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| Baby Elaina missing since June 2, 2013 |
When T.J. Steinfurth arrived at King's mother's house in Toledo, Ohio, Angela Steinfurth refused to hand over the child. After arguing for nearly two hours, Steinfurth went inside to get Baby Elaina, then came out hysterically saying the child was missing.
Angela Steinfurth and Steven King have long been considered suspects in the case and both remain in jail charged with obstruction of justice. New developments say that Steven King told his mother that he gave information to authorities regarding the whereabouts of Baby Elaina's remains.
On Sept. 5, 2013, a search warrant was executed at King's mother's house and authorities retrieved a box from the garage with "immature human remains" located inside. An autopsy is currently underway and it is likely a positive identification will be made.
Here is the full transcript from Nancy Grace's Sept. 6, 2013, show that focused on the Baby Elaina case.
NANCY GRACE
The Disappearance of Baby Elaina
Aired September 6, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The case of missing toddler Elaina Steinfurth is receiving national attention.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This Toledo toddler remains missing, but we are learning more about the alleged injuries.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just basically told me that the baby had a bruised eye, a little bit of dried blood around one of the nostrils and a bump on the head.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This video shows the room where Elaina was reportedly last seen, torn apart by authorities looking for evidence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`ve searched here I think a total of four -- four or five times.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Angela Steinfurth sobbing in court.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Angela appeared at the front door reporting that her child had vanished.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just afraid by some chance that maybe she had gotten out the back door into the pool.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ran into the house, directly into the bedroom where she said she was sleeping at. I didn`t see Elaina anywhere. I never got a straight answer. Her statement was she did not know where the child was.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone in that house knows where that baby is at!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: When I first heard about the case of baby Elaina, I immediately thought somebody`s lying. That was at first blush. And the only people talking at that time were police and the mommy. I don`t think police are lying.
I then immediately felt a horrible ache for baby Elaina because the more I hear about the circumstances under which she was raised for her 18 short months -- were very, very disturbing, very disturbing, and now she`s gone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We brought you here today to discuss a major development that has occurred over the past 24 hours involving our continuing investigation on Elaina Steinfurth. As most of you know, yesterday about 3:00 o`clock, 3:16, Toledo Police Department detectives executed a search warrant at 701 Federal based on information obtained during our investigation.
As a result of that search warrant, we were able to recover immature human skeletal remains. That was turned over to the Lucas County coroner`s office. Presently, the Lucas County coroner is conducting an autopsy on those remains.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This video, obtained exclusively by WNWO, shows the room where Elaina was reportedly last seen, torn apart by authorities looking for evidence. And according to the home owner, it has remained untouched since the search.
A big question in the case is a gap in time when the ex-boyfriend of Angela Steinfurth, Steven King, is uncounted for. Witnesses report that Steven ran out the back door of this home immediately after Angela appeared at the front door reporting that her child had vanished.
Julie says she was with Steven that entire time and they were worried Elaina may have wandered into the back yard. That`s when he was said to have left for about 30 minutes. That is the missing time that many have questioned. But she says Steven with was another neighborhood boy searching for Elaina.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically, we stopped talking about it and...
GRACE: Wait! Wa-wa-wa-wa-wait! Wa-Wait! The baby`s missing, the whole town is upside down, and you stopped talking about it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I...
GRACE: You didn`t say, Where is the baby?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was talking to the police officer...
GRACE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... who was getting the video surveillance off my cameras at the time.
GRACE: OK. All right. So did she ever indicate to you where`s the baby?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
GRACE: Did you ever ask her?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Multiple times. She said she did not know. And I said, How can you not know? There`s too many people in that house, OK? The baby`s laying down. Why didn`t you check on the baby?
You know, I can understand once or twice, you know, you have a little faith in your spouse or your partner. But if that baby had injuries, why didn`t you check on your child? I never got a straight answer. She -- her statement was she did not know where the child was.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Angela came out of the home. She told me that Elaina was missing. I darted into the home and checked the bedroom where she was supposed to be. She said, The baby`s gone, the baby is gone. And to me, she was showing no emotion. She wasn`t crying, nothing.
I wouldn`t call it a scream. I`d say a little bit louder than normal, but it wasn`t a scream or a yell.
I ran into the house, directly into the bedroom where she said she was sleeping at. I didn`t see Elaina anywhere. I turned around. I seen that the back door was wide open. So I asked where a couple of the other people who were in the home -- I`m not going to say names -- asked where they were at. She had told me they had ran out the back door, the boyfriend and a friend of his. And at that point, I jumped in my vehicle.
GRACE: There you see the mom holding the baby. Take a look. This is -- she`s kissing the baby. The baby appears well, well nourished. It looked clean. She`s on her cellphone. She`s holding the baby.
Maybe this doesn`t mean anything to you, but it means something to me. Look at her rocking the baby. She`s loving on the baby. She`s holding the baby. I don`t know if all of you can see what I`m seeing. She`s sitting alone on the front porch. She`s holding the baby.
And I am just telling you -- I`m telling you that this is a mother. I don`t care what anybody says, she loved this baby. Now, did she lose her temper and hurt the baby? I don`t know. Did somebody else in that home, her boyfriend, did they hurt the baby? Is she covering for somebody? I don`t know.
But look at that. Look at her lovingly putting the baby in the carriage. This is important. This matters. This is just before baby Elaina is abducted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The chances that baby Elaina is alive are slim to none. The mother`s story went from bad to worse. We learned a couple of days into our own investigation that the mother says that she woke up and looked over, and baby Elaina suddenly had a black eye, a bump on her head and bleeding around her nostrils.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The whole time that we were out here looking for Elaina, she had -- we`re asking if she knew anything, anything at all, any ideas of where she could be, and who hurt her and what happened. And she kept telling us, No, I don`t know anything. I wish I did. I don`t know anything. But really, this whole time, she knew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`ve contacted the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation and they`ll be working over the weekend to also conduct additional examination on these remains in an attempt to determine the identity of these remains. This investigation that we have is still ongoing and it`s still active. It is an ongoing investigation and is still an active investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty much that Elaina was hurt and she was taken out of the boyfriend`s house, but she don`t know where she`s at. I heard that she was dropped, but to have a broken nose and a black eye, you`re not just dropped.
I`m guessing that the way that it was bleeding that -- I mean, for it to be bleeding as much as it was, she thought it was broken. There`s no way that I would have waited. I would have opened my mouth the very first day, threatened or not. If this was my kid, oh, my mouth would have done been opened!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Now, how do you wake up -- it`s like those movies where you wake up and there`s a dead body beside you. That`s in the movies. That`s not real. So I find it very difficult to imagine -- and I think I can be very creative -- to imagine a scenario where a mother goes to sleep and her child is fine, and when she wakes up and the baby is lying there with a black eye, blood on its nose and a bump on its head.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told me about the baby having a black eye, a bump on the head and just a little bit of dried blood around the nostril. But I was, like, Well, what`s all that about, you know? And she said, well, when she woke up the baby was like that. I said, Well, what did you -- why didn`t you call -- you know, take her to the hospital or call the police or whatever?
