Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - With one toe in the Oval Office, political honcho gets jail time PERV on minor girl. PLUS Library visits lead to murder charge, and 'demon-possessed' kid evicted

Episode Date: September 25, 2017

A librarian's observation of a man's reading habits helped pin a murder charge on him. Curtis Nichols allegedly researched legal defenses before strangling his wife to death. Anthony Weiner's day of reckoning for sexting with a teen has arrived. The former New York congressman is in court to learn how long he'll be in prison for sex messages to a girl. The parents of a 7-year-old kicked their son out of their Texas home because they believed he was possessed by a demon. Nancy Grace is joined by forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, psychologist Caryn Stark, reporter Steve Helling & child advocate Ashley Willcott. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. February 2004, Maura Murray empties her bank account, drives four hours from school, crashes her car, and vanishes. Join the search as an investigative reporter uncovers new evidence, interrogates new witnesses, traces down new leads in this riveting new investigative series the disappearance of maura murray saturdays 7 6 central and 9 8 central on oxygen the new network for crime crime stories with nancy grace on sirius Triumph, channel 132. Prosecutors presented new evidence against Curtis Nickel, who is accused of strangling his wife. There is DNA underneath the victim's fingernails that is consistent with the defendant's DNA. Police say the family's three children were inside the home in August when Curtis strangled his wife.

Our concern with him was largely a danger to himself and a danger to his children. He advised officers that he had left the residence and went to the store, returned home, and that's when he found his wife on the floor. Police reports also indicate Nichols had wounds on his arm and head. Don't you just hate it? When you leave the house for 15 minutes to run through McDonald's and get a cheeseburger, large fries, and a DC diet coke. But of course, since I don't let my children have soda, if I have to break down and have a soda,

I refer to it as prune juice on ice. Believe me, they never even asked to taste it. It works. So you leave, you got 15 minutes and you come back and your wife's dead. Isn't it funny how that whole thing works? You go on 15 minutes, you come back and your wife is dead. And what's really crazy about it is your three young children are there in the home. And guess what? When you ask them what happened to mommy, they don't know anything. Probably. Do you think one of them did it? Isn't it a coincidence how that happens in just a little sliver of time that the husband is gone. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

With me, forensics expert, death scene investigator, Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. Also with me, investigative reporter with People Magazine, Steve Helling. Of course, I'm talking about 35-year-old Curtis Ray Nichols. Poor guy. He goes to McDonald's for a Big Mac and he comes home. He's barely wiped the special sauce off his mouth and his wife is dead. What happened, Steve? Well, that's his story.

He ran a couple errands, comes back, his wife's unconscious on the kitchen floor. You know, like any normal husband, he calls 911. That's his story. I'm loving this picture of him. He has on a blue button-down shirt with a very nice-looking, paisley-looking blue tie. It looks to be an expensive belt. And his dress slacks. His hair looks awesome in a kind of a shag way.

And he's got the defense lawyer by his side. He's got a little fleet of defense with him because, of course, suspicion fell on him. Is this guy actually going to get out of this? I got to take a look at this picture again. He looks a lot different in the mugshot. So let's get back to the crime before I put too much focus on what he looks like now. Again, can't judge a book by their cover. So let's get back to the timeline.

That's where we start with everything. Tell me the timeline. Start at the beginning, Steve Helling. You know, they were there in this, you know, they lived in this house. This husband and wife were their three kids. They were ages. My star. She's beautiful.

Yeah. She actually looks like a Robin Wright, the actress in princess bride. Oh, she looks like Robin in princess bride. Okay. I'm sorry. Just threw me off for a minute.

Go ahead. Back to your story. They were living this great life. It looked like, and he goes out to run some errands, including going to McDonald's. And he says, he's only gone for 15 minutes and he comes back.

She is unconscious in the in or you know not not responsive in the kitchen floor and you know upstairs are the kids again ages seven five and two none of them seven five and two they're upstairs now let me understand this okay joseph scott morgan let's just let's pause i can't even count the crime scenes, the autopsies, the you name it, that the two of us have investigated. Right there, alarms are screaming in my head. So there's no sex assault. There's nothing stolen.

