Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - 'Affluenza teen' Ethan Couch kills four, walks free & other kid killers

Episode Date: April 2, 2018

Ethan Couch -- known as the 'Affluenza' teen in the wake of his DUI crash that killed four people -- walked out of jail Monday after serving nearly two years for violating probation. Now 20, Couch must stay out of trouble for another six years of probation. Nancy Grace discusses his case along with other "killer kids" cases in this episode. Grace is joined by lawyer Troy Slaten, prosecutor Wendy Patrick, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman, private Investigator Vincent Hill and RadarOnline reporter Alexis Tereszcuk. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Thanks, friend. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. Four dead. A fifth victim left as a quadriplegic that can see what's happening around him, but can't move. That's what happened when a spoiled brat, affluenza teen Ethan Couch, got behind the wheel high and mowed down a youth pastor, a young girl, her mother, another person who had tried to help them when the girl got a flat tire. All dead, except for the quadriplegic who lives, who can't move. And now Ethan Couch set to walk free.

As you will recall, his defense at court was he was too rich and affluent to fully appreciate what he had done. I guess that means he hasn't lived with the rest of us schlubs, like with the common people. So he can't relate to us. That's the defense. Are you kidding me? Well, apparently it worked because he's walking free. I'm Nancy Grace.

This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Take a listen to what the one victim who lived brother says as he helps wheel his paralyzed brother out.

Covered in a blanket. All he can do is move his eyes. Listen. Basically, what you see here today, this is my brother, Sergio Eduardo Molina. This is how he's portrayed to live for the rest of his life. Can you try to smile and tell him that no matter what happened,

you're still here? That you still got dreams of playing soccer, man? Can you tell them? And it's because of this woman right here, my mother, man. It's because of her. She's his angel. That being said, man, tell the world. It's not right. So what, 20 days?

So what, 128 days in county? I did that? There's nothing. Look at my brother. He's doing more than a 28 day period, 128 or whatever. He's doing more than ten years on probation. Violate him, send him down there, let him do the rest of his little sentence and let him come out, you know what I'm saying?

And hopefully he forgives himself, forgives us and helps us since he's got so much money. That's what I'm saying. Put on there what you can. I remember it like it was yesterday. Ethan Couch. Hi. All of his friends drunk off booze that they had stolen

on surveillance video at a local 7-eleven get out in his souped up ford f-350 70 miles an hour in burleson texas where he's hosting a drunken party earlier that day couching two of his buddies is still on three cases of booze as a local walmart and they all decide in the middle of the party they're going to go back to the convenience store and he plows into an suv stopped on the side of the road after it blows a tire killing the young young girl driver, Brianna Mitchell, and three people who had come to help her. Incredible.

And now he walks free. And first of all, he gets on probation. And his mother, he gets out of jail. And his mother, he gets out of jail. And his mother, Tanya, she gets Ethan and they flee to Mexico. And in one night, they spend $2,000 at a strip club. Thanks, Mom. And they hide out at a four-star Mexican resort and only get caught when, out of just sheer stupidity, or maybe they were both drunk, she orders pizza on their U.S. cell phone, and the feds track them to their four-star resort in Mexico.

I mean, Alexis Tereska, joining me, RadarOnline.com investigative reporter have I missed a fact here Alexis? No you haven't and the thing that is so shocking is that if this boy had been anything but a rich white boy he would have been in prison for the rest of his life but because he was rich and he was able

to spend a ton of money on fancy lawyers and his mother escaped the country with him. He almost got away with these murders. I mean, to you, Troy Slayton, you're the high-profile defense attorney joining us out of L.A., a blood test taken three hours later, which gives all the substances in your body three hours to subside and dissipate. Three hours after the crash, Ethan Couch was still three times the legal limit with both marijuana and Valium in his system.

