Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Bombshell developments in the search for little Joe Clyde Daniels

Episode Date: April 10, 2018

A missing autistic boy is presumed dead and his parents are behind bars. Nancy Grace looks at the disappearance of 5-year-old Joe Clyde Daniels. She's joined by Klass Kids Foundation founder Marc Klass, lawyer Robin Ficker, lawyer & psychologist Dr. Brian Russell, Cold Case Research Institute director Sheryl McCollum, juvenile judge Ashley Willcott, and reporter Pamela Furr. Who hasn't ever had their smart phones make calls while stuffed in a pocket? A "butt dial" to his boss cost James Stephens his job. Stephens tells Grace what happened when his boss listened in to a private conversation in which his wife gave her unflattering opinion of him. His wife, Gina Stephens, and the couple's lawyer, David Guldenschuh, are also in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guys, what happened to a D.C. intern, Chandra Levy? She gets her dream internship in D.C. and immediately, allegedly, catapults into a sex relationship with a U.S. congressman. That's allegedly. But what I do know is Chandra Levy was murdered. Why has the only real suspect in the Chandra Levy murder seemingly disappeared? Thursday night on A&E, 11 o'clock Eastern, 11 p.m. Eastern, Grace vs. Abrams, Bombshell.

Please join us. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 132. A five-year-old little autistic boy missing. Please help us find this little boy. Not only a tot, but autistic as well. Joe Clyde Daniels in Dixon, Tennessee. Is he even alive? He is autistic and nonverbal. So far, there has been a three-day search.

Is he dead or alive? Listen to the 911 call. This is Dixon County, 911? Yes, sir. Okay. I live on 1112. Yes, sir. Okay, how old is your son, sir? Okay, and you said you live at 11, 12? Yes. Okay, and you said he has autism?

Yes. Okay, how long autism? Yes. Okay. How lo seen? Oh, last night. Okay his name? His name is Joe what's his last name what was he wearing last night pajamas what kind of pajamas what do they look like Okay. Do you know how he got out of the house? He must have unlocked the door. Okay. And he got out. What's his date of birth?

7-8-12. Okay, sir. And you said his name was Joe. What was his last name? Daniels. Daniels. Daniels? Yes. Okay. And what's your last name, sir? Daniels. Okay. What's your first name?

Joseph. All right, Joseph. And what does he look like? He's got blonde hair and blue eyes. Okay. And he's got blonde hair, blue eyes. Anything else? How tall is he? He's about, I would say, four.

About four feet tall. Four feet tall. How much does he weigh? About 65 pounds? 65 pounds. 65 pounds? Yeah. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Do you know anywhere where he would go from your house? I do, I know. They have an answer have one name. Mm hmm. So I don't know where he would have gone. Okay. Is he nonverbal or is he verbal? It's nonverbal.

Nonverbal? Yes. Okay. And how severe is his autism? Um, his autism, I stay with it too. So that doesn't help anything matters so um but it's not so severe but it's pretty it's pretty significant

where it can't be communicated joining us right now special guest the founder of class kids foundation and one of the most well-known victims rights advocates in our country, Mark Klass, joining us. Mark Klass, thank you for being with us. You know, right off the bat,

my ears perk up when I hear the son who is autistic and nonverbal, must have unlocked the door and wandered out. Well, Nancy, if in fact that is what happened, then what the authorities and the search teams, and they know this well, are going to have to do is they're going to have to focus on any bodies of water. Because for some reason, autistic children are drawn to the water. And in fact, the vast majority of autistic children that are found as a result of these kinds of things that are dead are found in bodies of water. You know, Mark Klass, I can't help it though. When, and I learned this myself, Mark,

I told you the night it happened, and this was eight years ago, my children who were then two we had not only a lock on the door going from the kitchen to the laundry room and from the laundry room you'd go outdoors they suddenly I realized they could reach up and flip the the turn lock on the kitchen door to get to the laundry room and then they could get outside. Well, I immediately got another latch and put it up at about six feet. I had to reach up to turn it so they couldn't get out and wander. Well, it wasn't 48 hours before John David, who was a little monkey, ran up the stairs.

There were stairs beside that door. Going up beside the door to the upstairs, he went up like four stairs and reached up and opened the lock. 48 hours for him to figure that out, and he was two, Mark. So it does happen. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's no question about it. Children wander all the time. Mark, class with me. Mark, typically when a child goes missing from the family home, what do statistics say?

