Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Prosecutor: Dentist charged in toddler's death hired hit man to kill boy's mom

Episode Date: December 8, 2017

Oklahoma dentist Bert Franklin's murder trial was delayed by new charges that he tried to arrange a hit on the woman whose child he is accused of murdering. A home surveillance video appears to show Franklin fatally slamming 19-month-old Lincoln Lewis's head into the ground. He had been in an extra-marital relationship with the child’s mom for a year when the death occurred. Nancy Grace looks at the case against Franklin with crime scene investigator Sheryl McCollum, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, psychologist Caryn Stark, and reporter Bobbi Maxwell.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Dr. Burt Franklin is in jail without bond for first-degree murder and the death of 19-month-old Lincoln Lewis. During a police interview with Lincoln's mother, she told investigators that she and Franklin and the baby were all at her Northwest Oklahoma City home the night of July 16th. She told investigators she heard a loud noise coming from downstairs while she was upstairs. Police report states his mother woke up and noticed him sleeping with his eyes open and making a loud snoring sound, but she couldn't wake him up. The surveillance video shows Burt Franklin holding Lincoln and later showed him making a violent kicking motion towards the area where he had laid the baby down. The Oklahoma County District Attorney's Office says 35-year-old Burt Franklin will be tried for first-degree murder in this case. He's handsome, he's educated. He's got a post-grad degree. He is a successful dentist, and he acts like a loving father to her 19-month-old little boy. What could go wrong? I'm Nancy Grace. This

is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Her 19-month-old son ends up dead. Dead. But why? Is the loving dentist to blame? Well, Mommy says yes. Not only that, she finds out he's married with a family of his own. And once police begin closing in, he actually tries to plot to have her murdered so she could never testify against him. What? You know, I'm never going to look at my dentist the same way again. It was bad enough when he had his hand in my mouth, and he went, remember I was on one of your juries? Okay, that was a shot right there. But I'm trying to take the whole thing in. Let's just start at the beginning. Joining me right now, Crime Stories contributing investigative reporter, Bobby Maxwell, joining us.

How could it go this far? How did she have no idea, A, he's married with his own family, B, the baby, just 19 months old, is fine. One minute, then he seems to be lethargic. A couple of hours later, but let's just start at the beginning, Bobby. What happened? Roxanne, Lincoln's mom, actually started dating Bert, the boyfriend, back in June of 2015. He actually said he was separated from his wife at the time. She said they had a great relationship. It became serious pretty quick. He liked her child. And that she was actually talking about getting a divorce from his wife he was separated from. It was a full on romance. He pulled out all the stops to engage her in a very serious, very quickly loving relationship.

Take a listen to what Roxanne Lewis-Randall has to say about her dream guy, the dentist, Burt Franklin. Listen. He was very charming and kind and just really nice. Was there a point that you said, he's flirting with me? Just engaging in a lot of conversation. He was just funny. He was witty. We just kind of clicked. Did you know what his marital status was? I did, partially. What did you understand? That they were still married. They had been living separate lives.

What he said. Were you a secret? I don't think I was fully. I don't know. Did his wife know about you? Yes. Did she object? I don't know.

She's after all of this. She said that they've never even talked about a divorce, that that's not ever even been mentioned. So she now tells a different story yeah so he said they were living they were the only they had just not finished the divorce process so you didn't see yourself as the other woman here no how long before it became serious it became serious pretty quick a couple months it was serious? It became serious pretty quick. A couple months it was serious. But he met Lincoln before.

He met the older kids. Lincoln was with me all the time. He did meet the older children for how many weeks or months? We started dating in June, and it was November. So it was five or six months. Yeah. How did they like him? They thought he was great.

He, you know, played with them and they thought that he was wonderful. You know, there's a couple times that he got up with Lincoln and like I saw him, you know, like pacing, rocking Lincoln back to sleep. Straight out to Cheryl McCollum joining me right now, along with Joseph Scott Morgan, Karen Start, and Bobby Maxwell. Cheryl McCollum, me right now, along with Joseph Scott Morgan, Karen Start, and Bobby Maxwell. Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Institute and expert crime scene investigator. Cheryl, have you looked at this video? She had video surveillance in her upscale home. And you can see him, the dentist, Franklin, in the home.

