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PRIMETIME JUSTICE WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Four Young Pennsylvania Men Vanish; Mom Accused of Stabbing Four Children and Husband; Cops Scold Mom for Leaving Kids in Hot Car; Casey Anthony Blacks Out. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired July 10, 2017 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[20:00:00] JEAN CASAREZ, HLN HOST (voice-over): A mystery developing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are the four men, the four young men that are missing.

CASAREZ: Four young men just disappear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you know of anything about their whereabouts, either in the past or at present, please contact us.

CASAREZ: Tonight, the search intensifying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Focus our efforts up the road, up route 202 to a large property.

CASAREZ: As family and friends pray they are found safe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just ask for your patience and your prayers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can`t believe that.

CASAREZ: A mother accused of killing four of her children smiling, praying, and at one point looking directly at news cameras and giving a

thumbs-up. And her husband.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My attorney is the people.

CASAREZ: Exhibits bizarre behavior in court.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma`am, I`m going to caution you to cut out the display for the cameras. It`s really not a good idea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your doors and windows are closed. Look.

CASAREZ: A mother caught on video leaves her two children inside a hot SUV and argues with police and the witnesses who called them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don`t understand what you`ve done.

CASAREZ: But she probably didn`t expect his reaction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your children could have died!

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: Good evening. I`m Jean Casarez, in for Ashleigh Banfield. Thank you so much for joining us. This is PRIMETIME JUSTICE.

We do have some breaking news tonight in the suburbs of Philadelphia, an urgent manhunt as authorities are searching now for four young men who

disappeared in the last week. The district attorney in Bucks County says he suspects foul play and is treating the case as a criminal investigation.

Now, right now, it is all hands on deck as crews desperately search for the men.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW WEINTRAUB, BUCKS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Right now, the focus of the investigation is to determine their whereabouts and ascertain whether

or not we can bring them home safely.

First young man that as of right now is missing is Tom Meo from Plumstead township. He`s 21 years old and he was last seen on Friday. Mark Sturgis

is from Pennsburg in Montgomery County. He`s 22 years old, and he was last seen on Friday, well.

Dean Finocchiaro of Middletown township here in Bucks County -- he`s 19 years old. He was last seen on Friday, as well. And finally, Jimi

Patrick. He`s from Newtown, and he is 19 years old and he had been missing since Wednesday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And the search is continuing tonight. And we want to start with Solomon Jones. She (sic) is the morning host for WURD radio. Solomon,

thank you so much, joining us tonight. This is bizarre. This is absolutely bizarre. Four young men have gone missing. Do they believe

that they still could be alive?

SOLOMON JONES, WURD RADIO (via telephone): Well, they are saying that it`s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But it is certainly a very

frantic search here in Bucks County right outside of Philadelphia. There`s about seven different agencies involved, five municipal police departments,

the FBI. They`re searching some farmland there where the big cornfield -- there`s some heavy equipment involved in the search.

And so at this point, they are treating it like (INAUDIBLE) foul play has been involved, but they`re still searching frantically for these young men,

even though they say it`s like a needle in a haystack.

CASAREZ: And it was a criminal investigation from the very beginning. Solomon, let`s look at the timeline here. I want you to start from the

beginning because the beginning is last Wednesday when one of these young men, only one, went missing. Who was it? And take us from there.

JONES: So Jimi Tar Patrick -- he`s 19 and lived in Newtown township, went missing on Wednesday. And then on Friday, three more young men went

missing, Mark Sturgis, Dean Finocchiaro and Tom Meo all went missing on Friday.

Now, some of the men knew each other. Sturgis was best friends with Meo, and they had been longtime friends, had worked in construction with

Sturgis`s father. Sturgis`s father didn`t know where they had gone, didn`t know where his son was headed. Meo was last seen around routes 202 and 263

near Doylestown on Friday.

On Sunday night, Solebury police executed a search warrant. They were looking for these young men at a house where both of their vehicles had

been found nearby. And the search has just gone on from there and just gotten more frantic as the days have gone on.

CASAREZ: Right. And they`ve actually searched three different locations. Solomon, we`re going to go back to that map that we just saw a minute ago

because we want to show everybody how, in one sense, close in proximity this all happened.

[20:05:08]The area that Dean was last seen in, as you see on the lower portion of your screen, was in Middletown township, Pennsylvania.

Remember, this is all fairly close to Philadelphia, but suburbs, and even other counties.

