Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Major break in case of double life soccer mom murder

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Kathleen West, known as "Kitty Kat" by men who subscribed to her sex website, was killed when her husband busted her skull with a liquor bottle, according to court documents. Jeff West's trial is underway. Joining Nancy Grace Today: James Shelnutt - 27 years Atlanta Metro Major Case detective, SWAT Officer (RET) Attorney www.shelnuttlawfirm.com  Dr. Daniel Bober - Forensic Psychiatrist, Chief of Psychiatry Memorial Regional Healthcare Systems, Assistant Clinical Professor at Yale University School of Medicine, follow on Instagram at drdanielbober Bobby Chacon - Former Special Agent FBI, screenwriter on "Criminal Minds" Dr. Katherine Maloney, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Erie County Medical Examiners office, Buffalo, New York Dave Mack Crime Online Investigative Reporter Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. A gorgeous young mother of one ends up dead in the street in their suburban home front yard, half in the yard, half in the street, wearing a sports bra? How did that happen on a quiet suburban cul-de-sac? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. As always, there's more to the story, but let's start at the beginning. Take a listen. The gruesome discovery of Cat West's body was made by a neighbor's daughter at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning. The young woman was on her way to work.

When she saw a body in the roadway, she went back to get her father. West was facedown, both in the street and in the grass of a neighbor's yard. It was the neighbor directly across the street from West's home. The man says he touched West's back to see if she was breathing. She wasn't. 911 was called. Police reports state that West was partially dressed, wearing only a sports bra, and that she was bleeding from the head. A cell phone was found nearby and a green liquor bottle on top of

it. Wow, so many clues flying through my head right there. Was she jogging? If so, was she jogging in the middle of the night or did nobody notice that mom was gone? Obviously, she was sex attacked or was she? Why was she only wearing a sports bra? Why was she half in the yard and half in the street? Is there surveillance video? What do we know about this woman? Again, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Let me introduce you an all-star panel of guests to break it down and put it back together again. First of all, James Shelna, 27 years, Metro Major Case, SWAT, now lawyer at shelnalawfirm.com. Dr. Daniel Bober, Chief of Psychiatry, Memorial Regional Healthcare, Assistant Professor at Yale. You can find him on Insta at Dr. Daniel Bober. Bobby Chacon, former special agent with the FBI now,

screenwriter for Criminal Minds. Dr. Catherine Maloney, you know her name well. Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Erie County. That's Buffalo. But first, to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Dave Mack. Let me understand. A neighbor found the body? Found the woman laying there half in a yard, half on the street. Exactly, Nancy.

A neighbor, a young girl, is driving on her way to her weekend job just after 5 o'clock in the morning, and her headlights catch what appears to be a woman laying partially in the road, partially above the curb in their quiet neighborhood. Okay, stop right there, Dave Mack, because I want to analyze that. When you don't know who your victim is, you don't know what happened, you've got to analyze first what you can tell from the scene and who calls 911. Like right off the bat, Bobby Chacon, you look at who finds the body.

Okay. At Bobby Chacon, you look at who finds the body. So you have to question, why is this person out at 5 a.m. in the morning? But I have a hard time thinking a teen girl neighbor is going to crack this woman over the top of the head. Plus, because she's very scantily clothed, naked, except for sports bra. Teen girl doesn't fit this scenario here. Absolutely. And the first thing that teen girl does, I believe, is go back and get her mother and father to help her with this obviously overwhelming situation for her. By all accounts, she was very, very upset.

And even afterwards, for months afterwards, this person who found this body was upset. It's in front of the victim's house. You have to assume she's naked except for the sports bra. You have to assume she had just come out of the house for some reason. She wasn't going on errands. She wasn't going on an early morning jog. We don't know that, though.

