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CRIME AND JUSTICE WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Manhunt Underway, Three Dead A Home, Toddler Found Unharmed; Killer On Loose, Missing Mom Found Dead In Makeshift Coffin; Man Beats Girlfriend To Pulp Over Snapchat; Shocking Video Premieres Sunday; One More Thing; Cops Video Records A Killing In Progress; A Stunning New Mom In L.A., Found Drained Of Her Blood At Home; A Wooden Coffin Found In A Parking Lot. Aired 6-8p ET

Aired June 12, 2018 - 18:00   ET

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


[18:00:00]

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST, HLN CRIME AND JUSTICE: Good evening, everyone, I`m Ashleigh Banfield, this is "Crime and Justice." A young mom, her

boyfriend, and her boyfriend`s mom, all of them shot dead. But a little toddler was left behind at the gruesome scene. All alone. And tonight,

the hunt is on for their killer. Dave Siegel is covering this case. Dave, police have someone they want to talk to, but they can`t find him. What`s

happening?

DAVE SIEGEL, HLN CORRESPONDENT: Ashleigh, they really have to find that guy and help him provide some details on what happened. Police think he

was there that day. By the way, also that 22-month-old child that was found inside the house, luckily unharmed.

BANFIELD: Oh, thank god for that. But who could do such a thing? Thank you Dave, we`ll check in a moment on that.

Also happening tonight, the brutal end to the search for a missing mom of three. But her body was found in what looks like a make shift coffin. But

why would she be dumped like that in a parking lot. Kyle Peltz, tracking the story for us. Kyle?

KYLE PELTZ, CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: Well, that is the big question, her body in a box in a parking lot. It had even been wrapped in a blue

tarp. But how he she ended up there and how she died remains a big mystery tonight.

BANFIELD: Bizarre. All right. Kyle, thank you for that.

Also the 18-year-old girl who was beaten to a pulp just for downloading snapchat. Bernice Man, what happened?

BERNICE MAN, CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: Ashleigh, she was slapped, she was punched, she was thrown to the ground and stomped on. And we have

these pictures of her injuries, and they are horrific. And it`s all because her boyfriend thought she was cheating on him on snapchat.

BANFIELD: Well, how dare she, right? Unbelievable. I`m looking forward to hearing from you with regard to the sentence that he is going to get for

that. Thank you for that, Bernice.

Also the jaw-dropping body cam video from a fearless police officer who ran straight towards the gunfire during a murder in progress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNFIRE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Unbelievable. How he tracked down the suspect within seconds. But why that suspect says, you got the wrong guy.

And later, the young, West Hollywood mother murdered and horribly mutilated. Police say her millionaire, writer, Director, boyfriend, and

father of her newborn baby is the killer. So, did her death mirror his work?

All that coming up, but first to North Carolina, where the bodies of a young mother and her boyfriend and her boyfriend`s mother were all found

shot to death. 22-year-old Brianna Stamey was found lifeless in a car on the driveway, while her boyfriend Trae and his mom, Renee, were both dead

inside the house. Also inside, a 22-month-old boy, the dead couple`s baby. And somehow that child was unharmed.

Reportedly tonight being cared for tonight by other family members. But police also tonight are on the hunt for whoever made that little boy an

orphan. And they`re busy looking for the man they believe who spent the previous day with that family. A man by the name of Kenneth Powell.

To be clear, Powell has not been charged, but he could have information for investigators as to what happened. The only problem is, Powell has

vanished. He is nowhere to be found. Even though strangely enough, his car is still parked at his home. And even more strange, the neighbors

reportedly say, Kenneth Powell isn`t healthy enough to walk very far.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF STEVE WHISENANT, BURKE COUNTY SHERIFF`S OFFICE: We really need to talk to this guy. Doesn`t look good that he is left, though, does it?

Well, obviously that looks suspicious.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I want to bring in Steve Ohnesorge, he is a reporter for CNN affiliate WBTV. Also CNN law enforcement analyst and former assistant

Director of the U.S. Marshalls, Art Roderick is with me, and defense attorney, Troy Slaten as well.

Steve, if I can just begin with you, this is just a bizarre story. How did it happen? How did police even know that three adults were dead and a

little baby was wandering around in a home by himself?

STEVE OHNESORGE, REPORTER, CNN AFFILIATE WBTV: Well, to paint a picture of the scene, it is off of a rural road and down a dirt road. A path that

you`re not going to get lost and just go down there. You`re going down there for a purpose. Well, a neighbor saw a car down there and thought

there was somebody in the car. And went ahead and called the law. Authorities came out, found the body of Brianna in that vehicle, and then

decided, they`d better get inside, because they heard that there was a baby in there too.

[18:05:02] And they made a forced entry in and at the scene, you can see the glass all over. They basically broke the door in, with guns drawn, and

yelling and screaming, get down, get down, you know, sheriff`s department, sheriff`s department.

And it was at that point the sheriff says, and he is the one who spotted it, the young child, he thought the child was asleep, and picked up the

child. He says the child then hugged him tightly, and the sheriff said he put his hand over that child`s eyes and walked him past the bodies and

outside to medical help.

BANFIELD: Oh, imagine that. I actually have that moment, Steve. I want to play if I can, and then tell me if I`m pronounced his name wrong.

Sheriff Steve, is it Whisenant, is that the sheriff we are talking about?

OHNESORGE: Steve Whisenant.

BANFIELD: OK, Steve Whisenant. I want to play that moment as he describes what happened when he came upon that little toddler boy, 22 months old, in

a home by himself, with two dead bodies. His dead mother outside in the driveway. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHISENANT: When I picked up the child up and it hugged me and held my neck, I kept him shielded, his face shielded from seeing any of the crime

scene.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Just does not matter how much of a veteran officer you are. That is profound, a moment like that, when you rescue a child amid such

carnage. Do you know, Steve, who Kenneth Powell is to these people?

OHNESORGE: Kenneth Powell, apparently had a relationship with the mother in that place where the murders were, the shootings took place. Now as to

what the status of that relationship was at the time, authorities are not sure. And the people who would know are now deceased. So they are looking

for him as a person of interest and maybe a little bit more, but at this point, there are no charges filed. There are no warrants drawn up. They

need to talk with him as the sheriff told me yesterday, to put all of the pieces together. They believe they know the timeline. They believe they

know what happened, how it happened, the order that it happened, but they need him to put some of the pieces together that might either clear him or

implicate him.

BANFIELD: Sure.

OHNESORGE: Or at least give them some answers as to where to go in this case.

BANFIELD: Because they think he was there. They think he was there. Might have been one of the last people there.

OHNESORGE: They know --

BANFIELD: There`s a friend of the victims. They know he was there, yes. There`s a friend of the victims who obviously has a -- it is like -- I

mean, I can`t imagine the gut punch to hear that the entire family has been wiped out. And this little baby was left behind. But this friend of the

victims, who I think is remaining nameless at this point had this to say about this horrifying reality. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I couldn`t believe it. Like, I don`t understand why someone would do something like that. Take a father and a mother away from

their kids and their grandmother away. It just doesn`t make sense. A child that can`t even defend itself and leave him with nothing. I just

don`t understand how you could live with yourself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Steve, I know that you have been to that scene, the scene of the crime. You had been outside that bordered up palm. Do you have any idea

from your reporting how the baby`s doing? Did the baby know, did the baby see anything before the rescue, before that sheriff`s officer, you know,

covered his eyes and took him out of there?

OHNESORGE: Well, that is the question. In fact, the sheriff told me, talked with me about that very thing. He was wondering, would a 22-month-

old remember anything or see anything? And he wanted to see if there was a chance to get some psychological help, if it was need and if it could be

found to deal with the child now. He wants to do it as soon as possible, rather than wait for problems to manifest themselves.

BANFIELD: Yes, and listen, it is not easy -- it is not easy to ask questions of these -- it is an art in itself and there are experts who are

trained specifically in how to extract information, you know, from children without being suggestive in any way. But sometimes there can be help. But

even a 22-month-old could actually offer.

