Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Missing Iowa co-ed Mollie Tibbetts possible sighting 250 miles away?

Episode Date: August 2, 2018

The family of missing Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts is offering a $30,000 reward for information that leads police to the 20-year-old woman. Nancy Grace updates the investigation with Theresa Payton, the CEO of the security consulting company Fortalice Solutions. She is also joined by lawyer and psychologist Dr. Brian Russell, private investigator Vincent Hill, forensics expert Karen Smith, lawyer Ashley Willcott, and CrimeOnline.com reporter Leigh Egan. Alan Duke shares what he's learned about Los Angeles police shooting to death a homeless woman who was being held hostage by a man at a church. The LAPD released body cam video of the tragic incident that sheds light on the tough decision cops had to make as the man began slicing his hostage's throat. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph. An Iowa college student just 20 years old goes missing, seemingly disappearing into thin air reports claiming she was spotted jogging just before she was missing now we learned she was up late on her computer doing homework where is molly tibbets in the last hours we learned of a possible sighting of molly nearly 250 miles away from where she goes missing in her boyfriend's apartment. He's out of town on a construction job 250 miles away near a truck stop reportedly looking extremely disoriented. Where is Molly? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for

being with us. Listen to what Molly's father, Rob, has to say. Rob, when was the last time you talked to Molly? I talked to Molly Sunday for about three hours. We talked regularly on the phone. I live in California. She was out earlier this year for my wedding. And so we just talked about she's going to the Dominican Republic for a wedding, her boyfriend's brother. She's getting back to school, books she's reading, just the usual stuff.

She was wearing a Fitbit when she was running. Authorities have at least told us that much. What can you tell us tonight about how that's helping them track down her whereabouts and where she might have been last I don't know the authorities as you said are circumspect with all of the information and so they're not sharing that sort of information with us as well a lot of questions about what state the house she was staying in her boyfriend's house while he was off on this construction job. And she was there dog sitting, as much as we've been told. Something that has not been mentioned much, were the dogs there? Had the dogs been found? Were they at home when authorities arrived at the house? Yeah, the dogs were at the house. I was just there

yesterday and they're in perfect condition. Interesting. And so now they're waiting for new evidence that they may have new evidence in their possession. But are they sharing that with you, Rob? No, they're not. And for obvious reasons. The last thing the authorities want to do is share information that would give an advantage to anybody who would need to use that right now. The last we heard before the latest developments was that the last she was seen or heard of was on that run and now the new developments today is that the last she would have been seen was this photo she took Snapchat to her boyfriend and it looked like she was indoors. Would it be like Molly to be working on her computer and doing homework late into the evening like they believe she was now? It wouldn't be unusual.

When she was staying with us in California, she was on the computer quite a bit. She was taking online courses, so that wouldn't be unusual. But none of the timeline has been confirmed by the authorities, at least not to our knowledge, and so a lot of this is now conjecture and speculation that we just can't confirm. You're taking a listen to Molly's father, Rob Tibbetts, speaking to Fox News, Sandra Smith, straight out to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Lee Egan. Lee, I need to know what you know about the possible sighting of Iowa college student Molly Tibbetts. What do we know?

Sergeant Joe Cantola with the Kearney, Missouri Police Department said that he received numerous calls, numerous calls and messages after a Facebook poster said that they saw someone that greatly resembled Molly and that the person looked drugged, disoriented, and was with a truck driver. This was at a local truck stop in Kearney off of Missouri Highway 92. That's right, Lee. Kearney missouri police get this report that a woman matching tibbets description spotted at a truck stop near interstate i-35 and missouri 92 highway they claim she looked extremely disoriented uh that she resembles tibbets and was with a white male the tipsters also saying the woman did not appear to be quote in any distress now I find this very interesting let me go out to Karen Smith forensics expert authorities there in Kearney conduct, as they say, a thorough search

of the area, spoke with witnesses and review video footage before they send the report to Iowa investigators. Wouldn't that take a long time? Yes, it would, especially going over the video. If they have, you know, screenshots or video of this woman who resembled Molly, they would want to go over that. My question is, is there any closed circuit TV of the parking lot? Did they get a description of this alleged truck that she may have come from, the man that she was allegedly with? Did anybody write down a license plate? Did anybody get a description of that vehicle? Can they track it down on the interstate and find out if the woman, if it's Molly, if she's inside of that vehicle? But yes, that would take hours and hours.