And then you can see Tom and Mark. They were last seen together near a route. And I believe, Solomon, didn`t they do construction together?

We`re not sure...

JONES: They did.

CASAREZ: ... if they were doing construction on Friday, but that`s how they knew each other, right?

JONES: Yes, they did. They did construction together. They worked for one of the young men`s father and his construction company. And so they

had known each other for a long time.

And then they knew the third young man, Mr. Finocchiaro. They say (ph) knew him. He was a mutual acquaintance of both of theirs. And you`re

right, they did search three properties. I believe one was a big farm property, another one was a house, and then there was another fairly large

property that they searched, as well. So they are trying to find these young men. They know that they all knew each other. And there has been

arrest, but they say that...

CASAREZ: But now, is it is confirmed that they -- Solomon, is it confirmed that they all knew each other or is that what they`re trying to confirm

right now because all of them have gone missing within 48 hours of each other?

JONES: Well, they do know that two of them knew each other.

CASAREZ: Right, two of them.

JONES: They knew that two of them worked for the construction company. They knew that a third young man was a mutual friend. They don`t know if

all four of them know each other at this point. I think they`re still trying to determine that.

CASAREZ: Right. Exactly. I do want to bring in right now Steve Moore. He is a former FBI agent and an investigator. Steve thanks so much for

joining us. This is just bizarre. First of all, to have four young men disappear, just disappear from the face of the earth within 48 hours,

relatively close, about 50-mile radius of each other -- what are your thoughts on that?

STEVE MOORE, FMR. FBI AGENT AND INVESTIGATOR, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Well, my thoughts on this are that guys sometimes get

together and they split town, they do all this kind of stuff. And the police don`t raise any kind of alarm over this kind of stuff.

The fact that they are hitting this so hard tells me that the police know something, that this isn`t a question, this isn`t a whodunit -- Where did

these guys go? They`ve got a suspicion. They`ve got information on what happened to these guys.

CASAREZ: And as you heard from Solomon, there are numerous law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, that are now searching for these young men.

But Steve, it was a criminal investigation from the onset. I mean, how many times have we covered this and it`s a missing persons investigation?

That`s the word they get out. You know it`s a criminal investigation at the very same time, but they don`t say that. They say missing persons.

This from day one, criminal investigation. Your thoughts on that, Steve.

MOORE: You know, I used to get frustrated at how hard it was to take a missing persons investigation and get people to go full-court press on it.

What we have here is an investigation where the actual properties are being searched, and not by consent of the owners but by search warrants. You

can`t get a warrant without some type of information of criminal activity.

The other thing is they`ve arrested this one guy on a million dollars bail. Well, I`m sorry, it`s apparently this firearms violation from five months

ago, and all of a sudden, it`s a million dollars bail. There`s -- the police and the agencies know a lot more than they`re letting on.

CASAREZ: All right. Well, Steve, what you`re talking about -- and this just came down minutes ago, but authorities are cautioning everyone that at

this point, there is no correlation at all in regard to these young men that are missing, but there has been an arrest of someone by the name of

Cosmo DiNardo. And he`s 20 years old, I believe, just about the same age as these other young men. But it is for charges of possession of a firearm

by a person prohibited from possessing a firearm.

Now, we have just gotten an affidavit of probable cause to try to find out a little bit more information. And what this says was about 12:49 this

afternoon, on Monday, they found him, and they arrested him, just as you`re saying, Steve, on some previous gun charges of possessing a firearm.

But it said that this person is suffering from mental illness, that he had been subject to involuntary commitment in the past. And they found on him,

when he shouldn`t have had it on him, a .20 gauge shotgun with corresponding ammunition. Do you believe, Steve, that this is correlated

at all with the four young men?

MOORE: I don`t know if the firearm is, but as much as I sympathize with the police and their need to tell you that this doesn`t have anything to do

necessarily with the disappearance of the four men, a million dollars bail is there to protect the public, to keep somebody dangerous from getting out

into the public.

[20:10:12]Well, here`s the problem. That firearms violation occurred on February 9th, five months ago. So if it was that dangerous to have him

out, why did we wait five months to pull him in with a million dollars bail? The police are saying one thing, but I can read between the lines.

This is a person of interest, at least.

CASAREZ: That`s a really good point, what you`re saying, the $1 million bail. Obviously, that`s to hold someone. That is to protect the public.

I want to go to Jill Stanley, who is a former prosecutor joining us tonight here in New York. What are your thoughts on this missing persons case?

