Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / LITTLE GIRL SKELETON IN ATTIC FALLS THRU CEILING

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LITTLE GIRL SKELETON IN ATTIC FALLS THRU CEILING · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How do loving parents who
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Speaker 1: care so much about their children that they decide to
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Speaker 1: even homeschool them end up in a story titled The
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Speaker 1: Girl in the Wall Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Neighbor's
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Speaker 1: family has lived by the Layered Us for about a decade.
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Speaker 1: She says. The couple has four kids, three girls and
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Speaker 1: one boy, but it's been years since they've seen them.
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Speaker 1: We would hear them every now and then in the backyard,
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Speaker 1: sometimes on the pool. Claudia told us those four kids
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Speaker 1: were adopted, so I remember the little ones say, hey,
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Speaker 1: you know now we have mama and Pappa. Were off together,
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Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, and they were happy because they didn't
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Speaker 1: have to be a part. Kielgia says about four to
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Speaker 1: five years ago she briefly car pulled with Alloyed Us
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Speaker 1: and would take the three oldest kids to a local
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Speaker 1: elementary school. We would drop off two girls and then
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Speaker 1: maybe like a week later, a young boy he started kindergarten.
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Speaker 1: I remember because he was really small, and all of
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Speaker 1: a sudden they told us they were going to be
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Speaker 1: homeschooled and we haven't seen them ever since. Well, right there,
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Speaker 1: that's a red flag to me that you never see
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Speaker 1: your neighbor's children. I mean, if you can't see them,
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Speaker 1: you can at least hear them playing in the backyard,
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Speaker 1: playing basketball, running through the water sprinkler. But nothing. Time passes,
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Speaker 1: and ever sister children began being homeschooled. The neighbors saw
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Speaker 1: her and knew nothing. With me and all star panel
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Speaker 1: to make sense of what we know to be true
1:51
Speaker 1: first of all, Joining us from child Help dot Org.
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Speaker 1: Daphne Young, She's a national Chief Communication Officer of Child Help.
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Speaker 1: Melissa Hotmeyer, the Chief of the Special Victims and Family
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Speaker 1: Violence Unit and Prince George County and you can find
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Speaker 1: her and her No Grayson podcast and Rite Response Consulting.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Bethany Marshall, Psychoanalyst to the Stars, Joining us out
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Speaker 1: of La and she's the star of a brand new
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Speaker 1: series on Netflix, Bling Empire. Dan Scott with Me, former
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Speaker 1: La County Sheriffs Sergeant twenty six years with a Special
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Speaker 1: Victims Bureau specializing in child abuse. Doctor Michelle Dupree, forensic pathologists,
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Speaker 1: former medical examiner and author not only of Homicide Investigation
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Speaker 1: Field Guide, but Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide to boot.
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Speaker 1: She is a former police detective. But first two special
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Speaker 1: guests joining us. Mary Joe Pitzel, the senior reporter with
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Speaker 1: the Arizona Republic and her expertise is covering child well
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Speaker 1: being at risk children and you can find her at
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Speaker 1: azcentral dot com. You know, Mary Joe Pitzel. I have
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Speaker 1: a very dear cousin that home schools, and I thought
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Speaker 1: the whole idea was just wacky because I grew up
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Speaker 1: in public schools and it socializes you. You get this
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Speaker 1: great education, and I couldn't understand why would she want
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Speaker 1: to home school? And I looked at their curriculum. It
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Speaker 1: was incredible. And when I visit to them, the children
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Speaker 1: were so articulate and really brainiacts and very well adjusted.
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Speaker 1: It takes a lot of time and energy to home school.
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Speaker 1: I mean, Mary Joe, it's not like me when the
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Speaker 1: children asked me a math problem, I have to go
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Speaker 1: hide in the closet and look it up on Google
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Speaker 1: and then walk out. Like I knew that. That gets exhausting.
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Speaker 1: Homeschooling is no easy task. But these parents seemingly love
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Speaker 1: their children so much they took them all out of
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Speaker 1: school to home school. How did they end up in
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Speaker 1: this home to start with Mary. The children were in
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Speaker 1: the Arizona foster care system, and the Mirabelle and Raphael
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Speaker 1: Lorera were foster parents, and they took in these children,
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Speaker 1: you know, at different at different stages as they moved
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Speaker 1: through the system and then came to adopt them. We
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Speaker 1: really don't know a lot about their life or their
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Speaker 1: motivations for fostering and for adopting, much less to motivation
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Speaker 1: for homeschooling. So how many and all did they adopt?
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Speaker 1: How many children were living in the home? Mary Joe? Four?
