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Nancy Grace
Driving While Facebooking, Three Dead
Aired March 09, 2015 - 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, to Prescott, Wisconsin. A young mom of two leaves an indoor playspace with her little girl and two
nieces in the family`s SUV. But as the children laugh and play in the back of Mommy`s Saturn, two blocks from home, Mommy spins out of control,
crashing into the path of an oncoming truck, Wisconsin highway 35, Mommy`s SUV plowing toward a steep embankment, her little Lydia dead on impact, the
two young nieces dead.
Bombshell tonight. Damning cell phone records prove Mommy chatting, texting on Facebook at the time of the horrific and deadly crash.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Little Clara Pavek`s life ended without any warning. The 5-year-old Prescott girl was a passenger in an SUV that spun
sideways on a two-lane stretch when it was hit by a large box truck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was just a beautiful soul!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And tonight, multi-million-dollar Hilton hotel heir, Paris Hilton`s brother, allegedly goes berserk on an airplane. Conrad Hilton
ends up handcuffed to his seat by flight captain`s orders when Hilton reportedly dismantles the bathroom smoke detector to smoke weed, threatens
to kill the flight attendant, then screams out, I will F-ing own you, peasant!
Is it true that Hilton money speaks again? The Hilton heir, subject to inherit millions and millions, threatens flight attendants with death in
the air on an international flight is actually getting straight probation? If that were you or me, we would be under the federal pen!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hilton heir and brother of Paris Hilton Conrad Hilton has a sweetheart deal to avoid jail time after threatening to kill
members of a flight crew, saying, quote, "I`m going to (EXPLETIVE DELETED) kill you," and smoking pot while miles high in the sky.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Conrad, any comments? Anything?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: To Orange County, California, a 19-year-old computer whiz accused of a bloody shooting spree inside his family`s $2 million mansion.
Police say tonight the teen student guns down his own parents in cold blood, then opens fire on his little sister and brother, leaving the 8-
year-old boy paralyzed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nineteen-year-old Ashton Sacks (ph) killed his mother Andra (ph) and his father, Brad, and allegedly tried to shoot his 8-
year-old brother to death.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Homicide investigators arrested Ashton Colby Sacks, the 19-year-old son of the deceased victims.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight, to Prescott, Wisconsin. A young mother of two leaves an indoor playspace with her little girl and two nieces in the
family`s Saturn SUV. But as the children laugh and play in the back of Mommy`s SUV, it`s just two blocks from home Mommy spins out of control,
crashing into the path of an oncoming truck, little Lydia, her girl, dead on impact, the two young nieces dead.
Tonight, damning cell phone records prove Mommy chatting, texting on Facebook at the time of the deadly crash. I don`t mean just talking on the
phone, I don`t mean hands-free talking on your speaker phone, I mean texting, chatting, writing words, letters with your hands while she`s
driving.
Liz, let`s see the footage of that area, a snowy, icy-looking road when she plows into an oncoming -- a huge box truck. Take a look at that
thing. She plows into it. It spins Mommy`s SUV around and around and around three or four times until she hits on that guardrail going down the
embankment. Mommy`s not wearing a seatbelt. It throws her out of the car, and the three children dead. You`re seeing information from the Wisconsin
Department of Transportation.
Now, catch this. Mommy says nothing. Weeks and weeks and weeks pass, and then the snow begins to thaw. And guess what`s found at the scene of
the crash? A cell phone. What`s on that cell phone? Mommy`s Facebook chat in the middle of the crash.
Straight out to Meredyth Censullo joining me, investigative reporter. Meredyth, what happened?
MEREDYTH CENSULLO, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER (via telephone): So what we know is that Kari was driving home from that indoor play area with her
daughter, her son and two young nieces. And recovered from the scene months and months after this crash was her cell phone. Her iPhone was
buried in feet of snow. And the phone was actually preserved, and officers were able to look at her phone, compare it to her phone records. And they
identified that between 3:05 and 3:39 in the afternoon, Kari was exchanging a Facebook chat...
GRACE: OK, who, whoa, wait! Meredyth, wait, wait! I`m looking right now at the three little victims, Lydia, Clara just 5, Laynie Jo just 5.
Oh! Oh, my goodness! Oh, these three angels! It`s just -- it`s hard for me to take in right now that all three of these children are dead because
Mommy is chatting on Facebook?
