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DR. DREW

Killer Mom Breaks Down

Aired May 6, 2014 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DREW PINSKY, HLN HOST (voice-over): Tonight, break down in court. The killer mom crying as jurors see photos of the kids she killed. Our behavior bureau has it covered.

Plus, an abortion counselor videotapes her face as she undergoes an abortion. Why did she share this video on YouTube? She joins me tonight live.

Let`s get started.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PINSKY: Good evening.

Tonight, we are live from New York. I`m joined, of course, by Samantha Schacher. We have a ton to get to tonight.

We have video of that woman who filmed her face during an abortion. We have had a ton of tweets about this story. I`ll be discussing it with her exclusively.

And speaking of tweets, by the way, I had a pleasant twitter experience, Sam, I was interacting with some of our people out there in Twitter world.

SAMANTHA SCHACHER, CO-HOST: OK.

PINSKY: And they didn`t believe it was me, so it was me.

People can`t commander my Twitter feed because if they do, they are impersonating a physician. So, it has to be me.

SCHACHER: So, you need to take a picture of yourself, I`m Dr. Drew. That`s what you do.

PINSKY: If there`s somebody on their video, using my feed, they have to identify themselves.

SCHACHER: Right.

PINSKY: So there`s that.

Also, I`ve got a viral video of shovel girl, she`d come to be called now. We`re going to talk to the woman who was hit by the shovel, we`re going to speak to her. Oh my God!

And, first, we`ve got the mouthy mom trial. Florida mother Julie Schenecker allegedly admits to shooting her two teenaged kids because they were sassy. In this video, you`re going to see some extraordinary, extraordinary documentation of what this woman may have been thinking when this all went down.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLICE: Hi, Julie, is it Schenecker?

JULIE SCHENECKER: You`ve got it.

POLICE: Good. I got it right?

SCHENECKER: Uh-huh.

POLICE: You have the right to remain silent, do you understand that?

SCHENECKER: Yes.

PROSECUTOR: "I did all my duties, then went to buy a gun. I was planning on a Saturday massacre."

WITNESS: "Offed Beau in the van going to practice. First shot hit the windshield. Second shot was the side of the head. Next shot was to the mouth, his mouthy mouth.

Calyx was on the upstairs computer. Walked up without her reacting and shot her in the right temple, then shot her in the mouth. In parentheses, her sassy little mouth.

I would like to overdose and not use the gun. I`ve seen how much destruction it causes."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PINSKY: Just unbelievable.

Anahita Sedaghatfar, defense attorney, Segun Oduolowu, social commentator, Michelle Fields, correspondent for P.J. Media.

First, I want to go out to reporter Mandy McGlothlin who was in the courtroom today.

Mandy, Julie had some dramatic reactions to some of what was being read there, is that correct?

MANDY MCGLOTHLIN, JOURNALIST (via telephone): Dr. Drew, it`s days like today when it`s so important to have someone in the courtroom reporting on these trials. It`s hard to see the emotions through a TV screen, but the emotions of Julie Schenecker today were huge. She was crying during the testimony of her journal entries and when Parker Schenecker took the stand, I could see her starting to get so mad and looking at him the further he testified. I could actually see her jawbone moving from grinding her teeth so hard and I could see the veins in her neck.

PINSKY: Thank you, Mandy.

Segun, is she crying? This is back to Jodi Arias days, is she crying because she is such a convincing documentation here in this journal?

SEGUN ODUOLOWU, SOCIAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I mean, with all due respect to Mandy, unless she sprouted wings, I don`t care about her posture or body language in a courtroom. She shot two of her children. She may have been bipolar, but she wasn`t on her meds.

This is an educated woman. This isn`t some, you know, destitute, down on her luck. She was military trained.

I find it not only deplorable, but the fact that her reasoning and wrote it down in a journal, it feels premeditated, it feels calculated, and if they want to use the defense that she was suicidal, how come she didn`t kill herself after killing the kids? It just feels rotten, disgusting, and really scary.

PINSKY: Anahita, you know I was sort of on this woman`s side to begin with. I was worried it was all mental illness, she seemed confused. She was confused the next day when it happened. But when you hear what she was thinking and the horrible things she put down about her kids, it is really hard to imagine it to be -- I wouldn`t think you`d want to defend this woman.

ANAHITA SEDAGHATFAR, ATTORNEY: Well, I would defend her. I actually would, and I`ll tell you why, Dr. Drew, because you only heard about some of the journal entries.

(CROSSTALK)

SEDAGHATFAR: What, oh, my God, in this Constitution we provide every criminal defendant with a defense. Wow.

OK, Dr. Drew, here`s the thing --

PINSKY: Anahita, some of the entries? I don`t need to see anymore. That was about as bad as it could possibly be.

SEDAGHATFAR: OK, here`s the thing, Dr. Drew, there`s something called legal insanity, and that is a defense to a crime. In this particular case, I think she has strong case that she was legally insane.

She has a long history of mental illness going back 20 years. She was bipolar, schizophrenic, severely depressed. She was on medications. She hospitalized numerous times for months at a time.

