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Nancy Grace
Search Continues for Missing Oregon Mother
Aired July 30, 2014 - 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 to Oregon. The loving husband of a missing mom of two begs, Mommy come home, as police say
they`ve run out of leads. Young mother of two, she goes missing, 6:00 PM, broad daylight, running errands. Police try their best to recreate Mommy`s
movements the day she disappears. We do the same.
Bombshell tonight. In the last hours, new secret surveillance video emerges of Mommy, and Daddy takes a polygraph.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have the feeling maybe she`s in a ditch somewhere.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She purchased Gatorade, trail mix, sleeping pills.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need to know where she`s at.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I truly believe they`ve got a good, solid relationship. And once again, this is completely out of character for her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And to Dillanvale (ph). She claims she wakes up with a bad dream that she was fileting a fish. She was fileting something, all right,
her husband`s neck, ear to ear, as he`s sleeping right beside her! Defense? She dreamed she was fileting a fish.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators say she sliced her husband`s throat with a knife.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My mom just cut my dad`s throat!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) almost ear to ear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It happened at the family`s home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She made threats that she would kill him. And she almost did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And to Michigan, a Dearborn girl dazed from a car crash knocks on a neighbor`s door for help. And what does she get? A shotgun blast to
the face! Tonight, the 55-year-old man who shoots the girl dead claims it was an accident. Oh! Oh, wait! No, no, no, no. He changed that story.
Now he`s claiming self-defense. Right, self-defense. In fact, he was so scared of a little girl knocking on his door that he opened the door wide
enough to point a 20-gauge shotgun through it and pull the trigger.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve just shot somebody on my front porch.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gun does not go off unless the trigger`s pulled?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was acting and reacting to escalating fear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was the condition of Ms. McBride`s brain?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was pulpified (ph).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight, to Oregon. The loving husband of a missing mom of two begs, Mommy come home. Police tell us they`ve run out of leads. The
young mother goes missing, broad daylight, running errands. In the last hours, new secret surveillance video emerges of Mommy, as Daddy takes a
polygraph.
We are taking your calls. Straight out to Dan O`Donnell, WISN. Dan O`Donnell, let me first address the new surveillance video. Where was it?
DAN O`DONNELL, WISN (via telephone): This was at a Rite-Aid pharmacy. And it shows Jennifer -- shortly before other surveillance video placed her
at a gas station, it shows her in this Rite-Aid pharmacy buying a number of things, trail mix, Gatorade and a number of sleeping pills.
Now, police were very quick to point out this was a nonlethal number of sleeping pills, not to implicate that she was trying to harm herself in
any way. But this appeared to be -- the surveillance video shows just a normal trip to the pharmacy.
GRACE: OK. Yet we understand that, Dan O`Donnell, WISN, you know, half of America is on Simple Sleep (ph) right now. She`s got a 2-year-old,
and I believe the other child is a 6-year-old. I`ve got two 6-year-olds. I`m up all night long. So it`s not a crime to get, what, a Simple Sleep,
or whatever it is.
So she goes in. She gets just that. She also has gone to the gas station. Let me ask you this, Dan O`Donnell. Was the gas station before
or after the Rite-Aid?
Let`s see the map, Justin. Give me the map, please, the new map with the Rite-Aid on it.
So what`s the order? What`s the progression, Dan O`Donnell?
O`DONNELL: Well, at about 5:45 on Thursday, Jennifer leaves her house. She then goes to a credit union to take out some money from an ATM,
then goes to a Rite-Aid to purchase those things that you mentioned. And then she goes to this gas station, where she has an attendant pump her gas.
And that is the last time we believe that anybody has seen Jennifer.
GRACE: OK, let`s go through the timeline again. Justin, if you don`t mind, start it over for me.
Everybody, every one of these stops is significant. Who saw her in the parking lot? Who saw her at the ATM? 5:45 PM, the dad gets home from
work, the mom leaves to go on errands. She`s a stay-at-home mom. She`s been with the children all day long.
5:50, she arrives at the bank perfectly on time, five minutes away. She gets less than 100 bucks. OK, from there, we go straight to Gatorade,
trail mix, some over-the-counter sleeping pills at Rite-Aid. 6:15 -- what happens at 6:15? All of this is timed out to the minute. 6:20, we`ve got
her filling her car. She`s topping it off. She stopped to top it off with gas. It was less than $30. She fills up her Lexus SUV with gas. 6:22,
Mom receives a text from her mother.
