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Nancy Grace
Killer Cop or Devoted Dad?
Aired May 29, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, live to Kansas. Hubby/cop and real, live CSI marries his high school sweetheart, has two boys, ages 2 and 4. But then it all goes sideways.
Bombshell tonight. Police race to the family`s classic two-story home to find the home burned to a crisp, especially the couple`s bedroom. In the bedroom, Mommy dead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you murder her?
BRETT SEACAT, CHARGED WITH MURDER: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you pull the trigger?
SEACAT: No!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill her?
SEACAT: No!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosecutors say former police instructor and sheriff`s deputy Brett Seacat was steaming mad after his wife files for divorce. Just days later, his wife mysteriously dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things are just not looking good, and they`re adding up to that you had something to do with this, Brett. We want to know why.
SEACAT: Oh, no, there`s no why, OK? I didn`t do this. I love Vashti.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authorities say Seacat killed his wife and then set the family home on fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seacat claims Vashti killed herself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) found it preposterous...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... that Vashti would set their Kingman home on fire with her two boys sleeping down the hall.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... crawl into bed and then shoot herself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told a friend a week-and-a-half prior to this incident happening that you threatened to kill her.
SEACAT: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You threatened to burn the house down and you threatened to make it look like she did it. (INAUDIBLE)
SEACAT: That is bull (EXPLETIVE DELETED)!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And tonight, live to Orlando. A high-profile real estate broker with a married boyfriend boozes it up and guns him down. In the last hours, yet another Orlando jury says not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) We the jury find the defendant not guilty. So say we all (INAUDIBLE) Orlando (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Juror number one, his is your true verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Juror number two, is this your true verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Juror number three, is this your true verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Juror number four, is this your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Juror number five, is this your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And juror number six, is this your verdict?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Caryn, why were you so confident? You were so confident earlier.
CARYN KELLEY, ACQUITTED OF MURDER: Because I didn`t shoot him. I know that.
911 OPERATOR: Did you have the gun?
KELLEY: I did, but it was (INAUDIBLE)
911 OPERATOR: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Caryn Kelley swears she didn`t pull the trigger.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Really, really.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you ever have any doubts?
KELLEY: No. That`s why I didn`t testify.
The gun went off. I`m, like, Oh, my God. I didn`t ever mean to do that. Is he OK? Is he living?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ms. Kelley, you have been found not guilty of these charges by a jury of your peers, and as such, you are released.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you going to do next?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight, live to Kansas. Hubby/cop and real-life CSI marries his high school sweetheart, has two boys, ages 2 and 4. But it all goes sideways when police race to the family`s classic two-story home. There they find the family home burned to a crisp, especially the couple`s bedroom. In that bedroom, on the bed, Mommy lays dead.
We are live and taking your calls. Out to Justin Kraemer. He`s joining me at the courthouse, reporter with KSN-TV. When did the husband first become a potential suspect?
JUSTIN KRAEMER, KSN-TV (via telephone): Immediately, Nancy. Folks here in this small, quiet Kansas community woke to a raging house fire. Inside that home, Vashti (INAUDIBLE) Seacat (INAUDIBLE) beautiful mother of two small boys, found dead in her bed of a gunshot wound to her head.
Outside the home, former deputy Brett Seacat, her estranged husband, shirtless, shoeless, wearing nothing but his police uniform pants, telling anyone who would listen that Vashti (INAUDIBLE) Seacat set her own home on fire and shot herself in the head, with her two young boys sleeping down the hall. (INAUDIBLE)
GRACE: Go ahead, Justin.
KRAEMER: I was just going to tell you that authorities out here questioned this story from the very, very beginning, finding it eye- rollingly ridiculous.
GRACE: You know, I`m very interested in the story, Matt Zarrell. So he is on the scene at the time police race to the family home. He is there. He`s managed to save the 2-year-old and the 4-year-old boy from the fire.
