http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1301/28/ddhln.01.htmlDR. DREWArias Trial Fireworks
Aired January 28, 2013 - 21:00 ETTHIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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DR. DREW PINSKY, HOST (voice-over): ::snipping2:: ...
And later, a community buries three young children and their parents, all allegedly gunned down by their teenage son. I`m speaking to his uncle. ::snipping2::
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PINSKY: Welcome to the program. My co-host all this week is Laura Baron.
And tonight`s all-star panel: Marcia Clark, famous for prosecuting O.J. Simpson and author of "Guilty by Association." Jose Baez got Casey Anthony acquitted. And Dr. Casey Jordan, a criminologist and consultant for Discovery I.D. "Scorned! and I Almost Got Away with It". And "In Session" correspondent Beth Karas.
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And later, two families killed, two teenage suspects.
We`re also going to talk about what is happening to kids and bribing these kids to become horrible murderers.
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What drove a young man who allegedly killed his parents and siblings? We`ll speak to his aunt exclusively and his uncle.
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PINSKY (voice-over): A community buries three young children and their parents, all gunned down by their teenage son. I`m speaking to his uncle.
Plus, police released a confession for another family murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just killed my mom and my sister.
PINSKY: This young suspect reportedly says a movie inspired him.
ERIC GRIEGO, UNCLE OF TEEN ACCUSED OF KILLING FAMILY: This poor, incredibly troubled 15-year-old is being essentially publicly crucified and made out to be something and maybe because we don`t want to accept the fact that this could happen anywhere, that we all missed the signs.
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PINSKY: Yes. Eric, that was a very profound statement. My co-host this week, relationship coach, Laura Baron. It`s pretty intense, the story. Don`t you agree, Laura?
BARON: Yes. I guess, it`s true. I mean, you see all of these stories about kids that are seemingly living normal lives that just flip. So what is that, Drew?
PINSKY: Well, the story is, just so people at home are watching, catching up with us, the clip you just saw was the young man`s uncle, Eric Griego, this is the New Mexico teen accused of gunning down parents and three siblings. Eric is going to join us again tonight with his sister, the young man`s aunt, for an exclusive interview.
And Laura, let me just answer your question before I get to our correspondent. And that is exactly the question people have to ask myself. It doesn`t -- everyone has to ask them themselves and I need to answer. These things don`t just happen. People have depression that becomes so severe they become psychotic.
They can have a first manifestation of a manic episode. Again, something disconnects them from reality --
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PINSKY: A brain tumor. Go ahead, Laura.
BARON: What is the first emancipation of-- whatever you said, can you say it not in Spanish?
PINSKY: That depression can get so severe that, literally, you`re not in your right mind. The mania can make you not in your right mind. Schizophrenia like -- I want to direct your attention to Aurora, Colorado. I think we`re going to find out that was schizophrenia. The issues there are why don`t we identify these things properly and how do we get them to proper treatment before something horrible happens.
Following this case, Kyung -- right. Kyung, are you there? Kyung Lah. She`s been a correspondent from CNN following, and what is the latest?
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we can tell you is just that the community is trying to figure out exactly that. They don`t really know why. What they can tell you is that they were able to talk to the investigators. They were able to talk to the boy on this day.
And what investigators are releasing publicly is that they feel that there is no dispute. That the boy did confess to them shooting his mother, his brother, his nine-year-old brother, then his two-year-old and five- year-old sister who were sleeping right across the hall, and then, he waited for his father and then gunned down his father with his own AR-15.
He drove his family van to the church, loading -- reloading the weapon, filling the vehicle with ammunition, but he left the ammunition and the gun inside the family van and then he went inside the church. And it`s there that the church finally did corral him after information came from the boy`s girlfriend`s grandmother -- Drew.
PINSKY: Thank you, Kyung. Joining me now is Nehemiah Griego`s uncle, Eric Griego, also joining us for her first interview is his aunt, Regina. I really appreciate you guys being here. Eric, how is the family coping?
ERIC GRIEGO: Well, it`s been a tough week for us. We held the services on Friday and Saturday, and sadly, in addition to taking care of our family, we had to really try to respond to some of the erroneous media and sort of media -- unfortunately, I`ve been trying to correct your colleague`s story there, and she`s got some of the facts so we can talk about that off camera.
