Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / SHOCK DISCOVERY: MISSING BABY MIYA, 8 MONTHS, FOUND WRAPPED IN PLASTIC IN KENTUCKY HOME
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
- 0:06Speaker 2: A shock discovery missing baby Maya just eight months old.
- 0:14Speaker 2: Her remains found wrapped in plastic? How did that happen?
- 0:20Speaker 2: And also why did months go by without her being
- 0:26Speaker 2: reported missing? A? Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories, Thank
- 0:31Speaker 2: you for being with us.
- 0:33Speaker 3: Kentucky State Police are desperately seeking information on eight month
- 0:37Speaker 3: old Maya Rudd of Reynold Station. A concerned family member
- 0:41Speaker 3: reports last seeing Maya in late April. Troopers performing a
- 0:46Speaker 3: welfare check are unable to locate the infant and are
- 0:49Speaker 3: now turning to the public for help. Maya Rudd has
- 0:52Speaker 3: brown hair and green eyes. Anyone with information is asked
- 0:56Speaker 3: to call State Police at two seven zero two nine
- 1:01Speaker 3: eight three two three five.
- 1:03Speaker 2: Light brown hair and green eyes. What could Maya have become?
- 1:12Speaker 2: What would she be?
- 1:13Speaker 1: What she grew up?
- 1:15Speaker 2: This beautiful, tiny infant baby that could be so much
- 1:25Speaker 2: is now just a statistic. Now all I've got is
- 1:32Speaker 2: her description, brown hair, green eyes, just a few months old.
- 1:42Speaker 2: And let me tell you something, There's gonna be hell
- 1:47Speaker 2: to pay again. I Nancy Grace and this is Crime Stories.
- 1:53Speaker 2: How does a baby go.
- 1:56Speaker 1: So long without being reported missing?
- 2:03Speaker 2: Reminds me of another baby that goes missing and is
- 2:08Speaker 2: not reported gone.
- 2:10Speaker 1: Does the name Kelly Anthony.
- 2:13Speaker 2: Ring a bell? If not, maybe the name top mom
- 2:16Speaker 2: Casey Anthony will listen, Oh my daughter finally, A babysom say,
- 2:23Speaker 2: I need to find her.
- 2:24Speaker 1: Your daughter admitted that the baby is where.
- 2:27Speaker 4: You took her months ago, that my daughter's been looking for.
- 2:30Speaker 1: I told you my daughter was missing four months.
- 2:32Speaker 5: I just found her.
- 2:33Speaker 3: Convey that I can't find my granddaughter.
- 2:35Speaker 5: She just admitted to me she's been trying to find herself.
- 2:40Speaker 4: There's something wrong.
- 2:41Speaker 2: I found my daughter's carts.
- 2:42Speaker 6: To day and it's not.
- 2:45Speaker 1: Okay. What is the three year old's name?
- 2:47Speaker 7: Kaylee?
- 2:48Speaker 8: C A y l e E.
- 2:50Speaker 1: Anthony joining me in All Star panel? It makes sense
- 2:53Speaker 1: of what we know right now.
- 2:54Speaker 2: Very often, out to Mitch Carter, or investigated reporter of
- 2:57Speaker 2: w f i E fourteen News Indiana, Mitch, people have
- 3:01Speaker 2: always often asked me, why did you focus on missing
- 3:06Speaker 2: Kelly out of all the stories.
- 3:08Speaker 1: And I can tell you how it happened.
- 3:10Speaker 2: Somebody said, well, there's a missing little girl two or
- 3:13Speaker 2: three years old out of Florida. I'm like, okay, how
- 3:15Speaker 2: long has she been missing? And they said thirty days.
- 3:17Speaker 2: I'm like, well, why am I just hearing about it
- 3:21Speaker 2: right now? And some body on the phone said, well,
- 3:24Speaker 2: she's just been reported missing. Am I stop? We're doing
- 3:29Speaker 2: that right there? Why was she not reported missing? And
- 3:34Speaker 2: that's what I want to hear. I want to hear
- 3:36Speaker 2: everything about this little baby just eight months. So let's
- 3:40Speaker 2: just take it from the top, Miss Carter joining me,
- 3:42Speaker 2: investigative reporter WFIE fourteen News. Mitch, start at the beginning,
- 3:49Speaker 2: when a welfare check was done by l E Law enforcement.
- 3:53Speaker 6: Go well, yeah, Nancy, you know, to understand this case overall,
- 3:56Speaker 6: you've got to go back here. You know, we know
- 3:58Speaker 6: KSP tells us that, you know, back in April is
- 4:01Speaker 6: the last time the family members tell them they actually
- 4:04Speaker 6: caught sight of baby Maya, prompting them to a welfare
- 4:06Speaker 6: check in June. Here now on June fifth, authority se.
- 4:09Speaker 2: Okay, hold on, hold on, you're telling me something I
- 4:12Speaker 2: don't know. Mitch, hold on to some moment, so family members,
- 4:17Speaker 2: somebody calls for a security check on Maya.
- 4:19Speaker 1: Where's Maya? Thank Heaven, or we would not have found Maya.
- 4:24Speaker 2: Somebody gets suspicious and when LA law enforcement go to
- 4:30Speaker 2: the family they say they haven't seen her since April.
- 4:33Speaker 1: Did I get that right?
- 4:34Speaker 6: So, like I was talking about there, you know, family
- 4:37Speaker 6: reaches out to law enforcement and says they haven't seen
- 4:39Speaker 6: baby Maya since April, prompting this welfare check.
- 4:42Speaker 2: Wait a minute, the child, the baby, an infant just
- 4:47Speaker 2: eight months old, had not been seen since April. I
- 4:51Speaker 2: mean to Robin Drink joining me in addition to Mitch
- 4:54Speaker 2: Carter WFIE fourteen, Robin behavioral expert for FBI Special agent.
