Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Bigamist murder, Scott Peterson speaks & Charlottesville, Va., violence

Episode Date: August 15, 2017

An Alabama couple is charged with killing 5 people, including the husbands other wife. Convicted wife-killer Scott Peterson speaks from jail. An Ohio man is accused of ramming his car into a crowd of people during the Charlotteaville, Va., protests. Nancy Grace and guests talk about these crime stories. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. 2017 marks the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Sam. To mark the occasion, Pocketbooks is proud to release a special anniversary edition e-book of Son of Sam by Lawrence D. Klausner. This is an incredible story of how a single man, David Berkowitz, dubbed Son of Sam, the demon-haunted.44 caliber killer, killed six, wounded several others, and terrorized millions of New Yorkers over eight known attacks from July 1976 through August 1977. It's also the story of the greatest manhunt in the history of the New York Police Department, the intimate narrative of the men assigned to tracking down a lone killer. The police task force investigated more than 3,000 suspects, some of them cops, before finally making an arrest.

In the meantime, politicians watched a city writhe in panic. Newspapers played upon the fears of their readers. And the criminal justice system showed itself incapable of coping with the man who committed such horrendous crimes. Download Summer of Sam by Lawrence D. Klausner today. Royalties earned from the sale of this book will be shared between the victims or their families and the author. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. Multiple capital murder indictments handed down for murderers that left the Madison County community devastated. Rhonda Carlson is charged with 18 counts of capital murder.

Christopher Henderson, 19 counts. Suspects were accused of killing two adults, two children, and an unborn baby back in 2015, then burning down the family's home. A seemingly mild-mannered couple now indicted for five murders. Repeat, five murders. The husband's pregnant second wife. Did I read that wrong? Your pregnant second wife. Okay, this is on U.S. soil. I don't know about a legal second wife, much less a pregnant one. Two children and the mother-in-law and the unborn baby they allegedly cut out of her womb and stabbed. What?

Joining me right now, two very special guests. Joseph Scott Morgan, who is a death scene investigator and professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. Also with me, investigative reporter Cheryl White. Cheryl, what happened? Well, this is a horrific crime. And you say second wife, but he was still married to the first wife, Nancy. So it's bigamy. His wife, Rhonda Carlson, and Christopher Henderson are accused of killing his second wife.

She was 35 years old, and you said she was pregnant. She was nine months pregnant, Nancy. She was about to give birth to little Lauren Brooke. But she was also in the process of divorcing Christopher Henderson because she had just discovered that he was already married to someone else. She didn't know that when she married him. So she had filed a restraining order against him. And what he didn't know, apparently, was that she had installed a surveillance system. She had a camera on the house where she was staying. That was her mother's home.

So guess what? There is so much evidence that was caught on that surveillance camera. Okay, that is perking my interest, a surveillance camera. What do you expect us to learn from the surveillance, Cheryl White? Well, according to what we've learned on that surveillance camera video, which by the way, the relatives were able to pull up on their cell phones as first responders were coming to the scene of the fire at the home of Kristen Smallwood's mother. So they pulled it up and they were showing first responders Christopher Henderson going into the house wearing gloves. And they also showed his wife, his first wife, Rhonda Carlson, shows her going in carrying a gas can. Then later on that same surveillance camera video, you see them leaving just before smoke starts pouring out of that house. Whoa, caught on camera. So the wife comes along for the murders? Yeah, absolutely. They were both there. And it's just really, it's one of those things,

it's hard to wrap your mind around because she was about to give birth. And as you mentioned, when you described this story, they are accused of actually cutting the fetus out and stabbing the fetus. So that's why it's five. Five murders. Kristen Smallwood, the unborn child, Lauren. Kristen's eight-year-old son, Clayton Chambers. She'd been married before. Her mother, Carol Smallwood, 67, was also there.

