Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Beautiful, young social media star found injected with pool cleaner, encased in concrete. Who killed Esmeralda Gonzalez?
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: It all goes down in Las Vegas. Now, before you
- 0:09Speaker 1: judge Vegas is sin city, it's a community. It's not
- 0:14Speaker 1: just strippers and gamblers and loan sharks and tourists and grifters.
- 0:23Speaker 1: There's a big community that lives there, people just like us.
- 0:29Speaker 1: What happened to a beautiful young girl just twenty four
- 0:33Speaker 1: years old, Esmeralda Gonzalez, a model crime stories with Nancy Grace.
- 0:53Speaker 1: Two months have passed and Juang Lonzalez Da says there
- 0:56Speaker 1: has been no sign of his twenty four year old sister,
- 0:58Speaker 1: as Marlalda Gonzalez. She was last seen May thirtieth at
- 1:01Speaker 1: her South was home off of Pebble and duringo on
- 1:03Speaker 1: that day in May, Madetta remembers checking on his sister
- 1:06Speaker 1: and to visit her. I came to the home and
- 1:09Speaker 1: she wasn't here, and so I automatized. I immediately panicked
- 1:14Speaker 1: because it wasn't like her to kind of just wander off, Dada, says.
- 1:17Speaker 1: Neighbors told police Asmuralda was walking on the street asking
- 1:20Speaker 1: for a ride to a car dealership. She said she
- 1:22Speaker 1: lost her keys, madea says somehow his sister made it
- 1:25Speaker 1: to the car dealership. These images believed to be near
- 1:28Speaker 1: that dealership show this man, who police say Esmeralda was
- 1:31Speaker 1: last seen with. Detectives would like to speak with him
- 1:33Speaker 1: for possible leads to the case. I don't have any
- 1:35Speaker 1: idea who he is. I've never seen him before, but
- 1:39Speaker 1: if he if someone knows who he is, we kindly
- 1:42Speaker 1: asked that he comes forward. Leda says his sister has
- 1:44Speaker 1: never vanished like this before. He has a message for her, Esmeralda,
- 1:48Speaker 1: we miss you, we love you. What happened to a
- 1:51Speaker 1: beautiful young girl just twenty four years old, Esmeralda Gonzalez,
- 1:57Speaker 1: a model. You were just hearing our friends at News
- 2:02Speaker 1: three in Las Vegas. That was Antonio Castellan. I'm Nancy Grace.
- 2:06Speaker 1: This is crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
- 2:10Speaker 1: It all goes down in Las Vegas. Now, before you
- 2:15Speaker 1: judge Vegas is sin city, I get it. You gotta
- 2:19Speaker 1: know that all around Vegas there are families and schools
- 2:22Speaker 1: and playgrounds and parks and churches and temples and moss.
- 2:29Speaker 1: It's a community. It's not just strippers and gamblers and
- 2:36Speaker 1: loan sharks and tourists and grifters. There's a big community
- 2:42Speaker 1: that lives there people just like us again. I'm Nancy Grace.
- 2:48Speaker 1: This is Crime Stories as Morelda goes missing, joining me
- 2:52Speaker 1: judge trial lawyer Ashley Wilcott. You can find her on
- 2:56Speaker 1: Court TV and at Ashley Wilcot dot com. James Shell
- 3:00Speaker 1: not twenty seven years major case detective SWAT officer now lawyer.
- 3:05Speaker 1: Doctor Tim Gallagher, medical examiner for the State of Florida.
- 3:09Speaker 1: Doctor Liz at Dubor, psychologist, a founder of Visionista's by
- 3:13Speaker 1: Design and at doctor Liz dot com. Straight out to
- 3:18Speaker 1: Crime online dot Com. Investigative reporter Levi, Paige Levi, Let's
- 3:22Speaker 1: start at the beginning. When was the last time this
- 3:26Speaker 1: twenty four year old woman had been seen? S Morelda
- 3:29Speaker 1: So twenty four year old as Morelda Gonzalez. She was
- 3:32Speaker 1: last seen May fifth in the Durango Drive in Pebble
- 3:36Speaker 1: Road area of Las Vegas. She's by foot tall, one
- 3:40Speaker 1: hundred and ten pounds. She has a blind air and
- 3:43Speaker 1: she just vanished from her home. Her brother went to
- 3:48Speaker 1: her house to look for her. The front door was
- 3:50Speaker 1: open and unlocked and the lights were on, and that
- 3:54Speaker 1: was the last time that anybody had seen her except
- 3:58Speaker 1: she had been wonder around the area disoriented, dressed only
- 4:04Speaker 1: in high hills and lingerie. Someone even took her to
- 4:09Speaker 1: a BMW dealership and dropped her off, and then she
- 4:13Speaker 1: was actually seen trying to get into someone's home, caught
- 4:17Speaker 1: on their security footage, and they told her, you're in
- 4:19Speaker 1: the wrong home. So that was the last time anyone
- 4:22Speaker 1: had seen this young woman. Okay, I'm trying to digest
- 4:26Speaker 1: what you just said with me. Crime online dot Com
- 4:29Speaker 1: investiget a reporter leavi page. You know what, you better
- 4:33Speaker 1: tell me that again a little bit more slowly, starting
- 4:35Speaker 1: with when she was last seen alive May thirty. First,
- 4:37Speaker 1: she was last seen in the area wandering around. She
- 4:41Speaker 1: seemed disoriented. She had, you know, waved down someone in
- 4:46Speaker 1: the neighborhood to take her to a BMW dealership, and
- 4:51Speaker 1: she was wearing only her lingerie and high hills. She
- 4:55Speaker 1: then went to someone else's residence in the area and
- 4:58Speaker 1: tried to attempt to get in and they said, you've
- 5:02Speaker 1: got the wrong poem, and this was caught on their
- 5:04Speaker 1: security camera footage, and that was the last time that
- 5:07Speaker 1: she was seen. Okay, clearly disoriented, out of it. We
- 5:13Speaker 1: are learning that this young woman, just twenty four years old,
- 5:17Speaker 1: suffered from depression and schizophrenia. So before you judge her
- 5:22Speaker 1: or thinking she was drunk or high, we are learning
- 5:26Speaker 1: she had a diagnosed medical condition. To doctor Liz DeVore
- 5:31Speaker 1: joining us, Liz, what is schizophrenia and how does it
- 5:36Speaker 1: affect your behavior? So, schizophrenia is a diagnosis that is
- 5:42Speaker 1: prevalent with the key features of psychotic psychosis, psychotic episodes
- 5:49Speaker 1: that include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking and speech. So there's
- 5:57Speaker 1: really a fragile connection to reality for individuals who are
- 6:03Speaker 1: diagnosed with stophrenia, and so it definitely can affect behavior
- 6:09Speaker 1: depending on the severity of the symptoms and the whole
- 6:15Speaker 1: that the person has on reality. So the fact that she,
- 6:20Speaker 1: you know, was seen wandering around is not an uncommon
- 6:24Speaker 1: kind of behavior that you would see with a non
- 6:28Speaker 1: purposeful kind of walk with someone with schizophrenia. I remember
- 6:34Speaker 1: dealing with so many defendants that tried to go with
- 6:39Speaker 1: middle illness or insanity, particularly schizophrenia. I recalled distinctly James
- 6:46Speaker 1: shell Nutt twenty seven years Metro major k SWAT officer
- 6:50Speaker 1: now lawyer, when I heard this about a defendant in
- 6:55Speaker 1: behind bars that he had smeared himself and the walls
- 7:00Speaker 1: with his own feces that he had tried to pull
- 7:04Speaker 1: out extract one of his eyeballs. I'm just a lay person,
- 7:10Speaker 1: but that is what schizophrenia can do to a person.
