Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Jodi Arias thinks she's special; Kids die playing 'choking game'; New leads in murder of teacher Rachel DelTondo

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

Jodi Arias is still trying to convince an appeals court to set aside her murder conviction in the death of ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander, but her lawyer wants the court filing to be kept secret. Nancy Grace updates the Arias case with her former defense lawyer Kirk Nurmi, lawyer Ashley Willcott, psycho analyst Dr Bethany Marshall, and RadarOnline reporter Alexis Tereszcuk. Grace also looks at a fatal fainting game spreading across the United States in which kids choke each other until they faint. Nancy & experts also update the probe into the murder of teacher Rachel DelTondo. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Truthfinder may reveal court records, bankruptcies, contact information, social, dating profiles, assets, and a lot more. You get it all in one easy-to-read report. Why fork out thousands of dollars to a private eye when you can do the job yourself? Go to truthfinder.com slash Nancy and enter any name to get started. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, channel 132. It never ends with Jodi Arias. That's right. One lover after the next.

Not judging, okay? If it's not a felony, I don't care. Unless it's got yellow crime scene tape around it, I'm not interested. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us. But what I am interested in is when you have marathon sex with your lover all afternoon,

then you stab him and shoot him dead and leave him to decompose in the shower. Well, it's not over with Jodi Arias right now because she's so special in her own head. She is demanding something that's very unusual and she's demanding it from a court of law. She is insisting that her case is so special and so volatile that her appeal process must be kept sealed. In other words, secret. After seeing all those nudie photos of her, I don't know what secrets there are left. But before I jump into that, I've got a guest with me along with Ashley Wilcott, Dr. Bethany Marshall, and Alexis Tereszczuk from RadarOnline.com. Superstar defense attorney, Kirk Nermy, the Jodi Arias defense lawyer and author of a bestseller, Trapped with Ms. Arias.

You can find it on Amazon.com. Kirk Nermy, I'll save you your breath of saying you cannot comment on her appeals process because that would be a conflict of ethical interest for you, and I respect that. I want to talk to you about Jody Arias. And this is not a coffee clutch where I want to drag somebody down. I want the truth about what it was like. And I've read your book, Trapped with Miss Arias, but I want to hear it from your own mouth, in your own words.

Can you at least say whether you're surprised about her filing, demanding secrecy? Well, it's surprising in the sense that it, as you pointed out earlier, it's so unusual. But as it relates to Ms. Arias, I got to the point, I guess, where nothing surprises me. So this does not come as a huge shock to me. Alexis, Dr. Bethany, Ashley, you guys may have been on the TV waves with me the night that Jodi Arias was giving yet another jailhouse interview. And Kirk Nermy, she was caught on camera, or maybe she planned it, I don't know anymore,

what's real and what's not real with Arias. But she was putting on makeup and powder and having her hair adjusted. And, you know, there's really no doubt about it. Many people would think she's beautiful. But I, same way I look at Scott Peterson, I don't find him attractive at all. I don't find her beautiful. I just see her as a cold-blooded killer. And I was thinking, as she was putting that powder on her nose,

about you, Kirk and Armie, I remember it distinct was thinking, as she was putting that powder on her nose about you, Kirk and Armey, I remember distinctly thinking, I bet he is having a fit right now. Because the last thing you want your client to do is talk to the cameras, even post-verdict, because it could mess up your appeal. What you want to tell the appellate court, this and this and this could be totally torpedoed in an interview. Well, there's no doubt about that. And remember, Nancy, she took special care. Not only did she not wait till the verdict went down, but remember, she did interviews between the verdict and the sentencing, which she made a point to attack me and make the false claim that I was the one who wanted to pursue all these allegations against her victim, not her. She lied. She made sure she had time to do it before she was sent

to DOC. It was very calculated against me. You know, Kirk, a side of a calculated attack on you after you and the rest of your team had sat there and given your blood, sweat, and tears during that trial, just taken so much abuse, not from just Arius, but really everyone, the whole public was against you. And to this day, you believe it contributed to you getting cancer. You know, that's what malignant means. Mal, worry, bad. That's what malignant means. Do you really believe that, Kirk?

