Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Elizabeth Thomas’ dad blames mom for teacher kidnaping

Episode Date: April 26, 2017

Elizabeth Thomas’ father says in divorce papers that abuse inflicted by her mother set the teen up for the mind control that allowed teacher Tad Cummins to convince his student to run away with him. Nancy Grace discusses the case with Corey Ricci, the lawyer representing Anthony Thomas in the divorce. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is crime stories with Nancy Grace. The 15 year old and her former teacher were found more than 2,000 miles away in a remote cabin in Northern California with no electricity or running water. They said they're from Colorado and he said he had a house fire. He pulled me aside at one point and made a statement that he was glad that this was all over. His sister says he doesn't believe he kidnapped Elizabeth. I asked him why. Why would he do this? And the answer he gave me is that she wanted to run away and she wanted to leave and he didn't

want her to go alone so he went with her so that he could know that she was safe. This is Crime Stories. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us. We have just obtained court documents in the divorce proceedings of kidnapped girl Elizabeth Thomas' parents. And boy, what a bombshell document this is. Now we understand why Elizabeth Thomas' mom has been out of the picture. She was forced out. What we are learning in this divorce complaint filed by her father is incredible. They divorced basically on the grounds

of irreconcilable differences. That is the basis of the divorce. And that's pretty standard across the country. But now we realize what has happened in the background. We find out that the mom has been charged with or accused of stalking the children. This is after she has been accused of beating Elizabeth during the homeschooling, throwing her down a basement, hitting her in the head with a washing machine agitator, and forcing her to undress in front of friends. Those are the accusations that she denies. In these bombshell court documents, we find out even more. Her father,

Anthony, is claiming that because of the way her mother treated her, it set Elizabeth up, basically grooming her to be assaulted, grooming her to be a victim. This is what we know. The oldest minor child, who is Elizabeth, who has just turned 15, has been the focus of a nationwide missing child hunt. Prior to her disappearance, her dad did not know all of the abuse was going on in the home. In paragraph 7 of this, he claims that Tad Cummings, the pervy high school teacher, used his position of authority as a teacher at Elizabeth's school to prey upon her, groom her, entice her to run away with him. And this is because of the mother, because of her acts of abuse. Elizabeth was and is terrified,

but didn't know what else to do because that was her learned behavior. With me, of course, is the Duke, Alan Duke. In paragraph 9, Alan, it says the court ordered the mother to have no contact whatsoever with the children. That order is in effect right now to this very minute. However, even after the court ordered that, the mom took many, many actions as they say to toe the line, put her toe on the line of the court's order that she would drive to the children's home, to their schools, to their friends' home. When the children would be there waiting until one of the children was outside, then stare at them angrily and drive off. They reported, the children reported, that made them so scared, very fearful of their own mother. The father is saying that now Elizabeth is home, she's expected to undergo

lengthy and intensive therapy. She just can't have any more incidents like this happen. Alan, do you see paragraph nine of this document? I'm looking right at it. This mother is a piece of work if all of this is true. Not only is she due in court May 12th for those really horrendous charges made in the indictment in Columbia, but she's on notice to be in court May 22nd on this, including the restraining order. along with the divorce filing. Besides the stalking, they had information that Kimberly Thomas had recorded a video interview. The mother had recorded an interview with a news network, and it was going to air over this past weekend, April 22nd, but they were able to get it canceled. What would happen if the mom went on national television talking about Elizabeth and Elizabeth saw it, the damage that would be done to that child piled onto what she's

already been through? You know what? I want to tell you something, Alan. I know it's hard for people that have not been a crime victim to get this, but when you have been, you have such, you may be a brave person but you have such dread in seeing your attacker it's a sickening feeling and that's why a lot of people block out the memory of the crime

and for the longest time Alan I didn't believe that but I can state with first hand knowledge that the time just before and for a couple of years after Keith's murder, people ask me all the time, do you remember X? Do you remember Y? And I don't. And I can't help it.

And honestly, I haven't tried to remember. I don't want to remember it. And that's me as a grown woman. Imagine a child having your mother make you undress in front of other people or throw you down the stairs, lock you in the basement, beat you with something. These are allegations that she denies but that sets the child up and I've had so many statutory rape and child molestation cases and I remember one little, I guess she was about eight years old, girl that her father had been just full-on raping her for years. I think it started when she was about three.

