Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Waffle House Massacre leaves 4 dead, shooter claims he’s incompetent in self-arranged tv interview

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Waffle House Massacre leaves 4 dead, shooter claims he’s incompetent in self-arranged tv interview · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:06
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on serious exim triumph. When
0:12
Speaker 1: we go celebrate, we take the twins to waffle house.
0:15
Speaker 1: It's a big deal. Waffles, cheese, eggs, grits, the works,
0:22
Speaker 1: We play the jukebox. Everybody has a great time. Not
0:26
Speaker 1: so this day in Tennessee when bullets rang out and now,
0:34
Speaker 1: believe it or not, a stunning development and the waffle
0:37
Speaker 1: house shooting case. I Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories.
0:41
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us. Remember this. A gunman
0:45
Speaker 1: who we fully believe to be Travis Ryan King, arrived
0:48
Speaker 1: in the waffle house parking lot in the pickup truck
0:51
Speaker 1: at three nine TM. He sat in that truck for
0:55
Speaker 1: three and a half to four minutes. When you got
0:59
Speaker 1: out of the vehicle at about three three am, he
1:04
Speaker 1: immediately used an assault type rifle to shoot two individuals
1:08
Speaker 1: who were outside of the restaurant. They were fatally wounded.
1:13
Speaker 1: He then went inside the restaurant continued firing. One other
1:17
Speaker 1: person inside the restaurant was fatally wounded. Then an individual
1:23
Speaker 1: who was in the waffle house of patron when he
1:26
Speaker 1: heard the gunshots, actually ran back to the restroom area.
1:31
Speaker 1: He watched the gunman. He reported that he saw the
1:34
Speaker 1: gunman looking at his rifle. At that point, the shots
1:38
Speaker 1: had stopped, so he decided to rush. The gunman actually
1:42
Speaker 1: wrestled that assault rifle away tossed it over the counter
1:46
Speaker 1: at that point. The gunman then fled. As he was
1:49
Speaker 1: in the waffle house, he was wearing only a green jacket,
1:53
Speaker 1: no pants, no shirt, just a green jacket. As he
1:57
Speaker 1: reached the corner of the street now to the waffle house,
2:01
Speaker 1: he shed the jacket. That's Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron
2:05
Speaker 1: speaking about a double murder at the local waffle houses.
2:09
Speaker 1: Everybody's settling in for waffles and grits and eggs and coffee,
2:14
Speaker 1: and now, in a stunning turn of events, the shooter
2:18
Speaker 1: now claiming he's unfit to stand trial. He had the
2:24
Speaker 1: sense to stalk the waffle house to wait till it
2:27
Speaker 1: was at its peak with customers, when everyone wasn't paying attention,
2:32
Speaker 1: sitting outside waiting for just the right number of people
2:35
Speaker 1: to be in there with his automatic weapon, goes in,
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Speaker 1: guns down people and leaves joining me right now. Troy Slayton,
2:43
Speaker 1: fame defense attorney out of l A. Dr. Bethany Marshall,
2:47
Speaker 1: l A psycho analyst Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, and joining
2:51
Speaker 1: me on the scene there in Tennessee. Pamela for Crime
2:55
Speaker 1: online dot Com investigative reporter Pam What does he mean
3:01
Speaker 1: he's unfit to stand trial. Well, that's what the medical
3:04
Speaker 1: experts from the state mental facility told prosecutors that his
3:09
Speaker 1: condition is such that he can't stand trial, and they
3:12
Speaker 1: believe he needs immediate judicial hospitalization. Uh. They don't believe
3:18
Speaker 1: that he can contribute information enough to his attorneys. He
3:23
Speaker 1: even said in an interview with a local TV station
3:27
Speaker 1: here he actually called a reporter ranking did and said
3:31
Speaker 1: he hates his attorneys. He doesn't want to even have representation.
3:35
Speaker 1: He wants to represent himself. And so the doctors and
3:38
Speaker 1: the medical experts from that state facility here in Nashville
3:42
Speaker 1: say he cannot stand trial. He is not confident enough,
3:45
Speaker 1: you know. To Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, I don't believe it.
3:50
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of number he's pulling on
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Speaker 1: the doctors, but I can tell you this, Wendy, I
3:56
Speaker 1: was called by the elected district attorney out of court
4:01
Speaker 1: to go to a crime scene. The crime scene was
4:05
Speaker 1: a beautiful young mother of one who had committed suicide
4:09
Speaker 1: buck naked in her bed by shooting herself in the head. Wendy,
4:16
Speaker 1: when we pull picked up her pillow that she was lying.
4:19
Speaker 1: Her head was lying on the pillow when she shot herself.
4:22
Speaker 1: And guess what was under the pillow, Wendy, blood spatter. Now,
4:26
Speaker 1: how can that be when you shoot yourself in the
4:29
Speaker 1: head with your head lying on the pillow, that the
4:32
Speaker 1: spatter from the gunshot wound goes under your pillow with
4:37
Speaker 1: your head on it. Long story short, her husband did it.
4:40
Speaker 1: And guess what he said? He was insane, He was
4:44
Speaker 1: unfit to stand trial, he was incompetent. I went out
4:47
Speaker 1: and ambushed all of his friends. I found out he
4:50
Speaker 1: had been writing from the mental health facility saying things
4:53
Speaker 1: like stay cool and don't shoot you? Why love Dave?
