Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - New Push For Tips in Disappearance of People's Court Mom

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Michelle Parker is a loving, hardworking mother of 3. She's also a student and a business owner, but one night this reliable employee did not show up for work. Her 11-year-old son, home alone after school couldn't find his mom. Michelle Parker disappears. The same day on “The People’s Court,” an episode featuring Parker and her ex-fiancée Dale Smith aired. It had been filmed months before. The episode involved a disagreement about a $5,000 engagement ring that was lost after Parker threw it at Smith during an argument.Joining Nancy Grace today: John W. Dill - Personal Injury Lawyer, Orlando, FL, Part of the Parker family's legal team, www.JohnWDill.com, @JohnWDillESQ  Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, www.drbethanymarshall.com, Netflix show: 'Bling Empire Sheryl McCollum - Forensic Expert, Founder: Cold Case Investigative Research Institute in Atlanta, GA, ColdCaseCrimes.org, @ColdCaseTips  Bianca Prieto - Former Orlando Sentinel Criminal Justice Reporter 2011-2013, Instagram: @biancaprieto Ray Caputo - Lead News Anchor for Orlando's Morning News, 96.5 WDBO Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A gorgeous 33-year-old mom seemingly vanishes. Grainy surveillance video emerges of her at a red light, but is that her in her own car? Because I don't think so. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Parker was last seen around 2 p.m. Thursday, dropping her kids off at Smith's home. At about 4 p.m., her brother received a short text from her, but she never showed up for her 6 p.m. bartending shift. Her iPhone last pinged at a cell phone tower at 8 p.m., then total silence. At this point, her 11-year-old calls his grandmother, Yvonne Stewart, to ask, where's mom? And her son called and said, is mom at the salon? We're like, no, honey. She went to drop off the baby. She should be home. She should be taking a nap. She's, well, I haven't seen her since I got home from school. On Friday, police found her black Hummer near an Orlando mall she rarely visited. And on Sunday, they searched her ex-fiance's home at a nearby field. Has she ever disappeared before?

Has she ever not called or taken a few hours just to be by herself? Parker's mother, Yvonne Stewart, has been desperately searching for her daughter for four days now. I can only imagine what Ms. Stewart has been through with me. An all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again. Analyzing clues, I believe, have been left behind. You were just hearing our friend Matt Gutman in ABC News. But joining me right now, John Deal, personal injury lawyer out of Orlando, who is on Michelle Parker's family legal team as they try their best to find clues regarding the young mom's disappearance.

Also with me, Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst to the stars, joining us out of Beverly Hills. You can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. She's a star of a new Netflix show, Bling Empire. The founder and director of the Cold Case Research Institute, joining me, Cheryl McCollum, and you can find her at coldcasecrimes.org. But first, to Bianca Prieto, former Orlando Sentinel crime and justice reporter, and you can find her on Insta at Bianca Prieto. Bianca, thank you for being with us. I want you to listen to one more bit of sound. This is from Jennifer Bissrom, Fox 35.

On tier spent the day on foot, handing out flyers, family and close friends walking for miles, checking every corner for Michelle. Every dumpster you're like, Oh, Michelle, I hope you're not in, oh Michelle, I hope you're not in here, baby. I hope you're not in here and you get up and you crawl on top of stuff and you look and you're like OK, this one's eliminated.

You're not here. Brothers Brett and Dustin staying strong for their sister. So when you're not used to every day. You don't want to wake up and figure they'll be your sitter. You'll be going to look for. It just hurts.

Using maps and driving these ATVs around, they've been turning everything they find over to investigators. We found a lot of possible things today and nothing. I mean, it's all got to get tested and stuff like that. So we can't say what's what. Can you even imagine that? Just pause for a moment because I recall the district attorney's office when we would get literally hundreds of new cases every X number of days. All felonies, all serious. You'd have to go through them like a machine to try to keep going and move the caseload. But if, for instance, when I would

be driving home from work, I would actually let the facts of a case seep in and it would be very, very upsetting. Cheryl McCollum, you were with me in the trenches fighting crime like literally 24-7, 365. And when you hear this family, the mom saying, oh, oh, as she's searching a dumpster, baby, please don't be in this dumpster. Please don't be in this dumpster. It's just, oh, gut wrenching. That's tough. It's awful. And, you know, just the idea of where she's having to search and what she's actually searching for.

