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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  March 28, 2013 8:00am-9:00am PDT

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it's not like bikers love their bikes more than life itself. i doubt anyone will even notice. leading the pack in motorcycle insurance. now, that's progressive. call or click today. aarrggh! hello, everyone. i'm ashleigh banfield. thank you very much forever being with us. the earth moves in washington state. and homes are on the brink. one has already tumbled. into the water below. he can go home, he can leave the country, he's still charged with murder. but life just got a lot better for oscar pistorius. jodi arias on the other hand doesn't have much to smile about. you know what she did. you see her in court.
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but i'm going to tell you some things you may not know about jodi's life as a capital murder defendant and current jail prisoner. we begin this hour, however, with a fuller and a grimmer picture of the deranged young gunman who killed his own mother, kills himself and also killed 26 children and staff members at sandy hook elementary school back in december. this morning, authorities in newtown, connecticut, have been in the process of unsealing search warrants, thousands of pages, in fact, warrants for adam lanza's home and car, minus a few details that prosecutors will remain -- would like to be secret. what is revealed, is a pathetic existence that revolves around two twin obsessions, guns and murder. cnn's susan candiotti joins us with what she's finding. i know you've been poring through the documents. what are you finding thus far? >> ashleigh, he had a virtual
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arsenal at his house. gun safes, all kinds of additional weapons, knives, guns, samurai swords. let's see, 1,400 rounds at the very least, is how much we added up so far. and additionally, some more detail about how many rounds were fired that day. according to the chief prosecutor, they counted up 154 rounds that were fired at sandy hook elementary school when he killed those 20 children and six teachers. we know in addition to that, that they found six magazines that, of course, went with that assault-style weapon. three of them, half of them, were empty, but the others still had rounds left in them. something like 10, 11, 13 rounds. numbers like that. also found, a holiday card with a check in it, and police document that this was authored,
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this card, by his mother, signed presumably, by his mother. and it was for a check to purchase a gun called a c-183. now, i'm talking to my gun experts who tell me this might be possibly be two guns. either a handgun or a.12-gauge shotgun. >> so it was signed by his own mother, presumably, within a approximate amount of time since this happened right before the holidays. what about the notion that there was a gun safe in his -- we'd known there was a gun safe in the house. but in his bedroom? >> yes. a gun safe in his bedroom. and in addition to that, it doesn't -- it talks about the very things that were found inside the safe, including spent casings. ammunition, that was unspent. bags, duffel bagsful of
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ammunition. the samurai swords. i don't know if that was exactly inside the safe. i've got to double-check the documents again. >> susan -- >> yes? >> i'm sorry to interrupt. the "new york daily news," a local paper here in new york city, had a very disturbing report that police, you know, didn't really confirm, but couched a kind of a confirmation that he had originally found a massive spreadsheet. like a seven-foot long spreadsheet you that needed a special printer that had categorized all the mass killings around the world into like a point system. have you gotten anywhere into the documents that we have society that indicated more details about that? >> we haven't. we haven't. although there was one indication, it included all kinds of print clippings that this referred to that. memoirs, print clippings, and a newspaper article about a school shooting in illinois, for example. a few years back. so there is some indication of it, but nothing that specific that we have seen that we heard reported in the "new york daily
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news" about this printout that required a special kind of printer because it was so big. all kinds of shocking material. certainly, but no indication of motive again. once again we still don't know that, ashleigh. >> all right. and i know you have a lot of work still ahead of you. you and your producers have been poring through this all morning and continuing to do so. susan, thank you, and let us know if and when you come across other details. susan candiotti reporting for us in new york. in just a few minutes, president obama and vice president biden are going to step into the east room on how to about guns and how to protect children. the mayors on illegal guns, what they called a national day to action. the group has released a tv spot for the first time feature parents of the victims of sandy hook. they pressed for comprehensive background checks. for gun buyers, and bans on
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assault wednesday an high-capacity magazines. the first of those expected to pass congress after the easter break. the latter two are not. the families are expected to protest anti-gun control robocalls that they say they've been getting from the nra as well. that's supposed to happen later on today. the president for this part is going to speak at 11:40 eastern time this morning. somewhere around that time. we're going to take you right away as that gets under way right here on cnn. checking our other top stories now, former south african president nelson mandela is back in the hospital for recurring lung infegzs. it's the second time this month that the 94-year-old mandela has been hospitalized. u.s. bombers flew over south korea dropping inert dummy bombs as part of an exercise with the south. the bombers flew all over to the
