Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Serious Exim Triumph in
Langley was arrested for the murder of six year old
Jeremy Guillory of Ioway. A three day search for the
missing boy ended when the child's body was found in
Langley's closet. The little boy had been strangled and molested,
but I stopped an old, dirty sock in his mouth
and I held his nose. I'm ready to do that
(00:27):
to make sure he couldn't get no air to Indy.
We will go till the ends of the earth to
make sure that the person who committed that event she's justice.
I think the ultimate judgment would be given to him
another time, another class. A six year old little boy
is dead. Jeremy juxtaposed that against an incredible book called
(00:51):
The Fact of a Body, a murder and a memoir
by Alexandria Marzano Lestovich. How do the two intersect? How
do the two collide? I mean, see Grace, this is
Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here on
Sirius X. With me the author of the Fact of
(01:12):
a Body, Alexandria Marzano Lesnovich. Also with me high profile
psychologist Dr Chloe Carmichael, Hi, Dr Chloe, and Joseph Scott Morgan,
forensics expert Professor of Forensics at Jacksonville State University, and
of course Alan the Dup Dup joining me out of
l A. I want to start things by explaining a
little bit, just a tiny bit about the fact of
(01:34):
a body, a murder, and a memoir. Now remember the
backdrop is the murder of a six year old little boy, Jeremy.
Now before, Alexandria begins a summer job at a law
firm in Louisiana working for the defense defending for the
(01:54):
retrial of a death row inmate, convicted murderer and child
old molester, Ricky Langley. She thinks her position is very,
very plain. She is the daughter of two lawyers, and
she is very firm about the death penalty anti death penalty.
(02:15):
But the moment Ricky's face appears on a screen as
she is reviewing old tapes, the moment she hears him
actually talking about his crimes, She's overcome with a feeling
of wanting Ricky Langley to die, which is against everything
(02:40):
she has ever believed. I want you to first hear
a confession tape by the convicted child molester and killer,
Ricky Langley. I wrapped that string, knowledge string around his neck,
and proved as hard as I could on it. You know,
you know that's it wasn't stopping him trying to breed.
(03:02):
He was still trying to breathe, but a stuffed, an
old dirty stuck in his mouth, and I held his nose.
Why did you do that to make sure he couldn't
get in no air? Okay? To end it to Alexandria
Marzono Wesnevich, the author of the Fact of a Body,
a Murder and a Memoir. Alexandria, thank you for being
with us. Tell me how you came to write the book.
(03:24):
Thank you for having me. Um. I really wrote the
book because I was so haunted by the case. And
it's the act of writing the book was really an
act of trying to figure out why it was haunting me,
so why it seemed to be getting so tangled up
with my memories of my own past. So I had
watched the video tape, as you said, while I was
an intern at this law firm. I didn't work directly
(03:45):
on his case, Um, but they showed us this confession tape,
and up to that moment, My feelings were so clear.
Right after I watched the tape, I learned that Jeremy
Gillory's mother, Laura, like Gillary, had taken the stand at
the trial. There were three trials, and so she had
taken the stand at the second trial, and she had
actually pleaded to keep Ricky Langley alive. She testified for him,
(04:09):
and UM, and that moment, I was so struck that
she had been able to do this, and I couldn't
that even though despite what I believe, despite what I
wanted to fight for. You know, I had gone to
law school wanting to fight the death penalty. Um, how
had she been able to do that? And why couldn't I?
And I think for years I was also haunted by
it because it raised this question, you know, is who
we are determined by what we believe and what we
(04:29):
want to fight for? Or is who we are determined
by what happened in our past? Because what happened for
me is that the Langley case really hit hard against
all these things in my own past I couldn't think
about or talk about. And so for years, you know,
the case, the details of the case, UM, there was
this be begun that Jeremy had there was a blue
blanket that Ricky Langley wrapped his body in. These details
(04:51):
would just come back to me really like I was
haunted by them. And years later I started to get
some of the court records from the case in an
attempt to lay the past arrest, in an attempt to
kind of put it in the ground stop thinking about it.
Um and had started really led into this book. Wow,
Alexandria Marzano Lesnevich, author of the Fact of a Body,
(05:12):
a Murderer and a Memoir. I didn't want you to
stop talking to hear you recall those moments and how
your past factors in to this particular case haunting you.
Jo's got Morgan, I know that you are familiar with
the murder of six year old Jeremy Gilroy. What happened.
(05:35):
It's it's an absolutely uh brutal case that that took
place in Uh in the home of It's actually a
rented room that was down the street from where this
little child lived with his mother en mother. Um. They
kind of migrated around in this little tiny area of
(05:59):
of Iowa, lose Annam and UH didn't have much to
UH to speak of in material possessions and um, uh,
this child, who was at least peripherally familiar with uh
with Langley, was essentially lured in uh to to the
(06:19):
home and at that point in time, UM, there's it's
it's alluded to at least that potentially, uh Langley had
had an attraction him because he had actually been in
his child's presence when a child was being bathed or bathing.
