Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mom: 'They kidnapped my newborn from Hospital!' Couple fake kidnap and death to foil hit-man, pregnant mom begs for help

Episode Date: March 28, 2018

A Texas man plotted to have his ex-girlfriend and his new girlfriend's husband kidnapped and killed, but Leon Jacob chose a "hit man" who was an undercover cop. Instead, police staged the pretend kidnapping of Meghan Verikas and murder of Mack McDaniel in a sting. Nancy Grace looks at the case with psycho analyst Dr. Bethany Marshall and lawyer Jason Oshins. Nancy also questions how police and hospital officials handled a custody dispute over a Miami newborn. They allowed Miccosukee Tribe rep to take the infant from her mom soon after birth based on a questionable warrant issued by a tribal court. Lawyer & psychologist, Dr. Brian Russell, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, and reporter Paul Chamber join the discussion. They also hear the plea of a pregnant widow for help in finding whoever dropped a boulder on her car, killing her husband. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The people they once loved paid to have them killed. Prosecutors played audio recordings of defendant Leon Jacob talking to an undercover officer posing as a hitman. She is Megan Varikas, Jacob's ex-girlfriend. He was charged with assault in the spring of last year. The defense, on the other hand, argues Jacob loved his ex-girlfriend, but prosecutors say those feelings of love turned into anger in March of last year. Jacob had started dating veterinarian Valerie McDaniel. The undercover officer testified both talked to him about dealing with their exes. The targets of the alleged plot even worked with investigators,

staging their own kidnapping and murder. Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Sadly, I can't take credit for that. I did not make it up. Listen to this. A woman stages her own kidnapping. A man stages his own murder, complete with fake, bloody photographs. Why? It was all part of an elaborate sting. They wanted to catch the man who paid a hitman $20,000 to assassinate both of them. When you see these photos, you see the woman. She's crying. She's gagged. She has duct tape over her mouth. Her hands and ankles are bound.

It's Megan Vericus. She looks kidnapped, crying, all bent over. The photos of the man I'm talking about, Mark McDaniel, with a bullet wound to his head, blood pouring down his face. Surprise. She's not kidnapped, and he's not dead. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Whoa!

Take a listen to this. And you'll hear that all options are on the table when it comes to Megan. All options. Kidnapping her, planting drugs in her car to get her in trouble, and ultimately kill her. And there'll be no question that Megan's death is an option, a prominent option in the plane here,

because you will hear the defendant himself state that he would like to kill her himself. You heard that right. You will hear him say he'll make reference to potassium chloride that'll stop her heart and that it's untraceable. So the stakes here are clear. He believes he's talking to a hitman. He is talking about killing his ex-girlfriend. Straight out to Jason Ocean's veteran trial lawyer throughout the Northeast joining me.

Jason, I mean, does it never end? Another guy ordering a hit. And here's the kicker. He's the ex. It's over. But he still wants to kill her and her new boyfriend. And now the court has been shown stage photos of the new boyfriend pretending to be dead from a bullet to the head. There's blood going down his face, the side of his head.

And her, the woman, the alleged victim in this case, pretending to be kidnapped, all tied up and bound and gagged. They posed for these photos for police to catch the guy who hired a hitman to kill them both. Megan Vericus and Mac McDaniel posing for detectives who were trying to snare their former partners. And it's just not Leon Jacob. It's also Valerie McDaniels. So both of their exes are in on a murder plot. Jason, I mean, really couldn't get any better than this. Wasn't there a song, My Exes from Texas?

I mean, it just seems to fit perfectly as the Netflix movie of the week. It's a reality show. And by the way, just as a point of questioning, doesn't the general public realize that there are really no people out there who are hit men as if that's their job, that you could hire someone? They're all cops. They're all undercover just waiting for the sickness to come out. I just don't know who thinks there's really a professional hit man.