It's like a regular evening. The baby is playing over in the corner. It's very serene. Everything's fine. What went wrong, Cheryl McCollum? What can you divine from what you can see? Nancy, I'm thinking the same stuff that a lot of people are not going to like, but it's the truth. Boyfriends are not fathers. These women have got to stop acting like they have this instant family and he's perfect and he's going to love your child. No, he's not. You have got to never leave your infant child or your teenage daughter with this boyfriend that you have just met that you don't know a damn thing about except he's a doctor with the money who's married well okay hold on this is not a doctor this is a dentist

okay let's start with that a dentist is giving somebody botox okay now i'm not a professional i'm not an md or a dds i'm a jd but right there i would never even think to go to my dentist to get botox but that's a whole nother can of worms. Cheryl McCollum pointing out the obvious. And Cheryl, I don't know if you've done the same, but I've told my husband, David, you know, once I murder you, excuse me, once you pass away, I'm not marrying again. A, I don't want to raise another man. But number two, I would not trust anybody around the twins. I mean, you know,

you know, Cheryl, for the longest time, I mean, years when I had to go to work, I had two babysitters, one babysitter to watch the other babysitter, watch the babies. I would not leave them alone with one person. Nancy, thank God she had the videotape. Because again, that is going to be the most powerful thing when they go to court and if i was that prosecutor i would show it over and over and over that after he damaged this child fatally he just casually walked he gets a piece of pizza guys you can see the video for yourself see what it shows you it is now posted on crimeonline.com. And you can watch for yourself exactly what the police saw, exactly what you can see in the home with that surveillance video.

I want to ask you about him going and getting the pizza, Cheryl McCollum. It shows how callous and self-absorbed he is, Nancy, that, again, the mom's going to come in and attempt to give the baby the pacifier. He's like, no, no, he's asleep. He's conning her the whole time. He already knows this child has been so injured. He's lifeless. He's limp. He's nonresponsive.

So to cover himself even further and attempt to you know get the child to quote go to bed he's just going to carry him into the kitchen and you can see his lamp cheryl i'm looking at it right now as we're talking he's got the baby walking around and the baby you know it's a time it's an infant and i would say it goes from his shoulder to maybe almost to his not quite to his wrist and he's carrying the baby with one arm and the baby's legs are just hanging down. The baby isn't wiggling around. The baby isn't, you know, shaking its arms. He's not looking around.

He's just kind of hanging there. Tragically, he's already brain dead at that point. But what's more important, getting him help or getting pizza? To Justice Scott Morgan, crime scene investigator, death investigator, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University.

Justice Scott, you and I together, and I believe Cheryl, you were with us as well as Karen Stark, all sat and watched this video at the same time. I want to go through the video.

Luckily, this mom had her home tricked out with surveillance cameras for when a babysitter was there. What do you see in the video? Because there's a column in the home. There's an obstruction at one point, and you can't see exactly what he does to the baby. But I see him walking around holding the home, there's an obstruction at one point, and you can't see exactly what he does to the baby. But I see him walking around holding the baby, and the baby's just limp in his arms. The thought is here, Nancy, is that obstructed view where we can't see the baby being downward,

it's at that point in time that it's believed that this man inflicted head trauma to this child. And the key here that the medical examiners pointed out is that, Nancy, there's not just one skull fracture to this child. There are two. There are two skull fractures to this child sustained grievous impact so strong that it would have fractured an 18-month-old skull. And let me tell you why that's significant. It goes to the amount of force. As everybody knows, you know, little babies, their bones are not what are referred to as ossified. They haven't got the same texture that an adult skull does.

