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NANCY GRACE

16-year-old Brooklyn Girl Found Dead

Aired July 31, 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: A 16-year-old honors student found less than a mile from her own home in Brooklyn, strangled, thrown away like garbage on a heavily traveled street. Weeks have passed and no clues, and tonight we want answers. And tonight: Did vanity cost her her life? After having liposuction performed in the basement of a home -- repeat, liposuction in the basement of a home -- a gorgeous 24-year-old woman dies, and the so-called physician and his wife head to jail.
But first tonight, the murder and the disposal of a 16-year-old honors student.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sixteen years old, so barely starting your life, you know? Unbelievable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they don`t have the person who did it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s unbelievable. That`s even more unbelievable. Nobody saw them dump that garbage bag over there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that body was brought from someplace else and put here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Is it open season on young girls? We read about it, one after the next, after the next. Here`s a little girl who never missed church, honors student. She wanted to become a nurse to help other people. Look at this girl. She was always at home, always studying. She only left that evening to go and apply for a job. She never made it to the local Applebee`s. Take a look at Chanel Petro-Nixon.

Straight out to Jon Lieberman with "America`s Most Wanted." Jon, what happened to this girl?

JON LIEBERMAN, "AMERICA`S MOST WANTED": Well, I`ll tell you, Nancy, there is a predator on the loose in New York. We need to track him down. This little girl, like you mentioned, straight-A girl, honors student, she leaves her house on Father`s Day to meet a friend and then apply for a job, and she`s never seen. It`s almost like she vanishes. It`s a busy street. There`s a lot of foot traffic, but nobody ever sees anything happen. And then four days later, she`s found, like you said, thrown out with the trash.

GRACE: OK, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait! That`s not possible. It is not possible that nobody saw anything!

LIEBERMAN: Well, this is part of the problem, Nancy. So far, no one has come forward. No one is talking to police. There are signs up all around Brooklyn is says, Somebody knows something, and we need to get to that somebody tonight because, like you said, somebody did see something, and there`s a monster out there.

GRACE: And what`s disturbing me is that this little girl was put in a garbage bag and left on the side of the street. And I don`t mean down a darkened alleyway. This girl, a 16-year-old girl, was put in a garbage bag and left on a heavily traveled street, on the sidewalk. For those of you that are unfamiliar here in New York, the garbage is left out on bags on the sidewalk, and they come pick it up. Somebody wanted this child, a little girl, to be disposed of and out in some dump, some landfill by tonight.

So Jon Lieberman, how was she discovered?

LIEBERMAN: Well, that`s what I was going to say. Somebody wanted her disposed of so nobody would ever know anything about this little girl. A woman looking out of her apartment window, always looks to make sure the trash men take all of her trash -- well, that morning she was looking out the window, 7:00 AM, and the trash man goes to lift up one of the garbage bags, and it`s too heavy. So the trash man leaves it there. The woman comes down from her apartment. She wanted to separate it from three separate bags to make it lighter, so they would take it. And finds this sweet little girl in this bag, stuffed in there like trash. Sickening.

GRACE: Joining us right now, one of our own producers has gone out to the scene, Rupa Mikkilineni, who`s joining us, Crown Heights, Brooklyn. You know, Rupa, it`s hard for me to imagine somebody actually putting this girl in a garbage bag like she`s trash, a little honors student on her way to try to get a job for the summer, for Pete`s sake, and leaving her out there. Look at that smile! Rupa, tell me what you see.

RUPA MIKKILINENI, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, I see a neighborhood and a community that`s torn, Nancy. I canvassed the area today. I actually am standing out here right now in front of the place where she was found. This is the building, 212 Kingston. It`s a brownstone building approximately six floors high. And the trash bag, much like the one I`m holding in my hand, actually, industrial-strength size, was found right here on the sidewalk, right near the post with all the pictures, as you can see.

GRACE: Wait a minute. Were the pictures put up for Chanel when the bag was there?

MIKKILINENI: This I`m not sure of. I definitely know that this is the lamppost where the garbage bag was sitting.

GRACE: Everybody, I`m holding up to you what I have of Chanel Petro- Nixon, just 16 years old. These are the flyers that are all over town. There is no way -- and I`m drawing on a lot of experience with murder cases and detectives working on murder cases -- that this child was there for four days. As you see on these posters that say the reward is $22,000 -- that reward is up to $33,000.

