Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Help us find missing children! Nancy focuses on several cases

Episode Date: October 8, 2018

Nancy Grace raise awareness of missing children cases — old and new — with the hopes that someone somewhere knows something that could help find these precious boys and girls. This episode focuses on several cases Nancy has followed closely for years. Her guests include victims’ advocate and Klaas Kids founder Marc Klaas, Daphne Young of Childhelp, and Cold Case Research Institute director Sheryl McCollum. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Just when you think crime cannot, will not happen to you, it does, in a flash, and there are no second chances. I can't stop predators from coming into this world. I can't stop crime all alone, but I can sound the warning, and I can pass on to you what I have learned about keeping you and your family safe. And that is why we are announcing a brand new online course, Justice Nation Crime Stops Here. This brand new five-episode video series allows you to go at your own pace as world-class experts in personal safety and child protection share life-saving tips and resources all for you.

Get action information that you can apply to your everyday life with a focus on preparation, not panic. Go to nancygrace.com now. Use promo code NANCY to get 15% off for your sake, for the sake of your children, your family, and the people you love. Know what to do, know when to do it, and how to do it. Class begins Tuesday, October 16. Go to nancygrace.com and register using promo code NANCY. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. So many cases of missing children. It's like an avalanche. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. I could not be prouder to have the guests joining us today. Mark Klass, crime victim, tireless victims advocate, and founder of Klass Kids. Daphne Young,

the VP of Communications and Prevention Education at ChildHelp. And with me, Director of the Cold Case Research Institute, Cheryl McCollum, along with Alan Duke and Jackie Howard. Every day, Mark Klass, more missing children. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by it? Well, it is overwhelming. Over 2,000 children are reported missing in the United States every day. And while a vast majority of those are successfully resolved, there are still those cases that endure, that just seem to fall down the sinkhole and leave parents stranded. You know, Mark Klass, you are just an icon to me.

And when I am tired and I am weary, I think about you and how you gave up a very lucrative career to become a victim's advocate and the founder of Class Kids. Could you explain why you made that hairpin turn in life? Well, thank you, Nancy. Yes, on October 1st, 1993, my 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was hosting a slumber party with a couple of her girlfriends in the home that she shared with her mother in Petaluma, California. And at about 1030 in the evening, a bearded stranger entered Polly's bedroom with a butcher knife and told the girls that if they made a noise, he would cut their throats. He then proceeded to tie and bind all of the girls and then steal Pauly into the night. And we searched for 65 days only to find that this recidivist violent offender had kidnapped, raped, and murdered Pauly within a two-hour period. And he currently resides on California's death row 25 years later. And I decided at that point that I was not going to let my daughter's death be in vain. I was not going to let her become another data point on a statistical pie chart,

and that I would try to create a legacy in her name that would be protective of children for decades to come. And quite frankly, at that time, there was very, very little being done on being done to benefit missing children. You know, Mark, it is not lost on me the way you tell that story, because you say it like you're reporting somebody else's story. And when people ask me about the murder of my fiance, I do much the same thing. Because I tell the story by rote. Because to think about it and recount that time in my life is just so painful.

But when I hear you tell the story of Polly going missing, listen to me. I'm crying for you. You may not be crying on the outside, but I'm crying for you right now. And if you would just mention the pain of those 65 days not knowing what happened to Polly. Well, I mean, that's the point, Nancy. You have to detach. You have to detach because it's so emotionally overwhelming. I mean, I spent a good decade wanting to die.

I really did. It took me a good 10 years to be able to pull myself together and really smell the flowers and appreciate music again. Those 65 days were the most excruciating time I've ever experienced. I lost 30 pounds. I lost my mind. I fell into a sinkhole. I fell into a, it was like being in the middle of a tornado and not being able to get a grasp on anything. You lose control of your emotions, of your intellect. You almost seemingly lose your soul. But look what you've done with your life.

