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American Morning

Search Heats Up for a Convicted Sex Offender; Robert Blake Acquitted in Shooting Death of His Wife

Aired March 17, 2005 - 07:00   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The search heats up for a convicted sex offender. Police want to talk to him about missing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford.
Looking stunned and relieved, actor Robert Blake acquitted in the shooting death of his wife, then talking candidly about what's next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT BLAKE, ACQUITTED OF MURDER: I'm going to get a job. I'm broke. Right now, I couldn't buy spats for a hummingbird.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: And he doesn't stop there.

Plus, Major League baseball and lawmakers in a steroids showdown, on this AMERICAN MORNING.

ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING, with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.

O'BRIEN: Good morning, welcome everybody. Bill Hemmer's got the day off.

Rob Marciano is helping us out this morning, filling in for bill.

Good morning. Nice to have you.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Happy to be here, Soledad. Thanks very much.

O'BRIEN: Thank you.

Well, actor Robert Blake, he certainly can deliver a soundbite. Did you hear a little bit about what he was saying yesterday, speaking after his acquittal. He's says he's off to find a 90-year-old Portuguese woman to play a little pool with. This might be why his attorney did not put him on the stand.

The members of the Blake jury join us as live morning, also our legal analyst, Jeff Toobin. He says he is shocked by the verdict. We're going to ask him why.

MARCIANO: Well, the Blake trial is just one of three high- profile cases in California. The Michael Jackson trial is at a critical moment. The judge is considering a prosecution request that's being called potentially explosive. We'll explain what that's all about.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Cafferty, good morning to you.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Hi. I'm filling in for Carol Costello today.

(LAUGHTER)

CAFFERTY: The Senate has voted to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's an emotional issue. We'll see how people feel about the vote as we move through the morning here.

O'BRIEN: Jack, thanks.

Florida police are searching for a convicted sex offender for questioning in the disappearance of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford. Forty-six-year-old John Couey is described as a person of interest. Authorities say he'd been living in a house near the Lunsfords. They don't know if he's involved in Jessica's disappearance.

Jessica Lunsford was reported missing on February 23rd from her home in Homosassa Springs, Florida. Jeff Dawsy is the sheriff for Citrus County in Florida.

Nice to see you, sheriff. Thanks for talking with us once again.

Let's talk about the convicted sex offender. Is there a specific reason, outside of that part of the criminal record, that you're searching for him, a specific link to Jessica Lunsford at this time?

JEFF DAWSY, CITRUS CO. SHERIFF: Well, Soledad, there's not a specific link, but we do believe when you put all of the pieces together, he raises some tremendous concerns for us, and that's the reason why we've made him a person of interest. The fact that he wasn't supposed to be at the residence, the fact that one of the relatives lied to us, the fact of his criminal record, him leaving under an alias, and that coupled with the fact that he knows he wants to speak with us, he's now avoiding us, really does raise some red flags. And we need to get to him, interview him so that we can either eliminate him from the investigation, or really make him a focal point of the investigation.

O'BRIEN: Did he or anyone in his family have any sort of known contact with Jessica in any way, through church or school or anything like that?

DAWSY: Well, we don't believe so. The only person that can really answer that is Jessica for us. The family members say no. But because of the proximity and it was really within eyesight of Jessica's home, that's really one of the other issues of concern.

O'BRIEN: Now, Jessica went missing on the 23rd. John Couey didn't leave town until the 28th, is that right? Why not nab him in that window, or at least sit down and talk to him extensively while he was still around?

DAWSY: I know the timeline's a little cloudy, but let me try to help you through it. On the 28th, we went to his residence, which was not in the immediate vicinity of Jessica's home. He was not there. We didn't know where he was. At that time, we had to wait 48 hours to make him an absconder. That's our law down here. On March 1st, we made him an absconder, because he didn't let us know he had changed residences.

It wasn't until a little bit after March 1st that we started getting some information he may have been living at this residence. Sometime that week, my investigators finally made contact with the residence, which was his sister. She lied to us. She told us that he was not staying there. We then had to get some further information, go back door, get another relative to say yes, he was, and then after we talked with her, the sister, again, she admitted yes, he was talking, he was staying there at the time of Jessica's disappearance.

