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Body of Missing 11 Y-O Found Inside Storage Bin, Severely Malnourished · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, an eleven year old boy,
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Speaker 1: Roman goes missing out of his own home. Every parent's
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Speaker 1: worst nightmare. Your child goes missing number one and on
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Speaker 1: your watch number two. I mean you see Grace. This
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Speaker 1: is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here
0:31
Speaker 1: at Fox Nation and Sirius XM one eleven. What happened
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Speaker 1: to Roman? Listen to this? A man who says he
0:41
Speaker 1: worked with Roman's father describes the day the eleven year
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Speaker 1: old went missing. Everything was normal. You wouldn't have suspected.
0:49
Speaker 1: It's like any other day. Brian Hinton says he was
0:52
Speaker 1: working with Roman's father on Saturday. They're both linemen from
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Speaker 1: out of state working in Placerville since October. He noticed
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Speaker 1: Jordan Piper left work around eleven am. He had a
1:02
Speaker 1: family emergency. About three hours later, Hinton got a text
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Speaker 1: message from Piper with photos of Roman. Hinton met Piper
1:10
Speaker 1: to start searching crime. You can tell it. He was
1:14
Speaker 1: shook up. He told us that it's unreal. What do
1:18
Speaker 1: they believe he ran away? That that there's certain that
1:23
Speaker 1: he left between mid ninety six am. Forty co workers
1:26
Speaker 1: helped search until around ten thirty at night, looking in
1:29
Speaker 1: dumpsters looking in garage's trailers. You were hearing from our
1:33
Speaker 1: friends at Casey are A News three. It's very unusual
1:39
Speaker 1: for a child that young to just run away. You
1:44
Speaker 1: often hear of teens running away seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. Once
1:50
Speaker 1: in a while, you hear of teens younger than that
1:52
Speaker 1: sixteen fifteen. But when you're getting down to thirteen, twelve, eleven,
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Speaker 1: not as you shul to have a child that young runaway.
2:03
Speaker 1: With me an all star panel to make sense of
2:05
Speaker 1: it all or now to attorney joining me out of
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Speaker 1: the Atlanta area. Daryl Cohen joining US former prosecutor of Felonies.
2:12
Speaker 1: Doctor Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist at panther Mitigation dot com,
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Speaker 1: author of Criminal Behavior just into boardman with US, former
2:21
Speaker 1: Special Victims Unit detective, author of I Was Wrong, An
2:25
Speaker 1: investigator's battlecry for Shange. Doctor Michelle Dupree, pathologist, medical examiner,
2:32
Speaker 1: author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide. But first to Dave
2:37
Speaker 1: Minski joining US ASHREEP public safety and military reporter was
2:42
Speaker 1: Santa Maria Times. Dave, thanks sam us for being with us.
2:46
Speaker 1: I find that very odd that an eleven year old
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Speaker 1: child would just disappear as a matter of fact, take
2:52
Speaker 1: a listen to our cut a. This is Jackie Howard
2:55
Speaker 1: joining us from crime online dot com. It was just
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Speaker 1: about nine am on a Saturday morning in January when
3:01
Speaker 1: Lindsay Piper went upstairs to wake the children for breakfast,
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Speaker 1: but eleven year old Roman Lopez wasn't in his bed.
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Speaker 1: At first, the stepmother thought the shy four feet eight
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Speaker 1: inch boy was hiding. He liked to do that, so
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Speaker 1: Piper checked the usual places. When Roman could not be found,
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Speaker 1: a frantic search began. For two hours, Jordan and Lindsay
3:21
Speaker 1: Piper searched for Roman. Then, instead of calling nine to one,
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Speaker 1: the Pipers drove to the Placerville Police Department, about three
3:28
Speaker 1: minutes from their house. But it was Saturday, the station
3:31
Speaker 1: is closed, so they go to El Dorado County Sheriff's Office,
3:35
Speaker 1: but a deputy wasn't available to speak with them. Finally,
3:39
Speaker 1: just after noon, a deputy files a courtesy report for
3:42
Speaker 1: a juvenile runaway. According to El Dorado County Sheriff's Office records,
3:47
Speaker 1: the BOLO or beyond the lookout report was entered at
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Speaker 1: one seventeen PM and the missing person report was forwarded
3:53
Speaker 1: to the Placerville Police Department NAT to Dave Miskey joining
3:58
Speaker 1: us from the Santa Maria Times. So they realize he's
4:02
Speaker 1: missing at what time? It looks like I think there
4:07
Speaker 1: weren't missing some time in the morning. I think it
4:11
Speaker 1: was around nine am that he goes missing, this little
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Speaker 1: boy just four feet eight inches. A frantic search ensues
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Speaker 1: and we get that missing person below beyond the lookout
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Speaker 1: and that jurisdiction at eleven at one seventeen PM, nearly
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Speaker 1: one thirty. So already there's eleven to twelve, twelve to one,
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Speaker 1: two and a half hours, and I'm curious as to
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Speaker 1: why they didn't realize he was missing until eleven a m.
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Speaker 1: First of all, I want to find out what day
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Speaker 1: of the week this was the day he goes missing.
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Speaker 1: I believe January eleven would have been a Saturday, a
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Speaker 1: Saturday morning, so that might explain people sleeping late the
5:00
Speaker 1: home and not realizing he was missing. What can you
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Speaker 1: tell me about the area we're talking about? Plasterville, California.