And UM, wait a minute, wait a minute, how did
that happen that a child molester is in the presence
(06:44):
of a six year old boy when he's being bathed.
I think that the dynamics of this family UH probably
you know that are dictated by a lot of the
the uh, the circumstances that the mother were in was
in uh you know, left him in in a position
where Lane Lee had actually watch cared over over this
child at least for a small period of time just
(07:05):
previous to the to the homicide. And Alexander speaks to
this uh in compelling terms about that this is kind
of where the seed seed was planted. Um. And eventually
what happened was that Langley um um strangled this little boy.
(07:25):
But but it's it's so much more than that. To
Alexandria Morozono Lesnovich, author of the Fact of a Body
Murder and memoir. Isn't it true that at one juncture
we learned that Ricky Langley claims he likes to sleep
in graveyards and that he wanted to sleep with the
(07:46):
body of the six year old boy. Yeah, there is
a long history of making making these kinds of statements. Um.
He has a fascination with the occult that seems to
go back to when he was a fild and to
the circumstances of his birth and to the circumstances of
his early childhood. And so he tells many stories later
(08:08):
about strangling Jeremy Um, in which he gives many different
reasons that he did so and many different feelings that
he hit afterwards. I think one of the things that
drew me to this case was that the record is
full of him kind of telling himself the story of
the murder, trying to figure out why he did it.
And Yeah, that's one of one of the stories he gives.
Did he most Jeremy before he was murdered? That is
(08:31):
the question, That is the question. And it's really striking
to me that in three trials they never really solidly
answered that question. Were forensics stand on the child's body, Alexandria, Yes,
they were, They were, and Um Ricky langley sperm was
found on the child's T shirt, on Jeremy's T shirt.
(08:52):
He was wearing a little white fruit of the Loom
T shirt and they cut the seman scenes out of it.
And the location of that semen and how it might
have transferred, whether it transferred or whether it got there
through Ricky Langley doing something UM was a source of
a lot of debate at the trial. UM. But confusingly,
(09:13):
there was also a piece of evidence found on him,
a pubic care found on his lip that did not
match for he Langley two. Just got Morgan, Um, I
cannot explain the hair on the child's lip, but I
can't explain Ricky Langley's sperm on the child's T shirt.
(09:36):
I can't explain that. And I don't need just got Morgan.
I used to argue to juries. You know, I learned
early on as a child, as a little girl, it's
easier to understand something if you're hearing a story like
a parable. Get it a parable, a story that makes
(09:57):
a point part of every son morning stories that teach
you a point. And this is what I would tell
a jury. The judge will instruct you that circumstantial evidence
is as powerful, in my opinion, even more powerful sometimes
than direct evidence. Direct evidence is like an eyewitness or
(10:18):
d n A or a fingerprint. Circumstantial evidence is this.
When you come into your office in the morning, it's
eight am and the sky is bright and shiny, not
a cloud to be seen. You come out at lunchtime,
it's dark, dark, it's cloudy. There's water on the ground,
(10:38):
pools of water. Men are going by hugging their raincoats.
Women have umbrellas. You don't have to see the storm
to know it. Rained that circumstantial evidence. What you can
deduce figure out from what you see, what you smell,
what you hear, what you touch. That circumstantial evidence, and
(10:58):
it is powerful. Nobody needs to tell me that the
child was molested when the killer sperm is on the
child's T shirt and either crazy one of this scenario
Joe Scott, no, no. And the beauty of direct evidence,
when when coupled with with the narrative that's that's left behind,
(11:21):
is that it does fill in the blanks for us.
The trick is I think, based on my experience in
court and the labs, is if the the prosecutor has
the ability to put these pieces together and present it
in a manner in which you know, can sway sway
the jury to their point of view. And it's three trials. Wow.
(11:46):
Uh And you know there's there are a lot of
conclusions that can be drawn here. But I agree with you.
Uh something you know you you don't find ejaculant on
on a T shirt? Uh that belongs to a small
child like this without something having happened. Well, I mean
it's the defendant sperm. It's not the child sperm. Hold on,
(12:07):
before I go back into the facts, I want to
bring in a renowned psychologist joining us out of Manhattan.
