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Nancy Grace

Man Butt-Dials Murder Target

Aired November 26, 2013 - 20:00   ET

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

JEAN CASAREZ, GUEST HOST: And tonight, we go off the top to Jonesboro, Arkansas. The owner of a used car dealership allegedly agrees to a $5,000 deal, but it`s not over a car and it`s not over a car sale on the lot. Tonight, police accuse him in a murder-for-hire plot to take out his former employee.

But when he lays out the plan, complete with directions to the victim`s home, he forgets one thing, doggone it, to lock that cell phone. He butt-dials the alleged target, who listens with his own ears to the plot to end his life!

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s the butt-dial that could put a used car dealer behind bars for decades.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A pocket dial might have saved a man`s life and put another behind bars. An Arkansas man got a call from his boss`s cell phone, only it was a call he wasn`t supposed to get.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he answered the phone, he allegedly overheard a murder plot, his own murder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... man says he got a call from his ex-boss, but it wasn`t a friendly hello.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Telling police he heard his old boss give out his address and tell someone, I don`t care if you have to burn his house to the ground with him in it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The alleged target intentionally called police, and now his ex-boss stands accused of plotting his murder.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And to Austin, Texas, suburbs, a 2-year-old toddler girl raced to the ER with massive trauma, her head allegedly slammed into the floor, baby Alexandria (ph) taken off life support as her foster mother lands behind bars. But tonight, could baby Alexandria have been saved? We obtain secret documents, the 2-year-old placed in troubled foster home care despite glaring red flags. We demand justice!

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The foster mother is charged with murdering her 2-year-old little girl, Alexandria.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can people hurt little children?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alex was living with foster parents after CPS removed her from her parents` home. CPS placed her with this woman, Sherill Small (ph). Child Protective Services says Texas Mentor (ph) is the child-placing agency who placed Alexandria with Small.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She would come to visitation with bruises on her and mold and mildew in her bag.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s just hard to imagine how anybody in a rage can harm a child.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For two months, Alex was placed in a home that Hill says was dangerous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I found out that Alex was in a coma...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The little girl was flown to (INAUDIBLE) a Children Hospital. She was taken off life support.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Alex passed around 10:30 that night.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Detectives say Small`s explanation didn`t match Alex`s injuries. They charged the foster mother with murder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Texas Mentor is now under investigation by residential child care licensing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And also tonight, outrage in Hamilton, Ohio, a 23-month-old girl found wandering all over the street. She was alone, soaking wet, wearing nothing but a Thomas the Train onesie. And it is only 36 degrees outside. Where is Mother and Father, Mommy and Daddy? They`re allegedly taking naps, yes, while their toddler roams around for hours with a cup of beer right in her hand!

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a baby here, probably about 18 months old, walking around by itself (INAUDIBLE)

911 OPERATOR: What`s he wearing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like the Thomas the Train outfit. (INAUDIBLE) shivering (INAUDIBLE) nose is running like crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No coat, no nothing, no -- and she (sic) was soaking wet from the bottom -- from the waist down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Even more disturbing...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We found a little red cup and his little hands are beet red.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I looked in the cup and I smelled it, and it was beer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hamilton police found the parents in a nearby home they say was covered in filth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I bet he`s been out here for a couple hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nicholas Lada (ph) is the father who lives here, and he disagrees.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe 10 minutes, tops, maybe less than that. I don`t know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because I`m getting ready to pick him up and hold him (INAUDIBLE) poor little thing is shivering to death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

We go off the top to Jonesboro, Arkansas. Was a murder-for-hire plot uncovered by an accidental pocket dial? Let us go straight out to Robyn Walensky, anchor/reporter with TheBlaze. Robyn, take us through this unbelievable murder-for-hire plot from the very beginning.

ROBYN WALENSKY, THEBLAZE: Well, Jean, good evening. It is a butt- dial that actually bungled a murder plot. It`s an incredible, crazy story of a guy that owns a used car dealership, and he owes a guy a lot of money, and the person -- he`s talking to the hit man, and unbeknownst to him, that the phone dials the potential victim in this case, and the guy ends up hearing the whole thing during an hour-and-a-half phone call, Jean.

