Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Mom hikes with husband, son, loses earring & falls off cliff! SO WHERE'S THE BODY?

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Mom hikes with husband, son, loses earring & falls off cliff! SO WHERE'S THE BODY? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:07
Speaker 1: Did a West Virginia woman plummet to her death. Her
0:13
Speaker 1: name is Julie Wheeler. She goes hiking or looking at
0:19
Speaker 1: scenery with her husband and her teen son, apparently looking
0:26
Speaker 1: for a missing earring, falls to her death, but nobody
0:32
Speaker 1: can find the body. Crime stories with Nancy Grace, I
0:51
Speaker 1: mean Nancy Grace, this is crime Stories. Thank you for
0:53
Speaker 1: being with us. What happened to Julie Wheeler? First of all,
0:58
Speaker 1: take a listen to our friends. At Fought fifty nine, Paris, Dunford,
1:02
Speaker 1: multiple search and rescue teams joined together to look for
1:04
Speaker 1: the missing woman after a sixty foot drop. These men
1:10
Speaker 1: are repelling down the steep cliff searching for a woman.
1:14
Speaker 1: He had a call coming yesterday evening that a woman
1:17
Speaker 1: had fallen off of the main overlook in the Grand
1:20
Speaker 1: View areas of park. The call came into dispatch around
1:23
Speaker 1: eight thirty Sunday night. Rescue teams joined together with the
1:26
Speaker 1: National Park Service at the Grand View Overlook to search
1:29
Speaker 1: for the missing woman between multiple fire departments, in law
1:32
Speaker 1: enforcement agencies. Definitely inter agency. The National Park Service here
1:37
Speaker 1: at the New River Gorge has has lots of resources,
1:40
Speaker 1: but we also as far as staff and yoes, but
1:43
Speaker 1: we also depend a lot on our partner agencies. Park
1:46
Speaker 1: officials say that the local forty three year old woman
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Speaker 1: was with her husband and son when she fell off
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Speaker 1: the overlook. Now, if it had just been the husband,
1:54
Speaker 1: I would think, oh, wait, push her, But she's there
1:56
Speaker 1: with her husband and son out. You know, Jackie was
2:02
Speaker 1: very curious about why I wanted to take the children
2:04
Speaker 1: across the country in an RV. Didn't sound really fun
2:08
Speaker 1: to her to be cooking and parking lots doing for
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Speaker 1: a Dutch oven, cooking that we learned with a Scouts,
2:14
Speaker 1: sleeping in tents out in the badlands. That kind of
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Speaker 1: thing didn't sound fun to HERMS five star luxury resort.
2:19
Speaker 1: You may wonder, why would a woman even want to
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Speaker 1: climb up and down the sheer face of New River Gorge.
2:29
Speaker 1: It's a cliff, but you know what, to each her own.
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Speaker 1: I like RV. I like camping out. I like building
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Speaker 1: a fire and cooking over the fire and pitching a
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Speaker 1: tent looking up at the stars. That's just me, Jackie.
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Speaker 1: You stick to the ritz, Okay, So don't even start
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Speaker 1: asking why Julie Wheeler wanted to climb a sheer face
2:53
Speaker 1: of New River Gorge, Eric grand View State Park straight
2:57
Speaker 1: out to our all Star panel. Jim Ellie, attorney with
3:01
Speaker 1: Butler Snow. He's a legal counsel for multiple jurisdictions, governmental entities.
3:06
Speaker 1: Doctor Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrists joining us out of Atlanta.
3:10
Speaker 1: Cloyd Steiker thirty six years Seattle PD, twenty two of
3:13
Speaker 1: those as homicide detective all the Seattle's Forgotten serial killer
3:17
Speaker 1: Gary Jean Grant. You can find him at Cloyd Steiger
3:20
Speaker 1: dot com. But right now to Crime online dot com.
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Speaker 1: Investigative reporter Levi, Paige Levi, this woman is a lot
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Speaker 1: of people may judge her if she had been out
3:31
Speaker 1: all on her own, but that's not the case. She's
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Speaker 1: out with her husband and her son. Tell me about
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Speaker 1: this area, New River Gorge, Grandview State Park, Nancy. This
3:42
Speaker 1: is in Beaver West, Virginia and Grandview State Park. It's
3:47
Speaker 1: absolutely stunning if you pull it up on Google. It
3:49
Speaker 1: has beautiful mountain views. There's a river that runs through there,
3:54
Speaker 1: and there these overlooks that you can just get these
3:58
Speaker 1: amazing views of at Grandview State Park. And Julie Weaver,
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Speaker 1: her husband Rodney Wheeler, and seventeen year old son were
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Speaker 1: hiking in this area and she missed an earring. She
4:12
Speaker 1: was looking for it, and her husband said she fell
4:15
Speaker 1: and they couldn't find her. She fell off one of
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Speaker 1: the overlooks. Okay, so original reports that she was scaling
4:22
Speaker 1: the side of a cliff and lost her footing and fail,
4:25
Speaker 1: that's not correct. She was looking for a lost earring.