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Speaker 1: Four children living in the home? Guys, take a listen
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Speaker 1: to our friend Claudia Rupchick at ABC fifteen. Police say
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Speaker 1: on January twentieth, they got a call from an eleven
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Speaker 1: year old who was alone in the house. Officers discovered
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Speaker 1: evidence of child abuse, and the Arizona Department of Child
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Speaker 1: Cety removed that child. A dcspokesperson tells ABC fifteen they
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Speaker 1: learned of additional children, and after getting authorization from the court,
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Speaker 1: they went back to the house Tuesday to remove to
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Speaker 1: other kids, a nine and a four year old. About
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Speaker 1: an hour later, firefighters responded to a fire at that
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Speaker 1: theme home. First of all, to Daphne Young the national
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Speaker 1: Chief Communications Officer with Child Help. If you've never been
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Speaker 1: to childhelp dot org, please visit childhelp dot org. It
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Speaker 1: really has changed so much of what we know about
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Speaker 1: helping abused children. Daphne. First of all, you know, I
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Speaker 1: can hear our neighbors children all the time. I can
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Speaker 1: hear our other neighbors grandchildren, and I don't see them,
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Speaker 1: but I can hear them playing. And I find it
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Speaker 1: really odd that nobody can hear or see these children
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Speaker 1: for three or four years. Passing to me, that's a
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Speaker 1: big red flag. And yet when you see that this
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Speaker 1: child finally makes this call after two days of being hungry,
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Speaker 1: a starving little girl picks up the phone and makes
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Speaker 1: the call. What we know a lot about abused children
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Speaker 1: is that they keep quiet. They stay silent. These abusers
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Speaker 1: lord over the house like jailers, and they know if
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Speaker 1: they reach out to another child, if they interact with neighbors,
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Speaker 1: if they go to school in certain instances, that they'll
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Speaker 1: be found out. And so once a crime is committed
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Speaker 1: or abuse is rampant, they make sure to lock down
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Speaker 1: that house and keep it quiet. Melissa Hotmeyer with me,
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Speaker 1: Chief the Special Victims of Family Violence Unit, Prince George County, Melissa.
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Speaker 1: I was at the District Attorney's office doing various siments
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Speaker 1: for a while before I got a child abuse case,
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Speaker 1: and it was horrible. A millionaire in Atlanta. He owned all,
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Speaker 1: practically all the horse and livery trade, you know, like
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Speaker 1: those horse drawn carriages that take people on tours, limos
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Speaker 1: from the airport, that kind of thing. And his live
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Speaker 1: in had three girls, a teen girl that chose to
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Speaker 1: move out of the home and live on her own,
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Speaker 1: a five year old girl and three year old girl.
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Speaker 1: The three and five year old had been molested, full
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Speaker 1: blown sex with the rich boyfriend, full blown with a
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Speaker 1: three year old and a five year old girl. I
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Speaker 1: got to looking, Melissa Hotmeyer into this guy's history. He
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Speaker 1: had I think it was thirty five natural children that
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Speaker 1: he had fathered with all these different women, and his
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Speaker 1: molestation went all the way back too, I guess the
8:02
Speaker 1: late seventies. I found one of his oldest daughters living
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Speaker 1: in a flop house smelling like gin and cigarettes. She
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Speaker 1: went to school with a black eye and a busted lip,
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Speaker 1: and the school detectives tried to find out what happened,
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Speaker 1: but they couldn't. That's the first that I knew of
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Speaker 1: him molesting his children. So you know, what Daphne Young
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Speaker 1: is saying is true. If the children aren't going to
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Speaker 1: school or church or synagogue or mosque, whatever, if they're
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Speaker 1: not dealing with neighbors and other children, nobody knows what's happening. Melissa, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we'll try. I mean, that is our social safety net.
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Speaker 1: I know you've talked about it on other other shows.
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Speaker 1: We need that social safety net. We need the people
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Speaker 1: to say something, to see something. And if they're keeping
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Speaker 1: those kids at home, you know, we don't have that
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Speaker 1: safety net. We don't have anybody going into the home
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Speaker 1: and checking on the kids. And that's really when a
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Speaker 1: horrific abuse can happen. Well, well see, you remember your
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Speaker 1: first child abuse case. I do something you never get over. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: you never get over. I never got over any of them.
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Speaker 1: Children beaten. One child and a vegetative state, a coma
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Speaker 1: for the rest of her life. She's three, and I
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Speaker 1: remember one of the few times I teared up in
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Speaker 1: open court. I found out not only was she in
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Speaker 1: a vegetative state, this three year old, but she had
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Speaker 1: also been raped a three year old. Yeah, you never
9:35
Speaker 1: get past those crime stories. With Nancy Grace. Guys were
9:54
Speaker 1: talking about the so called girl in the wall. What
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Speaker 1: in the head does that mean? Well, don't put the
10:02
Speaker 1: cart before the horse. To Mary J. Pitzel joining a
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Speaker 1: senior reporter or Arizona Republic, Mary Joe, we heard Daphne
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Speaker 1: Young mentioned why the eleven year old little girl had
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Speaker 1: to call nine one one, And let me tell you something.
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Speaker 1: As you well know, Mary Joe, this is your expertise.
