Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - DAD'S DESPERATE SEARCH: IS TIK TOK GIRL MISSING AVA GRACE, 6?

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Conspiracy theories swarm social media with curiosity claiming Ava Grace Baldwin might have been found and no longer missing because she is making rounds on Tik Tok videos.  Some have even questioned is this the same Ava, Sean 'Diddy' Combs blasted out on social media he adopted.  Ava Grace Baldwin disappears from her elementary school when she was just six years old, Ava's father, David Hopper, believes his daughter is with her non-custodial mother, Kathryn Ann Baldwin, his ex-wife, and that she is hiding Ava away from him. Ava would be a teenager now and was last seen in San Antonio, Texas on September 17, 2015. Kathryn Ann Baldwin, who has a felony warrant out for her for interfering with child custody.  David seems to think his ex-wife, bio mom of Ava Grace, maybe in hiding with the child to keep David from having a relationship with his daughter.  Ava's mother and father, David Hopper, had joint custody of her. After Hopper requested full custody, Kathryn disappears with Ava Grace.  Kathryn's vehicle, a silver 2014 Ford Escape with the Illinois license plate number Q29-2793, was found abandoned in a parking lot on Whitby Road in San Antonio in April 2016, just seven months after the pair disappeared without a trace.  Kathryn has a history of alcohol and prescription drug abuse, suffers from mental illness and is supposed to take medication, but there's been no record of her refilling her prescriptions since 2015. She and Ava may move frequently and may be staying in women's shelters and/or homeless shelters. Kathryn may tell people she is being stalked. Kathryn's family states they haven't seen or heard from Kathryn or Ava since 2015 and they too believe both are dead, but Hopper thinks they are alive and in hiding, possibly being helped by friends or family. Kathryn has family in Texas, Oklahoma, California, Florida and Illinois, and friends in several parts of the country as well. Ava's disappearance remains unsolved. She was involved in cheerleading, soccer, gymnastics, and tumbling prior to her disappearance. Description and more information on Ava Grace Baldwin below.   Missing Since09/17/2015 Missing FromSan Antonio, Texas ClassificationFamily Abduction SexFemale RaceWhite Date of Birth04/16/2009 (16) Age5 years old Height and Weight4'0, 60 pounds Associated Vehicle(s)Silver 2014 Ford Escape with the Illinois license plate number Q29-2793 (accounted for) Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Blonde hair, hazel eyes. Ava may have a tooth missing in the top right side of her mouth. Joining Nancy Grace today, David Hopper - Father of Ava Grace Tina Hopper - Aunty of Ava Grace  Darryl Cohen - Former Assistant District Attorney (Fulton County, Georgia) Former Assistant State Attorney (Florida), Defense Attorney, Cohen, Cooper, Estep, & Allen, LLC, CCEAlaw.com, Facebook: "Darryl B Cohen", Twitter: @DarrylBCohen Ralph Garcia - Senior Sargent with the Bexar County District Attorney's Office in Texas, has been working this case since 2016, 30 years in Law Enforcement Dr. Chloe Carmichael - Clinical Psychologist, Author: ‘Nervous Energy: Harness The Power of Your Anxiety”, Twitter: @DrChloe, drchloe.com  Dave Mack-Investigative Reporter for CrimeOnline See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart podcast. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. A dad's desperate search. And at this hour is a TikTok girl actually missing Ava Grace, age six. Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us.

Search for six-year-old Ava Grace Baldwin and her mother, Catherine Baldwin, is cold from the very beginning and gets even colder when Catherine Baldwin's Ford Escape is found abandoned in a parking lot on Whitby Road in San Antonio. David Hopper is awarded sole custody and a felony warrant issued for the arrest of the alleged abductor. While Ava Grace's father, David Hopper, believes his daughter is alive, family do not concur. They haven't seen or heard from Ava since 2015

and believe they're dead. Hopper believes they're alive and hiding. She has family in Texas, Oklahoma, California, Florida, and Illinois. So that's kind of what we're thinking. She might be hiding out or around that area. And we believe that there are people there in the San Antonio area that helps her get out of the state. So there's somebody there that knows where she's at. Is this beautiful little girl,