And unfortunately, the clock keeps ticking in this case. I mean, there are so many ways there to get, for instance, tag grabbers along the interstate. If this person was pulled over at a truck stop to Vincent Hill, former cop turned private investigator, a tag grabber grabs license plate tags alongside of highways and interstates. Really simple. If this guy was pulling out of a truck stop, truck stops are highly monitored to my understanding vincent hill yeah they are nancy but you know i'm not so sure this could have been

molly here and here's why i say that based on my experience when i was in patrol i know what truck stops are known for i know what women that appear to be intoxicated under the influence of doing that truck stops you know they called them lot lizards right so a lot of women go to truck stops to sell themselves for sex you know what vincent i appreciate your recollections on as you say lot lizards but right now i don't think any tip is worth discounting before we go off on a dissertation regarding women at truck stops i'm asking you about surveillance video at truck stops and tag grabbers yeah the tag grabber would be great because like you said it takes the. It can send it to law enforcement. They could actually try to get a location on a vehicle, pull it over to investigate it.

But I'm just simply saying that I don't think investigators should spend an enormous amount of time chasing this lead. Because you would still have to account for how Molly got 250 miles away with no trace of her cell phone, her Fitbit, or anything like that. So you still have to take all of that into consideration. Joining us right now, Teresa Payton, special guest. She is the current CEO of industry-leading security consulting company, Fortalize Solutions, former White House chief information officer. Teresa, thank you for being with us. The whole issue of the Fitbit, we hear about it over and over and over.

And a lot of people are discounting this, apparently including Vincent, are discounting this unconfirmed sighting. And you know what, Teresa? They may be right. But at this point, cops, law enforcement, FBI cannot afford to discount anything. They really can't. And, you know, I applaud the teams that are working on this. And I know from working missing persons cases in the past, everybody's working around the clock. And there is software that you can use. So with the surveillance

videos, with license plate readers, there is software that you can use that can sort of comb through this and try and get you down to, you know, kind of reverse facial recognition lookup. You can type in some keyword searches and try and speed this up. And certainly, if they would be open to volunteers, I know my team and I have done pro bono work on missing persons cases in the past. And I'm certain that, you know, kind of the whole country, this has captured their attention. And I'm sure people would help comb through. I'm sure it feels to them like it's tons and tons of sand and you're sifting through it to try and find that one gem that might help

crack the case. Guys, take a listen to Kevin Winkler with the Iowa Department of Public Safety. Listen. Doctor, one of the basic facts is where she disappeared from. Some of the family members have indicated that evidence suggests she may have returned home after the run. Do you believe she disappeared on the run or after she r that's one of those detail not going to discuss today I believe we have a good working off of and I'm co

team is doing everything sure that that is a solid generating the appropriat up on. Doesn't that change the response though knowing where she disappeared from whether it was on her run on that route? Everything is important absolutely. The question becomes is it something that I need to be sharing right now as opposed to the investigative team following up on. So absolutely every detail that we have related to this investigation is important

so i'll leave it at that this is what we know we know that authorities are saying had tibbets been seen in surveillance video that they reviewed it would have been mentioned in the statement to reporters that's what cops are saying that leads me to believe after reviewing the video they do not believe this is molly tibbets i don't have a clear answer it seems like from what i'm hearing to theresa payton it sounds like cops are not telling us what they believe went down because you just heard a direct question to the Iowa Department of Public Safety's Kevin Winkler about was she taken while she was running which was your first timeline or no because reports now surfacing that computer searches reveal she was working on homework on her computer late that

night when she went missing and that is inconsistent with an earlier jog that evening. That tells me what I suspected all along. She was taken or left from the home, Teresa. Yeah, I think that to me, when I heard she was doing homework, so first of all, was it online homework? Did she check in with a teacher? Did she check in with classmates? A lot of times these online courses and online homework have chat rooms. Did she communicate with anybody? Is it possible if

we check the sexual offenders database to see are there people registered that are within several miles? Did they happen to notice? This time around, her boyfriend and the brother aren't there at the house. She seems to be alone. I mean, maybe these are all things the investigators have taken a look at and just haven't shared with us because they're worried they're going to tip their hand to the bad guy. But it does tell me with that inconsistency that there are possibly some clues. Whatever device she was using to do her homework, there could be some clues. We could look through her search history. We could look through her cache. We could look at files that were created. We could look at other pictures that she sent. And oh, by the way, I heard that she sent a Snapchat. Snapchats can be recovered, and there are some tools that can help you recover it if you don't want to wait for the