And Kristen's one-year-old nephew, Eli. Now, they're both also not only indicted on murder charges, but first-degree arson charges also included. And that's because Eli, again, one-year-old, was stabbed, but forensics say he actually died of asphyxiation in the fire i know cheryl white it's almost more than i can take in and all i can focus on right now is seeking justice for this family this devastation right under our noses christopher matthew henderson age 40 ronda carlson 42, now suspected in the deaths of five people. Nine-month pregnant. Kristen Henderson, nine months pregnant.

Her unborn daughter, both stabbed to death. According to police sources, the unborn child was taken, cut, cut from Kristen's stomach and stabbed. Also murdered Kristen's eight-year-old little boy, her mother, and their one-year-old nephew. I'm just thinking back on how helpless the twins were when they were first born. Joe Scott, how helpless they were. And at one year old, how helpless they were. At eight years old, how trusting they were. For what, Joe Scott?

Weigh in. I think, let me paint a really dark picture here for you, if it can't get any darker. This one-year-old who was stabbed, Hensie, died as a result of not the stab wound, but of smoke inhalation. So let's think about this just for a second. After this person had brutally stabbed and shot these individuals, he took time to remove this child from the mother's

womb, a term child, and then stabbed the child to death. Now, all the while, this little one-year-old is suffering from stab wounds while all of this is going on around him because we know that as a result of the autopsy, this child did not die of the stab wounds. They died of smoke inhalation. So that little Eli laid there and suffered in this environment. That gives you, I think, probably a depth of how evil this event is. When I first saw it, and I've seen a lot of cases, as you well know, my career, it just punched me in the gut when I first read this. And you reflect back on this and you think, how much lower can some person go in this context?

And it doesn't seem like it gets much lower than this. I was just thinking back, Joseph Scott Morgan, a death scene investigator, also forensic professor at Jacksonville State University. Before I gave birth to the twins, it was, let's see, I gave birth on a Sunday. This must have been Friday or Saturday evening. I tried to go, my husband wanted to go to a restaurant, and so I was trying to walk into the restaurant and somebody turned to him and said,

you better get her to a hospital because I got a bad feeling. And boy, were they right because the next day I had an emergency cesarean section and I was so, so physically messed up, Joe Scott. He drove me right to the front of the hospital and left to go park. I couldn't even walk. I laid down on the floor in the entryway, the lobby of the hospital. And to get out of everybody's way, I went and kind of like moved over and laid under a sofa because I could not take another step. And this woman is nine months pregnant. She was killed. Kristen was murdered just one week.

It's not just about divorce. One week after she files a protective order against him. And during that hearing, it was revealed Henderson was also married to Carlson. I mean, there you are in court with a protective order hearing, which I can only imagine what that was about. And you find out the guy's married to somebody else still. So why didn't they just go forward with the divorce, Cheryl White? Why did it have to come down to five dead bodies? If this is not a death penalty case, I don't know what is, Cheryl. I just don't know what is.

Well, Nancy, also consider this as we paint this picture. Can you imagine the first responders? I mean, they are responding to a house fire. And outside there is little Eli, one year old. His mom is screaming for her baby. She knows he's still inside. They go in and they start finding the victims one by one by one. It was so bad that doctors advised that they be monitored for years because of lingering trauma. So this is how the whole thing went down.

Okay. We're talking about a bigamist and his wife killing the second wife, nine months pregnant, and wiping out her whole family, five dead, including cutting the unborn child out of her nine-month pregnant stomach, murdering her mother, a one-year-old child, and this photo of her, of Kristen, with her little boy, her little boy, Clayton, age eight. This picture that I keep looking at of them is, you know how you, Joe Scott, you know how you put two cans on the end of a string

and you try to talk to each other like a phone? The little 8-year-old boy, Clayton, has one can to his ear and the mom is holding the other can to her pregnant tummy. It's an absolute precious, precious image. They're both smiling so big

yes about the new baby and and this and when then i look at their mug shots and i'm talking about bigamist christopher matthew henderson age 40 and first wife ronda jean carson, age 42. They're looking right at the camera. Like they've got, and their attitude in their face says it all. It's like they're angry, they're arrested. It looks defiant. I just don't understand. So they go for a hearing, Joe Scott Morgan, talking about a protective order. But then she petitions the court to withdraw her divorce based on the fact her husband was still married to his first wife.

