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Nancy Grace
New Bride Killed in Car Crash by Parolee
Aired October 20, 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, Redford (ph) township, the heartland. Bombshell tonight. A 25-year-old newlywed bride
killed by a parolee in a horrific crash after he returns to a life of crime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 25-year-old newlywed suddenly killed after a suspect reportedly driving to get away from police crashes into the
victim`s car.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hate the person who did this to her! It`s very unfair!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And live, upscale Texas suburbs. Police race to the scene after a hysterical 911 call. What`s inside the huge Tudor $4.5 million
home? Cops find Daddy dead in his own bed after an armed intruder dressed all in black breaks in, beats Mommy in the face with a wrench, opens fire
on Daddy. All the while, the 4-year-old little girl asleep on the sofa nearby.
Grainy video surveillance reveals no such intruder, no prints on the murder weapon, no robbery, no sex attack. But now Mommy claiming Daddy
actually commits suicide. But tonight, neither of Mommy`s stories add up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am not guilty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michelle Williams`s (ph) murder of her husband, Greg (ph)...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This lady is a drama queen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The murder trial is on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight. Live to the heartland, a 25-year-old newlywed bride killed by a parolee in a horrific crash after he returns to a life of
crime.
Straight out to Charlie Langton with WWJ. Charlie, he had such a long record -- drugs, one home invasion after the next, violent, violent crimes.
He returns to a life of crime after an immediate parole. What happened?
CHARLIE LANGTON, WWJ NEWSRADIO (via telephone): Yes. This guy was only out on parole for just a short while. He`s had three past home
invasions, cocaine, all kinds of charges. What happened was, back in October 6th, he was attempting another home invasion. The police received
a call. It fit the description. The police started chasing this guy...
GRACE: Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Charlie, Charlie, wait, wa-wa- wa-wait! You just told me something I didn`t know. So the guy has all these drug offenses, and I don`t mean like weed. Then he has a string of
home invasions, where he breaks into homes armed -- look at that wedding photo -- armed, while the people are there.
He gets right out on parole, Charlie Langton, and then does another home invasion? Is that what you just said?
LANGTON: Yes. Within five months after getting out of prison, he is attempting another home invasion. And yes, he gets -- and then he starts
to flee the police. They identify him. He runs a red light, smashes into a 25-year-old woman. And (INAUDIBLE) that car flips over. And she is
killed at the scene.
GRACE: Right there in front of the church, on the church lawn, this newlywed bride, Francesca Weatherhead, slammed by a parolee who got right
out of jail with a long, long list -- show his mugshot, Liz, if you don`t mind. This guy -- he gets on immediate parole, he comes out and plows into
Francesca Weatherhead, the newlywed bride. She`s dead tonight. My question is why was he out?
Charlie Langton, why did he get out?
LANGTON: Well, he got out because he had -- he was up for parole back in September. Eight months later, the parole board said, If you take a
violence prevention program, you pass it...
GRACE: Wa, wa-wa-wa-wa-wait! Wa-wait! Wait! Wait! Hold on! You`re making my chest hurt. Did you say the parole board told him to take
a violence prevention class and he could get out?
LANGTON: That`s right. And he did. He claims he expressed remorse and insight as to what he did in the past, and he got a GED, and the parole
board said...
GRACE: Wa-wa-wa-wait! He got his GED? He got a GED, and said he would go to violence prevention, after this string of felonies? Charlie
Langton, how do you want to be -- how do you -- how would you like sitting on your sofa with your children, catching a little cartoon network or
Disney Jr., and then here comes John McCallum plowing through your front door with an Uzi? How would you like that, Charlie? Violence prevention
class!
LANGTON: I wouldn`t (INAUDIBLE)
GRACE: OK, Clark, why did this guy get out on parole?
CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, Nancy, he didn`t get out right away. He had to take this violence prevention program.
GRACE: Would you quit with the violence prevention class!
