Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Baseball star’s wife, infant murdered, pitcher Blake Bivens breaks silence

Transcript

Baseball star’s wife, infant murdered, pitcher Blake Bivens breaks silence · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi guys, Nancy Grace. Here, at a time when we
0:03
Speaker 1: are all pulling together to fight coronavirus COVID nineteen, I
0:08
Speaker 1: have something for you and all free E chapter on
0:14
Speaker 1: coronavirus crimes and how to fight them. Don't be a
0:19
Speaker 1: coronavirus crime victim. From door to door sales of fake
0:25
Speaker 1: cures and tests vaccines that's not real, to robocalls that
0:31
Speaker 1: are trying to scam you, to fake ads, to fishing
0:36
Speaker 1: you online, to fake cures that are being sold on
0:42
Speaker 1: the internet and on infomercials. Right now, you've got to
0:46
Speaker 1: arm yourself against these crimes. Please download our free E
0:52
Speaker 1: chapter Coronavirus Crimes. Don't be a victim. Go to crime
0:57
Speaker 1: online dot com. You'll see it there in the link
1:00
Speaker 1: and download it for free. Arm yourself against criminals and
1:06
Speaker 1: scam artists, cons that will not only take advantage of you,
1:11
Speaker 1: but take advantage of you, your parents, your grandparents, and
1:15
Speaker 1: people you love. At a time well we are all
1:19
Speaker 1: fighting the virus. I hope you go to crime online
1:24
Speaker 1: dot com and download this. It's been highly researched and
1:28
Speaker 1: presented for you for free. Goodbye, friend, keep the faith.
1:40
Speaker 1: Can you imagine the murder of a young mom and
1:44
Speaker 1: a little baby. Now we learn that the Tampa Bay
1:49
Speaker 1: Rays pitching prospect baseball star Blake Bivens breaks his silence
1:59
Speaker 1: on the painty is endured since the murderer of his
2:02
Speaker 1: wife Emily and his little baby Colin, just fourteen months old.
2:17
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I mean you see, Grace,
2:26
Speaker 1: this is crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
2:29
Speaker 1: Let's kick it off. Take a listen to this. Police
2:32
Speaker 1: received an early morning call just after eight am on
2:35
Speaker 1: August twenty seventh. A woman called her reports strange happenings
2:38
Speaker 1: that morning. She tells the nine one one operator that
2:41
Speaker 1: around seven thirty, a man that she knew banged on
2:44
Speaker 1: her door, punched her in the shoulder, and ran away.
2:47
Speaker 1: Just moments later, she hears gunshots coming from nearby. She
2:51
Speaker 1: drives to her neighbors and sees a body lying in
2:53
Speaker 1: the driveway, and she believes that person, a woman, to
2:56
Speaker 1: be dead. Someone bangs on your door first thing in
2:59
Speaker 1: the morning, punches you with a shoulder and takes off,
3:03
Speaker 1: But it didn't end. They are Take a listen to
3:06
Speaker 1: our friend Davemack at crime online dot com. As officers
3:09
Speaker 1: approach the house. They see an adult male sitting in
3:11
Speaker 1: a van outside the house. The body of a woman
3:14
Speaker 1: can be seen in the driveway. Female screams are heard
3:17
Speaker 1: coming from the direction of the house. The officers go
3:20
Speaker 1: inside the home to check for anyone needing assistance. As
3:23
Speaker 1: they enter the main front door, there's a dead dog
3:25
Speaker 1: in the living room. Blood spatter is seen on the wall.
3:28
Speaker 1: When officers reach the rest of the home, they find
3:30
Speaker 1: a female body lying in the bedroom with blood on
3:32
Speaker 1: her chest and a spent shell casing. They find a
3:35
Speaker 1: deceased baby in the bedroom. The infant appeared to be
3:38
Speaker 1: shot in the head. A deceased baby, a dead dog,
3:43
Speaker 1: a young mom, all brutally murdered. What kind of a
3:49
Speaker 1: mind murders a baby, a dog and a mommy will
3:54
Speaker 1: take a listen to our friend. W SLS ten news
3:57
Speaker 1: anchor John Carlin and Brittany McGraw, deputy have identified the
4:01
Speaker 1: suspect as nineteen year old Matthew Bernard. Family members say
4:05
Speaker 1: he killed his mother, his sister, and her one year
4:07
Speaker 1: old child. Deputies found their bodies at a home in
4:10
Speaker 1: the Keeling community. We have some shocking pictures here to
4:14
Speaker 1: show you. They show the alleged aspect naked, running past
4:18
Speaker 1: houses and a church before officers arrested him after an
4:21
Speaker 1: hour's long manhunt. Neighbors say they were frightened to see
4:25
Speaker 1: him running over to the church and choking a man
4:27
Speaker 1: before he was beaten with batons and arrested. About a
4:31
Speaker 1: hundred officers responded to that chaotic scene, and the man
4:35
Speaker 1: hunt sent at least nine schools into lockdown. We're not
4:38
Speaker 1: releasing the victim's name until all of their family members
4:41
Speaker 1: have been notified. Family members are among those with a
4:44
Speaker 1: lot of the unanswered questions tonight. We don't know why
4:48
Speaker 1: the young man allegedly killed his family members or how
4:50
Speaker 1: it happened. But what does this have to do with
4:53
Speaker 1: the Tampa Bay Race? Pitching prospect Baseball star Blake Bivens
4:58
Speaker 1: joining me an all star panel to break it down
5:01
Speaker 1: and put it back together again. First of all, a
5:04
Speaker 1: renowned trial lawyer, Randy Kessler joining us from the Atlanta jurisdiction.
