Missouri Woman Assaulted by Female Stranger; Police Searching for Perpetrator and Missing Baby Girl
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight: A newborn baby girl kidnapped from her Missouri home, the mom attacked, left for dead by a female attacker. Repeat, female attacker. Miraculously, the mom survives. And tonight, police release this sketch of the suspect. Tonight, only 10 days old, baby Abigale in danger. And also tonight, back to Florida and the ongoing search for Trenton Duckett. His mom says she tucked him into bed, goes to the next room for a movie. Just two hours later, Trenton gone, the bedroom screen slashed. And then mom, Melinda Duckett, commits suicide. Tonight, new clues, a possible timeline, and divers searching local lakes. But first tonight: a Missouri mom left for dead, her newborn baby girl kidnapped.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most important thing to us right now is getting Abigale back safely.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jim (ph) was in agony. This is horrible! We just want her to come home. My daughter is torn apart. The whole family is torn apart. It just hurts!</s>GRACE: Good evening everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Two (ph) of the heartland. A Missouri mom wants her daughter back after she survived a slash to the throat, multiple stabbings. Left locked in her home, she makes her way to a neighbor`s home to report this beautiful baby, just 10 years</s>AISHA SULTAN, "ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH": Apparently, this woman stopped in a car in front of Stephanie Ochsenbine`s house, knocked at the door, asked if she could use the phone. Stephanie let her in. When she tried to make a long distance call, it didn`t go through. She then asked to use the bathroom. When she was in the bathroom, she was able to lock Stephanie in there, stabbed her, slashed her throat. She had some stab wounds to the arm. She passed out -- the mother did -- and the kidnapper told her, I`m going to take your daughter, and she took off with the baby, at that time 7 days old.</s>GRACE: Now -- Aisha Sultan with us from "The Dispatch." Aisha, you stated that she had been slashed in the throat. It`s my understanding police have recovered a knife somewhere around the home. Describe.</s>SULTAN: They have discovered a knife. They said that she had been attacked by a filet knife, and they said that they were waiting on DNA or an evidence report to see if there`s any sort of evidence that can be recovered from that knife.</s>GRACE: So I take it, then, by a cursory look with the naked eye, that had blood on it?</s>SULTAN: They don`t know. Or at least, they have not revealed that to any of us.</s>GRACE: Take a listen to what police had to say.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a black scarf. It`s a little bit unique. The first photo we have is basically of the location where it was found -- not the exact location, but I mean, it`s on the ground in a wooded area. The other one is a picture of it spread out. It`s got fringe on each end of the scarf. You know,</s>GRACE: Many of us on the staff didn`t know exactly what a filet knife is. Well, this is a filet knife. It`s a nasty little piece of work. And apparently, that is what may have been used on this mom. Now her 10-day- old baby girl gone. Back to our reporter from "The Dispatch," Aisha Sultan. Aisha, question. In the front yard, did they have notification, like, you know, sometimes there are balloons, there`s a sign or a stork?</s>SULTAN: There was. There was a metal sign that said, Welcome home, Abby, and some balloons. And so that might have been a sign that there was a baby there if someone was looking for it.</s>GRACE: Now, where did you tell me, Aisha Sultan, that this filet knife was found on the property?</s>SULTAN: They haven`t released that information.</s>GRACE: OK. And where was the scarf found on the property, do we know?</s>SULTAN: In the woods. In the woods near the crime scene.</s>GRACE: Interesting. I wonder if it was the woods leading to the road or the woods behind the home. That would suggest to me which way the perpetrator went.</s>SULTAN: They haven`t said. I know they`ve been searching the woods surrounding that area quite extensively.</s>GRACE: Let`s go out to our G-men joining us tonight, all three former and respected FBI agents, Mike Brooks, Don Clark and Steve Rogers (ph). OK, Mike Brooks, give me your best shot.</s>MIKE BROOKS, FORMER FBI, FORMER D.C. POLICE: Well, we got -- you just saw in that picture, we got the FBI evidence response team who was there on the scene processing, so we know that there are the best that`s available processing that crime scene. And with that knife, there`s always a possibility, if she was slashed, there was either -- there was also the victim`s DNA...</s>GRACE: Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute right there! Mike Brooks, I heard what you said, "if she was slashed." Now, typically, we always look at the parents as perpetrators.</s>BROOKS: Sure.</s>GRACE: But I see no possibility from what I`m hearing tonight that this is a self-inflicted wound. She was slashed. And if you`ll notice, Mike, with self-inflicted wounds, it`s somewhere right on the arm or the chest...</s>BROOKS: Sure.</s>GRACE: ... or the leg. It`s never where the person could actually die from their self-inflicted wound. So I see no possibility of the mom self-inflicting a wound. She was slashed!</s>BROOKS: She was slashed. And there`s a possibility that there`s going to be her DNA and possibly the perpetrators DNA because a lot of times, Nancy, when you have a slashing like that, you`re holding somebody as they`re trying to get away from you, you sometimes cut yourself. So that`s going to be important, to see if there`s more than one DNA -- any more than one person`s DNA on that knife. That scarf is a big piece of evidence because there`s possibly DNA on that scarf, just...</s>GRACE: Or hair.