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Oct. 30, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
41:52
Mom and Daughter Suspected in Baby Kidnapping Attempt | Dr. Oz | S11 | Ep 128 | Full Episode
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Time Text
A mother and her teen daughter, allegedly posed as baby photographers, fed a new mom poisoned cupcakes and tried to steal her infant.
This story's so crazy.
Plus, who had snuck into her apartment and ambushed her.
Fatal Obsession.
A Hollywood sex therapist and ex-fiancee of Drew Carey thrown from her balcony to her death.
Her former boyfriend arrested for her murder.
coming up next.
Season 11 starts now.
I became a doctor to help people heal.
Now I'm using the same science and medicine to take on true trauma.
Imagine thinking you and your newborn baby are getting free pictures taken and then the photographer who comes to your house feeds you A poisoned cupcake in an effort to steal your baby.
That's the horrifying crime authorities are alleging Juliet Parker and her 16-year-old daughter committed.
What's even more shocking, police say they targeted at least a dozen moms.
What's the address of an emergency?
My face is numb and I've puked like five times now and I don't know if it's an allergic reaction or if they drugged me with something.
I was fine and then I ate a cupcake.
New mom Alicia responded to a Facebook post for a baby photographer and ended up poisoned and in grave danger.
Authorities say she'd fallen prey to Juliet Parker, a failed mayoral candidate who offered to take free photos of infants to build her portfolio.
But police claim that 38-year-old's motives were far more ominous.
She was really fixated on kidnapping a baby girl.
Alicia says Juliet came to her house three times, taking selfies with her newborn baby and wiping down the items she touched.
On the final visit, Juliet's 16-year-old daughter reportedly accompanied her, and Alicia claimed she was violently ill after being pressured into eating two of the cupcakes they brought.
She says she told Juliet and her daughter to leave.
They quickly noticed her house keys were gone.
That's when she called 911. I'm super spacey.
Like, it's hard to talk.
After having blood work done at a local hospital, doctors said Alicia appeared to have been drugged, possibly with GHB, known as the date rape drug.
Juliet, who police say was operating under several aliases, is now facing charges of assault and attempted kidnapping.
It's important to note that Juliet's attorney maintains she's innocent of these charges.
He also stated in part that there isn't any proof that my client drugged the alleged victim, and the alleged victim thought that she may have been having an allergic reaction.
We're going to have his full statement on DrRoz.com.
CNN analyst and defense attorney Joy Jackson joins me now.
So authorities are saying that Juliet was very strategic in how she took these photos of babies.
How so?
No question.
So remember, she's a photographer.
So what she would do is she wanted these young babies, 14 days old, etc.
So she would take the professional photos of the babies, but she would also take selfies.
Why?
So if she's caught at a later point after she steals the baby, she can pass it off of, look, I have these young photographs involving both of us, and so therefore it would legitimize the scheme.
And you know what, Doc?
This is...
It's unbelievable.
It's a teachable moment.
Just because someone on Facebook is saying, I'm a photographer.
You know, I'm going to take these free photos.
I just want to build up my portfolio.
I'll come to your house.
I'll do what I do.
Facebook, no matter what medium, we have to vet people.
We have to evaluate people.
Know who you're dealing with on the other end of the computer before you invite them to your home.
All right, so Julia, it's an interesting person.
Julia Parker lived many lives.
Last year, she unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Colorado Springs.
And back in 2015, she pleaded guilty to causing an explosion in Tacoma, Washington, while her then 10-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son were in the house.
I don't understand how you go from ring for mayor to having exploded a house, but what happened?
Apparently, what she was doing was she was going to an Air Force base with her boyfriend.
They were getting ammunition together.
They were boiling it down to sell as scrap, right?
Scrap metal.
Melting ammo.
Melting ammo to sell as scrap metal.
Apparently, they came across a 22-millimeter piece of...
Ammunition, and it exploded.
It made a two-foot hole.
Now, fortunately, the children, four years old and ten years old, they were not injured.
Her boyfriend, mangled hand.
Her, some, you know, issues with the face, but it could have been catastrophic.
It was not.
So authorities say Juliet targeted at least a dozen moms in her alleged baby stealing scheme.