She said that she told -- what she told me, that she asked Steven to check, the boyfriend to check on the baby to make sure the baby was OK medically, and the boyfriend overlooked (ph) the child and said that she`s going to be just fine.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: She then says that she showed the baby to her boyfriend and said, Do you think she`s OK? And the boy said, yes, sure. What? Unless he is a pediatric ER doctor, then why would she ask him? It`s not even his baby.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As Toledo police and the FBI continue following leads and Elaina`s mom remains in jail on a child endangering charge, folks in the baby girl`s East Toledo neighborhood are growing more frustrated and desperate, hoping and praying that they`ll find answers soon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Up and down Federal Street, pink ribbons are now wrapped around trees, poles and cars, a solemn reminder of East Toledo`s missing baby girl, 18-month-old Elaina Steinfurth.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have it on my windshield wiper, my antenna. It`s on the van`s mirrors around the corner. It`s everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It actually came from the yellow ribbons from the support for the troops -- support for Elaina. Keep hope alive. She`s still somewhere. She`s not home yet. Bring her home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: FBI divers packed up after a second day in a row of combing this portion of the Maumee River near the High Level Bridge. We`re told that the crew, with the help of a U.S. Coast Guard boat outfitted with sonar technology, found nothing.
For the past two days, this has been the spot on shore is where crews set up shop. They had a tent here and their equipment, kind of as home base as they searched the river. But after clearing out today, it appears the search of this specific location has ended. Yellow crime scene tape has been removed and TPD officers no longer stand on guard.
Carl Pagent (ph), who went to high school with Elaina`s dad, helped put together this donation jar, which he placed on the counter of the Facet (ph) mini-mart at the corner of Facet (ph) and Oak. He says money collected will go toward food and water for volunteer searchers. Plus...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we bring her home, we want to throw a welcome home party for her and help her out, getting her new clothes, new toys, stuff like that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Now we are hearing stories attributed to you, all of these stories attributed to her. I didn`t hear her say any of this, but these are stories attributed to her -- that she felt threatened that if she called the police about the baby being missing or hurt, that she would be done in.
And you know, I think you can ask 80 out of 100 moms, they would take a bullet for their child. I would. But she was so afraid of taking the child to the doctor or calling 911 or contacting police -- I just don`t believe that. I do not believe it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-five-year-old Angela Steinfurth breaks down in court on Thursday, her daughter missing for more than a week. Steinfurth is charged with felony child endangering of 18-month-old Elaina.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need all of the support that I can get to bring her home.
GRACE: Where is baby Elaina?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The toddler disappeared two weeks ago when her mother says she put Elaina down for a nap. Her estranged husband says he came for a custody visit with his two daughters. At first, he says, Angela refused to hand over Elaina. When she did agree, Elaina was gone. Family members say the mother`s story just doesn`t add up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She doesn`t know where the baby`s at or who took the baby. Personally, from what I have viewed of her, I don`t think she`s showing any emotion of it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators believe the child may have been hurt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was known to us that the baby was injured at one point. She was aware of it and did not seek medical attention for the baby.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Volunteers have scoured the neighborhood. The streets are lined with posters with one goal, to bring baby Elaina home. But so far, no clues.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do hope the child turns up alive. Right now, it`s a mystery. We don`t know what happened to this little girl. So the mother cannot be charged, for example, with murder because no body, no case.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bond for Steinfurth has been set at $250,000.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are just getting reports out of Toledo, a package with human remains -- I`m referring to the baby Elaina Steinfurth case -- out of Toledo, a package, a box containing human remains near the home of Steven King. Lucas County coroner just confirming as we go to air that the box does contain human remains. We are referring to baby Elaina Steinfurth.
Straight out to Matt Zarrell. Matt, what do we know at this hour? I`m just reading the wire right now.
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Yes, so WTOL is saying that police removed a box containing human remains near the home of Steven King. The coroner confirmed that the box did contain human remains. Police say they`ve executed a search at the King residence based on new information.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two things. Number one, we wanted to find a body. We wanted to find that baby, which we did. Number two, we want to bring justice for Elaina, which means that we`re going to continue to pursue our investigation and do the things we need to do to make sure the people that are responsible for this are held accountable. We`re not going to get into all this how many times we checked here, how many times we checked that.
We had a lot of deception taking place, being told to us by a variety of sources in this community. And because of that, we took the investigation where we felt we needed to take it.
The bottom line is, we found what we believe may be baby Elaina. We`re going to conduct our investigation and bring those responsible to justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: I asked the captain of the police force, the Toledo PD, why they were looking at a body of water, the Maumee River. And I was told that because it was so close to the home. It has -- there have been divers in it. There have been FBI divers in it, local divers. It`s been dredged. Nothing. Nothing. Where is baby Elaina?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: To Captain Brad Weis, a Toledo Police Department captain. Captain, were you aware of everything Frank`s just told us?
CAPT. BRAD WEIS, TOLEDO POLICE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): Yes, everything came out during the initial investigation we were aware, and that`s why we continued to have interviews with Angela.
GRACE: Is she speaking to you from behind bars?
WEIS: We`ve had conversations, yes.
GRACE: Captain, how many people were in that home?
WEIS: Besides the adults there, I think there were two or three children. But I think three or four adults were in the house at the time.
GRACE: OK. So three or four adults, three or four children. So we`re getting around six to eight people in the home. And Captain, why did the Mommy, Angela Steinfurth, say she had to leave the home? Didn`t she say she had to leave the home to go to the store, comes back, the baby`s still napping, she doesn`t open the door, and she only goes back there when the husband comes to get the baby for visitation. And miraculously, the baby is gone.
Why does she leave to go to the store? What was it, a Family Dollar?
WEIS: Yes, according to what she says, she went to the Family Dollar to make a purchase. Anything else is part of the investigation and...
GRACE: A purchase of what? Why did she have to leave the baby to go to the Family Dollar? What did he need so badly she had to leave her baby?
WEIS: That would be part of her statement to us, and I can`t disclose that.
GRACE: Was it cigarettes? That`s what our sources are saying, cigarettes.
WEIS: Again, I can`t answer that.
GRACE: I`m going to take that as a yes.
Is that true, three inmates -- after she goes in general population apparently starts yakking, three inmates go downtown for interviews?
WEIS: Basically, we`re investigating the case and I`m not going to go into details on who we`re talking to.