4:58
Speaker 1: How he said he planned to make scene end sculptures
5:01
Speaker 1: and and and bead necklaces until they believed he was
5:06
Speaker 1: crazy to get out of go into jail. Well, let
5:08
Speaker 1: me tell you something. I blew every one of those
5:10
Speaker 1: letters up at Kinko's, which is what we had to
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Speaker 1: do back then on my own time, to show him
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Speaker 1: to the jury. I just don't understand, Wendy Patrick, how
5:19
Speaker 1: you can plan and execute an attack like this, killing
5:22
Speaker 1: four people, and then claim you can't assist your lawyers. Yeah,
5:27
Speaker 1: it's so frustrating, Nancy. And you know you and I
5:29
Speaker 1: have both attacked these findings. And the prosecutor doesn't have
5:33
Speaker 1: to accept this finding. They can actually have a trial
5:35
Speaker 1: on the finding as to whether or not he's incompetent
5:38
Speaker 1: to stand trial. Because it's true that people come up
5:41
Speaker 1: with these defenses, and you hope that doctors are savvy
5:44
Speaker 1: and experienced enough to be able to see through some
5:47
Speaker 1: of the antics, but we all know that they may
5:49
Speaker 1: be human, and there may be you may actually need
5:52
Speaker 1: a judge to hear the testimony of the doctors that
5:54
Speaker 1: agree he's incompetent and reverse that finding in order to
5:58
Speaker 1: have the man stand in this case and be held accountable,
6:03
Speaker 1: hopefully to the victims and their families well as a
6:05
Speaker 1: matter of fact. Okay, Troye Lton, l a defense attorney,
6:08
Speaker 1: and Dr Bethany Marshall are chopping at the bit to
6:10
Speaker 1: get in, but I want you guys to hear it
6:13
Speaker 1: from the horses mouth. Here is the shooter ranking who
6:19
Speaker 1: deigned to give a jail house interview. Yeah, he's crazy.
6:23
Speaker 1: Listen to that interview Pamela Firm was talking about. But
6:28
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking stuff like that. Since Ranking's arrest, many
6:33
Speaker 1: have wondered if he'll try using the insanity defense. I
6:37
Speaker 1: asked him about his mental fitness, perfectly healthy. As for
6:41
Speaker 1: the shooting at the waffle house, he wasn't ready to
6:44
Speaker 1: talk about that just right now. But Ranking did talk
6:50
Speaker 1: about his pending criminal case. He currently has two appointed lawyers,
6:54
Speaker 1: but he says he plans to handle his own legal defense. Uh,
7:04
Speaker 1: you know how that works? Journey Wow. Uh, that is
7:08
Speaker 1: Ranking the cheeter speaking to our friends at Channel five
7:12
Speaker 1: in Nashville and Nick Bars in particular, giving a jail
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Speaker 1: house interview to Dr Bethany Marshall. Wow, he says, I'm
7:21
Speaker 1: perfectly healthy, and then he goes, yeah, I'm not comfortable.
7:25
Speaker 1: I'm not comfy with talking about the facts on the record.
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Speaker 1: He knows his right to remain silent. He's not speaking
7:31
Speaker 1: about the facts because he doesn't yet know what his
7:34
Speaker 1: defense will be at trial, doesn't want to lock himself
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Speaker 1: into anything, and then goes on to trash his lawyers
7:41
Speaker 1: and say how awful they are. Man. He Uh, he's
7:45
Speaker 1: crazy like a fox. Dr Bethany, Well, he sounds very articulate,
7:51
Speaker 1: very oriented towards reality. You know, even though he did
7:54
Speaker 1: some very crazy things that suggested that he might be psychotic.
7:58
Speaker 1: For instance, he went to the White House, he demanded
8:01
Speaker 1: to inspect the lawn. He complained that Taylor Swift was
8:05
Speaker 1: talking him. So obviously he's gone in and out of psychosis.
8:09
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean he's psychotic now. And he's been incarcerated
8:13
Speaker 1: long enough for them to stabilize him on medication. I
8:16
Speaker 1: understand this evaluation has gone on for some months. I
8:19
Speaker 1: don't know why it can't take one day. But obviously
8:22
Speaker 1: they've stabilized him and he's just fine. You know, you
8:25
Speaker 1: can be psychotic and very clever and intentional about planning
8:30
Speaker 1: a crime. Remember Andrea Yates who drowned her children. Okay,
8:36
Speaker 1: so she said that she needed that that God told
8:40
Speaker 1: her to drown them otherwise Satan would take them to hell. However,
8:44
Speaker 1: she waited until Rusty left for work to drown them.
8:48
Speaker 1: So there was a mixture of delusion and intentionality and
8:52
Speaker 1: being very homicidal. So being being psychotic or crazy does
8:57
Speaker 1: not mean you can't aid in your own defense. You
9:00
Speaker 1: can't think clearly or build a narrative about what happened. Right,
9:03
Speaker 1: She waited for the husband to leave for work, locked
9:05
Speaker 1: the door so she wouldn't be disturbed. Took the oldest
9:09
Speaker 1: child first to kill him, so as uh the others
9:13
Speaker 1: wouldn't be he wouldn't be alerted as she killed the
9:17
Speaker 1: others and they screamed and tried to run. Yes, she
9:20
Speaker 1: knew exactly what she was doing, so Troy Slayton renowned
9:25
Speaker 1: l a defense attorney and a competency trial. It's a
9:29
Speaker 1: bifurcated trial. First, you can strike a jury or just
9:32
Speaker 1: have a beense trial friend of the judge, And the
9:35
Speaker 1: only issue is is the defendant at the time of
9:39
Speaker 1: trial able to assist his or her lawyers. That's the
9:43
Speaker 1: only issue, and I would advise a competency trial. Troy Slayton,
9:46
Speaker 1: there's that pesky thing called the United States Constitution, Nancy.
