May 2, 2024 • 38 mins
Christopher Gregor, now on trial, is charged in the death of his 6-year-old son Corey Micciolo.
Gregor took his son to the hospital saying he put his son down for a nap because he was sleepy and nauseous. When Corey woke up he was stumbling, slurring his words, and having trouble breathing. Corey died at the hospital.
Surveillance video inside the gym facility at the complex where Gregor lived shows Corey running on a treadmill while Gregor turns up the speed and incline of the machine until the 6-year-old can’t keep up and falls off. Gregor lifts the boy off the ground by his shirt, holding Corey over the running treadmill.
Corey’s feet slide out from under him several times as he tries to get his footing, and Gregor appears to bite Corey on the back of the head. Corey eventually starts running again and falls from the treadmill five more times before Gregor shuts it off and they leave together.
Corey’s mother, Breanna Micciolo testified that she feared for Corey’s life. Documentation shows she made more than 100 calls and emails to the Department of Child Protection reporting abuse. Pediatrician Dr. Nancy Deacon who treated Corey days before his death, testified to what she observed.
Deacon listed a blue-grey bruise on his left cheek, a large yellow-green bruise on his left shoulder, another large yellow-green bruise on his left inner arm, and a blue bruise present on his elbow. Beyond over 12 bruises that covered Corey Micciolo's body, the doctor noted two areas on the right side of his chest, she called it two areas of hyper-pigmented skin, meaning the wound was healing but pigment had not yet returned.
JOINING NANCY TODAY:
- Jarrett Ferentino – Homicide Prosecutor; Facebook & Instagram: Jarrett Ferentino
- Dr. Bethany Marshall – Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills); X: @DrBethanyLive/ Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall; Appearing in “Paris in Love” on Peacock
- Bill Daly – Former FBI Investigator and Forensic Photography, Security Expert
- Dr. Kendall Crowns – Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth) and Lecturer: University of Texas Austin and Texas Christian University Medical School
- Nicole Partin - Crimeonline.com Investigative Reporter
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace breaking news. Tony caught on
video the sickening moment daddy physically forces his six year
old little son to on full speed on a treadmill
because he was quote too fat. That little boy, six
(00:24):
year old Corey now dead from quote chronic abuse. We
want justice. Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
Thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
By three pm, this defendant carried Corey's nearly limp body
into Southern Ocean Medical Center. You reported that Corey was
sleepy and a thrown up. Corey was admitted quickly. He
was brought to Room six in the emergency department, coded, he.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Was intubated, He quoted again, he lost his pulse, and
by five or three pm, Corey was pronounced yet well.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
At least he did manage to pull out a handkerchief
and wipe his face. I didn't see any tears, nothing.
That's the dad sitting there. I don't know that he
deserves to be called dad. When I think of dad,
I think of my father, who sacrificed everything for us.
Something stuck out in the prosecutor's opening statement right there.
(01:35):
She's given a great opening by the way, We're taking
you inside the courtroom as this case advances. She said,
everything was fine other than the bruises. The bruises, Everything
was fine, but the bruises. In what world is that? Okay?
He was fine other than the bruises. The boy is dead,
(01:55):
covered in bruises. This after caught on V forcing him
over and over and over to keep running, venting, spitting,
fuming his rage onto a six year old, frail little boy.
(02:17):
The boy is dead. You know how many people around
the world would pay everything they've got to have a
little boy like that to love. No joining me an
all star panel to make sense of what we are learning.
But first, more of that opening statement.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
This case is about Corey and how Corey became the
ultimate victim of this defendant's punishment and abuse.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And don't be mistaken, We're going to explain to you
how this was not the first time this little boy
had come home covered in bruises and scrapes and too
afraid to tell mommy what was happening. Straight out to
crimeonline dot Com investigative reporter Nicole part Nicole, what happened
Early in.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
The morning around nine am. Corey's mom, Brianna drives over
to the father's house. Corey is shared custody between mom
and dad. She kisses her son, tells him goodbye. He's
perfectly fine when he gets out of the car, and
we know that around three point forty later that afternoon,
Corey's lifeless body, unconscious, is carried into the medical center.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Why it was dad so angry? Was it because mommy
was running late?
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Listen, they were in Pennsylvania. There was a traffic and
they were running late. Ry's mom told the defendant that
but Brian, his lateness you'll hear, was pissing him off.
He told Brianna to drop Cory off at the apartment
(03:59):
complex's Jim.
Speaker 6 (04:01):
And meet him there.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So she did.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Corey and the defendant went into the gym, and you'll
see what happened next because that Jim had a surveillance system.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
And you will see what this defendant did to his
son inside.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
That Jim inside the gym. The video is speaking volumes
joining me and All Star panel to makes sense of
what we know right now. But I want to go
first to a veteran trial lawyer, former homicide prosecutor, host
of True Crime, Boss Jarrett Farentino at Jarrettfarantino dot com Jarrett.
(04:43):
Before the advent of video cams literally everywhere, there was
a very strong chance the father turned murder defendant could
have claimed that the little boy had some other accident.
Because the boy was so afraid he would never tell anyone,
not even doctors, not even teachers, not even his mother,
(05:07):
exactly what dad was doing to him. But because we
have this video surveillance, we know what dad did.
Speaker 7 (05:14):
That video surveillance speaks for Corey Nancy. That's his voice
in that courtroom. This little boy endured that abuse. You know.
The shocking thing too, is it was caught on camera,
but it was in a public place. It was a gym.
To think that he would have done this in a
gym where other people could have walked in only your
(05:34):
imagination one's wild of what has gone on behind closed
doors with this little boy and his father.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
What more do we know?
Speaker 8 (05:41):
Take a listen when Corey Micheloh returns to his mother's
after his second unsupervised visit with Christopher Gregor, the boy's
face is swollen and he has a busted lip. Gregor
offers no explanation, and Corey refuses to tell his mom
what happened. Brianna Micheloh immediately calls police and files a
report of abuse with New Jersey's Division Child Protection and Permanency.
(06:01):
Over the next twenty months, Corey continues to come home
with bruises, scrapes, black guys, and buy marks. Michelo files
seven more reports of abuse, reportedly with little response from DCPP. Emails,
texts and hundreds of calls from Brianna Michelo are unanswered.
Agents are sent to interview Corey, but always while he
is under the care of Gregor.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
What does it take before defacts Department Family Children's Services
will actually do something? How many bruises? How many cuts?
And then to interview the six year old little boy,
Corey while he's with his abuser. Do you really think
the boy is going to tell the truth to Doctor
(06:42):
Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalysts joining us out of LA at
Doctorbethanymarshall dot com. Doctor Bethany I can hardly stand to
look at these photos of abuse. Many people would refuse
to believe it if video had not caught the moment
Dad forces the six year old boy to run the
(07:04):
treamull because he says the boy is quote too fat.
If anything, the boy by the time he died was
too Do you see those bruises on your monitor. They're
all over his body, Bethany, they are all over.
Speaker 9 (07:17):
And even when the prosecutor said that the child was
fine when he was with his mother, he wasn't fine
from the standpoint that he'd probably been abused for years.
The father didn't have interest in this child until he
was four years old, and it's likely that he abused
the child for many reasons, one of which he was
to get back at the mother. He probably had a
(07:39):
rage disorder, but most importantly, he probably thought that the
child was unconditionally bad. This is at the heart of
child abuse, that the abuser feels the child as bad
and also resents that the child has needs, and that's
why they often restrict food. I've heard of abuse cases
where families actually put a padlock on the refrigerator because
(08:03):
they do not want the child to eat. So this
child was abused in so many ways, and you know,
it's interesting there was that strange mark on his forehead
that the mother reported. In abuse cases, one of the
things we see are marks that do not fit any
particular patterns, such as a fall or something like that.
