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Nancy Grace

Teen Charged in Stepbrother`s Murder

Aired July 30, 2013 - 20:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Kentucky teenager charged in the death of his 14-year-old stepbrother, Trey Zwicker.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fourteen-year-old honor student and choir member.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) hit him in the head so hard, he was never going to wake up again.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His own son is on trial, even though his dad admitted that he did it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you pleading guilty voluntarily?

JOSHUA GOUKER, STEPFATHER OF VICTIM: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said he beat Trey to death with a pipe because Trey stole his lighter.

GOUKER: I just snapped. I had him. He went down. I stepped on his hand, pulled (ph) the bar. (INAUDIBLE) I had the bar in his hand and I hit him. Before I knew it, it was over.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Initially, Gouker said Young killed Trey.

GOUKER: And I said, Josh, if they catch us, you just play crazy, you know? You`re a minor.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gouker has changed his stories many times.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He initially told police that Young killed Zwicker. Later, he retracted that and said, No, no, I acted alone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you set your son up to kill Trey Zwicker?

GOUKER: No. Absolutely not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s what we wanted them to think, that Josh did it because he was a juvenile. He`d get less time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who killed him and why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Josh Young is just as guilty as his dad. He was standing right there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just sits like he`s a puppet or something. I don`t know. They all should pay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JEAN CASAREZ, GUEST HOST: Good evening. I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. Thank you so much for joining us.

Tonight, a teenage boy just 14 years old found beaten to death, left behind (sic) a ditch behind a Louisville, Kentucky, high school. The victim identified as Trey Zwicker, an honor student. He loved camping and fishing.

As investigators search for Trey`s killer, his stepfather comes forward and he points the finger at his own son, Joshua Young, a 15-year- old straight-A student in his own right.

Why would a 15-year-old boy murder his own teen brother? The case takes a another stunning turn when the stepfather confesses to the murder in court, claiming his teenage son has nothing to do with Trey`s death. As the teen`s police interrogation is caught on tape, who really killed Trey Zwicker?

I want to go straight out to Dave Mack, syndicated talk show radio host. You know, Dave, I want to set the scene here because this is a 15- year-old defendant at the time that this happened. He gets off the school bus. He`s a straight-A student in high school. He says in his own police statement that he loved his brother, Trey, that they had grown up together, that they were close. And now this?

Here`s what I want you to set the scene. I want to know where he was killed. And I`m talking about Trey Zwicker, the victim in this case. Where was he killed, how was he killed and how was his body left? Because this was a violent death.

DAVE MACK, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: It was a very personal and violent death, Jean. He was found behind the high school, in a creek where Josh and Trey had actually found a big turtle the day before the alleged murder took -- well, the murder took place.

He was found not just beaten up where he might have gotten hit and fell back. He had at least 15 beating wounds to blunt force and sharp force trauma to his head and body, 15 shots to the head with something like a metal rod or a baseball bat.

It was excessive. It was extensive. And then he was just left face down in the mud to be discovered by someone else.

CASAREZ: Yes, he suffered. He suffered bad.

Alexis Weed, NANCY GRACE producer, originally in this case, the father in all of this, Joshua Gouker -- he said that his son did it, that his son was the one that actually killed his brother. Explain that.

ALEXIS WEED, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Yes, right, Jean. So that was his initial story. He told police first -- first he said -- this is just within hours of Trey`s body being found. First he says that maybe some kids that were making problems in the neighborhood -- maybe they were responsible.

But then he puts it on his own son, Josh Young, and says that he put - - that Josh Young had gone out to this creek area and that all of the (sic) sudden that he took out a bat and started beating Trey to death.

CASAREZ: So everybody is saying he put it on his own son, but could he actually have been telling the truth? He had various statements. Listen to a little bit of what now this convicted murderer had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOUKER: I just snapped. I had him. He went down. I stepped on his hand, pulled the bar. (ph) He still had the bar in his hand, and I hit him, so I knew that it was over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you set your son up to kill Trey Zwicker?

