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NANCY GRACE

13-year-old Missouri Boy Disappears at School Bus Stop

Aired January 9, 2007 - 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: Tonight: Pizza, Chinese delivery, the morning paper -- sure, but a baby left on a doorstep like a newspaper? That`s right, an infant girl just hours old deposited on a doorstep in the early morning hours. Portland police on the case tonight.
And tonight: A 13-year-old little boy, a model student, scrubbed in sunshine, gets off the school bus stop Monday after school and disappears. Tonight, the desperate search for a white Nissan truck with a camper on top. Will finding the truck also rescue a missing Missouri boy?

Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Tonight, live to Missouri.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The search for William Ben Ownby resumed shortly before 9:00 AM this morning. Federal, state and local officials, and volunteers are looking in a wooded area not far from Ownby`s home. They`re also searching for a white van or truck with a camper shell on the rear. Witnesses say they saw the vehicle when they last saw Ben. It was seen leaving at a high rate of speed.

Ownby attends Union Middle School, where he is a straight-A student, 4 feet, 10 inches tall, he weighs 100 pounds. He has blue eyes and brown hair. He wears glasses.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ben`s not the type of boy that -- if a stranger pulled up and asked him to get in, he would run the other way. He`s been taught that you don`t take rides from strangers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Where is this little boy? A straight-A student, a Boy Scout, gets off a school bus at the school stop. He is gone! No trace. Can you help us tonight?

Jean Casarez, what`s the latest?

JEAN CASAREZ, COURT TV: Law enforcement is taking this very, very seriously. When he got off the school bus yesterday at 3:300 in the afternoon, so did his good friend. His good friend said within a matter of minutes, he saw a white pick-up truck -- and we`re going to describe that to everybody, but it was pulling up in a ditch, sort of like to turn around, and going at a high rate of speed. That`s corroborated by other people in the community that said they saw that pick-up going around the town yesterday before this little boy was allegedly abducted.

GRACE: Can you help us find this little boy? Of all places, you`d think you`re safe getting off a public school bus.

This is what police have to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We conducted a search in the area, hasn`t revealed anything significant. The main focus is still the truck that we`ve been looking for. Right now, that appears to have some significance, and we`re still asking anybody that may know of somebody that drives a vehicle like that, may have seen one, also anybody that may have altered a vehicle recently, to give us a call. Somebody out there knows who owns this vehicle, at least, or thinks they know who owns it, and this would be a major break for us if they would just give us a call.

It was seen in the area where Ben was last observed by the witness. The truck -- for whatever reason, the area that the truck was located in is a remote area and it`s a private -- or it`s a county road, but it`s a gravel road. It`s not very well traveled. For some reason, the truck was backing into a ditch, went down a little bit further, turned around in a driveway and spun out at a high rate of speed. You know, that`s obviously very unusual for that area. Plus, the fact that that`s right at the time that Ben, we feel, you know, was missing.

He was last seen walking -- or running down the road towards his house. Just within in a matter of minutes, this truck was seen -- was observed leaving at a high rate of speed, and he didn`t show up at home. So you know, those are all the things that we`re working on right now, or at least that lead us in that direction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Let`s talk about the only clue that we have tonight for this little Boy Scout, literally a Boy Scout, straight-A student. Out to Melanie Streeper, reporter with the 550 KTRS radio. Melanie, thank you for being with us. I understand at first, we thought it was a Chevy or Nissan. But this kid that saw the vehicle said very clearly, to my understanding, it had Nissan written across the back of it, right?

MELANIE STREEPER, 550 KTRS: Yes, that is correct, Nancy. It had an emblem of Nissan imprinted on the back. Now, police are telling us today that they believe, because of numerous reports from the media because of this vehicle, that the person driving the vehicle has possibly altered it in some way. Of course, we said it was a white vehicle. It had dings and dents on the back of it, on the rear passenger side, some rust, kind of bad condition. They believe that this person may have perhaps altered that vehicle. But we are told it definitely is a Nissan truck.

GRACE: Now, when you say it`s altered, what do you mean by that?

STREEPER: They believe that possibly someone may have altered it. They could have changed the color, maybe even switched vehicles by now.

GRACE: You mean, since the boy was taken, they`ve altered the vehicle, the police actually think that?