GRACE: OK. Very wise.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I still kept hope, but at this point, you know, it`s hard to be optimistic right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you could say anything to Steven or Angela tonight, what would it be?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can`t even comment on that on camera.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How is your family doing (INAUDIBLE) hold them together (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, just trying to hold it together. I mean, I don`t know how good you really can do right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If don`t mind me asking, how`s your other daughter?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She has no idea what`s going on. She`s been at the baby-sitter all day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be quiet. Let him open his mouth and he`ll go to jail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, let`s keep it down. Just keep it down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re being recorded (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep him away from me! I got a restraining order against him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a restraining order on him!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One thing after the other with him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s got -- he had his mouth going when we first come in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The first time I said something to her, she just said, I don`t know, Mary. She`s, like, I know she was hurt. She`s, like, I don`t know where she`s at. And that was pretty much it.
And then the second time that I had asked her was when she told me that she didn`t have to answer to anybody anymore. I just don`t understand that she`s missing and she`s been hurt, and it took her 11 days to tell us that she knew that she was hurt. But where is Elaina? That`s what we want to know, is where is she at. Somebody has to know where she`s at.
GRACE: There is no evidence that has been brought to us that your daughter has abused either child in the past.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s all hearsay. When I got over there, when P.J. called me, everybody is standing around and sitting on the front steps, all nonchalant like nothing happened. I ran up there and I was ready to kick Steven`s dad`s butt. I wanted to know where they were at.
That`s -- you know, you just don`t sit around and talk. Get your butt up and start looking. Everybody was just sitting on the steps. That`s a bunch of BS. That`s just BS. That`s the first time I heard that.
GRACE: I`m talking about...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they were in the house -- if you read the newspaper, I think it was the next day, stating that the boyfriend`s mother changed the diaper and gave her a bottle.
What the hell is wrong with these people? You sit around on the porch and lollygag around. Get out and look for the baby. Don`t be sitting around campfires, talking all smack and stuff. Look for the daggone baby.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was -- what time did you hear from police today, about 3:00 or 4:00 o`clock?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never heard from police. I heard from neighbors in the neighborhood that they were down here. I came down here and find out what`s going on, and everything ensued from there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you angry? I mean, this is so close. We were here yesterday (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Irate. Angry don`t even begin to cover it. Don`t even begin to cover it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have they given you any information about whether whatever they found was there previously, was just put there or...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They ain`t said nothing. They just told me I had to come back down and meet with them in the morning. That`s pretty much all they told me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sleep tonight?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hundreds scoured an Ohio river bank over the weekend looking for a missing toddler. They looked through streets and even garbage cans, searching for clues to find missing 18-month-old Elaina Steinfurth.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Angela Steinfurth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her mother, Angela, is in jail charged with child endangerment after her daughter disappeared.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The baby was injured at one point. She was aware of it and did not seek medical attention for the baby.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m not going to say she was directly responsible for anything, but my daughter was in her care at the time that this happened. And the police are handling it the way they feel they need to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The way the baby`s disappearance came to light is this. Her natural father, who was married to the mother -- they`re estranged now, why she`s with her boyfriend -- Terry Steinfurth, Jr., the bio dad, goes over to pick up Elaina Steinfurth, his 18-year-old (sic) daughter.
And he gets there and the mom won`t hand over the baby, won`t hand over, won`t hand over. They go round and round and round about it. So Steinfurth, Jr., leaves. He comes back with his own father, Steinfurth, Sr., the grandfather.
They all get into it with the mother and the group of people that were there in the home. They want the baby. So she goes in to get the baby, and then comes out and says, The baby`s gone! That doesn`t even make any sense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`ve searched here I think a total of four -- four or five times.
He was gone for probably about a half an hour, I`d say. Steven and I, both of us went running out the back door. And I was just afraid by some chance that maybe she had gotten out the back door into the pool.
I told Steven to go down the alley to look to maybe she had gotten out the gate.
He didn`t go running out the back door by himself. He didn`t go running out the back door with the baby. It was him and I looking in the pool and the garage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I walked into the house and she showed me where the baby was supposed to be, I looked at her and I said, You had that baby sleeping in that pigsty? And I went out the door. That`s the way I would have worded it, too.
I walked in the front room. The front room didn`t look bad. I asked where the baby was. She said it was in the front bedroom. I looked in the bedroom door. There were clothes stacked on the floor all the way around the bed. You had to step over clothes to get -- well, you had to step on clothes to get to the bed.
And I just looked at her and I said, You had the baby sleeping in there? I said, That`s a pigsty. And that`s when we went out front and I wanted to call the police...
GRACE: What did she say?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... for finding my baby.
GRACE: I understand from reports that just a few days later, the mom reported to work at Taco Bell as if nothing had happened. We also are hearing reports her story is changing behind bars. Police are followed every single lead there is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We brought you here today to discuss a major development that occurred over the past 24 hours involving our continuing investigation of Elaina Steinfurth. As most of you know, yesterday about 3:00, 3:16, Toledo Police Department detectives executed a search warrant at 701 Federal based on information obtained during our investigation.
As a result of that search warrant, we were able to recover immature human skeletal remains. That was turned over to Lucas County coroner`s office. Presently, the Lucas County coroner is conducting an autopsy on those remains.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Right now, the mom is behind bars on child endangerment. The affidavit does not really set out specifics, but it tends to show that police believe at the least, she did not help her child when her child needed medical help.
I also find it very interesting that in face of your child being missing, gone, that her father, Mr. Schiewe, had to basically pry information out of her, as she says repeatedly, I`m not going to talk, I`m not talking, I`m done talking, I`m through talking.
Why? Why are you through talking? If you want to find your child, why are you through talking? What are you afraid of?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGELA STEINFURTH, MOTHER OF MISSING CHILD: A nervous wreck. I just want her home in one piece. I want to know that she`s OK. It`s very hard not having her around. My other daughter is going insane without her sister. They need to be together.
If I had the support, I wouldn`t feel the way I do, but not when people are pointing fingers at me when they even don`t know what`s going on. I need all the support that I can get to bring her home, anything to keep me comfortable and from losing my mind.
I don`t know how to explain them because there`s -- because they`re crazy. I have been shaking for the last three days and I just want my baby home.
She has problems, and the only way they`re going to get handled is if me and her father can do it for her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: A sad ending to our search for baby Elaina.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They went back to the garage that had been searched earlier at 704 (sic) Federal Street, where baby Elaina disappeared from three months ago. Police removed a box today. The Lucas County coroner, Dr. Patrick (ph), has confirmed that it did contain human remains. It`s been turned over for an autopsy.
The family received notification just as everybody else on the street did, which was kind of disgusting because they heard it on a TV station instead of from police themselves as they stood here waiting after the search warrant was executed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We searched initially, when we were looking for the missing child -- the original investigation was a missing child, so we were looking for where a child could go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three weeks in, Reese Smith (ph) with the (INAUDIBLE) said they brought their own dog in and they got some hit on the garage and called the police and told you guys, and you didn`t do anything about it. Do you recall hearing from them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don`t recall that at all. We did bring our own cadaver dogs in. However, due to the condition of the property, the dogs were not allowed to go in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I spoke in depth with a friend of Mommy`s named Frank. And we`re withholding his last name at his request. He showed me surveillance video taken from his front porch. His home, like many of our homes, has surveillance cameras all around it.
