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BABY IRIS DEAD After Daddy's JEALOUS MISTRESS Feeds Her Nail Polish Remover, Batteries · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grease. Why do these two phrases
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Speaker 1: end up in one sentence? Beautiful baby girl and acetone poisoning?
0:25
Speaker 1: What is acetone? It's fingernail polish remover. I first found
0:30
Speaker 1: out about acetone when I was investigating and prosecuting arson
0:35
Speaker 1: cases and fires were started with accelerants flammable liquids containing acetone.
0:45
Speaker 1: It lights up like gas. Beautiful baby dead, fingernail polish. I'mansy, Grace,
0:56
Speaker 1: this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us
0:59
Speaker 1: here on Crime Stories and on series XM one eleven.
1:04
Speaker 1: I am so angry I could chew a nail in half.
1:11
Speaker 1: I want justice so badly when I think about my twins, John,
1:17
Speaker 1: David and Lucy at eighteen months, the most beautiful, most innocent, tender, sweet,
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Speaker 1: the apple of my eye, the heart of my heart.
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Speaker 1: How in the h E double l does this? Beautiful
1:40
Speaker 1: baby iris rita drink fingernail polish remover? And that is
1:50
Speaker 1: the tip of the iceberg. Let's start at the beginning. Listen.
1:57
Speaker 2: Emergency responders arrive at the home of be Lee Kobe,
2:00
Speaker 2: where he lives with his girlfriend, Alicia Owens. Upon arrival,
2:04
Speaker 2: first responders find Jacobe's eighteen month old daughter breeding with
2:07
Speaker 2: a fixed gaze and weak response, and transport Iris Alfara
2:11
Speaker 2: to UPMC Jamison Hospital for treatment. The child is later
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Speaker 2: airlifted to UPMC Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh, about an hour away.
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Speaker 2: Four days later, eighteen month old iris Rita Alfara dies.
2:23
Speaker 2: Her mysterious death shocks the community and the Newcastle Police
2:27
Speaker 2: Department opens an investigation.
2:29
Speaker 1: I have an all star panel to figure out what
2:34
Speaker 1: happened to baby iris Rita. But first I'm going to
2:38
Speaker 1: go to two very special guests joining us, Candace and
2:43
Speaker 1: Frank Alfara. This is the grandma and the granddad of
2:48
Speaker 1: baby Iris. Mister and miss Alfara. Thank you for being
2:53
Speaker 1: with us. To you, oh, thank you, Miss Alfara. Do
2:58
Speaker 1: you remember the moment that you learned baby iris Rita
3:05
Speaker 1: was dead.
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Speaker 3: Yes, I was holding her hand in the hospital with
3:13
Speaker 3: my daughter. We sat for four days, praying and praying
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Speaker 3: that she would open her eyes. If they said her
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Speaker 3: brain was too injured and her organs were selling and
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Speaker 3: there was no chance of her surviving.
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Speaker 4: My daughter, I.
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Speaker 3: Had to choose to stop life support.
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Speaker 1: Mister Alpharah, where were you at that moment? Frank?
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Speaker 4: I was right there too, in the hospital with her,
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Speaker 4: talking to her and trying to get at a respond
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Speaker 4: that I knew that she wasn't. She wasn't she was dead.
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Speaker 4: I knew it. I just just tried to get her
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Speaker 4: to respond and nothing happened.
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Speaker 3: We never left for four days, not for no, no,
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Speaker 3: we didn't.
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Speaker 1: You're reminding me of two moments in life. One standing
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Speaker 1: with my dad, holding on to him as he passed away,
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Speaker 1: and everyone was saying, you can go, feel free, go
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Speaker 1: to heaven, and I was literally whispering in his ear,
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Speaker 1: don't go, don't leave me. You can you can make
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Speaker 1: it comeback, you can do this. And then the horrible
4:44
Speaker 1: time I couldn't be with my fiance when he was murdered,
4:49
Speaker 1: and by the time I knew anything, it was over.
4:55
Speaker 1: And I can't even decide which one was worse. But
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Speaker 1: I do know this, you are here. The distraught grandparents
5:04
Speaker 1: of baby Iris reached to Alfara, who were there with
5:09
Speaker 1: her when she died. This baby did not have to die.
5:14
Speaker 1: This did not have to happen. The baby airlifted to
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Speaker 1: UPMC Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh. Doctors doing all they could do.
5:26
Speaker 1: But what do we learn when doctors try to determine
5:30
Speaker 1: why did baby Iris die Listen.
5:34
Speaker 5: An autopsy was performed the day after Iris Alfara passes,
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Speaker 5: and the results are shocking. The cause of death of
5:40
Speaker 5: eighteen month old Iris rita alphara acetone poisoning, which caused
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Speaker 5: the organ failure. Medical experts who examine the baby's body
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Speaker 5: conclude that the child was exposed to acetone just before
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Speaker 5: her hospitalization. Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry's office issued a
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Speaker 5: statement that the medical examiner determined that the child's death
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Speaker 5: was the result of fatal levels of acetone in her
6:02
Speaker 5: blood at the time of death.
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Speaker 1: Joining us in addition to the grandparents of baby Iris,
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Speaker 1: Candice and Frank, who were with her four straight days
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Speaker 1: praying that Iris could rebound, holding her little body as
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Speaker 1: she passed on to heaven. Doctor William Marony, renowned expert
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Speaker 1: medical examiner, toxicologist, pathologist, author of American Narcan. Doctor Maroney,
6:32
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. What is acetone?
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Speaker 6: Axotone is a solvent. It's used in a lot of
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Speaker 6: chemical processes and it's a metabolic byproduct. But there's one
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Speaker 6: thing we never have.
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Speaker 7: Axotone is never in food.
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Speaker 6: Acotone is never supposed to be ingested it's toxic.
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Speaker 7: It's neurotoxic.