What do we have after that, Justin? Nothing. Ah, 6:35, Mom`s iPhone stops sending signals. Now, that`s interesting to me. 6:22, she receives
a text from her mom. 6:35, that phone is off.
Joining me right now -- don`t move a hair, Dan O`Donnell. We`ve got a lot of questions for you. Special guest tonight joining us, in addition to
Captain Chris Bolek with the Newberg-Dundee Police Department, is Jennifer`s father, Bill Turner, a former homicide detective himself.
Mr. Turner, thank you for being with us.
BILL TURNER, MISSING WOMAN`S FATHER (via telephone): Thank you, Nancy. I want to clarify something. I wasn`t a homicide investigator, I
was a criminal investigator, and I also worked in persons (ph) crimes and I also worked homicides during that time.
GRACE: OK, well, I`m glad you cleared that up. To Jennifer -- when your wife texted her at 6:22, do you know the nature of the text?
TURNER: Yes. It was just a family matter regarding her brother, sharing information.
GRACE: About her brother?
TURNER: Yes.
GRACE: OK. Did she respond to the text?
TURNER: No. There`s no response whatsoever. And my wife thought that -- Debbie (ph) thought that strange at the end of the night, when we
talked before going to bed.
GRACE: Well, you know what, Mr. Turner? I find that very odd, too, because the one person that I absolutely will respond to immediately is my
mother. You don`t want to get on your mom`s bad side. So that`s at 6:22. How do you know at 6:35, her iPhone had been cut off?
TURNER: That information was -- came through the Find My iPhone application.
GRACE: Oh, yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes. Mr. Turner, you`re right. I just lost my iPhone in New York, and I followed it on the application in
the back of a cab all day long until somebody cut it off. All right, so you can tell when the phone has been shut off, Mr. Turner?
TURNER: That is correct. It will not provide information, as far as I know, and maybe some Apple expert can tell us, but it just shows the
phone is powered off.
GRACE: OK. With me is Jennifer`s father. Mr. Turner, what was the nature -- what did she say her errand was that night?
TURNER: She just indicated she needed to get out of the house and just run some errands. And when pressed a little bit where she was going,
she just said, I`m going to Fred Meyer`s (ph), which is, like I said, a common shopping center in that neighborhood.
GRACE: OK, let me follow up on what you just said. She said she just wanted to get out of the house because she`s been in the house all day long
with the kids. What does she do? What was her job before she had the children?
TURNER: She worked a number of different jobs. Most of them were in some type of manufacturing or support of manufacturing activity, in
purchasing.
GRACE: Is that how she met the husband?
TURNER: No.
GRACE: Because I know that he`s a sales rep for a door -- for building supplies, door supplies, correct?
TURNER: That is correct. They met through mutual friends.
GRACE: OK. So she basically just wants to get out of the house, having been home all day long. Had the children already had supper and
been bathed when she left?
TURNER: They had already eaten, but they had not been bathed yet. Kallen took care of that after he had some cuddle time and play time with
them.
GRACE: OK. So it`s not like she`s walking out before the children have been bathed and fed. She has fed them, and the husband baths them
when he gets home from work, is that right? That`s his time with them?
TURNER: Yes.
GRACE: OK, and Bill Turner -- everybody, with me is Jennifer`s father. And he right now is answering a lot of the questions that you guys
have been sending us. A lot of you want to know, Well, why did she leave right at dinnertime and bath time? As a matter of fact, she had already
fed the children. The husband came home to bathe them, and she goes out for a breather.
OK, we also learn in the last hours, the husband has take a polygraph. Who asked for the polygraph, Mr. Turner?
TURNER: Law enforcement did. It`s the normal protocol when there`s a spouse missing to go through that process. It`s (INAUDIBLE) it`s timely.
They want to make sure they get it right, so they take the time.
GRACE: Joining me right now is Woodrow Tripp, former police commander and polygraph expert. Woody, everyone always looks to the husband first.
He passed a polygraph. This is not a private polygraph. Now, you and I both know when defendants think they can beat a polygraph, they`ll go get a
private poly. They won`t take a police or an FBI. They`ll go get their lawyer to set up a private polygraph.
That is not what he did. The police say, Will you take a polygraph? He said yes, and he passed the polygraph. What about that?
