Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - COPS: 'DUI MOM' CRASHES CAR IN CANAL, FLEES SCENE TO TAKE DRUNKEN BATH LEAVING DAUGHTER, 4, TO DROWN IN CAR

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

A California mother is now charged with murder after driving drunk and killing her 4-year-old daughter. Juliette Acosta, 26, crashed her SUV into a canal. The sound of the crash was loud enough to alert nearby residents, including Acosta’s uncle and a neighbor. Her Subaru SUV landed partially submerged in the water. Acosta’s uncle jumped in, helped her out of the vehicle, but could not find 4-year-old Reagan. When officers arrived, Acosta was no longer at the scene. A deputy immediately entered the water to search the vehicle and found Reagan Herrin still buckled in her seat. With help from Acosta’s uncle, the deputy freed the girl and began CPR as an ambulance arrived. Deputies later found Acosta at a nearby home, reportedly taking a bath. She was arrested and initially charged with felony DUI. Her blood alcohol content was nearly three times the legal limit. Acosta now faces charges of murder, drunk driving, and several related offenses. She remains in the county jail on a no-bail warrant.  Joining Nancy Grace today: Derek Smith - Criminal Defense Attorney    Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta, GA. Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women, Former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology: Emory University, Former Medical Director of The Psychiatric Ob-Gyn Clinic at Grady Memorial Hospital Kimberly Cockrell - Victim Services Manager at Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) South Carolina; FB: Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Instagram: @maddnational   Bill Garcia - Owner of Bill Garcia Investigative Services; Facebook: Bill Garcia Investigative Services, Instagram @BGISInternational  Joseph Scott Morgan  -  Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author of "Blood Beneath My Feet," and Host of "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;" X:@JoScottForensic Ben Dobrin -  Emergency Response Diving Instructor and Instructor Trainer, Police Diver    Nina Burns - Reporter, KOVR CBS13 Sacramento; Instagram: @neeburr, Facebook: NinaBurnsReporter   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. According to police, the so-called DUI mom crashes her car into a canal, then flees the scene to take a boozy drunken bath, leaving her four-year-old little girl to drown in the car back in the canal. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Tragedy strikes near Modesto, California, when 26-year-old Juliet Acosta crashes her vehicle into an irrigation canal with her four-year-old daughter, Reagan, still inside. But when police arrive, Juliet is nowhere to be found. And what they uncover next stuns the community.

Okay, crashing, bad enough, with your child in the car. The car flipped in the water in a canal. But why wasn't mommy frantically trying to save her daughter? And why did she flee the scene to go take a boozy drunken bath leaving the baby in the car? Joining me an all-star panel to make sense of what we were learning right now but i want you to listen to this so is it is he is a baby strapped in is it or should we be looking in the water like i didn't know what to do acosta subaru suv is upturned and partially submerged

in the canal when acosta's uncle arrives he jumps into the water helping acosta get out of the vehicle but is unable to find four-year-old Reagan. A neighbor described seeing Juliet Acosta and her uncle standing on top of the submerged vehicle, but there's no sign of the little girl. The neighbor asks if the child is in the car or in the water, but Acosta doesn't provide an answer. That from our friends at CBS 13 Sacramento, straight out to special guest joining us, Nina Burns, reporter KOVR CBS 13 in Sacramento. Nina, thank you for being with us. First of all, I'm trying to get my mind around leaving a crash with your child in the backseat strapped in, in the water, so you can go take a drunken bath. But first things first, tell me about the crash itself. What happened, Nina? So it was March

