Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Why Jeremy Guillory murder haunts us
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Serious x M Triumph
- 0:08Speaker 1: Channel one thirty two. In two, Langley was arrested for
- 0:13Speaker 1: the murder of six year old Jeremy Guillory of Ioway.
- 0:16Speaker 1: A three day search for the missing boy ended when
- 0:18Speaker 1: the child's body was found in Langley's closet. The little
- 0:22Speaker 1: boy had been strangled and molested, but I stuffed an old,
- 0:25Speaker 1: dirty stock in his mouth and I held his nose
- 0:29Speaker 1: to make sure he couldn't get no air to ending.
- 0:33Speaker 1: We will go to the end of the earth to
- 0:35Speaker 1: make sure that the person who committed that event, she's justice.
- 0:39Speaker 1: I think the ultimate judgment would be given to him
- 0:41Speaker 1: another time, another place. A six year old little boy
- 0:45Speaker 1: is dead. Jeremy juxtaposed that against an incredible book called
- 0:52Speaker 1: The Fact of a Body, A murder and a memoir
- 0:56Speaker 1: by Alexandria Marzano Lestovich. How do the two intersect? How
- 1:02Speaker 1: do the two collide? I mean, see Grace, this is
- 1:05Speaker 1: crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here on
- 1:08Speaker 1: Sirius X. With me the author of the Fact of
- 1:13Speaker 1: a Body, Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich. Also with me high profile
- 1:17Speaker 1: psychologist Dr Chloe Carmichael, Hi Dr Chloe and Joseph Scott Morgan,
- 1:23Speaker 1: forensics expert Professor of Forensics at Jacksonville State University, and
- 1:28Speaker 1: of course Alan the Duke Deep joining me out of
- 1:30Speaker 1: l A. I want to start things by explaining a
- 1:33Speaker 1: little bit, just a tiny bit about the fact of
- 1:36Speaker 1: a body, a murder, and a memoir. Now remember the
- 1:39Speaker 1: backdrop is the murder of a six year old little boy, Jeremy.
- 1:46Speaker 1: Now before, Alexandria begins a summer job at a law
- 1:49Speaker 1: firm in Louisiana working for the defense defending for the
- 1:56Speaker 1: retrial of a death row inmate, convicted murder her and
- 2:01Speaker 1: child molester, Ricky Langley. She thinks her position is very,
- 2:07Speaker 1: very plain. She is the daughter of two lawyers, and
- 2:12Speaker 1: she is very firm about the death penalty anti death penalty.
- 2:17Speaker 1: But the moment Ricky's face appears on a screen as
- 2:24Speaker 1: she is reviewing old tapes, the moment she hears him
- 2:29Speaker 1: actually talking about his crimes, She's overcome with a feeling
- 2:33Speaker 1: of wanting Ricky Langley to die, which is against everything
- 2:42Speaker 1: she has ever believed. I want you to first hear
- 2:46Speaker 1: a confession tape by the convicted child molester and killer
- 2:51Speaker 1: Ricky Langley. I wrapped that string, knowled string around his
- 2:56Speaker 1: neck and proved as hard as I could on it.
- 2:59Speaker 1: You know, you know that still wasn't stopping him trying
- 3:03Speaker 1: to breathe. He was still trying to breathe. But A
- 3:06Speaker 1: stuffed an old, dirty stock in his mouth, and I
- 3:08Speaker 1: held his nose. Why did you do that to make
- 3:11Speaker 1: sure he couldn't get in nowair? Okay, to end it too,
- 3:14Speaker 1: Alexandria Marzano wasn't Avitch the author of the Fact of
- 3:18Speaker 1: a Body, a Murder and a Memoir. Alexandria, thank you
- 3:22Speaker 1: for being with us. Tell me how you came to
- 3:24Speaker 1: write the book. Thank you for having me. Um. I
- 3:26Speaker 1: really wrote the book because I was so haunted by
- 3:29Speaker 1: the case. And it's the act of writing the book
- 3:32Speaker 1: was really an act of trying to figure out why
- 3:35Speaker 1: it was haunting me, so why it seemed to be
- 3:37Speaker 1: getting so tangled up with my memories of my own past.
- 3:41Speaker 1: So I had watched the video tape, as you said,
- 3:43Speaker 1: while I was an intern at this law firm. I
- 3:46Speaker 1: didn't work directly on his case, Um, but they showed
- 3:48Speaker 1: us this confession tape, and up to that moment, my
- 3:52Speaker 1: feelings were so clear. Right after I watched the tape,
- 3:56Speaker 1: I learned that Jeremy Gillory's mother, Laura, like Gillary, had
- 4:00Speaker 1: taken the stand at the trial. There were three trials,
- 4:03Speaker 1: and so she had taken the stand at the second trial,
- 4:05Speaker 1: and she had actually pleaded to keep Ricky Langley alive.
- 4:09Speaker 1: She testified for him, and UM, and that moment, I
- 4:12Speaker 1: was so struck that she had been able to do this,
- 4:14Speaker 1: and I couldn't that even though despite what I believe,
- 4:17Speaker 1: despite what I wanted to fight for. You know, I
- 4:19Speaker 1: had gone to law school wanting to fight the death penalty. Um,
- 4:22Speaker 1: how had she been able to do that? And why
- 4:24Speaker 1: couldn't I? And I think for years I was also
- 4:27Speaker 1: haunted by it because it raised this question, you know,
- 4:29Speaker 1: is who we are determined by what we believe and
- 4:31Speaker 1: what we want to fight for? Or is who we
- 4:33Speaker 1: are determined by what happened in our past? Because what
- 4:35Speaker 1: happened for me was that the Langley case really hit
- 4:37Speaker 1: hard against all these things in my own past I
- 4:40Speaker 1: couldn't think about or talk about. And so for years,
- 4:44Speaker 1: you know, the case, the details of the case, UM,
- 4:47Speaker 1: there was this be begun that Jeremy had there was
- 4:50Speaker 1: a blue blanket that Ricky Langley wrapped his body in.