</s>BROOKS: Hairs, fibers, those kind of things. And I guarantee you, the FBI evidence response team -- I used to be a member of that particular team out of the Washington field office -- and they went through that house with a fine-toothed comb, most likely vacuumed that house for any kind of hairs and fiber evidence that they can compare once they do get a suspect in this particular case. And when you look at the -- the -- you know, the composite here, it almost looks like it`s a man. So was it really a woman? Well, the victim could best tell, and she said it was a woman. But there`s always that possibility it could also have been a man, especially from the facial structure...</s>GRACE: Right.</s>BROOKS: ... those type things. So that`s something else to take into consideration, Nancy.</s>GRACE: To defense attorney Raymond Giudice. Why is the FBI in on this? Why isn`t the local police handling it?</s>RAY GIUDICE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, not to offend local authorities here, but in rural America, the FBI is going to be clearly the people who call in to secure a crime scene. I don`t know how many cases we`ve seen -- of course, the JonBenet case -- where the -- hours after the incident occurred and is reported is where the critical problems rise up, either in the defense of the case or in the inability to solve the case. As Mr. Brooks just said, this FBI unit`s the best in the country.</s>GRACE: Back to Aisha Sultan with "The St. Louis Dispatch." Aisha, again, thank you for being with us. Give me her best description of the perpetrator. This is extremely rare, to have a female perpetrator, violent crime, female on female, stranger on stranger, very unusual.</s>SULTAN: Stephanie described her as about 5-8, 200 pounds, dark curly hair. She was last seen wearing a dark cap over her head. And she was even described as having light facial -- like a female mustache, like facial hair.</s>GRACE: Bluejean shorts, gray or brown T-shirt. Let`s go back to the G-men, Mike Brooks, Don Clark, Steve Rogers. To you, Don Clark. I had the same thought that Mike Brooks had at the get-go. You`ve got somebody that could be 5-8 and 200 pounds, some slight female facial hair. Could it be a man? But now that I see that the perp was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, certainly, the victim can make out the legs or the bust of a woman. What do you think?</s>DON CLARK, FORMER HEAD OF FBI HOUSTON OFFICE: Well, I got to believe that the victim in this case probably has a pretty good idea of the sex of the person. It could possibly be a little bit of deception there, but by and large, with that type of dress, she would probably know the type of person that attacked her. But the key here is, is that, what did she really see, Nancy? And this is what the investigators have to sit down with, and not just sit down with her. They`ve got to have diagrams. They`ve got to have photographs. They`ve got to pick out particular parts of this person -- the mouth, the nose, the eyes -- and really try to match it up to make sure that they can put together a pretty good composite because, generally speaking, people don`t really know what they see just by asking them. Fat to one means skinny to another. So they don`t really know. So the bottom line is, get all these components together, talk to this witness again and again and again to be able to really complete a very good composite.</s>GRACE: That`s a really good point, Don Clark. Back to Aisha Sultan with "The Dispatch." Aisha, what condition is she in? Is the mom in a shape where she can actually undergo more police interrogation?</s>SULTAN: She`s been helping the police with the composite. They said that she wasn`t completely satisfied with the composite they released, but they felt she couldn`t work on it anymore. But she has not made a personal plea yet to the media. The grandmother has. And the police said today that she is just in too much emotional distress to be able to do something like that.</s>GRACE: And out to our G-men again. To Steve Roger, also from the former FBI task force. Steve, when you draw these composites, very often - - and I`ve had this on the stand, actually, in front of a jury, where the victim says, Well, that composite isn`t exactly right. I couldn`t explain what I meant about the nose or I couldn`t explain the eyes. Now there are computer programs that can reevaluate and reconfigure a composite sketch. But just because the mom isn`t happy with the sketch does not mean it is not roughly accurate.</s>STEVE ROGERS, FORMER FBI: Well, that`s absolutely right. And you`re not going to having everything precise when it comes to a composite. But with the technology we have today, it`s going to be darn close to what that person looks like. One of the things the police are going to be looking into -- the FBI, that is -- is was it stranger to stranger? Is this someone who could have known the victims, who could have known the movement of the victims? And I`ll bet your bottom dollar, Nancy, what they`re going to look into to see if there was suspicious activity reported in the area of that home prior to and leading up to the abduction.</s>GRACE: Well put. Back out to Aisha Sultan with "The Dispatch." Aisha, tell me about the area. I keep hearing rural. How many people live there? How far away is it from a big city? And important, are there any factories, any plants, any industry, anything there where maybe the mom or the dad worked where someone would know there was a new baby?</s>SULTAN: This -- Lonedell, the area near where it happened, is about 45 miles south of St. Louis. It is a rural area that the house -- the street, it`s off of a rural highway, Highway 47, heavily wooded on both sides. The homes are pretty far apart. And it was a modest home, and some of the homes there have mobile homes on the property. And there really isn`t...</s>GRACE: Mobile homes on the property?