Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / John of God, college co-ed butchers roommate, & Alaska rape-murder solved 25 years later

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John of God, college co-ed butchers roommate, & Alaska rape-murder solved 25 years later · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is an interview I
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Speaker 1: wasn't sure would ever happened. One of the most famous
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Speaker 1: spiritual healers in the world rarely talks to anyone on camera.
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Speaker 1: John of God agreed to sit down with me under
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Speaker 1: a mango tree on the grounds of the Casa. A
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Speaker 1: group of his patients gathered to watch. John of God
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Speaker 1: speaks only Portuguese, so Heather Coming helped translate. Ready, guys,
1:35
Speaker 1: you describe yourself as a spiritual medium, what does that mean?
1:39
Speaker 1: A medium? As a medium, He's a spiritualist. He believes
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Speaker 1: a great deal in God and he practices this mission
1:52
Speaker 1: already fifty five years Born on a farm to a
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Speaker 1: family who rarely had enough to eat, juald Tehira de
2:00
Speaker 1: Fria was the youngest of six children. His father was
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Speaker 1: a tailor, his mother a housewife who also ran a
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Speaker 1: small hotel to make ends meet. Jual left school when
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Speaker 1: he was seven to work in his father's tailor shop.
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Speaker 1: To this day, he cannot read or write. As a boy,
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Speaker 1: Jual says he realized he was clairvoyant when he predicted
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Speaker 1: a terrible storm that destroyed a neighboring village. This event
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Speaker 1: began his journey as a spiritual medium. Are we all
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Speaker 1: in some sense missionaries of God? Are we all? Do
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Speaker 1: we all have the possibility in our own way to
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Speaker 1: be a medium for God, both of us nice summus magic.
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Speaker 1: Everybody is a medium who practice is good and we
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Speaker 1: are all children's of God, and each person has their mission. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: The first time I saw today, I was humbled by
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Speaker 1: the experiment. Sequandela vil you say you fifty SOLSI because
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Speaker 1: a little bit of this you are hearing Oprah Winfrey
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Speaker 1: interviewing so called John of God. But in the last days,
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Speaker 1: John of God faith healer allegedly keeps teenage girls as
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Speaker 1: sex slaves, selling their babies for up to forty thousand
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Speaker 1: dollars plus before shipping them from Brazil to Europe. That's right.
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Speaker 1: The faith healer known renowned as John of God, accused
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Speaker 1: him abusing hundreds of women. He was just arrested in
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Speaker 1: Brazil with bags full of gems from his mind, allegedly
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Speaker 1: using women as slaves at the rural minds and would
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Speaker 1: impregnate girls, sell their babies and allegedly even murder them
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Speaker 1: after those are the allegation. I'm Nancy Grace, this is
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Speaker 1: crime stories. Thank you for being with us. Which makes
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Speaker 1: it even worse is these claims are true that he
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Speaker 1: masqueraded as a faith healer for the Lord, Joining me
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Speaker 1: right now. Doctor Bethany Marshall, California's psychoanalyst, forensics expert, Professor Forensics,
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Speaker 1: Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet
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Speaker 1: on Amazon. Joseph Scott Morgan, renowned Knee Jersey lawyer, a
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Speaker 1: veteran trial attorney. Brad Micklin joining us right now to syndicate.
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Speaker 1: A talk show host Dave mcdave john of God Help
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Speaker 1: Me please, all right, Nancy. Back in the late seventies
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Speaker 1: run nineteen seventy eight, there was a huge worldwide movement
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Speaker 1: of faith healer's psychic surgery. That's surgery without anesthetic and
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Speaker 1: all that kind of garbage. There's nothing more than parliaur
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Speaker 1: tricksy man. Whoa, whoa, Wait a minute, Dave mac don't
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Speaker 1: throw the baby out with the bathwater, because think what
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Speaker 1: you want. My aunt, my aunt Adele, who was Christian Science,
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Speaker 1: was actually a Christian Science faith practitioner. Now, what they do,
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Speaker 1: to my understanding, is you talk the person through their ailment.
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Speaker 1: You taught them and talk them through it, and you
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Speaker 1: try to exercise mind over matter. So before you throw
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Speaker 1: everybody in this country that believes in miracles, that believes
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Speaker 1: in faith healing. In with John of God, you got
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Speaker 1: the tiger by the tail, buddy, you got you can't
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Speaker 1: hold on and you can't let go. So let me
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Speaker 1: allow you the chance to rephrase your opening statement. We'll see.
