Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Ruthless Bloomberg Kidnap-Victim Mouths "HELP ME" at ATM

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

An armed gunman rams the gate at former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Colorado ranch and kidnaps a housekeeper. 48-year-old Joseph Beecher facing kidnapping, felony menacing, and other charges in both Colorado and Wyoming. After abducting 46-year-old Amanda Edinger, Beecher forced her to drive to several stops in the Denver area before driving to Wyoming. Federal and local authorities located them at the Stagecoach Motel in Cheyenne, and a Cheyenne Police Department SWAT team made the arrest. Edinger was unharmed. Bloomberg bought the 4,600-acre ranch in the White River Valley in 2020 for $45 million.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Troy Slaten - Los Angeles Criminal Defense Attorney, Slaten Lawyers, APC, Twitter @TroySlaten Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst, www.drbethanymarshall.com, New Netflix show: 'Bling Empire' (Beverly Hills) Bobby Chacon - 27 years former FBI Agent, BobbyChacon.com, Instagram/Twitter: @BobbyChaconFBI, Writer and Co-producer: Audible Original Series, "After the Fall" Alexis Tereszcuk - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker, Lead Stories dot Com, Twitter: @swimmie2009 Tom Patire - America’s Leading Personal Safety Expert, Author: "The Personal Protection Handbook, www.TomPatire.com, Instagram: @OfficialTomPatire 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. This proves that no one is immune to crime. Crime strikes at every socioeconomic level. And I'm talking about multi-millionaire famous people. First of all, take a listen to our cut one, Kim Christensen, Kyle Clark, Nine News Colorado. We start with breaking news. Law enforcement across Colorado are looking for a missing woman tonight. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation says Amanda Edmunder was kidnapped in Rio Blanco County in western Colorado earlier today. Investigators think that a man named Joseph Beecher kidnapped her and may be headed east. They were last seen in Golden around 3.30 this afternoon.

They could be in a maroon Ford F-150, Colorado plates. The truck may also have a cover or shell on the back. CBI says they believe the suspect is armed. Anyone with information is asked to keep their distance and call 9-1-1. Take a listen now to our cut to ABC. Authorities say on Wednesday morning, the suspect, Joseph Beecher, rammed his vehicle through the main gate to the home and confronted a supervising housekeeper. He reportedly asked where the billionaire's daughters were, wanting to make an international scene. But officials say the Bloombergs were not at the ranch. The woman telling authorities

Beecher pointed a machine gun at her face and told her she was coming with him. She reportedly mouthed the words, help me, to an ATM camera when he forced her to withdraw money. The two seen on hotel surveillance videos that afternoon. So the name Amanda Edinger may not ring a bell, but what about the name Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City who founded and runs Bloomberg TV, multi-millionaire, all-around good guy, according to sources that know him. So who is Amanda Ettinger and what does she have to do with multi-millionaire Michael Bloomberg? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Think about it. Suddenly, out of nowhere, you're minding your own business, and somebody puts a machine gun in your face and says,

get in the car. It sounds like a movie, but it's not. Straight out to Alexis Tereschuk, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. First of all, who is Michael Bloomberg? Let's start right there. So he is a businessman from New York City. He is actually a billionaire. He has created multiple businesses, but he has a Bloomberg company.

Hey, question, and this may be better for a shrink, Dr. Bethany Marshall. Dr. Bethany, not that Michael Bloomberg did this, because by all accounts, he's very unassuming. He's very, acts like a regular guy kind of person. But why is it when billionaires, billionaires get mad if you call them a millionaire? It's real. I'm not going to name any names. It's a thing. But recently in the news, we've heard a lot of drama about a millionaire angry that he was described having fewer millions than he really does have. What is that? Oh, that or why they become victims of crime. You know, why do they get angry if they're described? This is real.