subpoena process. So there's a lot of things here that, you know, kind of time is of the essence when somebody goes missing. You know, the longer they're gone, as you know, Nancy Grace, the harder the trail gets to follow. Well, also, Teresa, with me is Dr. Brian Russell from Investigation Discovery's Fatal Vows hit series, new season premiering August 11. Vincent Hill, cop turned PI karen smith forensics expert ashley wilcott juvenile judge lawyer and founder of childcrimewatch.com lee egan crime online.com investigative reporter and theresa payton ceo of security consulting company fortalice solutions theresa i want to talk quickly what you just said about Snapchat.

The boyfriend who is working out of town in Dubuque about two hours away on a construction job says that he opened a Snapchat from her at 10 p.m. That does not necessarily mean she sent it at 10 p.m., or does it? It does not mean that's when she sent it. If he opened it at 10, she could have sent it the day before. She could have sent it any time that day. Typically what happens is once the receiver, the intended receiver, opens it and views it, it disappears from view. But as I always tell everybody, delete doesn't mean delete. And so there are ways to recover those messages, and it doesn't have to be through a subpoena.

If the user themselves wants to recover them, it is considered legal for them to recover missing messages. And there's a couple different tools that he could use, and I'm happy to sort of pass those along for you to be able to post online. You know, another issue, Teresa, is the Fitbit. We now know the FBI have moved in. They've taken over the investigation. What about the Fitbit? What can webit it is, if it's like the first-generation Fitbit, it's pretty much only going to give us sort of direction and time and not a whole lot else. The more kind of modern Fitbits have a little bit more information like pulse and pace and speed and a little bit more granularity that could help us sort of geolocate, like how her run went and some of those things.

So that information is going to be vital. As a matter of fact, we actually used for people who have watched our show Hunted, which is a reality TV show chasing contestants trying to go off the grid, we actually, a Fitbit was actually really key to our investigation. So that data could be incredibly valuable and helpful. If somebody in the family knows how to log into her Fitbit account, which usually that data is stored on the cloud, they may be able to get some of the information faster than just waiting for the subpoena. Also, the mother, Laura Calderwood, speaking out in the last hours. Listen to what the mom says. It is just, you know, an emotional roller coaster.

It's a nightmare she's unable to wake up from. Laura Calderwood can't look anywhere in her hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa, without seeing her daughter Molly's face on a missing person poster. It's a reality check every time I see one of those posters also, you know. It's like she's gone. 20-year-old Molly Tibbetts vanished nearly two weeks ago. Her mom immediately knew something bad must have happened. I knew something was terribly wrong. She would not go to work.

My greatest fear is that we wouldn't find her. But I can't go there right now. Calderwood says Molly was seen out on a jog around 7 30 p.m. on July 18th. To the best of my knowledge, I believe she did make it home from the run and was in Dalton's home. The family says evidence shows Tibbetts was doing homework on her computer after her jog that night. That's Molly's mom speaking to KCCI-TV. You know what? It is so hard to work cold cases. I know. I have worked them myself. Especially when you know your co-workers and colleagues have already worked the case. But there's a former prosecutor named Kelly Siegler who is a true champion for justice. And she is on a mission across America. What I love about Oxygen's Cold Justice program is that Kelly and her team of detectives take on real unsolved murder cases and get real answers for victims and their families.

You will love how immersive this show is. You feel like you're right there with the team riding shotgun. They are passionate crusaders for justice, and I like that. That's what makes each case so personal to this team. Watch the new season of Cold Justice, Saturday, 6 p.m. Eastern, 5 Central, on Oxygen. The search for Iowa student Molly Tibbetts goes on as new information seems to be emerging. An unconfirmed sighting of the girl at a truck stop 250 miles away.

Ashley Wilcott, a juvenile judge, founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com. It doesn't seem to me that police believe that was Molly. That's what it sounds like to me, too. But, you know, the good news is they did look into it. They have investigated. I'm sure they know details they haven't shared with us. But Nancy, this is why I love your show. Because somebody out there knows exactly what happened

or where she is or what's going on. And so anybody who has anything, even if they think it's minor, not important, they've got to report it because they're looking at all the tips and we've got to figure out where she is. Well, well actually she didn't just drop off the face of the earth all right now now we hear the mother saying she believes molly came back to the home to do homework we know that she did not disappear jogging that's wrong. So let's just talk about the reality as we know it. She was back in the home, Ashley. And that's a huge piece because there's also a boyfriend in this.