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Speaker 1: What do you know, Dave Minsky? Yeah, Plasterville. It's the
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Speaker 1: county seat of El Dorado County, which a lot of
5:14
Speaker 1: us know here in California as the site of the
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Speaker 1: California gold Rush. It's where the gold rush began back
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Speaker 1: in eighteen forty eight, so that's a origin of the
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Speaker 1: gold rush. But I understand that the population is now
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Speaker 1: around ten thousand. Where did all the people go? They
5:33
Speaker 1: spread throughout the rest of the state in the world
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Speaker 1: dancing and okay, it's nicknamed hangtown. I wonder what that's
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Speaker 1: all about. But my main concern, the reason I'm quizzing you,
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Speaker 1: Dave Minsky, justin Boardman, is because ten thousand people, that's
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Speaker 1: very sparsely populated. That's going to really narrow potential suspects.
5:51
Speaker 1: It may have taken this boy correct, but Plasterville is
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Speaker 1: also an area where a lot of transients come in
5:58
Speaker 1: for you know, it's not just the gold dress nowadays,
6:01
Speaker 1: but they have the green rush, so a lot of
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Speaker 1: people come in from out of town to you know,
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Speaker 1: girl cannabis, process cannabis and get it ready for the market.
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Speaker 1: So there's a lot of people coming in and out
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Speaker 1: of the area from all over the world. I don't
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Speaker 1: like that number one transients because do you guys remember,
6:21
Speaker 1: let me ask you this, when Darryl Cohen, high profile
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Speaker 1: lawyer joining me out of Atlanta, you remember the two
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Speaker 1: little girls that go missing on the bridge, the Trestle bridge.
6:33
Speaker 1: Remember them, Yes, they do, and we have a picture
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Speaker 1: taken by at Liberty and Abigail are the two little girls,
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Speaker 1: and we have his voice on one of their cell phones.
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Speaker 1: We have a description, we actually have a picture, and
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Speaker 1: they still can't catch him. Small area just like this Delphi.
6:57
Speaker 1: It's got to be a transient or locals would have
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Speaker 1: known him. That's why transience present a problem when you
7:04
Speaker 1: have an area like this, And for Peat's sake, for
7:06
Speaker 1: pot you know that's a bad omen right there, Daryl Cohen,
7:12
Speaker 1: Nancy is not good when you have someone that not known,
7:16
Speaker 1: he or she can hide anywhere. But on the other hand,
7:19
Speaker 1: they also stick out, so that's also something that's a
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Speaker 1: good thing. But when you've got a lot of transience,
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Speaker 1: it makes it much more difficult. All we know right
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Speaker 1: now is that cops are exploring the idea this little boy,
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Speaker 1: just four feet eight inches ran away from home and
7:38
Speaker 1: they're now looking at potential suspects who would have taken
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Speaker 1: this little boy. Take a listen to our friend Jessica
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Speaker 1: Minch k r o N. The Plasterville boy went missing
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Speaker 1: Saturday morning, sparking a massive search around his home on
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Speaker 1: Coloma Street in Plasterville. Neighbors tried to help. The Plasterville
7:54
Speaker 1: Police came by and I helped him good access to
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Speaker 1: the property behind us, and we searched all the trailers
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Speaker 1: and stuff that are back out in there that could,
8:07
Speaker 1: you know, be kind of an attractive to a you know,
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Speaker 1: eleven year old boy to hide up in something like that,
8:11
Speaker 1: he says. Lopez's family moved in down the street a
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Speaker 1: little over a month ago. They're new to the neighborhood.
8:17
Speaker 1: Investigators spent Sunday combing through Lopez's house in backyard. It's
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Speaker 1: in hopes of figuring out what exactly happened to the
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Speaker 1: eleven year old. Okay, David Miski joined me from the
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Speaker 1: Santa Maria Times. So is it a very rural area? Um,
8:32
Speaker 1: sort of. It's. The Possaville itself is about ten thousand people.
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Speaker 1: It's kind of nestled. It's in the foothills of the
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Speaker 1: Sierra Nevadas. It's it's east of Sacramento. So you've got
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Speaker 1: Possaville and then you've got a lot of these, you know,
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Speaker 1: I guess farms, cannabis farms, kind of scattered throughout the
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Speaker 1: countryside among the hills. Well, were they before they were
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Speaker 1: plot farms, gold farms? As far as I know, I
8:56
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not entirely you're about what they were
9:01
Speaker 1: before they're pot farms. Yeah, you're right, it doesn't matter
9:04
Speaker 1: they're pot farms now. So you mentioned something that interests me,
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Speaker 1: Dave Minsky, many things actually, But you said that Plasterville
9:11
Speaker 1: is nestled between I think you said the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
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Speaker 1: So in order to get out a Plasterville, do you
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Speaker 1: actually have to drive over a mountain or around a mountain? No,
9:25
Speaker 1: So it's the mountains are so Plasterville sits on the
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Speaker 1: eastern the western side of the Sire Nevadas, and it's
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Speaker 1: just a little bit east of Sacramento, so there's not
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Speaker 1: a lot of There's some hills and stuff that you
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Speaker 1: have to drive through, but not technically not mountains until
9:41
Speaker 1: you go further east on Highways fifty. Do we know
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Speaker 1: if the family had nanny camps or anything like that
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Speaker 1: in the home, any kind of ring doorbells, any type
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Speaker 1: of video surveillance that I'm not able to determine. But
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Speaker 1: that's something I'm kind of looking into not a lot
9:59
Speaker 1: of details in the crime stories with Nancy Grace to
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Speaker 1: Justin Boardman, former Special Victims Unit detective in West Valley City.