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Speaker 1: As he said that she was missing her earring, She
4:30
Speaker 1: was looking for it and fell off one of the
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Speaker 1: overlooks at Grandview State Park. And you know, to Cloyd
4:36
Speaker 1: Steiger again thirty six years Seattle, PD twenty two of
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Speaker 1: out on Homicide, the first thing you want to do
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Speaker 1: when a woman goes missing is you want to find
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Speaker 1: out where the husband is, the boyfriend, the ex, the lover,
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Speaker 1: any romantic and just a spurned boyfriend from five years
4:52
Speaker 1: ago that keeps texting her and emailing her. That's where
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Speaker 1: you look first, right Kloyd, Yeah, that's right. But again,
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Speaker 1: as she said, in this case, closely her was with her.
5:01
Speaker 1: You know, I want to interview the sun see what
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Speaker 1: he knows. But that doesn't seem to be the key
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Speaker 1: that changes everything, that changes the whole dynamic. When you've
5:10
Speaker 1: got the team's son there he's not got to stand
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Speaker 1: by and watch dad murder mom and not say anything.
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Speaker 1: But I do find this very curiously. By page she
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Speaker 1: falls off the cliff, but they can't find her body.
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Speaker 1: It's the New River Gorge, so she's looking down at
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Speaker 1: a river. She wouldn't have just fallen straight down and
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Speaker 1: hit the ground and her body lie there. There's a river.
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Speaker 1: That's the whole point. You're looking down and a river.
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Speaker 1: Her body obviously would have been taken away by the river.
5:39
Speaker 1: So was that the problem? That is the problem, Nancy.
5:42
Speaker 1: And there were searching rescue missions, there were helicopters that
5:46
Speaker 1: were deployed. People were really searching for her, thinking that
5:51
Speaker 1: she may have fell into this river. That's right, guys,
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Speaker 1: take a listen again to our friend Paris Dunford at
5:56
Speaker 1: Fox fifty nine. The Bay County Vertical Rescue Team first
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Speaker 1: tried repelling on the mountain and continue to do that
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Speaker 1: for the rest of the day. West Virginia citate police
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Speaker 1: who's a helicopter and a drone to get a better view.
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Speaker 1: Raley County Sheriff's Department brought in a canine that detected
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Speaker 1: a positive scent of the woman on the overlook fence.
6:16
Speaker 1: You take one step at a time. We'll have another
6:18
Speaker 1: briefing once this operational periods over to decide on a
6:22
Speaker 1: plan for We'll reconvene tomorrow and the rescue crew will
6:25
Speaker 1: continue to exhaust all of their resources looking for the
6:28
Speaker 1: pink shart you may have been wearing when she fell.
6:30
Speaker 1: A search will be going on till they find, you know,
6:33
Speaker 1: find a person. So the incident is still under investigation.
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Speaker 1: The woman's name has not yet burned release. The ground
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Speaker 1: search here has been suspended, but the National Guard is
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Speaker 1: still taking a helicopter that you might be able to hear,
6:43
Speaker 1: to search the end of the cliff Man. That costs
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Speaker 1: a lot of money, time and effort to find this
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Speaker 1: missing woman. Julie Wheeler. She's out hiking with husband and
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Speaker 1: teen son. She loses an earring, goes over the side
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Speaker 1: of New Gorge Overlook. They're at Grand View State Road.
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Speaker 1: You know, I never put a price a price tag
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Speaker 1: on a search, Chloyd Seiger, because if it's my child,
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Speaker 1: or my husband or my mom, I want every resource possible.
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Speaker 1: That's why I pay taxes. So they can get out
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Speaker 1: there with their helicopters and their drones and their dogs.
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Speaker 1: That's what they're paid to do. Everybody always makes a
7:28
Speaker 1: big deal about the price tag. That's why they're sitting
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Speaker 1: there to come out at moments just like this. So
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Speaker 1: suggesting that somehow she fell over because she's looking for
7:42
Speaker 1: an earring and then all these resources were used. I
7:46
Speaker 1: disagree with that. Yeah, that's right. When these things happen,
7:48
Speaker 1: you have to pull out all the stops and you
7:49
Speaker 1: can't worry about money or how much things cost, because
7:52
Speaker 1: how much as a person's life worth, right, you have
7:54
Speaker 1: to you have to do that. It's very important to
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Speaker 1: their family. And suppose she's injured and not dead, and
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Speaker 1: because you didn't, you can't I know that happened. Crime
8:15
Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we are talking about the
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Speaker 1: disappearance of a mom. Her name is Julie Wheeler. Take
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Speaker 1: a listen again to our friends at Fox fifty nine, Paris.
8:33
Speaker 1: Done for this cut. Three Multiple search and rescue teams
8:36
Speaker 1: joined together to look for the missing woman. After multiple techniques,
8:39
Speaker 1: they were still not able to locate her. Take a
8:41
Speaker 1: look a sixty foot drop. These men are repelling down
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Speaker 1: the steep cliff searching for a woman. He had a
8:50
Speaker 1: call coming yesterday evening that a woman had fallen off
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Speaker 1: of the main overlook in the Grand New areas of park.
