Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Mommy allegedly plots murders of her 2 tot girls on GOOGLE!

Transcript

Mommy allegedly plots murders of her 2 tot girls on GOOGLE! · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:06
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, who doesn't love Google? Is
0:13
Speaker 1: this movie filling the Blank? Okay for kids? Or Guinea
0:18
Speaker 1: Pig fleece Liners too by? It could be anything, but
0:25
Speaker 1: what about how to commit the Perfect Murder? I mean
0:29
Speaker 1: you see, Grace, this is Crime Stories. Thank you for
0:32
Speaker 1: being with us. To add insult to injury, there is
0:36
Speaker 1: now a claim that an Alaska mother, a gorgeous young
0:40
Speaker 1: mom actually uh googled how to commit the perfect murder
0:46
Speaker 1: before the death of her two little children. Just a coincidence.
0:53
Speaker 1: Joining me right now, Jennifer Sakowski. Jennifer joining us from
0:57
Speaker 1: crime online dot Com as an investigative reporter. Jennifer, let's
1:00
Speaker 1: take it from the top. What can you tell me?
1:03
Speaker 1: Who is Stephanie la Fountain? Yes, this is the story
1:06
Speaker 1: of Stephanie La Fountain And as you said, she she's
1:10
Speaker 1: a gorgeous twenty three year old woman. She is from Fairbanks, Alaska,
1:15
Speaker 1: which is the second most populated area in the state,
1:18
Speaker 1: with Anchorage being the first. It's a beautiful city one
1:23
Speaker 1: night that people would dream of living in. Christine Rivers
1:26
Speaker 1: and Lakes, gorgeous Mountaine. Okay, Jennifer, hold on, the more
1:30
Speaker 1: I look at her photo of this mom, Stephanie La Fountain.
1:34
Speaker 1: She looks like a sitcom character. And I never had
1:40
Speaker 1: time to watch this, but I've said, has been watching
1:43
Speaker 1: that seventies show that's she looks like. Yeah, she looks
1:48
Speaker 1: like a sitcom actress. Perfect skin, yeah, long, beautiful chestnut brown.
1:55
Speaker 1: Here looks like the ambre has gone on at the tips.
2:00
Speaker 1: I don't get it. Why is this woman? What? Why
2:04
Speaker 1: is she looking up? How do you commit the perfect murder?
2:06
Speaker 1: And then a coincidence which I'm sure Robin Ficker, a
2:10
Speaker 1: defense attorney out of Maryland, and Ashley Wilcot, judge and
2:13
Speaker 1: lawyer will one the way in on the coincidence that
2:16
Speaker 1: she googles how to commit the perfect murder and then
2:20
Speaker 1: woods her two children end up dead. But again, Jennifer,
2:23
Speaker 1: I've jumped ahead. Go ahead, I'm going to go back
2:25
Speaker 1: about three years ago. In September two thousand fifteen, according
2:30
Speaker 1: to the far Banks Daily News, miner Stephanie's first daughter,
2:35
Speaker 1: a four month old baby girl who died after being
2:38
Speaker 1: found not breathing. Stephanie had called authorities for help, saying
2:42
Speaker 1: the baby wasn't breathing, and this innocent baby girl died
2:46
Speaker 1: the same day. However, who wait, how long ago was this? So?
2:51
Speaker 1: This was in September of two thousand fifteen. Guys, you
2:54
Speaker 1: are hearing the voice of Crime Online dot com investigative
2:57
Speaker 1: reporter Jennifer at Sakowski. Also with me, high profile defense
3:02
Speaker 1: lawyer out of the Maryland jurisdiction Robin Thicker, Ash Willcott,
3:07
Speaker 1: judge lawyer, founder a child crime watch dot com, psychiatrist
3:11
Speaker 1: and author Dr Carol Lieberman, and forensics expert Karen Smith.
3:18
Speaker 1: Robin Ficker, before we go one step further, did you
3:22
Speaker 1: hear this actually starts a couple of years ago? Why
3:25
Speaker 1: is it, Robin Ficker? Let's just say this is your clients,
3:27
Speaker 1: Stephanie La Fountain, and wherever she goes, children drop like flies.
3:32
Speaker 1: What a coincidence, Robin, Well, I think we've discovered a
3:35
Speaker 1: way here to solve the crimes in America. You simply
3:38
Speaker 1: go and see who is a hit upon this particular
3:43
Speaker 1: website how to commit a murder, and you just follow
3:48
Speaker 1: up on every one of those hits, and you solved
3:50
Speaker 1: the murders in America. I think that people are are
3:54
Speaker 1: going through the web. They're looking at various websites that
3:59
Speaker 1: have something novel or weird, and they go on these
4:02
Speaker 1: websites and look, and it's just a coincidence that anything happens. Later,
4:07
Speaker 1: this was a true coincidence. Coincidences happened. That's how we
4:11
Speaker 1: got the word coincidence. Okay, so it's a coincidence that
4:14
Speaker 1: we got the word coincidence. I don't see it that
4:17
Speaker 1: way that one mother is connected to not one, but
4:21
Speaker 1: two deaths. But you know what, let's analyze. So you're
4:24
Speaker 1: saying a couple of years ago, her four month old
4:28
Speaker 1: baby girl just wasn't breathing, is that correct? That is correct,
4:33
Speaker 1: and her death was not ruled a hormfide. At the time,
4:37
Speaker 1: investigators truly believed and thought that this was an isolated tragedy.