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Speaker 1: That's a tip of the iceberg. But why did the
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Speaker 1: eleven year old girl call police? She had been home
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Speaker 1: alone for two days. Her parents weren't there, her siblings
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Speaker 1: weren't there. I think her mom and two of the
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Speaker 1: children had gone out of state. Lord knows where dad was.
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Speaker 1: We haven't learned anything about that yet. She was alone
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Speaker 1: and hungry and scared, and she did what a lot
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Speaker 1: of kids know from watching TV and maybe from being
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Speaker 1: instructed by their parents. But she called nine one one,
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Speaker 1: and it really was the tip of the iceberg. How
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Speaker 1: many other children were in the home when she called
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Speaker 1: nine one one? None? So she was left all alone? Yes,
11:03
Speaker 1: you know? To you doctor Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, Doctor Bethany Marshall,
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Speaker 1: Dot com doctor Bethanie. Do you remember when I was
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Speaker 1: trying to have children and got pregnant with the twins? Yes?
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Speaker 1: I do. You know what people go through, including me,
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Speaker 1: to have children. And why would you even want children
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Speaker 1: if you're going to trade them like that, doctor Bethny.
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Speaker 1: Because having power over a child, or using a child
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Speaker 1: for some other gain other than nurturing and providing for
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Speaker 1: and being there for the child, is ascendant in the
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Speaker 1: parent's mind. You know, we imagine because we all love children.
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Speaker 1: I can't. I can't even watch a child walk down
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Speaker 1: the street with their parents without staring. There's such beautiful
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Speaker 1: little creatures. But you know, not all adults love children.
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Speaker 1: Some adults are either not bonded, they're detached, they hate
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Speaker 1: the child they resent. Okay, you know, doctor Bethany, I
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Speaker 1: typically agree with everything you say. But not bonded, my
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Speaker 1: rear end they're starving this child. That's a heck of
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Speaker 1: a lot more than not bonded. I want to circle
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Speaker 1: back in just a moment so I can continue my
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Speaker 1: argument with you, but I want you to take a
12:21
Speaker 1: listen to our friend Bianco Bono kp in X. Twelve
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Speaker 1: minutes after DCS left the Layira's home near fifty ninth
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Speaker 1: Avenue and Camelback going up in flames in a fire.
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Speaker 1: Authorities say they intentionally set Firefighters then finding charismas skeleton
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Speaker 1: in the attic. Detectives now say the Layerra's murdered her
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Speaker 1: based on the way that the body was found and
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Speaker 1: some of the evidence that was collected. Abuses believed to happen.
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Speaker 1: They are very strong. Priscilla feels cheated that she never
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Speaker 1: got the chance to reconnect with Charisma, looking forward to
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Speaker 1: getting justice for her daughter. I want them to suffer
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Speaker 1: what they're thought their thoughts, to torture them like what
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Speaker 1: they did to my children. And police are not elaborating
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Speaker 1: on exactly what happened to Charisma. Okay, let me understand
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Speaker 1: Mary J. Pittsel. Police get called out when the eleven
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Speaker 1: year old little girl calls all alone, nothing to eat
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Speaker 1: for at least two days. We know at one time
13:19
Speaker 1: there were brothers and sisters. So shortly after police leave
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Speaker 1: that scene, the fire goes up in flames. How does
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Speaker 1: that translate to finding a little girl a body in
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Speaker 1: the attic in the wall. There is one more step
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Speaker 1: in between their nancy. After they removed the eleven year old.
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Speaker 1: They came back to that they found out that, yeah,
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Speaker 1: she's got She says she had two siblings, a brother
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Speaker 1: and a sister, but they were out of town. So
13:52
Speaker 1: investigators go back a day or two later, everybody's home,
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Speaker 1: and they removed the other two children out of concerned
14:00
Speaker 1: that they've been neglected. After those two kids are removed
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Speaker 1: and within about a half hour, amazingly, the house um
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Speaker 1: the house fire and and an alarm goes out, and
14:11
Speaker 1: fire officials show up to fight the fire. And while
14:16
Speaker 1: they're doing that, they um, you know, common tactics. They
14:22
Speaker 1: punched a hole up into the ceiling and I think
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Speaker 1: it was a washroom and okay, white remains came down.
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Speaker 1: I don't drink it from the fire hydrant right here. Okay,
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Speaker 1: let me understand what you just told me. Okay, And guys,
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Speaker 1: this is what you hear. If you hear, prosecutors try
14:43
Speaker 1: and correct me if I'm wrong. Melissa Hotmeyer trying to
14:46
Speaker 1: get a handle on their case. It always happened to
14:49
Speaker 1: me at the medical Examiner's office. No offense, doctor dupree,
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Speaker 1: But they talk in medical trumps and I would have
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Speaker 1: to go, wait, what what what? What does that mean,
14:58
Speaker 1: so when I stand up in front of a jury,
15:00
Speaker 1: I can explain it because I understand it. So, Mary Joe,
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Speaker 1: you're saying, they go to the home with the eleven
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Speaker 1: year old starving, they take her. Then from her, they
15:12
Speaker 1: find out there are other brothers and sisters. They go
15:15
Speaker 1: back to the home a few days later, the family's home.
