websites, tweeted out by everyone from "time" magazine to ellen, and played by networks like fox, nbc, and abc. >> a little goat is literally drowning in the pond. >> send in the rescue pig! >> reporter: but now, just in time for the premiere of a new comedy central show, the prank's been exposed in a "new york times" article. mission -- >> to create a hero pig by staging a viral video in which he rescues a baby goat. >> reporter: some were already suspicious. you can see an arm, noted one internet sleuth! and sure enough, the host says that divers were involved, as well as a trained, professional pig. >> we decided to build an underwater trap out of pvc. >> we'll just call it piggate. >> reporter: though at the time, they said they had no way of knowing if it was real. with the kind of pieces that i

do, barely a day goes by that i don't worry about being hoaxed. though it didn't take lots of smarts to avoid the eagle snatching a baby hoax created by four film students -- >> oh, [ bleep ]! >> reporter: and then there was the overexcited train guy. >> oh, my god! whoo! listen to that! >> reporter: now there's excited train guy. >> made a bit of a caboose out of himself. >> reporter: who's the caboose now? turns out this was a promotion for a tourist railway. >> that horn gives me the chill. >> so does this. it's supposedly security cam video of a naked guy locked out of his hotel room, causing a mom to hide her son's eyes and being asked for i.d. in the lobby. >> how can i have a driver's license? i'm naked, ma'am. we call fake! who's going to fall for that? you know what they say about pigs. >> this little piggy went to market. >> reporter: make that viral marketing.

jeanne moos, cnn -- >> oh, my gosh! she's beautiful! >> reporter: -- new york. >> that's it for us. "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. "outfront" next, the pope steps down, leaving behind a catholic church still mired in scandal. does its future depend on changing its view on sex? president obama changes tactics over his latest battle with the republicans. he losing the fight over forced spending cuts tonight? and a montana couple didn't believe the story police told them about the death of their son, so they became real-life detectives to discover the truth. it's an "outfront" investigation. let's go "outfront." good evening, everyone. i'm erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, a papal good-bye. surrounded in pomp and circumstance, history made in rome today and it was amazing to watch. pope benedict xvi addressed the crowds in st. peter's square one last time, as the leader of the roman catholic church.

about 150,000 people were cheering with signs saying, thank you, to the pope. the pope met with more than 100 cardinals, the ones who were going to choose his successor, one by one, each of them clasped his hand and kissed his ring in a sign of reverence. every second of this day was planned, every move was a first. because no pope has ever retired. the pope rode in a mercedes-benz. he rode to his augusta westland helicopter, which took him on a sunset tour of rome. and i just wanted to show you these aerials. it was beautiful. it was literally sunset over the roman coliseum. it looped back over st. peter's basilica, so the pope could once again see where he had spent so many years of his life. it was truly beautiful to watch. and 15 miles away, at the pope's destination, castel gandolfo, the bells were ringing, and his final address to the public as pope was at that balcony you see there at the castel gandolfo.

>> translator: i am no longer the pope, but i'm still in the church. i'm just a pilgrim who is starting the last part of his pilgrimage on this earth. >> reporter: the church, though, which allows 1.2 billion in its flock has a question. can it keep growing and remain relevant? in the united states since 1965, the number of priests has dropped by nearly 35% and the number of nun as has plunged 70%. is celibacy the reason? two of our next guests have left the church for that reason. father albert left the reason after his relationship with a woman became public, and sister mary left because of the celibate vow. i appreciate all of you taking the time. father, you were a priest in the catholic church and had a relationship with a woman in 2009leaving the church, going into the

episcopalian church, allowing married men to be priests. does the catholic church have to change its view on celibacy or not? >> i think celibacy is very valid, especially in the case of those who feel 100% called to that life for all of their life, for their entire life. and i think that religious priests, for example, like father beck, who's a passionist, and monks and religious sisters maybe have a reason to live in community and be celibate. but secular priests were never celibate in the history of the churches. the parish priest always lived like the people that he served. so to say that celibacy has to be the way for all priests really is an imposition of the church. and it's become more than a tradition, it's become a custom to say to people, oh, celibacy is the way it's always been. well, that's wrong. it was for many, many centuries where most peoples were able to marry and have their families and be good priests. >> father beck, christiane