O'BRIEN: On Saturday, authorities in Georgia interviewed John Couey. Why were they not able to apprehend him, or at least keep him for a longer questioning until you guys could get to talk to him at that time?

DAWSY: Well, you know, the issue here was we asked Savannah to locate him, which they did. At that particular time, after they talked with him, they called us, said they found him, they knew where he was staying, knew where he was working, let us know. When we started to respond up there, he was not at the place he was staying or his business. He quit the job. He left. He moved to another shelter. We had the FBI locate him. He left that morning, but we knew he was staying there that night. Our investigators responded up there. The weather was terrible. He was not working at that particular time because the weather would have stopped him from doing his employment. So he didn't return back. He knows we're looking for him. We believe he's still in that area, and with your help and the residents up there, we'll be able to locate him quickly.

O'BRIEN: Certainly hope so. That's sheriff Jeff Dawsy, joining us from the Citrus County, Florida sheriff's department. Thanks for your time, and again, looking for John Couey this morning -- Rob.

MARCIANO: Now to that stunning not-guilty verdict in the Robert Blake murder trial. Jurors say the evidence was flimsy, the witness unbelievable.

More now from CNN's Sibila Vargas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We the jury in the above-entitled action find the defendant, Robert Blake, not guilty of the crime of first- degree murder of Bonny Lee Bakley.

SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a moment of vindication from the tearful, and sometimes shaking,71-year-old actor who starred in the '70s TV show "Beretta." Outside the courthouse, he offered a sometimes rambling narrative of his freedom.

BLAKE: "Cowboying" is when you get in a motor home, or a van, or something, and you let the air blow in your hair, and you wind up in some little bar in Arizona someplace, and you shoot one-handed nine- ball with some 90-year-old Portuguese woman that beats the hell out of you, and the next day you wind up in a park someplace playing chess with somebody.

VARGAS: In May, 2001, Bonny Bakley was shot to death in a parked car after the two ate dinner at a favorite restaurant. Blake's alibi. He left his wife for only a moment because he forgot his gun back at the restaurant.

In the days following the murder, Bakley was portrayed as a gold- digger looking for a piece of Hollywood fame. Prosecutors said Blake hated his wife, because she'd tricked him into marriage, and would have done anything to keep Bakley away from their young daughter. But it was a case without an eyewitness, and jurors were unconvinced by the prosecution's arguments.

THOMAS NICHOLSON, JURY FOREMAN: The circumstantial evidence was flimsy. There was no blood on the clothing. There was nothing. Supposition more than evidence.

VARGAS: The jurors also acquitted Blake on one charge of trying to hire a former stuntman to kill Bakley. The judge dismissed a second charge of solicitation to murder when the jury deadlocked on a second stuntman's story.

NICHOLSON: Prolific liar.

SANDI GIBBONS, SPKS., L.A. D.A.: They weighed the evidence and the decision's been made.

VARGAS: Blake told reporters his defense had cost a fortune.

BLAKE: I'm going to get a job. I'm broke. Right now, I couldn't buy spats for a hummingbird. What did Johnny Carson -- Johnnie Cochran say? You're innocent until proven broke?

VARGAS: Much like O.J. Simpson, another celebrity acquitted of murdering his spouse, Blake still face as civil suit filed by the Bakley family, and possibly another day in court.

Sibila Vargas, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARCIANO: Now to our senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin for his take on the verdict. Let's try to separate the soundbites, albeit them entertaining, to the case. There was damning evidence. I mean, he had some gun residue on his hands.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: There was a lot of damning evidence. He had motive up the wazoo. That's a legal term. I mean, he obviously couldn't stand his wife. This was not a real marriage. He was the last person to see her alive. He was the first person to discover her body. He had gun residue on his hand. The defense had explanations for all that, but it was a pretty damning circumstantial case, I thought.

MARCIANO: So you're saying you're surprised by the verdict?

TOOBIN: I was stunned, stunned.

MARCIANO: And on top of that, you go along the cast of characters, I mean, this is like a bad Hollywood movie. We'll throw up a couple of them. Gary "The Whiz Kid" McClarty. Ronald Duffy Hamilton. That doesn't include the mafioso-type guy.