- 5:02Speaker 2: Now listen to this part chief of the FBI Counterintelligence
- 5:05Speaker 2: Behavioral Analysis Program and author of Sizing People Up, a
- 5:11Speaker 2: veteran FBI agent's manual for behavior prediction, Robin Drake. That's
- 5:18Speaker 2: pretty impressive. But enough about you and onto my Robin.
- 5:24Speaker 2: Can I tell you I know the precise moment when
- 5:29Speaker 2: my twins left this morning to go to their job.
- 5:33Speaker 2: They have a job this summer. I know the moment
- 5:36Speaker 2: because I hadn't have my phone in my hand, and
- 5:39Speaker 2: I glanced down to see if they were going to
- 5:42Speaker 2: be late. They were not, of course, but I glanced
- 5:45Speaker 2: because I'd been hurrying them all morning. I remember that,
- 5:49Speaker 2: and I can look and see when I got texts
- 5:52Speaker 2: from them during the day. So how does somebody not
- 5:56Speaker 2: notice their child has been me sing for eight months?
- 6:02Speaker 4: Well, you described what we all do in our lives,
- 6:05Speaker 4: and that is we establish a great baseline of what
- 6:08Speaker 4: normal is in each of our lives. I'm the same
- 6:10Speaker 4: way with my kids. I can tell you know, I
- 6:12Speaker 4: have two adult kids. I can tell immediately if something's
- 6:15Speaker 4: going awry by a change in communication. And that's what
- 6:19Speaker 4: happened here. There was a change in communication and change
- 6:22Speaker 4: in contact with the child, and yet no one was
- 6:25Speaker 4: noticed in this baseline. And that's what we really need
- 6:27Speaker 4: to do. We need as family and friends to notice
- 6:30Speaker 4: these subtle changes and sometimes drastic changes and actually do
- 6:33Speaker 4: something about it faster so we can prevent things like this.
- 6:37Speaker 2: Well, I can't help but just wonder to doctor Jeff Kalshewsky,
- 6:42Speaker 2: renowned forensics psychologist, author of Darksides at Darksides dot Podia
- 6:47Speaker 2: dot com. Doctor Jeff, I can't help but project a
- 6:53Speaker 2: nefarious nature to this. Or is it true that some
- 6:57Speaker 2: parents it's you know, they hand the baby off to
- 7:00Speaker 2: an aunt or a cousin and.
- 7:03Speaker 1: Kind of just leave it there.
- 7:05Speaker 2: And so I naturally attach something to farious to not
- 7:10Speaker 2: mentioning your child hasn't been seen. But I guess there
- 7:14Speaker 2: could be an innocent explanation. Not in my world, but
- 7:18Speaker 2: maybe in their world. I mean, the baby is a
- 7:23Speaker 2: tiny little baby, and I don't understand how you can
- 7:26Speaker 2: just hand it off to someone and.
- 7:28Speaker 1: Not check on it.
- 7:29Speaker 4: Right.
- 7:29Speaker 8: This really opens the door to a lot of questions.
- 7:32Speaker 8: You know, most reasonable people obviously know where their children are,
- 7:37Speaker 8: and if their children are missing, they try to find
- 7:40Speaker 8: out why they call law enforcement. I have had several
- 7:44Speaker 8: cases where, similar to this, it's not reported, And the
- 7:48Speaker 8: first thing you think about is, you know, is there
- 7:51Speaker 8: some mal intent in not reporting? Even if something bad
- 7:55Speaker 8: happened to the baby, people at least would take the
- 7:59Speaker 8: baby to the hospital well to find out what happened.
- 8:02Speaker 8: But this situation just really opens up the door to
- 8:05Speaker 8: a lot of other questions about what's really going on
- 8:08Speaker 8: in this home.
- 8:08Speaker 2: In fact, to Robin Drake joining US behavioral expert former
- 8:11Speaker 2: FBI special Agent, Robin, I have to accept and I
- 8:16Speaker 2: learned this when prosecuting. I mean, I grew up in
- 8:20Speaker 2: a very rural, almost idyllic childhood where we were very loved,
- 8:27Speaker 2: so other lifestyles were foreign to me. But when you're
- 8:32Speaker 2: investigating and prosecuting. You have to accept that other people
- 8:36Speaker 2: have different lifestyles and frankly, that's none of my business
- 8:41Speaker 2: and I don't care what anybody does unless there's crime
- 8:44Speaker 2: scene tape around it, then it becomes my business. So
- 8:49Speaker 2: we have to accept the While we may not pack
- 8:53Speaker 2: our children off to an infant at just eight months old,
- 8:59Speaker 2: pack the maybe off to go live with someone else
- 9:02Speaker 2: or stay somewhere else, other people do that and in
- 9:07Speaker 2: their world they think it's okay. It's very hard for
- 9:10Speaker 2: me to relate to that.
- 9:11Speaker 4: Absolutely, and you described even you know what this little
- 9:15Speaker 4: child will have missed out on in a very idealic, beautiful,
- 9:18Speaker 4: healthy relationships with growing up. But like you said, everyone
- 9:22Speaker 4: has a different pattern of normal in their lives and
- 9:25Speaker 4: that's for every family to.
- 9:27Speaker 2: Decide what that is.
- 9:28Speaker 4: But it's still a pattern. And when we have a
- 9:30Speaker 4: deviation from that pattern, if we don't have the contacts
- 9:34Speaker 4: with whoever it is, whether it's the aunts and uncles
- 9:37Speaker 4: watching them or even just friends and family to watch them,
- 9:39Speaker 4: that will establish a pattern. I used to see my
- 9:41Speaker 4: grandmother every weekend growing up. That was different than other
- 9:44Speaker 4: families around me, But that was a pattern until it changes,
- 9:47Speaker 4: and so a change should prompt these questions from people
- 9:50Speaker 4: that are close enough to say, hey, what has changed,
- 9:53Speaker 4: what's going on? And most importantly, is it a healthy
- 9:56Speaker 4: change or is it a not healthy change? And what
- 9:58Speaker 4: are we going to do about it? Very important? What
- 10:01Speaker 4: question requires specific action?