amanpour talked to timothy dolan today, and she asked him whether the next pope is going to consider the celibacy issue. here's what timothy dolan had to say. >> i would say he might talk about it and think about it, but i don't think it's going to happen. i think the past popes have listened and spoken about it and talked about it. so it's not going to be new. >> why do they reject it? >> i think probably because, for a thousand years now, it's been something in the roman catholic priesthood that makes it distinct. and there has been a value to it. there is a value, a spiritual value of being free to do ministry, because you don't have a wife, you don't have children, and you can give yourself totally to it. >> do you feel that yourself? you feel that calling? >> i really do, yes. i could not do the priesthood i do in the way that i do and be married and have children. it's distinctive. what father cutie said is very true. i think for priests, perhaps some of them, if they were free, they would marry and they could do their ministry just as well married. i don't think for all priests,

that's true, though. >> and mary, i want to ask you about this from the nun's perspective. you were a nun for 20 years, you had fall nn love with a fellow sister and then a priest and were forced to leave. you were forced to be with women all the time and forced to be celibate. do you think your vows to the church led to you having a relationship with another woman? >> i don't think that the vow of celibacy led to that. i think it's a natural, normal, human thing to have a relationship with another person. i think that growing in intimacy, growing in knowledge of yourself in relationship with another person is an important part of being a human being, wherever you are. and that the more the church would allow its leaders to become more and more fully human, the better it would be for everyone. >> father cut cutie -- >> i think also -- >> i'm sorry, there's a little

bit of a delay. i'll finish the question. someone also said, a father this week earlier in rome, he thought that half of the people who went to be priests now were gay. that was his estimate. but if society becomes more welcoming and more accepting of gay choices, do you think that will mean fewer people choose to enter the church? >> well, i'll tell you, in my book "dilemma," when it was first published, it was very controversial for symptome peopo hear something that most clergy know, and i would say it's more than 60% of the roman catholic church are homosexual men, some of them are celibate, and a good number of them are promiscuously gay or involved in more than one relationship. i didn't see too many momentum sexual priests that were faithful to one person, to tell you the truth. i saw them embrace a lifestyle, many times, where they were involved with many people. and we see the things in the italian press in the last week where people get very scandalized an the gay subculture, well, that's old. it's old news. it's been going on for a long

time. whether we want to accept it or not, some priests are celibate, whether they're heterosexual or homosexual, but there's a significant number of priests that are promiscuous and are living sexual lives and, obviously, hiding it from the institution. >> father beck, you recoiled when you first said 60%. >> i don't know where he quite gets that statistic. >> father daniel colson says that. >> well, he may say that -- >> father daniel colson says that in his books. >> but that doesn't make it true, necessarily. i'm sure there are gay priests and some of them are active. i would never deny that. but that doesn't mean that you throw away celibatesy because some don't live it well. 60-some percent have adulterous relationships in their marriages. that doesn't mean marriage isn't a sacred institution and worth something because people aren't always faithful to it. >> that's an interesting point, that's a very interesting point. mary, what do you think about the fact that there's been -- that 70% drop in nuns, way more than priests. if celibacy were changed, would

you suddenly have little girls who want to become nuns now, or is that something that wouldn't affect the plunge in people's interest in that at all? >> i think little girls in the catholic church might want to become priests. i think that that's really at the heart of another problem in the church, the whole subjigags of women. >> i went to episcopal high school, grew up as a catholic, so i got a little taste of all of it. thanks to all three of you. who do you think the next pope will be? go to our website, we have an interactive list of the front-runners of the next pope. the forced spending cuts will kick in to morrow. remember the body found floating in the hotel drinking water tower? we have an update on that story tonight. and a dead american with a suicide note pinpoint seemed like an open and shut case, so

