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Nancy Grace
Missy Bevers Murder, Hunt For A Killer. Ninth Grader Karen Perez`s Body Was Found In One Of The Abandoned Apartments Near Her School. The Search For A Florida Mother And Her 9-Year-Old Girl Both Reported Missing Tuesday. A Teen Driver Allegedly Snapchats, Driving 100 Miles Per Hour Chasing A Car Crash That Leaves A Man With Brain Damage, Then Goes Right Back On Snapchat To Post A Bloody Accident Photo. We Remember American Hero Michigan Deputy Michael Winter, 39 Years Old, Killed In The Line Of Duty; Amber Alert Issued for Diana Alvares. Teen Tapes Rape and Murder of Girlfriend. Aired 8-9 p.m ET
Aired June 02, 2016 - 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 with breaking news tonight out of Florida and the search for a 9-year-old missing from her bedroom. This
just in. An Amber Alert has now been issued as police believe 9-year-old Diana with a 28-year-old man. Reports are that man once lived with Diana`s
family.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Breaking news. An Amber Alert has been issued for missing 9-year-old girl Diana Alvares. Police believe she may be traveling
with a 28-year-old man who at one time rented a room in her family`s home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Chilling audio captures the final horrific moments as a teen girl begs for her life, 15-year-old Karen Perez pleading, I don`t want to die,
as she is brutally assaulted and then murdered, the suspect recording the whole thing on his cell phone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Court documents accuse the boyfriend of raping and strangling Karen and recording it all on his cell phone. When she told him
no, investigators explain he called her by name, choked her to death as she said, I don`t want to die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: A teen driver accused of causing a serious crash with her white Mercedes as she allegedly Snapchats at 100 miles per hour. Even though the
accident leaves the other driver with brain damage, the teen girl allegedly goes right back on Snapchat to post a photo of herself on a gurney with
blood dripping down her face.
Good evening. I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. Thank you so much for joining us.
Tonight, straight out to Florida. Breaking news in the search for a 9- year-old missing girl, an Amber Alert just issued as we get brand-new details in this investigation.
Let`s go straight out to Bob Alexander. He is news director at 92.5 Fox News. Bob, tell us more about this Amber Alert that`s now been issued.
BOB ALEXANDER, 92.5 FOX NEWS (via telephone): Well, Jean, possible good news for everyone involved in this case. The vehicle at the center of this
Amber Alert was found just hours after that Amber Alert was issued today.
At the moment, though, Lee County law enforcement not commenting on where the recovery took place because efforts are still under way. They feel
that a large gathering of media would give away law enforcement`s presence in the area. And of course, they`re still trying to discover where Diana
and the suspect, Jorge Guerrero, might be at this moment.
CASAREZ: Justin Freiman, NANCY GRACE producer, I think many people don`t believe this is good news because, actually, what we have just learned is
that the vehicle they believe that this young 9-year-old girl was in possibly with someone the family knew at one point -- it`s abandoned. So
there is no sign of her. This is an abandoned vehicle, which only leads more to the mystery of where is Diana.
Let`s tell everybody again what Diana looks like, what they believe she was last wearing, Justin.
JUSTIN FREIMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): She`s a young 9- year-old girl. The problem is, they don`t have a really great description of what she`s got with her. She`s thought to be having a T-shirt with her,
shorts, she has a blanket, and that`s about it. But we don`t know what else was in that car, what signs of her there may or may not have been and
what trail was led from that car.
CASAREZ: Justin, let`s show everybody exactly who they believe she may be in the company with. This is an Amber Alert that has just been issued.
That means they believe that this young girl was possibly abducted by the person you are looking at on that screen right now. His name is Guerrero.
He is 28 years old. He is from Ft. Myers, Florida. He`s 5-feet-5 tall, 145 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.
And they do believe he was driving. So if you saw this car, a Chevy Malibu, tan, with a tag number of 78-NHD -- if you saw that, that could
help police. But he has ties to Orange County, Florida, Okeechobee area, Florida.