So their marriage was never legal. She was granted their order of protection based on her testimony that he had hit her. And she wrote in her filings, he has lied about everything since we first met. And as a result of that, now I'm looking at the photo as we talk. Cheryl and Joe Scott of her nephew, just one year old Eli,

he happened to be there. When I think of my babies at one year old, I mean, Joe Scott. What in the, hey, were these two thinking? I have no idea. The first wife is claiming that she was, you know, just kind of an innocent party in this whole thing. Whoa, wait a minute. You don't tromp around a five-victim murder and claim you were just there. I mean, the video catches them walking in in gloves and carrying a gas can.

And that's the thing about arson, Joe Scott, and I've prosecuted many arson cases. If they had been successful, it may never have been proved that this was even a crime. It could have been chalked up as an accident. That's the thing about arson. You got to have a really good investigator to wade through, to sift through an arson scene to prove a crime even occurred. So not only did they go there premeditatedly with gloves and a gas can that shows there was planning, she was with him. What do you mean she just went along? Yeah, she claims that she stood in the foyer of the house while he took the gas can and went inside.

Of course, the CCTV images indicate something else. Let me tell you what else regarding the arson. The investigators for the state did a fantastic job with this. They've even gone so far in the hearing thus far to talk about splash patterns. And this gives us an idea as to how the gas or the accelerant was splashed about. Just imagine if someone spills milk somewhere and it creates a stain, you go back to wipe it up and there's still that residual pattern, just like that with gas. And this area is burned in where the splash pattern takes place. So you can see where he dumped this gas after they had both perpetrated this horrible crime on this family and just decimated him. He decides, well, I'll go ahead and burn them up.

And, of course, as I previously mentioned, he burned a one-year-old alive. Family members accessed footage from their cell phones as Cheryl White, investigative reporter, was just telling us. Those cameras had just been installed the week before after she had gotten the protective order against her husband. This is what else we found, Cheryl White. A backpack Henderson carried when he came home from the fire was found at his mom's home how predictable everybody always goes and hides at their mom's house or stashes the

stuff at their mom's found at his mom's with a lock pick and duct tape inside a 22 caliber rifle was in his jeep as well as ammo a pistol and more evidence they're being held right now without bond and when you look at the home it's a lovely brick home out in the middle of a wooded area with a nice big lawn on the front i mean and i'm certainly not saying the structure makes the home but it does not look like a high crime area. It looks almost bucolic. It looks like, you know, the American dream, Cheryl White. It's a very nice area. It's a suburb of Huntsville, Alabama. It's just a little bit to the northeast in Madison County. Even the name of the street sounds, as you say, bucolic, St. Clair Lane. But it was not that day. And, you know, one thing that forensics found was that Carol Smallwood, the mother, Kristen's mother, was shot. So I don't

know that the arson would have covered that up. We are waiting for the latest as these cases develop. Five dead bodies, including an unborn child, an eight-year-old little boy, and a one-year-old little boy. Why? Why? Luckily, prosecutors do not have to prove motive. They're not expected to crawl into the brain of a spree killer and figure out why. They just have to prove who, what, where, and when. And now, on Crime Stories. We find the defendant, Scott Lee Peterson, guilty of the crime of murder of Lacey Denise Peterson. The case of State v. Scott Peterson, to me, feels like it just happened yesterday. She just vanished, and it turned into a media storm within days. Please, please, please let her go. Bring her back.

