Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Natalie Finn parents brought to justice for starving, torturing, killing teen daughter

Episode Date: March 9, 2018

Natalie Finn weighed just 81 pounds when she died of cardiac arrest in October 2016. The 16-year-old and her two adopted siblings were locked in a small room in a Des Moines home while they were subjected to unimaginable torture and neglect. Nancy Grace explores the case against their parents who starved the teen daughter to death. She is joined by forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, juvenile Judge Ashley Willcott, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Bober, and reporter John Lemley. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. I just felt something wasn't right. The more details that come out, unfortunately I'm not surprised by them, but I am absolutely sickened by them. They call what happened next door a house of horrors. I just can't imagine someone treating their children like this. This case involves a family that has many layers of complexities, many moving parts. For Natalie and her siblings there was no place like home because for Natalie and her siblings home was a place of fear confinement torture truly a mother from hell when you hear this story, it is going to make your toes curl.

I am so distraught that this happened under the noses of neighbors, teachers, authorities, and now a young girl is dead. Natalie. Natalie. A young girl found dead in the floor. At whose hands? Mommy's. Listen.

How do you ask for less? 8-0-5-15-3. Ambulance. They had an IV in her and they were doing chest compressions. And then we just saw them load her in the back of the ambulance and drive away. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. We want justice. The adoptive mother of a teen girl, now at the center of a controversy.

A teen girl who weighed just 85 pounds. My 10-year-old daughter weighs more than that. This girl starved dead. Her name, Natalie. Natalie was found languishing on a linoleum floor wearing nothing but an adult diaper. On this cold linoleum floor, she was lying in her own urine and excrement, weighing a little over 80 pounds, wearing nothing but an adult diaper, too weak to even ask for food. The house smelled very putrid of ammonia and feces. It was a very overwhelming smell.

She was very thin, very frail. You could see her bones sticking out, and she was only wearing what appeared to be adult dependence. Natalie was somewhat difficult in that she appeared very, very dehydrated, emaciated in appearance, which makes it very difficult to start IVs. We basically tried everything that we could to try to save her, but she was not able to be saved. How did this go so horribly, horribly wrong? When you look at the mother, Nicole Finn, she seems like any soccer mom you might see in the pickup line at school.

Got her long brunette hair pulled back in a ponytail. Wearing an updated version of eyeglasses. Her children kept in horrific, horrific conditions. Joining me is John Limley, crime stories investigative reporter, forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Bober, Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert and lawyer and child advocate Ashley Wilcott. You know, John Limley, when I look at their home, it's lovely. It's got a beautiful hardwood tree in the front yard, a yard of perfectly manicured green grass, a brick home in the shade of this big, seemingly oak tree. White car pulled in the driveway, a bicycle there to signify children live there.

The shrubs are all tidy, everything in order. But little do we know, this Des Moines home was a house of horrors. This young girl begging for food, scrounging for food in the neighborhood, and nobody did anything. Begging neighbors for just a morsel to eat. Listen. She asked for some shoes, some flip-flops, and then for some shoes for her older brother. So we gave that to her, and then she had asked for $5. We gave her $20. Just money for food and socks and clothes. It sounds like they just weren't being provided for, and they were going to people that they trusted to get help.

Natalie had been, quote, lying in her own waste for some time when she's found. No furniture in the bedroom. Nothing. It was completely empty. The only thing that was in there was the linoleum floor and the walls. She had told me the room didn't have any furniture in there because they had recently decided to replace the flooring because the kids in that room had been urinating and defecating in there and had ruined the flooring.

The house overrun by cats and kittens whose feces were scattered everywhere, the animals roaming freely throughout the home, heavily soaked blankets, heavily soaked with urine, covered the floor where Natalie shared a room with two other siblings, dog kennels inside the residence. How could this be happening literally next door? Let's start with the 911 call. What brought police to the home, John Limley?