With me, in addition to Mark Klass, founder of Klass Kids, is Daphne Young with Child Help. Daphne, thank you so much for being with us. What is Child Help and why is there a Child Help? Well, Nancy, we're the largest national nonprofit. We've been running for over 60 years now and we're dedicated to the treatment, intervention, and prevention of child abuse. And you know our founders, Sarah and Yvonne. You're one of their favorite people because you're one of the few consistent,

dedicated champions of children giving a voice to those silenced by abuse. As Mark Klass notes, this whole issue rarely gets prime time. Children don't have a powerful lobby. So people like child health, people involved in media have to stand up for these kids. They have no voice and they're being lost in the system. They're being abused. We're losing five children each day to abuse and 80% of those fatalities involve at least one parent. So your work has been crucial in not just taking on this issue, but you've

branded it in a way that people can talk about it as part of a national conversation, and that's so critical. Cheryl McCollum with me. You and I have dealt with so many crime victims. And like with Mark, it took 65 days to find Polly. The cases we're about to start talking about right now are still unsolved. Families still torn apart by not knowing where their child is. Has a family, somebody stolen them? Are they being raised? Or have they been on the black market?

Or have they been trafficked? Are they dead? Do they need me? The thought of my children needing me or crying for me is almost more than I can stand, Cheryl. And you deal with cold cases. We call them cold every day, but they're not cold to family members. Absolutely. Nancy, when you hear Mark talk, I mean, you just, it's paralyzing to think of that situation. But the reality is, what he was saying, that statistic, it breaks down to over 80 children an hour go missing.

Now, there's three types of kidnapping, basically, in three categories. One's going to be family that takes the child, one that will be an acquaintance, and one that's stranger. And when that breaks down, 50 times, you know, 50% of the time, it's going to be a family member. And hopefully that child comes back safely, hopefully. But 24% of the time, to feed on what Mark was saying, that's going to be a stranger. And those first three hours are the most critical. The child is normally killed in those first three hours. I want to first talk about the disappearance of a beautiful little boy.

I will never, ever forget the first time I laid eyes on Kyron Horman, still missing out of Portland, Oregon. He's described as endangered and missing. The first time I saw his face, he had this big, huge smile with a gap-toothed grin. And he was last seen in Portland, Oregon on June 4. He usually rode the bus to Skyline Elementary. He was just in the second grade at that time. Now, that day, his stepmother, Terri Lynn Moulton Horman, drove him because there was a science fair that time. Now that day his stepmother Terri Lynn Moulton Horman drove him because there was a science fair that day and he kind of wanted to set up his exhibit. It was about

the red-eyed tree frog. They get there around eight o'clock. They drop his coat and backpack at the classroom and according to the stepmother she takes him to the science fair and then the next thing you know nobody sees him that afternoon at 3 45 he doesn't arrive home nobody seemed to have seen him at the school that morning now one, one witness thinks they saw him, but may be confused about the day. His teacher marked him absent. She thought, for some reason, he was at a doctor's appointment. Why was it so critical, Mark Klass,

that all these hours had passed since Kyron was last seen at 8 a.m. Well, Cheryl just touched on it. Seventy-four percent of children that are murdered as a result of an abduction are going to be dead within the first three hours. So the one thing that everybody can agree is that time is really the enemy when you're dealing with a missing child case. As soon as they're discovered missing, they need to be reported to law enforcement immediately so that they can start an investigation. And the sooner that happens, the greater the chance of recovering the child alive.

Take a listen to this TV news interview regarding Kyron's disappearance. Eight-year-old Tanner Pomala remembers passing Kyron in the school hallway Friday morning as the two passed each other on the way to see different science experiments. I went downstairs and that was the last time I saw him. I never did see him after that. Tanner and Kyron's class was regrouping. Mrs. Porter, the regular teacher, accompanied by a substitute there to help with the science fair. It was the substitute, says Tanner, who noticed