4:42
Speaker 1: Jennifer Sikowski in the very first baby that's found, Dad,
4:46
Speaker 1: what was the cause of death? The cause from death
4:48
Speaker 1: for the four month old who again was Stefanie. Uh, Well,
4:53
Speaker 1: I was gonna get into that later, but I can
4:54
Speaker 1: tell you she was Jephanie's incidence from a prior relationship.
4:59
Speaker 1: M she The baby girl's death was officially ruled as undetermined,
5:05
Speaker 1: but showed consistencies with a supplication death police set Okay,
5:09
Speaker 1: hold on just a moment to Karen Smith, I, renowned
5:11
Speaker 1: forensic sex part How can that be, uh that you
5:16
Speaker 1: confuse a smothering death with natural causes? Well, when you
5:21
Speaker 1: have a smothering death, you know, a lot of times
5:24
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to determine an actual cause of death
5:29
Speaker 1: unless you have, you know, significant brain damage or some
5:33
Speaker 1: other physical evidence that goes along with it. A lot
5:36
Speaker 1: of times this may be ruled ASSIDS, which is a
5:39
Speaker 1: sudden infant death syndrome that doesn't have a particular cause
5:44
Speaker 1: of death. And that may be where they leaned because
5:46
Speaker 1: it was one infant um you know, it may have
5:49
Speaker 1: been just looked at as a tragic death. Then you
5:52
Speaker 1: have the second one that happened that caused law enforcement
5:55
Speaker 1: to go, wait a second, let's look at the first
5:57
Speaker 1: one again. Okay, hold on just a moment to Actual Wilcott, judge, lawyer,
6:01
Speaker 1: founder child crime watch dot com. I disagree, because when
6:06
Speaker 1: you have a suffocation, you almost always have hemorrhage or burst.
6:13
Speaker 1: Particularate those are the tiny, tiny blood vessels in the
6:17
Speaker 1: eyeballs and the eyes. Sometimes you can't see the hemorrhage
6:21
Speaker 1: ng or the bursting with the naked eye, but you
6:25
Speaker 1: can see it with an appropriate autopsy that comes from
6:29
Speaker 1: lack of oxygen, those um blood vessels burst. Actually, and
6:34
Speaker 1: it's really easy to see an autopsy that's not a
6:37
Speaker 1: SIDS death. SIDS does not include lack of oxygen. The
6:42
Speaker 1: baby's heart just stops and the child dies. Suffocation is
6:45
Speaker 1: an entirely different things. Oh, I completely agree with you,
6:48
Speaker 1: and you are correct that in an autopsy there are
6:51
Speaker 1: different elements that they can see to determine which one.
6:54
Speaker 1: Here's what I see all too often working with child
6:57
Speaker 1: fatality review. Frequently, unfortunately, investigations stall out, meaning they think
7:03
Speaker 1: it looks like SIDS, looks like, well, this baby stopped breathing.
7:08
Speaker 1: That happens, and they don't necessarily take it the step
7:11
Speaker 1: further to say, wait, we still need to see what
7:13
Speaker 1: the cause of death was. Perhaps it wasn't said, so
7:17
Speaker 1: unfortunately nationwide that happens where the autopsy is not done,
7:21
Speaker 1: there's a belief that the parents credible that this was
7:24
Speaker 1: a horrible, horrible tragedy, which does happen with SIDS, right,
7:27
Speaker 1: it is a real thing, and then they don't investigate further. Now,
7:30
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's what happened in this case
7:32
Speaker 1: or not, but I see it all the time. Well,
7:34
Speaker 1: another thing that you just mentioned, Ashley Wilcott is dead
7:37
Speaker 1: on to Dr Carroll Laberman's psychiatrist and author of Lions
7:41
Speaker 1: and Tigers and Terrorists. Oh my, Dr Carroll, when you
7:46
Speaker 1: have a child and front to the naked eye, the
7:48
Speaker 1: child looks like it just simply quit breathing, and you've
7:51
Speaker 1: got a loving mother calling nine one one, you know
7:56
Speaker 1: what's not to believe? I I assume they just didn't
7:58
Speaker 1: perform the full on, all topsy doctor Carol, because the
8:02
Speaker 1: mom seems so loving, incredible. Yes, that can be, uh
8:06
Speaker 1: be very effective on the mother's part, because you know,
8:09
Speaker 1: the police or the people investigating don't want to add
8:12
Speaker 1: more tragedy by by blaming the mother. You know, it
8:15
Speaker 1: seems like, oh, how can I how can I complame
8:18
Speaker 1: her when she's so uh, this is such a tragedy
8:21
Speaker 1: for her. But it's so interesting that this mother, um,
8:25
Speaker 1: obviously she you know. The the similarity in both cases
8:28
Speaker 1: besides the children, how the children died is that she
8:32
Speaker 1: didn't have a man in the picture. Um. The first
8:36
Speaker 1: one it was a prior relationship, she wasn't married him.
8:38
Speaker 1: The second one, her husband was in the military, and
8:42
Speaker 1: he was deployed at the time when the when the
8:44
Speaker 1: child died, and then they got divorced. So it seems
8:47
Speaker 1: like she wanted to be rid of this responsibility of
8:49
Speaker 1: a baby and to go on and meet another guy.
