Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Shocking revelations in 3-year-old Mariah Woods’ murder case

Episode Date: July 23, 2018

The full autopsy report on the death of little Mariah Woods reveals shocking details of how the toddler was murdered and then dumped in garbage bags in a swamp. Nancy Grace explores the latest revelations fro a series of documents just released by investigators. Her expert panel includes pathologist & medical examiner Dr. Michelle DuPre, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, New York psychologist Caryn Stark, Atlanta lawyer and juvenile judge Ashley Willcott, and Jacksonville Daily News reporter Mike McHugh. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Use promo code Nancy for your special discount. That's promo code Nancy. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. A little girl goes missing and a desperate search ensues to find her. After days of searching, her body is found in a creek miles away from her home. How did that happen? Right now, we have obtained the autopsy report in relation to the little girl, Mariah Woods. What does it reveal? Also, inside information regarding a potential prosecution. It's all happening right now. I'm Nancy Grace. This is

Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Let's go straight out to Jacksonville Daily News reporter Mike McHugh. Let's start at the beginning when Mariah goes missing. She lived in a very small dwelling with her mother, the mother's boyfriend, and her brothers. The brothers are a little bit older than her. Remind our listeners, Mike, about how Mariah goes missing. Well, Mariah goes missing by a phone call from the male occupant of the house, Earl Kimrey, around 6.30 a.m. on November 27th, stating that the three-year-old Mariah Woods is missing from their dwelling. And that begins a quick mobilization of law enforcement as well as military personnel from nearby Camp Lejeune.

Boy, it really did. Mike McHugh, before you go any further, we've got that 911 call, which I always love to play for juries because, you know, a jury can hear what the lawyers say the defense the prosecutor the judge the witnesses but when you play a 9-1-1 call it transports everybody back to the moment the beginning of the timeline and the disappearance of little mariah listen i'll go county 9-1-1 emergency yes ma'am i'm at at 12. Dustin Gavin Road, lot seven. We're going to repeat that for verification. 24 05 lot seven.

Dustin Gavin Rose. Tell me exactly what happened. So she wrote it. No words be found. We looked everywhere in our house and She's three years old. Okay, so let me get some information from you, okay? Yes, ma'am. All right, so when was the last time you seen her? We went to bed last night. Everyone went to bed at the same time. Okay, so what happened? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. All right. The last time you've seen her with a bed last night, everyone's ever went to bed at the same time. And what time is that? Sir? Maybe eight o'clock. 8 30.

All right. Let's get this information. And you looked in the bedroom, under the bed and everywhere, sir? Not able to... The closet's under and everywhere we went to the house, two or three cops. In the yard. It's not like her to go outside at all. Not in the middle of the night, in the morning, by herself. Yes, and does she have a physical, medical, or medical condition we need to be aware of? She has muscular dystrophy. She falls, she falls down a lot, that's it.

Otherwise, she's perfectly able. Okay. Let's take a break right there because it is striking me right off the bat. With me, Dr. Michelle Dupree, a renowned pathologist and medical examiner. Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert, author of Blood Beneath My Feet and professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. Veteran New York psychologist Karen Stark and juvenile judge, founder of childcrimewatch.com, Ashley Wilcock, along with Jacksonville Daily News reporter Mike McHugh. Ashley, he's so out of breath.

See, knowing what I know now and now listening to his 911 call with 20-20 hindsight, yeah, I know why he's all out of breath, because he just hit her body at the bottom of a creek. Come on, Ashley, really all the breathing. I mean, the jury is going to roll their eyes when they hear this. Yeah, I completely agree with you. And like you said, the benefit of a prosecution playing a 911 tape like that is it gets not only the facts out, but the emotion. It's going to draw that jury in to say, you piece of you know what, what in the heck are you doing? You just don't want to get caught. I mean, the breathing, I think he's going to have a fake hyperventilation.