We don't know, Bobby, if she had come out the night before and was going to the car. We don't know if she was. In fact, it's 5 a.m. Maybe she was out. You know what, Bobby? I get fact, it's 5 a.m. Maybe she was out. You know what, Bobby? I get up at least at 5 a.m. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people, mostly women, out jogging at that time of the day. But I hear what you're doing. Bobby Chacon with me, former special agent FBI and now screenwriter for Criminal Minds. You're like a computer. You're processing all these possibilities

about why is this woman there? I think we, I and your computer brain can agree on one thing is that this teen girl had nothing to do with it. James Shelnut, 27 years Metro major case, right at the get go, you look, you look at who finds the body, all right? Because very often that person is involved. But this girl, I'm just not seeing it. I would reject that possibility at the get-go. A teen girl who runs home to mommy and daddy, plus the victim's naked except for a sports bra? Uh-uh. Yeah, you know, at that point, you know, you want to do two things.

You want to go back and say, okay, well, if this person wasn't involved, who really was the last person to see her alive? Well, did you hear what Bobby Chacon was saying, James Shelnut? He started off with saying she must have just come out of the house. Well, I did. Of course, she was in her house at some point. But I disagree with that right there. I don't know. She came out the night before. My daughter loves to go walk after dinner.

It gets dark, right? So how do I know she didn't go jogging the night before after her daughter's already put to bed and nobody noticed that she's been lying in the road? I mean, it could be any number of variants to you, James Shelnut. Oh, it could be. You know, you'd want to look at whether or not they're dressed for jogging. Or, you know, did this person normally jog? Was this some type of pattern?

I don't think she jogged naked. Yeah. But I do think she had on a sports bra. That would tell me maybe she was. Well, we don't know how long she had been out there. And we don't know how long she had been out there and we don't know what time she got there, and that can possibly be determined, you know, by taking the internal temperature of Cat West when she's located. But without those things and not knowing the exact time she came

out, I agree with Bob, it doesn't appear that she was jogging and it appears a lot more like she was actually placed there or that she was injured and collapsed there. Hmm. Guys, we're trying to analyze the scene for this. And I mean, gorgeous, young. She looks like a soccer mom. Doesn't she look like a soccer mom to you? One daughter is found dead in their upscale suburban cul-de-sac, half on the road, half in a yard, naked except for a sports bra. You just heard from Jackie Howard at Crime Online.

Take a listen to Steve Fabian, Inside Edition. Female in the roadway, naked, 50 are no longer in progress. Female not breathing. Kathleen's body was found around 5 a.m. outside her home here in the small town of Calera, Alabama. Her body was discovered by a neighbor's 12-year-old daughter. Kathleen was face down, wearing only a sports bra and bleeding from the head. Police also found a cell phone next to Kathleen, as well as a bottle of alcohol known as Lucid, a type of absinthe. Okay, right there at the beginning, I just learned something new. The girl who finds her is 12. I thought she was older than that because I understood from Dave Mack at the get-go,

she was driving. Is she 12 or no, Dave Mack? How old is she? No, ma'am. She was not 12 years old. She was actually up and driving to her part-time job. Okay, so they've got it wrong. All right, she's back in the mix. She's 19. The daughter's 12. So what I'm trying to determine is a little bit more. Face down is what I just learned, Dave Mack. Face down, which is critical. That's important. She's bleeding from the head, and a cell phone is found next to her and a bottle of absinthe. Tell me, where is the cell phone and where is the absinthe, Dave Mack?

The cell phone is just to the, well, depending on where you're standing, just near her body. But the bottle of absinthe is actually placed on top of the cell phone. And I say placed because it was balanced on that cell phone. That is significant. Jump in, Bobby Chacon, because that bottle of absinthe didn't put itself on top of the dead victim's cell phone. It didn't happen that way. Absolutely right, Nancy. Absolutely right. It's significant in the fact that, you know, if she was alone and she hit her head by accident, she fell and stumbled and dropped her phone, that bottle

would not be carefully placed on top of her phone. So that immediately, to me, puts another person at that scene. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we were talking about the body of a suburban soccer mom. One daughter found naked in her suburban cul-de-sac. How did this happen? Interesting to you, again, Bobby Chacon, it was a bottle of absinthe. I first became aware of absinthe. I don't know if you remember this case or not, but I believe his name was George Jones,