STREEPER: They do believe that, Nancy, because there have been so many reports. This is truly -- for St. Louis residents and surrounding areas, we are concentrating on this story and a lot of attention has been drawn to this particular vehicle. Of course, we do not know who was driving the vehicle at the time of the boy`s disappearance. So yes, a lot of focus has been given to this particular vehicle.

But of course, we do not have confirmation that it was altered, but police are telling us they do believe it could possibly be altered in whatever manner...

GRACE: OK, you know what? Melanie, I`m glad you told me that. I disagree because who is going to be so stupid, they`ll take a wanted vehicle somewhere to do chop shop, to do an Earl Scheid (ph) paint job on it at this juncture, when half the world is looking for this vehicle? But I could see them, Melanie, abandoning the vehicle and getting a new vehicle.

STREEPER: You`re absolutely right, Nancy. This is just the word that came from the Franklin County sheriff`s department. Earlier today, they do believe that someone could have altered it, but as you said, they could have certainly dumped the vehicle by now and perhaps taken another vehicle.

GRACE: Let`s go out to Marc Klaas, president of Beyondmissing. Marc, let`s talk about statistics. So far, it`s only been about -- let me think -- 24, 28 hours or so since the boy went missing. Now, this is not a kid that acted out. It`s not a kid that lived on the Internet, that was on Youtube and Myspace and Letsgettogether.com. This is a straight-A kid, Boy Scout. Never had a problem with him before. Give me the stats, 72 hours.

MARC KLAAS, BEYONDMISSING.COM: Well, you know, I think it`s very clear that this -- I`m getting some feedback -- but it`s very clear that this little boy was probably kidnapped and that he was probably taken by the person in that van. The statistics are pretty clear. Of children that are murdered as a result of a kidnapping, 74 percent are killed within the first three hours, and 99 percent would be dead by this time.

GRACE: Seventy-two hours is typically a cut-off in which you want to save the child, not just find out what happened to the child, but save the child`s life.

With me right now, a special guest who`s joining us, it`s Lloyd Bailie. This is the little boy`s uncle, Ben Ownby`s uncle. Lloyd, thank you for being with us.

LLOYD BAILIE, MISSING BOY`S UNCLE: Thank you.

GRACE: This little boy is reminding me so much of my nephew, straight-A, Boy Scout, scrubbed in sunshine. What can you tell us tonight, Lloyd?

BAILIE: Well, right now, we`re in a -- we`re still playing the waiting game, which is the toughest part of this whole ordeal for the whole family. There was a press conference held about 4:00 PM Central time today. Not a whole lot of information came out of that, just reassurances from law enforcement officials. And everyone is still out there that -- looking for Ben. And we`re still trying to get the information out via the Internet and people around this area, getting it out all over the state.

GRACE: The tip line, 636-583-2560. Look at this little boy. He`s only about 4-feet-10", 10 pounds. He usually wears his glasses. He was last seen wearing a hoodie with a Rams logo on it, coming home after school, broad daylight. Back to Lloyd Bailie. This is the little boy`s uncle. How far away was the school bus stop from his home?

BAILIE: It`s just a couple of hundred yards from the school bus -- where the school bus lets him off to his driveway.

GRACE: You know, Lloyd, that is exactly -- I grew up in a very rural area, and nobody thought anything. Sometimes we would walk home from school. It was about a mile-and-a-half from school. Sometimes we`d take the bus and then walk the rest of the way home, not too far from your own front door. This is a story for millions of kids across this country.

Let`s go to the lines. Linda in Florida. Hi, Linda.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.

GRACE: Hi, dear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. They could have altered that truck just by taking the cab off.

GRACE: Very good point. Excellent point, Linda. Hey, Liz, let`s put the truck back up for a moment. Linda makes a great point. By just the cab off, you can alter this truck. Everybody`s looking for a white Nissan truck with a cab on top. I`m taking it, it`s a smaller truck, akin to a Chevy S10, rust and dents on the passenger side, with a camper, no hubcaps, with Nissan written across the back.

Back to Lloyd Bailie, Ben`s uncle. How did this unfold for your family? How did you learn that Ben was missing?

BAILIE: Actually, I was getting home from work, and my wife had just gotten a phone call from her sister, Doris (ph), Ben`s mom, and -- telling us that they could not find Ben. He had come home on the bus. And they had been searching for him and not been able to find him.

GRACE: This is totally unlike your nephew. Has he ever gone missing before?