But Mike McHugh, we've all listened to his 911 call. The big news now is we've got our mitts on the autopsy report as well as your inside information into a potential prosecution. Let's start with the autopsy report. Mike McHugh, Jacksonville Daily News reporter. We've been waiting for this and I've got a lot of questions about this autopsy report. Mike McHugh, what is the cause of death? Well, the cause of death on the autopsy report was listed as chloroform toxicity. And we had heard that before from official sources. But what was so striking and probably so heinous in the report itself was the way in which the body was disposed. Mariah Woods, she weighed 28 pounds. She was three years old. The body described in

the autopsy was wrapped in three white plastic trash bags tied around her neck. The body was then placed inside an empty couch cushion and then taken down to a watery area 21 miles from their house. It's a tributary to the Cape Fear River. And there were cement, pieces of cement placed inside the couch cushion to keep the object submerged in the water and on the bottom. Okay, we are taking a hard look at the live-in boyfriend who was, quote, dating the three-year-old tot's mom christy woods and i'm just going to put this out there how did she not know that her three-year-old child was dead from chloroform toxicity which i'm going to get to our experts on in just a sec. How do you not know where your

child is and that they're dead and that they're being stuffed in a couch cushion cover with cement blocks? Well, that's the million-dollar question, Nancy, and to describe the dwelling in which they lived, they're separated from their neighbors by approximately 20 or 30 feet. There's no vegetation around the house. I mean, they're pretty wide open, but three bedrooms, living area, and a kitchen. It doesn't take long to go through that dwelling and looking for somebody. For that matter, hearing something that occurs on the other side of the house is probably pretty easy to listen to, too. Absolutely, Mike McHugh, absolutely.

And, you know, I've argued to a lot of juries before, and I think that if I were to try this case, I would get a dummy. And I don't mean a dummy that I can pick up and throw up in the air like most courtroom dummies are. I mean a dummy that weighs the amount that Mariah weighed, which is woefully underweight. I think she is anyway. And have a person demonstrate in front of the jury what you would have to do to stuff a body, dead weight, 28 pounds or more, into a sofa cushion, then weight down the cement blocks, cement chunks in there, and then bind it in some way. Have the child double wrapped in trash bags like she's trash.

Then get it into a vehicle and then get it out of the vehicle and put it in a creek. Because what that says to me is state of mind. State of mind. MO, modus operandi, method of operation. What mind does it take to take a child's body and perform what I just laid out for you? What cold blood ran through the killer's veins as he did this to a three-year-old little girl. Is there anything more precious than a three-year-old little baby, a child? I can't think of anything. But what mind did that? What person did that?

Because to me, that shows course of conduct. To Dr. Michelle Dupree, pathologist, medical examiner. What exactly is chloroform toxicity? And I got to speculate, why did he want this child hidden? What was their signs of sex abuse as had been alleged in formal documents? What did he want hidden so badly what is the toxicity dr dupree chloroform toxicity is basically um dying from chloroform in this case because it's an inhalant it's a solvent um the child must inhale enough chloroform in order to pass out and then eventually they will die from that and that is what it is and And you can tell that how Dr. Michelle Dupree how can you look at a dead body that's been submerged in water or at a creek bed for this period of time how can you tell chloroform toxicity?

Well Nancy we do that by actually examining the body when we do the autopsy we look at the organs in the body particularly the lungs and we can tell that. We can also tell by doing toxicology reports on lungs and fluids in the body. But I mean, you look at the lungs. If I were to look at lungs right now, what could I see with the naked eye that would tell me, oh, this is chloroform toxicity? We would get the chloroform toxicity from the blood, but we would look at the lungs because she was submerged in water. We would need to rule out drowning as a particular kind of cause of death. So we look at the lungs.

They were in relatively good shape considering everything. And the toxicity comes from the blood sample and the toxicology results from that. Okay, if you can boil this down, this is forensics for dummies for me. Let me ask you something. You inhale chloroform to the point it's poisonous to your body like breathing in carbon dioxide. Yes. And you die. How does what you breathe in show up in your blood?