And the thing is, he was living with the family for some time. And right now, we do have that family with us tonight. Joining us for the first time
is the mother of Diana, joining us from Florida, Rita Hernandez, and the cousin of Diana, Nancy Martinez.
And I want to thank you both so much for joining us. We don`t know what you`re going through right now, but you know that you`re appealing to the
country to find your little girl, Diana.
Nancy, Rita does not speak English. You are going to speak for her. But tell everybody how Rita, Diana`s mother, found her missing.
[20:05:00]NANCY MARTINEZ, MISSING GIRL`S COUSIN: She put Diana to bed around 10:00, 10:30 PM. She woke up around 2:00 in the morning to make a
bottle for her 1-year-old. Around that time, she opened all the children`s doors, checked on them. She walked into Diana`s bedroom, saw that Diana
was uncovered. She covered Diana back up. At that time, she went to bed.
She woke up at around 6:55 in the morning and went to the kitchen, and she saw that the stove was on, all four burners were on. There was a pan on
with oil on it. It was smoking. So she yelled out to her husband to ask him why he had left the stove on or why he turned it on. He said that it
wasn`t him.
She checked the doors. The doors were fine, went into the younger kids` bedroom, checked them. And they were perfectly fine. Opened Diana`s room,
and she was gone.
CASAREZ: So one question I have -- obviously, what you`re saying, there was no sign of forced entry. She was gone.
MARTINEZ: That is correct. Correct.
CASAREZ: Does the family leave the doors locked at night?
MARTINEZ: Yes.
CASAREZ: Were the doors locked that morning?
MARTINEZ: Yes, they were.
CASAREZ: So whoever went in to get her was able to lock the door. Does the door lock from the inside, or would you have to have a key to lock it
from the outside?
MARTINEZ: You can lock it from the inside.
CASAREZ: You can lock it from the inside and go out. I want to talk about a man that lived with the family for, I believe, nine months. His last
name is Guerrero. He rented a room, right, in your mobile home.
MARTINEZ: Correct.
CASAREZ: How did he come about to live with you for those nine months? Who in the family knew him?
MARTINEZ: Rita knew him personally. She worked with him for a few years back when she used to work in, you know, picking fruit, that type of thing.
That was her profession back in -- a few years ago.
She knew him very well, or at least she thought she did. So when he called her and let her know that he needed a room to stay in, you know, for a few
months while he got back on his feet, she consulted her husband, my cousin (INAUDIBLE) And at first, he was, you know, very edgy about letting him in.
He thought about it for a few days, and you know, he went ahead and said, It`s fine. We`ll let him stay in the room.
He stayed there for about nine months, and on May 2nd, he moved out after he was confronted by Rita.
CASAREZ: Confronted by Rita. Why was he confronted by Rita?
MARTINEZ: Diana grew very attached to him, oddly so. He would want to take, you know, Diana and the kids out to eat or to the park, et cetera.
Her 7-year-old brother did let Rita know that every single time that they did go out to eat, you know, either to McDonald`s or Burger King, that
Diana would stay and talk with him, rather than, you know, go with them to the park and play.
CASAREZ: So Rita was attached -- Diana was attached to him, a growing attachment, this 9-year little old girl.
MARTINEZ: Correct.
CASAREZ: What was his attachment to her? Was there one?
MARTINEZ: Yes. He always wanted to be near her. He always brought her home food, or you know, would play with her. You wouldn`t think anything
was wrong. You would just assume that he thought of her as family.
CASAREZ: So you never saw him look at her in a way that was inappropriate.
MARTINEZ: Not at all.
CASAREZ: Why do you think police believe that this is the person she may be with?
MARTINEZ: We don`t know. We don`t have much information. The bit of information that we have, the media has, as well. This information that we
had about Mr. Guerrero was given to deputies the first day that Diana went missing. The minute she went missing, we handed them his picture, his
telephone number. We called him. The call was recorded.
I mean, anything and everything we had on him the first day that she went missing, which was Sunday, May 29th, we handed it over.
CASAREZ: So police believing that she may be with him is not based on anything he said or did?