8th. It was a Sunday. And what we heard is that she was leaving her uncle's house right by the canal. It was only about about 900 feet, I would say. And she drove it straight in. The uncle did dive in, saved her. They went to the surface. As you heard earlier, the witness said she saw the uncle jump in and retrieve the mother. 20 minutes later, she realized the daughter was still in the car. And that's when the sheriff. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, Nina. So the uncle, that's the home that DUI mom, DUI mom had been at. and she leaves there, the crash occurred. I want to hear about how that crash went down. What exactly happened? I mean, driving along and suddenly you're in the water. There has to be something in between. You would assume, but all the witnesses

heard the crash. I mean, it was pretty late at night. All we know is when they saw the car go into the canal. That's what we're still trying to figure out exactly how she went straight on into that canal. I mean, the road is completely to the right. You do look at the screen. I mean, it is nowhere near. Nina Burns, I'm learning a little bit. Listen. Juliet Acosta is driving home from a party with her four-year-old daughter, Regan Heron, buckled into her car seat in the back of the Subaru SUV. Driving south on Arlberg Road, Acosta is not in control of her vehicle as she drives onto the shoulder of the road on the left-hand side, sideswiping a pole, pushing her vehicle back onto the asphalt.

Acosta continues south and fails to make a turn, driving up an embankment and crashing into an irrigation canal along Canal Bank Road. The sound of the crash into the pole and into the water is loud enough to get the attention of those living nearby, including Acosta's uncle and a neighbor who head to the canal to see if they can help. Wow. OK, I'm hearing maybe five to seven times the crash and the daughter's drowning death could have been avoided. Straight out to joining me, Nina Burns. You just heard joining us, KOVR CBS 13. Bill Garcia is with us, owner of Bill Garcia Investigative Services in this jurisdiction. Critical.

Bill, in your jurisdiction, what's the blood alcohol necessary for a DUI charge? It's 0.08. And obviously, she was at least three times that amount. You're seeing a shot right now of the so-called DUI mom, Juliet Acosta. There she is when pregnant with three friends. OK, you know, listening to this crash. Point zero eight. How is it? We've got so many cases where you mix a mom with a car with booze and water and somehow they live and the baby dies. It just always seems to be that way. Also joining me in addition to Nina and Bill

Garcia, special guest, Kimberly Cockrell. You know her well, victim service manager at Mothers Against Drunk Driving, who lost her best friend to a drunk driver as well. Kimberly, thank you for being with us. Did you hear all the points during that scenario where the baby Reagan could have been saved instead? I mean, I haven't even gotten to the fact that mom goes take a takes a drunken bath while the baby's drowning, while the baby's upside down, pinned with a seatbelt. Can you imagine what the baby was going through? What the little girl screaming for mommy?

I'm sure mommy gone. Listen to this, uh, Kimberly. Okay. The child's buckled into the back seat of the Subaru SUV driving South. She drives onto the shoulder of the road. I'm guessing in a boozy fit on the left-hand side. So she crosses across the lanes into oncoming traffic. She sideswipes a pole. That should have been enough right there for her to hit the brakes, but that didn't happen. The vehicle gets back onto the asphalt, careens back onto the asphalt. She then keeps driving instead of just hitting the brakes, failing to make a turn instead driving up an embankment. What you couldn't see basically the mountain. Uh, she drives up an embankment and then crashes into an irrigation canal.

The sound of the crash was so loud, the crash into the pole. Remember that original crash into the pole and then into the water that neighbors all run out to find out what happened. How many points were there, Kimberly Cockrell, in just that scenario where the baby's life could have been saved by DUI mom. Numerous. The first being that she should have never put that baby in the car with her. Never. She should have never been intoxicated behind the wheel. She should never have had her daughter in that car.

As a mother, I do not understand this, how number one, she would do those actions, but how you would leave the scene with your child. You know, your child is in that water. You know, you put your child in that water and you leave there and go take a bath. The irony of that is something that I have never, the circumstances of this in my 32 years of dealing with mothers against drunk driving and representing them that I have ever heard in my life. I have never heard circumstances this egregious. Guys, not only did she have so many points during the driving incident to save her daughter's life, just four years old. But think about the lead up because Kimberly, I often hear in court, um, it was just an accident. It's not an accident. Driving drunk and

crashing is not an accident. I've handled plenty of vehicular homicide cases. And this is what I would argue to a jury. Was it an accident that you went into the bar to start with? Was it, was it an accident? You had too much to drink at dinner. Was it, did somebody, uh, hold your mouth open and force the alcohol down your mouth? No, you did that all on your own. That was your decision to get another drink and another drink and another drink. That's not a crime. I don't care. It was your decision to get the car keys. That was a decision. That was no accident. It was her decision to rustle the keys out of her pocketbook or wherever she kept them to walk to the car, to strap her daughter into the car. What? That was an accident. No, She strapped Reagan into the back seat in a car seat