5:09
Speaker 1: Doctor Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, joining me from Beverly Hills on
5:14
Speaker 1: insta at Doctor Bethany Marshall. James Shelnutt twenty seven years,
5:19
Speaker 1: Metro Major Case twenty two years swat Now lawyer, doctor
5:24
Speaker 1: Tim Gallagher, the medical examiner for the entire state of Florida,
5:30
Speaker 1: and Crime online dot Com investigative reporter Levi Page. Set
5:35
Speaker 1: the scene for me, what happened in that neighborhood? What
5:38
Speaker 1: did the neighbors here? So, Nancy, this is seven thirty am,
5:43
Speaker 1: but this is in Killing, Virginia. It's a very small
5:46
Speaker 1: rural town in southern Virginia on the border with North Carolina.
5:50
Speaker 1: And at seven thirty am, Rachel Jefferson says she got
5:54
Speaker 1: a knock on her door. She opened it up and
5:56
Speaker 1: her eighteen year old Matthew Punster in the arm and
6:00
Speaker 1: ran off. She said. Minutes later she heard multiple gunshot,
6:05
Speaker 1: went to her nephew's home and discovered dead, shot to death.
6:10
Speaker 1: She called police. Police arrived at the scene. They opened
6:14
Speaker 1: up the home. There was more horror. They saw more
6:18
Speaker 1: dead bodies, a fourteen month old child shot in the head.
6:22
Speaker 1: Cohen Vivens and sixty two year old Joan Bernard both
6:28
Speaker 1: gunned down, along with the family dog that was beaten
6:32
Speaker 1: to death with a sledgehammer that was covered in blood.
6:37
Speaker 1: What a scene you know? To Randy Kessler, now, defense attorney,
6:44
Speaker 1: you and I have handled a lot of cases, but
6:48
Speaker 1: a crime scene like that, that's something nobody would ever forget.
6:53
Speaker 1: A dead infant in their room, the mommy, dad, the
6:58
Speaker 1: dog killed. It's just have you ever heard anything alike
7:03
Speaker 1: at Randy Kessler, Nancy, For all the years that you
7:05
Speaker 1: and I have been talking about Case Lucas, years and
7:08
Speaker 1: years and years, I can't imagine a more test set
7:12
Speaker 1: effact that's going to You know, with the death penalty,
7:14
Speaker 1: you may be on the line a dead infant, a baby,
7:17
Speaker 1: a tyler, a young mom, a grandma, a dog, sledgehammer,
7:22
Speaker 1: gunshots to the head. I mean, you can't put together
7:24
Speaker 1: a recipe, a better recipe for absolute conviction. And you know,
7:29
Speaker 1: if this person shouldn't get the death penalty, I don't
7:31
Speaker 1: know who should. Well, of course it's not going to
7:33
Speaker 1: play out that easily, as we all know any veteran trial.
7:37
Speaker 1: While your knows, it never rolls out the way you
7:40
Speaker 1: think it's going to. Of all people, the superstar in
7:45
Speaker 1: the baseball world, Blake Bivens, the Tampa Bay Race pitching prospect.
7:52
Speaker 1: It turns out this is his baby and his wife.
7:57
Speaker 1: Take a listen. In the last days we learn Blake
8:00
Speaker 1: Bivens speaking out. We were in Chattanooga, Tennessee, finishing up
8:07
Speaker 1: a series there, and we had got it up early
8:10
Speaker 1: that morning, maybe around nine am, to pack and get
8:14
Speaker 1: ready to get on the bus for a day game.
8:16
Speaker 1: And I woke up and I just happened to I
8:19
Speaker 1: checked my phone as soon as I woke up and
8:22
Speaker 1: didn't have any messages from Emily or any bond. So
8:26
Speaker 1: before I got up and got everything prepared, I decided
8:29
Speaker 1: I would just check Facebook. Immediately. As soon as I
8:32
Speaker 1: clicked on Facebook, I just saw a headline, and the
8:36
Speaker 1: headline was just you know, they were looking for my
8:41
Speaker 1: brother in law, and so I just knew then there
8:44
Speaker 1: was something going on. So I merely called my parents.
8:46
Speaker 1: They were trying to figure out, you know, everything was
8:49
Speaker 1: going on all So at that point I knew I
8:51
Speaker 1: needed to get my stuff together. I needed to probably
8:56
Speaker 1: need to get an airplane trip home, not knowing the
8:59
Speaker 1: extent of anything going on. To Doctor Bethany, Marshall's psychoanalyst
9:04
Speaker 1: joining us out of Beverly Hills, Doctor Bethany, can you
9:09
Speaker 1: imagine that feeling you don't know exactly what's happening, but
9:13
Speaker 1: you know something bad is happening at home for your
9:17
Speaker 1: wife and your baby are You're a thousand miles away
9:22
Speaker 1: and you're frantically trying to find out what's happening. Nobody
9:25
Speaker 1: can tell you, trying to get to the airport, that
9:28
Speaker 1: feeling bubbling up inside of you, Doctor Bethany Nancy, the premonition.
9:34
Speaker 1: You know, when you love your wife, your mother in law,
9:38
Speaker 1: you're fourteen month old baby, you're psychically connected to them.