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Speaker 1: The call came into dispatch around eight thirty Sunday. Night
9:00
Speaker 1: rescue teams joined together with the National Park Service at
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Speaker 1: the Grand View Overlook to search for the missing woman
9:06
Speaker 1: between multiple fire departments, in law enforcement agencies. Definitely inter agency.
9:12
Speaker 1: The National Park Service here at the New River Gorge
9:14
Speaker 1: has has lots of resources, but we also U as
9:18
Speaker 1: far as staff and goes, but we also depend a
9:20
Speaker 1: lot on our on our partner agencies. Park officials said
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Speaker 1: a local forty three year old woman was with her
9:25
Speaker 1: husband and son when she fell off the overlay. And
9:27
Speaker 1: after that exhaustive search, still no body. I want you
9:34
Speaker 1: to take a listen now to WOAYTV news reporter Anna Saunders. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: the call came in just before dark last night when
9:44
Speaker 1: we arrived on scene, and uh, yeah, we had a
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Speaker 1: witness that that said that someone went over the edge,
9:52
Speaker 1: and we did an initial sweep till almost midnight last night,
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Speaker 1: and uh we weren't able to have a get a
10:00
Speaker 1: fined last night, so we came back in the morning
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Speaker 1: and going on a second operational period today. So the
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Speaker 1: National Park Service, joined by the Beaver Volunteer Fire Department.
10:09
Speaker 1: West Virginia State Police, the Raley County Sheriff's Department, Genecare Ambulance,
10:14
Speaker 1: and the Fayette County Vertical Rescue Team were all on
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Speaker 1: scene for day two as teams repelled down both sides
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Speaker 1: of the overlook, everyone on hand to search for a
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Speaker 1: local woman who reportedly fell off the clip. After all that,
10:26
Speaker 1: still no body. So explain to me straight out to
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Speaker 1: Levi Page Crime Online got common investigative reporter Levi tell
10:34
Speaker 1: me about the search for her. The search for Jeelie Wheeler,
10:39
Speaker 1: So Nancy. They got dive teams to search the river,
10:43
Speaker 1: They got people that were repelling off the mountain looking
10:46
Speaker 1: for her. They had helicopters dispatched at night, and they
10:51
Speaker 1: searched for her for days. They were looking in this
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Speaker 1: mountainous region for her body, dive teams repelling. Still no body.
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Speaker 1: But what about bloodhounds. Listen to Woay TV. All we
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Speaker 1: really know is that she's forty three years old and
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Speaker 1: she was here with her son and her husband. So
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Speaker 1: we know that she was wearing a peak shirt. That's
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Speaker 1: just about all the details that we have at this
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Speaker 1: point in a time. Overnight a thermal helicopter search did
11:19
Speaker 1: not turn up any results, so on Monday in daylight,
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Speaker 1: the repell team descended about fifty feet to the first
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Speaker 1: cliff after the overlook drop, and once that search was
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Speaker 1: completed with no results, the Raleigh County Sheriff's Apartment sent
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Speaker 1: in the bloodhouding team. They were able to find the
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Speaker 1: woman sent at the overlook using her items, but from
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Speaker 1: there it was time for another repel, this time Cruse
11:39
Speaker 1: doing a grid search from top to bottom, fourteen hundred
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Speaker 1: feet from the park's tallest peak all the way down
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Speaker 1: to the river. You know when you blink, bring in
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Speaker 1: bloodhounds straight out to you. Cloyd Steiger, homicide detective. A
11:54
Speaker 1: lot of people don't understand how bloodhounds were tracking dog
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Speaker 1: sent dogs. You can be a tracker dog, you can
12:01
Speaker 1: be cadaver dog. You can be a fire dog. My
12:03
Speaker 1: favorite fire dog ever was named Blaze and helped me
12:06
Speaker 1: in many arts and investigations. Trained to smell accelerants even underwater,
12:12
Speaker 1: A bomb dog again, a drug dog. They're trained specifically
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Speaker 1: to find a certain thing. Lloyd Steiger, I remember you
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Speaker 1: know how many times I use dogs in court as witnesses,
12:26
Speaker 1: and I've said a million times my best witness I
12:29
Speaker 1: ever put on the stand was a dog, and I
12:33
Speaker 1: was I'm happy to report who's very hard to cross examine.
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Speaker 1: But a dog has thousands like we have two nostrils,
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Speaker 1: a dog on their little nose it's always moist, has
12:49
Speaker 1: thousands of I'm not even sure what you would call
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Speaker 1: them membranes, to smell like a thousand and noses. That's
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Speaker 1: why they can do things we can't even imagine explain
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Speaker 1: how it works. Chloyd, Well, that's exactly right. You know,
13:09
Speaker 1: different types of dogs are better for different types of smells,
13:13
Speaker 1: but bloodhounds are the best because they can tract things
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Speaker 1: days after it's happened, because they're the most sensitive noses
13:22
Speaker 1: and can follow a scent long after other types of
13:25
Speaker 1: dogs can. So that's why bloodhounds are used in search
13:29
Speaker 1: as well after the event, as opposed to German shepherds,
13:31
Speaker 1: which are great for a short time after the event.
13:34
Speaker 1: But bloodhouns are the king. Well why are you saying
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Speaker 1: that about German shepherds. Well, because they don't the scent.
