Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Ohio Couple Accused of Sick Sex Crimes With Child and Dogs

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

A grand jury in Ohio has indicted Tony McCollister and Erica Grove on multiple felonies, including rape, gross sexual imposition and endangering children related to allegations involving a small child and dogs. Deputies and detectives executed a search warrant on Grove's home in December 2025. At first, Grove was accused of having sex with dogs but now she faces far more serious charges involving the child who is younger than six. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through the disturbing allegations in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Mark Weaver https://x.com/MarkRWeaverCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

So what is, what is your profession? I'm a nurse anesthetist. So that means you put people under, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. A mom who works as a nurse helping to put people under anesthesia for surgeries is now accused of drugging a young child to sexually abuse her with her boyfriend, an ex-reality TV star. But Erica Groves' lawyer claims she's actually the victim.

Erica is in fact a victim here. She herself is a victim of her ex-person. boyfriend. I have the disturbing update out of Ohio. I'm Anjanette Levy, and this is crime fix. There's a reason that Morgan and Morgan is America's largest personal injury law firm. It's because they fight for their clients and win a whole lot in court. The firm has more than a thousand lawyers that have recovered $25 billion for more than 500,000 clients. In the last few months, a client in Florida got $12 million when the insurance company offered just $350,000. In Pennsylvania, another client won $26 million that was 40 times the insurers offer.

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Little kids, boys and girls. In December 2025, detectives and deputies descended upon Groves' home in the early morning hours to execute a search warrant. They'd received a tip about child sex abuse material. I'll let's go back here a little bit. Okay. I'll lift this up here a little bit. Perfect. Alright, we're going to walk back here a little bit.

You got anything on you at all? No. Okay. Okay. But I really do not want to accidentally pee in when you guys the cars. Man, it is what it is. I know. It's all good.

good. But yeah, we're not going to be able to let you pee for a little bit. Lean your head up on this car real quick. Do you care if I pat you down and go inside your pockets? Spread your legs real wide for me. Yeah, that's going to happen. I'm like it went to. While Tony McAllister was being placed in the back of the cruiser, his girlfriend, Erica Grove, was being detained. His name is Bijou. He's terrified of other people. these room. It's my... Yes, he will. It's my parents' dog. They're just in town visiting. Go on, sit here, here. I ask her to, okay? There's two cats that are loose to that will run out.

You're in a bra? It's a... Yeah. Well, no, it's a built-in to him. He's up there. I think you know what's going on. I don't. Okay, well, when the detectives get to speak to you, they'll let you know what's going on, okay? Not what liberty to say. They've been remember Miranda and everything. Miranda's. Detectives went to Erica Grove's home to investigate a tip from Google about child sex abuse material. When detectives got there on December 23rd, they believed Erica Grove was the lesser of the two involved,

and that she was involved in using dogs and sex acts. I'm going to take those black cuffs off. Be okay. So if you want to step out, I'll cut them off. It'll be okay. So just turn around and be. knife. I don't know if that's even going to work.

Take off the cups first. I don't think Eric is going to be any issues. We're just trying to make it a little more comfortable Eric. I think that's your father over there on speaking with it. Will you just kind of hang out with that gentleman there? We're waiting on someone to escort them and use the bathroom. Is your knife sharp enough to cut this? You don't have a gerber do you?

Is my daughter? I got a... Yes. Door? Alright. See if that works better. No, I think I need scissors. When the medics get here, I can use their trauma shears.

Okay. Yeah, we don't want to catch it, really, but... No, yeah. Unless I can push the... Let me see I can push the tab. It's all pool when you release. Oh, Erica, look at that. Okay. Now, let's do the other hand, Erica.

Yep. Do you slide your hands out now? Yes. All right, I think we'll just have a seat back in there. I won't put you back in cuffs. I'll be nice. Oh, thank you. Yep. But now, more than a month later, and after more investigation, things have changed considerably.

The grand jury indicted Erica Grove on 24 charges, including four counts of rape, one count of corrupting another with drugs, five counts of gross sexual imposition, eight counts of illegal use of a minor or impaired person, in nudity-oriented material or performance, two counts of endangering children and four counts of sexual conduct with an animal. The child is younger than six. And one thing that is disturbing, Grove is trained to put people under because of her job as a nurse anesthetist. Listen to this. I was going to ask Eric or something. Hey, I had a question for you, just out of curiosity. Yeah. Okay, purely unrelated to all this stuff. So I'm just kind of, I fill the time with conversation until they can do their work, right?

So what is your profession? I'm a nurse anesthetist. So that means you put people under, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So they say that that's the closest you get to, like, nothingness, right? Yeah, basically. You usually don't have any memory of it.

I've been put under one time, and it was when I was 17 before I turned 18 to get my tons of self. Only surgery ever had in my life. Yeah. Right? I mean, I've had a lot of broken fingers and stuff like that. why is it that some people come out of that stuff like my wife she's had major spine surgery to where they they did a spinal thing on the back worked on her and then they had to roll her over

vice versa took all of her organs out of that yeah and she comes out of it like she's up walking you know like no problem were you 17 and came out crazy oh let me tell you something they had to hold me down oh yeah it's a pediatric thing it processes differently okay yeah yeah like, oh my gosh, what is this, you know, what's this kid doing? You know, like people hold me down and everything. Young males, like 16 to 24, always wake up crazy. Really? Okay. There's a new medication that can be used that sometimes helps with that.

