Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Killer hubby tells where he hid murdered wife in exchange for XBox in prison

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Killer hubby tells where he hid murdered wife in exchange for XBox in prison · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: Go to Crime stops here dot com. Goodbye friend. Crime
1:34
Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace. Where is Venus Steward? A mother
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Speaker 1: of two young children who were asleep in that home
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Speaker 1: when she walked out to the mail box to just
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Speaker 1: leave a letter for the mailman. Fanticia Lance joining us
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Speaker 1: tonight from Atlanta. I want everybody to really get the
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Speaker 1: layout of this home because the mail box was literally
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Speaker 1: at the end of the driveway. Right. Explain the scene
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Speaker 1: for us, right, Jean. And this is so scary because
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Speaker 1: how many people go out to their mailbox every day
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Speaker 1: to mail a leather The mailbox was just eighty feet
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Speaker 1: away from this house, and what the parents have told
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Speaker 1: us in the past is that the house next door
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Speaker 1: was nine ft away and the other house was just
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Speaker 1: twenty four ft away. And then there was this tarp
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Speaker 1: that was under the boat, and then there was also
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Speaker 1: a pro pain tank that also had a footprint on it.
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Speaker 1: And police believe once they got to the scene that
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Speaker 1: it appeared as if Venus must have been struggling and
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Speaker 1: that she was kicking, and that she was pulled, and
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Speaker 1: that her footprint was able to leave a mark on
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Speaker 1: that pro pain Tank. You are hearing my fill in
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Speaker 1: guest host on HLN Jencosaurus as she is discussing the
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Speaker 1: disappearance of a beautiful young girl. I, Nancy Grace, this
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Speaker 1: is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. What
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Speaker 1: happened in the case of this beautiful woman? Venus Stewart?
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Speaker 1: Joining me an all star line up, Stephen land Play
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Speaker 1: former detective Raymond judicha renowned Atlanta Da Vince attorney, Dr
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Speaker 1: Judith Joseph, New York psychiatrists and joining me right now.
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Speaker 1: Robin Willinski, Crime online dot Com investigative reporter and author
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Speaker 1: of Beautiful Life, The c S I behind the Casey
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Speaker 1: Anthony Trial. Robin, Let's start at the beginning. How did
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Speaker 1: Venus Stewart go missing? Well, Nancy, she was living with
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Speaker 1: her parents in West West Michigan. She's a mom of
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Speaker 1: two girls and she was going through a bitter divorce.
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Speaker 1: So instead of living with her estranged husband, she went
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Speaker 1: to live with her parents. And one morning, as you do,
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Speaker 1: you're in your pajamas and you go out to get
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Speaker 1: the mail, and she was never seen again. She went
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Speaker 1: to go get the mail and was never seen again. Listen, Naticia,
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Speaker 1: where was that pro pain tank. In relation to the
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Speaker 1: mailbox with the footprint, the pro pain tank is actually
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Speaker 1: closer to the home boat that is next to it
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Speaker 1: over to the right. The tarp rapper was underneath that boat.
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Speaker 1: The mailbox down the driveway ft away from that is
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Speaker 1: where Venus was apparently when she was taken by surprise
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Speaker 1: and then abducted. To Stephen Lampley, former detective, how do
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Speaker 1: you go missing? I remember this case so well what
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Speaker 1: had happened, and right now there's a major, major break
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Speaker 1: in the case, Stephen Lampley, How does a woman go
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Speaker 1: to the mailbox and never come back. She walked out
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Speaker 1: to the mailbox that anybody else would do, but of
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Speaker 1: course the perpetrator who was there waiting on her, snatched
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Speaker 1: her up and she disappeared from that point on forever.
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Speaker 1: Interesting that you said the part was waiting on her there.
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Speaker 1: That suggests a degree of planning. Raymond Judiche, you have
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Speaker 1: defended and I have prosecuted a million homicides. Alright, a million.
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Speaker 1: There's two choices. Either lamp Lay Stephen Lampley, detective is correct,
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Speaker 1: someone was waiting on her and it was a trap,
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Speaker 1: or it was the crime of convenience. What about it, Raymond.
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Speaker 1: I think our detective is spot on realistically, and most
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Speaker 1: homicides there really are only a couple of options. It's
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Speaker 1: very rarely really stranger on stranger, unless it's an armed
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Speaker 1: robbery in the gas station that goes bad. It just
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Speaker 1: happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
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Speaker 1: This had all the ear marks of a of a
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Speaker 1: predator who was physically or or psychologically close to this
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Speaker 1: nice lady here in Saint Joseph County. Investigators have pounced
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Speaker 1: on every tip, in part because so few tips have
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Speaker 1: come in, fewer than six in ten days. Now police
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Speaker 1: are looking for this man. Two witnesses spotted him at
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Speaker 1: nearby Adam's Lake the night before Stewart disappeared. He was
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Speaker 1: wet and approached the witnesses for a cigarette. And right
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Speaker 1: now with this case, we have so few clues to
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Speaker 1: go on we're not going to discount anything. The lead
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Speaker 1: was strong enough that police conducted an all out search
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Speaker 1: of the lake using sonar equipment. The search turned up nothing,
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Speaker 1: but there are possibilities they have yet to excess. A
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Speaker 1: flooded area near the lake that was our friend and
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Speaker 1: shiver of twenty four hour News at w O O
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Speaker 1: D t V eight and they have followed up so
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Speaker 1: many leads to Dr Judith Joseph, New York psychiatrists joining us.