One of those moms who responded to Juliet's Facebook post joins us now via Zoom.
Amanda, thank you for being with us.
So Amanda, you say you showed Juliet your baby, but she wasn't interested in taking his photo.
Why was that?
He is cute, by the way.
Thank you.
Well, she told me that she wasn't looking to do pictures of boys at the time, which I thought was kind of odd because, you know, you could put a tutu on a little boy and he's going to look like a little girl anyway.
So I thought it was kind of weird, but I just let it go.
In retrospect, how scary was it for you to realize right now that your baby could have been targeted in this cupcake plot?
I mean, it was terrifying to think that, you know, it's a 50-50 shot and you have a kid, you're going to have a girl or a boy, so...
And when she said I wasn't looking for boys and I just kind of let it go, I decided that it wasn't going to affect me.
But then seeing later on that she was with me, in fact, for girls, it scared me.
I had two older girls, so it could have been me.
Well, I'll let you go back.
He's gonna keep your arms full more than the girls would, I'm sure.
From experience, I'll share that with you.
I'm glad that you weren't caught up in this scam.
Coming up Juliet's ex-husband and the father of her daughter is here revealing what he says drove them to a life of deception We are back talking about the shocking case of Juliet Parker who allegedly posed as a photographer and fed a new mom poisoned cupcakes to try to steal her baby and Juliet's ex-husband Daniel joins us now.
He is also the father of their 16-year-old daughter, who is accused of helping her mom with these crimes.
You divorced your ex-wife in 2004. Did you ever imagine that she was capable of a plot like this?
It's difficult to say.
I can't really put it out of the realm of impossible, but I didn't know at the time that it would go to this extreme.
Why would she want to steal a newborn baby?
Explain that to everybody.
I can only speculate.
I know that I've had random people reach out to me on Facebook and tell me different things.
It's all got to be taken with a grain of salt.
Don't know if these people are just trying to, you know, get their names out there or what.
But I had one woman reach out to me.
Don't know this woman.
Never seen her before.
Never heard her name or anything.
She reached out to me to tell me that Juliet was telling her cousin that the child was his and was wanting to get child support from him.
Like, this woman even said that this guy...
Said this is your daughter.
No, not my daughter.
That Juliet was telling that the baby that she was taking pictures of was this guy's kid.
Because this guy apparently, from what the woman, who I don't know, was telling me, allegedly this guy has money and Juliet was trying to say that the baby was his.
To get money from them?
To extort child support.
I can't say if it's true.
As I said, I don't know this woman.
It could be false, but that's what I was told.
You hadn't seen your daughter since she was a very young child.
You spoke to her for the first time in 13 years recently.
What was that like?
Emotional.
There was a few minutes in the beginning of the conversation where there was just silence, and my daughter even made the comment about the awkward silence, but I was trying not to cry.
I didn't want to waste the time on the phone with her crying.
I wanted to learn what I could about her.
I mean, she's a minor.
She's part of an active investigation.
So you were limited on what you could discuss.
You can't discuss the ongoing investigation and stuff like that.
So as far as that goes, that was limited.
But outside of that, there are very little limitations.
Was she happy or unhappy?
How was her school?
Anything about how she was doing that a father might want to find out from his daughter?
She seemed like she was happy.
I couldn't ask anything related to the case at all, so I couldn't ask her anything about that.
Just in life?
In general, she's doing well in school.
She does a lot of AP classes and other things like that.
So, I mean, she's incredibly intelligent.
She's, you know, a 16-year-old girl having fun.
How did I feel hearing her voice?
Different.
Hearing her all grown up, compared to the four-year-old that I last seen.
Did you tell her you loved her?
Yes, I did.
Did she call you dad?
Unfortunately, no.
That's something that I have to deal with due to circumstances that are beyond her control.
Juliet's, I don't know if they're still married or most recent marriage, whatever, but Mr. Parker is the one that my daughter calls dad.
He's been around her for a lot of years of her life, and that's what she said to me.
Heartbreaking, but I understand my child's predicament in all of this and where she's coming from in all of this.
I am just a stranger to her.
Becky, you haven't seen her since she was age four.
