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Nancy Grace
Police Search for Missing Mom of Five. Aired 8-9:00p ET
Aired July 14, 2015 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEAN CASAREZ, GUEST HOST: We begin tonight with breaking news out of Bardstown, Kentucky, where a mother of five, Crystal Rogers, vanishes
without a trace, her maroon Chevy found abandoned on the side of a highway with a flat tire, her keys, her purse, her cell phone all left behind. A
search warrant has now been executed at the 240-acre farm of her boyfriend`s family. What does that mean?
Tonight, new questions from Crystal Rogers`s family about where Crystal was in the hours before she went missing. We investigate the
mystery of the missing mom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve been 100 percent completely honest with everyone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators spent several hours at the home Crystal Rogers and her boyfriend, Brooks Houck, shared.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`ve been 100 percent cooperative.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: K9 dogs searched this SUV parked in the driveway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m 100 percent completely innocent in this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: And chilling video captures the moment police say a teenage girl gets behind the wheel in Lincoln Park -- look at this video -- accused
of plowing her car into a crowd in a shocking hit-and-run. Police want to know, was she using that car as a deadly weapon?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A witness captured it all, the rage that pushed a teenage girl to plow a car into a crowd.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: And we go to Irving, Texas, tonight, where a family day at the pool turns so tragic, three young siblings, just 9, 10, 11 years old --
they all drown at the community pool at the very same time, their lifeless bodies pulled out one by one as their mother looks on in grief.
But tonight, was she negligent? Was she restless? Was she distracted, texting on her cell phone? Or is there even more to this
story?
Good evening. I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. Thank you so much for joining us.
We begin tonight with the mystery of the disappearance of mother of five Crystal Rogers as new questions mount about the timeline. Let`s go
straight to Vicki Delys Hyde. She is the news director at Hometown Radio Network. Vicki, what is the very latest in the search for Crystal?
VICKI DELYS HYDE, HOMETOWN RADIO NETWORK (via telephone): Well, I spoke with the sheriff`s office again today. And you all are probably
aware that we had terrible weather here in Kentucky. We had -- overnight. We had flash flooding and trees down and roads blocked and 70-mile-an-hour
winds.
But they did go out again today and they are continuing to search with a whole lot of volunteers and law enforcement, and of course, some of her
friends and -- and family who are in law enforcement are even out there on their own time.
So they`re -- basically, they`re searching around her house. They`re searching around the parkway and the area, the interstate where her car was
found, and they`re now following up -- continuing to follow up on that search warrant that they got for Houck`s mother`s farm.
CASAREZ: That`s what I want to ask you about. And we`re going to talk about the weather in a second because that obviously is critical when
you`re talking about forensic evidence or recovery or finding somebody who is missing.
But they executed a search warrant where?
HYDE: She was last seen on Friday at his mother`s farm. Crystal and Brooks and their 2-and-a-half-year-old were at his mother`s farm on Friday
evening, and that was the last time anyone saw her. Now, he said that the three of them went home to their place.
CASAREZ: That is -- that`s very interesting, Vicki. I want to go to Stacey Newman. Stacey, just refresh us all because the timeline is there
on that Friday night, that is the last time, wherever it may be, that she was seen alive. Just describe for me, according to her boyfriend, because
that`s really all we have at this point, what exactly happened.
STACEY NEWMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, let`s back up to the Friday afternoon because she went to Walmart at about 4:00 PM. She had
maybe one or two of the children with her there. Then she went to show a rental property that they had listed because he does own some rental
properties in the area. She went to show that.
She came home at about 5:00 o`clock that evening. They had dinner. And then at about 7:00 o`clock, 7:30, that`s when they went to the family
farm. They came home later that night, and the boyfriend says at about midnight, he went to bed, but he left her up playing games on her cell
phone, Jean.
[20:05:17]Their child, their 2-year-old child, was still awake. He went to sleep. and he says the next morning, he wakes up, Crystal Rogers
is gone.
