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NANCY GRACE

Iraq Veteran Vanishes; Blood Evidence Found in Disappearance of New Jersey Student

Aired April 26, 2006 - 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, breaking news, mystery surrounding a 19- year-old college honor student, his body found last night at a Pennsylvania landfill. What happened to John Fiocco? The track star last seen in his dorm after an off-campus party, police admitting the circumstances are suspicious. Tonight, we retrace his steps, looking for answers.
And tonight, an American hero, a soldier who actually escaped death, making it all the way back from Iraq only to go missing here, 23-year-old Army specialist Robert Hornbeck, back in the USA, Ft. Benning, Georgia, his parents devastated. To add to the mystery, he was on the phone with his dad, asking for help, and then vanished. After all he`s done for us, what can we do for him?

Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Tonight, an American hero missing in his own country. Army specialist Robert Hornbeck takes fire in Iraq, makes it all the way home and then vanishes into thin air, Savannah, Georgia.

But first tonight, breaking news on a 19-year-old New Jersey honor student, his body found at a Pennsylvania landfill. Police call it highly suspicious. Did track star John Fiocco -- how did he go from sleeping in his own dorm to a Tullytown landfill? And tonight, we report from Savannah to New Jersey, and we are taking your calls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yesterday, April the 25th, at 1:53 PM, an intact body was located at the landfill search site.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A group of us arrived there on April 1 with a singular focus, and that was to find the body of John Fiocco, Jr. And that goal was realized yesterday.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We must persevere in the effort to determine how this tragic loss occurred.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are injuries to the body, but those injuries are consistent with a body that moved from the dumpster and through the trash system. We don`t know that he went down the chute.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We`re taking you live to New Jersey and the mystery of a 19- year-old honor student whose remains have now been found in a Tullytown landfill.

But first, let`s go live to a missing American hero. How did he manage to take fire in Iraq, come all the way home, only to go missing in his home country, the USA?

Let`s go straight to investigative reporter Pat Lalama. Pat, it`s totally bass-akwards!

PAT LALAMA, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Isn`t it amazing? The guy can survive a year in Iraq, and now we can`t find him in America. Here`s how it goes. He was going to Savannah. He had just gotten back from Iraq, by the way, in January, and he went back to Ft. Benning. He wanted to come up to Savannah, Georgia, to have a meeting with his dad and step-mom. He brought a buddy up. They were going to have a darn good time for the weekend.

The step-mom, the dad, he and his friend go out and shoot some pool, have a good time. And they say, Look, you know, you guys go on home, thanks for coming, we`re going to go party a little bit more. Well, they partied. They went out to a number of bars. And then all of a sudden, at 3:00 in the morning, the friend, Jeremy Stone, calls the dad and says, you know, We`re a little drunk, we need help. Could you come and get us?

Apparently, Robert Hornbeck was very upset about that because it looked like, you know, the big Iraqi war hero need help from his daddy, but nonetheless, Mr. Stone felt this is what he needed to do. Well, guess what? Before that had happened, he had called his dad and said, Dad, I`m on the stairwell. Dad, I`m on the stairwell, he said. And Eric Hornbeck said, Son! Son! And then the phone went dead.

Now, we don`t know whether the cell phone died, whether something happened at that moment. It was a stairwell. We don`t know exactly where. But he was...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: OK, wait. Pat? Pat?

LALAMA: Yes?

GRACE: Robert Hornbeck had just left his friend. Like, it was just a matter of moments, correct?

LALAMA: Absolutely. But here`s the thing, Nancy. He had made a call to his father and -- but when and exactly where? All he said was, I`m in the stairwell. Now, Dad was supposed to pick them up in front of the hotel, OK? And then it never happened, and nine days later, we still don`t know where he went.

GRACE: Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He couldn`t have gone far. He just couldn`t have unless he crawled under a bush and passed out, or someone gave him a ride somewhere. I`ve searched probably a half mile, at least, perimeter. And I mean, I`ve crawled alleys. I looked at garbage cans.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His buddy called his dad and said, you know, Come pick us up, or, We`ve had too much to drink. And they were there within 10 minutes. His dad called him on his cell phone, got him, spread out looking for him, and they -- they couldn`t finds him. And they called the police, and he hasn`t been seen or heard from since.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: This 23-year-old young man took fire, managing to save two other people in Iraq, comes home -- he`s going to be discharged, my understanding, from the military in just two more weeks -- and somehow vanishes in Savannah, Georgia, there near Ft. Benning tonight. Help us help an American hero.