Because as we breathe in, the blood circulates through our body, circulates through the lungs, and those metabolites and things that are in the chloroform will come out in that, much as if you inhale carbon dioxide or any other kind of inhalant. What about nicotine like cigarettes? Same thing. Okay. So you can look at somebody's blood and tell if they're a smoker or if they're smoked pot or if they inhaled carbon monoxide or whatever the case

may be, right? Well, we look at all kinds of things. We do look at the blood, but in cigarettes, we can tell by looking at the lungs because deposits are left in the lungs from the nicotine. Okay. Joe Scott Morgan, what else can we learn from the circumstances surrounding her death? Because you know, a medical examiner or a death investigator, you're the death investigator, death investigators don't just look at the forensics from the body itself. They look at surrounding circumstances, and those circumstances often play into a coroner's decision as to manner of death, right? So what are we looking at? Yeah, the one thing that we haven't touched on or that I

haven't heard the police touch on at this point, and I don't know that we necessarily will, is did he have the components within his home in order to make chloroform? I think that that's going to be key here. Please, if top mom Casey Anthony could allegedly make it, who couldn't? Come on, please. Yeah, yeah. what do you need to make chloroform well you're gonna have to have acetone which is the uh you know the folks at the shoe cleaners nail polish yeah it's like nail polish yeah and it it can it's nail polish remover actually and acetone is used uh as a paint remover. And then. Okay, stop, stop, stop. You're bringing back one of my first memories. When my grandmother, Lucy Minerva, was helped raising us.

One of my, not my very first, but a first memory was my sister and I would always go to her house at night to watch Miss America or Miss USA or whatever. The Miss whatever was going to be. And paint Mama, my my grandmother Lucy's fingernails and I remember the first time I smelled fingernail polish remover I thought it was the worst thing I had ever smelled translation can you imagine soaking a rag funny how that little childhood memory is turning into part of a murder investigation soaking a rag. Funny how that little childhood memory is turning into part of a murder investigation. Soaking a rag with nail polish and holding it over this child's nose. Would that do the trick or what else do you need for chloroform? Well, you would also need to have bleach as well in

order to facilitate this. So they're very simply acquired items that can facilitate this. Wait a minute, that's all I need? Fingernail polish and bleach and I have chloroform? Well, yeah, you'd have to mix it correctly. But yeah, that's essentially the base elements here. You know, and think about chloroform, Nancy, the history of it. We talk about, you know, chloroform was initially used as an anesthetic to take people, you know, to knock people out for surgery. But even in the primitive way in

which that was done way back then, when they would administer chloroform, the physicians back then could measure out how it was done. We're talking about a three-year-old little girl in some little tiny house, and he's pouring it onto a rag. You know, you and I can take in certain substances, and they're not going to impact our body as much as they will the body of a three-year-old little angel like this. Guys, I hope that Dr. Michelle Dupree and Joe Scott Morgan and I aren't going DEFCON 4 with the cause of death here. But, I mean, this is what a jury is going to be talking about. This is what's going to be presented to a jury.

What we're talking about right now, because I have in my hands right now, the autopsy report for three-year-old Mariah Woods, and I am beside myself. Mike McHugh, Jacksonville Daily News reporter. I've noticed, I'm cuing in with myself here, because I've noticed there is no histologic evidence of anal or vaginal trauma, which says to me that she was not molested before her death. No, if I could, Nancy, could I circle back to what Mr. Morgan was explaining just there? Oh, please do. Please. As he was talking, I was looking at some court documents.

Actually, it's the search warrants that were issued on December 6th of the home. And I'm looking at some of the itemized stuff that was taken from the home. And I'm just reading here, four bleach bottles, a syringe, nail polish removerover and a white pipe with nozzle on it but those are among the 36 items that were taken from the home again four bleach bottles a syringe and nail polish remover interesting okay hold the horses hold the horses mike mchugh you know what i love mike i love court love court documents. I do too. And I think that's why I used to, I loved writing appeals, believe it or not. Before I was a trial lawyer and I would, my elected DA, Mr. Slayton would occasionally rotate me back through or I

would handle all my own appeals. I love reading court documents. I love reading search warrant returns. I love reading a search warrant, which tells me what they're looking for. And then the return is what they bring back. They have to list it. And you can really learn a lot if you will sit down and take the time to comb through it. Because you've just given me an arsenal of ammunition. Right. Did you hear that, Ashley Wilcott?