GOUKER: No. Absolutely not. That`s what we wanted them to think, that Josh did it because he`s a juvenile. He`d get less time. He`d be out, you know, in three or four years.

And I said, Josh, if they catch us, you just play crazy. You know, you`re a minor.

He didn`t have nothing to do with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And Dave Mack, didn`t Joshua, older Joshua -- didn`t even have an alibi at the time?

MACK: He actually claims that at the time the murder took place that he was at home with Trey`s mother making a homemade adult film, porno. That`s his claim.

CASAREZ: And where`s the tape? Where`s the tape, Dave Mack?

MACK: Don`t know about the tape, just know about the claim.

CASAREZ: All right, we are taking your calls tonight. You know, we have a very special guest joining us, someone that knows this case inside and out, someone who has lived this case. It is Terri Zwicker. She is the stepmother of Trey.

Thank you for joining us. And we cannot imagine what you have gone through. He was 14 years old when you lost him. He was a baby. And tell us a little bit about him because he was a good little guy. We`ve heard about him.

TERRI ZWICKER, VICTIM`S STEPMOTHER: Yes, Trey was a good boy. He was laid back, quiet. He enjoyed being with family.

CASAREZ: How did you find out that something had happened, and what do you know?

TERRI ZWICKER: The way I found out was my husband had came home from work, and he received a call from the detective that there was something going on up at the high school that he may need to come up there. And my husband left saying, I`ll be right back, there`s something the matter with Trey.

And a few minutes later, I got the phone call. He said, Terri, I think Trey`s dead. And I told him, I said, Don`t say that, Terry (ph). And he hung up. And he called back. They had let him go down and identify the body, and then he -- it was Trey.

CASAREZ: Tell us about the issue between Joshua, older Joshua Gouker, who has now pleaded guilty to murder, and also Joshua Young, now on trial for murder, facing life in prison because the father originally said that the son was the one that killed him. Do you think that`s actually the truth here?

TERRI ZWICKER: I don`t know if he was -- actually could have killed Trey, but I do believe he was involved, whether he was just a watch-out or he was just down there to actually watch. But I do believe that he was involved in it.

CASAREZ: And why do you believe he was involved in it?

TERRI ZWICKER: I`m sorry, I didn`t hear you.

CASAREZ: Why do you believe that Joshua Young was involved in it?

TERRI ZWICKER: Well, the reason I believe that is his dad was a so- claimed (ph) gang member, and he idolized his father and would do anything his father told him to and wanted to be like his father. So that`s why I believe that.

CASAREZ: Let`s go to the lawyers tonight, Kirby Clements, defense attorney, joining us out of Atlanta, Louis Gainor, defense attorney out of Chicago, Illinois.

Here`s my question for you, Kirby. He did idolize his father. He said that in a police statement. He said, I want to be with my father. The happiest in my life is when I am with my own dad. He didn`t know his father for too long. They`d been together for seven months at that point.

Here`s my question. If he idolized his father so much, to help him in any way commit this murder, can he be found guilty also?

KIRBY CLEMENTS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: If he actually did something to help his father, then, yes, he could be found guilty for complicity in murder, as he`s been indicted. The issue, however, is whether or not he actually did something.

If he knew that it was going to happen, that doesn`t mean that he`s complicit in the actual murder, as the law is written. So to answer your question, if he did something, yes. But absent any evidence that he did something, the answer is going to be no, he will not be convicted based on the absence of evidence.

CASAREZ: Let`s go back to Alexis Weed. Alexis, what is the evidence? What is the evidence that prosecutors say they have to show that this 15- year-old high school boy killed his own brother that he loved?

WEED: Jean, that`s the problem. The evidence is tough here. But prosecutors are alleging that through Gouker`s statements, that they are going to be able to prove that Young was involved.

Now, I will say that there is a relative that prosecutors are saying is going to testify that the relative drove both Gouker and Young to dispose of clothing that was supposedly worn during the murder, as well as the murder weapon.

However, the murder weapon has never been recovered, nor have those clothes been. They were supposedly discarded behind a Mexican restaurant within a few miles from the home.

