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Nancy Grace
Missing Toledo 18-Month-Old`s Remains Found
Aired September 19, 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: Two people in custody and the body of a baby found in a garage. No murder charges yet in the baby Elaina case. Will police charge someone in the little girl`s death?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) it`s not fair for this to happen to her, and nothing to be done. I`m going to make sure of it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A pivotal development in the Elaina case.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it revealed a gruesome discovery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have uncovered immature human skeletal remains.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Angela Steinfurth, Elaina`s mom, and her ex- boyfriend, Steven King, are still locked up, charged with lying to police.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could this be another Casey Anthony in the making?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That little girl`s body was found in the garage of her mom`s ex-boyfriend.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Elaina and her mom are seen on surveillance video.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Later that night, Angela would call her ex- boyfriend`s mother, asking if she and her children could stay at this home for the night.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were cold and wet, wanted to know if she could come over and stay.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Baby Elaina`s little body was found in that very garage. No one has been charged in baby Elaina`s death yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Justice for baby Elaina and making sure that those people that are responsible pay the full price.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight, live, Toledo, a parent`s worst nightmare. Eighteen-month-old baby Elaina last seen taking a nap. Minutes later, she`s gone! How does an 18-month-old baby disappear from the family`s own bedroom in the middle of the day, nobody sees a thing?
After we obtain secret video of Mommy with baby Elaina just before she vanishes, and then learn Mommy takes off in a mystery van at midnight just before Elaina goes missing, bombshell tonight. The search for baby Elaina ends. In the garage of Mommy`s live-in, police find a box sitting with all the other trash and debris. In that box, baby Elaina.
We are taking your calls. Straight out to Scott Sands, director at WSPD, joining me from Toledo. Scott, it`s amazing to me that after all the search for baby Elaina -- police, volunteers, us, everybody -- they find her remains in a box in the garage where this whole thing started?
I mean, as I recall, the bio dad, Steinfurth -- he was married to the mother -- comes to pick up the baby for a visit. The mom won`t hand him (sic) over. They get in a big fight. She says she`s taking a nap, goes inside and says, Oh, Elaina`s gone.
So that`s where it all starts, right here at that same house. And all this time, the baby`s been in the garage in a box?
SCOTT SANDS, WSPD (via telephone): That`s correct, Nancy. That`s kind of the big controversy now, is how much effort the Toledo Police Department has put into searching that home and the surrounding area immediately around the home, including the garage, and why that box with the child`s remains were not found sooner.
Richard Schiewe, the father to Angela Steinfurth, who is also in jail at the moment, said that he was actually in the garage after Elaina was reported missing and that the box was not there at the time that he was in the garage with the junk in the garage building.
GRACE: With me right now, speaking of, Richard Schiewe is with us, baby Elaina`s grandfather. He is the stepfather, the acting father -- he raised the mom, Angela Steinfurth, has been her staunch defender.
Mr. Schiewe, thank you for being with us. Hey, Schiewe, I don`t know if you can see a monitor, but Liz, I`d like to show the viewers the inside of the home, all right, because if that`s any indicator of what`s in the garage, I can understand how it may have been overlooked.
But take a look. I think we`ve got some video, too. Richard Schiewe, you say you were in the garage. What did you see?
RICHARD SCHIEWE, ANGELA`S STEPFATHER: I seen nothing but garbage, bicycle parts, boxes. There was a car in there that the police tried to get into. They got the door open. They couldn`t get the back seat out. I tore the back seat out. I broke the trunk open. And they said they were done.
I said, Can I look some more? And they said yes. I searched that garage, every box, every bicycle, under the car. I got up in the rafters. There was no box with a tarp. I don`t care if it had purple polka dots on it, there was no box up there the second day she went missing, in that garage. That baby was put in there by somebody.
GRACE: So you are saying, Mr. Schiewe, that since the time the baby goes missing and them just finding the baby, you say you were in that garage and that box was not there.