They got nail polish remover, syringes, and what was the other thing, Mike McHugh? The other thing was four bleach bottles. They don't describe the size of it, but it's four bleach bottles, syringe, nail polish remover, and a white pipe with nozzle on it. They're just listed here. They're in no particular order they're not alpha order numeric they're just randomly just placed there in the search warrant a white pipe with a nozzle on Wilcott, trial lawyer, juvenile judge, childcrimewatch.com founder, weigh in. So here's the thing, Nancy, not only does that show that he had all the ingredients to make the chloroform that killed this child, it also for the prosecution specifically proves what premeditation. was premeditated this was

not an accidental uh-oh he went out bought these items and like joe scott already said he would have to figure out via google or online hey how do i properly mix these do that and then kill this child hey guys uh as we're talking to Ashley Wilcott about this, we're going to weigh back in with Dr. Karen Stark out of Manhattan. But remember, this is a 3-year-old little girl that only weighed about 28 pounds. Remember, when her body was found, she was not wearing her special shoes, medical shoes that were designed to allow her to correctly walk. Remember, she had muscular dystrophy.

What could be more helpless than this little girl, who should have been safe in her own home with mommy, suffering from muscular dystrophy? That tells me that she was in the home when she was killed or taken. She didn't have on her little shoes to go outside. And with this knowledge, I want you to listen again to the live-in boyfriend, 911. And do you know anywhere that she might go at all? Neighbors or anywhere?

We don't. We have no idea. We don't have any neighbors that are friendly. Okay. Has she been missing before? Yeah, ma'am. Okay. Did you see personal? I was taking like a blanket or teddy bear that she might have. You said this is her. You said this is her. No, nothing. She said, she said. Well, her first caretaker was almost a two-year-old

laying on her floor. What's on her floor? She said it was almost a two-year-old laying on her floor. Did you know about a recent law that could leave your personal data exposed online for anybody to find? If you've turned on the news lately, you know the Internet has created a dangerous new world. Data breaches expose private information. There's a new cybersecurity threat every other day.

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Truthfinder the ultimate tool in identity protection. If your personal info appears for sale on the dark web, you'll be the first to know. Visit truthfinder.com slash Nancy. Enter your own name. Get started. Has she been missing before, sir? No, no, no. Okay.

Okay. Did you see any personal items taken, like a blanket or a teddy bear that she might have? What? You said this is her. You said this is her. No, nothing. She said, she said, what's on the floor? She said that this almost like you put her so you're fading out, sir. I mean, hello, can you hear me now? Yes, sir. Now what were you saying? She said that the pajamas she put her in are laying beside her bed. Okay, so she's not in the pajamas.

They're they're they her pink pajamas? Interesting. Guys, in the last hours, we have obtained the official autopsy report for 3-year-old Mariah Woods. We joined in a search trying to find Mariah. But she goes missing out of a very small family home. I can relate to that I showed my children the last time we were making where I grew up and they went well where's the house I'm like that is the house that and they just looked and of course they're they're so sweet and polite they didn't dream of saying mommy it looks like a shed. But yes, so my point is, it's hard for a murder to occur in stuffing this child's body into trash bags, double bagged and stuffed into a sofa cushion full of cement chunks to weight it down and getting that into a creek.

How'd that happen with mommy not knowing a thing the autopsy report right in front of me as we learn information from inside the investigation about a potential prosecution we were just hearing and it was just so ironic to me karen stark joining me dr michelle dupree joseph scott morgan ashley wilcott, and Mike McHugh from Jacksonville Daily News. Karen, the 911 operator who seems just incredibly and oddly calm, okay, asked if she was a favorite item with missing, such as a blanket or a teddy bear. And you can hear a long pause. It's almost like, darn, I didn't think of of that i can't think of you know hiding her body with her favorite teddy you know he he waits there's a long pause