MARTINEZ: We don`t know. They haven`t released any of that information. We`re thankful that something, you know, came up, something conclusive that
was -- that -- where they were able to send out the Amber Alert.
[20:10:00]That way, a lot of people were notified. You know, everyone has a cell phone now. So them having something conclusive on Mr. Guerrero
meant that that was able to finally take place.
CASAREZ: Can you ask Ms. Hernandez in Spanish and then tell us what she says about how she maintains her strength. She`s very strong.
MARTINEZ: Of course. (SPEAKING SPANISH)
RITA HERNANDEZ, MOTHER: (SPEAKING SPANISH)
CASAREZ: So Nancy, what is she telling you? She has three children...
MARTINEZ: She`s saying that -- she`s saying that she`s remaining strong for her children, that she`s trying to do this for her kids because if she
lets herself go, if she lets herself fall down, that who`s going to take care of her kids? Who`s going to take care of her kids if she ends up in
the hospital giving birth early? I mean, who`s going to be there for her children, and how is she going to know anything if she`s in the hospital?
She`s not going to be able to cooperate with, you know, authorities, and she`s not going to be able to give everything that she possibly can being
in a bed in the hospital.
CASAREZ: All right, so once again, this is Diana, as you can see, 9 years old. She is missing. An Amber Alert has been issued. And after this
break, we`re going to find out exactly the latest that the police are telling the family.
We`ll be back right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:15:50]CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace.
A chilling story out of Texas as a teen girl begs for her life in a brutal attack, her final moments captured on the suspect`s cell phone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police went to the suspect`s home and found video on his cell phone of him sexually assaulting Perez. The teenage girl can be
heard pleading for her life and the accused killer telling her, I told you so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: This is a horrible, horrible story. And I want to go to Jeffrey Boney. He`s the associate editor of "Houston Forward-Times." Start from
the beginning. This beautiful girl, 15 years old, was supposed to go to school on Friday. What happened?
JEFFREY BONEY, "HOUSTON FORWARD-TIMES": Yes, Karen Perez got a dark and cryptic text message from her 15-year-old boyfriend demanding that the 15-
year-old high school freshman skip class at South Houston High School and meet him at some nearby tennis courts. And if she didn`t, investigators
say that the 15-year-old boyfriend threatened to kill her.
So surveillance video from a local taqueria show the two of them leaving the school hand in hand. They leave and go to a vacant apartment at an
abandoned complex, where her boyfriend begins to demand sex. And as Karen rejects his sexual advances, prosecutors say that the boyfriend began
choking and raping her, and even in more sickening fashion, Jean, recording it all on his cell phone.
CASAREZ: And it goes on from there. Michael Christian, actually, five months ago, she received a text because they`d known each other for a long,
long time, Michael. When did they first meet? And what was this text about five months ago she got?
MICHAEL CHRISTIAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: That`s right, Jean. Apparently, they had started dating when they were in about the 6th grade. They`re
freshmen now. So that`s a good number of years. But apparently, about five months ago, he said that if she tried to break up with him, her family
and friends would never see her again.
CASAREZ: That`s right. So when you look at those words and you look at that state of mind and she is now gone -- Michael Christian, how was she
found and where was she found?
CHRISTIAN: She was found in an abandoned apartment building. It`s a complex, really. It`s about a block or so from the high school that they
both attended. It`s a place that apparently had become a hangout for kids. They would go there to drink, to smoke pot, to have sex. And she was found
in an abandoned apartment with her body stuffed underneath a sink.
CASAREZ: Jeremy Boney, I want you to tell me again this was audiotaped as she was being murdered? It was audiotaped?
BONEY: Absolutely. On the audio, the suspect can be heard forcing Karen Perez to have sex with him and calling her by name. And also, Jean, you
can hear Karen cry out with her very last words, I don`t want to die.
CASAREZ: And joining us right now is the man -- you know him. He`s been associated with some of the most high-profile missing children`s cases in
this country. Tim Miller, the director of Equusearch, is joining us tonight. And I`m so sorry it`s under these circumstances, Tim, because you
actually found the body of Karen.