But to me, timing is everything, Matt Zarrell. Isn`t it true that the victim in this case just absolutely stunning, Vashti Seacat, his high school sweetheart -- isn`t it true she just served him divorce papers a couple of days before?
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Yes, Nancy. It was three days prior to her death that he received the divorce papers from her, and she expressed concern to friends about what his reaction would be when he got those divorce papers.
GRACE: OK, I want to talk about the evidence. Everyone, husband/cop, a real-life CSI -- in fact, he teaches other people crime scene investigation.
The family home burned to a crisp, especially in the bedroom. The police arrive. They go into the bedroom with firefighters and they find his young wife dead on the family bed, but not from smoke inhalation, not from asphyxiation. She is dead from a gunshot wound to the head.
Now, Dave Mack joining me from Clear Channel WAAX, it`s my understanding he says that she had been extremely depressed, that she had talked about suicide before and that she shot herself that night. But what I don`t get is how could she shoot herself and start a fire, too?
DAVE MACK, WAAX CLEAR CHANNEL: Well, you know, the amazing thing is, Nancy, that for somebody who was so depressed, she never mentioned it to anybody else. The only person to say she was depressed is her soon to be ex-husband. And you`re right, so she`s so depressed, but she`s able to get everything together so she can start a fire and then shoot herself through the neck. The story doesn`t make sense from get-go.
GRACE: Well, right there, before I -- I`m about to show you what he had to say when police first confronted him. He was very nonchalant. He said he was going along with the divorce. He was actually laughing and joking along with police as they were asking him about the night his wife died.
But just very quickly, out to you Woodrow Tripp, former police commander. Woody, I don`t know if you have ever studied -- I introduced it into court many times when you were a witness in one of my prosecutions -- a book called "Method and Assessment of Homicide and Suicide." It is extremely rare for a woman this age to commit suicide by shooting herself in the neck or head region with a gun. That`s very rare, Woody.
WOODROW TRIPP, FMR. POLICE COMMANDER, POLYGRAPH EXPERT: It absolutely is, Nancy. And in fact, normally, because of vanity issues, women seek other methods. If it does come to a handgun, most times, it`s in the chest area. But it`s definitely not, for the most part, head, neck area.
GRACE: OK, let`s take a look at what we can learn from the police interrogation, if you can call it that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you murder her?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you pull the trigger?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill her?
SEACAT: No!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things are just not looking good, and they`re adding up to that you had something to do with this, Brett. And we want to know why.
SEACAT: Oh, no, there`s no why, OK? I didn`t do this. I love Vashti.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told a friend a week-and-a-half prior to this incident happening that you threatened to kill her.
SEACAT: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You threatened to burn the house down, and you threatened to make it look like she did it.
(CROSSTALK)
SEACAT: That is bull (EXPLETIVE DELETED)!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: There you are seeing him as he speaks to cops. Unleash the lawyers. Joining me tonight, death penalty-qualified prosecutor Eleanor Odom. Also with me tonight out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, former prosecutor turned defense attorney Peter Odom.
All right, Peter, what do you make of his demeanor speaking with really his colleagues, other cops just like him?
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I mean, he`s just being very emphatic. He`s denying it. So he -- evidently, he hasn`t made any admissions. It`s the kind of -- it`s the kind of demeanor that the cops would say he seems to be telling the truth.
GRACE: What? Whoa! You know, that`s so odd because I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder because that`s not what I observed at all. Let`s see it again...
PETER ODOM: What a surprise.
GRACE: If you don`t mind, Liz, let`s see that again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you murder her?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you pull the trigger?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill her?
SEACAT: No!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things are just not looking good, and they`re adding up to that you had something to do with this, Brett. And we want to know why.
SEACAT: Oh, no, there`s no why, OK? I didn`t do this. I love Vashti.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told a friend a week-and-a-half prior to this incident happening that you threatened to kill her.
SEACAT: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You threatened to burn the house down, and you threatened to make it look like she did it.