He was high as a kite. I'm taking a look at the wreckage, the carnage of that crash that night, how did he walk free, claiming he had affluenza? He was too affluent and rich to know better. This was a 16-year-old child, Nancy. And yes, what happened to those victims is a horrific tragedy. But the purpose of the juvenile justice system is rehabilitation and not punishment that's what the entire purpose for juveniles he was a he wasn't in juvenile he was in adult court he was eventually transferred to adult court yes but and he did serve 180 days for each of the four victims. So he served nearly two years in jail after he fled to Mexico.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That was after he went on the run. Troy, you're missing a few important facts. Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, Troy Slayton conveniently left out some damning facts. Yeah. You know, that's Troy's job as a defense attorney. I used to have his job. And Troy, more power to you. You've got a hard one on this, especially when we live in a country where, ironically, we blame the crime rate on poverty. Think about this case with that backdrop.

We have affluenza. Hopefully that's not contagious. Thank God it hasn't been since this occurred. But we have being rich used as an explanation for crime instead of the opposite. But you're right, Nancy, there's no way, even given the young age, that you can excuse this kind of conduct because another goal of punishment, another goal of sentencing is deterrence and to deter others similarly situated from drinking and driving. And like Troy and I know, being at three times the level so many hours after the fact means this guy's B.A. must have been through the roof at the time he was behind the wheel because you drop, as you know, Nancy, a certain amount every hour. So when you look at all of that in retrospect, truth is stranger than fiction as to how he got off as light as he did. At trial, a psychologist named Dick Miller said,

Ethan couch, Ethan couch. Okay. Remember there's four dead people dead, a young girl, her mom, a youth minister that stopped to try to help her with her tire. Another person, the psychologist at trial says couch. youth minister that stopped to try to help her with her tire, another person. The psychologist at trial says, Couch, the guy who's high as a kite and kills poor people, he is the victim, the victim of, quote,

affluenza because his multimillionaire parents never taught him right from wrong. And the judge, Judge Gene Boyd, agreed and gave him a slap on the wrist of just 10 years probation with the condition he goes to rehab and doesn't drink. Yeah, right. The prosecutors asked for a 20-year prison term. But just a few months into his probation, a video was posted on Twitter and it showed him at a beer pong party. I wasn't even sure what beer pong actually was. But hold on. I've got Alan Duke with me and I'm pretty sure he knows what beer pong is. What is it, Alan? It is a game where you throw ping pong balls into little glasses of beer.

This party was pretty raucous wait a minute you throw ping pong balls into beer and then what happens well in this case he he slammed down on the table obviously drunk no no what's the point you drink it you drink it and you get drunk oh okay so that's what beer pong is. And long story short, that Twitter video emerged showing Couch drunk, apparently, playing beer pong. And it triggered a probation revocation. Take a listen. It's short but sweet. This is the natural sound that we managed to get off Twitter.

And it shows Couch and some other guys playing beer pong. Take a listen. Two, one, come on! Two, one, come on! There you go. That trigger, that video posted on Twitter got Couch revoked. Even though there was no evidence in the video he was actually drinking, Couch and his mother, Tanya, flee to Mexico with the family dog

rather than deal with that probation violation. After multiple weeks on the run, they were found living there in the resort town of Puerto Vallarta. They got, cops got a ping off one of their cell phones when they ordered a Domino's pizza. I mean, really, they should go to jail for felony idiocy right there. But thousands of dollars were spent on their Mexican vacation at the harem, H-A-R-E-M, harem strip club. Just hold that thought. Strip club with your mom where he was spotted snorting cocaine and convorting with topless women. Okay, I just want that to sink in. Do I have the facts correct, Alexis Tereshchuk? Yep, you do.

But the one thing is, at the strip club, what he didn't do, he did not pay his bill. So he fled out of there, kind of like everything else in his life. He has no responsibility. He doesn't have to take responsibility for killing people, and he doesn't even have to pay the stripper. You know, I always say, you must always pay the stripper because that is what gets you in trouble.