JILL STANLEY, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, actually, I think what`s quite interesting is the fact that the four men don`t really know each other.

And we are hearing two did know each other, but there really are no allegations that all four knew each other.

I don`t believe they`re really interconnected. I am not seeing that. And contrary to what the former FBI agent is saying, I don`t really know what

the connection is between this gentleman, DiNardo, who has the gun charge and these missing persons.

One reason for the million-dollar bail might to be just to calm everyone down in this community. This is not a common thing in this little outskirt

of Pennsylvania. And it could be that we are looking to calm the community down, to get a sense of calm where people are just not going missing left

and right. So the million-dollar bail to me, not that outrageous.

CASAREZ: And they`re having, Jill, an amazing amount of press conferences. They do want to keep the public informed. Matthew Weintraub is the

district attorney of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He spoke earlier today. I want you to listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WEINTRAUB: As is obvious, in a case of this scope and magnitude, it`s all hands on deck. This is going to be a collaborative investigation that will

continue until we solve this missing persons incident. I would urge the public to please give us your tip.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have any indication of foul play?

WEINTRAUB: We just don`t know, but we`re treating it as a criminal investigation at this time until we know differently.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: All right, so they are treating it as a criminal investigation. Steve Moore is with us. He is former FBI. He has been involved in many

cases. This one is unusual, though, because, Steve, you just don`t find that four men have gone missing. You see little girls or children or, you

know, when you have a serial abductor or serial a murderer that is out there. But four young men in a matter of 48 hours?

MOORE: This is absolutely something that`s going to cause people to scratch their heads. I don`t know where this is going to go, but you`re

going to find a nexus. And the nexus could be that these guys were just picked up by the same crazy guy or that these people had some type of

affiliation in the drug world or something like this. But there`s going to be a connection. Whether it`s a logical connection that we will understand

with our normal minds, I don`t know. But there`s going to be a connection. And you know, going back, I think the million dollars bail is not going to

calm anybody down.

CASAREZ: Well, that`s very interesting. Now, we`re going to be back in just a minute with more on this search for these four young men who have

vanished. Authorities tonight are trying to find out where they are. The FBI is involved. They disappeared within miles of each other. And the

arrest within the last few hours that could possibly crack the case wide open.

Now, plus a newlywed`s evil scheme to collect her husband`s life insurance -- it backfires in a really big way.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:18:08]CASAREZ: We are following breaking news tonight, the desperate search for four young men who have gone missing in the Philly suburbs. The

district attorney in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, believes foul play is involved in their disappearance, but so far, searchers and police have not

been able to find the four you see on your screen right now.

My panel is back with me, but I do want to start with Solomon Jones, who is the morning host for WURD radio. Solomon, first of all, there have been

several searches so far in this. And I want you to tell our viewers exactly what areas have been searched. And even a house was searched,

correct?

JONES: Yes. There was a house in a place called Solebury that was searched. It`s a house where they found one of the young men`s cars nearby

-- actually, two of the cars nearby, and they searched that house. They had a warrant for that search.

They also searched a multi-acre property near route 202, near Appotong (ph) Road in Solebury, and they searched another property with a cornfield,

where it was owned by a couple named DiNardo. And they had some heavy equipment out there for that search, as well. And all of these searches

executed with search warrants.

CASAREZ: So Solomon, you`re telling me that the home that was searched, two vehicles involving two of the four young men were located near that

home? If so, how far away?

JONES: Well, Sturgis`s vehicle was found in the parking lot of the local...

CASAREZ: Of a shopping center.

JONES: ... village shopping center. And another of the vehicles was found near that home, where police executed...

CASAREZ: How close?

JONES: ... a search warrant.

CASAREZ: I mean, like, right outside?

JONES: I don`t know if it was right outside, but I know that it was very close to the home, close enough where police felt that they needed to

search that home.

[20:20:04]CASAREZ: Now, what search happened first, the home, the land or the farm?

JONES: I believe that it was the home that was searched first, and I believe that was searched on Sunday night. And then they searched the land

and the farm I, believe, earlier today. And I believe one of those -- at least one of those searches is still going on with the heavy equipment in

the cornfield.

CASAREZ: That`s right. Let`s go to Steve Moore, who is a former FBI agent who has so much experience in this area. Steve, the area of land that`s

being searched right now, which is known as the farm, right, heavy equipment is out there. And they appear to be digging in a certain area.