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Speaker 1: That's got to be so hard for the victims family.
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Speaker 1: This particular victim is Venus Stewart, just absolutely a gorgeous
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Speaker 1: young girl, a mother who goes missing from her parents home.
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Speaker 1: So every time you get a lead, then you get
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Speaker 1: excited that you may even find your daughter or your
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Speaker 1: loved one alive, only to have ponds drained and lakes
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Speaker 1: dredged and you get a big fat zero. That's got
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Speaker 1: to destroy Venus's family every time it happens. Absolutely the
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Speaker 1: emotional roller coaster with an understatement here, getting your hopes
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Speaker 1: up and have some hushed over and over again. It's
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Speaker 1: just re traumatizing. His family is really living a nightmare
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Speaker 1: day in and day out, day in and day out.
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Speaker 1: Robin Willinskin, I want to talk about how Venus actually
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Speaker 1: goes missing. Him Looking at a photo right now, she's
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Speaker 1: a mother of two children, and I'm looking at her
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Speaker 1: smiling and a family photo, and it reminds me so
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Speaker 1: much of in my little hometown of Macon, Georgia, and
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Speaker 1: my little United Methodist Church. They take directory photos like
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Speaker 1: every three or four years, okay, and it's the family
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Speaker 1: and they have this particular poo Jackie Howardstudios shaking her head. Yes,
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Speaker 1: long story short. They take this picture and we've got
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Speaker 1: it when we were growing up. My mom had it
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Speaker 1: an oil painting, so to speak, done instantly. Not they
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Speaker 1: kind of like brush over the photo, I think, and
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Speaker 1: they frame it and they give it to you. We
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Speaker 1: have it hanging up. Well, of course I did the
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Speaker 1: same thing with the children. But that's what this picture
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Speaker 1: looks like. And it just to think of her so happy.
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Speaker 1: And now over all this time, we've been dredging lakes
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Speaker 1: and searching ponds, and Wildren is looking for her, and
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Speaker 1: this family is being dragged along for the ride. Nancy,
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Speaker 1: she looks like the lady next door, smiley, happy. You
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Speaker 1: know what they say, a picture tells a thousand words.
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Speaker 1: She looks like she couldn't be happier. She has two daughters.
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Speaker 1: But you know what, there are police reports where she
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Speaker 1: accuses the husband of domestic violence, so clearly, you know,
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Speaker 1: she might have been happy that she was a mom
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Speaker 1: and her parents were alive and she you know, could
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Speaker 1: stay at their house and all of this, but there
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Speaker 1: was something very, very dad and troubling going on behind
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Speaker 1: the scenes in that home. Take a listen to this.
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Speaker 1: They are also trying to identify tire tracks from a
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Speaker 1: pickup spotted by a neighbor the morning of Stewart's disappearance.
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Speaker 1: The neighbor reported seeing the truck in a vacant lot
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Speaker 1: across from where Stewart disappeared. They have searched vehicles owned
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Speaker 1: by Stewart's estranged husband, Doug Stewart, in Virginia, and have
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Speaker 1: not said if there has been any connection. The estranged
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Speaker 1: husband is still considered a person of interest in the case.
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Speaker 1: Last night, he told News eight he is hoping that
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Speaker 1: his wife is found safely. Police say he has a
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Speaker 1: solid alibi, but say relations between him and his wife
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Speaker 1: have been contentious. Venus's father, Larry McComb, made the nine
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Speaker 1: one one call that morning. The vehicle that is here,
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Speaker 1: her kids are here, and she is gone okay or anything. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we can't get over. Larry also called his wife, Teresa,
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Speaker 1: who was already at her restaurant job. Her co workers
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Speaker 1: tried to calm her down and they said, oh, she
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Speaker 1: probably just want to running block and I just looked
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Speaker 1: at everybody and said, get a grandpa. My daughter doesn't
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Speaker 1: do that stuff. And I said, I'm out of here,
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Speaker 1: right right off the door, shaking the hallway home. Venus
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Speaker 1: Stewart first vanished on an April morning. April goes to
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Speaker 1: the mailbox in her pajamas. We first featured it on
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Speaker 1: the Nancy Gray Show on Nachel Lynn and at that
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Speaker 1: time it was getting very little coverage. How could a
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Speaker 1: woman go missing at her own mailbox? Interr Pj's. Despite
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Speaker 1: many many searches, Venus's body had never been found until
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Speaker 1: a major break in the case. The mother of two
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Speaker 1: presumed dead. Many people looked at the husband. Why is
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Speaker 1: it always that you look at the husband, the lover,
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Speaker 1: the ex, the boyfriend first? Stephen Lampley, former detective weight
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Speaker 1: in why, as we heard earlier, it's usually a fact.
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Speaker 1: Remember that is more likely to be the suspect and
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Speaker 1: a homicide, so and a lot of times worse relationships.