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Speaker 1: They can't detect a scent after a while it dissipates,
13:42
Speaker 1: but bloodhounds are so much more sensitive in the nose
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Speaker 1: like a police dog. We'll be able to search maybe
13:46
Speaker 1: forty five minutes after an event. The thing on the
13:49
Speaker 1: surface grass is better than concrete, but bloodhounds can search
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Speaker 1: days after the event and still be active. Dogs can
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Speaker 1: determine a track sent by identifying a combination of smells
14:01
Speaker 1: based on the humans natural scent, as well as a
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Speaker 1: combination of environmental odors. For instance, does she wear a
14:14
Speaker 1: baby powder, does she wear secret deodorant? Does she have
14:20
Speaker 1: hair spray or a makeup or a Veno lotion? I
14:23
Speaker 1: mean it could be a number of things. So the
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Speaker 1: dog is picking up not just the iman. I mean
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Speaker 1: it said that hard to understand. I mean, I'll look
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Speaker 1: over at Jackie Howard and I identify her by her height,
14:36
Speaker 1: by the color of her eyes, by her short blonde hair,
14:40
Speaker 1: by stomping around when things don't go right. I can
14:43
Speaker 1: even hear her steps coming. So long story short, I'm
14:47
Speaker 1: just a person with people senses, much less a highly
14:51
Speaker 1: trained tracker dog. And after all, this still nothing. And
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Speaker 1: then wait for it. Take a listen to this right
15:05
Speaker 1: now to our newsroom, and it involves the investigation in
15:08
Speaker 1: the search and rescue towards that woman at the grand
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Speaker 1: view overlooked that is, and we go right back to
15:13
Speaker 1: Paris Dumford Live with an update, Paris, what do you
15:15
Speaker 1: have for us? Lass And two minutes ago, right after
15:17
Speaker 1: we just went live at the beginning of the show,
15:19
Speaker 1: we heard from Sergeant Wood from the State Police that
15:22
Speaker 1: Julie Willer was found alive in Beaver. That's all we
15:25
Speaker 1: have right now. We'll bring you more details at fifty
15:27
Speaker 1: nine News at six if they are available. We wanted
15:29
Speaker 1: to make sure we optated you as soon as possible,
15:31
Speaker 1: so let's quite jump quickly to cut seven. Take a
15:36
Speaker 1: listen to WOAYTV news reporter Anna Saunders and the giant
15:42
Speaker 1: multi agency forty hours search for Julie. Once the mountain
15:45
Speaker 1: had been thoroughly searched by a repel team, helicopters, drones,
15:49
Speaker 1: and other emergency crews, then say police conducted a walkthrough
15:52
Speaker 1: of the house. At that point they didn't find anything.
15:55
Speaker 1: When they came back with the search warrant, Julie was
15:57
Speaker 1: in the closet of her Beaver home. The criminal complaint
16:00
Speaker 1: says the rescue efforts far exceeded a thousand dollars, so
16:04
Speaker 1: the court will request restitution pay from the couple, but
16:07
Speaker 1: Keller says she's not holding her breath. It's a matter
16:10
Speaker 1: of fact, when you have people that are either going
16:13
Speaker 1: to prison or commit frauds for monetary game, it is
16:20
Speaker 1: very rare that the taxpayer ever gets their money back.
16:24
Speaker 1: Wheeler was scheduled to appear in court for sensing on
16:26
Speaker 1: June seventeenth for separate federal healthcare fraud charges. In's facing
16:30
Speaker 1: up to ten years in prison already, which is what
16:32
Speaker 1: appears to be the motive for wanting to come up
16:34
Speaker 1: with this scheme after the major rescue effort put forward.
16:38
Speaker 1: Keller calls this case disturbing. People's lives were put in
16:42
Speaker 1: danger and an untold amount of taxpayer money was spent
16:47
Speaker 1: on what turned out to be a fraud crime. Stories
17:03
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace, Guys, we were talking about the so
17:08
Speaker 1: calm disappearance of Julie Wheeler, a young mom and wife
17:15
Speaker 1: who was out hiking apparently with her husband and her
17:18
Speaker 1: teen son when she was looking for an earring and
17:20
Speaker 1: fell over the cliff of New River Gorge. They're at
17:24
Speaker 1: Grand View State Park in West Virginia, but then suddenly
17:29
Speaker 1: cops find her hiding in the closet in her own home.
17:35
Speaker 1: Levi Page Crime Online got Com investigative reporter. I blame
17:38
Speaker 1: you totally because you didn't tell me at the beginning
17:42
Speaker 1: she could avoid sentencing for fraud on another matter. So
17:48
Speaker 1: you know, Jim Elliott, the cars are stacked against us
17:51
Speaker 1: knowing the truth. Did a husband fake his wife's death
17:55
Speaker 1: pretending she falls over a cliff so she avoid jail
18:00
Speaker 1: time for a fraud? Wow? In jail time, I'm a significant,
18:07
Speaker 1: significant fine, But you know, restitution I believe almost perhaps
18:11
Speaker 1: exceeding four hundred thousand dollars future was not. So where
18:17
Speaker 1: are you getting the four hundred thousand dollars figure from um? So?