8:52
Speaker 1: You know, I don't understand why another guy is so
8:55
Speaker 1: often the issue. Um, take a listen to this. Who
9:00
Speaker 1: we know is this is just an unmatchable tragedy. You know,
9:03
Speaker 1: we have to do infants from two babies that were
9:06
Speaker 1: killed by their mother. How do we how do we
9:09
Speaker 1: even imagine that? How do we as a justice system,
9:11
Speaker 1: how do we you know, how do we make this right?
9:14
Speaker 1: And unfortunately there's just nothing we can do to make
9:17
Speaker 1: this right, to make it better. But we know that
9:19
Speaker 1: we'll do what we can within the justice system to
9:22
Speaker 1: provide some type of closure and some type of piece warning.
9:33
Speaker 1: Property protected by electric fence, sharks sited in water. There
9:39
Speaker 1: are a lot of warnings you don't want to miss
9:41
Speaker 1: bridge out, especially when it comes to your identity and
9:44
Speaker 1: the personal information on your devices. That's why new LifeLock
9:48
Speaker 1: identity theft protection now adds Norton Security for more protection
9:51
Speaker 1: than ever. LifeLock uses proprietary technology to detect threats like
9:56
Speaker 1: your personal info for sale in the dark web, and
9:58
Speaker 1: Norton Security helps checked up to five devices from ransomware
10:02
Speaker 1: and other online threats. Plus, if you have a problem,
10:04
Speaker 1: our agents will work to fix it. No one can
10:07
Speaker 1: stop every cyber threat, prevent all identity theft, or monitor
10:10
Speaker 1: all transactions at all businesses, but missing a warning sign
10:13
Speaker 1: warning mine field ahead could be dangerous. Join now and
10:18
Speaker 1: get ten percent off your first year plus a twenty
10:20
Speaker 1: five Amazon gift card with annual enrollment. Just go to
10:23
Speaker 1: LifeLock dot com and at your promo code news term
10:26
Speaker 1: supply new LifeLock with Norton, More detection, more protection. These
10:31
Speaker 1: are two murders that occurred over both in last year,
10:38
Speaker 1: nine months ago, and there two fifteen that we've never discussed.
10:42
Speaker 1: That was just something that was necessary based on the
10:44
Speaker 1: investigation we didn't talk about that never discussed. Does that
10:48
Speaker 1: mean there never was an investigation when the first baby died?
10:53
Speaker 1: I Nancy Grace this his crime stories. Thank you for
10:55
Speaker 1: being with us with me. Karen Smith, Dr. Carol Lieberman,
10:58
Speaker 1: Ashley Wilcot, Robin Ficker, and Jennifer at Szikowski. To you,
11:03
Speaker 1: Jennifer sounds like no one really looked into the first
11:07
Speaker 1: death where the little baby, just a four month old
11:10
Speaker 1: infant girl was found not breathing. That death was not
11:14
Speaker 1: ruled a homicide. But then fast forward twenty four months,
11:19
Speaker 1: another dead baby girl found in the care of mommy.
11:25
Speaker 1: What happened the second time around her? Right, so, about
11:28
Speaker 1: two years later, authorities received from Stephanie saying that her
11:34
Speaker 1: thirteen month old child, also an innocent baby girl, wasn't breathing.
11:40
Speaker 1: Fast forward to last November, which is about two years
11:43
Speaker 1: after her first baby died. One second authorities received nine
11:48
Speaker 1: one one called from Stephanie saying that her thirteen month
11:51
Speaker 1: old child, also an innocent baby girl, was not breathing.
11:57
Speaker 1: In addition to daily she also called family members of
12:01
Speaker 1: her ex husbands, who, by the way, was not the
12:04
Speaker 1: father of her first child, and neither men had been
12:07
Speaker 1: identified by police. According to online records. She divorced the
12:12
Speaker 1: father of her second child in February, which is about
12:16
Speaker 1: three months after the second baby died. Her ex husband
12:20
Speaker 1: was in the military and he was away serving our
12:23
Speaker 1: country in Iraq. Police say that his family members arrived,
12:27
Speaker 1: so they must have had a good relationship with Stephanie.
12:30
Speaker 1: Phil and they were performing CPR on the baby when
12:34
Speaker 1: officially thrived. Unfortunately, though, this wasn't enough. And the toddler
12:40
Speaker 1: who was performing CPR on the baby family, her ex
12:44
Speaker 1: husband's family members, her ex husband who was deployed in
12:48
Speaker 1: northern Iraq, his family members. Alright, okay, So unfortunately, like
12:54
Speaker 1: I said, this wasn't enough. That this innocent toddler died
12:58
Speaker 1: at a local hospital four days later. So of course,
13:01
Speaker 1: you know, this is when the red flags went up
13:04
Speaker 1: for detectives, because now they had two babies dead and
13:08
Speaker 1: only about a two year time frame who appeared to
13:11
Speaker 1: die in the scene manner. And when they began investigating
13:15
Speaker 1: the toddler's death, the two thousand and fifteen case of
13:19
Speaker 1: the infants depth was reopened. The investigation was kept on
13:23
Speaker 1: the downlall until you know, just recently days ago, in
13:28
Speaker 1: order not to hinder their work. And you know, well, wait, anute,
13:32
Speaker 1: this is what I don't understand, Robin Ficker, a renowned
13:36
Speaker 1: defense attorney, joining me out of the Maryland jurisdiction. What
13:40
Speaker 1: I don't understand is that when the four month old
13:44
Speaker 1: baby girl died and two thousand fifteen reportedly found not breathing,
13:49
Speaker 1: that baby's death was not rolled a homicide, but it was.