for safety. It was her decision to open her door, get in, put the key in the ignition, turn the ignition, reverse it and put it in drive and put her foot on the gas. None of that was an accident. This is a DUI, vehicular homicide crash with intent. What I don't get, Kimberly, is why DUI crashes fatalities are not considered to be murder because there's so much intent. I agree with you. I absolutely wish that every single one of these cases could be charged with murder. In the state of South Carolina, where I am, we don't have that option. I am very glad that the state of California, where this woman committed this crime, has that option. Because that's something we just don't have.

But everyone should be considered murder. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Derek Smith joining me, high profile lawyer who has handled plenty of moms, let me just say, that are not strangers to the criminal justice system. I remember your last one where mommy went to Puerto Rico and left her daughter to starve in a playpen. I don't know how you do it, but you do do it. And I'm sure a lot of people are grateful you do it, not me, but them. Derek Smith joining me, as I said, high profile lawyer at dwsmithlegal.com. Derek, how are you going to explain away the boozy bath? Mommy leaves the scene and goes, runs a hot bath. Nobody did that for her.

Strips down and takes a bath while the baby is still out there hanging upside down from a car seat in a canal. Those actions aren't necessarily the easiest to defend, obviously. However, we need to get into actually how. I certainly hope you're not going to say that to the jury, Derek. Well, it's a legal. Yeah, guys, I don't know really how to explain what she did, but let me give it a stab. Give me your best shot.

How the intoxication happened. Now, you mentioned before, you know, maybe somebody wasn't pouring booze down her throat. Maybe they were. Maybe something was slipped into her drink that we don't know about. Okay, wait. I have to actually see his demeanor when he says she was force-fed alcohol. Okay, I'm sorry. Would you repeat that?

Maybe she was force-fed the alcohol by her uncle? We don't know yet. It's still early in the investigation, isn't it? I mean, there could have been a new medication that she was on. There could have been some other factors that led into her getting to that state that she was in prior to operating the vehicle. Well, like I said, whether it's a new medication, whether something was in her drink, whether she was involuntarily taking something she thought was something else that caused this reaction chemically inside her body. And then the second part, after the crash, was there some trauma? Did she sustain any injuries that maybe she had no idea where she was after that crash happened? She didn't know what was going on? That's another possibility that we don't know yet. That's why you kind of got to

get into these cases. I understand the frustration and the just anger. Absolutely, you shouldn't be drinking and driving. Absolutely, you shouldn't be drinking and driving. Absolutely, you should not be having a child in your car after consuming alcohol and then driving. However, was she fully understanding what was going on inside her body at that time? What do we know? Was there a toxicology report? Was there kind of blood work done? Do we know what was actually happening inside her when this was going on?

And that's what we need to find out. We do know that toxicology was run. It's a 0.15. That's almost double the legal limit of 0.08. Now, hold on. I love to interrupt you, but I held back because I was taking notes so furiously. Let's just go down your list. Okay.

DUI mom force fed alcohol. Okay. Let me just scratch that off right at the list. Okay. DUI mom, force fed alcohol. Okay. Let me just scratch that off right at the beginning. Okay. Now here's something that the state better be ready for a new medication. However, if it didn't show up in the toxicology report, I can go ahead and scratch that off. Now you've got head trauma. You're brilliant. Like Dr. Evil, brilliant, um, trauma to the head that might work, but was her head examined at the hospital? And if so, and it wasn't injured, I'm going to scratch that off. But you've got two things going for you right now. You've got a new medication argument and you've got trauma to the head. I'm totally, as I'm sure you understand, Derek Smith, discounting that her uncle held her mouth open and force fed her alcohol. I'm also discounting that he slipped a Ruthie in her drink.