Three children, seven, five, and two, are upstairs. Have you seen this crib? I mean, check it out, Jackie and Richard. This ain't shabby. I mean, hey, I wouldn't mind. Look at this. It's a beautiful home in a cushy neighborhood. He comes home from McDonald's, the children upstairs, she's dead in the kitchen. What happens then? Four days, four days after her body is found. A librarian calls them, a librarian calls the police and says they recognize

his face from news stories. The woman, the librarian, you know, that's my dream job, Joe Scott and Steve. I worked at the library for years when I was in school. In the back, they wouldn't let me around people. Why? Don't know. But I worked in the back they wouldn't let me around people why don't know but I worked in the back with sister Mary she was a nun okay processing books don't you ever wonder how those things get in the book that go off when you try to steal it that's me okay I was in the back doing that luckily this librarian comes forward she recognizes him she says and he had been in her library using public computers, she says, for some time, according to a warrant. When they go and interview the librarian, she gives them copies of papers Nichols had actually printed out. Guess what they were about, Steve Howling?

They were about case law and extreme emotional distress defenses. He had also been copying newspaper articles, but was being very secretive, she says, very secretive. And she goes on to say, as the investigating officer concludes,

I believe there's information he may be searching a defense strategy or ways to hinder, delay, or prevent prosecution for crimes he's been charged with. That's what happened at the library, Steve Helling. You're leaving out a major fact here. What about the librarian, Steve Helling, People Magazine? Well, that's a very good point, Nancy.

And the thing is, you don't think he had a computer in the house? You don't think he had a phone in his house? But no, he goes to the library. And at the library, he's looking up all this stuff about how to get away with murder, basically. And that's what the cops say that they have got on him, that this man went somewhere and surreptitiously started looking up this information. And if this librarian hadn't come forward, he probably wouldn't, they wouldn't have known this information. Steve Helling, investigative reporter, People Magazine. Now you're talking, my man.

He goes to the library, does the research because he is no idiot. Some legal sleuths would argue. He doesn't want these searches turning up on his home computer, his laptop, his iPad or his cell phone. So he goes to the public library and does all the researching. Joseph Scott Morgan, I am so happy. I feel like I just got this information served up on top of the Christmas tree. So he goes to the library. Little did he know the librarian was watching him. And she says he was, quote, very secretive and stayed there for, quote, some time. You know, Joseph Scott Morgan, isn't it true? The

devil's in the details. Yes, it is, Nancy. It always is. Can I tell you about a guy that I believe murdered his wife and then set the house on fire to hide it? I went to the crime scene. I was looking around what was left of the house. And I turned around to my investigator, Ernest, and I went,

he's a businessman. Where are all his suits? Well, needless to say, I got like 30 subpoenas in my hot little hands and started going. And this was before you could just Google map it. I looked up in the phone book, the pain, all of the dry cleaners within a 10 mile radius of the home. And went we drove day in day out to every dry cleaner until guess what we found what's that all of his suits and shirts everything had been cleaned out of the closet dropped at the dry cleaners in the week before the fire what's the likelihood that every single armpit and every single shirt and every single suit was stinky at the same time?

And everything had to go to the dry cleaner just before the house burns down and your wife's dead with a blow to the head. How does that happen? So the devil's in the details. My point is he screwed up going to the library. Okay, what do we know about the cause of death, Joseph Scott Morgan? Well, I know this. He spent too much time in the case law section of the library. He should have gone to the forensic section if they have one at the library, because this is an evidence-rich case, Nancy. What we do know from the medical examiner is that this lady was essentially

strangled. Well, wasn't her neck broken? Well, yeah, you know, and this is a very personal crime, very personal crime. And don't we see this time and time again when we have a case involving intimates like this? This is another thing that we look at in forensics and something that is detailed here. There was no sign of forced entry or struggle in the environment. That means you don't have windows knocked out. You don't have doors forced in. It was a pristine scene, other than the fact that this guy's wife has been murdered, apparently, there in their kitchen. No sign of breaking at the home.

That must have been a severe, severe strangulation joseph scott morgan you're the death investigator um because you can strangle somebody without breaking their bones in their neck all you have to do is cut off their air source for you know a minute two minutes they're dead why do you have to break the bones manually because this is a manual strangulation not a lig, which means his fingers were around her neck, according to police. With such intensity, it broke the bones in her neck. What does that say to you, Joseph Scott Morgan? Protracted, protracted period of time with an intense, what we refer to as an intense amount of foot pounds of pressure that it takes for the human for the human hands to actually snap a bone in the neck contrary to what you see in the movies and on television that sort of thing

it's not an easy process and i don't want to go too far afield here nancy but this guy has got some serious anger issues here and uh they had some things going on i think here in this what do you mean by that i mean you can't just throw that out the universe without me following it up i'm three bit three inches up your tailpipe buddy what do you mean issues that? I mean, you can't just throw that out in the universe without me following it up. I'm three inches up your tailpipe, buddy. What do you mean issues? right up close and personal. Most of the cases that I've worked over my career involving manual strangulation involve a lot of anger. And this isn't a reactionary thing. This is him getting up in her face, sitting on top of her probably, and choking the life out of her body.

