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Nancy Grace
Cheating Husband on Trial for Murdering Wife; What Happened to Nicole Pietz?; Did School Boy Set His House on Fire?
Aired October 03, 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, upscale Seattle suburbs. Family, neighbors, co-workers stunned when the body of 32-year-old Nicole Pietz found naked, still wearing her dental retainer in her mouth from the night before, lying out in a field of blackberry bushes 30 miles from the condo she shared with her younger husband of four years, Martin. Hubby works at a local gym, 24 Hour Fitness, Nicole working at a wireless cell store.
Bombshell tonight. After searches for random sex attackers, cops get a tip. Hubby Martin goes and gets his wife, Nicole`s, diamond tennis bracelet appraised after he tells police she was wearing it when she went missing!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: 911. What`s your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need to report somebody missing.
911 OPERATOR: OK, and who`s missing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nicole Pietz, my wife.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nicole Pietz was found strangled in some verian (ph) bushes about a week after she was reported missing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police always said this. It`s the husband.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had appearance of crying, but I didn`t see the tears.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The last time I spoke to her was actually last night around midnight when I got home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the night police say Nicole Pietz was murdered, this was her husband, David, caught on surveillance tape on a seemingly odd shopping trip.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you recall any of the items that you were told might be in this particular transaction?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drano and gloves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosecutors contend Pietz had been unhappy in his relationship from early on because Nicole didn`t like to party.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was just trying to loosen her up to get her to do things (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One testified he used the drug ecstasy at a club.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He told me that he would put it in her Red Bull.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had multiple affairs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He told me he cared about me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had sex.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was just the three of us kissing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I remember kissing him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He now faces murder charges, and a mother feels relieved.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This maniac is going to suffer for what he did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And tonight, live, to Kansas, a schoolboy set his own home ablaze with his family in it, killing his own mother and little sister asleep there in the same bed? Is that possible? Do Facebook postings hold a key to the schoolboy arson case?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A 14-year-old Kansas boy has been charged with murdering his mother and younger sister by setting fire to the family home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fire crews were called out to the fire at the Benachin (ph) home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Reno County district attorney says an accelerant was poured around several rooms of the house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators found accelerants throughout the first floor of the home, and authorities say the teenager was not at the scene when firefighters arrived.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Audrey (ph) died at a Hutchinson (ph) hospital just a short time after the fire started. Carla (ph) died at a Wichita hospital later in the afternoon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The father escaped the burning home without harm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think when those facts ultimately come out, to those people who think this is just a 14-year-old boy, they`ll realize (ph) charged as an adult.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They also believe the crime was premeditated, but a motive has not been determined.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight. To the upscale Seattle suburbs. Family, neighbors, co- workers stunned when the body of 32-year-old Nicole is found naked, still wearing her dental retainer from the night before. She`s lying naked out in a field of blackberry bushes 30 miles from the condo she shared with her younger husband of four years, Martin.
Now, cops immediately search for random sex attackers, but then they get a tip. Did her husband, Martin, go get her diamond tennis bracelet appraised after he tells the cops she was wearing it when she went missing? Now, how is that possible? If she went missing and was killed wearing the tennis bracelet, then how does he pop up with that same tennis bracelet getting it appraised? Tip number one.
After our digging, we find out he had also tried to push her into having threesomes, three-way sex experiences, that he put ecstasy in her drinks, her non-alcoholic drinks at bars to, quote, "loosen her up."
And to Dave Mack, morning talk show host, WAAX. Is it true -- this is not a character assassination, I`m just trying to find out the nature of their relationship. Since he`s popping up with her tennis bracelet, is it true that computer forensics reveal he`s on AdultFriendFinder, Ashley Madison, which is when married people try to hook up for sex with other married people, and various -- Match.com and porn sites. What do you know, Dave Mack?
DAVE MACK, WAAX, CLEAR CHANNEL: He was doing exactly that, Nancy. And the sick reality is that he was touring all those sites, he`s trying to hook up -- he`s actually researching and Googling how to cheat on your spouse or girlfriend, you know, and how to find...
GRACE: Put Dave Mack up!
MACK: ... a buddy...
GRACE: Dave, I`m not hung up on his sex life, but it`s giving me a window into their relationship. I mean, if every man that went on AdultFriendFinder or Ashley Madison went to jail, well, OK, there would be no men to work on the outside, they`d all be in jail. Come on, Dave Mack, can you honestly say you`ve never looked at a little sexy site on line? I mean, come on! You`re a man. I want to get...