Yeah, that's too far out there. Plus you can bring the uncle on. The state will bring on the uncle to rebut such a claim. But as to new meds and trauma to the head, at least you have, you've got something to say to the jury. But as a prosecutor, I would counter how she left the scene on her own, went to the bathroom, took off her clothes, ran a bath. Did she put Calgon in it or bath salts? I'm just curious. Anyway, gets in the bath. Did she take a bick and, you know, I don't know because every move she makes adds intent. For all I know, she clipped her toenails. I don't know what happened in that bathtub, but I'm going to find out. And when I do find out, I'm going to make a big poster of everything she did that shows she knew what she was doing. Goes straight to the bathroom, stops up the tub, turns on the hot water, strips down,

gets in. That shows a certain degree of coherence to me. That said, back to the facts, something that will not raise my blood pressure like Derek Smith is right now. What else do we know about the night that four-year-old Reagan drowned dead, suspended from a car seat in mommy's car while mommy was clipping her toenails in the bathtub? Listen. How deep is the canal and is it possible that the four-year-old is still inside the vehicle?

Juliet Acosta is already gone by the time a Stanislaus County deputy arrives, but her daughter hasn't been located. The deputy immediately jumps into the water to see if the little girl is still inside the vehicle and finds Reagan Heron still buckled in her seat. With help from Acosta's uncle, the men are able to break the little girl free and bring her to the surface. The deputy performs CPR as an ambulance arrives to rush the little girl to the hospital. All of this occurring while mommy is letting Calgon take her away. That from our friend CBS 13 Sacramento. How could a beautiful young first grade teacher be stabbed 20 times, including in the back, allegedly die of suicide? Yes, that was the medical examiner's official ruling. After a closed door meeting,

he first named it a homicide. Why? What happened to Ellen Greenberg? A huge American miscarriage of justice. For an in-depth look at the facts, see what happened to Ellen on Amazon. All proceeds to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A call for help goes out after a car swerves into an irrigation canal near Modesto. Inside, a four-year-old girl trapped, but the driver, the child's mother, is missing. After police find Juliet Acosta drunk and soaking in a bathtub, her blood alcohol level three times the legal limit. I don't know if I would call her missing so much as having a drunken boozy bath while her daughter is submerged in water. Joining me, an all-star panel, but right

now straight out to Ben Dobrin joining us, emergency response diving instructor. Wow. You've seen a lot. I know that Ben, but I don't know how often you've seen a child strapped in a car seat, submerged in water while mommy flees the scene, she's not missing. She's out taking a bath, a nice hot bath after all she's been through while the baby drowns. Ben, explain to me how the EMTs race to the scene. They see what's happening. They can't find the mom, the dad, no adult. They jump in and try to save the child. Is it, you know, when we see on TV and movies, you can never

unbuckle the car seat. They always have to cut the seatbelt. They always have to cut the seatbelt. And it's so hard underwater. Just describe the nightmare scenario that these EMTs and divers were going through. You're correct. It is a nightmare. Cars underwater are horrible. And, you know, when you watch on TV, they always do filming at a pool or in some very clear water situation. And then people have masks on and can see. So you've got dark water. You don't have a mask on. You don't have it's dark. You're feeling around. And a car seat is hard enough in dry land. I mean, if you if you've been a parent, you know that getting a child in and out of a car seat is always some sort of struggle. But then when you're in the water, anything that is in your car, I want you to go to your car this afternoon and later today and just look around that anything is loose.

A box of Kleenex, a soda can, a coffee cup, whatever. Anything that's loose in a car is going to be floating around and it's going to be getting in your way and it's going to be bumping into you. And so now you've got, you know, you're in the water, it's dark. You're trying to feel your way into the back seat. You're trying to figure out where the buckles are. You've got clothing, you've got a jacket, you have a blanket that's blocking it. It's just the word nightmare is very appropriate. That's the situation that you're going into. And you're working against the clock. You're trying. And we've all done this. We've all tried to do things very, very quickly or fast. And you make mistakes. So you have to slow down

to be more effective. But you want to be moving as to slow down to be more effective. But you want to be moving as quickly as possible to also be effective. And, you know, you're racing against the clock. You're hoping you can get this person out, this child out, you know, to do life saving measures. And you're fighting against all of these hazards. You're fighting against the dark water. And nothing I've read said that they were on scuba. It was, you know, people just coming in and jumping up and down. So they're doing this while holding their breath and trying to do this and then having to go back up and then breathe and breathe and breathe and go back down. Sticking your head inside of a car, you know, is dangerous.