Often they are on both sides of the body when
(08:25):
a child falls or there was an accident, so the
bruises will be on the one side. But in this
case we see bruises all over and on both sides,
and also bite marks. That's quite common, and it seems
that that strange mark on the forehead might have been
a bite mark.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
In the opening statements, we hear the prosecutor state that
there's biding. I've never heard of an adult biting the child.
But I'm looking now at the official warrant the state
of New Jersey versus Christopher greg Or, that's the father,
and it states here that specifically he forced the child
(09:01):
to run the treadmill, increasing the speed, putting the child
on the treadmill while it was going full blast anyway,
causing maybe to fall, placing it back on, and appearing
to quote bite his head. That I've never heard of
biting your child, doctor Bethany.
Speaker 9 (09:19):
Believe it or not, it is a common sign of abuse.
And think about it. What is biting? What does that mean?
It's a sign of rage. It's primitive, It's kind of explosive,
like the person is so angry. All they want to
do is sink their teeth into the other person. That
gives us great insight into the state of mind of
(09:42):
this father. This child should never have been left alone
with this man.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I want you to hear what the mom says on
the stand under oath.
Speaker 10 (09:51):
Did you speak to Corey in the car before you
sent him into the defendant's hall? I did? And was
that the last time that you spoke to Corey? Was
did Corey exit your car?
Speaker 11 (10:08):
He did?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
And can you tellagers or Corey walks.
Speaker 9 (10:13):
You walked inside defendant someone?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
You're hearing the mom on the stand. I find it
very interesting that dad never seems upset in the courtroom.
He looks more angry than anything else. To Bill Dealey,
former FBI investigator specialty forensic photography security expert, Bill, thank
(10:36):
you for being with us. I'm telling you no one
would have believed this without the video. Why because Corey,
aged six, would never write out his dad, even though
he came home over and over and over covered in bruises,
horrible scrapes up and down his arm. Did you see
where his eye actually his eye was bleeding on the
(11:00):
inside of the eye. I mean, how much does it
take Bill daily before somebody will listen. Now the boy
is dead. Corey is dead at six years old.
Speaker 12 (11:12):
Bill, Yeah, Nancy, And this heartbreaking story obviously has his
long litany of images that were created, not just by
the mother, which, of course in the defense defense turns
hands is going to be kind of twisted around. But
that video taken by just a totally independent operation the
gym to convey what happened. So he pieced us all together,
(11:33):
and you put together a timeline and from a forensic standpoint,
and I don't want to speak to forensic pathology, but
certainly a lot will not play into the cause of
death and exactly what led to his.
Speaker 11 (11:47):
I guess media.
Speaker 12 (11:49):
First of all, he couldn't speak, he couldn't carry himself
with you stumbling, and then eventually he kind of became
limp and went into the emergency room.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Straight out to doctor Kendall Crown's chief medical examiner, Parent
County that's Fort Worth has conducted over ten thousand autopsies.
Lecturer University Texas Christian Medical School, doctor Crowns, thank you
for being with us. You heard what the mother just
testified to on the stand under oath that the dad
(12:18):
for what good it is, states Corey was lethargic, his
legs were hurting, sleeping all day and throwing up. What
does that mean?
Speaker 13 (12:29):
So it could mean a number of things. But with
the video that you've shown, with the extreme amount of
exercise that's going on, you can have to question whether
the child's dehydrated, becoming lethargic because he's exhausted, not getting
any fluid intake, and then getting a low sodium if
you will, and becoming overall just dehydrated, which can lead
(12:52):
to death in itself.
Speaker 11 (12:53):
But then you add on top of that the.
Speaker 13 (12:55):
Bruises and the other injuries, there could be other things
going on internally that could be making him look thargic
and tired.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Doctor Crown's, I want you to hear what we have
learned about the initial autopsy. Listen.
Speaker 14 (13:09):
The initial autopsy reveals that Corey died as a result
of blunt force injuries with cardiac and liver contusions, along
with inflammation and sepsis. The Ocean County Medical Examiner lists
the manner of death as undetermined. A forensic pathologist performs
a second autopsy, confirming the blunt force trauma and injuries
to Corey's liver and heart. The Pathologists found evidence that
(13:29):
Corey was chronically abused and believed he suffered an acute
traumatic injury to his heart four to twelve hours before
his death. Corey's death is reclassified as a homicide.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Wow, doctor Kendall Crowns, what does that mean? Liver contusions,
blunt force injuries, cardiac contusions. I thought a contusion was
like a blow, like when you have blunt force contusion,
inflammation sepsis.
Speaker 13 (13:58):
That's a lot in Tusians are essentially bruises. It's just
a fancier t arm. So when you see contusions of
the heart and liver, that means there was a blow
to the chest or the abdomen that was significant enough
that it bruised the actual internal organs themselves. Sometimes with
those you can get splitting of the organ, which causes
internal hemorrhage to be associated with it. One thing you
(14:20):
have to be concerned of with children is if they
have a lot of bruises on their skin, they don't
have a large circulating amount of blood. So the more
bruises they have, the more bloods going into these bruises,
the more likelihood they're going to die from just the
beating alone. But then you have internal injuries as well
as well as the extreme exercise that the child was
(14:42):
being forced to do. So you have all that combined
as why he's dying from blunt force injuries. Then on
top of that, you have sepsis, which is an infectious component,
and that can be a result from neglect or something
along those lines. Is where he gets a disease and
gets an infectious disease and then passes away.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So a contusion is in vernacular common speech, a bruise,
is that right?
Speaker 11 (15:12):
That's correct? Correct?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Okay, So how exactly do you get contusions on your
liver and cardiac contusions? What's a cardiac contusion? A bruise
on your.
Speaker 11 (15:26):
Heart, that's correct.
Speaker 13 (15:27):
It's a bruise on the outer surface of the heart,
which is called the epicardium. So you have a bruise
on the outer surface, and that's from a very hard
punch to the chest that causes the chest wall to
push in and actually bruise the heart. You have to
remember too, with kids that their bone structure is a
lot more appliable because your bones get harder over time,
(15:48):
so when little kids have a lot more appliability.
Speaker 11 (15:50):
In their chests.
Speaker 13 (15:51):
So if they're hit hard enough in the chest, they
can get a bruise on their heart. The liver is
a little easier to bruise because your liver isn't completely
protected by your ribcage. So if you're punched in the
abdomen kind of upper abdomen area, you can get those
bruises or injuries to the liver as well.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
If you have a serious bruise on the right side
of your stomach, let me just say, three four inches
above your hip bone, is that your liver? But where
is your liver?
Speaker 13 (16:23):
So liver is on the right side of your body.
It has it's very large on the right side, then
becomes more smaller as you go to the left. But
it's kind of sitting right across your mid abdomen with
the larger portion of it being in your upper and
the mid right abdomen is where your liver would be located.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And why would there be that excess is bleeding? Doctor
Kendall Crown's what is underneath the skin there left side,
just above the waistband, going toward your.
Speaker 13 (16:57):
Back, left side, just above your waistband could be spleen.
Speaker 11 (17:01):
It could be.
Speaker 13 (17:01):
Kidney also in testines as well. Also again. You know
you're mentioning the fact that he looks very bony. He is,
he is doing an extreme amount of exercise for a
child of his age on that treadmill.
