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Nancy Grace

Teen Boy Arrested for Murder of Mother, Brother

Aired September 25, 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, Henderson, Nevada, suburbs. After friends and family repeatedly beg local police for welfare checks on Mommy, police finally break in when Mommy doesn`t show up for work. Their worst fears confirmed, Mommy found dead on the bathroom floor, a knife still stuck in her chest. Her 9-year-old son, who she was defending, also dead in the family bathtub just behind her.

Bombshell tonight. As we go to air, the chief suspect spotted in a mall food court. ID, Mommy`s own teen son!

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s really eating me alive knowing my that aunt and my little cousin are gone!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The bloody bodies of a mother and son pulled from this apartment outside Las Vegas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They found Elvira in the bathroom of the apartment with a large knife in the center of her chest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That says a lot of anger, it says a lot of rage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cesar was stabbed and left in the bathtub.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police are on the hunt for the older son, 16- year-old Adrian Navarro-Canales.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Detectives initially thought that the 16-year-old could be a victim of some sort. He went from being someone who was missing to someone who was considered a suspect.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s also evidence that he possibly continued residing at the apartment after the deaths of Cesar and Elvira.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Adrian, please call us. We are looking for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: And tonight, live, Delaware. We don`t know her name. We don`t know who she is. And we don`t know if she`s even alive at this hour. But this is what we do know.

An eyewitness spots a little girl around 10 years old forced into a late model white SUV, that little girl frantically screaming for help -- screaming, screaming, screaming. The kidnapper, a white male approximately 30 years of age, screams back at the girl to shut up and yanks her away from the door of the SUV as she tries to get out. At this hour, Amber Alert!

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amber Alert. Police on the lookout for a girl between the ages of 10 and 12.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Newcastle County police continue to investigate the possible abduction of a young girl.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She told me that the van was sitting there all day. And a little girl was playing, and he said, Come here, let me give you a piece of candy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 12-year-old girl sees the young child pulled into an SUV, screaming, Help me, as she`s thrown inside.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When he said that, she goes over to the car and he snatches her in. And she says, Help, help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The girl screams, Help me, and tries to escape, but the car pulls away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The news report left some parents in the area uneasy and skeptical.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No really one knows for sure. No one has called and said their child was missing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Testimony gathered fit the criteria for an Amber Alert.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The suspect described as a 30-year-old man. Tonight, police need your help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.

Bombshell tonight, breaking now, live to Henderson, Nevada. After friends and family repeatedly beg local police to make welfare checks on Mommy, police finally break in when she doesn`t show up for work that morning. Their worst fears confirmed as soon as they go in, the unmistakable smell of human bodies in the home, Mommy found dead on the bathroom floor, a knife still stuck in her chest, her 9-year-old little boy also dead in the family tub behind her, she trying to defend him.

As we go to air, the chief suspect has just been spotted at a mall food court, a mall food court eating! ID, Mommy`s own teen son! His mother and his little brother dead, dead in the home, and this teen boy is the chief suspect.

Straight out to Mike Blasky, reporter with "The Vegas Review-Journal." Mike, thank you for being with us. First of all, I want to go to him being spotted and apprehended at a food -- at the food mall, there -- the food court at the local mall. He doesn`t even seem as if he`s trying to hide.

MIKE BLASKY, "LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL" (via telephone): Well, that`s a good point, Nancy. He was spotted. They -- the Henderson police got a tip, I believe it was yesterday. They followed up and ended up finding him at a -- at what they`re describing as an open air food court near Las Vegas Boulevard, the strip, and Tropicana Avenue. They located him and took him into custody about 10:30 AM this morning.

GRACE: Explain to me how far away the strip is from the home. I mean, this teen has been on the run for a couple of days now after the bodies were found. And I`ve got a lot of questions swirling Mike. I don`t understand why the family and friends had to beg the police so many times to do welfare checks. What, did they go to the door, and when nobody answers, they go, Oh, well, we did a welfare check? That`s is it? But that`s a whole `nother can of worms.

