Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mom ignores baby's severe bath burns; Girlfriend chops up boyfriend; Woman disappears during Graceland pilgrimage

Episode Date: January 24, 2018

A mother's first instinct when she realizes hot bath water severely burned her baby should be to call for help, but Christina Marie Hurt allegedly did nothing. Her 1-year-old son died the next day. Nancy Grace explores the case with lawyer and child advocate Ashley Willcott, private investigator Vincent Hill, psychologist Dr. Chloe Carmichael, and reporter John Lemley. Nancy and her experts also look at the case of a Florida man found murdered with his arms and legs missing. His girlfriend is charged with shooting him, chopping him into pieces before hiding his body parts miles away.  Reporter Pamela Furr updates Nancy on the mysterious disappearance of an Ohio woman. Her husband claims his wife died of cancer during the during a pilgrimage to Graceland, Elvis Presley's home, but he's confused about what happened to her remains. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or go to nancysbeets.com. With a first order, get an extra 30 days of Super Beets free, plus indicator chips to see how Super Beets works for you. And free shipping! 800-516-0683 or go to nancysbeats.com today. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, now online at crimeonline.com and on SiriusXM 132. The fire rescue came to revive the baby and zip down the baby's nightie. The baby was burned from the neck all the way to his knees a one-year-old tot a tot boy dead from quote severe bath burns what happened joining me right now dr chloe carmichaelTools.com founder. John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Ashley Wilcott, child advocate and lawyer and death scene investigator.

Private Eye, Vincent Hill. To John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter. This mom seemingly had it all together. She worked at a local Cracker Barrel. I mean, who doesn't love Cracker Barrel and Cheesecake Factory? Who doesn't love Cheesecake Factory? We've checked out her Facebook profile. She seemed to be on top of it, raising her children and working.

But what exactly happened? This tot dies with severe burns. What do we know? Nancy, Christina Hurt told investigators that Ethan was scalded while she was taking out the trash at her house in Homestead. This is on the southern outskirts of Miami. Christina says that while her 10-year-old daughter was attempting to bathe the victim, the child, Christina's four-year-old son made the bathwater extremely hot, and this caused the little boy to sustain severe burns all the way from his mid-torso down to his toes. Christina stated that when she observed the victim's injuries, she dropped because the victim's skin was burned and peeling. But instead of calling for help, Christina gave the baby Tylenol and juice and he threw up repeatedly throughout the night.

Christina allegedly told police that she didn't call 911 because she feared losing custody of her children. I want to go back to the scene to Ashley Wilcott joining me, child advocate. Ashley, talk to me about the temperature required for this type of burn and how the mom couldn't hear the child. I mean, typically if you put one toe in a hot tub and it's too hot, you scream and get out of the tub. Exactly. Something's hinky and does not add up because the temperature of the water would have to be extreme and it would have to warm up, right? It's not like you turn on water and it's this hot. And the severity of burns in order to cause burning and peeling, as the mother described,

requires that not only is the water hotter than you can possibly imagine, as hot as it can get, it has to be on the skin, constant contact, torso to toes, to cause that severe burning and peeling. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's a lot of information. Okay. The second worst cause of injuries that are bathtub and shower related are unsafe water temperatures. It's what is referred to as a phenomenon of shock and scald.

Shock caused by cold water, scald by hot. Now, typically, because of the immediate pain and discomfort, the person instinctively moves quickly away. Scalding is caused by dangerously hot water and can cause burns. Now, what we have learned is that no water in the bath should ever exceed 110 degrees. Most water heating systems a skin injury. If you raise that to 120, the burn time is about 19 seconds. If you raise it to 140, 12 seconds. At 150, you start burning in less than one second. So what does that say about the conditions here to Ashley Wilcott?

If we were handling this case, what would we have to prove? This child dies of severe burns. The child's skin literally coming off its body. Now explain to me what you believe, Ashley, we would have to prove. I've laid out for you the water temperatures, how water is typically stored in America's bathwater storage tanks. How did this happen? We would have to prove that the story the mother is currently saying cannot possibly be accurate. The temperature of the water means that it just didn't come out of the pipe and burn the child to this extent. The other thing that I would prove is the pattern. They say that the burn is literally from the torso to the toes.

