Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Mom hides recorder in daughter's hair & what she hears from school is shocking
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- 0:59Speaker 1: radio dot com. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace out about hand.
- 1:12Speaker 1: You write your teaza for anxiety. According to parents, that's
- 1:17Speaker 1: a secret recording of an instructor talking to kids inside
- 1:21Speaker 1: a special education class at Berkeley Heights Elementary School in Martinsburg,
- 1:25Speaker 1: West Virginia. Amber Pack center eight year old daughter to
- 1:28Speaker 1: class with a recording device after the child didn't want
- 1:31Speaker 1: to go back to school. I'm afraid. I hardly even
- 1:37Speaker 1: know what to say. You know, it's very rare that
- 1:40Speaker 1: I'm left speechless, but I'm so sick at my heart
- 1:45Speaker 1: hearing that secret audio tape. Listen a different instructor in
- 1:50Speaker 1: the same class. You gotta go, peggy, or do you
- 1:55Speaker 1: not have to go pee? And you just want to go?
- 1:59Speaker 1: There's more. I'm gonna pull your hair until you stuck her.
- 2:02Speaker 1: Don't throw it, don't throw ye your winch like a pigney,
- 2:11Speaker 1: like a pigmy thing. The next day, Pack alerted the
- 2:14Speaker 1: school district and the Martinsburg Police Department. Do you think
- 2:17Speaker 1: this has been going on for a while, Yes, that
- 2:18Speaker 1: was the first day off at the recorder and her
- 2:20Speaker 1: hair one day you caught on one day eight hours.
- 2:23Speaker 1: You can hear the instructors, sometimes singing songs and reading
- 2:26Speaker 1: stories to students, and other times, now your tears drive
- 2:29Speaker 1: so quickly, crocodile, and then she wants to destroy everything
- 2:33Speaker 1: as I'm gonna knock out. I couldn't eat for three days.
- 2:37Speaker 1: I was so my stomach everything. I was just so upset,
- 2:40Speaker 1: and every time I looked at her and start crying.
- 2:41Speaker 1: Pacy Murphy, whose six year old son Owen, is in
- 2:44Speaker 1: the same class, nobody alerted her to the recording, even
- 2:47Speaker 1: though Pack had already handed it over to the school district.
- 2:50Speaker 1: I've never heard from the principle, never heard from the superintendent,
- 2:55Speaker 1: never heard from any of them. It wasn't until November,
- 2:58Speaker 1: after Pack posted a clip of the recording on Facebook
- 3:01Speaker 1: that Murphy became aware of it for sure. You know
- 3:06Speaker 1: when you're gonna get one, just just cup. It's sickney like.
- 3:12Speaker 1: People don't even talk to animals like that, and they're
- 3:14Speaker 1: talking to non verbal children who don't understand why they're
- 3:18Speaker 1: talking to them like that. They're not doing anything wrong.
- 3:20Speaker 1: I'm the recording. The instructors tease and refuse to give
- 3:24Speaker 1: Owen food. Brow me, I'm Daria, and you won't get
- 3:27Speaker 1: her one nothing? Thank you get nothing star. The Berkeley
- 3:37Speaker 1: County Prosecutor's office found no criminal wrongdoing. The County Prosecutor,
- 3:41Speaker 1: Katie Wilkes, Dellagatti told Casey Murphy, I am not in
- 3:44Speaker 1: any way condoning the verbal treatment of your children by
- 3:48Speaker 1: the individuals in the classroom. I don't understand why you
- 3:51Speaker 1: treated her the way you treated her. Should not deserve that,
- 3:54Speaker 1: no kid does. You are hearing our friend Scott Teller
- 3:59Speaker 1: at ABC seven w j L, a investigative team doing
- 4:06Speaker 1: an incredible job as he reports on it's a very
- 4:10Speaker 1: upsetting story. You could hear the children moaning in crying.
- 4:15Speaker 1: These are special needs children being spoken to worse than
- 4:21Speaker 1: I've ever heard someone speak to an animal, just like
- 4:25Speaker 1: the mom says, and I, Nancy Grace, this is crime Stories.
- 4:28Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us. And I know it's
- 4:30Speaker 1: hard to hear, but if we don't confront it, we
- 4:34Speaker 1: can't fix it. In joining me right now, a very
- 4:37Speaker 1: special guest, the mother of that little girl, adri Amberpack,
- 4:43Speaker 1: is with us. Ben Selango is with us. Amber's lawyer,
- 4:50Speaker 1: doctor Adrian Wood, the blogger of Tales of an Educated
- 4:54Speaker 1: Debutante dot com, who investigated this story with ME. Forensics
- 5:01Speaker 1: expert Joseph Scott Morgan and forensic psychiatrist doctor Daniel Bober
- 5:07Speaker 1: also with me. Crime online dot Com investigative reporter Robin Wilenski.
- 5:12Speaker 1: I want to go straight to Amber Pack, the mother
- 5:15Speaker 1: of four. Amber tell me what led you to hide
- 5:22Speaker 1: an audio device in your daughter's hair? Well, Adrian would
- 5:29Speaker 1: she didn't want to go to school this year. I
- 5:31Speaker 1: thought she just hated the school. I mean, she's always
- 5:35Speaker 1: been pretty attached to me, but she would try to
- 5:39Speaker 1: hide for me in the mornings when in between getting
- 5:41Speaker 1: ready and her bus driver had made the comment that
- 5:45Speaker 1: she starts crying as soon as they pull up to
- 5:48Speaker 1: the school, and I popped in to pick her up,
- 5:51Speaker 1: She's been crying really hard. And when I asked the
- 5:53Speaker 1: teacher about it, her answer I knew was a lie.