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peninsula, after north korea cut a hotline with the south in protests of these exercises and tough new u.s. sanctions. banks in cyprus are open for the first time in nearly two weeks, under very tight controls imposed to prevent a run on deposits in that country. people have been lining outside of bank branches amid tight security but there's no indication of a panic or run on those banks. this move comes after the government was forced to accept a $13 billion bailout by the european union to avoid bankruptcy. the weather in march has been anything to brag about, but on wall street, that's where they're getting the record highs, and they're certainly celebrating them, too. alison kosik is at the new york stock exchange today. it is the last day of the first water, by all accounts it looks like a really stellar quarter, doesn't it? >> oh, it really does. right now, we're seeing a lot of
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green on the screen and the s&p 500 is helping that because the s&p 500 at this moment is making history, ashleigh, it broke through its all-time high of 1665. it's trading at 1667. the s&p is making its own records. this say great way to cap off quite the stunner of a first quarter. and that's adding to the positive momentum we've already seen this year. look at the returns. the dow is up 11% for the year. nasdaq is higher. and the s&p has climbed almost 10% this year. during this quarter, as i said, it wasn't just the dow hitting its highs it's also the s&p 500, this san amazing trend to watch. of course, everybody wants to know, is this trend going to continue? i wish i had a crystal ball bought this is one of those kinds of markets that muses on quick news. it could turn on bad news but it's able to shrug off the bad stuff and keep moving forward, ashleigh. >> alison kosik, thanks so much. keep your eyes on the big board and let us know if there's any
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shocker on the last day of the first quarter. i want to take you to washington where the price of a view is not always worth it, because when you zoom out, look at these amazing pictures. this is the waterfront town of coupeville on whidbey island. dozens of homes teetering on the edge as a massive landside. the helicopter shot tells a story. slipping away. one home has crumbled into puget sound. the slide is a quarter mile wide and a half mile deep. what caused it is not yet clear, but a team of geologists is investigating. there are some evacuations, and you can bet most of those people we've been watching as they've been taking things out of their homes, moving furniture, moving what they can, because who knows how long it's going to take before they know for sure whether their homes are going to be safe. we've been seeing jodi arias sitting in a courtroom for three months now. but do you know what she does what she's not inside the
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courtroom? you might be surprised to find out about her daily routine coming up next. te recipes? just begin with america's favorite soups. bring out chicken broccoli alfredo. or best-ever meatloaf. go to campbellskitchen.com for recipes, plus a valuable coupon. campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. active aero grille shutters to improve aerodynamics. so it can offer an epa estimated 42 miles per gallon, the best highway fuel economy of any gas engine in america. that's american ingenuity. to find new roads. from the united states postal service a small jam maker can ship like a big business. just go online to pay, print and have your packages picked up for free.
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other top stories. we're learning more about the man believed to have shot tom clements. authorities a evan eeb bell was wearing a tracking device, ankle bracelet. also, a colorado woman is under arrest, accused of buying the gun that was used to kill that prison chief. authorities say stevie marie vigil gave the gun to ebel. in south africa, a judge has eased some of the bail conditions on olympic track star oscar pistorius. he may be able to travel abroad and doesn't have to report to a probation officer. don't forget, pistorius is charged with the valentine's day murder of his girlfriend reeva steenkamp. as americans are captivated by a young woman in phoenix who is accused of a sickening
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murder, it's perhaps fitting to note this is not the first time a female accused killer has captured the nation's attention. in fact, women accused of murder date back to centuries. in fact, i'm going to take you way back here. a 32-year-old woman named lizzie borden became a national headline way back in 1892. there was no twitter, no facebook, no cable tv. not even national radio that could help spread this news like wildfire from coast to coast. but you know what, it did spread like wildfire. and the papers were splashed with the grisly details almost detail. i want to bring in vinnie polit politan, the host of "hln after dark" and also ryan clark also with us from hln. vinnie, the lizzie borden case, many people might not know it, but they may recognize is from the children's limerick where
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lizdy borden gave her mother 41 whacks or when she was done, she gave her father 41, i just remember it's massive. >> i just want to let the folks at home know i did not cover that trial, okay. >> thank you, vinnie. >> she's accused of killing her mother and father. >> stepfather. >> stepfather, right? >> yeah. >> they were well to-do people. there were other suspects. they tried her and found her not guilty. she was set free. no one else was ever tried for the murder. when you think about it, a young woman, 32 years old, such a brutal-type murder with an ax. >> what happened to the camera, vinnie -- there he is, coming back. >> the bottom line, as you said, this thing just spread across the country. everybody was pass mated by it. and it's because who the criminal defendant is. you don't expect a 32-year-old woman to butcher two human beings with an ax.
