Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / 28-year-old beauty Melissa Sousa missing, found dead, rolled in a tarp

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28-year-old beauty Melissa Sousa missing, found dead, rolled in a tarp · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: The disappearance of a beautiful young mom of twins, Melissa
0:10
Speaker 1: Susa remains a mystery, but then her body found in
0:15
Speaker 1: a Waterville home, her body wrapped in a tart hidden
0:21
Speaker 1: in a basement. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
0:27
Speaker 1: We want justice. What happened to this mom? Melissa Susa
0:33
Speaker 1: at the prime of her life? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
0:49
Speaker 1: Twenty nine year old Melissa Susa of Waterville is missing.
0:53
Speaker 1: Melissa's Twitter has two twins on a school bus in
0:55
Speaker 1: front of her home, and that's the last time she
0:57
Speaker 1: was seen publicly. That was Tuesday morning. Around midnight. Waterville
1:01
Speaker 1: police arrested her boyfriend, Nicholas Lovejoy and charged him with
1:05
Speaker 1: having a loaded rifle in his car and endangering the
1:08
Speaker 1: welfare of a child. Police say he left his and
1:11
Speaker 1: Seusa's twin eight year old girls home alone. That home
1:16
Speaker 1: is where mainstay police evidence technicians have been searching. Is
1:19
Speaker 1: not like her to disappear and this is completely out
1:23
Speaker 1: of the ordinary. Wednesday afternoon, police searched this property on
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Speaker 1: Taylor Road in nearby Winslow, where neighbors say Lovejoy kept
1:31
Speaker 1: a trailer. Police left a short time later. Megan Legacy
1:35
Speaker 1: is SUS's friend and co worker. She's a good person,
1:38
Speaker 1: she cares about her kids. She just wants to be happy,
1:42
Speaker 1: and I don't think she got the chance to do that.
1:44
Speaker 1: Legacy says Susa was frightened of love joy just a
1:48
Speaker 1: lot of guns. I mean he has a lot of
1:50
Speaker 1: guns he has There's a lot of easy way to
1:53
Speaker 1: do it. I mean he could easily do it and
1:58
Speaker 1: not think twice. Leaving to see fearing the worst has
2:02
Speaker 1: happened to her friend. I feel like she would have
2:04
Speaker 1: gontacted someone. What happened to Melissa Suza a young mother
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Speaker 1: just twenty nine years old, the mother of eight year
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Speaker 1: old little girl twins. I Nancy Grace, this is Crime Stories,
2:17
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us. With me an all
2:19
Speaker 1: star panel. Ashley Wilcot judge, trial lawyer anchor at Court TV.
2:24
Speaker 1: You can find her at Ashley Wilcot dot com. Stephen Lampley, detective,
2:28
Speaker 1: author of Outside Your Door on Amazon, renowned psychoanalyst out
2:34
Speaker 1: of Beverly Hills, doctor Bethany Marshall, South Carolina medical examiner,
2:39
Speaker 1: author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, doctor Michelle Dupree and
2:44
Speaker 1: joining Me right Now investigative reporter with Radar Online dot Com.
2:49
Speaker 1: Alexis Terres Chuck. Alexis, first, thank you for being with us.
2:53
Speaker 1: What can you tell me about how it was first
2:56
Speaker 1: noted that this twenty nine year old mother of two
2:59
Speaker 1: was missing. Her friend made a welfare check. She called
3:02
Speaker 1: the police and said, we have not heard from her
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Speaker 1: all day long. She has not been on Facebook, and
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Speaker 1: we are very, very worried about her. And it's terrifying
3:13
Speaker 1: to think that a mother puts her two children on
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Speaker 1: the school bus eight o'clock in the morning. The girls
3:17
Speaker 1: leave the house, they go ride in the bus, they
3:19
Speaker 1: come home nothing, no mommy, and the friend is the
3:22
Speaker 1: one that has to sound the alert. Well, here's the thing.
3:24
Speaker 1: Doesn't she work at Duncan Donuts with her friend. They
3:28
Speaker 1: have to get up really early hours and work really
3:31
Speaker 1: late hours. So you know, if you don't show up
3:34
Speaker 1: at six o'clock in the morning, seven o'clock, eight o'clock,
3:38
Speaker 1: people may chalk it off to oh, they overslept. So
3:43
Speaker 1: what tipped her off, Alexis that something was wrong. Well,
3:46
Speaker 1: she knows this woman, she knows her, She knows Melissa,
3:49
Speaker 1: she knows how unhappy she has been in her relationship
3:52
Speaker 1: and she knows personally that she has been threatened by
3:56
Speaker 1: her boyfriend. By him, she is afraid for her life.
3:59
Speaker 1: She has said heatedly, he has so many guns. I'm
4:02
Speaker 1: so afraid what he's going to do to me. So
4:04
Speaker 1: she knew the family history. Here we know to Ashley Wilcott,
4:09
Speaker 1: the boyfriend Nicholas Lovejoy was arrested on a guns charge.
4:15
Speaker 1: How often do you see the target of the bigger investigation,
4:21
Speaker 1: such as kidnapping, aggravated assault, or murder, you see the
4:25
Speaker 1: target or the person of interest arrested on minor charges.
4:30
Speaker 1: I mean, I always think about Timothy McVeigh. Remember they
4:34
Speaker 1: who bombed the Oklahoma City Building, the Federal building, the
4:38
Speaker 1: Murra Building, and killed so many Americans, including children. They
4:43
Speaker 1: pulled him over for a tail light infraction. No idea
4:47
Speaker 1: that this is the Okay City bomber, right, Nancy. So
4:50
Speaker 1: statistically it's true, often these types of person of interest
4:53
Speaker 1: do have some type of criminal history, even if it's minor.
