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NANCY GRACE

Police Cadet Disappears Just Before Graduation

Aired March 23, 2011 - 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: Breaking news tonight, live, Florida. Since starting her police training, a gorgeous young police cadet never misses a single class until now. Just days before graduating from St. Pete`s elite police academy, young cadet Kelly Rothwell vanishes seemingly into thin air. After a girls` weekend of yoga and lunch at Chili`s, she hasn`t been spotted since, her green Subaru Outback found parked on a quiet, tree-lined street just two miles from Kelly`s condo.

Bombshell tonight. In a bizarre twist, we learn Kelly`s live-in, a former corrections officer, moves out of the condo they shared and drives home to New York. Get it? He drives from Florida to New York. That`s over a 21-hour drive, and he does it within just 72 hours after Kelly disappears. Reports now he refuses to cooperate with police.

Kelly`s downstairs neighbors report hearing a series of loud thuds followed by vacuuming around the time Kelly disappears. That neighbor with us tonight, taking your calls. Grainy surveillance video emerges showing Kelly gets dinner less than 24 hours before she vanishes. We have the video. Tonight, where is Florida beauty police cadet Kelly Rothwell?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s only four-and-a-half weeks. But to be honest with you, we have a lot left to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty-five-year-old police cadet Kelly Rothwell is missing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a missed day at the academy with an otherwise perfect attendance that made some believe something wasn`t right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was reportedly last seen at the restaurant chain Chili`s, where allegedly she had lunch. She told a friend she was headed to her apartment to break up with her boyfriend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was her connection to this man, boyfriend David Perry, that first led family to ask police to make a welfare check. The same day she disappeared, he left town for New York. And detectives say he`s not talking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has elected not to discuss anything to do with this case or provide us any background.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ll be honest, I was scared to death of him, didn`t like him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kelly`s car found abandoned two miles from the couple`s home and parked on the street near a Holiday Inn. But no sign of Kelly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`re fearful something bad may have happened to Kelly Rothwell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: And tonight, an 18-year-old co-ed gymnastics and cross-country star found dumped on the side of the road, her body stabbed repeatedly about the chest, the abdomen, even her face. Tonight, who brutally murdered 18-year-old college gymnast Kathryn Filiberti?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I never thought that it could happen. Never. You never think it could happen to you until you hear that your best friend was murdered!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hyde Park police say they find Filiberti`s body off Greentree Drive.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sources tell Eyewitness News that the 18-year- old girl was stabbed in an attack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Friends say she was last seen in Hyde Park leaving a party.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything that can be done is being done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At dusk, police removed a piece of evidence from the site where Filiberti`s body was discovered. At various points during the day, officers searched these woods and others nearby.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m not going to get into great specifics about that, but we are searching these areas for evidence at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And investigators say they are treating the 18- year-old`s death as a homicide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s difficult. It`s a young girl. She was a student here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Filiberti is a former star gymnast FDR High, and many of her former teammates posted messages and pictures on FaceBook remembering their friend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To know that someone from our family had such a horrible thing happen, it hurts. It hurts really bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight, live, Florida. Since starting her training, a gorgeous young police cadet never misses a single class until now. Just days before graduating from St. Pete`s elite police academy, young cadet Kelly Rothwell vanishes seemingly into thin air. In a bizarre twist, we learn tonight that her live-in, a former corrections officer, cop, moves out of the condo they shared and drives home to New York, from Florida to New York within 72 hours after she goes missing. Also tonight, grainy surveillance video emerges shows her getting dinner less than 24 hours before she vanishes. We have the video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is one of the last known images of Kelly Rothwell, seen on surveillance video leaving a Publix (ph) supermarket with her best friend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just weeks away from realizing her dream of becoming a police officer, 35-year-old Kelly Rothwell is missing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kelly explaining she was getting ready to have a talk with her long-time boyfriend, Dave Perry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She had plans to break up with Dave.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ken Williamson lives in Kelly`s same building. He and his wife heard unusual noises coming from Kelly`s condo above.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thumping and banging on the ceiling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police say they`ve attempted to interview Kelly`s boyfriend, 45-year-old David Perry, a retired corrections officer, but he`s left the state of Florida.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) deputies kicked in the door of unit 201. They didn`t find anyone right away, but later found David Perry had just left for New York.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`ve had some contact with him. However, he`s been uncooperative.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Family and friends of Kelly Rothwell believe the worst.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls live. Out to Peter Bernard, joining us from CNN affiliate WFLA there in Pinellas County, Florida. Peter, I know that her condo was searched. What, if anything, did they find?

