Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - GINGER-HAIR CLUE TO FINDING MISSING INFANT?

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Angel Nichole Overstreet is reported missing on May 25, 2021. The West Virginia infant was reportedly with her father the last time she was seen, but Shannon Overstreet, 38, reportedly told investigators that he turned the baby over to Children’s Protective Services.Huntington Police say the baby isn't in the agency's custody. Detectives executed search warrants for Overstreet’s vehicle, his mother’s home in Huntington, West Virginia, and his residence in Kentucky with no leads.Investigators are in contact with the infant’s mother, who is not considered a suspect in her child’s disappearance. Angel is described as a white infant with blue eyes and dark red hair. She has a strawberry-shaped birthmark on the back of her neck. She is now over a year old.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Marc Klaas - Founder, KlaasKids Foundation, www.klaaskids.org, Twitter: @PollyDad, [phone]Kathleen Murphy - Family Attorney (North Carolina), www.ncdomesticlaw.com, Twitter: @RalDivorceLaw Caryn Stark - NYC Psychologist, www.carynstark.com, Twitter: @carynpsych, Facebook: "Caryn Stark" Greg Smith - Special Deputy Sheriff, Johnson County Sheriff's Office (Kansas), Executive Director of the Kelsey Smith Foundation, www.kelseysarmy.com Alexis Tereszcuk - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker, Lead Stories dot Com, Twitter: @swimmie2009 Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Can you remember when your children were just three months old? How sweet, how precious, how defenseless they were? Your job, job number one, to keep them alive. How does a three-month-old baby disappear for weeks on end and the parents don't know. How does that happen? I'm just curious because you have to carry the baby everywhere you go. So no one ever thought, wow, I left the baby in the house. I left the baby in the car. That never happened. I'm talking about a beautiful little girl, Angel Nicole Overstreet.

I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Take a listen to our friends at WOWK-TV. Breaking news. Huntington police are looking for this missing baby, Angel Overstreet. The last time anyone saw her was May 8th. Child Protective Service agents believe she may be with her father.

The police department also says that the father turned Angel over to CPS two weeks ago, but CPS wasn't able to confirm a custody exchange. Now Angel is three months old with blue eyes and dark hair with a reddish tint. She also has a strawberry-shaped birthmark on the back of her neck. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now in the search for Angel Overstreet, a defenseless baby. First of all, icon in the crime-fighting world, founder of Class Kids Foundation,

and on Twitter, at PolyDad. Mark Class is joining us. Kathleen Murphy, family lawyer out of North Carolina at ncdomesticlaw.com. Renowned psychologist joining us out of Manhattan, Karen Stark. She's at karenstark.com. That's Karen with a C. Special Deputy Sheriff, Johnson County Sheriffs. You can find them at kelseysarmy.com,

Greg Smith joining us. But first to Alexis Tereschuk, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. First of all, describe for me, what does Angel Nicole Overstreet look like? I mean, you know, you've got a baby. It's hard for people, if it's not their baby, to really distinguish amongst other babies. Like when I had the twins, people would say, well, which one is Lucy and which one is John David? And to me, it was so apparent. So it's kind of hard to get a description on an infant for non-parents. But give it your best. So she, the last time she was seen, she was three months old. She has blue eyes. She has dark colored hair, kind of a little

bit of a reddish tint, but not very much of it. She's like cuffs of hair on top of her head. The one thing that would stick out is she has kind of a strawberry shape. So almost, you know, like a heart shape mark on the back of her neck but she she is a white baby and she is probably I mean I don't even know if she weighs 20 pounds she's well I'm looking at her and you can see the yeah I can see a red red tint to her hair she doesn't have much hair I mean she's a little baby, but I can definitely see the red hair growing out in a later photo. I don't know if you're looking at the one I'm looking at. She's got on a light brown onesie covered in daisies. With that one, you can really

see the red hair is growing out. The earlier pictures that, sadly, I believe law enforcement was using. I don't know that a non-parent could tell her from another baby, but the one with the red hair growing out. I mean, Mark Klass, let me ask you because your whole world, your life is devoted to helping finding missing children. There's not that many redheaded people in the world unless it's from a bottle okay and i'm certainly don't have a leg to stand on for that but a red-headed baby that's not that usual is it i don't think it is i mean... Jackie, look it up. How often does red hair occur? My daughter and I were looking up green eyes versus blue eyes versus hazel eyes versus brown eyes. And then the two of them started looking up hair color.

