http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1207/12/ng.01.htmlNANCY GRACE
Neighbor Arrested in Abduction, Murder of Utah 6-Year-Old; Girl Snatched from Bed; 72-year-old Hubby Stabbed by Wife
Aired July 12, 2012 - 20:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight live, Salt Lake suburbs, a parent`s worst nightmare. Daddy heads to work as an electrician, Mommy at home with the children. 7:00 AM, she realizes 6-year-old Sierra missing from her own bedroom. Mommy immediately calls 911, hysterical.
But just 30 minutes later, Sierra`s tiny body found just one block from home, molested, dumped face down in a shallow canal. Investigators seizing surveillance video from inside the family home.
Bombshell tonight. In the last hours, an arrest goes down, a 41-year- old neighbor. He attends the same church as Sierra`s family. Tonight, we want justice for the little girl with the big, brown eyes, 6-year-old Sierra.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened to 6-year-old Sierra Newbold? Her parents reported her missing after they didn`t find her in her bedroom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 6-year-old was taken from her home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was found dead by police.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sierra`s partially clothed body floating face down in a canal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sexually assaulted, murdered.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are predators on the street.
GRACE: Tonight, we want justice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They began searching, investigating, and gathering clues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The family had installed surveillance cameras.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The video showed a form of an individual entering the home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And leaving with something presumed to be Sierra just eight minutes later.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The marks on Sierra`s neck and petechiae in her eyes indicating that Sierra had been strangled.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dirt from a burned field found on Sierra`s pajamas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody who took the child and did horrible things.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Examined Sierra`s genitals and saw evidence of penetration.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who killed 6-year-old Sierra Newbold?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. Live, Salt Lake suburbs. The search for 6-year-old Sierra comes to a bitter end.
Straight out to Jim Kirkwood, the host of KTKK. Jim, what happened?
JIM KIRKWOOD, HOST, AM 630 KTKK (via telephone): On the 26th of June, Nancy, the mother woke up, looked, saw the backsliding glass patio door was opened, went to the bedroom, saw that the daughter, Sierra, 6-year-old Sierra, was missing, called 911.
Within a half hour to an hour, they had found the body of little Sierra, dead, strangled, sexually assaulted, kidnapped, the whole thing.
And yesterday, the district attorney and the police chief announced that they had a suspect and they have strong DNA evidence. They caught him in the commission of a bank robbery and a car theft, and the officer put it together, one of the detectives there. And the guy is in jail on a...
GRACE: Right.
KIRKWOOD: ... on a large bond.
GRACE: Straight out to Michael Board, WOAI. Michael, wasn`t the canal in which the 6-year-old little girl was found face down -- it was a shallow canal. Let`s see the picture, Liz, of the canal. It butts up to the back yards of all of these homes. It, like, runs through the neighborhood, clearly manmade. There you go.
And the only thing that divides it between the family back yards is typically a chain-link fence. It`s a shallow canal. And the little girl`s body was found one block away from the home, right?
MICHAEL BOARD, WOAI: Exactly. And Nancy, the person who did this knew exactly what he was doing. He knew exactly how to get into this home. He knew exactly once he got in the home exactly where he was going, the bedroom where this girl was going to be and the exit.
Nancy, the kidnapping in this case took less than eight minutes. This was planned out. This was executed to perfection. He knew exactly what he was doing.
The only thing he didn`t know was that there was a security camera in this house. And thank God there was that security camera in the house because it`s giving police one more nail in the coffin.
GRACE: Let`s go through it, Michael Board. The security camera, it`s my understanding -- and this is what was stumping me at the beginning, was if they had a security camera, did they not have an alarm, a burglar alarm that would go off if a door was opened?
I was also concerned that this apparently happened in the middle of the night, and I was worried that the security camera, unless it was infrared, may not be able to pick up what was happening in the dark.
So what do we know about the security camera? What was the point of entry into the home? And how did he get little Sierra out of the home?
BOARD: It was a sliding glass door that the person who did this entered through. And the reason that -- it`s not perfect evidence. This was the middle of the night. All the lights in the house were off, so it`s a blurry picture at best.
But they know how he got into the house, and they knew exactly where he was going once he got into the house because they were able to get that. There did not seem to be an alarm on the house because that would have gone off. But you know, at least they had the security camera there.
GRACE: This churchgoing neighbor friend, a 41-year-old neighbor, now the prime suspect in the kidnap and murder and what we believe to be the sex assault on a 6-year-old little girl, Sierra Newbold. She`s there asleep in the home with her mother and father.
And for those of you that believe it can`t happen, it did happen. It happened to this little girl, according to local police. She`s there in her home. She`s got brothers -- many brothers and sisters. Everybody`s asleep. We understand some of the little girls shared bedrooms.
He comes in through, what you did say, Michael Board, a sliding glass door?