WOODROW TRIPP, POLYGRAPH EXPERT: Oh, absolutely. And if law enforcement is administering it, it`s a much different situation than the
cordial atmosphere of where you go in with an attorney.
GRACE: What do you mean by that?
TRIPP: Well, law enforcement is going to present it. They`re going to be very businesslike. Certainly, there`s an amount of anxiousness,
anxiety that`s going to occur. You`re interacting with law enforcement. But again, a nervous person who`s telling the truth is very different from
a nervous person who`s lying, physiologically.
GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Back it up! Back it up! A nervous person telling the truth is different from a -- what now?
TRIPP: A nervous person telling the truth is very different from a nervous person who is lying, physiologically.
GRACE: What do you mean by that?
TRIPP: Well, those things that are going on inside of you, the physiological aspects of your body. You can`t control your heartbeat. You
can`t control perspiration. You can control breathing up to a point, but at some point, you`ve got to go back to normal. I`m going to know when
you`re at normal versus when you`re (INAUDIBLE)
GRACE: So lie-detectors actually measure your perspiration and heartbeat?
TRIPP: Absolutely.
GRACE: All right, that`s something that`s kind of hard to beat.
Everybody, with me is Jennifer`s father. This is not her father-in- law, this is her father. And he is telling us the son-in-law, her husband, has taken a polygraph and passed it.
Another thing that can throw a poly, Mr. Turner, is when you have your lawyer -- and by the way, the son, the husband has not hired a lawyer.
That is a significant point to me. You can insist your lawyer or you have a private poly so you can manipulate the questions. But when police give
you a poly, they come up with the questions. Isn`t that right, Mr. Turner?
TURNER: That`s absolutely right. And I actually discussed the polygraph with Kallen very early on. I said, You know they`re going to
look at you, so as soon as this comes up, you cooperate. And he said, You don`t have to tell me that. I will cooperate 100 percent. And he did. I
actually transported him to and from the polygraph. I have that much faith and confidence in our son-in-law, Kallen Huston.
GRACE: With me right now, Captain Chris Bolek with the Newburg-Dundee Police Department. Captain Bolek, thank you for being with us. Captain,
who administered the polygraph within your division?
CAPT. CHRIS BOLEK, NEWBURG-DUNDEE POLICE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): It was actually done by the Marion (ph) County sheriff`s office, a
neighboring law enforcement agency who has that ability.
GRACE: OK. Captain, I know you`re not going to give me the actual questions on the poly. But are you familiar with the questions? Do you
know what the questions were?
BOLEK: I don`t know the specifics of the questions, no. I know that they were specific and pointed so that they could be the most useful...
GRACE: Right.
BOLEK: ... and to get a clear picture of what`s going on.
GRACE: Captain Bolek, here`s the question. If her car -- if she`s still in her car, or if someone else has ditched her car, it seems to me
that within that short of a period -- she`s talking, she`s getting a text from her mom at 6:22. Her cell phone is on. At 6:35, the cell phone`s
gone, and we don`t have another trace of her. That`s just -- that`s less than 10 minutes.
So my question is, what do you think about her car disappearing like this? Wouldn`t an aerial view, helicopters going overhead, have found the
car if somebody forced her out of that car into their car?
BOLEK: Well, we would think so. We would hope so. And that`s what we`re also working on, as well, putting a plane up in the air to try to
locate. Yes, it is odd. We don`t have an answer for it. And again, we`re trying to follow up all leads and tips that would help us for that.
And that`s also why I`m -- it`s important and I appreciate the fact that you folks are keeping this on the forefront of the public`s mind
because we`re going to need the public`s help to, I think, locate her at this point. And so we need the public to keep aware and keep calling.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: At this hour, breaking news in the search for a missing Oregon mother of two. Her husband now submits to a polygraph by police. He
passes the polygraph. Tonight, the question is, as this new surveillance video emerges of her at yet another location, Rite-Aid, very near her home,
what happened to her car? Is there car the key to this case?
Back to Captain Chris Bolek, who`s joining me along with her father, Bill Turner, Captain Bolek with the Newburg-Dundee Police Department.
Captain, What I`m saying is she gets a text at 6:22. 6:35, that`s 13 minutes later, the phone`s off and She`s gone, and we don`t catch her on
any other surveillance video. I know your people have gone to every -- hey, let`s see the virtual drivethrough, Justin.
