Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / DEAD ON VACATION: Father demands answers about daughter’s mysterious death at Cancun resort

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DEAD ON VACATION: Father demands answers about daughter’s mysterious death at Cancun resort · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:06
Speaker 1: A beautiful young college unit, goes on vacation with her family.
0:11
Speaker 1: Her whole family is there. How does she end up
0:16
Speaker 1: dead when they pulled her out of the pool. Obviously,
0:27
Speaker 1: Abbey was dead, she was already gone. But Austin was
0:31
Speaker 1: lucky enough that they pulled him out in time and
0:35
Speaker 1: he fully recovered, obviously, but Abby, Abbey was on life support.
0:43
Speaker 1: And obviously we're hoping that putting her in a coma
0:47
Speaker 1: might bring her back. But once I got down to
0:49
Speaker 1: Fort Lauderdale where they med flighted her into, obviously I
0:54
Speaker 1: knew the situation at that point that she wasn't coming back.
0:58
Speaker 1: Just hearing his works since a chill down my spine.
1:03
Speaker 1: You were hearing now who I consider to be a friend.
1:07
Speaker 1: That's Bill Connor, Abby's dad. How does it go from
1:13
Speaker 1: I'm already all excited about our family vacation this summer.
1:18
Speaker 1: How does it go from that thrill of taking your
1:21
Speaker 1: children somewhere to this and joining me today is Abbey's dad, Bill,
1:28
Speaker 1: along with an all star panel. You were hearing Bill
1:34
Speaker 1: just then. But in addition to Bill Connor joining me today,
1:36
Speaker 1: Raquel Rutledge investigative reporter, and let me say crack investigative
1:41
Speaker 1: reporter because she cracked this and other cases just like
1:45
Speaker 1: it wide open. When I read her stories in the
1:50
Speaker 1: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel USA today as well, Wow, she had
1:56
Speaker 1: the nail on the head. You've got to hear this
1:58
Speaker 1: before you go on action Also with Me, Professor Forensics,
2:02
Speaker 1: Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on
2:06
Speaker 1: Amazon with Me Forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, renowned psycho analyst,
2:11
Speaker 1: joining us out of LA She's the psycho analyst to
2:14
Speaker 1: the stars. She's now on a hit series on Netflix,
2:18
Speaker 1: Bleeding Empire, and you can find her at doctor Bethany
2:21
Speaker 1: Marshall dot com. Gary Davidson partner in a high profile
2:26
Speaker 1: law firm, diez Rus International Law Firm and Alliance. This
2:31
Speaker 1: is one of his specialties and boy do we need
2:35
Speaker 1: an international lawyer today. And special guest joining us is
2:40
Speaker 1: Bill Connor. This is Abbey's dad and Austin's dad, and
2:46
Speaker 1: he has come to symbolize the fight to end what
2:51
Speaker 1: happened to his girl, Abbey. In fact, he's so committed
2:56
Speaker 1: he even created Abbey's Ride for Life. It's an incredible bikathon.
3:03
Speaker 1: But first I want to go to Bill Connor about
3:06
Speaker 1: this bilt. When I hear you speaking about what happened
3:12
Speaker 1: with Abby, I know I've put you through this before,
3:17
Speaker 1: but would you please tell our listeners what happened? All
3:21
Speaker 1: our listeners that are heading out to vacation. What happened. Well,
3:29
Speaker 1: it was a vacation with their mom and step Bed
3:33
Speaker 1: and her brother. They were taking their spring break for
3:36
Speaker 1: college and they were going down to Cancoon to relax
3:41
Speaker 1: for a couple of days and they unfortunately they ran
3:48
Speaker 1: into the wrong services. They checked into their hotel and
3:56
Speaker 1: they were wait, this was like a five star hotel.
3:59
Speaker 1: Incredible hotel. You know, I think I told you, And
4:02
Speaker 1: I was learning to die. I learned in the Queens
4:05
Speaker 1: Ymca pool, but then you had to do an open
4:08
Speaker 1: water dive and the dim instructure offered a cheap trip down,
4:14
Speaker 1: and I did open water dives and died. Also dived
4:17
Speaker 1: at Cancoon. I didn't see much because I was underwater
4:20
Speaker 1: every single day. But the place where Abby was staying
4:25
Speaker 1: was really beautiful, like marble floors, palm and trees. The
4:30
Speaker 1: works correct, and they had two other pools. Until this day,
4:36
Speaker 1: we still don't know which pool they ended up in,
4:39
Speaker 1: but they did leave the bar. Unfortunately, they weren't covering
4:48
Speaker 1: all their pools and so our kids fell into one
4:52
Speaker 1: of the pools, and as we talked about earlier, unfortunately
5:00
Speaker 1: he didn't make it, and they one of the somebody
5:02
Speaker 1: on the properties saw the kids but pulled Austin out
5:05
Speaker 1: and Austin fully recovered, and it was something that unfortunately
5:12
Speaker 1: their mom and stepdad went up to the room. We're
5:14
Speaker 1: waiting for them to come up, and they never came up.
5:18
Speaker 1: So when they came down, they were in an ambulance
5:21
Speaker 1: already heading to the hospital. And so it was a
5:27
Speaker 1: dark day. What was the first you heard, Bill that
5:30
Speaker 1: she was being airlifted. Yes, I actually got the phone
5:36
Speaker 1: call from my son and told me what happened and
5:41
Speaker 1: what was going on. And then grab Abby's grandfather got
5:50
Speaker 1: the plane. The transferred to Fort Lauderdale and we're gonna
5:56
Speaker 1: fly her into a hospital in the Milwauk Key area,
6:00
Speaker 1: but the doctor said that her brain was swelling and
6:05
Speaker 1: he didn't think she'd be able to make that trip.