as he tries to figure that one out karen well he's he's clearly lying about everything that he's saying nancy and that long pause it did it it just caught him off guard because we're talking about something so tender and sweet and makes this little girl kind of live her teddy bear and this guy can't begin to think about what happened to the teddy bear should he have hid the teddy bear i mean a very basic question like that. And if you look at the autopsy report, it also talks about the fact that she was found with abrasions and, you know, seems to have been harmed, something wrong with her skull. And it makes you think that, I mean, she was hurt. So where was the mother while all of this was going on? You know what? I'm following

right up on that. You're now on the second page, Karen Stark. You leaped ahead of me in the autopsy report, but you're absolutely right. To medical examiner, Dr. Michelle Dupree, we see a normally developed central nervous system for her age, but I can tell you where the defense is going to go with this. They're going to go with early acute pneumonia. She had early acute pneumonia. But, okay, that doesn't explain when your child has pneumonia, you don't stuff it in trash bags and put it in a sofa cushion at the bottom of a creek also early acute pneumonia does not explain cerebral swelling with hypoxic ischemic changes consistent with global hypoxia ischemia prior to death i guess that's meaning that when

you see cerebral swelling i always think of a blow to the head. But here is the swelling of the brain because of the chloroform poisoning? That's right, Nancy. It's because the hypoxic injury causes the symmetrical swelling of the brain. An injury would probably cause an asymmetrical. And we don't see any acute injuries actually on the skull or the head there are some subgaleal hemorrhages which does indicate a bit of trauma and there are the bruises and the contusions that were on the child's face and those have to come pre-mortem because

once you're dead and you get hit you don't bruise because the blood's not running through your body anymore there's no there are no blood cells to um hurt which causes a bruise it's your your blood cells are smashed and they you see a bruising under the skin but if your blood's not pumping that's why you know you shoot a dead body it doesn't bleed there's not any blood pumping through the body nor does it bruise now i know that's just a a dummy down explanation but is that true dr michelle dupree you can't bruise somebody once they're dead yes fancy you're exactly right um and also that doesn't explain the chloroform in the child's bloodstream there's acute epidural hematomas. Hematomas are bruises. Epidural.

Yes. Epidural. What's epidural? Epidural is actually the covering over the brain. Ah. So there's a thin covering over the brain. So that's where that hematoma is. Then right ventricle cervical spinal cord acute bruising.

What does that mean, Dr. Michelle? In this case, they're actually looking at this, and the physician was not able to tell if this was post-mortem or artifact or actually before death. So this could have been caused after death. Now, let me ask you, Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics,

Jacksonville State University, what more in the autopsy report of three-year-old Mariah Woods leaps out at you? I think that the physician is saying that there is an absence of any kind of vaginal trauma on her and also anal trauma. And, you know, we were talking about potential, you know, sexual abuse. What's the driver behind all of this? And so I don't really know if anything is there relative to that. So that's going to be an investigative issue where they're going to have to try to get that information out of him. What about this, Joe Scott Morgan?

Yes, ma'am. Let's think here a minute. Think. Thinky, thinky. Hold on. Think, people. Think. Ashley Wilcott, remember when you and I combed through the DFAX Department of Family and Children's Services reports where the boys reportedly told their bio dad

that they had observed the live-in boyfriend, Earl Kimrey, forcing the little girl to have oral sex. As I recall, I don't have the document in front of me, but that's what I remember. And her face has bruises and abrasions on it. Right. Think about it. Yeah. So, Nancy, that would explain why they didn't find any injuries to the vaginal area if she's giving him oral sex. And there are bruises and marks and injuries all over the face.