OK, Meredyth, pick it up.
CENSULLO: So we know the accident was reported at 3:41 PM, and according to the Facebook records and the cell phone records, Kari actually
sent her last message at 3:39. Then 30 seconds later, there was an incoming message that she didn`t respond to. But you can see only two
minutes there between her last message and the crash, and then also some time in between where she may have possibly been reading a message or...
GRACE: Well, hold on!
CENSULLO: ... attempting to respond...
GRACE: Hold on just a moment. Let`s analyze what Meredyth Censullo just told us. To Ben Levitan, or telecommunications expert joining me out
of Raleigh tonight.
Ben, hold on. She -- Meredyth just told us that the last text that Mommy sends was at 3:39. The crash is actually reported at 3:41. So in
less than two minutes, the crash has occurred and it`s now reported. Somebody`s actually calling it in to 911 to get help. What does that say?
BEN LEVITAN, TELECOMMUNICATIONS EXPERT (via telephone): Nancy, I see this every day. We got to look at it -- if we -- 20 percent of accidents,
one out of five accidents, is caused by a cell phones (INAUDIBLE) This is an epidemic. But we don`t know exactly when the accident happened. We do
know that she was in a text conversation. So she received that message. She was likely reading that message. And we can tell by people`s behavior
how...
GRACE: OK, you know, Ben...
LEVITAN: ... quickly they respond. Yes?
GRACE: I just heard a -- when I was researching this story, Mommy is actually writing on Facebook, chatting with someone via Facebook with four
children in the car. Three of them end up dead -- dead -- including her own daughter, her two little nieces. And then we find out she`s in the
middle of a chat.
What I found out -- to Corporal Dwaine Parker, accident reconstructionist -- Corporal, isn`t it true that in five seconds, if
you`re driving the speed limit, you go about the length of a football field? If you look away for five seconds, which is the general time of a
Facebook message, you have -- it`s like driving a football field blindfolded.
CPL. DWAINE PARKER, FMR. TRAFFIC HOMICIDE INVESTIGATOR (via telephone): You`re absolutely correct, Nancy. And the fact, whether she
was reading the text or writing on the phone, it really doesn`t matter. All of that is behavior that`s consistent with being distracted while
you`re driving. And at those highway speeds, you have very minimal time to react to anything that happens. And most often, when you`re distracted
driving, you tend to drift out of your lane. And reading through the report, it seems like this is what happened now. And then she
overcorrected the vehicle, and that`s what started the vehicle to spin out of control.
GRACE: Well, she hit this -- this huge boxcar truck first, is what I understand. Can you imagine? You`ve a car load of children. You`re just
coming from a jumpy house. You look up from your Facebook, and bam, you`re looking at the grill of this truck. If you don`t believe what the
reconstructionist is telling you, maybe you`ll listen to Oprah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are doing too much. Phones were not meant to be called on in a car. Your car is not your phone booth. Your car is a
place to get from A to B, and that is it. And your focus should be that and that alone. You`ve got precious cargo in that car -- your life, your
children`s life. They are not worth a phone call, a text, an e-mail. It`s not worth it. Get off the phone. Save a life. Don`t talk and drive.
That`s what we want to say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Now, that`s a clip from the Oprah Winfrey show from Oprah.com, and she started the whole movement about no texting while you`re driving.
I`m not talking about talking hands-free on speaker. This mom -- according to this cell phone that was found buried under the snow, Mommy was in the
middle of a full-on Facebook chat.
Back out to Meredyth Censullo. Give me the timing again. And what was so important that Mommy`s talking about while she`s driving? What is
she actually texting about while she`s driving?
CENSULLO: Unfortunately, I don`t know. What I have read is that she was chatting with a man on Facebook somewhere between 3:05 and...
GRACE: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. When you say a man -- now, just the tone of your voice says, what, like a boyfriend man?
CENSULLO: There is no clear evidence, at least as far as I have read, as to who she was chatting with. And in follow-up conversations, after she
came out of the coma, she said she has no recollection of the events that led up to the crash.