You don`t just dig to dig on a land of acreage, a farm. Something, a dog or something must have hit -- a cadaver dog must have hit on that area,

don`t you think?

MOORE: Yes, I do think so. And you know, two cars in proximity to a certain house does not equal a search warrant. I wouldn`t want to go in to

a magistrate and say, Well, it was close to this house, let us search it.

And so what I think is going on is the police have either informant information or anecdotal information or social media information that a

crime has occurred. You are not going to pull out the heavy equipment and start digging until you have a good reason to dig.

And they say they brought dogs onto the property. Well, what kind of dogs? I`ll bet they`re cadaver dogs. And so what`s going on now is they are --

if they`re digging, they think they know where something is.

CASAREZ: Right. And so if the home is searched first, as you had said before, they had a probable cause warrant signed off by a judge that

allowed them entry into that home because they believed a crime had been committed, right?

MOORE: They would have to show that a crime has been committed and evidence of that crime would be on this property, or the curtilage, the

land around the home, because ,obviously, a search warrant for the house is not the same thing as the fields around the house.

CASAREZ: That`s right, and they`re actually not next to each other. These are in different areas. It`s not right just next door.

Matthew Weintraub, who is the district attorney of Bucks County, just talked a bit today in one of their two press conferences about the

searches. Let`s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WEINTRAUB: We`ve focused our efforts -- among others, but we`ve focused our efforts up the road, up route 202 to a large property that I know all

of you are by now familiar with. And we`ve dedicated a ton of investigative resources there. We`re not exactly sure what we`re going to

find there, but we`re pretty confident that the investigation is proceeding in the direction that we believed that it would. And we don`t know as of

yet what exactly will be revealed.

So I`m continuing to ask for your patience and your prayers for these four young men. And we`re going to keep making progress. We`re not going to

rest until we get through every inch of that property that we need to, make sure that we`re satisfied we`ve recovered any people, any properties, any

indication of foul play that we need to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: All right. And joining us tonight is Joey Jackson, defense attorney here in New York with us. OK, Joey, this is bizarre.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN/HLN LEGAL ANALYST: It is.

CASAREZ: This is bizarre. Now, they have not confirmed that these four young men knew each other. They`re trying to confirm that. Two of them

did do construction together. But what do you make of it, four young men just about the same age?

JACKSON: Right. You know, on the one hand, I have hope. On the other hand, I have great concern. And let`s talk about why. From the hopeful

part, you know, the FBI is involved now. That`s always significant because they bring to bear a lot of resources in terms of closing this out and they

have vast experience in that regard.

On the other hand, you certainly have -- or in addition to, I should say, you have the district attorney. You have local resources. You have search

warrants being executed. You have heavy equipment that`s digging. But when you have investigators saying it`s like finding a needle in a

haystack, you somewhat become a bit concerned about what the progress of that investigation is.

Last point, Jean. It could very well be that cadaver dogs or other, you know, types of equipment that they have hit on a particular area. It`s not

to suggest, if they did find something, that it would not be a false positive or it may be something else of a decomposing variety that has

nothing to do with them.

And so all you can hope is that the authorities continue to exhaust every resource, expend every expense that they possibly can to attempt to find

these young men, but you just don`t know until you know.

CASAREZ: Jill Stanley, what do you think about the person they do have in custody tonight, but they say has no correlation at this point at all to

the four young men missing, Cosmo DiNardo, being charged with possession of a firearm from one who should not have possession of a firearm?

STANLEY: I`m leaning towards that very same belief. I do not see the connection here. I think it is very tenuous, if anything. And his

possession of a firearm while he was prohibited from having one was because he had a mental illness situation before and he was not allowed to have a

firearm with him so -- at any point.

[20:25:14]And so I don`t see the correlation. I understand why they`re going for it. They want to go after every lead. I think what we`re going

to see here is social media critical here, with the age of these young men. We`ve got 19 through 22. I think we`re going to see so much with their

Snapchat, with their Instagram, with their Facebook. If there`s a correlation among the four men, you`re going to find it there. Are they in

chat rooms? Who are they talking to? These are not four boys on a joy ride.

CASAREZ: Right. Right. All right. Well, we`re going to stay on this case.

But until then -- smiling, praying even giving a thumbs up in court likely won`t be a Georgia mother`s ticket to freedom. She is accused of murder in

the bloody stabbing deaths of her husband and four children.