Joining us right now, his father, Eric Hornbeck, in his first live national interview. Sir, thank you for being with us.

ERIC HORNBECK, MISSING SOLDIER`S FATHER: Thank you, Nancy, for affording us this opportunity to help try and get our son back home.

GRACE: Tell me about your son in Iraq.

HORNBECK: Well, Robert spent a year over in Bakuba, which is 35 miles north of Baghdad. He was a saint the entire time over there. He called Mom or Dad at least once a week, and usually twice a week, to let us know he was fine. He knew, as any child would, how concerned their parents were, so he`s always been very responsible that way. He did see a lot of action over there, but he was blessed enough to come home, and he seemed fine when he got home.

GRACE: Is it correct that he was just a couple of weeks away from ending his military duty?

HORNBECK: Yes. He was due to be discharged April 30.

GRACE: Because, you know, after Jennifer Willbanks and her wild boondoggle that pulled the wool over everybody`s eyes, Mr. Hornbeck, a lot of people are saying, Well, maybe he just didn`t want to go back in the military, maybe he was afraid he had to go back to Iraq, and he just disappeared. But that`s not the truth at all!

HORNBECK: That`s absolutely not the case. He knew he was going to be discharged April 30. He had intentions of being married in July with his fiancee, and he was going to work part-time and go back to the University of Michigan, where he had spent two years previous to his military.

GRACE: Now, back to him being in Iraq. It`s my understanding that he actually helped save two people?

HORNBECK: Well, what happened is, they were in an incident where an IED went off, and there was five of his comrades in the Bradley...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: In the Sunni triangle, right?

HORNBECK: That is correct. And his comrades -- Robert opened the Bradley, and they came out. And the IED went off, and two of them were severely wounded. Three of them were wounded bad enough where they had to be taken care of and sewed up, but they remained in Iraq, where the other two were flown to the States for surgery, and you know, recovery.

GRACE: You know...

HORNBECK: What Robert did...

GRACE: Go ahead.

HORNBECK: Go ahead. Well, what Robert did is, you know, he pulled the guys to safety, and my understanding is, got them to the helicopter and got them immediate medical attention. Obviously, I wasn`t there and don`t know all the details, but that`s the story as Robert told it to us.

GRACE: With us tonight is Eric Hornbeck. This is Robert`s father. This young man, 23 years old, answered the call to serve his country. He dropped out of college. He left behind a fiancee. And he answered the call. Now missing on the streets of Savannah, Georgia. It`s almost unbelievable!

Back to you, Mr. Hornbeck. What happened that night?

HORNBECK: Well, Robert and his friend Jeremy and my wife and I went out, and we played pool probably until, I`d say, 11:30 at night, had a great time, you know, just a couple beers. Then his mom and I took a walk on the boardwalk, and the boys stayed back and played pool.

It was getting late, so Beth and I came home and went to bed. At 3:12 that night, Robert`s friend, Jeremy, called me and said they didn`t know where they were at. They were lost somewhere in Savannah, and they told us they were at the hotel, the Hilton. And Jeremy was concerned, you know, that they weren`t in the best area, and he wanted to know if we could come get them. Naturally, we jumped up and were on our way.

We were there within seven minutes. We know this by the Nextel check because we`ve done all those checks. And when we got there, Jeremy came out of -- there`s, like, a buffet room between the Hilton, and there`s a bank right next door to it. And Jeremy said Robert was just inside. So my brother and I went inside with Jeremy to get Robert, and he wasn`t there. So I called him right away, and he said, Dad, I`m on stairs. And that was the last we heard from him.

Naturally, we searched inside, outside. We drove the streets all night long. I walked the streets for three days looking for him, and no sign.

GRACE: Mr. Hornbeck, when you would call his cell phone, would it ring as if it were still turned on or, would it go straight into voice- mail?

HORNBECK: It rang for, I`d say, another 12 to 14 hours, and so obviously, we kept calling. And eventually, the cell phone did die and the battery went dead, so we could not run a trace or a GPS check on him.

GRACE: Joining me now is private investigator working with the Hornbeck family to help find this American hero, lost here on American soil, Ron Palefsky. Ron, thank you for being with us. How are you approaching this case?

