She was driven, accomplished, beautiful and MURDERED. On August 2, 2016, Queens, New York native Karina Vetrano left home to go for a run, but never returned. Jogging was a passion this speech pathologist shared with her father. In fact, the pair was training for a marathon in Cuba. In a new Killers Amongst Us, Phil Vetrano reveals why he didn't go running with Karina that day . Listen as he explains how within minutes of Karina's departure, he knew something was wrong.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Nancy Grace. Killers amongst Us, a production of
iHeartMedia and Crime Online. Each and every month, we investigate
the mystery surrounding a different homicide. Family members, investigators, reporters,
and experts join us to unravel the mysteries, examine the
(00:27):
clues left behind, and nail the bad guys. We will
not turn criminals and killers into celebrities, but we will
tell the stories of crime victims so they are never forgotten.
Every day, a gorgeous young girl, Karinavatronto laces up her
(00:48):
running shoes, grabs her cell phone and earbuds, and heads
to her favorite jocking path, one she knows by heart. Typically,
her firefighter dad filled the try we'll go with her,
But this day, of all others, he doesn't join her,
and this day of all days, Karina Vatrano never comes home. Today,
(01:15):
firefighter dad Phil Vatrano is with us, describing heart breaking
insight into his premonition that something is horribly wrong. Almost
as soon as his beautiful daughter Karina steps out the door.
He describes his efforts to find Karina and retrace her steps.
(01:40):
Also with US, Newsday reporter Tony DeStefano on the case
from the very beginning. But let's start with one simple
question from Karina to her dad, Phil, Daddy, you want
to go for a run. And I asked her, are
(02:02):
you going to go in there, meaning in Louise where
we had just won the Saturday Flow Saturday before Tuesday?
And she said yes. And I said, I don't think
it's a good idea range and she said, don't worry, daddy,
I'll be okay. Nancy Grace Killers amongst us, thirty year
(02:27):
old Corina the Toronto went out for a jog around
five o'clock Tuesday and never came home. Concerned, her father
called police and went out looking for her on a
path they often ran together. I imagine his answer, the
appoint Corina the Toronto. That's what it's all about, Corina
the Toronto. If you could see her face right now,
(02:51):
like I'm saying, absolutely perfect. Have you ever seen one
of those people that they don't even look yo. I
remember I was rushing from Court TV, which was on
the east side, to CNN HILLN, which was on the
west side of New York, and I saw a mob
(03:11):
of people. Traffic was slowed, so I looked over to
see what they were doing. Uma Thurmond was there and
I looked at her. She didn't even look real. She's
so beautiful. She looked like an angel on earth. She
didn't even look like a human. When I look at
Karna Vatronto, that's how she looks. Perfect. The skin, perfect,
(03:36):
the eyes, the lips, the hair, the everything. But Carina
not only beautiful on the outside, but beautiful on the
inside too. The day Carina Vatronto goes jogging is a
day that lives forever in the mind of her dad,
(03:58):
Phil with me now Phil Vatronto, Corina's dad and Newsday
reporter Tony DeStefano. When I first read the story, all
I could think about was my dad, Mac, who I
miss every single day. We exercise together. He had a
(04:22):
corneer thrombosis when he was like in his thirties and
started a regimen of diet and exercise. I would run
and he would fast walk beside me. Always. Every time
we were together on vacations with my mom and dad
at home, always would exercise together, and it just struck me.
(04:44):
I had to meet Phil Vatronto, and I finally did.
Phil and Tony, thank you for being with us. I'm
wanna start with you, Phil, tell me about how you
would go exercising with Corina every day. Well, it started
when she was in high school that you know. She
(05:04):
joined the track team, the Archbisher Malloy track team, which
I was on thirty years earlier, and we would train together.
We would go to Vancoulton Park, we would go to tracks,
we would run in the neighborhood and whenever we could,
we ran together. We trained together and she would slow
(05:24):
down to keep up with me because I'm older and
she was a lot faster. But we both, you know,
enjoyed that and we ran together whenever we could. And
we were actually training at that point to run in
the Cuba Marathon. That's what we were training for at
that point in time. Wow, Cuba. You were going to Cuba, Yes,
(05:47):
and run. I didn't even know Cuba had a marathon.
I run, but not at that level. They did it
that year. Wow, So you were training that year to
go run a marathon with her in Cuba. Yes, Okay,
this is something I've never asked you, and I've asked
you a lot of questions feel on and off the air.
You've never told me about Karina as a little girl. Well,
(06:11):
and she was always special. She was always inquisitive. Like Karina,
she didn't speak a word till she was two years old,
but she always took everything in. And when she started
to talk, when she started to speak, she spoke in paragraphs.
It wasn't like mommy day, I knew you were going
to say that. I thought you were gonna say she
(06:32):
spoke in full sense. I'm powagraphs right off the bat.
So she was always taking it in. And we all
know she was brilliant. She got a master degree and
she was a phenomenal writer. But as a little girl,
(06:52):
she was fearless. She always wanted to explore, to discover,
to she to cheek out new things. Always was very inquisitive,
and she the biggest thing about Karina was that she
was a writer. And she describes herself as being a writer.
(07:16):
And she describes herself as a writer not by choice.
She was born to write and she wrote many, many, many,
you know, short stories. She had a blog. But as
a little girl, you know, she was always special, always special.
Now something everything you say just struck me. But when
(07:37):
you said she was fearless, what did you mean by that? Well,
that's one of the things that got her in trouble.
She took after her father. She would never think twice
about doing anything. She traveled the world. When when she
was in high school, trying to tell you a little story,
(08:01):
we met this couple came over my house. They were
from Amsterdam, and I was selling a piece of skin
dyeting equipment. And they came from Amsterdam and then sitting
in my backyard, and Karina was probably fifteen, she was
still in high school, and of course, and they said, well,
if you ever want to come over, wanting to come
(08:22):
to Amsterdam, you could stay with us, you know. Two
weeks later, Karna was on an airplane going to spend
two weeks with a couple that we don't even know.
We didn't we didn't know them, We just met them.
And she stayed on a four hundred foot decommissioned destroyer.
That's where he lived. He happened to be found. We
(08:44):
found out he was very wealthy. But she didn't think
twice about doing anything. I got a call from her
one day and I hear with this wind in the background,
and I said, kareated, where are you And she says,
she says, I'm want a camel by the pyramids. So
(09:05):
she was afraid of nothing. Nothing. Okay, I've got to
tell you a story, Phil, and then I'm going to
get back to what we're supposed to be talking about.
Behold on. You know, I tell Phil the Toronto about
my children all the time. I took them to Scout
Camp and they've never been to sleep away because of me, Phil,
Because when I hear sleepaway camp, I immediately think murdering molestation. Right,
(09:27):
So I go and train and forced my husband to
take a week off and we go in the rough
and camp out for a week as volunteers at Scout Camp.