BAILIE: No. This is totally out of character for Ben. His routine is pretty much the same. He gets off the bus, he comes home. He`s into video games. Right now, he`s into aviation, so he comes home and he likes to fly jet simulators, and so on like that. He`s the type of boy that would rather read or play his video games than go out and play football in the front yard right now.

GRACE: You know what`s interesting to me? And I want to go out to Mike Brooks, former D.C. cop, and also with the FBI terrorism task force. Mike, let`s analyze what we know. Remember Shasta and Dylan Groene? Someone had been stalking the family, even watching them with night goggles. Why? Very rural area. There`s a picture of Dylan, who lost his life to a predator. We also saw the same thing with Jessica -- down in -- Jessie down in Florida. That was in Homosassa, very rural area. Someone has to be watching, or from the area.

And reports were, Mike -- I`m going to go back to Jean Casarez and Melanie in a moment about this -- that people had actually seen this white Nissan cruising the area. So what do you think, Mike, tonight, based on what we know?

MIKE BROOKS, FORMER D.C. POLICE, SERVED ON FBI TERRORISM TASK FORCE: I tell you, Nancy, what they`re going to have to do, law enforcement, hopefully, is go into some of the business areas within this county, and if people did see this, they might have been able to capture it on some videocamera that some of the stores may have had. We have seen in other cases, Nancy, and here on this show, where video cameras have played a big role in finding out exactly who perpetrated the crime.

Now, they should go back, take a look at these things. They`re also going to take a look at any sex offenders within Franklin County. Nancy, Franklin County has a population of 93,000 people. There are 162 people on the Missouri sex offender registry within Franklin County. That`s another place that they should start. You`ve got Franklin County. You`ve got highway patrol and the FBI now on the case. So hopefully, they`re taking a look at all these different things, and hopefully, can get some leads out of some of these names.

GRACE: Well, you`re absolutely right, Mike Brooks, about the video camera. Remember Carlie Brucia down in Florida? That was right around Super Bowl Sunday, just a couple of years ago.

BROOKS: That`s right.

GRACE: And if it hadn`t been for that video camera surveillance catching her -- there`s Carlie -- walking across the parking lot of a car wash...

BROOKS: Right.

GRACE: ... we would have had no idea. And she was within a -- you know, a couple of blocks of her own home.

Let`s go back to the lines. Out to Tanya in Illinois. Hi, Tanya.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. How are you?

GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My question is, has the boy`s mother and father -- are their whereabouts known? Is it possible that one of his parents could have taken him?

GRACE: You know what, Tanya? You should be a detective because very typically, in fact, always, you start with the family and move out. In this case, I believe the parents` whereabouts were very well established. What about it, Jean Casarez?

CASAREZ: Well, we know that the father was waiting for him at home, that he always waited for him at home at that time and that`s what led him to calling police shortly after 4:00 o`clock yesterday afternoon. Haven`t heard about the mother, but heard a lot about the father.

GRACE: Back to Melanie Streeper with 550 KTRS radio. Melanie, is it true that people have now stated they saw this white Nissan cruising the area? And where was the mom?

STREEPER: We do not have any reports of the Nissan in the area. The only report that we are getting was from the friend who actually saw the Nissan speeding away yesterday afternoon. I can tell you, Nancy, that police are telling us they have right now, since the boy went missing, about 90 leads, and they are continuing to work all of those leads at this time.

GRACE: OK. From my understanding, Ellie -- tell me if I`m wrong -- Ben Ownby`s dad told the AP that neighbors in the area had seen the truck cruising around the area.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. That`s right. They told the dad that they`d noticed this vehicle in the neighborhood. It matches the same description that the 16-year-old who got off the bus at the same time saw.

GRACE: OK. Was it that day or the day before?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was the same day.

GRACE: Same day.

Let`s go out now to a special guest joining us, forensic psychologist Dr. Brian Russell. Brian, shrink it.

BRIAN RUSSELL, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: Hey, Nancy

GRACE: What do you think?

RUSSELL: You know, I think -- if I can offer anything to this family in terms of a hopeful piece of information from forensic psychology, this is not the typical MO of a child sex offender. They usually do not do forcible abductions. They usually try to seduce and lure these kids away. So if there`s anything I can -- I mean, this is horrible tragedy. My heart goes out to this family. If there`s anything I could offer them in the way of hope, it would be that.

GRACE: Let`s go back out to Melanie Streeper. Melanie, you stated how many tips are coming in, and where are they coming from?