15:20
Speaker 1: They take those two children out because eleven year old
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Speaker 1: has been starved and left alone, so CPS Chop Potato
15:29
Speaker 1: Services takes them out. Shortly after that, the house goes
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Speaker 1: up in flames. Now, this is a part I want
15:37
Speaker 1: you to repeat. I've done a lot of arsons, and
15:41
Speaker 1: one of the things they do is break through the wall.
15:44
Speaker 1: Sometimes it changes the air flow. There's a lot of
15:49
Speaker 1: reasons they do it. So what did they do, Mary Joe?
15:53
Speaker 1: Firefighters come in. They're trying to put out the fire
15:57
Speaker 1: before the whole house gets consumed, and they punch holes
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Speaker 1: in ceilings and walls, as you said, to let air
16:04
Speaker 1: flow to try to control the fire. And that's when
16:07
Speaker 1: they find another alarming discovery, which is skeletal remains have
16:14
Speaker 1: tumbled down. Some are still up in the attic, some
16:17
Speaker 1: have come down when they knocked out the ceiling fallen
16:20
Speaker 1: onto the floor found in the drywall. Later, some skeletal
16:27
Speaker 1: remains were found in the family's backyard, and that's I'm
16:32
Speaker 1: unclear on how that happened. That might be when investigators
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Speaker 1: fiery investigators were removing things from the home and trying
16:40
Speaker 1: to literally piece together what they had found of these
16:45
Speaker 1: skeletal remains, which appeared to be of a young girl.
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Speaker 1: So this little girl skeleton was behind drywall in the
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Speaker 1: attic and no one knew straight out to doctor Michel Dupre,
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Speaker 1: forensic pathologists form a medical examiner, how do you determine,
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Speaker 1: based on examining the skeletal remains, how long the child
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Speaker 1: had been dead? Nancy, We can estimate that from the
17:15
Speaker 1: actual condition that the remains are in and the condition
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Speaker 1: where they were found. Heat, of course, speeds up decomposition,
17:22
Speaker 1: so we take those things into consideration when we examine
17:26
Speaker 1: the remains of skeleton. So I'm sure she was totally skeletonized.
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Speaker 1: In other words, there was no flesh or tissue on her.
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Speaker 1: If so, doctor Michelle dupris, how could they just look
17:42
Speaker 1: at skeletal remains, assuming there were no clothes, and determined
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Speaker 1: it was a girl? Nancy females and males have a
17:49
Speaker 1: different skeletal structure. For example, we can look at the head.
17:53
Speaker 1: We also look at the jaw line, and we also
17:55
Speaker 1: look at the pelvis. Pelvis areas typically give us an
18:00
Speaker 1: indication whether it's male or female in what way? Um, Well,
18:04
Speaker 1: female skeletons are more heart shaped, and that's so that
18:08
Speaker 1: they can have babies and passed through the birth canal.
18:11
Speaker 1: Male skeletons are shaped much differently. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. You, guys,
18:33
Speaker 1: we are talking about the girl in the wall, the
18:38
Speaker 1: girl in the attic. Those words alone should send a
18:44
Speaker 1: chill down your spine. When firefighters rush to the scene
18:48
Speaker 1: and begin fighting a blaze and a home. What falls down,
18:52
Speaker 1: what rains down from the attic? The bones of a
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Speaker 1: little girl? Back to you, Mary, Joe put So take
19:00
Speaker 1: a listen to our friend. Zach Crenshaw ABC fifteen DCS
19:05
Speaker 1: was first called out here nine days ago because an
19:08
Speaker 1: eleven year old girl said she was left here completely
19:11
Speaker 1: alone and afraid. They said that she had clearly been amused,
19:15
Speaker 1: and they removed her from the home. Well, just yesterday
19:18
Speaker 1: investigators came back because they realized two other kids were
19:21
Speaker 1: still living in this home. Just one hour after they
19:24
Speaker 1: removed those final kids, they saw smoke billowing from this house,
19:28
Speaker 1: and detectives say it was the parents trying to cover
19:31
Speaker 1: up their most horrific crime. For more than twenty four hours,
19:36
Speaker 1: investigators have been working outside the Loretra home, rummaging through
19:40
Speaker 1: trash bags next to kids toys, bringing in an arson dog,
19:44
Speaker 1: even removing the remains of a child, a child detectives
19:48
Speaker 1: believe father Raphael tried to burn. He is also alleged
19:51
Speaker 1: to have admitted to have hidden a corpse firefighters douncing
19:57
Speaker 1: the flames before all the evidence could be destroyed. Now,
20:00
Speaker 1: police allege, while Raphael helped, his wife, Marabel was the
20:04
Speaker 1: main source of abuse. So once again we hear the
20:08
Speaker 1: story one parent is doing all the abuse while the
20:12
Speaker 1: other parents stands by and watches. To Mary Joe Pittzel,
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Speaker 1: Senior reporter, Arizona Republic, isn't it true that the parent
20:20
Speaker 1: the cops CPS, takes the original little girl away who
20:25
Speaker 1: was alone and starving. They find out there were brothers
20:28
Speaker 1: and sisters. They go back a couple of days later
20:31
Speaker 1: to get their brothers and sisters, and those were two children,
20:35
Speaker 1: a nine year old boy and a four year old girl.