13:54
Speaker 1: Her cause of death was consistent with being smothered. I
13:59
Speaker 1: don't under him because if they had accurately and appropriately
14:03
Speaker 1: investigated that death, we wouldn't have a dead nineteen month
14:08
Speaker 1: old baby girl, all right. So the failure to investigate
14:13
Speaker 1: and prosecute the first infant murder in fanticide has led
14:19
Speaker 1: to another dead child. And who knows what abuse the
14:23
Speaker 1: child suffered in her short nineteen months at the hands
14:27
Speaker 1: of mommy. So what happened, Robin Ficker? Well, mothers pay
14:32
Speaker 1: us on the same genes, the same physical makeup to
14:35
Speaker 1: their various children. Obviously the first child had a physical
14:39
Speaker 1: defunt because the suddenly into death ingram, and the same
14:45
Speaker 1: defect was in a and the children. You have to
14:48
Speaker 1: give the presumption of innocence to mothers that nurture bear
14:51
Speaker 1: their children for nine months and then nurture that. They
14:54
Speaker 1: don't kill children generally, but physical defects are passed on
14:59
Speaker 1: to too the mother's various children by the mother's the
15:03
Speaker 1: same mother here, random children. They had the same genes
15:08
Speaker 1: from the same mother, the same physical problems. Well, okay,
15:13
Speaker 1: if you're telling me that the two dead babies inherited
15:18
Speaker 1: some type of defective gene from mommy. Why is it
15:22
Speaker 1: asked you, Wilcott, Mommy is alive and well, okay, but
15:26
Speaker 1: the babies are dead. I don't even know what gene
15:29
Speaker 1: he could possibly be talking about. What the gene where
15:32
Speaker 1: you end up your mom strangles your dad that gene? Okay,
15:35
Speaker 1: So let's just discuss first of all, Yes, absolutely there
15:38
Speaker 1: are genetic reasons. Unfortunately, the children do die. We know that.
15:42
Speaker 1: In this particular case. There's why are you even be
15:45
Speaker 1: talking about a genetic problem? They were smothered exactly from
15:50
Speaker 1: the That's my point in this case. Yes, it does
15:53
Speaker 1: happen sometimes, but not in this case. There's no absolutely
15:56
Speaker 1: no evidence at all, there was no genetic defect. She
15:59
Speaker 1: has killed both to these children. And I have to
16:01
Speaker 1: say this, Nancy. So I've seen cases again where it's
16:04
Speaker 1: a drughouse and a parent who's on drugs, clearly on drugs,
16:07
Speaker 1: rolls over suffocates a baby and guess what, there's no investigation,
16:11
Speaker 1: nothing is followed up with that, and they say, oh,
16:14
Speaker 1: the baby just died. The baby just didn't die. These
16:17
Speaker 1: two children just didn't die. The mother killed both of
16:20
Speaker 1: these children, weigh in Dr Carol Laberman. Well, yes, there
16:23
Speaker 1: are reports that show that there was no physical reason
16:27
Speaker 1: the babies were healthy. Um, and so you know that
16:30
Speaker 1: that doesn't that doesn't fly in this case. And you know,
16:34
Speaker 1: it's interesting because the mother saw that it worked with
16:38
Speaker 1: the first baby, she got away with it, and so
16:40
Speaker 1: then when the same when she decided that the second
16:42
Speaker 1: baby was too much of a burden for her too,
16:45
Speaker 1: so she tried the same thing again. You mean they
16:47
Speaker 1: were healthy up unto this point. Yes, yes, but there
16:51
Speaker 1: was no typical reason. Yeah, you're absolutely right, there was
16:56
Speaker 1: no physical reason. Um. This is what the Fairbanks Least
17:00
Speaker 1: Chief Eric Jews said. Just take ten seconds and think
17:05
Speaker 1: about a mother killing both her children over two years,
17:09
Speaker 1: completely isolated events, and what that means and what what
17:13
Speaker 1: happens sometimes in our community. Uh, and sometimes just the
17:17
Speaker 1: evil that exists that's out there. Just take ten seconds
17:22
Speaker 1: and think about a mother killing both her children over
17:27
Speaker 1: two years and completely isolated events. Okay, first baby killed
17:33
Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen, the second baby killed in the
17:37
Speaker 1: last few months, he says, And what that means and
17:40
Speaker 1: what happens sometimes in our community, and think about that
17:45
Speaker 1: sometimes evil exists that is out there now. According to
17:53
Speaker 1: Anchorage Daily News, Fountain call nine one one and two
17:57
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen. The end of two thousand seventeen, the Fountain
18:01
Speaker 1: called nine one one claiming her thirteen month old daughter
18:05
Speaker 1: wasn't breathing, called her husband's family. They rushed to the
18:10
Speaker 1: home and started CPR. The child was rushed to the hospital,
18:13
Speaker 1: air lifted to another hospital. She died four days later.
18:18
Speaker 1: I wonder what abuse this child had endured in her
18:23
Speaker 1: short life, because it's my experience to Ashley Wilcott, Atlanta
18:27
Speaker 1: judge and lawyer and found her a child to crime
18:30
Speaker 1: watch dot com, Ashley, you don't just suddenly graduate to murder,
18:36
Speaker 1: you lead up to it. I guarantee you that these
18:39
Speaker 1: children had been abused during their short lives before they
18:42
Speaker 1: were murdered. Oh, I absolutely agree. And if you don't
18:45
Speaker 1: want children, if a parent doesn't want children and is
18:47
Speaker 1: going to plan the murder, they're going to hurt the children,
18:50
Speaker 1: abuse the children, neglect the children all through the children's
18:53
Speaker 1: life because they don't want him in the first place.