BOARD: Yes, a sliding glass door. This wasn`t a forced entry. He knew exactly how to get into this home without being detected.
GRACE: And to Steve Moore, former fed with the FBI. Steve, isn`t it true that the most typical entryway into a single-family dwelling, if they have a sliding glass door, is through a sliding glass door? And why?
STEVE MOORE, FORMER FBI AGENT AND VIOLENT CRIMES INVESTIGATOR: Well, that`s one of the hardest things to secure, really. The lock is dime store stuff. You can`t put a deadbolt on it. It is the easiest thing to get into.
I mean, when I was on SWAT, that was always one of our first issues because even if you can`t get in the slider because somehow they`ve put a chain or a bolt on it, something, you can blow it out. So yes, it is the weak link in home security, is the slider.
GRACE: Or people have been known to cut the glass and then reach in. Very, very easy to get through a sliding glass door.
All suspicion immediately went on Daddy in this case. It was absolutely unfounded. Not here on this show, not at all because after we checked out the timeline and what we could observe from the evening before and that morning, in my mind, Daddy`s story always checked out. And those observations were all confirmed.
In the last hours, an arrest going down. There you see Mom and Dad. As it turns out, the prime suspect tonight is a churchgoing neighbor friend.
Clark Goldband, joining us on the story. Clark, this guy actually goes to the same church with Sierra Newbold`s family?
CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Yes, Nancy, that`s right. Our understanding is he has attended that church multiple times, the very same church where Sierra`s family has attended.
GRACE: So it`s your understanding, then -- and I`m going back to you, Clark -- that that`s where he scoped out the little girl? Where do we believe he lived in relation to the Newbold home?
GOLDBAND: Well, that`s the big question, Nancy. Law enforcement is not saying whether this was targeted or whether it was a spur-of-the-moment crime. However, he did live very close. There is the Newbold home in a nearby apartment building, Nancy.
GRACE: What more do we know about him, Clark?
GOLDBAND: Well, Nancy, we know that he is about 41 years old, and he has a wife and some children. Also, Nancy, how he was captured by law enforcement is absolutely fascinating. Law enforcement received a report of a stolen Jeep. In time, they find this stolen Jeep in a bank parking lot, where, according to authorities, Black is trying to rob the bank of $100. He then...
GRACE: Whoa, whoa, stop, stop, stop! Stop! He robbed a bank of $100? He robbed a bank, which is a federal crime because of FDIC -- he robs a bank to get $100?
GOLDBAND: Authorities say it went down like this. He walked into the bank and said, I want $100. The teller then reportedly said, I need to see some identification. And he said, This is a stick-up. I want the money. And then, I want $4,000. So as the teller goes to the back of the bank to obtain the rest money, he tries to flee.
Nancy, totally coincidentally at that time, this church-going neighbor is discovered by the boss of the person`s Jeep that was just stolen. This employee tells their boss, My Jeep was stolen. The boss happens to drive down to the bank and sees this guy in the Jeep in the parking lot, calls 911. He`s arrested about three blocks away from the bank.
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers, Ken Padowitz, Renee Rockwell, Parag Shah.
All right, first of all, to you, Renee Rockwell. Too bad "moron" isn`t a defense under the law. He goes and robs the bank for $100 in a stolen vehicle, and that`s how he is arrested in the murder of this 6-year- old little girl, Renee.
RENEE ROCKWELL, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And Nancy, just to add to all that, this is three days after the kidnapping, correct? Three days. And authorities were able to get DNA from him three days later. Does he bathe?
GRACE: We are taking your calls, everybody. Out to Issa in Arkansas. Hi, Issa. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I`m wondering if the mother has been cleared and the father because it seems awful quick to me that she misses the little girl, and then 30 -- within 30 minutes, the little girl is found face down, dead.
GRACE: OK. Hold on. Let`s follow your thinking here. Issa in Arkansas wants to know, could the mother and father be implicated here? Now, Issa in Arkansas, why would the mother and father be implicated under any scenario with the kidnap, sex molestation and murder of their 6-year- old little girl? What would be in it for them?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, there wouldn`t be anything in it for them that I can think of. I was just wondering if they have been cleared. I can`t imagine anything in it for them, other than now they don`t have a 6- year-old child to deal with, or something like that.
But I mean, I think it`s pretty weird about the neighbor, too, but -- to catch him three days later and he`s a church-going member, and he just lives, you know, down the street -- well, it just seem to me that they would have caught him before three days.
GRACE: OK. Now, I`m getting two questions, Issa in Arkansas. One, could Mommy and Daddy be implicated? And two, why did it take them three days to catch him?
Number one, your articulated motivation for the mother and daddy to be involved is that then they wouldn`t have, quote, "a 6-year-old girl to deal with."