the missing groom. I'll have to remember his last name. But he had just gotten married, beautiful bride, happy outlook, both. She's a teacher. He's got a job. They're going on a dream cruise to Greece, many different places for their honeymoon. And he meets up with people on the cruise ship and they're all drinking absinthe. I had to look it up, Bobby. I never, I mean, I guess I'd heard of of it but I didn't really know what it was did you know that in many jurisdictions they don't even allow you to have absinthe it is that potent that's right Nancy yeah and and it supposedly causes like hallucinations or whatever and in fact in the United States it was illegal for a period of time um that's how powerful it

is I've never tried it or anything like that but I do know that when it first hit the market it was it was very controversial I just thought of his name George Smith the missing groom it's all coming back to me right now absent okay you know did you know Bobby I recall learning that it is so powerful that it is normally diluted with water before it's consumed? Yeah, this is a very special type of alcohol. I mean, it has very powerful effects on people. I mean, if it's made illegal in certain places, you know that people have a concern about consuming this. Joining me right now, Dr. Catherine Maloney, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Erie County, that's Buffalo, New York Dr. Maloney, it's so great to have you with us Let's just pretend

the body had been out overnight because we don't have a time of death yet What would that do to determining cause of death and how do you determine how long she's been dead if she's outside overnight? Well, with her being outside

overnight, you could look at certain postmortem changes. So you could see how much her body had cooled down from an assumed base temperature of 98.6 degrees. So that could give you a general range of how long she might have been there. You could look at settling of the blood, which we call lividity after death, which starts to settle as soon as someone dies and then at some point will become fixed, which means it won't move when you move the body. And then we could also look at rigidity or rigor mortis and see how stiff her muscles were. And that could give us kind of a general idea of how long she'd been lying there. I want to talk to you about a rigor mortis and liver mortis. So the body begins to stiffen up. Why does it do that?

Basically, it has to do with the muscles and how they work. So in order for our muscles to relax, it requires energy. And so if we're dead, our body stops making energy. So without the energy, our muscles can't relax. Thank you. I know you had to dummy that down a lot for me, but it worked. I get it. Now, the settling of the blood, for instance, if Cat West is lying on her face, all the blood settles to the front of her body. It would be her face, her chest, the front of her stomach, the front of her legs. The blood sifts down. If you're on your side, it all sifts to one side. And what does that tell you? How long does that process take, Dr. Maloney? Well, the blood will start to settle in those areas pretty soon after you die. And then it will start to fix, which means that it won't move anymore if you get basically to get rolled over or something like that. And that takes anywhere from some six to 12 hours. It kind of depends on the body and the temperature and things like that. But, you know, it gives you a

sense of the position the body was in and it lets you know if the body was moved and then also how long the body's been lying there. Now, I heard either Shilna or Chaconne mention take her internal temperature. How do you do that on a body? So there are a couple different ways to do that depending on the office you work in. In some places they'll actually make a small cut on the abdomen and put a temperature probe right in the liver. In some offices they use the same temperature devices that we're all accustomed to with COVID where they kind of point a laser at your head and get a temperature reading. And in some offices, again, they'll use that temperature probe, but they'll put it in the person's rectum.

So it really depends on the office and how they do things. To imagine what this teen girl goes through finding a dead body. But that was just the beginning of what that neighborhood was set to learn. Take a listen to the police chief, Sean Limley. On January 13th at around 0510 a.m., the Calera Police Department was dispatched to the 100 block of Greenwood Circle on a partially nude female lying in the road. The victim, Kathleen West, suffered from blunt force trauma to the head

and was pronounced deceased at the scene. The neighborhood is in a panic. Take a listen to Patrick Thomas, ABC. News of Kathleen West's death is making people look over their shoulders. In life and in death, she continues to gain global attention online greenwood circle feels like any typical street in shelby county it's a quiet neighborhood

people stay to themselves then clear police found the body of 42 year old wife and mother kathleen west in the road just two doors down from Xavier Lee. But something like this to happen so close to home, with my wife and children so near, it's shocking. Many neighbors have questions. At that point, I'm thinking, wait, do we have a killer on the loose? Well, yeah, I guess so. And to you, Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, the neighborhood is beautiful. Did you see their house? I did. It is a beautiful place. They built it themselves a couple of years before this took place. And it's just a quiet family neighborhood. You know, I know she has the one daughter. How old is the daughter?

