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Former Kansas Sheriff Deputy On Trial For Murder; NBA Fines Roy Hibbert For Post-Game, Anti-Gay Comments; Stock Market Report

Aired June 03, 2013 - 15:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Kenneth, you study these cases each and every day. We were talking in the commercial this is what you do. As familiar as you are with this Sarah Murnaghan story, do you think there should be an exception here made? I know it is a toughie.

KENNETH GOODMAN, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI: One of the issues -- well, it's not so much that it's a toughie. The subsidiary issue is boffins like me going on television like this and passing judgment in cases with which we are -- have only peripheral familiarity.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

GOODMAN: The answer to that might be yes; it might be no. But I don't think it is my place to second-guess Secretary Sebelius. She's on the case, and I have no doubt whatsoever that she and everybody else in UNOS, the organ procurement system, and NIH are anguished by this as much as anybody else.

But a change in the law, a change in the rules ought not to be undertaken lightly.

BALDWIN: OK. Kenneth Goodman, thank you so much.

Again to underscore your point, become an organ donor. If this case frustrates you, check that box. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

A former sheriff's deputy on trial, accused of first-degree murder in the death of his wife.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told a friend a week and a half prior to this incident happening that you threatened to kill her.

BRETT SEACAT, ACCUSED MURDERER: What?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You threatened to burn the house down. You threatened to make it look like she did it.

SEACAT: That is bull (inaudible).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So what really happened that night? A lot of fascinating details on the case. We'll go live to Kingman, Kansas, where the trial is happening today.

And, Nancy Grace will join me right here, live, in studio to walk us through this case, this trial.

Do not miss this. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A Kansas man who once took an oath to uphold the law now stands accused of violating it in the worst way. Former sheriff deputy Brett Seacat is on trial, charged with murder. The victim? His wife, who was shot to death.

But Seacat says his wife was a victim of suicide, not murder, and that she was the one that set their home on fire. Look at these pictures.

He denied any wrongdoing to investigators. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you murder her?

SEACAT: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you pull the trigger?

SEACAT: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill her?

SEACAT: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She told a friend a week and a half prior to this incident happening that you threatened to kill her.

SEACAT: What?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You threatened to burn the house down, and you threatened to make it look like she did it.

SEACAT: That is bull (inaudible).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: But a stunning statement came from the wife's friend on the stand. The friend said, Vashti Seacat, the wife here, predicted the way she would die.

Let's go to CNN's Ted Rowlands who is live in Kingman, Kansas, covering the trial for us.

Ted, what exactly did this friend say on the stand?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've had a couple of friends now come to the stand here and testify. The first one was last week and this was a co-worker, a woman by the name of Joy Trotnic. She said that, out of the blue, she's talking with Vashti and she says, do you think Brett would burn the house down with me in it?

Joy Trotnic says she was floored and asked her to repeat it. What are you talking about? She says, do you think that Brett would burn the house down with me in it?

This is the first indication to the jury that she was predicting her demise in exactly this fashion.

And then within the last 40 minutes, we heard another co-worker come up who was even more descriptive who said that she flat-out heard Vashti say to her and another co-worker that Brett had threatened her.

Not only threatened her, but in the exact fashion, that she claimed that here husband had threatened her that, if anything happened with their marriage that he would, quote, "burn the house down with her in it and make it look like a suicide."

Very damming evidence just within the last hour here as the prosecution continues its case. They've been at it for eight days now.

We're expecting the defense will get its turn in the next few days, possibly as early as Wednesday.

BALDWIN: OK, Ted Rowlands, thank you for covering the trial for us.

Nancy Grace from our sister network HLN has been all over this case and the trial. She joins me live in studio. Good to see you.

NANCY GRACE, HOST, HLN'S "NANCY GRACE": Likewise.

BALDWIN: Let's just begin with some of what Ted was just talking about. So he was saying that some of the friends, friends of Vashti's have been on the stand saying that she was almost like predicting her demise, saying, do you think he would be capable of burning this house down?

What do you make of that?

GRACE: Well, I make of that the same thing I made as when O.J. had a dream that he killed Nicole Brown. We see that over and over in criminal law, where people have premonitions.