Kyron was missing. And she's like, oh no, where's Kyron? There's only five. And the reporter's like, um, it's all right, calm down, calm down. She's probably in the bathroom. We're getting a drink of water. She's like, all right, I'm gonna leave. And she left. You normally start Daphne Young with a person to have last seen the child alive. That's where your investigation starts. In this case, it was the stepmother. Would you agree that that's where investigations normally start, Daphne? Absolutely. You have to look at the people closest to the child. For a parent that has done nothing wrong, it can be one of the most frustrating experiences they'll ever go

through because they know in their heart they haven't done anything and they feel that clock ticking. Law enforcement needs to divvy up. They need to go the broad range and also then to the parent because 80%, as I mentioned, of those fatalities involve at least one parent. So they've got to move towards who knows the child, who has access to the child, the last person that saw the child while doing a larger broad scale investigation. When a child goes missing, it should be all hands on deck. You're not kidding. And I recall distinctly Mark Klassman, Polly went missing missing and I use you as the gold standard whenever a child goes missing you were basically here take my fingerprints take my DNA whatever you need search my home

search my computer search whatever you want look at my car so you can get past me as the dad of Polly and move on to find who took my daughter. See, that's what I expect from family members when their child goes missing. I expect them to act like you. Well, that's exactly right. Although we didn't have computers yet in 1993, or at least I didn't. But you're absolutely right. You have a momentary sinking feeling that, and this is a problem. You always hear defense attorneys say you can't take a polygraph because they can't be relied upon. And a lot of people take that as gospel. So you'll find innocent people that are very reluctant to take a polygraph exam because they think that they're somehow going to get caught up in a lie. And unfortunately, that really stalls a lot of

these cases. Not in my case. I was ready to go for it. I wanted to be eliminated immediately so they could move on and find out what happened to my little girl. Kyron Horman still missing today. Now take a listen to the stepmother that drops him off at school that day, according to her as she speaks to Dr. Phil. I was told not, I was following orders. I'm doing what I'm told to do because I want him found. They're saying do it a certain way. And I did everything I was ever asked to do.

I spoke openly for hours on end with investigators. Open book. Told them every horrible, little, dirty secret I ever had in my life. Anything that was going to help to find him. Anything. I didn't care. It's it, but I could see how if somebody is not on the inside of what's going on, how they could, could see it a different way. But I, I did everything I was supposed to do and it still wasn't good enough and everything

gets twisted and turned and it is, it became this, um, just this attack against me instead of the focus of being him i after i retained an attorney then i was told not to talk and i asked him to talk for me and he wouldn't that was karen's stepmother on dr phil straight out to cheryl mccullen director of the cold case research institute there was another search for any clues regarding the disappearance of little Kyron. It was in West Hills. And we know that something had to trigger that search, Cheryl. Normally, Nancy, it could be anything from a tip. Somebody walking through that area could have found something they thought was related, you know, to this child. But here's the deal. Every stone unturned on every case,

you should not stop searching. So I have an issue with, hey, we're going to do another search now, even though we haven't done one in a year or two, there should be searches every weekend. You should take dogs that are being trained at the academy to be a canine. Let them train, but do a real search while they're training. Well, you know what I find very, very telling, Cheryl McCollum, is that this search for Kyron Horman, the seven-year-old little boy that goes missing allegedly at the Skyline School in northwest Portland, the search was the wooded areas around his home. They also then went to his school. That's the most recent search. They were looking around his home and school, and that tells me what they have going on in their head what investigators are thinking cheryl mccollum well there's no question nancy but again the last person to see him everything

about her would make you question her the fact she says she takes him somewhere but his teacher says yeah he never made it he wasn't here so there's no way you drop your children off at school every day nancy they're three feet from the door when they get out of your van. Nobody came and swooped in and gets a child there with six teachers and safety patrols and a principal and all these parents standing there. That's BS. You know that didn't happen. We also know, Cheryl, that the Multnomah County DA's office has impaneled a grand jury on the Kyron Horman case. And that means both the criminal investigation and legal proceedings are still underway.

But where that's leading, we don't know. Nancy, can I say something here? Yeah, jump in, Mark. I'm sorry. About three years ago, we were working with Chiron's mother to do a search for Chiron. Just as Cheryl said, you always have to continue to do these searches. And one of the places that she asked us to search was the father's property, the place where Chiron lived, Kane Horman. And so I called Kane because I him, and I told him what we were doing and asked him if we could come onto his property and search for Chiron.

