Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 09.04.23

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

Teen kidnapped from date, found dead. Man admits defeat as cops pull pounds of pot from his car.  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. Andrea Vasquez, 19, and her boyfriend park their car at a California park after dinner. Not long after, an armed man approaches the car and starts shooting at the couple. The boyfriend runs for help when he comes back. The passenger seat is bloody and Andrea is gone. Cops track Andrea's phone and find her body in a field. Cops ID the shooter is Gabriel Esparza. Nancy, the attack appears to be entirely random. Vasquez was missing for nearly 24 hours before officers discovered her body alongside her cell

phone, which they had been attempting to track her with. Esparza, who has no criminal record, apparently gave a detailed confession of the attack and he was arrested the afternoon before Vasquez was discovered. Esparza, 20, pleads not guilty to murder, kidnap, and attempted rape. Florida cops pull over Jeffrey Kaufman for speeding and they're hit with a strong smell of pot as they approach the car. Kaufman pulls out a Miracle Marijuana ID card, but as cops search the car, they discover a duffel bag with over 30 plastic bags full of marijuana, mushrooms, and

several bottles of pills. When cops ask, why do you have so much pot? Kaufman replies, just take me to jail, man. Be careful what you wish, for you will surely get it. Cops haul him to jail, and he's booked on possession. More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. Accused of poisoning his wife's protein drinks to kill her, a Colorado dentist is likely to enter a not guilty plea in October to all charges, including first-degree murder, this according to his defense attorneys. With more, here's Sydney Sumner with Crime Online. Aurora police have said that 45-year-old James Craig started an affair before his wife died on

March 18th and had looked up information online, including is arsenic detectable in an autopsy and how to make a murder seem like a heart attack. District Attorney John Kellner said at a preliminary hearing in July that Craig's wife, Angela Craig, immediately began googling her symptoms, which included vertigo, shaking, and cold lips. According to Kelly Lear, the coroner for Arapahoe County, Angela Craig, a mother of six who had been married to her husband for 23 years, died from cyanide and tetrahydroxylene poisoning. Tetrahydroxylene is a chemical that may be found in over-the-counter eye drops. James Craig's defense lawyer, Andrew Ho, predicts a jury trial following the hearing last week that resulted in the arraignment of Craig being postponed until October 9th. Craig's attorneys

claimed at the July hearing that there was no concrete proof that Craig had put poison in his wife's shakes and that the lead detective was biased against Craig. The hearing's testimony in the affidavit did not mention how the investigators think that the tetrahydroxylene poisoning of Angela Craig came about. Craig has also been accused of tampering with the evidence, though specifics of that charge have not been made public. A Connecticut man who spent time on death row before his conviction was overturned in 2020 has now pleaded guilty to a murder charge and been given a 46-and-a-half-year prison term. According to his lawyer, Joe Lopez, 38-year-old Lizelle Ashby submitted his plea as part of a deal with the prosecutor and the family of Elizabeth Garcia, his 21-year-old victim.

Prosecutors say that as her 2-year-old daughter watched TV in a neighbor's apartment in 2002, Garcia was allegedly murdered inside her Hartford apartment. Lizelle Ashby has already received three sentences for Garcia's murder. He was originally found guilty of several offenses, including a capital felony, sexual assault, and kidnapping. In 2008, he was given the death penalty. After Connecticut repealed the death penalty in 2016, he received a new life sentence. In 2020, the Connecticut Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Ashby after ruling that the judge had violated his rights by allowing testimony from another prisoner

who claimed Ashby had confessed to the crime while he was incarcerated. Lopez said Ashby denied kidnapping or sexually assaulting Garcia. Now to Alabama, as we're learning that the state's suggested methods for carrying out nitrogen gas executions include covering the prisoner's face with a mask and replacing their oxygen with nitrogen until their hearts stop beating. Once again, Crime Online, Sidney Sumner. In a redacted court brief, Alabama detailed how the new execution method would work. The state is aiming to be the first to use nitrogen to execute a prisoner.

In Alabama, Oklahoma, and Mississippi, nitrogen hypoxia has been approved as a method of execution, although no state has yet utilized it to carry out a death sentence. Humans breathe 78% nitrogen, which is safe to inhale when combined with adequate oxygen levels. According to Alabama's plan, a convict would be forced to breathe only nitrogen as part of the nitrogen hypoxia execution procedure, which would deprive them of the oxygen they require to maintain their basic functions and result in their death. Just this past week, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall requested that the state's Supreme Court schedule 58-year-old Kenneth Smith to be

put to death by way of nitrogen hypoxia. Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder for hire killing of a preacher's wife. Echo Lloyd's adult daughter comes by her mom's Missouri home with flowers and a card to wish her a happy Mother's Day, but Lloyd doesn't seem to be home. Her daughter leaves the gifts and a note asking mom to call her. Lloyd's daughter tries to call several times after and comes back the next day when she can't get her mom. She breaks in through a window and notices it looks like someone other than her mom has just been inside. There's a pile of trash and rotting food left out, uncharacteristic of her mother, her mom's car, purse, and most of her things are left behind, but her keys, her gun, phone, and medications, all gone. The daughter discovers

the Walmart receipt from Mother's Day signed by Echo, but there's no other indication where she may have gone. Echo Lloyd now missing over three years. If you have info on Echo Lloyd, please call Missouri Highway Patrol 800-877-3452. For the latest crime and justice news, go to crimeonline.com. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.