Yeah, you better pay the stripper. You'll get cut out in the parking lot. To Dr. Carol Lieberman, forensic psychiatrist and author of a brand new book on Amazon, Lions and Tigers and Terrorists. Oh my, How to Protect Your Child in a Time of Terror. Dr. Carol Lieberman, what is mommy thinking? Well, mommy and Ethan have a psychological or emotional incestuous relationship. I mean, clearly, taking your son to a strip club and taking him on the lam, spoiling him in all these ways, but with a sexual tinge to it, is part of what contributed to making him screwed up. And I'm not giving any excuses.

I mean, it is outrageous that the judge gave him as little penalty, punishment as she did. But he had a number of things during his childhood, again, not to excuse him, but like when he got in trouble in school, his father said that he would just buy the school. And so that has been his childhood. His parents got divorced when he was 10. I mean, and his parents both have criminal records. So, I mean, again, not excusing him, but you can see that he comes from a kind of a cesspool of psychopathology.

You know what? I hear you, Dr. Carroll, but it's kind of hard for me to take in with me private investigator Vincent Hill joining us from the courthouse. Vincent, you know, I've seen a lot of underprivileged defendants arguing, their lawyers arguing they never had a chance. Sometimes I agree with them, but that does not excuse the crime. Now they're trying to argue he was too rich to ever have a chance. I'm not buying that for a New York Minute, Vincent. Yeah, I don't buy Nancy either. I mean, was OJ too affluent when he stabbed Ron and Nicole? I mean, was that his defense? You know, here's the thing. I've worked a lot of these DUI cases. I've worked a lot of accidents. Nothing to the amount of carnage that Ethan caused that night.

And the fact that he's getting out is sickening i've put people in jail for a dime bag of crack cocaine that are still in jail to this day years later so the fact that this individual killed four people and his excuse is i didn't know what i was doing because i'm rich it's sickening it should be sickening to any parent or any person in this country for that matter guys are talking about a killer kid, Ethan Couch, who mows down four people dead and leaves a fifth, a quadriplegic, for life. He can see life going by. He can move his eyes, and that's it.

He sits contorted, covered in a blanket and a wheelchair every single day of his life. And now he is walking free. Troy Slayton, how did that happen? He served his sentence, Nancy. The justice system worked. And he is going to be not just walking free. He's going to have a sword of damnicles hanging over his head with the potential of going back into jail for 40 years

if he violates the very strict terms and conditions of probation that he'll be under for six years. That means no drinking, no drugs. He's going to have an ankle monitor that continuously... Wait a minute. Isn't what they told him to do last time? Well, yeah. And that got him put back in jail for two years. This time, if he violates, he can go back in for up to 40 years, Nancy. He's going to have a drug patch on his arm, monitoring whether or not he uses any drugs. He's going to have an IID, an ignition interlock device, with a camera in his car, meaning that nobody else can blow into it for him. He's going to be under a very watchful eye.

This is going to be no walk in the park for him. He's not going to just be free and have the liberty that you and I have. They're going to be watching him closely. Okay, Wendy Patrick, Troy Slayton, L.A. defense lawyer, says justice is working. We've got a very different opinion on what justice is, I guess, Wendy. No, that's right. And, you know, it's such a difficult case because it's hard enough when there's a horrific accident and there's remorse and there's rehabilitation and there's a demonstrated commitment to turning your life around,

maybe being a role model to other young men who might be thinking of drinking and driving. We've seen the opposite approach with Ethan Couch. And that's why this case has received such notoriety. It's because, as you mentioned, the last time he got out, he flees to Mexico. Basically, and I understand he doesn't have the benefit of role models. I love what Alexis said about cesspool of psychopathology. If that's true, one wonders whether rehabilitation is possible. But you know what? This is his chance.