Okay. Billionaires get angry if they're described? This is real. Okay. Billionaires get angry if you describe them as a millionaire. They don't want to be portrayed as having less than they do. Okay, so there's a theory in my field that money becomes what we call the third in people's lives. It becomes that thing through which they mediate their identity. It's their calling card in society. It's a measure card in society. It's a measure of how important they are. And so when you mess with somebody's identification of how much money they have,

it strikes at the core of their character. Now, for you or me or maybe other people on this panel, that's not front and foremost in their lives. But for a billionaire, everything has to do with their money. Their whole day is spent collecting it, taking care of it. Okay, I just had an epiphany. Because if somebody says, oh, she's a lawyer, and someone asked me like a slip and fall or will question, I don't do that. I put murderers behind bars. That's my kind of law. If it ain't got a crime scene tape around it, I'm not interested.

And I take offense at being described as like, I don't know, a slip and fall attorney or an ambulance chaser. Because I guess your identity is so wrapped up. Or if somebody says, oh, she has a daughter. I'm like, no, I don't. I have a girl and a boy. I have twins. I'm like, no, I don't. I have a girl and a boy. I have twins. I'm double duty. Okay.

If someone calls me a psychologist, I'm offended because I'm not. We've had that cat fight before. I'm a psychoanalyst. I still don't know the difference because they did not teach me that in law school, but I know better than to call you a psychologist or a psychiatrist. No way. Okay. I'm starting to understand it. Okay. Alexis, little did you know, you just dropped a bomb in this. Guys with me,

high profile lawyer out of LA. This is a very common phenomenon in LA. Troy Slayton with me. You can find him at Slayton Lawyers on Twitter at Troy Slayton. Dr. Bethany Marshall, who we've already been speaking with, psychoanalyst to the stars at drbethanymarshall.com. Star of a hit new series on Netflix, Bling Empire. Bobby Chacon, a longtime friend and colleague who's taught me a lot. 27 years, former FBI. You can find them at bobbychacon.com.

Good gravy, Chacon. Now you're writing and producing Audible original series after the fall. Okay, I'm going to listen to that. Tom Pateri with me, also a longtime friend and colleague. America's leading personal safety expert, author of The Personal Protection Handbook. And you can find them at TomPateri.com. Alexis Tereschuk, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Pick it up where you left off.

What? We were talking about who? It's Michael Bloomberg. So Bloomberg started out in the financial world. He founded his own company, a financial institution, but it provides information and software, and it's known as the Bloomberg Terminal. Makes his billions of dollars. The Bloomberg what? The Bloomberg Terminal. makes his billions of dollars. The Bloomberg what?

The Bloomberg Terminal. Terminal, okay. He has a really unique office. He has this philosophy behind his business. So, like, the elevators in his building don't go to every floor, and there are only trash cans at the end of the wall, and there are no, like, private offices. Everything's open. It was a philosophy that he felt really made people work to their maximum and really was the most beneficial for everyone. Why don't the elevators go to every floor?

Because he thought that it'd be better to walk or do different things. Oh, dear. It's a Bloomberg philosophy. Yeah. Okay. Can I tell you, I had that experience seeing a friend in the hospital in New York, and those elevators stopped at every floor so Orthodox Jews would not have to push a button on Sundays because they, well, on their Sabbath. Right. So the elevators are very different in certain locations. But you know what I've been told, Alexis Torres, by people that have worked

for Bloomberg directly for him and people that were way down the totem pole, that they love him, that he would provide food in the building for his employees, like really good food. So in New York at Bloomberg TV, you don't have to go out in the cold to find lunch. Just a really nice guy. Walk the floor, would talk to the employees all the time, actually listen to them. And that's really how I'm judging him because that's how he treats his employees. And I would also like to say to my recollection, hey, Jackie, will you Google this so I can make sure I'm not wrong, that under Bloomberg, when I was living in New York for so many years, the crime rate was really low, as I recall. So I know he was doing something right.

OK, back to Bloomberg. Let's get to the billionaire part, because that's what plays into this kidnap. Go ahead. So I looked it up to make sure that these numbers are right. In 2020, Forbes ranked him as the 20th richest person in the world. And then as of September 8th, 2020, he ranked him 14th. He is worth $55 billion. Wow. That's all I can say to that. And he worked for it too. It's not like it was handed down to him. Guys, how does a guy like Bloomberg and his daughters, Emma and Georgina, get dragged into a violent kidnapping plot where this woman, Amanda Edinger, has a machine gun shoved in her face. Guys, take a listen now to our cut three. This is Andrew Heo, Denver 7.

