Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Why Jeremy Guillory murder haunts us

Episode Date: November 24, 2017

Who killed 6-year-old Jeremy Guillory in 1992 is not a mystery. Pedophile Ricky Langley is serving a life sentence in a Louisiana prison for strangling the child and hiding him in his closet. But the case still haunts many associated with it. Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, whose book "The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir" explores the case, visits with Nancy Grace in this episode. Grace is also joined by forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, author of "Blood Beneath My Feet: The Journey of a Southern Death Investigator" and New York psychologist Dr. Chloe Carmichael, creator of AnxietyTools.com. 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 on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. In 1992, Langley was arrested for the murder of six-year-old Jeremy Guillory of Iowa. A three-day search for the missing boy ended when the child's body was found in Langley's closet. The little boy had been strangled and molested. But I stuffed an old dirty sock in his mouth and I held his nose. Why did you do that? To make sure he couldn't get no air.

Okay. To end it. We will go to the ends of the earth to make sure that the person who committed that event sees justice. I think the ultimate judgment will be given to him another time, another place. A six-year-old little boy is dead. Jeremy. Juxtapose that against an incredible book called The Fact of a Body, a murder and a memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lestevich.

How do the two intersect? How do the two intersect? How do the two collide? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here on Sirius XM 132. With me, the author of The Fact of a Body, Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich. Also with me, high-profile psychologist,

Dr. Chloe Carmichael. Hi, Dr. Chloe. And Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. And, of course, Alan the Duke, joining me out of L.A. I want to start things by explaining a little bit, just a tiny bit, about the fact of a body, a murder, and a memoir. Now, remember, the backdrop is the murder of a six-year old little boy, Jeremy. Now, before Alexandria begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working for the defense, defending for the retrial of a death row inmate convicted murderer and child molester,

Ricky Langley. She thinks her position is very, very plain. She is the daughter of two lawyers, and she is very firm about the death penalty, anti-death penalty. But the moment Ricky's face appears on a screen as she is reviewing old tapes, the moment she hears him actually talking about his crimes, she's overcome with a feeling of wanting Ricky Langley to die, which is against everything she has ever believed.

I want you to first hear a confession tape by the convicted child molester and killer, Ricky Langley. I wrapped that string, that long string around his neck and pulled it as hard as I could on it. That still wasn't stopping him trying to breathe. He was still trying to breathe. But I stuffed an old dirty sock in his mouth and I held his nose. Why did you do that? To make sure he couldn't get nowhere. Okay. To end it. To Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich, the author of The Fact of a Body, a Murder and a Memoir. Alexandria, thank you for being with us. Tell me how you came to write the book. Thank you for having me. I really wrote the book because I was so haunted by the case.

And the act of writing the book was really an act of trying to figure out why it was haunting me so, why it seemed to be getting so tangled up with my memories of my own past. So I had watched the videotape, as you said, while I was an intern at this law firm. I didn't work directly on his case, but they showed us this confession tape. And up to that moment, my feelings were so clear. Right after I watched the tape, I learned that Jeremy Guillory's mother, Lorelei Guillory, had taken the stand at the trial. There were three trials. And so she'd taken the stand at the second trial. And she'd actually pleaded to keep Ricky Langley alive. She testified for him. And in that moment, I was so struck that she had been able to do this and I couldn't. That even though, despite what I believed,

despite what I'd wanted to fight for, I'd gone to law school wanting to fight the death penalty, how had she been able to do that and why couldn't I? And I think for years I was also haunted by it because it raised this question, you know, is who we are determined by what we believe and what we want to fight for? Or is who we are determined by what happened in our past? Because what happened for me was that the Langley case really hit hard against all these things in my own past I couldn't think about or talk about. And so for years, you know, the details of the case, there was this BB gun that Jeremy had.

There was a blue blanket that Ricky Langley wrapped his body in. These details would just come back to me really like I was haunted by them. And years later, I started to get some of the court records from the case in an attempt to lay the past to rest, in an attempt to kind of put it in the ground, stop thinking about it. And instead, it really led into this book. Wow. Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich, author of The Fact of a Body, A Murder and a Memoir. I didn't want you to stop talking to hear you recall those moments and how your past factors in to this particular case haunting you. Joe Scott Morgan, I know that you are familiar with the murder of six-year-old Jeremy Gilroy. What happened? It's an absolutely brutal case that took place in the home of, it's actually a rented room that was down the street from where this little tiny area of Iowa, Louisiana, and didn't have much to speak of in material possessions.