SCHIEWE: Yes, ma`am. I was in the garage (INAUDIBLE) I don`t know what day he (ph) was in the garage, but he went through the garage, and that box was not in there. Someone put that box in there. I was there the second day in the garage. I don`t know what day T.J.`s brother was, but somewhere (ph) after T.J.`s brother, they found Elaina. Somebody put that baby in there. There`s more than one person involved in this.
GRACE: Are you absolutely sure, Mr. Schiewe, that you searched in that spot where they claim they found the box? The box is not big. It`s a computer box.
SCHIEWE: I climbed up in the rafters. I was in the rafters. Whatever was up there, I threw it on the floor. There`s nothing up there but wood right now. I threw everything out of the rafters. The police never even went up in the rafters. They searched the car, and that was it. And left.
GRACE: To Michael Christian, investigative reporter and producer. Michael, I find it very, very hard to believe that police did not look in this garage. Now, what do we know?
MICHAEL CHRISTIAN, FREELANCE INVESTIGATOR REPORTER/PRODUCER (via telephone): Well, the police have said, Nancy, that the garage was, quote, "a difficult location" to search. As Mr. Schiewe said, it was apparently full of a lot of junk because...
GRACE: Wait a minute, Michael! Wait a minute. Michael, you and I have covered cases where K9s, cadaver dogs search in the water. They search in the snow. They search in very, very rough terrain. Now, you can search in the water and snow and rough terrain, but you can`t search in a garage?
CHRISTIAN: Yes, I know, it doesn`t make any sense, but that`s what the police have said. The police have also said that they did not take cadaver dogs into that garage because it was such a difficult location to search.
So if Mr. Schiewe was correct and that body was not there originally, somebody moved that body in. If Mr. Schiewe is wrong, possibly that body could have been there from the very beginning and the police just didn`t go in and search enough to find it.
GRACE: To Brett Larson, investigative reporter. What can you tells? Because what I`m getting at, Brett, is that if this is true -- now, granted, maybe Schiewe is mistaken. Maybe he didn`t see it.
BRETT LARSON, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Right.
GRACE: But when you`re looking for your granddaughter, I would assume that he was being extremely careful. So if this is true, if he gets in front of a jury and says, The box wasn`t there when I looked, now it`s there, that is a huge avenue of defense for the defendants behind bars because they`re going to claim, just like tot mom did...
LARSON: Right.
GRACE: ... Hey, people searched that area, the bag with Caylee`s remains wasn`t there, now it is. I`ve been under scrutiny. I couldn`t have put it there. That`s what they`re going to claim.
LARSON: Right. Exactly. And all we know from what police are telling us is that this computer box, as you`ve described it, this computer box was under some other debris and under some garbage. So was it or was it not missed, is a very valid question.
But to me, from everything that I`ve read, including the police report, it sounds like the box was placed there after the fact and after they went through the garage the initial time and the initial search when the baby first went missing.
GRACE: Back to Scott Sands, program director at WSPD, joining me out of Toledo. OK, Scott, right now, the mother, Angela Steinfurth, is behind bars. But she`s just behind bars on obstruction. What about the boyfriend?
SANDS: At the moment, Steven King, the boyfriend to Angela Steinfurth, is also in jail solely on the obstruction of justice charges, which is just a third degree felony, Nancy. As of now, no additional charges have been filed.
GRACE: OK, I don`t understand that. What do you know about the possibility, Michael Christian, that Steven King led police to the body, told them where the box was?
CHRISTIAN: That has been reported, Nancy, that Steven King told authorities where this body was, and that`s how they found the box. Now, as you say, both he and the child`s mother are being held at this point on obstructing justice charges. That, however, could change.
The autopsy results should be completely finalized by sometime this week, including toxicology reports and everything. And once those reports are back and we know exactly what they can tell about this child, when it died, how it died, it`s likely that the case will be presented, a murder case will be presented to a grand jury.
GRACE: OK, and what do we know about the statutes in that jurisdiction, Michael Christian? Is there a death penalty?
CHRISTIAN: There is a death penalty in Ohio.
GRACE: What is it?
CHRISTIAN: I believe it`s lethal injection. I cannot swear to that. But it -- it is...