CASAREZ: Now, isn`t that convenient right there? Now, Robyn, do we know where this happened? Because obviously, the alleged man that solicited the alleged hitman had to be together talking somewhere.

WALENSKY: Right. So he`s on the phone -- the owner of the car dealership is allegedly on the phone with this hit man. The other guy is in his home. So some kind of way that the phone number got dialed. And it`s really crazy because the owner of the car dealership gives out this guy`s address, where he lives, personal information about this guy, obviously, what he looks like, because he`s a former employee.

And then he hears some crazy statements, stuff like, you know, I owe this little SOB a bunch of money, and if he`s gone, quote, unquote, I don`t have to pay for it. So the motive here is all about the fact that this man owed him money.

CASAREZ: And I understand he said, I don`t care how you have to do it. If you`ve got to burn the house down, you burn the house down.

I want to go to Alexis Weed, OK? I think we can all picture it. You know, you answer your phone, Hello? And you just hear these people talking, and you suddenly hear that somebody is plotting to kill you with someone else.

But Alexis, here`s my question just right off the top here, OK? What`s a butt call? What`s it about? I mean, sounds like I`m saying a bad word, but that`s what you call it, right?

ALEXIS WEED, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: That`s what it is, a pocket dial, a butt-dial. We`ve all done it, Jean. We`ve called somebody -- unbeknownst to ourselves, we`ve made that call, and this is what happened in this case.

And I should clarify something that was said by Robyn Walensky. These two men that were talking to each other about this potential hit, they were in a room together. They were not on the phone talking to each other. It`s only the butt-dial that brings the would-be victim into the conversation. So those two men -- they were having a conversation together in the same place.

CASAREZ: So pick it up from there. Alexis, pick it up from there because what this alleged victim did, the man who should be dead right now as a product of the hit, if you believe prosecutors -- he let the call keep going, didn`t he, Alexis.

WEED: Yes. He let it go for so long that this call went on and hour- and-a-half, Jean. So he realizes what`s going on. He hears that it`s his name. It`s his life that`s being talked about, and he decides to just let it go, let him listen.

And he then goes to his wife, who`s also home with this man. It`s 12:30 in the afternoon, perfect time for a call for a set-up for a hit man, I suppose. So he gives the phone to his wife and he says, Listen on this call. He picks up his wife`s phone, calls police. Police make it all the way to the house while this call is still ongoing with these two men having this conversation.

CASAREZ: All right, let`s bring in C.W. Jensen, retired police captain out of Cave Creek, Arizona. C.W. Jensen, he did everything right. He calls the police while the call is in progress, planning and plotting allegedly to kill him, and he gets the police to his home.

C.W. JENSEN, RETIRED POLICE CAPTAIN: No, he did a great job. I mean, obviously, I mean, as everyone has said, we`ve all had this happen. We`ve either called somebody accidentally or we`ve gotten a call and you hear people talking in the background.

But he quickly realized what was going on and listened. He was smart. He got his wife to listen, as well. Now, there`s another witness. Then he calls the police. The police get there, and obviously, they can put two and two together. They can find out -- they can get phone records and all these kinds of things, and they can go to the car dealership and ask the secretary, Where was, you know, your boss? Well, he was in a meeting for an hour-and-a-half with some guy I`ve never seen before.

So you can see how taking this information, the officers could put together a case, along with the things that happened subsequently when they went...

CASAREZ: But the defense is saying this is circumstantial hearsay and it means nothing because, Robyn Walensky, anchor/reporter for TheBlaze, once the police got there, the call was over! The police didn`t hear anything at all. But what is the alleged victim saying that the plot was to do him in? How were they going to kill him?

WALENSKY: Well, here`s the thing. He was going to kill him. But let me mention one thing that was said during the call, Jean, that gives this a lot of substance, that gives it a lot of weight for the case, and that is that he hears the exact dollar amount for the hit. I`m going to give you 5 grand up front, and then more once it`s done. So there was an actual plan, a dollar amount. So I -- I think it`s a pretty open and shut case.