You already pointed out, Nancy, anybody who gets hot water that hurts is going to flail, right? A one-year-old is not going to just sit there. This child was immersed. The water covered the torso to the toes. This is not a 10-year-old putting a child under the faucet and oops there's a burn there is so much to prove in this case that's not going to be difficult because what the mother says happened isn't possible to cause this severe burning explain to me why you think it's possible because i have an issue with the four-year-old running the bath water and i believe that absolutely

could happen that the four-year-old turns it on hot. But when the child gets in there, the child would start screaming and flailing and jumping. And I don't think a four-year-old could hold the baby in there. I don't either. Now they say there was also a 10-year-old involved, but even a 10-year-old and a four-year-old are not, in my opinion, going to hold a child like that. I don't think it happened this way at all. I don't think what the mother's saying is realistic, reasonable to think really happened. This one-year-old would have burns all over the body from flailing around. A 10-year-old and four-year-old are not going to hold the baby submersed under the water from torso to toes when they're reacting that way. They're going to pull them out of the tub. Well, let me tell you what happened to me on a Delta flight. And no, I did not sue. And no,

I'm not going to sue. I was going to New York because I had to go appear on something. And I had asked for hot tea. All right. The lady, she was a young flight attendant, brought me hot water and she was going to pour it in my cup. That right there was stupid. I shouldn't have even allowed that to happen. She handed me a cup. She was going to fill the cup up with water, pouring it over the man sitting. I was by the window.

Okay. So I was seated in an economy, and I could barely move. I had the table down with the laptop on it working, of course, and it was holding my cup. There was nowhere for me to go. Okay. The cup gave way and it poured down my shirt. I had on a thin denim shirt that I, that one I wear all the time, Ashley. It poured all the way down my chest and stomach mostly my stomach I sat there I didn't yell or anything like that and tears just sprang up in my eyes and about she never said are you okay nothing she just kept going and she came back like 20 minutes later with a bag of ice, which I put on my stomach.

It immediately bubbled up and I have scars on my stomach now from that hot water. But in all the years of flying Delta, I've never had anything like that happen before. And I could tell she was mortified and it was really an accident. It really was. So if that happened to me with just a cup full of hot water for tea, what do you think happened to this little boy? John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter. The mom says she was taking out the trash. Is that her story? That is exactly what she said she was doing. This was at her home, apparently later in the day. And then Thursday morning, after dropping her other children off at school, Christina said that she took her injured son. His name, by the way, is Ethan. Family, friends have identified the child.

She took Ethan to a friend's home in Goulds, Florida, which is about 10 miles away from her house. Witnesses told the cops that when Christina arrived at the home in Goulds, the baby was lethargic and had shallow breathing. They urged Christina to get medical help for the child, but she, quote, adamantly refused. Around 11 that morning, the baby stopped breathing and Christina took him outside and placed him on a mattress in the yard. Hold on. I've got an issue. I don't understand quite exactly how this is going down. John Limley, yes. Now, didn't she say she was taking out the trash? Yes.

Okay. So why are you saying when she returned to the home, or you just mean from taking the trash out, right? Correct. Correct. Okay. So Ashley Wilcott and Dr. Chloe Carmichael joining me along with Vincent Hill, that doesn't make sense to me. To Dr. Chloe, what do you think about the mom basically blaming the other children? Well, exactly, Nancy. I think it's really disgusting. You know, not only is she failing to take responsibility, even if this ridiculous story is true, really, it ultimately would be something that the mom would want to talk about as her own failure, that she somehow didn't supervise the bath well enough, but she's really talking

about the other children's role in this. And moreover, there's something in psychology that we call impression management, which seems to be pretty active here, where she's saying, well, I didn't call the authorities because I didn't want to lose custody, you know, as if she's just such a good mom that she just didn't want to lose custody. And I don't know if she actually even believes that herself. But of course, if you realize that your baby has a bad enough burn, that losing custody would even be an option.

