Authors Baden & Kenney on Their New Book 'Remains Silent'

This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," August 22, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.

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ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: It's been 11 days since 20-year-old college student and model Julie Popovich vanished from a Columbus, Ohio bar. At least two friends report seeing Popovich get into a car in the company of a man they did not recognize.

As the family and friends, as they search for Julie, detectives are deciding whether or not to turn the investigation over to the homicide department.

Joining us now, the authors of a brand new book of crime fiction, "Remains Silent," forensic pathologist Michael Baden and his wife, attorney Linda Kenney.

Good to see you both together here tonight.

MICHAEL BADEN, CO-AUTHOR, "REMAINS SILENT": It's good to be together.

COLMES: Before we talk about Julie Popovich, writing this book — You're still married?

LINDA KENNEY, CO-AUTHOR, "REMAINS SILENT": Yes.

COLMES: This is a terrific accomplishment. And it's basically your relationship. Your first date was kind of in a morgue, and that's a scene in the book. So you've got...

KENNEY: Right.

COLMES: So it's kind of a romantic plot in a certain sense.

BADEN: Goose pimply (ph).

KENNEY: And it's based on real-life cases. Based on cases that we both had and tried to bring to the public forefront.

COLMES: Very, very interesting.

BADEN: A forensic thriller. The two maybe characters are Manny, the female attorney, and Jake, the male forensic pathologist, who meet initially on opposite sides in the courtroom. And...

COLMES: Very Tracy and Hepburn-esque. But...

KENNEY: A very close examination, and...

COLMES: Good. So you can find out more about their lives by reading this book.

Let's talk about Julie Popovich. Did she leave this bar willingly is a key question here, is it not?

BADEN: Yes. But you get that. You do that by talking to the witnesses, talking to people who saw what happened. Whether anybody saw the car or have any descriptions of the vehicle, or the person she was with. And nowadays, security cameras have an awful lot of information to give.

COLMES: I understand they're hesitant to say it's a missing person. They're hesitant to say it's a homicide, because that means they have to put resources into it. Is there a political aspect of this?

KENNEY: Well, it's also because there's not enough money being put into the nuts — the nuts and bolts of crime detection. I mean, that's what's going to solve this. It's just like the Natalee Holloway thing. You've got to go out and interview people and talk to people, but the victim's family cannot give up.

COLMES: So day after day goes by and it takes time. Finally they say, "OK, we're going to call it a homicide case."

BADEN: Or a missing person.

COLMES: A missing person.

BADEN: The problem is, it's easier with a child to immediately go look for a child who's missing, but when an adult goes missing, the police say, "Well, maybe she's voluntarily missing." And there's often delays, and that may be a problem here.

COLMES: So how do they determine that this woman we're looking at right now did not leave voluntarily?

KENNEY: Well, they can interview her friends. What is her normal reaction? Is she normally at the bar? Does she normally go home another way? What do the security cameras show? Could she have been given a date rape drug? Just the same things that they should be doing with Natalee Holloway.

COLMES: And they found out that the — apparently didn't recognize this guy. Her friends did not know who it was, the person she left with.

BADEN: Yes. There is some conflicting information in the newspapers where some say she was a new person and got in voluntarily. Others said she was an older person she knew and didn't get in voluntarily. It's not clear.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Why would police at this point rule out the possibility that she left on her own? That makes no sense whatsoever to me.

BADEN: I don't think they've ruled it out.

HANNITY: Well, that's what they're saying, according to the local Columbus newspaper, the possibility that she just left on her own.

BADEN: Well, that may be because they've interviewed friends and who said they saw that she was not voluntarily getting into the car.

HANNITY: And the idea that they say they haven't ruled out the idea that she may have been victim of foul play, that's the likelihood?

KENNEY: Of course. And most women who are kidnapped, that's exactly what happens. That's what we see.

HANNITY: I mean, this is the sad thing. I mean, we have this series of these good-looking missing girls. It is sad. I mean, this is a parent's worst nightmare, because you send your daughter. She goes out to school and she's out. She can't even go out for a drink with her friends without fear of something horrible happening.

BADEN: But I think one of the things that's happened, especially with your type of show and the cable news, is that these kind of cases that were often given short shrift, and they'd wait a week or so or two week before they start getting interesting, when you call attention to it, the police start working on it quicker.

KENNEY: As soon as the public — the public is interested, the public wants to solve it.

HANNITY: And they can help?

KENNEY: They can help.

HANNITY: They often help.

KENNEY: Right. Absolutely.

HANNITY: And we're putting up on the screen how people can help if they can. And I know her family is desperately hoping she gets home soon.

One of the things that the police sergeant said is she could have been in an accident, incapacitated somewhere. They don't believe that, do they?

KENNEY: I don't think they do. I think they're trying to make the family feel better while they're still investigating. But if that's what they believe they're taking resources away. They have to be out there finding her right now, because if she is going to get killed or if she's dead, the earlier they find her the more likely she'll be alive.

HANNITY: But I guess we always have the hope, after Elizabeth Smart, that it could be, even though a period of time elapses.

BADEN: And as far as the family is concerned, hopefully, she's in a hospital someplace. They've checked all the hospitals by this time. Maybe she has amnesia, she was in an accident and has amnesia. Those are always hopes.

HANNITY: How common, Dr. Baden, these date rape drugs we keep hearing — it was mentioned at different points in the Natalee Holloway case. How common is this happening, that these young girls, they go to these bars and people are slipping them these drugs?

BADEN: These are sufficiently common. This happens where a lot of police agencies are involved in looking for these "roofies" and other date rape drugs. There is a real problem in it, because by the time the individual who received the date rape drug realizes what happened...

HANNITY: It's too late.

BADEN: It's already out of the body.

COLMES: By the way, thank you both very much. Get the book. It's very good.

KENNEY: Absolutely.

COLMES: Thank you very much. "Remains Silent." It could be — I think it could be a movie. Thanks very much, Dr. Baden and Linda Kenney. Thank you very much.

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