Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - FLA MASS shooter’s wife on trial. What did she know??

Episode Date: March 26, 2018

Testimony in the trial of the wife of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen is nearing conclusion. Mateen killed 49 people in his assault on the Orlando, Florida, club in June 2016. Noor Salman, 31, is accused of obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting her husband and providing material support to a foreign terrorism organization. Nancy Grace looks at the trial with lawyer Jason Oshins and psycho analyst Dr. Bethany Marshall. Also, the trial of Brooke Skylar Richardson, the teen accused of killing her newborn and burning her body in her family's backyard, is set to begin April 16. Nancy updates the case with investigator Sheryl McCollum, psychologist Caryn Stark, Juvenile Judge Ashley Willcott, and reporter John Lemley Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. on A&E, Grace versus Abrams, my sparring buddy, Dan Abrams, and I take on the biggest cases and investigations that our country has ever seen. Thursday night, March 29, 11 p.m. Please join us. Again, I am so blessed, and you've been with me for all these years. Please join me on A&E, March 29, 11 p.m. Thanks, friend. Thanks, friend. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. We're at the nightclub, post nightclub. Okay, what's going on there?

Get behind. There's a big-ass suit out. It was horrifying, like, not knowing if you were going to make it out. We know she was innocent. We know all this was a bunch of lies. We know that, you know, Anur is an innocent child. I'm with the Orlando police. Can you tell me what you know about what's going on tonight?

What's going on is that I feel the pain of the people getting killed in Syria and all over the Muslim community. Okay. So, so have you done something about that? Yes, I have. Tell me what you did, please. No, you already know what I did.

Quote, I knew when he left the house, he was going to attack the Pulse nightclub. That is what the Orlando shooter's wife said. But what else did she know? 49 dead. 68 more wounded. 49 dead. Imagine going out for the night on the town. You're having a good time. You're dancing.

Your friends are there. Maybe somebody knew you're dating or you somehow managed to drag you and your husband out for the night. And you're trapped in a nightclub. Everybody around you has been drinking and all of a sudden a hail of bullets ring out and there's nowhere to go. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. The stench of blood and dead bodies took over the club because of one guy. And now on trial, his wife, who prosecutors say knew the plan. It didn't even help hatch the plan. And I'll tell you why.

I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. You know, when I think back on places I went and things I did in law school and when I got out of law school and when I was prosecuting, digging up witnesses in nightclubs and strip bars and crack houses and whore houses, just trying to go to hell to get my witnesses to put the devil in jail. There are a lot of clubs we've all been to around for whatever reason. 49 dead. And a hail of bullets. What did his wife know? With me, high-profile lawyer, multi-jurisdictional, New Jersey, New York, you name it, everywhere. Jason Ocean's with me. Dr. Bethany Marshall with me.

L.A. psychoanalyst also with me on the story from the beginning. Alan Duke. Alan, she says, quote, I knew when you left the house he was going to Orlando to attack Pulse nightclub. You know what? Hold on. Hold on. Let's take a listen in real time to the 911 call. Okay, did you see who was shooting?

Okay, we have a lot of cops there. Can you tell me who was shooting? Did you see? Okay, did you see anybody hurt? She is right here. I'm telling you, she's bleeding and she's shot. Okay okay let me get you over to the florida or the fire department they're gonna have you give a first day stay on the line so we can give her first day don't hang up 911 what is the location of your emergency okay what's going on at pulse nightclub i don't Oh, nice. What's going on at Pulse nightclub? I don't know. We're hearing

gunshots. Okay. Hold on the line for Orlando Police Department. Try to get yourself somewhere safe. Don't hang up the phone. Do you think the shooter is what? Okay. All right. Just everyone be quiet. Don't move. Okay. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. You hear reloading Yes. We are in the bathroom. We've been waiting like they told us. Someone is coming in here. We have four people that are and we have two people that are shot that are that are getting worse. We have four people that are deceased and we have two people that are shot that are getting worse.