And this child, who was at least peripherally familiar with Langley, was essentially lured in to, to the home. And at that point in time, there's, it's, it's alluded to at least that, that potentially Langley had a, had an attraction to him because he had actually been in his child's

presence when the child was being bathed or bathing. And. Wait a minute, wait a minute. How did that happen, that a child molester is in the presence of a six-year-old boy when he's being bathed? I think that the dynamics of this family, probably, you know, that are dictated by a lot of the circumstances that the mother was in, you know, left him in a position where Langley had actually watched, cared over this child, at least for a small period of time just previous to the homicide.

And Alexander speaks to this in compelling terms about that this is kind of where the seed was planted. And eventually what happened was that Langley strangled this little boy. But it's so much more than that. To Alexandria Morzano-Lesnovich, author of The Fact of a Body, Murder and Memoir, isn't it true that at one juncture, we learn that Ricky Langley claims he likes to sleep in graveyards and that he wanted to sleep with the body of a six-year-old boy? Yeah, there is a long history of Ricky making these kinds of statements. He has a fascination with the occult that seems to go back to when he was a child and to the circumstances of his birth and to the circumstances of his early childhood. And so he tells many stories later about strangling Jeremy, in which he gives many different reasons that he did so and many different feelings that he had afterwards. I think one of the things that drew me to this case was that the record is full of him

kind of telling himself the story of the murder, trying to figure out why he did it. And yeah, that's one of the stories he gives. Did he molest Jeremy before he was murdered? That is the question. That is the question. And it's really striking to me that in three trials, they never really solidly answered

that question. Were forensics done on the child's body, Alexandria? Yes, they were. They were. And Ricky Langley's sperm was found on the child's t-shirt, on Jeremy's t-shirt. He was wearing a little white Fruit of the Loom t-shirt, and they cut the semen stains out of it. And the location of that semen and how it might have transferred, whether it transferred or whether it got there through Ricky Langley doing something, was a source of a lot of debate at the trial. But confusingly, there was also a piece of evidence found on him, a pubic hair found on his lip that did not match Ricky Langley. To Joe Scott Morgan,

I cannot explain the hair on the child's lip, but I can explain Ricky Langley's sperm on the child's t-shirt. I can't explain that. And I don't need...

Joe Scott Morgan, I used to argue to juries. You know, I learned early on as a child, as a little girl, it's easier to understand something if you're hearing a story like a parable. Get it? A parable. A story that makes a point. Heard them every Sunday morning. Stories that teach you a point. And this is what I would tell a jury.

The judge will instruct you that circumstantial evidence is as powerful, and in my opinion, even more powerful sometimes than direct evidence. Direct evidence is like an eyewitness or DNA or a fingerprint. Circumstantial evidence is this. When you come into your office in the morning, it's 8 a.m. and the sky is bright and shiny, not a cloud to be seen. You come out at lunchtime. It's dark, dark. It's cloudy. There's water on the ground, pools of water. Men are going by hugging their raincoats. Women have umbrellas. You don't have to see the storm to know it rained. That's circumstantial evidence. What you can deduce, figure out from what you see, what you

smell, what you hear, what you touch, That's circumstantial evidence, and it is powerful. Nobody needs to tell me that the child was molested when the killer's sperm is on the child's T-shirt. Am I the crazy one in this scenario, Joe Scott? No, no. And the beauty of direct evidence, when coupled with the narrative that's left behind is that it does fill in the blanks for us. The trick is, I think, based on my experience in court and the labs, is if the prosecutor has the ability to put these pieces together and present it in a manner in which, you know, can sway the jury to their point of view.

And it's three trials. Wow. And, you know, there are a lot of conclusions that can be drawn here. But I agree with you. Something, you know, you don't find ejaculate on a T-shirt that belongs to a small child like this without something having happened. Well, I mean, it's the defendant's sperm. It's not the child's sperm. Hold on.