It's like the spider and the fly. Listen to this, Dr. Bethany Marshall, professional. It's like the spider and the fly. Listen to this. Dr. Bethany Marshall, L.A. psychoanalyst, joining us. Now, the McDaniels were divorced, and Verica said ended her relationship with Jacob, but she still owed him, her ex-husband, $1.25 million from settling of their estates and their homes and their belongings and he was a subject of a protection order stopping him from contacting his ex okay so there you go so both exes had motivation to kill their exes Can you imagine being in a new relationship and all of a sudden

you have to stage your own kidnapping and your own death in order to throw both of your exes off the trail? I'm not worried about their relationship, Bethany. I mean, what is it? What are the stats? Okay. If your first marriage ends in divorce, okay, that's about 50% of marriages, I think. But then your second marriage, two-thirds of those are ending in divorce. So, you know, no offense, but I'm not in the business of playing Cupid. If these two don't make it, I can't help that. But what about this? Listen, listen.

Prosecutors say he, the defendant, Leon Jacobs, wanted her dead so she couldn't testify against him in his stalking case. Like, if that doesn't prove the stalking right there, he's trying to have her killed so she can't say he stalks her. And that's so typical with stalking, where the perpetrator says, I either want to own you or possess you, or I want you dead. I mean, that's really the typical psychology. So it sounds like he was stalking her. He wanted to get her back. But at the same time, the psychology of stalking is to

go after the victim for perceived rejection because stalkers always imagine that there's a relationship when there's evidence. There's no evidence to support that so he must have imagined he was with her even though she had already moved on with her life and he either wanted to kill her or get her back it's such a a sick and twisted way let me ask you something alan duke oh it's dog the bounty hunter right isn't that the name of the A&E show? Dog Bounty Hunter? Yes, Dog Chapman. And I got a soft spot for Beth Chapman. I just think she's awesome. But the state would have, and I'm working this in, just go with me on this, Jason and Bethany.

I'm getting to a point here. All right, so how do I get Beth Chapman and Dog the Bounty Hunter in this scenario? All right, this is how. The defense would have you believe in this case, which is a double hit. A man and a woman want their exes dead for various reasons. So the exes find out about it. They go to police and they stage their own kidnapping and murder and take photos to snare the murderous duo. The defense would have you believe an entrapment, that the state set them up,

they had nothing to do with this, they were lured into it by the would-be hitman, Zach. Uh-uh. Think about all the bounty hunters that you have seen on Dog the Bounty Hunter. I just spoke at a bail bond gathering in Vegas and I met a lot of very wonderful people there. But think about bounty hunters. They want you dead or alive, okay? He actually, the defendant, Leon Jacobs, blabbed to a bail bondsman. This is not a cop. This is not an FBI agent. It's a bail bondsman who's out there getting down and dirty, hunting down criminals every day.

Listen to what the bail bondsman had to say. Did you get through the course of your conversation with the defendant? Were you ever alarmed at the phrasing of things or the way that he said things about his problem with me? Yes. In fact, I said, I asked him, why are you talking to me like this? I said, you know, I'm a, I'm not just a bondsman. I'm a city council member. I've taken a note of office to protect and defend the constitution and the people of the city. Why are you talking to me like this? Did you have any idea? Did he ever tell you the reason he felt comfortable telling you about getting rid of a witness in the stalking case? He said that all he was so so focused on was getting Zach's number. He paid him a lot of money and he wanted this witness, which I learned

to be Megan Veracoste to not testify against him on these cases because it would also hurt his medical license. And did you ever provide any information to him of any kind? I told you about the time that all this was happening. One of my staff members, John Gibbs, uh, knocked on the door, opened the door, and he said, Councilmember, we've got to go to Kingwood with the mayor on a CIP project. And so it gave me an out to get out of there. And I was feeling very uncomfortable because I felt like that I had just learned

that something was going on that was very bad. So that's how the whole thing comes to light. This bail bondsman goes to police. I mean, Jason Oceans, come on. Bail bondsman testifying alongside law enforcement? That's a pretty powerful combination against the defense. With all due respect, bail bondsmen and the convention you are at some of the bail bondsmen i've met are just as nefarious as the criminals

jason wait a minute remember that's what i always would say to you on core tv when i really can't come up with an answer oh blah blah blah so blah, blah. So go ahead. Well, that's a typical prosecutor's response to defense, just trying to create a reasonable doubt anywhere that you can. Some of these cases are brutal. Reasonable doubt. You probably want to prove them out for life. They're caught on tape, for Pete's sake. They're caught on tape planning the murders.

