i got on the phone. and they told us jenny was gone. >> a house in flames. the body of a woman inside. >> we have a body. i need medics. >> but it wasn't the fire that killed her. she was dead before it started. >> accidents will happen. this was no accident. >> who wanted her dead? her boyfriend said he knew. >> there's people after us. >> what's that mean? >> they're trying to get us. >> but police knew better. >> strangling some one is a personal, angry killing. >> "burning suspicion."

thank you for joining us. i'm ann curry. at first the fatal fire that swept through the home of a young couple looked like an accident. then investigators took a closer look. and what they discovered about the fire and this couple left them burning with suspicion. here's keith morrison. >> is everybody out of the house? >> i don't know. bit but it is on fire. >> the fire on addison avenue was hungry, devouring almost everything in the bedroom. >> all right. we'll have the fire department on the way. do you see smoke coming out of the windows. within 15 minutes. fire fighters knocked it down. the smoke clearing. sooty water running in the streets. then as the mop-up began, the word flashed out like something electric. the house was occupied. someone didn't get out. and up through the ashes a

mystery flared. like a stubborn ember, glowed, smoldered. and demanded an answer. the inhabitants of the rented cottage, as investigators soon learned were two young beautiful peop people, the sort of glossy successful types you may expect on a reality show. paul and jennifer. jennifer an ambitious award winning real estate agent who lived like a rock star or so said her buddy roy endeman. >> she would pbe like i am knocking them out. worked out. on the way to starbuck's. it's 6:33. >> paul seemed just the right kind of guy for jennifer. said roy. >> he was an entrepreneur. he seemed like he was a very driven person. that's definitely a quality that jennifer was looking for. >> jordanian american, sleek,

attractive, educated, engaging. paul owned a hangout, a cafe, unusual place by north american standards. where customers could smoke flavored tobacco through water pipes called hookahs, the place and paul were popular. this woman was a fan. >> he is a good-looking guy. he looks good. he smells good. he presents well. he is witty. he's smart. and he any just, he's affectionate. >> so love at first sight? well, maybe said their friends. >> from the minute that he told me about her he talked how wonderful she is and how she is perfect. >> he was definitely charismatic and liked to joke around. >> and money? >> there was a lot of it around apparently too. and jennifer and paul having worked hard to get it seemed only too happy to spend it. >> when jennifer and paul first got together. paul took jennifer to new york

city. >> and i remember, he was, like a kid in a candy store. planning all these elaborate wonderful things they were going to do together. >> they were passionate, these beautiful people. they both had strong personalities. their love burned hot. >> jennifer was a very strong, independent woman. and sunhe would not accept anyo disrespecting her or even looking at her inappropriately. and she was very strong willed in that. >> me, like i always did, told him you need to be careful. because girls can be evil. so he said no she is different. i love her. i already love her the she is great. >> and so in september 2009, paul and jennifer moved into the charming little cottage on addison avenue here in palo alto. time to playhouse. paul started to think about marriage. and for paul's 36th birthday, jennifer planned a party full of

promise. >> she invited most of his close friends to dishdash, one of his favorite restaurants. and i think they had over a dozen people there, almost 20 people or something. and jennifer created a cute cable setting, she created -- the perfect party for paul. cake and everything. >> in fact people who were there described the party as almost like a wedding reception. it lasted through the evening, into the wee hours of the morning. and now here it was just the very next evening and it was gone in ashes. all of it, the excitement, the glamour, the promising future of in smoke along with the house on addison. and the person inside -- >> we have a body. >> i need medics in place. we have a body. badly burned. >> the next day, jim skipsi was driving with his parents to a dinner engagement.

his phone rang. it was an old friend. he picked it up. >> i said, jake you are going to tell me something bad, aren't you? he said, jim -- >> kept repeating your name. >> i said jake, hold on. i got to pull over. i didn't want to hear it. i didn't want to hear what he had to tell me. i gave the phone to my dad. and he told my dad. my dad hung up the phone and -- he just held out hiss are. me and my mom we were like all holding each other. and he told us jenny was gone. >> it was his jennifer, his daughter, who died in that fire. and now along with almost unbearable grief, something else started to burn inside jim. something searing. it was suspicion.

>> accidents will happen. there is a lot of tragic things that happen to a lot of pecople in this world. this was no sdeveaccident. it didn't have to happen. coming up. police give paul the bad news. >> i don't know how to tell you this, man. but there's a body in the house. that's been burned. >> when "burning suspicion" continues. no problem. you want to save money on rv insurance? no problem. you want to save money on motorcycle insurance? no problem. you want to find a place to park all these things? fuggedaboud it. this is new york. hey little guy, wake up! aw, come off it mate! geico. saving people money on more than just car insurance.