She was 12 at the time this took place, Nancy, so 14 now. So this little girl realizes as time passes that mommy was killed just outside the front door, just outside, while this little girl most likely slept inside in her own bed. When you have a case like this, of course you look at forensics first. But then you've got to figure out who is the victim. Who is Cat West? Take a listen. Jeff and Cat West were married for 14 years.

The couple and their daughter lived in a two-story brick house they built and neighbors say they kept to themselves. Jeff West was an unsworn Birmingham Southern College campus police officer. Cat West ran an online business. Okay, so he is a campus security officer, like a cop. She has an online business. I know that she is also a full-time wife and mom. Take a listen to our friends at Inside Edition.

The 42-year-old who idolized screen goddess Marilyn Monroe loved to post wholesome photos with her family. But Kathleen was also leading a double life, posting wild and sexy selfies in low-cut outfits. She also had a subscription-only adult website where she went by the username KittyKatWest. Kat was her family nickname. "'Happy Sinful Sunday.

"'New pics up on site. "'Please check out my subscription,' she wrote on Instagram just six days before her death." Kat was also a member of the Cougar Club, an online social media site where women over 35 years old post provocative photos. Sandy Kay also belonged to the Cougar Club. I wish for everyone to stop trying to connect online photos to her passing. It's not like that, okay? It doesn't necessarily mean

indiscretions. It doesn't. It's, they're just pictures. Okay. I don't know if I agree with that. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The untimely murder of a physically beautiful young mom, a mom who had a quiet home, a daughter, a husband off, not off duty, but a security police officer at a campus. So what went wrong? How does mommy end up practically naked with a staged scene right in front of the home there on the cul-de-sac? I want to talk about that alleged staging. To Dr. Daniel Bober joining me, forensic psychiatrist, chief of psychiatry, Memorial Regional Healthcare Systems. Dr. Bober, when we say a scene has been staged, you're the forensic psychiatrist. What does that mean? It means very often, Nancy, that the scene is set up in a way to kind of throw people off the motive or who the attacker was. So this is something you can see very often in

sex crimes or even in robberies as well. You know, I think it means, in my mind, it's deeper than that. A random killer, I believe, Bobby Chacon, doesn't take time to stage the scene. Unless they're trying to stage it only to the extent they're dumping the body somewhere. To stage a scene, and I'm referring specifically to her cell phone with a bottle of Absinthe, this very powerful liqueur on top of it. What does that mean to you, Chacon? Well, it certainly means that someone was there other than just her, right? So you can rule out the fact that she bumped her head and went stumbling off into the night and then fell. You can rule that out pretty well right away.

So you have to look at why someone would have done that why they what what's what's the symbol is is there any symbolism to the staging you know so do you have someone who wanted to you know to titillate or to do something to either the police or to people who are finding the body so that that's the one thing but the main the thrust of the the staging is usually to throw people off who actually did it. In this case, it doesn't seem to be that. In this case, it seems, I don't know, it almost seems like a random staging. We'll see right there.

I don't think there's anything as a random staging. In other words, I think you're saying it was staged or set up that way for no particular reason, but it was set up. It might have. Yeah, it might have had it might have had meaning to the person who did it. But there's no obvious meaning to somebody passing by or to the police unless they do further investigation and realize what the staging means. But there's no obvious meaning to that staging. Normally, staging that's meant to throw people off. For example, if you strangle somebody and then put a chair on the ground to make it look like they tried to hang themselves or they actually hung themselves, that's a staging to throw you off the track. But a bottle on a cell phone doesn't give any obvious clues as to what might

have happened or to throw you off the track. All it does for me is it actually tells me that there was another person at the scene. Do you remember BTK, Buy, Torture, Kill Dennis Rader? Remember how he would stage the scene? He would very often redress the body, put weird makeup on the body. Ted Bundy would wash the hair of the dead victim and apply makeup, bathe them. That is a lot of staging. So the staging process can be very, very elaborate or not. But I do believe it means something.