You know, her child. And even though she's a grown woman and had children of her own, that's her baby. And she is literally crawling in a dumpster and praying she's not there. Tere Caputo, lead news anchor, Orlando Morning News at WDBO. Way in. Ray Caputo, lead news anchor, Orlando Morning News at WDBO. Way in. Michelle, she was last seen Thursday, November 17th, so that's a week before Thanksgiving. And she dropped off her twins and she seemingly vanished. So over the weekend, I remember that flyers now are starting to be put out.

I think they said about 20,000 flyers. I remember just seeing these flyers everywhere. So this all took place, Michelle went missing just only months after the Casey Anthony trial had wrapped up. And flyers are now over the weekend all around Orlando. And the case very early on is attracting a lot of media attention. So it's the Monday before Thanksgiving now. Michelle's been missing five days. It's a beautiful fall Orlando day and the temperatures in the 80s. And I was reporting for WDBO in Orlando. So there was a staging area south of downtown. It's in the parking lot near Lake Conway. And that was where Michelle's phone had last pinged. So that's where people were searching. And there were several dozen volunteers

or friends, family, there were even complete strangers. And when I got to the staging area, Nancy, I remember that it wasn't a sullen scene. It was kind of, people were active. It was an all hands on deck approach. There was ATVs, there were caterers, there was water, you know, people were going about their business. And, you know, I think back that Michelle, the way she was described, was a bartender. She was really gregarious. And she had such a big spirit. At that moment, not a person there didn't think that she was going to not be found alive or not be coming home pretty soon.

So it was an all-hands-on-deck approach. And I get to the staging area, and I try to find someone to talk to. And I reverently walked up to Yvonne Stewart. That's Michelle's mom. And she was on a roller coaster of emotion. And she was at that point, she was adamant that Michelle was alive. And then we were going to talk about her. So we go into the RV and she starts telling me about Michelle and how great of a mom she was. She had a couple of twins and an 11-year-old, and they just adored their mommy. And they had a tight little family unit.

And Nancy, she also talked about how well-known and well-liked Michelle was. She tended bars. She had a natural talent for talking to people. You know, again, just a lot of laughing and a lot of crying. And, you know, I just remember that moment Yvonne didn't believe the worst. She was holding out hope. Back to Bianca Prieto, formerly Orlando Sentinel criminal and justice reporter. Bianca, let's start at the beginning. Tell me when we first realized she's often called people's court mom, and we're about to find out why michelle parker is missing so michelle never went home

after dropping off her twins with their father when her son got home from school mom was gone he's going what the heck and coincidentally that day michelle and her ex-fiancee had been on an episode of the people's court arguing over a five5,000 engagement ring. That's an expensive ring. So the alarm was first raised by the 11-year-old son. She's got the 11-year-old. Then she's got two taut twins trying to take in the 11-year-old getting home, and Mommy's not there. Can't find Mommy.

No message. No voicemail. No nothing. Where is Mommy? Who is mommy? Who is Michelle Parker? Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Michelle Parker is no stranger to hard work. It's not easy to juggle multiple jobs and a family. This 33-year-old beauty is a mom of three, a bartender, an entrepreneur, and a student. Not only did she pour drinks at one of the most popular bars in Sanford, Florida,

The Barn, she also ran a tanning business using her SUV as a mobile billboard, a vehicle wrapped with Glow Mobile airbrush tanning salon clearly visible down the side. On top of this, she was studying cosmetology, working on getting her license to work alongside her mother in the family salon. Wow, she's got her plate full and I can just see her driving along in that Hummer with glow, mobile, airbrush tinting salon wrapped around it, which turns out to be a critical fact in this case. Let's listen to more from Crime Online about who is Michelle Parker. Ask Michelle Parker's family and friends and they will tell you her good looks turned heads. Her friends will also tell you that she has an amazing personality and a big heart. It was that

combination, her dark hair and bright white smile and big heart that caught the attention of Dale Smith, a former Marine. The couple plans a life together. Smith pops the question with a $5,000 engagement ring. The couple also have three-year-old twins. $5,000 for an engagement ring? What the hay happened? Take a listen to HLN. Michelle Parker is like a lot of women that you see around here in Orlando.

She had these big dreams. She had these big plans. And she was making steps to make her dreams come true. Michelle was just a hardworking single mother of three. She had two jobs. She would bartend at night. She also had a tanning business, which she advertised with decals on her armor.

