Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - LITTLE GIRL SKELETON IN ATTIC FALLS THRU CEILING

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

The parents of a 10-year-old Arizona girl have been charged with murder after the girl’s remains were found in an attic after a house fire— three years after the girl disappeared. An investigation... began when an 11-year-old girl called police and said she’d been left in her Phoenix home alone for two days and was hungry. Authorities said the girl reported that she’d been neglected and abused by her adoptive parents Maribel Loera, 51, and Rafael Loera, 57. She said that Maribel Loera was in Minnesota with two siblings, a 4-year-old boy, and a 9-year-old girl.The girl told investigators that Maribel struck her with knotted extension cords, and officials said she had injuries that were consistent with being struck by a “rope-like object.” She also told officials she had an older sister who vanished in 2017. She said that Maribel told her the girl was adopted and sent to Columbia, but Rafael said she was sent to Mexico.Phoenix police officers who responded to the call said the home was in “disarray” and ahs feces on the floor. While fighting the fire, the child's remains fell out of the attic. Joining Nancy Grace today: Daphne Young - National Chief Communications Officer, www.Childhelp.org, @childhelp,  Melissa Hoppmeyer - Chief, Special Victims & Family Violence Unit, Prince George's County State's Attorney's Office, Co-Founder of Right Response Consulting, "No Grey Zone" Podcast, www.rightresponseconsulting @NoGreyZoneRRC  Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, www.drbethanymarshall.com, New Netflix show: 'Bling Empire' Dan Scott - Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sergeant, 26 years with Special Victims Bureau Specializing in Child Abuse Dr. Michelle Dupre - Forensic Pathologist and former Medical Examiner, Author: “Homicide Investigation Field Guide” & "Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide", Ret. Police Detective Lexington County Sheriff’s Department Mary Jo Pitzl (PIT-zul) - Senior Reporter, The Arizona Republic/azcentral.com covering child well being and at-risk kids, www.azcentral.com @maryjpitzl Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How do loving parents who care so much about their children that they decide to even homeschool them. End up in a story titled, The Girl in the Wall? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Niebuhr's family has lived by De loeras for about a decade she says the couple has four kids three girls and one boy but it's been years since they've seen them we would hear them every now and then in the backyard sometimes on the pool claudia told us those four kids were adopted so i remember the little ones say hey you know now we have mama and papa. They were all together, brothers and sisters, and they were happy because they didn't have to be
Starting point is 00:01:07 apart. Claudia says about four to five years ago, she briefly carpooled with the loiras and would take their three oldest kids to a local elementary school. We would drop off two girls and then maybe like a week later, a young boy, he started kindergarten. I remember because he was really small and all of a sudden they told us they were going to be homeschooled, and we haven't seen them ever since. Well, right there, that's a red flag to me, that you never see your neighbor's children. I mean, if you can't see them, you can at least hear them playing in the backyard, playing basketball, running through the water sprinkler, but nothing. Time passes and ever since the children began being homeschooled, the neighbors saw, heard, and knew nothing. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know to be true. First of all, joining us from ChildHelp.org,
Starting point is 00:02:00 Daphne Young. She's the National Chief Communication Officer of ChildHelp. Melissa Huttmeyer, the Chief of the Special Victims and Family Violence Unit in Prince George County. And you can find her in her No Graze on podcast and Right Response Consulting. Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst to the stars, joining us out of L.A. And she's the star of a brand new series on Netflix, Bling Empire. Dan Scott with me, former L.A. County Sheriff Sergeant, 26 years with the Special Victims Bureau specializing in child abuse. Dr. Michelle Dupree, forensic pathologist, former medical examiner, and author not only of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, but Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide.
Starting point is 00:02:51 To boot, she is a former police detective. But first, two special guests joining us, Mary Jo Pitzel, the senior reporter with the Arizona Republic, and her expertise is covering child well-being, at-risk children, and you can find her at azcentral.com. You know, Mary Jo Pitzel, I have a very dear cousin that homeschools, and I thought the whole idea was just wacky because I grew up in public schools and it socializes you. You get this great education. And I couldn't understand why would she want to homeschool? And I looked at their curriculum.