9:51
Speaker 1: He is entitled under the fifth and sixth Amendment to
9:55
Speaker 1: do process and the experts not him. But it's the
10:00
Speaker 1: experts who evaluate him who that's their job in life
10:05
Speaker 1: to look at people and determine their competency to make
10:10
Speaker 1: a recommendation to the court. About not whether or not
10:14
Speaker 1: he's insane as a defense to the crime, but whether
10:17
Speaker 1: or not he can even stand trial. This isn't an
10:19
Speaker 1: insanity defense. This is about whether or not he's even
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Speaker 1: competent to have a trial. And even if he's found incompetent,
10:28
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that he can't be restored to competency
10:31
Speaker 1: by having treatment and then at some later time, maybe
10:34
Speaker 1: thirty days, maybe even thirty days he's already been behind
10:38
Speaker 1: bars for months on medication to get him competent, they
10:43
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12:43
Speaker 1: Just consider myself. I was, like I said in that cage,
12:46
Speaker 1: and I had the opportunity to either act or act
12:52
Speaker 1: or not act, and uh, I chose to act because
12:56
Speaker 1: either way, in my mind, I saw, if I don't
12:59
Speaker 1: act is death. If I do act, I have a
13:03
Speaker 1: stronger possibility of living than just letting him come to
13:08
Speaker 1: the door. So, uh, I just see myself like as
13:12
Speaker 1: a regular guy. I didn't mean to do this to
13:16
Speaker 1: be the hero by any means. It was just kind
13:18
Speaker 1: of like survival of the fittest type thing. Um, I'm sorry.
13:22
Speaker 1: I couldn't get to the guy any faster, or we
13:27
Speaker 1: could have got him out in the parking lot or
13:29
Speaker 1: something like that. But you know, I didn't know he
13:32
Speaker 1: was going to come in their arm to the teeth
13:35
Speaker 1: like that. There was no way for me to know
13:38
Speaker 1: that he was going to do that. I'm sorry for
13:41
Speaker 1: your family, Um, your loved ones. I'm kind of speechless.
13:47
Speaker 1: I really don't. All I can say is words, but
13:49
Speaker 1: it's it's it's gonna hurt now. The man that comes
13:52
Speaker 1: into a local waffle house at the peak of business
13:57
Speaker 1: and unloads a hell of bullets, killing four people says
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Speaker 1: he is unfit to stand trial. Let's go back in
14:05
Speaker 1: time and listen to what a witness says. It was
14:08
Speaker 1: just like bow bow, bow bow. It was like somebody
14:11
Speaker 1: was just going to town on a bass room and
14:14
Speaker 1: it was it wasn't the us the easiest thing. I
14:20
Speaker 1: just told people jump in the bathrooms as quick as
14:22
Speaker 1: you can. And so we pushed a couple of girls
14:24
Speaker 1: into the back bathroom and then me, a guy and
14:27
Speaker 1: another lady we went into my bathroom and locked it. Um,
14:30
Speaker 1: and the shots just got louder. It's totally scared to
14:33
Speaker 1: open the door. So we waited the ten seconds we
14:35
Speaker 1: heard no gunshots, and then you opened the door and
14:38
Speaker 1: you cautiously peek out. We saw the magazine on the floor. Um,
14:42
Speaker 1: there was a lady face down, she was gone. There
14:45
Speaker 1: was another lady with her head kind of tilted back
14:47
Speaker 1: on the bottom of the actual booth um. She was bleeding.
14:51
Speaker 1: Her leg was like completely ripped up, two shreds. Um.
14:54
Speaker 1: And then we walked out the door and then literally
14:56
Speaker 1: there was a man right there just head gone. Um,
15:00
Speaker 1: look up to Syde walked as another one gone. Seeing
15:04
Speaker 1: that type of yeah, I'll never leave those Yeah, no, no,
15:12
Speaker 1: you are hearing Brennan McMurray, who was there at the
15:15
Speaker 1: waffle house. Um when the shooting broke out. Before that,
15:20
Speaker 1: you heard from the hero James Shaw Jr. Who describes
15:25
Speaker 1: himself as a regular guy who managed to save untold
15:29
Speaker 1: lives that day. And now the defendant claiming he is
15:32
Speaker 1: incompetent to stand trial. So Pamela for, how is it
15:36
Speaker 1: that he can give jail house interviews, declare himself, I'm
15:39
Speaker 1: perfectly healthy, uh, and then has the savvy not to
15:44
Speaker 1: talk about the facts of his case. Good question, and
15:47
Speaker 1: it should be noted he's the one that actually called
15:51
Speaker 1: news Channel five and the reporter Nick Barrett. Okay, whit
15:54
Speaker 1: white white white, stop stop right there, Pamela for, I
16:01
Speaker 1: did you hear that, Wendy Patrick. Wendy Patrick a veteran
16:06
Speaker 1: California prosecutor. He called Channel five and arranged his jail
16:12
Speaker 1: house interview. I might add indirect violation of a judicial
16:16
Speaker 1: gag order where he's not supposed to talk about his case.