- 6:00Speaker 1: So I spoke to her doctor about all the anxiety
- 6:03Speaker 1: and so she was having, and how I didn't think
- 6:06Speaker 1: I was getting the right answers from the teacher and
- 6:10Speaker 1: told her that I was going to put a record
- 6:12Speaker 1: on her, and she said she thought that would probably
- 6:15Speaker 1: be a good idea, if for nothing else, just to
- 6:18Speaker 1: give me a piece of mind. You know, I didn't
- 6:24Speaker 1: think that it was going to be this horrible though.
- 6:26Speaker 1: How did you put the device in in Adrie's hair?
- 6:29Speaker 1: She has a ton of hair. I m sectioned the
- 6:34Speaker 1: middle part in the top and put the recorder inside,
- 6:37Speaker 1: and then did like the first loop of a shoe tie,
- 6:42Speaker 1: put a hairband around that, and then brought the rest
- 6:44Speaker 1: of her hair up around it and did like a bun.
- 6:47Speaker 1: Did Adrie even know she had a hearing recording device
- 6:50Speaker 1: in her hair? She was not happy with the amount
- 6:54Speaker 1: of time it took to do her hair that morning,
- 6:56Speaker 1: so I think did she know there was a recorder there?
- 7:01Speaker 1: I don't know if she knew that, um like whatever
- 7:07Speaker 1: what I was going it for, but I know she
- 7:09Speaker 1: knew that I was putting something in her hair. I'm
- 7:11Speaker 1: just beside myself. I mean, I can hear one of
- 7:15Speaker 1: the instructors saying, you want you're talking about anxiety and
- 7:21Speaker 1: then threatens to beat the child. Yeah, and that's after
- 7:25Speaker 1: I told them what her doctor had said about her anxiety.
- 7:29Speaker 1: And then she says, I'm going to knock you out.
- 7:35Speaker 1: It goes on and on and on. You're like a pigmy.
- 7:40Speaker 1: You're like a pigmy thing. You're an animal. These are teachers.
- 7:46Speaker 1: I'm going to pull your hair until you start crying.
- 7:50Speaker 1: You want to go peepee? Or do you just want
- 7:52Speaker 1: to go and what she says is jerk off. Those
- 7:56Speaker 1: are the words the teacher says to a child a chair,
- 8:02Speaker 1: this one I want to punch right in the face
- 8:05Speaker 1: out of backhand. You write in your teeth house that
- 8:08Speaker 1: for anxiety. And what I don't understand is why there
- 8:14Speaker 1: are no criminal charges joining me right now. Crime online
- 8:18Speaker 1: dot Com investigative reporter Robin Willinski, who has been investigating
- 8:22Speaker 1: the case. Robin, let's just start at the beginning. What
- 8:25Speaker 1: do you know? Well, I know, Nancy, that this is
- 8:28Speaker 1: Berkeley County Elementary School and that this was a special
- 8:32Speaker 1: class There were only four children in this classroom, age six,
- 8:38Speaker 1: including Amberpack's daughter, and there were three one teacher a female,
- 8:47Speaker 1: and two female teachers aides. So again four students, three adults,
- 8:54Speaker 1: and none of this would have come to light because
- 8:57Speaker 1: there are no cameras in that classroom. There are across
- 9:00Speaker 1: our country. We do have school districts, Nancy, that do
- 9:04Speaker 1: have cameras and recording equipment in special needs classrooms, but
- 9:09Speaker 1: not at to date, not in this classroom. And if
- 9:13Speaker 1: not for Amber Pack putting this twenty dollars device from
- 9:19Speaker 1: Amazon in her daughter's hair, none of these details, horrendous
- 9:24Speaker 1: details would have come to light, joining me, high profile
- 9:28Speaker 1: lawyer for Amber Pack, Ben Selengo being it's a real
- 9:33Speaker 1: honor to have you on. I'm not sure why this
- 9:37Speaker 1: doesn't rise to some criminal abuse on a child. Well,
- 9:42Speaker 1: it certainly does, Nancy. We're disappointed that the county prosecutor
- 9:46Speaker 1: has thus far declined to press charges. However, we're hopeful
- 9:51Speaker 1: that charges will be filed, as you know that there's
- 9:54Speaker 1: a statue. What's the county prosecutor's name, Ben, last name
- 9:58Speaker 1: is Delagatti, and she's she's a mother, you know, I
- 10:02Speaker 1: think she's she's sympathetic, she has listened to us, and
- 10:06Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that she will file charges within the statute
- 10:09Speaker 1: of limitation. But what she says is because the child
- 10:14Speaker 1: is nonverbal, that she cannot testify that she was in
- 10:18Speaker 1: reasonable apprehension of physical harm, which as a former prosecutor,
- 10:22Speaker 1: you know is the standard for an assault claim. Well
- 10:25Speaker 1: wait a minute, that that's for an aggravated assault or
- 10:28Speaker 1: an assault. Right for an abuse claim, you don't have
- 10:34Speaker 1: to have proof of fear. And the fact that little
- 10:37Speaker 1: Agi cried every day and the doctor said it was anxiety,
- 10:41Speaker 1: that is fear. That's exactly our point and I think
- 10:44Speaker 1: the prosecutor is considering that. I'm not sure that it
- 10:47Speaker 1: was considered before. But more importantly, in West Virginia, there's
- 10:51Speaker 1: a duty to report whenever a teacher or a teacher's
- 10:54Speaker 1: aide suspects abuse. Here, they actually witnessed it, and they
- 10:57Speaker 1: had twenty four hours to report as the Board of Education,
- 11:01Speaker 1: as did the superintendent, as did the principal, because they
- 11:04Speaker 1: all knew. The principal knew the following day, the superintendent
- 11:08Speaker 1: knew the following week. They had twenty four hours to
- 11:10Speaker 1: report it and they didn't. So hopefully additional criminal charges
- 11:15Speaker 1: will be considered. Well, here you go, everybody. If you
- 11:18Speaker 1: are as disgusted and upset by what you heard as
- 11:22Speaker 1: I him, here's how you can reach the county prosecutor.
