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Nancy Grace
Did Killer Bride Blindfold Her Groom?
Aired November 12, 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, Missoula. She dreams her whole life about an extravagant storybook wedding. Those dreams come true, a twilight garden wedding, complete with multiple attendants all dressed in pink head to toe, an over-the-top reception. But just eight days after that wedding, the 26-year-old groom, Cody Johnson, is dead. The prime suspect pleads not guilty. The alleged perp, the new bride!
Bombshell tonight. In the last hours, the state reveals its secret torpedo to the defense. Did the bride blindfold her new groom before pushing him to his death? Tonight, after just eight days of marriage, why the killer bride snapped.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did newlywed Jordan Graham blindfold her young husband, Cody Johnson, before shoving him off a cliff?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jordan, did you kill Cody? Did you mean to push your husband off a cliff, Jordan?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An argument at the edge of a cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When Cody Johnson said, "Till death do us part"...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was excited to surprise Cody with a song for their first dance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... not guilty plea to first degree murder charges for alleged newlywed killer...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were married one week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`d been married eight days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Premeditation may be proved because the government now believes Jordan placed a blindfold on Cody before pushing him off the ledge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prosecutors say she pushed her husband.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want them to do the right thing. I want justice for Cody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight. She dreams her whole life about an extravagant storybook wedding. Her dreams come true with a twilight garden wedding, multiple attendants all dressed in pink, over-the-top reception. Eight days later, her groom is dead. The alleged perp, the new bride.
Well, in the last hour, the state reveals its secret torpedo to the defense. Did the bride blindfold her new groom before pushing him to his death? And have they recovered the blindfold from the scene of the crime?
We are taking your calls. Straight out to Mike Walker, senior editor, "National Enquirer," and author of a new book "Out for Blood."
Mike, I agree with the title of your article, your most recent, "After 8 days of marriage, why the killer bride snapped." Before I get to the blindfold that`s now been recovered along with Cody`s body, why did the killer bride snap and allegedly murder her brand-new groom? They`d only been married eight days, Mike Walker!
MIKE WALKER, "NATIONAL ENQUIRER" (via telephone): He discovered that she had lied about being in love with him and knew that she was only in love with the idea of being a bride. And when he confronted her with that, they had an argument before they even left home to go to this -- this part in Glacier Falls, where this ledge was that he fell off of, they`d had an argument, and the argument, according to her own testimony, escalated when they there on the edge of the cliff.
So there was bad blood. There was something going on. The question that now arises is -- as the defense attorneys are saying, the prosecution suddenly comes forward with this -- this -- this bizarre idea that she blindfolded him. I ask you, Nancy, how does a woman, a small woman, blindfold a man while he`s standing on the edge of a cliff, in the dark? How does that happen?
GRACE: Well, Mike Walker, you know, after reading your article (ph) for years and years, you know, a woman has ways of talking a man into just about anything, OK? Just think that through with me for a moment, Mike Walker.
So I don`t know why she lured him out there to that cliff. I don`t know what she told him was going to happen, or why he needed to be blindfolded. But I do know that a blindfold has been recovered where his body was found.
Mike Walker, did you say that he figured out she didn`t love him and wanted an annulment or was it -- what did you say?
WALKER: She figured -- she -- he -- he figured out that she had lied about being in love with him. She somehow let that out. She was in love with being in love and having a wedding. Everybody says on the day of the actual wedding, she sobbed uncontrollably. She was depressed. So that`s easily understandable.
And as far as, did she push him off the cliff, I absolutely believe she pushed him off the cliff. She is a killer bride. But this whole theory about a blindfold -- Nancy, the blindfold, if you read what the prosecution has -- they didn`t find it laying conveniently near the scene, as we seem to be hearing. When you look at it, they found it floating in the river, a good distance away from the scene.
GRACE: Right. I don`t know how far away it was...
WALKER: So what are they going to do with it?
GRACE: I don`t know how far away it was -- well, the first thing they`re going to do is they`re going to test it for DNA.
