Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - SHOCK: 3-year-old tot girl sent to daycare ALONE in LYFT!

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

Police investigate reports from daycare staffers after they can't reach a mom that doesn't pick up her two enrolled children. Officers later arrive at the home of Stephanie Goddu finding the mom allegedly “incoherent and disoriented." That's when officers also uncover that the 34-year-old mom endangering her 3-year-old by sending the child to daycare alone using Lyft. Police also find a urine-soaked baby strapped in an infant carrier.Joining Nancy Grace today: Ashley Wilcott - Judge and trial attorney, anchor at Court TV, www.ashleywillcott.com  Dr. Jeff Gardere - Board Certified Clinical Psychologist, Prof of Behavioral Medicine at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine  www.drjeffgardere.com, Author: 'The Causes of Autism” @drjeffgardere Sheryl McCollum - Forensics Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder Daphne Young - National Chief Communications Officer, www.Childhelp.org 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. Well, I have talked till I'm blue in the face about being careful, not getting in cars with people you don't know, not accepting rides, all about personal safety. I've even written a book on it. Don't be a victim. And what does this mother do? A 34-year-old mother. She puts her little girl, a little tiny girl, into a car with a stranger and sends her off. How did she know whether that Lyft driver was a

registered sex offender, a closet perv. Who knows who he was? A kidnapper? How do I know he and his wife didn't always want a little girl just like her? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. It never ends, does it? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111.

Well, I guess I know the answer to that, Cheryl McCollum. It does never end. It will not ever end. But you know what? We can take care of this woman. What is her name? Stephanie Gadu. Take a listen to our friends at Crime Online. New Hampshire police get a call that two of Stephanie Gadu's children had not been picked up from daycare. Child care workers report they tried to call the 34-year-old mother, but were unable to reach her. Police begin an investigation, finding out Gadu also has a If there was any confusion that she had sent the 8-year-old to school alone? No, no. Let's be clear. It was the three-year-old top girl that was sent alone with a man they've never seen before in their lives. They don't know him from

Adam's house cat to who knows where. Daycare, we hope. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Every day there's a brand new way to mistreat your child, isn't there? Let me introduce to you an all-star panel to make sense of it all. First of all, James Shelnut, 27 years, Metro major case, including SWAT, now lawyer at ShelnutLawfirm.com. Renowned clinical psychiatrist, and I mean renowned, professor of behavioral medicine at Truro College, drjeffgardier.com, author of The Causes of Autism, and I think several other books on Amazon.

Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute and crime scene expert. Special guest joining me, Daphne Young, national chief communications officer at one of my favorite organizations, ChildHelp.org. But first, to the lead news anchor, WDBO, Ray Caputo. Ray, it never ends. It never ends. I used to think, Ray Caputo, as I would sit in court, once in a while I'd see Cheryl McCollum wander through as a witness. I would sit in court and I'd see about a hundred new felons every week for me to figure out, do I try them? Do I plead them? Do I cut them loose? Not likely. And I would think, will I ever see anything new under the sun?

Will it ever end? Well, obviously. Thank you, Stephanie Gadu, 34-year-old victim's mother, for proving it never will end. What happened, Ray? Well, Nancy, this is in Manchester, New Hampshire, northern New England, and this is the first Monday of the new year. Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know where I want to start. northern New England and this is the first Monday of the new year so a lot of people are getting back wait you know where I want to start where is this Manchester New Hampshire what what is that

is it residential is it all high rises when you say New England I have these thoughts of like the front of a Christmas card and a little village and snow maybe a ski slope in the back what is Manchester New Hampshire I wouldn't say that it's that idealistic, but it's the biggest metro area in northern New England. It's not far from Boston. It's like, I wouldn't call it a college town, but there are several colleges. There are a lot of young people. And, you know, bottom line, it's a nice, affordable place to live if you don't mind a little snow and cold in the winter. So when you say you wouldn't call it a college town, which colleges is it near? I know that there's a community college. I think there's a Southern New Hampshire college and there's another one. So there's like three