20:38
Speaker 1: And when they got there, isn't it true the mother, Maribellarey,
20:43
Speaker 1: refused to come out of the house. Instead, she takes
20:47
Speaker 1: the children outside and they hand over the children in
20:51
Speaker 1: the yard. She won't the mom and dad won't let
20:55
Speaker 1: CPS back in the home. Yes, and raised the suspicions
21:01
Speaker 1: parents have. They do have a right to keep somebody
21:06
Speaker 1: out of their house unless they show up with the warrant,
21:09
Speaker 1: although in this case, I think that the Department of
21:12
Speaker 1: Child Safety should have had a warrant for the removal
21:15
Speaker 1: of those two children and should have been able to
21:19
Speaker 1: um obtain access to the house. So they go back
21:23
Speaker 1: for the children, but they only get two. You know
21:26
Speaker 1: what happened? I assume they can count? Didn't they notice
21:30
Speaker 1: there wasn't the third remaining child, Mary Joe? Um No?
21:34
Speaker 1: At that point you know, again, it had been two
21:38
Speaker 1: years since the oldest child had died. She had her
21:43
Speaker 1: siblings were told that she had moved to another state.
21:47
Speaker 1: They she was out of their lives, so the their
21:51
Speaker 1: existence was the three of them. So after the second
21:55
Speaker 1: removal of the brother and the sister, that cleared the
21:59
Speaker 1: house of children. And as we saw, soon after a
22:04
Speaker 1: fire started. We're trying to take in this sequence of events,
22:08
Speaker 1: take a list of guys to our friends at Katie
22:12
Speaker 1: VK three TV Alisa. On January twentieth, they came to
22:15
Speaker 1: this home because an eleven year old girl called to
22:17
Speaker 1: say who was scared and alone. Cops found evidence of
22:20
Speaker 1: child abuse in the Department of Child Safety took custody
22:23
Speaker 1: of that girl when we came out here on January twentieth.
22:26
Speaker 1: Eleven year was the only child in the home at
22:27
Speaker 1: that time. Then yesterday DCS came back to the house
22:30
Speaker 1: taking away two more kids, Majors nine and four, after
22:33
Speaker 1: finding more evidence of child abuse. Police say, just about
22:36
Speaker 1: an hour after DCS took those kids, someone called to
22:39
Speaker 1: report that the house was on fire. Quhoenix Fire Department
22:42
Speaker 1: gets out here. They make entry to the home, extinguish
22:45
Speaker 1: the fire. When they're in there, they discover what they
22:47
Speaker 1: believed to be skeletal remains. Well. Obviously, Dan Scott, former
22:51
Speaker 1: La County Sheriff sergeant twenty six years Special Victim Subureau
22:56
Speaker 1: specializing in child abuse. They were afraid. The parents, Mirabelle
23:02
Speaker 1: and Raphael Area clearly realized CPS is going to figure
23:07
Speaker 1: out there's a child missing, so they started to burn
23:11
Speaker 1: down the house to get rid of the evidence. True,
23:13
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure when they're going to figure it out.
23:16
Speaker 1: These were foster children. They went back to the house,
23:20
Speaker 1: and they didn't know one child was missing. They should
23:24
Speaker 1: have had a record of all the children, and there
23:26
Speaker 1: should have been regular checks on these kids. I don't
23:29
Speaker 1: get it. The sequence of events is shocking. The climb
23:35
Speaker 1: is shocking, but the fact that no one saw this
23:38
Speaker 1: and it took a week to go back, it's like
23:42
Speaker 1: the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing.
23:44
Speaker 1: I don't want to pick on DCFS, but if law
23:48
Speaker 1: enforcement had been there, they had exigent circumstances to go
23:51
Speaker 1: look for that last child when mom wouldn't let him
23:55
Speaker 1: in the house. And when the children were asked about
23:59
Speaker 1: the old her sister, they were told she was adopted
24:04
Speaker 1: and sent to Mexico. That's the story they told. Another
24:08
Speaker 1: issue back to you, Mary, Joe Pitzel. The home when
24:12
Speaker 1: they first went to get the eleven year old girl
24:16
Speaker 1: that was left alone in itself show clear signs of abuse.