GOLDBAND: He did. And then six months later, he not only got his GED, which he showed to the parole board, according to reports, he also
expressed remorse, the parole board said in a written statement. And they said he provided insight into his crimes, that he understands why he did
what he did. All that was taken into consideration.
GRACE: He understood why he did what he did?
For those of you just joining us, we are live in the heartland tonight, upscale suburbs, a gorgeous young bride, Francesca Weatherhead,
dead because the pardon and parole board lets a repeat offender, a violent offender, out after he takes a violence prevention class? He gets out,
immediately does another home invasion with people home, armed. As he`s fleeing the scene with police chasing him, he plows into Francesca. She`s
dead.
Joining me right now, Angela Vitale. Her daughter was killed in the crash with the parolee. Angela, thank you for being with us.
ANGELA VITALE, MOTHER (via telephone): Thank you.
GRACE: It doesn`t even seem real to me, and I`m on the outside looking in. Tell me how you learned about this horrific crash.
VITALE: Well, everybody`s nightmare. I happened to be at home at the time. And I watched TV and the news came on. And I thought -- there`s the
scene of the car accident, and I thought that looked like my daughter`s car.
No sooner did that show on the news, I got a phone call from my other daughter saying that there was a horrific accident. I called her dad, and
he told me she was killed in the car accident! And I just couldn`t believe it! I asked him if that was the one on TV, and he had no clue. My
daughter didn`t have any clue, none of us.
We didn`t learn of it until hours later, after it happened. They didn`t come to her husband`s door until, like, 3:30, 4:00 o`clock. The
accident happened at 10:00, which is mortifying that my daughter lay there without our knowledge. My daughters were checking (INAUDIBLE) on a normal
daily basis trying to talk to her, with no response. It`s just horrible!
GRACE: Everyone, joining me right now is Angela Vitale. Her daughter, the newlywed bride, killed in this horrific car crash with a man,
a repeat offender, who has gotten out, gotten out, gotten out after one home invasion after the next, blasting into people`s homes armed. He tells
the parole board that he will take a violence prevention class, and they let him walk.
And now she is dead. Her mother sees this scene, this crash scene on TV, and says, Wow, that looks like Francesca`s car. It`s only hours later
that she learns it is Francesca`s car.
Ms. Vitale is with us. Angela, I don`t know how you are coping with this. I recall, when my fiance was murdered, what my days were like. I
want to know how you are getting through each day. And how is the groom coping with it?
VITALE: Nancy, he`s having a rough time. That was the love of his life. It was the love of his life! You know, they just spent a year
together. They were trying to have a baby. She just bought a rocking chair.
And this guy just gets out because what? He had to get a GED, when my daughter went through years of college and was working a job, and he took
the easy route to feed his drug habit. Really, Nancy? And you know what? The parole board -- that`s what it`s about. Maybe these people should be
held accountable.
And this is my problem. And I don`t understand how these people can sleep at night, letting these repeat offenders -- you know, did he do drug
testing? He was a heroin addict, breaking into homes for money. He got his GED. Why didn`t he get a job? Why isn`t he answering to the parole
board or probation or whoever? They should be held accountable.
GRACE: Let`s talk about the parole board, Angela. That`s the parole board that let this guy out after he does a violence prevention class?
VITALE: And Nancy, I would like to look at each of them in the face with my other two children and her father and Matthew (ph) and let them see
the pain that they have caused us for letting this guy out, that my daughter, who`s 25 years old, will never, ever, ever have a family or even
be able to make decisions like they made that ended her life.
Let me talk to them, Nancy, and I would be the first one to stand up to every single one of them. And I hope, I hope that they don`t sleep at
night, like me and my family aren`t sleeping at night. They should be held accountable. They get paid to let these people on the street!
GRACE: What`s so amazing to me, Angela, is he`s a career criminal. He has been in and out and in and out. I mean, it seems like after the
first one or two times you`re in jail, you figure out, I don`t want to do this again. I`m going to do whatever it takes to turn my life around and
not do this. He never went through that epiphany, Angela. He kept on committing crime after crime after crime.