(CROSSTALK)
MACK: Nancy, I appreciate the accusation, but not all of us do that, just FYI.
GRACE: Good to know.
MACK: However -- and it doesn`t indicate that he`s a murderer, either. But what it does indicate...
GRACE: My husband says the same thing, FYI.
MACK: Maybe your husband`s being truthful, Nancy.
GRACE: Maybe he is!
MACK: Here`s the deal, Nancy. You know what? The sick part about this is she was sober for eight years from a pill addiction, and he`s drugging her non-alcoholic drinks. She was going to pick up her eight-year chip (ph). And for somebody who`s been sober for 23 years, that`s a big deal, eight years. And he`s drugging her so that he can have his way sexually with her, and he`s trying to find ways to pull other people into the relationship. The guy`s a scumbag.
GRACE: You know, very often, we say, OK, the guy`s a scumbag, but -- is he the obvious scapegoat? I want to look at the evidence?
Dave Mack joining me from WAAX, morning talk show host. Also with me, Jean Casarez. Jean, take it from the top. What do we know? I know that she had worked that day, that a co-worker, a male co-worker, came in to where she was in the break room, and she was crying. And she had back ailments, but she had to stand up all day for her job at the wireless phone store.
And he goes, What`s wrong? She goes, I think my husband`s having an affair. OK, he was, like, awkward! And leaves. I know that happened.
I know she had a taco dinner, possibly drive-through, because they found it in her stomach. The medical examiner found it. What else do we know?
JEAN CASAREZ, HLN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: That`s so significant, what you just said right there, because about 6:25 in the evening, she went to Taco Time, got a Mexican dinner, took it home. Her husband admits -- Martin admits that he was virtually the last one to see her because he got home from work, he says about midnight, and she was in bed asleep.
GRACE: OK, Jean, wait. They`re both working adults, right? He`s a little bit younger than her. She`s, like, 32. What are they doing out on a weeknight at midnight?
CASAREZ: Well, he was working until around 10:00, and then he goes to the supermarket to get Drano...
GRACE: OK.
CASAREZ: ... and Kentucky`s hard lemonade liquor. But here`s what`s significant. That dinner was still in her stomach, and that window shows that her death was very close in time to that midnight hour.
GRACE: OK, let me see Jean Casarez again, please. Jean, let me get this straight. She goes to work. She has this discussion with a co-worker that day in the break room. She goes, we think, for fast food, Taco Bell or something like that, gets home. I know that she got ready for bed and went to bed because she had her retainer on.
CASAREZ: Right.
GRACE: She didn`t have on any PJs because she was naked. But I know she had that retainer in her mouth that she wears at night when her body was found. It shows me that she was either in bed asleep or getting ready for bed when she was attacked.
CASAREZ: Exactly.
GRACE: And he`s out to midnight. Now, he works at a what, a 24-hour fitness health club?
CASAREZ: Yes, he did. He did. One other thing, Nancy, that`s significant, her wedding ring was in cleaning solution by the nightstand. And that`s what she did every night before she went to bed. And that`s what...
GRACE: So every night puts the wedding band -- you know, very, very quickly to Dr. Eris Huemer, psychotherapist, joining me. To me, that`s significant, that she still was in the relationship, because she would take -- you know, a lot of times in the tabloids, you see, Oh, the ring is off, with all these stars that are having marital problems. She thought so much of it, she put it in cleaning solution by the bed every night.
You know what`s by my bed? Pictures of my children and a water bottle. She had her wedding ring by her bed every night in cleaning solution. Now, that strikes me. I`m not a shrink like you. I don`t know what it means. What does it mean?
ERIS HUEMER, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Well, I think that she definitely -- it sounds like she was in love with him, but that she just found out that he had a double life. He had a double life prior to them getting engaged. And his affairs, his alleged affairs, continued throughout the marriage. So it sounds like to me that this was a crime of passion, that possibly -- because she had said something to the people at her work that night, and possibly that she confronted him that night before he murdered her, that possibly, he talked about the affairs right then.
GRACE: You know, I want to go back to Jean Casarez. Jean, you were talking about the window, the timeline window, and you mentioned that he got off of work at 10:00 o`clock that night. When was her body found?