You can get stuck. And if you're doing it on a breath hold, it's a horrible situation. And my hat is off to any person that did that. They were brave and they took control of the situation and they were trying to save a life. And my hat is truly off to those people that did that. Now, I'm just trying to take in what you just said, Ben Dobrin. Dobrin, ER, emergency response, diving instructor, instructor trainer, police, diver, emergency services, diver. You're right. It's actually easier if you're equipped with a dive suit than to free dive.

In other words, without any air sustaining equipment, you can only be in as under the water as long as you can hold your breath and you're in the water. So my understanding that the SUV was upside down with a little girl hanging suspended upside down from her seatbelt. You have to go in and you see the little girl amidst what you just said, the box of Kleenex, the shoes, the jacket, all the things that children travel with in the car. It's all floating around. And then you see her. But you can only stay under for so long.

I mean, how long, Ben, can you stay underwater without coming up for air? You know, if you sit in a pool and hold your breath and are really calm, you know, you can hold it for 30 seconds, a minute or whatever. That's not the situation. They're diving down into a stressful situation. I didn't know the car was upside down. Upside down is a whole different ballgame. So they're having to pull themselves down

to the window or to the door. You burn up your air very quickly. If they could do this for 30 seconds or 45 seconds at a time, I'd be impressed. You know, your body is burning through all that oxygen. Your body's saying, you have to breathe, you have to breathe, and you can't do it. And they're burning it. They're under stress. They're using their muscles. They're physically pulling themselves down to look in that car. The seat is not where you expect it. An upside down car, upside down anything, everything. Our brains are

not wired to handle things upside down. So their brains are trying to look for a car seat and a car that's a normal, you know, upright. They were in a horrible situation trying to do this, but they're burning through that. You know, if you hold your breath, you can't do it very long sitting still. They weren't sitting still. And so it's impressive that they did that. Guys, what more do we know? I can imagine the EMTs jumping in the water in the dead of night. The neighbor shows up screaming, where's the little girl? Where's the little girl?

Mommy is gone taking a bath. It's beyond comprehension. Listen to this. I can't get it out of my head. So every time I close my eyes, that's all I can see is the little girl coming out of the water. With four-year-old Reagan Heron in the back of an ambulance, deputies search for the mother, the driver of the car, Juliet Acosta. Even though her uncle lives nearby, Acosta is found at a nearby residence reportedly taking a bath while her daughter is still missing. From CBS 13 Sacramento,

Nina Burns is joining me. Reporter KOVR CBS 13 there in Sacramento. Nina, where is the report coming from that cops found her taking a bath? Still waiting for that answer. They told us it wasn't the uncle's house, nearby resident. I mean, this did happen in Hickman, which is only about 15 minutes away from her hometown, Oakdale. So she could have had a friend. We're not sure. The defense attorney and the DA, neither of us are exactly telling us where she was taking that bath, just that she was taking a bath. I'm also trying to figure out how deep the canal is, Nina, at that juncture, because it can be very deep, 20, 30 feet deep at one spot and less so at another spot. We understand the car was upside down. Is that correct? We have heard as well from the DA that the car was not upright. Now,

I'm not sure if it was exactly upside down on its side. We just know it was not upright. So Ben Dobrin, how would that add to the confusion of the EMTs of the cars upside down and the child's hanging upside down? It had a lot of confusion. You know, your brain is wired. We see things every day. We see cars upright. We see people, you know, babies in car seats and a particular, you know, orientation upside down changes everything. And then in dark water, you know, you're feeling around. We naturally feel on the floor for the seat. We'll, we'll, we put our hand on the floor and ride, rub our hand up to the seat. Once we're in the seat, then we're going to be searching for the car seat. Once we find the car seat, we're going to be

looking for the buckles. That orientation changes. Now I'm not searching on the floor. I'm searching on the ceiling, basically, for that car seat. And so it just changes everything. Your mindset has to completely change. And one of the things, you know, the cars, when cars go in the water, you know, it depends on what type of car it is. But most cars have an engine in the front. That will sink first.

