Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Evil babysitter disguises dead infant bundled in car seat & hands him to mommy

Episode Date: March 1, 2019

When Wisconsin mom Heather Gardner picked up her two-month-old son from the babysitter on January 4, 2019, she thought little Benson was sleeping. The woman who was caring for the infant wrapped him up in winter clothes and strapped him in the car seat before handing him over to the mother. A short time later, however, Gardner realized her son was dead. Prosecutors accused Marissa Tietsort of beating the baby to death before the mother arrived. Gardner did not know when she chose Tietsort as a babysitter that she had been banned from contact with children because of earlier child abuse accusations. Nancy Grace looks at this shocking case with forensics expert Karen Smith, Atlanta lawyer and juvenile judge Ashley Willcott, psychologist Dr. William July, and syndicated radio host David Mack. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Find out how to protect your child. When you're out at the mall or the store or the grocery, in the parking lot, at home. Find out about protection regarding babysitters and daycare, even online. I'd rather have that any day of the week than a plastic toy or, God forbid, a toy gun. Join Justice Nation. Go to crimestopshere.com. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Police are investigating the death of a two-month-old baby in Wausau. Police say they were called to North 3rd Avenue on reports of an unresponsive child.

They say the determined the baby died while in the care of the babysitter. Imagine working all day long, then stopping off at your babysitter's house to pick up your baby, and the little guy's already asleep, dressed in a snowsuit and strapped into his car seat ready to go. His little hat pulled down over his eyes to protect him against the snow outside. Mommy stops by a laundromat on her way home with her other children in tow. And when she takes the baby to unpack him out of the car seat. His legs won't bend. He's frozen hard as a rock.

The baby is dead. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. We want justice. A working mom stops to pick up her baby, gets him all the way to the laundromat with the other children when she realizes he is rock hard. But how is it? How could he have been alive just 10 minutes before sleeping peacefully, and then suddenly the baby is dead. Joining me, Karen Smith, forensics expert out of Florida.

Ashley Wilcott, judge, lawyer. You can find her at ashleywilcott.com. Psychologist, Dr. William July at drwilliamjuly.com. And now, joining me, syndicated talk show host, Dave Mack. Dave, what happened? Well, as you mentioned, Nancy, the mom dropped off her two-month-old baby and an older son with the babysitter. When the mom returns to pick up her two-month-old baby son and her older son, the baby is already in his car seat. He's already got his winter parka on and a hat is pulled down over his eyes, and the babysitter says he's asleep.

So mom puts the baby in the car and with her sister heads to the laundromat. It's only after they get to the laundromat when mom takes the baby out of the car seat and realizes he's perfectly stiff. His legs are bent in the shape of the car seat. She immediately looks at him and finds that he's not breathing. The sister calls 911 and the mom immediately begins CPR, but it's much too late. The baby's already dead by the time rescue workers arrive and they declare him dead at the laundromat. When police arrive, the scene is frantic. The mom has yanked the baby out of the car seat, is trying her best to perform CPR. She's stunned. She's crying. She doesn't understand it. How can the baby obviously have rigor mortis set in? Karen Smith, the mom couldn't believe that the baby had been fine 15 minutes before,

and now his limbs were hard as a rock. Explain what happened. Well, it's called rigor mortis, and it's one of the pathological changes that happens after death. And there's a timeline that can be worked backwards to figure out how long that infant had been deceased. And when you have stiffening of the limbs like that, generally it sets in around two hours after death. Now infants have a smaller surface area to their body, so it's a little, it can be one hour up to three hours, but regardless, this happened a long time prior to the mother picking up the infant in that car seat. The mom said the first thing that she noticed that she thought was odd, but didn't think anything of it, Ashley Wilcott, not only judge, lawyer and anchor at Ashley Wilcott dot com, but also mom, was that the baby's lips seem to be sticking together.

That's the first thing she noticed. I'm horrified, Nancy. And the thing I have to say to you as a mother to a mother, when I pick up my child from anywhere, even at their current ages, which is much, much older, I still kind of do a once over. I still look at them. I make sure they're breathing. I make sure that everything's okay. They seem okay. I cannot imagine as a mother, just putting them in the car and thinking everything's okay and then getting somewhere and realizing the child's lips are stuck together. I just remember having flashbacks because I remember that our washer broke. And at the time, we started using a laundromat. And I guess my parents couldn't get a washer at that time.