colleges right in that town. And not far from Boston? Not far from Boston at all. Well, see, when you say Boston, that conjures up images for me of the Freedom Trail, the Parker House where JFK proposed to Jackie, Parker House Rolls, Betsy Ross, the Illinois Church, all good things, right? So it's hard for me to get my mind around where this is. And also, it's very important to me, Ray Caputo, where the child was picked up. You go ahead. Go ahead with your story. Yeah, well, it was a Monday after New Year's, so the child gets picked up right at their house, right at their house in a residential area. The daycare is actually not far away, but the problem was is a Lyft driver, a person who had no known affiliation to that family, a complete stranger,

if you will, was the one that picked up that child and brought that little girl to daycare on Monday after New Year's. I've just learned something about Manchester, New Hampshire. It's small. The entire metro area, if you could call it that, is 109,000 people. I grew up outside of a city, Macon, Georgia, in an unincorporated area which was all rural. And the population was, I don't know, maybe about that at the time. That's a very small community and that's significant. Why, Cheryl McCollum?

Nancy, it's significant because this crime is central to this location, meaning the drugs in the area, the other sex offenders in the area. All of this is going to come into play when this woman puts this child into a lift with no care in terms of what's going to happen after that car pulls away from the house. You know, to Dr. Jeff Gardere, renowned clinical psychologist, professor of behavioral medicine, Dr. Jeff, you and I have covered a lot of cases together. We've studied a lot of cases. Have you noticed that people seem to think they have a familiarity with people they don't even know. For instance, the cashier at the grocery store, the delivery person, the person you see on TV, you think you know them. I think that I actually know certain people that I've watched for a really long time on TV. And then I find out, no, they did something crazy and it's hard to take in. What I'm getting

at is just because you order up a Lyft on your cell phone, you don't know that person. Absolutely. And let me tell you that there have been incidents where people have been attacked by some of these private companies that you get on your phone. And they have been very dangerous situations, even though my understanding is companies like Lyft and Uber and others do very strict screening, do training. There are rules that the drivers have to follow, but it's a wild card. You never know who the person is who is unstable. And we also know it's the luck of the draw as to who you get as a driver. It's not like you get the same driver every time.

So certainly putting a child in a car with an adult and an adult you don't know is very dangerous. And let me wrap that up by saying I have put my 17 or 18 year old in cars with a Lyft or Uber driver. But I made sure that I was also in the car, too, because I just don't trust that process. You mean you rode along with them or you went to the car, you looked at the driver and all that? I rode along in the car with them. And I've also looked at the driver for the 18-year-old, looked at the driver, spoke to the driver, knew who the driver was, and made sure that I tracked the driver all the way. And even then, it's not 100% safe. So doing this with a three-year-old is absolutely not just dangerous, but crazy irresponsible. Guys, we are talking about a three-year-old little tot girl being put in a lift with a man mommy has never seen in her life, much less a three-year-old, to send her to daycare.

Just let that sink in for a moment. Speaking of lift drivers, take a listen to our new friend Torsten Kuhnert an experienced driver for both Uber and Lyft truly blown away that this Lyft driver would actually take a little three-year-old boy to a day care center alone right should have refused this mother in the first place and shame on the mother for just trying to send a three-year-old off with some strange lift driver that she doesn't even know right it's not even accompanying her child both have to face charges not just the mother. You know, you've got to set standards here.

People know what they signed up with for Lyft and Uber. And that clearly, clearly breaks the law. You know, I have done some research as I found out about this mother putting her child, her three-year-old little girl on a Lyft driver. Research into attacks, alleged attacks by Lyft and Uber drivers. And we use Uber a lot, a lot. But with me, I use Uber. If I have one of the twins who are now 13, I'm with them. Like Jeff Gardier just said,s attributed to Uber and Lyft.

Woman dies after being struck by Uber driver. North Philadelphia. Florida crash. Victims. Family. Files. Negligence. Lawsuit against Seminole County Uber driver.