New details tonight about a woman allegedly kidnapped from a ranch in northwestern Colorado early yesterday morning. The Rio Blanco County Sheriff's Department says she worked on the ranch of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. 48-year-old Joseph Beecher was accused of kidnapping Amanda Ettinger at gunpoint. Deputies say Beecher forced her into her own pickup truck and drove across state to the front range. crime stories with nancy grace to alexis teres chuck she worked on his ranch tell me about the ranch where it, how big is it, what she does there, the connection between Bloomberg and Amanda Ettinger. So she works on his property, which is in, it's known as

Westlands. And it is 4,600 acres, 4,600 acres. It is immense. And he just purchased this in 2020 for $44.8 million. But that was, he actually got a deal on it because it was originally the acting price was $46 million. So he paid a bit of money. Yeah. I mean, it's a bargain. From what I understand, this guy, Joseph Beecher, barrels his car through the front gate and stormed the home. Straight up to you, Bobby Chacon, 27 years FBI agent. Bobby, how does one person pull off storming the gates of Bloomberg's Westland Mansion. Well, you know, Nancy, a lot of these wealthy people, when they have these ranches and things like that, they're not often there.

And they keep a pretty public schedule so that, you know, on many, many, many times, sometimes weeks, sometimes months, there's nobody at these ranches except the bear maintenance crews that keep the place up and running for when the owner is going to arrive. So a lot of times there's very few people there. And if you're any student of these places, these are usually in small towns. And you can, you know, people are fairly easily tracked, their comings and goings, particularly celebrity type people. And so there's usually barely any security. If the owner's not there, they have the bare minimum security. Of course, when the owner arrives, they beef up security. But normally at a time like this, when the owner's

not on property, you're going to have simply just the maintenance and cleaning people and maybe some, you know, skeleton crew of security there. So explain to me, Alexis Tereschuk, how he got through. Was there even security? Was there a closed gate? Did he ram the car through the gate opening it or did he ram the car into the ranch? What happened? So there was a gate in front of the ranch. There was not there's not a security guard at the gate. She's a big metal wearing. So he drove up. He checked it out. He looked at it, then he backed his car up and barreled through it. His car was powerful enough to crash through the gate. And nobody noticed.

As he just said, Bloomberg was not there, but he didn't know this. And so he just crashed it, and then he gets into the house. This house, this is And so he just crashed. And then he gets into the house. This house, this is not a small ranch house. This is a 19,000 square foot house. The property also has a golf course that was designed by the famous golfer, Greg Norman. There's a tennis court. There's a helipad. There's a theater in the house. So 19,000 square feet. This woman is inside the home. Of course, in a 19,000 square foot house, you're not going to hear what happens at the gate, you know, in almost a 5,000 square foot or 5,000 acre property, you know, a mile away. So she didn't hear it at all. Nobody was

aware of the car crashing through the gate. He pulls up to the house, runs inside, starts running around and confronts her. He finds her. She's actually cleaning a closet. So her back is to him. She's completely unaware of anything going on around her. And he comes up to her with what she described as a machine gun and points it at her. To Tom Pateri, America's leading personal safety expert, author of the Personal Protection Handbook. Tom, for us regular people, what are we supposed to do to ward off home invasions?

Tom, just so you know, was it three days ago, we covered the case of a home invasion where a felon breaks into a home where the husband and wife are asleep in bed. It was either his brother or his friend was staying there, was leaving for a night job at about 1 o'clock in the morning, goes outside to get in the car to go to work, has his little lunch and everything with him, like my dad used to do at midnight, would leave to go to work. And the perp sees that opportunity to storm the house with guns, shot the husband, the father, dead in the bed. And all the perp took was a cell phone and a pocketbook and some money that was laying beside the pocketbook, like, you know, like I would have five ones and a ten. And that's, he, home invaded, shot the dad, the husband, dead in bed as he was sleeping beside his wife for a cell phone and a pocketbook.

