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Nancy Grace
Chris Rock Investigated Over Child Adoption; Woman Found Dead After Facebook Date. Aired 8-9:00p ET
Aired December 01, 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 now, live. Movie superstar of "Grown-Ups," "The Longest Yard," "Saturday Night Live," "Bring the Pain,"
Chris Rock at this hour allegedly the target of official questions. It all centers around his 7-year-old little girl amid controversy. Was she
legally taken by Chris Rock and his wife?
Bombshell now. This child, a 7-year-old little girl from a bio mom reportedly who gives her up in South Africa -- she`s been raised the past
seven years by loving parents, funnyman Chris Rock and his wife. And now seven years later, a foreign government, South Africa, reportedly pipes up
about taking the girl?
They can`t even get the Oscar Pistorius case straight, and now they`re messing with Chris Rock, who gives this little girl a loving home?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Comedian Chris Rock hit a rocky road in his divorce.
CHRIS ROCK, ACTOR: People ignore the fact that I`m, you know, a husband and I`m a father.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Questions have reportedly emerged over entertainer Chris Rock and his wife raising a South African girl in their American home
for years without formally adopting her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: A live, Missouri, a 25-year-old mom of two puts her toe in the dating pool and invites a Facebook friend for dinner. Mommy found dead in
a pool of blood.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Relatives found 25-year-old Sharae Bradford`s nude body face down on her bed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was a cold-hearted monster that did this to my daughter!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They believe the person responsible for her death is a man she met on Facebook.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And live, a 25-year-old Florida woman terrified after a female Internet troll steals her face and information, plants it on a dating Web
site with the fake ad, Please fulfill my fantasy, rape me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A woman allegedly sets up a bogus on-line dating profile for her neighbor urging men to rape her and fulfill her fantasy.
How did the nightmare end?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And live, Baltimore explodes after the unexplained and brutal death of a 25-year-old Baltimore man, Freddie Gray, his spine severed while
in police custody. As we go to air, trial commences for the first trial in the death of Freddie Gray.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gray was removed from the van and put back in head first onto the floor of the wagon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gray`s death a week later sparked riots in the city, and a wave of protests that swept the nation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: While each of these officers are presumed innocent until proven guilty...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Officer William Porter will be the first to be tried.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight. Movie superstar of "Grown-Ups," "The Longest Yard," "Saturday Night Live," "Bring the Pain" Chris Rock at this hour the
target of officials` questions. It all centers around his 7-year-old little girl, amid controversy. Was she legally taken by Chris Rock and his
wife?
The child is a 7-year-old little girl from a bio mom who reportedly gives her up in South Africa. She`s has raised the past seven years, since
before she was even 1 year old, by loving parents, funnyman Chris Rock and his wife. And now seven years later -- seven years go by and a foreign
government, South Africa, pipes up about taking the girl back? That`s the report.
Hey, they couldn`t even get the Oscar Pistorius case straight, now they`re messing with Chris Rock, an American, who gives this little girl a
loving home?
Straight out to Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter, Radaronline.com. OK, Alexis Tereszcuk, all of this comes to light amidst a divorce, right,
between Chris Rock and his wife. They`ve been together for almost 20 years?
ALEXIS TERESZCUK, RADARONLINE.COM (via telephone): They have, actually. They met in 1994. They married in 1996. And it has been a
wonderful marriage. He has spoken so lovingly about how he`s a father and a husband.
But last year, they filed for divorce. He put in his divorce papers that they only had two children. She filed a response earlier this year
and said, No, we actually have three children. Our third child is a daughter who we brought from South Africa, and she`s been a joy and a
wonderful part of our family.
[20:05:01]GRACE: Well, you know what I`ve been thinking about that, Alexis? It may have been he didn`t name her in his original divorce
document -- this is about child support -- because she hadn`t been legally adopted yet. Now, it`s my understanding, Alexis, that they are in the
middle of legally adopting this girl. And they`ve had her for seven years. That`s a yes/no, Alexis. Have they had her for seven years?