Oh, yep, Uber. Shoots and kills six people, wounded two others. Uber driver. Pedestrians struck by Uber driver. Uber and Uber driver sued for negligent after collision kills passenger. Wrongful death, blah, blah, blah. Being run over, attacked, hit, dragged down the street. I mean, I haven't even gotten past the first paragraph.

These are alleged incidents by drivers. And it could be Uber, it could be Lyft, it could be any one of the ride-for-pay drivers. The point is, why would you put your three-year-old child in the care of someone you've never met before, never laid eyes on them? Straight out to Daphne Young, our special guest joining us, the National Chief Communications Officer with ChildHelp.org. Daphne, so often we read about babysitters and nannies from hell that beat, torture, abuse, or kill a child. How is this different? There you're trusting a babysitter or a nanny. Here you're

trusting a man who statistically males commit more violent acts than women with your baby girl. Who's to say he's not going to drive off with her and never be seen again? Well, this is absolutely horrific. And to put your child in the hands of any stranger just defies logic. But I'm going to go one step further and say the danger was coming from inside the house. And we know that the majority of abuse is by someone the child knows. And looking at this story, looking at these mug shots, doing a little research into this area, you had an entire community. You know, as you were discussing, where are they located? I also thought, was this a rural farmhouse?

And it was a complex with neighbors and there was a playground across the street. And I thought, how many eyes have been on these children? How many people have seen this disheveled figure walking through the neighborhood or shoving a child in a lift in an area where, you know, in a small town where neighbors talk? And it bothered me to no end that this mother did this act, that this lift driver took the child and apparently didn't just go straight to a police station. But there's so many people that I hope made a call or reported this circumstance because this is not a one-off. You do not shove your child in an Uber in a urine-soaked blanket as a one-off. Guys, let me go to Rick Caputo on this WDBO. How did cops find out about the woman basically farming her three-year-old little girl out to a Lyft driver? Well, this is the scary part.

It wasn't the actual act of the Lyft driver bringing the kids to school. It was like two days later when Ms. Gadu didn't pick up her kids from school. She just left them at daycare. So the daycare calls police saying, Mom's not picking up these two kids. And that's when police go to the house and at that moment learned about the Lyft driver bringing the other child to school on a Monday. So it wasn't the day that it happened. It was like two days later that police catch wind of it. I don't know if Mommy would have even known if the baby didn't come home that day at all.

Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Officers had a major concern after visiting Stephanie Gaudu's home. They found her month-old baby strapped to an infant carrier seat. The child was wearing extremely warm clothing and covered with a blanket. What's more, there reports that the carrier was not more than six feet away from a heater. There were concerns that the child could overheat. The child was also found to be soaked in urine. The condition of the infant and the unsupervised ride to daycare

led police to charge Gaudu. The child also found soaked in urine. James Shelnut, 27 years Metro major case, including SWAT, now lawyer at Sh ShellNotLawFirm.com. James, how many times did you go to a crime scene as a cop and look around and just see the children in squalor? Many, many times. You walk into an apartment or walk into a home and it's just unbelievable that people can live like that. And you have these innocent victims, these innocent little children who they have no control over it.

They're forced to live in this environment. It's heartbreaking. You know what, Cheryl McCollum? My grandmother, Lucy, helped raise me when my mother would go to work. She lived in a wooden house on an old farm with a rusty tin roof. My great-grandmother lived in a mobile home, a trailer pulled up on the farm property, property. And I've never seen floors and tables as clean as they were in my grandmother's and my granny's house. I remember going over to my granny's house, a little bitty lady. I always wore a white apron with her hair back in a bun, and I would thread needles for her because she still sewed, but she couldn't see to thread the needles.

