Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 03.29.24

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Baby rushed to the hospital with skull fracture, femur fractures, and spinal bleeding. Brady Ortego missing after driver careens into bridge worksite.  For more crime and justice news go to crimeonline.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace. Breaking crime news now. A Milwaukee mom rushes her baby boy to the hospital after he comes back from his father's covered in bruises. The dad, Stephen Nichols, tells the mom he tried to prop up an iPad against a formula container for the boy to watch, but it slipped and hit the baby. With skull fractures, a brain injury, and fractures to both femurs, medical staff say there's no way those injuries were an accident. Nancy, in addition to the broken femurs and brain injury, the child had spinal bleeding, three fractured ribs, and burns on his buttocks. During a phone call listened in on by police,

Nichols said he expected to go to jail, but that was, quote, cool. Nichols reiterated the story about the iPad to police. His bond has been set at $75,000. The dad, Steve Nichols, now charged with child abuse and neglect. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. A parenting advice YouTuber's emaciated and severely bruised son appears in a newly released video from the day his mother and her business partner were

arrested in southern Utah on allegations of child abuse shows the child politely asking a neighbor to drive him to the closest police station. With details, here's Sydney Sumner with Crime Online. According to documents made public by the Washington County Attorney's Office, the 12-year-old son of Ruby Franke, a mother of six who gave advice to millions of people

through a well-known YouTube channel, had escaped through a window and approached several surrounding homes until someone answered the door. A month after Franke and her business partner Jody Hildebrandt, a mental health counselor, were each sentenced to up to 30 years in jail, crime scene images, body camera footage, and interrogation tapes were made public. Eric Clark, the county attorney for Washington, revealed that a police investigation had found that the women's brutal maltreatment of Frankie's children was driven by religious fundamentalism. 42-year-old Frankie and 54-year-old Hildebrandt entered guilty pleas to four charges of aggravated child abuse, which included manipulating Frankie's two youngest children into believing they were wicked,

making them work manual labor, and placing them in circumstances that Clark has likened to, quote, concentration camp-like. After Hildebrandt's neighbor, Danny Clarkson, opened his door to discover the malnourished boy, the women, who claimed to be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were taken into custody at Hildebrandt's home in Ivins, a quaint St. George neighborhood, last August. Other Mormon parenting bloggers have criticized the women for their behavior, claiming that they misrepresented the church and their community. In the months following his wife's imprisonment, Kevin Franke has filed multiple petitions in an attempt to reclaim custody of his four minor children,

who were placed under state custody. A judge in Delaware has sentenced a woman found guilty of abusing her two step-sons, with the knowledge and assistance of their father, to 106 years in prison. The judge described the torture as, quote, the most extensive and persistent evil he had ever witnessed. 46-year-old Mary Vinson entered a guilty plea to 30 felony counts last year, which included kidnapping, child abuse, strangling, and reckless endangerment. Among the sentences she could have received, a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of 444 years.

Now to South Dakota, as a man has been found guilty of manslaughter in the 2013 death of his girlfriend and now handed a 10-year prison sentence. Once again, Crime Online's Sydney Sumner. In January, just one day before his trial was scheduled to begin, 55-year-old Richard Schmitz accepted a plea agreement in relation to the death of 38-year-old Michelle Will, whose severely decomposed body was discovered alongside a road in the Black Hills mountain range. According to our friends with the Rapid City Journal, Judge Craig Feifel imposed the maximum penalty. Will and Schmitz lived across the hall from one another in a building in the city of Custer. Investigators say the two checked

into a Keystone Motel approximately a week before her body was discovered. However, it took eight years before Schmitz was charged with second-degree murder in the case. A pathology report from Keystone Motel approximately a week before her body was discovered. However, it took eight years before Schmitz was charged with second-degree murder in the case. A pathology report from 2021 determined that her cause of death was either homicide or undetermined, which led to his arrest. Her initial autopsy was unable to determine the cause of death. Schmitz was questioned by investigators multiple times following Will's murder. After denying any involvement for quite some time, he entered an Alford plea to second-degree manslaughter on January 30. That was an admission, without a clear admission of guilt, that the state had sufficient evidence to convict. While arguing that the state's case was weak, Martha Rossiter, the defense counsel,

did not deny that Schmitz had lied to investigators. In outlining the imposed sentence, Judge Feifel stated that he took Schmitz's earlier convictions for assault against women into consideration to reach his decision. Thanks, John. Brady Ortego heads to work on a construction site at the Hale Boggs Bridge. It spans the Mississippi River in New Orleans. Brady works installing cameras with three other workers when Hunter Johnson careens his truck into the work site, hitting all four men.

Three walk away with minor injuries, but Brady is knocked off the bridge into the water. Louisiana police search for days, but no sign of Brady. If you have info on Brady Ortego now missing three years, Louisiana State Police, 504-471-2775. For the latest crime and justice news, go to crimeonline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.