PETER BERNARD, WFLA CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, when they got in there, they didn`t find any evidence of a fight or any blood or anything like that. So that`s truly a mystery. They had to break down the door to get inside. And you saw the damage on the door in the video you just showed, and so they used some kind of a battering ram. But once inside, normal. It looked absolutely normal.

GRACE: Did they find a vacuum cleaner, Peter Bernard?

BERNARD: I don`t know that. When I did this story, there was no mention of a vacuum cleaner. I know this piece you just showed, they talked about some vacuuming going on. I understand his son lives nearby and had been taking care of the condo when the owners weren`t there. So I understand that he had come by. But I understand also that the forensic team had been there before he got there to do any kind of clean-up.

GRACE: Well, what I`m talking about is the neighbor. The downstairs neighbor hears a series of loud thuds at the time Kelly disappears.

Everyone just joining us, a gorgeous young Florida police recruit, never misses a single class at police academy, just before she graduates, she goes missing.

With us, the neighbor who heard that series of thuds, she and her husband home at the time of the thuds, followed by vacuuming upstairs. I want to go straight out -- and we are all taking your calls live -- to Ken Williamson. Kelly`s downstairs neighbor joining us from Tampa, Florida. Mr. Williamson, thank you for being with us. Your wife was inside. What did she hear?

KEN WILLIAMSON, NEIGHBOR (via telephone): Mary (ph), my wife, was inside at the time. It was probably around -- oh, sometime around 4:00 o`clock on the 12th. And she heard a series of loud thuds up above the ceiling where our bedroom is directly below their master bedroom. And somebody, like, threw something heavy on the floor three or four times. And then it got real quiet, and then a short time after that, we heard Dave up there vacuuming.

GRACE: Mr. Williamson, I know this may sound like a zany question, but when you moved into your condo, were the floors hardwood or carpeted?

WILLIAMSON: Carpeted. Because of the building codes and the condo (INAUDIBLE), you couldn`t have a hard-surfaced floor on the second floor, but you could have it on the first floor. Our first floor`s all ceramic tile. But on the second floor, where Kelly`s unit was, it`s all carpeting.

GRACE: Well, the reason I`m asking, Mr. Williamson, is because, you know, sometimes you can tell -- you can probably tell the difference if, say, a table fell over or a hard surface strikes a hard surface, as opposed to a sack of potatoes falling, sounds more like a thud as opposed to a crack. How would your wife...

WILLIAMSON: Well, you know -- go ahead.

GRACE: ... describe the sound she heard?

WILLIAMSON: I`m sorry.

GRACE: How did your wife describe the sound that she heard?

WILLIAMSON: She described the sound as if something heavy was hitting the floor. That might be interpreted as if somebody was jumping maybe off of a bed onto the floor or somebody threw maybe, like, say, a suitcase that might be full of clothes or something on the floor. But it was definitely not footprints or not, you know, foot traffic that you heard up there. It was -- you know, you could tell that it was something that was substantial weight before it -- when it was hit -- when it hit the floor.

GRACE: With us is Kelly`s downstairs neighbor. This is Ken Williamson joining us from Tampa. I know that your wife has fully cooperated. She had a medical procedure today. She couldn`t be with us tonight. But she told you exactly what she heard. Now, you were outside, I think, washing your car?

WILLIAMSON: I was outside washing the car. And when I came upstairs, I heard -- maybe out of four bangs, I heard two of them. And Mary said to me, she says, There`s something going on up there. She says, I don`t know what`s wrong, but it doesn`t sound right. And I said, Well, knowing Dave and the way he had a violent temper, and he never comes to the door when you -- you know, when you go up there to make contact with him, and they won`t answer their phone or anything like that -- I said, Well, you know, I`m reluctant to go up to ask Dave if I can help him out, if anything is wrong.

And when the -- and when the sound ceased and he started vacuuming, we just sort of said, All right, you know, just ignore it, rather than have a problem with him. It isn`t worth it. We`ll just, you know, let things go right the way they were. You know, it wasn`t until...

