Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Another Tampa serial killer victim! Dad dead after teens toss rocks onto road; Vet dies as nurses laugh

Episode Date: November 15, 2017

A man on his way to do volunteer work for homeless the 4th victim of a serial killer terrorizing Tampa, Florida. WFLA reporter Meredyth Censullo updates Nancy Grace on the search for the killer. Forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, psycho analyst Dr. Bethany Marshall and defense lawyer Troy Slaten join the discussion. Police say teens who dropped a rock from an overpass killing a father were engaged in a game. Reporter Larry Meagher and radio host David Mack join Grace, Morgan, Marshall and Slaten to talk about the case. Atlanta TV host Vinnie Politan visits with Nancy to discuss his 11Alive “Late Feed” show’s exclusive reporting on hidden camera video that allegedly shows nurses ignoring an dying veteran’s pleas for help. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. We will hunt this son of a bitch down until we find him. The three victims gunned down less than half a mile apart. Tampa's mayor doing what he can to reassure the public saying that they've added a thousand streetlights to the Seminole Heights neighborhood and that they won't stop until that killer is caught. Nobody comes into our house and does this. Not now, not ever. Authorities pouring over, raining surveillance video for clues, looking at this person of interest walking alone,

wearing a hood on the night of the first killing. I need that Seminole Heights community to stand up and I need them to point out who that man is. You guys go hunt him down and bring his head to me. A fourth slaying, a fourth murder is stoking fear across a Tampa, Florida neighborhood. The Tampa serial killer, many people thought he had just gone away. Not so. In the last hours, he strikes again, gunning down a man in plain sight. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. I want to go straight out to WFLA's Meredith Censulo,

who was on the scene of the shooting of the fourth murder attributed to the Tampa serial killer within minutes, literally, of the slaying. Meredith Censulo, what can you tell us? So the shots were called in about 4.51. Seminole Heights still highly saturated with law enforcement officers, even though there's been no attacks in over a month now. So officers were on scene within a minute of the shooting. They found 60-year-old Ronald Felton laying in the middle of the road. Mr. Felton had arrived early for a shift volunteering, actually at a church shelter where they feed the homeless. And he was there. He would volunteer twice a week.

And he was arriving early to get that set up. Witnesses say that he had crossed the road, perhaps to talk to somebody, maybe greeting someone who was also arriving, and that someone came up behind him and shot and ran off. There was at least one witness to this who was able to get probably the best witness description we've had so far. It does appear to coincide with what we saw on the surveillance video from the first murder. Tampa police tell us they are investigating this and consider it to be in relation to the previous murders. They are still not giving us any information in terms of ballistics.

I did specifically ask about that. Those are things that they are not talking about at this point. But Mr. Felton was dead on the scene, again, 60 years old. And this person who killed him, same M.O., came out of nowhere. It was dark. Shot and killed him near a bus stop and made off into the neighborhood. And SWAT teams have been searching house to house, and this person is nowhere to be found. There was one additional piece of information that I thought was interesting.

I've not heard Tampa police say this before, and perhaps your experts can determine if this is relevant or not. But Police Chief Dugan said that he is asking anyone with a firearm of any kind to go and look and make sure that that firearm is still where they believe it is. So to me, I haven't heard that from him before. So that may indicate, you know, a stolen weapon, somebody using someone's weapon without their knowledge. Again, your experts can probably speak to that if that's normal or not. But I have not heard that from the police chief. But Chief Dugan, our mayor, they were on scene within minutes and very concerned. And there has been an all out search trying to find this person and still nothing, nothing's been found. Well, you know, it reeks of desperation when the

police are actually running door to door searching for the killer or searching for evidence. It would be a huge breakthrough for us to know details on ballistics, such as the ammo, whether they have connected the bullets from the other three victims to this bullet. It's very easy to do. Is it not with me is, of course, WFLA's Meredith Censulo, but psychoanalyst Dr. Bethany Marshall, high-profile lawyer Troy Slayton, Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert professor at Jacksonville State University, and syndicated talk show host Dave Mack. Joseph Scott Morgan, very, very easy to make a ballistics comparison. So we know once and for all, this is the same guy. I mean, the similarities are overwhelming. Once again, just like the other three victims,