And I saw Mommy with the baby, cradling it, holding baby Elaina, kissing her, you know, making sure that he was appropriately buckled into her stroller. She seemed like any loving mother.
What, if anything, triggered? Anger? I don`t know. There was no black eye or goosebump or blood on the nostrils in that video, and that was just hours before baby Elaina goes missing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be quiet. Let him open up his mouth, and he`ll go to jail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the hell is wrong with these people?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drama outside the courthouse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, keep it down!
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep him away from me! I got a retraining order on him!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a restraining order on him.
It`s about the baby (INAUDIBLE) it`s not what this person said and what that person said.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mom Angela in court for a preliminary hearing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) he had his mouth going when we first come in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) everyone together in a courtroom. The emotions are running very high.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The whole time that we were out here looking for Elaina, she had -- we`re asking if she knew anything, anything at all. She kept telling us, No, I don`t know anything. But really, this whole time, she knew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) bring the baby home. Then after the baby`s home, then you can start slamming people and talking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Angela Steinfurth has been moved from solitary to the general population at the county jail. What do I make of that?
I think she`s going to blab. I think she`ll either do it voluntarily, or people will come up and ask her questions and she will give one story after the next. She`s already changed her story, is my understanding.
I saw a YouTube video of Steinfurth, Jr, asking Angela to marry him. They seemed very much in love. I don`t know what could have gone wrong in so few short months, but it did go horribly wrong. They`re estranged. They both have new love interests, and the baby`s missing.
I know the family is devastated. While FBI dive teams were out searching the water, can you imagine your child missing and there are dive teams dredging a nearby river, sending out K9 dogs, including cadaver dogs to look for your child? I don`t think I could put one foot in front of the other.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be quiet. Let him open his mouth, and he`ll go to jail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, keep it down. You`re being recorded everything that you say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get him away from me! I got a restraining order on him!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a restraining order on him!
GRACE: There was a huge family drama. A physical fight actually broke out at the scheduled preliminary hearing...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One thing after the other with that one. He had his mouth going when we first come in.
GRACE: ... when the mom, Angela Steinfurth, was supposed to come into court. On either side, the emotions are running high. Schiewe, which is the mom`s father, says people are driving by his house, calling him a baby killer. He`s saying it`s not about that. We got to bring the baby home. Let`s all go look together. Everything is erupting.
And can I tell you something? That is not unusual at all. Very often, I would have to put witnesses in separate rooms, even on separate floors of the courthouse, worried about if they would break into a fight while I was trying the case. That`s what happens when a baby goes missing.
Family infighting can hurt or stymie a police investigation because the police have to spend so much time trying to interpret statements and read through all the animosity between the sides, it slows everything down. It becomes a grudge match instead of an effort with everyone coming together to find the baby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I want to alert you, we`re hearing out of Toledo right now -- we all joined in the search for baby Elaina. The little girl allegedly was taken a nap in a home with, like, 11 people in the home, and the bio dad comes to pick up the baby for visitation, the mom won`t hand her over, has a big fight with him. The dad goes back in -- she goes back in to get the baby and comes out and says, The baby`s gone.
Well, as we go to air tonight, we are hearing out of Toledo, from Toledo News Now, Toledo police remove a box containing human remains near the home of Steven King, which as I recall, was the boyfriend -- the boyfriend of the mom, that a box, according to the Lucas County coroner, was removed that does contain human remains.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I guess what I`d like to say is it would really do no service to any of the participants, your readers and your viewers, the community at large, the family to speculate on any of the things that you`ve asked us because we don`t -- there are so many things that at this point in time, we don`t know.
So what we are telling you is what we do know, what we can tell you. And as it unfolds and as the investigation continues, you`ll learn more and more and more. But to speculate and to hypothesize about if, when, where, how and why, we just cannot do that. And that would just be silly and foolish.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We found what we believe may be baby Elaina.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A heart-wrenching ending to a wild three months.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re (EXPLETIVE DELETED) before I get there because I`m coming for you today.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Immature human skeletal remains.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In a box, in a garage behind the family`s home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s now sitting in a jail cell.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a lot of deception taking place.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the end of the day, I`m going to find my daughter, one way or the other.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to bring justice for Elaina.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... yank her, drag her around, smack her in the mouth.
GRACE: Now psychics have been brought into the case, and we have been told that both of them have had visions of baby Elaina crying in a field.
Now, as to psychics, you know, the reason I have always shied away from psychics in relation -- in connection to a case is because it`s inadmissible at trial. So whatever they may tell you, you can`t use it at trial. So in my mind, as a trial lawyer, if I can`t bring it into evidence, it doesn`t matter.
However, I will say that my mind is completely open and I wouldn`t rule anything out unless I could absolutely disprove it, and I cannot absolutely disprove psychics. So if I were the family, I would listen to them, too. I absolutely would.
I mean, I really think only a fool says no to any possibility of getting a lead in a case like this. So conventional wisdom be damned. If you could bring home baby Elaina with a psychic, do it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know that she is in jail. The mommy is in jail. She`s talking to the family. We still can`t find out what she`s telling to the family, if anything. And we know that she`s talking to police because they wanted to hold her through the weekend. They delayed letting her go until Monday. But again, we don`t know why the police are holding her over the weekend.
GRACE: Wait! Wa-wa-wa-wait! I don`t know that anybody delayed letting her -- are you referring to letting Mommy go? They`re not about to let her go. That`s not what the delay was about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
GRACE: The delay was about putting up evidence to send her to felony court to be prosecuted for felony endangering a child.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That would be the technical terminology that you would be familiar with. But yes, they`re not -- they`re -- they want to delay it, but no one is saying why.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: A preliminary hearing was scheduled, where the state puts forth at least enough evidence for a judge to bind over or send a case, direct the case to the appropriate court.
For instance, if it`s a shoplifting, the judge would hear the evidence and send that to misdemeanor court, typically, is the way it works. If it has anything to do with a juvenile, the case is going to be sent to juvenile court. If it has to do with a felony, the case will then be bound over to a superior or felony trial court. That`s what happens in a preliminary hearing.
Does it mean they are this close to getting a confession, this close to finding out the baby was sold or given away? Very rarely do you see police ask for a delay because what happens in a preliminary hearing is they basically explain why they made the arrest. What supported the arrest? Why is it a felony? Why should it go to superior court for trial?
Well, all that should be contained in the police report, but here something is brewing. Something is brewing that we don`t know about. Police wanted more. They wanted a few more days. They wanted one more weekend, 72 hours before they`re back in court before a judge. What do they hope to find? What do they hope to nail down? What piece of evidence are they looking for? We don`t know.