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♪ our second story "outfront," a political circus. so when it comes to the spending cuts, they're going to kick in tomorrow, there was pretty much nothing going on in washington this week, but there was a whole lot of drama. >> we should not have to move a third bill before the senate gets off their ass and begins to do something. >> boehner hopes senate gets off their ass. i think he should understand who is sitting on their posterior. >> there are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, who are getting notices they can't come back this fall. >> whether it's also related, i don't know. >> this is something that's going to have an impact on the safety of this country. >> it was said to me in an e-mail by a top -- >> what was said? yeah. >> it was said very clear, you

will regret doing this. >> well, "outfront" tonight, we've got doug holtz-eakin, a former director of the congressional budget office, and our own john avalon. oh, it was a fun week. you know, you don't get to hear the word -- you don't get to say the word "ass" all the time, and now we get to say it, because they've all said it. >> it's been legitimatized at the highest levels of government. >> i mean, sadly so. daniel, the president was talking about these cuts and he was using some really serious, dire language. here he was on monday. >> what the sequester does is it uses a meat cleaver approach, to get critical investments in things like education and national security. >> okay, but then last night, it w wasn't a meat cleaver. it was this. >> a cliff, but it is a tumble downward. >> it's not a cliff, but it is a tumble downward. so, now we're back off. maybe it's not -- why is the white house now downplaying this, after saying it was

armageddon? >> i think they don't want to be seen as responsible for something that's making a big hole in the economy, so they downplay it. but the fact is, this is not the time to make big spending cuts, whether it's with a meat cleaver or with a knife and a fork. >> but these aren't even big. >> but it's not time for any spending cuts. why do you want negative stimulus right now? as bob sorrell wrote yesterday in "the new york times," this is not the time. wait a couple of years until the economy is on more stable footing. >> so who do you blame, the first person to say the word ass or the person repeating him? >> this is sandbox politics. the fact that congress and the senate went home. the sequester is kicking in tomorrow and they all left washington. there's nothing going on. >> well, in washington, at least, any fridays this year. >> and that's -- >> we knew that. i don't know why you're disappointing. i don't know why -- >> hopeful. but, b, they deserve a long weekend. i think they should go get some sun. >> they should -- all right.

doug holtz-eakin, i just -- this is really embarrassing. i mean, i know you don't agree with daniel that we shouldn't do any cuts at all, but this is embarrassing. >> this is not a high point in the history of the republic. you know, in the phrase of the week, we're going to regret it. we certainly can do better than this. let's face it, we have very large problems of federal debt, we have very large economic growth problems, and we are devoting a lot of time to what amounts the to just a drop in the bucket, compared to the problems we face. and that, i think, really stands out to everybody who looks at this problem. >> i think we all will regret it. let's talk about that. because this bob woodward kerfuffle has become a giant kerfuffle. and he said that it was gene sperling, senior economic adviser, told him he would regret. by the way, what he was talking about, he said, you're essentially to blame. you agreed to these sequester cuts and now you're trying to change your tune. so we've seen the e-mails now. the e-mail that gene sperling

actually sent to bob woodward, and he's a tough guy. this is gene sperling, "i apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today, my bad. but i do truly believe that you should rethink about your comment saying that potus asking for revenues is moving the goalpost. i know you may not believe this, but as a friend, i think you will regret taking out that claim." >> i think it's clear, he says he's going to regret it because he's going to find out he's wrong. >> this is bob woodward who fought with the nixon white house. chuck colson would be ashamed to see gene sperling not come with anything stronger than that. this is ant threatening letter than that. >> gene sperling is capable of being a lot nastier than that. >> i think what's going on here, erin, is they're reaping the fallout from years and years of massaging the press, threatening the press, and expecting to get their story out and not have a free press question them. and you know, they really have overplayed their hand on this. >> they can be very tough. they can be very tough on

reporters and very aggressive. yes, they can. >> it has to be said that that really started in the bush white house, which was locked tight, as far as access for the press, and you had to put out their story if you wanted to. >> in a sense. they all have choirs they can preach to now, even in the media. why would you want tough questions if you can possibly avoid them. let me just say this. this goes both ways in terms of the failure here. we have put together, and by the way, i am included in this, so i will humiliate myself, about how people have talked about these cuts. just take a look. this is what's been going on. >> the problem with the spending freeze, you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. >> it's a hachlt. >> a scalpel. >> it's a hatchet. >> hatchets and scalpels. >> it's not a hatchet, it's not a scalpel, it's a q-tip. >> the right way to do something is taking a machete to something instead of is a hatchet. >> a scalpel. >> machete. >> butcher's ax. >> meat cleaver.