And I can remember that it was very rare. So, Mark, a baby missing? A baby missing with red hair. And certainly that hair will change over time. But listen, this child. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Red hair, Mark Klaas. I don't think red hair changes over time. It does. Blonde hair changes over time. Well, it gets darker and darker unless you're modeling it out, doesn't it? I mean, people I know that are of age that have red hair have much darker red hair than a little ginger little ginger-headed kid but it's still red well i got i got some data one to two percent what one to two percent of the world

population is a natural redhead so that would i i'm extrapolating mark class one to two percent of missing children are redheaded so So that narrows it down. I mean, it helps a little. It helps a little. But what exactly are we looking for, Nancy? Mark, class, it seems to me, and this is anecdotal. I don't have a stat on this, but I bet you do. The children that we typically deal with that have gone missing are, you know, three or four years old at least or older.

I don't typically hear of an infant gone missing. Well, it happens. It happens in hospitals. Not nearly as much as it used to. People would want to claim a baby for their own. But this is a situation where you have a red-haired baby that was supposedly turned over to CPS. The fact that the baby had red hair should give CPS some ability to track the child. Class, you know what?

You are an icon and a living legend in my mind, a hero. But are you really giving any credence to CPS, Child Protective Services? I mean, Mark Klass, how many cases have you and I investigated where Child Protective Services leaves the baby in a horrible situation and then recovering a murder because of CPS leaving the children in the situation, then they're abused, tortured, starved for another few months before they're killed. I mean, really? Between CPS and a derelict parent? I don't know which one I would trust more. Well, Nancy, I would trust CPS more because they have a massive caseload. And you're absolutely correct. In way more cases than either of us would want to admit CPS is somehow involved because of their misguided efforts or their incompetence. But there are also a lot of cases where they get it right and where they do to protect the children. And that's exactly what they're there for. And they have absolutely no record of this little red-headed girl. Well put, Mark Glass. Guys, let's hear from the Chief of Police of the Huntington Police Department. This is Ray Cornwell addressing

this baby's disappearance. A matter that has been brought up. Some folks have questioned why the Amber Alert system was not utilized in this situation. And the Amber Alert system would not be applicable in this situation. We actually consulted with the office that issues those alerts with the West Virginia State Police. And the Amber Alert system is used to put out information that is fresh, immediate, and ongoing. And by the time the information came to us, the last known contact with the child was over two weeks away. So we did not have fresh information, any vehicle descriptions or anything like that. We did consult with them, but it was determined that this matter did not qualify for an Amber Alert.

You know, back to you, Mark Klaus, this is another one of your specialties. Does the name Cherish Periwinkle ring a bell? Oh my gosh, the little girl in the Walmart. Yes, and the mom, Rain, who has her children at Walmart, and some guy they meet at Family Dollar gives them a ride over there. He strikes up a conversation. They keep talking. It's getting toward closing time, and there happens to be a superstore, a Walmart superstore. You can actually see

in the surveillance of video, you can see that perv, the children are hungry. He goes, oh, I'll just walk him out front and we'll get some cheeseburgers because the McDonald's is part of the Walmart. Again, it's one of those huge super stores. And the mom goes, okay, because it was inside the store, she tells me, so she wasn't worried. And you can see the two of them walk straight by the McDonald's and out the door. At my point, they, police, did not listen to the mother, thought this was some custody problem, and did not issue an Amber Alert. And almost instantly, when many hours later they do issue the Amber Alert, somebody calls in, and they recognize the car, and they've seen the car.