And he said, absolutely not. No way in hell was he going to let us onto his property. And I said, well, if we're professionals, we do this all the time. If there's not a problem, why won't you let us on? And he said, if the deputies if the law enforcement ever wants to come onto our property i'm more than willing to do it but i'm not letting anybody else onto my property which leads to the question if they just did a search around the property are they honing in on something and has anybody actually ever searched on the

property itself well you know what it It's awfully late to be asking. It's a shame that we're asking, Mark. Have they searched that property? Don't you think they would have at the time, Mark? Or do you think something was missed? No, I think they should have. And I can't imagine that they haven't. But that was the conversation I had with him, and he was adamant.

We were not getting onto that property. Okay, I find that very odd. Yes, jump in. Here's the deal. I'm going to tell you right now, if you've got a parent that has a child missing and they won't let you search their property, that is beyond a red flag.

That is a freaking parade of flags. This is what we know. No one has been named a suspect. No one has been named a person of interest at this time. Why the father turned down Mark Klass? Maybe he's frustrated. Maybe he's angry. Maybe he's numb.

Maybe he's raw. I don't know. I do know this. The search goes on for Kyron Horman. There's a $50,000 reward. The search tip line 503-988-0560, 503-988-0560, or email tips at bringkyronhome.org. We are doing our part trying to find missing children from across our country. We now leave the Pacific Northwest and head to Chicago, where two little girls, 10-year-old Tionda and 3-year-old Diamond, go missing,

we think, from their own apartment the morning of July 6th. Tracy, the girl's mom, tells cops she saw them that morning at 6.30 a.m. before she left for work at Robert Taylor Park. She prepares lunches there for children in a summer camp program. She got back home early in the afternoon to find a note written by Tionda placed on the back of a couch that said they had gone by to a school, a school playground very close by, and that they would go to like the local 7-Eleven.

Well, the mom then tells the Tribune that she searched for hours that day before she calls the police at 6.30 p.m. that night. That sparked a massive investigation. Daphne Young with me with Child Help. Mark Klass, founder of Klass Kids, and Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute. Daphne, I recall distinctly when Diamond and Tionda went missing. As a matter of fact, we took our show then with CNN's HLN on the road to Chicago to investigate their disappearance. Daphne, what do you recall of the girls' disappearance?

Well, I just remember it was a massive search. There were rotating crews. There were hundreds of detectives working around the clock. They searched everywhere, sewers, lagoons, abandoned buildings, factories. People were digging through garbage. They were interviewing relatives. It was a huge search. And rumors spread around the neighborhood. There were tips, I believe, close to a thousand. There were even psychics involved. I mean, this captured the nation. I think you had these two little girls with these captivating names, and they were doing what so many children do, the most banal things, right? Going, supposedly disappearing from a neighborhood playground.

When children are doing the things children are supposed to do, and something wicked or evil happens, it really captures the nation because we think they were just trying to play or they should have been out playing. Where are these little girls? You know, the theories on Diamond and Tiana's disappearance abounded. Mark Glass, I remember one psychic told the family they were being held as sex slaves in Illinois somewhere. Then, as I recall, the bio dad lived in another country. It was either Trinidad or Morocco. It was Morocco. Jackie's waving at me. And there was the theory that the dad had kidnapped the girls. That was investigated.

It neither amounted to anything. So even bringing in psychics, Mark Klass, what does that tell you, that police are down to bringing in psychics? Well, it tells me that the police are absolutely desperate. You're absolutely correct. This became an international search. In Chicago, they searched 5,000 abandoned buildings for these little girls. But when you bring in psychics, you're in probably the most desperate place you can be. And I just want to say this about psychics. I believe they really are part of a second wave of predators in these kinds of situations, because they swoop down, as they did in our case as well. And they tell you that if you give them a little item of your child's, they'll tell you where your child is. And ultimately what's going to happen if you're in California, like I am, the psychic is going to say, I see rolling hills.

I hear running water. I see outbuildings of some kind. And what you've done then is you have described 99% of the topography in the state of Northern California. So the reality is that psychics never help a case. They always hinder a case. They give absolutely false hope. Or as in the case of the famous psychic Sylvia Brown, they will dash your hopes and tell you that your child is dead, when in fact, as in the case of the famous psychic Sylvia Brown, they will dash your hopes and tell you that your child is dead, when in fact, as in the case of Sean Hornbeck, he was very much alive and only a few miles down the road. These two little girls were last seen at their family home, an apartment, on South Lake Park Avenue in Chicago. The mom, as I told you, leaves for work 6.30 a.m. Diamond and her older sister, Tionda, stayed at the home during the morning, and the mom, Tracy, discovered they weren't home when she came home around 11 a.m.