So help me out, Pateri, on home invasions. Okay, well, there's two types of home invasions. Usually in the daytime, 10 to 2, it's a professional. He goes in there. He takes what he knows. Hold on, Tom Pateri, you got me drinking from the fire hydrant here. Slow it down. You said there's two types types and one would be between

10 and 2 and that would be a pro okay exactly professional that knows what to do what takes only lucrative stuff cash jewelry gone usually three to five minutes done he's already gone you know and he's got a preset plan he already knows the layout of the house he knows when people are home you know we are creatures of habit so are you saying they would come in, a pro would come in between 10 and 2 because he thinks everybody's at work? Yes. And then most of the time, because he surveilled the house, he already knows, you know, how to get in, what to do. Is there an alarm system? Is there a broken door? You know, did they leave a ladder around that they could go through a window? I mean, it's all things that people usually do. And a lot of times they play

themselves as landscapers or gas men. So they look like they fit the environment. Now that's much different at night now. At night, it's usually drug induced, somebody that's desperate. You know, they're not of sound mind and body. So that's when the violence occurs, you know, and they're looking for anything that they can take and sell to get a quick fix to buy their selves drugs or whatever they use. So in this case, I would say he falls in the category of the pro. Alexis Tereska, what time of the day or night was the the home invasion of Bloomberg's ranch? It was 1015 in the morning. That's exactly what you just said, Petteri. You said between 10 and 2, and this is at 10.15.

Now, it seems to me, though, Tom Petteri, that knowing it is Michael Bloomberg's ranch, you would assume that somebody was there. And I guess that's the point. He was there to kidnap someone as opposed to home invade and steal stuff. Yes, because, look, I protect celebrities and execs for a living. And the biggest thing that they care about is the weakness in the chain, which is family members. They care more about having security on their kids than themselves. So this person that did this knew that if he abducted this

daughter or son or whoever, I mean, that's high ransom because in the history of ransoms, people will always pay for their children. Well, you're right on the money. Speaking of money, Tom Pateri, take a listen to Les Trent Insight Edition. For those of you that know the name Sinatra, this should ring a bell. Listen. Frank Jr. inherited his father's looks and velvet voice. When Jr. was just 19, he was kidnapped at a casino in Lake Tahoe. The horrifying ordeal of Frank Sinatra Jr. began while he was filling an casino in Lake Tahoe. The horrifying ordeal of Frank Sinatra Jr. began while he was filling an engagement at Lake Tahoe.

The mastermind was a troubled young man named Barry Keenan. He knew I was dangerous. He knew I was just one crack away from killing everybody or not killing me. He didn't know, but he could tell I was crazy. Inside Edition spoke to Barry Keenan in 2004. Keenan and two cronies were paid a ransom of $240,000, the equivalent of $1.8 million today. The thugs released Junior on an LA freeway overpass. Then he walked home to the family's mansion in Bel Air. I was scared. I was

a little bit nervous initially, but the only thing I could do was hope for the best. Keenan was caught and spent five years in prison. Five years for a kidnap, Troy Slayton. That's not right. That's a 20 to life. Well, there may have been mitigating circumstances and the victim was released and turned out unscathed. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Troy Slayton, the money motive or pecuniary interest, as it is often called in the law, in most cases works against a defendant because it's, for instance, that is an aggravating circumstance for the death penalty. If you are killing for money, like a hired mercenary, if you, in fact, arrange a killing of your spouse, say, for insurance, that's killing for money. So the law looks less kindly

on a killer or a kidnapper if they are acting with money motive. Explain why, Troy Slayton. Well, when a jury is asked to consider whether or not to impose the death penalty on a victim, there's a whole list of what are called special circumstances that the jury may have to find. Lying in wait, killing multiple people, all this malice of forethought, like you said, money. These are all things that make just what would be a normal crime of murder, like a heat of passion. Something happened right in the moment where somebody finds their wife in bed with another man. Why do you always use the same tired example, Troy Slayton? Why doesn't the wife ever find her husband in bed with somebody and shoot both of them? It's always the same tired example, Troy Slayton. Why doesn't the wife ever find the husband in bed with somebody