GRACE: Oh, man! OK...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: So Michael, so bottom line, you can kill a baby, put it in a cardboard box and put it in the garage with all the other trash, and the baby suffers and dies, and then at the very, very worst, you drift off to sleep? That`s the punishment?
CHRISTIAN: You know, Nancy, this case, like the Casey Anthony case, because this child wasn`t found for a long time -- the remains are what they call immature skeletal remains -- so it`s very difficult just on observation to tell how this child died or when this child died, or even, apparently, what sex the child was when it was just observed.
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers. Joining me tonight, Mike Gottlieb, defense attorney out of Miami, Renee Rockwell, veteran trial lawyer joining me from the Atlanta jurisdiction.
All right, Gottlieb, so I guess they`re going to get what, a gold star, because they obscured the baby`s body long enough to where you can`t tell the cause of death? So I guess they`re going to claim, oh, what, that she fell in a swimming pool like tot mom did and died by accident?
MICHAEL GOTTLIEB, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I don`t know how we even say that both of them are involved. I mean, the fingers right now should be pointed at King. The body was found in King`s mother`s home. He`s the one who said where he body was found...
GRACE: And the mom was the one...
-- Steinfurth clearly didn`t have...
GRACE: ... was there. The mom was there, and King was there when the baby went missing.
GOTTLIEB: Right, and if you -- you know, Steinfurth gave the other child over to the biological father when King was supposedly at the house. So how do we know that King didn`t kill the child and threaten Steinfurth or the other child, and maybe she had anything to do with it. You know, I don`t -- we don`t know that she has...
GRACE: Put him up, please!
GOTTLIEB: ... anything to do with the death of her own child yet. You know, there -- that`s certainly speculation...
GRACE: So you`re saying that he could kill the baby and then coerce the mother into not telling? Are you serious? Do you have children?
GOTTLIEB: I think it`s very plausible. I mean -- I have two children. I think it`s very plausible that...
GRACE: So you really think that a mother would go along with that?
GOTTLIEB: I think under the fear of death to herself or her child, it`s a very plausible scenario...
GRACE: Or under the fear of the death penalty.
GOTTLIEB: There`s no other -- or the death penalty. They`re both obviously very motivating. There`s no other theory at this point in time that suggests that the mother`s involved. Allegedly, they`re claiming that she misled the police, but she may have misled the police out of fear from Steven King. It`s just as plausible.
GRACE: Well, wait a minute. She started misleading -- that`s a nice way of saying lying, Renee -- at the very beginning, when the biological father...
RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy...
GRACE: No, I`m going to finish this time, Renee! When the bio father, Terry Steinfurth, Jr., came to pick the child up, she started lying right then. And she wasn`t lying to police, she was lying to her husband. They were not even divorced yet.
ROCKWELL: Nancy, it happens all the time. She could have been scared. And now that they`re both in jail, it`s going to be a race to the courthouse, who can give the more believable story. Watch.
GRACE: You know, it`s just amazing to me that you two can just let all this roll off your tongue like you actually believe it`s true.
Marc Klaas, president and founder of Klaas Kids Foundation, please tell me you`re not buying into this theory by the defense lawyers that the baby could have died naturally.
MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Nancy, I`ve never bought into a theory that`s been put forward by defense lawyers. Believe me. I think that both of these people are up to their eyeballs in this. And I think if the inference is that, somehow, this little girl was removed from the property and then put back on the property at some later date, it is a complete absurdity.
And the fact that people decide to live in squalor does not absolve law enforcement of their responsibility to thoroughly search the premises for the remains of this little girl. So I absolutely think that they dropped the ball. And I don`t believe the gentleman that said that he -- he checked everything out. I don`t believe that.
GRACE: You know, you are taking a look right now at baby Elaina, Elaina Steinfurth. And in every picture, it feels like she is looking right at you, asking for help. Now, as of tonight, Mommy, Angela Steinfurth, and boyfriend Steven King, are not charged with murder.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIEWE: And there was people in the house that took the baby out of the house. And people said, If you say anything to the police, you`re next.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I seen that the back door was wide open. She had told me they had ran out the back door, the boyfriend and a friend of his.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Steven and I, both of us went running out the back door.