CASAREZ: You know, Jeff Gold, defense attorney joining us tonight out of New York, one of the motivations for a hit like this is money. And it is said that this former employee, the man that should be dead now, if you believe these facts, according to prosecutors, was owed a lot of money because he was an employee, a former employee of the used car agency.

But Jeff, why is it so cheap to solicit somebody to kill somebody, $5,000?

JEFF GOLD, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Right. I mean, that`s right. I mean, I`ve seen all kinds of numbers, but I`ve seen cases for small amounts of money like this, too.

You know, this case is about intent, Jean. You know, what the state`s going to have to prove is that this wasn`t a joke. This wasn`t just somebody letting often steam. My wife says if you leave the toilet seat up one more time, she`s going to kill me. That doesn`t mean, you know, if I end up dead, that she did it. So they have to prove it.

And the one thing in this case that helps the state is he actually says he tried to do it before, and it didn`t work. So the state`s got to prove intent, that this was more than a joke. They have a lot of information in this very conversation. The fact that it was cheap, though, doesn`t say much to me.

CASAREZ: You know what it tells me, Eric Guster, defense attorney, that`s going to really work against the defense here, is that if this man owed a lot of money to the alleged victim that was the subject of the hit, it must have been a lot more than $5,000. And remember, that was just up front. So maybe it was another $5,000 when you complete the job. But he must have owed the alleged victim a lot of money.

ERIC GUSTER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, in this type of case, when people have business disputes, they file police reports and lie on each other all the time. I have seen many cases like this where people have made up stories. And with the police officers coming to the house and the phone call that lasted an hour-and-a-half was miraculously over, that is clear evidence that this is bogus.

And just like Robyn said, this was a story. I mean, this was a story this man probably made up in order to get back at this man who possibly owed him money. And in business disputes, people file reports all the time that are false.

CASAREZ: All right, C.W. Jensen, retired police captain, is this a joke? Is this a joke to talk to somebody and say, Look, any way you can do it, I want it done. If you`ve got to burn down that house, I want it done, $5,000 up front, the rest when you complete job. Do people go around joking like that?

JENSEN: No. And I think everybody has to remember that we`re hearing just the kind of bullet points of this, so to speak. He gets a call. He says his wife hears this. Again, an investigation takes place. There`s been some tampering (ph) to the guy`s house. All sorts of things are going on. But they got probable cause to arrest him.

So it`s up to the attorneys at this point, but I`m just saying that I -- I`ve dealt with murder-for-hire cases before, and a lot of times, the alleged -- the guy that`s going to do the killing, he pieces (ph) out and he says, I want nothing to do with this.

But there`s a lot more to this story than we know. So the fact that this guy`s been arrested and been charged means that police have done much more of an investigation than we know.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A pocket dial might have uncovered a murder plot. A man says he got a call from his old boss, only it was a call he wasn`t supposed to get. The man claims he picked up and overheard his old boss plotting to kill him, actually giving out the location of his home and offering thousands of dollars for his death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: So here`s what happened. I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace tonight. Thank you for joining us.

This man answers his phone, OK. Hello? And he hears two people talking. Hello? Hello? They don`t hear him because they`re in a serious conversation to plot and plan of how to kill him. So he keeps listening, and he hears his name and he realizes, They`re trying to kill me.

Alexis Weed, take (ph) us once again that this man had the foresight to put down that phone and make a call that really probably helped save his life, Alexis.

WEED: He did, Jean. So this guy, once he realized that the conversation`s about him, about his life about to end, he then puts his phone aside. He gives it to his wife. He says, Hold on. Listen in. He picks up his wife`s phone and he calls police.

The police tell him, Well, you need to come down and file a report, but first we`re going to come to your house. So the police actually show up at this guy`s house, and they see on his phone an incoming call from this man, from this used car salesman, and they confirm that, yes, this call has been ongoing. It shows the time right there. They know that`s their guy.

CASAREZ: And everybody, you heard C.W. Jensen before we went to break say there`s much more to this story. You better believe there`s more to this story.