And they go, and the child is dead. So here, once again, no Amber Alert. What do you make of it, Mark Klass? Well, I actually agree with the police chief. The AMBER alert is about children that have just been taken and the ability of the public to assist in bringing that child back. This is an entirely different situation. This is a child that had been gone for weeks already that CPS said they didn't have. So how do you issue an amber alert what kind of information do you let go except for the fact that it's a tiny tiny little baby with a little tuft of red hair on the top of her head i can understand why the police chief did

what he did um i'm not a huge fan of many aspects of the amber alert to begin with but i think that he was justified in his action in this case what do you mean by that that you're not a huge fan of many aspects of the Amber Alert to begin with, but I think that he was justified in his action in this case. What do you mean by that, that you're not a fan of certain aspects of the Amber Alert? Well, it was something that he mentioned. I mean, he mentioned the fact that they didn't have any vehicle identifying information. And the reality is that if a predator is stealing a child, as Richard Allen Davis told my poly, they're not going to leave their vehicle information behind. They're going to work in the shadows. They're going to work in stealth. Therefore, the only therefore in the vast majority of those cases and Polly's case and Adams,

Walsh's case and Elizabeth Smart's case, and none of those cases would an Amber Alert ever have been issued because they did not have vehicle information. The only thing that the Amber Alert is good for in many states are parental types of abductions. Or when you actually see, when you actually have a vehicle description, Runyon. Runyon. Do you remember the Samantha Runyon case? The perp had Samantha in a vehicle. I think Samantha Runyon was a three-year-old little girl playing in her grandmother's front yard with other children. The grandmother was looking out through the kitchen window.

A car came, got Samantha, and took off with her. I believe that was a green Honda. Maybe you got a good memory. Yeah, that is great for an Amber Alert. And I have to agree with you. Typically, I'm furious when Amber Alerts are not issued the way it should have been in Cherish Periwinkle because they actually had the car, the truck, the van, it was a white van on video where Cherish Periwinkle and the killer walked to the van, but they didn't do it in time. But in this case, I agree with you, and I rarely agree when an Amber Alert is not issued, but in this case, they didn't have anything to go on. So I cannot lambast the police office, the chief of

police. They had nothing that they could do with it. Guys, we have an all-star panel to make sense of what is happening right now. Angel Overstreet, just three months old, has not been found. We don't have a resolution to her disappearance. We don't know where the little redheaded girl is. I started calling her that when I first heard about the case after Charlie Brown, who loved the little redheaded girl. This little girl is so beautiful. I mean, you know, Kathleen Murphy, you title yourself family lawyer. And you know how that drives me crazy because there's nothing warm and family-like at all about what you do you are a tiger i started to say pit bull but i don't want

help but here jump in what were you saying so nancy this baby that's redhead i tell all of my children i have two blondes three blondes and a brunette and I always ask them why you couldn't be redhead why couldn't you have curly hair my heart breaks for this baby and and Nancy I don't know how a three-month-old child nobody that's actually not at all what I was going to ask you and your line of business you handle a lot of adoptions you handle private adoptions a little baby that looks like this with the beautiful red hair and the big brown eyes, I bet that baby go for $60,000, $70,000 on the private market. In a New York minute. Which is totally wrong. I'm saying that that's the reality. Babies shouldn't go to the highest bidder. But guess what? In certain circles,

they do. True or false, Mark Klass? Well, I think that sometimes that human trafficking aspect is overblown a little bit. It most definitely occurs. But the idea of this situation ending up in some kind of an auction in New York City or any place doesn't really play well for me. You're going off on a tangent. baby like this with the very rare, the red hair, the precious at that age when they're so lovable, it's like a little baby doll. That child would probably be adopted for about 60 grand. Well, there should be a record then. There should be a record of that somewhere. Is that true, Kathleen Murphy?

