Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Tot-girl left for coyotes by dad? Are bone remains of American tourist Robyn Gardner? Help us ID Little boy!

Episode Date: October 24, 2017

The body of a small boy washed up on a Galveston, Texas, beach and police need your help identifying the child. Nancy Grace talks about the case with forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, radio host David Mack, reporter Jody Jameson, CrimeOnline reporter Leigh Egan and co-host Alan Duke. The adoptive father of a child found dead in a Texas culvert faces an "injury to a child" charge, which police suggest could be revised after Sherin Mathews' autopsy is completed. When DNA testing revealed bones found in Aruba are not Natalee Holloway, it raised questions of whose remains it is. The sister of missing American Robyn Gardner is hoping her DNA can be tested to see if the remains could be her sister's. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. The boy was found here on the beach. How he ended up here and what happened to him, still a mystery. The child is approximately three to five years old. He's about three feet tall. He has brown eyes and dark black hair. Investigators still can't say what happened to him still a mystery. The child is approximately three to five years old. He's about three feet tall. He has brown eyes and dark black hair. Investigators still can't say what happened to him, who he is, or how he got here.

Nobody knows this kid, whether it's a family member, a friend, daycare provider, a teacher, a next door neighbor, guy at the grocery store that's seen this kid come in. Somebody, somewhere here has seen this child. He was found naked. What's unusual is that no one has reported him missing, at least not that they've been able to determine at this point. They've been talking to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and they have no reports of a child gone missing that matches this description.

At this hour, police desperately trying to identify a child who has washed up dead on the beach. Repeat, a little boy between three and five years old, naked body, has washed up on Stewart Beach in Texas. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. The child's body was discovered naked and already decomposing on Friday, but as of right now, no identity on this little boy. How can that be? How can a child, a little boy between ages three and five be missing and nobody knows about it? Be dead and no one knows about it? Can we get a cause of death? Can we get an identity on this

child? How bad is the decomposure? Will it make it impossible to determine who this child is? If you can get DNA, you've got to have something to match it to in order to figure out who is this boy and what happened to him. Joining me is Joseph Scott Morgan, death investigator and professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. Also with me, Crime Online editor and reporter Lee Egan, writer Crime Online, Jody Jameson, and Alan Duke joining me from LA straight out to Jody Jameson. I want to first start with how the body was found. For those of you just joining us, a little boy's body has just washed ashore on a Texas beach. We want to help identify this child and find out what happened to him. Jody, what do we know about

how the body was found? So all we know right now is that he was found about 10 to 20 feet from the water. He was naked, but he wasn't very decomposed. They said the most trauma to the body was from the surf, from the sand. So there wasn't that much trauma. Not that much trauma, but the child is dead. Where did the trauma come from? Was the child killed and thrown into the water? Did the child drown somewhere? But

that doesn't make sense to me. To Alan Duke, why would a child drown under innocent reasons and no one ever report it? The boy is thought to be no older than five years old. To Joseph Scott Morgan, I was trying to figure out how he was found. He was actually found around 5.30 in the afternoon. A forensic sketch artist has been brought on board to try and do a recreation of what the boy may look like. I want to talk to you, Joseph Scott Morgan. You're the death investigator.

What we can learn from this body. Can I just talk to you one moment, Joe Scott, about what we already know? We know that if a child has drowned innocently, fell off a cruise ship, fell off a family boat into the water, and they couldn't save him, there would be a Coast Guard announcement. There would be a search for the child. That is not what happened. The circumstances are troubling at best, Nancy.

We've got not just the body of a small child, but we've got the naked body of a small child. What in the world is a child doing floating around the water out there without clothes on? And in kind of an isolated area by himself. And there's really no evidence around what's really going to be a major clue here is what is the medical examiner going to come back with on this particular case? There's all kinds of things that could have happened. Kind of head trauma. Maybe we would look for things like a prop injury from a boat. Lord only knows what's going on. And I think that as time goes by,

medical examiner is going to give us more information. You know, no offense, Joe Scott Morgan, but I'm looking for more from you beside the Lord only knows what's going on. That is true. And that's a given in every scenario. But we have been given the brains to figure out a few things on our own, Joe Scott. And let's start with the fact that this child was not reported missing. Let's start with the fact that no drowning has been reported.