We have gone along and looked for every single business along the route that she took. I know you`ve got the surveillance video from them,
if they`ve got it. I know you`ve gotten the video -- the pictures taken at that red light that we showed last night.
Where did she go in that car, Captain? I mean, think about it. In just 13 minutes, did somebody jump in her car or put her in their car?
What -- what -- what are we doing to find this car, this green Lexus SUV?
BOLEK: The -- what we`re doing is we`ve got -- we`re getting a plane in the air to try to locate it. We`re contacting our local law enforcement
partners throughout the state, just like we`ve done in the last couple of days. And we are reinforcing the fact that we -- asking folks, law
enforcement partners, to continue to look for her.
GRACE: Are you crossing state boundaries?
BOLEK: That`s why I said a moment ago -- what?
GRACE: Are you cooperating with law enforcement in other states in case somebody`s taken off with this car and her in it?
BOLEK: We are in communication with the surrounding western states, as well. That`s absolutely correct.
GRACE: To Woody Tripp, former police commander, polygraph expert. What about the car? Why can`t we get a bead on the car?
TRIPP: Well, certainly, there`s a lot of possibilities. If she was abducted, if the vehicle was driven into a personal garage of someone`s
home, or if, in fact, it was driven into a -- some type of covering, a garage at a mall, something like that -- so it`s not going to be visible
from the air. And possibly, if it`s got GPS on it, such as some of the locater type of signals, that`s another possibility that it could be
located that way.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Everybody, tonight, the search intensifies for an Oregon missing mother. We`ve got four hours before she`s reported missing. She
leaves the home to get a breather. She`s been with the boys all day long, ages 2 and 6. She runs errands. 6:35, her cell phone is turned off. She
didn`t even leave the home until around 6:15 or so. As a matter of fact, her father, Bill Turner, the father of Jennifer Huston, has even hired a
private helicopter to go searching for her.
Bill Turner, where did the helicopter search?
TURNER: I didn`t hire them. They were requested to be provided. And there was a fee associated with it. I believe these companies have waived
their fees and they`re just up on their own and on our behalf. They`re going to search the surrounding hilly areas. There`s a number of roads
that drop off and go into places that there is no cell coverage or very poor cell coverage with AT&T in that area, based on my own experience.
GRACE: OK, to Dan O`Donnell, WISN -- also joining me, Stacey Newman on the story. Stacey, what can you tell me about the campsites? Now, she
was wearing yoga pants when she goes missing. That does not mean she was going to a yoga class. She was, however, a hiking enthusiast, we are told.
What about the nearby hiking areas? Although we also know she usually went hiking with her family, not just off on her own.
STACEY NEWMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: That`s correct. There`s two major hiking areas. The first one is Tualatin nature preserve. Then you
have this Champoeg (INAUDIBLE) part. One is over 200 acres. One is over 600 acres, known for hiking, jogging, botanists. But Nancy, finding her
car would be a complete needle in a haystack because they`re so large.
GRACE: I want to go back to the father, Bill Turner. Bill, you are telling us that it wasn`t a specific errand. She just wanted to get out of
the house because she had been with the boys all day long. Now, I am extrapolating that. Is that why she left the home?
TURNER: We have no idea. We have no idea whatsoever. We`d only be speculating.
GRACE: What did she say?
TURNER: She said she was going to run some errands. And when pushed a little bit further, Well, where are you going, by Kallen, she says -- he
said, Are you going to Fred Meyer`s? (INAUDIBLE) suggesting it. She said, Yes, I`m going to Fred Meyer`s. You know, somebody`s asking a question or
pressing it sometimes, they do volunteer something like that, you might just say, Oh, yes, I`m going there, just to have them stop asking the
question.
GRACE: Everyone, tonight, we have redefined the timeline now that we get this other secret video surveillance. Let`s take a look at the
timeline one more time. We know she leaves the home a little after 6:00. She`s already fed the boys. Husband comes home from work.
Oh, there you go -- 5:45, Mom leaves the home. 5:50, she goes to the bank. She doesn`t withdraw a lot of money like she`s leaving town. She
withdraws less than $100 to go run errands. After that, she buys Gatorade, a little pack of trail mix and some sleeping pills over the counter at
Rite-Aid. She was there five minutes. Five minutes later, she fills up her SUV with gas.