TERESZCUK: Yes.
GRACE: And isn`t it true they`re in the process of adopting the child?
TERESZCUK: She is in the process of adopting the child. I don`t believe that he is in the process of adopting.
GRACE: Well, and it really all depends, doesn`t it, Chris Spargo, reporter, Dailymail.com, because when you`re trying to adopt from another
country, sometimes that can take two or three years to make that adoption official. So for all I know, this adoption has been in the works for
years. But bottom line, Spargo, they`re adopting the little girl.
And this all comes to light in the divorce papers, right, Spargo?
CHRIS SPARGO, DAILYMAIL.COM (via telephone): That is correct.
GRACE: OK, let me understand something, Chris Spargo. Isn`t it true that Chris Rock and his wife know somehow the bio mom and dad in South
Africa, and they bring her to the U.S. to give her a better life?
By the way, here`s Chris Rock`s "Bring the Pain" from HBO and Dreamworks.
So they bring the girl here to give her a better life. She`s been here seven years, and now South Africa wants to chime in? Why?
SPARGO: Yes, that is correct. They met the father back in 2008. He was a waiter at a hotel and Chris Rock was on tour. They spent time with
the girl. The girl has been with them this entire time. So there`s not really known why all of a sudden they want to jump in and take away this
great situation.
GRACE: OK, unleash the lawyers. Joining me is Nera Shefer, immigration lawyer out of Miami, Randy Kessler out of Atlanta, Robert
Schalk out of New York.
I`m a little befuddled about why seven years later -- and I`m not just taking his side because he`s an American, all right? I don`t have a very
good impression of South Africa after the pathetic show of justice with Oscar Pistorius, who murders Reeva Steenkamp, and he`s now on house arrest
after about what, 5 months behind bars.
That aside, Kessler, where do they get a leg to stand on? Seven years later, they`re now honing in on Chris Rock? Really?
RANDY KESSLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No one says they`re going to take the child back, but they want to make sure that all the I`s are dotted and
the T`s are crossed. It could set a very, very bad precedent if they looked the other way and said, Oh, he can do this because he`s rich or he`s
famous. They`re going to make sure...
GRACE: It`s been seven years. He`s already done it, Kessler!
KESSLER: Well, let`s make sure no one else does it. Let`s see what went wrong this time, make sure it doesn`t happen again. There`s a reason
to investigate.
GRACE: OK. Now, you do know that doesn`t make any sense, right? You do know that.
KESSLER: It makes perfect sense. It makes great sense, Nancy.
GRACE: OK. You know what? Nera Shefer, immigration attorney, I am not even...
NERA SHEFER, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY (via telephone): Hi, Nancy. Thank you for having me.
GRACE: Thank you for being with us. Maybe you can straighten out Kessler and Schalk because after seven years -- what in the world -- why
are they going after Chris Rock? He`s been raising this child and giving her a home. From what we have learned, the mother lives in very poor
conditions. The father doesn`t have a job. They handed the baby over to Chris Rock and his wife, Malaak. And so why now, seven years later, Nera?
SHEFER: Well, Nancy, I don`t know what the South African government is pursuing with this. But what I do know, however, is that South Africa
and the United States are both signatories of the Hague convention. And therefore, for any international adoption by a U.S. citizen, they have to
follow those rules.
And under those rules, the child -- basically, you have two steps here. You have the adoption per se and then you have the immigration
process. For the adoption per se, the child -- yes, the child could have been either adopted at their born country or coming to the United States to
follow an adoption. So the fact that they are now saying that they`re doing the adoption could be a true fact.
However, what is an indication that something may be wrong here is the fact that they had to go through a study, a complete study according to the
rules of the Hague convention. And that study had to basically give a result on a favorable opinion for them to adopt a child. And then with
those papers, they had to file for a special visa for that child to come into the United States.
And apparently, the reports say that the child came in with a leisure travel visa, which is not really the visa that is used while you have...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Hold on. You lost me. You lost me.