It's Dr Chloe Carmichael. Dr Chloe, thank you for being
with us. The real issue here, I mean, you heard
the confession about sticking a sock in the little boy's
mouth and pinching his nose so we couldn't breathe. His
(12:27):
T shirt covered in the defendant sperm. The question is
going to be was he insane at the time of
the act. Now, under our law, our Anglo Saxon jurisprudence,
and I say that because we brought our common law
from Great Britain. That's where we got it, okay, And
at the time it was brought it was created, it
(12:50):
was under the Saxon and Anglo rule. That's where that
comes from. And under our law, the McNaughton law of
insanity is if you knew right or wrong at the
time you committed the act, not when you go to trial,
not when you're in jail and you're throwing your food
and humming to yourself at the time of the incident,
(13:13):
and the argument at trial Dr Chloe Carmichael was that
he knew to cover up his crime at the time
he tried to cover it up, which says too many
that he knew right from wrong. Dr Chloe Carmichael wag
in Um, I would agree that this definitely sounds like
(13:35):
somebody who is able to tell right from wrong. Certainly,
it sounds like a very damaged and warped person from
a tragic background who absolutely was struggling with mental illness.
But you know, you're absolutely right, Nancy, there's no evidence
to say that this person did not know right from wrong.
For example, he never attempted anything like this um in
(13:57):
front of other people. Right, he waited an till he
was alone, He waited until he was in secret. Uh.
He originally lied to the police, from what I understand,
and said, you know that that the little boy had
not been there, And as you said, he then hid
the body. Um. So he later recalled and discussed it
with such clarity and such willingness. Um. But I think
(14:19):
that might have more to do with a desire on
his part to try to seek some kind of absolution. Um.
But I certainly don't think that he was unable to
tell the difference between right and wrong at the time.
You know, one thing that I really appreciated to Alexandria Marzano, Lesnovitch,
our special guests joining us author of the fact of
a body, is that the judge struggled. The judge struggled
(14:44):
with what to do, and he went on and on
about how could two renowned experts come to such startlingly
different conclusions, about was this guy insane at the time
he murdered six year old Jeremy. Did you notice that, Alexandra,
he really discussed it a lot. Oh, absolutely, I mean
(15:06):
he even discussed throughout the trial. He even discussed how
much the case was driving him to drink um and
how much when he went home at night, he was
haunted by what he had seen in the corner room,
the images of Jeremy's body. He was also just giving
me chills on my arms right now, because you just
in that one moment brought back all the times I
would have to actually pull off the road in my
(15:27):
car when I would leave the courthouse. And I have
a very strict rule against a drinking And I'll tell
you why. It's not a moral or ethical rule. It's
that I've seen it destroy so many people destroy and
when you see cases like this as I have, sometimes
it is overwhelming. In you know what, I'm not proud
(15:48):
of anybody that that drinks too much or drive drives
drinking or but the fact that he struggled so much
shows me that this judge cared. He cared, he cared
about what happened, He cared about doing the right thing.
I really think he did. And then, and those comments
started even during Vaudier year tour in jury selection, when
(16:10):
he was also clearly haunted by seeing Ricky in front
of him, and the fact that that you know, in
his courtroom it would be determined whether Rickie Langley lived
or died. He spoke quite movingly on the record about
not know fearing that decision, fearing being haunted by it
years later, fearing either way the case came out, you know,
(16:30):
whether Langley was found it was convicted and sentenced to death,
which he ultimately wasn't in that trial, um, but fearing
that that too would haunt him, but also fearing what
would happen if, you know, he had to look at
these pictures of this little boy, look at this little
boy's mother, and say that there would be no justice
for him. So one of the things that the judge
really showed me was the cost on the different people
(16:53):
involved in the criminal justice system. Well hold on just
a moment, and the cost on you, Yes, Alexandria Amrazano Lessnovitch,
who became intimately familiar with this death penalty case and
the molestation and murder of a six year old little boy, Jeremy.
The toll it took on you during that internship. The
(17:16):
toll it takes on Dr Chloe Carmichael as she struggles
with issues like this. Psychologists joining me out of Manhattan.
Joe Scott Morgan, he's a death investigator, myself had Delane
have handled literally thousands of felonies. The toll it takes
on you, it changes your life forever. You don't believe me,
(17:38):
listen to this. I wrapped that string, knowledge string around
his neck and prove it as hard as I could
on it. You know, you know that still wasn't stopping
him trying to breathe. He was still trying to breathe.
But I stuffed an old, dirty sock in his mouth
and I held his nose that to make sure he
(18:00):
couldn't get in the air to end. Hold on just
a moment, I want to address something. You know, there's
a lot of cold cases out there, like the Golden
State Killer, and they've been in the news a lot recently.
But guess what, there's so many cold case murders across
the country you never hear about. Well. Kelly Sigler and
her team are changing that. On Oxygen's Cold Justice, Kelly
(18:23):
and her team of detectives dig into real cold murder
cases in search of answers for victims and their families,
and the show's executive producer is Dick Wolfe, the creator
of Law and Order. Each case really draws you in.