he approaches, the killer approaches a lone victim walking in the dark. The others were in the evening. This is in the very early morning hours. What's this guy, the killer, doing up at 4.51 a.m.? Already in place, stalking a victim. The victim in this case was en route to the New Season Apostolic Ministries where he helped feed the homeless Tuesday and Thursday rain or shine. So he takes down a living saint,

somebody that is out doing good, doesn't care who his victim is, shoots him, I guarantee you, with the same weapon, same type of ammo, and it's within the same, very same neighborhood, Seminole Heights. Joseph Scott Morgan. Yeah, I think this is kind of interesting, Nancy. He's changed up the MO a bit, as you mentioned,

the time of day in which this is perpetrated. Still dark. In addition to that, I think that what's very interesting about this is that we have witness statements now. He didn't just simply shoot this person in the singular. There were five shots that were fired. From an evidentiary standpoint, that's significant because if it was a semi-automatic weapon, we've got brass that's being ejected, we can recover that. This is one interesting thing as well. This was a panicked type of event where he fired, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Witnesses state that they saw the individual not walk away, but run away from the location. It wasn't like he walked away calmly, got in a car not to draw attention to himself. He ran away from the location after firing five shots. Why would he fire five shots at one person that he was approaching from the rear?

I find that very, very interesting. A killer is stalking the city of Tampa as we speak. With me, Meredith Censulo, Bethany Marshall, Troy Slayton, Joe Scott Morgan, Dave Mack, to Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst joining me out of LA. it reminds me of the days when I would be going to Washington, D.C. on a nightly basis to work on the Larry King show. And it was in the height of the D.C. stalker scenario. And police were working desperately to connect the victims, because if they could connect the victims, say they all went to the same school, or they all lived in the same community, or there's some connection that would help them find the killer. There was no connection of that nature, Dr. Bethany.

There was no connection. And I was just thinking about that when Joe Scott was talking about the fact that this guy is 60 years old, the perpetrator ran up behind him, shot multiple times. This perpetrator is more interested in killing than in carefully selecting his victims. So with serial killers, one of the things we see is that they select their victims very carefully because looking for a victim is part of the whole ritual of killing. This guy doesn't seem to have, although he is technically a serial killer because he's killing in some serial fashion, the symbolism of who the victim is doesn't seem to be that important. The crime scene seems to be more organized around opportunity, the time of day, doing it quickly. I sort of have this mental image of somebody who's trying to work up his courage. He's in some kind of a frenzy all night long and has to do it before the sun rises, kind of has to get it out of his system. And then he goes back to maybe thinking about it, thinking about it,

fantasizing about it. And then the urge to kill kind of erupts again. Quote, the family is just torn. The family is taking it, quote, real hard. That is Mr. Felton's brother, James, as he speaks about the untimely death of his brother, who was en route to feed the homeless early in the morning at 4.51 a.m. We're crossing the road. He is gunned down dead. We now believe by the Tampa serial killer, the description of the perp is a black male, six feet to six feet, two thin build light skin complexion armed with a large black pistol wearing all black clothing. And to me, Troy Slayton, high profileprofile defense attorney out of L.A., the all-black clothing, to me, is a psychological clue.

You know these criminals that kind of dress up for their crime? You know, they put on a ninja outfit? Seriously, I've watched video of home invaders that were dressed like ninjas. Here's the guy that gets totally decked out, like, you know, in the Missy Beavers case, Troy Slayton. The guy gets dressed up or the person gets dressed up in SWAT tactical gear. This guy is decked out for serial killing for his fourth victim, like Dr. Bethany Marshall said, somewhat of a ritual. He's playing the part, the part, the role as he sees it as a serial killer would dress. He is planning this very carefully, Troy, even though his victims are not connected. Well, that would certainly be the argument that prosecutors will make, Nancy, as he attempts, if he's ever all these steps, then that would seem to cut right at the heart