With the children upstairs. Breaks the bones in her neck. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the children didn't see this. They're two, five, and seven. Okay, hold on just a second. Let me understand something. Steve Helling, investigative reporter with People Magazine, colleague and friend. Question to you, the librarian, it's not just her eyewitness identification, which a defense will have a field day at trial trying to destroy her eyewitness

ID. Well, how far away were you? How was the lighting? Don't you wear glasses? How many people do you see a day? Blah, blah, blah. Okay. He checked out a book. He checked out a book. So there is a written record of him being there. So don't jump on the little librarian. Okay. But this is what I'm asking you about. Am I crazy? Or wait, wait, don't answer that. Am I correct that this guy is out on bond, Steve Helling? You are correct that he's out on bond. And, you know, that's because, well, who knows why he is. But yeah, I would think that this is a case, if there's ever a case where somebody is going to be held without bond, I'd like to think it's a man who is accused of strangling and breaking the

neck bones of his wife while his children are upstairs. You would think that that would be a no bond situation. But yes, he is out. He's out. Not only is he out, he's out on $100,000 bond, cash bond. The prosecutors tried to get him sent back to jail, arguing that he is a danger to himself and the children. Well, he's a danger to the children because if one of them is a witness, that's a problem. I always say when you don't know what somebody will do, look at what they have already done. Back to my don't groan, Alan Duke. But when you don't know a horse, look at his track record. See what he's already done because that's what he's going to do.

According to police, he's already murdered his wife with his bare hands with the children upstairs. If one of them heard a struggle, if one of them heard her scream and came down and witnessed that, there's the state's chief witness. Catch this. One of the grandmothers will not let police talk to the children. And daddy's out on bond. What judge did that? The prosecutors tried to get him sent back to jail according to KUTV channel 2 but the judge in all of his wisdom deferred his ruling

until a late quote later date which means this guy is a free man. Talk about a murder, then trying to subvert justice by coming up with the defenses at the library and ways to get out of it. What I don't understand is why he's out on bond, why the police can't speak to the children. And one other fact. To Joe Scott Morgan, what can you tell me about potential DNA in this case, deoxyribonucleic acid? What can you tell me? The DNA demonstrates that we've got connectivity between these two. It's beneath the fingernails in this particular case, Nancy. You have to be

able to explain how did the DNA get underneath the fingernails. And the only way you can really come back to this is that if somebody is attempting to defend themselves where they're scratching and they're clawing and you've got a tussle that's going on. And this is going to be a key in this particular case to talk about the violence that's involved in this case. A DNA sample taken from under Robin's fingernails, which is one of the first things you do at a murder scene, is you, quote, bag the victim's hands with paper bags and you seal them with a string or a rubber band at the wrist. So in transit from the scene of the murder to the morgue and during the movement from the van to the autopsy table, you don't lose that very, very important DNA, which may be invisible to the naked eye from under the fingernails. The fingernails are then clipped very carefully with a pristine

clipper and then put it under a microscope. And you very carefully with a metal utensil, like a little file, scrape the nails, or you simply process the nail itself to determine if there is DNA in addition to the DNA in the fingernail. That's what they did. And in this case, under Robin's fingernails is her husband's DNA. And isn't it true, Steve Helling, that the night of her murder, her husband was found to have marks on his arms and forehead that appear to be scratch marks? That's absolutely right, Nancy. And the police say that they are consistent with defensive marks, you know, because obviously, if somebody has their hands around your neck, you're going to start grabbing at their forearms to try and pry them away. And your fingernails are going to scratch their skin.

