Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'No Words' For Dad Accused of Murdering Boy: Mom's Friend

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. What types of things did your son Cory like to do as a six-year-old? He liked reading, coloring, painting, playing outside. And what type of demeanor did Cory have as a six-year-old? He was happy, silly, loving. Brianna Michelo, the grieving mother of Corey Michelo, taking the stand to testify about her son. So guys, this is my mommy. Prosecutors say that six-year-old little boy was killed by his father, Christopher Greger. You know, my heart just breaks for her. There's no words to even describe it.

Starting point is 00:00:50 A supporter of the Michellos is here to talk about the trial so far. Thanks for joining me for Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Corey Michello was just six years old when he died on April 2, 2021. Corey's father, Christopher Greger, faces a murder charge in his death along with a child endangerment charge. Brianna Michelo testified at Greger's trial about her little boy. Who is Corey Michelo? My son. And when did you give birth to Corey? May 1st, 2014. And how old were you when you gave birth to Corey? 17.

Starting point is 00:01:29 What grade were you in when you gave birth to Corey? 11th grade. And who is Corey's biological father? The defendant. As you heard, Brianna Michelo was 17 when she gave birth to Corey. Testimony at trial revealed that Christopher Greger became a part of Corey's life when he was either four or five years old and became the parent that Corey lived with primarily. But Brianna Michelo had visitation. During the trial,

Starting point is 00:01:55 testimony has revealed that when Christopher Greger took Corey Michelo to the hospital the day that he died, he mentioned that Brianna Michelo struggled with addiction. What did the defendant say about the bruising? He said the bruising was from Corey playing football and riding his bicycle. What did the defendant say about Corey's mother? That she was a drug addict. What did the defendant say about contacting Corey's mother at that time? He said that he did not want her contacted. And what did the defendant say about Corey being at Jersey Shore Medical Center? That his mom had had him there the night before.

Starting point is 00:02:40 This is a law and crime legal alert. Google Incognito tracked users browsing data without their knowledge. MassTort Alliance, one of our legal sponsors, is helping users file for compensation because Google misled users about the privacy of its Incognito browser. If you've used Google Incognito anytime since 2016, you can start your claim by answering less than 10 questions. Just log on to incognitoclaims.com slash crime fix. And Gregor's mother testified at a hearing outside the presence of the jury

Starting point is 00:03:12 that minutes after Corey died, Gregor called his mother and cast blame for Corey's death on Brianna Michelo. The next phone call I receive, Chris is hysterical, hysterical. What did she do to him? What did she, he's screaming on the phone. And I'm like, what, you know, what's going on? And he tells me Corey passed. Two days before Corey died, Brianna Michelo had filed an emergency application for custody of Corey because she said she feared that Gregor was abusing him. Now, on April 1st of 2021, what time did you pick up Corey that day for visitation? Around 4.30. And after you picked up Corey, where did you take him? To the pediatrician. And what was the name of the pediatrician or the practice?

Starting point is 00:04:09 Ivy Pediatrics. And what town was the pediatrician located in? Tums River. And when you picked up Corey that day, what was Corey's demeanor? He was fine. And when you picked up Corey that day, what was his physical condition? He still had some bruises, but other than that, he was normal. And when you got to the pediatrician's office, did Corey speak to the doctor?

Starting point is 00:04:37 Yes. And was Corey examined by the doctor? Yes. And did you speak to the doctor? I did. Now, based upon this conversation, where did you take Corey next? The community medical center. And where is community medical center located? I believe in Tom's River. And why did you take Corey to community medical center in Tom's River? To be examined further, and he needed to get x- in Toms River.

Starting point is 00:05:09 To be examined further and he needed to get x-rays and blood work. Okay. And while you were either at the pediatrician or on your way to Community Medical Center, did you receive the family court order regarding your emergent application? Yes. That emergency application for custody was denied. The next morning on April 2nd, testimony revealed that Michelo dropped her son off at Gregor's apartment at 9 a.m. Hours later, Christopher Gregor showed up at the hospital with Corey. He died a short time later.

Starting point is 00:05:43 Gregor's defense team says that Corey died from sepsis. Dr. Larkin found that Corey's blood results from Southern Ocean showed incredibly high white blood count, high glucose, and high lactic acid. and said that's all indicative of sepsis caused by an infection. The same sepsis that Jersey Shore Medical Center told Brianna Macholo do not take this child from the hospital. He possibly has sepsis. We need to evaluate him. But prosecutors say Gregor abused his son and beat him, causing those injuries that led to his death. And based not only on the autopsy findings, but my review of the medical records, there's no, zero, not one scintilla of evidence of sepsis or any other infectious process in Corey's autopsy.