CASAREZ: And Crystal Rogers`s car was found on that Sunday to the side of a road on the Bluegrass Highway with a flat tire, but here`s the
thing. The car was unlocked, the key was in the ignition, and her purse, her cell phone, all the personal belongings were right there in the front
seat.
We`ve got with us tonight the father of Crystal Rogers, Tommy Ballard, who is still continuing to search for his daughter, to find this beautiful
young woman and a mother who has left young children wondering where their mother is.
Mr. Ballard, thank you for joining us.
TOMMY BALLARD, FATHER OF MISSING WOMAN (via telephone): You`re welcome.
CASAREZ: I just want to understand this timeline because her boyfriend, who she has a child with and lives with, is saying that it was
not unusual for her, due to frustrations, to leave the home and go spend the night someplace else with a cousin. So he wasn`t really concerned when
he woke up the next morning and she wasn`t there.
To your knowledge, sir, does she leave her child and her home to go someplace else?
BALLARD: No. I`ve talked to her cousin, my niece. She said she left, like, four to six times, like a day or a day-and-a-half at a time.
She said she`s come over one or two times at the most, and she`s had that baby with her every time.
CASAREZ: So in other words, the cousin said that she had left the home out of frustration or stress, but she`d always taken her child with
her.
BALLARD: Right. But not that night before. She did not talk to her cousin that night.
CASAREZ: You know, the boyfriend, who is the father of her child, Brooks, has been cooperating with police, hasn`t even gotten an attorney,
given statements. Nancy spoke with him last week extensively on this show. Have you spoken to him since your daughter went missing?
BALLARD: No.
CASAREZ: You haven`t?
BALLARD: No. We`ve -- my wife did see him on that Sunday. She seen him going down the road. She pulled him over. She asked him, she said,
Have y`all had a fight? And he said, Well, you know how Crystal is. She`s gets a little huffy, but I haven`t seen her. I don`t know where she`s at.
She said, Well, I`m going to the police. And he said that would probably be a good idea. And then he drove off (INAUDIBLE)
I`ve asked (ph) the police, I got 200 volunteers, if we could go to that farm and they said, No, he does not want anybody at all on that farm.
And he`s not come out and helped us search. His family`s not offered to help us search.
I mean, if I had a girlfriend, the mother of my baby, I don`t care if I didn`t get along with some of the family members, I would be there.
CASAREZ: And the police are saying that he is cooperative every step of the way.
BALLARD: (INAUDIBLE) Yes, ma`am.
CASAREZ: We do have a bit of that interview that Nancy conducted with him. We want everybody to hear it. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROOKS HOUCK, BOYFRIEND OF MISSING WOMAN: I`ve been 100 percent completely honest with everyone. I`ve been 100 percent cooperative in
everything that has been asked of me. I`ve not asked for any kind of legal advice or assistance or an attorney of any nature.
I`m 100 percent completely innocent in this, and I have exhausted my efforts with the law enforcement agencies to gather all the facts necessary
to allow me to have a clean name again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Now that`s curious right there, "allow me to have a clean name again," because he`s not a suspect. He`s not a person of interest.
He`s someone that lost the mother of his child and he`s cooperating with police. So I`m a little confused, I think, at that statement that he made.
But Mr. Ballard, let me ask you this. Before your daughter went missing, how was your relationship with Brooks?
BALLARD: With Brooks? We had a little disagreement over one of the grandkids, so he wasn`t allowed at my place and I didn`t go to his. But
people -- you know, there`s a lot of people think he`s a nice person. And he might be.
CASAREZ: Let me ask you this. Has law enforcement told you at all what were the last things on her phone? Was she playing games that night?
Did she call anyone at all?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. They`ve got a guy going through that phone because they don`t know how. They`ve got a guy from another state going
through that phone today. He told me that today, but they haven`t told us anything. They said they don`t want to jeopardize nothing. And I
understand that. And the law enforcement -- they`ve been extra nice to us. I mean, they`re really working hard.
CASAREZ: Right. Let`s go to Matthew Horace, who is a law enforcement and security expert out of New York. I want to talk about that phone
because I think that phone could be key right there. Am I not correct? And don`t they already know at this point who she last spoke to, if she was
playing games on the phone, as the boyfriend says?