TOOBIN: Right, well, those two guys were the alleged, would-be hitmen. They testified that Blake asked them to kill his wife. Now, they were nuts. They had a lot of -- they had problems. They were drug users. But, you know, it's an awfully big coincidence, the two of them came up with exactly the same story of Blake asking them to kill her.

MARCIANO: Prosecutors kind of harassed them, kind of put them as bad characters, drug users, the whole nine yards, the whole nine yards. Was that a mistake?

TOOBIN: Well, I mean, they were. The prosecutors have to tell the truth about their witnesses. You have to tell the good with the bad. And they were unsavory characters. As you could hear from the jury, they didn't believe them. But you know, that's what they mean by circumstantial evidence. All these factors pointed to Blake trying to kill his wife, but the jury didn't buy it.

MARCIANO: What do the prosecutors do wrong? You're a top gun type of lawyer. What would you have done?

TOOBIN: You know what? It's very tough for me to say at this distance what they could have done differently. I think a terrific problem for them was it was four years between the crime and the trial. That's way too long. Cases never get better with age.

An interesting sort of side point here is that one of Blake's many lawyers along the way was Tom Mesereau, who is now representing Michael Jackson, and it was Mesereau who got Blake out on bail, and did really a very important service for him along the way.

MARCIANO: Do you think Bonny Lee Bakley's character, I mean, she had a bit of a shady past too, did that contribute to the verdict?

TOOBIN: I think enormously. The jury, you know, juries aren't supposed to consider the character of a murder victim in a murder case -- it's illegal to kill a bad person, just like it's illegal to kill a good person. But just as Laci Peterson was the perfect victim that every juror would want to identify with, Bonny Lee Bakley was distasteful in every way, and there was an element of -- in the defense of this was kind of a public-service homicide. So that was a factor, I think, in the verdict.

MARCIANO: Interesting and entertaining, and thanks for your analysis. Jeffrey Toobin, thanks very much.

Later on this morning, at 7:30 Eastern, we'll talk with members of the Robert Blake jury about their verdict.

Soledad, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Well, Scott Peterson, he's now on death row at San Quentin State Prison. A judge on Wednesday sentenced Peterson to die by lethal injection for killing his wife, Laci, and their unborn son. Most of the jurors who convicted him were in the courtroom, and so was Laci's family. Some say they wanted closure, others say they wanted affirmation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE BELMES-SIERI, PETERSON JUROR: We went in and saw last June an innocent man. We sat there, many of us -- I know I did -- saying what's this poor kid doing here. Well, we found out what he was doing there, didn't we?

RICHELLE NICE, PETERSON JUROR: Closure. We were in it for seven months. We wanted to see it through to the end.

RON GRANTSKI, LACI PETERSON'S STEPFATHER: Our family's going to make it. We're stronger because of this. And Scott got what he deserved. We're fortunate we have this law that we have. It's a double murder. He killed our grandson and our daughter. Every state should have it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Peterson is California's 640th -- '41st, rather, death row inmate.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, another trial, the Michael Jackson trial. The focus turns to explicit evidence that was found at Jackson's Neverland Ranch. We'll have more on that ahead.

MARCIANO: Also a stunning new development in the case of a little girl reported missing three years ago. Authorities say they have a shocking confession.

O'BRIEN: And Major League Baseball, it all heads to Congress. We'll look at that this morning.

Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARCIANO: The defense in the Michael Jackson molestation case is poking more holes in the prosecution's timeline of alleged sexual misconduct. At the same time, the next big battle in the case is already heating up.

CNN's Miguel Marquez reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael, do you feel that your privacy has been violated?

MICHAEL JACKSON, ENTERTAINER: Sorry, can't comment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He doesn't have any comment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No comment for Michael Jackson about pornography seized at his Neverland Ranch. His parents sat in the front row as explicit magazine and DVD covers were projected on to a large screen for the jury to see.

ANNE BREMNER, LEGAL ANALYST: The pornography, if it proved anything, proved Michael Jackson was a heterosexual.

MARQUEZ: Some of the titles, "Barely Legal," "Club" and "Penthouse." In its opening statement, the prosecution claimed Jackson used the material to lure his victims. But the accuser and his brother testified they only saw a small portion of the materials seized. They also say Jackson never gave it to them.

Another problem for the prosecution, some of the magazines and one DVD were published after the boy and his family left Neverland for good.