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Speaker 1: Justin Boardman, I, when I hear of teens running away,
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Speaker 1: they're usually sixteen, seventeen, maybe fifteen, rarely fourteen. But when
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Speaker 1: you're down to eleven years old, that's a rare occasion. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's there's a lot of issues when it comes to
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Speaker 1: the age. Especially that screams all sorts of things to
10:49
Speaker 1: me that would be abuse issues. That's going to be
10:54
Speaker 1: certainly things like that. One of the first places I
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Speaker 1: would start, however, excuse me, would be a a consents
11:05
Speaker 1: search of the home. We always worked from the inside out,
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Speaker 1: so we would go wherever we could look, wherever we
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Speaker 1: could find or someone the size of of our kiddo
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Speaker 1: that we're looking for. Might be a lot of times
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Speaker 1: we'd find somebody asleep clauset. Sometimes we'd even find them
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Speaker 1: asleep between a bed and a wall and parents couldn't
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Speaker 1: find them. So we would start for the inside and
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Speaker 1: start working our way out. Another thing never Sherry Shorts
11:39
Speaker 1: joining me forensic psychologists is to look at friends homes
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Speaker 1: because when we were growing up, our best friends there's
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Speaker 1: a neighbor neighbors across the street had four children and
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Speaker 1: one of them fit all three of us, so me,
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Speaker 1: my brother, and my sister, So we were always back
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Speaker 1: and forth across the street and would often spend the
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Speaker 1: night over. That's another place I would look immediately. However,
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Speaker 1: in this case, they've only lived there for about a month,
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Speaker 1: which could reduce how many friends the little boy has
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Speaker 1: made in the neighborhood. Yeah, that's true. And if it's
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Speaker 1: a fairly rural area and you know, the kids don't
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Speaker 1: have a neighborhood to go out and play in, that's
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Speaker 1: another factor which would hinder making friends. But I agree
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Speaker 1: with you. It was one of the first things they
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Speaker 1: thought of, has he met anyone at school? And when
12:28
Speaker 1: kids are that young, they don't necessarily think, oh, I've
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Speaker 1: been gone from home for this many hours. My parents
12:34
Speaker 1: are going to worry, and we don't know if he
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Speaker 1: has a cell phone or has any way to contact anyone.
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Speaker 1: So that's a definite possibility that could be with their friends.
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Speaker 1: Another issue to Justin Boardman, Special Victims Unit Detective formerly
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Speaker 1: West Valley City, Justin, I would blank it I would
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Speaker 1: blast all of this child's social media because at eleven,
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Speaker 1: I've noticed that miners of that age don't always use
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Speaker 1: big devices like a big screen or a laptop, even
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Speaker 1: an iPad. They play a lot on their phones. But
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Speaker 1: whatever device, I would get that subpoena pronto and start
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Speaker 1: looking through that to see if he went anywhere. But
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Speaker 1: you're right, you start within the home, justin What do
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Speaker 1: you do in a big rural area like this plasterval
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Speaker 1: to look for a missing eleven year old who's only
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Speaker 1: four feet eight inches tall. How do you do that? Well?
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Speaker 1: I think you start with certainly on the inside of
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Speaker 1: the home. We're going to do an interview with the parents.
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Speaker 1: How long has he been there? Does he have anything?
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Speaker 1: Of course, we might do a reverse nine one one,
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Speaker 1: so we would do we would let people know in
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Speaker 1: the area to look out for someone of this side.
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Speaker 1: After we would search the inside of the home, then
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Speaker 1: we would we'd start bringing in more resources. But my
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Speaker 1: question is how do you search a big rural area.
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Speaker 1: You're going to have to grid search, go through ditches,
14:13
Speaker 1: the tunnels, underneath the road, sewage tunnels, you name it.
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Speaker 1: And a lot of these homes have let me just
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Speaker 1: say sewage out back. They're not into the city sewage system.
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Speaker 1: You have to look in those You have to look everywhere.
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Speaker 1: So what do you do first, That's my question. So
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Speaker 1: I start organizing that grid search book, also calling for
14:38
Speaker 1: additional resources, additional officers, things like that. A lot of
14:45
Speaker 1: times I'd take a dry race marker to the hood
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Speaker 1: of my patrol car and we would start mapping out
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Speaker 1: the neighborhood right there and start canvassing from house to
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Speaker 1: house to house to house, working our way out. I
15:02
Speaker 1: would also assign details to each officer they came in.
15:06
Speaker 1: Maybe that is you find out about all the friends.
