Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Adrian Jones: ‘The boy who was fed to pigs’
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Forty one Action News dig steeper and gets the answers
- 0:07Speaker 1: about what happens to Adrian. Jump Investigator Jessica McMaster now
- 0:10Speaker 1: uncovered exclusive evidence. He was just a typical little boy,
- 0:15Speaker 1: just full of life. Adrian's dad and step mom abused
- 0:18Speaker 1: him for months. He just had the most amazing smile.
- 0:21Speaker 1: His whole face smiled when he smiled never before seeing.
- 0:24Speaker 1: Video takes us inside Adrian's last moment, and you can
- 0:27Speaker 1: see the look of nothing in his eyes. This is
- 0:31Speaker 1: Carme Stories with Nancy Grace and what prosecutors call the
- 0:35Speaker 1: most heinous crime they've ever seen. As soon as I
- 0:37Speaker 1: opened eye cloud, I saw pictures of Adrian and his abuse.
- 0:41Speaker 1: So you eat out of the trash? Could you keep
- 0:43Speaker 1: on getting cold? Could youre outside? In this video you
- 0:45Speaker 1: can hear heather and harsh words towards Adrian and a
- 0:47Speaker 1: lack of compassion for a desperate little boy. The last
- 0:50Speaker 1: days and hours of Adrian's life spent stripped and confined
- 0:53Speaker 1: to a shower stall, left outside overnight to stand in
- 0:57Speaker 1: a filthy pool. The boy who was fed two pigs,
- 1:03Speaker 1: The boy who was fed two pigs. You know, when
- 1:09Speaker 1: I was in law school, I went to law school,
- 1:12Speaker 1: specifically to become a felony prosecutor. I thought I had
- 1:17Speaker 1: seen the worst of the worst, but I never thought
- 1:20Speaker 1: I would put those words into one sentence, the boy
- 1:24Speaker 1: who was fed to pigs, And it reminds me of
- 1:29Speaker 1: the first time I guess it was a rape or
- 1:32Speaker 1: a rape slash murder case I prosecuted, and the words
- 1:37Speaker 1: the defendant had used at the time of the incident,
- 1:42Speaker 1: the crime words I had never said out loud before ever,
- 1:47Speaker 1: Such horrible, horrible curse words, just horrible slurs on women,
- 1:54Speaker 1: just awful using the lord's name in vain. And I
- 1:59Speaker 1: remember in my opening statement standing up in front of
- 2:04Speaker 1: the jury and letting it fly, the F word, the
- 2:09Speaker 1: C word, the P word. The only thing I got
- 2:13Speaker 1: hung up on was like, could not say the lord's
- 2:16Speaker 1: name in vain. But you know what's bad about that
- 2:20Speaker 1: was then the second time I had to say it
- 2:23Speaker 1: kind of rolled off my tongue. Then the third time,
- 2:26Speaker 1: in the fourth time, and at the end of ten years,
- 2:29Speaker 1: you know, I was numb to it until I, you know,
- 2:32Speaker 1: had the twins and I didn't want them to hear
- 2:34Speaker 1: that kind of language. But these words here, the boy
- 2:39Speaker 1: that was fed to pigs. It's still tastes bad in
- 2:45Speaker 1: my mouth to say it. I Nancy Grace, this is
- 2:48Speaker 1: Crime Stories, and with me today is an incredible guest.
- 2:55Speaker 1: Our guest is Kansas City reporter Jessica McMaster with k
- 2:59Speaker 1: s h BE Channel forty one, and awesome reporter who,
- 3:05Speaker 1: like many of us, has had to wade through the
- 3:07Speaker 1: muck every day, hopefully wearing hit boots so you don't
- 3:11Speaker 1: bring it home and get it on your living room,
- 3:14Speaker 1: so on your sofa or your carpet. She is the
- 3:17Speaker 1: reporter who did this incredible three part series of this
- 3:21Speaker 1: little Boy his last months on Earth and her investigation
- 3:26Speaker 1: of an apparent de Facts Department Family Children's Services cover up.