9:42
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but there are ways we are connected to
9:44
Speaker 1: other people that are beyond words. They're beyond the text,
9:48
Speaker 1: they're beyond a phone call. We just know when our
9:51
Speaker 1: loved ones are in trouble. And as I always say
9:55
Speaker 1: on your show, in the face of the unknown, we
9:58
Speaker 1: read in our worst possible fears and fantasies. But in
10:02
Speaker 1: this case, the worst was true. I mean, it wasn't
10:06
Speaker 1: just a fantasy. It was a reality that horrible harm
10:10
Speaker 1: had befallen his loved ones in his family, and here
10:13
Speaker 1: he is alone. I'm so glad that the manager of
10:16
Speaker 1: the team hopped on a plane with him to go
10:20
Speaker 1: and face the scene, because nobody should have to be
10:23
Speaker 1: alone with news like this. Imagine booking that flight, getting
10:27
Speaker 1: on that plane, not knowing what's happening, but that feeling
10:31
Speaker 1: of foreboding, that feeling of dread crime stories. With Nancy Grace,
10:51
Speaker 1: we are talking about a crime scene like no other
10:55
Speaker 1: where a young mom, a little baby, even a dog,
11:01
Speaker 1: all dead. Multiple murders, including the mother of the mom,
11:10
Speaker 1: Joan Bernard, Emily Bivens, the twenty five year old mom,
11:14
Speaker 1: Colin Bivens, the little boys is fourteen months old, dead
11:19
Speaker 1: in his room. And then across the country the Tampa
11:24
Speaker 1: Bay Ray pitching prospect, Blake Bivens knowing inside something is
11:31
Speaker 1: horribly wrong. Take a listen as Blake Bivens opens up
11:36
Speaker 1: for the first time. Listen that morning, I just remember
11:40
Speaker 1: we headed to the airport. I was by myself there
11:44
Speaker 1: continuing to call parents, trying to find some information. Can't
11:48
Speaker 1: get anyone on the phone. Called Emily's fine several times,
11:52
Speaker 1: no answer. And so you know, as I'm sitting there
11:56
Speaker 1: in the airport, I don't know what caused me to
11:59
Speaker 1: do it, but I decided to click on Facebook again
12:02
Speaker 1: maybe I could get some type of more information. And
12:05
Speaker 1: then again, the first headline I see is two females
12:08
Speaker 1: and a small child were gone, and I immediately knew
12:15
Speaker 1: that was them. I found out my family was gone
12:21
Speaker 1: over a Facebook headline, and I just immediately began to
12:26
Speaker 1: scream in the middle of the airport, and you know,
12:30
Speaker 1: obviously people are concerned looking at me, funny and I
12:36
Speaker 1: you know, And it was within maybe a minute after
12:39
Speaker 1: that I saw that that I got a phone call
12:42
Speaker 1: and it was the manager of our team, Morgan Innsburgh,
12:45
Speaker 1: and he was going to come fly home with me
12:47
Speaker 1: and make sure I got there and everything was okay,
12:50
Speaker 1: and and so you know, that was really when that
12:56
Speaker 1: that day began. It was real. Blake Bevins, the baseball star,
13:02
Speaker 1: gets an odd feeling. He looks again on Facebook, and
13:06
Speaker 1: that is where he learns his wife, twenty five year
13:10
Speaker 1: old Emily, his baby boy Cullen, his mother in law
13:16
Speaker 1: all dead. You know, it's a funny thing. Back to you,
13:20
Speaker 1: Randy Kessler. I've known my husband for many, many years.
13:26
Speaker 1: I met him after my fiancee was murdered, and he
13:29
Speaker 1: stuck by me through all that. Do you know, Randy,
13:35
Speaker 1: brace yourself. I may go round and round with David Lynch,
13:38
Speaker 1: my husband. Man, we'll lock horns. You know, we never
13:41
Speaker 1: fought before he had children and everything went sideways. But
13:45
Speaker 1: do you know, in all the years that I have
13:50
Speaker 1: known David, in all the years, never once did I
13:55
Speaker 1: have a single cross word with his mother or his father,
14:00
Speaker 1: not even once. And I'm sure there was plenty they
14:03
Speaker 1: could have said from a headline about a case I
14:08
Speaker 1: was trying to you know, how I could chicken. I mean,
14:13
Speaker 1: it could have been anything. Never a word, never a word,
14:18
Speaker 1: even after we had the twins. Never a word of judge,
14:23
Speaker 1: of judgment, across word, nothing. Have you ever heard anything
14:27
Speaker 1: like it, Randy? Usually people hate their end laws. It's incredible.
14:31
Speaker 1: But you know what I mean, I do so much
14:32
Speaker 1: divorce work that sometimes people don't want to get divorced
14:36
Speaker 1: because they don't want to lose the in laws. You
14:37
Speaker 1: know that. Sometimes you know, I can't send him or her.
14:41
Speaker 1: But I love the sister, the brother, the parents. So
14:44
Speaker 1: you hear it all. But I mean to add to
14:46
Speaker 1: this tragedy, not only do you have all those facts
14:49
Speaker 1: of how horrible it wasn't who was murdered, but then
14:51
Speaker 1: the victim, the remaining live victim that connects them all
14:55
Speaker 1: is playing America's favorite position in America's favorite pastime. I mean,
14:59
Speaker 1: this is just a sport man, you know, And what
15:04
Speaker 1: we're playing right now. Randy is Blake Bivens, the baseball star.
15:10
Speaker 1: I can't believe how composed he is. I honestly think
15:13
Speaker 1: he's still in shock. Opening up to the River Church
15:19
Speaker 1: in Danville, Virginia, and I want you to take a listen.