And now we hear a member of the Cougar Club online say, they're just pictures. It means nothing. Well, I think it means a lot because I remember getting emails or letters from people that were watching me present crime stories and they thought there were hidden clues in what I was saying. It's not just TV. It's not just reporting. You never know how somebody out there may interpret what they see or hear. Take a listen to Mary O'Connell, WVTM. She described herself on Facebook as a full-time wife and mom, but also promoted

services as an online adult model on other social media. A neighbor, too, is looking for answers. Give us some kind of information. Do you have leads? Do you not have any leads? Do you have a person of interest? Anything to set our minds at ease because right now the neighborhood is kind of on edge. Police still haven't said how West died, if they're searching for a suspect, or if her online profession played a role in her death. Online profession. To you, Dave Mack, an online adult model. What exactly did this suburban housewife do online? She actually had a three phase business model okay she took pictures of herself in various stages of undress they were racy risque sexy poses on the public ones that she would share for everybody to see she was clothed but

dressed very sexy then she would encourage you to go to a different website um where you could look at more photos that had fewer clothes and if you like that then there was the subscription site where for $15.99 a month you could have unfettered access to looking at all of the uh photos that uh may or may not have clothing um or so me understand, as the value of the precious metal went up, the clothes went off. So you've got your regular, you know, I guess silver level where she's posing, I guess, cooking cookies, making cookies in the kitchen. Then you got your gold, and she's got on, as you say, she's dressed sexy. I think you meant sexily. And then I guess platinum would be naked?

Exactly. Have you been doing a lot of research on this, Dave Mack? More than I cared to admit, but I had an excuse when my wife saw me looking. I said, baby, I'm working. Okay, I'm sure that went over really well. So, you know, it's very difficult for me to believe, James Shelnut, that her online business model, or as Dave Mack refers to it as a three-tiered business model, had nothing to do with her death. That's really hard for me to take in. You know, it could have had something to do,

but it could have been in multiple ways. You know, could there have been someone who saw these pictures who stalked her? It wouldn't be the first time. I mean, we've all covered cases and looked at cases like that. What more do we know about her online profession? Take a listen to our friend Patrick Thomas.

She went by the name Kitty Cat West online with a subscription-based website selling racy photos. I talked to police who only say they're still investigating this case as a homicide. And this opened up a whole book of worries. Like, do I have to put cameras around my home? A question Lee says he wishes he didn't have to ask. I don't want to cry, but just the thought of it happening to a beautiful young lady. A mother makes me look at my wife and children. When somebody takes her away from me,

I'll be devastated. Police department is releasing few details at this time. Chief Sean Limley says he's afraid of hurting the investigation. If you look online, there she is wearing a sexy police outfit. There she is wearing

not too much at all. I think baking cookies in the kitchen there's i mean there's all different sorts of pictures of mostly of her in racy lingerie who was looking at these photos one of the first things you've got to do is you agree or disagree dr daniel bober you're the forensic psychiatrist is get the clientele list off the computer as to who was looking at CatWest Online. Absolutely, Nancy. You know, maybe it's something, maybe it's nothing, but you need that client list to see, you know, if you can track IP addresses or find out if there was someone who, you know, maybe in their own head was interpreting it a different way and was

stalking her. So these are all things that need to be ruled out. Well, you don't know which way to go. You start tracking the victims, the movements leading up to their death. And that's exactly what police began to do. Take a listen to our friends at Inside Edition. This is the last time stay at home mom Kathleen West was seen alive. Surveillance footage obtained exclusively by Inside Edition shows the beautiful woman shopping and laughing inside a liquor store eight hours before she was found dead. Kat bought the bottle of Absinthe at R&R Wine & Liquor the night before her body was discovered.

