Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Did high school stalker murder cheerleader as she slept in her own bed?

Episode Date: November 21, 2018

High school cheerleader Emma Walker was killed by a shotgun blast in her home two years ago -- on November 22, 2016 -- by ex-boyfriend William Riley Gaul. The 19-year-old Gaul, who played on the Maryville College football team, was sentenced in September to spend the rest of his life in prison after a Tennessee jury convicted him of first-degree murder. Nancy Grace explores the case with an expert panel including Southern California prosecutor Wendy Patrick,  lawyer & psychologist Dr. Brian Russell, forensics expert Karen Smith, and reporter Pamela Furr. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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On November 20th, a Sunday, Emma went for ice cream with her dad and planned to get up early for school the next morning. I told her, good night, love you, I'm going to bed. And during the middle of the night, I heard this loud noise. What kind of noise was that? It sounded like someone was in the house and opened a door and slammed it. And then I heard it again. Mark jumped out of bed to check on Emma and her brother.

I opened up her door to her bedroom, and I stared at her for probably 15, 20 seconds, and she was just lying asleep in her bed. And I shut the door and went to my son's bedroom, and he was in the bed asleep. So I thought, I'm hearing things. So I checked the doors around the house and went back to bed. In the morning, Emma's mom, Jill, woke up early. And wanted to wake her up, and I couldn't wake her up. What's going through your mind in that moment?

I had no idea. And I can't recall a lot of it. I just know I checked for a pulse. And there was no pulse? No pulse. And there was no pulse? No pulse. So, you know. Emma's younger brother Evan also rushed in. Poor Evan, too.

I'm sure that's something you wish that. I wish he'd never have to experience. It's like a nightmare. A gorgeous young teen cheerleader out of Knoxville found dead in her own bed. Mom comes to wake her up, grabs her foot and shakes her when she doesn't respond, only to find out her daughter is dead in her bed. What happened? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us. I'm talking about a gorgeous young girl on the inside and out, Emma Walker. But how does a star football player enter into the scene? Joining me right now, an all-star lineup, Wendy Patrick, veteran California prosecutor, Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, host of ID's hit series, Fatal Vows, Karen Smith, renowned forensics expert out of the Florida jurisdiction, and joining me right now, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, Pamela Furr. Let's start at the beginning. Pamela Furr, what happened that morning when Emma's mom came in and discovered her daughter,

her teen girl, is dead and she was fine the night before? She was fine the night before. However, her daughter didn't answer her call. So at that point, her mom is then checking for a pulse. She's hitting the body. She's hitting her leg. She's finding that she's not breathing. So at that point, she looked at her and called 911. She's panicked. When the police arrived, that's when they find a bullet in her head,

and they find two bullet holes in the wall of that bedroom coming from outside of the house. Two bullets. Two bullets went through that house. One hit her, another hit the pillow, and at that point, they realized, obviously, that she had been murdered. So, to Karen Smith, forensics expert joining us, Karen, there were two bullets that went through the wall. Apparently, one lodges in 16-year-old Emma Walker's pillow pillow and one hits her in the head wow that means to me Karen that the bullets went through the wall straight to Emma's bedroom from outside that's very odd Karen uh yes very odd uh the fact, is that those bullets went through the wall, through the drywall. One of them went, unfortunately, into Emma's head, killing her instantly. So forensic investigators

had quite a bit of evidence to work with just starting there. Then they moved forward. Unfortunately, you know, you recover these bullets. One would have to be recovered at autopsy, obviously, unless it went through. The other one they would be using to compare to, you know, any kind of suspected weapon if they could find one. If you find the murder weapon. Now, to Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, host of I.D.'s Fatal Vow series. Dr. Brian, someone had to stand just outside the window to shoot in to affect these shots with that caliber. It's very hard for me to believe that someone would stand just outside the window shooting in in the direction of Emma's bedroom, be it through some sheetrock, and that be an accident.