She was also going to cosmetology school. She wanted to make a better life for herself and also her three kids. She worked hard. She loved her kids. She was an awesome mom. Those kids are so well taken care of. If you look at her photos, you can tell

that cosmetology was important to her. She was always made up, always had her nails done, always had her hair done right. She was in school to get the license and the certification to one day work for her mother and the salon. I'm recognizing the voice of Steve Helling from people.com. So how does she go missing? We know the 11 yearyear-old comes home, no mommy there. And that is very, very jarring for children, Dr. Bethany Marshall. I can only imagine, even when their dad picks them up as opposed to me, and they pick up line at school, the twins are like, what's going on? The least little thing off routine can be very upsetting for children, Dr. Bethany.

And Nancy, it sticks in their mind. You have no idea how many adult patients in my clinical practice, some of them captains of industry, very successful lives, will recount in therapy a time that the parent was late to pick them up for school, a time when they came home and the parent wasn't there. These things stick in the child's mind. That's because, Nancy, the parents serve as a background comforting presence for the child. What makes children feel safe enough to go out into the world is that their parents are waiting for them somewhere, that the parents are predictable. So when that pattern breaks, it steers into the child's memory. If you ask a child about, did mommy forget to pick you up? Were you left waiting at school? You better believe they're telling the truth because they will remember. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

So let's go back to when she goes missing and the search is on. Take a listen to our friends at Fox News. A search is underway in Florida for a young mother who disappeared the same day that her case aired on a TV show, The People's Court. Her name is Michelle Parker, mother of three, has not been seen since Thursday. She and her ex-fiancee appearing on that show in a heated dispute over a $5,000 engagement ring. Now, her sister speaking out on Fox and Friends a bit earlier today. It's definitely a fact that she went missing the same day of whether or not it's a coincidence. I don't know. I don't know if somebody saw her on TV and thought, hey, she's beautiful and did what they do and, you know, figured out where she was at or something. I

really don't know. Yeah. And she is beautiful, and more important than being physically beautiful, beautiful on the inside too. I mean, this woman works like a maniac and raises children and goes to school. So what is this about the People's Court? Take a listen to Matt Gutman, ABC. This is the defendant. It seemed like a typical episode of the people's court he gets pretty malicious and vindictive and he's a mean person especially when he's been drinking 33 year old michelle lee parker and her ex-fiancee dale smith bickering over an engagement ring thrown out of a balcony and then he said that he wanted his ring so i took it off and I threw it at him. But away from the camera, even their mundane domestic arguments tended to turn violent. As he grabbed and turned around, he was holding on to me, screaming at me, pointing back up to the stage, going, get on that back up on stage, you know.

Just hours after this episode of The People's Court finally aired last Thursday, Parker vanished. But was her disappearance eerily foreshadowed, or was it an untanny coincidence? Thinking this through, so they had tape. Let me go to John W. Deal, a renowned PI lawyer joining us out of Orlando who is part of the Parker's legal team. You can find him at johnwdeal.com. John, the People's Court episode was filmed in advance of the day she goes missing, but it airs the day she goes missing, right? Correct, correct.

And the word coincidence has been bandied about, but it's pretty clear there's no coincidence on this one. You know, John Deal, you and I have talked many, many times. John not only is a high-profile personal injury lawyer, but he has a brilliant legal mind. I've always said there's no coincidence in criminal law, and then right when I say that, there is a coincidence. What happened on that episode? Take a listen to our friends at ABC. I ended up smashing my camera on the ground because I was a little angry and I didn't want to. Roy, you sure showed that camera. Smith is the father of their three-year-old twins.

It's been a hell of a roller coaster ride and it's poison. Something Parker knew for years. In 2009, she filed and was granted a restraining order against smith parker claims he quote matched the passenger side window in my suv took car seats out and threw them into the road his facebook page lists his education as having quote study death destruction terror and mayhem at the u.s marine corps Corps. But Orlando police say Smith is not a suspect and that he has so far cooperated with investigators. We're not looking at him. We're looking at everything. Hmm.