</s>SULTAN: There -- on some of the -- in some of the neighboring houses, there are. They`re gravel roads leading off the main highway. And there`s very little overhead lighting. Some residents in the area told me that it is not uncommon for strangers to stop and ask to use the phone because they`ve had car trouble and they can`t get a signal or reception on their cell phone. And people there leave their doors unlocked. They don`t think twice about letting a stranger come in and use their phone, if they`re saying that they`ve got some car trouble.</s>GRACE: Well, Aisha, actually, that`s the way a lot of us grew up, but those days are long, long gone. To Caryn Stark, psychotherapist. Think about this, though, Caryn Stark. Jessie Lunsford was from Homosassa, Florida. That`s not near a big interstate, not near a big metropolitan area. It was someone that observed her, according to police, it was catty-corner from her home, watching her. You`ve got Dylan and Shasta Groene in Kutenai County, a very rural area. In that case, it was a complete stranger that was actually stalking the home with night-vision goggles. I mean, what mom can protect herself from that, for Pete`s sake, Caryn?</s>CARYN STARK, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Well, I guess you`re right, Nancy. You really have to be on the lookout, at this point. And I think it was a big mistake, although harmless, but -- it`s a big mistake to have a sign out that says that, you know, welcome home to this baby. It sort of is saying, Welcome, kidnappers, because you`re giving out...</s>GRACE: Caryn, Caryn...</s>STARK: ... too much of a clue.</s>GRACE: ... Caryn...</s>STARK: Yes, Nancy?</s>GRACE: You do hear yourself. What does it mean to America that in a rural area, you can`t put, Welcome home, baby Abby, that you`re advertising for a kidnapper or some...</s>STARK: Well, you know, I hate to...</s>GRACE: ... freak to come into your home?</s>STARK: I hate, Nancy, to be the messenger here of bad news, but these days, I think you have to be very cautious. And there`s a good chance that somebody was watching that house because they saw a sign like that.</s>GRACE: To Lawrence Kobilinsky, forensic scientist. I have hope. I have hope, because of that scarf, that maybe there`s hair in it. If you look at hair, Koby (ph), can you tell if it`s male or female?</s>LARRY KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: Well, actually, you can, providing there`s a root because in that root, there`s cellular material, and the finding of a Y chromosome through something called quinicrine (ph) staining will reveal if it`s a male or not.</s>GRACE: Repeat! What kind of staining?</s>KOBILINSKY: It`s called quinicrine staining. It`s not commonly used, but it can be used. I think we have to remember that there is evidence here. We have a bloody knife. We have the scarf. But DNA is not going to help if this person is not on the database, if there are no fingerprint records of this person. So I think here, a show like this one will alert the public, and maybe the public will contribute by, you know, telling us about sightings.</s>GRACE: Look at this -- that composite again, everybody. It also looks like she`s got peach fuzz on the chin and about the face. Let`s go to the lines. Lorrie in New York. Hi, Lorrie.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy.</s>GRACE: What`s your question, dear?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t hear much about the father, but to me, this -- somebody stalking is one thing, but to know she`s alone in a rural area, it just seems very odd to me that someone would just out of the, you know, blue -- could it be a person that was hired to do this? I hate to say it, but...</s>GRACE: You mean -- now, how are you connecting the father up to that, Lorrie?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, not necessarily even the father, a jealous individual close to the family.</s>GRACE: Right. Right. You know, it`s interesting to me, Lorrie, that in almost every case I prosecuted, the perpetrator had been -- knew the victim, not necessarily the reverse, but as you`re pointing out, had been observing them, watching them. How would she know, A, a baby was there? You`ve got the poster in the front yard. B, the husband was gone. Aisha, hasn`t the husband been ruled out? Wasn`t he at work?</s>SULTAN: They are saying the husband was at work. But I think they are keeping all the possibilities open. That`s what they`re saying. So although they don`t suspect the parents...</s>GRACE: This was a woman. This was a woman.</s>SULTAN: Right.</s>GRACE: I mean, she tried to use the phone, she walked in, she had conversation with this individual. If she says it`s a woman, it`s a woman. And plus, there was another kid in the home. If the dad wanted to get rid of a kid, why pick on the little baby? I mean, I don`t see the dad involvement right now that Lorrie is insinuating. But Lorrie`s right, police always look at the parents first. We`ll all be right back with this late-developing story out of Missouri. We are taking your calls. And we`re not just a bunch of legal heads. We have investigators and reporters on this case to answer your calls. We are live in Missouri tonight. Very quickly, to tonight`s "Case Alert." No bond for a South Carolina man accused of kidnapping and assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Miraculously, the girl found alive in an underground bunker. She had been held there for 10 days. Thirty-six-year-old Vinson Filyaw (ph) allegedly abducted the girl from a school bus stop. He`s now accused of assault and kidnap and assaulting another 12-year-old girl. The latest 14-year-old victim rescued by sending her mom a text message using her alleged captor`s phone while he slept.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has, of course, got a criminal sexual conduct in the second degree with a minor from the November case. From this case, he`s looking at kidnapping charges, possession of an incendiary explosive device, two counts of that. He`s also looking at impersonating a police officer, as well as criminal sexual conduct in the first degree.