Right now, tell me now about this boy being spotted at the food court.

BLASKY: Well, Henderson is -- you know, it`s a different city than Las Vegas, but we -- you know, there`s about 15 miles or so away. I`m not sure. Henderson police haven`t said how he got from point A to point B. But he was -- you know, he has been on the run for almost six days now.

And yes, you`re right. You know, if there`s a place in Vegas where it`s good to hide out, I mean, the strip is as good as any, with the amount of tourists and people down there. It`d be very hard to spot someone in a -- you know, in a crowd of people who aren`t there necessarily watching the local news.

GRACE: Straight out to Jean Casarez, HLN legal correspondent. Let`s go back. I want to go back. Backtrack to the time when the family and friends are begging police to make security checks on the home. What happened, Jean?

JEAN CASAREZ, HLN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let`s start at the beginning. It was last Wednesday. And Elvira Canales was last seen as she picked up her little 9-year-old Cesar from his school. That`s the last time she was seen. That was about 3:00 o`clock in the afternoon. She called her boyfriend about 3:10 in the afternoon. That`s the last time her voice was ever heard and...

GRACE: Yes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Jean, she`s a pastry chef, right, at one of the big hotels there?

CASAREZ: At the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas. And she had her uniform on, Nancy, when she was found stabbed to death multiple places in her bathroom.

GRACE: Oh! Oh! OK. I`m sorry. I didn`t mean to interrupt your time. I`m just thinking about this mom working all these crazy hours as a pastry chef, a baker at a high-end luxury resort to support her family. She`s got the two boys, the teen and the 9-year-old.

And let me go back to her picking up, you said, Cesar -- I thought it was Cesar. But she picks up the baby, the 9-year-old, at elementary school. What happens?

CASAREZ: Well, when she picked him up, she called her boyfriend. And her boyfriend was on his way to work, but that was the last time her voice was ever heard.

Now, police believe that she was murdered by her teenage son very close in time because, as I said, she had her uniform on. But what happened after that was that a relative of hers went by and her boyfriend went by and they couldn`t get ahold of her. They knocked on the door. And her boyfriend, though, sees no light on the night that I`m talking about, which was that Wednesday night.

The next day, he goes back to her house and he sees a light on. So Nancy, there is a question of fact here as to whether that teenage son now charged with double murder was actually in the home with his deceased mother and brother.

GRACE: So you`re telling me the teen could have been barricaded in there for days with two dead bodies?

CASAREZ: That`s quite possible. But welfare check after welfare check, they did not go into the home at all. They say there weren`t exigent circumstances. But finally, when they went in, the smell of decomposition of those bodies was rancid.

GRACE: Out to Greg Kading, former LAPD detective, author of "Murder Rap." Very quickly, Greg, you know, exigent circumstances -- that line of law applies to cars or possibly a suspect getting away. What is SOP, standard operating procedure, for cops on welfare checks?

I mean, you do a welfare check because someone is concerned about another`s wellbeing. So when you go -- and nobody comes to the door, shouldn`t cops do more than just turn around and go back and get in the cruiser?

GREG KADING, FMR. LAPD DETECTIVE: Well, absolutely. I mean, obviously, in law enforcement, you`re going to protect life over property. And in these type of situations, a child has been reported missing, the -- the mother is not showing up where she`s supposed to -- those are exigent circumstances, in my opinion. So I think that...

GRACE: But you know, Greg...

KADING: ... more could have been done. And they could probably also go to the apartment manager. I understand this is an apartment. You just get keys and walk in.

GRACE: But Greg, I don`t want to make this an attack on the police. True, true, I think they should have broken in at the beginning. But the reality is, it`s not their fault that the teen stabbed his own mom and little brother to death. That`s not the police`s fault.

If they had broken in then, I don`t know that they could have averted anything by that time. The mom was already missing. The boy was already missing. So likely, they were already dead, especially based on Jean Casarez`s timeline.