Ava Grace, still alive? Her father insists, yes, she is. Is she being kept in hiding? And if so, in hiding. And if so, why this as conspiracy theories emerge, identifying the little girl as a TikTok star? Joining me on All-Star Panel, but first to a very special guest joining us tonight, it's Ava Grace's father, David Hopper. And with him, Tina Hopper Fulbright,, Eva Grace's Auntie. To both of you, thank you for being with us. You know, David Hopper, you were blessed with a little girl, a beautiful little girl, and for six years she was in your life. I can't imagine taking one step without my daughter and my son in my life. And I've got to hear how have you managed to keep going without Ava Grace? It's a battle every day. I have a good support team. My family's behind me, kind of keeping going.

My faith in God and believing His promises. And just there's times you have to, you know, remove yourself from the case itself and just have hope. So, that's what I do. Why are you convinced, Mr. Hopper, that Ava Grace is still alive? Because of Katie's background. She was a, her and her two brothers were hit out from her family, also by her dad, and they were hit out from her family also by her dad. And they were hit out for 16 years. So it's a learned behavior.

And I just kind of feel in my heart that that's what's going on here. I think that not only that, but with her family not helping and searching for them and not being involved in the case, it just kind of, just something I feel in my heart that someone knows where she's at and she's alive. If her dad could do it and get away with it for 16 years, like I said, it's a learned behavior and I think that's what's happening now. Joining me on All-Star Panel, but straight out to veteran trial lawyer, Darryl Cohen, former felony prosecutor in inner city Atlanta, Fulton County, now defense attorney and civil attorney. You can find him on Facebook, Daryl B. Coe. Daryl, thank you for being with us. Did you hear what Mr.

Hopper, David, just said? He goes, in my heart, I know she's still alive. Now Daryl, you and I practiced in inner city Fulton County for many, many years, and there's certainly not a lack of business. I can't even count the number of trials. I've tried to make a list, but there are too many to really count, much less the number of cases we investigated with a staggering caseload. Darrell, when a witness or a victim's family says, I feel in my heart, a lot of people discount that. I do not.

I do not discount it because so many times it's been proven true. So when he says, and many people may say, it's wishful thinking, she's not alive. But when he says, he's carrying on the search because he knows 100% in his heart, Ava Grace is alive and in hiding. I believe him, Darrell.

Nancy, there's more to it than just being in his heart. He's utilizing logic. If one person was able to hide for one sixth, 16 years, then what he is saying, I believe, based upon what has happened before, that she is alive and in hiding, unbeknownst to her, because mom is keeping her hidden. And that, in my view, is more than... Look at the screen. Can I see that video one more time of Ava Grace in the car? Daryl Cohen, how many videos have I taken of the children in the car, the twins, singing

and talking and saying all kind of crazy things. I mean look at her, she doesn't even have all of her grown-up, her adult teeth yet. I mean this guts a parent. I mean a visceral cut to see these videos and we're getting these videos from the Hopper family. I mean David, how many times have you looked at these and looked at these and looked at these over and over and over a little Eva Grace? Too many, too many times. I say you've got to learn to distance yourself from it at times. You know what, David? My husband once had a closet. He once had a closet full of clothes, clothes and shoes and all of his stuff.

No more. You know what that closet now is the whole thing? Albums. Handmade albums of the twins by me and yes, I go back and look at them all the time, right? I look at them all the time. I can't help it. Now I have the phone of course, so I can scroll through and look at them.

When you look at all of these videos and pictures of your little girl, what goes through your mind David? Pain, emptiness. I said, I hope there's days I have good days. There's days that, you know, it's brought to my remembrance and like right now, it's kind of sad. I mean, it is. I've missed out on her entire life. And that's all I ever wanted was a family and a child.

And when you have it, it's raw from you. It just leaves an emptiness in your heart that nothing can fill that void. But at the same time, it makes me smile because I see how beautiful she is. I do have that hope that I'll be reunited with her again soon. That day when a car, a Ford Escape, was found abandoned in a parking lot on Whitby Road in San Antonio, that car wasn't left there by chance. That car was left in that location for a reason. I want to think through this. David Hopper, why do you believe Baldwin's car was left

in that location to be found? Really, I don't know on that. There's all sorts of speculations on that. I just, I think because she had help, because she used to do, she'd go to the hookah bars and stuff like that. And as we did our little investigation, we found out that there was one nearby there. So I kind of feel like there were some people in the San Antonio area that helped her get out of there. If you also, we found out that there's not a lot of cameras around there. So it was easy to get in and out. So to me, I just think that she had help getting out of town. That's where they picked her up at.