Why the estrangement?
Why didn't you have the right to see your daughter?
I've never known that.
It's been alleged, Juliet alleged to the courts that I was abusive without any factual documents, without any kind of proof whatsoever, just a story that every time she submitted a declaration to the courts, I would submit proof that the declaration was false, so she would then have to turn around and resubmit a new declaration to the court, changing this story.
Not minor details, the entire story.
And it was just allowed to continue.
So we reached out to Juliet for a comment, and her lawyer sent us some information.
So I'm going to share those, right?
The first bit says, Daniel Gaines had all of his custodial rights terminated on October 28, 2015. Furthermore, Daniel Gaines tried to terminate his parental rights in 2018 in order to avoid his child support obligations.
And then she...
The lawyer sent me this document, which seems to say that.
It's a cover letter.
It's signed, I think, by you.
And it's got paper saying that you want to terminate your parental rights to your daughter.
The odd part about it is, date on it, January 12, 2018. 2018, there was zero contact at all.
No contact.
The court, you can go to the court website for Mason County, where this allegedly took place in, and you will see that nothing went through the courts or even was presented to the courts in 2018. And if I sign my rights away, why do I have a court order with rights to talk to my child?
So let me be clear.
You think this document's a fake?
I know that document's a fake.
This whole argument...
It's false.
It's a fraud.
Now you shared with this, I'm not a lawyer, I'm just looking at these documents, sent from her attorney, this is from your attorney, this is a...
That's not from my attorney, that's actually from the courthouse with the judge's signature on it.
And what is the judge saying in this document?
That I get to talk to my daughter twice a week to start establishing a relationship.
So it makes it hard to believe that you got a document saying that you've terminated your rights, and yet this one obliges them to issue.
Same county.
So if this were correct and I signed away my rights in 2018, why would the same county turn around and give me rights two years later?
Is that how your wife, ex-wife, would do things?
Yeah.
She lies to the courts.
She's had her father, who's a doctor who's supposed to be, you know, ethical, submit documents to the courts knowing that they were false, claiming I had a police record in every state I've ever lived in.
I have no criminal record.
The full extent, 100% extent of my criminal record is one disorderly conduct from many years ago.
Let's talk about that, because Juliet's attorney also questioned Daniel's credibility, pointing to an instance where he says, Daniel previously lied to the court about being honorably discharged rather than being given a bad conduct discharge from the Army.
Is that the case you're talking about?
No, that's not the case I'm talking about.
That's another instance of her making up things and lying to the court.
The first time she's ever made that allegation to the court was in 2015. Why was that allegation never made before if it was factual?
Plus, whenever she made that claim to the court, I did what I needed to do, went through the process to get copies of my 214, my DD Form 214, and I submitted one of those to the court.
That's your discharge?
Mm-hmm.
So they gave both these documents to my staff.
This one seems to say that you had some bad conduct, but they still were going to discharge you honorably.
Is that what this is saying?
I don't know what it's saying.
I was just given this today, but it's not correct.
This is stunning to me.
I was not discharged with a bad conduct discharge.
When you were married to her, were there moments when she was dishonest with you?
Not really dishonest.
She tried a few times, but it didn't really go anywhere.
I mean, I was able to see through it for some of it.
And a lot of it, the people that knew her knew me also.
And a lot of them would tell me things that were going on.
So I always find out about things that knew the truth anyway.
So, Juliet Parker's maintaining her innocence in this case.
We're gonna have her full statement from the attorney on DrRoz.com.
I appreciate you coming in and answering these questions.
I gotta say, I can't tell...
Left and right anymore.
The story is so crazy that these kinds of details could be completely fabricated, or maybe they're true and you're lying to me.
I just can't tell.
But I do believe you have a certified document here from a judge that gives you the right to talk to your daughter, which does give me some confidence that some of the things you're telling me are true.
I should point out Daniel started a GoFundMe page to raise money for his daughter.
We're gonna have that information on our site as well.
Coming up, we have the latest on the shocking murder of Drew Carey's ex-fiance, Hollywood sex therapist Amy Harwick.
One of her best friends is revealing the terror he says Amy's alleged killer caused in her life for almost 10 years.