GRACE: You know, Mr. Williamson, having lived in New York for so many years, since way back in `97, I mean, you hear things in other people`s apartments all the time.

WILLIAMSON: Exactly.

GRACE: And I`m listening -- I`m listening to what you`re saying. And out of all of the years I`ve lived in New York, surrounded by people -- I mean, I`ve never heard from any of my neighbors something where I said, Hey, something`s wrong.

WILLIAMSON: Well, I got to admit that Dave and Kelly were quiet when they were up above us. I mean, some tenants we`ve had in there, they were heavy-footed. You can hear them walking around up there. But Dave and Kelly were very quiet in that respect, which we must -- we very much appreciated. So when you hear something like this, an unusual sound up there coming from a unit that normally doesn`t have unusual sounds, you begin to wonder what happened or what was going on or caused them to have that sound up there.

GRACE: And I also noticed you said, We didn`t want any trouble with Dave, the live-in.

WILLIAMSON: Right.

GRACE: Why? Had there been any trouble with him in the past?

WILLIAMSON: Yes, I mean, I had two run-ins with Dave in the past. One of necessitated that I had the police come out here to try to resolve the situation. And the other one, I had to have the fire marshal out to resolve the situation.

GRACE: We are talking about Kelly Rothwell. Where is Kelly? A gorgeous young police recruit just about to graduate from St. Pete`s elite police academy, misses class and then goes missing entirely. Tonight, where is Kelly Rothwell?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kelly was training to become a police officer, but now 35-year-old Kelly Rothwell is missing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boyfriend David Perry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had a very, very bad temper.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police say the boyfriend won`t talk to investigators at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thirty-five-year-old police cadet Kelly Rothwell.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Quiet, shy, I would say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her mother says she enjoys helping people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Friendly nature and her kind smile.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s in the police academy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, Kelly Rothwell and her boyfriend, 46-year-old David Perry, share this Indian Rocks Beach condo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These neighbors at Rothwell`s condo aren`t fond of David Perry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was afraid of him. He had a very, very bad temper.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rothwell had lunch with a girlfriend at Chili`s in Clearwater.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Explaining she was getting ready to have a talk with her long-time boyfriend, Dave Perry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To be honest with you, we have a lot left to do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody`s seen her since.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was going to go home and -- she had plans to break up with Dave.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police say they`ve attempted to interview Kelly`s boyfriend, a retired corrections officer, but he`s left the state of Florida.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`ve had some contact with him. However, he`s been uncooperative.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: You are seeing surveillance video. Liz, let`s cue that back up again and see exactly what it is.

To David Lohr, crime reporter at AOLNews.com, David joining us. Thank you so much, David, for being with us, along with Peter Bernard and Jean Casarez. David, what is the video we`re seeing?

DAVID LOHR, AOLNEWS.COM: Well, the video is the last known footage of her. We know on the 12th that she had lunch with her best friend at the Chili`s restaurant. And I actually spoke with that friend last week. She said she was very excited. She was happy. She was talking about the next steps of her life, and those steps did not involve her boyfriend, David Perry. And she was also excited to be graduating the police academy.

And another thing that`s interesting about what the roommate said was their lunch ended around 3:30, which would have been about an hour before the neighbor tells us he heard the noises at the place where they lived.

GRACE: And taking your calls tonight, not only our reporters, our lawyers, but also the neighbor, the downstairs neighbors that heard a series of dull thuds, thuds that made them think something was wrong, but then after that, routine vacuuming, so they thought no more about it.

Let`s go out to the lines. Betty in Ohio. Hi, Betty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, Nancy.

GRACE: Hi, dear. What`s your question?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much for taking my call.

GRACE: Thank you for calling in.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And God bless -- God bless you for everything you do. I cry every night...

GRACE: Please don`t, don`t, don`t waste your prayers on me, OK? I already know I`m bad. Use them for the twins, OK? They`ve got a chance. What`s your question, love?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, dear. Do you think that she was going to break up with him and he got so upset that possibly did something to her? Or what`s this about his son?

GRACE: Well, this is what I know. I know that she was, in fact, going to break up with him. To Jean Casarez, legal correspondent, "In Session," joining us tonight from Florida. She is live out in the field. Jean, she told her friend that day at lunch at Chili`s that she was going to break up.

JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": That she was finally going to do it, that`s right. That was the day. She`d wanted to do it for a while. She also told her friends how possessive he was, that he didn`t want her around anybody else, her family or her friends, and had started looking at her e- mails in her computer.

GRACE: You know, when you get to that point, you might as well just go ahead and break up, if you got to check somebody`s e-mails and phone records and all that.

You know, joining me right is a special guest. In addition to Ken Williamson, the downstairs neighbor, Kristen Rothwell is with us. This is Kelly`s sister. Kristen, thank you for being with us. What was the nature of her relationship with the boyfriend, who I might add has not been named a suspect? Kristen, what was his deal?

KRISTEN ROTHWELL, KELLY`S SISTER: David seemed to us -- we only met him a handful of times, the family, because of the distance, I guess. She lived in Florida, we lived here in Maryland. We felt that he was overbearing maybe at times and a bit possessive and controlling. But we tried to put that aside because the two of them seemed very much in love. They did. And we just wanted to support Kelly and we wanted her to be happy. And she seemed extremely happy when she was, you know, with him around us, so...

GRACE: Kristen, she has never disappeared for this long of a time before, has she?

ROTHWELL: No. No, she hasn`t. And this is not like her whatsoever. Not like her at all. I know that she was so excited about the police academy. She was...

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`ll be honest, I was scared to death of him, didn`t like him. I was afraid of him. He had a very, very bad temper.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Quiet, shy, I would say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dave was very domineering, and I think probably that`s a lot of the problem that they had was that he just overpowered her too much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It infuriates me! It really does. It really does. I think she`s dead. I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: We are taking your calls. To Kristen Rothwell. This is Kelly`s sister. Kristen, that was your mom stating she thinks your sister is dead. She has packed up. She went down to Florida to look for her. That was the neighbor. But your mom has packed up her belongings in the belief that your sister has perished. Why?

ROTHWELL: I believe that given the amount of time that it`s been since anyone`s heard from her and the personality that she had, the type of person that she was, it`s kind of hard to continue having, you know, hope that we`re going to get good news any time soon. The actions that Dave took pretty much, I mean...

GRACE: You mean leaving town and driving 22 hours up to New York?

ROTHWELL: Yes, that`s exactly what I mean.

GRACE: Has he had any contact with her family, with you or the mom?

ROTHWELL: No. No. He actually spoke to one of my sisters the day that we found out she was missing, but it was a very short conversation. I believe that my...

GRACE: What did he say?

ROTHWELL: Just that he hadn`t seen her. She left the house to go to her friend`s house, and he hasn`t seen her since.

GRACE: Joining us right now is William Constantine, a psychic who was hired by the Rothwell family. William, thank you for being with us -- William joining us live out of Tampa. How were you contacted to investigate this case?

WILLIAM CONSTANTINE, PSYCHIC HIRED BY FAMILY: I was actually contacted by Donna Scharrett (ph), which is Kelly Rothwell`s best friend.

GRACE: Oh.

CONSTANTINE: And I wasn`t hired. I`m not -- I`m doing it free of charge.

GRACE: And did you perform an analysis?

CONSTANTINE: Yes. I went up to the condo, and I definitely feel like there was activity that happened in the back room. I feel like Kelly was definitely surprised and taken -- basically, hit over the head, and then other stuff happened. The moment I actually walked into the condo...

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just weeks away from realizing her dream of becoming a police officer.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Days since anyone had seen this face.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Her mother says she enjoys helping people and succeeds at whatever she attempts.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Kelly Rothwell is missing.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It was her connection to this man, boyfriend David Perry, that first led family to ask police to make a welfare check.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Police say the boyfriend won`t talk to investigators at all. He`s left the state of Florida.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: One of Rothwell`s friends saying the two had domestic issues.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The couple shared a beach side home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She had plans to break up.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY GRACE, HOST: This a beautiful young police cadet had never missed a single day of police school there at the elite St. Pete`s Police Academy until now. Just before police academy graduation, she vanishes into thin air.

And in a bizarre twist tonight, we learn her live-in, as opposed to staying to look for her or hear word from her, goes home. Moves out of the condo they shared and goes home. To New York. It`s a 22-hour drive.