of the defense of him not being able to tell right from wrong, not being able to appreciate the wrongfulness of the acts. And I think it's also important to note that the police have offered a $41,000 reward that really helps to encourage, to bring people out of the woodwork if they have any information about this horrific killer. You know, hold on, Dr. Bethany, let me go back to Meredith Cianciullo, who's joining me from WFLA. She was at the scene of the murder almost immediately. You're hearing our conversation, Meredith. What more can you tell us? Well, I know law enforcement's very frustrated. A meeting planned for Tuesday night to address concerns in the community, to talk about any leads that they had, to again call for any information, to bring everybody up to speed on

where the investigation, they've been asking for leads, you know, please keep sharing that video that we saw from the night of the first shooting when Benjamin Mitchell was killed. They do seem to be very confident that all four murders are related, mainly, again, because of the way these attacks happened. Chief Dugan didn't put a whole lot of weight on the fact that this was in the morning versus at night. Because again, you know, early morning, late at night, near these bus stops, it's dark, very similar there. Also, they seem to feel that the method in which this occurred was very similar to the first crime scene. You know, our mayor, he told me, he said, you know, I don't want to have to tell another family member that, you know, someone has died in

cold blood. And that's exactly what happened with Ronnie Felton. So we have had ETS on the ground here, FBI on the ground here since the beginning, but we really saw those heightened SWAT teams going in door to door. A colleague of mine actually secured some video from a monitoring device inside one of the homes, one of those devices that goes on your peephole that actually shows the SWAT team member standing on their front porch knocking. So people here are getting frustrated though. You know, they really are. They can um, they can't walk a block without being stopped, uh, and questioned by law enforcement, which is what makes it all the more frustrating that the person that needs to be questioned, um, isn't, you know, we still don't know.

But, um, in terms of additional information, I was there on the scene within an hour. I was out there all day long. Um, the, the crime scene texts were there, um, until, you know, midday. I was there on the scene within an hour. I was out there all day long. The crime scene techs were there until midday doing their investigation and gathering evidence. And at this point, there does not seem to be anything further except for that witness description tends to coincide with the video that we've seen from the first murder in which we saw somebody walking down a road casually, looking at his phone, and then within minutes of or seconds of the shots being fired, running the opposite direction. That person appeared to be a slender person, was described as perhaps looking like a lighter skin, African-American or somebody with that complexion. So there are those similarities.

And, you know, unfortunately, that's, you know, little pieces of the puzzle, but we don't have the puzzle solved yet. Hold on just a moment. I want to jump in and ask Dr. Bethany something. It seems like after the other three murders, there was a heightened awareness for about 72 hours, and everybody was lulled back into a false sense of complacency. I was surprised by that too, Nancy,

and also what Meredith is saying, that people were a little annoyed at being questioned or as they're walking down the street. I would think people would be relieved that law enforcement is out there. I would think this would be foremost in their minds, especially since this victim, I'm very struck by the weaponry, even though obviously I'm a psychoanalyst, I'm not a ballistics expert, but unlike John Lee Malvo, the DC snipers, I mean, they were very complex in their methods. Remember they had high powered rifles, they shot from the

back of their car. Do you remember that? That they actually equipped their cars so that they could shoot from a long range and target unsuspecting victims. This guy seems to, I guess, have a handgun. He runs up. He's very up close and personal with his victims. So either he really wants to see what he's doing more closely, or it's more thrilling to get close to his victims, or Nancy, he's just really low functioning. I mean, my thought was maybe he's a younger guy, maybe lives with his parents, doesn't have a car, doesn't have the money for a more sophisticated weapon. So he's kind of using what he has and doing it on foot. And I wouldn't be surprised if this is somebody who is not doing very well in the world, doesn't have a job, hangs out all day at home. I think that

the question to ask people in that neighborhood is who is living with family members, who is kind of like a deadbeat, not going to work during the day, and somebody who may be coming and going a lot from a residence that's not primarily their own. Police seem to believe he lives in that neighborhood or he frequents that neighborhood where he's attached to that neighborhood in some way. What's the attachment? If we knew where he was running to, we might have an idea of who he is. As of now, the Tampa, Florida serial killer has taken the life of a fourth victim. And the city is under siege.