SCHIEWE: (INAUDIBLE) (EXPLETIVE DELETED) T.J. and his dad pulled up (INAUDIBLE) back door.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s no way anybody walked past me to go through that window.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. The search for baby Elaina has come to an end.
Straight out to Brett Larson, investigative reporter. Brett, tell me how, ultimately, this cardboard box in the live-in boyfriend`s garage was found?
LARSON: Right. Well, this is the part that we`re not 100 percent clear on. Steven King may have said something to police, but they came back to the house and searched again, and they found this box. It was under debris. It may have been under a tarp, some witnesses are saying. And in that box, they found what was left, what were just skeletal remains. I mean, what was left was so little of actual baby Elaina, they had to do a DNA test just to find out if it was her and if it was, in fact, a female set of remains.
GRACE: Back to the defense lawyers. You know, Renee, what I don`t understand is how the two of you can absolve them of guilt when, apparently -- and we`re waiting to find this out -- the boyfriend is the one who told them where the body was.
ROCKWELL: Nancy, that doesn`t mean anything! Guilty of what?
GRACE: So you know where the dead body is hidden and you claim that means nothing? Because (INAUDIBLE) disagree with you.
ROCKWELL: Nancy, what is your theory of the case? Just because...
GRACE: My theory of the case is...
ROCKWELL: ... the baby is missing...
GRACE: Whoa! Please cut her mike! The theory of the case is that the mother began lying to relatives, not police. So there`s no protection under the Constitution about where the baby was, that the baby had been mistreated in the past, that she lied that day to Steinfurth, Jr., when he came to get his child, pretending the baby had been kidnapped while everybody`s all sitting there in the home, all right, that she goes to jail and won`t talk, that she apparently may or may not have given incriminating statements behind bars, and then that her live-in boyfriend, who was with her in that room when the child was last seen alive, that day leads police to the body. That`s my theory of the case, Renee.
ROCKWELL: OK, and you`re going to have a hard time convincing 12 people -- first of all, the worst thing they can do is try to seek the death penalty because that`s really when all this goes out the window. Twelve people are not going to even deliberate over that unless there`s something else, Nancy.
GRACE: You know what? I don`t think I`m going to have a hard time. Out to Terry Steinfurth, Sr., joining me tonight, the paternal grandfather of Elaina. What do you think, Mr. Steinfurth? This with the note that neither Elaina -- neither Angela Steinfurth nor Steven have yet been charged with murder. What do you think, Terry?
TERRY STEINFURTH, SR., ELAINA`S PATERNAL GRANDFATHER (via telephone): I don`t know what the police have as far as their evidence goes. We`re waiting for them to show us what they have and to put the charges against them that they feel they can prove. We`re just hoping that whoever is involved all the way down the line is -- gets their justice for their participation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s not right, what happened to baby Elaina. It`s not right at all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Elaina`s mother, Angela, and her former boyfriend, Steven King. Both are charged with obstruction of justice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We all wish baby Elaina was alive, but at least we know what happened to her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She won`t be forgotten.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Out to Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst and author. The defense attorneys seem to think that this is all just a big misunderstanding, that the baby died of natural causes and they elected to put her body in a box and stick it in the garage.
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Don`t you think if the baby had died of natural causes, the mother would be distraught, crying, when the bio dad came to the house? Don`t you think she would have been pleading for help, called 911, thrown herself on the mercy of the police, gone to the local hospital, done anything?
I mean, if your John David and Lucy were sick or ill or missing, you would do everything to find them. The fact is, this mother was not bonded with her baby. She loved her boyfriend more than she loved the baby, and this is what we see in cases of child homicide. And most children who are murdered are buried or disposed of within a quarter mile of the family home. So why didn`t the police search that garage more fully?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be quiet. Let him open up his mouth and he`ll go to jail!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
SCHIEWE: What the hell is wrong with these people?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drama outside the courthouse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, just keep it down. You`re being recorded, anything that you say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep him away from me. I got a restraining order against him!