BREMNER: It came down to kind of a personal embarrassment for Michael Jackson for material a lot of people have in their homes. His parents are sitting in the front row. That's the way it could have played with the jury.

MARQUEZ: District attorney Tom Sneddon may be feeling confident about his case. He's requested a hearing next week to allow past allegations of sexual impropriety against Jackson to be heard in this case.

BREMNER: It's potentially explosive because it's pedophilia- pattern evidence, at least that's what they're saying. So it could be disastrous for the defense.

MARQUEZ: But the prosecution still has to win the argument its current case is strong enough to stand on its own. That evidence from past allegations doesn't outweigh the current charges.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Santa Maria, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE) MARCIANO: Defense attorneys are already objecting to next week's possible hearing about past claims of sexual misconduct. The defense has until tomorrow to write out their objections and then give them to the judge.

O'BRIEN: A hole in Teddy Bruschi's heart reportedly may explain why the New England Patriot had a stroke back in February. Tucson station KOLD reporting that Bruschi is scheduled to undergo a procedure to try to repair the hole. Neither Bruschi's family, nor the Patriots, would provide any details on his condition. Doctors say, though, that this type of hole is a common explanation for strokes in young people. Bruschi was a key member of that defense that helped the Patriots win three of the past four Super Bowls. We wish him the best with that recovery.

Up, up and away this morning -- oil prices skyrocketing into record territory. Could prices at the pump be far behind? Andy's "Minding Your Business," up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARCIANO: Well, crude oil prices are surging to new heights. Are gas prices far behind? Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" this morning.

Good morning, Andy.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: The answer that, Rob, is absolutely not, they are not far behind. And in fact, gas prices are surging along with oil prices. We're touching $2.05 as a national affirm for a price of a gallon of gasoline. That's matching last May's record high. No question it's going to keep on going. There's the price of oil, up around $56.46 yesterday, a new record high. And in fact, this morning, it's at $57.46, another record, up 50 percent over the past year, 60 dollars for a barrel of oil is certainly on the horizon I would say. Gasoline tends to lag oil price by several weeks. This even though OPEC decided to increase production. It didn't have an affect at all.

Now, the collateral damage. We've talked about how it ripples through the economy. Heating oil at $2.09 a gallon. That is a record high, and up 40 cents from a year ago, and they're already talking about next winter. If you can imagine that, even as this winter is winding down.

If you want to take a look at a shocking picture, check this out from Malibu -- $3 a gallon. That's right. Look at that. And of course, California has high prices, but that's for premium too, but not far behind. Farmers, retailers, truckers all in jeopardy here with higher prices as well. SUV sales down 2 percent. Compact cars up 2 percent, the latest numbers there. And Jack Cafferty's been talking about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and it's not a coincidence, Jack, that I think that that is an issue with high oil prices right now.

O'BRIEN: Well, thank you, Andy, because that is a perfect segue. MARCIANO: Thanks for making the segue easy.

CAFFERTY: The Senate yesterday voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 19 million acres to energy exploration. The proposal's attached as a provision of next year's budget that hasn't passed yet. So approval of the drilling provision depends upon passing the budget. Supporter think drilling in the Wildlife Refuge is a matter of national security, critical to reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Opponents argue drilling there will damage the ecologically fragile coastal plain, which is home to over 45 different kinds of land and marine mammals, and 180 species of birds.

The question is this, should Congress allow oil drilling in the Alaska Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? The e-mail address is am@CNN.com.

O'BRIEN: It's very close. It's very tight there. And we'll see, as you mentioned, it's attached to the budget, so we'll see if that goes through in the end anyway.

MARCIANO: It's been going on for a while. I mean, Jimmy Carter kind of compromised this back in the '70s, so it's nothing new.

CAFFERTY: Twenty years they've been trying to sink a drill bit in that ground.

SERWER: Well, with prices of oil where they are today, it becomes critical all of a sudden, doesn't it?

MARCIANO: And political.

SERWER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right, thanks, Jack.

Some of baseball's biggest stars are going to head to Capitol Hill. Lawmakers are going to try to get to the bottom of who's on steroids and what the league plans to do about it.