18:54
Speaker 1: So I agree with you. This was not a first instance.
18:57
Speaker 1: Who knows what these two children have gone through at
18:59
Speaker 1: the hand to the mother and suffer. Take a listen
19:01
Speaker 1: to this. There's the work you see and there's the
19:03
Speaker 1: work you don't see. And this is a prime example
19:06
Speaker 1: of the work that you don't see. Our detectives have
19:10
Speaker 1: been working this case. Averrey Thompson has been working this
19:12
Speaker 1: case for nine months, thousands of hours, and we've estimated
19:16
Speaker 1: that if we printed this report out, it would be
19:19
Speaker 1: over a hundred thousand pages. That's the amount of work
19:21
Speaker 1: that goes into a case like this, Then no one sees,
19:24
Speaker 1: and then we don't talk about and so um, you know,
19:29
Speaker 1: it is just incredible, and so the amount of work,
19:33
Speaker 1: the excellence of the investigation. The entire city of Fairbanks
19:39
Speaker 1: just owes our detectives a big round of things. We've
19:43
Speaker 1: estimated that if we printed this report out, it would
19:46
Speaker 1: be over a hundred thousand pages. That's the amount of
19:48
Speaker 1: work that goes into a case like this. Then no
19:50
Speaker 1: one sees, and then we don't talk about. Two babies dead,
19:54
Speaker 1: one four months one thirteen months old, both baby girls,
19:58
Speaker 1: and quite the coincidence there, mother Stephanie la Fountain, always
20:01
Speaker 1: seems to be hovering around when the babies are found dead.
20:05
Speaker 1: In fact, she's the one that raises the alarm, but
20:08
Speaker 1: then comes the investigation. Cops only think to investigate when
20:13
Speaker 1: there's a second dead body. I guess because it's a baby.
20:16
Speaker 1: It it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't warrant a
20:19
Speaker 1: homicide investigation, even though in the first death all the
20:24
Speaker 1: signs were there in autopsy of suffocation death and that
20:29
Speaker 1: meant nothing to anybody in that jurisdiction. But finally we
20:33
Speaker 1: learn that police look at Mommy's computer and there they
20:39
Speaker 1: find search terms like this quote how to commit the
20:42
Speaker 1: perfect murder quote, ways to suffocate quote, ways to kill
20:49
Speaker 1: human with no proof quote best ways to suffocate. Quote
20:54
Speaker 1: sixteen steps to kill someone and not get caught quote
20:59
Speaker 1: Ken drew Owning show in an autopsy report, quote drowning
21:05
Speaker 1: and forensics and quote suffocating and smothering. Now, if that
21:13
Speaker 1: is not a smoking gun. To Karen Smith, forensics expert,
21:18
Speaker 1: I don't know what is, Karen. How do authorities, police,
21:23
Speaker 1: FBI go about searching your computer. Let's just say you
21:27
Speaker 1: deleted it all. How do they find it? It's not deleted. Uh,
21:31
Speaker 1: they have data mining tools that can go in and
21:33
Speaker 1: find the cash that everybody has on their computer. Frankly,
21:37
Speaker 1: you can delete everything, and law enforcement has ways of
21:40
Speaker 1: finding it. We can dig deep and pro deeply into
21:42
Speaker 1: your computer and find exactly the search engines that you
21:45
Speaker 1: were using when you searched it, how you searched it,
21:48
Speaker 1: and how deep you went into each each website. Uh.
21:51
Speaker 1: It's really mind boggling to me hearing what you've said
21:55
Speaker 1: at the first investigation of the four month old that
21:58
Speaker 1: all the signs were there of suffocation and no law
22:00
Speaker 1: enforcement followed up on that. That's mind boggling to me
22:04
Speaker 1: because in my experience, if you have a dead infant
22:07
Speaker 1: like that, you know you're going to do a full lautopsy.
22:10
Speaker 1: You're going to do a full investigation. Now, it is
22:13
Speaker 1: common for law enforcement to give the benefit of the
22:15
Speaker 1: doubt to a grieving mother. That's not unusual. What is
22:18
Speaker 1: unusual is if you have autopsy findings that come back
22:21
Speaker 1: in contradiction to that you need to follow up. So
22:25
Speaker 1: between that and the search engine I am just baffled
22:28
Speaker 1: as to why the first infant's death wasn't looked into further.
22:32
Speaker 1: I want to go out now to Dr Carol Lieberman's
22:35
Speaker 1: psychiatrist and author of Lions and Tigers and Terrorists. Oh my,
22:41
Speaker 1: Dr Carol, clearly police not police, but the coroner was
22:46
Speaker 1: not convinced, even though the signs indicated the first baby
22:50
Speaker 1: died of lack of oxygen to the Brian, which is suffocation.
22:54
Speaker 1: If they had bothered to look at the eyeballs, they
22:58
Speaker 1: would have realized the child had been aivocated. It's I'm
23:01
Speaker 1: just a j D. I'm not an m D, and
23:03
Speaker 1: I can tell you that much. But here the smoking
23:06
Speaker 1: gun in my mind is how mommy just imagine the
23:09
Speaker 1: baby's in the next room asleep, and Mommy's hunched over Google.