And that's what police believe happened. All I can say is judge. Revoke this bond. Revoke this bond. And issue an order for those children to be able to speak to police. I want justice. Curtis Ray Nichols. I'm on to you. When you run your own business, you know time equals money. That's not just an old saying,

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Anthony Weiner allegedly convinces his teen girl victim to get naked and touch herself on Skype. Whoa. Okay, hold on. Oh, okay. I am going to bust you so hard. You're going to leak and limp for a month. Really? Is this what Anthony Weiner actually wrote to a little girl? And now he wants the judge to allow him to remain free. Let's just start at the beginning with me is investigative reporter for People Magazine, Steve Helling and psychologist out of New York, Karen Stark. You know, I'm thinking about my son and daughter, my babies with some perv on the other end of the phone asking them to take their clothes off and touch themselves, telling one of them that they would leak and limp for a

month after he pounded them. Okay, Steve Helling, do I need to know any more facts or do I have it pretty much capsulized right there? I mean, you really do know the facts here and they're ridiculous because like we said, these are teenagers. These are underage girls. It's one thing for him to be sexting whoever he wants if she's 25 or 30. It's another thing when they're 15. And they're graphic. And he's clearly the one, if you read the transcripts, he's the one who's leading these conversations. She's not sexting him. He's sexting her. And so it's outrageous the stuff that he says here. The case led the FBI to reopen its probe into presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton's private email server. After investigators found messages between Clinton and Weiner's wife, Huma, okay? Huma Abedin, the beautiful brunette you see with Hillary Clinton all the time, that's his beautiful, intelligent, and accomplished wife. Her husband is sending pictures of his private parts via text, email,

to several different people, while his wife is making a living about to take a position in the closest, closest quarters in the White House, dragging him along with her. And this is who is going to walk into the Oval Office. Are you kidding me? So long story short, these texts and emails, this case is what led the FBI to reopen its investigation into Hillary Clinton's email servers just before the election. And you know what happened then? Everything went sideways for Clinton. This guy. And now he is in court begging for leniency. Let's take it from the beginning. What do we know? Oh, my goodness. I just saw a picture of Anthony Weiner without a shirt on.

Did I really need to see that? Karen Stark, before I go back to Steve Hilling, to start at the beginning with the facts. Karen Stark, why does a guy get a thrill about sending naked shots of himself to somebody else? I mean, they're not even in the same room. How does that whole thing work? Don't get too graphic. Okay, my children could tune into Sirius 132 and hear this. Okay. So how does that work? It starts pretty early, Nancy. It's a sexual obsession. This guy is not just doesn't have a perversion. But what happens when you can only

get turned on a certain way is that it compels you to continue despite the fact that he's been in trouble repeatedly. And if you notice, he doesn't learn from his past experiences. It doesn't matter that it ruined his own career. He's obsessed to continue in this manner. It could be a young girl, an older person. He has he's an exhibitionist. He has to do this. You know, you could argue, I've got to go rob a bank. That's just, I've just got to do it. That's right. I am not buying that. Now, you're saying that he hasn't learned from his past experiences.

Again, Steve Helling, investigative reporter with People Magazine. Let's start at the beginning because I've been seeing Anthony Weiner in the news. That's an unfortunate last name for this scenario. But in the news from the beginning, apologizing for this and apologizing for that. What all has he been apologizing for? Did he run for mayor as well? And that got torpedoed because of things like this? Yeah, he actually ran for mayor twice, once in 2005, once in 2013. I've lost track, Nancy. I would have to do a deep research of how many times we've listened to him apologize for this exact same behavior.

Now, some of the times the women were grownups, but still, it was like he did something on Twitter. He did stuff on text. Oh, my stars, wait a minute. Guess what the text says with the naked torso picture? I'm in the hot tub. Okay, right there. That would be enough to make me just go off the edge for some naked guy in a hot tub to send to my daughter. I'm in the hot tub just saying, mm-hmm.

My fists are actually, my fingers are tingling because they want to be in a, no, they don't want to be in a fist. They want to grab him around the neck right there at the apple and then just squeeze really hard. So, okay, let's just start at the beginning. First, he got busted in a sexting with a grown lady, right? And that was when? Was that when he was running for mayor in 2005? No, that was later than that. You know, great. She's a grown lady, but still, it was aggressive. She wasn't into it. Again, one thing if she's into it, but he doesn't care. He doesn't care if they're 15. He doesn't care if they're a grown woman.

He doesn't care whether they want it or not. He's going to sext if that's what he wants. And that's a real problem. Right now, we're all working so hard to keep the Internet devoid of sex predators. Karen Stark, it started off with him sexting other women, his private body parts. And I remember I was literally walking to the set at Headline News and it hit the airways. Wiener's at it again. This time for sending shots of his penis, somehow it went to other people.