What disturbs me most is that a little girl, a tiny, little baby has probably been abused and murdered. But if she is dead, somebody`s going down!
END
NANCY GRACE
The Disappearance of Baby Elaina
Aired September 6, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The case of missing toddler Elaina Steinfurth is receiving national attention.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This Toledo toddler remains missing, but we are learning more about the alleged injuries.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just basically told me that the baby had a bruised eye, a little bit of dried blood around one of the nostrils and a bump on the head.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This video shows the room where Elaina was reportedly last seen, torn apart by authorities looking for evidence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`ve searched here I think a total of four -- four or five times.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Angela Steinfurth sobbing in court.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Angela appeared at the front door reporting that her child had vanished.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just afraid by some chance that maybe she had gotten out the back door into the pool.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ran into the house, directly into the bedroom where she said she was sleeping at. I didn`t see Elaina anywhere. I never got a straight answer. Her statement was she did not know where the child was.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone in that house knows where that baby is at!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: When I first heard about the case of baby Elaina, I immediately thought somebody`s lying. That was at first blush. And the only people talking at that time were police and the mommy. I don`t think police are lying.
I then immediately felt a horrible ache for baby Elaina because the more I hear about the circumstances under which she was raised for her 18 short months -- were very, very disturbing, very disturbing, and now she`s gone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We brought you here today to discuss a major development that has occurred over the past 24 hours involving our continuing investigation on Elaina Steinfurth. As most of you know, yesterday about 3:00 o`clock, 3:16, Toledo Police Department detectives executed a search warrant at 701 Federal based on information obtained during our investigation.
As a result of that search warrant, we were able to recover immature human skeletal remains. That was turned over to the Lucas County coroner`s office. Presently, the Lucas County coroner is conducting an autopsy on those remains.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This video, obtained exclusively by WNWO, shows the room where Elaina was reportedly last seen, torn apart by authorities looking for evidence. And according to the home owner, it has remained untouched since the search.
A big question in the case is a gap in time when the ex-boyfriend of Angela Steinfurth, Steven King, is uncounted for. Witnesses report that Steven ran out the back door of this home immediately after Angela appeared at the front door reporting that her child had vanished.
Julie says she was with Steven that entire time and they were worried Elaina may have wandered into the back yard. That`s when he was said to have left for about 30 minutes. That is the missing time that many have questioned. But she says Steven with was another neighborhood boy searching for Elaina.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically, we stopped talking about it and...
GRACE: Wait! Wa-wa-wa-wa-wait! Wa-Wait! The baby`s missing, the whole town is upside down, and you stopped talking about it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I...
GRACE: You didn`t say, Where is the baby?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was talking to the police officer...
GRACE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... who was getting the video surveillance off my cameras at the time.
GRACE: OK. All right. So did she ever indicate to you where`s the baby?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
GRACE: Did you ever ask her?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Multiple times. She said she did not know. And I said, How can you not know? There`s too many people in that house, OK? The baby`s laying down. Why didn`t you check on the baby?
You know, I can understand once or twice, you know, you have a little faith in your spouse or your partner. But if that baby had injuries, why didn`t you check on your child? I never got a straight answer. She -- her statement was she did not know where the child was.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Angela came out of the home. She told me that Elaina was missing. I darted into the home and checked the bedroom where she was supposed to be. She said, The baby`s gone, the baby is gone. And to me, she was showing no emotion. She wasn`t crying, nothing.
I wouldn`t call it a scream. I`d say a little bit louder than normal, but it wasn`t a scream or a yell.
I ran into the house, directly into the bedroom where she said she was sleeping at. I didn`t see Elaina anywhere. I turned around. I seen that the back door was wide open. So I asked where a couple of the other people who were in the home -- I`m not going to say names -- asked where they were at. She had told me they had ran out the back door, the boyfriend and a friend of his. And at that point, I jumped in my vehicle.
GRACE: There you see the mom holding the baby. Take a look. This is -- she`s kissing the baby. The baby appears well, well nourished. It looked clean. She`s on her cellphone. She`s holding the baby.
Maybe this doesn`t mean anything to you, but it means something to me. Look at her rocking the baby. She`s loving on the baby. She`s holding the baby. I don`t know if all of you can see what I`m seeing. She`s sitting alone on the front porch. She`s holding the baby.
And I am just telling you -- I`m telling you that this is a mother. I don`t care what anybody says, she loved this baby. Now, did she lose her temper and hurt the baby? I don`t know. Did somebody else in that home, her boyfriend, did they hurt the baby? Is she covering for somebody? I don`t know.
But look at that. Look at her lovingly putting the baby in the carriage. This is important. This matters. This is just before baby Elaina is abducted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The chances that baby Elaina is alive are slim to none. The mother`s story went from bad to worse. We learned a couple of days into our own investigation that the mother says that she woke up and looked over, and baby Elaina suddenly had a black eye, a bump on her head and bleeding around her nostrils.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The whole time that we were out here looking for Elaina, she had -- we`re asking if she knew anything, anything at all, any ideas of where she could be, and who hurt her and what happened. And she kept telling us, No, I don`t know anything. I wish I did. I don`t know anything. But really, this whole time, she knew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`ve contacted the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation and they`ll be working over the weekend to also conduct additional examination on these remains in an attempt to determine the identity of these remains. This investigation that we have is still ongoing and it`s still active. It is an ongoing investigation and is still an active investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty much that Elaina was hurt and she was taken out of the boyfriend`s house, but she don`t know where she`s at. I heard that she was dropped, but to have a broken nose and a black eye, you`re not just dropped.
I`m guessing that the way that it was bleeding that -- I mean, for it to be bleeding as much as it was, she thought it was broken. There`s no way that I would have waited. I would have opened my mouth the very first day, threatened or not. If this was my kid, oh, my mouth would have done been opened!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Now, how do you wake up -- it`s like those movies where you wake up and there`s a dead body beside you. That`s in the movies. That`s not real. So I find it very difficult to imagine -- and I think I can be very creative -- to imagine a scenario where a mother goes to sleep and her child is fine, and when she wakes up and the baby is lying there with a black eye, blood on its nose and a bump on its head.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told me about the baby having a black eye, a bump on the head and just a little bit of dried blood around the nostril. But I was, like, Well, what`s all that about, you know? And she said, well, when she woke up the baby was like that. I said, Well, what did you -- why didn`t you call -- you know, take her to the hospital or call the police or whatever?