Speaker 11 (17:13):
Just in those scenes we're seeing, you.
Speaker 13 (17:15):
Got to figure there's more of that going on behind
the scenes.
Speaker 10 (17:18):
After the phone conversation, did you know at that time
what the hospital Corey was taken to?
Speaker 11 (17:24):
No?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And at that time, what did you do?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I started calling the hospitals to see if Corey was there.
Speaker 9 (17:32):
I also called my local police department to.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Kind of report Corey as like, I don't know where
he is and he's not feeling pretty sick.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
You are seeing the mom on the stand breaking down
in tears, and she describes her ex calling her and
telling her their son, their six year old son is
in the hospital, but not telling her refusing to tell
her which hospital. To doctor Bethany Marshall, that's just another
form of torture. If somebody called me and told me John,
(18:08):
David or Lucy were in the hospital and wouldn't tell
me where. Can you even imagine trying to find somebody
in an.
Speaker 9 (18:15):
Er, Nancy. This just shows the animosity towards the mother
as well as the child. And one of the things
we frequently see in child abusers is that they want
to dominate and control the child. They hate the child,
they want to start the child. They sometimes commit death
by exercise, but they want to dominate and control. So
(18:36):
this is just another form of abuse, as you just
now pointed out, depriving the mother of knowledge about.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Her own son. Crime stories with Nancy Grace, I want
to go back to doctor Tyndall Crown's. Crowns, I think
we've identified I'm waiting for that video, the moment when
(19:05):
the dad actually bites the little boy, actually bites his son.
Hold it, wait, wait, wait, he puts him back on
the treadmill is still going fast. Look there, right there,
he's using both hands to restrain the boy. All he's
got left are his teeth and he for the boy.
(19:28):
He tries to shrink down. Corey shrinks down to try
to get away from the bite, but the dad is
actually biting him. As the rage is boiling over and
because his hands and feet are occupied, he bites the boy.
(19:49):
Doctor Kendall Crowns, have you ever seen anything like it?
Speaker 11 (19:53):
Yes? I have.
Speaker 13 (19:54):
In tild Toby's cases, occasionally you will get ones that
have bites on the face, neck, extremities, chest back. I've
seen it on any surface of the body. But as
Darktor Marshall mentioned earlier, the rage associated with the child
abuse can often spoil over into just biting, and you
are kind of seeing that in this case as well
(20:15):
as his hands are occupied, so the only thing he
has left to do is bite.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Stars just what this child has been through, Doctor Bethany,
when we're showing the bruises on his right side, and
then we learn part of the cod because of death
is bruising to deliver. That was what that bruise is
(20:41):
actual bruising to his heart. And then being able to
really look and examine the video and you see his
own bio dad holding him by the arms and forcibly
biting him in the head.
Speaker 9 (21:00):
You know, Nancy, this father had prolonged rage and contempt
for this child. Like I said earlier, he wanted to
bring the child under his control so he could torture him. Nancy,
you and I have covered so many cases where there
is death by exercise. Many years ago, a little girl
whose stepmother forced her to just walk and walk and
(21:22):
walk endlessly, and eventually the little girl died and in
this kind of a case, you know, we see it's
not just you know, all parents get angry with their
children now and again, but it's temporary. Then the parent withdraws,
they calm themselves down, they reason, they talk with the
other parent, and it's just momentary. They don't hit the child.
But in this case, the child was at actually an
(21:44):
object used to disperse rage and hatred towards the child,
towards the mother, towards god knows, you know what, Nancy.
When I see this dad in court, maybe I shouldn't
say this, but he looks a little roided out to me,
like he looks like he's on steroid. There's something like
a natural you know, jawline, huge shoulders, you know, that
(22:05):
can produce rage. But notwithstanding the size of the dad
compared to this little boy, and you know, sadly, Nancy,
the mental state of this little boy is probably that
he feels like he's bad, guilty, he deserves to be punished.
I am a bad little boy, and if I don't
(22:27):
keep this secret, Dad's going to hit me even more,
because that means I'll be really, really, really bad. So
one of the things we can't measure is the state
of mind of the child and what happens in his
mind and psychologically as a result of the abuse.
Speaker 6 (22:43):
The day after Corey's examination by a pediatrician, Christopher Gregor
tells Brianna Mitchello that Corey is feeling bad. The six
year old is sleepy and nauseous. Gregor puts Corey down
for a nap, and when he wakes up, Corey is stumbling,
slurring his words, and is having trouble breathing. Gregor takes
the boy to Southern Ocean Medical Center, where he's quickly
admitted and intubated. Doctors take Corey for a CT scan.
(23:06):
During the scan, Corey starts seizing and losing his pulse.
Medical staff administer life saving efforts but cannot revive Corey.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
You, doctor Kendall Crowns, Remember you're speaking to a panel
of laypeople, and I'm trying to figure out how bruising,
even if to the heart or the liver, causes someone
to become sleepy and nauseous. It sounds like a brain bleed,
but I know that that's not the CEOD cause of death.
(23:34):
But I know that happens when you have a brain bleed.
Then he is stumbling slurring his words, he's having trouble breathing.
So how does that relate to the essentially beating he
took on that treadmill, the biting, the beating, the blows.
How does that end up resulting in stumbling, slurring, having
(24:00):
trouble breathing, sleepy nausea.
Speaker 11 (24:02):
Well, so I would agree with you that it does.
Speaker 13 (24:04):
Those symptoms sound more like a head injury than they
do an abdomen or chest injury. But again with the
extreme exercise, I do think he's potentially dehydrated, possibly getting
confused from the dehydration, and then he is The father
becomes enraged and beats him, and then he probably becomes
on responsive.
Speaker 11 (24:24):
Dad takes him to the hospital.
Speaker 13 (24:26):
So the initial symptoms of he's confused lethargic are what
causes the dad to become enraged and starts hitting him.
Speaker 11 (24:34):
Another thing.
Speaker 14 (24:36):
Brianna Mitchello drives to Christopher Gregor's Barnegut apartment for a
shortened visit with Corey three days after dropping him off
with Gregor at the fitness center, Mitchello notices odd bruises
and scrapes on Corey's forehead and chest. Corey won't tell
her what happened, but seems upset and scared. Mitchelloh files
another abuse complaint and for emergency custody with DCPP. Mitchello
(24:58):
also schedules a doctor's appointment for Corey during her next
parenting time. Through tears, Corey tells the doctor about the
treadmill incident and says Gregor forced him to run because
he was too fat. The doctor notes fourteen bruises or
scrapes on Corey's body, but the rest of his tests
come back normal. Mitchello's request for emergency custody is denied
and she returns Corey to Gregor the next morning.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Can you even imagine mommy makes an emergency request for
custody and she is denied and it was just emergency,
temporary custody until there could be a full hearing. She
was denied, and now the boy is dead. Fail fail
(25:40):
fail by the system. But that's not all. Listen.
