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Nancy Grace
9-Year-Old Florida Girl Still Missing; Stanford Swimmer Gets Six Months of Jail for Rape. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired June 06, 2016 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HLN HOST: Breaking news tonight. The search turns desperate for a missing 9-year-old Florida girl. Tonight, police have the alleged
perp. But where`s the girl?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They caught the guy, but they don`t know anything about where Diana could be.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Deputies tracking down and detaining 28-year-old Jorge Guerrero, who`s suspected of taking the child. Little Diana Alvares
is still missing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Stanford University ex-champion swimmer gets a slap on the wrist for raping an unconscious co-ed. Slap on the wrist? Six months, six
months in the county jail after a jury finds him guilty on three felony sex attacks on an unconscious girl outside a campus fraternity party.
And to top it all off, after he gets a sweetheart deal, his dad, his father, writes, Going to prison is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of
action. Action? He calls it action? I call it a felony!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The judge`s decision to sentence former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner (ph) to just six months in county jail and probation
for sexually assaulting a woman who passed out drunk.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`d be livid. I`d be furious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A light sentence, she said, would make a mockery of the seriousness of his assault.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: A distraught dad leaps over the pews in a crowded courtroom, attacking the brutal serial killer that murders his daughter. But tonight,
is the father being charged with a crime?
Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight. The search turning desperate for a missing 9-year-old Florida girl. Tonight, police have the alleged kidnapper, but where is the
little girl? They can`t get anything out of him?
And sadly, Bob Alexander, news director at Fox News, in our jurisprudence, we can`t use sodium pentothal to shoot him up with a shot and make him tell
the truth.
Right now, this girl`s life is hanging in the balance, a 9-year-old little girl. That`s a 3rd grader. Look at her. Look at her in her little side
(ph) pony (ph). We don`t know where this girl is. We don`t know if she was sold. We don`t know if she`s being prostituted out. We don`t know if
she`s dead. We don`t know if she`s alive. We don`t know if she`s locked in some basement of a home or an apartment, starving dead. We don`t know
anything. Is she tied up. Is she in a closet? Is she even alive?
That`s where we are tonight, Bob Alexander. First of all, how did the whole thing go down? Let`s start at the beginning. The little girl lives
with the mom and the stepfather and the family, the siblings. And the mom wakes up early, early on Sunday morning to get the children ready to go to
church, and she sees immediately that the 9-year-old daughter, Diana, is gone.
Now, their home very, very small. There`s no indication that there was a break-in, nothing. Take it from there, Bob Alexander.
BOB ALEXANDER, 92.5 FOX NEWS (via telephone): Well, Nancy, in those early morning hours back on May 29th, Diana was discovered missing within a
three-hour period of the mother waking up to fix a bottle for the little baby and then trying to get her up to prepare for church.
It was then reported to police, who then began an exhaustive search with seven different law enforcement agencies. And then the attention turned to
Jorge Guerrero, who had been living at that mobile home for about nine months and had some kind of an attraction with Diana. And that`s when the
search began in earnest to try and find this guy, Guerrero, who had moved out several weeks earlier.
GRACE: Well, and another thing about that. Another thing about that, the reason the mother kicked him out, Jorge Guerrero, is because she did not
like the connection he seemed to have with her daughter.
Now, this is how they knew each other. Correct me if I`m wrong, Bob, the mother knew him from work. And when he was looking for a place to stay,
she let him move in, I assume for rent, into their home. And he would talk all the time about how cute the girl was, how pretty the girl was to a
point where the mom didn`t like it and said, You know, you shouldn`t be talking like that about a 9-year-old little girl. You need to leave. And
he left.
[20:05:04]And he`d been gone for about a little over three weeks. And all of a sudden, she pops up missing. So immediately, suspicion was on him,
Jorge Guerrero. But the police find him. Where do they find him, Bob Alexander?
ALEXANDER: Nancy, they found him in Okeechobee County, which is about an hour and 20 minutes to the north of the Ft. Myers, Lee County area. He was
chased down after that Amber Alert. They took him into custody. They brought him back here to Lee County, where he appeared before a judge
today.
But according to family members of Diana Alvares, he has been unwilling to even discuss Diana, leaving everyone even more frustrated and worried.
