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Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, you're listening to Daily Crime Injustice.
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I'm Garrett Fisher and it's Tuesday, June sixteenth, twenty twenty six.
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Here's where things stand this morning. Jury selection begins this
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week in Indianapolis for Tony McClure, charged with murder in
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the starvation death of her five year old daughter, Kinsley Welty,
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who died in April of twenty twenty four. In Idaho,
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the trial of Stacey Wandra, charged with murder and kidnapping
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in the twenty twenty one disappearance of five year old
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Michael Vaughan, has been moved from Payette County to Canyon
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County and is set to begin September fourteenth. And in Tampa, Florida,
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Brianna Moore, charged in the death of her newborn, is
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asking to be released on bond ahead of a November trial.
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All three have pleaded not guilty. Here's the rest of it.
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I want to tell you about three children today, and
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I'm going to be honest with you up front. This
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is a hard one. There's no celebrity here, no podcast deal,
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no Netflix angle, just three kids who needed an adult
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to do the bare minimum and didn't get one. Two
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of them were five years old. One of them never
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got a name in the public record because she didn't
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live long enough for the world to learn it. And
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in all three cases, the danger wasn't a stranger in
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a van, It was the house. It was the people
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who were supposed to be the safe ones. So let's
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walk through it carefully and with the presumption of innocence intact,
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because every person I'm about to name has pleaded not
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guilty and is entitled to their day in court. But
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somebody has to say these children's names, so we will.
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We start in Indianapolis, where this week a jury will
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be seated for the trial of Tony McClure, thirty one
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years old. She is pleaded not guilty to murder, to
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criminal confinement resulting in bodily injury, and to battery on
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a person less than fourteen years old. The person less
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than fourteen was her own daughter, Kinsley Wealthy, five years old.
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On April ninth, twenty twenty four, police were called to
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McClure's home. They found Kinsley unconscious and severely malnourished. Let
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me give you the detail that the jury is going
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to have to sit with because it tells you everything.
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At five years old, Kinsley was thirty eight and a
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half inches tall, a normal height for her age, and
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she weighed twenty one pounds less than she weighed when
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she was two and a half. A child does not
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lose weight from age two to age five, not unless
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something is being done to her. Officers described a little
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girl who was extremely thin, with sunken eyes, a bruise
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on her face, and fecal matter matted into the bottoms
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of her feet and into her hair. There were lice
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on her face, There were bites and sores on her abdomen.
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That is the condition she was found in. That is
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not neglect that's snuck up on anybody. That is a long, slow,
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documented decline that the adults in that home watched happen.
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And here's how we know they watched it. When officers
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searched the house, they found a closet inside what looked
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like a bedroom for McClure's sons. The closet was blocked
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by a dresser. They moved the dresser opened the door
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and found human waste on the carpet and on the walls,
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three empty protein shake bottles and a peanut butter sandwich
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on the floor. According to investigators, McClure's other children, her mother,
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and her boyfriend all said the same thing. Kinsley was
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made to spend most of her life in that locked closet,
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let out for only short stretches each day. McClure's first
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story to police was that Kinsley had spent the day
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with her father, came home with a headache, and collapsed.
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Her own mother contradicted that within hours, telling officers the
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child hadn't seen her father in over a year. In
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a second interview, prosecutor say McClure admitted she'd neglected her
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daughter and admitted why she kept the little girl in
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the closet her words, according to the affidavit, because she
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did not have to deal with her while she was there.
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She also told police she never asked for help because
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she was scared of getting in trouble and didn't want
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her other kids taken away. That's the part I keep
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coming back to. She wasn't scared for Kinsley, she was
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scared for herself. And there's one more thing. Prosecutors say
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McClure told them that just before she died, Kinsley said
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she wanted to die a five year old said that
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out loud, and the response allegedly was a dresser pushed
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against a closet door. Now, prosecutors say the messages tell
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the rest. In Facebook conversations between McClure and her mother,
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investigators say the two of them referred to this child,
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this five year old, as evil, as demon, as dummy,
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as chunkers, as hypher. They allegedly discussed locking the refrigerator
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with holding food, and in one exchange Prosecutor's highlight, when
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McClure wanted help with the kids, she allegedly wrote, do
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your duct tape. In another, when the child apparently broke
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a lock trying to get out, the reply was to
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tie her up. That's the alleged paper trail. That's not
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a temper that flared once. That's a system, that's a
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routine look. Calling a starving child chunkers isn't a slip.
