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"WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING" HIT MOVIE, REAL LIFE MURDER? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace? How has this happened? A
0:15
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller who's been on the best seller
0:19
Speaker 1: list I think one hundred and sixty six consecutive weeks,
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Speaker 1: has sold over twelve million copies of the book, which
0:29
Speaker 1: is now a major motion picture, where the Crawdads sing
0:35
Speaker 1: is wanted for questioning in a murder. I Nancy Grace,
0:42
Speaker 1: this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us
0:45
Speaker 1: here at Fox Nation and series XM one eleven. How
0:49
Speaker 1: has this happened? First of all, take a listen to
0:53
Speaker 1: our friend Joe Freyer at the Today Show jumping from
0:57
Speaker 1: the page to the screen where The Crime Dad Singh
1:00
Speaker 1: is a highly anticipated film based on the best selling
1:04
Speaker 1: novel Girl. It's a fictional story about a murder in
1:09
Speaker 1: North Carolina in the nineteen sixties, but in real life,
1:13
Speaker 1: author Delia Owens is facing questions about a deadly shooting
1:16
Speaker 1: in Africa in the nineties. Editor in chief of The Atlantic,
1:20
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Goldberg first reported that Owens is wanted for questioning
1:24
Speaker 1: in the shooting. I've spoken with many leaders of the
1:27
Speaker 1: Criminal Investigation Department of the Zambia National Police and they
1:31
Speaker 1: are very, very eager to speak to Delia Owens. In
1:34
Speaker 1: the mid nineties, Delia, under then husband Mark, ran a
1:37
Speaker 1: conservation center in Zambia protecting elephants from poachers. Nineteen ninety six,
1:42
Speaker 1: they were the subject of an ABC documentary called Deadly Game,
1:46
Speaker 1: where one scene shows an alleged poacher being fatally shot.
1:50
Speaker 1: The victim is not identified, neither is the shooter. A
1:54
Speaker 1: mystery that was never sought. With me is an incredible
1:58
Speaker 1: panel to make sense of what we know right now.
2:00
Speaker 1: But the banner, the headline is a New York Times
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Speaker 1: best seller, an incredible author, sold over twelve million copies.
2:09
Speaker 1: Now the movies coming out where the crawdads singing, It's
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Speaker 1: an incredible movie itself. Wanted in questioning for a murder.
2:21
Speaker 1: Rebecca Rosenberg is joining me from Fox News. She's the
2:24
Speaker 1: author of many books, but the one that really knocked
2:27
Speaker 1: me out was At any Cost, the story of Rod
2:30
Speaker 1: Kavlin and his dead wife, Shelley Denishevsky. Think you know
2:35
Speaker 1: the rest of that story. But before I go to Rebecca,
2:38
Speaker 1: I want to go to Grace Stafford, longtime friend and colleague,
2:42
Speaker 1: host of Zoologic podcast, author and zoo aquarium consultant Gray
2:48
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us, Grey, what's the name
2:50
Speaker 1: of your book. My book is called Zoom Melody in
2:52
Speaker 1: a Time Animal Training in a zoo setting and tips
2:55
Speaker 1: you can use for your own animals at home. Zoom Melody.
2:58
Speaker 1: I'm Gray, I can I could use that. You know.
3:01
Speaker 1: We've got let's say, one, two, three, or four four pets,
3:04
Speaker 1: two guineas, rescue, cat rescue, dog rescue, the twins, and
3:09
Speaker 1: my grandmother. I'm not even throwing David into that mix,
3:12
Speaker 1: but there you go. So there's a lot of breakfast
3:15
Speaker 1: going on here, Gray. The poaching scene there and Zambia
3:22
Speaker 1: is brutal, brutal. Just give me a thumbnail on that
3:28
Speaker 1: before we get started. Well, Nancy, many range countries in
3:31
Speaker 1: Africa have suffered under terrible poaching. And we're not talking
3:34
Speaker 1: about the subsistence hunter, the people who are trying to
3:37
Speaker 1: feed their families and keep their small farms going. We're
3:40
Speaker 1: talking about organized crime on a mass scale, and unfortunately,
3:45
Speaker 1: very often the rangers design need to protect these areas
3:49
Speaker 1: are underpowered. They don't have the tools they need to
3:53
Speaker 1: go out and protect these areas, protect those elephants. As
3:56
Speaker 1: you say, so, the poachers often have an upper hand
3:59
Speaker 1: in way out in her populations of animals, particularly endangered
4:03
Speaker 1: species like African alpers. Now, when you say organized crime,
4:07
Speaker 1: so this isn't a boy and his dad sneaking onto
4:13
Speaker 1: somebody's property and shooting a couple of birds and bringing
4:18
Speaker 1: them home, or shooting a squirrel or whatever they shoot
4:21
Speaker 1: and bringing it home. Because I remember growing up, not
4:26
Speaker 1: my brother, but some boys in our neighborhood would go
4:30
Speaker 1: and hunt rabbits and squirrels on a big landowner's farm
4:35
Speaker 1: and they would bring them home and eat them. I
4:38
Speaker 1: guess if they could get through the buckshot, that's up
4:40
Speaker 1: to them. But you know, that's what most people think
4:44
Speaker 1: about poaching. But this is a lot different than that
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Speaker 1: gray staffort. I mean, people are murdered. They are murdered
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Speaker 1: with knives, they are murdered with machetes, they are murdered
4:56
Speaker 1: with guns. Poachers are killed, the teams that are there
5:00
Speaker 1: to stop the poachers are killed, and the bodies usually
5:03
Speaker 1: are never found there left in the jungle for the
5:06
Speaker 1: animals to eat, and they do eat. There's never evidence
5:08
Speaker 1: of the crime. Yeah, this goes on, and unfortunately, you
5:11
Speaker 1: know the oversight of these these programs is often based
5:16
Speaker 1: upon the stability and the strength of the government itself.
