Kidnapped Alabama Attorney Found in a Motel Room; Murder of Clemson Student Still Unsolved
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, breaking news. Just hours ago, broad daylight, a 34-year-old lady lawyer kidnapped by an armed abductor, Birmingham, Alabama, forced to drive off with him. Tonight, Sandra Gregory found alive. Repeat, she is alive. He is in Christian. Tonight, After an all-out search for attorney Sandra Gregory, we are live in Alabama. And tonight, live to South Carolina. Breaking news in the Clemson University murder co-ed mystery, police tonight releasing an incident report in the brutal strangling of 20-year-old engineering student, Tiffany Souers, Souers found dead in her off-campus apartments. Murder weapon? Her bikini top, still around her neck.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great girl, brilliant, very smart, very pretty, very wonderful person to be around, a lot of fun. She was out and dropped off, and that`s the last pretty much anyone heard or known.</s>GRACE: Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us tonight. Tonight, late-breaking details in the bikini murder mystery. Police release the incident report outlining facts around the death of a 20-year-old Clemson engineering student, strangled to death in her own apartment. But first tonight, breaking news. Live to Birmingham, Alabama. A gunman forces a 34-year-old lady lawyer into a car. Tonight, the all- points bulletin for Sandra Gregory ends, Gregory just found bound and covered with a sheet in a local motel. Tonight, we are taking your calls.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a great, great effort, great cooperation, tremendous work on the part of the Birmingham Police Department and all the other agencies that are involved. The FBI -- many federal agencies were represented here. So it came to a very successful conclusion.</s>GRACE: Let`s go straight out for the latest to Paul Finebaum, talk show host for WERC radio. Welcome. Tell us the latest.</s>PAUL FINEBAUM, TALK SHOW HOST, WERC RADIO: Well, the latest is great news. And Nancy, I like to think about a year and one day after another very pretty blonde from Birmingham, Alabama, was abducted. This one, unlike Natalee Holloway, had a very happy ending about an hour-and-a-half ago. She was found in Homeland (ph), just right outside of Birmingham, at a Comfort Inn. The police have the suspect in custody. She is unharmed, amazingly, after being with this individual, or perhaps more than that, for nine hours. But all ends well, that is well, and we`re all delighted here, as I`m sure you are.</s>GRACE: Tell us, Paul, how did the events unfold?</s>FINEBAUM: Well, she was -- apparently had dropped her daughter off at day care early this morning. She walked out. She was heading to Destin, Florida, of all things, to go to a seminar for divorce lawyers. And someone -- apparently, the assailant, a black man, grabbed her as she was walking to her Lexus SUV. As the story happened from there, he took her to three different ATM machines, where she withdrew money, and finally...</s>GRACE: Hold on. Hold on! Hold on, Paul. We are showing -- with us, Paul Finebaum with WERC. We`re showing you right now the video as it unfolds. There you see the Lexus, I believe it`s an SUV. Waiting for the action. There you see. Look very carefully over at the left. These events unfolded, as Paul Finebaum just told us, about nine hours ago. You will see the perpetrator come up on one side of the Lexus. He is armed. She is unarmed. This lady lawyer headed to Destin, Florida, to teach a seminar on divorce law, and in this open parking lot is ultimately accosted by the perpetrator. Go ahead, Paul.</s>FINEBAUM: Well, that`s what happened. And apparently, he took her to three different ATM machines, where she withdrew money. They dumped the car. It was a Lexus SUV 300, as you mentioned, Nancy. They dumped it in a project, a housing project, in Birmingham called Cooper Green (ph). And from there, we`re still not sure how they got to this motel. It`s about three miles away from where the car was deposited. That is still a mystery. Police naturally have been very tight-lipped, so we really don`t know a whole lot, unfortunately, but we do know that she`s well, and that`s really all that matters.</s>GRACE: OK, here we go. Here`s the video. There`s the perpetrator coming around, comes up to her as she`s coming from another direction, has a gun. There you see him putting her into the vehicle. Let`s take a look at this. And that is the last we see of this lady lawyer, until we get word she has gone to three ATMs. Take a listen to this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a great, great effort, great cooperation, tremendous work on the part of the Birmingham Police Department and all the other agencies that were involved. The FBI, many federal agencies are represented here. So it came to a very successful conclusion. It went down very quickly. It went down very quickly. Information was developed quickly. And once it was developed, the officers here acted on it. Members of the Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force, operated by the Marshals Service, made entry into the room and arrested the suspect and freed the victim.</s>GRACE: Right now, joining us a very special guest, going by her first name, Valerie. She is the hotel manager. Welcome, ma`am. Thank you for being with us.</s>VALERIE, COMFORT INN MANAGER: Hello. How`re you doing, Nancy?</s>GRACE: Well, I`m happy to talk to you in the flesh because if this guy had a gun when all this went down -- I tell you what, you tell me what happened.