Depending on the type of car, you know, a car with a trunk, the trunk will float for a while. An SUV doesn't have a trunk, but you're going to have an air bubble that will make it float for a while. Then when it starts to settle, they usually don't settle on all four tires. A lot of times, they will roll over just because of the orientation. That motor goes down first, and then it'll just roll onto its roof that's a very common thing for cars when they go in the water um depending on the depth of the water if the water's shallow enough um you know shallower than the length of the car oftentimes when that the motor will hit before while the back end is still floating so then it will just rest

right on the four tires but if it's deeper uh very often they will roll and like you just said sometimes they'll roll on the roof but a lot of times they'll just roll on their side which makes it even more difficult because now you're going down into a car uh and looking you don't have access to both sides of the doors you only have the doors that are exposed on what is now the top end so So, I mean, the orientation of the car makes it, you know, it's an unknown is what you're going to find. And so whether it's on its roof or on its side, it makes it very difficult for people coming in, especially if those people are freediving. That just is an extreme situation. I can't get it out of my head.

So every time I close my eyes, that's all I can see is the little girl coming out of the water. Our friends, CBS 13 Sacramento. Police responding to a vehicle submerged in a Modesto area canal are stunned to find a young girl trapped inside, but no adult in sight. The child's mother, 26-year-old Juliet Acosta, is later found intoxicated in a bathtub. EMTs desperately perform CPR on four-year-old girl Reagan and then load her into an ambulance and race her to the hospital. This is what happens. Juliet Acosta is not at the accident scene when deputies and rescue personnel arrive. As her daughter is still trapped in her car seat underwater, Acosta has gone to a nearby home and reportedly when deputies

arrive, she's taking a bath. Acosta is arrested and charged with felony DUI when she's found to be nearly three times over the legal blood alcohol limit. Her daughter, four-year-old Regan Heron, dies the next day at an area hospital. Acosta is initially jailed on the felony DUI charge and released on bond. Moms plus children plus car plus water. The seminal case combining all of those into a deadly recipe, this. Yes, ma'am. There's a lady who come up to our door

and some guy jumped into a red light with her car with her two kids in it, and he took off. And she got out of the car here at our house. And he's got the kids? Yes, ma'am, in her car. I don't, she's real hysterical, and I just decided I need to get them down here. Susan Smith. Her name will live in infamy forever. There's so many, there are almost too many to count.

Of course, there's Ebony Wilkerson. Can't have the conversation without throwing her in. Are they saying help? If they're saying help, that's different. Video captures the moments a minivan drifts deeper and deeper into the Atlantic off Daytona Beach. Inside the van, a pregnant mom and her three small children. Witnesses say the vehicle was moving along the water's edge, then suddenly plunged into the ocean.

The children can be heard screaming, help, help us. Bystanders rushed toward the scene, pulling two children out before realizing there is a baby in a car seat. The children tell police mom tried to kill us. That from our friends at ID, Investigation Discovery. And of course, Diane Shuler. I have a family here that thinks that they might have a medical emergency of their sister. There's three kids in the car, five. They're trying to locate her. The girl just called in distress. She said that the aunt is driving very erratically. We think she's sick.

And we're trying to locate the kid. She lives. The children die. Joining me, in addition to the guests you've met so far, Dr. Angela Arnold, a renowned psychiatrist in the Atlanta jurisdiction at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Dr. Angie, thank you for being with us. The mixture of moms, cars, alcohol, it never goes away. It happens over and over and over, Dr. Angie. I know.

I mean, Nancy, people, and every time we hear a story like this, it's heart-wrenching. There is a comment that I would like to make about the child being strapped in the car seat. Nancy, who put the child in the car seat? Because if that mother straps the baby in the car seat, then she knew enough to put the baby in the car seat, even in her drunken state. So what made her forget about the baby between the time she put the baby in the car seat and she crashed the car. No one's talked about that. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joe Scott Morgan with me, death investigator, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, star of a hit new series, Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan.