(CROSSTALK)
SEACAT: That is bull (EXPLETIVE DELETED)!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: OK, out to you Eleanor. Weigh in.
ELEANOR ODOM, PROSECUTOR: Well, I certainly disagree with Peter Odom. First of all, look at that finger he`s wagging around. That is just really bizarre, pointing at the other cop. Plus, he`s answering so -- when I first saw it, I was, like, That is just really odd. It`s really how his voice gets all high-pitched and he keeps going, What? What? Kind of like he`s trying to deny it, but think -- trying to give himself enough time to think of a better answer. Isn`t that exactly what it looks like? The guilty pointing finger.
GRACE: Well, you know, let`s see the lawyers again, please. What I`ve noticed very often in court is when people are on the stand, and you`ve kind of got them in a corner, they take very long pauses. I noticed it a lot with Jodi Arias. And when they`re having to think up an answer, there`s a long pause and they think. And very often, they use hand motions.
And I want you to look one more time now. This is not an amateur. This is a veteran police officer. In fact, he teaches CSI. Now, he claims his wife had been depressed and that she committed suicide. Take a look at him under police interrogation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you murder her?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you pull the trigger?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill her?
SEACAT: No!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things are just not looking good, and they`re adding up to that you had something to do with this, Brett. And we want to know why.
SEACAT: Oh, no, there`s no why, OK? I didn`t do this. I love Vashti.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told a friend a week-and-a-half prior to this incident happening that you threatened to kill her.
SEACAT: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You threatened to burn the house down, and you threatened to make it look like she did it.
(CROSSTALK)
SEACAT: That is bull (EXPLETIVE DELETED)!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Detectives found it preposterous.
SEACAT: I love Vashti.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you murder her?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That Vashti would set their Kingman home on fire with her two boys sleeping down the hall.
SEACAT: Oh, no, there`s no why, OK? I didn`t do this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Crawl into bed and then shoot herself.
SEACAT: I love Vashti.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you pull the trigger?
SEACAT: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back. For those of you just joining us, a courtroom set to explode as evidence comes in in the shooting death of a gorgeous young mom. On trial, her husband, a cop, in fact, one of the best. He`s no amateur. He actually teaches CSI.
Straight back to Justin Kraemer joining me at the courthouse, Justin with KSN-TV. Justin, I understand the 911 tape was played in front of the jury. What happened?
KRAEMER: That tape was played earlier today, in the fifth day of this trial for Brett Seacat. In that tape, you can hear him talk breathlessly about the fire, the flames coming from the home, telling the dispatcher immediately, within the first 10 seconds of the phone call, that Vashti had shot herself after setting her home on fire.
Now, the prosecution is saying this is just one more step in a cold- blooded, calculated plan to make her homicide look like a suicide.
GRACE: You know, it seemed to me that they had it all. Joining me right now is a special guest. This is Vashti`s brother, Richard, joining us, also in court today, the mother of two young boys. Richard, thank you for being with us.
RICHARD FORREST, BROTHER OF VICTIM (via telephone): You`re welcome. Good evening.
GRACE: Richard, how are the boys?
FORREST: You know, they`re doing great. I mean, I guess it`s all relative. They`re doing good in so much as we`re giving them as much love, time and attention as we can.
You know, what we`ve noticed as time`s progressed is it`s almost like it`s been a vacation to them up until about six months ago. And we noticed they did go through a phase now where it`s kind of like, OK, the fun`s over. We want to go home. We want to go back to our life, our white house. But I mean, they`re doing good, as could be expected.
GRACE: What do they say about Mommy?
FORREST: Mommy`s in the heavens. The youngest one, when this first went down, which was two years ago, would say she`s in the heavens. We released balloons when we had a memorial for her and indicated that the balloons were going up to where Mommy`s at. So we just kind of try to keep it, you know, along those lines for them for now.
GRACE: Richard, who has custody of the boys?