Plus, jurors find Robert Blake not guilty of murder, but do they think he's innocent? Four of the jurors join us live to explain, up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired March 17, 2005 - 07:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The search heats up for a convicted sex offender. Police want to talk to him about missing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford.
Looking stunned and relieved, actor Robert Blake acquitted in the shooting death of his wife, then talking candidly about what's next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT BLAKE, ACQUITTED OF MURDER: I'm going to get a job. I'm broke. Right now, I couldn't buy spats for a hummingbird.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: And he doesn't stop there.

Plus, Major League baseball and lawmakers in a steroids showdown, on this AMERICAN MORNING.

ANNOUNCER: From the CNN broadcast center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING, with Soledad O'Brien and Bill Hemmer.

O'BRIEN: Good morning, welcome everybody. Bill Hemmer's got the day off.

Rob Marciano is helping us out this morning, filling in for bill.

Good morning. Nice to have you.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Happy to be here, Soledad. Thanks very much.

O'BRIEN: Thank you.

Well, actor Robert Blake, he certainly can deliver a soundbite. Did you hear a little bit about what he was saying yesterday, speaking after his acquittal. He's says he's off to find a 90-year-old Portuguese woman to play a little pool with. This might be why his attorney did not put him on the stand.

The members of the Blake jury join us as live morning, also our legal analyst, Jeff Toobin. He says he is shocked by the verdict. We're going to ask him why.

MARCIANO: Well, the Blake trial is just one of three high- profile cases in California. The Michael Jackson trial is at a critical moment. The judge is considering a prosecution request that's being called potentially explosive. We'll explain what that's all about.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Cafferty, good morning to you.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Hi. I'm filling in for Carol Costello today.

(LAUGHTER)

CAFFERTY: The Senate has voted to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It's an emotional issue. We'll see how people feel about the vote as we move through the morning here.

O'BRIEN: Jack, thanks.

Florida police are searching for a convicted sex offender for questioning in the disappearance of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford. Forty-six-year-old John Couey is described as a person of interest. Authorities say he'd been living in a house near the Lunsfords. They don't know if he's involved in Jessica's disappearance.

Jessica Lunsford was reported missing on February 23rd from her home in Homosassa Springs, Florida. Jeff Dawsy is the sheriff for Citrus County in Florida.

Nice to see you, sheriff. Thanks for talking with us once again.

Let's talk about the convicted sex offender. Is there a specific reason, outside of that part of the criminal record, that you're searching for him, a specific link to Jessica Lunsford at this time?

JEFF DAWSY, CITRUS CO. SHERIFF: Well, Soledad, there's not a specific link, but we do believe when you put all of the pieces together, he raises some tremendous concerns for us, and that's the reason why we've made him a person of interest. The fact that he wasn't supposed to be at the residence, the fact that one of the relatives lied to us, the fact of his criminal record, him leaving under an alias, and that coupled with the fact that he knows he wants to speak with us, he's now avoiding us, really does raise some red flags. And we need to get to him, interview him so that we can either eliminate him from the investigation, or really make him a focal point of the investigation.

O'BRIEN: Did he or anyone in his family have any sort of known contact with Jessica in any way, through church or school or anything like that?

DAWSY: Well, we don't believe so. The only person that can really answer that is Jessica for us. The family members say no. But because of the proximity and it was really within eyesight of Jessica's home, that's really one of the other issues of concern.

O'BRIEN: Now, Jessica went missing on the 23rd. John Couey didn't leave town until the 28th, is that right? Why not nab him in that window, or at least sit down and talk to him extensively while he was still around?

DAWSY: I know the timeline's a little cloudy, but let me try to help you through it. On the 28th, we went to his residence, which was not in the immediate vicinity of Jessica's home. He was not there. We didn't know where he was. At that time, we had to wait 48 hours to make him an absconder. That's our law down here. On March 1st, we made him an absconder, because he didn't let us know he had changed residences.

It wasn't until a little bit after March 1st that we started getting some information he may have been living at this residence. Sometime that week, my investigators finally made contact with the residence, which was his sister. She lied to us. She told us that he was not staying there. We then had to get some further information, go back door, get another relative to say yes, he was, and then after we talked with her, the sister, again, she admitted yes, he was talking, he was staying there at the time of Jessica's disappearance.

O'BRIEN: On Saturday, authorities in Georgia interviewed John Couey. Why were they not able to apprehend him, or at least keep him for a longer questioning until you guys could get to talk to him at that time?