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Speaker 1: Ship says this one. There was a divorce pending, so
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Speaker 1: it's it's natural to first's eliminate the family member's first,
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Speaker 1: and then go from there. You know, police always had
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Speaker 1: an eye on Venus Stewart's strange husband, Doug Stewart, and
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Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. Raymond Judaic, a renowned defense attorney,
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Speaker 1: joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. In the weeks
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Speaker 1: following Venus's disappearance, leaving behind two little children to be
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Speaker 1: raised without their mother, police take a look at the
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Speaker 1: husband in the midst of an acrimonious divorce. They take
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Speaker 1: a look at Duck Stewart's truck and they find a receipt,
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Speaker 1: a receipt for items that included a tarp and a shovel. Okay,
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Speaker 1: ray help me out. Why is it when a wife
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Speaker 1: goes missing, the husband suddenly is out buying a tarp in,
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Speaker 1: a shovel or garbage bags lots of them industrial size,
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Speaker 1: or he turns into a neat nt. Remember Scott Paterson
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Speaker 1: suddenly decided for the first time in his life to
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Speaker 1: mop and do the laundry right after Lacy goes missing.
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Speaker 1: I mean, really, what is it about you? Guys raised
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Speaker 1: you to chay, your wife or girlfriend goes missing and
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Speaker 1: suddenly you want to do the laundry. You know, when
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Speaker 1: you're under stress, one of the things you want to
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Speaker 1: do is clean the house, clean the garage. It happens
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Speaker 1: to me all the time when I'm getting ready for
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Speaker 1: a big trial. The stress makes me want to clean
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Speaker 1: the refrigerator even though I haven't done it. What you're
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Speaker 1: getting at is, this is the easiest way for law
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Speaker 1: enforcement to start to boveez. The detective said, either eliminate someone,
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Speaker 1: which is part of their job to eliminate suspects. And
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Speaker 1: they worked from the inner circle to the outer circle.
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Speaker 1: That's why the husband in this case is being called
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Speaker 1: a person of interest. Yeah, he's a person of interest.
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Speaker 1: He may have some information that leads to the culprits
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Speaker 1: in this horrible crime. That's good, that's good detective work.
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Speaker 1: But I'll bet if I could have a couple of
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Speaker 1: years of going through this gentleman's records that he goes
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Speaker 1: to Ace Hardware all the time, and he goes to
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Speaker 1: the home depot and lows and he buys trash bags
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Speaker 1: and tarps to cover things when there's a hole in
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Speaker 1: the roof, and shovels to plant the values in the backyard.
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Speaker 1: These are common household supplies. But immediately because you buy
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Speaker 1: a bottle of bleach and and a trowel, all of
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Speaker 1: a sudden you're a murderer, bleaching the body and digging
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Speaker 1: a grave site, and that that's just too easy and
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Speaker 1: to trite to focus on those items. Let me throw
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Speaker 1: yourselfball Radu to Shay. How come he the husband did
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Speaker 1: not call nine one one. There is no handbook for
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Speaker 1: when your loved one goes missing. Everybody thinks there's a
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Speaker 1: pattern of behavior. Oh, you're gonna do this, then you're
13:47
Speaker 1: gonna do that, Then you're gonna pray, Then you're gonna
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Speaker 1: have a rally, then you're gonna hunt for you know,
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Speaker 1: round up people to search through the woods. If you
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Speaker 1: do those things, it looks suspicious. When you don't do
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Speaker 1: those things, it looks suspicious. That's the problem that enforcement
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Speaker 1: tends to do is to focus on again these minor
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Speaker 1: behavioral issues. They're not relevant to evidence in a trial.
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Speaker 1: And in my opinion, it's a common behavior and that's
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Speaker 1: that's the defense argument is going to be ladies and
14:15
Speaker 1: gentlemen a jury. There's twelve folks here, All twelve would
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Speaker 1: have a different response to this type of stress. Your
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Speaker 1: loved one going miss Hey, listen, listen to you to Jay,
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Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with a man finally doing
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Speaker 1: some housework for a big change. But why is it
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Speaker 1: always coincidentally within twenty four hours of your wife going missing.
14:35
Speaker 1: The reason I said it was a softball, right, is
14:37
Speaker 1: not only because you tuned up second verse same as
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Speaker 1: the first about play there's no playbook for grief. All right, fine,
14:45
Speaker 1: but here's the easy answer. It's had such a bitter breakup.
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Speaker 1: She had gone to live with her parents, so according
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Speaker 1: to him, he wasn't on the spot. But then your
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Speaker 1: backup argument, I guess, could be no playbook. To Dr
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Speaker 1: ju Joseph, what you make of it, because you know,
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Speaker 1: I'm thinking Dr Joseph of a particular guy I tried,
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Speaker 1: who murdered his wife. That the fire trucks where you
15:08
Speaker 1: remember this case read you to chay uh. The fire
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Speaker 1: trucks roared up to their mansion. They they were trying
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Speaker 1: to get into the home. They looked across the street.
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Speaker 1: There he was, the husband, all laid out on the
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Speaker 1: neighbor's front yard, all all romanesque. He might as well
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Speaker 1: have said, peel me a grape. And they talked to
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Speaker 1: him for fifteen minutes before he goes, oh, yeah, my
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Speaker 1: my wife's in the house, just to make sure she
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Speaker 1: was gonna die, you know, just don't tell him too soon.