Nancy, what do you want me to say? You want me to be the defense counsel?? You want me to be the defense counsel? Yes, yes, I do. The defense counsel says we're going to keep doing to create reasonable doubt. But but, you know, as well, at the end of the day, despite the best defense counsel, if the evidence is overwhelming and a prosecutor like yourself is bringing forth the case, they're going down despite what you create. So it's good theater and it's a, you know, sick, tortured fact pattern. But, you know, if there's all of this and everyone is as credible as can be with due deference to the bail bondsman, you know, he's going down. I'm looking at an awesome photo, Dr. Bethany.

In another image shown to the court, the would-be victim, McDaniels, appears still in the car with his sunglasses on. Jackie, look at this. This is an awesome photo of the guy that was supposed to be dead by the hitman as slumped over the wheel of his car with fake blood. I don't know what it is. Pouring out the back of his head down his face and his back. I mean, that's very convincing. According to his testimony, it was pig blood.

And so the way he slumped over the car steering wheel, that sort of the glasses are half off his face. He has blonde hair. It looks like there's a hole in his head. There's blood everywhere. But then when Mack is on the witness stand talking about this, he really reflects on this whole stunt as an ordeal and talks about the fact that if the perpetrators had been successful, that his eight-year-old daughter would not have had parents. And he said that the ordeal was unimaginable. So I cannot imagine what these potential victims went through. And the fact that Leon bragged to a bail bondsman, to me, just from a psychology perspective, he was not only obsessed with his ex in terms of stalking her, but he was blabbing to everybody

else about her too. So he had a true obsessive preoccupation with her. So he needs to be behind bars because he's one of these guys that will never stop stalking her. It'll go on and on for the rest of her life. Valerie McDonald and Leon Jacob allegedly hatched this plot to murder their exes together. The pair were dating at the time. Valerie McDaniel still owed her ex-husband $1.25 million from their divorce, and Leon Jacob was under a protective order telling him not to contact her anymore, not to contact Vericus. Now, listen to what he says. All right. The hitman, excuse me, the bail bondsman said that first he wanted to use potassium chloride to her heart.

Quote, it was untraceable. Those were his words. Freak. Now, Jacob says that he denies the charges and insists he wants to spend the rest of his life with Megan. That's right, Bethany Marshall, with him walking the earth and her and the cemetery for the rest of their rest of his life. That's what he wanted. You know, Nancy, I've treated stalkers in my practice, and they are so unpleasant. They are so difficult to listen to because they are preoccupied with their exes. They claim to love their exes, and yet they hate their exes, and they will do everything possible to ruin their exes' lives. You know, I've heard it all. I've heard wanting to expose videos on the internet,

wanting to send letters to family members, wanting to cyber stalk, wanting to show up at the ex's workplace. But I mean, this is really terrible wanting to kill the ex. And so, you know, if he kills his ex, he has control over her, right, for the rest of her life. I mean, this was the ultimate end game for him. You know, another thing, Jason Oceans, I want to put this into perspective. When I first learned about this case, I learned about her, Valerie, the defendant. Okay. She was a very beloved and well-respected veterinarian, Very successful veterinarian with, as Bethany just pointed out, a little girl to live for. Now, she filed for divorce.

I believe that's how it went. And so she files for divorce in full custody. Then they started a custody battle, okay? And this plot was hatched. She later was so distraught, Jason, she made bail after they were arrested for hiring a hit man. She jumped off a balcony to her death. Now the only one left to be on trial is Jacob. It's a sad fact pattern relative to, you know, the value she had in her professional life. Clearly, it would seem that that debt of, you know, 1.25 that she owed her ex, you know, Dr. Marshall could speak to it. But obviously that boiled over into some sort of, you know, hatred and anger such that she couldn't even think clearly about her child.

Listen to this, guys. He told me that basically that he, his ex, has an assault case on him and that it's destroying his life and he wants me to actually, um, kidnap her, uh, basically to convince her that, uh, that to drop it. And as long as he can talk to her, um, because she loves him and he loves her, she would actually change her mind, so he wants to be there where I kidnap her.

And if it doesn't work, he actually wanted me to make her disappear. And now, of course, which I consider to be a bad idea, Jacob testifies in his own defense lesson. I never asked anybody to kill anybody. Does the word kill, hurt, harm, in any way, shape, or form appear in any of those recorded conversations? Not on my behalf. Except for to exclude them from things I want done. I never asked to have anybody hurt, killed, harmed, kidnapped.