We have another guy that's on the line as well. We're getting help to you. Where are they? I don't understand. Everyone's getting worse. Where are they? They're trying to make their way to you. They have not just the room where you guys are. We are trying to make it through the building, but they're trying to get to everyone as quickly as they can. I want my family to know what I lost them. You want your family to know what? That I lost them all. That is the devastation that was rained down

on innocent people at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. You know, Jason, you have two children just like me, a boy and a girl. It was just a couple of days ago I was in Orlando taking them to Universal and Harry Potter Land and the John F. Kennedy Space Center. And, yes, I went to Gatorland. Don't judge me but i everywhere i drove we're driving around in the minivan oh yes we drove down we didn't fly and i was looking around the orlando area did you know jason oceans defense lawyer that the shooter's wife, Noor,

went with him, according to GPS locator, cell phones, and statements, went with the Pulse shooter, the Orlando shooter, to case out potential murder locations, including Disney Springs, including a shopping center, city place, shopping mall, in the middle of the night. Don't tell me it was just a shopping trip, Jason Oceans, because I know that's what you are fixing your mouth to say. It was in the middle of the night and they took their

then three-year-old top boy with them if my husband dragged me out of bed at 3 a.m to go to drive around miles and miles of driving oh yeah there better be an answer jason you how can you tell me as a defense lawyer she did know? And that's the tip of the iceberg, Jason. Well, I think it becomes an evidentiary, circumstantial case, everything all pinpointed in and the drive. When you have a young child and a young baby, as I'm told they do, it's not uncommon to drive around and try to lull your child to sleep. I don't know what they were up to, but it's more the prosecution side to prove the specificity. Okay, just to stop right there, Jason,

whatever I've said about you in the past, all those horrible things, I would say right to your face on court TV and on HLM. Okay, I take them all back because that's a stroke of genius because you know I had asthma as a child, and it runs in our family. And I had a cousin. They had to take her out and drive her around in the salt air. They moved near the ocean, and they would drive her around all during the night with the window down,

breathing in the salt air to help her breathe better Jason you know what that's a stroke of genius it's a lie of course but it is a stroke of genius please go ahead I'm I'm mesmerized like watching a snake and a snake charmer go ahead give me some more of that defense that's uh that's that's what your objective is Nancy I mean when you have certainly the the public eye and a mass shooting and, you know, a case against the life, it almost rises to, like, how could she not know? But there are many times where your partner doesn't know, a dual life, married to one and lives in another city with another family, and you're deceived because you want to be. So that's where it has to arrive. All this various circumstantial evidence has to pinpoint. But your job as defense counsel is to parse through each piece and discredit it enough to create reasonable doubt that maybe perhaps she was duped just like anyone

in their family was seemingly that didn't know about it. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, L.A. psychoanalyst, Dr. Bethany, I have to agree with Jason in that, not that I believe anything he's saying, in that you take each piece of the state's case. It's not just that the, what do you say,ps tracking on a car shows they were out their cell phones show she was with him driving around to all these spots p.s bethany the um city shopping let me get the correct name of that city City Place Shopping Mall. And then the Disney Springs are two of the locations they cased. The night of the Orlando shooting, leaving 49 dead, 68 wounded. He first went to Disney Springs.

He went there, I believe to a club. He went in. He saw heavy police presence. He just bought a t-shirt and left. One of the places he cased with his wife, Noor, and their three-year-old top boy with him, which further corroborates the point of the drive around, the walkabout they did that night. But I want to follow up on something Jason says. There have been so many women that I know very well. And I've done it too. You want to believe what you want to believe in a relationship.