- 3:32Speaker 1: And because of Jessica McMaster's hard work, we learn the
- 3:37Speaker 1: state legislator later is considering Adrian's Law to change how
- 3:42Speaker 1: defects works. In response to Jessica McMasters reporting, Jessica, I'm
- 3:51Speaker 1: so happy to meet you, even though it's only over
- 3:53Speaker 1: the airwaves and under horrible conditions. One day I'd like
- 3:59Speaker 1: to meet you and sit down and have a cup
- 4:01Speaker 1: of tea with you. Thank you for being with us. Likewise,
- 4:05Speaker 1: thank you, Nancy. It's good to good to be able
- 4:07Speaker 1: to talk with you. I'm just a little overwhelmed at
- 4:11Speaker 1: the incredible change that you are bringing about in this world,
- 4:16Speaker 1: which is so woefully in need of change. I want
- 4:20Speaker 1: to talk to you about this little boy. Tell me
- 4:24Speaker 1: about your investigation of Adrian Jones. This goes back to
- 4:29Speaker 1: November two thousand fifteen. I was actually pregnant, very pregnant
- 4:35Speaker 1: with my daughter when we got news that came over
- 4:38Speaker 1: the scanners that police had gone out to a home
- 4:40Speaker 1: in Kansas City, Kansas and found a child's remains. I
- 4:45Speaker 1: remember that day. We're just, you know, reporter mode. You're
- 4:49Speaker 1: just you're getting all the information you can, You're trying
- 4:51Speaker 1: to learn more. At that time, we didn't have any
- 4:54Speaker 1: idea who this person was, who this little boy was,
- 4:58Speaker 1: and what he had lived through. But then slowly we
- 5:01Speaker 1: started to learn that he had been abused by his
- 5:04Speaker 1: father and stepmother and that eventually he was killed by
- 5:08Speaker 1: them and his lifeless body was tossed in a livestock pen.
- 5:14Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you something, Jessica. People that have
- 5:19Speaker 1: not been on farms don't get it, and nor should they.
- 5:24Speaker 1: But when you say you are a pig, if you
- 5:28Speaker 1: have ever been around pigs. No offense to our piggy friends,
- 5:33Speaker 1: but they are disgusting and they are sometimes huge, they
- 5:39Speaker 1: will eat anything, and a lot of times on farms
- 5:44Speaker 1: they have them living in muck, like in mud. Kind
- 5:48Speaker 1: of it's horrible. I mean for people. The pigs apparently
- 5:51Speaker 1: love it, but for people. And I'm looking at this picture,
- 5:55Speaker 1: one picture specifically, and he has on a little white
- 5:58Speaker 1: hat and he as smiling this beautiful smile. That's my
- 6:04Speaker 1: favorite picture of him. And it's a soccer T shirt.
- 6:08Speaker 1: And he's so beautiful in this photo. If you told
- 6:12Speaker 1: me he was a girl, I would believe it. He
- 6:15Speaker 1: has the most beautiful little features. Now, when my son
- 6:20Speaker 1: was a baby, Jessica, I thought he's just beautiful. I
- 6:23Speaker 1: thought he and Lucy were equally beautiful, like a little seriously,
- 6:27Speaker 1: a little angel. This little guy looks much like that.
- 6:31Speaker 1: A beautiful little nose, a gorgeous little bow for a mouth.
- 6:37Speaker 1: His eyebrows are just perfectly like someone painted him on.
- 6:42Speaker 1: And not that all children are beautiful, this just gets
- 6:45Speaker 1: just beautiful. It's just having a hard time, fink. He's
- 6:50Speaker 1: easy to fall in love with that. Someone fed this
- 6:53Speaker 1: kid pigs, put him in a pig Stye, what happened?
- 6:58Speaker 1: Why would they do this? Jessica, I don't think that
- 7:02Speaker 1: will ever know, And that's honestly. I think it's the
- 7:05Speaker 1: hardest part for us, and it's really been the hardest
- 7:07Speaker 1: part for our viewers because you give him this information
- 7:10Speaker 1: and a normal everyday person tries to rationalize it. You
- 7:14Speaker 1: try to make sense of it because you need an answer.
- 7:17Speaker 1: You need to be able to rectify this, but you can't.