>> while the deadly fire was burning at his home on addison avenue, paul was at his hookah lounge, minutes away. someone called, told him about the fire. he rushed over, but could pace helplessly back and fort h, as fire fighters did their job. soon after that he sat down with police to help sort out what happened. as you can see on the video recording of the meeting, sat is probably not the best description. paul was full of nervous energy and frantic questions. at this ponint. nobody told him about the fire. i'm worried about my house.

>> so, together, police talked about the hours before the fire. where had she been? what had she and paul been doing. paul explained to police that he spent the afternoon at an appointment in san jose. got back to palo aclto and got back in time for his cafe to open.

>> then in the middle of his conversation with detectives, paul's phone rang. it was jennifer's mother. who told him she hadn't seen or heard from his daughter. you can see what happened. paul fell to pieces. >> yeah, i know, i know. i know. i know. i can't find her. they're not telling me anything. to this point he told detectives he had been cling to the hope that jennifer might be with his mother. anywhere really but at home. but she wasn't with her mother. wasn't anywhere. and that's when the officer broke this news. >> i don't know how to tell you this, man. but there's a body in the house. that's been burned.

and we have no way of knowing who that is. >> i have to get out of here. >> okay, and i'm trying to be as sensitive as i possibly can be, because i understand. that this is your -- i don't know that this is jennifer. >> i hope not. i hope not. >> okay, listen. it's a really, really odd set of circumstances, okay. we need to figure out is this on purpose? is this an accident? okay? this is just -- unfortunately, this is just the beginning for all of us, okay?

to try to answer some questions. okay? >> but of, of course, it had to be jennifer. and it probably wasn't an accident. as that news sank in paul thought about who may have wanted to harm jennifer and came up with some potentially harmful information. two brothers, had already threatened her, said paul. there had been a confrontation just weeks earlier. >> so what happened is he called me threatening me he's going to kill me. spoke in arabic. and i speak arabic. we called the police. he said he and jennifer had fired restraininged orrers again against -- filed restraining orders against them. so i know those guys like this. now yesterday she walked home and she said, hey, somebody probably was stalking me. >> had the brothered killed her too? police listened, took some

notes. and then, just as a precaution of course, had paul give them his clothes for forensic testing. questioned by police, his home destroyed, his girlfriend dead, paul was very nearly in shock. said his friend nikesa. >> his mind was, are they sure jennifer gone? oh, my god she is never coming back. >> as the weeks went by, said nikesa, paul was in a days. >> the gist of our conversations for the first few weeks were that jennifer is not coming back. he was completely distraught about the fact that jennifer was in that fire. >> meanwhile, as the weeks went by, investigators went quietly about their task, picking through the cinders of the fire and coming to the conclusion that none of it smelled right. literally. was gasoline there? >> no question at all.

in her hair, you could smell it. you could smell it when you walked in just with your own the nose. >> investigators now knew the fire was not an accident. what they discovered next -- was an even bigger shock.

the morning after the fire on addison avenue, the ruins still warm, a yellow lab named rosie sniffed around what was by then a sealed crime scene. rosie was traund ined to identi tools of arson, kerosene, oil, gasoline. rosie stopped in her tracks, she had apparently found something. chuck gi llingham is district attorney in palo alto.

was gasoline there? >> no question you. could smell it, when you walked in with your own nose. the remnants of the gas can next to her right hip. there was still enough remnants to i didn't tie the type, make, model of the gas gacan. >> that's like some one leaving the gun with their fingerprints? >> no fingerprints. >> it was so clear it was an arson. >> correct. the arson was not an issue. >> no, it was cold-blooded murder that was at issue. because -- jennifer did not die in the fire, according to forensic experts. she was dead before the fire started. the method -- a particularly intimate form of killing -- death by strangulation. >> strangling some one is a very personal killing, a very angry ki killing. not like shooting some one from a long way away. you are touching the person.