We'll see what he does. And maybe it's going to be one of those cases where he does violate. And then justice is done in the eyes of so many, including the family of that quadriplegic, that he does have the rest of his life to think about what he's done. But we'll see. This is his one shot at it because the court is not going to give him more than two chances. Three strikes and you're out as far as this young man goes. Affluenza teen Ethan Couch, now 21, set to walk free. Another killer kid, his name, Dennis Cullen Jr. Police say he put his own mother, Elizabeth Cullen, in a headlock and drowned her in their upscale homes pool in the backyard. When asked how he was holding up an incel at Riverhead Correctional Facility, he responds calmly and coolly,

No, I can't do this. So he's saying, he quote, can't do jail. This is the guy that methodically drowns his mother dead in the backyard pool. Take a listen to the Suffolk County prosecutor as he describes what Cullen says about how he drowned his own mother in the swimming pool. Listen. He put her in a headlock, walked from the shallow end of the pool with her in the headlock to the deep end of the pool all the time while she was struggling. He went in the house, took a shower, went into his mom's wallet, took money out, credit card, took her car to the Cold Spring Harbor train station, took a train into Manhattan,

met up with his sister, explained to his sister what happened. She notified the father and then the three of them returned to the Lord Harbor residence where he was placed under arrest. Cullen tells police he wraps his arms around his mother's neck, drags her to the pool, yanked her into the deep end, and held her under the water until she died. Now, this is a former varsity lacrosse player. He was given every advantage his hardworking parents could afford. Beautiful home in a tony, posh area, fancy school, varsity lacrosse, you name it. But his mom gets on to him about not taking his meds. He snaps and kills her. To Alexis Tereszczuk,

investigative reporter with RadarOnline.com, take me back to that night. Give me what happened that night that we know of. So what we know is that he and his mother were arguing. She wanted him to take his medication. That's how it's been described as medicine. And so they're standing next to each other fighting. She pokes him, physically pokes him with her hand and he snaps. He grabs her. They're in the yard. And he grabs her, drags her into the pool, puts her in a headlock. So that means basically wraps his elbow around his mom's neck so she can't move her head and drags her through the swimming pool. Starting in the shallow end, drags her and drags her into the deep end of the pool. She's tiny.

She's 5'2". He's a big, tall guy. And he holds her under the water. And he described it as he was surprised that she had that much fight in her because she was so tiny. And he held her as he held her head under the water. I'm just thinking about how this whole thing played out. The grandson of the highest-ranking U.S. Army officer killed in Vietnam put his own mother in a headlock, drowning her in the family pool

after she berated him for not taking meds. It was a chilling video confession Dennis Cullen Jr. gives of Cold Spring Harbor. Gets into his mom, Elizabeth, and what did he do? Instead of arguing back or saying, yeah, mom, you know what, you're right, or just turning around and leaving. He puts her in a headlock, forces her into the shallow end of the pool, drags her to the deep end while she struggled violently. She's a very small woman, as Alexis pointed out,

drowns her, then drags his mother's 5'2 body out of the pool, placed her next to the backyard shed in the backyard, and covered her body with a boat they had in the backyard. Goes inside the multi-million dollar Whitehall Road home and their three-acre spread, takes a shower, steals money from his mother's wallet and car, takes the car, drives to a train station there in town, and he leaves. On the train, his sister calls their dad, who's a Chase Bank executive, and the dad goes home and finds mom's dead body when he goes to check on her i mean it never seems to end and now he plays not guilty and whines about being behind bars wendy patrick does it is that summed up correctly? You're the,

with me is Wendy Patrick, Southern California prosecutor with a heck of a track record. Wendy, weigh in. You know, Nancy, this has mental defense written all over it because listening to the facts as you've described and having read about the case, this young man's actions both during and after the crime are so counterintuitive and impossible to understand from a normal perspective. Whoever gets assigned to this case is going to have to try to get inside this kid's head. We already know there's an issue of medication. I found it telling that he takes his mom's car. Where's his car? I mean, this is somebody, like you say, varsity lacrosse, beautiful home, comfortable life. One of the things we're going to have to look at is, was this kind of a reaction foreseeable? Is this a man that can possibly have a potentially successful mental defense? Or is this the kind of psychopathology that will

be relevant maybe to sentencing, but certainly never rise to the level of something that's going to save him in trial? Joining me right now, Dr. Carol Lieberman, forensic psychiatrist, author of a brand new book on Amazon.com, Lions, Tigers and Terrorists. Oh, my. How to protect your child in a time of terror. Dr. Carol, he may be on meds, but his actions that night were methodical. He got into an argument with his mom. So he drowns her dead. Then he hides the body, takes a shower to get rid of evidence, steals money, and flees the scene. That sounds perfectly rational to me, Dr. Carol Lieberman.