- 7:20Speaker 1: There's no good reason for it. You know, there's he
- 7:23Speaker 1: was the only boy you know, but you there's just
- 7:27Speaker 1: there's really no way of knowing how anyone or why
- 7:30Speaker 1: anyone would do anything like this. I wish we could
- 7:33Speaker 1: give people that answer. I wish I had that answer
- 7:36Speaker 1: so that I could sleep. I don't know if this
- 7:38Speaker 1: happens to you, but I wish I could forget this.
- 7:42Speaker 1: I wish I could erase this in my mind. I
- 7:45Speaker 1: wish I never knew about it. But the thing is,
- 7:47Speaker 1: now I do know about it, and I asked myself
- 7:51Speaker 1: every single day, what am I going to do about it? Now?
- 7:54Speaker 1: I know? Right, here's the problem. Instead of whining about
- 7:58Speaker 1: it and crying about it, What am I going to
- 8:01Speaker 1: do about it? That's what I need to know right now, Jessica.
- 8:06Speaker 1: I'm overwhelmed at how you dug into the story. So
- 8:09Speaker 1: you go out on a story and for all you
- 8:13Speaker 1: all you know essentially is that his remains were found.
- 8:18Speaker 1: You go out there and you find what do you discover?
- 8:21Speaker 1: I want to hear how your investigation unfold. This has
- 8:26Speaker 1: been something that I've been working on, like I said,
- 8:29Speaker 1: for about a year and a half. And what you
- 8:32Speaker 1: just start collecting little pieces of information. You have former
- 8:35Speaker 1: babysitters telling you that they witnessed him having to stand
- 8:39Speaker 1: for long periods of time with his hands in the air,
- 8:41Speaker 1: and it made them uncomfortable and they thought that it
- 8:43Speaker 1: was too extreme. And then they say, you know that
- 8:46Speaker 1: they called Child's Services because they were concerned. One babysitter
- 8:49Speaker 1: tells me that she was there when child Services visited
- 8:53Speaker 1: the home, you know, So then you talk to her.
- 8:55Speaker 1: And then I got in touch with Adrian's grandmother, Judy Conway,
- 8:59Speaker 1: and I had been talking with her off and on.
- 9:01Speaker 1: And I also talked to the woman who owned the
- 9:04Speaker 1: home that the Jones has lived in, and she was
- 9:07Speaker 1: a key person in getting us the information that we
- 9:11Speaker 1: really needed because the Joneses had surveillance cameras in every
- 9:16Speaker 1: room of the house. They watched Adrian's every move and
- 9:21Speaker 1: aside from that, they also documented his abuse. For whatever reason,
- 9:26Speaker 1: they would just it was like they were proud of
- 9:29Speaker 1: what they were doing to him, and Heather uploaded it
- 9:33Speaker 1: to her eye cloud account. Grandmother starts telling me that
- 9:36Speaker 1: there's video of this, and she has it, and there's photos,
- 9:40Speaker 1: and that's not something we got from her right away.
- 9:42Speaker 1: Mike was supposed to go to trial, but he ended
- 9:44Speaker 1: up pleading a week before that occurred, so they didn't
- 9:47Speaker 1: really want to talk until that had happened. Once Mike
- 9:51Speaker 1: decided that he was going to plead um, they came
- 9:55Speaker 1: to me and said, you know, I have this information.
- 9:58Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about it. So we
- 10:00Speaker 1: went in and we sat down with grandma and the homeowner,
- 10:02Speaker 1: and then as some time passed, they decided that it
- 10:05Speaker 1: would be important to share those photos and videos with us.