4:57
Speaker 1: Every once in a while we'll see someone who commits
4:59
Speaker 1: a MA your horrible crime who has no history. But
5:03
Speaker 1: generally they've got something, They've been stopped for something. It's
5:07
Speaker 1: interesting to Stephen Lampley, former detect given author of Outside
5:11
Speaker 1: Your Door on Amazon. How the boyfriend is arrested on
5:18
Speaker 1: a weapons charge. And I'm all about, you know, the
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Speaker 1: Bill of Rights and all your personal freedoms, but it
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Speaker 1: always creeps me out when someone has a treasure trove
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Speaker 1: an arsenal of weapons. That just freaks me out. And
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Speaker 1: also he was arrested on a gun charge. I mean,
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Speaker 1: you've got Melissa Susa missing, She's never left her children before,
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Speaker 1: and they get him on a gun charge. Is that
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Speaker 1: a pretext? Well, it's my understanding of what I know
5:52
Speaker 1: of this case that they went to his house, he
5:56
Speaker 1: would not let them in, and so they backed out
5:59
Speaker 1: and then deserved him for a period of time and
6:01
Speaker 1: waiting for him to leave, and then initiated the traffic stuff.
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Speaker 1: We used to do this all the time. We would
6:07
Speaker 1: sit back and wait, and we would we would find
6:09
Speaker 1: probable cause to stop the vehicle. And it's you can
6:13
Speaker 1: usually find probable cause because somebody is going to do something,
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Speaker 1: and in this case, they apparently had probable cause, stopped him,
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Speaker 1: found the founded loaded rifle, and then discover that he
6:26
Speaker 1: had left the two eight year old children at home,
6:28
Speaker 1: and then proceeded to get to get the search warrant
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Speaker 1: and bam. It's just that easy. And when you say
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Speaker 1: we find probable cause, you know a defensive tree would
6:38
Speaker 1: have a field day with that. The reality is, hey,
6:42
Speaker 1: you don't have to fabricate it. They give you probable
6:45
Speaker 1: cause to arrest. I mean, I've got a PC right now.
6:48
Speaker 1: I've had three mothers, three mothers pull me over in
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Speaker 1: traffic and the pick up a job offline to tell
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Speaker 1: me my tail lights out on one whole side. I
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Speaker 1: know this. I've been riding around in that busted mitivan
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Speaker 1: and I know it, and I haven't had time to
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Speaker 1: go get it fixed. That's PC right there. If Anycott
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Speaker 1: wanted to pull me over, well there's PC for it
7:11
Speaker 1: right there. So what I'm saying, as she Wilcott judge
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Speaker 1: and trial lawyer, is that it's not like the cops
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Speaker 1: have to fabricate something. All they have to do is
7:20
Speaker 1: watch you for about an hour. They'll catch you doing
7:22
Speaker 1: something wrong. You will definitely not stop it and stop sign,
7:26
Speaker 1: not put on your blink or have a busted tail light.
7:28
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a matter of time. It's just
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Speaker 1: whether they want you or not. Well, that's true, Nancy,
7:33
Speaker 1: but it's also what the law provides for. So people
7:35
Speaker 1: get frustrated by that, right, like defense attorneys do say, oh,
7:38
Speaker 1: there was no reason to stop. Guess what. I'm not frustrated.
7:41
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with it. I don't either,
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Speaker 1: but some defense attorneys absolutely do. But the fact of
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Speaker 1: the matter is that's what the law provides for probable cause,
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Speaker 1: any reason at all, any violation anything they see, that's
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Speaker 1: any violation of any traffic law, of any other type
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Speaker 1: of crime. Yeah, they have the authority too. I will
8:01
Speaker 1: never forget to doctor Bethany Marshall joining me psychoanalyst out
8:05
Speaker 1: of la I had been. I was working a murder
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Speaker 1: case and the best friend of the murdered victim, her
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Speaker 1: husband did it. By the way, he was a millionaire,
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Speaker 1: and he set it up to make it look like
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Speaker 1: a house fire. Then why was she covered in bruises? Wow?
8:20
Speaker 1: You know how did that happen? Anyway? I was out
8:24
Speaker 1: trying to find her best friend, much as in this case.
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Speaker 1: Her best friend in the case that I was prosecuting
8:30
Speaker 1: was a fellow piano teacher, and that piano teacher got
8:35
Speaker 1: into drinking wine and playing the piano. We had a
8:38
Speaker 1: good time. I stayed at that lady's house till midnight.
8:41
Speaker 1: I did not drink, of course, as she taught to
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Speaker 1: me about the victim, Patricia, and about how long they
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Speaker 1: had known each other, and about her abusive marriage. A
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Speaker 1: ton of information. Okay, So I was driving back it
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Speaker 1: was now like twelve fifteen. I get pulled over. I
9:01
Speaker 1: get pulled over. As I roll the winden, I said,
9:06
Speaker 1: why are you pulling me over? And he said, you
9:09
Speaker 1: cross the yellow line. I'm like, Noah, didn't. But fine,
9:12
Speaker 1: you guys, I guess I got to give you a breathalyzer.
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Speaker 1: So are you kidding me? He said, I can't treat
9:17
Speaker 1: you any differently than anybody else. I'm like, fine, do
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Speaker 1: a breathalyzer. So I did it, and within about five
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Speaker 1: minutes I was on my way home. What I'm saying
9:25
Speaker 1: is it can be crossing the yellow line, it can
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Speaker 1: be anything. Why does that make people so angry? I mean,
9:33
Speaker 1: we walk hops out there to protect us, but then
9:35
Speaker 1: when they pull us over, people don't like it so much. Well,
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Speaker 1: hopefully it's a part of our discussion on this radio show.
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Speaker 1: The listeners can learn that when police pull people over,
9:46
Speaker 1: for seemingly minor infractions. Often there's a whole world of
9:51
Speaker 1: misery underneath. It's sometimes that's the canary in the coal mine,
9:55
Speaker 1: the very small tell I'll tell you what's underneath this, Nancy.
9:59
Speaker 1: Then I he was pulled over. There are two twin
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Speaker 1: eight year olds at home without their mother and father.