5:18
Speaker 1: Oh well, there you go. You know what everybody finds
5:21
Speaker 1: all the time about living in America. This is bad,
5:24
Speaker 1: that's bad. You said this, you said that. You know,
5:28
Speaker 1: in other countries, it's so horrible in so many different ways.
5:35
Speaker 1: And I found one way that affects me is the
5:38
Speaker 1: police investigations in other countries are nil there. For instance,
5:44
Speaker 1: when we went when I went with Natalie Holloway's mother
5:46
Speaker 1: just recently, Grey, you and I were talking about this.
5:50
Speaker 1: We went to Aruba to retrace Natalie's steps and to
5:53
Speaker 1: dig up some leads. There was no nine one one.
5:57
Speaker 1: And when Natalie's we went to Aruba to try to
6:02
Speaker 1: find her daughter, just drop everything, go to Aruba and
6:06
Speaker 1: stay for months on end. The police not only didn't
6:10
Speaker 1: help her and ignored her, they actually tried to thwart
6:14
Speaker 1: the family finding Natalie. People just don't get how lucky
6:19
Speaker 1: we are to live in this country. But before I
6:22
Speaker 1: start on that, I want you to take a listen
6:24
Speaker 1: now to our friend Madelite del Banco NPR. For months,
6:29
Speaker 1: the movie's publicists have told me the author is not
6:32
Speaker 1: available to comment, so the news continues to hang over
6:36
Speaker 1: the film like Spanish moss over a murky Bayou. Okay.
6:51
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift wrote and sang on the film's soundtrack, saying
6:55
Speaker 1: on Instagram she wanted to create something haunting and ethereal
6:59
Speaker 1: to match the mesmerizing story, but she's faced social media
7:03
Speaker 1: backlash for her involvement in the film. In an interview,
7:06
Speaker 1: the director and star of the movie both told me
7:09
Speaker 1: they don't know anything about Delia owens past, though they
7:12
Speaker 1: did say she has a cameo in the film. Well,
7:15
Speaker 1: the past is certainly coming back to haunt her. Or
7:17
Speaker 1: take a listen to our cut seven our friends at NBR.
7:21
Speaker 1: It took wildlife scientists Delia Owens a decade to write
7:24
Speaker 1: Where the Crawdad Sing. It's now been on the New
7:27
Speaker 1: York Times bestseller list for one hundred and sixty eight weeks.
7:31
Speaker 1: Here she is on CBS Sunday Morning. It holds the
7:34
Speaker 1: record for being number one for the most weeks. And
7:38
Speaker 1: this was your very first novel. First novel. Actress Rhese
7:41
Speaker 1: Witherspoon loved it so much she added it to her
7:44
Speaker 1: popular book club and produced the film adaptation. It just
7:47
Speaker 1: blew me away. It felt like when I was reading
7:50
Speaker 1: to Kill a Mockingbird or just any sort of classic
7:54
Speaker 1: southern literature. She layers on this thriller element. There's a murder. Murder,
8:00
Speaker 1: a real life murder in the mid nineteen nineties is
8:03
Speaker 1: the big elephant in the room. With the film's release,
8:06
Speaker 1: news has resurfaced that Owens is still wanted for questioning
8:11
Speaker 1: by Zambian authorities as a possible witness, co conspirator, and
8:15
Speaker 1: accessory to federal crimes. Joining me right now from Fox News.
8:19
Speaker 1: The author of many books, including At Any Cost, which
8:23
Speaker 1: was great, Rebecca Rosenberg, Rebecca, thank you so much for
8:26
Speaker 1: being with us. I mean, Where the Crawdad's Sing? Incredible,
8:30
Speaker 1: incredible book. I know why it's been on the New
8:33
Speaker 1: York Times bestseller list for so long, and that's really
8:37
Speaker 1: hard to get on the list and stay on much
8:39
Speaker 1: less stay on it much. Let's stay on it for
8:41
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty eight consecutive weeks. Have it turned
8:45
Speaker 1: into a movie, and now this comes out. I guess
8:49
Speaker 1: all the fanfare surrounding Where the Crawdad's Sing has brought
8:54
Speaker 1: out allegations and claims regarding the murder. What happened with
9:00
Speaker 1: the murder? Rebecca? So back in the nineties, Delia and
9:06
Speaker 1: her sin husband Mark Owen were involved in conservation efforts
9:12
Speaker 1: in Southern Africa, including Zambia, and ABC did a documentary
9:18
Speaker 1: like a TV documentary on this and went and sent
9:21
Speaker 1: out a crew to sort of follow them around. It
9:24
Speaker 1: was about the couple and their efforts and and they
9:30
Speaker 1: ended up in this remote location and it turned out
9:33
Speaker 1: this came out later, but it turned out it appeared
9:37
Speaker 1: that the stepson shot an alleged poature, just opened fire
9:41
Speaker 1: on him and killed him. And then his father helped
9:45
Speaker 1: cover this up, took the body and dumped it in
9:50
Speaker 1: the ocean, put it in this helicopter, dumped it in
9:52
Speaker 1: the ocean. And so please believe that our the Ambian
9:56
Speaker 1: officials believe that that the couple may have been involved
10:01
Speaker 1: in a cover up or an accessory. And it wasn't
10:04
Speaker 1: just that they had a very aggressive approach to conservation.
10:10
Speaker 1: The husband had like a team of sixty scouts under
10:13
Speaker 1: him that would resort to violence in their anti coaching efforts.
