Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Murder by SLEEPWALKING!
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Murder requires specific intent. It
- 0:18Speaker 1: can be implied or specific, but there must be intent
- 0:25Speaker 1: to do the act. But what about a recent spate
- 0:29Speaker 1: of murders committed while the killer is sound asleep, And
- 0:36Speaker 1: believe it or not, some jurdars are actually buying it.
- 0:48Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Am I understanding this? A
- 0:56Speaker 1: jury actually equits someone of murder because they claim that
- 1:01Speaker 1: they slept. Walk through the entire or deal. First of all,
- 1:06Speaker 1: take a listen to this. They A'm not on the
- 1:08Speaker 1: one with her. There's something going on with a young
- 1:11Speaker 1: boy and my son in law. We need help. We
- 1:14Speaker 1: need amberance and police please, Okay, we'll have a dearly emergency.
- 1:19Speaker 1: There's a young boy and my grandson four years old.
- 1:23Speaker 1: We can't wake him up. The father is locked up
- 1:25Speaker 1: in a room. We don't know what's going on. Everybody's screaming. Wow,
- 1:29Speaker 1: that must be some sound sleeper because everybody is screaming
- 1:33Speaker 1: and daddy's still asleep. Listen to a little bit more
- 1:36Speaker 1: of that nine Monthe call and tell me what's going on.
- 1:39Speaker 1: I don't know. My daughter's up there screaming. So her
- 1:42Speaker 1: husband is in a in his study. He can't. He
- 1:46Speaker 1: won't come out. And now there's a young boy, his son,
- 1:50Speaker 1: four years old. We can't wake him up. Okay, and
- 1:53Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on. We need an emergency
- 1:56Speaker 1: as a factist possible, yes down that follows me. Okay,
- 2:00Speaker 1: I will have information for you. Someone else is going
- 2:02Speaker 1: to get him on the way. Okay, is it your grandson?
- 2:08Speaker 1: My grandson is four years old. My daughter is trying
- 2:10Speaker 1: to break into a door. We don't know if he's
- 2:12Speaker 1: alive or not alive. Well, I can answer that much.
- 2:15Speaker 1: He's dead. The four year old little boy is dad.
- 2:20Speaker 1: You can hear screaming and wailing in the background. With
- 2:24Speaker 1: me an all star panel to break you down and
- 2:26Speaker 1: put it back together again. But first of all, let
- 2:28Speaker 1: me ask Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute,
- 2:32Speaker 1: joining US forensics expert. The defense says, daddy's asleep. Hold on, Cheryl,
- 2:38Speaker 1: Satellite down Christy, Missouri with me Emmy Award winning investigative
- 2:42Speaker 1: reporter Christie. Is that correct? Well, you know, if you'd
- 2:47Speaker 1: like to believe the defense team, that's what they're claiming,
- 2:50Speaker 1: sleep walking, right, But these are some tragic tales to
- 2:55Speaker 1: this evening in fact, it's the daughter Alexa has had
- 3:00Speaker 1: to fight her father off. This is just almost too
- 3:03Speaker 1: much for me to take in. Guys, let me finish
- 3:05Speaker 1: introducing our panel with me Doctor Mark R. Pressman, Sleep
- 3:09Speaker 1: and Scientific Evidence specialist Pressman Sleep and Science Forensics dot
- 3:14Speaker 1: com and author of Sleepwalking, Criminal Behavior and Reliable Scientific
- 3:21Speaker 1: Evidence and FYI. He's an expert on many of these
- 3:26Speaker 1: sleepwalking cases. James Shellnut twenty seven years on law Enforcement,
- 3:31Speaker 1: Police Force, now Lawyer. You can find him at Shelna
- 3:35Speaker 1: Lawfirm dot com. Doctor jen Mann therapist host on VH one.
- 3:41Speaker 1: She's the host of Doctor Jen Show on series x
- 3:44Speaker 1: SIM She's an author of The Relationship Fix. Wow. I
- 3:48Speaker 1: don't have enough paper to give you her resume, but
- 3:50Speaker 1: doctor jen Man Therapist is joining us, as I said earlier.
- 3:53Speaker 1: Director of the Cold Case Research Institute let me know
- 3:56Speaker 1: when her satellite issue it is up. You missed your
- 3:58Speaker 1: first question, Cheryl, if you were in a sleep Cheryl McCollum,
- 4:02Speaker 1: Director of the Cold Case Research Institute and forensics expert
- 4:06Speaker 1: doctor Tim Gallagher. I can't wait to hear what he's
- 4:09Speaker 1: got to say about this. He's a medical examiner for
- 4:11Speaker 1: the entire state of Florida, and you can find him
- 4:14Speaker 1: at pathcaremed dot com. And I already went to hire
- 4:19Speaker 1: Emmy Award winner investigative reporter Christy Missouri, President of Successful
- 4:24Speaker 1: Strategies PR and Crisis Communications, And I would call this
- 4:28Speaker 1: a crisis. Cheryl McCollum, I don't know if you could
- 4:31Speaker 1: hear us. We could not hear you. But I just
- 4:33Speaker 1: played part of a nine one one call, and just
- 4:36Speaker 1: for you, Cheryl, I'm gonna play it again. Take a
- 4:39Speaker 1: listen to this nine one one call. I'm not in
- 4:42Speaker 1: a one weekday. There's something going on with a young
- 4:45Speaker 1: boy and my son in law. We need help. We
- 4:49Speaker 1: need ambulance and police. Please, okay, we'll have a dearly emergency.
- 4:53Speaker 1: Did a young boy and my grandchon all years old.
- 4:57Speaker 1: We can't wake him up. The father is rocked up
- 5:00Speaker 1: a room. We don't know what's going on. Everybody's screaming.
- 5:02Speaker 1: And more than I'm only on call, Please chack and
- 5:04Speaker 1: tell me what's going on. I don't know. My daughter's
- 5:07Speaker 1: up there screaming. So her husband is in a in
- 5:11Speaker 1: his a study. He can't he won't come out. And
- 5:13Speaker 1: now there's a young boy, his son four years old.