And I recognize that the reports are that he had an alibi. He was somewhere that he wasn't there. But having said that, everything that was reported as this is what's happened, we have now learned is not true. She was back in the home. So did she meet somebody? Did somebody break into the home? We don't know, but somebody knows it did not happen in a vacuum. It never does. You know, we also know this, too.

Lee Egan, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, speaking of the home. We hear the investigator, the investigative journalist, the reporter saying, what was the site of the home? What do we know? Well, cops aren't telling us, but we heard the dad say, the father say that the dogs were in perfect condition there was no discussion whatsoever of the home being ransacked or anything taken as a matter of fact lee isn't it true that the boyfriend has just come out saying that he doubts pretty seriously if she even locked the

door that's exactly what he said he said that bro that Brooklyn is such a small town that it's not common for people to lock their doors. So he thinks that he didn't come out and say he thought somebody broke in, but he did say that he was pretty sure she did not lock their door. Take a listen to Molly's boyfriend speaking at WOITV in Des Moines. Listen. This is not like her. Dalton Jack is living in a nightmare. I figured, you know, I'd speak to her in an hour or so. And right now, it's one he can't wake up from. I came home as soon as her mom said that she called the hospital and she wasn't there. The last time the 20-year-old saw Molly was on Wednesday at 10 p.m. when he opened a Snapchat

from her. It was just a selfie with a caption and I don't remember what the caption said, but it looked like she was inside. He never thought he wouldn't Snapchat from her. It was just a selfie with a caption, and I don't remember what the caption said, but it looked like she was inside. He never thought he wouldn't hear from her again. When he texted her early Thursday morning, he didn't notice the message hadn't been read until her friend called late that afternoon. One of her co-workers called me and said Molly had not called into work that day,

and she hadn't showed up. And then I looked at the messages, and she hadn't opened or read any of them. So I started getting in contact I CALLED IN TO WORK THAT DAY AND SHE HADN'T SHOWED UP. THEN I LOOKED AT THE MESSAGES AND SHE HADN'T OPENED OR READ ANY OF THEM. SO I STARTED GETTING IN CONTACT WITH HER FRIENDS AND HER FAMILY SAYING, HEY, HAVE YOU SEEN HER? HAVE YOU HEARD FROM HER?

AND EVERYBODY CAME UP WITH THE SAME THING. NO, I HAVEN'T SEEN HER SINCE YESTERDAY. SHE'S SO SWEET. I'VE NEVER SEEN HER BE ANGRY OR MEAN TO ANYBODY IN THE ALMOST THREE YEARS THAT WE'VE BEEN

DATING. TO NOT KNOW WHERE SHE IS IS UNSETTLING AND HE'S GONE NUTS. her be angry or mean to anybody in the almost three years that we've been dating. To not know where she is is unsettling and he's gone numb. If this is her running off this is just nobody would have seen coming. Nobody in the world, not her family, not me. Nobody would have ever guessed that she would just take off and not tell anybody. While law enforcement continue to search for her, there's just one thing he wants Molly to know. I missed you so much, and I love you. Now, that's not all that the boyfriend, Dalton Jack, had to say. Listen to this.

Don't want to go racking it through my brain thinking of what happened, what happened, what happened, just driving myself insane because I know everybody else around here is and you just gotta lead by example i love you and i miss you and i want you to come home interesting interesting that he is gonna uh not go crazy trying to figure out what happened to molly you, the more I listen to it, to you, Teresa Payton, does it sound to you like the boyfriend thinks she just took off on her own? I, you know, it's really hard to say because he hasn't really shared with like, well, here are the things she likes to do when we don't hear from her. And even her parents say it's kind of uncharacteristic. I mean, I have a couple of questions too about the dogs. And I mean, I've got to rescue great Pyrenees. There's no way

somebody's coming in the front door without the neighbors knowing, me knowing. And if somebody took me against my will, I'm like, woe be to them, right, with the dogs. Now, I don't know the personality of the boyfriend's dog, but I would find it really surprising. It almost feels to me like the dog knew the person she left with unless she left alone. That's exactly right. I'm sorry, Nancy, I got to jump in. And it's almost like the boyfriend is kind of talking in past tense. Well, it's not like her to just take off if this is her. We would have never seen it coming. And I've always questioned the dogs. You don't walk in on dogs. I used to have a German Shepherd and a Belgian Malinois. And to Teresa's point, you're not getting me out of the house without the neighbors and everyone else hearing it. So it had to be someone the dogs were comfortable with