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Speaker 1: You go that way, You look for all the schools
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Speaker 1: and go check the playgrounds. You know, I'm hearing in
15:15
Speaker 1: my ear right now that we've got an update that
15:17
Speaker 1: he was actually noticed to be gone at nine am,
15:22
Speaker 1: nine am, not eleven am. Guys, take a listen to
15:27
Speaker 1: our cut see. More than forty people from Jordan's place
15:31
Speaker 1: of work joined in the search for Roman Lopez. Police
15:34
Speaker 1: search the home in case the boy was hiding. Neighbors
15:38
Speaker 1: help police search properties and outbuildings. More than two hundred
15:41
Speaker 1: and fifty flyers were printed and handed out in restaurants, bars, parks,
15:45
Speaker 1: and businesses all over town. The search continued for more
15:49
Speaker 1: than fifteen hours, and come nightfall, Roman Lopez had still
15:53
Speaker 1: not been found. Stepmother Lindsay Piper says police officers told
15:57
Speaker 1: her they were hopeful he would just walk through the door.
16:01
Speaker 1: You know, I wanted to go to you, doctor, Sherry Schwartz.
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Speaker 1: People parents say they believe the child is just going
16:08
Speaker 1: to come through the front door. Why do they cling
16:14
Speaker 1: to that for self protection? I think on some level, yes,
16:18
Speaker 1: they think, oh, this is all this is just a nightmare,
16:22
Speaker 1: but it's going to be easily resolved because kids do
16:24
Speaker 1: these things without thinking and they're just going to come
16:27
Speaker 1: home and they're going to be safe. And yeah, there's
16:29
Speaker 1: a self protective factor in there, because the alternative is
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Speaker 1: just horrifying, right, and what parent wants to think my
16:37
Speaker 1: child is missing and they may never come home. So
16:40
Speaker 1: we know that over forty people from Jordan Piper's place
16:46
Speaker 1: of work joined the search. That's a pretty good search team.
16:50
Speaker 1: They searched the home where he lived in case he
16:53
Speaker 1: was hiding. They searched it thoroughly. Let's never forget the
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Speaker 1: case with Jean and a Ramsay who hours after police
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Speaker 1: show up, have civilians search to home and they find
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Speaker 1: the dead child in the basement. Neighbors her help. They
17:09
Speaker 1: go to properties, they go to outbuildings. They put up
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Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty flyers almost immediately in restaurants, bars, parks, businesses.
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Speaker 1: This goes on for over fifteen hours and then it
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Speaker 1: turns nighttime. Take a listen to our friends. Plasterville Police
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Speaker 1: Chief Joe Wren. Eleven year old Roman Lopez was reported
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Speaker 1: missing from twenty eight ninety two Colomba Street in the
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Speaker 1: city of Plasterville. At the time Romo was reported missing,
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Speaker 1: he lived in the home with his biological father, Jordan Piper,
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Speaker 1: his stepmother mother Lindsay Piper, and seven additional children ranging
17:51
Speaker 1: in ages from one years old to seventeen years old.
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Speaker 1: The family had recently moved to Plasterville and it only
17:56
Speaker 1: lived at the house for a very short time, less
17:59
Speaker 1: than two Two months after initial search of the home
18:03
Speaker 1: was unsuccessful, a second, more extensive search of the home
18:07
Speaker 1: was launched. Class of all police investigators then located romans
18:11
Speaker 1: deceased body inside a storage bend located in the basement
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Speaker 1: of the home. Two Doctor Michelle Dupre, forensic pathologists and
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Speaker 1: author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide doctor Duprey inside a
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Speaker 1: storage bin. This child didn't run away, he was not missing.
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Speaker 1: He didn't put himself in a storage bin, put the
18:36
Speaker 1: top over it, secreted away somewhere in the home, and
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Speaker 1: just die. Doesn't happen like this. This child had to
18:43
Speaker 1: be murdered. That's right, Nancy. That is the only other
18:47
Speaker 1: explanation you can come up with crime stories with, Nancy Grace.
19:06
Speaker 1: I mean, doctor Dupree, you have done thousands of autopsies
19:11
Speaker 1: and worked even more homicide cases. The reality is they're
19:15
Speaker 1: only a handful, literally of causes of death COD. You
19:20
Speaker 1: have natural, you have accident, you have suicide, you have homicide,
19:27
Speaker 1: and you have undetermined. Isn't it true, doctor Michelle Dupree,
19:32
Speaker 1: that pathologists, medical examiners, corners look at so called extrinsic
19:38
Speaker 1: evidence to determine COD and MD manner of death. You
19:43
Speaker 1: don't just look at the body. Here's an example. I
19:50
Speaker 1: prosecuted a case where a woman, the wife of a millionaire,
19:54
Speaker 1: died in a fire in the home. Turned out she
19:59
Speaker 1: was covered in bruce. She dies of smoking hillation. But
20:03
Speaker 1: when the fire truck pulls up, the husband is lounging
20:08
Speaker 1: Romanesque style across the street in a neighbor's yard, watching
20:14
Speaker 1: the fire. He's fully dressed, including belt and wallet, and
20:21
Speaker 1: when the fire truck pulls up, he talks for about
20:24
Speaker 1: sixty seconds to two minutes and then says, oh, yeah,
20:27
Speaker 1: my wife's in there. What all right? Then we find
20:32
Speaker 1: out that a few days before the fire, and I
20:36
Speaker 1: went to a lot of laundries to find this, he
20:39
Speaker 1: the husband, took out all of his shoes, all of
20:43
Speaker 1: his nice suits and clothes and put the clothing in
20:46
Speaker 1: a laundry to be dry cleaned. He had removed all
20:49
Speaker 1: of his family photos, not her family photos, but his
20:53
Speaker 1: family photos. He, unlike every night before this, according to
20:58
Speaker 1: the neighbors, parked his car out on the street. Then
21:03
Speaker 1: we find out he checked the weather the day before
21:09
Speaker 1: the fire to find out if it was going to rain.