[20:10:06]MATTHEW W. HORACE, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND SECURITY EXPERT: Oh, you`re absolutely right. You know, the phone`s going to be critical in
determining who were the last persons she spoke to. Who did she speak to? Who did she text? What`s on her e-mails? How many times did she text
these people?
And you better believe that police already know the answers to those questions. They`re just not releasing that information to the family for
good cause.
CASAREZ: And to Dr. William Morrone, forensic pathologist joining us tonight out of Madison Heights, Michigan -- the storms have been violent in
the last few days, so when we think about those storms and searching for forensic evidence, evidence of fingerprints or anything, the weather can
absolutely make it insurmountable for law enforcement, right?
MR. WILLIAM MORRONE, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, any kind of storm activity and rain is going to really wreak havoc on finger oils associated
with fingerprints and any contact or transfer of fibers or DNA.
But the benefit is that the storms may slow down decay and recovery to actually try to find the body in a better state. So we`re talking about
recovery here. We`re not talking about rescue. So we`re worried a little bit about decomposition, and the stages of decomposition will slow down in
cooler and wetter activity.
CASAREZ: And officially, this is a missing persons case. They still believe they can find her. We`re going to have more on this in just a
second.
But first, to tonight`s "Case Alert." The search for a 2-year-old Idaho toddler who vanishes on a family camp trip -- Dior Coons (ph) was
last seen the afternoon of July 10th near Timber Creek Reservoir. He`s got blond, shaggy hair. He was wearing a camo jacket, blue pants and cowboy
boots.
If you have any leads at all, please call the Idaho Criminal Intelligence Center at 208-846-7676.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:16:09]NANCY GRACE, HOST: Did you report her missing?
HOUCK: No, ma`am.
GRACE: Why?
HOUCK: That is a great question.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can`t understand how you live with the mother of your baby for 3-and-a-half years and you don`t report her missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s had no emotion. It`s like nothing`s changed to him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace.
There is a $71,000 reward now to find Crystal Rogers, who has been missing for over a week. With us tonight is her father, Tommy Ballard, who
wants to find his daughter.
Mr. Ballard, your daughter`s car was found Sunday morning to the side of the Bluegrass Highway. Is this a freeway? And does she travel that
area?
BALLARD: Yes, it`s a busy parkway. Only way she would have been traveling that (INAUDIBLE) to her friends, like -- lives, like, two-and-a-
half hours away. And we`ve talked to her. She said she would have called. She only had 148 miles to empty in her tank. So she don`t travel that
road. I`m telling you, she was not in that car. I`m the one who found that car, me and her brother, at 5:00 o`clock Sunday.
CASAREZ: You found that car?
BALLARD: Yes. We had some guy call me, and he said he thought he seen it, and me and my son went there and found it. It was unlocked
(INAUDIBLE) her purse was in the seat, in the passenger seat. Her phone was there.
CASAREZ: What about her credit cards? What about her personal belongings in that -- in the wallet?
BALLARD: We didn`t touch nothing. They haven`t told us what was in her wallet or nothing. I know she don`t have a bank account, so if she had
any money, it would have been on her. And right across the road, you could see a security light to a house probably 50 yards away. If she`d have been
in that car at night, she would have locked her car and took her phone and went to that house.
CASAREZ: You know, to Kenya Johnson, prosecutor, joining us tonight from Atlanta. When you look at that car right there, this very easily --
and the car had a flat tire. So if you funnel just common logic right there -- and we do know that it was a nail that was in the tire, that you
can easily get on the roadway -- you pull over. And with all of her belongings in it and the key in the ignition, something seemed to happen
very quickly. So this could have been just something very random that happened to her.
KENYA JOHNSON, PROSECUTOR: Yes. Her belongings being in the car is definitely very suspicious. But the interior of that car is where law
enforcement should also focus to see whether there are any forensic evidence, such as hair fibers that do not belong to anyone in her family.
And that would lend to someone else being in that vehicle at the time of the vehicle stopping.
