Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Cops describe "smell of death" but did "loving daughter" brutally murder her own dad and 6-year-old-daughter?

Episode Date: August 19, 2019

Cheyenne Jessie reports her father and 6 year-old daughter missing. Responding police respond are overwhelmed by the rotten smell coming from the home. Joining Nancy Grace to look at the how police discovered the bodies of the pair: Judge and trial attorney Ashley Wilcott, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, former New Jersey Police Detective Steve Rogers, Medical Examiner for the state of Florida Dr. Tim Gallagher, Psychoanalyst Dr Bethany Marshall and Crime Online reporter Dave Mack. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Investigators say they knew things didn't add up when they came to the house to complete the missing persons report. It didn't smell right. There was a foul odor in the house. And the detectives ask about that. And she says, oh, I had some rotten meat and I had it in the sink. Okay. I don't like any story that starts off

when visitors arrive at the door, they smell a foul odor. I guess I should be used to that now in my line of business, but I'm not. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. You know what, Jackie? I want to hear that one more time. Take a listen to our friends at ABC. This is Jake Peterson.

Investigators say they knew things didn't add up when they came to the house to complete the missing persons report. It didn't smell right. There was a foul odor in the house. And the detectives ask about that. And she says, oh, I had some rotten meat and I had it back together again. Joining me, judge and lawyer, Ashley Wilcott at ashleywilcott.com. Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University, Joseph Scott Morgan, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. FBI National Joint Terrorism Task Force,

retired former New Jersey police detective, Steve Rogers. Also with me, renowned psychoanalyst out of LA, Dr. Bethany Marshall, and medicalanalyst out of LA, Dr. Bethany Marshall and medical examiner for the state of Florida. And I got a feeling I'm going to need an Emmy on this one. Dr. Tim Gallagher joining us right now to Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Dave Mack, it's never a good sign when you go to the front door and from the front door, you smell a foul odor. You know what, Dave Mack, as much as I love you, I'm going to have to go to Dr. Gallagher and Joe Scott Morgan on this. Dr. Tim Gallagher, people often say, how do you know? How do you just know? For instance,

remember in the Totmom Casey Anthony case, I'm sure you can't forget that coming from the state of Florida, when investigators opened Totmom's trunk, they said there was an overwhelming foul odor. Remember Totmom's own mother, when she realized Kelly, two-year-old Kelly, was missing, she immediately called police and said she's been missing for 30 days. It smelled like a dead body in, her words not mine, the damn car. She is, Cindy Anthony, is a layperson. She would not be used to the smell of dead bodies. Dr. Gallagher, sadly, we are. Once you smell that smell, you know what it is instinctively. Nobody even needs to tell you what it is.

Help me out, Dr. Gallagher. You smell that smell, you know there's a dead body. Oh, absolutely. It's kind of one of the curiosities of nature. It's a smell that once you encounter, you never forget. The smell of a decomposing human is absolutely different than that of anything else, even decomposing animals or decomposing meat. It's a very strong, pungent, sickly, sweet smell that once you smell it, it could be years before you smell it again, and you will recognize it immediately.

You know, Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. When I was in law school, studying away, taking civil procedure and tax classes, I had no idea that one day I would specialize in the smell of dead human bodies. But that's where we are today. OK, Joe Scott, every sense that you have, every sense is used at a crime scene. And when cops open that front door and they smell that smell, I mean, their instincts have got to kick in. Yeah, they do, Nancy. And you have to you have to keep you have to rein that in because there's part of our primal brain that goes to this idea. You know, Dr. Geller was just talking about how you don't forget to smell.

I think that there's something primal about it that causes fear to rise up in us as humans, and we're all humans, even if you're a crime scene investigator. But you have to keep that in check and keep your wits about you. But, yeah, everything's assaulted, your eyesight, your smell. Even your sense of touch is impacted by this environment. Straight out to former FBI National Joint Terrorism Task Force Steve Rogers. Steve, you're in New Jersey. I'm sure you were around September 11th, as was I, in New York. And I'm going to make a comparison. That day when I walked out of Court TV, everything was deserted. I walked right down

the middle of Park Avenue from, let's say, 39th all the way to 54th, walking down the middle of the street. I mean, that's like walking down I-75 and there are no cars. And the smell, and I had never smelled it before and I've been on a lot of crime scenes, but the odd smell, it smelled like burning electrical equipment. I've been on a lot of arson scenes where electrical equipment was burned, but this had a different smell to it. And I don't know if you remember that, but there was a smell that you knew that's what it was, and that's how I'm comparing this. Nobody has to tell you or explain what it is until a cop.