And I don`t think that when you`ve already been given so many chances that you still just spit in the face of the system. And they really
expected him to change? Like, somehow, immediately because he took this class or said he took the class, that would change things, Angela?
VITALE: Right. Right.
GRACE: How is her father? How`s Francesca`s father doing?
VITALE: Oh, he`s -- you know, she was Daddy`s girl, so he`s taking it really hard! You know, he just walked her down the aisle a little over a
year ago. You know, this doesn`t happen -- it`s like it happens to everybody else, not us, you know? So it`s so -- you can`t even absorb it,
that it`s happened. None of us -- none of us (INAUDIBLE) you can`t imagine the pain that we`re going through every day!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A 25-year-old newlywed killed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love my sister very much!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Devastated. Why her?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reports the man was out on parole.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I`ve got McCallum`s rap sheet. It`s too long to even read it on the air, but I`ll just get -- unleash the lawyers, please -- Randy
Kessler, Atlanta, Trinity Hundredmark, a defense attorney also joining me out of the Atlanta jurisdiction.
OK, cocaine, narcotics, guilty. Home invasion, guilty. You know, he got 15 years in 2009. Why is he still out? Another home invasion, guilty.
Home invasion, guilty. So why did the parole board let him out after he takes a violence counseling class? And why shouldn`t he do the rest of his
life behind bars?
Frankly, I think he`s a great candidate for the death penalty, Trinity.
TRINITY HUNDREDMARK, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, he served his sentence. He was sentenced to 4 to 20 years, and he served 5. So he actually served
more than the minimum he was...
GRACE: I don`t think I heard you correctly. You said...
HUNDREDMARK: That`s what the reports are...
(CROSSTALK)
HUNDREDMARK: ... which is more than the minimum. It`s more than the minimum.
GRACE: OK, so...
(CROSSTALK)
HUNDREDMARK: I think we need to look at who actually sentenced him to begin with. And why didn`t they sentence him to more? Why didn`t the
judge who originally sentenced him sentence him to more time?
GRACE: Probably because...
HUNDREDMARK: Because he did more time than he had to, according to the parole standards.
GRACE: Randy, probably because that`s the minimum/maximum on home invasion is 20, and the parole board is the one that decides the person
will get out. Long story short, with his record, Randy, he should not have gotten out. And as Trinity accurately pointed out, it`s 4 to 20. So
saying 5 years, he did his time -- he didn`t do his time, Randy. I don`t know how you guys can do this!
RANDY KESSLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, you know, the truth is, hindsight`s 20-20, and I`m sure everyone on the parole board is regretting
it now.
GRACE: That`s what you`ve got to say, hindsight`s 20-20? OK.
KESSLER: Yes, but you know, they`re trying to figure out how to comply with the rules of the parole board, how to rehabilitate people. Did
he do the things...
GRACE: Rehabilitate? Didn`t you just hear, I read page one of his rap sheet!
KESSLER: Right. Well, he didn`t -- he -- none of them were murder. I`m not saying they weren`t bad, but this was not a murder. This was
something that was caused by a chase -- it`s not good. It shouldn`t have happened. He shouldn`t have been back out there. But he was not put
away...
GRACE: Caused by a chase! OK, hold on. Hold on.
KESSLER: Car chase. Right.
GRACE: Marc Klaas, did you hear that? Did you hear what Randy Kessler just said, that this was caused by a chase, that this 25-year-old
girl died because of a chase, like it`s the cops` fault, that it`s the chase, that it`s not McCallum`s fault.
MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Of course it is. You know, this really resounds with me, Nancy, because my daughter, too, was killed by a
repeat violent offender who had been released from prison after serving only a minimal sentence. And then three months later, Polly was dead.
In the United States of America, the sentencing structure really is a very big lie. Very few people spend their sentence behind bars. There are
so many reasons that they get out. They take a violence class. There are good times credits. There are very liberal parole boards. There are
sentencing standards that grandfather in retroactive sentencing. And it happens time after time.