A pregnant wife's death ruled suicide until her husband reveals secrets that tripped him up.
This is more typical of someone who's being strangled from behind.
All new odds.
That's coming up on Thursday.
It's the horrific Valentine's Day crime that sent shockwaves through Hollywood and beyond.
Authorities say that beloved sex therapist Amy Harwick was strangled and thrown from her third floor balcony by her ex-boyfriend who was allegedly lying in wait in Amy's home.
Gareth Pursehouse has been charged with Amy's murder after allegedly stalking her for nearly a decade following their breakup.
Amy was granted two, two restraining orders against Pursehouse after claiming he had choked her and even thrown her out of a car.
But the most recent one expired in 2015. Countless people have been touched by this tragedy, including Amy's ex-fiance, Drew Carey, who broke down in tears discussing her on his Sirius XM radio show.
Even after we broke up, you know, we still loved each other very much.
Even though we broke up the engagement, I was still so in love with her and she loved me back.
And I could never hear these songs again without thinking of her.
So this next set is for Amy Harwick, a beautiful person who did deserve to die like she did.
And I loved her very much.
One of Amy's best friends, Robert, joins us now via Zoom.
Robert, Amy ran into Gareth Pursehouse at an event weeks before her murder.
What happened there that evening?
I wasn't there.
She told me about what had happened.
She texted me and said she had gone to this event and she had seen him, but she didn't think he saw her, so she kind of went on about her business.
She hadn't seen him in eight years, maybe more.
Then suddenly he came rushing over to her, yelling at the top of his lungs, shouting in her face.
She told me he was reciting text messages she had sent to him in 2012, just behaving very irrationally.
Started crying, screaming, telling her she ruined his life.
And she being a therapist and having some experience with this, obviously tried to de-escalate the situation.
Try to calm him down, get him to just relax because he was just inconsolable and very, very agitated.
So eventually he did settle down after some time, but this was in a room full of like 100 people and he was working the event.
So it was pretty, pretty extreme.
Yeah.
So experts believe that running into Amy unexpectedly may have re-triggered Gareth's obsession, his stalking.
So what were your final interactions with Amy like the night she was murdered?
Was she aware that he was around and that he may have been triggered again?
Well, this had happened a few weeks prior, and she was definitely concerned about it.
But as the weeks went on, we didn't really talk too much about it.
He had come in and out of her life in the past to bother her.
She hadn't actually seen him, but You would flare up and it would die down.
So the day that this all happened, she was in great spirits.
She had breakfast with my wife.
She and I were texting literally all day.
I was interactively texting with her until about 9.30 and then I received the last text from her.
Around one o'clock in the morning, just a few minutes before he ended up killing her.
But she had no idea that he was just going to come out of the blue.
I mean, you know, this is a guy she hasn't seen in eight years who would ever expect this.
Who had snuck into her apartment and ambushed her.
Robert, you say appropriately that Amy needs to be remembered as much for her life as for her tragic death.
What kind of a person was she?
Amy was just a spectacular person.
If she walked in a room, everyone would come away thinking, wow, what a great person, and also thinking they were her friends.
She lit up a room, and not only that, she was always really just interested in everybody that she met.
She took a great deal of pride in her friends, especially when they'd accomplished things, and she was always encouraging people to go out and better themselves, Get out of bad relationships, you know, take the good jobs.
She was really just an inspirational person.
And not only would she say good words about things, she'd actually help you.
She'd say, oh, hey, I know a person that does that, or I can put you in touch with someone.
She wouldn't hesitate to connect you with someone that could then help you further your career.
She just did that everywhere she went, which is really how she became so beloved and so well-connected in Hollywood.
She was always connecting people just through The force of personality and just her general good spirits.
Robert, I'm sorry for your loss and I wish you the best with all of our friends in recovery.
Over 100,000 people have signed a Justice for Amy petition pushing for stricter laws to protect victims of domestic violence and stalking.
So I wanted to bring in my friend, Attorney Joey Jackson.
What should be done to catch us up to these stalking domestic violence laws in 2020?
Are we behind the times?
Have we lost our way?