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Speaker 1: She's in the house. So, you know, Dr Judith Joseph,
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Speaker 1: that guy aside, What is it about this no playbook
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Speaker 1: for grief defense that so many defense lawyers tune up
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Speaker 1: with because people in the jury box, they know that's
15:53
Speaker 1: not normal till for instance, refused to pay your wife's
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Speaker 1: funeral bill, to never cry standing beside her dead body,
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Speaker 1: to try to never try to revive her. It's no
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Speaker 1: that is there may be no playbook, but that's just wrong,
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Speaker 1: doctor to Joseph, everyone does respond to gree differently, and
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Speaker 1: I think that what people try to use as the
16:16
Speaker 1: sense is like the shops action right while I was
16:19
Speaker 1: shot and shock I was not, you know, like so
16:22
Speaker 1: I think that's probably where that comes from. And you
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Speaker 1: know what the other expert was mentioning earlier on the
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Speaker 1: on the call was that the majority of these cases
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Speaker 1: of homicide, female homicide are related to a partner and
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Speaker 1: an ex partner, and that's why people look at family members,
16:39
Speaker 1: that's why people look at husbands, partners when someone is
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Speaker 1: or goes missing. So you know, it's true, everyone does
16:47
Speaker 1: respond to grief in certain ways. However, people tend to
16:50
Speaker 1: have a bit more emotion when they truly missed the
16:53
Speaker 1: loves one that has gone missing. To Robin Willinsky, Crime
16:57
Speaker 1: online dot Com investigative reporter, Now this guy, the husband,
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Speaker 1: Doug Stewart, has long, long maintained his innocence. But the
17:05
Speaker 1: reality is there was never a body. Now, a lot
17:09
Speaker 1: of people hold on Robin Ray Judice. A lot of
17:12
Speaker 1: people believe if you don't have a body, you can't
17:14
Speaker 1: prove the case. That is so not true. Remember the
17:17
Speaker 1: high profile case in Atlanta that I did a tiny
17:20
Speaker 1: bit of work on tiny, tiny bit where the kindergarten
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Speaker 1: teacher went missing. We all knew she was dead, and
17:29
Speaker 1: bottom line, the district attorney I kept saying, you gotta
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Speaker 1: diet the boyfriend, You gotta diet the boyfriend. Mr Slaton,
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Speaker 1: He went no, No, we're gonna wait, We're gonna wait.
17:38
Speaker 1: I might wait for what for Long story short, they
17:43
Speaker 1: found her glass eyeball. A lot of people didn't even
17:46
Speaker 1: know she had one fake I from some something that
17:48
Speaker 1: happened to her as a child, and it led to
17:51
Speaker 1: not her boyfriend but a thug that just happened to
17:54
Speaker 1: see her jogging and abducted her and killed her, so
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Speaker 1: Ray Judic Chay. My point is that evidence does not
18:02
Speaker 1: always lead you to the boyfriend, the ax or the husband.
18:06
Speaker 1: I think one of the things you're outlining is, and
18:09
Speaker 1: again we both remember fondly Mr Slayton, the District Attorney
18:12
Speaker 1: of Fulton County here in Atlanta for years, but back
18:16
Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies and maybe into the eighties,
18:20
Speaker 1: before the development and the and the really high use
18:23
Speaker 1: of technology and science and computers and cell phones, I
18:28
Speaker 1: think it was much harder to try a case from
18:32
Speaker 1: the prosecution's perspective without the body, because the body led
18:36
Speaker 1: backwards to the crime. I think one of the things
18:39
Speaker 1: that defense lawyers have to convince our clients and in
18:41
Speaker 1: these cases, and this is the hardest conversation you'll ever have,
18:45
Speaker 1: you know, at the jail through three inches of plexiglass
18:47
Speaker 1: talking to your client, is Hey, they can prosecute you
18:51
Speaker 1: without the body. They've got the cell phone pings and
18:54
Speaker 1: your A T M receipts, and there is video from
18:57
Speaker 1: our videotape from across the streets or Alan's camera, and
19:01
Speaker 1: the what used to be called circumstantial evidence, which was
19:05
Speaker 1: more suspicious or or just speculative is now so air
19:10
Speaker 1: tight that it really surrounds the defendant. And even without
19:15
Speaker 1: the body, the state, if they do their job properly,
19:17
Speaker 1: with good detective work and good forensic science, can really
19:21
Speaker 1: make a noose or a circle around the defendant. And
19:26
Speaker 1: a good closing argument with the right jury charges by
19:30
Speaker 1: the state by the prosecution can educate a jury how
19:34
Speaker 1: to convict without a body. It takes good lawyering, lawyer ing,
19:38
Speaker 1: and it takes good science and investigative tools. And I
19:41
Speaker 1: think those things are becoming more in vogue as we
19:44
Speaker 1: get much more science and many more lawyers now younger
19:48
Speaker 1: younger lawyers who are grown up with technology and are
19:51
Speaker 1: much more fascile and using that in trials. We've learned
19:55
Speaker 1: that police did find evidence after executing search warrants. They
19:59
Speaker 1: found blood st agent Douglas Stewart's car. They also found
20:02
Speaker 1: a receipt that Venus's father says was for a tarp
20:05
Speaker 1: and a shovel. But the key piece of evidence is missing,
20:08
Speaker 1: the woman who police say was abducted while collecting the mail.