STREEPER: Right now, Nancy, we don`t know exactly where they`re coming from, but police tell us they have about 90 leads. And I can tell you that today, police did mark off the area where they believe the truck sped off from that dirt road. It is a dirt road, so they did mark off some tire tracks that they believe came from that truck.

GRACE: Is it dirt or gravel, Melanie?

STREEPER: It`s kind of a mixture of dirt and gravel road. But you can definitely see the tire imprints, as seen on some of the TV outlets.

GRACE: Which all goes back to the point -- to Lloyd Bailie, this is the little boy`s uncle joining us tonight -- that it`s a very rural area. Who would know to go to that spot to get this little boy, Ben Ownby?

BAILIE: Again, Nancy, this is -- as you just said, this is a very rural area. It has very sparse traffic up and down, especially the road coming from -- the county road down to the end of the subdivision, very little traffic. And even the county road is not traveled that much.

GRACE: To Mike...

BAILIE: So that`s another one of those things that leaves -- that has a big question mark behind it.

GRACE: To Mike Brooks. Mike, to me, it suggests either someone that`s been either watching the house, watching the kid, or, dare I even suggest it, for pedophiles, following school buses?

BROOKS: That`s a good possibility, Nancy, and that`s one of the other things that the school resource officer should be interviewed and find out, and put this out to the kids at the school. Was this truck seen anywhere around that school in the last week, since the holidays, anytime at all? And hopefully, they can get something from (INAUDIBLE) maybe from these tire tracks. And something else, Nancy. The FBI is involved. They do have a forensic K-9 program that could be of some use in this particular case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All indications are from his teachers, he was an outstanding young man. Everybody thought highly of him. He kept to himself. After he got home from school, he would go and read books, play games, you know, on his computer. So you know, it`s definitely a strange situation. We do feel that we know there is foul play. You know, obviously, things can change, but that`s what we`re looking at right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: This 13-year-old straight-A Boy Scout now missing about 28 hours. Can you help us? Taken from rural Missouri.

Jean, let`s talk about the area. What about it?

CASAREZ: (INAUDIBLE) it`s Beaufort, Missouri, which is very rural, but that is 60 miles outside of St. Louis, not that far from a major city, a major city that has interstates and arms connecting it to other parts of this country. The FBI is on this case, Missouri state police. Obviously, they`re looking in all these various areas.

GRACE: Let`s unchain the lawyers, Randy Zelin and Allison Gilman, Randy from New York, Allison from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Randy, we know that there are many, many sex offenders in the area. If one of them is responsible for this, are we talking about a life sentence?

RANDY ZELIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I would think, to say the least. And certainly, as we`ve talked about, as more time goes by and the possibility increases that it may be more than just a sex case, I would think that you`re absolutely dead on.

GRACE: And to Allison Gilman, joining us from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Allison, Florida has been a hotbed of children being abducted, ultimately killed. But they can turn it around right now by bringing the kid home, Allison.

ALLISON GILMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Oh, Nancy, I certainly hope that they do turn it around and the kid gets brought home. I think we have a good chance in this case for him being brought home because he`s an intelligent young man. And if someone can find his way back home, I believe it would be this kid to do it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s a small-statured boy, good boy. He just had his braces taken off before Christmas and he actually got a new pair of glasses, so he should be wearing glasses also. Very good kid, nice quiet kid, wouldn`t have taken off with anybody that he wouldn`t know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a kidnapping case like that, you know, you don`t know what the offender`s motives are. They have a lot of different motives for doing this sort of thing. Sometimes time can be (INAUDIBLE) and most of the time, (INAUDIBLE) sometimes it may not. So if (INAUDIBLE) who we`re dealing with and what we`re facing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: A 13-year-old little boy, 100 pounds, about 4-10, is missing. He was just yards away from his Missouri home, just getting off the school bus.

Let`s take a look at the sex offender registry in that area. Here we go. These are people in that rural area that we know of. Have they been checked out, Jean Casarez?

CASAREZ: Well, those investigators are doing that right now because they are registered sex offenders, so it`s a matter of finding out where they were at the time of this abduction.

GRACE: Everybody, you are seeing a list that`s sending chills down all of our spines. The tip line in this case, 636-583-2560. Take a look at this little boy, 13-year-old Ben Ownby.