- 10:10Speaker 1: And then, you know, we put a lot of thought
- 10:12Speaker 1: into what we were going to share with our viewers,
- 10:15Speaker 1: and it was a lot. It was a really tough
- 10:16Speaker 1: decision because you didn't you knew how traumatic it was
- 10:19Speaker 1: for us to see it and how devastating it was
- 10:23Speaker 1: too to see images of Adrian with handcuffs on and
- 10:27Speaker 1: left outside, for him to have to stand overnight in
- 10:30Speaker 1: a filthy pool that the family would use, and he
- 10:34Speaker 1: wasn't fed, and just horrific, horrific stuff that you can't
- 10:37Speaker 1: even make up in your wildest nightmares. And so that's
- 10:42Speaker 1: how it really all unfolded. And when you were watching
- 10:44Speaker 1: these videos, we just found out exactly what they did
- 10:49Speaker 1: to him. And then we also discovered that there was
- 10:50Speaker 1: another adult living in the home, because you can see
- 10:53Speaker 1: him in the video and you can see Adrian hiding
- 10:56Speaker 1: from that adult. So there was all this information, and
- 10:58Speaker 1: then we of course have been trying to get his
- 11:01Speaker 1: records from Kansas Department of Children and Families ever since
- 11:05Speaker 1: he died. You know, in the state of Kansas, there's
- 11:07Speaker 1: a law that states, you know, after a child's death
- 11:11Speaker 1: or you know, a near fatality, that information becomes a
- 11:14Speaker 1: matter of public record. So but we what we found
- 11:17Speaker 1: is that information is rarely being released. These children who
- 11:22Speaker 1: are abused and nearly killed or killed just kind of
- 11:26Speaker 1: wind up in a file and their stories are never told,
- 11:28Speaker 1: and there's really no accountability for this public agency. You
- 11:34Speaker 1: know it's I have been screaming this with me, is
- 11:37Speaker 1: Jessica McMasters incredible reporter. I have been screaming about de
- 11:44Speaker 1: Facts Department, Family Children's Services, uh CPS, Child Protective Services.
- 11:50Speaker 1: There are different names across the country. They held accountable
- 11:55Speaker 1: for dropping the ball and not doing their job and
- 11:59Speaker 1: chill ldren dying. Jessica make Masters telling me that Defects
- 12:05Speaker 1: was in the home and they let the child stay
- 12:08Speaker 1: there until the child is killed and fed to pigs.
- 12:11Speaker 1: I don't like saying it, but this is the truth.
- 12:15Speaker 1: And what is going to happen to those DEFECTS workers.
- 12:18Speaker 1: They just go right along, fat, dumb and happy like
- 12:21Speaker 1: nothing happened. That is not okay. It's not okay. Your
- 12:27Speaker 1: report blows the lid off of it. You know. I
- 12:31Speaker 1: have been yelling about this for since when I went
- 12:36Speaker 1: on the air at Court TV. I don't know why
- 12:40Speaker 1: no one wants to hold them responsible. This child is
- 12:45Speaker 1: dead because of the parents, the father and the stepmother,
- 12:49Speaker 1: and because Defects look the other way. Why did they
- 12:52Speaker 1: leave him in the home, Jessica, I wish we knew,
- 12:55Speaker 1: but we still don't. We don't have the file. You know,
- 12:58Speaker 1: that's one of the things that we need. That's one
- 13:00Speaker 1: of the things that Adrian's grandmother really needs. I mean,
- 13:03Speaker 1: she'll tell you there's there's no closure, there's no fixing
- 13:06Speaker 1: what happened to her grandson, but to know exactly how
- 13:10Speaker 1: many calls were placed, you know, so you know, a
- 13:13Speaker 1: judge sealed the file. But there's various reasons why these
- 13:16Speaker 1: We found that these files aren't being released because we
- 13:19Speaker 1: put in a generic request for Since the law was enacted,
- 13:23Speaker 1: how many media outlets have put in a request for
- 13:27Speaker 1: cases like Adrian And of fifteen requests we've found two,
- 13:31Speaker 1: only two have ever been fulfilled. So despite the law,
- 13:35Speaker 1: what is the number we can call? What is a
- 13:39Speaker 1: website we can go to to let our voices be heard?
- 13:44Speaker 1: This is a horrific discovery. Police called to a home
- 13:49Speaker 1: in Kansas City, Kansas for a domestic dispute. Wow. Can
- 13:53Speaker 1: you imagine that When they get there, a woman tells
- 13:56Speaker 1: them if they look around, they'll find the remains of
- 13:59Speaker 1: a little child. Officers find a seven year old little
- 14:05Speaker 1: boy remains in a pig pen. He lived at the
- 14:10Speaker 1: home with six brothers and sisters, his father and stepmother,
- 14:15Speaker 1: Heather Jones, and the community really didn't know much about
- 14:20Speaker 1: the children because the parents had kept them away under
- 14:24Speaker 1: the disguise the pretense that they were being home schooled. Well,
- 14:31Speaker 1: Jessica McMasters didn't take it at face value, and she
- 14:37Speaker 1: continued to dig. This story made headlines all around the world.