FORREST: At this point, my mother has custody of them. And then I have a sister that`s involved heavily taking care of them. But they`re primarily with my mother, with my sister driving up from Oklahoma a lot to spend time with them, with the thoughts that if we ever need to make a transition, you know, everybody`s been involved at this point.
GRACE: You know, Richard Forrest, everyone, is with us. Vashti Seacat, wife and mother of two little boys, ages 2 and 4, found dead in her bed, the home on fire. But Vashti didn`t succumb to smoke inhalation or asphyxiation. This young mother died from a gunshot wound to the head.
Now, yes, people get shot every day of the week in America. But for a mom to be killed in her own bedroom with her two children in the home, a 2- year-old and a 4-year-old in the home, almost unheard of, statistically rare.
Richard, I know you have so much you could tell us about your sister, but what I`m most interested in is about what kind of a mother she was to her little boys.
FORREST: She was a great mom. Sometimes my other sister and I would kind of laugh because she would go to such great lengths to do things for them. And by that, I mean -- like, I`ll never forget one time her and some of her friends were going to the movies, and they were almost late for the movies because it was late at night, and she had to find organic bananas so that she could hand-make their organic baby food because she wasn`t going to buy baby food from a jar. She had to make it and it had to be organic.
She had them in the YMCA, in swimming lessons. In fact, almost weekly, every Saturday, was kind of the YMCA thing. So she was just a very involved, very conscientious, very health-conscientious mother.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told a friend a week-and-a-half prior to this incident happening that you threatened to kill her.
SEACAT: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They told Seacat that Vashti warned friends that Seacat had threatened her life.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just heard a booming sound that sounded similar to what I`ve heard down from the gun range downtown when the police are down shooting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everyone. The courtroom brewing, about to broil over, as a matter of fact, there in Kingman, Kansas. A police officer, a veteran police officer, marries his high school sweetheart. They seem to have it all, but then it all goes sideways. He is on trial right now for her death.
He insists she was suicidal, that she was depressed, had been depressed, even points to her journal that shows she was depressed.
But out to her brother. Richard Forrest, was Vashti depressed? Had she ever discussed suicide?
FORREST: No. She had not. She was very upbeat, had some several trips planned with her sister. They were going to go to Cancun. They were going to go to Hawaii for a birthday, had some concerts planned, really was kind of upbeat about, I guess, a new chapter, you`d call it, in her life.
GRACE: What do you make of the journal entries? Did she keep a journal as long as you knew her? And would she have written about suicidal ideation in those journals but yet kept it from her family?
FORREST: You know, I can`t really comment too much on that because I do think it`s part of the...
GRACE: Because of the trial ongoing. I understand -- I understand completely, Richard Forrest. The trial is going on right now, and you don`t want to compromise it.
In all of your years -- you are her brother. You`ve seen her through growing up, through turning into a lady, getting married, giving birth, having two boys, filing for divorce. Her family stuck by her the whole way. Did she ever once say, I just can`t go on?
FORREST: No. And as a matter of fact, I talked to her the night of the 29th. And certainly, none of the conversation was about any type of depression, her not being able to function or move on. It was, you know, possibly some other people were struggling with some things, but it was never about her or her not being happy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would a mother of two young children set her house on fire with her kids in it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You threatened to burn the house down and you threatened to make it look like she did it.
(CROSSTALK)
SEACAT: That is bull (EXPLETIVE DELETED)!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His 34-year-old wife found shot to death following (ph) a fire to the home. Seacat claims his wife committed suicide.
SEACAT: I love Vashti.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Detectives believe Seacat went into the burning room and tried to move her body, since he had no burns nor blood on his clothes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seacat`s wife committed suicide. How was the gun found underneath her dead body?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back. For those of you just joining us, a police officer, husband, real-life CSI, now facing charges he murdered his wife with the two boys, ages 2 and 4, in their home. Their home seemed like a story book. The fairy tale come true, marrying your high school sweetheart, deeply in love. But then she files for divorce. And in less than three days, she is dead. Police race to the home to find this. The home up in flames, particularly the couple`s bedroom. On the couple`s bed, there is Vashti lying dead, but not from smoke inhalation, not from burning. She is dead from a gunshot wound to the neck and head area. We are taking your calls, straight out to Brenda, North Carolina. Hi, Brenda, what is your question?