18:20
Speaker 1: What she pled guilty to was a bad medical faud
18:25
Speaker 1: case where she was allegedly caring for a family member
18:30
Speaker 1: that had spina bifida UM and sent fraudulent invoices to
18:35
Speaker 1: the v plain to me to leave my page. Follow
18:38
Speaker 1: up on what Jim Elliott is saying, how this whole,
18:44
Speaker 1: this whole farce got started. How'd they cook it up?
18:48
Speaker 1: So Julie Weaver actually played guilty in February, months before
18:53
Speaker 1: this incident happened to federal healthcare fraud. There was an
18:57
Speaker 1: investigation into a pill mill clinic that led to her
19:01
Speaker 1: because she apparently owned a home health business where she
19:05
Speaker 1: would take care of sick people in their home. And
19:08
Speaker 1: she had a relative that had spina bifida, which is
19:11
Speaker 1: a spine condition they have difficulty walking, bladder control. And
19:16
Speaker 1: the VA provides benefits to descendants of veterans that fought
19:21
Speaker 1: in the Vietnam Korea War. And she was actually inflating
19:26
Speaker 1: the days and hours that she worked and helped her
19:31
Speaker 1: relative that was suffering from this condition and was scanning
19:35
Speaker 1: money from the VA. And she pled guilty to that
19:40
Speaker 1: was facing ten years in prison and had to pay
19:44
Speaker 1: restitution of four hundred thousand dollars in that area. And
19:49
Speaker 1: her husband is the one that cooked up this plot
19:52
Speaker 1: allegedly to hide her so she wouldn't have to be
19:57
Speaker 1: sentenced to ten years in prison for sam And now
20:01
Speaker 1: we've got the Sun being dragged into it, being told
20:06
Speaker 1: to go along with a fakery. What we understand is
20:09
Speaker 1: that a husband and his wife faked her death by
20:12
Speaker 1: pretending she falls over a cliff so she could avoid
20:18
Speaker 1: jail time for fraud. Now, somehow the Sun has been
20:23
Speaker 1: dragged into the whole thing too. Take a listen to
20:27
Speaker 1: cut six Way TV news reporter Anna Saunders. Well was
20:31
Speaker 1: originally reported as an accidental fall and a family's worst nightmare,
20:35
Speaker 1: was actually a giant ploy to allegedly fake the death
20:38
Speaker 1: or disappearance of Julie Wheeler, who was arrested alongside her
20:41
Speaker 1: husband Rodney, as they now face a series of charges
20:45
Speaker 1: fraudulent schemes, which is felony felony conspiracy, also the misdemeanor
20:51
Speaker 1: of willful disruption of government processes, two different kinds of
20:55
Speaker 1: giving false information to law enforcement and contributing to thelinquentship
21:00
Speaker 1: of mind her because they involved their child. So what
21:03
Speaker 1: happened at the overlook Well? According to the criminal complaint,
21:06
Speaker 1: a call came in on Sunday night saying a woman
21:08
Speaker 1: had fallen over the main Overlook grand view. At the
21:11
Speaker 1: scene a male juvenile and his father, Rodney said Julie
21:14
Speaker 1: reached over to pick up an earring and fell. Goes
21:17
Speaker 1: on to say that Rodney and the Sun plans and
21:19
Speaker 1: items of her as like a cell phone and a shoot,
21:22
Speaker 1: but there was never any evidence she was actually at
21:24
Speaker 1: the overlook, So how did they pull it off? Straight
21:27
Speaker 1: back to Levi Page Crime online dot Com investigative reporter.
21:30
Speaker 1: What happened? So apparently they went along with this story,
21:35
Speaker 1: made a fake nine one one call, Julie hid out
21:38
Speaker 1: in her closet, and they told the seventeen year old
21:41
Speaker 1: son to go along with this story. It wasn't until
21:44
Speaker 1: police had learned of her criminal history and they had
21:48
Speaker 1: gotten a search warrant for a phone and email, any
21:51
Speaker 1: electronic communications and the home. They went to the home,
21:55
Speaker 1: deployed this search warrant, got in there and found her
21:57
Speaker 1: hiding in her own quality. Doctor Angela Arnold Psychiatrists joining
22:02
Speaker 1: us out of Atlanta. What does it say that they
22:04
Speaker 1: dragged the sun into it and now he's facing charges
22:07
Speaker 1: as well. Well. I have my own idea about these
22:09
Speaker 1: folks after hearing this story, and that would be why
22:13
Speaker 1: I certainly believe I believe they have they are personality disordered.
22:20
Speaker 1: Now this doesn't mean that this is not an excuse
22:23
Speaker 1: for them, okay, Nancy, but it sounds to me like
22:27
Speaker 1: they are one or both of them have antisocial personalities. Well,
22:31
Speaker 1: so that's your excuse for everything, and antisocial personality. You
22:35
Speaker 1: drag your son into a fraud plot. He's looking at it. Well,
22:40
Speaker 1: go ahead, Well sure, because if you're if you're, if you're,
22:43
Speaker 1: if you if you truly have a if you're a
22:45
Speaker 1: personality disordered. Because none of us can understand this, none
22:49
Speaker 1: of us would do this, right, Nancy, So then you
22:52
Speaker 1: have to look deeper. What would make someone have complete
22:56
Speaker 1: disregard and buy the rights of other Well, I can
23:00
Speaker 1: tell you why a son would do it. A son
23:02
Speaker 1: would do it to save his mom from going to jail.