Before I go back into the facts, I want to bring in a renowned psychologist joining us out of Manhattan. It's Dr. Chloe Carmichael. Dr. Chloe, thank you for being with us. The real issue here, I mean, you heard the confession about sticking a sock in the little boy's mouth and pinching his nose so he couldn't breathe. His t-shirt covered in the defendant's sperm. The question is going to be, was he insane at the time of the act? Now, under our law, our Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence,

and I say that because we brought our common law from Great Britain. That's where we got it. And at the time it was created, it was under the Saxon and Anglo rule. That's where that comes from. And under our law, the McNaughton Law of Insanity is, if you knew right or wrong at the time you committed the act, not when you go to trial, not when you're in jail and you're throwing your food and humming to yourself,

at the time of the incident. And the argument at trial, Dr. Chloe Carmichael, was that he knew to cover up his crime. At the time, he tried to cover it up, which says to many that he knew right from wrong. Dr. Chloe Carmichael, weigh in. I would agree that this definitely sounds like somebody who is able to tell right from wrong. Certainly, it sounds like a very damaged able to tell right from wrong. Certainly, it sounds like a very damaged and warped person from a tragic background who absolutely was struggling with mental illness. But, you know, you're absolutely right, Nancy. There's no evidence to say that this person did not know right from wrong. For example, he never attempted anything like this in front of other people, right? He waited until he

was alone. He waited until he was in secret. He originally lied to the police, from what I understand, and said, you know, that the little boy had not been there. And as you said, he then hid the body. So he later, you know, recalled and discussed it with such clarity and such willingness. But I think that might have more to do with a desire on his part to try to seek some kind of absolution. But I certainly don't think that he was unable to tell the difference between right and wrong at the time. You know, one thing that I really appreciated to Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich, our special guest joining us, author of The Fact of a Body, is that the judge struggled. The judge struggled with what to do.

And he went on and on about how could two renowned experts come to such startlingly different conclusions about, was this guy insane at the time? He murdered six-year-old Jeremy did you notice that Alexandra he really discussed it a lot oh absolutely I mean he even discussed throughout the trial he even discussed how much the case was driving him to drink and how much when he went home at night he was haunted by what he had seen in the courtroom the images of Jeremy's body Alexandra you are just giving me chills on my arms right now because you just in that one moment brought back all the times I would have to actually pull off the road in my car when I would leave the courthouse. And I have a very strict rule against drinking.

And I'll tell you why. It's not a moral or ethical rule. It's that I've seen it destroy so many people. Destroy. tell you why it's not a moral or ethical rule it's that I've seen it destroy so many people destroy and when you see cases like this as I have sometimes it is overwhelming and you know what I'm not proud of anybody that that drinks too much or drive drives drinking or but the fact that he struggled so much shows me that this judge cared. He cared. He cared about what happened.

He cared about doing the right thing. I really think he did. And those comments started even during voir dire, during jury selection, when he was also clearly haunted by seeing Ricky in front of him. And the fact that, you know, in his courtroom, it would be determined whether Ricky Langley lived or died. He spoke quite movingly on the record about not, you know, fearing that decision, fearing being haunted by it years later, fearing either way the case came out, you know, whether Langley was convicted and sentenced to death, which he ultimately wasn't in that trial, but fearing that that too would haunt him, but also fearing what would happen if, you know, he had to look at these pictures of this little boy

and look at this little boy's mother and say that there would be no justice for him. So, I mean, one of the things that the judge really showed me was the cost on the different people involved in the criminal justice system. Well, hold on just a moment. And the cost on you. Yes. Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich, who became intimately familiar with this death penalty case and the molestation and murder of a six-year-old little boy, Jeremy, the toll it took on you during that internship,

the toll it takes on Dr. Chloe Carmichael as she struggles with issues like this. Psychologist joining me out of Manhattan, Joe Scott Morgan. He's a death investigator. Myself have handled literally thousands of felonies. The toll it takes on you. It changes your life forever.

You don't believe me? Listen to this. I wrapped that string, that normal string around his neck and pulled it as hard as I could on it, you know, you know, that still wasn't stopping him trying to breathe. He was still trying to breathe, but I stuffed an old dirty sock in his mouth and I held his nose. Why did you do that? To make sure he couldn't get no air to end it. I want to pause very briefly and thank our partners making our program possible. Don't leave your dog out of the holiday fun. Get the Link AKC Smart Collar.