I never asked for anybody to be in any way physically hurt. Did you pay money at all for this purpose? No. All right. Well, it was no purpose for me to pay money towards anybody being hurt because I never asked for that. Did you ever pay money to an undercover officer for the purpose of harming or hurting either Megan or McDaniel? No. Did you ever discuss that issue with the undercover officer?

We had, yes, we had multiple discussions or multiple conversations about not wanting to harm or hurt anybody. And that was something that you had expressed, correct? Repeatedly. You know, Jason Oceans, why would he take the stand? You know it turned out badly. I mean, I was just working on the Robert Blake case for Dan Abrams in my new program with A&E, Grace vs. Abrams. P.S. It premieres March 29.

That's Thursday night at 11 o'clock. Woo! I'll be watching, Nancy. Woo! You better be, Oceans. And Dr. Bethany, I know you'll be up watching. And I was looking at Blake. When he did not testify, he got acquitted.

When he testified at trial, at civil trial, they came back with a $30 million judgment against him. Why do people take the stand? People take the stand generally in limited circumstances. Most of the time, as you know, defense counsel wants to be able to, you know, go through each piece of evidence and sort of, you know, tear it apart and discredit it to some degree to create reasonable doubt. I think in this case, maybe, you know, he presents as a good looking guy. Maybe he could, in his mind, you know, charmed the jurors in some way. I think it was his decision and rather than defense counsel. And at the end of the day, you know, your client makes the call on that despite your overwhelming insistence that he should or she should. And just in a verdict in a sentence have just gone down in the courtroom listen for the defendant please stand in cause number one five four three eight one two with the jury having found the defendant leon philip jacob guilty of solicitation of capital murder assess his punishment at confinement in the institutional division of the tex Texas Department of Criminal Justice for Life,

assess a fine in the amount of $10,000. Calls number 1543813. We, the jury, having found the defendant Leon Philip Jacobs guilty of solicitation of capital murder, assess his punishment of confinement in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for Life, assess a fine in the amount of $10,000. Thank you. You may be seated. Do you have anything to say, Mr. Jacob, before I pronounce these sentences?

No, sir. Okay. It's the order of the court, then, Mr. Jacob, that you, having been found guilty of two cases of solicitation of capital murder, be now delivered by the Sheriff of Harris County to the Director of the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, where on both cases you shall serve a life sentence and be fully credited with all the time that you already served on this case. Thank you. Can you even imagine giving birth to a beautiful baby girl in the hospital and just 48 hours later, the baby is taken from you from the hospital? What? I'm Nancy Grace.

This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. That is exactly what happened to a couple in the Miami-Dade area in Florida mom gives birth to a beautiful baby girl Rebecca Sanders is the mom she gives birth to baby Ingrid Ronan Johnson only to see the baby whisked away by none other than police the Miccosukee Indian, American Indian tribal police come to the hospital. They leave their area where they live. They come travel to the hospital at Baptist Hospital in Miami off the tribal reservation

in the Everglades. They get the baby and take it back to their reservation. What? The little girl's parents then spend four days complaining to police and prosecutors saying the tribal order to take the little baby away from them had been cooked up by the baby's grandmother to keep the baby on the Indian reservation. Now, the mother in this scenario is an American Indian.

The father is white. And the grandmother on the Indian reservation wanted nothing to do with the baby being raised, baby Ingrid being raised off the reservation. But let me get the whole story. Maybe I've got it wrong. Paul Chamberlain with me, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Take it from the top, Paul. What happened? Well, Nancy, you actually got everything just about right.