Starting point is 00:03:40 It was incredible. And when I visited them, the children were so articulate and really brainiacs and very well adjusted. It takes a lot of time and energy to homeschool. I mean, Mary Jo, it's not like me when the children ask me a math problem. I have to go hide in the closet and look it up on Google and then walk out like I knew that. That gets exhausting. Homeschooling is no easy task, but these parents seemingly love their children so much they took them all out of school to homeschool. How did they end up in this home to start with, Mary? The children were in the Arizona foster care system, and Maribel and Rafael Loretta were foster parents, and they took in these children at different stages as they moved through the system, and then came to adopt them. We really don't know a lot about their life or their motivations for fostering and for adopting, much less their motivation for homeschooling.
Starting point is 00:04:54 So how many in all did they adopt? How many children were living in the home, Mary Jo? Four. Four children living in the home. Guys, take a listen to our friend Claudia Rupczyk at ABC 15. Police say on January 20th, they got a call from an 11-year-old who was alone in the house. Officers discovered evidence of child abuse, and the Arizona Department of Child Safety removed that child. A DCS spokesperson tells ABC 15 they learned of additional children, and after getting authorization from the court, they went back to the house Tuesday to remove two other kids, a nine and a four-year-old. About an hour later, firefighters responded to a fire at that same home.
Starting point is 00:05:33 First of all, to Daphne Young, the National Chief Communications Officer with Child Help. If you've never been to ChildHelp.org, please visit ChildHelp.org. It really has changed so much of what we know about helping abused children. Daphne, first of all, you know, I can hear our neighbor's children all the time. I can hear our other neighbor's grandchildren. And I don't see them, but I can hear them playing. And I find it really odd that nobody can hear or see these children for three or four years passing. To me, that's a big red flag. And yet when you see that this child finally
Starting point is 00:06:21 makes this call after two days of being hungry. A starving little girl picks up the phone and makes the call. What we know a lot about abused children is that they keep quiet. They stay silent. These abusers lord over the house like jailers, and they know if they reach out to another child, if they interact with neighbors, if they go to school in certain instances, that they'll be found out. And so once a crime is committed or abuse is rampant, they make sure to lock down that house and keep it quiet. Melissa Hotmeyer with me, Chief of the Special Victims and Family Violence Unit, Prince George County. Melissa, I was at the district attorney's office doing various assignments for a while before I got a child abuse case.
Starting point is 00:07:11 And it was horrible. A millionaire in Atlanta, he owned all, practically all the horse and livery trade. You know, like those horse-drawn carriages that take people on tours, limos from the airport, that kind of thing. And his live-in had three girls, a teen girl that chose to move out of the home and live on her own, a five-year-old girl and a three-year-old girl. The three- and five-year-old had been molested, full-blown sex with the rich boyfriend. Full-blown, with a three-year-old and a five-year-old girl. I got to looking Melissa Hotmeyer into this guy's history. He had I think it was 35 natural children that he had fathered with all these different women and his molestation went all the way back to, I guess, the late 70s. I found one of his oldest daughters living in a flop house smelling like gin and cigarettes.
Starting point is 00:08:15 She went to school with a black eye and a busted lip. And the school detectives tried to find out what happened, but they couldn't. That was the first that I knew of him molesting his children. So, you know, what Daphne Young is saying is true. If the children aren't going to school or church or synagogue or mosque, whatever, if they're not dealing with neighbors and other children, nobody knows what's happening, Melissa. Yeah, that's right. I mean, that is our social safety net. I know you've talked about it on other shows. We need that social safety net. We need the people to say something, to see something. And if they're keeping those kids at home, we don't have that
Starting point is 00:09:02 safety net. We don't have anybody going into the home and checking on these kids. And that's really when horrific abuse can happen. Melissa, you remember your first child abuse case? I do. You don't forget it. Something you never get over. Yeah. You never get over.
Starting point is 00:09:17 I never got over any of them children beaten. One child in a vegetative state, a coma, for the rest of her life. She was three. And I remember one of the few times I teared up in open court, I found out not only was she in a vegetative state, this three-year-old, but she had also been raped, a three-year-old. Yeah, you never get past those. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we're talking about the so-called girl in the wall.
Starting point is 00:10:03 What in the hay does that mean? Well, don't put the cart before the horse. To Mary Jo Pitzel, joining us, senior reporter, Arizona Republic. Mary Jo, we heard Daphne Young mention why the 11-year-old little girl had to call 911. And let me tell you something, as you well know, Mary Jo, this is your expertise. That's a tip of the iceberg. But why did the 11-year-old girl call police? She had been home alone for two days.