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. I love your show. In many cases, the guilty party often shows up at the crime scene and watches the police investigation. Was he not at the scene when the police arrived?
GRACE: Brenda, he absolutely was. And that is a strange, twisted tale itself. Out to you, Matt Zarrell, explain.
ZARRELL: Yes. What Seacat tells investigators when they arrive, he said he fell asleep that night in his boys` bedroom.
GRACE: Wait, wait, they filed for divorce, why is he on the sofa?
ZARRELL: He is on the sofa because they agreed, or at least Seacat says he convinced his wife or soon to be ex-wife to let him continue to stay in the house so they can try to work things out. And in fact, Nancy, the police chief says that Seacat admitted he bullied Vashti into letting him stay for three months. Meanwhile he had just received--
GRACE: Back it up, back it up. Matt Zarrell, what do you mean he bragged to people he bullied her? The court says you have got to move out. He bragged to who that bullied her into letting him stay in the home?
ZARRELL: The police chief says that he convinced his wife to let him stay in the home for several months.
GRACE: You said bullied.
ZARRELL: Yes, he did say the word bullied his wife, by threatening to take the children to Mexico.
GRACE: Taking the children to Mexico. You mean moving out of the United States and going to Mexico with the children, he threatened that on his wife?
ZARRELL: Correct.
GRACE: So I guess she did let him sleep on the sofa. OK, then what happened?
ZARRELL: OK, so Seacat says he falls asleep in the boys` bedroom but sets an alarm on his phone so he can wake up and feed the dog and clean up from dinner from that night.
GRACE: OK, stop, stop, stop. What?
ZARRELL: Yes. He says that he set an alarm on his phone when he fell asleep in the boys` bedroom so he can make sure to wake up and feed the dog and clean up dinner before he went to sleep.
GRACE: OK. So he goes to sleep with the kitchen a big fat mess and sets his alarm to wake him up. All right. Unleash the lawyers. Don`t go anywhere, Zarrell. Peter Odom. Have you ever set your watch to wake up in the middle of the night to feed your dog and clean up the dinner table?
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I mean, I set my watch and people set their watches to wake up all the time.
GRACE: Not what I asked.
P. ODOM: Why is what I do relevant?
GRACE: So you`re not going to answer.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Because it is ridiculous. It doesn`t make sense.
P. ODOM: It doesn`t make sense to you. It makes sense in their lives.
GRACE: No, it doesn`t. Really? You think so. It makes sense to leave the kitchen a wreck, and you have got to wake up and feed your dog in the middle of the night. You think that makes sense.
P. ODOM: I have left the kitchen a wreck on many nights.
GRACE: Did you set your watch to get up in the middle of the night to clean it?
P. ODOM: But I feed my dog (inaudible). I haven`t done exactly that, but that doesn`t mean anything.
GRACE: Have you done something similar to that?
(CROSSTALK)
P. ODOM: And the fact that I haven`t done exactly that, does that mean that he is guilty?
GRACE: No. And that is not what I asked you. It seems to me like he is making up a lie to cover up what happened. That is what it seems like to me. And I`m asking you. OK. If you haven`t done it, fine. Have you ever heard of anybody else that did do it? That sets their clock to wake them up in the middle of the night to clean up the supper table.
P. ODOM: I haven`t ever heard of anybody else doing exactly that. But I don`t think that that makes him guilty.
GRACE: Well, you don`t have to act so irritated about it. All right.
(CROSSTALK)
P. ODOM: It doesn`t mean he is guilty.
GRACE: Eleanor, explain the relevance.
I don`t care if they never clean up the dinner table. What I care about are lies.