My daughter got up. You know, she's very shy. Unlike
her brother. He was doing his things. She was doing horseback, Phil.
(09:49):
She got up on a horse. Of course, I was
trailing at a discreet difference. The horses got into a
fight in a creek with my little girl up on
top of this huge horse. Can I tell you, I
don't know what she did. She got that horse calmed
down and on its way in about thirty seconds. When
(10:09):
we finally made it down off that mountain, I prayed
to God, thank you Lord for her not falling down
the mountain, And I said, Lucy how did you do that?
She said, I don't know, mom, because I don't remember
riding a horse before. And I said, well, you've ridden
a camel, and I've got a picture to prove it.
I know that's not PC Tony DeStefano, reporter, Newsday, but
(10:31):
she has ridden a camel, and we need to say.
That made me think. See, okay, we could talk forever
about our daughters. Okay, Anna, my son. I want to
talk to you about the day Carina decides to go jogging,
but you didn't go with her. It was all a
(10:51):
lot of happened stinch, you know, things that normally didn't occur,
well happening that day, you know, but but little things
that you didn't notice. You really didn't pay any attention
to it. Like Karina would call pool with one of
her girlfriends and they would drive to the train station
(11:12):
and take the train to the city. And that day
it was her girlfriend's day to drive, so Karina didn't
have her car. So her girlfriend got a call from
home and she left work early, so Karina didn't have
a ride home from the train station. That's the first thing.
And she called me up and she says, Daddy, I
don't a ride from the train station. You think you
(11:34):
could pick me up? And I said, I don't know.
I don't know. Range you know, I was picking her
mother up, my wife Kathy at the hospital that day
because she just had abdominal cancer related surgery, and I said,
I don't know if I'll be home in time. So
we were texting back and forth all day, and I
finally got Kathy home around two o'clock and I told Karina, yes,
(11:58):
I can pick you up at the train station. So
that was one thing that happened. And then she asked
me what's for dinner tonight. I said, well, we're gonna
have steak. I'm making steaks. She says, I don't want steak.
Can we stop at at a pizza place and I'm
gonna get a slash of pizza? And I said sure, fine.
So we get home and she goes up in her room.
(12:21):
She eats a half a slice of pizza, and she
comes right back down and she says, I'm going for
a run. Now, that's not normal that you're gonna have
something to eat and you're automatically going to go for
a run. But she decided to go for a run.
She said, Daddy, you want to go. And the day
before I had pinched my back. It was a little
(12:44):
bit out, so I said, you know, my back hurts
a little bit today. I said, I'm not gonna go.
And I asked her, are you going to go in there,
meaning in Deuise where we had just run the Saturday
before Saturday before Tuesday? And she said yes. And I said,
I don't think it's a good idea range and she said,
(13:05):
don't worry, daddy, I'll be okay. So she comes down.
It's about a quarter to six five forty and I
sit down and I started having my dinner and I'm
watching the news. And around six o'clock she's only gone
(13:27):
about twenty minutes. I started to get this feeling of uneasiness,
you know, but I ignored it. By a quarter after six,
she was getting stronger. Six twenty seven, you know, I
call offer and now she's only gone forty minutes. Six
(13:49):
twenty eight. Okay, wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait
a minute. I want to go through what you're saying,
because many people in the world say we're crazy. But
Tony to Stephano is with me newsday reporter, and you've
reported on everything. But Tony I have intentionally asked crime
(14:14):
victimus families almost always, did you get a sense something
was wrong? Did you feel any differently that day? And
I was listening to feel talk about the little nuances,
details of the day that at the time didn't mean anything.
(14:36):
I can't tell you, Tony, how many times I've gone
back over the day my fiance was murdered and remembered
this detail and that detail, and what if this and
what if that? Things that really didn't amount to a
hill of beans, but maybe they did, Tony. Have you
ever heard other crime victims state they had that sense
(14:59):
of foreboding that feel is describing. I have, yes, And
what particularly made of fils feeling very palpable was that
it underscore for me the closeness that he had with
Karna on so many levels. And you know people poo
(15:23):
poo the psychic and poopoo the you know, the bonds
that developed between parents and children and spouses and uh
and you know, siblings. But this seemed to me to
underscore that kind of attachment. When I heard that story,
(15:47):
and I've heard a number of times, and he's also
talked to me about it, but I've heard it from
other other crime well, you know another thing, Tony to
Stephano joining me Newsday report order Tony win feel described
the weeds. Give me a visual about where Carina went jogging.
(16:12):
I mean, the area is beautiful. Could you describe it
for us? What does it look like? Yeah? I could's
it used to be an old landfill, but it is
a federal park at the stage, and it has these
tall in the summertime certainly, and then the spring these
(16:32):
tall are they call them frag mighty weeds, which are
very tall weeds which can go up to eight to
ten feet. And the hiking trails and the running trails
the course through it, you know, surrounded by these tall
weeds which give it like a fence almost around around
(16:54):
your trails. It's all green. By the way, there are
some trees sprinkled in the park and in the area
Karina when jogging, there are some trees. Uh it borders
adjacent uh wet lands. Uh so you know it abuts
on the south side water and on the north and
(17:16):
sort of west sides or the highway to what water?
Oh that would be I think that's Jamaica Bay. Jamaica
Bay and uh it borders uh Spring Creek Park on
two sides. Basically, these are the south and sort of
(17:36):
the southeastern side, and they're fishermen who occasionally, you know,
work the area. Uh, and some homeless people too in
some parts of let's let's you know, uh, let's give
a complete picture. But it's it's uh, it's it's a
nice place if you want a jog. It's not a
bad place to jog. I can think of better places.
(17:57):
The jarg well, I mean, it sounds it sounds beautiful
and phil I've run and jogged my whole life. Well really,
actually when I got out of law school, it's when
I really got serious about it. Every day through inner
city Atlanta, I don't know what I was thinking. And
(18:18):
in New York, up and down the East River at night,
I don't know what I was thinking. And you know
a lot of people have attacked Karina for running in
um tights and a midge of shirt, which is what
I mean, That's what I would always run in and
never thought anything about it. It sounds like a yeah, exactly, yeah,
(18:45):
And I was just thinking about this area and everybody.
It's on Long Island and on either side is an
expanse of water. It's beautiful, It's absolutely beautiful imagining her
jog along with those tall green You're saying weeds, but
I think of things that look like a saw grass
(19:07):
or a bamboo on either she's running through there. And
and Phil, you said she left five thirty ish. Yeah,
you sat down. So she had pizza and you had steak.