- 7:14Speaker 1: And you he have auditory which are the worst, not
- 7:19Speaker 1: just optical but auditory hallucinations where you hear the angel
- 7:24Speaker 1: of death telling you to commit a murder or to
- 7:27Speaker 1: kill yourself. You know that is overwhelming. That's what schizophrenia
- 7:34Speaker 1: can do to you in the real world. James Shelnutt,
- 7:37Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen defendants and victims that we're suffering.
- 7:40Speaker 1: This lady, this young girl, Esmeralda Gonzalez just twenty four,
- 7:44Speaker 1: also bipolar, and James, you know it, when someone has schizophrenia,
- 7:51Speaker 1: it can't be hidden. No, I agree with you, man,
- 7:54Speaker 1: and adds a whole lot of different dimensions to both
- 7:57Speaker 1: sides of the investigation. Yeah, from the victim standpoint, it
- 8:01Speaker 1: makes it a lot more difficult, uh to figure out
- 8:04Speaker 1: what happened. When you've got somebody who does not have stability,
- 8:08Speaker 1: you know, it's an easier case. I'm not going to
- 8:10Speaker 1: say easy, but an easier case. When you have, say
- 8:12Speaker 1: a mom who's stable, she picks her kids up at
- 8:15Speaker 1: the day care. She's either working or housewife. Every day,
- 8:18Speaker 1: she has a routine. There's no these psychological problems. You know,
- 8:21Speaker 1: you can go back and find out what's different very easily.
- 8:25Speaker 1: But when you've got someone who's got these types of issues,
- 8:28Speaker 1: it makes it difficult. They're often sometimes transient, they make
- 8:32Speaker 1: irrational decisions. Sometimes it's hard to find what their normal
- 8:36Speaker 1: routine is because they may not have one that the
- 8:39Speaker 1: rest of us would look at and say as normal.
- 8:41Speaker 1: You know, on the on the suspect side, nan see.
- 8:43Speaker 1: You know, you look at and you say, okay, maybe
- 8:45Speaker 1: this guy is insane or from a from a legal perspective,
- 8:50Speaker 1: but in the same token, is there anything that we
- 8:53Speaker 1: can show to indicate whether or not he appreciated what
- 8:56Speaker 1: he was doing, he understood the difference between right and
- 8:58Speaker 1: rome for there to be a criminal case, and it
- 9:01Speaker 1: asked just some additional dimensions that create an awful lot
- 9:04Speaker 1: of work and sometimes can lead to confusion. So the
- 9:07Speaker 1: last we know of her to Ashley Wilcot, judge, trial
- 9:10Speaker 1: lawyer and anchor at Court TV. You can find her
- 9:14Speaker 1: Ashley Wilcott dot com Ashley what we know And this
- 9:18Speaker 1: has been supported by multiple witness testimony. She was last
- 9:22Speaker 1: seen wandering around in her heels, and I guess Pj's
- 9:28Speaker 1: I don't know why men always call it lingerie. I
- 9:31Speaker 1: guess in their own heads that's more sexy. And she
- 9:36Speaker 1: wanted to be taken to a BMW dealership, and she
- 9:40Speaker 1: had gone up to a random home. That's where I
- 9:44Speaker 1: believe I would start the investigation at the BMW dealership
- 9:47Speaker 1: and add that random home she stumbled into, the random
- 9:51Speaker 1: home where she stumbled into. I completely agree that's the
- 9:53Speaker 1: very first step that I would start with, because she's
- 9:57Speaker 1: seen May fifth wandering around the raid, goes to this
- 10:01Speaker 1: random home, and then she's never heard from again. And
- 10:04Speaker 1: the tragic part of this, I want to emphasize random home.
- 10:10Speaker 1: So it just feels like, well, certainly nothing would have happened.