Art Roderick, I want to bring you into the conversation, if I can. All three victim`s dead of gunshot wounds. We know that to be a fact. We know

Brianna Stamey, the mom, at 22 years old, was found out in the car in the driveway. Her boyfriend, Trae and his mom Renee, both shot in the house

with the child. And then there is this strange manhunt for Kenneth Powell who they`re not saying is anything more than just someone they want to talk

to. Does that strike you as odd?

ART RODERICK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALSYT: It does. And I think probably there`s a lot more to it than what we know at this particular point in

time.

[18:10:00] The crime scene is the key here. It sounds like based on some of the reporting, that law enforcement pretty much has the timeline down.

You know, they want to talk to this particular individual to nail it down, but I think it probably goes a lot further than that. They are probably

they are looking at him as the main suspect. This is a very rural area, out in the middle of nowhere.

You really have to know how to get there and go there for a specific reason. So I think this guy, although they`re saying he is just a person

of interest, I think he is much more in the eyes of law enforcement right now. But they`re keeping their cards close.

BANFIELD: Yes, bizarre clues that they`re working off of, and that is this, this person of interest, Kenneth Powell, apparently according to

neighbors, has trouble getting around. He can`t walk very far, and that he is in severe pain and requires pain medication frequently, regularly, and

could be in need of additional pain medication at this point. So as a Marshall, what do you do with that information, knowing his car is still

parked at his home, but he isn`t there and he is in that condition?

RODERICK: Well, he is a local guy too. So it`s not like he is going to travel across the country. He is an elderly gentleman. He is got the

medication issues. It`s been two days, I believe, since he was last seen. That is going to be the key. Who actually saw him last, where was he,

where was he going? But it could very well be that he could have ended up committing suicide. It just is odd that there`s been no contact with this

individual for two days.

BANFIELD: And then so there`s this added wrinkle, Art, and that is that, I think within three and a half miles from where he lives is South Mountain

State Park. And if you know that area, it`s 20,000 acres. Again, he can`t walk a lot. He is not capable of walking a long distance on his own. But

he doesn`t take his car, and yet there is that vast area. Again, what would the marshals do with that? Would they worry about that 20,000 acres,

or realize that is not part of our equation, because of his condition?

RODERICK: Right. You would still take that into account. You know, I think a lot of these areas, especially areas like that, the search and

rescue teams up there. They could use forward-looking infrared radar to see any hot spots at night. So there are things that they can do. But to

search 20,000 acres for an individual is literally like finding a needle in a haystack.

BANFIELD: Yes.

RODERICK: You know, it could very well be if they can`t locate this individual or they do come upon him and he is already deceased, they might

not have any answers to some of the questions that they got regarding the crime scene.

BANFIELD: Well, they have some forensics, you know that and I just want to clarify, as well. It is 12 miles from his house. The park is 12 miles

from his house. Its three and a half miles from the actual scene of where the bodies were found.

RODERICK: Right.

BANFIELD: Still a very long distance for someone who has trouble walking. Troy Slaten, jump in on this with me. If they do find this man, and if in

fact they link him to these murders, is medication anything here? Does it factor into the equation for him? Is it a defense? How do you look at the

fact pattern you have now as it might relate to finding this person of interest?

TROY SLATEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, typically, Ashleigh, voluntary intoxication is not a defense to a crime. Getting drunk and getting behind

the wheel is not a defense to drunk driving. Same thing with medication. Taking medication and even being slightly impaired by that isn`t a defense

to murder. So there are many ways that one could explain his disappearance. Maybe he is also the victim of the crime. Maybe he wasn`t

there at the time that it happened. Maybe he was there the day before and didn`t even know that this happened, didn`t know the people are out looking

for him. So there`s a lot of explanations. I think that police are going to be mounting a strong search to try and find him right now to answer

those questions.

BANFIELD: So distressing. And the headline in all of this, that little kiddie pool belonged to a little boy who has probably witnessed something

he should never have seen, even close to it. Steve Ohnesorge, thank you very much. And I am going to ask Art and Troy for you to both stick around

if you will.

There`s a disturbing mystery that is playing out in Southern California, a make shift coffin is found behind a car wash. And inside that coffin is

the decomposing body of a missing mother. How did she get in there? And how did she die? And later, this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: get on the ground now.

Put the gun down! Get on the ground!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: A scene that could be straight out of the wire. A Baltimore cop in hot pursuit of a suspected murderer seconds after more than a dozen

shots ring out on a neighborhood street where he was just doing his job.

[18:10:15] And all of it caught on his body cam.

[18:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: You expect to see coffins in cemeteries, not parking lots. And when you see coffins, you expect them to be made of mahogany or metal, not

scrap like plywood. That is the kind of make shift coffin that somebody stumbled upon in a Southern California parking lot on Sunday morning. It

was behind one of those dollar self-service car washes.

And inside that plywood box, they found that blue tarp there. And wrapped inside that blue tarp was the decomposing body of a missing woman. That

woman was 34-year-old Marlene Santellan. She apparently disappeared days earlier. She was a mother to four girls, the youngest just two months old.

And now police are trying to figure out how Marlene died. And how Marlene ended up in that coffin-like box and tarp. But the mystery is made all the

more eerie by something her mother told reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WANDA EDWARDS, VICTIM`S MOTHER: Two weeks ago, mom, please, mom, when I die, because she knew, she said, mom, when I`m gone, please fight for my

kids, and get my kids back. I just want to be with my daughter.

I know. Just got to think of the grandkids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I want to bring in my panel, Crime and Justice Producer, Kyle Peltz and still with me, CNN law enforcement analyst, Art Roderick, and

defense attorney, Troy Slaten. Kyle, first to you, how was she found? This is so strange?

PELTZ: That is right. It`s the kind of the last thing you`d expect to discover on a Sunday morning in a parking lot. But apparently it was a

witness sometime just after 8:00 a.m., in this parking lot and notices a wooden box. Inside that box, wrapped in a tarp, was the body of this

mother.

BANFIELD: And of course they`re moving all the orange, you know, barriers and at this point in the video -- but not before, you know, the press was

able to get actual pictures of the tarp. And here they are, moving the tarp. Is there more to it? Is there anything to the location? I know we

have a map of this area. And it doesn`t look like it is sort of right for a good place to dump a body.

There`s all these businesses around. There`s a liquor store, on top of the screen, restaurants beside that. Down lower there`s a shopping center.

And then if you see that red square, that is the area where the body was found, it looks like it`s behind the car wash. But across the street, it

looks like there are homes.

PELTZ: That is right. You mentioned that. It`s a neighborhood behind where the body was found. And businesses kind of right in front of where

the body was found. And it`s hard to imagine that one of those businesses or one of those houses didn`t have some type of surveillance camera that

would have seen what was going on.

BANFIELD: So I`m always curious as to how -- how someone just stumbles upon that kind of a scene. You know, is it -- did it happen so proximate

to the time the body was found, it stood out like a sore thumb? A first person walking by would say, dear god, there`s a body, or had it been there

for a while. What were the circumstances -- there`s a coffin in the middle of a parking lot, that doesn`t make sense.

PELTZ: The woman who found the body, she actually spoke out and said she had noticed this box laying down in that parking lot for I believe it was

about a week. And then this Sunday morning she noticed that it was propped up.

BANFIELD: Like this? Up against the fence.

PELTZ: Exactly. What you`re seeing right there. That is kind what caught her attention and she is the one who made the 911 call.

BANFIELD: So, my assumption is the first thing they would be doing was going to all of those businesses and looking for cameras. Because it`s not

easy to move a body. This isn`t close quarters. There`s a lot of area around. I mean, the spacious enough for cameras to capture what`s

happening in that big, red square. This is Lieutenant Mike Matt of the San Bernardino Police Department talking about what they`re doing to figure out

who in god`s name had a woman in a tarp, in a coffin right in the middle of everything. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE MATT, SAN BERNARDINO POLICE DEPARTMENT: Where this happened is in a business district. There`s hopefully cameras from the surrounding

businesses and certainly we`ll be going door to door checking each and every business too, to see if in fact there might be video footage. And we

are also looking for any and all witnesses to come forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So it`s not the nicest area. I mean, just from what I`m seeing right there. Seems to be -- I`m not sure if that was trash or what it was

in that parking lot. But there are neighbors, there are people who didn`t live too far away from this. And clearly they are asking witnesses what

they knew. And someone has seen a U-haul truck.