All right. That was always a big deal when we
(19:28):
would grill out steak when I was growing up, because
you know, we didn't have any money and my mom
would send me to the grocery store and say, go
ask the meat guy for five steaks a quarter inch thick.
Now at the time, I did not realize, you know,
that was to save money. But I mean, it's like
a piece of paper. But so you're eating, you're watching
(19:48):
the news, and I want to explore what you just
told me about that feeling that came over you. Well,
you know, Koreean, the call that a happy place. She
always she called her a happy place to me, tough friends.
You know, she would she would love to be out
in nature, and that's where she was and she was
(20:10):
enjoying herself. And this feeling started to come upon me
and I called her at six twenty seven, six twenty eight,
six thirty. The feeling, what did it feel? I knew
something was wrong, something was not right. I didn't know what.
(20:30):
I didn't know if she got hurt. I didn't know
if she got attacked or bitten by a dog. I
didn't know what it was, but I knew something was wrong.
So at six thirty I yell out a curse. And
then my wife is upstairs in the bedroom recuperating, and
she hears me yelled, and she said, what's the matter.
(20:51):
And I said, Karina went out running and she's not
answering her phone. Now, Kathy was not even aware that
Karena was out. So I said, I'm going out, and
I left the house just with my phone, a pair
of shorts and a pair of boots and that's all
I had on. And I started to walk the trail
(21:13):
to from where we would start to where we would
turn around, and constantly calling her name, Karina, Karina, Karina.
Now I called her phone and I left a voicemail.
I think it was came over it six forty around there,
(21:33):
six forty one. And at that point when I got
to the point where we would turn around and I
couldn't find her, I didn't know what to do. So
I called the house. I said, it's Kaarina home, and
Kathy says no, I said, what should I do? Oh? Right,
right right there, right there. You've walked the entire round.
(21:57):
She's not there. She's not home. She told you the
route she was going, so you know, she didn't deviate.
So was it dark by that time? Pheel, No, it was.
It was August. It was. It was six o'clock in
the evening. We still had another two and a half
hours a daylight. I remember seeing a video of Karina,
(22:21):
just a glimpse, must have been from someone's um home
security and she was just jogging by. I saw she
had earbuds in her ears. Yes, yes, she was wearing earbuds.
Does she listen to music or a book on tape?
What would she listen to? No, No, she always listened
(22:42):
to her music. She would listen to her music. And
that that is another thing, you know, because she couldn't
hear if anybody was coming after her. She couldn't hear
any hustling. She was just in her own state of grace,
you know, listening to her music and running where she
loved to run. I'm thinking about when you are there
(23:04):
and you call back home and Kathy tells you she's
not home. What went through your mind? I said. I
asked her what should I do? And she said, call John. Now.
John is a lifelong friend of mine I grew up
with since we're eight years old, who happened to be
a three start chief in the police department. And I said, John,
(23:26):
you were a firefighter at your whole career. Yes, I said,
And John's father went to firement also, so I said, John.
Karen went running in the weeks because people of our
rage I grew up there, we call it the weeks.
And I said, she, I can't find that. She's not
answering her phone. He didn't ask me when she left him.
(23:49):
In all he said to me was Phil, where are you?
I told him where I was. He said, stay right there.
I'm sending a patrol call with the sergeant in it,
and I'm on my way home. And that's how I
how it started. Okay, I just gotta tell you something, Phil.
Right now, Jack, you look at me, I'm just getting
(24:10):
chills all up and down my legs and arms because
I'm just thinking of you standing there amongst all those
tall like saw grass, bamboo growth and you're looking for
her and you can't find her, and she's not at home.
I'm just thinking, like looking down on you in the
(24:30):
middle of all this expanse, looking for your girl, and
when you call him, he says her on her, Wait,
what did you do? Just stand there? Keep calling her?
What did you do? Well? I called her a number
of times. She didn't answer. Then the patrol clab pulled up.
I had since moved on to the street, which was
(24:52):
only about one hundred foot away. The patrol clab pulled
up and they said, what's going on? And I told
him and they said, okay, you wait here. We're going
in on the entrance about a half a mile away.
There's an entrance to get in there with a vehicle.
They said you stay here, and I said okay. So
I stayed there for probably about thirty seconds. Then they said, no,
(25:13):
hell with this, and I backtracked a trail back to
my house. I changed my clothes, I got into a
long pans, long sleeve shirt, and I started to look
for her again. I went on a different trail that
went in a different direction. And at that point, why
did you feel that you could not stay there and
(25:35):
feel I haven't told you this. I took the twins
on a Disney cruise, which was awesome, and they had
this like a tween hangout spot where you can like
play foodsball or cards and all that. Lucy, my daughter,
who shy, did not want to hang around. She came
back to the room. Well, I brought her back. John
David stayed and they had waukeie talkies. They were and
(25:56):
the people were to tell me when he was ready
to leave it, I would come get It was all
the way on the other side of this giant ship,
the fantasy, I think it was. Well, finally it got
to be ten o'clock and yes, we were on vacation,
but I thought they should be ready to leave because
he had been there since eight. So I called and
they go, oh, he left. He left. I nearly my
(26:19):
head nearly blew on, and my husband went, I'll go
look for him. I'm good, go look for him. And
I sat there. I had on my pj's, which are
shorts and a T shirt, and I said, I can't
sit here. After about fifteen seconds said Lucy, put on
your shoes. We're out. She and I go out in
our pajamas and tennis shoes, and I started running and
(26:45):
running toward the other end. I had no idea what
level he may be on, screaming his name, and when
I saw him at the end of that hallway, ever
forget it and I'm just thinking about you. And they
say statehood and you're like, oh, hell no, no, no,
(27:07):
that's what I said. Okay, So what happened? So I
started looking on another trail, and this is only a
half hour after I called John. Above me appears a
helicopter that he had already had sent out two helicopters,
you know, heat seekers that can see, you know, pick
(27:28):
up body images. So there were already helicopters there within
forty five minutes after I called him. And when I
came out of the trail again, there were probably thirty
forty fifty police officers. There was a command post set
up already. John was there, canines came in, we had
(27:51):
two bloodhounds already. This was within an hour and a half.
This is the whole command post. Who set up and
we're looking everywhere now. He asked me what was her
phone number, and of course I didn't know her code,
so he called the carrier had the phone unlocked and
(28:15):
the tayrou unit, which is a police departing uit, it
pinned her phone and they found it within seven hundred
feet of my house. Now they pinned it from a
location wherever they were, either Brooklyn in Manhattan, and then
they came down to the site and were able to
(28:36):
locate the phone. And that was about ten a quarter
after ten. This is the after we had been in
there with the bloodhounds and me giving them Camina's clothes
that you were that day, her bedsheets, her pillowcations, and
they let the canine smell it, and we left my
(28:59):
house house and the dogs basically they asked me to
show them where she would have gone in because it's
such a large park. So I took them to that
area and the dogs basically walked in the circle and
they walked back to my house. And that was it.