After that, 6:22, she gets a text from her mom. Her cell phone is still on. But at 6:35, that phone is cut off and it has stopped sending
signals.
Captain Chris Bolek with us. Based on this surveillance video you see, was she headed toward the Fred Meyer?
BOLEK: No, she wasn`t. It`s not the direction. But I should say that there`s several different ways to get to the Fred Meyer, but it`s not
directly indicative that she went that way.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: And now to Dylan Veil. She claims she wakes up with a bad dream that she was filleting a fish. She was filleting something, all
right, her husband`s neck. Slitting it ear to ear as he is sleeping right beside her. What is mommy`s defense? She said she was dreaming of
filleting a fish.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 911 what is your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My mom just cut my dad`s throat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 44-year-old Judy Jones.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She made threats she would kill him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Had been planning this for about a year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he bleeding real bad?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Filleting a fish. Phil Trexler with the Akron Beacon Journal. Her defense is I slept through it? I was asleep when I slit my husband`s
throat ear to ear? That she was filleting a fish?
TREXLER: Yes, Nancy, this is certainly no fish tale here. It`s certainly a nightmare for the husband. He woke up from asleep finding that
his neck was slashed from ear to ear. And his wife is saying she was dreaming about this and filleting a fish. But her daughter tells a totally
different story, that she thinks this thing was planned for a long time because of her mother`s history of domestic violence against her father.
GRACE: And you know, that`s something we don`t hear of a lot. Caryn Stark, psychologist joining me, a female domestic abuse in this case, but
in this case, there were at least two previous events of the mom beating on the dad. Okay. Caryn, you know what this makes me think of? Remember
when O.J. Simpson had a dream about how Nicole Brown was brutally murdered, basically decapitated except for a little piece of skin on the back of her
neck? And then with Amanda Knox, how she claimed she was having some kind of a dream, in the dream she heard her roommate, 21-year-old Meredith
Kercher, screaming for her life? Well, actually I believe both of those things are really true and there was no dream. I mean, unless they`re
clairvoyant, which I doubt. And now her defense, first she tells cops that she was dreaming she filleted a fish when she actually slices her husband`s
throat ear to ear.
STARK: That`s right, Nancy. And that doesn`t make a lot of sense. You can have thrashing in your dreams, those kind of violent dreams where
you might be kicking or walking or doing things like that. Actually sometimes there are signs of diseases that will emerge later on in life.
GRACE: Whoa, wait, wait, wait. Signs of diseases?
STARK: Yes.
GRACE: What disease makes you kick your legs around? Besides possibly restless legs?
STARK: Sometimes restless dreams sometimes predate Parkinson`s, dementia, things that will emerge 25 years later. Not in this case,
though.
GRACE: Caryn Stark, I appreciate you and all your deep thoughts. I really do appreciate that. But does that include going to the kitchen and
opening the drawer and getting out the butcher knife and slicing your husband`s neck ear to ear? That kind of dream?
STARK: No, no.
GRACE: Do you think that`s a precursor to Parkinson`s? Is that what you`re actually saying to me?
STARK: No. What I`m saying is that there are dreams that are precursors to Parkinson`s and dementia. However, people do not act out
that kind of violence in a dream state. That makes no sense. It never happens. You can walk in your sleep, but you do not cut throats in your
sleep.
GRACE: My faith in you has once again been restored. You had me on the ropes there for just a moment. Unleash the lawyers. Joining me
tonight out of Phoenix, Monica Lindstrom, also with us defense attorney out of Atlanta, Peter Odom. All right, Monica Lindstrom, she first tells
police that she dreamed she was filleting a fish. And whoops, she was actually slicing her husband`s throat ear to ear as he slept beside her in
bed. Now, what about the two previous that we know of? We know about two prior attacks she made on her husband. Domestic assaults. Will they come
in if there`s a trial?
LINDSTROM: Oh, absolutely they would come in. But as the defense attorney, you want to keep it out. That`s bad history. You want to talk
about prior bad acts. The first thing I would do with her is get her right into a psychological examination, find out what is going on in her brain,
try to find some excuse, some defense for her to use here whether it`s a psychological illness, a challenge. Some kind of battered woman, was she
on drugs?
GRACE: You`re making my teeth hurt because I believe I just heard you say you got to find some excuse.
LINDSTROM: Yep.