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I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. And again, I want to thank you for being with us on this very important program here on Sirius XM 132. With me, the author of The Fact of a Body, a Murder and Memoir, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnovich, who was profoundly affected by the time she spent working on a death penalty case, going into the case staunchly against the death penalty. In fact, her aim was to save Ricky Langley from the death penalty. Langley convicted of murdering a six-year-old little boy, Jeremy Gilroy. With me, Dr. Chloe Carmichael, psychologist out of Manhattan and renowned forensics expert,

Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University and death investigator. You know, when I was growing up, I never thought that I would put behind my name specialty serial murder, serial rape, serial child molestation. I just didn't see that coming. You know, in my world, Alexandra, when I was growing up, I thought that I would get a car or truck. And on the back, I would get a car or truck and on the back I would have one of those traveling like RV trailers and it would be full of books books just nothing but books in there and that I would also behind that have attached another trailer with a horse in it that was what I would thought I would do and I would write books and play with my horse. That was my plan, okay? I did not know that one day it would be Nancy Grace, trial specialty,

serial murder, serial rape, and serial child molestation, and any type of arson. That was basically on my calling card. I'm sure, Joe Scott, you didn't think that you would be death investigator, and Dr. Chloe probably did not imagine she would be helping people sort through life-changing issues. Alexandria, your childhood really played into the way that six-year-old Jeremy's murder affected you? It did. And in fact, it was everything that I didn't think about in my childhood

that was sort of forced to the forefront by encountering this case. So when I watched Ricky Langley's Confession, which you've now heard a clip of, I was sitting in that room. I remember it so clearly. I was in this big cavernous law firm library, you know, dark wood lined, the shelves lined with the leather bound books that hold all the old case registers. And I was sitting on a folding chair. I was pretty nervous. I was 25 years old. It was only my third day in this internship. And so you can imagine,

you know, I was wearing a new suit, kind of scratchy on my skin. And I'm sitting there and I've been waiting for this moment since I was a child, really, since I learned about the death penalty. At eight years old, I had wanted to fight it. And they cue up this tape and they play this tape. And Ricky Langley on the tape describes the pleasure he took in molesting small children. And he described very vividly, very specific actions that he did. And all of a sudden, listening, I wasn't 25 years old anymore. All of a sudden, I was a child again. And I could feel my grandfather's hands on me.

And that was the moment that I wanted him to die. I had never forgotten being molested. You know, it wasn't like that. But it was something that I tried really, really hard not to think about, precisely because the memories lived so vividly in my body. So I think why this case haunted me so much for so many years is just everything that it made me confront that lived inside me that I had tried so desperately many of us, not all of us, those moments, those horrible moments in our lives that try their best to define us, that we carry around every single day. I've dealt with so many rape victims, child molestation victims, and their lives are forever changed.

Dr. Chloe Carmichael, when this happens to you as a child, you don't even have a chance to fully develop as a person. You know, your entire life is affected. I want to say defined, but as we see in Alexandria's case, she did not let it define her. Help me, Dr. Chloe. Sure. Well, Nancy, I think you're exactly right, which is that we would actually be pathologizing anybody, you know, who has suffered this kind of abuse if we were to say, you know, well, because the killer experienced this abuse, this was therefore became his destiny to act out that way upon other people. And that would actually be the most damaging and stigmatizing

thing that we could do. So as a psychologist, I have to say that this is a situation where we have to be able to hold both truths at the same time, that that Ricky Langley was a was a victim himself. And then he chose not to control himself, not to, you know, get the help that he needed. There's, it's one thing, it's one level in psychology to have urges to molest children. It's another thing to act on it. So from what I understand, he had experienced those urges and had even been convicted in the past of child molestation. So this is somebody who actually had experience and had, you know, had attempts from society

at trying to correct him before. And he chose to go another way. And we need to understand that that was his choice. And therefore, he needs to be held accountable. You know, just got Morgan back to the issue of whether he knew right from wrong, I noticed that during the trial, Langley appeared to be paying attention, and he actually broke out smiling at many, many points during the trial, even though he had a bandage under one of his eyes from a cut that he had gotten from a fight with another inmate. But when the state played the tape of Langley confessing to killing Jeremy and testimony when the police uncovered the body, he hung his head down and would not watch. And you know what that reminds me of, Joe Scott? I remember when I was called to the stand in my fiance's murder and I took the stand, I remember that distinctly.