In just a few moments, we`re going to be joined by Chanel`s parents. We really need your help tonight. This case sat there for weeks with no notice, no comment, nothing. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The police have done a lot of searching. They`ve combed both districts, the apartment complex. We have a lot of flyers out, a lot of posters out. The reward is up to over $20,000. And we are glad that the media is starting to pay more attention to this situation, and hopefully, we will get the suspect or suspects arrested so that they will not be able to do any other kind of act like this.

Someone noticed an unusual amount of garbage, or what they thought was garbage in the trash bag, and when they went to the bag, they found a body and they contacted the police. And she now had been missing for two or three days. The family had -- actually, about -- yes, two or three days. The family had called the police on Father`s Day, when she did not appear when she was supposed to appear. And because of that, they, I think, classified her as a runaway first and not a missing person. And then they got some effects from her body, I guess, a bracelet and some other things, and showed it to the family, to indicate that they might have found their Chanel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: I had not even heard about this case until I read it in our local paper, "The New York Post." There had been no coverage about this girl`s disappearance whatsoever. But now I want to you know the tip line, 1-800-577-TIPS. The reward up to $33,000.

Joining me here on the set, Chanel`s parents, Garvin and Lucita Nixon. Thank you for being with us.

LUCITA NIXON, CHANEL`S MOTHER: Thank you.

GRACE: Ms. Lucita, question to you. All this business about her being investigated as a runaway -- had this child ever run away?

LUCITA NIXON: Never.

GRACE: What happened that evening?

LUCITA NIXON: That evening, I was on a trip on Panama. I was away for three days. I came back about 5:30 that evening, Father`s Day. And we spent about an hour. She just asked me if she could go out to meet her friends. I told her, yes, she could. She got a call about maybe 6:18. I heard when she said, Are you there already? And I guess the person must have said yes. I knew who she was supposed to be...

GRACE: At Applebee`s, correct?

LUCITA NIXON: At Applebee.

GRACE: OK.

LUCITA NIXON: And she went and she got dressed, not really dressed, fixed her hair up. She came to the kitchen. She kissed me good-bye and she left. Never seen her...

GRACE: What time was that?

LUCITA NIXON: I would say about 6:30, no later than 6:30 she left.

GRACE: When did you become concerned she had not come home?

LUCITA NIXON: OK, when I got up -- because I work nights -- I got up about...

GRACE: Where do you work?

LUCITA NIXON: St. Vincent`s Hospital.

GRACE: Are you a nurse?

LUCITA NIXON: No, I`m a mental health worker.

GRACE: Now, do you think you affected her decision to want to be a nurse?

LUCITA NIXON: Me, my sister, my mom, we`re all in the medical field. So her family -- most of us in the family work in the medical field.

GRACE: OK, so that night, you went to work.

LUCITA NIXON: I went to work. I called (INAUDIBLE) because my husband was trying to call her about 7:30. He didn`t get in touch with her. Her phone was off. When I got up...

GRACE: What do you mean her phone was off?

LUCITA NIXON: It was off. It went straight to the...

GRACE: Voice-mail.

LUCITA NIXON: ... to the voice-mail.

GRACE: OK.

LUCITA NIXON: And that`s unusual because even if her battery was low and she knew who was calling her, she would have borrowed her friend`s phone to get in touch with us.

GRACE: Now, OK, did she have a boyfriend?

LUCITA NIXON: No, friends. Friends.

GRACE: And she was going to meet this group of people at Applebee`s.

LUCITA NIXON: Right.

GRACE: Never showed up.

LUCITA NIXON: Never showed up.

GRACE: When did you report her missing?

LUCITA NIXON: Monday, when I got home from work, I said, This is not Chanel.

GRACE: Why did you wait so long to report?

LUCITA NIXON: Really, I thought that we had to wait 24 hours before. That was my mentality, was to wait 24 hours before you -- to report missing.

GRACE: To Doug Burns. Doug, you`ve handled a lot of cases. That is a very common belief. Why do so many people believe the person`s got to be gone 24 hours before you can report them?

DOUG BURNS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, unfortunately, that is promoted very often by law enforcement, Nancy, where they turn around and skeptically say -- and it`s unfortunate -- Look, they`re probably going to turn up. So that`s why they go with that type of grace period.

GRACE: To Chanel`s father. Sir, had she ever left the home before and not called back?

GARVIN NIXON, CHANEL`S FATHER: No.

GRACE: What time does she usually come home?

GARVIN NIXON: She comes home before dark. If she`s about to stay a little longer, she would call and ask. If she`s with friends or family and her friends wouldn`t be bringing her home, I would go and meet her and bring her home so...

