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Boston Bombing Investigation Continues; FBI Searching for New Ricin Suspect

Aired April 24, 2013 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to continuing coverage. Good to see you, I'm Brooke Baldwin live here in Boston for CNN's special coverage of the investigation into the Boston terror attack.

Several developments today I want to tell you about. First of all, CNN has new information at this hour as far as what kind of life this older brother was leading before last Monday's bombings.

What we know right now is right up until last year Tamerlan Tsarnaev was receiving taxpayer funded state welfare all the while his wife was reportedly working up to 60 hours a week. Also today, outrage, it is growing among the families of those wounded here in Boston now demanding that a terror suspect be moved from the same hospital where his alleged victims are recovering.

They want him out of there. We are also learning today what the brothers may have been planning to do after the Boston bombings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAYMOND KELLY, NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: They may have been intent on coming to New York, but not to continue what they were doing. The information that we received said something about a party or having a party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But today is really about this man, remembering one of these alleged victims here at a memorial for MIT campus police officer Sean Collier, such a touching ceremony as we were all watching here on CNN.

Police say officer Collier was assassinated in cold blood, shot by one of the bombers while he was sitting in his patrol car. Also today, Boylston Street, a block from where we are here in Copley Square, the site of the bombing, reopened after workers spent the night cementing and scrubbing and removing the last traces of this act of terror.

In fact, just moments ago, Dr. Jill Biden visited the memorial site. We will have that video for you in just a moment. I spent my whole morning there. It's quite touching. But today we have been getting exclusive insight on what motivated these Boston bombing suspects from those who know them best, members of their own family. Wolf Blitzer talked exclusively to one man. This is a former brother-in-law of these two suspects. He was married at one point in time to a sister of these two men implicated in the bombings here in Boston. And he talked to Wolf about the man who some say influenced, other words people are using brainwashed the younger brother here, a man simply known as Misha.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELMIRZA KHOZHUGOV, SUSPECTS' FORMER BROTHER-IN-LAW: I met Misha. Tamerlan introduced me to him.

Well, it seemed to me that he, Misha, had influence on Tamerlan. Surely did have influence and did teach him things that would make Tamerlan, you know, go away from the people and go more into the religion.

And maybe, maybe that's possible that he suggested to him some radical ideas, but I wouldn't say that -- I mean, I didn't witness him making him radical or you know, I didn't witness him say things to this.

I just know that Tamerlan told me that he quit boxing and music because Misha was, you know, teaching him that it's not good in Islam to do those things.

I didn't suspect either him or Tamerlan being connected to terror groups or terror -- having terrorist ideas. But I know that they had a lot of conversations about just, you know, Islam and how Islam is being attacked from the outside, you know, from the Western countries and how Islam is under pressure.

But I never heard them speak of doing -- having terrorist attack ideas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So that was his former brother-in-law talking to Wolf earlier this morning, a lot of questions about this person, Misha, and his possible influence on this older brother, Tamerlan, and then his possible influence on his younger brother, Dzhokhar.

We're digging for more clues here. As you heard, former brother- in-law says Tamerlan and Misha talked a lot about pressures from Islam from Western countries.

And Brian Todd has been with me the last week-and-a-half in Boston.

And this is the angle you have been digging on today. Who is Misha? Does Misha exist?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's a very good, two very good questions, Brooke. Does he exist?

We believe he does exist because we have got that hard indication from the brother-in-law that he met him, that he was introduced to him by Tamerlan Tsarnaev maybe a couple of years back, that he witnessed, you know, kind of how he was speaking to him.

Also, we have to add to this, the uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the two suspects, has described him as an Armenian, a recent convert to Islam. That's unusual because most Armenians are Christian. So, we do have these kind of descriptions coming together of this person coming. We have taken all the descriptions, we have cross-referenced them on the Internet with Nexus and on social media with the name Misha.

And I have to tell you, Brooke, there is a name that pops up.

BALDWIN: Oh, yes?

TODD: Yes. And we now know it may be a common name shared possibly by two people. But we're not reporting that name. We have searched for that person all over the Boston area today.

