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CNN Live At Daybreak
Candidates Practice for Tonight's Vice Presidential Debate; Latest Developments in Scott Peterson Murder Trial
Aired October 05, 2004 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning.
From the CNN Global Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Betty Nguyen in for Carol Costello.
Now in the news, it's the number two's turn tonight. Dick Cheney and John Edwards square off in Cleveland in their first and only vice presidential debate. How they do could take on added weight amid a presidential race that seems to be neck and neck.
Mount Saint Helens doesn't have much company this morning. Authorities have closed off an eight mile radius around the cranky volcano, which has been spewing steam and ash. Scientists warn a larger eruption could be in the works.
The Nobel Prize for physics was just announced a few minutes ago. Three Americans, David Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek were honored for their work with quarks. Quarks, of course, are the building blocks of matter. We all know that, right? The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday.
This is just a taste of what some people in Colorado saw bearing down on them. There were reports of almost a dozen tornadoes after a string of thunderstorms hit northeast of Denver. No reports of injury, though, good news. But a dozen tornadoes -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, at least a dozen reports. Many of the reports were of the same tornado looking from different directions.
NGUYEN: Oh.
MYERS: So, actually, officially the Weather Service plotted three tornadoes on the map this morning. But with all those other reports, it just depends on what guy is looking from what direction and reports it to the Weather Service, right?
NGUYEN: Yes. But no injuries. Good news.
MYERS: Exactly. By the time you get out there in eastern Colorado, east of Denver, it is so flat, you can see tornadoes for tens of miles. So I'm sure a lot of folks were calling in, as well.
(WEATHER REPORT)
NGUYEN: Twenty-eight days to go before the national election and the two men vying for the number two spot are heading for a showdown. A battle is shaping up in the battleground state of Ohio. John Edwards has already arrived ahead of the vice presidential debate. Dick Cheney heads there this afternoon.
Who do you think will do a better job tonight? Well, a CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll asked more than 1,000 registered and likely voters and it seems they're about evenly split -- 42 percent picked Edwards, 40 percent Cheney; 15 percent just aren't sure. The poll has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Warming up, both Dick Cheney and John Edwards have done plenty of it ahead of their V.P. debate.
CNN's Joe Johns takes us to the debate practice.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Senator John Edwards spent the weekend cloistered at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, making only one brief appearance at a roadside country store.
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's going fine. We're working hard.
LOTHIAN: Away from the cameras, the Edwards campaign set up a room that they said looks a lot like the debate site, complete with cameras, with Washington lawyer Bob Barnett playing Vice President Dick Cheney, a role he took on in debate preparations in 2000.
EDWARDS: Polls go up and down, but I felt very good about John Kerry's performance Thursday night.
LOTHIAN: Edwards' chief goals for the debate, not to lose the momentum John Kerry appears to have picked up in the first presidential debate, to paint Kerry as steadfast and his opponents as favoring the rich over regular Americans.
Vice President Cheney spent the weekend at his home in Jackson, Wyoming, practicing in his own mockup of the debate setting with Ohio Congressman Rob Portman as his debate partner. Portman played Joe Lieberman in debate preparations four years ago.
Cheney's goal will be to try to focus on terrorism and September 11 while promoting President Bush as a steady leader in trying times.
(on camera): Vice presidential debates are usually considered sideshows, but with the race now deadlocked, this one qualifies as a main event. And as one Democratic strategist put it, the loser usually defeats himself.
Joe Johns, CNN, Chautauqua, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: And CNN is live in Cleveland as Dick Cheney and John Edwards square off for the second in command title. Anderson Cooper, Paula Zahn, Wolf Blitzer and CNN's election team kick off our prime time coverage tonight at 7:00 Eastern. And don't forget Friday the presidential candidates rev up around 2:00 in St. Louis, Missouri. CNN will have that for you live, as well.
Now to California and the Scott Peterson trial.
An expert on tides and currents testified the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn baby may have been dumped into the San Francisco Bay near where her husband said he went fishing. However, he admitted no one can be absolutely sure. The defense claims someone else killed Laci Peterson then framed his client.
Meanwhile, outside the courthouse, there was no doubt how some protesters feel about the trial. Look at these T-shirts. One man selling T-shirts labeled fantasy defense, while another group wore T- shirts showing Peterson with a noose around his neck.
We've heard weeks and weeks and weeks of prosecution witnesses in the murder trial of Scott Peterson. The prosecution is expected to wrap up its case soon, and then the defense gets its turn.
Legal analyst Kendall Coffey joins me on the phone from Miami to talk about the trial -- good morning to you, Kendall.
KENDALL COFFEY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hey, good morning, Betty.
NGUYEN: Let's talk about that expert that they put on the trial talking about tides and currents. Yet that expert went on to say, "Most of the scientific information is based on assumptions."