</s>VALERIE: OK. Around 1:50, I checked a gentleman in. And then about 5:15, a detective came in, showing us a picture of a young lady who was missing. And in the process of us, you know, taking a look at the picture, you know, trying to figure out have we seen her or not, I looked on our surveillance cameras of the hotel, and I seen the police just surrounding the place. You know, they were everywhere. And then, as we were looking, trying to find out -- you know, figure out what was going on, another police officer ran in, called out a room number and asked me for all the information that I had on it. And once I provided him with that information, about three -- two to three minutes later, that`s when they came and said that they have, you know, the suspect and that the young lady was OK.</s>GRACE: Valerie, I`ve been in Birmingham many, many times at your fine University of Alabama Hospital Hartwing (ph). Tell me exactly, where is your motel in relation to where she was taken?</s>VALERIE: OK. We are located in Homewood. She was taken, let`s see, I`d say about three miles, three miles from where we were.</s>GRACE: With us, a very special guest, the manager there at the Comfort Inn. Valerie, who came in? Who checked who in?</s>VALERIE: I checked them in.</s>GRACE: Were they together?</s>VALERIE: Ma`am?</s>GRACE: Were they together?</s>VALERIE: No. No, they were not together. He walked in -- the way our hotel is made, is, like, you can park at, like, the side of the building and just walk up, and we can`t see that, you know, if you`re in a vehicle or not. And he walked in alone. He came in, he asked for a room. I checked him in, took a copy of his driver`s license or his ID, or whichever one it may have been. And then I gave him the room key and he left.</s>GRACE: Did he -- and I don`t want to say his name yet because we want to make sure we`ve confirmed that. But did he use his real name that was on his ID?</s>VALERIE: Yes.</s>GRACE: And question: What was his demeanor, Valerie? Did he seem nervous? Was he sweaty? What?</s>VALERIE: He -- he wasn`t -- well, when I thought back on it -- when they came and told me the room number, I thought back to when I checked him in, and he did seem a little, you know, fidgety, like, but nothing out of the ordinary that alarmed me.</s>GRACE: When you say he was fidgety, what was he doing?</s>VALERIE: Like, putting his hands in and out of his pocket, and you know, he was kind of turning around, looking around. But it wasn`t, you know, like I say out of the ordinary because we have locals come in all the time that -- you know, that do things like that.</s>GRACE: That act pretty fidgety.</s>VALERIE: Yes. Exactly.</s>GRACE: Did he use credit card or cash?</s>VALERIE: He used cash.</s>GRACE: How much is it to stay there overnight?</s>VALERIE: Well, he had, like, a coupon rate of, like, $59.</s>GRACE: He had a coupon?</s>VALERIE: uh-huh.</s>GRACE: The man had a coupon!</s>VALERIE: He had a coupon. And I didn`t have any coupon rooms available, so I gave him the next up from the coupon rate.</s>GRACE: Where did the coupon come from? Was it in the paper, a flyer, what? The kidnapper had a coupon! I can`t believe it!</s>VALERIE: You can get it from, like, any McDonald`s or anything like that. It`s one of those traveler discount books.</s>GRACE: Holy moly! OK, so the guy comes in, pays cash, has a coupon. So how much cash did it cost him?</s>VALERIE: With tax and all, it was $70.15.</s>GRACE: So he had 70 bucks cash. You saw his ID. You knew it to be him. Seemed a little fidgety, turned around and walked off. No luggage, I assume.</s>VALERIE: No.</s>GRACE: Did he ask for any kind of special room, like one looking at the parking lot or one looking at the pool or anything like that?</s>VALERIE: No. No. He just asked for a room.</s>GRACE: Now, how much later did the police arrive?</s>VALERIE: They arrived about 5:15. That`s when the detective arrived.</s>GRACE: How much later was that than when he checked in?</s>VALERIE: That was about, what, three, four hours later because he checked in at, like, 1:50.</s>GRACE: And so you did not see the woman at all.</s>VALERIE: No, I didn`t see her at all.</s>GRACE: Did they have to drive by you to get to the hotel room?</s>VALERIE: No, they don`t. We have two different entrances that you can come in. You don`t even have to drive up to the front desk or anything like that.</s>GRACE: I wonder how he got this lady to stay in the car while he went in and checked in.</s>VALERIE: That`s what I was trying to figure out also, Nancy.</s>GRACE: I mean, for all we know, he could have threatened some kind of rampage. Liz, who`s our first caller?</s>VALERIE: I`m sorry?</s>GRACE: OK, Valerie, don`t move. I think the callers are going to have questions for you. Let`s go to Norma in Tennessee. Hi, Norma.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. I love you. Could it have been somebody...</s>GRACE: Thank you for watching.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could it have been somebody that she had in court before?</s>GRACE: Good question. Very good question. That was my first question, as a matter of fact. Let`s go out to Lisa Borden, also a veteran trial lawyer there in the Birmingham, Alabama, jurisdiction. Did you know this lady, Lisa?</s>LISA BORDEN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No, Nancy. She`s somebody who does almost exclusively domestic work -- divorces, child custody cases. And the caller`s absolutely right. This is the kind of thing that those people live in fear of constantly.</s>GRACE: They really do, Lisa. In fact, to Richard Herman, defense attorney. Everybody, Lisa Borden there on the scene in Birmingham, Alabama. One of my best friends is a defense lawyer and she -- believe it or not.