and shoot both of them? It's always the same with you. Oh, it's the same. That happens too, Nancy. But the point is, the law makes certain killings worse. Why does it always have to be the woman in bed with somebody else having sex and the husband comes in and kills her? You got to come up with something better than that. But your legal point is? The legal point is certain motives for the crimes, what the mens rea is, what the guilty mind is. Oh, I know you're in trouble when you start throwing Latin phrases around. Go ahead. Certain things are worse than others. Mens rea means the guilty mind. And so the law imposes worse penalties on things that have worse motives. And you know why I think that is? I mean, all motive for murder is bad. All murder is bad. But Dr. Bethany Marshall, it takes a certain kind of mind, a depraved mind, to plan out the murder coldly and calculatedly. You know you're going to

kill this person. You plan it in detail and your motive is money. There is something colder about that, as Troy Slate was pointing out in his own special way than getting into a bar fight, pulling your gun and bam, and you're like, oh, what did I just do? No, this is cold and calculated when you kidnap or murder for money. Well, if the motivation is emotional, you caught your husband cheating with another woman, you got in a bar fight, something like that. It's hot. The emotions are hot. It's temporary. It ebbs away over time. It's based on impulsivity and the inability to contain one's emotions. Now, in this case, somebody who's going to crash

through the gates of a billionaire's home, this is somebody who's been methodical, who's been thinking about it. And actually, I was thinking about the profile of the stalker. In some ways, we could even see this as a form of stalking Michael Bloomberg, that he is obsessed with him. You know, I have a couple of international stars in my practice who were child stars and they tell me that they had bodyguards throughout their childhood and even now because the LAPD would regularly approach them and say did you know you have stalkers it would come to the LAPD's attention and one child star told me it was terrifying that the police brought her pictures of the stalker's room. He had a whole room dedicated to her. And it was pictures of her

on tour, pictures of her, you know, newspaper clippings, her family members, her child. So the person was obsessed with her. And she still thinks about, you know, is he still obsessed with her now? So I would also put this in that category when you're talking about these kinds of crimes, rather than a ball brawl, a ballroom brawl or something like that. You have somebody who's fixated on Michael Bloomberg. And as soon as he gets back out of jail, he's going to be fixated on him again. You know, I'm going to come to you, Bobby Chacon, because I know you have had experience with kidnappings. We just played you, Sam, from when going to come to you, Bobby Chacon, because I know you have had experience with kidnappings. We just played you, Sam, from when Frank Sinatra's son, you don't want to mess with Sinatra.

He's got so many mob ties out the yin-yang. But he's not the only high-profile person whose relative, child specifically specifically was kidnapped. Take a listen to our cut 17 from Inside Edition. It's the name Getty. Ring a bell. He was the richest man in the world. But when billionaire John Paul Getty's 16-year-old grandson was kidnapped, he refused to pay a dime in ransom. The real kidnapping in Italy in 1973 made headlines around the world. The teenager's distraught mom pleaded with the kidnappers.

Only when the kidnappers cut off the boy's ear did his grandfather agree to pay, but only as much as he could deduct from his taxes, $2.2 million. The rest of the ransom, $700,000, was deemed a loan. The teenager had to pay back with 4% interest. This was the dramatic scene when the boy was released and reunited with his mother, but there was no happy ending. He OD'd and suffered a stroke when he was just 24, and he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He died in 2011. Two. Hold on, Bobby. I got to go back to our shrink. Dr. Bethany

Marshall, psychoanalyst joining us from LA. Bethany, your grandfather refuses to pay the ransom when he's the richest person in the world. Then only when your ear is cut off, does the grandfather agree to pay only the amount that is tax deductible, $2.2 million? The rest, the $700,000 he paid was deemed a loan and his grandson had to pay it back 4% interest. No wonder. I mean, if we know that much about the family dynamic, can you imagine why the boy grew up and overdosed when he was just 24 and then died of a stroke? You know, Nancy, one definition of trauma is when the unimaginable happens. The unimaginable happened. He was kidnapped.