- 5:17Speaker 1: We can't wake him up, okay, and I don't know
- 5:20Speaker 1: what's going on. We need emergency as fast as possible. Yes,
- 5:25Speaker 1: down that hollow is me Okay, I will have information
- 5:27Speaker 1: for you. Someone else is going to get him on
- 5:29Speaker 1: the way. Okay, sir, How old is your Is this
- 5:33Speaker 1: your grandson? My grandson is four years old. My daughter's
- 5:36Speaker 1: trying to break into a girl. We don't know if
- 5:39Speaker 1: he's alive or not alive. Stay on the phone. Are
- 5:41Speaker 1: you kidding me? Uh, Cheryl mccollumy, he needs to go
- 5:44Speaker 1: break that door down. You hear screaming and wailing in
- 5:48Speaker 1: the background. Cheryl McCollum. I'm gonna go to Christy, Missouri
- 5:52Speaker 1: in just a moment for all the facts. But are
- 5:55Speaker 1: you buying this? Are you actually buying this that the
- 5:59Speaker 1: peer is asleep? He needs to break the door down,
- 6:03Speaker 1: And no, I don't believe he's asleep. You can hear
- 6:06Speaker 1: everybody in that house screaming and having a fit and
- 6:10Speaker 1: calling for more help, and he's going to sleep through it.
- 6:13Speaker 1: I don't buy it. I mean, Cheryl, as you know,
- 6:16Speaker 1: I have slept walked, I sleep talk, I sleep walk,
- 6:20Speaker 1: But it doesn't take a lot to wake me up.
- 6:25Speaker 1: I don't get very far. It's my point. I just
- 6:28Speaker 1: find it very difficult to believe you can go in
- 6:31Speaker 1: a room, lock the door, murder your four year old
- 6:34Speaker 1: child while everybody's still trying to bam the door down
- 6:37Speaker 1: and screaming, and you sleep through it all. To Christy Missourich,
- 6:41Speaker 1: investigative reporter and president of Successful Strategies PR in Crisis Communications,
- 6:48Speaker 1: let me just start with this case. Start at the beginning,
- 6:51Speaker 1: pick it up at the nine on one call. What happened?
- 6:53Speaker 1: So it all starts with the daughter blasting into the
- 6:59Speaker 1: peri the bedroom, seeing you know, mommy, hello hall wa
- 7:03Speaker 1: wait how old is the daughter? Wait a minute, wait
- 7:05Speaker 1: a minute? How old is the daughter? Mid teens? Right,
- 7:09Speaker 1: he has two older children and a tenure. Okay, So
- 7:13Speaker 1: the team girl blast in into her parents' bedroom. Okay,
- 7:18Speaker 1: seeing mommy, help us, help us. Daddy's trying to hurt us.
- 7:23Speaker 1: She tells police that her dad came into her room
- 7:26Speaker 1: that night wearing a Halloween mask. No no, no, no,
- 7:31Speaker 1: wait wait wait wait yes, stop everything. Did you hear that, Jackie?
- 7:36Speaker 1: Did you hear that? Okay? Wearing a Halloween mask? It
- 7:41Speaker 1: will be a cold day in h double l that
- 7:44Speaker 1: I believe this guy slept through finding a Halloween mask.
- 7:49Speaker 1: First of all, right, there, how am I going to
- 7:51Speaker 1: find a Halloween costume that's not gonna happen until next
- 7:53Speaker 1: Halloween at Spirit Halloween dot com? And I go out
- 7:57Speaker 1: and buy one. The lord knows where Halloween costume is,
- 8:01Speaker 1: but he gets a Halloween costume and puts the mask
- 8:05Speaker 1: on around his head. Correct, Okay, I just wanted to
- 8:08Speaker 1: make sure I understood that. Go ahead, Chrissy Missouri. I
- 8:11Speaker 1: can't wait to hear what happens next. So she's asleep.
- 8:16Speaker 1: She's asleep, and she wakes up days and confused to
- 8:21Speaker 1: her dad on top of her, wearing a Halloween mask,
- 8:25Speaker 1: pushing her head between her bed, and what do you
- 8:28Speaker 1: mean on top of her, on top of her, to
- 8:31Speaker 1: molest her, on top of her, to kill her, to
- 8:35Speaker 1: try to smother her, pushing her head between the bed
- 8:38Speaker 1: and the wall. You know, if your bed's up to
- 8:41Speaker 1: the corner where the wall meets the joint. He's trying
- 8:45Speaker 1: to force her head in between the bed and the wall,
- 8:49Speaker 1: trying to smother her. She passes out. Moments later, here
- 8:54Speaker 1: screams from her brother. She sees her father attacking her brother,
- 9:01Speaker 1: she bites him, tries to rip him off of the brother.
- 9:05Speaker 1: That's when she goes to get her mom. The mom
- 9:08Speaker 1: thinks that her husband's having a nervous breakdown and is
- 9:12Speaker 1: unaware how serious four year old Blake's injuries are. That's
- 9:16Speaker 1: when the grandpa gets riled up and called the police. Now,
- 9:19Speaker 1: remember I told you the daughter Alexis fights her father
- 9:23Speaker 1: off of her brother, and the dad takes off Halloween
- 9:27Speaker 1: mask and toll and barricades himself in the home office.
- 9:32Speaker 1: So he leaves the bedroom Christie, Missouri, and goes and
- 9:36Speaker 1: hides in the home office. That's right, that's right. Okay.