CASAREZ: Louis Gainor, you`re a defense lawyer. You practice in Chicago, Illinois. This is Louisville, Kentucky. And we believe that one of the first witnesses for the prosecution is going to be the father. The prosecution is going to call him to the stand to testify against his own son. He has said everything in this case, from Joshua did it, to, No, Joshua didn`t, I did it.

Isn`t it a fact that he could be covering for his son right now? Is it a possibility that he wants his son to be able to lead his life and so he`s saying, Look, I`ll take the rap?

LOUIS GAINOR, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Jean, Gouker`s not covering for his son, and this is the reason why. When he entered his guilty plea, he did so with no promises on the table from the prosecution. Nothing. He was looking at life. He asked for the maximum, and look what, he got the maximum.

So how could a person like that have anything in his mind except the interests of his son? He wants his son to be vindicated. If he had been given a promise, well, then, that`s something different. But he had no promises at all when he made that plea. And for that reason, I think that he`s going to look favorably for the defendant in the trial.

CASAREZ: But Kirby, here`s what we`ve learned. We`ve learned that some object, a bat or a pipe, was just taken and it was -- he was beaten to death, that it happened like that. And he said that in his own words. He pleaded, Kirby, to first degree murder against the advice of counsel. This could have been a second degree murder, potentially, but he pleaded to first degree. Doesn`t that show that he`s trying to cover for somebody?

CLEMENTS: No, I don`t think it shows he`s trying to cover for anybody. The simple fact of the matter is he has admitted to being the killer. He obviously lured that boy there for a purpose. So while it could have been legally second degree -- and as a lawyer, you try to get your client the lowest possible crime and sentence possible -- the fact of the matter is he acknowledged what he, in fact, did. And so it`s not that he was covering, he was accepting responsibility.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My worst nightmare came true.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joshua Gouker and his son, Josh Young, accused of beating 14-year-old Trey Zwicker to death with a baseball bat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My precious 14-year-old son was found brutally murdered and left in a ditch behind our home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The teen was found beaten to death behind Liberty High School in Louisville.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Big, bad Josh Gouker. He was a big gang-banger type guy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And in a jailhouse interview, Gouker told us he killed Zwicker.

GOUKER: After I hit him, I (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Josh Young has spent the last two years at the juvenile detention center on charges he killed his stepbrother, Trey Zwicker.

GOUKER: I just snapped. And I had him. He went down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it just amazes me that you sit there with a smirk on your face. I hope I never set eyes on you again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace.

He was young. He was a cute kid. He had everything to live for. Who am I talking about? I`m talking about the two brothers because you have got Joshua Young who is now charged in the murder of his brother, party to a crime, but that is being charged with murder, facing life in prison. And then you`ve got the victim in this case, Trey Zwicker, who was only 14 years old. They were both good, good kids.

Alexis Weed, I want to ask you, there was a recorded jailhouse conversation that the father, Joshua, said to his wife/girlfriend about culpability, who was responsible for this?

WEED: This is actually a statement that he made to his own mother during a visit that his mother made to see Gouker in jail. And I`m going to tell you exactly what he said here. Quote, he said to his mom, "The bottom line is I`m going to take this one on the chin," meaning I`m going to take the fall for my son, who actually committed the murder.

CASAREZ: So what does that tell you? You know, we`ve got another special guest tonight, and she knows the people in this trial and she can give us great insight, Leeda Zwicker. She is the grandmother of Trey Zwicker.

Ms. Zwicker, I`m so sorry. I mean, you are the grandma and a grandma -- they say a mother should not have to bury her son. A grandma should not have to bury her grandson. And I`m sure this is the beginning of a very difficult time for you, a new stage of the trial that`s so difficult.

Tell us about Trey. We want to know about Trey.

LEEDA ZWICKER, VICTIM`S GRANDMOTHER: Trey was a good boy. He was laid back. He was timid. He was like a shad (ph) child (ph). He was close to family and was outgoing around us family, but around strangers, he was a little backward, not at all outgoing, more of a homebody-type child, just your average, other than backward (ph), normal 14-year-old child.