Okay, you're not making me feel any better, David, by saying that Mom visited the hookah bars all the time. The abandoned car, the Ford escaped, left clearly so it would be found. To send what message tonight? Where is Ava Grace? And what does TikTok have to do with this? If anything, after finding the vehicle abandoned, it gets worse, listen.

Catherine Baldwin has a history of alcohol and prescription drug abuse as well as mental illness for which she takes medication. Since she and Ava went missing, a prescription has not been filled in her name. Law enforcement says they believe Baldwin is moving frequently and it is possible she is visiting homeless and women's shelters claiming she is a victim of stalking. The case of Ava Baldwin is being investigated as a non-custodial parent abduction. Straight out to Dr. Chloe Carmichael, renowned clinical psychologist, author of Nervous Energy, Harness the Power of Your Anxiety, and you can find her on Twitter at Dr. Chloe. Dr. Chloe, thank you for being with us.

I've seen this before, that an adult would rather have the child with them living in shelters, living in the rough, going from place to place rather than letting the parent, the responsible parent, the loving parent have the child. Can't they see what hell they're dragging the child through living that way? I mean going from woman's shelter to woman's shelter, claiming she's been stalked and she needs to be in a shelter and dragging. I mean, you've been in a woman's shelter, right? I mean, that's no place to raise a child. Nancy, of course you're right about that.

One thing that stood out to me though is the mention of substance abuse issues and potentially being off of her medication. I don't know what the medication was for, but for example, if it were about some kind of a psychotic disorder like schizophrenia or even the substance abuse itself can sometimes produce paranoia. The reason I mentioned that is because, as you said, if she's going from place to place

with fears of stalking, it may be that she's seriously deluded. She may believe that she's, you know, rescuing her child from, you know, some delusional dragnet that she in her mind, you know, believes that she's keeping her safe. It does surprise me though, that she's been able to do this, you know, believes that she's keeping her safe. It does surprise me though, that she's been able to do this, you know, successfully for nearly a decade. I mean, I just, I'm a little surprised that through, you know, investigators that we haven't been able to locate her or the child. We, along with Ava Grace's father, believe Ava Grace is still alive for many, many different reasons

and that she is being kept in hiding. But how does the dad put his head on the pillow every night wondering, is she dead? Is she alive? Where is she? What has become of her? You are seeing pictures and video of Ava Grace with her father. He had her for six wonderful years before she was snatched away from him.

And it didn't start in a good place. David Hopper meets Catherine Baldwin in a recovery program called Celebrate Recovery, a 12-step program helping people recover from alcohol, drugs, and other issues, even though newcomers are discouraged from making big life decisions in their first year of sobriety.

David Hopper and Katherine Baldwin have a whirlwind courtship, followed by a small marriage shortly after meeting. Tonight, a missing little girl's dad is hunting his ex-wife, he believes, disappeared with his daughter after a 34-day marriage. Okay, straight back out to David Hopper.

This is Eva Grace's father. You met in rehab. Why were you in rehab? Twenty years ago, I wasn't the perfect person in the world. I had a drug addiction through celebrate recovery. I guess I beat it. So I became a ministry leader there for the chapter in our hometown.

I was a ministry leader for four years. And during that time, that's when I met Katie. She was up in Oklahoma City area. We met up there at one of the four rooms. What was it about you that attracted you and moved you to a whirlwind wedding? You married her right after rehab. Why?

We'd known each other for like about four or five months. She has the ability to put on a great facade. She manipulates, tells you what you want to hear and a lot of things that she told me I found out later on, the lies. So it's about putting on this big, like I said, it's a facade. She's not who she says she is and that's what we found out later on and that's why the Barrett-Toy glass is great for it. David, I don't want you to feel like you are the gullible one. Joining me, you've met him already, Darrell Cohen, veteran trial lawyer.