Starting point is 00:06:57 I want to bring in a friend and supporter of Brianna Michello. She is Keriann McManus. Keriann, thanks so much for joining us. First of all, how did you come to know Brianna Michelo. She is Keriann McManus. Keriann, thanks so much for joining us. First of all, how did you come to know Brianna Michelo? First of all, I just want to thank you for having me on. We appreciate you helping us get the story out of Corey. So I first met Bri when Corey died. The day that Corey died, April 2nd, I had come across a post on Facebook made by Bree. She was seeking help locating a vehicle, which was Christopher's

Starting point is 00:07:40 vehicle. She had just learned of Corey's death and she had no idea what was happening. She had no answers. So she just resorted to social media, made a post asking if anybody sees this car or this person to please contact the police. Being that the incident happened within walking distance of my home, I saw it and my heart just went out because I didn't know the full story. So I just reached out to Bree and I said to her, I'm local, I live in Barnegat, I'm not sure what the story is, but if there's anything that I can do to help, I'll keep my eye out, feel free to reach out to me. So from that point forward, I spoke to Bree on a daily basis and we've become very close. I speak to her still on

Starting point is 00:08:33 a daily basis, see her very frequently, and we just stay in touch. We've become very close friends. You've been following Corey's case, as you said, since the day that he died. You've been at the trial. We've seen you in the gallery. How is Brianna holding up? Yeah, you know, my heart just breaks for her. There's no words to even describe it.

Starting point is 00:09:00 She's on the outside. It may appear to you that she's doing okay, but she's on the outside it may appear to you that she's doing okay but she's not um you know it's been a very long almost three and a half years for her with no answers you know she's still learning a lot of these details to this day you know a lot of the stuff that i was coming out in trial she didn't know um so every day is a struggle to her um what did she not know can you tell me is it just specific information or um specific information she recently you know especially the treadmill video she was just shown that video right prior to trial starting. You know, she kind of knew the story, like just hearing from the police and the affidavit of some details. But for her to just

Starting point is 00:09:56 see that video just days before trial started, you're talking three and a half years into this, and she's just seeing what happened to her son. The treadmill video was recorded by a security camera at Christopher Greger's apartment complex on March 20th, 2021. That was more than a week before Corey died. It's very difficult to watch. While it's been shown to the jury at Greger's trial, prosecutors have not argued that it caused Corey's death. It shows Gregor speeding up the treadmill and Corey falling. Gregor then appears to bite Corey's head, and there are other things that Carrie Ann McManus says Brianna Michelo just learned of related to the day that Corey died. She just learned fairly recently that the clothes that were located in Christopher's garbage can in his kitchen were soiled with vomit and

Starting point is 00:10:50 feces. Just little details like that. There's so much more that she's just learning. You know, again, she's the prosecution is unable to tell her everything. So all of this is just coming out, you know? Um, and it's been a very long process for her. I mean, I just can't imagine being in her shoes and losing my son in such a tragic way and having zero answers until we're sitting in a courtroom and hearing it for the first time. And another thing she's just learning for the first time is his extent of injuries that he's had. Yes, the medical examiner determined it was blunt force trauma to the abdomen and the chest. But we all just learned in court by the forensic pathologist that he had far more internal injuries than we even knew.

Starting point is 00:11:55 Forensic pathologist Dr. Thomas Andrew testified that Corey's death was caused by blunt impact injuries. He also said the injuries likely occurred around the same time. Doctor, can you tell us about the additional evidence that you saw to fine-tune that time frame? So if you think about that time frame of 4 to 12 hours, that would have been from 5 a.m. the day before to about 1 o'clock in the afternoon on the second. There was a video that was alluded to, and it wasn't an intentional video. There were no people in the video. You could basically see that the phone was on a car seat or something.

Starting point is 00:12:41 Attorney Lento, have folks seen this video? Do they know what I'm talking about? It appears as if the phone was on a car seat or something. It was represented to me that this was Corey's mother dropping him off for custodial care with his father. And they were having a conversation. Well, this was at about 9 o'clock. Corey was answering questions.

Starting point is 00:13:11 He was conversational. He was normal, audibly. So if that's at 9 o'clock, the period of time of injury from 5 o'clock to 9 o'clock, in my mind, is eliminated. A person with these injuries is not going to be responding like Corey would in the car. So that puts us between 9 a.m. and approximately 1 p.m. I can't narrow it down any more specifically than that, but I am confident that that is the range of time in which Corey was injured. Now, as I mentioned earlier, the defense has suggested that Brianna Michelo is actually responsible for Corey's death.

Starting point is 00:13:52 This is one thing that's really killing Bri. You know, she's seeing all these videos floating around line of these accusations and it's breaking her heart because she has been nothing but a loving and caring mother to Corey. She did everything by the book and that's another thing. Floating all around online people are saying she should be held responsible which really breaks all of our hearts because she did everything by the book. She did everything that DCP&P told her to do. She did everything that law enforcement told her to do. She made countless calls to DCP&P. She begged and she pleaded for help and everybody just

Starting point is 00:14:39 ignored her. You know, DCP&P would come out and do their investigation and everything would go unfounded. And now we have our thoughts of why, you know, typically an abuser is not going to abuse their child in front of a social worker, a DCP&P worker. So it's hard to come to a conclusion that those accusations are actually happening. But there's so many things to debunk all these theories that are out there. So that call that Chris made to DCP&P that morning, right after after Bree dropped Corey off to Chris he makes this phone call to DC PMP and states that Corey's mom is coaching him to lie and say that Chris hit him now going back it's been brought out in trial that it's being said that, um, Chris told the emergency room, when he took Corey to the emergency room, that Corey was dropped off

Starting point is 00:15:57 feeling loopy, um, lethargic, not feeling well, um, you know, all his claims that he's stating, which can be debunked by the accidental video that Bree has, where you can verbally hear Corey in the back seat of her car verbalizing and having a conversation with her. He was alert. He was oriented. He was awake. He was fine. Other than physically all the bruising that was on his body, he was perfectly fine. I mean, yes. Was he probably tired? Absolutely. She had him, he was out at the hospital till one o'clock in the morning. So any normal six-year-old is going to be tired and then showing up at his father's house at 9 a.m. And that phone call to DC PMP, not once in that phone call did he ever make a statement saying that my son was dropped off.