- 10:09Speaker 2: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, in addition to Mitch Carter,
- 10:16Speaker 2: Robin Drike, and doctor Jeff Kalashewski now joining me, renowned prosecutor,
- 10:22Speaker 2: former deputy state's attorney, former assistant states attorney specializing in
- 10:27Speaker 2: child abuse and homicide, Fran Longwill Fran. We're discussing, thank
- 10:34Speaker 2: you for joining us, friend, We're discussing how in my
- 10:37Speaker 2: world for me not to see my infant child for
- 10:42Speaker 2: even a day is unheard of.
- 10:44Speaker 1: That would not happen period.
- 10:48Speaker 2: But you have to accept as a prosecutor, as an
- 10:51Speaker 2: investigator that other people have different lifestyles and while that
- 10:56Speaker 2: may not be okay with us, for them, it may
- 10:58Speaker 2: be normal for the baby to be gone from the home.
- 11:02Speaker 7: That's true. I've had many cases where I was kind
- 11:06Speaker 7: of shocked at how the people handled their children, Like
- 11:08Speaker 7: what just one time I said something about the child?
- 11:13Speaker 7: How did the child get out of their crib to
- 11:15Speaker 7: get in a case. And then I found out they
- 11:18Speaker 7: didn't sleep in a crib. They slept on the floor
- 11:20Speaker 7: on a mattress. And people just do live different ways.
- 11:24Speaker 2: So the baby slept on the floor. Okay, I would
- 11:27Speaker 2: find that odd too. And I remember a friend longwell,
- 11:31Speaker 2: I was investigating, and stop me if you've heard this
- 11:35Speaker 2: recount of a story. But I was prosecuting a triple
- 11:38Speaker 2: homicide and trying to find witnesses desperately and was knocking
- 11:43Speaker 2: on doors.
- 11:44Speaker 1: And I went into a woman's time.
- 11:47Speaker 2: She had to be about nineteen or twenty, and she
- 11:49Speaker 2: had anywhere from eleven to fifteen infant.
- 11:53Speaker 1: Babies lying on the floor, all swaddled tightly so.
- 11:58Speaker 2: They couldn't really move. There was like a soap opera
- 12:01Speaker 2: or something going on on a TV, and they were
- 12:04Speaker 2: all incredibly quiet, which also struck me as odd. And
- 12:07Speaker 2: I when I got out of there, I felt like
- 12:09Speaker 2: I just broke out of hell. But that was the
- 12:14Speaker 2: way she lived, and the parents, I assume, knew that's
- 12:17Speaker 2: how the babies were being taken care of. And like
- 12:20Speaker 2: you said, I've seen families where children are not allowed
- 12:25Speaker 2: to have any sugar, no cookie, no candy, no muffing, nothing,
- 12:33Speaker 2: and they get in trouble if they have a Snickers
- 12:36Speaker 2: bar or cookies at somebody's house.
- 12:39Speaker 1: Then I've seen families. I just covered a case the.
- 12:42Speaker 2: Other day friend, where a little girl, just absolutely precious,
- 12:47Speaker 2: was fed nothing but baby bottles of mountain dew until
- 12:52Speaker 2: she developed diabetes and died. The mom stood by while
- 12:56Speaker 2: all of her teeth rotted out and the baby died.
- 12:59Speaker 2: The child died, I think she was four years old
- 13:01Speaker 2: at the time. Nothing but bottles of mountain dew. But
- 13:06Speaker 2: in this case fran longwell, not just an alternative lifestyle,
- 13:10Speaker 2: but the baby is missing and nobody reports it.
- 13:15Speaker 1: How can you not look at that in a nefarious light.
- 13:19Speaker 7: I think it's very strange. And when a child is
- 13:24Speaker 7: the grandparents or someone should have known that child is missing.
- 13:26Speaker 7: Just like you said in the other case with the
- 13:29Speaker 7: little girl that was dead, it's impossible to think that
- 13:33Speaker 7: no one paid any attention to this poor little baby,
- 13:36Speaker 7: a brand new baby, and didn't report her missing. And
- 13:41Speaker 7: maybe the parents said she was around her she was
- 13:44Speaker 7: with a babysitter who knows.
- 13:45Speaker 4: You know.
- 13:46Speaker 2: The search for infant Maaya ends with her body being
- 13:51Speaker 2: discovered in a Kentucky home, wrapped in plastic. Before we
- 13:58Speaker 2: revisit the fact that she went for weeks without being
- 14:03Speaker 2: reported missing. Back to Mitch Carter, investigative reporter WFIE fourteen,
- 14:08Speaker 2: Mitch described to me the condition in which she was found.
- 14:15Speaker 6: Yeah, well, talking with Kentucky State Police. She was found
- 14:18Speaker 6: on Friday at one fifteen pm. They found her inside
- 14:22Speaker 6: wrapped in plastic, in a blanket underneath some debris.
- 14:25Speaker 2: Inside of that help hold on in just a moment. Inside, okay,
- 14:29Speaker 2: inside a home wrapped in plastic and then wrapped in
- 14:35Speaker 2: a blanket under debris inside a family home. Was she
- 14:41Speaker 2: wrapped in plasket plastic then a blanket or a blanket
- 14:45Speaker 2: and then plastic?
- 14:46Speaker 6: I think it's I think she's in a blankets, like
- 14:49Speaker 6: inside the plastic with her, if that makes sense.
- 14:51Speaker 9: We were told wrapped in and all that.
- 14:52Speaker 2: Okay, would you say that one more time because I
- 14:54Speaker 2: still don't understand.
- 14:55Speaker 4: Was she in so she's like in a blanket then
- 14:58Speaker 4: wrapped in plastic?
- 14:59Speaker 2: Got it?
- 15:00Speaker 4: You know?
- 15:00Speaker 1: Again?
- 15:01Speaker 2: That's reminding me so much of the way that Kelly
- 15:03Speaker 2: Anthony's body was found. She was in a black plastic
- 15:09Speaker 2: trash bag and her favorite blanket was in there with her,
- 15:14Speaker 2: which tells me a lot about who killed her, someone
- 15:18Speaker 2: that would pick out her blanket and bury it with her.