GRACE: You would go get her?

GARVIN NIXON: Yes. And I started to worry 7:30 because I was out. And I call and I ask -- I call the house and I ask if Chanel was home and what she was doing, and they said she went to met her friends at Applebee`s. So I started...

GRACE: Did you call the friends?

GARVIN NIXON: I started calling...

GRACE: Did you know who the friends were?

GARVIN NIXON: I knew who the friends...

GRACE: What did they say?

GARVIN NIXON: They said, they was calling. They was calling almost every half an hour, every 40...

GRACE: She even then was already missing?

GARVIN NIXON: Yes.

GRACE: You know, interesting. To Allison Gilman, defense attorney. Let`s think about this just for a moment. What do we know about Chanel missing? A, I can tell you she was not in that bag for four days, sitting on the sidewalk, all right? Someone killed her and had her in an apartment, a car, a car trunk, something, and then in the night, put her on that sidewalk. Now, that leads me to believe it was someone in that apartment building or right around it. She never even made it to Applebee`s, Allison.

ALLISON GILMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, I absolutely agree with you, Nancy. I think that maybe it was someone that she knew because no one`s coming forward saying they saw something unusual. It may have been just a contact with someone, and there was no screaming, no yelling, and she went with them willingly, and it turned out bad. So I agree with you, it may have been right around where she was living, and it wound up with this horrible tragedy.

GRACE: To Andrea Peyser, who first opened my eyes to the existence and the disappearance of Chanel Petro-Nixon. What captured your -- you see a million stories a day, Andrea. Why this girl? And why didn`t anybody know about this girl? Is it because she`s black? Is it because her parents aren`t millionaires? Is it because she wasn`t on an expensive vacation? What? What`s the difference between this girl and everybody else?

ANDREA PEYSER, "NY POST": You know, nobody likes to cry racism. I mean, this family, this lovely family has not said that. However, I see such a difference in the way -

GRACE: You said it!

PEYSER: Yes. I see such a difference in the way this case was treated from a lot of other cases, where girls disappear, and you hear about it within 24 hours. It`s all over the media.

In this case, the parents waited 24 hours. The father was out there with pictures, with flyers. He was at subway stations, on the streets. Have you seen my daughter? Do you know what happened to her? People in the streets, the gang members, Senator (ph) Andrews told me that he gave her picture to gang members. And they said, yes, we all have daughters.

And it really did not capture the attention of the media. The police, it did capture their attention, but they were slow to really -- I mean until the reward was announced, and this was a couple of weeks, it really didn`t get that much attention.

GRACE: Back to Chanel`s father. Is that true? Were you out on the street with her picture?

GARVIN NIXON: I was out on the next day. I filed a report, police came and after that, after they took...

GRACE: What would you do, just go up to strangers on the street?

GARVIN NIXON: I start putting up posters all over the area, and then I start going up to people and asking, you know, This is my daughter, have you seen her? She`s been missing since yesterday. And...

GRACE: When they came and asked you about the jewelry -- what was it, a bracelet that she had on? What happened?

LUCITA NIXON: It was sad because I recognized it as soon as I saw it, and I knew something wrong that happened to her.

GRACE: What was the little bracelet?

LUCITA NIXON: It has her name on it, Chanel. It was a gold bracelet.

GRACE: And they brought it to you?

LUCITA NIXON: And I bought it in Panama, so there`s no way it could be duplicated. It was a personalized bracelet.

GRACE: What went through your mind in the moment you saw that bracelet?

LUCITA NIXON: I was in shock. All I could -- I just started walking and begging God to give me the strength because that`s all I needed at that time, was the strength to cope with what I was about to face.

GRACE: Out to the lines, Elizabeth. Let`s go to Loretta in Florida. Hi, Loretta.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. God bless you. I love what you do!

GRACE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And God bless these parents. Why? Why no camera (INAUDIBLE)

GRACE: You know what? I`ve asked why for -- I know, let`s see, since about 1981, why, and then finally got past the why, and I just want answers as to who did this. Why no Amber Alert? That`s a good one.

Explain, Jon Lieberman, about Amber Alerts.

LIEBERMAN: Well, the Amber Alerts go out when they believe that it is not a runaway, but certain criteria have to be met. And I`ll tell you, police, after that initial lag time, I mean, they jumped on this so aggressively. They started looking at cell phone records. They found, Nancy, that the cell phone goes dead almost the minute she leaves that apartment building, which means that she`s probably grabbed right there in the apartment complex. So that`s one thing. The second thing they find is the medical examiner says she had only been in that bag for less than 24 hours. So that does leave more than two days that she was somewhere, that she was somewhere held captive...