GRACE: Isn`t it true, Justin Freiman, they`ve got his vehicle? But what I notice, I notice a discrepancy, Justin, because he had a van at the family
home, at Diana`s home. And from what I can tell in the police documents, they found a car. I don`t like that. Does that mean he ditched the van or
-- I don`t know what it means. It may mean nothing. But wasn`t there also a delay in issuing the Amber Alert?
JUSTIN FREIMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: That`s right, Nancy. There was a delay.
GRACE: (INAUDIBLE) that.
FREIMAN: And that delay might have made things worse because a person that Guerrero actually stayed with in Orlando for a few days said he didn`t know
of any Amber Alert because it hadn`t come out yet, and had it have already come out, he would have spotted the guy even sooner.
GRACE: Oh, this is just killing me. This is just killing me. Marc Klaas, president, founder, Klaas Kids Foundation. Think about it Marc. You
remember the early days of having children when you`re up all night. This mom gets up in the middle of the night. I`ve been there, been there, been
there. You get up 2:00 o`clock, 3:00 o`clock, 4:00 o`clock to make a bottle for one baby. The other baby, you check on it. Can you even
imagine? I guess you can, Marc. Your child not being in her bed. I mean, I can`t even imagine, Marc.
And now this guy -- Marc Klaas! This guy has been apprehended for child porn on a cell related to him.
That was Marc Klaas`s daughter who went missing and was killed, OK?
Marc, I mean, can you even imagine? Now, I`m wondering, the child pornography that Guerrero has on his phone -- I wonder, is it related to
this girl? Did that mother have just an instinctive knowledge that something was horribly wrong, Marc?
MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION (via telephone): Well, she very well may have, Nancy. And I think that the pornography obviously raises too many
red flags in this case.
You know, I`ve been a vocal opponent or a vocal critic of the Amber Alert ever since it turned into a national project for the very reason that it
failed this little girl in this instance. The kids that need it the most, the kids that are taken in their bed in the night -- their abductors don`t
leave a calling card. They don`t leave their vehicle information. They don`t leave their license plate.
But we know that there`s a little girl that looks like (INAUDIBLE) that`s missing, and that`s the information that needs to get out. That`s the
Amber Alert that needs to get out. Because otherwise, the kids that are taken are only kids that are involved in parental abductions. The little
girls like Diana, like Polly, like Adam Walsh -- none of these kids would have qualified for an Amber Alert.
GRACE: But what`s bothering me right now -- hold on, guys. I`m hearing in my ear we are now being joined by Nancy Martinez, the cousin of little
Diana. Nancy, thank you for being with us.
NANCY MARTINEZ, COUSIN OF MISSING GIRL: You`re welcome.
GRACE: Nancy, what -- first of all, we, all of us, are praying that Diana comes home, all of us.
MARTINEZ: Thank you.
GRACE: And I want to know what, if anything, police are telling you or your family tonight?
MARTINEZ: That`s the thing. They`re not telling us anything. They`re keeping us in the dark about everything.
GRACE: Tell me this. When Diana`s mother forced this guy out -- I mean, she knew him from work. She had worked with him. She had no idea there
was anything wrong. He needed a place to live. She says, Sure, you can rent a room with us.
When -- what led her to kick him out? It had to be some kind of intuition. Something made her kick this guy out. And tonight, he`s not saying a word
about where Diana is. And he holds all the keys, the key to crack this case in his hand. And he`s not talking.
MARTINEZ: When she noticed that he was getting very attached to Diana, that`s when she decided, you know, to confront him and tell him that it
wasn`t right, that she didn`t see it, said that he was getting too close to her daughter. She asked him to move out. He moved out the following day.
GRACE: In what way? When you say getting too close to her, what do you mean by that, spending too much time with her, talking to her on...
[20:10:08]MARTINEZ: He was spending way too much time -- he was spending way too much time with her. He would look for any excuse to take her out
to the park or to take her out to eat, any excuse to be alone with her. So when she noticed that, she immediately put a stop to it, and she asked him
to move out.
GRACE: And you know, Nancy, we are brought up to believe the best, good, about everyone. And when it`s somebody you`ve been working with for a
period of time, you think you know them. Sure, fine, go take her to the park. That`s -- but then over and over and over, suddenly, it hits her
something is wrong.
Nancy Martinez, relative of missing Diana, just 9 years old. Tonight, we don`t know where she is. We have no clue. But I can tell you this. Jorge
Guerrero knows something. They get him, they get his cell phone, and they find child pornography on his phone.