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Speaker 1: If I had finished my opening statement, I would have said,
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Speaker 1: I believe in miracles from God. I believe in it
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Speaker 1: with all my heart. I thought you said something about garbage. Yes,
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Speaker 1: because John of God is garbage. This is not a
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Speaker 1: faith heal This is not a man of God. This
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Speaker 1: is a man of the devil who has been ripping
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Speaker 1: people off for the last fifty years. He came to
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Speaker 1: power in this little town in Brazil because he had
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Speaker 1: the aura of being a godly man, and people came
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Speaker 1: to him. You know, if you truly believe in the
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Speaker 1: healing power of God Almighty, that you believe in miracles,
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Speaker 1: I believe in your belief in Him, will heal you
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Speaker 1: in many cases. The problem is John of God practice
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Speaker 1: carnival tricks of psychic surgery, doing the nose scrape, the
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Speaker 1: ice scrape, all these things that have been blown away
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Speaker 1: by actual scientists for many, many years. He's not a
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Speaker 1: faith healer. Nancy, this guy is a Charlatan. He is
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Speaker 1: the wolf and chief's clothing that is described by the
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Speaker 1: apostle Paul all throughout the New Testament. This guy is
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Speaker 1: evil and what he has done is he's taken his
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Speaker 1: belief in God and then he found money in this
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Speaker 1: little town because people would come to him, and then
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Speaker 1: the entire little town sprung up selling little artifacts and
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Speaker 1: trinkets all about John of God and his healing, and
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Speaker 1: then they would show up and do a little consultation.
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Speaker 1: He would make them feel good because you know, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: if you're talking about Jesus Christ, if you're talking about
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Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit and the healing power of God, to
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Speaker 1: somebody who truly believes, they're going to get that same
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Speaker 1: warm feeling of belief that comes over their heart and
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Speaker 1: soul because they know that God truly can heal. He's
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Speaker 1: a conduit. But what he does is he takes that
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Speaker 1: ability to connect with people's hearts and their souls and
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Speaker 1: then he turns it into his own selfish sexual desires
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Speaker 1: and money. That's what he does. That's the allegation. Take
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Speaker 1: a listen to this report from Reuters. A Brazilian celebrity
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Speaker 1: faith healer known as John of God has turned himself
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Speaker 1: in after being accused of sexual abuse by more than
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Speaker 1: three hundred women. A judge on Friday had issued an
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Speaker 1: arrest warrant for him, giving him until two pm the
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Speaker 1: next day to surrender after he failed to report to authority.
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Speaker 1: He was officially ruled a fugitive since nineteen seventy six,
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Speaker 1: so called John of God has led a spiritual center
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Speaker 1: in central Brazil. He's drawn thousands of Brazilians and foreigners
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Speaker 1: to a spiritual center in a small town, even featured
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Speaker 1: by Oprah Winfrey on her show on Thursday. He denied
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Speaker 1: the accusations when visiting his center and spoke to a
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Speaker 1: crowd of followers. His lawyer last week said he'd file
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Speaker 1: an appeal on Monday. The seventy six year old could
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Speaker 1: face charges of rape with a prison sentence of ten
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Speaker 1: years if convicted, as well as rape of a vulnerable person,
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Speaker 1: which carries a sentence of up to fifteen years. You
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Speaker 1: are hearing from a Reuters reporter, But now I want
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Speaker 1: you to hear Lisa Melman telling Oprah what happened to her.
8:47
Speaker 1: Thirty seven year old Lisa Melman had breast cancer doctors
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Speaker 1: recommended a double mestectomy and chemotherapy, but Lisa refused. Desperate
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Speaker 1: to find an alternative treatment, she traveled almost five thousand
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Speaker 1: miles from South Africa to Brazil. I'm stepping into their
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Speaker 1: no and ill. Once at the CASA, Lisa volunteered for
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Speaker 1: a visible surgery. No matter what the result, I know
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Speaker 1: the journeys who would have been as it. So where
9:26
Speaker 1: did that nasal probe feel like for you? Well? When
9:30
Speaker 1: I was taken up on the stage and my eyes
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Speaker 1: were closed, I still got a bit of a surprise
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Speaker 1: that because he was he felt for my breast and
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Speaker 1: he put my head back and then I felt his
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Speaker 1: thingo in and my first thought was, oh, no, okay,
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Speaker 1: I'm going to have the nose one, you know. And
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Speaker 1: it was definitely cold. My heart was beating very fast.
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Speaker 1: And then I sort of felt him turning this instrument
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Speaker 1: and I remember crunching sound and and the thought that
10:01
Speaker 1: how far can this thing go back? Because it felt
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Speaker 1: really farm. I wouldn't say it was painful. It was
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Speaker 1: more like shock because I hadn't experienced it before and
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Speaker 1: it's close to the brain. You are hearing Lisa Melman,
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Speaker 1: and if you didn't notice. The first thing she said
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Speaker 1: was he grabbed my breasts. Tell me, Um, do the
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Speaker 1: entities ask permission to take to to incorporate or do
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Speaker 1: they come at will? He hasn't just paging us to
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Speaker 1: appear myself, says He kneels down in the earth. He
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Speaker 1: gives thanks God for the opportunity to be able to
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Speaker 1: do this, and he hands over his body to God,
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Speaker 1: his godian his soul to God. You are hearing Oprah
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Speaker 1: Winfrey interviewing so called John of God. Listen what I
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Speaker 1: just witnessed. And first of all almost made me pass out.
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Speaker 1: But how are people able to be cut with with
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Speaker 1: with seemingly no pain? Ala present, You weren't feeling famed.