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No, he was not killed as a war hero. He was not killed in a home invasion. He was minding his own business, driving down the street when from overhead an enormous rot was thrown from an overpass striking his car. He's dead. He's dead from this mortal blow. And now we find out the perps did it for fun. Even a few days before throwing a recliner off the Bush Road overpass onto I-75. Why? Why? Leaving a father of four dead. Everyone's lives changed forever.

I want to go straight out to Crime Stories contributing investigative reporter Larry Mayher. Larry, thank you for being with us. What happened? Five teenagers who were all between the ages of 15 and 17 had for several days been playing some sort of game whereby they would drive a pickup truck out onto an overpass over I-75 and throw something or several somethings off of it. In the case of the Kenneth White accident, which was the victim in this particular case, there were about... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Wait a minute. Hold your horses, Larry Mayher. An accident. You think it was an accident that all five of them got together on that overpass? That accident they heaved the rock over and then laughed their heads off when it struck a car? Let me rephrase that. In the case of the Kenneth White collision, it was about a six-pound rock or perhaps a piece of concrete. There were as many as 20 rocks or pieces of concrete scattered across the pavement on that day alone.

In addition to the recliner, there was also a tire that had been thrown off of an overpass and a shopping cart. This had been going on for several days in two different counties. Wait a minute, I didn't know about the shopping cart. They threw a shopping cart off an overpass? That's correct, according to police aren't they supposed to be in school they could have found something better to do with their time uh one of the defendants happens to be the son of a school board member so perhaps the parent there could have suggested an after-school activity for the child i don't know i I don't call people 15, 16 years old.

They're minors, true, but they knew darn well what they were doing. I'm talking about McCaden Payne, 16, Trevor Gray, 15, also Alexander Miller and Mark Sleszczykowski, 16, all have pled not guilty. Question, how were they found? Troy Slayton, high-profile defense lawyer out of L.A., you heard Larry Mayer, and even after I called him on it, he first called it an accident, then he called it a collision. You know what?

In my book, this is murder. This father of four is dead. And they've had two dry runs on this. One, throwing a recliner onto I-75. People driving 65, 85 miles an hour. Then a shopping cart, like from Kroger or Publix, over the overpass, throw it over on I-75 with cars speeding along below them, and now a rock. This cement block, Troy Slayton, went through his windshield and hit him in the head.

The mother has been describing how difficult it was to tell her five-year-old son that daddy is dead. Now, that is not an accident, Troy Slayton. It may not be an accident, but it may not be intentional murder either, Nancy. And it's certainly not for all five people. We don't know who did what. And if there's four people standing there and one other person does it, that doesn't make all four of them necessarily guilty of murder. And also important to note in Michigan, thank goodness the United States Supreme Court overturned the procedure that used to go on in Michigan where a judge sitting alone in a juvenile court could sentence a juvenile to life without possibility of parole. That was deemed unconstitutional. They're all entitled to a full jury trial.

Well, they're going to get a jury trial because they're going to be bound over and treated as adults. There's not going to be a juvenile judge prosecuting and adjudicating this case. This is going to be bound over to the court, Troy Slayton. Nancy, at age 15, their brains are not fully developed enough to potentially form the requisite mens rea. And I'm sure that my colleague, esteemed psychologist Bethany Marshall, could chime in a little bit more on that. Be careful what you ask for, for you will surely get it, Troy Slayton. That's why we have special rules for juveniles.

The purpose is supposed to be rehabilitation and not punishment. Now, that's generally true unless you're talking about the designated felonies. Designated felonies for which almost, almost every juvenile over the age of 12 will be sent to big court. And those felonies would be murder, rape, aggravated assault, aggravated sodomy. What am I missing? Oh, armed robbery. Yeah, the five designated felonies. You do one of those, you're going to big court. Now, let's go, as you requested.