How did that work? How did we find out about it? He was trying to send it as a direct message. And instead, he tweeted it out. That's what happened. Okay, that's certainly not what I want to wake up to. And you wonder, and you wonder, was there a Freudian slip in that? He tweeted out a picture of his peepee. Is that right? Wait a minute. Was it a naked peepee? Or was it him in his undies? It was him in his underwear, as I recall. Okay, this is clarified. There was a thin

layer of cotton over that. Yeah. Was that the one where his little boy was in bed with him? No, that's a different time. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm getting them a little confused now. Okay, so after that, what happened, Steve Heller? Oh, gosh. I mean, yeah, so of course, it becomes a big thing, whom it stands behind him. And then women have been coming forward ever since then with different levels of credibility about, oh, he sexted me. He sent me this.

He sent me that. But there were pictures of his naked penis that, you know, ended up leaking. I like the way you say it like it's a secret. Like when I grew up in Macon, we wouldn't say cancer. We would say, she's got cancer okay so i noticed that you know the subtle lowering of your voice yeah okay since having boy girl twins

you know i don't think anymore about it really i mean it's there everybody knows about it it's not a secret anymore i want to get back to the teen girl which is what he's in court uh for facing time behind bars and according to sources the state wants two years behind bars yeah tell me what happened prosecutors say that you know he knew full well that she was a 15 year old girl and he's asking her to engage in like all this sexually explicit conduct both on sky Skype and on Snapchat. And you know that Snapchat, everything disappears. So who knows what else he's done? Well, hold on, hold on. I can tell you, according to the Daily Mail,

and I'm sure this is all coming out in transcripts in court, with me, psychologist out of New York, Karen Stark, and Steve Helling, reporter at People Magazine, there are allegations Anthony Weiner carries on a long-time online sex relationship with a very troubled teen girl, telling her she made him, quote, hard, asking her to dress up in, quote, schoolgirl outfits, and pressing her to engage in, quote, rape fantasies. She repeatedly tells him she is just a teen that she is a sophomore in high school she lets him know repeatedly she's a teen girl under age and he knows that quote

in one message he tells the little girl i would bust that type pu star star y she claims he asked her to undress and touch herself and say his name over video chat that he would get completely naked but usually shirtless wearing boxers he does not deny exchanging quote flirtatious messages with the little girl well isn't all this pretty easily verifiable after all my years prosecuting i'm pretty sure that police can forensically dig up his text and likely his photos he sent. Although Snapchat or live is going to be a more difficult, if not impossible matter. So let me ask you this. Karen Stark, why should I believe now that anything is going to change? Because, yeah, we can all get a laugh about him sending out shots of his private parts and his underwear accidentally on Twitter, or how we perceive his texting and emailing

and videoing with grown ladies. But this is a child. And we can't laugh because of his past. Because right now, children are in danger. They are in danger. And I don't care how rich he is or educated or who he's married to or how close he is to the White House. This is a child under the law.

So why should I believe after this long record of missteps and apologies that anything is going to change? You shouldn't believe it. Nobody should believe it. The judge shouldn't believe it. It's really important that they ignore the fact that he's making excuses again and saying he's so much better and look at all the terrible things he did and he ruined careers and none of it matters because he will do this again. He's compelled to do it. He's shown that he will continue to do it. And if anything, Nancy, I would say, and this is really important, that he will get worse because he started with adult women, which was bad enough that he went public that way and took those kind of chances when he was running for office. But now he's

going to children. And once you begin with underage children, you can see that it's progressing and getting worse. Nothing that happened to him was able to be stopped. He went into therapy, supposedly. He said he got help. Each time he said he was getting better, he would be different. And obviously, he can't be, which is known. Child molesters are known for the fact that they can't be stopped. There is no therapy thus far that's been able to help somebody and change the fact that they are attracted to these kind of situations. So I really do believe that something needs to be done to make sure this doesn't happen with him. He goes by the handle Carlos Danger. You know what, I don't think one shrink can handle this. I think we need a whole team from Vienna to work on this. Carlos Danger and T-Dog. Okay, that's not a crime. I'm just putting

it out there according to the reports. So tell me what are the judge's choices, Steve Helling from People Magazine? What can the judge do? The government has asked that Weiner gets sentenced to a prison term of 21 to 27 months. That's what they're asking for. Obviously, his lawyers are saying that he's made remarkable progress in his therapy, which, you know, like you said, who knows? So they're saying that, you know, they'd like a lot less. So we'll see what the judge decides and how much prison sentence he gets. But, you know, if the prosecutors get their way, he'll be in prison for a couple of years. Take a listen to what Wiener says in 2011 when he resigns from Congress. At the outset, I'd like to make it clear that I have made terrible mistakes that have hurt the people I care about the most. And I'm deeply sorry. I have

not been honest with myself, my family, my constituents, my friends, and supporters, and the media. Last Friday night, I tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle. Once I realized I had posted to Twitter, I panicked. I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued with that story to stick to that story, which was a hugely regrettable mistake. This woman was unwittingly dragged into this and bears absolutely no responsibility. I am so sorry to have disrupted her life in this way. To be clear, the picture was of me, and I sent it.