They're soft. And one of the reasons we're created that way is the idea that the skull is malleable, soft, it's flexible. It can sustain a bit of trauma, whereas an adult might not be able to. And when this occurs, the amount of force that it would take is significant. Even the emergency room physician that initially examined this little angel said that he believed that this injury that this child sustained did not occur as a result from a fall from a height. That means that we're talking about impact injuries this this requires a tremendous amount of anger and treating treating this little baby as if it were you know less than less than a dog even uh that's just some piece of trash and i'd have to i'd have to go in with what uh what cheryl had mentioned again this is another case of a boyfriend in the house that is subjecting this horrible, horrible trauma to this child who he cares nothing about. I don't care what anybody says.

Well, you're right about the injury. The mom, Roxanne Lewis Randall, says the doctors have told her that her baby Lincoln's skull was fractured all the way from his eyebrow to his spine. That it was a type of injury he saw when, for instance, a baby is not strapped into a car seat and they are in a head-on collision going about 60 miles an hour and then they are ejected. Now, that, thrown out of the car, that is a type of severity injury this child, this baby sustained. Now, it's a 19-month-old tot boy there in Oklahoma, and it took practically no time at all for a medical examiner to determine it was a non-accidental blunt force trauma to the head. Baby Lincoln was immediately airlifted to a facility in Tulsa after the mom raced him to a local emergency room.

Following the night, authorities claim her boyfriend, her boyfriend, Dr. Burt Franklin, killed the child. Now, she says, my mind knew logically there was only one explanation, but she couldn't take it in. Go to our website, CrimeOnline.com, and you can see the video, the home video yourself. I want you to hear what the mother said happened that night in her own words, not just about her romancing this dentist, but what she said happened that night. But first of, not just about her romancing this dentist, but what she said happened that night. But first of all, I want to thank our partners making our investigation into the death of 19-month-old Lincoln possible. And it is super beats. You know, I don't know if

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I can get. And that is why I tried and continue with Super Beats. Super Beats, I want to thank you for being our partner today. And right now, I want you to hear what Lincoln's mom, who is now tangled up with this married dentist, has to say about the night her tot, Lincoln, was killed. And what do you now believe happened? Burke carried him down the steps. Lincoln had his pacifier in his mouth. And he walked back into the living room area, handed Lincoln his bottle on the ground,

stepped over him, and walked just a couple steps. And then he turned around and you can see him on camera. He makes a violent kicking motion that you can't see the bottom part of his body, but you can see the top part. And he walks back into the living room and got a piece of pizza. And then he walks back in the floor, and he... At that point, I heard a sound, which was the second sound. I thought the dog had done something it was a large puppy so I yelled down and he didn't respond and in my mind I thought that he was intentionally ignoring it so like he didn't have to clean up

whatever the dog had messed up went to the top of the stairs and I said you know babe what was that and he yelled at me he said it was Dax which is the dog I go down there Lincoln's pacifier was on the floor at like the base of the stairs it was on the ground so is the dog. I go down there. Lincoln's pacifier was on the floor at, like, the base of the stairs. It was on the ground, so I picked it up, took it over the sink, washed it off. And you piece all of these events together after the fact based on the tapes that the prosecutors have recovered

from the servers, correct? And some of it you see, some of it you infer. It's the flow of events you see from what the prosecutors recovered. At that point, Lincoln was laying on the couch looking up at the TV. So I went to walk around to give him his pacifier, and Bert was on the other couch. He was like, no, he's asleep. And I kind of looked around, and I told him, you know, it was like, he's not asleep yet.

Like, his eyes are open. And he was like, well, go on. If he sees you, he's not going to go to sleep, and he's almost asleep, asleep so don't let him see you so i put his pacifier on the arm the couch went back upstairs i guess that's whenever he picked up lincoln and carried his body around i guess i think he probably thought that i was gonna come back downstairs and if he was falling asleep on the couch maybe like try to like cuddle up to him or pick him up or hold him. So he carries him into the kitchen, gets another piece of pizza, and then eventually takes him to my room and lays him on my bed. He came upstairs, and I asked where Lincoln was,

and he said that he fell asleep on the couch and put him on my bed. And I thought, awesome. Now, that showed him carrying Lincoln, and you believe at that point that Lincoln had already been brutally and violently kicked in the head and was, for all intents and purposes, brain dead at that point? Yeah. Yeah. It was three minutes from the time that he carried him downstairs, sitting up, normal