You're the shrink. Yeah, I think the chances of that are infinitesimal that it would be an accident. And I think it would be also infinitesimally unlikely that the person who did this would have done it in a random fashion. So I think it's almost certainly the case, as usual, that the person is somebody well known to the victim and somebody who knew exactly where to be and where to shoot from. Well, I agree with you, Dr. Bryan, because, yeah, we hear about random shootings all the time where there's a random shooting somewhere and it goes through somebody's window and it always ends up killing a child. Have you ever

noticed it's the most innocent person that could be killed? I remember reading about and investigating one case of a random shooting that went through a window and shot a child sitting at the dinner table. I mean, it's just it's overwhelming. But in this particular case, shells were found. Casings were found outside the window. So that says it's not really one of those random shootings from at a distance that happens to come in your window. As a matter of fact, take a listen to our friend Andrea Canning at Dateline speaking with Knox County Major Mike McLean and Major Crimes Detective Alan Merritt.

Investigators arrived with just sketchy details from first responders. They thought that originally that it was a suicide, that she had ingested something, poison or whatever. Knox County Major Mike McClain was assigned to investigate the case with major crimes detective Alan Merritt. Saw a 16-year-old female laying in her bed with a small amount of blood on her pillow. And some people had confused that with

that she had gotten sick or you know had ingested something and caused her to vomit but when the detective looked closer he saw something unusual first responders didn't immediately see the hole in the wall there was a hole in the wall next to emma's bed a bullet hole and while only a little blood was visible on Emma's pillow, when investigators inspected her head, they saw a small entry wound. So she's been shot? Yes, ma'am. But all was not as it seems.

Take a listen to Andrea Canning. But if the kidnapping was a joke, what happened the next morning was no laughing matter. Emma's friends told police that Saturday she drove herself home from her friend's house. As she's pulling in the subdivision, approaching her residence, she sees a person dressed all in black. And as she gets closer, you know, he cinches the hood up and puts some sunglasses on. Emma was texting her friends a play-by-play. As gets into residence then this person comes to the front door and starts you know trying to get in the house turning the door knob beating on the door she's in fear she's in a panic and so she reaches out

to the one person that that she thinks can help her which was was Riley Gall. Riley searched the house and neighborhood, but saw no signs of anyone. Neither called the police. Emma's ex-boyfriend Riley was at his college dorm when his phone was flooded with calls and texts. He grieved on social media. You know, how much he loved her, how much he's going to miss her, like, she doesn't deserve this. She's in a better place now, you know.

Tell God about our Bible verse. Did their hearts go out to Riley? He's lost. A lot of people had commented, I'm so sorry. I'm praying for you. Still, no one knew yet how Emma died. What are some of the rumors that are

now floating around on social media about what happened to Emma? People had thought she might have overdosed on something. Some people said brain bleed. The biggest one that upset us the most were people who didn't know her were like saying that she killed herself. Was there any part of you that was confused and thinking, well, maybe it's possible? No. What happened to 16-year-old cheerleader Emma Walker?

How did she end up being shot in the head in her own bed? Very odd. Pamela Furr with me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, that the night before, the one night of all nights, my children have never asked me this, she asked her mom to turn on the alarm system. She asked her mom to turn on the alarm system. And I found that very, very unusual.

As a matter of fact, a lot of unusual things had been happening, Pam Furr. Take a listen. It was the weekend before Thanksgiving. Friday night, Emma and her group were celebrating a football win at a friend's house. Her friend Zach was at the party when Emma received a text message from an unknown number. The message said something about Riley. He'd been taken. Her text messages saying like someone has Riley, like someone has Riley. Yeah, someone's like kidnapped and Riley kidnapped the strange messages kept coming then Emma's phone ring Riley was on the line Kim screaming in the background like help me help

me Emma like I need your help you can hear Riley on the call calling for help yes Emma and her friends rushed out of the house and there was Riley. And he had his hands on his head. He just looked confused. I could see her like yelling at him like what's going on and she was really angry. Emma was furious with Riley. She and her friends thought the whole thing was some kind of prank. We all kind of as I said like it's very far-fetched for him to really be kidnapped. We didn't think twice about it. So all the friends thought it was just a joke. Pamela Furr, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter,