GRACE: Wait, I don`t understand. You mean she had only been dead for 24 hours?

LIEBERMAN: She had only been dead for 24 hours, yes, according to the police and the medical examiner. So that tells me and tells the primary detective on this case that she was alive for two-and-a-half days that is unaccounted for right now. Police are trying to figure out, was she in a room somewhere just holed up? Was she in a car being driven around? Where was she? Because there`s two-and-a-half days of life that`s not accounted for. And Nancy, I will tell you, she wasn`t sexually assaulted. And you know in these cases...

GRACE: Wait a minute. I thought that she was partially nude.

LIEBERMAN: No, she was completely clothed. And let me tell you, the primary detective on this case has gone through with a fine-toothed comb everything. He`s done a terrific job on this. She was completely clothed. She had all of her jewelry on. She not sexually assaulted, and there no sign of torture, which makes this even more bizarre. And God bless Lucita and her family. I spent time with them last week. They`re such courageous people...

GRACE: What was the cause of death?

LIEBERMAN: Strangulation was the cause of death.

GRACE: Ligature or manual?

LIEBERMAN: They don`t want me to go into that, at this point. The police don`t want that out there that`s some information the killer may only know. But I will tell you this, she wasn`t bound. Her wrists weren`t bound. There was no sign of torture, no sign of sexual assault. And as you know in these cases, Nancy, that makes it harder to figure out motive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have to catch who did this. She was a good person, from a good family. But regardless, she`s a child, and we have to protect our children.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of the kids out there need to watch out who they talk to on the Internet or where they go. They need to keep watching around their surroundings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Somebody does know something about this little girl, Chanel Petro-Nixon, a 16-year-old little girl, honors student, never missed church. This is not a girl out late at night. No drugs. No boyfriends. No -- she was out trying to get a job with her friends at Applebee`s in broad daylight.

Out to our producer, Rupa Mikkilineni, standing by at the location where this little girl`s body was found. Rupa, it`s my understanding, according to Andrea Peyser, here with us from "The Post," that there were several bags, two or three bags, but that the little girl was in a fetal position in a bag on the sidewalk. I mean, how could you miss that?

MIKKILINENI: You know, I tell you, Nancy, it`s this. It`s apparently two or three bags, true, but these were double bagged or triple bagged. And I actually have in my hand right now a bag similar to what she might have been found in, a black industrial-sized garbage bag. It is approximately three feet by four feet. And honestly, I could fit in this bag in fetal position, and I`m bigger than little Chanel.

GRACE: To Chanel`s mom. Was she in the fetal position?

LUCITA NIXON: That`s what I was told.

GRACE: Was she tied up in any way?

LUCITA NIXON: No.

GRACE: But she had on her jewelry?

LUCITA NIXON: She still had on her jewelry, yes.

GRACE: No sneakers, no shoes.

LUCITA NIXON: No, the sneakers was missing, and her cell was missing.

GRACE: Cell missing.

LUCITA NIXON: Yes.

GRACE: Fully clothed.

LUCITA NIXON: Yes.

GRACE: This was not a robbery. This was not a sexual assault.

And back to "America`s Most Wanted," Jon Lieberman. The cell goes dead practically within the building, so she was grabbed almost immediately when she left the house.

LIEBERMAN: Yes, that`s what they think. The cell goes dead. It stops hitting the tower the minute she leaves. And then it`s almost like she vanished, like you said. And yes, she was completely clothed. They`re still looking for the cell phone. Somebody has that. The Nike shoes, the Air Jordans, that`s a clue, too. Those are still missing.

GRACE: But with the cell turned off, they`re not going to be able to get a signal.

Let`s go back to the lines. To Dana in Kansas. Hi, Dana.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. I just love you. Listen, I have a question, actually a comment. You commented how these children are actually dropping off like flies. That`s basically how it is. What could we do as a community to prevent this from happening, instead of waiting until after it happens? What can we do to change the laws?

GRACE: It`s funny that you mention that because I`m sitting here with Andrea and Chanel`s parents. Would you have done anything differently that night?

LUCITA NIXON: No. I didn`t have a reason to.

GRACE: It`s broad daylight.

LUCITA NIXON: I didn`t have a reason to tell her, No, she couldn`t go.

GRACE: How far away from your apartment has Chanel been found?

LUCITA NIXON: I would say, like, eight blocks.