GRACE: OK, you know, we are looking right now at the actual crash from Wisconsin Department of Transportation. Now, the big box truck didn`t
take much of a hit, but that impact spun Mommy around three times, her children screaming in the back of the car by now to no avail. One child,
her own little girl, dies on impact. The others then die just two blocks from home. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A new law bans texting while driving in Wisconsin. If you text, you can get pulled over, and you will be fined.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: May I see your driver`s license, please?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Up to $400, which might not be so expensive, considering the price you could pay for texting while driving. Thumbs down
to texting, and let`s achieve zero deaths on Wisconsin roadways. Zero in Wisconsin, a vision we can all live with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Little Clara Pavek`s life ended without any warning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was just a beautiful soul, the most thoughtful, caring person!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But Mike Pavek and his wife aren`t just mourning the loss of their child.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My mother-in-law has lost three grandchildren.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Three children dead, two of them just 5 years old. Why? So Mommy could Facebook chat with a man on her way home? What, you couldn`t
wait to get in your own driveway? You`re just two blocks away. It couldn`t wait? What was so important?
And I`m not saying that everybody else hasn`t done it before, but we hear it over and over so much. It`s now against the law. Mommy chatting
away with a guy on Facebook when she plows into an oncoming truck. It spins around three times into this guardrail, leaving her little girl,
Lydia, dead upon impact, the two other children, her two nieces, dead -- dead. Now, Mommy comes out of it, claiming she remembers nothing.
But Ben Levitan, how do you restore a cell phone that`s been buried under snow for a couple of months and determine that at the time of the
crash, Mommy`s in the middle of texting on Facebook?
LEVITAN: Well, Nancy, you know that a cell phone records everything. Basically, if you drop your phone in water, it turns off immediately. It
shorts out. When they dried out the phone, they were able to find out what time she sent those messages. And on top of that, her phone has all sorts
of records about how fast she was going, exactly where she was located. You put all those...
GRACE: Wa-wa-wa-wait! How does a phone show how fast you`re going?
LEVITAN: Well, you know, you`ve got mapping applications. You`ve got all sorts of applications on your phone...
GRACE: Right.
LEVITAN: ... that are helping you do navigation. They`re helping you hand off to cell towers while you`re driving. All this information is in
your phone, Nancy. We know...
GRACE: Oh, so all they`ve got to do is then extrapolate from cell phone tower to cell phone tower and how many minutes it took you to get
there on that -- oh, I get it.
Unleash the lawyers. Joining me out of LA, Troy Slaten, defense attorney, out of Atlanta, Kirby Clements, defense attorney. All right,
Slaten, give me one good reason that Mommy shouldn`t be charged with murder. And I`m not talking about premeditated murder, I`m talking about
depraved indifference to human life.
TROY SLATEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, this cell phone record may be the very thing that exonerates her. You keep saying that she was texting
at the moment of the crash, and the evidence is clear that there was no texting two minutes before the crash.
GRACE: No, that`s not...
SLATEN: She may have put it down and then...
GRACE: Put him back up, please!
SLATEN: ... and then continued...
GRACE: That`s not at all -- that`s not at all...
SLATEN: ... to drive.
GRACE: ... what it shows. It shows her last incoming was at 39 plus -- 39-point-something, and then at 3:41, that`s less than two minutes, the
crash had already occurred and someone had already called it in, OK? So in a minute-and-a-half -- I don`t know what you`re saying. You must be doing
the new math that they teach you at the defense bar?
SLATEN: Your expert also said that four out of five crashes are not caused by texting. This was a snowy road. It was...
GRACE: OK, what does that mean to me...
(CROSSTALK)
SLATEN: ... kids screaming in the background...
GRACE: What that means to me, Slaten, is that one out of five is caused by texting.
SLATEN: That`s right, and so it seems like there are other reasonable explanations other than texting. So just because somebody happened to be
texting in their trip doesn`t mean that the text was the cause of this accident.
GRACE: OK, Kirby...
SLATEN: And it is a tragic accident.
GRACE: ... I see you shaking your head.
OK, Ben Levitan and Corporal Dwaine Parker. Also with me, Justin Freiman. Justin, why do police believe that she was texting at the time of
the crash? Because they`ve charged her with this.
JUSTIN FREIMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Because we see from the evidence that she was moving while these (ph) chat is going back
and forth. Texts are being sent and received while this vehicle is in motion, and you can`t tell when somebody`s looking down, reading something.
We know when a text came in. You don`t know when her eyes are...