Let's start with the fact that the body is already decomposing. So that gives me a timeline. Let's go with the fact that he's naked, as you pointed out. So all that together is telling me homicide. A child doesn't fall into the water naked, not get reported missing or at sea and then wash up by innocent reasons. Now, is anybody on this serious program right now that disagrees with that. Can you think of any scenario, any innocent scenario, Joe Scott Morgan, that says innocent scenario? No, no. And I think one of the things that my mind kind of flies to with this is this, is this a body of a child that has been

dumped? You know, and why would, why would the child be nude? This is one of the things as death investigators we would look for. If someone could have stripped the body and dumped the body as a result of some kind of homicidal event. Taking the clothing, because this holds evidence, doesn't it? Where the child is from, what the child endured, what was the child subject to? They've attempted to strip away any layer of evidence or identifications that the child might have on them. Remember, you know, a small child is not going to be easily identifiable. They don't have permanent teeth, particularly at this age. There's a real good chance that we're not going to be able to do fingerprints on them. Let me go to Jody Jamison.

Jody, a forensic sketch artist, has created an image of the boy. And police are hoping to use this to try to ID him. What do we know about the sketch? He's about three to five years old. He's about three feet tall. They say he might be Hispanic. He has black hair and brown eyes, full of eyelashes. He's a cute little thing, but that's about all they have on him so far. What do we know about the area where he was found? To you, Lee Egan, joining me from Crime Online. What do we know about that area? Nothing else found, no evidence whatsoever except for this little boy. He was found off of Seawall Boulevard,

Galveston Island. It's kind of a remote area. That's pretty much all we know. There was no evidence found with him, just his little body that washed ashore. To Alan Duke, I want to go over the discovery of his body. I'm still not clear on who found the child's body. Galveston police say it was somebody just walking down the beach on Friday evening, just taking an evening stroll on the beach in an area that's not heavily trafficked, spotted the body floating in the surf and called 911. And this is what a police detective in Galveston told reporters over the weekend as they released this sketch that they put out to the public, hoping that someone would identify this boy. Absolutely.

So the child is approximately three to five years old. He's about three feet tall. He has brown eyes and dark black hair. Hair is about three to four inches in length. The child weighed about, if we had to use a slender build, probably about 30 pounds. He's a pretty skinny kid, but that's that's what I have as far as description. Is he Hispanic? He does appear to be of Hispanic origin, so we're not exactly sure exactly where,

but there definitely is some Hispanic Latino influx, or influence rather, in there. I take it, with all the missing children and possible boat that overturned it, you've satisfied y'all have gone through everything? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as soon as we got out there, we started searching our own missing person database. We contacted every agency in the surrounding county, in this county and surrounding counties. We talked to every federal agency we could. We talked to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children

to see if their database could show up anything. And, of course, we contacted the Coast Guard to see if, one, that they had had any reports of missing people, and two, to alert them so that if they did get any reports of any overturned boats, man overboard, any missing people, that they would key in on any kind of child that might fit that description. Somebody knows this kid, whether it's a family member, a friend, daycare provider, a teacher, a next-door neighbor, a guy at the grocery store that's seen this kid come in.

Somebody somewhere here has seen this child. To Jody Jamison joining us. Jody, I'm looking at the police sketch and they've done it in color. Now, what we're seeing is a little boy with brown hair and brown eyes, but yet, Jody, that doesn't match anyone that is missing in Texas or the U.S. We've seen this in the past when bodies are found and the child has been murdered. The parents don't report the child missing for obvious reasons. What are police saying about who this child might be? At this point, all they're saying is that they are looking at every possibility.

The fact that he was 20 miles from the surf, that doesn't mean anything to them because the tide rises and falls. The fact that he was naked doesn't mean anything to him because they've seen drowning victims thrown up on the beach naked, had their clothes pulled off of them within 10 minutes. So at this point, they're saying nothing. They're being very vague as they're continuing to look for what could possibly have happened.