Luckily, not with my husband. But you ignore signs that there's something wrong. You ignore signs that somebody has an issue or a problem that may be intolerable to you because you don't want to know about it. You want things to work. You want that picture-perfect life, that family, that home, that whatever. That's what you want in your head. And you wrap reality around your dream. I mean, Bethany, she knew he had been watching jihadist videos for two years,

Bethany. That's right. And you know, Nancy, not only that, but according to her own confession, he would repeatedly say to her, what do you think would upset people more? If I shot up a group of people at Disneyland or at a nightclub? So he was obsessing out loud to her. Furthermore, in June of that year, he ran up a credit card bill of about $26,000, some of it on ammo, guns. He only made $30,000 a year. But to speak to your point, I love when you said wrap reality around her dreams because, or build her own narrative about what was really happening she may not have seen the credit card bill she may have thought he was just having a bad day bethany she was with him that was part of their insurance policy and that's another issue i'm going to let jason i'm going to give jason oceans high profile defense attorney and the tri-state

area jason i'll let you percolate on this so you can come up with an answer but dr bethany I'm going to give Jason Ocean's high-profile defense attorney and the tri-state area. Jason, I'll let you percolate on this so you can come up with an answer. But Dr. Bethany Marshall outlined very carefully some of their spending. You're right. He made about $30,000 a year. But 11 days before the shooting, went on about a $30,000 spending spree on items she could sell after his death. Over $9,000 on jewelry, $1,200 on electronics, over $2,000 on guns and ammo. He took her to the bank with him and made her a signatory on there on his accounts so she could have access to him

to those accounts after his death or capture she that night texted to him what she would tell his mother if the mother called looking for him she She said, I'll just tell your mom if she calls that you're out with Nemo. There's just so much evidence. But I want to get back to the jihadist videos. I mean, Dr. Bethany Marshall, you're the shrink. If I came home and found David watching jihadist videos. His rear end would be in the front yard, and the locks changed on this house before you can say jihadist video. He would be gone and not have jihadist videos playing around the twins.

Around her child. I mean, day one, he had been walking for two years. He's been watching jihadist videos, Bethany. But you know, Nancy, I remember reading a prison study about women who fell in love with inmates and they would regularly visit their boyfriends or lovers in jail. And none of the women knew what the men's rap sheets were. They refused to put their thoughts together about the men's criminal activities. So to speak to your earlier point, she could have been one of these women who had all this evidence right in front of her,

but she rationalized it away or she built a narrative. She might have just thought, well, hey, he's angry. Maybe he is fascinated with a different culture and wouldn't allow herself to think about it. On the other hand, when you say that she went to the bank with him and that a part of those purchases were jewelry, I had no idea about that. And that part of that was so that she would have something to sell after the commission of the crime. That's pretty compelling behavioral evidence that she knew what was going on. Well, as a matter of fact, that is exactly what her defense is claiming. Listen to this. You know, Nora is a very young woman at heart. She's very kind and she thinks well of everybody. She's afraid and she's

been depressed. She's by herself 24 hours a day. But during jury selection, she said that she was really looking forward to the jury hearing the evidence because she knows that a lot of things that have been reported and leaked to the media have been untrue. And she said, I really can't wait for them to hear for the truth to come out out for the trial to start. I really want for the jury to hear, to hear the evidence. So, you know, we're in a phase now where, um, you know, we're really respectful of the families and we know the pulse nightclub massacre was a horrible crime. And the next week is going to be really difficult for everybody and we want to respect the families and the victims and the friends of the pulse victims but we want to

remember that a woman is on trial for her life here and that she deserves everybody's full attention and that you know we want to we're going to wait for all of the evidence to be presented. 911, what is the location of your emergency? Pulse nightclub. Okay. Pulse nightclub, please. What's going on at Pulse nightclub? I don't know, we're hearing gunshots like crazy. Okay, hold on the line for Orlando Police Department.

Try to get yourself somewhere safe. Don't hang up the phone. There are strong indications of radicalization by this killer and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations. Mr. Mateen, I wonder just as a dad, do you think you'll miss your son? Well, if he didn't do this act, horrible act, probably I would. But right now, I don't forgive him. This is very, I don't know why, what he did, why he did.