Now, another thing, Nancy Martinez. There was no sign of forced entry in their home. I`m wondering, did he have a key made? Did he still have the
key? They also have a pitbull, I think it is. The dog didn`t bark. That dog barks at everybody. It had to be somebody that dog would not bark at.
MARTINEZ: That`s when we noticed something was wrong. Again, we handed this information to police officers the first day that Diana went missing,
and according to a source that we have, the officers went to Okeechobee that same Sunday that she went missing. So neighbors were interviewed.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: ... and they find his car. What did the neighbors say?
MARTINEZ: The neighbors said that they didn`t know anything about a little girl being missing, that they were just there to ask question -- ask
questions about Guerrero. So they were never informed that Diana was missing at all.
GRACE: Has anybody reported seeing Diana?
MARTINEZ: We`ve had various leads from a lot of people here in Florida that claim to have seen Diana with Guerrero. So at this point, officers
are looking into it. They`re pulling footage. Hopefully, we can, you know, pinpoint exactly where he might have dropped her off, if that was the
case.
GRACE: Everyone, tonight, prayers are going up. But we need your tips -- 1-800-780-TIPS, 1-800-780-7477.
And you may fault the mother for taking in a renter, but not everybody can afford to pay their house payment, to pay a mortgage on a condo like a lot
of people who go to college and they get their grad degree and they get a good job. This mother brings somebody in she thinks she knows from work,
OK, as a renter. Now her daughter is gone!
Please help us find this girl!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:17:06]UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lee County deputies taking their investigation to Okeechobee, tracking down and detaining 28-year-old Jorge
Guerrero. Diana was not with him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They found him and didn`t find my girl.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The child`s parents are desperate to have her back, praying Guerrero`s arrest will lead to answers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Tonight, we need your help desperately, your prayers and your tips. The life of this girl -- it`s a 9-year-old little girl, that`s about the
3rd grade -- is hanging in the balance. Police finally catch the alleged perp, the suspect, but he won`t say anything. He`s now being held on child
pornography charges. This is not related to Diana, that we know. They don`t even have enough to charge him with kidnapping yet.
But that`s all we`ve got to go on tonight. This little girl could be dead, alive, being held. She could have been sold. She could be walking the
street right now. We don`t know where she is. And it`s turning desperate tonight. Right now, police are searching with ATVs. They are searching on
foot. They are searching with K-9 units to find this girl.
The mom wakes up in the middle of the night to give the baby a bottle. That`s when she notices Diana is gone. She`s up to get them ready to go to
church on Sunday morning, and her child is gone.
I`m going straight out to Nancy Martinez. This is the cousin of little Diana. Tell me, how is the mom doing tonight?
MARTINEZ: She`s in very bad shape. She had an appointment on Tuesday, and her blood pressure is through the roof. She`s on mandatory bed rest.
GRACE: To Dr. Lee Norman, chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Hospital. Dr. Norman, I know that that is true for a fact. I mean,
I don`t know what a medical doctor is going to say, but I can tell you stress and heartbreak can make your blood pressure go sky high. I know
that for a fact.
So the mom is now on -- she`s mandatory bed rest with blood pressure off the -- how does that happen? How does emotions make the mom`s blood
pressure go skyrocketing?
DR. LEE NORMAN, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS HOSPITAL: Well, our brain runs our body. And when our emotions get flared up, we let loose all the adrenaline
in our body. It makes our heart beat fast. It makes us sweat and makes the blood pressure go through the roof.
GRACE: You know, back to Nancy Martinez, little Diana`s cousin. Tell me, Nancy, if she is, she`s totally wrong, but is the mom blaming herself for
letting this guy rent a room?
[20:20:00]MARTINEZ: At this point, she is. She feels terrible that she didn`t pick up on this much earlier.
GRACE: Well, you know, Nancy...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: ... parents, mothers always blame themselves. Oh, I was at work, and this happened, my child was abducted. This happened. She is an
awesome mother. She works like a dog to support her family. And that`s why she took him in, is my understanding, to help him. And now this.
It`s not her fault that a criminal, a wolf in sheep`s clothing came into their home. Marc Klaas, tell me the statistics. What do you think, Marc?
KLAAS: Well, I -- this is a really hard call, Nancy. If she`s dead, she would have been dead within the first couple of hours. But generally, if
it`s somebody that has some kind of an attraction to the child, they`re not going to kill them immediately. They`re going to keep them alive. So this
little girl could be absolutely anywhere.