So we would go usually on Sundays. We would drive to the laundromat before evening church services put the laundry in go back for MYF Methodist Youth Fellowship and between Youth Fellowship and church my mom would speed over there take the clothes out of the washer stick them in the dryer come back for church then after church would all go pick them up bring them back home and fold them up. And I remember that coin-operated laundry, I think it's actually still there. And I'm just imagining the mom yanking the baby up out of the chair, out of the little car seat, taking off his snowsuit and trying to perform CPR. I mean, Dr. William July,

psychologist joining me, you can find him at drwilliamjuly.com. It's always been an oddity to me that the things I remember out of, for instance, my fiance's murder or all the murder cases I've tried are these obscure details. Just for instance, for instance, I remember the first carjack murder case I ever tried. And what sticks out to me in that case is that the neighbor of the victim saw him get shot and his car taken. And the neighbor ran out and the victim, a teen boy, was dying or dead already. And the neighbor, not knowing what to do, ran back inside and got a pillow from his bed and put it under the victim's head, the victim who was already dead.

Just obscure details like that. In this case, I'm just imagining the mom in a coin-operated laundry. She's got her other child with her. What goes through your mind? How do you ever, ever get that scenario out of your head? Yes, that's true, Nancy. When we are faced with situations that are traumatizing, what the biophysical process that takes place in the brain, anytime there's a memory that's being encoded, let's say a memory that's being stored from our short-term memory into our long-term memory, the brain would treat all memories the same unless there's something unusual happening that the brain wants you to remember.

The brain says to you, Nancy, remember this horrible situation. So it releases a special stress hormone. And that stress hormone is the reason that you are recalling very specific details. And if you were to ask everybody on the panel of some trauma that happened to them, they would do the same thing. There's something to remember because your brain releases a special hormone to encode that and to burn that in and say, hey, if this ever happens again, this is terrible. I want you to remember this is horrible. Otherwise, all memories will be put into your brain the same way.

So the way that that is treated, if a person were, for example, in therapy, is what we call exposure therapy, which is a method of exposing a person under controlled circumstances. Oh, that sounds horrible. Yeah, it does. Exposure therapy. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, it does. Exposure therapy. Yeah, I don't like the sound of that. Something that would happen in a castle or a dungeon,

but it's not. It's actually a very constructive way to help a person to go back through trauma. It has to be done with the person, not just any therapist, but someone trained. Can I ask a question? Why do you want to go back through trauma? No, you don't want to go.

You don't want to. If the trauma, that's a good question, because there was an old belief that people always had to go back through. You don't need to do that unless it is re-traumatizing you. So then it's bothering you. If it's really actually traumatizing you at present. But like, for example, if you've compartmentalized that memory and it's not traumatic to you and not affecting your functioning in a significant way, no, there's no reason to go back through it at all. Leave it like it is. The person has put it into a place. inability to do things that are normal daily functioning or high levels of distress,

then you take the person back through, you retrain the brain by doing relaxation techniques slowly, but I mean very slowly. Sometimes it can take a year or more to get them to where they can, they may not get to where they never respond to it, that wouldn't be human, but you get them to where it's not debilitating. When we got to the laundry man I started unpacking Benson and I'm like why are his lips like they were like stuck together like kind of you know like so I was like oh my god and I was like just no sooner to go and I'm like he's like hard you know the two-month-old likely dead for at least two hours, according to court records. So I was yelling at her to call 911, and I didn't know what to do.

And I laid him down on the table, and 911 was telling me, I have to do CPR over the phone. And I'm like, I can't do this. Just please help. That was the last time I see him before his funeral. Did a babysitter kill a tiny boy and then dress him fully in a snowsuit, pack him into a car seat, pull a cap down over his eyes, and let his mother pick the boy up disguised as if he were alive? To Ashley Wilcott, judge, lawyer, anchor. Ashley, that is a lot of premeditation and it's hard to take in that someone could do all that because I know for a fact after studying the case very carefully that as soon as the mom picked the baby

up, the babysitter took off, went out to McDonald's with her boyfriend and went swimming at an indoor pool on a date. Yeah, it is premeditation. Completely premeditated and no remorse, no compulsion, no anything to be concerned about the fact she knew this child was dead. I mean, I don't see any other way around it, Karen Smith. You're the forensics expert. There's no way around it unless. No, there's actually no way around. I was trying to think of a way to somehow exonerate Marissa Tietzert, the babysitter in this case. But