20:16
Speaker 1: Do you know another parent or expecting parent. Are you
20:20
Speaker 1: wondering what can I give them as a gift? Don't
20:22
Speaker 1: give them another onesie. Don't give them a plastic toy
20:26
Speaker 1: or God forbid a toy gun that's just gonna end
20:29
Speaker 1: up in the garage. Give them something that matters, and
20:32
Speaker 1: what matters the most is protecting their child. What do
20:36
Speaker 1: you love most in the world Your children? What will
20:39
Speaker 1: you do to protect them anything. I sat down with
20:43
Speaker 1: these smartest people I know in the world on matters
20:47
Speaker 1: of child's safety, finding missing children, fighting back against predators,
20:51
Speaker 1: and what I learned is so important, powerful and information
20:56
Speaker 1: so critical. I want you to have it. I want
20:59
Speaker 1: them to have it. Go to crime stops here dot
21:02
Speaker 1: com for a five part series with action information that
21:06
Speaker 1: you can use to change your life and protect your child.
21:10
Speaker 1: Payment starting six. Give that as a gift, not another
21:16
Speaker 1: one Z. Find out how to protect your child when
21:19
Speaker 1: you're out of the mall or the store, the grocery,
21:21
Speaker 1: in the parking lot, at home. Find out about protection
21:25
Speaker 1: regarding babysitters, in daycare, even online. I'd rather have that
21:30
Speaker 1: any day of the week than a plastic toy our
21:34
Speaker 1: God forbid a toy gun. Join Justice Nation. Go to
21:39
Speaker 1: crime stops here dot com Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
21:53
Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
21:56
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us. Stephen Lampley, Raymond, Judy Chay,
21:59
Speaker 1: Dr Judith Joseph, and Robin Willinsky with me. Robert Willinski,
22:03
Speaker 1: it was just in the last days that there was
22:06
Speaker 1: a major, major break in the case. What happened and
22:11
Speaker 1: how does an Xbox factor into the discovery of Venus
22:16
Speaker 1: Stewart's dead body. Well, Doug Stewart is behind bars at
22:20
Speaker 1: for years and clearly he's bored to death, and so
22:25
Speaker 1: he wants some favors. He wants to be able to
22:28
Speaker 1: go to his parents funerals when they passed, and he
22:31
Speaker 1: wants to play Xbox, of course, as you would. And
22:35
Speaker 1: so the folks in the jail, they and the police,
22:40
Speaker 1: they feel that there's an opening here that he's willing
22:43
Speaker 1: to negotiate for favors and for goodies, and so they
22:47
Speaker 1: agree to allow him to have a certain kind of
22:50
Speaker 1: Xbox that's not connected to the Internet and it doesn't
22:54
Speaker 1: involve violent games in exchange for him leading them to
22:59
Speaker 1: where her body is. Marry Well, I've heard it all
23:02
Speaker 1: to Stephen Lampley, former detective. A guy has been sitting
23:06
Speaker 1: there all this time, sitting on the location of the
23:12
Speaker 1: body of his children's mother. This whole time he's sitting
23:17
Speaker 1: there twiddling his thumbs, and now, after all this time,
23:21
Speaker 1: he leads police to her body in exchange for an Xbox.
23:27
Speaker 1: Stephen Lampley, Well, actually, you have to go back. In
23:30
Speaker 1: the trial, he admitted on a daily basis, this man
23:35
Speaker 1: played on his Xbox six to eight hours every day.
23:40
Speaker 1: Uh so, I mean that maybe that's a borderline addiction
23:43
Speaker 1: to the video game. But he sat there all this
23:45
Speaker 1: time without the ability. So you know, hey, let's just
23:48
Speaker 1: swop out. I'll take an Xbox and I'll tell you
23:50
Speaker 1: where my life's take a Listen to this. Could you
23:54
Speaker 1: kill Venus Star? Did not? Did you want to kill Nis?
24:02
Speaker 1: You've meant for her to be dead? What was that?
24:05
Speaker 1: Did you mean for Venus Stewart to be dead? No,
24:09
Speaker 1: I did not want her to die. Ricky Spencer told
24:11
Speaker 1: the pack to courtroom that even though he wore Dug
24:13
Speaker 1: Stewart's clothes, slept in his bed and used his credit
24:17
Speaker 1: cards to give his friend an alibi in Virginia for
24:20
Speaker 1: his wife's murder, he kept hoping Stewart would change his mind. Okay,
24:23
Speaker 1: d I was kind of shocked to hear that I
24:26
Speaker 1: said what happened. He said that he called the Venis
24:31
Speaker 1: his parents house in Michigan and said that he was
24:38
Speaker 1: the male manhatan package for her, and he uh jumped
24:42
Speaker 1: out and he said that there was a scream. She
24:46
Speaker 1: scream once and that tried putting up a fight, but
24:49
Speaker 1: he was able to. Uh too, he's getting that headlock
24:57
Speaker 1: and uh a drop of blood came from her nose,
25:05
Speaker 1: he says. After Stewart explained what happened, he hung up
25:08
Speaker 1: because Stewart said he had to go barry Venus's body.
25:11
Speaker 1: I told him, like, I don't tell me where she is, dude,
25:13
Speaker 1: because I don't want to know a lot of people
25:17
Speaker 1: that are going to know that I did any of
25:19
Speaker 1: this is you me, on my lawyer and on my parents.