- 11:26Speaker 1: Delagatti three zero four two six four one nine seven
- 11:32Speaker 1: one repeat three zero four two six four one nine
- 11:40Speaker 1: seven one. A Martinsburg parents says it wasn't until she
- 11:44Speaker 1: plays a recording device into her daughter's here that it
- 11:48Speaker 1: picked up some very disturbing audio in her special education
- 11:51Speaker 1: class at Berkeley Heights Elementary and which is want to
- 11:53Speaker 1: warn you that that audio may be disturbing to some
- 11:57Speaker 1: How about hand you write your team. Amber Pack says
- 12:04Speaker 1: she learned of the disturbing audio recordings one night in
- 12:07Speaker 1: October after she decided to take matters into her own
- 12:11Speaker 1: hands when her seven year old daughter, who was nonverbal,
- 12:14Speaker 1: wasn't acting her usual self. There's no way for me
- 12:17Speaker 1: to really like see because when I get there, Adrian
- 12:20Speaker 1: would like cling to me, she'd want to leave. She
- 12:23Speaker 1: brought up the attention to the school and says administrators
- 12:26Speaker 1: swapped the incident under the rug for about four weeks.
- 12:30Speaker 1: It wasn't until she placed the incident on social media
- 12:33Speaker 1: that the school plays two employees on an administrative leave,
- 12:36Speaker 1: and according to Berkeley County Schools, the teacher has since resigned.
- 12:40Speaker 1: Berkeley County Prosecuting Attorney Kid Books, delegated along with investigators,
- 12:44Speaker 1: reviewed the eight animal audio recording, then said, while the
- 12:48Speaker 1: criminal offense cannot be proven, the verbal treatments is shocking
- 12:52Speaker 1: and disturbing. So like, are you gonna puke for me today? Adrie?
- 12:58Speaker 1: Did your mom do your eyebrows? You don't have a
- 13:00Speaker 1: unibrow today? Like, just like, why would you say that? There?
- 13:04Speaker 1: And according to Berkeley County Prosecuting Office, can you cook
- 13:07Speaker 1: jelly Getty. She says, according to Westbiginilla Haw, verbal abuse
- 13:11Speaker 1: is not considered a criminal, but Ambrew hopes that there
- 13:14Speaker 1: is justice soon. Well, of course, now we know that
- 13:17Speaker 1: those aids have resigned, and believe it or not, the
- 13:21Speaker 1: vote was four to one to accept the resignations. Who
- 13:24Speaker 1: in the world didn't want to accept the resignation you're
- 13:28Speaker 1: hearing from our friends at w DVMTV. That's reporter Taota
- 13:33Speaker 1: reporting on this and joining me is the mother of
- 13:37Speaker 1: that beautiful little girl, adri a special needs student who,
- 13:41Speaker 1: along with her classmates, berated, insulted, threatened, threatened by teacher's aids.
- 13:49Speaker 1: It's incredible. With me their lawyer, well known Ben Selingo,
- 13:56Speaker 1: the lawyer for Amber Pack. Also with me, Robin Willinski,
- 14:00Speaker 1: Crime online dot com investigative reporter, doctor Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist,
- 14:04Speaker 1: Joe Scott Morgan, forensics expert, and joining me right now,
- 14:09Speaker 1: doctor Adrian Wood. Doctor Adrian is at Tales of an
- 14:15Speaker 1: Educated Debutante dot com. She investigated this story and while
- 14:20Speaker 1: the mom Amber Pack had brought this to everyone's attention,
- 14:23Speaker 1: nobody did I think. There was not a blip on
- 14:25Speaker 1: the screen until it was posted on Facebook. Doctor Adrian Wood,
- 14:31Speaker 1: explain to me as a blogger, how you got involved
- 14:34Speaker 1: in this story? You know, Nancy, I last about a
- 14:37Speaker 1: week ago Sunday, was just scrolling through Facebook a Sunday
- 14:40Speaker 1: evening and a friend had shared the clip that Amber
- 14:44Speaker 1: thankfully had shared on Facebook. And as a special needs mom,
- 14:48Speaker 1: myself a mother of four, my heartbrook And the more
- 14:52Speaker 1: I looked into the case, the more horrified I became.
- 14:56Speaker 1: And I think what struck me was not the abuses
- 15:00Speaker 1: terrible on its own, but this subsequent lack of action
- 15:05Speaker 1: just absolutely toward my heart apart. I realized that Amber
- 15:10Speaker 1: Pack had called the police. The police met with the
- 15:13Speaker 1: principal on October fifth. Officer Connor was a police officer
- 15:17Speaker 1: that went in that day and the case never escalated
- 15:21Speaker 1: to a detective. On that day, Amber Pack was told,
- 15:26Speaker 1: I believe by the principle, that the teachers were talking
- 15:28Speaker 1: to one another, and for the next twenty eight days,
- 15:32Speaker 1: those teachers remained in the classroom as that all the
- 15:35Speaker 1: other children. Amber fortunately had pulled Adre out of school,
- 15:39Speaker 1: and it wasn't until Amber shared that clip on Facebook
- 15:44Speaker 1: on October I believe it was twenty ninth. The following day,
- 15:47Speaker 1: the two assistants were placed on leave, and the lead
- 15:50Speaker 1: teacher was in the classroom until November fourteen. I don't
- 15:53Speaker 1: understand it, Amber Pack. You're the mother of little Adre
- 15:57Speaker 1: that endured all this, and we just heard a tiny
- 15:59Speaker 1: sample of what Amber heard. What took so long? What
- 16:03Speaker 1: do you mean they were talking to each other? I
- 16:06Speaker 1: think that was the case of Cya Well, the police officer.