if you look at the timeline, I mean, the police say when they arrived at the scene, the baby was already rock hard. If you look at even the babysitter's analysis, even the time mom got off from work, the baby, based on what the medical examiner said, had already been dead for at least two hours. That's correct. So there's no way the mom could have done this. Now explain, how would they know the baby at the time the police raced to the scene and the laundromat had already been dead for two hours? How do they know that? Well, we talked about rigor mortis a little earlier. And honestly, that starts from

the extremities and works inward toward the core of the body. So it starts in the fingers, the eyes, the mouth, as we talked about earlier. And honestly, I'm trying to contain my anger as I talk about this. You know, the child's legs were stiff and bent in the same manner as he was sitting in the car seat. So that told the medical examiner that there was a timeline, two hours. That's the onset of rigor mortis. You also have two other parts of the pathology, which is algor mortis, the temperature. The child was cold to the touch. That's another clue.

You also have liver mortis, which is the blood settling in the body, and it leaves distinct patterns behind. I don't see any reports of the liver mortis and what the patterns were. It can tell us, as forensic investigators, if a body had been moved after death, if the patterns don't match how that body was found. So all of those are going to tie together and give the medical examiner all of the information that he or she needs. Yeah. At this point, they determined that that child had been dead at least two hours, possibly even more.

Rigor mortis is Latin. I learned all this, you know, from prosecuting. I'm certainly not a medical doctor. Just a trial lawyer. It's Latin for stiffness is Latin. I learned all this, you know, from prosecuting. I'm certainly not a medical doctor, just a trial lawyer. It's Latin for stiffness, is rigor. Mortis means death in Latin. Post-mortem rigidity, and that is the third stage of death, and is a sign of death, and it is caused by chemical changes within your muscles post-mortem after death. And what that does is it means your limbs, your arms, and your legs begin to stiffen. Now, this occurs as early as an hour or so after death. Usually around four hours after death.

But the degree of rigor will tell you how long the person has been dead. After death, you stop breathing and that depletes your oxygen. Your oxygen makes ATP and that's required to keep your muscles moving. So long story short, once rigor mortis has set in, it's very easy for a medical examiner to tell, to determine how long the baby has been dead. But I just keep thinking about it, Ashley Wilcott, to discover the baby dead and then lay the baby down in the hallway of the home, redress the baby in the snowsuit. The baby's dead. Now, often I would argue to a jury, Ashley, you know, we can spout these words off and they just fly off the tip of our tongue. But let's think about it. Let's follow through what we're saying.

Think about what we're saying. Taking a baby, lying the baby down on the floor, getting the dead baby, wrestling it into a snowsuit, zipping up the snowsuit, picking up the dead baby, putting the dead baby into a car seat, arranging the baby as if it's alive. You know how a car seat works. You've got plenty of kids like me and you put on the shoulder straps. You put the baby, the dead baby, into the shoulder straps. Then you strap, then you click them together. Then take a hat and put that on the baby's head and pull it down over the baby's eyes. Maybe even put a blanket over the dead baby and then let the dead baby sit at the door waiting for mommy to show up.

And then when mommy shows up, you hand her the dead baby and say, he's sleeping. Then go out to eat dinner and go swimming. There. What do you think of that, Ash? Nancy, that's why you're a good prosecutor. You were a good prosecutor because that's exactly what you do in building your case to convince the jury. You show them every step and think about everything you said was willful, was conscious, was deliberate.

All of that amounts to the premeditation. And then the after the fact goes to the fact there's no remorse. Honestly, this person deserves the stiffest punishment possible because she will do it again. Take a listen to what mom Heather Gardner tells WAOW. He was a very happy baby, loved to smile. This is baby Benson. I was just starting to laugh and love, just love to be held. A two-month-old surrounded by family and love. Grandma mostly watched them while I was at work, and then she went to California. Heather Gardner, a working mom of two,

in desperate need of someone to watch her kids, finding Marissa Teetsort through a coworker. She's from the town that I'm originally from. And just weeks after trusting Teetsort with her children, Heather's saying she started seeing red flags. I noticed that maybe he had a scratch or something in his mouth as well. So I had took him to the ER that Saturday and I told the doctors, you know, I don't know if he's being abused at the babysitter. Heather says doctors told her not to worry and she sent baby Benson

back to Teetsort, a decision she'll always regret. You as a parent know your child the most, so if you think that something's wrong, nobody else is going to know any better than you would. And if something doesn't seem right, there's no harm in going to the doctor or calling the police and having it be nothing rather than something serious. Just a few days later, Heather would pick up her baby from Teets Sort for the very last time. So the mom, Heather Gardner, noticed a cut in the baby's mouth and took him to the ER. The doctor said, don't worry about it. It's fine. You're overreacting.