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Speaker 6: It goes to the brain, it goes to the nerves,
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Speaker 6: it shut saw body functions, and it's so toxic that
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Speaker 6: we don't measure it in milligrams. We measure it in
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Speaker 6: parts per million because it can become toxic as a vapor,
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Speaker 6: so to drink a liquid is even worse. It's acute,
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Speaker 6: and it does damage that is irreversible and unlike a
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Speaker 6: poison that may be an opioid and you have a
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Speaker 6: reversal agent like narcan, there is no reversal agent, especially
7:37
Speaker 6: in a delicate eighteen month old baby that still doesn't
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Speaker 6: have the functional vital capacity to repair like an adult.
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Speaker 7: It's neuro toxic.
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Speaker 6: It'll damage the heart, it'll damage eyes, it'll damage lungs,
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Speaker 6: it'll damage the liver, but it damages the brain.
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Speaker 1: For doctor Maroney, how many children do you have?
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Speaker 6: Well, five, but two biological. I have some other like
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Speaker 6: you know, adopted kind of.
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Speaker 1: Do you remember when they were eighteen months old? Oh yeah,
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Speaker 1: that was actually one of my favorite times with the twins.
8:15
Speaker 1: They were learning. It took them longer to learn to
8:18
Speaker 1: walk because they were so so so premature, but they
8:22
Speaker 1: were learning to walk and Lucy would crawl on one
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Speaker 1: leg and drag the other leg to her side. She
8:30
Speaker 1: kind of went sideways like a crab. And at eighteen months,
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Speaker 1: we were teaching them to walk, and it was one
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Speaker 1: of the most wonderful times of my life. Candaceel Ferrah
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Speaker 1: tell me about Iris at eighteen months.
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Speaker 3: At eighteen months, Iris's mama todd her spine language because
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Speaker 3: she talked a lot. She said a lot of words
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Speaker 3: that she'd have sentences yet, so Iris knew any sign
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Speaker 3: language that there was to know her mother was so amazing.
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Speaker 3: I used to tell my daughter how proud I was
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Speaker 3: of her for being the best mother. I could imagine
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Speaker 3: she'd sit with that baby and she'd tell her cookie cookie,
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Speaker 3: and she would do the sign language for it, and
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Speaker 3: that baby picked up on everything. I have a video
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Speaker 3: of her walking towards her mother at Christmas. She was
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Speaker 3: opening gifts. She saw Santa's cookies since she was going
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Speaker 3: to bite one and em didn't want her to eat it.
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Speaker 3: So she's walking towards her mom and she's signing to
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Speaker 3: her mother.
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Speaker 1: Al my Stars Prime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know,
10:07
Speaker 1: I'm curious about something, Doctor William Moroney said, renown medical examiner.
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Speaker 1: You said that acetone is toxic even as a vapor,
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Speaker 1: and I'm thinking about something, doctor Moroney. I usually don't
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Speaker 1: do my nails, okay, because when I was a child lawyer,
10:24
Speaker 1: I thought that was too flashy to have long painted
10:29
Speaker 1: nails in front of a jury. And I know, call
10:32
Speaker 1: it crazy, but that's what I thought. But I've been
10:36
Speaker 1: in nail salon's and there have been times I've had
10:38
Speaker 1: to actually leave because I felt like I couldn't breathe right,
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Speaker 1: and I'm wondering if that's acetone or like when you
10:45
Speaker 1: take off if I take off Lucy's fingernail polish my daughter.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes I have to step back from it because it's
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Speaker 1: so overwhelming to me.
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Speaker 6: Yes, and neurotoxic accumulate because it doesn't exit the body
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Speaker 6: right away, and it does your thinking and the brain
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Speaker 6: controls how you breathe, so it stops normal breathing and heartbeats,
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Speaker 6: but it damages the brain at a level that you
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Speaker 6: can understand if I had to give a different example,
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Speaker 6: if you took a gallon of Ever Clearer vodka and
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Speaker 6: forced that a one year old, that's the amount of
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Speaker 6: damage from alcohol. The damage from acetone. It's the same thing.
11:33
Speaker 1: What led up to this? Take a listen to our
11:36
Speaker 1: friends at crimeonline dot Com.
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Speaker 8: During a weekend visitation at her father's house, Bailey Jacoby
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Speaker 8: goes to the grocery store, leaving Iris with his living girlfriend,
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Speaker 8: Alicia Owens. As he is preparing to check out at
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Speaker 8: the grocery store, Alicia Owens calls to Kobe and tells
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Speaker 8: him that something is wrong with Iris. She isn't acting
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Speaker 8: like herself. She is unresponsive. Kobe tells Owens to call
12:01
Speaker 8: nine one one, and he rushes out of the grocery store,
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Speaker 8: leaving his groceries at the checkout line.
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Speaker 9: Owens was feeding Iris and the baby appeared to have
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Speaker 9: cramped up and fell off the bed. She said she
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Speaker 9: was in nursing training and she tried to perform chess compressions.
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Speaker 9: She called Jacoby and he told her to call nine
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Speaker 9: one one.
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Speaker 1: Joining us now is Alexis tereschut. Crime online dot Com
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Speaker 1: investigative reporter Alexis, Wait a minute, are you telling me
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Speaker 1: the live in Alicia Owens is in nurse training. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but I don't understand Alexis to reest shut because if
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Speaker 1: she is in nursing training and the baby cramps up
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Speaker 1: and falls off the bed and is unresponsive. Why does
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Speaker 1: she have to call the boyfriend to have him tell
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Speaker 1: her to call nine one one?
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Speaker 10: So she was only the mattress where she fell off
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Speaker 10: the bed, It was only six inches off the floor.
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Speaker 10: And then she said she started doing chess compressions because
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Speaker 10: the baby wasn't breathing. So then she panished and called
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Speaker 10: the baby's father and that he's the one that told her.
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Speaker 10: So she didn't even think to call nine on one.
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Speaker 10: She called him first.