Starting point is 00:10:32 Her parents weren't there. Her siblings weren't there. I think her mom and two of the children had gone out of state. Lord knows where dad was. We haven't learned anything about that yet. She was alone and hungry and scared. And she did what a lot of kids know from watching TV and maybe from being instructed by their parents, but she called 911. And it really was the tip of the iceberg. How many other children were in the home when she called 911?
Starting point is 00:11:03 None. So she was left all alone. Yes. You know, to you, Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, drbethanymarshall.com, Dr. Bethany, do you remember when I was trying to have children and got pregnant with the twins? Yes, I do. You know, what people go through, including me, to have children. And why would you even want children if you're going to treat them like that, Dr. Bethany?
Starting point is 00:11:32 Because having power over a child or using a child for some other gain other than nurturing and providing for and being there for the child is ascendant in the parent's mind. You know, we imagine because we all love children. I can't, I can't even watch a child walk down the street with their parents without staring. They're such beautiful little creatures. But, you know, not all adults love children. Some adults are either not bonded uh they're detached they hate the child they resent okay you know dr bethany i typically agree with everything you say but not bonded my rear end they're starving this child that's a heck of a lot more than not bonded i'm going to circle back in just a moment so i can continue my argument with you, but I want you to take a listen to our friend Bianco Bono, KP in X12. Minutes after DCS left,
Starting point is 00:12:32 the Loyeras' home near 59th Avenue in Camelback going up in flames. In a fire, authorities say they intentionally set firefighters then finding Charisma's skeleton in the attic. Detectives now say the Loyeras murdered her. Based on the way that the body was found and some of the evidence that was collected, abuse is believed to have happened. They are very strong. Priscilla feels cheated that she never got the chance to reconnect with Charisma, looking forward to getting justice for her daughter. I want them to suffer with their thoughts, their thoughts to torture them like what they did to my children. And police are not elaborating on exactly what happened to Charisma. Okay, let me understand. Mary Jo Pitzel, police get called out when the 11-year-old little girl calls all alone, nothing to eat for at least two days.
Starting point is 00:13:21 We know at one time there were brothers and sisters. So shortly after police leave that scene, the fire goes up in flames. How does that translate to finding a little girl, a body in the attic, in the wall? There was one more step in between there, Nancy, after they, um, they, uh, removed the 11 year old. Um, they came back to that. They found out that, yeah, she's got, she said she had two, two siblings, a brother and a sister. Um, but they were out of town. So investigators go back a day or two later, um, everybody's home and they removed the other two children, um, out of concern that they've been neglected after those two kids are removed and within about a half-hour amazingly the house house fire and and an alarm goes out and fire
Starting point is 00:14:16 officials show up to fight the fire and while they're doing that they you know common tactics it punched a hole up into the ceiling and I think it was a washroom. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The little remains came down. Mary Jane Pitzel, drinking from the fire hydrant right here. Okay, let me understand what you just told me. Okay. And guys, this is what you hear. If you hear prosecutors try and correct me if I'm wrong, Melissa Hotmeyer, trying to get a handle on their case.
Starting point is 00:14:52 It always happened to me at the medical examiner's office. No offense, Dr. Dupree, but they talk in medical terms and I would have to go, wait, wait, wait, what? What does that mean? So when I stand up in front of a jury i can explain it because i understand it so mary jo you're saying they go to the home with the 11 year old starving they take her then from her they find out there are other brothers and sisters they go back to the home a few days later the family's. They take those two children out because the 11 year old has been starved and left alone. So CPS, Child Protective Services, takes them out.
Starting point is 00:15:35 Shortly after that, the house goes up in flames. Now this is the part I want you to repeat. I've done a lot of arsons and one of the things they do is break through the wall sometimes. It changes the airflow. There's a lot of reasons they do it. So what did they do, Mary Jo? Firefighters come in. They're trying to put out the fire before the whole house gets consumed. And they punch holes in ceilings and walls, as you said, to let air flow to try to control the fire. And that's when they find another alarming discovery.
Starting point is 00:16:15 Which is? Skeletal remains have tumbled down. Some are still up in the attic. Some have come down when they knocked out the ceiling, fallen onto the floor, found in the drywall. Later, some skeletal remains were found in the family's backyard. And I'm unclear on how that happened. Fire investigators were removing things from the home and trying to literally piece together what they had found of these skeletal remains, which appeared to be of a young girl. So this little girl skeleton was behind drywall in the attic and no one knew straight out to dr michelle dupree forensic pathologist former medical examiner how do you determine based on examining the skeletal remains how long the child
Starting point is 00:17:17 had been dead we can estimate that from the actual condition that the remains are in and the condition where they were found um heat of of course, speeds up decomposition. So we take those things into consideration when we examine the remains of skeletons. So I'm sure she was totally skeletonized. In other words, there was no flesh or tissue on her. If so, Dr. Michelle Dupree, how could they just look at skeletal remains, assuming there were no clothes, and determine it was a girl? Nancy, females and males have a different skeletal structure. For example, we can look at the head.