15:22
Speaker 1: As the Tampa Bay Race pitching prospect, Blake Bivens describes
15:28
Speaker 1: that horrible airplane flight. The only thing I really remember
15:32
Speaker 1: from the whole plane ride is I just kind of
15:34
Speaker 1: went through periods of of and I just stared at
15:38
Speaker 1: the back of the seat the whole time, trying to
15:43
Speaker 1: get my mind to wrap around when I'm hearing um
15:47
Speaker 1: and uh, and it's almost kind of like and this
15:51
Speaker 1: isn't really happening, and I'm just more of in a
15:55
Speaker 1: state of shock. Hoore good for periods of shaking UM,
16:00
Speaker 1: and then I would kind of start to lose it
16:01
Speaker 1: a little bit and break down and cry UM, and
16:06
Speaker 1: it would just kind of just a circle UM and
16:09
Speaker 1: the plane ridge. This seemed like they took forever UM,
16:13
Speaker 1: and you know, we got to Charlotte, and then when
16:15
Speaker 1: we landed to Charlotte. Charlotte, we met up with some
16:19
Speaker 1: of the uh, the race personnel, and they were with
16:23
Speaker 1: me the whole way home and from there, Um, we
16:29
Speaker 1: just went home and uh we had a large group
16:32
Speaker 1: of family members at my house there waiting on me,
16:36
Speaker 1: and uh we hugged and I mean we just we
16:39
Speaker 1: cried for thirty minutes. Um, and uh, you know, it
16:44
Speaker 1: was just an experience. It's unbelievable how much I can
16:50
Speaker 1: vividly remember from the day, you know, to doctor Bethany Marshall,
16:53
Speaker 1: psychoanalyst joining us from Beverly Hills, doctor Bethany Blake Bevans,
17:00
Speaker 1: the Pitching Star is describing that plane flight trying to
17:07
Speaker 1: get home, and you know, it just reminds me of
17:12
Speaker 1: when I just landed in New York and had gotten
17:15
Speaker 1: the twins bathed and in their pj's. I called my
17:18
Speaker 1: mom and she said my dad was on life support.
17:21
Speaker 1: I spoke to him briefly, said Daddy, hold on, I'm
17:24
Speaker 1: all the way. I'm all the way right now. I
17:27
Speaker 1: got the twins dressed, and we were out on the
17:29
Speaker 1: sidewalk at midnight, trying to somehow get home to making
17:37
Speaker 1: Georgia that that feeling. And he said, doctor Bethany, he's
17:41
Speaker 1: trying to get his mind wrapped around what happened. But Bethany,
17:46
Speaker 1: there's no way. I'm follow up with James Shelnan on
17:48
Speaker 1: this that you can prepare yourself for the details. There's
17:53
Speaker 1: no way, now, there's no way, you know, Nancy, This
17:57
Speaker 1: reminds me of a story that he covered in twenty
18:01
Speaker 1: twelve of a man who took a synthetic party drug
18:05
Speaker 1: called bath Salts, ripped all his clothes off, ran down
18:09
Speaker 1: the street, and started eating the face off of a
18:12
Speaker 1: homeless man, savaging him, ravaging him. And we knew at
18:16
Speaker 1: that time that synthetic drugs like bath Salts flaka, I
18:21
Speaker 1: don't know all the other names, began to flood in
18:24
Speaker 1: on the market and they caused people to do terrible,
18:29
Speaker 1: horrifying things, to rip their clothes off, to run down
18:33
Speaker 1: the street, to attack people, to try to cannibalize people.
18:38
Speaker 1: And back to your question about how Blake Vivins could
18:41
Speaker 1: have prepared himself for this scene. He is so poised
18:46
Speaker 1: in this interview with this pastor, so gracious. Not once
18:50
Speaker 1: did he say anything about his brother in law, the purp.
18:53
Speaker 1: He talks about his faith with God, he talks about
18:56
Speaker 1: his journey home to prepare himself with a scene. He
19:00
Speaker 1: talks about his family members. But I'm going to tell
19:04
Speaker 1: you there must have been a long history in that
19:07
Speaker 1: family with this brother in law having mental health issues,
19:11
Speaker 1: drug issues, causing bodily harm to other people and trying
19:17
Speaker 1: to deal with it. Yeah, it's so hard for the
19:20
Speaker 1: rest of the family to try to cope with that
19:24
Speaker 1: kind of issue. To James shell Nutt, twenty seven years
19:28
Speaker 1: Metro Major Case swat Now lawyer, James shell Nutt, you
19:33
Speaker 1: can't prepare yourself for a scene because I thought I
19:36
Speaker 1: was ready to go to court every day when my
19:38
Speaker 1: fiance was murdered. But I had no idea that one
19:41
Speaker 1: of the first things I'd see would be case bloody
19:43
Speaker 1: shirt lying on council table. I mean, you don't know
19:47
Speaker 1: what detail you're going to encounter now, you know, and
19:51
Speaker 1: you know you can see it. You know, in Nancy
19:52
Speaker 1: your position, you saw it day in day out. You know,
19:55
Speaker 1: when I worked as a detective in the Metro Land area,
19:58
Speaker 1: I saw it regularly. You know, you see the horrific
20:01
Speaker 1: violence that one person does to another, and to some extent,
20:05
Speaker 1: temporarily you get a little bit numb to it, but
20:08
Speaker 1: it always greatly affects you. And then the numb this
20:10
Speaker 1: wears off, and it's even worse because you haven't dealt
20:12
Speaker 1: with it in the first place, and there is no
20:15
Speaker 1: way to completely desensitize yourself to the situation, even for professionals,
20:19
Speaker 1: much less somebody like Blake who was not used to
20:22
Speaker 1: send this every day. It's just man's just heartbreaking for
20:26
Speaker 1: this guy. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we were
20:45
Speaker 1: talking about a triple homicide. Joan Bernard, the mother in
20:51
Speaker 1: law of baseball star Blake Bivins, the twenty five year
20:55
Speaker 1: old Emily Bivin's young wife and Colin Bivins, just fourteen
21:02
Speaker 1: months old. Baby Colin murdered in his room just recently.