That`s why the three strikes law resounded so well with the citizens of California, because it took into account the totality of an individual`s
criminal history. In other words, if they`d been sentenced, then if they repeatedly do the same thing, we know that they`re going to do it again.
GRACE: With me right now is Francesca`s mother, Angela Vitale. Angela, can you please give me your message tonight for viewers out there
that are hearing your story? I mean, I know you just heard the defense lawyers say that, quote, "He did his time." He didn`t do his time. His
sentence was 4 to 20. I don`t even have his complete record, Angela, and I just read the first page so I wouldn`t keep on reading to everyone. And
then to hear the defense attorney, Randy Kessler, state it was because of the crash -- the crash -- the chase did it.
VITALE: Well, my message is to Randy, that if the police don`t do their job and we continually let these criminals get away with things, what
is our society going to be? It`s already messed up enough as it is.
It goes back to the parole board. It wasn`t his first time. It wasn`t his second time. He`s a drug addict, in and out of prison, a GED,
whatever it took him to get. My daughter`s gone, Randy. And I understand -- I understand that the law is messed up, but maybe something has to
change.
GRACE: You know, Angela, I`m just thinking of you watching TV that day and you see this crash and you think, Wow, that looks like Francesca`s
car. What that is reminding me of -- I recall the day my fiance was murdered. I was in a statistics exam. And you`re going about your life,
and everything seems completely normal. And then, bam, you somehow end up becoming a statistic.
And you said something -- you said this happens to a lot of people. That`s such a hard pill to swallow. That`s just such a -- to have
everything and then suddenly lose everything in one moment.
VITALE: Because of some -- some loser who was let out of jail because he did four years, five years, whatever it was, out of a 14-year sentence.
Why have the laws? Why make the sentence that high? Give him a year and let him out, you know? Why make the laws? What are laws for? Why are
sentences so high when they have to just serve so little time?
GRACE: Angela, I want to hear -- I want the viewers here and the parole board to hear what your day is like when you first wake up in the
morning until the time you go to bed.
VITALE: I cry when I wake up in the morning! I wake up and think it hasn`t happened. I listen to my daughters cry themselves to sleep. I live
in a community where we know everybody and people were wonderful. They came up to us and they keep coming up to us. And it`s just -- it is just
an open wound continually. It`s -- I go to bed. I can`t sleep. I wake up. I can`t breathe. He`s going to be fine. He`ll be in jail. He`ll be
fed. I`ll be paying for him to be in jail.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Francesca Weatherhead dies, but suspect John McCallum survives. Reports the man was out on parole after multiple home
invasion convictions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight out to Charlie Langton with WWJ. For those of you just joining us, a beautiful 25-year-old newlywed bride killed by a repeat
offender after the parole board lets him out early. His rap sheet is so long, I don`t even have time to read it on the air -- multiple drug
convictions, multiple home invasions.
Imagine sitting on your sofa when this guy, McCallum, John McCallum, blasts in with a gun into your home. He had done this repeatedly, and that
day, he did it again, after the parole board lets him out, when he promises he`ll take a violence counseling class.
Charlie Langton, tell me the facts around that home invasion, the one that he was fleeing from.
LANGTON: Yes, he was trying to break into yet another house. He had a gun. Apparently, someone saw him, called the police. The police then
identify him, tried to get him to stop. He led the police on a high-speed chase. This guy ran a red light, crashed into Francesca, flipped her car,
and she died on the scene that day.
GRACE: Listen to this, Charlie. It was just a few weeks ago that Nina Vitale visited her big sister at Royal Oak. She had just bought a
toddler-size rocking chair. And the sister starts laughing, Francesca, you`re not even pregnant yet.
With me is Francesca`s mom, Angela Vitale. She was trying her best to have a baby at the time that she was killed. And this guy, armed yet again
with a weapon, leading police on a high-speed chase, crashes. Tell me about Francesca`s baby plans.