A police officer takes it to heart when he sees a mother allegedly put her own children in harm`s way, locking the car and heading on into the grocery

store.

[20:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CASAREZ: Officers responding to a 911 call probably didn`t expect to find the gruesome crime scene they did when they arrived to a home in the

suburbs of Atlanta. Inside a bloody massacre. Martin Romero was dead, so were four of his children. Isabela, Dacota, Dillan, and Axel. They were all

stabbed to death.

A fifth child, Diana, survived. And police say it was the mother who did it. Isabel Martinez, you`re looking at her right there, she was arrested

and she has been charged with five counts of murder, five counts of malice murder, and six counts of aggravated assault. Martinez made her first court

appearance on those charges and her behavior during the proceeding is, well, simply odd.

Not only does she smile at the camera and give a thumbs up. She even gets up and appears to pray. Through a translator, Martinez tells the court she

wants to represent herself. Listen to her reasoning.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

ISABELA MARTINEZ, CHARGED WITH MURDER AND ASSAULT: No, I don`t work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have the financial capacity to hire and pay an attorney to represent you on these charges?

MARTINEZ: I don`t need an attorney.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don`t need an attorney.

MARTINEZ: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I beg to disagree with you. You have a right to represent yourself, in our constitution, you have a right to represent

yourself.

MARTINEZ: My attorneys are the people that we are fighting for because it`s the last thing that dies. Please, you are the hope of the world, each one

of you. It doesn`t matter what color you are because God loves us all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: I want to begin with Tony Thomas. He is a reporter from CNN affiliate WSB-TV in Atlanta. Thank you so much for joining us, Tony. I want

to start from the beginning so our viewers really understand where this all started. It was a 911 call that was made, and what did the person on the

other line say?

TONY THOMAS, REPORTER, CNN AFFILIATE WSB-TV: We don`t know exactly what they said. Police have not released that 911 call. But it was from a woman

inside that mobile home about 30 miles east of downtown Atlanta. It is presumed by police that that 911 call came from the mother, Isabel

Martinez, herself. Police were on the scene fairly quickly and found those bodies.

CASAREZ: Now, there are reports that the voice on the other end of the call did say that people in the home had been stabbed and were dead, but there

was one child that was alive. Can you confirm that at all?

THOMAS: A 9-year-old, yes. A 9-year-old daughter did survive. She`s at a local children`s hospital. And the latest we`ve been told is that the good

news, she was awake and talking with family members most recently as of this weekend. The funerals, the services are set for Thursday for her four

siblings and her father. It`s unclear at this point if she`ll be able to attend those services or not.

CASAREZ: Right, right. Isabela Martinez, 10 years old, deceased. Dacota Romero, 7 years old. Dillan, 4. Axel, 2. All of them stabbed to death. Can

I ask you, Tony, about the mother in court. This was her initial court appearance. And this was presumably at the jail. Sometimes, jail has those

courtrooms, the judge comes.

THOMAS: Right.

CASAREZ: It`s a public event, though. Public can watch that. Were people in the courtroom and that was videoed in so the public could watch that? Or

how did it work?

THOMAS: In this court, in this county, people can go into the courtroom and watch. There were a handful of people. There were also maybe 15 or 20 other

defendants. This is a cattle call, so to speak, of first appearance.

CASAREZ: Okay, that was a courtroom.

THOMAS: Looking over at cameras.

CASAREZ: Right. Okay.

THOMAS: That was a courtroom. There are four or five pews for the public. Along the side of the wall in this case there were four or five TV cameras

and a still photographer from the associated press. That`s who she kept looking over to smiling and making those motions to.

CASAREZ: And the judge said, stop panning to the camera. The judge was very aware. She wasn`t looking at the ceiling. She wasn`t looking at the wall.

She was looking at the camera. Now, we were able to really hone in. I want to bring in Joseph Scott Morgan, who is a certified death investigator, but

he`s a professor of forensics right here. Dr. Morgan, thank you for joining us. This mother right here,

[20:35:00] she was almost immediately arrested and taken in on these charges. And we have some photos, I believe, of close-ups of her hands. You

can still see, if you look closely, you can still see the blood on her fingers and her fingernails and her cuticle. But I want you to look at --

it`s a wound, right?

JOSEPH SCOTT MORGAN, CERTIFIED DEATH INVESTIGATOR: Yes.

CASAREZ: Dr. Morgan, what is that?