>> meat cleaver. >> meat cleaver. >> meat cleaver. >> meat cleaver. >> a meat ax. >> meat ax. and suddenly, scalpel is the good one! >> yeah, everyone's talking about sharp things, but actually, it's a really blunt instrument that they're using. this is not the kind of way that you want to make cuts in the economy, even if you decide to do it. >> when you put it together like that, though, we all look so foolish. >> we've got a bad metaphor problem. we've got to get more creative. but in all seriousness, scalpel, meat cleaver, this is an incredibly stupid idea that was designed to be so painful that it would force folks in washington to work together, and here we are, erin, you've been talking about the sequester on your show for over a year. and yet folks are acting surprise. no urgency. >> we were sitting here together 19 months ago when this happened. >> absolutely. >> a better idea might be to set up a mechanism if they don't make their own cuts in time in congress, than an independent comedian gets to make smart cuts. >> a superfail committee. >> erin? >> final words. >> forget the language, this is not a big deal. this is tiny, tiny cuts compared

to the federal budget, which is $3.6 trillion. >> yep. >> this is going to have a minuscule impact on the economy. it will be smaller than the rounding error in gdp. we revise people by more than this. no way. >> macroeconomic adviser says it's -- >> compared to what? compared to a tax increase? compared to a tax increase? compared to a tax increase that gets rid of the cuts? i don't think so. >> nobody should say there's a tax increase either. >> the president of the united states is saying there should be a tax increase. compared to -- >> let this economy recover. we still have 7.9% unemployment. >> yelling louder is not generally the way to make your point. >> i'm sorry -- >> the reality is -- >> let doug finish. >> the point is that you have to make choices. the choice is to raise taxes, worse, do nothing, we have enormous problems, we could scare credit markets to death and we can't have do this, or we could replace these cuts with smarter long-term cuts, but the president and the democrats stood in the way of that.

so this is, in fact, the best of a set of a bad choices and it's small. >> no, it's not. the best of the set of bad choices is a balanced plan and republicans have been lousy when it comes to revenue and closing loopholes and democrats have been gutless when it comes to entitlement reform. they all need to get done. >> they did just raise $600 billion of taxes. but it was 100% revenue. >> and that's a good start to paying down the deficit and the debt, but we need to do more and everybody's going to have to give a little bit. it's the reality of divided government. >> yep. well, thanks to all of you. we appreciate it. feisty, as always. still to come, medicioney f titles. that's the charge against president obama tonight. are the biggest democratic donors getting the plushest jobs in the world? and a shortage of mcdonald's french fries and how france is going to help. and why dennis rodman is hanging out with kim jong-un. this is my family. this is joe. hi joe! hi there! earn a ton of extra points with the double your hhonors promotion

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i adore those fries, even knowing what they are probably doing to me, i still dream of them. and i'm not alone. here's me with former president, bill clinton. so what are the vices that you have left? you're a guy, let's be honest, people loved you because of your vices. they may have hated you for your vices, but then they loved you because of your vices. >> once in a while, i break my diet and i eat french fries. >> but bill and i have nothing on these guys. this is $250 worth of french fries purchased by kids in south korea. for those of you who don't know, this is actually, apparently an in thing in asia right now. the fad started in japan when mcdonald's lowered the price of french fries, which caused excited children to buy massive amounts of the fry, spreading them out across the table, and calling what they called a potato party. if they ate that many fries, it would surely break me of my love for them, if i did not die first. and in korea, they apparently love it, except the employees at