PELTZ: That is right. One of our affiliate KTLA, they spoke to a neighbor, we don`t know if it was the neighborhood right behind where the

body was found but it is somewhere near and they mentioned --

[18:25:00] -- keep in mind, her body was found just after 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. The neighbors report that sometime that morning just after 3:00

a.m., they saw a U-haul truck dropping off some suspicious items.

BANFIELD: So, Art Roderick, with that piece of information, does that help in terms of trying to work backwards from the site, whoever dumped her

there and whatever he or she used to do that, you work backwards from whatever you have, correct?

RODERICK: Exactly. And I think in this particular case, the autopsy`s going to be key to determine not only manner of death, but also time of

death. So we`ve got sort of conflicting stories here, we have the mother saying that two weeks ago, the daughter was begging her, you know, when I

die, please take care of my kids. Which is odd, because it appears to me that maybe the daughter felt like something was going to happen to her.

So, you know, then you have the witness coming forward and saying the box was there for a week in the parking lot before somebody -- and then saw it

propped up. It`s a very strange case.

BANFIELD: Art, look at your monitor, the box all propped up. Tell me about that. Is that a convenient place that someone who was trying to dump

a body discovered and thought, that is perfect, or does that look like something that was built for this purpose? Because there`s a difference.

RODERICK: Yes. There is a big difference, but it`s also a location where somebody wanted the body to be found, that is what I think.

BANFIELD: You do?

RODERICK: Otherwise, they would have taken it out -- yes, that is what I think. I think they wanted the body to be found. They put it in a fairly

public area. The crate that the body was in looks like it was made specifically for that purpose. It`s an odd shape. And you see some of the

spray paint symbols on the side, right above the tarp there. So it looks like it was more than likely made. I mean, it`s just a strange shape, a

coffin-like box.

BANFIELD: It`s a strange shape, you are right. It is just all too similar to a coffin shape. But I`m still trying to figure out if it was a

convenient discarded crate. It`s made of plywood. There is that strange paint on the outside. Let`s look at that picture again for a minute.

Because I also wonder if this was an area where perhaps where someone was using that as a refuge, maybe a homeless person was using that as a home of

some kind, some kind of a shelter. Is that possible?

RODERICK: Yes, that is a possibility too. And then somebody just found a convenient place with a body and a tarp to dump it in there. But I think

the San Bernardino lieutenant who gave the earlier press conference is right on. I think they`re going to find some video here, either from

security cameras at houses or business security cameras, and they`ll be able to pinpoint the comings and goings of anybody to the back of that

property. So I think that is going to be key to solving this.

BANFIELD: Yes. I don`t know how long she`d been there, but Kyle, the weather in San Bernardino will be key here as well. Because if they`re

trying to figure out how long she has been dead -- she was decomposing?

PELTZ: That is right. They say she was in a state of decomposition. And if you look at the weather in San Bernardino, I mean, the weather has been

in the 70`s for just about the past week. And the day she was found got close to 80.

BANFIELD: That doesn`t help at all. It`s just a weird mystery. My thanks so much -- Kyle, thank you. Art also, thanks for your expertise. Troy,

I`m going to ask you to stick around, if you would not mind.

Tonight, remember that story I told you about, the dancing FBI agent, the guy in the club when suddenly he lost his gun, it came flying out after he

was busting a move here, did a flip, and oopsy, watch, there it is. That is not supposed to happen. He leans over, picks it up, it goes off, and

actually strikes someone in the leg. Now it turns out he is been arrested and he is awaiting charges. 29-year-old Chad Bishop.

Watch this again. A loaded pistol he is carrying with him and he decides to do a back flip in the club. And boom, you can see the flash, the muzzle

flash. This happened in Denver. He said it was an accident, didn`t mean it, but I guess that is for the authorities to determine. He is being held

at a Denver Detention Center right now. And we`re being told it`s on investigation of second-degree assault, pending formal charges from the

D.A.`s office. He has got some explaining to do there.

In Texas, a woman is beaten almost to death by her boyfriend, because she downloaded snapchat. The attack was so brutal that the police identified

the shoes he was wearing from the bruising pattern that was left on her body. That story next, but also this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNFIRE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Six seconds of terror caught on a police body cam. A Maryland police officer racing towards a hail of gunfire without a second thought,

chasing down a suspected murder, but he`d been on a whole other call before this all played out on his body cam. You`ll see it all next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put the gun down! Now, roll over!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:30:20]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:35:00]

BANFIELD: Soledad Torres was just 18 when it happened and she was home alone when she was attacked by a violent man and left with such jaw-

dropping injuries that I need to warn you -- I need to really warn you before I show you any of the pictures.

Because the pictures show where Soledad was slapped and punched and where her attacker stomped this 18-year-old with his foot and where he banged her

head against the bathtub, leaving her to black out all alone in a pool of her own blood.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOLEDAD TORRES, TEEN SAVAGELY BEATEN BY BOYFRIEND: Fifteen staples and three stitches in my head and that`s minus like all the bruises I had of

his shoe print around my neck. But when it was going on and he was hitting me, I was screaming for him to stop. I was crying. He just didn`t stop. The

louder I got, the more like more harder it got.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: She might be smiling now, because fortunately Soledad Torres has recovered. And her attacker is now facing his fate. Because police say he

went -- police went on the hunt for what they thought was a violent home intruder based on what Soledad had told them at the time.

But it turns out it was not a masked stranger. It was Soledad`s own boyfriend who showed up at her house angry, but became enraged when he just

happened to notice that she had downloaded Snapchat.

He eventually went on the run after he beat her into that condition and it took two months to track him down. That`s when police matched the bruises

on Soledad`s body to the pattern on the bottom of the boyfriend`s shoes.

Dameon Marmolejo just pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The deadly weapon, you may ask, his feet and his hands. And that

caused serious bodily injury. And today, he is finally finding out just how long he is going to be spending behind bars. And I`m looking at the clock

because any moment now, we could actually find out the sentence.

And as we do wait on that sentence, I want to bring in Mari Salazar. She is a reporter for CNN affiliate KLBK. Also with me, defense attorney Troy

Slaten.

Mari, let me begin with you on the facts of this case. They are just so troubling, that this 18-year-old girl is seemingly at home by herself when

her boyfriend shows up and literally becomes so enraged when he sees that she`s downloaded Snapchat. He beats her unconscious. How did all of this

play out?

MARI SALAZAR, REPORTER, CNN AFFILIATE KLBK (via telephone): Hi, Ashleigh. Thank you for having me. The victim actually spoke with us back in 2017.

She told us that Marmolejo showed up angry, slapped her, pushed her side and torso, stomping on her, and honestly brutally attacking her, banging

her head against the tub, and during this he actually called her names.

During this, he was accusing her of cheating on him and he did call 911, something that was discussed in court that when he saw the blood, he did

run. And after being on the run, he was arrested two months later.

BANFIELD: Just back up a minute. That`s a really interesting fact. He called 911 after he basically beaten her into an unconscious fault (ph)?

SALAZAR (via telephone): Yeah, one of the officers who testified said that they looked into his phone records and saw that he from his phone called

911. The call was around 11 minutes. We actually heard the 911 call in court and you hear a man`s voice in the beginning, then being passed off to

her, trying to describe what was going on.

BANFIELD: So maybe this is why, when the police got there and rescued this woman who was almost beaten to death, if you look at those injuries, if you

see what she actually suffered, 15 staples in her forehead, three stitches, numerous contusions and bruises all over her body, she said to the police

not go find my boyfriend, he did this to me. She said, a masked stranger did this. Do we know why?

SALAZAR (via telephone): Well, one of the officers that was also explaining there, he had dealt with many domestic violent cases. He said

that it`s common for women who are going through these things to kind of shield the truth before they come out with exactly what happened.