I do. I mean, obviously, there's no way to prove it scientifically, but in my heart. Keep in mind, I was assigned Ms. Arias' case in 2009. Thus, she was a part of my life against my wishes from probably 2010 to 2015. And everything that went along with defending her, having her attack me in interviews, things of that nature, caused great concern to me about my safety and that of my wife. Yes, I do. Over those years, I believe that it eventually added up and that's what turned my healthy blood cells into cancerous tumors. Her trial turned into an international Barnum & Bailey circus where Nermy was, against his will, elected ringmaster. I want to hear what it was like.

See, I always saw her at a distance, like looking at a tarantula in a glass box. I was at a distance, of course, except for the time she shot a bird at me in court. But needless to say, she wasn't the first and no doubt won't be the last. But Kirk, what was it like being with her? Why was there such a contentious relationship between you two? Well, obviously a lot of that is privilege. But, you know, my job, the way I look at it anyway, is a detachment. I'm not there to support what she did.

I'm not there to, I'm just there to help her support her story. I'm not there to be her friend. And, you know, that, without saying too much, I think that speaks volumes. I'm trying to, I'm trying to interpret that. In your book, Trapped with Miss Arias, you touch on so many different topics. What do you think was the biggest bombshell in your book? I think probably the biggest bombshell was talking about that attachment she had. And this kind of correlates to what I said earlier about her kind of at some point in time viewing me as her boyfriend. I was the most significant man in her life.

And I was there to do a job. I was not there to be her friend or supporter in any way other than to advocate her case in the courtroom. You know, I've looked very much, very often at your book and what everyone thinks about it. And people have taken your book and spun it and spun it and spun it. In fact, there's one person that goes, after having read Kirk Nermy's book, I only know what I have found out afterwards, that Jodi Arias was not there when Travis was murdered, and she did not kill anyone, and did not murder Travis Alexander. She was the victim of a false prosecution. Okay, wasn't part of her defense that she was fighting for her own life at one point, and that another part of her defense that she was fighting for her own life at one point and that another part of her defense was she was there,

but then ninja-type disguised warriors attacked them? I mean, all of her defenses were that she was there, but. So what do you take, what do you make of people spinning out what you have written? Well, look, I suppose that's going to happen with anything anybody says. I mean, ultimately, there are facts. And the facts are that Ms. Arias, even when she got in, she testified, she sat down, she said she defended herself. We heard her at sentencing say one of her last comments in open court was that Mr. Alexander was alive when she split his throat. So there are going to be people that are so detached from reality that they just don't believe that.

They've created another theory. I talk in my book about her having a cult leader-like personality. And obviously there are people that are falling into that and creating their own reality of their leader. Ashley Wilcott, founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com. What do you think of the revelations in Nermi's book? Listen, it fits what I thought based on watching the trial and watching her interviews and watching her behaviors. I'm not at all surprised to read about the revelations that he makes. I regret it for him as the attorney and protecting her constitutional rights.

But listen, she wants to be in the public eye. She wants to be everybody pay attention to her. And I'm not at all surprised to hear that she's lying and making stuff up. What about it to you, Alexis Torres, show writer, online.com reporter? We cover the case every single day. I think that Jodi is somebody who craves the attention. You know, she is locked up behind bars, life in prison. And she has a Twitter account that she has somebody run. She is constantly in contact with people on the outside. She has never let go of her celebrity status.

And she has instigated it. She continues to make sure that people know exactly what she's doing and how she's doing with her own spin on things. And that's why we have spent so much time. I personally have spent time talking with the prison. I have requested records of hers. And she hates that because she is not in control of that narrative. Dr. Bethany Marshall, L.A. psychoanalyst. Bethany, take a listen to this excerpt from Nermy's book.