SHEFER: ... Hague convention for the adoption.
GRACE: Nera, Nera, Nera, you lost me. Are you basically saying they`ve got to do a -- an investigation to make sure everything is in order
for the adoption to go forward? Is that what you`re saying?
[20:10:00]SHEFER: I believe so because the adoption -- like I said, it has two processes, and they both have to comply with the steps. One is
the adoption and the other one is the immigration. So...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: OK, hold on. I think I`ve got it. I think I`ve got it.
SHEFER: ... with the proper visa, the adoption for her to be able to then be legal in the United States will not go further.
GRACE: Everybody, that`s Chris Rock in the movie "Grown-Ups" from Columbia Pictures.
For those of you just joining us, Chris Rock and his wife take in a South African little girl. I think she`s -- Stacey, wasn`t she under 1
year old when they took her in?
STACEY NEWMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: She was supposedly about 4 or 5 months old, according to reports, when they took her. So it`s been seven
years.
GRACE: So you know, it just seems to me -- let me go to Dr. Terry Lyles, psychologist, author of "Crack the Stress Code." Dr. Terry Lyles,
it seems to me the even suggestion that you would uproot a little girl from the family that she`s been living with for seven years and send her back
home -- to what? To what, a mom that gave her up to start with?
TERRY LYLES, PSYCHOLOGIST: Yes, I agree. I mean, it`s all about the family dynamics. And obviously, she`s been here. She`s lived very well.
She obviously fled South Africa for a reason. It sounds like somebody in South Africa smells money, and they`re trying to figure out what to do to
make this a case. And even though it`s a divorce case...
GRACE: I don`t know where...
LYLES: ... this child has to have a better living with Chris Rock.
GRACE: And it`s not just about the money. They shower this girl with love. That has been evident from day one.
You`re seeing "Longest Yard" from Paramount Pictures with Chris Rock.
And it`s all come to light in the middle of this divorce. I just don`t understand where South Africa so-called officials are going after
Chris Rock, when all he and his wife did was something good for this child. You may be right, Lyles, somebody somewhere smells some money.
LYLES: There`s something wrong.
GRACE: I mean, the children already have it bad enough.
LYLES: Yes, there`s something wrong.
GRACE: They`ve got to go through a divorce. And even though both parents love them, they`ve got all the money in the world, its still --
divorce is still never a good thing for children. And now this, that their little adopted sister is going to be snatched away by some paper pusher in
South Africa?
OK, Christo (ph) also joining us. Christo, now, they are denying that there is an investigation, is that right?
CHRISTO (via telephone): Yes, that`s true. I spoke to the Hawks, which is the director for priority crime investigation. And they said it`s
very simple. There is no investigation into Chris Rock whatsoever from this point.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:17:07]GRACE: Now, let`s go to Missouri. A 25-year-old mom of two puts her toe in the dating pool and invites a Facebook friend over for
dinner. Mommy found dead in a pool of blood.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had this already planned for him to come in here and do what he did!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Family members believe their loved one met a man on Facebook, then he dropped by her home for the first time the night she
was killed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Colin Jeffery joining us, news director, KTRS. OK, Colin, lead me up to them finding the mommy dead in a pool of blood. I want to
hear -- oh, OK. See, that little girl is going to grow up without a mom right there. And I don`t care what all the shrinks say. No offense, Dr.
Lyles, I don`t think anything can replace a mother`s love. I really don`t. I really don`t.
This mom struggled to have her children in this condo development. She gave it all she had. She tries to stick her toe back in the dating
pool. She meets somebody on Facebook. We think this is what happened. Whoever killed her is still on the loose. She is then found dead in a pool
of blood.
Now, what is going to become of that little baby girl? Who`s going to raise her? Who is going to love her like only a mother can?
Colin Jeffery, let`s start with the facts. Let`s start with how her body is found.