When we come back, everyone, an infant girl just hours old left on a doorstep like a newspaper in Portland.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I heard about this young lady who had this baby and dumped it in a garbage can, it`s like all I wanted to do is cry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To think that the only solution is to dump the child into the garbage can is kind of hard, especially being that it`s actually cold outside.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Baby Jordan, umbilical cord and placenta still attached, cried for at least 14 hours through the night until nearby residents found him Sunday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... could have walked in, handed the baby to a hospital worker, policeman or fireman, and just turned around and walked away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kind of the image from the past that we`re trying to do away with, of wrapping an infant up and leaving them on a doorstep for someone to find. That`s not a safe thing to do for the child.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Oregon law allows parents to give away newborns, but they must give it to someone at a hospital, police department, fire department, doctor`s office, sheriff`s office, or birthing clinic. And the child must be a month old or younger and not a victim of abuse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Pizza, Chinese, a morning paper, that`s OK, but not a baby delivery. A little infant child, this little girl, found abandoned on a doorstep in the early morning hours, wrapped in a towel, soaked, her temperature 15 degrees below normal. That child could have died of hypothermia. The infant apparently just hours old.

Jean, what happened?

JEAN CASAREZ, COURT TV: You know, they really don`t know yet. What they do know is that a newborn baby was placed on the doorstep of this nursing home. They can`t find a parent; they can`t find a relative. But the baby`s in fair condition at the hospital, but is still being fed intravenously.

GRACE: Out to Brian Schmautz. Brian, thank you for being with us. He`s with the Portland police, their public information officer. What can you tell us tonight?

BRIAN SCHMAUTZ, PORTLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT: Well, Nancy, we`re continuing the investigation. Yesterday afternoon, a detective was assigned to the case. He`s checking surveillance video from the area, businesses around the nursing home. He`s also done some canvassing of the area.

We have not come up with anyone associated with the investigation yet. We`re both trying to identify the mother of the child and the person responsible for leaving the child at the nursing home, if they`re two different people.

GRACE: Jean, what was the condition of the baby?

CASAREZ: Well, the baby was -- first of all, the weather, it was 38 degrees outside in the Portland, Oregon, area. The baby`s temperature was 15 degrees below that. It was sopping wet, immediately taken to a hospital. And they say that, although it did have a bit of hypothermia, it is in fair condition now with no injury from that situation.

GRACE: What about the umbilical cord?

CASAREZ: The umbilical cord was still there on the baby and actually fell off as they were carrying the baby inside the nursing home.

GRACE: The little baby is now being called Baby Hope Rose. Her temperature, 15 degrees below normal, wrapped in a soaked towel on a doorstep.

Liz, let`s take a look at where she was left, Rose City Nursing Home, apparently for the elderly. Back to Jean Casarez. So the child had lost blood and wrapped in a soaked towel?

CASAREZ: Blue soaked towel. Now, how did that towel get soaked? Was it the weather conditions, because of the mist in the Oregon and the West Coast area? Well, all we know is that baby was just soaking wet.

GRACE: To Brian Schmautz, with the Portland police, Brian, how did police find out about Baby Hope Rose?

CASAREZ: We got a radio call from the nursing home about 5:00 in the morning. Their estimation is that, when the person came to work, Crystal came to work about 4:45, she found the child. And we got the 911 call a few minutes later.

We believe that the last person to have been at the door was about 10:00 last night. So it`s about a 6-hour-and-45-minute window when someone could have left that baby at the doorstep.

GRACE: Wow. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is kind of the image from the past that we`re trying to do away with, of wrapping an infant up and leaving them on a doorstep for someone to find. That`s not a safe thing to do for the child.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s no movement or nothing. And after it started crying, it was like, it was a relief, because it just hit the bottom of my stomach when I saw it laying there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And rather than giving the child to someone who could care for the child, they left the child on a porch, on a step for up to 6 1/2 hours. And so those two things combined have left us with the question: Did they do the right thing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Did you see that little baby there? She`s being called Hope Rose, there with a little stuffed animal, just hours old, left on the front porch at a doorstep. She had loss of blood and nearing hypothermia. Her entire body temperature dropping 15 degrees below normal.

Right now, she`s still in the hospital. With us tonight, a very special guest, something told her to go into work early. Crystal Michels is with us. She found the baby.

Welcome, Ms. Michels. Thank you for being with us.