You smell that, and you better bring in the cadaver dogs. Well, Nancy, you're right, and as your prior guest just said, it is a smell that lives with you forever. It's something that you do not forget. And look, when police officers in this case, and I know in past cases, when we did go into areas where you knew your instinct kicked in that there was a dead body, what goes into mind now is your training, and that is you have a crime scene here. You need to protect it.

You need to bring, as you say, the dogs in and then begin an investigation. To Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Dave, explain to me, why were cops there and who answered the door? Cheyenne Jesse called in a missing person's report on her father and her daughter, claiming that they had left town and that she hadn't heard from them in quite some time. So police came out the next morning to do a follow-up report with her based on her phone call that they were gone. And it was, as you said, right at the front door. They're there to follow up on a missing person's report and they're hit with the smell. So let me ask you this, Dr. Bethany Marshall.

You heard what Dave Mack just said. Bethany, have you ever gone in somebody's house where they have a lot of pets and apparently they don't know it stinks, like it smells like overwhelmingly like urine? The other day, I got a lead on a cold case and went to a scene, a rural scene way out in the country with canines. And before I left, I had a long drive back. I asked the people, can I use their bathroom? So I came in. The moment I stepped in the house, it was, it almost knocked me out. It was like someone had poured ammonia. And I went, wow, you have such a beautiful home. Because to look at it, the home was neat as a pin. It was perfectly in place.

They ended up, I found out they had eight cats that lived in the house. Long story short, this person has, I mean, can they not smell? The smell in the house, they just answer the door like nothing's wrong. Can't they spray some Glade or something for Pete's sake? Are they in the house? They just answer the door like nothing's wrong? Can't they spray some Glade or something for Pete's sake? Are they immune to it? You know, Nancy, sometimes not only do people not smell, sometimes they don't see, especially hoarders or people who have mental illness. I'm treating a couple in my Beverly Hills practice where they come in dressed beautifully. You know, the wife's nails are perfectly done, her hair.

She's in the beauty industry. And the husband keeps complaining the house is messy. And I thought he was just being a complainer. He sent me pictures from his iPad the other day. You would think it was a homeless encampment inside their house. She cannot see the mess, and she has bipolar illness. There's debris piled everywhere. There's a dog, the dog defecates in the house. It's like somebody just threw up all of their possessions all over the place. So yeah, sometimes people don't smell. Sometimes they don't

see. And often it's a variant of obsessive compulsive disorder, but it's a very shocking situation to go into a house and to know that somebody has no idea the squalor they're living in. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The mother, Cheyenne Jesse, reported the two missing to deputies yesterday morning. She said maybe they were in Georgia. Turns out they weren't in Georgia.

They were just about a half mile down the road at the landlord's house. In this storage shed is where deputies found the bodies of Mark Weakley and his granddaughter Meredith Jesse. Investigators say Cheyenne Jesse killed the two in her father's home around July 18th. A gun and a knife were used. Deputies say she hid the bodies inside the home for a few days, then put the bodies in totes. Eventually, she put the totes in this storage shed. Wow. You are hearing from our friend at ABC Action News. That was Jake Peterson. That is extremely rare, guys, to be accused of murdering not only your father, but your child, and then to keep the bodies in your home before you transport them in tokes

elsewhere. Hold on. To Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Let's just start at the beginning. Go ahead. Start with the welfare check again. Let me hear the whole thing. The missing person report. Cheyenne Jesse called in a missing persons report on her father and her daughter saying that her father had taken her six-year-old daughter and gone to Georgia from their home in Florida. When police came to do the follow-up interview to find out

more information, they were hit, as you said, right at the door with that foul smell that they immediately recognized as decomposition. They proceeded into the house where they saw candles. They could tell there were air fresheners everywhere and that she seemed to not be aware of her surroundings and that it was bad. They also noticed inside the living room what appeared to be bloodstains on the couch, on a love seat, as well as cut marks that appeared to be made in the couch and the love seat from a knife. They could see blood spatter on the walls.