RON PALEFSKY, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: Well, with an open mind, as you should with all investigations. Of course, nobody knows what happened, and that`s what we`re trying to find out. It`s interesting. I`ve talked to everybody that I could in the family. Actually, I have talked to everybody in the family, the friend and the fiancee. And at this point, it`s just not really clear what -- what happened. It is a mystery how he just disappeared in a matter of moments, literally.

GRACE: How are you trying to find him? What are you doing?

PALEFSKY: Well, just yesterday, we had a pretty thorough search of the downtown area, including some areas that we felt were likely, in terms of remote areas where people might be taken to. Hopefully, that`s not the case. And like I said, we`ve done some interviews with people at the hotel. We`ve tried to -- we`ve done some surveillance. I can`t say really where or what. But we`re just trying to canvas the area and talk with...

GRACE: Ron, do you have any leads?

PALEFSKY: ... as many people as we can.

GRACE: Do you have any leads?

PALEFSKY: We have no leads, at this point.

GRACE: What about the garage attendee (ph)? Did he say he thought he saw him there?

PALEFSKY: The -- I didn`t speak with the garage attendant. I believe the police interviewed him. I do know that a dog had picked up several scents, or several locations of his scent in the garage area.

GRACE: And where did the scent end?

PALEFSKY: As far as I know, the scent was located in the garage area, and that`s where it ended. I don`t think the scent came outside the garage.

GRACE: Well, doesn`t that sound to you, Eric Hornbeck, that he was taken away in a car or left in a car?

HORNBECK: Nancy, that`s certainly a large part of my speculation. I`m fairly convinced that Robert did go down in that garage. The only reason I say it is because we looked all over the place for him and couldn`t find him, and we looked immediately. That`s a very large garage. I believe it`s a three-story garage, and it goes underground. It could have taken him an hour or better to get out of there. So that would explain why we couldn`t find him right away. What happened from that point is pure speculation, of course, but it would certainly appear that that happened.

GRACE: And another thing, Eric Hornbeck -- everyone, this is Robert`s father -- inside the parking garage, I noticed that it was concrete. That could explain why he wasn`t answering his cell phone at that time.

Let me ask you, I`m trying to get it straight in my mind. He was with his friend, Stone. They get twisted around in Savannah. They call -- somebody calls you to come help them get back to the hotel to join you. By the time you get there, in seven minutes, the friend is there and your son is gone.

HORNBECK: Right. What happened, Jeremy called me with Robert`s phone, and that was at 3:12, according to the Nextel checks, the checks we ran. The last call was at 3:19. That`s when I called Robert. Jeremy was inside, apparently, that atrium, with Robert, or that buffet room. Jeremy came out, saw my brother because I was going around the other side of the Hilton looking for him -- obviously, we were all in a little bit of a panic at that point. And Jeremy said Robert was inside.

So we all went back inside and looked for Robert, and he wasn`t there. So we went to the back of the room. There`s a door that leads outside, and we thought maybe he went down the staircase outside. You know, in the interim, I was -- that`s when I called Robert. So we immediately ran around the back of the building, looking for him.

At the time, I didn`t know the staircase was there. Obviously, I went back the next morning and found that out, and I spent several hours on my own going through the garage, looking for him. And believe me, I checked everything. I checked service doors for fans. I checked everything possible I could think of.

I even saw where someone maybe -- they had kicked what appeared to be a steel door. I don`t know what was behind it, but there was a footprint there. And my immediate thought was maybe Robert went in there to sleep, but I compared my foot to it. It was much smaller, so obviously, some child just had a footprint on there. But I mean, I searched everything I could possibly think of in there.

GRACE: Eric, how close is this -- is the parking garage connected to where he was?

HORNBECK: Yes. There`s actually a staircase that goes from that room they were apparently in right down to the parking garage.

GRACE: When we come back, we will speak with Hornbeck`s fiancee, Mandy Swartz, who`s speaking out nationally tonight for the first time, asking for your help.

Very quickly, to tonight`s "Case Alert," Amber Alert for an abducted 2-year-old, Andrea Evans, last seen this morning, 11:00 AM Indianapolis time. The suspect, her own father, Thomas Evans, 45, considered armed and dangerous. If you have info on this little child, contact Seymour police toll-free, 888-58-AMBER, or you can just dial 911.