there's that incident leading up to Emma's death in her own bed where he clearly stages a stunt that he's been kidnapped. Then there's a guy dressed in ninja black skulking around her neighborhood that actually bams on her door that scares her half to death. And she calls on the boyfriend, Riley, to come over. She's worried. She's afraid. Who wouldn't be? So there are a lot of mysterious events, this prank and other things leading up to her death. What do we know about that, Pamela? Well, what we know is that she actually, as you said, she was afraid. So she texted Riley and said, I hate you, but I need you. And that's when he rushed over to the house. At that point, there must have been

some sort of argument. That's when I believe the stepfather said he heard a door slam of something in the house. She was then asleep. He left. He started texting her in the middle of the night, 50, 60 text messages at a time that she did not respond to. And then hours later, she was dead. You know, I was looking at all the texts, and it looked like there were 64 texts in just a 30-minute time period. And then just hours later, she's dead. Dr. Brian Russell with me, lawyer, psychologist, and host of Discovery ID's Fatal Vow series. Dr. Brian, I want you to take a listen to this. He started to get very kind of controlling

of her, like where she was, what she did, like if she wanted to hang out with our friends, he was like, you're not going. He didn't want her to hang out with people, like it was just him and her. And if Emma went somewhere without him? He would text her 40 to 100 times. He's just blowing her phone up. Emma, Emma, Emma, talk to me. Talk to me, text me back, call me. Yeah, and he'd call her 20, 30 times. Emma's parents thought the relationship was toxic. They had seen their daughter change.

This new personality with Riley in the picture was not one that you recognized? No, not with Emma. Her parents said Riley seemed intent on driving a wedge between Emma and her family. He would tell her she really didn't have parents, that she really barely had a brother, and I think he just wanted her to think that that was, he was all she had. How does that work, Dr. Bryan? Because I've seen in so many cases that I've actually prosecuted domestic violence or domestic homicide, and then having worked at the Battered Women's Center at night for so many years, the woman in the scenario, typically it's the woman, not always, but usually, begins to get totally isolated. I mean, I've seen cases that go to the extent where the husband or the partner

takes the phone out of the wall and puts it in the trunk when they go to work in the morning. It's just bizarre. Now, this wasn't to that extent, but it was in the same vein. Dr. Brian, how does that work? There's a classic pattern of abusive behavior that starts with somebody showering all kinds of attention and and seeming to be so over the top, caring and concerned that it actually feels good to the to the person who's eventually going to become the victim. It feels like, oh my gosh, this person cares so much about me and they wanna be there all the time and they wanna be there to be my everything. And then slowly they start to become more isolated.

The person that was doing all of the hovering and hanging around starts to progressively isolate the victim from family and friends and want to be even more sort of, have it be just the two of them against the world, so to speak. And by the time the person realizes that, okay, this is not love.

This is something dangerous. A lot of times it's too late. And unfortunately, young people are some of the most susceptible to this because they haven't had enough life experience and enough dating experience to realize that that level of controlling behavior is a giant red flag. And it is highly indicative of a person who is on the path to physical violence, if not murder. You know, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor joining me, jumping off from what Dr. Brian Russell just said, I know I may be projecting, but these kids are just in high school. This is happening in high school. Now I'm projecting because in high school,

I dated a football star, the football star, same scenario. And controlling would do all sorts of shenanigans to get attention, to suck you back in. Would there be this crisis and that crisis? And in a moment, I'm gonna have to go back to Dr. Bryan. When people stage crises to suck everybody back into their lives, the drama. But in this case, Wendy, he was apparently staging stunts and shenanigans and pranks, serious ones. Because, I mean, we all know that it's got to be him in the black ninja outfit, bamming on doors and skulking around the neighborhood before the shooting takes place. And the controlling behavior, it's freaky to see it starting in high school, Wendy, where we know it turns into full-on abuse.

Yeah, Nancy, that's the kind of thing that we see though nowadays. And you know, Dr. Brian and so many other guests that we've been on with have corroborated that this drama, this intensity of focus becoming fixation in terms of a high school crush. You know, we think back and it seems so innocent sometimes in retrospect, but when you really drill down on some of these relationships, they are as dysfunctional as one can imagine, as you say, where you have you have staged kidnappings, you have attempted suicide, carrying around a relative's gun, so many different things that you look at. And it really does this bizarre behavior obsession. This is something that was so toxic that this young lady's own parents forbid her from seeing this man.