Everything else melts away. I can't remember hardly a thing. But I remember coming down off the witness stand, and it was high up, even with the judges, almost even with the judge. And you would walk up one set of stairs, and there was a little landing. And then you go up to another set of stairs to the witness stand. You were way up. And I remember walking down, and I remember my boots on the wood, and I walked past the state's table,

and I saw Keith's bloody denim shirt that I had not seen, and I saw it lying on the state's table. And then I kept walking. I got to the defense table. I looked at the defendant. He met my eyes and immediately looked down. And then I looked at the defense lawyer. And he looked at my eyes.

And then he looked down. Like straight into his lap. They couldn't look up. And I remember just standing there staring at them. And then walking out in my boots. Making the footstep sounds on the marble floor until the door shut behind me that's what i remember and when i hear langley just look down when his confession was being played that means a lot to me joe scott yeah I know it does, Nancy. Can I just say, I've got to tell you, something that was really gripping to me and kind of dovetails with what you're saying here. And I don't know if

Alexander can really, you know, comment on this or not, but in his confession, he may have looked down in court at that moment in time, but in his confession, there was something that just really stood out to me. And that's when he didn't say that as he was using a ligature on this child's neck that he wanted to hurry or speed his death. He said, I took an old, dirty sock, not just a sock. I stuffed it in his mouth, and then I held his nose. And to me, that one statement really sums this up with this fellow. This seems as though that maybe he is fighting some kind of internal battle. I don't know, in the whole grand scheme of things, in light of this child who cannot speak for himself any longer. I don't really care. But it does talk about the person, the essence of what this perpetrator was relative to this innocence life. And that just, it's haunting. I mean, it's absolutely haunting. It just gripped me. And that's the first time I've heard that confession. It just really gripped me.

And I don't know if that impacted Alexandria the same way, but it just, it just really kind of reached out through the microphone and, you know, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich, the author of The Fact of a Body, a Murder and a Memoir. When you heard this confession, you stated that it immediately brought back the horrible memories of your childhood and your grandfather's assault on you. How did you ever reconcile that? Was your grandfather ever brought to justice? Not only was he not brought to justice, but he wasn't thought of as a criminal. What, what? I'm sorry, what? Not only was he not brought to justice, but he wasn't thought of as a criminal.

What do you mean by that? Oh, I mean that, you know, in in my family we just didn't talk about the abuse uh it was basically forbidden to do so not basically it was forbidden to do so um and even as i was in law school it never occurred to me that what he had done was criminal it wasn't until i was writing the book and thinking constantly of this murder as the crime in the book, which of course it is, it's a horrible crime in the book, that I slowly realized that actually I was writing about two crimes. I was actually writing about two criminals. And part of why I wanted to tell this story was to get at maybe the different ways that we

sometimes think of abuse when it happens within a family. We sometimes don't recognize that what has happened is a crime. And so when I was, you know, writing this, I did confront my grandfather when I was a teenager. And I don't, I, you know, I look back now at that 18-year-old who went off to confront him, and I am in awe of her bravery. You know, I think often, actually, of that. I went to the apartment building where he was living, and I remember so vividly the walk down the hallway to his apartment where I was going to finally speak the words aloud to him that no one had ever confronted him on. I'm in awe of that girl's

bravery. And when I confronted him, you know, he didn't deny it. And he certainly didn't apologize for it. He was almost boastful about it. But then he called me the next day and asked me if I forgave him. No apology. Just asked me if I forgave him, which in its way was an acknowledgement of all the harm he had done. I don't know. I just,

that makes me so angry to hear that he asked you to forgive him because now the onus is on you that you have to forgive him. Yes. Oh, that is so wrong that the onus is on you to forgive him. And another thing, and please don't be angry with me, Alexandria, please. What were your parents doing during all of this when you had to go confront him?