24:22
Speaker 1: The floor was littered with feces, the home was on camp,
24:25
Speaker 1: the little girl was starved. What can you tell us
24:28
Speaker 1: about the condition of the home. Not We don't know
24:32
Speaker 1: a whole lot more. Again, because the detailed police reports
24:36
Speaker 1: have not yet been released because this case is awaiting
24:40
Speaker 1: a criminal trial. So what we know is what we
24:44
Speaker 1: what we received from police at the scene, and a
24:48
Speaker 1: little bit that we got from the medical examiner report,
24:52
Speaker 1: although it didn't focus so much on the home, but
24:55
Speaker 1: it was a standard rant house on a corner lot,
25:01
Speaker 1: and I really don't know much else about the interior
25:06
Speaker 1: conditions except well, I'm looking at the complaint, the actual complaint.
25:12
Speaker 1: The direct complaint paperwork states officers found the inside of
25:17
Speaker 1: the home filthy with what appeared to be human feces
25:21
Speaker 1: throughout the residence on the floors. Officers say they found
25:25
Speaker 1: evidence of child abuse, and that is when the eleven
25:28
Speaker 1: year old girl was taken into custody. I mean, doctor
25:32
Speaker 1: Bethany Marshall. Having a pet maybe in the home that
25:37
Speaker 1: urinated or pooped somewhere, that's one thing, right, But having
25:42
Speaker 1: feces throughout the entire home everywhere, and the home being filthy,
25:49
Speaker 1: that in itself is a type of abuse. It is
25:53
Speaker 1: it's neglect, Nancy, and throughout my entire thirty year career,
25:57
Speaker 1: I've often wondered what causes a person to be unable
26:01
Speaker 1: to see when they're living in a mess. Feces on
26:04
Speaker 1: the floor, you know, food all over the place. All
26:07
Speaker 1: the pictures we've seen of homes where there's child abuse,
26:10
Speaker 1: burned mattresses, broken toys, it's as if the parents can't
26:14
Speaker 1: really see what's going on around them. But there's often
26:19
Speaker 1: something even more sinister, Nancy, and it underscores every single
26:24
Speaker 1: type of child abuse, and that is resentment towards the
26:28
Speaker 1: child for having meats. This is why the children are
26:32
Speaker 1: starved and skinny. It's not just because the parents don't
26:36
Speaker 1: have money for food or you know, a hoarding the
26:39
Speaker 1: food for themselves. When the child eats, the parent imagines
26:44
Speaker 1: the child to be greedy. It's sick and twisted. I've
26:49
Speaker 1: seen and heard of parents actually putting padlocks on the
26:53
Speaker 1: refrigerator in order to keep the children from eating. You
26:57
Speaker 1: and I've covered so many stories before where it's one
27:00
Speaker 1: brave child who finally calls nine one one, and then
27:04
Speaker 1: there's a whole group of children behind them that are starving.
27:07
Speaker 1: In the home crime stories with Nancy Grace. For those
27:24
Speaker 1: of you just joining us, we are talking about the
27:27
Speaker 1: girl in the wall, the girl in the attic. When
27:33
Speaker 1: firefighters go to a home to put out a blaze,
27:36
Speaker 1: they're punching out ceilings and walls and low and behold,
27:40
Speaker 1: human bones rain down on them. Even more sadly, these
27:46
Speaker 1: are the bones of a little girl, almost immediately identifiable
27:51
Speaker 1: as a little girl. That's why they were burning the
27:55
Speaker 1: home because, Melissa Hotmeyer, according to firefighters record that I've read,
28:01
Speaker 1: the smoke was not coming from the fireplace or the kitchen,
28:04
Speaker 1: where you'd expect it to come from. It was coming
28:06
Speaker 1: out of an at vent. So they put they set
28:10
Speaker 1: the attic on fire to start with. And that's very
28:14
Speaker 1: easy to discern from an arson investigation. You can easily
28:19
Speaker 1: tell where a fire started. Number one, Where the fire
28:23
Speaker 1: starts initially will be the part of the structure that
28:27
Speaker 1: is the most damaged because the fire burned the longest.