16:20
Speaker 1: What he calls he has a wherewithal to go to
16:22
Speaker 1: the jailhouse pay phone. You gotta call collect, call them collect,
16:27
Speaker 1: make a collect pay pay call, get their number, get
16:30
Speaker 1: the right reporter, arrange a time, and Wendy, this guy
16:38
Speaker 1: is not a competent and this is gonna be great
16:41
Speaker 1: evidence in front of the court. Nancy when the prosecutors
16:46
Speaker 1: attack and dispute the competency findings, or I should say
16:49
Speaker 1: the incompetency findings, because absolutely the sophistication, the savviness, and
16:54
Speaker 1: I understand the argument that well, he's now been stabilized,
16:57
Speaker 1: but this then great, then he's stable he and go
17:00
Speaker 1: forward through trial. If he's going to claim insanity, as
17:02
Speaker 1: Troy was pointing out, that's entirely different. By the way,
17:06
Speaker 1: that's also going to be difficult to prove given the
17:08
Speaker 1: strategy that went into planning this crime. But absolutely everything
17:12
Speaker 1: you just mentioned, Nancy finding the phone, knowing the number,
17:16
Speaker 1: his voice on the phone, his demeanor, all of that
17:18
Speaker 1: belies the finding of incompetency, and a judge may reverse
17:23
Speaker 1: it and on that trial goes in front of a
17:25
Speaker 1: jury on the merits where it belongs. Now, TROYE lytton
17:28
Speaker 1: high profile l A defense attorney, I know you want
17:32
Speaker 1: to duke it out with Wendy and myself, but hold on,
17:35
Speaker 1: let's hear it from a professional, a mental healthcare professional,
17:40
Speaker 1: Dr Bethany Marshall with us L A psycho analyst. Okay, Bethany,
17:44
Speaker 1: I did not know that little tidbit that Pamela for
17:48
Speaker 1: joining us live right now in the Nashville, Tennessee. Just
17:53
Speaker 1: told me she managed to dig that up for us.
17:56
Speaker 1: He goes to the pay phone. He knows to go
17:58
Speaker 1: to the pay phone. He knows how to place a
18:01
Speaker 1: collect call to a particular number that he had to find,
18:06
Speaker 1: to a particular reporter that he had to find, and
18:09
Speaker 1: set up a jail house interview, and conduct the jail
18:12
Speaker 1: house interview where he says I'm perfectly healthy and refuses
18:16
Speaker 1: to talk about the facts of the case. Hello. This
18:19
Speaker 1: reminds me of a patient online whose paranoid, schizophrenic, floridly psychotic,
18:24
Speaker 1: has delusions, cannot go into a restaurant without thinking that
18:28
Speaker 1: people can read her thoughts. But she has a lot
18:30
Speaker 1: of money, she's a trust fund baby, She's married to
18:33
Speaker 1: somebody who's a very compassionate caregiver. So she'll go off
18:38
Speaker 1: her medications when she wants to get a lot of
18:41
Speaker 1: attention or behave in bad engage in bad behavior. But
18:45
Speaker 1: when she gets in a fight with her husband, she
18:47
Speaker 1: will up her medications, come into session and tell a
18:50
Speaker 1: very articulate story about everything he's done to irritate her. Okay,
18:54
Speaker 1: The point being that even if this purpose was floridly
18:58
Speaker 1: psychotic at the time of these homicides, which I do
19:01
Speaker 1: not believe he was. It is possible for him to
19:05
Speaker 1: get on a little etpc dose of M A psychotic
19:08
Speaker 1: raises awareness called reporters. We the narrative about what happened.
19:13
Speaker 1: He can certainly stand trial, Nancy. You know, case and
19:17
Speaker 1: point to me was that his guns were confiscated at
19:19
Speaker 1: some point right the guns were given to his father.
19:23
Speaker 1: He convinced his father to give the guns back. In
19:27
Speaker 1: that case, he defended his need to have a gun,
19:31
Speaker 1: and his dad handed the guns over. If he can
19:33
Speaker 1: do that with his own father, he can do it
19:36
Speaker 1: in a court of lots. This mental evaluation has been
19:39
Speaker 1: underway for months after the shooting occurred late April. Now
19:46
Speaker 1: what does it mean. This means that the families of
19:49
Speaker 1: four dead victims and all the people. Can you imagine
19:52
Speaker 1: having John David and Lucy my ten year roles in
19:56
Speaker 1: the waffle house when a mass shooting breaks out, um
20:02
Speaker 1: that that they have to John Davis still runs and
20:05
Speaker 1: hides behind the chair. When the flying monkeys come on
20:08
Speaker 1: the screen on the Wizard of Oz. What if they
20:10
Speaker 1: saw this? Now I want you to judge for yourself.
20:16
Speaker 1: This guy research as a reporter, gets the phone number.