CASAREZ: It was found several days later, but it was found in a field. And the legal documents say it was carefully laid there, and the bottom of her feet, Nancy, were completely clean. So she did not walk onto that field at all.
GRACE: You said something extremely significant, Jean. You just said her body was laid there. In all my years of prosecuting, the person that stages a crime scene, that lays someone out artfully, knows the person.
Now, I don`t necessarily mean husband or wife, it could be the delivery boy, it could be the newspaper boy, it could be the guy at the checkout. It could be, you know, somebody that lives on the floor above you.
But there is a relationship because if it`s a random killer, they don`t care. They`ll just leave the body and get the "H" out of there.
CASAREZ: Yes.
GRACE: Staging is something altogether different.
Unleash the lawyers. Joining me tonight, veteran trial lawyer Anne Bremner. She practices in the Seattle area. Also with me tonight, defense attorney Peter Odom out of the Atlanta jurisdiction.
All right, Peter, let`s hear from you first.
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: OK. This is a crime in search of evidence. They have a completely circumstantial case against him. And evidently, what the prosecutors want to do, what they mean to do is smear his character and hope that the jury will hate him so much that they`ll convict him of a murder that he didn`t commit.
GRACE: Did you say it`s just circumstantial evidence? That`s a yes, no question.
ODOM: Yes, that is what I said.
GRACE: All right, Peter...
ODOM: Because that`s what it is.
GRACE: ... I know that you`ve tried many, many cases...
ODOM: Yes, that`s exactly what it is.
GRACE: ... as have we all. But isn`t it true that the judge will instruct a jury in every criminal case that circumstantial evidence is to be weighed with the exact weight as direct evidence? Under the law, circumstantial evidence is not inferior to direct evidence. Isn`t that true?
ODOM: Provided that it excludes all other rational inferences. That`s how the instruction goes.
GRACE: That`s right.
ODOM: There`s no way that the prosecutors can succeed in this case...
GRACE: So could you answer my question, Peter?
ODOM: I think I did. I think I did, Nancy.
GRACE: No! The answer is...
ODOM: It`s not the answer you wanted...
GRACE: No, the answer is truthful, yes, judges must instruct juries in criminal trials that circumstantial evidence is to be weighed equally with direct evidence...
ODOM: Correct.
GRACE: ... unless -- unless the evidence does not outweigh the hypothesis of innocence.
ODOM: Of innocence.
GRACE: That -- that -- is a direct quote from the law, Peter, is it not?
ODOM: And that`s exactly right. And that`s what`s going to save this man`s life...
GRACE: My point is...
ODOM: ... because there`s so many rational inferences that can be drawn that point to his innocence, not his guilt.
GRACE: And that would be what?
ODOM: And the law saves him here.
GRACE: So what would those points be pointing to his innocence?
ODOM: How about this, Nancy, that...
GRACE: What?
ODOM: ... it`s not illegal to have an affair.
GRACE: How does that point to his innocence?
ODOM: The prosecutors just want to drag these women up there...
GRACE: No, I`m asking you, how does him sleeping around, feeding his wife ecstasy in her non-alcoholic drinks, trying to force her into threesomes -- how does that point to innocence?
ODOM: Here`s another point, Nancy. This is a criminal trial. The state has to prove his guilt. He doesn`t have to prove his innocence.
GRACE: True. That`s very true.
ODOM: The state has the burden of proof.
GRACE: But my question to you was -- you said there`s so much pointing to his innocence. Just name one thing!
ODOM: Nancy, the fact that there`s no evidence shows that he`s innocent.
GRACE: OK, so you don`t have anything. All right...
ODOM: The fact that there`s no evidence of his guilt.
GRACE: ... fine. Give me an alibi. Give me an alibi. Give me anything.
ODOM: He doesn`t have to present an alibi. He doesn`t need to present anything.
GRACE: OK, so you have -- you got nothing?
ODOM: The state has nothing.
GRACE: All right. All right. Great. Great. All right, Anne, let`s hear from your side.
ANNE BREMNER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I`d say objection, Nancy. I mean, none of this evidence that we`re hearing about right now should be admissible. Just because he`s a creep and has affairs doesn`t make him a killer.
I mean, the fact of the matter is, he had affairs before he gets married, he has affairs afterwards, and he`s on all the Web sites. So what? That shouldn`t even come into evidence. We don`t know if it`ll come in or not, but it shouldn`t. I say objection on that.