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Speaker 1: That just right there doesn't make sense to me. Larry
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Speaker 1: for Letta is joining us from Newcastle private investigator founder
13:14
Speaker 1: off for Letta Investigative Security Consulting. You can find them
13:17
Speaker 1: online at fc I SLLC for Letta Investigative Security Consulting.
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Speaker 1: Former law enforcement Larry right there, if she is training
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Speaker 1: to be a nurse, the first thing you do is
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Speaker 1: called nine one one. I wouldn't try to hunt down
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Speaker 1: days and go, wow, what do you think I should do?
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Speaker 1: My baby's unresponsive and she fell off the bed. What
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Speaker 1: do you think?
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Speaker 4: Oh?
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Speaker 1: Hell none? You call nine one one right? Then?
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Speaker 4: That is so strong, so bad that the baby didn't
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Speaker 4: have a chance from right right then as soon as
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Speaker 4: she ingested it.
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Speaker 1: Jarrett Farentino, homicide prosecutor in Pennsylvania jurisdiction. You can find
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Speaker 1: him at Jarrettfarentino dot com. He's the host of True
14:05
Speaker 1: Crime Boss podcast. Jared, thank you for being with us.
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Speaker 1: I've prosecuted a lot of cases where children have been killed.
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Speaker 1: A lot of times. We've seen cases where children pick
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Speaker 1: something up and eat it. How many times do we have, Oh,
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Speaker 1: this child picked up a pot brownie at school and
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Speaker 1: ate it, or this or that. I find it really
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Speaker 1: hard to believe that an eighteen month old is a
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Speaker 1: going to get access to something like fingernail polish that's
14:35
Speaker 1: supposed to be out of their reach. But b even
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Speaker 1: if they get it, they're gonna not only take a
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Speaker 1: sent but continue drinking it. It kind of taste horrible.
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Speaker 11: Nancy, this is a highly suspicious situation. A child of
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Speaker 11: eighteen months would certainly reject acetone and just to be
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Speaker 11: exposed at that level, this would certainly jump right out
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Speaker 11: at the medical treaters. And it's highly vicious, and the
15:00
Speaker 11: explanation and the description given to this point would really
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Speaker 11: draw these suspicions of the treaters at this point.
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Speaker 1: Alexis, tereschak, you're raising a wonderful little boy. And I
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Speaker 1: discussed this with you. When it happened is before you
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Speaker 1: had your baby. I was giving John David a bath
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Speaker 1: and I turned around. I had him laying on the
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Speaker 1: bed to put lotion on him. I turned around to
15:26
Speaker 1: get a towel. He fell off the bed and it
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Speaker 1: was high up. It was a good two feet off
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Speaker 1: the ground or three. And I did not call David
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Speaker 1: and say, wow, what should I do? I mean, John
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Speaker 1: David cried for a minute, then he acted normal. I
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Speaker 1: picked him up, wrapped him up in a towel, butt naked,
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Speaker 1: and ran ran out onto the street at somewhere along
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Speaker 1: First Avenue and started screaming for a cab. All right,
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Speaker 1: went straight to the doctor. I did not learn my lesson, Alexis.
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Speaker 1: About three weeks later, I did the same thing. I
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Speaker 1: turned around one minute to get the lotion for Lucy.
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Speaker 1: She fell off the bed, same scenario. My point is,
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Speaker 1: it's not making sense to me. I don't believe a
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Speaker 1: baby it might pick something up and take a bite,
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Speaker 1: but if it tastes bad, they'll just spit it out.
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Speaker 1: They won't keep drinking, chugging, then you know polish remover.
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Speaker 10: No, you can't even get a baby eat broccoli, much
16:22
Speaker 10: less drink. See you nail polish Removerhe this is absolutely
16:26
Speaker 10: not the truth about how this child ingested the poison.
16:29
Speaker 1: And this is what is really Okay, it's all upsetting,
16:34
Speaker 1: but this, this is gonna blow your head off. There
16:40
Speaker 1: were warning signs. Listen to Dave mac crime online dot com.
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Speaker 5: Iris Rita Alfara is a bubbly active toddler. She loves
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Speaker 5: watching Miss Rachel on YouTube and has even learned some
16:54
Speaker 5: sign language while watching the program. When iris mother me Emily,
16:58
Speaker 5: is changing her diver see some water beads and gets concerned.
17:02
Speaker 5: Emily takes Iris to the hospital, where doctors watch over
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Speaker 5: the little girl. Over the next few days, she passes
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Speaker 5: about twenty water beads. She also passes three button shaped
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Speaker 5: batteries and a metal screw. After four days, Emily is
17:15
Speaker 5: able to take Iris home.
17:17
Speaker 1: What is a water bead? Who knows? What is a
17:19
Speaker 1: water bead? Anybody jump in? What is a water bead?
17:22
Speaker 4: It's a little thing that kids play with. They're really small.
17:27
Speaker 4: They start out about the size of your finger nail.
17:30
Speaker 4: But then when they hit water, they expand, and she
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Speaker 4: probably wanted her to hurt her and her digestive system
17:41
Speaker 4: when they all expanded, but the baby passed them out.
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Speaker 1: Okay, hold on just a minute. I'm looking them up
17:48
Speaker 1: right now. Water beads. What do you do with them, Alexis.
17:52
Speaker 10: You play with them in the bathtub. You put your
17:54
Speaker 10: baby in the bathroom. My son loved them.
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Speaker 1: Wait, they look like the baby would want to eat them.
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Speaker 10: Well, I think, to me, eighteen months is too young
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Speaker 10: for them, It really, really is.
18:04
Speaker 1: I mean, they look like candy. They kind of look
18:07
Speaker 1: like grapes.
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Speaker 10: They do exactly. They look like candy. But you put
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Speaker 10: them in the water and they play, and you're right there,
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Speaker 10: you sit there in the back. You never let your
18:16
Speaker 10: child be alone in the bathtub.
18:17
Speaker 1: I think that's a bad idea. I'm just putting it
18:19
Speaker 1: out there about water beads. Come on, doctor Maroney, back
18:22
Speaker 1: me up on this. They're tempting. They look like something yummy.
