Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Teen girl lured by online sex predator, kept in cage, starved, sex assaulted (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 2, 2019

In this two-part exclusive -- a Georgia man sexually abuses North Carolina teen, Hailey Burns, while holding her captive in a make-shift cage. That man is now walking free.Hear Nancy's emotional interview with her parents, Shaunna and Anthony Burns.In part 2, the year-long search continues and comes to a dramatic endNancy's expert panel also weighs in:Troy Slaten: Los Angeles defense lawyerSteven Lampley: Former detectiveEllen Killoran: Crimeonline.com investigative reporter Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A teen girl goes missing and we learn the worst. We learn that she has been held in captivity in a cage for over a year. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. How did it happen? How did a teen girl end up being held in captivity for over a year, being denied food, being subjected to water torture? And in a stunning, stunning blow to Lady Justice, the guy who makes off with her, Michael Weisselofsky, is walking free. I want to introduce to you Haley, the victim in this case, the teen girl, mother, Shauna Burns, and her father, Anthony Burns. Tell me about the moment you discover Haley, your little girl, is gone.

It was a Monday morning, and I went in to get her up for school 5 30 in the morning so it was dark in the house no one else was awake. I immediately knew she was not in her bed. What did you do at that moment? I started searching other places in the house that I thought she might have moved to like the couch. What was going through your mind? What feelings were pulsing through your body? She has to be here somewhere. She has to be here somewhere. I just have to find her. That was the idea that she had left or that she wasn't here never even crossed my mind. And then after searching every square inch of the house and establishing that she wasn't here, that's when I woke my husband up and I came into our bedroom and I said, Tony, Haley's not here to Anthony Burns this is

Haley's dad do you remember that moment that Shauna comes in I'm sure it's still dark oh probably getting now around 6 6 15 what happened in your mind what's your recollection I um I you know even sitting here right now uh I'm I'm tearing up a little bit Nancy because um as a parent you know you know my daughter never tried to run away before or never been lured away before. It's a better way to put it. You know, as soon as my wife, as soon as I woke up. I am so glad you just said that. That's got to be clear.

This child did not run away. It is lured away. It is. She was lured by an online predator. She is a child in the eyes of the law. What went through your mind, Anthony? I ran out of bed and I immediately went to her bedroom. I couldn't see her in there. I was just kind of waking up and I went downstairs. As I went downstairs, I looked at our front door and the front door was unlocked and it was a little bit left adrift. And at that point, I knew someone had left through the front door. Either someone

had come in the front door or someone had walked out of the front door. I didn't know at that point. Take a listen to Ariel Placencia, WCNC, Charlotte. The 17-year-old disappeared from her home back on May 23, 2016. Her family told us then she has Asperger's syndrome and left home without her medication. Last year, her family told NBC Charlotte they tried to limit their daughter's use of the computer after discovering she had been talking to strangers online. According to the Observer, Byrne's father said she left a diary behind that detailed a plan to run away with a 32-year-old man she met online. Her family says

she did not have a cell phone, but still they believe she was able to communicate with someone and left to meet that person. Do you believe that this guy, Michael Weisselofsky, was telling her what to do to dress differently, to act differently? Yes, we know. We know 100% he was. Absolutely. Yeah. The school gave her a Chrome pad. She had an IEP, which is an individualized education plan because she's special needs. One of those accommodations was she's never to be online unsupervised. And yet she's still communicating with this grown man. She's printing out pornographic images in the school library. How did this?

They did not monitor it like it should. How did this guy find her? He found her in a MyProAnnaChat website. It is a website for people that have anorexia, that don't want to hide it, that don't want to go to get help for it, that want to keep their anorexia and are proud of it. And if I could, I mean, it wasn't that Haley felt like she was anorexic. It was that she didn't know what was wrong with her and was trying to discover through her own means and self-diagnose so that she could change all the bad things that kept happening to her. So she's out in an anorexia support group trying to figure out if maybe that has something to do with their problems. And then she bumps into this guy who's

in his thirties, who, who has been in this chat room before and has met other women and has been taken advantage of that relationship by saying he's a mentor that can help them as opposed to someone who is going to then take advantage of them, which is what ultimately happened not only in my daughter's case, but in several others. Here is Allison Latos, WSOC-TV. Warrants reveal the level of abuse a charlatan endured while being held captive in Georgia for more than a year. The documents say that Michael Weisselofsky confined Haley Burns in an upstairs THE DOCUMENTS SAY THAT MICHAEL WYSOLOFSKY CONFINED HAILEY BURNS IN AN UPSTAIRS BEDROOM OF HIS DULUTH HOME, TELLING HER