WALKER: DNA.
GRACE: That`s the first thing they`re going to do.
Out to you, Clark Goldband. How did they find it? What do we know about the so-called blindfold?
CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, Nancy, authorities say they did find a blindfold and they found it a few weeks after the body. Now, according to reports, it was sent for testing to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia. And it was at this FBI lab where authorities are now realizing that it`s not going to take a few days, it may take quite a few weeks to get back DNA results.
The blindfold there, right where he had been thrown dead, according to authorities. And what`s interesting is the state wants a delay for a few months because if this, in fact, can be determined it was the blindfold, it certainly changes the whole ballgame.
GRACE: For those of you just joining us, she has her dream wedding, but just eight days into the marriage -- (INAUDIBLE) a flip side of that beautiful wedding ceremony, the marriage, the groom is dead. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did newlywed Jordan Graham blindfold her young husband, Cody Johnson, before shoving him off a cliff a mere eight days after their wedding? That`s the explosive allegation her defense attorney is claiming prosecutors may make during her first degree murder trial, scheduled to start next month.
The revelation comes in court documents just released. According to published reports, Graham`s attorney writes, "Premeditation may be proved because the government now believes Jordan placed a blindfold on Cody before pushing him off the ledge."
The 22-year-old bride pleaded not guilty to murdering Johnson, saying when he fell 200 feet to his death in Montana`s Glacier National Park back in July, it was an accident. But prosecutors allege she shoved her new husband because she didn`t love him, then repeatedly lied to cover her crime.
For the first time, her attorney is saying, Here`s what happened atop that cliff in Jordan Graham`s own words from her recorded interview with authorities. He said, I could do this with a blindfold on. And he said, I could just put it on, take a step, but I wouldn`t even fall. Next, she said her husband tried to grab for her arm or her jacket. I said, No. I said, I am not going to let this happen to me. I`m going to defend myself. So I kind of said, Let go, and I pushed, and he went over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That`s from ABC`s "GMA."
All right, unleash the lawyers. Peter Odom, defense attorney out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. Also with me, Areva Martin, defense attorney out of LA. Areva, so she`s the one that brings up the blindfold to the police. In her statement to police, she says, yes, he says he could walk this path with a blindfold.
AREVA MARTIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That`s why, Nancy, the prosecution case makes no sense. Why are we just hearing that they`ve had this blindfold, but the testing hasn`t been completed in order for them to be ready for trial? I find this blindfold story to be completely ridiculous. If you want to believe...
GRACE: Really? Because she`s the one that said it.
MARTIN: They`re having an argument. No, they`re having an argument, and somehow, in the midst of an argument, she stops him, puts a blindfold on him and then pushes him off a cliff? That`s just not believable, Nancy.
GRACE: Yes, you know what?
MARTIN: This woman...
(CROSSTALK)
MARTIN: Well, what happened from her words is that they were having an argument and she defended herself and this was an accident. I find the state`s case unbelievable, and I don`t think they`re going to be able to prove...
GRACE: OK...
MARTIN: ... that in the midst of an argument, someone puts on a blindfold. It`s just not believable, Nancy.
GRACE: Let`s go through the facts, Mike Walker, before I get Peter`s two cents. Mike Walker, she`s the one that brings up the whole theory that he was blindfolded when he fell to his death.
Now, this is what we know, Mike, that he is afraid, deathly afraid of heights. In fact, one of his friends -- they were out of town somewhere and they were parking the car way up on top of a parking garage, and the friend says, Hey, come over here. Let`s take a picture. Look at this background. He would not even get near the edge of the parking deck.
So how does this guy, who is afraid of heights, end up at this summit, a 6,000-foot summit, way blindfold on to fall off at night? It was dark. They were not up there having an argument. That is not why he was lured up there, Mike Walker.