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Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, but I would never give an eighteen month
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Speaker 4: old water beads. Oh no, she SAIDs would be too young,
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Speaker 4: eighteen months old to play with, even if you're standing
18:35
Speaker 4: even if you're standing there watching her.
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Speaker 1: Agree Elysis Reshak, I understand twenty water beads. She poopied
18:43
Speaker 1: twenty water beads and three batteries and a metal screw
18:50
Speaker 1: that I get that.
18:50
Speaker 4: Right, exactly right.
18:52
Speaker 10: The water beads, well, okay, so water beads are going
18:55
Speaker 10: to be soft, right, they're like little jell as you said,
18:56
Speaker 10: they're like a grape. A battery, even if it's little,
19:00
Speaker 10: is hard. She's a tiny child. This is not something
19:03
Speaker 10: that she would have just picked up off the ground
19:07
Speaker 10: and eaten on her own and then thought, let me
19:10
Speaker 10: have another battery.
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Speaker 3: Those were so tasty.
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Speaker 10: This is not something that she would have done organically.
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Speaker 10: And all these are hard substances.
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Speaker 1: Candace Alfara, how big was the screw that Iris passed?
19:23
Speaker 1: It was a.
19:25
Speaker 3: Little like attacking screw? What attacking screw.
19:31
Speaker 1: Doctor William Roney? Attacking screw? What could that and batteries
19:37
Speaker 1: do to a child? Now? I understand the water beads
19:41
Speaker 1: are full of water, so unless you choke on it,
19:45
Speaker 1: it's not going to kill you. But what does all
19:47
Speaker 1: this do to the baby's system?
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Speaker 7: What's really important is that batteries contain heavy metals and acids,
19:56
Speaker 7: and it would eat away inside and cause erosion in
20:01
Speaker 7: the gi track and internal bleeding. That's the exact same
20:05
Speaker 7: thing a screw would do. They're trying to cause bleeding
20:11
Speaker 7: inside the baby and toxic elements from a battery inside
20:16
Speaker 7: the baby. That's some kind of homicide by proxy or something.
20:21
Speaker 1: Guys, right there, right there, don't you agree, you're at Farantino.
20:28
Speaker 1: There should have been a major investigation about why the
20:32
Speaker 1: baby is eating water, beads and screws. I mean, even
20:38
Speaker 1: if no one fed that to her, still there's something
20:41
Speaker 1: very wrong that she's getting access to this kind of
20:44
Speaker 1: material and can ingest it.
20:46
Speaker 11: Nancy, any one of these items, the or beat, water beats,
20:51
Speaker 11: the screw, or the button sized battery should trigger the
20:54
Speaker 11: suspicions of the medical providers when Emily discovered them in
20:59
Speaker 11: her diape. All three together, there is no natural explanation
21:04
Speaker 11: for why these would end up in Iris's digestional track
21:09
Speaker 11: and her diaper. It's just absolutely should have spawned an
21:12
Speaker 11: investigation and the suspicions of everyone and Nancy.
21:15
Speaker 4: Hospital staff.
21:16
Speaker 12: They are mandated reporters, you know, the nurses, the doctors
21:22
Speaker 12: in person that in a hospital room and came into
21:26
Speaker 12: contact with that baby was a mandated reporter. So I'm
21:29
Speaker 12: curious was a child abuse report filed at that time?
21:33
Speaker 12: Because hospitals, especially children's hospital, they are very used to
21:38
Speaker 12: filing reports. Excuse me, they are very used to filing
21:41
Speaker 12: reports because they see child abuse cases all the time.
21:45
Speaker 12: So I'm wondering what happened at this point with in
21:48
Speaker 12: terms of filing.
21:49
Speaker 1: I'm wondering that too. You're hearing doctor Bethany Marshall, renowned
21:52
Speaker 1: psycho analysts, joining us out of LA. You can find
21:56
Speaker 1: her at doctor Bethanymarshall dot com. So I'm curious and
22:00
Speaker 1: everybody about those water beads. Remember one of you mentioned
22:03
Speaker 1: at the beginning, I think it was you, Alexis They expand,
22:07
Speaker 1: so you swallow one, it expands in your body. I
22:12
Speaker 1: can't imagine this child having swallowed twenty of these things
22:17
Speaker 1: and nobody noticed. Then batteries, then a screw. So what happened? Listen?
22:24
Speaker 2: After the incident with Iris ingesting waterbeads, batteries, and a screw,
22:28
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania Child Youth Services CYS inspects the home of both
22:32
Speaker 2: parents and, according to Newsweek, finds no issue at either residence.
22:36
Speaker 2: Iris lives with her mother full time, but she continues
22:39
Speaker 2: to visit her dad at his house where Bailey Jacobi
22:42
Speaker 2: lives with his girlfriend, Alicia Linney Owens.
22:45
Speaker 1: Okay, back to the grandparents, Candice and Frank Alfara, missus Alfara,
22:50
Speaker 1: when she had ingested water beads batteries at a screw.
22:56
Speaker 1: Who had she been with?
22:58
Speaker 3: She was with her father Wednesday night and she started
23:02
Speaker 3: parenting them Thursday afternoon.
23:05
Speaker 1: Okay, and yet what do they do? They send the baby,
23:10
Speaker 1: this beautiful defenseless baby Iris right back to the home
23:16
Speaker 1: with the dad and the live in. I'll slung up
23:19
Speaker 1: with him and she dies. Where the chl is the investigation?
23:28
Speaker 1: What happened to Deepak's department, Family Children's Services or CPS
23:31
Speaker 1: CHOPD Protective Services? Why did they send her right back
23:36
Speaker 1: into the lions den? And now she's dead. It's not
23:41
Speaker 1: the first time does the name Josh Powell ring a bell?