6:07
Speaker 1: So Fort Laiderdale was the second choice, and we flew
6:13
Speaker 1: her in there, and then obviously we prepared her to
6:19
Speaker 1: move on and donate her organs. Bill I've never asked
6:22
Speaker 1: you this where this happening, King Koon. Had they already
6:28
Speaker 1: put a shunt in her head? I have no idea,
6:32
Speaker 1: because you know, with brain swelling, and I'm certainly in
6:35
Speaker 1: an MD, I'm a JD. But my little nephew as
6:39
Speaker 1: a child, was in a crash and the lady in
6:42
Speaker 1: a van with three screaming kids ran over him and
6:45
Speaker 1: he hit his head on the sidewalk and there was
6:49
Speaker 1: swelling of the brain. And the first thing they did
6:52
Speaker 1: wisely is they they sought a hole in his head
6:57
Speaker 1: and put a shunt, which is really just a tube,
7:00
Speaker 1: and it opened the skull up so the swelling had
7:04
Speaker 1: somewhere to go. If you don't do that immediately, the
7:08
Speaker 1: brain swells up against the skull and you have you die.
7:12
Speaker 1: You have permanent brain damage and die if you don't
7:15
Speaker 1: do that immediately. It's the only way I knew about it.
7:17
Speaker 1: They saved his life. The good news on that story
7:21
Speaker 1: is he went on had a double major in chemistry
7:24
Speaker 1: and IT and now he's an IT wizard. Okay, so
7:28
Speaker 1: because he got the right treatment, he is happy today
7:33
Speaker 1: with a wife and a child and a job and
7:35
Speaker 1: all that good stuff. But that did not happen with Abby.
7:39
Speaker 1: So the first thing Dad Bill O'Connor heres is there's
7:43
Speaker 1: been this horrible accident and his daughter is being airlifted.
7:49
Speaker 1: I want to go straight to Raquel Rutledge, and guys,
7:53
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. If you have not read
7:55
Speaker 1: her articles on what happened and it's happening to a
7:59
Speaker 1: lot of people in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, please before
8:04
Speaker 1: you had out on vacation, please look her up on
8:08
Speaker 1: the line. Raquel Rutledge, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Raquel, you've heard
8:14
Speaker 1: a story about Abby and so many others. What's really
8:18
Speaker 1: happening at the bars across the border. Well, what we've
8:22
Speaker 1: heard time and time again, and it really surprised me because,
8:25
Speaker 1: you know, when we first heard about this um, it
8:28
Speaker 1: just raised so many questions about how two people who
8:32
Speaker 1: are young and who literally had about an hour in
8:35
Speaker 1: the pool where they had a couple of shots that
8:39
Speaker 1: we know of because that Austin remembers and that we
8:41
Speaker 1: you know, interviewed Jenny as well, and and so what
8:45
Speaker 1: we could know, what we could surmise from that is,
8:49
Speaker 1: you know, this happened very quickly. And so when we
8:51
Speaker 1: first wrote that story about what happened with Abby and Austin.
8:56
Speaker 1: We were just flooded with We started getting emails and
8:59
Speaker 1: phone call from people all around the world. Crime stories
9:10
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. Before you go on vacation, you have
9:15
Speaker 1: got to hear Bill Connor's story about his daughter Abbey, beautiful, young, brilliant,
9:22
Speaker 1: along with her brother Austin. They go to this five
9:26
Speaker 1: star hotel in Cancoon. They have a couple of drinks
9:32
Speaker 1: and then suddenly Austin wakes up. He's in the pool
9:38
Speaker 1: and his sister, also in the pool, has to be
9:42
Speaker 1: life transported, life lifted back to Fort Lauderdale to try
9:48
Speaker 1: to save her life, but they couldn't save her life.
9:51
Speaker 1: And right now with me, incredible work by Raquel Rutledge,
9:56
Speaker 1: Raquel go ahead, dear who We started his hearing from
9:58
Speaker 1: people from around the world that had similar situations where
10:03
Speaker 1: they had had small amounts to drink and then they
10:06
Speaker 1: would black out and not remember anything and wake up
10:08
Speaker 1: with broken bones, had been sexually assaulted. They were all
10:12
Speaker 1: kinds of stories that we were hearing and people just
10:15
Speaker 1: really second guess themselves because they couldn't um, they couldn't imagine,
10:19
Speaker 1: I mean, they blamed themselves. They thought that I really
10:21
Speaker 1: drink that much because they couldn't remember and so UM
10:25
Speaker 1: that was that was What was different too, is that
10:27
Speaker 1: sometimes we had stories of couples who would like aving
10:30
Speaker 1: austin brother and sister, but we had husband and wife, UM, siblings,
10:34
Speaker 1: friends where two or three people at the same time
10:37
Speaker 1: would black out, UM and so literally after drinking. In
10:41
Speaker 1: one case there was somebody had half a drink and so,
10:44
Speaker 1: and there were all different kinds of drinks. So it
10:46
Speaker 1: was very hard to kind of pinpoint specifically the one
10:51
Speaker 1: one thing that was getting everybody. But what I came
10:54
Speaker 1: to learn through investigating UM was that there are there's
10:59
Speaker 1: a huge black market for alcohol in Mexico and it's
11:02
Speaker 1: there's there's a one point it was upwards of forty
11:05
Speaker 1: percent of all alcohol UM consumed in Mexico and produced
11:11
Speaker 1: is illicit. So that doesn't mean it's all tainted, but
11:13
Speaker 1: it just so let me understand something up to forty
11:16
Speaker 1: percent of alcohol consumed in Mexico is bootleg mainshine made
11:21
Speaker 1: out of somebody's radiator and sold in a bottle with
11:25
Speaker 1: fake tags on it, with fake well that's an appearance
11:28
Speaker 1: that it's the real thing. Yeah, that is that is
11:31
Speaker 1: um that is a portion of that percentage, and then others.