And it is taken seriously. Just because these are young people doesn't mean that this sort of young romance can't turn deadly as it did here. You know, on the outside, Riley Gall, the boyfriend, seemed perfect. Listen.

Two years older than Emma, popular too. A standout wide receiver on the Bobcats football team. Did you ever think Riley would make it to the NFL? Yeah, if there was anybody that was going to do it, it definitely would have been Riley. Riley's friends from grade school, Alex and Noah, say he wasn't just a high school jock. He was active at church and loved Star Wars movies. Started out kind of a nerdy guy. That's how we met, obviously. Obviously.

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I mean, I know it's a little crazy, obsessive, but sometimes, especially after reporting on crimes on children, I have to leave the studio, go get in the car, and drive by their school and lay eyes on them. I try not to let them see me do it so they don't know mommy's crazy, but because I know it can happen. It does happen every single day. As a matter of fact, over 450,000 missing children reports are made every single calendar year. Let me let that soak in. 450,000 missing child reports made every year. One in seven runaways are now believed to be victims of child sex trafficking. I once poo-pooed that whole theory, but it's now been proven to be true, and I have to accept that. One in seven runaways

are believed to be victims of child sex trafficking. One in seven, 38% of attempted kidnaps occur while a child is walking to or from school. 38%. That's about 40% of attempted kidnaps happen while a child is walking to or from school. Digest that. What do you do if the unthinkable happens in your life? Learn from people who have dedicated their lives to protecting children. Go to crimestopshere.com and learn about Justice Nation. Crime Stops Here. Learn safe in your own home, safe out and about with your child, keeping your child safe online, safe at school, and safe at daycare

or with that so-called trusted babysitter. NancyGrace.com. Jill called 911. I just had to wake up my daughter from school, and she has no pulse. You said that she's non-responsive? Yeah. Monday, November 21st, was supposed to be a regular school morning. Instead, first responders were arriving at the Walker family home

and word that something horrible had happened to Emma was tearing through town. Friends calling friends. She was just bawling. And I was like, okay, you need to breathe, you need to calm down, what's wrong? And she said, Emma is dead. And I said, what are you talking about? Because it really didn't register in my mind, like, not our Emma, no. You are hearing our friends at Dateline.

We are talking about the murder of a teen girl in her own bed. Her mother, they put her to bed at night. Last thing the dad said was, I love you, honey. Next morning, she's dead. I'm just trying to soak that in. And I don't really want to because, you know, like last night, Dr. Brian Russell, we all got to bed and I usually fall asleep with them reading to them or whatever. And then about an hour later, when I know they're asleep, I get up and leave. But last night, we had

a party, we snuck Hershey bars and caramel popcorn into bed and watched funny memes and just had a good time and stayed up too late. You know, I check them during the night and the morning. I fully expect everything to be just fine. And I'm thinking about Emma's mom. And, you know, 16 years, that goes by in a flash. It seems like they were born last month. And to go in and find your child dead in her bed, it's overwhelming to me, Dr. Bryan. Well, I think anybody listening to this

can only imagine how devastating it must have been for that mother. And I think that on top of that, on top of the devastation of just realizing that you've lost your child in this particular case, there's probably a huge guilt component about the fact that they did have concerns, very well- to do. But it's certainly, we all know, you know, history is full of examples of that not working out very well, not being followed by your own child and not being enough to keep the other person, the problematic person from trying to still see your kid. So are you saying that maybe a TRO was in order? What about that, Wendy Patrick? I mean, but at this point, it was just a lot of texts and crazy stunts.

I don't know that a TRO would have even been granted under that scenario, Wendy. But I agree with Dr. Bryan just saying, okay, you can't see each other anymore. Sometimes that has a reverse effect, Wendy. Yeah, Nancy, it's such a tough, I mean, so many parents are in the same exact scenario. You can't put your finger on any definitive proof that would predict that violence was going to be the result. Simply a matter of obsessive text messages, even stalking behavior. You and I, and no doubt our listeners, understand that that is a precursor. But to prove that in court's a different scenario.