It was all right there to be seen. And Cheyenne Jessie was trying to tell them a story of her dad taking off with her daughter and going to North Georgia. To the medical examiner from the state of Florida, very well known, Dr. Tim Gallagher. Dr. Gallagher, is there any way you can estimate how many homicide scenes you've been to? Oh, that's a good question, Nancy. It seems to be more and more these days, unfortunately, but I would estimate it's getting close to 400 or 500 by now.

You know, same way here. People ask me how many cases I've tried, how many cases I've handled. It's up in the thousands, and I know that's hard to take in, but when you look at having been in criminal law for years and years and years, and you just do the math, that's how many it is. Guys, medical examiners don't just sit in the morgue all day waiting for a dead body to show up. They have typically a fleet of investigators that also investigate homicide scenes right along with homicide investigators, cops, sheriffs. They go to the scenes very, very often.

You know, it's amazing to me, Dr. Gallagher, how police keep doing what they're doing. They come in, they've got this woman saying, my father and my daughter are gone. They took off, they're missing. The cops can smell a dead body. They see blood on the sofa and on the walls. And this woman is speaking to them like she doesn't notice it. Dr. Gallagher, how many crazy, bizarre situations have you been in when you go to a crime scene? I mean, what do you recall? What do you do in that circumstance? Well, you know, again, another good question. Going to a bizarre scene is kind of the normal thing for me now. As a matter

of fact, I lecture quite extensively throughout the United States and a couple of countries, you know, just on that. You know, it's just too numerous to mention. You know, over time, as you realize, you develop a sixth sense as to whether somebody is telling you the truth or whether they're trying to deceive you. And you and the police officers do develop this sixth sense or so or whatever you want to call it and become very skeptical and become very suspicious and then intensify their investigation. Joe Scott, let me refer to you by your professional name, Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor for Isaac Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet. You know, a lot of people would be repelled by that title. Not me. It made me want to get it immediately and read it.

Joe Scott, when you go to a scene, this is what is, you know, I try to work a case out like a Rubik's Cube, and I work it and work it until I try to figure it out. How can she go to the door? The whole place smells like a dead body. She calls the cops. She calls the cops to the crime scene. They come in. There's blood on the sofa. There's blood on the sofa.

There's blood on the walls. And she's looking at them with a straight face, saying her dad and her little girl left. They went out of town. And she's actually filing a missing persons report. And she's been telling her relatives the same thing, that they took off. Yeah, you know, if it wasn't so tragic, you would, you know, it could be in Hollywood as a comedy routine. And one of the interesting things, Nancy, that I have found over my years working cases is the fact that a lot of people may witness or participate in the ending of someone's life. But then at the end of the day they have no idea they have no idea what

to do with dead bodies because that's the problem isn't it you enter into something that escalates really quickly you end somebody's life in some ghastly manner but then you're stuck with the bodies what do i do with them and here she's left with this carnage that's at the home. You've got the sofa that's been sliced up. You've got bloodstains everywhere. And then this odor that permeates everything. How do you explain this away to the authorities? To Dr. Bethany Marshall, a psychoanalyst joining me out of L.A.,

you know what Joe Scott Morgan said. Hold on. I'm right now being joined by Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer. You can find her at ashleywilcott.com. Before I go to Bethany for a professional opinion, Ashley, you're in court every day, sitting on the bench, hearing stories just like this. We're talking about the scene, the blood, the smell, but think about it. Her daughter, Meredith, is just six years old.

I'm sure you can remember your children at age six. I mean, we're talking about the crime scene very clinically and marveling at how she can't figure out that everybody can smell dead bodies but her, and her father 50, and her daughter six. I mean, let's bring this to life. We're not talking about some clinical scene that Joe Scott Morgan presents his students at Jacksonville State University. This is real. And if this is true, this 25-year-old woman has murdered not only her father, but her six-year-old little child. Yeah. And don't forget the first responders when they walk in and see all this. That's what they think about, Nancy, not just preserving the scene to collect evidence, but that's their immediate gut. They're like, what do you mean? She's talking about a father who's disappeared and her six year old daughter. And you have to realize I as a judge them on the first responders, your heart sinks because you think, oh, my gosh, this means the inevitable. There has been some brutal, horrific situation in which a six-year-old and an older father are most likely gone. And so it is, it's devastating to those who have to respond and hear what's actually happening to two people. And, you know, Dr. Bethany Marshall, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it because typically when I go to