Starting point is 00:17:58 We also look at the jawline, and we also look at the pelvis. Pelvis areas typically give us a real indication whether it's male or female. In what way? Well, female skeletons are more heart-shaped, and that's so that they can have babies and pass through the birth canal. Male skeletons are shaped much differently. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Guys, we are talking about the girl in the wall, The girl in the attic. Those words alone should send a chill down your spine. When firefighters rush to the scene and begin fighting a blaze at home,
Starting point is 00:18:59 what falls down, what rains down from the attic? The bones of a little girl. Back to you, Mary Jo Pitzel. Take a listen to our friend Zach Crenshaw, ABC 15. DCS was first called out here nine days ago because an 11-year-old girl said she was left here completely alone and afraid. They said that she had clearly been amused and they removed her from the home. Well, just yesterday, investigators came back because they realized two other kids were still living in this home. Just one hour after they removed those final kids, they saw smoke billowing from this house, and detectives say it was the parents trying to cover up their most horrific crime. For more than 24 hours, investigators have been working outside
Starting point is 00:19:42 the Loretta home, rummaging through trash bags next to kids' toys, bringing in an arson dog, even removing the remains of a child. A child detectives believe Father Rafael tried to burn. He is also alleged to have admitted to have hidden a corpse. Firefighters dousing the flames before all the evidence could be destroyed. Now police allege, while Rafael helped, his wife Maribel was the main source of abuse. So once again, we hear the story one parent is doing all the abuse while the other parent stands by and watches. To Mary Jo Pitzel, senior reporter, Arizona Republic, isn't it true that the parent, the cops, CPS, takes the original little girl away who was alone and starving?
Starting point is 00:20:31 They find out there are brothers and sisters. They go back a couple of days later to get the brothers and sisters, and those were two children, a 9-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl. And when they got there, isn't it true, the mother, Maribel Rea, refused to come out of the house. Instead, she takes the children outside and they hand over the children in the yard. The mom and dad won't let CPS back in the home.
Starting point is 00:21:01 Yes, and that raises suspicions. Parents have, they do have a right to keep somebody out of their house unless they show up with a warrant. Although in this case, I think that the Department of Child Safety should have had a warrant for the removal of those two children and should have been able to obtain access to the house. So they go back for the children, but they only get two. You know, what happened? I assume they can count. Didn't they notice there wasn't the third remaining child, Mary Jo?
Starting point is 00:21:38 No, at that point, you know, again, it had been two years since the oldest child had died she had and her siblings were told that she had moved to another state they she was out of their lives so their their existence was the three of them so after the after the second removal of the brother and the sister, that cleared the house of children. And as we saw, you know, soon after, a fire started. We're trying to take in this sequence of events. Take a listen, guys, to our friends at KTVK3TV. At least say on January 20th, they came to this home because an 11-year-old girl called to say she was scared and alone. Cops found evidence of child abuse and the Department of Child Safety took custody of that girl. When we came out here on January 20th, the 11-year-old was the only child in the home at that time.
Starting point is 00:22:32 Then yesterday, DCS came back to the house, taking away two more kids, ages 9 and 4, after finding more evidence of child abuse. Police say just about an hour after DCS took those kids, someone called to report that the house was on fire. Phoenix Fire Department gets out here, they make entry to the home, extinguish the fire. When they're in there, they discover what they believe to be skeletal remains. Well, obviously, Dan Scott, former L.A. County Sheriff's Sergeant, 26 years, Special Victims Bureau, specializing in child abuse. They were afraid. The parents, Maribel and Rafael Larea,
Starting point is 00:23:08 clearly realized CPS is going to figure out there's a child missing. So they started to burn down the house to get rid of the evidence. True, but I'm not sure when they're going to figure it out. These were foster children. They went back to the house and they didn't know one child was missing. They should have had a record of all the children and there should have been regular checks on these kids. I don't get it. There's this sequence of events is shocking. The crime is shocking. But the fact that no one saw this and it took a week to go back, it's like the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. I don't want to pick on DCFS, but if law enforcement had been there, they were told she was adopted and sent to Mexico. That's the story they told.