COLIN JEFFERY, KTRS (via telephone): Well, thanks a lot for having me, Nancy. Actually, what happened is Sharae Bradford`s family member went
to check on her sometime Saturday evening and found her bloody, nude, lying face down on her bed in a pool of blood. The family member told police she
was conscious at that time. But by the time...
GRACE: Whoa! Wait! Wait! Wait! Let me understand that, Colin Jeffery, KTRS. I didn`t understand that. So when they found her, she was
still alive?
JEFFERY: That`s what her family members said.
GRACE: Oh! You know what that means, Colin? She suffered! She laid there and bled out. She knew she was going to die. That`s got to be just
the worst feeling because you -- you`re thinking about your children. You`re thinking about, How can I live? How can I take care of them? Oh!
OK. You just threw me for a loop there. I was hoping it was quick. So she was still alive.
All right, take it from there, Colin.
JEFFERY: Well, when paramedics and police arrived, she was unconscious. They weren`t able to revive her. She was pronounced dead at
the scene.
And this is where we noticed an interesting point in this case. Police have been very tight-lipped from there. They confirm only that they
are chasing several leads but have provided no information on a possible motive or suspect.
[20:20:02]Any information we have from that is coming directly from the family. And they`re the ones who told the press she had met someone or
someone she knew on Facebook and met on Facebook came over that night for the first time.
GRACE: Well, OK. You know, Colin Jeffery, there`s no coincidence in criminal law. You don`t just meet somebody on Facebook, they come over,
and then you`re found dead in a pool of blood that night?
Is it that night, Colin?
JEFFERY: Yes, it was that night is what they`re saying.
GRACE: Oh! OK, Michael Christian. What more do we know?
MICHAEL CHRISTIAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Nancy, we know that this woman had a 6-year-old daughter. Thankfully, the daughter
was not home at the time that this happened. So luckily, that did not occur.
But as Colin was saying, the police are being very tight-lipped about this. They`re not releasing much information. They say they don`t have a
motive, although they did say recently that they may have...
GRACE: She`s naked, Michael! She`s naked! What, do I have to connect the dots for you? No offense, Michael Christian, but motive?
She`s found naked on her bed, dead. There`s your motive. It was a sex attack, for Pete`s sake. What, do I have to take the police department to
school?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:05:07]UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was a cold-hearted monster!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A relative found 25-year-old Sharae Bradford`s nude body face down on her bed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She just wanted life, the best life possible for her and her daughter!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Guys, this woman is a 25-year-old mom, just absolutely gorgeous. And in practically every picture I found of her, she`s with her
child, just showered the children with love. She sticks her toe in the dating pool. She invites a Facebook friend over. She`s found dead in a
pool of blood.
This is what I don`t get, Ben Levitan. They don`t have a suspect? Why don`t they start by trying to track her Facebook? I mean, I hope
they`re listening. No offense, cops, but how about tracking her Facebook and her computer? Explain how to do it, Levitan -- Ben Levitan,
telecommunications expert. It`s not that hard, right?
BEN LEVITAN, TELECOMMUNICATIONS EXPERT (via telephone): No, it`s not, Nancy. And the fact is, Facebook does try. Facebook themselves says that
8.7 percent of the profiles on there are fake. That`s 83 million fake accounts.
But the fact is, we can easily trace who put up that account and actually where they`re located because when you connect to Facebook or any
Web site, Nancy, that Web site knows where you`re located. And so it could be an easy thing...
GRACE: Let me understand this. To do a Facebook, you have to give an alternate e-mail that they confirm, correct? Yes/no, Ben.
LEVITAN: Yes.
GRACE: OK. So they`ve got an alternate e-mail for them. Now, even if he made up that e-mail, there still has to be an IP. Where did that e-
mail come from, right?
LEVITAN: There`s an IP address. When you use a computer, that`s your caller ID and that`s your location. And Facebook knows the location of
that computer...