We know that the boy's little body was found lying in the sand on Galveston Island around 530 in the afternoon. This is according to police. An unidentified caller contacted police after seeing, quote, an object near the water and discovered it was the body of a small child when they got closer to inspect it. Now, we know the Galveston PD has contacted one of the most experienced forensics artists in the nation, and that is how they came up with this drawing. It's by Lois Gibson, and many people in the, let me just say, crime-fighting community know her name very well. She rendered the sketch of the child.

The little boy is three feet tall. He's got a very slender bill with dark brown eyes. Again, he's between three and five years old. Now, the Galveston PD has searched databases for missing children through local and federal agencies but have found nothing. Joe Scott, what does that mean? That means that no one is looking for a child that fits this description. The other issue is how are they going to get this child identified if there's no dental records and there's no fingerprints to be done? That's going to lead us back to DNA. But still, if they can, which I don't doubt that they can,

if they can harvest some DNA from this child's remains and they successfully create a chain that they can examine, who are they going to compare it to? So it's incumbent that the public come forward and state that they know of a child that is missing or this child actually resembles somebody that they know. Anyone who is familiar with this child, please call the tip line 409-765-3776, 409-765-3776, or 409-763-TIPS. T-I-P-S. I want to pause and thank our partners in today's program that make it possible for us to search for answers.

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Code NANCY. Link AKC, thank you for making a difference in Fat Boy and my life. A three-year-old little girl, absolutely gorgeous. As a matter of fact, the photo of her, I'm pretty sure she's wearing a little dress that I had for Lucy on Palm Sunday about three years ago. This little girl is so precious. The moment I saw her, I felt that she was just looking out at us, asking for help. The little girl's name is Sharon, spelled S-H-E-R-I-N, and she went missing. This is a story her father tells.

He says that at 3 a.m., Sharon wakes up, and she refuses to drink her milk. To punish his 3-year-old child for not drinking her milk, according to him, he sends her outside on the other side of a fence to stand under a large tree in an alley. The alley is known to be infested with coyotes. Now, I've looked at their home. Their home, the whole neighborhood looks like a lot of rich people live there. This is not out in the middle of nowhere. This is a spot in Texas where it looks like a gated community on a cul-de-sac, and then there

are trees around it. If you look at it from above, like an aerial view. When I first saw it, I'm like, no way are there coyotes around this crib, around this McMansion. But when I look at it aerial style, I can see that there are trees and other undeveloped areas where the coyotes might live. Okay, back to what the father says. He says he sends the baby out there to stand alone at 3 a.m. as punishment for not drinking milk. He then decides to do the laundry. He turns neat-nick at 3 a.m. He says he goes back out to see Sharon in 15 minutes. And when he goes back out, she's gone. A frantic search ensues. I want to go now to Dave Mack joining me, syndicated talk show host. Dave, it's taken a sudden turn, the search for the missing body, hasn't it? It has. They have yet to confirm that they have found the girl,

but there's certainly serious thoughts in that direction. Okay, let me just break it down because I don't know what you just said. A tot's body has just been found down a culvert, not too far away from this. Now, unless you guys know of another missing little girl, if I were a betting woman, I would put money on her body has been found. That's what I know. Lee Egan, where was the body found? She was standing half a mile away from family home.

I'm not sure if they found anything else with her. Police are not saying yet. Obviously, it's going to be her. I mean, I'm just going to put it out there. They're waiting for the autopsy. Let's go into the facts as we know them. Joseph Scott Morgan, Death death investigators, joining me. Joe Scott, what do we know about the discovery of this body?

I mean, it's her, Joe Scott. Yeah, I'd have to think that it is, Nancy. And this is what I do know. The body, the body as of yet has been unidentified. But to my way of thinking as a former as a former death investigator, uh, this body has been taken and hidden. Uh, you know, this, this child's body did not just accidentally wind up in a culvert and, uh, in this, in this hidden area out of sight. And it took someone to come along and actually seek this body out and find the body in that specific location. Right now, we don't know what the cause of death is.