- 9:39Speaker 1: You know, to doctor Mark R. Pressman, sleep scientific evidence specialist,
- 9:44Speaker 1: author of Sleepwalking, Criminal Behavior and Reliable Scientific Evidence, Doctor Pressman,
- 9:52Speaker 1: there is no way that this guy sleepwalking. I don't
- 9:56Speaker 1: care what science may say, and you know, I just
- 10:03Speaker 1: don't How could he do all that and still be asleep? Well,
- 10:07Speaker 1: to say that he's asleep, it's not exactly true. This
- 10:11Speaker 1: is not normal sleep. This is sort of a weird
- 10:15Speaker 1: mixture between deep sleep and waking that occurs because of
- 10:21Speaker 1: some problems in the brain of sleepwalkers. So so sleepwalkers,
- 10:29Speaker 1: he would not expect him to act just like anyone
- 10:32Speaker 1: else who's asleep. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, take
- 10:51Speaker 1: a listen to our friends at w r AL. This
- 10:53Speaker 1: is Aaron Hartness. Joseph Mitchell is accused of doing something
- 10:56Speaker 1: almost unimaginable to most people. Deputies believe he suffocated his
- 11:01Speaker 1: four year old son, Blake, and then stabbed himself multiple times.
- 11:05Speaker 1: As Sir Twarren says, Mitchell's other two children say they
- 11:08Speaker 1: woke up with something over their faces and had to
- 11:10Speaker 1: fend off their father. Lieutenant Stan Harris says at some
- 11:13Speaker 1: point during the attack, Mitchell's wife ran to another part
- 11:16Speaker 1: of the house trying to get help for her children.
- 11:19Speaker 1: As sirch Twarren says, the family was in deep financial
- 11:21Speaker 1: trouble and their home was about to be seized by
- 11:24Speaker 1: a bank. Whether that played a major role or minor role,
- 11:26Speaker 1: we're just not a little to say right now. Poor
- 11:28Speaker 1: documents say Mitchell's wife didn't know the extent of the
- 11:31Speaker 1: financial trouble. Sir Twarren's show. Investigators took computers from the home,
- 11:36Speaker 1: along with copies of life insurance policies, including policies for
- 11:39Speaker 1: all three children. Investigators also took a mask and a knife.
- 11:43Speaker 1: Hold on, I can't write that fast. I need to
- 11:46Speaker 1: learn shorthand. But what's really jumping out of me, doctor
- 11:50Speaker 1: jen Man? A wife had no idea about the finances.
- 11:54Speaker 1: Why is that still happening in twenty twenty one? Me?
- 11:58Speaker 1: I heard the word life and sharans connected to policy.
- 12:02Speaker 1: All right, so and I heard financial troubles. Did you
- 12:05Speaker 1: hear all that, doctor jen I assure to Nancy, And
- 12:08Speaker 1: you would be amazed, in this day and age, at
- 12:12Speaker 1: how many couples organize their finances where one person, usually
- 12:16Speaker 1: the person who everyone decides this kind of quote unquote
- 12:19Speaker 1: better at those things, handles them and the other person
- 12:24Speaker 1: is in the dark. And I always encourage couples that
- 12:27Speaker 1: even if one person is handling the logistics of actually
- 12:31Speaker 1: pressing the button to send the check or actually literally
- 12:33Speaker 1: writing the check, that the other persons be involved so
- 12:37Speaker 1: they know what's going on. But you'd be amazed at
- 12:40Speaker 1: how often one partner is in the job. And you know,
- 12:42Speaker 1: Jackie's over here rolling her eyes. Again, let me just
- 12:47Speaker 1: say it's not always a woman. Do you know, my
- 12:49Speaker 1: brother with a successful career, very successful career, brags he
- 12:56Speaker 1: doesn't know how to use an ATM, and his wife
- 12:59Speaker 1: handles all the finances. When he says that, I'm so
- 13:03Speaker 1: proud of my children they just turned thirteen, doctor Jenn,
- 13:06Speaker 1: and they all look at each other and it's not
- 13:09Speaker 1: a secret. I give him a lot of grief about it,
- 13:11Speaker 1: but it happens. He brags he does not know how
- 13:15Speaker 1: to use the ATEN. I'd give him fifty cents and
- 13:18Speaker 1: tell him to go buy some candy. Really, so okay,
- 13:21Speaker 1: doctor Jen, that's the first thing. But Shelna Jim Shellna,
- 13:24Speaker 1: twenty seven years Metro Major Case Now lawyer, life insurance policy.
- 13:30Speaker 1: Did you hear that? It was like a siren blaring
- 13:33Speaker 1: in my ear? Yeah, life insurance policies on the children
- 13:36Speaker 1: and the wife, So yeah, I mean, you know, motive
- 13:39Speaker 1: honestly is you know, doesn't have to be proven in
- 13:41Speaker 1: a case. But when you have a case like this
- 13:43Speaker 1: where somebody saying, oh I didn't mean to do it
- 13:46Speaker 1: or it was sleepwalking, being able to show a potential
- 13:49Speaker 1: motive like this is huge. You're in a financial despair,
- 13:52Speaker 1: you're about to lose everything. There is a way for
- 13:56Speaker 1: you to get this money, and it's through a life
- 13:59Speaker 1: insurance Paul see I think that goes a long way
- 14:02Speaker 1: towards helping a jury make a decision, at least at
- 14:04Speaker 1: this irrational jury. And to you medical examiner for the
- 14:07Speaker 1: entire state of Florida, doctor Tim Gallagher, right in your
- 14:11Speaker 1: back yard in the shadows of Disney. I don't know
- 14:15Speaker 1: if you recall this over in celebration where the father
- 14:19Speaker 1: was going under with all of his businesses. He was
- 14:22Speaker 1: committing fraud on the government for like one of those
- 14:26Speaker 1: muscle rehab places where after you are injured you're supposed
- 14:31Speaker 1: to get rehabbed. He was cheating the government like nobody's business.
- 14:34Speaker 1: They found out, everything started going down, down, down. He
- 14:38Speaker 1: drove straight down to Celebration, Florida and murdered his wife
- 14:43Speaker 1: and children rather than anybody find out they're all going bust.
- 14:48Speaker 1: This is not a knee story, doctor Gallagher. Remember that's case.