GRACE: Just eight blocks?

LUCITA NIXON: Eight blocks down, six blocks up yes.

GRACE: Somebody in this community is responsible for this girl`s death. Will you help us?

Let`s go to tonight`s "Trial Tracker," Liz. A Tennessee judge refuses tonight to lower the $750,000 bond of a preacher`s wife charged with his murder, preacher`s wife Mary Winkler accused in the shooting death of Matthew Winkler inside the church parsonage. There you go. The motive? Allegedly finances.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re getting more and more media attention now, and hopefully, this media attention will spark someone to come forward and tell us who participated in this act, and more importantly, bring them to justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: How many times have you walked out the door, broad daylight, to go down to Applebee`s and get the lunch special? This little 16-year- old girl was going there to meet friends to get a job application. She was found days later in a garbage bag.

Out to Tracy in Texas. Hi, Tracy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi. I just want to give my condolences to the family. And just really quick, based on the apartment building in Brooklyn and just things there set up, is there any surveillance outside the building, next door?

GRACE: Good question. What about it, Jon Lieberman? Is there any surveillance in the lobby?

LIEBERMAN: Unfortunately, in this building, there is not. And again, that`s another tough thing. Detectives...

GRACE: Remember, the same thing happened in the Chandra Levy case, and the people in the building taped over it.

LIEBERMAN: Yes. Unfortunately, detectives here have so little to work with, and that`s why it`s so important somebody out there knows something and they need to make that call and do the right thing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In any incident where there`s a crime committed, especially a crime like this, there has to be someone who knows something. Even though we`re looking at trying to get the criminal, there has to be some kind of association, because you just can`t move that kind of body and transport it, you know, by yourself.

And also, more importantly, we feel that one would not keep a secret. I mean, someone has to have communicated to someone that they did this or that they were involved in it or some capacity, the secret.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: This is an outrage. A 16-year-old little girl, honor student, never missed a day of church, wanted to become a nurse to help other people, goes to meet her friends at a local Applebee`s to give a job application. She`s never seen alive again, 16 years old.

And what`s so heinous about it tonight is that someone in this neighborhood knows what happened to little Chanel. Tip line: 800-577- TIPS. The reward climbs tonight to $33,000.

Out to Dr. Holly Phillips joining us. Dr. Phillips, now, this sidewalk had been combed by her father many, many times. He had walked up and down until 1:30 in the morning, handing out pictures of his little girl, when suddenly there appears a garbage bag, two or three of them, with his child inside, thrown away like trash on the side of the street. So how is it that the police know that she had only been dead for 24 hours?

DR. HOLLY PHILLIPS, M.D., INTERNIST: Well, the forensic pathologists who are involved in examining the corpse would be able to identify, not only the mode of death, but also how long she had been dead. There are often blood tests that are done that measure carbon dioxide levels at the time of death, and there are also signs on the body, skin signs, other clues that investigators can use to identify how long the patient has been dead.

GRACE: Why is it, if she were put in the bag in a fetal position, she didn`t fall out flat, and so you could make the outline of a body in the bag?

PHILLIPS: You know, it`s difficult to say. I don`t know if she was double- or triple-bagged. But if she had been dead for a little while before she was in there, she would have had a certain degree of stiffness in death, and so the body wouldn`t necessarily open.

GRACE: OK. To the lines, Liz, if you don`t mind. Let`s go to Mary in Tennessee. Hi, Mary.

CALLER: Hi, Nancy. My question is: Can fingerprints be lifted from plastic bags?

GRACE: Oh, yes, they can. In fact, that`s an excellent surface for fingerprints.

What about it, Jon Lieberman?

LIEBERMAN: It`s an excellent, excellent surface for fingerprints. Police don`t want to release at this point what they got from those bags, but let`s just say they have some physical evidence that hopefully could help match the killer.

One thing they`re trying to do right now is do a profile of this guy. Did he have a car, Nancy? And if he had a car, why didn`t he drive the body out to another borough?

GRACE: I`m not seeing a car in this, because -- exactly. This killer is between the apartment and where the body was found.

LIEBERMAN: Right. Then, is there a crime scene somewhere in that neighborhood, where he put Chanel for a couple days in there, and then he hand-carries the bag and drops it off there? But if he hand-carries the bag, somebody`s got to see that. This is 100 pounds in weight in a bag. Somebody must see him put the bag down, unless he does it in the dead of night.

GRACE: Describe the neighborhood, Andrea.