And they would come to court and she'd run up to him to, you know, get love from him. It beats everything I as a layperson can understand. But I've seen it over and over and over with children. They don't understand why this happened to them. As they grow older, they feel sick, helpless, that nobody was there to save them or help them. It's a feeling of powerlessness. It's a terrible, terrible feeling, and it sticks with you the rest of your life. And I know it took me a long time, Alan. I'm sorry, but I'm thinking about if these claims are true about her mother, that set her up to just follow along with what Ted Cummins told her to do.

And that's what the dad's claiming in these documents, Alan. The father is alleging that if Elizabeth sees her mother in a television interview, and they do say that they expect other national media to try to contact the mother. Oh, they will. If they do that, she will, quote, most likely suffer psychological harm to her already compromised mental state if she sees the defendant, her mom, appear on television or on the Internet and make any remarks

about Elizabeth's recent traumatizing circumstances or her family circumstances in general. And let me say, we have reached out to the public defender for Kimberly Thomas and have not had a response yet. It's a mental thing that he's alleging. And he's right. If these allegations against the mom are true, she had been beating and abusing and exploiting Elizabeth for any period of time. Elizabeth was set up to go along with an abuser. He claims that she beat the girl locked in the basement before she was snatched by Tad Cummings, freaky perv, that she was easy prey for Cummins. He also says she abused some of their 10 kids, not just Elizabeth, all right? That she hit, pushed down steps, locked in basement, and it made Elizabeth to be vulnerable

to Cummins. That the girl would go to Cummins to get help for panic attacks. She was suffering because of her mother. And now that she's back, she's still having the panic attacks. The mother, her own mother, is banned from seeing the children because of this ongoing abuse case. Experts, and I can tell you this, are that are have been abused see adults in position of power and they seek them out now again the mom denies all of this now tell me when did you say

this is going to court the restraining order and the divorce petition are scheduled for a docket on the 22nd of may but the the indictment, the criminal indictment, there is a May 12th hearing set for that. Why would you lock your child in the basement? I mean, it was all I could do to make, I swatted Lucy on the rear end. Of course, at that point, it was through a diaper. And so she just basically ignored me and then i thought okay that didn't do anything i'm going to next time give her time out it was all i could do to keep it would be a matter of seconds i'd say okay go stand in the bathroom we're shutting the door because you've been naughty naughty naughty i could barely keep her in there we had to count the seconds it would be like 20 seconds and she would and she would come out okay I mean but can you imagine throwing your child down the basement

steps and locking her down there first of all all you got to do now and I've got grandkids is take their iPads away from them that's my new thing I thought I was so smart so you do that too oh yeah that's that's all you got to do take the iPads away they can't watch the videos and away from them. That's my new thing. I thought I was so smart. So you do that too. Oh yeah. That's, that's all you got to do. Take the iPads away. They can't watch the videos and they're done. Here's another thing. Another thing is to threaten to take the iPad away. There's the threat. There's a threat. Okay. But you have to go through with it every once in a while just to, you know, show you it's a real threat. Now, hold on. Catch this. If you keep reading this, Kimberly Thomas is 48 at this juncture. She's also accused of abuse on other children that she hit them until they bled,

knocked one daughter unconscious with a wooden board, and threw a chair at another daughter, bruising her leg. Smacked a child in the head for injecting herself with the brother's EpiPen. The children wrote letters to DFACS, Department of Children's Services, about the abuse before mom was arrested. Now, that is according to one of the teen's relatives. That's not in the document. Now, Anthony Thomas was living at home during this time.

They separated in November 2015, and he took sole custody. He's claiming this abuse as a reason for the divorce. Now, according to the Crimes Against Children Research Center and University of New Hampshire, abuse at home makes children susceptible to manipulation by adults. They're vulnerable to grooming by predators that act like they care about the child. Daniel Thomas, who is Elizabeth's sister-in-law, claims Cummins knew the girl had been abused and took advantage of that. And he probably did, Alan, all those long, intimate talks they would have in the classroom. I'm sure she told him what was going on at home.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at the list of the kids here. We're talking about the four that are underage. They range in age from six to 15. By the way, Elizabeth Thomas, who also I found out today, likes to be called Mary Catherine, by the way, Elizabeth Thomas, who also I found out today likes to be called Mary Catherine, by the way, although her name is Mary Catherine Elizabeth Thomas, she will be 16 on May 17th. So she's got the birthday coming up, still underage. Nanita was born in 2003, so she's 14.