toddler, to that moment where he carries him into the kitchen, unconscious. I think it was a normal toddler. There was no getting him to sleep in three minutes flat. His legs are curved in, and they are dangling. you can tell that you can tell what he is it looks like at one point both of his legs just went straight out and they collapsed they think he was probably having a seizure

so he then puts Lincoln to bed in your bed and you continue working on a project you then check on a project. Yeah. You then check on Lincoln. Yeah, I had walked through the room at one point. I acknowledged that he was laying in a certain position. Later on, I'd gone in to feel his forehead to see if he felt warm.

I just thought he was sleepy. Was it typical for him to sleep in your bed some? Yeah. We co-slept quite a bit. And my bedroom, you know, I was working upstairs, working on this cabinet upstairs. And my bedroom is the only bedroom downstairs. So it just kind of made sense, you know.

In retrospect, do you think he may have put him down there so you would be less likely to engage him interact with him check on him i think he was trying to put as much distance between link and i as possible so bobby maxwell joining us crime stories investigative reporter bobby you can see on the video he goes the dentist the lover the married lover goes over gives the baby who is lying on the floor on a banky gives him the bottle and see the mom isn't standing where she can see this. And then I don't know why. You can see his leg kind of come back, but you can't see the actual kid. Yes, exactly. The baby is definitely out of the picture there, but the bird is actually making some kind of move towards the child. You know, when we were talking about the romancing and the dating,

Karen Stark, psychologist, joining us out of Manhattan. Karen, I mean, I'm not blaming the mom. She did not do anything wrong. When she realized something was wrong with Lincoln, she raced him to the hospital. I don't know that, I guess it would be common practice to go on and look at the guy's Facebook. I mean, he's pictured with his wife in a Christmas photo with the whole family. Well, but this is a guy that said that he was

separated from his wife. So maybe, first of all, not everybody goes on Facebook. What's more striking to me, Nancy, is that I'm constantly describing what a killer is like, what a sociopath is like, and how they're indifferent to what's happening. They don't have any conscience, any feelings. And here is on video a tape that shows this man reaching for a piece of pizza after having allegedly destroyed this baby and totally indifferent to the fact that anything has occurred. Like he could be watching a football game. And it's indicative of the fact that he absolutely does not care, not only does he care less, but wanted this to happen and is comfortable enough to have a little snack and keep going, something none of us would be able to do. She's right. Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Institute. I recall cases where after a murder, the perp would stay in the home and like take a shower.

They would eat. They would get into the fridge. I have seen cases like that. And, you know, I'm just a trial lawyer. I didn't know mentally or emotionally, Cheryl, what that meant. But I knew something was very wrong with it, that you commit a heinous crime and then you stick around to raid the fridge, Cheryl. Nancy, you're absolutely right. This is not his only victim. I have a daughter, Caroline. She's now at dating age, and I've already told her if there's a kid in that high school that's an a**hole, if I can say that word, he's going to

be that his freshman year of college, and he's going to be that when he's 36. And he's going to be an asshole at 72. So here's the deal. You go back in this guy's history, started middle school and high school. He's mistreated people. He has mistreated a ton of people that for whatever reason did not come forward. But he's got a trail behind him. You know what? That's true. At that age, you're pretty much so many of your characteristics and your behaviors are set in stone. Another thing that's really bothering me, Joseph Scott Morgan, is the way he, she starts to go over to the baby and obviously he knows something bad has happened to the child. He goes, I don't know, I'll do it. And he picks the baby up. He's just walking around with the baby limp. I mean, who would walk around with the baby and the baby's just hanging there?