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Speaker 1: You were receiving a lot of energy that the entities
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Speaker 1: were sending him. Oh, you weren't feeling you weren't feeling sick. Well,
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Speaker 1: I felt like I was going to explode. I felt
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Speaker 1: like there was so much heat. He just consider that
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Speaker 1: is the power of God. Oh, what you just asked
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Speaker 1: him to receive, you were receiving it. He's Kevin. That's
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Speaker 1: what happens to him when he was beginning to inquire
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Speaker 1: in the Last Days, John of God faith healer allegedly
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Speaker 1: keeps teenage girls as sex slaves, selling their babies for
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Speaker 1: up to forty thousand dollars plus before shipping them from
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Speaker 1: Brazil to Europe. That's right. The faith he'll are known
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Speaker 1: renowned as John of God, accused him abusing hundreds of women.
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Speaker 1: To Brad Micklin, New Jersey lawyer, what do you make
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Speaker 1: of it? It's a shocking story. These get more and
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Speaker 1: more sensation lines. It becomes more and more difficult to
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Speaker 1: remain objective. But I have to look at the fact
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Speaker 1: that he has over three hundred alleged victims and they're
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Speaker 1: only fronowning about it. Now, I have to keep my
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Speaker 1: mind open that there's more to the story, that not
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Speaker 1: just many victims could have gone unnoticed all this time.
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Speaker 1: So I'm waiting to see what more happens as a SUBSLDS.
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Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, Dave Max and the Kid,
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Speaker 1: a talk show host. What is the evidence the prosecutors
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Speaker 1: are working with. Well, they're working, as you mentioned, with
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Speaker 1: many many women who have come forward. They've got enough
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Speaker 1: physical evidence to charge him with a crime. You know,
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Speaker 1: when he came to Sedona, Arizona, a couple of years ago,
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Speaker 1: a woman went in for a personal faith healing thing
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Speaker 1: with him, and she accused him of touching her genitals
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Speaker 1: and doing some of the things, and they tried to
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Speaker 1: get him there, but somebody intervened in Sedona, Arizona. These
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Speaker 1: charges are not new, Nancy. There have been these people
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Speaker 1: coming forward over the last forty years who have said things.
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Speaker 1: But this is John of God. He's insulated. He's got
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Speaker 1: a whole society built up around him, to the point
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Speaker 1: where Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey both were sucked in
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Speaker 1: by this guy. So the accusations now are bringing to
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Speaker 1: fruition an investigation now that goes back to an Australia
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Speaker 1: report from nineteen ninety eight on their sixty Minutes version
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Speaker 1: where they had people coming forward with the same allegations. Nancy,
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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, Doctor Bethany Marshall. I need a shrink
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Speaker 1: big time. These clients have been being made we know
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Speaker 1: back to nineteen ninety eight, and nothing has happened. Nancy.
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Speaker 1: There is such a group hysteria among to his followers
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Speaker 1: that I imagine that law enforcement or anybody who wants
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Speaker 1: to turn him in is blocked at every turn. Hey,
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Speaker 1: he might be talented when it comes to healing. I
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Speaker 1: have no idea, but I think we have to remember
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Speaker 1: that he took young women from villages who were starving
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Speaker 1: and didn't have enough food, offered them food, brought him
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Speaker 1: into their compound, repeatedly impregnated them, sold the babies, and
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Speaker 1: in some cases actually murdered the women. After ten years,
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Speaker 1: I think the so called spiritual grew and all this healing,
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Speaker 1: I think it's all motivated by sex and sadism. Sadism
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Speaker 1: in that he wanted to kill the women, that he
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Speaker 1: wanted to take their babies from them, sadism, and that
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Speaker 1: surgery without anesthesia is actually an act of cruelty. Sure
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Speaker 1: these who knows what he gave these people before he
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Speaker 1: did the so called surgery or what kind of a
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Speaker 1: hysteria he whipped them up into. But it's a very
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Speaker 1: cruel act, not only to perform such a surgery when
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Speaker 1: you are untrained, but also to separate somebody from a
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Speaker 1: sound medical treatment. These are patients who are desperate for treatment,
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Speaker 1: who have sound, proven methodologies available to them, and he
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Speaker 1: separates them from them for some kind of a placebo
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Speaker 1: effect that may or may not work. His acts of
15:27
Speaker 1: cruelty towards people just reverberate on multiple levels. It's too
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Speaker 1: hard to even enumerate all of them. There's so many.
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Speaker 1: I want you to take a listen, you know, in
15:36
Speaker 1: case you're wondering if the fate healing worked. To Lisa
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Speaker 1: Melement again speaking with Oprah, it's never gone away, meaning
15:45
Speaker 1: I've never been out of the cancer realm. I was
15:49
Speaker 1: told that I at full stage. I was at full stage.
15:52
Speaker 1: Do they get a prognosis in the beginning of two
15:57
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, they said, I know words have power,
16:01
Speaker 1: but to say it anyway two to five years, which means,
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Speaker 1: you know, not so long. But I think perception has
16:11
Speaker 1: everything to do with it. I went into some fear
16:14
Speaker 1: because it was an authority telling me that, and somewhere
16:18
Speaker 1: along the line devaluing my existence and to travel, devaluing
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Speaker 1: her existence. She has never been free of cancer or
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Speaker 1: even since seeing John of God. To Joseph Scott Morgan,
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Speaker 1: let's get down to reality. You're the forensics expert, j Scott,
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Speaker 1: how can they prove the case. Well, this is what
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Speaker 1: I think. The concrete evidence in this case, Nancy is
16:42
Speaker 1: going to be the bodies I think of these women
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Speaker 1: that's the first block here building a case. I've had
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Speaker 1: a lot of friends over the years that have traveled
16:53
Speaker 1: all over the world that are forensic anthropologists that have
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Speaker 1: gone in excavated mass graves. Bethany had mentioned just a
17:00
Speaker 1: moment ago how he had essentially turned a group of
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Speaker 1: young women and girls I would say, into baby factories,
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Speaker 1: and then after a period of time, it is alleged
17:11
Speaker 1: that he would kill them once their usefulness was gone.