- 4:52Speaker 1: These details would just come back to me really like
- 4:55Speaker 1: I was haunted by them. And years later I started
- 4:59Speaker 1: to get some of the court records from the case
- 5:01Speaker 1: in an attempt to lay the past arrest, in an
- 5:03Speaker 1: attempt to kind of put it in the ground and
- 5:05Speaker 1: stop thinking about it. Um, and it'd started really led
- 5:08Speaker 1: into this book. Wow, Alexandria Marzano Lesnevich, author of the
- 5:12Speaker 1: Fact of a Body, a Murderer, and a Memoir. I
- 5:15Speaker 1: didn't want you to stop talking to hear you recall
- 5:20Speaker 1: those moments and how your past factors in to this
- 5:26Speaker 1: particular case. Haunting you just got Morgan, I know that
- 5:31Speaker 1: you are familiar with the murder of six year old
- 5:34Speaker 1: Jeremy Gilroy. What happened. It's it's an absolutely uh brutal
- 5:41Speaker 1: case that that took place in uh in the home
- 5:46Speaker 1: of it's actually a rented room that was down the
- 5:49Speaker 1: street from where this little child lived with his mother,
- 5:54Speaker 1: keen mother. Um. They kind of migrated around in this
- 5:58Speaker 1: little tiny area of of Iowa, Louisiana, and UH didn't
- 6:03Speaker 1: have much to uh to speak of in material possessions
- 6:07Speaker 1: and um, uh this child who was at least peripherally
- 6:13Speaker 1: familiar with uh with Langley, was essentially lured in uh
- 6:20Speaker 1: to to the home and UH at that point in time. Um,
- 6:25Speaker 1: there's it's it's alluded to at least that potentially, uh
- 6:31Speaker 1: Langley had had an attraction him because he had actually
- 6:34Speaker 1: been in his child's presence when a child was being
- 6:36Speaker 1: bathed or bathing. And UM, wait a minute, wait a minute,
- 6:40Speaker 1: how did that happen that a child molester is in
- 6:44Speaker 1: the presence of a six year old boy when he's
- 6:46Speaker 1: being bathed. I think that the dynamics of this family,
- 6:49Speaker 1: UH probably you know that are dictated by a lot
- 6:52Speaker 1: of the the uh, the circumstances that the mother were
- 6:56Speaker 1: in was in uh you know, left him in in
- 7:00Speaker 1: a position where Langley had actually watch cared over over
- 7:04Speaker 1: the child at least for a small period of time
- 7:06Speaker 1: just previous to the to the homicide. And Alexander speaks
- 7:10Speaker 1: to this UH in compelling terms about that this is
- 7:17Speaker 1: kind of where the seed seed was planted. Um. And
- 7:21Speaker 1: eventually what happened was that Langley um um strangled this
- 7:26Speaker 1: little boy. But but it's it's so much more than
- 7:29Speaker 1: that to Alexandria and Morozono Lesovich, author of the Fact
- 7:33Speaker 1: of a Body Murder and memoir. Isn't it true that
- 7:36Speaker 1: at one juncture we learned that Ricky Langley claims he
- 7:42Speaker 1: likes to sleep in graveyards and that he wanted to
- 7:46Speaker 1: sleep with the body of the six year old boy. Yeah,
- 7:50Speaker 1: there is a long history of making making these kinds
- 7:54Speaker 1: of statements. Um. He has a fascination with the occult
- 7:58Speaker 1: that seems to go back to and he was a child,
- 8:02Speaker 1: and to the circumstances of his birth and to the
- 8:05Speaker 1: circumstances of his early childhood. And so he tells many
- 8:09Speaker 1: stories later about strangling Jeremy Um, in which he gives
- 8:14Speaker 1: many different reasons that he did so, and many different
- 8:16Speaker 1: feelings that he hit afterwards. I think one of the
- 8:18Speaker 1: things that drew me to this case was that the
- 8:21Speaker 1: record is full of him kind of telling himself the
- 8:23Speaker 1: story of the murder, trying to figure out why he
- 8:25Speaker 1: did it. And Yeah, that's one of one of the
- 8:28Speaker 1: stories he gives. Did he molest Jeremy before he was murdered?
- 8:33Speaker 1: That is the question, That is the question, And it's
- 8:37Speaker 1: really striking to me that in three trials they never
- 8:40Speaker 1: really solidly answered that question. Were forensics stand on the
- 8:43Speaker 1: child's body, Alexandria, Yes, they were, They were and Um
- 8:48Speaker 1: Rickie langley sperm was found on the child's T shirt.
- 8:51Speaker 1: On Jeremy's T shirt. He was wearing a little white
- 8:54Speaker 1: for the balloon T shirt and they cut the seaman
- 8:58Speaker 1: stains out of it. The location of that semen and
- 9:02Speaker 1: how it might have transferred, whether it transferred or whether
- 9:05Speaker 1: it got there through Ricky Langley doing something UM was
- 9:10Speaker 1: a source of a lot of debate at the trial. UM.
- 9:13Speaker 1: But confusingly, there was also a piece of evidence found
- 9:17Speaker 1: on him, a pubic care found on his lip that
- 9:20Speaker 1: did not match for he Langley two. Just got Morgan, Um,
- 9:25Speaker 1: I cannot explain the hair on the child's lip, but
- 9:31Speaker 1: I can't explain Ricky Langley's sperm on the child's T shirt.
- 9:38Speaker 1: I can't explain that. And I don't need just got Morgan.
- 9:46Speaker 1: I used to argue to juries. You know, I learned
- 9:49Speaker 1: early on as a child, as a little girl, it's
- 9:52Speaker 1: easier to understand something if you're hearing a story like
- 9:54Speaker 1: a parable. Get it a parable, A story that makes
- 9:58Speaker 1: a point r him every Sunday morning. Stories that teach
- 10:04Speaker 1: you a point, and this is what I would tell
- 10:06Speaker 1: a jury. The judge will instruct you of that. Circumstantial
- 10:11Speaker 1: evidence is as powerful, in my opinion, even more powerful
- 10:15Speaker 1: sometimes than direct evidence. Direct evidence is like an eyewitness
- 10:19Speaker 1: or d n A or a fingerprint. Circumstantial evidence is this.
- 10:23Speaker 1: When you come into your office in the morning, it's
- 10:26Speaker 1: eight a m. And the sky is bright and shiny,
- 10:31Speaker 1: not a cloud to be seen. You come out at lunchtime,
- 10:34Speaker 1: it's dark, dark, it's cloudy. There's water on the ground,
- 10:39Speaker 1: pools of water. Men are going by hugging their raincoats.
- 10:43Speaker 1: Women have umbrellas. You don't have to see the storm
- 10:48Speaker 1: to know it. Rained that circumstantial evidence. What you can
- 10:53Speaker 1: deduce figure out from what you see, what you smell,
- 10:57Speaker 1: what you hear, what you touch. That circumstantial evidence and
- 11:00Speaker 1: is powerful. Nobody needs to tell me that the child
- 11:04Speaker 1: was molested when the killer sperm is on the child's
- 11:09Speaker 1: T shirt and either crazy one of this scenario Joe Scott, no. No.
- 11:15Speaker 1: And the beauty of direct evidence, when when coupled with
- 11:20Speaker 1: with the narrative that's that's left behind, is that it
- 11:23Speaker 1: does fill in the blanks for us. The trick is,
- 11:26Speaker 1: I think based on my experience in court and the
- 11:29Speaker 1: labs is if the the prosecutor has the ability to
- 11:35Speaker 1: put these pieces together and present it in a manner
- 11:38Speaker 1: in which you know, can sway sway the jury to
- 11:43Speaker 1: their point of view. And it's three trials. Wow. Uh
- 11:48Speaker 1: And you know there's there are a lot of conclusions
- 11:50Speaker 1: that can be drawn here. But I agree with you.
- 11:53Speaker 1: Uh something you know you you don't find ejaculant on
- 11:57Speaker 1: on a T shirt? Uh that belongs to a small
- 12:00Speaker 1: child like this without something having happened. Well, I mean
- 12:04Speaker 1: it's the defendant sperm. It's not the child sperm. Hold on,
- 12:08Speaker 1: Before I go back into the facts, I want to
- 12:11Speaker 1: bring in a renowned psychologist joining us out of Manhattan.