Speaker 8 (25:46):
Pediatrician doctor Nancy Deacon saw Corey Michelo on April first,
one day before he passed, and during her court testimony
she lists out all of the bruises and other injuries
present on the boy's body. Doctor Deacon listed a blue
gray bruise on his left cheek, a large yellow green
bruise on his left shoulder, another large yellow green bruise
on his left inner arm, a blue bruise present on
(26:09):
his elbow. Beyond over twelve bruises that covered Corey Michelo's body,
the doctor noted two areas on the right side of
his chest that she called it two areas of hyper
pigmented skin, meaning the wound was healing, but pigment had
not yet returned yet.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
For some reason, For some reason, Corey gets sent back
to his dad and now he is dead. By Treadmill
telling the little boy he was quote too fat, I
could see the bones coming out of his back. To
Jarrett Fiorentino, high profile lawyer, former homicide prosecutor, and host
(26:47):
of podcast True Crime Boss Jarrett Farentino, I know that
you have interviewed many, many child victims and child witnesses,
and you have to unlock their story. They don't talk
like we do. For instance, if you're trying to get
a date to put on an indictment, you have to
(27:08):
say things like was the Christmas tree up? Did the
Easter bunny come? Was? Did you have the American flag
red white and blue out? Was it around July the fourth.
That's just an example, and I remember the very last thing.
Typically a child would say, I would say who did this?
(27:29):
Who did this? Who made this bruise? Who made you
take off your underwear? Who? And there'd be a long
pause and they would say fill in the blank, Daddy
or Uncle Jim, or whoever the perp was. It's very hard,
difficult to get that out of a child, especially the
(27:50):
child loves the parent, even when the parent is abusing the.
Speaker 7 (27:54):
Child, absolutely, Nancy, And oftentimes they look down and you
know the truth is coming. But when a child can't speak,
if Corey could not or would not say what happened
to him? Just from head to toe, this little boy
had bruising at various levels of healing, which is in
dishe of chronic abuse. The system failled this little boy tremendously.
Speaker 15 (28:19):
It's so sad to listen to the account of those
injuries and those interviews. If you couldn't get it out
of Corey, the physicians or whoever examined this little boy,
or a judge that looked at that emergency petition should
have absolutely it should have spoke.
Speaker 11 (28:35):
Volumes for that.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Crime stories with Nancy gray, Doctor Bethny Marshall. I recall
an animal abuse case I looked at and in the case,
they perp was sitting bebes at the dog in rapid succession,
(29:07):
like a lot like twenty thirty Bebes right at the dog,
and the dog, instead of running would be was on
all fours down, crawling toward the master, wagging the tail
and yelping with pain, not running away. And look, I'm
(29:30):
just a JD. You're the shrink. What does it mean
when the victim is still so deeply attached to the abuser?
Corey wouldn't tell that his dad was doing this. He
finally did tell, you know, the doctor ultimately at first
trying to blame it on playing football with his dad,
and then finally mentioned the treadmill incident. But what is that?
(29:55):
Why do we humans and pets do that we call
go toward our adezer.
Speaker 9 (30:03):
I know it's so tragic, and you said so beautifully earlier,
this little boy loved his dad. Of course, we are
wired to connect. That's how we survived as a species,
is that we bonded with our caregivers. And it's well
known that when you interview a child victim, you or
even an adult victim. You can't start with daddy as
(30:24):
bad or your husband hit you, because that person has
had some good experiences, believe it or not, with the abuser,
Daddy through the football. Daddy maybe told him a bedtime story,
Daddy fed him, so.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
That dad is not all bad to the child.
Speaker 9 (30:43):
And this is a very important thing to remember whenever,
let's say you have a friend who's in an abusive
relationship or or a church fellow church member, to not say, well,
why are you with him? Or he's a horrible person,
but to try to acknowledge both sides of their experience
so with that person, because that is actually more genuine
and true and will align them with you, and it
(31:04):
will give you a better chance of helping them.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Joining us is an investigative reporter with Crime Online, Nicole Parton.
Nicole not only investigating cases, but very very familiar with
the foster system. Why is it it takes so long, Nicole?
And you've seen it over and over and over for
children to actually be removed from an abusive parent.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
So many cases, and in this case, if you count
up the number of times that Brianna reported the abuse,
over one hundred times she made calls she was doing
everything she could to report the abuse of her son.
One day before Corey's death, she was denied that emergency
(31:50):
hearing to have him temporarily removed. The system failed, his
father failed, but the system failed little Corey tremendously and
he paid the ultimate sacrifice for that.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Nancy.
Speaker 9 (32:02):
Can I be a good comment about that?
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, John Penn, and I want to clarify what I heard, Bethany.
I think that's you that he was reported over one
hundred times. Did I hear that correctly? That's right, that's right.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
There were many hundred, one hundred calls, over one hundred
that were made, not only from Corey's mother, from Corey's
school teacher who had said, there's abuse, there's neglect, there's
an abuse, a repeated number of phone calls coming into
the Department of Children, and just one day before his death,
the judge denied that emergency hearing.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Bethany.
Speaker 9 (32:35):
You know, Nancy, I see this all the time in
my practice. Parents who are reporting abuse, and you know
what happens is that they eventually become paranoid, obsessed, and
they kind of look and sound crazy, like they discredit
themselves in some ways because they are so up set,
a parent's job is to protect a child, and here
(32:58):
the system is actually interfering with the maternal instinct, the
drive to protect, and so that the more the parent
pleads child protective services, the more they're kind of dismissed
and devalued as being just sort of a crazy parent
or a part of a domestic abuse situation. And I
(33:19):
think that there has to be better training that parents
whose children are being abused often present with a lot
of anxiety, a lot of panic, a lot of paranoia,
and that that is the most credible sign that they
are telling the truth.
Speaker 8 (33:33):
On March thirty first, twenty twenty one, Michelo filed paperwork
seeking emergency custody of Corey while DCPP investigated her latest
allegation of abuse. The agency had seen the video of
Corey running on the treadmill, and a caseworker later told
police that he had photographed and investigated bruising on Corey
six days after the alleged incident. Our report submitted by
(33:54):
DCPP about the March twenty incident played a crucial role
in the judge's decision, which said the court does not
find that Corey is in danger of imminent and irreparable harm. Therefore,
the Court does not find a temporary modification of the
party's custody and parenting time arrangement appropriate at this time.
Michel left Corey with his father the morning of April second,
(34:15):
twenty twenty one. At three point thirty that afternoon, Gregor
told them mom he was taking Corey to the hospital.
Two hours later, Corey died.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Another judge, with his head up his rear end, does
not find Corey in danger of imminent harm and refuses
to modify visitation. The mom forced to leave the six
year old boy with dad. The afternoon, he goes to
(34:43):
the er and dies. Why is the judge still on
the bench, Just confused, concerned? And also, I want you
to hear the teacher one more time. Is not just
the mom they're making look crazy because she's reported dad
one hundred times over twenty months. The teacher raised the
(35:05):
red bell of alarm, but nobody listened. Listened to Kim Peace,
this is Corey's first grade teacher, and I want you
to notice that she sees the bruises and Corey is
then kept on virtual learning remote Listen, what.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
If any observations did you make of Corey? When you
saw him virtually on March twenty.
Speaker 9 (35:28):
Ninth, I saw, I saw bruises on his cheek.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Is that the same as what you were describing from
March twenty third? Now that and did Corey attend school virtually.
Speaker 9 (35:41):
On March thirtieth?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Did you observe him?
Speaker 11 (35:45):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (35:45):
What if any observations did you.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Make the bruising the teacher? The first grade teacher, You know,
you expect the teacher to be sending home construction paper
r and checks and big stars on the child papers
they do at school. Instead first grade teachers on the
stand describing day after day after day bruising on this boy.
(36:09):
Did you hear the prosecutor she's really good, state Hey,
is that the same bruises as you described on March
twenty three? And she goes, oh no, this is March thirty.
By this time, they were keeping him home on remote.
Did you see daddy not even shed one tear?