Now, apparently, Tionda left a note stating they were going to walk to a nearby school to play and a little store. As a matter of fact, Tionda was taking summer classes at Doolittle Elementary. Now, after we research, we find out school officials insist she was absent the day of her disappearance. Neighborhood children claim they saw Diamond and Tionda playing outside at lunchtime. Neither child has ever been heard from again. When I look at their descriptions, it's brutal. This little girl, Diamond, was just three years old.

She was three feet tall, and she only weighed 40 pounds. She had violet and purple ponytails holders in her hair. She's African American with big, beautiful brown eyes. She's got a tiny scar on the left side of her hairline and she normally wears her hair braided in the back with four ponytails. That was her favorite. She's got beautiful deep set eyes. Tionda was 10 years old at the time. She went missing just four two and only weighed 70 pounds. Green ponytail holders in her hair. African-American little girl, big brown eyes. She has a quarter-sized burn scar on her left forearm, and at the time she went missing, she had a scrape on her left calf. She normally wears her hair in long ponytails they disappeared together again the tip line is 800-843-5678 listen to what her sisters say she was like we'll be in the house she had drunk from couch to couch like city running around

the house and she had these dark eyes that used to scare everybody it was crazy and tiana she like danced and she like ran her bike but dancing was her favorite hobby you know yeah she used to do a lot of stuff like she used to always be in gym gym and she come to first place she loved double dubs she loved dancing and she was just the outspoken one of us even me you know i, we was laid back issues. Just go out. Now we head to Oakland, California, and the disappearance of Hassani Jamil Campbell. Take a listen to his parents at the time he goes missing. I would gladly trade my life now for it if something's wrong with him. I don't care. I'd give it myself for him.

I just want him home. Don't let him become a picture on the milk carton box five years later that you never found. What do we know about the disappearance of Hassani Campbell? Looking at him, he's just precious. Five years old when he goes missing. Three feet, 40 pounds, wearing a gray sweatshirt, gray pants or shorts. Interesting, he had cerebral palsy and was wearing his braces. Last seen in Oakland with his foster father, Luis Ross. Now, he leaves the boy. He's going to meet the boy's aunt. They're

the foster parents, and that's his biological aunt that Luis is engaged to. So she had, as I recall, a shoe store. And to get in, it's like a strip center. You drive around back of the store and park right outside the back door and walk in that way. So he pulls up in a BMW in the parking lot of Shoes, S-H-U-Z. That's a shoe store where she worked. And he was dropping Hassani off with him and his one-year-old sister, Aaliyah, all right, to be with the aunt, Jennifer. So, long story short, he goes in the back door to tell Jennifer he's bringing the children in. He goes back out. Hassani is gone. When he gets back out to the BMW, Hassani was totally missing.

DFACS, Children and Family Services, never had a problem with the couple's foster parents. They claim the couple conscientiously looked after Hassani's medical needs. He was a student at James Leach Elementary at the time he went missing. Police, of course, immediately marked class and pounded the BMW. They take Aaliyah away, put her in protective custody. They search pursuant to warrant the foster parent's home, the car, everything they can think of, no clue, Mark Glass. You know, Nancy, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Oakland has a very real crime problem.

There's no question about that. And in response to that, CCTV cameras, surveillance cameras have been put up all over that city. It's hard to find a location where you're not going to be surveilled by a camera except the back of that shoe store. That's the one location in that vicinity where there are no surveillance cameras whatsoever. And so to think that this guy is going to go into the store to say he's bringing the children in

instead of just bringing the children in and then coming out and finding Hassani gone is absolutely ludicrous. If it's going to be a kidnapping, I think the kidnapper would be drawn to the one-year-old, very healthy little girl much more than to little Hassani. And if little Hassani had somehow gotten out of the car and tried to run away, he wouldn't have gotten more than six or seven feet in the timeframe that this guy Lewis gave. So a lot of attention was focused on this man immediately as well it should have been. Well, another thing, Mark Klaas, just as you and I would have done immediately, when he went missing, police promptly brought out tracker dogs to the back of SHUZ, the shoe store where the aunt, the foster mom, worked.