Guess what, Scotty? San Quentin's your new home. There was no biological evidence, no forensic evidence whatsoever, that pointed to the guilt of Scott Peterson. There's at least 11 witnesses that saw Lacey that day. This is all while Scott's at the office on his computer. So, he's innocent. I wasn't the last one that saw Lacey that day. This is all while Scott's at the office on his computer. So, he's innocent. I wasn't the last one to see Lacey that day.

There were so many witnesses. We saw her walking in the neighborhood. After I left, the cops just never followed up on me, burglary across the street. Pregnant Lacey Peterson was murdered at Christmas. I've never forgotten it. I've never forgotten it. I've never forgotten sitting in that courtroom as the evidence unfolded and rushing from outside the front of the courthouse,

inside for testimony to resume, and the courtroom was completely full, and I couldn't find a seat. I sat on the very back row. I had worked till the last possible second and I was so far back that I had to take off my backpack and sit on the backpack so I could see up to the front. And I remember Sharon Rocha, Lacey's mother, testifying about Lacey's burial and how in the coffin, Lacey was buried holding baby Connor, her first and only child. That's what I remember and now

after a jury convicts him and sends him to death row Scott Peterson has reared his ugly head again oh yes he has declaring from behind bars that quote I wasn't the last one to see Lacey

alive I mean you know what just go back to your keg of Pruno and your love letters from misguided women across the country, Scott Peterson. I mean, how dare he now take salt and rub it into the wounds of Lacey's family. Another thing I will never forget, as the family, Lacey's family, stood thing I will never forget. As the family. Lacey's family stood by him. And supported him at the beginning. Until photos emerge.

Of Lacey. At one Christmas party. Nine months pregnant. She felt so bad. She had to put her feet up. At the same time. Across town. He was at his own Christmas party

with Amber Fry, who had on a red satin strapless dress and he had on a Santa Claus hat and he had his hand right on her rear end. You know what? I've had it with him. I've had it with him. Why are we even listening to him?

Cheryl White, why is Scott Peterson back in the headlines spewing his BS? You know why? Because people are still interested in it and there's a new special about it. And the more I read about what we may see, it almost sounds as if they're giving him a chance to defend himself. He said there are many people who saw her after that alleged last. You mean all of them that came forward at trial? Zero. Right.

He was a particularly unlikable person, don't you think? Well, here's the thing I never got. Joe Scott, don't feel left out. But I've got to tell you, a lot of men, a lot of women thought he was handsome. Not me, of course. I never thought he was even remotely handsome, but a lot of women did. He was allegedly athletic, had a college degree, teeth apparently straightened by the orthodontist. I did see that at a distance. A job, a beautiful home, a beautiful wife, a baby on the way, a yard, everything. Nice car. The works.

But Joe Scott Morgan, don't even fix your mouth to tell me that a man, within a week after his wife, quote, goes missing, orders the porn channel. Okay? He didn't expect her to walk back through the front door. Can I just put that out there? If I came home and my husband had ordered the porn channel, uh-uh, uh-uh, his clothes would be in the front yard in a fire pit. And the locks would be changed pronto.

Come home, ordered the porn channel uh-uh no okay and that's just a tiny tiny bit of evidence that i just want to throw out there and then within like 10 days of her quote disappearance he's on the phone trying to sell the house and her car joe scott you're just sitting there. Quiet. Me. What happened? Cat got your tongue? Nope. Hadn't got it yet. I'll tell you another telling piece of information here in regards to Ms. Amber. She had made in her statement, the comment, and I think this is very telling, that when he introduced himself, he referred to himself as a widower. Now, you know. Okay. When you just said those words, everybody in this studio mouthed the words widower.

We all know it. So why is he jumping up now claiming he's not responsible for her murder and baby Connor's murder? And another thing I can remember is I was busy, busy, busy. I don't even know. I was running like a maniac from one job to the next. And I heard that a baby had washed ashore. And I went, that's baby Connor. I didn't read any news, nothing.