Speaker 9 (36:24):
Nancy? I also noticed that the dad looked quizzical, like
he was so stumped by how this could have happened?
Was I was scanning his face and he kind of
looks like a person who's, you know, the pathological liar,
the abuser. The criminality, a person who has criminality and
(36:45):
you ask him about the crime and they go, H,
what me, I never did that. It's almost like he's
playing a role in court.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
The boy is dead, Corey is dead. That trial happening.
Now we stop to remember American hero Deputy Shearif Tobin Bolter.
Just twenty seven, Sheriff Bolter was shot while conducting a
(37:14):
routine traffic stop Boise, Idaho. A father to be, Sheriff
Bolter expecting a new baby with his wife. He leaves
behind his grieving wife Abby and his unborn baby and
his family. American hero Deputy share of Tobin Bolter. I
(37:39):
want to thank our guests for being with us in
this extremely difficult case to cover. But I want to
thank you for being with us tonight and facing the facts.
Nancy Gray signing off, good night friend,
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace breaking news. Tony caught on
video the sickening moment daddy physically forces his six year
old little son to on full speed on a treadmill
because he was quote too fat. That little boy, six
(00:24):
year old Corey now dead from quote chronic abuse. We
want justice. Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.
Thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
By three pm, this defendant carried Corey's nearly limp body
into Southern Ocean Medical Center. You reported that Corey was
sleepy and a thrown up. Corey was admitted quickly. He
was brought to Room six in the emergency department, coded, he.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Was intubated, He quoted again, he lost his pulse, and
by five or three pm, Corey was pronounced yet well.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
At least he did manage to pull out a handkerchief
and wipe his face. I didn't see any tears, nothing.
That's the dad sitting there. I don't know that he
deserves to be called dad. When I think of dad,
I think of my father, who sacrificed everything for us.
Something stuck out in the prosecutor's opening statement right there.
(01:35):
She's given a great opening by the way, We're taking
you inside the courtroom as this case advances. She said,
everything was fine other than the bruises. The bruises, Everything
was fine, but the bruises. In what world is that? Okay?
He was fine other than the bruises. The boy is dead,
(01:55):
covered in bruises. This after caught on V forcing him
over and over and over to keep running, venting, spitting,
fuming his rage onto a six year old, frail little boy.
(02:17):
The boy is dead. You know how many people around
the world would pay everything they've got to have a
little boy like that to love. No joining me an
all star panel to make sense of what we are learning.
But first, more of that opening statement.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
This case is about Corey and how Corey became the
ultimate victim of this defendant's punishment and abuse.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And don't be mistaken, We're going to explain to you
how this was not the first time this little boy
had come home covered in bruises and scrapes and too
afraid to tell mommy what was happening. Straight out to
crimeonline dot Com investigative reporter Nicole part Nicole, what happened
Early in.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
The morning around nine am. Corey's mom, Brianna drives over
to the father's house. Corey is shared custody between mom
and dad. She kisses her son, tells him goodbye. He's
perfectly fine when he gets out of the car, and
we know that around three point forty later that afternoon,
Corey's lifeless body, unconscious, is carried into the medical center.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Why it was dad so angry? Was it because mommy
was running late?
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Listen, they were in Pennsylvania. There was a traffic and
they were running late. Ry's mom told the defendant that
but Brian, his lateness you'll hear, was pissing him off.
He told Brianna to drop Cory off at the apartment
(03:59):
complex's Jim.
Speaker 6 (04:01):
And meet him there.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So she did.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Corey and the defendant went into the gym, and you'll
see what happened next because that Jim had a surveillance system.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
And you will see what this defendant did to his
son inside.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
That Jim inside the gym. The video is speaking volumes
joining me and All Star panel to makes sense of
what we know right now. But I want to go
first to a veteran trial lawyer, former homicide prosecutor, host
of True Crime, Boss Jarrett Farentino at Jarrettfarantino dot com Jarrett.
(04:43):
Before the advent of video cams literally everywhere, there was
a very strong chance the father turned murder defendant could
have claimed that the little boy had some other accident.
Because the boy was so afraid he would never tell anyone,
not even doctors, not even teachers, not even his mother,
(05:07):
exactly what dad was doing to him. But because we
have this video surveillance, we know what dad did.
Speaker 7 (05:14):
That video surveillance speaks for Corey Nancy. That's his voice
in that courtroom. This little boy endured that abuse. You know.
The shocking thing too, is it was caught on camera,
but it was in a public place. It was a gym.
To think that he would have done this in a
gym where other people could have walked in only your
(05:34):
imagination one's wild of what has gone on behind closed
doors with this little boy and his father.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
What more do we know?
Speaker 8 (05:41):
Take a listen when Corey Micheloh returns to his mother's
after his second unsupervised visit with Christopher Gregor, the boy's
face is swollen and he has a busted lip. Gregor
offers no explanation, and Corey refuses to tell his mom
what happened. Brianna Micheloh immediately calls police and files a
report of abuse with New Jersey's Division Child Protection and Permanency.
(06:01):
Over the next twenty months, Corey continues to come home
with bruises, scrapes, black guys, and buy marks. Michelo files
seven more reports of abuse, reportedly with little response from DCPP. Emails,
texts and hundreds of calls from Brianna Michelo are unanswered.
Agents are sent to interview Corey, but always while he
is under the care of Gregor.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
What does it take before defacts Department Family Children's Services
will actually do something? How many bruises? How many cuts?
And then to interview the six year old little boy,
Corey while he's with his abuser. Do you really think
the boy is going to tell the truth to Doctor
(06:42):
Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalysts joining us out of LA at
Doctorbethanymarshall dot com. Doctor Bethany I can hardly stand to
look at these photos of abuse. Many people would refuse
to believe it if video had not caught the moment
Dad forces the six year old boy to run the
(07:04):
treamull because he says the boy is quote too fat.
If anything, the boy by the time he died was
too Do you see those bruises on your monitor. They're
all over his body, Bethany, they are all over.
Speaker 9 (07:17):
And even when the prosecutor said that the child was
fine when he was with his mother, he wasn't fine
from the standpoint that he'd probably been abused for years.
The father didn't have interest in this child until he
was four years old, and it's likely that he abused
the child for many reasons, one of which he was
to get back at the mother. He probably had a
(07:39):
rage disorder, but most importantly, he probably thought that the
child was unconditionally bad. This is at the heart of
child abuse, that the abuser feels the child as bad
and also resents that the child has needs, and that's
why they often restrict food. I've heard of abuse cases
where families actually put a padlock on the refrigerator because
(08:03):
they do not want the child to eat. So this
child was abused in so many ways, and you know,
it's interesting there was that strange mark on his forehead
that the mother reported. In abuse cases, one of the
things we see are marks that do not fit any
particular patterns, such as a fall or something like that.
Often they are on both sides of the body when
(08:25):
a child falls or there was an accident, so the
bruises will be on the one side. But in this
case we see bruises all over and on both sides,
and also bite marks. That's quite common, and it seems
that that strange mark on the forehead might have been
a bite mark.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
In the opening statements, we hear the prosecutor state that
there's biding. I've never heard of an adult biting the child.
But I'm looking now at the official warrant the state
of New Jersey versus Christopher greg Or, that's the father,
and it states here that specifically he forced the child
(09:01):
to run the treadmill, increasing the speed, putting the child
on the treadmill while it was going full blast anyway,
causing maybe to fall, placing it back on, and appearing
to quote bite his head. That I've never heard of
biting your child, doctor Bethany.