And they said that she was in a daze when they walked up to her. She was on her porch. She was bleeding profusely. They walked up to her and she was in

a daze. She wasn`t really sure. Like you mentioned, there were very serious injuries.

You can just tell even before they showed the pictures of the 15 staples in her forehead as well as stitches and several bruises on her body. The body

camera footage was shown.

[18:40:00] She was really brutally beaten. She had no idea what was going on.

BANFIELD: It`s probably really hard for a lot of people watching this to understand why she wouldn`t immediately have said, find my boyfriend, I

need justice. But it took her a couple of days before she eventually did tell the police it was no masked intruder. It was my boyfriend, Dameon

Marmolejo.

And again, we are waiting on that sentence. It could come down at any moment, so break in if they hand that sentence down for him. But he`s

facing up to 20 years for this.

I want to play a quick interview if I can with Juanita Torres. Juanita Torres is the mother of Soledad. And she talks a little bit about Soledad`s

new mission, which is to speak out about domestic violence, because clearly Soledad has gone through this issue. This cycle where you protect your

abuser, you protect the man who nearly killed you, until you don`t. And this is what her mom had to say. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUANITA TORRES, MOTHER OF SOLEDAD TORRES: Moms are messaging me saying how strong we are and our bond together and how she`s inspiring to them, not

just to them but to their kids, and I`ve had women that are like, oh, my gosh, my daughter`s going through the same thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Troy Slaten, wow. I mean, imagine being so enraged that your girlfriend downloaded Snapchat, that you do that to her, and then imagine

that she still protects you when the police come to rescue. That`s not going to happen anymore. No one`s going to protect him anymore.

But what do you think he`s really going to get for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, causing seriously bodily injury, the deadly weapon being

the hands and feet?

SLATEN: Well, in Texas, this crime is a first-degree felony. Aggravated assault causing great bodily injury. And he faces anywhere between two

years, all the way up to 20 years.

Is it a mitigating factor that he called 911? Possibly. But it seems like the aggravating factor certainly outweigh it, and that he was on the run

for two months, and that he caused such serious damage. I mean, those pictures are just horrific.

BANFIELD: Just awful.

SLATEN: He`s likely to face several years.

BANFIELD: I hope he gets the max. I hope he gets 20. Because you know what, if she only downloaded Snapchat, god forbid someone else tries to

break up with him down the pike, what would that do to him?

Troy, I am going to ask to stick around. And also Mari, if you could just keep us posted as we go through the program. If we get a sentence, we will

break in and will report that to our audience as well. That`s going to be breaking news. We`re hoping we can get that throughout the rest of this

hour.

Straight ahead, a routine neighborhood dispute goes from hoe-hum to holy crap for a Baltimore police officer and the whole thing played out on his

body cam.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Ma`am, ma`am, ma`am, listen to me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): This is why it`s a landlord/tenant dispute and law enforcement doesn`t get involved.

(GUNFIRE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Shots fired!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Every day in America, police officers put their lives on the line. But it is not every day that it is caught like in stark reality for

the whole world to see that a Baltimore police officer`s body cam was rolling as he went out to handle something really mundane, a landlord-

tenant dispute.

That was what was happening at this house. But out of nowhere, down the street at another house, a barrage of gunfire breaks out and the officer

has to jump into action. And what does he do? He runs straight into the line of fire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(GUNFIRE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Shots fired! Put the gun down! Get on the ground now! Put the gun down! Roll over, roll over! Get on the ground!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: OK, so the guy down there is this guy right here, 17-year-old Eric Gilyard. That`s the suspect. And this 17-year-old has now been charged

with first and second-degree murder as well as attempted murder in what they said was a double shooting that left a man dead and another one

injured.

This 17-year-old, young Mr. Gilyard, so far is saying that he had nothing to do with the killing, but the police are saying they found a block in the

suspect`s waist band that matched the casings at the scene.

Defense attorney Troy Slaten is still with me. It`s hard if you got the gun on your person and the bullets match -- you know what I mean? Like is there

any defense? Is there anything that as a defense attorney you can say other than hey, you`re 17, maybe they won`t charge you as an adult, but they

probably will?

SLATEN: Well, the video only shows a very small Snapshot. We don`t know what led up to that moment.

[18:50:00] We don`t see the actual shooting. So, yeah, he`s got a gun. Maybe he was using it in self-defense. Who knows what reason he had the

gun? And his defense attorney, very rightly said that he`s -- that he wasn`t involved in the shooting and we don`t see the gun being taken from

him. The officer says that the gun was retrieved from him. But that doesn`t necessarily make it so.

BANFIELD: Well, I don`t know if I have all the body cam, you know, material either. And of course there`s a whole lot more to a murder

investigation. We don`t even usually get this part of it. And they can certainly pull off a murder investigation.

But here is the thing. There`s no death penalty in Maryland. But even if there were, at 17, no go. The Supreme Court has said, you can`t execute

minors. But would this have been a death penalty qualified crime, Troy, if this were somewhere else say like Texas or Florida?

SLATEN: That depends. So in order for a crime in a state that has the death penalty to allow it to qualify for the death penalty, it has to have

something called special circumstances. And that means something other than just a murder. There has --

BANFIELD: Can we agree on one thing here? It takes unbelievable cojones (ph) to switch that fast upon hearing the gunfire to run like this guy`s

running. I mean, there wasn`t a moment, Troy, where he said, yikes, let`s dive for cover. No, gunfire, gotta go to it. It`s incredible.

SLATEN: This is the exact kind of cop that you want out on the streets. He ran into the face of danger. He ran towards gunfire when all of us would be

hiding for cover.

BANFIELD: You mean jumping for cover, right?

SLATEN: Yeah.

BANFIELD: Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. Kudos to him. Hats off to him. Real quick, I gotta go. What?

SLATEN: In order for this to qualify for the death penalty, there has to be something worse, like he has to be lying in wait or pre-planning.

BANFIELD: All right. Thanks, Troy. Stick around. I got other stuff for you. Meantime, I got to talk about my friend, Chris Cuomo. He has got this

great show where he takes viewers inside the country`s most dangerous minds. It`s an HLN original series called "Inside Evil with Chris Cuomo."

This Sunday, Chris is going to delve into the psyche of one of America`s most notorious serial killers, Joel Rifkin. I get the willies just hearing

that name. Chris is going to ask some pretty tough questions about Rifkin`s sordid sex life and why he brutally murdered 17 different women.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN JOURNALIST: Over time, your behavior with the bodies got a little peculiar, right? Have one in the passenger seat when you went to

the gas station. You`d leave one in the trunk when your mom was going to the grocery store.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really does make much sense. The body in the trunk and my mom going shopping, that just -- that`s as bizarre as it gets.

CUOMO: You think over time you started to lose it a little bit?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

CUOMO: What started off as intimacy with strangling and whatever that gave you started to be a little bit overwhelming, having to look at face after

face after face?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We could go with that.

CUOMO: Did you get a rush from the killing? Always?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. I mean, in the end, it was like, OK, we did that. It made no sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Wow. Well, "Inside Evil with Chris Cuomo" is going to premiere on Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific right here on HLN. Do not miss

that. Serial killers` mind, right?

So cops on the beat are used to chasing all kinds of people. But not a people like this little people. A 1-year-old boy racing down a busy

highway. What would you do? How would you handle this? Wait until you see how this guy handled it.

[18:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: One more thing for you tonight, any parent will tell you that there is nothing faster than a toddler that gets out of your grasp. Right?

And nobody knows that better than Sergeant Anthony Mannino because he had to chase down a 1-year-old little boy that he spotted actually heading onto

a busy freeway.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Trying to corral a 1-year-old boy running across 59 just north of North Aurora.

Hey, hey, hey! Come here! You`re OK. You`re OK.

BANFIELD (voice over): Sure maybe he`s OK, but my heart is literally in my mouth right now, watching that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): How are you doing?

BANFIELD (voice over): That Sergeant Mannino was presented with the life- saving service award last Thursday. Pretty cute, huh? What`s your name? Turns out the little guy just got away from his mom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: It happens.

[19:00:00] Next hour of "Crime and Justice" starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD (voice-over): A stunning new mom in L.A., found drained of her blood at home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard someone screaming like going crazy.