These are facts the defense is going to use to argue to the jurors that she wasn`t in her right mind. Dr. Drew --

SCHACHER: Anahita.

SEDAGHATFAR: Hold on, let me address the journal entries, then I`ll let you finish.

So, we heard the prosecution reading some of those journal entries to say, look, this was premeditated. She planned and plotted this. Well, surprise, surprise, the defense today read some other journal entries, Dr. Drew, and those entries seemed to show someone not in her right mind.

She`s incoherent. She`s talking about God wanting her children.

SCHACHER: Anahita! Anahita! Anahita, who`s fault is that? It is hers. I have a lot of empathy for her substance abuse problem, as well as her mental illness.

But she would go off her meds. She would not go to counseling. She would blame her drinking on her daughter. She would blame her mental disorder on her husband.

(CROSSTALK)

PINSKY: Anahita, hold on. We`re not in court right now.

You`re right. We`re not in the courtroom right now. We`re reacting to what we`re seeing here and it`s pretty disgusting.

SCHACHER: Accountability.

PINSKY: Michelle, your thoughts?

MICHELLE FIELDS, PJ MEDIA: I have no sympathy for this woman. Look, they can talk about she`s crying in court. That she`s grinding her teeth.

I don`t care. She is a calculating murderer. They are trying to say that this woman is insane. She doesn`t understand right from wrong.

Yes, she does. She wrote in her journal an apology letter to her husband. When they arrested her, one of the first things she said, this was one of the most terrible things she has ever done. She knows what she did.

The reason why she did this, she didn`t have a good relationship with her children and she thought her husband was going to divorce her and this was an act of revenge. But the woman knew what she was doing and she knew it was wrong.

SEDAGHATFAR: It matters what she felt at the time actually. So, if at the end of the day, she steps back and she realizes, oh, my God, I did something wrong, that doesn`t affect her legal insanity defense, Dr. Drew, it matters what she was thinking at the time she killed the kids.

ODUOLOWU: Anahita, you as a lawyer know legal insanity defense is one of the hardest, if not virtually impossible to prove in a court of law and the fact she wrote in her journal the apology means she was not without the facilities to determine right or wrong. That`s what --

PINSKY: Segun, leave it right there.

Anahita, we know where you stand on this.

Here`s where I stand: bottom line, is I`m going to say the same thing I said last night -- please take care of yourself, if you have mental illness and you have addiction, bipolar, whatever it might be, do the treatment, because once if you don`t, if you reject treatment, don`t embrace treatment, if you don`t follow through -- whatever it might be, the outcomes can be really disastrous and then God help you.

Next, our behavior bureau has thoughts on the mouthy mom`s courtroom breakdown. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not only did she execute her children, but she took an extra shot in their mouths to just send a message she did not like them talking back to her.

PINSKY: That is awful.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was on really high dose or really long-term antipsychotics and she was mixing alcohol with it.

PINSKY: And painkillers.

CRIME SCENE TECH: These are the medication bottles collected from the bathroom counter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many pill bottles did you collect at that location?

CRIME SCENE TECH: Six.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Following the death of your children, did you ever speak to the defendant?

JULIE`S EX-HUSBAND: The defendant said to me when I saw her, I guess I stopped your heart flat, huh?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PINSKY: Back with Sam, we are live in New York City tonight talking about the mouthy mom murder trial.

Sam, I`m overwhelmed by the execution, as Leeann put it. She executed her children and shot them in the mouth because they had a sassy mouth, then documented what she did. It`s crazy.

SCHACHER: And then complained to police that, oh, this is the worst thing I`ve done.

PINSKY: She was on a lot of meds because she killed her meds -- I want to bring -- she killed her kids.

I want to bring in a behavior bureau: Leeann Tweeden, social commentator, host of "The Tomboys" podcast on Blogcast Radio, Judy Ho, clinical psychologist, Wendy Walsh, psychologist, author of "The 30-Day Love Detox".

If you`d like to join the conversation, tweet us right now @DrDrewHLN, #behaviorbureau.

Judy, what you said yesterday was perhaps unpopular, but you really called this. This woman is sick, she had severe mental illness, no doubt, but she may have had some sense of what she was doing when she was doing this in her psychotic fog.

JUDY HO, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: That`s right, Dr. Drew. So, what we call this is altruistic filicide. So, she thought she was doing her children a favor when she was killing them, because she`s trying to protect them from embarrassment and protect them from actually harming themselves because she knows that she is suicidal.

PINSKY: Judy, do you think, you think? I`m not sure that`s clear. She didn`t say we`re going to save you from the devil or we have to kill you to make sure you get into God`s hands. She`s saying, you have a sassy mouth and I`ve got to shoot you in the mouth to save you from what?

HO: But elsewhere in her journal, she actually documented, I need to protect these children from possibly committing suicide themselves because I`m suicidal and children of suicidal mothers are often suicidal themselves.

I know it`s twisted, but that`s where she was going with that.