11:33
Speaker 1: It's just that they haven't paid the proper taxes on it.
11:36
Speaker 1: So it's impossible to know exactly. But what we do
11:38
Speaker 1: know is that they what you're drinking. Yeah, and we
11:40
Speaker 1: do know that they confiscated. After our stories and after
11:44
Speaker 1: we started writing some of this, the Mexican authorities went
11:46
Speaker 1: through and they did confiscate and find and shut down
11:49
Speaker 1: a number of black market and distilleries. Well, you know,
11:52
Speaker 1: Raquel riot Ledge, you know, before I became a felony prosecutor,
11:56
Speaker 1: I worked at any Trust and the consumer Protection divisions
11:59
Speaker 1: for the World Trade Commission, And I know, like everybody
12:03
Speaker 1: else on this panel, nose. They shut down a bootlegger
12:06
Speaker 1: one day, they pop up five miles away the next day.
12:12
Speaker 1: Unless they're putting jail and doing hard time. It's like
12:15
Speaker 1: trying to put a sham corporation out of business. Yeah,
12:18
Speaker 1: you close down that one, but then the next day
12:21
Speaker 1: they reincorporate under another name and do the same thing.
12:23
Speaker 1: It's still happening right now, guys. I implore you to
12:28
Speaker 1: go to Raquel Rutledge's articles in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
12:31
Speaker 1: Online about bootleg alcohol. Abby and Austin were not drunk.
12:38
Speaker 1: They had a couple of shots. That's it, celebrating and
12:42
Speaker 1: she ends up dead and he ends up with serious
12:46
Speaker 1: fractures and injuries. Guys, take a listen to Gio Benitez ABC.
12:50
Speaker 1: How excited about Mexico were you? Probably the most excited
12:53
Speaker 1: person was Abbie, Mom, Jinny and stepdad John booked the
12:58
Speaker 1: Ibero Star by Aesel resort apply a doc harmon. We
13:01
Speaker 1: just sat on shares at the side of the pool
13:04
Speaker 1: and they're like, we're going to go out. We're gonna
13:06
Speaker 1: get it ready for dinner. You guys need to use
13:08
Speaker 1: in the lobby. At seven thirty, twenty year old Abby
13:11
Speaker 1: Corner and her twenty three year old brother Austin stayed
13:13
Speaker 1: by the pool. We somewhereund for a little bit and
13:16
Speaker 1: we decided let's celebrate with you know, my drinks. So
13:19
Speaker 1: we go to the bar and another group that was
13:22
Speaker 1: already there. We just start talking so people you didn't know, no,
13:25
Speaker 1: we didn't know him. The bartender pours out of a
13:27
Speaker 1: line of shots and they come all the way down
13:29
Speaker 1: and I take one, and you know, everyone else does.
13:33
Speaker 1: And the last thing I remember was just like we
13:35
Speaker 1: are right now sitting here talking and lights went out
13:39
Speaker 1: and I woke up in the ambulance. So you went
13:42
Speaker 1: from fine to blocked out in seconds. Like I said,
13:46
Speaker 1: I felt completely normal. I felt completely normal. Take a
13:50
Speaker 1: listen to more. Here's our friend GEO at ABC. The
13:54
Speaker 1: family says a guest found Abby and Austin floating face
13:57
Speaker 1: down in the waist deep pool, and soon they were
13:59
Speaker 1: all the way to the hospital, but Jinny and John
14:02
Speaker 1: had no idea. Now it's time for you to meet
14:05
Speaker 1: them in the lobby. I mean, he was getting close
14:07
Speaker 1: to eight. I'm starting to get worried, I said, I
14:10
Speaker 1: just I mean to call their room because I can't
14:13
Speaker 1: contact that any other way to find out where they are.
14:15
Speaker 1: And she said, is your husband here with you? And
14:17
Speaker 1: I'm likely yeah, he's sitting right over there. And then
14:20
Speaker 1: she went and got the general manager and quickly brought
14:24
Speaker 1: me to John explained that there had been an accident.