10:18
Speaker 1: So they think they may have committed other climes as
10:20
Speaker 1: well involved in those anti coaching efforts. I know that
10:25
Speaker 1: when the author, Adelia Owens, and her husband and son
10:30
Speaker 1: left the group they came in to take up monitoring
10:34
Speaker 1: and finding the poachers had to convince the men, their team,
10:41
Speaker 1: their squad to stop saluting, and apparently they were all
10:46
Speaker 1: armed with multiple weapons. And this poacher, whoever he may be,
10:51
Speaker 1: has never been found. Take a listen to our friend
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Speaker 1: Jim Moray at Inside Edition. Nigel Smith is movies editor People,
11:00
Speaker 1: which has also covered the story. Shortly after the killing,
11:04
Speaker 1: Delia and her ex husband moved away from Africa to Idaho,
11:09
Speaker 1: a very remote part of Idaho and basically kind of
11:13
Speaker 1: fled the scene, if you will, so you have to
11:15
Speaker 1: come to my horsepow Greece. Witherspoon fell in love with
11:18
Speaker 1: Owen's novel and produced the movie. The murder investigation was
11:21
Speaker 1: dormant for decades, but the success of the book and
11:24
Speaker 1: now the movie have put a spotlight on the case.
11:28
Speaker 1: I don't think this is the last we're going to
11:30
Speaker 1: be hearing from this, because Delia Owens is in the
11:32
Speaker 1: spotlight in such a huge way. Right now, we don't
11:35
Speaker 1: have any evidence, one way or the other what happened
11:39
Speaker 1: when you have a whole team or a squad of
11:42
Speaker 1: people that are all armed to the hilt and someone
11:46
Speaker 1: allegedly gets shot, their body disposed of. Who did what
11:52
Speaker 1: in the middle of a jungle? Is she and her
11:55
Speaker 1: family being targeted because they're famous now or did this
11:59
Speaker 1: really happen? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Let me go
12:18
Speaker 1: to Mark Tate, joining me, high profile lawyer out of Savannah,
12:22
Speaker 1: Georgia with a Tate Law group. Mark Tate, Now we
12:27
Speaker 1: both know the law that at least in your jurisdiction,
12:31
Speaker 1: a judge will no longer charge the jury at the
12:35
Speaker 1: end of the case on flight when you leave the
12:38
Speaker 1: scene of the crime. Suggesting that that indicates guilt. However,
12:43
Speaker 1: the prosecutor can argue it. Let me just throw out
12:46
Speaker 1: an easy example, Scott Peterson. I mean, really, he's an
12:50
Speaker 1: example for so many things. But there he is with
12:53
Speaker 1: his hair dyed bleach blonde, with his brother's ID, ten
12:57
Speaker 1: thousand dollars cash, camping supply, water filters, and of course
13:03
Speaker 1: a lot of viagra. So he's on the run. What
13:06
Speaker 1: does that indicate? Maybe nothing to you, Mark Taple. To
13:09
Speaker 1: a jury, it means he was fleeing the crime and
13:13
Speaker 1: didn't want to get caught, and that is what is
13:15
Speaker 1: going to be argued here. With Delia Owen's and her
13:18
Speaker 1: husband and her stepson well that she's wanted for questioning,
13:22
Speaker 1: and apparently so is her stepson. However, as you well know,
13:27
Speaker 1: Nancy Anne, you don't have to answer police questions. You
13:31
Speaker 1: have a right, at least in the United States for
13:33
Speaker 1: protection from that under the Fifth Amendment. So she doesn't
13:37
Speaker 1: have to answer anything. You don't have to help the
13:39
Speaker 1: police in their investigation. Can't lie to him because then
13:41
Speaker 1: you're abstracting, but you don't have to answer the questions. Also,
13:44
Speaker 1: I think there's a massive concern about Zambian investigatory and
13:49
Speaker 1: prosecutorial tactics. They are known, It's been written about in
13:54
Speaker 1: law reviews all over the country as well as internationally.
13:59
Speaker 1: They participate paid in the lower court level and what
14:02
Speaker 1: they call trial by ambush, and you don't have the
14:05
Speaker 1: right to discovery as you do in the United States
14:09
Speaker 1: criminal justice system, both federal and states. Instead, the prosecutors
14:13
Speaker 1: can hold everything back and spring it on your trial,
14:16
Speaker 1: forcing your defense lawyer then to claim a continuance or
14:19
Speaker 1: requested continuance. Can I just respond to you absolutely, Okay.
14:26
Speaker 1: I'm asking you about a dead guy whose body is
14:29
Speaker 1: thrown to the ocean and you're telling me about what
14:32
Speaker 1: a bad time defense attorneys have in Zambia in court
14:35
Speaker 1: because the prosecutors brings evidence on them. Okay, number one,
14:39
Speaker 1: you're putting the cart before the horse. So can we
14:41
Speaker 1: get the spotlight off an imaginary defense attorney at an
14:45
Speaker 1: imaginary trial in Zambia and focus on the fact that
14:51
Speaker 1: you're not in Kansas anymore. Of course, all the constitutional
14:55
Speaker 1: protections we have do not apply in Zambia. And I
14:59
Speaker 1: think you on that tangent correctly when you were talking
15:03
Speaker 1: about here in the US. Anyway, you don't have to
15:08
Speaker 1: cooperate with police when you are a target, when you
15:12
Speaker 1: are a suspect or a person of interest, When you're
15:14
Speaker 1: a witness and you are summoned to come in and
15:18
Speaker 1: testify in court and you don't, you can sit your
15:21
Speaker 1: booty in jail until suddenly you decide to talk. You
15:25
Speaker 1: can enjoy three hots and a cot until it's time
15:28
Speaker 1: for you to testify. So if they think it's the stepson,
15:33
Speaker 1: don't know if it is or isn't. But if they
15:36
Speaker 1: think the step son fired the shot, he in our
15:40
Speaker 1: country wouldn't have to come in and cooperate. But the mother,
15:43
Speaker 1: the stepmother, the author and her husband do because correct
15:47
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong it was somehow the law has
15:49
Speaker 1: changed in the last couple of weeks. But there is
15:52
Speaker 1: no father son or mother's stepson privilege such as attorney
15:56
Speaker 1: client or prince, parishioner or husband wife, right. I think
16:00
Speaker 1: that's right. Sure, so you darn tu and they're gonna
16:03
Speaker 1: have to cooperate. I don't know what happens in Zambia,
16:05
Speaker 1: United States, and you don't either. Of course, if that
16:07
Speaker 1: was if that was an American, an American citizen who
16:11
Speaker 1: was killed, obviously she can be tried in the United States.