- 16:12Speaker 1: When my husband emailed her the entire clip, she wasn't
- 16:16Speaker 1: wasn't in the school within an hour or two. There's
- 16:19Speaker 1: no way she listened to the whole eight hours. She
- 16:21Speaker 1: only played them the I'm gonna punch you in the face.
- 16:25Speaker 1: How no, yeah, I'm gonna punch you in the face,
- 16:27Speaker 1: and then shut up. That's what that she played at
- 16:31Speaker 1: in the principal's office. So they told me that they
- 16:34Speaker 1: were talking to each other, and I said, you know, okay,
- 16:37Speaker 1: I'll give you that one. I'll give you that one,
- 16:39Speaker 1: but the whole recording is disgusting. You know, the whole
- 16:42Speaker 1: day is discussing. They said, that's not the only thing
- 16:47Speaker 1: that they said. And she told me that they would
- 16:49Speaker 1: never hurt my child, and that she felt like this
- 16:51Speaker 1: was a communication error, and that she wanted me to
- 16:54Speaker 1: come in and have a meeting with Adrian's team, but
- 16:57Speaker 1: I said that Adria would not be coming back there,
- 16:59Speaker 1: and I think I started crying, and so I still
- 17:03Speaker 1: don't understand joining me. Attorney for Amber Pack Ben Selango, Ben,
- 17:10Speaker 1: I still don't understand why this is not clearly it's
- 17:17Speaker 1: an assault, a simple assault at the least because a
- 17:20Speaker 1: child suffered extreme anxiety. And that's not only based on
- 17:24Speaker 1: Amber's observation, but a doctor as well. That's what simple
- 17:28Speaker 1: assault is and the reason I'm talking about this, Ben Selengo,
- 17:33Speaker 1: as you well know, just resigning that means these teachers
- 17:37Speaker 1: ays can go somewhere else and do the same thing
- 17:39Speaker 1: to other students. Ben, why is this not a crime?
- 17:42Speaker 1: It is a crime, and it should have been charged,
- 17:44Speaker 1: and we're still hopeful that it will be charged. They
- 17:47Speaker 1: have there's a one year statue of limitation to bring
- 17:49Speaker 1: the charges. But the prosecutor indicated that because the child
- 17:55Speaker 1: cannot testify because she is nonverbal, that she could not
- 18:00Speaker 1: expressed that she was in reasonable apprehension of a violent assault. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait,
- 18:06Speaker 1: wait wait, I'm sorry, Ben, please tell me that again.
- 18:10Speaker 1: The prosecutor said because the child is nonverbal, she cannot
- 18:14Speaker 1: testify that she was in reasonable apprehension of an attack. Okay, pause,
- 18:19Speaker 1: right there, ben, Ben, let me tell you what happened
- 18:22Speaker 1: to me when I was a prosecutor, as you know,
- 18:25Speaker 1: ten years intercity Atlanta, all felonies. I had many, many
- 18:30Speaker 1: child abuse in childlesstation cases. I'm thinking of two off
- 18:34Speaker 1: the top of my head, and I can remember the
- 18:37Speaker 1: defendants and the victims' names children, both of them non verbal.
- 18:44Speaker 1: Both of them could not testify on the stand fully.
- 18:50Speaker 1: Both of them put their heads down on like on
- 18:56Speaker 1: their desk, let me just say, on the witness stand,
- 19:00Speaker 1: and they could not continue their convictions in both and
- 19:05Speaker 1: both of those were sex molestation charges. Okay, there are
- 19:12Speaker 1: people that are nonverbal that are crime victims, and those
- 19:17Speaker 1: are the cases that must be prosecuted more than any others,
- 19:21Speaker 1: because those are the weakest people in our society. What
- 19:24Speaker 1: do you mean, she's non verbal, so I can't prosecute
- 19:26Speaker 1: the case. Who what's her name? What? What? What's what
- 19:30Speaker 1: is the lawyer's name? My name is Delagatti. She's the
- 19:33Speaker 1: Berkeley County prosecutor. And we agree with you. Catherine Wilke's
- 19:38Speaker 1: Della Gatti, that's her name, and she is actually saying
- 19:43Speaker 1: because the child can't speak, she can't prosecute the case.
- 19:48Speaker 1: What did she go to law school? She did? Uh,
- 19:53Speaker 1: we're hopeful that she was. Does she ever tried a case?
- 19:56Speaker 1: Or is she just a political figurehead? Well? I U.
- 20:01Speaker 1: I certainly think she could have been more aggressive with
- 20:03Speaker 1: this one, and hopefully she will. I'm not gonna aggressive,
- 20:09Speaker 1: I am. We're not pleased with. Okay, what she did
- 20:12Speaker 1: help me somebody, I mean, okay, I'll take you out
- 20:16Speaker 1: of the mix because you're trying to navigate this. Well
- 20:19Speaker 1: what I'm doing. Deal, don't want to foreclose the ability
- 20:22Speaker 1: for them to bring charges. Quite frankly, it would have
- 20:25Speaker 1: been easy. Okay, it would have been easy to bring
- 20:27Speaker 1: charges in this case. You should have and there would
- 20:29Speaker 1: be a conviction, as you and I both know, once
- 20:31Speaker 1: they play those tapes to a jury, they're done. I
- 20:34Speaker 1: mean they're gonna be convicted. Hi, Nancy Grace here, have
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- 21:48Speaker 1: Find the truth crime stories with Nancy Grace back. Hand
- 22:02Speaker 1: you right in your teeth. That for anxiety. I have
- 22:05Speaker 1: to punch you in your phrase. Well you gotta go, peggy,
- 22:09Speaker 1: piggy or do you not have to go pee? And
- 22:13Speaker 1: you just want to go. I'm gonna pull your hair
- 22:16Speaker 1: and don't throw it. Don't throw an yep, your winch
- 22:24Speaker 1: like a pigmy, like a pigmy. When I hear that
- 22:28Speaker 1: sound and there is eight hours of it. It just
- 22:32Speaker 1: makes me physically recoil. You are hearing so called special
- 22:37Speaker 1: aid teachers assistance, berating, torturing, verbally assaulting little children in
- 22:46Speaker 1: class at school, and with me, the mother of that
- 22:50Speaker 1: little girl, adri amber Pack is with me a mother
- 22:53Speaker 1: of four, Adria's special needs ben Selingo, amber Pack's lawyer,
- 22:58Speaker 1: Doctor Adrian Would the blogger who investigated this story at
- 23:01Speaker 1: Tales of an educated debutant dot com forensics expert Joe
- 23:04Speaker 1: Scott Morgan, and forensic psychiatrist doctor Daniel Bober. Doctor Bober,
- 23:09Speaker 1: I can't help but notice there were three teachers in
- 23:13Speaker 1: the room. Nobody said, guys, don't talk that way. Stop it.