THAT SHE WOULD BE ARRESTED IF SHE LEFT. WYSOLOFSKY REPORTEDLY CONTROLLED EVERY ASPECT OF HIS 17-YEAR-OLD CAPTIVE'S LIFE, KEEPING A FOOD JOURNAL DETAILING HOW MANY CALORIES SHE HAD EATEN EACH DAY, AND WITHHOLDING FOOD FROM HAILEY IF HE THOUGHT SHE

HAD EATEN TOO MANY CALORIES THE DAY BEFORE. Journal detailing how many calories she'd eaten each day and withholding food from Haley if he thought she'd eaten too many calories the day before. Doctors at the Atlanta hospital who examined Haley after she was rescued determined she was suffering from malnutrition, according to Warrens. Her parents told Channel 9 she lost 15 to 20 pounds. Haley Burns disappeared from her Valentine home in May of 2016. This past weekend, the FBI responded to a tip and tracked her to a home in Georgia. our partner so tell me when you first got any inkling where she was and when you first heard the name Michael Weisselovsky, Shauna? It was on June 23rd. It was about 8.47 at night. Tony and I had just sat down to watch a movie and we had gotten Showmars, which is a local restaurant here in Charlotte. We were just

getting ready to eat. And I got a Facebook message from a woman I did not know in Romania. And she said, are you the mother of Haley Burns? And I responded back and I said, yes. And she said, I'm in communication with her. She's safe and she wants to come home. To which we had been informed by the FBI to be very careful because people will call you and say, I know where your kid is, but you have to give me money. Psychic people will try to take advantage of you. So I was a lot more skeptical, let's say, than Tony was. Tony was like, oh, my God, it's her. She sent a picture of Haley.

And Tony was like, that's definitely her. But I still needed more. I said, ask Haley something that only Haley would know. And I have a dent in my head from when I was hit in the head with a hammer when I was a kid, very few people know that. And Haley said, tell my mom, she has a big dent in her head from a hammer. And that is what I knew immediately. That is my daughter. And we, it was like an old fashioned game of telephone because Haley is chatting on a chat room with this woman in Romania. The woman in Romania is on a tablet with me FaceTiming.

I am on. I am communicating with my voice to Tony, who's on his phone with Pete, our FBI agent contact, who, by the way, was at Disney with his family on vacation when all of this happened. And he stepped up in the middle of everything and we felt so bad, but he was so happy to do it, even though he was on vacation with his family at Disney. And then Pete was on his phone with the detectives in Georgia. So every question took five minutes for them to ask Pete, to ask Tony, to ask me, to ask her, to ask Haley. So the process took a little longer than normal. But, um, after about 15 minutes, we had established that it was Haley and we were then just trying to establish where she was, but she did not know where she was. She said, she said, I'm in a brick, a two-story brick building in Georgia. And that's, that's all we knew. Now everything's filtered through the woman in Romania. And that's all we knew. Now, everything's filtered through the woman in Romania. So she's giving her more information than she's giving us

because she's just trying to be quick about it. So I was asking, are there planes that fly overhead? Do you hear trains near you? Is there running water? Is there a local pizza place that he orders pizza from that maybe there's a name on it? And we were just frantically trying to figure out whatever information we needed to find her. And ultimately, it was a picture. She had taken a picture from her window from where she was. It was across the street. And I used that information to find her. To Anthony Burns, Haley's dad, do you remember that moment? You got the text or the email? Because when somebody says it was this day at 8.47 p.m., that strikes me. I've never had that

type of specificity when I was prosecuting. People didn't know what day it was, what month it was, but you guys remember the exact time you heard Haley was alive. Well, we haven't discussed the 399 days prior to this one, but when you get any kind of an egg of anything that can tell you what happened to the one that you love, then you, you know, it, it's, it's an amazing change. And, and it's like a new energy kind of came through us when we finally had a relevant lead. And I had probably given Pete, our FBI agent, 15 leads over the last 399 days, none of them relevant. And every time I would call him, I would say, Pete, I don't think this one's going to be a good one, but we should check it out anyway. And this time I said, Pete, we know where she is. This is actually her. She's in danger,