We are live and taking your calls. Out to Jeff in Ohio. Hi, Jeff. What`s your question?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Nancy. How are you?

GRACE: Good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m -- I just -- I`m just so happy that this teen was just arrested. But here`s my question. I don`t get it. I remember when this story broke, they thought this boy, if I`m not mistaken, was a victim. And then now he`s just arrested for the murder. I just don`t get how they got it so wrong.

GRACE: Clark Goldband, I`m not sure that the cops were really showing all their cards because you`ve got the mom and the little brother dead. They knew that much.

CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Right.

GRACE: And they knew this boy was missing. I think either they weren`t telling what they knew or they weren`t ready to name him as the perp. They didn`t have enough facts to name him as a perp.

GOLDBAND: Well, some important facts that law enforcement picked up on right away, Nancy, according to reports and documents, is that there were only three keys to get into this apartment complex. They found two of the three keys there in the home. This teen suspect had the other key.

Law enforcement also found the knife that was in the kitchen, the same knife, sticking the chest of his mom. So there was certainly a lot of physical evidence, Nancy.

In addition, this teen suspect`s cell phone was turned off. Law enforcement could not get a signal on the phone after the child had texted the mom`s boyfriend to say, We`re all fine. My family is sleeping.

GRACE: So you`re telling me the teen texted the mom`s boyfriend?

GOLDBAND: Yes. The mom`s boyfriend expressed great concern, was trying frantically to see if anyone was in the home or contact any of the friends and family.

GRACE: For those of you just joining us, a teen has just been apprehended at the local mall, there in the food court, in front of God and everybody, eating. He is now charged in the murder of his own mother and his own little 9-year-old brother. Why?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s been on the run for a week, and cops need your help in tracking him down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t find him innocent and I don`t find him guilty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police are on the hunt for the older son. Sixteen-year-old Adrian Navarro-Canales, they believe, killed mother Elvira and little brother Cesar, only 9 years old.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Through the course of the investigation, they developed evidence that indicated that, indeed, he was the suspect in the case.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Don`t be afraid. I don`t have any information about you. Call whoever you can, me, your aunts. Find a way to call us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Unleash the lawyers. Joining me tonight, defense attorney from LA Brian Claypool. Also with me tonight, veteran trial lawyer, death penalty-qualified prosecutor Eleanor Odom out of the Atlanta jurisdiction.

All right, out to you, Brian Claypool. He`s 16 years old. Let`s get him lined up there. He`s 16 years old. He can be treated as an adult. As a matter of fact, Brian, although the U.S. Supreme Court says he cannot get the death penalty due to his age, he can be treated as an adult, Brian.

BRIAN CLAYPOOL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Nancy, he can be treated as an adult, but I think you`re putting -- you`re putting the cart before the horse. We don`t even know the mental history of the suspect, Mr. Canales.

The evidence here suggests a crime committed by somebody who doesn`t really know what they`re doing. He didn`t do anything to try to cover up the crime...

GRACE: Put him up, please!

CLAYPOOL: ... leaves the knife in his mom`s chest...

GRACE: Put him up, please!

CLAYPOOL: ... goes to the mall, sitting there by himself? I mean, this -- this suggests...

GRACE: Brian...

CLAYPOOL: ... that we need to looking into the background...

GRACE: ... I don`t know why you...

CLAYPOOL: ... of him.

GRACE: No, I don`t know why you`re saying he seemed not to know what he was doing, didn`t try to cover it up.

CLAYPOOL: Insanity, Nancy. Insanity defense.

GRACE: To the contrary, let`s look at the facts. He barricaded the door. He would not let anyone in or out. He himself, we believe, stayed in there with the bodies until he could get out without detection. He was not -- he turned off his cell phone so he couldn`t be found by ping.

You know, Eleanor...

CLAYPOOL: You can`t...

GRACE: ... the reality is, is he hid the entire thing. You had the boyfriend, you had relatives, you had friends trying to reach him, worried about him. All this time, he had just murdered his own mother and little brother.