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Speaker 1: And you know, in the legal system, children infants are
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Speaker 1: vastly underrepresented because they cannot speak for themselves. And in
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Speaker 1: this case, we're talking about him getting pulled over on
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Speaker 1: a gun violation. We're talking about the mom missing. Let's
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Speaker 1: make a part of our story that there are two
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Speaker 1: little girls at home. I mean you you have twins.
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Speaker 1: How old are they now? Twelve? Thirteen? Can you imagine
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Speaker 1: them being at home? White white, white white by Bethany?
10:36
Speaker 1: Did you just say fourteen? No, twelve or thirteen? How
10:39
Speaker 1: old are they now? Bethany? You know what I'm putting
10:42
Speaker 1: you on, provice and go to the corner for not
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Speaker 1: knowing that twins have just turned twelve years old. Shame, shame,
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Speaker 1: shames crime stories with Nancy Grace. This is the house
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Speaker 1: where that body was found and where twenty nine year
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Speaker 1: old Melissa Susa was lasting. Putting her two eight year
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Speaker 1: old twins on the school bus Tuesday morning. Now, forty
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Speaker 1: eight hours later, police are still on sen and friends
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Speaker 1: are fearing the worst. This morning, a mom missing. I
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Speaker 1: feel like she would have contacted someone. Friends of Melissa
11:30
Speaker 1: Susa terrified. If she knew all of this was going on,
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Speaker 1: she would have said something. As police combed through her
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Speaker 1: Waterville home throughout the night looking for clues, a body
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Speaker 1: was discovered in the basement. This is not like her
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Speaker 1: to disappear, and this is completely out of the ordinary.
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Speaker 1: Seus's boyfriend, Nicholas Lovejoy has been arrested, police saying they
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Speaker 1: stopped him around midnight Tuesday. Right now, they've charged him
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Speaker 1: for having a loaded gun in the car and endangering
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Speaker 1: his children leaving them home alone. He has a lot
12:00
Speaker 1: of there's a lot of easy way to do it.
12:02
Speaker 1: I mean, he could easily do it and not think twice.
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Speaker 1: Friends say they were scared of Lovejoy. They were scared
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Speaker 1: their worst nightmare might come true. She's a good person,
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Speaker 1: she cares about her kids. She just wants to be happy,
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Speaker 1: and I don't think she got the chance to do
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Speaker 1: that again. No one has been charged. Investigators are expecting
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Speaker 1: to be back on seeing this morning in an autopsy
12:26
Speaker 1: is likely to be conducted later today. That from our
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Speaker 1: friends at New Center, Maine. That was Zach Blanchard speaking,
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Speaker 1: what is he doing out riding around with a car
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Speaker 1: full of guns at midnight and his two eight year
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Speaker 1: old children, two little girls home alone? You don't write
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Speaker 1: he should be pulled over, Alexis terres Chuck joining me.
12:46
Speaker 1: Alexis Terreschuk, investigative reporter with Radar Online dot Com. Alexis.
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Speaker 1: So they pull him over, but now a body has
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Speaker 1: been found in the basement. To pick it up where
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Speaker 1: you left off. So the police had been observing him
13:00
Speaker 1: in the house. They had noticed him going They were
13:03
Speaker 1: looking through the windows. They were just out on the
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Speaker 1: street on a public street and not doing anything wrong,
13:07
Speaker 1: and they were watching him go in and out of
13:08
Speaker 1: the kitchen different places. So they see him get in
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Speaker 1: the car and they pull him over. There's a rifle.
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Speaker 1: They say to him, you know what is going on?
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Speaker 1: He says nothing at all. They then end up talking
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Speaker 1: with the little children, the little twin daughters, and they
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Speaker 1: say that there had been a fight between mommy and daddy.
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Speaker 1: They say that she had confessed that she had loved
13:32
Speaker 1: someone else, so police now are suspicious that he killed
13:37
Speaker 1: her in a rage of a fit of jealousy, and
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Speaker 1: they go in the home, they dig around. The thing
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Speaker 1: that's very interesting to me is they don't find her
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Speaker 1: right away. They don't search in the basement of the
13:49
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, wait, wait wait. You know, Alexis strez Chuck.
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Speaker 1: You and I've covered a lot of stories together, and
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Speaker 1: I'm almost always on the side of the police. They're
14:01
Speaker 1: just humans trying to do a good job. And most
14:04
Speaker 1: often they do do a good job, a great job,
14:06
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact. But come on, not looking
14:10
Speaker 1: in the basement. Hello, That's what I thought too. It
14:15
Speaker 1: seemed a little strange. I don't think that maybe it's
14:18
Speaker 1: a hidden basement. That's the only thing that I can think,
14:20
Speaker 1: because I agree with you. Usually the police are very through.
14:22
Speaker 1: They check everything something you wouldn't even think of though.
14:25
Speaker 1: Even the way they enter a room during an investigation,
14:28
Speaker 1: they would have a couple people with them, they would
14:30
Speaker 1: cover the door, they would make sure that there was
14:32
Speaker 1: nobody in there to hurt them. So this was very strange.
14:35
Speaker 1: It took quite a few hours for them to locate,
14:37
Speaker 1: but almost an entire day in fact, to locate her
14:40
Speaker 1: body in the basement. Okay, I don't understand that. Where
14:43
Speaker 1: was it in the basement? How is it that hard
14:45
Speaker 1: to find? Well, she was wrapped up in a tarp
14:48
Speaker 1: in a rug actually, and hidden in the base. Wait
14:50
Speaker 1: a minute, that's the first thing I would look at.
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Speaker 1: Stephen Lampley. You see a rug rolled up? Of course
14:54
Speaker 1: you're going to look in there. Yes, that's you. Again,
14:57
Speaker 1: I wasn't there, and I don't want to try to
14:59
Speaker 1: second get but based on this ill you know, yeah,
15:02
Speaker 1: I wonder why why did they not look in that rug?