14:28
Speaker 1: Abby was brain dead, Austin had a concussion and a
14:31
Speaker 1: golf ball sized lump on his head. Abbey was flown
14:34
Speaker 1: to a Florida hospital, where she later died waste deep
14:39
Speaker 1: in a waste deep pool. It sounds almost impossible. Listen
14:46
Speaker 1: to our cut eleven ABC. That day, their blood alcohol
14:50
Speaker 1: level was a point two five, three times the legal
14:53
Speaker 1: limit in their home state of Wisconsin. Austin says he
14:56
Speaker 1: can't remember how many shots they had. Is it at
14:59
Speaker 1: all possible that be just drank too much? I've thought
15:03
Speaker 1: about it, and I mean it is a possibility. By Powell,
15:08
Speaker 1: if we're in a group of people, do two people
15:11
Speaker 1: at the same exact time just pass out on the
15:14
Speaker 1: pool and no one sees it. The family questioning if
15:17
Speaker 1: tainted alcohol a toxic mix of cheap ingredients could be
15:21
Speaker 1: partially to blame. Other families have since come forward recalling
15:24
Speaker 1: how they suddenly blacked out after a few drinks during
15:28
Speaker 1: visits to resorts in Mexico. Mexican officials say they've seized
15:31
Speaker 1: one point four million gallons of tainted alcohol from Mexican businesses,
15:36
Speaker 1: including resorts, clubs, bars, warehouses, and manufacturers in the past
15:40
Speaker 1: seven years. And what I want to point out again,
15:43
Speaker 1: Bill Connor, is with me. This is Abbey's father. People
15:49
Speaker 1: may think, oh, this isn't some cheap hotel, some flophouse,
15:52
Speaker 1: some motel, you know, buying booze out of the back
15:55
Speaker 1: of some guy's car. No, this is a five star
16:00
Speaker 1: our resort that Abby and Austin were at, and Austin
16:06
Speaker 1: really hit the nail on the head. You know, you
16:07
Speaker 1: can make the victims trying to look bad by saying, oh,
16:10
Speaker 1: they were just drunk and got in the water, that's
16:13
Speaker 1: not what happened, because they had other injuries as well.
16:18
Speaker 1: They're sitting at the bar, then they have the alcohol
16:22
Speaker 1: and the next thing you know, she's faced down to
16:24
Speaker 1: the pool and he wakes up in an ambulance, no
16:29
Speaker 1: memory at all. What were there other injuries? Bill, Well,
16:35
Speaker 1: I don't Austin. All we know is he possibly caught
16:40
Speaker 1: the side of the pool when he fell in, So
16:44
Speaker 1: we don't know. We haven't No, they don't have any footage,
16:49
Speaker 1: they don't have any security videos, they don't have anything.
16:52
Speaker 1: We don't know. And so he luckily, he just came
16:57
Speaker 1: away with a head injury. And again thank god that
17:01
Speaker 1: somebody saw. Supposedly the guy that found him was an employee,
17:07
Speaker 1: but thank god that somebody saw both of them and
17:11
Speaker 1: was able to get at least one of the kids
17:13
Speaker 1: out of the pool before anything else happened. Unfortunately, again,
17:18
Speaker 1: Abby didn't make it and and it's just it just
17:22
Speaker 1: boggles my mind that you're a five star resort. You've
17:25
Speaker 1: got like two or three different pools, and those pools
17:29
Speaker 1: are a risk, like somebody can drowned. But nobody was
17:33
Speaker 1: watching them, nothing on video, and nobody was there. I mean,
17:38
Speaker 1: it was like, I don't know. It was unfortunately almost
17:43
Speaker 1: a perfect setup for what just happened. Crime Stories with
17:56
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. I want to go to Joe Scott Morgan,
18:00
Speaker 1: professor forensics. You know again, I'm a j D, not
18:03
Speaker 1: an MD. But something is wrong without alcohol they're serving,
18:07
Speaker 1: and it's not just at that hotel. Allegedly, it's all
18:11
Speaker 1: over boot leg alcohol. You'll look at it and it
18:15
Speaker 1: looks like a top shelf brand, but it's not. It's
18:21
Speaker 1: relabeled and repackaged to make it look like, you know,
18:27
Speaker 1: a very expensive bottle of booze. We are talking about
18:30
Speaker 1: a hazard, a real hazard. You have no idea what's happening,
18:35
Speaker 1: and suddenly you're like Abby and Austin. You black out.
18:40
Speaker 1: You have no recollection. Abby died because of this boot
18:45
Speaker 1: leg alcohol. I believe Austin completely black out. So what
18:50
Speaker 1: could it be? Joe Scott Morgan, You're the forensics expert. Well,
18:54
Speaker 1: you have to take it. You have to take it
18:55
Speaker 1: from this perspective, Nancy. Are we looking at a k
19:00
Speaker 1: where someone has been slipped something in their drink? You
19:03
Speaker 1: know when you begin to think about things like we're
19:05
Speaker 1: hibbing all maybe scopolamine, any of these types of things
19:09
Speaker 1: that are wait wait wait, wait wait wait wait, he's saying,
19:12
Speaker 1: slip something in your drink like GHB gama hi joxy
19:15
Speaker 1: b tora, which is a date rape jug get passed out.
19:18
Speaker 1: But why would you slip it into multiple people's drink
19:21
Speaker 1: And you're not trying to get the girl off to
19:23
Speaker 1: rape her like we normally hear about you. It's got
19:26
Speaker 1: to be in the alcohol for so many people to
19:30
Speaker 1: be affected in the same way. Yeah, and that's why
19:33
Speaker 1: why are you going to take them all back to
19:34
Speaker 1: your room and rape them? No? No, But you have
19:36
Speaker 1: to keep an open on when it comes to investigations.
19:39
Speaker 1: What you have to narrow the field down, don't you, Nancy.
19:42
Speaker 1: So you want to look and see, well, what's the
19:44
Speaker 1: motivation behind it? How big a target group do you have?
19:48
Speaker 1: Now when you think about tainted alcohol, when you go
19:50
Speaker 1: to places like Mexico, for instance, they don't have the
19:53
Speaker 1: same standard that we do when they're manufacturing alcohol. Heard
19:56
Speaker 1: you mentioned no standards. Go ahead, yeah, well you have
20:01
Speaker 1: bootlegged liquors that are down there in you know, in America.
20:05
Speaker 1: You know, we've had bootlegged liquor for a long long time.