In the cases that I've tried where the woman was a victim of domestic violence that turned into homicide, very often they had a safety plan, and you can call it that they predicted it or they were clairvoyant, but that's not it.

They've been given signals throughout the course of the marriage. They know what is about to befall them. So he obviously had left hints or suggestions that he could burn the house down. And I would like to point out that when police did find him, his pants were covered in gasoline. This is an accelerant fire. There was a trail of what I believe to be gasoline, but they'll refer to it as accelerant, going from a storage room to her bedroom.

It's very, very rare that a female in this age category will shoot herself and set the house on fire. It just is very hard to predict that.

BALDWIN: So apparently what he's saying is he was downstairs, right? He says he was asleep, heard the pops, the loud noises upstairs where his wife was.

He says he went upstairs, sees the flames in the hallway, sees the flames in the bed, rushes to her, grabs her limp body in his arms.

And I know investigators aren't really -- they're saying they don't really buy this story, that he was barely singed.

GRACE: Yes. There are also blisters on his feet and legs, so he was close to the fire. A fire was set.

But if you look at, for instance, the method and assessment of homicide and suicide, the likelihood that a female of her age is going to shoot herself --

BALDWIN: You say that's rare.

GRACE: -- in the head, it is statistically impossible, almost.

And also I'd like to point out that after studying the medical examiner's report myself, she was shot actually under the ear at a downward angle, front to back, right to left.

Which means he more likely than not stood over her in bed, as she slept, and fired, just like that.

In fact, there was tattooing -- it's called stippling -- around the entrance wound, which means that it was either close range or contact wound.

BALDWIN: What do you make of there was a note that was found --

GRACE: It's ridiculous.

BALDWIN: -- in the pocket with ramblings that he said that he had talked to his therapist, right? So it said, calm, died, accident, her parents.

GRACE: Yeah, no suicide. Yeah.

The therapist was helping him come up with what he was going to tell their little boys. It's ridiculous.

Did you know this has just come out, recently in the last hours that co-workers actually saw him forging documents at work the day before all of this went down?

There is an entry in her -- Vashti's -- journal where she says something like, I can't go on anymore, blah, blah, blah. It's obviously a forgery.

BALDWIN: OK. Nancy Grace, I want to move off this because I hear Star Jones -- we'll take a break.

But I hear Star Jones has personally reached out to you to help her friend in a murder case.

GRACE: Right.

BALDWIN: So we'll talk about that. I know this is an exclusive on your show later tonight. We'll talk about that.

Just stay with me. Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A Michigan mother of three is found strangled and half naked and the killer is still out there.

Now the sister of Rosaline Ransom Lee is desperate for witnesses to come forward as she tries to console Lee's children, a 12-year-old son, his six-year-old brother, and a nine-month-old baby.

Lee's body was found floating in Terry Lake in Michigan back on Memorial Day weekend, May 26th.

Nancy Grace still here with me, and I so appreciate it. Dedicating much of your show tomorrow night to this particular issue because this all started with Star Jones. And did -- she reached out to you saying, basically, help.

GRACE: Yes, she did. A lot of people don't remember, but I started at Court TV, Courtroom Television Network, in 1997. And much later than that Star joined us in my last years there.

And Star reached out to me over the weekend. I didn't even know about this case. But now that I do know about it, I'm on it.

And what concerns me about this case is that it has been basically put on a back burner. Whenever there is a woman --

BALDWIN: Why?

GRACE: -- found murdered, very often the first thing people think is, oh, some type of domestic abuse and they tend to discount it.

Here in this case, Rosaline Ransom Lee, just 32-years-old, has three children, two boys and a little girl. I think they're 12, six and the little girl's only nine-months-old.

She is found partially clothed, clothed only from the waist up, which leads investigators to believe that she was sexually abused. She was found floating in a lake.

Now here is the tricky thing about the lake. It's not a lake as you would envision it. It's right in the middle of a residential area. You know those little subdivisions that often built --

BALDWIN: Like a fill pond.

GRACE: Yeah. It was only 12 acres. And it's the focal point for a residential community. So it is not like a lake that a public is going boating on or skiing on or fishing. It's not like that. It's a very private lake, surrounded by homes.