16:15
Speaker 1: First of all, she's not gonna be tried because nobody's
16:18
Speaker 1: alleging that she pulled the trigger. As the step son tape, well,
16:22
Speaker 1: we don't know, Okay. Can you stop saying we don't know? Yeah,
16:26
Speaker 1: because let's just do a blanket in mark tape. And
16:28
Speaker 1: I know it helps your argument to keep saying I
16:30
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know either. Does anybody on this
16:32
Speaker 1: panel know what happened? Because if you do, Jackie Sydney, no,
16:36
Speaker 1: nobody knows, so that's a given. Well, I can tell
16:39
Speaker 1: you I saw the video, Okay, tell me I saw
16:43
Speaker 1: the video. There were a number of people chasing a
16:46
Speaker 1: poacher exactly what they say as a poacher, and a
16:49
Speaker 1: number of shots are fired into into the into what
16:52
Speaker 1: appears to be a human that's no longer moving or
16:56
Speaker 1: no longer alive. Yea, no faces are seen. Mark tape.
16:59
Speaker 1: I've got to say you're absolutely correct on that. Guys,
17:04
Speaker 1: there's video. Take a listen to our friends at the
17:08
Speaker 1: New Yorker. This is Jeffrey Goldberg. My name is Jeffrey Goldberg,
17:12
Speaker 1: and I've written an article in this week's New Yorker
17:14
Speaker 1: about the activities of a pair of American conservationists, Mark
17:18
Speaker 1: and Deelia Owens, who went to study hyaenas and lions
17:22
Speaker 1: and other large mammals, but got caught up in what
17:26
Speaker 1: could be best described as the Poaching Wars. When Mark
17:30
Speaker 1: and Delia Owens got to the North Polanga National Park,
17:33
Speaker 1: the poachers were decimating the park's elephant population, and they
17:38
Speaker 1: found virtually no law enforcement presence at all. They found
17:43
Speaker 1: scouts assigned to the park who were bedraggled and essentially unarmed.
17:47
Speaker 1: They raised money and bought uniforms and food and weapons
17:51
Speaker 1: to take these newly trained scouts into the bush, bringing
17:55
Speaker 1: the fight to the poachers. You know, I want to
17:57
Speaker 1: hear more from Jeff Goldberg, but I want to bring
17:59
Speaker 1: it home to Gray Stafford joining me, the host of
18:02
Speaker 1: Zoologic podcast. He's awesome. I met you first many many
18:08
Speaker 1: years ago at the Wildlife World Natural Zoo, and you
18:17
Speaker 1: were the resident expert in the white tiger that I
18:23
Speaker 1: still have a photo of up right now. I'll never
18:27
Speaker 1: forget it. Gray Stafford joining me. He's an author of
18:31
Speaker 1: Zoomility and he is a renowned consultant regarding zoos and aquariums. Gray,
18:39
Speaker 1: I can't stress it enough how violent the poaching scene
18:44
Speaker 1: and Zambia is. We're talking about poaching protected animals. We're
18:53
Speaker 1: talking about killing elephants, mommy and baby elephants to saw
19:00
Speaker 1: off their tusks for the ivory we're talking about. You
19:05
Speaker 1: tell me you're the expert. I'm just a lawyer. I mean,
19:08
Speaker 1: it's a brutal and it's a high stakes money enterprise.
19:12
Speaker 1: Organized crime is there in the jungle, murdering these animals,
19:18
Speaker 1: taking their carcasses, taking whatever they can't. It's it's a
19:22
Speaker 1: blood bath and the jungle. It can be and has
19:25
Speaker 1: been historically in a lot of these countries. You know,
19:28
Speaker 1: Like anything, the poaching crisis waxes and wanes, but when
19:33
Speaker 1: it's bad, it's really bad. And as your set apiece
19:38
Speaker 1: mentioned many times, the people charged with protecting these areas
19:42
Speaker 1: and the animals that live in them are under equipped
19:45
Speaker 1: and poorly trained. Now that's changing over the time, you know,
19:48
Speaker 1: since the nineties, but it's still a very very serious
19:51
Speaker 1: problem because the gangs themselves, the syndicates are even more
19:56
Speaker 1: savvy than it used to be. They have technology, they've
19:59
Speaker 1: got money, and so it is a serious problem that
20:01
Speaker 1: hasn't gone to wait completely at all. I mean, how
20:04
Speaker 1: much are they making if you kill if you murder
20:07
Speaker 1: one elephant and saw its tusks off, how much could
20:10
Speaker 1: they make off that gray stafford depending on the size,
20:14
Speaker 1: you know, tens of thousands of dollars. Obviously, the value
20:17
Speaker 1: of ivory changes, and there have been steps to try
20:20
Speaker 1: to reduce the value of ivory. China and others have
20:23
Speaker 1: tried to clamp down on legal ivory trade, much less
20:28
Speaker 1: illegal ivory trade, but it's still you know, rhino horn
20:32
Speaker 1: is worth more than gold per ounce. Rhinos are often
20:35
Speaker 1: poached for their horns, even though it's just fingernail material,
20:39
Speaker 1: so it continues to be a very serious problem. But look,
20:43
Speaker 1: I've only got a JD. You're the zoology expert. You're
20:47
Speaker 1: saying a rhinos horn is only fingernail material. I believe
20:54
Speaker 1: it's what you said. Explain well, a lot of people
20:56
Speaker 1: think different parts of the world that it's got medicinal use.