Are there public records of secret adoptions? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There's records of this in all the newspapers. And Nancy, a lot of mothers that are pregnant and don't want to keep their child can go into a private adoption scenario and have all of their expenses paid for while they're pregnant and then place this baby in a loving home where the baby's actually wanted. But instead, we don't know what happened to this little girl's mother. We don't know anything about it. We know very, very little. Take a listen to, again, the chief of Huntington PD, Ray Cornwell. May 24th, 2021, we were contacted by Child Protective Services in West Virginia out of concern for three-month-old Angel Nicole Overstreet. CPS here in West Virginia out of concern for three-month-old Angel Nicole Overstreet.

CPS here in West Virginia had been asked to contact her father, Shannon Overstreet of Huntington, by authorities in Kentucky regarding some custody issues. The child's mother was not currently cohabitating with Mr. Overstreet, but the child was last known to be with Mr. Overstreet. The child was last known to be with Mr. Overstreet. The child was last known to be with Mr. Overstreet, according to the mother. The mother. Okay, so how reliable is that information? I don't know if you guys remember a case we were just covering in the past weeks. The case of little Harmony Montgomery.

Take a listen to Hour Cut 1. This is Diane Cho, NBC10. Police say seven-year-old Harmony Montgomery was last seen at a home in Manchester in October of 2019, but authorities say they weren't notified until just this week. We have spoken with family members of Harmony, and despite doing so, our concerns for the whereabouts of her remain the same police now working around the clock trying to find the blonde haired blue-eyed little girl people are gonna say that they're gonna ask well again why two years we cannot investigate things if they're not brought to our attention and when this was brought we're on authorities say they don't have enough information to

issue an amber Alert at this point because they don't know who she could be with or the car she might be seen in. The circumstances surrounding this prolonged absence are very concerning and are thoroughly being investigated as we speak. And once again, their Mark Glasser could not be an Amber Alert because there wasn't fresh enough evidence to attach her disappearance to any particular car, Mark. It shouldn't be about the car. It should be about the child in all situations. For instance, if we had known about the disappearance of little Angel beforehand,

we could have looked for a redhead girl. But right now we're in a situation where she's been gone for a long time, as was the other child. And you're absolutely right. You can't issue an Amber Alert. But I've always thought that the car part of this Amber Alert situation is nothing but a red herring and it does nothing but gum the works up. Take a listen again to our Cut 11. This is reporter Scott Cook, WMUR News 9 regarding Harmony. These are the most recent photos of Harmony available. We're told they were taken when she was about five years old. When last seen, Harmony was about four feet tall. She has blonde hair, blue eyes, and is blind in her right eye, so she may be wearing glasses.

Police say she may have been going to school in Massachusetts when last seen. I don't care if you saw this young girl a year ago and you think it's irrelevant. Call us and say, I saw her a year ago. I saw her 18 months ago. I saw her a week ago. Let's lessen that two-year window and keep shrinking that two-year window to the present day today. And let's chase down every possible avenue with the hopes of finding Harmony. And Manchester police tell us they just found out earlier this week that Harmony was missing. Again, they're asking anyone who may have seen her in the last two years to give them a call. And as in the current case with missing Angel Over over street, harmony was between mom and dad.

They live separately in two different areas. The mom says, dad has him. The dad says, no, I didn't have him. Same thing is happening here. crime stories with nancy grace straight out to karen stark joining us uh renowned psychologist in manhattan karen the reality is when parents are separated or divorced and they're trying to co-parent, a lot can go wrong. But seriously, you don't know where your baby is. Neither parent seems to know. Well, that makes you, Nancy, without a doubt, question the kind of parenting

that this little girl has had. And it's very, as I read about it, very confusing to me because he, the father, said that he handed her over. And if he handed her over, what did that mean? That he was just having a visit with her and she didn't live with him? Straight out to Greg Smith

joining a special deputy sheriff, Johnson County Sheriff's Office. His daughter, Kelsey, went missing as well. He is the executive director of Kelsey Smith Foundation, and you can find him at kelseysarmy.com. Greg Smith, you have been studying the cases of missing children, missing teens, missing people since Kelsey went missing.