Starting point is 00:16:57 He's complaining he's not feeling well, having a hard time breathing, his legs hurt, he's loopy, he's lethargic, not once. And on top of that, we even have a person that lives in that apartment complex that visibly saw Corey that morning and she stated that Corey was perfectly fine. He was outside. He was walking his dog and there was no signs of him not feeling well and just not being well in general. So very easy to debunk those theories, you know. Brianna Michalow dropped Corey off at his father's house at 9 a.m. on April 2nd. It was Good Friday and Corey was off school that day. As you heard in his trial testimony revealed, Michelo had taken Corey to the hospital the day prior on April 1st. She took him to Community Medical Center in Toms River, New Jersey

Starting point is 00:17:55 to be evaluated for all these bruising and all these cuts all over Corey's body. They wanted her to have Corey transferred to Jersey Shore Medical Center because the reason for this is because they do have a child abuse expert in that hospital. So they were trying to get her to have Corey transported via ambulance only because it was protocol. That's protocol. So if something were to happen, let's just say Corey did have some kind of internal bleeding going on or anything that they can't be held reliable if something happens to Corey if she were to drive him to the hospital so never once were they holding her in the hospital and telling her you have to send him via ambulance they were just going over their protocol and explaining to her

Starting point is 00:19:02 that this paper that she was going to be signing was just signing off that she understands that they're not held reliable if something happens to Corey within the period of her leaving community and going to Jersey Shore. So she opted to drive him because one, it was said that her driving him would be a much quicker type scenario versus being transported in an ambulance and the doctor said to her he's his blood work was fine he's not he had no signs of sepsis um they were not concerned about anything life-threatening um they just wanted him to go to jersey shore to be evaluated by a child abuse um doctor i guess um so she opted to do that and another reason why she opted to do that was

Starting point is 00:20:01 because corey was due to be back in Chris's care. And she was already running late on time. And Chris at that moment was sitting there verbally abusing Brianna via text message. So she opted to drive him to try and make the process quicker so she can get Corey back to Chris quicker. Unfortunately, when she got to Jersey Shore, he was there for quite a long time. They did extensive testing. Everything came back normal other than all the bruising, the abrasions on his body. So come one o'clock when they were finally discharged from the hospital, Bree was trying to contact Chris and she said to him, you know, we're done at the hospital. Can I please come drop Corey off to you for, you know, your visitation? Chris wasn't answering. Chris was not responding. So the

Starting point is 00:21:06 only option that Bree had was to take Corey back home with her. So that's what she did. She said he fell asleep in the car. First thing she did with him was bring him inside, put him to bed. They woke up the next morning. Corey was his normal energetic self. Yes, he was a little tired from being up late. He ate breakfast, went about his normal energetic self. Yes, he was a little tired from being up late. He ate breakfast, went about his normal morning routine, got in the car, and Brie drove him to Chris's house for his visitation. And that was the last time she saw her son. You've been friends with her this entire time. There's been a lot of discussion in the trial that she struggled with substance abuse. I mean, Christopher Greger, according to the ER nurse, said his mom's a drug addict or something

Starting point is 00:21:54 like that. So there are things that he was saying in the emergency room to kind of throw some shade at her. How is she doing with that? And how, I mean, is she clean still? Has she been able to deal with these issues and move past them? Yeah. I'm proud to say that she is 100% clean. She's been clean for quite a long time. And it's amazing. It's an amazing transformation she's made. She since has brought in a little girl into this world. Beautiful, beautiful little girl. She loves her to death just as much as she loved Corey. And she's made it a point to bring Cory's story into her daughter's life. She wants

Starting point is 00:22:48 her to know Cory and who he was and eventually what happened. She wants her to know who Cory was and have him be a part of her life even though he's no longer here. But she's doing wonderfully with her sobriety, absolutely wonderful. I mean, and it's, it's surprising because with all the trauma and the stress she has dealt with, with this whole situation, she has held unbelievably strong and I couldn't be any more proud of her. Brianna Michelo's daughter is one. Testimony in the trial resumes this week with witnesses for Christopher Greger's defense testifying. Testimony in the trial resumes this week with witnesses for Christopher Greger's defense testifying. That's it for this edition of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks

Starting point is 00:23:31 so much for being with me. We'll see you back here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'No Words' For Dad Accused of Murdering Boy: Mom's Friend

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'No Words' For Dad Accused of Murdering Boy: Mom's Friend

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