Now, baby Benson is dead. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Baby Benson was just two months old when he passed away. Benson's mom picked him up from the babysitter's apartment on North 6th Street last Thursday and noticed he was unresponsive. After calling authorities, they pronounced him dead. Also, police say they believe this woman, Marissa Tietzor, is to blame for his death. Investigating it as a homicide. While she hasn't been charged in baby Benson's death yet,

she has now been charged with child abuse of another infant. Rewind to August. Parents of an 8-month-old called police when the baby came home from teat sorts with injuries on its face. She claimed the child fell off the couch onto the carpet. But doctors say that doesn't seem to be the case. The injuries are far worse than just a simple fall. And court records show in June of 2017, another family accused her of abuse, saying their child suffered a skull fracture in Teetsworth's

care. Once again, the story of what she said happened not matching up with the injuries. No charges were ever filed in that case. It's been heartbreak and devastation for the parents of the children. They say they just don't want any other parent to go through what they've had to endure. We are talking about Marissa Tietzert, a babysitter who, according to police, returns a dead infant to his mother disguised as living in a car seat, dressed in a snowsuit, hat pulled down over his eyes. And the mom is none the wiser. When police speed to a little coin laundromat there in Wausau, Wisconsin,

the mom's nightmare is coming true. We learn the cop gets there and the mom, Heather Gardner, is working, working, working on the chest of her two-month-old baby boy who is now lying on one of those big tables they have for you to fold your laundry. The little boy was motionless. His mouth was clenched shut. He was cold to the touch. His legs were frozen into the position they had been in a car seat just before the mom realized her son wasn't breathing. But just minutes before, she had picked the baby up from babysitter Marissa, a 28-year-old mother of five, then pregnant with her sixth child. The baby was already snapped in a car seat asleep. What Mom Heather Gardner didn't know is that Marissa Tietzert had already been charged in other child-related incidents and had had her own children taken away. To Dave Max, syndicated talk show host, what do we know about Marissa Tietzert? Nancy, if it can be worse, it is. Teetsert actually told police she knew the

baby was dead. And it was when her boyfriend got home that they went to McDonald's with the dead baby in the car. When they got back and she gave the dead baby, telling the mom the baby was asleep, that's when Teetsert and her boyfriend and their son went to a swimming pool and went swimming. Now we know that about two hours into this day, this babysitting event, Tietzer sent a text to Benson's mom saying, um, Hey, I was charged in an assault on a child I was taking care of, and it's going to be in the public today. Um, please don't tell anybody I'm watching your, your kids because I'm not allowed to be talking. I'm not allowed to see kids right now. Wait, back it up, back it up, back it up, back it up. So Teitzer texts Heather at work and says, hey, don't tell anybody I'm babysitting because I'm actually under court order

not to be around children. Exactly. What? And, of course, Mommy gets right in her car and goes to pick up the baby. So what can you tell me about Marissa Teetsert's criminal history? We know that we have the charge from back in August where she's accused of assaulting an 11-month-old child that was in her care. We also know that she was charged in June of 2017 in a similar incident where a child once again was hurt in her care and her story of how the child was hurt didn't match the actual wounds. So they're looking at

additional charges there, but the charges that are pending on her right now date back to the 11-month-old in August and now the current obvious complaint. What's amazing is she loads up the dead baby. The boyfriend gets home before the mom can get there. She doesn't tell the boyfriend the baby is dead. She loads the dead baby into the boyfriend's car. She has two other children with her. They all go and McDonald's. She's got the dead baby and they eat like nothing's wrong. Then the mom gets the baby and the babysitter goes swimming in an indoor pool on a date i mean i'm just trying to take it all in dr william gillian you got to help me out on this you know the the things that strike me on this story the state of

mind that she had to be in to calm, to go and eat, you know, there's certain human functions that you do like eating. This is something that requires you to be in a state of a certain state of mind, you know, to go out and spend time with her boyfriend. It sounds like, and to eat and then to take the baby and to give this, this is, this is indicative. And the baby and to give. This is indicative. And go swimming. And go swimming.