21:09
Speaker 1: Blake Bivins, the Tampa Bay Race pitching prospect, speaks out
21:14
Speaker 1: and he is speaking at the River Church in Danville, Virginia. Listen,
21:21
Speaker 1: I think the hardest moment for me was when I
21:24
Speaker 1: when I got home and I walked in my son's
21:26
Speaker 1: bedroom for the first time and realized I was never
21:29
Speaker 1: going to see him on this earth again. That was
21:35
Speaker 1: the worst moment of my life. Nothing ever will come
21:41
Speaker 1: close to being a feeling the way I felt that
21:44
Speaker 1: day when at that moment. But then again, I know
21:51
Speaker 1: I will see him again one day and it won't
21:53
Speaker 1: be long. M the incredible strength he is showing. Leave
22:01
Speaker 1: I page with me. Crime online dot Com investigative reporter.
22:05
Speaker 1: What can you tell me about the crime scene? Well, Nancy,
22:09
Speaker 1: it was covered in blood. You know. Emily Bivins, twenty
22:13
Speaker 1: five years old, was found in the driveway. She was shot.
22:16
Speaker 1: The dog was beaten to death with the sledgehammer. The
22:21
Speaker 1: sledgehammer was covered in blood. Joan Bernard was in her
22:25
Speaker 1: bed she was shot. And the fourteen month old baby,
22:28
Speaker 1: you know, just a couple of months over one years old,
22:32
Speaker 1: was shot as well. This was a blood bath. It
22:35
Speaker 1: was a horror scene. This is a county where the
22:38
Speaker 1: police are not used to dealing with violent crimes like this.
22:42
Speaker 1: It was a shock to them, and even a bigger
22:44
Speaker 1: shock to Blake Vivins. Who can you imagine, you know,
22:47
Speaker 1: he had he was a newlywed, had a one year
22:50
Speaker 1: old and it's it's it's almost hard to believe what
22:56
Speaker 1: he went through and he's speaking out almost a year later.
22:59
Speaker 1: The crime scene had to take days and days to process.
23:05
Speaker 1: I was saying the other day to Randy Kessler joining me,
23:08
Speaker 1: veteran trial lawyer in the Atlanta jurisdiction. I was on
23:12
Speaker 1: a plane. I just stepped on the plane from New
23:16
Speaker 1: York to California to march in a victim's rights march.
23:22
Speaker 1: Just as I got on the plane, I got a
23:24
Speaker 1: text that there had been a shooting at the Fulton
23:27
Speaker 1: County Courthouse where I practiced. I grabbed my bathroom overhead
23:33
Speaker 1: and turned right around and got off the plane, got
23:35
Speaker 1: in a cab, went to another I think I went
23:36
Speaker 1: to JFK, and got a plane home within the next
23:40
Speaker 1: forty five minutes to Atlanta. That was the Fulton County
23:44
Speaker 1: Courthouse shooting, multiple victims, and long story short, it took
23:50
Speaker 1: almost a week with multiple investigators to process that scene.
23:56
Speaker 1: Why why does it take so long to process a
23:59
Speaker 1: scene like the one we're talking about right now, Well,
24:02
Speaker 1: they want to get it right, you know, A Nancy boy,
24:04
Speaker 1: I remember that day too. You know, from my office,
24:06
Speaker 1: I look outside, I see the courthouse, and I can
24:08
Speaker 1: see the helicopters, and you're just terrified because you know
24:11
Speaker 1: everybody that works in that building, and it was just
24:13
Speaker 1: a horrible, horrible day and a horrible time and horrible funerals.
24:18
Speaker 1: But you don't want to get it wrong. You want
24:20
Speaker 1: to make sure that DNA is right. You want to
24:23
Speaker 1: make sure nothing's contaminated. I mean the police, law enforcement,
24:28
Speaker 1: and that's this one up. Nobody's going to forgive them,
24:30
Speaker 1: so you've got to make sure. You should just assume
24:32
Speaker 1: the guy is going to come to day. I'm jolting. Yeah,
24:35
Speaker 1: you're not kidding. Nobody will forgive them. That crime scene
24:38
Speaker 1: is corrupted in any way. To James Shellnutt, James, you've
24:42
Speaker 1: been on many homicide scenes as many of us have been.
24:46
Speaker 1: You can't you can't contaminate the blood from the different victims.
24:52
Speaker 1: If you carefully analyze the scene, you may be able
24:54
Speaker 1: to tell the sequence of events and put together a
24:57
Speaker 1: timeline that the jury is going to want to hear.
25:00
Speaker 1: They don't want to hear a prosecutor stand up and go, okay, look,
25:03
Speaker 1: I don't really know what happened, but we've got three
25:05
Speaker 1: dead bodies. That is not what they want to hear.