And tonight, "On the Docket," a new witness comes forward in the case of beauty queen-turned-teacher Tara Grinstead. The witness says a man with a black Chevy pick-up truck parked on Grinstead`s lawn, then threatened them the night Tara Grinstead last seen alive, October 22. Grinstead`s family continues the search for the Georgia beauty queen. If you have info on Tara Grinstead, please call 1-229-468-TIPS.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: An American hero manages to come home in one piece from Iraq after taking fire for his country and then goes missing on the streets of Savannah, Georgia, near Ft. Benning. This young man, Robert Hornbeck, just 23 years old. Can you help us help him?

Joining me now, his fiancee, Mandy Swartz. Welcome, Mandy. When was the last time you saw Robert?

MANDY SWARTZ, MISSING SOLDIER`S FIANCEE: Hi, Nancy. I saw Rob at the end of February, when I went down to visit him. And it was my spring break.

GRACE: And when was the last time you spoke with him?

SWARTZ: The last time I talked to Rob was Saturday. I was visiting my grandma. Don`t get very good phone service up there, and we`re used to talking about six to eight times a day, and so when I talked to him, he was glad to hear from me. From what I could tell, he was happy. He was at dinner with his family and was in a good mood.

GRACE: Mandy, were the plans for the wedding full steam ahead?

SWARTZ: Yes, they were. We had almost everything planned out. I think the only thing left is literally choosing the songs.

GRACE: Where were you going to go on your honeymoon?

SWARTZ: We were going to go to Hawaii for a week.

GRACE: Here is a shot of Robert and Mandy.

Let`s go to the lines. Alice in Florida. Welcome, Alice.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, Nancy.

GRACE: Hi, dear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My question is, honey (ph), do the military -- does the military give him a psychological evaluation...

GRACE: OK. Good question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... when they come home, especially knowing what they experienced?

GRACE: You know what? That`s a very good question. To his father, Eric Hornbeck. Was he traumatized? He had to have been traumatized after being in Iraq, taking fire, seeing his friends ripped up like that.

HORNBECK: I`m sure he was traumatized, but there were certainly no outward signs. I think he handled it very well, from what I could tell, as well as all his comrades that I have spoke with. We were there at the tarmac when they landed. The only outward sign that we could see -- we spent the entire week with him, obviously, in jubilant celebration -- was they kept looking around. And we asked them why, they were continually looking for their weapon because they`d slept with it 24/7 for a year. That`s the only thing I noticed different about Robert, is that they were - - him and his buddies were continually looking for their weapon. And that was it.

GRACE: To psychotherapist Lauren Howard -- I just don`t see how -- he`s out with his buddies and his dad, his step-mom. They had a good time. Everything`s fine. They`re happy to be home. And if he had been drinking and celebrating, how could he form the intent to just disappear and fake everybody out, including the search dogs?

LAUREN HOWARD, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: I don`t think he could have. And there`s no question that if you want to speak to state of mine here, you`ve got to speak to the state of mind of inebriation. There`s no question about that. That could have made him, for instance -- he was expecting a ride -- get into a strange car.

Literally, he`s not really cognizant of what he`s doing. You know, his mind -- his psychology is corrupted by the alcohol. That doesn`t rule out some post-trauma, but it wouldn`t manifest in a really calculated, purposeful disappearance on his part. It would not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) And it was a little cubbyhole, and he said it looks like he slept there.

Before, I had that much hope that he was still alive. Now maybe I got that much hope. Maybe he fell and hit his head and doesn`t know who the heck he is.

They`re thinking that maybe he got into a car. Somebody took him.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One minute, I think we`re just looking for his body. And the next minute I -- I convince myself, Well, he`s taken off somewhere. My -- my motherly intuition tells me he`s out there somewhere, and he`s -- he needs us to find him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Won`t you help us find this American hero? Someone that has done so much for us and our country has gone missing on American soil, his parents devastated.

I want to go straight back out to his father, Eric Hornbeck. Eric, I`ve got some unconfirmed reports that some people on the interstate -- they had to be going at least 55 miles an hour -- saw a young man that looked like your son near Statesboro (ph). Elizabeth, if you can pull up a map on that, and let me know. It`s not that far from Savannah, one at mile marker 132, then again around mile marker 137. A photo was shown to a woman. When she got to work, she identified it. Is it true, Eric, that the scent dogs, the hound dogs, were taken out and they could not pick up his scent?