I said, that's him. And the baby looked like a little shiny plastic baby doll that you, you know, buy at the store because even in death, Lacey's body, as you know, the uterus is the strongest, the thickest muscle in of the female anatomy and the reproductive organs. And that was the last thing to give away. And he literally floated out of her uterus and washed ashore followed by her in the next tide essentially so why why am i why it's like a gnat buzzing around my head scott peterson scott peterson why is he saying this now? And what is he saying, Joe Scott? He's saying that someone else other than him was the last person to see this poor woman alive. And of course, we don't know who that person is. This is going to be, quote unquote,

the big reveal in this program that's going to be broadcast. I am just absolutely amazed. Broadcast in a program? How about in a court of law? Yeah, no kidding. So who are all these witnesses? This is a jailhouse interview he did with his sister-in-law, Janie. And I don't blame his family at all. They want to believe.

They want to believe he's innocent. So, you know, I get it. I get it when your mind just does not want to accept what's right in front of you so he says quote i wasn't the last one to see lacy that day there were so many witnesses that saw her walking in the neighborhood after i left if there were so many witnesses cheryl white investigative reporter why didn't they testify yeah that's the uh the number one question isn't it so i don't know that we're going to get any resolution to that, any answer to that question in this new documentary. But purportedly we will. And don't forget that when he was arrested, he had dyed his hair.

Remember, he had bleached his hair out blonde and his goatee. And he had all of that stuff with him that would indicate flight. You mean false identifications? Correct. Thousands of dollars in cash. Of course, he stocked up on Viagra, as I recall. That was in his car. You need that out in the wilderness.

Right, Joe Scott? Yeah. Got to pack a big... Then all the wilderness gear, he was set to go and as i recall he was caught in another thing and you might speak to this joe scott and i found it true too now i don't know of any studies but they may exist where perps for some reason always go back to the scene of the crime how many times did gps reveal scott peterson would go back to the scene of the crime. How many times did GPS reveal Scott Peterson would go back to the San Francisco Bay and just look out over the water before he was arrested?

Yeah, he was fondly thinking about what he was going to do with the rest of his life now that he had partially dismembered the body of his wife. I think people are forgetting what he did to this woman. And one more big fact here is the whole, the old adage of motive means an opportunity. So you're telling me that there's other people riding around this neighborhood that saw her, that could facilitate putting her in a boat after they partially dismembered her, weighed her down and took her out and threw her in the water. It's the dog doesn't hunt. It's absolutely mindless.

And I cannot believe they're giving this guy a platform. It's absolutely just beyond the pale. Well, here's the other thing. Here's the other thing. Um, you mentioned, as you said,

quote, miss Amber. Well, Amber Fry has been attacked a lot and I don't want to make this about her because it's really about Lacey and Connor and their family. But I've spent time with Amber Fry and she really believes she found Mr. Right.

You know? I don't believe that she knew he was married. To this day, I don't think it. Because when she did find out, it was because of Lacey Peterson and the search for Lacey Peterson. And she called police and went, I think I'm dating a guy that's married to Lacey Peterson. And I will never again forget when those tapes were played where Scott Peterson pretended he was in France or Brussels or somewhere overseas for, I think it

was New Year's, for a holiday celebration. And he was referring to them as Jacques and Pierre. I can't remember the fake names he gave his fake friends. And he was actually, it was the night of Lacey's vigil where everybody was just torn apart about where was Lacey. And he was ducking and diving so he wouldn't be on TV so all his girlfriends wouldn't find out that he was married to Lacey Peterson. Does anybody remember that, Cheryl White? Or have I lost my mind yet again? Oh, no, absolutely.

He had so many affairs. It's hard to count them all. And when Amber found out and contacted police, she then cooperated. I believe she was wired or somehow had recording devices. She taped the calls. She taped the calls. Right. And the only way we heard the depth of his deceit was through the calls that she agreed to tape. Cheryl, you're right.