23:13
Speaker 1: You know, I can just see the iPad glowing in
23:16
Speaker 1: the dark, looking up best ways to suffocate, sixteen steps
23:20
Speaker 1: to kill someone and not get caught. You know what,
23:24
Speaker 1: Dr Carol, When I do something that I know is wrong,
23:26
Speaker 1: I'm sure to do plenty that I don't even know
23:28
Speaker 1: is wrong. Every day it makes me feel hot all over.
23:31
Speaker 1: I feel hot. I wake up in the night feeling hot.
23:35
Speaker 1: I mean, like really hot. It's like my skins on fire.
23:40
Speaker 1: I don't feel like eating. I feel bad. I think
23:43
Speaker 1: about it. What I did? You know how bad it
23:48
Speaker 1: was that I don't I can't even imagine sitting there
23:53
Speaker 1: in the dark hunched over my iPad looking up sixteen
23:57
Speaker 1: steps to kill someone and not get caught. How do
24:00
Speaker 1: you do that? Well, she obviously doesn't have the same
24:04
Speaker 1: sense of ethics and what's right and wrong as you do.
24:07
Speaker 1: But you know, she also must not watch a lot
24:09
Speaker 1: of crime shows on TV, or even the news for
24:12
Speaker 1: that matter. I mean, you kind of have to be
24:14
Speaker 1: under a rock to not realize that the police or
24:18
Speaker 1: investigators can find what's on your computer. I mean, there
24:21
Speaker 1: have been so many stories, so many cases where that
24:24
Speaker 1: is what implicated the person who killed the other persons,
24:27
Speaker 1: And she obviously didn't know that or didn't care about that.
24:31
Speaker 1: She was just intent on somehow. She thought she just
24:34
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get caught because because she didn't get
24:36
Speaker 1: caught the first time, so she felt like she was
24:38
Speaker 1: home free with me. Jennifer Sakowski investigative journalists with crime
24:42
Speaker 1: online dot Com, where you can't find this story as
24:46
Speaker 1: well as all other breaking crime and justice and use Jennifer.
24:50
Speaker 1: They had investigated the first baby's death, would they have
24:54
Speaker 1: found the same Google searches for the first baby as well?
24:59
Speaker 1: And I guess, going to your guest Karen, just curious,
25:04
Speaker 1: would they be able to go that far back and
25:07
Speaker 1: look at the Google searches from the first baby's death
25:11
Speaker 1: in two thousand or is that far too long? Yes,
25:15
Speaker 1: you can go back and mind the computer practically as
25:20
Speaker 1: far back as as long as you've had it. You
25:24
Speaker 1: get the hard drive of the computer, you search the memory.
25:28
Speaker 1: Uh so much is also stored in the cloud. But
25:31
Speaker 1: long story short, I've stupidly given the answer to so
25:37
Speaker 1: many people. If you want to get something off your computer,
25:40
Speaker 1: you might as well just go put it in the
25:41
Speaker 1: driveway and drive over it several times, or beat it
25:45
Speaker 1: with a hammer or a shovel, because as long as
25:50
Speaker 1: that hard drive exists, you can look back, really in perpetuity,
25:56
Speaker 1: almost as long as you've had the computer, you can
25:59
Speaker 1: go back and search. So I'm wondering did they searched
26:03
Speaker 1: in another issue. I'm glad you brought that up, Jennifer Sikowski,
26:07
Speaker 1: Ashley Wilcott, did you know that the timing also is
26:12
Speaker 1: very critical because when they did that search and they
26:16
Speaker 1: found um how to commit the perfect murder, ways to suffocate,
26:21
Speaker 1: ways to kill human with no proof, the nine one
26:26
Speaker 1: one call was about an hour after some of these
26:28
Speaker 1: Google searches, So clearly she was, in my mind doing
26:34
Speaker 1: the search. Then she suffocated the baby based on what
26:37
Speaker 1: she found, and then she called nine one one based
26:40
Speaker 1: on the timing. I mean, and answer to Jennifer Skowski's question,
26:43
Speaker 1: not only can you find the search, you can find
26:46
Speaker 1: the time and the date of the search. And thank goodness,
26:48
Speaker 1: because that's exactly what the prosecution is going to use,
26:51
Speaker 1: as you well know, to prove that it was premeditated,
26:53
Speaker 1: which it was in this case, so we can actually
26:56
Speaker 1: get a conviction because the other piece of that, Nancy,
26:59
Speaker 1: is that so important to remembers. I don't believe in coincidence.
27:02
Speaker 1: I don't believe somebody's gonna google how to murder an
27:05
Speaker 1: infant with no you know, no symptoms, or how to
27:08
Speaker 1: get away with murder. I don't believe that people google
27:10
Speaker 1: that just because they have a weird sense of oh
27:12
Speaker 1: I want to hear about this and kind of quirky.
27:15
Speaker 1: I believe you only do that if you really have
27:17
Speaker 1: an intent, So that goes to prove her intent and
27:20
Speaker 1: pre premeditation of this murder. To you, Robin Ficker, I
27:24
Speaker 1: can't wait to hear this. Have you ever considered a
27:27
Speaker 1: career as a fiction writer? I want to hear how
27:32
Speaker 1: you explain for your client that she's looking up how
27:36
Speaker 1: to commit the perfect murder, ways to suffocate, does drowning
27:39
Speaker 1: showing an autopsy. And one hour later after these Google searches,
27:45
Speaker 1: she calls nine one one and her baby's dad. He
27:47
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out why her child was in
27:51
Speaker 1: the state it was. And she's not a lawyer, she's
27:54
Speaker 1: not as psychiatrist or an expert. She's just a late person.