PINSKY: All right, all right. I`m going to show you guys the list of the medication she was on. If you can put that up there, it`s an interesting list of medication. That`s the list.

I will tell you what, the reason there`s a question mark after the Clozapine, we don`t know if it`s Clonopine (ph) or Clozapine. Clozapine is a medicine for schizophrenia, actually, and I don`t know if she was on that or not.

This is not an uncommon list of medications, guys, there`s more to it, of course. Lithium and Lamitrogen aren`t usually used together, but people look at it and go, oh, my God, this is so many medications, but this isn`t for somebody with several mental illness.

Wendy, (a), you agree with me; (b), what jumps out of that list, though, is the two different opiates. She should be on no opiates.

WENDY WALSH, PSYCHOLOGIST: I agree. It seems this cocktail, this sort of menu of drugs, and I`m not a prescriber, Dr. Drew, it seems a little excessive to me.

But going back to sort of killing the kids to protect -- it seemed this was almost a personal suicide pact, except she forgot the third piece. In other words, she was suicidal but didn`t finish the act herself. And that`s what`s interesting to me.

PINSKY: Magically. Magically.

HO: Right.

PINSKY: Magically she left that part out.

SCHACHER: Dr. Drew, OK, you just listed off all her medications. What happens to someone like her who then goes off those medications?

PINSKY: If she stopped them suddenly, she`d be miserable. And she may become -- if she has psychotic illness, she may become extremely unstable. So, we don`t know was she taking medications properly.

SCHACHER: She wasn`t. We do know that. She wasn`t.

PINSKY: Yes, she was taking her opiates, I guarantee you that. It looks like. And she may have been taking Avenza (ph) with the OPD. It`s - - although being on three or four or five psychotropic medications if you have severe mental illness, not that uncommon. There`s a lot of chaos.

SCHACHER: And drinking on them, don`t forget that, too.

PINSKY: And, by the way, blood thinners, too. She`s on Coumadin also. I imagine from being in bed so much she got blood clots in her legs.

But, Leeann, you just nailed it. So, let`s hear your thoughts today.

TWEEDEN: Well, Dr. Drew, I`m looking at all of those prescriptions, there`s no way that one person can take all 12, right? So, I`m thinking, where are all the doctors --

PINSKY: Oh, no, they can. They do.

(CROSSTALK)

TWEEDEN: She`ll take all 12, plus alcohol, plus everything else, really?

PINSKY: Yes, you`d be amazed, you`d be amazed.

TWEEDEN: Obviously, I don`t think a doctor would prescribe all 12 for her to take at once. I don`t think doctors were talking to each other.

PINSKY: You know, there`s an antibiotic here.

TWEEDEN: Lithium?

PINSKY: Blood thinner is listed twice. Lithium and Lamitrogen is a little bit weird. There are some weird combinations in there, but it`s not as crazy as it looks. What`s disturbing is the opiates, frankly. Go ahead.

TWEEDEN: Can I just finish my thought? My thought is, she knew what she was doing, she knew what she was doing was bad, it was wrong, she wrote about it, it was premeditated, she went out and bought the gun, she killed her children.

And to me, I was kind of mad when she said, oh, I was going to shoot myself in the mouth, too, but I fell asleep. Too bad she didn`t do it.

SCHACHER: Right.

HO: Right.

PINSKY: I got to tell you, the husband may be enabling in a weird way.

Leeann, you pointed out yesterday, he`s a serviceman, has to go overseas. We`ve got to give that guy full respect. God knows what misery he had to go through.

But at some point I wonder if he had any sort of role in the enabling of this. I don`t know. There`s more to be discussed in this case. More will be revealed. We`ll continue to follow it.

It`s one that`s got me incensed and also confused and brings up a point I love making over and over again, which is please take care of yourself, everybody, if you are having funny thoughts, if you are having unstable moods, it can go to a bad place for you and your family.

Remember, it`s not going to go like this, this is a rare thing, but it can get bad. And there`s no reason for it because these things are treatable. If you follow up properly and capitulate for that treatment. Do the treatment, don`t just show up. Suit up, show up, and do the work.

SCHACHER: Amen.

PINSKY: Next, a 7-year-old boy brings packets of heroin to school. Grandmother had something to do with this. Of course, she did. Grandma, yes, OK.

We`ll break it all down after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s pretty shocking actually. I mean, it`s quite concerning.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Parents are outraged after finding out a first grader brought heroin to Caln Elementary School on Friday. Officials say a teacher overheard the 7-year-old boy telling another student he had heroin with him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re lucky that we don`t have a dead 7-year-old on our hands from ingesting heroin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police have arrested the first grader`s grandmother, Pauline Bilinski-Munion. They say she is a known drug user and had heroin at home while babysitting her grandkids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PINSKY: We are in New York City tonight. I`m here with Sam, of course.

And that 56-year-old grandmother remains behind bars. A search of her home found, guess what, heroin. Yes, a heroin addict. As well as empty heroin baggies -- I guess it was a baggy, in a pair of children`s shorts.

SCHACHER: Right.