mcdonald's who keep running out of fries. so we have found a slauolution the problem. france. this week it was announced that france is going to start growing a lot more potatoes, and it's all for one place, mcdonald's, which brings me to tonight's number. 100%. that's how much of mcdonald's 66,000 tons of french fries that are sold in france are going to be grown in france. so why are they doing it? is it because they know they think their taste better or maybe they're just still angry about this. >> freedom fries. >> you know france. we've made fun of you a lot for your language police that ban american's words, you know, this time, though, we're on your side. because it seems only right that you or mcdonald's french fries should be french. and if you have any extras in your 10,000 acres of potatoes, go ahead and put them on a plane to korea, so those kids can keep

having those potato parties. well, ambassadorships are some of the most important foreign jobs available, so why are so many of them being handed to president obama's biggest donors? plus, the mysterious death of an american businessman and the two people who are using forensic evidence to investigate, his parents. >> even though i have a mortuary background, the family has a mortuary background, it's very hard to go through the pictures. but we will go to the ends of the earth to see justice is done. the power of roc® retinol is intensified with a serum. it's proven to be 4x better at smoothing lines and deep wrinkles than professional treatments. roc® max for maximum results. try align. it's the number one ge recommended probiotic that helps maintain digestive balance. ♪ stay in the groove with align. i've got a nice long life ahead.

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welcome back to the second half of "outfront." we start with stories we care about, where we focus on reporting from the front lines. and i want to begin with new developments in the wikileaks case. private first class bradley manning has pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 charges against him, except for the most serious one, aiding the enemy. former army jag attorney greg rinky says a major challenge for the government now will be proving that manning intended to harm the united states. in court, manning said he only made public the classified documents that upset him, and he didn't intend to classify anything that was going to harm

the united states. just this evening, the president is urging the court to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage. in a legal brief submitted by the supreme court to the justice department, it asserts that gay and lesbian couples should have the same equal protection rights to wed. the president provided his personal insight for the brief. the administration refused to argue that the right should be extended to the other 41 states that define marriage as between a man and a woman. well, you would expect this would happen p. tourists are suing the los angeles hotel where the decomposing body of the 21-year-old woman was found. they have now filed a suit against the cecil hotel, saying they paid $150 for a two-night stay that included clean running water, and instead, they believe they bathed in and drank water contaminated by human remains. the hotel had no comment. it has been 574 days since the united states lost its top credit rating. what are we doing to get it back? well, nothing in washington, but

there was some good news nor job. first time unemployment claims fell by a much bigger amount than economists were expecting. now cronyism. big donors getting the kushyest jobs that the president has to offer. coveted ambassadorships. our jessica yellin is reporting that some of the new ambassadors the president is likely to name are big-time donors to the president's re-election campaign. imagine getting romantic paris, mark lasry might. he raised nearly $1 million for the president in 2012. he's already smiling in the picture. walking down the streets of paris with a glass of wine. or cosmopolitan london, matthew barzun might get that. or imagine going on safari for a long weekend vacation and sipping wine near table mountain in capetown. patrick gaspard might have drawn that lucky straw. he's executive director of the democratic national committee and he might be the new ambassador to south africa. or even the rise of theland of

rising sun, carolyn kennedy is maybe up for tokyo or superhip toronto. is this cronyism at its ugly or smart diplomacy? former chief of staff for george w. bush. is the president crossing a line. these are people who put their entire clears to being good ambassadors and diplomats. these are some of the most important spots in the world. >> you really hit the nail on the head. presidents have been doing this for a long time. president bush did, president clinton did it, it goes back very far. but the foreign service is an organization that depends on talented personnel, and right now the foreign service is losing a lot of those talented personnel, because you're voting from zimbabwe, you're bouncing around with a spouse. that's a very stressful and difficult life. if you don't have those plum ambassadorial posts, something you can aspire to eventually, you're a lot more likely --