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Speaker 1: My suspicion is is that with that factory mentality lots
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Speaker 1: of times what happens in cases like this is mass
17:23
Speaker 1: graves are dug or you have a concentration of these graves,
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Speaker 1: they're going to have to go out through all of
17:29
Speaker 1: the property that this guy owns and search for these
17:32
Speaker 1: areas where these bodies have been disposed of. Now, over
17:36
Speaker 1: this period of time, you're going to literally have what's
17:39
Speaker 1: referred to as co mingling of remains. That means that
17:42
Speaker 1: all of these bodies will be together, They'll be kind
17:45
Speaker 1: of mixed up. And that's the rub because you have
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Speaker 1: to separate these remains because I don't know, you know,
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Speaker 1: Brazil is a very isolated area, particularly in the heartland
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Speaker 1: of it. These young girls might be coming from tiny
17:58
Speaker 1: little farms. They might not have specific government I d
18:02
Speaker 1: you don't know who they are. So detach them back
18:06
Speaker 1: to families and all these sort of things is going
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Speaker 1: to be very difficult. I want you to take a listen,
18:10
Speaker 1: you know, to Lisa Element again speaking with Oprah. I
18:14
Speaker 1: never appreciated myself as as a human being or I had.
18:20
Speaker 1: I did a lot of self punishment, and I think
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Speaker 1: part of the reason that perhaps perhaps I can just
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Speaker 1: talk in the perhaps I didn't heal or have that
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Speaker 1: kind of healing at John of God, was because I
18:33
Speaker 1: was focused on results, and some people need more than
18:38
Speaker 1: one lesson to wake up in life. Okay, I'm seven
18:42
Speaker 1: years down the line and I'm still waking up, you know.
18:45
Speaker 1: And for me, I understand so much now. I've I've
18:48
Speaker 1: put a lot of emphasis on the emotional healing as
18:51
Speaker 1: well as the nutrition nutritional healing. It's the body, it's
18:55
Speaker 1: the mind at working as you say, working with the
18:58
Speaker 1: healing ye whatever that is is. And being a participant
19:01
Speaker 1: in your own Yeah yeah, Hi Nancy Grace here, have
19:11
Speaker 1: you ever googled yourself? Your neighbors, somebody at work? A
19:14
Speaker 1: crush fifty seven percent of Americans admit keeping an eye
19:19
Speaker 1: on their own online reputation. Forty six admit to using
19:22
Speaker 1: the Internet to look up somebody from their past. But
19:25
Speaker 1: Google and Facebook the tip of the iceberg when it
19:29
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19:32
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19:37
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Speaker 1: right away to start searching Truthfinder dot com forward slash Nancy,
20:12
Speaker 1: Truthfinder dot com forward slash Nancy. Find the truth crime
20:22
Speaker 1: stories with Nancy Grace. He was, you know, very graphic.
20:30
Speaker 1: Lutenant Andy Wilbert at the Radford Police Department is still
20:33
Speaker 1: stunned by what he saw in this Clement Street apartment,
20:36
Speaker 1: the sheer violence of one person on another. We're really
20:41
Speaker 1: searching for emotive. You're hearing our friends at w dB
20:44
Speaker 1: j seven. That was Eric Miller talking to the Radford,
20:47
Speaker 1: Virginia police, who are stunned at the level of violence.
20:52
Speaker 1: A twenty one year old college student, a female co ed,
20:56
Speaker 1: stabs her best friend thirty times with a butcher knife
21:02
Speaker 1: and grey eats the cops at the door, covered in blood,
21:05
Speaker 1: standing there at the door in the apartment the two
21:07
Speaker 1: shared together. I'm Nancy Grace. This is crime stories. Thank
21:12
Speaker 1: you for being with us. Of course, the state never
21:15
Speaker 1: has to prove motive. You don't expect a prosecutor to
21:18
Speaker 1: be able to crawl into the mind of a killer
21:20
Speaker 1: and figure out why. The question is who did what
21:23
Speaker 1: and when and where? Those are the questions. Not only
21:28
Speaker 1: is Alexa Cannon, the young murder victim, gorgeous, brilliant, her
21:33
Speaker 1: whole life in front of her, you should see the
21:36
Speaker 1: alleged killer, Luisa Cutting, just twenty one years old, who
21:41
Speaker 1: breaks down crying in her mugshot. Well, you know what,
21:44
Speaker 1: that's a day late and a dollar short with me.