court, and I know you're going to back me up on this, Ashley, I occasionally would look over at the defendant and think, why? I mean, do they have any idea about the wake of pain they've left behind them? But the state's job is not to prove why, although a jury likes to hear a motive. But I don't get it. How can somebody be so delusional that they can't smell what nearly knocks everybody out on the front porch? They, what, are they immune? Do they not notice all the blood stains and the sofa ripped up? And then the story that they're telling. Dr. Bethany Marshall, I've prosecuted and covered cases where children kill their parents. It's extremely rare. How rare is it? It's parenticide, matricide, patricide, to not only kill your father. How rare is that? How rare is it to kill your own child? Nancy, it is extremely rare because usually when

a parent kills a child, like we think of Casey Anthony, they're killing the child because they are either getting back at another caretaker or another parent, or they're getting the child out of the way so they can have some idealized life. Maybe she met a new guy. Maybe she met a boyfriend. She was dating somebody. She felt that if she had her six-year-old little girl, the six-year-old little girl would get in the way. This is what we saw with Casey Anthony, right? She started dating. She was out on a stripper pole. She was out shopping. She wanted to have a love life and her little girl was interfering. But then to take the homicidal instinct that you have towards your child and then direct it towards your parent at the same time,

I actually can't think of a case right now where a person kills both the parent and the child. Usually it's one or the other. Take a listen to our friend Hannah Lawrence, WTVC. Cheyenne Jesse grew up in both Walker and Catoosa counties. That's where I found her family earlier today. Family members describe what they saw in the Florida home where Mark Weekly and his granddaughter were brutally murdered. The blood trail, it's just unreal. And the smell and to take and scoop them up with a shovel and put them in totes and then move them 200 yards. I don't see how she could do it. Police in Florida say Cheyenne Jesse got in a fight with her father on July 18th before she killed him.

She's in jail tonight accused of also shooting and stabbing her six-year-old daughter to death before hiding both of their bodies. She's admitted that she's done it. She's confessed. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Jesse's family got a call from her on July 28th saying her dad and daughter were missing to cover up the murder, but her stories didn't match up. Supposedly, Mark was supposed to have cancer. She couldn't answer which doctor he went to see, what type of cancer. Jana says her stories always seem to contradict themselves. So when they found out Jesse confessed to the murder, they realized why she was beginning to make up stories. It just all started falling back into place,

all the comments and everything that she had said beforehand. But for Jesse's former classmate, Polly Bridges, this was a big surprise. I was shocked because I couldn't believe it. She did it because she was friendly too in school and quiet, and I just couldn't believe she did it. Our friend Stephanie Stanastasi at WTVC reporting on two dead bodies. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Today, Mac, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter.

So I'm understanding that she, this person, 25-year-old Cheyenne Jesse, a young mom, murders her six-year-old daughter, Meredith, and her father, Mark, 50. That's overwhelming to me that she could overcome her father and had the heart to murder her own daughter. But I believe you mentioned she put their bodies in totes and tried to hide them in a neighbor's. Yes, ma'am. After after the killings, she actually left them on the floor where they died for four days. For four days, those bodies decomposed in that house. She left them. But after that fourth day, she came back to the house and she was hit with the smell like we've talked about already and decided she had to do something. She claims that she had seen a TV show and got the idea of hiding their bodies in totes, the big plastic tubs that

we get. She scooped the bodies up because they were decomposing, put them in the totes, and then loaded them in the back of an SUV and drove them to a shed a couple hundred yards out the back door of this house and stashed the bodies there. You know, it's actually the show Criminal Minds. So I guess Dr. Bethany Marshall, this was all like a TV show to her. She got the idea of disposing of the bodies from the TV show Criminal Minds. Well, what it tells me is that this was not premeditated. That, sure, maybe she saw a TV show. Maybe she thought it would unfold in some predictable way where she could easily

hide the bodies. But Nancy, she did not adequately prepare a dump site. You know, most people who commit homicide think ahead just a little bit about where they are going to store those bodies. And usually it's not in a plastic bin at a neighbor's house. You know, they think ahead that there's going to be an odor or a smell that, you know, they're going to have to clean up the crime scene. She was in some kind of a state where she did not see what the house looked like. She did not imagine people could see into her and into the nature of the crime that she had just committed. It tells me again, she might have been in some kind of a psychiatric state. Perhaps she's very low functioning.