I would say you probably performed over 1000 death scene investigations. Could you explain what the child goes through in a drowning? Many people believe drowning is the single worst death possible, much less for a four-year-old child, Joe Scott. Yeah, we're talking about a vehicle that is inverted, Nancy, so it's on the roof. Just imagine, if you will, you're laying on a table on your back and your head is hanging off of it. Someone takes a pitcher of water and pours it directly into your nostrils and into your mouth. That's the position she would have been in, Nancy, because water is going to seek the lowest point of gravity in that vehicle. It's not like some movie where you have this air bubble above the head and people are kind of gasping for air up there as the water rises.

That's not going to be the case. And one more thing about this. Do you remember you had mentioned early on, I know you do, where she apparently struck a utility pole prior to going in the canal? That's going to compromise the structural integrity of the vehicle. So now, I don't know for a fact, but she might have a gap in the car already when she goes in. And when we talk about baby Reagan here, the thing about it is this. Upon that initial impact, that child, if she was asleep at that time, she will be awakened with a jolt. She's going to start shallow breathing already out of fear. And then when the car goes into the canal and begins to invert, now she's going to be tasked with trying to fight for her life while being strapped in and inverted as water begins to fill the cabin.

Now, I can tell you this, at autopsy, one of the things that we're going to see with this child is that her lungs will be heavier than normal. And here's something that people don't think about as well. There would be water actually in her stomach because she's going to be ingesting water. She's gulping like this, just trying to do anything she can to survive. And of course, there's no way that she can being in this compromised position. How long would she have lingered there, Joe Scott, calling out for her mother with the water coming up around her? I mean, I always think of Susan Smith's boys as the water came up. People could, I mean, they apparently were screaming for their mother.

Yeah. And those kids were strapped. They were upright. Remember, her car went down the ramp. She just kind of let it glide down into that lake. That's not the case with Reagan. This was a very violent event that happened. And the car kind of twisted in the air and in the water. And so it winds up this way. I would estimate that it would not have been an I want to be very clear about this. She's not going to immediately lose consciousness. And the reason I know that is she's strapped in a car seat. So unless the integrity of the vehicle is so compromised that she sustains blunt force trauma and strikes her head, she's going to be awake during this, Nancy, to a certain point when she

begins to lose consciousness. I'm thinking probably top end, maybe about a minute to a minute and 30 seconds. Remember, her little lungs don't have the same capacity as ours do. Expecting to arrest Juliet Acosta in Stanislaus County, the California Highway Patrol tries to serve a no bail warrant for second degree murder. Acosta has been free on bail on the DUI charge and investigators don't find her in Stanislaus County as expected. Chief Deputy District Attorney Wendell Emerson says investigators apprehended Acosta at a San Francisco hotel as she is trying to flee the area. Acosta's father, Clifford Acosta Jr., is detained on suspicion of aiding his daughter's flight. Acosta's attorney, Gil Samara, says his client was not on the run. That lawyer's got a lot more to worry about than his client holed up in a hotel with her dad on the run.

That, for my friends at CBS 13 in Sacramento. So the lawyer is focusing on, she was not attempting to flee. That's completely false. Why would you say that? Okay, then why is she holed up in the hotel in a different city? And then he focuses on another issue or is he not focusing on the fact that four-year-old reagan is dead but listen to this juliet acosta's attorney gil samara denies she was taking a bath after the accident claiming

the timeline is almost impossible telling the independent quote time wise you can't go take a bath while your daughter's drowning. So I don't quite get it, Derek Smith. You're the veteran trial lawyer, defense attorney. Why is the attorney focusing on she didn't flee the scene? She did not. And I will convince a jury she did not take a bath. OK, what about driving drunk and killing your daughter? Shouldn't that be his priority? Well, yeah, but we're talking about, you know, intent and culpability here. If you're running, if you're fleeing, you're alluding to the point that you might have some kind of liability or some