Quote, to fully get a visual of what Ms. Arias did to my brain, you would have to find some fecal matter, throw it into the pan, add a chopped up dead rat, and scramble the whole mess up. Once completely cooked, this concoction would then approximate the effect that Ms. Arias would have on my brain. I think that's pretty clear, Bethany. It is pretty clear. You know, what I heard when Kirk and Ermi was talking

is that I was thinking about the fact that Jodi Arias had sex with Travis Alexander all day long before she stabbed him, slashed his throat and shot him in the head. So she used sex to have power over him. And she used seduction to put him in a place where he was no longer thinking. And I experienced this in clinical practice. Whenever a patient is really, really disturbed, they'll relate to me in a way where it's hard to put my thoughts together or to think or to focus. Because they're saying things that are designed to have me not have an independent mind from them. So I think what happened with Jodi Arias and Mr. Nermy, unfortunately, is she tried to seduce him in order to keep him from thinking clearly about how malicious and evil and homicidal

she was. And Kirk Nermy didn't buy it. He didn't fall into the trap. He maintained his autonomy in his distance from her and because of that, she grew to hate him and launched an all-out war and attack on him and this is what really disturbed people do. If they can't control others through their sexuality or manipulation, then they attack, destroy and hate them and this is what we see with cult leaders too, right?

Most cults are sex cults. So they use sex and power in ways to render their followers helpless. And I don't doubt that Mr. Nermy developed cancer or that his, you know, some sort of vulnerability to cancer was triggered by this situation because it sounds extraordinarily stressful and toxic to me. Well, it got to the point where I would say in the commercial breaks, please take down the naked Jodi Arias photos, please.

And whatever you do, do not put them up beside my face, okay, because it was constant. But the reality was that was such a big part of the trial i was thinking about all those phone sex tapes take a listen to this oh when we took a bath together that was that was surreal like honestly, honestly. And I think, I mean, maybe the candlelight and the bubbles all had something to do with it, but you were amazing. You made me, seriously, you made me feel like a goddess. Like, I wasn't saying you were, like, worshiping me, but you were, you made me feel like I was the most freaking beautiful woman on the whole planet. Like, I so felt like I was the goddess. And so, aside from all those warm, fuzzy feelings,

but, like, it was so sexy, and it was so hot, and, oh, gosh. Oh, I know all that. It wasn't hard to keep that way, because you were freaking, you were hot. You were. I'm going to tie you to a tree and **** you all over. What's that? I'm going to tie you to a tree and **** you all over. Oh, my gosh.

That is so debasing. I like it. And the jury heard that and so much more, but it extended beyond that. According to Kirk Nermy, Jody Arias, former defense lawyer and author of a bestseller, Trapped with Ms. Arias on Amazon.com. Now, listen to this. Okay, ladies, buckle your seatbelts. This is Kirk Nermy writing. I could have ignored all this stuff that I really did not care to listen to, but listen, I did for the most part. That is not to say that I didn't have my limits. I remember one discussion I had with Miss

Arias that related to her sex escapades with Alexander. Certainly a relevant topic given the facts of the case, but Miss Arias decided she wanted to inform me of the current state of her vaginal grooming. Okay, I just wanted to let that sink in for a moment. Now, Kirk Nermy, that is in your book, right? That's not what some blogger has written. That is in my book. Okay, I'm just trying to imagine the look on your face. You were married at the time, right? Well, I still am almost 25 years. Good to know. Good to know. How does your wife take to Arias talking about her vaginal grooming, as you phrase it? Well, of course, I wasn't sharing that information with my wife until Miss Arias.

Why, client privilege? In my estimation, waved it, talking some of the things she did. It came out in the book. But listen, you know, you have a poker face, right? I mean, as a defense attorney, you're going to hear lots of things. And over the years, you develop a poker face. And it's just like just something that's just going to be said. And I didn't really care.

I didn't fall for it, as it were. You know what's interesting about what you're saying? I remember so many times, Dr. Bethany Marshall, I would come home from court trying whatever case it may have been, you know, a triple murder, serial killer, a child rapist, and I would go get some dinner, get some supper. And David,

my now husband will be talking about what had happened that day. And he'd look at me and go, what was, so what happened in court? I'm like, Oh, you know, it's,

it's a lot. And I just could not, would not, did not want to talk about it. For me to talk about something painful, it's like reliving it. I have to go through it all over again. And like Nermy just said, I mean, you get home. Why would you want to talk about Jodi Arias's vagina when you get home?