And I just have to say and jump in and change the subject a tiny bit. How could this mother not have known? When I talk about prevention of child abuse, which is one of my hot topics, listen, if my husband came home with that much bleach and acetone, I'd be like, what the heck is this for? Number one. Number two, injuries to the face. Number three, two boys in the home disclose the things, the atrocities that he's committing on this little tiny girl number four look at all those steps he took to hide the body putting her in a couch cushion that had to come from the home i cannot believe that this mother did not know what he

that half the sofa was missing if i came home and half the sofa was gone, I would notice. Okay. I would notice, you know, I don't know if it's the way in your house, Ashley, but when we finish supper and we get everything put away, everybody sits down in the den and they either finish whatever projects, homework, or I'm on the computer, blah, blah, blah. We always sit amazingly in the same spots, unless the children are fighting over the chair beside me and if john david and the dog who usually get on the sofa if there's not a sofa cushion believe me i would hear about it how did she not know there was not a sofa cushion unless it was not from the home you know what else is striking me is when i was reading about um how the medical examiner took this tiny little three-year-old body out of a body bag

and then in the body bag, a silver metallic body bag. I used to have nightmares about body bags all the time, I guess from all the cases I had at the district attorney's office. But just taking a tiny little body out of a sealed metallic gray body bag and opening it to find a yellow mesh dive bag. And after opening the dive bag, the body is enclosed in a plaid zippered couch cushion cover. The cushion cover also contains a large, I'm reading directly, portion of a solid cement material and mixed with stones like a curb or parking curb. After opening the couch cushion cover, the body is wrapped in three white plastic trash bags which are tied around the neck.

I'm just thinking about the physical act of finding this child's body inside the sofa cushion. There are diagonal abrasions across the left eyelid. There is a bruise on the left canthus. Abrasion over the nose. Another horizontal abrasion over the upper lip. Abrasions below the chin. This is what I'm reading. This is what I'm learning right now. To Mike McHugh, Jacksonville Daily News.

Help me, Mike. I'm just speculating. Let me add something to this discussion that we've had. Two things. I'm going to say, again, two other items that came off of the inventory list from the search warrants that we're talking about in a sexual nature, and I'll try to keep this clean, found in the home were a homemade sexual device, parenthetically referred to as a pocket vagina. That was found in the backyard of the residence in the wood area, and also another similar device found in the residence of the home that's listed on the inventory list taken from the home. And, of course, they describe this as being found in the backyard.

As far as the sofa cushion, and you say, would you miss one in your house? Absolutely, anybody would. However, let me just add this, that Kimmery was first charged with second-degree burglary on December 2nd, and that stemmed from a break-in to an abandoned home that is near their property. And to get to it, you can go either by the walk up the street. It takes about less than five minutes. I did it myself several times or go through the woods behind their home. And there's a path that leads to that abandoned home. And it's a one-story farm shack, but inside it is all sorts of furniture, sofas, dresser drawers, the like, beds. I mean, it's just a shambles, but there was a lot of stuff there, and in the backyard,

there was furniture as well. So that's not to say that Kimmery's acquisition of the cushion came from within the dwelling on Dawson Cabin road. He could have taken that from that home because he was also charged with second degree burglary, felony larceny and felony possession of stolen property. And during that period of this investigation, there was a big talk about some dresser drawers that he had stolen. And which was leading some of us to believe perhaps he transported the body in a dresser drawer.

She'd be small enough to fit in a dresser drawer, but that didn't come out in this latest autopsy report here where she was placed inside a couch cushion. So I just wanted to add those two points. Well, it seems to me, Mike McHugh, that police would have noticed if there was a sofa cushion missing from the home. But even if it were not, I still don't know. I wonder if he allegedly killed her in the home, killed her in that abandoned structure you're describing. What exactly happened? Let me just add a little time frame, too, from the arrest warrant on the break-in on December 2nd, they pegged the time between 11.30 p.m. and 1.30 a.m. on November 26th, 27th.

So that would, if you were drawing a timeline out, that break-in would have occurred several hours prior to the 9-11 call, but would have given Kimmery time to make flight down to the creek. And again, I've mentioned it was 21 miles from their home, approximately 21 miles. I drove it from the Dawson Cabin residence down to Pender County in the Holly Shelter game lands area. So he had a busy night and that could explain to some of his sounds of anxiety and tiredness in that 9-11 call. Please bring her back and I love her. I'll do anything that I can, whatever you want.