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>> no. >> and you can see what's happening with the jodi arias case. there are a lot of similarities, although the victims in the two cases, much different. >> because i was trying to do the limerick in my head. i want to let people know it was her father she was accused of killing and her stepmother. and she was acquitted. and yet she became so acquitted nonetheless. i don't think a lot of people know she was acquitted. ryan, there was another woman by the name of daryl la roux minteer. accused of killing her children. >> this was a case, a couple that seemed to have a thriving business and life. they moved into the mansion, had
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kids, after the third child, she gets postpartum depression. from things, things spiral downward. the finances struggle. then the thought that she killed her child one night. there are a lot of similarities between this and the jodi arias case. first thing is, prosecutors say she's staging the scene. the second thing is, she said an intruder came in and killed her son. not only after that there was a party, she's smiling and laugh zblpg is this the party -- are you talking about the birthday party that she and i believe her husband darin held on the graves of those two babies? >> yes. >> and i think it was in days or weeks, it was extremely proximate to the day of the funeral. she's actually spraying silly spring. we don't have the video. i'm so sorry, honestly, that video was the reason that so
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many people were transfixed by the case. in fact, it was one of the linchpins in the case. i do apologize that we don't have that. but aren't those the kinds of things that draw people into a case where it might have gone unnoticed nationally? >> i think it is, it's the element that don't seem right. for example, a party on the grave site just days after he died. that's remarkable to think about. when you think about her case, she is on death row. i think this is an interesting similarity to the jodi arias case. death is so different. that's what we say about it. so extreme when you sentence somebody to the death penalty, that you almost need this cruel and callous behavior. >> speaking of cruel and callous behavior, if it's one of those things that you have to struggle with in a case because the defendant looks so meek or pretty, or incapable of committing horrible, horrible crimes, there's it's antithesis of that, eileen warnier's case.
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she portrayed evil. let me play a quick clip who anybody who might not remember. have a listen. >> okay. that's not exactly the sound i was looking for. there was some pretty -- i don't know -- she was extremely verbally abusive. people in the courtroom. >> nonremorseful. >> association, it was unbelievable. >> female serial killer is what sets her apart. obviously, her personality what she presented in court. but also the fact that this was
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a female serial killer that caught everyone's attention. >> a lot of times when they walk out the door, you just saw her walk out. the cameras are not allowed to fog them. the courtrooms are majestic and wonderful in many parts of the country but what's behind those doors, a whole other kettle of fish. gentlemen, stay put. after we come back from the break, you're going to find out what goes on on the other side of that door. and what goes on as they're awaiting trials. sometimes, believe it or not, decades. back in a moment.