She said that she told -- what she told me, that she asked Steven to check, the boyfriend to check on the baby to make sure the baby was OK medically, and the boyfriend overlooked (ph) the child and said that she`s going to be just fine.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: She then says that she showed the baby to her boyfriend and said, Do you think she`s OK? And the boy said, yes, sure. What? Unless he is a pediatric ER doctor, then why would she ask him? It`s not even his baby.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As Toledo police and the FBI continue following leads and Elaina`s mom remains in jail on a child endangering charge, folks in the baby girl`s East Toledo neighborhood are growing more frustrated and desperate, hoping and praying that they`ll find answers soon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Up and down Federal Street, pink ribbons are now wrapped around trees, poles and cars, a solemn reminder of East Toledo`s missing baby girl, 18-month-old Elaina Steinfurth.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have it on my windshield wiper, my antenna. It`s on the van`s mirrors around the corner. It`s everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It actually came from the yellow ribbons from the support for the troops -- support for Elaina. Keep hope alive. She`s still somewhere. She`s not home yet. Bring her home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: FBI divers packed up after a second day in a row of combing this portion of the Maumee River near the High Level Bridge. We`re told that the crew, with the help of a U.S. Coast Guard boat outfitted with sonar technology, found nothing.
For the past two days, this has been the spot on shore is where crews set up shop. They had a tent here and their equipment, kind of as home base as they searched the river. But after clearing out today, it appears the search of this specific location has ended. Yellow crime scene tape has been removed and TPD officers no longer stand on guard.
Carl Pagent (ph), who went to high school with Elaina`s dad, helped put together this donation jar, which he placed on the counter of the Facet (ph) mini-mart at the corner of Facet (ph) and Oak. He says money collected will go toward food and water for volunteer searchers. Plus...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we bring her home, we want to throw a welcome home party for her and help her out, getting her new clothes, new toys, stuff like that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Now we are hearing stories attributed to you, all of these stories attributed to her. I didn`t hear her say any of this, but these are stories attributed to her -- that she felt threatened that if she called the police about the baby being missing or hurt, that she would be done in.
And you know, I think you can ask 80 out of 100 moms, they would take a bullet for their child. I would. But she was so afraid of taking the child to the doctor or calling 911 or contacting police -- I just don`t believe that. I do not believe it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty-five-year-old Angela Steinfurth breaks down in court on Thursday, her daughter missing for more than a week. Steinfurth is charged with felony child endangering of 18-month-old Elaina.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need all of the support that I can get to bring her home.
GRACE: Where is baby Elaina?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The toddler disappeared two weeks ago when her mother says she put Elaina down for a nap. Her estranged husband says he came for a custody visit with his two daughters. At first, he says, Angela refused to hand over Elaina. When she did agree, Elaina was gone. Family members say the mother`s story just doesn`t add up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She doesn`t know where the baby`s at or who took the baby. Personally, from what I have viewed of her, I don`t think she`s showing any emotion of it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Investigators believe the child may have been hurt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was known to us that the baby was injured at one point. She was aware of it and did not seek medical attention for the baby.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Volunteers have scoured the neighborhood. The streets are lined with posters with one goal, to bring baby Elaina home. But so far, no clues.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do hope the child turns up alive. Right now, it`s a mystery. We don`t know what happened to this little girl. So the mother cannot be charged, for example, with murder because no body, no case.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bond for Steinfurth has been set at $250,000.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are just getting reports out of Toledo, a package with human remains -- I`m referring to the baby Elaina Steinfurth case -- out of Toledo, a package, a box containing human remains near the home of Steven King. Lucas County coroner just confirming as we go to air that the box does contain human remains. We are referring to baby Elaina Steinfurth.
Straight out to Matt Zarrell. Matt, what do we know at this hour? I`m just reading the wire right now.
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Yes, so WTOL is saying that police removed a box containing human remains near the home of Steven King. The coroner confirmed that the box did contain human remains. Police say they`ve executed a search at the King residence based on new information.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two things. Number one, we wanted to find a body. We wanted to find that baby, which we did. Number two, we want to bring justice for Elaina, which means that we`re going to continue to pursue our investigation and do the things we need to do to make sure the people that are responsible for this are held accountable. We`re not going to get into all this how many times we checked here, how many times we checked that.
We had a lot of deception taking place, being told to us by a variety of sources in this community. And because of that, we took the investigation where we felt we needed to take it.
The bottom line is, we found what we believe may be baby Elaina. We`re going to conduct our investigation and bring those responsible to justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: I asked the captain of the police force, the Toledo PD, why they were looking at a body of water, the Maumee River. And I was told that because it was so close to the home. It has -- there have been divers in it. There have been FBI divers in it, local divers. It`s been dredged. Nothing. Nothing. Where is baby Elaina?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: To Captain Brad Weis, a Toledo Police Department captain. Captain, were you aware of everything Frank`s just told us?
CAPT. BRAD WEIS, TOLEDO POLICE DEPARTMENT (via telephone): Yes, everything came out during the initial investigation we were aware, and that`s why we continued to have interviews with Angela.
GRACE: Is she speaking to you from behind bars?
WEIS: We`ve had conversations, yes.
GRACE: Captain, how many people were in that home?
WEIS: Besides the adults there, I think there were two or three children. But I think three or four adults were in the house at the time.
GRACE: OK. So three or four adults, three or four children. So we`re getting around six to eight people in the home. And Captain, why did the Mommy, Angela Steinfurth, say she had to leave the home? Didn`t she say she had to leave the home to go to the store, comes back, the baby`s still napping, she doesn`t open the door, and she only goes back there when the husband comes to get the baby for visitation. And miraculously, the baby is gone.
Why does she leave to go to the store? What was it, a Family Dollar?
WEIS: Yes, according to what she says, she went to the Family Dollar to make a purchase. Anything else is part of the investigation and...
GRACE: A purchase of what? Why did she have to leave the baby to go to the Family Dollar? What did he need so badly she had to leave her baby?
WEIS: That would be part of her statement to us, and I can`t disclose that.
GRACE: Was it cigarettes? That`s what our sources are saying, cigarettes.
WEIS: Again, I can`t answer that.
GRACE: I`m going to take that as a yes.
Is that true, three inmates -- after she goes in general population apparently starts yakking, three inmates go downtown for interviews?
WEIS: Basically, we`re investigating the case and I`m not going to go into details on who we`re talking to.
GRACE: OK. Very wise.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I still kept hope, but at this point, you know, it`s hard to be optimistic right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you could say anything to Steven or Angela tonight, what would it be?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can`t even comment on that on camera.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How is your family doing (INAUDIBLE) hold them together (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, just trying to hold it together. I mean, I don`t know how good you really can do right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If don`t mind me asking, how`s your other daughter?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She has no idea what`s going on. She`s been at the baby-sitter all day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be quiet. Let him open his mouth and he`ll go to jail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, let`s keep it down. Just keep it down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re being recorded (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep him away from me! I got a restraining order against him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a restraining order on him!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One thing after the other with him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s got -- he had his mouth going when we first come in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The first time I said something to her, she just said, I don`t know, Mary. She`s, like, I know she was hurt. She`s, like, I don`t know where she`s at. And that was pretty much it.