but we know where she is. We need to act now. And he acted. During those 399 days, did you think she was alive? Did you think she was dead? Did you think she was being held captive, had run away? What was going through your mind during those 399 days? I got to tell you something. I just had to go to LA. I was working for Hallmark, you know, the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries. And they're like a second family to me. But I've got to tell you, I count the hours. I go, okay, this is going to be four days. And then I start back timing the hours because I'm so miserable away from the twins. What was going through your mind for 399 days, Anthony? I pretty much fell apart. I would wake up in the mornings and I would start crying. I would try to

be quiet so that my wife wouldn't hear me. I'd cry in the shower, I'd cry on the way to work. I went through a very deep depression, but I tried to keep it together as best as I could because we needed to have something for her to be able to come home to. So I went through therapy and I started working on myself. I didn't blame the people around me. I started contacting, involving the media. One important thing, Nancy, that made this all the more difficult for myself, about three days in, our trash day is Wednesday and this all happened on a Sunday night and Monday morning. I woke up late at night on a Tuesday and I realized that our trash was going out the next day. And I looked over at my wife and I said, the trash is going out tomorrow. We should go in and check it out. And she said,

there's nothing in there. You know, it's probably not worth it. And I said, we should definitely do it. So I went out in my boxers and I took the trash can into our garage and I pulled out all the bags and I found Haley's trash bag that she'd thrown away that weekend before she left. And in the trash bag, there were laws for interstate transport of a minor across state lines, the ages of consent for each state across the country. And I believe very strongly that he had printed, he had pointed her towards that so that she would know what the penalties would be if he was caught doing this. So he was, he was coaching her on how to leave without being monitored or caught. And that's one of the reasons why for 399 days, there were no leads. And there were no credible

ones until this lead finally came in. Seeing that, you know, I really believe that was the Lord. Because this is a funny story. I had my grandmother's engagement ring and that's what I wore as my wedding band for a long time. And I always kept it by the bed. And sometimes when I was pregnant, I couldn't make it fit on my fingers. So I put it in tissue and stick it in my bra to keep it with me at all times. Well, I put it by the bed one night. It was still in the tissue. I went to our church in New York and was sitting in the balcony. And all of a sudden, I had a thought. We had a friend staying with us. I'm like, Chris is going to throw away that tissue. You better call him right now. I got up.

I walked out of church. I called our friend visiting Chris. Sure enough, he had thrown away the tissue. He went down, all the way down to where all the trash is for the entire apartment building in New York. He spotted our bag. He found our bag. He found the tissue and saved my grandmother's engagement ring okay just like something got you in the middle of the night and said go get that trash

by finding that did it relieve your anxiety did you you feel, okay, she ran away. She's not been kidnapped and dead. She's run away. Or did it work the other way? It worked the other way because I mean, it kind of confirmed. So, I mean, I, I, I immediately went into kind of detective mode because we, I knew that, you know, it wasn't just about what the police did. It was about what anybody did. And we were the closest ones and knew her routines and everything the best. So I started searching through her room. I started, you know, anywhere and everywhere I could find anything. And I knew that that timing was important and that we would only get one opportunity.

And I guess I'd seen movies where, you know, the trash had been taken and they just missed it. And it had that one clue that it might have been the one to get us there but i think it made it harder because at that point i truly knew an adult was involved and and and that it wasn't that makes it even scarier to me yeah to know an adult is involved she didn't just run out on her own guys joining me shauna and anthony burns along with troy slate and californ California defense lawyer, Stephen Lampley, detective at StephenLampley.com, Ellen Killorn at CrimeOnline.com. This guy, Michael Weisalowski, holds little Haley in a cage, a cage, for a year, over a year, monitoring everything she ate, malnourishing her, forcing her into sex acts in exchange for food. To Anthony Burns, how did they find Weisselowski? So when the police knocked on the door of the house after my daughter essentially taking a picture out of the window to lead them there

they they came knocked on the door he apparently had been downstairs drinking beer and playing video games on his computer and my daughter was on the second story on a with a floor-to-ceiling gate confining her on the second story to get access to the downstairs. And when the police knocked, he came and answered the door, and they said, who are you? And then they said, are you here by yourself? And he said, no, I am here with my wife, Alice. Oh, my stars.