Why on earth wouldn't you get that child medical care? It doesn't make any sense. And it seems extremely selfish of her the way that she's going about this. Take a listen to what neighbors say happened when the baby was discovered burned. My brother ran over to try to help with the situation and found the baby. The one was laying on a dirty mattress. And at the time, the baby, he was trying to do CPR. But the baby threw up, looked like apple juice and when paramedics tried i guess do an ekg or whatever they were doing when they zipped down the baby

onesie the baby was burned from neck to his his um knees to ashley wilcott veteran lawyer and renowned child advocate ashley i know that i was probably too overprotective as many people have pointed out to me but we are talking about a young miami mom whose one-year-old son dead from quote severe bath burns and then mommy refuses to call 9-1-1 because she was afraid authorities would take her children away from her. That delay in calling 911 may have cost her son his life. Mom doesn't call 911 for fear of losing her children. Not only is it a criminal charge, this is a juvenile court dependency neglect abuse case. Not only is it a crime, but you should not have your child when you are not going to give them a bath, supervise and allow these things to happen. I still don't believe mother's story. I think she did it. To John Limley, investigative reporter. John, how many hours passed before she finally called 911? Well, it was well into the next day after the child was

burned in the, we assume the early evening hours the night before. It was around 11 a.m. that the baby stopped breathing. She took the child outside, put him on a mattress on the yard, and a neighbor came over, tried to perform CPR while his sister then called 911. So she never did call 911. The sister called 911. Is that correct? Right. A neighbor, yes. Now, what we understand is the 4-year-old son made the bathwater, and the 10-year-old daughter was in there trying to bathe the little boy. And then the mom says when she observed her son's injuries, she dropped because his skin was burned and already peeling. Instead of calling for help, Ashley Wilcott, she gave the baby Tylenol and juice while he threw up repeatedly during the night.

And that's medical neglect, Nancy. Just that tiny little piece is medical neglect. Even if it was a true innocent accident, that's medical neglect resulting in the death i.e manslaughter of your own child she then takes the children to other children to school the following morning and goes to a friend's home the friends say the baby was lethargic and had shallow breathing they begged her to get medical help but she adamantly refused according to the report around 11 a.m the baby stops breathing uh neighbors tried to give the baby cpr and when the paramedics came they pull down his little zipper on his jumper and say, oh my God. The child unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene. John Limley has been doing some digging on the mom. John, what have you found?

Nancy, court records show that Christina has five other children and that she previously served two years on probation for a 2014 child neglect charge. So she's already been on probation, yet she gets all the children back. Ashley, that is so wrong. It is. And yes, she was on probation, but you cannot stop monitoring and requiring to do things to prove she can properly care for and supervise her children, which clearly she cannot. If a child is burned, FYI, apply immediate first aid.

Dial 911 or in some places, triple zero for an ambulance if it's severe. Do not use butter, oils, or ice to treat burns. Alan Duke joining me, what do you know about how to avoid this very same thing in your home? Nancy, as the grandfather of two toddlers, it's something I think about. I check the Mayo Clinic website, always a good place for advice. Reduce water temperature at the hot water heater on the thermostat to below 120 degrees Fahrenheit. No real good reason to have it hotter than that. And at bath time, aim for water around 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Put your hand in there and if it's not hot for you, then it should be safe for your child. But do that before you put them in the bath. Avoid hot spills when you carry a drink or hot food. Don't carry the child at the same time you can spill it on them. And

watch out if you've got it on the edge of the table or the counter and there's a tablecloth or a placemat there, they can easily just reach up with their little hands and pull it down on them and burn them. Here's one I'm really obsessed with. Turn the handles of pots and pans toward the rear of the stove. Use back burners when possible so that they don't reach up and pull the pot of hot boiling water right down on them. And of course, don't leave the stove unattended. And another one. When you're cooking with a microwave, when you're heating up food, it can be uneven. So it may be hotter than you realize when you're giving it to the child. So

be careful about that. And of course, never warm a baby's bottle in a microwave. I also hear children reaching for curling irons or hot devices, clothes irons. I did that as a little girl. Check your outlets and electrical cords and use fire resistant fabrics. I want to pause and thank our partner making our investigation into the death of this child possible. It's LegalZoom. New Year's is over and now it's time to write your own success story for 2018. And LegalZoom can help you with that. Let this be the year you finally launch and run your own business or rest easier knowing your family's future is secure by you