25:24
Speaker 1: So you're hearing our friend at twenty four hour News
25:27
Speaker 1: eight w O O D t V Danny Carlson, and
25:31
Speaker 1: you're also hearing Ricky Spencer, the main witness for the prosecution,
25:35
Speaker 1: So that that's quite the line to draw. Ray Judaica,
25:38
Speaker 1: You've handled co defendants a lot of times where sure
25:41
Speaker 1: you'll do a cover for the killer. You know he's
25:44
Speaker 1: killed his wife, you know, he got information to her
25:48
Speaker 1: that he had a pep a package was coming to her,
25:51
Speaker 1: and then he waited for her to go outside to
25:53
Speaker 1: do her till her nose bled. He knows she's dead,
25:56
Speaker 1: but he goes but but, but, but don't tell me
25:58
Speaker 1: where the body is. You know, I'm all in, but
26:02
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep my pinky toe out of this mess.
26:06
Speaker 1: So he you know, he probably did a deal in
26:09
Speaker 1: exchange for testimony. Oh absolutely, I'm sure his counsel got
26:14
Speaker 1: some level of immunity candadively agreement. Usually how this is
26:20
Speaker 1: done is not a promise by the district attorney the prosecutor,
26:23
Speaker 1: but a if you cooperate and tell the truth under oath.
26:27
Speaker 1: And that's true, right, If you cooperate and tell the
26:30
Speaker 1: truth under oath, you get a deal. Stephen lamp Lay,
26:33
Speaker 1: According to what what we're learning is that when he
26:36
Speaker 1: subdued her at her mailbox, she was just unconscious. She
26:41
Speaker 1: actually came to out in the woods. Stephen Lampley, former detective.
26:46
Speaker 1: Can you imagine waking up all bloody in the woods
26:51
Speaker 1: and your ex husband is standing over you about to
26:54
Speaker 1: kill you a dispose of your body. What a gruesome
26:57
Speaker 1: horrific reality for this mom venus work. Yeah, uh, we
27:01
Speaker 1: now know that he parked across the street and with
27:05
Speaker 1: the with the guys of coming out to get a package,
27:07
Speaker 1: he abducted her and then took her. Of course, us
27:10
Speaker 1: my understanding that the homicide scene was the actual burial side,
27:14
Speaker 1: we're ironically, uh Stewart would back when he was fifteen
27:21
Speaker 1: years older. This is private property, so uh as in
27:24
Speaker 1: keeping with a lot of homicide team in the area.
27:26
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's good, but it had to be horrific
27:29
Speaker 1: to for her to wake up and un now what's
27:32
Speaker 1: going to happen? Terrible to Robert Wilenski, Crime online dot
27:35
Speaker 1: Com investigative reporter, So, this convicted murderer sitting behind bars
27:40
Speaker 1: for killing his wife never tells anybody, even her parents,
27:44
Speaker 1: even her children, where mommy is so she can have
27:47
Speaker 1: a burial. But then they wave an xbox under his
27:50
Speaker 1: nose and he goes, oh, sure, sure, I'll tell you where. Well,
27:53
Speaker 1: there goes his chance of an appeal right there, because
27:55
Speaker 1: he's saying where the body is. Only the killer would
27:58
Speaker 1: know that. Sob Mallinsky, where was the body? Well, it
28:04
Speaker 1: was in the location where he used to chop wood
28:07
Speaker 1: as a teenager and believe this or not, he actually left,
28:11
Speaker 1: uh to the homicide detectives say that he actually left
28:14
Speaker 1: like two wood stumps to mark the body, Like was
28:19
Speaker 1: he ever going to go back there? It sort of
28:21
Speaker 1: leads you to think, like, what's his thinking. You're actually
28:25
Speaker 1: marking the spot, you know, not with a grave not
28:28
Speaker 1: with a grave stone, but with two pieces of wood.
28:31
Speaker 1: I mean, was he going to return back to the scene?
28:33
Speaker 1: Who knows? There's a level of arrogance, So nancy about
28:36
Speaker 1: this guy where from behind bars In addition to this
28:40
Speaker 1: whole xbox and him wanting goodies and getting out to
28:44
Speaker 1: you know, to his parents funerals someday, he also offers
28:48
Speaker 1: up to the homicide detectives, Um, you know, hey, use
28:51
Speaker 1: me for a homicide school training. I can get you
28:55
Speaker 1: some information from on the mind of a murderer. I'm
28:59
Speaker 1: gonna you know, at all my secrets go as to
29:01
Speaker 1: what I was thinking. To me, there's a level of
29:04
Speaker 1: arrogance in this guy. Oh, you know, you need to
29:06
Speaker 1: talk to me because to get into my mind, because
29:09
Speaker 1: the mind of a murderer. Let's teach that class. Yeah,
29:12
Speaker 1: let's teach that class. You know, what maybe HBO or
29:17
Speaker 1: um Netflix might want him take a listen to this.
29:20
Speaker 1: Venus and her two daughters, four and six, at the
29:23
Speaker 1: time of her disappearance, had moved back home to her
29:26
Speaker 1: parents house from Virginia. On that April morning, in Doug
29:30
Speaker 1: Stewart abducted Venus as she walked to the mailbox. He
29:33
Speaker 1: buried her body in a remote area he knew because
29:36
Speaker 1: his father had a logging company and cut wood here.
29:39
Speaker 1: Stewart had little trouble directing police to the spot where
29:42
Speaker 1: he buried his wife. A specific piece of evidence from
29:45
Speaker 1: theinal case was this blue tarp um and um. He
29:48
Speaker 1: had advised is that that was going to be inside
29:50
Speaker 1: um the grave as well, and we located that um.
29:53
Speaker 1: So that's what first led us to leave you up.