CRYSTAL MICHELS, FOUND BABY ON DOORSTEP: You`re welcome. Thanks for having me.

GRACE: What a miracle. What a miracle. I mean, 15 degrees below normal. Your temperature is dropping, and for an infant just hours old -- what happened, Crystal?

MICHELS: Well, I got up at 4:30 in the morning, and got dressed, and I was all ready to go. And I told my husband and I said, "I need to get to work on time, now." I said, "There`s something telling me I need to get there."

And so when I got there, and he dropped me off at the door, and I saw the bundle of something like a clothing article that was up on the porch, and I got a little closer, and noticed that it was like a towel and something. So I just got up on the top step, getting ready to punch in my code to get in the building. And I looked down, and I saw it was a baby`s head there, and it was like wrapped in a towel. And I just thought it was dead at that time.

GRACE: So you walked up. Was it light outside or still dark?

MICHELS: It was pretty dark. We have the light from the porch that shine down the stairs, but it was still dark out.

GRACE: When you walked up to the little baby, did you originally believe it was alive?

MICHELS: At first, no, I thought it was dead.

GRACE: Why?

MICHELS: Because there was no movement at all.

GRACE: Poor, little thing.

MICHELS: No crying, nothing.

GRACE: Now, tell me about this nursing home. What is it?

MICHELS: It`s a nursing home for elders. We have 19 residents there.

GRACE: And how often -- I mean, what time do they go to sleep? What time do they wake up and open the front door?

MICHELS: The residents usually go to bed around 8:00 or 9:00 or so, depending if they want to sleep or not. Some of them have TVs in their rooms so they can watch TV and stuff.

GRACE: You know, so many other cases have unfolded very similarly to this one. We all remember Baby Jordan found in a trash bag in a backyard. There was Alison Dolan. She was found in a Budweiser box in New York, later adopted.

Brian Peterson and Amy Grossberg, their baby didn`t fare so well. These two college-educated adults were responsible for bludgeoning the baby boy to death and throwing him into a dumpster.

There was also Baby Allison. She was abandoned on a couple`s doorstep. She survived.

Nobody will forget Melissa Drexler, AKA "Prom Mom." She gave birth, threw the baby into the trash. The baby died. She immediately went out on the dance floor, people, and asked the band to play Metallica`s "Unforgiven." How appropriate.

These are some that we have covered, some of these children not living. This child, the lucky one. Back to Crystal Michels who found her, when you went up and you saw the little baby`s head poking out, what did you do?

MICHELS: Well, at first, I looked a little closer to her, got close enough to the baby where I could see, and went inside. After I got in there, and I told the charge nurse and CNA that was there on call, or there, and I told them, I said, "There`s a baby out on the front porch." And they were looking at me like I was joking. And I was like, "No, there`s a baby out there."

And so the CNA, she followed me out the door and stuff. So she went down, and picked her up, picked the baby up. And then we brought her inside. And then that`s when she started crying a little bit more.

GRACE: Were you afraid to pick her up?

MICHELS: Yes, I was a little bit, because I thought she was dead.

GRACE: Oh, good Lord in Heaven. Did you ever hold the little baby?

MICHELS: I did a little bit, when we were getting ready to change her towel. That`s when we saw the umbilical cord come out of the towel.

GRACE: Oh, good Lord in Heaven. Was the little thing cold when you held her?

MICHELS: Yes, she was.

GRACE: So she`s still in the hospital tonight, Crystal?

MICHELS: Yes.

GRACE: The search is on for whoever abandoned this little baby. It didn`t have to be this way. There are baby havens, where you don`t want your kid, fine, drop it off somewhere safe, not where the baby`s life is threatened.

We`ll all be right back. But very quickly, let`s go to tonight`s "Case Alert."

The first step toward ending a bitter legal battle slowing down Mississippi`s recovery from Katrina. State Farm Insurance agrees to settle hundreds of lawsuits with homeowners. Price tag: $80 million. At issue? State Farm`s claim the insurance policies on thousands of homes were damaged by flooding that had nothing to do with the hurricane. Ridiculous! Throw in the towel, State Farm. Pay your bill.

Others also blame Mississippi`s government, who has yet to hand out billions in federal money.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Seventeen thousand of those people applied for these grants in April. As of November 1st, 2,500 had received any money. Unbelievable. It is unbelievable why it`s taking so slow for this money to get to people who desperately need it to rebuild. Their lives literally depend on this money.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The insurance -- the whole time we owed money on the house, making payments on it, insurance was no problem. It seemed like, once we paid for it, it skyrocketed. And, you know, it seemed like it was just so hard to keep an insurance company.