Just bring her home, please. Safe as sound. She's my baby. She's my everything. What does she mean to you and your family in this community? She's like an angel. I had my tubes tied and burnt on each side. I fell down. I was pregnant with her. So we call her our little angel. She's got the personality of make you laugh.

She's goofy, outgo knows how to make your da to this community and peo looking for her, love her it means to you to see he in the world just to be a and hold her and not let her go again, like if anything. Talk to Onslaught County Sheriff Department, please, and let us know.

And if whoever has her, please, I'm begging you, bring her home safe. That is the mother of three-year-old Mariah Woods. Mariah found 21 miles away from home, stuffed in a sofa cushion cover and three trash bags, dead from chloroform toxicity, covered in bruises. Well, let's see. I'd do anything. Those were the words the mom said. How about keeping Earl Kimmery out of your house? Because according to DFAC's reports, Mariah's brothers had been beaten by him in the past. So, Mike McHugh, what's the deal with the mom? Because, I mean, when you allow child molestation or just child abuse or neglect to a felony level, and during the commission of that neglect, a death occurs, that arguably could be the basis for a felony murder charge.

So what's happening with mommy? At the moment, nothing. She was, when the incident first started, Monday, she was at the scene and she disappeared shortly thereafter. I think Tuesday morning she appeared and that was it. We never saw her again. And I had seen her on several occasions after they lifted the crime scene tape days later, probably about weeks later, when she was coming back to retrieve objects from the home where they still had a lease at the place. She's still living in the area, but she doesn't surface. She's not a visible person in the community. Question. Has she visited the boyfriend, Kimrey, behind bars or been having calls with him? I can't answer that either way. I've asked, but I've never gotten an answer from an authority that she has visited in jail. You know, all the calls are recorded. I sure would like to find out who he's calling.

At his few court appearances, she was not present. In fact, there was nobody there from his family. They were always brief, the appearances in court. But she was not there at those, and we were there at those events, but she was not there. What about it, Ashley Wilcott? What about Mommy? Oh, Mommy. What about Mommy? Listen, there's no way, even if it was only in her gut and she didn't actually see him do these things to this little three-year-old beautiful girl, she knew. She had to have known.

And this goes to what we see in so many cases. And, Nancy, I see it as a judge. People are in denial. Oh, maybe he did hit my son, but he'd never kill my daughter. No, no, no, no, no. If they're going to take the first step of hitting a child, there's no opportunity to say they wouldn't kill my child. Uh-huh.

So she should have known. I don't know. It's fascinating. This is the other thing I see sometimes. Once they have the person in custody, in jail, who did the crime that they say this is the one who did it, sometimes they tend to forget about or let go of who else might have known or been involved that should be charged with lesser charges. It was cold that night. Mariah's family say they went to bed around 8 p.m.

And that's the last time they saw the three-year-old little girl suffering from muscular dystrophy. She had to wear special shoes to help her walk. The next morning, the live-in boyfriend of Mariah's mother, Christy Woods, he reports her missing. An Amber Alert goes out. It was days later that Fayetteville Police Department found Mariah's body at the bottom of a creek along a highway in Pender County. The autopsy report has just been obtained, and we have been combing through it with a fine-tooth comb,

disturbing details such as she died of chloroform toxicity. That's not a natural cause of death. Her body was actually zipped inside a couch cushion filled with cement, a three-year-old little girl's body disposed of in that manner. The boyfriend, Adolphus Earl Kimrey II, under suspicion, but mommy seemingly has disappeared. Speaking of daddy, take a listen to what he tells me. Have they told you how they think she was killed, Alex? No, not yet. They, as soon as they found her body, they rushed her to Greenville, North