21:47
Speaker 1: Karen Smith, forensics expert out of Florida, Kathleen Murphy, North Carolina,
21:51
Speaker 1: family and divorced lawyer, renowned forensics psychiatrists to doctor Daniel
21:56
Speaker 1: Bober and joining me right now, syndicated talk show host
22:00
Speaker 1: David Matt. David, I don't get it. These two were
22:04
Speaker 1: best friends, They shared an apartment together, they were going
22:07
Speaker 1: to college together. What happened, Nancy? They met during freshman
22:12
Speaker 1: year and they got a very quick bond. Last year,
22:16
Speaker 1: they even went to Cancoon together, and from what we
22:18
Speaker 1: were seeing on their social media, they were extremely close.
22:21
Speaker 1: Although there were maybe some problems that were popping up
22:24
Speaker 1: on social media through some different comments that were made
22:27
Speaker 1: by both girls. They had this relationship where they just
22:31
Speaker 1: became roommates this past fall. They hadn't been roommates until
22:34
Speaker 1: that point, and one of the comments that Alexa made
22:37
Speaker 1: about their relationship was pray for us, that we don't
22:40
Speaker 1: kill one another. Now. I don't think that was anything
22:43
Speaker 1: other than just girls talking about moving in together, but
22:48
Speaker 1: considering what just took place, it's something to consider right now.
22:52
Speaker 1: What we do know is that on the morning that
22:55
Speaker 1: this took place, that Alexa was the one calling nine
22:59
Speaker 1: one one, and all they could hear on nine one
23:01
Speaker 1: one was screaming and they heard something about a knife.
23:04
Speaker 1: Other neighbors had also called nine one one that morning
23:06
Speaker 1: to report a disturbance. That's why police got there. And
23:09
Speaker 1: when they did, they were greeted at the door by
23:12
Speaker 1: Louisa brit and Blood saying I killed her, putting her
23:16
Speaker 1: hands behind her back, saying arrest me. Wow. It's almost
23:20
Speaker 1: too much to take in A college student breaks down
23:23
Speaker 1: in tears in her mug shot after she's busted on
23:27
Speaker 1: suspicion of stabbing her very best friend and roommate thirty
23:31
Speaker 1: to forty times. Wow, in the apartment where they live.
23:36
Speaker 1: You know, Karen Smith, forensics expert, You've dealt with so
23:39
Speaker 1: many homicide scenes. At a certain point, you know, you
23:42
Speaker 1: notice they can't tell how many times Alexa was stabbed.
23:47
Speaker 1: Why is that? Well, when you're dealing with sharp fourth
23:50
Speaker 1: injuries like this, you know it's hard to talk about,
23:53
Speaker 1: but here are the facts. You have a very very violent,
23:59
Speaker 1: violent attack. This was personal. This was up close. And
24:02
Speaker 1: when you have something like that, when the sharp force
24:06
Speaker 1: injuries occur, sometimes they occur in the same area multiple times,
24:11
Speaker 1: and it's difficult to tell if it was two, three,
24:14
Speaker 1: or four in the same area. And it's a horrible,
24:18
Speaker 1: horrific scene for these police officers to encounter. The knife,
24:23
Speaker 1: from what I understand, was actually found in her mouth,
24:27
Speaker 1: So the knife was left at the point. Wait wait wait, wait, yeah,
24:31
Speaker 1: so you're telling me the murder victim Alexi Cannon, psychology
24:35
Speaker 1: major from nearby Roanoke. She was planning to graduate in May,
24:40
Speaker 1: stabbed thirty to forty times and fan with a knife
24:44
Speaker 1: in her mouth. Did you say that that's what reports
24:46
Speaker 1: are saying that that's correct? Thank you Karen Smith for
24:49
Speaker 1: just topping off this reporting. What I don't understand and
24:55
Speaker 1: let me go to doctor Daniel Bober on this forensic psychiatrist.
24:58
Speaker 1: Doctor Bober, the tack on Alexa was so violent. What
25:05
Speaker 1: does that tell you about the mindset or the motive
25:10
Speaker 1: of her best friend and roommate Luisa Cutting. I agree
25:13
Speaker 1: with Karen. I mean, I think it's when you get
25:16
Speaker 1: that close in that personal and there's that much, you know, injury,
25:20
Speaker 1: I think it's pure rage and so I think there
25:23
Speaker 1: was a very personal connection there, you know, unlike someone
25:26
Speaker 1: who's a sniper who shoots from a thousand yards away,
25:29
Speaker 1: when you get back close with those types of injuries,
25:32
Speaker 1: it's there's a very very personal, intimate connection and there's
25:36
Speaker 1: a lot of rage there, you know. I'm thinking Kathleen
25:38
Speaker 1: Murphy North Carolina family and divorce lawyer. They were taking
25:43
Speaker 1: snipes on social media. You know how easy it is,
25:47
Speaker 1: Kathleen Murphy, you deal with family and close friend, intimate issues, divorce,
25:54
Speaker 1: You know how easy it is to just shoot off
25:56
Speaker 1: a nasty text tastes like fifteen seconds and then you
25:59
Speaker 1: may wish immediately, you may regret it, but it's too late,
26:04
Speaker 1: and that just throws fuel on the fire. I think
26:08
Speaker 1: these girls were in a serious romantic relationship and that
26:13
Speaker 1: romantic relationship has gone back. What do you think about that,
26:16
Speaker 1: Dave mc Any indication that's true? You know, if you
26:19
Speaker 1: read between the lines, maybe Nancy, But that hasn't come
26:22
Speaker 1: out in any of the stuff. One thing that did
26:23
Speaker 1: come out in one of the police reports was that apparently,
26:27
Speaker 1: in the days leading up to this event, Alexa had
26:31
Speaker 1: reached out to several friends made comments that the relationship
26:34
Speaker 1: had soured and she was worried. Well, isn't it true
26:37
Speaker 1: that search warrants show the officers took a phone and
26:40
Speaker 1: a knife and peels, smoking devices and grinders from the defendant,
26:46
Speaker 1: Louisa Cutting's bedroom. Yes, and a brown chalk like substance
26:50
Speaker 1: from the kitchen. I mean, you know what that is
26:52
Speaker 1: that drugs gotta be heroin, crack or cocaine, and the perp.