And then the second time that I had asked her was when she told me that she didn`t have to answer to anybody anymore. I just don`t understand that she`s missing and she`s been hurt, and it took her 11 days to tell us that she knew that she was hurt. But where is Elaina? That`s what we want to know, is where is she at. Somebody has to know where she`s at.
GRACE: There is no evidence that has been brought to us that your daughter has abused either child in the past.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s all hearsay. When I got over there, when P.J. called me, everybody is standing around and sitting on the front steps, all nonchalant like nothing happened. I ran up there and I was ready to kick Steven`s dad`s butt. I wanted to know where they were at.
That`s -- you know, you just don`t sit around and talk. Get your butt up and start looking. Everybody was just sitting on the steps. That`s a bunch of BS. That`s just BS. That`s the first time I heard that.
GRACE: I`m talking about...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they were in the house -- if you read the newspaper, I think it was the next day, stating that the boyfriend`s mother changed the diaper and gave her a bottle.
What the hell is wrong with these people? You sit around on the porch and lollygag around. Get out and look for the baby. Don`t be sitting around campfires, talking all smack and stuff. Look for the daggone baby.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was -- what time did you hear from police today, about 3:00 or 4:00 o`clock?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never heard from police. I heard from neighbors in the neighborhood that they were down here. I came down here and find out what`s going on, and everything ensued from there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you angry? I mean, this is so close. We were here yesterday (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Irate. Angry don`t even begin to cover it. Don`t even begin to cover it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have they given you any information about whether whatever they found was there previously, was just put there or...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They ain`t said nothing. They just told me I had to come back down and meet with them in the morning. That`s pretty much all they told me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sleep tonight?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hundreds scoured an Ohio river bank over the weekend looking for a missing toddler. They looked through streets and even garbage cans, searching for clues to find missing 18-month-old Elaina Steinfurth.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Angela Steinfurth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her mother, Angela, is in jail charged with child endangerment after her daughter disappeared.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The baby was injured at one point. She was aware of it and did not seek medical attention for the baby.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m not going to say she was directly responsible for anything, but my daughter was in her care at the time that this happened. And the police are handling it the way they feel they need to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: The way the baby`s disappearance came to light is this. Her natural father, who was married to the mother -- they`re estranged now, why she`s with her boyfriend -- Terry Steinfurth, Jr., the bio dad, goes over to pick up Elaina Steinfurth, his 18-year-old (sic) daughter.
And he gets there and the mom won`t hand over the baby, won`t hand over, won`t hand over. They go round and round and round about it. So Steinfurth, Jr., leaves. He comes back with his own father, Steinfurth, Sr., the grandfather.
They all get into it with the mother and the group of people that were there in the home. They want the baby. So she goes in to get the baby, and then comes out and says, The baby`s gone! That doesn`t even make any sense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They`ve searched here I think a total of four -- four or five times.
He was gone for probably about a half an hour, I`d say. Steven and I, both of us went running out the back door. And I was just afraid by some chance that maybe she had gotten out the back door into the pool.
I told Steven to go down the alley to look to maybe she had gotten out the gate.
He didn`t go running out the back door by himself. He didn`t go running out the back door with the baby. It was him and I looking in the pool and the garage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I walked into the house and she showed me where the baby was supposed to be, I looked at her and I said, You had that baby sleeping in that pigsty? And I went out the door. That`s the way I would have worded it, too.
I walked in the front room. The front room didn`t look bad. I asked where the baby was. She said it was in the front bedroom. I looked in the bedroom door. There were clothes stacked on the floor all the way around the bed. You had to step over clothes to get -- well, you had to step on clothes to get to the bed.
And I just looked at her and I said, You had the baby sleeping in there? I said, That`s a pigsty. And that`s when we went out front and I wanted to call the police...
GRACE: What did she say?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... for finding my baby.
GRACE: I understand from reports that just a few days later, the mom reported to work at Taco Bell as if nothing had happened. We also are hearing reports her story is changing behind bars. Police are followed every single lead there is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We brought you here today to discuss a major development that occurred over the past 24 hours involving our continuing investigation of Elaina Steinfurth. As most of you know, yesterday about 3:00, 3:16, Toledo Police Department detectives executed a search warrant at 701 Federal based on information obtained during our investigation.
As a result of that search warrant, we were able to recover immature human skeletal remains. That was turned over to Lucas County coroner`s office. Presently, the Lucas County coroner is conducting an autopsy on those remains.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Right now, the mom is behind bars on child endangerment. The affidavit does not really set out specifics, but it tends to show that police believe at the least, she did not help her child when her child needed medical help.
I also find it very interesting that in face of your child being missing, gone, that her father, Mr. Schiewe, had to basically pry information out of her, as she says repeatedly, I`m not going to talk, I`m not talking, I`m done talking, I`m through talking.
Why? Why are you through talking? If you want to find your child, why are you through talking? What are you afraid of?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGELA STEINFURTH, MOTHER OF MISSING CHILD: A nervous wreck. I just want her home in one piece. I want to know that she`s OK. It`s very hard not having her around. My other daughter is going insane without her sister. They need to be together.
If I had the support, I wouldn`t feel the way I do, but not when people are pointing fingers at me when they even don`t know what`s going on. I need all the support that I can get to bring her home, anything to keep me comfortable and from losing my mind.
I don`t know how to explain them because there`s -- because they`re crazy. I have been shaking for the last three days and I just want my baby home.
She has problems, and the only way they`re going to get handled is if me and her father can do it for her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: A sad ending to our search for baby Elaina.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They went back to the garage that had been searched earlier at 704 (sic) Federal Street, where baby Elaina disappeared from three months ago. Police removed a box today. The Lucas County coroner, Dr. Patrick (ph), has confirmed that it did contain human remains. It`s been turned over for an autopsy.
The family received notification just as everybody else on the street did, which was kind of disgusting because they heard it on a TV station instead of from police themselves as they stood here waiting after the search warrant was executed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We searched initially, when we were looking for the missing child -- the original investigation was a missing child, so we were looking for where a child could go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three weeks in, Reese Smith (ph) with the (INAUDIBLE) said they brought their own dog in and they got some hit on the garage and called the police and told you guys, and you didn`t do anything about it. Do you recall hearing from them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don`t recall that at all. We did bring our own cadaver dogs in. However, due to the condition of the property, the dogs were not allowed to go in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I spoke in depth with a friend of Mommy`s named Frank. And we`re withholding his last name at his request. He showed me surveillance video taken from his front porch. His home, like many of our homes, has surveillance cameras all around it.
And I saw Mommy with the baby, cradling it, holding baby Elaina, kissing her, you know, making sure that he was appropriately buckled into her stroller. She seemed like any loving mother.