So why put him on the stand?
COFFEY: A great question. I think it's going to prompt still more second guessing about some of the prosecution strategies. It was already readily apparent that the bodies were found in the general area where he had gone fishing that day, not really necessary to put on an expert to prove that up, Betty.
And, by the way, this expert seemed to put more question marks into the jury's mind. Couldn't reproduce the trajectory for Laci Peterson's body and how it washed up on the shore where it did. And so it seems like it just didn't have the level of certainty that the prosecution ought to be requiring before they put on any more witnesses at this late point in the trial.
NGUYEN: Yes, exactly. The testimony also focused on Scott Peterson's disguises and how he was trying to buy a Mercedes using his mother's name as his own name.
What does that prove?
COFFEY: Well, it shows, among other things, that this is a guy who just couldn't stop being devious, couldn't stop concealing things. That's all the essence of the prosecution's theory about how the murder was convicted. And at the same time, the prosecution is trying to get to a theory that toward the very end, as of April, this guy might have been getting ready to leave town, maybe leave the country.
NGUYEN: And we're looking at some video now of Scott Peterson as a blond. That was another thing that came up during yesterday's testimony, how he had died his hair. And the defense said, well, he went swimming in a friend's pool and his hair was bleached because of that. But the defense also says that, you know, he was just doing this to disguise himself from the media, because they were hounding him.
Is the jury really going to buy that?
COFFEY: I don't think they are. And one of the best things the prosecution has going for it is Scott Peterson himself. His alibi is filled with holes. And this kind of explanation is also pretty questionable. The reality is that there was evidence showing that Scott Peterson knew that unmarked cars were following him, unmarked cars not driven by tabloid reporters, but by police. And the jury is going to conclude that it's the police that Scott Peterson was trying to avoid.
NGUYEN: So with the prosecution wrapping up its case this Friday, it seems like most of the evidence if purely circumstantial.
How strong of a case do they have?
COFFEY: Well, 160 witnesses, really nothing that's anywhere close to the slam dunk promises that the prosecution made over a year ago.
I think where this jury is that instinctively they think this guy probably did it. But there are a lot of little doubts about the prosecution's evidence. And the big question is going to be, and it may come down to closing, Betty, whether those little doubts add up to a reasonable doubt.
NGUYEN: And that closing could take, what, another two to three months from now? They're saying that Peterson's defense, Geragos, may take that long to present his case.
COFFEY: We've heard that, but I would be surprised if it goes that long. I think they're going to focus on a couple of essential points -- the witnesses who saw Laci Peterson in the park the day that, according to the prosecution, she had already been murdered, and forensic evidence about time of death, because I think that's going to be the main things the defense wants to hammer home in their own case.
NGUYEN: All right, Kendall Coffey, always a pleasure.
Thank you this morning.
NGUYEN: Across America now, a missing Florida family has been found, though the good news isn't so good. Officials are working to recover the four bodies from the wreckage of their small plane. The Bomback family fled their home ahead of hurricane Ivan. But their plane fell off radar over Mississippi and disappeared. Crews had been searching parts of Mississippi for the past two weeks. A Maryland man is in jail after workers at his home found a huge amount of child pornography. Prosecutors seized enough videotapes and photographs to fill nearly two dozen boxes. Robert Medvee is facing 96 child pornography charges. The workers were fixing the house after it had been hit by a tornado spawned by hurricane Ivan.
Las Vegas police are backing off the hate crime label first given to a drive-by shooting last month at the home of Siegfried & Roy. Witnesses told police a man fired four shots and shouted that the two entertainers should get out of the country. Police say that wasn't enough to constitute a hate crime.
Pioneering astronaut Gordon Cooper has died of natural causes at his California home. Known affectionately as Gordo, Cooper was one of the first seven men chosen for America's space program. He was part of both the Mercury and Gemini programs and was the first man to orbit earth for more than 24 hours. Gordon Cooper was 77 years old.
And Janet Leigh may have been best known for her shower scene in "Psycho," but she made more than 50 other films. Leigh died Sunday at her Beverly Hills home. She was also 77 years old. Leigh appeared in other classic films, including "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Little Women." But Leigh said she could never again take a shower after seeing the final cut of "Psycho." I think a lot of people feel that way.
Well, still to come on DAYBREAK, your house in another neighborhood? Would it still cost the same? Coming up, America's housing disparity.
And from great heights to frightening lows, a survival story atop Mount Saint Helens from a man who was there the last time it erupted.
Later in the hour, pop royalty in a row. It's Sir Elton versus Ester. OK, we all still know her as Madonna.
But, first, though, here's a look at what else is making news this Tuesday morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
NGUYEN: Are you in the market for a house? Looking for an affordable four bedroom home? You may have to move to Montana.
Carrie Lee has the story.
She's at the Nasdaq market site in Times Square.