- 10:13Speaker 1: Certainly someone might have called an ambulance, called police, helped her,
- 10:16Speaker 1: but that was the last she was seen. Leavi page
- 10:19Speaker 1: What can you tell me about what neighbors say? Give
- 10:24Speaker 1: me again the description of what they say happened when
- 10:26Speaker 1: they observed es Morella wandering around in her heels and
- 10:30Speaker 1: her as you say, lingerie, Well, she was disoriented. They
- 10:33Speaker 1: said that her gate was off. She was not walking
- 10:38Speaker 1: out of it. And to you, doctor Tim Gallagher, the
- 10:42Speaker 1: medical example for the state of Florida. You know, I
- 10:45Speaker 1: hate to think of you taking a break from dead
- 10:47Speaker 1: bodies to be with us, but so be it. I'll
- 10:49Speaker 1: take it, doctor Gallagher. What does that say to you
- 10:52Speaker 1: that she had an uneven gate? That's very significant in
- 10:55Speaker 1: my mind. Well, an uneven gate in terms of the
- 11:00Speaker 1: way I would interpret that would be she could be
- 11:03Speaker 1: under the influence of some medication, or she could be
- 11:07Speaker 1: very emotionally distraught, you know, which is affecting her ability
- 11:11Speaker 1: and find motor movements and giving her this unstead of
- 11:14Speaker 1: game time stories with Nancy Grace. The Park County Corner
- 11:40Speaker 1: has yet to release the identity of the woman, but
- 11:43Speaker 1: neighbors tell me her name is Esmeralda Gonzales. Police say
- 11:46Speaker 1: she was held against her will inside this home and
- 11:49Speaker 1: then murdered. Her body was found in the desert last week.
- 11:53Speaker 1: I'm very saddened. Neighbors are in a state of shock.
- 11:56Speaker 1: Relatives of Esmeralda Gonzalez first reported her missing in late May.
- 12:00Speaker 1: These are photos from a public Facebook page called find
- 12:03Speaker 1: Esmeralda Gonzales. In post She's described as a loving daughter
- 12:06Speaker 1: and sister. The man and woman arrested in connection with
- 12:09Speaker 1: her death appeared in court this week. Christopher Prestopino is
- 12:13Speaker 1: charged with open murder, first agree kidnapping, and conspiracy murder.
- 12:17Speaker 1: Police were led to Prestopino through an anonymous tip. They
- 12:20Speaker 1: believe he murdered the victim inside his home. Homicide detectives
- 12:23Speaker 1: found the body last week in a concrete and wooden
- 12:26Speaker 1: structure in a desert area north of Las Vegas. Police
- 12:29Speaker 1: also arrested Lisa Morts, who they believe knew of the murder.
- 12:33Speaker 1: She's charged with harboring, concealing, and aiding a felony offender.
- 12:36Speaker 1: Esmeralda's next door neighbor can't believe she's gone. She was
- 12:39Speaker 1: very sweet, very nice. She had she had a cute
- 12:42Speaker 1: little toy poodle and she was set out on the
- 12:45Speaker 1: little bench there and she would She's just very pleasant
- 12:49Speaker 1: every time we speak, he confirmed. Esmeralda's addressed through the
- 12:52Speaker 1: Clark County Assessor's website. And this is interesting. It's only
- 12:55Speaker 1: a couple of minutes away from Prestopino's home. I am
- 12:58Speaker 1: just sick. I am sick to my heart. You were
- 13:02Speaker 1: hearing Las Vegas eight News Now reporter that was Orchomanna
- 13:07Speaker 1: speaking this young girl at twenty four years old, es
- 13:13Speaker 1: Moireal de Gonzalez found dead and listened to this in
- 13:18Speaker 1: a wooden and cement encased enclosure out in the middle
- 13:23Speaker 1: of the desert. And now you know, I started off
- 13:26Speaker 1: by saying, Vegas, don't judge a book by its cover
- 13:29Speaker 1: just because there's gambling, and we know that there's strippers,
- 13:32Speaker 1: and there's booze, and there's dope, and there's loan sharks.
- 13:35Speaker 1: And now this, this is exactly what you see in
- 13:40Speaker 1: the movies. It doesn't even sound real. Welcome back by
- 13:44Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. This is crime stories. This case is so disturbing.
- 13:50Speaker 1: She is so helpless, this woman, es Morell de Gonzalez.
- 13:55Speaker 1: She is bipolar, she is schizophrenic. She's wandering around and
- 14:00Speaker 1: heels and lagerie and some wolf in sheep's clothing takes
- 14:07Speaker 1: advantage of her. Take a listen to our friends at
- 14:10Speaker 1: Katie Envy. Prosecutor suspect that a body that was recently
- 14:14Speaker 1: found in the desert is missing woman twenty four year
- 14:17Speaker 1: old as Morelda Gonzalez and her neighbor, Christopher Prestopino is
- 14:21Speaker 1: accused of killing her. Prestopino has now been charged with
- 14:25Speaker 1: kidnapping Gonzalez, holding her against her wealth, then injecting her
- 14:29Speaker 1: with a poisonous substance. And we spoke to Esmeralda's family
- 14:33Speaker 1: when she was first reported missing earlier this year. She
- 14:36Speaker 1: was last Senior Durango and Pebble. Prestopino was in court
- 14:39Speaker 1: this morning and a judge has denied his bail. So
- 14:42Speaker 1: let me understand ley my page. So she like a lamb,
- 14:46Speaker 1: just falls into his lap. He didn't know her before.
- 14:50Speaker 1: She literally comes knocking at his door. So a witness
- 14:54Speaker 1: called police and gave them a tit. They said that
- 14:58Speaker 1: he had convinced her to do drugs, to do meth,
- 15:02Speaker 1: and that she had gotten angry and threatened to report
- 15:06Speaker 1: him to the police for doing these drugs and having
- 15:09Speaker 1: meths inside the home. And then that's what turn things violent.
- 15:14Speaker 1: That he actually tied her up to a bed post,
- 15:17Speaker 1: and that he beat her and strangled her. He thought
- 15:21Speaker 1: that she was dead, but then she woke up, and
- 15:25Speaker 1: then he poisoned her with pool cleaner. Dear lord, and
- 15:28Speaker 1: him and doctor Tim Gallagher. I really don't know where
- 15:30Speaker 1: to start. I don't know whether to start with what
- 15:33Speaker 1: does meth do to a person or what does pool
- 15:35Speaker 1: cleaner injected into your body do to a person? Let's
- 15:38Speaker 1: just start with a meth. Well, mess nancy is the
- 15:41Speaker 1: same as speed. So what it does is it gives
- 15:45Speaker 1: you an altered sense of time and space. It makes
- 15:48Speaker 1: you very confused, and some people who do mess you
- 15:53Speaker 1: have been up for days and days without any sleep
- 15:56Speaker 1: at all, so able to affect you mentally that way.
