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Prosecutors play 2002 ABC interview with woman in Rilya Wilson case

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Prosecutors play 2002 ABC interview with woman in Rilya Wilson case

Geralyn Graham, on Good Morning America one decade ago, insisted the state’s welfare agency took the missing girl.

BY DAVID OVALLE

DOVALLE@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Jurors in the Rilya Wilson trial got to hear directly from accused killer Geralyn Graham on Wednesday - in the form of a May 2002 national television news interview.

Prosecutors played excerpts of an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America with Graham, who claims she is the girl’s grandmother and insists a state child welfare agency worker whisked the girl away never to return.

Graham, 66, is on trial for the slaying of the 5-year-old foster child, who was discovered missing in April 2002 despite being under the supervision of the Florida Department of Children and Families.

The case of the missing girl -- her body has never been found -- spurred DCF to reform how foster children are supervised.

Graham claimed that a mystery DCF worker took the child away in January 2001 for a mental health evaluation. Because of failed supervision, the agency did not discover Rilya was missing until April 2002.

Prosecutors say Graham smothered Rilya, disposed of her body in a body of water in South Miami-Dade then spent more than a year concocting lies about what happened to the child.

In the interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, a much-younger looking Graham claims DCF haphazardly dumped Rilya in her custody to begin with, so she wasn’t surprised when the agency took the girl again with no clue as to her whereabouts.

Prosecutors say Graham actually engineered a plan to get Rilya taken out of a previous, stable foster home and put into the house of her and her lover.

Graham, in her interview, also began to tear up when recalling how after the police probe began, DCF removed Rilya’s younger sister, Rodericka, from her home.

“I’m the only mother she knows,” Graham sobbed.

Her emotion contrasts with how prosecutors have portrayed Graham: as indifferent to Rilya never returning from supposed DCF custody.

On Wednesday, Miami-Dade Detective Chris Stroze also testified that Graham gave him a detailed physical description of the mystery DCF worker: tall, light-skinned with a Caribbean accent, with big feet and an overbite.

Graham also claimed that she couldn’t remember the supposed DCF worker’s name, despite the woman spending 45 minutes at the house running “tests” on Rilya.

Graham also described Rilya as a mushrooming behavioral nightmare, and admitted to hitting the little girl with a switch, causing welts on the legs, the detective said.

Stroze, the case’s first lead homicide detective, said also recalled a challenging remark made by Graham: “She said if I could prove she was lying, I would know she was lying about everything,” he said.

Defense attorney Scott Sakin, during cross examination, hammered home that despite following leads on Rilya from the Bahamas to Canada, her body was never found and no forensic evidence of a murder was found in the Graham’s Kendall home.

2012 Dec 12