What should police be doing now to find Angel? Well, there's a lot of problems with this case already. I mean, one, the amount of time between when the child went missing to when it's reported. Two, CPS has no records what's going on. I wish I could say that that was something that doesn't happen a lot, but it does happen a lot. And yeah, they have a huge caseload and yeah, they're undermanned and yeah, they're underpaid, but so are police departments. And prosecutors and public defenders and basically anybody that works for the government. But the problem is their number one priority is supposed to be that child. And I don't see that happening here. There's just too big a delay on this. Um, as, as we were talking about earlier with the

Amber alert, I have no problem with it not being issued. Um, there are certain requirements that have to be met to issue those. And that's the main reason for that is so that an Amber alert doesn't go out every single day. Uh, because when they become commonplace, they become ignored. Uh, and it's not, um, I mean, we just had a series of really bad, heavy snow weather here in Kansas. And every two or three days, we'd get these huge warnings that there's snowmageddons coming, we're all going to die. And I'd wake up in the morning, we had an inch on the ground. To the point to where people stop listening. Who cares what the weatherman says?

He doesn't know what he's talking about. You'll have that same effect if amber alerts went out constantly um and so there's a reason for that for the top priority cases um and they're supposed to be issued right when it happens not weeks months days years after after the fact um as a law enforcement officer the first thing i'm going to find out for certain is where was the child the last time anybody saw it. I mean, I can't even find that in looking through the articles. I know. That information.

I had to research and research, make call after call to figure it out. I'm with you. Where was the child last? I would be looking at the two parents for sure. I'd be looking at neighbors and I would be looking at the CPS person in charge of the case. How do I know that he or she, probably she, didn't have some weird psychosis and want their own baby? I mean, I would be looking at everybody most connected to the baby. What about that, Greg Smith?

Absolutely. And then you can look, especially if you can establish some probable cause that one or more of these people may have caused some harm to this child. Now we can go and look at things like phone records, location, the cell phones, where have they been? Those are areas that I would be sending officers to. You know, I can't find anything in the public record of that happening. It may be going on behind the scenes and I'm not aware about it. If it is, you know, kudos to them. If it's not, that's where I'd be heading is to try to find that information. Right now, we know that police are searching a property. Take a listen to our cut six.

This is Andrew Colgrave, WSAZ News. Multiple law enforcement agencies are conducting a search at a property along Route 3298 close to Olive Hill in Carter County, Kentucky. They say that this property is owned by Shannon Overstreet, the father of that little girl, Angel Nicole Overstreet, who has been missing since early May. It's been a huge mystery since then. Many attempts to try to figure out exactly what happened to her, where she is. The City of Huntington Communications Director, Brian Chambers, released a statement earlier tonight saying that the Huntington Police Department is working with multiple law enforcement agencies on this search. Also saying that at this point, no one has been eliminated as a suspect in the child's disappearance. So what would that entail, Mark, when they say, Mark Klaas joining me, everyone from Klaas Kids Foundation. You can find him at Klaas Kids. That's K-L-A-A-S kids.org. Mark,

when a property is searched, what typically do police do? And remember, they're looking for a three-month-old baby girl. Well, it depends on the size of the property. If there is water on the property, you're going to either have to send divers into the water or you're going to have to drain the property itself. Depending on the acreage, you're probably going to bring in grid searchers to look to see if there's any recently upturned ground. You're going to be bringing in cadaver dogs to see if there's any recently upturned ground. You're going to be bringing in cadaver dogs to see if they're able to pull up a scent. And you'll just continually do that until you have confidence that you've eliminated

that particular location. But the one thing about that report that really stands out to me is the fact that there are multiple law enforcement agencies involved coming from both states and also including the FBI. Now, when you tell me that the FBI is involved in a missing person case, you're telling me that the agency with the most knowledge, the best training and the best resources for this particular type of a situation are on the job.