- 14:52Speaker 1: It was recessed. Oh absolutely, And if anyone has been
- 14:54Speaker 1: a celebration, it's a very high exclusive neighborhood in the
- 14:58Speaker 1: Disney area where how are millions and millions of dollars
- 15:02Speaker 1: each and of course image would be one of the
- 15:05Speaker 1: main pressing factors there. If you're going to live, you know,
- 15:08Speaker 1: doctor Gallagher, I got myself and the children and my
- 15:12Speaker 1: husband all in the car on a vacation. I had
- 15:16Speaker 1: an underlying motive. I went down there to see this
- 15:19Speaker 1: location and see and it's exactly as you just said.
- 15:25Speaker 1: That's what we call where I come from, living high
- 15:28Speaker 1: on the hog, way, too high on the hog. And
- 15:31Speaker 1: then when it all started falling apart, it was better
- 15:34Speaker 1: to kill his family than admit financial ruin. I want
- 15:38Speaker 1: to go back to a special guest, doctor Mark R. Pressman.
- 15:42Speaker 1: Doctor Pressman, I want you to take a listen to
- 15:45Speaker 1: our cut number nine. This is Ariel Clay at w
- 15:49Speaker 1: R A L. Christine Pierrolini broke down when recalling the
- 15:52Speaker 1: night her four year old son was suffocated. I was
- 15:55Speaker 1: scared to touch him first because he didn't look great
- 16:00Speaker 1: Lantosha's arm he didn't. February Joseph Mitchell's attorneys say he
- 16:05Speaker 1: was sleepwalking the night of the incident and question Pierrolini
- 16:08Speaker 1: about trouble Mitchell had at night before Blake's death, including
- 16:11Speaker 1: one time when he reared back to hit her employer. No,
- 16:17Speaker 1: I believe so interesting to you, doctor Pressman. The only
- 16:22Speaker 1: time he had. He has these episodes where he commits
- 16:27Speaker 1: X in his sleep. They're always domestic violence. You don't
- 16:32Speaker 1: think that's a coincidence, Well, it certainly could be. My
- 16:36Speaker 1: approach is very different. I want to know whether his
- 16:39Speaker 1: behaviors that night are consistent with what we know sleepwalkers
- 16:44Speaker 1: can or cannot do. And so typically sleepwalking violence, the
- 16:51Speaker 1: sleepwalker does not go to the victim. You know, all
- 16:54Speaker 1: this sort of cartoonish stuff about the sleepwalker walking with
- 16:59Speaker 1: his arms out and be a knife in his hand,
- 17:01Speaker 1: and you know, yelling kill, kill, kill while he looks
- 17:04Speaker 1: for revenge or something. That doesn't happen. In almost all
- 17:09Speaker 1: of the cases of sleepwalking violence, the victim actually comes
- 17:13Speaker 1: to the sleepwalker. Fleepwalkers up and about, and the victim
- 17:17Speaker 1: basically tries to get them to turn around, or they
- 17:22Speaker 1: block them, or they do something and they accidentally trigger
- 17:27Speaker 1: sleepwalking violence, which is actually defensive because the sleepwalker doesn't
- 17:32Speaker 1: recognize fleepwalker can't recognize faces, They don't know who this
- 17:37Speaker 1: person is. This person is just a potential, a potential
- 17:42Speaker 1: threat that they have to deal with on a very
- 17:45Speaker 1: primitive level. And also there are no reported cases ever
- 17:50Speaker 1: a violence of more than one person at a time.
- 17:55Speaker 1: So the fact that he came into the room very
- 17:58Speaker 1: unusual and and abnormal. And the fact that there are
- 18:03Speaker 1: three victims all at the same time has never been
- 18:07Speaker 1: reported and is not consistent with what we know about sleep.
- 18:10Speaker 1: And coincidentally, although I couldn't get you to commit to
- 18:13Speaker 1: a coincidence, very wise of you, doctor. Coincidentally, there were
- 18:18Speaker 1: three life insurance policies as well. Okay, doctor, pressman, I
- 18:23Speaker 1: hope you're sitting down. You many to lay down for this.
- 18:26Speaker 1: Let's hear cut ten. This is tamer gives ABC eleven.
- 18:30Speaker 1: The jurors we spoke with are so concerned about the
- 18:32Speaker 1: public's reaction to their verdict that they asked to remain anonymous,
- 18:36Speaker 1: and they tell us if manslaughter had been on the table,
- 18:39Speaker 1: Joseph Mitchell would still be in jail. On one side
- 18:43Speaker 1: of the courtroom, a relief defendant, on the other, a
- 18:46Speaker 1: grieving mother, and inside the jury box twelve conflicted men
- 18:50Speaker 1: and women. It was the reasonable doubt that they gotten
- 18:54Speaker 1: as men off. This jur who asked us not to
- 18:57Speaker 1: reveal her name or show her face, says initial to lead.
- 19:00Speaker 1: There were a few holdoubts, but ultimately the panel agreed
- 19:03Speaker 1: Joseph Mitchell did not act with malice, intent, or premeditation
- 19:08Speaker 1: that's required for a first second degree murder conviction. Our
- 19:12Speaker 1: justice system failed this family. I don't think the jury failed.
- 19:17Speaker 1: I think we made the decision we had to make
- 19:20Speaker 1: based on the laws and the instructions we were given. Well,
- 19:23Speaker 1: they can tell themselves that when they try to put
- 19:25Speaker 1: their head on the pillow to you, Sean McCollum, you
- 19:30Speaker 1: know when a jury or a jr. Has to hide
- 19:33Speaker 1: their face when they leave the courthouse, when they don't
- 19:37Speaker 1: want their name known, they know they did the wrong thing.
- 19:40Speaker 1: Here's what drives me crazy about what she said. She
- 19:43Speaker 1: doesn't believe her own verdict. Why in the world would
- 19:47Speaker 1: you say there's reasonable doubt when there's not with you?
- 19:52Speaker 1: That's insane to me. This guy did not go to
- 19:54Speaker 1: bed with a mask and a knife. He waited until
- 19:58Speaker 1: the wife was asleep, and by the house of sleep
- 20:01Speaker 1: he went and attacked two children and then fled after
- 20:05Speaker 1: the murder, locking himself in a room for self protection,
- 20:10Speaker 1: and then claimed, oh, I didn't know what I was doing.