Perhaps she's profoundly selfish and she's gotten away with everything in her life. So she can't imagine that she would also not get away with this. Or she's just really low IQ. But something's wrong with her because she didn't see in herself what other people immediately saw in her. Dr. Bethany Marshall, no offense, but have you ever seen a criminal case where you don't think somebody's mentally ill? Ever? No, no, actually. Okay.

It's a good point, Nancy. Because in my mind, and we just heard, who said this was not premeditated? Oh, it was you. Sorry, Dr. Bethany, to pick on you. But Ashley Wilcott, premeditation does not require a long plan, such as poisoning someone over a period of weeks or months. No, premeditation can be formed in the twinkling of an eye. When you raise the gun to pull the trigger, that's long enough for premeditation.

And the law looks at it like that because it doesn't matter if you were poisoned or shot in the head, you're dead. Okay. And if you have a moment to consider it under the law that qualifies as premeditation. Absolutely. It happens in a second. You're absolutely right, Nancy. The other thing that I have to say is premeditation is one aspect of it. But the other aspect I always want people to keep in mind is this mental health diagnoses, right?

The DSM-5. That's one thing. That is different from an insanity defense in court. And so I often see, unfortunately, heinous crimes like this, where a parent might have some type of mental health diagnosis, which is very legitimate, very real needs treatment. But that does not necessarily mean they were insane under the legal definition as a defense. To Joe Scott Morgan, forensics expert, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, you go into a scene like this, what's the first thing you do? And remember, she got a lead on you. It's been days since these murders occurred. But I mean, I got to believe Joe Scott that leaving the bodies to decompose on the dining room floor for almost a week, you got to have a lot of forensic evidence. So where do we start?

Boy, we do. We've got a basket full, Nancy. And to quote one of my forensic heroes and the father of modern forensics, Edmond LeCard, every contact leaves a trace. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter how long it has been since the crime was actually committed. Every time she has contacted the body, all of the injuries that have resulted as a result of her crimes, that will leave a trace. Moving the bodies about, there might be drag marks that are left behind, say in the blood that's trailed to wherever she's manipulating the bodies.

It sounds like she had a long time with these bodies. Then getting the bodies out of her residence and into these plastic containers. Again, you're creating more evidence by transferring it over and then placing it in a vehicle and transporting it. So literally what we have is a primary scene where this was perpetrated. We have a kind of an intermediate scene with the vehicle and then we have a final resting spot. So every time she has contacted something, it could be through her hands, she might be stepping in blood, and then not to mention whatever weapon she's used. I think I've heard knife and firearm, everything is going to leave a trace behind.

To Dr. Tim Gallagher, our renowned medical examiner, joining me out of the state of Florida. Dr. Gallagher, so she got a jump on the cops. There has been quite a period of time since she allegedly stabbed her father 12 times and shot him. And then you've got the daughter to deal with, too. What can you expect to find when bodies have been put in those containers? And so much time has elapsed. Well, unfortunately here in Florida, that's not an uncommon scene to attend. What typically happens after you get past the odor when you open up these totes,

and especially if they're waterproof, as the body decomposes, it releases a lot of fluids, a lot of the decompositional fluids. In that is the decompositional bacteria, which provides you the pungent or actually the putrid odor. A lot of the times we've come across scenes in this way where people are in barrels in these 55-gallon drums, and their entire body is liquefied, and all that's left is the bones. But in this case, more than likely the skin has turned black, the flesh has gone liquefied, and most of the organs are decomposed at this state. Well, in a state like that, how can you tell that he has been stabbed multiple times? I mean, with the body decomposing in that manner, how can you come up with a COD cause of death? That's a good question.

A lot of times you'll have to inspect the bones. You'll see butcher type marks on the bones. And you can also see bullet wounds, especially if it's through the skull. Those are very well preserved in cases of decomposition. Guys, I don't understand what could possibly be a motive to kill your child and your dad. Take a listen to our friend at WTVC, Hannah Lawrence. Cheyenne Jessie went to middle school and some of high school in Ringgold before graduating from Ridgeland High School. Jessie and her daughter had her daughter Meredith a year later, and that's when they moved to Florida with Jessie's father, Mark Weakley. Jessie's aunt and uncle tell me that she called them on July 28th to say that Weakley and her daughter were missing.