I mean, I would not want to. No, I don't even want to think about it. I couldn't stand hearing her sing Oh Holy Night. I wish I could get that out of my head. Oh, I love that. I played it every intro and out too. You know, when in doubt the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior's birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the soul felt its worth. And the big lead this morning is Jodi Arias just will not let us rest. She's now demanding her appeal be kept a secret. What's that all about, Alexis Tereshuk?

So Jody has been locked up in prison for three years, and she finally, her attorneys finally filed her appeal. But instead of telling us what the grounds are for their appeal, they actually filed a request to have everything sealed. They would want it hidden from the public. They do not want anybody to be able to read what it is they are arguing would be the grounds for her case to be overturned, her conviction and sentence for murder. And what they have cited is the fact that the case is of such public interest.

They say that because of this, people are afraid to come forward and testify on her behalf. They say that the public records that I have requested have become part of the case, which again, public records are part of the case that they don't want the public to know about, even though you have a right to know about these things. So they are asking the appeals court to allow them to file everything in secret. Also speaking about the very latest Jodi Arias is another of her attorneys, Jennifer Wilmot. Listen as Wilmot speaks to Arizona Republic court reporter Michael Kiefer. Once we started trial in January of 2013, I went through death threats. My family, they threatened my children. Having deputies walk us across the street with their hands on their guns,

things like that, I've never experienced before. And I really didn't think that this case would be that type of case to have that. Do you think this is an example of how cases are going to be in the future? I hope not. I don't see the attraction to this case. I don't know why there were followers, why people would show up every day. I really hope that, I mean, as a state, as a country, as a world, people wouldn't be that fascinated with someone's murder. I think it's a sad commentary. This is what they're saying. They don't really explain why other than to very mysteriously right in their motion that their brief must remain secret because it is, quote, in the interest of protecting the safety of certain parties.

Maybe it's to protect us from having to hear about her vagina anymore. I don't know, but I can guarantee this. I don't think there's any way that the appeal is going to be kept secret. Kirk Nermy, her former defense attorney, author of Trapped with Miss Arias on Amazon.com, said that's a very unusual move. It is. Ashley Wilcott, you're a judge and a lawyer. That's very rare.

In fact, I've never seen, except in some mob and drug cases, for any of the filings on appeal to be kept secret. That's right. So, Nancy, there, you know, as a judge, I have to apply the law to the facts that are presented. And there is a legal presumption that appeals should be public. That's what the law provides. And I cannot imagine a set of facts convincing me as a court that this should not be a public appeal. That's the latest, Kirk Nermy, super lawyer, author of Trapped with Miss Arias. Thank you for being with us. And we'll go out with a little more Holy Night. Oh, hear the angel voices

O night divine O night when Christ was born O night divine O night, O night divine, oh night, oh night divine. Did you know about a recent law that could leave your personal data exposed online for anybody to find? If you've turned on the news lately, you know the internet has created a dangerous new world. Data breaches expose private information. There's a new cyber security threat every other day and criminals can sell the identity of you

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protection. If your personal info appears for sale on the dark web, you'll be the first to know. Visit truthfinder.com slash Nancy. Enter your own name. Get started. A beautiful Utah boy, dead. He dies over the weekend after he and his little friends were playing a game called the Fainting Game. Listen to Tua's mom. Mother's Day, planning my son's funeral, writing his obituary. Instead of having breakfast or, I'm sorry, flowers or, I love you, mom. Try to imagine what it would be like and then multiply that by infinity. And that's kind of what it's like. He was just playing a game and he didn't think things through. I wouldn't have any other mother to go through what I have to go through.

That is the mother of Tua Mawahi describing the pain she is suffering after her 12-year-old little boy, their family living in Utah, is found dead. He was just playing a game and he didn't understand. He didn't think things through. He was playing a game in the hopes of cutting off oxygen, and it makes you pass out. Take a listen to children laughing and playing about the choking game, the pass-out challenge, as it's called.

It's the second thing. Hold out. Oh, dude, that thing? Holy s***. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. What I'm going to show you now is completely safe.