20:08
Speaker 1: And that means the same controls don't exist, for instance,
20:12
Speaker 1: and so when you're manufacturing alcohol, it will not be
20:16
Speaker 1: processed in the same manner. Say, for instance, something like
20:19
Speaker 1: methanol makes it into the alcohol. And this is very,
20:24
Speaker 1: very way a minute. What's methanol. Methanol is a form
20:30
Speaker 1: of alcohol. It's a type of alcohol, and generally you'll
20:32
Speaker 1: see it in what we refer to as d natured alcohols.
20:37
Speaker 1: Let's think about for instance, I'll give you an example. Okay,
20:40
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to dummy down because you're already loose Jackie.
20:43
Speaker 1: Jackie has no idea and I have a very small
20:45
Speaker 1: idea of what you're saying. Are you saying methanol can
20:48
Speaker 1: get into your drink like Abby's drink? Well, it certainly
20:51
Speaker 1: ken if you're making your alcohol with it and in
20:54
Speaker 1: these factories that are essentially substandard, and so the alcohol
20:59
Speaker 1: becomes toxic at that point, and some of these behaviors
21:03
Speaker 1: that you're talking about people exhibiting this thing where people
21:06
Speaker 1: black out. You have individuals who are going into renal failure,
21:10
Speaker 1: for instance, their livers shut down on them. All these
21:13
Speaker 1: catastrophic events where if you don't get to them at
21:17
Speaker 1: the right time, you can't pull them back from the edge.
21:20
Speaker 1: And then you combine water with that. Oh my stars,
21:24
Speaker 1: wait a minute. I couldn't get it out of you.
21:26
Speaker 1: For Pete's sake, I don't have you on cross. I
21:28
Speaker 1: had to look it up. Methanol a non drinking type
21:32
Speaker 1: of alcohol, also known as wood alcohol, used to create
21:37
Speaker 1: fuel solvents and anti freeze, A colorless liquid, volatile, flammable,
21:43
Speaker 1: unlike ethanol, poisonous for human consumption. Okay, that I understand,
21:49
Speaker 1: that I get. I mean, when you think about moonshine,
21:52
Speaker 1: I remember my grandfather on my father's side, my mother's side,
21:56
Speaker 1: all teetotalers on my dad's side made one in the bathtub.
22:01
Speaker 1: Who wants to drink that well other than him. That's
22:04
Speaker 1: a benign example. But when we're talking about including methanol
22:11
Speaker 1: and what you're drinking and feeding it to guests, maybe
22:15
Speaker 1: the hotel didn't know what was in there, but they
22:18
Speaker 1: had to know it was bootleg. I believe guys, take
22:22
Speaker 1: a listen to our friend Geo Benita's ABC's GMA. Well,
22:26
Speaker 1: other American families are coming forward. I thought I was dying.
22:30
Speaker 1: Jamie and Rick Valerie stayed at another resort in twenty fifteen,
22:33
Speaker 1: the couple telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel they both blacked
22:36
Speaker 1: out after a few drinks from the resort's beach ball.
22:40
Speaker 1: I thought I was dying because I couldn't get out
22:42
Speaker 1: of whatever state of mind I was in, and you
22:44
Speaker 1: just you couldn't wake up. I remember thinking, how are
22:47
Speaker 1: my six kids gonna find out? You know, on what's
22:50
Speaker 1: going to happen to them? They say the hotel ignored
22:52
Speaker 1: their complaints. They thought they were drugged. My hands broke gun,
22:57
Speaker 1: and She's just like, all I know and all that
22:59
Speaker 1: doesn't happen here. We've never had any anything like that.
23:02
Speaker 1: Guan Maried Webster created the website Mexico Vacation Awareness about
23:07
Speaker 1: the potential risks when traveling to these resorts after her
23:10
Speaker 1: twenty two year old son, Nolan's unconscious body was pulled
23:13
Speaker 1: from a waist deep resort pool and he later died.
23:16
Speaker 1: She says a nurse tried to help her son, but
23:18
Speaker 1: the hotel doctor pulled him away, saying he was just drunk,
23:22
Speaker 1: which Webster denies. I want to go now to our
23:26
Speaker 1: guests joining us to Gary Davidson, international lawyer. All of
23:32
Speaker 1: this is happening across the border, and it sounds far
23:36
Speaker 1: away when we say another country, but it's just a
23:39
Speaker 1: hop skip and the jump away people go to, for instance, Mexico,
23:43
Speaker 1: they go to Cancun, they go to greend Caman and
23:46
Speaker 1: it says short, it's a quick trip. And you kind
23:50
Speaker 1: of feel when you're in these resorts like you're still
23:52
Speaker 1: in America, but you're not. No, you're not Nancy. And
23:57
Speaker 1: the reality is that in Mexico, these all inclusive resorts
24:01
Speaker 1: such as that where Abbey Conner died. Uh. These all
24:08
Speaker 1: these are all inclusive resorts cater to North Americans. UH.
24:14
Speaker 1: Anywhere from seventy five to ninety percent of the visitors
24:18
Speaker 1: are from the United States and Canada at these resorts,
24:22
Speaker 1: and they have certain expectations when they go to a
24:25
Speaker 1: luxury resort, one of which is they don't have to
24:27
Speaker 1: worry about the quality of the services being delivered. UM.
24:32
Speaker 1: Because of the ratings that are attached to these hotels
24:35
Speaker 1: and and that's the that's the reality on the ground
24:38
Speaker 1: with tourism from these from the United States and Canada.