- 16:00Speaker 1: It's a highly addictive drug and once you gets started,
- 16:03Speaker 1: it's a very tough road to get off of. Okay,
- 16:06Speaker 1: I really don't I never imagine when I was going
- 16:10Speaker 1: through law school that I would put all these words
- 16:12Speaker 1: in one sentence. But doctor Tim Gallagher, Medical Examder, State
- 16:17Speaker 1: of Florida injected with pool cleaner. What is pool cleaner?
- 16:23Speaker 1: And then what happens when that's injected to your body? Well,
- 16:25Speaker 1: there are two types of pool cleaners. There's one that
- 16:28Speaker 1: is chlorine based and there is one that is based
- 16:31Speaker 1: in a chemical called bromide. What that does it it's
- 16:36Speaker 1: a directly poisonous to all of the tissues. So it'll
- 16:40Speaker 1: immediately prevent the lungs from expanding, it'll stop the heart
- 16:45Speaker 1: from beating, and after enough pool cleaner has been injected
- 16:50Speaker 1: into you, your kidneys will also shut down, so you
- 16:53Speaker 1: have multi organ failure and death probably would occur within
- 16:58Speaker 1: minutes after getting the fatal leavi page. Where does home
- 17:01Speaker 1: depot fit into this scenario? So he had actually been spotted.
- 17:05Speaker 1: Christopher press Stupino had actually been spotted at home Depot
- 17:10Speaker 1: and he was paying cash for sixty pound bags of cement,
- 17:14Speaker 1: a fifty pound bag of wine used to mix cement,
- 17:19Speaker 1: boxes of screws, concrete fence blocks, and WD forty silicone lubricant,
- 17:28Speaker 1: and ocean missed air freshener. And he was caught on
- 17:32Speaker 1: video purchasing these things at home depot as she will caught.
- 17:38Speaker 1: Why is it that after a woman goes missing or
- 17:41Speaker 1: is murdered, the man suddenly turns into a neat nick
- 17:46Speaker 1: I'm thinking of Let's just say Scott Peterson, for example,
- 17:50Speaker 1: after his wife goes missing, he feels a compulsion to
- 17:52Speaker 1: do the laundry, and it's equal opportunity. After Travis Alexander
- 17:58Speaker 1: is stabbed twenty eight times, it's shot in the head
- 18:00Speaker 1: and left to decompose, and his shower Jodi Arius decides
- 18:04Speaker 1: to change the sheets on the bed and whoops, puts
- 18:08Speaker 1: her digital camera into the wash, where police later fine
- 18:12Speaker 1: photos of her leg at the crime scene, the murder scene.
- 18:16Speaker 1: Why is that the neat nick compulsion after our murderer Ashley. Well,
- 18:21Speaker 1: fortunately it's a red flag because the other thing I'll
- 18:24Speaker 1: point out about the specific examples that cases Jody Airis
- 18:27Speaker 1: is a good example if you will note in the rerecord,
- 18:30Speaker 1: excuse me, in the photographs of the crime scene or
- 18:33Speaker 1: the photographs of the home, it's only those particular things
- 18:37Speaker 1: that they've cleaned so diligently. The rest of the home
- 18:40Speaker 1: is kind of enshambles. You know, there's stuff everywhere. They're
- 18:43Speaker 1: not neat, they're not organized, they're not clean. So it
- 18:46Speaker 1: is a red flag. Take a listen to our friends
- 18:48Speaker 1: at Loss of Vegas eight. This is Vanessa Murphy Esmeralda Gonzales.
- 18:52Speaker 1: The twenty four year old woman was reported missing on
- 18:55Speaker 1: me thirty first. On October eighth, Metro police detective say
- 18:59Speaker 1: they found her decomposing body in this structure of wood
- 19:03Speaker 1: and concrete in a desert area north of Las Vegas.
- 19:07Speaker 1: Grand jury transcripts describe her body wrapped in blankets along
- 19:12Speaker 1: with rope and straps. Police say they found jewelry belonging
- 19:15Speaker 1: to Gonzales, including her rolex appraised for nearly forty thousand
- 19:20Speaker 1: dollars and a Chanel necklace. The iteam also obtained this photo,
- 19:25Speaker 1: which police say is where it all began, the bedroom
- 19:28Speaker 1: of forty five year old Christopher Prestopino at his Southwest
- 19:32Speaker 1: Valley home. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Grand jury transcripts
- 19:57Speaker 1: describe her body wrapped in blankets along with rope and straps.
- 20:01Speaker 1: Police say they found jewelry belonging to Gonzalez, including her
- 20:05Speaker 1: rolex appraised for nearly forty thousand dollars and a Chanel necklace.
- 20:10Speaker 1: The IT team also obtained this photo, which police say
- 20:14Speaker 1: is where it all began, the bedroom of forty five
- 20:17Speaker 1: year old Christopher Prestopino at his Southwest Valley home. Metro
- 20:22Speaker 1: Police say Gonzales was a sex worker, and Prestopino hired her.
- 20:26Speaker 1: Detectives say he gave her meth. He was not aware
- 20:30Speaker 1: of Gonzalez's mental health issues. He claimed she started acting
- 20:34Speaker 1: bazaar and speaking in the quote devil's tongue unquote. He
- 20:38Speaker 1: tied her to a chair she threatened to call the
- 20:41Speaker 1: cops and punched him, and he strangled her, and then
- 20:44Speaker 1: he and co defendant Cassandra Garrett injected her with pool
- 20:48Speaker 1: cleaner before putting her body in this structure with concrete.