Speaker 9 (09:19):
Believe it or not, it is a common sign of abuse.
And think about it. What is biting? What does that mean?
It's a sign of rage. It's primitive, It's kind of explosive,
like the person is so angry. All they want to
do is sink their teeth into the other person. That
gives us great insight into the state of mind of
(09:42):
this father. This child should never have been left alone
with this man.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I want you to hear what the mom says on
the stand under oath.
Speaker 10 (09:51):
Did you speak to Corey in the car before you
sent him into the defendant's hall? I did? And was
that the last time that you spoke to Corey? Was
did Corey exit your car?
Speaker 11 (10:08):
He did?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
And can you tellagers or Corey walks.
Speaker 9 (10:13):
You walked inside defendant someone?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
You're hearing the mom on the stand. I find it
very interesting that dad never seems upset in the courtroom.
He looks more angry than anything else. To Bill Dealey,
former FBI investigator specialty forensic photography security expert, Bill, thank
(10:36):
you for being with us. I'm telling you no one
would have believed this without the video. Why because Corey,
aged six, would never write out his dad, even though
he came home over and over and over covered in bruises,
horrible scrapes up and down his arm. Did you see
where his eye actually his eye was bleeding on the
(11:00):
inside of the eye. I mean, how much does it
take Bill daily before somebody will listen. Now the boy
is dead. Corey is dead at six years old.
Speaker 12 (11:12):
Bill, Yeah, Nancy, And this heartbreaking story obviously has his
long litany of images that were created, not just by
the mother, which, of course in the defense defense turns
hands is going to be kind of twisted around. But
that video taken by just a totally independent operation the
gym to convey what happened. So he pieced us all together,
(11:33):
and you put together a timeline and from a forensic standpoint,
and I don't want to speak to forensic pathology, but
certainly a lot will not play into the cause of
death and exactly what led to his.
Speaker 11 (11:47):
I guess media.
Speaker 12 (11:49):
First of all, he couldn't speak, he couldn't carry himself
with you stumbling, and then eventually he kind of became
limp and went into the emergency room.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Straight out to doctor Kendall Crown's chief medical examiner, Parent
County that's Fort Worth has conducted over ten thousand autopsies.
Lecturer University Texas Christian Medical School, doctor Crowns, thank you
for being with us. You heard what the mother just
testified to on the stand under oath that the dad
(12:18):
for what good it is, states Corey was lethargic, his
legs were hurting, sleeping all day and throwing up. What
does that mean?
Speaker 13 (12:29):
So it could mean a number of things. But with
the video that you've shown, with the extreme amount of
exercise that's going on, you can have to question whether
the child's dehydrated, becoming lethargic because he's exhausted, not getting
any fluid intake, and then getting a low sodium if
you will, and becoming overall just dehydrated, which can lead
(12:52):
to death in itself.
Speaker 11 (12:53):
But then you add on top of that the.
Speaker 13 (12:55):
Bruises and the other injuries, there could be other things
going on internally that could be making him look thargic
and tired.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Doctor Crown's, I want you to hear what we have
learned about the initial autopsy. Listen.
Speaker 14 (13:09):
The initial autopsy reveals that Corey died as a result
of blunt force injuries with cardiac and liver contusions, along
with inflammation and sepsis. The Ocean County Medical Examiner lists
the manner of death as undetermined. A forensic pathologist performs
a second autopsy, confirming the blunt force trauma and injuries
to Corey's liver and heart. The Pathologists found evidence that
(13:29):
Corey was chronically abused and believed he suffered an acute
traumatic injury to his heart four to twelve hours before
his death. Corey's death is reclassified as a homicide.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Wow, doctor Kendall Crowns, what does that mean? Liver contusions,
blunt force injuries, cardiac contusions. I thought a contusion was
like a blow, like when you have blunt force contusion,
inflammation sepsis.
Speaker 13 (13:58):
That's a lot in Tusians are essentially bruises. It's just
a fancier t arm. So when you see contusions of
the heart and liver, that means there was a blow
to the chest or the abdomen that was significant enough
that it bruised the actual internal organs themselves. Sometimes with
those you can get splitting of the organ, which causes
internal hemorrhage to be associated with it. One thing you
(14:20):
have to be concerned of with children is if they
have a lot of bruises on their skin, they don't
have a large circulating amount of blood. So the more
bruises they have, the more bloods going into these bruises,
the more likelihood they're going to die from just the
beating alone. But then you have internal injuries as well
as well as the extreme exercise that the child was
(14:42):
being forced to do. So you have all that combined
as why he's dying from blunt force injuries. Then on
top of that, you have sepsis, which is an infectious component,
and that can be a result from neglect or something
along those lines. Is where he gets a disease and
gets an infectious disease and then passes away.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So a contusion is in vernacular common speech, a bruise,
is that right?
Speaker 11 (15:12):
That's correct? Correct?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Okay, So how exactly do you get contusions on your
liver and cardiac contusions? What's a cardiac contusion? A bruise
on your.
Speaker 11 (15:26):
Heart, that's correct.
Speaker 13 (15:27):
It's a bruise on the outer surface of the heart,
which is called the epicardium. So you have a bruise
on the outer surface, and that's from a very hard
punch to the chest that causes the chest wall to
push in and actually bruise the heart. You have to
remember too, with kids that their bone structure is a
lot more appliable because your bones get harder over time,
(15:48):
so when little kids have a lot more appliability.
Speaker 11 (15:50):
In their chests.
Speaker 13 (15:51):
So if they're hit hard enough in the chest, they
can get a bruise on their heart. The liver is
a little easier to bruise because your liver isn't completely
protected by your ribcage. So if you're punched in the
abdomen kind of upper abdomen area, you can get those
bruises or injuries to the liver as well.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
If you have a serious bruise on the right side
of your stomach, let me just say, three four inches
above your hip bone, is that your liver? But where
is your liver?
Speaker 13 (16:23):
So liver is on the right side of your body.
It has it's very large on the right side, then
becomes more smaller as you go to the left. But
it's kind of sitting right across your mid abdomen with
the larger portion of it being in your upper and
the mid right abdomen is where your liver would be located.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And why would there be that excess is bleeding? Doctor
Kendall Crown's what is underneath the skin there left side,
just above the waistband, going toward your.
Speaker 13 (16:57):
Back, left side, just above your waistband could be spleen.
Speaker 11 (17:01):
It could be.
Speaker 13 (17:01):
Kidney also in testines as well. Also again. You know
you're mentioning the fact that he looks very bony. He is,
he is doing an extreme amount of exercise for a
child of his age on that treadmill.
Speaker 11 (17:13):
Just in those scenes we're seeing, you.
Speaker 13 (17:15):
Got to figure there's more of that going on behind
the scenes.
Speaker 10 (17:18):
After the phone conversation, did you know at that time
what the hospital Corey was taken to?
Speaker 11 (17:24):
No?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And at that time, what did you do?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I started calling the hospitals to see if Corey was there.
Speaker 9 (17:32):
I also called my local police department to.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Kind of report Corey as like, I don't know where
he is and he's not feeling pretty sick.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
You are seeing the mom on the stand breaking down
in tears, and she describes her ex calling her and
telling her their son, their six year old son is
in the hospital, but not telling her refusing to tell
her which hospital. To doctor Bethany Marshall, that's just another
form of torture. If somebody called me and told me John,
(18:08):
David or Lucy were in the hospital and wouldn't tell
me where. Can you even imagine trying to find somebody
in an.