- 12:16Speaker 1: It's Dr Chloe Carmichael. Dr Chloe, thank you for being
- 12:19Speaker 1: with us. The real issue here, I mean, you heard
- 12:22Speaker 1: the confession about sticking a sock in the little boy's
- 12:26Speaker 1: mouth and pinching his nose so we couldn't breathe. His
- 12:29Speaker 1: T shirt covered in the defendant sperm. The question is
- 12:33Speaker 1: going to be was he insane at the time of
- 12:38Speaker 1: the act? Now under our law, our Anglo Saxon jurisprudence,
- 12:42Speaker 1: and I say that because we brought our common law
- 12:45Speaker 1: from Great Britain. That's where we got it, okay, And
- 12:49Speaker 1: at the time it was brought it was created, it
- 12:51Speaker 1: was under the Saxon and Anglo rule, that's where that
- 12:56Speaker 1: comes from. And under our law, the McNaughton law of
- 13:00Speaker 1: insanity is if you knew right or wrong at the
- 13:04Speaker 1: time you committed the act, not when you go to trial,
- 13:09Speaker 1: not when you're in jail and you're throwing your food
- 13:11Speaker 1: and humming to yourself at the time of the incident,
- 13:15Speaker 1: and the argument at trial Dr Chloe Carmichael was that
- 13:20Speaker 1: he knew to cover up his crime at the time
- 13:27Speaker 1: he tried to cover it up, which says too many
- 13:31Speaker 1: that he knew right from wrong. Dr Chloe Carmichael, way
- 13:34Speaker 1: in um, I would agree that this definitely sounds like
- 13:37Speaker 1: somebody who is able to tell right from wrong. Certainly,
- 13:40Speaker 1: it sounds like a very damaged and warped person from
- 13:44Speaker 1: a tragic background who absolutely was struggling with mental illness.
- 13:48Speaker 1: But you know, you're absolutely right, Nancy, there's no evidence
- 13:52Speaker 1: to say that this person did not know right from wrong.
- 13:55Speaker 1: For example, he never attempted anything like this um in
- 13:59Speaker 1: front of other people, right he waited until he was alone,
- 14:02Speaker 1: He waited until he was in secret. Uh. He originally
- 14:06Speaker 1: lied to the police, from what I understand, and said,
- 14:09Speaker 1: you know that that the little boy had not been there,
- 14:11Speaker 1: And as you said, he then hid the body. Um.
- 14:14Speaker 1: So he he later recalled and discussed it with such
- 14:18Speaker 1: clarity and such willingness. Um. But I think that might
- 14:21Speaker 1: have more to do with a desire on his part
- 14:24Speaker 1: to try to seek some kind of absolution. Um. But
- 14:27Speaker 1: I certainly don't think that he was unable to tell
- 14:30Speaker 1: the difference between right and wrong at the time. You know,
- 14:33Speaker 1: one thing that I really appreciated to Alexandria Marzano, Lesnovitch,
- 14:37Speaker 1: our special guests joining us author of the fact of
- 14:40Speaker 1: a body, is that the judge struggled. The judge struggled
- 14:46Speaker 1: with what to do, and he went on and on
- 14:49Speaker 1: about how could two renowned experts come to such startlingly
- 14:54Speaker 1: different conclusions about was this guy insane at the time
- 14:58Speaker 1: he murdered six year old Jeremy. Did you notice that, Alexandra,
- 15:03Speaker 1: he really discussed it a lot. Oh, absolutely, I mean
- 15:08Speaker 1: he even discussed throughout the trial. He even discussed how
- 15:10Speaker 1: much the case was driving him to drink um and
- 15:13Speaker 1: how much when he went home at night he was
- 15:15Speaker 1: haunted by what he had seen in the courtroom, the
- 15:17Speaker 1: images of Jeremy's body. Alexander was also just giving me
- 15:21Speaker 1: chills on my arms right now, because you just in
- 15:23Speaker 1: that one moment brought back all the times I would
- 15:26Speaker 1: have to actually pull off the road in my car
- 15:30Speaker 1: when I would leave the courthouse. And I'm a very
- 15:33Speaker 1: strict rule against a drinking And I'll tell you why.
- 15:36Speaker 1: It's not a moral or ethical rule. It's that I've
- 15:38Speaker 1: seen it destroy so many people destroy and when you
- 15:42Speaker 1: see cases like this as I have, sometimes it is overwhelming.
- 15:47Speaker 1: And you know what, I'm not proud of anybody that
- 15:50Speaker 1: that drinks too much or drive drives drinking or but
- 15:56Speaker 1: the fact that he struggled so much shows me that
- 15:59Speaker 1: this judge cared. He cared, he cared about what happened,
- 16:03Speaker 1: He cared about doing the right thing. I really think
- 16:06Speaker 1: he did. And then, and those comments started even during
- 16:09Speaker 1: Vaudier year, during jury selection, when he was also clearly
- 16:13Speaker 1: haunted by seeing Ricky in front of him and the
- 16:16Speaker 1: fact that that you know, in his courtroom it would
- 16:18Speaker 1: be determined whether Rickie Langley lived or died. He spoke
- 16:22Speaker 1: quite movingly on the record about not fearing that decision,
- 16:26Speaker 1: fearing being haunted by it years later, fearing either way
- 16:31Speaker 1: the case came out, you know, whether Langley was found
- 16:34Speaker 1: it was convicted and sentenced to death, which he ultimately
- 16:36Speaker 1: wasn't in that trial, um, but fearing that that too
- 16:40Speaker 1: would haunt him, but also fearing what would happen if,
- 16:43Speaker 1: you know, he had to look at these pictures of
- 16:44Speaker 1: this little boy, look at this little boy's mother and
- 16:46Speaker 1: say that there would be no justice for him. So
- 16:49Speaker 1: one of the things that the judge really showed me
- 16:51Speaker 1: was the cost on the different people involved in the
- 16:56Speaker 1: criminal justice system. Well hold on just a moment, and
- 17:00Speaker 1: the cost on you, Yes, Alexandria Amrazzano Lesnevich, who became
- 17:05Speaker 1: intimately familiar with this death penalty case and the molestation
- 17:11Speaker 1: and murder of a six year old little boy, Jeremy.
- 17:14Speaker 1: The toll it took on you during that internship. The
- 17:18Speaker 1: toll it takes on Dr Chloe Carmichael as she struggles
- 17:21Speaker 1: with issues like this, psychologists joining me out of Manhattan.
- 17:24Speaker 1: Joe Scott Morgan, He's a death investigator. Myself, Handlane have
- 17:30Speaker 1: handled literally thousands of felonies. The toll it takes on you,
- 17:36Speaker 1: it changes your life forever. You don't believe me, listen
- 17:41Speaker 1: to this. I wrapped that string knowledge string around his
- 17:45Speaker 1: neck and pleve it as hard as I could on it.
- 17:49Speaker 1: You know, you know that still wasn't stopping him trying
- 17:52Speaker 1: to breathe. He was still trying to breathe. But I
- 17:55Speaker 1: stuffed an old, dirty sock in his mouth and I
- 17:57Speaker 1: held his nose. Why did you do that to make
- 18:00Speaker 1: sure he couldn't get into air? Okay, to end it,
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- 20:32Speaker 1: This is Crime Stories, And again I want to thank
- 20:33Speaker 1: you for being with us on this very important program
- 20:37Speaker 1: here on Sirius X. With me the author of the
- 20:41Speaker 1: Fact of a Body, a murder in memoir, Alexandria Marzano Lesnevich,
- 20:45Speaker 1: who was profoundly affected by the time she spent working
- 20:50Speaker 1: on a death penalty case, going into the case staunchly
- 20:53Speaker 1: against the death penalty. In fact, her aim was to
- 20:57Speaker 1: save Rickey Langley from the death unalty. Langley convicted of
- 21:01Speaker 1: murdering a six year old little boy, Jeremy Gilroy. With
- 21:06Speaker 1: me Dr Chloe Carmichael's psychologists out of Manhattan and renowned
- 21:10Speaker 1: for instance expert Joe Scott Morgan, Professor of forensics at
- 21:15Speaker 1: Jacksonville State University, and death investigator. You know, when I
- 21:20Speaker 1: was growing up, I never thought that I would put
- 21:23Speaker 1: behind my name specialty serial murder, serial rape, serial child
- 21:29Speaker 1: lit station. I just didn't see that coming, you know.