GRACE: So I don`t understand -- Cheryl Dorsey, retired LAPD sergeant, author of "The Creation of the Manifesto Black and Blue," I don`t
understand the cops saying, We don`t have a suspect. We don`t have any leads. Hello? She had a date that day, the first one with her Facebook
friend. She turns up dead the same night in a pool of blood. What else do we need to know?
CHERYL DORSEY, RETIRED LAPD SERGEANT: Nancy, I`m confident that the officers have more information than they`re sharing with us. And it makes
perfectly good sense why they wouldn`t want to put out any information about the suspect. And I`m sure they`ve had an opportunity to process the
crime scene, interview witnesses and family members, and they`re working towards identifying that suspect.
GRACE: Well, I`m glad you have faith in that, and I certainly hope you`re right.
Back to Colin Jeffery, KTRS. OK, what are police saying other than they don`t have a suspect and they don`t know anything?
JEFFERY: Well, again, they`re really saying very little. What we do know is the family has said -- and the site has many surveillance cameras.
So hopefully, this is something where police can get additional information, maybe find a picture of who she was with that night, maybe
some more clues from that.
GRACE: Well, if they wait too long, they`re going to lose that, too. Remember Chandra Levy? Remember that? They did not get the video fast
enough to see who, if anyone, she left with. Remember Condit, the congressman? Everybody thought he killed Chandra Levy. She was going
jogging. She did go jogging. If we had had the video, we would`ve known that. She had on a jogging outfit.
But the cops didn`t go in time, and it erased over it. It recorded over it. So if they don`t hurry, they`re going to lose this valuable,
valuable evidence.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:33:40]
GRACE: A 25-year-old Florida woman is terrified after a female internet troll steals the woman`s face and information. And she plants it
on a dating website with a fake ad. Please fulfill my fantasies, rape me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Imagine a knock at the door and then phone calls from men answering a fake online dating ad that talks about rape fantasies
and wanting to make them real.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Okay. This is incredible to me. Roger Schulman, news director of WGUI. Roger, so I understand that the perp, who is allegedly a
female internet troll, goes online. Somehow she gets ahold of photos of this woman. She`s very attractive. She has her address, her phone number,
and she goes on some dating website. I think it was Plenty of Fish. That`s a huge dating app. Huge. Millions of people on that. Tell me
about the ad she puts on there. Roger Schulman.
SCHULMAN: She actually put this on the site. The profile said, "please rape me. I want to be raped even if I say no, I`m good at being a
slut. "
[20:35:00]
GRACE: And she puts it in caps, s-l-u-t, to make sure anybody reading really focuses in on that. So basically, she`s saying, even if I say no
and I scream and I fight, rape me anyway. That`s what I want. And gives the woman`s address?
SCHULMAN: Gave the woman`s address. And she actually had men showing up at her door ready for action.
GRACE: Oh dear lord in Heaven. Oh, okay. It`s my understanding that also at like 9:00 in the morning, she starts getting calls on her cell
phone of guys that have seen this. Is that true, Roger?
SCHULMAN: They actually said, I`m on the way over, are you ready? Yes, she was getting numerous calls. She feared for her life. She had to
leave her home because she thought these guys were going to come over and actually rape her.
GRACE: OK. What is the background? There`s got to be some kind of background between these two women. What do we know?
SCHULMAN: We know that apparently they lived next to each other for a time.
GRACE: Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa wait. Hold on. Who is this? Is this the alleged perp? Frances Lee Tapscott, age 39? Okay. So this is the
alleged internet troll who photo fakes her neighbor, I think. Here she is, again, puts her phone number, her address, real pictures of her, and puts
fulfill my fantasy, rape me.
Okay. I`ve got photos of her. We`re not showing photos of the victim. So, Roger, what is the back story? Do these women have some kind
of a feud?
SCHULMAN: Apparently it started with a dog pooping and allegedly not being cleaned up. From there, it went to numerous police calls about
allegations of thefts and difficulties of all kinds. But it really started with dog poop. A dog going to the toilet in the yard.