What we're dealing with here is a question of whether the Miccosukee Nation overstepped its authority. A tribal court issued a child custody order on March 17th. The baby was born March 16th. And then it dispatched two police detectives to pick up the child, a newborn, at Baptist Hospital in Kendall, Florida, suburban Miami. The question is whether the tribe's sovereign rights extends to locations off the reservation, and legal experts say tribal court orders must be endorsed first by state, local, or federal court before they can be enforced. So Miami-Dade County Police say the detectives told them that they were enforcing a federal court order, and that apparently wasn't the case. The baby was taken, and then at a tribal hearing on the 22nd, the court ordered that the child be returned, but they still claim

jurisdiction over the child because of a matrilineal sort of determination of whether the child is Indian or not. If the mother is a tribe member, the court considers the child to be a tribe member. Wow. Well, that may be what the tribe considers, but I don't know if the mother and the father agreed with that. Joseph Scott Morgan joining us, forensics expert. Joe Scott, what do you make of it? Hey, I got to tell you, Nancy, this idea of some group of people rushing in to snatch a newborn baby, I mean, this is absolutely mind-blowing that authorities could come in, and on a whim. It's, it's, you know, the, this idea that there's some kind of animals that's right. Hey, every family dynamic has some kind of animals,

some kind of problems, some kind of, everybody doesn't like this person, this sort of thing. The, the fear, the fear, can you imagine being this child's father and knowing that your child is being snatched away from you, being taken away by authorities, and then being spirited away to a location that he may never have access to the child. It's terrifying, terrifying in a free country like this. You know, I'm a little overwhelmed that not only did they come take the baby away based on the grandmother's, I don't know what position she holds within the tribe, but by the grandmother's say-so, did Dr. Brian Russell, host of Investigation Discovery's Fatal Vow series, who is also a lawyer and psychologist, it wouldn't be the first time grandmas got involved. That's right. I've been an expert in child custody cases for some time now, and I don't doubt that the grandmother had some kind of concern.

I'm not saying if the concerns are valid or not. I'm just saying I don't doubt that the grandmother had concerns that the father of her daughter's baby was, you know, had had done things in the past that she was concerned about him being around the grandbaby. And I don't doubt that she went in front of the tribal court and made that case in a way that caused the tribal court to be concerned about the welfare of this child. I think the problem is that the interaction between tribal courts and the society outside of the reservation is a complicated thing. In fact, in 2013, the Supreme Court actually dealt with a case about it, the Baby Veronica case, about where the tribal court's jurisdiction ends and the courts of the United States outside of the reservations begins. And so I think that it's the hospital that did not have the

proper procedures in place that went ahead and released a baby under a tribal court order when they were missing the court order from the county, the Miami-Dade County Court, which is what they needed in order to have it be a valid custody order outside of the reservation. This is what we know. The little girl, Ingrid, baby Ingrid, was born to a Miccosukee mother, an American Indian mother, and a white father. Two days after Ingrid was born, tribal detectives enter baptist hospital in kendall that's off the tribal reservation and took ingrid away from her parents rebecca sanders and justin johnson well it sparked outrage from florida to dc we also hear and i have not confirmed that the the Miccosukee police were accompanied by Miami-Dade police officers

and carried a court order. It had to be a tribal court order. Well, the parents immediately filed complaints with police, prosecutors, and Bureau of Indian Affairs saying the tribal order was just concocted by the baby's grandmother, Betty Osceola, to keep the father away from the little girl. Well, the tribal order grants custody not to the mother, but to the grandmother. I don't know how this happens, how the baby gets taken away from the mother. Now, according to sources, the grandmother feared, and correct me if I'm

wrong, Paul Chambers, that there had been domestic abuse. Is that true? Had her daughter gotten beaten up by the father in the past? Well, Nancy, you're right. Osceola now hasn't said anything except through her attorney, and she does claim that her daughter is a victim of domestic violence. Those are the exact words, a victim of domestic violence relating to the father. And so she feared for the child's safety. And one thing we should also mention, Nancy, is that two previous children had by Sanders are now in the custody, are not in her custody anymore because of actions taken by this same woman, Betty Osceola, and the parents of Sanders' previous relationship. Now, we also know that at one point the mother had a restraining order against the father. Still, even if that's true to Dr. Brian Russell, host of I.D.'s Fatal Vows, you still can't come in and take the baby away from the mother

because at one time she had a restraining order against this man. Well, that's right. Basically, it sounds to me like the Miami-Dade police, so the police in the county where the hospital was located, were led to believe that the tribal court order was a federal court order. And this is where the complexity comes in about the tribal courts and the courts off the reservations. It is confusing. And I think that those police officers probably believed that they were actually helping the tribal police to execute a federal court order, which they were not doing. They were actually helping the tribal police to execute a tribal court order, which does not have any effect outside of the reservation unless they get a judge to endorse it in the jurisdiction where the hospital is.