But this, TrackerDogs immediately could not find Hassani's scent at the site where he was supposedly last seen. This child, missing from Oakland, is classified as endangered missing. Just five years old when he seemingly vanishes into thin air just three feet 40 pounds gray sweatshirt gray pants or shorts white arch support braces with spider-man logos on a poor little baby he has cerebral palsy he could walk but he cannot run or jump um he's an African American male, brown hair, beautiful brown eyes, and he speaks with a lisp. Hassani Campbell missing. The tip line, if you know anything about the disappearance of Hassani 510-238-3641. 510-238-3641. Let's go to Nashville, guys. Tabitha, last seen by her family, 7 a.m.

Her father wakes her up. It's April 29. They live there in a little home on Lillian Street in Nashville. She was watching TV. He goes to work. Now, she was supposed to get on the school bus that morning at 8 a.m. at 14 in Biscobel Street. Witnesses saw her, more than one, which in my mind takes the father out of the mix. Witnesses see her walking to the bus stop, okay?

She was reading some papers as she walked. She was not in a hurry. She was not looking for anybody. I got to tell you something, Mark, that reminds me so much of my daughter, Lucy. John David is the mayor of Funville. Okay, Mark. Lucy is always reading something. Her mind is a million miles away in some story she's writing or she likes to draw, she likes to read. I can just see this girl, Tabitha Tudor, just precious, walking to the bus stop at 8 a.m. People saw her, more than one, as I was saying to me, that takes the dad out of the mix.

But here's the twist. Tabitha never got on the bus, and she never got to Bailey Middle School just two miles away. The parents don't know a thing until that evening when she doesn't come home. They find out she was missing from school and they immediately report her missing to police. Okay, Mark class, can you even imagine getting you even imagine getting that much of a head start from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.? Why didn't the school call the parents? Well, that's an issue that needs to be addressed, and it really needs to be addressed in every school in America, that when children don't show up, the parents need to be notified immediately. And I'll tell you why, Nancy, because this is an interesting factoid here. A third of all abduction attempts in the United

States occur on school bus routes and they occur on school bus routes. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me let me let that soak in. Mark Klass, whoa, you just taught me something. I gonna write this down hold on one third of child abductions okay go ahead i'm writing this down jackie please get this one third child abductions what now so a third of all child abduction attempts occur on school routes and that tells us something nancy that tells us that if we know that fact we can, we can cut abductions in this country tremendously simply by addressing that singular issue. And we can do that in a variety of ways. We can do that by having neighbors watch the children on the routes, by doing some kind of a round robin where there's always a parent watching the kids going to the routes or going to the bus and coming home from the bus.

We could have that as an elderly project for an elderly home where you don't have to do something. You could go high tech and put surveillance cameras along those routes. And if we were to do that, we would be able to prevent situations like Tabitha's or so many of the other children that we've talked about over the years, that if you'll look back, you'll see that they disappeared either going to school or coming home from school. There are set patterns. Predators understand that. They're able to plan for it, and they're able to do things in stealth. You know what, Mark Klass, you make so much sense.

I did not know that statistic. I got that from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Whoa. Daphne Young with me with Child Help Organization. Did you know that fact? I did not know one third of all child abduction attempts occur on a bus route or on the way to school. It's true. And one of the big problems is that in addition to not safeguarding the areas where children are, which Mark Plath is 100% correct, we should take the onus off the child and do our duty as a community and create safe routes so that every step that a child takes is secured. And also we should put some

prevention education in the schools as well. So children learn body safety, internet predators, what to do when being groomed. You know, we do a lot of stop, drop and roll for fire safety. It should be the same thing for their personal safety. Guys with me are two not only very dear friends to me, but colleagues in our crusade to help find missing children. Daphne Young with Child Help, with me Cheryl McColl-A-Child, 800-422-4453. To reach Class Kids Foundation, 850-525-4807. 850-525-4807 if you need help with a search or rescue. Nancy Grace,

Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart podcast.