23:48
Speaker 1: Because I will never forget it. Take a listen to
23:51
Speaker 1: the social worker that led his two children right up
23:58
Speaker 1: to his front door before they were murdered by an
24:02
Speaker 1: axe and the house blew up. Everybody knew he had
24:07
Speaker 1: killed his wife, Susan Cox killed her, never found a body.
24:11
Speaker 1: So what does defects. Do oh, they make sure the
24:14
Speaker 1: children go right back to daddy. Listen to this nine
24:17
Speaker 1: to one one call and don't feel sorry for the defects. Worker.
24:21
Speaker 1: Listen and I'd like to pull out of that driveway
24:24
Speaker 1: to think now gat bleen and he won't let me in.
24:28
Speaker 4: Do you want to pull out at the driveway because
24:29
Speaker 4: you smell gat kleene?
24:30
Speaker 11: But he won't let you.
24:31
Speaker 1: He won't let me in.
24:34
Speaker 13: He won't let you out of the driveway.
24:36
Speaker 1: He won't let me in the house.
24:38
Speaker 10: Get in the house, and he won't let me in to
24:40
Speaker 10: pervide it?
24:43
Speaker 1: Did Josh Powell?
24:46
Speaker 4: Okay, you don't live there right now?
24:48
Speaker 3: I don't you know.
24:49
Speaker 10: I'm taking to provide to provide pication.
24:54
Speaker 11: Okay, okay, so you're supposed to be there to sup
24:57
Speaker 11: pervide Josh Powell with the children.
24:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's crap, and hit the knitting and Powell how
25:06
Speaker 4: did he the high profile ca? How did he?
25:09
Speaker 5: How did he to the children?
25:14
Speaker 3: I would wind step and back of them, walk you out?
25:20
Speaker 11: Yeah, okay, cut the door right in my cap.
25:23
Speaker 1: Yeah I smell gas. So let me save my own
25:28
Speaker 1: sorry skin and get out of here. Even though I
25:32
Speaker 1: know two helpless little boys are in there with him,
25:35
Speaker 1: where I smell gas. She even says, this is a
25:38
Speaker 1: high profile case. You darn right, So what was she thinking?
25:42
Speaker 1: Let me go ahead, screw this thing up, and I'll
25:44
Speaker 1: leave and leave them in there, and there's more. Listen,
25:49
Speaker 1: you don't want to stop it, Sidney. I can't stand
26:04
Speaker 1: to even hear her voice. She's in the driveway talking
26:08
Speaker 1: about saving herself, and the house explodes. When the two
26:13
Speaker 1: little boys are found, their necks have been chopped with
26:15
Speaker 1: an axe, and practically all the evidence is destroyed. Yeah,
26:23
Speaker 1: Defects did a great job on that one. And what
26:25
Speaker 1: about little Harmony Montgomery? Do you remember Harmony? Because I
26:31
Speaker 1: sure do. Harmony Montgomery had been abused and mistreated. Her
26:36
Speaker 1: mom deserted her, and she was with her father who
26:40
Speaker 1: abused her. Even her biological uncle called and reported to
26:46
Speaker 1: Defects he had seen her with a black eye. What happened?
26:54
Speaker 1: She disappeared. All that's been left found of her is
26:59
Speaker 1: sometime of a gooey substance that was found where her
27:04
Speaker 1: body was decomposing. We managed to match up DNA. Take
27:09
Speaker 1: a listen to Dave mac in twenty four from Crime Online.
27:13
Speaker 5: Harmony Montgomery was placed in the custody of the Department
27:16
Speaker 5: of Child and Families in twenty fourteen, when she was
27:18
Speaker 5: two months old. She remained in the custody of DCF
27:22
Speaker 5: until February of twenty nineteen, when Harmony's father, Adam Montgomery,
27:25
Speaker 5: was awarded custody by the Juvenile Court of Massachusetts. Harmony
27:29
Speaker 5: Montgomery was last seen by her biological mother, Crystal Story,
27:33
Speaker 5: Easter twenty nineteen, after the video called with Harmony. Her
27:36
Speaker 5: mother says Adam Montgomery blocked all contact with her. In
27:39
Speaker 5: November twenty twenty one, Crystal Story calls police and tells
27:42
Speaker 5: them about Harmony and how she can't find her. Police
27:45
Speaker 5: try and make contact, failing that, DCF is called. Even
27:49
Speaker 5: though Harmony Montgomery had been in and out of foster
27:52
Speaker 5: care for most of her short life, a judge placed
27:55
Speaker 5: her with her father, and now nobody, including DCF, seems
27:59
Speaker 5: to know why happened to her or where she is.
28:02
Speaker 1: Because she was murdered by her father after CPS put
28:06
Speaker 1: her back in the custody off her father. And I've
28:09
Speaker 1: got so many pages of cases for little babies. Children
28:14
Speaker 1: are given back to their abusers and then die. I
28:17
Speaker 1: mean this child has twenty water beads, batteries and screws
28:21
Speaker 1: coming out of her rear end. How hard do you
28:23
Speaker 1: think that was for this little girl to pass all that?
28:27
Speaker 1: But yet where do they send her straight back to?
28:31
Speaker 1: As I said, the lions den listen to this.
28:35
Speaker 8: Police obtained the cell phones of Owen's and Jacoby. Forensic
28:39
Speaker 8: extractions of Owen's cell phone show she searched online for
28:44
Speaker 8: topics such as if your child drinks a lot of
28:47
Speaker 8: nail polish, remover, what happens? And what happens if a
28:51
Speaker 8: baby eats nail polish? And how many cases have there
28:55
Speaker 8: been from babies dying from eating nail polish? Another sir
29:00
Speaker 8: on Owen's phone was in how many cases have kids
29:03
Speaker 8: died from eating water beads? Water beads, harmful water beads
29:08
Speaker 8: near me? And beauty products that are poisonous to kids.
29:12
Speaker 8: According to the Newcastle News, those searches were a month
29:16
Speaker 8: before Iris was hospitalized from the water beads.