- 20:13Speaker 1: I was sleepwalking. And my question for that is, had
- 20:16Speaker 1: he ever sleepwalked before? Had he sought medical help for it?
- 20:20Speaker 1: What steps did he take to prevent this? I bet
- 20:24Speaker 1: nothing because it was pre planned. I bet nothing because
- 20:29Speaker 1: there was no previous sleep walking problem unless he tried
- 20:34Speaker 1: to pull one over on his wife. And for ten
- 20:38Speaker 1: on an earlier occasion, he had been sleepwalking crime stories
- 20:54Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. For those of you that did not
- 20:58Speaker 1: hear it, the jury down. This guy not guilty. Blake Mitchell,
- 21:06Speaker 1: the little boy who lost his life just four years old.
- 21:09Speaker 1: His dad Joseph Anthony Mitchell, fifty there in Durham, North Carolina,
- 21:15Speaker 1: has walked free. But that's really just the tip of
- 21:20Speaker 1: the iceberg, you know. And I want to go back
- 21:22Speaker 1: out to you. James Shellnutt, twenty seven years Metro Major
- 21:27Speaker 1: case law enforcement now lawyer. James. The judge specifically instructs
- 21:33Speaker 1: the jury in every single criminal felony case, you are
- 21:38Speaker 1: to use and apply your common sense, almost verbatim, and
- 21:45Speaker 1: you are to reach a verdict to a moral and
- 21:51Speaker 1: reasonable certainty, moral and reasonable certainty, reasonable head, moral heart.
- 22:00Speaker 1: In other words, if you believe it, If you believe
- 22:04Speaker 1: he did this thing, then the state has carried their burden.
- 22:08Speaker 1: Yes or no? Shall not? Oh? I agree, And you
- 22:12Speaker 1: know I find it odd for this jury to say, well,
- 22:15Speaker 1: if manslaughter would have been on the table, then he
- 22:19Speaker 1: wouldn't have left the courthouse. He'd went to jail. You know,
- 22:22Speaker 1: malice of forethought can be formed in the blink of
- 22:25Speaker 1: an eye. It doesn't take days or weeks or hours
- 22:28Speaker 1: of planning. It can happen in an instant and quite frankly,
- 22:33Speaker 1: sometimes you just get bad juries. You get bad juries
- 22:37Speaker 1: that don't use common sense. You get bad juries that
- 22:40Speaker 1: may not understand what they're doing, and you get bad
- 22:42Speaker 1: juries that sometimes are anti police, anti prosecution. And it
- 22:47Speaker 1: just seems like this was a bad jury that made
- 22:50Speaker 1: a bad decision on a case where a man should
- 22:53Speaker 1: have been convicted of murder. This jury, reeks, guys, that
- 22:58Speaker 1: was in North Carolina. Let's cross a country to Phoenix, Arizona.
- 23:02Speaker 1: Take a listen to our cut one. This is Brianna Whitney.
- 23:06Speaker 1: Just heard her knelling and you could hear her rolling
- 23:08Speaker 1: around in the rocks. Scott Phalater's next door neighbors jolted
- 23:11Speaker 1: away everyone outside to see if we could hear if
- 23:13Speaker 1: somebody needed help or something, and then the screaming quit.
- 23:20Speaker 1: Police got to the house to find Phalater waiting for them.
- 23:23Speaker 1: His wife, Yarmila, dead in the pool, forty four stab
- 23:27Speaker 1: wounds to her body. Later told them he had been
- 23:30Speaker 1: sleepwalking and couldn't remember anything, but the next door neighbor
- 23:34Speaker 1: told police he watched later stab his wife, drag her
- 23:38Speaker 1: to the pool, hold her head underwater, and then quieting
- 23:42Speaker 1: the dog, going up the stairs, turning on a light,
- 23:45Speaker 1: taking clothes off, going down to the garage, getting things
- 23:48Speaker 1: out of the garage. He dashed the bloody knife and
- 23:50Speaker 1: his bloody clothes in his car, all while his twelve
- 23:53Speaker 1: and fifteen year old children were asleep in the house.
- 23:57Speaker 1: You're hearing our friends there at True Crime Arizona. Another
- 24:00Speaker 1: sleepwalking murder. Okay, guys, forty four stab wounds. Take a
- 24:08Speaker 1: listen to our friends at Inside Edition Our Cut two.
- 24:11Speaker 1: It was a murder that shocked the nation. The notorious
- 24:14Speaker 1: sleepwalking killer Scott Plater, stabbed his wife forty four times,
- 24:18Speaker 1: then drowned her in the pool. His defense, he was sleepwalking.
- 24:24Speaker 1: I breathed the fight. When Phoenix cops got there, they
- 24:30Speaker 1: found Flatter at the top of the stairs in his pajamas.
- 24:33Speaker 1: He made remarks to the stead of what's going on?