I don't think the Marine Corps would be very proud of this moment when one of their own says they studied death, destruction, and mayhem. You know, Dr. Bethany Marshall, of course, I have crime-related stories on everything regarding social media. But there are also a lot of pictures of the twins, of the dog Fat Boy, the cat Cinnamon, Abby and Chloe, the guinea pigs. Death, destruction, and mayhem is his personal motto? Nancy, death, destruction, and mayhem. If a patient came into my office, uttered those words, I would take them very seriously. I mean, the idea that you want to destroy, that you want to kill people, that is serious. That means that the person putting this

on social media is in fact, homicidal. There's no other way to put it. People don't say those words for no reason. Dr. Bethany, Dr. Bethany. I put a lot of death and destruction on social media when I'm trying to solve cases or put them out there or draw attention to them. I don't think I'm going, I don't think I'm homicidal. So I'm going to give you a minute to percolate on that, Dr. Bethany. Not that I, a JD, would dare, dare correct Dr. Bethany Marshall. But before we get too far down that rabbit hole, take a listen to our friend Aixa Diaz at Wish 2. Michelle Parker's family is moving the command post to the barn in Sanford,

and that's the bar where Parker worked as a bartender. Volunteers are resuming their search this morning after searching canals in South Orlando this weekend. That's near the home of Parker's ex-fiancee, Dale Smith. He's staying with his parents right now. He has not been arrested, but he has been named the prime suspect in Parker's disappearance. It has been two and a half weeks now since Parker was last seen.

Her loved ones held a fundraiser Saturday night. They sold T-shirts to raise money for Parker's three children. Straight back out to Bianca Prieto, Orlando Sentinel, a crime and justice reporter at the time. Bianca, thank you again for being with us. Let's talk about she goes missing, last seen dropping her children off at the fiancé's home so she could go to work. Where was she going to work?

That night, Nancy, she was actually headed to work at The Barn, which is a really popular bar up in Sanford, north of Orlando, probably about 20, 25 miles north of where her ex-fiance lives. And she never showed up. So, John W. Deal, let me understand something. She was later seen on granny surveillance video, at least her Hummer was. Was it where she was, where her Hummer was? I think it was at a red light. Correct.

Wasn't that in the opposite direction? Let me try to articulate this a little bit better. So let's just say A is where she spotted her car is spotted at a red light. B is where fiance is, where she dropped the children. C is the barn where she was going to work that night correct so from B to C is a straight shot but A was in a completely different direction correct that's right she was uh her and again her job was well north of town again about 20-25 minutes her vehicle after she doesn't show up at work, which is out of the ordinary

for her, she was very responsible about showing up, her vehicle's seen closer down to where her fiance's place is and where her kids were dropped off. And then ultimately where her car is found is not far from that area, which is near the Millennium Mall, which is, again, in the opposite direction of where she was headed and had always headed to and had gone to work. So she's not where she's supposed to be if she's in the car at that time. And there's communication is broken down in between time, and nobody knows where she is. Well, you know, Cheryl McCollum, before everybody points the finger at the boyfriend, the fiancé, the father of the twins, let's just hold on.

Hold on. You can't narrow it down immediately, although you've got to investigate him based on statistics alone. Cheryl, I investigated a case out in California where a nurse got off the night shift and was in her truck on the way home and went missing. The case goes cold until, believe it or not, a woman, not a psychic, a woman with a regular job, has some kind of a vision of a body being out in a canyon. And she's so, nothing like this has ever happened to her before. She gets her family to go with her and they go driving through the canyon and they see something white. It's her in her nurse's outfit. Well, the police arrest her because of course they don't

believe in psychics. She won a big settlement against the LAPD, I think it was, when the true killers were found. And guess what? She, the nurse, had been at a red light late at night, getting off work from the hospital. And these guys drive up. They start saying stuff to her, trying to talk to her. They kidnap her, rape her, and kill her, and dump her in the canyon. That's what happened. So before we charge down the avenue of the fiance, you have to look at everything. You do. And you get a missing purse case, Nancy, one of the first things you should do is start working backwards. Meaning what did they search on their computer? What kind of withdrawals did they make on their debit card or bank cards?

What kind of purchases? What kind of phone calls? What kind of messages? Did they break habit or routine? Those are the things you're going to want to know because if somebody says, well, she probably ran off. Well, you need money to do that. And she dumped her vehicle. So how'd she leave? Now, hold on right there. I'm going to pick it right back up with you. But John Deal, why do women always face the same stereotype when a woman goes missing? And Cheryl McCollum's the one that brought it up, but it's legitimate. You do have to look at it, but it's always, she ran off to get shacked up with her boyfriend. That could not be further from the truth in Michelle Parker's case. Absolutely. I mean, she has, obviously it all starts when she's supposed

to pick up her son from the bus stop, the 11 year old, and she's not there. Way out of the ordinary. Nobody can actually speak to her. That is totally out of the ordinary. She would not be the type and there's nothing in her personality to be flighty, to disappear, to not be where she's supposed to be. Again, she has twins and you know how much work that takes. She's not all of a sudden checking out and disappearing. This is absolutely out of character if she were to disappear. And like's been said, it ends up she doesn't have her car or her cell phone, and it would be impossible for her in that situation to have just picked up and left.

