Missing Woman`s Body Found Buried at Stepfather`s Home
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight, after a manhunt launched to find 33-year-old mom of three Jessica Padgett, who vanishes on her break at work -- Jessica steps out briefly from the child care center Duck Duck Goose Goose (sic) Child Care, Northampton, and seemingly vanishes. Bombshell tonight. As we go to air, has Mommy`s body been discovered in a shallow grave on the property of her own stepfather?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just come home.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She wouldn`t not return back to work.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But she never returned to work.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She wouldn`t not tell anybody.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An intense investigation.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s just not who she is.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s all we ask at this time.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please bring him (ph) home.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Search and rescue teams --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Searching everything from drains to ditches. Still no sign of 2-year-old Malik Drummond (ph).</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He didn`t have no coat on. He just had his shoes on and a T-shirt.</s>GRACE: And live, Percy (ph), Arkansas. A 2-year-old baby boy vanishes from his own home. Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. After a manhunt launched to find 33-year-old mom of three Jessica Padgett -- she disappears, she vanishes on her break at work, she steps out briefly from the child care center where she works, Duck Duck Goose Child Care, she seemingly drops off the face of the earth -- but as we go to air tonight, has Mommy`s body been discovered in a shallow grave on the property of her own stepfather? Her own stepfather! Straight out to syndicated talk show host Dave Mack. OK, let`s take it from the beginning. She works at Duck Duck Goose Child Care, and she steps out briefly, I think to make a cell phone call or to send a fax or something. What do we know?</s>DAVE MACK, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Nancy, she actually left the day care center to go to her stepfather`s home to send a fax. She was only going to be gone for a couple of minutes, and that`s when she went missing.</s>GRACE: OK, that`s what I don`t get right there. Why did she have to -- she`s working at the child care center, Duck Duck Goose. Why did she have to leave to send a fax?</s>MACK: Had something to do with the business that her stepfather and her mother run that she`s also a part of, a fence-building business. So there was actually a reason for her to go to the residence to send a fax.</s>GRACE: Everybody, for those of you just joining us, a young mom of three seemingly drops off the face of the earth. She apparently has two jobs. She works at a child care center named Duck Duck Goose, named after a child`s game, and she also works at a fence company that her mom runs with her stepfather. All right, Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host joining us. Dave, she steps out. Now, see, I heard conflicting reports that she was calling her husband on her cell phone or that she was leaving to send a fax, that maybe the one at the day care center didn`t work. But she steps out. Now, you`re telling me she goes over to the home to send the fax. But where was her car discovered?</s>MACK: OK, she left the day care center because the fax machine at the day care center wasn`t working. She was going to her stepfather`s home to send the fax. Her car was found 10 minutes after she left the day care center, parked in the parking lot of a Dollar General.</s>GRACE: OK, hold on. Let me take it that far. Clark Goldband, also on the story -- so she`s working at the child care center.</s>CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Yes.</s>GRACE: She steps out to send a fax. Have we confirmed the fax at Duck Duck Goose didn`t work?</s>GOLDBAND: Yes, Nancy, we have. They told one of our producers that the fax machine was down.</s>GRACE: All right, she goes to send a fax. Of what? What was the -- why was it so urgent, she had to leave one job to go send a fax for the other job.</s>GOLDBAND: Well, according to reports, Nancy, it was related to the fence company. She apparently had two jobs, one being at Duck Duck Goose Child Care and the other at the fence company that`s run by her stepfather.</s>GRACE: OK. All right. I`m getting it straight. Between the two jobs she`s working, trying to support these three children. Out to the lines. Kelly in Kentucky. Hi, Kelly. What`s your question?