When the man then went to file a police report down at the police station, he asked for the police to accompany him home, and when they got back to his house, the alleged victim, the house had forcible entry, and the gas line to the stove had been tampered with. More in just a second on that.

But we`ve got a caller. Matthew -- Steve from Massachusetts. Hi, Steve.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello?

CASAREZ: Thanks for calling. What`s your question?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My question`s just quick. I heard there`s rumors -- there was rumors that I read about, and it`s just about if this recording will be allowed to be in court even if they were in a relationship. I heard there were rumors that they were in a relationship together that needs to be uncovered.

CASAREZ: Who was in a relationship together?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The two, the boss and the guy who`s plotting the murder (INAUDIBLE)

CASAREZ: Well, he`s a former employee of the owner of the used car...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, and I...

(CROSSTALK)

CASAREZ: What are you talking about? What kind of relationship?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Together.

CASAREZ: All right. Robyn Walensky, let`s take it one step further about when he went back to his home, all right, because he was a former employee. He was owed money. He wasn`t paid as that employee of the car dealership. What happened when the alleged victim got back home that afternoon?

WEED: Well, right, Jean. When they go back to the house, the home was burglarized. Someone was either sitting on that house or watching to see what was going on, but somebody broke in and they tampered with the stove.

Now, you would most likely -- a home -- you know, obviously, some people have electric, but many, many more people have gas stoves. So perhaps they were looking to blow up this guy`s house. Maybe they were hoping -- maybe he`s a smoker and they thought that he was going to come back in, light up a cigarette and the whole place would go up in flames and he would get killed that way.

I mean, I`m just, you know, thinking of things that are bizarre. Keep in mind, Jean, this guy is -- and I don`t want to paint everyone with the same brush stroke, but he`s a used car salesman. He might be a little shady, don`t you think?

CASAREZ: Well, there`s a lot of outstanding car dealerships and car salesman, and everyone is innocent until proven guilty. But we do want to tell everybody that this was a former employee. They were not on speaking terms, and that is what we know is the extent of their relationship.

We`ll be right back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A pocket dial might have saved a man`s life and put another behind bars accused of plotting a murder. An Arkansas man got a call from his boss`s cell phone. When he answered the phone, he allegedly overheard a murder plot, his own murder.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. Now, you have been looking at pictures of Larry Barnett. He is the owner of Legend Motor Company, a used car dealership. He has been charged with conspiracy to commit capital murder, one of the most serious charges you can have.

But the fact is, Alexis Weed -- and bring us up to date on this -- the man that he was allegedly talking to, working with, asking to carry out this hit -- police haven`t found him.

WEED: No. We don`t know who this guy is. He`s listed so far on all the probable cause affidavits as just an unknown male.

CASAREZ: All right, and that is an important part of this puzzle.

Out to Bethany Marshall. This gentleman, who we are just referring to as the alleged victim here, the man who possibly could be dead at this point if that phone had not recorded that call -- what is it like to listen to a conversation where two people are allegedly plotting to kill you?

BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Jean, can you imagine how shocking that must have been? However, I would imagine that the alleged perpetrator in this case had been stalking the victim for some time. Even though we know money is often a motivator in homicide, there`s so many other motivators, and the perp may have been envious of the victim, may have felt that the victim had a better life, maybe sold more cars than him, may have felt that he, the victim, had taken too much pay and had plundered money out of the business.

The alleged perp may have even worried that the victim had information about the business. I mean, what other illegal activities may the perp have been engaged in? Had he paid his taxes? Was he taking a lot of cash under the table that was going unreported? I mean...

CASAREZ: You know, defense attorney...

(CROSSTALK)

MARSHALL: ... may have known so much.

CASAREZ: Eric Guster, defense attorney, joining us out of Atlanta, the motivation for many of these crimes is money. You need money. And the money owed is more than the money that it costs to have somebody killed. But here`s what I want to ask you. Police need to find this other man because that`s the second half of the story right there. Either he agreed to it or he didn`t. But the fact is, the home was broken into and the stove had been manipulated in regard to its gas line.