And so then, I guess, at that point, they said, well, can we speak to Alice? And so they went, he went to the gate and he unlocked the gate and said, get your, get the fake ID to my daughter. And my daughter had a fake ID that he'd given her that was of his ex-wife who, who did it, and she used the wrong name to the police, which immediately made the police aware that there was something obviously wrong. And they already knew something was wrong, but that just confirmed it. So they separated Michael at that point, took him outside. And at that point, my daughter then opened up and said, my name is Haley Burns. I'm a missing person, and I want to go home. And then what happened? I miss my mom, and I want to go home. Yeah, I miss my mom, and I want to go home. And then what happened? I miss my mom and I want to go home. Yeah, I miss my mom and I want to go home. Not dad. It was definitely mom. Yeah, you get that in there, Shauna. I miss my mom and I want to go home. Thank you for moms all over the country.

It was mom for sure. You know, my husband all the time says, look, I get it. You're the mom. I'm just happy to be part of it. Yes. And there's nothing like being a mom. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. When did you learn they found her? At 1247 that night. So at 8, no, I'm sorry, at 1254. 847, we got the first message, 1254.

Pete says, she's safe. You need to get to Atlanta. We have her. get to Atlanta. We have her get to Atlanta because we're in Charlotte and they were in outside of Atlanta. That's where they took her was to the police department in Atlanta. So we then immediately got in the van and drove to Atlanta and got there by two 30. It is a three and a half hour drive and we spent the whole way, but we got to this tiny little police station. It's a small town

so the police stations aren't open all the time and they had to open this one up specifically like a police officer had to come in his pajamas with the keys to open this police station for us and when we went in and saw her she just ran up and hugged me like she melted into me she hugged me so hard and we were just overwhelmed with such sense of relief and joy to have her back and to know that she was safe. And what was amazing was while we were there with her, all of these uniformed police officers just kept trickling in and trickling in. And by the end of it, there was so many of them just standing around crying and just so happy to be a part of having her come home to us. And it was, I can't even explain how amazing of a feeling it was to hold her again and to know that she was safe. Can you tell me what she endured, Shawna, during that time?

The way that she explained it was he was not nice. He was not nice. That is how she explained it was he was not nice. He was not nice. That is, that is, that is how she explained it to us. And in the beginning we had very little time with her alone. It was, there was FBI and there was police and there was like detectives and then there was victim advocates and then there was doctors and nurses. And it was a long time before it was just me and her. And I looked at her and I said, you know, what happened? And she said, mom, he was not nice. He was not nice at all. And we didn't really learn what had happened to her from her. It took her a very long time to be able to talk to us about it. We learned from

the doctors, from the doctors in the hospital, what had happened and from the police officers and from the evidence in the house. But we know that he raped her. We know that he tortured her. He starved her. He manipulated her and secluded her from everything that had anything to do with us. There were... Broke her spirits down. Haley and I are very close. Always have been. And we have all of these things that we do together. Like one of them was that we used to love to watch the TV show Bones because I love Bones. She was a foster kid who grew up and did good things with her life. So I love that show. And if he knew about something that reminded her of me, he would

not let her watch it. You would not let her listen to it. You would not let her, you can't do that because it'll make you think you're mom. You can't do that because it'll make you think it was dad. She was never allowed to speak of us. He would beat her if she mentioned us, if she mentioned that she missed us. So secretly, when she missed me, she would watch Bones because he didn't know that I liked Bones and that she liked Bones. And so when she missed me, she would secretly watch episodes of Bones to remember that there were people out there that loved her. Ellen Kaloran, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. What have we learned from police that Haley, this little teen girl,

endured at the hands of her kidnapper? Nancy, what we have learned is that this sick predator took advantage of the very thing that he had met this teen through, which was a possible eating disorder. And what he did was he used food to control her. He forced her to perform sexual acts. A teen girl forced her to perform sexual acts so that she could eat. If she went past a certain calorie amount on a certain day, then she would be deprived of food the next day. He held her captive. As we heard, she was so confined for over a year that when she finally was able to get some help, she didn't even know where she was. Neighbors said that they didn't even realize, some of them, that there was anyone living in the home because it was drawn so dark. So to Troy Slayton, how do predators

like Michael Wieselowski go under the radar for so long? Nancy, a predator like this is so conniving and is so smart and takes such pains to conceal their illegal activity that a person in a normal neighborhood may not even know that something like this is going on next door to them. And he was able to, in a sense, use the laws of the state of Georgia to, to inure to his benefit. What we know now is Michael Weisselofsky, a 33 year old man, pleads guilty to first degree cruelty to a child and interference interstate with custody. He gets a 10-year sentence, but is now out on straight probation. He has walked free on straight probation. The 10-year sentence is to be served on probation. Take a listen to Lauren Posen in Action News 2 Atlanta.