20:21
Speaker 1: Obviously they have um internet behind bars, goes to the
20:26
Speaker 1: pay phone places a collect phone call, gets in touch
20:30
Speaker 1: with Channel five. They're in Nashville. Nick Barris gets him
20:33
Speaker 1: to the jail house for this interview. Listen to what
20:38
Speaker 1: he says. Do you think he's crazy? Stuff like that?
20:45
Speaker 1: Since Rankings arrest, many have wondered if you'll try using
20:48
Speaker 1: the insanity defense. I asked him about his mental fitness,
20:53
Speaker 1: perfectly healthy. As for the shooting at the waffle house,
20:57
Speaker 1: he wasn't ready to talk about that, and not just
21:00
Speaker 1: in the sting of that right now. But Ranking did
21:03
Speaker 1: talk about his pending criminal case. He currently has two
21:06
Speaker 1: appointed lawyers, but he says he plans to handle his
21:09
Speaker 1: own legal defense myself. Uh, you know how that worked
21:18
Speaker 1: in a journey. It's it's just horrible. I mean, you
21:25
Speaker 1: see people laying on the ground, you know what just happened,
21:28
Speaker 1: And you're right, you see it happen all the time,
21:30
Speaker 1: but when it happens right in front of you, it's
21:32
Speaker 1: kind of hard to forget it. It's kind of hard
21:33
Speaker 1: to put it aside. It's it's it's sad, it's tragic.
21:37
Speaker 1: It's and your buddy, t He was a cook here
21:41
Speaker 1: at waffle house, right, Yeah, he was a cook. He
21:43
Speaker 1: was outside on his cigarette break. He actually waved at me,
21:46
Speaker 1: which is why I got out of my car to
21:48
Speaker 1: go talk to him while I waited for the crowd
21:50
Speaker 1: to chill out inside, and just didn't happen that way.
21:55
Speaker 1: You're hearing a witness, same Chuck, who drove up to
21:57
Speaker 1: the waffle house at the same time as a suspect.
22:00
Speaker 1: And I just learned something new to Troy Slayton, veteran
22:03
Speaker 1: l a defense attorney. He stopped to reload and brought
22:08
Speaker 1: along extra ammunition. I haven't gotten your response, Troy. He
22:13
Speaker 1: managed to somehow google local Channel five and find the
22:18
Speaker 1: reporter and set up his own, his very own private
22:22
Speaker 1: jewel house interview where he says I'm perfectly healthy and
22:25
Speaker 1: refuses to talk about the facts of the case. He
22:27
Speaker 1: says he's not comfy discussing the facts of the case.
22:30
Speaker 1: He's going to save that for trial, and then goes
22:33
Speaker 1: on to disas lawyers. So you're telling me this guy's incompetent, Troy.
22:36
Speaker 1: You're still sticking to that We don't let patients make
22:39
Speaker 1: their own diagnosis, and thank goodness. I mean, heck, I've
22:43
Speaker 1: googled myself many times and determine and we let lawyers,
22:48
Speaker 1: we let lawyers like you on the other side of
22:51
Speaker 1: the country. Myself and determined that I had cancer multiple
22:55
Speaker 1: times by looking up stuff on web md. It's a
22:57
Speaker 1: good thing that I don't diagnose myself, because luckily I
23:01
Speaker 1: don't have cancer. But Nancy, what I'm saying is that
23:04
Speaker 1: the issue isn't whether he was competent at the time
23:07
Speaker 1: of the shooting. It doesn't matter whether he was competent
23:10
Speaker 1: when he was making that jailhouse interview with the local station.
23:15
Speaker 1: What matters is is he able to rationally discussed the
23:21
Speaker 1: case with his attorneys and is he does he have
23:24
Speaker 1: a rational and factual understanding of what's going on around him.
23:29
Speaker 1: And luckily, we're going to leave that up to the
23:31
Speaker 1: mental health professionals in the state of Tennessee. Let's go
23:35
Speaker 1: to amulal health professional and analyze something different. Dr Bethany Marshall,
23:40
Speaker 1: I'm quoting from reportedly from Sean del Bess Brooks, and uh.
23:49
Speaker 1: She says, today the American justice systems stroked and increased
23:54
Speaker 1: my pain by informing my family, the monster that killed
23:58
Speaker 1: my son at the waffle house. My son, Aquila da Silva,
24:04
Speaker 1: was found incompetent to stand trial. She says, this monster
24:09
Speaker 1: knew what he was doing when he took four lives,
24:11
Speaker 1: but now he doesn't understand. I'm sick to my stomach.
24:17
Speaker 1: This increased my pain one hundred million times, one hundred
24:22
Speaker 1: million times, she says, can you even imagine? I mean,
24:28
Speaker 1: Dr Bethany, I've told you this story before when we
24:31
Speaker 1: were alone. I believe I was out in the l
24:33
Speaker 1: a uh c n N Bureau Bethany, when my fiancee's
24:40
Speaker 1: murderer was tried. I can hardly remember a thing. It
24:45
Speaker 1: was such a blur. I was in so much pain,
24:49
Speaker 1: it was like a haze. I I don't don't even remember.