DAWSY: Well, you know, the issue here was we asked Savannah to locate him, which they did. At that particular time, after they talked with him, they called us, said they found him, they knew where he was staying, knew where he was working, let us know. When we started to respond up there, he was not at the place he was staying or his business. He quit the job. He left. He moved to another shelter. We had the FBI locate him. He left that morning, but we knew he was staying there that night. Our investigators responded up there. The weather was terrible. He was not working at that particular time because the weather would have stopped him from doing his employment. So he didn't return back. He knows we're looking for him. We believe he's still in that area, and with your help and the residents up there, we'll be able to locate him quickly.

O'BRIEN: Certainly hope so. That's sheriff Jeff Dawsy, joining us from the Citrus County, Florida sheriff's department. Thanks for your time, and again, looking for John Couey this morning -- Rob.

MARCIANO: Now to that stunning not-guilty verdict in the Robert Blake murder trial. Jurors say the evidence was flimsy, the witness unbelievable.

More now from CNN's Sibila Vargas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We the jury in the above-entitled action find the defendant, Robert Blake, not guilty of the crime of first- degree murder of Bonny Lee Bakley.

SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a moment of vindication from the tearful, and sometimes shaking,71-year-old actor who starred in the '70s TV show "Beretta." Outside the courthouse, he offered a sometimes rambling narrative of his freedom.

BLAKE: "Cowboying" is when you get in a motor home, or a van, or something, and you let the air blow in your hair, and you wind up in some little bar in Arizona someplace, and you shoot one-handed nine- ball with some 90-year-old Portuguese woman that beats the hell out of you, and the next day you wind up in a park someplace playing chess with somebody.

VARGAS: In May, 2001, Bonny Bakley was shot to death in a parked car after the two ate dinner at a favorite restaurant. Blake's alibi. He left his wife for only a moment because he forgot his gun back at the restaurant.

In the days following the murder, Bakley was portrayed as a gold- digger looking for a piece of Hollywood fame. Prosecutors said Blake hated his wife, because she'd tricked him into marriage, and would have done anything to keep Bakley away from their young daughter. But it was a case without an eyewitness, and jurors were unconvinced by the prosecution's arguments.

THOMAS NICHOLSON, JURY FOREMAN: The circumstantial evidence was flimsy. There was no blood on the clothing. There was nothing. Supposition more than evidence.

VARGAS: The jurors also acquitted Blake on one charge of trying to hire a former stuntman to kill Bakley. The judge dismissed a second charge of solicitation to murder when the jury deadlocked on a second stuntman's story.

NICHOLSON: Prolific liar.

SANDI GIBBONS, SPKS., L.A. D.A.: They weighed the evidence and the decision's been made.

VARGAS: Blake told reporters his defense had cost a fortune.

BLAKE: I'm going to get a job. I'm broke. Right now, I couldn't buy spats for a hummingbird. What did Johnny Carson -- Johnnie Cochran say? You're innocent until proven broke?

VARGAS: Much like O.J. Simpson, another celebrity acquitted of murdering his spouse, Blake still face as civil suit filed by the Bakley family, and possibly another day in court.

Sibila Vargas, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARCIANO: Now to our senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin for his take on the verdict. Let's try to separate the soundbites, albeit them entertaining, to the case. There was damning evidence. I mean, he had some gun residue on his hands.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: There was a lot of damning evidence. He had motive up the wazoo. That's a legal term. I mean, he obviously couldn't stand his wife. This was not a real marriage. He was the last person to see her alive. He was the first person to discover her body. He had gun residue on his hand. The defense had explanations for all that, but it was a pretty damning circumstantial case, I thought.

MARCIANO: So you're saying you're surprised by the verdict?

TOOBIN: I was stunned, stunned.

MARCIANO: And on top of that, you go along the cast of characters, I mean, this is like a bad Hollywood movie. We'll throw up a couple of them. Gary "The Whiz Kid" McClarty. Ronald Duffy Hamilton. That doesn't include the mafioso-type guy.

TOOBIN: Right, well, those two guys were the alleged, would-be hitmen. They testified that Blake asked them to kill his wife. Now, they were nuts. They had a lot of -- they had problems. They were drug users. But, you know, it's an awfully big coincidence, the two of them came up with exactly the same story of Blake asking them to kill her.

