Published: February 20, 2007 11:18 pm         

CNN personality challenges Indiana State audience to do something ‘extraordinary’

TERRE HAUTE — Nancy Grace is small in stature, but huge in her role as victim’s advocate on national television.

The 5-foot-1-inch host of her own CNN show put many people behind bars forever while she served on the prosecutorial side of the U.S. justice system.

“Nancy Grace,” airs at 8 p.m. on CNN Headline Prime. Grace also hosts a live daily trial coverage program on CourtTV from 3 to 5 p.m. weekdays.

With passion and through tears, Grace spoke to a packed house Tuesday night at Indiana State University’s Tilson Auditorium. Nearly 1,000 people attended the event.

Grace talked about people’s responsibility to answer to a call of duty — to do the right thing when faced with a decision.

“Will the call come to you to do something extraordinary? Will you hear that call? Will you answer it? That call will come to you,” Grace said, “like it or not.”

Grace’s call came to her after the murder of her fiancé, Keith, she said. He was shot five times in the face, neck and back. Grace testified at his killer’s trial. Afterward, she remembered seeing Keith’s bloody clothes on the defense table.

She paused, she said, and looked into the eyes of the defendant and the defense attorney. Both, she said, dropped their heads after receiving her gaze.

She walked out of the courthouse and remembered hearing the sound of her cowboy boots hitting the floor as her life seemingly stopped.

“The world did keep going. The world did keep coming,” Grace said, as tears glistened and fell on her cheeks. “The only thing it changed — was me.”

It took Grace days before she could even drink a sip of water, she said to a silent, still audience.

She went on to earn her law degree at New York University and worked her way into a courtroom.

Once there, she remembering thinking, “This is not what I signed up for. Why am I here?”

Grace discovered that she wanted to be the voice for victims of crime, because they had no voice in that status.

“The justice system,” Grace said during an interview with a news reporter, “is a test of truth born out of controversy and determined by one’s perception.”

The biggest problem [with the system], she said, “is its biggest asset — the people.”

She attributed this fault to prosecutors who don’t care and “sleazy” attorneys.

“It’s a creation of human foils,” she added.

Speaking to the audience, Grace said heroes are born when people put themselves before others, such as her mother did.

When she was a young girl, Grace was sitting by a tree in the red Georgia dirt, clueless about the rattlesnake that had coiled up behind her.

Grace’s mother hurriedly walked toward her. With a gardening hoe in hand, she pulled back and struck the snake just below its head. This made her mother a hero, Grace said.

Years later, her mother was elated when Grace announced she was quitting the practice of law. She bought Nancy a ring with three rows of diamonds.

The stones represented three murder victims who were ultimately the reason she quit — to devote her time to advocate for victims.

Spectator Kathleen Padget of Terre Haute came to listen Grace’s speech and bought her latest book, “Objection!” for Grace to autograph.

“She’s very outspoken,” Padget said. “She says it how it is and her life is interesting.”

Ginny Black traveled from Danville, Ill., to hear what Grace had to say.

“It’s her personality I admire,” Black said. “It’s her vibrancy. She tells it like it is, and I just love that. I love her joy of life.”

Laura Followell can be reached at (812) 231-4253 or laura.followell@tribstar.com.