HORNBECK: According to the detectives from Savannah, that is true. I was made aware of this yesterday, late afternoon. Actually, that was just before we conducted the search in town. We didn`t talk about that for a couple reasons. Number one, if he was there, we certainly didn`t want to scare him off. And number 2, I really didn`t want the rest of the family to know because it`s such a kick in the stomach when you go through this -- it`s such a roller-coaster, and I didn`t, you know, want people to have that hope...

GRACE: I know.

HORNBECK: ... without something being tangible, so...

GRACE: Mr. Hornbeck, I agree. I remember all the sightings that came in of Laci Peterson that were not true, and the family was so excited. Mr. Hornbeck, looking at you, do you know you look just like your son?

HORNBECK: I`ve been told that before.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know what to think. Everything goes through your head. I just need to know where he is and that he`s OK. And we don`t have to do a wedding; it doesn`t matter; I just need to know he`s OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Robert Hornbeck, just 23 years old, was nearly killed in Iraq. He took fire for this country, comes home to celebrate, and goes missing on U.S. soil, Savannah, Georgia. Help us find him.

Straight out to Norm Early, the former district attorney there in Denver. Do you think this case will turn criminal?

NORM EARLY, FORMER DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Difficult to say, Nancy. But, first of all, let me extend my sympathies to Eric and Amanda there, because this has got to be an incredibly trying time for them.

There are really three possibilities of what happened here. The first one everyone would think of is foul play. I saw Eric quoted in the papers as thinking that it was either post-traumatic stress disorder or foul play and hoping that it was post-traumatic stress disorder.

I would say it`s either some trauma which has made him incapable of ascertaining what is going on in his life or else it is the result of foul play.

There`s a third very remote possibility that this is, as you referenced earlier, a situation where Jennifer Wilbanks, under the stress of a marriage, becomes a runaway bride. This man has been in a lot more stress than she has, but I doubt very seriously that that`s what happened here and he`s just run away with his faculties fully intact.

GRACE: I agree with you, Norm. I don`t see him running with cold feet from the alter; I just don`t see it. If anything, it`s foul play or post-traumatic stress.

Agree or disagree, Lauren Howard?

HOWARD: Well, the other possibility is that he hit his head and that he has an amnesic condition and got into a car by mistake.

GRACE: It`s entirely possible. I know it may sound far-fetched, but, people, take a look at this picture.

Elizabeth, could you show me the beret shot of this young man, a 23- year-old now-veteran of the Iraqi war?

To Marc Klaas -- Marc is the president of BeyondMissing.com, not just an advocate, a crime victim himself -- Marc what should be being done right now?

MARC KLAAS, FOUNDER OF BEYOND MISSING: Well, it seems to me that all of the assets that are out there are very credible and very good. I like the idea that they`ve got a private investigator, as well as law enforcements, that they`ve use the dogs, that they`ve played out the scenarios, and that Eric has a presence of mind not to turn these cold leads, like somebody driving by at 50 miles an hour and seeing something, and then putting two and two together, of not sharing that with the family, because that`s really not terribly credible.

So I think what you have to do is you have to continue to keep hope alive. He has to continue to be creative in his efforts to recover his son, and he has to call upon America to do for his son what his son did for America, which is to help protect this boy, to search for him, and to bring some kind of finality to this case.

And I, too, would like to express my sympathies to Eric and Amanda. I can see how difficult this is, how tough the strain is, and how well they`re trying to hope up on this.

GRACE: Well, you know, Marc, you went through it when Polly first went missing, your little girl, not knowing, wondering, being eaten up with pain, and trying to look, and not knowing where to look anymore.

We are talking about a 23-year-old man that served his country. He has gone missing somewhere on streets of Savannah, Georgia.

Back to his father, Eric Hornbeck, Eric, how close was this location to the water?

ERIC HORNBECK, MISSING SOLDIER`S FATHER: I can estimate. I`d say it was probably a mile. Certainly, that scenario has played into our mind.

The only thing that gives us hope there is his cell phone was still active well into the next day. If that was the case, he would have certainly had been separated from his cell phone or it wouldn`t be alive, as well. So we`re hoping that`s not the case.

I can tell you that the side of the Hilton that the water is on is the side we parked at, so my gut feel is he didn`t go -- he didn`t head in that direction.

GRACE: Well, the thing is, if the -- part of the Hilton is on one street and the back end over the parking garage is near the water on River Street, but he was about a mile away, correct?

HORNBECK: Correct.

GRACE: OK, so, that should, I mean, logically, rule out a mishap on River Street in the water.