You feel like you're part of Kelly's team and you
will love how they work so hard to get justice
(18:44):
because each case as personal to Kelly and the whole team. Well,
buckle up watch the new season of Cold Justice Saturday,
six pm Eastern, five pm Central, and you can find
it on Oxygen. With Me. The author of the Fact
(19:12):
of a Body a Murder in memoir, Alexandria Marzano Lesenovich,
who was profoundly affected by the time she spent working
on a death penalty case, going into the case staunchly
against the death penalty. In fact, her aim was to
save Rickey Langley from the death penalty. Langley convicted of
murdering a six year old little boy, Jeremy Gilroy. With Me,
(19:37):
Dr Chloe Carmichael's psychologists out of Manhattan and renowned for
instance expert Joe Scott Morgan, Professor of forensics at Jacksonville
State University and death investigator. You know, when I was
growing up, I never thought that I would put behind
my name specialty serial, murder, serial rape, serial I'm lastation.
(20:00):
I just didn't see that coming, you know, in my world, Alexandra,
when I was growing up, I thought that I would
get a car or truck and on the back I
would have one of those traveling like RV trailers and
it would be full of books, books, just nothing but
books in there. And that I would also behind that
(20:22):
have attached another trailer with a horse in it. That
was what I would thought I would do, and I
would write books and play with my horse. That's what
I That was my plan, Okay. I did not know
that one day it would be Nancy Grace trial specialty
serial murder, serial rape, and serial child lostation and any
(20:43):
type of arson. That was basically on my calling card.
I'm sure Joe Scott, you didn't think that you would
be death investigator, and Dr Chloe probably did not imagine
she would be helping people sort through life changing issues. Alexandria,
your childhood really played into the way the six year
(21:07):
old Jeremy's murder affected you. It did, and in fact,
it was everything that I didn't think about in my
childhood that was sort of forced to the forefront by
encountering this case. So when I watched he Langley's confession,
which you now heard a clip of, I was sitting
(21:29):
in that room. I remember it so clearly. I was
in this big Cavernous Loss Law firm library, dark wood lined,
the shelves lined with the leather bound books that hold
all the old case registers. And I was sitting on
a folding chair. Um, I was pretty nervous. I was
twenty five years old. It was only my third day
in this internship, and so you can imagine, you know,
(21:50):
I was wearing a new suit, kind of scratching on
my skin, and I'm sitting there and I've been waiting
for this moment since I was a child, really, since
I learned about the death penalt day at eight years
old old. I had wanted to fight it. And they
queue up this tape and they play this tape and
Ricky Langley on the tape describes the pleasure he took
in molesting small children, and he described very vividly, very
(22:15):
specific actions that he did, and all of a sudden, listening,
I wasn't twenty five years old anymore. All of a sudden,
I was a child again, and I could feel all
my grandfather's hands on me. And that was the moment
that I wanted him to die. I had never forgotten
being molested, you know, it wasn't like that, but it
(22:37):
was something that I tried really, really hard not to
think about UM, precisely because the memories lived so vividly
in my body. So I think why this case haunted
me so much for for so many years is just
everything that it made me confront that lived inside me,
that I had tried so desperately not to confront, not
to think about, not to deal with. Yah, Alexandria Marzana Lesnevich.
(23:04):
Hearing you talk is actually bringing me to tears, because
we all have, or I guess many of us, not
all of us, those moments, those horrible moments in our
lives that try their best to define us, that we
(23:27):
carry around every single day. I've dealt with so many
rape victims, child leustation victims, and their lives are forever changed.
Dr Chloe Carmichael. When this happens to you as a child,
(23:48):
you don't even have a chance to fully develop as
a person. You know, it's your entire life. It's affected.
I want to say, to find but as we see
in Alexander's case, she did not let it define her.
Help me, Dr Chloe. Sure, well, Nancy, I think you're
(24:09):
exactly right, which is that UM, we would actually be
pathologizing anybody you know who has suffered this kind of abuse.
If we were to say, you know, well, because the
Keller experience to this abuse, this was therefore became his
destiny to act out that way upon other people, and
that would actually be the most damaging and stigmatizing thing
(24:30):
that we could do. So UM, as a psychologist, I
have to say that this is a situation where we
have to be able to hold both truths at the
same time. Um, that that Ricky Langley was a was
a victim himself, and then he chose not to control himself,
(24:50):
not to you know, get the help that he needed. Um.
There's it's one thing. It's one level in psychology to
have urges to molest children. It's another thing to act
on it. Um. So from what I understand, he had
experienced those urges and had even been convicted in the
past of child molestation. So this is somebody who actually
(25:13):
had experience and had you know, had attempts from society
at trying to correct him before, and he chose to
go another way, and we need to understand that that
was his choice and therefore he needs to be held accountable.