So they should definitely focus on the interior of that vehicle to see if there`s any foul play.
CASAREZ: To Jason Lamm, defense attorney out of Los Angeles tonight, not Arizona -- I want to ask you, the boyfriend has been cooperating. He`s
not gotten an attorney. He`s saying things freely. Are you concerned about that as a defense lawyer?
JASON LAMM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Jean, it`s not the advice that I would give my client. But in the boyfriend`s mind, if he`s innocent, he
has nothing to hide.
And the investigation needs to focus on the truth, not the blame game. In this country, we have something called the presumption of innocence.
God help me for sounding like Donald Trump, but this is America. He is innocent until proven guilty.
So why don`t we take a look at his phone? I`m sure he`d cooperate. Because phones not only tell you who you`re talking to, but they tell you
where the phone has been. Phones coordinate with cell phone towers. So maybe the boyfriend`s phone will show and his phone records will show that
he was home the entire night. That would eliminate him as a suspect.
That would get us to the truth. That`s what we`re looking at.
CASAREZ: And we`re also looking at what he said to see if it`s truthful. And we did learn tonight that she did -- Crystal Rogers did
leave her home to go to a cousin`s house when she got stressed, but she`d always take her child.
[20:20:10]To Robert Schalk, defense attorney joining us out of New York tonight. He took a lie detector test, and it was inconclusive. Would
that be important to you as a defense lawyer?
ROBERT SCHALK, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes and no. I mean, most courts of law, lie detectors aren`t even admissible for purposes of him moving
forward if he was ever named a suspect. Number two, again, I mean, who`s giving it? Who`s administering it? Was it law enforcement? Was it a
secret private -- I`m sorry, a private security company? So there`s a lot of unanswered questions before, you know, that could actually come back to
harm him.
But as Jason said, he`s presumed innocent. He`s cooperating with the authorities. That`s the most important thing. If the police are satisfied
with his level of cooperation, he`s doing everything that`s required of him by the law.
CASAREZ: All right, I want to ask Ramani Durvasula, clinical psychologist joining us out of Los Angeles. You know, when you look at a
lie detector test, polygraph, and you listen to his voice, which we have listened to tonight -- it`s very monotone. It is not emotional. It`s just
sort of straight. Can that influence a polygraph?
RAMANI DURVASULA, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: It can, but we also have to be careful, Jean, because people are going to cope with these kinds of
shocks and fallouts in different ways. So we cannot use the quality of his voice as an indictment here.
I do think, as you know, that lie detectors work on sort of autonomic arousal. They`re working on internal signals, and they`re looking at
inconsistencies in those. now, whether that`s happening to him and how his voice (INAUDIBLE) we have to be really careful because that`s not really
based in the data.
I think people want to see someone hysterical after something like this happens. And when they`re not, we become very quick to judge. I
think that more information has to come in before we assume that his voice and this lie detector are going to give us enough information.
CASAREZ: And really, the reason we`re talking about him is that he is her boyfriend. He was the last person to see her, and he is cooperating
with police. And he went so far as to take the polygraph and give statements. And maybe he`s not out searching, but in his words, he`s
behind the scenes, working with law enforcement to try to find her.
Tonight, new details in the Baby Doe mystery. Police are working to ID the little girl after her remains found along the Boston harbor shore
three weeks ago. Investigators believe the little girl`s body was actually dumped at the scene and it didn`t wash ashore.
They also believe Baby Doe was approximately 4 years old, is from the local area. Now, the little girl was wearing polka dot leggings. Her
blanket was found at the scene. And if you have any tips, call the Suffolk County state police at 617-727-8817.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:26:35]UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Detectives return to the home Rogers and her boyfriend, Brooks Houck, share.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He says he`s 100 percent innocent.
HOUCK: I`m 100 percent completely innocent in this.
GRACE: When did you realize, Brooks Houck, that she was gone?
HOUCK: The very next morning.
GRACE: So you slept through the whole night and did not realize that she was gone?
HOUCK: That`s true.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can`t, number one, see her leaving her baby at home. I can`t see her getting out of the car in the dark. Don`t make
sense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace.