So what does this amount to, Joe Scott? So he's saying this on an A&E documentary. What is the point? What is the point? Because if they go through all of the evidence that I think that they will, he will be proven guilty yet again. I mean, who are the people he's claiming that saw lacy after he went to work excuse me fishing fishing yeah fishing location where her body was found talk about putting yourself at the scene of the crime no kid but who are these people i don't know i think that that's going to be a big reveal here in this case the producer is saying that this in no way is going to exonerate this fellow in this case and take away his guilt. I think that the attorney for Peterson is seeing this as an opportunity to get this back out in the news, to start a buzz with this thing, to try

in some way to cast doubt on this case and get him off of death row. And if you remember how the judge came down in this case, and this is in California, he framed Peterson as an absolute monster and he's, you know, in sentencing him to death, which the death penalty is not very popular in California. That's the only thing that I can see that they're attempting to do here. The A&E special regarding Scott Peterson's alleged claims of other witnesses airing on A&E. Let's see what it proves. Our eyes are on the prize of justice. And now on Crime Stories. Boiling tensions outside the courthouse in Charlottesville as the man suspected of driving his car into a crowd of protesters

after a white supremacist rally was charged with second-degree murder. I'm proud of what she did. I'm proud of what she did. Those were the words uttered by the mother of a young woman who was mowed down dead, dead at what she thought would be a peaceful march. It didn't turn out to be peaceful. And now Heather is dead, protesting white supremacist march at Charlottesville. What happened? When you see the footage of this on TV and the clips that have been played over and over again,

it looks like something you would imagine happening in some other country. But it's right here in our Virginia. What went wrong? And who now is going to jail? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. It's right under our noses. Joining me, special guest, Susan Candiotti, investigative reporter. Also with me, Brian Levin, hate crime expert. Both of you, thank you for being with me. I remember working on one of the first hate crimes that I ever knew of anyway

in inner city Atlanta. I was working on a serial killing of young black gay males. And this was, whoa, whoa, way back in the mid 80s. And I don't think that the words hate crime were even popular at that time. I just knew a guy was murdering young black male gay guys and the bodies had piled up. And it was very clear that males, black, gay were the targets.

That's the first time I ever really knew about hate crimes. I knew about crime, but crimes, evil, horrible crimes directed at a particular group just because they belong to that group, whatever group it could be? I want to go first to Susan Candiani, investigative reporter. Susan, break it down for me in a nutshell. Give me the takeaway. What happened? What happened is you had in, of course, Charlottesville over the weekend, Virginia, there was a rally that was staged, called for by a group,

because they were protesting the fact that the city there had voted and agreed to bring down the statue of Confederate General Lee. Okay, wait, wait, wait. We're still talking about the Civil War? We are. This was all over a statue of Robert E. Lee? Confederate War General. A statue.

Okay. When you say a group, what group? Is it the KKK? Is it the Aryan Supremacists? Who's the group? It seems to be a combination of a lot of different groups that came together and be organized. I mean, we know, for example, that infamous leader of the KKK, former leader of the KKK, David Duke was even involved, but you had a number of different groups, including reportedly militia groups who were

also involved in this. Militia groups, militia groups. What do you mean by militia groups? I always think of a bunch of like white guys running through the woods on the weekend and a beer keg what what do you mean by militia group these are people who think that it's time to take back power from the government that the government is is running the country to the degree of removing individual rights and the government has too much power. Okay, now wait a minute, wait a minute. That may not be half wrong, Susan Candiotti, but what does that have to do with dragging down a statute of Robert E. Lee? I mean, does anybody on the program right now like big government?