You know, just got Morgan back to the issue of
whether he knew right from wrong. I noticed that during
the trial, Langley appeared to be paying attention, and he
(25:36):
actually broke out smiling at many many points during the trial,
even though he had a bandage under one of his
eyes from a cut that he had gotten from a
fight with another inmate. But when the state played the
tape of Langley confessing to killing Jeremy and testimony when
(25:56):
the police uncovered the body, he hung his head down
and would not watch. And you know what that reminds
me of Joe Scott. I remember when I was called
to the stand and my fiancee's murder, and I took
the stand. I remember that distinctly. Everything else melts away.
I can't remember hardly a thing, but I remember coming
down off the witness stand, and it was high up,
(26:19):
even with the judges, almost even with the judge, and
you would walk up one set of stairs and there
was a little landing, and then you go up to
an another set of stairs and to the witness stand.
You're up, way up. And I remember walking down, and
I remember my boots on the wood, and I walked
past the state's table and I saw Keith's bloody denim
(26:43):
shirt that I had not seen, and I saw it
lying on the states table, and then I kept walking.
I got to the defense table. I looked at the defendant.
He met my eyes and immediately looked down. And then
I looked at the defense lawyer and he it tik
my eyes and then he looked down, like straight into
his lap. They couldn't look up. And I remember just
(27:05):
standing there staring at them, and then walking out and
my boots making the footsteps sounds on the marble floor
until the door shut behind me. That's what I remember.
And when I hear Langley just looked down when his
confession was being played, that means a lot to me.
(27:26):
Joe Scott, Yeah, I know it does. Nancy Uh can't
just say I gotta tell you something that's really gripping
to me and kind of devetails what you're saying here.
And I don't know if Alexander can really, you know,
um comment on this or not. But in his in
his confession, he may have looked down in court at
(27:49):
that moment time, But in his confession there was something
that just really stood out to me. And that's when
he didn't say that as he was using a ligature
on his child's that that that he wanted to hurry
or speed his death. He said, I took an old,
dirty sock, not just to sock, I stuffed it in
(28:13):
his mouth and then I held his nose. And to me,
that one statement really sums this up with this fellow.
This seems as though that maybe he is fighting some
kind of internal battle. I don't know, in the whole
grand scheme of things, in the light of this child
who cannot speak for himself any longer, I don't really care.
(28:37):
But it does talk about the the person, the essence
of what this perpetrator was relative to this this innocence life,
and that just it just it's haunting. I mean, it's
absolutely harnted. And it just gripped me. And that's the
first time I've heard that confession. Uh, it just really
gripped me. And I don't know if that impacted Alexy
(28:57):
and it's the same way, but it just it just
really kind of reached out through the microphone and and
and uh, you know, grabbed me by by the scruff
of the neck. Alexandria Marizano Lesanovich, the author of the
Fact of a Body, a Murder, and a Memoir, when
you heard this confession, you stated that it immediately brought
(29:20):
back the horrible memories of your childhood and your grandfather's
assault on you. How did you ever reconcile that was
your grandfather ever brought to justice? Not only was he
not brought to justice, but he wasn't thought of as
a criminal. What what? I'm sorry? Not only was he
(29:43):
not brought to justice, but he wasn't thought of as
a criminal. What do you mean by that? Oh? I
mean that you know, in my family, we just didn't
talk about the abuse. Um. It was basically forbidden to
do so. Not basically it was forbidden to do so. Um.
And even as I was in law school, it never
(30:04):
occurred to me that what he had done was criminal.
It wasn't until I was writing the book and thinking
constantly of this murder as the crime in the book,
which of course it is. It's a horrible crime in
the book, that I slowly realized that actually I was
writing about two crimes. I was actually writing about two criminals.
And part of why I wanted to tell the story
(30:25):
was to get at maybe the different ways that we
sometimes think of abuse when it happens within a family.
We sometimes don't recognize that what has happened is a crime.
And so when I was, you know, writing this, I did.
I did confront my grandfather when I was a teenager,
and I don't I you know, I looked back now
(30:46):
at that eighteen year old who went off to confront him,
and I am in awe of her bravery. You know,
I think often actually of that. I went to the
apartment building where he was living, and I remember so
vividly the walk down the hallway to his apartment where
I was going to finally speak the words allowed to
him that no one had ever confronted him on I'm
all that girls pratfray. And when I confronted him, you know,
(31:10):
he didn't deny it, and he certainly didn't apologize for it.
He was almos suppostful about it. But then he called
me the next day and asked me if I forgave him.