</s>RICHARD HERMAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Can`t believe it.</s>GRACE: Yes, I know. But she says she would rather represent a doper than a divorce case because the people getting a divorce are fighting over child custody -- will shoot you. They will shoot the lawyer in the parking lot. Why is it, as Lisa Borden just said, does domestic law and family cases cause so much anger and stir up so much emotion?</s>HERMAN: Well, Nancy, there are visitation issues here. There are child support issues. There are alimony issues. And there`s just hatred between the parties. It just breeds this type of atmosphere. And they`ve had many problems in the past in this area, in family courts throughout the country. Very, very dangerous.</s>GRACE: To Leslie Snadowsky, investigative reporter. Do we have any indication that this was one of her clients at any point? And this is no hack lawyer cruising the courthouse halls for appointed cases. She was actually on her way to go teach a seminar on divorce law, Leslie.</s>LESLIE SNADOWSKY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, at this point, we don`t know if he was a former client. But you know, there are several things about this that made it seem like he could have been, and then some things that maybe he wasn`t. As you know, they went on this joyride. They went to three ATMs, three different Am South banks. He withdrew money...</s>GRACE: ... call it a joyride. It sounds like an extended armed robbery to me.</s>SNADOWSKY: Well, it was his joyride, not hers. And then again, if he was a client, he knew where she lived because he abducted her right in front of her home, just a couple blocks from her law practice. So I think it can go either way. At this point, authorities aren`t saying who this guy is or if, indeed...</s>GRACE: OK, wait a minute...</s>SNADOWSKY: ... relationship.</s>GRACE: Question to Paul Finebaum with WERC radio. Paul, I know she had a, if not several law partners. Do they all do family law, or were there other partners in the practice that did criminal defense, like dopers and killers and so forth?</s>FINEBAUM: Dopers would be the guy who checked into the Comfort Inn with a coupon. Nancy, I think she did primarily family law. She used to work at the Legal Aid Society of Alabama. That downsized a couple years ago, and she went into this practice, I think with one attorney. I want to correct something I may have misstated. She was going to a seminar in Destin. I don`t think, and I could be wrong, that she was going to teach the course. But clearly, she was going to a seminar on divorce law.</s>GRACE: What, Eric (ph)?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, that was our understanding, that she was headed to this seminar...</s>GRACE: OK, we have...</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... she may have been teaching...</s>GRACE: ... a conflicting report, Paul. We`ve been told she was actually teaching a seminar called "Divorce on the Beach." I`m not even going to go there! Let`s go the caller. Michael in Michigan. Hi, Michael.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.</s>GRACE: Hi, dear. What`s your question?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was just wondering if this assailant had a previous record.</s>GRACE: Well, we have his name right now. We`re trying to confirm the name before we go public with it. We don`t know if he has a rap sheet yet. But I`m willing to guess, psychotherapist Lauren Howard, not to impugn the reputation of this kind gentleman, that he`s got a rap sheet as long as the interstate because, Lauren Howard, you don`t just wake up one morning, pick up a coupon at the McDonald`s for the Comfort Inn and go, Hey, I think I`ll kidnap at gunpoint a lady lawyer, bind her head, toe and foot, cover her with her a sheet and keep her there for a while. No, he`s graduated from something else to this.</s>LAUREN HOWARD, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Well, that`s the question. I mean, this does look pretty premeditated just because he -- the sort of -- the whole accostation occurred in a kind of managed way. However, if it was really premeditated, why were there witnesses who actually identified him and saw him? Forget about the surveillance cameras...</s>GRACE: ... no premeditation?</s>HOWARD: Well, you know, it`s very easy to say that he`s someone who knew her through her work because, let`s face it, nothing`s uglier than divorce, and you want to talk about a crime of passion and what that entails. But taking her to ATMs, if the guy was thinking, he would know that he would be traced...</s>GRACE: That`s the fallacy in your reasoning. If he were thinking, he`d go get a regular job, like the rest of us, and not try to make money...</s>HERMAN: Oh, Nancy...</s>GRACE: ... with other people`s ATMs!</s>HOWARD: ... that`s not true. That is not true. Not everyone is capable of being highly functioning. I mean, we`re not saying the guy`s not maladaptive. That`s clear. That there`s no question about.</s>GRACE: Quick break, everyone. We are taking your calls. But let`s go to tonight`s "Case Alert." People of Nebraska, keep fighting! Protesters march on a city courthouse, demanding justice, demanding that Judge Kristine Cecava resign for sentencing a sex offender to straight probation. And he`s got to wear a little anklet. The judge says the convicted perv, Richard Thompson, is, quote, "too short for prison," Thompson convicted of a repeat molestation of a 12-year-old little girl. The judge says she`s concerned for his safety. Angry citizens put hundreds of signatures on petitions calling for this judge, Judge Kristine Cecava, to get a new job. People, keep fighting!