- 15:21Speaker 1: Mitch, thank you for that straight out.
- 15:24Speaker 2: Now to doctor Michelle Dupree, joining US recognized forensic pathologist
- 15:30Speaker 2: who shot to fame during the Alexan Murdog double murder trial,
- 15:34Speaker 2: medical examiner, former detective, author of Money, Mischief and Murder
- 15:39Speaker 2: the Murdog Saga the rest of the story, but for
- 15:42Speaker 2: my purposes. She is also the author of Homicide Investigation
- 15:46Speaker 2: Field Guide and Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide.
- 15:51Speaker 1: She literally wrote the book.
- 15:55Speaker 2: Doctor Dupree, You and I have investigated and covered a
- 15:59Speaker 2: lot of homicide cases, and to me, it's very significant
- 16:03Speaker 2: that the scene was staged.
- 16:06Speaker 1: It may Bee Maya's death.
- 16:08Speaker 2: What do I mean by that? Anytime you move a body,
- 16:11Speaker 2: touch a body, change a scene in any way, you
- 16:15Speaker 2: have staged a scene. You may make the murder or
- 16:18Speaker 2: the homicide look like a suicide. You may place a
- 16:22Speaker 2: gun in the victim's hand. You may cover up the
- 16:25Speaker 2: victim with a blanket. I've seen a case where a
- 16:29Speaker 2: mother was shot dead and the killer put a wicker
- 16:34Speaker 2: trash can over her head.
- 16:38Speaker 1: I've seen bodies covered in leaves.
- 16:40Speaker 2: I've seen faces covered just all sorts of staging, and
- 16:45Speaker 2: this is staged. The baby is wrapped, as you heard
- 16:48Speaker 2: Mitch Carter state, in a baby blanket and then in
- 16:52Speaker 2: plastic and then hidden under debris. That tells me the
- 16:58Speaker 2: killer knows the baby. Intimately, I want to hear what
- 17:01Speaker 2: you have to say.
- 17:02Speaker 9: Absolutely, Nancy, this is what we often call forensic countermeasures,
- 17:06Speaker 9: meaning that it is an attempt to cover up basically
- 17:09Speaker 9: the crime.
- 17:10Speaker 2: So they knew that this had happened, they knew that it.
- 17:13Speaker 9: Was wrong, and they're trying to cover it up by
- 17:15Speaker 9: wrapping the baby, probably in a favorite blanket, and then
- 17:18Speaker 9: putting it in a plastic bag.
- 17:20Speaker 2: This is unfathomable.
- 17:21Speaker 9: And to believe that someone did not recognize that this baby,
- 17:25Speaker 9: this infant who cannot walk cooktok, had not been seen
- 17:29Speaker 9: for so many days and did not report it sooner,
- 17:32Speaker 9: I can't imagine that.
- 17:33Speaker 2: It's unfathomable, Doctor Dupree, I don't know how you would
- 17:37Speaker 2: since the baby wasn't reported missing for so long, This
- 17:40Speaker 2: beautiful baby Maya.
- 17:42Speaker 1: With her light brown hair and her green eyes and her.
- 17:46Speaker 2: World before her, because she wasn't reported missing for so long,
- 17:50Speaker 2: how can we tell when she was killed?
- 17:54Speaker 9: Well, Nancy, we're going to look at several things. We're
- 17:55Speaker 9: going to look at any of the scene markers. That
- 17:58Speaker 9: means things that are around the scene where she's found,
- 18:01Speaker 9: see if there's anything that will give us a clue
- 18:02Speaker 9: to that time frame. We're also, of course going to
- 18:05Speaker 9: take a good look at the body itself. The body
- 18:08Speaker 9: can tell us so much about what happened and when
- 18:10Speaker 9: it happened, and of course the rate of the decomposition
- 18:14Speaker 9: of that body.
- 18:15Speaker 2: I'm curious, could you explain to everyone in your mind,
- 18:19Speaker 2: doctor Michelle Dupree, what is a quote scene marker? I mean,
- 18:25Speaker 2: for me, it would be if somebody was found and
- 18:30Speaker 2: inside the trash bag, something indicative or probative of the day,
- 18:38Speaker 2: like I don't know, a newspaper, a magazine, a doctor's appointment, schedule,
- 18:45Speaker 2: a prescription to something that would give me a date.
- 18:50Speaker 2: But there's so many varied scene markers. What do you mean,
- 18:55Speaker 2: give me an example of a scene marker.
- 18:57Speaker 9: Well, Nancy, everything that you said would be a scene marker.
- 19:00Speaker 9: It is something that is going to give us a
- 19:02Speaker 9: time of death or an approximate time of death. Mayo
- 19:06Speaker 9: that hasn't been opened this postmark the newspaper, as you mentioned,
- 19:10Speaker 9: anything like that that can possibly set the time that
- 19:13Speaker 9: is with the body where it is found either beside it,
- 19:16Speaker 9: in the bag or underneath it. Something that is going
- 19:19Speaker 9: to help us not down that time frame.
- 19:21Speaker 2: So, doctor Michelle duprey, other than extrinsic evidence to give
- 19:25Speaker 2: me a time of death or a date of death.
- 19:28Speaker 2: Other than extrinsic evidence, such as, as you were saying,
- 19:31Speaker 2: a scene marker, how can you the medical examiner look
- 19:35Speaker 2: at this baby girl, infant girl's body and determine how
- 19:40Speaker 2: long she's been dead, especially since she is seemingly hermatically
- 19:44Speaker 2: sealed in a blanket and plastic. I don't know if
- 19:47Speaker 2: it's just a plastic bag or she's wrapped in plastic tate.