GRACE: So this is your house?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is my house here.

GRACE: Do you not have the money to rebuild it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They won`t give me nothing. I lost everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Baby Delta Doe. She`s three days old. Investigators believe she was born full-term sometime Saturday, then wrapped in a cloth and left on this front stoop sometime between 10:00 Saturday night and 5:00 Sunday morning. Crystal Michels is a cook at the Rose City Nursing Home. She spotted the baby as she arrived for work. She thought the infant was dead.

MICHELS: Yes, because there was no movement or nothing. And after it started crying, I was like, oh, it was a relief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: If that cook, Crystal Michels, had not had a feeling, that day of all days, to go to work early, this little girl may very well be dead after blood loss, found soaked in a towel, her temperature 15 below the normal body temperature. But she is alive.

To Dr. Jennifer Shu, pediatrician and co-author of "Heading Home with Your Newborn: From Birth to Reality," Doctor, thank you for being with us. What makes infants so medically vulnerable?

DR. JENNIFER SHU, PEDIATRICIAN: Well, when they`re first born, the infants are exposed to amniotic fluid. So think about when you get out of the bathtub wet, how cold you feel. Well, magnify that by two to four times for a baby. Babies can drop their temperature up to seven degrees in just 20 minutes. So that`s really fast.

GRACE: You know what`s interesting to me, that the body temp had plummeted 15 degrees lower than your typical 98.6. What does that mean to you, Doctor?

SHU: So that actually qualifies for severe hypothermia, where the body`s going to shut down and try to conserve energy. The breathing may slow down; the heart rate may slow. And if it goes on for long enough, that degree of hypothermia can cause brain damage and even a heart rhythm problem.

GRACE: You know, Doctor, that was my next question, if you think this baby has had any brain damage from some idiot leaving her out there in the cold?

SHU: Well, babies are actually really resilient, so it sounds like, if they got to her fast enough and were able to warm her up, there might not have been any damage at all.

GRACE: What about the umbilical cord? It looked apparently ripped.

SHU: Sometimes that can happen. It`s hard to know at what point of the delivery in the birth that happened. But if the baby`s doing fine now, chances are, as soon as she took her first breath, the umbilical cord closed itself up. It clamps down, and the vessels shut up, so there`s really little to no bleeding and no chance of infection after that happens.

GRACE: Let`s go out to the lines. Michael in Georgia, hi, Michael.

CALLER: Hi, Nancy, how are you?

GRACE: I`m good, dear. What`s your question?

CALLER: I just wanted to know -- you said that there was blood loss from the baby. I wondered if there was any injuries or if it was just from the umbilical cord?

GRACE: You know, I believe it`s from the umbilical cord, but let`s ask Brian Schmautz. He`s with the Portland police. How did the baby lose blood, Brian?

SCHMAUTZ: The best information we have is just through the umbilical cord. The baby was otherwise healthy. There`s no evidence that the baby was abused or harmed in any way.

GRACE: Hey, Officer, tell me, why was the towel soaked? What was it soaked with?

SCHMAUTZ: I think it was just moisture. It`s was very -- it`s the cold. It`s the Pacific Northwest. It was a wet night, a wet day.

GRACE: I can`t believe any fool would leave a baby out on a doorstep like a morning newspaper. Jean, what`s going to happen now?

CASAREZ: Well, the baby is still in the hospital, as we`ve said. But the baby`s going to leave the hospital, and a hearing has already happened. The Department of Human Services of Oregon has custody of that child when it leaves the hospital. They will place it with a medically equipped foster home. They will then look for the parents. If they can find the parents, if they are unfit, then it could go to a relative if they can...

GRACE: Unfit? You want to give the baby back? Is not leaving the baby out in the cold and wet at 30 degrees enough? Did you say get...

CASAREZ: Do we know exactly who left the baby? There are also two parents that we don`t know...

GRACE: Well, you know what? It still had the umbilical cord. It makes me think Mommy Dearest had something to do with it. Jean, I`m actually shocked at you.

Let`s quickly go out to Michael Morrisey. I want to talk to him about baby safe haven laws. Michael, it didn`t have to be this way.