29:20
Speaker 1: If these searches had been done after baby Iris went
29:23
Speaker 1: to the doctor, they might be a little more understandable,
29:27
Speaker 1: but they were all ahead of time. Jarrett Fiorentino, this woman,
29:32
Speaker 1: this living girlfriend, nursing training. According to her, might as
29:36
Speaker 1: well take out a billboard on Third Avenue and say
29:38
Speaker 1: I murdered a baby.
29:40
Speaker 11: These I hear nothing more than intent. Nancy just lying
29:44
Speaker 11: in wait planning the horrific these searches. When you consider
29:48
Speaker 11: it happened to baby Iris, It's so much information is
29:52
Speaker 11: gleaned from reviewing these cell phones. And as you said,
29:57
Speaker 11: if these were after the fact, she could be looking
30:00
Speaker 11: for answers as far as what happened Iris there before
30:03
Speaker 11: it's before she passed these items, and clearly it's after
30:07
Speaker 11: she administered these items to the baby.
30:10
Speaker 1: You know, to Candice Alfarah and Frank Alfara. These are
30:14
Speaker 1: Iris's maternal grandparents who treated Iris as their baby just
30:21
Speaker 1: eighteen months old. What went through your mind, missus Alfara,
30:27
Speaker 1: when you found out about the girlfriend's Google searches.
30:33
Speaker 3: My heart was broken that anybody could do that to
30:37
Speaker 3: a baby, let alone our baby. I never ever thought
30:44
Speaker 3: that we would be living without her. I had so
30:48
Speaker 3: much hate, so much hate.
30:51
Speaker 1: When I look at these texts, I mean, these searches.
30:54
Speaker 1: Doctor Bethany Marshall, I want you to hear more of
30:58
Speaker 1: the girlfriend. This is Alicia Owen's Internet searches. Listen to
31:03
Speaker 1: Sydney Sumner Crime Online.
31:06
Speaker 2: The investigation into Alicia Owen's cell phone reveals that before
31:10
Speaker 2: Iris was hospitalized, Owen searched for symptoms of swallowing a battery.
31:14
Speaker 2: What happens if a baby swallows a battery? And Mom
31:17
Speaker 2: Warren's parents dangers of water beads. Then over the weekend,
31:22
Speaker 2: Iris visited her father and later passed the water beads
31:25
Speaker 2: and batteries. At her mother's home, Owen searched medications that
31:29
Speaker 2: can be poisoning a child.
31:30
Speaker 1: Think about it, doctor Bethany, think about these searches. If
31:34
Speaker 1: your child drinks a lot of nail polish remover, what happens?
31:39
Speaker 1: What happens if a baby eats nail polish. How many
31:43
Speaker 1: cases have their band from babies dying from eating nail polish?
31:47
Speaker 12: Nancy that you know, I just think about what little
31:51
Speaker 12: baby Iris suffered when she was in the care of
31:54
Speaker 12: this woman. Because what we're seeing is, you know, the
31:57
Speaker 12: waterbeats that were ingested, the screws, the backas. But what
32:01
Speaker 12: we're not really able to wrap our mind around is
32:05
Speaker 12: other forms of maltreatment.
32:07
Speaker 3: What did she feed the baby, how did she hold
32:10
Speaker 3: the baby?
32:10
Speaker 12: What did the baby have nutrition? Did she hit the baby?
32:14
Speaker 12: Did she, you know, drop the baby purposely on the floor.
32:17
Speaker 12: I mean, these are just the forms of abuse that
32:20
Speaker 12: are measurable, but as we all know, there are forms
32:24
Speaker 12: of child abuse that are not measurable and that we
32:27
Speaker 12: can't even fathom. So, you know, an eighteen month old
32:31
Speaker 12: is sentient, is emotional loves of people around them. You know,
32:36
Speaker 12: thinks of all adults as lovable, lovable figures, wants to
32:40
Speaker 12: be held. And yet she was with this monster who
32:43
Speaker 12: was doing inflicting all kinds of harm. It just makes
32:48
Speaker 12: me shudder to think of what was happening in that household.
32:51
Speaker 1: And of course you're a farantina. While a polygraph is
32:54
Speaker 1: typically not allowed it to evidence at a criminal trial,
33:00
Speaker 1: of searches about how to beat a polygraph absolutely are admissible.
33:06
Speaker 1: Listen to Rachelbania crimeonline dot com.
33:09
Speaker 9: During the days Iris Alfara was in the hospital, as
33:12
Speaker 9: well as the day after she passes away, investigators discover
33:16
Speaker 9: numerous online searches conducted on Alicia Owens's phone for information
33:20
Speaker 9: on how to pass a polygraph test.
33:22
Speaker 1: Back to Candice and Frank Alfhira, Mister Alfhira, thank you,
33:27
Speaker 1: again for being with us. Uh huh When you found
33:30
Speaker 1: out about these internet searches? What went through your mind?
33:35
Speaker 4: I just couldn't believe that she could do that. I mean,
33:39
Speaker 4: like I said, it's bad enough to search something like that,
33:43
Speaker 4: but to actually go through it and do it to
33:46
Speaker 4: that poor little, innocent baby. I just I don't know.
33:52
Speaker 4: I can't explain. It's just hard. It's just real hard.
33:55
Speaker 1: Did you, guys, ever meet the girlfriend before this incident?
34:00
Speaker 4: No, not really.
34:03
Speaker 3: My daughter asked him if she could meet her. She said,
34:07
Speaker 3: you know, because she was going to be with her daughter,
34:09
Speaker 3: that she would like to have a meeting and sit
34:12
Speaker 3: down and talk to her. And he refused, and Emily said,
34:18
Speaker 3: just please don't leave Iris with her, because she's young
34:21
Speaker 3: and it's not her baby. She won't have the patience
34:25
Speaker 3: that I have or you have. And he left the baby.
34:29
Speaker 1: He left the baby with the live in guys, it's
34:34
Speaker 1: not just the ingestion of fingernail pause, remover batteries and
34:40
Speaker 1: a screw. It's so much more than that that was
34:44
Speaker 1: done to this little baby, Iris. Take a listen to
34:48
Speaker 1: our friends at crime Online.