GRACE: How about the truth, Peter Odom, that she had been beating her husband and attacking him for years, according to her own children, and she
finally sliced his throat? And when she was caught literally red-handed, with his blood on her hands, she came up with some cacamamie story that she
dreamed that she was filleting a fish, when she actually filleting her husband`s neck.
ODOM: Nancy, you`ve just given the closing argument for the state. Let me give you her closing argument.
GRACE: Please do.
ODOM: All right. The state has the burden of proof here beyond a reasonable doubt to prove she knew exactly what she was doing and she
intended to kill him. She doesn`t have to prove her innocence. The state has to prove her guilt. So they have to disprove what she says.
GRACE: That`s your whole argument?
ODOM: That is the law, Nancy. That`s the Constitution.
GRACE: I know that`s the law. I know that`s the law. I`m not arguing. I know what`s in the Constitution, Peter.
ODOM: Those arguments you make about admissibility of that other evidence, that would be disallowed in most courts in this country.
GRACE: That`s not true, that`s absolutely not true.
ODOM: Yes, it`s true.
GRACE: Peter, let me remind you. Think back. Think way back. You`re back in time to when you were a felony prosecutor. And you know,
put the shoe on the other foot.
ODOM: Wasn`t that long ago.
GRACE: That the woman is the one who got her throat sliced ear to ear. You know darn well what I don`t like is misleading the viewers.
ODOM: I`m not misleading the viewers. I`m talking about the rules of evidence.
GRACE: Because prior domestic attacks, prior domestic attacks, will come in when there is domestic homicide. Even the other defense attorney,
Monica Lindstrom, is shaking her head yes. You know it`s going to come in.
ODOM: Prior bad acts.
GRACE: That`s not a prior bad act, that`s a similar transaction. Subtle but important distinction.
ODOM: I grant you, Nancy, that where you used to practice law in Georgia, they come flying in. That`s the way Georgia law works.
GRACE: You`re darn right it`s going to come in.
ODOM: But not in federal court. It would be a battle to have them come in.
GRACE: Put him back up. This is not being tried in federal court.
ODOM: In federal court and many of the states --
GRACE: This isn`t in federal court.
ODOM: And many of the states. Georgia law has now changed. Similar transactions are no longer allowed. Because we`ve adopted the federal
rules in Georgia.
GRACE: Similar transactions in this case are going to come in at trial. To Michael Christian, joining us --
ODOM: Maybe, maybe not.
GRACE: -- along with Phil Trexler. We hear you, Peter. Michael Christian, what are the two prior attacks on the husband?
CHRISTIAN: In February of 2013, Nancy, she was arrested on a count of domestic violence. Now, she ended up pleading no contest to an amended
charge of disorderly conduct and she got six months probation. Then in September of last year she was arrested again on a second count of domestic
violence. She pled guilty to that one. Once again, she got six months probation. But it looks like she was also ordered to attend anger
management classes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back. A Dearborn girl dazed from a car crash knocks on a neighbor`s door for help. What does she get? A shotgun blast to the
face. Tonight the 55-year-old man who shoots the girl dead claims it was an accident. Oh, wait, no. He claimed self-defense. He`s changed his
first story, right. He says he was so scared of the little girl knocking on his door that he opened the door wide enough to point a .20 gauge
shotgun through it and then pull the trigger.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just shot somebody on my front porch with a shotgun banging on my door.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s no evidence of any prying. There`s no evidence of any kicking. There`s no evidence of any breaking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight out to Alexandra Field, CNN correspondent. At the courthouse. Joining us from Michigan, Alexandra, thank you for being with
us. What I don`t understand, Alexandra, is so he`s asleep. This is in the wee hours of the morning. And he hears banging on his door. If he`s
afraid, why did he open the door with a .12 gauge? Why would you not just call 911 or just not open the door if you`re that afraid?
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Nancy, that`s the question that the prosecution keeps asking. They have told the jury from the beginning
of their opening statements they said that his actions were unreasonable and unjustified. They have said why didn`t this guy call 911? The defense
has started to say well, hey, Theodore Wafer, he was asleep in his armchair. He woke up. He heard this persistent banging noise. He was
scared. He couldn`t find his phone. The banging just wouldn`t stop. That`s when he grabbed his shotgun and he went to the door. What we`ve
been hearing in court for the last couple of days, though, is the case that the prosecution is making, they have called about two dozen witnesses.