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. I`m wondering if there have been any allegations of the stepfather molesting the stepchild and that is why he had to get rid of her? Was he molesting her?</s>GRACE: OK, Question. Kelly, you know what? You`re just like me. Whenever I find out that there`s a suspect within the family, I always wonder why. Now, Kelly in Kentucky, as you know, prosecutors do not have to show motive to prove a crime because prosecutors are not expected to get into the head of the killer or the perpetrator, whatever the crime may be. However, Kelly, practically speaking, prosecutors look for a motive to give a jury so the whole thing makes sense. OK, Dave Mack, let`s talk strictly about Kelly`s question. Is the stepfather -- have there ever been allegations or concerns that he had molested a stepchild? Do we know anything about that? I have not heard that.</s>MACK: No, ma`am. We don`t have anything like that on record.</s>GRACE: OK, I want to go in order here. So we`ve got -- the car is left at a Dollar General. Then how would she have gotten to the stepfather`s place?</s>MACK: Actually, the video that we have, the security video, Nancy, shows somebody not matching her description actually exiting her vehicle at the Dollar General. It was not her dropping the car off. It was a figure matching a man, and that man pulling out of that parking lot in a truck matching the stepfather`s vehicle, leaving the parking lot 30 seconds later.</s>GRACE: OK, I want to go back to what you were just talking about about a potential sex molestation. This is not on the stepchild. Tell me what you know, Dave Mack.</s>MACK: Well, the investigators are saying that they are investigating this murder as a potential sexual assault, as well. And so backtracking from that, they`re saying if there`s a sexual assault involved in this murder, they`ll charge him -- they`ll go for the death penalty. That`s what`s been mentioned in the case with regard to a sexual assault. She called him her -- she referred to him as her dad two years ago on Facebook.</s>GRACE: Everybody, for those of you just joining us, we`re showing you shots right now of a young mom of three, Jessica Padgett, holding down two jobs to help support her three children, one at Duck Duck Goose Child Care Center, and then she also worked for the family fence company, a company her mother and stepfather ran. As we go to air tonight, has her body just been found buried at the stepfather`s home? Dave Mack, what can you tell me about the location of an alleged shallow grave?</s>MACK: It was found directly behind a shed out in the back yard, on the stepfather and her mother`s property. That`s exactly where the grave was found.</s>GRACE: Well, where`s the mother during all of this? Where is Jessica Padgett`s mother?</s>MACK: Jessica Padgett`s mother is in Florida, where she and the stepfather were building a new home.</s>GRACE: Unleash the lawyers. Joining me, Randy Kessler, defense attorney out of Atlanta, Alex Sanchez, defense attorney in New York. First of all to you, Alex Sanchez. If this is correct that Jessica`s body has been found at the stepfather`s home that he shared with her mother, and her mother is in Florida overseeing a job construction site, that looks pretty bad for the stepfather.</s>ALEX SANCHEZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, it may raise some questions, and certainly, the police should investigate this. But unless I`m missing something, I haven`t seen or heard any evidence so far linking him to this alleged crime. So if you have evidence, state your evidence, and let`s see whether or not it links to the stepfather.</s>GRACE: OK, her body has just been found in his back yard?</s>SANCHEZ: All right, that`s bad, but it doesn`t mean he`s the one that put the body there. What else do you have?</s>GRACE: OK, so you`re suggesting somebody else kills her, or does she commit suicide and fall into the grave?</s>SANCHEZ: No, I`m saying that the evidence that you presented right now is very weak and does not definitely indicate --</s>GRACE: OK. Yes, I heard that.</s>SANCHEZ: -- that he`s behind the crime.</s>GRACE: And I`m asking you --</s>SANCHEZ: That`s what I`m saying.</s>GRACE: I hear you. I heard you the first time. But my question to you is, at first, you said that raises a concern. Well, I`d be very concerned if there`s a dead body buried in my back yard. But I`m asking you, Alex Sanchez, what -- let`s follow through with what you say. You can`t just throw it out there and it just disappears. Let`s follow through with your theory that he is not involved. So what would the theory be, then? Did she commit suicide and falls into a grave, that somebody else kills her and buries her in his back yard and he doesn`t notice?