34:50
Speaker 2: Doctors at UPMC Children's Child Advocacy Center are reported to
34:54
Speaker 2: police that Iris suffered a subdural hematoma and bilateral retinal hemorrhages.
34:59
Speaker 2: It was also determined acetone was present in her blood
35:02
Speaker 2: and her body was found in organ failure. The Newcastle
35:05
Speaker 2: News reports One doctor indicated the injuries occurred during the
35:08
Speaker 2: weekend while Iris was in the custody of Owens and Jacoby.
35:12
Speaker 2: Another physician indicated that because of the nature and severity
35:15
Speaker 2: of the baby's condition, any reasonable caretaker would have recognized
35:19
Speaker 2: significant alterations with Iris's cognition and function immediately after the
35:24
Speaker 2: event that caused the injuries. Owens and Jacoby told police
35:28
Speaker 2: Iris had vomited a few times, but otherwise seemed normal.
35:43
Speaker 1: Prime Stories with Nancy Grace doctor William Maroney joining US
35:49
Speaker 1: pre eminent medical examiner and toxicologist doctor Moroney. What does
35:55
Speaker 1: all that mean? Subdural hematoma, bilateral retinal hemorrhages, organ failure,
36:02
Speaker 1: high levels of acetone? What does all this mean?
36:06
Speaker 7: What it means is that acetone was the least of
36:10
Speaker 7: her problems. That baby was shaken and had its head
36:16
Speaker 7: slammed into a table or slammed into a wall.
36:20
Speaker 11: That baby has a brain bleed.
36:24
Speaker 7: An organized red cell platelets, brain bleed just like a
36:29
Speaker 7: car accident hitting a windshield, but it had its hands
36:35
Speaker 7: and against furniture or a wall. There's multiple layers of
36:42
Speaker 7: fatal incidents here.
36:44
Speaker 4: This is demonic.
36:45
Speaker 1: Larry for Letta, a private investigator and founder for Letta
36:49
Speaker 1: Investigative Security Consulting. Larry, how would you go about proving
36:55
Speaker 1: this case? I mean, we've got the internet searches. What
36:58
Speaker 1: else would you look for?
37:00
Speaker 13: You look at motive, what was behind this? I think
37:03
Speaker 13: it's clear this was premeditated. All the researches that she
37:09
Speaker 13: did on the internet, and the one thing about acetone
37:13
Speaker 13: that I wanted to add as a retired dagent. Acetone
37:18
Speaker 13: is commonly used to make It's one of the ingredients
37:21
Speaker 13: that makes meth amphetamine. So it is a volatile substance
37:25
Speaker 13: and it's extremely dangerous and that's why a lot of
37:28
Speaker 13: times that meth labs blow up. So it's that dangerous
37:35
Speaker 13: even handling this type of product.
37:37
Speaker 1: So it's acetone acause, Larry, and all the years I prosecuted,
37:41
Speaker 1: we'd hear about a house blowing just blowing up spontaneously.
37:44
Speaker 1: We're like, some others said, do you think they had
37:46
Speaker 1: a gas lik I'm like, no, they were cooking up
37:48
Speaker 1: meth and it blew up. So acetone is what makes
37:51
Speaker 1: the house blow up.
37:52
Speaker 13: It's part of it's part of the chemical process that
37:56
Speaker 13: the drug traffickers use and added with some other ingredients
38:02
Speaker 13: is like free armed phosphorus. Uh, it becomes very volatile.
38:06
Speaker 13: And that's the danger of acetism besides the you know
38:12
Speaker 13: what effected it has in Justine because you'll see a
38:16
Speaker 13: lot of the nothing ampelmine users actually have you know,
38:20
Speaker 13: sores on the outer part of their faces, and it's
38:24
Speaker 13: just it's really devastating to a human body.
38:27
Speaker 1: Did you if Hearantino? Of course, the state never has
38:30
Speaker 1: to prove the motive, but a jury is gonna want
38:33
Speaker 1: to know why would the living girlfriend, daddy's girlfriend do
38:38
Speaker 1: this to the baby?
38:40
Speaker 11: Nancy. I've seen this and I know you've seen it.
38:42
Speaker 11: It's jealousy. It's another little woman in her boyfriend's life.
38:47
Speaker 11: It's a constant reminder of Emily, Jacobe's X and Iris's mommy.
38:53
Speaker 11: I mean, that's that's what this is about. It's total
38:56
Speaker 11: jealousy and selfishness. And and that's where we've seen these
39:01
Speaker 11: kinds of cases in the past. This woman would rather
39:05
Speaker 11: see Iris out of the picture so she could move
39:09
Speaker 11: forward with her relationship as the only woman in Jacoby's life.
39:13
Speaker 1: Kenna Alfarah Frank Alfarah, is this true? Why with the
39:18
Speaker 1: girlfriend Daddy's girlfriend hate baby Irish so much? Miss Alfara?
39:24
Speaker 3: She was so jealous of Emily and the relationship they
39:29
Speaker 3: had as co parody. They were wonderful together. I will
39:34
Speaker 3: say that she would call him if he wanted the
39:38
Speaker 3: baby on a day that he wasn't supposed to have her.
39:42
Speaker 3: Emily said here. If Emily wanted the baby early for something,
39:46
Speaker 3: he would say, come get her. They were wonderful together
39:51
Speaker 3: co parenting, and she was so jealous that she turned
39:56
Speaker 3: him against Emily. Then the baby was in the world.
40:00
Speaker 3: Once she got rid of Emily and made Bailey and
40:04
Speaker 3: m separate completely as co parents, she had to get
40:09
Speaker 3: rid of Iris, That's what I said.
40:11
Speaker 4: The baby was a wedge between those two and she
40:15
Speaker 4: was just jealous and she had it to get rid
40:17
Speaker 4: of the baby, and that's what she did.