21:00
Speaker 1: Do you mean for impotency? Yeah, got out there whining
21:04
Speaker 1: to men or they're afraid to say impotent Just put
21:07
Speaker 1: it out there, Gray, speaking as a man, it's one
21:10
Speaker 1: of those words that makes me kind of squirreling. Sorry,
21:13
Speaker 1: but people are actually murdering rhinos to get their horn,
21:18
Speaker 1: which is made out of fingernail or hair type molecules. Correct, yes,
21:25
Speaker 1: keroton basically your fingernail materials the same. So there is
21:28
Speaker 1: no medicinal purpose, There is no magical value to it,
21:32
Speaker 1: and yet these animals are hunted severely. In the fact,
21:35
Speaker 1: rhinos are poached more severely by percentage than even elephants
21:40
Speaker 1: are for their ivory. So it's it's a very serious problem. Obviously,
21:43
Speaker 1: people are poaching for food sources. Oh please stop, you
21:47
Speaker 1: want to tell me the syndicate crime lords are poaching
21:51
Speaker 1: in Zambia because they need the meat of a white
21:55
Speaker 1: tiger or a rhino. Really, did you just say that
22:00
Speaker 1: some animals, smaller animals, the entire force are being cleared
22:04
Speaker 1: out and the protein is sensor markets. Yes, it's not
22:08
Speaker 1: just for ivory door. Jeff Gardier, Board certified Clinical Psychologist,
22:12
Speaker 1: Professor Behavioral Medicine at TRURO, and author of the Causes
22:17
Speaker 1: of Autism and many other books. You can find them
22:20
Speaker 1: at doctor Jeff Guardier dot com. When you're out there
22:24
Speaker 1: surviving in the jungle, do you get some type of
22:31
Speaker 1: mentality where laws don't apply to you. You're surviving, and
22:39
Speaker 1: you'll do anything it takes to do that. Yeah, I
22:43
Speaker 1: think we see that at both sides of this argument.
22:47
Speaker 1: Whomever this poacher was, you know, certainly, yes, you're right, Nancy,
22:54
Speaker 1: that the syndicates are involved in much of this poaching,
22:59
Speaker 1: are you previous guests? I believe is also correct that
23:02
Speaker 1: there are people who will do anything they can to
23:06
Speaker 1: survive and feed their families too. But what many of
23:10
Speaker 1: the writers talked about Goldberg to begin with, talked about
23:14
Speaker 1: was this mentality perhaps that Delia Owens Mark Owens The
23:21
Speaker 1: Sun also had with regard to you, we're out here
23:25
Speaker 1: to save the animals, we're fighting against the poachers, and
23:30
Speaker 1: we will do whatever is necessary because in this country
23:34
Speaker 1: are the laws are not the same as they are
23:37
Speaker 1: in the United States, and we have to do things
23:40
Speaker 1: outweigh and it comes with a view of being paternalistic
23:45
Speaker 1: to Africans in a way that can be easily viewed
23:49
Speaker 1: as being racist. Okay, I was talking about and I
23:52
Speaker 1: agree with everything you just said number one, But when
23:54
Speaker 1: you get out there in the thick of it, and
23:57
Speaker 1: you're in the jungle and you're away from what we
24:00
Speaker 1: consider to be civilization, can you get the mental mentality
24:08
Speaker 1: that the laws back home, specifically about murder, do not
24:13
Speaker 1: apply to you. Well, perhaps at the moment when that
24:17
Speaker 1: is happening, when people are in the middle of their
24:19
Speaker 1: emotions and they feel that they know perhaps they're doing
24:23
Speaker 1: the right thing by saving the animals, and that the
24:26
Speaker 1: poachers are the enemy. But as we know, in our
24:30
Speaker 1: great country, you know, people are treated equally and you
24:34
Speaker 1: do have to follow laws, and that is an important
24:39
Speaker 1: part of our legal system. I was just going to
24:41
Speaker 1: throw it at your dator, Jeff Gardier. You could argue
24:43
Speaker 1: that about a bar fight where a guy thinks he's
24:47
Speaker 1: been insulted or somebody makes a pass at his wife,
24:49
Speaker 1: he takes a gun and shoots the guy. But you
24:52
Speaker 1: could argue, wow, I was protecting my wife, and that's
24:55
Speaker 1: absolutely a violation. That is absolutely a homis side that
25:00
Speaker 1: will be prosecuted. And in this case, if this occurred
25:04
Speaker 1: and you're saying I was protecting the animals, that's not
25:07
Speaker 1: going to fly in a US court anyway. Guys, take
25:09
Speaker 1: a listen to again our friend Jeff Goldberg at the
25:13
Speaker 1: New Yorker, Mark and Bilio Owens got a lot of
25:15
Speaker 1: attention for their works. They had an ABC crew come
25:19
Speaker 1: out to Zambia and spend a month with them. Okay,
25:23
Speaker 1: you find the group to back track it into the
25:25
Speaker 1: hills and you set up an ambut there. In the
25:30
Speaker 1: course of filming, the ABC crew filmed the shooting of
25:35
Speaker 1: an alleged poacher, suspected poacher and the circumstances of this shooting,
25:41
Speaker 1: which was shown nationally on ABC in nineteen ninety six
25:44
Speaker 1: for the center point of this article. On this mission,
25:47
Speaker 1: we would witness the ultimate price paid by a suspected poacher.
25:52
Speaker 1: Early in the morning, the scout discovers an abandoned campsite.
25:56
Speaker 1: Lying on the ground are shotgun shows, so the scout
26:01
Speaker 1: decides to wait an ambush. Our cameras began rolling again
26:07
Speaker 1: after a shot is fired at the returning trespasser. So
26:12
Speaker 1: there's video or Brand joining me. Former US Marshal Service,
26:16
Speaker 1: International Investigations brand author a flying solo Top of the
26:21
Speaker 1: World on Amazon. You can find him at er brand
26:24
Speaker 1: dot com. Or I want you to listen to one
26:26
Speaker 1: more thing, take a listen to our friends at MPR.