PEYSER: Well, Bed-Stuy, I mean, it`s come a long way. I`ve lived in New York for a long time now. And, you know, it`s not what you would consider a glamorous neighborhood. It`s not Park Avenue; it`s not Manhattan; it`s not the Upper East Side; it`s not even the Lower East Side. It`s Bed-Stuy.

However, we have seen crime drop tremendously around there, and I suppose that whoever did this might think that people thought this happens all the time there. Well, it doesn`t. It really does not.

GRACE: Caryn Stark, listening to Andrea Peyser joining us -- she`s the one that broke the story in the "New York Post," where I first read about it, anyway -- Caryn, listening to what she`s saying about the neighborhood and analyzing the crime scene, what do you make psychologically, Caryn, of someone putting a body of this little girl in a trash bag?

CARYN STARK, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: I think, Nancy, psychologically that this is somebody that -- it`s the kind of killer who you really can`t understand what he`s doing, kind of collects people, perhaps. It makes me wonder also whether he knew her, because he got her so quickly after she left her apartment that maybe it really was somebody who was stalking her. And clearly, somebody that is really, really difficult to profile, as we see.

GRACE: Well, I just think it says something, on such a psychological level, that you would throw a child out in a garbage bag.

Back out to Rupa, Rupa Mikkilineni joining us there at the scene, Rupa, police have tried and tried to speak to passersby, to people that live in the area. Why aren`t they speaking to police?

MIKKILINENI: Nancy, I spoke with people that actually live in the very building where her body was found. And they indicated to me -- it was a father and a daughter, actually -- and they indicated to me that they were afraid, they`re terrified of retaliation.

And then, when I said, "Look, the tip line is anonymous. The police assure of us of this." And they said they don`t trust the system, and they`re worried that if somebody -- they themselves did not know anything, but they fear that is the concern of people in the neighborhood.

GRACE: Out to the lines. Karen in Maryland. Hi, Karen. What`s your question, dear?

CALLER: Hi, how are you? You asked earlier why this young woman`s death wasn`t covered. And, Nancy, I hate to say it, but I think it`s very obvious. Chandra Levy stayed in the news for two years. Laci Peterson was covered immediately. Natalee was covered for days and days and days, and it`s still be covered.

GRACE: You`re right. You`re absolutely right.

CALLER: And it really makes me sad.

GRACE: And that doesn`t make it any better. And you know what? Help us. Look at this tip line: 877-577-TIPS, $33,000 reward. A 16-year-old honor student, straight A`s, planning to be a nurse. Her life is over; what can we do about it tonight?

With me here on the set, her parents. What was your normal routine with her? What was your family life like with her?

LUCITA NIXON: We were a happy family. We trusted each other. We respected each other. She respected us as her parents. A lot of trust was with us. I know...

GRACE: What did she like to do?

LUCITA NIXON: She was quiet, very laidback person, but at the same time she wasn`t scared or afraid to voice her opinion.

GRACE: Elizabeth, can you show me the video of her in her little prom dress that she was showing earlier? These are shots of a graduation. We`re looking for justice in the case of Chanel Petro-Nixon. She was just 16 years old.

To her mom, does it seem real to you yet?

LUCITA NIXON: Sometimes it does. Sometimes. I look at her picture every day. And I have to break down, because I feel sad. A sad moment always come about me when I see her picture, because it`s not fair. She didn`t do nothing to deserve this, nothing at all.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A young Brazilian woman, named Fabiola DePaula, age 24, was pronounced dead at the Metrowest Hospital (ph) yesterday afternoon after experiencing some procedures authorities believe at the hands of these -- of this doctor and his wife in the basement of an apartment in Framingham.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: A gorgeous 24-year-old girl is dead after agreeing to have liposuction in the basement of a home.

Straight out to Norman Miller with the "Metrowest Daily News" reporter, in court today, a husband and wife facing charges. What happened, Norman?

NORMAN MILLER, "METROWEST DAILY NEWS": Well, they didn`t really speak at all. The wife, Ana Miranda Ribeiro, sobbed during her arraignment. The prosecutors allege they performed the surgery on the woman Sunday. When she stopped breathing, they brought her to the hospital, where the doctors weren`t able to save her.

GRACE: Now, they were in the defendant`s basement?

MILLER: No, they were actually in...

GRACE: The victim`s basement?

MILLER: No, another person`s basement. The victim had gone there for the surgery. The two defendants who were actually in the United States on a 30-day work visa, prosecutors say they came up here just to perform these illegal surgeries.