The store's surveillance video shows her pulling up in a black Chevy with a man who looks like her husband. She's wearing a striped top, a leather jacket, jeans and wedges. She sure seems to be in a happy mood. At one point, the guy gives her a playful pat on her behind. What happened when they came in the store? They came in, they were,

it looked like they were on their date night. They bought a bottle of Jameson and a bottle of Lucid Absinthe. Okay. And made their purchase and went on their way. And everything seemed normal. Everything was normal. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We are talking about the untimely death of a beautiful young soccer mom on her quiet suburban cul-de-sac

that coincidentally has a second life as an online adult model posing in racy lingerie and much, much less. What, if anything, did that have to do with her death? Her name? Cat. Nickname online? Kitty Kat. So to you, Dave Mack, she's pictured at this liquor store getting the absinthe. Somebody's patting her on the rear end. Who's that?

It is her husband, Jeff West. And how close to the time of death, as explained by Dr. Catherine Maloney. How close in time was that? Eight hours between the time we last saw her and the time the police are called at 510 in the morning. Then a surprise goes down for anyone and everyone that is involved in the case. Listen. A swarm of investigators, an unexpected interruption to Dwayne Williams' breakfast.

About four more other cars followed. You know, they jumped all out. You know, the guy was already standing outside. He had his hands up. He immediately got on the ground. Williams watched police arrest Jeff West, now charged with murder, accused of killing his wife Kathleen last month. Investigators say she died from blunt force trauma, the case. The case is still pending. The case is still pending. The case is still pending. The case is still

pending. We watch police arrest Jeff West now charged with murder accused of killing his wife Kathleen last month. Investigators say she died from blunt force trauma. But West father William isn't so sure. Thanks. He got drunk

past. Kathleen West often posted provocative photos on her subscription based website drawing even more attention to the case. A Facebook group discussing her murder now has thousands of members. I don't really keep up with other crimes. I mean, I've never seen a Facebook paid murder. To Dave Mack, what is the small town? Calera is a suburb out in the country from Birmingham, Alabama. It's on the southern side, about 12,000 people, give or take. You know, typically, I would say to you, Bobby Chacon, that the fact that it's such a small town, a low population, that it would have to be somebody that knew her. But given her

online adult modeling, that really opens up the universe of suspects. Absolutely, Nancy. Actually, you know, almost makes it infinite. I mean, you have to, like you said earlier, you have to start looking at the subscribers to her website, not just the subscribers to her website, but the hits on her website that Dave described, the ones that don't have to sign up but can go to that intermediate website. You have to look at who's on there, whether she engaged in any chat conversations with these people, whether any of these people lived in her area. I mean, that online presence for investigators creates an immensely larger pool of suspects. I want to get Dr. Maloney's opinion on this. The husband's father says that he believes she got drunk and fell. What can you tell me about the injury? Was it to the front of the head, the back of the head? What do we know? That's a very good question, Nancy. I reviewed

everything I could find on the internet, but the most specific information I was able to come across is that it was blunt impact injuries of the head, which is pretty vague description. So, I'm not entirely sure where the injuries were what about it dave mack what do we know about her injury we exactly what dr maloney just said top of the head uh injury whoa wait wait top of the head that's important to dr maloney i had an arson case um where a millionaire burned down his mansion and whoops, his wife was in there. He managed to escape with his fully dressed at 1 a.m. wallet, keys, belt, shoes, the works. She died of smoke inhalation, but the medical examiner found blows, bruises to the very top of her head now how do you get a blow to the top of

your head by a fall she's halfway in the yard she's halfway on the driveway what's there to hit the curve how do you do it on the very top of your head doctor well in general what they kind of teach you as a medical examiner is that any injury that's above the level of a man's hat, so basically above the ears, is usually considered somewhat suspicious unless you have some type of circumstances that explain how that could have happened. Like someone fell down a flight of stairs or someone fell off of something. Or again, like you said, if her head was lined up just right against the curb, it's possible, but with generally a fall with a blow to like the back of the head or the side of the head, usually those are going to be below the level of the ears. Absolutely. And at trial,