24:53
Speaker 1: My dad, who never missed work, would take off every
24:58
Speaker 1: day from the railroad and drive me the two hours
25:01
Speaker 1: to the trial. I don't remember. I can remember walking in,
25:07
Speaker 1: going up to the witness stand, testifying, looking at the jury,
25:13
Speaker 1: coming back down off the witness stand. I remember seeing
25:16
Speaker 1: for the first time Keiths bloody denim shirt sitting out
25:21
Speaker 1: on council table, and I walked past that and I
25:26
Speaker 1: got to the defense table, and I looked at the
25:29
Speaker 1: defendant and he looked at me, looked straight down in
25:34
Speaker 1: his lap. And then I looked at his lawyers and
25:37
Speaker 1: they looked at me. Then they looked straight down in
25:39
Speaker 1: their laps. Then I turned around and I kept walking,
25:44
Speaker 1: and I remember the sound of my boots on the floor.
25:49
Speaker 1: There was a marble floor, and everything was totally quiet.
25:54
Speaker 1: He could earn a pin drop when I walked out,
25:57
Speaker 1: and somebody opened the big double doors and I walked out.
26:01
Speaker 1: That's pretty much what I remember. I also remember that
26:06
Speaker 1: the day asked me that I want to seek the
26:08
Speaker 1: death penalty, and then, in my youth and innocence, I said, no, um,
26:15
Speaker 1: I don't think you took that much into account, but
26:18
Speaker 1: I remember it. That's all I can remember. Dr Bethany
26:23
Speaker 1: and these victims of the waffle house shooting. This is
26:26
Speaker 1: a mother talking about her son getting gunned down at
26:32
Speaker 1: a waffle house. So financy you and now this. You're
26:37
Speaker 1: right when you say now this, you would think, because
26:40
Speaker 1: you've been through this, that even if the world lets
26:44
Speaker 1: you down and you lose a loved one, that the
26:46
Speaker 1: criminal justice system should uphold your rights right that you
26:49
Speaker 1: won't be victimized a second time. But I feel like
26:53
Speaker 1: this mother, with this exquisite and inordinate pain that you
26:57
Speaker 1: can relate to, has now been let down a second time.
27:01
Speaker 1: And the reason I believe this is that it is
27:04
Speaker 1: impossible to malinger or fake mental illness. It just is.
27:09
Speaker 1: When I have patients come into my office who claimed
27:12
Speaker 1: to have this disorder or another, I can tell in
27:15
Speaker 1: ten minutes if they really do have that disorder. It
27:17
Speaker 1: is not rocket science. There are not a thousand different
27:22
Speaker 1: psychiatric illnesses. There are a few. So I believe that
27:27
Speaker 1: whoever was examining this waffle house murder is is compromising
27:33
Speaker 1: their license in order to uphold their profession. In some
27:37
Speaker 1: strange way. They have a license to practice, and yet
27:39
Speaker 1: this is a misdiagnosis, and it mystifies me, and I
27:43
Speaker 1: think that in this case, the criminal justice system has
27:46
Speaker 1: led this mother down. Ranking was charged with the murders
27:49
Speaker 1: of four people at an Antioch, Tennessee waffle house. Then
27:55
Speaker 1: he arranges an exclusive phone interview with The Knees Channel five,
28:00
Speaker 1: and he was asked about his own mental health and
28:04
Speaker 1: he says, quote, yeah, now, I'm perfectly healthy. He says
28:08
Speaker 1: he planned plans to act as his own lawyer and quote,
28:13
Speaker 1: that's the thing I'm choosing to represent myself. I don't
28:16
Speaker 1: know how that works, but I didn't like those attorneys.
28:20
Speaker 1: How can he fix his mouth if he's incompetent to
28:24
Speaker 1: say I didn't like that my lawyers, my first settle lawyers.
28:29
Speaker 1: I mean, I pay for those lawyers. By the way,
28:32
Speaker 1: the taxpayers are back to Crime online dot Com investigative
28:38
Speaker 1: reporter Pamela for joining us in Tennessee. Pamela, you have
28:43
Speaker 1: a very close connection to one of the victims in
28:49
Speaker 1: this case. Tell me about that and how they are
28:52
Speaker 1: responding to this latest development. Yes, um, her name is
28:57
Speaker 1: Sharia Henderson, and she's one of the victims. Yes, there
29:01
Speaker 1: are four people that died. That you have four other
29:04
Speaker 1: people who were shot and survived, and all of them
29:08
Speaker 1: are appalled at the idea that he may not even
29:13
Speaker 1: stand trial because he's claiming mental incompetency. Sharina Henderson I
29:18
Speaker 1: worked with in the same building in the organization that
29:22
Speaker 1: I worked for, the media organization. She is a wonderful,
29:25
Speaker 1: delightful person. She has not been able to return to
29:29
Speaker 1: work because she's still recovering from three gunshot wounds that
29:34
Speaker 1: she sustained on that April day and again her parents,
29:38
Speaker 1: her family, her friends like me and others, quite frankly,
29:43
Speaker 1: are appalled that this could possibly happen. So, yeah, there
29:47
Speaker 1: is a close personal connection to this particular case for me,
29:52
Speaker 1: and it's just it's hard to report, quite frankly, these
29:57
Speaker 1: kinds of facts when I know there's a human being
30:01
Speaker 1: who may not get just to serve because this guy
30:05
Speaker 1: is trying to manipulate the system and not have to
30:08
Speaker 1: stand trial. You are listening to crime stories with Nancy Grace.