27:59
Speaker 1: And she thought abe she could give some hints from
28:02
Speaker 1: various websites. She didn't go on M D d M
28:06
Speaker 1: on the web md, but she went on this particular site,
28:09
Speaker 1: figuring maybe she could get some hints as the wired
28:12
Speaker 1: child with in such a state. It's just going on
28:15
Speaker 1: the internet, celebrating the internet as I do every day,
28:18
Speaker 1: going on site interesting sites. It doesn't mean that the
28:23
Speaker 1: necessarily is a connection between her actions and what you're
28:26
Speaker 1: looking at all. She was maybe she was trying to
28:29
Speaker 1: figure out what happened here. We have a family, of course,
28:34
Speaker 1: of a baby that has suffered an obscurity, uh in
28:37
Speaker 1: silence that no one knew. They were all alone in this,
28:41
Speaker 1: in this whole process, and no one, no one knew
28:44
Speaker 1: about it and that and that's a tough situation to
28:47
Speaker 1: be in. A young mother now accused of murdering two
28:50
Speaker 1: infant girls, a four month old and then one year
28:54
Speaker 1: later a nineteen month old baby girl. Joining me Karen Smith. Dr.
28:59
Speaker 1: Carroll Lieberman, UH, trial judge, lawyer and founder child Crime
29:03
Speaker 1: watch dot Com. Ashley Wilcott, renowned defense attorney out of Maryland,
29:07
Speaker 1: Robin Ficker, and Crime online dot Com investigator reporter Jennifer Sakowski. Jennifer,
29:13
Speaker 1: where does it stand right now? Uh? Stephanie La Fountain
29:16
Speaker 1: now charged in the murders of two children. What are
29:21
Speaker 1: the charges against her? So? Stephanie was arrested in charge
29:25
Speaker 1: with one cone of first degree murder in two counts
29:28
Speaker 1: of second degree murder. She's being held at the Fairbanks
29:31
Speaker 1: Correctional Center. She was reigned in courts with bail set
29:35
Speaker 1: at two million dollars. We know that Stephanie La Fountain,
29:38
Speaker 1: the mom in this case, will not ever faced the
29:42
Speaker 1: death penalty, as Alaska abolished the death penalty. They've never
29:46
Speaker 1: had the death penalty, so that's not an issue. I'm curious,
29:50
Speaker 1: Robin Ficker, if she is convicted in that jurisdiction. What
29:54
Speaker 1: sentence do you think she's looking at. Well, if she's convicted,
29:58
Speaker 1: she was looking at a law I'm sentenced unfortunately. I mean,
30:01
Speaker 1: that's the reality of it. We we want to discourage
30:06
Speaker 1: people killing their children, and it's a sad thing. But
30:10
Speaker 1: I don't think jury is going to convict here because, yes,
30:15
Speaker 1: coincidence has happened some some mothers have children that are
30:19
Speaker 1: born with six toes. There was a physical defect in
30:22
Speaker 1: this child, and I think we need to get a
30:25
Speaker 1: an expert to really analyze these children. And you know,
30:30
Speaker 1: another question, of course, I'm completely ignoring what Figure said
30:33
Speaker 1: about a child with six toes. I don't know where
30:35
Speaker 1: this comes from with thicker, but I guess figure, if
30:38
Speaker 1: I were charged with double murder, i'd hire you, uh
30:40
Speaker 1: to Dr Carol Lieberman. Another issue is that the men
30:46
Speaker 1: involved in this scenario. We know that on one occasion
30:50
Speaker 1: she had just been divorced. Do mothers lash out on
30:55
Speaker 1: the children when they're angry at the dad and what
30:58
Speaker 1: is that phenomena? Well, um, you know, we sort of
31:01
Speaker 1: don't know uh so much about the first father, just
31:05
Speaker 1: that that was a prior relationship. But um, but with
31:08
Speaker 1: the second one he was in, he was deployed, he
31:11
Speaker 1: was not there. They got divorced after. But you know,
31:14
Speaker 1: a defense attorney will most likely try to say that
31:16
Speaker 1: this was postpartum depression. That's going to be her defense.
31:20
Speaker 1: I mean, if I was the expert witness called in,
31:22
Speaker 1: I would try to find evidence of her having postpartum depression.
31:26
Speaker 1: And that seems like that would be the most uh
31:29
Speaker 1: likely or or the defense that would have the most
31:31
Speaker 1: chance of being persuasive to the jury. I'm looking at
31:34
Speaker 1: the actual police report and it says the autopsy results
31:38
Speaker 1: in medical records for both children show they were entirely
31:42
Speaker 1: healthy with no genetic abnormality. So there goes your theory,
31:47
Speaker 1: Robin Ficker, that the mom passed down some genetic abnormality
31:51
Speaker 1: and somehow you dragged in the theory of six toes.