And I think the things that you ran down, the scenarios you ran down at the beginning of the show, were just a chilling reminder of how difficult it is
to solve these types of cases.
GRACE: But Marc, Marc, if she is still alive, if she -- let`s just say that he has held her captive somewhere, that she`s in a basement, that
she`s tied up, that she can`t out, she`s in a closet, who knows what. She can`t live like that for long, Marc. If she`s still alive, she can`t stay
alive like that. And he`s not cracking, Marc!
KLAAS: Well, exactly. And that`s the problem. We have a case here in the bay area, Nancy, in Sierra Lamar (ph). They -- she disappeared four years
ago, and within a couple of weeks, they picked up the man that had kidnapped her. He`s still sitting in jail, has not gone to trial and has
not told anybody where he placed her remains. They continue to look. It`s just an open mystery. Sometimes these cases are, unfortunately, never
solved.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[20:26:05]UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Still no sign of 9-year-old Diana Alvares. She went missing from her San Carlos Park home as Guerrero is detained in
Okeechobee. The family hopes this will lead to answers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope he speaks from his heart and admits it, if he hasn`t. Don`t keep us waiting with this feeling.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Tonight, a desperate search for a 9-year-old little girl. At this hour, cops are out on ATVs, K-9s, by foot. They`re looking about 30 miles
away from where Guerrero, Jorge Guerrero, was last known to be, in a place called Yepaw (ph) Junction.
But here`s the deal. Matt Zarrell, what about forensics? What about this guy`s cell phone? What do we know? I mean, can`t they ping his cell phone
and track him wherever he`s been since she goes missing?
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Well, yes, so they know that the cell phone records show he was in the area of Diana`s home in
the three-hour window that authorities believe she was kidnapped. The phone records also show that while Guerrero`s phone was in the area of the
child`s home, there was some type of communication between Guerrero and a phone used by the residents in the home, including the minor child. And
that information, that messages were deleted from the phone.
Guerrero later threw the phone out in a grassway in Orlando, and this random landscaper picked up the phone. A guy named Jorge called him and
said, You can just keep the phone.
GRACE: Oh, he wanted -- he deleted messages, and then he wanted to get rid of that phone.
Unleash the lawyers, Misty Marris, New York, Robin Ficker, defense attorney, Maryland. All right, Ficker, when`s the last time you threw your
cell phone out in a field and then tell whoever picks it up, Oh, yes, just keep it?
ROBIN FICKER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I`ve never done that. However, Sherlock Holmes, "Hound of the Baskervilles" -- the dog didn`t bark. A visitor at
3:00 AM, that dog barks. She walked out of that building by herself.
GRACE: She`s 9 years old.
FICKER: There`s no corroboration whatsoever, Nancy Grace, that he took this child -- no videos, no witnesses.
GRACE: You`re right. I can`t even try to argue with that. But I know this, Ficker. I know that circumstantial evidence is as strong as direct
evidence in a court of law. I know this guy had an unhealthy obsession with this child to the point the mother said, You know what? I don`t need
the money that bad. Get out. I don`t want your rent money. And she needed it, all right? She gets rid of him.
All of a sudden, boom, the girl is missing. And he throws his cell phone out in the middle of a field -- put Ficker up! -- throws his cell phone out
in the middle of a field. And when somebody gets it, he goes, Oh, yes, you know what? Keep that phone.
And why is his cell phone showing up pinging in her neighborhood at the time she goes missing, Ficker?
FICKER: I don`t have an answer for that, but you don`t, either. There may be a good reason. Maybe the phone was out of minutes.
GRACE: At 3:00 AM? 3:00 AM?
FICKER: Did they get a search warrant to search that phone? I don`t think so. They should have.
GRACE: He abandoned it. You know what? Don`t cloud this. Don`t muddy the waters because that`s a lie. I`m going to call you out on that,
Ficker, because when you abandon property, cops don`t need a search warrant. They can grab it just like anybody on the street.
And Marris, you`re looking a little smug right now, but you know that when a property is abandoned, anybody can get it. And what about this? What
about him being there around 3:00 AM in her neighborhood? I`ve told many a jury, Misty Marris, nothing good happens after midnight, and that`s true.
Why is he in her neighborhood, 3:00 AM, throws away his cell phone after deleting messages to somebody in that home? You know it`s her.
MISTY MARRIS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, there could be a million different explanations for this.