- 21:32Speaker 1: In my world, Alexandra, when I was growing up, I
- 21:35Speaker 1: thought that I would get a car or truck and
- 21:40Speaker 1: on the back I would have one of those traveling
- 21:43Speaker 1: like RV trailers and it would be full of books, books,
- 21:48Speaker 1: just nothing but books in there, and that I would
- 21:50Speaker 1: also behind that have attached another trailer with a horse
- 21:53Speaker 1: in it. That was what I would thought I would do,
- 21:57Speaker 1: and I would write books and play with my hor
- 22:00Speaker 1: That's what I That was my plan, Okay. I did
- 22:04Speaker 1: not know that one day it would be Nancy Grace
- 22:07Speaker 1: Trial specialty, serial murder, serial rape, and serial child listation
- 22:12Speaker 1: in any type of arson. That was basically on my
- 22:15Speaker 1: calling card. I'm sure Joe Scott, you didn't think that
- 22:19Speaker 1: you would be death investigator, and Dr Chloe probably did
- 22:24Speaker 1: not imagine she would be helping people sort through life
- 22:27Speaker 1: changing issues. Alexandria, your childhood really played into the way
- 22:36Speaker 1: the six year old Jeremy's murder affected you. It did,
- 22:44Speaker 1: and in fact, it was everything that I didn't think
- 22:46Speaker 1: about in my childhood that was sort of forced to
- 22:49Speaker 1: the forefront by encountering this case. So when I watched
- 22:54Speaker 1: Healing Lee's confession, which you now heard a clip of,
- 22:59Speaker 1: I was sitting in that room. I remember it so clearly.
- 23:01Speaker 1: I was in this big, cavernous Lost Love Firm library,
- 23:06Speaker 1: you know, dark wood lined, the shelves, lined with the
- 23:08Speaker 1: leather bound books that hold all the old case registers.
- 23:12Speaker 1: And I was sitting on a folding chair. Um, I
- 23:14Speaker 1: was pretty nervous. I was twenty five years old. It
- 23:16Speaker 1: was only my third day in this internship, and so
- 23:19Speaker 1: you can imagine, you know, I was wearing a new suit,
- 23:21Speaker 1: kind of scratching on my skin, and I'm sitting there
- 23:24Speaker 1: and I've been waiting for this moment since I was
- 23:26Speaker 1: a child, really, since I learned about the death penalty
- 23:29Speaker 1: at eight years old. I had wanted to fight it.
- 23:31Speaker 1: And they queue up this tape and they play this
- 23:34Speaker 1: tape and Ricky Langley on the tape describes the pleasure
- 23:38Speaker 1: he took in molesting small children, and he described very vividly,
- 23:44Speaker 1: very specific actions that he did, and all of a
- 23:48Speaker 1: sudden listening, I wasn't twenty five years old anymore. All
- 23:51Speaker 1: of a sudden, I was a child again, and I
- 23:54Speaker 1: could feel on my grandfather's hands on me, and that
- 23:59Speaker 1: was the moment that I wanted him to die. I
- 24:03Speaker 1: had never forgotten being molested, you know, it wasn't like that,
- 24:07Speaker 1: but it was something that I tried really really hard
- 24:10Speaker 1: not to think about um precisely because the memory has
- 24:13Speaker 1: lived so vividly in my body. So I think why
- 24:16Speaker 1: this case haunted me so much for for so many
- 24:18Speaker 1: years is just everything that it made me confront, that
- 24:22Speaker 1: lived inside me that I had tried so desperately not
- 24:25Speaker 1: to confront, not to think about, not to deal with.
- 24:29Speaker 1: Alexandria Marzanna Lesnevich. Hearing you talk, it's actually bringing made
- 24:35Speaker 1: to tears, because we all have, or I guess many
- 24:43Speaker 1: of us, not all of us, those moments, those horrible
- 24:48Speaker 1: moments in our lives that try their best to define us,
- 24:56Speaker 1: that we carry around every single day. I've dealt with
- 25:03Speaker 1: so many rape victims, child molestation victims, and their lives
- 25:09Speaker 1: are forever changed. Dr Chloe Carmichael. When this happens to
- 25:15Speaker 1: you as a child, you don't even have a chance
- 25:19Speaker 1: to fully develop as a person. You know, it's your
- 25:25Speaker 1: entire life is affected. I want to say defined, but
- 25:30Speaker 1: as we see in Alexander's case, she did not let
- 25:32Speaker 1: it define her. He help me. Dr Chloe. Sure, well, Nancy,
- 25:38Speaker 1: I think you're exactly right, which is that, Um, we
- 25:41Speaker 1: would actually be pathologizing anybody you know who has suffered
- 25:45Speaker 1: this kind of abuse if we were to say, you know, well,
- 25:48Speaker 1: because the Keller experienced to this abuse, this was therefore
- 25:52Speaker 1: became his destiny to act out that way upon other people,
- 25:56Speaker 1: and that would actually be the most damaging and stigmatizing
- 25:59Speaker 1: thing that we could do. So UM, as a psychologist,
- 26:03Speaker 1: I have to say that this is a situation where
- 26:05Speaker 1: we have to be able to hold both truths at
- 26:08Speaker 1: the same time. Um, that that Ricky Langley was a
- 26:12Speaker 1: was a victim himself, and then he chose not to
- 26:18Speaker 1: control himself, not to you know, get the help that
- 26:22Speaker 1: he needed. Um. There's It's one thing. It's one level
- 26:26Speaker 1: in psychology to have urges to molest children. It's another
- 26:31Speaker 1: thing to act on it. Um. So from what I understand,
- 26:35Speaker 1: he had experienced those urges and had even been convicted
- 26:38Speaker 1: in the past of child molestation. So this is somebody
- 26:42Speaker 1: who actually had experience and had, you know, had attempts
- 26:45Speaker 1: from society at trying to correct him before, and he
- 26:49Speaker 1: chose to go another way, and we need to understand
- 26:52Speaker 1: that that was his choice, and therefore he needs to
- 26:55Speaker 1: be held accountable. You know, just got Morgan back to
- 26:58Speaker 1: the issue of whether he need right and wrong. I
- 27:01Speaker 1: noticed that during the trial, Langley appeared to be paying attention,
- 27:05Speaker 1: and he actually broke out smiling at many many points
- 27:09Speaker 1: during the trial, even though he had a bandage under
- 27:12Speaker 1: one of his eyes from a cut that he had
- 27:14Speaker 1: gotten from a fight with another inmate. But when the
- 27:18Speaker 1: state played the tape of Langley confessing to killing Jeremy
- 27:24Speaker 1: and testimony when the police uncovered the body, he hung
- 27:29Speaker 1: his head down and would not watch. And you know what,
- 27:33Speaker 1: that reminds me of Joe Scott. I remember when I
- 27:36Speaker 1: was called to the stand and my fiancee's murder and
- 27:39Speaker 1: I took the stand. I remember that distinctly. Everything else
- 27:42Speaker 1: melts away. I can't remember hardly a thing, but I
- 27:45Speaker 1: remember coming down off the witness stand and it was
- 27:48Speaker 1: high up, even with the judges, almost even with the judge,
- 27:52Speaker 1: and you would walk up one set of stairs and
- 27:54Speaker 1: there was a little landing and then you go up
- 27:57Speaker 1: to another set of stairs and to the witness stand.