Montana, huh?
CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Montana is one of the cheapest places, Betty. We're talking about a new Coldwell Banker survey, the Home Price Comparison Index. And what they did is looked at 2,200, approximately 2,200 square feet homes, four bedroom, two car garage. And they found a lot of discrepancy, no surprise here, across the country in terms of price, differences of as much as $1.5 million.
Now, the most expensive market, LaHoya, California. The house there, on average, $1.7 million. California, in fact, claims seven of the top 10 most expensive markets, you can see here, followed by Beverly Hills, Santa Barbara, Palo Alto; also Greenwich, Connecticut rounding out the top five.
So where are the most affordable homes? Well, the cheapest in the country, Minot, North Dakota. The same house about $130,000. You can see Great Falls, Montana on there, along with Arlington, Billings and Killeen, Texas. So you can either have 13 of these homes in Minot, North Dakota or one in LaHoya, California. But still, the discrepancy very interesting. Of course, Betty, it depends on where you're working, what kind of income you have to justify the home price, I suppose. But certainly interesting for people.
The average home price across the country, this home, $354,000. And that's an 11.4 percent increase from 2003. So, on average, home prices are going up.
NGUYEN: Hey, I used to live in Arlington, Texas. Very affordable. You can get a nice home for your money there.
LEE: There you go. Better than Atlanta.
NGUYEN: True.
LEE: Certainly better than New York, Carol...
NGUYEN: No doubt.
LEE: ... where the average apartment costs a million dollars.
NGUYEN: Yikes!
LEE: Yes.
NGUYEN: All right, Carrie Lee, thank you.
Your news, money, weather and sports.
The time right now is 6:17 Eastern.
Here's what's all new this morning.
John Edwards and Dick Cheney square off tonight in the first and only vice presidential debate before the November election. CNN will have live coverage beginning at 7:00 Eastern and plenty more on the debate throughout DAYBREAK this hour.
A successful flight for Space Ship One. Check it out. The experimental craft managed its second trip into space in the past week, to claim the $10 million X Prize. The prize was offered to promote commercial space flight.
In money, country star Reba McEntire is joining Jennifer Lopez and the Olsen twins as celebrities with their own clothing lines. The Reba Collection, as it'll be called, is being developed by Dillard's Department Stores for sale in their 147 locations.
In culture, the government wants you to go digital. The FCC is launching a nationwide campaign to tout the advantages of digital television. Congress set a December 2006 deadline for all broadcasters to send a digital signal only. But consumers will need a high definition television to see those signals.
Now to sports. The Kansas City Chiefs finally won a game. Running back Priest Holmes rushed for 125 yards and two touchdowns, to lead the Chiefs to a 27-24 win over the Baltimore Ravens. Priest Holmes, former Longhorn.
MYERS: Look at that catch.
NGUYEN: Yes, check it out.
MYERS: Nicely done.
(WEATHER REPORT)
NGUYEN: How much longer until Mount Saint Helens erupts? Well, we are waiting to see when that happens. And coming up, a live report from Washington State. It may look like there's not much going on, but we'll tell you what's really simmering below the surface.
And I'll talk to a man who's been at the top of that mountain and didn't think he'd make it back down during the last eruption.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALTER UPDEGRAVE, SENIOR EDITOR, "MONEY": What you want to have is a portfolio that kind of makes sense. It's almost like putting together a baseball team or an orchestra, where you have different people playing different roles.
In this case, what you want is you want some stocks that will provide long-term growth and you want some bonds that will provide some income stability.
So the idea is to kind of put together this group of investments that sort of complement one another so that even though some of them may be individually risky, a growth mutual fund may jump around a lot, if it's bounced against a bond fund or a different type of stock fund, the portfolio overall won't be as jumpy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CAROLE KING: I feel the earth move under my feet. I feel the sky tumbling down...
NGUYEN: That's a very appropriate song.
Geologists don't think it'll be as catastrophic as what happened in 1980, but they are now saying Monday's pair of small eruptions at Mount Saint Helens were probably a precursor of a much larger explosion to come. And that has them a little worried this morning. They say it looks like magma is pushing up closer to the surface and no one's being allowed within an eight mile radius of the volcano.
CNN's Eric Philips joins us now from Mount Saint Helens with the latest there -- good morning to you, Eric.
ERIC PHILIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Betty, good morning to you.
Like you said, twice yesterday steam and ash billowed from the mouth of this volcano. And according to geologists, it was all just more of an opening act.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
PHILIPS (voice-over): The first burst yesterday came mid- morning, lasting 40 minutes and spewing steam and ash 1,600 feet above the mountain's top. A second smaller incident happened in the afternoon. Geologists say a significant eruption is still on the way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most likely scenario, in our view, is that we're going to have more growth of the lava dome. And that will be primarily, you know, eruptions of lava on the crater floor. But during that process there may be some explosions and some of those explosions may be relatively large.