They finally wrapped up today. The point they keep hitting home to the jury is this. They say look, at the end of the day or early that morning
really, 4:30 in the morning, Mr. Wafer went to his door. He had to open up the door. There was a locked screen door in front of him. What did Mr.
Wafer do? The prosecution says he had to load the shotgun. He had to get that shotgun ready to fire. He had to remove the safety. He ultimately
had to point at Reneisha McBride and shoot. The defense, of course, they`re building this case that it was self-defense, that he was afraid,
but the prosecution saying the facts of the case are clear. In fact, Wafer called 911 right away. He told police he had shot a woman on his
front porch, Nancy.
GRACE: OK. Alexandra Field there in Michigan, Alexandra, please, don`t get me wrong. I don`t want to kill the messenger, that being you.
But I want to talk to you about these facts. He claims he can`t -- he doesn`t have a land line and he can`t find his cell phone. But he can find
his .12 gauge Mossburg? Not only as you said does he have to load it, rack it, take off the safety, it`s got a 6 1/2 pound trigger pull. Now, you
state, Alexandra, that he calls police. Well, he finds his cell phone first of all. It was in his back pocket in his pants that were hanging I
guess in the bathroom where he left it. So he calls, I just shot somebody. But as he`s sitting in the patrol car, they are video audio taping him.
Just FYI, when you`re in the back of a cop car, you`re being recorded. Just so you know, typically.
FIELD: Sure. There`s a 911 recording.
GRACE: Exactly.
FIELD: He tells police what happened. That`s right. The police are there, got a microphone on him. It doesn`t seem like he`s trying to
conceal anything. The police in this case, Nancy, have said over and over again this is somebody who was cooperating with the investigation. He
gives them his story when they get there. He says that he didn`t realize the shotgun was loaded, that he fired unintentionally. The prosecution has
been working very hard --
GRACE: Why would you take off the safety and pull the trigger if you don`t think the gun`s loaded? And not only that, first of all he says it`s
an accident. But now he says it`s self-defense. You can`t have it both ways. You can`t say it was an accident, I didn`t even know it was loaded.
And then say oh, oh, I shot her in self-defense. It doesn`t make sense. Alexandra, is it true that Werner Spitz (ph), the famed medical examiner,
has taken the stand for the defense?
FIELD: Yes, look, he`s up there for the defense. Right now the defense`s tactic is that they`re going to throw everything at the wall.
First of all, we heard Theodore Wafer on those recordings saying that it was an accident. The defense has now told the prosecution, you`re cherry
picking this. You`re coloring it. He didn`t just say accident. He was really saying that he was afraid, he was afraid for his life. They`re
trying this approach. They are saying this is self-defense, a guy who is woken up in his home in the middle of the night, didn`t know what was going
on and had good reason to be afraid.
They`re also moving this case in another direction. They`re trying to say that look, the investigators involved here botched the case. They got
to that door. They had foregone conclusions. They thought that this was an open and shut kind of case. And that they could have done more to
investigate. The defense is pointedly bringing up this question over and over and over again. They`re saying why didn`t you look for signs of a
break in? Maybe Reneisha McBride was trying to break into that house.
GRACE: They looked at all the doors. According to the defendant himself, she was banging on the front and the back door. So bottom line,
there`s no scrapes, no signs of forced entry, no even dents on the door to suggest that she was actually trying to break in. And when you break in,
don`t you try to sneak in? Why would you be pounding on it? The reality is she just had a car crash. She hit her head on the front of the
windshield. Why would she then go hey, this is a great time --
(CROSSTALK)
FIELD: We don`t know where she was. We don`t know where she was or what her state of mind was, we don`t know what she was doing. You`re
right, Nancy. Frankly, the officer in charge of this investigation, he`s been here at this courthouse to testify two days in a row. Here is what
we`re hearing him say repeatedly, there were no signs of a break-in. Reneisha McBride was unarmed. Not only she didn`t have a gun, she didn`t
have a screwdriver, she did not have a pry bar. They didn`t see any locks were damaged, they did not see that any handles were damaged, they didn`t
see that any doors had been kicked. What does the defense say to that? The defense asks, hey, investigator, did you get a magnifying glass to look
at the doors, the locks, the handles?