- 23:19Speaker 1: I'm gonna report you. They all just went along. What
- 23:22Speaker 1: is that pack mentality, doctor Bober. Yeah, it's pretty sick, Dancy.
- 23:26Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of things as you have, and
- 23:28Speaker 1: this story really makes me nauseous. I mean, you know,
- 23:30Speaker 1: you see this like in fraternities where hazing is going on.
- 23:34Speaker 1: It's just it really needs, I believe, criminal prosecution, and
- 23:38Speaker 1: it's just it's very it's just vicious. It's just absolutely vicious.
- 23:41Speaker 1: I also don't understand why this is not a crime
- 23:44Speaker 1: being considered a crime by Delagatti, the so called prosecutor
- 23:50Speaker 1: in this case, who says she can't prosecute it because
- 23:53Speaker 1: a child nonverbal. I've never heard a more bs in
- 23:56Speaker 1: my whole life. To Joseph Scott Morgan, how can we
- 23:58Speaker 1: prove this case? Maybe you can get of the prosecutor
- 24:00Speaker 1: DELAGHATI a little tutorial. Yeah, it escapes me. How they
- 24:06Speaker 1: cannot move forward with a with a prosecution. And to
- 24:09Speaker 1: what Ben had said earlier, relative to the one years
- 24:13Speaker 1: statute of limitation, maybe they're I don't know, maybe they're
- 24:16Speaker 1: waiting to a point in time where they can move forward.
- 24:19Speaker 1: One of the striking things about about this, Uh Nancy
- 24:22Speaker 1: Amber really kind of oh boy, just put the bowl
- 24:27Speaker 1: in this. Just a moment ago, she said, we're only
- 24:29Speaker 1: hearing eight hours of this. H We're only hearing a
- 24:33Speaker 1: segment of eight hours. What about all of those days
- 24:37Speaker 1: prior to this, day after day after day after day.
- 24:41Speaker 1: And what really makes this so soul crushing is the
- 24:44Speaker 1: fact that these children are nonverbal. You know, they're experiencing
- 24:49Speaker 1: fear here over a protracted period of time. Lord only
- 24:53Speaker 1: knows what else has gone on in that classroom. Why
- 24:56Speaker 1: are they just on administrative leave, and then they were
- 24:59Speaker 1: allowed to design One board member, Michelle Barnes Russell, voted
- 25:04Speaker 1: no what she wanted them to stay on in their job.
- 25:08Speaker 1: But what was that all about? To Amber Pack, the
- 25:11Speaker 1: mother of little Adrie, Why did one board member vote
- 25:14Speaker 1: know that they would not accept the resignation. I believe
- 25:17Speaker 1: she voted no because she wanted them fired. But that's
- 25:21Speaker 1: just my yeah, that's just my Oh okay, well that
- 25:25Speaker 1: gives me a little renewed respect for her. Good for her,
- 25:28Speaker 1: you know. To Ben Selano, lawyer for Amber Pack, Ben,
- 25:31Speaker 1: does this mean these teachers aids can just go on
- 25:34Speaker 1: to another school and inflict pain and misery on more students? Yes,
- 25:38Speaker 1: yes it does. You know, every time the Berkeley County
- 25:41Speaker 1: Board of Education had an opportunity to do the right thing,
- 25:43Speaker 1: they chose not to. Specifically, they put these the teacher
- 25:47Speaker 1: and the aids off on not just administrative league, paid administratively,
- 25:52Speaker 1: they were paid to sit home. Finally, even after they
- 25:55Speaker 1: had all of the evidence, they said, well, we're gonna
- 25:57Speaker 1: let you resign rather than permanate you. Now, as a token,
- 26:01Speaker 1: they put a letter in their personnel file. But as
- 26:03Speaker 1: you and I both know, personnel files are confidential, so
- 26:05Speaker 1: if they go across the border to Virginia or Maryland,
- 26:08Speaker 1: those personnel files are not going to follow them. Even
- 26:10Speaker 1: if the new school district where they work requests them,
- 26:14Speaker 1: they don't turn them over. So they clearly should have
- 26:16Speaker 1: been fired, and it's shocking that the school board let
- 26:20Speaker 1: them resign. Dude, Doctor Asian Wood, the blogger who investigated
- 26:23Speaker 1: this story, she's at tell Zone Educated Debutant dot com.
- 26:26Speaker 1: What do you make of it, Adrian Um, I think
- 26:29Speaker 1: we need to be concerned that Christina luster the lead
- 26:31Speaker 1: teacher immediately once she resigned, and she got a job
- 26:36Speaker 1: at Grafton and Berryville, West Virginia. It's group home for
- 26:40Speaker 1: troubled teens. And she was not fired until tuesday. And
- 26:45Speaker 1: so I think you're seeing exactly the fear of what happens.