CASAREZ: What happened the day of the night, early morning that he was killed? He had gone to high school that day, right?

LEEDA ZWICKER: Well, there`s stories on that, whether he was in school or not. So I really can`t answer that. I`m not sure.

CASAREZ: But he was in high school?

LEEDA ZWICKER: He was in high school. Yes, ma`am, he was.

CASAREZ: And he would take the bus to school.

LEEDA ZWICKER: He went to Seneca (ph) High School.

CASAREZ: He would take the bus?

LEEDA ZWICKER: He would take the bus to school, yes, ma`am.

CASAREZ: And he would come home. What was happening that night? Was he having a barbecue with Joshua, the father, and Joshua Young and others?

LEEDA ZWICKER: ... the stepfather. They were supposedly having a barbecue the night before. I`m not real sure of all the information on that because I wasn`t part of that. So I can`t help you on anything that happened during the barbecue or after the barbecue.

CASAREZ: Terri Zwicker, the stepmother of Trey, what do you think happened that night? What do you think the real truth is in all of this?

TERRI ZWICKER: I don`t know. Again, as Leeda said, we wasn`t there. What plays out in my mind is maybe there was a fight, he was chased down there or he went down there to maybe vent, and was followed. I really don`t know. But in my mind, I just -- I know Trey would not have went out of that house with Josh Gouker. That I do know.

CASAREZ: I know this is hard to ask you, but what is the area like where his body was found?

TERRI ZWICKER: It`s a drainage ditch. And sometimes, I mean, it can be completely full with water, and on dry days, there`s a limited amount of water in it. It`s surrounded by woods. And right at the back side of the school, there`s a fence. There`s a path that -- you know, the a ditch bank path that led from Film (ph) Drive to the school.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosecutors believe Young is the one who killed Zwicker and that Gouker was the mastermind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whose idea was it for you to plead guilty today?

GOUKER: Mine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gouker is charged with the murder of his 14-year- old stepson, Trey Zwicker. And Josh Young is also charged with the murder. Prosecutors believe that Gouker told his son to kill Zwicker.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was going to go back to prison, and he needed a scapegoat.

GOUKER: This is probably where I belong.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`ve already got their trip to hell. God`s watching.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace.

Joshua Young -- he`s 17 now, but he was 15 years old when this happens, when prosecutors say he murdered and helped murder his own brother. He faces life in prison.

I want to go to Terri Jo Box, who is news director joining us from WBIW radio. Now, after Trey was murdered -- and we can say he was murdered. After he was murdered father and son hightail it out of town in a car. Where do they go and why?

TERRI JO BOX, WBIW RADIO (via telephone): Well, they headed out to Alabama. Apparently, he got into a fight with Amanda and...

CASAREZ: And who is Amanda? Hold on. Who`s Amanda?

BOX: Amanda McFarland is Gouker`s wife or girlfriend. And there was a domestic fight and they go into it pretty bad, and he decided he was going to hightail it out of Dodge.

CASAREZ: Now, how is Amanda related to Trey Zwicker?

BOX: That is his mother.

CASAREZ: Yes, that is his mother. So that`s a big key right there. OK.

BOX: That`s right.

CASAREZ: So they get in an argument.

BOX: Right.

CASAREZ: He and Amanda.

BOX: And he hightails it out of Dodge.

CASAREZ: OK.

BOX: And they go on this spree and end up in Alabama.

CASAREZ: What happens then?

BOX: In Alabama, there is an Amber Alert back here in Kentucky, goes nationwide because we`re looking for another juvenile.

CASAREZ: Who is Josh Young...

BOX: Right.

CASAREZ: ... Joshua Young, minor, gone.

BOX: That`s right.

CASAREZ: Yes.

BOX: So there`s an Amber Alert out. They get to Alabama. A hotel employee has seen the Amber Alert and notifies police.

CASAREZ: OK. Alexis Weed, take it up from there. What happens?

