the congresswoman is coming home. the accused gunman may eventually come to trial, but if you think he might get off by pleading insanity, think again. >> you have to be virtually chewing the carpet in a courtroom to qualify for an insanity defense. the shuttle sailed into the past. >> it's our space wall. >> wonders about its future. >> going off in an hour from now. just gone off three hours ago, this whole street would be

packed. a woman or wall street taking on the old boys, beal buggish. >> i made an issue out of it. >> making millions in the process. and a nail-biting ride to the place where it is always independence day. all on "stories: reporter." welcome. i'm tom foreman. at congresswoman gabrielle giffords continues her remarkable rov fri being shot in the head, attention is shifted to the man shooting her. the courts say gerald lee loughner is mentally incompetent and cannot be put on trial until successfully treated. it is raising a specter that long troubled americans. the idea that the insanity defense were be easily used to get violent criminals off the books, but is that true? jim acosta picks up the story.

>> reporter: you are entering a world few will ever see in person. inside of a mental institution that houses criminally insane patients. this is st. elizabeths hospital in washington, d.c. as captured in a remarkable movie shot last year by the patients themselves. one of them is louis eckerd, he beat and strangled to death a u.s. senator's aide more than four decades ago. >> i came in in 1967. that's reik 43 years, this was my home. this is where i live. believe me, lived and died. >> reporter: the movies two young miamimakers got the permission to put the hands in the hands of a few select patients. this unprecedented access was

granted to give the swins a better understanding of a person found guilty of insanity. >> it's through their eyes. >> what did you learn about them? what did you learn about mental illnesses? >> for me, like, i learned the capacity for feelings and the capacity change, when you talk about that. they really one timed to communicate how much over these past decades. that's what's so great is that we do get to seek inside. we don't have to imagine what it's like in there anymore. we actually know. >> and that humanizes them and we feel connected to them. >> believe that i can -- >> reporter: not an easy trip. >> all of my life. all of my life. all of my life. >> reporter: five featured men involved in murder, sex crimes, assault. but even as the filmmakers present them at aging patients not at dangerous as they once were, at george washington

universe, legal experts knows the public is not so nearly understanding. especially in high profile cases like the shooting of congresswoman gabrielle giffords. her attacker gerald lee loughner recently found mentally unfit to stand trial. >> the fact is, iminsanity defense is almost never used. when someone has been killed they feel someone needs to be punished and so do juries. >> figuring out how we reached this point take as trip back in time. legal scholars have been trying to define the insanity defense reg cueing with ambiguous terms. by the 1920s, courts agreed people were seized by irresistible tendencies to be violent. 30 years ago legal experts say one shooting made it almost impossible. in 1981, the attack on president

ronald reagan and his party by john hinckley shocked the nation and so did the court's finding that hinckley who had a fixation on jodie foster was not guilty by reason of insanity. the backlash immediate. congress tightened the rules foreign sanity defenses and the 30 states did the same. >> the great irony this was in some ways the poster boy for the insanity defense. he was insane. >> get out of here! >> people wanted revenge. they wanted to hold him accountable. people were angry. and they couldn't take out that anger on john hinckley. so instead, they took it out on the criminal code. >> reporter: these days the insanity defense is considered such a long shot it is attempted in less than 1% of felony cases and succeeds only a tiny fraction of the time. >> you have to be virtually chewing the carpet in the courtroom to qualify for the insanity defense. you have to be so insane you can't tell the difference of right and wrong.

you have to be virtually in another world, and i have seen people in court where everyone in court would agree, this guy is a barking lunatic. but still does not qualify. >> reporter: even the infamous serial killer, jeffrey dahmer, saw the jury turn down his claim of insanity amid the public rage over his string of murders. [ shouting ] >> reporter: there is an odd contradiction in all of this. for a person who is not mentally ill, prison is generally a better deal. after all, in a mental institution, only the doctors can determine when the patient is finally released. at st. elizabeths where hinckley was sent some have waited most of their lives. >> i said, i can't stay in this place, and my lawyer told me, you'll be here for 90 days observation.

and 90 days turned out to be 23 years. >> more than likely, the person will spend more time in a mental institution than they will in a prison. many of these people will get 20 to life and be out before 20 years. if you go a mental institution for murder, you'll likely spend the rest of your life there. >> are re doing enough for the mentally ill in this country? >> i think one of the things that i took away from it is that this isn't somebody else's problem. it's our problem. and it becomes our problem if we don't take ownership of it. >> reporter: all of the patients in the st. elizabeth facility between some day, some way, they will be released. >> i'm sure that i can get my life together and ge out and be responsible, and be a citizen once again in the community. >> reporter: but many of them have said that for years.