Let`s go to the lines. Casey in Wisconsin. Hi, dear. What`s your question?

CALLER: Hi, Nancy, I just wanted to say thank you for the good work that you do, and you are really appreciated, let me tell you. My question is I was wondering if they had given any of the friends lie-detector tests?

GRACE: Hmm. Eric, lie-detector tests?

HORNBECK: I don`t know the answer to that. I know that his buddy was certainly questioned heavily by the military. I don`t know to what extent that took place, nor do I know the extent that the police...

GRACE: But wait a minute, Eric, she`s right. Of course, you got to start with the circle of what you know, the people that were there and then go out.

But that -- just think about it -- he was calling on your son`s cell phone, and then he comes outside to meet you all. The son, your son, calls from inside says, "Dad, I`m on the stairs." Simultaneously, the friend is outside. So I don`t see the friend just logically being involved.

HORNBECK: No, I actually -- I called Robert, when I had his friend in sight, and this is a battle buddy.

GRACE: Yes.

HORNBECK: This friend is like a son to me. He has nothing to do with this. Robert brought him home many times before they were deployed to the University of Michigan. He took me to the frat house that Robert attended. That`s not an option in my mind.

GRACE: Yes, OK, I`m with you on that, but Casey is right: You have to look everywhere.

To Kelly in Illinois, hi, Kelly.

CALLER: Hi, Nancy.

GRACE: Hi, dear.

CALLER: I was wondering if he could have post-traumatic stress disorder and possibly be hiding in the woods somewhere, with the fact that he would have good survivor skills?

GRACE: OK. You`re right, and that theory has been thrown out there.

What about it, Eric?

HORNBECK: Well, obviously, Robert is highly trained, and I`m sure that he has ability to do that, but it`s certainly totally out of character. And let`s assume that they were out partying, and he wasn`t thinking clearly. He certainly had time to sober up, if you will...

GRACE: By now.

HORNBECK: ... and come to his senses, certainly within 12 hours. You know, so, you know, I just don`t think that`s the case. We can only hope that he`s out there somewhere, and that`s what we cling to.

GRACE: But the thing is, Eric, he talked to you all the time. And he talked to his fiancee, Mandy Swartz, all the time. So this is totally out of character for him to have gone this long without contacting either of you. It seems like a break from his reality.

HORNBECK: Totally. And I can tell you, even during his tenure in Iraq, when something tragic happened to one of the fellows in their battalion, the military blacks them out, for obvious reasons, until the family is notified. Somehow, Robert always found a way to get word to Mandy that he was OK, so that just tells where you Robert`s coming from.

GRACE: Exactly.

And one last quick call, Janet in New York. Hi, Janet. Janet, are you with me? OK. Lost Janet.

Before we go to break, back to Robert`s father. Eric, if you could speak out to him right now, what would you tell him?

HORNBECK: Robert, you`ve been through so much worse than this. If you`re out there, buddy, you know your dad; we`ve always talked; we can work this out. Please come home. We`ll take care of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had just talked to Rob on Saturday. He said, "I love you, and I miss you, and I`m just going to -- I`m at dinner with my family, and we`re just going to go out tonight, and play pool, and just hang out."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a result of the investigation into the disappearance of College of New Jersey student John Fiocco from a campus dormitory building and a voluminous amount of blood evidence found in the dormitory dumpster, a search began on April the 1st, sifted through 3,450 tons of debris from the select area of the landfill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the dump truck was emptied onto the grounds and during the process when it was be being spread out, the machine operator saw the body.

You can`t help but feel the compassion for the family, knowing that their son went through what he did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: A 19-year-old college honor student went to sleep in his own dormitory, his shoes there slid in beneath his bed. How did this young man, just scrubbed in sunshine, end up in a landfill in Tullytown in New Jersey? That`s the question tonight.

Let`s go to the New Jersey 105.1 Radio reporter Martin DiCaro. Martin, what`s the latest?

MARTIN DICARO, REPORTER COVERING STORY: Well, to answer your question, we still don`t know. Beyond the confirmation through dental records today that the remains found in that landfill were, in fact, John Fiocco`s, there were very few answers supplied at that news conference today.

And part of the reason is because, at this point, authorities still can`t say what happened, and it`s not through any fault of anyone`s. It`s just that a medical examiner has to do some work right now.