PHILIPS: Even at times when it appears the mountain is interactive, there is still a lot going on inside. So-called harmonic tremors indicate that hot magma is moving and rising. A large glacier is slowly melting, resulting in the release of steam. And pressure is causing shifts in layers of rock inside the volcano.
Scientists use a variety of methods to monitor activity, including flyovers, a GPS system implanted inside the crater and microphones attached to the side of the mountain.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of those instruments are remaining stable. All our deformation right now is confined within the crater itself.
PHILIPS: Many volcano watchers are here hoping to see a big show.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's kind of interesting, though. We keep looking over. It's like oh, it's steaming, it's steaming. It's poofing, actually. So, yes, it's pretty interesting. I'm hoping it goes in the next hour or so.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
PHILIPS: The U.S. Geological Survey has maintained the level three alert status here. That is the highest level and it means they believe a larger eruption is imminent -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Of course, we'll be watching.
Eric Philips, thank you for that.
Our next guest knows what it's like to be on Mount Saint Helens during an eruption. Twenty-five years ago, Michael Lineau was a photographer taking the first on the ground pictures after the St. Helens eruption. He was trapped by a secondary eruption and for three days was missing and presumed dead.
Michael Lineau joins us now by phone from Boston to talk about that experience.
Good morning to you.
MICHAEL LINEAU, DOCUMENTARY FILM PRODUCER: Good morning.
NGUYEN: All right, so you're on the mountain and then a sheriff writes you a ticket for being there but won't get you out of the area.
What was that like?
LINEAU: Well, yes, I mean we were journalists going in there to film the after effects of the eruption and, you know, we were just planning to be in there for a few short hours. And, you know, because of many circumstances, not just sheriffs, but also we got disoriented, got lost and because of that we were forced to spend the night.
And then that night, Mount Saint Helens erupted in the second largest eruption. People heard the blast 200 miles away, but we didn't hear a thing. It shot right over our heads, hit the stratosphere, bounced off that. So people hundreds of miles away heard the booms from that and then for seven and a half hours it rained volcanic ash on us. And I remember thinking that this is it, we're going to be buried in ash, just like the people in Pompeii. And it became increasingly difficult to breathe and I prayed god would help me breathe.
Pretty soon it started raining and the rain mixed in with the ash and it cleared out the air so we could breathe then.
NGUYEN: And at one point your compasses weren't working because of the ash. You were basically wandering in circles.
Did you ever think you were going to get off of Mount Saint Helens?
LINEAU: It did seem like an eternity up there because, you know, we were used to seeing beautiful green forests just prior to the eruption and then, you know, after the eruption, all the trees lay flat and we didn't think we were going to get out of there.
You know, I was 20 years old then and when you're 20, you think you're going to live forever. And it was a very humbling experience.
MYERS: Michael, Chad Myers here.
I've got a question for you about this ash.
We always hear about the airplanes not being able to fly through it because it's gritty. But obviously from firsthand experience, what is it really like?
LINEAU: Well, you know, it's like somebody putting a blanket over your head. You know, it can be in the middle of the night, like we were, or in the middle of the day, when that ash cloud comes over you, it is pitch black and it is suffocating ash.
MYERS: But can you taste it?
LINEAU: So you don't want to be anywhere near -- you don't want to be anywhere near the mountain if that ash fall is coming straight at you.
MYERS: Can you taste it?
LINEAU: You know, if it's a tefra...
MYERS: Is it gritty?
LINEAU: If it's a tefra eruption and there's a lot of ash coming, you want to get upwind. You do not want to be downwind from that.
NGUYEN: Very interesting.
We're looking at some video of the documentary that you shot while up there. And in this particular scene, you're just trying to walk through the thick, thick ash. At one point you really didn't think you were going to survive this and you had what you called a religious experience.
What happened?
LINEAU: That's right. You know, all of our plans had failed and, you know, at one point we were staring at a little fire. I mean we took every strength -- all of our energy that we had to try to find any kind of firewood or anything to try to keep warm. So we were actually suffering from hypothermia. We were up at 5,500 elevation, it's freezing cold at night. You know, the threat of the mountain erupting and, you know, we're trying to gather up whatever pieces of wood we could find to just make a little fire.
And I remember staring at that fire and thinking, you know, we're not going to get out of here. And I heard this, the helicopters off in the distance. So I jumped up out of the shelter we were in, ran out to the edge of this ravine and looked down and there were helicopters about 2,000 feet below us.
NGUYEN: Thank goodness.
LINEAU: And they... NGUYEN: We are out of time, Michael.
I'm sorry to cut you off here, but what an experience.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
Michael Lineau, a Mount Saint Helens documentarian.
Thank you this morning.
We'll be right back.
