he died? jackson's kids in tears in those final minutes. we're in court for a dramatic day of testimony. plus, america's cheapest family. secret ways to save. incredible cost-cutting tricks. one family knows them all. >> plan your menus around what's on sale. you will cut your grocery bills in half. >> tonight, we show you how they do it. and dangerous food. a giant beef recall today after several children fall ill. and fatalities continue to mount from contaminated cantaloupe. we'll tell you what you need to know. >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," september 28th, 2011. >> and good evening, i'm cynthia mcfadden. we begin tonight with a riveting day in court. michael jackson's personal assistant and one of his bodyguards each took the stand

today in the manslaughter trial of jackson's doctor, conrad murray. their testimony added never before heard details of the scene inside jackson's bedroom on the day he died, including an attempt to shield the star's children from the desperate efforts to save his life. here's abc's jim avila in los angeles for our series, "crime and punishment." >> reporter: it was a dramatic first full day of testimony at the conrad murray trial. the men in the room, michael jackson's employees, testifying about what it was like, the chaotic scene that left michael jackson dead, his children, crying in a ball. it was the first sign of trouble at michael jackson's rented mansion the day he died. a four-second phone call from jackson's second floor bedroom. on the line, a stressed out dr. conrad murray, to michael amir williams, jackson's personal assistant, who saved that voicemail on his smartphone and played it for the injury today.

>> call me right away. please. please call me right away, thank you. >> reporter: moments later, williams calls dr. murray back and finds him smack in the middle of a struggle to revive jackson, who was not breathing. >> he said, "where are you?" i sam, "i'm downtown." and he said, "get here right away, mr. jackson had a bad reaction. get here right away." and i said, "what's going on?" he said, "get somebody up here immediately." >> reporter: but murray does not call 911, and neither does the young assistant. instead, he calls jackson's ply vat security team and reaches fa people muhammad, the chief of security, who goes upstairs and seeps murray working on the boss. >> i saw mr. jackson's feet near the side of the bed, on the ground and as i continue to walk over, i could see the rest of his body and i saw dr. murray near his side. i asked him, "how it's looking?

how is it going?" and he said, "it's not looking good." and then inproceeded to go and look at mr. jackson. >> reporter: muhammad said he was doing cpr, and in a panic. >> he appeared very nervous. he was on his side. he was sweating. >> reporter: and jackson? >> his eyes were open and his mouth was slightly open. >> did he appear to be dead? >> yes. >> reporter: muhammad said it was then he noticed jackson's children watching it all from the hallway. >> paris was on the ground, balled up crying and prince was standing there and he was just -- he just had a real sh k shocked, you know, just slowly crying type of look on his face. >> reporter: finally, dr. murray asks one of the security team to call for paramedics. when asked by police why he didn't call 11 immediately, murray said calling would have delayed his rescue efforts. >> to speak to a 911 operator would be to neglect him. >> reporter: attorney mark

geragos, whoed jackson in 2004, defended dr. murray's decision. >> why does a cardiac physician need to call 911 so that paramedics are going to come? he's there, he's on the scene, he's trained, presumably, at a lot higher level than paramedics are. >> reporter: by the time williams makes it to the come pound, the ambulance is there and being carried away, he sees his boss, a man he loved and worked for. >> it was real frantic. i got there when the gurney was coming down. i knew it was serious. >> reporter: williams takes charge of paris, prince and blanket, putting them in one of two family suvs and they follow the ambulance, carrying michael and his doctor to ucla medical center. >> shielded them, took off my jacket and covered up one by one and took them inside the hospital. >> reporter: with his children under guard in a private room, michael jackson is pronounced dead a few feet away.

dr. murray can be seen still pacing two and a half hours after the fight to save jackson is over. and then, something odd, says the personal assistant. >> there's some cream in michael's room, or house, i believe room, that he wouldn't want the world to know about. and he requested that i or someone give him a ride back to the house to get it so the world wouldn't know about the cream. >> reporter: but instead, the personal assistant calls security, instructing them to lock down the jackson compound, not to let anybody in, including dr. conrad murray. tomorrow, another of jackson's security guards is expected to testify that michael jackson's doctor wanted him to destroy evidence. another potentially dramatic day in what is proving already to be an explosive trial. for "nightline," jim avila, abc news, los angeles. >> we will continue to monitor the trial, of course. and just ahead, it's a label they wear with pride. america's cheapest family. they may also be the best savers

you've ever met. their savings strategies, next. man: my electric bill was breaking the bank. so to save some money, i trained this team of guinea pigs to row this tiny boat. guinea pig: row...row. they generate electricity, which lets me surf the web all day. guinea pig: row...row. took me 6 months to train each one, 8 months to get the guinea pig: row...row. little chubby one to yell row! guinea pig: row...row. that's kind of strange. guinea pig: row...row. such a simple word... row. anncr: there's an easier way to save. get online. go to geico.com. get a quote. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. if you think occasional irregularity is no big deal, think twice. it may be a sign that your digestive system could be working better. listen to this with occasional irregularity, things your body doesn't use could be lingering in your system, causing discomfort. but activia has been shown in clinical studies to help with slow intestinal transit