WEED: OK, so at this point, this is when Gouker decides that he`s going to tell Kentucky investigators that it was Young and not him who beat Trey to death. And so that`s when Young is then sent back to Kentucky, and he has been in custody there ever since. It`s been two years that he`s been in custody.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s a victim. His body was found in a ditch behind a high school near Louisville. Joshua Gouker admitted that he beat Zwicker to death in a fit of rage because he thought his stepson stole some food and his cigarette lighter.

GOUKER: It`s probably the worst thing I`ve ever did. It is the worst thing I`ve ever did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gouker`s 16-year-old son, Josh Young, is also charged.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His son just as guilty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Witnesses say Young admitted he did it. Rodney Gunter (ph) tells his nephew was bullied into giving false confessions by his father.

GOUKER: Josh loves me, and I let him down, man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After nearly two years of trying to beat the charges against him, Josh Gouker entered a surprise guilty plea.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He only did that to try to save his son. They all was there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez in for Nancy Grace. He was in choir at church. He was 15 years old. He was a straight A student that went to school every day on the school bus. He had a brother he adored. And now he`s charged in the murder as a party to a crime with his own brother, who was found murdered.

I want to go out to Dave Mack, syndicated radio talk show host. You know, start from the beginning here, because I`ve been reading some of the statements of Joshua Young, and there are major inconsistencies in his story, I will tell you that. But it all seems to start around a barbecue that they were all having one night.

MACK: Well, it kind of depends on what day it is and who he`s talking to. And in looking at all of the coverage, Jean, there`s so many statements attributed to Josh Young and who he was talking to and what he claimed.

Both Joshes in this case have made multiple statements. And again, going back to that barbecue that night, we either have to believe that a boy that was afraid of his stepfather would leave with him willingly to walk behind a building of a school to smoke some pot and then get beaten to death by the stepfather, or that he was lured there by somebody he considered a friend, Josh Young, and then Josh beat him to death, even though they were best buddies.

See, there is a total confusion here of who the parties are, and where the truth lies is probably in the lie that Josh Young never really loved Trey or that he was trying to impress his father by doing damage.

CASAREZ: And it is for a jury to figure it all out and to see where the truth lies. But there are so many statements that have been made that may come into the trial. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOUKER: Josh loves me, and I let him down, man. I let a lot of people down. But it`s something in me. I`m just a [EXPLETIVE DELETED].

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you set your son up to kill Trey Zwicker?

GOUKER: No. Absolutely not. I would not plan on killing Trey for nothing. That`s what we wanted them to think, that Josh did it because he`s a juvenile. He would get less time. And I`m already on parole. He would be out, you know, in three or four years.

I didn`t think it would be on us like this. I didn`t think that, you know, it`s one murder, you know, it`s not like it was a whole bunch of murders. I never thought it would be -- people would be this persistent with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: It was only one murder? You`re looking at Joshua Gouker, convicted murderer, convicted murderer of Trey. He pleaded guilty and said I acted alone. But prosecutors say, no, you didn`t act alone, and that`s why Joshua, 15 years old at the time, is now on trial.

I want to go to Terri Zwicker and Leeda Zwicker who are joining us tonight. They are the stepmother and the grandmother of Trey, who was absolutely bludgeoned to death in this case.

Here`s what I don`t understand. These are two brothers that, from everything I`ve read, loved each other, loved to be around each other, loved to play with each other. They had a pet turtle that they were playing with together minutes before, hours before this happened. Was there jealousy at all from Joshua Young toward Trey?

LEEDA ZWICKER, GRANDMOTHER OF MURDERED BOY: Well, I`d like to state they were not best of friends. They had barely known each other. Josh Young`s father had been in the jailhouse for eight to ten years. That would have put Trey and Josh Young at, what, three or four. Josh Gouker had got out of jail, what, in October, I think, and Trey and Josh were kind of thrown together. They were not best friends. They were acquaintances.

Yes, they may have shot a couple of hoops in the backyard and they may have played a couple of video games. That did not make them best friends. Josh Young did not love Trey Zwicker. And as far as I keep hearing, he was a pall bearer at the wedding -- I`m sorry, at the funeral, that`s because they forced it on him. We didn`t want that. His father and his I guess his stepmom forced that on him. So that`s another thing, that is all a bunch of bull itself. We, you know, we have had to go along with it to keep it as cordial as possible.