25:10
Speaker 1: You must not only carry your burden, you've got to
25:13
Speaker 1: explain it to the jury very carefully in plane and
25:17
Speaker 1: concise terms. Then you got to back it up with
25:21
Speaker 1: evidence one, two, three, just like that. It's got to
25:25
Speaker 1: be two plus two equals four. Right, So how do
25:29
Speaker 1: you do that at a crime scene? Shell Nut, Well,
25:31
Speaker 1: you know, you go back and you look at the evidence,
25:34
Speaker 1: and then you're able to formulate, after you've analyze this evidence,
25:37
Speaker 1: a theory of what occurred, and then after you further
25:40
Speaker 1: analyze it, you can pin down what has happened. You know,
25:44
Speaker 1: there's always room for argument between the defense and prosecution
25:47
Speaker 1: as to the series of advances some things. But properly
25:51
Speaker 1: analyze that crime scene, you can go back and very
25:54
Speaker 1: closely recreate it, and that allows the prosecutors to get
25:57
Speaker 1: up in court and tell a story of what happen
26:00
Speaker 1: in a way that a jury can understand it and
26:02
Speaker 1: perceive it. To doctor Tim Gallagher, the medical examiner for
26:06
Speaker 1: the entire state of Florida, Doctor Gallagher, the crime scene
26:09
Speaker 1: so so important, and I didn't realize at the get
26:13
Speaker 1: go that there's not just police homicide there. The medical examiner,
26:19
Speaker 1: well very often send out their own emmy investigators. They
26:23
Speaker 1: have investigators too, because if you do, if you process
26:28
Speaker 1: the crime scene correctly, you will most likely know the
26:33
Speaker 1: secrets of events. For instance, if Colin bev is just
26:37
Speaker 1: fourteen months old was killed, first, will we see a
26:42
Speaker 1: blood trail from his room to the next murder or
26:49
Speaker 1: was there a confrontation with mommy? Did she rush into
26:52
Speaker 1: the room to try to protect the baby? Well, there
26:56
Speaker 1: was the mother in law trying to run out to
26:58
Speaker 1: get help. I mean, that's the way. You have to
27:00
Speaker 1: look at the scene, not walk through it, not move anything,
27:05
Speaker 1: not touch anything for Pete's sake, or it can all
27:08
Speaker 1: go right down the crapper. That's a technical legal term, Gallagher.
27:13
Speaker 1: But way in on the injuries these victims sustain, and
27:16
Speaker 1: how and how we can prove not only the injuries,
27:20
Speaker 1: not only the cod cause of death, but what exactly happened.
27:25
Speaker 1: How do you do that? You can't really date a
27:28
Speaker 1: shooting and go, oh, this happened twenty minutes before this one,
27:32
Speaker 1: So how do you do it? Well? First, will you're right, Nancy,
27:35
Speaker 1: the medical examiner is going to be at the scene
27:39
Speaker 1: of the multi victim homicide. Of course, we're going to
27:42
Speaker 1: have our medical legal investigators as well, and these are
27:45
Speaker 1: all highly trained people who go through years of training
27:48
Speaker 1: and certification to do their job. You know, you're right.
27:53
Speaker 1: We cannot pinpoint the time the injury occurred to the minute,
27:57
Speaker 1: but we can say things in general terms like use
28:00
Speaker 1: injuries appeared to have occurred within the same time frame,
28:05
Speaker 1: you know, within minutes of each other. But based on
28:08
Speaker 1: extrinsic evidence also at the crime scene, you may be
28:10
Speaker 1: able to determine the secrets of events based on blood spatter,
28:15
Speaker 1: blood trail, all sorts of footprints. There may be a
28:23
Speaker 1: way to determine a sequence based on the evidence you find.
28:27
Speaker 1: I mean, unless you have home security surveillance in every
28:30
Speaker 1: room that will tell you everything. I want you guys
28:34
Speaker 1: to hear what the Tampa Bay Race pitching prospect, Blake Bevins,
28:40
Speaker 1: the pitching star, has to say. Listen to this. You know.
28:44
Speaker 1: One day I was on the way home from training
28:49
Speaker 1: and I had recently read John sixteen thirty three that
28:53
Speaker 1: you shared last Sunday. And when I read take Heart
28:58
Speaker 1: for I've overcome the world, it changed. It completely flipped
29:03
Speaker 1: a switch in my heart. And from that moment on,
29:09
Speaker 1: I knew that this was not going to beat me,
29:12
Speaker 1: This was not going to beat my family. I was
29:14
Speaker 1: going to live in victory the rest of my life.
29:17
Speaker 1: And I was going to use this as a testimony
29:19
Speaker 1: to show what he has done for me he can
29:21
Speaker 1: also do for others. And I just that moment for
29:29
Speaker 1: me was one of the biggest moments where I just
29:33
Speaker 1: knew God was with me, and the only thing I
29:37
Speaker 1: knew to do was just laugh in the enemy's face
29:39
Speaker 1: because he had thought he had won, but he had
29:43
Speaker 1: just All he's done is a woke in a sleeping giant.
29:46
Speaker 1: And as long as I'm here on this earth, every
29:49
Speaker 1: day I wake up, my goal is to pile drive
29:52
Speaker 1: him right in the face every morning when I get up.
29:54
Speaker 1: He Blake Bevins is quoting John sixteen thirty three. Take Heart.
30:15
Speaker 1: Clime stories with Nancy Grace Guys, the murderer of three
30:24
Speaker 1: innocent people, Joan Bernard, the mother in law, Emily Bivens,
30:29
Speaker 1: the wife of pitching Phenomena Blake Bivens, and mother Colin Bivins,
30:36
Speaker 1: a fourteen month old baby boy, all murdered. And yet
30:41
Speaker 1: you hear Blake Bivins as he's speaking to the River
30:44
Speaker 1: Church in Danville, stating, quoting John the Disciple, saying, take heart,
31:00
Speaker 1: I want to focus now on the shooter. What do
31:07
Speaker 1: we know about the shooter? Take a listen to WSLS
31:10
Speaker 1: ten Knees reporter Shane Dwyer. Shane wires him in Pennsylvania
31:17
Speaker 1: County tonight with the very latest, Shane, you spoke with
31:20
Speaker 1: the man who says he knows he's victims Well, JOHNA. Brittany, Yes,
31:23
Speaker 1: that man, Matthew Bernard's uncle. We spoke with him this evening.