- 26:48Speaker 1: It's in a personnel file, like the attorney just stated,
- 26:52Speaker 1: and here up until Tuesday, she's been working with troubled teens.
- 26:56Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, after this, how can that be? Doctor Wood?
- 27:00Speaker 1: You know, I think what we're seeing in West Virginia
- 27:02Speaker 1: is the epitome of the good old boy network. I
- 27:06Speaker 1: have never in my life seeing so many people cover
- 27:09Speaker 1: up crime. And I think there's been The other night
- 27:12Speaker 1: at the board meeting, you heard parent after parent, men, women,
- 27:16Speaker 1: grandparents cry and tell these stories of abuse, and they
- 27:20Speaker 1: were never heard. And I don't think it was until
- 27:22Speaker 1: a group got together and said, you know what, we're
- 27:25Speaker 1: not as dumb as you think we are, and we
- 27:27Speaker 1: are not going to stand for this any longer. The
- 27:30Speaker 1: game is over. This is all going down in a
- 27:33Speaker 1: small town in West Virginia. A secret classroom recording has
- 27:37Speaker 1: very upsetting threats made by instructors toward not just students,
- 27:43Speaker 1: but special needs students. And if the community in Martinsburg
- 27:49Speaker 1: lets this go without a prosecution, it's on them. It
- 27:54Speaker 1: is on them. If that's what they want in their schools,
- 27:57Speaker 1: it's on them. If they want to let deel how
- 28:00Speaker 1: to get away with this, it's on them. The first
- 28:03Speaker 1: protest over the recording happened at Town Center. Now. The
- 28:06Speaker 1: recording was made by Amber Pack, who knew something was
- 28:10Speaker 1: horribly wrong happening with her daughter at school. Her daughter's
- 28:14Speaker 1: special needs adri would run and hide from her in
- 28:17Speaker 1: the morning when it was time to go to school,
- 28:19Speaker 1: would get so anxious that the port little thing couldn't
- 28:22Speaker 1: speak and tell mommy was wrong and would cry and
- 28:25Speaker 1: be upset. Now we know what was wrong. One instructor,
- 28:31Speaker 1: I ought to backhand you right in the teeth. How's
- 28:33Speaker 1: that for anxiety. That's after the mom told the teachers
- 28:37Speaker 1: that the daughter was having anxiety. It goes on and
- 28:41Speaker 1: on and on with the teachers berating and threatening the students.
- 28:46Speaker 1: I want to go to Joe Scott Morgan. I agree
- 28:49Speaker 1: with the mom Amber Pack. She is leading the fight
- 28:52Speaker 1: for classroom cameras and I don't know why that doesn't exist.
- 28:55Speaker 1: They've even got him. At daycare for dogs and cats,
- 28:58Speaker 1: you can look in and see your dog hopping around
- 29:02Speaker 1: and barking and eating, and we will do that for pets,
- 29:05Speaker 1: but not for children. Yeah, isn't that odd, Nancy? That
- 29:09Speaker 1: you know? I think that you know the world that
- 29:12Speaker 1: we live in nowadays. I think there ought to be
- 29:14Speaker 1: an app on the phone where if you want to
- 29:16Speaker 1: look in on your child, you ought to be able
- 29:18Speaker 1: to click on a button and be able to see
- 29:20Speaker 1: what's going on in the classroom. Because it's getting to
- 29:23Speaker 1: this point, you know, it's really it's really an odd construct.
- 29:28Speaker 1: It We go into these environments with these children that
- 29:32Speaker 1: are so fragile, and we're essentially turning them over to
- 29:36Speaker 1: an unknown person. We don't know what their background is.
- 29:40Speaker 1: We hope that the school system has vetted them appropriately,
- 29:44Speaker 1: but you know, they just kind of disappeared behind these
- 29:46Speaker 1: doors after that period of time. Eight hours a day,
- 29:49Speaker 1: and that's very scary, man, eight hours a day alone
- 29:52Speaker 1: with your children. It's standing room only on Monday's Berkeley
- 29:56Speaker 1: County school Board meeting, and emotions are at an all
- 29:59Speaker 1: time as parents ask for multiple resignations of school district officials.
- 30:04Speaker 1: I ask you that you do the right thing and
- 30:08Speaker 1: you turn in your resignation immediately. Everyone upset over a
- 30:12Speaker 1: secret school recording exposing three instructors in a special education
- 30:16Speaker 1: class making disturbing comments to first graders out a back hand.
- 30:21Speaker 1: You write your team the district, says teacher Christina Lester,
- 30:25Speaker 1: and aids June Iorish and Christian Dowdy have all resigned
- 30:29Speaker 1: in connection. People faced down the school board, including two
- 30:33Speaker 1: of the moms of students who are the target of
- 30:36Speaker 1: the alarming comments. What I heard was nothing short of horrific,
- 30:39Speaker 1: and all I could think was, please, guys, tell me
- 30:42Speaker 1: this was an isolated incident. Many comments directed at superintendent
- 30:45Speaker 1: Manny Arvon. People believe he didn't remove all the instructors
- 30:49Speaker 1: fast enough from the classroom and failed to alert all
- 30:52Speaker 1: the students parents. You're hearing our friend that is Aliyah
- 30:56Speaker 1: Williamson at w DVMTV an outrage parents who show up
- 31:01Speaker 1: at a school board meeting demanding resignations after this abuse
- 31:04Speaker 1: audio is released by mom Amber Pack on Facebook because
- 31:08Speaker 1: she was not getting any response from the school, so
- 31:10Speaker 1: she finally had to release it on social media. Amber
- 31:13Speaker 1: Pack with me now along with doctor Adriane Wood, a blogger.