ELEANOR ODOM, PROSECUTOR: Have you ever noticed defendants are always doing something what I personally call heroic acts when they are guilty? You know, when they are off committing the crime? Oh, I was just cleaning up the kitchen table. Probably has never done that and probably of course never done it in the middle of the night, but all of a sudden he is feeding the dogs, he`s cleaning the table. He is trying to give himself an alibi, oh, I couldn`t have possibly been killing my wife and setting the house on fire.
GRACE: You are bringing up a very interesting point. Out to psychologist Caryn Stark. Have you ever noticed that very often, after men kill their husbands -- kill their wives, they suddenly turn into neatnicks and they are doing the laundry and they bleaching the murder scene with bleach? And they are folding things up and putting it all away and sweeping? Remember Scott Peterson? Did the laundry, Jodi Arias put all the bed sheets from the bed in the laundry. Everybody suddenly wants to do laundry.
STARK: They become very clean. Actually, a little obsessive compulsive. But Nancy, I want to tell you that this guy could very well have murdered his wife. He`s impulsive. Look at his answers. He says, no. No! No! Like emphatically. And it looks to me like he kind of backtracked. He had to come up with the story afterward, because after all he is a CIA. It is an absurd, improbable story that he came up with. So it seems to me he may have murdered her and then had to come up going backwards with what--
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: I find his interrogation tape to be extremely confrontational, as well. Liz, let`s see the tape one more time. Take a look at Seacat as he`s trying to counter police accusations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you murder her?
SEACAT: No!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you pull the trigger?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill her?
SEACAT: No!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things are not looking good, and they are adding up to that you had something to do with this, Brett. We need to know why.
SEACAT: There`s no why. OK. I didn`t do this. I love Vashti.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told a friend week and a half prior to this incident happened that you threatened to kill her.
SEACAT: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You threatened to burn the house down and tried to make it look like she did it.
SEACAT: That is (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you murder her?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you pull the trigger?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill her?
SEACAT: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosecutors say former police instructor and sheriff`s deputy Brett Seacat was steaming mad after his wife files for divorce. Just days later, his wife mysteriously dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things are not looking good and they are adding up to that you had to do something with this, Brett. We need to know why.
SEACAT: There`s no why. OK? I didn`t do this. I`m in love with Vashti.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Authorities say Seacat killed his wife and then set the family home on fire.
Seacat claims Vashti killed herself. Detectives found it preposterous that Vashti would set their Kingman home on fire with her two boys sleeping down the hall, crawl into bed and then shoot herself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told a friend a week and a half prior to this incident that you threatened to kill her.
SEACAT: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you threatened to burn the house down and you threatened to make it look like she did it.
SEACAT: That is -- that is (EXPLETIVE DELETED].
There`s a fire! And my wife is -- she shot herself but she`s in the fire. There`s smoke everywhere. (inaudible). I`m trying to get a wet rag.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Interesting, the gun was found under her body. Yet, he says she committed suicide. Out to Dr. William Morrone, medical examiner, forensic pathologist, joining me out of Madison Heights. What jumps out at you, Dr. Morrone?
DR. WILLIAM MORRONE: There`s two really big facts in this case. The first thing is, when women are really unstable and depressed, they don`t just kill themselves. They kill the kids first. And then, they can`t live with the grief and then they really do commit suicide. That`s why she didn`t do this. This wasn`t her.
And the second thing is this is a famous gun. This is a .44 Magnum Ruger Redhawk. In 1971, Clint Eastwood made this gun famous with "do you feel lucky" -- women don`t use this gun. Women -- it is too big, it is too powerful. It is in the wrong place. She can`t handle it. She couldn`t have done this. Because of the physical facts and statistics. The science doesn`t add up.
GRACE: And plus, the location of the shooting, it was in the neck, I believe, going downward front to back.
MORRONE: Exactly.