We are taking your calls. But first back to the neighbor. William Constantine, psychic, joining us tonight along with the downstairs neighbor, Ken Williamson. He and his wife heard a series of thuds downstairs.

To Ken Williamson, joining us from Tampa, Florida.

Ken, you said that the son, the son of the live-in -- now he is a former police corrections agent. He`s got a grown son. He had never been to take care of the condo until after Kelly goes missing?

KEN WILLIAMSON, NEIGHBOR OF MISSING WOMAN, KELLY ROTHWELL: No, I had never seen him before that. This is the first time he showed up here and come in on a motorcycle or motor scooter or something like that.

And when my wife heard him drive up, of course, with all that`s going on there, she looked down to see what was going on. I saw the scooter there and heard somebody up in the apartment -- in the condo above us. And immediately called the sheriff`s department who sent somebody out to check him out.

GRACE: You mentioned that in all of the time that you had been living there and they have been living above you, you never heard a series of thuds or anything like that before. And you instinctively thought something was wrong.

You mentioned that the fire marshal and the cops had come out before over disagreements with the live-in. What disagreements were they?

WILLIAMSON: Well, when he first moved out here, he asked if he could have a barbecue, and I said, yes, but only one that`s electric. You can`t have an open-flamed device on the premises because it`s a wood structure building.

And he immediately went out and bought himself a really nice barbecue. And when I saw it sitting downstairs in the parking area, I told him, Dave, you can`t use this. It`s against the condo doc and it`s against the city`s -- the city rules and regulations. And he became very upset.

So, I said, all right, I`ve got to find out exactly what`s going on here. I called the fire marshal from the city to come out and explain to me what the rules and regulations were. They said that he can`t have an open-flamed device within 10 feet of the building. The condo docs said he couldn`t have it either. So Dave --

GRACE: What was his reaction?

WILLIAMSON: Pardon?

GRACE: What was his reaction?

WILLIAMSON: He was really upset. If something didn`t go his way, he became very volatile. Very confrontational. And he would just -- would not back off. He would just keep coming at you and keep coming at you to the point where you sort of had to draw the line in the sand and say no, no more of this. You know if you come any farther, we`re going to have a big problem.

And he finally -- he took and he did get rid of the barbecue. He took it back to -- I think he bought it at Home Depot or something like that.

GRACE: That`s just one of those things you`ve got to learn. I remember when I first moved to New York in `97, I was used to my little grill on my back porch.

WILLIAMSON: Yes.

GRACE: I put it out on the balcony in about two minutes. No, you cannot have an open flame at all when you are living in an apartment building or a condo building. Everybody`s home can go up in flames if you have an accident.

WILLIAMSON: Yes. The building is basically a wood structure that`s about 20 years old or more.

GRACE: Right.

WILLIAMSON: I mean the thing would go up like a tinder box.

GRACE: Well, what was the second -- Ken, what was the second event?

WILLIAMSON: The second event was one Saturday I decided I wanted to wash my -- the furniture off my deck. Every once and a while because we`re in a salty air atmosphere you have to wash it down.

And the area that Dave and Kelly would park is right below my deck and the water would run off the deck under the car if it was down there. So I tried to call Dave and Kelly and tell them that I`m going to wash the deck, and that, you know, if they wanted to move their cars, to go ahead and do it. It would be take me about an hour when I had it all done.

Well, I couldn`t get a hold of them because they never answered the phone. I went up and knocked on the door, nothing. So I left a note on the door. And then I come down, I noticed that both of the cars were gone. Both Kelly`s and Dave`s cars were gone. So I proceeded to wash the furniture on the deck and clean it all up.

By the time I got done with it, they came back. And of course, there was water in the parking area where they would park their cars. The same would be if it was raining, the same area would get wet. Well, Dave just went absolutely ballistic. And it was F this and F that.

And he`s making a big deal about it. Told Kelly to go park somewhere else because the water was dripping down. And I said to myself, here we go again. Well, Dave proceeded to come upstairs and then jumped real hard on -- on his living room which is our living room ceiling.

The same thing in the hallway and then into the bedroom -- master bedroom and jumped about three times real hard on the floor up there. At the time he did that, my wife, Mary, was in the process of making the bed. And it snapped the ceiling fan. And the ceiling fan fell down and nearly hit her in the head. And this is a big piece of equipment. And if it hit her in the head, it really would have -- you know, been a bad situation.