No apology, just asked me if I forgave him, which
in its way was an acknowledgement of all the harm
he had done. I don't know, I just that makes
(31:32):
me so angry to hear that he asked you to
forgive him, because now the onus is on you that
you have to forgive and oh, that is so wrong,
that the honest is on you to forgive him and
another thing. And please don't be angry with me, Alexandria. Please,
(31:54):
what were your parents doing during all of this when
you had to go confront him? You told your parents, right,
I did tell my parents, And I think in some ways,
you know, there are many reasons I wrote this book,
but I think in some ways I partially wrote this
book to understand my parents choices, because it's very different
when you're sort of living the memories, you see them
only from your own perspective, but when you're actually writing
(32:16):
about people, you have to try to imagine or try
to understand, um, what they might have been thinking. And
my grandparents, my parents rather chose not to confront him. Um.
They chose actually to keep the whole thing a secret.
They did make sure that he wasn't alone with us
again in a situation where he could molest us. Um.
But you know, they kept him coming to the house,
which was very very hard for me when I was
(32:38):
growing up, and very hard for me when I was
a teenager, very hard for me afterwards too. Um. And
so part of writing this was to try to understand
the way that the choices that they made on the
one hand, I really think kept our family together, you know,
but on the other hand, caused these deep fissures and
these deep, deep hurts. And you know, I've heard from
(32:59):
so many people since this book came out. I'll tell you,
for the first four months after this book came out,
I got between one and three emails a day from
people who had been abused and whose families kept it
a secret, and who were talking about the things that
the book had opened up inside of them. And one
of them is sort of trying to understand this stigma
(33:21):
and this secrecy and this silence that often attaches to abuse,
and specifically the stigma attaches to the abuse victims, and
people don't want to talk about it um and I
think that's part of what allows it to continue. Can
I ask you something, Alexandria Morizana Lesnevitch, who's channeled all
of that that you're hearing right now into this incredible work,
(33:47):
the fact of a body a murder in a memoir
in later life, as you're writing this book, did you
ask your parents why they did not confront anymore? Did they?
And you didn't know about it. What do they say.
They said, actually that they couldn't and I knew this
that they couldn't, and it's in the book. They consulted
a psychologist at the time who told him that the
(34:07):
best thing to do would be to model not being
affected by it. And I think that that was the
advice that was given in a certain time period, you know. Um,
And part of my well, wait, the advice was to
do what to model it not having an impact, so
not to make a big deal out of it, not
to you know, not to sort of confront him, not
to you know, to just model that maybe it didn't matter.
(34:29):
And I think that that was maybe the advice given
in a certain time period. Um, okay, that make actually
makes me feel a tiny modicum better that they tried
to do something. Absolutely, they tried to do it just discounted.
They went, They sought out a professionally, said what do
we do? What's the best thing for Alexandria, And that's
what they were told. So that's what they did. Absolutely,
(34:52):
And part of what I wanted to capture was the
cost of that, right, like everybody was doing. But I
think one of the hard things about this story is
that the families were doing what they thought was best.
You know, you see this too. And Ricky Langley's family, um,
which really struggled. His family really struggled, and when he
as a young man started to struggle, they took him
(35:12):
to a psychologist. You know, they tried to do what
they thought was best. Well, this is something that I know,
Alexandri and I'm coming right back to you. And unlike
for Dr Chloe Carmichael and Joe Scott Morgan and the
Duke to take this in as well. Um, Laura lay
Gilroy comes home, calls for her son, who had been
outside playing. She didn't get a response. She went to
(35:35):
the Lawrence house, where her baby often played. Langley answered
the door. Gilroy asked him if he had seen her son.
He said, no, Okay, you know that just reminded me
of something. Okay, do you remember the very first murder? Okay,
(35:55):
Kaine and Enable and they come and say, where's your brother?
I don't know, I don't know the very first murder.
She comes and says, where is Jeremy. I don't know,
I haven't seen him. She goes to go search for
him and then comes back to call nine one one.
Right after that, he Ricky Langley makes his own nine
(36:18):
one one call to report the boy missing and then
pretends to help the mother look for the boy. They
start to search the wooded area. A command center is
set up, a search was conducted throughout the weekend. Finally,
(36:40):
on that Monday, police get information that there was a
convicted child molester named Ricky Langley whose last address was
in the area. What happened then, Joe Scott Morgan, How
was Jeremy's body found? And this is after all the subterfuge,
his own nine one one call, him ending to help
(37:00):
find the boy after he'd just stuffed a dirty sock
in his mouth. How was the body found? Joe Scott
Morgan found in the home of Ricky Langley in a
closet um placed in there by this person who had,
you know, initially attempted to aid in search. And it's
(37:22):
quite striking as well. One of one of the things
that's brought forward in this is that when Laurela, the
mother had initially come searching for her little boy. Uh
Alexander points out in her work that that um that
he was, that initially he had laid him out on
(37:42):
the bed covered with a Dick Tracy blanket, if you will,
a cartoon character, and the mother had come to the
house initially looking for her little boy. The b begun
that he had carried leaned against the wall there. Uh
and this you know, the cycle continues until finally the
young young boy's body is actually found uh, in the
(38:03):
home of Ricky Langland. I want to go to Dr
Chloe Carmichael joining us psychologists out of Manhattan. We're talking
about the horrific molestation and murder of a six year
old little boy, Jeremy Gilroy, against the backdrop of this
incredible book, The Fact of a Body, a Murder and
(38:25):
a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano Lesanovitch joining us, Dr Chloe.