GRACE: Give me one. Give me one!
MARRIS: Maybe he was still in communication with the mother or another person that lived in the household. He lived there for nine months! He
may have maintained friendships. We don`t know that at this point.
GRACE: You know what? I think I do know that. Nancy Martinez, who is Diana`s cousin -- the mom kicked him out because of his obsession with her
girl, OK?
[20:30:10] I doubt pretty seriously the mom kept up a relationship with him to where they go, oh, yeah, how? How are you? What`s going on? What`s up?
No, that`s not happening. That mother isn`t talking to him on the phone and I`m sure her new husband isn`t.
MARTINEZ: That`s correct. The only time we did try to make contact with Guerrero was the day that he went missing.
We called him to see where he was. He let us know he was in Orlando, and that call was recorded by authorities.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:35:00] GRACE: Prestigious Stanford University, ex-champion swimmer gets a slap on the wrist for raping an unconscious coed?
Slap on the wrist, what do I mean by that? Just six months in the local jail after a jury finds him guilty on three felony sex attacks. Three
felony sex attacks on an unconscious girl outside a campus frat party. And to top it all off, after he gets a sweetheart deal, his father writes that
going to prison is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action. Twenty minutes of action. He calls it action? I call it a felony.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel better knowing that he`s not on campus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a powerful and moving victim impact statement, the young woman Turner assaulted told the court she should not be viewed as a
drunk victim discarded behind a dumpster nor should the scales of justice be tipped in favor of the all-American swimmer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: This makes me sick. A drunk victim behind a dumpster? Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host, that`s correct, that`s correct. This, according
to him, this champion swimmer for Stanford, says that it was a consensual sex act? But whoa, behind a dumpster?
What girl is going to agree to have relations outside in plain view, in public, naked from basically the bra-down by a dumpster?
Right there, right there, Dave Mack, I can tell you that is a lie, all right? But let`s just start at the beginning. Now let me understand, the
judge gives him six months after a jury returns guilty on three felony sex assault counts? And gives him six months? What?
DAVE MACK, SYNDICATED TALK SHOW HOST: Six months in county, Nancy. That`s the worst part. He was actually facing ten years in prison.
Now, you brought up something important. This is not a date rape or anything like that. This girl was not even conscious. Not just drunk, not
just throwing up drunk. She was passed out unconscious, incapable of consent, incapable of even saying no, by a dumpster when they discovered
her.
The only reason she might even be alive was because two dudes were biking to the party and they saw what was going on and they yelled at Brock, they
said, dude, what are you doing? The girl`s not moving. She`s unconscious.
And he ran. He ran away because she was -- they didn`t know if she was even alive, Nancy. When she got to the hospital, there was pine straw and
filth all over this girl including in her private. There was no way she was even capable of consent.
GRACE: You`re telling me that she was lying there, as I said, no clothes on from basically the bottom of the bra down, and she had like pine straw and
dirt all in her private area?
MACK: Because this guy was -- he was twice legal limit drunk. She was totally unconscious. He raped her, manhandled her because he was in -- when
the testimony came up and they were actually discussing the particulars of this, it was a foul, disgusting, despicable guy.
He tried to kiss her sister about 30 minutes before this action took place. Thirty minutes before her sister. Sister was disgusted by the guy, and now
he claims that it was a consensual thing even though when they witnessed him, it was so vile and violent that he got up and ran because he knew what
he was doing was wrong.
And by the way, Nancy, he was convicted on three of those counts and still the judge only gave him six months in county.
GRACE: Let me ask you something. Stacey Newman, is it true that this judge is also a Stanford graduate?
STACEY NEWMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Yeah. We looked into his background. He actually is a Stanford alum, so many people are asking did that weigh
into his decision? And Nancy, the prosecution had asked for six years and he only got six months.
GRACE: I mean, whoa, whoa, couldn`t he have gotten 10 -- it is 10 years on each count he could have gotten, Stacey?
NEWMAN: He was facing 10 years max, the prosecution had asked for six. His defense team had asked for four months and the judge gave him six months.
The reasons for that sentencing, Nancy, they`re so light they just don`t hold weight.
GRACE: OK. I want to go to Hannah Knowles, reporter with the "Stanford Daily," who was in court, in trial.
Now, Hannah, thank you for being with us. Is it true that it is -- it has been observed that he manufactured details on the stand? Some people
thought he manufactured details. And if so, what details? Did you find him believable?