MARCIANO: Prosecutors kind of harassed them, kind of put them as bad characters, drug users, the whole nine yards, the whole nine yards. Was that a mistake?

TOOBIN: Well, I mean, they were. The prosecutors have to tell the truth about their witnesses. You have to tell the good with the bad. And they were unsavory characters. As you could hear from the jury, they didn't believe them. But you know, that's what they mean by circumstantial evidence. All these factors pointed to Blake trying to kill his wife, but the jury didn't buy it.

MARCIANO: What do the prosecutors do wrong? You're a top gun type of lawyer. What would you have done?

TOOBIN: You know what? It's very tough for me to say at this distance what they could have done differently. I think a terrific problem for them was it was four years between the crime and the trial. That's way too long. Cases never get better with age.

An interesting sort of side point here is that one of Blake's many lawyers along the way was Tom Mesereau, who is now representing Michael Jackson, and it was Mesereau who got Blake out on bail, and did really a very important service for him along the way.

MARCIANO: Do you think Bonny Lee Bakley's character, I mean, she had a bit of a shady past too, did that contribute to the verdict?

TOOBIN: I think enormously. The jury, you know, juries aren't supposed to consider the character of a murder victim in a murder case -- it's illegal to kill a bad person, just like it's illegal to kill a good person. But just as Laci Peterson was the perfect victim that every juror would want to identify with, Bonny Lee Bakley was distasteful in every way, and there was an element of -- in the defense of this was kind of a public-service homicide. So that was a factor, I think, in the verdict.

MARCIANO: Interesting and entertaining, and thanks for your analysis. Jeffrey Toobin, thanks very much.

Later on this morning, at 7:30 Eastern, we'll talk with members of the Robert Blake jury about their verdict.

Soledad, back to you.

O'BRIEN: Well, Scott Peterson, he's now on death row at San Quentin State Prison. A judge on Wednesday sentenced Peterson to die by lethal injection for killing his wife, Laci, and their unborn son. Most of the jurors who convicted him were in the courtroom, and so was Laci's family. Some say they wanted closure, others say they wanted affirmation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE BELMES-SIERI, PETERSON JUROR: We went in and saw last June an innocent man. We sat there, many of us -- I know I did -- saying what's this poor kid doing here. Well, we found out what he was doing there, didn't we?

RICHELLE NICE, PETERSON JUROR: Closure. We were in it for seven months. We wanted to see it through to the end.

RON GRANTSKI, LACI PETERSON'S STEPFATHER: Our family's going to make it. We're stronger because of this. And Scott got what he deserved. We're fortunate we have this law that we have. It's a double murder. He killed our grandson and our daughter. Every state should have it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Peterson is California's 640th -- '41st, rather, death row inmate.

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, another trial, the Michael Jackson trial. The focus turns to explicit evidence that was found at Jackson's Neverland Ranch. We'll have more on that ahead.

MARCIANO: Also a stunning new development in the case of a little girl reported missing three years ago. Authorities say they have a shocking confession.

O'BRIEN: And Major League Baseball, it all heads to Congress. We'll look at that this morning.

Stay with us. You're watching AMERICAN MORNING. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARCIANO: The defense in the Michael Jackson molestation case is poking more holes in the prosecution's timeline of alleged sexual misconduct. At the same time, the next big battle in the case is already heating up.

CNN's Miguel Marquez reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael, do you feel that your privacy has been violated?

MICHAEL JACKSON, ENTERTAINER: Sorry, can't comment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He doesn't have any comment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No comment for Michael Jackson about pornography seized at his Neverland Ranch. His parents sat in the front row as explicit magazine and DVD covers were projected on to a large screen for the jury to see.

ANNE BREMNER, LEGAL ANALYST: The pornography, if it proved anything, proved Michael Jackson was a heterosexual.

MARQUEZ: Some of the titles, "Barely Legal," "Club" and "Penthouse." In its opening statement, the prosecution claimed Jackson used the material to lure his victims. But the accuser and his brother testified they only saw a small portion of the materials seized. They also say Jackson never gave it to them.

Another problem for the prosecution, some of the magazines and one DVD were published after the boy and his family left Neverland for good.