♪ there's a place for us >> reporter: it all suggestses that not guilty verdict, at best, this is the road ahead for jared lee loughner. one that is long, complex and very far from free. ♪ somewhere, somewhere when we return, running out of space on the florida coast. and she started as a kid in jail. now she's making money like midas, with a woman's touch on wall street. ♪ ♪ ♪ look at that car, well, it goes fast ♪ ♪ givin' my dad a heart attack ♪ [ friend ] that is so awesome. ♪ i love my car [ engine revving ] [ male announcer ] that first chevy, yea,

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if all goes asplaned the space shuttle blasts off for the last time. leaving behind space exploration and something else. the most dedicated cheerleader the space program has ever known. one small florida town for generations has relied on manned rocket launches to bring the nation to its door. >> ten, nine -- >> it's not just seeing the space ship launch. >> it's starts with a low rumble. >> and watching the vapor trail

go into space. >> like someone beating a drum. >> and a feeling -- >> five, four. >> and being close to it. >> it gets real angry. >> three -- >> loud. >> two -- >> smoky -- >> one -- >> mag >> magnificent. >> zero. >> reporter: for almost half a century -- >> spectacular. really is. >> reporter: titusville has been saying good-bye. no place on earth has had a better view of americans going into space -- than this small town on strip of land just 15 miles across the indian river from the launch pad. >> look at that. don't they look like baby lobsters? >> reporter: and for thousands of residents, such as laura lee thompson a former shrimp boat captain, koching the liftoff has become a way of life. >> it's our space wall and where

we got autographed pictures of the astronauts here. >> reporter: she opened this restaurant way training boot from apollo and other artifacts to draw launch crowds into her lobby. >> a population of 43,000, and there will be several hundred thousand people here. our population quadruples. >> reporter: of course, the town's role of the yankee stadium of man's space flight began much further back. in the 196 0s when the mercury, gemini and apollo missions fascinated the world's fascination and when man loond landed on the moon. >> one small step for man. one giant leap for mankind. >> reporter: no place was prouder. so proud, several monuments have been built here across the river honoring not just those who went into space but also those who put them there, like city manager mark ryan's parents. >> a retired ibm-ers. my father work and the instrument for the appallee

rockets and my mother in the quality control records keeping for ibm as well ngts take this board off. straight ahead. that's the launch pad. >> reporter: bobby lived here more than 40 years. >> the accomplishment, the time frame. the ingenuity of our people to accomplish what they did in such a short period of time. i'm still amazed by it. >> reporter: when tragedy struck like it did in the fire or the shuttle explosion years later, the people here mourned. >> we grieved. the whole city did. it was quite auf. awful. like a member of the family had died. the "challenger" hit us lard for three years. unemployment rate went up. people were laid off and it had a traumatic effect here. people like myself, standing on the ribber and watched it. there are times i see that same cloud configuration or the sky's as blue as it was that morning, i flash back.

>> reporter: when danger threatened, as it did on" apollo 13, they responded with prayers and the expertise that only a town filled with rocket scientists could bring. artie winkle. >> working third shift, working 12-hour shifts seven days a week, 12 hour as day. i went home to sleep. got a phone call. a problem on apollo 13, command module. i explain wlad i thought we could do. nerve her to go to that extreme. >> reporter: mostly for generations they have watched and welcomed everyone who came to watch with them. >> chocolate shake. >> reporter: david is a science teach here still helps out with the family business. >> it's three deluxe burgers, two no mayonnaise. >> started in '64 by my grandparents. named because the space practice across the river was being started. we feel a positive effect of the space shuttle launches. no doubt.

going off in an hour from now, or gone off three hours ago, this whole street would be packed. >> three burgers. 63. >> i mean, bumper to bumper. everyone's getting ready to see it, excited. you'd see lawn chairs. people on top of buildings waiting for it to go off. >> reporter: now, there will still be hundreds of nasa employees nearby, still unmanned rockets blasting off, but everyone knows without astronauts, the crowds won't be nearly as big. >> our community is going to lose the gift of hundreds of thousands of motel rooms that we really didn't have to work very hard to fill. >> reporter: the town's identity will slip a little farther into the past. for for. >> for me, probably a lot of joy and sorrow all at the same time. >> reporter: and when the tourists depart this timance all that will be left is a suddenly shockingly empty sky.

all is not lost. many in titusville believe given time, new government launches and even private space rockets will bring the crowds back. coming up, she started as kid in jail. now she's making money like midas, way woman's touch on wall street. going to where the road meets the sky. but only on the fourth of july. >> the long, hard slog out of as aspen.     

amid the latest rumbles in the economy, concerns are arising about the stock market, about whether the old boys' network on wall street can keep investors calm and investing. here's a hint -- they might want to talk more to the girls. for reasons that are not entirely understood, women are better at picking stocks than men are. much better. and one woman that poppy harlow met may be the best of all. >> these are the original steps. >> reporter: a small jail in rural minnesota is an unconventional place to sow the seeds of a wall street sensation.