His grandfather wouldn't pay the ransom. He had to pay it back with 4% interest. Yes, the fact that he stroked out, OD'd, spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair is not surprising because when we have severe trauma, it affects our body, not just our mind. It's all intertwined. So for any of your listeners who've had the unimaginable happen to them, yeah, they're going to be depressed. They're going to have slee, yeah, they're going to be depressed. They're going to have sleepless nights. They're going to have reactive attachment disorder where they can't attach to the people around them. It's going to affect them on every single level. And I'm thinking about when this guy crashed through the gates, you know, who did he encounter? What

did he do to them? And what kind of unimaginable horrors that they encounter and what are the reverberating effects of this story and this crime going to be. Bobbi Chacon, you've seen a lot of kidnaps. And before you describe what you have seen, take a listen to our Cut 14. This is our friend Deborah Roberts at ABC News. I did not want to die. And I remember praying to God. And I remember I never said,

you know, like, amen in my mind. I never wanted to end my prayers because I didn't want God to leave me. She endures the next nine months through prayer and gains her captor's trust by never disagreeing or angering him, the two forming a complicated bond. They would talk together, and she says she even agreed to help him make counterfeit money. Part of how I gained his trust, I guess, was, you know, I went along with whatever he wanted to do. In fact, he was so afraid police were about to arrest him on a counterfeiting investigation, he let Abby go on a desolate road. There were no cars coming either way. He said, get out. Just like that. Just like

that. That was it. I remember looking up and laughing, just being so happy. I never thought it would happen to me, but I'm free. And I just walked home. You're hearing the voice of kidnap victim Abby Hernandez. Now, I believe it's in Philippians. It says, pray in all circumstances, pray without ceasing. But she was so afraid he would kill her. She would not say amen to any of her prayers. She says she didn't want the Lord to leave her as if he would. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, Bobby Chacon, speaking of kidnapping for money, and you know who I'm talking about,

the Alaskan barista, Samantha Koenig, and her P.O.S. kidnapper, may he rot in hell, Israel Keyes. Remember that? But it was the thing that got him caught. Him kept going back to the ATMs to get money out of the account, Samantha's account, that we had started depositing money into. That was our connection to him and ultimately his downfall. But these kidnappings break two different ways. So you have the stalkers, like we just heard, this young woman who's held for nine months, who is much more personal, not financially motivated. And then you have the ones more recently, like Steve Wynn, the hotel owner in Las Vegas,

casino owner, whose daughter was kidnapped in 1993. He paid the ransom, never contacted the cops. He got the daughter back in two hours. We got involved later and tracked down the kidnappers, and they went to jail. But there are those types that are professional. They just want the money. They have a plan. It's executed very well. In the early 2000s, we foiled an attempt to kidnap David Letterman's son from his ranch in Montana, which seems very much like this case with Bloomberg. But there, it was a person who worked for the Letterman estate there.

They knew the inside layout of the property. They had pictures and they had a plan. Fortunately, we were able to get onto the plan before it ever took place. But these things break down along those two lines, whether it's personal and they're going to kidnap this person because they're obsessed with them. They're not really as interested in a ransom. And then there's the ones like the wind case where the girl was left safe alone in a car at the airport in Vegas. I think that's how they returned her after two hours. And so they were just interested in money and they got it very quickly and it was planned very well. The Bloomberg case, I'm not sure how well it was planned.

There was a, seems to be, you know, an emotional, you know, element to this where he crashed the gate. It's not the kind of thing we usually see. Kidnapping is usually done very covertly. You want to get the person, get in and get out, and then make your ransom demand. So you want to do that with as little fanfare as possible to the initial abduction. And so normally, we don't see this kind of approach on a kidnapping. You know, you mentioned some kidnappings that were foiled and some where the kidnapped victim was saved. Not true in the case of Samantha Koenig, where you actually supervised digging in an iced-over river lake

to pull up Samantha Koenig's body parts. This young, I believe she was 19, wasn't she? She was. Yes, working in a coffee stand, was kidnapped. A ransom photo of her was left at a park with a money demand. And as soon as the boyfriend and the dad saw it, they knew something was wrong because she never, like my daughter, has never, except when I did it when she was a little girl, worn her hair into long braids.

Never. She puts her hair back in a bun. My girl does. And Samantha had her hair in braids and she looked like she had on makeup that she wouldn't normally wear. We found out later he had not only raped her repeatedly, but had sewn her eyelids open, had covered her in makeup to make her look alive, and she was dead at the time of the ransom from the kidnapping. That's how serious kidnappings can be. So to you, Alexis Tereschuk, and I'm going to come back to you, Tom Pateri, with the personal protection handbook about how to avoid abduction. Alexis Teresik, I believe that the intended victims were Bloomberg's daughters, Emma and Georgina.