Michael Wachowski walked into court next to his attorney Thursday afternoon to change his plea to guilty. The judge accepted it and ruled Wachowski will serve 10 years on probation and also gave him credit, eight months for time served in confinement, while he was in jail. But before accepting the plea, the court heard testimony from Haley Burns and her parents. The second I left my home, my life was ruined. The North Carolina teen says she met him online and disappeared from her parents' home in Charlotte. She told the court she was held captive in his Duluth home for an entire year. Burns says Brokoski tortured her and made her do

sexual things for food. Her father, Tony Burns, told the judge every time he would hear of a dead body, he feared it was his Haley. You are the boogeyman that all parents teach their kids to be scared of. Haley's mom added that Bukowski doesn't seem sorry for his actions. You are not a monster, but you are a pitiful man who will now learn that actions have consequences. Now, after the hearing, I spoke with the prosecutor. He told me Haley's family, they're satisfied with the outcome today in court, but they really, really would have preferred to see the defendant behind bars.

The 10-year sentence is to be served on probation. Yes, he's registered as a sex offender. But when has that ever stopped a sex offender from re-offending Stephen Lampley detective, StephenLampley.com? I learned quickly. I didn't need to look at a statistic to learn it. I found out that burglars, child molesters, and sex offenders can't stop. Oh, one more.

Peeping Toms. They can't stop. Now, I don't know why. I'm not a shrink. But I can tell you, they don't stop. They don't stop. Now, I don't know why. I'm not a shrink. But I can tell you, they don't stop. They don't stop until they're six feet under. So this guy, Michael Weisselowski, thanks, Judge, is going to re-offend. I just don't know how, when, or where. But he is going to re-offend. Nancy, that's correct. I learned early on when we started this new

undercover division to work with pedophiles. I learned early on from some of the experts that you're correct. This is not a condition that can be rehabilitated. Once you're a pedophile, it doesn't go away. It's not something that can be fixed. It's not something that can be rehabilitated. It's not something that's going to stop. It's going to perpetuate and continue, Nancy. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace i can take joy in one thing and that is that hayley burns is alive and well and reunited with her family shauna how is she progressing now um she we've been in therapy we're in therapy

she has three different therapists who go to therapy every single week um and it is it is three steps forward, two steps back, five steps forward, four steps back. But there are a lot of steps forward. Um, she's got days and bad days and it's been very difficult with the trial because it's hard to have any closure until after the trial, until after the hearing, until after everything's done. So for the last year and a half, we've just kind of been in limbo waiting for this. But now that this is done, we can have closure with it. We can move on. And we all are, like a big weight

has been lifted off of our families. And we're all in a better place as far as like handling this. Take a listen to victim Haley Burns speaking in court. So every time I tried to write this, it sounded melodramatic. So I decided to stick to the facts. When Michael Wasilowski and I started corresponding, I was 15 years old, about to turn 16, and vulnerable. I was physically unable to process the gravity of our conversations,

and he manipulated me heavily, taking advantage of my mental illness to push me closer to his desires. I backed out twice, and he berated me, pushing me to commit to him and his idea of a life for me. The second I left my home, my life was ruined. The first week Weisselowski had me in his home, he did unimaginable things to me, and irreparably broke my spirit and sense of self. This abuse proceeded for 56 weeks. I developed severe OCD about a month after Wycelowski was released on bond, an escalation from a previous minor disorder. I checked locks excessively, counted steps, tiles, items, and numbers, and classified everything and everyone I knew into safe and

unsafe classifications, hoping he would not hurt me again. It took me over a year to partially recover from severe eating disorder habits directly related to his starving me and refusing me food, which went hand in hand with my OCD. He lowered my self-esteem greatly and led me to believe I would never be loved or have a proper life if I gained any weight. I developed problems with intimacy, rejection, and attachment, which goes without saying, but I still feel needs to be mentioned. I also develop severe fears of water, such as showering, drinking, rain, swimming, due to water torture and fears of sleeping due to being in the same bed as him.