But it's unforgiving to hurt their own family. We live in the United States as a family, and we belong to each other, as a neighbor, as a friend, as an associate worker, and that's how I was teaching him. To Jason Ocean's high-profile defense lawyer joining me out of the tri-state area where he practices for the most part, Jason, they are arguing, the defense is arguing that she was abused and she was afraid to question him, that she was simple and easily misguided and manipulated.

Whoa! She's living with him. She sees the jihadist video. She sees him buying tons of ammo and guns. She says, oh, that's because he's a security guard. He never shoots it. He hasn't shot anybody at work. Why does he have to keep replenishing ammo?

And just P.S., before you step on a landmine, Jason, she has a degree in medical administration. She's not an idiot, Jason. We're not referring to anyone's intelligence. We're talking about, you know, the religious aspect of their relationship. Wait, who's not? You know, the man in charge. Who's not? She wasn't on any of the accounts until the very end.

Okay, never mind. I'll give you that one. You could say that she went with him. I could say that he took her and told her what to do. You know, what she sees and what she processes relative to her relationship. Clearly, he was the dominant party. And what she what she took out of that was, you know, hopefully she had a partner for life or, you know, was subservient

and did not process, notwithstanding her intelligence or her job, you know, the totality of what was going on or just didn't want to understand it that way. It was too much to grieve about or think about that this was going to happen. Well, this is what I know. That night, Alan Duke, she texts him and says, hey, if your mom calls, I'm telling her you're out with your friend Nemo.

And then just before the shooting, he writes her, I love you. I love you, babe. Yeah. It's just so clear to me that she did know. On the other hand, I don't want her to be the scapegoat because her husband murdered 49 people. But all of that is irrelevant. What is relevant are the facts, Alan.

What more do we know? Well, there is a controversy in the trial in that evidence that the government had suggested they had didn't quite pan out in a pre-trial hearing, and that has to do with a 20-minute circling of the Pulse nightclub a few days before the attack. The FBI had said that during a polygraph test that the wife told them that they circled the nightclub for 20 minutes and talked about it and discussed it. But then that the cell phone data, the digital GPS data that they've got now to use in court shows that could not have happened. So the judge was pretty upset about this week, and the family went out on the courthouse steps and said she needs to be freed.

Let's take a listen. The FBI had evidence that, I mean, hard evidence, right, that they had not gone to Pulse nightclub and had never searched it on the internet. When they presented the information from their experts in August, they only said that this summary witness was going to testify on a PowerPoint presentation of the GPS locations and towers. They never knew for sure. They knew what Noor said, right, which was that that was something that was not true, that that was something written by the FBI, that she didn't say that. But they didn't know what the government's evidence was.

So it came out today that the government has known since April of last year that the GPS on the phones did not show that they ever went to Pulse nightclub, that Noor never went to Pulse nightclub, and that the first time Omar ever went to Pulse nightclub was that Noor never went to Pulse nightclub, and that the first time Omar ever went to Pulse nightclub was 1 a.m. on June 12th. Let me understand something, Jason Oceans. So just because the cell phone data doesn't match what she says, why should I believe her?

I don't believe her. Why is it the state's problem that she's lying? Well, now we're running into, you know, poor police tactics at the time of interrogation and, you know, getting a confessional statement that wasn't accurate. I don't know when that time period was in the interrogation or, you know, I don't have a reference point. But, you know, you and I both know that that could be a rough time evidentiary in terms of what comes in and what gets excluded. But but this is already in now. Now you're you're just, you know, having your own defense witness come in and matching out those GPS pings and saying well they weren't even there so she wasn't

even there at the time that in theory she would have said this why would she say something that actually doesn't point out for all I know it could have been another night I don't know when it happened I don't know if what she said happened really did happen.