And through investigations of 150 students, associates and friends of John`s, they still have no evidence, no information to indicate that any foul play -- he met any foul play on the fourth floor of that dorm that night.

GRACE: Martin, was someone else in the room with him? Isn`t it a normal dormitory where you have a roommate?

DICARO: Based on interviews I`ve done with students who saw John the night he disappeared, when he returned to his dorm at around 3:00 a.m. that Saturday, he crashed -- as they would put it -- he fell asleep in a friend`s room down the hall from where he lived.

GRACE: Was anybody in the room with him?

DICARO: They left him alone to sleep by himself.

GRACE: And the next morning, the shoes were still there up under the bed, right?

DICARO: His shoes, his room key, and his iPod.

GRACE: To Dr. Daniel Spitz, joining us, forensic pathologist, it`s been a month since this young man went missing. Will we be able to determine the cause of death?

DANIEL SPITZ, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, Nancy, that may be very difficult to do. Certainly, the body is going to be very decomposed. There`s maybe some type of trauma as a result of being in the landfill, differentiating trauma that caused his death from trauma that he came across while in the dumpster or in the landfill may be very difficult to determine.

Certainly, you look for stab wounds, you look for gunshot wounds, obvious things. But if you`re unable to determine that it was a gunshot wounds or a stab wound, you`re left with a very difficult task of differentiating the different types of trauma.

GRACE: Well, Dr. Spitz, I`ve got some more bad news for you, as far as determining the cause of death.

Ellie, tell him about the robotic arm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right, well, the designers of this trash system said that, when the trash hits the bottom of that chute, there is a robotic arm that basically pushes it into the dumpster with, I believe it was, 2,000 pounds of force, so it would be hard to survive something like that.

GRACE: So if this young man had been strangled, had been hit on the head, had been shot, had been cut, after 2,000 pounds of force from a robotic arm, there`s no way they`re going to be able to tell that, just from a lay point of view, Doctor.

But let me go to Mickey Sherman, defense attorney. Mickey, the police are now saying it`s suspicious, but they`re not saying foul play. Now, how does a young man -- and, Elizabeth, give me a shot of the trash chute.

It`s two-by-two, Mick, two-by-two. How does a young man, never been in a lick of trouble his whole life, honor student, track star, the whole she-bang, end up from being asleep in his dormitory to going down this trash chute -- he can barely fit in it -- ending up in a dumpster and in a landfill without foul play?

MICKEY SHERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, it`s either foul play or he put himself in there, which is just absolutely preposterous. I mean, maybe they were doing it as a joke; maybe he was drunk. But it just seems so unlikely.

The problem here is that, forensically, there is nothing to work with. You could get Dr. Spitz, Dr. Baden, 10 Henry Lees and the cast of all these "CSI" shows and they`re not going to be able to come up with anything that`s significant, based upon the pummeling that the body took in the dumpster and in the trash.

The only way they`re going to solve this case, if they solve the case, is by something opening their mouth, maybe a large reward, maybe somebody in the school will get in trouble themselves and will trade off their freedom or lenient treatment for some valid information. But that`s about it.

GRACE: Oh, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, what if, maybe, what if, maybe this? That`s quite a lot of "what ifs," but...

SHERMAN: Yes.

GRACE: ... Mickey, bottom line, you`re the master defense attorney. If someone had put this kid down the trash chute as a prank, where would that fit into the criminal law? I don`t think it`s a prank.

SHERMAN: No, that wouldn`t a prank. First of all, I can`t imagine that anybody really would have done that. That would be premeditated murder, without a doubt.

And no amount of alcohol in anyone`s system would be able to mount a valid defense to that; I just don`t see that being a viable solution here.

GRACE: Now to another veteran trial lawyer, Hillah Katz, out of the Miami jurisdiction, Hillah, look, let`s just get real: How long until somebody cracks and tells what happened?

HILLAH KATZ, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Well, hopefully not very long. I think that, with the amount of police and from the campus police, as well as the authorities in New Jersey, that are putting pressure on everybody at that school, including evacuating the dormitory and doing searches, we`re hoping that we`ll actually find out a little bit more maybe about what might have happened at the party that John was at, even before he went back to his dormitory, because maybe it`s there that he met somebody that could have followed him back to the dorm and actually done this to him.

But it`s very unlikely that he did this to himself, especially since they found all of that bloody clothing outside of the garbage dumpster, which leads you to believe that, if there is enough left in the body they found from the landfill, then maybe we can find a knife wound or a gunshot wound or something of evidentiary value to assist all of these law enforcement authorities.