PINSKY: Sam, the grandmother not only -- is trending, heroin grandma I guess it. But she`s not the only one in trouble.

SCHACHER: Yes. Well, the school is in hot water, too, because the parents are outraged, because they feel like the school has not done enough to ensure the safety of their children and the district attorney agrees, and I`ll tell you why.

PINSKY: Didn`t I hear the school sent a text?

SCHACHER: It was an automated phone call. Five and a half hours later, they didn`t even mention that the substance was heroin. Also, even though they called the police right away, they didn`t call medical staff just in case as a precaution, they didn`t sanction off the students to check their pockets to make sure they`re OK.

PINSKY: Let`s bring in the behavior bureau to discuss.

Leeann, Judy, and Wendy are back.

Leeann, is the school liable do you think? Should they have sort of locked everyone down --

TWEEDEN: My gosh, of course. I mean, you know, you`re sending your children to school, which you think is a safe environment, you know, and granted it`s not their fault that a kid brought heroin to school. But I think once they found out, it was their job to do due diligence and if they knew, look, I think the test to make sure it was heroin, they didn`t find out it was heroin confirming it until 3:30 in the afternoon.

But to get a robocall 9:00 at night, and robocall didn`t mention heroin, and it`s like, oh, you might want to take your kids to the emergency room just in case something is wrong with them. That`s the phone call I get when there`s heroin in my child`s school for like 12 hours?

PINSKY: Hang on a second, Wendy and Judy, you`re agreeing with Leeann, is that correct?

WALSH: Absolutely. I mean, I have kids in elementary school, Dr. Drew.

PINSKY: All right. Let me just throw a polemic out. Let me just toss something out, I`ll play --

TWEEDEN: Devil`s advocate? OK.

SCHACHER: Where`s your bow tie?

(LAUGHTER)

PINSKY: Which is -- listen, couple bags of heroin, the kid --

SCHACHER: Seven bags.

TWEEDEN: What?

PINSKY: Listen, I`m playing devil`s advocate, let me finish my statement here. Segun, heroin bags are tiny, they are wrapped, what are they? Are they going to eat it? So what, they are not going to smoke it, not going to shoot it.

I would worry -- here`s what I`d worry about, if the kid had access to a syringe, then it`s a meltdown emergency because HIV and hepatitis c could be potentially exposed to those kids. Go ahead, Wendy.

SCHACHER: Can we have Dr. Drew back?

WALSH: You can go back to H-E-L-L, devil`s advocate.

Let me tell you this. There are all these children`s candy. I don`t know if you know this. But they come in little packets, they are brightly colored powders and they lick it off their hands, it`s really disgusting, they`re gross things.

So this is what this could easily be construed as and it takes the tiniest, tiniest amount. I mean, we`re talking about little bodies that weigh 40 pounds, 50 pounds, and it takes the tiniest little amount of the strong heroin to kill them, Dr. Drew.

PINSKY: No, it`s oral heroin.

Hold on, Judy, Judy, go ahead.

HO: Dr. Drew, I understand that the protocols could be better at this school, but what about the grandmother? Big problem for an older adult. I mean, there`s half a million people in the United States who actually use opiates over the age of 55, and have been hospitalized for it, so we have to think about that.

WALSH: Forget her. I`m worried about children who are exposed to drug addicts in the home. This is a dangerous place for children to be in America.

PINSKY: Of course. I`m back in my skin. I`m back in my skin, actually agree with all of you. I completely agree with all of you.

SCHACHER: You`re back. Thank God.

PINSKY: It`s unusual for a heroin addict to live past 50. That`s interesting about this grandmother, but she`s not going to live to see 60, 65. That is extraordinarily rare. Heroin is a deadly illness and requires intensive treatment.

Next, we have an overwhelming number of tweets about this one all day, it`s an abortion counselor who wants to share what she calls -- there she is, her positive abortion story. You will see the YouTube video she made when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PINSKY: I`m in New York tonight with Samantha Schacher. We`ve got a ton of Twitter action about this one.

A 25-year-old abortion counselor discovers that she is pregnant. She decides to have an abortion, so she turns the camera to herself, particularly her facial expressions, as she documents this personal procedure, then she posts it online.

I want to play a part of her video and then get a reaction. Obviously, this is a very controversial topic. One piece of it I want to talk about is whether or not anything is private anymore. Be careful, some of this you may find some of this tape disturbing. Go ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMILY LETTS: I talk with women before their abortion procedures. I found out that I am pregnant. Hey, I`m pregnant. And -- I`m pretty early.

I`m not ready to have children.

Yes, I`m getting an abortion tomorrow morning.

I just want to share my story to show women that there is such thing as a positive abortion story.

I got a lot of hands. Lots of support.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready?

LETTS: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PINSKY: I will be speaking to that woman in just a moment, but first, let`s bring back in our panel, Anahita, Segun, and Michelle.

Anahita, what do you make of that video?

SEDAGHATFAR: Well, Dr. Drew, I don`t care if you`re pro-abortion or anti- abortion, I just don`t agree with the woman having an abortion, filming it and putting it online. I mean.