GRACE: Slightly right to left. That`s not how you shoot yourself. Even if a woman in her statistic grouping, when you look at sex, age and all of her other vital statistics, A, wouldn`t shoot herself with a gun to commit suicide. B, wouldn`t do it with her children in the home. C, wouldn`t do it in the face area. And D, wouldn`t be able to cover herself up with the covers after she shoots herself. Do you agree with me, Morrone?
MORRONE: I do. Nancy, in 20 years of health care, I have only seen one woman suicide with a gun, and it was straight to the chest.
GRACE: To Robert Rowe, fire expert at a Pyrocop, Inc. Joining me out of San Diego. Robert, you have studied the case. What do you think?
ROWE: Well, you know, in the guide, there`s a guide for the standard care for conducting investigations. It talks about motives and it talks about various reasons why people set fires, and one of the motives in that publication is for cover-up of crime, such as a homicide, so it`s not surprising to me that the authorities were looking at, at the time of the investigation.
GRACE: Out to the lines, Tracy, South Carolina. Hi, dear. What is your question?
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. First of all, I wanted to say that last week, believe it or not, in Greenville, South Carolina, we had a similar case, a similar trial, where a man shot his wife, had two kids in the home, the same thing. He came up with the most outlandish excuse for it. And I just can`t believe that they actually think that we`ll believe the stories. Who is he? Harry Houdini? She set the house on fire which is a very, very painful way to die, and then she shoots herself in the neck? And then she`s laying on top of the gun. None of it makes any sense. It would be better if he would just come out and say, you know what, I was outraged from the divorce proceeding and I did it, instead of, you know, taking us through all these crazy measures when he -- it`s obvious. I mean, it`s domestic violence, and the way that people just kill people because they don`t want to be bothered with their BS anymore. To me it`s just outrageous.
GRACE: And I also learned, Tracy in South Carolina, that there is some evidence that he had installed a GPS tracking. He could tell where she went, he could tell, track all of her text messages, and he went out and set on fire the hard drive to his computer. OK? That`s not normal.
CALLER: Crazy. Like I said, these stories they come up with, you killed her because he was tired of it. You know, whatever they were going through. People just need to learn how to let people go, let them live.
GRACE: I want to go back to the lawyers on this one. Eleanor Odom, joining us, death penalty qualified prosecutor. What about taking his hard drive out? Burning, torching it, and then in another trash can, getting rid of cell phones.
E. ODOM: Nancy, you look at each step, and that shows premeditation. It showed his planning, it shows his motive, it shows his opportunity. It`s like a neat little package of evidence, and isn`t it great, Nancy, because why would somebody do that? Burning all this stuff in separate trash cans if it was a true fire set by the wife and he didn`t know about it, then all sorts of things would be burning. He would not be rushing out to put things in the trash.
GRACE: Peter, I would like to hear your counter to that, and Peter, I know you`re going to scream it`s irrelevant. But let me ask you, Peter, have you ever -- you get rid of a computer, what, do you set it on fire?
P. ODOM: I`ve never set a computer on fire, Nancy. It`s not my m.o.
GRACE: How about your cell phone on fire?
P. ODOM: I`ve never had to set my cell phone on fire.
GRACE: Just putting it out there.
P. ODOM: Never had a chance to do that.
GRACE: Peter, weigh in.
P. ODOM: Nancy, well, that`s hard evidence. If it comes in and it`s established that he was the one that did that, it`s hard evidence to overcome. The defense in this case has to try to tie that burning either to random burning as a result of the fire or show that somebody else must have done it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: State of Florida versus Caryn Kelley.
(CROSSTALK)
KELLEY: He was joking. But boom, it went off. He (inaudible).
The gun went off in the house. My boyfriend died!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: On the heels of the tot mom Casey Anthony not guilty verdict, now an Orlando jury hands down yet another not guilty verdict, seemingly in the face of overwhelming evidence. Not so says Caryn Kelley`s defense attorney, joining us live tonight, Diana Tennis.