15:05
Speaker 1: It's like it's like a movie on television. Why would
15:08
Speaker 1: you not look at a world up rug in a basement?
15:10
Speaker 1: But the reality is they did find her wrapped in
15:13
Speaker 1: a rug. And and remember, isn't it true as she
15:16
Speaker 1: will caught Judge and trial lawyer, a jury can look
15:20
Speaker 1: at a defendant behavior before, during, and after the event
15:26
Speaker 1: the incident, including if you shot someone in self defense
15:30
Speaker 1: or does she say you claimed somebody died of a
15:32
Speaker 1: natural cause like in Toddmom Casey Anthony who claimed her
15:37
Speaker 1: two year old Kelly drowned in the pool and then
15:40
Speaker 1: her body was quote hidden. If this was an accident
15:45
Speaker 1: or it was self defense, Why not call police? Why
15:48
Speaker 1: wrap her up in a carpet and stasher in the basement. Exactly.
15:50
Speaker 1: You are allowed to present that evidence to the jury
15:53
Speaker 1: for the jury to make a determination, and the other
15:55
Speaker 1: piece that it goes to. Although as you well know,
15:58
Speaker 1: prosecutors don't have to prove motive, it makes a significant
16:02
Speaker 1: difference to have motive, and so those pieces can also
16:05
Speaker 1: be introduced to a jury for motive as well as
16:09
Speaker 1: date of mark. Take a listen to our friend Jackie
16:12
Speaker 1: Mundree at News Center Main in the news tonight. We
16:15
Speaker 1: expect to hear within this half hour if the body
16:18
Speaker 1: found yesterday in Waterville is Melissa Susa. She's the young
16:21
Speaker 1: mom who was last seen putting her twin girls on
16:23
Speaker 1: the school bus Tuesday morning. The body was found in
16:27
Speaker 1: her home. The body has been at the Medical Examiner's
16:30
Speaker 1: office in Augusta all day today. They're confirming the identity
16:33
Speaker 1: and they're looking for a cause of death. He said hermaans.
16:36
Speaker 1: Jackie Mundury has been following this story and she joins
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Speaker 1: US Now Live from Waterville with an update. Hijackie, Good evening,
16:42
Speaker 1: Sam and Lee. That body, as you said, has not
16:44
Speaker 1: yet been identified, but it was found at the home
16:46
Speaker 1: behind me, just behind the main State police truck here
16:49
Speaker 1: in Waterville. Friends and family fear that the body found
16:53
Speaker 1: in Melissa Susa's home is in fact her as since,
16:56
Speaker 1: as you said, she hasn't been seen Tuesday morning, friends
17:00
Speaker 1: are posting photos and sharing memories on social media and
17:03
Speaker 1: telling me that she is pure, gentle and sweet. Friends
17:06
Speaker 1: of Susa also say that her relationship with Nicholas Lovejoy
17:10
Speaker 1: is not healthy. They say he often shows up at
17:12
Speaker 1: her work at Duncan Donuts to make sure she's actually
17:15
Speaker 1: there when she tells him she says she is. They
17:18
Speaker 1: also say Susa has been trying to leave him, but
17:21
Speaker 1: all of that aside, they want to just tell everyone
17:23
Speaker 1: how wonderful Susa is. We love Melissa, We love her
17:28
Speaker 1: so much, And even if she was standing here with me,
17:32
Speaker 1: I would always say that she was, like I said, trustworthy,
17:35
Speaker 1: honest and pure. And I would say that like I said,
17:38
Speaker 1: if she was standing in front of me, And I'll
17:39
Speaker 1: say it now and I'll say it years from now,
17:41
Speaker 1: jointing me right now. Doctor Michelle Dupre, South Carolina medical Examiner,
17:45
Speaker 1: author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, Doctor dupree. We are
17:52
Speaker 1: learning that she was shot twice in the stumma. How
17:56
Speaker 1: hard is it to figure that out in autopsy? What
17:58
Speaker 1: are what were they waiting on Nancy? They probably weren't
18:01
Speaker 1: waiting on determining that she was shot, but they're probably
18:04
Speaker 1: waiting on other things. Bullets are going to destroy a
18:08
Speaker 1: lot of the internal organs, so they're gonna want to
18:11
Speaker 1: make sure that they can trace the pathways of each
18:13
Speaker 1: of those bullets. They're gonna want to describe those injuries
18:16
Speaker 1: and the wounds. They're also going to be looking at toxicology,
18:19
Speaker 1: and they're going to be looking at other tests that
18:21
Speaker 1: they may need to run for the autopxy before they
18:23
Speaker 1: give results. Explain that, dodgor Gupree. All of us in
18:27
Speaker 1: the criminal law world know what you mean, or most
18:30
Speaker 1: of us do, But explain when you say they've got
18:33
Speaker 1: to run toxicology, who's they and what do you mean
18:35
Speaker 1: run toxicology? Well, the medical examiner would take samples of
18:40
Speaker 1: blood and bodily fluids to run toxicology tests, which are
18:44
Speaker 1: substances that may be in the body, such as drugs,
18:47
Speaker 1: whether they're street drugs or prescription drugs, to determine if
18:51
Speaker 1: there were drugs in the body. There may be other
18:55
Speaker 1: tests that they may run. They may run gunshot residue
18:58
Speaker 1: tests to see if the fire of the bullets were
19:00
Speaker 1: close range or not. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The
19:24
Speaker 1: body found inside this home in Waterville has been identified
19:27
Speaker 1: as twenty nine year old Melissa Susa. Susa was last
19:30
Speaker 1: seen on Tuesday morning, when she was putting her twenty
19:33
Speaker 1: eight year old daughters on the bus. Her longtime boyfriend,
19:36
Speaker 1: Nicholas Lovejoy, has been charged with her murder. Susa's friends
19:40
Speaker 1: feared this all along, saying that Lovejoy was controlling and
19:44
Speaker 1: she wanted to leave him but couldn't because of their daughters.