Don't listen to other people. Out to Alexis Tereschuk, investigative reporter with RadarOnline.com. What happened to Tua? So you had said he and his little friends, they're little, these boys are 11 and 12 years old. He was 12 years old, play this game where they cut off their circulation. They choke themselves, but they videotape it and then they put it online. And so this has become a thing, a popularity contest, which is everything else with these little kids in the internet. They want people to watch it. They want the likes, they want to become famous. So he did this and it went too far and he cut off the circulation long enough that he died. And his mother frantically called 911

when she found him. They rushed him to the hospital, but it was too late for him. To Alan Duke joining us from LA. Alan, do you remember about a year, maybe longer ago, I was reading about this game and it was all over Russia. And I think we did a story then, but it wasn't really on our radar. And I'm like, I remember saying, Alan, it's going to take no time before it gets to the U.S. You know that? And you went, yep.

And it's here. It's going to take no time before it gets to the U.S. You know that. And you went, yep. And it's here. It's social media. It's, you know, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook. It just spreads on social media where something is a trend in one side of the world. Pretty soon it comes over to America. Yeah, there are no borders for this. Ashley Wilcott with me, juvenile judge, lawyer, and founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com. Ash, this little boy and his friends had just gone to sixth grade. They are a year and a half older than our children. Isn't

that terrifying? And Nancy, do you know this really dates back? There are cases in the United States as far back as 1995, and there are kids who have died as young as nine. That's younger than our kids. Can you imagine at nine? And it all boils down to kids' brains are not developed. They do not understand the danger in this. They do not get it. Well, it's not just Tui, all right? It's just not him. Across the

country, it happens in another home. Take a listen to this 911 call. What is your emergency? My brother is dead. Your brother, okay. Is he there with you? I'm not. No, he might be dead. That is about little Carson Steele. His dad walks into his room and finds his son there, dead, hanging from a belt. He couldn't even understand what he was seeing. Listen. When I saw his feet not touching the ground and saw a belt around his neck, it just took me a minute before to register. Then, to make matters worse, little Carson's mother finds the choking challenge on video. It was videoed, and he was narrating.

He probably was maybe involved in an online challenge. Back to Alexis Tereschuk with RadarOnline.com, their investigative reporter. Alexis, there's Tua in Utah and then they wake up and and they've they've experienced this painting and there's a video of it they can laugh at each other because they look really silly when they you know you fall down and you don't have any you're not conscious but same thing this little boy used a belt to hang himself and it went too far because this is this is not a game that anybody should be playing. I want anybody listening, thinking that this is a fun game that they should try out. This is what,

this is disgusting. This is what porn stars do. And this is, this is why this has permeated our culture. You know, Alexis Tereschuk, our radar online investigative reporter. I'm not doing this to tell other children about,

I'm doing it to tell parents about it. And I don't know how you got into porn, Alexis. Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalyst, joining me out of L.A. There's another child I want to highlight in addition to Tua in Utah. It's Carson Steele. Carson Steele in South Carolina, York County. The CDC estimating over 100 children have already died in our country alone playing something called the choking game or the pass out challenge or the fainting game

where children think they're just cutting off their air supply just for a minute and it makes you feel euphoric and dizzy. I remember even when Lucy was a little girl, she would twirl around and around and around until she felt dizzy and fall down laughing. All right. They think it's funny, Dr. Bethany. I don't know how Alexis managed to rope in porn stars to this. Well, you know, kids love to play games with their bodies. You know, whether it's like, I don't know, blowing bubbles, spinning on people, spinning around like Lucy did. And so I think that there's a perfect storm of events that lead to something like this. One of these little boys had just returned from camp. So probably all the

other boys were talking about it there. Boys love, often boys love ropes, belts, things that they can tie things together with. That seems to be a boy characteristic. The prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed in children. So that means they cannot anticipate dangerous situations or learn from their mistakes. The executive planning part of the brain is very poorly developed. And then there's this copycat syndrome where they see it on the net or they see other kids doing it. And I think finally, you probably have one boy in a circle of boys. I'm guessing, I can't, this is what I'm hypothesizing. I don't know for sure, but there's probably a ringleader amongst all these boys. One boy who's quite fascinated with it and keeps bringing up the topic and pushing other boys to