That's what didn't happen. You've got perhaps some culpability on the part of the police for not knowing that or not getting a legal opinion about it before they helped to enforce it. Certainly the hospital apparently didn't have the right procedures in place to make sure they were releasing a child only pursuant to a valid court order. Well, here's the thing. I want to vilify the grandmother for taking the baby, but I also know the grandmother has two of this woman's other children she's raising according to reports and there have been a tro against the father but i and so she may be motivated by trying to protect the children on the other hand the mother says

she just did not want her baby the grandmother didn't want the baby to be raised off the reservation and i gotta tell you something joe scott morgan i remember trying to investigate a homicide that occurred on reservation i've never been stonewalled so much in my life as to try to get information about the murder that occurred indian reservations american ind Indian reservations are sovereign. They are, for instance, they're like their own country within the U.S. U.S. law does not affect them. No, it doesn't, Nancy. And as a matter of fact, I've worked cases that are, in fact, related to Indian reservations, and it's a nightmare. But, you know, going back to what you said,

it seems as though this is systemic of the rest of our society. It's like due process is dying here, right before our very eyes, and not just in this case, but all over the place. This idea that you're guilty until you're proven innocent in this case, that's what's so terrifying about this. And these people that, yeah, live in this fiefdom of their own on this reservation can come outside of that reservation and execute what they're presenting as lawful authority in this hospital. I want to know where hospital counsel was, the lawyers. I want to know where the protections were at the hospital because somebody's got to call a timeout in this case before that child leaves with these people.

How do we know what kind of care the child's going to receive when the child winds up on the reservation? It leaves a lot of questions for me. It's a cloaked, closed society and they can come and go and do as they please. Take a listen to what the parents have to say. She calls me hysterical. I ask her what's wrong, and she said that they were there and that they were taking our baby. In comes in the detective, Michael Gay, and then a few of the security and also hospital staff. And the detective asked me if I knew what was going on. I said, no, I don't know what's going on.

And then he said, well, your baby is being taken. She is no longer in your custody. You are not her mother anymore. There has been a ruling done where all custody was granted to the grandmother and I asked I was like how can this be I haven't I'm still in the hospital like I haven't been to a court hearing nothing nobody's notified me of anything and where's your do you have any paperwork any you know anything telling me that this is happening like you know I can't just let you leave and he said that he

didn't see any paperwork doesn't doesn't have paperwork, in fact, hasn't even seen it. He was just told to come to the hospital and do this. She was actually on the phone, had me on speaker, and the detective that was there from Mikusuki PD, even while we were on the phone, she's like, will you at least speak to the father and tell him what's going on? And his exact words was, I don't have anything to say to him. I don't need to talk to him. And they didn't let me see my baby again.

They wouldn't even let me look at her, nothing. They'd let her leave. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how, how this has happened. She can't even sleep because any time she closes her eyes you know she wakes up thinking that she's that she's hearing her baby crying and her baby's not even there I don't get how a mother could do this to her own daughter while her daughter is laying in a hospital bed I cannot for

the life of me I cannot wrap my head around that. I don't see how the people of the Miccosukee tribe can look me in the face and tell me that this is okay. Right now they are hiding behind their sovereignty. They're using that to protect them. My daughter's not even a tribal member. I feel like I have no rights. I thought the tribe was to protect its people, not use their own rulings to control their people. Right now, the baby has been ordered back to the mother. We are on the case.

A sobbing wife goes before news cameras in California, begging for the public to come forward with information regarding who hurled Gutierrez wipes away tears as she describes how she and her husband, 23-year-old Christopher, had learned she was expecting their second child. Quote, he was so excited. She says through tears. Take a listen to what she says. Five months ago, me and my husband decided a family. We decided to have a second child. About two weeks ago, we found out I was pregnant.