26:58
Speaker 1: It's all in her bedroom. Well, assuming that the grinder
27:01
Speaker 1: is for the weed, because they found the smoking parents
27:03
Speaker 1: ernalia in there, the pills, we don't know what the
27:06
Speaker 1: contents was the brown stuff again, that sounds like heroin.
27:09
Speaker 1: But the information here is that they don't have Luis's
27:13
Speaker 1: phone yet or they if they do, they haven't disclosed
27:16
Speaker 1: that the phone they do have is the victim, Alexa.
27:18
Speaker 1: It was found in her left hand under her body,
27:21
Speaker 1: the knife in her mouth, as was indicated earlier. So
27:24
Speaker 1: the information that we have from the phone is coming
27:26
Speaker 1: from the victim, Alexa's phone, not from Luisa yet. What
27:29
Speaker 1: do you mean what's coming from Alexis phone? Yeah, Well,
27:32
Speaker 1: we're getting from Alexa's phone is that she had a
27:34
Speaker 1: called nine one one that morning, b that she had
27:37
Speaker 1: had contact with others via Twitter or other social media
27:40
Speaker 1: that was picked up. They got search warrants on both
27:42
Speaker 1: of their phones, although they haven't disclosed what was on
27:44
Speaker 1: Luis's yet, but on Alexis phone, they did determine that
27:47
Speaker 1: she had reached out to several people, indicating that she
27:50
Speaker 1: was deeply concerned about the relationship with Luisa as that
27:54
Speaker 1: they were moving forward and that this was something that
27:57
Speaker 1: she feared. Well, can you can you tell me this
27:59
Speaker 1: day Max Syndicated talked to her host, why the alleged killer,
28:04
Speaker 1: this young co ed has hired the Bobbitt lawyer. We
28:09
Speaker 1: all remember when John Wayne Bobbitt's penis was chopped off
28:13
Speaker 1: by wife Lorraina Bobbitt. How did he get brought into
28:17
Speaker 1: the case and why? Well, Blair Howard is a legend
28:20
Speaker 1: in Virginia, you know, as you mentioned, he was the
28:23
Speaker 1: Lorena Bobbitt lawyer. And what one has to assume is
28:26
Speaker 1: that the family has hired Blair Howard so that he
28:29
Speaker 1: can come in and pitch this as some type again
28:32
Speaker 1: going back to the relationship that had broken down. And
28:36
Speaker 1: you know, Nancy, when you go back and look at
28:38
Speaker 1: some of the information from their trip to Cancun, Alexa
28:42
Speaker 1: was talking about how that Luisa was kind of like
28:46
Speaker 1: her mother on the trip, making sure she got back
28:49
Speaker 1: to the room safely, make sure that all of her
28:51
Speaker 1: clothes got back to the room, and not judging her.
28:53
Speaker 1: So something took place on that trip in Cancoun that
28:56
Speaker 1: put their dynamic, their relationship in a weird dynamic where
29:00
Speaker 1: maybe not just friend friend or a girlfriend girlfriend, but
29:03
Speaker 1: now she's a protector and mother type. And when you
29:07
Speaker 1: look at the knife in the mouth and everything else,
29:09
Speaker 1: you've got the extreme rage and obsession and everything else
29:12
Speaker 1: that builds into it. But again, hiring Blair Howard as
29:15
Speaker 1: the attorney leaves me to believe that they're going to
29:18
Speaker 1: come up with a self defense or abused some type
29:22
Speaker 1: of an abusive situation argument. If you have information five
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29:45
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30:52
Speaker 1: dot com. Earlier today, February fifteens, at one pm, in
30:56
Speaker 1: the town of Auburn, Maine, members of the Alaska State
30:59
Speaker 1: Troopers lastegul of Investigation and Cold Case Investigation Unit, with
31:03
Speaker 1: the assistance of the main State Police and the Auburn
31:06
Speaker 1: Police Department, made an arrest regarding the nineteen ninety three
31:10
Speaker 1: murder of twenty year old Sophie Surgee. You are hearing
31:13
Speaker 1: the very latest a coal case. Has it been solved?