- 27:59Speaker 1: You're way up, and I remember walking down, and I
- 28:04Speaker 1: remember my boots on the wood, and I walked past
- 28:08Speaker 1: the States table and I saw Keith's bloody denim shirt
- 28:13Speaker 1: that I had not seen, and I saw it lying
- 28:16Speaker 1: on the States table, and then I kept walking. I
- 28:20Speaker 1: got to the defense table. I looked at the defendant.
- 28:24Speaker 1: He met my eyes and immediately looked down. And then
- 28:27Speaker 1: I looked at the defense lawyer and he looked at
- 28:29Speaker 1: my eyes, and then he looked down, like straight into
- 28:32Speaker 1: his lap. They couldn't look up, and I remember just
- 28:35Speaker 1: standing there staring at them, and then walking out and
- 28:39Speaker 1: my boots making the footsteps sounds on the marble floor
- 28:45Speaker 1: until the door shut behind me. That's what I remember.
- 28:48Speaker 1: And when I hear Langley just looked down when his
- 28:52Speaker 1: confession was being played, that means a lot to me.
- 28:55Speaker 1: Joe Scott, Yeah, I know it doesn't Nancy to say,
- 29:01Speaker 1: I gotta tell you something that was really gripping to
- 29:03Speaker 1: me and kind of devetails what you're saying here. And
- 29:07Speaker 1: I don't know if Alexander can really, you know, um
- 29:11Speaker 1: comment on this or not, but in his in his confession.
- 29:16Speaker 1: He may have looked down in court at that moment time,
- 29:19Speaker 1: but in his confession, there was something that just really
- 29:22Speaker 1: stood out to me. And that's when he didn't say
- 29:25Speaker 1: that as he was using a ligature on this child's
- 29:29Speaker 1: nat that that he wanted to hurry or speed his death.
- 29:35Speaker 1: He said, I took an old, dirty sock, not just
- 29:41Speaker 1: to sock. I stuffed it in his mouth and then
- 29:45Speaker 1: I held his nose. And to me, that one statement
- 29:52Speaker 1: really sums this up with this fellow. This seems as
- 29:55Speaker 1: though that maybe he is fighting some kind of internal battle.
- 29:59Speaker 1: I don't know, in the whole grand scheme of things,
- 30:01Speaker 1: in the light of this child who cannot speak for
- 30:04Speaker 1: himself any longer, I don't really care. But it does
- 30:08Speaker 1: talk about the person the essence of what this perpetrator
- 30:13Speaker 1: was relative to this this innocence life, and that just
- 30:18Speaker 1: it just it's haunting. I mean, it's absolutely hardy and
- 30:20Speaker 1: it just gripped me. And that's the first time I've
- 30:22Speaker 1: heard that confession. Uh, it just really gripped me. And
- 30:25Speaker 1: I don't know if that impacted Alexy in the same way,
- 30:28Speaker 1: but it just it just really kind of reached out
- 30:30Speaker 1: through the microphone and and and uh, you know, grabbed
- 30:33Speaker 1: me by by the scruff of the neck. Alexandria Marizano Wesnovich,
- 30:39Speaker 1: the author of the Fact of a Body, a Murder
- 30:42Speaker 1: and a Memoir. When you heard this confession, you stated
- 30:48Speaker 1: that it immediately brought back the horrible memories of your
- 30:53Speaker 1: childhood and your grandfather's assault on you. How did you
- 30:59Speaker 1: ever reconcile that was your grandfather ever brought to justice.
- 31:04Speaker 1: Not only was he not brought to justice, but he
- 31:08Speaker 1: wasn't thought of as a criminal. What what? I'm sorry?
- 31:12Speaker 1: Not only was he not brought to justice, but he
- 31:14Speaker 1: wasn't thought of as a criminal. What do you mean
- 31:18Speaker 1: by that? Oh? I mean that you know, in my family,
- 31:21Speaker 1: we just didn't talk about the abuse. Um. It was
- 31:24Speaker 1: basically forbidden to do so. Not basically it was forbidden
- 31:27Speaker 1: to do so. Um. And even as I was in
- 31:32Speaker 1: law school, it never occurred to me that what he
- 31:35Speaker 1: had done was criminal. It wasn't until I was writing
- 31:38Speaker 1: the book and thinking constantly of this murder as the
- 31:42Speaker 1: crime in the book, which of course it is. It's
- 31:44Speaker 1: a horrible crime in the book, that I slowly realized
- 31:47Speaker 1: that actually I was writing about two crimes. I was
- 31:50Speaker 1: actually writing about two criminals, and part of why I
- 31:53Speaker 1: wanted to tell the story was to get at maybe
- 31:56Speaker 1: the different ways that we sometimes think of abuse when
- 31:59Speaker 1: it happens within a emilie. We sometimes don't recognize that
- 32:01Speaker 1: what has happened is a crime. And so when I was,
- 32:09Speaker 1: you know, writing this, I did. I did confront my
- 32:12Speaker 1: grandfather when I was a teenager, and I don't I
- 32:14Speaker 1: you know, I looked back now at that eighteen year
- 32:16Speaker 1: old who went off to confront him, and I am
- 32:18Speaker 1: in awe of her bravery. You know, I think often
- 32:21Speaker 1: actually of that. I went to the apartment building where
- 32:24Speaker 1: he was living, and I remember so vividly the walk
- 32:27Speaker 1: down the hallway to his apartment where I was going
- 32:29Speaker 1: to finally speak the words allowed to him that no
- 32:31Speaker 1: one had ever confronted him on. I am in all
- 32:35Speaker 1: that girls bravery. And when I confronted him, you know,
- 32:40Speaker 1: he didn't deny it, and he certainly didn't apologize for it.
- 32:44Speaker 1: He was almost suppostful about it. But then he called
- 32:49Speaker 1: me the next day and asked me if I forgave him.
- 32:53Speaker 1: No apology, just asked me if I forgave him, which
- 32:56Speaker 1: in its way was an acknowledgment of all the harm
- 32:59Speaker 1: he had. I don't know. I just that makes me
- 33:02Speaker 1: so angry to hear that he asked you to forgive him,
- 33:05Speaker 1: because now the onus is on you that you have
- 33:08Speaker 1: to forgive. Yes, And oh that is so wrong that
- 33:15Speaker 1: the honest is on you to forgive him. At another thing,
- 33:19Speaker 1: Please don't be angry with me, Alexandria. Please, what were
- 33:24Speaker 1: your parents doing during all of this when you had
- 33:27Speaker 1: to go confront him? You told your parents, right, I
- 33:29Speaker 1: did tell my parents, And I think in some ways,
- 33:31Speaker 1: you know, there are many reasons I wrote this book,
- 33:34Speaker 1: but I think in some ways I partially wrote this
- 33:36Speaker 1: book to understand my parents choices, because it's very different
- 33:40Speaker 1: when you're sort of living the memories, you see them
- 33:43Speaker 1: only from your own perspective, but when you're actually writing
- 33:45Speaker 1: about people, you have to try to imagine or try
- 33:48Speaker 1: to understand, um, what they might have been thinking. And
- 33:52Speaker 1: my grandparents, my parents rather chose not to confront him. Um.