He was so excited. My daughter was so excited to be a big sister. Out of nowhere, now he's gone. We're asking for your help. If anybody saw anything, please help us. My daughter didn't deserve this. The murderous incident takes place just before 9 o'clock in the evening. Now, according to CHIPS, California Highway Patrol, Christopher was riding as a passenger in his wife's Toyota Corolla along the 134

and passed under the Orange Grove Boulevard overpass. That's near Pasadena, where someone hurls a 35-pound boulder, a rock, at the vehicle below. Now, that had to be precision timing, let me tell you. He, Christopher, was struck by the rock and suffered fatal injuries. Of course, she, the wife, rushes him as quickly as she can to Glendale Adventist Medical Center. He was pronounced dead just 40 minutes after, according to KTLA. This had to be intentional. Now, also in the car, their four-year-old little girl and Gutierrez's mother,

they were not harmed, but the little girl witnessed the whole thing. And now she's left to raise not one child, four years old, but the unborn baby to raise by herself. Straight out to Paul Chamber, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Let's take it from the beginning. How did the whole thing go down? Well, Nancy, you know, a week has passed now, and there's still no takers of this $20,000 reward that's now being offered for information on this incident.

But you had it right. I mean, a boulder was basically pushed over a fence and fell onto a car that was traveling on this Pasadena freeway below, this Toyota Corolla. This happened on March 13th. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the money March 20th. Now, this boulder is about the size of a volleyball, slightly smaller than a basketball. It fell onto the Corolla. It crashed straight through. The hull was very round in the passenger side of the windshield. It was being driven by Guadalupe Gutierrez. It crashed through the windshield. It landed on the chest of her husband, Christopher Lopez. The car swerved radically, as you can imagine. She did manage, though, however, to drive her husband to a nearby

hospital in Glendale. He didn't make it. He died of his injuries. As you mentioned, Nancy, the couple's four-year-old daughter, was in the backseat of the car. The woman was pregnant with the victim's child. Both of them were uninjured, and there are no suspects. And it's very frustrating, I imagine, for local authorities because there isn't a lot they can do. There has been some reporting from the region that there are no apparent surveillance cameras in the area, so they have no video to draw upon. They are testing the boulder for DNA evidence to see if they might come up with something there. And the only other theory that I've heard is that a lot of homeless people live in the area, and they could dispatch detectives, I i suppose to talk to the homeless people to see

if they might have any clues as to what happened but really there's not a there's not a lot of directions to go and no one's claimed the reward well alan do you you went to the saying what did you what did you learn it's a high fence it's about seven feet tall chain link fence but it curves you know on the inside specifically built to prevent this kind of a thing. And it goes, the overpass goes over the very busy 134, which I drove last night and very regularly. You have to be tall and strong to have tossed a 35-pound rock over this fence. And the timing of it, just horrible, because it's just crazy how it landed right in the middle of this man's chest. To Judge of Scott Morgan, forensics expert, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, Joe Scott has just endured a disaster of his own.

Tornadoes were ripping through his home state, destroyed his home, all their possessions. He and his wife and son are in temporary housing right now. We have a GoFundMe on our website, CrimeOnline.com, if you can help Joe Scott. Joe Scott, I can't thank you enough for being back with us and lending us your expertise this soon. After that disaster, as your wife is still picking through the remains. I mean, I just finished a photo album of Christmas 2015. And it took me forever.

And I put it on the shelf with all the other photo albums. And I was just thinking about all the things your wife has created and kept over the years as you've raised your son and all of it just lost. We've been praying for you so much, Joe Scott. Thank you, Nancy. That means a lot to me. The love that you guys have extended to me, it means more than you can possibly know. And hey, the best place to be is with your family to recover from this. And you guys, Crime Online, y'all are my family as well. So thank you. This particular case, I've been following it actually since before the tornado struck here in Jacksonville.

And I've been very fascinated by this. I like the fact that Alan was able to go out and put eyes on the scene. We've worked cases like this before, Nancy. We've discussed this, and many times it's mischievous teenagers. Nancy, this wasn't a teenager that did this. This fence is very, very tall. The rock weighed 35 pounds. And in order to heft this thing over, you would have to be either very tall or,

and here's the kicker, or you're going to have to have assistance. This place, this would have required, I think, two adult males in order to facilitate this thing. And we have a huge homeless population in this area. You have to get it over this rise. Now, the odds... Wait, why are you blaming the homeless people? They're just trying to find their next meal. Yeah, well, apparently some of them found a 35 pound boulder too. And somebody has tossed this thing over and I sure want to know who did it and who took this man away from this family, completely wrecked their life. And the police