- 20:53Speaker 1: WHOA James Shalnot Metro major case, twenty seven year SWAT
- 20:57Speaker 1: officer now lawyer? How can you not leave clues behind
- 21:01Speaker 1: when you are encasing a dead body and cement and
- 21:06Speaker 1: a wooden structure, and you basically build the whole thing
- 21:09Speaker 1: from your purchases at home Depot, which you know a
- 21:13Speaker 1: NASA could learn something from Home Depot and target. Their
- 21:16Speaker 1: surveillance video is incredible, So he's really building the and
- 21:21Speaker 1: he's not just building a cement structure, he's building a
- 21:24Speaker 1: case against himself with his purchases. But how can you
- 21:27Speaker 1: not leave evidence behind? And how does somebody like this guy,
- 21:31Speaker 1: Christopher Prespino convince someone else a full grown woman and
- 21:35Speaker 1: saying of her right mind Cassandra Garrett to help him.
- 21:40Speaker 1: You know, love is blond and potentially the girlfriend this
- 21:47Speaker 1: lady thought possibly she had some criminal culpability, very likely
- 21:52Speaker 1: did in this situation. But you're right, you know, when
- 21:55Speaker 1: you go somewhere and you commit a crime. Normally, the
- 21:57Speaker 1: saying is you take something with you and you leave
- 21:59Speaker 1: something and behind, And in this case, there was a
- 22:02Speaker 1: footprint of his spending that was left behind as well
- 22:06Speaker 1: as he left behind something very important at the scene
- 22:08Speaker 1: of the crime, and that is I mean, I appreciate
- 22:11Speaker 1: the pregnant pause, but go ahead. Yeah. Well, what he
- 22:14Speaker 1: left behind was when they ducked her body in the desert,
- 22:18Speaker 1: he left behind a set of dollys that went to
- 22:21Speaker 1: a rented U haul truck that he had rented. Leavi Page,
- 22:24Speaker 1: you know, I hate to say this, but I do
- 22:26Speaker 1: ask my husband this all the time. What is wrong
- 22:28Speaker 1: with you? He's now learned to just say everything okay,
- 22:31Speaker 1: because that kind of cuts off the conversation. What can't
- 22:34Speaker 1: you say to that? I'm like, oh, okay, well, Leavi Page,
- 22:37Speaker 1: why didn't you tell me about the dolly he left
- 22:40Speaker 1: behind for Pete's sake? I mean, the guy rents a
- 22:42Speaker 1: U haul. Did he even use his own name and
- 22:44Speaker 1: handed his driver's license? Yes, there were kids that were
- 22:47Speaker 1: also given to the Las Vegas police about how he
- 22:51Speaker 1: had rented a U haul. He had asked someone in
- 22:54Speaker 1: New York to come help him clean up the scene.
- 22:57Speaker 1: There's calls that he made to people asking for help
- 23:01Speaker 1: moving a container, so there is a lot of evidence
- 23:04Speaker 1: against him rolling in, including this rented U all take
- 23:08Speaker 1: a listen to her friends at Vegas eight. The I
- 23:10Speaker 1: team has also learned a friend of Prestopino's testified before
- 23:14Speaker 1: the grand jury. Tricia Oates said he called her to
- 23:17Speaker 1: his home in the middle of the night in June
- 23:19Speaker 1: and acted paranoid, but she claimed she couldn't hear him
- 23:22Speaker 1: well when he described what happened because he was blasting
- 23:26Speaker 1: the TV and then music. She described at least two
- 23:30Speaker 1: stops behind a business where she said Prestopino disposed of
- 23:33Speaker 1: a freezer, and then behind the Paris where she said
- 23:37Speaker 1: he tried to get a forklift but did not. She said,
- 23:40Speaker 1: you're supposed to have clearance to be in that area,
- 23:43Speaker 1: but somehow they were able to enter in a U
- 23:46Speaker 1: haul without clearance. Ots said Prestopino scared her and she left. Gonzalez,
- 23:52Speaker 1: who had more than three hundred thousand Instagram followers, listed
- 23:56Speaker 1: herself as a college grad, real estate investor, and model okay,
- 24:00Speaker 1: also stripper. I've just got to be transparent about this,
- 24:03Speaker 1: wasn't she a stripper at some point leave by page. Yes,
- 24:06Speaker 1: and she had worked in the adult entertainment industry. I mean,
- 24:09Speaker 1: this is a beautiful young woman with three hundred thousand
- 24:12Speaker 1: Instagram followers. She's really gorgeous, and you know, speaking of
- 24:19Speaker 1: her having been a stripper in the past, Ashley Wilcott,
- 24:23Speaker 1: you know what, would anybody on this panel, including you
- 24:26Speaker 1: or me, or you too, Jackie Howard, would anybody want
- 24:29Speaker 1: the worst thing you've ever done on the Nancy Gray
- 24:33Speaker 1: Show or on the front page of the New York Post,
- 24:36Speaker 1: Because I wouldn't. So you know, before we all rush
- 24:40Speaker 1: to judge or ever having been a stripper, you know,
- 24:43Speaker 1: I'm not going to be the first one to want
- 24:44Speaker 1: to throw a stone at her. I mean, no one
- 24:46Speaker 1: deserves the ending that this woman got. Ashley, Well, that's it.
- 24:50Speaker 1: You take the victim as you find them, and what
- 24:53Speaker 1: that means is warts and all. It doesn't matter what
- 24:56Speaker 1: you think about the type of person they are, what
- 24:59Speaker 1: they do for a Having put all of that aside,
- 25:01Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with the fact that no
- 25:04Speaker 1: person should ever, ever, ever go through what she went through.
- 25:09Speaker 1: No person should be murdered in the way that she
- 25:12Speaker 1: was murdered. I mean, doctor Tim Gallagher, medical examiner, State
- 25:16Speaker 1: of Florida, what do you First of all, she was
- 25:19Speaker 1: beaten horribly. Then she was injected with pool cleaner, doctor Gallagher.
