clothing.

GRACE: Right.

FERNANDEZ: And just to group themselves, just like hip-hops, or rappers, or rockers in school, will gather, you know?

GRACE: To identify.

FERNANDEZ: Identify themselves.

GRACE: Detective Fernandez, thank you. And thank you to Ismael Cala.

CALA: Thank you.

GRACE: But I want to thank all of my guests tonight. Our biggest thank you on my behalf and our staff is to you for being with us tonight, inviting us into your homes again with our legal stories, our missing people stories.

Coming up, headlines from all around the world. I`m Nancy Grace signing off. See you here tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp.

And until then, good night, friend.

END