That's not being released. And this is going to be a key piece of information to find out how this little child was brought to their end. When you hear culvert, Justice Scott Morgan, what do you take that to mean? It means to me, Nancy, that this is out of sight. It's secluded. It's blocked away from common vision. It's not something that you would just see walking down the road.

Somehow this child wound up in this location where they were hidden from view. And this is going to be key. The investigators are going to be pressing hard on this particular point because something has happened to this child to bring her to this end. I don't think that this is going to have so much to do with coyotes as it does other people. A culvert, guys, is like a pipe, one of those big round pipes that go under the road. So water will go under the road as opposed to over the road, a tunnel carrying a stream or open drain under a road or railroad, a water course, a conduit, it's a stream or a drain. That's what a culvert is. Now, tell me something, Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host. I doubt very seriously that coyotes and that 15-minute window the father's telling us would have taken her and dragged her to a watery underground pipe.

That did not happen. That is not what happened in this case. And this child was murdered. She did not get dragged off by coyotes. Nancy, the story that the adoptive father tells from the very beginning is one that makes it out, of course, for all benefiting him and what he's trying to sell, the bill of goods. The bottom line is none of what he says makes sense. None of us as a parent would do what he did or could justify it in any way, shape, or form. And the reason her body was found two weeks later in a culvert is because she was stashed there so she couldn't be found. Another thing we know, following up on what Dave

Mack is saying, Joe Scott Morgan, what can you tell me about a mystery trip somebody in that home goes on? They take a trip at around three to four o'clock in the morning. And I think the way they're proving this, Joseph Scott Morgan, is through surveillance video from other homes in that high-class neighborhood. Yeah, the cameras are catching this vehicle that belonged at this home, traveling away from the home. And what they believe is the car may have been gone for an extended period of time and then returned back. If you remember from our earlier conversation, our good friend Karen Smith had mentioned that one of the things the police might be looking at here is that they're going in after the chip, the chip in the car that will

actually tell the police where this car was going, what was going on, this sort of thing, as far as tracking of this vehicle. This is a big question for me. Where was the car going? Was Sharon's body inside of this car? Was she still alive at that time? Or at some point in time, was she killed? Maybe she was killed in the vehicle and then placed in this secluded area inside of this culvert, as you previously mentioned. It was a maroon Acura SUV. We believe may have been owned by the Matthews family. That's Sharon Matthews family. I want to talk about this Maroon Acura. I guarantee you in this neighborhood, Allen Duke, everybody on that street has got surveillance cameras and burglary alarm, burglar alarms, the works. And if they have one camera trained on the front porch or the front yard,

it's going to catch very easily an SUV going by at 4 o'clock in the morning, Alan. Yes, but as we've seen in other situations, you can have really good security camera video, yet you're unable to see who is actually inside of those vehicles. I'm thinking of the Missy Beepers case. Oh, whoa, wait, wait. Let me understand this. Did somebody report the family Acura missing?

Because I haven't heard that. So are you saying somebody else could have stolen the family Acura SUV, used it for one hour, and brought it back secretly? Is that your theory, Alan? No, it's not my theory, but you don't know who's in there. The wife, the husband, or maybe a friend. The wife and the husband say the wife was asleep. Right.

So we don't know. But my point is the security camera video can raise questions, but doesn't necessarily show that the father was the one driving that car. You can only look at it and just surmise what it is. It's kind of a guess. Joe Scott, am I the crazy one or is it Alan Duke? Because out of that family, the children can't drive. One of them is three and one of them is four.

All right. The mother says she's asleep the whole time. The father agrees. That leaves one person that can drive the car. The father, unless the coyotes did it. There ought to be some interesting conversations going on between the police and the parents right now. Somebody got in that maroon Acura that belongs to that family at 4 a.m. Now, how do they know that, Joe Scott?