Crystal Rogers is missing. She`s a mother of five. Her family wants to know where she is. Her children are missing her. And with us tonight
is her father, Tommy Ballard, who continues to get everyone to search and look for her.
She`s been gone for over a week now. And I mean, aren`t you in theory believing that this abandoned car of hers that was found with the keys in
the ignition -- that this could have been a very, very random flat tire, she pulls over to the side of the road, and someone comes that is an
undesirable and she`s gone?
BALLARD: Well, you know, all I know is I know my daughter, and she`s told us before that she would not leave her car. She`s called me before
with a flat tire. I mean, she had AAA. I just don`t believe she was in that car.
CASAREZ: So you don`t.
BALLARD: No.
CASAREZ: Then how did the car get to the side of the road with a flat tire? Do you think that it was staged?
BALLARD: I don`t know. I just don`t think she drove that car there. And I`m telling you, I know my daughter, and if somebody tried to get her,
she would have fought them. She would have been kicking and everything.
CASAREZ: And your daughter is tall. She`s 5-9 and...
BALLARD: Right, and 159 pounds.
CASAREZ: And I`m sure she has strength.
You know, Matthew Horace, law enforcement and security expert, you know, that car can be a plethora of forensic evidence, and maybe the storms
are on the outside and in the surrounding area, but inside, what can they retrieve from that car forensically?
HORACE: Oh, by all means. They can retrieve hair, if there were nail marks, if there were bite marks, if there was other physical evidence
indicating that a second or third or fourth person were in the vehicle.
You better believe that law enforcement is treating that car like a part of a crime scene. But as I understand it, at this point, there`s no
evidence of foul play.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:33:00]
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez in for Nancy Grace. There is chilling video and it captures the moment police say a teen girl gets behind the
wheel at Lincoln Park, accused of plowing her card into a crowd in a shocking hit and run. But the police want to know was she using that car
as a deadly weapon?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s unbelievable video. A feud fueled the rage that pushed a teen-age girl to plow a car into a crowd.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Let`s go straight to Colin Jeffrey, news director at KTRS, St. Louis, Missouri. All right, we`re watching this video. Just describe
for us the facts as you know them.
COLIN JEFFREY, KTRS: Thanks for having me on. What we do know is this all began with a large fight. That`s sort of where we join this
video. We see a large group of mostly girls and there`s a fight. And then from off screen this car just comes in, hits these four girls, sends them
flying. The driver then backs up, leaves the scene. And it was just really very shocking to see for the first time and surprising to hear that
these girls all escaped without major injury.
CASAREZ: So -- so at this point, I mean, the future will tell what injuries that they receive, you can`t tell me you`re going to walk away
from that and not be injured. Did they all know each other? What was the original argument or fight about?
JEFFREY: We don`t know exactly the cause of the feud. Police are saying there is a longstanding feud between these groups of girls. The
driver of the car apparently left this fight or altercation, whatever you want to call it, shortly before the accident, went, got the car is what
police are saying and then drove into the crowd.
[20:35:00]
Now, this was, police said, a violent fight, and right before the car plows into the girls, you can actually hear sort of that telltale sound of a
taser being used. Police also said the girls involved in the fight were using mace. This wasn`t your ordinary shoving match. This was something
more that escalated.
CASAREZ: Let`s look at the video again. First of all, I want you to really look at the facts here. First of all, the car is very intentionally
driven, it appears, straight ahead. And if you see the end of that video, which I have seen, you see the hood of the car has become dislodged. So
that`s the impact of that. Clark Goldband, what else can you tell me?
GOLDBAND: It`s important to point out when you`re watching this video, this is not a demolition derby track, this is not something you`re
charging admission, this is a quiet residential street that turns into chaos. Perhaps what some are saying is even more disturbing, is as quickly
as that car barrels into not one, not two, but four women, it slams into reverse and barrels away. Law enforcement looking for the driver of this
vehicle, Jean, and I got to tell you, they still have not tracked down this driver tonight.