TIM MILLER, TEXAS EQUUSEARCH, FOUND BODY (via telephone): Yes, I did. And you know what? He actually tried to videotape her, too, but the apartment,
of course, did not have any electricity or anything. It was dark in there. So then you could -- but then you could hear the audio, and she was
begging, you know, Please don`t kill me. I don`t want to die.
CASAREZ: So you`re telling me, Tim, that actually, the intent was to videotape it, but it was dark, so the screen was black, but you hear the
audio?
MILLER: Yes. The video did not show because the screen was black because, I mean, it was pitch black in these apartments. The windows and doors are
all boarded up.
CASAREZ: Have you...
MILLER: Even when we were searching in the daytime, we had to have flashlights and -- because you couldn`t see anything inside of them. So he
made the attempt to videotape it and -- but the video didn`t come through, but the audio did.
[20:20:04]CASAREZ: Have you heard some of that audiotape, Tim?
MILLER: Just little bits and pieces of it. And it`s very disturbing, and in fact...
CASAREZ: What did you hear?
MILLER: ... even before we -- even before started the search earlier that afternoon...
CASAREZ: What did you hear?
MILLER: I actually got called at a quarter after 8:00 and called the sergeant and says, Sergeant, I`ve got a call, there`s a boy that was with
them and left them in the apartment because there`s, like, are 220 apartments there. And I knew earlier in the day that they did not go
through them apartments good enough. And I called that sergeant and said, Sergeant, we have to go back to them apartments.
And then me and one of the other Equusearch members was going through the apartments. And I knew she was in this apartment. We was looking in the
closets and the air-conditioner. And again, now we`re at a quarter after 10:00 at night. And I was in the kitchen and I had a flashlight. And I
told one of the members, Hey, open that cabinet door down there. And when he opened the cabinet door, I -- you know, my flashlight, and I actually
(INAUDIBLE) body down there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:25:14]UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosecutors say Perez`s father was concerned when his daughter didn`t come home. And when he asked the boyfriend to
help him look for his daughter, the teen replied, You won`t find her. She`s dead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace.
We are learning tonight that both families, that of the victim and that of the young man, were searching for this young Karen Perez. And the young
man was with his own father, and they`re driving around the Houston area, and he finally allegedly tells his dad, You`re not going to find her.
She`s dead. And it was his father that went to police.
I`d like to go to Joseph Scott Morgan right now. He`s a certified death investigator, professor of forensics out of Jacksonville State University.
Thanks so much for joining us.
You know, the allegation at this point -- we are awaiting autopsy results, but the allegation is, according to how that audiotape was recorded, that
she was raped and strangled, and it`s believed that that may be the cause of death right there.
When you do an autopsy, what are you going to do to determine what happened to Karen?
JOSEPH SCOTT MORGAN, CERTIFIED DEATH INVESTIGATOR: Well, Jean, the most important thing here is to protect all of the trace evidence that the
police can avail themself of, everything from fiber evidence to an examination where they`ll perform what`s referred to as a rape kit on this
young lady.
And then they will go through piece by piece, very, very carefully examining her entire body both internally and externally for any kind of
evidence of trauma.
I think what`s going to be very curious in this case and it`s going to put him and her together is this idea that she has been strangled to death.
There will be sufficient marks in her neck, hemorrhaging, this sort of thing, maybe even the trachea`s been crushed. The idea here is the
individual that is the alleged assailant -- does he have sufficient strength in order to facilitate this young girl`s death? And that`s going
to be the big question to be answered here.
CASAREZ: Does it matter, as you perform the autopsy, what happened first, what succession it happened in? It`s believed that the alleged rape
happened first, and then the strangulation. But we don`t -- we weren`t there. Is that important to prosecutors?
MORGAN: Oh, absolutely. It can go to things like duress and just torture, this sort of thing. And keep in mind, Jean, this is going to be a
narrative that`s painted out before the court, where everybody can see. And trust me, the prosecution will throw this out there and they`ll talk
about how savagely she was treated prior to him finally choking the life out of her, if that is, in fact, the case.