23:05
Speaker 1: I mean, if I was between a rock and hard
23:07
Speaker 1: spot and my husband or my children were going to jail,
23:12
Speaker 1: I might go along with a little fakery. I'm not
23:15
Speaker 1: saying that it's right, it's wrong. You know who reminds
23:18
Speaker 1: me of to you, doctor Angie Angela Arnold, do you
23:22
Speaker 1: remember Jennifer will Banks is so called runaway Bride. I'm
23:27
Speaker 1: not talking about Julia Roberts. She was a woman who
23:31
Speaker 1: was about to have a six hundred seat wedding and
23:36
Speaker 1: then you know the whole shebang, like ten bridesmaids, ten grooms,
23:42
Speaker 1: blah blah. That's hard for me to understand right there,
23:45
Speaker 1: because Dave and I decided on Tuesday we're getting married
23:48
Speaker 1: on Saturday, and bam, we did it. It was great,
23:52
Speaker 1: But she disappears the night before the wedding I believe
23:57
Speaker 1: it was, and then shows up a week or two
24:01
Speaker 1: later blaming some Hispanic males for sex assaulting her, which
24:05
Speaker 1: was all a big lie. She made that up right,
24:08
Speaker 1: And last I saw of her she was out doing
24:10
Speaker 1: community service, cutting grass or picking up trash or something
24:13
Speaker 1: like that. That was the runaway bride, the real one.
24:17
Speaker 1: What about this woman, Well, this woman seems completely This
24:23
Speaker 1: woman seems evil to me. I mean, she has no
24:25
Speaker 1: regard for the human condition at all of us. You're
24:29
Speaker 1: any kind of laws or regulations, I mean, to be
24:32
Speaker 1: able to to fraud the government. And why when I
24:38
Speaker 1: was looking at this Nancy, my fault was, why shouldn't
24:42
Speaker 1: you put all of this energy to doing something good?
24:45
Speaker 1: Use her powers for a good night evil? That's what
24:47
Speaker 1: I tell my daughter Lucy all the time. But tell me,
24:51
Speaker 1: doctor Arnold, not just as psychiatrist, but you have to
24:53
Speaker 1: be a medical doctor. You've got to be an MD
24:55
Speaker 1: before you can then focus in on psychiatry. What is
24:59
Speaker 1: sp is a disorder in which the brain and the
25:06
Speaker 1: spinal cord do not completely close in utero, and it
25:11
Speaker 1: can there can be all different they're different. Spectrums of
25:15
Speaker 1: spina bitha can affect people in very different ways. And um,
25:20
Speaker 1: typically these children are wheel true ridden, they don't they
25:25
Speaker 1: don't walk, Oftentimes they have Oftentimes, um, they're cognitively impaired.
25:31
Speaker 1: They can have ball and bladder problems. It is a
25:34
Speaker 1: it is bad to have spina. Okay, that is not
25:37
Speaker 1: a good thing to have. And apparently this and this child,
25:42
Speaker 1: I don't believe that she was taking care of this
25:43
Speaker 1: child with spin every day. I mean, but I mean,
25:48
Speaker 1: the reality is you're asking doctor Angela Arnold, you're the shrink,
25:51
Speaker 1: not me, what kind of person would take advantage of
25:55
Speaker 1: the situation? She was taking advantage of spina bifiti children. So,
26:01
Speaker 1: I mean, are you surprised you pulled this fraud? Off?
26:03
Speaker 1: To Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we're talking about
26:20
Speaker 1: a woman, Julie Wheeler, her husband, Rodney Wheeler, and now
26:25
Speaker 1: their teens son has been dragged into it trying to
26:28
Speaker 1: save his mom's neck. Apparently the husband comes up with
26:31
Speaker 1: a plan to have mom fall off a cliff to
26:34
Speaker 1: avoid a huge fine hundreds of thousands of dollars and
26:39
Speaker 1: ten years behind bars for faking claims to the Feds.
26:43
Speaker 1: It's like faking with the irs. Jackie, don't ever fake
26:46
Speaker 1: the taxman. Don't do it, Brett, don't do it. They
26:50
Speaker 1: will catch you. That's how al Capone got caught. He
26:52
Speaker 1: murders all these people. He's a mobster, but it was
26:55
Speaker 1: the Irs that got him. Do not lie to the Feds.