And he grabs a piece of pizza and walks around like nothing's wrong. The baby is dying at that moment. It's going brain dead. Can you explain that medically, Joe Scott? Yeah, I have a real hard time with this, Nancy, because as you mentioned earlier, he's not a physician, he's a dentist, but he does know enough about medicine to understand when a fellow human being, in this case, this little angel is in crisis and he knew enough to at least pick up the baby. What's going on is that the child is still alive, but the child, its brain activity is at a point where it's almost nil at this point. And he would know, he would know that a mama going over to pick up

her precious little baby is going to sense something is wrong. He knew enough. So I think the standard is even more exacting for this guy as opposed to somebody else. You know, if you get this guy on the stand and say, listen, you had some medical training. You understand here what's going on with this child, but yet you were so callous that you would pick this child up. You know that this child had a head injury. Well, Joe Scott question, would the baby be in pain at that point you know nancy i don't i don't necessarily know uh what the status would be however if he had struck this child you talked about how this fracture ran from essentially uh rearward forward

sort of splitting the head in half um if the brain stem, which is the base of our brain, which is the primal brain that controls essentially everything, if that was affected, I would hopefully, I would say the child would not be in pain. But there is one report where the mother eventually noticed that the child was snoring very loudly with the eyes open and that sort of thing. And that is indicative of a severe, severe head trauma. It just hurts me to hear it. I know. I want you to hear what Lincoln's mom remembers about her tot's sunny disposition. She says he was, quote, the happiest he had ever been.

He had a lot of health problems due to a premature birth, but he had overcome so many of them. And she says he was always laughing and smiling. And now in my mind is the image of him with his eyes wide open, snoring heavily, which tiny tots typically don't do because he's actually having trouble breathing. That is why he was snoring that way. He was dying. He's going brain dead at this time. Listen to what mommy says. He was the happiest. And laughing. We've got a little video of him, but I mean, he was just a happy, happy baby, right? He was, you know, when he would be laughing, but it would make him cough and choke because he was sick, but he would still laugh. It seems so unjust for him to overcome such tremendous odds to then be taken after winning this battle.

He was finally a normal toddler. He was finally healthy, running around and just being a normal baby. That was Lincoln's mom talking with Dr. Phil, our friend. I want to go over a new claim. Bobby Maxwell, Crime Stories investigative reporter contributor. Bobby, now, there are claims that he actually tried to have Lincoln's mom murdered so she couldn't testify as to what happened. What do we know, Bobbi? Well, this actually went back as far as August, Nancy. He's been, of course, jailed on the alleged death.

But he offered an inmate $300 to kill the mom and actually gave him detailed instructions on where she lived and how to get there. And she was due to testify, so he knew that he had to get her out of the picture. But yeah, that's the latest charges on Burt Franklin, is that he was trying to pay another inmate. Actually, he approached his wife to transfer the money to the inmate's account, saying it was for spiritual reasons. Spiritual reasons. Cheryl McCollum. Whoa.

So he gets his wife, the, quote, long-suffering wife, with all the children pictured in front of a Christmas tree with him in the picture. And he is now, it's out that he's been having this longtime affair with this young lady and is facing charges. He brutally kicks her son dead. I taught he can't even sit up. He's 19 months old. And she's the wife is visiting him behind bars and funneling money to an inmate. So the dentist can convince the inmate to go kill the girlfriend for $300. Oh, it's spiritual, Nancy, because he's in hell. And let me be very clear. There is honor among

thieves in this regard. Inmates hate baby killers. So the dentist, he thinks he's going to get grilled Austin sugar. He's in the best place for justice. Well, let me tell you. Let me tell you another thing that's going to come against him, Joe Scott Morgan, and that is after this happens, the inmate, of course, rats him out, and the authorities give the inmate a cell phone they can record and they actually get him on tape talking about killing his former lover so it's not you always have a problem at trial hold on jay scott cheryl mccullum you always have a problem at trial when you want to introduce inmate testimony.

So as I always told my juries right up front, I'd say you're going to hear from so-and-so. He's an inmate. He's done time. So, and they'd look all shocked. I'm like, wait a minute. What do you think? Sometimes you got to go to hell to get the witnesses to put the devil in jail. Bam. So who do you think this guy's hanging out with, nuns and priests and virgins? No. He's hanging out with people like this witness. All right?