WALKER: Well, as you pointed out, women can make men do lots of things. And I`m going to tell you this. I have no doubt that this woman - - they had some kind of a little struggle and she shoved him, not, like, got behind his back and shoved him, but they had a tussle. And they`re on a cliff and he falls off, OK? Now what the prosecution is trying to do is make sure they can prove premeditation so they can really nail him to the cross.
GRACE: Well, why do you say she wasn`t behind his back?
Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter, Radaronline.com, doesn`t she says that she pushed his back?
ALEXIS TERESZCUK, RADARONLINE.COM: That`s exactly right. She says that she -- they had had a little tussle, and he turned around and she shoved him. She used the word "push," but she shoved him off the cliff.
And the thing about the blindfold is, is this is not something that the prosecutors came up with all on their own. She is the one that introduced the blindfold into her story. She is the one that said, Oh, well, he told a story about a blindfold. Very unusual that somebody would just make something like that up, and then, oh, whoops, there`s evidence that the prosecution has. She`s the one that planted this, and look, the prosecutor found the evidence.
GRACE: So Mike Walker, senior editor, "national Inquirer," author of "Out for Blood," why are you saying she didn`t sneak up from behind. She did push him from behind!
WALKER: She may have pushed him from behind or from the side or from whatever. But...
GRACE: Behind! Behind! What is with you, Mike? What is with you? She says she pushed him from behind. She said that, not me.
WALKER: She did -- she said, I never told the agent that I turned around and pushed Cody off the ledge. What I told him was that he grabbed me, I pushed back, and then he fell. There`s a difference.
GRACE: OK, Clark Goldband, what were he words to the police regarding where she pushed him?
GOLDBAND: Right, Nancy. I have it right here. We went through the documents. According to reports, she later responded, looking back, she could have avoided pushing him, pushing him in the first place. So this is what the defendant is allegedly telling law enforcement. They pressed her on it. They said, Really? Did you need to do that? And looking back, she says, I could have probably avoided pushing him in the first place.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prosecutors say 22-year-old Jordan Linn Graham pushed her new husband, Cody Lee Johnson, off this cliff at the high mountains of Montana.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a complete shock to me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One week after this beaming couple`s wedding.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, they just got married.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Montana`s Glacier National Park. They were hiking.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cody Lee Johnson was found dead below the loop on the Going to the Sun Road.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) know your name now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jordan, let`s (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She said her husband tried to grab for her arm or her jacket.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "So I kind of said, Let go, and I pushed, and he went over."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. For those of you just joining us, she dreams of a storybook wedding, and that dream comes true with a twilight garden ceremony. Just eight days later, her groom is dead.
Out to you Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter, Radaronline.com. Take me through what happened following his fall to his death, the cover-up that the bride engaged in.
TERESZCUK: So she didn`t mention anything about her husband missing at all. She went and hung out with her mom. She picked up her brother. Then she actually started the cover-up. She went to her stepfather`s house. She created a fake e-mail account, and she sent herself an e-mail from one of his pretend friends saying, I don`t think he`s around anymore, and pretty much think that he died in the cliff (INAUDIBLE) accident, he fell over, yes. I think that`s what`s going on.
Unbelievable that she just creates this entire story. Then finally, his uncle calls the police days later, and they go looking for the body. She goes with her family and says -- this has just come out -- that she wants to find the body so the cops will be out of it. She wants to find him, and they can have a funeral and bury him, and then the cops are going to be bugging her anymore.
GRACE: Everyone, we are taking your calls. Out to Brent in Kentucky. Hi, Brent. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Nancy. My name is Brent, and my question is, is if she (ph) was pushed off the cliff but he was scared of heights, what does the prosecution think about that?
GRACE: You know what? I`ve got a problem with that, too. Mike Walker, I still don`t see how she maneuvered him up to that peak, 6,000 feet.
WALKER: You said yourself, women can make men do strange things. If she could put the blindfold on him, she certainly could bring him up to the cliff. Maybe it was, Oh, honey, you know, I love this place, and you like it and let`s got there, and you know, we just had our wedding. Who knows. They got up there.