Well, statistics are pretty clear. First of all, everybody agrees that there's no time to lose in these types of situations. result of an abduction, or if in fact children aren't recovered within the first 24 hours, then the chances of recovering them alive drop dramatically, particularly in abduction situations. 74% of children that are murdered as a result of an abduction will be dead within the first three hours. Mark Glass, when a child goes missing from the family home, how often is the family or a family friend or relative involved as opposed to a stranger? Almost exclusively. Typically, you'll have hundreds of thousands of cases of family abductions in a given year, and you'll have somewhere under 200 cases of true stranger types of abductions. And as far as the abuse of children, the numbers are consistent. The vast majority of children that are going to be abused are going to be abused by somebody in the family or somebody that's close to the family. A Tennessee five-year-old boy, non-verbal and and autistic goes missing. You heard the 911 call. That call

from Joseph Ray Daniels reporting his five-year-old little boy Clyde, Joe Clyde, missing. Now take a listen to the Dixon County Sheriff Jeff Bledsoe talking about footprints that may help them find the boy. There were some indicators where we found what appeared to be a footprint yesterday late in the evening, and that took us out into that realm of the three miles to four mile range. But as far as the radius of what we're doing on foot and searching the fields and the brush and the forest, the woods, that hasn't been to that extent yet up to that three mile range. But we moved north today where we had primarily had some indicators on the south side, but we don't

want to ignore any area around us because of the way he could move on us. And then we need to double back and check those areas as well. But when we're looking at a straight line, if he could travel down the road, that's what pushed us beyond where we're at at this point. We went beyond a mile with our foot searches, with our grid searches, but we've exceeded that greatly with the support of the aircraft from TBI and THP. Now, when you said that you guys have found footprints, does that mean bare footprints or shoe, like small child shoes? It would be a footprint without a shoe and that that's the indicators that we had if there was no shoes when he left the home straight out to pamela fur

investigative reporter with crime stories then a search like no other ensued for three straight days volunteers dogs helicopters the works what can you tell me about the search for this five-year-old autistic boy, Pam? Well, everybody's involved. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, even the TWRA, which is the Tennessee Wildlife Association, because it's such a wooded area. There was also a body of water nearby. They went ahead and drained that just to be on the safe side. They did not find a body there. Volunteers, hundreds, showed up every day to look for this young boy. Like you said, nonverbal, even though they're shouting for him, they're hoping to find him. They're not hearing anything from this boy, but hundreds of people have shown up to look for him.

Also, it should be noted, this is not the first time that this young boy has wandered away from home. This has happened a couple of times. And so everyone is very optimistic that they'd be able to find him because this has happened before. The only thing that has not happened is that an endangered child alert issued, which they did do in this case, immediately after the 911 call from the father. So after an urgent 911 call from the dad, the troops are summoned. Hundreds of volunteers, police, dogs, firefighters, EMT, everybody joins in. And then the search takes a different turn. Listen. During the course of the investigation and after a three-day search, it was determined that the child's father, Joseph Daniels,

intentionally killed his son sometime during the night of April the 3rd or 4th in their residence and then hid his son's body. This morning, TBI agents arrested Joseph Ray Daniels and charged him with one count of criminal homicide. Daniels was booked in the Dixon County Jail on a $1 million bond. So let me understand this to Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute. The dad confesses the 5-year-old autistic boy

is not missing, that he's led everybody on a wild goose chase. He confesses to killing his own son. Cheryl? Nancy, he confessed, but he won't say where the child is. And my concern, listening to the 911 call, when the call begins, there is no sense of urgency on his part. He never asks for help. He is not panicked. He's not in a hurry. He's not demanding. He's not frantic.

All of the things that you expect him to be, he's not. He's calm, and most of the time he's given one-word responses unless he wants to explain something. So he wants to say, my son is autistic and we can't find him. So what's important there, he's telling you the most important thing to him is for you to know the child is autistic, not that he's telling you the most important thing to him is for you to know the child is autistic. Not that he's missing. He never uses that word. He says we can't find him. If you keep in mind this child has been missing since the night before, he should be completely frantic and he's not. When he says words like escape

and then he says he unlocked the door and must have gotten out, it leads me to believe there was more abuse going on in that home and potentially he does not want you to find the child to not only discover there may have been abuse but also the manner in which he died. Straight out to Pamela

Furr. Well, Nancy, we've learned more details about what happened the night Joe Clyde Daniels disappeared. The arrest warrant has now been released. So we've learned the father, Joseph Ray, told investigators that he actually hit the boy repeatedly with his closed fist in the torso, his head, his face, until that little child was dead. It happened at their home located on Garner's Creek Road in Dixon, Tennessee, which is about 30 miles west of Nashville. The father told police he then took the body and put it in the trunk of his car, drove to some remote location, and then dumped his son's body just out there in the woods, remote location. Nobody can find this child's body.