PINSKY: Why? Why not?

SEDAGHATFAR: Because abortions should not be the subject matter of viral videos, Dr. Drew. Is nothing sacred anymore? I mean, if her point is to try to send a message to other women, and she wants to make sure that they are not ashamed, her message gets completely lost in a video where she`s giggling and laughing and playing music in the background. I would venture to say that there`s a better way to send a message that abortion is OK or you`re pro choice or whatever. Her message is lost in this video.

PINSKY: Quick, Sam.

SAMANTHA SCHACHER: I`ll tell you where I lost support for her is when in her essay -- because she wrote an essay, where she stated that she was out having sex but she was not using any sort of birth control. That is not OK with me. If you`re gonna go and have sex, you need to be.

(CROSSTALK)

PINSKY: She`ll be here in a minute.

SCHACHER: OK, because I`m actually for the right to choose.

SEDAGHATFAR: So, you`re not OK if you`re -- it bothers you more that she didn`t use birth control other than the fact that she`s in abortion.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHACHER: Yes, Anahita, if you`re gonna go have -- Anahita, hold on, can I -- Anahita, I`m piggybacking on your point. I agree with that and I`m piggybacking on that saying that if you`re gonna go out and have sex, you need to be responsible and use protection or use birth control. That`s all I`m saying.

PINSKY: Segun, I`m gonna have you hold your horse for just a second there, because this is a woman`s issue. So, I wanna here from all of the woman in the panel. Michelle, go ahead.

MICHELLE FIELDS: Well, to Sam`s point, I think what is really disturbing is the fact that this woman calls herself a sex educator, that she works in an abortion clinic. She sees the devastating consequences of women not using birth control every single day and she gets pregnant. She doesn`t use birth control, and then has an abortion on camera, which really trivializes abortion. Abortion is a serious issue, and what bothers me is this video is so me centric, everything`s about her. She doesn`t show the process of the abortion. She shows her facial expressions. She`s humming, she`s smug. The whole thing is narcissistic, if you ask me.

PINSKY: Well, that`s kind of the nature of selfies, and the videos about one`s self. We`ve talked about that many times. Segun, I have mixed feelings about this. I really do. I think putting things on video in the internet that is mysterious and needs to be demystified and destigmatized, I`m all for that, but I`m very mixed on this one. Where do you come down?

SEGUN ODUOLOWU: Well, Dr. Drew, to quote Voltaire(ph), I`ll defend her right to do this, even if I don`t agree. And then we should not be burying her. She is an educator. She does work in the clinic, and she didn`t sell this video or try to do it for profit. And let`s be honest, I disagree with you a little bit that abortion is everybody`s issue, not just a man`s, not just a woman`s, because we all know ladies that have had abortions, from our mothers, daughters, sisters, whom ever, we all know someone that has been affected by it.

(CROSSTALK)

ODUOLOWU: Hold on a second, hold on a second. Hold on a second. What we`re really being right now, are film critics. We don`t like the way she did it, but her message is a valid one, and the fact that it can remove some of the stigma, some of the shame, and some of the embarrassment that girls may feel who don`t get abortions, who have never seen anything like this, her motives were pure. If we`re going to be film critics, that`s shame on us.

SEDAGHATFAR: Yeah. I think the message gets lost in this video, actually.

ODUOLOWU: No. It gets lost to you, but there are people that defend her, and we must remember it`s me-centric because she`s the one having the abortion, not us.

FIELDS: It must the baby that`s dead.

PINSKY: The critics agree when you speak, you disgust and invigorate. There you go, love that. Segun, once again, you got both sides. They like you and they hate you.

SCHACHER: Special talent.

PINSKY: Well done. Now, you`ve seen this video. You commented on our Facebook page. Now, Emily Letts herself joins me for her first live interview when we return, so don`t go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMILY LETTS: I found out that I`m pregnant. OK, I`m pregnant. I`m not ready to have children. I just want to share my story. To show women that there is such thing as a positive abortion story. I got a lot of hands. Got a lot of support. Pretty lucky girl.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PINSKY: Coming to you live tonight from Columbus circle, CNN Center in New York City, joined again by our behavior bureau, Leeann, Judy and Wendy. The woman in that video is Emily Letts. She`s a 25-year-old counsellor at an abortion clinic. She joins me via Skype, and Emily found herself pregnant, decided to get an abortion. My question is, why did you decide to video it, but more importantly, who helped you with this? This was not a one-woman operation. It`s edited, there`s cameras being -- camera angles. There`s music behind it. Who else worked on this?

LETTS: Well, my administrators were all very supportive of it. They actually helped me have the camera. They helped -- I did all the editing, I found the music. I mean, that`s all me. It`s mostly my production. I just had a really great team of women behind me who wanted to help stop the stigma of abortion.