MORGAN: Hey, thanks for having me this evening, Jean. Look, in this image, we can see a couple of things that we need to hone in on. You had mentioned

if you look at the image of her index finger that`s running parallel to her shoulders there, around her nail bed, there`s kind of a dark brown or

reddish substance. In forensics we wouldn`t specifically identify that as blood until we can test it.

I would hope that the police did a thorough examination of her hands at the scene and I`m hoping that this area was tested because in my opinion just

looking at it, this could potentially be consistent with blood. Now, if we move further down her hand on the back side of her hand, there`s that large

red blotch. To me, just taking a cursory look at this photograph, this appears to be almost like an abraded area that you see that`s kind of pink,

the skin`s been rubbed away.

But what`s really curious here, Jean, is the fact that there`s these little -- we would prefer to them as pump tape marks that you can see there,

almost in an arc shape. It`s an odd position for this to be in, but it begins to cause us to think what could have generated this kind of an

insult. And there`s any number of things, some type of pattern injury like this, potentially something maybe like a bite mark.

Also further back, we`ll see that little line. That appears to be something that she contacted, maybe the leading edge of a sharp instrument, maybe a

scratch mark. We`re not really sure. But this we do know. We have four individuals in this home that are deceased. And we also have this little

angel that`s still in the hospital. Blood has been shed relative to this.

And from a forensics standpoint, what`s really going to be key here is that if this blood can be typed from all surfaces not just her hand, but we can

see it here on this image, it implies to me that it could be elsewhere. And if we can find those types of blood from each individual and also

potentially their DNA, this could be critical evidence in this case.

CASAREZ: The forensics aspect will be critical, you`re right. And we`re still looking at this hand right here and the blood that appears to be on

it and the pinpoint marks. So you think those could be bite marks because four of the victims were children, her children. And you think that they

could have been biting, in a sense, to get the knife away from her?

THOMAS: Yeah. And that`s speculative, but you have to bring that into the realm of consideration here. Most people are right-hand dominant. I think

most of us would agree. This is on the backside of her left hand. Now, she`s trying to restrain somebody with her left hand, say put it over their

mouth or around their throat or whatever the case may be, even a child is going to strain and try to get away from someone that causing them great

pain.

At this point, we still don`t know what the extent of the injuries are. Are these multiple injuries? Is it one blow? We don`t really know how. We don`t

know much of a struggle went on. The police, hopefully, they did a very thorough job documenting this at the scene.

CASAREZ: Right. Does this tell you though that the 911 call was made at 4:50 in the morning. So, basically in the middle of the night. But the

wounds that we are seeing on her and the blood on her, does that tell you that there was a struggle? Does that tell you that her children may have

witnessed as she was, allegedly, stabbing others in her home, her husband and other children?

THOMAS: Well, potentially. I think that we can go back to this little girl that survived this thing. Let`s kind of put this in focus here. She was

still in dwelling in this residence with this girl that was clinging to her life. We don`t know what the circumstances were. But what if she constantly

went over to this child that maybe is whimpering, crying, she`s having contact with this child, she`s transferring the blood on to her body.

We don`t know what she did in her state of mind. Did she go and handle the bodies or manipulate the bodies in some way? And she was in there a long,

long time. What`s really going to be key is when the exam was done at the scene, not at the morgue, but at the scene. We want to know what the

postmortem interval is,

[20:40:00] like the changes that happened in the body, rigor mortis, postmortem. Where these things set in? What state were they in when the

bodies were examined found by the investigators at the scene before they were removed to go to the morgue? That can tell a lot, Jean.

CASAREZ: So important. We do have a little bit more of this court appearance. You can hear the judge, what he tells to her, and what she says

as she is facing the judge in this initial court appearance. Listen to this.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma`am, I`m going to caution you to cut out the display for the cameras. It`s really not a good idea. Probably not to your benefit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: All right. So, she`s saying no, and she`s looking straight into the camera. I want you to see some more of this, okay? You don`t see this

every day. I want you to watch her again as she talks about that she doesn`t want an attorney. Listen.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

MARTINEZ: I`m representing the people that is humble, that`s hardworking, the people that suffer, the people that has a lot of charges so they

understand that everything is possible with God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: All right, Jill. First of all, there`s going to be an insanity defense here, right? That all of this is, that she didn`t know right from

wrong. And she doesn`t want an attorney, but an attorney has been appointed, protection for her and obviously for the justice system. But

here`s my point, she`s looking at the television.