We have searched e-mails, e-mailed the person, called. And also I have got to about four or five addresses today matching it.

BALDWIN: So far nothing?

TODD: We cannot find him. So, we're not reporting the name. But there is a common name that comes up.

And also, I need to tell you that I have asked officials at the mosque that the two brothers attended. I asked them today and yesterday, does anybody fitting this description -- is anybody fitting this description a member of your congregation?

BALDWIN: What have they said?

TODD: Have you heard of him?

Nothing.

BALDWIN: Nothing?

TODD: We have not heard of him, we don't know anybody who is even like him. We don't know a Misha. That's what they're telling us.

But what they did tell is, hey, right-wing looking for him too. We want to find him too.

BALDWIN: I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are.

TODD: There's a lot of interest in this person. What we don't know...

BALDWIN: Or it could be persons.

TODD: Well, we think there's a common name that maybe the person has, that maybe two people have. But...

BALDWIN: What about this? I know you have been doing a lot with this mosque, specifically in Cambridge. And just being around town and talking to a lot of Bostonians, one of the questions that's sort of topical right now is what are they going to do with the body of this older suspect because it's been floated per the family, per reporting that he could be buried here in Boston.

And I'll tell you, the responses I have heard from Bostonians are words I can't use on television. What do you know about that?

TODD: Well, we have asked the people at the mosque this as well. This was the Mosque that they attended, the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge.

First of all, I have asked them, have you been contacted by the family? They're checking the backlog of e-mails and phone messages. To their knowledge at this point they have not been contacted by the family. But I said, if they do, will you do it? And they said, yes, they will.

They say it's our obligation to do it. We don't have any excommunication in the Muslim faith. They have to do it. But they did say this. It'll probably be a layperson doing it because the top imams of the mosque are not comfortable doing that funeral.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: They say no. Brian Todd, let us know any further. I know a lot of people in Boston want to know where his body is going.

Brian, thank you very much.

A huge step forward today in Boston's effort to return to normal. And really I say normal as a loose, loose word. Today, really a catharsis, it's a tough day here as well. Boylston Street, you're looking at pictures. This has been cordoned off. This has been a crime scene. It's now open after devastation just down the way nine days ago.

Workers -- I walked it myself. You could see workers out there relaying concrete. They're fixing some of the shattered glass in some of the store windows and the restaurants that were just bombed out because of those two explosions. Preparing to reopen. You see the sign, Boston strong, that's in that Marathon Sports store, where it just so happens they sell running shoes here. For the first time since people have been in Boston, they're leaving really these amazingly touching messages.

There's this makeshift memorial of the victims of last week's bomb blast just over my shoulder.

And that is where Deborah Feyerick is in the thick of things, in the heart of Back Bay now, where we're finally seeing traffic, right, for the first time in a week-and-a-half.

Deborah, it's so touching reading some of the notes for all of these memorials.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It really is.

And when I first got there, it was a little bit overwhelming. It was very emotional to see all the tributes people left behind. Where we are, Brooke, is we are at the scene of the first blast. We are just by the finish line. And you can see people have left flowers, somebody left their medal from the Boston Marathon, a T-shirt that says life is nuts.

The overriding message is that people are leaving is, we will not forget, you will be remembered, we are together with you.

I just -- Bob, if you can show this, over here, you can see sort of patches that have been replaced (AUDIO GAP) to search for evidence. That is to believed to be the exact location of where the bomb was placed. You can see over here, you have got some of the storms that were here, the one, Brooke, that you mentioned. Again, evidence of all the forensic teams that were here.

And I want to speak to David Sapers. And I'm going to bring him in right now.

You are the owner of Sugary Heaven. And you saw -- you have seen everything that happened. And a lot of people ran into your store just behind to get help. Describe what you saw.

DAVID SAPERS, OWNER, SUGARY HEAVEN: Well, basically after the smoke, you know, encompassed the whole area, my G.M. pushed all the staff and the customers out of the store. It was about 40 or 50 customers at the time.

And then a woman who was full of blood came into the store, passed out on the floor and people actually came in and helped her. And then at that point, you know, it was just pretty much mayhem around.