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It's contempt, written down timestamp. That's not a mistake. That's
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a choice made over and over by the people whose
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entire job was to keep her alive. Two of those
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people have already taken deals. Kinsley's grandmother, Tammy Halsey, and
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McClure's boyfriend Ryan Smith. Each pleaded guilty to a single
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count of neglect of a dependent resulting in death. If
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they testify truthfully at McClure's trial, each is set to
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be sentenced to twenty years. So when jury selection raps
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this week, the people who were in that house may
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be the ones walking the jury through what happened in it.
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And there's a bigger failure sitting underneath all of this.
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Kinsley's grandfather and biological father have filed suit against the
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Indiana Department of Child Services, alleging the agency had warnings
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that this was a child the state already knew about,
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already had a file on, and left in that home. Anyway,
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we're going to keep watching that lawsuit because if those
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allegations hold up, then the closet had a lock on it,
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but so did every door at the agency that was
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supposed to open for her. Someone should have said something,
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someone apparently did, and it didn't matter. When we come
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back a five year old boy who vanished from his
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own front yard almost five years ago, a body that
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has never been found, and the man on trial who
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says he heard the whole thing happened from the next room.
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Welcome back. We move now to Idaho and to a
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case that has gone unanswered for almost five years. On
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July twenty seventh, twenty twenty one, a five year old
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boy named Michael Vaughan disappeared from near his home in Fruitland, Idaho.
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The town searched, the state searched, and Michael was never found.
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To this day, his body has never been recovered. For
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two years, that's where it sat, a missing child, a
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community that never stopped looking, and no arrest. Then in
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late twenty twenty two, investigators developed a theory. They believe
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Michael had been killed and buried at a home, and
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that his remains were later moved somewhere else. Cadaver dogs
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tract ascent from one house to another roughly half a
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mile away. The man who lived in that second house
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is Stacy Wandra. He is now thirty three years old,
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and he is charged with first degree murder and kidnapping
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in Michael Vaughan's death. He is pleaded not guilty. And
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here's where I have to be careful with you, because
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what we know about the inside of this case comes
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largely from Wandra himself. In a police interview from November two,
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twenty twenty two that was played at his preliminary hearing
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this past March. So this is his account, his version
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offered by a man charged with murder who has every
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reason to point the finger somewhere else. Keep that in
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your head the whole time. In that interview, Wandra told
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detectives he had nothing to do with taking Michael. He
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said it was his wife, Sarah Wandra, who took the
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boy after seeing him outside. He said when she asked
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him what to do, he suggested they call the authorities,
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and then, by his own admission, he did not call
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the authorities. He says he walked into the bedroom and
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left his wife and two roommates alone with the child,
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and then he described what he says he heard through
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the wall. He told detectives he heard the tape being
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unrolled and he heard Michael, five years old, screaming for
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his mother. I want my mom, I want my mommy.
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Wandra says he did not watch them wrap the boy up,
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but he heard it. By his own account, he heard
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a child beg for his mother while it happened, and
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he stayed in the other room. He told police that
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when he asked his wife why she'd taken the child,
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She blamed him, said he wasn't earning money, and said
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one of the roommates planned to find someone who would
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buy a kid. The last time Wandra says he saw Michael,
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the boy had been placed inside a duffel bag packed
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between layers of clothing. At one point during that interview,
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Wandra began to vomit. He said it was the stress
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of telling the story. Now. I want to be fair
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about this, because fairness is the whole point of a trial.