31:54
Speaker 1: Oh how I wish I were in court with you
31:56
Speaker 1: right now. So, Robin Ficker, the autopsy reveals there are
32:00
Speaker 1: no genetic abnormalities, no diseases, no injuries, that children are
32:05
Speaker 1: quote entirely healthy. Well, I think that the person that
32:10
Speaker 1: did that study probably had certain leanings towards convictions and
32:15
Speaker 1: wasn't looking for abnormalities. As my expert. Would I would
32:19
Speaker 1: find someone who knew how to look for abnormalities, it
32:24
Speaker 1: was experienced in finding abnormalities, and would find abnormalities which
32:29
Speaker 1: I would present to the juror. I was wondering what
32:31
Speaker 1: your fallback was going to be. It's like in a
32:33
Speaker 1: rape case. First of all, they perhaps says I didn't
32:36
Speaker 1: do it. Then the part when confronted with DNA, says
32:40
Speaker 1: it was consensual. Then when it turns out that the
32:45
Speaker 1: victim is bruised and has the defendants DNA under her fingernails,
32:50
Speaker 1: it degenerates into she wanted rough sex and finally she
32:55
Speaker 1: had on a short skirt and a low cut blouse
32:57
Speaker 1: and she's on the birth control pill. That's how that goes.
33:00
Speaker 1: That's the textbook and rape defense. Robin Ficker, He's just
33:04
Speaker 1: taught me a lot actually about how this case would
33:08
Speaker 1: be will be defended. You go from accident to genetic
33:12
Speaker 1: abnormality to the coroner did not look for genetic abnormalities,
33:19
Speaker 1: and now it's too late. You know, I could see
33:23
Speaker 1: how you would put a doubt, not a reasonable one,
33:26
Speaker 1: but a doubt in somebody's mind. Jennifer Zakowski crime Aline
33:30
Speaker 1: dot Com investigative reporter. Luckily the medical examiner in this
33:34
Speaker 1: case the second time around did cover all the bases
33:39
Speaker 1: and look for genetic mutations. He certainly did. And you
33:43
Speaker 1: know I have se results in medical records for Bold
33:46
Speaker 1: babies showed that they were entirely healthy with no genetic abnormalities,
33:51
Speaker 1: no diseases, and no injuries. Well, we've also got the
33:55
Speaker 1: m O. Let me ask you about that. Dr Carol Lieberman,
33:59
Speaker 1: is like history repeating itself. You know, there's a theory
34:02
Speaker 1: that people do the same things over and over and over,
34:05
Speaker 1: and the only insane thing is thinking there'll be a
34:08
Speaker 1: different outcome. We'll check this out, Dr Carol Lieberman, psychiatrist
34:13
Speaker 1: and author. In both circumstances, she did exactly the same thing.
34:18
Speaker 1: She waits till she's at home alone with a child,
34:21
Speaker 1: then she calls to say the child isn't breathing, exactly
34:25
Speaker 1: the same words. Then she calls the family, Then she
34:29
Speaker 1: stands by while everyone rushes into the scene to try
34:32
Speaker 1: to do CPR. Is the very same, the exact same
34:36
Speaker 1: scenario over and over. Dr Carol, Yes, absolutely. And to
34:41
Speaker 1: go to a point you were saying earlier, it could
34:44
Speaker 1: still be uh that this was partly that she was
34:47
Speaker 1: angry at these men maybe for not giving her enough attention, uh,
34:50
Speaker 1: for not being there with her, for she felt might
34:52
Speaker 1: have felt abandoned and so on. You know, how do
34:55
Speaker 1: you like that? Then where she calls the family of
34:58
Speaker 1: her husband the second baby to come over and do
35:01
Speaker 1: see people CPR. If you don't do CPR within six minutes,
35:06
Speaker 1: that baby is brain did or a person is brain did.
35:09
Speaker 1: So why would you wait until you call somebody? That
35:12
Speaker 1: was she doing CPR in the meantime? You know what,
35:15
Speaker 1: there's no indications she did anything to revive the child.
35:17
Speaker 1: And what we are learning according to her LinkedIn page
35:21
Speaker 1: is the Fountain had been working at the Delhi department
35:23
Speaker 1: in a local grocery store since about two thousand and eleven.
35:26
Speaker 1: She had just divorced. According to court records, she has
35:31
Speaker 1: just these two children. We have no reason to believe
35:34
Speaker 1: her exercisem of the soldier, the father of the thirteen
35:37
Speaker 1: month old, had any knowledge of the crime. Now when
35:42
Speaker 1: she appeared over close circuit TV, for she was just
35:47
Speaker 1: arraigned in the last days, she was wearing an anti
35:50
Speaker 1: suicide smock. I doubt pretty I'm looking at it right now,
35:54
Speaker 1: I doubt pretty seriously that this woman is going to
35:57
Speaker 1: try and commit suicide. I mean, if she were that distraught,
36:01
Speaker 1: why would she have killed the second baby? Dr Carol,
36:06
Speaker 1: This woman is going to kill herself. She killed these
36:09
Speaker 1: two babies for a lifestyle. She didn't want children anymore.
36:13
Speaker 1: It's like top Mom times two. Um yeah, uh, it doesn't.
36:18
Speaker 1: She does not seem to to be I mean, she
36:20
Speaker 1: seems like she's trying to get everybody's sympathy and attention,
36:23
Speaker 1: just like she was all along. Hey, Dr Carol, is
36:26
Speaker 1: this like Munchausen by proxy type thing and she just
36:29
Speaker 1: went a bridge too far? Well no, because um, she
36:32
Speaker 1: would have been. She would have had to have been
36:34
Speaker 1: taking the babies to doctors in order for it to
36:37
Speaker 1: be Munchausen by proxy. There didn't seem to be any
36:40
Speaker 1: evidence of that. She is now charged in the too
36:43
Speaker 1: homicides of her infant daughters. We wait as justice unfolds.
36:50
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace Crime Stories, signing off Goodbye friend