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with cynthia mcfadden. >> it was another bad day for the markets today. the dow jones, nasdaq and standard & poor's indexes all shed points as economic anxieties ripple around the globe. while regular folks can't do much to control those global market forces, what families can control is the household budget. and tonight we meet a family that has its own spending down to a science. here's abc's ryan owens. >> ready?

>> i'm ready. >> test, test. can you hear me? >> we know what the game plan is and we can take off and go running. >> reporter: these two are ready for battle. >> we're ready. >> i'm taking off. >> reporter: annette is the general. >> no, not a good price. >> reporter: husband steve, her top lieutenant. >> you're going to lose your mind over this one. they've got stuff marked down to $1 or $1.50. >> okay, i'm coming. >> reporter: for this couple, recession is war. and their battlefield is the grocery store. >> just looking for markdowns. >> reporter: they have a small army to feed. a big family. america's cheapest family. >> we are black belts in the frugal realm. >> reporter: meet the economides. of scottsdale, arizona. yes, they have economy in their last name. we'll explain how these soldiers of savings manage to go to the grocery store just once a month in a moment. but we're getting ahead of ourselves. to understand the depths of this family's frugality, you have to dive into their freezer.

>> two pounds of ham. seven brussel sprouts. two more chickens. >> reporter: the day before the monthly trip to the grocery, steve takes inventory with the help of his daughter abby. >> wait, how many english muffins, four? >> reporter: there's a lot to count. >> four, five, six, seven. >> reporter: this family freezes milk they find on sale. even bananas that have gone black. >> and saved until annette is ready to bake bread. >> reporter: they look for items that are about to expire. a lot of consumers think that's the expiration date, it's going bad that day, you say no way. >> just use common sense. does it look bad? does it look green? >> reporter: while they take inventory, annette is busy scheduling all of the family's meals 30 days in advance. >> look. ham and gravy, hamburgers, shishkabob, shepherd's pie, sloppy joes, pasta, meatballs, sausage, baked ziti. going to cook a turkey there.

tacos. i have probably closer to 100 meals that i can prepare. >> reporter: once the menus are planned, annette pulls out the newspaper. >> when you're first starting out, if you just look at what's on sale and plan your menus around what's on sale, you will cut your grocery bill in half. here is another store near us. >> reporter: she scours the ads. looking for what she calls her buy price. >> so, just like warren buffett can walk into a business and say, oh, let's pick that one up. it's undervalued. you ask me what a good price is and i'll tell you. >> reporter: this is a lot of work. >> it's not nearly as much work as people think because i do it once a month. >> reporter: compared with the average american who goes to the grocery twice a week. only then does she get to coupons. >> some of them are so old, like this. there's no bar code on this, okay? >> reporter: if i'm watching this at home and i say, these people have lost a little bit of their mind, they're way over the edge, but i would like to just do one thing that i really think

can turn around my budget, what would you say that is? >> groceries are the simplest, fastest way to get a family back on track. because if they are spending $1,000 a month, it doesn't take much work to knock 20% off of that. that's easy. >> reporter: they've been living like this since they got married in 1982. for the last decade, being cheap has been their full-time job. media appearances -- >> they want you to spend money. impulsively. >> reporter: books, a website offering advice. they've paid off their home and thoroughly indoctrinated their kids. >> this is a jess sa mcclintock bridal and i got this for probably $10. >> reporter: and they are shameless. even insisting i buy lunch. you guys are going to be able to eat for a week off of this. come on. i mean, this is like -- look at this. >> who brags, i paid retail for that. nobody. beating the system. >> reporter: and nowhere do they do that like at the grocery store. so back we go.