26:29
Speaker 1: She and her then husband Mark were living in Zambia
26:32
Speaker 1: as animal conservationists trying to save elephants from poacher's. Journalist
26:37
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Goldberg first wrote about this for The New Yorker
26:40
Speaker 1: in two ten and more recently The Atlantic Magazine, where
26:44
Speaker 1: he's now editor in chief. His reporting suggests the Owens
26:47
Speaker 1: set up a brutal operation to go after anyone who
26:50
Speaker 1: is a threat to the elephant reserve. In fact, an
26:53
Speaker 1: ABC News crew documenting the Owens work in nineteen ninety
26:56
Speaker 1: five actually captured the execution of US suspected poacher. Here's
27:01
Speaker 1: a clip with gunshots from the show turning point. The
27:05
Speaker 1: bodies of the poachers are often left where they fall
27:07
Speaker 1: for the animals to eat. Conservation morality Africa. The shooter
27:14
Speaker 1: of the unidentified man was never seen on camera, a
27:17
Speaker 1: body was never found, and no one has been formally
27:20
Speaker 1: charged with a crime. Some witnesses reportedly implicated Mark Owens
27:25
Speaker 1: and his son Christopher, according to Jeffrey Goldberg, but the
27:28
Speaker 1: journalist says their attorneys have issued statements of denial in
27:31
Speaker 1: the killing. To Rebecca Rosenborg, Fox News and author of
27:35
Speaker 1: At Any Cost, Rebecca, are those facts correct as you
27:40
Speaker 1: understand them? There are people that state the stepson was
27:43
Speaker 1: the shooter. Yes, So I think that the most like
27:47
Speaker 1: the strongest corroboration comes from the ABC cameraman Chris Everson,
27:53
Speaker 1: who spoke to Jeffrey Goldberg and said he witnessed the
27:57
Speaker 1: killing and that the stepson opened fire on this alleged
28:03
Speaker 1: poacher and then continued to shoot him when he was
28:05
Speaker 1: down on the ground and still alive, and there were
28:09
Speaker 1: just three of them there at that point. And this
28:12
Speaker 1: is also the conclusion of the Zambian government after they
28:16
Speaker 1: launched an investigation and they issued a report, this is
28:19
Speaker 1: what they concluded that they believed happened, That he was
28:23
Speaker 1: the shooter, and that his father helped dispose of the
28:26
Speaker 1: body by putting it in the helicopter and dumping it
28:28
Speaker 1: in the ocean. So it's and I just want to add,
28:33
Speaker 1: like this is this is so unusual for there to
28:36
Speaker 1: be a literal ENUS film televised on you know, American television.
28:43
Speaker 1: It's just so unusual. I don't think I've ever seen that,
28:47
Speaker 1: and it was just a very odd decision for them
28:50
Speaker 1: to make. I'm curious for Mirca Rosenberg. I keep hearing
28:54
Speaker 1: the phrase ambush. Are you telling me that they wins
29:01
Speaker 1: and their squad waited in ambush, lie in wait for
29:08
Speaker 1: the posters to come back to camp, and then open fire. Yeah,
29:12
Speaker 1: so this is like a big part of it that's
29:14
Speaker 1: so crazy is that I think you these guys are
29:18
Speaker 1: in a game park that are not a game park
29:21
Speaker 1: and national parks. They're in the wilderness that's twenty four
29:24
Speaker 1: hundred acres in the middle of nowhere, and it's like
29:26
Speaker 1: the basic rules seem to not apply to them. They
29:29
Speaker 1: were going out there without the government's permission, with armed
29:34
Speaker 1: people that they were paying, that are going out to
29:38
Speaker 1: hunt alleged poachers and there's no um, you know, due
29:42
Speaker 1: process here. They are you know, they are just beating
29:47
Speaker 1: up people that they suspect their poachers. They don't know
29:49
Speaker 1: if they're poachers. So in this instance, they're in a
29:51
Speaker 1: campsite and um and they suspected the poacher and they
29:57
Speaker 1: just opened fire on him. But it was never confirmed
30:00
Speaker 1: if this was a post It was never confirmed to
30:02
Speaker 1: you know what he was. It was just a Bati posture.
30:17
Speaker 1: Time Stories with Nancy Grace. Now to Er Brandt, as
30:25
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, former US Marshal Service International Investigations Brant
30:29
Speaker 1: and author A flying Solo Top of the World on
30:33
Speaker 1: Amazon or Brandt, it's my understanding we do not have
30:38
Speaker 1: an extradition treaty with Zambia. So they can want the
30:43
Speaker 1: Owens all they can, but they're not going to get
30:48
Speaker 1: them under an extradition treaty. What do you make of this?
30:52
Speaker 1: Is there any evidence left? I mean, this happened a
30:55
Speaker 1: while back. No missing person's report has been filed regarding
31:00
Speaker 1: whoever was shot. I don't know if he was even
31:03
Speaker 1: from Zambia. So or Brant, what do you make of it? Well, Nancy,
31:07
Speaker 1: we do have an extradition treaty with Zambia. It was
31:11
Speaker 1: ratified in nineteen thirty five with the United Kingdom and
31:15
Speaker 1: then it was kept in place when Zambia got its
31:19
Speaker 1: independence in nineteen sixty four. That's pretty common with our
31:25
Speaker 1: extradition treaties with former British colonies. For example, Hong Kong
31:33
Speaker 1: is we have an extradition treaty with Hong Kong, but
31:35
Speaker 1: it's from the British treaty that they just left in place.
31:40
Speaker 1: So in theory, Owens could be extradited, but it would
31:47
Speaker 1: gain extradition. It would have to be compelling evidence against someone.