I can assure you that this group of people will be very, very thorough and they will look for every jot and tittle, if you will, of information they
can come across.
CASAREZ: You know, as you look at this girl on the screen, she`s beautiful. She was in the 9th grade, Karen Perez, 15 years old. And I
could describe her for you, but I`m going to let her cousin describe her for you. She`s joining us tonight by telephone, Maritza Valdespino.
We`re so sorry for your loss. I mean, her beauty just shines from within. Tell us about her.
MARITZA VALDESPINO, COUSIN (via telephone): Thank you. Yes, she always had a smile on her face. She was the most sweet person. Anything you told
her, she would talk back to you about everything. She was outgoing. And she was one of those people that she didn`t have any bad in her. And
that`s why she believed that nobody else would do bad to her because she`s not like that. She`s so innocent, sweet, caring girl. And you know, I
know she is.
CASAREZ: And that is the type of person that people prey on, no question. Maritza, did you know at all the young man that she was with, the person we
see in this surveillance video that told her she`d better skip school or he`d kill her?
VALDESPINO: No. I didn`t. I didn`t know him.
CASAREZ: What are you hearing about him?
VALDESPINO: Well, I just hear exactly what people are putting on the news, and I mean, I`m at a loss for words. Like, I would have never imagined
this happened to her. And I wish it never would have. You know, you just don`t know -- you really never know somebody until they do something like
this.
[20:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s a very small community. There may very well be a killer walking amongst them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t think she was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want an arrest as bad as anybody in this case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosecutors tell NewsFix that a male teen, who the Perez family says is her boyfriend, is charged with murder.
Attorneys say the accused killer texted Perez the day she went missing saying, skip school with me or I`ll kill you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. Karen Perez, 15 years old, she was a ninth grader at South Houston High
School, she disappears Friday afternoon. She`s gone. She never even made it to school.
And then her body was discovered a couple days later in an abandoned apartment complex, very close to the school. Can you say the magnet (ph)
that some of the kids went to this abandoned apartment complex to do things that their parents probably wouldn`t want them to do.
Well, her body was found. It was found under the sink in the cupboard in one of the apartments. And she was dead.
I want to ask, right now, we do know also this young man whose name has not been released. You see him in the video -- surveillance video. This is her
ex-boyfriend, the one that police are saying issued threats to her saying, if you don`t skip school and come with me, you`re going to be dead.
Well, he`s been charged now with murder as a juvenile. I want to bring in Robin Ficker who is a defense attorney out of Maryland.
They`re charging him as a juvenile right now, but when you really look at his state of mind in regard to the texts that are there, that prosecutors
will have as exhibit "A," how can you say that he should not be charged as an adult?
[20:35:00] ROBIN FICKER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, it`s a violent crime. And they take into account his stature, his past history, etc. But what kind of
school system is this that has a den of iniquity across from the school?
It had to be known that kids were just walking off the campus away from school. Why aren`t they checking on the kids in this school system? I don`t
see him carrying her away with force.
CASAREZ: Seema Iyer, it`s a good point for a civil suit because the apartment complex that these kids went to from the high school, it was
open, over 200 apartments. They just walk in and do whatever they want to do.
In this case, though, what`s going to be the defense? Because you see his state of mind.
SEEMA IYER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, yes.
CASAREZ: Those texts are there.
IYER: Well, Jean, there`s actually several defenses here that all combine together that would get this guy off, actually, because he`s 15 years old.
His brain isn`t fully developed.
Science says a male brain isn`t fully developed until they`re 25 years old. This absolutely should stay in juvenile court. He is a child, he is a boy.
And let me add, that someone so young has so much more likelihood to be rehabilitated. He is a perfect example of that.
And still, we don`t know what his record is like. We don`t know what his history is like. Maybe he`s an abused child. We have to delve deeper into
this story.
CASAREZ: Bethany Marshall, do we really want someone like this back out on the street? This is someone at this point that is not only charged with
murder but those charges could instantly be upgraded to rape and murder.