There`s no question this woman killed her husband, but I don`t believe that it was one of these premeditated things where she suddenly decides she`s going to shove him off a cliff. It just doesn`t make sense. It`s too -- it`s too pat.
But I also think that because she covered it all up, she was in total confusion. She doesn`t know what she`s doing. She doesn`t know what she did. So this was not some sort of a premeditated thing with blindfolds. You know.
GRACE: Yes, I`m going to -- I`ve got to wait for the DNA to come back on that. Blindfold or no blindfold, she got him up there one way or the other. He ends up dead, and she`s alive.
Mike Walker, she immediately started a cover-up -- immediately. What do you think is the most glaring problem for the defense in her cover-up? I mean, the lies she told -- she even created an e-mail account from one of his so-called friends to explain what happened, that -- she tells police she got an e-mail from one of his friends, that the friends were up on this summit, that they were horsing around, that he fell and he`s dead, to just call off the search. That e-mail was sent by her...
WALKER: Yes.
GRACE: ... with an account she made up.
WALKER: People do strange things when they panic. She could have just said it was an accident and just walked away, and who could gainsay her? You know, here we`re arguing whether she pushed with two hands or one hand or with one hand tied behind her, or with a blindfold. So all she had to do...
GRACE: You know...
WALKER: (INAUDIBLE) extremely hard to understand. Why did she try to cover it up?
GRACE: Well, obviously, because it`s murder one. If it had been an accident, she would have called police and said, There`s been a horrible accident. She would have tried to save him. I mean, if she hadn`t planned to kill him, Mike Walker, why didn`t she try to save him? Why didn`t she go find him immediately, call park rangers that night and try to save him, Mike?
WALKER: Did you see the picture of that cliff that we ran in "The Enquirer"? You`re not going to find any survivor off that cliff. It`s 200 feet he went down.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Self-defense or calculated crime, a still unwinding tale.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did newlywed Jordan Graham blindfold her young husband, Cody Johnson, before shoving him off a cliff a mere eight days after their wedding?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I did feel like Jordan was capable of doing this.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: By the very bride who danced this prophetic song with him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. The latest in the so-called killer bride case. After her dream wedding, just eight days into the actual marriage, her groom turns up dead.
Out to the lawyers. Unleash them -- Peter Odom, Areva Martin.
Out to you, Peter Odom. If you and your beautiful bride were hiking and she fell over the edge, God forbid, I have reason to believe the first thing you would do is try to save her, to try to go find her, see if she`s dead or alive, call 911, do something.
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Of course. Of course.
GRACE: And?
ODOM: The biggest problem that she has is what looks like a cover-up. Now, that -- as you suggest, Nancy, that might have been a cover-up because she knew she had done a premeditated murder, but it also might have been a cover-up because it really was accidental and she was scared. Now...
GRACE: Wa-wait. Just walk me through that whole theory, that it`s an accident...
(CROSSTALK)
ODOM: ... Nancy, she was scared.
GRACE: ... he falls and she still doesn`t try to save him or call 911. I wouldn`t be scared, I would be trying to help.
ODOM: Well, at that point, there`s no saving anybody, Nancy.
GRACE: How do you know if you don`t even go look to find the body?
ODOM: After -- after a drop of 200 feet. So this -- this might have been...
GRACE: No, I`m asking (ph) you, she didn`t know. How do we -- how does she know he`s not holding onto a peak or a branch or somehow miraculously...
(CROSSTALK)
ODOM: Well, I know what I`d do, Nancy, and I know what you`d do, but that doesn`t mean that there`s a script that someone has to follow. So -- and this whole blindfold thing from the prosecution -- where is that coming from?
GRACE: Don`t change topics.
ODOM: Where is that coming from?
GRACE: OK? From her. She`s the one that brought it up. She`s the one that brought up that he would...
ODOM: She was speaking metaphorically. She was speaking metaphorically. A blindfold...
GRACE: OK.