Investigators are still looking. The father has yet to tell them the actual location. The child most likely is going to be somewhere that is known to the father, an area that he was comfortable in knowing there would not be other people to see him. So for example, if he was a hunter, then the child would be somewhere in the woods that he was known to go to hunt. If he was a camper and he knew places to go where other people were not going to be around, then he felt comfortable going somewhere specific that he knew that he would not be caught or seen disposing of this child. The interesting thing is that he's not telling where the child is, and that's extraordinarily

telling. He's covering more than just the crime of homicide. He's covering all the things that he's done to that child over a period of time. With me now, famed defense attorney out of the Maryland jurisdiction, Robin Thicker. Robin, he gave a confession. What is a possible defense for him now? How could he stand by for three days and let people search for his son? Well, was he living in the home? He wasn't even there. The child has wandered away many times before.

I think the parent who was living with the child was derelict. Then how do you explain the confession, a false confession, Robin Ficker? Well, we don't know the situation, how long he was interrogated, the pressure that was put on him. There are many violations of these interrogation rules that an ordinary person would expect. I think that the police were so eager to find a culprit here that they interrogated him in an improper way. Nancy, we're also told that when Joseph Ray, the father, was arrested, he was immediately placed on suicide watch and he's being held there on a $1 million bond. Listen to Dixon County Sheriff Jeff Bledsoe. His world has drastically changed and his

environment's changed that we put people through a process of where we check them medically. We have medical staff that works with us and under the supervision of a doctor and nurses and people on staff at the jail and on scene at the jail. when we have this we want to just be very cautious that we we observe his actions and his behavior and are able to respond if something's needed and it just puts him where he's in a booking area where he's highly visible you know it's it's odd to mark class founder of class kids foundation father, according to police, I mean, maybe Ficker's right. Maybe he was pressured into a statement. I find that hard to believe.

You'd be pressured into saying you killed your own son. But why not tell where the body is, Mark Klass? What is in it for him? Is he trying to work a deal? Oh, my God. He could be working a deal, I suppose. Listen, Nancy, there's a special place in hell for parents that murder their own children. And I would take everything this man has said at face value. If he said he murdered the child, there's absolutely

no reason in the world he would say something like that unless it was true. And I think it's then he now it's incumbent upon him at some point to let this little boy come home and be put to rest. And if he doesn't do that, then I can't even speak to the diabolical nature of his mind. When you hear the news that he was intentionally killed by his father, it was still shocking and it was immediate heartbreak. We are talking about the disappearance of a five-year-old autistic non-verbal little boy, Joe Clyde. You know, to Pamela Furr, Crime Stories investigative reporter, Pamela, other than the father seeing him, what's the last known sighting of him? I mean,

the parents say he was wearing his PJs when he was last seen. Joe Clyde Daniels, five years old, four feet tall, just weighs 65 pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes, last seen wearing pajamas. There were two other children in that house, Nancy, an eight-year-old and a three-year-old, and they've been placed with relatives. That's the good news. The Department of Children's Services made sure of that, and this is where we bring up the boy's mother. We're not really sure of her status or involvement at this point. There are all kinds of questions being posted on social media and the like about the mother and her possible role, but she hasn't been arrested at this point. The Dixon County Sheriff says he is aware of all these questions, but would only say he's confident the TBI investigators are looking at every avenue in this case.

And the TBI confirms they are looking to see if anybody else is involved, but that's all they're saying. Nancy, we've got some breaking news on this story. In the last few minutes, things have changed. The mother has been taken into custody. 27-year-old Crystal Daniels was also arrested. The specifics of arrest, not yet known, but the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation apparently found enough probable cause to charge her with one count of aggravated child neglect or endangerment. The justice also tacked on a staggering bond of $1 million. When was the last time somebody else saw him?

When do I have an independent sighting of Joe Clyde so I can start my timeline of when he was killed. Well, that's the last sighting. The grandmother had talked to him on the phone as in she did all the talking. He couldn't. So we were told the grandmother had talked to him earlier that day. We also have a witness that says they saw a child matching the description around one o'clock in the morning than the morning of the disappearance but there's no confirmation that that actually was the boy so truthfully the last sighting is coming from those parents how could somebody outside the home see the boy at 1 a.m pam the witness says they saw him walking down a child walking in that area around 1 o'clock,

and they didn't call police. That's the part that I don't understand. If you see a young child at 1 o'clock in the morning wandering around, why wouldn't you call the police at that time? We don't know if that, quote, witness is a friend of the family or not. Ashley Wilcott, juvenile judge and founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com. Ashley, if I saw a child walking down the street or outside at 1 a.m., I would call police and stay with the child. What idiot wouldn't stay with the child? Absolutely. There are so many problems with this story and holes

in this story of this father, because honestly, nobody would leave a child at 1 a.m. and not at least call the police and sit in the car and make sure the child's safe until the police get there. This is wrecked with all kinds of facts that mean there's no reason not to believe this father when he says, yep, I murdered my child. To Cheryl McCollum Cold Case Research Institute director previous incidents of the little boy wandering off had sparked hope he would still be alive. Listen. Joe Clyde had walked away from the home other occasions so we had been there to offer our services there and we were able to have a good recovery or a good rescue at that point he was close by to the home and so we were able to have a good recovery or a good rescue at that point. He was

close by to the home, and so we were there to work on those incidents that we were caught. As the search unfolded, I mean, I'm talking about search dogs, volunteers, police, helicopters, boats, the works. We thought there was a chance to bring Joe Clyde home alone. Investigators even state that the boy was spotted about 100 yards from the home. What is that, a football field, 100 yards? Football field. Yeah. Then they say they see a footprint near a creek three miles from where Joe Clyde goes missing and that that was an indication he could be alive.

Three miles? Cheryl McCollum, you really think that little boy got three miles in his PJs at night? I do not. Not by himself. It would be difficult for me to think that a five-year-old went three miles undetected. But again, when the father, right of the gate uses the word escape, that makes me think that perhaps the child got out to get away. But three miles is a long way for nobody to see him walking. He didn't go anywhere for help. Even though he's nonverbal, he's five.

He knows his way around that town. So he was going somewhere specific. You're talking about somebody old enough, they know where the store is, they know where their neighbors are, they know where their friends live, where the lake is, et cetera. So three miles away, I would be curious to know where he might have been headed. And again, if there were additional footprints leading to and not away, that's going to be something for law enforcement to figure out as they continue the circuit. And Nancy, we need to start at the beginning. In the beginning is that 911 call.

That's the money of this whole investigation. Why would the guy, the dad, give a confession that he kills his son, but then not say where the body is? Is he angling for a deal like, you take the death penalty off the table or let me play the voluntary 20 years and I'll tell you where the body is? To Mark Klass, founder of Klass Kids Foundation. What do we do now, Mark? Well, you know, we have to take what the father said in face value. And I think that what we need is an expert interrogator, somebody that's going to be able to get this man to the point, whether they take death penalty off the table or not, to give it up, to let

them know where little Joe Clyde is so that they can lay him to rest. He needs to do that for all of the people that love him and all of the people that have been searching for him. The loss of a child's life I've seen so often pled down to voluntary or even involuntary. When the parent will say, oh, I was angry, wouldn't stop crying, or this or that, like somehow that's an excuse. If that happened to an adult,

it would absolutely not be a hall pass for murder. Why are children's lives treated differently, Mark? Well, they don't vote. They don't have money. They don't really have any power. But let's just think back to another parent of a missing child who swore up and down that they had nothing to do with it and there was no reason to murder their child. Remember Susan Smith out of Union, South Carolina? It was exactly the same thing. There was no reason she should have done anything to her children. They weren't

autistic. They weren't problem children in any way, shape, or form. Yet she, in her tiny mind, was able to justify driving them into a lake and letting them drown. You know, there's an effort now to collect donations to build a Joe Clyde Daniels Memorial Playground. That's the Hillview Baptist Church. That's cold comfort indeed. I mean, I admire the effort. Nancy, the outpouring from the community has been tremendous. Hundreds have volunteered. Well, they volunteered when everyone thought that little Joe Clyde was still alive. Since the weekend after learning the horrible news that he was murdered by his father,

there have been several vigils throughout the community. And then here's a sweet, sweet story. The school where Joe Clyde attended kindergarten decided to do something special to remember him. His kindergarten class, you've got to remember, they loved him even though he couldn't communicate verbally. They really thought he was a special child. And they loved him and are really trying to deal with this horrible loss. So the school has decided to make a makeshift memorial. Actually, several have been set up all over the school has decided to make a makeshift memorial. Actually, several have been

set up all over the school with apples. And you may ask, why apples? Well, his favorite snack, his teacher says, were apples. So when local businesses got wind that these were the kinds of memorials going up all over the school, they decided to get together and donate apples. Nearly 800 have been collected in memory of Joe Clyde. So you've got these memorials set up with his picture and then apple, kind of apple bouquet kind of thing set up all over the school. And the school is also making plans to plant apple trees on the grounds in his memory. I admire the effort, Cheryl McCollum, but I want the boy, not a park or a highway.

There needs to be justice in this situation, Nancy. Not only do they need to locate him, to bring him home so that he can properly be buried, this case, when they do find him, there will be evidence, most likely, of great abuse that has been ongoing. Listen to Dixon County Sheriff Jeff Bledsoe. Work's not done. We're still there. We're still on scene.

And we're going to be there until we can get a recovery and bring a resolve to this. We have other family members that are mourning. And it's just been a devastating end to this, with our hope the whole time being that there would be a safe rescue. The boy's grandmother, Belle Daniels, Joseph Daniels' stepmother, spoke to News Channel 5. We're doing the best we can do, and I want people to know from the bottom of my heart I appreciate everything that the law enforcement and the churches and the newsmen and all of the media and stuff is done for us. And how's the family doing since learning about the news? Well, right now we're just feeling like it's a nightmare and we're just

hoping to get closure soon. I'd like to say that when we found out about it, oh, my heart just sunk because we didn't know what was going on. And when they couldn't get no leads or nothing, I thought maybe somebody had abducted him. And that's what I really think. We were down in Texas. Reaction to Joseph's arrest. It was shocking. Because you raise a child from way back. You think, you know it. You don't think a child, he would kill his own baby. Tip line 1-800-TBI.

Find. How many times have you done it? Or would you admit to it? Butt dialing. Now, of course, we are not allowed to say B-U-T-T in our house. So we call it pocket dialing. Or in my case, bra dialing. Because I'll stick it down my sports bra.

Long story short, has it happened to you? Have you sent an unintended email or text? I've done that too with disastrous results. But all of those butt dialings and bra dialings and pocket dialings and unintended emails and texts, what if it got you fired? Yeah, fired. That is what is being alleged right now. A man loses his job after he accidentally pocket dials his boss. Now, according to reports, he was talking to his wife about his boss. Whoopsie, that all went sideways. Because at the time, according to reports, Stevens did not realize he had pocket dialed his boss who could hear the conversation. And not liking what he

heard, he kicked the guy out. I don't know. Maybe it was time for the boss to have a little introspection and self-evaluation. But hey, that's a whole nother can of worms. That calls for a shrink, not a lawyer like myself. Joining me right now, a very well-known lawyer in his area, in his jurisdiction of Rome, Georgia, David Golden Shoe and with me James Stevens who was kicked out lost his job over a butt dial his wife Gina Stevens the wife of the butt dialer Gina sorry to refer to you like that I'm sure growing up you never thought gee one day I want to grow up and marry a butt dialer sadly you're in this position with me Dr. Brian Russell lawyer, lawyer and psychologist, host of a hit show, Fatal Vows, on Investigation Discovery, and Ashley Wilcott, juvenile judge and founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com, victims advocate.

Well, first, I'm just going to start off. Ashley Wilcott, if we got fired every time somebody did a butt dial or a pocket dial, we'd all be in the unemployment line. Right, exactly. And so you have to talk about what's that right to privacy. And if I accidentally butt dial somebody, I don't expect that my privacy is going to be violated and somebody's going to use that against me. And you know, another thing, as I said, I needed to shrink. Luckily, we've got Dr. Brian Russell from Investigation Discovery. Dr. Russell, everybody complains about their boss. I mean, I don't care what kind of a great job you've got. Wah, wah, wah. I've got to come in early and start 10 minutes early today. Wah, wah, wah. I've got to work at night. Blah, blah, blah. Oh, this commute is terrible.

Why did they speak to me like that? Why does so-and-so get a raise? Blah, blah. It goes on forever. I mean, everybody, no matter how good you've got it, if you step back and look at it, we're all really lucky to have jobs, but that's the human condition. I don't know how the Lord puts up with us, frankly. We all complain. Isn't that true, Dr. Brian Russell? Okay. I admit it. I complain about how early we tape the show. We all do. Think about poor Alan Duke on the West Coast. I mean, everybody complains about your boss, no matter how great. I had the greatest boss ever, Louis Slayton, the elected district attorney. But I would absolutely whine about my job as i was tromping

through housing projects through the rain and having people try to sell crack cocaine to me on the corner yes i complained dr russell but i had a great job what is wrong with us why do we all complain well you know i think it's kind of like uh whenever we are in a hurry to get somewhere we always perceive that we're getting all the red lights when you know in truth we're well we are in a hurry to get somewhere, we always perceive that we're getting all the red lights when, you know, in truth, we're probably. Well, we are. I know I am, Dr. Russell. I get all the red lights. And I'm also in the wrong line at the grocery store.

And my husband's so much worse. Some bosses, you know, would look at a situation like this and say, oh, you know, this person has the, you know, has the audacity to pick out the negative parts of this job and complain about me. I'm going to fire the person. Other bosses would look at this and go, this might actually be a chance for me to learn something about what's going on in my workplace that I otherwise wouldn't have had a chance to know. And so I'm going to not let on that I know this information, but I'm going to use it to try to keep my good employees here and maybe actually try to fix something about this workplace. Well, as you can imagine, in all my various jobs, whether I was bossing around investigators or defense lawyers or trying to boss judges around, that usually didn't work very well, but I tried. I mean, there's always going to be somebody or a lot of people that don't like what you do or what you say. With me right now, let's go out to James Stevens and Gina Stevens, his wife, and with us,

their very well-known attorney, David Goldenshew out of Rome, Georgia. James Stevens, let's start at the beginning. Tell me how it all went down. I had actually teleworked on the day that this took place later in the evening. It was a Tuesday. I teleworked every Tuesday. And well, after my hours, my work hours were from 6 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. And at about 5 o'clock, I received a phone call from Mr. Cohen. And during the course of that phone call, he was calling to grumble and complain himself because a female state agency department head had high-hatted him at a state department head agency meeting earlier in the day. What does that mean hi hat whoa whoa what does hi hat it didn't give him the time of day didn't didn't uh didn't spend a lot of

time conversing with him uh it was too my goodness now that's a whole nother can of worms how easily men get their feelings hurt i had no idea okay go ahead j James Stevens. So you work from 6 a.m. to 2.30 p.m., and everybody, that is not uncommon for state workers. They have different shifts. So some people will get off at 3 and leave. Some people get off at 5. That's just the nature of it. And I remember I would come into the DA's office, and the drug indictments would have been there since 4 in the morning,

drawing up drug indictments to present to the grand jury, and then I'll leave at noon when grand jury let out. So you work from 6 to 2.30, and your boss calls and begins grumbling because some woman ignored him at a meeting. Okay, go ahead and the reason he had called me regarding that topic is the department head that actually grew up in the same hometown of cedartown that i grew up in so that's that's why i made the call he spent about 50 minutes on the topic finally finally the call ended normally at five o'clock

in the evening i would already have my phone retired in the bedroom on a charger but because i'd received the call it was not put up where it normally is and me and my wife had a conversation i've had quite a quite a commute from cedartown to atlanta every day and even though i had very conducive work hours still my wife and my time was limited because of the commute i had back and forth from atlanta so she was a little bit distraught that i had received a phone call that lasted about an hour on personal private time and uh we had a conversation okay wait a minute hold on james with me james stevens who got fired over a butt dial. With me is his wife, Gina, and their lawyer, David Golden Shoe, well-known in his jurisdiction of Rome, Georgia. You know, hold on just a moment.

Ashley Wilcott, I'm going to you because I haven't managed to get Dr. Brian married with children yet, although I'm trying. You know, being smart and good- looking apparently doesn't attract women the way it used to. Ashley, it drives me insane when I start working at 5.30 in the morning. I work straight through. I finally

get with the children. And all the people I work with on the West Coast, Alan, start calling at suppertime. I mean, the minute I get with the twins, finally. You know, David, James, and Gina, you may not know. Now, my twins think I'm 11 and a half, but I got pregnant at 47 and gave birth at 48. I did not wait 48 years to have children to talk on the phone at dinnertime. Okay. So I am in Gina's. I'm on Gina's side here. Of course,

when it's your boss, you're kind of stuck with it. I mean, Ashley, does that happen to you? You've got a whole house full of children, dogs, pets, the works just like us. Why does the phone start ringing at night? Don't people get it? it always i think it's inevitable right this day and age i think in our american culture people think they're going to work when i need them to work they can work anytime i need to reach them now and so it's always incumbent on us to say we need some boundaries can't talk right now gotta do something else to do something else. Oh, I would never. I need the money, people. All these creatures want to eat. I've got John David.

He eats like a horse. Lucy, a rescue cat, a rescue dog, and two rescue guinea pigs, much less my husband. Everybody wants to eat. They want the electricity on. They want the power on. I mean, you know, so, hey, I'll take the call, and then I'll complain about it.

That's just what James Stevens did. did but that's it everybody does especially when it's your boss calling when your boss is calling you're not gonna say oh sorry can't talk right now but the reality is it's our human nature like you already said to then be able to vent i'm not gonna say complain vent i vent to my husband about that stuff everybody does it it. So you're like, I can't believe he's calling. Hello. Okay. So back to you, Gina Stevens. Can I talk to you for a moment about the commute?

Yes, ma'am. I mean, why did you even get married if he's in a car the whole time? Why bother? And you're not in there with him. We've been married 30 years. And during that 30 years, he did not always work in Atlanta. So at least you can remember a time. But I mean so

the boss calls. Wait, I'm getting off topic. I got out of sequence complaining about Alan Duke calling at night. James Stevens, so your phone is you normally dock it, right? What happened this time? This time I put it in my pocket,

and me and my wife started a conversation. Wait, which pocket, may I ask, to be rude? My shirt pocket. So it's a chest dial. It's in your, you got it in your shirt pocket up front, right? Yes, ma'am. Is it a flip phone? No, ma'am.

Okay, because I started to say, I don't see how that would happen with a flip phone. What do you have, a smartphone? The phone was a Droid, yes, ma'am. A Droid, okay. Honestly, this is an Apple, correct? It's an iPhone, okay. So you don't have a Galaxy that blows up, do you, for Pete's sake? No, ma'am. So you've got a droid you've

got it in your shirt pocket just let me get the picture have you changed from work are you wearing casual clothes or your work clothes i uh i well i had telework that day so it was casual clothes telework that means you did it by computer and phone okay so you have and what time of the evening is this let Let me understand. This is, this at this point, this is about 630 in the evening. And me and my wife.

Man's been working since six o'clock. So, so me and my wife are having, having a conversation about the call that had just ended on personal time. And, uh, noticed that my shirt was illuminated and 12 minutes into the conversation oh no 12 minutes into the conversation noticed my shirt's illuminated and uh lo and behold it's connected to

mr cohen and uh in his in his uh court pleadings he had actually admitted that he realized that the call was inadvertent the next morning when he uh dismissing me. He made comments about how busy Gina was in the conversation, made comments about my wife, which I thought was extremely inappropriate. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. David Goldenshew, Rome, Georgia lawyer. David. Yes, ma'am. What did the boss say about the wife, Gina? No, that part is not in the pleadings, Nancy. What we have here is a situation where some comments were made that they were not unkind comments. They were perhaps

unflattering. And they were primarily made by Gina. And because James apparently didn't want to defend his boss in front of his, while having a private conversation with his wife, a very insecure boss decided to make a decision to terminate James. And what's amazing about it is the attorney general's office approved the decision in advance, not even realized that what uh what the boss had done was a felony under georgia law but dialing has just gone from annoying to alarming because a man has been fired after his boss hears a butt dial. Now, you do know that a previous court has ruled an airport executive who accidentally calls a colleague used the overheard conversation against him and there was no right to privacy. That was a Kentucky airport case. Right.

But there's a very interesting thing. The way that that story is reported is actually inaccurate. What the court said in that case was that, first of all, it was a federal statute much narrower than Georgia's. Second, they said that while the dialer, the pocket dialer, does not have an expectation of right to privacy. In that case, they found that the wife, his wife that he was talking to, did have an expectation, and she did have a claim under federal law against the people that listened into the conversation. So that court actually found that in this case, Gina very clearly, if it were the federal statute we were pursuing, would have a claim. They were less friendly to the person in James' situation. But again,

the Georgia statute is much broader than the federal statute, and I think it would encompass James Wright as well. But Gina is the one who's really hurt here. Remember when this conversation was over and then he got fired the next day, Gina is the one standing there saying, oh my gosh, did I say something that got my husband of 30 years fired? She is the one with the guilt trip. He'd only had the job two years, but here he is in a dream job for him. And his wife now has to deal with the guilt and the, the stress, et cetera, of, um, of something perhaps she has said has gotten her husband terminated. And as we said, what she said was not unkind, but perhaps it wasn't very flattering. But that's about it. Oh, okay.

So not unkind, but unflattering. Like, did she call him a jackass? It didn't go that far. Gina Stevens doesn't have that in her. So if it didn't go that far, I mean, maybe it's just my view on the world, having handled felonies, murders, and rapes and child molestations. I mean, I just expect that people are going to grumble about their boss. Gina Stevens, I mean, that's a very heavy burden for you to carry.

Yes, ma'am, it is. My husband was two years away from having his estate retirement through the state of Georgia because though he had been at this job two years, he had been with the state for eight years. And so he enjoyed his job very much and planned to retire there. And so I feel very guilty that something that I said caused him to lose his job. And Gina, let me ask you a question. I want you to put yourself in the boss's shoes.

You know what you said. Would you have fired somebody over that? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I mean, Gina, I would have used that time for self-reflection and I would not have fired someone for that. Ashley Wilcott, you know, I was with the feds for three years and then a felony prosecutor in state court for 10 years, and I missed the retirement she's talking about. You vest after 10 years. I missed it by about 10 days, so I didn't vest when I left the DA's office to go to Court TV. I sure did.

But there was a new newly elected DA and I mean, that was it for me. And there was nothing I could do about it. That's a lot. What Gina and James are saying about the retirement, that's a lot to lose. It is significant, Nancy. I worked for the state for a three year appointment period and loved it. But let me just say this. You're working for the state. You have your pension. You have your plans. You have a job that is your dream job. And then you lose it because it sounds to me like a boss got his feelings hurt is really destroys not only the employee, but their entire family over her feelings. Well, here's the other thing, David, you know what, David Golden, she, let me go to your client, James and your clients, James and Gina, James Stevens. When I first heard this and the, was not in there like what you were talking about,

I'm like, oh, my stars, they must have been doing a dope deal. They must have been talking about robbing a 7-Eleven or burying a body. It's nothing like that at all. And it wasn't you talking. Your wife had a few choice words about your boss. Am I understanding this correctly, James? Yes, ma'am. That's how the reality of it was. Yes, ma'am. And her phone did not initiate the call. And she was in the privacy of our home. And regrettably, the state attorney's actually taken the position that not only was it okay to fire me when he had,

I'm not sure if he was told where the information came from, but it's alarming that your First Amendment right and your privacy right could end in something that impacts your family in such a devastating manner. This just doesn't seem right to me. David Goldenshew, Rome, Georgia lawyer, where does the case stand right now, David? Well, one thing I'll interject and answer your question. What was said in the conversation was factually accurate, not particularly pleasing to hear, but factually accurate. As far as where the case stands, the attorney general's office will be filing another set of pleadings responding to their reply briefs in response to us. the conversation he overheard had something to do with work, then he was acting in his official

capacity as a director of a state agency and therefore is cloaked with immunity. I want to point out, we did not sue the state. We're not looking for one penny from the state. We did not claim that any act he did was an official act. We're suing him directly simply to hold this man accountable for the crime that he committed. Yet the attorney general, which started off by making, giving bad advice in this case, we suspect has now come in perhaps trying to cover up that, um, that mistake they made and is defending him and is claiming that the sovereign immunity of the state of Georgia protects this state director from the crime that he committed in this case

and then, of course, the complete immoral act of terminating James. Right. Well, I tell you this much, David Golden Shoe, if you and James Stevens and Gina Stevens could get over the initial hump and get this to a jury, you guys would win this case in front of a jury. I'm just telling you that much. If you can get past a directed verdict, you're going to, I really think you would win this case before a jury. With me, James Stevens, Gina Stevens, and David Golden Shue. The case goes on. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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