CASAREZ: I appreciate you saying that, because we want to get to the truth also. Why do you think Joshua Young said in his statement to police that he had been around Trey his whole life, that he thought the world of him, that they were really close? Because you`re saying that that`s a lie.

L. ZWICKER: It is a lie. And, you know, I mean I guess if I was on trial for murder, I would make up stuff as well. But they were not -- they were acquaintances. They were not best buddies.

TERRY ZWICKER: And Josh is a pathological liar.

L. ZWICKER: Absolutely. I`m not saying they were not cordial against -- around each other when they were stuck together, but I mean, late night, yeah, they may have sat around and played video games, they may have shot a couple of hoops in the backyard. That does not make them best buds or blood brothers at all. No.

CASAREZ: And once again, everybody, with us is Terry Zwicker, stepmother of Trey and Trey`s own grandma, Leeda Zwicker. Ms. Zwicker, Leeda, what had you known of Joshua Young before this happened? What was your impression of him? What had you heard? What had you heard?

L. ZWICKER: I had not even knew he existed until after the fact that Trey was dead. But, you know, I knew very little of him. I knew that he was with a foster family and had just recently been put back in the home.

Also, you know, my thoughts on him, as a mother and a grandmother, do I have -- what am I trying to say? Do I have sympathy for this little boy? I`m going to be honest, as a mother and a grandmother, there`s a small part of me that has some feelings of sorrow for him. But with that said, he was involved, he did the crime, and there`s no way to bring our grandson back.

Trey was a loving, deserving young man who deserved to live, to graduate, to drive, to marry, to have children, and Josh Gouker and Josh Young stole that from us. And even with that sorrow that I might have for him as a mother and a grandmother, I mean, I buried a nine-year-old myself. I watched them bury my grandson. But, you know, put the shoe on the other foot. If we were standing on the Young side and they were standing on our side, would they not want justice for theirs? We want justice for ours.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m Trey`s mother. On May 11, 2011, my worst nightmare came true.

GOUKER: It was just too late. (inaudible), I don`t know, I couldn`t stop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joshua Gouker and his son Josh Young, accused of beating 14-year-old Trey Zwicker to death with a baseball bat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A piece of me died with my son that day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who murders a child over a plate of food or a lighter?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe Josh was so high that he actually did it, that he did everything that Gouker said.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There isn`t an ounce in my body or my being that believes that about the boy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Josh Young is just as guilty as his dad. He was standing right there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. Trey Zwicker, 14 years old. He was bludgeoned to death. Cause of death, blunt force trauma, hit after hit after hit with a baseball bat or even a steel pipe. It was never found, so it`s not fully known what he was murdered with.

I want to go out to Sherry Blake, who is a child psychologist joining us. The one thing that we`ve learned by combing through the legal documents, the statements of Joshua Young, he adored his father. He idolized this father, who had been in prison, was out of prison, and he was just spending endless days and times with him. Actually, the father got custody of him. Could he have been so idolizing of his own father that he would have followed along and participated in whatever his father asked him?

SHERRY BLAKE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Absolutely. Most children want to be with their parents. And we have to remember, his mother died. His mother is dead. His father is the only biological father he has. So when you have a child who has been bounced around from foster home to foster home, which is my understanding, and all of a sudden he`s able to reunite with his biological father, of course he`s at risk for doing whatever is necessary to be accepted and to lose his only parent.

CASAREZ: So Kirby Clements, how does that come under a defense? Because under the law, if you help, aid, assist, counsel, be the lookout, you can be guilty of murder.

CLEMENTS: You`re absolutely correct, Jean. The problem is there`s nothing that proves that -- those elements. We know that the father said he killed him. We don`t have any evidence to say that this young boy aided, abetted, counseled, did anything. We only have the killer`s version of events. And as we have learned in recent history, if the only version of the killing that you have is the killer`s, you`re stuck. And right now there`s nothing that says this boy was involved.