>> i think i probably learned about risk in the jail. >> reporter: and jet it was the perfect place for rene. >> the front of the house was the residence and the back was the jail. >> reporter: she spent her childhood here, the daughter of the local sheriff, delivering meals to prisoners who slept just steps from her bedroom. >> i thought it was a normal existence. it really wasn't anything unusual for me. >> reporter: her father, also a farmer, gave her another opportunity when he took rene flying over corn fields as a young girl. he said now we're in iowa. i said, but dad, we don't have any crops in iowa, why are you checking the corn crops in iowa? and he said, well? there's this thing called the futures exchange. i was amazed. i said you mean you can sell this guy's corn without owning it? he said, well, sort of. >> reporter: after graduating from college with a degree in forestry, rene stumbled upon agricultural giant cargill. rene became a commodities expert, a solid trader and was

convinced she was on her way to bigger things. but soon enough, she found herself playing in a boys' club. >> it was being excluded from the ski trip when the trainee next to you was invited because he was a guy and you weren't. i made an issue out of it. >> reporter: 13 years ago, rene decided to venture out on her own and start a hedge fund right here in new york city. but what she never expected was just how hard it would be to raise money from investors, in part, because she was a woman. what kind of volume are we seeing today? what she was hearing was a deep seeded bias outlined in a 2010 study by washington university in st. louis which found americans willing to invest three times as much money in a firm led by a man than one run by a woman. rene fell more than $1 million in debt trying to keep her company afloat.

did you ever think maybe i should just give up, close shop? >> i did. i got very, very close to it. >> reporter: instead, rene took the bias by the horns and reached out for help. rene approached her former employer cargill and convinced them to bar her with a $60 million investment. >> as soon as they did that, everyone who had been watching started knocking on my door. >> reporter: and they still are. her firm says over the past dozen years, despite the recession, they've averaged 13% in annual returns. >> i think that she has massive chutzpah. >> reporter: a former goldman sachs executive runs a group dedicated to advancing women in business. >> what rene is trying to prove is that women are great traders. and they are. >> reporter: a study by hedge fund research found between 2000 and 2009 hedge funds managed by women produced almost twice the returns of those run by men, and yet women run only 3% of the

9,000 hedge funds in the u.s. that's one reason rene and her husband recently donated $1.5 million to build a program at the university of tennessee at chattanooga teaching finance from the female perspective. >> i don't trade individual stocks. >> reporter: in other words, how to trade like a woman. >> i don't think it's an equal playing field. it is getting there but it's not as much as we would like it to be. >> reporter: rene knows women in finance have a long way to go. >> this is my art and i love it. >> reporter: but then, from the farm fields of minnesota, she's come a long way, too. in just a moment, going to where the road meets the sky. but only on the fourth of july. i don't want you going out on those yet. and leave your phone in your purse, i don't want you texting. >> daddy... ok! ok, here you go. be careful. >> thanks dad.

>> and call me--but not while you're driving. we knew this day was coming. that's why we bought a subaru. a complete four course seafood feast for $15. start with soup then have salad and biscuits followed by 1 of 7 delicious entrees and finish with something sweet all for just $15. right now at red lobster. it's schwab at your fingertips wherever, whenever you want. one log in lets you monitor all of your balances and transfer between accounts, so your money can move as fast as you do. check out your portfolio, track the market with live updates. and execute trades anywhere and anytime the inspiration hits you. even deposit checks right from your phone. just take a picture, hit deposit and you're done. open an account today and put schwab mobile to work for you.

aaa is estimating that 39 million americans will brave high gas prices to venture more than 50 miles from home this weekend, but way out west, for some people, this holiday has less to do with going out than with going up -- to a place where the fourth of july is always in season.

load up for a ride over this part of the colorado rockies and you are in for a rare and exhilarating treat. rare because independence pass is passable for only a few months each summer. when snows melt enough to allow travel this way between the ski resort village of aspen and the old mining town of leadville. exhilarating because, well, sam smith at the local historical society knows why. >> lot of people say that it was a somewhat scary drive. it is tight mountain roads and if you're not careful you're looking at the mountains rather than looking out at the road ahead of you. >> the pass was built because folks were initially mining in leadville. but. >> but as prospectors would want to do, they came up and over, found wherever they could, and julily july 4th, 1879 stuck gold here at independence. >> reporter: ever since july has brought a steady stream of

visitors, who ride over the highest paved mountain pass on the continent. straddling the continental divide, independence pass offers views of some of the grandest mountains in the lower 48 states. >> some of the highest peaks in colorado. big geological uplift and everything kind of drains out from it. the rain that falls in leadville on other side of the pass brings down in arkansas, out in new orleans. eventually that reaches this side of the pass, eventually reaches colorado and waters l.a. >> reporter: but the way this area geographically divides america is not nearly so important as how it brings americans together at this time of year to enjoy the rare days when they can hike normally inaccessible trails, climb remote rock faces, even cross-country ski in the summer sun. >> folks i really envy are the guys cycling up. it is a long, hard slogt