BANFIELD: But she wasn`t just killed. She was tortured. And police say her ultra-rich boyfriend did it. A director who hob knobbed with Hollywood

elite, who barricaded police from her remains.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were able to make entry, cleared the house and found our deceased in one of the bedrooms.

BANFIELD: Did his gory work in film and print inspire him to butcher her? And was she actually alive when she was tortured?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just want to be with my daughter.

BANFIELD: A missing mom of three.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s the grandkids.

BANFIELD: Found dead in what looks like a plywood coffin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where it happened was in a business district.

BANFIELD: Why was she dumped in a parking lot?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was in the wrong path, and I know that.

BANFIELD: Who wrapped her in a tarp and stuffed her there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to turn yourself in, you know, whoever did it.

BANFIELD: And had she recently predicted her own death?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two weeks ago, she said, mom, when I`m gone, please fight for my kids and get my kids back.

BANFIELD: Plus --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fifteen staples and three stitches.

BANFIELD: The teen girl beaten to a pulp just for downloading Snapchat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was crying for him to stop. I was crying. And then (INAUDIBLE).

BANFIELD: Why her boyfriend snapped when he found out she got the app.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The louder I got, the more like more harder it got.

BANFIELD: How police matched him to the beating.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All the bruises I had of his shoe print around my neck.

BANFIELD: And the price he is going to pay now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: Good evening. I`m Ashleigh Banfield.

Welcome to the second hour of CRIME & JUSTICE.

Missing person`s cases can easily turn into murder cases. It happens. But they don`t often turn into a murder case like this one. The murder of a

West Hollywood beauty. A brand-new mom to a baby girl just weeks old. Mom was tortured, mutilated and killed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHELSEA ADAMS, DOG WALKER: But when I went inside, I didn`t see anybody, but I heard someone screaming, like going crazy. But I didn`t see anybody

inside, though.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like screaming like they were afraid of something.

ADAMS: Screaming like bloody murder, like something terrible was going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I don`t know if it was Yana Kazy in screaming, but she was reported missing by her mom. And police had to break in to her boyfriend`s

apartment in order to find her dead body. Though it probably didn`t look much like a body when they found her, because Yana had been scalped. She

was missing an ear. She was left with bite marks on her face and blunt force trauma to her head. And that is not even the worst of it.

Yana was almost completely drained of her blood. Police think that she was actually alive when she was mutilated. And police also think her boyfriend

did it. Because he barricaded himself into that apartment with Yana`s body in there, trying to keep the cops from getting to her. That boyfriend was

the father of her brand-new baby. That boyfriend was a writer and director from a very rich Canadian family, a writer and director known for his gory

work. And a man who might just have made this sickening crime his new project. Her death imitating his art.

I want to bring in my panel. Scott Johnson, senior writer for the Hollywood reporter, also medical examiner and forensic pathologist Dr.

William Morrone is with me. And defense attorney Troy Slaten is here as well.

Scott, help me sort of sort through this because you hear about this rich Canadian ex-patriot who has come to L.A. to find his dream in writing these

long form comic book novels and direct movies as well. And then you hear about this sadistic scene that they found with his dead girlfriend. And

you think maybe it`s a mistake, maybe it`s not him. But the facts in this case are hard on avoid. It`s hard to believe anybody could have done it

but him given how they found her and given how they found him.

SCOTT JOHNSON, SENIOR WRITER, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Yes, well, certainly the prosecutors in trial, which is going on right now, are laying out a

case that includes both very strong forensic evidence as well as a narrative which they are putting forth in which they point out that the

crime -- the actual crime mirrors in very significant ways a fictional crime that Mr. Leibel portrayed in a graphic novel that he co-authored

called "Syndrome" which features a woman who is tortured. Her body is drained of its blood.

[19:05:05] BANFIELD: We are showing the book, by the way, just so that our audience realizes very creepy picture of a baby that looks to have been

sculp. Syndrome is the title of this graphic novel, a graphic novel being a long, comic book-style novel. And in it you say that there is a scenario

that plays out somewhat similar?

JOHNSON: Yes. I mean, the graphic novel is the story of an attempt by a doctor to cure a sociopath of his crimes. And so the first opening

sequence of the book actually portrays a very grisly murder, a draining of blood, a body hanging upside down. And in her opening statements at trial,

the district attorney made notice of this. And pointed out to the jury the similarities between the fictional crime and the actual crime. And at one

point even overlaid a photo in the graphic novel --

BANFIELD: I think we have that. Is that the headless body in the bed?

JOHNSON: Yes.

BANFIELD: So this is one of the pictures. You can see the man crouched to the left of the bed, I don`t know if that`s because he has the head to that

bloodied torso, that naked woman. And this victim, Yana was found naked in a pool of blood on the mattress, correct. Not decapitated but she had been

ca scalped?

JOHNSON: Yes, that`s correct. She has been scalped. Her right here had been sheered by some sort of object. Both of those were later found by

police in a trash dumpster that had direct access to the apartment, and they collected that material and presented some of that photographic

evidence as part of the initial testimony at trial.

BANFIELD: Scott, just to go back to the images from the book, the book "Syndrome," the graphic novel that Blake Leibel, the suspect in this he was

the creator of this story.

There`s another image we want to show and of a hand dripping with blood. And at the bottom, yes, you have to peek at the bottom. In the end, we all

become monsters. And that`s sort of part of the image of the victims in the comic book story that were drained of their blood. And the truth of

the murder of Yana Kazan, Scott was that the average human body contains about five liters of blood, but Yana was found with less than a teaspoon in

her body.

JOHNSON: That`s right. All of her blood, almost all of it had been drained. There was blood all over the apartment. Primarily in the master

bedroom where the body was found, along with pieces of flesh, but there was also blood, according to the DA and police, elsewhere in the apartment.

And her body was completely drained.

And one of the notable things that the DA pointed out was that throughout much of the ordeal, her heart appears to have been pumping, which means

that she was perhaps alive for at least some part of the draining of the blood. Which is what led to the -- by the way, what led to the charges of

mayhem and torture, which are additional charges.

BANFIELD: Yes. I mean, that`s what he is facing, murder, mayhem, aggravated mayhem, and torture.

Dr. Morrone, maybe you can help us sort of walk through this. As you just heard Scott report, her body was drained, and a dead body doesn`t

necessarily bleed out in that fashion, correct? A live body with a pumping heart, that`s what it would take a bleed out or am I wrong?

DR. WILLIAM MARRONE, MEDICAL EXAMINER/FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: That`s a hundred percent accurate. Pumping blood through the heart will drain the

body in a number of normal and natural positions. But to be absolute totally drained at some point, that body may have been inverted, even if it

was partially on a bed or on a sofa. Because there`s only a couple ways to totally take all the blood out. Vacuum or some other kind of medical

device.

And the hard part about this is, the scalp. We talked about scalping. It`s a highly vascularized part of the body. Lots of veins, lots of

arteries. So that the blood keeps pumping, and it comes out of that area. So that might be one of the first mutilations and torture projects is a

concentration on the scalp.

BANFIELD: All of this is just so hideous. I can`t believe we are talking about something that is just the plot of this graphic novel. And I can`t

believe we are talking about an actual case. I can understand how it can be in a creepy book "Syndrome" like that.

But I want to play if I can some of the neighbors, because you would think if this sort of thing happened, and if in fact, Blake Leibel is found

guilty of this, and he`s the perpetrator, you would think the neighbors would say things like, he was so creepy, we always knew something was wrong

in that apartment, he gave me the willies, we kept our distance, we never heard from him, his grass was long, all of those things you normally hear.

Instead you hear this from the neighbors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[19:10:26] He say hi to me and he gave me the book. And she said he is a writer. Well, that`s it. That`s all my interaction with him.

SARAH TILLEY, NEIGHBOR: Just a lot of people in and out, a lot of girls and music.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: And that`s it. None of that, he was so creepy I hid my children and my wife from him.