feeling their life's blood ebb from them. >> who could have been so angry with jennifer? paul told detectives he and jennifer had taken outrestrain i ing orders against the two brothers. >> there are people after us. they're trying to get us. >> who is that. >> his name is hisham. >> i have a restraining order, against him. >> just one night before, after paul's birthday party celebration, paul told police, some guys in a truck tried to follow jennifer home. >> so, was paul on to

somethinging? dedeck tiffs detectives went to talk to the brothers and checked where both men were the day of the fire. there was no doubt they were nowhere near the fire they had al buys. >> at the time of the fire, we knew where both of them were. one was in a cafe. on videotape. one was at fry's electronics and home depot. we have the receipts and videotape from both locations. >> so once the brothers were in the clear, the cops did what they always do uncases like this, in fact, it's practically police work 101. they took a closer look at the victim's boyfriend. paul. and there was a curious moment in that police interview the day of the fire when paul admitted he wasn't always the best sort of boyfriend. >> me and girlfriend, we broke up. and thanks to san jose, they put an emergency restraining order on me. because she said paul

threatening me. blah, blah, blah. i said no. she came to the cav fav and broke the door. we always had these problems. i had domestic violence against the girl, but i never touched the girl mine life. suspicious, sure. but as they asked around among the couple's friends. police learned a few things that put paul's behavior into context. maybe he wasn't any more to blame than she was. >> their relationship was chaotic. there is no disputing that. he was no more violent in the relationship than she was. whether it be physically, verbally, emotionally. >> as police gathered evidence, bit by bit, asking around about paul, one of them noticed something a little odd. paul told a friend, also a policeman by the way, two slightly different stories. about his whereabouts the day of the fire. first conversation, day of the fire, reported the cop friend, paul said he wasn't home all day. then, second conversation, next

day, paul said he stopped briefly at home. en route to his hookah cafe. as we say, odd. but people's memories can be tricky. is that one little difference enough to add up to sus pupiciof murder? police apparently thought so. once they added that to the rest of what they discovered. paul was arrested. they charge paul with arson and murder. which struck some observers as strange. after all, there had been just that one little inconsistency. and though paul and jennifer did fight sometimes, they seemed crazy in love too. paul had been shopping for a diamond ring for heavens sake. >> there is a part of paul that was -- there was a part of him. he didn't understand why he was

in custody. and he didn't understand why he couldn't just cry for his girlfriend. and for his life that had just changed. 100%. >> it certainly did. paul was taken to jail to await trial on charge of murder in the first degree. big mistake said paul. >> when i first saw him. he, all he was, really still telling me is, me being uncustody all of this is going to blow over with. and they're going to realize i'm any not the person who did this. and this will be over with. >> coming up -- drawing back the curtain for a peek at life with paul. in jennifer's own words. >> candles everywhere, flowers. >> when "burning suspicion" continues. we know a place where tossing and turning have given way to sleeping. where sleepless nights yield to restful sleep.

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in the days after the fire on addison avenue, after paul was charged with murder, and hauled off to jail, events in palo alto seemed to freeze somehow. in confusion and denial from paul's point of view, and unrequited grief among the people who loved jennifer. >> it hurt. it hurt a lot.

>> unrequited partly because for some reason, though he had been arrested, paul wasn't entering a plea. which is what this was all about. candlelight vigil's outside paul's hookah's lounge by jennifer's friends and family. >> we decided to stand in front of his establishment every night until he made his plea. >> eventually no surprise, paul did plead, not guilty. and prosecutor chuck gillingham found himself sifting through the records of a two-year romance, studded with restraining orders, bitter quarrels, scratches, bruises, 911 calls. >> these were two people that were makeups, breakups, she gave verbally as good as she got. >> after one of their flare-ups paul was ordered to attend anger management classes. went to one the day of the fire in fact. why did two people who fought so much stay together for so long? there was an audio recording of

jennifer herself. gillingham got hold of it. listened to her explanation. >> he wins your heart, so the first couple months is amazing. sweeps you off your feet. candles everywhere. flowers. not money items. but just romantic and sweet talking and, parading you around and wanting to untroe deu ing i. it gets me loving him and admiring him that he admires me it makes me trust his opinion and what he says aboutks about . as soon as he gets to that point he flips it. calls me, ugly, fat, gold dirg. a -- digger. the person she is talking to. one of the brothers, paul told police they were afraid of. here she is, configd ding in hi.