- 31:16Speaker 1: It tells of an educated debutante dot com doctor Adrianne Wood,
- 31:21Speaker 1: a blogger who investigated this story, Amber's lawyer Ben Selango,
- 31:25Speaker 1: Joe Scott Morgan, and doctor Daniel Bober. We are also
- 31:29Speaker 1: learning that the West Virginia Attorney General is launching a
- 31:32Speaker 1: suit against the teacher's aids accused of mistreatment. The West
- 31:37Speaker 1: Virginia Attorney General's Office now investigating the allegations the teacher's
- 31:41Speaker 1: aids mistreated children in a special ed classroom. They found
- 31:46Speaker 1: out after Amber made this public getting no response from
- 31:50Speaker 1: the school. Now, the ag Patrick Marcy is seeking the
- 31:56Speaker 1: enforcement of a state's Human Rights Act. The teachers are
- 32:01Speaker 1: guilty of verbally assaulting nonverbal special needs children. To Ben Selano,
- 32:08Speaker 1: Amber's lawyer, what about that? Will that land them in
- 32:11Speaker 1: jail or will it be considered a criminal action? No,
- 32:16Speaker 1: you know, we appreciate the attorney general's assistance in the case,
- 32:19Speaker 1: and certainly his involvement will help with investigation. But the
- 32:23Speaker 1: attorney General doesn't have the authority to prosecute. All he
- 32:26Speaker 1: can do is get an injunction to keep them from
- 32:29Speaker 1: teaching in West Virginia. It doesn't even go beyond the
- 32:31Speaker 1: borders of West Virginia, and then he can he can
- 32:34Speaker 1: enforce file. Well, hold on, wait a minute, Wait a minute,
- 32:37Speaker 1: Wait a minute, Ben Selingo, how embarrassing for the district attorney,
- 32:42Speaker 1: the county prosecutors, you guys call them? Yeah, what was
- 32:45Speaker 1: her name again? Kata Delagotti is her name? And Katie Dellagotti.
- 32:51Speaker 1: How embarrassing for the state attorney general to have to
- 32:54Speaker 1: take some kind of an action because you're, let me
- 32:57Speaker 1: just say, sitting on your thumb dropping the ball and
- 33:02Speaker 1: to you. Robin Wilenski Crime online dot Com investigative reporter,
- 33:06Speaker 1: what about the cops who first answer the call? That's
- 33:09Speaker 1: my biggest beef with this entire case. You have a
- 33:11Speaker 1: crime that goes on, or an alleged crime, and you
- 33:14Speaker 1: have the first police officer on the scene, Nancy, and
- 33:18Speaker 1: that person is like, oh, nothing to see here, gotta go.
- 33:21Speaker 1: Doesn't bump it up to her boss, to the detective bureau,
- 33:25Speaker 1: to the investigators, to sexual assault if there was, we
- 33:29Speaker 1: don't know. She just looks the other way and goes
- 33:32Speaker 1: on with her day. That to me, the first line
- 33:35Speaker 1: of defense is the first police officer who is called
- 33:39Speaker 1: to the scene to investigate, who does nothing to Amber Pat,
- 33:44Speaker 1: the mother of Adri, who was so distraught over her
- 33:48Speaker 1: child's anxiety and crying, not wanting to go to school anymore,
- 33:53Speaker 1: upset all the time. Remember her child as nonverbal. But
- 33:57Speaker 1: I can tell when something's wrong with John Daverley. See,
- 34:00Speaker 1: I can tell just by looking at them that something
- 34:03Speaker 1: is wrong. She can tell something's wrong with Adri. Can
- 34:09Speaker 1: you imagine what drove her to buy a recording device
- 34:12Speaker 1: and put it in her child's hair. It was to
- 34:15Speaker 1: that point, Amber Pat, when you heard the recording. What
- 34:21Speaker 1: was your reaction? Tell me about the moment you heard
- 34:24Speaker 1: this recording. At some points, I was just so mad
- 34:28Speaker 1: you know, I was shaken and then the verbal threats
- 34:30Speaker 1: they actually made me vomits. Pow. Is your daughter behaving
- 34:36Speaker 1: now that she's in a new environment. Wonderfully, she's progressing.
- 34:40Speaker 1: She's done more than three months at her new schools
- 34:42Speaker 1: than she did in the year at the old one.
- 34:46Speaker 1: They've had to work very hard. I bet they have.
- 34:49Speaker 1: And it's hard enough for a child without a disability,
- 34:52Speaker 1: much less with the disabilities your little adri is facing. Amber.
- 34:56Speaker 1: Did you ever see these teachers, aids or teacher face
- 34:59Speaker 1: to face. Yeah, yeah, not since not since the incident.
- 35:04Speaker 1: But what they say, um before, I mean, you know,
- 35:08Speaker 1: smiles and waves. No. No, no one ever told me
- 35:12Speaker 1: that they had such a problem with my child. You know,
- 35:15Speaker 1: the problem is not with your child, the problems with
- 35:17Speaker 1: with themselves. No, the problem is definitely not with my child.
- 35:20Speaker 1: But they never let me know that that this is
- 35:23Speaker 1: how her day went. You know that she cried the
- 35:26Speaker 1: entire day. Did she ever come home with scratches or bruises?
- 35:30Speaker 1: She did have bruises on her forearms. But like, there's
- 35:33Speaker 1: no way for me to um, I don't know for
- 35:39Speaker 1: sure where they can go. Okay, let me understand this, Uh,
- 35:42Speaker 1: so Amber, she goes to school without bruises, she comes
- 35:44Speaker 1: home with bruises on her arms, like uh, like little
- 35:49Speaker 1: dots like on her forearm, Like maybe she could have
- 35:51Speaker 1: bumped or it could have been somebody grabbed her, you
- 35:54Speaker 1: know she does. I mean, Jess got more game you
- 35:57Speaker 1: And I've seen that a million times in criminal cases.