CASAREZ: And this is East St. Louis, Illinois. It is very good information, though, Clark, that this was a hit and run. The driver left
the scene right there. And we do understand it is allegedly an 18-year-old female, so it is an adult. Matthew Horace, you`re in law enforcement. You
deal with -- I hope you don`t deal with this too much. They see the car, they`re going to be able to probably identify the plate from that iPhone
video. What`s the hold up? Why can`t they find her?
HORACE: I don`t know if there`s a holdup realistically. Police know more than they`re telling us. They`ve interviewed one, two, if not dozens
of people to determine exactly what led up to the altercation, and they have witnesses as to what happened when that vehicle hit the individuals
and when it sped away.
CASAREZ: And what are you going to look at as an investigator? The skid marks?
HORACE: Oh, we`re going to look at the skid marks, we`re going to look at the camera angles, the license tag, what the driver looked like,
who was around the vehicle when it made contact and what witnesses were available when the hit and run occurred.
CASAREZ: Dr. William Morrone, thank goodness they didn`t die. You look at that video. What are the injuries they could sustain for the rest
of their lives?
MORRONE: The most important injuries are the ones that are going to happen right away within the first 24 to 48 hours. If somebody takes blunt
force trauma to the head from an impact to the car or the floor or other things, inside the skull the brain bleeds, and you may not see symptoms for
two, three, four days. People become lethargic, they have difficulty speaking and they can`t stand. The pressure builds up inside the brain.
This could lead to permanent damage similar to stroke. Every single person there needs a full body x-ray and a CT of the head to rule out this kind of
injury.
CASAREZ: So how serious is this? It could be very serious. Kenya Johnson, you prosecute cases. We don`t know what her intent was here. But
what are the possible charges?
JOHNSON: Off the top, I see beyond hit and run, we see reckless driving, serious injury by vehicle, battery, aggravated assault and even
attempted murder. In fact, she was doing this retributive action on behalf of a friend. We`re not talking about self-defense. She was in the car,
all danger had left. She purposefully and intentfully went toward these group of people and serious injury could have occurred.
CASAREZ: And Jason Lamm, I can guess what the defense is, this has to do with the accelerator not coming up when she presses on it, right? A
sticking accelerator?
LAMM: I think we need to spend a little more time working on your defense attorney skills, Jean. What we really need to look at is her
intent. We don`t know the circumstances.
CASAREZ: You`re trying to mitigate it when you`re looking at intent.
LAMM: No, what was her state of mind. Was she threatened? Was there any threat to her? This was a violent fight with weapons involved. Did
someone threaten her? We only know that by talking to the witnesses. We can`t get inside her head.
CASAREZ: So you`re talking about self-defense?
LAMM: No, I`m talking about that she had a fear of danger and she needed to get out of there.
CASAREZ: So you run over somebody?
LAMM: If that`s your line of defense to get out of there when you`re being threatened with weapons and bodily harm, if that`s what you got to do
to prevent harm to yourself, you do it.
[20:40:00]
LAMM: She clearly should not be talking to investigators. And if you`re out there, Miss Suspect, you might want to call me when you get a chance,
but this all comes down to her intent. We can`t guess at that. It`s, again, not a complete investigation to which we shouldn`t jump to
conclusions.
CASAREZ: Robert Schalk, let`s look at her intent. Her intent looks like she`s trying to plow through a bunch of girls, possibly killing them.
SCHALK: As Jason said, you have police confirmed weapons, tasers, mace. Were they used on her? It`s not surprising law enforcement can`t
find her, because I`m sure none of the people standing there have any desire to cooperate. Are they going to inculpate themselves, are they
going to inculpate their friends? This seems like something that`s a long going feud. We don`t know what was going on before this. We don`t know
whether or not there were direct threats verbally. Via social media, via text message. We don`t know. There`s way too many unanswered questions
before we can sit here and talk about her intent. We don`t see what`s happening behind this video. What`s going on outside that frame of scenes
and what happened beforehand.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:45:00]
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez in for Nancy Grace. Tonight we go to Irving, Texas where a family day at the pool turns tragic. Three young
siblings just 9, 10, 11, all drown at the community pool at the very same time. But tonight was their mother negligent, reckless, distracted,
texting on her cell phone or is there even more to this story?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just wish I would have never took them to the pool that day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the water, down low, drowning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Court documents state a witness said Allen was apparently distracted by a cell phone and not watching her three children
in the pool.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (inaudible) in the pool, I can`t see under this water.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s two others down in the bottom of the pool. We just got one of them out, but she`s not responding.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Let`s go to investigative reporter Meredith Censullo. Is it true those children didn`t know how to swim?