They were. That's what he was. That's who he was looking for. Now, Emma and Georgina are not young children, ones in her 30s and ones in her 40s. Georgina is a well-known equestrian. Both of these girls were in a documentary that was called Born Rich in 2003. Like people know who they are. They're very well-known. Their dad is not the kind who's like, I'm cutting off my children. I'm not helping them. He would, you know, a ransom.

I don't know him, but I would imagine if there was a ransom, he would pay it. He would never want his daughter's ear to be cut off and he wouldn't charge her interest when it came back, when she came back. Take a listen to our cut six. Phil Lipoff, ABC. This morning, new dramatic police video, a daring rescue ending the kidnapping of a woman who worked for Michael Bloomberg. Police say she was taken at gunpoint from his Colorado ranch Wednesday. This video showing the Cheyenne Police Department's joint SWAT team arriving to the scene at the Stagecoach Motel just across state lines. Law enforcement did everything right in this case. They were able to apparently track her iPad, which eventually led them to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Investigators say the suspect, Joseph Beecher,

was carrying an AR-15 and a handgun when he was arrested. Now he's charged with kidnapping in federal court. To Bobby Chacon, explain what an AR-15 is. It's a semi-automatic long gun. It looks like a machine gun because it's got a long barrel on it and the way it's held. But it really is a usually a 9mm is the same round that a shot at

a semi-automatic handgun. It's just a semi-automatic rifle. I will never forget Troy Slate. The first time I had to handle an AR, it was in a murder, and two dopers had meant to shoot another doper, and they did it sniper style at a distance.

That's why they didn't realize who they were shooting. It was a 13-year-old little boy coming home from band practice. His nickname, Moonbeam. And as he tried to crawl to his house, he was calling out for his mother when he died. And I remember holding that AR in court and it looked like somebody had spray painted it matte black, a dull black, and I swear it looked like it came straight out of the gates of hell. That's what an AR looks like to me.

You ever had to deal with one of those in court, Slade? I actually have, and although they may look scary to somebody that's not experienced handling guns, they are the most common rifle in the United States. OK, I guess that makes it OK that diapers and kidnappers use them more often. Thanks, Troy, for that inside information. Guys, what was the whole purpose of this kidnapping? Take a listen to our cut seven ABC. According to court documents, Beecher was looking for Bloomberg's daughters and wanted to quote, make an international scene. The victim told authorities Beecher rammed his truck through

Bloomberg Ranch's security gate and forced her to leave with him. She says she was forced to withdraw money from an ATM. While taking that money out, she mouthed the words, help me, hoping it would be recorded by the machine surveillance camera. The victim, safe and returned to her family. She remained calm. She tried to be friendly. And so if you can do those two things, not agitate a kidnapper, you may increase your odds of staying alive. Authorities say Bloomberg was not at the ranch during the kidnapping.

Overnight, a spokesperson for Bloomberg telling ABC News, we're deeply grateful to the Rio Blanco County Sheriff's Office for their swift and heroic action in this case. No word from investigators so far on why Beecher was trying to cause what he called an international incident, but he is in custody now and facing serious federal charges. Okay, I need to shrink pronto. The victim in this case, Amanda Ettinger, tells the FBI the perp demanded she sleep in bed next to him with her head on his chest, her arm around his middle, and his leg, her leg over his. What is that? He wanted to spoon?

I think that this is going to sound strange. Not from you. Nothing strange from Dr. Bethany. Go ahead. He was trying to steal another person's life, not just their money. By that, I mean, remember, he did. Didn't he rob his employer before he left the place where he lived. He broke through the gates of the compound. He snuck up behind her with an AK-47 while she was working, told her, I'm going to blow your effing face off. Brings her to the motel, wants to snuggle with her like she is his wife or girlfriend.

I think in some ways he wanted to be Bloomberg. He wanted to have Bloomberg's life. He wanted to have Bloomberg's money. He wanted to have Bloomberg's daughters. I know you guys are thinking about this as being financially motivated. I see it as stalking, where you want to be the other person. You want to merge into them. You want to have something they have. And if he couldn't have the daughters, Michael Bloomberg's daughters, well, I'll have the housekeeper. I've looked at pictures of her. She's an attractive, middle-aged woman. And I'm going to get her to snuggle in bed with me at night as if he is now Bloomberg, adopting his life, his customs, his housekeeper.