She`s not looking at the wall. She`s not looking at the ceiling. And if in fact as we believe she is the one that called 911, she knew right from

wrong. She called 911 and allegedly said they`re all dead. But one of the little girls is alive. She could tell what was happening.

STANLEY: Yes, actually I think before we start with an insanity defense, I think we`re going to talk about competency.

CASAREZ: Well, they`re ordering that mental evaluation right now.

STANLEY: Yeah. Very, very smart. This behavior, very atypical. Have you ever seen this in a courtroom ever?

JACKSON: Not at all. And the magnitude of it, Jill. Think about this. She has killed her husband. There are four kids that she killed.

CASAREZ: Allegedly.

JACKSON: I`m so sorry. As a defense attorney, Jean, I should know better.

CASAREZ: Yeah, you should know better.

JACKSON: And there`s a fifth child who she stabbed and who was in the worst of conditions. And this is what her behavior. But let me tell you the bad

news, Jean, Jill. This is the bad news. In Georgia, there is a guilty but mentally ill box to check off by a jury.

Where does that get you? It gets you into the Department of Corrections custody in jail. So the jury could conclude that she`s somewhat amiss

upstairs and still hold her accountable and she could spend her time in jail where she belongs.

STANLEY: But what comes before though is can she even stand trial? Is this woman competent to stand trial? That is way before you go into insanity.

JACKSON: Yes, a hundred percent. But as Jean mentioned, I think, you know, there will be psychiatrists, there will be evaluations.

CASAREZ: They`ll put her on medication and she`ll become competent.

JACKSON: Right, absolutely.

CASAREZ: All right. Thank you. A mother of two leaves her two small children locked in a car while she goes into the store. She gets the

scolding of her life and it`s all caught on video.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your children could have died. The windows were up and it`s hot out. You don`t seem to understand what you`ve done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[20:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CASAREZ: No charges have been filed in the case of a mother leaving her two children in a locked car as temperatures continue to rise in the afternoon

and even if it`s not 90 degrees outside, temperatures inside a car can reach dangerous levels. Such was the case in Vancouver when several people

called 911 after seeing two small children inside a mother`s SUV. And when she returned, those witnesses let her have it.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was here for five minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Doesn`t matter. Your kids were in here on a hot day. That`s pretty stupid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And they weren`t the only ones. When the officer responded to the call, he tried to get the mother to understand no matter how long she left

the children in the SUV, those little children were in danger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your children could have died. The windows were up and it`s hot out. You don`t seem to understand what you`ve done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And if you thought the officer was a little harsh, his boss didn`t think so.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

ADAM PALMER, CHIEF CONSTABLE VANCOUVER POLICE DEPARTMENT: The officer in question, I`ve known that officer for many years. He`s a highly respected

member of the police department. Hardworking, dedicated officer. I know he has children of his own.

You have to remember that police officers are just people. We`re all human beings. Everybody may react slightly different to every set of

circumstances. He was trying to convey to that woman the seriousness of what she`d done with her children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: So police are saying that they`re not going to charge the mother. But they`ve turned the case over the Canada`s version of Department of

Children Services. I want to bring in Charmaine De Silva. She is a senior anchor and reporter for CKNW in Vancouver. Thank you for joining us. First

for all, why aren`t they going to charge her with anything?

CHARMAINE DE SILVA, SENIOR ANCHOR AND REPORTER FOR CKNW VANCOUVER: Well, that`s a good question, and it`s a question, Jean, that a lot of people

here in Vancouver are asking because, as you saw, the people there had a very strong reaction to the fact that she left her two young children in

the vehicle alone for 20 minutes. That`s what the time stamp from the grocery store proved.

And as you mentioned, the temperatures can get incredibly high in the vehicle. I think part of the issue is that there needs to be proof that

there was negligence, the willful negligence on her part. And what was seen in one of the videos is she`s pointing to the sunroof of her vehicle which

shows that it was open, it was tilted up a little bit.

[20:50:00] And so it appears that she believed that she had left the windows open enough for her kids. That may be one of the reasons they`re

not proceeding with charges in this case.

CASAREZ: You`re right. It was cracked, right, up there, it was cracked.

DE SILVA: Yeah.

CASAREZ: You know, one of the things that I think is getting more attention than her actions are people are a little concerned and upset about the

police officer that scolded her. I want everybody to listen to this police officer that really was trying to have her understand what had just

happened. Listen.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s the mom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you understand what you`ve done? Your children could have died. No, no. You don`t seem to understand the danger you put these

children in. Listen to me. You`re talking when you should be listening. Your children could have died. The windows were up and it`s hot out. Why

are you arguing?