CASAREZ: Louis Gainer, you`re a defense lawyer. What if there are text messages, some phone call records, some autopsy reports that may show some marijuana in the urine, meaning that it was very close in time to when he smoked pot in the presence of the two of them that he was then killed. I mean, all of that together, can`t that be a strong circumstantial case?

GAINER: Come on, Jean. Somebody has got to give this kid Josh Young a fair trial. Was he there when the attack took place? No. Is there any evidence that he was the one swinging the pipe or swinging the bat? No. There is nothing there at all. So the question is, how can we hold this kid accountable for what his father did? You want to take a 15-year-old kid and throw away their life and lock him up in prison forever just because he happened to know that his father was going to do something bad? What evidence is there at all that he knew that it was going to be a murder? For all he knew, he was just going to have a talking to him.

CASAREZ: Let`s look at the facts. Alexis Weed, do we know for a fact that he didn`t swing the bat or the pipe? Do we know for a fact that he wasn`t there?

WEED: We don`t know any of those things. We don`t even know what happened during that barbecue. And there`s a witness list that is pretty voluminous that has all kinds of people listed, many of whom, according to Trey`s father, were at that barbecue that night. Maybe they know which direction these people walked. Maybe they know where Young went. So the prosecution very well could have evidence that we just don`t know about yet.

CASAREZ: You better believe it, Alexis. We don`t know what`s going to unfold in this case. Terri Jo Box, we do have a jury. We know that. The jury was gotten late today. Tell us a little bit about the composition of the jury.

BOX: We have five men and ten women on there. And of course they`re going to have the alternates also. But they will begin hearing opening statements tomorrow, and it should be very interesting with the five men and ten women.

CASAREZ: All right, and then we`ll go into the first witness, which we`ll get to in a second, but Susan Constantine, you are a jury consultant joining us tonight. What do you think about a predominantly female jury? Ten women and five men. How does that play for Joshua Young?

SUSAN CONSTANTINE, JURY CONSULTANT: Well, you know, your other family member that was just on, your guest just laid it out for us. She says, she says there is a little bit a part of me, a small part of feelings of sorrow. As a mother and grandmother, that she would have this pain and sorrow.

But at the same time, she would want justice. Now, I want you to remove that emotional component, that that was a family member, and leave the other part of it, which is feelings of sorrow. So the fact that we have ten women with primarily middle-aged women to older, I think that the mother and grandmother will certainly be advantageous and certainly would be on the behalf of the defendant.

CASAREZ: Let me ask you this, Sherry Blake, Ph.D. joining us, clinical psychologist. If this is a predominantly -- as we know there are alternates, we don`t know who the alternates are, but a predominantly female jury, how might they feel if they could relate to a father imposing his beliefs and psychologically persuading his own son to act in criminal ways?

BLAKE: I think they will really respond as a mother. I think they`re going to have the idea that you know what, he is imposing.

One of the things in this case, we have no psychological, at least I`m not aware of, any psychological data on this kid to suggest that a straight A student with no history from what I`m hearing would pick up a bat. That jury is going to listen to that, because they may or may not have children themselves.

CASAREZ: That is very true. You know, back to Kirby Clements, where does the prosecution go here? Because that sympathy factor is going to be in this courtroom, and we may be looking at a 15-year-old kid who is a cold blooded murder.

CLEMENTS: Oh, absolutely. And I can tell you as a former prosecutor, where I would go with this is I would start off by showing them the horrible photos of the person who had been bludgeoned to death and start from there. Because this jury has to be shocked from the prosecution`s perspective, they have to be shocked out of that feeling of sympathy, and then the prosecution can lay its case out. But as a defense lawyer, from what I`m hearing, they don`t really have much of a case, other than we think he did it because his dad is a bad guy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was a decision to take a 14-year-old child down to a dark creekbed and beat him to death.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A group of students made the gruesome discovery in a ditch behind Liberty high school.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He hated my grandson since the day he met him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you love Trey?