FEYERICK: The store has been closed now for a full week. Here you are right outside where the first blast took place.

How is it going to be for you to sort of get back to business?

And every time you walk out that door, you're going to see where tat bomb went off.

SAPERS: It's true.

Well, first of all, we're hoping to open tomorrow. It's been a pretty tough week for our employees. It's been a tough week for our, you know, our merchandise. All our -- 80 percent of our chocolate melted, and there's a lot of things that we had to encompass to get open tomorrow.

But I hope that in time this will be something that we can remember and next year the marathon will be a very exciting moment for everybody. And we will see what happens. I think that Boston is a tough city and we will be rejuvenated and get ready to go starting this week.

FEYERICK: Your employees, obviously some of them witnessed it directly. How are they doing emotionally?

SAPERS: Most of them are doing OK. Some employees, I'm not sure they will come back to work, we just don't know. But right now, you know, I have about seven employees in the store right now. We're restocking. Another three come in tonight.

And hopefully they feel comfortable enough. You don't know what's going to happen. Once people come in the store and people remember what happens, you know, we don't know. But the mayor's office came in this morning and they brought a woman who specializes in talking to people with whatever anxieties they have from this whole event. She can sit down with them and she can help them and talk to them, and maybe get them help outside of our realm.

FEYERICK: So, the city is doing some outreach is what you're saying?

SAPERS: That's correct.

FEYERICK: All right. David Sapers, thank you very much. Did you ever find out what happened to that woman?

SAPERS: We looked and we haven't been able to get in touch with her.

FEYERICK: OK, all right, thank you so much.

David Sapers is one of the business owners that's going to figure out a way to get things back on track. Brooke, we can tell you, you see all these people and they are -- there's a fascination just coming to see sort of where everything happened. And it's hard to know exactly why people come, but the need to leave something.

We saw Jill Biden who was at a memorial just down that way at Copley Square. She came probably within the last hour and she left a pair of sneakers and on the sneakers it said Boston strong, love Jill Biden. She was there. And again when you do see it, you are -- it's emotional. It's very, very emotional, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I'll tell you -- maybe this isn't professional to admit, but having been here with you and everyone else for a week-and- a-half, just walking around right where you're standing, it's tough. You used the word fascination. I think it's more -- it seems a lot of people, Bostonians -- even -- I talked to a woman who just got her medal today for running the marathon.

And she said it almost didn't seem real. You know, like they watched it and they watched all of us here in Boston covering this horrendous event that happened nine days ago. But they just wanted to see it with their own eyes and to pay their own respects. And, Deb, since I have you and this is just live television, tell me if there are any scribblings, any messages right there on the memorials that you and Bob were showing. And if so, I would love to just hear you read some of them live on air.

FEYERICK: Yes, definitely.

And this one's really -- this is much smaller than the one over at Copley Square. But a Chinese man came. He left a flag. This one said Boston friends, we're praying. (AUDIO GAP) Love you. (AUDIO GAP) left a drawing. Again, numbers from the marathon. And that's -- you wonder why they give up that medal, why they want to sort of (AUDIO GAP)

BALDWIN: All right. Deb Feyerick, we're going to pull away from Deb. Deb Feyerick, I'm sorry, I'm going to pull away from you. Looks like our shot's going out. But I promise, we're going to come back to Deborah, because it's just important. I think it's important for us to read the messages that have been, you know, scribbled from people. I saw kids writing messages, messages in different languages from all around the world just to pay their respects as Boston continues to heal.

We will take you back to the memorial site. But coming up next, an interview you don't want to miss. American investigators traveled to Russia to talk to the suspects' parents. So, we're asking an interrogation expert, what happened behind closed doors? His expertise here, let me tell you, it's fascinating.

Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back, live here in Boston. As the evidence mounts against their sons, the parents of the suspected Boston bombers stand firm insisting they were framed. I want you to listen to the mother here of these two suspects. This is her on the phone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZUBEIDAT TSARNAEVA, MOTHER OF SUSPECTS: My sons were innocent. And I loved them. And I want the whole world to hear about it. I love them and I will love them. And I want to go to -- I mean, I want to join them. If they're going to kill me today, I will be happy, happy, OK?