Troy Slaten, one of the things that`s been very profound in this case is that this millionaire kid that came from an extraordinarily wealthy

Canadian family and apparently was blowing through his parents` money to the tune of about $1.5 million reportedly, not making any money on his own

apparently, but spending a lot, hobnobbing with A-listers all over the place. He showed up in court and seemed like he was dumb founded. And it

seemed as though his attorney was arguing that they don`t even think he is competent, you know, at one point. But he is there. He is facing, you

know, murder, mayhem, aggravated mayhem and torture. They could have sought the death penalty but chose not to. What do you make of that?

TROY SLATEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, this is clearly a case where money doesn`t buy happiness. And he`s battling all kinds of demons like he

writes about in his graphic novels. And it`s right of his defense attorney if he feels that he can`t assist him in his defense, then he should declare

a doubt as to his competency. And I think that`s even been raised as a potential in this case.

BANFIELD: Yes, but they went ahead, Troy. They tried, you know, obviously, he is sitting there, he is now a full-fledged defendant in a

full-fledged murder trial which I guess he and his defense attorney decided not to present an opening. Prosecutors went ahead. They are, you know,

full on into their case. But do you suppose they are reserving their opening to say insanity, that`s all there is to it?

SLATEN: Well, they are not looking at saving his life here, because the death penalty is off the table. Even though they could, because all those

special circumstances that we talked about are present here, like we talked about, like mayhem, which means taking parts of a body off, and aggravated

mayhem and torture. And so--.

BANFIELD: That`s legally what mayhem is. It`s not what most people think, like the crowd went crazy, it was mayhem. When you talk about the legal

sense, it is a dismemberment, is that what you are saying?

SLATEN: That`s what it actually is.

BANFIELD: Scott Johnson, jump in for a second here because there`s this other issue to this beautiful woman. And that is that that they had a

baby. And that baby was a couple weeks old. That baby was born here in the United States of America. That baby is a United States citizen. That

dead mother was Ukrainian. And her whole family is from Ukraine. And now her -- that baby`s father is likely never to see the light of day again.

What happens with that baby? How do you even begin to care for that baby when the citizenship issue is up in flux?

JOHNSON: Yes, one of the -- among the many horrors of this case is the sort of looming question of the children. Because yes, Mr. Leibel had this

baby girl three weeks old, with the deceased. But he also had -- has two other children from his previous marriage, which dissolved, or was in the

process of being dissolved about a year earlier. And so for all of these children, there`s this question of, well, assuming he`s convicted, you

know, is their father the killer of their mother? I mean, this is one of the questions that everybody`s now going to have to grapple with.

BANFIELD: So sad. A three-week-old baby, right?

JOHNSON: Yes.

BANFIELD: And now in this pitched battle. It`s a sad story and it`s grim.

Scott, thank you for your reporting. Really appreciate it. Dr. Morrone, as always, thank you.

And if you can, Troy, I`m going to ask you to stay on. I have other work for you in this program like this.

A disturbing mystery that is unraveling in southern California. A makeshift coffin. Look closely to that picture, makeshift coffin. This was

found behind a car wash. And inside the coffin was the body of a missing mother wrapped in tarp. So how did she get there? Maybe more importantly,

how did she die and who did it?

And later --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put the gun down! Get down on the ground now! Put the gun down! Roll over, roll over! (Bleep) get on the ground!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Yes. This officer was at a rental dispute. And it turned into a murder down the street. The scene could be straight out of the wire. A

Baltimore cop going straight into all of that gunfire seconds after hearing the shots rang out in the neighborhood. All of it caught on his body cam.

And lo and behold, within seconds, he catches the guy. Tell you what happened next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:20:20] BANFIELD: You expect to see coffins in cemeteries, not parking lots. And when you see coffins, you expect them to be made of mahogany or

metal, not scrap like plywood. That`s the kind of makeshift coffin that somebody stumbled upon in a southern California parking lot on Sunday

morning. It was behind one of those dollar self-service car washes.

And inside that plywood box, they found that blue tarp there. And wrapped inside that blue tarp was the decomposing body of a missing woman. That

woman was 34-year-old Marlene Santillan. She`d disappeared days earlier. She was a mother to four girls, the youngest just two months old.

Now police are trying to figure out how Marlene died. And how Marlene ended up in that coffin-like box and tarp. But the mystery is made all the

more eerie by something her mother told reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WANDA EDWARDS, VICTIM`S MOTHER: Two weeks ago, mom, please, mom, when I die, because she knew, she said, mom, when I`m gone, please fight for my

kids, and get my kids back. I just want to be with my daughter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know.

EDWARDS: Just got to think of the grandkids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I want to bring in my panel, CRIME AND JUSTICE producer Kyle Peltz. And still with me, CNN law enforcement analyst and Art Roderick, as

well as defense attorney Troy Slaten.

Kyle, first to you, how was she found? This is so strange.

KYLE PELTZ, CRIME & JUSTICE PRODUCER: That`s right. It`s the last thing you would expect to discover on a Sunday morning in a parking lot. But

apparently it was a witness sometime just after 8:00 a.m., in this parking lot notices a wooden box. And inside that box, wrapped in a tarp, was the

body of this mother.

BANFIELD: And of course they are moving all the orange, you know, barriers and at this point in the video, but not before -- you know, the press was

able to get actual pictures of the tarp. And here they are moving the tarp. Is there more to it? Is there anything to the location? I know we

have a map of this area. And it doesn`t look like it is sort of right for a good place to dump a body. There`s all these businesses around. There

is a liquor store you can see on top of the screen, restaurants right beside that. Down lower there`s a shopping center. And then if you see

that red square, that`s the area where the body was found, and it looks like it`s just behind the car wash. But across the street, it looks like

there are homes.

PELTZ: That`s right. You mentioned that. It`s a neighborhood behind where the body was found. And businesses kind of right in front of where

the body was found. And it`s hard to imagine that one of those businesses or one of those houses didn`t have some type of surveillance camera that

would have seen what was going on.

BANFIELD: So I`m always curious as to how -- how someone just stumbles upon that kind of a scene, you know. Is it -- did it happen so proximate

to the time the body was found, it stood out like a sore thumb? The first person walking by would say, dear God, there`s a body or had it been there

for a while? Like what were the circumstances? There`s a coffin in the middle of a parking lot. That doesn`t make sense.

PELTZ: The woman who found the body, she actually spoke out and she said she had noticed this box laying down in that parking lot for, I believe it

was about a week. And then this Sunday morning she noticed it was propped up.

BANFIELD: Like this?

PELTZ: Exactly. What you are seeing right there. And that`s kind of what caught her attention and she is the one who made the 911 call.

BANFIELD: So my assumption is that the first thing they would be doing was, you know, going to all of those businesses and looking for cameras

because it`s not easy to move a body. This isn`t close quarters. There`s a lot of area around. I mean, it is spacious enough for cameras to capture

what`s happening in that big, red square.

This is Lieutenant Mike Madden of the San Bernardino police department talking about what they are doing to figure out who in God`s name had a

woman in a tarp, in a coffin right in the middle of everything. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. MIKE MADDEN, SAN BERNARDINO POLICE DEPARTMENT: Where this happened is in a business district. There`s hopefully cameras from the surrounding

businesses and certainly we`ll be going door to door checking each and every business too, to see if there might be video footage. And we are

also looking for any and all witnesses to come forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So it`s not the nicest area. I mean, just from what I`m seeing right there. I`m not sure if that was trash or what it was in that parking

lot. But there are neighbors, there are people who didn`t live too far away from this. And clearly they are asking witnesses what they knew. And

someone has seen a U-Haul truck.

[19:25:01] PELTZ: That`s right. One of our affiliates, KTLA, they spoke to a neighbor. We don`t know if it was the neighborhood right behind where

this body was found but it is somewhere near. And they mentioned -- you know, keep in mind, her body was found just after 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. The

neighbors report that sometime that morning just after 3:00 a.m., they saw a U-Haul truck dropping off some suspicious items.

BANFIELD: So Art Roderick, with that piece of information, does that help in terms of trying to work backwards from the site, whoever dumped her

there and whatever he or she used to do that, you work backwards from whatever you have, correct?