But I do know that's her problem. That's not the state's problem. That's her problem. Maybe the battery ran down on her phone and it was off. Maybe she left it at home. That happens. Well, it worked later that night when she came up with a cover story to cover her

murderous husband. I also know statements that she gave, according to the U.S. attorneys. Quote, I knew on Saturday when he left the house about 5 p.m. that this was the time that he was going to do something bad. I knew this because of the way he left and took the gun and backpack with ammunition. That's according to the statement that she signed. Quote, I knew later when I could not get a hold of him that my fears had come true and he did what he said he was going to do.

I was in denial and I could not believe the father of my child was going to hurt other people. So if that is true, she knew. And the two had been, according to the state, casing Disney Springs and City Place in Palm Beach. His statement, how upset are people going to be when it gets attacked? I mean, the thought, Dr. Bethany, of attacking Disneyland? You know, what I hear in this interrogation is that she's beginning to piece together in her own mind, a narrative of what's been happening in her marriage and on the night of the attack. She appears to be, you know, there was 11 hours of questioning. And she changed her story three times. And then the detective who was interrogating her did not tape the interrogation. He wrote down his own notes, and then she initialed in the margin. So it's kind of hard to know what happened. But what I think happened is she kept changing her story because she was perhaps malleable with the detective, beginning to think about what really happened, varying levels of consciousness, always like re-evaluating what it was she was seeing,

going into states of consciousness and then denial. But on some level, I do believe, regardless of what we're talking about today, that she had animosity towards the public just like her husband did. She had to have some varying degrees of hatred herself, or she would not have colluded with him in the way she did because he was obsessively murderous, like mass shooters are. And you cannot stay married to somebody who's obsessively full of hatred if you don't have some hatred yourself. Take a listen. We've been knowing. We know she was innocent.

We know all this was a bunch of lies. We know that, you know, Noor is an innocent child. She's not the kind of violent person that they commit that she is. Her son keep asking about his mother. He want to know why she's in jail. Yeah. What do you guys tell him? Her son keep asking about his mother. He want to know why she's in jail. Yeah. What do you guys tell him?

She will be free. See, from day one, I always say she's innocent because I know her very well. I believe in justice system. They're going to find her. I always believe that they're going to find her that's innocent. But for a year and a half, she's been suffering. So we know the justice system is going to take care of it, but the way it's being handled, that's wrong. Well, that's all well and good.

Take a listen to what a Pulse nightclub victim tells me at HLM. It was horrifying, like, not knowing if you were going to make it out or if anybody was going to make it out because at that point, it was like, when I was crawling and I noticed the bathroom, it was like, should I go into the bathroom? And I thought about, no, I can't go because there was no exit because I remember going in and seeing that

there was no way out of the bathroom and I wasn't going to be trapped. So I had to continue out towards the back gate. It was like a scary movie. You don't run upstairs when you know there's somebody in the house because you're not going to jump from a second story window. And so I know I had to continue going out the back and I knew the patio was back there. So I was just crawling and crawling on the floor by my stomach and my arms until I had reached the cement. And when I realized I was outside, I had gotten up and I was crouching down, zigzagging so that I can try to avoid getting shot. Jason, you were in the nightclub when the massacre occurred.

What was the first evidence you heard? What was the first thing you saw or heard that let you know something horrible was happening? When we were in the in the main room we heard a gunshot. We really didn't know what it was so we kind of paused and then more gunshots went off and it was one after another one after another. We got really scared and we just started running for our lives. It was just some people were hitting the ground, some people were running. That's when we knew, you know, that something was terribly wrong.

What did you see and what exactly did you hear? I was with my friends and we were having a conversation. About 20 seconds into our conversation, we just hear a loud bang. I mean, it was so loud. I've never heard anything like that in my life. And then it was just one after another, one after another. And everybody started hitting the ground. People were running.

I started running. I fell. My best friend got shot. It was just something that was just it was insane. It was crazy. When you say your best friend got shot, were you there when your friend was shot? Yeah, I was I was standing right next to him. Once the gunshot started firing, we all we all started turning around to one of the exit doors to start running. We both had fell down.