And, Nancy, I want to say something about this house. You know, the listeners might think of this as, oh, it's this sprawling, you know, 19,000 square foot house and nobody is there. These places are like hotels. You know, she was the head housekeeper, which means that she has dozens of housekeepers working underneath her. This house is probably fairly well staffed. There are people coming in and out. So that makes this much more, even more of a brazen act. But I think in some way he wanted to experiment with what it was like to be Bloomberg and he forced her to be like a companion to him of sorts. I didn't see that coming, Dr. Bethany, as usual. Guys, a little bit more. We're learning about what the perp said. Take a listen to our cut eight. This is Steve Stager, 9 News, Colorado. An arrest affidavit says that he asked for Bloomberg's daughters before kidnapping an employee at gunpoint on Wednesday. Joseph Beecher was arrested in a motel in Wyoming with the woman the next morning.

The affidavit says investigators found them by tracking the woman's iPad. The woman wasn't hurt, but she told police Beecher kissed her and told her if she was a man, she would be dead. At one point, she says that they stopped in the metro area to pull money out of an ATM. The woman told investigators she mouthed the words,

help me, hoping that someone would notice on a security camera. The Rio Blanco County Sheriff's Office says that Beecher had no connection to the Bloombergs or this woman. Beecher is facing federal kidnapping charges. To Tom Pateri, America's leading personal safety expert, author of Personal Protection Handbook. Tom, of course, we're not at Bloomberg's level with all of his literally billions of dollars, but we go walking. We go jogging. We take our children to the grocery store.

We have to go in and out of malls or gas stations. We're home. Some people forget to turn on their alarm or lock their doors when they're home. I've had kidnappings that have covered them and investigated them that take place in their front yard. What can people do, Tom Pateri, to avoid exactly this? One of the key things is we have to learn to, you know, increase our protective veil. What that means is, you know, our awareness cues. Number one, when we're out in public and things, stay off the cell phones. I mean, the cell phones are the biggest distraction things out there. While

you're talking, somebody's listening or somebody's looking. You know, the other thing is change your routine. You know, if you go pick up the mail every day at 9.05, you know, change that. Change the route that you go to work and things like that. Don't have a pattern for somebody that's looking to know where the vulnerability is you know the third thing is is always check and balance you know always let people know where you are when you are the problem is here we get complacent in life and we all do and then random things happen to us i mean on the celebrity end or the executive i have to say this about the bloomberg incident i'm surprised that they didn't have an impact alarm on the gate itself, that when the impact hit the gate,

that didn't go directly to the police station to know that, you know, the gate was destroyed, something's wrong at this house. You know, because a lot of things that we do at Celebrities because they have money or VIPs is different than what we do for everyday people. Impact alarm. I've never heard of that. Yeah, it's actually designed into the gate. Alexis Teresha, where does the case against Joseph Beecher rot in hell? Where does it stand right now? Well, he is in jail and they've charged him with kidnapping.

But there also will probably be charges from, as Dr. Bethany Marshall said earlier, he robbed his employer. He was working at a hotel and earlier he robbed his employer and that's where he got the gun. And so he he broke into their house. He's claiming or well, the housekeeper told the FBI that he confessed to her, that he broke into his employer's home. They got in a fight and that's where he stole the gun. Troy Slayton, I see a lot more charges coming down the pike. For instance, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, putting a machine gun in her face, kidnapping, the armed robbery of the boss. Well, the robbery of the boss of the weapon. There's a lot going on here for the prosecutors to use in charging. And if those

charges are stacked consecutively, like 20 plus 20 plus 20, he's looking at life behind bars. He is. And once the federal government is done with him, he's facing local charges in each one of the jurisdictions where he committed a crime, just barreling through the gate at the Bloomberg estate. That's breaking, entering, and burglary. It's breaking into the dwelling house of another with the intent to commit a felony therein, the definition of burglary. We wait as justice unfolds.

Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.