- 14:43Speaker 1: What's amazing is that not only would they abuse the child,
- 14:48Speaker 1: they would take pictures in video of what they were doing.
- 14:52Speaker 1: That that's amazing. As soon as cops opened up and
- 14:56Speaker 1: eye cloud, they find pictures of the abuse. It's awful
- 15:01Speaker 1: and it was right there House of horrors, as Jessica
- 15:06Speaker 1: was just saying, cameras in every room. They monitored the boys,
- 15:10Speaker 1: every move they documented as his health deteriorated, like they
- 15:17Speaker 1: were proud of what they were doing to them. How
- 15:21Speaker 1: is this effect of the other children? And where are they?
- 15:24Speaker 1: The other children right now are in foster care. Grandma
- 15:27Speaker 1: does have some contact with them, and I think that
- 15:30Speaker 1: they're going to therapy and and doing the best they can.
- 15:34Speaker 1: But I don't know how you can see this because
- 15:37Speaker 1: there is evidence that they witnessed Adrian's abuse and be
- 15:41Speaker 1: the same. I'm not the same hearing about it, so
- 15:44Speaker 1: living under that roof, I just can't imagine what that
- 15:47Speaker 1: must be like to try and cope with that and
- 15:50Speaker 1: move on from that and make sense of what mom
- 15:53Speaker 1: and dad did. There are pictures of him looking gaunt
- 15:57Speaker 1: and malnourished. In one video, you see someone crack open
- 16:02Speaker 1: the little boy's face with a broomstick. Outside surveillance shows
- 16:07Speaker 1: and I haven't even been able to bring myself to
- 16:09Speaker 1: watch it. The little boy's hands and feet handcuffed, and
- 16:13Speaker 1: he's forced to stay outside, and he's looking around like
- 16:17Speaker 1: he knows he's being watched, and he tries to use
- 16:21Speaker 1: his mouth to pick up what looks like a bowl
- 16:23Speaker 1: and eat what was in it. The stepmother comes out,
- 16:26Speaker 1: starts lecturing him and telling the other children, Adrian's eating
- 16:30Speaker 1: a bowl of apple sauce that has bugs and dirt
- 16:33Speaker 1: in it. Why are you doing that? It just goes
- 16:45Speaker 1: on and on. I just can't even look at it.
- 16:48Speaker 1: I can't even look at it anymore. Tell me about
- 16:51Speaker 1: the bill, Tell me what Kansas is going to do
- 16:55Speaker 1: to change this. Very early so, the day after our
- 16:58Speaker 1: three part series aired, uh, I went to the our
- 17:02Speaker 1: state's capital and I just started talking to any and
- 17:04Speaker 1: every lawmaker I could find, and many of them actually
- 17:08Speaker 1: were very receptive with the issues with our story, the
- 17:11Speaker 1: issue of not being able to get their records. The
- 17:14Speaker 1: part that they really responded to was that other adults
- 17:17Speaker 1: seemed to maybe have known about what was happening to Adrian,
- 17:21Speaker 1: and yet we still all know how this ended. And
- 17:24Speaker 1: so they were really responsive to the fact that there
- 17:26Speaker 1: was another adult living in the home. And so one
- 17:29Speaker 1: state representative said, I'm going to introduce a bill tomorrow
- 17:32Speaker 1: that says, if you're an adult living in a home
- 17:35Speaker 1: where a child is being abused, you are required to
- 17:39Speaker 1: report that abuse and you can be held criminally responsible
- 17:42Speaker 1: because right now, you know, there's the Mandatory Reporter law,
- 17:45Speaker 1: which includes professionals, you know, teachers, doctors, nurses, people like that,
- 17:50Speaker 1: but it doesn't include any other adults or any other
- 17:54Speaker 1: family member other than mom and dad. So so that's
- 17:57Speaker 1: the first step. They are listening to the issues with DCF,
- 18:01Speaker 1: with not being able to get those records released, and
- 18:05Speaker 1: I know that there's a state senator who's looking into that,
- 18:08Speaker 1: and she has the research department looking into that. Because,
- 18:11Speaker 1: as you know, they got to do their research because
- 18:13Speaker 1: they wanted to pass and they got to figure out
- 18:14Speaker 1: how to write up the bill. And how to introduce it.