- 36:00Speaker 1: Now we're typically talking about dead bodies, but where women
- 36:03Speaker 1: usually or children are grabbed by someone on their arms
- 36:09Speaker 1: above the elbows or yanking them along under the elbow,
- 36:13Speaker 1: and those are actually finger bruises where the fingers are
- 36:16Speaker 1: the thumb imprint into the child's arms. Yes, I would
- 36:19Speaker 1: be suspicious of that, like she's saying, we can't prove that,
- 36:21Speaker 1: but I would be suspicious. Yeah, I would. And that's great, Amber.
- 36:27Speaker 1: I'm glad that you did you just say about pictures.
- 36:29Speaker 1: Did you show that to the so called county prosecutor. No,
- 36:33Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to bring my phones into the meeting,
- 36:36Speaker 1: so but they never asked me to sing them to
- 36:39Speaker 1: them either. Good. Great, I'm glad you've got Slango working
- 36:42Speaker 1: for you. For Pete's sake, I see this as a
- 36:45Speaker 1: huge miscarriage of justice. I mean, at least at the least,
- 36:50Speaker 1: the county prosecutor could take the case to try and
- 36:52Speaker 1: let a journey say not guilty if they want to.
- 36:55Speaker 1: But I've got a feeling once they hear this audio tape,
- 36:57Speaker 1: they won't say not guilty. Hey, Ben s Lengo, you're
- 37:00Speaker 1: the lawyer for Amber Pack. Is this jurisdiction West Virginia,
- 37:05Speaker 1: which I visited many times. I've got a relative from
- 37:07Speaker 1: West Virginia. Is that a one or two party recording state? State? Wonderful? Yeah,
- 37:16Speaker 1: and it gets even better. There's a West Virginia case
- 37:17Speaker 1: right on point where the mother her consent can transfer
- 37:22Speaker 1: to the child, so the tape is admissible. Yeah, well
- 37:25Speaker 1: we're talking about Sorry, went to a warp speed there,
- 37:28Speaker 1: lawyer taught. I hate it when lawyers do that. What
- 37:31Speaker 1: it is is when you make a secret recording of someone.
- 37:34Speaker 1: In some states, both parties, the recorder and the record
- 37:37Speaker 1: ee have to agree to be taped. In many other states,
- 37:40Speaker 1: I think the majority it's one party consent, Like you
- 37:43Speaker 1: can take people to call you in your home in
- 37:45Speaker 1: many states. And that's what happened here. Amber did the recording,
- 37:48Speaker 1: the teachers did not consent to it, but that is
- 37:51Speaker 1: admissible in West Virginia to you, Robert Willinski, Crime online
- 37:55Speaker 1: dot Com investigative reporter. What now, Nancy? So going forward,
- 37:59Speaker 1: here's what we have. Amber Pack's attorney, Ben Silango, believes
- 38:02Speaker 1: he can prove her daughter was also physically assaulted. So
- 38:05Speaker 1: he is filing a civil lawsuit with the goal of
- 38:08Speaker 1: having a jury decide damages and if money is awarded,
- 38:11Speaker 1: it would go into a trust for the little girl
- 38:13Speaker 1: to have when she turns eighteen. Now, meanwhile, and other
- 38:16Speaker 1: developments get this, they are in search of a new
- 38:19Speaker 1: school superintendent. The Berkeley County Board of Ed, in a
- 38:22Speaker 1: unanimous vote, has accepted the resignation of Manny Arvon, who
- 38:27Speaker 1: is retiring. And I use air quotes here. By all accounts,
- 38:31Speaker 1: he was totally ineffective. As you'll recall, amber Pack gives
- 38:34Speaker 1: the audio tape to police. Police turn it over to
- 38:37Speaker 1: the principle. The principal turns it over to the superintendent
- 38:40Speaker 1: and guess what, nothing, Absolutely nothing was done. So now
- 38:44Speaker 1: he's retiring, Nancy. So what now, Amber Pack? What do
- 38:48Speaker 1: you want to happen now? And how can I help you?
- 38:52Speaker 1: I want them criminally charged. I want cameras in the classrooms.
- 38:58Speaker 1: I kind of feel like our whole board of education
- 39:02Speaker 1: needs looked into. We have we're passing down principal roles
- 39:07Speaker 1: at schools like their family business. You know, there's no
- 39:09Speaker 1: reason everyone's son or daughter on the board has or
- 39:12Speaker 1: brother or you know, is a principal at a school.
- 39:15Speaker 1: Which it just it doesn't make sense to me. Everyone
- 39:20Speaker 1: here is related. In prayse mine, that's quite the coin,
- 39:22Speaker 1: kid ink the coincidence, the coincidence that every year on
- 39:26Speaker 1: the school board, somehow your relatives get to be principles.
- 39:29Speaker 1: You know what sounds to me like there's a whole
- 39:31Speaker 1: lot of house cleaning that needs to be done. Go
- 39:35Speaker 1: to crime online dot com if you want to hear
- 39:37Speaker 1: these audio recordings, if you want to read about this,
- 39:40Speaker 1: if you want your voice to be heard, which I
- 39:43Speaker 1: do because it would be my honor one day to
- 39:47Speaker 1: meet Adrian and to meet Amber Pack and Ben Selango
- 39:52Speaker 1: and doctor Adrian Wood. I want to thank all of you,
- 39:56Speaker 1: including Joe Scott Morgan, doctor Daniel Bober, and Robin Wilensky.
- 40:00Speaker 1: Let's pray to God we can make a difference, and
- 40:03Speaker 1: we can make a change for the better in this world.
- 40:07Speaker 1: Nancy Grace's Crime Story signing off, good Bye FRIP.