then sheep w was not happy abou paul at that point. >> i have pictures of damage to my furniture, kicked in my car. somebody saw him at starbuck's spit in my face on the way to work. >> but things clearly changed after that. remember, they were all lovey-dovey, paul was atalking marriage the night before the fire. and now here he was not much more than a year later on trial for her murder. listening to prosecutor, chuck gillingham take the jury inside the last days of paul's relationship with jennifer. how did gillingham do that. jennifer's cell phone. detech tich ctives discovered t of her text message history had been deleted. but law enforcen't hcement chan lot. had to to keep up with high tech. the cops managed to find a phone expert all the way across the country in new hampshire, who had a very deep look into that

cell phone. and was able to pull up thousands, literally thousand of deleted text messages between jennifer and paul in the last few months of her life. and, oh, boy. frt r from jennifer. you are nothing but a selfish, cold-hearted, ungrateful human being, scam artist, liar. furious. that didn't read like any old quarrel. the timing. jennifer sent that text to paul right at the end of the elaborate birthday party she threw for him. when she had perhaps 12 hours left to live. in fact she was so upset about something, that she refused to go to the hookah lounge after the party. walked all the way home on a broken heel, texting all the way. jennifer, good stay away from me. i just got home. paul, i'm staying away this time for good. what a way to end my birthday. >> for jennifer to walk home alone at night with a broken heel, and upset.

she had to have been, i don't even know if i have ever seen her that mad. >> but that was the night before -- angry messages buzzing back and forth. then, as the cell phone revealed, the pair made love during the night. before jennifer's morning text messages again turned red hot angry. the subject seemed to be a debt she claimed he owed her. >> right around 10:30, 10:45 to 11:16, she is referring back to the text messages. telling him he better bring a check. don't cup back or she is going to the police department to file charges by 3:00 that day. that's the last text message. last contact she has ever with any one. >> that said gillingham before noon is when paul lost his temper and choked jennifer to death. then drove to a gas station, bought a can of gasoline. later, returned home. and torched the house.

and some where along the way, said the prosecutor, he erased all those angry text messages she sent him. >> every single one between the defendant and her. every single one is gone. months worth. >> then gillingham says paul used jennifer's telephone to send fake messages to her friend so they believed she was alive. to support the claim. gilgham, introduce aid witness that said texts from paul's phone and jennifer's phone were hitting the same cell towers all afternoon. so her phone must have been right there with him in his car. which is why, when she missed a meeting with her friend, roy, the text he got from her didn't make sense. they weren't a sensible response. in fact he got the same text twice. >> she didn't show up. her phone was off. so as soon as i got that repeat text message. i was kind of -- worried because she wasn't responding to what i

was saying. >> jennifer was nowhere to be found. jennifer was dead. >> now what prosecutor gillingham wanted the jury to think about what was happened or didn't happen much later after the fire. here wumentz the scene. house burning. paul standing on the street outside watching the fire. at this point he supposedly didn't know if jennifer was inside or outside whether she was alive or dead. but -- >> the time he was there he made 38 calls and text messages. two of which went to jennifer. and on neither occasion did he leave a message. he left messages for others. spoke with others. texted messages the same friend, multiple times. but in the two hour period at no time does he leave the location to look for jennifer, go to the other side of the blocked off street. >> you know what if he called her and texted her once, surely that's enough. she'll call him back. >> the cell phone records, actually bear out he is a person

that would call her or text 200, 300 times a day if he wasn't able to get ahold of her. his silence at the crime scene was deafening. there was no text message. he stood at the location because he wanted people to see him there. >> how could the jury be sure paul was guilty. prosecutor gillingham offered her. remember, rosie. the skillful police dog trained to alert off to the faintest whiff of accelerant of the sort used in arson fire. she alerted when she smelled some of paul's clothes. suspicious, yes. though, not exactly ironclad evidence. as you will see, courtesy of paul's high profile defense attorney. the man famous for defending scott peterson, his name -- mark geragos. >> i have had many a client who i no doubt was capable of the acts they were accused of. this is just not one of them.

>> coming up. in the last hours of jennifer's life something was caught on camera. does it prove paul is not guilty? >> so you had sex last night with her on video. >> anybody who watches this is never going to have the impression this is somebody who was ready tolil khe r. >> when date line continues. 3q