Yeah, listen, this is a critical issue, okay?
When you look at issues of harassment, issues of stalking, we have to do more to help and assist victims.
Now, I know in this instance it was an expired order of protection.
Someone certainly was obsessed.
And an order of protection isn't everything, but it's important.
And I think we have to do a better job at monitoring those orders.
Affirmatively getting help and ensuring, right, that they're being complied with.
And many times, victims themselves, you know, they may not want to come forward.
We have to have families help, right?
We have to have friends help.
It takes a village.
Now, with regard to laws, yes, we can pass laws.
But we have eyes, doctor.
We have ears.
And if we see something as we say, we say something.
And I think that saved lives.
On the issue of legislation, though, with that petition, I think there's some very compelling things about it.
Number one, a registry.
Why not have a registry?
If you have a sex offense registry, have a national registry so that the world can know these are the people who are stalking, who are violating.
It could happen to you.
Number two, you know, oftentimes in a court of law, people are uncomfortable about seeing their alleged abuser.
You can have an issue where they testify off screen, on video, so that the person testifying the victim is more forthcoming.
And is going to tell the story in a more compelling way.
Number three, and I can go on, but, you know, perhaps the people who are violating these orders need some kind of counseling and therapy.
It should be a mandatory part of their sentence.
I hope that legislation passes.
We need to save victims' lives.
The tragedy here is that he had basically announced in a public venue that he was back into her life, infatuated with her.
That's right.
And when someone who's dangerous does that, it's a signal.
Gareth Pursehouse is set to be arraigned April 16th.
We reached out to his attorney for comment.
Have not heard back in time for this taping, but we'll keep following this story.
If you're experiencing domestic violence, listen carefully, guys.
Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline or go to thehotline.org.
Do not overlook violence.
It can come back and haunt you.
We also have this contact information at drraz.com.
I'll be right back.
Nice job.
Up next, a murder mystery that may not be what it seems.
Was Honey Malone in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Or was she lured to death by her friends?
Honey's family believes her friends know exactly who killed her.
But why aren't they speaking up?
Today, a murder mystery that may not be what it seems.
Within minutes of walking into her friend's home, 18-year-old high school senior Vanessa Honey Malone was dead.
Honey was shot in the back then dragged into a bedroom closet where she was killed by a single shot to her chest while her friends were allegedly tied up in the bathroom.
Today, the CSI Atlanta team from our affiliate CBS46 is here and we're asking, could Honey have been in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Or was she lured to her death, lured to her death by her friends?
It can't be my child though.
Who killed Honey Malone?
We need...
The real answers.
Her family says seven years later, the details surrounding the 18-year-old's murder just don't add up.
It's just crazy to me.
The DeKalb County Police labeled it a drug deal gone bad.
No proof.
A botched armed robbery.
They drug a trail of blood of my sister on the carpet and put her in the closet.
You don't take the time to do that if it was a random just robbery.
That's not a thing.
That Tuesday night, Honey told her mom, Flora, she was going out.
She regularly hung out at a friend's nearby apartment.
Then I heard something maybe ten minutes later.
It sounded like gunshots or firecrackers or something.
I called her.
She wasn't answering the phone.
She was found in a bedroom closet, shot once in the back and again in her chest.
But why was Honey the only one harmed?
No one.
No one was pistol whipped, nobody was stabbed, nobody was hurt.
Her family believes Honey's friends truly know what happened and possibly played a part in her death.
I want to wake up and hear the phone ringing.
Detective called me in and say, yeah, we got him.
We got him.
CBS 46 News anchor Karen Greer and crime scene investigator Cheryl McCollum are joining us.
They are currently the only news station in the country with its own CSI team.
And Karen has covered this story for her station as well as on her CSI Atlanta podcast.
So break it down for us, Karen.
What are the biggest missing pieces of this puzzle?
Dr. Oz, it just appears that someone knows something in this.
She walked into an apartment, she realized something wasn't right, turned to go back, shot in the back, and then shot in the chest.
And that is the shot that killed her.
And, you know, everyone else says they were tied up in that apartment.
Well, we have no proof of any of that.
And we know that there were people in that apartment That left and left their stories with them.