Pick up, Cheryl. And that was my point. She broke habit. She broke routine. And that should be a flag. And the reason you want to look at those things is because when you talk to somebody like her ex, if he were to say, oh, I bet she just ran off with some man, you already know that can't be possible. She has no money.

She has no vehicle. She hasn't researched anything. She hasn't used a bank card. She hasn't gotten a hotel room. She hasn't gotten an airline ticket. She hasn't gotten a hotel room. She hadn't gotten an airline ticket. Why would he say that? So again, you want all aspects of this thing looked at so that when you go and talk to the pertinent people, you already have a good idea. If somebody says, well, maybe she was kidnapped, she hadn't been ransomed, like none of these things are

going to pan out. So you basically have a dual investigation. You are working a missing person, but unfortunately, you're also working a homicide simultaneously. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bianca Prieto, I'm very focused on the sighting on that grainy surveillance video of Michelle Parker's vehicle. Was the wrap, the glow tan wrap taken off of it at that time? It's really interesting because the last time anybody saw Michelle Parker, that decal was on the back of her vehicle. And at that red light camera when they spotted her Hummer,

the decals were completely gone. They'd been taken off on purpose. Bianca, it was pretty big, wasn't it, the decals? Oh, the decals covered the entire back windshield of her vehicle. And, you know, Hummers are pretty big. This was a sizable decal on the back of the car that had been removed. And what time did the red light cam spot her vehicle? The red light camera spotted it at night.

I'm not recalling exactly the time, but I know that it was dark. And it was the day that she went missing. It was the same day that she went missing. And the red light camera that spotted her vehicle without the decals was on the complete opposite side of town, the opposite direction of where she should have been headed to go to work. But it was in a straight shot from where she had last been seen. I'm just trying to take all of this in. And what time did she drop the children at the fiancé's? She had dropped off the twins in the afternoon.

I think it was like around 2 o'clock, something like that. It was in the afternoon during the daytime. No one heard from her. And then all of a sudden her car popped up. That's correct. She dropped the twins off. And keep in mind, this is before her son is to be picked up at the bus stop. So she dropped the twins off at Deontay's house,

doesn't show up to pick up her son, her 11-year-old at the bus stop. He makes the call to Yvonne, her mother, and automatically gets a sense of dread that something is wrong and it's happened. And they start trying to reach her at that point in time. So she, now let me understand, John W. Deal joining me out of Orlando,

she drops the twins off, and then is when she's supposed to go pick up her son at the bus stop? That's correct. So between, say, 2 o'clock p.m., and when this photo, this red light photo, grabs the image of her vehicle. That's not her in the vehicle. I don't think that's her. Do you, John?

No, no, I don't. For many reasons. One, why would she take off? Why would she be in that area, first of all, when she's supposed to be at work? There's no reason for her to be down there. Her family's picking up her son. Yeah. And yeah, exactly.

She hasn't picked up her son. Family has tried to reach her. They've texted her, and there's a cryptic one-word answer because they asked her, where are you? And she texts back Waterford, which is another area of town. Not too far, but certainly not up to Sanford. And she's not the type to just give a one-word text answer. And then she would never. That's a big indicator, John W. Deal.

I'm so glad you brought that up. Cheryl McCollum, if you noticed that, when somebody is texting for you, like sometimes I'll be driving and I'll give the phone to John David because Lucy refuses to send a text for me. And even if I dictate it, it comes out all crazy. Because he'll type in full sentences, which I never, ever do. I like to abbreviate everything, which leads to a lot of misspellings and very unusual spell corrections. But you can tell that's not me.