On August 2nd, boxes containing their bodies were found in her father's shed. According to Polk County officials in Florida, Jesse shot and stabbed the two on July 18th before hiding their bodies. I kept telling Steve something wasn't adding up because she called, waited until the 28th to call us to even let us know that they were supposedly missing. She had text 15 different people, two different stories, because me and Mama Janice weekly, I would, me and her would meet up and read each other's texts off to each other. And hers said one thing, mine said nothing. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Investigators say they knew things didn't add up when they came to the house to complete the missing persons report. It didn't smell right. There was a foul odor in the house. And the detectives asked about that, and she says,

oh, I had some rotten meat, and I had it in the sink. She made the statement that she saw criminal minds on television, and that gave her the idea to put the bodies in the totes. Family friend Fred Poore says Weakley was very close to his granddaughter. He'd rather you take his life than mess with that baby. Sheriff Grady Judd says Jessie did not like her daughter, and she showed little emotion through the interview process. Cheyenne Jessie is charged with two counts of murder.

Well, our friend Jake Peterson at ABC Action News didn't like her daughter. I mean, children, of course, can be very irritating and drive you crazy sometimes, but that overwhelming love you have for them, it's hard for me to imagine not liking your child. Cops arrive for a missing persons report. They're just knocked over at the front door by the smell of dead bodies. They can't help but notice blood on the sofa and elsewhere. But where is Mark Weakley, Cheyenne Jesse's dad, and her six-year-old little girl, Meredith? It doesn't take long for cops to figure it out, But I'm trying to determine any motive to make her stab her dad.

And Dave Mack, what was the COD on the little six-year-old girl? What's the potential motive, Dave Mack? The actual COD we had, Mark Weakley was shot three times in the head. Meredith, the six-year-old girl, she was shot once in the head. they both had stab wounds but the uh they're having trouble determining how many stab wounds there actually is a motive and it centers around we're going back to the casey anthony thing of relationships and uh cheyenne had been in a relationship with a man for a number of months actually living with him um it was the relationship that she had with her daughter, Meredith, that caused the new boyfriend to back out of a marriage proposal. They had a very contentious relationship. He talked about it at length that Cheyenne and her daughter constantly fought.

They constantly didn't get along. And imagine a six-year-old child arguing with a mother and a mother who's not well balanced. This was a volatile relationship. And the one thing we've been able to figure out, and you heard the man make the comment, her dad, Mark Weakley, loved his granddaughter, Meredith, and never would let anything happen to her. But Cheyenne was the mom and she did not like her daughter at all. Okay. You know what? All this business about not liking the daughter, Ashley Wilcott, judge, lawyer, you can find her at ashywilcott.com. I feel sick. I feel sick because this is all over a man. No offense, Dr. Gallagher, Joe Scott, Steve Rogers, and Dave Mack, but over a man, you know,

my grandmother used to say, you know what? Men are like buses. There'll be a new one that'll come along in about 15 minutes. I mean, no offense, guys, because you're awesome. But over a man, you would kill your own child. I mean, do I have to say, top mom Casey Anthony, even further back, Susan Smith that got rid of all of her little boys, strapping them into their seatbelts and pushing the car into the water and watching it go down so she could marry the rich single guy in town who was so not in love with her. I mean, I don't get it. Do you need a man that badly, Ashley? I don't get it either. And you know, Nancy, the question, it always begs the question for me. And again, I see a lot of this on the bench. And the question becomes, why did they get to have children in the first place?