Plus, she's dragged into the closet.
This is not typical things you do in a murder.
No, not a robbery, as they said it was, or a drug deal gone bad is what some people were trying to call it as well.
We just don't think that happened.
Cheryl definitely didn't think that happened.
You don't even like the idea that people say this is a drug bust, period.
I can't stand that term.
First of all, Honey wasn't there to buy drugs, doctor.
She wasn't there to buy drugs, sell drugs, dispense drugs in any way.
There was no drugs found there.
There was no cash found there.
There were no guns found there.
The only person hurt in that apartment was Honey Malone.
It just doesn't add up.
Well, Karen and Cheryl visited the apartment complex where Honey was murdered.
They detail what they saw in their CSI Atlanta podcast.
Let's talk about the crime scene a minute.
Karen, you and I went there from the gate of the apartment complex.
To get to that apartment is a winding, weaving, crazy journey, if you will.
So to me, this did not seem like the apartment that you would hit for a random home invasion.
It's so bizarre.
And you guys don't think this is a random killing.
What do Honey's friends claim happened that night, Carrie?
That is the big problem.
Honey's friends are claiming a lot of different stories that, you know, they really don't know what happened.
They were tied up, as I said, in a closet, that they didn't see anything that happened in that instance, in that apartment.
So their stories just don't make sense.
And we're still waiting to get a 911 call from someone who called police And perhaps know what really happened.
Cheryl, this is your area of expertise.
What about the scenario that bothers you the most?
That she was shot in the back at the front door, which indicates to me she was leaving.
She was trying to get away.
As soon as they shot her, you would think they would flee the scene, but they don't.
They drag her through the entire apartment into the back master bedroom, put her in the master bedroom closet, realize she's still alive, shoot her again in the chest, killing her, and steal her cell phone.
Nothing else in the apartment is stolen.
Nobody else in the apartment is hurt.
Only Honey.
Honey's family's been waiting seven long years to get answers on what happened to her.
Seven years is a long time in a case so bizarre.
You'd think law enforcement would be all over this with 50 clues that people in the house wouldn't have the option of saying they don't remember or they don't recall.
So Karen, what's going on?
What were the roadblocks?
Well, and that's what her mother and her sister want to know.
What is the problem?
Why can't you help us?
They're not cooperating with the family.
They're not giving them that 911 call that we keep talking about that actually supposedly helped them to know that Honey was in that apartment dead.
Someone else went to the house and told the mother, told Flora that her daughter was dead.
The police never did.
So there are quite a few roadblocks in this story.
You know, when you said that there was a 911 call you couldn't obtain, we trust you guys.
You guys, as you mentioned, the first CSI unit of your type in the country.
We still went after it.
And we got nowhere.
And instead, this 911 call was made the night Honey was murdered.
The Cove County Police Department told us we are unable to release the call as we continue to seek leads that may help identify the person or persons responsible for her death, which I'm completely respectful of.
I mean, it's tough to be in law enforcement and do all this stuff, but seven years is a long time to wait.
To hear what went down, and without a lot of insights, it's a little bit frustrating, especially to the family.
So up next, Honey's grieving family is here, and they're demanding answers.
Family believes her friends know exactly who killed her and why.
those details when we return. - A pregnant wife's death ruled suicide until her husband reveals secrets that tripped him up.
This is more typical of someone who's being straggled from behind.
All new odds.
That's coming up on Thursday.
We're back asking who killed high school senior Vanessa Honey Malone and why.
Honey's friends claim she was shot and killed during a drug deal gone wrong while they were allegedly tied up in bathroom.
She was the only one hurt that night, yet no drugs were found and the only thing stolen was Honey's cell phone.
Her family is stopped at nothing to find answers.
But Honey's mother, Flora, and her sister, Cassandra, believe the people in that home know exactly who killed her.
They join us now.
Flora, thanks for being here.
Let me start with you.
As a parent, I cannot imagine what it's like to live through and even talk about the loss of a daughter.
What happened that night?
It started off as a typical Tuesday.
I took her to work.
I took her early to work because she wanted to get her nails done and get something to eat.
I picked her up after work at like 9.30.
We got home.