And I would thread 20 or 30 needles and then poke them into a pin cushion that looked like a tomato for her. And God help whoever tracked dirt, left dust, anything in either one of those two homes. My grandmother would even sweep the walkway leading up to her front porch. Front porch as it was, an old wooden home with a rusty tin roof. Now, if they could provide that clean, loving home for us, why is this child left soaked in urine, strapped in, covered in a blanket by a space heater? You know what came to my mind? Nancy, there was one night you and I were working at a domestic in Thomasville. Oh, Lord. As we got there, the parents were just yelling and screaming at each other still. And each one was trying to tell their side of how the other one had, you know, done great harm to them.

There was a little fella sitting on the floor playing with a matchbox truck. And he's just like, you know, making the sounds of a truck. and he's just like you know making the sounds of a truck and he's just playing and what struck you and i was how normal this was for him he wasn't even affected by the police being there he wasn't affected by his parents yelling and screaming he was just playing so again for this child maybe this wasn't the first lift they took alone maybe this wasn't the first lift they took alone. Maybe this wasn't the first time the school had seen somebody they didn't know drop the child off. They might not even know it was a lift driver. You know, sometimes they just come out and take the child and walk them into school.

This might be normal for them because their mother clearly is a drug addict. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we are talking about dodging a bullet. Dodging a bullet. Now, maybe I've seen too much crime. Maybe I've been on too many crime scenes. But I know this. When you send your three-year-old little girl off with a stranger, you are courting heartbreak and disaster. But that is what happened. According to police, 34-year-old Stephanie Gaudu sends off her little tot to daycare, play school, with a Lyft driver she's never seen. And cops only find out about this by chance. Take a listen to Tyler Hunt at Crime Online. These charges are not the first time Gaudu has been in trouble with the law.

In 2015, an infant was found dead in Stephanie Gaudu, then known as Stephanie Carmelo's, apartment. News reports say the woman was found on the bathroom floor, drooling and with dilated pupils. During that investigation, police alleged that Gaudu often put the baby in the care of her eight-year-old daughter. She was also accused of putting a blanket over the infant's face on several occasions. WMUR 9 reported court documents as stating the eight-year-old was expected to feed, change, and care for the baby overnight. Gaudu was never specifically

charged with her newborn's 2015 death, but was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one count of reckless conduct. You know, what I don't understand right there, Ray Caputo, WDBO, is why on that occasion Stephanie Gadu was not charged. It's murder. I know everybody in the studio is shuddering that I said murder, but it's felony murder. When you are in the act of a felony, in this case, felony child neglect, and a death occurs, whether you meant the child to die or not,

if a death occurs during a felony, that's felony murder. Why does she still have children in the home with her? Well, Nancy, your guess is as good as mine. And the only thing I could speculate is that, you know, these people who come in and look at the parents and decide whether they're going to take their parenting rights away, that's a big deal. And it's a cost-benefit.

Is the cost of pulling kids away from their parents who they know are benefits. You've already got one dead baby. Did he actually say the words cost benefit analysis did you say that ray caputo because jackie does not want to rat you out a cost benefit analysis with a dead baby i did but let me be clear i think this woman should have never seen another child she should never have seen the light of day much less another child there you go again daphne young national chief communications officer ChildHelp.org. I will scream it out in the wilderness yet again. I might as well roll the window down on 3rd Avenue

and yell it out the window. But CPS leaves another child in a home. You've got a mom not picking up her children, not taking them, ignoring them, as you described earlier, what neighbors saw what. And now we find out there is a dead baby in her history. Absolutely. Nancy, you know, you're good friends with our founders, Sarah and Yvonne, who've been doing this work for over 60 years. And one of their great heartbreaks when you talk to them is the system. Time and time again, they said, we can do everything. We can bring these children in covered in lice and scabies and dirt, clean them, care for them, give them therapy, nurture them. But if you have kids that keep getting back into the system, keep getting back to those parents, if there's not enough oversight, if the laws don't change, then we have no legal right to hold them despite getting every lawyer and every doctor and everybody we can possibly put on the case.

