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