I am deeply sorry for the pain this has caused my wife, Huma, and our family, and my constituents, my friends, supporters, and staff. In addition, over the past few years, I have engaged in several inappropriate conversations conducted over Twitter, Facebook, email, and occasionally on the phone with women I have met online. I've exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years. For the most part, these communications took place before my marriage, though some have sadly took place after. To be clear, I have never met any of these women or had physical relationships at any time. I haven't told the truth, and I've done things I deeply regret. I brought pain to people I care about the most, the people who believed in me.

And for that, I'm deeply sorry. I apologize to my wife and our families, as well as to our friends and supporters. I'm deeply ashamed of my terrible judgment and actions. Then there's the 2013 episode. And this is his long-suffering wife, Huma Abedin. Listen to what she has to say. Our marriage, like many others, has had its ups and its downs. It took a lot of work and a whole lot of therapy to get to a place where I could

live. It was not an easy choice in any way, but I made the decision that it was worth staying in this marriage. That was a decision I made for me, for our son, and for our family. I didn't know how it would work out, but I did know that I wanted to give it a try. Anthony's made some horrible mistakes, both before he resigned from Congress and after. But I do very strongly believe that that is between us

and our marriage. We discussed all of this before Anthony decided to run for mayor. So really what I want to say is I love him. I have forgiven him. I believe in him. And as we have said from the beginning, we are moving forward. To me, it seems as if we're getting this all tangled up in the presidential election with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and that Weiner brought down the Clinton nominee because they thought the whole issue of her having a private email server, which would, of course, defeat everybody reading her email, government officials,

it wouldn't be public email. That investigation, I think, was closed. And then because of Weiner and all of his texting and emailing, it reopened that just before the election, which Hillary Clinton now says was part of her undoing that reopening the investigation. She doesn't say Anthony Weiner brought me down. She says that the reopening, Comey's reopening of the investigation, destroyed her chance at the White House. Is that true?

I don't know. But I do know this sexual predator on a child has gotten enmeshed between Clinton and Trump. I don't see it that way at all. I don't give a flying fig about that. I care about this. I care about whether a judge will look at him as a powerful politico, part of a power couple, even though they're in divorce proceedings now, and give him a break. If he were a poor white guy or a minority or uneducated, his room would be under the jail for this. So let's see what some judge is going to do with Anthony Weiner. Well, you know what I think? A Texas couple kicks out their seven-year-old? What? Now, I've heard of parents kicking out their son when he's, you know, 35, and they come home from work, and he's laying on the sofa eating chips and drinking a beer, watching Days of Our Lives, if that's still on, or Maury Povich or whatever. I get that, but kicking out a seven-year-old child?

Why? Because they insist the seven-year-old is possessed by demons. They kick the baby out of the house and tell him to never come back again. Gee, I wonder if meth has anything to do with this. Straight out to Ashley Wilcott, child advocate. What exactly happened in this story? A little boy is kicked out and they abandon the baby. And you know, to look at them, I swear, Ashley, I think that they could be driving through the carpool right in front of me. But in fact, this Hooks, Texas couple

kicked the boy out and tell him never to return because he is possessed by demons. What? They didn't just kick him out once. He went back home. They did it again. A neighbor took him back home thinking, oh, they must not be home. No, they look normal. They appear normal. There they are. We're going to drop him off. He goes back to the neighbors again and they allegedly admit to the police. Yes, we kicked him out. He has demons. It's a horrible abandonment issue, but at least these two yo-hos have been consistent and said we're kicking him out he can't come in our house joining me right now in addition to ashley wilcott child advocate is steve helling investigative reporter with people magazine let's start at the beginning

i'm just trying to get my mind around a seven-year-old boy seven-year-olds they don't even always remember to wipe their rear ends. Okay, let me just put it out there. And you put the child out and lock the door and say, don't come back. What more do we know? Start at the beginning. Steve Helling, investigative reporter, People Magazine. Walk me through this. Take it from the beginning. Sure. This little boy goes over to a friend's house. He plays with a friend. And then finally, dinner time comes and the mom says, hey, it's time to go home, which we've all done that with our kids' friends.