31:17
Speaker 1: A murder suspect, Stephen Downs is in the lower forty
31:22
Speaker 1: eight for now contesting an extradition move to Alaska. I'm
31:25
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. This is crime Stories. This cold case is
31:30
Speaker 1: now a quarter of a century old, but the facts
31:34
Speaker 1: are just as chilling as they were then. Joining me
31:38
Speaker 1: now Brad Minklin, New Jersey attorney, doctor Bethany Marshall, California's psychoanalyst,
31:43
Speaker 1: forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan and joining me now Crime
31:47
Speaker 1: online dot Com investigative reporter where you can find this
31:50
Speaker 1: in all other breaking crime and justice news. John Lemley
31:54
Speaker 1: John first the case in chief. Then I will deal
31:57
Speaker 1: with Stephen Downs. What happened Nancy? We first go back
32:01
Speaker 1: to April of nineteen ninety three. This is on the
32:03
Speaker 1: campus of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. This is a
32:08
Speaker 1: Monday afternoon, April twenty sixth, to be exact, and Bartlett
32:12
Speaker 1: Residence Hall was a busy place. Finals week is coming up.
32:16
Speaker 1: Most students are cramming, racing to finish semester into papers
32:20
Speaker 1: and projects. It's a bustling spot around two pm that afternoon.
32:26
Speaker 1: Existence on the second floor of Bartlett, though it was
32:31
Speaker 1: the dorm's all female residential floor at the time, takes
32:35
Speaker 1: a grim, surreal plunge. Dorm residents have been in and
32:40
Speaker 1: out of the second floor bathroom all day long, no
32:43
Speaker 1: one had noticed anything unusual, anything odd. That's until one
32:49
Speaker 1: of the janitors enters to start her daily cleaning. She
32:52
Speaker 1: passes by all the sinks, shower stalls, and then opens
32:56
Speaker 1: a door in the back of the area that leads
32:58
Speaker 1: to a more private bathroom with just a single bathtub.
33:02
Speaker 1: The janitor flips on the light and is absolutely horrified
33:06
Speaker 1: by the sight of a young woman's body. The victim
33:09
Speaker 1: has suffered a gunshot wound, her pants are down to
33:12
Speaker 1: around her ankles. What's truly chilling is that it's soon
33:16
Speaker 1: determined that she'd been lying in the tub as long
33:18
Speaker 1: as thirteen hours before anyone founder with me is Joseph
33:22
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan, professor forensics at Jacksonville State University, author of
33:26
Speaker 1: Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Jo Scott, do you
33:30
Speaker 1: believe Sophie was the alleged killer's only victim or do
33:35
Speaker 1: you believe there more? Well, from what I'm understanding, Nancy,
33:39
Speaker 1: this guy's DNA is not popping up on anybody else's radar. Now.
33:44
Speaker 1: I don't know that maybe it was ineffectively examined over
33:48
Speaker 1: the course of the years, but right now his DNA
33:50
Speaker 1: is solely associated with this case out of the forensic database. Well,
33:54
Speaker 1: here's my take on that, Jo Scott Morgan. If there
33:57
Speaker 1: is a connection between him this guy Stephen Downs, whose
34:02
Speaker 1: DNA has matched seaman found at the scene of Sophie
34:06
Speaker 1: Sergey's murder, If there is a connection between them, because
34:10
Speaker 1: he was in Alaska at the time, for instance, if
34:13
Speaker 1: they were dating, if he was stalking her, if they
34:15
Speaker 1: were in a study group together, then I would say
34:18
Speaker 1: this is maybe his only victim. If this is random
34:22
Speaker 1: and he just stalked her like he would an animal,
34:24
Speaker 1: raped her and killed her, then I would say there
34:27
Speaker 1: are going to be more victims. To me, you're saying
34:30
Speaker 1: yes and no, which is not a clear answer. But
34:32
Speaker 1: I understand his DNA hasn't popped up anywhere else to
34:35
Speaker 1: suggest he was not a serial attacker, but the other
34:38
Speaker 1: attacks may not have DNA. I don't know the answer
34:42
Speaker 1: to that. I think Dr Bethany Marshall's psychoanalyst. The answer
34:46
Speaker 1: is going to be did he have a connection to
34:49
Speaker 1: Sophie Sergey. If he did, this may be his only victim.
34:53
Speaker 1: But if he did not, I would suspect that she
34:56
Speaker 1: is one of many people he just hunted, stalked, murdered.
35:00
Speaker 1: I would agree, Nancy, if he did not have a
35:02
Speaker 1: connection then, and by the way that the connection could
35:06
Speaker 1: be quite fragile. Perhaps he saw her at the grocery store,
35:09
Speaker 1: Perhaps he saw her at nightclub and followed her back
35:11
Speaker 1: to the dorm, and so he begins to stalk her.
35:14
Speaker 1: So in fantasy he has a relationship, whereas in reality
35:18
Speaker 1: there is none. So it could be that kind of
35:19
Speaker 1: a connection. Or, as I suspect, this guy stalks women,
35:25
Speaker 1: and it started when he was very young, looking at
35:28
Speaker 1: other girls at grade school, as Joe Scott Morgan said,
35:31
Speaker 1: peeping through windows, driving through neighborhoods. This is a man
35:35
Speaker 1: who's logged endless hours casing institutions that are frequented by women.