Speaker 9 (18:15):
Er, Nancy. This just shows the animosity towards the mother
as well as the child. And one of the things
we frequently see in child abusers is that they want
to dominate and control the child. They hate the child,
they want to start the child. They sometimes commit death
by exercise, but they want to dominate and control. So
(18:36):
this is just another form of abuse, as you just
now pointed out, depriving the mother of knowledge about.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Her own son. Crime stories with Nancy Grace, I want
to go back to doctor Tyndall Crown's. Crowns, I think
we've identified I'm waiting for that video, the moment when
(19:05):
the dad actually bites the little boy, actually bites his son.
Hold it, wait, wait, wait, he puts him back on
the treadmill is still going fast. Look there, right there,
he's using both hands to restrain the boy. All he's
got left are his teeth and he for the boy.
(19:28):
He tries to shrink down. Corey shrinks down to try
to get away from the bite, but the dad is
actually biting him. As the rage is boiling over and
because his hands and feet are occupied, he bites the boy.
(19:49):
Doctor Kendall Crowns, have you ever seen anything like it?
Speaker 11 (19:53):
Yes? I have.
Speaker 13 (19:54):
In tild Toby's cases, occasionally you will get ones that
have bites on the face, neck, extremities, chest back. I've
seen it on any surface of the body. But as
Darktor Marshall mentioned earlier, the rage associated with the child
abuse can often spoil over into just biting, and you
are kind of seeing that in this case as well
(20:15):
as his hands are occupied, so the only thing he
has left to do is bite.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Stars just what this child has been through, Doctor Bethany,
when we're showing the bruises on his right side, and
then we learn part of the cod because of death
is bruising to deliver. That was what that bruise is
(20:41):
actual bruising to his heart. And then being able to
really look and examine the video and you see his
own bio dad holding him by the arms and forcibly
biting him in the head.
Speaker 9 (21:00):
You know, Nancy, this father had prolonged rage and contempt
for this child. Like I said earlier, he wanted to
bring the child under his control so he could torture him. Nancy,
you and I have covered so many cases where there
is death by exercise. Many years ago, a little girl
whose stepmother forced her to just walk and walk and
(21:22):
walk endlessly, and eventually the little girl died and in
this kind of a case, you know, we see it's
not just you know, all parents get angry with their
children now and again, but it's temporary. Then the parent withdraws,
they calm themselves down, they reason, they talk with the
other parent, and it's just momentary. They don't hit the child.
But in this case, the child was at actually an
(21:44):
object used to disperse rage and hatred towards the child,
towards the mother, towards god knows, you know what, Nancy.
When I see this dad in court, maybe I shouldn't
say this, but he looks a little roided out to me,
like he looks like he's on steroid. There's something like
a natural you know, jawline, huge shoulders, you know, that
(22:05):
can produce rage. But notwithstanding the size of the dad
compared to this little boy, and you know, sadly, Nancy,
the mental state of this little boy is probably that
he feels like he's bad, guilty, he deserves to be punished.
I am a bad little boy, and if I don't
(22:27):
keep this secret, Dad's going to hit me even more,
because that means I'll be really, really, really bad. So
one of the things we can't measure is the state
of mind of the child and what happens in his
mind and psychologically as a result of the abuse.
Speaker 6 (22:43):
The day after Corey's examination by a pediatrician, Christopher Gregor
tells Brianna Mitchello that Corey is feeling bad. The six
year old is sleepy and nauseous. Gregor puts Corey down
for a nap, and when he wakes up, Corey is stumbling,
slurring his words, and is having trouble breathing. Gregor takes
the boy to Southern Ocean Medical Center, where he's quickly
admitted and intubated. Doctors take Corey for a CT scan.
(23:06):
During the scan, Corey starts seizing and losing his pulse.
Medical staff administer life saving efforts but cannot revive Corey.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
You, doctor Kendall Crowns, Remember you're speaking to a panel
of laypeople, and I'm trying to figure out how bruising,
even if to the heart or the liver, causes someone
to become sleepy and nauseous. It sounds like a brain bleed,
but I know that that's not the CEOD cause of death.
(23:34):
But I know that happens when you have a brain bleed.
Then he is stumbling slurring his words, he's having trouble breathing.
So how does that relate to the essentially beating he
took on that treadmill, the biting, the beating, the blows.
How does that end up resulting in stumbling, slurring, having
(24:00):
trouble breathing, sleepy nausea.
Speaker 11 (24:02):
Well, so I would agree with you that it does.
Speaker 13 (24:04):
Those symptoms sound more like a head injury than they
do an abdomen or chest injury. But again with the
extreme exercise, I do think he's potentially dehydrated, possibly getting
confused from the dehydration, and then he is The father
becomes enraged and beats him, and then he probably becomes
on responsive.
Speaker 11 (24:24):
Dad takes him to the hospital.
Speaker 13 (24:26):
So the initial symptoms of he's confused lethargic are what
causes the dad to become enraged and starts hitting him.
Speaker 11 (24:34):
Another thing.
Speaker 14 (24:36):
Brianna Mitchello drives to Christopher Gregor's Barnegut apartment for a
shortened visit with Corey three days after dropping him off
with Gregor at the fitness center, Mitchello notices odd bruises
and scrapes on Corey's forehead and chest. Corey won't tell
her what happened, but seems upset and scared. Mitchelloh files
another abuse complaint and for emergency custody with DCPP. Mitchello
(24:58):
also schedules a doctor's appointment for Corey during her next
parenting time. Through tears, Corey tells the doctor about the
treadmill incident and says Gregor forced him to run because
he was too fat. The doctor notes fourteen bruises or
scrapes on Corey's body, but the rest of his tests
come back normal. Mitchello's request for emergency custody is denied
and she returns Corey to Gregor the next morning.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Can you even imagine mommy makes an emergency request for
custody and she is denied and it was just emergency,
temporary custody until there could be a full hearing. She
was denied, and now the boy is dead. Fail fail
(25:40):
fail by the system. But that's not all. Listen.
Speaker 8 (25:46):
Pediatrician doctor Nancy Deacon saw Corey Michelo on April first,
one day before he passed, and during her court testimony
she lists out all of the bruises and other injuries
present on the boy's body. Doctor Deacon listed a blue
gray bruise on his left cheek, a large yellow green
bruise on his left shoulder, another large yellow green bruise
on his left inner arm, a blue bruise present on
(26:09):
his elbow. Beyond over twelve bruises that covered Corey Michelo's body,
the doctor noted two areas on the right side of
his chest that she called it two areas of hyper
pigmented skin, meaning the wound was healing, but pigment had
not yet returned yet.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
For some reason, For some reason, Corey gets sent back
to his dad and now he is dead. By Treadmill
telling the little boy he was quote too fat, I
could see the bones coming out of his back. To
Jarrett Fiorentino, high profile lawyer, former homicide prosecutor, and host
(26:47):
of podcast True Crime Boss Jarrett Farentino, I know that
you have interviewed many, many child victims and child witnesses,
and you have to unlock their story. They don't talk
like we do. For instance, if you're trying to get
a date to put on an indictment, you have to
(27:08):
say things like was the Christmas tree up? Did the
Easter bunny come? Was? Did you have the American flag
red white and blue out? Was it around July the fourth.
That's just an example, and I remember the very last thing.
Typically a child would say, I would say who did this?
(27:29):
Who did this? Who made this bruise? Who made you
take off your underwear? Who? And there'd be a long
pause and they would say fill in the blank, Daddy
or Uncle Jim, or whoever the perp was. It's very hard,
difficult to get that out of a child, especially the
(27:50):
child loves the parent, even when the parent is abusing the.