That the dogs had helped didn't help at all in
(29:21):
finding her. So I'm trying to figure out what that means.
But when that happened, what did you do? Where were
you doing this? I was with them. They needed me
to link them on the trail because it was a
dog that we had no light, and I knew the
trail like the back of my hand. So I would
(29:41):
take them on the trail that we would run on. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait,
I'm just imagining all of this happening. It didn't even
feel real. Did you think that any minute she was
going to come in the front door? Dad, I just
got a ride with so and seven. We went to
the convenience store on back. What's why? Why is there
a helicopter ever head? That was an outside at I mean,
(30:03):
the back of your mind, did you think that was
going to happen? In the back of my mind, I
was hoping that. But I knew something was wrong. I
knew that my baby was somewhere where she could not
answer me. Yeah, I knew at that point, I knew.
(30:25):
But when I left the house at six thirty, I
knew something was wrong. I knew. Don't ask me how,
but intuition. We were so close, Like Tony said, I
knew she was in danger. And as we were doing this,
they got a call from a police officer who said
(30:47):
we had located the phone, and I said where, And
they told me the location and I said that's not
good because it was further down on the trail where
we never ran. It was further into the weeds. So
I said, let's go and I started booking. I was moving,
(31:07):
I was practically running, and I had maybe six seven
police officers. My friend was with me, and the doors
who were with me, and I was going to that location.
Now I got to the location, there was one cop
standing on the trail looking into the weeds, and I said,
where is the phone? And he said it's in there,
(31:30):
and he pointed inside about fifty feet. He said to me,
but you can't go near it, you can't look at it.
You have to stay here. And I said, okay. So
then I started to walk the trail. I started to
walk further into the trail towards the Brooklyn and I
made it about fifty feet and that's when something told me, no,
(31:55):
not here, And I turned around and I started to
walk in the ship direction, passed where the phone was,
passed towards where we lived, and again something just told
me stopped and I stopped, and I looked, and I
(32:15):
just I saw one weed that was bent in the
opposite direction, and I just walked in. I just walked
in by myself. My friend another fireman was behind me,
and I walked exactly directly to where she was laying.
And that's when you know she was calling me, she
(32:36):
needs her daddy to find her. And that's how I
found her, just like that, still the Toronto. When you
say she was calling, yes, she needed her dad to
find her, she did. What do you mean by that?
That was the last act that I could do for
(32:56):
her because she needed to be found, number one, and
she needed me to find her. Even though it was
a horrible, horrible sight that I'll never forget. She needed
her daddy to find her, and I did. I keep
coming back to something you told me a long time ago.
(33:19):
You told me you felt you heard her call you.
What did you hear? What? What was that? It was
just something in my mind that said, no, stop here,
And you know, because there was a right side of
the trail and the left side of the trail, and
(33:41):
we had no idea where she was. But I just
stopped look into the right side of the trail and
that's when my mind, or corina, but something said come
in and that's when I went. She was telling me
(34:02):
to go this way, and I walked. It was probably
thirty feet off the trail in the thick, ten foot
high weeds that you know, police, everybody had passed passed,
and I just walked right in directly to where she was.
You know, when my fiancee was murdered, I did not
(34:23):
want to see his body at all. I just couldn't
do that at that time in my life. And I
remember at the funeral home, it was just before his service.
I was standing out in a greeting area and I
(34:43):
glanced in and I saw it, just a sliver of
Keith's face above his coffin, and feel in my youth,
I passed out. I completely passed out with a shock
of seeing that, and I'll never forget it. I can't
(35:03):
stand to this day to smell a carnation, you know,
those heavily scented carnations they always have at funerals. That
when I came back to, that was a smell that
I smelled until this day. When I smelled carnations, I
physically feel sick. I feel like I'm going to throw up.
(35:24):
And I remember when my dad passed away, which I
told you about, Everybody left the room and said, I'm
not leaving him in here. I'm staying with him until
we get him where he's supposed to be And it
hurts me to think by seeing them change the sheets
(35:46):
out from under him and kind of fold his body
up and put it on a guarnee. And I walked
it to the elevator, and I remember her in the
hospital hall. Everybody took their hats off and stood there.
And I hate to even think back on that moment
because I don't want to remember that. I don't know
(36:09):
how you stand it. I just when you walked into
that area and you saw her lying there, what did
you think, maybe she's still alive. What did you think? Well,
you know you could listen to the police officer that
(36:31):
was still on the trail. I made a sound. A
sound came out of me that is undescribable. It wasn't
a scream. It was more of a well of pure anguish,
pure pain. And I've never made that sound before, and
(36:52):
I've never made that sound after. It just came out
of me. And my first reaction was I have to
take a home. So I picked her up, and being
at the cop had heard that scream, they started to
run into the weeds. So I had her in my
(37:13):
arms and I was starting to take her out of there,
and they said, sir, this is a crime scene. You
have to put her down, And I said, no, I
have to take a home, and they basically dragged me
off of her, and I put her down the same
(37:34):
way I found her. And I only remember if they
dragged me out onto the trail, if I walked myself,
that's a complete blur. But next thing I know, I'm
on the trail and all now, all of these cops
are starting to go in there. They're they're coming over
to me, and you know, I kept saying, we got
(37:56):
to get her out of there. We got to get
her out of there. You know, now I know better
that you know it was a crime scene. I had
to wait for the forensic teams. You know how it works.
But I didn't know that. I just thought we had
to you know, we had to get him out of
there into some kind of safe argument, not in we
(38:17):
bug infested where she was. You know, I still wanted
to protect her. Still, you are bringing back a memory
to me. I don't know that I've ever shared it
with anybody. After Keith was murdered, it was, you know,
hours later I was at home with my mom and dad.
(38:39):
Everything was like a blur. And if somebody were to
say that on the stand, I'd tear them up about
not being able to remember. But the truth is it
was like a blur, and I remember feeling not like
a human. I felt like an animal, and I just
(39:00):
all I wanted to do was just go outside and
how and well, yes, I couldn't not cry, not say
a word. It was just I can't. I can't really
describe that feeling in in people talk in regular words.
It was not even human. The pain was just the shot,
(39:25):
and the pain was just too much. I understand exactly
because from that point on the rest of that night,
entire night, I was just like a zombie. I was
I was standing, I was breathing, I was seeing, but
it was all mechanical. Uh, Like I was a zombie
(39:49):
and I had no control over my bodily functions. You know,
my mind. I was just standing there like it was
a mannequin that happened to be alive. You know, I
couldn't even comprehend. I guess my mind was protecting my
(40:09):
body because if I would have really realized what had
just happened, I might have just died right then and there.