And I remember you asked for it. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst joining us. Weigh in, Dr. Bethany. Well, I was thinking about there's research into empathy and young people. One of the things we know is that by the time a child is 17 months old, they are capable of empathy. If a mother cries or is sad, the 17-month-old will pat the mother or attempt to cheer the mother up. So at that young age, so the fact that a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old does not have the basic empathy towards human life, they're not too young, Nancy, to have it. And I'm with you on this.

I think this was intentional murder. I think that, as we've talked about so many times with these kinds of crimes, usually there's when groups of boys or men predate together or commit crimes together, there's usually one ringleader who's sociopathic, manipulative, loves the power. And then that person recruits other more weaker vulnerable males to act in concert with them i think that they were building up to the rock i mean i thought i think they started with the shopping cart the recliner to try to see what these objects would do but you know when you drop a rock on a car it's going to kill somebody it's not rocket science to figure that out so So just because

they did what pranksters do doesn't mean that they didn't have the intent to kill somebody. Well, there's actually another incident in there because you've got the recliner, you've got the shopping cart, and then you've got the death. But Jim Schultz was driving about 70 mph south on Interstate 75 in his Mazda. He went to the north side of that overpass. He suddenly felt something very odd. He said, I didn't have a lot of time to think, and I thought, what is that? It landed to the left side of the overpass. He heard a thud, founded by a dragging sound.

He got off at the next exit and pulled into a gas station, and he called police. Another rock was tossed over the overpass and smashed into the vehicle the victim was riding in. So apparently, they threw one cement block over and missed Jim Schultz and threw another. So there's a fourth incident. If this another. So there's a fourth incident. If this is true, there's a fourth incident involved. To Joseph Scott Morgan, you know, Joe Scott, you know, no offense, buddy, but you never hear about a bunch of girls or women

wilding or getting, hey, let's go throw a cement block off an overpass and kill somebody. Why is that, Joe Scott? I mean, you're the death investigator. You're the forensics expert at Jacksonville State University. What is it about men? Why do they think it's a good idea to throw a cement boulder over an overpass onto traffic?

Why is it them? And I'm not a man-hater. I'm actually married to one. I gave birth to one. So what I'm saying is I don't get it. Well, as my grandma would say, Nancy, no home training in this particular case. And let me bring something up that esteemed counsel mentioned a moment ago. He wanted to throw out the term menis re. Well, let me throw out actus reus, which is the guilty act. I think that it could be argued from a prosecutorial standpoint that all of those rocks

that have been found on the side of the road, including the aforementioned recliner, can all be interpreted as well as practice. And this time they hit the target they were aiming for. And let me break it down for you how this kind of works out, because this is the picture that's going to be painted in court. They had all this time to practice hitting a target, and now this father of four, that's right, four children without a daddy, is driving down the road, and let's just say he was driving 70 miles per hour in his little truck with a ladder lashed to

the top, working for his family, trying to support them. And all of a sudden, a piece of cement, jagged, comes crashing through his windshield. It's not like he hit this thing as it was standing alone. This is a moving object which struck another moving object. So we talk about the force that is applied. Well, if he's traveling at 70 miles per hour, we can say pretty securely that this rock, as it struck him, was moving probably at a rate of in excess of 100 miles per hour when it struck him in his head. And his head was crushed. This was a violent, violent act that they had been practicing for leading up to this moment, Tom. This was not some mischievous one-off type of event. This is going to be a very, very difficult case for the defense to have to defend against. You know, Troy Slayton, the way he said esteemed counsel, it kind of sounded like an insult. I don't know if you picked up on that. But, Troy, here's another issue, Troy Slayton.