[20:40:00] HANNAH KNOWLES, THE "STANFORD DAILY" REPORTER: So, yeah, I was in court on the day that Turner testified, actually, and I heard his full
story. And I`ll be honest, I was pretty skeptical the whole time because he was talking about how he just happened to get off of this girl and jump up
because he felt like he had to throw up at the exact moment that these two men confronted him yelling at him for sexually assaulting this girl. So I
think that ...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: So -- wait, wait. Hannah, Hannah Knowles with me for the "Stanford Daily." So two guys are biking by. They see him on top of her, grinding
into her. And they start screaming at him to get off of her.
She`s laying there almost in open sight by a dumpster. She`s covered in dirt and pine straw. She`s unconscious. And he jumps up and starts running?
Is that right Hannah?
KNOWLES: Yes. He starts running away. And they tackle him.
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers, Missy Marris and Robin Ficker. OK, Ficker, if he wants -- you know the charge on flight. Flight, which means you run from
the scene of a crime.
Now, when two guys pass me on a bicycle, I don`t turn around and run for the woods. I just keep walking along. Why would he jump up off the victim,
and she is a victim, so don`t start with me because the jury`s already found him guilty, why would he get up and take off running and leave her
there, leave her, on the ground by a dumpster, passed out if he wasn`t doing anything wrong?
FICKER: Well, she wasn`t walking back to his room to play tiddlywinks. She blew a 2.7 three hours later. She passed out drunk. There must have been
some talk ahead of time as to what they were going to do. But he is guilty of digital penetration.
GRACE: That is rape. What - are you saying ...
FICKER: I`m not saying it isn`t.
MACK: Are you actually saying, Ficker, that this is not a rape because a jury disagrees with you? Are you daring to suggest ...
(CROSSTALK)
FICKER: No, I didn`t say that. I said ...
(CROSSTALK)
FICKER: ... because it was digital -- I said it was digital penetration. They found him guilty of that.
GRACE: Three counts of sex assault. And when you say she was 2.7, that happened at the hospital. She was totally comatose, Missy Marris, comatose.
I mean, really, the woman was -- the girl was laying there when guys got off of a bike and came up to her and she`s practically naked. She just laid
there. She was passed out. She couldn`t give consent.
MARRIS: That was the defense`s argument, that she did consent and a jury found that he was not credible and convicted him. But that was the
conviction. That was the jury`s determination. They found ...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: This judge is responsible, and for the father to write a letter saying six months is too steep of a price to pay for 20 minutes of action?
Action?
[20:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The judge`s decision to sentence former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner just six months in county jail and probation for sexually
assaulting a woman who passed out drunk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`d be livid. I`d be furious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A light sentence, she said, would make a mockery of the seriousness of his assault.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We`ve got dueling letters and statements here after a sweetheart sentence by this judge, Aaron Persky, who also went to Stanford, who
refuses to sentence a convicted sex offender to anything more than six months in the local jail.
Probably get out what, three or four months on three felony convictions of sex assault on an unconscious girl by a dumpster in the dirt who gets up
running away with good Samaritans trying to stop him?
What exactly, Hannah Knowles, reporter with the "Stanford Daily," what does the father put in his letter besides describing a felony sex assault as his
son getting some action? What does he say?
KNOWLES: Well, so Turner wrote this letter -- he read this letter aloud in court on the day of Turner`s sentencing and he was basically pleading for a
lighter sentence because he said the sentence and the trial has ruined Turner`s life.
He talks about his son -- how his son will never be his happy-go-lucky self again. He talks about how his son`s eating habits have deteriorated. And so
I think a lot of people heard that and I thought, what about the victim? What about the impact on the victim`s life?
GRACE: I mean, Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host, following up on what Hannah Knowles is reporting, he says he is not going to be his same happy-
go-lucky self and, Dave, that he no longer wants his favorite pretzels. He`s lost his appetite for his favorite pretzels. Really?
MACK: It`s breaking my heart. I`d like to see what prisoners would do with those lucky pretzels if he actually ended up in real prison.
You know, Nancy, let`s talk about the victim impact system. It was over 7,000 words and to date, it broke people`s hearts to hear that this
victim`s life was totally ruined.
OK, Dad says 20 minutes of action. Twenty minutes of action and a 20-year life. That guy should be spending 10 years in hard prison and I mean it the
way I said it.