Because, I mean, I was a Fed, and I'm not crazy about the Feds. All right, I'll just put that out there. But why, I don't understand how disliking big government which i really don't know anybody that does like big everybody in the studio saying no we hate big government okay but that's just us but what does that have to do with mowing people down dead and dragging down and taking down a statue? These are sometimes, often, as we know, like-minded people who are hearkening back to any interference by the government on individual rights to, as many of these groups have said, who attended this rally, the idea that the government can mess with history. And the fact that a statue representing a leader of a Confederate

army can be taken down is, again, a sign, many of these groups believe, is interference by the government with literally the history of the United States. They take it as an affront. They take it, of course, what did that person represent? That person represented the South, helped represent the South in the Civil War, and states' rights to maintain the ability to keep slavery alive. Wait a minute. There's a big difference, I think, in arguing for states' rights, because we have states' rights. It's a very delicate balance between state power and federal power but state states rights is another issue from slavery for pete's sake

so okay people are there protest and i would say kooks but we've got a dead body so it's it's i can't really brand them in that way they They're there, and there are counter-protesters that are there arguing with them. So I guess this whole thing is not really about states' rights. It's about people being angry, some people being angry, that what's perceived as a symbol of slavery is going to be pulled down, Robert E. Lee's statute. And right now, I am not arguing about Robert E. Lee, all right? I'm not arguing about the Civil War. I'm arguing about what happened in Virginia and how could that happen here,

where you basically have a mob scene that gets out of control, protesters and counter protesters, and we end up with a body bag. Okay, take me through what happened exactly. So they're there protesting about a statute. They're counter protesters protesting against them. And what happens? The group, according to police, that was staging the rally, did not enter this area where they were supposed to, and they went a different way. And the two groups confronted each other. Insults and taunts were being hurled by both sides. All of a sudden, as there are people in the middle of the street, on the side streets, a car running to police and to all kinds of witnesses, and a group of people who were protesting the rally of white supremacists and neo-Nazis who had been there the day before hearing torches.

Wait a minute, Susan Candiotti, we're being joined by Brian Levin, hate crime expert. Brian, put it in a nutshell, vanguard America, the American fascist, James Alex Fields Jr., just 20 years old. How can you be so full of hate at just 20? I mean, I had already survived. I had just survived the murder of my fiancee. I was trying to figure out what I could do to fight back against all that pain and anger and just overwhelming tides of pain at that age. How do you get so full of hate?

He has been arrested and charged with murder, too, after he allegedly drives his car into a crowd of anti-fascists, killing a young woman, mowing her down dead, and injuring nearly 20 other people. Photos have recently emerged showing fields marching with a right-wing group known as Vanguard America. Okay, I know who the Klan is, and that is a name that has struck fear throughout the South as long as I can remember. Now, when I was a little girl, Brian, I did not know anything at all, and this is growing up in the South, about hatred, racial hatred, crime, nothing.

I would get a little glimpse of hatred on TV at dinner when the world news would be on, the 6 o'clock news. We only got one channel which was cbs and um i could you know see protests going on about maybe vietnam and angry faces but we didn't know anything about racial hatred or anything like this and that's growing up in the South. So I don't understand how now at this time, 2017, this is still festering. It's incredible, isn't it? And what's so interesting is you wouldn't have heard of Vanguard America because it's a relatively new group, just a couple of years old, founded by a military vet. And the night of the rally, they were saying blood and soil. And that blood and soil reference goes back to the Third Reich,

along with those torchlight marches. Brown shirts used to do that. And it's now. Oh, whoa, wait a minute. Wait a minute. When you say things like brown shirts, everybody's not steeped in the culture of hate like you are, no offense. But what do you mean by brown shirt?

These were Nazi thugs who would go out and beat up enemies of Hitler. They were just organized thugs. And what's so interesting is Vanguard America uses the term blood and soil, which was. OK, anything that their motto is blood and soil. I want to stay completely away from them. Now they're claiming this guy had nothing to do with them. Vanguard is now saying James Alex Fields Jr., just 20 years old for Pete's sake, had nothing to do with them and was not a member.