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Absolutely not. I so disagree with the defense attorney. OK, so his brain is not fully developed.
A 6-year-old`s brain is not fully developed, but a 6-year-old knows right from wrong. A 10-year-old knows right from wrong. Certainly a 15-year-old
should.
And you know, Jean, we know -- I say it so many times on this show -- women are at the greatest risk for homicide -- domestic homicide when they are
about to leave a relationship.
This alleged perpetrator fits the profile of somebody who`s losing control over his girlfriend so he escalates in his attempts to have power over her.
He sends her threatening texts, he tries to pull her out of school. The ultimate power is to rape and record her perhaps allegedly if he did it, to
release it to the public, to humiliate her in front of her friends, but as perpetrators often do, they go too far.
And this alleged perpetrator crossed the line. The only way I can see where brain development plays a role is that his feelings outpaced his ability to
think.
We know with adolescents, their prefrontal cortex is not yet fully engage, so they`re like a souped-up car engine without a braking system. So there
was no brakes on the bad behavior, but certainly there`s no excuse for this and whoever did this, we do not want this individual roaming free in
society. Absolutely not.
(CROSSTALK)
CASAREZ: And really, if you try to say this is the heat of passion at the moment, well, you can really mount the argument that six months ago he said
if you break up with me, your friends and family are never going to be seen again.
And then he threatens her that if she doesn`t go with him on Friday, he`s going to kill her. So that was something that he thought about in advance.
I want to ask Tim Miller, who is the director of EquuSearch who actually found her inside that cupboard, beneath a sink in one of the apartments, do
you know where the phone was found?
Do police, have they told you that they believe that he intentionally tried to record her or somehow whether the phone maybe just turned on? The app
was punched and it starts recording.
(CROSSTALK)
[20:40:00] TIM MILLER, FOUND BODY OF KAREN PEREZ: No. He intentionally tried and I must say this was premeditated because she did not have a
phone. He took his 10-year-old brother`s phone and gave it to her that day and said, now, when I contact you, you better answer that phone.
I`m saying this was premeditated from that morning. She had been wanting to leave him. And you know what, one expert was talking earlier today about,
you know, when they do the autopsy. When I found her, I literally thought that her throat was cut, but there was no blood. He strangled her so hard
that it literally looked like her throat was cut.
CASAREZ: Tim, did she have her clothes on?
MILLER: Partially clothed.
CASAREZ: Was she clothed from the waist up and not clothed from the waist down?
MILLER: There -- from the waist up it was all the way up to her breasts and her pants were certainly -- certainly down some.
CASAREZ: Maritza, I want to give you the last word. What do you want us to remember about your beautiful Karen?
MARITZA VALDESPINO, COUSIN OF VICTIM: I want her to be remembered as the sweet, loving person that she is. And I know she has so many of us that
love her and care for her. And I know she was innocent with all of this and for the boyfriend`s thought in all of this that controlled her. And I want
everybody to know that she was a very loving and sweet, caring girl.
CASAREZ: And she deserved to grow up, get married, have children of her own and have her life.
The search for a Florida mother and her 9-year-old girl both reported missing Tuesday. Liliana Moreno`s car was found at her Doral home along
with her purse and a mystery cell phone.
Police searching a nearby warehouse, removing a dumpster. Anyone with tips call Miami-Dade Crimestoppers at 305-471-TIPS.
[20:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CASAREZ: A teen driver allegedly Snapchats, driving 100 miles per hour chasing a car crash that leaves a man with brain damage. Then she`s accused
of going right back on Snapchat to post a bloody accident photo.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Even though there`s a disclaimer that says "don`t Snap and drive", a team of Atlanta attorneys say the app was a factor in a
horrific crash.
HEATHER MCCARTY, ONE OF CHRISTAL MCGEE`S PASSENGERS: I`m like, `what are you doing? Slow down, you know. I`m pregnant. You`ve got other people in
the car.` And she said, `well, I`m just going to hit 100, and then I`m going to slow down.`
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Unbelievable set of facts. Wait until you learn about this. Scott Kimbler, reporter, joining us from NewsRadio 106.7 out of Atlanta. Thank
you for joining us.