- 33:56Speaker 1: They chose actually to keep the whole thing a secret.
- 33:58Speaker 1: They did make sure that he wasn't alone with us
- 34:00Speaker 1: again in a situation where he could molest us. Um.
- 34:03Speaker 1: But you know, they kept him coming to the house,
- 34:05Speaker 1: which was very very hard for me when I was
- 34:07Speaker 1: growing up, and very hard for me when I was
- 34:09Speaker 1: a teenager, very hard for me afterwards too, um. And
- 34:12Speaker 1: so part of writing this was to try to understand
- 34:16Speaker 1: the way that the choices that they made, on the
- 34:19Speaker 1: one hand, I really think kept our family together, you know,
- 34:22Speaker 1: but on the other hand, caused these deep fissures and
- 34:25Speaker 1: these deep, deep hurts. And you know, I've heard from
- 34:28Speaker 1: so many people since this book came out. I'll tell you,
- 34:32Speaker 1: for the first four months after this book came out,
- 34:34Speaker 1: I got between one and three emails a day from
- 34:37Speaker 1: people who had been abused and whose families kept it
- 34:41Speaker 1: a secret, and who were talking about the things that
- 34:44Speaker 1: the book had opened up inside of them. And one
- 34:46Speaker 1: of them is sort of trying to understand this stigma
- 34:50Speaker 1: and this secrecy and this silence that often attaches to abuse,
- 34:55Speaker 1: and specifically the stigma attaches to the abuse victims, and
- 34:58Speaker 1: people don't want to talk about it, um, And I
- 35:01Speaker 1: think that's part of what allows it to continue. Can
- 35:04Speaker 1: I ask you something, Alexandria Marizano Lesnevitch, she was channeled
- 35:10Speaker 1: all of that that you're hearing right now into this
- 35:14Speaker 1: incredible work, the fact of a body a murder in
- 35:18Speaker 1: a memoir in later life, as you were writing this book,
- 35:22Speaker 1: did you ask your parents why they did not confront anymore?
- 35:25Speaker 1: Did they and you didn't know about it? What do
- 35:28Speaker 1: they say? They said, actually that they couldn't And I
- 35:31Speaker 1: knew this that they couldn't, and it's in the book.
- 35:32Speaker 1: They consulted a psychologist at the time. We told him
- 35:37Speaker 1: that the best thing to do would be to model
- 35:38Speaker 1: not being affected by it. And I think that that
- 35:40Speaker 1: was the advice that was given in a certain time period,
- 35:43Speaker 1: you know. Um, and part of my what wait, the
- 35:47Speaker 1: advice was to do what to model it not having
- 35:50Speaker 1: an impact, so not to make a big deal out
- 35:52Speaker 1: of it, not to you know, not to sort of
- 35:54Speaker 1: confront him, not to you know, to just model that
- 35:56Speaker 1: maybe it didn't matter. And I think that that was
- 36:00Speaker 1: maybe the advice given in a certain time period. Um, Okay,
- 36:05Speaker 1: that make actually makes me feel a tiny modicum better
- 36:09Speaker 1: that they tried to do something. Absolutely they tried to
- 36:13Speaker 1: do it, just discounted. They went they saw out a
- 36:15Speaker 1: professional and said, what do we do? What's the best
- 36:17Speaker 1: thing for Alexandria? And that's what they were told. So
- 36:20Speaker 1: that's what they did, absolutely, and part of what I
- 36:22Speaker 1: wanted to capture was the cost of that, right, like
- 36:26Speaker 1: everybody was doing. I think one of the hard things
- 36:28Speaker 1: about this story is that the families were doing what
- 36:32Speaker 1: they thought was best. You know, you see this too.
- 36:33Speaker 1: And Ricky Langley's family, um, which really struggled. His family
- 36:37Speaker 1: really struggled, and when he as a young man started
- 36:41Speaker 1: to struggle, they took him to a psychologist. You know,
- 36:43Speaker 1: they tried to do what they thought was best. Well,
- 36:45Speaker 1: this is something that I know, Alexandria, and I'm coming
- 36:49Speaker 1: right back to you. And unlike for Dr Chloe Carmichael
- 36:52Speaker 1: and Joe Scott Morgan and the Duke to take this
- 36:55Speaker 1: in as well. Um, Laura lay Gilroy comes some calls
- 36:59Speaker 1: for her son, who had been outside playing. She didn't
- 37:02Speaker 1: get a response. She went to the Lawrence house, where
- 37:05Speaker 1: her baby often played. Langley answered the door. Gilroy asked
- 37:11Speaker 1: him if he had seen her son. He said, no, Okay,
- 37:17Speaker 1: you know that just reminded me of something. Okay, do
- 37:21Speaker 1: you remember the very first murder? Okay, Kine and Abel
- 37:26Speaker 1: and they come and say, where's your brother? I don't know.
- 37:31Speaker 1: I don't know. The very first murder, she comes and says,
- 37:34Speaker 1: where is Jeremy? I don't know, I haven't seen him.
- 37:37Speaker 1: She goes to go search for him and then comes
- 37:39Speaker 1: back to calling nine one one. Right after that, he
- 37:45Speaker 1: Ricky Langley makes his own nine one one call to
- 37:49Speaker 1: report the boy missing and then pretends to help the
- 37:53Speaker 1: mother look for the boy. They start to search the
- 37:59Speaker 1: wooded area. A command center is set up, a search
- 38:03Speaker 1: was conducted throughout the weekend. Finally, on that Monday, police
- 38:10Speaker 1: get information that there was a convicted child molester named
- 38:14Speaker 1: Ricky Langley whose last address was in the area. What
- 38:20Speaker 1: happened then, Joe Scott Morgan? How was Jeremy's body found?
- 38:25Speaker 1: And this is after all the subterfuge, his own nine
- 38:28Speaker 1: one one call him pretending to help find the boy
- 38:31Speaker 1: after he had just stuffed a dirty sock in his mouth.
- 38:34Speaker 1: How was the body found? Joe Scott Morgan found in
- 38:38Speaker 1: the home of Ricky Langley in a closet um placed
- 38:43Speaker 1: in there by this person who had, you know, initially
- 38:48Speaker 1: attempted to aid insert And it's quite striking as well.
- 38:53Speaker 1: One of one of the things that's brought forward in
- 38:56Speaker 1: this is that when lord Ala. The mother had actually
- 39:00Speaker 1: come searching for her little boy. Uh. Alexander points out
- 39:05Speaker 1: in her work that that um that he was that
- 39:09Speaker 1: initially he had laid him out on the bed covered
- 39:13Speaker 1: with a Dick Tracy blanket, if you will, a cartoon character.