GRACE: They came here specifically to target American women that want liposuction?

MILLER: That`s what apparently -- looking through court records, another woman who talked to the police said the couple have been coming to the United States for about three years doing this.

GRACE: Three years, and it takes a dead girl before they are stopped?

MILLER: I haven`t heard of anything like this happening in Framingham. I`ve been covering police for about five years. I don`t know if anyone`s ever reported it.

GRACE: Well, I recently covered the case of a Dr. Guillermo Falcone (ph) who came to the country and did a similar racket. He`s sitting behind bars right now in California, almost identical.

So what was the setup, Norman, according to police? Would the women go to the home, and there you`ve got the husband and the wife, what, dress up like a doctor and a nurse?

MILLER: Luiz Ribeiro, the husband, claims he`s a doctor licensed in Brazil to perform surgery.

GRACE: But why didn`t he stay in Brazil then?

MILLER: That I can`t answer. I haven`t had a chance to speak to him.

GRACE: I want to go to a special guest joining us. Her name is Mona Alley. Mona almost lost her life after having plastic surgery. Ms. Alley, thank you for being with us.

MONA ALLEY, ALMOST DIED FROM PLASTIC SURGERY: Thank you for having me.

GRACE: Ms. Alley, when you heard about what has happened to Fabiola DePaula, just 24 years old, I know it had to bring to mind your incident. What happened?

ALLEY: Well, I went to a reputable -- supposedly -- clinic here in Florida, in Ft. Lauderdale. And it`s more like a butchery shop, you know? They`re in it for the money.

GRACE: What happened to you?

ALLEY: I went in for simple liposuction, and they punctured my bowel and sent me home. And every time I went back...

GRACE: And what became of that?

ALLEY: Every time I would go back for my checkup, they would just pat me on the arm, and go, "You`ll feel better soon," until I couldn`t breathe. And then they just told my husband, "Take her to her primary care doctor." You know, it was like they didn`t want to hear. And that night, I was in surgery, and they never expected me to come out of it.

GRACE: Is that how you lost your legs?

ALLEY: Well, I was down from -- I had the liposuction the day after Thanksgiving in 2000. And being down so long, I had had, within the first six months, 19 pints of blood. I had to have a double flap on my backside from bed sores.

And then, when finally I thought it was all coming to an end, I was well and I was able to get up and start walking, I had gotten a little sore between my two toes. And because of being down so long, no exercise, when they tried to do a bypass, the veins disintegrated in their hands.

So the gangrene set in immediately in the left leg. And they amputated below, above, and into the knee on the left leg in 2001. And then it started on the right leg, the dried gangrene, until my big toe just looked like a prune. And in 2002, May of 2002, I lost my right leg.

GRACE: I want to go out to...

ALLEY: Both above the knee.

GRACE: ... Dr. Holly Phillips joining us, internist. What are the risks associated with liposuction, doctor?

PHILLIPS: Well, liposuction is a real surgery. Sometimes we tend to think of it as something lighter, just a cosmetic procedure. It is a real surgery.

It can have all sorts of bleeding complications. There can be problems with anesthesia. And this is a terrible story. I feel that these cosmetic surgeries happening by unlicensed physicians or phony physicians altogether have reached epidemic proportions. We`re hearing more and more of these stories every day.

GRACE: Back to Norman Miller with the "Metrowest Daily News Reporter," what are the formal charges against this couple?

MILLER: Well, the husband is facing several drug charges, because they gave drugs as an anesthesia and then also performing a medical practice -- being a medical practitioner without a license in Massachusetts.

GRACE: What about murder?

MILLER: They`re still waiting autopsy results. They haven`t charged them with anything to do with the woman`s death at the moment.

GRACE: Well, what was the cause of death?

MILLER: Autopsy results haven`t been completed yet.

GRACE: Take a look at these charges so far. This couple probably looking down the wrong end of the barrel at murder charges.

Out to Doug Burns, veteran defense attorney, what type of -- come on, Doug, she`s 24 years old.

BURNS: Right.

GRACE: Why do you -- obviously, she died in relation to this basement liposuction surgery. Can they be charged with murder, if that had anything to do with the cause of death?

BURNS: Yes, absolutely. I mean, right now, I think they`ve been intelligent in not -- we see so many cases, Nancy, like the Duke case, for example, where right away the first day they charge a rape. That was crazy; they should have charged assault, battery, et cetera, and then do the investigation.

Here they can ratchet it up to criminal battery and clearly homicide, if you have depraved indifference to human life, serious reckless conduct, and they`re doing it correctly. And I expect that that`s exactly what`s going to happen.