And that's something that should make us all feel a little bit more relieved that there is true professionalism involved in this investigation you know what he's saying is really interesting how does the fed how do the feds get pulled into a case greg smith what brings in the fbi well there's a couple things that can do it one it could be something that crosses jurisdictional lines state lines um or it could be that the crime is going federal. That's the way that it's going to be prosecuted, so they would be the lead agency. And in my daughter's case, when Kelsey went missing,

that evening shortly after we couldn't find her and I was talking with the law enforcement officers that were there on the scene, I asked for the FBI to be brought in. And they can be asked to come in and help. They can't just force themselves in on a case. We didn't know that Kelsey had crossed state lines. She had, but we didn't know it at the time. So they were actually invited to come into the case and provided invaluable assistance. It's one thing I tell law enforcement in my trainings I give all over the United States, don't be afraid to call them in. This is not an insult to the competency

of the local or state officers. It's just they have the training, then they have an expertise that we may not have. And if somebody's missing, if a child is missing, especially, why not use every available resource you can pull in? You know what, that's right, Mark Klass. Give me the stats on the first 72 hours of a child missing. Well, if a child is missing, within three hours of a child being taken in a predatory type of abduction, 76% of those children will be dead if they're going to be murdered. Within 24 hours of the incident, if the child is going to be murdered, 88.5% of the children will be dead, which is another reason I think that worked into the judgment not to call an Amber Alert for a child that had already been missing for weeks. Yes, statistically, you're right.

Take a listen now to Andrew Colgrave, WSAZ. Huntington Police are hoping the public can help solve the mystery of a three-month-old infant girl's disappearance. Investigators are unable to confirm Angel Overstreet's whereabouts since May 8th. According to a written statement from Huntington Police, CPS representatives contacted the police department Monday saying they had been asked to follow up with Angel's father, Shannon Overstreet, regarding custody issues stemming out of Kentucky. CPS representatives

also said the father told them that he had turned over Angel to CPS approximately two weeks earlier. So now we understand if you try to interpret what was just said, the search of the property yielded nothing and police are now begging the public to help solve the case, looking for clues as to a missing three-month-old baby girl, Angel Overstreet. Take a listen again to the Chief of Huntington Police Department, Ray Cornwell. Our detectives have executed search warrants at Mr. Overstreet's mother's residence, where he stays here in Huntington, on his vehicle, on several digital devices. We are working with the Kentucky State Police to execute a search warrant

at a property that he owns in Olive Hill, Kentucky. We are working with the United States Marshal Service to locate any potential witnesses or persons who may have knowledge related to the location of this child. We're working with the FBI. They're assisting us with digital forensics and have offered any other additional resources that we may need, and also with the West Virginia Intelligence Fusion Center regarding digital forensics. They're helping us out. At this time, we have no specific evidence of foul play, but we are very concerned for the safety of Angel Nicole Overstreet, and we imploringly ask anyone

out there who has any knowledge related to her whereabouts to please come forward so that we can find this child and we can verify her safety. There are answers to a lot of the questions by Greg Smith and Mark Klass. We now know that they have served warrants or they're trying to get warrants on vehicles, digital devices such as cell phones, iPads, laptops. They're working with multiple law enforcement agencies. They're working with digital forensics. They brought in the U.S. Marshals. They're doing it all, but we still don't have Angel. That is correct. We still don't have the baby. And Nancy, this baby was three months old when she went missing, and it has been close

to a year. So she's been missing longer than she was known to be by her parents, her grandmother, social services. She was only three months old. It has been missing for almost 10 months. To you, Alexis Reschuk, what can you tell me about the search for the baby? What else are they doing, if anything? They have actually searched. They got a search warrant to search a property that the father owns and the property has a pond on it. So they actually are drained the pond to look and see if there was a body, which to me is a big signal that they don't actually maybe think this is a missing person and that they're maybe looking for a body. I disagree. I think that they're using parallel passive investigation. They've got to look for her actively and they've got to look for her as if she were dead. They have to do both. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Okay, everybody get ready.