GUSTER: Well, Jean, the stove has allegedly been manipulated, and in order to -- in order to prove conspiracy, a person has to conspire with another person. So if they don`t have someone else that he conspired with in order to do this, he`s not guilty. And that is the crux of this case. And they have a man who said his stove was tampered with, his home was burglarized, but he had time to set that up himself.

CASAREZ: You know, Eric, you bring up a great point because the fact is, the conversation itself wasn`t recorded. And that could be a challenge.

All right, everybody, coming up next, a toddler girl allegedly slammed to the floor head first, and now her foster mother is behind bars. Did Child Protective Services drop the ball again?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. We are demanding justice as we go to the Austin, Texas, suburbs on the case of a 2-year-old toddler girl allegedly slammed head first into the floor. As her foster mother stands behind bars, could baby Alexandria have been saved? We obtained secret documents the 2-year-old placed in the troubled foster home despite glaring red flags, and now she`s dead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Joshua Hill`s (ph) daughter, Alexandria, or Alex, as they liked to call her, was rushed to a hospital with severe head injuries and immediately placed on life support.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can`t -- I can`t even describe (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rockdale (ph) police chief Thomas Harris (ph) says Small called 911 Monday after Alexandria stopped breathing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Initially the story was the child was running backwards and fell.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 54-year-old Sheryl Small of Rockdale turned herself in to police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We never hurt her daughter, she was never sick, she was never in the hospital. She never had any issues until she went into state care.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Let`s go out to Joe Gomez, investigative reporter. Joe, this little 2-year-old girl, this beautiful little 2-year-old girl, was in foster care, had a foster family. Supposed to be a wonderful situation. What happened to her?

JOE GOMEZ, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, that`s right, Jean. This is a very tragic story. A beautiful 2-year-old, Alexandria, with a smile that would just melt your heart, was supposed to be in a very loving situation with a foster family, but police say that her foster mother in a fit of rage lifted Alexandria up and smashed her head against the ground. This led to Alexandria being rushed off to a hospital, where she subsequently died.

Now, the very interesting part about this whole thing, Jean, is that her foster mother also grew up in a foster home as well, and we find out, Jean, we find out that she had a warrant out for her arrest for writing bad checks.

So did somebody drop the ball here? Did somebody not do a full background check to find out if little Alexandria was really going to the loving home that she needed and deserved?

CASAREZ: Let`s talk about this, Matt Zarrell, because the foster mother, who is now charged in the murder of her child, had something to say about it. She gave a statement, and she`s got another story. Right?

ZARRELL: Yes. She has given a number of different stories, and the cops, when they looked at the medical evidence, knew that her stories were not matching up. First, she told police that the child was running backwards, fell and hurt herself. Then, when the cops confronted her that those version of events do not match the medical evidence, then Small says she was playing a game. Holding Alexandria up over her head, swinging her down almost to the floor then swinging her back up. She said she did it, once, twice, and then on the third time she lost grip and the child hit the floor with her head.

CASAREZ: Joining us tonight is Marc Klaas, he is president and founder of Klaas Kids Foundation. Marc, simply with that right there, varying versions. I mean, you know what happened. Either you know it or you don`t know what happened. You don`t go into various stories, and that has to be concerning to prosecutors and investigators?

KLAAS: Well, of course it is, Jean, but my goodness, this lady never should have had this child. Her husband is a recovering crackhead. She went through a foster system herself. They don`t have any money. They don`t have steady job. It`s obvious that the money they took for this child was needed to meet their own basic needs. Her adult children have criminal histories. One including kidnapping. This is a systematic failure. And it -- this is a perfect example of why sometimes you need government oversight over certain industries and certain institutions, simply to prevent this kind of thing from happening. Everybody failed this little child.