21:13
Speaker 1: With all that evidence, the corner ruled that it was
21:19
Speaker 1: a homicide. So you do look at evidence beyond just
21:23
Speaker 1: what you find in the body. Absolutely, Nancy. We look
21:26
Speaker 1: at what we call the totality of circumstances. We look
21:29
Speaker 1: at scene markers. We certainly look at the body because
21:31
Speaker 1: that's where most of our answers are going to come from.
21:33
Speaker 1: But you're right, we look at everything else and then
21:35
Speaker 1: we put it all together. We try so hard not
21:38
Speaker 1: to get tunnel visions and focus on only one thing.
21:41
Speaker 1: You have to look at everything and the surrounding circumstances
21:44
Speaker 1: are a big part of that. Back to you, Dave,
21:46
Speaker 1: miss Key, This little boy, just four feet eight inches
21:50
Speaker 1: is found in a storage bin in the basement that
21:54
Speaker 1: cops miss the first time they do an initial search
21:58
Speaker 1: of the home. Hey, guys, take a listen to our
22:01
Speaker 1: cut fourteen. In the initial search of the family's home,
22:04
Speaker 1: police say they did not find anything, but in a
22:07
Speaker 1: second search of the home, investigators are now revealing they
22:11
Speaker 1: located Roman's body inside a storage bin in the basement.
22:15
Speaker 1: An autopsy of Roman's body found no obvious trauma, but
22:19
Speaker 1: found he was severely malnourished and dehydrated at the time
22:23
Speaker 1: of his death. To you, Dave Minsky, were there other
22:27
Speaker 1: boxes on top of him? Where was he in the
22:29
Speaker 1: basement or do we know that part? I haven't been
22:32
Speaker 1: able to determine, Nancy. Like I said earlier, there's a
22:35
Speaker 1: lot of little details they're just not really revealing, you know,
22:40
Speaker 1: And what we do know, or what I was able
22:42
Speaker 1: to determine, is that there are six other children living
22:45
Speaker 1: in the house at the time, and when they found
22:48
Speaker 1: Roman that he was quote severely malnourished and hydrated at
22:51
Speaker 1: the kind of death. So that wouldn't show up immediately,
22:55
Speaker 1: doctor Michelle Dupree, Or would it, because they're not able
22:59
Speaker 1: to do a cause of death just by looking at
23:01
Speaker 1: the body. Well, it depends on how melinari she is. Nancy.
23:04
Speaker 1: If you can look at you can see the ribs,
23:07
Speaker 1: and you can see the turger or the lack of
23:09
Speaker 1: that skin elasticity, you can tell how long that this
23:12
Speaker 1: has been going on. Would that give you the cod
23:15
Speaker 1: immediately just because you notice that he's underweight. No, we
23:18
Speaker 1: would always do an autopsy. An autopsy is going to
23:20
Speaker 1: be the definitive. And how would they know just by
23:22
Speaker 1: looking at him that he was dehydrated? Again, you look
23:26
Speaker 1: at the skin, and if you pinch your skin on
23:29
Speaker 1: your forearm and if it sort of stays tinted up,
23:33
Speaker 1: then you're dehydrated. Very severe cases of that, of course,
23:37
Speaker 1: are just going to stay that way. You can just
23:39
Speaker 1: tell by looking. I didn't understand what you said, doctor
23:41
Speaker 1: Michelle dupre If you pinch your skin and what Yes,
23:44
Speaker 1: pinch your skin right above your wrist on the forearm,
23:48
Speaker 1: and if it sort of stays in that position tinted,
23:51
Speaker 1: then you are dehydrated. Normal skin has a lot of
23:54
Speaker 1: elasticity and flexibility, and you'll just pinch it and it'll
23:57
Speaker 1: go right back into place. With someone who is severely
23:59
Speaker 1: dehy I'd write it. It's called tinting, and it tends
24:02
Speaker 1: up t O T E N t I n G
24:06
Speaker 1: tinting Southern accident. No, I thought you were saying t
24:10
Speaker 1: I N T I N tinting the same thing. Okay,
24:13
Speaker 1: got it, Now that makes perfect sense. Let me ask
24:15
Speaker 1: you this, doctor, Michelle D. Pree. So you find this
24:18
Speaker 1: child's body eleven years old, four feet eight inches and
24:22
Speaker 1: a storage been hidden in the basement. Can you tell
24:27
Speaker 1: how long he's been there? Perhaps? Again, it's going to
24:30
Speaker 1: depend totally on the condition of that body. Um, it's
24:33
Speaker 1: just going to depend on the environment. Was this you know,
24:36
Speaker 1: a moist basement, wasn't really dry? And again, what does
24:39
Speaker 1: that body look like? Well, that's not really answering my question.
24:42
Speaker 1: Can you be more specific? I mean, if if the
24:45
Speaker 1: body had been there for a week, could you tell
24:48
Speaker 1: that a day, three days, an hour, thirty minutes, How
24:51
Speaker 1: could you tell? We're gonna look at the condition of
24:53
Speaker 1: the body, how it is degraded, or how much decomposition,
24:57
Speaker 1: if any there is. We're gonna look at again that
24:59
Speaker 1: can of the skin. Is it starting to slough off?