Joshua, he's 12, and Rebecca is six. So that's the range of these children. And this abuse allegedly happened three years ago. So they were even younger then. Another thing, according to this sister-in-law, who we believe to be Danielle Thomas, she says Elizabeth has been seen curled up in the middle of the floor crying shaking having panic attacks since she came home and that that just makes me so sad thinking of this child curled up in a ball crying and shaking after she got home from what she's been through. I mean, this child has been basically statutorily raped repeatedly over and over and over. I'm just sick about it. You know, school administrators told

Elizabeth she needed to go to a school counselor for anxiety issues, and they ordered Tad Cummins to stay away from her. Well, obviously, he disobeyed the order. We know that. He was brought into court in the last 24 hours wearing prison orange in cuffs. He was told in court he would be returned to Tennessee to stand trial. He faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years on the federal charges alone. You know, I just, her life is forever changed. And to think your own mother is responsible for some of this, I mean, oh, awful. The good news is she is getting help now. She's home after that nightmare for five weeks. And according to this, she is getting intensive therapy with numerous mental health professionals. We also know the FBI has some

specialists who are talking to her, but that is preparing for the criminal case and the federal charges against Tag Cummins. You know, this is amazing that Tag Cummins' lawyers say she went willingly and was not forced, threatened, or coerced. He was having sex with her. She's 15. Just, ugh. And you know, another thing that where the school dropped the ball, apparently, the teacher wasn't fired until a month after suspension, a day after he, the girls kidnapped. You have to wait that long for Pete's sake? One kiss on the mouth, he should have been gone out of there. Right? Absolutely. I've got an ethical question to ask you. This isn't a legal question.

It's an ethical question. Hit me. As a journalist, it is close to me. It, in this request for a restraining order, says it's highly likely many other news networks will attempt to contact the defendant, the mom, or that she'll try to contact them for interviews. I'm asking myself now. You've been in this business a long time. Just spit it out, Alan, please. Is it ethical

to put an interview from Kimberly Thomas on the air if you know that it's going to harm this child? I do not think it's ethical. But the legal issue is that he can put, she is a party to court proceedings. Criminal and civil. Criminal and civil. The abuse claims and the divorce claims and her parental rights, which is civil. The judge can put a gag order on her. And if she violates a gag order by giving interview, her framework can land right in jail. Can't do that to a journalist. I'm surprised that her criminal defense lawyer, who I've tried to reach and to get on this show, I'm surprised she would allow her to even record an interview about that. That's kind of dangerous. If you've got a woman who's accused of abusing a child or several children,

very serious charges, why are you going to let them go on national television to talk about it? Corey Ricci, special guest joining us right now, who has represented Anthony Thomas, Elizabeth Thomas' father, during this ordeal. As her father moves forward with a divorce against the mother, they claim the mom has horribly abused these children, more than just Elizabeth, but specifically we're talking about Elizabeth today. Corey, thank you for being with us. Corey, what took the dad so long to file for divorce for Pete's sake? Well, Mr. Thomas had made up his mind about filing the divorce a long time ago. Frankly, it was not long after it became known what Ms. Thomas was doing to these children. And we, of course, had that litigation concerning

custody of these children in late 2015, early 2016. And he was prohibited from doing it financially and otherwise. It just was a fight he was not able to sustain at that point in time. And then, of course, all the dominoes fell with the Tad Cummins investigation, first as it began at the school, and then as it, of course, progressed to Mr. Cummins kidnapping Elizabeth and running off with her. Honestly, Mr. Thomas was going to file for divorce. It would have probably been this week anyway, maybe even last week if we could have arranged everything. Even if Elizabeth hadn't turned up, he was just ready to do it. Then, of course, with everything that happened and now all of a sudden everything's moving very quickly, Elizabeth's back and she's

getting therapy and all the attention is directed at getting her to a better place. One of the biggest concerns he had when Elizabeth returned was that the mother, Ms. Thomas, would take to the media again and start talking. And Elizabeth is terrified. All of the children are terrified of this woman. And we do not want there to be any problem whatsoever with Elizabeth recovering. And if she has any exposure to the media, you know, she was in a remote area where I think she had no access to the media and the internet. And now she's at the very epicenter of it. And she is the focus of it. It's going to be probably impossible to completely shield her from it. And so if she has any exposure to her it. It's going to be probably impossible to completely shield her from it. And so if she has any exposure to her mother, it's going to cause serious problems.