I keep thinking about what Alexandria said about her own
horrific moments as a child when she was assaulted by
her grandfather and it all came rushing back to her
(38:49):
and she can actually feel his hands on her body
again as she heard testimony and evidence in this case.
I'm thinking about the advice the parents were given by
a psychologist to try to minimize what happened, not make
a big deal out of it at the time, to
help Alexandria heal. What do you make of that? Dr
(39:09):
Chloe Carmichael, Thanks Nancy, that's such a such an important question. UM.
So it is true that we don't want to suggest
to a child that's something like this has to define them. UM.
But but we do definitely want to model for the
child that the abuser does need to be held accountable,
and we want to praise the child for speaking up.
(39:31):
We want to make the child, UM know that the
adults will stand around them and support them, and we
also want to model that we will insist that the
abuser get help and support and be held accountable. UM.
You know, Alexandria, you're you know, such a brave person
to be able to share all of this, UM and
and to put this out for us to to understand together.
(39:54):
And in that particular case, I also can't help. But wonder, UM,
you know about your grand father's relationship with you know,
either the mother or the father that ultimately you know,
decided to UM suggest that the healthiest thing here to
do would be to keep it quiet. UM. Sometimes these
family patterns do get transmitted. You know. There's been a
(40:17):
lot of controversy for some reason as to whether Ricky Langley,
a known pedophile, assaulted six year old Jeremy before his murder,
and I'd like to direct everyone's attention to the Court
of Appeals of Louisiana, Third Circuit, Louisiana versus Ricky Joseph Langley,
(40:37):
and this decision was April six, two thousand and eleven.
The facts has laid out and they go back to
the trial transcript, which is undisputed as to what happened
at trial. Granted there were several trials, but it was
not disputed what the defendants said. The defendants said that
(41:00):
at from the moment he saw the six year old boy,
he quote wanted him, that he wanted to molest him.
On the friday that he murdered the six year old child, Jeremy,
the child was at the house playing with Lawrence's son,
but Jeremy left when Mrs Lawrence and her son left
to visit a relative. He later returned with a BB
(41:23):
gun while the defendant was there alone and asked if
his little friend was there. The defendant said, come in
and visit, so Jeremy came in and put his BB
gun down in the front room, where it was later
spotted as Joseph Scott Morgan told you still sitting in
the front room. Defendants said he knew then that he
(41:44):
would quote mess with the child unless someone came home
where the child left immediately. Langley goes on to state
that while Jeremy was playing, he went up behind him,
put his arm around his neck, lifted him off the
floor and choked him, and that he knew then he
(42:07):
was going to kill the six year old child. He
stated that Jeremy was kicking and that his little boots
came off his feet. He was kicking so hard to live.
He goes on to state he quote felt enjoyment while
he was choking the six year old child, that when
(42:28):
Jeremy quit moving, he carried him to his Langley's bedroom
and laid him on the bed. That he then put
his penis in the child's mouth and ejaculated. He states
to Jeremy left Jeremy there and went about the task
(42:50):
of doing laundry. At some point, Jeremy was making noises,
and he then put a ligature around his neck, choked him,
pulling the guitar as hard as he could, tying the
ends of the court together, and stuffed a sock in
Jeremy's mouth. Those are the facts as recited by the
(43:11):
Court of Appeals of Louisiana, Third Circuit. Those are the
facts as we know them now. Alexandria Marzano Lessanovich ended
up working on this case as an intern at a
law firm tasked with getting Langley out of the death penalty. Alexandria,
(43:37):
when you look back on your task of saving this
guy from the death penalty, and you contrast that with
the facts that I have just recited from the trial transcript,
what are your thoughts? You know? I I You said
something earlier that had really stayed with me, Nancy, when
you talked about how one thing about circumstance evidence means
(44:00):
that we can tell a story out of it, and
this case was really a contest between stories. So, for example,
one of the really riveting facts you just gave us
that Langley ejaculated into Jeremy's mouth. It's really important to
note that at one trial that was given as a fact,
but at other trials that was not only disputed, but
(44:21):
in fact, there was no physical evidence of it. So
that when they other than his statement and the sperm
on the boys teacher, that when when they did uh,
testing in Jeremy's mouth and would have expected to find ejaculate,
and when they tested the contents of Jeremy's stomach that
was not found. Interesting. So, Joe Scott Morgan, we have
(44:42):
him stating exactly what he did, and you've got the
boy lying on the bed and all the other facts
that he stated in his confession are corroborated by the
physical evidence. There is the child's teach shirt covered in
his ejaculate. Um, I get the sense that we're now
(45:06):
splitting hairs as to whether he ejaculated in his mouth
or not. Just Scott, can you help me out forensically?