I don't know that yet, but that's what police are saying. Somebody drove the family Acura, and police are asking for neighbors and area businesses to check their video to see footage of a maroon Acura SUV, the one owned by the Matthews family. They, police believe, left the home between 4 and 5 a.m. the day the little girl goes missing. I think they're going to get digital information and they probably already have it because if the person who took her body to where it went had a cell phone with them, I mean, like the Aaron Hernandez case, they were able to follow his exact footsteps because of the pings on the cell towers. They probably already have that information, and they're probably closing in. To Dave Mack, syndicated talk show

host joining me, did the family go to the vigil for little Sharon? No. And the entire community came out, but they didn't. Why did I misunderstand the so-called punishment? Why would you order a three-year-old child to stand outside by a tree at four o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning? He was just trying to come up with something, Nancy, that sounded right to him. You got to remember he didn't report her for five hours, and somehow in his jacked-up brain it made sense for him to say that at 3 o'clock in the morning he tied her to a tree and then did laundry

and didn't think to notify anybody that coyotes might have taken her away five hours earlier. Dave Mack, this is their adoptive child, and Sharon has had a very difficult life in those three short years. What do we know? Well, we know that when she came to this family, she was malnourished severely. She had some mental handicap of some type. I don't know the extent. We know that she was not. Her first, her 36 months of life were tortured and tiring, exhausting, and led to her eventual demise. She was malnourished, and we know that she had all sorts of developmental problems because of the way she was treated in India.

Her birth parents left her. Her second set of parents abandoned her as well. She came to the U.S., and she would sit at the adoption agency and there was an employee there. And when the little girl would see the employee show up for work, she would be waiting for hours on the steps. And she'd run to that employee and call her nanny. She was so desperate for love. She came to America to have a better life, to find a family that loved her, and now she's dead. And I will absolutely not rest until I see justice in the death of Sharon Matthews. Nancy, in the last few hours, a major development on this story. It seems Wesley Matthews is changing what he's told police.

And according to Richardson Police Sergeant Kevin Perlich, that change has resulted in a new felony charge against Matthews, a charge of injury to a child, and he has now been arrested. Let's listen to Richardson, Texas Police Sergeant Kevin Perlich. This afternoon, we were contacted by Mr. Matthews along with his attorney. They had agreed to come in and speak with us regarding our Sharon Matthews case. When they came in, they provided us with some information that was contrary to what we had previously been told regarding her disappearance. Once we were finished, the decision was made that we would elect, I'm sorry, decisio would arrest Mr Matthews

injury to a child. It's a punishable by 5 to 99 yea how this came about just you all and I was going t for the most part it was where they offered to com us and that's what they d spoke with our investigat and it's been an ongoing conversation for quite

some part of the day. Because it is still a continuing ongoing investigation, I can't get into the exact details as far as what he told us, but what he did tell us was contrary to what we had been previously told back on October the 7th when Sharon first came up missing. Okay, so this milk story not true anymore? Is that not the same story that he gave you today? Well, there was some contradictions to what he told us. And again, I can't go into the exact details of what it is because it's still an ongoing investigation.

But it was not what he had told us originally. Injury to a child, that means that he injured this girl, it is your belief? Yes, but we have not made any type of positive identification of the body that we found yesterday. We're still waiting to get word back from the ME's office and once we get word from them we'll have a positive identification. Is this a different charge than the cure? Yes the first charge that he had was endangerment and this one is now actually injury to a child. The first one was a second-degree felony this one is now a first-degree felony. Ms. Matthews was not with him. We have been in touch with her. That contact has been to try to make identification of the body that we found yesterday, look at

some of the clothing, provide the dental records. But as far as answering any questions about what may have taken place or what she had told us previously, we have not had any type of cooperation in that regard. Has she been cooperating with trying to get the dental records, or you were just trying to reach out to get her to do that and you were waiting for her to tell us? They have been in touch with us, and they are working on the dental records. And, right, but no further details have been provided to us regarding what may have happened. Can he bond out again?