CASAREZ: Oh, and you know, Marc, this brings us to the second headline of this story, because this little girl is dead, and that`s the headline. This little girl didn`t have to lose her life. All right? But the second half of the headline is that, this is a Texas case. Child Protective Services, and what I have learned is that in the state of Texas, they go to private agencies when it comes to selecting, choosing and having that agency responsible for finding a foster family. Well, this little girl was with her biological parents until age 2. I want to be joined now with Bobby Taylor, he is the attorney for Alexandria Hill`s biological father. He`s joining us from Austin, Texas, tonight. Thank you, sir, for joining us.

BOBBY TAYLOR, ATTORNEY: Certainly. Thank you for having me on.

CASAREZ: Here`s my first question. How did the biological parents lose their child? Because she was already 2 years old. It must have been something very, very severe, because you don`t just lose your child.

TAYLOR: Well, this is a young couple. My client, Joshua, smoked marijuana and came up with a positive urine, and that`s it. That`s 100 percent of why they took the child from Joshua. The baby`s mother, the couple was engaged. The baby`s mother had had prior seizures from the time the baby was in her womb, and those seizures had not caused any injuries, hadn`t caused any problems, but Child Protective Services determined that they could lead to some kind of a problem in the future if the mother had the child alone and Joshua was not there. So when Joshua --

CASAREZ: So no signs of abuse on this little girl from her biological parents at all?

TAYLOR: I`m sorry?

CASAREZ: No signs of abuse from the biological parents.

TAYLOR: This child was healthy. Every report says she was healthy. She was doing well, there was no problem of any kind until the child was removed and placed in the first foster care, where she came up with bruises, injuries, marks on her body. So bad that CPS agreed and took the child from the first home and placed the child in this home.

CASAREZ: Now, is it true that the private agency, the company called Texas Mentor, is the one that placed this little girl with the new foster family, the mother who you are looking at pictures of right now? And is it true that they did not do background checks as they should have done on the mother, the father and her adult biological children that were around this little girl?

TAYLOR: According to what I understand, Texas Mentor said they did do a background check, and we received documents that indicated they spoke to some individuals, and they probably had some phone conferences with individuals, and they did do a preliminary investigation.

Now, the question as to what that produced, for instance, that investigation indicated that Ms. Small herself was in foster care from age 2 and it indicated --

CASAREZ: Here`s my question. Why did they allow this little girl to be around the biological daughter, this woman we`re looking at right here, because she had been charged and convicted of aggravated kidnapping?

TAYLOR: We had met, myself and this, the mother`s attorney. Marty Circle (ph). We have met. We`ve tried to ask those same questions, and we don`t know the answers. We have been working on this since the day -- well, since it happened. We both attended the funeral, we as lawyers, and we`ve been asking these questions. We don`t know why. All we`re told is they met the criteria for Texas Mentor.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hill says he was less than four months away from getting Alex back, and now he`ll never get the chance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Climbing up into my lap and she fed me french fries.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow. On our street. Come on. Something`s wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They wouldn`t tell me what condition she was in or what was wrong or what had happened, anything.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Detectives say Small`s explanation didn`t match Alex`s injuries. They charged the foster mother with murder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is the saddest thing I`ve ever seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez in for Nancy Grace. This beautiful little 2-year-old little girl, Alexandria Hill, she is dead today, and is it because of an accident? That`s what her mother says. Is it because of a negligent supervision of her mother? Here`s what the autopsy report says. The autopsy report says that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. There are lacerations and contusions to the buttocks. But listen to this. It says there are lacerations to the liver.

I want to bring in Dr. Amy Burrows-Beckman, she is an assistant medical examiner and forensic pathologist joining us tonight. All right. Let`s say that what this foster mother is saying is true. That she was playing with her and she was putting her up in the air and putting her down and having a good time, and she lost her grip, and she fell. And the little girl hit her head. Why would you have lacerations to the liver?

BURROWS-BECKHAM: Well, you wouldn`t have lacerations to the liver unless she got Andre the Giant to do CPR by stomping on her belly. That story does not fit. None of her stories fit the findings of autopsy.

CASAREZ: All right. So back to our second headline here. Marc Klaas. Joining us tonight -- I just -- where do you start? Because CPS in Texas, and I know CPS in Texas. I`m licensed as an attorney in Texas, and they do many good things, but they field out foster families to private agencies to determine who should be the foster family, and this family shouldn`t have been a foster family, to say the least.