But everything else we`ve heard about, like, what about what he said about the diamond bracelet? You know, that`s another so what. So basically, he goes and has it appraised. There`s a dearth of evidence in this case.
GRACE: No! No! That`s not the point, Anne. I`ll give you guys the point about the diamond bracelet.
BREMNER: OK.
GRACE: The point is about the timing, the timeline. The point is that after he says to police, She`s got on this diamond bracelet I gave her when she goes missing, then a few days later, he`s got the bracelet and he`s getting it appraised. He lied!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back, everyone. Tonight, who is speaking for 32-year-old Nicole Pietz? Certainly not her husband. Her body was found completely naked 30 miles from their condo, that I might point out she put the down payment on. Yes, it`s in both of their names. But I dug into this. And I found out it was her savings and put up by her family to make the down payment on their condo and to pay off his car.
OK, neither here nor there. Her body is found out in a blackberry field wearing -- Jean Casarez, wearing nothing but her dental retainer that she wore at night. Now, doesn`t that say to you, Jean -- doesn`t it give you a little bit of a clue as to who`s responsible?
CASAREZ: Yes, completely no clothes at all, pristine condition, her feet completely clean. But Nancy, let`s talk about her injuries. She was beaten so bad, her face, her torso and her legs, and it was asphyxia due to strangulation was the cause of death.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: 911, what is your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think I might have a missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David Pietz is calm and cool as he walks into court, the same way witnesses say he acted after his wife reportedly went missing.
911 OPERATOR: 911, what`s your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need to report somebody missing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nicole Pietz was found strangled in some verian (ph) bushes a week after she was reported missing.
911 OPERATOR: And you have no idea where she is?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her little body was dumped for the animals to just chew away at!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I would like to point out that Nicole`s own mother was on her husband`s side at the get-go. That has changed drastically.
Let`s start at the beginning. That`s where you start on every case. Let`s start with the 911 call. What do we learn? Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: 911, what is your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think I might have a missing person.
911 OPERATOR: OK, what address is the person missing from? How long have they been missing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, the last time I spoke to her was actually last night around midnight, when I got home.
911 OPERATOR: How old is she?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty-two.
911 OPERATOR: Does she have any medical problems that`s putting her life in any danger?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
911 OPERATOR: OK, what`s your name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My name is Martin Pietz.
911 OPERATOR: How do you spell the last name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: P-I-E-T-Z.
911 OPERATOR: And a phone number? OK, we`ll have a deputy out to assist you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, thank you.
911 OPERATOR: Thank you. Bye-bye.
911 OPERATOR: 911, what`s your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need to report somebody missing.
911 OPERATOR: OK. Know the address they`re missing from? What is it? OK, house or apartment?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Condo.
911 OPERATOR: What unit number? OK, what`s your last name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: P-I-E-T-Z.
911 OPERATOR: And your first name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Martin, M-A-R-T-I-N.
911 OPERATOR: What`s your call back number? OK, and who`s missing?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Is it me, or does he seem really calm? His wife`s gone!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: How long has she been gone?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Listen!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About -- well, the last time I talked to her was when we went to bed Friday night at midnight.
911 OPERATOR: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She -- when I noticed that she wasn`t where she was supposed to be because we were supposed to have dinner 6:00 o`clock with some friends.
911 OPERATOR: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: When we went to bed Friday night? How many days have passed?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: ... contact you. (INAUDIBLE) condos?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
911 OPERATOR: OK.
911 OPERATOR: 911, what`s your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I need to contact Deputy Sheriff Brian Fenske (ph) (INAUDIBLE)
911 OPERATOR: OK, hold on, let me see if this is working.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just spoke to him in his car.
911 OPERATOR: And your name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Martin Pietz.
911 OPERATOR: What`s the last name?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: P-I-E-T-Z.
911 OPERATOR: B like boy or P like Paul?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: P like Paul. I`m sorry.
911 OPERATOR: And what`s the first name again?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Martin.
911 OPERATOR: Martin?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
911 OPERATOR: OK, we`ll have him call you back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
911 OPERATOR: Thanks. Bye.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: 911, what is your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think I might have a missing person.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 911 call reporting his wife missing decidedly low- key.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something like, Welcome home, hey, I`m glad you`re home or something.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He gave a 94-minute statement to police and broke down one time during that recording.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t have much of a libido.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The police statement contradicted four women saying they`d either made out or had sex with him when he was married.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We had sex.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And is that the only time that it happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nicky (ph) Pietz vanished. After a massive search, her body was found dumped in a wooded area. She was naked and had been strangled. Prosecutors contend her husband was unhappy with their marriage and killed her during an argument the same day she found out he`d been having an affair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back. For those of you just joining us. Who is left to speak out for Nicole Pietz? The cause of death was asphyxiation. And this is a conundrum. Her body found staged, which means the killer took the time and forethought to place her body in a certain place.