ODOM: ... is a generic piece of cloth. It`s only a blindfold if it`s on someone`s face. If they didn`t find a piece of cloth on his face, then a blindfold wasn`t used.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did newlywed Jordan Graham blindfold her young husband, Cody Johnson, before shoving him off a cliff?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jordan, did you kill Cody? Did you mean to push your husband off a cliff, Jordan?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An argument at the edge of a cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When Cody Johnson said, "Till death do us part"...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was excited to surprise Cody with a song for their first dance.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... not guilty plea to first degree murder charges for alleged newlywed killer...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were married one week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`d been married eight days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Premeditation may be proved because the government now believes Jordan placed a blindfold on Cody before pushing him off the ledge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prosecutors say she pushed her husband.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want them to do the right thing. I want justice for Cody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everyone. She dreams of her storybook wedding, and that dream comes true, a twilight garden wedding, complete with multiple attendants decked out head to toe in pink, a band, an over-the-top reception.
Then reality sets in. She`s married. And guess what? In just eight days following the "I do`s," her brand-new groom is dead. He falls off a peak while the two are hiking. She even tells police that she pushed him from behind.
The new torpedo to the defense is she also tells police that he was going to walk blindfolded on a hike at night on a 3,000 to 6,000-foot peak, and he`s afraid of heights. What really happened? We don`t know. But we do know that after she admittedly pushes him, she did not look for his body, did not try to save him, and she did not call park rangers or 911.
To top it all off, she pleads not guilty, and her defense says that she is a victim of a conspiracy. All right.
It worked in the O.J. Simpson case. Out to Greg Cason, psychologist in L.A. A conspiracy? She`s being framed for a conspiracy? Help me out here.
GREG CASON, PSYCHOLOGIST: I don`t see how she`s being framed for a conspiracy, although we did see some holes in the investigator`s case that they didn`t get all the interview. So that`s part of the problem here.
GRACE: What do you mean?
CASON: At the same time -- well, it seemed like the -- the prosecutor was -- Stacey Smiedala (ph) didn`t record all of the parts of the interview, so she could say that she`s getting railroaded, perhaps, but I don`t believe her for one second. You don`t just take somebody who`s afraid of heights. I`m terrified of heights. I wouldn`t go up to that cliff unless you blindfolded me and told me you were taking me to a special restaurant. I`d believe that.
GRACE: Well, that`s good to know. To Dr. Joshua Perper, former chief medical examiner, Broward County. Dr. Perper, after the body had stayed out in the wilderness for such a long time while they ostensibly looked for him -- of course, she didn`t report him missing for days. In fact, she never did report him missing -- would there be any way to determine, Dr. Perper, if he had been poisoned?
DR. JOSHUA PERPER, FORMER CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER, BROWARD COUNTY: If he was poisoned?
GRACE: Yes.
PERPER: Absolutely. Sure. There would be organs such as the liver, the kidneys, which would show that. But -- but in my opinion, her statement -- usually when a murderer lies, the statement is self-serving. To have a blindfold story, it`s not self-serving. She would have said that he just fell accidentally. It doesn`t make any sense. So, therefore, it`s very likely that her story is true.
GRACE: Dr. Perper, how long would it take for a fall of this nature to actually kill someone?
PERPER: Well, it really depends. You can fall -- it really depends on what kind of surface you fall. You can fall from the standing stature, and you can hit your head and you can die. So it depends on a -- a few feet can kill someone, if he hits his head on a hard area. But in this case, 200 feet is more than necessary to kill someone, and probably the person has broken bones and internal injury, bleeding, from the fall, and this can be determined at the time of autopsy very easily, as poisoning can be excluded very easily.
GRACE: Everyone, in the last hours, we learned the state plans to introduce evidence that she actually had somehow finagled a blindfold onto the murder victim, her new husband, Cody Johnson. Joining me right now out of Raleigh, telecommunications expert Ben Levitan. Ben, thank you for being with us. What role do you believe computers, texts, e-mails and phone calls, and cell phone calls, will play in this trial, and why are they so important?