I fell down because I tripped over somebody. And once I was able to get out and jump a fence in the patio, I looked back and my friend wasn't there. So I knew he was shot because he FaceTimed me from the ground. Joining me is Jason Gonzalez, who survived the shooting. What did you see when you were trying to get out of there? When you looked around, what could you see? I just saw fear in everybody. Everybody was just either, people just started hitting the ground, Nancy, and then some people just started running. Some people started hiding. I started running and I fell and then people were running over me.

I wasn't able to get up right away. And then when I was able to, I just ran into a to a doorway that led out to the patio. And by the grace of God, I was I was able to jump over that fence. When you hear now that the federal government the US Attorney is taking or is planning to take Mateen's wife to a federal grand jury and people are saying but she's cooperating she was she was afraid of. What do you say to that? You know what? I just don't buy that. If she brought him up here and she was with him, she had time. She could have picked up a phone. She could have called somebody. She could have

told somebody that this guy was doing something horribly wrong. Innocent people lost their lives, and it's just horrible. It's just horrible. So at this juncture, Jason Ocean, she's looking at life behind bars if she is convicted. I mean, frankly, if she was part of this, she should be looking at the death penalty. Nance, you know, the totality of what happened is so enormous and we're so now sensitized, not desensitized to terrorism and domestic terrorism and foreign terrorism. So, you know, there's no general sympathy if you were part of collusion in some way. You know, the question goes into the psychology profile, as Dr. Marshall references, and, you know, where she was at that state. Was she just in denial, cognitively knowing it, or did she aid him in some way? You know, not that she was duped, but did she believe it would all happen? And does the evidence point to that? Right now, our eyes on

a Florida courtroom as this scenario unfolds in a federal district courtroom, 49 dead, 68 wounded. We want justice. Honor student, a varsity cheerleader, the blonde hair down the back, the big perfect smile, the scarlet red mermaid dress covered in sequins at proms. I mean the works. I'm talking about 19-year-old Skylar Richardson. Well, here's the fly in the ointment. There's a dead baby buried in the backyard and the big headline today is 19 year old schuyler richardson says she had a stillborn baby so why is she on trial for murder because the baby according to sources was not stillborn because according to reports the baby's body was charred and buried by the barbecue pit in the backyard. Am I missing something, John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter?

No, this is unfortunately the direction the story has gone in. Brooke Schuyler Richardson really seemed to live a charmed life that most teenage girls would envy, as Scarlett O'Hara would say, you know, P. Green with envy that they were not Schuyler Richardson. The 18-year-old was a cheerleader who worked during the summer at a camp for kids with disabilities. She graduated with honors in Carlisle, Ohio. She planned to attend the University of Cincinnati to study nursing. Other students noticed that Richardson, she was part of the high school classes, senior classes, most popular crowd, was always well put together. Everything, no hair out of place, makeup just so-so, hair perfect. Beneath that exterior, however, things were apparently anything but. In May of that year, at the prom, a number of people, some for the first time, noticed that she was obviously pregnant. And then just a week or so later,

they see Skylar. She's not pregnant anymore, but there's no baby. Well, this is what else I know. And correct me if I'm wrong, before I go to Ashley Wilcott and Karen Stark, it's my understanding a grand jury has indicted Skylar Richardson for aggravated murder, involuntary manslaughter, gross abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and child endangering. The prosecutor, David Fornshell, says the cheerleader burned and buried her daughter in the family's backyard just hours after giving birth. Of course, she is pled not guilty. Oh, footnote, she's not in jail. I guarantee if I kill somebody and burned their body and buried in the backyard, I'd be under the jail, but not this girl. Do I have any of those facts wrong, John Limley? No, all of that is correct. And all of this came to light after a doctor that Richardson had seen that he called in and said that she may have delivered a stillborn baby. And that's when police searched the family's property where they say they found the charred remains of a newborn girl in Richardson's

backyard, then arrested the teen. They're not quite sure. They think the baby may have died before the, you know, been stillborn, or the baby may have been killed before the remains were attemptedly destroyed. My main question is, do we have evidence the child was alive at birth? I mean, for them to charge her with aggravated murder, the child had to be alive in order to kill it. They really believe because it was a full term baby and that she was, you know, full had gone full term. They really see no reason to believe that the baby was stillborn. They believe that it was born alive and healthy. Well, let's go to Karen Stark, New York psychologist joining us and Ashley Wilcott, juvenile judge and founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com.