if someone came inside that home. You know, another issue regarding the dogs were comfortable with if someone came inside that home you know another issue regarding the dogs that you guys are focusing on the dogs were kept in the basement so if the dog if she went jogging took the dogs for a walk brings them in feeds them whatever puts them in the basement they would have no idea what was going on upstairs the dogs routinely were kept in the basement don't know if that's where they found them. If not, then you're dead on. If they were in the basement, it's not going to help. I think they still would have made a commotion though, Nancy, if they heard, because you can't just take an adult against their will without them making some type of noise so i think the dog still would have made some i agree but let's look at the timeline to karen smith forensics expert

it was much later when the day had passed and it was much later when the boyfriend, Dalton Jack, realizes she hasn't come to work, he drives back the two hours. The dogs are not going to be berserk still at that point. I mean, I'm all about dogs. I have a rescue dog, a rescue cat, two rescue guinea pigs. But to say, to suggest that somebody she knew because the dogs were not in a froth, you know, a day later, that means nothing to me, Karen. No, it doesn't mean much to me. And like you said, if they're in the basement, yes, there may have been a commotion. Would it have been overheard? I don't know. I'm really not familiar with the home or where she was living at the time. But yeah, when you come home and the dogs are behaving like, hey, feed me, give me water, I'm hungry, it's great to see you,

my tail's wagging, they're not going to give away that something nefarious has happened in the house. My question goes to the forensics and all of the doors, if they were unlocked, that's fine. But did they check? I'm sure they did. All the windows, the other doors. Was there any swabs of the door handles taken? Any swabs of the locks? Things that they can follow up on, some foreign DNA that may be there. That's where my forensic brain goes at this point. Another issue that we're now learning. To Dr. Brian Russell, maybe you can explain this to me.

You're also a psychologist, host of ID.D.'s hit show Fatal Vows. Dr. Brian, the boyfriend, Dalton Jack, has now also come out and said he doubts really seriously that she locked the doors. He says nothing ever happens in a town. It's less than 2,000 people. He doesn't think she locked the doors. What's that mentality, Dr. Bryan? Well, there's a certain flatness to the way that he speaks about this. And I can, on the one hand, see how he may be sort of opening various doors to things that could have had, like alluding to, well, maybe she could have run away or maybe she didn't lock the door

and there could have been a home invasion. And then making this kind of bizarre comment about, well, I'm not really going to rack my brain trying to figure it all out. And I can see how some listeners may be thinking, okay, despite the fact that we hear he's got an alibi, I'm having some suspicions about him. But I can also see how he may be a little bit of just sort of a typical sort of self-focused millennial, that this is really bothering me and people are suspecting me.

And so I want to deflect and I want to make it clear that I am very upset and I don't have anything to do with this and it's really upsetting me. Okay, so another thing, though, that I would like to point out here is that you've heard Teresa Payton say a couple of times that when you are looking for data from somebody's electronic devices, whether it be their cell phone, their Fitbit, whatever, you might have to wait for a subpoena process to play out. And that's true. And one thing that I think parents listening to this can learn today is that when your

child becomes an adult, if something like this, God forbid, occurs, you are not going to be able to just call up AT&T, call up Apple, call up whoever and say, our child's missing. I'm the mom. I want the information. It doesn't work that way when you're dealing with an adult. And so this is reason number, you know, 57 for parents of young adults who are off at college like this young woman was to get your child to do powers of attorney that give you the ability to step into their legal shoes and get at their information, get into their car, get into their apartment, get into their bank accounts, get into their credit card records, all the kinds of things that you might otherwise, as Teresa wisely pointed out, have to wait for a subpoena to do. And as we know, every hour that passes by, it gets statistically less likely. I'm