BREMNER: It came down to kind of a personal embarrassment for Michael Jackson for material a lot of people have in their homes. His parents are sitting in the front row. That's the way it could have played with the jury.

MARQUEZ: District attorney Tom Sneddon may be feeling confident about his case. He's requested a hearing next week to allow past allegations of sexual impropriety against Jackson to be heard in this case.

BREMNER: It's potentially explosive because it's pedophilia- pattern evidence, at least that's what they're saying. So it could be disastrous for the defense.

MARQUEZ: But the prosecution still has to win the argument its current case is strong enough to stand on its own. That evidence from past allegations doesn't outweigh the current charges.

Miguel Marquez, CNN, Santa Maria, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE) MARCIANO: Defense attorneys are already objecting to next week's possible hearing about past claims of sexual misconduct. The defense has until tomorrow to write out their objections and then give them to the judge.

O'BRIEN: A hole in Teddy Bruschi's heart reportedly may explain why the New England Patriot had a stroke back in February. Tucson station KOLD reporting that Bruschi is scheduled to undergo a procedure to try to repair the hole. Neither Bruschi's family, nor the Patriots, would provide any details on his condition. Doctors say, though, that this type of hole is a common explanation for strokes in young people. Bruschi was a key member of that defense that helped the Patriots win three of the past four Super Bowls. We wish him the best with that recovery.

Up, up and away this morning -- oil prices skyrocketing into record territory. Could prices at the pump be far behind? Andy's "Minding Your Business," up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

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MARCIANO: Well, crude oil prices are surging to new heights. Are gas prices far behind? Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business" this morning.

Good morning, Andy.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: The answer that, Rob, is absolutely not, they are not far behind. And in fact, gas prices are surging along with oil prices. We're touching $2.05 as a national affirm for a price of a gallon of gasoline. That's matching last May's record high. No question it's going to keep on going. There's the price of oil, up around $56.46 yesterday, a new record high. And in fact, this morning, it's at $57.46, another record, up 50 percent over the past year, 60 dollars for a barrel of oil is certainly on the horizon I would say. Gasoline tends to lag oil price by several weeks. This even though OPEC decided to increase production. It didn't have an affect at all.

Now, the collateral damage. We've talked about how it ripples through the economy. Heating oil at $2.09 a gallon. That is a record high, and up 40 cents from a year ago, and they're already talking about next winter. If you can imagine that, even as this winter is winding down.

If you want to take a look at a shocking picture, check this out from Malibu -- $3 a gallon. That's right. Look at that. And of course, California has high prices, but that's for premium too, but not far behind. Farmers, retailers, truckers all in jeopardy here with higher prices as well. SUV sales down 2 percent. Compact cars up 2 percent, the latest numbers there. And Jack Cafferty's been talking about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and it's not a coincidence, Jack, that I think that that is an issue with high oil prices right now.

O'BRIEN: Well, thank you, Andy, because that is a perfect segue. MARCIANO: Thanks for making the segue easy.

CAFFERTY: The Senate yesterday voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 19 million acres to energy exploration. The proposal's attached as a provision of next year's budget that hasn't passed yet. So approval of the drilling provision depends upon passing the budget. Supporter think drilling in the Wildlife Refuge is a matter of national security, critical to reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Opponents argue drilling there will damage the ecologically fragile coastal plain, which is home to over 45 different kinds of land and marine mammals, and 180 species of birds.

The question is this, should Congress allow oil drilling in the Alaska Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? The e-mail address is am@CNN.com.

O'BRIEN: It's very close. It's very tight there. And we'll see, as you mentioned, it's attached to the budget, so we'll see if that goes through in the end anyway.

MARCIANO: It's been going on for a while. I mean, Jimmy Carter kind of compromised this back in the '70s, so it's nothing new.

CAFFERTY: Twenty years they've been trying to sink a drill bit in that ground.

SERWER: Well, with prices of oil where they are today, it becomes critical all of a sudden, doesn't it?

MARCIANO: And political.

SERWER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: All right, thanks, Jack.

Some of baseball's biggest stars are going to head to Capitol Hill. Lawmakers are going to try to get to the bottom of who's on steroids and what the league plans to do about it.

Plus, jurors find Robert Blake not guilty of murder, but do they think he's innocent? Four of the jurors join us live to explain, up next on AMERICAN MORNING.

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