31:53
Speaker 1: And like you said, you don't have a didn't identify
31:57
Speaker 1: the victim, you don't have a body, don't have any
32:00
Speaker 1: physical evidence, so the chances of gaining extradition are basically
32:07
Speaker 1: non existent. Well, you know you're right about the evidence.
32:10
Speaker 1: Take a listen to hour cut for our friends at
32:11
Speaker 1: the New Yorker. ABC never tells us if they investigated
32:15
Speaker 1: who this alleged poacher was, if they ever learned his name,
32:18
Speaker 1: or what village came from, or whether he was in
32:20
Speaker 1: fact a poacher at all. When this film was screened
32:23
Speaker 1: in Zambia, it caused a bit of an uproar. What
32:28
Speaker 1: happened was a film that was designed to bring credit
32:32
Speaker 1: to their work instead opened up some questions. The American
32:36
Speaker 1: Embassy told them that it wouldn't be safe for them
32:38
Speaker 1: to come back given the investigation. The equipment and the
32:42
Speaker 1: buildings of their project and the park were seized by
32:44
Speaker 1: the government and the work did continue, but it continued
32:47
Speaker 1: without the owenses. They never came back. So there goes
32:51
Speaker 1: all the evidence to doctor Tim Gallagher, who's been waiting patiently.
32:55
Speaker 1: Medical examiner for the State of Florida. You can find
32:58
Speaker 1: him at pathcaremad dot com. Lecturer at Florida Medical School
33:02
Speaker 1: Forensic Medicine. He is the founder and host. This is
33:06
Speaker 1: incredible the International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation Conference, Doctor Gallagher.
33:13
Speaker 1: If the facts are as presented, there is no body.
33:18
Speaker 1: The body was dumped in the ocean very methodically at
33:23
Speaker 1: the time. There may have been blood evidence. I don't
33:28
Speaker 1: know that the DNA protocols are in place in Zambia.
33:33
Speaker 1: But if you have blood evidence and you have witnesses,
33:38
Speaker 1: that makes a case. If you had blood evidence, what
33:42
Speaker 1: could you do with it without knowing who the victim is?
33:46
Speaker 1: There's nothing to compare it too. Oh well, we do
33:48
Speaker 1: have precedence for that here in Florida. The Toledo case
33:53
Speaker 1: was just that there was no body found, but there
33:57
Speaker 1: was blood evidence, and the pattern of the blood that
34:00
Speaker 1: was found suggested homicidal violence. Oh right, okay, talk regular
34:06
Speaker 1: people taught you know what you just made me think
34:08
Speaker 1: of Jennifer Julos, the missing Connecticut missing. She's dead, Connecticut
34:13
Speaker 1: mom of five. So much blood was found in her home.
34:18
Speaker 1: In fact, you and I talked about, I don't know
34:20
Speaker 1: if you remember that she has to be dead. Her
34:22
Speaker 1: body is somewhere with that amount of blood evidence. And
34:26
Speaker 1: you're saying, well, you say it. You tell me, how
34:29
Speaker 1: can the blood evidence show there was absolutely a death. Well,
34:33
Speaker 1: if you look at the pattern of the blood, you
34:35
Speaker 1: can see the amount of the blood, and they can
34:38
Speaker 1: enhance it with different chemicals such as luminole and you
34:43
Speaker 1: can see that the amount of blood that is on
34:46
Speaker 1: the ground. You can often see blood that is on
34:49
Speaker 1: the walls of the building. You could sometimes you can
34:52
Speaker 1: find blood on the furniture. And just by looking at
34:56
Speaker 1: the patterns, just by looking at the amount of blood
34:58
Speaker 1: where it is there might be cast off type of
35:03
Speaker 1: blood from impact of a blunt instrument or different patterns
35:07
Speaker 1: would strongly suggest that the person died a very violent
35:12
Speaker 1: death and that a person who lost this amount of
35:15
Speaker 1: blood in no way could have survived that of sault.
35:18
Speaker 1: Is there any way at this point, doctor Tim Gallagher
35:22
Speaker 1: that blood, I mean years have passed, rains erosion, there's
35:29
Speaker 1: no way that I know of we could get any
35:33
Speaker 1: blood evidence. Bullets, however, that's a totally different thing. But
35:38
Speaker 1: what about blood, Well, that would be very difficult. You know,
35:42
Speaker 1: it does degrade over time. One of the most important
35:46
Speaker 1: molecules in blood is iron, and iron does oxidize or
35:53
Speaker 1: or rust, let's say, or degrades quite quickly in the elements,
35:58
Speaker 1: you know, So that would be that would be unretrievable.
36:03
Speaker 1: You can test for iron and then suggest that it
36:07
Speaker 1: could have been that the source of the iron could
36:09
Speaker 1: have been blood. But for DNA to survive the elements
36:13
Speaker 1: in the open like that over years of time, especially
36:16
Speaker 1: in an environment such as Africa, would be very very remote.