BEN LEVITAN, TELECOMMUNICATIONS EXPERT: This is really important, Nancy. I`m seeing a lot of things which are inconsistent. Now, we know she set up a fake e-mail account. And this is so easy to prove, because -- the signature of the computer you use is embedded in your e-mail. So it would be embedded in the mail that she sent and received. But what really bothers me, and I`m seeing this in court all the time, the prosecution is trying to block photographs of text messages on her cell phone saying that those text messages are inconsistent with the text messages that Verizon produced. For some reason, photographs of cell phones with text messages are being introduced, and they`re fake, Nancy. You know, who are you going to believe? The records obtained from Verizon, or photographs, possibly turned over by -- by, you know, the other side? I just don`t believe that this -- you know, I`ve seen this in court, this week, in fact. Somebody produced text messages that were reportedly sent by another party, but those records -- the phone records show that there is -- those messages were not sent. So somebody is trying to fake evidence on computers, on cell phones, and with photographs, Nancy. There`s -- there`s you know -- and it`s obvious. You cannot -- this is -- black and white.
GRACE: All right. Well, you know, it`s something. I was just looking at a whole series of photos of her on her wedding day, and it`s hard to take in that, that face you see so happy, seemingly so in love, with those hands, she murders her new groom just eight days later, according to the prosecution.
Everyone, just in tonight, her lawyers are asking the judge to throw out the indictment. They are claiming that she, the bride, is the victim of a vast conspiracy. Also, they are attacking police, saying that not all of her statement that she gave was actually recorded.
We are taking your calls. I want to go back to Alexis Teresczuk. To me, what is so damning is the cover-up. The fact that she didn`t go and even try to find his dead body, to see if she could help him, but then she launched on an elaborate cover-up and her story began changing. First she announced he announced he was going out of town with friends from Seattle. I`m sure his friends in Seattle are happy to know she tried to frame them for murder. That he didn`t come home. Her story began to change, where he was, who he was with. The cover-up started immediately, and to me that`s significant. Remember, she was sending texts the night he died. That night, as part of the cover-up. Explain.
TERESZCUK: She was. She was sending texts that night saying that she had found out that he was unhappy, which I suppose is what Mike Walker said, it`s actually the opposite of what Mike has said that they found out. That she was the unhappy one. But she was telling people he was unhappy and that really hurt her and she was going to try to figure out why he was so unhappy.
But exactly, immediately after he was pushed, she didn`t call anybody. People can survive lots of things in the wilderness, for months, weeks. They really can. She didn`t call anybody. She left, she went home. Then started the plan. Set up these fake accounts and she was specific about it. She didn`t send them from her own fake account, she went to her stepfather`s home to create the fake accounts. She spent a lot of time trying to cover up what she had done, so the authorities wouldn`t connect her with this murder.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jordan, did you kill Cody? Did you mean to push your husband off a cliff, Jordan? Jordan, are you going to get a plea deal?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The two apparently got into some kind of a heated exchange. Prosecutors say she pushed her husband face-first off that cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cody isn`t really the camping, hiking type.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Newlywed Jordan Graham blindfolded her young husband Cody Johnson before shoving him off a cliff.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was just a short time ago that the couple appeared happy and in love in their first dance at their wedding.
Eight days later, Johnson fell to his death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want them to do the right thing. I want justice for Cody. He didn`t deserve whatever end she gave him. He never earned anything that Jordan did to him, and I disagree with all of my heart at what the justice system is saying is fair.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. Just eight days after their marriage, the groom turns up dead at the bottom of a cliff. Finally, the bride says she pushed him over. What made killer bride snap? We don`t know, but we do know they were married just eight days when he disappeared. She acted like she had no idea where he husband was. She changed her story multiple times before she admitted pushing him off the cliff, now claiming accident.