Darrell Cohen, I don't know if you ever had the privilege of practicing in front of Judge Luther Alverson. I was assigned to his courtroom for years. And he, yeah, I loved, best judge in the courthouse by the way, and the oldest judge I might add, and he wanted to prove to everybody he was fit as a fiddle to stay on the bench. So we would have to be on trial every other week and keep the lowest jail count of any other judge in the courthouse, right? So that's where I got all my trial experience. But Darrell, he had, if you remember, the process that other judges did not have where I would

sit in a conference room and each defendant from the jail would come in and sit on the other side of the table with their lawyer and we would try to do a plea deal if possible. Okay. So, Darryl, I don't know if you ever went through that with Alverson, but I would sit there and listen to the defendants and I'm thinking about what David Hopper said, and they would be the worst of the worst, charged with child molestation, murder, rape, you name it, and they would sit down and they would go, well hello Miss Grace, and there we go. I call it the Eddie Haskell effect. Remember off Leave It to Beaver? Mrs. Cleaver, you look

lovely in those pearls, that whole thing. And if you listen to them long enough, you get totally sucked into their story. They're very believable. What I'm saying is violent felons can be very charming. And here's this beautiful woman, a damsel in distress in rehab, and she totally snows David Hopper. He falls for her and bam, they're married. People can be very charming when in reality, they're a snake in human skin.

Nancy, over a short term, just a snippet in time, people can do that. They can be salespeople. human skin. Dr. John He says, Darrell, travel while ambulatory. Nothing to do with this case, but he was a great human being and a great judge. People have an ability to be snakes when they are really bad serpents. They have the ability to be a harmless snake, garden snake, when in fact they're a copperhead or a coral snake. That is not unusual. And that's exactly what this woman is. How this beautiful little girl came out of her,

I do not know. Just after 34 days of wedded bliss, I can only imagine those 34 days, this goes down. 34 days after their small wedding, David Baldwin filed for divorce. During the separation process, Hopper finds out his soon-to-be ex-wife is pregnant. David Hopper vows to be the kind of father his child will be proud of, but Baldwin tells him he isn't the father. Shortly after Baldwin gives birth to a beautiful baby girl, a court-ordered DNA test proves

David Hopper is the father of Ava Grace. The couple is no longer married, but they eventually begin making plans to raise Ava together. David Hopper and Katherine Baldwin's whirlwind romance ends after just 34 days of marriage, during which Katherine reveals she is pregnant with their daughter, Ava Grace. Talk about a whirlwind courtship. That was a whirlwind marriage. Divorce after just 34 days. David, what went wrong, dare I ask?

At that time when we met up, when I was the ministry leader celebrating recovery, I was also doing a program here in Oklahoma called drug court. What I found out is when I went into the office one day, the administrator asked me if things was okay and I said, yes, why do you ask? And she said, because your wife has been calling in telling them that you're using.

Well, I was testing every day so that wasn't the case. So when I confronted her about it, she kind of went off and I don't want to say a middle breakdown, you might say, because she got caught in it. But if I had failed drug court, I was looking at 14 years of prison. So I told her, you know what, this isn't going to work. Oh my stars, she was setting you up to go to prison. Guys, joining me now in addition to David Hopper and Ava Grace's auntie, Tina Hopper Fulbright, Daryl Cohen, and Dr. Chloe, Ralph Garcia is joining us.

Senior Sergeant with the Bexar County District Attorney's Office there in Texas, this jurisdiction, and he has been working on this case since Ava Grace went missing. What can you tell me about this bio mom? Well, Nancy, this, you know, I didn't know the Hoppers at all before they showed up here with a story about Ava missing. Once I determined that, you know, Ava and Katherine were missing, I started an investigation trying to locate Katherine and Ava. I did a lot of the groundwork here in San Antonio. I kind of identified places that she lived nearby and people that she was associating

with and after a while, I guess, after months, I came to the conclusion she wasn't in San Antonio. But there were a lot of stories, a lot of stories about Catherine. Some of them were not so nice and some people said that she was a great mom. But I believe that she had the ability to, in public, be a great mom, be that person as you can see by the pictures. Sergeant, I really appreciate you being here today, but you can't just drop a bomb on Nancy Grace and she doesn't follow up. For instance, you said there's a lot of stories about her, some good, some bad. What? What story? Be specific.