24:42
Speaker 1: But the reality on the ground in Mexico is buy
24:45
Speaker 1: or beware. Um. You know I have I have worked
24:50
Speaker 1: in this area for a good deal of time. And
24:54
Speaker 1: this is a tragedy. Uh. It's an international tragedy in
24:58
Speaker 1: the sense that it's an embarrassment to the country of
25:00
Speaker 1: Mexico for this to be going on. But it is
25:03
Speaker 1: an industry down there. This the purvaying of phony alcohol
25:11
Speaker 1: is an industry down there, and all of the players
25:14
Speaker 1: are knowledgeable about it. All of the players are involved
25:17
Speaker 1: in it from the beginning to the end, and no
25:20
Speaker 1: one can claim ignorance at this point as to what's
25:23
Speaker 1: going on. Okay, let me analyze what you just said.
25:26
Speaker 1: Gary Davidson is a renowned international lawyer joining US out
25:30
Speaker 1: of Miami partner Diaz ruis international law from an alliance.
25:34
Speaker 1: So you're saying from beginning to end. I think, in
25:36
Speaker 1: my interpretation, you mean from top to bottom. For instance,
25:40
Speaker 1: you got the bootlegger making and I don't mean in
25:44
Speaker 1: the back of his car out in the woods and
25:45
Speaker 1: a shed, I mean like a warehouse factory making bootleg
25:49
Speaker 1: alcohol and then bottling it to make it look like
25:53
Speaker 1: a name brand that you would get here in America
25:57
Speaker 1: in a liquor store. Expensive alcohol. That's what it looks like,
26:02
Speaker 1: but it's not. So then you go to the level
26:05
Speaker 1: of who buys the alcohol for the hotel? Are they
26:08
Speaker 1: on the take paying the full price but actually getting
26:12
Speaker 1: a cheaper price and pocketing the money. Who's running the bar,
26:15
Speaker 1: who do they answer to? A chief steward, Who do
26:19
Speaker 1: they answer to on the budget? Who's looking at the books?
26:22
Speaker 1: Does it go all the way to the top of
26:24
Speaker 1: a five star resort? Does it go beyond that to
26:27
Speaker 1: the corporate heads? Are they in America? How do you
26:30
Speaker 1: get jurisdiction over these people and bring them to justice.
26:34
Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about. We do it, we do.
26:39
Speaker 1: We do bring them to justice. Because this is Abera Star,
26:42
Speaker 1: which is an international hotel conglomerate based out of Spain.
26:46
Speaker 1: They have offices here in Florida where they handle their
26:51
Speaker 1: reservations and marketing. So with these types of folks, we
26:57
Speaker 1: can bring them into into lawsuits in the in the
27:00
Speaker 1: United States. You mentioned five star resorts again, and keep
27:05
Speaker 1: in mind that there is a tremendous economic incentive in
27:12
Speaker 1: Mexico for the use of what I referred to as
27:15
Speaker 1: a phony alcohol, and that is because these are all
27:19
Speaker 1: inclusive resorts. People are generally not paying anything for their
27:24
Speaker 1: alcoholic beverages, so there's a tremendous financial incentive to cut
27:29
Speaker 1: costs as much as possible. I believe that's what, in principle,
27:35
Speaker 1: has driven the industry to become so big down there,
27:40
Speaker 1: this phony alcohol industry because of the nature of all
27:45
Speaker 1: inclusive resorts. Climb stories with Nancy Grace, Bill Connor who's
27:59
Speaker 1: Abbey's dad, who created Abbey's Ride for Life, you can
28:02
Speaker 1: find them online. When you hear it's all about making
28:06
Speaker 1: another dollar and your daughter is dead, what is your response, Well,
28:16
Speaker 1: I guess what I do is I think about the
28:19
Speaker 1: people outside of our family and how many people have
28:24
Speaker 1: lost somebody and they've had no recourse. Um, it makes
28:31
Speaker 1: me sad that these people are doing this and it's
28:36
Speaker 1: a part of their livelihood. And so what I what
28:42
Speaker 1: I hope to do with Gary and with Raquel and
28:48
Speaker 1: is to this needs to be put out on the
28:52
Speaker 1: in the in a bigger light, and it has to
28:55
Speaker 1: be paid attention to. It's it's just been shoved under
28:59
Speaker 1: under the rug for too many years, and it's just
29:04
Speaker 1: all I all I hope for is someday that people
29:09
Speaker 1: I can't imagine somebody losing their child like we did
29:11
Speaker 1: and then go home and then have no recourse. You
29:15
Speaker 1: can't find the right lawyer, you can't find the right
29:18
Speaker 1: person to help you with your tragedy. And I mean,
29:23
Speaker 1: if it wasn't for Raquel and Gary Um, we wouldn't
29:29
Speaker 1: be here, you know, Bill, just hearing you just it's
29:33
Speaker 1: it's just it's it's sickening. It's just sickening. It is.
29:39
Speaker 1: It is sickening. And doctor Bethany Marshall, I want to
29:42
Speaker 1: understand the frame of mind. I'm going to go back
29:45
Speaker 1: to Roquel to give us all of her knowledge that
29:47
Speaker 1: she can. Bethany, for instance, you know how I love
29:52
Speaker 1: taking the children on a Disney cruise. You know why?