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i have an update for you now question just heard about this, two teenagers indicted for killing a baby in a stroller, allegedly shooting that baby in the face. they are both to be tried as an adult. the older suspect's relatives now have also been charged in connection with the case. tampering with evidence. our victor blackwell has details. >> reporter: are 17-year-old de'marquise elkins and
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15-year-old dominique lang now both charged in the shooting geth of 13-month-old antonio santiago a month ago. elkins faces an additional charge of malice murder for allegedly firing the shot at the baby's face. >> i see an outfit that my baby was wearing before he was killed. and i can't seem to let it go. >> reporter: something else little antonio's mother can't let go, a question, why. >> we believe that the location and the victims were both random. >> reporter: glynn county police chief matt doering department's is investigating this as a botched robbery. elkins' attorney does not die it. >> it seems odd individuals whoever they are, so desperate to rob someone would go into the trouble of shooting two people would then leave the object of their attention at the crime
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scene. >> reporter: not left at the crime scene, the murder weapon. according to the indictment, elkins' sister sabrina elkins and their mother karimah elkins ditched the .22-caliber revolver in this marsh miles away from the crime scene. tests will determine if the gun pulled from the marsh this week was the gun used to kill little antonio. >> i had to watch my baby die, and i want him to die. a life for a life. >> reporter: that's west's wish shared with cnn's piers morgan. under law, not possible. elkins and lang are both under 18. if convicted of the new charges, these boys could spend the rest of their lives in prison. >> and the supreme court, too, says we do not execute anyone under the age of 18. victor is joining me live from brunswick, georgia. victor, what more do we know about the teenagers, maybe their backgrounds and certainly the older teenager's families who
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are now implicated in all of this. how did they factor in? >> well, we know as soon as they got this indictment, we saw a new name. we had heard of course of the boys, dominique lang and demarquidemashg ke demarquise elkins, we heard of him and his mother. but his sister is accused of helping to toss the alleged weapon into the water. we poe that the mother was a convicted felon so she was charged with possession. and we also know related to this gun that was possibly used in this crime, that it was possibly used in an armed robbery several days before this child was shot, ashleigh. >> all right, victor blackwell live for us. thank you for that. i want to take you to the white house now, live pictures coming to us from the east room. in the white house, where we're expecting to in just a few minutes, the president to take to that lectern, president obama
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and vice president biden will be coming in to speak to not only that group assembled, but the nation as well about gun violence in this country. he and other americans marking this day by urging congress to make, quote, common sense measures to protect children from gun violence, unquote. we're going to bring you this live just as soon as it gets under way. quick break. back after this. i tried weight loss plans... but their shakes aren't always made for people with diabetes. that's why there's glucerna hunger smart shakes. they have carb steady, with carbs that digest slowly to help minimize blood sugar spikes. and they have six grams of sugars. with fifteen grams of protein to help manage hunger... look who's getting smart about her weight. [ male announcer ] glucerna hunger smart. a smart way to help manage hunger and diabetes. a new ride comes along and changes everything. the powerful gs. get great values on your favorite lexus models during the command performance sales event.
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call 877-242-usaa. oh, hi thehey!ill. are you in town for another meeting? yup, i brought my a-team. business trips add up to family time. 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. two suspects are being arraigned today for murdering a 15-year-old girl in chicago, that's the allegations, hadiya pendleton was shot to death in january. she had performed at a brunch before president obama's inauguration in washington. police say michael ward and kenneth williams have admitted to the shooting. you see jodi arias every day in her murder trial. sometimes, she's just listening to testimony in court like this at the defense table. the trial's 39th day today.
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sometimes, she's testifying in her own defense, the images that you see. she was on the witness for 18 days of this trial. maybe you've seen these videos of her doing a head stand in an interrogation room. and actually just talking to herself in that same interrogation room. in fact, here's what she said under her breath just as the police had just left the room after telling her that she were going to take her down for her mug shot. >> you should have at least done your makeup, jodi. >> you should have at least done your makeup, jodi. what you don't see behind the closed doors. court had to be canceled yesterday because jodi had a migraine. this is not unusual. a lot of times, this has been happening. at maricopa county. the day before, jodi was feeling faint and needed special permission to get a protein bar. and before you roll your eyes, it might come a surprise to you
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that inmates at maricopa county only get fed two meals a day, 12 hours a part. you try that. jodi on the other hand is getting a bit of a special exception, they're splitting one of her meals into two so she actually gets feed three times a day. i want to bring in beth karas from "in session." she joins me from outside the courthouse. beth, it may seem unreasonable to some people that someone is fed two times a day, 12 hours a part. this is standard for inmates at maricopa county, isn't it? >> yes, indeed. and i'm assured that sheriff arpaio has consulted with a nutritionist to make sure that the meals are balanced and they're getting sufficient, obviously, nutrition and calories. it's a total of 2600 calories in a day. but a 12 hours is a long period of time. the inmates at the jail and not