Well, there are a number of clues that I, as a psychiatric expert witness, would want to follow up. I mean, first of all, he was 23. That is a typical age for a schizophrenic break. The medication would give a clue, depending upon what kind of meds it was, whether it's a meds for schizophrenia or bipolar or something. And then he says that, I mean, he was the only one there. So he presumably is the one, unless they had cameras in the backyard, he's the one that said that she confronted him about his pills and poked him. Now, poked him I think is fascinating because, again, if that really is what happened, that obviously triggered this rage.

So then you have to look at was he physically or sexually abused as a little boy? And did that trigger a memory of somebody, his mother or somebody else poking him? Why was that the thing that drove him off the edge? And then another thing that's interesting, and this seems more psychopathic, is that he got on the train, he called his sister and so on, and then he and his father and his sister, they came to the home, and they met the police, and he, you know, where the police were waiting, and they cuffed him. And it's so quietly, in other words, you know, he just kind of went there,

and then he confessed, and that is strange as well. So all of these things you have to kind of put together to to decide what kind of psychiatric problem he has not that not that that would necessarily get well hold on everybody you're all talking about his mental state joining me private investigator vincent hill what i have learned vincent is that this this guy charged with drowning his mother in the pool of their $1.9 million mansion had been taking heroin since high school. That's his ailment, Vincent Hill. He's been on heroin since high school and his mom had him in treatment. Yeah. That's the deal, Vincent. Yeah, and maybe the pill he wasn't taking was his methadone pill we don't know this reminds me

of a case i worked when i was in natchville where a son shot his mother in the head with a shotgun for six hundred dollars the key important thing here is there's only one person telling this story about the pill and she poked him and that that is the suspect in this case, the son. So, yeah, we can talk psychology. We can talk all of that. But I think it still comes down to the elements of what happened that night to cause him to do that outside of the psychiatric piece of it. Was it money?

Was it something else? If he was taking heroin, he took her car. He took her credit cards, he took her money. Was he trying to go out and score more drugs that night? We don't know. I think that will come out in court. Well, his mom, Mrs. Cullen, and her investment banker husband, Dennis, had been members of the Cold Spring Harbor Social Club, but they really began to withdraw from society and the local scene when

their son's drug problem began. Now, he was arrested and charged in the brutal death of his mom. After he tells cops, he was really surprised his mother struggled so much when he dragged her out of the shower and walked her through the house and then pulled her from the shallow end to the deep end of their pool in a headlock she had gotten in the shower he comes up on her in the shower and all he has to say is wow i was really surprised she fought back so much this varsity lacrosse player at coal springs high school had been in a row with his mom over anti-psychotic medication we know that he had been she had gotten him in treatment for his heroin addiction and then he has the good sense to take a train to new york to go to his sister's home and confess.

He then gives a chilling, cold-hearted confession to detectives, but pleads not guilty. Is that right, Alexis Tereshak? He has pled not guilty on this offense? Yep, that's exactly right. And he's saying that, I don't know if the word is I didn't do it. I'm not a lawyer, y'all are, but he's not guilty. He's saying I'm not responsible for this death. After everything, confessing to his sister, admitting it, and his dad was there when he was there when they found her body under a dinghy, under a little family boat in the shed, just left her there naked in the yard. You know, that's a whole other psychological aspect to this. Troy Slayton with me, famed L.A. defense lawyer, that not only did he kill his mother, murder her, he leaves her body naked in the backyard to be found hidden under the family boat. I'm so excited if I were to be a defense attorney in a case like this.