Starting point is 00:24:12 Another issue, back to you, Mary Jo Pitzel, the home, when they first went to get the 11-year-old girl that was left alone in itself show clear signs of abuse. The floor was littered with feces. The home was unkempt. The little girl was starved. What can you tell us about the condition of the home? We don't know a whole lot more, again, because the detailed police reports have not yet been released because this case is awaiting a criminal trial.
Starting point is 00:24:46 So what we know is what we've received from police at the scene and a little bit that we got from the medical examiner report, although it didn't focus so much on the home. But it was a standard ranch house on a corner lot. And I really don't know much else about the interior conditions. Well, I'm looking at the complaint, the actual complaint, the direct complaint paperwork states, officers found the inside of the home filthy with what appeared to be human feces throughout the residence on the floors. Officers say they found evidence of child abuse, and that is when the 11-year-old girl was taken into custody. I mean, Dr. Bethany Marshall having a pet maybe in the home that urinated or pooped somewhere, that's one thing. Right. in the home that urinated or pooped somewhere. That's one thing. But having feces throughout the entire home, everywhere, and the home being filthy, that in itself is a type of abuse.
Starting point is 00:25:57 It is. It's neglect, Nancy. And throughout my entire 30-year career, I've often wondered what causes a person to be unable to see when they're living in a mess. Feces on the floor, you know, food all over the place. All the pictures we've seen of homes where there's child abuse, burned mattresses, broken toys. It's as if the parents can't really see what's going on around them. But there's often something even more sinister, Nancy, and it underscores every single type of child abuse, and that is resentment towards the child for having
Starting point is 00:26:34 needs. This is why the children are starved and skinny. It's not just because the parents don't have money for food or, you know or hoarding the food for themselves. When the child eats, the parent imagines the child to be greedy. It's sick and twisted. I've seen and heard of parents actually putting padlocks on the refrigerator in order to keep the children from eating. You and I have covered so many stories before where it's one brave child who finally calls 911. And then there's a whole group of children behind them that are starving in the home. crime stories with nancy grace for those of you just joining us we are talking about the girl in the wall the girl in the attic when firefighters go to a home to put out a bla. They're punching out ceilings and walls and lo and behold, human bones rain down
Starting point is 00:27:47 on them. Even more sadly, these are the bones of a little girl, almost immediately identifiable as a little girl. That's why they were burning the home because Melissa Hopmeyer, according to firefighters records that I've read, the smoke was not coming from the fireplace or the kitchen where you'd expect it to come from. It was coming out of an attic vent. So they put, they set the attic on fire to start with. And that's very easy to discern from an arson investigation. You can easily tell where a fire started. Number one, where the fire starts initially will be the part of the structure that is the most damaged because the fire burned the longest. Very often there you'll find evidence of an accelerant or how
Starting point is 00:28:39 the fire started. So that's where the fire started was in the attic. So the question is why? But my question to you, Melissa Hotmeyer, is I've seen a lot of cases where the children are denied food while the parents eat as much as they want. That's its own type of torture. Absolutely. And, you know, there are so many states that have torture statutes specifically for this reason, because parents engage in a pattern of behavior of withholding food and making children watch them eat, all the while abusing them at the same time. And they need to be held accountable for those types of actions. I mean, Daphne Young, joining us from ChildHelp, and I encourage you to go to childhelp.org. Learn what
Starting point is 00:29:27 I learned the first time I went there. Daphne Young, other than beating a child, what could be more horrible than to starve the child and make the child watch you eat a full-blown meal? I remember you remember the House of Horrors, the Turpins in California, where they would starve the children and they would actually chain them to their beds and they would bring home pies from the deli counter at the grocery store and they would gorge on the pie while the children would be forced to watch them. You know, Nancy, I remember a case where, and this is right here in Arizona, where they put a metal security gate on a door inside the house so that a child could smell the food wafting through the gate and have to sit
Starting point is 00:30:20 there and starve bit by bit, day by day, hair falling out, belly distended, while the family enjoyed a meal. And that child was the sacrificial child that we've seen so many times in these cases. Nancy, if I could jump in too, often they choose one child to love and one child to hate, one child to abuse and torture, and one child to put on a pedestal. I wrote a paper on a case from my practice, a woman now an adult, but when she was a child, her mother would cook elaborate meals for her older sister and then make her sit in the corner and watch them eat. She wasn't allowed to go to the table. And this happened all throughout her developmental years. And you can imagine now that she's an adult, the trauma she feels. But I'm the rest? And that's why the other
Starting point is 00:31:30 survived and this one is dead. That's my same thought. I was considering that along with the possibility that now the 11-year-old girl that was left alone and being starved was victim number two. In other words, we have killed your sister. You saw what happened to her. You're next. And then all the children fall in line waiting for their turn to be the next Cinderella child, if you will, which is a simple term for a very horrific experience. Is that Melissa or Daphne speaking? That's Daphne. I got to tell you, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but let me ask you, Dan Scott. I have a really hard time doing this because I keep imagining my son or my daughter. I'm especially imagining my daughter because we're talking about the girl in the wall and the 11-year-old who was starved and called 911.