30:13
Speaker 1: Now we had to Denver. A seven year old boy
30:18
Speaker 1: goes missing and then his body has just been discovered
30:23
Speaker 1: quote intentionally concealed. Listen to his mother. Jordan's smile brought
30:31
Speaker 1: me joy. All I say thank you to each and
30:34
Speaker 1: everyone if I wish you knew him personally. He was
30:38
Speaker 1: such a happy and great kid. Our family has been
30:40
Speaker 1: so devastated upon the broadcast there. All we asked is
30:46
Speaker 1: that you'd be respectful as everything else unraffles the desperate
30:50
Speaker 1: search for seven year old Jordan Vong. We now discover
30:55
Speaker 1: that a sixteen year old girl has been to hanged
31:00
Speaker 1: in connection with his disappearance and death. Uh it's overwhelming
31:07
Speaker 1: to me. A sixteen year old girl taken into custody
31:10
Speaker 1: by dinner for police in connection with the death of
31:13
Speaker 1: a seven year old little boy, and you hear the
31:18
Speaker 1: mother at this visual begging for the little boys return.
31:22
Speaker 1: Joining me is Alan Duke reporting on the case. Alan,
31:27
Speaker 1: what do we know? Well, we know that Jordan Vong
31:30
Speaker 1: likes to play video games and wanted his sixteen year
31:33
Speaker 1: old aunt to play with him, uh one afternoon, so
31:37
Speaker 1: he went into her bedroom. But it was a bad time.
31:41
Speaker 1: It was a time where this girl was upset. She
31:45
Speaker 1: just had an argument with her girlfriend, and she didn't
31:48
Speaker 1: want to be bothered by the seven year old nephew.
31:51
Speaker 1: That I can understand. The nephew wasn't giving up though.
31:54
Speaker 1: He jumped Jordan's jumped onto the bed of this aunt
32:01
Speaker 1: and refused to leave the sixteen year old girl. I
32:04
Speaker 1: I remember to doctor Judith Joseph, New York psychiatrist, joining us.
32:10
Speaker 1: I remember my my sister's about four years older than me.
32:15
Speaker 1: I would go to the door. She'd be in her room,
32:18
Speaker 1: sitting on her bed. It looked like she was reading
32:21
Speaker 1: a book very often with the jard peanut butter. She's
32:24
Speaker 1: the one who got all the looks in the brains,
32:27
Speaker 1: by the way, So I go to the door and
32:30
Speaker 1: I'd open it and say, can you play. She wouldn't
32:34
Speaker 1: even say anything. She just looked at me, all right,
32:37
Speaker 1: and then I would get the message somehow it'll leave. She,
32:41
Speaker 1: by the way, is the sweetest and most loving person
32:44
Speaker 1: I know, just f y I but at that age,
32:48
Speaker 1: nobody wants to be bothered with a sibling. However, she
32:53
Speaker 1: didn't kill me and hide my body. Doctor Judith Joseph, Yeah, yeah,
32:59
Speaker 1: I mean have younger siblings or younger children with older
33:04
Speaker 1: children and homes all of the time. And you know
33:06
Speaker 1: typical bullying is is can be playful. Sometimes it would
33:10
Speaker 1: be really mean. However, this seems very extreme, and children
33:16
Speaker 1: who commit murder tend to have other psychological issues or
33:20
Speaker 1: psychiatric issues. Uh. They tend to be people who are
33:23
Speaker 1: just irritable, depressed, or there could be something even more serious,
33:28
Speaker 1: something like the psychotic brave happening. And we don't know
33:32
Speaker 1: the details of this fight that she had. However, at
33:35
Speaker 1: that age, at that age group UH teams are known
33:39
Speaker 1: to be impulsive. The first thing that comes to mind
33:42
Speaker 1: is the first thing that they do, and how they react.
33:46
Speaker 1: And additionally, we don't know what the fight was about,
33:50
Speaker 1: and we don't know how intense it was. And children
33:52
Speaker 1: who come from violent homes or see if you tend
33:56
Speaker 1: to be the one who perpetrate and who re enact
34:00
Speaker 1: the violence. So I think we need to know more
34:02
Speaker 1: about this case. It's unfortunate that a child was harmed. Well,
34:05
Speaker 1: I know this, Doctor Judith Joseph, I I don't know
34:08
Speaker 1: what more I need to know. You're saying we need
34:11
Speaker 1: to know more about the case. I know the little
34:14
Speaker 1: boy goes to the bedroom of the sixteen year old
34:17
Speaker 1: and wants to play. When she says no, he goes
34:20
Speaker 1: and starts jumping on the bed and then suddenly he disappears.
34:25
Speaker 1: Now I know that he was killed and his body
34:30
Speaker 1: was hidden. As everyone is out searching nine one one
34:35
Speaker 1: UH distraught, the dispatchers, helicopters, search parties, all sorts of
34:43
Speaker 1: open spaces, densely wooded areas. Everybody's searching for this boy.
34:48
Speaker 1: The whole time. The sixteen year old girl knows where
34:52
Speaker 1: the body is. Take a listen to Denver Police Division
34:55
Speaker 1: Chief Joe Montoya. Throughout the course of the investigation that
34:59
Speaker 1: was intermin was determined that a more thorough search of
35:01
Speaker 1: the residence was necessary and therefore we attained a search
35:05
Speaker 1: warrant to re enter the home, and approximately am Tuesday night,
35:11
Speaker 1: officers of Denver Police Department went in and searched the home.