But my mind was protecting my body from just dying
and collapsing right there, Nancy Grace signing up Good Dying
Welcome to Nancy Grace. Killers amongst Us, a production of
iHeartMedia and Crime Online. Each and every month, we investigate
the mystery surrounding a different homicide. Family members, investigators, reporters,
and experts join us to unravel the mysteries, examine the
(00:27):
clues left behind, and nail the bad guys. We will
not turn criminals and killers into celebrities, but we will
tell the stories of crime victims so they are never forgotten.
Every day, a gorgeous young girl, Karinavatronto laces up her
(00:48):
running shoes, grabs her cell phone and earbuds, and heads
to her favorite jocking path, one she knows by heart. Typically,
her firefighter dad filled the try we'll go with her,
But this day, of all others, he doesn't join her,
and this day of all days, Karina Vatrano never comes home. Today,
(01:15):
firefighter dad Phil Vatrano is with us, describing heart breaking
insight into his premonition that something is horribly wrong. Almost
as soon as his beautiful daughter Karina steps out the door.
He describes his efforts to find Karina and retrace her steps.
(01:40):
Also with US, Newsday reporter Tony DeStefano on the case
from the very beginning. But let's start with one simple
question from Karina to her dad, Phil, Daddy, you want
to go for a run. And I asked her, are
(02:02):
you going to go in there, meaning in Louise where
we had just won the Saturday Flow Saturday before Tuesday?
And she said yes. And I said, I don't think
it's a good idea range and she said, don't worry, daddy,
I'll be okay. Nancy Grace Killers amongst us, thirty year
(02:27):
old Corina the Toronto went out for a jog around
five o'clock Tuesday and never came home. Concerned, her father
called police and went out looking for her on a
path they often ran together. I imagine his answer, the
appoint Corina the Toronto. That's what it's all about, Corina
the Toronto. If you could see her face right now,
(02:51):
like I'm saying, absolutely perfect. Have you ever seen one
of those people that they don't even look yo. I
remember I was rushing from Court TV, which was on
the east side, to CNN HILLN, which was on the
west side of New York, and I saw a mob
(03:11):
of people. Traffic was slowed, so I looked over to
see what they were doing. Uma Thurmond was there and
I looked at her. She didn't even look real. She's
so beautiful. She looked like an angel on earth. She
didn't even look like a human. When I look at
Karna Vatronto, that's how she looks. Perfect. The skin, perfect,
(03:36):
the eyes, the lips, the hair, the everything. But Carina
not only beautiful on the outside, but beautiful on the
inside too. The day Carina Vatronto goes jogging is a
day that lives forever in the mind of her dad,
(03:58):
Phil with me now Phil Vatronto, Corina's dad and Newsday
reporter Tony DeStefano. When I first read the story, all
I could think about was my dad, Mac, who I
miss every single day. We exercise together. He had a
(04:22):
corneer thrombosis when he was like in his thirties and
started a regimen of diet and exercise. I would run
and he would fast walk beside me. Always. Every time
we were together on vacations with my mom and dad
at home, always would exercise together, and it just struck me.
(04:44):
I had to meet Phil Vatronto, and I finally did.
Phil and Tony, thank you for being with us. I'm
wanna start with you, Phil, tell me about how you
would go exercising with Corina every day. Well, it started
when she was in high school that you know. She
(05:04):
joined the track team, the Archbisher Malloy track team, which
I was on thirty years earlier, and we would train together.
We would go to Vancoulton Park, we would go to tracks,
we would run in the neighborhood and whenever we could,
we ran together. We trained together and she would slow
(05:24):
down to keep up with me because I'm older and
she was a lot faster. But we both, you know,
enjoyed that and we ran together whenever we could. And
we were actually training at that point to run in
the Cuba Marathon. That's what we were training for at
that point in time. Wow, Cuba. You were going to Cuba, Yes,
(05:47):
and run. I didn't even know Cuba had a marathon.
I run, but not at that level. They did it
that year. Wow, So you were training that year to
go run a marathon with her in Cuba. Yes, Okay,
this is something I've never asked you, and I've asked
you a lot of questions feel on and off the air.
You've never told me about Karina as a little girl. Well,
(06:11):
and she was always special. She was always inquisitive. Like Karina,
she didn't speak a word till she was two years old,
but she always took everything in. And when she started
to talk, when she started to speak, she spoke in paragraphs.
It wasn't like mommy day, I knew you were going
to say that. I thought you were gonna say she
(06:32):
spoke in full sense. I'm powagraphs right off the bat.
So she was always taking it in. And we all
know she was brilliant. She got a master degree and
she was a phenomenal writer. But as a little girl,
(06:52):
she was fearless. She always wanted to explore, to discover,
to she to cheek out new things. Always was very inquisitive,
and she the biggest thing about Karina was that she
was a writer. And she describes herself as being a writer.
(07:16):
And she describes herself as a writer not by choice.
She was born to write and she wrote many, many, many,
you know, short stories. She had a blog. But as
a little girl, you know, she was always special, always special.
Now something everything you say just struck me. But when
(07:37):
you said she was fearless, what did you mean by that? Well,
that's one of the things that got her in trouble.
She took after her father. She would never think twice
about doing anything. She traveled the world. When when she
was in high school, trying to tell you a little story,
(08:01):
we met this couple came over my house. They were
from Amsterdam, and I was selling a piece of skin
dyeting equipment. And they came from Amsterdam and then sitting
in my backyard, and Karina was probably fifteen, she was
still in high school, and of course, and they said, well,
if you ever want to come over, wanting to come
(08:22):
to Amsterdam, you could stay with us, you know. Two
weeks later, Karna was on an airplane going to spend
two weeks with a couple that we don't even know.
We didn't we didn't know them, We just met them.
And she stayed on a four hundred foot decommissioned destroyer.
That's where he lived. He happened to be found. We
(08:44):
found out he was very wealthy. But she didn't think
twice about doing anything. I got a call from her
one day and I hear with this wind in the background,
and I said, kareated, where are you And she says,
she says, I'm want a camel by the pyramids. So
(09:05):
she was afraid of nothing. Nothing. Okay, I've got to
tell you a story, Phil, and then I'm going to
get back to what we're supposed to be talking about.
Behold on. You know, I tell Phil the Toronto about
my children all the time. I took them to Scout
Camp and they've never been to sleep away because of me, Phil,
Because when I hear sleepaway camp, I immediately think murdering molestation. Right,
(09:27):
So I go and train and forced my husband to
take a week off and we go in the rough
and camp out for a week as volunteers at Scout Camp.
My daughter got up. You know, she's very shy. Unlike
her brother. He was doing his things. She was doing horseback, Phil.