GRACE: Did you have to call police?

WILLIAMSON: Well, of course -- but I was -- that really upset me. I went upstairs to kind of talk to Dave about what was -- you know, what was going on here. And he said, well, the wind blew the door shut. That`s what caused the ceiling fan to fall down.

And I didn`t buy that at all. We had -- we had some heated exchanges. I said all right, I`m calling the cops which they did. And they come out, they made a report on the thing. And that was the second incident.

GRACE: Out to the lines. Debbie in New York. Hi, Debbie.

DEBBIE, CALLER FROM NEW YORK: Hi, Nancy. It is wonderful to talk to you.

GRACE: Likewise. And I want to thank you for calling in, dear. What is your question?

DEBBIE: Well, I actually -- you say this guy was a retired corrections officer.

GRACE: He was only 42. Hold on.

DEBBIE: Yes.

GRACE: Let me -- I`m getting in my ear -- Ken Williamson, was he retired or out on disability. Do you know?

WILLIAMSON: Here`s some information that you may want to be aware. A gentleman by the named of Dave Mosher, M-O-S-H-E-R, from New York, called me the other day. He said, I`ve been trying to find out if you are the Ken Williamson that knows anything about the Perry situation. I said, well, I sure am. He said, well, I am a retired corrections officer for the state of New York. I had 25 years in and I retired.

I knew Dave. I had worked with Dave during the time I was there. Dave was not liked by anybody in the department. Three times they tried to fire him, but he sweet talked his way around it and got out of the thing. I said well, I thought he had retired from the -- you know, the prison system in New York. He said no, not retired.

He -- he said that he -- when he had a -- when he had a confrontation with the prisoners, he hurt his back. So he filed for disability with the state and he got that, and he filed for disability Social Security and got that.

GRACE: OK. Back to Debbie --

WILLIAMSON: And he`s no longer --

GRACE: Debbie, he may be on disability. But he`s only in his early 40s. What`s your question, dear?

DEBBIE: That`s what I thought was a little strange. That`s what I was wondering if the Florida police have done any investigation work into his background to see if he has --

GRACE: Let`s find out about that. Jean Casarez, legal correspondent, "In Session," what do you know?

JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": Everything that we know he did not work in Florida, but disappeared every now and then to New York. And never seemed to be at a loss for money.

GRACE: Unleash the lawyers. Paul Batista, defense attorney, author of "Death`s Witness." Remi Spencer, defense attorney. Both out of New York.

You know, in light of the fact, Batista and Spencer, that he is a retired cop, a corrections officer, he knows that cops are going to want to talk to him. Whether he had nothing to do with this or not. He`s not been named a formal suspect.

So why? To you, Paul Batista, instead of staying there trying to find his longtime girlfriend, his live-in, why does he get in a car and take a 22-hour drive home to New York, than disallow cops to look in his car?

Why, Paul Batista?

PAUL BATISTA, DEFENSE ATTORNEY, AUTHOR OF "DEATH`S WITNESS": I`m not buying any of this, Nancy. First of all, we don`t even have a crime. And we have no real indication of it. We have a thud upstairs. Maybe the vacuum cleaner --

GRACE: Could you answer my question, please?

BATISTA: We don`t have any reason to believe and he has no obligation to talk to police to cooperate.

GRACE: Yes, my question is --

BATISTA: He simply drove home, Nancy.

GRACE: Why not stay and try to find her, Remi Spencer? Why?

REMI SPENCER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: He has no obligation to do the police officer`s job. He has a constitutional right to remain silent. If she was his only connection there, he`s right to leave and be by his family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Kelly was training to be a police officer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was a team leader down there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Only four and a half weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The missed day at the academy.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Uncharacteristic for her to just disappear. But no sign of Kelly.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thirty-five-year-old police cadet Kelly Rothwell is missing. She was reportedly last seen at the restaurant chain Chili`s where she allegedly had lunch and told a friend she was headed to her apartment to break up with her boyfriend. What happened after lunch, a mystery.