The law and criminal law does not presume a lot. All the burden is on the state. But the law does presume one thing. The law presumes one intends the natural consequences of their act. What does that mean? It means this. This is how I would put it to a jury. If I took a piece of fine china, the kind you hold up to the light and you can see your hand

through the other side, and I fling it to the cement floor, the law presumes I intend the natural consequence of my act to break the china. You can't throw a piece of china down on a cement floor and go, oh, I didn't mean to break it. No. I.e., ergo, you cannot throw a cement block or rock off an overpass onto a car going along at 70 miles an hour and go, I didn't mean to hurt anybody. Oh, yes, you did. And the law will presume you intend the natural consequence of your act. Listen to this, Troy Slayton, the guy that escaped Mr. Schultz. He says, that night I came home and I woke up in the middle of the night and I said, we could have been planning a funeral for me. That's what he thought. And he had looked out at his car and he could see oil coming out from under it. There was a dent in the vehicle cross member, he said. Yeah, a rock had been thrown at

him too. So what about that, Troy Slayton? Nancy, the law also looks at an actor in a way that other reasonable people in that same position would act. And what I mean by that is these are kids that are growing up in a gaming culture where they may not be able to appreciate, like you and I could, the full consequences of throwing something off a bridge. I don't even know what you're saying. What's a gaming culture? A gaming culture is where these kids are playing these video games that detach them from reality, that doesn't give them. Devil. Video games.

Is there any way we can blame him? What's that video game? Oh, Mortal Kombat. Can we blame that again? Good luck with that choice, Leighton. Nobody in the jury is going to buy that blame it on the gaming culture. That's not going to work. These kids may not very well have been able to appreciate the full consequences of throwing a rock,

especially if all the times they did before, nothing bad happened other than a car swerving out of the way. Okay, you know what? You sell that to a jury and you'll be Salesman of the Year. I want to pause and thank our partners that are making our program possible and shining a light on what has happened to this victim. And it is Link AKC. Listen, Christmas is right around the corner with all the other holidays. Don't leave your dog out of the fun. Get the Link AKC smart collar. The new must have gift, believe it or not. It's backed by the American Kennel Club. The Link AKC collar, catch this, is a GPS locator and a fitness activity tracker all rolled into one smartphone app.

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God rest his soul, was a World War II veteran. And I think about it so often what he went through. He lied to the military about his age so he could sign up and go fight for our country, turning down a basketball scholarship and taking to the oceans. Right now, the family of a World War II veteran is devastated after secret video reveals the worst. A hidden camera installed at Northeast Atlanta Health and Rehabilitation Center shows the veterans repeated calls for help. With me right now, longtime friend and colleague, the host of Late Feed on 11alive.com, joined by 11 Alive reporter, Natisha Lance. Vinny Palatan is with us. Vinny,

you cracked this case wide open. Tell me everything, Vin. Nancy, how are you? So great to speak with you. Let's start here. I mean, you're 89 years old. You lived an incredible life. You're a heroic man. You deserve dignity. You should live with dignity. You should die with dignity. And that's not what happened to James Dempsey. He was in a nursing home and his family was a little suspicious that something was going on, but they had no idea exactly what was going on. So the family of this World War II vet decides to put a hidden camera so they can see what happens. And what they saw, and it's almost unthinkable, Nancy, you're talking about a man who is calling for help, gasping for air, trying to do something

to get someone's attention because he is in extreme distress and needs help and no one responds. When they finally get there, Nancy, what do they do or what don't they do? They don't do CPR. They don't try to help him. They know some machine that he's hooked up to is malfunctioning. And you can hear these nursing home nurses laughing on the video as this 89-year-old father and grandfather takes his last gasps of air on this earth. It was so devastating to watch this. And I can't imagine how this family reacted to this and controlled themselves from just – it's disgraceful, disgraceful. And we've spoken with professionals and other nurses, and they've never seen anything like this.

Vinny, you're just breaking my heart to think of that. You know, Vin, I told you, it's coming up on two years this month. My dad passed away, and we were right there with him. Of course, everybody else was saying, you can go, Dad. You can go. I was going, don't go. Do not go. Please don't go.