So why are they implicated in this? Because they were there marching? Well, he was not only there marching. Mr. Fields was not only there marching. He was photographed dressed in the same clothes and carrying a shield that had these symbols on it. So, you know, I don't know how they're saying he wasn't a member because he came all the way from Ohio. In addition, his high school't a member because he came all the way from Ohio

in addition his high school teacher Wait he came down from Ohio to argue about a statute of Robert E. Lee Yep Okay I'm having a hard time first of all it's hard for me Susan Candiotti with everything going on in the world

to even imagine how people that have families and jobs and a life have time on weekend to go tromp around arguing about a statute. And while you may respect certain things about Robert E. Lee, the statute brings up a lot of pain for a lot of people, right? Okay. Can we just all accept that? And it's a reminder of bad things in the past. So I get the angry feelings of wanting the statute down, all the hate and the pain behind that. His mom, his mother has said after this happened, she had no idea that her son was attending this rally. She knew that he was going away, that he told her that he was going to attend a rally of some kind. She thought it was something political or that it had something to do with, I believe she has

reported to say, President Trump, but she didn't really know what it was all about. And she reportedly told him just stay out of trouble. But this is a young man, Nancy, who when he was growing up in Kentucky, his high school teacher said that this young man had a fascination with Nazi Germany, that he wrote papers about it, very well written papers. And his teacher tried to, he admired Nazi Germany and Hitler and what he had done. And his teacher tried to, you know, steer him in the right direction. What's this fascination? Why do you care about this? But he said to no avail.

Brian Levin, I want to follow up on that. Brian Levin joining us this morning, hate crime expert. So I'm hearing so many different pieces of this puzzle that he grew up basically enamored with Nazi Germany and then transplanted those feelings onto states' rights agenda and was there marching in the vanguard brown shirt uniform carrying their shield. So where does that leave me now? I mean, it's the Department of Justice, and I hope they are, immediately investigating this as an act of domestic terrorism. I mean, we're not just fighting ISIS.

We're fighting any hate that ends in death, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, I've been doing it since the 80s, and to me, this is just a new hybrid. Yeah, well, unfortunately, while we do have a domestic terrorism statute, it really just relies on traditional plain vanilla statutes. So as Susan, who covered the McVeigh trial, found that McVeigh was charged under traditional laws. But I can tell you that the Justice Department is vigorously pursuing this. And one of the things that we've seen over the last couple of years has been this explosion of what I call hate mega rallies. Years ago, we used to see, you know, a couple of dozen of these hate mongers show up, and it was only from

one group. In the last two years alone, we've had more of these mega rallies with scores of people over 100 than we had in the previous 15 years. So this is a disturbing thing. And what's happened is white nationalism has now become a splintered yet bona fide socio-political movement. Hold on. I want to talk to you about hate crime groups because they're really not on many people's radar. They're on my radar because we would prosecute the resulting murders. At that time, we were not really calling them hate crimes. We prosecuted them for murder and get life behind bars or the death penalty. But when you're saying hate groups, who are they? groups who are they how many are they where do they meet to me they're like roaches you can't find one but when you find one there's a

million well as you said they're more emboldened now southern poverty loss in our accounts a three percent uh increase from the previous year um but where do they meet how do they recruit i want to know the details i don't i don't care about all the statistics. Who are these people? A lot of them, particularly these ones, they're younger, people who are white males, consider themselves disenfranchised, and they organize over social media. Do you think this whole thing can be traced and prosecuted through social media? Because it's not just the one young woman dead.

There are also two Virginia State Police dead. One of them, Lieutenant Cullen, just 48 years old, and Trooper Pilot Bates, both dead at the scene. They were in a Virginia State Police helicopter. They're both dead. And in my mind, I don't see why this is not going to be prosecuted as a death penalty case, because in my mind, there are three dead bodies as a result of these hate acts. You know what? If the feds come in and charge it under the hate crime statute, you could get the death penalty. It's not always easy to tackle what's happening right now, but it's in our backyard on our American soil.

This is not some hateful mob in another country where death occurs. This is right here. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend.