Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - CHILDREN'S BOOK AUTHOR ACCUSED OF HORRIFIC CHILD ABUSE

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

A successful children's author and her husband are arrested after their adopted daughter is hospitalized with open wounds, sepsis, liver and kidney failure. Jennifer and Joseph Wolfthal have been accused of child abuse, child neglect with bodily harm, and domestic violence battery.Joining Nancy Grace today: Randy Kessler - Atlanta Trial Lawyer, Emory Law School Professor, Past Chair ABA Family Law Section, Author: "Divorce, Protect Yourself, Your Kids and Your Future", www.KSFamilyLaw.com, Instagram: @rkessler23, Twitter: @GADivorce Caryn Stark - NYC Psychologist, www.carynstark.com  Robert Crispin - Private Investigator “Crispin Special Investigations” www.crispinsinvestigations.com Dr. Michelle Dupre - Forensic Pathologist and former Medical Examiner, Author: “Homicide Investigation Field Guide” & "Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide", Ret. Police Detective Lexington County Sheriff’s Department  Daphne Young - National Chief Communications Officer, www.Childhelp.org, @childhelp Alexis Tereszcuk - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker, Lead Stories dot Com, Twitter: @swimmie2009  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Kidney failure, liver failure, sepsis, pneumonia in both lungs, malnutrition, open wounds on the body. It sounds terrible and it is terrible. But who would imagine all of these horrific afflictions befall a little eight-year-old girl? A little girl who lives along with a brother and a sister with their adopted mommy and daddy. And as it turns out,

mommy is a famous author of children's Books. Kidney failure, liver failure, sepsis, pneumonia in both lungs, malnutrition, and open wounds to a little girl's legs. How does this befall little children? Joining me, an all-star panel to make sense of it all if we can. First of all, a renowned defense attorney, Atlanta trial lawyer, Randy Kessler, professor Emory Law School, past chair in the ABA, author of Divorce, Protect Yourselves, Your Kids, Your Future. And you can find Randy Kessler at ksfamilylaw.com and on Instagram at rkessler23. Karen Stark joining us, psychologist out of Manhattan at karenstark.com. Former cop, now private investigator, started his own PI firm, Crispin Special Investigations, and you can find him at CrispinInvestigations.com. Special guest joining us from ChildHelp, National Child Abuse Hotline as well, Daphne Young. And you can find her at ChildHelp.org.

Renowned pathologist joining us, Dr. Michelle Dupree, forensic pathologist and author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide and, important for today, Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide. Alexis Tereschuk, to you first. Investigative reporter with CrimeOnline.com and LeadStories.com. Alexis, tell me about the injuries to this little child. What are they? Oh, my goodness. This little girl was taken to the hospital. She had open wounds on her legs. So that means not just, you know, scrape when you fall down and fall off your bike, fall off your roller skates, but open bleeding wounds that had not been taken care of. She had sepsis. She had pneumonia in both lungs and multiple bruises. In fact, on her neck and on her back, there were red marks as if she had

been tied up. You know, I'm trying to take in all the ailments to this little girl, all the suffering she was going through. To you, Randy Kessler, Atlanta trial lawyer. Isn't it true that if a teacher notices anything wrong with a child, like bruises or a lot of cuts or anything to suggest a child has been abused, they have to report it under the law? Yes, they're what we call a mandated reporter. Therapists, physicians, teachers, if you notice something that leads you to think that the child has been

abused, it's your job to report it to the authorities. So this is sort of the whole world upside down that she got reported on instead of being one reported. Just incredible. You know what it reminds me of, Randy? A case I tried not too far

from your office in the Fulton County Superior Courthouse. And the defendant's name was Walter Gates. And he, at the time, owned nearly all of the horse-drawn carriage and livery trade in the city of Atlanta. Bottom line, rolling in money. And he was charged with molesting two little girls, age three and five. I can still remember them so well. Just beautiful, Randy.

And I got to investigating him, and you know how I love similar transactions. I found out Mr.ter gates's oldest daughter who i later tracked down took me a long time she was living in a flop house out in dekab county i found her sitting in a bedroom in her slip smelling like booze, not her breath, her skin. And the room smelled like cigarettes, old cigarettes. There was a reason for that. Back when she was in the seventh grade, I found a school detective had filled out a report that this little girl, 13 at the time, had come to school with a black eye and a busted open lip.

And she said her father, Walter Gates, did it. You know how many little girls I found out he molested? That's the case I got held in contempt for. That case right there. And all of you and your ill defense attorneys all piled into the courtroom. I don't know. It's just like amazing how they found out so quickly to see me get fingerprinted. Well, what I'm saying is an open wound and the teacher told the school detective.

But guess what? Nothing was done. Sounds like same thing in this case, Randy Kessler. It does. And the worst thing that happened to him and the best thing for that victim is that you were assigned to prosecute that case, Nancy. But, you know, even worse. That POS is behind bars. And let me just tell you, that's a technical legal term. Go ahead. And even worse is these parents are adoptive parents. I mean, there's something is these parents are adoptive parents. I mean, there's something special.

We think adoptive parents in my world are very special human beings that take in children that don't have a family. I mean, talk about adding insult to injury. It's just unbelievable. This set of facts is, I can't comprehend it. But you know what? I think I'm remembering a very critical fact to Alexis Tereschuk. They weren't reported by a schoolteacher because weren't they homeschooled? Exactly. These three children, all under the age of 12, are homeschooled.

And here's the thing. She was also an elementary school teacher. So, of course, when you... Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. I know that the mom is a very well-known author of children's books. The big hit for her was called, quote, A Real Friend by Jennifer Woolfthorne. That is mommy's name. They adopt three children. I'm looking at their home. It looks like, you know, a ranch house.

They've got an enclosed backyard, a lot of nice grass. It's landscaped. It looks great. You know what you cannot see in that picture? What? You know what you cannot see in that picture that the police said was a terrifying detail? Inside that house, the children, their bedroom, the handles on the door were reversed, and the lock was outside so the parents could

lock them inside this house. That's what you don't see in this house of horrors from the outside. You know, Alexis Tereshak, do you remember how much I wanted the twins? Yes. And there were a lot of close calls. Can you even imagine someone treating these children this way? No. They adopted them, too. Even extra, extra steps to take care of and love children. And these kids were actually telling the people, we don't want to go back there. We don't want to be there.

No one was helping them. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we were talking about a little girl that shows up at the hospital with kidney failure, liver failure, pneumonia in both lungs, open wounds, sepsis, which I'm going to get Dr. Michelle Dupree to describe what that is. How does this all befall little children, 8, 9, and 11 years old? Take a listen to our friend Jackie Howard at CrimeOnline.com. Growing up in Florida, the now 41-year-old woman loved playing teacher. She says she would line up her stuffed animals for students in a class. As an adult, she followed that early trend, graduating from the University of Central Florida with a B.A. in elementary

education and for eight years taught fourth grade in public school. She met and married Joseph Wolfthal. While Jennifer Wolfthal taught school, her now 39-year-old husband worked as a software analyst at Lockheed Martin. In 2014, the couple adopted three children, and the schoolteacher became an author. Jennifer Wolfthal published a children's book entitled A Real Friend. The picture book, intended for ages 4 and up, is about best friends who get into a fight and how they patch up their quarrel. You know, it's amazing to me, Karen Stark, a New York psychologist, you can find her at karenstark.com.

Karen, how someone doesn't just get pregnant and have children. It's no accident. They go through so much to adopt these three. She, Jennifer Woolthall, and the husband, Joseph. They go through all that to have these children. Then they turn up at the hospital and in this advanced state of illness, kidney failure, liver failure.

Hold on. Dr. Michelle Dupree, what is exactly kidney failure and liver failure and sepsis? What are those three things? Don't you have a long time lead up to that? Can't you tell something is wrong? Nancy, yes, exactly. Sepsis actually is a form of blood poisoning or an infection that has gone awry in the body that gets into the bloodstream and basically goes to every organ in the body, including the brain, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, everything that is supplied by blood.

Sepsis can actually be fatal or lethal within 12 hours if it's severe enough. So that's a very serious complication. Renal failure, again, the kidneys shut down. They do not then process the waste and the toxins in the body, allowing them to build up. Liver failure, the same thing. The liver doesn't work anymore. All of these things can actually be caused by malnutrition, which we know that this child suffered. How can you look at a child and tell it's malnutritioned?

I mean, obviously we would know the child was thin, but other than that? There are a lot of signs, Nancy. One, of course, is muscle wasting because the body begins to eat the muscle to have something to survive on. Sunken eyes, retractions in the lung or the rib area and in the neck area as well. The skin becomes very, we call it turbid, which is a very sort of pasty look and very dehydrated. Guys, what happened to these three children, ages 8, 9, and 11? Renal failure, liver failure, sepsis, malnutrition, open wounds.

Take a listen to Our Cut One. This is Amanda Dukes at WESH2. 41-year-old Jennifer Woffall of Castleberry was arrested New Year's Day on charges of aggravated child abuse and neglect after investigators say a child in her care was hospitalized in critical condition. According to the arrest affidavit, an eight-year-old girl was brought to the hospital with a variety of injuries. Seminole County Sheriff's deputies interviewed a relative who told them Woffthal had claimed the child's injuries came from a series of accidents and falls. But the arrest affidavit says investigators determined the girl's bruises

and severe cuts were not from injuries. They found the girl to be critically ill and took her to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Advent Health. Accidents, they found the girl was critically ill, but the mom says the bruises and severe cuts were just from accidents and falls. As a matter of fact, take a listen to our cut for Dave McDaniel, Wish 2. 41-year-old Jennifer Wolfall was back in front of a judge at the Seminole County Jail Wednesday afternoon, exactly where the children's book author was a few weeks ago. She now has new charges of false imprisonment. Early January, her arrest came after an eight-year-old allegedly in her care needed to be hospitalized with severe injuries. Injuries Wolfall said came from slips and falls,

an explanation medical staff didn't believe. Slips and falls? An eight-year-old slips and falls and gets kidney failure? You know, the dichotomy, Randy Kessler, I guess you see it in court all the time, the public image that someone gives off compared to what's really going on with them. Here you've actually got a children's author, an elementary school teacher who is clearly beating her children and starving them. But no one would know that. Nobody at the schools, nobody in the neighborhood, obviously not her publisher or people that buy her books. Incredible. Even a degree in elementary education. We always hear when we interview the neighbors of defendants and perps,

they always say, oh, he was the nicest guy. They would never have done that over and over and over. You know, when you're a lawyer like I am, you see behind closed doors, people walk in, they look normal. Then they start to tell you the facts of their situation. It's incredible. It makes me jaded. I walk around the world sometimes and I look at people and I think, I wonder what they're really like. Because it is just unbelievable what is behind the facade of so many people.

It's a sad thing. It's hard. Have you ever felt that same way? Robert Crispin, former law enforcement, now with his own PI firm, Crispin Special Investigations. After all we see, all you see, do you ever have a hard time accepting that anybody's really as they present? Absolutely. It's tough. You try to compartmentalize these and

put them behind you. But when you work these cases, and I've worked a lot of these cases, I worked a lot of crimes against children in my day. You know, it's tough. And like your last guest just said, you walk around and you kind of look at people and you wonder what's going on behind closed doors. But you know what? That's what we that's what we signed up for. That's what we did. We helped a lot of people. But yeah, it absolutely does change your thought process and try to compartmentalize it. But it's tough sometimes. Guys, I want you to take a listen to our Cut 9. Dave McDaniel at WESH 2 and Meredith McDonough. Jennifer Wolfall told authorities the injuries to the child were from a series of falls and mishaps, but medical experts didn't agree. We're told that eight-year-old

is still in the hospital and the other children, ages nine and 11, after battling malnutrition and infections, are in protective care. The arrest report for Joseph Wolfall indicates that the doorknobs on the children's bedrooms were installed with a locking mechanism on the outside of the room, backwards, and that papers found at the home included someone writing, my body stays flat on the bed at all times. Nand, never given permission to move or say anything. The sheriff's office isn't commenting at this time, saying the reports speak for themselves. In the report, investigators indicate they don't want to have Joseph Wolfall have any contact with

Jennifer Wolfall if he's released from jail or any contact with the three children? He's quoted as saying, can I call my attorney? So that's what he's got to say. The dad, can I call my lawyer? Not how are my children? How's my daughter in intensive care? But can I call my lawyer? One child in intensive care.

The other two starving. The one in intensive care. Kidney kidney liver failure sepsis staph infection open infected wounds on both legs pneumonia in both lungs a long list of ailments malnutrition bruises skin infections that require weeks and weeks of treatment Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we're talking about a renowned book author who writes children's books. Her name, Jennifer Walthall, and her husband, Joseph Walthall. Straight to you, Alexis Tereschuk, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter.

What can you tell me about a device called the, quote, Whacker? So the children have told the police that they were abused, they were beaten with something called the Whacker. And it's described as like an oblong object, a wooden object that was covered with a thin piece of material. And they were just hit over and over and over again in the exact same spot, which is how there were open wounds. It would cause them to bleed. And this is what these children were beaten with. It's my understanding that when finally interviewed, the other two siblings stated that they would have cold water poured over them while they lay in bed as punishment.

Every night they said this would happen. They were in so much trouble that parents would come in and they would throw the cold water. When they had no blankets, they were not allowed to get up and clean up or do anything like this. These kids were tortured. And the mom told them that the children told the investigators that what they were told is that they were sinners. They kept sinning, and that's why they had to be punished. Joining me right now, the National Chief Communications Officer with ChildHelp.org, our friend Daphne Young. Daphne, you know, sometimes, I agree with Robert Crispin and Randy Kessler. It's hard to look at the world and see good when you find out about people like Jennifer Walthall and Joseph Walthall.

Another thing I found out, Daphne, is the children were so afraid to leave their rooms at night, they would be forced to wet the bed or urinate in their own clothing and would be forced to sleep in it all night through the next day. They'd have to wear it. This is so upsetting because the viciousness and the premeditation of so much of this abuse is it's familiar to me in many ways. But oftentimes the parents that do this depersonalize their children. Right. They look at them as things that they can act upon. And one shocking window into this woman's psyche comes from reading a real best friend. I reviewed her book. I looked

through it and little kids get in a fight. One goes away, another builds a robot version of that kid and it doesn't bring him joy because that thing doesn't respond. So she understood depersonalizing a child, turning a child into a thing, and that a real child is a joy. And so the fact that she literally wrote the book of right and wrong on depersonalization is a disturbing look at a certain kind of person living a double life. Here you see me on Twitter and I've got butterflies and flowers in my hair. And here I am behind the door. And that face of the mugshot is probably what those kids saw over their beds. I'm looking at the photo you're talking about. It was a bio posted on Amazon.com

that Walthall had a degree in elementary ed and spent eight years teaching the fourth grade. And she's pictured in a pale pinkish purple outfit kind of lavender and all around her are azaleas purple bright fuchsia looking azaleas and she's wearing one in her hair and she looks like the penultimate earth mother and you'd think she'd be a great mom as a child's author. Do you remember other cases to Daphne Young with ChildHelp.org where the children suffered prolonged abuse that resulted in pneumonia in both lungs, were basically waterboarded in their beds at night with cold water, to the point they had kidney and liver failure. I don't remember a case with those specifics, but I do remember a lot of cases where you had a parent that showed one face to the world,

an educator, somebody that looked like a kind person teaching CPR in the community. And we got a little boy exactly as your medical examiner described that or your doctor described that was so malnourished. His hair was falling out. His belly was distended and he was close to death and all those organs were shutting down. So we have seen that right in our Child Health Children's Center. And if we didn't have a doctor who had been doing this for 23 years, immediately take that child to the hospital, he would have died within 48 hours. That's how close this little girl was likely to death. I want you to take a listen to our cut eight. This is Jeff Lovekaluk at WFTV. Joseph Wolfall, he has posted bond, but he has not walked out of the jail at this time. I'm told that the abuse described in the arrest report just scratches the surface of what happened to the children inside that home. It's not known how long the alleged abuse was going on.

Are you aware of the charges against you? Yes. And those charges Joseph Wolfthal faces are aggravated child abuse, child neglect with great bodily harm, and false imprisonment of his three adopted children. His wife Jennifer, the author of children's books, is also accused of abuse. Two of the children told investigators that they were punished every night because they couldn't stop sinning. They would spank the children utilizing a specific item called a whacker, drawing blood by hitting the same spot each time. The food was a mixture of bran flake cereal, water, and vegetable puree.

One of the children told investigators there were days she was fed twice and sometimes she didn't eat her first meal until three o'clock in the afternoon. She also described being locked in her room for weeks and months. She spent the entire day writing sentences at the desk in her room. That just hurts me so much to hear it. So I guess Alexis Terescha at CrimeOnline.com, she or her siblings were the ones writing, I have to stay flat on my bed. I can't speak without permission. Do you remember all those pages and pages of handwriting and all said the same thing? Yes. And this was their form of punishment. The mom would, the parents would make them write out thousands of sentences, the same one over and over again,

as part of their punishment. On top of their punishments that were, they were forced, this is the strangest thing. They were forced to do squats. And this is, you know, where you're standing and you just bend your legs, you bend your knees down, and you don't hit the ground, you don't sit on a chair or anything. You just stand up and down over and over and over again. This is the torture that these children were subjected to, forced to do squats as exercise. You know, I'm looking at additional evidence.

Apparently, according to all three children who were questioned separately, they had not taken baths in months, and they would be denied bandages for the open wounds caused by the, quote, whacker, a device I guess the parents made up to spank the children, drawing blood by hitting the same spot every time. Dr. Michelle Dupree, do you think that is how the child got sepsis? Absolutely, Nancy. It certainly could be. Not taking a bath for months is going to allow bacteria to build up on your skin. It's going to enter the body through the nose, the mouth, the eyes.

Absolutely, that could cause the beginning of sepsis. Trying to understand what this, quote, whacker would be, to Daphne Young with ChildHelp.org, it was specifically designed to hit the child at the same spot to ultimately draw blood. Over and over again, and then they'd be doused with the water, and then these giant fans, which probably made them freeze as they lay on plastic covers with no blankets, a plastic cover

over the mattresses. And I remember the little girl saying that she counted days and weeks, just trying to get her head straight as to what day of the week it was, what month it was. This is like a prisoner would do on the side of a prison wall, trying to remember, where am I? What day of the week is it? So, you know, she was trapped in that room in pain, but also just trying to maintain some sanity. A whacker device. You know, Randy Kessler, Atlanta trial lawyer, that device shows clear intent not to discipline, but to torture the children. I mean, intent's not really going to be hard to prove in reckless disregard. The bottom line is these people can't go before a jury, right? Can you imagine any jury giving them anything but the harshest penalty they're charged with? I mean, the harshest crime they're charged with is intent.

You know, you're right. And especially, they can't claim naivete. They can't claim they didn't know, they didn't understand that there was just a mistake. I mean, considering the combination of what they did and who they are, you know, the fact that she has a degree in education, she teaches, she writes children's books. Oh, my God, there is obvious intent all over the place. I'm almost surprised there's not an insanity defense coming, but there's no way. I don't think that they can both be declared insane. That's just a little bit too much of a coincidence.

And a very interesting thing, the husband in this case, Joseph Walthall, is an engineer. They're both highly, highly educated. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, a children's book author? Could she possibly be the marshal in charge of extended and repeated child abuse that lands the children in hospital, the littlest girl, 8 years old, kidney failure, liver failure, double pneumonia, and sepsis, open wounds, all three malnutrition, waterboarding in the home. They all three separately tell the same story.

And it reminds me very much of a case that we just covered. Take a listen to our cut 11. This is Tiger Huck at W. News 4. Arielle Robinson sat down with WYFF News 4 in August after winning the Food Network show Worst Cooks in America. She told us then the winnings from the show would go a long way to help her and her husband who recently adopted three more children. I just know that the Lord had his hands on me and he had a purpose for me to go on there. The former middle school teacher was an aspiring comedian booked by Justin Williams to perform at a Pickens County barbecue event back in November.