- 25:25Speaker 1: What would that do to a person to be injected
- 25:28Speaker 1: with pool cleaner? Actually very little once she start doing
- 25:32Speaker 1: the autopsy, as far as would it degrade any of
- 25:36Speaker 1: the organs into hey hey, hey, hey hey, doctor Gallagher,
- 25:40Speaker 1: you got to get out of your head just a moment.
- 25:42Speaker 1: I mean, a live victim, what they would suffer. I
- 25:46Speaker 1: guess it's like being injected with bleach. I mean what
- 25:48Speaker 1: she went through. Oh, it's absolutely painful as well. I
- 25:52Speaker 1: mean it does affect the does attack the nervous system,
- 25:55Speaker 1: and it gives you excruciating pain until of course you're
- 26:00Speaker 1: lung stop breathing and your heart stops. But it's absolute
- 26:04Speaker 1: painful and despicable way to go. We also know that,
- 26:09Speaker 1: according to reports, she was tied up for a long time,
- 26:14Speaker 1: and I can just how would a medical examiner know
- 26:17Speaker 1: that by looking at her body. Well, you can look
- 26:19Speaker 1: at the risk and you could look at the ankles
- 26:21Speaker 1: and see the impression that the ligature has made around them. Also,
- 26:26Speaker 1: we don't know what she was tied up with do
- 26:28Speaker 1: we Sometimes a residue is left behind if they use
- 26:31Speaker 1: duct tape or certain types of wire will eve an
- 26:37Speaker 1: impression behind. Even if you look around the neck area,
- 26:40Speaker 1: you'll see the same thing. Ligature marks around the neck,
- 26:45Speaker 1: So those stay with you after you die and can
- 26:48Speaker 1: be easily identified during the autopsy process. Take a listen
- 26:51Speaker 1: to our friends at News three in Vegas. It's Max Darrow,
- 26:55Speaker 1: as we're learning more about the alleged crime back in
- 26:58Speaker 1: May as Maeralda Gonzalez disappeared. Now several months later, detectives
- 27:01Speaker 1: believe they've found the twenty four year old's body and
- 27:04Speaker 1: the people responsible for killing her. Metro police took forty
- 27:07Speaker 1: five year old Christopher Prestopino into custody on October eleventh.
- 27:10Speaker 1: Police in Wisconsin took thirty nine year old Cassandra Bascones
- 27:14Speaker 1: under the last name Win, into custody on the eighteenth.
- 27:17Speaker 1: According to this arrest report, an anonymous tip came in
- 27:20Speaker 1: about two months after Gonzalez vanished, stating that press Patino
- 27:23Speaker 1: and a woman named Cassandra had held a woman against
- 27:26Speaker 1: her will, killed her by injecting her with pool cleaner,
- 27:29Speaker 1: and later dumped her body in the desert. As the
- 27:32Speaker 1: investigation unfolded, the detectives interviewed a woman who said Prestopino
- 27:35Speaker 1: called her over for help one morning. The report reveals
- 27:38Speaker 1: Prestopino told vat woman he got an unknown woman high
- 27:41Speaker 1: on meth and after a confrontation, he strangled the girl
- 27:45Speaker 1: and thought she was dead, but she woke up. The
- 27:47Speaker 1: woman continued to tell detectives Prestopino had a cement mixer
- 27:50Speaker 1: and freezer inside of a U haul truck and a
- 27:53Speaker 1: wooden and concrete structure in his garage. In the report,
- 27:56Speaker 1: the woman admitst she left with Prestopino in the U haul,
- 27:59Speaker 1: he got rid of the freezer and when she asked
- 28:01Speaker 1: him about it, he stated if anyone had gotten inside,
- 28:04Speaker 1: it would be all bad. Detectives were able to confirm
- 28:07Speaker 1: that in June, Prestopino purchased five sixty pound bags of
- 28:10Speaker 1: concrete mix, among other supplies, at a home depot. Then
- 28:13Speaker 1: on October eighth, police located a body who they believed
- 28:16Speaker 1: to be gonzalez Is in a concrete and wooden structure
- 28:19Speaker 1: in a desert area north of Las Vegas. Police also
- 28:22Speaker 1: took Prestopino as a girlfriend, Lisa Morts into custody, they
- 28:25Speaker 1: say for harboring, hiding, and helping a felony offender. Crime
- 28:42Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace. I don't understand the thinking behind
- 28:49Speaker 1: the two women charged to Levi Page Crime online dot
- 28:52Speaker 1: Com investigative reporter Cassandra Garrett thirty nine, Lisa thirty one.
- 28:57Speaker 1: How are they tangled up with this free Christopher A.
- 29:01Speaker 1: Prestopino So Cassandra Garrett actually was his roommate and Lisa Moore,
- 29:06Speaker 1: thirty one years old was his girlfriend. Lisa Mort is
- 29:10Speaker 1: accused of aiding him after the fact, helping him hide
- 29:14Speaker 1: from authorities. Apparently, once he found out that authorities were
- 29:19Speaker 1: onto him Nancy, he high teled it to police and
- 29:22Speaker 1: then when he had returned October eleventh, that's when they
- 29:25Speaker 1: arrested him. And she is accused of helping him evade
- 29:30Speaker 1: law enforcement and Garrett. Cassandra Garrett knew what had happened
- 29:36Speaker 1: all along, and she was talking to people. She was
- 29:40Speaker 1: talking to her friends. Her friends actually called law enforcement
- 29:43Speaker 1: and gave a tip and they said Cassandra was talking
- 29:46Speaker 1: to me. She said that she recognized that young woman
- 29:50Speaker 1: that was missing and that she may have died in
- 29:52Speaker 1: a sex fetish game gone wrong, but she didn't tell
- 29:57Speaker 1: law enforcement that when they first interviewed her, so that's
- 30:00Speaker 1: how she got mixed up in this stuff. She was
- 30:02Speaker 1: also helping him evade law enforcement. It's just outrageous. I
- 30:07Speaker 1: can't believe two grow women in the right mind we
- 30:09Speaker 1: get involved with Christopher Prestopino when they know that he
- 30:14Speaker 1: is involved with the brutal torture and murder of this
- 30:18Speaker 1: young girl, Esmeralda Gonzalez, aged twenty four, and apparently he
- 30:23Speaker 1: leaves a trail a mile wide, including smiling into the
- 30:28Speaker 1: camera at home depot when he buys bags and bags
- 30:31Speaker 1: and bags of cement. Take a listen to our friend
- 30:34Speaker 1: at eight News. Now, this is Biancaholman. Forty five year
- 30:37Speaker 1: old Christopher Prestopino was back inside a Las Vegas courtroom Tuesday,
- 30:42Speaker 1: where a judge set his bail at five hundred thousand dollars. Prestopino,
- 30:46Speaker 1: along with two accomplices, is accused of injecting twenty six
- 30:51Speaker 1: year old es Morella Gonzalez with some sort of poisonous
- 30:54Speaker 1: substance and casing her body in concrete and then dumping
- 30:58Speaker 1: her in the desert, where police discovered remains. Earlier this month,
- 31:02Speaker 1: the corner still has not confirmed the body is as Maeralda.