Carolina, where they was going to perform the autopsy. And I'll find out further information on how, when, why, well, not why, but how and when and all that information. Alex, do they believe that Mariah was molested? I have not. I do not know that. Me, thinking, yes, I think so. I hope and pray not, just for the peace of mind, but I think so, yes. I have not heard that from nobody because you know they're now just doing the autopsy so i don't know alex was she clothed

when she was found i had no idea they did not tell me all they told me was that they found my baby They found Mariah about 20 minutes away from where we're at, 20, 25 minutes away from our home. According to those CPS documents, she was molested. Joe Scott Morgan, do you recall what we learned from those documents? Yeah, that she had, the boys had witnessed her actually being molested by this person. So yeah, I think that that's going to make a strong case. Also, this, you know, I got to go back to this head trauma she sustained. I'm really wondering, Nancy, if she hasn't been subdued in some way, almost in a torturous manner, to force her to do things that she would not want to do or was sick and tired of doing. Well, we know this. boyfriend assaulted Mariah, a three-year-old little girl with muscular dystrophy, sexually and physically abused the two little boys, beating them with the belt, one of them in the face,

causing a nosebleed. I mean, right there, Ashley Wilcott, why was he not kicked out of the home right then and there? Two things. Number one, why was he not kicked out of the home? Why in the world would you ever, ever, ever allow someone like this to be around the children? Number two, why didn't somebody let D-Fax know? This mother had to have known. If these kids say this happened, the mother had to have known. It doesn't make sense. And I would argue that this death could have been prevented had proper steps been taken. To Karen Stark, New York psychologist, what's any logical reason why he was allowed to stay in the home after these allegations? Why? it's clear to me that this mother was dependent on this guy for whatever reason she felt like she needed to have him in her life and was willing to sacrifice the well-being of her children

to keep this guy around so it's a desperate kind of love that doesn't intellectually make sense but emotionally she felt she had to have him around. Her children didn't matter. The cops working overtime on this over 100 interviews, 140 leads bringing in the FBI child abduction rapid deployment team, Team Adam from NICMA, 730 volunteers in the search for Mariah expanding from Oslo to Pender County. 95,000 pounds of trash was sifted by hand looking for items of interest. So tell me, Mike McHugh, what about a potential prosecution? Where does it stand? What do you know? Well, where it stands right now is, and I spoke to District Attorney Ernie Lee yesterday, the tentative trial date is slated for September

of 2019. The defense, Wally Paramore, he's a local attorney, and he's been on both sides. He was an ADA, and now he's in private practice. He's going to be teamed up with Brooke Mangum from the Capitol Defender's Office out of Lumberton. They've already filed a motion with the court to change the venue. That was filed on March 1st of this year, and that motion is still pending, according to District Attorney Lee. The state sent over, beginning on February 26th through June 22nd. They sent over a mountain of discovery, including 87 discs. This district attorney that we have here in Onslaught County, this isn't his first rodeo. He's been prosecuting for 31 years. He has eight capital cases and four of which have resulted in a death sentence. So he's been down this road several times before. And I think they're moving on a fast track with this trial here.

If I could just go back, I hate circling back here because we covered the ground, but I wanted to add something that kind of would probably add another layer to the description of Mr. Kimmering. Mariah Woods, she had an ambulatory, um, defect that, um, prohibited her from walking. Normally she wore leg braces and she was being treated by a specialist up in Chapel Hill, which is about three hours from here, two and a half hours from here. And, uh, a, the, the, the wife of the pastor, uh, the church in which, um, Mariah and her mother went to was kind enough to drive Mariah to drive Mariah to the doctor's office on a regular basis. And she was at the scene on Monday and I was talking with her. I first met her out there

and I was looking at the house and I asked her, I said, where was Mariah's bedroom? And she says, I don't know. And I said, well, you just told me that you picked the child, you know, you pick the child up to Chapel Hill for her doctor's appointment. She said, I do. But when I come to the home to pick her up, I'm met at the door by Mr. Kimrey. And when I come back in the evening to drop her off, he meets me at the front door. I was never allowed inside the house. That's a sign now. She can look back on that. But there were a lot of signs that this house was dysfunctional.

And just nobody acted upon it. That hurts me so much, Mike McHugh, to know that there were warning flags, that there were signals that nobody could really read. The father tried to get custody and made these accusations in formal documents, but Mariah Wood stayed in the home and now we find out how she was killed and discarded, zipped up in a sofa cushion. I am waiting for justice to unfold. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friends. There's a brand new website causing a lot of trouble for people with something to hide.

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