She was hilarious. She was super sweet to everybody around her. And she expressed the passion for working with children and working with just the community in general. The reality star Ariel Robinson won one worst cook in America, got $25,000 and bragged about her blended family and using the money to help raise her adopted children. Well, Tori Rose is dead. The three-year-old little girl was found covered in bruises,

and they actually tried to tell 911. It's because she drank too much water and the bruises were from CPR. She's charged with murder by child abuse and there she is a reality star on TV. Of course the husband said he could hear the beatings and he finally told his wife you've gone too far well the child is dead and according to facebook photos of the little girl that they posted she had been covered with bruises many times before she's not the only one where what you see is not what you're getting take a listen our cut 14 jessica stone acg tn news will say when they entered the Turpin home they found a modern

day poor foul smell extremely dirty conditions and they say it was immediately clear that the siblings were malnourished authorities say they found three of the children shackled to their beds with chains and padlocks kept in dark and unclean conditions inside this Riverside County California home deputies located 12 children inside the house as young as two years old. While the family kept this active Facebook page which appears to show a happy group, trips, vacations, smiling faces, authorities discovered that seven of the children pictured appeared so malnourished that they did look like children they were actually adults. The oldest is 29 years old.

Those children chained to their beds, but if you look at their Facebook, they're all dressed in matching red Disney shirts, the, you know, thing number one, thing number two. They had all matching outfits on various trips. They were all there at a revival of the vows ceremony with the parents. I mean, it goes on and on. Who would have ever thought these children were being so horribly treated? One finally escaped, crawled out a window and called 911 to save her sisters. Horrible, horrible conditions. Inside one of the closets in the Turpin home,

there were scratches on the wall where the children had tried to get out. Straight back to Daphne Young with ChildHelp.org, one of our favorite organizations. I know you remember the Turpin case and the House of Horrors. Absolutely. And a lot of the kids that, you know, while we have to protect the anonymity of all of our children, a lot of the kids that we see in these headlines come through child health. And it's horrible enough to deal with the child abuse that comes from drug addicts, the child abuse that comes from mental health cases, the child abuse that comes from drug addicts, the child abuse that comes from mental health cases, the child abuse that comes from people that are, you know, completely sort of out of it in terms

of finances and otherwise. But the scariest ones, the ones that I'm still trying to figure out, how do we detect these folks are those that have this great facade, those that have good educations, those that have resources. They live among us. These are people that are our neighbors and people that we interact with potentially and don't recognize. And those are the scariest abusers. And they create houses of horrors. And the children, it takes years for these kids to recover and be put on a path of hope and healing. Abusers you would never expect. Take a listen to our friends over at the New York Times. Hundreds of women say Larry

Nassar sexually abused them. It's one of the worst sexual abuse scandals in the history of sports, and it went on for more than two decades. Nassar's patients felt honored to be treated by the best of the best. Nassar typically carried out honored to be treated by the best of the best. Nassar typically carried out his abuse under the guise of a medical treatment. He hijacked a rare pelvic therapy that involves vaginal penetration and used it to treat all sorts of ailments.

He ignored protocols such as using a glove, asking consent, or having a medical chaperone present. And when I was 14 years old, I tore my hamstring in my right leg. This was when he started performing the procedure that we are all now familiar with. The next visit was for my shoulder, which I then found out my hips were out of alignment, which then made my spine and my pelvic bone out of alignment as well and this is when larry decided that it was medically acceptable to violate a 16 year old girl so from a well-respected couple in the community that had a house of horrors going on homeschooling their children in order to abuse them uh to now a well-known book author to an Olympic coach abusing dozens of young girls.

With me, Daphne Young with the ChildHelp.org organization. Daphne, you have actually worked with some of Nassar's victims. Absolutely. Olympic Consultants Foundation for Global Sports connected us with some of these brave, what they call themselves, sister survivors. And when we talked a little bit earlier with law enforcement and others about being jaded, this is the piece of child help that's kept me here well over 11, 12 years,

which is these women are working with us in Child Health Speak Up Up Be Safe for Athletes and a Courage First hotline that is both a prevention education for youth sports, which we've reached well over 160,000 children and families, and a hotline for youth athletes. So these gals are using very difficult experiences to create safety nets for kids in youth sports. And so that's the kind of stuff that allows us to keep doing this work because for every awful family, like the ones we're discussing today, and for every creep like Nassar who hurts these kids, there are amazing women and survivors and young boys that come out of these circumstances and change lives and use

their voice for good. You know, Alexis Torres, Chuck Crime Online dot com investigative reporter. We know a little bit about what these parents, the Wolfall said at the hospital. They didn't just blame it on slip and falls, all the injuries. What else did they say? When Joseph Wolfall took his daughter to the hospital, he told the doctors that were there because this child had such huge, obvious wounds. He said that she was hurt because she brushed her teeth too hard. Did you just say the excuse was she brushed her teeth too hard? Yep. She brushed her teeth too hard. That's the excuse that he tried to use.