You don't have to like him. Just listen to him. Cheryl? You would always tell us that, Nancy. And you were the one that said, and I quote, swans don't swim in a sewer. You got to get down and dirty. You got to go where they are. I'm sure I said cesspool. Okay. I'm sure I said cesspool. Okay.

I'm sure I said cesspool. Swans don't swim in a cesspool. Okay. Yeah, it's all coming back to me now, Cheryl. So to Joe Scott Morgan, I want to talk to you about the force necessary to inflict this wound on this baby boy. That is a skull fracture from the head to the spine. Yeah. You'd mentioned earlier, Nancy, that it's been reported that this is the equivalent

of a head-on car collision with this child not being strapped in a car seat. I don't know that I would necessarily go with that amount of force but it is sufficient in order to split this skull that it would require the power of a grown man a grown man uh striking a child with his foot this is not necessarily something you could do with your hand so this this paints a really grim picture where you've got this helpless little prematurely born child at the feet of a grown man who is supposed to be a caretaker, if you will, and splits the skull of this child. The only methodology I could think of would probably be either a leg or something akin to like a baseball bat.

But in this case, given what we're seeing with the child being obscured behind this post, my money's on the foot. I think that he essentially kicked this child as hard as you might see maybe a pro football player kick a ball through a goal. Oh, my stars. Now I want you to analyze this, guys. With me, Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Institute, Joseph Scott Morgan, death investigator and professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, Karen Stark, renowned psychologist out of New York, and Crime Stories investigative reporter Bobby Maxwell. Take a listen to the mom who in her own words describes when she realized much, much later something was horribly wrong with Lincoln. She said, call 911.

She looked over at her married lover, and he, quote, froze. Listen. I woke up at 2 to a sound that I thought Lincoln was coughing. I woke up, and I just remember instantly thinking, I knew it. He's sick, you know. So I got up immediately, and I went straight to the kitchen and got him some medicine and got his bottle. And when he got back to the bedroom, Bert asked me if Lincoln always slept with his eyes open. And he did sometimes. It was really weird, but...

So I said yes. As I walked in, I noticed that what I thought was a cough was a gurgling. So I put the stuff down and I grabbed him. When I grabbed him, his body was limp. So I yelled at him to call 911. And he stood up on the other side of the bed and just stared at me. At that moment, I thought that it was some people freeze up in emergency situations, like a panic. So I yelled again. I said, call, you know, call for an ambulance. So to Karen Stark, psychologist, when people freeze when something happens, what is that? And what do you think?

Well, in this case, a lot of times when people freeze, it's because they're in shock. But this man is not in shock. He's been caught. And that's the reason that he's freezing. I also want to mention, especially, this is such a horrific story, stunningly horrific, Nancy, that Cheryl had said earlier, and I think people really need to be aware of this. You do not trust somebody who you are dating with your children, especially in a situation like this. Men can be very jealous. And if there is someone who has these kind of psychopathic tendencies, they don't want your children around. They don't have that same feeling that you would imagine anyone would have. And you

have to be very, very cautious. I want to pause very quickly and thank our partner making our program here today possible. It's 1-800-DENTIST. You know, I can't tell you how much it means to me that I've been able to take care of my children, not only going to the doctor, but the dentist, because John David just got his braces off two days ago and he's got this beautiful smile. Lucy got hers off about two months ago. Beautiful smile. And I am so proud because that's the first thing people look at you and they see your smile. That's what I always look at. People's eyes and teeth. It's the first thing I look at. I can't help it. I want them to go through life with this gorgeous smile and feeling confident, not, you know, not smiling or holding something up over

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But what else could she find on the internet? What else could there be? And that is why I'm grateful for Circle with Disney. Number one, it's Disney. But listen to this. Monitoring your children 24-7, you just can't do it. And there is an endless list of complicated, technical, expensive solutions. Some even need a tech pro to come into your home to install hardware and software.