experiment. And then it just comes together in some very tragic and fatal way. The thing about them having a fainting challenge, the mom says, quote, I've asked myself a thousand times why Carson did this, says mom Jennifer. Quote, on his cell phone, Carson had done it several times. The mom thinks he was involved in some kind of an online challenge because it was videoed and Carson was narrating it. And you video yourself choking and you get you for you, pass out. And the goal is you stop choking yourself then but that's not how it worked out as a matter of fact shortly after Carson passed away

an 11 year old boy Garrett Pope Jr. in Lancaster County also died. Explain to me how that would work, Dr. Bethany. How would it work? Do the children think they're going to suffocate just long enough to get dizzy and pass out and that they're going to come to? I mean, again, because the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed, they cannot anticipate that there might be a bad happening. Keep in mind that school-age children are taught to be competitive. It's also a good trait in children to get the best grade and to be on the winning team and to, you know, turn in the best art project or science project, but this is a group of kids competing on their own away from the oversight of parents thinking that this, whoever becomes the most euphoric or passes out the longest will be the most popular kid. It's like just King of the Hill. It's the, it's the guy,

the kid that rides the fastest bike. I mean, in a way, it's that innocent, sweet and simple. And yet it takes a really bad turn when there's access to something dangerous like a belt or a rope around the neck. And then you have the internet where all you see is the image of the other child choking themselves and getting all these likes or people responding to them. And then the choking victim wants to have more likes, wants to have more popularity. And at that point, it just spins out of control. To Ashley Wilcott, juvenile judge, lawyer, founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com. It's a double-edged sword, I guess, to try to talk to your children about this. And that way, you're also informing them about it.

If they haven't already heard of it, then you tell them about it. And that's a struggle parents have across the board with any activity that's dangerous. But I personally will tell you, I see too many cases in court where kids are injured or killed and it happens all the time. And I believe as parents, we have a responsibility to educate our children. So yes, it's going to make them aware this is going on. But I just told my eighth grade son about a thing that kids are doing with drugs. And his response to me was, oh, my gosh, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Why would a kid do that? So I think we need to educate in a way that our kids understand, yes, this is out there.

Yes, this is happening. I'm not telling you to make it a big thing that's fun to do. I'm telling you to educate you about it can actually kill you. Well, another thing that when I first heard about this back out to Alan Duke joining me, it then was called the Blue Whale Game or the Blue Whale Challenge. It was a social network phenomenon, and it was in multiple countries. The game reports of tasks assigned to players over a period of days where in the end you commit suicide. Then it morphed into the fainting game or the choking challenge. And it's everywhere. If you believe you know anyone involved in this deadly game, look for red or bloodshot eyes, marks around the neck where excessive pressure has been applied.

When a person complains repeatedly of headaches or dizziness, those are characteristics of some kid playing the so-called fainting game. Alan, what's the hotline? It's 1-800-273-8255. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255. And they're specifically warning about this. This is what I know. The family of Tua Mawahi is grieving now. Listen to Tua's mom, uncle

and coach. A lot of people loved my boy. He would have been an amazing man. To see my sister there grieving at the sight of her son on a hospital bed was very, very difficult. This hurts. It was like ice through my veins.

To watch my son cry. To watch my other kids on my team cry. As they say in Alice in Wonderland, things are getting curiouser and curiouser. The facts keep unfolding in a way that you think you're onto something and it just unravels in your hands. I'm talking about the mysterious murder

of a gorgeous young teacher, Rachel Del Tondo, found shot dead in the driveway of her family home. She's absolutely gorgeous. And what has added fuel to the fire of speculation regarding her murder is that she had just bought this beautifully fitted, tailored, one-of-a-kind, handmade, $10,000 wedding dress. Then, before the wedding went down, the groom jilts her, breaks it all off. She's stuck with the wedding dress. It became a big drama in their upscale suburb. And then she's gunned down in the driveway? Well, you naturally would look at the groom-to-be, but he has an alibi.