ELEANOR ODOM, PROSECUTOR: Well, Nancy, you`re exactly right. It just shows his complete disregard for human life. And for the defense to say we`re putting the cart before the horse -- well, look, they`re going to charge him with murder. And the fact is, he is charged as an adult. So there`s no cart, there`s no horse, there`s just the facts! He`s been charged...

CLAYPOOL: You don`t even have the evidence yet.

ODOM: He has been treated as an adult. The police have enough evidence to take a warrant and to arrest him. And that`s what`s important right now.

GRACE: OK, you know, Brian Claypool, you keep saying in the background, You don`t have any evidence, you don`t have any evidence. Let me ask you this, Claypool. Why do you think he hadn`t gone home in three days? And why do you think that there are three keys, two are there and he has the other? If he wanted to go home, he could. He didn`t go home because the dead bodies were there. And he didn`t call 911. So to me, two plus two equals four.

CLAYPOOL: Well, here`s the problem. He probably has a mental -- he probably has a mental health issue that we haven`t even looked at. And that`s why...

GRACE: Really?

CLAYPOOL: ... this is a knee-jerk reaction.

GRACE: Why do you say that?

CLAYPOOL: They shouldn`t be charging a 16-year-old -- because this -- you don`t have a birthday on Sunday and stab your mom on Monday, leave the knife there, run to the mall, sit there, Oh, I`m having lunch, come on and arrest me!

GRACE: Really?

CLAYPOOL: That doesn`t make sense.

GRACE: Because I`ve tried...

CLAYPOOL: And that suggests that...

GRACE: ... many juveniles...

CLAYPOOL: ... he might have a mental disability.

GRACE: I have tried many juveniles murder, Mr. Claypool, and believe you me, they did not have a mental defect, OK? That is why the Supreme Court...

CLAYPOOL: Nancy, don`t you think you should...

GRACE: ... has said...

CLAYPOOL: ... you should look into it first, though?

GRACE: As I was saying -- let me ask you -- and this is a yes-no, Brian -- a yes-no. Do you have...

CLAYPOOL: You called me Brian!

GRACE: ... a scintilla...

CLAYPOOL: I`m sorry. Go ahead.

GRACE: Do you have a scintilla, shred of evidence to suggest he has a mental infirmity, anything?

CLAYPOOL: No, but you need to look into that...

GRACE: OK.

CLAYPOOL: ... before you charge him with first-degree murder.

GRACE: Jean Casarez...

CLAYPOOL: That`s all I`m saying.

GRACE: Jean Casarez, what do we know? What is the evidence pointing to guilt?

CASAREZ: Access to the home, no evidence of forced entry at all, that limited number of keys, a knife from the knife block in the home, the consciousness of guilt, texts that said, Oh, sorry, our phones have been dead and my mom and my brother, they`re asleep, sorry, that`s why they haven`t gotten back to you, knowledge of what had happened.

GRACE: Asleep for three days?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police believe Adrian killed his mom and brother and kept living at the apartment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Adrian, please call us. We are looking for you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the question of why still remains a mystery, and police say there`s likely only one person that knows the answer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just want him back to where I can figure out what happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: And that one person, Mommy`s own teen son. As we go to air, literally, police are arresting the teen son, now the chief suspect in the murders, the brutal murders, of his own mother, Elvira Canales-Gomez, and his little brother, just 9 years old, an elementary school student, Cesar Navarro.

Here`s Mommy, working long hours as a pastry chef at a high-end luxury hotel on the Las Vegas strip. In fact, that afternoon, she went to pick up little Cesar wearing her uniform, her apron, to go straight to work afterwards. How many mothers like her out there are hearing this story tonight that work, take care of the children, work, take care of the children? She -- like me, that is her whole world.

And now the ironic twist, the horrible twist is that Mommy meets her own death at the hands of her teen son, the son that she had raised and was working to support.