(09:49):
She got up on a horse. Of course, I was
trailing at a discreet difference. The horses got into a
fight in a creek with my little girl up on
top of this huge horse. Can I tell you, I
don't know what she did. She got that horse calmed
down and on its way in about thirty seconds. When
(10:09):
we finally made it down off that mountain, I prayed
to God, thank you Lord for her not falling down
the mountain, And I said, Lucy how did you do that?
She said, I don't know, mom, because I don't remember
riding a horse before. And I said, well, you've ridden
a camel, and I've got a picture to prove it.
I know that's not PC Tony DeStefano, reporter, Newsday, but
(10:31):
she has ridden a camel, and we need to say.
That made me think. See, okay, we could talk forever
about our daughters. Okay, Anna, my son. I want to
talk to you about the day Carina decides to go jogging,
but you didn't go with her. It was all a
(10:51):
lot of happened stinch, you know, things that normally didn't occur,
well happening that day, you know, but but little things
that you didn't notice. You really didn't pay any attention
to it. Like Karina would call pool with one of
her girlfriends and they would drive to the train station
(11:12):
and take the train to the city. And that day
it was her girlfriend's day to drive, so Karina didn't
have her car. So her girlfriend got a call from
home and she left work early, so Karina didn't have
a ride home from the train station. That's the first thing.
And she called me up and she says, Daddy, I
don't a ride from the train station. You think you
(11:34):
could pick me up? And I said, I don't know.
I don't know. Range you know, I was picking her
mother up, my wife Kathy at the hospital that day
because she just had abdominal cancer related surgery, and I said,
I don't know if I'll be home in time. So
we were texting back and forth all day, and I
finally got Kathy home around two o'clock and I told Karina, yes,
(11:58):
I can pick you up at the train station. So
that was one thing that happened. And then she asked
me what's for dinner tonight. I said, well, we're gonna
have steak. I'm making steaks. She says, I don't want steak.
Can we stop at at a pizza place and I'm
gonna get a slash of pizza? And I said sure, fine.
So we get home and she goes up in her room.
(12:21):
She eats a half a slice of pizza, and she
comes right back down and she says, I'm going for
a run. Now, that's not normal that you're gonna have
something to eat and you're automatically going to go for
a run. But she decided to go for a run.
She said, Daddy, you want to go. And the day
before I had pinched my back. It was a little
(12:44):
bit out, so I said, you know, my back hurts
a little bit today. I said, I'm not gonna go.
And I asked her, are you going to go in there,
meaning in Deuise where we had just run the Saturday
before Saturday before Tuesday? And she said yes. And I said,
I don't think it's a good idea range and she said,
(13:05):
don't worry, daddy, I'll be okay. So she comes down.
It's about a quarter to six five forty and I
sit down and I started having my dinner and I'm
watching the news. And around six o'clock she's only gone
(13:27):
about twenty minutes. I started to get this feeling of uneasiness,
you know, but I ignored it. By a quarter after six,
she was getting stronger. Six twenty seven, you know, I
call offer and now she's only gone forty minutes. Six
(13:49):
twenty eight. Okay, wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait
a minute. I want to go through what you're saying,
because many people in the world say we're crazy. But
Tony to Stephano is with me newsday reporter, and you've
reported on everything. But Tony I have intentionally asked crime
(14:14):
victimus families almost always, did you get a sense something
was wrong? Did you feel any differently that day? And
I was listening to feel talk about the little nuances,
details of the day that at the time didn't mean anything.
(14:36):
I can't tell you, Tony, how many times I've gone
back over the day my fiance was murdered and remembered
this detail and that detail, and what if this and
what if that? Things that really didn't amount to a
hill of beans, but maybe they did, Tony. Have you
ever heard other crime victims state they had that sense
(14:59):
of foreboding that feel is describing. I have, yes, And
what particularly made of fils feeling very palpable was that
it underscore for me the closeness that he had with
Karna on so many levels. And you know people poo
(15:23):
poo the psychic and poopoo the you know, the bonds
that developed between parents and children and spouses and uh
and you know, siblings. But this seemed to me to
underscore that kind of attachment. When I heard that story,
(15:47):
and I've heard a number of times, and he's also
talked to me about it, but I've heard it from
other other crime well, you know another thing, Tony to
Stephano joining me Newsday report order Tony win feel described
the weeds. Give me a visual about where Carina went jogging.
(16:12):
I mean, the area is beautiful. Could you describe it
for us? What does it look like? Yeah? I could's
it used to be an old landfill, but it is
a federal park at the stage, and it has these
tall in the summertime certainly, and then the spring these
(16:32):
tall are they call them frag mighty weeds, which are
very tall weeds which can go up to eight to
ten feet. And the hiking trails and the running trails
the course through it, you know, surrounded by these tall
weeds which give it like a fence almost around around
(16:54):
your trails. It's all green. By the way, there are
some trees sprinkled in the park and in the area
Karina when jogging, there are some trees. Uh it borders
adjacent uh wet lands. Uh so you know it abuts
on the south side water and on the north and
(17:16):
sort of west sides or the highway to what water?
Oh that would be I think that's Jamaica Bay. Jamaica
Bay and uh it borders uh Spring Creek Park on
two sides. Basically, these are the south and sort of
(17:36):
the southeastern side, and they're fishermen who occasionally, you know,
work the area. Uh, and some homeless people too in
some parts of let's let's you know, uh, let's give
a complete picture. But it's it's uh, it's it's a
nice place if you want a jog. It's not a
bad place to jog. I can think of better places.
(17:57):
The jarg well, I mean, it sounds it sounds beautiful
and phil I've run and jogged my whole life. Well really,
actually when I got out of law school, it's when
I really got serious about it. Every day through inner
city Atlanta, I don't know what I was thinking. And
(18:18):
in New York, up and down the East River at night,
I don't know what I was thinking. And you know
a lot of people have attacked Karina for running in
um tights and a midge of shirt, which is what
I mean, That's what I would always run in and
never thought anything about it. It sounds like a yeah, exactly, yeah,
(18:45):
And I was just thinking about this area and everybody.
It's on Long Island and on either side is an
expanse of water. It's beautiful, It's absolutely beautiful imagining her
jog along with those tall green You're saying weeds, but
I think of things that look like a saw grass
(19:07):
or a bamboo on either she's running through there. And
and Phil, you said she left five thirty ish. Yeah,
you sat down. So she had pizza and you had steak.
All right. That was always a big deal when we
(19:28):
would grill out steak when I was growing up, because
you know, we didn't have any money and my mom
would send me to the grocery store and say, go
ask the meat guy for five steaks a quarter inch thick.