To think that at that moment, those nurses and nurses assistants were standing around his bed laughing. Oh, oh, like a pack of hyenas. That's just so wrong. As he passes on to the next world. I want to talk about Vinny, what you said that he had called and called and called to get help. Now the secret surveillance video says that they responded with something like, you got to stop putting that light on. What do you want now? You're having anxiety.

You just need to calm down. I don't understand that. It's bad, Nancy. And here's the other part of it, Nancy. And the reason we were able to get our hands on this video was because a civil lawsuit was filed. And through the discovery process and everything else became a public document, we got it. The nursing home fought to keep this thing from getting released.

Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Right there, Vinny. Guys, with me is Vinny Palatane, the host of Late Feed on 11alive.com. And he has cracked wide open a case where a world war veteran that fought to protect us our country is in what we think is one of those nice so-called rest homes and the family has no idea what's really going on but they get suspicious and they put in a secret surveillance camera. And what they learn is devastating. I mean, Troy Slayton, you stand by when you have a duty to take care of somebody

and tell him to, quote, calm down while he's dying and then stand by his bed and laugh as he breathes his last breath. That's prosecutable to me. I mean, in my mind, if you have the duty to take care of him and you shirk that duty, you're in trouble. If these facts are true, it's called criminally negligent homicide, Nancy, they may not have intended to kill him, but they owed a special duty because they were caring for him. Uh, they, this is more than just like somebody seeing somebody dying on the side of the road.

They were there to take care of him. So they're going to suffer not just civil liability, but also potentially criminal liability. And it really shocks the conscience. Let me ask you this. Was there any sort of a cover up, Vinnie Palatine? Well, this is what happened. They got sued civilly. And in civil cases, you know, there's depositions. So you bring the nurses in and you, this is what happened. They got sued civilly and in civil cases,

you know, there's deposition. So you bring the nurses in and you ask them about what happened. So the lawyer and now the nurses have no idea there's a videotape. So they tell one story and then are confronted with the video and suddenly the story changes a little bit. So it changes a lot drastically and no explanation for it. There's no reasonable explanation for what happened. And there was absolute lying about what had happened in the first part of the deposition. And then when they're confronted with the videotaped evidence of what really happened to this 89 year old World War II veteran and hero, something closer to the truth comes out.

But it's still not the truth because as you see, and you can see it in our piece, as she is speaking, you can see what's really happening in the video, and they just don't coincide. Man, I loved your piece. Guys, you can go to 11alive.com. Vianney Paulitan, the host of Late Feed on 11alive.com, told us about this story. We heard about it through him,

and looking at it, it's heartbreaking. A hidden camera tells the true story of how our U.S. veteran dies after calling for help, begging for help, gasping for air. And this video shows a decorated World War II veteran calling for help not once two three four five but six times before he goes unconscious while gasping for air while the nurses are all having a good old time standing around laughing laughing so vinnie you're telling me that they were under deposition. They were lying about it until, and they didn't know this video existed? They had no idea.

The family put it in there. They had suspicions, you know, like that gut feeling you get that something's just not right. So they placed the camera in there, and they knew they had the video. The nurses had no idea. So you can imagine, they go in there, and they're going to tell their story because there's no one to contradict it. At least they thought there was no one to contradict it when the videotape. And unfortunately, Mr. Dempsey contradicts it by those cries for help. And those last few breaths of air.

It's horrible. But thank goodness there was a videotape, Nancy. If there's no videotape, no one would have had any idea what was going on. This guy, Mr. Dempsey, James Dempsey, when you look at his, it looks like a Navy shot, like my dad. He looks to me a little bit like Ryan Gosling. I'm just looking at him in his Navy outfit. Now, was he the one, D, was he in La La Land? Was that Ryan Gosling? Do I have, no, it was Wilson. Okay. That's who this guy looks like in his youth. All these hours pass. He calls for help six times. He's gasping for air. Now, the video includes almost six hours of video court deposition from a nursing supervisor and she