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defense attorney mark geragos has made a name for himself defending clients in difficult, highly celebrated cases not the least the scott peterson trial. but defending paul would present its own set of challenges. he was accused of killing his girlfriend, and then trying to hide that fact by burning a house down. but as the the trial began, he had also been pegged by the prosecution as an abuser, a violent man, an image. geragos set out to change. >> they beth weoth were passion romantic at times, hot at times as you would characterize it. i don't think it was a one way street. >> from the start, geragos tried to weed out jurors, who may have been unduly swayed. >> what jurors do, you want to get a jury to do is want to help

your client. and to, kind of walk in the shoes of your client. >> then when he present eed his case, geragos set out to reframe the events from the infamous party the night before the fire. >> the party was at a place it was for paul's birthday. and it was planned by jennifer. and -- and the -- and maybe 14 to 18 of their close friend that were there. and, by all accounts at the party, everything was great. >> the argument later, the angry texts. that was just the way paul and jennifer always were, said geragos. his proof? after those angry text message exchanges, here's what happened. as paul described in his police interview. >> we talked. we smoked hookah. everything is fine. we did what we did, you know? and, we slept at the, i think probably she already took one or two, but took two more in front

of me and we went to bed. >> we went to bed. >> you guys slept in the same bed? >> yeah, i made up and then i have a video. i mean we video ourselves. i mean honestly. >> video yourself snsh? >> so you had sex last night with a video. >> yeah. >> sure enough when police looked at jennifer's cell phone. there was a video. she and paul having sex after the fight hours before she was murdered. >> so enthusiastically that any body that watches it will never have the impression or take away that this was some body that was ready to kill her. >> as for the cell tower eflts th -- evidence that seemed to prove that paul had jennifer's phone and was sending fake messages in her name. that was nonsense said geragos. >> that was one of the pieces of information that was imploded. we got an engineer, the engineer

from the carrier to come in and say he looked at the evidence and what this guy said was the phone pungi inoff the same towe not, merged data from the cell phone. >> why is that important? because says geragos' the prosecution time line should have cleared paul. that is investigators said jennifer was strangled several hours before the fire started and it was lit no earlier than 6:30 p.m. earlier in the afternoon. paul had left the area, geragos says, jennifer was still alive, sending real not fake text messages herself from her phone. >> by all accounts she was alive at 1:17. >> okay. >> okay. at 1:17. paul was not at the house. >> so, where was paul? trying to puick up paperwork at the police station and then at the hookah lounge where he appears on coverage, 1:37 p.m.

from there says the defense attorney he headed to anger m management class. he stopped at the restaurant seen here on camera at 3:30. there wasn't time in between said ge ragos for paul to go to the cottage. strangle his girlfriend and douse her body with gasoline. a solid alibi said geragos. his client couldn't have killed jennifer and couldn't have started the fire. how could he have been in two places at once? and as for rosie the yellow lab who alerted to a gasoline smell on his clothes. geragos pointed out the clothes were on a test and they showed no sign of gasoline at all. >> the atf chemist has air protocol. specifically one of the things the prosecution didn't tell the jury which we brought out was that the atf also put out a -- a

the proko protocol you never take a single dog alert and draw a conclusion. in fact if the atf says negative you should not allow in the dog alert. >> why would people believe the dog over the atf? >> well i think once again you get into the idea. people have dogs, could have ascribe. >> super natural powers. >> super natural powers to dogs. i have two large dogs. and having been through a couple of cases with dog evidence, as much as i love my dogs, i'm not going to want to convict somebody and put their liberty at stake based on dog evidence. >> still as he presented hiss case, geragos had a problem. he knew it. >> of what it came done to was chaush the character assassination block of the case. the first two blocks of the case revolved around so-called sigh yen tiff uk eviden

-- scientific evidence. that was destroyed. then character assassination block. >> the solution, paul seemed to have demanded it. the chance to defend himself to the jury by testifying. some courtroom observers believe the defense had create aid reasonable doubt that testifying was in fact, risky. special leap for paul. said his friend nikesa. >> knowing paul the way i know paul and the way that he could be interpreted incorrectly i was very nervous about paul taking the stand. >> risky or not, paul was determined to tell the jury his side of the story. >> i thought, you know, if there was any way this jury thought this man was responsible for this now they know for sure that he is not. >> what did jury think? what did the jury

defense attorney mark geragos did what he could to poke holes in the prosecution murder case against paul, arguing the prosecution had no solid scientific proof or clear evidence that he was anywhere near jennifer when she was strangled and the house was set on fire. any way he asked, if paul attacked jennifer, wouldn't she have put up some kind of fight? why were there no defensive marks or scratches on paul's body? did the prosecution even have a case? paul wasn't going to take any chances. in fact, he was determined to tell the jury his side of the story. soap geragos assigned a female colleague to question paul. must have been a strategy, witnessed courtroom observers. a we to show the jury that paul could in fact interact well with a woman. but those observers were mistaken said geragos. >> well a generally, i don't