Now at the time, I did not realize, you know,
that was to save money. But I mean, it's like
a piece of paper. But so you're eating, you're watching
(19:48):
the news, and I want to explore what you just
told me about that feeling that came over you. Well,
you know, Koreean, the call that a happy place. She
always she called her a happy place to me, tough friends.
You know, she would she would love to be out
in nature, and that's where she was and she was
(20:10):
enjoying herself. And this feeling started to come upon me
and I called her at six twenty seven, six twenty eight,
six thirty. The feeling, what did it feel? I knew
something was wrong, something was not right. I didn't know what.
(20:30):
I didn't know if she got hurt. I didn't know
if she got attacked or bitten by a dog. I
didn't know what it was, but I knew something was wrong.
So at six thirty I yell out a curse. And
then my wife is upstairs in the bedroom recuperating, and
she hears me yelled, and she said, what's the matter.
(20:51):
And I said, Karina went out running and she's not
answering her phone. Now, Kathy was not even aware that
Karena was out. So I said, I'm going out, and
I left the house just with my phone, a pair
of shorts and a pair of boots and that's all
I had on. And I started to walk the trail
(21:13):
to from where we would start to where we would
turn around, and constantly calling her name, Karina, Karina, Karina.
Now I called her phone and I left a voicemail.
I think it was came over it six forty around there,
(21:33):
six forty one. And at that point when I got
to the point where we would turn around and I
couldn't find her, I didn't know what to do. So
I called the house. I said, it's Kaarina home, and
Kathy says no, I said, what should I do? Oh? Right,
right right there, right there. You've walked the entire round.
(21:57):
She's not there. She's not home. She told you the
route she was going, so you know, she didn't deviate.
So was it dark by that time? Pheel, No, it was.
It was August. It was. It was six o'clock in
the evening. We still had another two and a half
hours a daylight. I remember seeing a video of Karina,
(22:21):
just a glimpse, must have been from someone's um home
security and she was just jogging by. I saw she
had earbuds in her ears. Yes, yes, she was wearing earbuds.
Does she listen to music or a book on tape?
What would she listen to? No, No, she always listened
(22:42):
to her music. She would listen to her music. And
that that is another thing, you know, because she couldn't
hear if anybody was coming after her. She couldn't hear
any hustling. She was just in her own state of grace,
you know, listening to her music and running where she
loved to run. I'm thinking about when you are there
(23:04):
and you call back home and Kathy tells you she's
not home. What went through your mind? I said. I
asked her what should I do? And she said, call John. Now.
John is a lifelong friend of mine I grew up
with since we're eight years old, who happened to be
a three start chief in the police department. And I said, John,
(23:26):
you were a firefighter at your whole career. Yes, I said,
And John's father went to firement also, so I said, John.
Karen went running in the weeks because people of our
rage I grew up there, we call it the weeks.
And I said, she, I can't find that. She's not
answering her phone. He didn't ask me when she left him.
(23:49):
In all he said to me was Phil, where are you?
I told him where I was. He said, stay right there.
I'm sending a patrol call with the sergeant in it,
and I'm on my way home. And that's how I
how it started. Okay, I just gotta tell you something, Phil.
Right now, Jack, you look at me, I'm just getting
(24:10):
chills all up and down my legs and arms because
I'm just thinking of you standing there amongst all those
tall like saw grass, bamboo growth and you're looking for
her and you can't find her, and she's not at home.
I'm just thinking, like looking down on you in the
(24:30):
middle of all this expanse, looking for your girl, and
when you call him, he says her on her, Wait,
what did you do? Just stand there? Keep calling her?
What did you do? Well? I called her a number
of times. She didn't answer. Then the patrol clab pulled up.
I had since moved on to the street, which was
(24:52):
only about one hundred foot away. The patrol clab pulled
up and they said, what's going on? And I told
him and they said, okay, you wait here. We're going
in on the entrance about a half a mile away.
There's an entrance to get in there with a vehicle.
They said you stay here, and I said okay. So
I stayed there for probably about thirty seconds. Then they said, no,
(25:13):
hell with this, and I backtracked a trail back to
my house. I changed my clothes, I got into a
long pans, long sleeve shirt, and I started to look
for her again. I went on a different trail that
went in a different direction. And at that point, why
did you feel that you could not stay there and
(25:35):
feel I haven't told you this. I took the twins
on a Disney cruise, which was awesome, and they had
this like a tween hangout spot where you can like
play foodsball or cards and all that. Lucy, my daughter,
who shy, did not want to hang around. She came
back to the room. Well, I brought her back. John
David stayed and they had waukeie talkies. They were and
(25:56):
the people were to tell me when he was ready
to leave it, I would come get It was all
the way on the other side of this giant ship,
the fantasy, I think it was. Well, finally it got
to be ten o'clock and yes, we were on vacation,
but I thought they should be ready to leave because
he had been there since eight. So I called and
they go, oh, he left. He left. I nearly my
(26:19):
head nearly blew on, and my husband went, I'll go
look for him. I'm good, go look for him. And
I sat there. I had on my pj's, which are
shorts and a T shirt, and I said, I can't
sit here. After about fifteen seconds said Lucy, put on
your shoes. We're out. She and I go out in
our pajamas and tennis shoes, and I started running and
(26:45):
running toward the other end. I had no idea what
level he may be on, screaming his name, and when
I saw him at the end of that hallway, ever
forget it and I'm just thinking about you. And they
say statehood and you're like, oh, hell no, no, no,
(27:07):
that's what I said. Okay, So what happened? So I
started looking on another trail, and this is only a
half hour after I called John. Above me appears a
helicopter that he had already had sent out two helicopters,
you know, heat seekers that can see, you know, pick
(27:28):
up body images. So there were already helicopters there within
forty five minutes after I called him. And when I
came out of the trail again, there were probably thirty
forty fifty police officers. There was a command post set
up already. John was there, canines came in, we had
(27:51):
two bloodhounds already. This was within an hour and a half.
This is the whole command post. Who set up and
we're looking everywhere now. He asked me what was her
phone number, and of course I didn't know her code,
so he called the carrier had the phone unlocked and
(28:15):
the tayrou unit, which is a police departing uit, it
pinned her phone and they found it within seven hundred
feet of my house. Now they pinned it from a
location wherever they were, either Brooklyn in Manhattan, and then
they came down to the site and were able to
(28:36):
locate the phone. And that was about ten a quarter
after ten. This is the after we had been in
there with the bloodhounds and me giving them Camina's clothes
that you were that day, her bedsheets, her pillowcations, and
they let the canine smell it, and we left my
(28:59):
house house and the dogs basically they asked me to
show them where she would have gone in because it's
such a large park. So I took them to that
area and the dogs basically walked in the circle and
they walked back to my house. And that was it.