SCHIEWE: I got a restraining order on him.
It`s about the daggone baby. It`s not about what this person said and what that person said.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mom Angela in court for a preliminary hearing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had his mouth going when we first come (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... everyone together in a courtroom, the emotions are running very high.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The whole time that we were out here looking for Elaina, she had -- we`re asking if she knew anything, anything at all. She kept telling us, No, I don`t know anything. But really, this whole time, she knew.
SCHIEWE: Let`s bring the baby home. Then after the baby`s home, then you can start slandering people and talking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: For those of you just joining us, the search for Baby Elaina has come to an end, after a massive search including police working literally around the clock, volunteers, call-ins, hundreds of tips.
The baby`s remains have been found there where it all started. At the home of mommy`s live-in. Steven King`s home he shared with his family in the garage. A cardboard box containing the baby`s remains thrown on a shelf with trash and debris.
Renee, how could the baby`s remains get there if they didn`t do it?
RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, if who didn`t do it? What if he did it, you`re going to charge her?
GRACE: Yes.
ROCKWELL: What if she did it, you`re going to charge him? We`re just going to throw it up because we found a dead baby? Not in this country.
GRACE: No. No, I`m going to charge -- if I were the charging body, the grand jury, I would charge the mother and the live-in. Why? Because they had the baby moments, moments, before the baby goes missing, which means they had complete control of the baby and the baby is now dead in a box in their garage.
ROCKWELL: Nancy --
GRACE: Immediately they began lying. To me, that`s a guilty conscience. If this child had died by natural causes they would have called 911.
ROCKWELL: But, Nancy, how are you going to prove that? You have to have a theory.
GRACE: Commonsense?
ROCKWELL: You can`t just say we found a dead baby.
GRACE: OK. I don`t know how much more clear I can be, Marc Klaas. Help me out.
MARC KLAAS, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, KLAASKIDS FOUNDATION: Well, listen, Nancy. She refused to give up the baby in the first place. She`d said the baby was asleep. Then she goes in and she comes out and says, the baby`s missing, the baby`s missing. She was obviously lying then, the baby is on the premises, she and this guy had the baby.
Everybody says there was no love loss for this baby. She hadn`t bonded with the baby. I think that Bethany gave a perfect analysis. But you take that one step further, you`re dealing with probably some pretty stupid people who are not very good at covering their tracks. They have no moral compass and they`re not going to turn on each other like vipers.
And we`ll probably get all kinds of stories. But the bottom line is, they did it, and they need to pay for it.
GRACE: Richard Schiewe is Angela -- mommy -- Steinfurth`s father.
Richard, have you seen her behind bars? How does she explain this?
RICHARD SCHIEWE, BABY ELAINA`S GRANDPA: She`s just torn up about it. You know, I was the one that told her that they found Elaina. And it was just 20 minutes of hearing her cry. She knows what happened. And --
GRACE: Wait a minute.
SCHIEWE: It wasn`t her that killed the baby.
GRACE: You said you --
SCHIEWE: And I`ve said that time and time and time again.
GRACE: Are you telling me that you told her that the baby had been found?
SCHIEWE: Yes. The police were going to go over, but they couldn`t do it, because she has a lawyer. And she calls me every night. And I waited until she called me, and I tried to -- let me go down and tell her, but they said no. So I told her over the telephone that we found the baby.
GRACE: Mr. Schiewe, you are --
SCHIEWE: There`s one thing I want you to know.
GRACE: What?
SCHIEWE: That -- OK, the baby wasn`t up there the second day, but that the search for Nevaeh people came, they had that dog, and that dog showed interest out in the backyard by the gate next to the garage. Explain that.
GRACE: You know, I have -- I`ve heard that, Michael Christian, there is a volunteer searcher that claims to be part of Justice for Nevaeh, another little girl that had gone missing. Now the group claims she is not a part of their search group. She says she is.