Also with me, Crime Stories investigative reporter John Limley, Alan Duke out of L.A., and Jackie Howard here in the studio with me. Ashley Wilcott, here's the deal. Abortion is legal. Now, a lot of people don't agree with abortion. They think it's a crime. Fine. You can think that. That's something for you to decide when you go to heaven and meet your maker. All right. Murder is not legal. I have so much to say about this case, Nancy. Oh, my. Murder is not legal. But listen, there is so much more that we don't know yet. Number one, I agree with you.

The fact she's been charged with aggravated murder, I suspect there's some evidence this child was born alive. But there's a gag order, so we don't know that yet. Number two, the mother is described as also having this need to be perfect and look just so-so. I call BS that this family did not know or the mother did not know something was up with her daughter. She had to have gained at least a little weight, right? And I'm sure she was acting different, hormonal. I do not believe that her mother didn't have a clue at some point in time something was going on. I would submit this teenager ignored her pregnancy. She's into being just so-so and

being a teenager without a fully developed, rational, good brain. And she took it way too far. So I don't think that she actually paid attention and she was in denial. And all of a sudden what happens? Uh-oh, eight months, nine months, you've got a full baby. So in her messed up brain, she decided, oh, I'll just kill it and get rid of it. This is a horrible case. And I would want to know all that information in court. To Karen Starr, New York psychologist, I mean, I've said this a million times that I don't have stats to back it up. When I was prosecuting. I observed around me, and so this is anecdotal, not statistical, that when a child was the victim or a baby, infant, the case seemed to be pled down.

Like, you know, you get involuntary seven years and we'd all know the person would get out in three. Here we've got Brooke Schuyler Richardson on house arrest. Like, it's no big deal. It is a big deal. That's why we're here. We're here to defend those that cannot defend themselves, to speak for those that cannot speak for themselves. Like infants, they have just as many rights as we do.

Because they have no voice, they get treated differently. And I think it's wrong. I don't think she should be on house arrest. If that child was not stillborn, it could have been adopted. It could have been given away. It could have been left at a safe haven. Anything other than what it got, Karen. Why is this case being treated differently?

I think it's being treated differently because she's a young person and they do believe, just as Ashley was saying, that her brain was not fully developed. You have to look at the fact that the family was clearly complicit in this. How could she possibly have been pregnant and given birth full term? First of all, she gave birth. Where was everybody? And there was no evidence that she gave birth? The family was complicit. They knew what was going on.

And they decided that they were going to cover up this crime. It is a crime. You cannot kill a baby. And she is being treated very loosely because of that whole image. It's being preserved like as though, well, maybe there was a mistake that happened here. And it's very sad and unjust. We are talking about Brooke Skylar Richardson. She was swimming with her cousins in her grandmom's pool when her dad called and said police wanted to talk to her. She goes in, apparently knowing full well what was going on. But seemingly, the big concern was the whispers spreading through their community about had she been pregnant. Okay. Why are they more concerned, Ashley, about did she get pregnant as opposed to being concerned about the dead baby under the barbecue pit? Listen, I don't have any facts about this particular family and community to support what I'm about to say.