Officers and medics went to the house after that 911 call. Natalie was found not breathing and unresponsive. Nicole Finn, the mother, told investigators she had attempted CPR on her daughter after a younger sibling found Natalie on her back with vomit coming out of her mouth. This was around 7 p.m. the night before. The mother claimed that Natalie and her siblings woke up around 9.30 that morning and that one of her younger sisters gave Natalie a peanut butter smoothie. And this is when police and medics discovered Natalie. She was wearing an adult diaper, nothing but this diaper, lying on the linoleum floor of her bare bedroom. One of the officers said that the 16-year-old, quote, appeared to have been lying there in her own waste for quite some time. She was at such a point, she couldn't even hold up to eat. The mother reportedly saying words to the effect,

well, if you won't get up and eat, I'm not giving you any more food. Her siblings, little children, were trying to feed her water and yogurt to keep her alive. I mean, just the thought of this story has me so incredibly distraught. And the thought that it could have been stopped. To Joseph Scott Morgan, forensnsics Expert, Death Scene Investigator When you are starved to a point, you have cardiac arrest How long have you been starving? It doesn't take as long as people think You know, I think that the problem with this case is that she was fed intermittently

and over a period of time, it increased the amount of time that it took for her to die. You have people that are trying to feed her. We've got the story of the peanut butter smoothie. We've got the yogurt. We've got other things that are coming down the track. It's not like she was just held in place, because it would generally take about 30 days to completely starve an individual to death. But, Nancy, the horror of this is the fact that she languished for even a longer period

of time because she was periodically given food, just enough sustenance to make it through. We need about 1,300 calories a day. And my thought is that she was getting well under that. And that's just recommended just to stay above starvation level. They just kept her for now. This girl's ribs were sticking through her skin. She was extremely underweight and suffering from bed sores when medics find her. Now, wait a minute, wait a minute. Bed sores. That means you've been lying there for so long that your skin has developed its own

spontaneous sores. That's how long this child had been lying on that linoleum floor in urine and feces, unable to move or stand to the point her little brothers and sisters were trying to feed her water and yogurt just before she died. I mean, it's horrific denial of critical care. Dead at that young age from cardiac arrest. I asked earlier who called 911. Ashley Wilcott, the brother, called 911. I want you to hear this.

No, and she just got free. Okay, are you with her right now? My mom and she didn't hear. The brother called, not the mother, her brother. Nancy, this is a case of sadistic torture by the mother. This is not only starvation of a child. And I'm not surprised that the mother didn't call. Why would she call? She's torturing and murdering her child.

You know, what's really driving me crazy is that DFACS, Department of Family and Children's Services, got a report two months before the death from someone in the school reporting that Natalie had not been to school, that there was something horribly wrong in the home. The child service worker goes to the home and leaves the children there. They appeared to be small children in general, small-statured children. But they didn't appear to be undernourished at the time. They didn't have sunken cheeks, sunken eyes.

They had short-sleeved shirts on. I didn't see any injuries of any kind or any wounds. The child service worker leaves them in the home and does nothing. And of course, this is prompted the usual, we're going to do something about it. There was a hearing where the state senator, Matt McCoy from West Des Moines, you know, made a ruckus. These children are dying out there. They're falling through the cracks and nobody is doing anything to make sure that DHS is properly staffed. I'm saying where there's frequency, there's severity, and you've got to treat that frequency in an official policy like, okay, we've had four calls on this kid. We better figure out what the heck's going on here.

We're going to protect children and if they don't like it, too bad. They're going to have to go through me to stop me because I'm not going to move. It absolutely makes me want to vomit. There is no place in hell that will be hot enough for the parents of this little girl. And you had two parents that deliberately starved their kids to death. This is an indictment on the Department of Human Services for complete failure. They didn't work the case the way they should have. They were not as persistent about getting into the home. They didn't go out to the home. They didn't take the reports that they received from the school nurse seriously.

You know, the Iowa Citizens Aid ombudsman has launched its own investigation, blah, blah, blah. The girl's dead, and they let it happen. I think they should be prosecuted right along with the mother from hell. I mean, she is definitely Satan's minion. I am telling you that to stand by and see your daughter starving. All the children were starving, but this one starved to death until she went into cardiac arrest. This is also what I know. There is so much evidence.