You want me to seize your kids and you`ll never see them again? Is what your problem? That is your problem. You don`t understand what you`ve done.

You have a fire truck, an ambulance, and two police cars here because you left your kids in there and you think it`s fine. You wonder why I`m upset?

I`m a parent. You have no idea. She has no idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And I hope you`ve noticed her posture. Her defiance, arms folded, just not wanting to listen to a police officer, an officer of the law as he

talks to her about what she`s just done. I want to bring back Joseph Scott Morgan on this. He`s a certified death investigator, an expert in

forensics. First of all, when you hear what that police officer was lecturing her on, was he in the right?

MORGAN: Well, let`s put it in context. Because this is one event that`s frozen in time for us to see. We don`t know how many of these other cases

he`s come across where people have left their kids in cars. And also we have to keep in mind everything in recent memory that has been -- how much

time did we spend over the past couple of years talking about cases like Cooper Harris and it`s right on the edge of our mind now when we think

about we see a child or, you know, even a person who sees an animal in a car, how long would it take for them to die?

In this particular circumstance, I don`t necessarily think the children were in danger because they were in there for about 20 minutes. The window

was cracked. But it could still -- the temperature can still rise to the point where it`s very unhealthy. It`s an issue, though, was there some kind

of intent to do harm to them.

And he`s addressing this. It`s not necessarily intent. But he thinks, I would assume, that this is a negligent event on her part where she just

left these kids in the car and it`s disturbing. Let`s keep in mind, I think the car alarm was going off at the same time. It put people into a panic

when you see a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old in a car and they can`t get out of it.

CASAREZ: Right. Dr, we`ve learned that even though it was 68 degrees outside, the car was in the straight sun. The sunroof was only cracked a

little bit and the temperatures, Joey Jackson, can go up to 104 to 113 even up to 122. So just because it doesn`t seem that hot outside, it can be warm

and continue to climb.

JACKSON: Jean, wholeheartedly agree with you. This could have escalated. This could have been a horrific consequence. These kids could be dead. I

wholeheartedly support that police officer. She needed to be berated like that. You know, think about it. This guy is out there saving lives all day.

To Scott Morgan`s point, I`m sure he comes across this a lot. And sometimes a good tongue lashing is what people need to set an example to say that

this shouldn`t happen, couldn`t happen. And you know what, lives can be lost, precious little lives could be lost as a result of it. God bless the

police officer.

STANLEY: We have 19 deaths already in 2017 from child vehicular heatstroke.

JACKSON: (inaudible).

STANLEY: Yeah, there will be more (inaudible) 39, and she did not respect him at all.

JACKSON: Wow. Outrageous. Outrageous.

CASAREZ: What he was saying. All right. Outrageous. We`ll be right back.

[20:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CASAREZ: The death of 2-year-old Florida girl, Caylee Anthony, is one of the most followed crime stories in recent memory. The acquittal six years

ago this month of Casey Anthony in her daughter`s death only fuels the mystery. Now a new twist, one of Casey`s former defense attorneys says

Anthony herself doesn`t know exactly what happened. He says she blacked out.

(START VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That when it happened, when she was gone, she shut down psychologically. She carried on other part of her life. She did all the

preparation going to trial and spent three years in jail. And I`m just telling you that I believe the whole explanation of why it was so kind of

disjointed with her is her mind, her conscious thought shut down similar to a type of blackout that a person might get from alcohol.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: If she had lived, Caylee Anthony would have turned 12 years old on August 9th. Joey Jackson, I see you sitting here.

JACKSON: I think that`s the most outrageous thing I`ve ever heard. And he`s speaking outside of his experience. As lawyers, we can (inaudible) about

the law all day long. He`s talking as a psychiatrist now, a psychologist. She blacked out. I think it`s sad and it`s unfortunate that he would make

such a thing.

[21:00:00] STANLEY: He`s actually not using mental health proper terms that we use in mental health. That an actual mental health professional would

use.

CASAREZ: All right. We have to go. Thank you so much for joining us tonight and watching.

JACKSON: Thanks, Jean.

CASAREZ: I`m Jean Casarez. Ashleigh Banfield will see you back here tomorrow night at 8 o`clock sharp for PRIMETIME JUSTICE.

END