MICHAEL MORRISEY, BABY SAFE HAVEN EXPERT: No, absolutely not, Nancy. I`ll even give you two seconds of difference: Knock-knock on the door. There was a CNA and a charge nurse inside that building. They knew what to do to take care of Baby Rose. They could have easily just called 911, and you`d never have the problems with hypothermia. There is a baby safe haven law in Oregon that could have easily made this a lot easier scenario.

GRACE: Now, Michael, very quickly, this baby safe haven law, what is it?

MORRISEY: Well, these safe haven laws are all over the country. They`re in 47 states.

GRACE: Let`s see the map, Liz.

MORRISEY: Well, 47 states. Only Alaska, and Nebraska, and Hawaii don`t have them. Take the baby to a hospital, a medical center, to a police station or a fire station, knock on the door, hand the baby to a policemen, a fireman, a nurse, and make sure the baby`s safe. Then you can turn around and walk away, no questions asked, no chance of prosecution.

GRACE: Marc Klaas, a lot of people say "no way" to baby safe havens. I disagree. I disagree. It could cost a baby its life.

MARC KLAAS, FOUNDER OF BEYOND MISSING: Well, you know, I think that that`s the whole point here, isn`t it? I`ve dealt -- we all deal too often with dead children. And these safe haven laws enable these children to live.

And what we`re doing is we`re talking about this whole thing as a rational approach to an irrational situation. These are invariably desperate women that, for one reason or another, feel they have very, very few options. Sometimes those options are to kill the child; other times, now with these safe haven laws, that option is to drop that child off.

So I think anytime a child is alive, including this child, is a far greater scenario than to find another dead baby in a dumpster. So I`m not going to continue to point fingers at this poor mother like everybody else is. She wanted her baby to live, and she probably took the only steps that she knew were necessary to make sure that that would happen.

GRACE: Marc, I think you`ve got a great point. I`m concerned that the baby`s left in the condition it was, where in this very state they have safe haven laws.

Out to Randy Zelin and Allison Gilman, also, in some of these states where they have safe haven laws, the first thing they want to do is ask you a bunch of questions about yourself when you try to drop the baby off, Allison. That doesn`t help anything.

ALLISON GILMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Absolutely that doesn`t help anything, Nancy. And I absolutely agree with what he was just saying. I mean, I think it`s really important that these women know that they can do this, and they won`t be questioned, they won`t be prosecuted. This woman, you have no idea the emotional state that she was in when she did this. This is a desperate situation.

GRACE: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

GILMAN: And that`s why she did it.

GRACE: We`ve got this totally in reverse. Randy, that the baby was OK shouldn`t dictate whether what the mom did was wrong or right.

RANDY ZELIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, it does, because one of the elements of the statute is that the child was not abused. So it is very important.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is kind of the image from the past that we`re trying to do away with, of wrapping an infant up and leaving them on a doorstep for someone to find. That`s not a safe thing to do for the child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Let`s go straight out to the lines. Vickie in Iowa, hi, Vickie.

CALLER: Hi, Nancy

GRACE: What`s your question, dear?

CALLER: My question is, when they find the people who did this to this poor, little child, what kind of charges will they be facing?

GRACE: Probably some serious abandonment charges. Since the child luckily ended up virtually unscathed, there won`t be a serious charge, I do not believe, but clearly abandonment will be an issue.

But back to the lawyers, really quickly, to Randy Zelin, I agree with something Jean Casarez said. The laws can be very confusing. This was a nursing home. And even in my two home states, New York and Georgia, you don`t see "Safe Haven Baby Drop-off" posted anywhere. I`ve never seen such a sign, Randy, hospitals, churches, nothing.

ZELIN: I agree. A nursing home is going to fall in a gray area, because there are nurses there, there are medical professionals there. And the statutes speaks of bringing the baby to a safe place like a hospital. And a nursing home is not far off from a hospital.

GRACE: Everyone, we are going to stop our legal discussion to remember Army Private Michael Bridges, just 23, Madison, Alabama, killed, Iraq. Bridges put the University of Alabama on hold, lost 119 pounds so he could join the Army. He loved Tom Hanks` movies and University of Alabama football, loved kids and routinely handed out goodies to Iraqi children. He leaves behind a loving family, grieving parents, and two brothers. Michael Bridges, American hero.

Thank you to our guests, but mostly to you, for being with us. NANCY GRACE signing off again for tonight. See you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.

END

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