Dr. Daniel Bober joining me, forensic psychiatrist. What about this mother's evil text messages that police have been able to pull up where she describes her children as, quote, worthless and says she can't, quote, stand them? What mother would say that about her children? Yeah, Nancy, I mean, she seems to be completely sociopathic. There's there's really no defense in this case that I see that's going to work. I mean, there's no insanity defense or diminished capacity. I mean, there's been talk that she suffered from depression and possibly PTSD, but her actions all seem to be willful, volitional, and frankly, just quite evil. Now, wait a minute. Dr. Daniel Boebert, there you go, getting sucked into a phony defense again. You know, you and I have really had it out. Let's talk about what you just brought up. You said that if it had been brought up, she had diminished capacity and she had suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Hold on. The only thing that has come out from her own expert is that the mom had a, quote, difficult childhood, that she had a, quote, strained relationship with her parents now, that she had been depressed in the past and that she had post-traumatic stress because she had an abusive relationship with a boyfriend. That ended five years ago.

Hello? I want you to hear this. Not wanting to go out around people, not wanting to connect with people. What Ms. Finn discussed in that relationship was a lot of what in psychology we would refer to as domestic abuse or domestic violence, a lot of controlling behaviors, threatening behaviors. For people with trauma, you see this, where they want to push everyone out. I call it kind of becoming like a turtle going into your shell. Did that affect Nicole's perception? She would see what's happening, but because of her significant difficulty dealing with emotional stress or distress, she wasn't processing it.

She wasn't allowing herself to notice that maybe there's something really bad going on. The children asking to go to the bathroom is more stressful than opening a kennel and taking the dog to the backyard? It's not that she dissociated and didn't know they're asking. She didn't know they're asking. Mrs. Finn saw Natalie laying on the floor and instructed her children to pick Natalie up. Are you saying Mrs. Finn didn't perceive that? Yes, but she thought that Natalie was faking it. No claims of delusions. No evil spirits floating around.

Nothing. No motive at all, Dr. Daniel Bober. Yes, Nancy. I agree with you. There doesn't really seem to be much in this case in the way of diminished capacity, given her history and given her behavior. It all seems to be quite volitional. You know, another thing to Ashley Wilcott, lawyer and child advocate. You know, I look at my children and I really don't think they do anything wrong ever. Once in a great while,

my daughter will sass me. Okay, which normally I just completely ignore and pretend it didn't happen. Once in a while, I will try to banish her to her room, but the crying and the fits, I mean, really, it's just not worth it. But when I do, the whole time, Ashley, that I make her go to her room, I'm the one that feels bad about it. She's probably in there playing with those two little fur balls called guinea pigs and having a fine time. I'm on the outside of her room feeling like the worst mother in the world. I would never, ever. I mean, that's here, home, behind closed doors.

But what about putting it in a text that your children are, quote, worthless? That speaks to her inability to feel compassion or act like most reasonable people act and protect their children. And you've got the protective capacity and the compassion. You hate when your kids are upset or anything bad is happening. You have to discipline them in any way. That's being a mother. That's being a good mother. This woman was not a mother.

I don't care what you call her legally. She was not a mother. She had no compassion. She had no emotion. She tortured and killed her child. So you can't attribute the proper emotions and care that she should have given a child who was hers to her. She wasn't a mother.

She was a killer. What I'm saying also, Ashley, is that you would text that to another person. Right? So cold. My children are worthless. I can't stand them. I mean, it's bad enough that some parents may resent their children. But to be so resentful, you actually talk about

it to other people, how much you can't stand them and loathe them and they're worthless. I mean, that's a whole nother level. It is a whole nother level. In my mind, that you would trash them to other people. It is, absolutely. But it's also this, it is great evidence for the state to prove this was a hard fail by individuals within the casework system, as well as by a system as a whole. And I agree with you. When is someone going to be prosecuted if there's a crime committed when they fail to protect children like these? Because those texts are evidence that there were issues and these children needed to be protected. Well, listen to this, Ashley. We now learn from investigators that

the mom had the dad nail shut a window of the bedroom because the children were sneaking out to beg for food at a convenience store. The windows were screwed shut. There was a lot of staples from a staple gun on the frame around both windows. Where we left off, Ashley Wolcott, they had actually nailed the windows shut after the children had gotten out and had gone to a convenience store to beg for food. I mean, my heart is breaking for this family, for these children, Ashley. And this takes it to the next step of demented sadistic. And by that, I mean, it's not just, which is bad enough, I'm not going to feed her. Now, instead of doing nothing, this mother has actually taken positive steps,