Police say they have attempted to interview Kelly`s boyfriend, 45- year-old, David Perry, a retired corrections officer. But he`s left the state of Florida. Police say the boyfriend won`t talk to investigators at all. Kelly`s car found abandoned about two miles from the --

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Where is this gorgeous police cadet Kelly Rothwell? She had never missed a single class. She had looked so forward to the graduation coming from an elite police academy. But now she`s gone. Her friends, even calling in a psychic.

We are taking your calls. Out to Christine in Arizona. Hi, Christine.

CRISTI, CALLER FROM ARIZONA: Hi, thank you. Has anybody looked into his training as a corrections officer? One of the things they`re taught to do is to choke people out. If he was doing that, that would be -- there`s something on the floor. And if she got hit in the head, there wouldn`t been any trace blood evidence.

I guess they didn`t find any?

GRACE: To Sgt. Scott Haines, let`s answer Christine in Arizona`s question. Sheriff`s officer, Santa Rosa County, Florida. You had to go through academy as well. Do you learn moves like a chokehold, how to defend yourself, how to make an arrest?

I mean I`m showing video right now of her at the police academy learning a chokehold. So the answer is pretty obvious.

SGT. SCOTT HAINES, SHERIFF`S OFFICER, SANTA ROSA COUNTY, FL.: Well, actually, Nancy, they do teach you a lot of different restraint techniques. But the chokehold technique has pretty much been done away with quite a long time ago due to liability issues surrounding that. So that is not something that they do -- they do teach. They do teach different types of self-defense and protecting yourself.

GRACE: What kind of a background check do you do on somebody before they can become a corrections officer?

HAINES: Nancy, it`s pretty much the same thing they do with police officers. They go to interview your neighbors, they do full criminal background checks. Very detailed interviews with your self, some type of truth verification examination, drug testing.

It`s quite -- they also make you take a psychological which usually entails anger management issues, things like that.

GRACE: To Lauren Howard, psychotherapist joining us out of New York.

Lauren, it`s like football players out on the field. When you`re used to pounding people into the grass for a living, it`s kind of hard to turn that off. And I remember as a prosecutor after all those years in the courtroom, whereas, you know, you`re on the attack, on the attack, on the attack, on the defense all day long every day.

You can`t just walk through the mud all day and not track a little bit home. And I imagine the same is true for police officers. When you deal with what they have to deal with all day long, you probably develop an exterior that seeps in after a while.

LAUREN LAKE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That`s certainly true. But you know, being unbiased in any arena is very difficult. You talk to attorneys and as far as they are concerned, there are no grounds for thinking that there was any malfeasance from the boyfriend.

If you ask me, I`m a psychotherapist, I have no bias that you know -- what my opinion irrelevant.

But Nancy, everyone looking at this, including myself, including the attorneys, it doesn`t pass the smell test. Something stinks. Something is wrong. We can`t decide that it was Perry because he was a corrections officer and he was in the habit of being rough. That`s not what makes this -- makes it smell bad.

What makes it smell bad is this guy disappeared as soon as his girlfriend went missing.

GRACE: You`re right. You`re right, Lauren Howard.

Lauren Howard, psychotherapist, joining us out of New York.

Weigh in, Pat Brown, criminal profiler, author of her most recent book, "The Profiler."

What do you think, Pat? And remember he has not been named a suspect at this juncture.

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER, AUTHOR OF "THE PROFILER": Right. He hasn`t been named a suspect. But I also wonder about that bolt into New York. I think he is not having a problem with worrying about --

GRACE: And not allowing cops to look in his car, Pat.

BROWN: Well --

GRACE: I mean, if a cop comes up to me and says, hey, I need to look in your car, I`m like, look, look.

BROWN: Right. Well, exactly. He doesn`t want anybody looking at his car so we are suspecting there might be evidence there. But also, I don`t think it`s the problem of him not wanting to talk to cops, but not wanting them to see him. Because if it was a body slamming to the door, if he did use strangulation or chokehold on the poor girl, if that`s what actually happened, then there is likelihood that he has scratches and abrasions to his own body.

And if I were him, and I committed a crime like that, and we don`t know that he did, I`d be jumping into my car and getting out of dodge so the police cannot see any kind of damage to my body until -- maybe after it heals.

GRACE: To Dr. Michael Arnall, board certified forensic pathologist. Dr. Arnall, joining us out of Denver, Colorado.