28:30
Speaker 1: Very often there you'll find evidence of an accelerant or
28:34
Speaker 1: how the fire started. So that's where the fire started,
28:38
Speaker 1: was in the attic. So the question is why. But
28:40
Speaker 1: my question to you, Melissa Hotmere is I've seen a
28:44
Speaker 1: lot of cases where the children are denied food while
28:48
Speaker 1: the parents eat as much as they want that's its
28:51
Speaker 1: own type of torture. Absolutely, and you know there are
28:57
Speaker 1: so many states that have torture statutes specifically for this reason,
29:01
Speaker 1: because parents engage in a pattern of behavior of withholding
29:05
Speaker 1: food and watch making children watch them eat, all the
29:10
Speaker 1: while abusing them at the same time, and they need
29:13
Speaker 1: to be held accountable for those types of that. I mean,
29:16
Speaker 1: Dafy Young joining us from Childhelp, and I encourage you
29:20
Speaker 1: to go to childhelp dot org. Learn what I learned
29:24
Speaker 1: the first time I went there, Dafy Young. Other than
29:28
Speaker 1: beating a child, what could be more horrible than to
29:33
Speaker 1: starve the child and make the child watch you eat
29:37
Speaker 1: a full blown meal. I remember you remember the House
29:40
Speaker 1: of Horrors the Turpins in California, where they would starve
29:44
Speaker 1: the children and they would actually chain them to their beds,
29:48
Speaker 1: and they would bring home pies from the deli counter
29:52
Speaker 1: at the grocery store and they would gorge on the
29:55
Speaker 1: pie while the children would be forced to watch them. Nancy,
30:00
Speaker 1: I remember a case where this is right here in Arizona,
30:04
Speaker 1: where they put a metal security gate on a door
30:10
Speaker 1: inside the house so that a child could smell the
30:13
Speaker 1: food walking through the gate and have to sit there
30:17
Speaker 1: and starve by day by day, hair falling out, belly distended,
30:23
Speaker 1: while the family enjoyed a meal. And that child was
30:26
Speaker 1: the sacrificial child that we've seen so many times in
30:29
Speaker 1: these cases, Nancy, if I could jump in, too often
30:33
Speaker 1: they choose one child to love and one child to hate,
30:36
Speaker 1: one child to abuse and torture, and one child to
30:39
Speaker 1: put on a pedestal. Pedestal. I wrote a paper on
30:42
Speaker 1: a case from my practice. A woman now an adult,
30:46
Speaker 1: but when she was a child, her mother would cook
30:48
Speaker 1: elaborate meals for her older sister and then make her
30:52
Speaker 1: sit in the corner and watch them eat. She wasn't
30:54
Speaker 1: allowed to go to the table. And this happened all
30:57
Speaker 1: throughout her developmental years. And you can imagine and now
31:00
Speaker 1: that she's an adult, the trauma she feels. But I'm
31:03
Speaker 1: thinking about the bones that fell through the dry wall,
31:09
Speaker 1: you know, I'm wondering if that child was starved or
31:13
Speaker 1: particularly tortured, or even though all the children were obviously
31:18
Speaker 1: neglected and tortured, perhaps even sexually abused, did this particular
31:22
Speaker 1: child get it worse than all the rest? And that's
31:25
Speaker 1: why the others survived in this one is dead, that's
31:28
Speaker 1: my same thought. I was considering that along with the
31:32
Speaker 1: possibility that now the eleven year old girl that was
31:35
Speaker 1: left alone and being starved was victim number two. In
31:39
Speaker 1: other words, we have killed your sister, you saw what
31:42
Speaker 1: happened to her, your next and then all the children
31:46
Speaker 1: fall in line waiting for their turn to be the
31:49
Speaker 1: next Cinderella child, if you will, which is a simple
31:53
Speaker 1: term for a very horrific experience. Is that Melissa or
31:56
Speaker 1: Daphne speaking? That's Daphne. I gotta tell you. I don't
31:59
Speaker 1: know about the rest of you, guys, but let me
32:01
Speaker 1: ask you, Dan Scott. I have a really hard time
32:06
Speaker 1: doing this because I keep imagining my son or my daughter.
32:12
Speaker 1: I'm especially imagining my daughter because we're talking about the
32:16
Speaker 1: girl in the wall and the eleven year old who
32:19
Speaker 1: was starved in called nine one one. I mean, Dan,
32:24
Speaker 1: it has to take a toll on all of us
32:29
Speaker 1: who have investigated or worked cases like this. I mean,
32:33
Speaker 1: how did you do that? As an Elle County Sheriff,
32:38
Speaker 1: an Ella County Sheriff sergeant. How do you separate the
32:44
Speaker 1: case from your life? I believe it. First of all,
32:48
Speaker 1: it takes a special kind of person to be able
32:50
Speaker 1: to do this, and you have to separate it and
32:54
Speaker 1: whether it's an investigation or a prosecutor or a medical examiner,
32:58
Speaker 1: the entire multidea disciplinary team. We have to look for
33:03
Speaker 1: the little victories. Obviously, in this case, the victories are
33:08
Speaker 1: the children that were saved. We can't save them all, unfortunately,
33:12
Speaker 1: and that's such a tragedy. But we have to look
33:16
Speaker 1: at those children that have been pulled out of that
33:20
Speaker 1: home and saved, and hopefully they were placed in a
33:24
Speaker 1: home with loving parents, loving foster parents, and there are
33:28
Speaker 1: a lot of good foster parents that are great. Yes,
33:31
Speaker 1: that's true. And what's so odd about this One of
33:34
Speaker 1: the many odd things is if you look at these
33:37
Speaker 1: foster parents now defendants, you'd never suspect what they really are.
33:43
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, take a listen to the neighbors.