What, if anything, triggered? Anger? I don`t know. There was no black eye or goosebump or blood on the nostrils in that video, and that was just hours before baby Elaina goes missing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be quiet. Let him open up his mouth, and he`ll go to jail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the hell is wrong with these people?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drama outside the courthouse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, keep it down!
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep him away from me! I got a retraining order on him!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a restraining order on him.
It`s about the baby (INAUDIBLE) it`s not what this person said and what that person said.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mom Angela in court for a preliminary hearing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) he had his mouth going when we first come in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) everyone together in a courtroom. The emotions are running very high.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The whole time that we were out here looking for Elaina, she had -- we`re asking if she knew anything, anything at all. She kept telling us, No, I don`t know anything. But really, this whole time, she knew.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) bring the baby home. Then after the baby`s home, then you can start slamming people and talking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Angela Steinfurth has been moved from solitary to the general population at the county jail. What do I make of that?
I think she`s going to blab. I think she`ll either do it voluntarily, or people will come up and ask her questions and she will give one story after the next. She`s already changed her story, is my understanding.
I saw a YouTube video of Steinfurth, Jr, asking Angela to marry him. They seemed very much in love. I don`t know what could have gone wrong in so few short months, but it did go horribly wrong. They`re estranged. They both have new love interests, and the baby`s missing.
I know the family is devastated. While FBI dive teams were out searching the water, can you imagine your child missing and there are dive teams dredging a nearby river, sending out K9 dogs, including cadaver dogs to look for your child? I don`t think I could put one foot in front of the other.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be quiet. Let him open his mouth, and he`ll go to jail.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, keep it down. You`re being recorded everything that you say.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get him away from me! I got a restraining order on him!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a restraining order on him!
GRACE: There was a huge family drama. A physical fight actually broke out at the scheduled preliminary hearing...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One thing after the other with that one. He had his mouth going when we first come in.
GRACE: ... when the mom, Angela Steinfurth, was supposed to come into court. On either side, the emotions are running high. Schiewe, which is the mom`s father, says people are driving by his house, calling him a baby killer. He`s saying it`s not about that. We got to bring the baby home. Let`s all go look together. Everything is erupting.
And can I tell you something? That is not unusual at all. Very often, I would have to put witnesses in separate rooms, even on separate floors of the courthouse, worried about if they would break into a fight while I was trying the case. That`s what happens when a baby goes missing.
Family infighting can hurt or stymie a police investigation because the police have to spend so much time trying to interpret statements and read through all the animosity between the sides, it slows everything down. It becomes a grudge match instead of an effort with everyone coming together to find the baby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I want to alert you, we`re hearing out of Toledo right now -- we all joined in the search for baby Elaina. The little girl allegedly was taken a nap in a home with, like, 11 people in the home, and the bio dad comes to pick up the baby for visitation, the mom won`t hand her over, has a big fight with him. The dad goes back in -- she goes back in to get the baby and comes out and says, The baby`s gone.
Well, as we go to air tonight, we are hearing out of Toledo, from Toledo News Now, Toledo police remove a box containing human remains near the home of Steven King, which as I recall, was the boyfriend -- the boyfriend of the mom, that a box, according to the Lucas County coroner, was removed that does contain human remains.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I guess what I`d like to say is it would really do no service to any of the participants, your readers and your viewers, the community at large, the family to speculate on any of the things that you`ve asked us because we don`t -- there are so many things that at this point in time, we don`t know.
So what we are telling you is what we do know, what we can tell you. And as it unfolds and as the investigation continues, you`ll learn more and more and more. But to speculate and to hypothesize about if, when, where, how and why, we just cannot do that. And that would just be silly and foolish.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We found what we believe may be baby Elaina.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A heart-wrenching ending to a wild three months.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re (EXPLETIVE DELETED) before I get there because I`m coming for you today.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Immature human skeletal remains.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In a box, in a garage behind the family`s home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`s now sitting in a jail cell.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a lot of deception taking place.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the end of the day, I`m going to find my daughter, one way or the other.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to bring justice for Elaina.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... yank her, drag her around, smack her in the mouth.
GRACE: Now psychics have been brought into the case, and we have been told that both of them have had visions of baby Elaina crying in a field.
Now, as to psychics, you know, the reason I have always shied away from psychics in relation -- in connection to a case is because it`s inadmissible at trial. So whatever they may tell you, you can`t use it at trial. So in my mind, as a trial lawyer, if I can`t bring it into evidence, it doesn`t matter.
However, I will say that my mind is completely open and I wouldn`t rule anything out unless I could absolutely disprove it, and I cannot absolutely disprove psychics. So if I were the family, I would listen to them, too. I absolutely would.
I mean, I really think only a fool says no to any possibility of getting a lead in a case like this. So conventional wisdom be damned. If you could bring home baby Elaina with a psychic, do it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know that she is in jail. The mommy is in jail. She`s talking to the family. We still can`t find out what she`s telling to the family, if anything. And we know that she`s talking to police because they wanted to hold her through the weekend. They delayed letting her go until Monday. But again, we don`t know why the police are holding her over the weekend.
GRACE: Wait! Wa-wa-wa-wait! I don`t know that anybody delayed letting her -- are you referring to letting Mommy go? They`re not about to let her go. That`s not what the delay was about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
GRACE: The delay was about putting up evidence to send her to felony court to be prosecuted for felony endangering a child.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That would be the technical terminology that you would be familiar with. But yes, they`re not -- they`re -- they want to delay it, but no one is saying why.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: A preliminary hearing was scheduled, where the state puts forth at least enough evidence for a judge to bind over or send a case, direct the case to the appropriate court.
For instance, if it`s a shoplifting, the judge would hear the evidence and send that to misdemeanor court, typically, is the way it works. If it has anything to do with a juvenile, the case is going to be sent to juvenile court. If it has to do with a felony, the case will then be bound over to a superior or felony trial court. That`s what happens in a preliminary hearing.
Does it mean they are this close to getting a confession, this close to finding out the baby was sold or given away? Very rarely do you see police ask for a delay because what happens in a preliminary hearing is they basically explain why they made the arrest. What supported the arrest? Why is it a felony? Why should it go to superior court for trial?
Well, all that should be contained in the police report, but here something is brewing. Something is brewing that we don`t know about. Police wanted more. They wanted a few more days. They wanted one more weekend, 72 hours before they`re back in court before a judge. What do they hope to find? What do they hope to nail down? What piece of evidence are they looking for? We don`t know.
What disturbs me most is that a little girl, a tiny, little baby has probably been abused and murdered. But if she is dead, somebody`s going down!
END
Baby Elaina’s mother, Angela Steinfurth, and Angela’s ex-boyfriend Steven King are currently in jail held on obstruction of justice charges.
Charisse Van Horn is the owner of Amber Alerts and Missing Children Case Updates. You may follow her there or join the Facebook group here.
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