OK.

And I will say Allahu akbar.

They were being killed just because they were Muslim. Nothing else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Today, U.S. investigators questioned her and the suspect's father for hours in the Dagestan area of Russia. In fact, one uncle tells CNN that his father, Anzor Tsarnaev, asked him several days ago about getting a lawyer. It is not clear if an attorney was present during the questioning today.

But I want to bring in Glenn Carle. He's the author of "The Interrogator," used to be an operations officer for the CIA.

Glenn, welcome.

Obviously you are not behind closed doors here, but you know this. You know how this kind of thing works. Walk me through exactly first just what these investigators are looking for. What kinds of information is it that they're trying to get out of this mother and father?

GLENN CARLE, FORMER CIA OFFICIAL: Well, the mother and father.

The first thing one asks normally in a meeting or in an interrogation -- this is not an interrogation with the parents. You always ask if someone has knowledge of a plan or the intent of someone or some parties to commit violence against American lives and treasure.

In this instance, you probably wouldn't do that. The thing you want to know is who the son saw in Dagestan, who he went to visit, and what he was thinking at the time. You want to understand his mind-set and then to start to build a tree of associations, people that he knew, people who influenced him and then you follow up with those people.

BALDWIN: Glenn, the second question then would be how do you know what they say you can trust and what it is they can't? At the same time, sort of walking this fine line because here you have this mother and father despite any kind of lack of sympathy people here in Boston would have for these parents potentially, they just, you know, lost one son, another son charged with what could be, you know, a death penalty-eligible crime. How do you handle that?

CARLE: Well, clearly the parents are understandably overwrought.

And you always pay attention to what anybody says and then trust nothing that anyone says either until you can verify it. You take their -- any person's comments and then you try to run them down. So if they say that the son met with so and so and such and such at such and such a time, you try to follow up and try to verify it. Nothing stated in isolation really should be taken as truth, but as information that you would try to pursue.

With the mother, we heard her clearly loving her sons and in defense of them. And that's all fine. But it's actually a meaningless thing in the context of what the investigators are interested in, which will be facts that they can pursue.

BALDWIN: Final question to you. We understand the questioning lasted for hours and yesterday, apparently, at some point this father became sick. Can you read anything into that?

CARLE: Well, I don't think so.

All I know is what all of us know from the media, that there are reports that he was gravely ill in some ill -- undefined way. It's a stressful thing to talk to an American official. And it's extremely stressful to lose your children under any circumstance, particularly when they are the objects of national revulsion and appear to be terrorists. So one can understand feeling badly in any circumstance like that.

BALDWIN: Glenn Carle, thank you so much, professional who knows how these kinds of interrogations can go. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

CARLE: My pleasure.

BALDWIN: Coming up, he was arrested, accused of trying to send a poisonous letter to the president and other officials, and then abruptly this guy was set free. Now he's talking about his ordeal exclusively with us at CNN, and the interview got bizarre.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL KEVIN CURTIS, FORMER SUSPECT: They intensely interrogated me for hours, and it was nerve-racking. I can't even express -- my inside nerves like were going to come out of my ears.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Let me just pause from what's happening here in Boston today and tell you about this.

The FBI, they're back on the hunt for whoever mailed poisonous letters here to President Obama, to a U.S. senator and a judge. So they have just searched this home and a former studio of a martial arts instructor in Tupelo, Mississippi. We're going to go live to Tupelo for more on that in just a moment.

But first, we have some new information from this Elvis impersonator who had been arrested and charged with sending those ricin-laced letters. He was all of a sudden set free yesterday, yes, no longer a suspect, charges dropped. His name is Paul Kevin Curtis.

And I want you to watch what he told CNN's Chris Cuomo in his exclusive interview just last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CURTIS: When they came to me and I was arrested, it happened really fast like a scene out of a movie. And they didn't explain anything. They just kept saying you know what you have done. And don't move, don't resist. And, I mean, I just had to set my Coke down. They allowed me to do that.