I'm about to drop a bomb on you. Take a listen to our cut seven. This is Sean DeLancey, Fox 11. The beating was so bad, victim Connie Overstreet is going to have to undergo facial surgery to reconstruct the bones in her face just so she can see again. Connie Overstreet survived a beating that left her temporarily blind. She says her son, 27-year-old Shannon Overstreet,

came to her home in Huntington last week unannounced. Soon, they started yelling. Next thing I know, I got hit, and there was blood coming out my eye, my nose, my mouth. Connie says she curled into a ball to protect herself. Court records say Shannon then started hitting her wherever he could reach. And I just thought, finally it's going to end. You know, I won't have to take it no more.

Connie Overstreet prayed for death. I figured he was going to kill me. That would be it. But my guardian angel here stepped in. Izzy the pit bull then threw herself between Connie and her son, buying her time to run outside. Let me understand something. of crap is who CPS let this little girl visit with? Shannon Overstreet? He had visitation with his infant daughter?

Did you just hear his own mother praying for death after he beat her nancy may i step in here for just a minute this is kathleen yeah i see that i see this every day the courts are not protecting the children they're protecting parental rights and something has got to stop this poor baby was not protected in any way shape or form when she left the hospital she had to leave with someone who did she leave the hospital with and why didn't social services at that point intervene alexis teresha please correct me if i'm wrong that's who cPS thought it was a good idea to let the baby have visitation with? Shannon Overstreet? Not only did they think it was a good idea,

they were apparently contacted that the baby had not been returned. And they waited at least a week to contact the police about it. The baby had been missing since the first of the month. They waited until at least the eighth of the month to contact the police about it. The baby had been missing since the first of the month. They waited until at least the eighth of the month to contact the police. Mark Klass, why are you defending them? Well, I'm not defending them. I mean, if they're not contacted by somebody

that the child is missing, and if the father is going to say that he has been, the father's going to say what he said, that he turned the child over two weeks ago. You've got a two-week gap where absolutely nobody knows what's going on. Now, I think that's something that the mother said is very, very telling. She said that it's finally going to be over and I won't have to take this anymore. This wasn't the first time this guy had beat this woman.

I believe, in fact, he was under a protection order from her to stay away from her when he came and he tried to beat the life out of her. So we're looking at a really bad egg here who knows how to manipulate people and knows how to manipulate circumstances and time to his advantage. And a guy, Mark Klaas, that CPS handed a baby over on a silver platter. What do you think he did the second or third time she started crying in the middle of the night? Now, I want you to take a listen to more of what this POC, Shannon Overstreet's own mother said. Our cut eight, Fox 11.

Connie says without Izzy, she'd likely have died inside her home. She's everything to me. She's my hero, my guardian angel, my reason for living. Police arrested Shannon, and he's facing charges of malicious assault and breaking a protective order Connie already had against him. Connie needs surgery to repair her shattered face. It's broken all through here. Connie says Shannon was violent before,

and if she'd acted sooner, he never could have done this. She says other women could learn the same before it's too late. Too many women are just so, I mean, they think with their heart instead of their head. Shannon Overstreet is being held over at the Western Regional Jail on a $200,000 cash-only bond. Alexis Teresha, let me understand something. Alexis joining us from CrimeOnline.com.