ART RODERICK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Exactly. And I think in this particular case, the autopsy is going to be key to determine not only

manner of death, but also time of death. So we have got sort of conflicting stories here. We have the mother saying two weeks ago, the

daughter was begging her, you know, when I die, please take care of my kids. Which is odd, because it appears to me that maybe the daughter felt

like something was going to happen to her. So, you know, then you have the witness coming forward and saying the box was there for a week in the

parking lot before somebody -- and then saw it propped up. It`s a very strange case.

BANFIELD: Art, look at your monitor, the box all propped up. Tell me about that. Is that a convenient place that someone who was trying to dump

a body discovered and thought, that`s perfect, or does that look like something that was built for this purpose? Because there`s a difference.

RODERICK: Yes. There is a big difference, but it`s also a location where somebody wanted the body to be found, that`s what I think.

BANFIELD: You do?

RODERICK: Otherwise, they would have taken it out -- yes, that`s what I think. I think they wanted the body to be found. They put it in a fairly

public area. The crate that the body was in looks like it was made specifically for that purpose. It`s an odd shape. And you see some of the

spray paint symbols on the side, right above the tarp there. So it looks like it was more than likely made. I mean, it`s just a strange shape, a

coffin-like box.

BANFIELD: It`s a strange shape, you are right. It is just all too similar to a coffin shape. But I`m still trying to figure out if it was a

convenient discarded crate. It`s made of plywood. There`s that strange paint on the outside. Let`s look at that picture again for a minute.

Because I also wonder if this was an area perhaps where someone was using that as a refuge, maybe a homeless person was using that as a home of some

kind, some kind of a shelter. Is that possible?

RODERICK: Yes, that`s a possibility too. And then somebody just found a convenient place with a body and a tarp to dump it in there. But I think

the San Bernardino lieutenant who gave the earlier press conference is right on. I think they are going to find some video here, either from

security cameras at houses or business security cameras, and they will be able to pinpoint the comings and goings of anybody to the back of that

property. So I think that`s going to be key to solving this.

BANFIELD: I don`t know, Art, how long she had been there.

RODERICK: yes.

But Kyle, the weather in San Bernardino will be key here as well. Because if they are trying to figure out how long she has been dead -- she was

decomposing?

PELTZ: That`s right. They say she was in a state of decomposition. And if you look at the weather in San Bernardino, I mean, the weather has been

in the 70s for just about the past week. And the day she was found got close to 80.

BANFIELD: Well, that doesn`t help at all. It`s just a weird mystery.

My thanks so much, Kyle. Thanks you. And Art, also, thanks for your expertise. It is always appreciated. Troy, I`m going to ask you to stick

around, if you wouldn`t mind tonight.

Remember that story I told you about, the dancing FBI agent, the guy in the club when suddenly he lost his gun, it came flying out after he was busting

a move here, did a flip, and watch, there it is. That`s not supposed to happen. He leans over, he picks it up, it goes off, it actually strikes

someone in the leg. Now it turns out he has been arrested and he is awaiting charges. 29-year-old Chad Bishop. Watch this again.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

BANFIELD: A loaded pistol he is carrying with him and he decides to do a back flip in the club. And boom, you can see the flash, the muzzle flash.

This happened in Denver. He said it was an accident, didn`t mean it, but I guess that`s for the authorities to determine. He is being held at a

Denver detention center right now. And we are being told it`s on investigation of second-degree assault, pending formal charges from the

DA`s office. He`s got some explaining to do there.

In Texas, a woman is beaten almost to death by her boyfriend because she downloaded Snapchat. The attack was so brutal that the police identified

the shoes he was wearing from the bruising pattern that was left on her body. That story next, but also this.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

BANFIELD: Six seconds of terror caught on a police body cam. A Maryland police officer racing towards a hail of gunfire without a second thought,

chasing down a suspected murder, but he had been on a whole other call before this all played out on his body cam.

You`ll see it all next.

[19:30:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put the gun down! Roll over! Roll over!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:35:16] BANFIELD: Solidad Torres was just 18 when it happened and she was home alone when she was attacked by a violent man and left with such

jaw-dropping injuries that I need to warn you, I need to really warn you before I show you any of the pictures. Because the pictures show where

Solidad was slapped and punched and where her attacker stomped this 18- year-old with his foot, and where he banged her head against the bathtub, leaving her to blackout all alone in a pool of her own blood.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SOLIDAD TORRES, ABUSED BY BOYFRIEND: 15 staples and three stitches in my head and then that`s minus like all the bruises I had of his shoeprint

around my back. But when it was going on and when he was hitting me, like, I was screaming for him to stop, I was crying, and he just didn`t stop, he

just kept -- the louder I got, the more like more harder it got.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: She might be smiling now, because fortunately, Solidad Torres has recovered, and her attacker is now facing his fate. Because police say

he went -- police went on the hunt for what they thought was a violent home intruder, based on what Solidad had told them at the time, but it turns

out, it was not a masked stranger, it was Solidad`s own boyfriend who showed up at her house angry, but became enraged when he just happened to

notice that she had downloaded Snapchat. He eventually went on the run after he beat her into that condition, and it took two months to track him

down. That`s when police matched the bruises on Solidad`s body to the pattern on the bottom of the boyfriend`s shoes. Dameon Marmolejo just

pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The deadly weapon you may ask, his feet and his hands. And that caused serious bodily

injury. And today, he`s finally finding out just how long he`s going to be spending behind bars. And I`m looking at the clock because any moment now,

we could actually find out the sentence, and as we do wait on that sentence.

I want to bring in Mari Salazar, she`s a reporter for CNN affiliate KLBK. Also with me, defense attorney Troy Slaten. Mari, let me begin with you on

the -- on the facts of this case. They are just so troubling that this 18- year-old is seemingly at home by herself when her boyfriend shows up and literally becomes so enraged when he sees that she`s downloaded Snapchat,

he beats her unconscious. How did all of this play out?

SALAZA: Hi, Ashleigh. Yes, thank you for having me. The victim actually spoke with us back in 2017 and she told us that Marmolejo showed up angry,

slapped her, pushed her, pusher her side and torso, stomping on her, and honestly brutally attacking her, banging her head against the tub. And

during this, he called her (INAUDIBLE) names. During this, he was accusing her of cheating on him and he did call 911, something that was discussed in

court that when he saw the blood, he did run. And after being on the run, he was arrested two months later.

BANFIELD: Just back up for a minute, that`s -- Mari, that`s a really interesting fact, he called 911 after he basically beaten her into an

unconscious pulp?

SALAZAR: Yes, one of the officers that testified said that they have looked into his phone records, and saw like (INAUDIBLE) from his phone

called 911. The call was around 11 minutes. And you can (INAUDIBLE) actually heard the 911 call in court and you hear a man`s voice in the

beginning, then being passed off to her, trying to describe what was going on.

BANFIELD: So, maybe this is why, when the police got there, and rescued this woman who was almost, you know, beaten to death, if you look at those

injuries, if you see what she actually suffered, 15 staples in her forehead, three stitches, numerous contusions and bruises all over her

body, she said to the police, not go find my boyfriend, he did this to me. She said a masked stranger did this. Do we know why?

SALAZAR: Well, one of the officers that was also explaining there, he had -- he has dealt with many domestic violence cases. He said it`s common for

women who are going through these things to kind of shield the truth before they come out with exactly what happened. And she -- they said that she

was in a daze when they walked up to her. She was on her porch, she was bleeding profusely. And they walked up to her and she was in a daze,

wasn`t really sure. Like we mentioned, there was very serious injuries, you can just tell even before they showed the pictures of the 15 staples in

her forehead, as well as three stitches and several bruises on her body, the body camera footage was shown and she was just -- she was really

brutally, brutally beaten. She had no idea what was going on.

[19:40:13] BANFIELD: It`s probably really hard for a lot of people watching this to understand why she wouldn`t immediately have said find my

boyfriend, I need justice. But it took her a couple days before she eventually did tell the police it was no masked intruder, it was my

boyfriend, Dameon Marmolejo. And again, we are waiting on that sentence. It could come down at any moment, so break in if they -- if they hand that

sentence down for him, but he`s facing up to 20 years for this. I want to play, you know, a quick interview if I can with Juanita Torres. Juanita

Torres is the mother of Solidad. And she talks a little bit about Solidad`s new mission, which is to speak out about domestic violence.