Doctor, the neighbor who is with us tonight reporting hearing -- he and his wife hearing vacuuming immediately after the series of dull thuds upstairs. Enough to make them think hey, what`s going on, what`s wrong up there?

What would cops look for in the vacuum cleaner?

DR. MICHAEL ARNALL, BOARD CERTIFIED FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: If it was a regular vacuum cleaner, they`re going to be looking for some type of object that was broken during an altercation. If it`s a wet/dry vacuum cleaner, they may be looking for blood or pieces of tissue.

GRACE: And explain what`s a wet vac?

ARNALL: A wet/dry vac or a rug cleaner that has a soap so that they - - he could vacuum up any soap that he put on the floor -- you know it`s a wet vacuum cleaner like you get at Home Depot. But that could vacuum back blood resident or something of that nature.

GRACE: Her DNA would still be on the floor, would it not?

ARNALL: Yes.

GRACE: Kelly -- excuse me, Ken Williamson, the downstairs neighbor, could it have been a wet vac you heard?

WILLIAMSON: I doubt very much because it`s the same vacuum that we`ve heard him throughout the time he lived here.

GRACE: OK. So you know what it is.

WILLIAMSON: Mary said he vacuums about four or five times a day, although there`s nobody up there but him. So yes --

GRACE: OK. That`s a whole --

WILLIAMSON: It was a regular vacuum.

GRACE: You know vacuuming five times a day every day when you`re all by yourself, that`s a whole other can of worms, Ken.

I want to go back to William Constantine, the psychic assisting Kelly`s friends.

William, again, thank you for being with us. When you try to decipher what happened in this case, what were the images or the response, the inner response that you got?

WILLIAM CONSTANTINE, PSYCHIC, HELPING MISSING POLICE CADET`S FAMILY: Well, the first thing is when I first entered the condo I had a strong sense of a scent of smell, like a cleaning solution.

GRACE: Yes? And then what?

CONSTANTINE: And then basically I heard sounds. I definitely heard like he had threatened her life on numerous occasions and that there was a struggle that happened in the backroom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: And very quickly, I want to alert you about a story. A young college gymnast found dead, stabbed about the face, the chest, and the abdomen.

Matt Zarrell, what do you know?

MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE STAFFER, COVERING STORY: Nancy, 18-year-old Kelly Filiberti`s body was found just Saturday afternoon, around noon. It was found about five miles from where she was reportedly seen at a party for a friend. Now, police are still working the case right now, trying to gather evidence at the scene. There`s also reports that she was stabbed in both the face and the chest.

GRACE: Also with us on the story from Cleveland, David Lohr, AOLnews.com crime reporter.

David, what more can you tell us? This is a gorgeous young girl, a college-age gymnast, her whole world in front of her, a cross-country star. What do we know?

DAVID LOHR, CRIME REPORTER, AOLNEWS.COM: Well, she was last seen the night before. She was last seen Friday at a party. She`d gone with her on and off boyfriend.

According to him, she saw somebody there she didn`t like, she stormed off. He said he thought she was going to go cool down but for whatever reason he didn`t go look for her or anything. Then she was found dead after this.

And as you noted, she was supposedly stabbed in the face and chest. And as you know from covering a lot of these crimes that sounds like somebody, you know, who knew the victim.

GRACE: The tip line, 845-229-9340. Who murdered Katie Filiberti?

Tonight let`s stop and remember Marine Lance Corporal Andrew Patten, 19, Byron, Illinois. Killed Iraq. Awarded Purple Heart, Combat Action, National Defense. Buried at Arlington.

Loved music, playing piano, trumpet, guitar. Remembered for his smile. Active at church. A leadership training center named in his honor. Leaves behind parents Andrew and Gale, sister Alice.

Andrew Patten, American hero.

Thanks to our guests, but especially to you. And tonight a special good night from Wisconsin friend Anitra. Isn`t she beautiful?

And congratulations to Tim in California. He just made Eagle Scout. Loves school, his family, mom, dad, sister Katie, and of course the head of the family, Gus, the family`s King Charles cavalier. He also loves football, especially baseball, and the Atlanta Braves.

Way to go, Eagle Scout Tim.

Everyone, I`ll see you tomorrow night. 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.

END