GRACE: OK, hold on. So OK, Ben Levitan, what Justin Freiman just told us is that the texting was going on while she was moving. The
isolated text that came in at 3:39 was not the only text. I mean, she apparently had been texting for some time, Facebook chatting, while she`s
moving. And we know that because she`s pinging off every cell phone tower she`s passing as the chat`s going on.
LEVITAN: That`s right, Nancy. People have a pattern of how fast they respond. This -- we don`t know exactly when the accident happened, but
you`re exactly right. 911 was called after the accident. So it`s probably less than 30 seconds. And we can look at how often she sends those
messages. You know that -- people are creatures of habit. We can interpolate when she was texting. And if I had to look at this case, I
would probably say she was actively in a conversation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 5-year-old Prescott girl was a passenger in an SUV that spun sideways on a two-lane stretch.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My daughter loved her to death, loved being with her!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That afternoon, Kari Milberg had taken the four children to the Giggle Factory, an indoor play center in Hudson. They were
headed home when the tragedy struck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) smile (INAUDIBLE) she was a smile maker.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: After Mommy`s cell phone is recovered out from under this snow weeks after the deadly crash, we find out she`s in the middle of a Facebook
chat, actually writing words, texting. Three children now dead, two of them just 5, one of them 11 years old, their lives over.
Unleash the lawyers, Troy Slaten and Kirby Clements. All right, Kirby, you heard what the telecommunications expert, Ben Levitan, said, and
what police say, that she is traveling along and you can tell by her pinging off the cell towers, she is writing while she`s driving.
KIRBY CLEMENTS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No, and they have established that but they have also said pretty much, We`re just going to guess that at the
time of the accident that she was also doing the same thing. They haven`t mentioned the condition of the tires of this vehicle, and it`s an icy
roadway. She seems to have lost control of the vehicle not because of texting, but because of the condition of her tires. And because her
tires...
GRACE: OK, do you know that she had bad tires, or are you just guessing?
CLEMENTS: No, I believe from what I -- the research I did that her tires could not adequately drain the liquid away or the water away, and so
her tires were not that -- were not that, I guess, road-worthy, if you will. That was a contributing factor and probably the main factor and not
the texting. She lost control of her vehicle driving on the icy roads and she had a crash. It`s bad that she was texting beforehand, but she wasn`t
in the act of texting right now.
GRACE: OK, you know what, Kirby? I have to give it to you, that`s a really good try. It is.
CLEMENTS: It`s an awesome try.
GRACE: But Mommy -- it was. But Mommy is in the middle of a very long discussion with a man on Facebook. I mean, it wasn`t ending there.
Tell me, explain to me one more time, Justin, how it went down?
FREIMAN: Nancy, according to this report, the police specifically state that she was sending and receiving Facebook chat messages just prior
to the crash, and it is likely that driver inattention is a significant contributing factor, whereas the tires, they`re only saying, could have
been a contributing factor. But they first are stating about this chat that is going on.
GRACE: Is she going to trial, Meredyth Censullo?
CENSULLO: Yes, she`s currently facing three felony charges, and those charges are homicide while operating a vehicle negligently, also
(INAUDIBLE) So each of those felonies is carrying a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. She is scheduled to be in court later on this month.
GRACE: You know, the other thing -- to Dr. Bill Manion, forensic pathologist -- I know that she is suffering, suffering, suffering over her
daughter and her two nieces. I know she is. You know, people do something reckless without intending the consequences. I don`t think for one minute
this mother meant for this to happen.
Dr. Manion, explain to me why texting while driving is so deadly.
DR. BILL MANION, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST (via telephone): Well, we`re traveling -- people can`t appreciate it when you`re driving, we`re
traveling hundreds of feet per second. And simply glancing away to read a sentence takes four, five, six, seven seconds. And in that timespan,
you`ve gone 10, 20, 30 car lengths, and people don`t appreciate it.
I think cars are so well built today, the roads are so smooth, the drive is so smooth, we take it for granted that you can look away. And
really, things come up very quickly. Even when you`re driving, look how often you`re surprised by a -- by a pedestrian or a dog or a bicyclist.