PINSKY: OK. So, hold on. So, Emily, let me ask a crazy question that you`re gonna -- first of all, you knew you were going to take heat when you did this, right? You understand you`re gonna be -- it`s a controversial topic, you`re well aware with you`re abortion counsellor in doing this. This is gotta -- you gotta be -- to know. My -- I`m gonna ask a crazy question.

LETTS: OK.

PINSKY: Did you get pregnant in order to do this video?

(LAUGHTER)

LETTS: And you realize that I was gonna have to laugh at that, right?

PINSKY: Absolutely. If it`s laughable. I hope it is. I`m relieved to see you laugh. Our panel`s got lots of questions for you. Samantha.

SCHACHER: Emily, OK. First of all, I`m pro-choice, but your message was lost to me when you wrote in your essay that you were having sex, but you were not using birth control. So, was abortion your form of birth control?

PINSKY: And is that the message you want to put out there?

LETTS: So, actually, what I want to clarify, is that I was not -- I did not have a single partner. I was not in a relationship, and to be honest, let`s not talk about the fact that hormonal birth control can be very scary to women. It can be very scary to put hormones in your body.

PINSKY: What`s scary about a condom? What`s scary about a condom, or any other barrier method? That`s OK.

SCHACHER: Exactly. (CROSSTALK)

PINSKY: It should not be scary. I`m worried about you getting an STD if somebody doesn`t use a condom. Forget the birth control piece.

LETTS: Completely. And my question is, have you ever done anything in your life that you -- that was a mistake? Have you ever smoked a cigarette? Have you ever run a red light? Have you ever done something that you knew there was consequences and then you said, wow, that was probably not the most, you know, intellectual decision I made. You learn from it, and you move forward. During the procedure, I.

(CROSSTALK)

PINSKY: Fair enough. Excellent, excellent. OK. So, Leeann, go ahead.

LETTS: Well, I just don`t understand why people are trying to bash me on this. I`m like -- I`ve admitted that, like, hey, we all make mistakes, this is the point.

LEEANN TWEEDEN: Of course.

LETTS: Empathy. Let`s talk about empathy. I`ve learned through my mistake and I`ve moved forward.

(CROSSTALK)

PINSKY: OK. Leeann. One sec. One second, Emily.

SCHACHER: I appreciate your answer, Emily.

PINSKY: Leeann.

SCHACHER: I appreciate your answer.

TWEEDEN: At some point, things should just be private, whether you`re a pro-choice or pro-life. I`m proud of you for making the decision that you`d thought was right, that`s probably best for the child that you weren`t -- it didn`t seem like you were ready to have a child, but you were ready to have sex, and then you`re ready to have an abortion. To me it seems that you`re trivializing something that`s really traumatic for a lot of people, thinking you`re helping them. You are helping them. You work in an abortion clinic. So, you`re already helping people. I don`t think going viral and putting a video out there is doing anything, because I feel like it`s so.

(CROSSTALK)

PINSKY: All right. Leeann, point taken. I want to hear.

TWEEDEN: What about women that get raped and have to have an abortion and they are watching you go, cool, yey.

PINSKY: I`m gonna stop you, because I don`t think it should give focus on the.

LETTS: There`s a lot in that.

PINSKY: Yeah. I think we should focus on the -- hang on, Emily. There`s a lot -- I don`t want to get into an abortion conversation. I want to get into whether or not a video is the right thing for her to do. Judy, my question is, is anything private anymore and does this trivialize this very important issue?

JUDY HO, PH.D.: Right, and Emily, I have a question for you to follow up on what Dr. Drew just said, which is, you know, is this trivializing it, and to that point, there was something that you said in your Cosmopolitan interview that this process was like giving birth to you -- that if it felt like giving birth that you were humming through it. And I`m just wondering if that`s trivializing women for giving birth, and can you really compare an abortion to a birth-like process. And I was just wondering what you were thinking when you said that to Cosmopolitan.

LETTS: Well, there`s a lot of questions circulating, right now. I would say that I have studied birth. So, I`m inverse to a -- I support women during their birth procedures -- birth procedures, sorry, birthing experience.

PINSKY: Right.

LETTS: And so, the thing about birth is that it is personal, it is sacred, it is yours, and that like you need to be supported. It should be something that you craft with having exactly whoever you want in the room with you. And so, that`s what I did. That`s what I meant by this is as birth-like as possible. I was supported 360 degrees by women who held my hand, who said, like, you are strong, and you are beautiful, and you are making the best decision for your life and we trust you, because you trust yourself.

PINSKY: OK. Wendy, your thought.

LETTS: I mean, it was just full of love and support, and so, because of that, like, I did feel like it was like -- I still have a relationship with my body and with my pregnancy and that`s the thing is that like, you can`t tell me that I`m trivializing it, because you`re not me. You`re not me. I can only speak on my own personal experience.

PINSKY: Emily, hold on. Wendy`s got something for you. I want to give my panel a chance to dig in here with it. So, Wendy, go ahead.

WENDY WALSH, PH.D.: Emily, it`s Dr. Wendy Walsh here. I want to commend you. I think you did a really, really brave thing for women`s rights, and I`m very really proud of what you did. I just have one question, you mention that you weren`t in a relationship. Do you know who the father was?