Michael, are you familiar with her claim that two days after Elaina goes missing, they go back into that alley with a search dog who, as she describes, goes crazy at the garage fence?
MICHAEL CHRISTIAN, FREELANCE PRODUCER, REPORTER: Yes, as you say, Nancy, her story is somewhat suspect by some people, so we don`t know exactly how much credibility to give it. But if that is true, that would have been two days after the baby went missing. Now if what Mr. Schiewe said is true, that he was up there in the rafters and the baby was not there, immediately after it went missing, that means sometime within the first two days it was moved to that position.
It is interesting, though, that if the cadaver dog did do that, that the search organization was using, because again there were no police, official cadaver dogs that we ever inside that garage.
GRACE: I don`t know how much this helps either one of the defendants because of -- again, they`ve not been charged with murder, just obstruction right now, mom and live-in.
Mr. Schiewe, what day -- how many days after Elaina goes missing was it that your daughter, Angela, the mother, was taken into custody?
SCHIEWE: I think it was like a week after -- a week and a half after.
GRACE: OK.
SCHIEWE: That she was taken into custody. Because --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: It really doesn`t help them, because if they had been in -- if they had already been in custody at the time, then when this dog allegedly hit on the fence, then that would have helped them a lot, because they could have claimed, well, I had nothing to do with it, I was behind bars. But they were out for a period of time. And it can be argued that they put the box there.
But to Andrew J. Scott, former chief of police, Boca Raton, president of AJS Consulting, joining me tonight.
Andrew, again, as Marc Klaas says, it doesn`t make any sense. Why would you take a child`s body and then bring -- you`re so afraid that you`re going to get a murder wrap, you don`t call police? All right. You don`t call 911? So you hide the body, and then after you`ve hidden it, you bring it back to your own home? That doesn`t make any sense.
ANDREW J. SCOTT, FMR. CHIEF OF POLICE, BOCA RATON, FL.; PRESIDENT, AJS CONSULTING: No, it doesn`t, Nancy. And frankly, I think that the body had always been disposed of, in that garage. And now I`ve heard a lot of criticism about the police, why didn`t they search the garage as thoroughly.
I`ve been on crime scenes where you open a door, and you`ve see the TV show "Hoarding," and I`ve got to tell you, Nancy, some of those places, and I suspect this garage was that way, it was so compact with trash, garbage and what have you, that it might have been nearly very, very difficult.
So the bottom line is, I think it was always there in the garage, it was convenient for them to leave the body there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIEWE: I`m coming for you today.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: In a box, in a garage, behind the family`s home.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: She`s now sitting in the jail cell.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a lot of deception taking place.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m going to find my daughter one way or the other.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to bring justice for Elaina.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yank her, drag her around, smack her in the mouth.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A heart wrenching ending.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A rallying cry for her safe return has been bring Elaina home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t think I`m prepared, but -- I don`t think you really can prepare for something like this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everyone. The search for Baby Elaina has come to an end. There where it all started. Where mommy claimed the baby had been kidnapped when she just walked out of the room with the baby.
Baby Elaina is dead. And her tiny remains were found there in the garage of the home where it all started.
To Dr. Bill Manion, medical examiner joining me tonight out of Philadelphia.
Dr. Manion, why can`t they tell cause of death?
DR. BILL MANION, M.D., MEDICAL EXAMINER, BURLINGTON COUNTY, NJ: Well, in this case, the body is badly decomposed. In a case like this, we would take x-rays first, to see if there`s any fractures, like a skull fracture. We`ll also do toxicology. We`ll also examine all of the organs very carefully, but if this child was suffocated, we can`t tell three months after the body has been decomposing.
It`s kind of like the Caylee Anthony case where the Dr. G just said, look, this was a healthy child and it must be a homicide. There`s no reason for this baby to die.
GRACE: Well, Dr. Manion, the defense attorneys keep going on and on and on about proof, but to me it is proof. When your child is ill or you think it`s dying, you either take it to the hospital, take it to the doctor, or you call 911. You don`t put your child in a box and put it in the garage with the trash.