35:43
Speaker 1: And what better place than a dorm, a sorority, a
35:46
Speaker 1: place where he can hang out under a tree in
35:48
Speaker 1: the dark, by a ditch, looking in windows, and finally
35:51
Speaker 1: selecting a victim. It takes enormous energy, Nancy, to penetrate
35:57
Speaker 1: a dorm and to kill somebody, which does does imply
36:01
Speaker 1: to me, As Joe Scott Morgan said, that this guy
36:03
Speaker 1: had been thinking about this and preparing this for a
36:06
Speaker 1: long long time too. Brad Michelin, New Jersey lawyer. We
36:10
Speaker 1: know that the technique they are using as cutting as
36:13
Speaker 1: genetic genealogy techniques, and that's the same thing used in
36:17
Speaker 1: the Golden State killer case where there are literally dozens
36:21
Speaker 1: of victims. What that means is you get DNA from
36:24
Speaker 1: the crime scene. You have the known DNA, you don't
36:27
Speaker 1: have anything to match it too, so you run it
36:30
Speaker 1: through a DNA database. Because of DNA databases such as
36:35
Speaker 1: ancestry dot com and so many others like that, a
36:39
Speaker 1: familial DNA match potche pops up like I may I
36:44
Speaker 1: commit a crime. You may get my second cousin who
36:46
Speaker 1: did her ancestry Her DNA will pop up as a
36:49
Speaker 1: remote match. Then you investigate, investigate, investigated, until you get
36:53
Speaker 1: down to me the alleged perp. Will that genealogy technique
36:58
Speaker 1: familial DNA beach challenged in court? And how Brad Micklin
37:03
Speaker 1: well answer some question, And I think the answer is yes,
37:05
Speaker 1: it will be challenged. Aside from the fact that DNA
37:08
Speaker 1: is always going to be challenged because what led in
37:10
Speaker 1: part to balance being identified was advances in the DNA technology,
37:16
Speaker 1: not discovery of new technology or not discovery of new DNA.
37:19
Speaker 1: He was actually a suspect at the time of the murderer,
37:24
Speaker 1: but he was dismissed. So I think that as the
37:27
Speaker 1: law develops and the DNA develops, you strengthen the dismissibility
37:32
Speaker 1: of the evidence because the technique and technology is better,
37:36
Speaker 1: But you convoluted because you're using old DNA that was
37:39
Speaker 1: used with the whole technology, So you're going to be
37:41
Speaker 1: using certain issues at the same time that you're settling
37:43
Speaker 1: off to John Limley, Crime online dot Com investigative reporter,
37:47
Speaker 1: I know, the medical examiner concluded that Surgery, Sophie Surgery,
37:51
Speaker 1: just twenty years old, had been sex assaulted, stamped twice
37:55
Speaker 1: in the right eye while she was alive, then killed
38:00
Speaker 1: a single gunshot went into the back of the head
38:02
Speaker 1: from a twenty two caliber. The weapon was never found.
38:05
Speaker 1: But what can you tell me about this guy, Steve Downs,
38:10
Speaker 1: who's fighting extradition right now. Well, Downs, at the time
38:13
Speaker 1: of this murder was an eighteen year old freshman at
38:16
Speaker 1: the Alaska College. Downs was interviewed briefly by police at
38:21
Speaker 1: the time of the murder, but he denied any knowledge
38:24
Speaker 1: of what happened. Sergey, a Native Alaskan from the Western
38:29
Speaker 1: village of the Piscus Point area. Was just visiting a
38:33
Speaker 1: friend at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks at the time
38:36
Speaker 1: when she was brutally sexually assaulted and killed. And what
38:40
Speaker 1: is so ironic is that she was only there for
38:43
Speaker 1: two nights and it was that second night that she
38:46
Speaker 1: was murdered. Now I know that downs the alleged points
38:49
Speaker 1: of fingers at soldiers from Fort Wainwright, and that's a
38:52
Speaker 1: nearby army barracks. That's convenient, But their DNA is not matching.
38:55
Speaker 1: She was sex assaulted, he claimed at the time they
38:58
Speaker 1: often visited the residence hall to see girls there. Now
39:02
Speaker 1: interesting is DNA did not turn up on previous searches
39:05
Speaker 1: in the National Criminal Database. He has no prior arrest.
39:08
Speaker 1: It was only through this genealogy website that the DNA
39:13
Speaker 1: match emerged. What we know forty four year old nurse
39:18
Speaker 1: living in Maine. When I say he is challenging extradition,
39:21
Speaker 1: extradition means you're being taken from one state to another,
39:25
Speaker 1: one territory or jurisdiction to another. There's only two questions.
39:29
Speaker 1: Is this you? And are you the person charged in
39:33
Speaker 1: this indictment? So what's happening right now, they're probably using
39:36
Speaker 1: fingerprint verification that this is in fact Steve Downs, and
39:40
Speaker 1: he will be extradited, even though he claims no knowledge
39:45
Speaker 1: and claims his innocence. We wait as justice unfolds, but
39:50
Speaker 1: remember Sophie Sergey's family has been waiting for twenty five
39:55
Speaker 1: years for justice. Nancy Grace Crime Story signing off Goodbye friend,