29:55
Speaker 1: Because I feel safe. I feel like everything's going to
29:59
Speaker 1: be okay. They're s they're having fun, there are staff
30:04
Speaker 1: people everywhere. I've got my eyes on them, and it
30:08
Speaker 1: feels safe and secure and happy. That's just me. But
30:14
Speaker 1: when people go on vacation, especially with your children. We
30:18
Speaker 1: are kind of lulled into a sense of complacency that
30:21
Speaker 1: we're on vacation and nothing bad is going to happen,
30:26
Speaker 1: and that really and Bill, Bill and Abbey spurred me
30:33
Speaker 1: on to write a whole chapter about travel mishaps and
30:37
Speaker 1: how to avoid them. What happens to us when we
30:41
Speaker 1: go on vacation. Why do we think, oh, nothing bad's
30:44
Speaker 1: going to happen here? Nancy is like a suspension of disbelief,
30:47
Speaker 1: meaning like when you watch a movie and there's all
30:50
Speaker 1: these stunts going on, you're going to believe the visual
30:54
Speaker 1: cues rather than dismantling and taking apart. You know, oh
30:59
Speaker 1: that was a dunt man on that rig. You know,
31:01
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna want to watch the story rather than
31:04
Speaker 1: the underpinnings. And I think like in Disney World and
31:07
Speaker 1: Cruises and all these all inclusive resorts, they look so good.
31:13
Speaker 1: There are greets when you come to the front of
31:16
Speaker 1: the hotel. They serve you a nice drink or a cocktail.
31:21
Speaker 1: The people behind the desk call you sir, and my
31:24
Speaker 1: case doctor or miss or madam. And there's this idea
31:29
Speaker 1: of how could these lovely young people behind the desk
31:32
Speaker 1: or these cute, you know, college students working during the summer,
31:36
Speaker 1: you know, handing you pals by the pool. How could
31:40
Speaker 1: there be such a horrible underpinning to all of this.
31:44
Speaker 1: I went on a cruise once with Good Morning America.
31:47
Speaker 1: It was called Girls week Out, and they took I
31:50
Speaker 1: think three hundred women on Norwegian Cruise lines. We had
31:54
Speaker 1: a talk show every morning with Gayle King and a
31:57
Speaker 1: Diane Sawyer, and they were all these different restaurants on
32:01
Speaker 1: the boat. So there was the cafeteria and then there
32:04
Speaker 1: was this high end restaurant, and then a Mexican restaurant,
32:08
Speaker 1: then a steakhouse. And I realized as I went to restaurant,
32:11
Speaker 1: from restaurant to restaurant, they were serving the exact same food.
32:16
Speaker 1: It was chopped up as a hamburger when you went
32:19
Speaker 1: to the cafeteria, and then it was served with a
32:22
Speaker 1: sauce as a steak, as a high end steakhouse. But
32:26
Speaker 1: the visuals of being whether you're in the cafeteria or
32:29
Speaker 1: the high end steakhouse were supposed to trick you into
32:32
Speaker 1: thinking you were having a better experience. Well, obviously, Bethany,
32:37
Speaker 1: you need to go in a Disney cruise with me.
32:39
Speaker 1: Because it's nothing like that. Yeah, I want to figure
32:42
Speaker 1: out how this is happening and why it's happening. And
32:46
Speaker 1: I want to go back to Raquel Rutledge investigating every
32:49
Speaker 1: reporter who really cracked this whole the whole issue wide
32:53
Speaker 1: open at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And if this reaches
32:58
Speaker 1: even one family as you head out for summer vacation
33:02
Speaker 1: with your family, it will all be worth it. Everybody
33:06
Speaker 1: of this panel, We'll be happy if one person here's
33:11
Speaker 1: this and heeds this warning. Raquel, it's not just Abbey
33:17
Speaker 1: at Austin, Raquel, take a listen to our cut seventeen
33:20
Speaker 1: Griff Jenkins, Fox News. Just when you thought it couldn't
33:23
Speaker 1: get worse, another mysterious death. There were six Americans in
33:27
Speaker 1: the last twelve months that have diedled John Corkrane, one
33:30
Speaker 1: of her favorite brothers. The family issuing this statement acknowledging
33:35
Speaker 1: the passing quote. John Corkrane passed away at the end
33:38
Speaker 1: of April in the dr from what is believed to
33:41
Speaker 1: be natural causes. He loved and frequently visited the Dominican Republic.
33:46
Speaker 1: The hotel where he was staying is unknown at this point.
33:51
Speaker 1: The State Department also confirming it. We are in Santo Domingo,
33:55
Speaker 1: the capital of the Dominican Republic, here at the US
33:58
Speaker 1: in the sea. We came to talk to them about
34:00
Speaker 1: this string of death. They're unable to go on camera
34:03
Speaker 1: because of the ongoing investigation by Dominican officials at the
34:06
Speaker 1: US is assisting, including the FBI, but they wanted to
34:10
Speaker 1: stress that their highest priority is the safety and security
34:13
Speaker 1: of Americans. You darn right you think it can't happen
34:16
Speaker 1: to you. You know who that victim was is famous,
34:19
Speaker 1: famous real tour in New York. I've heard her name
34:22
Speaker 1: a million times. Barbara Corkran, her brother mysteriously dies after
34:27
Speaker 1: drinking alcohol at a resort in the Dominican And to
34:31
Speaker 1: twenty our friends at ABC listen to this about Layla Cox. Tonight,
34:36
Speaker 1: the State Department monitors yet another investigation of an American
34:39
Speaker 1: tourist who died in the Dominican Republic and whose family
34:43
Speaker 1: is asking questions. Just today, after her fifty third birthday,
34:47
Speaker 1: Layla Cox, the radiologist from New York, died from what
34:50
Speaker 1: officials say was a heart attack, but her son claims
34:53
Speaker 1: she was healthy. It's been a NonStop nightmare just trying
34:57
Speaker 1: to get her body and her remains back trying to
34:59
Speaker 1: get answers. This after at least eight American deaths in
35:03
Speaker 1: the last twelve months at different resorts across the island,
35:07
Speaker 1: Families all around America asking questions. Nobody can give me
35:10
Speaker 1: a solid answer on how she passed away. Everything is
35:14
Speaker 1: being mistragged and miskewed. I get new information every single day.