25:02
Speaker 1: Is there any signs of again decomposition that is liquefying
25:08
Speaker 1: or things like that. We're going to look at that
25:09
Speaker 1: total condition. Look, I don't nobody wants to say it
25:12
Speaker 1: out loud, but this is what an investigator and probably
25:17
Speaker 1: a jury at some point is going to have to
25:19
Speaker 1: figure out. You're just hearing from our friends at ABC
25:23
Speaker 1: regarding the discovery of this child actually in a storage bin,
25:29
Speaker 1: a storage bin inside the family basement. The search is
25:32
Speaker 1: called off obviously because the child has been found. That
25:37
Speaker 1: was ABC ten. What do we know? What do we
25:42
Speaker 1: know happened? So they find out I guess the mom
25:46
Speaker 1: finds out the boys missing at nine. They search and search.
25:50
Speaker 1: After two hours, they start going to police. They end
25:54
Speaker 1: up at the sheriff's department and the report is issued
25:57
Speaker 1: at one thirty. Still a long time. I'm curious why
26:01
Speaker 1: they didn't call nine on one In any event, take
26:03
Speaker 1: a listen to our friends. Zach Fuintus at ABC TIM
26:07
Speaker 1: it seemed posters still line part of B Street in Plasterville.
26:11
Speaker 1: That's where neighbors say eleven year old Roman Anthony Lopez
26:14
Speaker 1: recently moved with his family. The community came together when
26:18
Speaker 1: he was reported missing Saturday, but the search left everyone
26:21
Speaker 1: with the result they dreaded most to have an eleven
26:24
Speaker 1: year old boy die on us. That's it's pretty sad.
26:28
Speaker 1: Plasterville Police announced Sunday at a brief press conference that
26:31
Speaker 1: Lopez was found dead on Saturday and that his death
26:34
Speaker 1: was suspicious. Today they provided this update and a Facebook
26:38
Speaker 1: post saying that to protect the integrity of the investigation,
26:41
Speaker 1: they will not release new information. For the first time,
26:44
Speaker 1: they did confirm that there is no threat to the public.
26:47
Speaker 1: One Plasterville man I spoke what says he and his
26:49
Speaker 1: family held on to hope when they first heard Lopez
26:52
Speaker 1: was missing. All of us decided to kind of get
26:55
Speaker 1: together in the community and post and share about how
27:00
Speaker 1: he was, how he was missing, and how it all
27:02
Speaker 1: happened and how it all went down. And it was
27:04
Speaker 1: in the midst of those efforts that Daniel says they
27:06
Speaker 1: heard the tragic news of the boy's death. It just
27:09
Speaker 1: kind of risk with a hardoye to Gerald Cohen, high
27:12
Speaker 1: profile lawyer, former prosecutor of the Atlanta jurisdiction, Daryl Cohen,
27:17
Speaker 1: they said, there's no threat to the public. We know
27:20
Speaker 1: what that means, right, That means watch out because they
27:24
Speaker 1: are thread to the public that they just don't want
27:27
Speaker 1: them to go crazy and worry and look under every rock,
27:30
Speaker 1: every leaf to see if there is a thread. I
27:33
Speaker 1: would have just the opposite. I would have said, we
27:36
Speaker 1: know who the purp is, don't worry, we're on it.
27:39
Speaker 1: No threat to the public. Seriously, they just said that
27:41
Speaker 1: in the Alex Burdock case, didn't they, Jackie. Yeah, when
27:44
Speaker 1: the wife Maggie and the son Paul are found shot dead,
27:50
Speaker 1: they the police say no threat to the public. That
27:53
Speaker 1: tells me they think they know who did it and
27:56
Speaker 1: they don't believe that the perp is going to hurt
27:58
Speaker 1: anybody else. You don't see that, Darryl Cohen. I see it.
28:01
Speaker 1: But then I see the other way as well. As
28:03
Speaker 1: you want to make the public relax, and even if
28:05
Speaker 1: you don't have the word, you don't have relax, so
28:08
Speaker 1: you can end up dead in a trash ben too
28:10
Speaker 1: in the basement. Well, really, relax, relax, don't worry. You're
28:14
Speaker 1: not gonna end up dead. You're okay, just people, relax, Okay.
28:18
Speaker 1: I think that's best Ackwards, and I'm going to give
28:20
Speaker 1: you a few moments to rethink your answer. Time Stories
28:37
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. Take a listen to our cut four.
28:42
Speaker 1: This is Jessica miss kt x L Fox forty. You're
28:47
Speaker 1: the sweet kind little boy Herschell. Lopez is trying to
28:51
Speaker 1: hold it together while her whole world falls apart. Her
28:55
Speaker 1: only son, eleven year old Roman Lopez, found dead hours
28:58
Speaker 1: after he was reported missing in Placid Villa. Her Bay.
29:00
Speaker 1: Police are calling his death suspicious. I had to find
29:03
Speaker 1: out that my son died from a news article. Nobody
29:07
Speaker 1: called me. His dad didn't call me. She lives in Wisconsin.