First of all, let`s start from the beginning and tell us about the drive, what she was in, who was in the car and how fast she may have been going.
SCOTT KIMBLER, NEWSRADIO 106.7 REPORTER: Well, Jean, according to the police report, she was on Tara Boulevard, they are south of Atlanta. And
she was going 100 miles per hour. She admitted to doing so, to going 100 miles an hour and over 90.
And she says that when she looked up at one point the car was just there in front of her and she hit it, injuring the other three people.
CASAREZ: All right. Well, that`s the beginning part of it. But that`s the heart and soul of this, it was a rainy night. And Matt Zarrell, tell me
about the Snapchat part of this.
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Yeah. So there are three passengers who are in the car with Christal McGee including an ex-boyfriend, a co-worker
and another friend.
And a police investigation revealed that all three of them have now told police that McGee was driving at over 100 miles per hour and using
Snapchat, using what they call a speed filter which shows you how fast you`re going when you carry your phone in a car or a bus or something like
that.
CASAREZ: Unbelievable. So it`s like sort of a bragging point that you can take a picture of yourself and you can post -- and it posts automatically
because there`s something in the phone that allows it to do so, how fast you`re going.
Ben Levitan, you are a telecommunications expert. Boy, do we need you right now. I think we need to spread the awareness of what you`re able to do with
Snapchat. I had no idea. Tell us about this filter that can be used.
BEN LEVITAN, TELECOMMUNICATIONS EXPERT: Well, filter may be a bad word, but what we have to understand is one out of five accidents today are caused by
cell phone distraction.
But being on a cell phone just talking, whether it`s headset or not, you`re drunk at 0.08. Snapchat allows you to take pictures and then send them to
your friend with what they call a filter, you can actually put different things over the picture before you send it.
You can put the weather, the time, the date. And one of the things you can put on there is speed. And this has got to be a factor because if you are
looking at your odometer and you`ve got Snapchat in your hand, as soon as you hit 100 and you hit that Snap button, it`s going to record that on the
picture.
CASAREZ: So what`s in the phone that allows it to record your miles per hour?
LEVITAN: Well, because we have 911 in this country, every phone has a GPS device in it. A GPS chip is going to give you your latitude and longitude,
your location, it is going to give you your altitude and also knows your horizontal and your vertical speed.
And all these apps that have to do with either location or speed, can just co-opt that, use that as part of their application. So it is in every
single phone.
CASAREZ: So Matt Zarrell, Snapchat is saying that they have no record at all that she was using Snapchat, but there were three passengers in the car
with her, those witnesses, their testimony`s extremely important. What are they saying?
ZARRELL: Yeah, so Snapchat said that the log said McGee was not using Snapchat at the time of the crash. However, the passengers and the victims`
attorneys all say that Snapchat was a critical cause of the crash and that she was looking at her phone showing that she was going 100 miles per hour
and saying she was about to post it right before the crash.
[20:50:00] CASAREZ: So since she didn`t post it because the crash happened, right Matt? Snapchat can`t say she was using it.
ZARRELL: No. Snapchat only has a record of when she actually posts the photo. If you just had Snapchat up and you`re using the filter and just
looking at it and seeing how fast you`re going, Snapchat should not have a record of that. They only have it when you transmit an actual photo.
CASAREZ: And we do want to tell everybody that criminal charges have just been filed against who you`re looking at right there, the young woman that
was driving that car with allegations that she actually was using that Snapchat.
To Joseph Scott Morgan, you are a certified death investigator. The person that she hit, going allegedly 113 miles per hour, he has very severe brain
damage. Are you surprised?
JOSEPH SCOTT MORGAN, CERTIFIED DEATH INVESTIGATOR: No, I`m not. Jean, let`s consider she`s traveling at this tremendous amount of speed and as you can
see, clearly depicted here in these images, her vehicle, this Mercedes, which I think is a sedan, strikes the smaller car in the rear.