The little boy goes home, comes back and says he can't get in the house. The neighbor thinks, oh, that must just mean that maybe they're not home. Maybe they're in the backyard, whatever. So the neighbor drives over to the house and the dad is mowing the lawn. The kid comes back crying again and says, you know, they locked me out. They won't let me come home. Now let's talk about the issue that they claim. The reason they kicked him out was he's possessed by demons. Possessed by demons. Okay. Steve Howling, how exactly do you determine if somebody is possessed by a demon? Well, listen, I have six kids and I just had to

get them out of the house to school. And I believe half of them were possessed by demons. Absolutely. But, you know, I mean, you know, there are kids that have their behavior things someday. And I think that's what they're saying. This little boy wasn't behaving. So they made this leap to say it's demons, which of course it's not. You know, he's a seven year old boy. And like you said. Well, let me ask you a question. Steve Helling, People Magazine, when he was playing with the little friend, they didn't seem to have a behavioral problem, did they? Not at all. They let him play there for hours. And believe me, when the neighborhood kids get on my nerves, I send them home. Okay, so let me get this. There's only a problem when the parents get involved.

It's also my understanding, Steve Helling, and you're the expert in the facts, but didn't their pastor tell them their son's possessed by demons? Yes, absolutely. And so, you know, obviously there was this church environment that thought that that was an appropriate thing to say about a seven-year-old kid. Ashley Wilcott, not only renowned child advocate, but also practicing lawyer, former judge. Ashley, question, there's got to be a way to charge this preacher. Now, I know that's not a popular theory, but to me, he's part and parcel of it. He's the one that told the family this. They believed it. He's in a position of authority.

They bought into it, and they abandoned the baby. That's exactly what I was going to say is where's the liability of this preacher in criminal charges? I believe, even under the Texas statute, they could charge him with child endangerment because of his saying this child's possessed by demons. What else did he say? Possessed by demons, could never be cured, get him out of your house. Who knows what he said? I absolutely think he should be charged. You know, again, looking at these people, I'm talking about this couple, this East Texas couple who kicked their seven-year-old son out of the house, insisting he's possessed by demons. Also telling him never to return.

The couple live in Hooks, Texas. I'm looking at them right now. And the husband, Ronald Keith Wright, he looks like he should put on a suit and go to work at the bank. The deputies were called by a neighbor in a church parking lot near the Wrights' home. They claimed the Wrights' boy had spent almost the whole day playing with their son. He left around dinnertime, but he came back 10 minutes later. Can you imagine that? You go home.

It's dark outside. Your parents say, look, we told you to leave and don't come back. And all the doors and windows are locked. So the kid turns around and trudges back to the neighbor's house. Earlier, a neighbor had said that he had driven by, driven the boy back home, and he actually saw the dad out front in the yard. He could see the family was home, so he let the boy out of the truck. The boy came back to the neighbor's home crying and said his parents told him again to go away and never come back home

the neighbor says that the mom and dad randy right is the mom had discussed their son with their a preacher a preacher who told them the boy was possessed by a demon when deputies asked whether this couple used meth methamphetamineamine, they were told it was, quote, more of a hobby. Steve Helling, investigative reporter with People magazine. Maybe I'm wrong, but everybody I know or know of that has used meth ends up looking starved. They look like they're about 80 years old, covered in bug bites that they scratch till they bleed on their face. That's what I know about meth. And once you start, you can't stop. It's over. Plus your hair falls out, Ashley, FYI. Okay, so how Steve Helling, People Magazine, is this a hobby? They don't look like meth heads from their from their mugshots. No, they don't. They really don't.

But I've got to say you don't do meth as a hobby. You go bowling as a hobby. Clearly, if they're starting, they could be in the beginning of using meth, which could account for why it's been seven years and they haven't kicked the kid out yet. And now they are, you know, this could just be something new that they're doing. That's a big question to me. Steve Helling, do we know if there are other children in the home? I believe that there are, we don't know. I don't know their ages or that type of thing. But you know, there are references in in local media to, you know, their family. And it sounds like there's probably other children. If there are, you know, then does that mean that they selected one and decided that this one needed to go? I don't know. You know, another issue here, and these are not young parents, like, you know know they're not 19 or 18 and you think well

they're idiots because they don't know any better this is a 56 year old man Ronald Wright and his 39 year old wife Rendy Wright forces that means physically pushes kicks the young son out of their home and was told by the mom and stepfather who's being kicked out of the house because he's possessed by demons. That's a whole other can of worms, Ashley Wilcott, child advocate. Because in all the years that I prosecuted child molestations, child abuse, child murder, the mother, without fail, I'm talking 10 years of felony child abuse and murder cases. Without fail, the mother stood by the lover, husband, live-in, boyfriend, ex, stepfather, whatever he was, always took the husband's side, the man's side over the child.