So the son, 38, Shannon Overstreet, is behind bars right now with felony malicious wounding. It's like an aggravated assault where the mom nearly loses her eye. I think that could be upgraded to aggravated battery, by the way. When you lose use of a limb, like your arm, your eye, your hearing, that's even worse than aggravated assault where you are placed in immediate fear of serious bodily harm or death. He needs a double charge right there to keep him behind bars. My question is, he's behind bars for viciously beating his mom almost blind. She's having to have surgery to repair her shattered

face. When did the baby go missing in relation to him going behind bars at Western Regional on the beating of his mother? Months earlier, the baby went missing. So the baby was already missing when he then went and beat up his mother. And she was, I know that she said it, but she was rescued by her dog. Her pit bull got in between and and attacked him i mean this is the most amazing story of loyalty of dogs they never fail to amaze me but this has been months months and months and cps had they're obviously if you have a regular divorce or even if you're not divorced you have a baby with somebody you all don't live together you you drop them off on mondays and fridays and you do things but for cps to be involved, there was something obviously very, very wrong.

Very, very wrong. You know, Karen Stark, a New York psychologist joining us from Manhattan today. Karen, I've asked you this so many times and you always have some psycho-related answer and it never rings true to me. I'm going to give you another chance. What is wrong with these people? Well, Nancy, obviously this is a guy who should not have been a parent. Or a son, or a husband, or a boyfriend. He's violent.

He has a history of violence toward his own mother and not once. So there's something that is making him not have the kind of emotions that all of us have. Oh, boo-hoo. Don't start with him having a bad childhood. Something's making him not have emotions. He has emotions. They're evil. They're hateful. They're violent. Those are emotions, Karen Stark. Not everything is coated in love and kindness and rainbows and sprinkles. It's not a unicorn pooping marshmallows. No, this guy is straight from hell. But exactly. I am agreeing with you that he did not see this as a baby. I can promise you that. If he would do this to his own mother, Mark Klass, what would he do to a little baby at 3 a.m. when the baby's hungry and screaming her

head off? He could ignore her. He could beat her. He could kill her. But one thing we know for certain is that he's not going to take her in his loving arms and nurture her. Mark, can I ask you a question? I think I've asked you before, but you've never really given me a satisfactory answer. How do you keep doing it? I'm curious. I keep doing it because it's my mission. I can live with myself if I ever stopped trying to solve crimes and help crime victims. But when you are looking at a guy like Shannon Overstreet,

the baby's missing, beautiful little baby looks like a baby doll. His mother is having surgery to have her face repaired do you ever get sick of it just disgusted to the point that i don't know you want to do something completely different um actually no and the reason for that is because well there's a lot of reasons number one for me it's therapeutic nancy this. This is what makes me feel alive is helping other families in these types of situations and getting guys like Shannon over street, off the street. to spend the rest of his time behind bars where he can't get his hands on innocent people anymore. So that's my mission, Nancy. That's my therapy. That's my reason for doing the things that I do. You know, every time I've ever even briefly thought, I got to do something else. I just see Keith's blue eyes looking at me, smiling. I can't. I cannot stop.

Greg Smith, how do you, even when you're dealing with the lowest of the low of humans, and that would be child abusers and child killers, how do you just keep going forward? Well, you have to remember the good that you hope comes out of it. I mean, I'll be quite frank in my 25 years in law enforcement, even before my daughter was abducted and murdered, I never dealt well with people that committed those types of crimes. I just couldn't wrap my head around why you would want to do something like that to a child. And it's, I mean, you have to be a really good actor when you're in an interview with these people because sometimes you have to come across as their friend to get them to talk to you.

And thank God the majority of these people are not rocket scientists. I mean, it's a good thing that a lot of stupid people commit crimes or we wouldn't solve as many crimes as we do. And so it's amazing sometimes what you can get from a person just by establishing a little bit of rapport, even though their behavior and what they've done absolutely repulses you. Well, I know this. People are furious, angry at what has become of this little angel. Angel Overstreet is her name. Why did it take Child Protective Services? It just, it tastes like dirt in my mouth when I call them protective services. Why it took them two weeks to act once they knew the baby was missing.

And now we wonder if the case will ever be solved. The tip line 304-696-4420. An anonymous tip line 304-696-4444. Please help us find Angel. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.