Because clearly they're not going to have the protective capacity. They're going to choose a man, choose a partner, choose a person over their child. In my world, I see it way too often. I will never understand it. I will never get it. But that's what these criminals do. And they should not have children in their care. The last thing I have to say, you have to wonder how she treated that six-year-old child during the six-year-old child's life, because I do not believe that it comes from being a doting mother for six years and taking amazing care of this child to, I'm going to kill the child today. I suspect that child was abused and neglected during the six years. Dr. Bethany Marshall, I couldn't agree with Ashley Moore with me, renowned psychoanalyst out of LA. And boy, I bet you've got a lot of business out there. I told you every time I go out there, it looks like I'm on another planet. Do you remember the story I told you, Dr. Bethany, when I went down, I called it Rodeo Drive. I was quickly corrected, Rodeo Drive. And all the women were super tall, super like abnormally skinny with big fake breast disease. And they perfectly tinted. I mean, it looked natural, but everybody can't be blonde. Okay, statistically. I mean, and I just I just came home feeling really bad about myself. I had to keep telling

myself, that's not real. Okay. That's just, that's not real. So I guess you, I guess you have a lot of business, but back to this case, I don't get it over a man. And first of all, I don't believe that she could have a normal relationship with anybody, a normal, happy relationship. And so I doubt pretty seriously that this guy, whoever he is, said, I'd love to marry you, Cheyenne Jessie, except for that six-year-old daughter. That's the fly in the ointment. That's the, quote from Caddyshack, turd in the punch bowl.

I mean, I don't believe that for one minute. I don't either. However, in his court testimony, he seemed to blame the little girl, saying that the little girl was, I forget what language he used, but that the little girl was difficult. That, as our reporter just said, the mother and child had a contentious relationship, as if the six-year-old could really fight with a mother in a prolonged way. So it could be that both of them aligned themselves against the little girl in a paranoid way. It's all her fault. Okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I've seen these situations where the one, especially in Adrian Jones, the stepmother led the natural father into the abuse. They both did it, but it's like the parents gang up on the child.

Okay. What a horrible, horrible life for this six-year-old little girl with her mom and the boyfriend ganging up on her. But I want you to take a listen to our friend Cameron Polam at ABC Action News. In her own words, accused murderer Cheyenne Jessie explains to police the fear that forced her to take matters into her own hands. She's threatened me so many times, and I just don't feel safe with her. Jessie is talking about her six-year-old daughter Meredith telling detectives she was so afraid of the little girl she had to hide the kitchen knives. Every time I go to hug her she turns the violence towards me. For the first time since the bodies of Jessie's daughter and father Mark Weakley were discovered

at the family home in August we're hearing the original interrogation of the only suspect one in which detectives say Jessie lied and misled them around each corner. First claiming her father and daughter had run off, then saying the killings happened in self-defense. I try to make sure that I'm not alone with her because of her mentality. Meredith had recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder shortly before the murders. Detectives describing Jessie as worried a new relationship might sour due to her problems at home. Cheyenne had a lot of mental problems, but I don't think they would have never killed her dad and her daughter. You know, a lot of people have bipolar.

That does not equal insanity. I want to go to former FBI National Joint Terrorism Task Force, former cop, police detective, Steve Rogers. Steve, how do you go about proving this? Because I find it really difficult to believe that this mother killed in self-defense, that she was fighting with her father and she killed him, and that she was, quote, afraid of her six-year-old little girl. How, with the forensic evidence, do you disprove that? Well, to begin with, Nancy, let's keep in mind that, look, the mother had the presence of mind to plan an alibi. That's number one. She also had the presence of mind to plan a cover-up. So, you know, when we go down the road of this

type of investigation, yes, we interview friends. Yes, we interview relatives. We look at all of the physical evidence, but we also look at the alibi and the cover-up, and that's how you prove it. Look, when a person creates an alibi, as you know, and does what she did to cover up the crime, it points towards the fact that the person is absolutely, without a doubt, guilty of committing this crime. So, you know, it'll go back to motive. Your prior guest did talk about a motive, but at the end of the day, the person hangs themselves through what they do. You know, to Dr. Bethany, I still don't understand why she would call police, report her daughter and father missing, especially with the overwhelming smell of decomposing bodies and blood on the sofa. Why would she do that? not see in themselves what other people see in them. Remember Casey Anthony, she, as soon as her daughter went missing, as I said earlier, she was out on a stripper pole. She was out partying.

She went to her boyfriend's house. She, you know, she lived like La Bella Vita, like, like her tattoo. And she didn't imagine that other people, that that would arouse suspicion in others. And I really think that they tell themselves lies. They tell themselves that they haven't done anything wrong. And if they don't think they've done anything wrong, other people will not think they've done anything wrong. They're like little kids who, you know, eat the cookie out of, take the cookie out of the cookie jar. As soon as the parent leaves the room. The parent comes in, back in and says, where's the cookie? Oh, I didn't eat it. You know, very transparent kinds of lies. It comes from a very childlike way of viewing the world.