31:27
Speaker 1: He was there with one of our reporters earlier today
31:29
Speaker 1: as this was all going down in Pennsylvania County. They
31:32
Speaker 1: were a little bit of a distance back away from
31:34
Speaker 1: the house. That's when he says he saw his nephew
31:37
Speaker 1: get taken away in a line of police cars. As
31:39
Speaker 1: that line of police cars was going by, he locked
31:42
Speaker 1: eyes with his nephew through the cruiser window. He says
31:45
Speaker 1: that the eyes of that person that he saw in
31:47
Speaker 1: the backseat of that cruiser were not the eyes of
31:50
Speaker 1: the nephew that he knows, and he just did not
31:52
Speaker 1: understand what was going on. That was his body, But
31:55
Speaker 1: he says, as he looked at them, that was not
31:58
Speaker 1: his nephew that was in the back of the car.
31:59
Speaker 1: He does know what kind of headspace he was in
32:01
Speaker 1: this evening. So it is completely understandable to imagine all
32:05
Speaker 1: the grief that this family is going through, not only
32:08
Speaker 1: with the devastating loss of their family members, but not
32:11
Speaker 1: understanding how something like this can happen. Okay, you're gonna
32:14
Speaker 1: have to give me a lot more than his eyes
32:17
Speaker 1: were different and what was his headspace? No before I
32:22
Speaker 1: would consider any type of mental defect defense, But listen
32:27
Speaker 1: to CBS News Jamie Blake. Bivens began this week full
32:32
Speaker 1: of hope, a minor league baseball prospect, married to his
32:35
Speaker 1: high school sweetheart Emily, and proud father of a fourteen
32:39
Speaker 1: month old son, Colin. That's Emily's mother Joan in a
32:45
Speaker 1: family photo spanning three generations. But on Tuesday in southern Virginia,
32:50
Speaker 1: all three were found murdered, allegedly by Emily's brother, who
32:55
Speaker 1: relatives say was battling mental health issues. In his deepest grief,
33:00
Speaker 1: Bivins last night posted this, my heart was turned to ash.
33:05
Speaker 1: My life as I knew it is destroyed. The pain
33:08
Speaker 1: my family and I feel is unbearable. I shake and
33:11
Speaker 1: tremble at the thought of our future without them. In
33:15
Speaker 1: a tribute to his wife, Bivens wrote, your love and
33:18
Speaker 1: kindness changed countless lives, and to his son, I can't
33:22
Speaker 1: breathe without you here. I finally understood what love was
33:26
Speaker 1: when you were born and I would have done anything
33:28
Speaker 1: for you, Bivens. Minor league club, the Montgomery Biscuits, canceled
33:32
Speaker 1: their games this week as investigators who met with Bivins
33:35
Speaker 1: scramble to figure out why Bivens ends his note. I'm
33:39
Speaker 1: not sure what is next for me, but I do
33:42
Speaker 1: know God has a plan, even though I can't see it.
33:45
Speaker 1: What do we know about the killer? The identity is
33:49
Speaker 1: not a question because the killer was spotted running from
33:53
Speaker 1: the crime saying completely naked. We do know. In the
34:00
Speaker 1: next days, a competency hearing is scheduled for the sheeeter
34:06
Speaker 1: Matthew Bernard, Matthew Bryant Bernard, what do we know? Take
34:12
Speaker 1: a listen now to our friends at WSLS ten. This
34:17
Speaker 1: is Ersha Jones with the uncle Bryant Bernard. The uncle
34:22
Speaker 1: told ten News the suspectus all around perfect kid, but
34:26
Speaker 1: he also says the teen expressed to his mother last
34:29
Speaker 1: week he was having bad dreams. A family torn to pieces.
34:34
Speaker 1: Investigators believe Matthew Barnard is responsible. His uncle says this
34:39
Speaker 1: is out of character for his nephew. Well, I love
34:44
Speaker 1: my nephew who was snapped. I don't know something changed
34:54
Speaker 1: him a very quick period of time. Here's a picture
34:58
Speaker 1: of Joan Bernard with her daughter Emily Bivins and grandson
35:02
Speaker 1: Cullen Bivens. All three were shot and killed, but no
35:06
Speaker 1: one knows what led to the shootings. He espressed to
35:10
Speaker 1: his mother last week that he was having bad dreams
35:18
Speaker 1: and that he'd seen damons around his bed, and his
35:23
Speaker 1: uncle was told by the team's dad he was troubled.
35:26
Speaker 1: On the day of the killings. He woke up. Yeah,
35:30
Speaker 1: he just he said something to his mother that something's
35:35
Speaker 1: going on. It's got to stop. Today. Well, something was
35:38
Speaker 1: going on. I call it Shipple homicide. But let's see
35:41
Speaker 1: what the court says. This young man who was described
35:44
Speaker 1: by others as an all around good kid, even a
35:49
Speaker 1: youth worker at the local church, now charged with triple homicide.