35:14
Speaker 1: Approximately thirty minutes into the search, sadly, we found Jordans deceased.
35:21
Speaker 1: His body was intentionally concealed. Last night we announced that
35:27
Speaker 1: the child's case had become a death investigation, and after
35:32
Speaker 1: further investigation throughout the night, evidence was discovered, and this
35:37
Speaker 1: morning detectives took a sixteen year old female into custody
35:42
Speaker 1: for investigation, at first to be a murder. Since the
35:46
Speaker 1: child is a juvenile, law forbids me from discussing anymore
35:51
Speaker 1: about her, her relationship to Jordan's, or their specifics about
35:55
Speaker 1: the case. The coroner's office will determine the cause of
35:59
Speaker 1: death and the Districtorney's office will make the final termination
36:03
Speaker 1: on charge. You're hearing law enforcement speaking to Joseph Scott Morgan,
36:09
Speaker 1: the forensics expert. The body of the little seven year
36:14
Speaker 1: old boy was in the home the whole time while
36:18
Speaker 1: search crews and dogs and helicopters were all out searching
36:22
Speaker 1: for him. He was right there in the home the
36:25
Speaker 1: whole time. How did that happen? Yeah, I'm curious as
36:29
Speaker 1: to why the home wasn't thoroughly searched, uh to begin with.
36:34
Speaker 1: I think that, uh, there was something that pointed them back,
36:39
Speaker 1: uh to to go into the home. As you noticed
36:41
Speaker 1: the police officer made mention of that. Uh. This is
36:45
Speaker 1: a horrible case. It's in my opinion, it's a reactionary
36:49
Speaker 1: event where this uh, this person was out of control
36:54
Speaker 1: at the moment, and they didn't have the ability to
36:56
Speaker 1: kind of squelch this anger that came up, and then
36:59
Speaker 1: they hannicked and and hid this child's body in a closet,
37:03
Speaker 1: just absolutely beyond the pale. Nancy, you think, I care,
37:07
Speaker 1: I don't know want what you're even saying a reactionary event.
37:12
Speaker 1: That sounds like putting perfume on the pig. Morgan, You
37:16
Speaker 1: kill a seven year old little boy, what said on him?
37:20
Speaker 1: And kill him and that's a reactionary event. Well, I'm
37:24
Speaker 1: gonna have a reactionary event, Joe Scott. I wanted this
37:27
Speaker 1: girl behind bars for life. The U. S. Supreme Court
37:30
Speaker 1: recently has ruled than anyone under eighteen cannot face the
37:34
Speaker 1: death penalty. But for my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong,
37:38
Speaker 1: Alan do She sat on him and held his nose
37:42
Speaker 1: and mouth till he died and quit struggling. Am I right? Yes?
37:47
Speaker 1: And she pushed him off the bed. He hit his
37:49
Speaker 1: face on the floor, so he started crying natural reaction.
37:53
Speaker 1: But then she was so upset by that she placed
37:55
Speaker 1: her hand over his mouth and plugged his nose as
37:59
Speaker 1: he was struggling for several minutes, this is according to
38:02
Speaker 1: the police affidavit, and that's when he died. She put
38:05
Speaker 1: his body under her bed. Then eventually she wrapped him
38:08
Speaker 1: in a comforter or put him in a portable closet.
38:11
Speaker 1: To Dr Michelle Dupree, pathologist and medical examiner joining us
38:16
Speaker 1: Dodger dupre how long does it take to suffocate someone? Well, Nancy,
38:22
Speaker 1: that's that's a good question. It's really not that long.
38:25
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. When a person is being suffocated, they're
38:29
Speaker 1: not able to breathe, they're not getting oxygen to their lungs.
38:32
Speaker 1: They will pass out. If that pressure or that covering
38:35
Speaker 1: is released, they will wake up. But if that pressure continues,
38:39
Speaker 1: then that person will die. And it can be a
38:42
Speaker 1: matter of seconds or minutes. Okay, ken, you do you
38:46
Speaker 1: suffocate in three seconds? No, you would, you would probably
38:50
Speaker 1: pass out in a few more. Okay, five seconds, five seconds?
38:55
Speaker 1: Do suffcate in five seconds? No, it's probably more like
38:58
Speaker 1: a minute or so. Okay, okay, all right, a minute.
39:03
Speaker 1: Let me just remind everybody that under the law and
39:06
Speaker 1: the time it takes you to pull a trigger, that
39:09
Speaker 1: is enough time to form premeditation under the law, that
39:13
Speaker 1: is murder. One sitting on this seven year old little
39:17
Speaker 1: boy who wanted to grow up to be a cowboy
39:22
Speaker 1: and depriving him of oxygen, suffocating him dead, that is
39:27
Speaker 1: premeditated murder. And I don't know what Joe's got. Morgan
39:30
Speaker 1: is saying about a reactionary event, my rear end of
39:35
Speaker 1: reactionary event. She's sixteen. She's gonna escape the death penalty,
39:41
Speaker 1: that's true. But life behind bars plus consecutive time for
39:47
Speaker 1: tampering with the body is the best justice we're gonna get.
39:52
Speaker 1: You're listening to crime stories with Nancy Grace. All we
39:55
Speaker 1: can do now is pray for this little boy and
39:59
Speaker 1: his mother. Little boy Jordan long h