not positive, that's the wrong word, actual steps to prevent the children from eating, right? So it's not, I'm not going to feed them. It's, I'm going to go to that next level of torture and make sure I take steps to prevent them from finding food. So not only to Dr. Daniel Bober, MD and forensic psychiatrist, did the mom withhold food, she prevented them by having the windows nailed shut from getting out and begging for food. Why, Dr. Bober? Well, as Ashley said, you know, this was not a case where she simply passively denied them. It's actual torture. She prevented them from getting the food, which indicates a sociopathic personality,

someone who feels no connection to living things, her own children, and feels absolutely no remorse as they're laying there dying. This child described as outgoing and sweet, but neighbors say they had very little interaction with the family. Now, we now learn that the Iowa agency responsible never followed up on an actual complaint of a starving child. Child welfare workers have been called to investigate about this teen girl who was abused and begging for food five months before the teen dies of starvation and cardiac arrest,

according to what we have learned in police reports. Why is that? John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter, are you telling me that D-Fax was called out their children's services five months before and they did nothing? There was also a follow-up visit in August of 2016, just a little over two months before Natalie's death. Police and Child Protective Services visited the home and even noted that Natalie was wasting away, but said in the report, and this had to be influenced by Nicole, that she was starving herself. Child Services said there was ample food in the home that she

was simply choosing not to eat it. There was plenty of food in the cabinets in the refrigerator, and I believe there was some sort of roast cooking in a crockpot. A health worker later told colleagues she believed there might be cause for concern in the Finn household, but nothing was done. Cause for concern? Cause for concern? A health care worker said there was cause for concern, the neighbor Becca Gordon also called authorities and said Natalie had been begging for food

and was neglected. She also talked to school officials who contacted health services. I've been directly told prior, I had been, by Nikki that she would do this, that she would try to get extra food and that we should limit that. She would say

some kind of concerning things like in order to be fed, I have to do chores. She would be likely to go home and tell her mom about that conversation and then I would get a response from mom so it was very confusing to us because we wondered why if that was true why then the child would go home and tell the person that supposedly was doing this we were concerned about what we were hearing as far as how she was able to access food in her home and that she seemed to be always hungry at school. All we heard was negativity

and that is not what we felt we were seeing at school. She was very positive. She was very cheerful. She was very compliant. She was happy-go-lucky, smiling. She said she's afraid that she'll get in trouble if

she tells the truth. Natalie showed no emotion and had a very flat affect, was not showing happiness, sadness, anger. There was nothing there. And I made a comment here that she seemed almost robot-like with some of her responses and that it appeared as though she was giving responses she thought she was supposed to give rather than what she may actually think or feel. The biggest thing that would seem to be reported every single time was lies. Her mom would report that Natalie would continue to lie. There were issues with stealing at school. I would also talk to Natalie.

Natalie would talk about wanting to have friends, and so we would work on ways to try to be able to develop friendships with peers. Everybody was asking for help, and Joe Scott Morgan, forensics expert, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, according to reports, this child's body had begun digesting itself. What does that mean? Well, what it means, Nancy, is that after all of the fat is gone, which stores our energy, after all that is gone, the only thing that's left to eat is muscle. And now you've got a kid that is deplete of fat. They're laying on a linoleum floor. No wonder she had bed sores all over her these are contact

areas there's no padding on her body if you will the body is literally eating itself to death and and this is this is one other thing not only is she being starved of you know intake relative to the food she's not getting a sufficient amount of water either. And this has led to a dehydration, which also leads to enzyme imbalance. Uh, the forensic pathologist talked about that more than likely she had died of a cardiac arrest. Uh, she had had a heart problem as a result of her enzymes being out of balance and her complete system. She's in multi-system failure now. I would not even put it past the fact that she's probably got some kind of widespread infection,