- 31:06Speaker 1: The young model was reported missing from her home in May.
- 31:09Speaker 1: She actually lived in a neighborhood near Prestopino. Previously, a
- 31:13Speaker 1: judge denied Prestopino bail over concerns that he's a flight risk.
- 31:17Speaker 1: You may recall that when police arrested him on October eleventh,
- 31:21Speaker 1: they took him into custody at the airport after he
- 31:24Speaker 1: returned from a trip to Belize. If he is able
- 31:26Speaker 1: to post bond, he would have to surrender his passport
- 31:29Speaker 1: and he could qualify for house arrest. Surrender his passport
- 31:33Speaker 1: and qualify for a house arrest. Are you kidding me?
- 31:37Speaker 1: I mean he leaves a trail a mile y that
- 31:41Speaker 1: he has murdered this girl. Then he takes off to Belize.
- 31:45Speaker 1: But first to dodger Tim Gallagher, why can't they identify
- 31:49Speaker 1: her body? I don't understand that. Can't they use dental
- 31:53Speaker 1: X rays? Well more than likely, you know, they're about
- 31:55Speaker 1: ninety nine point nine percent sure that it is her.
- 31:59Speaker 1: But without scientifically without a scientifically based identification such as
- 32:04Speaker 1: dental records or DNA, the medical examiner won't release her
- 32:10Speaker 1: identity as Okay, so they you're telling me they likely
- 32:15Speaker 1: know it's her, but they've got to scientifically prove it
- 32:19Speaker 1: beyond a shadow of a doubt before they release it. Okay,
- 32:22Speaker 1: that makes sense, as she will call, I don't get
- 32:25Speaker 1: it why these women were going along with Christopher Prestipino.
- 32:28Speaker 1: Maybe they were afraid of him. What do you think?
- 32:31Speaker 1: Fear is absolutely a motivating factor to go along with someone,
- 32:35Speaker 1: But we also have to remember predators. We talk about
- 32:38Speaker 1: this a lot on your show. Predators have personality qualities
- 32:43Speaker 1: that cause them to groom, that caused them to act
- 32:47Speaker 1: in a way that they manipulate. They seek victims often
- 32:51Speaker 1: who are are not able to necessarily fight back or
- 32:56Speaker 1: be strong enough or susceptible to the fear. So they
- 33:00Speaker 1: use all of these methods to get people that they
- 33:04Speaker 1: can then victimize. Question to you, James Shellnutt, twenty seven
- 33:09Speaker 1: years Metro major case swat officer, now lawyer. Do you
- 33:14Speaker 1: believe the accused Christopher Prestopino planned to murder her from
- 33:19Speaker 1: the moment she stumbled into his home or do you
- 33:22Speaker 1: buy into the sex game gone wrong? I think it
- 33:28Speaker 1: was a sex game gone wrong. No, I don't. There's
- 33:31Speaker 1: no indication otherwise. Okay, so you think injecting somebody with
- 33:35Speaker 1: pool cleaner as part of a sex game, gone right? No,
- 33:39Speaker 1: I don't think that that's it. I think that initially,
- 33:42Speaker 1: you know, she was probably or possibly over there voluntarily.
- 33:46Speaker 1: But do I think that possibly some drugs clouded judgment
- 33:51Speaker 1: and created the type of situation that became fatal to her. Yes, possibly,
- 33:56Speaker 1: not justifying what the guy did. I'd love to be
- 33:58Speaker 1: the one to put the fair handcuffs on him, but
- 34:00Speaker 1: I'm not so sure that this is something that was
- 34:03Speaker 1: that was meditated on and planned out before she got there. Well,
- 34:07Speaker 1: let me just remind everybody that premeditation can be formed
- 34:11Speaker 1: in the blink of an eye, from the time it
- 34:14Speaker 1: takes you to raise a gun and pull the trigger.