GRACE: Allison Gilman is joining us, veteran defense attorney. What type of defense do you think they`re going to mount? Of course they`re probably going to use a public defender who is paid for by us, the taxpayers. But what will the defense be?

GILMAN: Well, Nancy, it really depends. If they do charge them with murder, I think one of the things they`re going to have to look at is, was he licensed to practice medicine in Brazil? Why did he come here? What tools did he bring?

How was he performing these types of procedures? Was he following the same practice that he followed at home? How long has he been doing this? How many surgeries has he performed? You know, was there really an intent or depraved mind to cause harm on these people?

GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Allison, you`re having surgery in the basement!

GILMAN: Nancy, I understand. But you`re still -- if he`s a doctor...

(CROSSTALK)

GILMAN: Nancy, if he is a doctor, and he followed the procedures that he follows at home, you know, perhaps in Brazil, why these women didn`t go to Brazil, I don`t know, because...

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: No, no, no, no, no. We are not blaming the women for not traveling to Brazil, all right? Don`t -- uh-uh.

GILMAN: Nancy, I`m not blaming. I`m not blaming the women. But what I`m saying is normally...

GRACE: Yes, you are.

GILMAN: ... if you`re looking for lower cost, which is my feeling why these women went to him in the basement, even though they paid $3,000, which is normally the standard cost for liposuction, women do travel out of the country to perhaps get a lower cost-type of procedure like this. I don`t understand why he would come here and perform the procedure here for that amount of money. That doesn`t make sense.

GRACE: And from what Norman Miller is telling us, this is a routine trip for him. To Caryn Stark, it`s going to be easy for people to try to blame the victim in this case. "Why would you go have surgery in the basement?" I get it, I get it. But it`s totally misplaced.

STARK: It`s totally misplaced, Nancy. And how could you possibly blame the women when this man didn`t belong here to begin with? I don`t care what his intent was as a doctor.

GRACE: And not just that, though.

STARK: He`s not licensed.

GRACE: It`s just not everybody has a J.D. or a PhD. A lot of people believe what they`re told.

STARK: They believe what they`re told. They also really want to have plastic surgery, particularly in this country where we get excited about it. They think it will change their lives, and they don`t have the money, and this is still not as expensive as regular plastic surgery.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This morning, two individuals, Dr. Luiz Carlos Ribeiro and his wife, Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro, both 49 and both of Brazil, were arraigned on charges relating to illegal practices of medicine and distribution of drugs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: The district attorney speaking out on charges against these two performing liposuction in the basement. Out to Dr. Holly Phillips. What do you look for in a doctor or a clinic that`s performing plastic surgery like lipo?

PHILLIPS: Well, certainly one of the most important things patients can do is ask the physician, number one, ask the physician: Do they have hospital admitting privileges? Are they affiliated with a hospital in the neighborhood? And then call that hospital to confirm. That`s one way you can know with absolute certainty that they are licensed to practice in your state.

Other things that you can do, just look for obvious signs. If they`re not going to be working...

GRACE: OK, hold on, doctor, I`ve got to warn the viewers. This is as bad as a crime scene, for Pete`s sake. We`re showing video of what really happens during lipo, all right? I don`t even know what body part that is. Thanks, Elizabeth. Go ahead, doctor.

PHILLIPS: If you know you`re going to be having surgery in an outpatient setting -- many plastic surgeries are done in an outpatient setting -- make sure that it is a hospital-quality, licensed operating room, and ask if there will be a licensed anesthesiologist there, and a full staff with resuscitation equipment. It`s difficult to be able to sort through some of these phonies and some of these unlicensed physicians, but that`s a good place to start.

GRACE: Very quickly, Caryn Stark, why are people willing to risk this?

STARK: Because they think it will change their life, Nancy. They`re not understanding that the outside has nothing to do psychologically with what`s going on inside of you, and so they really believe that magic will happen.

GRACE: A 24-year-old dead after liposuction in someone`s basement.

Very quickly, let`s remember tonight Army Specialist Brock Bucklin, 28, killed, Iraq, from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He followed his twin brother into the military, 2004, leaving behind a loving family and a 4- year-old son. Brock Bucklin, American hero.

Thank you to all of our guests. Our biggest thank you, to you for being with us. Remember, GLENN BECK every night, 7:00, 9:00, 12:00 a.m. Eastern.

Nancy Grace signing off for tonight. See you right here tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then, good night, friend.

END

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