need to go out there and they've got to rattle some cages and get some answers to this thing because $20,000 has not made anything shake loose yet. Let me tell you something else. They're talking about the evidentiary concerns here. They're talking about DNA. This is going to be a long shot because what they're going to be looking for this in this particular case is touch DNA. And let me paint a picture for our listeners. If you think about touch DNA, all it is is dead skin cells that transfer onto an object if people

at home will just take baby powder and put it in their hand and gently blow that's how that's how fragile touch DNA is so you're gonna if they contact this rock leave dead skin cells on it then push it over an eight-foot rise, have it travel through the air at great velocity, then pass through an intermediate target, which is that windshield, and strike this man center mass right in his chest. This guy's got crushing chest injuries, Nancy. It would not be a surprise to me if this man's heart and his lungs and possibly even his spine were completely crushed in this situation. Terrible, terrible way to die. And I don't know if they're going

to be able to cover any evidence off this thing. Would his death have been immediate, Joe Scott? I think that he would have had an awareness, Nancy. And that's the thing about it. I don't know about his head injuries. If he was absent head injuries, he would have had an awareness that he had, in fact, been struck. Let's keep in mind, you have to keep in mind that he traveled to the hospital. I don't know how long it would have taken him to get to the hospital. The wife is just in a fury. He's breathing his last breaths, literally gurgling in blood in this thing because he's going to have a flail chest. He shows up at the hospital. He laughs for 40 minutes.

So, yeah, I think that he would have had an awareness. I think that the pain and suffering here, to put it in legal terms, is just unbelievable, unbelievable, the havoc and the hell that has been wrought upon this poor family. To Dr. Brian Russell, host of Investigation Discovery's Fatal Vow series, a big hit for ID, lawyer and psychologist, Dr. Brian, what was the thinking behind an attack like this? It was clearly premeditated. is so purely psychopathic. There's no reason other than somebody enjoying the havoc that they're wreaking on other people's lives. It is so psychopathic that you may think I'm being barbaric here, but if we find out who did this, death by stoning is too good of a punishment. And I'm serious that we have to make that level of statement as a society that we will not tolerate this kind of behavior in this country

because this is not the first one of these this year. There was one already earlier this year where a father of several kids and a husband was killed. And they did catch the perpetrators of that, allegedly, who are teenagers. And guess what? They're charged with second degree murder. Why in the hell is it second degree? As you said, this is absolutely premeditated. This is within a few feet of the main route of the Rose Bowl Parade. And there are not, I know this area well, there are not homeless people who live in that immediate vicinity, but it's a really nice area. And the Rose Bowl Parade, just a few feet away. So where does the case stand right now, Paul Chamber? They're waiting for someone to respond to the offer of a $20,000 reward for information.

I think that would probably be the best hope at getting some additional information on who might have done this horrible crime. And the lesson in this is look up at every overpass. I've done this for years. When I'm driving, I look up at every single overpass because I've just heard about too many of these. And it's awful that you have to do that in the United States of America. But when you're teaching your kids to drive, I mean, obviously, they don't want to take their eyes off the road for too long either. But, you know, unfortunately, you could save your life by glancing up there. I'm just looking at their family photo, Joseph Scott Morgan.

They look so happy. There's a $20,000 reward in the case of a young father killed by a boulder dropped onto the highway. Someone throws a huge rock from a highway overpass. The $20,000 reward offered for information leading to whoever is responsible for this horrible murder of the young dad, Christopher Lopez. He was in the passenger seat when a 30-plus pound rock crashes through his windshield, crushing his chest. It is believed by authorities, the highway patrol, someone purposefully threw this large boulder from the Orange Grove Boulevard overpass. It's over Route 134 freeway. The pregnant wife immediately races to the hospital, but it was too late. The four-year-old little girl was in the car when her dad is murdered. The mom making an emotional plea.

He is gone, she says, but I'm asking for your help. If anyone saw anything, please help us. There is a GoFundMe campaign created to benefit those Christopher leaves behind, including trying to pay for his funeral and for everything the baby will need. I'm just stunned by this. Alan, do you have a tip line number? Yes, Nancy.

The California Highway Patrol says if you have information about this incident that happened on March 13th, you can call them at 626-296-8100. 626-296-8100. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast. signing off. Goodbye, friend.