probably septicemia that you see many times with these bed sores that go untreated. I want you to hear this. This is harsh, but true. She had been lying on a hard surface in her own filth, being starved and not having any water for days until she got so weak that she couldn't move anymore and had a cardiac arrest. The naked scale weight was 81 pounds, and you asked me to describe that. That represents a rather severe loss of weight. To a professional observer, it's an alarming number. And then, Dr. Garrity, have you formed an opinion to a professional observer it's an alarming number and then dr gary have you formed an opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty as to the manner of natalie finn's death

and the opinion succinctly was homicide that is to say in death as a result or the hands of someone other than her he had relatively little external evidence of injury. She was extremely dehydrated, and she had essentially zero fat tissue and very little musculature as evidenced by the photographs. I mean, the skin was just tented over her skeleton. Due to, in my opinion, a denial of critical care. That is to say, she was denied adequate nutrition. It's also breaking my heart, Ashley Wilcott, when this girl, Natalie Finn, God rest her sweet soul,

would go out and try to beg for food, she would ask for extra food to take home to her sister to try and feed her sister. You know, when I take the twins to school every morning, I say, guys, watch out for each other. Take care of each other. You keep your eye on your brother and you keep your eye on your sister and you help them if they need help. That's the last thing I say to them as they get out of the car and run in. Look out for each other. And this girl who dies lying in feces and urine down to 80 something pounds, wearing nothing but an adult diaper is out trying to get food for her sister, Ashley.

Isn't that amazing? There's no doubt the only people that could take care of each other in that home were those siblings. And not only did she do that in the diminished state that her body was because of her malnutrition and starvation. Do you know that the morning that she died, the siblings are the ones who gave her food in an old used ketchup bottle, which is disgusting. But they used what they could to give her food in an old used ketchup bottle, which is disgusting, but they used what they could to give her food. So they also tried to take care of her, but they had to rely on each other because there was no adult in that home caring for these children. The only one that tried to do anything was a neighbor, Becca Gordon. She says, quote, I didn't really know what was going on at first. I thought maybe they didn't have much money. And, you know, she was a growing girl until one day when she came to my house and said,

my mom locked me up for two days with my sister. We're hungry. I mean, you know, Ashley, I keep going to go you because you know well everybody on our panel today knows my twins but Ashley you know when I go pick them up at school yes I know I fed them breakfast yes I know I packed them snacks yes I know they have a lunch when I go pick them up I have snacks and water bottles and they're're starving, right? They get out of school and they're hungry. And especially John David, I think he eats his and Lucy's, you know, Lucy's staring out the window singing some song or something. But it just because I know they want it. And just thinking of her saying my mom locked me up for two days with my sister and we're hungry. I just can't

even imagine this. And then the mom writing those evil text messages, Ashley. She has no remorse, no compassion. Here's what's hard too. And people I think need to know and realize the neighbor absolutely did the right thing in calling protective services. But as a system, protective services fails and did in this case. So, you know, you just in retrospect think, gosh, couldn't the neighbor have said, come in, let me give you food or, hey, here's a basket of food. You know, if somebody knocks on your door, Nancy, and is in that state, I have to believe not only are you going to do the right thing the neighbor did and call protective services, but goodness, compassion, would you not feed them? I don't know. Of course.

Of course we would. This is what else I know. Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist, listen to this. So the neighbor, Becca Gordon, calls police after the girl tells her she's been locked up for two days with her sister. She also says Natalie would wear the same clothes over and over and over, and she smelled of body odor. The little girl did not have shoes and had large, bloody blisters on her feet. And then at some point, Natalie stopped going to school. Happy all the time at school.

But then as I see, school was her life. It was where she felt like she could live. Nobody asked a word. Nobody noticed. Nobody said a word. Nobody noticed. Nobody said a thing. Then, police reports confirm that two officers, Matthew Granzow and Barry Graham, go to Natalie's house to check on her welfare at Becca Gordon's prodding. They say they see somebody peeking out the window, but nobody answered when they knocked multiple times. Earlier that day, another officer comes across two children that looked homeless. He didn't know if

they may have been the children who lived at the Finn's home. I mean, how many red bells of alarm went off? The neighbor sang, she's starving. She's begging for food. Her feet are bloody. The school reporter calls in. The police go and do a welfare check. Somebody peeks, but they don't go in? Why?