You can tell. Same thing here. My kids went and played golf yesterday, and Hug was responding to Caroline's phone for her, and I knew immediately it was him and not her. Immediately. So, yes, you can tell. In her family, she was known, of course, vivacious and fun. She would leave text messages that were paragraphs. So for her just to put one word and then not to return in order to get her child was completely uncharacteristic. And again, about three flags in one. You know, Cheryl McComb, you really need to

be an investigator and do something like found the Cold Case Research Institute because you're really good. Is that Dr. Bethany jumping in? Cheryl is so good. I hate to even follow her in terms of commentary, but I will just say, Nancy, you have the most unique text of anybody I've ever met. Your texts are unmistakable. You can condense an entire paragraph into three alphabet letters and letters of the alphabet. I think that's because you did doing TV for so many years. You're talking on set. You're texting, you're running the entire show. So nobody could ever steal your phone and text for you, it would be obvious. But I'm going to say the back. I think it's actually because of the district attorney's office, Dr. Bethany. When I first started, I would answer the phone.

Good morning, Fulton County District Attorney's Office. This is Assistant District Attorney Nancy Grace. By the time I was beat down 10 years later, I picked the phone up and go, DA. That's what happens. But what do you make of this, Dr. Bethany? I think it's very critical. Nancy, well, I'm going to say, I'm just going to say the whole big picture, the whole background is important to this. Remember, she was on the people's court that day. I know we're looking at all the micro permutations of the text didn't sound like her. She was the wrong part of pound. She didn't pick up the 11-year-old, critical, dropped off the three-year-old, twins, critical. All of this is critical. But let's remember that she was on a television show that day, very unusual for a lay person who's never been on TV.

And that could have built up a whole head of steam somewhere in her life, either on the set, either with her fiance, Dale Smith, people she met on the set, people in the bar who knew she was going. This was a banner day for her. And we have to just see that as a backdrop to all these wonderful clues that Cheryl McCollum is telling us about. Tarek Caputo, lead news anchor, Orlando Morning News at WDBO. The two had been on the episode of the People's Court that aired the same day Michelle went missing. So the timing was really, really suspicious. And Dal, to this day, denies he had anything to do with Michelle's disappearance. But I think that Yvonne's stance on all this has changed.

But at the time, she seemed to kind of take Dal's story at face value. And Nancy, in terms of who could have had Michelle, she was postulating it could have been a complete stranger, someone that had come to the bar and maybe was transfixed on her. So she certainly wasn't pointing the finger at Dal at that time. She was just adamant that Michelle was going to be found alive. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bianca Prieto, I want to follow up on what happened exactly on the People's Court episode. It's very hard for me to disentangle or separate that appearance that happens and she goes missing the very same day. What exactly happened? The two were engaged, Dale and Michelle were engaged,

soon married. He purchased for her a $5,000 engagement ring. At some point they got into an argument. She tossed the ring. Now there's a big fight. They go on to the people's court and the people's court made dale look not so great and so the taping had actually happened weeks months prior to her disappearance but the thing is is that at noon that day the people's court aired their episode and within hours of that taping excuse me within hours of that airing, Michelle is gone, disappeared. We don't know much about it. What do you mean it made him not look too good?

On the people's court, Dale and Michelle were arguing, and Dale was upset about the way that he came out looking on it. And I think that day, it was just not a good day for Dale or for Michelle. Okay, break it down for me, John W. Dale. What's your perception of what happened on People's Court? Well, certainly it was a bad experience for Michelle to go to People's Court. She didn't even want to be involved in it and had a bad experience on the filming. The way it came out just showed some of the bad blood between the two of them. And that, like Bianca said, it had been aired that day.

Again, a couple hours after it's aired, she's over dropping off the children to the fiancé, who obviously she is, as an extremely, ex-fiancé has an extremely strained relationship with. So what's the emotions were at that point in time? Okay, let me ask this. John W. Deal, who won? Nancy, let me jump in. Yeah, jump in.

Who won? Who said what? Who came out smelling like a rose and who stunk like a skunk? Okay, the judge basically said y'all are going to split the cost of the ring. Each one of you is going to pay $2,500. That sounds fair to me. It sounds fair. What came out was that he's a cheater, that he's put his hands on her.

So, again, most men would tell you any man. Why do you say that? That's putting perfume on the pig. Put his hands on her. What, he tapped her on the shoulder? No, that's not. Go ahead. Tell the truth.

But that's the quote she used. He should not have put his hands on me. So I'm just saying that's one of those things that came out that he had been abusive to her physically. So, again, for a man, any man would tell you in order for you to put your hands on a woman, you're a punk. You're just a piece of crap. So it made him ultimately look bad. People weren't even talking about the ring. They weren't interested in the ring.

They were interested in his treatment of her. And you didn't have one affair. You had seven with different women. So he probably had a few other women mad at him. So a lot of dirty laundry was put out there. Wait, wait, wait. So what deal? He had seven affairs while they were together?