- 24:36Speaker 1: What are you doing in my house? That is all
- 24:39Speaker 1: about Scott Later. Let me go back to Chrissy, miss
- 24:43Speaker 1: Emmy Award winning investigative reporter. What happened in Arizona. It
- 24:48Speaker 1: depends on what tale you want to believe, whether you
- 24:50Speaker 1: want to believe Scott Later or the neighbors that watched
- 24:55Speaker 1: a methodical murderer in action, you know, as a dead
- 25:00Speaker 1: Let's start with the neighbors, Christie, right, So they hear
- 25:04Speaker 1: some noises in the neighbor's backyard and look over the
- 25:08Speaker 1: fence to find your milla, create a laying on the
- 25:13Speaker 1: ground that they watched Scott walk very calmly back into
- 25:19Speaker 1: the house and as mentioned in the clip, you know,
- 25:22Speaker 1: turn lights off and on as he's making his way
- 25:24Speaker 1: through the house changing clothes. But one detail that came
- 25:29Speaker 1: out in testimony is that greg Coon's the neighbor watched
- 25:34Speaker 1: Scott's Philater done a pair of gloves before he comes
- 25:39Speaker 1: back outside and drags his body his wife's bodies over
- 25:44Speaker 1: to the pool and drowns her. The very critical fact
- 25:49Speaker 1: removes the gloves, takes off his clothes, puts them in
- 25:53Speaker 1: a tupperware container along with the bloody knife. When the
- 25:56Speaker 1: cops show up, he's standing at the top of the
- 25:59Speaker 1: stairs with a crisp white T shirt eye. Okay, Cheryl McCallum,
- 26:03Speaker 1: director of the Cold Case Research Institute, forensics expert jump
- 26:07Speaker 1: in feet first, premeditation Again, everything he did after the
- 26:13Speaker 1: murder was to save himself. So you're talking about a
- 26:18Speaker 1: calculated I've got to have gloves. I've got a drown
- 26:21Speaker 1: her to make sure she's dead, because she's not dead
- 26:23Speaker 1: from the stab wounds. Now I've got to hide the
- 26:25Speaker 1: clothes that I was wearing when I committed the crime.
- 26:27Speaker 1: I'm going to change clothes so I looked fresh and clean,
- 26:30Speaker 1: so they'll never suspect me. This is not somebody out
- 26:33Speaker 1: of it asleep that doesn't know what they're doing. These
- 26:36Speaker 1: are criminals acting out crimes we see every day the
- 26:41Speaker 1: exact same way. I mean, don't you think doctor Tim
- 26:44Speaker 1: Gallagher that after forty four stabs, the jarring of the stabs,
- 26:51Speaker 1: crunching through bone, cartilage, tendons, muscle, human organs would have
- 26:58Speaker 1: woken him up? Well, you know, my patients really are
- 27:04Speaker 1: not you know, alive. But I would think that by
- 27:08Speaker 1: using common sense, which all of us on the panel have,
- 27:11Speaker 1: that yes, one stab when one poke, even a poke
- 27:15Speaker 1: in the eye rop or a sharp poke in the
- 27:17Speaker 1: chest would wake me up, certainly, forty four stab wounds
- 27:20Speaker 1: wouldn't wake me. No, I mean the defendant, the husband,
- 27:24Speaker 1: the jarring motion of forty four stabs, dragging your wife
- 27:30Speaker 1: around changing clothes, and then when the police to get there,
- 27:34Speaker 1: you're like, what happened? I mean to doctor Mark Pressman,
- 27:39Speaker 1: joining us author, sleepwalking, criminal behavior and reliable scientific evidence.
- 27:43Speaker 1: I must make a confession. My nephew, a real brainiac,
- 27:53Speaker 1: as a child, would sleepwalk. And I remember one episode.
- 27:59Speaker 1: We went all went to Jackson Hall, Wyoming for my parents'
- 28:04Speaker 1: fiftieth wedding anniversary, and that night my nephew was sleeping
- 28:12Speaker 1: in the room with me and I heard the door
- 28:15Speaker 1: opening and I looked up and immediately sprung up. This
- 28:20Speaker 1: is when I was still a prosecutor. I ran out
- 28:23Speaker 1: in the hall and there is my little nephew, maybe
- 28:27Speaker 1: nine years old, walking down the hall, and I called
- 28:34Speaker 1: his name, and he didn't turn around. I called his
- 28:37Speaker 1: name again, he didn't turn around. I ran to him
- 28:41Speaker 1: and got in front of him and grabbed him by
- 28:43Speaker 1: the shoulders. He looked so afraid and he ran back
- 28:46Speaker 1: to the room, jumped in the bed and hunched up
- 28:51Speaker 1: and put a pillow over his head. He was afraid
- 28:55Speaker 1: he was asleep, but when I touched his shoulders, he
- 29:02Speaker 1: was groggy. But he ran back to the room because
- 29:05Speaker 1: he looked around in the hall and didn't understand what
- 29:07Speaker 1: was happening around him. But by the time he got
- 29:11Speaker 1: back to the room, he was awakened from his sleepwalking.
- 29:15Speaker 1: So explain to me, you're the expert, doctor Pressman, how
- 29:20Speaker 1: someone could conceivably stab their wife forty four times and
- 29:25Speaker 1: claimed they were asleep. Wow. I was the prosecution expert,
- 29:28Speaker 1: so I don't think he did. At trial, I presented
- 29:33Speaker 1: sixty different instances of behaviors he had. This was Remember
- 29:38Speaker 1: this trial was very unusual because the next door neighbor
- 29:41Speaker 1: was in the backyard watching what was going on for
- 29:45Speaker 1: a good twenty minutes. You know, light's going and off.
- 29:48Speaker 1: That's evidence that you never have in cases like this.
- 29:52Speaker 1: So the important thing to know about a real sleepwalker
- 29:56Speaker 1: is real sleepwalker does not have what we can higher
- 30:01Speaker 1: cognitive function. Real sleepwalker cannot form a memory, cannot retrieve
- 30:06Speaker 1: a memory. A real sleepwalker cannot plan. A real sleepwalker
- 30:10Speaker 1: cannot form an intent. Real sleepwalker has no social social abilities.
- 30:16Speaker 1: That part of the brain that has those you know,
- 30:20Speaker 1: where those abilities reside is turned off in the sleepwalker
- 30:25Speaker 1: is deactivated. So if the sleepwalker does something that can
- 30:30Speaker 1: only happen with that part of the brain activated, then
- 30:34Speaker 1: they're not asleep. They're not sleepwalker, they're awake. Time Stories
- 30:49Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. Guys, we are talking about murders committed
- 30:55Speaker 1: while they defendant is allegedly asleep. You were just hearing
- 31:00Speaker 1: about Scott Felder. You'll be happy to know that he
- 31:03Speaker 1: was actually convicted. But I want to talk to you
- 31:06Speaker 1: about another case, the case of Deborah Lazaraine. To Christy Missourich,
- 31:13Speaker 1: Emmy Award winning investigative reporter, President of Successful Strategies pr
- 31:18Speaker 1: in Crisis Communications, tell me about the case of Deborah Lazaraine.