40:20
Speaker 1: Doctor Bethany, have you ever seen jealousy manifest like this?
40:26
Speaker 12: You know, Nancy, Unfortunately I have, and sadly, you know,
40:30
Speaker 12: even in my Beverly Hills office with very wealthy, affluent families.
40:36
Speaker 12: Once there's a divorce and once a child is shared
40:40
Speaker 12: back and forth between households, all kinds of negative emotions
40:44
Speaker 12: began to intrude. And I think one of the most
40:46
Speaker 12: difficult things for mothers when their babies go back and
40:51
Speaker 12: forth between households is the thought that another their child,
40:58
Speaker 12: and they always want to meet the other woman. They
41:01
Speaker 12: want to make sure that the baby is safe. They
41:03
Speaker 12: want to know, you know, who is this person, Well,
41:07
Speaker 12: my baby is interested in that person's care. But then
41:10
Speaker 12: then when envy and jealousy began to get intruded into
41:13
Speaker 12: the situation, it.
41:15
Speaker 3: Is really really horrible.
41:17
Speaker 12: And when defact gets involved to reunite children with their families,
41:24
Speaker 12: they really want both biological parents to be involved in
41:28
Speaker 12: the baby's life, even if they're in separate households, So
41:31
Speaker 12: they tendnot to listen to these very nuanced situations where
41:36
Speaker 12: they're it. He's left alone with a non biological caretaker
41:41
Speaker 12: who hates the baby. And Alicia hated this baby because
41:47
Speaker 12: this baby was the tie between her boyfriend and the boyfriends.
41:52
Speaker 1: And speaking of the boyfriend to Hay with him being
41:55
Speaker 1: the boyfriend, he is Iris's biological father. That's his first duty.
42:03
Speaker 1: He needs to get the death penalty just like her.
42:06
Speaker 1: They both need the maximum sentence. Why should he walk
42:10
Speaker 1: free and her be the one? He knew what was happening.
42:13
Speaker 1: It was happening on his watch right right, he.
42:16
Speaker 3: Found, he found his daughter. He put that which evil
42:21
Speaker 3: person first and his daughter second. When I gave him
42:25
Speaker 3: that warning about the water beats, he should have opened
42:29
Speaker 3: his eyes and watched.
42:31
Speaker 1: What has your life been like, missus Alfara since this
42:35
Speaker 1: happened to baby Iris?
42:37
Speaker 3: My heart is broken. I will never ever know what
42:41
Speaker 3: happiness is. Again, I'm not being dramatic. I'm not being anything.
42:46
Speaker 3: I look at my daughter and my heart breaks, and
42:50
Speaker 3: I think of my granddaughter and it breaks again. I
42:54
Speaker 3: have to watch my daughter without her baby. I have
42:59
Speaker 3: to think. I go past an ice cream store and
43:02
Speaker 3: I think my daughter will never take her baby to
43:05
Speaker 3: the park or to get ice cream, have her again.
43:10
Speaker 3: How does she live with this? How does she live
43:14
Speaker 3: with it? How do I live? Watching my daughter without
43:18
Speaker 3: her baby with a broken heart.
43:21
Speaker 1: Mister Alpharrah Iris's grandfather, what has your life been like
43:28
Speaker 1: since Iris was killed?
43:30
Speaker 7: Oh?
43:31
Speaker 4: It's been horrible. I got a hole in my heart.
43:34
Speaker 4: It'll never It'll always be there, and I just missed
43:38
Speaker 4: that baby. I love that baby. And I worry about
43:44
Speaker 4: my daughter too because of what happened here, and she
43:48
Speaker 4: doesn't have her. She had outfits, matching outfits for both
43:54
Speaker 4: of them all the time. Every time she took her out,
43:57
Speaker 4: she always had her on her hip. She took her
43:59
Speaker 4: everywhere where, and I just love that baby. She bought
44:03
Speaker 4: her a.
44:04
Speaker 3: Big, uh.
44:07
Speaker 4: What's that called? Playpen? It was like five foot across
44:12
Speaker 4: by six foot long, and I used to get in
44:14
Speaker 4: there and play with the baby, and I just it's
44:18
Speaker 4: just horrible. It's just terrible. I don't understand it. I
44:23
Speaker 4: just don't understand it.
44:25
Speaker 1: I just don't know how you put one foot in
44:28
Speaker 1: front of the other, because, you know, after my fiance
44:31
Speaker 1: was murdered, I thought I knew all about grief, but
44:34
Speaker 1: when I had the twins, my children, I just don't
44:40
Speaker 1: even know how I could live or if I could
44:43
Speaker 1: live if they were taken away from me. And I
44:46
Speaker 1: want you to know that. Ever since we found out
44:49
Speaker 1: about Irish, I found out because somebody tweeted it to me.
44:53
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about her case, but as soon
44:56
Speaker 1: as I found out about it, I passed it on
44:59
Speaker 1: to our whole staff, and we have been praying for
45:03
Speaker 1: baby Iris, for you, the two of you, and for
45:07
Speaker 1: Iris's mom ever since we found out what happened. But
45:11
Speaker 1: I want you to know we are also praying for
45:14
Speaker 1: justice and let it rain down.
45:18
Speaker 4: We want justice, but it'll never bring the baby back.
45:22
Speaker 4: Anything that happens, we'll never bring that poor baby back.
45:26
Speaker 4: All we have is pictures and Texas and ashes. That's
45:32
Speaker 4: all we have and a baby.
45:34
Speaker 1: We will continue to highlight the case to hopefully make
45:38
Speaker 1: the prosecutor seek the maximum. Please join us again, and
45:43
Speaker 1: please know you are in our prayers. If you know
45:46
Speaker 1: or think you know of a child in danger, please
45:51
Speaker 1: call our friends at child Help. Eight hundred four two
45:55
Speaker 1: to two four four five three, eight hundred four to
45:59
Speaker 1: two four four five three. Goodbye, MHM