- 19:51Speaker 2: Remember JJ and Tylely called Mom Laurie Valo's children. Remember
- 19:57Speaker 2: that Tilely was basically dirt down. Her body was rendered
- 20:02Speaker 2: down like an animal at a slaughter house. There's nothing
- 20:05Speaker 2: but a bucket of flesh left of Tiley, sweet gorgeous
- 20:10Speaker 2: young girl. JJ, however, was more along the lines of
- 20:14Speaker 2: being hermetically sealed, wrapped like a mummy in tape and
- 20:21Speaker 2: carefully hidden away the treatment of the two children vastly different.
- 20:27Speaker 2: So again, how do you look at anybody and I
- 20:30Speaker 2: don't know how she was sealed in the plastic and
- 20:34Speaker 2: determined date of death.
- 20:36Speaker 1: Well, that's exactly what we do, Nancy, is we look
- 20:38Speaker 1: at the environment.
- 20:41Speaker 2: How warm was it, you.
- 20:42Speaker 9: Know, what is the moisture content, how was the baby wrap?
- 20:46Speaker 9: Was it hermetically sealed or was it just simply put
- 20:48Speaker 9: into a plastic bag. We look at that decomposition. We
- 20:51Speaker 9: look at how that body decomposed, whether it is becoming
- 20:55Speaker 9: mummified or that means leathery, or is it doing something
- 21:00Speaker 9: else and decomposing in a different way. We also look
- 21:03Speaker 9: at the internal aspect of the body when we do
- 21:06Speaker 9: the autopsy and we look at the organs, we look
- 21:09Speaker 9: to see how they are decomposing or not and the
- 21:12Speaker 9: speed of that. And there have been many studies done,
- 21:15Speaker 9: especially you've probably heard of the body farm, and that's
- 21:18Speaker 9: where we get a lot of our data from. So
- 21:19Speaker 9: we're able to basically give good estimates. As you know,
- 21:25Speaker 9: time of death is only an estimate, and so that
- 21:28Speaker 9: way we can narrow it down at least to a
- 21:29Speaker 9: certain timeframe.
- 21:31Speaker 2: Joining us now on location is truper Corey King of
- 21:35Speaker 2: the Kentucky State Police Special guests joining us. Truper Corey King,
- 21:41Speaker 2: thank you for being with us. I sometimes wonder how
- 21:45Speaker 2: you keep going when you see cases like this. When
- 21:49Speaker 2: I would prosecute and investigate child murders, some babies as
- 21:55Speaker 2: young as baby Maya, I couldn't sleep for early weeks
- 22:01Speaker 2: after prosecuting a case like that. Tell me about your
- 22:05Speaker 2: involvement in the search for Baby Maya.
- 22:09Speaker 5: And this is a case that we haven't seen in
- 22:11Speaker 5: quite some time, and frankly, I'm not so sure I
- 22:13Speaker 5: have seen a case like this involving this young of
- 22:17Speaker 5: a child. She's a baby, And I think, really this
- 22:21Speaker 5: case is surrounds and highlights what drugs can do to
- 22:27Speaker 5: our families. And we have said it a thousand times
- 22:31Speaker 5: over that that heroin kills the user, methamfetamine kills everyone else,
- 22:37Speaker 5: and it bears repetition. That's the case with this particular
- 22:41Speaker 5: family was the drug trade that came first, the addiction,
- 22:45Speaker 5: and then unfortunately everything else was last. And what shocked
- 22:50Speaker 5: us more than anything probably at the very beginning. You see,
- 22:54Speaker 5: this started out as a drug invested investigation. We didn't
- 22:57Speaker 5: know there was a baby involved, And it wasn't until
- 23:01Speaker 5: this investigation started to get closer and closer to the
- 23:04Speaker 5: family did we realize that someone said, Hey, you do
- 23:07Speaker 5: know there's a six month old in this house, and
- 23:09Speaker 5: we were unaware of that, at least us in the
- 23:11Speaker 5: state Police. So then we had the questions, where's baby Maya?
- 23:16Speaker 5: And we could locate her. So when we closed in
- 23:18Speaker 5: on the family and arrested them, located them with a
- 23:21Speaker 5: plethora amount of drugs that's fentanyls, that's methamphetamine. There was
- 23:26Speaker 5: no baby. So when we went to go press them
- 23:29Speaker 5: on where is baby Maya, they immediately wanted to seek counsel,
- 23:35Speaker 5: which stopped all questioning and would not work with us
- 23:38Speaker 5: at all on her whereabouts.
- 23:40Speaker 2: Trooper Corey King, Yes, I know that any target, any suspect,
- 23:47Speaker 2: has the right to have counsel with them. They have
- 23:51Speaker 2: the complete right to the Fifth Amendment right to remain
- 23:54Speaker 2: silent as it should be under our constitution. Are big big, However,
- 24:03Speaker 2: when you are looking for a missing baby just a
- 24:07Speaker 2: few months, so you'd.
- 24:08Speaker 1: Think that somewhere in that addled brain of theirs.
- 24:14Speaker 2: They would say, Okay, I may have drugs in my home,
- 24:18Speaker 2: but where's my baby?
- 24:21Speaker 1: That's more important that never dawns on them, does it. No,
- 24:25Speaker 1: it doesn't.
- 24:25Speaker 5: And that was the biggest shocker to us was that
- 24:29Speaker 5: the entire family, it wasn't just mother and father, even
- 24:32Speaker 5: the grandparents, was not actively or overly cooperative with us,
- 24:39Speaker 5: and they certainly wasn't involved in the search for the
- 24:42Speaker 5: baby either. So all of this was very suspect in general.