- 31:23Speaker 1: So this is again the children are involved, and they're
- 31:29Speaker 1: really the ones that kind of perpetuate the nine one
- 31:32Speaker 1: one calls Raymond Lazarine calls his son Nathan. It's the
- 31:37Speaker 1: middle of the day, afternoon, urging him to come to
- 31:40Speaker 1: the house. He said he's having a dream that he
- 31:43Speaker 1: shot and killed his wife. It was not a dream.
- 31:47Speaker 1: Nathan arrives, he finds his mother, Deborah dead on the floor,
- 31:52Speaker 1: shell casing scattered all around her. She shot a half
- 31:56Speaker 1: dozen times, two shots to her head in her back.
- 32:01Speaker 1: He finds his father in the bedroom with a gun
- 32:05Speaker 1: Raymond Lazarine. When the police arrived, he tells him he
- 32:08Speaker 1: doesn't know what was happening. He was dreaming. But here's
- 32:12Speaker 1: the thing, you know. When the cops talked to Nathan,
- 32:15Speaker 1: Nathan said, look, my father's threatened my mom in the past.
- 32:18Speaker 1: He's very controlling. We never filed a complaint, didn't know
- 32:22Speaker 1: if it would rise to this. And at the time
- 32:25Speaker 1: of this shooting, Raymond Lazarine was under psyche yet for
- 32:28Speaker 1: care and taking prescriptions for psychotic episodes. Straight back out
- 32:34Speaker 1: to Cheryl McCollum, forensics expert, director of the Coal Case
- 32:37Speaker 1: Research Institute, didn't O. J. Simpson have a dream that
- 32:43Speaker 1: he killed Nicole Brown? I believe. So let me tell
- 32:46Speaker 1: you something easy, funny, how these dreams were If it
- 32:49Speaker 1: weren't so crap. I guess they're all clairvoyant, Cheryl, because
- 32:54Speaker 1: all these dreams come true. They do kill their wives,
- 32:56Speaker 1: and they know exactly how they kill them. It wasn't like, oh,
- 32:59Speaker 1: man and I had a horrible dream. She fell off
- 33:01Speaker 1: a cliff. No, you knew you shot her. Amazing, and
- 33:05Speaker 1: you just happen to be sitting there with a weapon
- 33:08Speaker 1: in your hand when your son finally shows up. I
- 33:10Speaker 1: mean here, it's just baffling. And again, if it weren't
- 33:14Speaker 1: so tragic, it would be laughable. The level of bs
- 33:19Speaker 1: that this arises to is just unbelievable. Everybody on this
- 33:24Speaker 1: panel that is married to a man knows that knows
- 33:27Speaker 1: the time they couldn't find a mask or gloves or
- 33:30Speaker 1: bins or phone numbers, they always come to us, but
- 33:33Speaker 1: not these us. Well that's a mop and a brand,
- 33:36Speaker 1: much less a mop of a broom, But not these guys.
- 33:38Speaker 1: Oh he found a Halloween mask or what Halloween? The
- 33:41Speaker 1: other one has a pair of gloves sitting on ready.
- 33:44Speaker 1: The other one's got bins. He could put bloody clothes
- 33:47Speaker 1: in garbage. It's complete, garbage, complete. I can't believe juries
- 33:52Speaker 1: are falling for this guys. We're talking about the case
- 33:55Speaker 1: of Raymond Lazarine, his wife Deborah Lazarine. Take a listen
- 34:00Speaker 1: to our cut thirteen Kaylee Harteng at ABC's America this morning.
- 34:05Speaker 1: This morning, an unusual murder trial is underway in Texas.
- 34:08Speaker 1: For a man who blames his sleepwalking for the death
- 34:11Speaker 1: of his wife. In December twenty thirteen, Raymond Lazarine called
- 34:14Speaker 1: his son and told him he had just had a
- 34:16Speaker 1: dream that he shot and killed his wife of thirty
- 34:19Speaker 1: five years, Deborah Lazarine. But it wasn't a dream. Lazarine
- 34:23Speaker 1: admits he shot Deborah half a dozen times. He claims
- 34:27Speaker 1: it was involuntary on account that he was asleep. There
- 34:30Speaker 1: are other witnesses over there that have seen the manifestation
- 34:34Speaker 1: of a sleep disorder, and we thought that would be
- 34:37Speaker 1: important for the jury. Tone joining me special guest doctor
- 34:40Speaker 1: Mark R. Pressman, author of Sleepwalking, Criminal Behavior and Reliable
- 34:45Speaker 1: Scientific Evidence, and an expert witness in the case against
- 34:50Speaker 1: Raymond Lazarine. What can you tell us, doctor, Well, first
- 34:54Speaker 1: of all, they got it a little bit wrong. It
- 34:58Speaker 1: actually was not a sleepwalking defense. It was a disorder
- 35:02Speaker 1: that may appear externally very similar, but is even rarer
- 35:08Speaker 1: and actually scarier. It's called rem behavior disorder RAM is
- 35:14Speaker 1: rapid eye movement sleep. Most people are where that's the
- 35:18Speaker 1: kind of sleep when you typically have your vivid dreaming
- 35:22Speaker 1: and okay, wait a minute, let me understand how finally
- 35:26Speaker 1: you're splitting this hair. You're saying, this is not a
- 35:31Speaker 1: sleepwalking defense. This is an M defense. You have ri
- 35:36Speaker 1: em rapid eye movement. So everyone has when you're asleep,
- 35:40Speaker 1: everyone has RAM sleep. And what brief he is saying
- 35:45Speaker 1: he was asleep when he killed him. He's claiming he
- 35:48Speaker 1: was in REM sleep at the time. And there's one
- 35:51Speaker 1: Could you tell me what difference does that make asleep
- 35:54Speaker 1: when he did It's there's an enormous difference in why
- 35:58Speaker 1: it occurs and what kind of behaviors someone who has
- 36:03Speaker 1: M behavior disorder can have. One of the least known
- 36:08Speaker 1: things about normal REM sleeper is that people who are
- 36:11Speaker 1: or are dreaming are unable to move okay for all
- 36:15Speaker 1: intensive purposes. Everybody who has who dreams is essentially paralyzed
- 36:21Speaker 1: while they dream. If you weren't paralyzed, you might be
- 36:25Speaker 1: able to essentially act out your dream. And just think
- 36:29Speaker 1: of the last dream you had, what would happen if
- 36:32Speaker 1: you acted that out. So what he's saying is for
- 36:36Speaker 1: some reason problem in the brain. That we actually know
- 36:40Speaker 1: what is wrong in the brain in these cases, that
- 36:44Speaker 1: the mechanism that causes the paralysis didn't work, and for
- 36:48Speaker 1: some reason he got up and retrieve the gun and
- 36:53Speaker 1: search for his wife, etcetera, etcetera. But none of that
- 36:57Speaker 1: is possible. Yes, I'm sorry to ask you a very
- 37:01Speaker 1: simple This is a yes no doctor. In the case
- 37:06Speaker 1: you must Yes, I've got you on the hot seat.