Investigators say she planned to kill Cody after having second thoughts about the marriage. Now, some defense attorneys, like Areva Martin and Peter Odom, would tell you that this doesn`t mean a thing, but listen to what went down during the memorial. During his funeral. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I got up to speak and got up to the podium was the first time I had seen her since I walked in, and she was fine. And the entire time I was talking she was messing around with her phone, and it just kind of hurt to know that, here we are all here to honor Cody and the memory of Cody and she seemed so detached from the situation. Like almost she had to be there to make an appearance, but she didn`t want to be there, nor did she care to be there, and it was a very, a very sobering experience. It was very difficult to see all of these other people, you know, who were there, and people who were standing up outside the building. The entire foyer was filled. People were standing outside trying to listen, and here was somebody who just didn`t seem to care to be there at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: So bottom line, Peter Odom, during the memorial, when his friends are standing up speaking of him, crying, trying to get their head around the concept that he`s dead, just eight days into his marriage, she`s texting. She is texting, at her husband`s funeral.
ODOM: Once again, Nancy, you`re suggesting that because she`s engaging in behavior you wouldn`t engage in, that`s impolite, maybe odd, that somehow means she`s guilty of murder.
GRACE: No, I`m not. No, I`m not.
ODOM: There is no script to this.
GRACE: I`m saying that`s the icing on the poisonous cake. That on top of everything else, she has the gull to text and -- I don`t know. Maybe she`s playing Minesweeper. She was on her phone playing, and everyone saw her during her husband`s funeral.
ODOM: Her biggest problem, the biggest evidentiary problem she has isn`t that she was texting at the funeral.
GRACE: I didn`t say it was.
ODOM: It was the statements she gave to the police.
GRACE: Why don`t you just admit it looks bad? Why can`t you just tell the truth. It looks bad!
ODOM: It certainly isn`t according to script. That I`ll give you, Nancy.
GRACE: It looks bad. Areva Martin, let`s hear you turn this one around.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: The grieving bride, the widow is texting and, what, playing Minesweeper during the funeral?
MARTIN: Nancy, you keep talking about the bride luring the groom up to this cliff. This is a 26-year-old man. This is not a kid. If he ended up on that cliff, he ended up there because he wanted to go there.
GRACE: Minesweeper, Minesweeper. You don`t want to talk about it.
MARTIN: Yes, she may have been texting during his funeral. I`ll tell you, she may have been texting during his funeral. Has nothing to do with what happened on that cliff. He`s on that cliff because he wants to be there, has nothing to do with it. The two are totally unrelated.
GRACE: OK.
MARTIN: Doesn`t prove murder whatsoever. She said it was an accident and that`s all the evidence right now, it appears to be it was an accident. An argument that went awry. Nothing else.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Dr. Joshua Perper joining me, former chief medical examiner, Broward County. Dr. Perper, when a victim dies in this way, from a very, very steep fall, how do you determine, what would you say that it was? Internal injuries? How do you determine actually what killed him?
PERPER: Well, that`s not difficult, because there are blunt force injuries, which means that the head can be broken, show fracture. There can be fracture of the extremities, of the ribs. There are organs inside which basically are tearing and rupture, and blood is released. So the determination of the cause of death in falls is very easy. The determination of the manner of death, the modality of death is very difficult. Was it a suicide, was it an accident, was it a homicide? It depends on the circumstances, and in this particular case in my opinion, it`s going to be very difficult to differentiate between a homicide and an accident.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The charge of premeditated, first degree murder.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Admitting that she pushed Cody Johnson, her husband of just eight days, off the sheer cliff. Face first. But the judge released Graham, ordering her to electronic monitoring in her parents` home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She remains free for now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Welcome back, everyone. I want to remind you that the bride is out on bond. The judge thought it was appropriate to allow her to walk free, to my understanding on her own recognizance, which means she didn`t even have to put up a bail. OK. So she`s pretty, and she`s young, attractive, so she doesn`t have a bond on a murder one charge. OK.
This trial is set to start at the beginning of December. We will be there. Right now the only wrench in the work is that the state wants to run DNA on an item they believe may have been a blindfold found near the groom`s body.