That the dogs had helped didn't help at all in
(29:21):
finding her. So I'm trying to figure out what that means.
But when that happened, what did you do? Where were
you doing this? I was with them. They needed me
to link them on the trail because it was a
dog that we had no light, and I knew the
trail like the back of my hand. So I would
(29:41):
take them on the trail that we would run on. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait,
I'm just imagining all of this happening. It didn't even
feel real. Did you think that any minute she was
going to come in the front door? Dad, I just
got a ride with so and seven. We went to
the convenience store on back. What's why? Why is there
a helicopter ever head? That was an outside at I mean,
(30:03):
the back of your mind, did you think that was
going to happen? In the back of my mind, I
was hoping that. But I knew something was wrong. I
knew that my baby was somewhere where she could not
answer me. Yeah, I knew at that point, I knew.
(30:25):
But when I left the house at six thirty, I
knew something was wrong. I knew. Don't ask me how,
but intuition. We were so close, Like Tony said, I
knew she was in danger. And as we were doing this,
they got a call from a police officer who said
(30:47):
we had located the phone, and I said where, And
they told me the location and I said that's not
good because it was further down on the trail where
we never ran. It was further into the weeds. So
I said, let's go and I started booking. I was moving,
(31:07):
I was practically running, and I had maybe six seven
police officers. My friend was with me, and the doors
who were with me, and I was going to that location.
Now I got to the location, there was one cop
standing on the trail looking into the weeds, and I said,
where is the phone? And he said it's in there,
(31:30):
and he pointed inside about fifty feet. He said to me,
but you can't go near it, you can't look at it.
You have to stay here. And I said, okay. So
then I started to walk the trail. I started to
walk further into the trail towards the Brooklyn and I
made it about fifty feet and that's when something told me, no,
(31:55):
not here, And I turned around and I started to
walk in the ship direction, passed where the phone was,
passed towards where we lived, and again something just told
me stopped and I stopped, and I looked, and I
(32:15):
just I saw one weed that was bent in the
opposite direction, and I just walked in. I just walked
in by myself. My friend another fireman was behind me,
and I walked exactly directly to where she was laying.
And that's when you know she was calling me, she
(32:36):
needs her daddy to find her. And that's how I
found her, just like that, still the Toronto. When you
say she was calling, yes, she needed her dad to
find her, she did. What do you mean by that?
That was the last act that I could do for
(32:56):
her because she needed to be found, number one, and
she needed me to find her. Even though it was
a horrible, horrible sight that I'll never forget. She needed
her daddy to find her, and I did. I keep
coming back to something you told me a long time ago.
(33:19):
You told me you felt you heard her call you.
What did you hear? What? What was that? It was
just something in my mind that said, no, stop here,
And you know, because there was a right side of
the trail and the left side of the trail, and
(33:41):
we had no idea where she was. But I just
stopped look into the right side of the trail and
that's when my mind, or corina, but something said come
in and that's when I went. She was telling me
(34:02):
to go this way, and I walked. It was probably
thirty feet off the trail in the thick, ten foot
high weeds that you know, police, everybody had passed passed,
and I just walked right in directly to where she was.
You know, when my fiancee was murdered, I did not
(34:23):
want to see his body at all. I just couldn't
do that at that time in my life. And I
remember at the funeral home, it was just before his service.
I was standing out in a greeting area and I
(34:43):
glanced in and I saw it, just a sliver of
Keith's face above his coffin, and feel in my youth,
I passed out. I completely passed out with a shock
of seeing that, and I'll never forget it. I can't
(35:03):
stand to this day to smell a carnation, you know,
those heavily scented carnations they always have at funerals. That
when I came back to, that was a smell that
I smelled until this day. When I smelled carnations, I
physically feel sick. I feel like I'm going to throw up.
(35:24):
And I remember when my dad passed away, which I
told you about, Everybody left the room and said, I'm
not leaving him in here. I'm staying with him until
we get him where he's supposed to be And it
hurts me to think by seeing them change the sheets
(35:46):
out from under him and kind of fold his body
up and put it on a guarnee. And I walked
it to the elevator, and I remember her in the
hospital hall. Everybody took their hats off and stood there.
And I hate to even think back on that moment
because I don't want to remember that. I don't know
(36:09):
how you stand it. I just when you walked into
that area and you saw her lying there, what did
you think, maybe she's still alive. What did you think? Well,
you know you could listen to the police officer that
(36:31):
was still on the trail. I made a sound. A
sound came out of me that is undescribable. It wasn't
a scream. It was more of a well of pure anguish,
pure pain. And I've never made that sound before, and
(36:52):
I've never made that sound after. It just came out
of me. And my first reaction was I have to
take a home. So I picked her up, and being
at the cop had heard that scream, they started to
run into the weeds. So I had her in my
(37:13):
arms and I was starting to take her out of there,
and they said, sir, this is a crime scene. You
have to put her down, And I said, no, I
have to take a home, and they basically dragged me
off of her, and I put her down the same
(37:34):
way I found her. And I only remember if they
dragged me out onto the trail, if I walked myself,
that's a complete blur. But next thing I know, I'm
on the trail and all now, all of these cops
are starting to go in there. They're they're coming over
to me, and you know, I kept saying, we got
(37:56):
to get her out of there. We got to get
her out of there. You know, now I know better
that you know it was a crime scene. I had
to wait for the forensic teams. You know how it works.
But I didn't know that. I just thought we had
to you know, we had to get him out of
there into some kind of safe argument, not in we
(38:17):
bug infested where she was. You know, I still wanted
to protect her. Still, you are bringing back a memory
to me. I don't know that I've ever shared it
with anybody. After Keith was murdered, it was, you know,
hours later I was at home with my mom and dad.
(38:39):
Everything was like a blur. And if somebody were to
say that on the stand, I'd tear them up about
not being able to remember. But the truth is it
was like a blur, and I remember feeling not like
a human. I felt like an animal, and I just
(39:00):
all I wanted to do was just go outside and
how and well, yes, I couldn't not cry, not say
a word. It was just I can't. I can't really
describe that feeling in in people talk in regular words.
It was not even human. The pain was just the shot,
(39:25):
and the pain was just too much. I understand exactly
because from that point on the rest of that night,
entire night, I was just like a zombie. I was
I was standing, I was breathing, I was seeing, but
it was all mechanical. Uh, Like I was a zombie
(39:49):
and I had no control over my bodily functions. You know,
my mind. I was just standing there like it was
a mannequin that happened to be alive. You know, I
couldn't even comprehend. I guess my mind was protecting my
(40:09):
body because if I would have really realized what had
just happened, I might have just died right then and there.
But my mind was protecting my body from just dying
and collapsing right there, Nancy Grace signing up Good Dying
Host
Nancy Grace
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