talks about how she responded to the patient but the video shows that never happened the 89 year old war vet died now um it also and this is on the 11alive.com site from the time you came in you took over doing chest compressions yes until. Until the paramedics arrived, you give CPR continuously. Oh, I can tell, Troy Slayton. The lawyer's totally setting her up. So you keep giving chest compressions, CPR, right? Oh, yes. But the video shows, Troy, nobody doing CPR when the paramedics enter the room. She didn't even, I mean, it's the lie. If this is true, is outrageous. It is Nancy. And this is classic impeachment. The attorney did exactly what he's

supposed to do. He knew that he had this information and he let her walk down that path of those lies. And even if the criminally negligent homicide theory that I suggested earlier is time barred by the statute of limitations, they may very well be able to, at a minimum, prosecute these people for perjury or attempted perjury at the very minimum. So, Vinny, what happens now? Because I don't want another person to go through what Mr. Dempsey did, God rest his soul. Well, the civil case, there's talks in a possible settlement, so that resolves that part of it. But the question now is— What about a criminal case? I mean, Vinny, I don't want to think about my mom gasping for air and begging for help

and nobody coming if I'm not there. Right. That's the part. There are no charges yet, but the question is, will now that this has all been uncovered and has become very public, will there now be some sort of a criminal investigation into what happened here? You know, I'm just curious about what is going to happen now. If these allegations are true, if they are true and they have not yet been proven in a court of law, everybody's innocent until they're proven guilty. But if they're proven true, if there is more evidence,

this could very likely go straight to a grand jury. Vinnie Palatane, not just the host of Late Feed on 11live.com, but also practicing lawyer. Vinnie, when it goes to a grand jury, it's over, man. That's going to be an indictment if it goes to a grand jury. Oh, exactly. I mean, you've got the videotaped evidence, so the jury can sit there, grand jury can sit there and watch exactly what happened,

give them a little instruction about the law, and then we'll see where everything lands on this one. But it's... They'll watch it over and over. Mark my words, then. Dr. Bethany Marshall, I mean, don't nurses take some type of a Hippocratic oath? Well, not only that, but they have a license to practice. I'm sure an elder abuse report was filed. I understand that both nurses have given up their licenses. Nancy, you and I have covered

so many stories over the years where people in positions of trust who are supposed to care for patients abuse them instead. I had flashbacks to so many videos I've seen on your show. One was a babysitter that was taking care of a baby and kept throwing a ball at it. Another was an emergency room where a woman collapsed in the emergency room on her face and died over a period of hours. And the staff kept walking by, did nothing to help her. And I think that in these cases, these nurses or these doctors or these people, babysitters who are supposed to be helping people with needs actually resent the needs of the child or the needs of the patient. They resent it. They shouldn't be in that profession because they do not want the other person to have needs. And they become very callous and they become very resentful. And I heard this guy crying for help. Did you hear him? It's this callous way, oh, he's dead. And she didn't even take his vital signs to make sure he was dead. She just assumed he was dead. That's how

little they cared about this victim. Dave Mack, when I hear Bethany Marshall say it like that, someone has actually dared to suggest that it was wrong of the family to install a secret camera in there, Dave Mack. With me is Dave Max, syndicated talk show host. Go ahead, Dave. Nancy, you know, the interesting part of this is Mr. Dempsey, the World War II hero, he was afraid to go back to this place. And they put the nanny cam in the room. His son, Jim, said that they put it in there on his request

because he had complained about them before and he was scared to death to go back. So they calmed his fears by saying, here, Dad, we're going to put this nanny cam. We'll see everything. You don't worry about it. So he already had a premonition, a fear of these people doing this to him. And they did the one thing that most of us just will weep over when we think about a hero at 89 crying out for help. I just can't help but put my mom or dad in that position and imagine them going, please, please help me. And the nurse is just laughing and just very callously saying, oh, he's dead. Vinnie Palatine, Late Feed on 11alive.com. That's where you can see. In fact, I'm looking at it right now. It's the, as Vinny told us, the extended deposition of a nurse compared to what's really happening.

It's juxtaposed against what was really happening. Vinny, thank you so much for being with us, Notitia Lance. I'm Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friends. This is an iHeart podcast