LETTS: Yeah. Yes, I do.

WALSH: And what was his opinion of this?

LETTS: He was not involved in my decision.

WALSH: So, now that I`m a mother and I have kids, I`ve learned that children, even when they are a tiny little embryo actually belong to at least six people, two sets of grandparents, a man, and a woman, and while I always said when I was young in pre-motherhood that my body was my body and nobody was going to mess with my body and I owned it. Now, that I have children, I want all those six people, and more to be involved in helping me raise them, and so, that seems like a dichotomy to me, but my big question to you is this. Did you go through a time of emotional turmoil with this decision? And why didn`t we get to see that?

PINSKY: And -- right. And let me add, subsequently, sometimes the biological change are going from pregnant to not pregnant also causes some emotional experiences. Let`s leave with that. What`s your answer to that question?

LETTS: So, the moment -- so, I work in an abortion clinic. I`m very comfortable with the vocabulary of abortion. I`m also very comfortable with the fact that, like, we need to destigmatized abortion. One in three women will have an abortion by the time they are 45 in America. That`s too many women. That`s too many women having this experience and not talking about it.

(CROSSTALK)

PINSKY: You know what, you guys, unfortunately, we could talk about this for a long time. I`m just out of time, unfortunately, and I`m so sorry. But Emily, I do appreciate you joining us. I do appreciate you sharing with us. There`s many layers of this conversation and we could get into all of them, but thank you for taking it head-on and being here with us.

Next, we`re going to switch gears. Oh, my goodness, we`re talking about a girl who was hit over the head with a shovel.

SCHACHER: And her name is shovel girl.

PINSKY: Should we call her shovel girl? Maybe she will join us. Maybe she`ll just happen to join us on the show. We`ll see about that after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PINSKY: Tonight we`re live in New York City, and we`re about to show you why shovel girl was trending topic on Twitter today. It`s a YouTube video. It goes at, once again, Sam, is anything private, what about -- what are people thinking about when they put these viral videos up?

SCHACHER: And they want to get famous.

PINSKY: Well, we`re going to talk about that. It gets even uglier, one of the girls grabs a weapon. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have a gun (BLEEP).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s a BB gun, dumb (BLEEP).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come on. Let her get it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She`s about to use a weapon on you, what the hell?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don`t.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What the (BLEEP).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PINSKY: Girl who threw that shovel and the girl who was hit both are gonna be with us coming up. But first, Anahita and Michelle are back, and joining the panel, comedian Gilbert Gottfried. He`ll be appearing at Caroline`s here in New York City on May 7th. Gilbert, has everything become a source of entertainment now?

GILBERT GOTTFRIED, COMEDIAN: Right. Is this celebrity rehab?

(LAUGHTER)

PINSKY: Well, it could be. You look pretty dapper, though, for that.

GOTTFRIED: Because it seems like the show went off the air because everybody on it died of an overdose.

PINSKY: There was -- there were people who did die of addiction, that`s true.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHACHER: Statistically, that`s what happened.

GOTTFRIED: So, that`s kill what`s like you.

SEDAGHATFAR: Throw like a guy, that`s the reality.

PINSKY: Anahita, do you react to this tape?

SEDAGHATFAR: Well, my reaction is, Dr. Drew, there are so many of these videos online, it`s actually disturbing. And like, Sam, said, these kids -- these dumb kids are purposely setting up these fights, having people tape them for the sole purpose of putting them on YouTube, social media, Facebook, so, the videos can go viral. So, they can get their 15 minutes of fame, and guess what, it`s working. It`s working.

PINSKY: The victim got to Twitter to claim her fame. Here`s some of the tweets that were up just hours after the video was posted. How to get famous, in three steps, record, get hit with a shovel, post it, one, two, three. I`m the girl who got hit in the head with a shovel, you all made me famous for getting hurt. Yes, I got hit with a shovel, no, my name is not shovel girl.

SCHACHER: Is this the new sex tape?

PINSKY: Is it, Michelle?

FIELDS: It is the new sex tape.

SCHACHER: Michelle.

FIELDS: I mean, everyone wants to get famous now, and this is their way of doing it, putting up a stupid video of them being hurt, and I think a lot of us are to blame, society is to blame, because we click on it and watch it. And if look at twitter and look how people have responded to this video, what they are saying is this video is amazing, it`s incredible, it`s hilarious. They are building this girl up as if what she did was good and sort of commending her for doing it.

PINSKY: You know, speaking of Twitter, I follow Gilbert Gottfried on Twitter and he`s always talking about the women on my panel and this is sort of a women`s issue.

(CROSSTALK)

GOTTFRIED: Yes! You always surround yourself -- you surround yourself with these hot pieces of ass. It`s like -- it`s kind of like you have a story, someone was killed in their home, and then you go, and now we`re going to talk to a bunch of girls that you`d pound like there`s no tomorrow.

PINSKY: Well, they have to be well trained professionals. Go ahead, Michelle.