This was not the location of the murder itself. She was not only asphyxiated but beaten badly. What`s the point of that type of beating when you`re going to asphyxiate the person? Was there a fight? Was there a fatal fight to the finish? Why was her body posed? Why was the scene staged?
We are live -- we are taking your calls. Another thing I want to look at is surveillance video that has just emerged. Let`s show the video, Liz. While we`re looking at this, Jean, tell me, what we learned about the husband Martin David Pietz`s shopping spree, just before her death?
JEAN CASAREZ, HLN LEGAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the shopping spree at the grocery store, he got Drain-O and he got some hard liquor and I just heard drain know and some hard liquor and I just heard testimony that he got gloves?
GRACE: Rubber gloves.
CASAREZ: Rubber gloves.
GRACE: OK. Out to Ben Levitan, telecommunications expert, you have taken a look at the case. What is jumping out at you, especially -- I`m interested especially, Ben Levitan, about a call made from her cell phone after I believe she`s already dead.
BEN LEVITAN, TELECOMMUNICATIONS EXPERT: Nancy, these -- she supposedly makes a phone call for him on her cell phone. If we look at the records, the cell phone calls, if they`re made from the same cell tower we have to assume that maybe the phones were together, we don`t know.
But the police can`t really, you know -- was her phone with her? That`s the question, if -- you`re calling someone, obviously --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Well, she was found without her cell phone.
LEVITAN: Maybe she was at work and he was at the -- at the gym.
GRACE: She was found with nothing. Especially not that diamond tennis bracelet that he popped up with days after trying to get it appraised.
Clark Goldband, what do we know? Let`s follow up on Ben Levitan. Ben, joining me out of Raleigh tonight.
Clark, what do we know about the cell phone records? What can we learn from that?
CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER, COVERING STORY: Well, Nancy, prosecutors say there was a cell phone call from Nicole`s phone to make it look like she was still alive. But it shows the call came from the area around the job at the gym, as you were just saying.
Prosecution also is saying, Nancy, that phone records show her cell phone was used to call that gym about 11:50 in the morning, the day after she vanishes. Nicole --
GRACE: Clark, hold. Clark, I want to follow up on something you just said. An AT&T wireless frequency -- wireless radio frequency engineer states that there was a 90 to 95 percent probability her cell phone was in the same cell tower sector as his gym?
GOLDBAND: Yes. Yes, and Nancy, here`s something to dovetail on that. Surveillance footage from the gym shows Pietz was gone from his work area about 10 minutes during the time of that alleged call according to the state.
GRACE: Now what`s the extrapolation on that, Clark?
GOLDBAND: Well, I think what the state is trying to show there is that Pietz was not in sight during the time the phone from his wife`s -- the call from his wife`s phone was made. So I think the state is trying to show that Pietz`s whereabouts into question, during that specific 10-minute timeline?
GRACE: Now, Jean Casarez, I`m going to follow up on the cell phone records.
CASAREZ: Yes.
GRACE: So a phone call was made to him at work from her cell phone after we think she`s dead.
CASAREZ: Right.
GRACE: So --
CASAREZ: The morning after, he says he saw her in bed, and that`s the last time he saw her.
Nancy, here`s what`s significant. There`s surveillance video of him leaving the gym a little before noon and shortly thereafter. A phone call is made from her cell phone to inside the gym where he should be working.
GRACE: There`s the video right there, Jean. Look at your monitor.
CASAREZ: Yes.
GRACE: That`s him leaving his work area cops say to go out and place a call to himself with her cell phone.
CASAREZ: Exactly.
GRACE: Look at him looking back. Check it out. Look, look, look, look. He`s leaving the gym, 24-Hour Fitness, where he works. Around all those buff bodies. He leaves -- he takes a look back to see who`s looking.