MANION: Exactly. Exactly. So I would -- if I had this case, I would rule it a homicide because I have no other reason to believe why this child died. There`s no other history of severe disease, asthma, cystic fibrosis, nothing to suggest this child had any congenital defects that would cause its death.
GRACE: Out to Marc Klaas, president and founder of KlaasKids Foundation.
What do we do now, Marc?
KLAAS: Well, first of all, I think we need to determine whether or not there`s any credibility to this search dog. If that search team was working with law enforcement and if they turned in a debrief that stated specifically that the dog led off at the garage and it needed further searching, unless that happened, there is no credibility and that needs to be discounted.
What the authorities need to do is they need to work very hard, they need to play these two off against each other. They need to build the case for murder, and they need to take them to trial and prosecute them. That`s what they need to do.
GRACE: Out to the lines, Courtney in Indiana. Hi, Courtney, what`s your question, dear?
COURTNEY, CALLER FROM INDIANA: Hi, Nancy. As a mother myself, I`m just so baffled by this. This baby went missing in June. How are they just finding this body? It was in the garage the whole time. I just don`t get how they missed this.
GRACE: Well, you know, Courtney in Indiana, it`s not just you being baffled like I am about it. It`s going to be a huge, huge problem for the state at trial. It could have been an absolute innocent mistake, but, you know, Michael Christian, explain why this is going to present such a problem come trial time?
CHRISTIAN: Well, again, it is a terrible problem for the prosecution, Nancy, because they can`t say exactly when that body was put into that garage and they can`t say exactly who put that body into the garage.
What doesn`t make any sense is, we`ve seen reports that say that the house itself, Mr. King`s house, his mother`s house, was searched three or maybe four times during this three-month period. But except for that first day when authorities went -- tried to go into the garage and said that it was a difficult location to search, it was never searched again.
So it just doesn`t make any sense, and that is definitely going to come back to haunt the prosecution, assuming that there is a murder -- prosecution in this case.
GRACE: Yes, I mean, both the mom and the live-in are going to say, well, the box didn`t get there until after you arrested us on obstruction. And, therefore, we couldn`t have done it.
I want to go out to Terry Steinfurth, Sr. This is the paternal grandfather of Elaina Steinfurth.
How is the father doing, Terry Steinfurth, Jr.?
TERRY STEINFURTH SR., BABY ELAINA`S GRANDFATHER: He`s holding up the best he can. He`s wanting justice for his daughter. And I`m pretty much with him there.
GRACE: Out to the lines. Sherry, hi, Sherry, what`s your question, dear? I think I`ve got Sherry on the line.
Sherry, are you there?
SHERRY, CALLER FROM FLORIDA: Hello, Nancy?
GRACE: Hi. Hi, what`s your question?
SHERRY: Hi. Well, I have 16 grandkids and I look at this case, and I say, how is the mom and the boyfriend reacting to all this news in prison? Exactly what are their reactions?
GRACE: Well, according to Angela Steinfurth`s father, Richard Schiewe, she broke down and cried. I don`t know yet how Steven King reacted. Now remember, this is not his natural child. It`s Steinfurth, Jr.`s natural child.
Brett Larson, investigative reporter, what if anything do we know?
BRETT LARSON, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Of the two of them in prison, we only know that they`re in the same jail, and that`s pretty much it. We don`t know if they`re communicating with each other or what their emotional state is given the news of their baby being found in a box.
GRACE: To Scott Sands, program director, WSPD, what do we know about her reaction in particular?
SCOTT SANDS, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, WSPD RADIO: Well, not much more than what Mr. Schiewe has shared with us. We do know that in the jail they`re not allowed any visitation other than through video visitation. And the inmates are supplied with televisions, so they`re able to watch the news coverage of this horrible tragedy here in Toledo.
GRACE: To Richard Schiewe, this is the mom`s father. Richard, did she ask you how the box got there?
SCHIEWE: No, she didn`t. I told her that -- I said, Angela, that box was not there, because you know that I searched the garage the second day. The second day Elaina went missing, I was in that garage for at least an hour.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: But she didn`t ask -- she never said, Mr. Schiewe, then how did it get there? Didn`t she ask you, how did my baby`s remains get in a box in the garage? I know I would have asked.