And that affects everybody in the whole family. So what can you do? Circle with Disney. It's designed for families to manage content and time online for all the devices in your home. You filter content, you set time limits, you can even set a bedtime. And it's so easy to set up. My son, John David, age 10, set it up for me. Everybody in the family has their own setting. And that way your children don't end up in dangerous parts of the internet, but you can still use the internet to get your work done. Listen to this. Use offer code

Nancy, N-A-N-C-Y, at circlewithnancy.com for $10 off your Circle plus free shipping. Circlewithnancy.com. That's all one word. Circlewithnancy.com. Offer code Nancy. Circle with Nancy dot com. Offer code Nancy. Ten dollars off your circle and free shipping. Circle, thank you for letting my mind rest easy with the children online. And thank you for being our partner today. And now I want to go straight back to the charges against a prominent dentist. This dentist, apparently Cheryl McCollum, had a whole family with multiple children and a wife that he was keeping a big trophy home. The works, totally tricked out.

Then he had this girlfriend who was beautiful, who has a baby, and he is now charged with kicking the baby with such force the baby goes brain dead. Cheryl, how do you analyze keeping a double life, and how does that play into this scenario? Because now, obviously, he didn't care about the woman because he's allegedly tried to hire a hitman to kill her, the girlfriend,

so she can't testify against him at trial about the baby's death. Nancy, he cares about nobody but himself. He doesn't care about the wife and the first set of children. He doesn't care about the girlfriend and her child. He cares about no one. He is, of course, charming and funny and witty, as she claims, because that's his hook. That's how he gets you. That's just his trap, if you will. The wife, not only was he cheating on her, I can guarantee you he's been violent toward his own children and her. So what does he do? She doesn't leave him. He gets her to come to the prison or the jail to funnel money so that he can set up the hit man. Are you kidding me?

Ladies, listen to me. This man don't want you. You're being played. If it's too good to be true, it is. So he's probably giving her free Botox. He's probably telling her how beautiful she is. She should have known better, Nancy. I'm not blaming her. I'm just saying she should have known better, Nancy. I'm not blaming her.

I'm just saying she should have known better. She knew he was married. She knew they were playing house. And it wasn't just instant family. It was a recipe for disaster. Well, I tell you, when you add in the child, a baby into the mix, a baby that cannot speak for itself. That's a whole nother can of worms. A guy, prosecutors say, fatally abuses a tiny baby, then casually, nonchalantly, goes over and grabs a piece of pizza. Now, I'm also curious to you, Bobby Maxwell, Crime Stories investigative reporter, about the wife funneling money and visiting him behind bars.

What do you make of that? I think she's still holding out hope that there's something left in their relationship. They are still married. And she did it. She transferred the money. So she's still supporting him in most ways. You know, I'm looking right now at photos of this little baby, baby Lincoln. Joseph Scott Morgan, he is so precious.

Now I'm seeing the video. Now I'm looking at the video of the dentist bringing him around, putting him like he's going to put him in a baby high chair, and the baby's just hanging there, limp. I mean, what happens when you have that kind of injury? What happens to your brain? What do you feel? Initially, what the child would have felt was the severe impact.

And that doesn't go to the emotional side of it, involving the terror and everything else that's involved. It would have been the child in the immediate would have felt a tremendous amount of pressure that would have been translated into what we would perceive as like the most severe headache that you can possibly have. There'd be pressure behind the child's eyes. The sinus cavities would be filling up with blood. It would be hard to kind of shake yourself out of it and clear. So essentially your brain, if you'll envision a brain becoming like a pair of lungs where it's just being compressed to the point where it can't function.

You're clear. You're the room is spinning. It's a horrible, horrible situation. And Nancy, if I could just go to one more thing here, we talk about the most vulnerable among us in the society. And we'd look at this little baby, your two little angels were preemies. My wife and I lost a child that was premature. And these are the most vulnerable among us. And this child had somehow, someway survived to this point, but yet was still dependent upon all of us to watch after him. And here, this person is chosen. This monster enters the house and subjects the child to this kind of trauma.

It's just heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking. It really shows, Cheryl McCollum, how deceiving looks and appearances can be. You know, I've told my husband a million times, one of the times that I have loved him most, he always tries to take me out to dinner, Cheryl. And I always say, you know what? You and I have been eating together. We've been eating since 1979. Can we stop?