>> you're saying you're going to have to be a grunt and we'll give the good job to someone else. andy, defend it. i know your boss -- >> well, first of all -- >> go ahead. >> i'm the dean of the bush school at texas a&m university, which is the first president bush's school and we have a lot of our graduates who are anxious to get into the career in foreign services and they would like to be gambassadors. in fact, we already have a graduate who's an ambassador to a country, but he's an ambassador from afghanistan to australia. i have a great respect for the career foreign service officers and i want many of them to become ambassadors. but i also know that presidents should be able to put people into positions that are going to help american diplomacy. and there are many countries in the world that like to have someone who's connected to the president as a close friend, and there are about 20 nations around the world that have had, i'm going to say, political ambassadors, for 90% of the time that there have been ambassadors. >> but isn't this what we're supposed to do different, then, andy, than other countries?

that we're not supposed to be crony politicians? george w. bush, 30% of his ambassadors, appointments, were political. and obama's the same rate, 30%. we pick on obama, but president bush did the same thing. >> every president since the 1960s has maintained a ratio of about 70% of the ambassadors being career foreign service officers and about 30% being political appointees. there are some nations in the world that really do want to have the president's best friend as an kbambassador. japan jumps right out near the top. in fact, the holy see, the vatican, every ambassador that has served in the vatican has been a political appointee. >> respectfully, there's also been a change in the foreign service officer's corps, because we didn't have the problem with tenure that we have now. right now, the kind of people that go to the foreign service have many other attractive opportunities. and seeing to it that they have a path forward to get to those most desirable jobs is more important now than it would have

been 20 years ago, when people tended to have very long tenures in the foreign service. think about it this way. when you join the foreign service, you gain valuable language skills and much else. that is a lot more valuable to multi-national companies, and that's why those guys are getting drawn away into the private sector. that's not necessarily a bad thing for the world, but it is something that is actually causing headaches for the state department, lack of retention of this personnel. and when you see time and again those most desirable jobs going to donors, not all of whom, by the way, are close, personal friends of the president, there does appear to be increasingly what looks like a pay-for-play aspect here. i think that's got to be really disappointing >> what about these pay-for-play. >> there is no indication that this is pay-for-play. and quite frankly, the president is the chief foreign diplomat for the country. he speaks for the united states. >> but if i give a million bucks and i get france, how is that not pay for play? >> first of all, it's illegal

for anyone to pay to get a job in the government. and i can't imagine the president would allow any of his -- >> andrew, i apologize, i shouldn't have used the term "pay for play," that's a fair point, but what you're suggesting, if the person is a close, personal friend, what if the person is a close personal friend that didn't donate a dime? >> let me give you -- >> but that's not what happens. >> let me give you an example. >> absolutely. >> when the wall came down in germany and the soviet union started to collapse, president bush went to a friend who happened to be one of the most prominent democrats in the country, bob strauss, and asked him to become ambassador to russia. and he did a fabulous job, and that was a political appointee -- >> i absolutely applaud that kind of thing, and if you think that's exactly what's happening here, we might disagree. we might have a different perspective. i think actually if president obama nominated folks who weren't raising money for his

campaign but were people that he really admired and respected, someone from across the aisle, i think that could be a very impressive gesture. >> i'm going to just hit pause there. >> are you telling me that people that support a candidate are disqualified to make a difference for this country? i think there are a lot of qualified people and they may -- well the foreign service has changed. every aspect of the government is changing. >> absolutely. >> but we have to push -- >> -- i'm suggesting. >> we are training diplomats at the bush school at texas a&m university. we're doing a great job of it. we've already got some ses career foreign officers that came out of the bush school and we've got some that are already in the high level of the gs system. >> and i applaud you for that and i want them to be able to go all the way to the top. >> and and they can. >> i'm going to have to -- >> -- appointed to germany and england and france, it does happen. >> and thanks, everyone. if you donate $1 million, should you be disqualified? if you donate $1 million and get

france, that definitionally pay for play, even if it isn't directly. please let us know what you think on twitter. and was he murdered? the mysterious hanging death of shane todd in his apartment in singapore. it's raised questions about whether his work for a prestigious government research firm actually made him a target. the police believe it's suicide, but his family says that doesn't add up. miguel marquez is "outfront". >> i just fell to the floor, and said, it couldn't be, my firstborn son. >> reporter: mary todd and the moment she was told her son, shane, was found hanging in his singapore apartment. that came call last june, the 24th, from shane's girlfriend in singapore. grieving, in shock, the todds went to singapore to bring their son's body back and hopefully find answers. suicide was hard to accept. their first meeting with singapore police made it harder. >> they sat there and read like a novel, detective cole said, i am going to tell you how your son hung himself.