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If Stacy Wandra is telling the truth, he is a
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man who froze, who did something unforgivably cowardly, but did
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not commit the killing. If he is not telling the truth,
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then this is a man narrating someone else's guilt to
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cover his own. That is exactly the question a jury
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exists to answer, and that jury will now sit in
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a different place than originally planned. This week, Judge Brent
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Whiting formally ordered the trial moved out of Payatt County.
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It will now be held about forty five minutes away
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in Canyon County. The kind of venue change you see
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when a case is so well known in its home
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county that finding an impartial jury becomes the hard part.
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Wandra himself will stay held at the Payette County Jail
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as the case proceeds. His trial is scheduled to begin
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September fourteenth. I'll be honest with you, the detail that
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stays with me isn't the legal maneuvering. It's a duffel
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bag and a little boy calling for his mom. Michael
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Vaughan was five, he'd be ten now. He should be
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finishing fourth grade, losing teeth, arguing about bedtime. Nobody was
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able to protect him that day. The least we can
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do is refuse to let him become a cold file
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with no name attached. Still ahead, a newborn found in
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a college dorm, trash can, a set of text messages,
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a judge is already thrown out, and the hard, careful
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line between what a prosecutor believes and what a jury
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is allowed to hear. Our last story takes us to Tampa,
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and it's one where I'm going to ask you to
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slow down with me, because this is a case where
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the loudest detail and the legal reality are not the
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same thing, and the difference matters. Brianna Moore is twenty
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one years old in October of twenty twenty four, she
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was a student at the University of Tampa. Her roommates
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told police they heard a baby crying and saw blood
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in the bathroom. When officers asked more about it, she
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denied being pregnant and said the blood was from her period.
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Inside the trash can in her dorm room, they found
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her newborn daughter. An autopsy found the infant had fractured
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ribs and hemorrhaging in her lungs, and ruled the cause
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of death asphyxia compression of the torso. More is pleaded
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not guilty to aggravated manslaughter of a child, child neglect,
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unlawfully moving a dead body, and failure to report a death.
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Now here's the part you may have seen in a headline.
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Prosecutors found text messages on Moore's phone from September of
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twenty twenty three, a full year before the birth, a
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back and forth with a friend about what to do
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in the event of an unwanted pregnancy. The messages riff
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darkly on plan A, Plan B, plan C, with Plan
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C described as killing the child, and more replying that
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plan C was her favorite. Prosecutors argued those texts showed
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a willingness to kill a baby and I understand why
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that line travels. It's chilling on its face. But here's
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what you need to know, and here's why I'm not
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going to just hand you that quote and let it
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do the work. A judge has already ruled those texts
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cannot be used at trial. Judge Thomas Palermo found there
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was no indication More even knew she was pregnant when
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she sent them, and that the messages contained no specific plan,
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no intent to act. A grim teenage conversation a year
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before the fact, the defense argued, is not a murder plan,
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and the court greed it doesn't come in. So if
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you build your verdict on Plan C is my favorite,
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you're building it on evidence the actual jury will never
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be allowed to hear. That's not a technicality. That's the
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system doing exactly what it's supposed to do, keeping prejudice
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out of a proceeding that's meant to weigh facts. The
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defense's position is that this was a cryptic pregnancy, also
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called pregnancy denial, where a person genuinely doesn't know they're
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carrying a child until very late or until labor itself.
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It's rare, but it's real. The National Institutes of health
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estimates around sixteen hundred cases a year in this country.
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Whether that applies to Brianna Moore is a question for
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a jury with experts on both sides. It is not
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a question for me, and it's not a question for
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a headline. What's actually in front of the court right
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now is narrower. More has been held at the Hillsborough
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County Jail since October thirtieth, twenty twenty four, more than
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a year and a half, on a cash bond of
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two one hundred and sixty two thousand, five hundred dollars.
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Her attorney has filed a motion asking Judge Palermo to
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change the conditions of her release so she can leave
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jail and live with her grandmother in Mississippi. The argument
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is practical, she has family ties, there no ties to