You're watching DAYBREAK for Tuesday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired October 5, 2004 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning.
From the CNN Global Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Betty Nguyen in for Carol Costello.
Now in the news, it's the number two's turn tonight. Dick Cheney and John Edwards square off in Cleveland in their first and only vice presidential debate. How they do could take on added weight amid a presidential race that seems to be neck and neck.
Mount Saint Helens doesn't have much company this morning. Authorities have closed off an eight mile radius around the cranky volcano, which has been spewing steam and ash. Scientists warn a larger eruption could be in the works.
The Nobel Prize for physics was just announced a few minutes ago. Three Americans, David Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek were honored for their work with quarks. Quarks, of course, are the building blocks of matter. We all know that, right? The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday.
This is just a taste of what some people in Colorado saw bearing down on them. There were reports of almost a dozen tornadoes after a string of thunderstorms hit northeast of Denver. No reports of injury, though, good news. But a dozen tornadoes -- Chad.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, at least a dozen reports. Many of the reports were of the same tornado looking from different directions.
NGUYEN: Oh.
MYERS: So, actually, officially the Weather Service plotted three tornadoes on the map this morning. But with all those other reports, it just depends on what guy is looking from what direction and reports it to the Weather Service, right?
NGUYEN: Yes. But no injuries. Good news.
MYERS: Exactly. By the time you get out there in eastern Colorado, east of Denver, it is so flat, you can see tornadoes for tens of miles. So I'm sure a lot of folks were calling in, as well.
(WEATHER REPORT)
NGUYEN: Twenty-eight days to go before the national election and the two men vying for the number two spot are heading for a showdown. A battle is shaping up in the battleground state of Ohio. John Edwards has already arrived ahead of the vice presidential debate. Dick Cheney heads there this afternoon.
Who do you think will do a better job tonight? Well, a CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll asked more than 1,000 registered and likely voters and it seems they're about evenly split -- 42 percent picked Edwards, 40 percent Cheney; 15 percent just aren't sure. The poll has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Warming up, both Dick Cheney and John Edwards have done plenty of it ahead of their V.P. debate.
CNN's Joe Johns takes us to the debate practice.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Senator John Edwards spent the weekend cloistered at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, making only one brief appearance at a roadside country store.
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's going fine. We're working hard.
LOTHIAN: Away from the cameras, the Edwards campaign set up a room that they said looks a lot like the debate site, complete with cameras, with Washington lawyer Bob Barnett playing Vice President Dick Cheney, a role he took on in debate preparations in 2000.
EDWARDS: Polls go up and down, but I felt very good about John Kerry's performance Thursday night.
LOTHIAN: Edwards' chief goals for the debate, not to lose the momentum John Kerry appears to have picked up in the first presidential debate, to paint Kerry as steadfast and his opponents as favoring the rich over regular Americans.
Vice President Cheney spent the weekend at his home in Jackson, Wyoming, practicing in his own mockup of the debate setting with Ohio Congressman Rob Portman as his debate partner. Portman played Joe Lieberman in debate preparations four years ago.
Cheney's goal will be to try to focus on terrorism and September 11 while promoting President Bush as a steady leader in trying times.
(on camera): Vice presidential debates are usually considered sideshows, but with the race now deadlocked, this one qualifies as a main event. And as one Democratic strategist put it, the loser usually defeats himself.
Joe Johns, CNN, Chautauqua, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: And CNN is live in Cleveland as Dick Cheney and John Edwards square off for the second in command title. Anderson Cooper, Paula Zahn, Wolf Blitzer and CNN's election team kick off our prime time coverage tonight at 7:00 Eastern. And don't forget Friday the presidential candidates rev up around 2:00 in St. Louis, Missouri. CNN will have that for you live, as well.
Now to California and the Scott Peterson trial.
An expert on tides and currents testified the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn baby may have been dumped into the San Francisco Bay near where her husband said he went fishing. However, he admitted no one can be absolutely sure. The defense claims someone else killed Laci Peterson then framed his client.
Meanwhile, outside the courthouse, there was no doubt how some protesters feel about the trial. Look at these T-shirts. One man selling T-shirts labeled fantasy defense, while another group wore T- shirts showing Peterson with a noose around his neck.
We've heard weeks and weeks and weeks of prosecution witnesses in the murder trial of Scott Peterson. The prosecution is expected to wrap up its case soon, and then the defense gets its turn.
Legal analyst Kendall Coffey joins me on the phone from Miami to talk about the trial -- good morning to you, Kendall.
KENDALL COFFEY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Hey, good morning, Betty.
NGUYEN: Let's talk about that expert that they put on the trial talking about tides and currents. Yet that expert went on to say, "Most of the scientific information is based on assumptions."
So why put him on the stand?