GRACE: OK. Let me understand this, you know what, I`m looking at this gorgeous condo apartment community there in, I guess, in -- this
happened around Tampa, or no?
SCHULMAN: Yes, in the Largo, Clearwater area. Beautiful area of Pinellas county, some of the nicest beaches in the world.
GRACE: Yes. You`ve got to be loaded. You`ve got to be rolling in money to live down there near those beaches. So this certainly shows that
you can`t put perfume on the pig. Because here`s this woman, Frances Lee Tapscott, she`s got a gorgeous home, lives on one of the most beautiful
beaches in the world. And yet, she`s full of hatred. Now, Justin Freiman, I`m hearing the two had a fight over a dog taking a poop.
FREIMAN: Right. That`s what the victim`s been saying. That it was over the dog that was pooping and it`s led to a bit of an ongoing feud the
two of them were having.
GRACE: So Ben Levitan, telecommunications expert, thanks for sticking with me on this one, Ben. How do you go about -- like if I wanted to steal
your I.D., OK, I already have a picture of you, Ben, how do you -- how do you get somebody`s photo, get somebody`s phone number and address, and then
post that? How does that work?
LEVITAN: Nancy, you know this is incredibly easy. These -- any website that is free to sign up is not -- does what they can to limit the
fake profiles. But 1 out of 10 dating profiles online today is a fake profile. There`s no way to control it.
GRACE: I don`t mean fake. I don`t mean if I were to go and say, oh, I`m 5`11 and weigh 110 pounds and I`m 25 years old. That would be fake.
I`m saying stolen! Stolen! Identity theft. That`s what I`m talking about, Levitan.
LEVITAN: Well, information is everywhere. These people already had a relationship. It`d be easy to get information. And so much information
online, Nancy. All you need is one piece of mail or a bank account, and you`ve got everything to set up a profile.
GRACE: Roger Schulman, WGUL, Roger, question, does the victim say that this woman took a lot of the pictures that were on the fake website?
SCHULMAN: The victim said she was easily able to identify it because apparently she knew where the pictures of her were taken, and they might
have been taken when they were more friendly. But she identified the background and knew immediately who took those pictures.
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers, Randy Kessler, Atlanta. Robert Schalk, New York. All right, Kessler. You going to -- whenever I ask you a
question, I might as well push a button. You`re going to say insanity, mental defect. This woman, this so-called internet troll, is not crazy.
She`s crazy like a fox. She, allegedly, steals this woman`s I.D., puts her address, her phone number, her picture, and says fulfill my sex fantasy,
come rape me. If I scream and fight you, that`s just part of my fantasy. Don`t stop. She needs to go to jail for attempted rape.
[20:40:00]
KESSLER: She didn`t attempt to rape anybody. She might have tried to get somebody to do something. But she didn`t solicit somebody and say I`m
going to pay you to rape her. These men even knew it was fake. They helped find the person that did it. They said, let me help you. They
didn`t go in and rape her. She didn`t get raped, it didn`t happen. It was a bad idea.
GRACE: Let`s get our facts straight. Last I checked, Kessler, bad idea is not really a defense. So Justin Freiman, the guys who were
actually going to her home to fulfill her fake fantasy of being brutally raped. When she told them, I did not post this, that is when they said,
let me help you. And what did they do, Justin?
FREIMAN: That`s right. They actually were then chatting through the app with the person who actually placed that ad. And taking screen grabs
of those chats, and then also through the photographs that were being posted to the app, they were able to focus the investigation on the
defendant.
GRACE: So Robert Schalk, you heard Kessler, his defense, it was all a bad idea. Do you have anything better than that for me?
SCHALK: This is not necessarily a case of she didn`t do it, this is the case of mitigating the damages. If she has no criminal record, you`re
looking at a misdemeanor charge, you are going to --
GRACE: Misdemeanor? Who said misdemeanor?
SCHALK: For purposes of plea bargaining -- negotiation--
GRACE: I`m not looking at a misdemeanor. I`m looking at a felony. A conspiracy to commit rape.