Straight out to Marc Klaas, president, founder, Klaas Kids Foundation. Marc, you and I have covered so many cases where mothers have been found dead. But it`s insult to injury for the perpetrator, the chief suspect to be the child that she raised, that she sacrificed for, that she gave birth to, that she fed, nurtured, brought up to at least teenhood. It`s -- it`s just -- it`s stunning to me, Marc.

MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Well, I agree, it is stunning, Nancy. And remember, this was a young man who was isolated. He didn`t have any friends. He didn`t have any social life. He spent most of his time in his bedroom watching video games.

And I think that whatever drove him to this -- and there`s no justification for what he did, but he needs to undergo a mental evaluation to see if, in fact, he is suffering from some kind of a mental disease...

GRACE: I agree.

KLAAS: ... because there`s such a stigma...

GRACE: I agree, Marc. I say, of course they have to test him and evaluate him. But up until right now, including after his arrest -- at this hour, he`s being arrested and booked -- he has exhibited no signs of mental illness.

With me, Dr. Joshua Perper, former chief medical examiner, Broward County. Dr. Perper, how accurate of a time of death can investigators establish when they are examining remains days later?

DR. JOSHUA PERPER, FMR. BROWARD COUNTY CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER: Well, the longer the time after death, the more difficult to establish the exact time of death because the post-mortem changes, which we call them the post- mortem clock (ph), do not really flow always at the same rate. It depends on the temperature, on the structure of the body, and so on.

So what you end (ph) at (ph) is really an estimate. And you always have to take consideration when was the person seen the last time. So it`s an estimate, and sometimes the estimate is closer to the truth and sometimes it`s highly questionable.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The family threw a small party for Adrian`s 16th birthday at their apartment. Adrian`s mom spoke to her boyfriend for the final time on the phone. Nine-year-old Cesar wasn`t in school, and Elvira didn`t make it to work. Henderson police were called two days later by family members who were concerned. Police got into the apartment and were met with a strong smell of decomposing bodies. They found Elvira in the bathroom of the apartment, with a large knife in the center of her chest. Cesar was stabbed and left in the bathtub. And Adrian was nowhere to be found.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: At this hour, as we go to air, cops locate the chief suspect, her own teen son. Mommy Elvira Canales-Gomez and the 9-year-old little brother found dead. The kitchen knife, still stuck in mommy`s chest. The son that she raised, loved and nurtured now being taken into custody. We are taking your calls. Kathy in Texas. Hi. What`s your question?

CALLER: Hi. I need to ask a question. Ms. Grace, was the boy on drugs or did he set this up? Was he thinking about killing his own mother and his brother?

GRACE: Good question. To Jean Casarez joining me. I`m also going to go to Mike Blasky with the Las Vegas Review Journal. First to you, Jean. What do we know? I know that he spent a lot of time every day in his room on video games. Don`t know what games yet. But I know that much. But that`s like about, what, 30 percent, 40 percent of America. I don`t even want my children to find out about video games. They don`t even know about them yet. What do we know?

CASAREZ: We do not have any search warrant returns at this point to see what they may have gotten from that apartment. We don`t know any toxicology reports as to maybe right now he`s being tested. Of course that`s not the time of the crime of when this happened. So at this point we don`t know if drugs was involved at all. But what we can say is that it was a violent attack. It appears as though in the bathroom where someone cannot escape in that apartment. So it seems to be a very pointed and intentional act.

GRACE: I agree. And also, out to Caryn Stark, a psychologist joining me out of New York. Caryn, you practice with not only adults, moms, but children too. The fact, under the law, Caryn, that he stabbed so many times, you know --

CARYN STARK: It`s a personal attack.

GRACE: -- premeditation can be formed in an instant. The fact that it probably took him such a long time to kill his mother and his 9-year-old little brother is time for premeditation.