COFFEY: A great question. I think it's going to prompt still more second guessing about some of the prosecution strategies. It was already readily apparent that the bodies were found in the general area where he had gone fishing that day, not really necessary to put on an expert to prove that up, Betty.
And, by the way, this expert seemed to put more question marks into the jury's mind. Couldn't reproduce the trajectory for Laci Peterson's body and how it washed up on the shore where it did. And so it seems like it just didn't have the level of certainty that the prosecution ought to be requiring before they put on any more witnesses at this late point in the trial.
NGUYEN: Yes, exactly. The testimony also focused on Scott Peterson's disguises and how he was trying to buy a Mercedes using his mother's name as his own name.
What does that prove?
COFFEY: Well, it shows, among other things, that this is a guy who just couldn't stop being devious, couldn't stop concealing things. That's all the essence of the prosecution's theory about how the murder was convicted. And at the same time, the prosecution is trying to get to a theory that toward the very end, as of April, this guy might have been getting ready to leave town, maybe leave the country.
NGUYEN: And we're looking at some video now of Scott Peterson as a blond. That was another thing that came up during yesterday's testimony, how he had died his hair. And the defense said, well, he went swimming in a friend's pool and his hair was bleached because of that. But the defense also says that, you know, he was just doing this to disguise himself from the media, because they were hounding him.
Is the jury really going to buy that?
COFFEY: I don't think they are. And one of the best things the prosecution has going for it is Scott Peterson himself. His alibi is filled with holes. And this kind of explanation is also pretty questionable. The reality is that there was evidence showing that Scott Peterson knew that unmarked cars were following him, unmarked cars not driven by tabloid reporters, but by police. And the jury is going to conclude that it's the police that Scott Peterson was trying to avoid.
NGUYEN: So with the prosecution wrapping up its case this Friday, it seems like most of the evidence if purely circumstantial.
How strong of a case do they have?
COFFEY: Well, 160 witnesses, really nothing that's anywhere close to the slam dunk promises that the prosecution made over a year ago.
I think where this jury is that instinctively they think this guy probably did it. But there are a lot of little doubts about the prosecution's evidence. And the big question is going to be, and it may come down to closing, Betty, whether those little doubts add up to a reasonable doubt.
NGUYEN: And that closing could take, what, another two to three months from now? They're saying that Peterson's defense, Geragos, may take that long to present his case.
COFFEY: We've heard that, but I would be surprised if it goes that long. I think they're going to focus on a couple of essential points -- the witnesses who saw Laci Peterson in the park the day that, according to the prosecution, she had already been murdered, and forensic evidence about time of death, because I think that's going to be the main things the defense wants to hammer home in their own case.
NGUYEN: All right, Kendall Coffey, always a pleasure.
Thank you this morning.
NGUYEN: Across America now, a missing Florida family has been found, though the good news isn't so good. Officials are working to recover the four bodies from the wreckage of their small plane. The Bomback family fled their home ahead of hurricane Ivan. But their plane fell off radar over Mississippi and disappeared. Crews had been searching parts of Mississippi for the past two weeks. A Maryland man is in jail after workers at his home found a huge amount of child pornography. Prosecutors seized enough videotapes and photographs to fill nearly two dozen boxes. Robert Medvee is facing 96 child pornography charges. The workers were fixing the house after it had been hit by a tornado spawned by hurricane Ivan.
Las Vegas police are backing off the hate crime label first given to a drive-by shooting last month at the home of Siegfried & Roy. Witnesses told police a man fired four shots and shouted that the two entertainers should get out of the country. Police say that wasn't enough to constitute a hate crime.
Pioneering astronaut Gordon Cooper has died of natural causes at his California home. Known affectionately as Gordo, Cooper was one of the first seven men chosen for America's space program. He was part of both the Mercury and Gemini programs and was the first man to orbit earth for more than 24 hours. Gordon Cooper was 77 years old.
And Janet Leigh may have been best known for her shower scene in "Psycho," but she made more than 50 other films. Leigh died Sunday at her Beverly Hills home. She was also 77 years old. Leigh appeared in other classic films, including "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Little Women." But Leigh said she could never again take a shower after seeing the final cut of "Psycho." I think a lot of people feel that way.
Well, still to come on DAYBREAK, your house in another neighborhood? Would it still cost the same? Coming up, America's housing disparity.
And from great heights to frightening lows, a survival story atop Mount Saint Helens from a man who was there the last time it erupted.
Later in the hour, pop royalty in a row. It's Sir Elton versus Ester. OK, we all still know her as Madonna.
But, first, though, here's a look at what else is making news this Tuesday morning.
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(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
NGUYEN: Are you in the market for a house? Looking for an affordable four bedroom home? You may have to move to Montana.
Carrie Lee has the story.
She's at the Nasdaq market site in Times Square.
Montana, huh?