Let me speak as the mother of nearly 5-year-old twins. I don`t have to "deal with" my children, OK? So it`s my understanding and observation that most parents don`t feel they have to "deal with" their children. They love their children. So I don`t think that not having to deal with your children would be enough of a motivation to be involved with a 6-year-old girl`s kidnap, molestation and murder in the canal in your back yard.
Now, are Mommy and Daddy cleared? Yes, they`re cleared. There is absolutely no connection between Mommy and Daddy and this monster, this so- called church-going neighbor that takes this child out of the home in the middle of the night, rapes her, and murders her. No, Mommy and Daddy are not involved!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The search for 6-year-old Sierra Newbold has come to an end. The little girl put to bed by Mommy and Daddy. The next morning Daddy leaves for his job as an electrician. About 30 minutes later, Mommy at home with the children, realizes Sierra is gone.
Within an hour, her little body is discovered in a shallow canal just one block from their home, a canal that runs behind their home, against their back yard.
In response to a question from Arkansas, Mommy and Daddy are not -- categorically not -- involved in the death and disappearance of their little girl.
This monster is a so-called church-going neighbor, right there, of this family that had targeted this little girl at church and is caught on the home security camera going into the family home, the Newbold home, and taking their girl out through a sliding glass door.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. The search for 6-year-old Sierra comes to an end. Tonight, we learn police are honing in on a so-called church-going neighbor. I don`t know why everybody`s calling him a church- going neighbor. I call him a convicted felon that was out on the streets. That`s what I call him.
But apparently, he had targeted this little girl there at the church and traveled -- let`s see the map, Liz -- from his apartment to her home in the dead of night after she`s asleep, takes her out of the room, where we believe she is sharing the room with a sister, rapes her and murders her. Point of entry, the sliding glass door.
We are taking your calls. To Heather in Minnesota. Hi, Heather.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy.
GRACE: What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was just wondering, you know, like, how did he get so trustworthy with the girl? Like, I know as church-going or whatever you want to call him, but like, how did he get so close to this girl?
GRACE: OK, you know what? How did he get in with the family? Is that what you`re asking, Heather?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
GRACE: OK. I don`t know that he was. To Marc Klaas, president, founder, Klaas Kids Foundation, a scenario very similar to what Marc Klaas lived through when his daughter was taken.
I`m not so sure he was, quote, "in with the family" or had a trusted position with them. I know that he went to the same church as them and targeted the little girl. I don`t know that they let him around the girl.
MARC KLAAS, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: No, I don`t -- there`s absolutely no indication that anything like that occurred. This is the exact scenario that Danielle Van Dam`s family went through back in 2002. A neighbor stalked the child, came in through a sliding glass door, kidnapped, raped and murdered her, and that individual was subsequently put on death row.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened to 6-year-old Sierra Newbold?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The 6-year-old girl disappeared.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her parents reported her missing after they didn`t find her in her bedroom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 6-year-old was taken from her home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Less than one hour after her mother reported her missing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was found dead by police in a nearby canal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sexually assaulted, murdered and dumped in a canal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This crime could have gone a totally different direction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: This guy was no stranger to the legal system. While all eyes seemed to focus on Mommy and Daddy because a child was abducted from the home, many of us believed Mommy and Daddy from the get-go, evaluated the way that they were cooperating with police fully, totally, no holding back whatsoever. And we knew that someone on the outside had somehow managed to get into the Newbold home in the dead of night. And now we know point of entry a sliding glass door.
I want to go back to Jim Kirkwood, KTKK.
Jim, the sliding glass door, I know he is actually caught on video doing this on the home security system. What does the video actually reveal?
JIM KIRKWOOD, HOST, AM 630 KTKK: It reveals him coming in around 3:05 in the morning, the 26th. And then eight minutes later, coming out carrying something. Obviously it was dark, Nancy. So you can`t totally tell it`s Sierra but obviously it was. So he went through that. And as the FBI agent said, you can go through those doors so easily with a screwdriver.
GRACE: You know, there is only one good thing about a sliding glass door.
To you, Ken Padowitz, former prosecutor joining me out of Miami. One good thing about a sliding glass door. They`re easy to get prints off of. Very easy to get prints off glass. It`s the only good thing I can say about a sliding glass door in a home, Ken.
KEN PADOWITZ, FORMER HOMICIDE PROSECUTOR: Well, I agree with you, Nancy. Cases like this are why I became a prosecutor. They want to look to find the devil of the person that did this. And if fingerprints help them, if DNA helps them, links them to that neighbor, they need to prosecute him to the full extent of the law.
This is why we have the death penalty for cases like this. This is the parents` worst nightmare.
GRACE: You know, all night long, Parag Shah, defense attorney, author of "The Code," all night long I`m up and down all night. I don`t believe you have children, do you, Parag?
PARAG SHAH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY, AUTHOR OF "THE CODE": No, ma`am.