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LegalZoom, where life meets legal. That's LegalZoom.com. LegalZoom, thank you. A beautiful blonde from Daytona Beach, Florida now being eyeballed by police and not only the death, but the dismemberment of her boyfriend what john limley investigative reporter joining me right now what happened john nancy it had been some

times since family and friends had seen jeffrey albertsman in daytona beach And finally, Daytona police were called to his residence for a wellness check. And that's when they found Jeffrey's body or what remained of it. According to an affidavit, he had been shot in the head and the chest and his arms and legs were missing. Holy moly. All right. Dr. Chloe Carmichael, founder of anxietytools.com, New York psychologist. Dr. Chloe, boy, do I need to shrink. Now, this requires not only shooting someone, but then dismembering them. You know how difficult it is, Dr. Chloe, to actually physically dismember a body. It's not like on TV, like on Monk, where you just find a toe here, a finger there in the park in this bucolic setting. It's not like that. It's not even like Dexter, where he lines everything in plastic and everything looks pretty pristine. It is a very difficult thing physically to dismember a human body.

But the mental capacity required to actually sever someone's limbs from their torso. Dr. Chloe, what kind of mind does that require? Well, Nancy, yes, it seems to be an absolutely deranged mind. And moreover, the fact that this is coming from a female makes it even more unusual. Obviously, it's unusual in the first place to murder, much less to dismember. But then for a female to be doing that, I've never heard of anything like this, frankly. I want to go back to John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter. John Limley, what can you tell me about why police went? Well, it had been so long since family and friends had had any contact with Jeffrey Albertsman, that finally one of them decided it was worth a call just to

have police go and see if he was there, if there was any sign of any crime. And this is when they found his body. You know, to Ashley Wilcott joining me, lawyer and victims advocate. Ashley, that took a lot because, you know, for relatives to actually want police to go there, because time passes very often when I don't see a certain person for a period of days. I don't think anything of it. But in this case, they had an inkling that something was very wrong to the extent they call police this is an example of trust your gut and reports indicate that this woman had been in a 10-year relationship with this man and for her to escalate to the point of actually dismembering her boyfriend i think there were probably a lot of red flags that she was abusive to this man.

You know, very often we don't see partner abuse like spousal abuse happening, but committed by the woman on the man. But I recall distinctly when I worked at the battered women's center, it does exist very often. It's poo-pooed. A Florida woman out of Daytona Beach now being eyed in the fatal shooting and dismemberment of her boyfriend. Now, of course, she's the first one you look at. Vincent Hill, private eye and death scene investigator. No offense to all the husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends out there, but statistically, that's usually who commits the murder. Yeah, Nancy, you always want to look at the person that's closest to the victim, right? Because they were typically the one that had the intimate relationship, and anytime you're talking dismemberment, that's a very personal, up-close type of thing, and you alluded to

it earlier. It's not easy, but it's also not quiet. So, you know, that was probably something that was very brutal going on in that home that no one really knew about. Back to John Limley joining us, Crime Stories investigative reporter. This woman, Nelsie Tetley, she lived in the same home with the victim. Police called to their residence for a wellness check or a security check. What that is is when you suspect there's a problem, you call police and they go do a security check, knock on the doors, look in the windows. They find Albertsman's body shot in the head and the chest, his arms and legs missing.