CARRIE LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Montana is one of the cheapest places, Betty. We're talking about a new Coldwell Banker survey, the Home Price Comparison Index. And what they did is looked at 2,200, approximately 2,200 square feet homes, four bedroom, two car garage. And they found a lot of discrepancy, no surprise here, across the country in terms of price, differences of as much as $1.5 million.
Now, the most expensive market, LaHoya, California. The house there, on average, $1.7 million. California, in fact, claims seven of the top 10 most expensive markets, you can see here, followed by Beverly Hills, Santa Barbara, Palo Alto; also Greenwich, Connecticut rounding out the top five.
So where are the most affordable homes? Well, the cheapest in the country, Minot, North Dakota. The same house about $130,000. You can see Great Falls, Montana on there, along with Arlington, Billings and Killeen, Texas. So you can either have 13 of these homes in Minot, North Dakota or one in LaHoya, California. But still, the discrepancy very interesting. Of course, Betty, it depends on where you're working, what kind of income you have to justify the home price, I suppose. But certainly interesting for people.
The average home price across the country, this home, $354,000. And that's an 11.4 percent increase from 2003. So, on average, home prices are going up.
NGUYEN: Hey, I used to live in Arlington, Texas. Very affordable. You can get a nice home for your money there.
LEE: There you go. Better than Atlanta.
NGUYEN: True.
LEE: Certainly better than New York, Carol...
NGUYEN: No doubt.
LEE: ... where the average apartment costs a million dollars.
NGUYEN: Yikes!
LEE: Yes.
NGUYEN: All right, Carrie Lee, thank you.
Your news, money, weather and sports.
The time right now is 6:17 Eastern.
Here's what's all new this morning.
John Edwards and Dick Cheney square off tonight in the first and only vice presidential debate before the November election. CNN will have live coverage beginning at 7:00 Eastern and plenty more on the debate throughout DAYBREAK this hour.
A successful flight for Space Ship One. Check it out. The experimental craft managed its second trip into space in the past week, to claim the $10 million X Prize. The prize was offered to promote commercial space flight.
In money, country star Reba McEntire is joining Jennifer Lopez and the Olsen twins as celebrities with their own clothing lines. The Reba Collection, as it'll be called, is being developed by Dillard's Department Stores for sale in their 147 locations.
In culture, the government wants you to go digital. The FCC is launching a nationwide campaign to tout the advantages of digital television. Congress set a December 2006 deadline for all broadcasters to send a digital signal only. But consumers will need a high definition television to see those signals.
Now to sports. The Kansas City Chiefs finally won a game. Running back Priest Holmes rushed for 125 yards and two touchdowns, to lead the Chiefs to a 27-24 win over the Baltimore Ravens. Priest Holmes, former Longhorn.
MYERS: Look at that catch.
NGUYEN: Yes, check it out.
MYERS: Nicely done.
(WEATHER REPORT)
NGUYEN: How much longer until Mount Saint Helens erupts? Well, we are waiting to see when that happens. And coming up, a live report from Washington State. It may look like there's not much going on, but we'll tell you what's really simmering below the surface.
And I'll talk to a man who's been at the top of that mountain and didn't think he'd make it back down during the last eruption.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALTER UPDEGRAVE, SENIOR EDITOR, "MONEY": What you want to have is a portfolio that kind of makes sense. It's almost like putting together a baseball team or an orchestra, where you have different people playing different roles.
In this case, what you want is you want some stocks that will provide long-term growth and you want some bonds that will provide some income stability.
So the idea is to kind of put together this group of investments that sort of complement one another so that even though some of them may be individually risky, a growth mutual fund may jump around a lot, if it's bounced against a bond fund or a different type of stock fund, the portfolio overall won't be as jumpy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CAROLE KING: I feel the earth move under my feet. I feel the sky tumbling down...
NGUYEN: That's a very appropriate song.
Geologists don't think it'll be as catastrophic as what happened in 1980, but they are now saying Monday's pair of small eruptions at Mount Saint Helens were probably a precursor of a much larger explosion to come. And that has them a little worried this morning. They say it looks like magma is pushing up closer to the surface and no one's being allowed within an eight mile radius of the volcano.
CNN's Eric Philips joins us now from Mount Saint Helens with the latest there -- good morning to you, Eric.
ERIC PHILIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Betty, good morning to you.
Like you said, twice yesterday steam and ash billowed from the mouth of this volcano. And according to geologists, it was all just more of an opening act.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
PHILIPS (voice-over): The first burst yesterday came mid- morning, lasting 40 minutes and spewing steam and ash 1,600 feet above the mountain's top. A second smaller incident happened in the afternoon. Geologists say a significant eruption is still on the way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most likely scenario, in our view, is that we're going to have more growth of the lava dome. And that will be primarily, you know, eruptions of lava on the crater floor. But during that process there may be some explosions and some of those explosions may be relatively large.