How can this be missed so many times, Dr. Bober? It's beyond stupidity, Nancy. I mean, at every point here, there was a failure in the system. And it just shows you how, you know, I guess people see a situation and they don't think that something like this can happen. And they're almost in self-denial. But it's just it's beyond comprehension. Looking at it now, there were so many opportunities to intervene. And the system completely failed these kids. Well, it wasn't just Becca Gordon,

a next door neighbor, Tiana Curtis also said the teen had been coming to her door, and she had been giving her food. Apparently, the whole neighborhood knew what was happening. And now Natalie is dead. I mean, John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter, this has been ongoing. Aren't there rules when somebody doesn't show up for school? Don't you have to follow up on what happened to the child? What went wrong? Absolutely, Nancy. And this is where questions just stack on top of questions as to why Moore Natalie from Walnut Creek campus after she was accused of stealing money from a teacher to buy food. She said she bought food and hid it in classrooms to last her through the end of the school year. Stars, that poor girl. But this is another thing I don't understand. Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert, you know, you work with police constantly, as do I.

Gordon, the neighbor, contacted the Reader's Watchdog, hoping to discover, this is after the girl's death, why nobody had been charged with the death. Nothing happened. So they, the Reader's Watchdog, make an open records request for police incident reports. And only after that did something ever happen. I mean, let me ask you this too. Joe Scott Morgan, this teen girl wearing nothing but adult diapers, the humiliation of lying there naked in feces, starving, till you can't even sit up and ask for anything. And the mom saying, well, if you're not going to get up and eat, I'm not going to give you any more food.

She wasn't giving her food anyway, Joe Scott. No, she wasn't, Nancy. And this is the thing that really leaves me scratching my head here. These kids were obviously, you know, victimized by this creature that's referred to as a mother, but they were victimized not once, but twice by the state. Let's understand that this woman adopted these children into foster care. Okay. That's the first problem. She's got these kids under her care,

this, this poor little victim, uh, that has died and the victims, the other children, the, the brothers and sisters, and then the state fails them again when a department of family and children's services can't find it within themselves to move forward with this case. I mean, it would seem that there is a, you know, I'd like to say that there's a problem with training and that people don't recognize things. But you know what, Nancy? I've been involved in death investigation for 35 years. I've heard the same story over and over and over again.

We need to fix the system. Really? Well, I'm waiting on it. When's the system going to get fixed? Because the same thing keeps being said and kids continue to die. Well, I'll tell you the only way it's going to get fixed, Ashley Wilcott, this is your expertise, is when a defects worker finally gets prosecuted criminally. That's when it's going to get fixed. I agree. When their rear end is in a sling, then something will get fixed. When somebody goes to jail, the rest of them will wake

up and do something. I mean, why not, Ashley? Why aren't they ever held accountable? Well, okay. So A, should someone be held accountable and criminally prosecuted? Yes, absolutely. B, why does it not happen? Because I'm not defending bad action, but I am going to say this. Our child welfare systems nationwide and specifically in each state do not get the financial support needed by senators, by congressmen to actually have enough case managers well trained, capable of doing the job. You've got 22-year-olds not trained with 100 cases. Good Lord, of course they can't do their job. And until one of them is criminally prosecuted and there's outrage because that person couldn't do their job because they weren't given the resources because there's not enough money, the money's not going to go into the system. So it's a vicious cycle. So do I want

to see an individual who has an impossible job prosecuted when they're not grounds? Of course not. If they drop the ball and there was a criminal prosecution, I believe it would drive change and get money into the system to fix the inherent problem. Now, what needs to happen here is not the workers themselves need to be prosecuted. Department heads and politicians need to be prosecuted. That will get people's attention in this, and that's the only way that this is going to clear this up. You're right. I've worked cases where we've had eight and nine kids in a family, and each child has a separate worker. They don't know what they're doing. They absolutely are completely incompetent in this environment. So department heads need to be arrested and prosecuted and convicted, as well as the people that send money to these people.

That's what's going to stem the flow of this river of blood that we're swimming in day after day after day. And these things go underreported. Well, this is what I learned having been sent to lobby at our state assembly for anti-crime issues. They love, politicians love to talk about, we passed this bill and we're going to do this and we're going to do that they don't put any money in it like Ashley Wilcott was saying you can put all the laws on the books you want to but if you don't hire more workers you don't put more money into that system yeah you can say on the second call to a home the children are removed really by who and where are you going to put them?