Now, that's certainly putting perfume on the pig, John Limley, to say they're missing. It's like, oh, I can't find my car keys. They're missing. His arms and legs were missing. John, were the limbs ever located? Yes, Nancy, but not until two more months, two months later, the decomposing limbs were found at a fernary. This is a plant nursery that grows ferns in western Volusia County. Whoa. Okay, so they find the limbs, badly decomposing by that time, at kind of a nursery. And they got DNA results from the crime scene to vincent hill death scene

investigator i mean just you know map it out on your head this would require someone that could shoot the person dead and then not be concerned about being caught they stay in the home long enough to dismember the legs and arms off the torso. That sounds like somebody that lives there. An intruder, if they're going to kill you, kill you and leave. They don't want to get caught. They're worried somebody might come in the front door. Yeah, Nancy, it's definitely not someone that broke in for a home invasion or a burglar or anything like that. It's someone that's comfortable in the home, someone that wouldn't look out of place being in the home, someone that wouldn't look out of place being in the home,

someone that could take their time, move parts of the body, much later drive it 20 miles like nothing ever happened. Let me ask you about this. What do we know about the state of their relationship, John? According to the arrest affidavit, Nancy, Nelson and Jeffrey, as we have mentioned, had been romantically involved for about nine years. But court records reveal that it was a rocky relationship. Nelson was arrested in October of 2016 after she struck Jeffrey and she actually told him, quote, I could kill you tonight if I want it. She was sentenced to 11 months probation,

which she completed in May of 2017. Court records also show incidents where Nelsie allegedly pepper sprayed Jeffrey and even stabbed him. To Dr. Chloe Carmichael, founder of Anxiety Tools dot com, New York psychologist, Dr. Chloe, why would he stay in the relationship when she had threatened him, had beaten him in the past, had actually stabbed him? It was a minor wound on one occasion. He even took out a restraining order against her, but yet stayed together. Well, Nancy, that's the age old question is, you know, why do victims stay with abusers? And, you know, there's a lot of theories about that. One of the interesting ways to think about it sometimes is actually an economic theory, which is the theory of sunk costs.

So once you've invested so much time and energy and tolerated so much abuse from a person, there's actually a part of you that starts to think that this person must be really special and amazing or else you wouldn't have invested so much in them. So ironically, the more abuse that you take from a person and the worse that abuse is, the more invested you can actually become in believing that this person must be really special and wonderful? Well, I guess the thinking is, wow, I've already sunk in 10 years into this thing. If I could just get enter the blank him, her to change, enter the blank, what the behavior is, then it would all

be great. So you keep on making the same mistake over and over. So, okay, he stays in the home. And then what happens to John Limley? Well, it's just a matter of months. In fact, two months pass between when she completed that 11 months probation and she returned to the home. Two months later is when his body or his torso was found in the home. This is the real kicker. Isn't it true, John Lindley, that we have now discovered this woman, this lady, Nelcy Tetley, is also suspected, now she is, of being tied to a similar slaying of another boyfriend 10 years ago? Yes, Nancy, it was in Ormond Beach. It happened about a decade before. This is the 2007 case of Michael Scott Lewis. His body, his chopped up body,

was found in garbage bags along the Tomoka River. The affidavit, interestingly, notes that Jeffrey Albertsman and Michael Scott Lewis, who were both dismembered, were both done in a very unusual way with the use of a knife, tying these two cases together. Interestingly, Nelsie denied remembering that Michael Scott Lewis, a man she had dated, had been murdered. Take a listen to what the Daytona Beach police chief, Craig Capri, has to say. We went out there and were able to go inside the residence to do a well-being check where we found our victim, Mr. Jeffrey Albertsman, who was deceased. At the time, we found a decomposed body, which was in there for probably about two weeks prior to us getting there. And the body had a single gunshot wound to the head, and the body was missing its arms

and legs, which was kind of suspicious. We knew that there was a former ex-girlfriend that he had some problems with in the past. He had filed an injunction petition, which never got completed for protection due to some domestic incidents that he had with the suspect. He was stabbed by her and there was a lot of violent episodes. Our suspect's name is Nelsie Tetley. She's 67 years old, white female. She was the girlfriend of the victim. As we got further in our investigation, conducting interviews and collecting some evidence,