35:56
Speaker 1: To Crime online dot Com investigative reporter at Levi Page, Levi,
36:00
Speaker 1: what's happening, so, Nancy, we know that in November that
36:05
Speaker 1: the judge found Matthew Bernard incompetent, incompetent to stand trial
36:11
Speaker 1: after he had a psychological evaluation, And there's going to
36:15
Speaker 1: be in the next few weeks coming up another hearing
36:19
Speaker 1: to determine whether or not he's competant to stand trial again,
36:23
Speaker 1: and if he is competant, the trial will go forward.
36:26
Speaker 1: If he's not, he'll go into state custody and be
36:30
Speaker 1: committed into a mental hospital until he is well. One thing,
36:34
Speaker 1: of course, that the state is going to argue to you,
36:36
Speaker 1: Randy Kessler, you're a veteran trial lawyer, is that Bernard
36:40
Speaker 1: knew what he had done was wrong because he ran
36:44
Speaker 1: from police. I don't run from police when I see them.
36:47
Speaker 1: I may slow down a little bit, but I don't
36:49
Speaker 1: run from them. And also, competency under the law is
36:54
Speaker 1: not insanity. Competency simply means are you fit too? Can
37:01
Speaker 1: you assist your lawyer at trial? That's the only question
37:07
Speaker 1: regarding competency, right or wrong? Kessler, that's right, You're always
37:11
Speaker 1: right and answer, But in a way that gives a
37:12
Speaker 1: guide two chances at some sort of defense. One is,
37:16
Speaker 1: you know, if he ran out, crazy, naked, whatever, they
37:19
Speaker 1: might later argue that he was insane at the time
37:22
Speaker 1: of the crime. But this question is can he even
37:24
Speaker 1: stand trial or is he going to get some mental
37:26
Speaker 1: help and be able to avoid trial or put the
37:29
Speaker 1: justice system bend over backwards to give defendants the benefit
37:33
Speaker 1: of the doubt and give them the chance to defend themselves.
37:36
Speaker 1: But how can not be competent. They're gonna have to
37:38
Speaker 1: have some serious psychological testimony to prove he can't even
37:42
Speaker 1: defend himself. Come on, this isn't a moment that you
37:45
Speaker 1: have to be permanently pretty much incompetent. This is not
37:48
Speaker 1: just a right now, he can't do it the question
37:50
Speaker 1: right now, he's incompetent, Okay, tomorrow, the next day. It's
37:54
Speaker 1: hard to say that somebody will never be competent to
37:56
Speaker 1: stand trial. They may need a week, they may need
37:58
Speaker 1: a couple of days immediately. They easily fell competent as
38:02
Speaker 1: usually as the case. Yeah, you know, it's interesting the
38:05
Speaker 1: choice of words you used. Randy Kessler the right to
38:10
Speaker 1: defend himself because fourteen month old Cullen couldn't defend himself,
38:17
Speaker 1: the unarmed twenty five year old wife and mother, Emily
38:21
Speaker 1: Bevins couldn't defend herself. The mother and law sixty two
38:24
Speaker 1: year old Joan Bernard couldn't defend herself. This is how
38:28
Speaker 1: it works. To Dr Bethany Marshall, insanity under the law
38:33
Speaker 1: means you did not know right from wrong at the
38:35
Speaker 1: time of the incident. That's the law brought over from
38:38
Speaker 1: Great Britain by the Suttlers. Incompetency means can you assist
38:42
Speaker 1: your lawyer at trial, whether they get you competent through
38:45
Speaker 1: a series of medications or therapy. Most likely, and we
38:50
Speaker 1: saw it in wand to Barz and her spouse that
38:56
Speaker 1: kidnapped and raped Elizabeth Smart, at some point the doctors
39:01
Speaker 1: will get you competent, cured to the point where you
39:04
Speaker 1: can help your lawyer. Do you agree or disagree? I
39:07
Speaker 1: completely agree. And for all of those your listeners who
39:11
Speaker 1: are struggling with mental health issues, there is not one
39:15
Speaker 1: psychiatric syndrome that I can think of in my field
39:19
Speaker 1: that predisposes somebody towards homicide. It's your personality that predisposes
39:25
Speaker 1: you towards that. It's hatred, it's rage, it's envy, it's
39:28
Speaker 1: toxic human emotion. Being psychotic or schizophrenic or bipolar does
39:34
Speaker 1: not make you homicidal. They are two very different things.
39:39
Speaker 1: What I think probably happened in this case, the age
39:42
Speaker 1: of onset for most psychiatric disorders is between the ages
39:46
Speaker 1: of eighteen and twenty one. This man was eighteen years old.
39:50
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that he has what we call a dual
39:53
Speaker 1: diagnosis situation, meaning that there was an onset of some
39:57
Speaker 1: psychiatric issue, but because of that it unleashed latent tendencies
40:03
Speaker 1: to be homicidal that came from his personality, not his
40:07
Speaker 1: psychiatric issues, and it could have predisposed him to drug abuse.
40:10
Speaker 1: Often when people horses right now, we don't have any
40:15
Speaker 1: indication of drugs. If it were drugs, I could understand
40:20
Speaker 1: it better, like you were mentioning early the bath salts,
40:24
Speaker 1: But right now that information is not out there. That
40:28
Speaker 1: would make it a lot simpler. And also voluntary use
40:31
Speaker 1: of drugs or alcohol not a defense. But I can
40:33
Speaker 1: end on this note. Take heart, so Blake Vivin said,
40:38
Speaker 1: quoting John sixteen thirty three. After all he's been through,
40:43
Speaker 1: he says, take heart. We wait as justice underfalls. Nancy
40:47
Speaker 1: Grace Crime Story, signing off, goodbye friend,