29:55
Speaker 1: We're in the right spot here. We just have to
29:57
Speaker 1: keep going. We're gonna find her. I can't understand my
29:59
Speaker 1: mindset back then. It was it was almost like I
30:04
Speaker 1: was on a mission in the dark of night. In
30:06
Speaker 1: late April, Doug Stewart left Virginia and set off for
30:10
Speaker 1: Michigan with a plan to set up his wife. He
30:13
Speaker 1: would ambush her at her parents home. I did lie
30:16
Speaker 1: in wait um she did come out. I did put
30:20
Speaker 1: her in a choke maneuver. Um she passed out. Doug
30:26
Speaker 1: tricked her into coming outside on that cold Monday morning,
30:30
Speaker 1: called her disguised. His voice told her there was a
30:33
Speaker 1: package waiting. She had no sooner stepped outside than Doug
30:37
Speaker 1: grabbed her by the neck. I sat there for a minute,
30:41
Speaker 1: maybe two, staring at my best friend passed out in
30:47
Speaker 1: my lap. Um I uh, I didn't have a plan.
30:57
Speaker 1: Although Doug says he had no plan, he had already
31:00
Speaker 1: plotted her murder and found a plot in a very
31:03
Speaker 1: remote field to bury her body. Did you know this property?
31:08
Speaker 1: Was it in your mind as a possibility? Yes, from
31:13
Speaker 1: the very beginning. I I had come here the night before. Um,
31:18
Speaker 1: I had plan this to be the spot, and that's
31:24
Speaker 1: where Venus met her demise. You are hearing the Killer,
31:29
Speaker 1: The Killer Doug Stewart on w w MT and their
31:33
Speaker 1: exclusive interview at the grave, at the burial spot, I
31:39
Speaker 1: wouldn't even call it a grave where this young mom
31:42
Speaker 1: had been buried. And in the last days this horrific.
31:49
Speaker 1: I don't even know the right word for this guy,
31:52
Speaker 1: the husband, Doug Stewart, in exchange for an Xbox after
31:56
Speaker 1: leaving this woman's children and her family hanging out there
32:00
Speaker 1: in the wind, wondering where her body was all this time.
32:04
Speaker 1: In exchange for an Xbox, he gives up her body.
32:10
Speaker 1: It's so overwhelming. What led to the murder? Listen Venus
32:15
Speaker 1: Stewart had a protection order against her husband and her family,
32:19
Speaker 1: says one week before her disappearance, of court awarded her
32:22
Speaker 1: full custody of the couple's two young children and demanded
32:26
Speaker 1: the father pay child support. This is this is a
32:29
Speaker 1: very complicated case and based because of the lack of
32:33
Speaker 1: any any evidence that we have at the scene, we
32:36
Speaker 1: don't have much to go on. Wow, you know, all
32:38
Speaker 1: over a restraining order and child support to Raymond's Uda Cha,
32:45
Speaker 1: renowned Atlanta defense lawyer raised Juda Cha, I've had many
32:48
Speaker 1: a criminal lawyer, defense lawyer of course, who is used
32:52
Speaker 1: to representing murderers of child molester's drug lord say you
32:56
Speaker 1: know what, I'd rather represent a drug lord or a
33:00
Speaker 1: piller then stick my hand in the middle of a
33:03
Speaker 1: divorce case. It's like tearing apart to Rottweilers. Would you
33:06
Speaker 1: agree or disagree? I totally agree, Uh absolutely, because first
33:11
Speaker 1: of all, in these divorce cases nobody is rational. And
33:16
Speaker 1: now perhaps one party is much more irrational than the other,
33:20
Speaker 1: but there's very rarely one person rational and the other emotional,
33:24
Speaker 1: and the other calm, cool and collected and just wants
33:26
Speaker 1: to get it over with. I will also tell you
33:29
Speaker 1: that if you go down to the Marshall's office or
33:31
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's office and say would you rather serve a
33:34
Speaker 1: warrant on a drug possession case or a domestic violence case?
33:40
Speaker 1: Nine out of tenem are going to say, oh, just
33:41
Speaker 1: give me the drug dealer. You know, they know the deal.
33:44
Speaker 1: I mean divorce folks, they're not afraid of the nine
33:46
Speaker 1: millimeter on the side of or my chaser. They're fighting
33:50
Speaker 1: and they'll fight me too, So uh it is. I'd
33:53
Speaker 1: rather just pick and pick twelve on a homicide than
33:55
Speaker 1: pick twelve on a divorce case any day of the week.
33:57
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember this case read to Chay,
33:59
Speaker 1: but another domestic homicide case. I handled these two incredibly
34:05
Speaker 1: brilliant people, the man and the woman. I knew something
34:08
Speaker 1: was up when the district attorney, he was like a
34:10
Speaker 1: grandfather to me, Mr Slaton, call me down, he said,
34:13
Speaker 1: I've got a friend. Turned out to be a partner
34:15
Speaker 1: one of the biggest law firms in Atlanta. Daughter had
34:19
Speaker 1: been found committed suicide. The dad didn't believe it. I'm like, my, my,
34:23
Speaker 1: I'm on my way, but foots out the door. Well,
34:26
Speaker 1: we got over there and she had ostensibly shot herself
34:30
Speaker 1: in the bed naked, which you know, women do not
34:33
Speaker 1: kill themselves naked, nor shoot themselves in the head typically.