think direct examination is my strong suit. i was concentrating on cross-examination of the witnesses. >> so paul looked the jurors in the eye and told them. i did not kill jennifer skipsi, did not burn the house. th then he told them, despite their roller coaster relationship, he truly loved jennifer. his lawyer present aid love letter in fact she had writ tte to him. he broke town. a flood of tears. >> i was so relieved. i thought, you know, if there was any way this jury thought this man was responsible for this now they know for sure that he is not. because it's so obvious to me that he is telling the truth. >> but, listening to awful this with his experienced ear, was prosecutor gillingham. >> you must have been rather please when you heard he was going to testify? >> i think that is an

understatement. i was very, very pleased. >> more than that it was a gift said gillingham. an unexpected opportunity. why? well, the prosecutor had paul right where he wanted him for as long as he wanted him. there were hours of questions, tough questions, baiting questions, questions designed to make paul crack and reveal what gillingham believed to be a controlling personality. a red hot temper >> my plan was to go through -- how he acted when he was angry. then ask him questions that he could have no good answers for. for instance, why all of the text messages are deleted? those are question he's could not answer. he had not considered those questions. after three long days, in the hot seat, paul's testimony was finally over. had he persuaded the jurors that he was unkninnocent. >> do you feel he got chippy or arrogant? >> i don't think he got arrogant. he was tired, exasperated.

trying to tell his story. he was cut off. >> the jurors once they got the case were determined to look at the evidence not just courtroom theater. >> everyone was very committed to going over the evidence and discussing each of the witnesses, and each of the crucial pieces of evidence. it was really encouraging. >> and it was crucial they decided to compare very carefully the different time lines claimed by the prosecution and the defense. >> so we analyzed the time line for the day. from his testimony where he said he was. and then, other pieces of testimony and evidence to either validate or contradict. >> the jury took less than 14 hours. and came back with a verdict. guilty. >> all i remember was i heard the word guilty, man. and just this relief, this release of tension. >> i was very shocked by the verdict. i think, a lot of people were shocked by the verdict. because, i mean if you sat through the, weeks and weeks of

trial, it just -- it's inconceivable how they could get to the result that they got to. >> but to the jurors, the issues about text messages and whether paul had jennifer's phone all afternoon, wasn't as important as -- zumot on the stand. that's what made the difference. his tears for example. >> sometimes i feel like i am too cynical. but it was universally held opinion i think. the entire jury believed that it was a manufactured moment. >> what was the problem with his testimony? >> there were two things that struck me. one, was when he broke down on the stand. and to me it didn't seem genuine. and the other portion of his testimony was when he had the opportunity to tell us where he was and what he was doing he chose to base leically lie to u three times. we were able to prove that he

lied with the hard evidence we had with the phone records and video surveillance and those items. and i just -- to me that -- that hurt him very badly. >> if he hadn't testified, i can't say for sure, but i don't think i could have convicted him. >> at his sentencing, angry paul zumot protested his unknow sein. but he was sent away for 25 to life plus eight for arson. the palo alto cottage, has been repaired. new love perhaps in there. the young people come to the cafe, to socialize and smoke hookah, his brother runs the place now. and paul, gone. like the romance that burned too bright. before it vanished with its victim in a cloud of smoke. >> i can still hear her voice. and see her smile. i know she, she is here.

>> that's all for now. i'm ann curry. and for all of us here at nbc news, thank you for joining us. this sunday, national outrage over the alleg sexual abuse of children at penn state. >> joe paterno is no longer the head football coach, effective immediately. >> was there a conspiracy of silence throughout t university to cover this up for years? this morning, where is the investigation going? wha are the consequences for penn state? and the largerquestion, about how some institutions get so bi and so powerful, that they fail the most basic moral test. with u this morninghe republican governor of pennsylvania, and member of the penn state board of trustees, tom corbett. then, what a week in the republican race for the white house. the denials.

>> i have never acted inappropriately with anyone, period. the debate disaster. >> it's three agencies of government when i get there that a gone. commerce, education, and the -- what is the third one there? let's see. >> and now the question, is rry finished? can cain weather sexual harassment questions? can romney quiet conservative critics? and can michele bachmann, once near the top of the polls, regain her standing in the first tier? we'll ask them. with us this morning, presidential candidate and minnesota congresswoman michele bachmann. then, the view from the democrats. how does the president overcome america's high anxiety about the economy? will he have to run away from his record against the republican nominees? joining us the leader of the democratic party, congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz of florida.