Yes, ma'am. That and several affairs. Man, who would want to sleep with a guy that's had seven affairs during their relationship? You might as well just go out and jump in the cesspool. Yeah, that's true. You can do that. Okay. I don't care about who he's been with or who he dated during their relationship.

I don't care about her throwing the ring when he wanted it back. It sounds like an amicable settlement. Each one pays for half of it. But you know what I always say, when you don't know a horse, look at his track record. I can hear everybody on the panel rolling their eyes, but you tell me if I'm wrong. Tyler, please run cut 22. This is Liliaciano at today.com cut 22 on september 15th of 2000 shannon was treated at a south carolina hospital for head injuries and smith was arrested for criminal domestic battery i remember when she came home there was a cut on her head and her feet were cut up and it was through um i think it was through some concrete where she had been,

I don't know if she was dragged or what, but her feet were bloody. In a military court, Smith was convicted of domestic battery and drug possession and was dishonorably discharged from the Marines. When Shannon died, Smith was still serving time for both charges. And that was not the first time he had run-ins with the law. In 1992, Smith fled no contest to attempted aggravated battery after a fight in Orlando. He was given two years probation. In 1997, he pleaded guilty to battery charges and served jail time. In 2009, Michelle Parker filed

a restraining order against Dale Smith, which a judge later dissolved. So we see a track record of the fiance, Dale Smith Jr. Now, let me stress for the umpteenth time, he has not been arrested in the case of Michelle Parker. She is still missing. So he has not been arrested. He has not been found guilty. He's not been in a court of law on this matter. We're not in a courtroom right now. We're in a TV set. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, just because he's had acts of violence against another woman does not mean he's culpable in this case. But it does give me a lot of insight. What is a malignant narcissist?

You were telling me about that earlier off air. A malignant narcissist is a very important term in my field. It means that this is a narcissist who wants to destroy everything around him when he feels humiliated. So if somebody breaks up with him, he wants to destroy her life. If you're a boss, a CEO of a company, and somebody humiliates you, you want to fire them from their job. It's the person, it's like the little kid who's not winning the game. So they just smash all the toys and, you know, walk off the playground. It's the adult version of that. In fact, Nancy, there's a saying in my field about sociopaths and narcissists, death before dishonor, homicide after humiliation. And what that means is that they have a narcissistic collapse, meaning they feel ashamed and bad about themselves.

They could be really vulnerable to suicide. But if they feel that somebody else has humiliated them, they could be vulnerable to lashing out in very destructive, almost even sometimes homicidal ways. To Bianca Prieto, former Orlando Sentinel crime and justice reporter, Bianca, the cell phone was ultimately found. Where was it? And what, if anything, could be gleaned from her cell phone? Michelle's phone, which was really unique, had a unique case on it, was found tossed over a bridge under about three or four feet of water. And if you're looking at a map of Orlando, it's a straight shot from the area where

she was last seen dropping off the twins, direct shot onto where her car was found. So drivers recovered that phone and they took a look at it. But it's interesting where the cell phone was actually found why do you say that it shows the path it shows the path of where she could her belongings i won't say she went but where her belongings went uh from one end of orlando to the other side the it's just a straight shot you look at the map and it's a straight shot tossed over a, into a body of water on the side of town where she was last seen. Trey Caputo, lead news anchor, Orlando Morning News at WDBO. Where does the case stand? I mean, they're doing anything they can, but the fact of the matter is, is that the one suspect, Dale Smith, is in pocket.

He's pleading the fifth. They really have kind of hit an investigative wall with this guy. So they're, they just keep putting the word out. If anybody saw anything that could possibly tie him or another person to the crime, but they're trying to throw mud against the wall right now to see if anything will stick. But it doesn't look like they're much closer to solving this crime than they were, say, you know, just shortly after it happened. And the well sort of dried up with the evidence. John W. Deal, where does the case stand right now? Where it stands right now is that, unfortunately, there's no closure.

The body's not been found. There's not been a charge against Mr. Smith. He was never prosecuted. It is an open case, obviously with no body. It's very difficult to prosecute still. And Ms. Stewart still feels every day wondering what happened, wondering if there's some off chance that maybe her daughter's out there somewhere, but that's not a real realistic hope at this point. If you have information or you think you may know something, please dial 800-423-TIPS, T-I-P-S. That's 800-423-8477. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.