Well, you know, when I started when I started my investigations, I spoke to her family. They gave me the same stories that David gave me about about how she was. She would use people and she would go out with certain men and in in in hopes that she can get something out of a relationship. I also spoke to some of the people that were in the the home that was that she was at.

And what kind of home was it, Sergeant? What kind of, you said the home. What kind of home was it? So she disappeared from, it was a home for a battered woman that actually sat on a couple of acres and had several different quarters, living quarters on there. It was a pretty nice place. I believe it was in... Gotcha. Hold on just a moment. I want to follow up with a few things you said. You're giving me so much information, Sergeant Garcia. Thoughts are pinging like an old pinball machine. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joining me now, Crime Stories investigative reporter, Dave Mack. Dave, thank you so much for being with us.

I'm trying to just absorb all the knowledge I'm getting right now in our search for little Ava Grace. I heard a lot of things. I heard that the mom is a user and uses people. That tells me a lot, but I'm going to go to the shrink on that. But to you, now I see why you're trying to convince me, Dave Mac, that the mom may be going from shelter to shelter to shelter and I've seen a lot of shelters only a handful of them were fit to have a child in okay now I see what you're saying because at the time this mother dare I call her that she doesn't deserve it was in this batter women's center shelter she wasn't battered she was on the run She left and it wasn't until like

20 days later that anybody even knew she was gone, right? The dad kept waiting to hear from them, hear from them, hear from them. When he finds out they're gone, much like called mom Lori Vallow. Now I see what you're saying. So what's her pattern, Dave Mac? She would go from shelter to shelter and convince them she was being chased or beaten or stopped? Yep. She had a pretty common story, Nancy, that she was the victim, she needed help and expected them to put her up. I mean, she went from shelters to religious missions.

Any group that would take her in, feed her, give her a place to crash, that was pretty much it. And she always had that idea that she's being followed. She is being chased. You know, she's got to protect her daughter. And she was able to work that into a lifestyle for a while. And you know what, Nancy? Very possible she's still doing it and that Ava Grace doesn't even know we're looking for her. Gosh. Tina Hopper-Fulbright joining us, Ava Gracious, Auntie. Tina. Yeah.

I've got the same feeling that David has, that she is alive. And I guess you standing by watching everything unfold could see this coming a mile away. Yes. Yeah. What happened? He married her. They divorced. She went missing when she was seven months pregnant.

We hunted her down. We found her on MySpace. She ran. Child Protective Services got involved in Texas. She married an 80- old man. He divorced her. She ran with Ava again and for four years we chased her through the courts. And then CPS found her. They told my brother, if you come to Texas, you can have her. So they went to Texas to pick up Ava, and the courts wouldn't let him have her.

They got temporary custody. And from there she ran. You know what, Tina, you just succinctly gave me a perfect picture of what's going on here. And if anybody thinks that she or Ava Grace are dead, they are dead wrong. Because you know what, Miss Tina, when you don't know a horse, look at her track record. She's been doing this as

long as you guys have known her. Starting at seven months pregnant, no, yeah, starting at seven months pregnant or before that she took off after 34 days of marriage, she took off. That's the first time that we know of. But I suspect this is a long-standing pattern. Then at seven months pregnant, she takes off with the baby. Child Protective Services gets involved. Then she marries an 80-year-old man. And I guess at that time, she was in her early 30s.

Early 30s. OK, forget that 50-year age difference, then he divorces her, I can only imagine why, then you think you got her back, you're gonna get custody and bam, she runs. Okay, but at the get go, there was an agreement on custody. Listen. After coming to an agreement on co. Listen. To Daryl Cohen, veteran trial lawyer, both criminal and civil. See, that's a problem. Darryl Cohen, we've had so many cases where children are taken across state lines. And then the two states, through no fault of their own, are not communicating.