19:47
Speaker 1: One friend saw Lovejoy with their daughters at a birthday
19:50
Speaker 1: party on Tuesday evening. Between the time Susa went missing
19:54
Speaker 1: and the time he was arrested for a year old's
19:56
Speaker 1: home alone. He didn't make eye contact. Like I said,
20:00
Speaker 1: I've handled conversations and before, and it was just different.
20:02
Speaker 1: It was just unsettling, and like I said, at the time,
20:04
Speaker 1: I didn't think anything of it. But as time went on,
20:07
Speaker 1: now I replayed the conversation and it just gets weirder
20:10
Speaker 1: and weirder to me every time I think about it,
20:12
Speaker 1: love Joys being held at the County Back County Jail.
20:15
Speaker 1: You're hearing the victim, twenty nine year old Melissa Susa,
20:19
Speaker 1: the mother of two eight year old twin girls, her
20:22
Speaker 1: friend Jordan Tywer, speaking to Jackie Moundree at News Center Maine.
20:27
Speaker 1: Over and over we hear it to doctor Bethany Marshall,
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Speaker 1: psycho Alice joining me out of la Doctor Bethany. The
20:35
Speaker 1: friends describing his behavior toward her. Another friend said, quote,
20:40
Speaker 1: she told us his big thing as quote tick tak,
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Speaker 1: your time's coming. I have got two choices. It's kill
20:47
Speaker 1: you or kill you, and that that was his way
20:51
Speaker 1: of controlling her. Now her Melissa Susa's boss and friend,
20:58
Speaker 1: says that love Joy the boyfriend threatened her daily, that
21:04
Speaker 1: he had held guns to her head, sent threatening text
21:08
Speaker 1: to her. Now this is the mother. These are his
21:10
Speaker 1: two little girls. And he's convinced she's got a boyfriend.
21:14
Speaker 1: But he drives by and see she's there at work
21:17
Speaker 1: every single day where she says she's going to be well.
21:19
Speaker 1: Nancy's threats and intimidation are a part of every domestic
21:24
Speaker 1: violent situation. Financial abuse, often withholding money preventing a partner
21:29
Speaker 1: from going to work, jealousy towards pets, you know, animals, friends,
21:35
Speaker 1: threatening to hit you, or punching the wall, making you
21:39
Speaker 1: feel guilty for wanting time. Apart the fact that he
21:43
Speaker 1: kept showing up at work, I cannot tell you how
21:45
Speaker 1: often I hear this in my practice from women who
21:48
Speaker 1: are in disturbed or abusive relationships. The man always shows
21:52
Speaker 1: up at work, and he's always convinced that he's going
21:54
Speaker 1: to find her with another man. This woman worked at
21:57
Speaker 1: dunkin Donuts. She's not hanging out with another man there.
22:00
Speaker 1: I also want to say three point three million children
22:04
Speaker 1: every year witness the abuse of either their mother or
22:09
Speaker 1: a female caretaker at the hands of their father. So
22:13
Speaker 1: if these little girls were saying, you know something like
22:16
Speaker 1: you know, mommy told daddy she was in love with
22:18
Speaker 1: somebody else, or mommy wanted to go to work, and
22:21
Speaker 1: then I wouldn't be surprised if they witnessed him abusing her.
22:25
Speaker 1: So she was not the only victim. These two little
22:28
Speaker 1: girls were victims too. Guys, I want you to take
22:31
Speaker 1: a listen to one of the most bizarre things about
22:35
Speaker 1: this case. Now, first of all, the body is in
22:38
Speaker 1: the basement, but they don't, the police don't see it
22:41
Speaker 1: at first. It takes a couple of days to figure
22:43
Speaker 1: out the bodies in the basement. Number one co workers
22:47
Speaker 1: have to call and report her missing. Then we learn
22:50
Speaker 1: of threat after threat after threat. How many times do
22:55
Speaker 1: you know of a woman murdered in divesting violence scenarios?
23:00
Speaker 1: When there were there was one red flag after the next,
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Speaker 1: after the next, after the next. I want to give
23:06
Speaker 1: you a toll free domestic abuse hotline eight seven seven
23:12
Speaker 1: eight nine zero seven seven eight eight eight seven seven
23:18
Speaker 1: eight nine zero seven seven eight eight. Now, just when
23:23
Speaker 1: you think you've heard it all, surprise, take a listen.
23:26
Speaker 1: A lot of new information coming out of that police
23:28
Speaker 1: aff of David this afternoon, mainly a confession and then
23:32
Speaker 1: a claim of self defense. Twenty eight year old Nicholas
23:35
Speaker 1: Lovejoy telling police that he shot Melissa Susa last Tuesday
23:38
Speaker 1: after their twin eight year old daughters went off to school.
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Speaker 1: Lovejoy saying the two got into a fight. Susa pushed
23:44
Speaker 1: him down a flight of stairs. She tried to shoot him,
23:47
Speaker 1: but the gun didn't go off. He told police that
23:49
Speaker 1: he grabbed a handgun of his own and shot Susa
23:52
Speaker 1: twice in the stomach. He rolled her body up in
23:54
Speaker 1: a tarp and dragged to the basement. Family and friends
23:57
Speaker 1: of the victim said today that Susa was planning to
24:00
Speaker 1: leave love Joy and take the twin girls with her.
24:03
Speaker 1: This after repeated death threats. Now the girls are in
24:06
Speaker 1: the custody of the DHS. Susa's mother wants custody of
24:09
Speaker 1: her granddaughters. The family is obviously devastated, upset, confused. It's
24:17
Speaker 1: very difficult on them. DHHS has to look into the
24:21
Speaker 1: best place, the most suitable placement for the children, and
24:23
Speaker 1: that's what's going on at the moment, So ask for
24:25
Speaker 1: love Joy. He's being held here at the Kennebec County
24:27
Speaker 1: Jail in Augusta without bail. By the way, a grand
24:30
Speaker 1: jury will likely indict him over the next thirty days
24:33
Speaker 1: and he'll be back in this same courtroom to face
24:36
Speaker 1: a Raymond. Then we were hearing our friends at WMTWABC.