29:10
Speaker 1: The child's father is primary custody and recently moved his
29:13
Speaker 1: family to this house on Colomba Street in Plasterville. I
29:15
Speaker 1: ended up getting deployed when Roman was about a year old, too,
29:18
Speaker 1: I react, She says. She came home from serving in
29:20
Speaker 1: the military with PTSD health problems and substance abuse issues,
29:24
Speaker 1: which is why she says she was not given custody
29:26
Speaker 1: of Roman. This is literally my worst nightmare. You know.
29:31
Speaker 1: I moved to Wisconsin and started treatment so I could
29:35
Speaker 1: be back with my son, and it's like, I feel
29:38
Speaker 1: like it just missed it. If I would have done
29:40
Speaker 1: this a month sooner, maybe it would be different. Right now,
29:44
Speaker 1: all Lopez can do now is hope for answers and
29:46
Speaker 1: that her son didn't suffer. Oh my stars, Doctor Sherry Schwartz,
29:53
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine, but by a mom is going through.
29:58
Speaker 1: She gets deployed, want to go, She gets deployed to Iraq.
30:03
Speaker 1: There she sees all sorts of atrocities. She comes back home,
30:08
Speaker 1: has to go into PTSD rehab post traumatic stress syndrome
30:14
Speaker 1: after what happened to her and being away from her
30:16
Speaker 1: child in Iraq. I can't even imagine when my twins,
30:21
Speaker 1: I think you live three part of this with me
30:22
Speaker 1: went away for a week to scout camp. I thought
30:24
Speaker 1: I was going to die that said. She comes back,
30:28
Speaker 1: she can't have custody because she's in this rehab for
30:31
Speaker 1: PTSD because of Iraq. She gets on drugs they give
30:35
Speaker 1: her and gets addicted. She's got to get off that
30:38
Speaker 1: to get the sun back. And while she's trying to
30:41
Speaker 1: get herself straight. He ends up in a storage bin
30:46
Speaker 1: in the basement. I mean, I don't know if she's
30:48
Speaker 1: ever going to be able to live with herself after this.
30:50
Speaker 1: This is so tragic. Here's a woman who honorably served
30:55
Speaker 1: our country right and she suffers because of it, and
31:00
Speaker 1: because she's trying to put herself back together. She leaves
31:03
Speaker 1: her son in the trusted care she believes of his
31:07
Speaker 1: father and his new girlfriend wife whatever she is, and thinks, Okay,
31:12
Speaker 1: this has giving me the time to get myself back
31:15
Speaker 1: together and then I'll be reunited with my son. So
31:17
Speaker 1: here's somebody who's already suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
31:21
Speaker 1: This is a major setback, and that's an incredible understatement.
31:26
Speaker 1: I mean, the level of treatment she'll need horrible, horrible
31:31
Speaker 1: setback for this woman, the bio mother who thinks that
31:35
Speaker 1: she's doing the right thing. So we find a little
31:39
Speaker 1: boy in a storage bin in the basement. They can't
31:42
Speaker 1: tell the cod but they do know immediately that he
31:46
Speaker 1: is malnourished, and we also know that he is emaciated
31:51
Speaker 1: and dehydrated. Straight back out to Dave Miski with the
31:56
Speaker 1: Santa Maria Times, While we don't have the final autopsy report,
32:03
Speaker 1: I do notice that the stepmother, Lindsay Lindsay Pipe or
32:09
Speaker 1: A thirty eight, has gotten a separate charge of willful poisoning.
32:16
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yeah? According to the Sacramento b Nancy
32:21
Speaker 1: Lindsay was given that charge. In the charges quote had
32:26
Speaker 1: mingled a poison and harmful substance with food, drink, medicine
32:30
Speaker 1: and pharmaceutical product, and placed a poison and harmful substance
32:34
Speaker 1: in a spring well, reservoir and public water supply. Doctor
32:39
Speaker 1: Michelle Dupree, She obviously that sounds like part of a
32:42
Speaker 1: statute straight out of a code book criminal code. She
32:47
Speaker 1: obviously is charged with mingling some type of poison or
32:51
Speaker 1: harmful substance in this child's food or drink. How can
32:55
Speaker 1: you tell that from an autopsy, Well, Nancy Parking autopsy,
32:58
Speaker 1: we always do toxicology, and that is where we would determine,
33:02
Speaker 1: if any and the amounts of foreign substance that would
33:05
Speaker 1: be in the body and what that substance is. Now,
33:08
Speaker 1: when you do a typical lab set toxicology, do you
33:14
Speaker 1: search typically for poison or do you have to does
33:17
Speaker 1: the stay have to file a warrant? To have that done.
33:21
Speaker 1: In most your sections, I do not have to file
33:23
Speaker 1: a warrant for that, And depending on what the poison is,
33:26
Speaker 1: heavy metals are not searched for routinely. Other items are
33:30
Speaker 1: not searched for routinely. There is a standard set. It
33:34
Speaker 1: includes street drugs as well as prescription drugs. If it's
33:37
Speaker 1: something unusual, we would need to have a suspicion of
33:40
Speaker 1: what that drug is in order to search for it. Guys,
33:43
Speaker 1: take a listen to our cut seventeen. This is Plasterville
33:46
Speaker 1: Police Chief. Although on autopsy revealed no obvious signs of trauma,
33:51
Speaker 1: Roman was found to be severely malnourished and dehydrated at
33:55
Speaker 1: the time of his death. Much of this case involved
33:59
Speaker 1: the analysis of evidence, including obtaining search warrants to sees
34:02
Speaker 1: electronic devices, review the data on those devices, working with
34:07
Speaker 1: medical professionals and experts in the field of child abuse.