STARK: Not only is there time for premeditation, but let me ask you what kind of person, as the gentleman asked before, would go from a birthday party on Sunday to killing a mother on Monday. And the question can be answered when you look at an anti-social personality. This is a sociopath kind of feature and I suspect that that`s what`s happening here. No emotion. Not really caring. A tremendous amount of rage. There`s a history of this boy actually beating up his mother, pushing her, shoving her. And so this is not a new thing --

GRACE: You do find that in his history, Caryn?

STARK: Yes. Uh-huh.

GRACE: So, OK, that`s news to me that the boy, the teen has a history of pushing and shoving his mother. I`m curious, Mike, reporter with the Las Vegas Review Journal, what she did when he pushed her or shoved her in the past?

BLASKY: That`s hard to say. I spoke with the niece of the -- Elvira`s niece yesterday, and she was the one who told police about his violent past and he`s been known to push or punch her. But others have said he didn`t seem to -- he was very quiet and anti-social and had very few friends. But they didn`t know him to be violent, especially in public at all. But the niece also told me that this is probably more -- he did have a temper. But instead of like the video game angle, he was very, you know, unhappy here in the U.S., and he expressed a deep desire to go back to Mexico to finish his studies.

GRACE: I appreciate him being home sick. But what`s disturbing to me is the pattern of pushing and shoving and hitting his own mother. Now, when children are little, Caryn Stark, correct me if I`m wrong, they don`t know how to express anger or resentment if they have to turn off a video or have to go to bed, so they hit, they might hit, they might bite, they may kick. But once they get through the early years and they`re still -- say, I don`t know, I`m just guessing, once they`re past six, past six or seven, if they`re still kicking or hitting at their parents, mommy or their siblings, when they`re frustrated, what do you do with that? I don`t know if she even wanted to admit to herself that her son was battering her.

STARK: Nancy, he was extremely volatile. There`s evidence that he was volatile and defiant. And what you would hope is that your child would get help. When they get older, and they can express themselves, and they are still doing that, that is not OK. If you look at the attack, there`s so much rage. To take a knife and be able to do that, stab to your own mother. It`s personal. You have to be close, contact.

GRACE: Out to the lines. Karen Pray (ph), hi, dear, what`s your question? Hello? I think I`ve got Karen Pray (ph) with me. Are you there? OK, let`s go to Steve in Ohio. Steve. What`s your question? OK. Callers down. Liz, let me know when we get our callers back.

Back to you. Clark Goldband, tell me about the apprehension.

GOLDBAND: Yes. Well, law enforcement had been tracking this teen suspect, and it all went down after a tip. Law enforcement received a tip within the last 24 hours that he was sighted in a food court, an open air food court outside near the Las Vegas strip. You see it right there on your screen. Law enforcement then scoured the area, and the boy was taken down just before we go to air, Nancy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 12-year-old girl was walking in a neighborhood when she suddenly says she sees the unthinkable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have a report of a young girl, about 10 to 12 years old, being taken by the driver of a white SUV.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The victim, allegedly abducted while walking. The suspect described as a 30-year-old man.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She goes over to the car and he snatches her in and she says, help, help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Amber alert is still in effect.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In my development, I talked to everybody that has kids and no one`s children down here are missing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police need your help as they go door to door hooking for answers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Tonight, we don`t know her name. We don`t know her age. But what we do know is this, an eyewitness spots about a 10-year-old little girl, a white female being forced into a white late model SUV. She`s screaming. The perp, we believe a white male, grabs her by the wrist, pulls her away from the window, the door where she`s trying to get back out, and they drive off. We are taking your calls. Straight out to Michael Christian, freelance reporter and producer. What do we know?

MICHAEL CHRISTIAN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: This is a really tough one. This is one of these cases where if anybody knows anything, it`s absolutely imperative that they get ahold of authorities. Because we know so little. We don`t know the name of this girl, we don`t know her exact age. It`s estimated that she`s ten to 12. We don`t have a license plate for the car. We don`t have a real description of the man who allegedly pulled her in except that maybe he`s 30 years old. We know there`s no surveillance tape in the neighborhood that helps. We know that the police did some door to door searches questioning yesterday after this originally happened on Tuesday. Nothing helped. They didn`t find anything. The most critical thing here is nobody has been reported missing. There`s no reports of a missing girl from any home. There are schools in the area. No school reports any student missing. So we know so little about this, that any help that the public can give is just absolutely imperative.