24:41
Speaker 1: That was Jim Keithley. Now a defense emerges. Love Joy says, yes,
24:47
Speaker 1: I shot her twice in the stomach, rolled her up
24:49
Speaker 1: in the carpet and put her body in the base
24:50
Speaker 1: of it. But it was all in self defense, Okay.
24:56
Speaker 1: He says that this tiny little woman Melissa Sousa, shoved
25:01
Speaker 1: him down the stairs, tried to shoot him, but the
25:04
Speaker 1: gun failed, Love Joy. Then it shot Susie twice in
25:08
Speaker 1: the stomach. All right, that scenario doesn't even make sense.
25:13
Speaker 1: To Stephen Lampley, detective and author of Outside Your Door,
25:17
Speaker 1: that scenario doesn't make sense unless they were both holding
25:19
Speaker 1: a gun at the same time, like a shootout and
25:22
Speaker 1: the wild Wild West in their apartment on the stairs
25:25
Speaker 1: leading down to the basement with the twin girls at home.
25:28
Speaker 1: Doesn't add up to me. You're right, man, See it
25:31
Speaker 1: doesn't to me either. One of the big questions I
25:34
Speaker 1: have is if this is how it transpired. She took
25:38
Speaker 1: the rifle, attempted to shoot him, it didn't fire. Then
25:41
Speaker 1: he according to what I read, he went and retrieved
25:45
Speaker 1: the gun and then came back. Why didn't he leave.
25:48
Speaker 1: I don't buy the story that he was self he
25:51
Speaker 1: was in a self defense mode. I don't buy that
25:55
Speaker 1: if he was in if he was truly in self
25:57
Speaker 1: defense mode, why did he hide the box too? She
26:00
Speaker 1: will caught judge and trial lawyer. If you have time
26:03
Speaker 1: to leave and go get a gun and turn around
26:06
Speaker 1: and come back and fire, it's no longer self defense,
26:11
Speaker 1: explain exactly what I was gonna say. So that's the
26:14
Speaker 1: problem with his story that he's come up with. Self
26:17
Speaker 1: defense means at the time, you are in fear of
26:20
Speaker 1: your life and you respond with force to react to
26:23
Speaker 1: that to protect yourself. He could, obviously in that amount
26:27
Speaker 1: of time, he could have left the home, he could
26:29
Speaker 1: have run away, he could have gone and called ninety one.
26:31
Speaker 1: All of those things mean it wasn't self defense. Another issue,
26:37
Speaker 1: I'm curious was there any indication to Alexis tereshot writer
26:41
Speaker 1: online dot com that he was acting in self defense?
26:45
Speaker 1: Was another weapon found? Did she have any gunshot residue
26:49
Speaker 1: on her hands? What do we know about his claim
26:52
Speaker 1: of self defense? His story is that the gun did
26:56
Speaker 1: not go off right, I think it wasn't loaded, so
26:58
Speaker 1: she would not have gunpowder residue on her hands. But
27:02
Speaker 1: there has He had multiple weapons in the house, so
27:07
Speaker 1: he is saying that he just grabbed another one, which
27:10
Speaker 1: seems a little strange that she would have grabbed out
27:12
Speaker 1: of all the weapons in the house, the one weapon
27:14
Speaker 1: that doesn't go off or that doesn't have bullets in it.
27:16
Speaker 1: So tell me about his client a self defense, What
27:19
Speaker 1: do you make of it, Alexis, I find it hard
27:21
Speaker 1: to believe. I think it's very hard to believe. And
27:22
Speaker 1: I think that he came up with this after he
27:26
Speaker 1: killed her. They've gotten a big fight and he killed
27:27
Speaker 1: her because then I believe he told the girls that
27:30
Speaker 1: mommy said she had a new boyfriend and she was leaving,
27:32
Speaker 1: probably to tell them why mommy wasn't home, and that
27:35
Speaker 1: just plants the seeds in their minds so that when
27:38
Speaker 1: they talked to the police because their mom is missing,
27:40
Speaker 1: they're gonna say, oh, no, Mommy's not here. She went
27:41
Speaker 1: off with her new boyfriend. So he definitely had a
27:44
Speaker 1: plan to get rid of her, and this was part
27:46
Speaker 1: of it. And so with by hiding her body and
27:49
Speaker 1: then driving away with the rifle, it's all part of
27:52
Speaker 1: his plan to get rid of her. I don't think
27:54
Speaker 1: that this was self defense to you, doctor Bethany Marshall.
27:58
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, Alice joining me out of la Why
28:00
Speaker 1: do you believe this is not self defense? Well, as
28:04
Speaker 1: the whole panel is saying, if he really felt his
28:07
Speaker 1: life was at risk and he had the time to
28:10
Speaker 1: go get a gun and load it and come back,
28:14
Speaker 1: then obviously he wanted to kill her. You know, Nancy,
28:17
Speaker 1: you know what this reminds me of Jodi Arius. Do
28:19
Speaker 1: you remember during the trial she kept saying that she
28:23
Speaker 1: was in the closet and that he lunched at her,
28:26
Speaker 1: and then she went to get a gun to save herself. Well,
28:29
Speaker 1: then she follows him into the shower, severs his neck,
28:34
Speaker 1: plunges a knife into him, tries to clean it up
28:37
Speaker 1: by throwclothing in the washing machine, and then she claims
28:40
Speaker 1: at self defense. I think we just hear this over
28:43
Speaker 1: and over again. Compounded with the fact that criminals are
28:47
Speaker 1: so stupid, they are so stupid they actually believe their
28:51
Speaker 1: own lies. The fact that he thought this was credible
28:54
Speaker 1: is just remarkable to me. And have you seen pictures
28:56
Speaker 1: of him? Do you know what he looks like. It's
28:59
Speaker 1: like he's a method right. He definitely looks like there's
29:04
Speaker 1: something not quite right going on inside his head. Another
29:08
Speaker 1: issue that indicates to me it was not self defense
29:11
Speaker 1: is that he lied repeatedly. First, he told investigators he
29:15
Speaker 1: had not seen Susu since Tuesday morning. When they came
29:17
Speaker 1: to do a welfare check, he would not allow them in.