You know, these activities. I mean, think about it. She has to go into the changing room and take off her clothes and put on her swimsuit all the time. She knows you just handed off a dead baby. Exactly. And this is not something you do when you're in a panic state of mind or in an altered state of mind. So, you know, they're going to have a very difficult time with any kind

of discussion about her not being a right friend of mine. And I want to say this to your listeners. Unfortunately, we don't have a file. I guess, fortunately, in our society, we don't have a file on everybody else and everything they've always done in their lives. But I call it the assumption of normalness. Be careful with the assumption of normalness when you're selecting babysitters or people to come into your home to do repairs or whatever. Check these people out and see if there's anything you can find. And if you have any kind of question in your mind, don't hire those folks because this is the kind of thing that can happen hold on hold on ashley wilcott uh as i recall a coach mom needed a babysitter and the a co-worker gave her this name there you go marissa t-shirt see that's my understanding as well and here's what i was talking about earlier

and it makes me so angry i can barely see straight This woman has been reported for other incidents, for other concerns about she abused my child. And guess what? No charges were pressed. Had they been pressed, this could have been prevented. Well, not only that, had there been other issues with the cops regarding child abuse involving an 11-month-old girl who was in her care that was injured. She was already facing a felony child abuse charge. We also know that she had her own children removed from her care for alleged child abuse. And that, yeah, officials were unaware she had given birth to a fifth child. She had the four removed. Okay, four children removed from her care.

They didn't know she had given birth to a fifth child and that at the time this baby died, she was pregnant with a sixth child. So Ashley Wilcott, you're the juvenile judge. You're intimately familiar with DFACS, Department of Family and Children's Services, CPS, Child Protective Services. How come they don't keep tabs on her? How come they don't know she's got another baby and pregnant with the sixth baby? So they totally should. What should have happened is they should have alerted hospitals in the area to say, if this person comes in to have a baby, then DFAX has to be called immediately. They can do that. And they do that in these kinds of cases so that they're aware when a baby's born,

so the baby's not released to an unsafe situation or a risk that could hurt the child. Why they didn't, I don't know, but that's completely plausible that they should have. How were baby Benson's parents not aware? Because there is no law or statute insisting that child care providers hand over their criminal histories or their private histories. No, you hire a babysitter. It's basically like buying a used car. You buy it as is. And unless you ask the questions or you have reason to be suspicious, you never know. And remember, this mom, Heather Gardner, had asked around. I've given people plenty of names. Hey, here's a babysitter.

Here's somebody I use. She's awesome, blah, blah. And they, trust me, they take the name. That's what happened with Heather. A coworker gave her the name. She's what happened with Heather. A co-worker gave her the name. She needed a babysitter and that was that. Marissa Tietzort is being accused of child abuse by three different families and now one of those families is speaking out. I had used Marissa for two weeks as a babysitter. Megan and her fiance Dylan knew Tietzort for a year before

she became their babysitter. I figured she would never harm my daughter. She would hurt my family. Megan says she panicked when she picked up her then eight month old daughter Riley from T sorts apartment. Bruises covered her face. She told me she was napping and she

rolled over and fell off the couch. And when I went to go get her, I expected her head. You know, every point and it came to be t already said in her face, to bring Riley straight t said the bruising was mor

have been expected from a has no remorse for it. She Megan says she now plans to check any future babysitters on CCAP. She's frustrated that the process to charge Teetsort took so long and that she was caring for other kids even after what happened to Riley. Most recently, a parent found her two-month son unresponsive at Teat Sorts. Police believe the baby died while in the care of Teat Sorts. That's our friend at WAOW, Sarah McGrew. What's amazing to me is even after all this, Teat Sorts says, quote, I'm not a threat to society. I'm a great mom. I'm a great mom.

Talk about denial. She's had all of her children taken out of her care. She's charged with multiple counts of child abuse, now murder. And it goes on and on. As a matter of fact, let's just be clear on this. To Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host, joining us. This is not a case of SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome. When I say she is charged with homicide, explain what we learned about Heather Gardner's little tots injuries. We know that according to the autopsy, there were at least three blunt force trauma injuries to this two-month-old baby's head. And we also know that the force of the blow was so forceful that the baby's tailbone was broken and separated.

Take a listen to another mom, Megan Royce, speaking to our friends at WSAW. After she did hurt her, I couldn't leave my house for about a good two weeks because of the bruising on her face. Megan Royce and Dylan Baum had previously known Teetsort for over a year before allowing her to watch their children. I had used Marissa for two weeks as a babysitter and I never once thought to c-cap her or look her up because she was a friend of a friend and she had a baby as well so I figured it was safe. After she talked to police Megan Royce started receiving threatening messages from other people who blamed her for the attack.