So you're right that it may not have occurred to these parents that this would have been something that could have been a solution. And who knows whether or not a judge would have found enough evidence to at that point. I want you to take a listen to Andrew Canning speaking with Emma's parents. When Emma's parents learned what had happened, they were barely able to take it in. They had told us that she had been shot. It's unthinkable. Mm-hmm. Emma's father, Mark, recalled with horror

those noises he'd heard during the night. Knowing that those noises that I heard were gunshots and they sounded nothing like gunshots. But your instincts were right that something happened in the middle of the night. You think your child's safe in your home sleeping. The father goes in upon hearing that sound and checks on the children. And how many of us have lived that out in the middle of the night?

Karen Smith, when I hear sounds at night that wake me up, I immediately get up. I check on the children. Then I race to the other end of the house and look to see if my mom's okay, see if she's breathing. And it's a scary thing. And the father did go in and it looked like Emma was safe in her bed. What could it have been? It didn't sound like gunshots. What does that mean, Karen Smith? You're the forensics expert. Well, it means that they were muffled, Nancy. It means that, you know, you could have mistaken it if there was a pause between the gunshots. Did it sound like a door slam? Yeah, it may have. It could have sounded like, you know, and maybe even a car door next door. When you have muffled gunshots, the last thing on your mind is thinking that somebody is

shooting outside of your house. So that doesn't even come to the forefront of your brain. You're thinking that it's something commonplace, like a door, like a car, you know, the trunk of another car across the street. And that's exactly what the father thought. And when he saw Emma in her bed, there were no overt signs of evidence. And basically, he just walked away thinking she was okay well just like we all are discussing it right now when you you know what i always say don't kick me out of the studio jackie howard when you don't know a horse look at his track record with all the football star boyfriends crazy stunts and pranks that were actually pretty scary. Of course, police took

a look at him. Listen. These two guys were like walking across the street. Next thing I know, one of them grabs my back and the other one's around the corner. And they just like put their hands over my face and just took me to their van or whatever. Why would somebody do that to you? I genuinely have no idea. They did ask me, they were like, who would you want to talk to for the last time? And so I started freaking out, and I said Emma. And they made me call Emma, and I was just crying and screaming. She thought it was a joke. She thought I was playing a prank on her.

Investigators arrived with just sketchy details from first responders. They thought that originally that it was a suicide, that she had ingested something, poison or whatever. Knox County Major Mike McClain was assigned to investigate the case with Major Crimes Detective Alan Merritt. Saw a 16-year-old female laying in her bed with a small amount of blood on her pillow, and some people had confused that with that she had gotten sick or, you know, had ingested something and caused her to vomit. But when the detective looked closer, he saw something unusual. First responders didn't immediately see the hole in the wall. There was a hole in the wall next to Emma's bed, a bullet hole. And while only a little blood was

visible on Emma's pillow, when investigators inspected her head, they saw a small entry wound. So she's been shot? Yes. Welcome back. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. And we take an in-depth look at the murder of a teen girl cheerleader in her bed with her parents in the next room. They wake up in the night when they hear a sound and check on her. Everything's fine. When mom wakes her the next morning, she realizes her little girl, Emma Walker, is dead in her bed, her head still on the pillow. She was shot through the head. With me, Pamela Furr,

CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. While everyone was looking at the boyfriend, the football star, and his crazy, erratic, and controlling behavior, a gun turns up missing. Who's gun, Pam Furr? That gun was the grandfather's gun of Riley. He called and the police and said, my gun has been stolen. They couldn't find it. And at that point, people were kind of suspicious as to where that gun might be. As we always say, Wendy Patrick, veteran felony prosecutor out of the California jurisdiction, there's no coincidence in criminal law. So she's shot with a gun and his grandfather's gun goes missing. Wow. Okay. In my book, two plus two still equals four, Wendy. That's right. We call that circumstantial evidence.

And as we're piecing together a crime scene, those are always the types of details that are so important. You know, you bring up that maybe you wouldn't necessarily think a loud noise in the night is a gunshot, but in the day and age we live in, maybe you would. So when you talk about finding the cause of death and then a gun being missing, then you already have pieces to put together of this puzzle that is now finally being able to fall into place. But how do they find the gun? How do you find, because you know, when you've got bullets, Karen Smith, forensics expert, you've got bullets. You've got to have the gun to match them up to. They're like fingerprints.

