tonight on "nightline," stolen from the womb. and a pregnant woman left for dead. a shocking crime. and it happened again. what could possibly provoke such an unthinkable act? the extraordinary story of one mother who survived an attack. back to the future.

remember the '80's, the big hair, the ripped jeans, the cold war? more than two decades later, some homes are selling for less than they did back then. plus, the original idol. from because of you, to "since you've been gone", it's been hit after hit for this pop star. but who shapes her sound? kelly clarkson tells all in tonight's "playlist". captions paid for by abc, inc. good evening, i'm terry moran. we begin tonight with the murder of a young woman in massachusetts. it's a brutal crime in itself. but one that took a far darker turn when police discovered that the victim's unborn baby had been cut from her womb. miraculously the incident was -- the infant was later found alive

and a woman is being held on the kidnapping charge. as this investigation deepens, an even more disturbing question, did the desire for her own baby push the suspect to such an extreme act of evil? believe it or not, it is a crime that has happened before. >> julie cory had everyone convinced, even her boyfriend, who spoke to the "boston herald." >> i mean, she had everybody, my family, her family, everybody believing she was pregnant. and she called me, said she was having pains and she called me again, said her water had broke. i told her to call an ambulance, go to the hospital. and then i didn't hear from her again until like 2:00 in the morning when she said she had the baby. >> but police said s never had a baby and it's doubtful she was pregnant. julie cory is charged only with kidnapping for now. but police suspect she killed her neighbor darlene hanes after

from her womb. nth-old fetus >> the baby had a ribbon tiedouu ou the umbilical cord. not a normal severing device. >> the case in massachusetts is only the latest in a string of more than a dozen such attacks on expectant mothers since 1987 and the fourth in just over a year. forensic psychologists says the incidents appear to have increased perhaps because hospitals are more sophisticated in preventing thefts of newborns. the suspects are usually women who can't have children or have lost a child, he says. >> you know, there's been baby snatching forever, you know, women that go into hospitals and take infants right from the ward. is this just an extreme form of that? >> well, in some respects it is. i think it is a very extreme form, but this kind of desperation really suggests is someone who's really over the

edge, because, you know, it's one thing to want a baby. it's another thing to convince yourself that somehow you can snatch a baby from a hospital. we're really talking about people who are willing to commit murder in order to obtain a baby right from the womb. >> what is going through the mind of a woman who does this? >> i suspect that the only thing going through their mind is i need to achieve my goal, i must have a baby. for whatever reason, i must have this baby and i'm going to stop at nothing until i get that baby and then i'll feel a complete and whole and the world will be right again. >> the incidents are astonishingly similar. in 2000, the body of an ohio woman wad ouunfoin a shallow grave with her fetus removed. in 2004, a kansas woman's baby was carved out of her womb with a kitchen knife and just last month, a pregnant woman was killed by a woman she met on craigslist, the baby died shortly after being ripped from the mother. in almost all the cases of

newborn kidnapping by cesarean section, as the phenomenon is called, the targets have died. >> i most definitely think i survived because of my daughter. and because of god. because i don't believe had i not been pregnant and this would have been just, you know, woman on woman crime, and she would have been attacking me, i don't know if i'd have had the strength to survive. >> in 2005, nine months pregnant, sarah was lured into a friendship with a woman also claiming to be pregnant. >> seems very friendly, very pregnant. nothing unusual. she lived in a very nice neighborhood. >> she called herself sarah brody and has fabricated a story about mistakenly receiving brady's registry gifts and when she went to pick them up, the unthinkable thing happened. >> it was almost like you could feel the evilness that was

pouring out of her. and at that point, i can truly tell you that i was scared. very scared. i didn't know what she wanted. i didn't know what her intentions were. and when i pulled back from the hug is when she pulled out the knife on me. i just laid there on the floor and i thought, to myself, i'm going to lay here and i'm going to die and nobody is gointo know what happened to me. >> after a struggle, sarah was able to get ahold of the knife and in self-defense stabbed the woman to death. her real name was katie smith. she had faked her pregnancy. >> and she took me into the by's nursery. it was fully stocked, diapers, changing table, crib. >> authorities later found evidence that smith was planning to forcibly remove sarah's baby from the womb. >> she had the clips, the umbilical cord, the scissors and obviously the knife. she was prepared. she was intending to take my child.