Back out to you, Alexis Tereszcuk, this is going to trial. I still don`t understand why she`s out on bond. The trial date is looming. It`s set for December.
TERESCZUK: You`re exactly right. And basically the judge said, well, she`s not really a threat to society. And it would probably cost a little more to keep her incarcerated instead of just letting her being at home. She`s monitored electronically, but she`s allowed to do quite a lot of things. She`s living at her parents` house and living her life, she is not behind bars. And she is charged with murder one. This is a very serious crime that she`s been charged with, and nothing has happened to her. They barely were going to charge her. It took quite a while for prosecutors to get their case together about her.
GRACE: You know, Peter, in looking at the coverup that went down after he fell to his death or was pushed to his death, the fact that she created a fake e-mail account and e-mailed to herself, claiming she was one of Cody`s friends, that they had been horsing around on top of the mountain peak. That he had fallen, that he`s dead. So they should call off the search. That Cody is quote, gone for sure.
ODOM: Right.
GRACE: OK. Don`t be a defense lawyer. Don`t be a prosecutor. What does that say to you? This is before his body had been found.
ODOM: I know what the prosecution is going to say.
GRACE: What does this say to you?
ODOM: That she was trying to cover something up.
GRACE: But think about it, just think, Peter, as a human, that means she would let his body lie out there and decay, let animals eat his body, pick at his body, tear it apart. That she was willing to do that.
ODOM: Mm-hm. And it`s terrible. And it shows a terrible side of her. But to take that fact and to say that that means she murdered him deliberately or that there was premeditation, those are two different things. It still could have been an accident.
GRACE: You know somebody had to drive him there. His car wasn`t there. And their home was too far to walk there. So she obviously drove him to the hike. They went on the hike. He was absolutely afraid of heights, and then she had to drive back home. So the driving there and immediately after the fall, actually, before she drove him, she started writing mysterious texts like we`re going to have a big discussion tonight about so-and-so. If you don`t hear from me, something`s gone wrong. She was laying the groundwork for this before it happened. That has got to be premeditation.
ODOM: Nancy, you`re giving a great closing argument for the prosecution. Let me give the defense one. That still says nothing about what happened at that moment of death, whether it was an accident or murder, and the burden is on the state, the burden is still on the state.
GRACE: So she planned a murder and then had an accident, an intervening accident?
ODOM: You say planning. That`s your word.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: They had it all. A love affair, a storybook wedding. Their lives ahead of them. But after eight days of marriage, something went horribly wrong. And now we all wonder why the killer bride snapped and murdered her husband.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It began with such promise. The young love of Cody Johnson and Jordan Graham. They danced to a song composed specifically for them, with the bride`s recorded vocals in the background, a song written by Elizabeth Shay (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was excited to surprise Cody with a song for their first dance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Graham seemed like a normal bride, says Shay, who wrote the music and the lyrics guided by the young bride.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I used words like you helped me to climb higher for a better view. You`re my safe place to fall. You never let me go. And so now when I hear those words, it`s a little creepy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Creepy, because eight days later, Johnson fell to his death, pushed, say prosecutors, by the very woman who danced with him. At this sheer cliff they say there was a grabbing incident, which was all in one motion, the grabbing and pushing. 25-year-old Johnson fell face first to his death.
Prosecutors paint a very different picture of this young bride, a woman who told multiple lies to investigators, to friends, to family. Prosecutors say she created a fake e-mail account and wrote e-mails to herself to fabricate a bogus story about her husband`s death. The defense characterized them as post-event mistakes. She finally confessed to pushing her husband in the back, face first off the cliff. Her motive? Prosecutors say she regretted getting married.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GRACE: We remember American hero, Army Sergeant Jesse Tilton, just 23, Decatur, Illinois. Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal. Loved water parks. Mother Jilly (ph). Jesse Tilton, American hero.
Dr. Drew`s next, everyone. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