Well, those are three words I didn't expect. I'm so excited, but go ahead, Troy. Both the prosecutor and the psychological expert that spoke before me laid out the exact defense. This is a man who was on anti-psychotic medication, was being treated for a psychological deficiency. He was on heroin, which is common for people that are suffering from psychiatric illness, to self-medicate, to fight the demons that they're fighting, to numb themselves. And then he is physically attacked by his mother who's poking him. And certainly... Wait, did you say physically attacked because she takes her index finger

and punches him in the shoulder? That's the attack troy that is by definition both an assault and a battery it's an unwelcome touching did you ever prosecute your mother for a spanky spanky that i'm sure you deserve troy well maybe a spanky spanky to a five-year-old but to a 23 year old grown man that's an assault and it likely triggered this entire psychotic break and the reason why he was probably taking this anti-psychotic medication caused him to do this horrific thing which he freely admitted that he did, and then walked back into the arms of police. You know, the only thing you sound shocked about, Troy Slayton,

is the fact that he admitted he did it. Thirty-four of them were shot in the family. Thirty-four of them were shot in the family. They were all shot. It came through 911. It was said the husband was shot by her son. The gun playing where it was didn't seem as a self-inflicted wound that we've had in the past. We immediately spoke to Mrs. Gilbert, and she told us where her son lived.

I want to move on to another killer kid. His name is Thomas Gilbert Jr., a spoiled, rotten Princeton grad who murders his dad for, hold on everybody, as my son says, wait for it, wait for it, mom, kills his dad for cutting his allowance, cutting his allowance. To Wendy Patrick, Southern California prosecutor, tell me about Thomas Gilbert, please. Thomas Gilbert Jr. Yeah, you know, this is one of those cases, Nancy, where again, it looks like there's something going on behind the scenes mentally with this kid in order to be able to understand. He's not crazy. Will you please quit saying that? He's mad. He's angry. He's getting

his allowance cut. Right. But that's going to be the defense. And from what my prosecutors had on clearly that his actions speak louder than words. And that shouldn't be something that the jury is going to be able to consider to walk him. But from the defense perspective, you know, that's what they're going to argue merely because of the sheer insanity of that. And I put that word in quotes for sure. The sheer just unreasonable nature of why this would possibly set somebody off. So we're going to be looking at the background of this man. We're going to be looking at his activity after the fact. And as your psychologist, as our psychologist colleagues are going to say, is this somebody that's malingering or faking an illness in order to try to get out from under this horrendous crime that he's facing okay i've got to ask a very important question

troy slate before you tune up again alexis teres chuck there's luke and owen wilson which one is the blonde one owen you're a little slow on the uptake there, Alexis. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to answer for you. It's Owen. Owen. This guy looks a little bit like Owen Wilson with the steely blue eyes glaring at you. He's got fine, finely etched features, a perfectly straight nose. You should see his teeth. I'm sure they had to spend at least $10,000 on that mouth. This is how it goes down, Alexis.

The dad, senior, is a hedge fund boss. The mom, Shelly, says she knew immediately her son Thomas did it because that day he insisted the mom go out of the apartment and go get him, the son, a sandwich. I mean, really? I mean, that's just a whole other can of worms right there. So the mom leaves to go get him a sandwich. And she comes back.

She just stepped out briefly, gets the sandwich, comes back. Her husband's dead on the floor. And it's been set up to look like suicide. Gee, I wonder who did that uh apparently junior staged the scene of his father's shooting to make it look like a suicide but the mom knew immediately it was murder okay there's a lot of pictures of him at fancy society shindigs wearing a tuxedo flashing that $10,000 smile. But here's what led to the arrest. The PC probable cause. Because his allowance was going to be cut.

A weekly allowance from $600 to $400. Yes. Yes. Weekly allowance from $600 to $400. Yes. Yes, from $600 to $400 a week. This is a rotten Princeton grad living off his mom and dad. Alexis Tereshchuk, what are the rest of the facts as we know them now? So when he gets arrested and starts going through the court system, he checks out. He doesn't show up for things. He refuses to speak.