That`s from ABC`s "Good Morning America." Then he goes out, and suddenly, and miraculous, it`s during those 10 minutes he gets a call from her.
Jean, was her cell phone ever recovered?
CASAREZ: Not that I know of, no. And then eight minutes later, Nancy, the surveillance video shows him walking back into the gym to keep working.
GRACE: OK. Everybody, take a look at the video we`re talking about right now.
Ben Levitan, what can we learn?
LEVITAN: But, Nancy, this is pretty clear cut. Every time you make a call or you receive a call, the phone company keeps an accurate record of which cell tower you use. In this area, that cell tower doesn`t cover more than about a mile in radius around that gym. If -- so there`s going to be two records, the call out from the phone and the call into his phone. If the cell tower recorded by AT&T for both those phones is the same, there`s only two possibilities. Either she was within that area, she was fairly close to him, or he made both those calls.
GRACE: Or another killer happens to have her cell phone and is going through her cell phone list calling everybody, and he happens to be right outside where the husband works.
Out to the lines, Lisa, Ohio. Hi, Lisa, what`s your question?
LISA, CALLER FROM OHIO: Hi, Nancy. I have a couple of things.
GRACE: Yes.
LISA: First, it doesn`t seem like they have enough evidence against this husband. And I think he`s guilty. But how are they going to prove it? And really, what evidence is out there?
GRACE: Hold Lisa. I want to address the evidence with her.
You`ve got the fact that he`s the last one to see her. The fact that he tells police she had on the tennis bracelet, the diamond tennis bracelet, when she was killed. When she went missing. Then he`s out trying to prepare to sell it or pawn it, getting it appraised.
Also, his DNA in her Jetta. Now you may say that -- I haven`t brought this up.
Marc Harrold, Kipling, Ohio -- Marc Harrold, former officer with APD and lawyer.
Marc, in the Jetta, her car, it was found about 14 miles -- let`s see the map -- from where they lived, was parked at a university. In that car, not only is his DNA and fingerprints, and that can be argued that it should have been in there because he got to drive the car.
But interestingly and probatively, Marc Harrold, his fingerprints were the last ones on the stick shift. The last person to have driven the car. It was found abandoned there.
OK, Marc, weigh-in.
MARC HARROLD, FORMER OFFICER, ATLANTA PD, ATTORNEY, AUTHOR OF "OBSERVATIONS OF WHITE NOISE": Well, obviously, if the fingerprints are in a place that they`re clearly the latest prints, the most -- the latest latent prints, that`s going to go to the chronology. And if he says he didn`t drive car, I don`t think this is quite a weak as case as everybody is saying.
Circumstantial cases can sway juries for finding of guilt. There`s a lot here. But yes, absolutely the DNA in the car by itself means very little because he could drive the car. But if the expert testimony could come out that it shows that he drove the car last or he drove the car at a time he just said he didn`t, then it could be very probative evidence.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He says he woke up one morning and his wife was simply gone. Her naked body turned up about a week later in some blackberry bushes in Bearing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The last time I talked to her was when we went to bed Friday night at midnight.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police always said this, it`s the husband.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Witness after witness testified that there was trouble in paradise, before David and Nikki Pietz tied the knot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I asked him why he was getting married. And he said that at that point it was too late to back out of it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did the defendant ever help you look for her?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did he ever help you post the flyers?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you ever see him make any phone calls related to her disappearance?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The case against David Pietz is completely circumstantial but prosecutors say he left a mountain of mistakes that will prove his guilty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everyone. For those of you just joining us, who is to speak out for 32-year-old Nicole Pietz tonight. Her body found naked in a blackberry field. She was still wearing interestingly the retainer, the dental retainer she wore to keep her teeth straight every night. In a glass beside her bed in jewelry cleaning solution, she cleaned her wedding band and engagement rings every night. Still there.
In her stomach, undigested, fast food Mexican, which helps us date and time the time of death.
Out to the lines, to Tom in Florida. Hi, Tom. What`s your question?
TOM, CALLER FROM FLORIDA: Hey, Nancy. Thanks for taking my call. I`ve been following this case for a while. And my question is this. I definitely don`t think the husband`s story adds up. But do you know if police are looking at any other suspects? Like is there anyone else who may have been close to the couple?
GRACE: From what I can understand, they have been looking at sex offenders in the area. But I don`t think they have another prime or secondary suspect other than the husband.