we processed the crime scene. We had to send some blood evidence off her DNA to see if we could match stuff up. We got that back, which showed our suspect's DNA was inside the residence, where it shouldn't have been. Also, on September 20th of this year, we responded out to a fernery out in West Volusia where some body parts were found, which were confirmed to be of our victim. We are waiting for justice to unfold. Hang on one moment. Ashley Wilcott, you are raising children and working

full time. How tired are you? Are you exhausted, Ash? All the time. All the time. I am too. And the earlier I get up, it seems like the more I have to do. And I'm wondering, where is all my energy? Well, part of it has to do with circulation. Your blood takes oxygen to all the parts of your body and increases your energy. I guess you don't spend much time thinking about your circulation. But good circulation is key to energy and stamina. Getting that oxygen and nutrients flowing through your body so you can exercise longer, do more every day. What can you do to promote that healthy circulation?

Drink Super Beats. Super Beats promotes the body's own natural ability to produce healthy circulation for increased energy and stamina all day long. And that's what I need. Only super beets made from beets grown to exacting standards, then concentrated down into superfood crystals I just mix with water. If you want to improve your circulation and increase your energy, call 800-516-0683 or just go to nancysbeats.com online. N-A-N-C-Y-S-B-E-E-T-S dot com. With the first order, get another 30-day supply of Super Beats free,

plus indicator strips to see how Super Beats working for you, plus free shipping. If you're like me and you need energy, try Super Beats. Call 800-516-0683, 800-516-0683, or go to nancysbeats.com today. Super Beats, thank you. Try to clear this mystery up because it is pretty bizarre. What does a family road trip, Graceland, the home of the Elvis Presley Memorial, and a dead body have to do with each other? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Questions arise when a wife goes missing during a family road trip to Graceland.

All is not as it appears. Joining me there on the scene, Pamela Furr, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Pamela, what happened? Well, that's a very good question. I'm not sure what inspired him to do that. But what inspired him to take the trip was the fact that his wife, Roberta, was dying from cancer. So they decided to take one last trip, and they wanted that trip to be to Graceland, to Memphis, before she died. And she was not doing very well.

So this is the trip they decided to take on January the 4th. They traveled from Hartville, Ohio, got in their car, packed it up, and they traveled to Sparta, Kentucky. That's kind of a halfway point,, they continue their journey to Memphis. When they arrive, Phillip, the husband, got a room at the Days Inn, which is directly across from Graceland. I guess that was going to make it convenient for them to go see Elvis. Hold on. Pamela Furr, let me understand something. Where did they start their trip? They started their trip in Hartville, Ohio. Okay, so does their route make sense? They go from Hartville to Kentucky, I believe you said. Yes, yes. Okay, so does their route make sense? They go from Hartville to Kentucky, I believe you said? Yes, yes. Yes, it does. If you want to go from that area to Memphis,

you would travel through Kentucky to get to that final destination. And again, a halfway point, they spent the night there in Sparta. Let me ask another question. Pamela Furr joining me from Tennessee on a Tennessee story out of Graceland, where the King Elvis has his memorial. Pamela, does anybody else confirm the wife had cancer? Or are we learning this just from the husband? The brother actually confirmed that she was diagnosed with cancer the brother of Roberta to police that she had been sick okay so being diagnosed with cancer I mean I had a melanoma on my leg so I guess technically I could say I had cancer I don't really think of it that way because Thank God in heaven, it did not spread. And David did not get the joy of running out and marrying some tramp to raise my children.

So I'm still here. Okay. But, I mean, how do we know he says his wife was dying of cancer? Well, that's a good question. You're saying the brother says she had cancer but yeah was she dying just curious yeah i mean vincent hill don't poo-poo me i mean these are questions i need to know the answers to go ahead pamela yeah so we fast forward to january the 9th when you have a missing person and the police in hartville, Ohio are investigating. Things get bizarre at this point. Who said she was missing?