- 34:17Speaker 1: Premeditation does not require a long thought out plan, such
- 34:20Speaker 1: as murdering someone by poisoning over a period of weeks
- 34:24Speaker 1: and months, or some scheme like murder for hire or
- 34:28Speaker 1: hit man. Premeditation under the law intend to kill can
- 34:32Speaker 1: be formed almost immediately, So whether you plan it for
- 34:36Speaker 1: a week, a month, or a minute doesn't matter under
- 34:41Speaker 1: the law. And I really do not see Ashley Wilcot
- 34:45Speaker 1: how this is a sex game gone wrong. In my mind,
- 34:48Speaker 1: that's a way to slur the victim. I don't think
- 34:51Speaker 1: you end up shooting somebody up with pool cleaner as
- 34:54Speaker 1: part of a sex game. Sorry, shell Night, I don't
- 34:58Speaker 1: know what kind of sex games you're playing, James shell
- 35:01Speaker 1: nutt with your partners slash partners. But pool cleaner injections,
- 35:05Speaker 1: I hope are not one of them. Okay, cut his
- 35:08Speaker 1: mic before he can. If I can clarify for just right,
- 35:14Speaker 1: clean up your mass, shell Nut clean it up. Yeah,
- 35:17Speaker 1: I'm not indicating that there's not preedo meditation for the
- 35:20Speaker 1: charge of murder. I guess the point I was trying
- 35:23Speaker 1: to make, and probably didn't do a good job at it,
- 35:26Speaker 1: is that I'm not so sure that when she went
- 35:28Speaker 1: there that that was the intent. That you know, he
- 35:31Speaker 1: invited her over to murder her. She did not get
- 35:35Speaker 1: invited over. Everyone agrees. She couldn't even walk straight. She's schizophrenic,
- 35:40Speaker 1: she's bipolar. She stumbles to a home she's seen before,
- 35:44Speaker 1: and bam, this happens. You think what he invited her
- 35:48Speaker 1: over for the candle light dinner? When you quit saying
- 35:51Speaker 1: she'd been over there before, she'd been over there before,
- 35:53Speaker 1: and I'm talking about her state of mind, talking about
- 35:55Speaker 1: his state of mind. She stumbles in in Lagree and
- 35:58Speaker 1: high hills and bam, she's injected with pool. Agree. I agree,
- 36:02Speaker 1: there's a great murder case there. If there's a murder
- 36:05Speaker 1: charge there, that's the appropriate charge. You know what you
- 36:08Speaker 1: remind me of And I hadn't thought about this in
- 36:10Speaker 1: a long time, James Shelna As you know, my dad,
- 36:13Speaker 1: Mac Walter Malcolm Grace Singer, was a freight agent for
- 36:18Speaker 1: the railroad. Okay, my mom at the time was a
- 36:20Speaker 1: bank teller. She rose up to be a CFO of
- 36:23Speaker 1: the company, but at the time she was a bank
- 36:25Speaker 1: teller and they were broke with three children. So what
- 36:27Speaker 1: did my dad do. Go into the pig business with
- 36:30Speaker 1: my uncle, my mom's brother. So every day when he
- 36:33Speaker 1: would get home from work, he could go out and
- 36:36Speaker 1: start chasing pigs out in the field. You know, they're
- 36:40Speaker 1: really hard to catch. That's what it's like trying to
- 36:43Speaker 1: pin you down on an answer. Now, Judge, ashe will Cott,
- 36:47Speaker 1: please explain, this is not some sex game gone wrong.
- 36:51Speaker 1: Why do men always say it's a sex game gone wrong?
- 36:55Speaker 1: And that's the you know, always, they always, always, he
- 37:00Speaker 1: planned this injection with pool cleaner is not part of
- 37:03Speaker 1: a game gone wrong. I agree, you know, I think
- 37:06Speaker 1: he planned it. It It is premeditated, like you said, the
- 37:08Speaker 1: blink of an eye. The worst part of this. It
- 37:10Speaker 1: was a crime of opportunity. It was not someone he
- 37:12Speaker 1: knew before. We've already established that she wandered up to
- 37:15Speaker 1: the door, she had all these issues. Again, most people
- 37:18Speaker 1: would either call an ambulance, call the police, do something
- 37:21Speaker 1: to assist her. Rather, he took the opportunity of this
- 37:25Speaker 1: victim as he found him at the door, to plan
- 37:28Speaker 1: and execute a murder. He may have been forcing her
- 37:33Speaker 1: into some type of in his minus sex game. I
- 37:36Speaker 1: call it rape, but it's my belief, Leavi Pace. She
- 37:40Speaker 1: threatened to go to police, and that's when he injected
- 37:43Speaker 1: her with pool cleaner. Levi, You're absolutely correct, Nancy, And
- 37:47Speaker 1: where this sex game talk comes from is from Cassandra Garrett,
- 37:52Speaker 1: the roommate. However, the district attorney that's prosecuting this case,
- 37:58Speaker 1: Pamela Weckerley, said an open court that she does not
- 38:02Speaker 1: believe that she had a relationship with Prespotino before she
- 38:06Speaker 1: got to his house, that she stumbled onto his property
- 38:11Speaker 1: and that he took advantage of that. This sex game
- 38:13Speaker 1: stuff is just coming from one of his co defendant.
- 38:16Speaker 1: Another issue, Prestopino's girlfriend Lisa Moore and roommate Cassandra Garrett
- 38:22Speaker 1: also charged. What do you think is going to happen, Ashley,
- 38:28Speaker 1: judge and trial lawyer? You think they'll cut a deal
- 38:31Speaker 1: and testify a trial, because I do too, absolutely, because
- 38:34Speaker 1: there's an incentive to do that. There's no reason not
- 38:37Speaker 1: to testify against him, especially if it's going to be
- 38:39Speaker 1: advantageous and they're going to get a better deal. Well,
- 38:42Speaker 1: I would like to see them all go to trial
- 38:45Speaker 1: and stew in the same pot together. And the only
- 38:48Speaker 1: way the state could do that under the law is
- 38:50Speaker 1: to not allow any of their statements in where they
- 38:54Speaker 1: incriminate each other. Why, because of the sixth Amendment rights confrontation,
- 38:59Speaker 1: you have a right cross examine your witness the witness
- 39:02Speaker 1: against you. So let's just say you try all three
- 39:05Speaker 1: together and Lisa Mort jumps up in. Lisa Mort has
- 39:08Speaker 1: given a statement where she blames Prescipino. Well, if she
- 39:12Speaker 1: doesn't take the stand under the fifth Prestipino cannot cross
- 39:16Speaker 1: examine her. So The answer to that is either several
- 39:19Speaker 1: of the cases and try them separately and bring in
- 39:22Speaker 1: their statements, or try them all together at once and
- 39:26Speaker 1: leave out their statements. I advise try them each one
- 39:30Speaker 1: separately and let the chips fall where they may. Let
- 39:32Speaker 1: them all get murder one. They will have plenty of
- 39:35Speaker 1: time to think about this behind bars, and maybe they'll
- 39:39Speaker 1: get a chance to clean a pool every once in
- 39:41Speaker 1: a while. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace Crime Story,
- 39:46Speaker 1: signing off, goodbye friend,