VITALE: Well, Francesca lived a fairy tale life. She went to school, she graduated, she was putting her husband through medical school. She
just bought her first home all on her own. And her next step was having a baby. And she bought the rocking chair and she told my daughter Nina not
to judge her. And because she wanted the next step of her life to happen. And unfortunately now it`s not going to happen. Because of this person.
And she just wanted to be married and to have children, have a family. She wanted her career. She was supposed to get a promotion. And now it`s all
gone. She worked for everything. Every goal she set, she obtained. She was ready for the next phase of her life. Now she`ll never have children,
grandchildren. They won`t have a life together. My other two girls won`t have a sister. My granddaughter won`t have an aunt because of what? He
has got a GED? That`s great. He got a GED. I`m proud of him. You know, Nancy, Nina`s here with me. Would you like to speak to her?
GRACE: Yes. You know, Nina, when I first started researching this case, I read about you visiting your sister, and she had bought this
rocking chair to rock -- I guess for the baby to sit in or for her to rock the baby in. And it just reminded me of all the dreams you have when you
first set out, and her wedding, so beautiful. I didn`t know she put her husband through school.
NINA VITALE: She -- I was talking about it today. My sister and Matthew, to witness their love, it was a once-in-a-lifetime love. It was
the type of love that people talk about, that they dream about. And my sister`s wedding day, I literally thank Matthew for letting me witness the
love he has for my sister.
When I went over there the other day, she goes, don`t judge me, but look what I bought today. And she said that she saw it outside of a
consignment shop, and it was like a little rocking chair for a toddler. And Francesca and Matthew`s laughing, you`re not even pregnant yet. She`s
like, I know. I know. I just thought it was so beautiful. And they had just started to have a -- started trying to have babies. And you know,
I`ve dreamed my entire life about growing up with my sister and watching her family grow. And it breaks my heart that I`m never going to be able to
see her live her life because of someone else`s ignorance and selfishness.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Now live upscale Texas suburbs, police race to the scene after a hysterical 911 call. 4:40 a.m. What`s inside that huge Tudor $4.5
million home? Cops find daddy dead in his own bed after an armed intruder dressed in all black breaks in, beats mommy in the face with a wrench, and
opens fire on daddy. All the while, their 4-year-old little girl asleep on the sofa. Nearby neighbors` grainy video surveillance reveals no
intruders, no prints on the murder weapon, no robbery, no sex attack. But now mommy claiming daddy actually commits suicide. Tonight, neither of
mommy`s stories add up.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At first she said an intruder did it. Then she said it was suicide.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michelle Williams changed her story.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can`t sit here and answer the questions the way everybody wants me to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight out to Robyn Walensky, anchor on the Blaze. Robyn, when I first heard this story, mommy is covered in bruises in attack.
She`s obviously -- look at that. But her story doesn`t add up. Robyn, let`s just take it from the top. What happened?
ROBYN WALENSKY: First of all, Nancy, she`s a big phony and a faker, and she`s a cold-blooded killer. The bottom line is this -- she says she
wakes up at 4:00 in the morning and their little 4-year-old daughter is asleep, and she goes to check on the kid, and then suddenly the mystery
man, an intruder, comes in dressed in black, as you would for this story, and then she says she was hit over the head by this guy. The next thing
she knows she wakes up and daddy is dead in bed, Nancy.
GRACE: Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hit in the head. I see she`s got a gigantic bruise to the side of her face. But were there any
other head injuries that would cause a concussion to knock her unconscious? And all of this, this attack on her husband where he`s shot dead in his own
bed, all happens while she mysteriously passed out?
WALENSKY: Yes. It`s a fraud is what it is. It`s a story. And there was nothing on her head that would indicate either she got hit over the
head with a 2 by 4 or a hammer or whatever.
Also, this is a very well-to-do neighborhood in Keller, where the homes are upwards of $2 to $4 million. This house was over 4 million. And
there`s videocameras, as there would be outside of homes of this nature, and there was no intruder. They had their eye apparently on the front door
and the neighborhood, and there was no intruder. There was nobody else apparently in the home that night except this woman, the daddy dead in the
bed, and the 4-year-old.