GRACE: Because I`m worried. I`m worried. I go look out the back. I check the locks at night. In the middle of the night. I go in and risk waking up the twins to see if they`re OK. You know why? Because of Terry Lee Black. Because of people just like him. And I only pray that I can sit on this jury and hear this evidence and return a true verdict.
So to you, Parag Shah, veteran defense attorney, give me your best shot. What is your defense?
SHAH: Well, the first thing that you have to do is you have to challenge the procedures that were done for the DNA evidence. How it was tested and how it was analyzed. Based on that, that might give you some grounds to exclude the DNA evidence. If there were fingerprints, the same thing.
GRACE: Parag Shah.
SHAH: Yes, ma`am.
GRACE: Just FYI. I was prosecuting rapes and murders before they even had DNA evidence. When we had to rely on blood type and hairs -- hairs and fibers with no DNA whatsoever. So you`re telling me your best shot is to challenge the DNA. That`s what you`re saying. The science, correct?
SHAH: Yes, ma`am. You have to challenge the science.
GRACE: So --
SHAH: And if the science doesn`t work --
GRACE: OK.
SHAH: -- then the focus should be about trying to save him from the death penalty. That`s what the focus should change to. Mitigating evidence.
GRACE: All right. So actually, I`m actually not going to argue with you, Parag Shah, because the single strongest evidence they`ve got on this guy is DNA. Now there may be fingerprints and I suspect there are on that sliding glass door, but he could argue a million reasons why he was at the home and left fingerprints.
And believe me, I`ve seen it done. All right? Why he can explain away fingerprints on the outside of that sliding glass door. But DNA, Parag Shah is actually correct in this. That is a nail in this guy`s coffin. Because this little girl was molested. There`s going to be DNA evidence. And I`m going right now to Dr. Bill Manion, medical examiner joining us out of Philadelphia tonight.
Before I get to DNA, Bill. I want to talk to you about the petechiae in her eyes. And the fact that they were hemorrhaged. What does that mean to you, Bill?
DR. BILL MANION, M.D., MEDICAL EXAMINER, BURLINGTON COUNTY, NJ: That means to me that she was strangled whenever you press the vessels of the neck. The blood capillaries in the eyes will rupture and you`ll have little hemorrhages in the whites of the eye and in the conjunctiva, in the membranes around the eye. So it means to me she was strangled.
I also understand that the medical examiner ruled that she had drowned. So she was probably held face down in that canal and breathed in water while she was being strangled at the same time. And because there was water in her lungs, he felt that she had drowned.
GRACE: You know, I was waiting to hear your analysis because I know there was water in her lungs. And in my lay person mind, that was inconsistent with the hemorrhage petechiae in the eye which says to me she was strangled.
And I was wondering about the scenario, how water got in her lungs because that means she was still breathing.
MANION: Yes.
GRACE: So how was strangle and breathing to get water in her lungs. I was waiting for that explanation from you. Tell me again?
MANION: Well, she was held face down in the water and as she struggled to get up, he was holding her by the neck, strangling her at the same time and she was choking and coughing and trying to get up and breathing in water. So she managed to aspirate water.
They can -- they can look at the water in the lungs also and compare it to water in the creek and identify small organism called diatoms and definitely show that she aspirated water. So the fact that there`s --
GRACE: I cannot even imagine.
(CROSSTALK)
MANION: Is drowning.
GRACE: But, Bill, I`m listening to you and I`m -- taking in what you`re saying and I`m just trying to fathom what the mother and daddy are going through at this hour.
Regarding DNA, very quickly, Dr. Manion, just give me a number. If there is sperm or saliva or her blood on him, what is the ratio, one in 100? One in 1,000? One in a million? How --
(CROSSTALK)
MANION: It`s actually billions. The chance that the DNA would match. His DNA would match her.
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: One in a billion, one in a billion. B as in brother, correct?
MANION: Correct. Yes. At least. So they don`t have someone`s DNA --
(CROSSTALK)
GRACE: To Caryn Stark, psychologist, joining us out of -- out of New York.
Caryn, why does everyone keep referring to this freak? He is a monster. I can hardly even regard him as a human. Why does everyone keep referring to him as a church-going neighbor? And to me it`s adding insult to injury that he scope this little girl out at the church.
CARYN STARK, PSYCHOLOGIST: You`re talking, Nancy, about something that`s so horrific. And people are referring to him as a church-going neighbor. In other words, they`re pointing out the contradiction that this is the man that`s the suspect.
If you take a look at who he is, it doesn`t matter whether he went to church or he didn`t went -- go to church. He also clearly targeted this little girl. So I`m sure that she wasn`t -- he didn`t -- she didn`t know him. But he -- people like this, they pick somebody and they figure out how they`re going to go ahead and attack them.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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