And it is heartbreaking. That's why we're so adamant about doing amazing interviews and making sure that they are fail safe. So when we give that case to a lawyer, they have everything they need to nail them to the wall because it breaks our heart. When a kid comes back through that system time and time again, you just increase the chance for that child to one day show up as a statistic, the one in five kids that die every day from abuse. One in five children.

You know, Cheryl McCollum, I dream of a day when CPS, Child Protective Services, DFACS, Department of Family and Children's Services, are held responsible for leaving children like this in a home. Can you imagine leaving your baby in the care of an eight-year-old child? Cheryl, you know, I don't know if you remember this, but I used to tell the children when they were little, turn the lights out. No, no, no.

It was worse than me just telling them. I would make Dave and my husband sneak out and ring the doorbell at 8 o'clock and go, shh, it's D-A-X, Department of Family and Children's Services. They know you're still awake. Do you want mommy arrested for child neglect? No, get in the bed right now and cut the light off. If they see the light on, they'll know you're in the bedroom with the light on. And I remember they'd say, mommy, do they walk around the house and look?

And I'm like, yes, of course they do. And I happened to pull up a picture do you remember the child catcher on uh what was the movie was it um Chitty Chitty Bang Bang yes and I happened to insinuate that that was defects looking for children that were out on their own and um and it like thank goodness it lasted a long time when they were up in the fourth and fifth grade. I'm like, we've got to wash your hair. Why, mom? If DFAX finds out that I'm sending you to school without your hair washed and shiny, they'll arrest mommy and put her in jail for child neglect. Oh, how I wish, you know, forget about the hair washing and the staying

up late. What about the mistreated children? I mean, how could they not take the children away from this mother once they find one dead baby in the home? I think it's going to be a simple search of her Lyft activity, talking to people at the school. I'm going to tell you again, this isn't the first time that child took a trip in a lift by themselves. Can you imagine at three years old trying, trying to put Lucy in a car by herself to go somewhere? She would have had a fit. I took all I could do.

She would still be talking about that. She would still be talking about that. She would still be talking about that traumatic experience. Of course. Another thing that Cheryl McCullough mentioned earlier to you, Dr. Jeff Gardier, board-certified clinical psychologist joining me out of New York today, is the sense of normalcy. She described a scene that she and I saw early in our careers of a child just sitting there playing with his car while his parents, after we were already

on the scene, were still yelling and screaming. Dr. Gardere, did you ever see Cops, the show Cops? Yes. Okay. There would be a scene where there'd be a guy sitting on his easy chair drinking a beer watching TV, and suddenly SWAT would break in and start running through the house, and he would just sit there still watching TV drinking And suddenly SWAT would break in and start running through the house. And he would just sit there still watching TV, drinking his beer. And that always struck me that he didn't think there was anything unusual about that because it was so normal. It was a SOP, standard operating

procedure. How many times have these children been abused, neglected, or mistreated, not fed, not bathed? How many times have this baby been left soaked in urine for hours on end, strapped in a car seat by a space heater? How many times have they been ignored until it was S.O.P.? Mm-hmm. Mm hmm. Well, what we're really seeing here is the level of damage that these parents have their pathology in that what we call in psychology, egocentronic, meaning they just go along to get along. They don't see anything is wrong. And so when they are approached by neighbors or by Child Protective Services, they're like, what, what? No, there's nothing wrong here. Everything is OK.

But that speaks to the pathology where they're not able to recognize that they are involved in child abuse, child neglect, and therefore they don't ask for help. In some ways, and I know this is going to sound strange, Nancy, but thank God that she called that lift driver because that sent a clear signal to someone, hey, something is going on in this house. We need to find out what's happening because this abuse in the home could have gone on for years and years and years and no one would have known. And I just don't know how the system failed the children in that house after that first incident where someone was found dead in her home. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, a 34-year-old mother sends her three-year-old baby girl with a man she never met, a Lyft driver, to drop off at daycare. While mommy what? Laid home? In the bottle? Who knows?