It should be the worst 10 years of his life and when he gets out of that, there should be 10 people waiting to meet him at the jail gate. This is
something that she will never recover from. It gives every criminal on the campus of Stanford that wants to dose a girl with GHB, free license.
[20:50:00] GRACE: I`m just overwhelmed with the way this is -- I accept the pain she`s accepting the pain. You`re convicted of violating me forcibly
with malicious intent and all you could do is admit to consuming alcohol? Don`t talk about the sad way your -- if you can move that along -- life was
upturned because alcohol made you do bad things. That`s what I was looking for.
Dr. Greg Cason, psychologist joining me out of L.A., it sounds like he is saying oh, the alcohol made me do it. How - I mean, you know the old adage,
I almost hate to say it but I am. Because it really goes without saying, the apple doesn`t fall far from the tree.
The father, clearly, is discounting this whole thing, saying 20 minutes of action. Action? Action? That`s what he thinks, this was action? Forcing
yourself on an unconscious girl?
GREG CASON, PSYCHOLOGIST: No, this is extremely chilling. And this harkens back to the Ethan Couch case that we saw not long ago where there was that
case of `affluenza` with this child who comes from privilege. And look at him there, Nancy, look at him, chewing gum. He has callous disregard. That
child has callous disregard for the process, in the legal process, and his dad backs him up 100 percent.
[20:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: A distraught dad leaping over pews in a crowded courtroom, attacks the serial killer that murders his daughter.
But tonight, is the dad being charged with a crime? I want you to see what happened in court.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good afternoon, sir.
VAN TERRY, FATHER OF VICTIM, SHIRELLDA TERRY: Hi, your honor. My name is Van Terry, father of Shirellda Terry.
Right now, I guess we`re supposed to, in our hearts, forgive this clown who`s touched our families, taken my child.
(CROWD COMMOTION)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Do you see the pain in that father`s face as he is looking back? I want to show you why he was so mad. Liz, I want to see the picture of the
defendant, smirking, in court, at the -- look at him. Look at him.
I wish I could get my hands around his neck right now. Look at him, laughing at the father.
And isn`t it true, John Harper with us and Belinda Minor, the mother of one of the three murder victims, Shirellda Terry, isn`t it true, Ms. Minor,
that he was sitting over there, smiling as the father is up there trying to talk and saying things about the victims, three victims, three dead girls
and he is muttering about it under his breath. That is what made Van Terry go after him, isn`t that true, Ms. Minor?
BELINDA MINOR, MOTHER OF VICTIM, SHIRELLDA TERRY: That is very true.
GRACE: I mean, when I look at that guy`s smirking face, tell me something, tell me something Ms. Minor, I want to know what you think.
Now is being discussed, they are actually mulling charges against Van Terry, Shirellda`s dad. They are actually considering charging him for
attacking this convicted serial killer.
MINOR: Well, I mean, I don`t agree that they should charge Van, you know, Shirellda`s father, with any charges because, you know, it was Van`s --
Van`s been in the courtroom but at that time he was in the courtroom, he was prepared to do a victim impact statement.
And he had heard some things that he had not heard before, such as how Madison -- if I call him Ivan the Terrible, he mutilated Shirellda`s body.
And Van hadn`t heard that before. And when he went up there to see ...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: That is awful, Ms. Minor.
MINOR: Yeah.
GRACE: John Harper, criminal justice reporter of cleveland.com, you mean this guy mutilated his daughter`s body?
JOHN HARPER, CLEVELAND.COM CRIMINAL JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, Nancy. Michael Madison was charged around three counts, actually, of mutilating a corpse
and, you know, he did this and how he stored the bodies, you know which was really described in court as a very inhumane and careless kind of way that
he did. You know, pretty much keeping them in garbage bags ...
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: Oh, John Harper, I can`t even hear it anymore. All I can say is the death penalty is too good for this guy.
Let`s stop to honor an American hero. A 7-year-old boy stands up to armed robbers in a Maryland GameStop. The little boy, clutching a stuffed animal
toy, swinging, punching at the person to protect his parents, ambushed by two hooded men at gunpoint. Suspects escape. The 7-year-old`s bravery, a
diversion that saved a life. This tiny crime fighter, our American hero.
"Forensic Files" next. Thank you to our guests, but especially to you for being with us. Nancy Grace, signing off. I`ll See you tomorrow night, 8
o`clock sharp, Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