GRACE: When I heard that statistic, that you -- the general time for a text is five seconds. In five seconds while driving, you drive -- it`s
like driving a football field length blindfolded.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Tonight multi million dollar Hilton hotel heir Paris Hilton`s brother allegedly goes berserk on an airplane. Conrad Hilton ends up
handcuffed to his seat. When Hilton reportedly dismantles the bathroom smoke detector, so he can smoke weed, threatens to kill the flight
attendant and screams out, I will f-ing own you peasants. If that were you or me, we would be under the federal pen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hilton heir Conrad Hilton lashed out during an international flight, punched at but missed a flight attendant, and entered
the jet`s bathroom to smoke marijuana. Now, a sweetheart deal could keep him out of jail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re a scumbag.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m a scumbag?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Witnesses heard Hilton calling people on the plane peasants and telling them he owns them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: A correction. The Hilton heir did not just call them peasants, he called them effing peasants. Apparently Hilton money, Hilton
millions has spoken yet again, all right? Part of the reason Paris Hilton didn`t do substantial time behind bars. Now her brother`s getting the same
treatment. Because it`s been set up, the ink is dry, it all depends on whether a judge accepts or rejects straight probation, after according to
the flight attendants, he takes a swing, punches at them, and that`s not all. You think he`s really learned his lesson? Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Conrad, any comment?
You lost your cool? Conrad, any comments? Do you regret your actions?
Any comments?
Any comments? Do you regret your actions?
Any comments? Anything, anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re a scumbag.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m a scumbag?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Me?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: He couldn`t stop himself.
He couldn`t stop himself. He just had to call a reporter a scum bag. He couldn`t hold back. No restraint whatsoever. A Hilton heir, the Hilton
heir, Conrad Hilton, has threatened to punch, threatened to kill flight attendants. What happened? With me Candace Trunzo, senior news editor,
Dailymail.com. When we covered this before the one time it first happened, I can`t believe that has culminated in him getting straight probation. Is
he even getting an anger management class? Is he even getting a tap on the wrist, anything?
TRUNZO: Nothing. Nothing, Nancy. This is an entitled spoiled brat who went on this incredible drug fueled meltdown. And he has gotten away
with it, I mean, the f bomb, the smoking marijuana in an airplane bathroom, smoking cigarettes. Dismantling a smoke detector, attacking a flight
attendant. The abuse and everything that went on in that plane, and the aggressive behavior, the threats. He threatened children, Nancy.
GRACE: Here`s the thing, I was reading -- Chloe Melas is with us, CNN news reporter, Hollywoodlife.com along with Candace. In the legal
documents, we see where the flight attendant says that Conrad Hilton actually punched at but missed the flight attendant.
CHLOE MELAS, HOLLYWOODLIFE.COM: Yes.
GRACE: Throws a swing at a flight attendant? I mean, No. 1 pinning the flight attendant stuck up there in first class with Conrad Hilton.
Smoking a big fat doobie in the bathroom, everybody can smell it. But then to come out, look them in the eye and say, I can effing own you, peasant.
I`ll have all your jobs. My daddy`s going to fix it all again. He paid 300 grand last time, that was his quote. I guess his father is shelling
out again?
MELAS: Nancy, he`s now hired a big Hollywood attorney by the name of Robert Shapiro, I`m sure you know who that is. He just expects to walk
away from this, with probation. You or me could spend up to 20 years in federal prison for something like this. And it just looks like the Hilton
money talks again. It looks like he`s going to get away with this.
GRACE: All those times, Candace, anyone dares to misbehave on a plane after September 11, they meet you at the gate with security and drag,
physically drag you away. And you go to jail. Why is this different?
TRUNZO: Well, it`s different because he`s got a lawyer who knows the ropes, who says that, you know, he took a sleeping pill before he got on,
and --
GRACE: He took a what?
TRUNZO: A sleeping pill before he got on the plane.
GRACE: Wait a minute. Dr. Manion, sleeping pills are supposed to make you groggy and tired and sleepy. Not make you agitated and want to
fight and take a swing at the flight attendant.
MANION: That`s right. But I think he`s also suffering from severe sleep deprivation.
GRACE: Okay, very quickly, Kirby Clements, please, you threatened to kill a flight attendant. Just don`t start telling me how this is okay,
that he gets probation. Can you just acknowledge, Kirby, that if you had done that or I had done that, we would totally go to jail. First of all,
they would probably beat us black and blue when they dragged us off the plane, which we would deserve if you threaten to kill a flight attendant.
No jail time, Kirby? Really?