Out to Dr. Bill Manion, medical examiner joining me out of Philadelphia tonight. How does the food, the fast food help us identify the time and date of death, Bill?
DR. BILL MANION, M.D., MEDICAL EXAMINER, BURLINGTON COUNTY, NJ: Well, if someone has a large meal, it will generally take five or six hours for the stomach to completely empty. If you have a small snack, it may only take two or three hours. She bought a large meal at the Taco Bell, came home around 7:00, 7:30, had dinner then, and as we`ve discussed, the medical examiner found food residue in her stomach, undigested food.
And you can identify beans, pieces of potato, pieces of bread, even the hours after you`ve ingested it. So that puts her death around midnight.
GRACE: Puts her death around midnight that night, and Jean Casarez, if they`re placing her death around midnight, what time did he get home that night?
CASAREZ: He said about midnight. That that`s the last time he saw her. And Nancy, there were also some non-narcotic prescription pills in her for colic, I believe it is. But they were undigested in her stomach.
GRACE: I`m interested also about how much character evidence is coming in against him.
Out to the lawyers, Peter Odom, Anne Bremner. Anne, joining me who practices in the Seattle jurisdiction. Peter in Atlanta.
To you, Anne Bremner, with the prints in the car, his prints should rightfully be in the car, that`s the car the two of them.
BREMNER: Right.
GRACE: Both of them drove, it was her car, her Jetta, he had an expensive Nissan SUV, I think, which she paid off. But that aside.
BREMNER: That aside.
GRACE: I wouldn`t be surprised to find his prints in the car. What`s interesting, though, is apparently his -- you cannot date fingerprints. OK.
BREMNER: Right.
GRACE: But what`s interesting is, it`s his print on the stick shift, if somebody else had abandoned the car, wouldn`t you expect their print to be there, unless they were wearing gloves?
BREMNER: Well, the question is, we don`t know where she would put her hands on the stick shift, whether it`s the side or the top or anything else. We can`t date fingerprints. And you know, we just heard about a mountain of mistakes that he made. I think there`s a mole hill. I mean this case is almost seven years in the making and it`s really not made right now. I mean, if that`s the best they can do --
GRACE: Well --
BREMNER: Why didn`t they discover this a long time ago, along with everything else with the surveillance --
GRACE: I don`t know that they didn`t.
BREMNER: Well, if they did -- I mean, we flow there`s recent surveillance, we know this information about the bracelet is more recent. And so, you know, what in the heck have they been doing for the last almost seven years? Because they`re just in it --
GRACE: Well, the reality is, Anne -- you know, saying, what have the police been doing is not really the issue. The issue is, did he commit this crime? And if they have just found out about the tennis bracelet, it`s my understanding, Peter Odom, that an employee at I think it was a bank, where he was getting a job, at a Chase Bank, she had a history of appraising jewelry, and he approached her.
And that person, when she found out about the murder investigation came forward. That`s why that`s one of the final pieces of the puzzle.
I want to go back to you about two things, the prints and the car, and also the defense regarding the cell phone records. Their defense is that there was a maintenance problem in the cell phone tower, and so you can`t believe the cell phone records.
And may I ask you, Peter, the last time you bought Drain-O just hours before your wife is murdered?
ODOM: Well, first, Nancy, and I`ll try and address all your questions. But the first thing about the car and the fingerprints on the stick shift, all that shows is that he was the last person not wearing gloves to drive the car. If this in fact were another killer, that person would have worn gloves, it would not eradicate his fingerprints.
And when you look at it that way, that ends up being, you know, as Anne puts it, a mole hill, not a mountain. In terms of the cell phone record that shows that somebody made a call right around noon the day after she was killed that cell phone tower as I understand the person that you had on, that cell phone tower only shows within a mile radius.
I`d like to know how many people there are within a mile radius? That doesn`t show that it was he that had the telephone in his hand. This is a heavily populated area.
GRACE: Well, obviously --
(CROSSTALK)
ODOM: And this is really kind of the problem with this case.
GRACE: It was the killer because she was already dead based on science.
ODOM: Even assuming -- even assuming it was the killer, how many people are in that mile radius.
GRACE: And how many of them would be calling him to set up a phone call to make it appear as if she was still alive? And you know what, you didn`t even address the Drain-O. I`m going to give you a pass on that one.