And so I, of course, made Mr. Thomas aware of his options in terms of the relief he could seek either temporarily or permanently with filing for a divorce and protecting the children. It became all the more urgent to do it when Elizabeth returned. You know, I was shocked, Corey, that he says the mom would stalk the children and stare at them angrily and make them feel terrible. What bothers me more is throwing, allegedly throwing the girl down the steps and locking her in the basement and hitting her in the head. What were the circumstances surrounding those events that are alleged? Well, I don't know each one of the specifics. Ms. Thomas has some very serious problems and has had very serious problems for a long time and has not been able to handle those problems, at least in productive ways. you know, the point with these children that they were absolutely horrified. And in fact, as I recall, it was the children themselves who had reached out to professionals and social workers,

wrote to them and said, get us out of here. We are terrified. And that's the most that I know about it. It was a history of abuse that progressively got worse with the children. And it went on unchecked. It was in the home. And the girls were very scared to even come forward with the information to their father for fear of what their mother might do to them. And then enough was enough at one point. And that's really what got us where we are. How long had the mom homeschooled them? I'm not exactly sure. It was a substantial period of time. I know that not all of the children, there are 10, now six of whom are adults.

The next oldest to Elizabeth just turned 18 about a month ago, and some of them had been homeschooled for longer than others. I don't recall the specifics there, honestly. I do recall that it was a relatively new endeavor getting Elizabeth and maybe some of the other children into the school where they went, where they still go now, but I don't know the exact time period. And tell me the train of thought, the thinking behind the assertion that the mother's alleged abuse on Elizabeth made her ripe for Tad Cummins to snatch her. What's that thinking? Mr. Cummins, I know, was aware of the problems that Elizabeth had at home with her mother. And, you know, that, of course, I'm no psychologist. I've dealt with many psychologists

in my practice and many other mental health professionals. And I don't even think, frankly, it takes a psychologist to tell you that if you have a child who's being severely mistreated and is being abused, especially a young lady, I think, that's going to cause a lot of problems mentally. That's going to perhaps make a child a lot more vulnerable than they would be. And that's number one. And then number two is if you have someone like Mr. Cummins who understands that and attempts to exploit it and take advantage of it for his own personal gain. He understood that and he used it to his advantage, I think, to the extent that he could, to get her to believe what he wanted her to believe and to do what he wanted her to do.

And I think that played a very big role in this case and in the circumstances under which Elizabeth was ultimately taken by Mr. Cummins out west. When does the mom's criminal case go forward? There is a criminal case, right? If it's true, it's child abuse. forward? There is a criminal case, right? If it's true, it's child abuse. Yes, there is a criminal case. Ms. Thomas was initially set for trial earlier this year, but I understand that it got postponed because there were some discovery issues between her attorney and the prosecutor. I do not know where that stands. I do know that May 12th, I believe, is the, that day it's set for a, what we call a review or maybe a settlement date, where the

goal there is to, if there's not going to be any agreement worked out to settle her case, and I don't think there is. I think that that would have already happened before it was set for trial the last time, and if there is no agreement, then her case gets reset for trial. She'll be tried on the five counts that I believe are against her of child abuse. Four of them are misdemeanors. One of them is a felony, but we should know more about that on May the 12th. How can you stop her, short of a gag order, from going on TV and blabbing? Well, that's just it. I don't know that we can. I know that there are First Amendment implications, as in any situation where someone's asking for a gag order. But the compelling interest here is that any exposure that this lady has to the media is going to

most assuredly have a profound impact on Elizabeth, who was already in a very vulnerable mental state, and now she's back and there's lots of attention on her and her recovery. She's all the more sensitive to those types of things. And so a gag order, as it's informally called, Mr. Thomas believed was appropriate to keep Ms. Thomas from having any interference whatsoever with a very sensitive and very delicate mental health recovery process. you mentioned earlier, Nancy, had towed the line, as I said in my pleadings, that she had towed the line with this no contact order that was already in place. Not supposed to go around the children, not supposed to talk to them. And here she is driving by and giving them menacing stares. And it scared them. You know, they saw her and not just one of the children, but multiple children saw it on different occasions. And they said, we're scared, dad. You know, we're scared.

We wanted there to be no more question anymore that she's not allowed to do that, that she's not allowed to go by any place where the children might happen to be. Now, the order that's in place at this moment is a temporary order. It's designed to expire by its terms or to be reviewed, I should say, on the hearing date, which I believe is May the 22nd. And on that day, we're going to ask the court to enter the order on a more permanent basis. And then that order, of course, includes the gag order as well. Corey, thank you for being with us. Thank you, Nancy.

Glad to do it. Guys, this is what we know right now from these divorce documents that we've gotten our mitts on. This is all unfolding in a court of law, and we're on the case. And are these documents being posted on CrimeOnline.com? Yes. Thank you for reminding me. They're on CrimeOnline.com if you want to read them for yourself. Nancy Grace Crime Stories, along with Alan Duke, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.