Then you find out that this young teacher had been dismissed from her job. Then what's that all about? Then you find out that she was set to testify at a grand jury about misappropriation of funds within the public school where she taught. Then it's not over yet. It just keeps going. was suspended from teaching was because she was in a steamed up car with a teen student at 2 a.m. in the morning and gets out of the car, both of them fully clothed, both of them denying any inappropriate conduct, her begging for her fiance not to be told about it. I mean, there's so many ways to go with this but so many avenues to investigate but

right now the bombshell is a search warrant has just been issued for a police officer wife facebook account as part of the investigation into the mysterious murder of r Del Tondo. Out to renowned L.A. psychoanalyst Dr. Bethany Marshall and founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com, juvenile judge Ashley Wilcott, I left out another suspect. Well, excuse me, I left out not another suspect, but another avenue of investigation. Ashley, do you remember that the police report where she was found at 2 a.m. in a car with a teen boy? That never amounted to a hill of beans. But then months later, that report was

leaked by someone with access to police computer software. It was sent to her fiance, to news outlets, to the school. Who could have done that? What about it, Ashley? Well, that's right. So when you say it didn't amount to a hill of beans, let's be specific, say, Portal Protective Services, in spite of the boy that was with her being a juvenile, and it never got reported to the school. So who could have done that? Someone perhaps that believes there's corruption in the police department and they didn't do the right thing, so they're going to leak it. Perhaps the what about a family member of this juvenile who was caught with her? We don't know.

Take a listen to this. They continued that relationship. I think it cooled for a while, but the relationship never ended. She was due to testify in front of the grand jury, which has been investigating Aliquippa among other entities, and she was afraid. And we find it far from a coincidence that she was murdered within days of having to testify. This was not a crime of passion. I believe it was a crime of a cover-up. A cover-up? This is another thing I'm learning to Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalyst out of LA. I found out her fiance is a millionaire. Okay, that isn't either here nor there,

but it's just another curious fact. You know how I get involved in every witness's story and all the ins and outs of every single move. What about this, Bethany? A search warrant file seeking access to the Facebook account of the mother of a witness in the murder of Rachel Del Tondo. It's seeking access to... Now, catch this. Hold on. Follow me. Stay with me. It's so confusing. I need catch this, hold on, follow me, stay with me.

It's so confusing. I need an org chart. I know. The Facebook account belongs to the wife of a police sergeant whose daughter went with a murder victim that night for ice cream. Now, what could possibly be on the police officer's wife Facebook account? There's status updates, notes, shares, postings, friend listings, private messages. I'm reading from official documents that we have obtained regarding their search warrant. What would a mother, a wife of a police officer, have to do with any of this? One of the things we know is that the local police department was under investigation.

And I'm not sure what they were being investigated for, but Rachel Del Tondo was cooperating with them. What doesn't make sense to me is that if the wife of the police officer was somehow involved in the shooting, a mother would never arrange something like that if her daughter was with the intended victim. I mean, does that make sense? It doesn't, right? The other thing I keep holding in my mind is that Rachel Del Pondo was the victim of stalking in some way and in some form. Somebody really had it out for her. Somebody was leaking information about her. Somebody was smearing her image. There was a huge smear campaign. But I'm beginning to wonder if two things weren't going

on at once. And that's why we're confused if perhaps someone was stalking her. But at the same time, another person wanted her dead because she was at the center of an investigation. You know, another interesting thing, the daughter is a minor. Now, this police officer's wife, and just so you know, the police sergeant has been placed on administrative leave. He's off the force for now of the Aliquippa Police Department. This is just getting more and more twisted, or as I said, curiouser and curiouser. Now think about it. Bethany, Dr. Bethany, the daughter that went with the murder victim, the teacher for ice cream that night, is a minor. Now police want to see her mom's Facebook, everything to do with it, private messages,

photos, friends, likes, listings, the works. Is that connected to the daughter in some way, do you think? It's interesting because it tells me that, well, I'm a little unclear why Rachel Del Pondo would be out with a minor, you know, late on a Sunday night on Mother's Day, because we already know she was with the teen in the car. But I'm going to try not to make too much of that. Wait a minute. The thing about the teen in the car, apparently she had had the dead teacher, Rachel Del Tondo, the bride with a $10,000 wedding dress, had had a relationship with that teen's older brother. So were they in the car