She said she was tired.
Long day.
Wasn't that many hours, but you know.
Then she got a call and text and said, well, I'm going to go and I'll be right back.
And it's like, okay.
Well, I knew she couldn't go far because she didn't have a car.
And she doesn't have a driver's license.
So she went and she came right back.
And then she left again.
And I'm like, you said you'll be right back.
You're here.
She's like, I love you, Mom.
Where did she go when she did that first little trip?
Do you know?
Nowhere.
She just went outside and came right back in and said, I love you, Mom.
And it just seemed a little odd.
I mean, not that she doesn't say I love you all the time because that's how our family is, but it just hit me differently after I found out she's gone.
How did you find out that she had been shot?
I had a knock on the door.
I thought it was her.
And it wasn't.
It was two of her friends, and they said, Honey's gone.
And I'm like, gone where?
She was just here.
And they said, no, she's gone.
So I walked over to where they said that she was.
It was like a three-minute walk.
And there was all kinds of police there.
And I asked the officer, I'm like, is this Honey?
And he didn't know.
Showed him a picture.
I described her tattoos, what she was wearing.
Nobody knew if it was her.
And my first thought was, well, maybe it's just somebody who looks like her.
Because she had a couple friends who look pretty similar.
So we waited.
And then I called Cassandra.
Because this is my rock.
Always has been.
And I told her that I think possibly my worst fear has come.
And of course, Cassie's like, well, what happened?
And I said, I'm not sure if it's her.
They said she's gone.
And so Cassie came.
And we waited some more hours.
Then the police finally came out and said, yeah, it's her.
I'm so sorry.
Cassandra, do you have any idea what was going on that night?
Had she ever mentioned the folks who were at that house to you before?
Just the fact that she would go over there and, you know, play spades or, you know, kind of hang out here and there, but nothing in detail about the people themselves.
Let me ask you both.
Do you believe the people who were in the house that night know more about Honey's murder than they're letting on?
Yes.
They have to.
Why do they have to?
Because they're the only ones that were there.
Do you believe they were tied up in the bathroom?
No, I don't.
Why not?
There's a few things that come across as a discrepancy in my opinion.
One, according to the police report, one said it was three assailants, one says it's five or six.
One said they were tied up with a black belt, and according to the police report, the other was tied up with an unknown object.
It came out later on, a couple years later, that it was clipper cords.
But it's like you would have known it was clipper cords at the scene.
So it just seemed like something happened in that apartment, and then they tried to come up with a possible robbery story, is what it sounds like to me.
Was your sister mixed up in drugs?
She smoked weed, but I mean...
She didn't sell drugs.
Yeah, I think that's a teenage thing nowadays.
So you don't buy that this is a drug deal gone bad?
No.
And are you frustrated that it's been seven years, and with all these discrepancies, all these folks walking around innocently appearing?
Saying I love you to their loved ones, being able to do whatever they want to do, live life, have more kids.
Yeah, that's hard.
It's a very small community, so you know that they know.
It was all over Facebook before it was even confirmed.
So it's a really small place.
And I think her friends know.
I think some of her, who she considered really good friends know.
And I've reached out to everybody that I possibly could.
And they just say things like, oh, the person's probably in jail or dead or...
I don't know or snitching is whatever and it's like...
Snitching is what?
The whole no snitch code and snitches get stitches kind of mentality.
And when they say they're afraid to speak up and it's like you should be afraid not to.
Yeah, darn right.
Honey could be anybody's child.
Exactly.
And there are future honeys being killed right now if you don't speak up.
Yeah, correct.
Up next, honeys killers are still out there.
Could they have killed again?
And could a special DNA vacuum unleash the answers to honeys' death?
Stick around.
Alice Marie Johnson sentenced to life for a non-violent drug-related crime.
After two decades behind bars, Kim Kardashian heard her story and fought for her lease from prison.
That's coming up next week.
We're back investigating the murder mystery of high school senior Vanessa Honey Malone, shot to death after entering her friend's home.
Sharon and Karen believe crucial evidence that Honey's case needs to be reexamined using today's high-tech tools.
This DNA vacuum is a good example.