KLAAS: Well, it even goes beyond that, Jean. In the last two years, there`s been a 400 percent spike in the incidence of children in foster cares dying as a result of these types of situations. So obviously, things are getting completely out of control. There needs to be an agency that has adequate supervision over these subagencies that are awarded the contracts, and I would say one place to really start is to take a good look at Texas Mentor and see exactly how these children are being placed, and what kind of background checks are being run on these families, because they obviously dropped the ball and hold a large burden of responsibility for what happened to this child, ultimately.

CASAREZ: To Jeff Gold, defense attorney. We understand CPS is looking back now at all of the families that may have been put together by Texas Mentor, but Jeff Gold, I know you cannot sue the king. Right? We know that. A governmental agency, but can`t CPS be sued civilly at this point, because they are the ones that recommended, encouraged and allowed Texas Mentor to place this little girl with this family?

GOLD: Sure. Most states have rules that restrict how you can sue the state, but you still can sue the state. And in this case, Texas certainly has failed by giving away the child if the only allegation against the natural mother was some use of marijuana. Two, who had a history of being an abused foster child herself with a husband who had a crack addiction. A child who had been charged with something. Sure. This problem is, Texas, I hate to say it, but it sounds like Texas killed this young lady.

I`m not going to say this is not negligence, or recklessness, maybe it is a manslaughter case, it probably is not a murder case. I will say this. We keep saying, slammed down. I don`t see a fracture of the head. So when you get right down to it, Texas did this to this little child. I`m sure Texas had a good intent, but in the end, why would they take it away from a mother who had a small amount of marijuana and give it to somebody who had a history of violence?

CASAREZ: Here`s the thing, Eric Guster, defense attorney joining us tonight, Sheryl Small, the foster mother right there. She had had other foster children. And just to put it out there, you get paid when you`re a foster family. And you can do it for the money, because the more children you have, the more money you make. That`s your job. And so, isn`t there losing sight of why someone is and becomes a foster family?

GUSTER: Well, now, let me fix that for you, because being a foster parent, we were foster parents for about 12 years. So it`s not about the money for many of us who actually do this type of work.

However, in this particular case, perhaps the Texas Department of Human Services and Child Protective Services did not do the background checks properly. But on the adult children, they weren`t living in the house with this lady, so I don`t understand where that is possibly an issue. Because if you did background checks on every single person who tried to have a foster child and checked all of their relatives, you will find something on their relatives.

So this sounds like an accident, listening to the evidence. There was blunt force trauma to the head of this child, and it sounds like the lady that she told the second version of her events, she probably was scared to tell that she actually hurt this kid, and I think that it sounds like an accident.

CASAREZ: Eric, you make a great, great point, because there are wonderful, loving foster families out there, and God bless them, because the children of this country need families like that, but Bethany Marshall, we`ve got to look at the facts of this case. And the facts, Bethany, of this case are that the adult daughter of Sheryl Small, the foster mother, had been charged and convicted of aggravated kidnapping. That is an absolute bar to be around in Texas a foster child, someone who`s been convicted of that particular crime, but yet she was there at the home all the time.

MARSHALL: Jean, I mean, this whole family was dysfunctional. The dad was a crack addict. The mother had just lost her job. The foster mother, as a school bus driver, and I think the timing is so important. She loses her job as a school bus driver, and then she applies to be a foster mom? Clearly this adoption was financially motivated, and what happens when somebody brings a child into their home for financial gain, they have to put family resources towards taking care of the child, which creates resentment towards the child, and in this case perhaps homicidal intent.

CASAREZ: Great point, Bethany. All right.

Up next, how does a 23-month-old baby girl end up wandering all over the streets, all alone, wearing nothing but a Thomas the Train onesie and shivering, with a cup of beer in her hand? Wait until you hear what her parents had to say, and what was found in their home.