criminal intent here. But if you're just going to focus on the fact that, hey, you know, she wasn't taking a bath, she wasn't fleeing, she wasn't in her right mind. You can start to build a defense around intent, around what her mental state was during the accident, during, I guess, prior to drinking, while she was drinking or the circumstances around that. But if you can create some kind of narrative within the public or within the prosecution that, no, she wasn't fleeing. She was just doing what she had to do to kind of come to grips with the fact that her daughter is gone, because that's the main tragedy here, that she had a beautiful child and is not with us anymore. OK, so as they go to arrest her on a Nobel warrant on second degree murder, they find her slung up hiding out at a San Francisco hotel. Okay, Bill Garcia, how far would that be away from the canal crash if she's in a hotel in San Francisco? That distance is right about 100 miles.

So it's quite a significant distance from the Oakdale area. And I'm not really sure why she was that far from her home and what they would have been doing there. Please, I just have to see Bill Garcia. Bill, you don't know why she was holed up in a hotel. No, and that's a significant distance away from where she lived and from where the incident occurred. So there has to be some kind of reason why she was that far away and why she was with you're telling me you don't think you know the reason she leaves the scene where her daughter is dying upside down in her suv in a canal as the water slowly engulfs the little baby everybody else is out there trying to save the baby

while she's taking a warm bath. And now, I mean, Bill, have you ever heard this phrase, when you don't know a horse, look at her track record? When you don't know what somebody's going to do, look at what they've already done. She's already fled the scene with her daughter dying,

four years old. So you're telling me with a straight face, you don't know why she was snugged up in a hotel over an hour away near a major airport. As an investigator, I do have my suspicions as to why she was doing that. And what are they? My stars, man. I'm a J.D., not a DDS. I can't pull teeth. Why?

Please blurt it out. Well, she's trying to get away from the situation. And whether she was trying to flee to a different region, another country, we don't know. But all of these things put together do show the intent that she was trying to flee. The day Scott Peterson is arrested, he has dyed his brown hair blonde and grown out a goatee. His Mercedes is stuffed with survival gear, camping gear, several changes of clothing, two driver's license, his and his brother's, four cell phones, 15 grand in cash, and 12 Viagra pills. Families trying to help their loved one. In that case, it was Scott Peterson. He goes on the run,

bleaches his hair, uses a car in his mother's name, a Mercedes, as I recall, with $10,000 cash, camping equipment, water filtration equipment, and a technical legal term, crap ton of Viagra with fake IDs using his brother's, I believe, driver's license. But the family says, no, no, he wasn't fleeing. He just wanted to go play a round of golf and he didn't want the media to follow him. He needs Viagra for that. Family helping their loved one. In this case, the father is found with the so-called DUI mom, Juliet Acosta. Joining me, as you know, from CBS 13, KOVR, Nina Burns. Nina, what have you learned?

You were in court yesterday. What did you learn? I did talk to Acosta's defense attorney who told me, for starters, the reason she was in San Francisco was she was accompanying her father on a business trip. His business, she wanted to be a family. That's why she was there. And he says his qualm with the DA then releasing the statement that she was trying to flee is that he was informed the day before that she was going to be charged with second degree murder. He told them she would turn

herself in at 8 a.m. on Friday. They came in much earlier to San Francisco that Friday and then arrested her. Nina, I'm sure you've heard the name Sean Combs. He was going to turn himself in, too, but the feds arrested him at a five star hotel for a reason. They thought he was going to flee. So I appreciate what the father is doing here. But do you recall the two gorgeous Kansas moms that were on their way to pick up children for a children's birthday party? It's Veronica Butler and Jillian Kelly. They were brutally murdered over a custody issue by who? Family members.

What family won't do to save their loved one? Was dad really on a business trip? Well, I'm sure we'll find out. Nina Burns, where does the case stand now? It started off with just a felony DUI and then she was arrested on second degree murder. We right now, the DA off the record has some ideas on why they're going to nail her for that. But the defense attorney also says that, you know, in his exact words verbatim, is that the DUI felony charge was already a horrible felony charge. Adding a second degree murder charge doesn't really change much. We wait as justice unfolds.

Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.