But you're talking about Homeland Security, Secret Service, FBI, so many vehicles in my neighborhood. I have never seen anything like it. So, I was in a state of -- it was like shock, is the best way to explain it.

And I was trying to catch my breath. And how am I going to get over? My ex-wife and kids are expecting me for dinner. I have got to take my son to church. And they're like, no, no, you're not going to church. You're going down to the federal building, where you will be asked questions, but you know exactly what this is about. Now, if we go in that house, are we going to find anything connected to ricin?

And I go, well, I said I don't eat rice and I don't have any rice in the house. And they go, no, you know what we mean, ricin, a deadly chemical. And I said, no. I said, here's my key, you go in there and look all you want. You won't find anything in there but a goldfish and music equipment and awards and things and a couch.

And he's like, yes, whatever, turn around. Put your hands on your car. And they took my keys, my wallet, which I still haven't got my phone back. I haven't been able to call anybody. And I never saw them enter my house. They started taping it off and they started interrogating all of my neighbors.

And I had just begun to meet over the last couple of weeks my neighbors and get to know them. They were probably in a state of shock. The Homeland Security officer, the Capitol Police lady from Washington and a gentleman from the FBI -- do I mention any names?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you want to.

CURTIS: I think it was Officer Grant, Agent Grant, very respectful. There was only one individual in that room that was agitated with me. And he was shaking and very nervous.

I think he knew that, you know, we don't have enough on this guy. Guys, I don't want to compromise my job. I have got a job to do. But I think he had been in it long enough over the years that he was -- he felt some form of uncertainty, because I'm an impersonator. I have impersonated thousands of different cartoon characters and people.

So, I'm studying his human behavior and I'm just picking up on the shakiness and the nervousness and the friction in his voice and how he can't look me in the eye. And he wanted me to sign papers to release all the records from my whole life and mental records to him.

And I said, sir, my ex-wife is in criminal justice, she wants to be a lawyer. And we were just talking the other night over dinner. And she told me, don't ever sign anything if you're ever in a situation unless your lawyer is there. And I said, sir, can I have an attorney here present? And they go absolutely not.

Well, then I'm not signing it. He grabs those papers and jerked them back and said, well, that's just fine. And then it became a good guy, bad guy. Officer Grant, he was a good guy, and he's this guy is a bad guy.

And then the lady in the back, wonderful. She was so polite from Washington. And they treated me like gold, but they intensely interrogated me for hours. And it was nerve-racking. I can't even express -- my inside nerves were like going to come out of my ears.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: So that was just about a three-and-a-half minute snippet of some 25-minutes-long -- an interview that my colleague Chris Cuomo conducted.

And when I saw bizarre earlier, I meant it, because at the very end, Kevin Curtis actually started to sing, like impersonating Randy Travis singing. If you don't believe me, you need to check out this video. Go to CNN.com, you can see the whole thing on our Web site.

But I want to break this out here and I want to go to two people. We have legal analyst Sunny Hostin. She joins me now on whether this guy really is completely out of the woods and if he even has grounds to sue.

But first to you, Mike Brooks, our law enforcement analyst, because my first question is, obviously, if he is not the guy, there is someone out there that police and federal investigators are looking for who sent these ricin-laced letters to the president, to Senator Wicker, to a judge. What do we know about that search under way?

MIKE BROOKS, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Well, we don't know much right now, Brooke.

But my question is, what probable cause did they have to originally arrest him? You know, so they had to have something. Was this guy, had he written maybe letters to the senator, to the judge, to the president before? We don't know. But it was something that led law enforcement to Mr. Curtis.

Now, if he's -- they basically let him go out of federal custody and dropped the charges against him. And, you know, I'm wondering if maybe they were able to get some evidence from this envelope, some fingerprint evidence, DNA, something like that would lead them to someone else. Or was his identity just taken by this person? You know, is this someone he knew? Is this someone he currently knows? Someone he had a problem with before? That remains to be seen.

BALDWIN: Yes, and we don't know.

BROOKS: No.

BALDWIN: We don't know that yet.