He basically is pretending. Pretending might not be the right word, but he is acting as if he doesn't have any interest in this case whatsoever, trying to set up a defense of that he is psychotic and that he cannot participate in this at all. But, you know, the judge almost bought into this. This is another affluenza case. She wrote that this is an atypical defendant. He stands over, judge saying this, stands over six feet tall, has blonde hair and blue eyes, as if having blonde hair and blue eyes means you don't commit a crime. So she's in and being a Princeton graduate. And practically all of them have blonde hair and blue eyes.

But that's another topic for another day. Go ahead. He then just, as I said, checks out completely, doesn't participate in anything for the trial trying to set it up as if he is insane but new york has one of the strictest is one of the strictest states in the country they never allow a mental defense very very very rarely it's a huge effort to get that and so he was forced to stand trial for his dad's murder. Well, here's the deal. Senior, Gilbert Senior, had been a very successful Wall Street banker who lived in an Upper East Side brownstone. That cost a lot of money.

Then he tried to start his own hedge fund, and it failed. He had to sell his home and start renting an apartment. It was still in a tony area of town. It was at Beekman Place. They had owned a home in the Hamptons. They rented that out. They had been a member of the high-class Maidstone Club, like a country club. Now the son, as the father's hitting hard times renting out their home, renting an apartment, Gilbert Jr., known as Tommy, meanwhile, was not working.

Even though he had an economics degree from Princeton University, people would give their eye teeth to get in Princeton University. You know what? I don't know if I've told you guys, but my little nephew, one of them is, well, they're all so darn smart. One went to Brown. my niece went to Stanford. The one, the other one, um, just got into Chicago and NYU and just all sorts of awesome schools for a graduate degree. When we found out, we all started crying because awesome schools like that just don't happen to regular people like us. It was just such a dream come true.

And here's this guy with a silver spoon hanging out of his mouth, an economics degree from Princeton University. He relies on his dad to cover his $2,400 rent. That's $2,400 a month rent on his Chelsea apartment, plus a weekly $600 allowance. Vincent Hill, private investigator, you and I kind of grew up alike. $2,400 rent plus $2,400 spending money a month off your dad? Well, listen, Nancy, my son would be lucky if he got $24 for me, you know,

because doing chores and that things are things you're supposed to do as a child. But, you know, I want to say, listen, if he's pleading, you know, mental illness, I call crap on that. Because if you stage a scene of a crime to make it look like something else, you were in your right mind. You had your right senses to know exactly what you were doing. So you can't come back later and say, I'm mentally ill. But yet you were in your right mind to stage this crime scene to make it look like your dad killed himself. back later and say, I'm mentally ill, but yet you were in your right mind to stage this crime scene to make it look like your dad killed himself. You know, that's an excellent point.

Dr. Carol Lieberman, forensic psychiatrist and author of a brand new book on Amazon, Vincent Hill is right. He staged it to look like a suicide. He's not crazy. Well, you know, yes, that's the one thing that kind of points to the fact that at least at the time of the crime, he knew what he was doing. But and even further, the mother, actually, it was her father who committed suicide. So he may well not only was he trying to make it look like a suicide, in other words, that he didn't do it, but that he, it was kind of a way of getting back at his mother, who seems like a very cold woman, from the quotes that she's been quoted as

saying. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why is she cold? Well, she walked into, there have been quotes from her where she just seems to not be in touch, I don't mean in touch with reality in terms of psychotic, but I mean she's just very, very cold towards her children. She went into the church to tell her daughter when this happened. The police told her to go and tell her daughter right away because the son, they didn't know where he was,

and they thought maybe he would go after his sister. And she went in and she told the daughter, you know, your father is dead, and just in the middle of a church where everyone could hear what was going on. And of course, the sister sobbed, started sobbing, and so on. They're just different quotes. Now, wait a minute, wait a minute. I remember when I found out, I asked the question, is Keith gone? My fiance, who was murdered. His sister said, yes. I dropped the pay phone.