GRACE: You know, another thing along those lines, Robyn Walensky with The Blaze, we`ve done a lot of investigation on this case, and what we
learned is this is a highly guarded gated community, where a lot of rich people live. Check it out. And you can only go in and out of the
community itself through one area. There`s one gated entrance. And that is where one of the main surveillance cameras is. They caught one person
coming in during that time span, Robyn Walensky. It was the newspaper delivery boy around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning that comes every day and
delivers the paper. Then they see him leaving on time. He comes in, he`s in there 20 minutes or so, comes right back out. That`s the only person
caught on surveillance video, Robyn Walensky, that came inside that gated community.
WALENSKY: Right. It`s farcical. It`s a joke. So when she calls 911 in that very dramatic call that you`re playing, that`s all a fraud. That`s
all a fake for the cops, and she eventually reaches out to an adult son of hers from a previous relationship and tries to concoct another bogus story,
story number 2, where she`s saying, oh, wow, you know, maybe your brother Lee did this. So there`s a lot of bogus stories. By 12:00 noon, I want to
go back to another point, Nancy, by 12:00 noon on that same morning, this was the 4:00 a.m. hour when the 911 call comes in. By noon she`s telling
the police, well, I think he committed suicide and I wanted to, you know, protect all this from my daughter, from this information that my husband
committed suicide.
GRACE: Wait a minute. So she`s already starting to change her story. But hold on. You mentioned a 911 call. What can we learn? Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DISPATCHER: 911, where is the emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God. [ inaudible ]
DISPATCHER: Where are you, ma`am?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know.
DISPATCHER: You don`t know where you are?
(CROSSTALK)
DISPATCHER: Take a deep breath. What happened?
What happened, ma`am?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Somebody was -- (inaudible).
DISPATCHER: Somebody what?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need an ambulance. Please.
DISPATCHER: Ma`am, I can`t understand you. Can you take a deep breath and tell me what`s going on?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m at Jacob Avenue.
DISPATCHER: Jacob Avenue? What`s going on?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My husband was shot. Somebody was in the house.
DISPATCHER: Your husband what?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was shot in the head.
DISPATCHER: Your husband was shot in the head?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DISPATCHER: Okay, can you walk out front for me? What`s your name? Can you walk out front outside the house at [ muted ] Jacob Avenue for me?
The officers are going to come talk to you okay?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need an ambulance.
DISPATCHER: We`ve got an ambulance coming to you as well. Okay?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: There you heard it. An hysterical 911 call from mommy. Daddy found dead in his own bed. She claims an intruder, of course, dressed all
in black breaks into the home. No sex assault, no robbery. She`s beaten in the face with a wrench. Daddy dead. The 4-year-old little girl. Right
there on the sofa in the next room. Dr. Bill Manion, forensic examiner and pathologist, joining me out of Philly. Dr. Manion, I know she`s got the
big shiner on her face, but I didn`t read anything about any injury that would cause her to quote, black out or pass out during the attack on her
husband.
MANION: Yes, normally she would have had head injuries to the side of the head that would have caused a concussion. She has a black eye. It`s
interesting. If she`s right-handed, I would suspect the injuries are on the left side of the face. Because people will hit themselves with
whatever hand they have. If they`re right-handed, you`ll see injuries on the left side of the body. They may cut themselves. They may hit
themselves with a blunt force object. But we can usually guess that these are self-inflicted wounds.
GRACE: Joining me right now, special gust, Jack Strickland, the deputy chief district attorney in Tarrant (ph) County. Jack, thanks for
being with us.
JACK STRICKLAND, DEPUTY CHIEF DA: Certainly. Good afternoon.
GRACE: You`re no stranger to the courtroom. You tried a ton of cases. That 911 call, that was pretty convincing, Jack.