FIELDS: I have no words. I`m ready for commercial.

PINSKY: Anahita, how about you?

GOTTFRIED: Tell me what you`re wearing.

SEDAGHATFAR: Well, like Dr. Drew said, all of us are very intelligent, smart women, and I would hope that we bring more to the table than our looks, but I`m speechless.

GOTTFRIED: To me.

PINSKY: Go ahead, Gilbert, last words.

GOTTFRIED: Dr. Drew, it`s better than the playboy network.

PINSKY: So, we will leave it at that to get Michelle out of this. Michelle, is in the -- I don`t know if you know, Michelle, if you can see this, but you`re right next to Gilbert on the panel. So, I`ll get you out, right now. We`re gonna go to commercial, and I have the shovel girl calling in right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PINSKY: Live from New York with, Sam Schacher, we`re talking about a violent piece of video that was turned into sort of joke on Twitter, became viral. So, joining on the phone now is, Miranda, -- Miranda. She is the girl that was hit with the shovel. Miranda, people are saying this is fight was staged in order to get the viral video. What do you say to that?

MIRANDA FUGATE LOCKWOOD, HIT BY SHOVEL: Well, I would say that the fight was not staged at all. I did not have any plans to get hit in the head with a shovel or any plans that the video would go viral. I didn`t even have any plans for it to end up on the internet or go famous as it did.

PINSKY: Let me ask, that`s a serious head whack that you took. Did you have any post concussive symptoms, are you OK?

LOCKWOOD: I still have a concussion right now, and my -- there`s blood behind my ear drone and I think I have to have surgery on my ear, because I think they broke something.

PINSKY: But are you having headaches and mood disturbances and sleep problems and all the things that comes with getting hit in the head?

LOCKWOOD: Oh, yeah, definitely.

PINSKY: OK. Sam, you have a question?

SCHACHER: Yeah, Miranda, I was following your tweets, and you`re embracing the fame. So, is that your goal from all this, you want to become famous?

LOCKWOOD: That`s not my goal to become famous, but I look at it this way, if I can`t laugh with it, then I`m just going to be laughed at, and get all depressed and feel bad about myself, when honestly, if I get hit in the head with a shovel, and everyone else thinks it`s funny. Well, I might as well laugh with them, not at them.

SCHACHER: Fair enough.

PINSKY: Let me bring in Emily now. She`s actually the girl there who threw the shovel. Emily, this fight is going on, you guys used to be friends. Where do you stand now?

EMILY POWERS, THREW THE SHOVEL: Well, we are sort of friends for real. We talked on the phone before the show, and we, you know, we just kind of, like, why -- because I got so many death threats all the way, we were like, well, we just need to cut it out so all of that will stop. Getting so much hate, both of us, our twitters are getting trashed. It`s just unacceptable. I don`t like it at all.

SCHACHER: Emily, who posted the video? Did you post the video, as well?

POWERS: No, I told them to take it down, and the person that posted it was Josh Officer, and it didn`t get taken down. Two people already got it. So, it was like way too late because it had already been shared and people were just starting to make fun of us both and it was just too much.

SCHACHER: I hate the fact that you guys are fighting each other.

PINSKY: I hate the fact then this gets worse when it gets out on Twitter and start threatening, Emily, with death threats, and then following them, and then people are going to get on, Miranda, too, for saying she staged it. Twitter is a brutal, brutal environment. Ladies stand by for a second, I want to bring the panel back, Anahita, Michelle, Gilbert Gottfried with us. Again, he`s appearing at Caroline`s here on New York tomorrow night. Anahita, that was an assault. Why weren`t the police involved with this?

SEDAGHATFAR: Yeah, the police should be involved, Dr. Drew. I think both of them can be charged with a crime in this particular instance. My actually question -- the question I have for the young lady is, did you know that it was being recorded and if so, did you ask why your friends were recording this?

PINSKY: I will go back to that, but I hold my breath as I ask Gilbert Gottfried for his comment on this video.

GOTTFRIED: Well, quite often I`ve hit girls in the head with a shovel. It`s the only way I can get laid.

SCHACHER: Your wife is so lucky.

PINSKY: Let me go back to.

PINSKY: Michelle, go ahead. Let`s hear Michelle`s comment.

FIELDS: Oh, no. I believe it. I believe what he`s saying.

PINSKY: Okay, good. Thanks, Michelle.

FIELDS: Only way he can have a relationship.

PINSKY: So, let me put the panel down again and back to, Emily, really quickly. Emily, before we go. Again, were you aware you were being filmed?

POWERS: Yeah, I actually was. I`ve seen the cameras but.

(CROSSTALK)

PINSKY: Did you wonder what they were doing?

POWERS: No.

PINSKY: Miranda, did you wonder -- Miranda, did you wonder what they were doing? Why the cameras?

LOCKWOOD: (Inaudible) it, but I didn`t understand that they were going to post it on Facebook and that I was going to -- I don`t know.

PINSKY: Ladies, I have to go, ladies, thank you very much. Forensic Files, begins now.

END