Please walk the audience through this, because this stuff's at our fingertips.
Why not use it?
We're taking a look at the technology right now.
Dr. Laura Patler, you know very well, drove into Atlanta to help us teach law enforcement in our metro Atlanta area what this technology can do, how different it is from tools they've been using before.
And it just really vacuums the DNA from whatever material you have.
Absolutely.
It's the simplest thing to use.
And the idea that she was drugged through that apartment, the possibility of touch DNA being all over her clothing It's got to be there.
So we're doing lessons with law enforcement, DeKalb, police, Atlanta police.
Prosecuting attorneys, California.
Prosecuting attorneys.
Just, we've shown them how this works.
They want to be better.
They want to be stronger, which is why cases like this frustrate them more than anybody.
But as part of the media, I've got to call attention to it, nevertheless, because seven years later, your daughter, sister, still, you know, the murders, people who hurt her are still out there doing more harm, I think.
You believe that, Cassandra?
Yes.
I don't know for sure, but I do know that there's a gentleman that name has came up in our research or investigation ourselves that he actually just got arrested for murdering another young woman in California.
Tell us about it.
Don't mention his name, but you spoke to him, right?
Yeah, I spoke to him.
So a few years after Vanessa passed away, he moved to California.
And I reached out again, like I had been doing for the people that were kind of involved in this apartment.
And he actually told me during the conversation of what she was shot with.
And it was weird to me because the police hadn't ever told us.
You know, that was one of the things that they were trying to keep to themselves, not even let the family know.
So if somebody had that information, they knew.
So for him to tell me that, I told the police and they asked me if I recorded it, but of course I kind of couldn't record it.
I didn't know he was going to say that.
So that was a red flag in my book.
So here's the thing.
There are three people in the house with Honey that we know of.
And you guys say they have refused to talk to you in any way.
Have they ever come and talked to you in person, any of those three people?
Flora?
They've never even said they're sorry that Honey was killed.
At all.
Not that they did it.
They won't tell us what really happened.
They say that they were tied up and it was a robbery gone wrong.
But my theory is...
If you were already in the closet and being robbed, she would have came to the door.
What robber would let her in?
Yeah.
And she wouldn't have walked in on a kicked-in door.
No, no.
And who texted her to come over?
We don't know.
Her phone's missing.
Her phone's missing.
A lot of question marks here, right?
No wonder...
Absolutely.
And the police gave them a phone that they said was Honey's phone early on in this investigation, and it was not.
It was not.
It was the guy that was tied up, his phone.
Let me ask you, Flora.
Let me give you the opportunity.
What do you want to say to not just the three people who are there in the house who know more than they're letting on, probably, but other people who might know what really went down, including this man who just got picked up for potentially murdering another woman?
If you know anything about Honey's death or any unsolved case, please speak up because there's thousands of us waiting for answers.
I mean, it changes your life.
You lose half of your life.
You wonder.
You cry.
You shut down.
I'm sorry you went through this, but I'm also proud of you for being brave enough to come forward, talk to Atlanta's CSI team, and be here today talking about something that needs to be addressed.
Half the murders probably in this country aren't addressed.
We can do better.
Folks have answers, they're not speaking.
Absolutely.
God bless you both.
If you have any information on this case, we urge you to send in your tips to the number on our screen or go to dros.com slash crimehunters for details.
We'll be right back.
This Thursday on the next True Crime.
Studying details of the soon-to-be mother allegedly found hanging by her husband just days before she was due to give birth.
Her death was ruled a suicide until decades later.
After an explosive house fire, a shocking 911 phone call, and a stunning admission revealed years of lies and deceits.
This horrific case is featured on Forensic Files 2. She had everything to live for.
She was really looking forward to having a baby and being a mom.
So, her death raises more questions than answers.
It was pretty obvious that something wasn't right here.
Years pass.
Then, someone reveals a clue about the victim.
I'm thinking to myself, why are you telling me this?
Can a dead woman, buried for almost a generation, solve the mystery of how she really died?
The victim's brother joins us and says his sister would never have killed herself.
And the shocking discovery that blew this case wide open after this poor woman's body was exhumed decades later.
I'll see you next time.
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