PHILIPS: Even at times when it appears the mountain is interactive, there is still a lot going on inside. So-called harmonic tremors indicate that hot magma is moving and rising. A large glacier is slowly melting, resulting in the release of steam. And pressure is causing shifts in layers of rock inside the volcano.
Scientists use a variety of methods to monitor activity, including flyovers, a GPS system implanted inside the crater and microphones attached to the side of the mountain.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of those instruments are remaining stable. All our deformation right now is confined within the crater itself.
PHILIPS: Many volcano watchers are here hoping to see a big show.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's kind of interesting, though. We keep looking over. It's like oh, it's steaming, it's steaming. It's poofing, actually. So, yes, it's pretty interesting. I'm hoping it goes in the next hour or so.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
PHILIPS: The U.S. Geological Survey has maintained the level three alert status here. That is the highest level and it means they believe a larger eruption is imminent -- Betty.
NGUYEN: Of course, we'll be watching.
Eric Philips, thank you for that.
Our next guest knows what it's like to be on Mount Saint Helens during an eruption. Twenty-five years ago, Michael Lineau was a photographer taking the first on the ground pictures after the St. Helens eruption. He was trapped by a secondary eruption and for three days was missing and presumed dead.
Michael Lineau joins us now by phone from Boston to talk about that experience.
Good morning to you.
MICHAEL LINEAU, DOCUMENTARY FILM PRODUCER: Good morning.
NGUYEN: All right, so you're on the mountain and then a sheriff writes you a ticket for being there but won't get you out of the area.
What was that like?
LINEAU: Well, yes, I mean we were journalists going in there to film the after effects of the eruption and, you know, we were just planning to be in there for a few short hours. And, you know, because of many circumstances, not just sheriffs, but also we got disoriented, got lost and because of that we were forced to spend the night.
And then that night, Mount Saint Helens erupted in the second largest eruption. People heard the blast 200 miles away, but we didn't hear a thing. It shot right over our heads, hit the stratosphere, bounced off that. So people hundreds of miles away heard the booms from that and then for seven and a half hours it rained volcanic ash on us. And I remember thinking that this is it, we're going to be buried in ash, just like the people in Pompeii. And it became increasingly difficult to breathe and I prayed god would help me breathe.
Pretty soon it started raining and the rain mixed in with the ash and it cleared out the air so we could breathe then.
NGUYEN: And at one point your compasses weren't working because of the ash. You were basically wandering in circles.
Did you ever think you were going to get off of Mount Saint Helens?
LINEAU: It did seem like an eternity up there because, you know, we were used to seeing beautiful green forests just prior to the eruption and then, you know, after the eruption, all the trees lay flat and we didn't think we were going to get out of there.
You know, I was 20 years old then and when you're 20, you think you're going to live forever. And it was a very humbling experience.
MYERS: Michael, Chad Myers here.
I've got a question for you about this ash.
We always hear about the airplanes not being able to fly through it because it's gritty. But obviously from firsthand experience, what is it really like?
LINEAU: Well, you know, it's like somebody putting a blanket over your head. You know, it can be in the middle of the night, like we were, or in the middle of the day, when that ash cloud comes over you, it is pitch black and it is suffocating ash.
MYERS: But can you taste it?
LINEAU: So you don't want to be anywhere near -- you don't want to be anywhere near the mountain if that ash fall is coming straight at you.
MYERS: Can you taste it?
LINEAU: You know, if it's a tefra...
MYERS: Is it gritty?
LINEAU: If it's a tefra eruption and there's a lot of ash coming, you want to get upwind. You do not want to be downwind from that.
NGUYEN: Very interesting.
We're looking at some video of the documentary that you shot while up there. And in this particular scene, you're just trying to walk through the thick, thick ash. At one point you really didn't think you were going to survive this and you had what you called a religious experience.
What happened?
LINEAU: That's right. You know, all of our plans had failed and, you know, at one point we were staring at a little fire. I mean we took every strength -- all of our energy that we had to try to find any kind of firewood or anything to try to keep warm. So we were actually suffering from hypothermia. We were up at 5,500 elevation, it's freezing cold at night. You know, the threat of the mountain erupting and, you know, we're trying to gather up whatever pieces of wood we could find to just make a little fire.
And I remember staring at that fire and thinking, you know, we're not going to get out of here. And I heard this, the helicopters off in the distance. So I jumped up out of the shelter we were in, ran out to the edge of this ravine and looked down and there were helicopters about 2,000 feet below us.
NGUYEN: Thank goodness.
LINEAU: And they... NGUYEN: We are out of time, Michael.
I'm sorry to cut you off here, but what an experience.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
Michael Lineau, a Mount Saint Helens documentarian.
Thank you this morning.
We'll be right back.
You're watching DAYBREAK for Tuesday.
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