>> reporter: to the parents, the detective's explanation defied logic. >> it included bolts in the wall, screwed into his wall, ropes, pulleys, slung around a toilet, and over a door. >> reporter: then came the suicide note, one memory in particular about shirley temples, never happened. was that a big family memory? did you ever drink shirley temples at the beach? >> no, never, not once, never did we drink shirley temples. >> reporter: what was doubt about suicide became disbelief. >> my son might have killed himself, but he did not write this note. >> reporter: the todds went to shane's apartment. mary todd made a beeline for the bathroom. >> reporter: there were no pulleys, there were no ropes. >> reporter: there were also no screws or holes in the ceramic walls. cnn's liz in singapore went to the building. nothing the todds saw suggested suicide. >> they saw signs of someone ready to move. clean clothes folded, boxes packed, and a plane ticket lying

on the dining room table. all signs that their son was eager to move back to the u.s. >> reporter: he had already lined up a new job. shane todd, 31 years old, had a ph.d in electrical engineering and by all accounts a very bright future. his project involved creating faster, more powerful semiconductors using the compound dalium nitride. his parents say in his last few months he was stressed, even expressing fear for his life. he had told them he didn't feel right about his work, that it might be illegal, even a risk to u.s. national security. with little faith in the singapore police and the fbi unable to help in a foreign country, the todds had little choice but to launch their own investigation. rick todd had pictures of shane todd's body taken when it returned to the u.s. they gave them and the singapore's autopsy report to a friend in new jersey. his opinion, shane was murdered,

most likely strangled by a wire. the evidence, bruises on his hands and a lump on his forehead indicating a fight. the back of shane's neck was front. hanging only causes damage to the front of the neck. there were bruises on shane's finger and neck, indicating he was trying to squeeze his hands under the wire, again, struggling to live. >> it's very hard to go through the pictures. but we will go to the ends of the earth, to see justice is done. >> reporter: still, the question, why? why would anyone want to kill shane todd? his parents believe the answer lies in the project their son was working on in a powerful chinese company called baway. the evidence from shane's external hard drive. they believe it was accessed after his death and whoever did that either killed their son or knows who did. the first access, 3:40 a.m. on june 23rd. >> and we're talking three minutes here. >> you're talking three minutes.

>> reporter: a tiny sliver of time. they believe someone, maybe even shane, under duress, knew exactly what they were looking more. the drive was accessed again at 8:38 p.m. on the 27th, the day before the parents visited shane's apartment. singapore police say they accessed the hard drive before handing it over to the parents. on the drive, documents about a proposal for huawei to build a powerful amplifier, amplifiers that could be used in cell phone towers or military radar systems. both companies insist there was no such project and deny there was or is any relationship between them. ime and huawei say there were preliminary talks, but nothing came of them. and huawei also says it does not do military technology. for the todd family living in the beauty of montana, all of this, overwhelming. what they want now, a full and fair investigation into their

son's death. >> shane was just one of those bigger than life people that you could not help but notice and love. >> reporter: a family devastated by loss, now resolved to find the truth. miguel marquez, cnn, marion, montana. still to come, an emotional day of testimony in the jodi arias murder trial. she broke down in tears on the stand. we have that moment for you. and dennis rodman is now apparently buddies with the leader of north korea. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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we're back with tonight's outer circle, where we reach out to our sources around the world. tonight we go to north korea where former nba star dennis rodman met with the supreme leader, kim jong-un, and took in a basketball game. steven young is covering the story and i asked him how the two dwal got along. >> erin, the former nba star reportedly watched an exhibition game along with north korea's young paramount leader, kim jong-un, according to china's news agency. now, the two apparently sat side by side and chatted and laughed throughout the game, which featured four globetrotters who traveled there. and the final score was a draw.