Literally, the energy is transferred. This is a tremendous amount of energy. Just imagine, it is almost like a missile slamming into the slower-
moving vehicle.
This guy will probably have deficits for the rest of his life. I can`t speak to the psychological but I can tell you, spine injuries, certainly
neurological deficits probably that he`ll have to receive treatment for. No telling what kind of skeletal muscular problems as well.
CASAREZ: It`s horrible. Absolutely horrible.
MORGAN: Yes, it is.
CASAREZ: For women who have ended up on the street, caught up in the cycle of abuse and addiction, it can be difficult to see a way out.
This week`s CNN hero gives them one. In Nashville, Becca Stevens is showing women that love heals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BECCA STEVENS, CNN HERO: it`s in every community. Trafficking, abuse, addiction.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What we created is a movement for women`s healing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was almost like a slave to the drugs. I lost everything.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just turn a trick wherever. As long as I can get one more hit.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can remember thinking that I`m going to die out here.
STEVENS: When I was a small child, I experienced sexual molestation for years. It gave me a lot of compassion. Those scars are deep but it doesn`t
have to be the end of the story.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: To see the rest of the story, and how Becca has helped more than 200 women reclaim their lives, go to CNNheroes.com.
[20:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was anybody doing Snapchat in the car?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, sir. They actually did the Snapchat thing the night before.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He mostly blames the other driver for causing the crash, accusing him of merging into their path without looking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASAREZ: Well, witnesses in that car say she was doing Snapchat and the only reason she didn`t send the picture going 113 miles an hour is that she
had an accident.
I want to go to Robin Ficker. You are a defense lawyer and there`s more facts here because the man she hit, who is 61-year-old Wentworth Maynard,
who now has severe brain disorder and brain injury, he pulled out in front of her as she was going 113 miles an hour, and she hit him.
But for him pulling out, it wouldn`t have happened. But for her going 113 miles an hour doing Snapchat, it wouldn`t have happened. In civil court,
what will happen?
FICKER: Well, it is the fault of the person that hits the other car from behind. They have to control their speed.
But here, Snapchat has a GPS. They know exactly what time Snapchat was on and they must know what time the accident happened. Put the two together
and I think Snapchat shows that she was not the cause of this accident because she was not Snapchatting.
CASAREZ: All right. Two sides of the story, but it was on and set to go. Just because she had the unfortunate opportunity that she crashed into the
man so she couldn`t press the button does not mean that she`s not responsible.
Bethany Marshall, What is the profile of a young 19-year-old girl driving her father`s Mercedes with her iPhone, doing Snapchat as she is driving
getting that speed up to 113 and maybe not getting to press the button to take the picture.
MARSHALL: Well, the profile of a young woman who does this is a woman who is thinking only of herself. A woman who doesn`t look around and say, who
else is out there? A woman who doesn`t know the appropriate application of a device like this which is, maybe you`re going on a family vacation and
you take a picture out of the window of the plane and you send it to your friends, but you`re in a safe position.
The profile is someone who is pathologically selfish. So selfish, when she gets, allegedly she gets onto the gurney, she Snapchats herself once again
in an act of defiance because she is not thinking about anyone else around her.
CASAREZ: And Matt Zarrell, last but not least, she did do a Snapchat photograph, didn`t she? Tell us when.
ZARRELL: Yes. Apparently it occurred right after the crash. She`s covered in blood. She is on a gurney. Her family said it was taken at the hospital
but GPS should be able to tell exactly where it was when she took the photo.
CASAREZ: All right, we remember, everyone, American hero Michigan Deputy Michael Winter, 39 years old, killed in the line of duty. A military
veteran. He served the Branch County Sheriff`s Department. He leaves behind a widow, Connie, and their two children. Michael Winter, an American hero.
Thank you so much for being with us tonight. I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace.
"Forensic Files" is coming up next. Good night, everybody.
[21:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER THOMAS, "FORENSIC FILES" NARRATOR: Up next, the murder of a funeral director.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 911, what`s your emergency?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
END