36:22
Speaker 1: To say, the league or brand joining me author a
36:25
Speaker 1: flying solo herv what about bullets or shells? I guarantee
36:32
Speaker 1: you if this happened, they did not stick around and
36:35
Speaker 1: pick up the blissics evidence. Oh that's correct, Nancy. I
36:38
Speaker 1: mean this alleged murder took place three decades ago. I
36:43
Speaker 1: mean the there was no you know, crime scene where
36:50
Speaker 1: police responded. Evidence technicians responded to gather information to gather evidence,
36:58
Speaker 1: things like shell k scenes and bullets, so they have
37:06
Speaker 1: nonexistent Yeah, you're right now. Delia Owens, the author of
37:12
Speaker 1: Where the Crawdads Sing, the bestseller, the hit movie, she
37:17
Speaker 1: has a very different story about what happened. Take a
37:20
Speaker 1: listen to our cut twelve. This is Delia Owens on
37:23
Speaker 1: Upon Reflection u WTV. One morning, we were watching these
37:28
Speaker 1: elephants across the river from our camp, and the poachers
37:32
Speaker 1: started shooting at them, you know, just in four view
37:34
Speaker 1: of our camp. And we were just outraged, and so
37:37
Speaker 1: we knew we couldn't trust the game guard. So Mark
37:40
Speaker 1: took off on our airplane and flew that night, and
37:43
Speaker 1: he took one of our trusted bimbo workers with him,
37:46
Speaker 1: and he had the shotgun filled with shells. But these
37:51
Speaker 1: were not normal shotguns shells. They were it was in
37:54
Speaker 1: firecrackers ry and Mark flew down, zoomed down just over
38:00
Speaker 1: the poachers camp and fired on the poachers with these
38:02
Speaker 1: cherry bombs. They were harmless, but the poachers didn't know this,
38:05
Speaker 1: of course, and they just make this huge explosion, and
38:09
Speaker 1: he flew after those poachers, and then every single night,
38:12
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, he would fly and bomb.
38:15
Speaker 1: These poachers can't with terry bombs, and this really frightened
38:19
Speaker 1: them out of the park. Maybe I'm missing something, but
38:22
Speaker 1: Rebecca Rosenberg, that sounds like an entirely different incident than
38:26
Speaker 1: what we're talking about the shooting, the alleged shooting. Yeah,
38:29
Speaker 1: I mean, this was just part of their operations. They
38:32
Speaker 1: sort of almost went to war with the alleged coachers
38:35
Speaker 1: and would do things like this where and there's some
38:38
Speaker 1: I think Jeffrey Goldberg says that that there's some debate
38:41
Speaker 1: on whether that was just cherry bombs or whether they
38:43
Speaker 1: were firing live ammission, but they would they were almost
38:48
Speaker 1: like in combat with these poachers both. You know, they
38:51
Speaker 1: said they feared that the poachers were trying to kill them,
38:54
Speaker 1: and that they you know that they definitely were armed
38:59
Speaker 1: in one to think that they were a threat to
39:02
Speaker 1: the poachers. I mean, it sounds like a completely different incident.
39:05
Speaker 1: Mark Tate with me, high profile lawyer out of Savannah. Mark,
39:09
Speaker 1: that sounds like what she Delia said could absolutely be
39:13
Speaker 1: true that her husband would fly over the poacher's camp
39:16
Speaker 1: and fire cherry bombs to scare them. That sounds like
39:19
Speaker 1: a whole different incident as opposed to lying in wait
39:24
Speaker 1: at a poacher's camp or a person's camp. I don't
39:26
Speaker 1: know that they were poachers, and when they show up,
39:29
Speaker 1: they start shooting, including after the person's down on the ground. Sure,
39:32
Speaker 1: it's a completely different scenario that she is outlined in
39:38
Speaker 1: that very exciting story. You know, that's exciting that Mark's
39:41
Speaker 1: flying an airplane shooting cherry bombs out of a shotgun.
39:45
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly how you load cherry bombs in
39:47
Speaker 1: a shotgun shell. Apparently Marco was a heck of a
39:51
Speaker 1: ballistics guy. But anyway, they were throwing shot cherry bombs
39:55
Speaker 1: and poachers. That's cool. That doesn't have a thing on
39:58
Speaker 1: earth exactly with what ABC. Yeah, with what ABC showed
40:03
Speaker 1: on television, you know, there is no doubt they showed
40:06
Speaker 1: a man being shot to death on TV and the
40:09
Speaker 1: shots continued after he was apparently not moving on the ground.
40:13
Speaker 1: So you know, what we don't know is what happened
40:16
Speaker 1: immediately prior to that. Did he brandish a firearm? And
40:19
Speaker 1: so they're going to say they were using deadly force
40:22
Speaker 1: in response to deadly force, I don't know. So you know,
40:26
Speaker 1: there are reasons why you can kill somebody. One of
40:28
Speaker 1: them is if they brandish firearms and using deadly force
40:31
Speaker 1: against you. They didn't bother to tell us that ABC
40:33
Speaker 1: didn't investigate. Well, it's on video, So Rebecca Rosenberg, Fox
40:37
Speaker 1: News and author here takes theory the video is so chaotic.
40:43
Speaker 1: But what do you see on the video from ABC? UM?
40:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it shows a man being essentially murdered,
40:53
Speaker 1: you know, And I don't think and I think you
40:56
Speaker 1: have a witness who was sort of explained what happened
41:00
Speaker 1: in the video. He's there and he works for ABC.
41:02
Speaker 1: And what I also pas really interested is nobody ever
41:05
Speaker 1: reported this, Like ABC didn't report it to the government.
41:08
Speaker 1: Nobody reported this to anyone, which is also just so
41:13
Speaker 1: strange to me. And one thing that we didn't touch
41:16
Speaker 1: upon here is that Chris Everson, the stepson, had kind
41:20
Speaker 1: of a troubled history and he, you know, he was assigned,
41:25
Speaker 1: according to Jeffrey Goldberg, to train the scouts in you know,
41:30
Speaker 1: UM in my hand to hand combat and he was
41:34
Speaker 1: just a twenty five year old kid from the US
41:37
Speaker 1: UM and they were claimed that he would beat scouts
41:41
Speaker 1: as you know, to discipline them. So you have kind
41:45
Speaker 1: of this, uh, you know, slightly unusual backstory with him. Um,
41:52
Speaker 1: he's accused of being the shooter here. Jelia Owens, the
41:55
Speaker 1: bestseller Mark Owens, her ex husband Anne stepson Christopher Owens,
42:03
Speaker 1: all deny involvement in the incident. We wait as justice unfollows.
42:12
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace carved the story, signing off goodbye friend.