It was hard because I had to tell people that my babysitter had done it. I've been getting messages that people think I could have prevented it when I was just trying to help my daughter's case and make sure she did get put away and she did get charged for what she did. Even after the charges, Teeth Sort still hasn't admitted to anything. And it hurts because she keeps lying about it, and she's not once told me the truth about what happened to Riley. The message that Megan and Dylan have for the parents looking into babysitters, you can't be too careful about the people that watch your children. Look them up. See if anything pops up for child abuse, child neglect, anything like that.

Even if you've known them for over a year like we did, even if you've known them for that long, they're still being left alone with your child neglect, anything like that. Even if you've known them for over a year like we did, even if you've known them for that long, they're still being left alone with your child now, and I never would have thought to ever really do it before until now. You wouldn't think it. Three separate blunt force injuries to his head. The tailbone, the baby's tailbone had been completely broken off, quote, indicating a significant amount of forced force was used. That is in the medical examiner's report, Karen Smith.

I, I'm incensed. You are talking about a minimum of four separate intentional acts, four separate blows to this baby, three to the head minimum, and the amount of force that it takes to break off someone's, a baby's tailbone is enormous. You are not talking about a tap. You're not talking about a fall. This is an intentional slam onto an object or the floor. And you're talking about three separate blunt force trauma injuries to this baby's head. This was premeditated. This was intentional. This was disgusting. And I hope she gets the full on brunt of the criminal justice system. Well, let's analyze. I need a flow chart for this, Ashley Wilcott. You're the juvenile judge. You deal with defects every single day. OK, first of all, there were weeks before baby Benson, the two month old in the current case, we're discussing mom Heather Gardner. Weeks before his death, Teitzer was babysitting-month-old little girl, Riley. Now, Tietzer told that mom,

Megan, Riley fell off a couch and injured her face. Doctors say those injuries could not have happened from a fall, and I'll tell you why. She says she fell off a sofa, but there were multiple bruises. One bruise from falling off a sofa. I mean, how do you fall off and then what, fall off again and again and again and again and again to get all these multiple bruises? That's how they knew that. It's not rocket science. So felony charges were filed against Tietzert. The same charges that Tietzert was talking about when she called baby Benson's mom to say, hey, don't tell anybody I'm taking care of your baby because I caught some charges and I'm not supposed to be around children.

Well, the mom, of course, nutted up and went straight over there to get the baby. A year before that, a year before that, a three-month-old child Teitzer was babysitting was also injured while with Teitzer suffering a skull fracture. And no charges were ever brought. In 2010, her then boyfriend, he wisely took off, filed a TRO against Teetzer for allegedly abusing their two sons. Now, it was reported social workers removed all of Teetzer's four children then. That's when they were removed. So this goes all the way back to 2010. Her boyfriend then has to go file a TRO against her for abusing their two sons, he alleges. At that time, defects takes all four children away from the home.

The state workers not doing their job, don't know she's had a fifth child, or that at the time baby Benson was killed, she was pregnant with her sixth. Then we have the three-month-old with a skull fracture, no charges. Then you have 11-month-old Riley covered in bruises from, quote, falling. Now, on to baby Benson. Ashley, how, how, how was she still taking care of children? Where were all the charges? So that's the problem. That's the system fail in this case. There should have been charges years ago. Now, let me suggest this, and that is our child welfare system of defects is

separate from law enforcement defect, excuse me, system of investigating and charging and then going to criminal court. And so too frequently, those two systems have two different goals, two different purposes. One is to protect children, the other is to prosecute. And too often, people whose children have been taken away and the system worked to protect those children, that doesn't line up with the legal criminal aspect of, but they've hurt a child, they need to be charged. And that's the system fail on this part. She should have been charged years ago.

There's no excuse. There's no reason why not. That should have happened. These other crimes then would have been prevented. Listen. The babysitter charged with first degree intentional homicide. She is a monster. While police continue to investigate.

We are confident that we'll get justice for Benson when that is concluded. Heather, missing out on those cherished milestones... Hear his first words, see his first steps. ...will never get her baby Benson back. I wish I could just hold him. For tips on how to hire and locate a babysitter, go to CrimeOnline.com. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off.

Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.