29:21
Speaker 1: He is the one that claimed she had a boyfriend
29:25
Speaker 1: as she was leaving and he was angry about it.
29:28
Speaker 1: Then there's the behavior of hiding her body in a rug.
29:46
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, there was a longtime girlfriend,
29:53
Speaker 1: Melissa Suso, was first reported missing. She was last seen
29:57
Speaker 1: dropping her twin daughters of at the bus stop. Now
30:01
Speaker 1: there was a body taken out of the apartment building
30:05
Speaker 1: where Susa and Nicholas Lovejoy lived in Waterville. Late yesterday,
30:08
Speaker 1: Police confirmed that was her body and charged her longtime
30:11
Speaker 1: boyfriend with murder. Lovejoy had since been in jail had
30:15
Speaker 1: been in jailson's Tuesday night. Police arrested him then for
30:18
Speaker 1: having a loaded gun and for leaving his daughters alone
30:20
Speaker 1: at home. Friends told us love Joy and Susa's relationship
30:23
Speaker 1: was not healthy, saying he was controlling and that she
30:26
Speaker 1: wanted to leave him but couldn't because of their daughters.
30:29
Speaker 1: One woman says she saw Lovejoy at a birthday party
30:32
Speaker 1: with his daughters on Tuesday night. Between the times Suso
30:35
Speaker 1: went missing and when he was arrested, he didn't make
30:38
Speaker 1: eye contact. He like I said, I've handled conversations and
30:41
Speaker 1: before and it was just different. It was just unsettling,
30:43
Speaker 1: and like I said at the time, I didn't think
30:45
Speaker 1: anything of it, but as time went on. Now I
30:48
Speaker 1: replayed the conversation and it just gets weirder and weirder
30:50
Speaker 1: to me every time I think about it. We're hearing
30:52
Speaker 1: our friends Sean Stackhouse at News Center Maine reporting when
30:57
Speaker 1: coworkers call police to do welfare check, they find nothing.
31:02
Speaker 1: Days later they find her body rolled up in a
31:05
Speaker 1: rug in the basement. Now, the father of her children,
31:09
Speaker 1: her boyfriend, her live in claiming he killed her, and
31:13
Speaker 1: self defense straight out to doctor Michelle du Pre, South
31:18
Speaker 1: Carolina medical examiner and author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide,
31:22
Speaker 1: Doctor du Pre, the state has charged him with murder.
31:25
Speaker 1: Why is it that you believe they're not buying the
31:29
Speaker 1: theory of self defense? Well, Nancy, Again, as everybody else
31:33
Speaker 1: has stated, self defense is a moment in time. It's
31:36
Speaker 1: immediately taking action when you are in fear of your
31:39
Speaker 1: life or someone else's, And the evidences doesn't show that.
31:42
Speaker 1: When we look at the totality of circumstances and look
31:46
Speaker 1: at the actions that were taken, it does not equate
31:49
Speaker 1: to self defense. What can you tell from the actual
31:51
Speaker 1: bullet wounds. From the actual bullet wounds, we can tell
31:54
Speaker 1: the trajectory. We can also tell approximately how close or
31:58
Speaker 1: how far that person was when they were shot. And
32:02
Speaker 1: given that, if the person has enough time and enough
32:06
Speaker 1: distance that they can back up or leave, then they
32:09
Speaker 1: can do that. Alox's terrestre writer online dot com tell
32:12
Speaker 1: me about the threats he made against her leading up
32:14
Speaker 1: to the murder. Their relationship has been so terrible. But
32:17
Speaker 1: this is what is so scary about this. This woman
32:19
Speaker 1: has told everybody, her family, her friends, her co workers,
32:22
Speaker 1: how afraid she was for him, how many guns he had,
32:24
Speaker 1: and she had no way to get out. She worked
32:28
Speaker 1: at Duncan done as probably did not make a lot
32:29
Speaker 1: of money, made an honest living, working, you know, in
32:32
Speaker 1: a great job that she tried to support her too
32:34
Speaker 1: little girls, but had no way, no recourse. Nothing that
32:39
Speaker 1: she did could save her life. She was afraid, she
32:43
Speaker 1: knew that he had all these guns and what the
32:45
Speaker 1: medical example. The woman was just saying, we don't even
32:48
Speaker 1: know if he's telling the truth. He shot her in
32:50
Speaker 1: the stomach. He could have shot her in the back
32:51
Speaker 1: as she was running away from him. This is that's
32:54
Speaker 1: probably another reason why they're charging him with murder. Was
32:57
Speaker 1: this wasn't just her coming down the stairs at him
32:59
Speaker 1: and he shot him. This is probably he's a liar,
33:01
Speaker 1: and this is probably not even the truth where she
33:03
Speaker 1: was even shot, telling her family, friends and coworkers that
33:06
Speaker 1: she was afraid, holding a gun to her head, according
33:11
Speaker 1: to her, threatening to kill her talk talk, your time
33:16
Speaker 1: is up. I've got two choices, to kill you or
33:19
Speaker 1: to kill you. That is what she told friends. He
33:23
Speaker 1: said to her, the threats unrelenting. To doctor Bethany Marshall,
33:28
Speaker 1: how often is unfounded jealousy a part of domestic violence?
33:34
Speaker 1: I would say in every single case. I would say
33:38
Speaker 1: there are a few symptoms that we see in every
33:41
Speaker 1: domestic violence situation. Threats, threats through intimidation, threats through bullying,
33:48
Speaker 1: threats through hitting. That is a major part of it.