I saw it in Harmony Montgomery. I saw it in Adrian Jones. I saw it in the Turpin family, House of Horrors, where a family moves and moves and moves, and CPS is chasing them and lose their trail. And that's what's happening here. So dad is hell bent that he will have his daughter in his life. They work out a custody agreement, and mom has two states warring, Oklahoma and Texas, and the girl, the baby girl gets lost in the sauce between the two states, Darryl.

Darryl of truth or veracity. But what we do have, every state has by a different name, interference with custody. That's a criminal charge that can be prosecuted. Every state has a different name for that statute, but it exists. And they have to use that as best they can. This woman is great at what she's doing. She is probably bipolar. She is someone who can tell the biggest lie with the most truthful face and voice and eye contact. I guarantee she's under an assumed name and Ava Grace doesn't even know we're looking for her, doesn't even know she has a father out there. I guarantee you because she told the little girl that before and we know that. Speaking of an unfit mother, to Dave Mack, Crime Stories Investigative Reporter, did you know that the mother, it's like eating a dirt

sandwich, I want to choke. Every time I call this woman a mother, was, put herself on video performing a sex act with Ava Grace in the background. Did you know that? I did. That's actually when CPS got involved, Nancy, because she did post this solo sexual act online for all the world to see and then Dave Mac So this wasn't like a video Disgusting video and hey you want a video yourself having sex with somebody else or yourself fine I would just be mad if you didn't but that's not what happened here. This is a sex act with the baby there in the background and she posted it on a public platform. This isn't like sending pics or sexy pics to your lover or

your spouse. She put the video of herself in a sex act with the child in the video and posted it online. How many pervs do you think? Watch that. About a million times. That never occurred to me Nancy. All I could think of is my own children and situations. Dear Lord, man, what business do you think we're in? I know, I just- This is not a walk at the park. We're not strolling through Kroger. I was just merely thinking of this so-called mother, you know, with her two-year-old child at the time

on the same bed while she's doing a solo sex act for video online. I thought about how horrible that was. I didn't even get to the perv aspect of the whole thing. Ava's dad receives a strange call one day after Ava's school reports the six-year-old hasn't been to class in well over 21 days. Can you imagine?

Can you imagine getting a call from the school and they say, where's your little girl? Where's your six-year-old girl? She's not only absent today, she hasn't been here for 21 days. Listen. Ava Grace Baldwin is a very active little girl. She enjoys cheerleading, gymnastics, soccer, and tumbling.

That is why it is such a surprise when the principal of the private school Ava Grace attends in San Antonio calls her father, David Hopper, at his home in Oklahoma, September 17th, asking if he can explain why Ava Grace has missed the last 21 days of school. The school is now closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed.

The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed.

The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed.

The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The school is closed. The address Catherine Baldwin put down for a home address for Ava is a vacant lot. Police believe when Catherine realized Hopper was going to give custody, Baldwin panicked and ran off with the child. Oh my stars. Police immediately began investigating where is Ava Grace and they go to the LKA last known address and it is a vacant lot. Tina Hopper Fulbright this is Ava Grace's auntie joining me along with her dad David. Tina when you learned the address was a vacant lot your stomach had to drop to your ankles. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I want to circle back to where we were before I go off on the vacant lot. Did you have any idea the bio mom was performing sex acts on camera with Ava Grace in the background?

How did you find out about that? Mr. Moore, which was the 80 year old man she married, his family, he divorced her through the courts down in Bernie, Texas. And David was down there along with my mother, and they listened to the testimony, and that was brought up in court. So you had no idea this was going on until you sat in on the 80 year old's divorce. What else, if anything, did you learn from that testimony? I learned a lot. But everything we learned...

I want to hear it. Tell me. Well, Ava missed 30-something days of nine weeks of her kindergarten school and when they went out to check welfare check on her they had she had painted polka dots all over and said that she had chicken pox. The neighbor lady informed us that she give Ava salt bath in pure salt, rock salt. rock salt. I learned that when she took off to Florida, she tried to give Ava to the people that she was staying with. She was staying in a shelter. Some people had Ava at three years old and she was going to leave Ava in the state of Florida while she came back to fight David over custody? That didn't work. I learned a lot.