- 18:17Speaker 1: So we haven't gotten there quite yet with that portion,
- 18:20Speaker 1: but that's the goal. The first step is just who's
- 18:23Speaker 1: in the home. I don't think it's that far fetched
- 18:26Speaker 1: because teachers and educators are under a deity to report abuse,
- 18:31Speaker 1: and you stand by and let a child be abused
- 18:34Speaker 1: this way. I I had to close down the story.
- 18:37Speaker 1: It was hurting me so much to look at that
- 18:40Speaker 1: picture of him out being forced in the water, to
- 18:43Speaker 1: stand out in the water overnight with his head poking
- 18:47Speaker 1: up above the water, and they would take pictures of it.
- 18:50Speaker 1: I usually don't say this, but I'm glad he's in
- 18:53Speaker 1: heaven now because it's better than where he was. A
- 18:56Speaker 1: lot of people are saying that. And since law enforcement
- 19:00Speaker 1: didn't know what was happening and de facts did nothing
- 19:04Speaker 1: to save the boy, had the rest of his life
- 19:07Speaker 1: would have been like this until he would be tortured
- 19:10Speaker 1: for how many more years and then die. So I
- 19:13Speaker 1: would rather just die now than be tortured for a
- 19:16Speaker 1: couple of more years and then die, Rather go on
- 19:19Speaker 1: to My Holy Father than than stay and what his
- 19:23Speaker 1: life was. I just don't understand how Defects dropped the ball,
- 19:26Speaker 1: why they didn't take him out of the home. But
- 19:28Speaker 1: you know what I learned, Jessica, I was about five
- 19:31Speaker 1: years into it. You've taught me a lot. Maybe I
- 19:33Speaker 1: can teach you something I learned the hard way. Five
- 19:36Speaker 1: years into prosecuting an inner city Atlanta, and I would
- 19:39Speaker 1: torture myself about why, why, why why? And finally I
- 19:45Speaker 1: said why, ask why? Why? Ask why? Stop asking why?
- 19:51Speaker 1: Because I'm never gonna know why people do the horrible
- 19:54Speaker 1: things they do. I'll never understand it, and I'll just
- 19:57Speaker 1: torture myself trying to fee gure it out. But what
- 20:00Speaker 1: I can do is change it or try to change it,
- 20:05Speaker 1: which is what you are doing. You have to because
- 20:08Speaker 1: you're right. Otherwise you're just left being tormented. Jessica. Please
- 20:12Speaker 1: tell our listeners where they can find your reporting, and
- 20:16Speaker 1: it's fairly easy if you just go to k S HB.
- 20:20Speaker 1: That's k S is in sam h B as in
- 20:22Speaker 1: boy dot com. If you scroll down the page and
- 20:24Speaker 1: click on the investigator's tab, you'll find our series under
- 20:28Speaker 1: there with the rest of our investigations, and the stories
- 20:31Speaker 1: are all linked to each other. As my father always said,
- 20:34Speaker 1: believe you me, I will be calling that number. I
- 20:39Speaker 1: will be hitting that website because I do not want
- 20:43Speaker 1: this beautiful boy's death to be in vain. And hopefully
- 20:49Speaker 1: the Kansas legislature will get off their rear ends and
- 20:53Speaker 1: do something and I will leave it at that. And
- 20:55Speaker 1: we actually have those links in the story to our
- 20:58Speaker 1: how you can contact our kinds legislatures, legislators. There are
- 21:01Speaker 1: the links are writing the story there, Jessica McMasters, thank
- 21:05Speaker 1: you for being with us. Nancy Grace Crime Stories, signing off,
- 21:08Speaker 1: goodbye friend,