- 24:47Speaker 5: We certainly agree that yes, based on the constitutions, certainly
- 24:52Speaker 5: everyone has the right to seek counsel and stop questioning
- 24:55Speaker 5: at any time. But we're talking about a baby in
- 24:57Speaker 5: which we had several working theories our mind. One we thought, okay,
- 25:02Speaker 5: someone's holding this child for the family because they knew
- 25:05Speaker 5: social services were coming to get this child. Secondly, they
- 25:08Speaker 5: sold the child, whether it be through human trafficking or
- 25:11Speaker 5: maybe for profit for drugs. And the third the most
- 25:15Speaker 5: grim was this baby was dead and we would never
- 25:19Speaker 5: find her. And that's where it was looking. The longer
- 25:22Speaker 5: this investigation we went, the more grim it looked, and
- 25:24Speaker 5: we actually thought we would never find this child. We
- 25:27Speaker 5: were very optimistic, but I think we were searching several
- 25:32Speaker 5: areas with cadaver dogs, thinking they disposed of this body
- 25:35Speaker 5: because he the father, was seen disposing of items in
- 25:40Speaker 5: nearby creeks and that's where we thought she was. So
- 25:43Speaker 5: we had active scenes with cadaver dogs, but it wasn't
- 25:46Speaker 5: until the second search of the property did we locate
- 25:50Speaker 5: this baby buried underneath mounds of debris and trash and filth,
- 25:58Speaker 5: and sadly, that was that baby's reality for six months.
- 26:02Speaker 2: Joining me is Trooper Corey King, Kentucky State Police, who
- 26:07Speaker 2: was actively involved in the search for baby Maya. I've
- 26:10Speaker 2: got so many questions and the rest of the panel.
- 26:12Speaker 2: Remember we are not having high tea at Windsor Castle.
- 26:16Speaker 1: Jump in.
- 26:17Speaker 2: Here's the source between Trooper King and Minch Carter. We're
- 26:22Speaker 2: going to get our questions answered. Did you say I
- 26:25Speaker 2: knew she was buried under debris inside of a home?
- 26:29Speaker 1: Could you describe that from me?
- 26:31Speaker 5: So those folks that have seen the scene, and many
- 26:35Speaker 5: of our local partners, media partners are out there filming.
- 26:37Speaker 5: There's a lot of debris on the outside, a lot
- 26:39Speaker 5: of clutter, trashy, not too uncommon to see those who are.
- 26:45Speaker 1: Addicted to drugs.
- 26:47Speaker 5: That comes that is priority. But the inside was equally
- 26:51Speaker 5: as cluttered, and it was the front room in which
- 26:54Speaker 5: we had been there one time before with a search,
- 26:57Speaker 5: and there was so much drug residue, animal feces, so
- 27:02Speaker 5: it really shocked all of us. And in fact, once
- 27:05Speaker 5: we did find her in a bunch of underneath a
- 27:07Speaker 5: bunch of rubble, we all had to go outside the
- 27:13Speaker 5: house and collect ourselves. We were hopeful, we really were.
- 27:16Speaker 5: We're hopeful someone's holding this baby, but unfortunately the reality
- 27:19Speaker 5: was we found her dead. And although we haven't made
- 27:23Speaker 5: a one hundred percent positive identification that comes through DNA,
- 27:27Speaker 5: which we did get, we all know this is baby Maya.
- 27:31Speaker 2: The trooper Corey King joining us Kentucky State Police. I
- 27:34Speaker 2: need people to understand because the first time I heard this,
- 27:38Speaker 2: I didn't understand it.
- 27:39Speaker 1: When you say you had to stop the search.
- 27:42Speaker 2: We just investigated the case of a baby boy, an
- 27:46Speaker 2: infant who died in daycare. Why did he die because
- 27:51Speaker 2: he breathed in fentonyl particles of fentanyl that were in
- 27:56Speaker 2: the air, because the fentanyl itself was moved in his.
- 28:01Speaker 1: And I think put under a rug and the baby
- 28:04Speaker 1: breathed in some particles and die.
- 28:06Speaker 2: So if you had you go in you see drug
- 28:08Speaker 2: residue joke pieripheralia everywhere. If you had taken those dogs
- 28:13Speaker 2: in and they had gotten one whiff of let's just
- 28:16Speaker 2: say fentanyl, then die. So you have to back out.
- 28:21Speaker 2: You can't go in, the canines can't go in. Everything
- 28:25Speaker 2: is off. And that's a heck of a predicament. You're
- 28:29Speaker 2: looking for a potentially dead infant baby girl and you
- 28:33Speaker 2: can't search because the house is so inundated with drug
- 28:39Speaker 2: residue that you have to pull the dogs out.
- 28:42Speaker 1: What can you tell me about that?
- 28:44Speaker 5: Clearly, findels are very transdermal and depending on the type
- 28:47Speaker 5: of fentnyls, which we weren't sure of. In fact, it's
- 28:50Speaker 5: become so dangerous for us we no longer test on site.
- 28:54Speaker 5: We collect and then send off for the lab to
- 28:56Speaker 5: do the work for But you're right, breathing in is
- 28:59Speaker 5: ait airborne transdermally, it can absorb and we can overdose
- 29:03Speaker 5: and die ourselves. Not to mention, we have assistance through
- 29:06Speaker 5: the canines which are very sensitive through the pause of
- 29:09Speaker 5: the animal as well as or snout, So it can
- 29:11Speaker 5: be very dangerous in that regard, But we weren't as
- 29:16Speaker 5: ensure we knew pounds of methamphetamine and fentanyls were coming
- 29:20Speaker 5: to this location and that's what started the investigation off.
- 29:24Speaker 5: But once we realized that baby was involved, it changed
- 29:27Speaker 5: the whole dynamic and the direction of this investigation. All
- 29:30Speaker 5: our hearts was looking It's all we wanted, but unfortunately,
- 29:34Speaker 5: everybody we went to that is involved in this family
- 29:39Speaker 5: ended up getting arrested, either for drugs or warrants. And
- 29:44Speaker 5: one of our detectives said it best is I've never
- 29:46Speaker 5: seen I never had an investigation like this to where
- 29:49Speaker 5: we literally have taken down almost an entire family tree
- 29:53Speaker 5: in a week and a half. And that's not what
- 29:56Speaker 5: we're wanting to do. We were simply wanting this baby.
- 30:00Speaker 5: I really think that a picture's worth a thousand words.
- 30:03Speaker 5: If I could tell you, I'll describe this to you.
- 30:06Speaker 5: In one of the child's room, I can only assume
- 30:09Speaker 5: the baby's room there was there was a baby bottle,
- 30:15Speaker 5: a pacifier, and narcan sitting next to each other. That
- 30:20Speaker 5: really said it.