And he's also blaming his wife. It was also the whacker. Dr. Michelle Dupree, a forensic pathologist, former medical examiner, author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide and Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide. How do you perceive the so-called whacker? And can you imagine the sense of dread these children felt when they saw the whacker pulled out? Nancy, I've had a couple of cases like this, and I've seen things such as the end of a broom handle or the broom handle itself, which can cause significant injury, being used over and over and over again to cause this. Robert Crispin, I prosecuted a lot of child abuse, child molestation cases, as have you in your investigations. What do you make of child witnesses? They are the best witnesses to law enforcement. They're the best witnesses to prosecutors. They're so innocent. They tell you things that they shouldn't know at their age. They're very specific. They're not old enough to learn how to manipulate law enforcement, to manipulate a prosecutor. I have found in interviewing so many child victims that you get goosebumps and chills

when you sit there and listen to the details and the horror that this kid went through. Like, how do you know this at 11 years old? How do you know that at eight years old? The best witnesses ever. You know, we're talking about a child's book author. House of Books on Amazon.com. Very well established. The husband, very educated and engineer.

So how do you take a child witness like Robert Crispin's talking about and stack them up against a defendant? What about a defendant that nobody would suspect? Take a listen to Tiffany Taylor at Hollywood Reporter. Christina's tell-all memoir that inspired the film of the same name painted Joan Crawford as abusive and an alcoholic. While her adopted brother Christopher always supported her claims, their twin siblings Kathy and Sidney did not. According to the book, Joan often went on what Christina called night raids, where she would wake her up and make her clean messes

she hadn't made for hours on end. Christina also said Joan hated wire hangers. She reportedly once woke her up in the middle of the night for using them. In a scene that's infamously depicted in the 1981 movie, she's said to have dragged her daughter by the hair yelling, no wire hangers, while beating her. Christina also claims she was once starved for days when she refused to eat an undercooked bloody steak, all in a bid

for her mother to further control her. According to the memoir, Joan allegedly kept Christopher constricted in bed in a sleep-safe device and tied Christina up in the shower at night. And when Christina was 13 years old she supposedly suffered one final brutal beating from her mother in which she thought she was going to be choked out. You know what is that Daphne Young where the children are restricted tied up we hear it over and over again like in this case where they're forced to lay flat on the bed in turban they were chained to the bed or put into a closet and locked in the constriction of the child.

I find that to be a common theme. It's a complete lack of control in the parent. It starts off sometimes small, a little discipline. I'm going to put you in your room. You need to stay away from this or that. And becomes a torture chamber. Essentially, it's like the torturing of prisoners. And so much of this repetition and cruelty then becomes status quo.

So every little breach of a boundary little out of control can make you much, much further out of control. And then, you know, not everybody obviously is going to end up like this. But we see, you know, kids will tell us how it started and it seems so small and then it turns into something that is a true nightmare. To Randy Kessler joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, this is all going down in Castleberry, Florida. What penalty would they face once convicted? Oh my goodness. It depends on what they're convicted of. They're not going to get the death penalty because nobody died,

but they could be there for the rest of their natural lives. This is going to be a, you know, whatever sentence, 25 years to life, it's going to be the rest of their life. And God knows nobody wants them to get out. So I don't think there's going to be the possibility of parole. Do you want to be the judge that authorizes them to be back on the streets? It looks like they're going to be there for the rest of their days. No, but I'd like to be the prosecutor. Randy, what about consecutive sentencing?

Yeah, I think that's a possibility. So even if they did have a sentence that let them out possibly before their 80th birthday, the next sentence will go right into place. They'll be convicted of all those different charges, cruelty to children, false imprisonment. It's going to be one after another. You're exactly right, Nancy. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't go with an attempted murder. Actually, they probably won't be that bold. I'm also curious if her books are still selling. Apparently not.

Apparently the publishers said they're separating themselves from any connection right now. Guys, if you know of or think you know of a child being abused, please call the Child Help National Child Abuse Hotline. It's toll free. 800-4-CHILD, 800-422-4453. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.