STRICKLAND: Well, it was pretty convincing until you stopped and listened to the substance of it. Of course, she immediately recanted that
about seven hours later down at the police station.
GRACE: Jack, that`s interesting. With me, Jack Strickland, deputy chief district attorney in Tarrant County, has tried more cases than we can
count. What got her to change her story and go, okay, okay, there wasn`t an armed intruder, I just did that to protect the children. He shot
himself. How did they get that out of her?
STRICKLAND: The police officer that was interviewing her began to point out discrepancies in her story, and all the while he was talking with
her, he was also getting reports from the crime scene itself, updating as to what was being discovered. And the more information they relayed to
him, the more obvious it became to him that this was a contrived story. He ultimately told her, look, it appears as if this is one of two
possibilities. Either this was a suicide or you killed your own husband.
GRACE: The thing about the suicide, Jack Strickland, it reminds me of a similar case I had years ago, where the husband said the wife committed
suicide, but I found blood when we took the sheets and held them up to the light at the crime lab, we found blood spatter on the sheets under which --
underneath where the pillow was, which would have been impossible for blood splatter at the time of the gunshot wound to go under a pillow.
The husband is right handed in this case. Didn`t he have his right hand under the pillow, he was sleeping like this, so he would have had to
shoot himself with his left hand, if you can imagine, picking up a gun with your alternate hand, shooting yourself in the head, didn`t he have his
right hand under the pillow, Jack?
STRICKLAND: Well, he did. Although that`s not a definitive answer as to whether or not he shot himself. Because she did admit to tampering with
the crime scene after as we contend she shot him. She wiped the guns down, she repositioned his hands. She cleaned up her own hands. That may be the
most interesting thing she did, if she wiped her own hands down, she would have had no reason to do that had she not had either powder residue or
blood spatter on her own hand.
GRACE: How did you know she wiped her own hands down?
STRICKLAND: She admitted that to the police officers. She used Clorox wipes, she had a number of those in the cabinet there in the home,
she flushed those wipes. But that`s one part of her story that she never did change was the fact that she had tampered substantially with the crime
scene.
GRACE: And of course, according to her, Jack, the reason she did that, was because she didn`t want her children to find out that their
father had committed suicide. But what can we learn from the 911 call? Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DISPATCHER: Did it happen in the house?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it happened in the room, in the bed.
DISPATCHER: It happened in the bed? Did he do it to himself?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
DISPATCHER: No?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The door is open and my little girl is on the coach.
DISPATCHER: Who did it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know. I got hit really hard.
DISPATCHER: You were hit in the head?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
DISPATCHER: Where is your daughter now?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s on the coach. She`s asleep.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: To Cheryl Hunter, trauma recovery expert, author of "Use It: Turning Setbacks Into Success." Cheryl, how could a parent do this, not to
the spouse but to their child in the next room on the sofa?
HUNTER: I can`t imagine, Nancy, that she`s particularly sane. Obviously given what we have learned today. But there`s also -- I don`t
think that the 4-year-old really could have slept through all this, a gunshot, an hysterical call in this way. So I`m really concerned about
what happens next with the 4-year-old. What did she hear? What did she witness? It`s possible now that if she`s cared for, this 4-year-old, and
surrounded by those who really will care for her and love her, safe people. That she`s treated with trained therapists. People who are trained
professionals. The 4-year-old can go on.
GRACE: With me, Cheryl Hunter, trauma recovery expert out of L.A.
Let`s remember American hero Army Staff Sergeant Edwin Dazachacon, 38, Diamond Bar, California. Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service
Medal. A Renaissance man. Loved music, history, poetry, culinary arts. Parents Smilla (ph) and Edison (ph), sisters Monique and Jessica. Edwin
Dazachacon, American hero.
Everybody, second edition of our books, nancygrace.com. Five winners tonight. Get hand signed sets, all three hardcover books. Money goes to
help abused children. Go to nancygrace.com and enter that contest.
Everyone, thanks for being with us. Drew up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then, good night, friend.
END