- 30:21Speaker 7: All to me.
- 30:27Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
- 30:33Speaker 3: Kentucky State Police head to parents, Tesla Tucker and Cage
- 30:37Speaker 3: Rudd's last known address in nearby Rentalds Station, hopeful they
- 30:42Speaker 3: will locate Maya Rudd. Their conditions inside the home are deplorable.
- 30:47Speaker 3: The home is filthy, and troopers uncover more meth and
- 30:50Speaker 3: fentanil cage. Rudd's father, Ricky Smith, is believed to be
- 30:54Speaker 3: operating a drug trafficking scheme out of the home and
- 30:58Speaker 3: is arrested on several drugs and weapons charges. There is
- 31:02Speaker 3: zero indication that Maya Rudd is living in the Deanfield
- 31:06Speaker 3: Church Road home.
- 31:07Speaker 1: So if she's not there, where is she.
- 31:10Speaker 2: The bio dad, the bio mom, extended families, and others,
- 31:14Speaker 2: including the grandparents, their drugs are more important to them
- 31:18Speaker 2: than baby Maya. Mitch Carter joining me WFE fourteen News Indiana. Mitch,
- 31:25Speaker 2: where was defects in this scenario? Because it's my understanding
- 31:30Speaker 2: mentioned tell me if I'm wrong. Other siblings have been
- 31:33Speaker 2: taken removed from the home, But they leave the most
- 31:37Speaker 2: defenseless child there, just a few months old. They leave
- 31:41Speaker 2: her with the parents, and the baby is born with
- 31:47Speaker 2: meth in its system, but they go, oh, yeah, here,
- 31:51Speaker 2: take her home.
- 31:51Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll be great parents.
- 31:53Speaker 6: What the hey, Mitch, Yeah, I mean that's kind of
- 31:56Speaker 6: been the big talking point throughout this entire case, you know,
- 31:59Speaker 6: for us, and for those following along with the media
- 32:02Speaker 6: and along with along with KSP, with Drooper King, you know,
- 32:04Speaker 6: is wondering how did this happen? Because you know, any
- 32:07Speaker 6: any sane person you and I talking right now doesn't
- 32:09Speaker 6: make any sense to us, you know. And with that,
- 32:11Speaker 6: I spoke with Kory King about that specifically several times here,
- 32:14Speaker 6: and he told me that Friday before they found him remains,
- 32:17Speaker 6: we talked, We had an interview before, We had a
- 32:18Speaker 6: couple hours before, and he told me that as far
- 32:21Speaker 6: as he knows, they test that a buildical coort and
- 32:23Speaker 6: tested positive for meth. However, it takes a couple of
- 32:26Speaker 6: weeks for those results to get back.
- 32:27Speaker 4: In that time, they lose track, you know.
- 32:30Speaker 6: Social Services does of Tesla Tucker and Cage Rudd and
- 32:33Speaker 6: this baby and henceforth. You know, months go by and
- 32:36Speaker 6: here we find ourselves.
- 32:37Speaker 2: Now, Okay, Mitch Carter, you are a very well known
- 32:44Speaker 2: in that area, investigating reporter with w FIA. I'm amazed
- 32:49Speaker 2: that you kept a straight face just then when you
- 32:52Speaker 2: said defacts lost them and that quote. Months went by.
- 33:00Speaker 2: Really they couldn't find the baby. They weren't making a
- 33:05Speaker 2: secret about where they were living. I know that's the
- 33:08Speaker 2: information they told you. That's total bs. They've got a
- 33:12Speaker 2: baby born with meth in its system. The parents are druggies,
- 33:17Speaker 2: and they give the baby over look. They need to
- 33:20Speaker 2: take the other two children away, but they leave the baby.
- 33:24Speaker 1: Mitch, really you believe that that they couldn't find the parents.
- 33:29Speaker 6: I mean, at this point, you know, we've reached out
- 33:31Speaker 6: to social services to ask them kind of a slew
- 33:33Speaker 6: of questions. They're mainly talking about the you know, sort
- 33:37Speaker 6: of protocol they follow, if that makes sense to take
- 33:40Speaker 6: a family to take a child.
- 33:41Speaker 2: Sorry, I just choked, Yeah, I choked when you said
- 33:45Speaker 2: you're discussing following their protocol.
- 33:47Speaker 1: Mitch Minch Carter. They're lying. They're lying, and they're covering
- 33:53Speaker 1: their rear ends because.
- 33:55Speaker 2: They let the baby stay in the home and now
- 33:58Speaker 2: the baby's dead.
- 34:00Speaker 1: A wonderful exposa for you to work on.
- 34:05Speaker 2: Back to Trooper Corey King and Mitch please jump in,
- 34:10Speaker 2: okay with any information or questions for the trooper. Trooper
- 34:13Speaker 2: Corey King with us Kentucky State Police. Did you hear
- 34:16Speaker 2: what they told Mitch. He's just reporting what he's been told.
- 34:20Speaker 2: That is total BS. Of course, I'm not saying Defects
- 34:23Speaker 2: kill the baby. I'm saying the family kill the baby
- 34:27Speaker 2: and then hid the baby and plastic. But that said,
- 34:32Speaker 2: Defects knew this was a hell and they let the
- 34:35Speaker 2: baby stay there.
- 34:36Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 34:36Speaker 5: I think it's something that the state as a whole
- 34:39Speaker 5: will be looking into. They have made some legislative changes
- 34:44Speaker 5: within our state on accountability and who monitors what, particularly
- 34:50Speaker 5: in this case, what the social services can do and
- 34:54Speaker 5: not do. And I know they have a tough job,
- 34:57Speaker 5: but I can just tell you that this will be
- 35:00Speaker 5: looked into because, just like Mitch had mentioned, there was
- 35:05Speaker 5: three other children removed, she was born, odds are that
- 35:09Speaker 5: this child was gonna test positive for myth and lo
- 35:12Speaker 5: and behold she did. And that's the question is what
- 35:17Speaker 5: happened from October to where we locate the child?