>> clearance stuff, discounted stuff, manager specials. any shamrock dairy product, 40% off. >> reporter: in their van that used to be a hotel shuttle, they bought for $8,000. >> bye. >> have fun. >> i will. >> get deals. >> reporter: at the store, their battle plan starts by splitting up. steve does produce, dairy and meat. his weapon? a calculator. >> $4.66 for the package. >> reporter: annette handles everything else. >> they say it's on sale but it's not really on sale for me. >> reporter: this goes on for four hours. their biggest find? >> holy mackerel. why are they discontinuing that? >> reporter: cereal for 50 cents a box. they got 17. we meet at the register, where all of their strategy pays off. >> oh, good, yeah. that's the clearance price. >> reporter: did you just cheer? >> yes, yes. >> five cents back for every bag we use. >> reporter: why am i not surprised? >> every business looks at their finances and evaluates things

and analyzes things. >> and manages it. >> and manages it. why isn't the american home like that? >> reporter: now for the moment of truth. their bill is $145. but wait. that's before coupons. do you ever look back and just apologize in advance to the poor person behind you? >> absolutely. i warn people that we've got coupons and it's going to take awhile and some of them are like, okay, i'm out of here. but some of them are like, i'd like to stay and watch this. >> watch the show. >> reporter: we left this battle with very few scars and some impressive spoils of victory. >> 17 bags of groceries, $120, $7 a bag. enough to feed america's cheapest family for another month. i'm ryan owens for "nightline" in scottsdale, arizona. big, big. big. ♪ big big-big -big. -big! [ cheers and applause ] ♪ big-big-big -big, big. -big! -big! -♪ big -big. big, big, big.

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now to food safety. tyson fresh maepts announced a recall of more than 65 tons of ground beef after four children in one house in ohio fell ill in a sample of tyson beef at the home was found to contain e. coli. the family lives in house speaker john boehner's district, prompting the speaker's critics to point out that house republicans want to cut federal food safety funding. all this on the heels of the ongoing outbreak of contaminated cantaloupes, the deadliest such eruption in america in more than a decade with as many as 16 fatalities and 72 people falling ill. the listeria-tainted cantaloupes are believed to have come from jensen farms in holly, colorado. symptoms can take weeks to develop, officials warn. for more information on how to avoid listeria and e. coli, visit our website at abcnews.com/nightline. and finally tonight, after decades of carefully balancing

his every word as one of the longest serving supreme court justices in history, john paul stevens deals with some of the thorniest issues of the day, from gay marriage to the death penalty, in a new book, "the five chiefs." here's abc's george stephanopoulos. >> reporter: in his 35 years on the court, justice john stevens made thousands of decisions but regrets only one. >> my vote in the texas death case, i came out wrong on that. >> reporter: that case found that the death penalty was not cruel an unusual punishment. it was just the first of many death penalty cases stevens would face and remains especially relevant in the wake of last year's controversial execution of troy davis in georgia. you became an outspoken opponent of the death penalty in the your time on the court. how did you evolve? >> i never felt that it was a particularly wise method of

punishment, after our first decision in 1975, at which time i thought the court was adopting procedures and rules that would confine the imposition of the death penalty in a var narrow set of cases. and over the years, i was disappointed to find they expanded the category of cases. >> reporter: there was a moment in one of the presidential debates that the number of executions in texas was cited and the crowd cheered. >> yeah, i noticed that. >> reporter: what did you think? >> i was rather disappointed. >> reporter: stevens, who was appointed by gerald ford but voted more over the years with the court's liberal block, wouldn't single out a favorite opinion. but he's proud of choosing justice kennedy to write the ruling that prohibited discrimination against gays and lesbians. do you think the court is moving towards approving that? >> certainly, the country is.

which is -- there's been a dramatic change in public understanding and public acceptance. >> reporter: in his book, stevens doesn't just reflect on controversial decisions. he also weighs in on the chemistry of the court, and the chiefs he's known. when you write about justice roberts, you obviously believe he's a man of great talent. >> absolutely. >> reporter: yet he takes on roberts recent ruling that annoyed the westboro baptist church to continue protesting at military funerals. you write that you would not given him a passing grade in the first amendment. >> i thought the case involving the intentional inflection of emotional harm on a veteran at a funeral service, i thought the court got it wrong on that. >> reporter: there was also the citizens united case which paved the way to unlimited campaign donations. >> danger that will distort the process. making the outcome of an election appear to depend on who can raise the most money, just doesn't seem to me the right way

to be debating about who can best lead the country. >> reporter: you said that service on the court, paraphrasing here, but service on the court can have a civilizing effect on a justice. >> you have to learn to get along with and to discuss in a friendly way, very serious issues. >> reporter: force the civility? >> yes, yeah. >> reporter: and while stevens is too modest to say so, that's probably something congress can learn from the court. >> justice stevens' book is on sale now. our thanks to george. thank you for watching abc news. remember, "good morning america" in the morning. we hope to see you right back here tomorrow night. >> dicky: tonight on an all-new "jimmy kimmel live" -- >> jimmy: are you prepared to become the second fastest man in the world? >> dicky: mark wahlberg. >> you cano