His bond has been set at $1 million, so it is possible that he could bond out again. He is in custody here at our Richard City Jail right now. I do not know when he will be booked in, but we're awaiting that. In today's difference in the account, some differences, is there any change to what Cindy was doing, sleeping at the time? Well, again, that would be some details that we really can't get into. But I can tell you that because this is an ongoing investigation, you are likely to see some

some additional work being done on it there's the possibility that there may be additional arrests and there may be some modifications to some of the charges that you see right now. Does this new information from Wesley match up with some of the investigation that you can do? Right we have been able to kind of go through what we've what we know match that up, some of the stuff that we're now being told. And in that regard, yes, we've been kind of able to connect some of the dots. But there's a lot more work to be done yet before we can say we have a good grasp of everything that took place. And now in a stunning twist, the latest in the search for American teen beauty and honor grad, Natalie Holloway. Where we last left off in the search for Natalie Holloway is that bones, human remains,

had been found at a dig based on information received from a confidential informant there in Aruba. Take a listen to a renowned DNA expert, Dr. Kulkowski. When we actually took the DNA extract and ran it through this screening process, it came back positive. It came back human. You gotta be kidding. No, I'm not.

You say those are human bones. There is human DNA in these bone samples, yes. As to which one of the four is human, are all of them, that's where some additional testing is going to need to be done. So these are human bones or human DNA? There's human mitochondrial DNA in these bones. And that, I think, is fairly significant. Yeah, I wasn't expecting this. And there's even a more interesting aspect here. So the test we ran right now is designed to screen in a very broad way,

just look to see if there's any human mitochondria there. It's really interesting because not only does it align perfectly to our standard reference sequence that we use in Mito, there are no differences to the reference sequence. The reference sequence was actually built on a European Caucasian DNA sequence. The fact here is that that's the ancestry that we're questioning. Yeah, you caught me by surprise. I said, ah, Lee.

I never expected this. All of these dominoes are tipping over the right way, telling us that we need to proceed forward with some testing. There's a possibility, though, that this could be somebody else. There is. We have a potential to now test this bone sequence,

the mitochondrial DNA sequence, against Natalie's mother, and perhaps even make a match there. There are still avenues in which this testing is going to yield a result that may not be Natalie, but there's definitely pointers in the direction right now that tell us that there is a possibility There are still avenues in which this testing is going to yield a result that may not be Natalie. But there's definitely pointers in the direction right now that tell us that there is a possibility it could be her. Everyone's hopes were raised that this could finally be the end of the search for Natalie Holloway until this. As you're well aware, Beth submitted a DNA swab for comparative testing.

This is a graphic representation of the sequencing work that we did on Beth's sample. And so what we're looking at here is the comparison of Beth's profile against the profile that we already had from the combined bones. As of right now, we have the results of that sample. But this profile right here, it's not a match to Beth. It's somebody else. So we're not at a total loss of the investigation. We know somebody human. One of these bones is definitely human. We know that. And if not three, four of the bones, you know, they all could be. We just have to have a couple more pieces of information, and then I can give you the truth of the matter.

Out to Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host. You and I covered the case of a missing American tourist, Robin Gardner, in Aruba. She had gone down there in a friend capacity with the guy she met on the internet. He wanted to travel. She wanted to travel. So they go down there together, not romantically linked, but they went down there to spend time together and to just get out of town, to go have a good time together as friends.

She was never seen alive. Now, how does that factor into the search for Natalie Holloway, Dave Mack? Nancy, the bones that were found that were determined to be female European descent that ended up not being that of Natalie Holloway could very well be the bones of Robin Gardner. So her sister has agreed to a DNA test to try to prove or show whether or not what has been found actually belonged to the 35-year-old that went missing in 2011. You know, I know that Robin went missing in 2011. I know that. I remember when it all occurred.

And her family has been tortured ever since she went missing. It's one thing to read about it. It's one thing to hear about it. But take a listen to Dave Holloway. Well, if it's not Natalie, it's somebody else. And I think that, and I've said this before, John had somebody's bones on that island, and either the Aruban police or the FBI has got to get involved.