CLEMENTS: You know what, in this situation, I think they`re -- in the grand scheme of things, let`s put aside his money. It`s just an unruly,
drunk, high passenger. You see cases with drunk high people all the time on the airlines, acting out.
GRACE: Acting out is a lot different than threatening to kill the flight attendant.
CLEMENTS: He didn`t brandish a weapon, he was just being stupid. That`s what his lawyer has established to the prosecutor, this guy was just
being some stupid kid. In fact, he was being a little spoiled rich kid.
GRACE: A rich kid.
CLEMENTS: So you know what, you want to get probation -- that`s all this case is worth, it`s just a probation case, nothing to see here, move
on.
GRACE: I`m glad you feel that way, Kirby, because I`m booking you a one way trip to London, and your passenger, you`re going to be sitting with
Conrad Hilton, okay?
CLEMENTS: He`ll mind himself.
GRACE: In fact, you can go to the bathroom with him and enjoy the big fat doobie he`s having in there. There`s a big sign, dismantling this
smoke detector is a federal offense. Right, right, a federal offense, it means nothing.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: To Orange County, California. A teen boy, a computer whiz accused of a bloody shooting spree inside his family`s two million dollar
mansion. Tonight police say the teen boy guns down his own parents in cold blood. Then the boy opens fire on his sister and his little brother.
Leaving the 8-year-old boy paralyzed. But why? The teen boy was convinced he wasn`t mommy`s favorite.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Homicide investigators arrested Ashton Colby Sachs. The 19-year-old son of the deceased victims.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was taken into custody. And arrested for special circumstances murder, which could get him the death penalty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a true whodunit in the beginning. Very little evidence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Murder weapon has been recovered, along with surveillance tape, which helped lead investigators to Sachs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Straight out to Steve Helling with People magazine, it`s on your front cover. I don`t understand what happened.
STEVE HELLING, PEOPLE MAGAZINE: Nancy, you and I have seen a lot in this industry, and this is one of the worst I`ve ever seen. This is a teen
boy who everybody thought had it all together. He wasn`t weird, there was nothing strange about him, and he drives 18 hours and shoots his parents.
Shoots a -- his younger brother, shoots his younger sister, and we don`t even really know why, other than the fact that he feels like he wasn`t the
favorite kid.
GRACE: All of what we`re talking about are just allegations. He has not been convicted. Hold on, out to the lines. Hi, Michelle, what`s the
question.
CALLER: Hi, Nancy, can I please ask the obvious question, because he`s a teen boy, can he still get charged properly with a long prison
sentence?
GRACE: Well, he`s advanced enough that I think he will get a murder charge. I want to go out to you, Clark Goldband. I don`t understand what
led up to it. Everything seemed to be going on -- you`re looking at the $2 million home where this family lived. Now dad, mom and dad, Brad and
Andrea Sacks shot in their bed as they lay sleeping. Then he opens fire on his 8-year-old little brother and his little sister. Clark Goldband, what
happened?
GOLDBAND: Here are the allegations, as authorities state them. Here`s what we know at this hour. Apparently this young man was so
overcome by grief, he wanted to give a eulogy at his parents funeral, he did. He was a pallbearer, Nancy, carrying the caskets of his mother and
father. Authorities searched his cell phone, and according to police, they became suspicious when they saw search entries online about murder, about -
-
GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What did you say about the John Wayne airport?
GOLDBAND: Nancy, apparently there was information being searched by this teen boy about John Wayne airport and about levels of murder in
California, according to authorities.
GRACE: Levels of murder. Okay, what do you mean by -- what did he mean by that, Steve Helling? Joining us from People magazine, that`s their
front cover. You didn`t mention anything about that. You just said, you know, all of a sudden he opens fire.
HELLING: I will tell you that he told authorities he was in Washington state when this happened, and come to find out no, that`s not
true. He was in California. His phone puts him there.
GRACE: What can you tell me about this alleged bedside vigil?
HELLING: Well, you know, he was sitting by his brother crying saying, my brother`s going to grow up without a father, this is terrible. While
his brother was recovering from the very injuries that Ashton had inflicted.
GRACE: I notice in your magazine article, it says, what makes a son suddenly snap? But that`s entirely wrong. What do you mean snap, because
he`s apparently been looking this up online for days, even planning his getaway from the airport. So what`s the snap you are talking about? What
snap?