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being transported. they can a commissary and they can buy snacks. jodi can do that. but she can't bring any snacks to court, and nobody can give her food. that's why they have to have permission to get her food during the day. unless and until the judge says, give her more calories, give her additional food from the two meals she's getting every day. she's going to continue to get half of the breakfast at breakfast. and half of that breakfast at lunch. and she gets a warm meal at night when she returns. >> when people heard she had a migraine, a lot of people would think immediately, she's just faking it or woe is jodi. but in fact, this is not unusual? you've heard of this happening before, particularly in the county? >> well, yes. and also, apparently, there was some litigation about the treatment of inmates here in maricopa county, but i don't
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have details about that. but it's not unusual for defendants on trial to get headaches over a long period of time and here when they go through this extended period of time without food. and the pressure of a trial. i know the argument is, for travis alexander can't have a headache, he's underground. absolutely true. however, she's not been convicted yet. she admitted doing it but she hasn't been convicted. >> innocent unless proven guilty. vinn vinnie politapolitan with us. and ryan clark is with us. when you see them coming in outside those doors. what does it look behind those doors? >> they're in custody. they've got no place to go. a holding cell. a room with pricks. that's what they are in cells across this country. it's a holding area just outside because they are being held without bail. they are locked up. they are not free to go wherever they want. what's interesting here, when
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you look at your schedule, apparently to get all the inmates over to the jail, from the jail, to the courthouse, they've got to wake them up very westerly in the morning, so they're up in the wee hours of the morning getting ready for the day. >> wait, getting up at 1:00 in the morning to start for a 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. court start? >> yes, yes. because they've got to get all the inmates -- at least this is what her family is saying. you've got to coordinate edge taken from the jail to the courthouse to get them to all the places. the bottom line is, my concern is if it becomes an issue. the last thing as a prosecutor that i want is anything to interfere with that conviction. i can see them perhaps raising this issue if these alleged migraines continue. >> that's what we call appellate issues and you'll hear that usually being brought up for the record during the trial. ryan, talk to me, if you know about her daily living, as she's
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been awaiting trial? is she segregated because she's so high-profile, or maybe she's only high-profile since the trial began, so she wasn't segregated from now. did she have friends? we know about jailhouse brats. what have we heard about her daily life? >> we've heard a lot about her. first her jail cell, she shares it with someone else. we're talking about a space that's probably not bigger than a closet that she says she grabbed a gun from that she shot travis with. she lives in there with another inmate. she's got a toilet, a writing desk and things like that. her daily life is just like many across the country. she can get out during points in the day. she gets sunlight. she gets to take classes. and then at night, she's locked down for a number of hours as it is in most prisons. a lot of people see that and say how come she's not treated more harshly because of what happened to travis. it's like you said earlier, innocent until proven guilty,
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and she's entitled to the same rightses in as any other prisoner. >> death row is no place that anybody want to be. it's the worst for anybody who winds up in prison. beth karas, ryan, vinnie, thank you to all of you. you can watch the jodi arias court proceedings on hln. ryan covers it daily and cnn as well. you can get your fill and not miss a bit of it. have you ever read "daunte's inferno" where he talks about the circles hell? there's one psychiatrist that developed a gradation of evil scale. where do the women on on program rank among the killers? don't forget we have killers, crazy killers, you'll find out where they rank in a moment.
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we know that jodi arias killed her boyfriend. she has admitted to that, but does that make her evil? she said she did it in self-defense. if she's telling the truth, she's a victim. if she's lying, she may be among the worst of the worst. is she among the worst? dr. michael stone says not all killers are created equal. there's evil and then there is evil a forensic psychiatrist and a professor at columbia university. and he created a scale that ranks killers based on their mental state. and dr. stone is kind enough to join me now. this is the kind of information that people just thrive on. they're trying to categorize how bad somebody can really be. we've covered a few woman in this case, you heard aileen
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wuornos, lizzie borden who was not found guilty. jodi arias still to be ajude indicate indicated. how do they fit on your scale? >> i went down and gave numbers that i had given before, i put number nine for jodi arias if she's convicted, which seems likely. and that has to do with people who are in a state of rage and have some psychopathic traits. by psychopathic traits i mean quality of charm and superficial lying and manipulativeness and callousness and lack of remorse. she has some of those. those traits. but she's not at the far end of the scale where there's prolonged torture and things like that. >> let me ask you, you said number nine would be a number
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ascribed to her. again, we can't do that because we don't know what the jury's determined. but nine sits between 1 and is it -- >> 22. >> -- 22. 22 is jeff any dahmer. >> there are even more 22s. i just came across one that's so horrifying i thought i better make it 23. >> did you change it? >> i'm thinking about it because it's been published from 1 to 22. >> before you go beyond dahmer, just as a reminder, dahmer, 1991, milwaukee, murdered 17 people. sentenced to 936 years, killed by another inmate. he rapes, he cannibalized. now, you've got one worse. sedrey alley, like alley cat. there was a lovely 19-year-old
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marine female corporal. and she was in virginia. the base there. taking a little evening stroll in the park and she was accosted by this very big guy, who, even though she's a marine and knew thousand defend herself pretty well. but captured from behind, a woman doesn't have much chance. >> and what happened? >> he took off a tree limb. 31 1/2 inches long tree limb, after knocking her out -- >> before you say any more, i just want to give a quick disclaimer if you have children in the room. i don't know where you're going, i do to be careful, if you can mitigate somewhat -- >> he thrust it in her all the way to her lungs in and out on a number of occasions. >> ted bundy was a 17, most people thought after killing 30 people, he'd be up on 22. charles manson, only a 15.