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CASAREZ: Outrage in Hamilton, Ohio, a 23 month old girl found wandering the streets all alone, soaking wet, wearing nothing but a little outfit, and it`s only 36 degrees outside. Where`s mommy? Where`s daddy? They`re allegedly taking naps while their toddler roams around for hours with a cup of beer in her hand. We`re going out to Melissa Knealy (ph), she joins us, a reporter from 700 WLW Radio. Melissa, tell us more.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s right. We found or this little girl was found wandering the streets. The temperatures outside are freezing cold this time of year in this area of Ohio. It was 36 degrees. She had nothing but a wet onesie on and no shoes, no coat. She was wandering in an alley, and fortunately, a neighbor came by that was walking his dog and found the little girl, and was able to put her in his heated car until the police arrived.

CASAREZ: All right. Take us to the home. I want to hear about the home that she lived in. Tell us about that, including what was in the toilet.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, when the police arrived, they investigated, and they went knocking on doors to even find the parents. The parents showed up, and they went inside to inspect the house. They found feces piled up in the toilet, and a 5 gallon bucket in the main bathroom, filled with feces. They also found cat feces strewn all over the floor in the home.

CASAREZ: OK. We got the picture. That`s enough. We got the picture. I want to go out to Eddie Webb, who may have saved this little girl`s life. He found her freezing and he called 911. Eddie, thank you for joining us.

EDDIE WEBB, OHIO RESIDENT: You`re welcome.

CASAREZ: What did you see as you were walking outside?

WEBB: I was walking my dog like my daily routine, and I heard a child crying. As I was walking my dog, I just seen her walking through the, back and forth through the alley, and I`m thinking --

CASAREZ: All right. We have lost our connection with Eddie Webb. We`re going to take a break and we will be right back with the man who found and saved the life of this two year old little girl.

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CASAREZ: And I want to go straight back to Eddie Webb, who is the man who was walking his dogs, found this little girl shivering in just basically a diaper little outfit. Mr. Webb, what did you see, and what did you do when you found her?

WEBB: When I found her, I was just completely in shock. I just wondered where these parents were. And I started hollering for the parents, and nobody answered me. So I immediately called 911 and explained what was going on. And as I was waiting on the police officers and ambulance to show up, I called my fiance, and said baby, I said, I have found a child. She said you have what? I said I have found a child. I said, get your car over here so we can get this baby in the heat. So she comes, she showed up, and I transferred the baby from my hands to my fiancee`s, and we kept her warm until the ambulance and the police department got there.

CASAREZ: Was she actually holding a cup of beer?

WEBB: Yes, ma`am, she sure was. She had a cup in her hand, and (inaudible), and I kind of looked down and I am like, I`m not seeing -- maybe thought it might be apple juice or a child`s drink in a (inaudible) cup, but when I took the cup from her hand, I smelled it, and it was alcohol. Like, are you kidding me?

CASAREZ: To assistant medical examiner and forensic pathologist Dr. Amy Burrows-Beckham, what -- how long does it take for this little girl, because she was frigid to the touch, Eddie Webb is saying, how long does it take for a little girl to get that cold?

BURROWS-BECKHAM: Well, it wouldn`t take as long for a child to develop hypothermia as it would an adult. She could have been out there maybe a half hour to a few hours.

CASAREZ: Well, her mother and father are saying we were just taking a nap. That`s all, just a nap, and she must have sneaked out. Mark Klaas, we don`t know what the truth is. But the fact is, she got out, and really there is no excuse at all, that is something that we should accept, right?

KLAAS: Well, here is the truth that we know. We know that she and her siblings were living in absolute squalor. We know they were being neglected or they wouldn`t have been living in absolute squalor, and we know that the first three years of a child`s brain development has an awful lot to do with how that child is going to be treated as an adult.

CASAREZ: Such, such astute comments. So very, very true.

Everybody, we remember American hero, Army Specialist Carlos Negron Sr. 40 years old, from Fort Myers, Florida. He was awarded the Army Achievement Medal and the National Defense Service Medal. He leaves behind his parents, Gabriel and Marta, his widow Arlene (ph), and his three sons. Carlos Negron Sr. He is a true American hero. Dr. Drew is coming up next.

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