Can you shed some light on that for me, Ashley? Because to this day, I don't get it. I don't get it, and I don't think that there are any research projects that indicate why, but it is true. Statistically, it is true. They stand by their partner and put that over the needs of the children and they fail to protect their own children. And it is significant to note, in my opinion, that this is a stepfather of the child. That doesn't mean anything to me other than she is choosing him over the child. Now think about too, if there are other children, this is probably the target child, right? But what are they saying to any other children in the home if they do have others to make them not even open the door for their brother? So there's

other aspects of child endangerment that I would submit they've committed against other children if they're in the home. You know what, it reminds me two things. Remind me to come back to Adrian Jones, Ashley. Steve Helling, that's a case that we've been covering for quite a while where the little boy, I think he was seven as well, was ultimately murdered, but he was abused horribly. Right before his death, the parents made him stay outside overnight in a pool of cold water up to his neck all night with his arms over his head and then watch him on video surveillance to see if he'd lower his arms all night. And he was out there begging to eat, begging to come in. That made him live in a shower stall. That's just the tip of the iceberg. He had so many broken bones, I can't even count them. I want to come back to him, Adrian Jones. But I remember Steve

so vividly. I was actually prosecuting a murder case. And the victim was the brother of an APD and on a police department. So, you know, I investigated it out the yin-yang. During that trial, I learned that the sister of the victim had been molested her whole life. It was a big family, and they had, oh, I don't know, seven or eight, maybe more children. She was singled out. She was the one that was molested, and it traumatized her the rest of her life because not only did the dad, according to her, molest her all those years in the home, the mother knew about it. That is the first time. And that was in an unrelated murder case. I mean, it was tangentially related, but I wasn't prosecuting a child molestation. But I couldn't understand for all these years, you know, your girl, you know,

four years old, five years old years old six years up until she leaves the home is being molested in the worst way by the father right i mean at the very least i'd kick him out and report him to police at the very least and you know what i'm saying actually i'm just gonna say you do more than that but yeah i don't want to you know describe my murder plans sadly i've given away most of my murder ideas in my uh my murder mysteries so anyway i i don't get the the mom standing by while this is happening here she's standing by while the stepfather's kicking her baby out of the house what is wrong with her i think nancy that there's this weird dynamic a lot of times with these women who have these kids that do this.

And my wife will argue with me if I'm giving the kids too much junk food. You know, so it's amazing to me that these women don't stand up for their own children. Guys, I'm taking a look right now at the, what is it, the Texarkana Gazette. And I'm looking at these pictures of Ronald Keith Wright and Rendy Joe Wright. And the reason I keep talking about this, I swear they look like they just came off the tennis court or they're heading to their corporate jobs.

It really shows to me, Ashley Wilcott, you cannot judge a book by its cover, right? Absolutely not. And do you remember, it was a People article and it was a few years ago at least, but there was a group of soccer moms, beautiful women taking care of their kids, doing all of the work in the home. And they started doing meth. You all remember this story. And if you looked at their pictures, you would never in a million years realize they were using meth. But again, the pictures were taken before it became

such an obsession that they were using it on a constant basis and it altered their looks. So, you know, meth does affect your physical looks, but not initially, not if you're doing it periodically. But I do think these parents in this case, regardless of how they look, they've admitted to using meth. You cannot assume these are rational individuals who are going to protect a child. Well, here's the other kicker. They're out on bond. You throw your seven-year-old who can't take care of himself, they are out on bond. You know, statistics show there are nearly 70,000 children who are confirmed victims of child abuse neglect in Texas alone.

Nearly 70,000. And guess what? Nearly 80% of those, the abuser is their parents. Well, all I can say is for these two, I'm talking about Ronald Wright and Randy Joe Wright. I got a pretty good feeling you're going to end up where you belong. Hell, with a little pit stop in the jailhouse. This is Texas and they don't play. I'm really surprised they're even out on bond. I just wish I could put my arms around that little boy and bring him home here. Crime Stories, Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. over unsolved mysteries? Do you wish there was a group of people just like you to talk motives and alibis with? If so, join the CrimeCon Cold Case Club and work alongside experts and fellow crime sleuths

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