I learned a lot. A lot. It took hours to tell you what I learned. It was a sad deal. I know that the bio mom in this case has an adult daughter who is still living. Katherine Baldwin has an adult daughter that according to documents was adopted out. But that's not what you say happens. What happened to her adult daughter? Her adult daughter

lives in California and I'm saying she sold her because that's the story that Katie told us. That the people paid her money. They were her God, parents, and they paid her money throughout her whole time. But at one time, she took that child from them people and took her down to Florida and kept her down there for three or four months. It was an open adoption. And she took her down there for three or four months and took them from the people from California. So she took that child too. But then she returned that child. Catherine Baldwin has ties to several states, including Florida.

And Eva Grace's father, David Hopper, says there is a case in Florida where Catherine Baldwin approaches a couple about taking custody of Eva and raising her. The couple is shocked by the offer and reach out to local law enforcement. But police are unable to locate Baldwin or Ava Grace. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Is it possible Catherine and Ava Grace are hiding in plain sight. Armchair detectives claiming Catherine and Ava Baldwin are on TikTok using the profile of Bpop and Bebe. The TikTok videos rack up a lot of comments from viewers

who claim to see things in the videos that lead them to believe Bebe is being trafficked due to a lock seen in the bedroom they're using for filming. The story is even featured in a Rolling Stone Magazine article. And the Rolling Stone Magazine article created a big stir and a search for Ava Grace. What does TikTok have to do with this? Let's look at the TikTok video we're talking about.

This is from our friends at bebop and BB. Okay, look. David, when you first were told that Ava Grace had emerged on TikTok, what did you think? I had mixed reactions about it. At the time, I was glad that her case was getting, you know, more views and that was coming to be known by the public. That was a good thing for it. But after seeing the videos, I recognized immediately that it wasn't her. There's just certain facial features and stuff like that that she's seen that it wasn't

Ava and it wasn't Katie. But the recognition it brought towards Ava's case, that was a good thing because our phones blew up. I mean, emails, people calling us, messages. It turned out to be a blessing because afterwards a lot of national syndication news places got ahold of the case. Let's get started contacting us. So in a way it was a good thing, but it wasn't her. What about Tina Hopper Fulbright? Did you know immediately it's not her? I did.

I did. And she's not a little girl competing either that she was the first officer. We have been bombarded daily, hundreds of thousands of telling us that we don't care, it needs to be investigated. What type of people are we that we're not going to go after these videos? They have been investigated. US Marshals have investigated it. Ralph Garcia investigated it. They've been been investigated. US Marshals have investigated it. Ralph Garcia investigated it. They've been highly investigated. You know what?

You're absolutely right, Tina. Ralph Garcia, you've investigated it fully. What did you do to investigate it and what did you learn? Well, Nancy, what I did was I went ahead and did some research on the IP addresses and stuff like that, found out what city it was in, contacted the local police, ended up getting an ID and confirming the birth certificate and driver's license

of the mother who had lived in that city her whole life. There are similarities in the way they look, but it just was not her. A Facebook page titled Ava Grace Baldwin Hopper Letters to You has been established where anyone can write letters directly to Ava Grace and share missing child posters that include an age progression photo of what Ava Grace might look like today. Family, friends, and interested individuals

post good wishes and thoughts and are encouraged to share the page and information. Back to renowned clinical psychologist Dr. Chloe Carmichael. Dr. Chloe, when I look at the mom, and you know how I hate to call her that, she doesn't deserve that title, background, I would, and you're the shrink, but if I were a betting person, I'd put money on it. This woman is not dead and this daughter, Ava Grace, is not dead. She's out there. Yeah, I agree with you on that, Nancy. Obviously, you know, we don't know, but I'm so glad that you're doing this segment because