sorry to say that we're going to find somebody alive. Back to Teresa Payton joining us. Let's take a look at exactly what Tibbetts' boyfriend Dalton Jack says. Quote, it's more than likely because nobody ever thought there was a reason to lock the doors is Brooklyn. Nothing ever happens in Brooklyn. That's why it's just a blindsided situation. We know the 20-year-old girl staying to dog sit at her boyfriend's home. Were the doors unlocked? We've heard nothing, Teresa, about a forced entry. Yeah, so here's what I'd be doing. If she has a work computer, I would go to the office. I would ask for her last internet searches, documents, access to her cloud accounts. The family or the investigators, if she left the device behind that she was doing the homework on, we need to get in those personal

cloud accounts. We may actually be able to see other messages she sent back and forth. Candidly, I would track the digital footprint of the boyfriend and any friends around him. There could be some jealousy. I mean, who knows? I mean, basically, you've got to take sort of the circle of trust that was around her and look at everybody's digital footprints. Look for her login information. Look for IP addresses. Look for Wi-Fi hotspots that she was connecting to from these cloud accounts, because that could tell you, well, after she went jogging, she went to a coffee shop and she connected to a Starbucks Wi-Fi or a local coffee shop Wi-Fi. Look for her web and search cache. Pull that off the computer.

Do password resets if she's not logged in. Most people stay logged in all the time to all of their accounts, to their mail accounts, their social media accounts, their cloud accounts. And oftentimes it's just a matter of opening up the account and you can see the information. And then there's all that metadata in there that could tell us her pattern of life before she disappeared, which then we could use to correlate and maybe guess what happened to her and where did she go next? The other thing I haven't heard mentioned is, does she drive a car? And does that car have, is it a newer car that may have a tracking device? Is it a newer car or did they post-factory install satellite radio?

Because if they did, we could track some of the movements. Again, we got to get her pattern of life before she left. So we have to be building where do we think she went what are all those clues and following up all those well at the same time building up what led to that disappearance because chances are maybe it was a chance meeting at the coffee shop maybe it was somebody at work maybe it was somebody at school we don't know and until we start getting that profile set up um you know, every lead's not going to, you know, it may look wonderful or it may look bad.

We don't know until we can sort of match it back up to that digital footprint. All of this with the backdrop of a destination wedding in the Dominican Republic. The boyfriend, Dalton Jack, and his brother, Blake Blake were on the cusp, planning to leave the small town Iowa home for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Dominican Republic. The brother, 23-year-old Blake, set to marry his fiancée by the beach in front of Dalton and Molly Tibbetts. He had jokingly told Dalton Jack he should propose to Tibbetts on their trip to Dominican Republic. Now, with that in the background, one of the happiest times of their life has now turned into a nightmare. Lee Egan, I understand they have postponed the wedding.

They postponed the wedding, and Blake, the brother, is lashing out at all the backlash that they're getting. He is trying to convince people there's no way him or anyone in his family had anything to do with her disappearance. And that the wedding is off while they continue to help search for her. You know what, Dr. Bryan? I don't blame them. I wouldn't want a wedding. My wedding, for me to have the memory that the whole time during the wedding, I was thinking about where is Molly feeling guilty for being at a destination wedding

and not looking for her. Yeah, I think they had to postpone it. Of course, if they had not, I would have thought that was morbidly fascinating because i just got married last month and and i can't imagine having had that ceremony with a a paul like this cast over it and cast over my family and for i don't know how anybody could come to it and enjoy it let alone uh enjoy it myself so uh you know i i just keep keep coming back to the statistics on this. And, you know, you look at was this her in the truck stop? I think the statistics would say it's very unlikely, given all the publicity around this case, that if the driver of the truck in which she showed up and left the truck stop had anything to do with yeah yeah they

apparently don't think that they would have let that happen that they would have let themselves be seen there and i also have to point out that that you know if if she were home alone in the house didn't lock the doors locked them whatever uh and there were some kind of a home invasion uh the the statistics would say the purpose was a sexual assault. And then the statistics would also say it's very unusual that they would have, the person who perpetrated that would have then taken her from the scene. I mean, if she was there by herself, there would be no need to take her to some other

place to do the assault. So it makes me think that whomever she came in contact with that night, she thought she was safe with initially. I know that Blake Jack, the brother, said that all the scrutiny on him and his brother is very, very hurtful. Investigators say they have confirmed the whereabouts of both of them the reward in the search for molly tibbets now climbing up to thirty thousand dollars tip line 800-223-1400. 515-223-1400. In the last hours, LAPD released dramatic body cam video of a shooting.