>> it's clearly calculated and thought out because the person would have had to have learned to basically learned how to perform a c-section. >> yeah, one would think it's certainly the naturof the crime is complex enough that you don't spontaneously get the idea at 12 noon and at 12:30, look for someone who is pregnant and do this. they have been sitting with this for months and months on end. maybe they're reading books, figuring out how to perform the surgical act. minded you, the surgical act doesn't have to be done with great skill. >> what is their view toward the woman that they kill? >> they're a means to an end. you know, if they can kill, so be it. if they're left pleading to death -- bleeding to death, if they're leftsychologically scarred for life, it doesn't matter to the person. once they get the bay bay theyn't -- baby, they don't give

a second thought to the woman. >> last year, a woman with a history of mental illness ripped open johnson's uterus to steal her baby and left her for dead. >> i don't know how someone can do something so heinous to another human being. oh, god. my daughter, man, oh, man, any daughter. >> a miraculous number of the babies obtained through the shdy sri have s survveved. f fr they e evengiven the by a althy. name- ata.. >> i i jusdon't believit. g go from -- you thinkou'raa daagain to a thipppping. unbebelievle. >> few of these stories have happy endingngs. sarah brbrayy feels s she was

saved byer faith. her now 4-year-oldldauaugh namamakaa a grace. >> i don't know why i'm here, but i do believe god did it and because of my daughter. >> it's horrible. the murder investigation in massachusetts is ongoing for now. the suspect is being held just on a kidnapping charge with her bail set at $2 million. thanks to stephanie cy. we're going to take a break. when we come back, we'll turn to real estate. and turn back the clock. once booming southern california real estate is now selling for once booming southern california real estate is now selling for very 1980's prices.un concierge claim centers. so i can just drop off my car and you'll take care of everything? yep, even the rental. what if i'm stuck at the office? if you can't come to us, we'll come to you in one of our immediate response vehicles! what if mother won't let me drive?

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part by the huge real estate market bubble fuelled by reckless subprime mortgage lending. but imagine this. imagine you made the most important investment of your life and for more than two decades you patiently watched the value appreciate before suddenly with little warning you were right back where you started. brian rooney has this report for our series "realty check". >> remember 1989? big hair and leg warmers were the thing. michael keaton was batman. >> i'm batman. >> george bush became president. not this george bush. that george bush. and bette midler had the song of the year. ♪ you are the wind beneath my wings ♪ >> that's a long time ago. so if you bought a house in some parts of lancaster or palmdale, california, for $100,000 in 1989, today that same house might be worth, oh, roughly

$100,000. >> up, up, up and then crash. >> larry louie is a motorcycle dealer who bought his first house out here for $23,000. saw it appreciate to $100,000. he paid $150,000 in 1986 for his current house. and stayed there while it peaked at half a million dollars. then dropped hundreds of thousands in value. its happened to him and his friends. >> i don't know anybody who's not moaning about it, but we're living with it. >> in some areas of southern california, mostly in desert communities the median price of houses has dropped back to when jelly shoes were the rage and boris becker was the best tennis player. in one lancaster zip code, the median price was $109,000 in 1989 and climbed to nearly $335,000 in 2007. today it is just $87,000. in one place,he median price

was $17,000 and now $96,000 today. >> what's happening is prices are falling toevels that make sense again. they're falling to levels that make it affordable for your average household to go out and buy the average home. that's wre they needed to be. the prices could not have lasted. >> the inflation of housing prices started when banks gave loans to whose who didn't qualify. as more people could buy at lower interest rates, prices started going up. as prices went up close to the cities, people went an hour away to buy new houses at lower prices but then the easy mortgages created a frenzy of buying and ever-higher prices until finally the market hyper inflated and suddenly burst. michael lefevre is a real este

broker who has seen seral cycles of boom and bust. so you have the living room, all broken glass over here. >> the bank going to fix everything back up. >> on the side, he's an investor who owns 34 houses. >> i mean, you're buying houses for what? 50 -- >> 50, $60,000. i fix them up and rent them out. when this turns, i'll sell them. >> those are houses that sold for what -- >> triple. >> he did that during the last real estate bust when the berlin wall came down and the exxon valdez went up on the rocks. what are they worth? >> about the same probably. >> the same amount of money that he paid when this was the smallest cell phone that money could buy. but returning to the '80's isn't all bad. the crash has removed the illusion of wealth. >> there are a lot of people who thought they had a lot of wealth. it turns out that wealth does note exist. they thought they had this pot of gold and they were taking