33:52
Speaker 1: Jealousy is so runs through every single domestic violence case
33:57
Speaker 1: because what happens is that the user cannot distinguish between
34:03
Speaker 1: separateness and autonomy and betrayal and cheating. It all becomes
34:09
Speaker 1: one big swirl in the abuser's mind, so they cannot
34:12
Speaker 1: You know, a part of every healthy relationship is spending
34:15
Speaker 1: time apart as well as spending time together. It's a
34:18
Speaker 1: very basic, basic principle coming together and going apart, That
34:23
Speaker 1: very basic concept is not in an abuser's mind. So
34:28
Speaker 1: for any of your listeners who are an abusive relationships,
34:31
Speaker 1: they might want to think about if they are unable
34:33
Speaker 1: to have separate friends, or to go to work without
34:36
Speaker 1: their husband or partners stopping by, if they always have
34:39
Speaker 1: to share the content of their phone conversations, if they're
34:42
Speaker 1: never allowed to walk out of the room when they're
34:44
Speaker 1: talking on the phone, when the guy goes through her
34:47
Speaker 1: personal effects or personal belongings to make sure she's not
34:50
Speaker 1: with somebody else, that these are really very strong possible
34:54
Speaker 1: signs of domestic violence. To add insult to injury, take
34:57
Speaker 1: a listen to our friend tailor carn WGMA thirteen. Melissa Susa,
35:03
Speaker 1: a Waterville resident and mother of two, was found dead
35:06
Speaker 1: in her home last week, and former co workers here
35:09
Speaker 1: at the Duncan Donuts on College Avenue decided to help
35:11
Speaker 1: out with those funeral costs by collecting donations. According to employees,
35:16
Speaker 1: those donations were stolen, and this wasn't the only location
35:18
Speaker 1: it happened at. Duncan Donut employees tell us that an
35:21
Speaker 1: unknown amount of cash was stolen from donation buckets at
35:25
Speaker 1: the stores on College Avenue, Main Street and inside Walmart.
35:29
Speaker 1: Waterville police say it happened Sunday night. Susa's family says
35:32
Speaker 1: the news was hard to hear. My sister wasn't tars.
35:36
Speaker 1: She doesn't understand how anybody can do this. Waterville residents
35:40
Speaker 1: are just as shocked. It's disgusting that something like people
35:44
Speaker 1: would actually do that, and this lady just died his kids.
35:47
Speaker 1: Family members of SUSA say the donations were being used
35:50
Speaker 1: to pay for her funeral and to help out her
35:52
Speaker 1: two girls who were now in the foster care system.
35:55
Speaker 1: The funding was going to go everything that made from
35:58
Speaker 1: now to their future. So whoever did this really our
36:01
Speaker 1: family by taking from these kids? Don't can. Employees say
36:04
Speaker 1: all soul and buckets have been replaced and they hope
36:07
Speaker 1: people will continue to donate. Oh, it just breaks my heart,
36:10
Speaker 1: breaks my heart. Family Violence Domestic Abuse Hotline eight seven
36:16
Speaker 1: seven eight nine zero seven seven eight eight repeat eight
36:20
Speaker 1: seven seven eight nine zero seven to seven eight eight
36:26
Speaker 1: Bethany daughter, Bethany Marshall. How does domestic violence escalate to murder?
36:32
Speaker 1: It escalates when the woman begins to assert herself And
36:37
Speaker 1: that is the very sad fact in very mild cases,
36:42
Speaker 1: like very mildly dysfunctional relationships, when a woman becomes more autonomous,
36:47
Speaker 1: the man will simply lose interest in her. So that's
36:50
Speaker 1: a low level of dysfunction. In a high level of dysfunction,
36:55
Speaker 1: any act of independence is really what incites the man,
36:59
Speaker 1: which which is why I thought it was so brilliant
37:01
Speaker 1: that you asked about jealousy, because that really gets at
37:04
Speaker 1: the core of it. You can look at all these
37:06
Speaker 1: behaviors such as hitting, threatening, slapping, but what is underneath it?
37:11
Speaker 1: We talk about power and control, but really what's more
37:16
Speaker 1: profound is the inability to be separate from the love
37:20
Speaker 1: object without feeling abandoned and betrayed. So, to answer your question,
37:26
Speaker 1: that is when it escalates when the woman tries to leap,
37:29
Speaker 1: when she develops friends, when she goes to work, when
37:32
Speaker 1: she spends money independently, when she cuddles her children in
37:36
Speaker 1: bed or puts them on her lap. These are the
37:39
Speaker 1: times when it escalates. If she was just willing to
37:42
Speaker 1: be by the man's side all day long and let
37:44
Speaker 1: him do whatever he wanted to do, maybe she would
37:46
Speaker 1: maintain her life. But that's no life either, is it true?
37:49
Speaker 1: To like Strezhu that the twin girls to police, quote
37:54
Speaker 1: dad was mad at mom because she had a new boyfriend.
37:57
Speaker 1: That Daddy tugged them into bed Tuesday night and said, police,
38:00
Speaker 1: we're coming to get him. Yes, that is what the
38:02
Speaker 1: police have revealed. And this is so this is the
38:05
Speaker 1: story that he has told the children. He's told them,
38:07
Speaker 1: you know, mommy's laught. She has this new boyfriend really
38:09
Speaker 1: to cover his tracks. And this is so scarring for
38:12
Speaker 1: these little kids. And this is just another piece of
38:15
Speaker 1: evidence that the prosecutors are going to use to show
38:18
Speaker 1: that this was definitely not self defense. And now the
38:21
Speaker 1: two little girls in a foster home friends say, quote,
38:26
Speaker 1: he's a nightmare, He's a devil. She was afraid. She
38:32
Speaker 1: was afraid, and that's why she stayed. Domestic Abuse Hotline
38:38
Speaker 1: eight seven seven eight nine zero seven seven eight eight
38:43
Speaker 1: Nancy Gray signing off Goodbye friend,