tonight on "nightline," in his own words. and inside his home. fingerprints everywhere of a lonely man's spiral toward murder. decades of what he said was rejection by women that ultimately drove his killing spree. supreme history. from the bronx to the nation's highest bench. judge sonia sotomayor is confirmed as first hispanic justice, and americans across the country celebrate the shattering of yet another glass ceiling. and we blew out 16 candles, we ate at the breakfast club and we rooted for ferris bueller on

his day off. today, filmmaker john hughes whose movies defined a generation has passed away. captions paid for by abc, inc. good evening. he had no prior criminal record, he had no known history of mental illness. but george sodini was a tortured soul with deep psychological problems. they were apparent in the provies that he produced at his home in pittsburgh and then posted on the internet. a profile develops of a gunman who was badly in need of help, but never received it. as john berman now reports. >> in pittsburgh tonight, a vigil for the three women killed. for the families torn apart.

and an outward display of emotion over the destruction caused by a man whose twisted inner life is coming into greater and greater focus. >> it is easy for me to hide from my emotions for one more day. take a long drive in the car. listen to some music. daydream. or just do some mundane task around the house that really doesn't need to be done, that's not too important. and there you go, one more day and one more day turns into one more year. >> that lonely sigh in a youtube video posted by george sodini a year ago. and then in a second video, a house tour. he shows off his home, bragging how it might look to the women who would never come inside. >> pan to the other side. speakers on each side are large, they double as end tables. okay, couch and chair. they match. the women will be really impressed. to the right is my bedroom. looks pretty clean.

i'm sure she'll be impressed. >> in the house tour, you see books. >> hey, come over here, there's some reading material that we're all familiar with. >> including "how to date young women for men over 35". he quicks the author, r. don steel, initials rds. >> rds says i have approximately maybe 15 more years to be successful at this. and when i heard that, i wanted to continue immediately to start moving on this. i didn't realize i had that much time. so what my objective is to be real and to learn to be emotional and to, you know, to be able to be able to emotionally connect with people. >> how important was steele to sodini? this video is of a forum held by steele on meeting women. >> the women have the same story, hopefully when you go home on sunday they'll have as many problems as you do. >> in the audience sitting with rapt attention, george sodini.

that he had a thing for younger women we knew from his murder blog. one of the young women he mentioned -- his neighbor's daughter. >> he probably looked out his window and saw her getting into her car. >> whatever he was looking at we know never attained. in one blog he said no sebs since 1990 and in another one he talks of rejection. in an imaginary interview with himself he asks, have you ever been in love? the answer hell yeah, lots of times. i'm still single so obviously nothing ever worked out. all this rejection says michael welner was a recipe for disaster. >> mass shooting is the end of a continuum. for someone who's a sexual incompetent who directs his

masculinity into rejection. >> what about the mundane house tour? >> more junk, more stuff. all kind of things. storage for winter. >> or the happy pictures on his old website or his answer to the question is the glass half empty or half full? he says half full. doesn't that seem like -- well, anyone? >> the point is that mass shooting is unlike other crime and unlike other homicides. it's a crime not of anger and not revenge, but it's a crime of notoriety. it's a person seeking notoriety. so that means that a person puts more attention into how they're going to be regarded and understood afterward than they even put in to planning the crime. if we think he looks normal, it's because he wants us to think he looks like us. and he's not. >> there are signs he did struggle to be normal.

in his video he talks about his problems connecting with people. >> the only way to get around that, you know, is to work on this. and perhaps some exercises or forgiveness exercises or whatever else. i'm going to post this and see what comes back. >> the forgiveness exercises he's talking about as per hay come from the book "forgiveness, loving the inner child", visualization exercises for releasing negative feelings and maximizing your true inner potential. and then in hidden code embedded in his murder blog found by abc news, he hints at second thoughts about his murder plot. at the gym i saw a woman i like. occasionally she makes good eye contact and smiles. to get a friend like her and for nighttime action, i would cancel this plan. >> i think he was conflicted. i think he wanted a relationship with women. but he was also rejected by women or he just couldn't