SCHALK: She`s not charged with that, Nancy. She`s charged with stalking. Again, that prosecutorial mindset for overcharging something for
something they didn`t do has got to stop. She`s only charged with stalking here. We`re oversensationalizing the facts.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:45:40]
GRACE: Baltimore explodes after the unexplained and brutal death of a 25-year-old Baltimore man, Freddie Gray. His spine is severed while in
police custody. Now, as we go to air right now, trial commencing for the first trial in the death of Freddie Gray.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s the first of six Baltimore officers to face trial in the death of Freddie Gray. The 25-year-old man suffered a severe
spinal injury.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Another key question, why it took so long for Gray to get medical attention. About 42 minutes elapsed between the time Gray
was put into the police van and when a medic was called.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Okay. What I want to say is very, very critical. The trial is commencing. It`s happening. I want to see the video of where they take
Mr. Gray -- watch this. Watch this. Yes. See. He steps up on his feet. Oh, darn it. Look at this. Look at this. Oh, there you go. There you
go. He was able to walk. He`s -- there he is kneeling. Hold on. Wait. Wait for it. Right there. You see him step up on his left leg? And okay,
they`re dragging him some more. But he steps, gets up there, his right leg moves and he gets up on his right leg. All right. Then he gets in.
Straight out to Miguel Marquez, CNN national correspondent. Miguel, thank you for being with us. Miguel is planted at the courthouse. That
video is critical in my mind, Miguel. And thank you for joining us. That shows his spine was not severed when he got into that transfer van. His
spine was not severed.
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It`s not clear that prosecutors are going to argue that. From the charges they have laid out against the
six officers, it is quite possible they will say he was injured in that van, possibly because of a rough ride, because of the way he was put in
that van, the fact that he was not seat belted at several points during the ride. And also with the individual who is up on trial first, 25-year-old
William Porter. He checked on Mr. Gray at various points along that 40- minute ride that he took. And even though Gray at one point told him he needed a medic, they all failed to get medical care for him, and then the
result is obviously that we know, Mr. Gray died.
GRACE: Okay, Miguel, tell me one more time, why are they trying Porter first?
MARQUEZ: It`s his statements. He made statements after Mr. Gray was injured. There were investigators flooded the zone that he died and there
was an even wider investigation. The officers involved in his arrest were talked to. Porter made statements, at least according to the Baltimore
Sun, that were at least in part incriminating to other officers. In particular, Caesar Goodson, the driver of the van. Caesar Goodson called
Porter and said hey, I`ve got a guy in the back, he`s having a problem, something is wrong, can you come check on him. Porter comes around, checks
on him, asks Gray, do you need a medic? Gray says uh-huh. He tells Goodson, you should not take him to the precinct, you should take him to
the hospital, they`re not going to accept him there, he needs medical help. That didn`t happen.
GRACE: Why?
MARQUEZ: Porter also though said -- I wasn`t quite sure if Gray was lying or not. But best to take him to the hospital. But I couldn`t tell
if he just had jail-itis, didn`t want to go to jail, and was faking an injury. That`s why Porter is up. Because they want those statements in
order to get other officers --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Let me understand something. With me is Miguel Marquez, CNN national correspondent, right outside the courthouse. The trial is
commencing in the death of a Baltimore man, Freddie Gray, who gets his spine severed while he`s in police custody.
I am throwing Miguel a lot of medical questions. Let me go to Dr. William Morrone, forensic pathologist and renowned medical examiner. Dr.
Morrone, I don`t understand how you can get a severed spine and die, just because you get a, quote, rough ride. They didn`t have a wreck. They
didn`t have a crash. I don`t understand that. A rough ride. What is that? You turn the corner sharply? How can you die from that?
MORRONE: Here`s how this works. Below the skull, as you go down at different levels, if the spine is severed, you lose certain functions.