GRACE: Joining me right now is special guest from Delaware, Colonel Elmer Setting. He is the Newcastle County chief of police. Also with me tonight, Brett Larson, investigative reporter. Brett, who was the eyewitness?

BRETT LARSON, REPORTER: It was another young girl, Nancy. And she said that she saw this. She saw the girl get dragged into that SUV screaming while the person who took her pulled her back in and rolled the windows up. She, then, ran home and told her mother right then to call 911 because she could not believe what she had just witnessed.

GRACE: Out to the lines, Frankie in Florida. What`s your question?

CALLER: Hi. Love your show. Thank you so much. My mother, huge fan before she passed of cancer. So I appreciate it. Every night she watched you. I just want to say out to the family, I pray in the world and everybody out there pray for all of these abducted, missing children and their families. Because this is getting out of hand, Nancy.

GRACE: You know, Frankie, people often ask me, are there more abductions or are we just hearing about them more? I used to say we just hear about them more because of the media. Now, Marc Klaas, I actually think there are more abduction per capita. I really do.

KLAAS: I think that we hear more about them. I don`t know that there is more, but I think there`s a couple of things to keep in mind. No. 1, this could have been a runaway child, which is why nobody had reported her missing. And No. 2, the authorities have to be lauded for making a judgment call here. Because what happened does not fit under the strict confines of the Amber alert. Sometimes law enforcement has to take it into their own hands and make that kind of a judgment call. And I think they did absolutely the right thing in this case, whether it turns out to be true or not.

GRACE: You are seeing video of the scene obtained by Delawareonline.com. This is the location. This is the scene. The little girl. A white female about ten years old screaming, help me, help me. Pulled into a car. Jerked away from the window as she`s trying to get out the car door. It`s a late model SUV, white in color. Tinted rear windows with a roof rack. That`s what we know tonight. An Amber alert ongoing. We are live and taking your calls. Out to Justin Freiman, our producer on the story. Where are the police searching and what have they done so far? I know they immediately started going door to door. There`s a heavy, heavy concentration of townhomes and one-family, single-family residences there, correct?

JUSTIN FREIMAN, PRODUCER: Correct. It`s a terrifying story. And information is really important. They`ve been searching the whole area near Whispering Pines townhomes, which is in Newark, Delaware. They`ve been going door to door trying to get anybody who saw anything at all. They`ve also contacted the local schools. There`s around seven of them in the 2-mile radius. So far no child reported missing in the area. They also had helicopters up in the air searching for the SUV.

GRACE: Joining me right now, as I mentioned, Colonel Elmer Setting, he is the Newcastle county chief of police. Chief, thank you for being with us.

COL. ELMER SETTING, CHIEF OF POLICE, NEWCASTLE COUNTY: You`re welcome.

GRACE: This story is terrifying to me as a mother. To imagine one of my children being forced into an SUV as they`re screaming for help. What do we know? What do we know tonight?

SETTING: Well, you know, what you know for sure is that the little girl that is our only solitary witness, everyone else has recanted what they`ve seen. Only one young lady is saying she saw this.

But we, as a police department, have to take that quite seriously. Now, she believes that she saw what she saw. For all we know it can be a dad picking up a reluctant daughter or a situation something like that. Yet, we don`t have the luxury of writing it off just because there`s not been a report of a missing child by any of our jurisdictions. We still have to go out there and go door to door and talk to everyone and anyone we can. We have to do it by the numbers. Bring out the canine and bring out the helicopters and every other source that we have and do our own investigation on the front end. Because if you don`t, and the little girl is correct and she did see someone being abducted, really the ball was in our court and we would have dropped it. In this case, we didn`t. We treated it as if it were completely validated --

GRACE: Let me ask you, what is the age of the eyewitness?