</s>SANCHEZ: First of all, I didn`t propose any theory that he didn`t do it.</s>GRACE: Yes, I`m asking you.</s>SANCHEZ: What I`m saying is that the evidence that you have outlined so far is certainly not enough to bring any charges against him. Is it enough for the police to conduct a further investigation? Absolutely. But with the information so far, this case is not going anywhere against him, let`s face it.</s>GRACE: You know what? You might as well take out a billboard on Madison Avenue that says, Feel free to bury a dead body in my back yard, signed, Alex Sanchez.</s>SANCHEZ: Nancy, let me ask you, would you go to the grand jury with the evidence that you have right now? Yes or no?</s>GRACE: Yes, I would, as a matter of fact.</s>SANCHEZ: I don`t think you would. I don`t think you would.</s>GRACE: Because she says she`s -- when she leaves work, Randy Kessler, when she leaves Duck Duck Goose Goose (sic), she says she`s going to send a fax from the stepfather`s home, all right? That`s what we know. So then she ends up dead in the stepfather`s yard in a shallow grave. And the mother, the only other occupant of the home, is in Florida.</s>RANDY KESSLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Right. And Alex is right. It looks bad. Of course, it looks bad. But you don`t just put someone to death because it looks bad. We need a lot more -- we need evidence. You have to do a full investigation.</s>GRACE: OK.</s>KESSLER: You need to exclude --</s>GRACE: All right --</s>KESSLER: -- every possibility before you put somebody to death for a crime.</s>GRACE: OK. Who said death? Who said death penalty?</s>KESSLER: One of the reports --</s>GRACE: You brought it up, not me. I did not bring it up.</s>KESSLER: The reporter said if it`s a sex crime, they will seek the death penalty.</s>GRACE: OK, you know what? Hold on. Let`s go to John Morganelli, I`m hearing in my ear is joining me right now. He is the elected district attorney in Northampton County. Mr. Morganelli, thank you so much for being with us.</s>JOHN MORGANELLI, NORTHAMPTON CTY. PA DISTRICT ATTORNEY (via telephone): You`re welcome. It`s a pleasure to be with you.</s>GRACE: You know, Mr. Morganelli, when I first focused on this case, when I first heard about Jessica, it was right as you guys had launched the manhunt, had first launched the manhunt for this missing mom of three. Mr. Morganelli, was it snowing on the day that she went missing or just cold?</s>MORGANELLI: It was just cold, and no snow at that time. Snow started to fall at or about the day before the body was discovered.</s>GRACE: OK. Let me ask you this. You heard the defense attorneys, Mr. Morganelli -- everybody, we`re taking your calls. You are seeing a shot of missing mom of three Jessica Padgett. She`s working two jobs, one at Duck Duck Goose Child Care Center. She also works with her mom and stepfather at a fence company. She steps out of the child care center at lunchtime on her break. She`s not cutting out, it`s her break. She goes outside, we first thought to make a cell phone call to her husband. Then we find out she`s traveling to the stepfather`s home, where he lives with the mother, to send a fax. Now, the mother is in Florida at the time all of this goes down. With me, the elected DA, John Morganelli. Mr. Morganelli, what makes you think as much, as you can discuss the facts with us, that there was a sex assault?</s>MORGANELLI: Well, first of all, let me put the concerns of the defense counsel at ease. In addition to the information that you`ve developed, in the affidavit for probable cause, which is a public document now, so I`m free to mention it, he`s the one who told the investigators where the body was, where he buried this young girl, indicated he had shot her, described the caliber gun and gave some other additional information. Based upon the nature of this crime, the body, the way it was discovered, and some other information which I`m not at liberty to disclose just yet, we believe that there was a sexual motive behind this. And that sexual motive is still being developed, but it`s either during -- prior to the murder, during or a desire perhaps to have sex with a deceased body.</s>GRACE: OK, hold on just a moment. With me is John Morganelli, the elected district attorney. And as he should, he`s playing it close to the vest, cannot reveal all that he knows on national TV. But what I`m hearing is that the way the body was found suggests that either -- she had either been killed during or after a sex attack, possibly the perp having sex with her, a forced sex attack in life or with her dead body. Everyone, you are seeing a shot of the young mom of three, Jessica Padgett. There`s been a manhunt like no other for her. And as we go to air tonight, we learn that the young mom`s body has been discovered buried at the stepfather`s home.