But for whatever reason, it's just the way the brain is, it's always male, so it's all y'all. Okay. All right. So it's not uncommon. No, it's not uncommon. During the investigation, the detective sees dogs from the home. I don't think they got pictures in there, but he said someone or one of the pictures. of the dogs yeah okay what is that well probably for the for an exam yeah okay um yep perfect there you go are you guys to sign for the dogs yep oh babies

oh they're both males I thought one was a female what good boys my dogs would eat somebody well I was expecting this to go very different yeah gloves, all the things, yeah. No, unless they're just some sort of, yeah, I'm sure they're just like pound puppies. Now this makes you wonder, will the prosecutors say that Grove was using her professional background, her knowledge as a nurse anesthetist to drug a child? We don't know.

But we do know that Grove is now in jail. Deputies pulled her over and arrested her on January 30th. She was booked into the jail on those 24 counts. Grove appeared in court to answer to those charges. Is your client ready to enter a plea? She is judge. Her plea would be guilty. I'm sorry, not guilty.

Okay. Prosecutors asked that Grove's bail be set at $1 million. The state continues to be worried about the public, specifically the individual child victim. That was the, that nicks up the several of the counts of this particular indictment involving this defunding. We would ask that in addition to that, there would be an electronic bond in house arrest if she would make any such bond, that there be a no contact order issued with regard to all minor children as well as animals, and that there be a order of protection with regard to the five-year-old minor victim of this particular offense. Groves' lawyer made a somewhat shocking claim, as he argued that she should be released on

Yes, Judge, thank you again. Erica's plea is not guilty today, Judge. Erica is in fact a victim here. She herself is a victim of her ex-boyfriend, Tony McAllister, and she never, ever has sexually abused. In fact, Judge, in this investigation, or at least during the investigation, her parents were advised by investigators that Erica was coerced to a certain extent, largely to a was largely coerced to do some of the things that she's now been indicted for doing. Erica Groves' lawyer said that she passed a polygraph related to the allegation that she sexually abused that little girl. By way of background, I will tell you that she is a graduate of the Medical University of South Carolina. She graduated in May of 2008. She graduated summa cum laude. She then began her military training in 2010 with the United States Army. The judge set Groves' bail at $250,000.

She'll only have to pose 10% of that. She'll also be on electronic monitoring. Grove's boyfriend, Tony McAllister, who appeared on a short-lived reality show about swingers. Neighbors with benefits now faces 30 counts, including four counts of rape, one count of corrupting another with drugs, five counts of gross sexual imposition, three counts of endangering children, 13 counts of pandering sexually oriented matter involving a or impaired person and four counts of sexual conduct with an animal. McCullister also appeared in court.

His bail was also set at $250,000 at 10%. Your Honor, my client, obviously I just learned about the case. I know nothing about the underlying facts of the case. I know the court doesn't know anything about the underlying facts of the case either. He does have a place to live. He is on Social Security disability. He has no real record to talk about. record to talk about. I think we even saw on his record a fishing violation, and that's kind of the

extent of his run-ins with the law. I think, Your Honor, would be appropriate to release him on his own reconnaissance with electronic monitoring. He could turn over his passport. He does not appear to be a flight risk in any way, especially with electronic monitoring and his ties to the community. Warren County's prosecutor, David Farnshell said in a statement, just when we thought that sex with the dogs was going to be the most horrific part of this case. The detectives discovered evidence of the drugging and repeated raping of a little girl. I'm sitting in a room full of people who investigate and prosecute child sex abuse cases on a daily basis. We're reviewing the evidence, and it's just silence. It's really difficult to even process. So to discuss this incredibly

disturbing case, I want to bring in Mark Weaver. He's a prosecutor based in Ohio, not affiliated or associated with this case in any way, but has prosecuted a lot of cases over the years. Mark, this case, the allegations, you know, first we were just dealing with allegations of dogs, sex with dogs involving Erica Grove. There were allegations of sexually oriented material involving children regarding Tony McCollister. Now, though, we're learning Erica Grove is accused of drugging and raping, along with Tony McCallister. a child younger than six to engage in sex. I mean, I don't know how much more disturbing this case could get. So what evidence do you think they have other than just photographic evidence to back

all of this up? Yeah, I agree. Short of murder, these are the most serious charges we can file in Ohio court. Every one of these cases can lead to 20, 30, 40, 50 years in prison. Rape of a child under 10 in Ohio is punished by life in prison without the possibility of parole. And so there's so many different charges here. And the evidence is almost exclusively going to be digital. When people upload or try to download this material child sex abuse material or other things to the internet, the FBI and state and local law enforcement are constantly monitoring for this stuff. eyes making it easier to find it. And as a result, the digital trail leads right back to the people