establish that type of relationship. >> he didn't cancel his plan. and his love/hate relationship with women and maybe himself, hate won out. we learned today that the last phone call he made from right here outside the gym was to his mother. then he went inside and murdered three people. >> praise be to god, the father of compassion and the god of all comfort. >> whatever pain he was feeling, tonight, they were mourning the pain he caused. the crime he committed. the tragedy of it all. i'm john berman for "nightline" in bridgeville, pennsylvania. >> funerals for two of the three victims will be held this weekend. our thanks to john berman. and when we come back, we turn the page. it's off to one of the most remote places on earth. to see how a land of salt may help end our addiction to oil. zxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzx

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president obama has announced a major investment in clean energy vehicles. more than $2 billion toward the creation of jobs, electric cars and the batteries that power them. and a far away place that looks like something out of a science fiction movie may yet help power america's future with the key ingredient beneath a salty landscape. jeffrey kofman now reports from boliv bolivia's uyuni salt flats. >> the car we travelled in for ten bone rattling hours runs on gas, but if the story you're about to see comes true, one day fairly soon this car will be obsolete. that is why we made this long trek to one of the most remote places on earth, a place that holds a greener future for our planet. there it is. two miles above sea level in the

andes mountains. one of the most stunning landscapes anywhere. it may look like snow, but that is salt. bolivia's uyuni salt flats, the largest in the world. where do you stay when you're visiting these remote salt flats? where else but a place called the salty moon. around here, that is much more than a catchy name. >> uyuni really is all about salt. the walls of the hotel are built of brick of salts and the table is blocks of salt. even the floor, salt. you don't believe me question? salty. out on the sat flats t only people you find are salt gathers who work in the blinding glare. for their efforts, they earn a few dollars a day. selling salt for people and farm animals. but travel across the 5,000 square miles of these vast salt flats as fast as you dare, and there's something else going on

here. the reason the world has suddenly taken an interest in uyuni. the bolivian government is building the first phase of what it hopes is the largest lithium production plant in the world. lithium? it's the reason why the batteries in your cell phone are lighter and last longer. they contain barely an ounce of lithium. when the new elect rric cars li the chevy volt comes on the market, each car will need 30 pounds of lithium, which brings us back to the uyuni flat. it is estimated they contain between a half to two thirds of the world's lithium reserves, with demand for lithium expected to triple in the next 15 years. mitsubishis and others have been in talks with the government about a partnership. >> it's under the salt. >> belgium scientist guilermo roelants is technical adviser to the bolivian government on this. where do you find the lithium in

here? is it in the salt crust here? >> no, not at all. this is just salt, like table salt, but lithium is in the brine. this water is separated in different salts, and one of them is lithium. you can taste it and it tastes very -- >> very salty. >> very salty. >> wow, yeah. i don't think of metal being in water. >> well, it's a very special metal. not like a traditional metal that you know. it's a very soft metal. it's the lightest metal in the world. >> so light that it floats in water. extracting the lithium is remarkably simple. build huge evaporation ponds and let the hot salt separate the lithium from the salts. the man in charge of building the new plant, marcelo castro took us to see two small trial evaporation pools.

the water evaporates at the rate of about an inch every four days, he tells us. the process takes about two months. back on the shore of the salt flats, the processing plant is well underway. and they hope this first phase will be operating by the end of the year. the science may be simple, the site is not. this place is so remote and so high that there is no electric power, no drinking water, no airport. and only the most primitive of roads. bolivia is accepting technical advice, but the leftist government here is wary of foreign corporations that's because they have seen their resources, the largest silver mine in the world exploited by foreigners for centuries, and yet, it remains the poorest country in south america. the project manager says this time, bolivia is determined to benefit from the riches it holds. one expert that i talked to said to me that if bolivia does this right, bolivia could be the

saudi arabia of the 21st century when it comes to energy. but if they do it wrong they'll have nothing. this is our chance to correct history, he says. in the past, we have had so much wealth here and all that we have been left with is above -- with poverty. >> some worry this is a developing country, a poorest country in south america that this is an ambitious project for a country like this. it is an ambitious project? >> yes, it is. but it's not impossible. >> success is not guaranteed. but if bolivia can make this work, this vast sea of white could offer this poor country a richer future and a planet a greener future. i'm jeffrey kofman for "nightline" on the uyuni salt flats in bolivia. >> our thanks to jeffrey kofman for that. when we come back, an historic day as the supreme