CENSULLO: Patricia Allen, the mom, actually gave conflicting reports to police. Originally she did tell police that she and the children, none
of them could swim aside from knowing how to float and tread water. Now, in later follow-up interviews with police, she said that they could swim.
We`re getting conflicting reports from the mother, but she originally said, no, none of them could swim.
CASAREZ: Take it from the top. What are the facts as we know them?
CENSULLO: What we know is Patricia had five of her six children with her at the pool that day, 11, 10, 9, 6 and 3 are their ages. At least one
witness said she saw Patricia sitting on the edge of the pool, the deep end of the pool, as she was tending to her 3-year-old. She also appeared to be
distracted by something in her lap, which they thought was perhaps a cell phone, and that the three older children were in the water. Then a second
witness said when they got to the pool, they didn`t see the three children, they just saw Patricia who was still sitting on the side of the pool, as
well as the 3- and 6-year-olds, and that`s when Patricia noticed her three kids were missing. They were at the bottom of the pool.
CASAREZ: Matt Zarrell, OK, her children are missing. You know, when you drown, I would think there would be some yelling or some screaming or
some bubbles or something in the water to note there was an issue, and she was right there. What did she say she saw?
ZARRELL: Witnesses said as they were walking up to the pool, the water was calm and they did not see bubbles or splashing in the deep end.
And did not realize the children were in the water. And the witnesses actually told cops the mother only realized the children were missing when
the two witnesses walked inside the pool area. She didn`t even realize her children had disappeared.
CASAREZ: That makes no sense. And Matt, let me ask you one more question. Allegedly the water in this pool was filthy, right?
ZARRELL: Yes, it was very murky. Jean, it was so murky that the third child could not be seen by responders when they arrived. They
actually had to dive into the pool to find the third child.
CASAREZ: Joining us tonight is Officer James McLevelen (ph), the public information officer from the Irving Police Department in Irving,
Texas, which is very close to Dallas, Texas. You`ve charged this mother at this point with a reckless crime, that her state of mind was reckless. Can
you explain to us exactly what your theory is here at this point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. We have charged her with injuring a child based on a reckless act, and at this point, that being that she took those
children to the swimming pool, either not knowing how to swim at all, including herself, or at least not well enough to be able to get out of
trouble. And that`s the premise of the charge at the moment.
CASAREZ: Are you doing a toxicology test at all on the three children that drowned to see what`s actually in their lungs?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those autopsy reports have not yet been released to us by the medical examiner`s office, and all of his testing results, and
unfortunately I don`t have that at the moment. But those will be looked at as part of the investigation.
CASAREZ: What about a toxicology report of the mother?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don`t have any indication from our initial response that she was under the influence of any type of alcohol or drugs
of any kind. So that was not done.
CASAREZ: And as you`re seeing on the screen, her other two children who survived that she was with in the shallow end of the pool, they are now
in the custody of child protective services. And those beautiful, beautiful children, there they are right there. Anthony Smith, 11, who is
obviously the boy, August Smith is the little girl on the left side of the screen, and Trishon (ph) Smith, 9 years old, all of them drowning at
virtually the same time in the pool.
Dr. Morrone, you`re a forensic pathologist, you are a doctor.
[20:50:00]
Can you describe for us how does somebody drown? What`s the process and what are the visible signs you can see from that?
MORRONE: Well, the most visible sign you see that we look for at autopsy, when they do an autopsy and they open up the skull, underneath the
brain below where we see the pituitary gland is a very specific sinus. Like front sinus or a maxillary sinus, this sinus is called sphenoid sinus.