I don't. I don't necessarily know that that there would
be ejaculate uh readily visible or are detectable in the
child's mouth. But what we do know is that, uh,
(45:28):
I know it wouldn't be detectable in his stomach. Yeah,
that would. But keep what was alluded to in the
in the decision that you read, he went back. It
says that he went back and actually facilitated the literature
because he heard him moving. Now, he he might not
have been able to necessarily ingest in what we would
(45:50):
normally think. But yeah, I mean you would think that
in a manner which we would normally think. But he
he was still alive for that period of tom and end.
But what we do know is that there was ejaculate
that was tied back to this person on the shirt.
And this is this is an example of things that
I've seen in the past, particularly with individuals that are
(46:12):
basically necrophiles, after they've taken someone's life. In serial cases
I've been involved in, they they long to have a
control over an individual and then to stand over them
and uh and masturbate over bodies. And this is something
that you can see in the literature over and over
and over again. It is kind of a splitting hair's
(46:34):
issue here. What we do know is that there was
some type of sexual contact. The interesting thing though, is
was it anti mortem or prior post mortem? I have
a question, just curious, Alexandra, why does it matter if
he ejaculated in the boy's mouth or not. You know,
(46:54):
it's important to note that Laura A. Gillary believes her
son was not molested. Why Why is that important? Because
the facts really speak for themselves, don't they. You know, then,
and then I think we wouldn't have had three trials.
But the spot of ejaculate that we've talked about was
actually on the back of his shirt, right, so if
he were lying on his back. I mean, one of
(47:15):
the things that was interesting about this case to me
is just that the facts can appear to be so simple,
and yet we have three trials and we never quite
nailed down what happened. And I think one of the
reasons that it is so important is because it goes
to sometimes this unknowability of the past. You know, I
saw this in my own life, that there were facts
and the abuse that were very very clear, and then
(47:37):
there were things that my body would hold or that
lived his memories inside me that I would never quite understand.
And I think it goes to what we're doing in
some ways when we decide whether someone is going to
live or die in the death penalty case, but also
what we're doing when we tell ourselves a story out
of our own lives and try to make peace with
(47:57):
the to some extent, the irreconcilable, our annewable past, is
that we try to figure out how to make sense.
Dr Chloe Carmichael joining us along with Alexandria Marzano Lezanovitch.
Dr Chloe Alexandra brought up guys with me is Dr
Chloe carmichael website, Anxiety tools dot com, Anxiety tools dot com.
(48:21):
Dr Chloe, Um, Alexandria is referring to the I guess
dispute of facts, which I don't really see. That the
boy's dead, my strangulation with a defendant seman on his shirt,
and all the facts corroborate both the childless station and murder,
(48:43):
so I'm not quite sure I see the issue. But
Dr Chloe, the fact that Alexandra has brought up the
child's mother, Laurelie refused to believe that her child was molested,
even with a known pedophile that say that he wanted
to molest the boy since he first saw him, and
(49:05):
that he molested him horribly as he died. Why would
a mother not want to accept that fact about her
child's murder, that he was also molested. Yes, Nancy, that's
a that's a very it's a very painful question UM
to confront, because of course Jeremy's mother has been through
so much already and um having having lost her son,
(49:26):
and on a primal level, Um, even though obviously it's
not her fault, there's a part of her that may
feel as if she failed to protect her son, and
so the more gruesome and the more horrible that her
son's death was, the more guilty and painful that she
might feel inside. So it's possible that there's just a
(49:47):
limit to how much she can understand and grasp here,
and sometimes the mind just kind of shuts off at
a certain point, and that might actually be the breaking
point here. Everyone with me. Alexandria Marizano Lesnevich, author of
an incredible book, The Fact of a Body, a Murder
(50:08):
and a Memoir. Dr Chloe Carmichael joining me, psychologist out
of Manhattan, her website Anxiety tools dot Com, forensics expert,
Professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University. Joe Scott Morgan
and Alan Duke joining us from l A. Alexandria, Where
does the case stand now? What was the resolution in
(50:31):
the murder case of Ricky Langley? He is serving a
life sentence and he will always be serving a life sentence.
He will be in prison until he does so. At
the end of the day, Ricky Langley has escaped the
death penalty, and seemingly everyone goes about their business except
Alexandria Marzano Wesnovich and her incredible book The Fact of
(50:53):
a Body, A Murder and a Memoir. Thank you everyone.
Nancy Grace Crime Story signing off goodbye friend,