Because there's nowhere to put them because there's no money being given to the program. It's a systemic problem. But I don't think we should just go for the politicians and the heads of the departments. I would go for the worker that turned their back and walked away from that front door and left Natalie to die. Oh, did I forget to mention the life insurance policies? For Natalie and her siblings, there was no place like home. Because for Natalie and her siblings, home was a place of fear, confinement, torture. Did I mention, John Limley, have you told us yet,

about the two separate life insurance policies, one for $10,000 and one for $25,000, taken out on this girl in particular, Natalie? Correct. Natalie's adoptive parents had taken out two life insurance policies on the girl before she died, Nicole and Joe took out a policy that carried a $10,000 benefit. And on top of that, Nicole also bought another policy in 2009 that carried that $25,000 benefit. Court records show that Joe actually called about that second policy the day after Natalie died. And Nicole was then sent information on how to file a claim. You know, less than 24 hours pass and they're trying to get their hands on the money. Seriously. And all this mom has to say is that she wasn't processing her actions due to mental health. What mental health? I want to hear about demons and evil spirits. No. All she said is she had traumatic stress disorder from a relationship that ended

five years before. After 4,000 pages of records, we find out nothing but an alleged depression. Really? That's your defense for allowing your daughter to die and your children to starve? So Alan Duke, what happened in the latest court appearance? Nancy, during the final days of the trial, the surviving siblings of Natalie Finn testified against their mother, Nicole. Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom, though, as the teens testified. Reporters for KCCI-TV fill us in on the emotional details. We saw Nicole wiping away tears several times as she listened to one child testify. It was the 16-year-old boy who did not have to share a room with Natalie and the others, but we also heard from Natalie's younger brother who was in the bedroom with Natalie on those final days. He says they had to be supervised to go to the bathroom and at one point they were

only allowed to eat food in the hallway. He says the longest he went without eating was two weeks. He says in Natalie's last day alive he was told to feed her sugar water through her syringe while she remained in their bedroom. Now both of the siblings that testified today recall a visit from West Des Moines police and DHS in August of last year. One says Nicole threatened them if they gave any incriminating information to the police or state agency. The officer who was a part of that visit says the home was cluttered but did not notice much else. Michaela Finn says she was homeschooled her 8th grade year and during much of that year she would have to spend all day in her room and always ask to eat or go to the bathroom.

Mikayla says Natalie would bring her food from school but once Natalie dropped out they would sneak out of the house and panhandle for money. Their mom eventually found new ways to keep them confined to the bedroom. The 15-year-old was face-to-face with her mom, Nicole Finn, for the first time in a year. The teen described their limited access to food, that alarm on the door, even a sign she had posted to their window, need food and money. But it was that bare room many others remember, too. The state asked Mikayla Thursday, quote, why were you peeing on the carpet?

Our mom wouldn't let us go to the bathroom, she said. Michaela says her sister was weak for a long time before her death in October of 2016, and her mom was well aware. She couldn't walk to the shower, which is why Michaela says she gave her a sponge bath in their bedroom. On the day of Natalie's death, Michaela noticed her sister had pale lips. She said, quote, at that moment, I knew my sister was going to die. And she teared up as she said she was never able to tell Natalie goodbye. A jury found Nicole Fenn guilty of murder,

child cruelty, kidnapping, and Judge Karen Romano sentenced her to three life sentences. She called her actions inexcusable. These children were clearly deprived of proper care. They were deprived of food. They were deprived of an ability to be treated with dignity. The judge also ordered her not to have any contact with the surviving adopted children. Her lawyer says she'll appeal, but they made no other comment. As for the adoptive father, Joseph Finn has a plea hearing set for March 21st. Court records show the adoptive father of the 16- a plea hearing set for March 21st.

Court records show the adoptive father of the 16-year-old girl who starved to death will enter a new plea. 47-year-old Joseph Finn II already has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, child endangerment, and neglect or abandonment. The records don't offer any details on an agreement. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.