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and, for americans, charles manson would be the epitome of evil. we'd often see the pictures of himself being marched down the halls in the 1970s. here's a quick sound bite. >> i live in the underground, i don't kill people to do. i know what to do. if they know what to do, they don't come around me because i'm very mean. i am very mean. do you understand what i say when i say mean? >> why is he only a 15? >> well, i have trouble with him because he didn't -- in other words, he was like hitler, he didn't literally kill he may have killed one person that we discovered later. basically, he mesmerized other impressionable people to do the killing like sharon tait. >> the family members, yes.
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>> not having literally subjected the victims to murder and torture, i put him at a lower number where there were like spree-like killings. he didn't do the killings. but with evil mind, you would have to put him at the top, i agree. >> and frightened as well. i think a lot of people are still frightened when you see him speak. dr. stone, thank you to you again for coming in. that was awful information, but nonetheless, it is fascinated. people are riveted by this. just days before prosecutors are going to seek the death penalty for james holmes, the gunman in the aurora colorado gun shooting is offering to spare us all from the machinations of a trial. is he trying to avoid the death penalty? are the prosecutors interested in anything he has to offer? that conversation is next. so it can offer an epa estimated 42 miles per gallon,
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information about the colorado movie theater shooting trial. the suspect in that case, james holmes, apparently, his legal team now offering up to plea guilty for killing 12 people, this presumably so he can avoid any death penalty that might come along with the trial that he most assuredly would be in. it would mean effectively, he could spend his life behind bars without any chance of getting out with parole ever. so far, the prosecutors have not weighed in on whether they're
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going to accept his offer. but if they do, the case could be resolved by next month. i think this is very quick. our cnn legal contributor paul callan quickest. our cnn legal contributor joins me now with this. so many questions. there is so much evidence in this case, such damning evidence, such evidence nobody would be able to prevail it would seem in an insanity defense. why wouldn't prosecutors say too bad we're going ahead with it anyway. >> they may very well. it is one of the most horrific homicides in american history. holmes meticulously planned this, had diagrams of the theater, entered wearing body armor. he fired a shotgun up into the ceiling so people would look up and then he started killing them with automatic hand guns for which he had plenty of ammunition. >> that proves he was good at
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planning. but when you want to prove someone is criminal insane by the standards that are so, so high don't you need to prove he had no idea of the nature of his actions? meaning the evidence afterwards becomes more important. he wanted a quickest cape, didn't want to get caught, he knew it was bad. he dmu it was wrong. >> it all comes into the picture. one thing he did was wired up his apartment so when the police arrived they would be killed by explosives. the planning shows an understanding of the difference between right and wrong. >> so as a prosecutor why wouldn't you say i'm not taking your offer. i'm giving you the ultimate penalty. what do they have to gain by taking the offer? >> i would be stunned if they accept this offer, the prosecutors. i think the prosecutors can prove he is sane even under this difficult sanity law in colorado. >> it is backwards there. they have to prove he is sane as opposed to he has to prove he is criminally insane.