HELLING: Well, you know, he went from being a kid with no priors, no -- no indication --
GRACE: How would you know that? If he is a juvenile, we don`t know what his record is. We don`t know what he has been up to. That`s kept
secret.
HELLING: Police have said and they stipulated that he has not gotten in trouble before, he does not have a juvie record we don`t know about.
What we know is that he was off at college. Then all of a sudden, he made this decision.
GRACE: Hold on. Put Helling up. Why are you trying to hide the facts from me? I`m reading out of your article in your magazine. People
magazine. It says that this guy, Ashton Sacks, delivers a tearful eulogy. He talks about how he loved his parents and recalled sister. He said he
had a dream that they weren`t all dead and they drove up and said, bullets can`t kill us.
HELLING: Right. That`s exactly right. By the way, Nancy, I would never hide anything from you. My life is an open book.
GRACE: It`s not working. Unleash the lawyers. Troy Slaton and Kirby Clements, I didn`t realize the degree of premeditation that he had been
looking up how to kill, the levels of murder in California and how to make a getaway from John Wayne airport. What`s your defense?
SLATEN: It`s clear he had some sort of psychotic break. He was awake for four days. He drove for 18 hours straight. This is not a person that
had all their marbles together.
GRACE: Put him back up, please. A psychotic break. When you are planning your getaway clearly ahead of time, that clearly shows you know
what you are doing is wrong.
CLEMENTS: I have to disagree with you. I have to say this. He sounds like he was in an extreme state of mania.
GRACE: No offense, but you started that out -- you`re not a stutterer.
(CROSSTALK)
CLEMENTS: I`m not searching. I`m right there on it. You just disagree with it. The fact of the matter is, he was awake for those number
of days. He was in extreme mania. Just because you have mental illness doesn`t make you foolish, doesn`t make you ignorant. People with severe
mental illness that are acting out do things that are well thought out, well planned out, but it`s the product of their mental illness.
GRACE: What mental illness does he have?
SLATEN: A mental illness that would cause you to kill your parents and shoot your brother and sister.
CLEMENTS: And give a eulogy yourself. This boy is acting ridiculous.
GRACE: Dr. Ramani Durvasula, if that were true, every single killer would be mentally ill.
DURVASULA: Amen, Nancy. At the end of the day, there is no single mental illness out there that would cause somebody to kill their family.
And I think the lawyers should stick to lawyering and leave the diagnosis to me.
GRACE: All of what we are talking about are just allegations. He has not been convicted.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Back to People magazine writer Steve Helling. You have heard the defense lawyers insisting that this -- as we are saying, teen boy. He
is 19. He was 19 then. I guess he`s 20 now. What mental illness? Do you, who have studied and researched this, was there any mental illness he
was being treated for? I know he told his parents, I told you I was going to commit suicide and you didn`t even notice.
HELLING: Yes. There was a point where -- there was a suicide attempt that he did have. To our knowledge, he was not being treated for any
ongoing mental illness or anything along those lines. We do know that he was a moody, brooding type of kid.
GRACE: You can say that about a lot of teen boys, but that does not equal mental illness. I`m thinking about this bedside vigil. You know
what? You are concealing it from me. Clark Goldband, what can you tell me about the bedside vigil?
GOLDBAND: Nancy, according to his ex-girlfriend, who spoke to People magazine, he was there virtually every day by the side of his 8-year-old
brother hoping he would improve, wanting to obtain custody. Nancy --
GRACE: Wait a minute. How do I know he was hoping the boy would improve? How do I know he wasn`t hoping the boy would pass away and
couldn`t rat him out? All of what we are talking about are just allegations. He has not been convicted.
GOLDBAND: Nancy, that`s a fair point. This is from the point of view of the ex-girlfriend. Nancy, one more thing I want to point out here is,
he currently is still only charged. They have pleaded not guilty. This is going to trial, Nancy.
GRACE: Yes. All of what we are talking about are just allegations. He has not been convicted.
Let`s stop and remember American hero Army Sergeant First Class James Priestap. 39, Hardwood, Michigan. Bronze Star, Purple Heart, National
Defense Service Medal. A natural leader with a passion for sports, always believed being mediocre in life was not for him. Parents, Roy and Denise.
Widow, Connie. Children Francesca and Brody. James Priestap, American hero. Drew up next with the latest on Bobbi Kristina Brown. I will see
you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