- 39:17Speaker 1: And the mother had come to the house initially looking
- 39:20Speaker 1: for her little boy to be begun that he had
- 39:22Speaker 1: carried leaned against the wall there uh and this, you know,
- 39:26Speaker 1: the cycle continues until finally the young the young boy's
- 39:30Speaker 1: body is actually found uh in in the home of
- 39:34Speaker 1: Ricky Langley. I want to take this moment and thank
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- 41:00Speaker 1: row six eight three or go online to Nancy's Beats
- 41:04Speaker 1: dot com. Today, I want to go to Dr Chloe
- 41:08Speaker 1: Carmichael joining US psychologists out of Manhattan. We're talking about
- 41:13Speaker 1: the horrific molestation and murder of a six year old
- 41:17Speaker 1: little boy, Jeremy Gilroy, against the backdrop of this incredible book,
- 41:25Speaker 1: The Fact of a Body, a Murder and a Memoir
- 41:27Speaker 1: by Alexandria Marzano Lesanovitch joining us, Dr Chloe. I keep
- 41:34Speaker 1: thinking about what Alexandria said about her own horrific moments
- 41:41Speaker 1: as a child when she was assaulted by her grandfather
- 41:46Speaker 1: and it all came rushing back to her and she
- 41:50Speaker 1: can actually feel his hands on her body again as
- 41:54Speaker 1: she heard testimony and evidence in this case, I'm thinking
- 41:59Speaker 1: about the advice the parents were given by a psychologist
- 42:02Speaker 1: to try to minimize what happened, not make a big
- 42:05Speaker 1: deal out of it at the time, to help Alexandria heal.
- 42:09Speaker 1: What do you make of that? Dr Chloe Carmichael, Thanks Nancy,
- 42:13Speaker 1: that's such a such an important question. UM. So it
- 42:17Speaker 1: is true that we don't want to suggest to a
- 42:19Speaker 1: child that's something like this has to define them, UM,
- 42:23Speaker 1: But but we do definitely want to model for the
- 42:26Speaker 1: child that the abuser does need to be held accountable,
- 42:30Speaker 1: and we want to praise the child for speaking up.
- 42:33Speaker 1: We want to make the child, UM know that the
- 42:35Speaker 1: adults will stand around them and support them, and we
- 42:38Speaker 1: also want to model that we will insist that the
- 42:42Speaker 1: abuser get help and support and be held accountable. UM.
- 42:46Speaker 1: You know, Alexandria, you're you know, such a brave person
- 42:49Speaker 1: to be able to share all of this, UM and
- 42:52Speaker 1: to put this out for us to to understand together.
- 42:56Speaker 1: And in that particular case, I also can't help, but wonder, um,
- 43:00Speaker 1: you know, about your grandfather's relationship with you know, either
- 43:04Speaker 1: the mother or the father that ultimately you know, decided
- 43:07Speaker 1: to um suggest that the healthiest thing here to do
- 43:12Speaker 1: would be to keep it quiet. Um. Sometimes these family
- 43:15Speaker 1: patterns do get transmitted. You know. There's been a lot
- 43:19Speaker 1: of controversy for some reason as to whether Ricky Langley,
- 43:23Speaker 1: a known pedophile, assaulted six year old Jeremy before his murder.
- 43:29Speaker 1: And I'd like to direct everyone's attention to the Court
- 43:33Speaker 1: of Appeals of Louisiana, Third Circuit, Louisiana versus Ricky Joseph Langley.
- 43:38Speaker 1: In this decision was April six, two thousand eleven. The
- 43:42Speaker 1: facts has laid out and they go back to the
- 43:46Speaker 1: trial transcript, which is undisputed as to what happened at trial.
- 43:51Speaker 1: Granted there were several trials, but it was not disputed
- 43:57Speaker 1: what the defendants said. The defendants said that from the
- 44:03Speaker 1: moment he saw the six year old boy, he quote
- 44:06Speaker 1: wanted him, that he wanted to molest him. On the
- 44:10Speaker 1: friday that he murdered the six year old child, Jeremy,
- 44:14Speaker 1: the child was at the house playing with Lawrence's son,
- 44:18Speaker 1: but Jeremy left when Mrs Lawrence and her son left
- 44:21Speaker 1: to visit a relative. He later returned with a BB
- 44:24Speaker 1: gun while the defendant was there alone and asked if
- 44:28Speaker 1: his little friend was there. The defendant said, come in
- 44:31Speaker 1: and visit, so Jeremy came in and put his BB
- 44:34Speaker 1: gun down in the front room, where it was later
- 44:36Speaker 1: spotted as Joseph Scott Morgan told you. Still sitting in
- 44:40Speaker 1: the front room, defendants said he knew then that he
- 44:45Speaker 1: would quote mess with the child unless someone came home
- 44:51Speaker 1: when the child left immediately. Langley goes on to state
- 44:55Speaker 1: that while Jeremy was playing, he went up behind him,
- 45:01Speaker 1: put his arm around his neck, lifted him off the
- 45:03Speaker 1: floor and choked him, and that he knew then he
- 45:08Speaker 1: was going to kill the six year old child. He
- 45:12Speaker 1: stated that Jeremy was kicking and that his little boots
- 45:16Speaker 1: came off his feet. He was kicking so hard to live.
- 45:21Speaker 1: He goes on to state he quote felt enjoyment while
- 45:25Speaker 1: he was choking the six year old child. That when
- 45:29Speaker 1: Jeremy quit moving, he carried him to his Langley's bedroom
- 45:36Speaker 1: and laid him on the bed. That he then put
- 45:40Speaker 1: his penis in the child's mouth, and ejaculated. He states.
- 45:48Speaker 1: Jeremy left Jeremy there and went about the task of
- 45:51Speaker 1: doing laundry. At some point, Jeremy was making noises, and
- 45:56Speaker 1: he then put a ligature around his neck, choked him,
- 46:00Speaker 1: pulling the ligature as hard as he could, tying the
- 46:03Speaker 1: ends of the court together, and stuffed a sock in
- 46:06Speaker 1: Jeremy's mouth. Those are the facts as recited by the
- 46:13Speaker 1: Court of Appeals of Louisiana, Third Circuit. Those are the
- 46:19Speaker 1: facts as we know them now. Alexandria Marzano Lessanovitch ended
- 46:25Speaker 1: up working on this case as an intern at a
- 46:29Speaker 1: law firm tasked with getting Langley out of the death penalty. Alexandria,
- 46:39Speaker 1: when you look back on your task of saving this
- 46:43Speaker 1: guy from the death penalty, and you contrast that with
- 46:47Speaker 1: the facts that I have just recited from the trial transcript,
- 46:53Speaker 1: what are your thoughts? You know? I I you said
- 46:56Speaker 1: something earlier that had really stayed with me, Nancy, when
- 46:58Speaker 1: you talked about how one thing about circumstantial evidence means
- 47:02Speaker 1: that we can tell a story out of it, and
- 47:04Speaker 1: this case was really a contest between stories. So, for example,
- 47:09Speaker 1: one of the really riveting facts you just gave us
- 47:12Speaker 1: that Langley ejaculated into Jeremy's mouth. It's really important to
- 47:17Speaker 1: note that at one trial that was given as a fact,
- 47:19Speaker 1: but at other trials that was not only disputed, but
- 47:22Speaker 1: in fact there was no physical evidence of it. So
- 47:25Speaker 1: that when they other than his statement and the sperm
- 47:28Speaker 1: all the boys teacher that when when they did uh
- 47:31Speaker 1: testing in Jeremy's mouth and would have expected to find ejaculate,
- 47:35Speaker 1: and when they tested the contents of Jeremy's stomach that
- 47:39Speaker 1: was not found. Interesting. So, Joe Scott Morgan, we have
- 47:43Speaker 1: him stating exactly what he did, and you've got the
- 47:50Speaker 1: boy lying on the bed, and all the other facts
- 47:53Speaker 1: that he stated in his confession are corroborated by the
- 47:57Speaker 1: physical evidence. There is the child else t shirt covered
- 48:02Speaker 1: in his ejaculate. Um. I get the sense that we're
- 48:07Speaker 1: now splitting hairs as to whether he ejaculated in his
- 48:12Speaker 1: mouth or not. Just Scott, can you help me out forensically?