I mean, something's got to give. I mean, you can't just have human remains and no one do anything. I mean, I wish I could do more, but I mean, one of those two agencies has gotten, got to get involved, or either the Dutch have got to get control of the situation. Somebody's got to investigate it. There very well could be another family out there that is missing a loved one whose bones that those belong to. It's very, very important for somebody to do an investigation to get down to the bottom of how did you come up with these human remains

and whose are they. They're going to have to man up and... If it's not her, are you going to stop? What do you mean stop? Just stop. What do you mean, stop? Just stop. Stop what? Looking for Natalie? I think this is probably,

probably the end. I mean, we've searched all over the end. I mean we've searched all over the island. We just about have read every lead that is possible. I don't know that there's anything else we can physically do. Again this human bone found in Aruba during an investigation into the disappearance of American teen Natalie Holloway on her senior trip was tested. And although it is of a woman of European descent, it is not Natalie Holloway. New DNA testing, however, could conceivably link this bone to a missing Maryland woman, Robin Gardner. Her sister, as Dave just told you, Danielle, says she's willing to submit DNA for the test to Joe Scott Morgan.

How would that work? Well, you know, it's interesting that the sister, as soon as this came out, that this was not Natalie Holloway, the sister says, look, I i'm here i'm ready to volunteer one of the things they're going to do is do what's referred to as a buccal mucosal swab and that means in simple terms they're just going to swab her gum to get a sample of her dna and then they're going to do what's referred to as a familial dna testing my biggest problem with this case of nancy is that this bone, which we've seen pictures of, that was allegedly provided by Gabriel, this bone sample, just the physical appearance of it,

is old, it's decayed, and I'm really curious as to how this bone has been treated in the laboratory when they were attempting to harvest Natalie Holloway's DNA or alleged DNA that turned out not to be her. Is there enough sample left to compare? And that's going to be very compelling in this case moving forward. Well, they had enough to extract to determine it wasn't Natalie Holloway. What makes you think they wouldn't have enough to compare to Robin Gardner's DNA through her sister? Well, this is the problem. Sometimes these tests that they can conduct on an unknown sample can be rather destructive in the lab, and there wasn't a lot of bone to work with in the first place, Nancy. I'm just hoping that special care was taken with the initial sample, with that

initial piece, that bone fragment that they had. We're not talking about a huge piece of bone here, Nancy. We're talking about a small area, and I'm just hoping that it was handled appropriately and that they're going to be able to harvest DNA that's in there for this particular case. Joe Scott, isn't it true that when you're testing DNA that you can extrapolate? I know you can't recreate it, but somehow in the lab they can extrapolate. If you have a small amount of DNA, they can use that very small amount. But is it in fact possible that the DNA can be used up in testing? It's not so much that it can be used up as much as it can be compromised to a great degree. And you're right about this magnification that takes place. What they're going to do is it's a replication that they'll do. They'll take one strand, and then they'll begin to replicate it multiple times, and it'll create an entire testable strand, but again, back to what

I was saying, I'm just hoping that they haven't completely compromised the sample, and that's what this whole thing is going to hinge on, Nancy And it's just it's it's it's heartbreaking that that both of these families are having to endure this. I just hope that this sample will have been treated with care that that that that it deems necessary. To Dave Max syndicated talk show host explained to me the circumstances under which Gardner Robin Robin Gardner, went missing in Aruba. And to my understanding, she is one of four Americans to go missing there in just very recent years. What happened with Robin Gardner? Robin Gardner went to Aruba with her friend on a vacation. She was seen leaving a hotel or a restaurant, rather, at four o'clock in the afternoon according to her companion Mr. Giordano they were going to go snorkeling and that's where he claims that she

got caught up in a stronger current underwater and was drug out to sea he then made his way back to shore where he reported her missing at 6 p.m so 4 p.m they leave the restaurant 6 p.m. So 4 p.m. they leave the restaurant. 6 p.m. Ian asks if she's missing. You know, the whole thing doesn't hold together for me, his whole story. But again, he is not a suspect. He is not a person of interest. Let me make that clear. I want to go back to Aruban police. Do we really think they can solve anything, Joseph Scott Morgan, anything at all? No, I wouldn't trust them with anything, to be quite honest with you. And the way they're not that sophisticated, their ability to handle crime scenes and the process and the evidence, and where does that evidence go to be processed?