But, it`s been tough, and we`re just -- we`re trying to understand it. As you said, Drew, how could something like this happen to what we thought was a normal, you know, kid who is just doing what normal kids do and something went wrong. And we`re learning a lot about brain development. We`re learning a lot about sort of these mental health issues that nobody seemed to detect in this case.
And so, we hope that we can try to present a more balanced view of what could happen other than just sort of all the sensational parts that the media seems to be keep focusing on.
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REGINA GRIEGO, AUNT OF TEEN ACCUSED OF KILLING FAMILY: -- is that in these homicide cases, the young -- there`s often not any kind of signs from children that kill their parents.
PINSKY: Yes. Well, Regina, I want to hear more about that. We`re going to get much more into this when we get back. We`re going to take a break right now.
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PINSKY: My co-host this week, relationship coach, Laura Baron. Back with me now is Nehemiah Griego`s uncle, Eric Griego, and joining us for her first interview, his aunt, Regina. Nehemiah is accused or having, apparently, he`s said that he has killed his parents and siblings. So, Regina, you were starting to talk about how scant the evidence can be for families when tragedies like this happen.
REGINA GRIEGO: Right. We`ve recently read articles on the fact that this an anomaly, statistical anomaly where they kill their parents and that when they do that, a lot of the children do not exhibit any kind of signs. We`re just trying to understand, you know, the fact that he`s a young 15- year-old and what goes on in the brain?
PINSKY: Well, again, if it is depression that becomes so severe -- by the way, you have to rule out things like brain tumors and brain infection, things like that, and other medical problems. But if it is, say, a depression that just got so severe, you know, part of this way of conceiving of this, and when kids do this kind of thing, is death by -- suicide by mass murder.
They literally are wanting to go out and have a big shoot-up and take on the cops. It`s really a sort of suicidal gesture. Why the parents necessarily get hit in the crossfire, I`m not sure anybody knows specifically. But they`re not in their right mind.
And Eric, that`s what you were telling us last time, which was that this is absolutely completely uncharacteristic of the young man you knew.
ERIC GRIEGO: Yes. I mean, you know, he spent the holidays with us, all of us as a family, as we always do. We`re very close family. And, you know, we didn`t see him every day, but when we saw him, he was clearly getting into those sort of teen sort of behaviors of being a little more withdrawn and so on.
But, you know, we`ve known this kid since he was born. He spent holidays with us and we spent a lot of time as a family together, and we never knew of any behavior where he was violent or you know, just -- and, you know, more importantly, he spent most of his time in this cavalry community.
And we`ve heard from so many of his friends and family and pastor that he was this -- you know, he spent time there doing music, playing basketball, skateboarding, all the things you expect a kid to do. Nobody ever said, you know, yes, we thought something was going on with him. It just came -- comes out of left field.
And we`re hoping this is a learning moment for everybody. How can this possibly happen? And rather than focus again on what -- let`s focus in on, you know, some the details of the crime, it`s like what is happening societally to our families and to our young people when this kind of thing is happening and nobody is picking up on it.
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PINSKY: Before anybody else talks, I got to say, the one thing I would urge viewers is that if you have a young person or anybody in your family that you worried about, please get help. There are armies of professionals out there. I understand our health care system is broken. It`s difficult for some people.
But there`s always community health services if you don`t have specific access. Laura, what do you want to say?
BARON: Well, Regina and Eric, you know, I just want to let you know when Drew and I were talking about this before we came on, it was -- we are so sad for your family. We can only imagine what this must be going through, the media storm of this and then also the devastation of your family. I hope that you understand that what we`re really trying to get at is, what could be those small signals that we could all learn from about what`s going on in our youth today?
Those small signals. I`m sure he was a great kid and a great family member. But clearly, there was something going on. Are there smaller things you might be able to identify just to help the rest of us kind of understand in our own homes?
REGINA GRIEGO: Well, it`s interesting because I raised three children of my own, and my son was a little bit -- he`d get morbid sometimes to the point where I`d go in and read his journals just to see what was going on in his life to understand. Obviously, I did not live with Nehemiah.
But, I didn`t see anything so dramatically different about Nehemiah than I did to my own children. So, I don`t understand -- I guess, perhaps, if his mother and father read his journals, or I don`t know, looked at his phone, I mean, is that fair game to take their phone from them and see what kind of texting he`s doing and things.
PINSKY: Let`s think about it. It could have -- it`s a potentially life-saving move, so I say yes. Thank you, Regina and Eric. I thank you so much for being here. I`ve got to take a break. Next up -- yes.
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