It all goes down at a central Lutheran church. Take a listen to the 911 call i don't know where you are What's the name of the church? Central Lutheran Church. Is the person who did the stabbing still there? Yes, he is. Is he black, white, or brown? It's Hispanic man. What color shirt and pants does he have on? He has a maroon shirt with green army shorts.

San Jose Zunis ambulance, calling 6425 Tarjona Avenue. 6425 Tarjona Avenue at Central Lutheran Church. That's where there's a male Hispanic wearing a burgundy shirt, green camel shorts still at the location. It's code 3, incident 267, 1-9-26. Now, I want you to have the backdrop of what went Perez, tried to saw off a hostage's head. That's the report. Tried to saw off a hostage's head right there in a group of people. So have that in mind when we are taking a look at LAPD's reaction. Now take a

listen to Commander Alan Hamilton. He's presenting the radio traffic from the LAPD helicopter, frantically directing patrol cars to the scene. Listen. An LAPD helicopter arrived overhead at the scene and directed the responding patrol units to Perez's location. An officer in the helicopter also warned the responding units that Perez had a large knife in his hand. Here's the audio of that broadcast. if I can get one unit to Tyrone and one north of Victory at Gilmore and hold their case of suspect run. You're hearing as cops frantically direct patrol cars to this incident. Joining me right now, Alan Duke, Crime Stories investigative reporter.

Alan, tell me what happened. This happened at a food shelter that is in Van Nuys, just two blocks from the police station, the Van Nuys police station. Every day, all of the homeless people and other people who need food line up. And this man was a regular there. Perez was somebody that people knew. He was there with his girlfriend, her name Esther, and they got into an argument at the food shelter standing in line. Perez then pulled out a knife and cut his girlfriend, cut her on the hand. And that's when that 911 call was placed, the first one that we heard. And police rushed to the scene.

He didn't leave. He didn't flee. Like I said, this was just two blocks from the police station. It didn't take them long to the scene. He didn't leave. He didn't flee. Like I said, this was just two blocks from the police station. It didn't take them long to get there. And as you're hearing in all of our audio, you hear them frantically rushing there. But of course, following their protocol, as we are hearing. When they get there, they see him. And Los Angeles Police Commander Alan Hamilton then shows us the body cam. And by the way, you can see this on CrimeOnline.com. The body cam that the LAPD has just released in this, you show, you see what the officers saw when they arrived on the scene.

You know, Alan, right now the LAPD taking a lot of heat because an innocent bystander was also shot during all of this. Take a listen to, again, LAPD Commander Alan Hamilton. Perez began walking away from the officers and went over to a woman standing against the wall. Perez dropped the chair and took the woman hostage by grabbing her and moving her in front of him. He then placed a large knife to her throat and gripped it at opposite ends with both hands and applied pressure. Witnesses stated that he moved the knife in a sawing motion against her throat and cut her throat. That is when three officers fired their handguns at Perez.

Perez was struck by gunfire and fell to the ground. Tragically, Perez's hostage was also struck by gunfire and collapsed. Okay, this is what we know. We know the LAPD first tried using beanbag shotguns, all right, to try to stop Perez. And you can hear them shooting beanbags, beanbag ready, beanbag ready, as they order him repeatedly to drop his knife. To Vincent Hill, private investigator, a beanbag round is also a flexible baton round. It's fired. It's like a shotgun shell, but it is less lethal.

What is it? Yeah, that's exactly right, Nancy. It's less than lethal force. It's just what it says, a beanbag that leaves a pretty large bruise on you it hurts really bad so these officers try less than lethal force and this is why I always say on my podcast beyond the badge everyone wants the Monday morning quarterback split second decision that that officers have and I definitely don't want to you know Monday morning quarterback their decision

to actually fire those rounds. But everything happened so fast. He took this hostage so quickly. He put the knife to her throat. And let's not forget, the number one job of a police officer is to protect. So we can question it all day, but that's unfortunately the life of a police officer. Everything happens so fast. Well, I'm looking at a photo. Somebody managed to take a quick shot. He's got the woman from behind. He's holding her with both arms with a really big knife across her throat.

Guillermo Perez holding a knife to the throat of Elizabeth Tolleson. Police open fire, and the guy somehow at that point manages to grab a folding chair and use it as a shield to deflect the beanbag rounds, all right? That's what we know. So, Alan Duke, you were on the scene. What did you observe? Well, I go to one of my favorite restaurants is right across from this in Van Nuys. And I was going there on this this Saturday and I saw the police helicopter over. And of course, I'm a journalist. I pull out my recorder and start asking people. And it turns out I was talking to a man who was standing just feet away. Let's listen to what he says he saw. and then we can talk about it. What happened? He was trying to stab his ex-girlfriend, and he did. He stabbed her.