But it's not the first time cases like this have made headlines. Take a listen to our friends at WWL New Orleans. A New Orleans bounce artist was arrested in St. Bernard Parish after she allegedly sent her five-year-old child alone in a ride-sharing service. Rihanna Oliver, a bounce artist known as Game Over Reedy, told the driver to take the child from a home in Chalmette to a school in New Orleans. That driver told Oliver that he could not give a ride to a child without an adult, but she went back inside the home. The driver then took the child to the

St. Bernard Sheriff's substation in Araby. Oliver was booked with child desertion. Child desertion. James Chalmette, 27 years Metro Major case, SWAT, now lawyer. James Chalmette explained the desertion charge. Well, you know, you've got several different types of abuse that is legal. You've got active abuse, which is what we commonly think of as someone, you know, punching or hitting a child or physically, sexually abusing a child. And then you have passive abuse that can be illegal as well, which is failed to provide proper care and adequate supervision for a child. And that's what that would fall in.

Guys, take a listen to the host of Breakfast Club Power 105.1 FM. to provide proper care and adequate supervision for a child. And that's what that would fall in. Guys, take a listen to the host of Breakfast Club Power 105.1 FM, Charlemagne. Game over, Reedy. Listen, we live in this era where child trafficking is at an all-time high in America. I don't know if it's at an all-time high, but I do know 1.2 million people are trafficked each year. Okay, why are you making it easy for them? All right, there is nothing a five-year-old is capable of doing without adult supervision. Not to mention the way my anxiety is set up, the way my parental paranoia works, the way I constantly worry about the safety of all three of my children.

I need to know how you as a parent felt comfortable putting your five-year-old in a lift with a total stranger. That's what the driver was. Well, Charlemagne, the host of Breakfast Club Power, is absolutely right. Yet it has happened again. Straight back out to Daphne Young, National Chief Communications Officer with one of my favorite organizations, ChildHelp.org. He's right. Tell me about child sex trafficking.

Well, the scary thing is your child has a better chance to be trafficked by someone you know, someone in that household, one of the rotating boyfriends that comes in when somebody's a drug addict. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. There's nobody rotating in this house. Uh-uh. Nobody's rotating. Not my house. I'm hardly at my husband's end. I make a show I do at the front door. The you is not Nancy Grace here, but I'm talking about, you know, when these children are at risk. You know, one of the things that you probably model strongly for your kids is parental resilience. They know mommy's story. They know to some degree, they know what you've been through. They know your advocacy. they know what you've been through. They know your advocacy. So in a sense, you start to you impart that strength to them.

When a child is with a parent that is falling down drunk, a drug addict who maybe even considers themselves a victim and maybe of domestic violence and other elements. These kids are so unresilient and they start off with all these deficits. And then you have, you know, who knows what kind of boyfriends or drug deliveries come around. And they look for those vulnerable children. They look for a mother whose hair is disheveled, eyes are bleary and is falling down drunk. And they know, I've got hours with these kids while she's passed out. So I actually am less afraid. I'm totally afraid of all the strangers that they're, you know, where people put their kids in danger like that. But I'm less afraid of that Lyft driver who is doing his regular job, especially the one that took that child

directly to the sheriff's office. That one's a hero. And I'm way more afraid of mom, the boyfriends, who she's meeting online, who she's getting drug deliveries from, who she's leaving her kids with, an eight-year-old at home with a little child and a neighbor knows about it. These are crimes of opportunity that these children are open to, and it breaks my heart. Take a listen again to our friend Charlemagne at Breakfast Club Power 105.1 FM. She said she wasn't feeling well and said that she had been told that it was okay to do that. All right. Here's the thing about being a parent, and I can only speak on this because I am indeed a parent.

It's not about you. All right. You don't get sick days when you're a parent. Am I lying? Nope. Okay. Yesterday I tried to lay around the house all day, but my three-year-old wasn't having it. Okay?