One gun, only one gun, like one fingerprint, leaves a certain mark on a bullet as it hurls down the barrel. Only one gun can leave those striations on a bullet. So you got to have the weapon to match up to the bullet. That's right. The striations and those imperfections are unique to each firearm in the barrel. And what happens when the bullet travels through that barrel, those imperfections are left behind. So now they have two recovered from the scene and they also have the casings outside, which tell a story on their own. So you have all of this evidence, but until you have a known, until you have that weapon to compare it to, those pieces of evidence are going to sit in the evidence locker. Dr. Brian Russell, in high school, your friends, your peer group are your everything. How do police

manage to infiltrate Riley Gall's peer group to get two of his friends to cooperate? Well, that is an excellent question. And it sounds to me like it speaks to some excellent police work. I think, you know, yes, friends are very tight knit and, you know, wanting to back each other up during these years of life, you know, adolescent years. But I think also good kids, and I think thankfully still the majority of kids are, who had an instinct that a friend of theirs may have been involved in something as awful and diabolical as this. You know, I'm not all that surprised that they felt some sense of duty. So Pamela Furr, explain to me what cops wanted Riley Gall's two friends to do. Well, they wanted to get some sort of confession out of Riley that he had the gun. And so these friends had already told detectives that they

actually saw this gun. They were fearful of Gall anyway. They thought maybe he would try to commit suicide. And at that point, Gall had actually told one of the friends that he had stolen his grandfather's gun because he was faking the whole, you know, there's somebody after me. There was somebody after Emma. So I'm fearful. Somebody's going to hurt me. So he told friends, I stole my grandfather's gun to protect me. At that point, two of the friends were very suspicious and told detectives they saw that gun. That's when detectives said, let's wire you guys up.

Gall wanted to dispose of the gun. He wanted to throw it in the Tennessee River and wanted to take his friends along with him. And so that's when detectives wired those friends up so they could get him saying that. And on the way to the Tennessee River, that's when detectives found him. Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor. So they wired the two teen boys and then the two boys hook up with Riley Gall. Still, nobody knows what's going to happen. He could have easily gone berserk in one of his stunts and shot the two boys. So, Wendy Patrick, in real time, how does that work? You wire the kids up, and what, the cops are hearing it as it happens? Yes, you really do have a lot of supervision in these types of endeavors in order to protect these young people who are so bravely going to go forth in order to solve a mystery like this.

Not even so much a mystery anymore, Nancy. It's all falling into place, and the law enforcement was able to figure out this would be what they would need to do to put those final pieces in the puzzle. And these young men were willing to do that because they, too, now you've got a gun and you've got bullets and everything is finally falling into place. They wanted to see justice for this young lady just as much as that everybody else in that community did it fall into place listen tonight there is a growing memorial to emma walker at the central high school football field where she cheered this says police investigate her murder earlier this

week walker was found shot to death late Monday night at her parents home in North Knox County. Now as WBIR 10 news reporter Michael Crow tells us her apparent boyfriend is facing charges in her death. Michael. Just hours before police led William Riley Gall into the Knox County jail in handcuffs friends and family of cheerleader Emma Walker at the football field where she used to perform to honor her. Tributes from that service remained. Flowers, candles, and kind words. Miss her. Ashley Beetz says she knew Emma well.

She was nice. She was sweet. It's why she felt compelled to come here, bringing balloons. Love you, Emma. I just want to bring something today. I love you, Emma. But as Emma's family mourns, many questions about her death remain. Sheriff's Office investigators believe on Monday, William Riley Gall stood outside the Walker home and shot where her bed was located. Before his arrest, he tweeted, I love you, Emma. I can't be around any of that yet. It's too soon. I know you know I'm dying to be there, but understand I can't. I love you. And immediately after it became public that Emma was dead, he posted the boyfriend, the teen

boyfriend, that's my sweet Emma. Now she can finally rest in peace. I mean, those words must haunt her parents forever. I don't know how parents make a comeback after this. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.