You told your parents, right? I did tell my parents. And I think in some ways, you know, there are many reasons I wrote this book. But I think in some ways, I partially wrote this book to understand my parents' choices. Because it's very different when you're sort of living the memories. You see them only from your own perspective. But when you're actually writing about people, you have to try to imagine or try to understand what they might have been thinking. And my parents rather chose not to confront him.

They chose actually to keep the whole thing a secret. They did make sure that he wasn't alone with us again in a situation where he could molest us. But, you know, they kept him coming to the house, which was very, very hard for me when I was growing up and very hard for me when I was a teenager. Very hard for me afterwards, too. And so part of writing this was to try to understand the way that the choices that they made,

on the one hand, I really think kept our family together, you know, but on the other hand, caused these deep fissures and these deep, deep hurts. And, you know, I've heard from so many people since this book came out. I'll tell you, for the first four months after this book came out, I got between one and three emails a day from people who had been abused and whose families kept it a secret and who were talking about the things that the book had opened up inside of them. And one of them is sort of trying to understand this stigma and this secrecy and this silence that often attaches to abuse and specifically the stigma attaches to the abuse victims and

people don't want to talk about it. And I think that's part of what allows it to continue. Can I ask you something, Alexandria Morzano-Lesnovich, who's channeled all of that that you're hearing right now into this incredible work, The Fact of a Body, a Murder, and a Memoir. In later life, as you were writing this book, did you ask your parents why they did not confront him? Or did they and you didn't know about it? What did they say? They said actually that they couldn't, and I knew this, that they couldn't,

and it's in the book, they consulted a psychologist at the time, who told them that the best thing to do would be to model not being affected by it. And I think that that was the advice that was given in a certain time period, you know. And part of my— Wait, the advice was to do what? To model it not having an impact. So not to make a big deal out of it. Not to, you know, not to sort of confront him. Not to, you know, to just model that maybe it didn't matter.

And I think that that was maybe the advice given in a certain time period. Okay, that actually makes me feel a tiny modicum better, that they tried to do something. Absolutely. They tried to do it. They just discounted. They went, they sought out a professional. They said, what do we do?

What's the best thing for Alexandria? And that's what they were told. So that's what they did. Absolutely. And part of what I wanted to capture was the cost of that, right? Like everybody was doing, I think one of the hard things about this story is that the families were doing what they thought was best. You know, you see this too in Ricky Langley's family, which really struggled. His family really struggled. And when he, as a young man, started to struggle, they took him to a psychologist. You know, they tried to do what they thought was best. Well, this is something that I know, Alexandra,

and I'm coming right back to you. And I'd like for Dr. Chloe Carmichael and Joe Scott Morgan and the Duke to take this in as well. Lorelei Gilroy comes home calls for her son who had been outside playing she didn't get a response she went to the Lawrence house where her baby often played Langley answered the door Gilroy asked him if he had seen her son he said no okay you know that just reminded me of something. Okay. Do you remember the very first murder? Okay. Cain and Abel. And they come and say, where's your brother? I don't know. I don't know. The very first murder. She comes and says, where is Jeremy? I don't know. I haven't seen him. She goes to go search for him and then comes back to call 911. Right after that, he, Ricky Langley, makes his own 911 call to report the boy missing and then pretends to help the mother look for the boy.

They start to search the wooded area. A command center is set up. A search was conducted throughout the weekend. The boy. They start to search the wooded area. A command center is set up. A search was conducted throughout the weekend. Finally, on that Monday, police get information that there was a convicted child molester named Ricky Langley, whose last address was in the area. What happened then, Joe Scott Morgan? How was Jeremy's body found? And this is after all the subterfuge.

His own 911 called him, pretending to help find the boy after he just stuffed a dirty sock in his mouth. How was the body found, Joe Scott Morgan? Found in the home of Ricky Langley in a closet, placed in there by this person who had, you know, initially attempted to aid in the search. And it's quite striking as well. One of the things that's brought forward in this is that when Lorelai, the mother, had initially come searching for her little boy, Alexander points out in her work that initially he had laid

him out on the bed covered with a Dick Tracy blanket, if you will, a cartoon character. And the mother had come to the house initially looking for her little boy. The BB gun that he had carried leaned against the wall there. And this cycle continues until finally the young boy's body is actually found in the home of Ricky Langley. I want to take this moment and thank our partner for making our program possible today. It's Super Beats. Are you concerned about your blood pressure like I am?