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Let me just throw this out there, all right? You`ve been in court all day. So she is in a car crash. She huts her head on the
windshield. She was dazed. She was all messed up. She wanders away. She comes back to the scene. She keeps saying, I just want to go home. I just
want to go home. She ends up at this guy`s front door. Now, what happened? She gets hit in the head in a crash and she says, hey, this will
be a great opportunity for me to burglarize somebody`s home. Okay, Alexandra, that doesn`t make sense.
FIELD: No, it doesn`t seem to make sense. It doesn`t add up. Here`s what`s interesting about this case, Nancy. No one is telling us where
Reneisha McBride was in the 3 1/2 hours between the time she got in that car accident and when she showed up at Wafer`s house. No one can really
say what she was doing at Wafer`s house or why she was there.
The point the prosecution is trying to make is that there is simply no evidence she was trying to break into that house. The defense, they`re
saying there was reason at least for Wafer to believe that he was under attack.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. Straight back to Michigan. Standing by at the courthouse, CNN correspondent Alexandra Field. A young teen has
a car crash, she really bangs up the car and herself. She wanders to a neighbor`s door, bangs on it, he shoots her dead in the face claiming he
thought the girl was trying to, I guess, what, break in and kill him? The front porch does not equal burglarizing your home. To Alexandra, why is
Werner Spitz, a medical examiner, on the stand? What is he saying about the girl`s hand?
FIELD: The defense wants to reject what the prosecution has put forward. They called a medical examiner to the stand. The medical
examiner testified that he examined Renisha McBride`s body, he did the autopsy. He says there were no injuries to her hand. Yes, there was blood
on her hand. They showed a picture of that in the courtroom, but he says this is a woman who frankly, Nancy, had just been shot. There could have
been blood everywhere because there`s no sign that that blood came from an injury to her hand.
GRACE: Alexandra, you`re cracking up on me because of a car going by. Let me quickly go to Dr. Joy Carter, chief forensic pathologist, author of
"I Speak for the Dead." What do you make of Werner Spitz -- last time we saw him, he was defending for tot mom, Casey Anthony. He was defending tot
mom. Now he`s emerged again in this case for the defense. So what if her hand is swollen postmortem?
CARTER: Well, the hand can be swollen for many reasons, and certainly have blood on it. One is that she has been shot. There is going to be
blood on the body. She may have been hitting on the door. She may have suffered injury to her hand from being in an automobile accident. She may
have crawled up the steps to get help. There are many reasons why her hands can be swollen, but they didn`t find anything under her nails.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers, Monica Lindstrom, Phoenix, Peter Odom, Atlanta. Also with me, Alexandra Field at the courthouse, Dr. Joy Carter,
Woody Tripp and Caryn Stark.
Okay. Peter Odom, she goes to the door, she bangs on the door for help, he shoots her dead in the face. Where`s the self-defense? I don`t
see it. She`s not even in the house.
ODOM: What the defense is doing in this case is smart in my opinion, Nancy, and it`s a very tough case for the defense, I will grant you that.
They`re trying to show that if the police did a terrible job, they were incompetent in the investigation, then they very well could have missed all
that evidence of an attempted break-in.
GRACE: OK. That doesn`t make any sense because--
ODOM: Yes, it does make perfect sense. Given the burden of proof--
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: I`m going to hear second verse same as the first. Go ahead, Monica Lindstrom. They didn`t find any evidence of a break-in. Her
knuckles were not bruised, nothing. And as you heard Dr. Joy Carter, looking for something under her nails. No. Nothing. So where is evidence
of a break-in? She was asking for help for Pete`s sake. She`s a teen. She just had a crash. The guy shoots her dead.
LINDSTROM: First of all, we don`t know what she was doing there. We don`t know if she was asking for help. She was either high or drunk. Her
BAC came back at a .22. She very well could have incompetently trying to break in. So we don`t know exactly, but the defense has taken a good
strategy with claiming that the cops just didn`t do a good job.
GRACE: OK. Alexandra Field, thank you.
Let`s stop and remember American hero, Marine Lance Corporal Layton Crass. 22, Richmond, Indiana. National Defense Service Medal, Combat
Action Ribbon, loved snowboarding and video games and wanted to be a police officer. Parents Donald and Lynn, sister Dusty. Brother Devon. Layton
Crass, American hero.
What a day in America`s courtrooms. Thank you for being with us. Dr. Drew up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then,
good night, friend.
END