I, my hands are full of books, school books. I stumbled down some stairs and into an office where my brother Matt worked in admissions at the university, I dropped all the books and blurred it out to everybody standing there. I don't even remember who was there. Keith is dead. I screamed it. Everybody heard it. And I can promise you it was not calculated or cold or anything else. It's all just a big blur at that point.

But you were filled with, you had emotion. I mean, that was different. Here, I have the quote. In the middle of the church, she said to her daughter, Daddy's dead and Tommy shot him. Well, I still don't think that that's cold. How do I know she didn't scream it out just like I did? I mean, before I would say a murder victim's wife

in the hour after your husband of many, many years has been shot dead by your son, trying to find your daughter and telling her, I don't know that that's, I don't think that's cold. But also, that has nothing to do with this murder, Carol. Well, there were just a number of quotes

like that that kind of painted a picture of what, the reason why I was bringing it up. What does that have to do with the murder? of painted a picture. The reason why I was bringing it up was because when he staged the murder, as if it were suicide, it was not only to get him off the hook, but it was also as a commentary against his mother, whose father had committed suicide. That was my point. And I think that whether he is malingering and is not really mentally ill, I mean, there were a number of things that he did before this,

over the last few years before he shot his father, that were evidence of mental problems. Of course, not necessarily schizophrenia or something like that, but he was known to have taken LSD and steroids. So it seems to have been sort of a mixture of things that were going on. How is voluntary use of drugs a mental defense? I'm not saying in terms of a mental defense, but I'm saying a combination of whatever underlying mental illness he might well have,

that the drugs made the whole thing worse. And Joyce Layton, L.A. defense lawyer, we all know that voluntary use of drugs or alcohol is not a defense. That's certainly not a defense, but you also have to be able to assist your counsel in your defense. And here, well, that's he is unable to assist, that he can't even communicate with his client. And we have to remember that previously, two court-appointed, not prosecution-appointed, not defense-appointed, but two court-appointed psychiatrists. Both were unanimous in finding that he was unfit to stand trial, that he should be sent to a mental institution to be stabilized.

And it was because a skilled prosecutor in Manhattan, somebody as good as Wendy Patrick, was able to convince the judge to have another hearing where they were able to convince the judge that, no, he is fit. But then he goes and swallows a battery. And his attorney is saying that he cannot even communicate with his client. Well, that's funny, Wendy Patrick. Wendy Patrick, Southern California prosecutor and Troy Slayton, L.A. defense lawyer, joining me in addition to Alexis Tereschuk, Radar Online, Vincent Hill, private investigator, and Dr. Carol Lieberman, author and forensic psychiatrist.

Wendy Patrick, that's on because just the other day, Gilbert was offered a plea that would spare him life behind bars, and the judge said, are you interested in that? He stands up and went, stands up in court, looks at the judge and says, no, your honor.

Yeah. You know, I don't see the mental illness. That's the tricky thing with mental illness is it's very different than competency to stand trial. Obviously as, as Troy points out, a lawyer has got to be able to communicate with this client from this young

man's perspective. However, you know that we could be talking about two very different things. The sophistication and pre-planning necessary to plan that crime and alleged cover-up is something that belies an insanity defense regarding him not knowing right from wrong. So it's one of those things where he can't basically run from justice forever by engaging in a series of competency hearings, which is what apparently has been going on. So when the judge orders him to see a psychiatrist or risk losing his right to win insanity defense, what they'll probably do is use the results of that defense to argue incompetence, not insanity, thereby kicking the proceedings out even farther. But this is one of these cases where we're beginning to worry that justice delayed is becoming justice denied. Well, this is what I know.

You guys can call it whatever you want, but dad is on the hook for a $2,400 a month apartment for this guy, this Princeton graduate, and $2,400 a month for spending money. I mean, what a rotten brat. Court goes on. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend.