tonight on "nightline," trapped. after learning they will spend the next three months waiting to be rescued, 33 miners buried under a mountain send love letters to their families above. how did they survive the past two weeks when everyone thought they were dead. and how will they stay sane so long in the dark? plus, dangerous mind. this man lost count of his victims. he has no remorse. and scientists believe his brain could help prevent crime. tonight, we take you inside the mind of a psychopath. and no what's new ark. elephants, giraffes and lions, oh, my. it's a journey to one of the world's wildest corners to film the biggest animal count ever for the very first time.

>> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," august 25th, 2010. >> good evening, everyone. we begin tonight with a stunning human drama playing out a half mile below the earth's surface, where, right now, there are 33 men buried alive. they have been down there for three weeks. ever since a cave-in at the mine where they make a living digging for gold and copper. and for 17 days, they were presumed dead. but on sunday came the first signs of life, and now, thanks to a rescue probe, they are getting air, nourishment and passing messages. but bringing them back into the light could take three months. jeffrey kofman has the latest from the mountains of chile. >> reporter: again today, the families were lighting candles and saying prayers for the 33 husbands, fathers and sons they have not seen for three weeks. this makeshift community at the

gates of the mine overthrows with shrines and signs honoring the miners trapped half a mile below the surface here. today, we learned those men have been told the sobering news, that getting them out is not going to be easy or fast. >> for the first time, we talked to them yesterday about the time frame that is involved in this rescue operation. that, as you may know, is three-month period, 90 days. beginning from now. >> reporter: this woman's husband raul is one of those miners. she waited for 17 days to find out if he was alive. she is undeterred. "yes, i can wait here for months," she says. "the miners can survive, too. they are strong. i came here to bring my husband home." she sent a letter down to her husband, he wrote back, "you know that the words that you sent me made me cry. well, i don't know how to tell you that they're always with me.

god left us alive by a miracle. and with a purpose." "this kind of pain is much easier to tolerate," she says, "than the pain of not knowing. it's terrible," she remembers. "like the whole world has top e toppled on top of you. i cried a lot. i know this is not the first time it's happened, but when it touches you, it's different." the mine collapsed on august 5th. immediately in this country that has some of the biggest mines in the world, teams of engineers and experts searched for signs of life. seven times they drilled holes to areas where they thought the miners might be sheltered. an eighth attempt was made early sunday. this was the geolgist supervising that eighth operation. "at 6:00 a.m. sunday we realized there was a sound. we stopped work. we heard them hitting the metal cylinder. it was a very emotional moment."

it took four hours to extract the drill pipe. when the drill head came to the surface, the crowd was astonished to see a small bag attached. inside were two notes. the men could not contain their joy. econochil chile's president had been alerted and arrived moments later to break the news to the world. "we are fine inside the shelter," read one of the notes. "33 of us." spontaneously, a celebration exploded. first among the families keeping vigil at the mine site, and then, as word spread, across the country. a world cup victory or olympic gold has nothing on news like this. now, the hard work. getting the men out. this huge portable rock drill, normally used to make ventilation shafts, has been brought in to drill down to the men. when it is completed, they'll be

raised up one at a time. >> this is the main entrance of the mine. >> reporter: lawrence is the minister of mines in chile. how will the men keep their sanity? how they will keep their spirits up if they have to wait four months? well, i think it's even worse, what they have done in this 17 days. you know, they have been there, 33 people, with no good conditions. they are strong men. they're going to be very well cared in this month. >> reporter: to do that, for three months or more, the government is setting up an elaborate infrastructure to support the men in what has become a psychological experiment, testing group dynamics and survival in a confined space. glucose water, medicine, letters and a few luxe rips, playing cards and games, are being settled down through the six-inch contact hole to ease the grim conditions below, where the men were starving to death. they are living in the ref rouge

where they took refuge. the heat close to 90 degrees. conditions should improve as more contact homes are made. until that rescue hole reaches if men, they'll have to encore a captivity beyond comprehension to most of the world outside. this woman has no doubt her husband mario can survive. he's been a miner for more than half a century. he began when he was 12. that frame holds the letter he sent her. "deer lila," it begins. "i am okay, thank god. i hope to get out soon. patience and faith." those 33 flags billowing on the hillside by the mean are a constant reminder of the 33 men trapped inside. they have been found, but they have not been rescued. not yet. i'm jeffrey kofman for "nightline" in chile. >> one of the miners requested elvis presley music to lift

spirits. and to better underthe toll of long-term confinement, chile is reportedly talking with nasa. what an ordeal. our thanks to jeffrey kofman. and when we come back, how the brain of a vicious killer can unlock the source of certain evil. i'm gonna take allison jenkins to the senior prom in this. one day, i'll park this in a spot reserved for me. it's got 26,000 miles on it now, but i'm gonna take it to a thousand million. [ male announcer ] when you own a certified pre-owned mercedes-benz, chances are they'll own it one day, too. which is why it undergoes such a rigorous inspection to meet our uncompromising standards. one day, i'm gonna drive this to vegas. [ male announcer ] hurry in to your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for 1.99% financing during our certified pre-owned sales event through august 31st. i couldn't sleep right. next day it took forever to get going.

night after night, i sat up. sprayed up. took a shower... or took a pill. then i tried drug-free breathe right. and instantly, i breathed better! i slept better. i felt...better. thank you, breathe right! [ male announcer ] breathe better, sleep better, feel better. now try breathe right for free... at breatheright.com. [ woman ] it's my right to breathe right. isn't it your right, too?

i'm chef michael, and i love to delight bailey's senses.too. don't i? [ barks ] because i think food speaks a language of love. that's what inspired me to rethink dry dog food. [ female announcer ] chef michael's canine creations. [ chef michael ] mmm. tender shredded pieces made with real meat... and crunchy garnishes to enhance the mealtime experience. yes, bailey-- just for you. [ barks ] [ female announcer ] chef inspired, dog desired. chef michael's canine creations.

but the love i have for rawberry shortcake, red velvet cake and key lime pie, mmm, it threw a curve at my curves. so i threw it right back... with yoplait light -- strawberry shortcake, red velvet cake and key lime pie. 30ndulgent delicious flavors that satisfy my love for tasty treats. ound 100 calories. zero fat. now i love my curves in all the right places. yoplait. it is so good. tommy lynn sells is a 46-year-old man on death row for a single murder. but by his own admission, he killed so many people over the

years he lost count. that level of violent evil makes sells brain fascinating. and as part of tomorrow night's "nightline" primetime special, martin bashir sat down with this unrepentant monster. >> reporter: they were all innocent children. a son. a brother. lives with limitless possibilities ahead of them. but what these boys would grow up to become, brutal killers. could their brains have provided a road map to the sickness that would consume them? >> the first time i killed somebody, it was such a rush. >> reporter: tommy lynn semis was once a little boy growing up in st. louis. but around the age of 14, he says he became addicted to killing. how many people have you killed?

>> lord, i don't know. i -- i don't know. >> reporter: ten? >> yeah. >> reporter: 20? >> probably. >> reporter: 30? >> it's up there. >> reporter: 50? >> see -- i'm not billy the kid making notches on my holster, so -- i know it's been a lot. >> psychopaths are individuals who lack conscience. they lack remorse. they lack guilt. that's one of the reasons why they terrorize society so much. >> reporter: sells is on death row for one murder. but he's linked to at least 17 more. the drifter's vagrant lifestyle helped him allude police for nearly 15 years, as victims turned up from coast to coast. >> i am hatred. when you look at him, you look at hate. >> reporter: when i look at you, i look at hate? >> when you look at me, you know

what hate is. i don't know what love is. two words i don't like to use is love and sorry, because i'm about hate. >> reporter: his methods for kills were as random as the people he targeted. he raped many before cutting their throats or beating them. stabbing others and strangling some. >> vicious cycle. >> reporter: i couldn't but help but be grateful for the glass between us. >> i don't have no feelings no more. no emotion, no -- >> they showed much poorer -- >> reporter: dr. adrian rain has studied the brains of people scientifically determined to be psychopaths. >> one of the key differences we find in the brains of psychopaths is there's a structural impairment to part of the brain. this is a part of the brain very much involved in the generation of emotion. it was structurally deformed in the psychopaths. >> i like to watch the eyes

fade, the pupil fade. >> reporter: what do you like about that? >> it's just like setting your soul free. >> they just don't have those normal feelings of revulsion and disgust. >> reporter: semis blames much of his murderous rage on sexual abuse he says he suffered as a child. you also killed children. >> some got killed, yes. >> reporter: why would that happen? >> i didn't want them to live through the pain i lived through. i tried to get in this door right here. >> reporter: two days after his final murder, tommy lynn semis walks police through the crime scene. >> i opened the window, about like this. and i climbed in. >> okay. >> we kind of stayed up a little later and we got in a fight about where we were going to sleep. we laid there and talked a bit. we talked about, at the time,

like, britney spears and nsync. >> reporter: crystal sells was seeping over at her friend katie harris's. a decade later, that night is still fresh in her memory. >> i woke upstartled a little bit, and out of nowhere, i was kind of confused, to a loud noise. >> i woke this girl up. >> reporter: her friend katie was asleep on the bottom bunk. >> i cut her bra. >> i kind of leaned my head up a little bit and i could see that there was this scary older man that i had never seen before. >> i stabbed her here. and then she, like, jumped back and then i cut her, like this, right here. >> he had a hand on her mouth and the knife on her neck and she's looking at me and just cut her throat and she fell to the ground. >> she fell down, right here. >> i heard katie, the bottom of the bed, or on the floor, at the

bottom of the bunk bed, she was gasping for chair and choking, like, she couldn't breathe. >> reporter: 13-year-old katie harris lay dying on the floor. >> he was about to shut off the light and he looked one last time and he noticed i was there and he didn't hesitate at all, i mean, just shut the door, came right back towards me with the knife. >> i walked over here and i went like this. >> the only thing that he said is, move your hands, because i had them up here and he reached over the top bunk and cut my neck. >> reporter: semis sliced crystal's neck, severing her windpipe and grazing her carotid artery. >> i'm very sure he thought he killed me. >> reporter: she was able to put an end to his homicidal spree. >> reporter: what did you do to her, sir? >> her neck was cut. >> reporter: how did you do that? >> with a knife. >> reporter: do you have

anything to say to her, the little girl who survived? >> i don't think she really wants to hear what i got to say. >> reporter: what did you see in his eyes? >> to be honest, he seemed blank, i mean -- there was no emotion. it wasn't hard for him. all he would say is, move your hands. you know, it was just -- i mean, after what i had seen him do, he had no emotion in his eyes. >> reporter: that emptiness evident as we spoke. so, what if i called you something that you didn't like? you think about killing me? >> well, if we was in a fight and -- you get your head down in the concrete, then, you know, so be it, but -- >> reporter: what happens when my head goes down to the concrete? >> well, what do you think happens? it cracks like a coconut. >> reporter: and then what happens? >> you die.

>> you can see more of martin bashir's gripping report on tomorrow night's "nightline" primetime series "secrets of your mind" here on abc. and when we come back, a journey into the most exotic of animal kingdoms, where every creature counts. [ male announcer ] this rock has never stood still. since our beginning, we've been there for clients through good times and bad, when our clients' needs changed we changed to meet them. through the years, when some lost their way, we led the way with new ideas for the financial challenges we knew would lie ahead. this rock has never stood still. and there's one thing that will never change. we are, the rock you can rely on. prudential.

layers of brownie and caramel, dipped in chocolate ready to eat sweet moments new from pillsbury. in the refrigerated section [ female announcer ] within every pillsbury package

is the perer to enrich a child's mind. collect pillsbury double box tops for education today.

go-gurt is specially made to freeze and thaw by lunch time? so kids can have their favorite yogurt in their lunch box go-gurt. freeze it. thaw it. eat it up. ¿qué si usamos tacos más grandes? [ male announcer ] old el paso super stuffers. 33% larger shells. feed your fiesta. >> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with bill weir. >> we turn now to an assortment of amazing animals. an approach to saving them. a little creativity and all

hands on deck is turning the tide in the nation of namibia. u# u# it is the world's biggest animal count, and in this encore report, dan harris takes us along on a trip "into the wild." >> reporter: here are three random animal facts i picked up. one, if you get too close to a group of wild ostriches, they will stampede. and it kind of hilarious to watch. two, giraffes eat bones. for real. that giraffe over there is picking up the bones of a dead animal of some sort and swallowing them hole. they do this to get extra nutrients. three. jack ms are much cuter than their name implies. check out this guy. he looks like a cross between a fox and a colley. we are here for the largest animal count on earth.

>> one jackal on the road. >> reporter: which, as you'll see in a moment, is part of an effort to transform a place that used to be running out of animals into one that is literally crawling with them. >> spring box. >> spring box. >> reporter: sort of a small antelope? we're the first reporters to cover they are count, which involves more than 250 people fanning out in 60 vehicles, covering 15 million acres over three weeks. so it's pretty massive. >> it is. logistically, it's huge. >> reporter: what they do is literally count every animal they see. >> one, two, three, four, five, six. 14. >> reporter: those are orecs, another kind of an step lope with huge horns. seven. seven zebras. three of them are babies? so we've spotted yet another

orecs. so, if we had taken this drive 10, 15, 20 years ago, we would not have seen this ma animals, would we? >> no, no, you won't. >> reporter: in fact, when they first started doing this count ten years ago, they would drive for hours and hours and not see any animals at all. really, you would drive around -- >> you wouldn't see one. after ten years, you can see -- we have to stop every five minutes now. >> reporter: that must be satisfying. >> it is. >> reporter: on this trip, we see everything from bab boons to a herd of elephant. >> baby. >> close with the young ones. >> reporter: you can see, just baby as the dotusks. this has been called the land god created in anger. a beautifully barren country that looks more like utah or afghanistan than africa. after decades of civil war and

grinding poverty, many of this country's wild animals, including rare desert lions and desert elephants who slide down sand dunes on their bums, nearly all were hunted down and eaten. so before, if somebody wanted to kill an elephant or, they just do it? >> yeah, they just do it. >> in the past, if you saw a lion track, you rounded uppal the people in the village, you got on your horses, you hunted that lion down and you shot it on sight. >> reporter: but the attitudes of the people around here changed about ten years ago when the government told namibians, we will let you manage the animals in your area. >> if i go poach something, i'm steaming from my neighborho. and my neighbor doesn't like it. >> looking very smart today. >> reporter: chris weaver from the world wildlife fund, now that locals essentially own all the animals in their area, that are much less likely to kill them. there's a lot of pressure on people to not go out and

randomly kill? >> there's huge peer pressure. >> reporter: in this little town, there is now a five-star safari hotel where all the jobs are filled by people that live here. the extra money has paid for a new school and this new well. what's interesting to me is something of a newcomer to conservation is that conservation is less about managing animals than it is about managing people. >> that's something that we as conservationists have learned a lot about in the last 20, 30 years. traditionally, we, biologists and managing animals and the people were a problem. here, the people are an opportunity. >> reporter: and that's where the animal count comes in. every community needs to know how many animals they have. it is a high stakes endeavor because people know the more animals they have, the more money they can make. >> six sell fant. >> reporter: which is why when

the numbers come in lower than expected, people get a little heated. >> if the number is down, don't get scared. >> reporter: overall, however, this program has apparently worked incredibly well. populations of animals like zebras and lions and elephants have gone way up. at a time when most animal stories we cover are about endangered species disappearing, this is a rare good news story from the only country in africa where the number of animals is actually going up. for "nightline," this is dan harris in that anybody ya. >> convincing folks those beasts are more valuable alive than in the pot. no small feat. thanks to dan harris for that. when we come back, it's time to cast your vote, people, because it's the people's plate list. first, here's what's next on "jimmy kimmel live." >> tonight, gordon ramsay, jazz trumpeting from christian scott

and sophia vergara. let's do this. there's real will no reason forú ♪ [ female announcer ] yoplait's real fruit and the goodness of dairy... gives you a little slice of happy. and happess comes in 25 delicious flavors. explore them all. yoplait. it is so good. the yoplait you can't get enough of. now in a four pack.

got the mirrors all adjusted? you can see everything ok? just stay off the freeways, all right? 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.