in the case I was telling you about, Dr. Maloney, the defense tried to argue that the fire rescuers, when carrying her down the stairs, they rammed her head into a spindle of the staircase. Plausible, but was it enough to be the Dr. Maloney, to kill yourself with a blow on the top of the head? First of all, you'd have to be an Olympic gymnast to get a blow like that on the top of your head. But how much force would it require? Probably not from a fall from a standing height. You can get skull fractures if you fall just from standing up, but usually those aren't going to be injuries that are going to be immediately fatal.

So in general, the person usually is able to get back up and go get help unless they've broken their neck or something and they've become paralyzed. Usually the person will have a really bad headache or might be temporarily unconscious, but generally the person isn't going to instantly die just from a fall with hitting the head. Well, now we know the husband is charged in this, but take a listen. We can see what the defense is lining up to be. Take a listen to Mary O'Connell. This is the father of Jeff West speaking. Jeff West's father says both of the couple's parents aren't buying it. William West believes his daughter likely was drunk and accidentally fell. Now his grief has

turned to something else. Pissed off because I know they screwed it up and they're trying to blame somebody and they told them it was circumstantial evidence. Then they say they got proof. They don't know what they've got. As for Kat's life as an adult model, he says his son knew all about it. He wasn't fooling around with anybody else. This was just a photo thing. And there's a lot of freaks out there that gets into that stuff. Police have told us for more than a week that they were confident in this case and confident that they had the right guy.

So let me ask you this, Dave Mack. What else do police have other than the fact that he's the husband and they were together? You were just listening to Stephen Quinn at ABC. What else do they claim to have, Dave Mack? Well, what the police actually have is they actually have the security, the home had a security system that actually showed when doors were opened and closed and how long they were left open. And in this particular case, we have a door, the front door to the home, I believe, was opened at about 10 after 1 in the morning. And it remained open for the rest of the night and was not closed until after her body was discovered in the yard.

That's the one big piece of evidence that they have. And, of course, we have the fingerprints of his on the bottle of the absinthe. I know, but he was at the liquor store when they bought the absinthe. So, you know, that could explain why his prints were on the bottle. Do they know if the bottle was the murder weapon? That's what has been suggested, Nancy. But the bottle that was found on top of the cell phone in the yard actually the label had been taken off and they found the label later the next day as they were

collecting evidence I was still shocked the fact that if the bottle was used as a murder weapon that it wasn't broken but it was still half full of liquor I want you to take a listen to our cut 13 this is Stephen Quinn with ABC. The state's going to have a big problem with this. Listen. Police say they've had the same suspect all along. Mr. West, did you kill your wife? Police arrested Jeff West and charged him with his wife's murder.

The investigation, which lasted more than a month, ended under the same roof where it started. Police question West, but he appears to say very little. Didn't seem to be the times that I've seen him. Didn't seem to be very upset. Earlier this month, a judge denied West's request to have his bond lowered. He's still in jail tonight. This victim does have family. There is also a fender that has family. It's a tragedy all the way around for everybody involved. But there's a twist. The parents of both Jeff and Cat West have united against the police. Cat West's mother appeared in court alongside her son-in-law's family. She told a judge her daughter was a binge drinker and bipolar and that she, too, believes Jeff's story that her daughter slipped and fell that fateful night.

We went to the funeral home together. We saw her body together. I saw him. You can't fake what he went through when we were at the funeral home. To Dave Mack, this case is in a court of law right now. Where are they at in the trial? Just finished day two of the trial during the first day of testimony. There was a lot of talk over what happened with that 911 call when Kat's body was discovered. The eyewitnesses said that they could see somebody in the home of Kat West pacing a man, pacing back and forth the whole time. He only popped his head out briefly and said, hey, that's my wife, and then went back inside. They said all the lights were on in that house, the door was wide open, and the man is pacing back and forth while his wife is laying dead in the yard. Well, that's not going to help the defense. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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