advantage of it. but it turns out the pot of gold was a myth, but all the debt they've racked up in the meantime is very real. >> for people just entering the market if they can compete against the investors, things couldn't be better. >> the price sat 35. >> lefevre's daughter also sells real estate. even at these prices, the rundown houses are a steal. >> i've got a lot of people i grew up with in high school that i can talk into houses. >> her client had been around the real estate block a few times. what have you paid for houses previously? >> anywhere from half a million dollars down to, golly n the 1970's, i bought one house for 20. >> it's now 2009 and you're looking at a house -- >> yeah, again. >> that must be stunning to you. >> yes. throughout california i can look at the internet and see all the mortgage and the mortgage -- see

all the bankrupts and the mortgage foreclosures. >> at these prices, you'd be crazy not to. >> right. even for somebody living on social security it is feasible. >> for those people who already own a home, plunging values are okay if you don't plan on going anywhere. >> i wasn't thinking of my house as a moneymaker. >> the real estate people like to say your home is the most important investment, but larry also has a collection of rare motorcycles, most barely driven. this one sold for -- >> $15,000. >> now it's worth? >> $35,000. >> this motorcycle is doing a lot better than a lot of houses. >> that's my 401(k) plan. >> that was a 1990 model. maybe everyone should have bought motorcycles instead of houses. this is brian rooney for "nightline" in palmdale, california. >> the bleak reality of the real estate market there. our thanks to brian rooney for that report. when we come back, "since you've been gone", pop star

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kelly clarkson became a household name when she was crownethe first "american idol" way back in 2002. but while many succeeding idols have faded away the 27-year-old texan has taken off with four chart-topping albums including her latest release "all i ever wanted". so what are her musical memories? she told us in tonight's "playlist". ♪ >> i didn't realkn ow i could sing. but like every kid is like -- you're kind of yelling and

singing. it was a big social thing for me. ♪ ♪ did you ever know that you're my hero ♪ >> "wind beneath my wings" that whole thing, because my generation that was when we were real small. that was like -- i sing that everywhere. bette midler was doing muse movie musicals or musicals and i was fascinated by her. lod veher personality. she's so out there. my mom said she could get too outrageous for kids. ♪ ♪ all that you've given to me >> "vision of love" was the first solo i ever sang in front of an audience. i remember seeing mariah carey in the black dress on arsenio hall. and i remember i was just flipping out because i was like, who is she? i became literally obsessed. i went and got a perm because her hair was curly. everything was mariah carey.

in ju s tirst time i had t isingn front of i remember girls going, you n'cat sing that song, she hits e high note. i was like, i can and i did. ♪ ♪ you are good girl got to try a little harder ♪ >> a major impact for me, which i loved off of "jagged little pill". growing up, it's sometimes a strict kind of christian environment, everything is kind of under things at times. i thought it was awesome that this female rock alternative chick was laying out out there. the song i wrote around that time was "because of you". ♪ i knew my way, the same mistakes that you did ♪ ♪ ♪ i let myself cause my heart so much misery ♪ >> i wrote it because of the cycle of family, like the whole cycle of maybe not taking down

wahithe bad habits you get fromc of breaking that cycle.ind that ended up bing one of my biggest singles which isrd wei. you never think at 16 anybody is going to hear that. ♪ ♪ when a man loves a woman >> i will tell you something that people make fun of me for. i and a huge mike -- i'm a huge michael bolton fan and i don't care what people say. my favorite song is "when a man ofves a woman", you can make fun his hair, michl boo an,ll the men are ju jealous. he's one of the sexiest voices. i just love his voice. ♪ at last >> i walked into that audition completely blind. i had to be at work, so i had to -- i basically didn't sleep. i showed up really early in the morning. i was the fourth person in the line because i had to go to work

to make money. i sang "at last" by etta james. ♪ >> i know that people get excited when, you know, white girls walk into there and start wailing and i'm not singingus s an music or ict.thing like t i wanted to sing this big ballsy song whe tn ii walked in. etta james, what a phenomenal singer so i picked one of her songs. ♪ touring songs, it can get monotonous sometimes so you ed something to break it up. so we turn on some britney and but upping music an get her groove on. hesimuc is very different from me so you can dance to it before ou go t there. ♪

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