34:11
Speaker 1: Adding to the complexity of this case was how often
34:14
Speaker 1: the family had moved and the various agencies they had
34:16
Speaker 1: encountered along the way. The combined investigative team contacted multiple
34:21
Speaker 1: agencies in another state, including child protective services, medical providers,
34:26
Speaker 1: law enforcement, and the courts. Two doctor Sherry Schortz. You know,
34:31
Speaker 1: I've prosecuted a lot of cases, a lot of homicide cases,
34:35
Speaker 1: and the mind of a poisoner is completely different. Would
34:40
Speaker 1: you agree, absolutely absolutely? I mean this is predatory behavior, right,
34:45
Speaker 1: You are looking to do harm. I mean you are
34:47
Speaker 1: watching your victims suffer from whatever they ingested. It's so intentional.
34:54
Speaker 1: There's no question that you didn't mean to do it.
34:57
Speaker 1: I mean to you, Daryl Cohen, when you poison in someone,
35:00
Speaker 1: there's really no question regarding intent. And I noticed the
35:03
Speaker 1: step mother is charged with that, not the father. Yeah,
35:06
Speaker 1: that's very interesting, Nancy, because poison is not something that
35:10
Speaker 1: happened by accident. I didn't have my gun shoots somewhere
35:13
Speaker 1: else and accidentally shoots someone. Poison is directed at the
35:18
Speaker 1: person or persons that you're trying to poison. And in
35:21
Speaker 1: this instance, obviously there was a very successful and very
35:25
Speaker 1: sad ending because of it. You know what I heard.
35:27
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Jill, go ahead to say this is not
35:31
Speaker 1: an accident. It's not all. Let's just take a look
35:34
Speaker 1: and see if the anti freeze will work. Has happened
35:37
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta before, No, this is awful. If you're
35:40
Speaker 1: talking about with Lynn Turner who poisoned not only a
35:43
Speaker 1: husband but a boyfriend who Yep, she was busy. She
35:46
Speaker 1: loved to buy anifrees and she loved to make jello,
35:49
Speaker 1: didn't she to? Justin boardman, did you hear at the
35:52
Speaker 1: the get go where the coworker said the biodad, the
35:57
Speaker 1: bio dad. Jordan Piper got the call then called back
36:01
Speaker 1: to the office and that you could tell he had
36:03
Speaker 1: been crying. That's not consistent with him having poisoned the child. Well,
36:09
Speaker 1: it's not consistent, but I mean you can also kind
36:13
Speaker 1: of fake crying sometimes, right. Well, on the other hand,
36:17
Speaker 1: he may not have poisoned the child, but he certainly
36:19
Speaker 1: had to be around when the child was being starved.
36:22
Speaker 1: Absolutely certainly is part of this homicide. So these two
36:28
Speaker 1: show up in court. Take a listen to Aurica nine.
36:32
Speaker 1: This is Marissa Pelman at CBS thirteen Sacramento. The courtroom
36:37
Speaker 1: quiet this afternoon. Jordan and Lindsay Piper appearing here virtually
36:42
Speaker 1: romans biological mom watching it all happen via YouTube from Michigan.
36:47
Speaker 1: She says she's not surprised by what happened today in court.
36:51
Speaker 1: I'm totally disheartened, obviously, disheartened, but not surprised. The Lopez
36:56
Speaker 1: family spokesperson Christie jabs ellen burgs his Romans mom Richelle,
36:59
Speaker 1: was expecting the couple to plead not guilty. I think
37:02
Speaker 1: everybody who knows them kind of figured that they won't
37:07
Speaker 1: accept any responsibility for anything. Jordan and Lindsay Piper appear
37:11
Speaker 1: virtually from the El Dodo County jail, sitting side by
37:14
Speaker 1: side in orange jumpsuits and masks, looking down at their hands.
37:18
Speaker 1: The Pipers charged with torture child abuse and Lindsay Piper
37:22
Speaker 1: facing poisoning charges. The eleven world was found dead, malnourished,
37:26
Speaker 1: and dehydrated inside a storage bin in the basement of
37:29
Speaker 1: the family home, kind of like something out of a
37:32
Speaker 1: really bad horror movie. Well, they may be crying in
37:37
Speaker 1: court looking down at their laps, but they weren't crying
37:41
Speaker 1: and acting embarrassed when they were starving this eleven year
37:45
Speaker 1: old little boy and when Stepmommy, truly the evil stepmother,
37:49
Speaker 1: was literally poisoning him. According to the state. Now you
37:53
Speaker 1: were hearing this little boy's mother, Rochelle, since she gave
38:00
Speaker 1: that interview, she has passed on. She's in heaven now
38:06
Speaker 1: with Roman, her son We don't know the cause of death,
38:11
Speaker 1: but we do know she lost her life after her
38:15
Speaker 1: son was poisoned, dead, starved, and neglected by his own father.
38:21
Speaker 1: Now who will speak for a little Roman? We wait
38:27
Speaker 1: as justice un falls Nancy Grace Crimes Story, signing off
38:32
Speaker 1: goodbye friend.