I guess they convince themselves. They've got all their bases covered and they start believing their lie, like Top Mom or like OJ Simpson or Susan Smith. You know, question to you, Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, is it true, now this is going to just push me over the edge if you say yes, that CPS, Child Protective Services, had been at the home the day before the last day Meredith was seen alive? If so, explain to me why and why'd they leave the little girl there? Child Protective Services had been involved with this family, with the relationship

between Cheyenne and Meredith. The report that we're getting is that a family member who was down there visiting the week before all this took place witnessed Meredith with fresh bruising about her neck back and chest and actually entered into a discussion with Meredith where according to this relative Meredith said that child protective services was threatening to take away the child and she would never let that happen so they got into a conversation with Cheyenne Jesse about her daughter, and they see the daughter's face. Did you say face, chest, and arms? Her neck, back, and chest.

Neck, back, and chest covered in bruises. I mean, Ashley Wilcott, really? You're the juvenile expert why i mean i know i sound like a broken record but i feel like we should just fire everybody with defects and cps move out of the building and just start over because i believe that they should all be put in jail. I just can't sometimes take another child abused. They know about it and they do nothing and the child is killed. Yeah, system fail.

You know, I've said that so many times on your show. I sound like a broken record. And here's the thing. I know a lot of individual case managers, supervisors for defects, very good people, very well-intentioned, do an excellent job. The problem is when you have these children that fall through the cracks, when you have marks and bruises on a child, and it is not something that can be explained by a very normal, correct way of, for instance, they were on their scooter and fell in the street, and these are the scrapes, and this looks like the scrapes. They're very different types of

bruises and marks. So when you have an instance like in this case that's just been described, the child cannot remain where the child's at risk. And so I couldn't agree with you more. It's a system fail that it's so preventative to prevent the child from then being killed by the mother. It just is mind-blowing. In this case, police have called it a double murder of the worst kind. Take a listen to this. An Alakeland mother could be sent to death row for murdering her daughter and father. Cheyenne Jesse found out her fate late tonight. A jury found her guilty earlier this week of shooting them and stabbing the two back in 2015. Jesse stuffed their bodies into plastic bins, then hid them behind a neighbor's shed.

A judge is taking the jury's decision of death into consideration before making a final ruling. You were hearing our friends at Action News ABC. To Dave Mack, this has to go in front of a judge and he or she has to adopt the death penalty decision by the jury. Will it happen? Nancy, it's up to him. The choice now is the judge can either sentence her to death and she'll head to death row or he can sentence her to life without bail or without parole. You know, I'm looking at her picture now, Cheyenne Jesse. You know what, Jackie, look at her. I tell you what, if I met her on the street, I would go to the other side. Jackie just said I would run. The way she is looking at the camera, it looks as if at any moment she's going to

unleash talons and rip the throat out of whoever's taking this picture. Dr. Bethany, I know it sounds crazy, but both Jackie and I have the same. Do you agree, Jack? Absolutely. I mean, just looking at her, she looks so evil and mean. The look in her eyes, can that be possible? Or am I projecting because of what I know about her? You know, Nancy, I saw that same photo. In fact, I'm looking at it right now. It's scary.

She looks angry. She looks hateful, malevolent. You know, you keep asking the question, why would she kill both her daughter and her father? And I started thinking about Casey Anthony. Do you remember that Casey Anthony was bragging to one of her girlfriends that she was going to get her parents' house? That I think either that one of the parents was sick or they were going to move away and that all the parents' money and house was going to be hers. So now obviously Casey didn't kill her parents, but there was also a

fantasy of getting them out of the way so she could get the spoils of their life, so she could have their assets or resources. And it does make me wonder, I don't know if weekly the father had resources, but maybe this mom not only wanted her daughter out of the way so she could have an idealized life, but maybe she felt her dad was holding her back. And if he was gone, that she could just be free to use the house, you know, eat the food, you know, lie on the sofa, eat chips, as you used to say about Casey Anthony and do whatever she wanted, not have to work, date, marry, you know, she and her boyfriend were living in a trailer on his family's compound. So the idea of having the dad's house might have been a motivator too. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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