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Plus free shipping. What's not to love? Call 800-516-0683 or go online to nancysbeats.com today. I want to go to Dr. Chloe Carmichael, joining us, psychologist out of Manhattan. We are talking about the horrific molestation and murder of a six-year-old little boy, Jeremy Gilroy. Against the backdrop of this incredible book, The Fact of a Body, a Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich, joining us, Dr. Chloe, I keep thinking about what Alexandria said about her own horrific moments as a child when she was assaulted by her grandfather and it all came rushing back to her and she could actually feel his hands on her body again as she

heard testimony and evidence in this case. I'm thinking about the advice the parents were given by a psychologist to try to minimize what happened, not make a big deal out of it at the time, to help Alexandria heal. What do you make of that, Dr. Chloe Carmichael? Thanks, Nancy. That's such an important question. So it is true that we don't want to suggest to a child that something like this has to define them. But we do definitely want to model for the child that the abuser does need to be held accountable. And we want to praise the child for speaking up. We want to make the child know that the adults will stand around them and support them. And we also want to model that we will insist that the abuser get help and support and be held accountable.

You know, Alexandria, you're such a brave person to be able to share all of this and to put this out for us to understand together. And in that particular case, I also can't help but wonder, you know, about your grandfather's relationship with, you know, either the mother or the father that ultimately, you know, decided to suggest that the healthiest thing here to do would be to keep it quiet. Sometimes these family patterns do get transmitted. You know, there's been a lot of controversy for some reason as to whether Ricky Langley, a known pedophile, assaulted six-year-old Jeremy before his murder. And I'd like to direct everyone's attention to the Court of Appeals of Louisiana, Third Circuit, Louisiana versus Ricky Joseph Langley. And this decision was April 6, 2011. The facts as laid out, and they go back to the trial transcript,

which is undisputed as to what happened at trial. Granted, there were several trials, but it was not disputed what the defendant said. The defendant said that from the moment he saw the six-year-old boy, he, quote, wanted him, that he wanted to molest him. On the Friday that he murdered the six-year-old child, Jeremy, the child was at the house playing with Lawrence's son, but Jeremy left when Mrs. Lawrence and her son left to visit a relative. He later returned with a BB gun while the defendant was there alone and asked if his little friend was there. The defendant said, come in and visit. So Jeremy came in and put his BB gun down in the front room where it was later spotted, as Joseph Scott Morgan told you still sitting in the front room

defendant said he knew then that he would quote mess with the child unless someone came home or the child left immediately Langley goes on to state that while Jeremy was playing, he went up behind him, put his arm around his neck, lifted him off the floor, and choked him, and that he knew then he was going to kill the six-year-old child. He stated that Jeremy was kicking and that his little boots came off his feet. He was kicking so hard to live. He goes on to state he, quote, felt enjoyment while he was choking the six-year-old child, that when Jeremy quit moving, he carried him to his Langley's bedroom and laid him on the bed, that he then put his penis in the child's mouth and ejaculated. He states he left Jeremy there and went about the task of doing laundry. At some point, Jeremy was making noises and he then put a ligature around his neck,

choked him, pulling the ligature as hard as he could, tying the ends of the cord together, and stuffed a sock in Jeremy's mouth. Those are the facts as recited by the Court of Appeals of Louisiana, Third Circuit. Those are the facts as we know them now. Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich ended up working on this case as an intern at a law firm tasked with getting Langley out of the death penalty. Alexandria, when you look back on your task of saving this guy from the death penalty. Alexandra, when you look back on your task of saving this guy from the death penalty, and you contrast that with the facts that I've just recited from the trial transcript, what are your thoughts? You know, you said something earlier that really stayed with me, Nancy, when you talked about how one thing about circumstantial evidence means that we can tell a story out of it.

And this case was really a contest between stories. So, for example, one of the really riveting facts you just gave us that Langley ejaculated into Jeremy's mouth, it's really important to note that at one trial that was given as a fact, but at other trials that was not only disputed, but in fact there was no physical evidence of it. Other than his statement and the sperm on the boy's T-shirt? And yet when they did testing in Jeremy's mouth and would have expected to find ejaculate, and when they tested the contents of Jeremy's stomach, that was not found. Interesting. So Joe Scott Morgan, we have him stating exactly what he did.