- 48:16Speaker 1: I don't I don't necessarily know that that there would
- 48:19Speaker 1: be ejaculate uh readily visible or are detectable in the
- 48:25Speaker 1: child's mouth. But what we do know is that, uh,
- 48:29Speaker 1: I know it wouldn't be detectable in his stomach. Yeah,
- 48:33Speaker 1: that would. But keep keeping on what was alluded to
- 48:37Speaker 1: in the in the decision that you read, he went back.
- 48:40Speaker 1: It says that he went back and actually facilitated the
- 48:43Speaker 1: literature because he heard him moving. Now, he he might
- 48:47Speaker 1: not have been able to necessarily ingest in what we
- 48:51Speaker 1: would normally think. But yeah, I mean you would think
- 48:54Speaker 1: that in a manner which we would normally think. But
- 48:57Speaker 1: he he was still alive for that period of time.
- 49:01Speaker 1: And but what we do know is that there was
- 49:03Speaker 1: ejaculate that was tied back to this person on the shirt.
- 49:07Speaker 1: And this is this is an example of things that
- 49:09Speaker 1: I've seen in the past, particularly with individuals that are
- 49:14Speaker 1: basically necrophiles, after they've taken someone's life. In serial cases
- 49:19Speaker 1: I've been involved in, they they long to have a
- 49:23Speaker 1: control over an individual and then to stand over them
- 49:26Speaker 1: and uh and masturbate over bodies. And this is something
- 49:30Speaker 1: that you can see in the literature over and over
- 49:32Speaker 1: and over again. It is kind of a splitting hair's
- 49:35Speaker 1: issue here. What we do know is that there was
- 49:38Speaker 1: some type of sexual contact. The interesting thing though, is
- 49:41Speaker 1: was it anti mortem or pre or post mortem? I
- 49:45Speaker 1: have a question, just curious Alexandra. Why does it matter
- 49:51Speaker 1: if he ejaculated in the boy's mouth or not. You know,
- 49:56Speaker 1: it's important to note that Laura a. Gillary believes her
- 49:58Speaker 1: son was not molested iraculation. But why why is that important?
- 50:03Speaker 1: Because the facts really speak for themselves, don't they. You know? Then,
- 50:06Speaker 1: and then I think we wouldn't have had three trials.
- 50:08Speaker 1: But the spot of ejaculate that we've talked about was
- 50:11Speaker 1: actually on the back of his shirt, right, so if
- 50:15Speaker 1: he were lying on his back. I mean, one of
- 50:17Speaker 1: the things that was interesting about this case to me
- 50:20Speaker 1: is just that the facts can appear to be so simple,
- 50:22Speaker 1: and yet we have three trials and we never quite
- 50:25Speaker 1: nailed down what happened. And I think one of the
- 50:27Speaker 1: reasons that it is so important is because it goes
- 50:30Speaker 1: to sometimes this unknowability of the past. You know, I
- 50:33Speaker 1: saw this in my own life, that there were facts
- 50:36Speaker 1: and the abuse that were very very clear, and then
- 50:39Speaker 1: there were things that my body would hold or that
- 50:42Speaker 1: lived as memories inside me that I would never quite understand.
- 50:45Speaker 1: And I think it goes to what we're doing in
- 50:48Speaker 1: some ways when we decide whether someone is going to
- 50:51Speaker 1: live or die in the death penalty, case, but also
- 50:53Speaker 1: what we're doing when we tell ourselves a story out
- 50:55Speaker 1: of our own lives and try to make peace with
- 50:59Speaker 1: the I'm extent, the irreconcilable or unknowable past, is that
- 51:03Speaker 1: we try to figure out how to make sense. Dr
- 51:05Speaker 1: Chloe Carmichael joining us along with Alexandra Marzano Lezanovitch. Dr Chloe,
- 51:11Speaker 1: Alexandra brought up Guys with Me is Dr Chloe carmichael
- 51:17Speaker 1: website Anxiety tools dot com, Anxiety tools dot com. Dr
- 51:23Speaker 1: Chloe Um Alexandria is referring to the I guess dispute
- 51:31Speaker 1: of facts, which I don't really see. That the boy's dead,
- 51:36Speaker 1: my strangulation with a defendant seaman on his shirt, and
- 51:41Speaker 1: all the facts corroborate both the child lest station and murder,
- 51:45Speaker 1: so I'm not quite sure I see the issue. But
- 51:51Speaker 1: Dr Chloe, the fact that Alexandra has brought up the
- 51:55Speaker 1: child's mother, Laurelie, refused to believe that her child was molested,
- 52:00Speaker 1: even with a known pedophile that say that he wanted
- 52:03Speaker 1: to molest the boy since he first saw him, and
- 52:06Speaker 1: that he molested him horribly as he died. Why would
- 52:11Speaker 1: a mother not want to accept that fact about her
- 52:15Speaker 1: child's murder, that he was also molested. Yes, Nancy, that's
- 52:17Speaker 1: a that's a very it's a very painful question um
- 52:20Speaker 1: to confront, because of course Jeremy's mother has been through
- 52:23Speaker 1: so much already and um, having having lost her son,
- 52:27Speaker 1: and on a primal level, um, even though obviously it's
- 52:31Speaker 1: not her fault, there's a part of her that may
- 52:34Speaker 1: feel as if she failed to protect her son. And
- 52:37Speaker 1: so the more gruesome and the more horrible that her
- 52:40Speaker 1: son's death was, the more guilty and painful that she
- 52:45Speaker 1: might feel inside. So it's possible that there's just a
- 52:49Speaker 1: limit to how much she can understand and grasp here,
- 52:52Speaker 1: and sometimes the mind just kind of shuts off at
- 52:56Speaker 1: a certain point, and that might actually be the breaking
- 52:59Speaker 1: point here. Everyone with me. Alexandria Marzano Losnovich, author of
- 53:05Speaker 1: an incredible book, The Fact of a Body, a Murder
- 53:09Speaker 1: and a Memoir. Dr Chloe Carmichael joining me, psychologist out
- 53:13Speaker 1: of Manhattan, her website Anxiety tools dot Com, Forensics expert,
- 53:19Speaker 1: Professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. Joe Scott Morgan
- 53:24Speaker 1: and Alan Duke joining us from l A. Alexandria, where
- 53:29Speaker 1: does the case stand now, what was the resolution in
- 53:32Speaker 1: the murder case of Ricky Langley. He is serving a
- 53:36Speaker 1: life sentence and he will always be serving a life sentence.
- 53:39Speaker 1: He will be in president until he does so. At
- 53:41Speaker 1: the end of the day, Ricky Langley has escaped the
- 53:45Speaker 1: death penalty and seemingly everyone goes about their business except
- 53:50Speaker 1: Alexandria Marzano Wesnovitch and her incredible book The Fact of
- 53:55Speaker 1: a Body, a Murder and a Memoir. Thank you everyone.
- 53:58Speaker 1: Nancy Grace Crime Stories signing off, goodbye friend m