GOUKER: Yes. I was part of his life for almost all of his life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez in for Nancy Grace. You are not going to believe who we believe is going to be a prosecution witness in this case. The man you just saw talking, the convicted murderer, the father of Joshua Young. That`s right. You know how we know that? Because he arrived at the courthouse today in Louisville, Kentucky, because they thought the trial was going to start today. Why did he come? Because he is going to be a witness. He will come back, it`s believed, on Thursday.

To Dave Mack, what is he going to testify to for the prosecution against his son?

MACK: Well, you know, we know that he said that he killed Trey and that he did it all by himself and that Josh Young had nothing to do with it. And, of course, as we told you earlier tonight in --

CASAREZ: Dave, that doesn`t help the prosecution. That does not help the prosecution.

MACK: That`s what I`m saying.

CASAREZ: At all. They`re going to go a layer deeper.

MACK: Well, all he could really do is say that, you know -- I don`t know what this guy can say. He has already confessed to killing him. He`s already said that he`s taking it on the chin for his son. I don`t know why the prosecution would bring him in there, other than to throw him up there as a liar and to prove he`s a liar.

CASAREZ: Alexis Weed, he made statements earlier on that implicated his son. Did he ever say anything that we know of that his son was with him when this all happened? That they were together that night?

WEED: No, nothing of that sort. Just the statements that it was Young himself and not Gouker.

CASAREZ: So, Alexis, you`re a lawyer. What do you think he`s going to testify to and help the prosecution with?

WEED: I think the prosecution is going to put him up there and show all of these inconsistent statements that he made. And while they don`t have to prove motive, I think that all of these different stories that he told as to why he first said it was his son, then said it was him, I think that might be the motivation here for the prosecution.

CASAREZ: Kirby, can the prosecution bring in the fact that he originally said his son was the murderer, the one that took the baseball bat, the steel pipe? Or would that be unconstitutional, because he is not charged with committing the murder?

CLEMENTS: You know, they can bring that in, as long as they bring the father in to confront him with it and get him to say that. The only unconstitutional issue would be if they try to bring it in without the father testifying. And that would violate his right to confrontation under the Sixth Amendment. So they can do it, but I can just tell you. Bringing that father in there is going to be a gift for the defense. Because that man is going to lie, and all his lies will be brought out, and the jury won`t know which way is up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CASAREZ: We remember American hero, Army Corporal Ryan Collins. 20 years old from Vernon, Texas. He was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and the National Defense Service Medal. He leaves behind his parents, Danita and David. And his brothers Eric and Cameron. Ryan Collins, a true American hero.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 14-year-old honor roll student and choir member.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We miss Trey`s smile, Trey`s laugh, Trey`s voice, Trey`s face. We miss everything about Trey.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He enjoyed reading and skate boarding and always took care of his family.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a very good boy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her brother, her best friend. Her playmate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a shining light.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I miss my son.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I want to go back out to Terri Zwicker and Leeda Zwicker, the stepmother and grandma of Trey, who was bludgeoned to death so violently at 14 years old, and now they are seeking justice. Leeda Zwicker, I`m sorry. What message do you have, first of all, for Joshua the father, who pleaded guilty to murdering Trey?

L. ZWICKER: You know, all I can say is that he`s a monster. Anybody who can stand up in a court of law and say that he bludgeoned (ph) and killed a 14-year-old child is one sick human being. That`s all I`ve got to say about that, ma`am.

CASAREZ: What message do you have for Joshua Young?

L. ZWICKER: You know, I just hope Josh Young can live with himself. I feel like he should have came forward from the get-go and spoke out. He may not be where he`s at today and he may still be where he`s at today, but, you know, he knows what happened. He knows he was there. He knows the story. And he should have told it from day one.

CASAREZ: Are you both going to be at trial? Are you both going to sit in that courtroom?

L. ZWICKER: Absolutely. We will be there every day, every minute, every second of every word.

CASAREZ: All right. Thank you so much for joining us.

Before we go, we do want to wish a friend of the Nancy Grace show, Jane, a special happy birthday. Happy birthday, Jane. "Dr. Drew" is up next.

END