I agree with you that if she is alive, it's very doubtful that the mother, as you say, is hard to call her that, is letting her know about that because there's such an incredibly narcissistic quality to this so-called mother. So going back, it's kind of graphic, but going back to the information that the mother posted a video of herself pleasuring herself with her daughter in the background,

there's something incredibly narcissistic about that, right? First of all, doing that and then posting it for the public, there's kind of an incredible desire for attention there. And then either she was aware her daughter was in the background and thought it would generate more interest, which is obviously narcissistic to use her daughter as a prop that way. Or if she was genuinely unaware, if she would be that self absorbed, that even in setting up a camera of herself to do this, that she would be so

self absorbed that she wouldn't even think of her own daughter appearing there in the frame either way. To me, it points to just an incredible level of narcissism. The mother is, I must say, she looks like an attractive woman. As somebody else mentioned, she seems like she knows how to say the right things and, you know, kind of manipulate people on a certain level. And the fact that she, you know, married that 80-year-old man with a 50-year age gap only to run out shortly afterwards. And I believe somebody said that she

attempted to sell a different child. There's just an incredible objectification of people, again, where it's like she would be using her daughter as a prop, maybe to get priority entry into these places or God forbid whatever she's guiding her daughter into at this point. So I join everybody here with hopes and prayers that maybe this segment will even raise just that last bit of awareness that's needed. Ava Grace, if you're out there, please, there's help. To David Hopper, Aunt Ann Hopper-Fulbright, the father and aunt of Ava Grace, if you don't know what's going to happen, you look at what has already happened. She's already sold one daughter. She's already tried to sell Ava

Grace and we know that. So it's very possible that right now a family has Ava Grace and they think they're protecting her from the mother. They don't even know you exist, David. Yeah, that's true. And I said, the first time I got to see Ava was in San Antonio after a court meeting. But she was just surprised because she kept saying, it's the pictures where you see us in the pool. She is going, you're my daddy. You're my daddy.

And she didn't even know she had a dad. No, she didn't. That's what her mother told her. So yeah, there's chances like we have a letter from the people in Florida that were they were they Katie tried to give her give them custody of anybody that may apologize and if we didn't know we would have taken her and got her to you. So yeah, there's a chance today that she, you know, Katie might not even have her anymore. And it's not that maybe she's protecting her from the mother, which is that's possible, but there's no kind of what she has told other people about me and my family. So we obviously, Katie, she's a manipulator. She's a compulsive liar. She has 11 different alias, as we found out.

she's a manipulator, she's a compulsive liar, she has 11 different alias as we found out. So there's just things that, I don't know, there's a chance she might not be with the mother right now. And you asked me how do we get by, how do I get by daily? Sometimes that's a thought that comes in my mind when hopefully she's with somebody that can keep her safe. We know that Katie throughout her life has always had to have a caretaker basically. In fact, the older man, Mr. Morgan, that she married, she, when I first heard of him, she told me it was her grandpa. I mean, there's just all these different stories and stuff,

but he was supposed to have apparently been married to her grandma at one time. And that's how I knew about him. But it's just, it's all manipulation of my eyes. Tina, I've got a question for you. Tina, I mean, when you look at her track record, she has probably sold Ava Grace. And Ava Grace, I pray to God, is being raised by a family that wanted her. And they have no idea that there's a dad out there desperately trying

to connect with his bio daughter that he loves. They probably think they're protecting her baby from the mother. And so they are, you know, DEFCON 4, totally under the radar. They're either, it's either that or they're afraid of the radar. They're either, it's either that or they're afraid of the mother. They're afraid of, because you cross Katie,

you pay consequences for it. I have found this out too. The people that she wanted to give Ava to in Florida, on her way back to Texas, she called the little girl, the woman who had a child, Ava's age and asked her, did your husband see my daughter naked? Well, that really like scared the girl because yeah, he's seen her naked. He helped bathe their children and he would get Ava out of the bathtub too. And you know, what you do when you've got small kids, you get diapers,

you get pajamas, you put them to bed, but she threatens people. She even does this, her own brother was afraid to be alone with Ava because of what Katie may say. Well, somewhere out there is Ava Grace, and I agree with Mr. Hopper. There is no substitute for a dad, your dad, and if she can only have you for one year, five years, ten years, twenty years, it'd be better, it would be better than never having you at all. If you know or you think you know anything about missing Ava Grace, we are showing you age-progressed photos now. Please dial San Antonio PD 2100207-7660. We can bring Ava Grace home.

We remember an American hero, police officer Thomas Devlin, Boston College PD, passed away in the line of duty after 21 years of service, leaves behind wife turned widow Patricia, daughter Christine, American hero, police officer Thomas Devlin. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.