he said rodman spoke after the game, calli ing himself a frien of kim and the north korean people. most people seemed surprised by rodman's visit and wondered if it would help frosty relations. >> bizarre. our fifth story. the breaking point. after 13 days on the stand, accused murderer jody arias lost control of her emotions after being shown a photo of her dead boyfriend, travis alexander. >> you're the one who did this? right? >> yes. >> and you're the same individual who lied about all this, right? >> yes. >> so then take a look at it. >> the judge immediately called for a recess so arias could control herself, and when it resumed, the prosecutor asked

her to retell how she killed alexander. ann, let me start with you, did the prosecution make a mistake? they got her to say yes, i stabbed him 27 times, but she's balling. she looks completely bereft. >> well, i think the prosecutor martinez was watching your show last night, because he got a little better today, at least, in terms of not asking why, you know, et cetera, but he didn't get better in terms of being combative and getting kind of argumentative with her. yeah, it looks extreme. he's yelling, doing all the things that violate the ten command menments of cross-examination which is an arten gauged in by lawyers. she does look sympathetic at the end of the day, objection, it's day five already. i looked up, and the only one i could find longer was in the nuremberg trials. >> wow. which is -- makes this one

certainly look ridiculous. arias spent most of the day in tears, as i said. here's another brief clip of a moment that caught my attention. >> and you would acknowledge that a lot of the stab wounds, and you won't, we can count them together, includish the ones to the head, were to the back of the head. and to the back of the torso, correct? >> okay. i don't know. i'll take your word for it. >> would you like to look at the photograph? >> no. >> so is the jury going to become more sympathetic, even though the crime she admits to doing is so vicious and lethal? >> i think they're becoming nauseous. i don't know about sympathetic. to me, this is the oldest trick in the book. when the really damning evidence comes out during cross-examination, start crying. ding ding, why? because when the jury hears the damning evidence and watches her cry, their emotions get mixed. they don't take in the really vicious stuff in the way the

prosecution wants them to. you notice, she didn't cry when the same evidence came out on direct of other witnesses. she only cries when it's to her advantage, and the jury is feeling manipulated. i have to say, you know, this case was in check mate for the prosecution when it started. what the prosecutor did on cross is grabbed it and crushed it into powder because she cannot recover from the cross. i don't care if she cried. >> you think making her cry and making her look so feminine was not a mistake on his part? >> she didn't look feminine. she looked like a faker, like an actress, like a liar, because she only cries when it works to her advantage, and the jury sees it. they hate her. they want to slug her. and what the prosecutor did with his mean words was the verbal equivalent of slapping her. i loved it. >> ann, are you convinced? are you won over by wiendy's

impassioned feeling? >> no, well done, but it's like the prosecutor is slapping jodie all the time. she's a girl, remember. she's crying. wouldn't you cry if you were talking about a horrible act of self defense. then he's trying to rub her nose in those pictures like he would rub a puppy's nose in something theytient be doing. that's how he's handling it. how do any of us recover from this cross-examination? today, i felt like my head was going to explode. like no more. it's got to end, and it hasn't, and we have to be back monday. >> and we'll be there with both of you. let's check in with anderson. i know you're also going to be talking about the trial. >> we'll talk to jeff toobin and mark geragos. also tonight, a day after not backing down in testimony in congress on gun control. milwaukee's police chief went home to another shooting. hear why he says gun control is simple and elected officials are

making it seem complicated. and also a 360 produced documentary called the bully effect. an inspiring story of how kids and parents are turning grief and suffering into action. at 8:00 tonight on "360" we'll talk to kelly ripa who knojoins along with my panel. >> see you in a couple moim nlts. still to come, do you want to go to mars? guess what. we know how. that's next. this is my family. this is joe. hi joe! hi there! earn a ton of extra points with the double your hhonors promotion and feel the hamptonality. you name it...i've hooked it.

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