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>> they throw in another little thing in colorado. you can do impulsive, irresistible impulse can be used as a part of the insanity defense. a lot of other states don't allow it. >> can i just ask you if the family members involved here not just of the dead but the injured, if they've had enough and don't want to go through a death penalty trial and don't want be hauled up on the stand and see other people up on the stand or god forbid see him on the stand gloating or maybe wearing a t-shirt saying "killer" on it if they don't want that how important are their wants and needs in any factoring the prosecution has to do? >> it is always important. when i was a homicide prosecutor myself the victims' feelings about the sentence was always important. here is the problem here. you have 12 families of 12 homicide victims. you have 58 families of people who were shot and injured in the incident. how do they vote? is it a weighted vote? do the murder victims get more vote? what if it's half and half? this is why you have an elected or appointed district attorney throughout the united states
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because it's his decision or her decision to make that decision for the public because it is not just the victims here. it's the public at large that's affected by this decision. >> i'm glad you said that. some people don't know what not guilty by reason of insanity means. it doesn't mean you walk out the back door of the courtroom and go get an ice cream. it means that you're committed. but it also means that legally you can be released if you are deemed well enough. there is a big, huge, you know, formula that you have to accommodate. but it can happen. >> it's not such a big formula. it's a couple psychiatrists looking at you and saying, hey. he's cured. he's safe. we can release him. you know, psychiatric testimony is very uncertain and lot of times they say after a few years he is capable of being released. >> wouldn't a prosecutor want to say i never want the opportunity for that to happen? if we go to trial and we don't prevail he could walk out one
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day. it probably won't happen but it could. >> it is theoretically possible and of course prosecutors are afraid of that. and jurors who sit on insanity cases are fearful of that as well. they're not supposed to factor it in. they're going to look at him and say do we want to face him in a movie theater 15 years from now? >> they also as i've heard, i've never had to sit on a jury for this, but they don't like the words "not guilty." >> especially with 12 victims and 58 people seriously injured. >> we did a segment with christine romans this week about the cost to actually go through a death penalty case and then all of the subsequent appeals, housing that person until he or she is executed, and it is by many accounts infinitely more expensive to do that. is that something the prosecutor will actually look at in making this determination? >> absolutely not. >> absolutely not? >> they will not look at that at all.
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paul, i've heard it can cost up to $30 million for some kinds of inmates. not everybody. the average is around $3 million. >> i've never heard a figure that high. i think it is well established that you spend more defending a death penalty case through its course than incarcerating a defendant. but i don't think the prosecutor is looking at that. >> see that little window in the bottom of the screen where the president is? i just want to divert for a moment so i can go into the east room of the white house where the president about is to speak with a group of supporters of gun control. this is the national day of action. sitting alongside of him, standing, are a number of people affected. let's listen in. >> first i would like to thank from the bottom of my heart the president, the vice president, for inviting me to speak here today. never in a million years did i think an average citizen such as myself would ever get an opportunity like this. my name is katerina rodgaard.
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i reside in suburban maryland and i am the mother of two beautiful young children. i have a unique background both in the performing arts and in law. i have been personally affected by gun violence. as a dance teacher i lost one of my students at the massacre at virginia tech. rehema was a bright, beautiful, talented dancer who lost her life. it was stolen from her at the age of 18. i will never forget her presence in my classes and her enthusiasm for dance. as the mother of a first grader, i cannot even look at my own daughter without thinking about the poor, innocent victims at sandy hook. my heart breaks for them and their families and the families of the eight children every day who are killed by guns in this
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country. after losing rehema and seeing the horror at sandy hook, my reaction was that i no longer felt it was safe to raise a family in this country. i felt i either needed to leave the country or do something. as an attorney i vowed to do something because i feel that my right to feel safe in this country and the rights of our children to feel safe in this country are paramount and worth fighting for. i have never been an activist before. but i have found a voice with moms demand action for gun sense in america. i am proud and honored to help them fight for better laws in this country. i am also honored to acknowledge vice president joe bide n, a strong proponent of gun violence prevention measures in the senate for decades and now in the white house. he is also an advocate for the
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rights of women and children. as mothers we are eternally grateful for your support. enough is enough. the time to act is now. i am now extremely honored to introduce to you the president of the united states of america, barack obama. >> thank you. thank you very much. thank you, everybody. thank you. thank you for sharing your story. rehema was lucky to have you as a teacher and all of us to have you here today. i'm glad we had a chance to remember her. katarina as you just heard lost
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one of her most promising students in virginia tech, the shootings that took place there six years ago. and she and dozens of other moms and dads, all victims of gun violence, have come here today from across the country, united not only in grief and loss but also in resolve and in courage nan a deep determination to do whatever they can as parents and as citizens to protect other kids and spare other families from the awful pain that they've yep dur endured. as any of the families and friends here today can tell you, the grief doesn't ever go away. that loss, that pain sticks with you. it lingers on in places like blacksburg and tucson and aurora. that anguish is