27:01
Speaker 1: Just don't say anything. But for Pete's sake, don't lie
27:05
Speaker 1: much less as she did put it in writing trying
27:08
Speaker 1: to get money from the federal government for work she
27:10
Speaker 1: was not doing. And now she's looking for an earring
27:13
Speaker 1: and falls off a cliff. Boy that smelled to high
27:16
Speaker 1: heaven at the get go. But I want you to
27:19
Speaker 1: take a listen to again Fox fifty nine Paris done
27:23
Speaker 1: for cut nine. The search not only costs different agencies
27:25
Speaker 1: a lot of money, it also took a lot of time,
27:27
Speaker 1: about forty hours worth, and more than half of the
27:30
Speaker 1: men and women working on seeing were volunteers. There's a
27:33
Speaker 1: little bit of frustration when we spend all that time
27:36
Speaker 1: and manpower for a false claim. And for most of
27:39
Speaker 1: those volunteers, they were repelling down a steep cliff, putting
27:43
Speaker 1: themselves in danger. And you send all these people out
27:47
Speaker 1: to risk their own lives and safety and well being
27:50
Speaker 1: in order to search for someone that wasn't even there.
27:52
Speaker 1: And even though they were searching for someone who was
27:54
Speaker 1: never even there, for putting your lives at danger on
27:57
Speaker 1: behalf of us, we appreciate it. They're hard working dedication
28:00
Speaker 1: did not go unnoticed. And Julie and Rodney will are
28:04
Speaker 1: facing multiple charges including conspiracy and fraud at the least.
28:08
Speaker 1: And you know another thing straight out to you, Jim Elliott,
28:11
Speaker 1: to you and Cloyd Steiger first to you, Jim. You know,
28:15
Speaker 1: very often I'd have a court calendar, be it a
28:18
Speaker 1: plea arrayment calendar or a trial calendar, emotions calendar, and
28:21
Speaker 1: the defendant wouldn't show up. I guess not because if
28:26
Speaker 1: I had anything to do with he's going to jail.
28:28
Speaker 1: But let's say we don't know where he is, and
28:31
Speaker 1: I would say, always, first go to his mother's house,
28:35
Speaker 1: number one, look under the bed and look in the closet.
28:39
Speaker 1: Just just do that for me, and when you finish that,
28:42
Speaker 1: call me on my cell phone, which, by the way,
28:44
Speaker 1: got stolen out of the courtroom. My phone got stolen
28:46
Speaker 1: out of the courtroom during a trial calendar. I had
28:49
Speaker 1: it plugged in. Somebody stole my phone. I never found
28:52
Speaker 1: it anyway, that's another cannon arms. My point is, Jim,
28:56
Speaker 1: why this woman's found a hiding in her closet? Could
28:59
Speaker 1: you surprise me just what? And don't be in your
29:01
Speaker 1: closet or under your mom's bed. I mean it's almost laughable.
29:04
Speaker 1: It's almost like Keystone cops. And what did you think
29:06
Speaker 1: she was gonna? I mean, just ridiculous. I don't think
29:11
Speaker 1: they thought it through it as a matter of fact,
29:12
Speaker 1: isn't it true? Levi page Crime online dot com. She
29:16
Speaker 1: was found just two days after this extensive search. She
29:19
Speaker 1: hid out I guess in the closet for two days,
29:20
Speaker 1: eating ramen noodles. I don't know. Was it two days?
29:23
Speaker 1: Two days? So chlod Steiger thirty six years Seattle PD
29:28
Speaker 1: twenty two of that on homicide and author Isn't it true?
29:32
Speaker 1: Everybody always runs straight home to mom. They hide out
29:35
Speaker 1: in mommy's house or in their own place, under their
29:38
Speaker 1: bed or in their closet. It's just a given. Yeah,
29:42
Speaker 1: you know, it's always amazes me. And you know we
29:44
Speaker 1: have I have big murder cases where people so he's
29:47
Speaker 1: fled the country or this is that? No? Right? Down
29:50
Speaker 1: the road, ride down the street. I'm saying, go to
29:54
Speaker 1: mama's house or on Tea's house. That's where they're gonna
29:57
Speaker 1: be always. I mean, you know, think about it. Don't
30:02
Speaker 1: tell my children Cloyd Stiger when you run into him.
30:05
Speaker 1: We play hide and seek in the house all the time.
30:07
Speaker 1: It never fails. John David always goes to my closet
30:13
Speaker 1: and hides same place every time. Lucy always goes to
30:19
Speaker 1: the living room and she hides behind the curtain behind
30:22
Speaker 1: the piano. It just is a given. Or they both
30:27
Speaker 1: hide and start giggling under the ping pong table. They
30:29
Speaker 1: always go the same place. What is that, Doctor Angela?
30:33
Speaker 1: That are we just like you know the dog that
30:35
Speaker 1: always circles three times before he sits down, Like the
30:39
Speaker 1: murderer that always goes back to look at the crime scene.
30:42
Speaker 1: Think about Scott Peterson looking out over San Francisco Bay.
30:45
Speaker 1: They're tracking him on his car. Why do we always
30:47
Speaker 1: do the same things over it and over Like this
30:49
Speaker 1: woman hiding in a closet. It's a safe place. They
30:53
Speaker 1: don't where else are they going to go? Right? I believe?
30:57
Speaker 1: I believe, particularly with criminals that go back to their
31:00
Speaker 1: mother's house and things like that where they can hide again.