[20:50:00]
And the spine is severed when -- these are cans of beans. But let`s say they are vertebrae in the back. When they are dislodged, instead of
sitting on top of each other, it cuts the spine. Anything around cervical, C-3, 4, 5, stops breathing.
GRACE: Okay. Stop right there. Stop right there. We all know you`re the M.D., and I`m just a J.D. What do you mean cervical 2, 3, 4,
and 5? Cervical has a lot of different meanings, Morrone.
MORRONE: Okay. Let`s lift it up to the neck. And in the neck, you have cervical vertebrae. Then in the chest, you have thoracic vertebrae,
and then you have lumbar vertebrae, lower back above the butt. The cervical vertebrae are numbered one through seven. One through seven. And
they stack on top of each other, and it holds the weight of the head. When they dislocate, when they are forced like this, that cuts the spine.
Between 3, 4, and 5, those are the nerves in the spinal cord that enervate breathing.
GRACE: Okay. I get it. Let me understand something. Dr. Morrone, you`re saying that if these cervical -- what do you say --
MORRONE: Vertebrae.
GRACE: Vertebrae just become disaligned, then you don`t -- the brain`s message doesn`t get to the lungs to keep breathing?
MORRONE: Because breathing is a spontaneous and subconscious event in the nervous system, when you damage 3, 4, 5, the nerves, you stop
breathing.
GRACE: Okay. I get it. So Miguel Marquez, standing with me in front of the courthouse, it doesn`t necessarily mean that his spine was cracked
in half like kindling wood, like a pencil. It could mean what Morrone is saying, that two of these become disconnected. And I get where that can
happen if you`re sitting in a mobile transfer, like a paddy wagon, and you fly off a seat and land, you could do that very easily, I guess, right?
MARQUEZ: What the defense is going to argue in this case, this has all come down to the medical experts. It`s very interesting to listen to
them. Is that Mr. Gray was in the back of the van, his hands shackled, handcuffed behind him, and his legs as well because he was rowdy with the
police officers earlier. They stuck him into the van, chest down, face down onto the van floor. The defense is going to argue that he somehow
struggled to his knees, shackled and handcuffed, and at some point the van perhaps came to even a normal stop, and he pitched forward on all his
weight, and that`s where the damage to his spine came. It may be unfortunate. It may be an accident. And they are sorry for it. But it
was not the police officers` fault, is what they are going to argue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:57:40]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gray was removed from the van and put back in, head first onto the floor of the wagon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gray`s death a week later sparked riots in the city, and a wave of protests that swept the nation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Each of these officers are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Officer William Porter will be the first to be tried.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Miguel Marquez standing by, CNN national correspondent. I want to understand one more thing about Freddie Gray`s death. Is it
correct, Miguel, that the officers put him in head first with his head on the ground, on the floor of the --
MARQUEZ: Yes. Floor of the van, head first, on his belly. Hands handcuffed, legs shackled, and basically lying there. And at some point,
the defense is going to argue, he got up on his knees, and when the van stopped, even a normal stop, he went forward, pitched forward, all of his
weight, and that`s where he hit his neck and damaged that spinal column.
GRACE: Is it true, Miguel, that there is going to be testimony that people heard him scream out in pain?
MARQUEZ: It is possible. There was somebody else -- at some point in that ride, there was somebody else in the other side. The van is separated
by a metal grate. You can`t see from one side to the other. It was separated. That person may say it. But it is also that person has said
two things that are contradictory, so not clear.
GRACE: Okay. Let`s remember American hero, Wisconsin police officer Ryan Copeland, just 33. Killed in the line of duty. An Army vet, a Green
Beret, served as a K9 officer. Loved golf. His dogs, Chloe and Boris. Parents Allen and Lori, three brothers, widow high school sweetheart
Amanda. Ryan Copeland, American hero.
Today is giving Tuesday. To support 4-H`s unselfie campaign, #givingcloverday, donate to help 4h youth. Thanks to our guests, but
especially you for being with us. Nancy Grace signing off. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern, and until then, good night, friend.
END