Who reported her missing? The brother. The brother said, we can't find her. I've been trying to reach her, and she is not answering our phone calls. Phillip wasn't answering his phone calls, so he contacted the police. And at that point, the police opened a missing person investigation. Pamela Furr, what happened then? Well, this is where things get bizarre.

So Hartville, Ohio police contact Phillip and ask him, where's your wife? What happened? And he tells them that she passed away on the trip from Ohio to Memphis. When they got to the Memphis Days Inn across from Graceland, he says, passed away. So he flagged down an ambulance that he saw parked outside of the Days Inn on the street. He tells police that he contacted that emergency person there in the ambulance and said, my wife has died. And at that point, the ambulance took the body and drove away. And he told police at that point he didn't know where his wife's body was.

And so that's when he drove back to Ohio and left it at that. That was the first story. So we have the brother of Roberta Snyder calling the Hartville, Ohio Police Department telling them that his wife was missing. Nobody has any idea where she is. Then the husband, Roberta's husband, explains that his wife died in Memphis and he pulled over and asked an EMT for help. He claims that his wife was taken to an unknown location after paramedics confirmed she is in fact dead and that that is what he told them. What happened then? With me, Pamela Furr, there in Tennessee, Crime Stories investigative contributing reporter. I don't understand. Couldn't they locate her from the EMT ride? I mean, to Vincent Hill, death investigator. Vincent, when you take a ride in an ambulance, isn't that always documented?

Absolutely, Nancy. It's documented. It's dispatched. The dispatcher records the pickup location, the drop-off location. So all of those records should have been known to the other EMTs that this man approached and said, hey, I can't find my wife. She was taken away, but I don't know where she is. I recall distinctly the one and only time I recall being in an ambulance. I was pregnant in Florida. We thought that I was giving birth even more prematurely than I did. And I had a very long one hour ambulance ride with an EMT named Elvis who had one eye. That's what I remember. And, you know, he was awesome. And I remember it to this day. And I'm sure there's a record of it. So what I don't understand, Pamela Furr, you just heard our death scene investigator, Vincent Hill, all of that is

documented. Nobody can find out where the body is? Correct. There's no record of it. Hartville, Ohio Police Department contacted the Benton County Sheriff's Department and other officials there, and there is no record of anybody being taken from the parking lot of the Days End across the street from Graceland. There's no record of it. There's no police report. There's nothing, and it's been investigated. So Phillip wasn't exactly telling the Hartville, Ohio Police Department the truth. And things even get more bizarre after that. After they said, I'm sorry, sir, but we have no record of anything like that. He changes his story.

And then at that point says, well, what happened was she died on the way to Memphis. I decided on the way back to Ohio that I would dump her body off the Tennessee, off the bridge into the Tennessee river so that she could be with nature. That's the way that she wanted to die. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Be with nature. Yes. With me, New York psychologist and founder of anxiety tools.com. Dr. Chloe Carmichael. Dr. Chloe, be with nature. Yes, Nancy, I hear it. It's pretty implausible. At the same time, I just have to understand that this is a husband who perhaps potentially may have lost his wife, who certainly it sounds like appeared to realize that it's not okay to, you know, put a body into a river to be with nature, even if the person did have cancer. At the same time,

you know, if it is true that his wife had cancer, it would be an extreme trauma, a terrible loss. Sometimes the spouses even actually come up with these plans together, you know, that one of them wants the other person to help them in an assisted suicide. So I think the only thing that we can really see clearly here, at least from a psychology standpoint, is that this man is either confused or in shock or is deliberately covering something up. Well, it just gets crazier and crazier. We are talking about a wife and her husband, a family road trip. They decide they want to go from their home all the way by car to Graceland and celebrate Elvis Presley. Well, somehow en route, his wife or her body disappear.