- 35:22Speaker 1: Mits Carter WFIE fourteen.
- 35:25Speaker 2: Isn't it true the family actually told police Defects had
- 35:29Speaker 2: the baby.
- 35:29Speaker 1: Yes, actually that's true.
- 35:31Speaker 4: You know, Corey King and I spoke and he, like
- 35:33Speaker 4: you mentioned, they're already to you, Nancy.
- 35:35Speaker 6: Was that the folks who should know the most were
- 35:37Speaker 6: saying the least that are being extremely hard to work with,
- 35:40Speaker 6: which is their right to deplete the fifth and not speak.
- 35:42Speaker 6: But with that, all he was told right away, and
- 35:44Speaker 6: all KSP was told was the family told them that
- 35:47Speaker 6: social services had already taken the baby, and looking at
- 35:49Speaker 6: their records, that was plainly just untrue.
- 35:51Speaker 2: Okay, guys, I want to go to Robin Driek joining me,
- 35:55Speaker 2: former chief of the FBI Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program and author.
- 36:00Speaker 1: Robin, this is the baby's family.
- 36:03Speaker 2: They're lying there, are refusing to speak to police to
- 36:08Speaker 2: protect their own drug paraphernalia and drug possession in the
- 36:12Speaker 2: home right there. That's just scream to you regarding red
- 36:18Speaker 2: flags and their behavior.
- 36:19Speaker 1: One hundred percent.
- 36:20Speaker 2: Nancy.
- 36:20Speaker 4: The thing that keeps screaming at me in this is
- 36:22Speaker 4: we talk about it, and I keep talking about these
- 36:24Speaker 4: behavior arcs. They had three clues from social services that
- 36:30Speaker 4: they shouldn't have this baby in this house, whether with
- 36:32Speaker 4: testing for meth or not. If you have three other
- 36:34Speaker 4: siblings that are in protective custody of services, why not
- 36:38Speaker 4: automatically put this baby in that? I mean, it's really
- 36:41Speaker 4: just profound. And also I'm really curious about what other
- 36:45Speaker 4: criminal activities they're going to be uncovering, and maybe more
- 36:48Speaker 4: tragedy because drug addicts do horrendous things to service their
- 36:53Speaker 4: own needs. But I'm really curious about how come you
- 36:55Speaker 4: have three children already in services and the one wasn't
- 36:58Speaker 4: joining me.
- 36:59Speaker 2: In addition to an All Star panel is Trooper Corey King,
- 37:02Speaker 2: Kentucky State Police Trooper King. You mentioned that several of
- 37:08Speaker 2: your people had to come outside and quote your words,
- 37:12Speaker 2: collect themselves. I will never forget as a prosecutor coming
- 37:17Speaker 2: up to a murder scene and I saw the first
- 37:22Speaker 2: thing I saw was an APD Atlanta Police Department officer
- 37:25Speaker 2: outside bent over vomiting. First thing I saw. I said
- 37:31Speaker 2: what happened to him as I walked in? And they say, Rookie,
- 37:36Speaker 2: he had never seen a homicide scene or smelled, which
- 37:42Speaker 2: I think is much worse a homicide scene. Before all
- 37:46Speaker 2: that aside the first child homicide I ever had, I'll
- 37:52Speaker 2: never forget it. I'll never forget it. I had to
- 37:57Speaker 2: pretend I was looking for a witness in the hall.
- 38:00Speaker 2: I asked to be excused in the courtroom so I
- 38:03Speaker 2: could go outside, quickly, find a lady's bathroom, go in
- 38:07Speaker 2: a stall, and just get it together and get back
- 38:12Speaker 2: in there and prosecute that case. Describe to me the
- 38:17Speaker 2: reaction of the other troopers and l law enforcement when
- 38:21Speaker 2: they realize.
- 38:23Speaker 1: They have found Maya, a little baby girl. You know
- 38:28Speaker 1: how much people would pay in this country fifty sixty grand.
- 38:32Speaker 2: Or more to have a little baby girl like her,
- 38:36Speaker 2: and here she is wrapped up in plastic and dead
- 38:39Speaker 2: under a bunch of trash.
- 38:41Speaker 5: Yeah, it was very surreal, and in fact, I think
- 38:44Speaker 5: the lead investigator was he almost felt like he was
- 38:49Speaker 5: on the wrong path. He really was hopeful. We all
- 38:52Speaker 5: were very optimistic, and we certainly did not expect to
- 38:59Speaker 5: find her there, and we really wanted her to be
- 39:03Speaker 5: alive somewhere. That's why we kept this case in the forefront.
- 39:06Speaker 5: Every day we was doing updates. I know Ms Carter
- 39:09Speaker 5: can tell you we were out on the scene every
- 39:11Speaker 5: day making sure even the smallest bit of information was there.
- 39:15Speaker 5: As soon as we found her little body, and what
- 39:19Speaker 5: comes along with a decaying body, that crushed everyone's spirit.
- 39:25Speaker 5: And it really you can just you can just feel
- 39:28Speaker 5: the tension in the air, and we all huddled, and
- 39:32Speaker 5: that completely changed the dynamic of our investigation. We went
- 39:36Speaker 5: from a search investigation hopefully we would find her alive,
- 39:42Speaker 5: and then it went to a death investigation and in
- 39:46Speaker 5: a matter of a snap of a finger, it changed
- 39:49Speaker 5: and everyone's mood went completely A one eighty Trooper.
- 39:53Speaker 2: Corey King, I want to thank you on behalf of everyone,
- 39:56Speaker 2: and please pass on to your people our deep, deep thing.
- 40:00Speaker 1: Thanks for finding this baby. The only thing left now
- 40:05Speaker 1: is to seek justice.
- 40:08Speaker 2: Thank you to our guests, and I want to thank
- 40:11Speaker 2: you for caring about these crime victims, especially maybe Maya.
- 40:20Speaker 1: Nancy Gray signing off, goodbye friend.