33:46
Speaker 1: This is from KTVK three. I'm one of those neighbors,
33:50
Speaker 1: Like I never would have thought next to me disbelief
33:52
Speaker 1: that this man's neighbor with fifty six year old Raphael
33:55
Speaker 1: Loetta and he's in jail tonight charged with arson, child
33:58
Speaker 1: abuse and concealment of body parts. The guy seems like
34:01
Speaker 1: a good guy. The male there that they lives there.
34:05
Speaker 1: He's an older gentleman. Said he works at a school
34:08
Speaker 1: or something. The sources confirmed that Raphael Loia worked as
34:10
Speaker 1: a teacher's aide at Sierra Linda High School in the
34:12
Speaker 1: Thomason School district. Seem like a guy that would hurt somebody,
34:16
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't seem like a guy that would hurt somebody.
34:20
Speaker 1: How these people blend in to Melissa Hotmeyer, I it's
34:26
Speaker 1: always amazes me, but they do. Neighbors, co workers have
34:30
Speaker 1: no idea what they're doing to their children at home. Yeah,
34:32
Speaker 1: it's amazing to me that every chief I have, the
34:35
Speaker 1: more horrific the child abuse, the more neighbors and even
34:40
Speaker 1: family are like they were the perfect parent. These these
34:44
Speaker 1: individuals are good at hiding, um, the monster that these
34:49
Speaker 1: children see. They're sociopath. I'm not a doctor. I'm a
34:53
Speaker 1: JD just like Unancy, but they are experts at hiding
34:58
Speaker 1: the abuse that they're performing. If I could jump in
35:01
Speaker 1: about that, Nancy, this is why it's so important for
35:04
Speaker 1: dcfs to see the inside of the home. One of
35:07
Speaker 1: the things that's been happening during the pandemic is that
35:10
Speaker 1: my colleagues and I are seeing inside people's homes via zoom.
35:14
Speaker 1: We see their pets, so we see their homes. We
35:16
Speaker 1: see a child walk through, and some of us are
35:19
Speaker 1: shocked by what we've seen, and we're concluding that you
35:22
Speaker 1: can't really know the patient unless you see how they live.
35:26
Speaker 1: And if anybody had gone inside this home, it would
35:31
Speaker 1: have told a completely different story. With the human feces
35:34
Speaker 1: on the floor and you know everything else that you've described,
35:38
Speaker 1: the neglect would have been apparent right away. So foster
35:43
Speaker 1: children should not be in a home without other adults
35:47
Speaker 1: laying eyes on them. I just heard a story yesterday
35:50
Speaker 1: in my practice. Thirty three year old successful man with
35:53
Speaker 1: his own TV show well known, his dad abused him
35:57
Speaker 1: repeatedly during childhood, and when f came to question, the
36:02
Speaker 1: dad hid a baby monitor behind the fruit bowl, went upstairs,
36:07
Speaker 1: hid in a bedroom and said to my patient, if
36:10
Speaker 1: you say anything about me, I'm going to be listening
36:12
Speaker 1: in another room. And so dcfs couldn't even conduct an
36:19
Speaker 1: appropriate interview. So I think that our methodologies have to
36:23
Speaker 1: continue to change with what we know about human behavior
36:27
Speaker 1: and abuse. Well, of course, a daylight and a dollar short,
36:30
Speaker 1: here comes the bio mom. Take a listen to KTVK.
36:34
Speaker 1: There's no words to explain because my baby laid in
36:38
Speaker 1: there helpless. Okay, so where's she been all this time?
36:43
Speaker 1: Mary J. Petzel? I know the children were originally taken
36:46
Speaker 1: away from their bio mom as she dealt with her
36:48
Speaker 1: drug addiction, but she allegedly got clean. Now she's complaining
36:53
Speaker 1: that the state didn't do a background check on the
36:55
Speaker 1: foster parents. These kids. Not only they went into the
36:58
Speaker 1: foster system, but then they were adopted. Um, their their
37:02
Speaker 1: first names, their names were changed. She didn't know where
37:05
Speaker 1: these kids were until this crime happens. Um, that's why
37:10
Speaker 1: she came forward. Whose fault is that? Um? Who's Well,
37:15
Speaker 1: if that's the way the law works, I mean, if
37:18
Speaker 1: once a child's adopted. Um, well, I mean she had
37:21
Speaker 1: the right to contest the adoption. Oh true, I mean
37:24
Speaker 1: she she lost him out of place, Yeah, she was.
37:27
Speaker 1: She her parental rights were terminated and um, and she
37:31
Speaker 1: went about, you know, eventually getting clean. Um, as you said,
37:36
Speaker 1: And yes, had lost her relationship with her children. All
37:39
Speaker 1: we can hope for now is justice, and that is
37:43
Speaker 1: a bitter cup of tea. Nancy Grace Crime's story, signing
37:48
Speaker 1: off Goodbye