- 37:10Speaker 1: You're on cross in my mind anyway, Yeah, you got
- 37:12Speaker 1: You want me to answer yes or no. I never
- 37:15Speaker 1: answer yes or no, doctor Pressman. Isn't it true that,
- 37:18Speaker 1: in the case of Raymond Lazarine, charged in the murder
- 37:22Speaker 1: of his wife, Deborah Lazarine, in that case you were
- 37:26Speaker 1: an expert witness. And isn't it true that at the
- 37:30Speaker 1: time of the death of the wife Lazarine claimed he
- 37:36Speaker 1: was asleep? Well, he claimed he was streaming asleep. Yes,
- 37:40Speaker 1: he claimed he was in a dream when he did it. Yes. Yes,
- 37:44Speaker 1: Now I understand you're saying, or I think I do. Anyway,
- 37:47Speaker 1: they didn't teach me this at law school. You'd have
- 37:49Speaker 1: to be an MD for this. But I think what
- 37:52Speaker 1: you're saying is, let me throw this to you, doctor
- 37:54Speaker 1: gen Man. The parsing of the words is splitting of
- 37:59Speaker 1: the hair. Is that the defendant claim he had an
- 38:03Speaker 1: RM rapid eye movement problem, But the reality is he
- 38:09Speaker 1: still claims he was asleep when he murdered his wife.
- 38:12Speaker 1: Are you understanding that the same way I'm understanding I am,
- 38:14Speaker 1: But I don't know that this guy had a rapid
- 38:16Speaker 1: eye movement problem. Might think he had a domestic violence
- 38:18Speaker 1: problem because there is a history of other incidents where
- 38:22Speaker 1: he was violent with his wife. And as a therapist
- 38:25Speaker 1: who I don't specialize in fleet disorders, but I have
- 38:28Speaker 1: a long history working with domestic violence survivors. That's what
- 38:33Speaker 1: I look at. And there's an incident where his wife
- 38:36Speaker 1: asked for a glass of water and next thing she knew,
- 38:39Speaker 1: he was on top of her with a gun under her.
- 38:41Speaker 1: Check to you, Christie Missourich, Emmy Award winning investigative reporter,
- 38:48Speaker 1: isn't it true that this defendant, the husband, Raymond Lazzarine,
- 38:52Speaker 1: had a long history of being a nasty and hateful
- 38:58Speaker 1: and abusive drunk as an abusive alcoholic who regularly threatened
- 39:03Speaker 1: his wife with violence. Isn't that true? According to his
- 39:07Speaker 1: son Nathan, he broke down too many instances to list.
- 39:14Speaker 1: The problem was they never called the police out of
- 39:19Speaker 1: maybe their own personal fear. But the father would habitually
- 39:24Speaker 1: pop these prescription medications. And you know, slug back a
- 39:30Speaker 1: couple of shots of whiskey. You know what's interesting, Cheryl McCollum.
- 39:32Speaker 1: You know all the years that I prosecuted, including domestic
- 39:36Speaker 1: homicides and aggas salts, and worked at the Battered Women's
- 39:39Speaker 1: Center on the hotline. So often it's typically men, but
- 39:43Speaker 1: it can be women to blame beating their partner on alcohol.
- 39:51Speaker 1: I don't buy that. It's not the alcohol's fault. Alcohol
- 39:55Speaker 1: makes you more of what you are. So when women say, oh,
- 40:00Speaker 1: he's a good man when he's not drinking, the problem
- 40:02Speaker 1: is he ain't never not drinking. And if you drink
- 40:07Speaker 1: enough again, it heightens who you are. If you are
- 40:10Speaker 1: fun and just the life of the party. The more
- 40:13Speaker 1: you drink, the more fun you are. If you're just
- 40:16Speaker 1: a piece of crap who's looking for a fight, as
- 40:18Speaker 1: soon as you start drinking, you're just slugging the first
- 40:20Speaker 1: person you see to you. Christine, mister Rick, what happened
- 40:25Speaker 1: in the case of Raymond Lazarine, You don't look he's
- 40:35Speaker 1: We're all safer to have someone like that behind you
- 40:37Speaker 1: know what? And to my understanding, multiple defendants across the
- 40:42Speaker 1: US have gotten off Scott free walks Scott Free, claiming
- 40:48Speaker 1: sleep disorder sleep walking. Today we examine the case of
- 40:54Speaker 1: Scott for later who managed to slip through the fingers
- 40:59Speaker 1: of Lady justice, as compared to Mitchell and Lazarine. Long
- 41:04Speaker 1: story short, All of these guys, still, whether convicted or acquitted,
- 41:10Speaker 1: insist they were sleepwalking. Nancy Grace scribed stories, signing off
- 41:18Speaker 1: goodbye friend.