He claims she passed away by natural causes on the trip once they finally make it to Memphis. And he flags down an ambulance, an EMT he sees parked and they take her and he has no idea where she's been taken but then suddenly the story changes and he conducts his own funeral and throws her over an overpass to be in the Tennessee River to be back with nature okay Pamela for joining me there in Tennessee Pam Pamela, what happened then? Well, at that point, that's when the Benton County Sheriff's Department has decided to get involved because if there's a dead body that's been thrown into the Tennessee River, they have to investigate because you can't do that. So at this point, they are looking for this body. So far, they've found nothing. And so far, there's been no body in Memphis. So she's still missing. So the investigation continues. says that Philip, the husband, told family members that she died and he left her ashes

in Tennessee. So there's actually three different stories at this point coming from Philip Snyder. After speaking with Philip Snyder and EMS Company's hospital and medical examiner offices in the Memphis area, police determined no women matching Roberta's description had been there. And I'm looking at a picture of her right now. She looks pretty good to me. She doesn't actually even look sick. Now, according to the brother, her brother, she was battling cancer. But battling cancer and dying from cancer are two very, very different things. I'm looking. Jackie, look at this picture of Roberta.

She looks fine as a fiddle to me. She's doing kind of an over-the-shoulder look, clutching her little pocket. But look at this. Look at her. Cute, right? All right. To Vincent Hill joining me. Private eye and death scene investigator.

Vincent Hill, the whole thing just stinks. So what do we do now? There's no body. There's certainly no ashes. I mean, when you make ashes and you cremate, there would be evidence of a cremation. I mean, that's very, very strictly regulated. Plus, don't most people keep some of the ashes?

I mean, I've even got my cat's ashes. Yeah, absolutely, Nancy. I mean, you can't just go out into the backyard and burn a body and collect the ashes. You would have to go to someone that's trained and licensed to do that. Listen, Hill, I'd like to thank you for conjuring that image up in my mind, because now that I've seen it in my mind, I can't unsee it. But okay, go ahead. Sorry, Nancy. You know, and the whole thing about he wanted her to be with nature. As an investigator, when I hear someone's dumped in the water, it tells me you're trying to hide evidence. And the thing about the truth.

Not that you want them to be with nature. You're trying to hide their body for Pete's sake. And the thing about the truth, it doesn't change, right? So why is this guy's story changing so many times the truth does not change at all it's the same story every time phone records credit card data gps info is now being investigated to hopefully get a little bit of a more detailed picture about what happened to roberta now the f FBI has also been asked to conduct a polygraph on Philip Snyder. Do we have any idea whether he has agreed to do that, Pamela?

Yeah, he actually has agreed to do that. It is unknown at this time if he's actually gone through that process yet, but I do know that he has agreed to do it. It's also my understanding you mentioned the credit card receipts and that sort of thing. They've talked to the clerk at the day's end there in Memphis. And although he does remember Phillip checking in, he checked in with his wife's credit card, paid for this room with his wife's credit card, but he does not remember seeing Roberta at all. He does contend that there's a possibility he wouldn't have seen her, but he doesn't recall seeing her in the vehicle that they were driving when they checked in. Wow. What we're saying is that this woman was last seen alive January 1.

This is an event that happened somewhere between home and Graceland. That's 700 miles between their home and Graceland, their home in Hartville, Ohio. Hartville police working the case. Memphis police working the case. We are working the case. Because I've got a very, very strong feeling, Dr. Chloe Carmichael, that Roberta Snyder did not want to be thrown unceremoniously off an overpass on I-90

into the Tennessee River to, quote, be with nature. I would agree, Nancy. It does sound pretty implausible. I'm just trying to understand the motivation and the mental clarity of the husband when he did this, because I do think psychologically that's an important distinction. Take a listen to what the Benton County Sheriff has to say. This is Kenny Christopher. Listen. He said to have wrapped her body in plastic and disposed of her body over this bridge here. According to what he's telling authorities there is that she passed away somewhere in Kentucky on the way to Graceland. And he continued on with their journey.

We flew up and down the river channel for about eight miles north of here where the river's flowing. And we found nothing. For anyone that has information regarding the disappearance of Roberta Snyder, please call Benton County Sheriff's Department, 731-279-4280. 731-279-4280. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.