GRACE: But, Norm Early, the likelihood -- come on, you have seen a million murder cases. The likelihood that this young man, never been in trouble his life, honor student, the works, how likely is it that he gets up out of a stone-cold sleep, walks to the trash chute, and throws himself down it?

(LAUGHTER)

EARLY: You know, Nancy...

GRACE: That pretty much said it all.

(LAUGHTER)

EARLY: You know...

GRACE: Ridiculous.

EARLY: You`d have to be awfully drunk to do something like that, and to seek a thrill of that sort, and not recognize what would happen.

GRACE: That`s a thrill?

EARLY: Yes, well, you know, what other reason would somebody do it, to kill themselves? I mean, I`m sure that nobody indicated that this young man was despondent or that he wanted to kill himself or anything of that nature.

GRACE: Not at all.

EARLY: So the only reason that someone would do it was thinking that it would be something that would be exciting or thrilling, and that makes no sense whatsoever, either.

But what bothers me is all of the blood outside the dumpster. And people are supposing that he did, in fact, go down that chute. Is there anything inside the chute to indicate...

GRACE: Oh, let me tell you something.

EARLY: ... that he did go down the chute?

GRACE: That was my first question, Norm Early. You know, I think we think like a couple of old prosecutors. How was there blood outside? It was actually on a platform where the trash hits and then it goes down into the dumpster.

EARLY: I see.

GRACE: Because that`s why they think he went down the chute.

And to Lauren Howard, red flags?

HOWARD: Well, you know, you got two avenues here. You`ve got forensics or you`ve got people. You start talking to the people, and you start to find out the stuff that is not on the surface, what was going on, who had an axe to grind, you know, something underneath there.

GRACE: Somebody`s going to crack.

HOWARD: Somebody`s got to crack. Forensically, you just don`t have much. You`ve got his blood; you`ve got his body. That`s all you got.

GRACE: Quick break, but reminder: A priest on trial for the murder of a nun 26 years ago, Court TV.

Please stay with us as we remember Marine Lance Corporal Bunny Long, 22, Modesto, California. She begged to be in the Army at just 6 years old, Bunny Long, an American hero.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don`t know that he went down the chute. There are injuries to the body, but those injuries to the body are consistent with a body that moved from the dumpster and through the trash system to the landfill and its withdrawal from the landfill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: The mystery deepening now that the remains have been identified as that of 19-year-old John Fiocco.

I want to go straight back to Martin DiCaro. Martin, I don`t understand what police are saying. It sounds like double-talk. They`re saying it`s suspicious, but there`s no foul play.

DICARO: Well, there`s no evidence of foul play. As your psychotherapist pointed out before, there is not a lot of forensics to work with, but there isn`t a lot of information, either.

State police have done a thorough investigation here. They`ve interviewed some students multiple times, grilled them, if you will. They`ve even interviewed students who have applied for transfers out of the college on the possibility someone may want to get out of town. There`s nothing to go on right now.

GRACE: Pat Lalama, I`m just not buying that this guy wakes out of a cold sleep and throws himself down a trash chute.

PAT LALAMA, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Well, you know what, Nancy? That point that was just made about -- he didn`t necessarily go down the trash. Remember, in the beginning...

GRACE: He went down the trash chute!

LALAMA: Nancy, Nancy, Nancy! Wait a minute. Do you remember in the beginning, when we talked about blood on the outside, and how it took so long for investigators to be led to that?

GRACE: OK. Wait, wait.

LALAMA: I mean, perhaps something was done to him and that he was...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Ellie, Ellie, explain quickly. I`ve got 20 seconds.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, they sent a fiber-optic camera down the trash chute and saw no signs he`d been there, but it`s hard to say one way or another.

GRACE: The blood was on the platform; the platform comes directly from what goes down the chute. The guy did not throw himself down the chute. You know what, though?

Thank you, Pat Lalama, and thank you to all of my guests tonight. Our biggest thank you, as always, is to you for being with us.

A special good night to a dear friend of the show, Evelyn Holtclaw Donnelly (ph) passed away last week. And a good night from two friends from my home state of Georgia, Mary Jean and Charlie Yates (ph). Good night.

And a good night to our special floor person, Jody Friedman (ph), who`s heading west. Thank you for being with us. See you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.

END

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