31:04
Speaker 1: They look, like you said, they haven't thought this through completely,
31:07
Speaker 1: and they seek a safe place to go where they
31:10
Speaker 1: think they're going to be. That's certainly an understatement. They
31:13
Speaker 1: haven't thought this through completely. That's a that's certainly putting
31:16
Speaker 1: perfume on the pig. Go ahead, haven't thought it through completely.
31:20
Speaker 1: They've got her scaling the side of a cliff, or
31:23
Speaker 1: and then it changes to she lost her earring. Think
31:26
Speaker 1: about it, doctor Angela. You have volunteers repelling down the
31:32
Speaker 1: side of a sheer cliff looking for this woman and
31:36
Speaker 1: she's hiding in the closet having leftovers. That's why I
31:40
Speaker 1: said there's a there's a there's a horrific antisocial personality disorder. Oh,
31:47
Speaker 1: here you go with the personality disorder. The disorder is
31:51
Speaker 1: she cheated the government and doesn't want to go to jail. Right,
31:54
Speaker 1: that's the disorder. In complete disregard for anything that anybody
32:00
Speaker 1: has to do to find her. Maybe maybe she didn't
32:03
Speaker 1: think that it was going to go that far. I
32:05
Speaker 1: have no idea but to think about the men who
32:09
Speaker 1: put the men and women who put their lives in
32:11
Speaker 1: danger to search for her. Oh my goodness, but no
32:15
Speaker 1: one can feel sorry for her at this point, Kim,
32:17
Speaker 1: they take a listen to our friends at Fox fifty nine,
32:19
Speaker 1: Cut eight. He set the bail at one hundred thousand
32:22
Speaker 1: dollars for both of them. If they make bail, they
32:25
Speaker 1: will be restricted to home confinement. Prosecuting attorney Chris and
32:28
Speaker 1: Keller says she asked for home confinement because both are
32:31
Speaker 1: considered a fight risk. And say, please say the Wheelers
32:33
Speaker 1: tried to fake Julie falling off the main overlook at
32:36
Speaker 1: Grand View. That nine one one call sent rescue crews
32:39
Speaker 1: on an extensive search, and that search came with the
32:41
Speaker 1: cost to take a look. Repel teams, drones, helicopters, and bloodhounds.
32:46
Speaker 1: Those were all the resources used to search for Julie
32:49
Speaker 1: Wheeler came out calculated at this moment, only to find
32:52
Speaker 1: out she and her husband allegedly faked the fall. But
32:56
Speaker 1: who will pick up the bill? Assuming she's convicted, then
33:00
Speaker 1: law the court would order restitution. Okay, now, just to
33:04
Speaker 1: rub salt in the wound, take a listen to Riley Phillips,
33:11
Speaker 1: Fox fifty nine. Listen to this carefully. Two people accused
33:14
Speaker 1: of faking a death where we're supposed to appear in
33:16
Speaker 1: court today. Rodney and Julie Wheeler were scheduled to appear
33:20
Speaker 1: in front of a judge this morning, but the Wheelers
33:22
Speaker 1: did not qualify for a court appointed attorney because they
33:25
Speaker 1: make too much money. They will now have to reapply
33:28
Speaker 1: for an attorney. The preliminary hearing will also be rescheduled.
33:31
Speaker 1: The Wheelers were arrested last week after legedli trying to
33:33
Speaker 1: fake Julie's death. Jim Elliott, you know you kind of
33:36
Speaker 1: have to be in the know, an inside player, to
33:39
Speaker 1: note what which is played. Do you hear this? These
33:42
Speaker 1: two scammed the government out of hundreds of thousands of dollars,
33:48
Speaker 1: according to prosecutors, claiming the mom was taking care of
33:52
Speaker 1: a spine a bifit A patient when she wasn't. Then
33:56
Speaker 1: they fake her death to avoid jail time, use all
34:00
Speaker 1: these resources. Then to top it all off, they file
34:05
Speaker 1: for a public defender, which means a free lawyer to
34:10
Speaker 1: defend her, who's paid for by you and me, the taxpayers.
34:14
Speaker 1: We fund the public defenders for people that can't afford
34:17
Speaker 1: a lawyer. Then it turns out they made too much money,
34:21
Speaker 1: money they stole from the government. According to prosecutors and
34:25
Speaker 1: they got to get their own lawyer. They're still scamming
34:29
Speaker 1: Jim Elliott. They're still at it. I was gonna say,
34:33
Speaker 1: trying to scam the government for the third rounds and
34:35
Speaker 1: base image. That kind of audacities and me incredible. The
34:39
Speaker 1: Public Defender's Office, so who I fought with them like
34:41
Speaker 1: cats and dogs. But they work for practically nothing as
34:46
Speaker 1: it is, and they get every case where somebody can't
34:51
Speaker 1: afford a lawyer, no matter what the case is, and
34:54
Speaker 1: here they are trying to take advantage of the Public
34:57
Speaker 1: Defender's officer. There's no love laws between me and the
34:59
Speaker 1: public Enners or any defense lawyer. But I mean, really
35:02
Speaker 1: scamming off the PD's office, faking it to the end. Well,
35:08
Speaker 1: of course they claim they're innocent. We wait as justice unfals.
35:14
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace crime story signing off, goodbye friend,