I severely mutilated myself, hoping I would become unlovable so no one would hurt me again, as Wysocki did. I am permanently disfigured. I also have suffered from deep depressions, lack of drive, and an inability to motivate. I am now taking medication to keep it in check, which, for a long time, I was also phobic of, directly related to his tendency to drug me. I have attempted suicide thrice since I escaped Wysolowski, and I'm unable to have normal relationships without fear. I am unable to navigate social situations due to how he kept me from the outside world and instilled fear of human interaction, sorry, as an abuse tactic in order to keep me complacent to captivity. I cannot navigate retail or even walk down the street alone without panic

attacks. This has inspired agoraphobia. Oh my stars, what that family had to go through. This is what I know according to the FBI. An average child molester will offend two to four hundred times before being caught, if ever. The vast majority of offenders are never caught, so they have no criminal record. And according to the FBI, only one out of 10 cases of child sex abuse is ever reported to law enforcement. So for this one time he's caught, there, according to statistics, have been other instances and will be other instances. This guy is walking amongst us now. Shauna and Anthony, people don't get it. They don't get it.

And I didn't either until I started studying it. The lures online, the chat rooms. who would have thought this guy was targeting her at school when she's on her school Chromebook? After you monitor everything so carefully, what? And he was smart enough to do it on the school Chromebook because we legally, we could never have access to those records because they have to protect the confidentiality of the other children. So yes, they absolutely could have used that and they could have scanned it and they could have found him. But legally, he knew that because it was public property at the school, the FBI would never even have the jurisdiction to do that. Can I just tell you that tonight when the children come home with their Chromebooks from school, you know who's

going to go lock herself in the bathroom and read every email that they've gotten. And that's thanks to Shauna and Anthony Burns. Another thing I want to tell you, and believe me, and the media circles, this is like dropping a stink bomb in the room. Nobody wants to hear about this, but I'm going to say it anyway. I believe the Lord brought you back to your daughter. And I believe the Lord has a plan for you and for Haley and your children. And I also believe that by you speaking out today, thousands and thousands of people are going to hear your voice. And maybe it will make a difference in just one life. Anthony, what is your message to other parents that are listening right now, listening to us on Sirius, listening to us on Crime Stories Podcast? What have you learned?

What is your advice? What is your message? Thank you very much, Nancy. You know, I had a great life up until this happened. I thought things like this just don't happen. You know, you live in a good neighborhood and you're doing all the right stuff and you just got to prune your hedges every weekend. But the reality is everyone is susceptible to this. It doesn't matter how careful you are, how on top of things you are. If you're not on top of things for one week and you allow one of these guys to worm into your life and separate you on any level from your child, then you could be calling the media, sitting there for 399 days, not knowing whether your daughter was alive or dead. And I don't want anyone else to go through that. So take precautions, know what your child is doing, communicate with them,

keep a good relationship, even if it's difficult and they not always are warm and fuzzy to you. Don't stop trying to be an influence on them and to use what you know to help them be better. You know what? I'm going to play back what you just said a million times and listen to it because it is not always easy. Shawna Burns, what is your message today to moms and dads hearing your voice? My number one message would be that, like my husband said, you need to love your children, even when it gets difficult. I have three kids that have special needs. And sometimes I lose sight of the little kid that's in there behind the bad behavior and behind the problems. You lose sight of that little kid that still loves you and still wants

to connect with you. And that's the number one thing is if you lose that, then they can weasel their way in and then they can get in there. So never, ever, ever let your kids distance themselves from you. Stay as close to them as you possibly can. And never, ever, ever let them feel that you don't love them. No matter what they do, no matter what their behaviors are, you always love them. You always support them. You always have them.

And if you are in a situation where your child is missing, never give up. You keep looking for your child. You search through every freaking Craigslist back page for months if you and needing you to find them. If we had not found her, we don't, we don't even, the idea of what could have happened if that lady had not messaged me, if that lady had not taken Haley seriously and not contacted me and thought, oh, this is just a prank. She's not serious. If we, there was no one else that would have rescued her. There was no one else that knew she was even there to rescue her. You never give up ever. That would be it. Nancy, one last thing.

Yeah, jump in. I'm sorry. In our family, we have a mantra. We believe in the mantra that Ahana means family, and that means no one's left behind. And when we got my daughter back for her birthday, we had the blessing of being able to take her to Disney and to go and see all those things and have this bucket list of memories that we never had. And that's why you never give up. Yep. No one gets left behind. Absolutely. Believe it or not, this girl had the courage to speak out loud in court. Listen to Haley Burns. The psychological damage Michael Wesolowski has inflicted is beyond

measure or explanation. I cannot explain over a year of systematic abuse and every neurological quirk it has caused. All I hope is that it happens to no other innocent victim. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.