involved. And if they are depicted in the images, we don't know that yet from the news accounts I've not read. But if they are depicted in the images, that's game over. One thing about this case that intrigues me and has piqued my interest as far as the investigative part of this. Erica Grove, her profession, she's a nurse anesthetist. Okay. So I've, kind of tried to look into this a little bit more. I'm wondering, do they believe possibly that she was using her job, putting people under anesthesia to drug this child? Maybe so that this child, is the allegation going to be this child had no recollection of this stuff happening because she's skilled at this type of thing? Or maybe they're just, maybe the allegation is that something else

was going on. I mean, do you think that we'll find out something related to that? Yeah, if they've drugged this child, you have to imagine this woman used her knowledge about anesthetizing people to do that. She certainly has access to those drugs. Now, they are highly controlled. Most medical environments have a sign-out system, a computer-based system where if you're taking drugs out, you have to account for who's taking them. But every system has gaps in it. And so perhaps she took advantage of that system was able to get the kind of drug that would allow them to commit this horrific act on this very small child. This is a preschooler, essentially, in a way that would allow the act to happen,

and perhaps, as you mentioned, maybe even have the child have no memory of it. Another thing that's really startling to me is the fact that, you know, this is a small child who, you know, was in the, I'm assuming, was, in their care somehow. Hopefully this child is getting the help that the child needs at this point in time. What's really startling to me is when this investigation started and when the detectives and the deputies went to the house, they were under the impression that Erica Grove was not serious, you know, she was involved as far as the dogs were concerned. They basically say

that on the video. But they're like this Tony guy, he's the main guy we're here for. She's just kind of like a side actor. Now she's, according to the prosecutor, in it up to her eyeballs. I mean, she is a main actor here. So they had to have uncovered something. They obviously uncovered things and were shocked by it, according to what David Fornschell said. Yeah, likely they're going to have two different defense lawyers for these two people, and each of those lawyers is going to make a race to the prosecutor's office to have their client testify against the other person. And each of them will be eager to give whatever they can to get a reduced sentence and perhaps maybe someday get out of prison.

But given this evidence and given these crimes, it's hard to imagine that either of them will get out of prison short of 30 or 40 years. I want to go back to when this tip about this activity came in. The prosecutor says that a tip back in June of 2025, so it took six months or so for a search warrant to be executed on this home because the search warrant wasn't executed until December of 2025. It's June of 2025. Google submits a tip to the National Center for missing and exploits,

exploited children of possible sex abuse material associated with an IP address. This is what the release does. And Nick Mick forwarded the information to the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and who subsequently forwarded the information to the Sheriff's Office in Warren County. They then obtained the search warrants and determined the CSAM was associated with an account belonging to Tony McCallister. And in addition to the CSAM, they located video files of the CSAM. McCullister and Grove engaged in various types of sexual conduct with dogs. He was

initially charged for the possession of the child material, like sex abuse material with the dogs, and then Grove was charged with the sex with the dogs, as we know too. However, further investigation revealed the child sex abuse material. I want you, as a prosecutor, to talk to me about that lag. June, Nick Mick gets the tip from Google. It's forwarded to the Ohio task force who then forwards it to Warren County. Why was, why did it take six months to get this thing going? Well, viewers may be surprised to know that there are hundreds, if not thousands of these tips coming in every day. And they're nearly every metropolitan police department or sheriff's office can tell you that they have half a dozen, a dozen, or two dozen

of these tips in queue. And these detectives who are currently investigating other cases that are already in progress or maybe going to court to testify in those past cases have to go through them and then get search warrants signed by a judge and then find a time to go out and get and do it. And the evidence doesn't go away. Now in this case, if a six-year-old child is at risk, I'd want to know why the slowdown, but the facts as we know them right now, they weren't. aware that a six-year-old child was at risk until they served that search warrant. So investigators tend to prioritize tips where they think someone's at risk. Most of these, the vast majority of these tips, are people simply trading child sex abuse

material from the internet. And then they don't have any exposure to the child who's actually in the footage. Where there's a risk of a child, obviously it goes to red alert and other cases get pushed away and they get a search warrant and they go. So a six-month lag, I mean, because they get so many of these tips, that's not unusual. It sounds like you're saying they probably process these and handle these as quickly as they can. Yeah, just last week I was talking to a detective I work with and I said, do you have any of these cases ready? Because I'm ready for another case. I've got a couple cases that I'm working on. And I often work on cases like this. And he said, yeah, we've got five

five or six ready to go. I just need to go work them. Once again, less people worry that there are children at risk. Most of these tips are involving people possessing images, not having a child close of hand to which they're doing something. Those tips could act on instantly. Just a horrific, horrific case. Mark Weaver, we will keep a really close eye on it. So disturbing the allegations. Thank you so much for joining me. Yes. Sad case. Thank you. So as I mentioned earlier, Judge Robert Peeler set McCollister and Groves bail at $250,000. If they post that bail at 10%, that's $25,000, both will have to be placed on electronic monitoring and they will have curfews. That little girl is living with her father right now.

That's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.