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after months of debate over her qualifications and judgments, judge sonia sotomayor ended today with her senate confirmation. making history as the first hispanic justice to sit on the nation's highest court. president obama said he was deeply gratified by the barrier-breaking milestone. it is after all one he knows

very well. as john donvan now reports. >> the nomination of sonia sotomayor of new york to be an associate justice of the supreme court of the united states is confirmed. >> talk about anti-climactic. as they counted the senators' votes today, it had been ten weeks already since the president had named his nominee. >> judge sonia sotomayor. >> and the hearings, they had been an endurance test and mostly predictable questions. >> you said that a wise latino woman would reach a better conclusion than a male counterpart. >> the outcome? confirmation was so foreseeable that it just never could quite be a fireworks moment. except here in the bronx. they were latino-americans here, marking this moment when one of their own reached the highest office in the land. and while the partiers played inside it's true that a glance

through the window told you that most everybody else outside really had no idea what was going on upstairs, that this was a latino thing. this was a gathering of latino lawyers and judges at the puerto rican legal defense fund in manhattan where sotomayor used to sit on the board. >> we feel that this is the way of showing that that remark was not one that should be relegated to something that has to be disowned or has to mean something negative. our experiences can be reacher simply because they're different. >> this woman is the only latino woman on the new york state supreme court in manhattan. >> she's a terrific role model and she has broken a stereotype that many latino judges have lived with for a long time. >> while this is definitely a latino thing, it is also we should say an american thing and here is why. back to that view out the window, and it's a fair bet that

at some point most of america's non-latino passersby also had a moment like today. call it jackie robinson moment to borrow a lesson from sports and from a man whose break through into the majors was good for all of us, and the warm feeling inside really belonged to those who could say he is one of our own. >> ask not what your country can do for you. ask what you can do for your country. >> and so it has been in politics. this was the jackie robinson moment for american catholics. >> so help me god. >> jfk's picture hung in millions of irish-catholic homes. he was one of them. at other times, it's been jewish americans. that a lawyer named louis bran dice was named to the superior court a generation ago. when most jews couldn't break through the law firm. that was a moment. and then there was michael

dukakis. did anybody but greek americans know how much that meant to greek americans? today we asked somebody who should know. >> there was something that trumps the partisanship. i knew a lot of republican greeks who were supporting a democrat for first time because he was one of them. >> then of course the biggest jackie robinson moment of them all. election night 2008. some african-american students watching the returns and then it happened. and though it came 62 years after that break into the major leagues, this moment also says something about america. >> so help you god. >> so help me god. >> that he could not have made it without millions of white americans voting for him. justice kennedy couldn't without the votes of non-catholics and just as sotomayor today wouldn't have been confirmed but for the decision of the senate chamber filled with mostly older, caucasian men. it was a latino moment, but yes, an american one too.

i'm john donvan for "nightline" in washington. >> congratulations to her. our thanks to john donvan. when we come back, an awkward era in life epitomized on the big screen. we remember filmmaker john hughes.

( soft blues music playing ) ( people chatting ) ( laughing )

finally tonight, john hughes, who wrote, produce and directed some of the most memorable films of the 1980's. he died today of a heart attack while walking in manhattan. he was just 59. his movies became the soundtrack for a generation. brilliantly rating the emotional journey of adolescence, with the beauty and humor and dare i say it, cruelty. >> i can't believe you can't get me out of this. >> for a generation of americans, it was that music and those cars pulling into a suburban chicago high school that captured a moment in time. >> does barry manilow know that you raid his wardrobe? >> john hughes had a knack for finding the drama, angst and