ODOM: I`ll get there, if you`ll permit me. He did not just buy Drain-O and gloves. If you believe that evidence, he bought Drain-O, gloves and hard liquor. He might have bought --
GRACE: No, no, he bought --
ODOM: -- those things incidentally, too.
GRACE: He bought hard cider.
ODOM: Hard lemonade.
GRACE: Yes, lemonade.
ODOM: Hard lemonade.
GRACE: So he bought -- he got something to drink along with the Drain-O and the rubber gloves. Is that --
(CROSSTALK)
ODOM: Nancy, don`t you ever buy incidental things when you go to a store for one thing?
GRACE: Would I buy things for a murder? I don`t know, I`ve never had to do that.
Very quickly, everybody, to the Heartland, Kansas. Did a school boy set his own home ablaze with his family in it? Killing his own mother and little sister asleep in the same bed, and do Facebook postings hold the key to the case?
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Authorities say an accelerant was poured around several rooms on the first floor of the home and ignited. Fire crews were called out to the fire at the (INAUDIBLE) home. Steve (INAUDIBLE), his wife Karla and their two kids were inside the home when the fire started.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: With the deaths of his mother and 11-year-old sister in a house fire.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He had this conversation with one of his Facebook friends, where one writes to him, "oh, my god, that`s so terrible. That`s fine, I`m not sad. This is just a part of life."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everyone. Did a schoolboy set his own home on fire killing his mother and sister, his little sister sleeping there with his mom? And do Facebook postings hold the key to the case?
To Fred Gough, news director with Eagle Radio, joining me from Hutchinson, Kansas.
Fred, what do we know?
FRED GOUGH, NEWS DIRECTOR, EAGLE RADIO: They believe that he set the fire. With an accelerant, I should just mention. The state has charged him with two counts of murder, attempted murder, aggravated arson.
GRACE: Well, let`s find out what we can about the facts. Michael, what do we know? Michael Christian, investigative reporter.
MICHAEL CHRISTIAN, SENIOR FIELD PRODUCER, "IN SESSION": We know, Nancy, that this happened last Thursday, very early Thursday morning, all of a sudden this house was engulfed. At first authorities weren`t sure who was in, who wasn`t in --
GRACE: That bespeaks of accelerant.
CHRISTIAN: Yes.
GRACE: If all of a sudden engulfed.
CHRISTIAN: Yes, absolutely. The father was able to escape, as you said, the mother and the 11-year-old sister were found in an upstairs bedroom. The 11-year-old died very shortly afterwards at a local Hutchison hospital. The mother was taken to Wichita, which is about 50 miles away, but she also did not survive and died later that day.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: We remember American hero Army Specialist Matthew George, 22, Grantsburg, North Carolina. Bronze Star, Purple Heart, parents Donny and Bridgette, sisters Michelle and Kelly, brother William.
Matthew George, American hero.
Out to Justin Freiman, also on the story. Justin, what more do we know? What about his Facebook posts?
JUSTIN FREIMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: There were Facebook posts that were sent by a friend of the schoolboy, and in his last post, just a few hours before he was arrested, he had written down that this wasn`t such a big deal. He said, I`m not sad. This is just part of life.
GRACE: Wow, OK. And this is just moments after they`re killed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
GRACE: To Robert Roe, fire expert with Pyrocop Inc. -- Robert, thanks for being with us, joining me out of San Diego. It just struck me after conducting many arson investigations if a home is immediately engulfed, that sounds like accelerant. That means that accelerant was used, someone poured gasoline, kerosene, something of that nature around the home to set it on fire. This was not an accident.
ROBERT ROE, FIRE EXPERT, PYROCOP INC.: That`s correct. That`s based on what I`ve learned about this case, the intentional act is basically what you`re seeing is you`re seeing a quick spread of fire, with no apparent reason other than an accelerant being spread across the area.
GRACE: Yes.
Michael Christian, what do we know about what could have been a possible motive to kill your own mother and little sister?
CHRISTIAN: Well, you know, the police aren`t releasing any of that, but it`s possible he was just very, very, very angry.
GRACE: A schoolboy. Michael Christian, Fred Gough, Justin Freiman, Robert Roe, thank you.
Everyone, as we say good night, a special good night from friends Valerie and Michelle.
Valerie and Michelle, aren`t they beautiful? Thank you, ladies, for visiting the show.
Dr. Drew up next, everyone. I see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
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