But this is based on 25 years of experience dealing with families. Here's the issue. In some of these bedroom communities, it is all about appearances. And the worst thing in the world, oh my God, as a teenager got pregnant, that's horrible. That can't happen. And they live in a bubble that they do not pay attention to real world issues and they would hide it. They would ignore it. They would not want anyone to know. And I would suspect that's this kind of family or community. This may be the worst thing that's ever happened is a teen pregnancy, which, you know, other teens in that community have been pregnant statistically, I'm sure, but they just live in a bubble that's unrealistic. Well,

legally speaking, if a baby is stillborn, as she will cut, I don't believe that there's any grounds for a murder case. I would, I would agree. You have to have a live person in order to murder them. So I would agree with you. But I would also submit there are a host of other charges. And the other charges to me would be a sufficient enough basis to have this person in jail. I agree completely. This family was complicit. And I do not believe that house arrest is appropriate, even if the child was stillborn and then burned and buried in the backyard. This child needs to be in jail, but there also need to be potential charges against a family member. I do not believe she did this on her own. I still say that when you have a stillborn child, the child is born dead.

So there is no way to murder the child. And therefore, if this child had been born dead, there could not possibly be an aggravated murder charge or even an involuntary murder charge on involuntary Ashley. She'll probably, if she was convicted, she'll probably get sentenced to 10 and serve maybe five, maybe at the most. I agree with that. But listen, I think there've got to be other charges and I don't know that particular state, but what she's done to a corpse, right? That's got to be some type of charge. Hiding a body, lying. I don't know that she lied to the police. Maybe she said, oh, look, here's the body. But from the facts that I've read, that's not the case. Instead, they had to search the property. So there are other charges.

Are they going to be enough to give a lot of years? No. But I would hope that they charge her and anyone else that's complicit with any and every crime that's applicable and i do not agree with prosecuting women who have stillborn babies who for instance had a glass of wine or something that many people consider innocuous behavior now that's a slippery slope. I know that. But I don't want pregnant mothers to be vilified and mistreated when they have a stillborn child. This is a completely different scenario. So, John Limley, where does the case stand now? Well, at the moment, things are sort of in a holding pattern. And in the meantime, it's interesting to note this Cosmopolitan

magazine article that has come out. Five thousand words have been devoted to Richardson's case, mostly from her family's perspective. And and some of it, honestly, is a little bizarre. Here's a little bit of what we learned. While digging her daughter's grave in the backyard, she grabbed a batch of pink sweetheart roses her boyfriend gave her for the prom. And according to the article, she covered her child's body with the flowers before filling in the grave with dirt. Some have called her a baby whisperer, which is more than a little ironic. The article paints Richardson as a teenager who liked to help others, especially children. She was known to post on social media when she was working at the local YMCA, working with children, you know, hugging children, saying perks of the job. And we also learn that she named the baby.

Annabelle was the name that she gave to the child before burying it in the backyard. Wow. What does that signify to you, Karen Starr? You're the shrink. Well, it shows you this massive denial that was going on inside of her, Nancy, because she gave her a name, which means she was real. And yet, ostensibly, allegedly, she murdered her. So she murdered little Annabelle and she put roses on her grave and then acted as though nothing had ever happened. Was able to put it in a whole different compartment and go on with her life. And I think just the stigma of the pregnancy and how much it would ruin that perfect image, That kind of town, the kind of environment that she was living in

contributed to this denial and repression of what had happened. It's really horrific. The story is unfolding. There's been a gag order put on the case. We don't know the details. We don't know whether the medical examiner could what they determined for instance we all know that when you are trying to find out if the baby was dead or alive at birth you during autopsy submerge the lungs in water and if they have air in them which will become obvious through air bubbles or flotation you'll know the baby took a breath it's just that simple there's a gag order in place we don't know the answers to that if the baby was was still born as it is being argued by the defense there should not be a murder charge possibly tampering with a body or abuse of a corpse,

but not a murder. And that's the end of that. But if there was air in the baby's lungs, that's an entirely different matter. And I believe that this infant, if born alive, has rights, the right to live, just like you and I. Again, we're not talking about abortion. Abortion is legal in our country. Murder is not. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.