Starting point is 00:32:26 I mean, Dan, it has to take a toll on all of us who have investigated or worked cases like this. I mean, how did you do that as an L.A. County Sheriff, an L.A. County Sheriff Sergeant, how do you separate the case from your life? I believe it, first of all, it takes a special kind of person to be able to do this. And you have to separate it. And whether it's an investigation or a prosecutor or the medical examiner, the entire multidisciplinary team, we have to look for the little victories. Obviously, in this case, the victories are the children that were saved. We can't save them all, unfortunately, and it's such a tragedy. But we have to look at those children that have been pulled out of that home and saved.
Starting point is 00:33:26 And hopefully they were placed in a home with loving parents, loving foster parents. And there are a lot of good foster parents that are great. Yes, that's true. And what's so odd about this, one of the many odd things is if you look at these foster parents, now defendants, you'd never suspect what they really are. As a matter of fact, take a listen to the neighbors. This is from KTVK3. I'm one of those neighbors like I never would have thought of next to me. Disbelief that this man's neighbor, 56-year-old Rafael Loera, is in jail tonight,
Starting point is 00:34:01 charged with arson, child abuse, and concealment of body parts. The guy seems like a good guy the the male there that lives there he uh he's an older gentleman uh said he works at a school or something sources confirmed that rafael loira worked as a teacher's aide at sierra linda high school in the tollison school district he didn't seem like a guy that would hurt somebody you know doesn't seem like a guy that would hurt somebody how these people blend in uh to melissa hotmeyer i it always amazes me but they do neighbors co-workers have no idea what they're doing to their children at home yeah it's amazing to me that every case i have the more horrific the the child abuse the more neighbors and even family are like, they were the perfect
Starting point is 00:34:46 parent. These individuals are good at hiding the monster that these children see. They're sociopaths. I'm not a doctor. I'm a JD just like you, Nancy, but they are experts at hiding the abuse that they're performing. If I could jump in about this, Nancy, this is why it's so important for DCFS to see the inside of the home. One of the things that's been happening during the pandemic is that my colleagues and I are seeing inside people's homes via Zoom. We see their pets, we see their homes, we see a child walk through, and some of us are shocked by what we've seen. And we're concluding that you can't really know the neglect would have been apparent right away. So foster children should not be in a home without other adults laying eyes on them.
Starting point is 00:35:53 I just heard a story yesterday in my practice, a 33-year-old successful man with his own TV show, well-known. His dad abused him repeatedly during childhood, and when DCFS came to even conduct an appropriate interview. So I think that our methodologies have to continue to change with what we know about human behavior and abuse. Well, of course, a day late and a dollar short. Here comes the bio mom. Take a listen to KTVK3. There is no words to explain because my baby laid in there. Helpless. Okay, so where's she been all this time, Mary Jo Pitzel? I know the children were originally taken away from their bio mom as she dealt with her drug
Starting point is 00:36:53 addiction, but she allegedly got clean. Now she's complaining that the state didn't do a background check on the foster parents. These kids, not only they went into the foster system, but then they were adopted. Their first names, their names were changed. She didn't know where these kids were until this crime happened. That's why she came forward. Whose fault is that? Well, that's the way the law works. I mean, once a child's adopted. Well, I mean, she had the right to contest the adoption. Oh, true. I mean, she lost. Come on, please.
Starting point is 00:37:31 Yeah, her parental rights were terminated, and she went about, you know, eventually getting clean, as you said, and, yes, had lost her relationship with her children. All we can hope for now is justice. And that is a bitter cup of tea. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.

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