He got her on the ground. There was a shooting and a stabbing? There was a stabbing, then a double murder, a double homicide. So two people are dead? Two people are dead. The perpetrator and a victim who he was grabbing around his neck, trying to get the police from tasing him. And they seen him grab her and then they start shooting him and killed her while he was holding on to her. So it's police involved shooting. It's a police killing. The police, the police, the only ones that got nobody had gone but the police. And it was the police that was on the far left side is the one who did most of the gun. Whoever he was probably not here.

Well, I know it's because somebody was having an argument and it's already escalated to knives. He tried to stab his girlfriend and he tried to stab his girlfriend. The process of him trying to stab his girlfriend he grabbed another girl and held on to her and the police shot him and he killed the girl while they was holding him.

Meaning the guy with the knife killed the girl. So the police shot the killer. And shot another shot. She thinks she got shot. Oh, what was it? They said, yeah, it was Esther. They killed. I don't know. I think she just got stabbed. She got stabbed. Did you see it happen? Yeah, I saw it happen from the beginning to the end. They could have kept on chasing him because he had her in his arm. They seen him grab her.

No way they're supposed to gun the man down with a victim in his arm. She was a f***ing victim. And they killed her. They intentionally gunned her down. Murderer! Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!

Nancy, let me say this. These people knew these victims, or the victim and the perpetrator. They knew them, and they knew them well. And so they were very upset. But in the aftermath, with the release of the video, it's much more understandable that these police officers, this guy was chopping her head off. What are they supposed to do? To Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer and psychologist, hit show, Fatal Vows host. Brian, I really am on the cop side on this they go in they make a split second

decision and these bystanders are acting like the cops are the bad guys in this scenario they're not the ones holding a knife to a woman's throat. They're trying their best to get the bad guy. I really hate the way the tables are turned against the cops on this. I'm not saying that there are not cops that do bad things, that have done horrible things, but in this case, that is not true. That's right. There are, but it's statistically hardly any. And I think that is very relevant here because I'm with you. I don't see what else they could have done at the point when the assailant had this hostage in his grasp and was starting to cut. I don't know

what else they could have done, but fire on the suspect and risk hitting the victim at that point. What I think is interesting to me is the choice that they made prior to that point to try the nonlethal force on the guy, to try the beanbags instead of shooting him at that time before he made contact with this hostage. And again, I'm really not faulting the police. What I'm saying is I think that this may be an illustration of something that I have been saying for years, which is that we've had so many instances in which the police have been accused, you heard it here, there are murderers, they want to kill these people, that I have cautioned for years that we're

going to get to a point where we have cops that are actually so afraid to use lethal force even when it is justified that they're going to be gun shy and they're going to wait long enough to use it that we're going to have cops getting killed and we're going to have third parties getting killed. And I think this may be an illustration of that, the unintended consequences of always pointing people, certain people always pointing the finger at the cops and assuming the worst about the cops. This may be an example of that coming home to roost. You know, to ask you, go ahead. I'm sorry. I couldn't agree more with Dr. Brian Russell.

I've been saying that for years. I've said it on my podcast. I've said it on Fox News this past weekend. Everyone does not want to be the next cop on CNN. You heard those people. They could have tased them. I can show you 100 videos where police have tased people and it had no effect on them. So everyone is so quick to judge the police that police are starting to get gun shy and not reacting as fast as they have. And that's why we've seen 33 police officers this year killed

in the line of duty, because they're all afraid to be the next cop in the mainstream media for their split second actions, Nancy. And of course, now to Ashley Wolcott, Tolleson's family plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the LAPD. I mean, you know, sometimes I wonder how they even get out of bed and go in the morning, Ashley. I'm the same, Nancy. And here's the thing. There's no winning, right? There's no way to figure out what the best action is. And when they follow their protocol and they're protecting and they're in the chaotic situation in which they found themselves and there is a person who is committing this type of crime, you can't say that they acted inappropriately. And then they face lawsuits and challenges. And I have friends who are very good friends who I respect greatly in law enforcement. And these are the kinds of things and kinds of lawsuits that do make them question why they're doing what they're doing and how to get out of it. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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