And you've got the boy lying on the bed and all the other facts that he stated in his confession are corroborated by the physical evidence there is the child's t-shirt covered in his ejaculate um i get the sense that we're now splitting hairs as to whether he ejaculated in his mouth or not joe scott can you help me out forensically yeah i don't i don't necessarily know that that there would be ejaculate readily visible or detectable in the child's mouth. But what we do know is that. I know it wouldn't be detectable in his stomach. Well, yeah, but keep in mind what was alluded to in the decision that you read. He went back.

It says that he went back and actually facilitated the ligature because he heard him moving. Now, he might not have been able to necessarily ingest in what we would normally think, but yeah, I mean, you would think that in a manner in which we would normally think, but he was still alive for that period of time. But what we do know is that there was ejaculate that was tied back to this person on the shirt. And this is an example of things that I've seen in the past, particularly with individuals that are basically necrophiles. After they've taken someone's life, In serial cases I've been involved in, they long to have a control over an individual and then to stand over them and masturbate over bodies.

And this is something that you can see in the literature over and over and over again. It is kind of a splitting hairs issue here. What we do know is that there was some type of sexual contact. The interesting thing, though, is was it anti-mortem or pre- or post-mortem? I have a question, just curious. Alexandra, why does it matter if he ejaculated in the boy's mouth or not? Two things. One, you know, it's important to note that Lorelei Guillory believes her son was not molested by a recluse.

Why is that important? Because the facts really speak for themselves, don't they? You know, then I think we wouldn't have had three trials. But the spot of ejaculate that we've talked about was actually on the back of his shirt. Right. So if he were lying on his back, I mean, one of the things that was interesting about this case to me is just that the facts can appear to be so simple, and yet we have three trials, and we never quite nailed down what happened. And I think one of the reasons that it is so important is because it goes to

sometimes this unknowability of the past. You know, I saw this in my own life, that there were facts in the abuse that were very, very clear. And then there were things that my body would hold or that lived as memories inside me that I would never quite understand. And I think it goes to what we're doing in some ways when we decide whether someone is going to live or die in a death penalty case. But also what we're doing when we tell ourselves a story out of our own lives and try to make peace with, to some extent, the irreconcilable or unknowable past, is that we try to figure out how to make sense of it. Dr. Chloe Carmichael joining us along with Alexandria Marzano-Lesnovich. Dr. Chloe, Alexandria brought up, guys with me is Dr. Chloe Carmichael, website anxietytools.com, anxietytools.com. Dr. Chloe, Alexandria is referring to the, I guess, dispute of facts, which I don't really

see that. The boy's dead by strangulation with a defendant semen on his shirt and all the facts corroborate both the child molestation and murder so i'm not quite sure i see the issue but dr chloe the fact that alexandra has brought up the child's mother lorelei refused to believe that her child was molested, even with a known pedophile that stated he wanted to molest the boy since he first saw him, and that he molested him horribly as he died. Why would a mother not want to accept that fact about her child's murder that he was also molested? Yes, Nancy, that's a very painful question to confront, because of course, Jeremy's mother has been through so much already and having lost her son.

And on a primal level, even though obviously it's not her fault, there's a part of her that may feel as if she failed to protect her son. And so the more gruesome and the more horrible that her son's death was, the more guilty and painful that she might feel inside. So it's possible that there's just a limit to how much she can understand and grasp here. And sometimes the mind just kind of shuts off at a certain point. And that might actually be the breaking point here. Everyone with me, Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich, author of an incredible book, The Fact of a Body, A Murder and a Memoir. Dr. Chloe Carmichael joining me, psychologist out of Manhattan, her website, anxietytools.com, forensic expert, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, Joe Scott Morgan, and Alan Duke joining us from LA. Alexandria, where does the case stand now?

What was the resolution in the murder case of Ricky Langley? He is serving a life sentence, and he will always be serving a life sentence. He will be in prison until he dies. So at the end of the day, Ricky Langley has escaped the death penalty. And seemingly everyone goes about their business except Alexandria Marzano-Lesnovich and her incredible book, The Fact of a Body, a Murder and a Memoir. Thank you, everyone. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.