35:20
Speaker 1: It was just two weeks ago when Nathaniel Holmes and
35:22
Speaker 1: Cynthia Day, seen here kayaking on the island, were both
35:26
Speaker 1: found dead in a dr resort. Autopsies performed on the
35:29
Speaker 1: island said they died of respiratory failure and pulmonary edema.
35:33
Speaker 1: The husband of Miranda Warner says she died after drinking
35:37
Speaker 1: from a mini bar in her room. He and the
35:39
Speaker 1: relatives of Nathaniel Holmes and Cynthia Day now wait for
35:42
Speaker 1: toxicology results. Officials they're saying there is no evidence so
35:46
Speaker 1: far that the deaths are connected, and are urging tours
35:50
Speaker 1: not to rush to judgment. Rachel Rutledge investigate every porter
35:53
Speaker 1: of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. How vast do you believe this is?
35:58
Speaker 1: This phony alcohol business. I think it's much bigger than
36:02
Speaker 1: anybody imagines. And I think it goes on early. I
36:07
Speaker 1: mean in many places across the world. But because we
36:09
Speaker 1: have so many tourists traveling to Mexico, just by the
36:12
Speaker 1: vast numbers, we have more cases that show up there
36:14
Speaker 1: than the rest of the Caribbean or anywhere else that
36:16
Speaker 1: we vacation. But what happens is because of the nature,
36:21
Speaker 1: as Gary mentioned, of the all inclusives, it gets it's
36:25
Speaker 1: very easily hidden by the idea that you just have
36:28
Speaker 1: college kids getting drunk, because the truth is, we do
36:31
Speaker 1: have college kids getting drunk. So there's a lot of
36:33
Speaker 1: things going on at once that make it easy to
36:36
Speaker 1: hide this. There are some cases where perhaps people were
36:39
Speaker 1: specifically drugged with date rate drug and raped, and there
36:43
Speaker 1: are cases where people overdrank and got sick that way,
36:46
Speaker 1: so it's easy to sort of love that all together
36:50
Speaker 1: and just blame it on those things, when when actually
36:53
Speaker 1: systemically there's there's something larger going on, and that has
36:57
Speaker 1: been shown by the fact that they've they've cracked down,
37:00
Speaker 1: even though as you said, yes a new bootlegger will
37:02
Speaker 1: open up, but the fact that they did confiscate a
37:04
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff does tell you that they that it
37:07
Speaker 1: is in fact a problem and they are aware of it.
37:09
Speaker 1: And to Bill Connor, Abbey's dad. You can find him
37:13
Speaker 1: online look up Abbey's Ride for Life Bill Connor. As
37:18
Speaker 1: literally millions of people head out with their families on vacation.
37:23
Speaker 1: What's your message, friend, Well, you got to be careful
37:26
Speaker 1: no matter where you go. Um, you can't. You can't
37:30
Speaker 1: be as trust trusting as we used to be. And
37:34
Speaker 1: I think one of the big things that comes out
37:37
Speaker 1: of this is I was talking to some of the
37:39
Speaker 1: people in Wisconsin and the government. You know, when we
37:43
Speaker 1: when we go out of the country or other other countries,
37:46
Speaker 1: and you know, things like this happen. We don't have
37:50
Speaker 1: like a nine one one type situation to I mean,
37:55
Speaker 1: when you're in Mexico, you get in trouble, you're in trouble,
37:58
Speaker 1: and but you know, yeah, your friends know you're down there,
38:02
Speaker 1: but where exactly are you? I think we need to
38:05
Speaker 1: have a system in which that families or individuals that
38:09
Speaker 1: for whatever reason are in the wrong place at the
38:12
Speaker 1: wrong time. I mean your cell phone. We need some
38:16
Speaker 1: type of communication that at least still will log where
38:22
Speaker 1: you are, where you're at, and obviously that your phone
38:24
Speaker 1: number will come up in some type of directory, um,
38:28
Speaker 1: you know, with the just add add something. It's Roquel
38:33
Speaker 1: here just talking about the State Department. I think we
38:35
Speaker 1: as Americans do do imagine that when we travel we
38:38
Speaker 1: are safe, that we can call our the consulate in
38:41
Speaker 1: what our country we're visiting, and they will come to
38:43
Speaker 1: our rescue and they will investigate. They don't have investigative
38:46
Speaker 1: authority in most countries. They have contracted countries, and so
38:50
Speaker 1: we have this false sense of security that our government
38:52
Speaker 1: is going to protect us elsewhere, and it's just not true. Well,
38:54
Speaker 1: I want to tell all of you guys how much
38:57
Speaker 1: it means to us you're at Fox Nation in serious XM,
39:03
Speaker 1: that you're joining together to literally save people's lives. With
39:08
Speaker 1: all your investigative work, Raquel and Bill Connor your story,
39:14
Speaker 1: you may very well save a life today. To everyone
39:19
Speaker 1: listening or watching, please be careful as you head out
39:24
Speaker 1: on vacation. Nancy Gray's crime Story signing off, goodbye friend,