Because clearly, Solidad has gone through this issue, this cycle where you protect your abuser, you protect the man who nearly killed you, until you

don`t. And this is what her mom had to say. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUANITA TORRES, MOTHER OF SOLIDAD: Moms are messaging me saying, you know, how strong we are and our bond together, and how she`s inspiring to them,

not just to them but like their kids, and I`ve had women that are, like, oh, my gosh, my daughter`s going through the same thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Troy Slaten, wow. I mean, imagine being so enraged at your girlfriend downloaded Snapchat that you do that to her, and then imagine

that she still protects you when the police come to your rescue. That`s not going to happen anymore. No one`s going to protect him anymore. But

what do you think he`s really going to get for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, causing serious bodily injury, the deadly weapon being the

hands and feet.

SLATEN: Well, in Texas, this crime is a first-degree felony, aggravated assault causing great bodily injury, and he faces anywhere between two

years, all the way up to 20 years. Is it a mitigating factor that he called 911? Possibly. But it seems like the aggravating factor certainly

outweigh it, and that he was on the run for two months, and that he caused such serious damage. I mean, those pictures are just horrific.

BANFIELD: Oh, it`s just awful. Just awful.

SLATEN: Yes, he`s likely to face several years, and --

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: I hope he gets the max. I hope he gets 20, because you know what, if she only downloaded Snapchat, God forbid someone else tries to

break up with him down the pike. What would that do to him? Troy, I`m going to ask you to stick around. And also, Mari, if you could just keep

us posted as we go through the program. If we get a sentence, we`ll break in and we`ll report that to our audience as well, that`s going to be

breaking news, we`re hoping we could get that throughout the rest of this hour. Straight ahead, though, a routine neighborhood dispute goes from ho-

hum to holy crap for a Baltimore Police officer and the whole thing played out on his body cam.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma`am, ma`am, ma`am, ma`am, listen to me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is why it`s a landlord/tenant dispute and law enforcement doesn`t get involved. Shots fired!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[19:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Every day in America, police officers put their lives on the line. But it is not every day that it is caught like in stark reality for

the whole world to see. But a Baltimore Police officer`s body cam was rolling as he went out to handle something really mundane, a

landlord/tenant dispute. That was what was happening at this house, OK?

But out of nowhere, down the street at another house, a barrage of gunfire breaks out, and the officer has to jump into action. And what does he do?

He runs straight into the line of fire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There he goes. Get on the ground! Gun down! Down on the ground now! Put the gun down! (INAUDIBLE) Get on the ground!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: OK. So, the guy down there is this guy right here, 17-year-old, Eric Gilyard, that`s the suspect. And this 17-year-old is now been charged

with first and second degree murder as well as attempted murder in what they said was a double shooting that left a man dead and another one

injured. This 17-year-old, young Mr. Gilyard so far is not -- is saying that he had nothing to do with the killing, but the police are saying they

found a Glock in the suspect`s waistband that matched the casings at the scene. Defense Attorney Troy Slaten still with me. It`s a little hard if

you got the gun on your person and the bullets match that -- you know what I mean? Like is there any defense? Is there anything as a defense

attorney you can say other than, hey, you`re 17, maybe they won`t charge you as an adult but they probably will?

[19:50:00] SLATEN: Well, the video only shows a very small snapshot. We don`t know what led up to that moment. We don`t see the actual shooting.

So, yes, he`s got a gun. Maybe he was using it in self defense. Who knows what reason he had the gun. And his defense attorney very rightly said

that he`s -- that he wasn`t involved in the shooting, and we don`t see the gun being taken from him. The officer says that the gun was retrieved from

him, but that doesn`t necessarily make it so.

BANFIELD: Well, I don`t know if I have all the -- I don`t know if I have all the body cam, you know, material either. And, of course, there`s a

whole lot more to a murder investigation. We don`t even usually get this part of it, and they can certainly pull off a murder investigation. But

here`s the thing, there`s no death penalty in Maryland, but even if there were, at 17, no go. You know, the Supreme Court has said you can`t -- you

can`t execute minors. But would this have been a death penalty qualified crime, Troy, if this were somewhere else, say, like Texas or Florida?

SLATEN: Well, that depends. So, in order for a crime in a state that has the death penalty to allow it to qualify for the death penalty, has to have

something called special circumstances. And that means something other than just a murder. There has to be something --

BANFIELD: Can we agree on one thing here, though? I`ll tell you -- it takes unbelievable cahoonas to switch that fast upon hearing the gunfire to

run like this guy is running.

SLATEN: Oh.

BANFIELD: I mean, there wasn`t a moment, Troy, where he said, yikes, let`s stand -- let`s dive for cover. No, he just --

SLATEN: Look, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: It was like gunfire? Got to go to it. It`s incredible.

SLATEN: This is -- this is the exact kind of cop that you want out on the streets. He ran into the face of danger. He ran towards gunfire when all

of us would be hiding for cover. But --

BANFIELD: You mean jumping for cover, right?

SLATEN: Yes.

BANFIELD: Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. Kudos to him. Hats off to him. Real quick. I got to go. What?

SLATEN: In order for -- in order for this to qualify for the death penalty, there has to be something worse, like he has to be lying in wait

or preplanning.

BANFIELD: Yes, all right. Well, thanks, Troy. Stick around, I got other stuff for you.

Meantime, I got to talk about my friend Chris Cuomo. He`s got this great show where he takes viewers inside the country`s most dangerous minds.

It`s an HLN Original Series called "INSIDE EVIL WITH CHRIS CUOMO." And this Sunday, Chris is going to delve into the psyche of one of America`s

most notorious serial killers, Joel Rifkin. I get the willies just hearing that name. Chris is going to ask some pretty tough questions about

Rifkin`s sorted sex life and why he brutally murdered 17 different women.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Over time, your behavior with the bodies got a little peculiar, right? You had one in the passenger seat when you went to

the gas station. You`d leave one in the trunk when your mom was going to the grocery store.

JOEL RIFKIN, AMERICAN SERIAL KILLER: Yes, it really doesn`t make much sense. The body in the trunk and my mom going shopping, that, you know,

just bizarre as it gets.

CUOMO: You think over time you started to lose it a little bit?

RIFKIN: Yes.

CUOMO: What started off as intimacy with strangling and whatever that gave you started to be a little bit overwhelming having to look at face after

face after face?

RIFKIN: (INAUDIBLE) go with that.

CUOMO: Did you get a rush from the killing always?

RIFKIN: No. Middle and end, it was just like, OK, we did that. It made no sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Wow. Well, "INSIDE EVIL WITH CHRIS CUOMO" is going to premiere on Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, right here on HLN. Do not miss

that. Serial killers` minds, right?

So, cops on the beat are used to chasing all kinds of people but not a people like this little people. A 1-year-old boy racing down a busy

highway. What would you do? How would you handle this? Wait until you see how this guy handled it.

[19:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: "ONE MORE THING" for you tonight. If you are a parent, I certainly don`t need to tell you how fast a little toddler can move those

little legs. Before you even know it, they`re racing down the drive way, or they`re sprinting across the street, or in the case I`m about to show

you, running from a police officer right into a busy highway.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. ANTHONY MANNINO, NAPERVILLE ILLINOIS POLICE DEPARTMENT: 31. Trying to corral a 1-year-old boy running across 59, just north of North Aurora.

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Come here. You`re OK. You`re OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: You`re OK. You`re OK. Thank God. The rest of us are freaking out because of that video. That`s Sergeant Anthony Mannino rescuing that

little tot. He`s at the Naperville Illinois Police Department. And I`m happy to tell you that the sergeant was presented with the lifesaving

service award last Thursday for doing that very nice deed. I`m sure that mom is real happy. They just get away from you, don`t they?

We`ll see you back here tomorrow night, 6:00 Eastern. Thanks for watching, everybody. "FORENSIC FILES" begins right now.

END