SETTING: She is also a 12-year-old female.

GRACE: So she`s about 12 years old. She`s about in the fifth grade. You said there were other witnesses that recanted?

SETTING: You know, they said that they saw something and then they kind of turned around and said, well, we said what she said, sort of thing. And sometimes kids do that because they go to -- they go to school, they`re all educated in stranger danger. And you know, many of these kids, because we teach them this in school, they`re very vigilant. We want to take her at face value and investigate it. And not be dismissive when she says she saw a girl forced into the vehicle yelling for help.

Now, we`re pulling all the footage that we can from the surrounding cameras. And we`re trying to see if there`s a white SUV in the area. And if there is, we`re going to attempt to locate that SUV and just do some investigating. We also --

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A young girl between the ages of 10 and 12, thrown into an SUV by a 30-year-old man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A parent in the neighborhood told the eyewitness account that their child told them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She goes over to the car and he snatches her and she says help, help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The girl screams help me and is trying to escape, but the car pulls away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Investigators said no missing person report has been filed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 12-year-old girl runs home and her mom calls 911. Police tonight issuing an Amber alert.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are live taking your calls. Evan in Kentucky, hi, what`s your question?

CALLER: Nancy, I want to applaud you and the police for covering this story. We learn time and time again that I think kids are reliable witnesses. Look at Elizabeth Smart`s sister, and I feel like what is the likelihood that she`s dead if this is true? And what can we do to help? How can we help? Just put the area out there and, you know, go -- make the story public?

GRACE: You know, you`re right, Evan. In that vein, Liz, please put up the map again. Everyone, this happened in Delaware, in the Newark area. Take a look at what you`re seeing. There in Delaware, within a one-mile radius, all of this. The tipline, 302-573-2800, and as far as the witness being a fifth grader, some of my best and most reliable witnesses ever are fifth graders. Samantha in New York, what`s your question?

CALLER: I want to say I really love your show. My family watches it all the time.

GRACE: Thank you.

CALLER: My question is why haven`t they released more details about this?

GRACE: I think, Samantha, and I`m going to go to you, Michael Christian, I think the little girl witnessed, that`s all she could tell before the SUV pulled off.

CHRISTIAN: Unfortunately there aren`t a lot of details, at least what we know from her perspective to reveal. It was a white older model SUV, it`s believed, but we don`t have a make, we don`t have a year. It did have a roof rack, apparently and some dark tinted windows. We don`t have much of a description of the driver.

GRACE: Wait, wait. Michael, you`ve got the back windows are tinted, and -- not the front windows, and a car rack on top. You don`t see that every day. Late-model SUV. You don`t see that every day.

CHRISTIAN: It`s an older SUV. Apparently from what I understand, police were stopping any vehicles in that area that had anything like that description, but my understanding is nothing has been found.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: We remember American hero, Marine Lance Corporal Timothy Matthew Jackson, 22, Corbin, Kentucky. National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, parents Tim and Jody, stepmother Lori, four brothers, widow Nicole. Timothy Matthew Jackson, American hero.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The possible abduction of a young girl in the Whispering Pines development.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The victim allegedly abducted while walking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Parents in the area uneasy and skeptical.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The van was sitting there all day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Swooped off the street, into an SUV screaming help me as she`s thrown inside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Welcome back. We don`t know her name or where she is, but we do know an Amber alert is in effect in the Delaware area, a white girl, about 10 years old, forced into a white SUV with tinted back windows, middle and back, a rack on top. Tip line 302-573-2800.

Everyone, as we go to break tonight, a special congratulations to newlyweds Michelle and JJ, celebrating this past weekend with family and friends at their Florida wedding. Michelle, I hear you`re a big fan and even cut your hair for the wedding to look like the old Nancy Grace bob. Thank you. Congratulations, everybody. Dr. Drew up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then, good night, friend.

END