SCHIEWE: We can only speculate -- we can only speculate on what we said. The day before, that they found the box, is that Steven talked to his mother in the courtroom. And then they went over to the jail or the police station to talk to Steven, and that`s when Steven said the body`s in the garage.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Straight back out to Angela Steinfurth`s father, Richard Schiewe. I`m pretty sure I heard you just say that Steven King, the live- in boyfriend, says in court, he tells his mother in court, the baby is in the box in the garage. Is that what you just said? He`s the one that said that?
SCHIEWE: Yes, ma`am. And they took him across the street to the police station and questioned him. And then he told police that the body was in the garage.
GRACE: Did you hear him tell his mother --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHIEWE: Wait a minute, wait a minute. No. No. We were not -- the Steinfurths and myself, we were not in the courtroom at that time. And we weren`t in the police station.
GRACE: OK. So --
SCHIEWE: But why, the day that she come up missing -- wait a minute. The day that she come up missing, why didn`t Steven King and his cousin run out the backdoor and was gone for an hour and a half? Where did they go for an hour and a half?
GRACE: Mr. Schiewe, you just said Steven King, the live-in boyfriend, tells his mother in the courtroom the baby`s body is in the -- in the box in the garage. And police immediately take him and begin questioning him. Then what happened?
SCHIEWE: Right. And then they went over and got a search warrant. And that`s when they found her body parts. And my daughter Mary talk to Steven King`s son`s mother, then she told him the same exact thing that Steven told his mother and Julie. That the baby was in the garage. So they took him to the police station and he told the police the body is in the garage.
And I told the police that. But his girlfriend -- what his baby`s mama said. As far as I know, they haven`t talked to her yet.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: We remember American hero, Army Sergeant Eric Newman, 30, Waynesboro, Mississippi. Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Army Commendation medal. Mother, Diane, sister, Kim, widow, Charity, daughter, Larrissa.
Eric Newman, American hero.
And now back to Toledo, and the search that now ends for Baby Elaina.
Out to the lines. Drew in Pennsylvania. Hi, Drew, what`s your question?
DREW, CALLER FROM PENNSYLVANIA: Hi, Nancy. I`m happy you`re covering this story again but I don`t understand why you and Marc Klaas are ganging up on the mom? The own aunt I saw on your Web site said she spoke to the mother and she promises she didn`t do this to her baby. So why are you guys all ganging up on her?
GRACE: So did tot mom. So did tot mom. I`m not -- number one, Drew in Pennsylvania, I`m not ganging up on anyone. I am analyzing the facts as I see them.
And Drew in Pennsylvania, the last two people that were with this baby in life was the mother, Angela Steinfurth, and the live-in, Steven King. Now what Schiewe is telling us tonight is that King tells police where the body is. All right? The mother was with the baby up until the time it was kidnapped.
Everybody in that house said she was back in the bedroom with the baby taking a nap. And then suddenly, the baby is gone and dead.
And to me, it doesn`t make sense that someone would kill this baby, get rid of the remains, and bring it back to that home. To their very home.
So what I think happened is they put it, the remains, there in the home and it was overlooked. That`s what I think happened. I don`t think that that is ganging up on anyone.
Back out to you, Marc Klaas, president and founder of KlaasKids Foundation. Thoughts?
KLAAS: Well -- well, sure, Nancy, that body remained on the premises the entire time. If it was under police scrutiny, it would have been difficult to remove it to some other location, let alone, bring it back, place it in that box. And I think as the chief said, you know, if people are living in squalor and you put a box somewhere in the middle of that squalor, it`s going to be very, very difficult to detect. Unfortunately, that was their responsibility and they seem to have failed in it.
GRACE: Everyone, the tip line is still active. 1-800-CALL-FBI. There was a $10,000 reward. If you look at these photos the way I do, I feel that in everyone of them, Baby Elaina is asking for help.
Everyone, I`ll see you tomorrow night 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
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