I have a lot of questions about their capabilities. So moving forward, now they're going to get slammed with one more big case. I don't know how this is going to be handled. And I agree with you, Nancy, this idea that she's been washed out to sea, it doesn't hold water for me either. And that she would be washed out and suddenly there would be these other remains that are found. As we had said in the earlier conversations between you and I, there were other missing people on that island. It wasn't just Natalie Holloway. It was other missing people that are out there, and it's really curious that we found, or that they found, other human remains at that site that did not belong to Natalie Holloway. Yeah, I mean, it begs

the question, Joe Scott, if it's not Natalie, who is it? I mean, take a listen. This is what Aruban police have to add to the whole scenario. Listen to them. Now, what about the bones? They all came out to be animal bones. What kind of animal was it? Do you know? Just animal bones. Okay. Not human bones. Is there any reports or anything you can give us about the bones? No, you're not law enforcement. We don't just give reports out to third parties. Can we look at them? The bones? We've got to get any question of doubt.

Can we get them the bones? Can we get us? Yeah? Okay. This is what was handed to us. The Aruban police are saying these bones are animal bones, but they haven't had those bones long enough to have them properly tested. So, you know, I have my doubts and I think what I will do is have the bones tested myself to make sure that they are non-human or exactly what they are. I mean, Alan Duke, that's all they've got to add. Hey, guys, after you found a human body and you figured out it is a woman of European descent and you figured out it wasn't Natalie,

hey, I bet you messed up the chain of custody. You really screwed up. That's basically what they're saying. They've done nothing. They've been sitting with their thumbs. Well, okay, never mind about where their thumbs are. But they've done nothing except taking pot shots at people that are trying to solve the case. Well, the police chief in Aruba seemed like a perfectly nice man,

but he never bought that it was anything other than dog bones or at least animal bones. And so he had them in a baggie and he handed them back to Dave Holloway and said, look, I'll give you these. They're dog bones. But keep in mind, if you take them, they can never be used in Aruba in a court of law because you've broken the chain of custody. As if they ever would be used in Aruba in a court of law because you've broken the chain of custody. As if they ever would be used in Aruba in a court of law. I mean, they've done nothing. I mean, help me out, Dave Mack. They put this guy in jail for five months trying to build a case. They actually could build nothing, even though every account of Robin Gardner is that she was a woman who would not even go underwater.

She didn't want to mess with her hair and her makeup. And on top of that, I mentioned earlier off the air, this guy wears a toupee. He wears so many different types of toupees that it's tough to identify him on CCTV because he's constantly changing them. But you know what? His toupee was still in place after he claims that he had been snorkeling with her. And he was panicked because she got drug out to see a woman who wouldn't go underwater, all of a sudden is snorkeling, and a dude that wears a tube, and it's perfectly on his head and perfectly dry.

Little problem there. If I remember the case correctly, she had had her hair done, and it had cost a lot of money, and she did not want to get her hair wet. Do you remember that, Dave Mack? I do. She had extensions and it was a big deal. Her longtime boyfriend actually talked about that. That was one of his biggest suspicions because she, not that she was vain,

she was just proud of the amount of time that went into the extensions in her hair. She was very particular about the way she looked, about her makeup, her hair, and everything being just the way she wanted it to be. That's why she didn't even go below the waist. You know, she did not go underwater. That's why this is such a big deal. Back to Alan. Alan, what more do we know about the testing that's going to go down on these bones that were found in Aruba? Well, the doctor in the U.S. did as modern testing as you can, the microchondrial DNA testing, everything that could be done, and concluded that it wasn't Natalie Holloway. So I would think now, Joe Scott, correct me, but isn't that all digital stuff? So if they've already done the test once on those bones, they've got the digital profile built so they don't have to do more testing.

Let's just have to see if it matches this woman's family, right? I would hope that they would. And I would hope that the fellow that was doing the testing on behalf of the Holloway family would see that, would see the benefit in trying to help solve another case and that he would render this over to someone else to test it or to at least examine it. I think that that's going to be very important as opposed to trying to go back and harvest another sample from a bone tissue, from the neuted bone tissue that's already pretty well compromised. Nancy Grace, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.