34:36
Speaker 1: We found blood spatter under the pillow. Okay, that was
34:42
Speaker 1: before hen really spit out. Catchup in the O J
34:44
Speaker 1: case and I'm like, okay, how did blood spatter get
34:48
Speaker 1: under her pillow that she's sleeping on. Okay, this isn't right.
34:53
Speaker 1: Long story short. A husband's shot and set it up
34:55
Speaker 1: to look like suicide. But I can't remember. Ray you
34:58
Speaker 1: to Chay hiding it outside some office part between the cars,
35:03
Speaker 1: waiting for his friends to come out of their jobs
35:06
Speaker 1: to hit him with a subpoena ducas take him to
35:08
Speaker 1: get the letters. He had been writing them things like hey,
35:12
Speaker 1: stay cool and don't shoot your wife, Uh Dave, Yeah,
35:17
Speaker 1: And you know we had no money. I took my
35:19
Speaker 1: little self to Kinko's when my own little money and
35:22
Speaker 1: blew up every one of those letters. Life size and
35:24
Speaker 1: put them all over the courtroom. My point is you
35:28
Speaker 1: never know why. You know why he did it in
35:31
Speaker 1: his little pea brain because his wife had been flirting
35:34
Speaker 1: with somebody online. They had never even met. It was
35:37
Speaker 1: just like, you know, talk online thirty minutes and pretend.
35:43
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just insane. And in this case, let
35:47
Speaker 1: me bring it home. It's over child support in a
35:50
Speaker 1: t R O ray. Really, it doesn't surprise me, Nancy.
35:53
Speaker 1: There's I've handled stocking cases and I've gone to court
35:58
Speaker 1: and I've looked at my client, who you know, has
36:00
Speaker 1: written eight thousand emails or text message and let's don't
36:03
Speaker 1: confuse anybody. You didn't handle them. You defended. Let's just
36:07
Speaker 1: call it like at and I was paid to do
36:10
Speaker 1: so handle handsomely. My point is, I get the court
36:13
Speaker 1: and I say, now, wait a second. There's eight million
36:15
Speaker 1: people in metro Atlanta and you sent eight thousand text
36:19
Speaker 1: messages to this lady after she told you repeatedly take
36:22
Speaker 1: a hike, go away, leave me alone. Don't move on man,
36:25
Speaker 1: get on match dot com. There's lots of nice folks
36:28
Speaker 1: out there, have a rational, reasonable, nice relationship that you
36:31
Speaker 1: can stalk. Well, yes, that is true. Now, thanks right, well, look,
36:37
Speaker 1: thanks behalf of all woman time. Thanks a lot, right, Hey,
36:42
Speaker 1: you know what, we're making a lot of a very
36:45
Speaker 1: very serious situation here because it's just like Gallows humor,
36:49
Speaker 1: because it's just too much to take in that you
36:52
Speaker 1: would kill this gorgeous lady because you don't want to
36:56
Speaker 1: pay ch'all's support. I mean, you know what, let's listened
37:00
Speaker 1: to the harsh reality listen. I batted her arms down.
37:03
Speaker 1: She saw it coming, and I batted him down with
37:05
Speaker 1: my right hand, and I struck her with my left
37:08
Speaker 1: and uh, I she didn't hit the ground before I
37:14
Speaker 1: started apologizing and almost threw up. I. Uh, there was
37:23
Speaker 1: so much blood it was. It was the worst scene
37:28
Speaker 1: in my entire life. She didn't say anything. She collapsed
37:31
Speaker 1: down to the ground twenty seconds later, her eyes closed.
37:35
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. I can't believe I
37:40
Speaker 1: did what I did. I didn't know what to do.
37:43
Speaker 1: I can't believe I did what I did well. Stephen
37:46
Speaker 1: lamp Lay as judges instruct juries all the time. The
37:49
Speaker 1: perpetrator may immediately regret the deed, but that does not
37:53
Speaker 1: negate the intent. At the time of the incident, he
37:56
Speaker 1: had a perfect chance to turn back. Stephen Lampley. He
37:58
Speaker 1: said he was in his truck looking down before he
38:01
Speaker 1: disposed of her body completely, buried her out in the
38:03
Speaker 1: middle of a wooded area and put a stump on
38:06
Speaker 1: top of the dirt. Stephen Lampley, he had her in
38:10
Speaker 1: his truck. She was just unconscious, he said, I was
38:13
Speaker 1: looking down at my best friend. That would have been
38:16
Speaker 1: a perfect time to stop right there, Stephen Lampley. Why
38:21
Speaker 1: do people go forward when they know what they're doing
38:24
Speaker 1: is wrong? Stephen, Well, he had an end of agenda, Nancy,
38:28
Speaker 1: from the very from the very beginning of he wanted
38:31
Speaker 1: her dead, and yeah, maybe there was a slight bit
38:34
Speaker 1: of remorse, but the remorse was not going to get
38:37
Speaker 1: him what he was seeking. So you know, you got
38:40
Speaker 1: to go through with it at this point, and which
38:42
Speaker 1: is exactly what he did. Well, Doug Stewart, he may
38:45
Speaker 1: have had an agenda. Well, now he's got an Xbox
38:50
Speaker 1: and a one way ticket straight to hell. Good riddance,
38:56
Speaker 1: Doug Stewart. Nancy Gray's crime story signing off Goodbye Friend,