Diana, your client decided seemingly again at the last minute not to take the stand. Why?
DIANA TENNIS, ATTORNEY: Well, frankly, it wasn`t necessary, Nancy. The law enforcement had already acknowledged that it was a struggle and an accident. There was no evidence that there was anything other than a struggle and an accident that caused the discharge. We know that he entered the room, he crossed the room, he engaged with her physically, and a terrible tragedy ensued. So it just didn`t seem that having somebody testify two years after the fact when you had all of the statements that she made that we managed to get in front of the jury right there in the hours afterward, why would they believe those statements two years later if they weren`t going to believe what she said at the time?
GRACE: You know, Diana Tennis, I think that the jury was misguided, but I have to say, even so, you tried a heck of a case. And you were right. She didn`t have to testify. You managed to win the case without her taking the stand, and I will point out that that was pretty wise, because Jodi Arias, I don`t know if you followed that on the stand, 18 days, the jury just, you know, set them on their teeth listening to her for 18 days. She made a very wise decision speaking strategically.
Out to C. Douglas Green. Represents Phillip Peatross`s family. I`m sure you disagree with Diana.
C. DOUGLAS GREEN, REPRESENTS FAMILY OF KILLED BOYFRIEND, PHILLIP PEATROSS: Yes, I do. I thought there was more than enough evidence to convict Ms. Kelley. I thought her words alone and her statements alone immediately in the aftermath following the incident to the 911 and then with the cell phone --
GRACE: You mean changing her story five times?
GREEN: Yes. At a minimum of five times.
GRACE: And her own words when he left the home. She said, hey, don`t come back. I got a gun and I know how to use it.
GREEN: Yes. That absolutely made no sense to me, why would someone say that to someone they love, who`s been in their house, who`s lived in their house to a certain degree as far as slept there. You know? Even if they may have had a little rift to all of a sudden, you know, I got a gun. If you come back, you know, if you have come back, I have got a gun and it`s loaded. And so forth.
GRACE: To Deborah Roberts, news anchor joining me from Florida News Network. What happened?
DEBORAH ROBERTS, FLORIDA NEWS NETWORK: Nancy, I can`t tell you what happened. I am absolutely shocked by this verdict. I thought the words of the defendant Caryn Kelley alone would have been enough to certainly garner a manslaughter charge. I do believe that there were a few things brought up at trial that managed to create enough reasonable doubt in the jurors` mind that they felt a not guilty verdict was the best verdict for this case.
GRACE: Clark, she said, don`t come back. If you do, I`ve got a gun and I know how to use it. Am I wrong?
GOLDBAND: No, Nancy. You`re correct. That`s the gist of what came out at trial, but there was no doubt in the minds of jurors, taking just one hour and 35 minutes before reaching their verdict of not guilty. In fact, Nancy, when the defendant left the court after being found not guilty, asked by reporters what she was going to do next, she replied, go to Disneyworld.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: We remember American hero Army Specialist Steven Dupont, 20, Lafayette, Louisiana. Bronze Star, Purple Heart. Parents Charles and Brenda, brother Robert. Steven Dupont, American hero.
And now, back to the stunning not guilty verdict handed down by yet another Orlando jury. Clark Goldband, the evidence seemed to be overwhelming, especially the drunk cell phone video taken by police where she changes the story five times, admitting she shot him.
GOLDBAND: Yes, Nancy. It starts on the 911 call and continues on the cell phone video filmed by officers at the scene and later during the police interview. The stories ranged from self-defense, accidental shooting, thought he was someone else, that he shot himself and was protecting her home.
GRACE: OK. Well, there you have it. Another Orlando jury hands down a not guilty. As we go to Dr. Drew, happy birthday, happy 17th birthday to friend of the show, Amari. Amari loves basketball, football and spending time with his family. He wants to be a professional chef when he grows up, and what does he love the most in the world? His mommy, Ms. Michelle.
Dr. Drew up next, everybody. I`ll see you tomorrow night 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