But, and so one night, the children were still infants. And, you know, i would feed them whenever they wanted they weren't on any kind of a schedule they'd be up at 12 31 33 35 30 and i just get up at 5 30 and that's when i was holding down two jobs and writing a book i was half dead well so was he one night i finally agreed to go out and get something for dinner and he went out in black dress shoes that he had worn to work that day white athletic socks he had on uh like running shorts that were huge and baggy and hung down like around his knees he had on a looked like a golf shirt or something and a vest like a fleece vest over it.

I don't think he'd wash his hair in a week. We were so tired. He had on a baseball hat. And I looked at him and said, I love you more right now than I've ever loved you in my whole life. Because all we were doing was like just surviving and trying to take care of them. We'd be up, you know, 19, 20 hours a day. And we were just trying to get through because they were, as Joe Scott was saying, so premature. But I was just looking at this home that she was living in.

And she's a beautiful and accomplished woman. The home, Cheryl, and Karen, you've got to look online and see this, Bobby. Joe Scott, it won't mean anything to you. You're a man, sadly. Just don't take that the wrong way. But look at this home. It looks like a model home. Like when you go to an apartment or you're looking at a subdivision and that model home is just perfect.

Her home is perfect. It looks like someone has come in and designed it like in a furniture store. And the baby looks perfect. In all of its pictures, it's perfectly decked out. If it's at the pool, it's got all the full regalia. I mean, everything looks perfect, Cheryl. Nancy, the frightening thing is he kicked her out to harm. Like you said, the devil is not just, you know, in the area.

The devil is at your dinner table. And I am telling these women again, please pay attention if somebody is too nice and too charming and too willing to take on your children and too willing to say, oh, we can make this work. You know, I'm separated. I've had a loveless marriage for years the same old they've been saying forever please pay attention to that because the reality is if matthew mcconaughey called me honey i ain't interested in chucky cheese with his kids that's the reality and you know what it's like you go ahead i want to hear this cheryl mccollum's dream man go ahead. I want to hear this. Cheryl McCollum's dream man. Go ahead. but she's getting Botox. So something in her needed more and didn't feel like she was as beautiful as we see that she clearly is.

He picked up on that, Nancy. He chose her. He selected her as a victim. And women need to be cognizant that that occurs. It ain't fate. It's not, oh my God, we saw each other in the dentist chair and I just, that was it.

It was love. He asked. He selected you. You oh, my God, we saw each other in the dentist chair, and I just, that was it. It was love. He asked. He selected you. You know, Karen Stark, my children both play soccer, and my son's soccer coach looks like, I mean, he looks like he should be in an ad for, you know, those ad machines that they have on TV. I think it's Soloflex.

That may not even be the right way to say it. But but I mean, he looks like a Greek God sculpted. And I was standing there looking at this coach out on the soccer field and Lucy said, mommy, why are you looking at him? I said, Lucy, if your father ever starts going to the gym and bulking up like that. Okay. We're calling grand mommy because that's just, I need him at work. Okay. He's in trouble. He can, he'll have time for a second job. And she said, okay, mommy, if daddy starts working at the gym, we'll tell on him. And she said, but you know, you said that about that other man, the dad over there a couple of weeks ago when he wore that nice suit to soccer practice. I'm like, that's right. If your father shows up in a $2,000 suit, there's a problem, Lucy.

I want you to remember that when you're growing up, okay? So Karen Stark, sometimes if she's right, if it looks too good to be true, it's not true. Well, it is too good to be true. And if you keep reading about this particular case, Nancy, you find that there are times where he's been in touch with the ex-husband and he's been abusive on the phone or in his messages. And she was able to ignore the fact that there was something that was wrong, even in the threats that he was making to the ex-husband. Number one, he shouldn't have been involved, and he shouldn't have been threatening him in the manner that he was doing it.

So there was an indication that there was something very off about this man. And the problem is, when you're in love, those beginning stages of love, it's not a normal state. It's very crazy. No, it's very not. And you have to exercise extra caution when you have a child that cannot speak or defend itself involved in the mix. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

This is an iHeart Podcast.