Speaker 7 (27:54):
Child, absolutely, Nancy, And oftentimes they look down and you
know the truth is coming. But when a child can't speak,
if Corey could not or would not say what happened
to him? Just from head to toe, this little boy
had bruising at various levels of healing, which is in
dishe of chronic abuse. The system failled this little boy tremendously.
Speaker 15 (28:19):
It's so sad to listen to the account of those
injuries and those interviews. If you couldn't get it out
of Corey, the physicians or whoever examined this little boy,
or a judge that looked at that emergency petition should
have absolutely it should have spoke.
Speaker 11 (28:35):
Volumes for that.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Crime stories with Nancy gray, Doctor Bethny Marshall. I recall
an animal abuse case I looked at and in the case,
they perp was sitting bebes at the dog in rapid succession,
(29:07):
like a lot like twenty thirty Bebes right at the dog,
and the dog, instead of running would be was on
all fours down, crawling toward the master, wagging the tail
and yelping with pain, not running away. And look, I'm
(29:30):
just a JD. You're the shrink. What does it mean
when the victim is still so deeply attached to the abuser?
Corey wouldn't tell that his dad was doing this. He
finally did tell, you know, the doctor ultimately at first
trying to blame it on playing football with his dad,
and then finally mentioned the treadmill incident. But what is that?
(29:55):
Why do we humans and pets do that we call
go toward our adezer.
Speaker 9 (30:03):
I know it's so tragic, and you said so beautifully earlier,
this little boy loved his dad. Of course, we are
wired to connect. That's how we survived as a species,
is that we bonded with our caregivers. And it's well
known that when you interview a child victim, you or
even an adult victim. You can't start with daddy as
(30:24):
bad or your husband hit you, because that person has
had some good experiences, believe it or not, with the abuser,
Daddy through the football. Daddy maybe told him a bedtime story,
Daddy fed him, so.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
That dad is not all bad to the child.
Speaker 9 (30:43):
And this is a very important thing to remember whenever,
let's say you have a friend who's in an abusive
relationship or or a church fellow church member, to not say, well,
why are you with him? Or he's a horrible person,
but to try to acknowledge both sides of their experience
so with that person, because that is actually more genuine
and true and will align them with you, and it
(31:04):
will give you a better chance of helping them.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Joining us is an investigative reporter with Crime Online, Nicole Parton.
Nicole not only investigating cases, but very very familiar with
the foster system. Why is it it takes so long, Nicole?
And you've seen it over and over and over for
children to actually be removed from an abusive parent.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
So many cases, and in this case, if you count
up the number of times that Brianna reported the abuse,
over one hundred times she made calls she was doing
everything she could to report the abuse of her son.
One day before Corey's death, she was denied that emergency
(31:50):
hearing to have him temporarily removed. The system failed, his
father failed, but the system failed little Corey tremendously and
he paid the ultimate sacrifice for that.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Nancy.
Speaker 9 (32:02):
Can I be a good comment about that?
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, John Penn, and I want to clarify what I heard, Bethany.
I think that's you that he was reported over one
hundred times. Did I hear that correctly? That's right, that's right.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
There were many hundred, one hundred calls, over one hundred
that were made, not only from Corey's mother, from Corey's
school teacher who had said, there's abuse, there's neglect, there's
an abuse, a repeated number of phone calls coming into
the Department of Children, and just one day before his death,
the judge denied that emergency hearing.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Bethany.
Speaker 9 (32:35):
You know, Nancy, I see this all the time in
my practice. Parents who are reporting abuse, and you know
what happens is that they eventually become paranoid, obsessed, and
they kind of look and sound crazy, like they discredit
themselves in some ways because they are so up set,
a parent's job is to protect a child, and here
(32:58):
the system is actually interfering with the maternal instinct, the
drive to protect, and so that the more the parent
pleads child protective services, the more they're kind of dismissed
and devalued as being just sort of a crazy parent
or a part of a domestic abuse situation. And I
(33:19):
think that there has to be better training that parents
whose children are being abused often present with a lot
of anxiety, a lot of panic, a lot of paranoia,
and that that is the most credible sign that they
are telling the truth.
Speaker 8 (33:33):
On March thirty first, twenty twenty one, Michelo filed paperwork
seeking emergency custody of Corey while DCPP investigated her latest
allegation of abuse. The agency had seen the video of
Corey running on the treadmill, and a caseworker later told
police that he had photographed and investigated bruising on Corey
six days after the alleged incident. Our report submitted by
(33:54):
DCPP about the March twenty incident played a crucial role
in the judge's decision, which said the court does not
find that Corey is in danger of imminent and irreparable harm. Therefore,
the Court does not find a temporary modification of the
party's custody and parenting time arrangement appropriate at this time.
Michel left Corey with his father the morning of April second,
(34:15):
twenty twenty one. At three point thirty that afternoon, Gregor
told them mom he was taking Corey to the hospital.
Two hours later, Corey died.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Another judge, with his head up his rear end, does
not find Corey in danger of imminent harm and refuses
to modify visitation. The mom forced to leave the six
year old boy with dad. The afternoon, he goes to
(34:43):
the er and dies. Why is the judge still on
the bench, Just confused, concerned? And also, I want you
to hear the teacher one more time. Is not just
the mom they're making look crazy because she's reported dad
one hundred times over twenty months. The teacher raised the
(35:05):
red bell of alarm, but nobody listened. Listened to Kim Peace,
this is Corey's first grade teacher, and I want you
to notice that she sees the bruises and Corey is
then kept on virtual learning remote Listen, what.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
If any observations did you make of Corey? When you
saw him virtually on March twenty.
Speaker 9 (35:28):
Ninth, I saw, I saw bruises on his cheek.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Is that the same as what you were describing from
March twenty third? Now that and did Corey attend school virtually.
Speaker 9 (35:41):
On March thirtieth?
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Did you observe him?
Speaker 11 (35:45):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (35:45):
What if any observations did you.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Make the bruising the teacher? The first grade teacher, You know,
you expect the teacher to be sending home construction paper
r and checks and big stars on the child papers
they do at school. Instead first grade teachers on the
stand describing day after day after day bruising on this boy.
(36:09):
Did you hear the prosecutor she's really good, state Hey,
is that the same bruises as you described on March
twenty three? And she goes, oh no, this is March thirty.
By this time, they were keeping him home on remote.
Did you see daddy not even shed one tear?
Speaker 9 (36:24):
Nancy? I also noticed that the dad looked quizzical, like
he was so stumped by how this could have happened?
Was I was scanning his face and he kind of
looks like a person who's, you know, the pathological liar,
the abuser. The criminality, a person who has criminality and
(36:45):
you ask him about the crime and they go, H,
what me, I never did that. It's almost like he's
playing a role in court.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
The boy is dead, Corey is dead. That trial happening.
Now we stop to remember American hero Deputy Shearif Tobin Bolter.
Just twenty seven, Sheriff Bolter was shot while conducting a
(37:14):
routine traffic stop Boise, Idaho. A father to be, Sheriff
Bolter expecting a new baby with his wife. He leaves
behind his grieving wife Abby and his unborn baby and
his family. American hero Deputy share of Tobin Bolter. I
(37:39):
want to thank our guests for being with us in
this extremely difficult case to cover. But I want to
thank you for being with us tonight and facing the facts.
Nancy Gray signing off, good night friend,
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