Sphenoid sinus is very difficult to get water into. When water is present in the sphenoid sinus, it is a sign of drowning.
The second thing is what happens in drowning, is there are two things that can happen. In an older person who`s controlled but is overwhelmed,
they hold their breath, because they can`t get up. At the last moment they pass out, and that`s when they fill up with water. In younger children,
that struggle, anything from a 1-year-old to a 12-year-old, struggling, would fill up with water instead of hold its breath. And filling up with
water will change body chemistry and reduce oxygen to the brain, and then the child would pass out. So there`s two mechanisms in drowning, one more
common in adults and one more common in children. And the sphenoid sinus is always a sign that there is drowning that is evident. And toxicology on
the mother can be done with hair samples that will go out 30, 60 and 90 days. So it`s important they still test the mother.
CASAREZ: And how these children must have panicked and the fear, and not knowing what to do, especially if they didn`t know how to swim.
Doctor, how long does it take to drown?
MORRONE: Again, it`s based on age. A small baby will take 30, 40 seconds or a minute to drown. But when you get to 9, 10, 11, 12 years old,
it takes two, three, four minutes. And that`s what is so difficult to see here, that this didn`t just happen. Somebody had to be distracted. Five
minutes is a long period of time to not pay attention to your children.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:56:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can`t see under this water.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I walked up to the pool and I saw the mother sitting on the edge of the pool looking outward.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I jumped back in the pool and started looking. I just couldn`t find my children in the pool.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. It`s summertime, you want to go to the pool. You take five of your children, and three of them
drown at the very same time in the pool? This is out of Irving, Texas. With us is the Irving Police Department`s pio officer, James McClellan. Do
you know a time line of when this mother got to the pool? It is a big pool, I have to say. When she got to the pool, how long they were there
before this -- before this happened.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had been there probably as many as 15 or 20 minutes, and we know that because there was a man there with his child
beforehand whose stay overlapped hers. He left shortly before the drownings occurred and then actually passed a couple of witness who then
shortly thereafter walked up to the pool, and that was when the drownings were discovered.
CASAREZ: Only 15 to 20 minutes. It`s not like she was there for a couple hours or so. Kenya Johnson, you`re a prosecutor, there is a duty
when you`re a mother and you take your children to a pool, there`s even a higher duty if maybe they don`t know how to swim.
JOHNSON: Absolutely. Mom couldn`t swim. Kids couldn`t swim. No one else was around and no lifeguard. This behavior is so irresponsible, so
reckless, that it could possibly rise to the level of involuntary manslaughter or voluntary manslaughter. So that`s what we`ll be looking
at. What was she doing? Look at her phone records. See if she was playing on her phone? Also, did the kids all drown at the exact same time,
or did one go to save the other, to save the other, was there yelling or screaming? We would even question whether she was even in the general
vicinity at the time that the kids went down.
CASAREZ: Ramani Durvasula, you`re a clinical psychologist, and this community has surrounded this mother with support. They raised her bail
money. They are helping her, giving donations to her. Even though this tragedy, they believe that it was an accident. That could have happened to
anybody.
DURVASULA: It is an accident. And even if this mother was negligent, Jean, she has experienced an extraordinary loss, compounded even more if
she`s in fact taking responsibility for this. We cannot think that just because somebody may, may have been negligent, doesn`t mean they`re not
experiencing real grief. I think any of us who are parents while we are at one point we may be angry about this story, I think at some level, all of
us find some empathy for it too, and know sometimes we do take our eyes off the ball and tragedies can happen. I understand this community`s response.
This is going to be a terrible tragic story to watch unfold.
CASAREZ: Tonight we honor Austin police officer Dustin Clinkscales (ph) for saving a driver from choking. The woman pulled over during a
routine traffic stop. She was unable to speak or breathe. The quick- thinking officer doing the Heimlich right there on the road, unaware he is saving the life of -- listen to this -- a fellow officer`s daughter.
Officer Dustin Clinkscales, an American hero.
Dr. Drew is coming up next. Thank you so much for joining us.
END