talking about that? I don't know. But there was never a complaint that she had underage sex in any way with that teen in the car. She was at some point dating his older brother now remember she's engaged to a millionaire so you know something's about to blow all right with this love triangle go ahead well it's interesting to me that she's hanging out with so many minors i don't know what to make about that you know maybe that's a minor point you know perhaps because she was a teacher she really cares about her students or maybe she has age-inappropriate relationships. But if she has age-inappropriate relationships, the sergeant's daughter who was with her that night is going to be a treasure trove of information, because that means Rachel lot of messaging back and forth about what was going on that night, about things Rachel has said, about relationships that Rachel has. So it could be that just by proxy, the sergeant's wife, the minor's mother, has a lot of information

about what went on that night. Weigh in, Ashley Wilcott. Listen, the other thing we need to think about is the wife's private Facebook account that's been subpoenaed. I automatically think of the husband. Is he perhaps using that? Is there information about him on the police force or his involvement or potential involvement in it? Because he may be using her private Facebook messaging.

They're married. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, L.A. psycho psychoanalyst i'm looking at a photo right now of the deceased teacher just absolutely gorgeous and she's standing with her then fiancee in front of the eiffel tower they're kissing i think this may be an announcement of their engagement they dated for eight years and this whole thing blows up and he breaks it off somebody's got some money if they're on a european tour okay nancy and i remember seeing photos of her at various events and she was wearing very expensive clothing and according to one report she had a poshmark account where she was selling clothing that she no longer wanted. And one post said that she would

sell everything for a million dollars. So I don't know if that was tongue in cheek or she was serious, but I thought this 30-something-year-old teacher, now deceased, moved back in with her parents when the wedding was called off, but had all of this expensive clothing. Who was supplying all of this? A teacher cannot afford that kind of clothing. And what kind of power and muscle is behind the jilted fiancé? And again, from a psychoanalytic perspective, somebody was obsessed with her. Somebody was stalking her. Was it somebody from the police department because there was this open investigation?

Was it the jilted lover? Now they're saying that this was not a crime of passion, which would lead me to believe it was not the jilted lover, but perhaps something going on within the police department. So the beat goes on in the very convoluted investigation into the death of this gorgeous young brunette teacher, Rachel Del Tondo. This is what I know. Her family devastated. Alan G., we've been covering this so closely. And in the last hours, Rachel's mother has actually spoken.

Did she indicate whether her daughter was afraid? Nancy, Rachel's mother in an interview with the local paper, the Beaver Countian, says her daughter was afraid of the local police. Quote, we knew it was dirty. She says that police department has been dirty for 50 years. Unquote. Also, Rachel herself told the newspaper months earlier during the leaked police report scandal that she'd been receiving death threats and was told she wouldn't live to see the end of 2018. Her mother, Lisa Del Tondo, says she heard of those threats firsthand. Rachel reported the death threats to police two times. The mother says she also called the police to report them, complaining though that the local detective waited four days to call her back. And she says Rachel was indeed in fear

from those death threats. Quoting now, she was scared of everyone. She was a scared rabbit. How do we know she was really cooperating and was going to be a witness? Lisa Del Tondo says her daughter did agree to cooperate with state investigators in their probe of the police corruption allegations, and that she met with the state investigators three times. But the mom says her daughter was too afraid to tell them everything she knew. Quoting now, she knew a lot more, she was worried. The mom says she didn't know about a grand jury subpoena, and she thinks she would have known if that was true, though.

Rachel Del Tondo's mother does not believe her daughter's death was a direct result of any government corruption, but she does think that the police leak helped fan flames of passion, which eventually led to her daughter's murder. You know, Alan, I bet the mom and dad haven't even had a chance to grieve their daughter's shooting death with all of this ruckus surrounding her murder. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. Did you know a recent law can leave your personal data exposed online for anybody to find? If you've turned on the news lately, you know the internet has created a dangerous new world. It's time you take back the power by using a new website called Truthfinder. Have you been

issued a speeding ticket? Received a lien from the IRS? Did you forget about an embarrassing social media profile? That info may already be online. Truthfinder can help you find it. Truthfinder searches millions of public records, assembling the data together in one report. Members get unlimited searches so you can also look up those close to you and make sure they're not hiding something. Visit truthfinder.com slash Nancy. Enter your own name. Get started. This is an iHeart podcast.