My daughter wanted to play Nintendo. I got to play Nintendo. My daughter wants to play Pimple Pete board game. I got to play Pimple Pete board game. My daughter wants to play Barbie Dreamhouse. I got to play Barbie Dreamhouse. Okay? The moral of the story is, no matter how tired I was, no matter how I was feeling, what my

child wanted to do came first. And game over, Reedy, that's what being a parent is all about. OK, if you didn't feel well, call the Lyft, get in with your child, make sure your child gets to school and then have the Lyft bring you back home. What's so difficult about that? What is so difficult about that? But guess what? It happens all the time. Take a listen to Chelsea Edwards, News 10, Killeen, Texas. Uber and Lyft drivers tell us they get regular requests from nearby schools.

During the day when school lets out, I guarantee you people are telling Uber or Lyft to go pick up their kids. It might be a matter of convenience or lack of options. Some of the drivers may not report it because they want, you know, that's their income. Pete drives for both services and doesn't want to show his face. He says he's even had to call a mom at three in the morning when her 13-year-old requested a ride. Her mother was angry with me because she was going to have to get her clothes on and miss her TV show to come get her daughter. Back to Ray Caputo, WDBO. What is the evidence, if any, that this mother had anything to do with drugs or alcohol? Well, I mean, look at her mugshot, Nancy.

She looks disheveled, but we have all kinds of reports that she's incoherent, that she just wasn't acting right. So, I mean, I don't have toxology results. I don't know if they forced her to take a drug test or get a breathalyzer, but clearly she's on something. And my guess would be alcohol and possibly a combination of maybe prescription pills. Well, we can speculate until we're blue in the face, like I said at the get-go. But we don't know this mother was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time. But we do know she had the wherewithal to call Lyft to pick up her three-year-old child.

Back to Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute and crime scene expert. You know what situations like you, I mean, I've had cases where a grandma lets the child play in the front yard and they're grabbed, they're taken, they're killed. Cases where, let's talk about Adam Walsh. He was a couple of rows over from his mom in a Sears and he ended up taken and murdered. Let's look at Cher at cherish these are all off the top of my head cherish periwinkle um her mom meets a good samaritan in a walmart superstore and they go to the front of the store to get the mac the hamburgers within the store she's never seen alive again it's people that you think you have some connection with,

but you don't have a connection with the Lyft driver. No, but I want to be real clear. The Lyft driver did the right thing. He protected the child. The mama is the one that has failed this child. And I'll tell you something else. We don't even know that she's the one that did the Lyft driver. It could have been the eight-year-old or the 11-year-old that did that on mama's cell phone. Well, you know what? You're right about that. Both of my children know how to use my phone to get an Uber. They know how to do that. Our children are self-sufficient. If they're going to eat, they make it. If they're going to get to school, they figure out how to do it because mama is MIA. And I'll tell you something else.

If this was Nancy Grace's case, I know something that would happen in that courtroom. Mama in 2015 became a nurse's assistant. And I know that you would blow that certificate up big as Dallas and let everybody in the courtroom look at it because everybody in God and country needs to know not only does mama know better, she's been trained to care for other people. Guys, I'm going to leave you with something significant. Take a listen to our Cut 13 from KETV Omaha. It is shocking. Even seasoned law enforcement officers are stunned. The 13-year-old Kansas girl ended up at the Bellevue home of registered sex offender Nicholas Avery.

For a young child, a 13-year-old, to get into a stranger's vehicle in the middle of the night and be transported for hours into a different state. Bellevue police say 34-year-old Avery met the girl on social media sites and that he ordered and paid for the ride with Lyft, a trip that was almost 200 miles across state lines. You're charged with a felony count. Avery appeared before a Sarpy County judge Monday, charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child. The Shawnee County, Kansas Sheriff's Office tells me it is investigating the Lyft driver. It's unclear what happened between the girl and the driver and why she ended up in Nebraska.

Lyft and Uber claim they do not, it's their policy not to allow solo riders under 18, but obviously it's happening. 13-year-old girl delivered on a silver platter to a registered sex offender. That's what I'm talking about. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.