It's only about one mile from where she lived with her mother. Her car was parked about three-fourths of a mile away from the lake.

But she didn't drown to death. She was manually strangled by hand. You know, you can look at a body --

BALDWIN: How can you tell?

GRACE: -- and tell if it's -- it leaves a different mark if it's a ligature, such as panty hose or a jump rope or rope, versus manual strangulation.

Now what that leads me to believe is a spur-of-the-moment crime. What does that mean? Who would know a mother of three who would not only sexually assault her, but then murder her and dispose of the body?

Disposing of the body suggests it is not random. Somebody comes up to you, God forbid, and kills you. If they don't know you, they're not going to go drag your body. They're going to kill you and leave you.

BALDWIN: So you're saying it takes extra effort.

GRACE: Extra effort. Who wants to be caught with a dead body? Of course.

So it's someone that wants to hide the body. Typically when a body is hidden or obscured in some way, that means it is not random. It's someone the victim knows.

BALDWIN: And in cases of potential sexual assault, isn't that so often someone you know as well?

GRACE: Yes. That's true. Now, typically as in every homicide, you start with boyfriends, lovers, exes, the father of children, and so forth.

She did have a nine-month-old. She has three children. There are three fathers. One lives in Arizona, so he's out of the picture. I don't know where the other two are.

BALDWIN: OK. Tomorrow night.

GRACE: God willing.

BALDWIN: You're on it.

GRACE: God willing.

BALDWIN: Nancy Grace, thank you for coming in.

GRACE: Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: Appreciate it so much.

Before we go, I want to remind viewers of your special interview, again, Star Jones speaking about her friend's murder, exclusively tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m on HLN, Nancy Grace.

Tonight it is game seven of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, the Miami Heat taking on the Indiana Pacers.

But the spotlight may be on this one player and some comments he made that led to a $75,000 fine.

Rachel Nichols is live in Miami. We're going to talk about this, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: An apology is not enough. The NBA is making Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert pay up.

Hibbert's post-game comments took the focus off of his on-court brilliance and places it firmly on his poor choice of words just ahead of tonight's key game seven against the Miami Heat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROY HIBBERT, FINED $75,000 FOR VULGAR LANGUAGE: I really felt that I let Paul down in terms of having his back when Lebron was scoring in the post or getting to the paint because they stretched me out so much, the homo, and ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: He said it quickly, but he said it.

Hibbert later apologized for the insensitive remark. The NBA still slapped the Pacer with a $75,000 fine for using inappropriate and vulgar language.

Rachel Nichols, CNN Sports, joins me ahead of the big game tonight in Miami. I'm jealous, Rachel Nichols.

Talk to me, though, first about just the fallout from that comment, and I know some cursing as well.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, absolutely. I've been texting with a couple of NBA players over the past 24 hours and they made it clear, even to a millionaire athlete, 75-grand, that's is a lot of money. They notice that. And couple that with the fact that the NBA fined Kobe Bryant $100,000 for making a homophobic slang comment last year. Guys definitely are going to be scared straight here. They don't want that money coming out of their pockets.

And, of course, that's the idea. The NBA wants a zero-tolerance policy. They want to be a leader on this.

You know, I cover the NFL. I cover Major League Baseball. They're not fining players right now this amount for this type of language. The NBA wants to set the tone here.

And it's no coincidence that you had Jason Collins, an NBA player, become the first active North American player in a major U.S. sport to come out and say that he's gay. He felt comfortable in this environment. We haven't seen that in the other leagues, but maybe that'll start.

Side note, Roy Hibbert did reach out to Jason Collins in the past 24 hours and I can tell you that Jason reached back to him. So he is legitimately trying to atone for what he says he recognizes is a serious error.

BALDWIN: All right, how about that?

And then finally, game seven, I know a lot of people, Rachel Nichols, who are lovers of the Heat, cannot believe this thing has gone to game seven.

What's at stake here?

NICHOLS: Well, for Lebron James, this is really one of those prove-it moments. We know he's one of the most talented athletes in the world, but it's moments like this when things look the darkest that players need to come up in the clutch with a great performance, with a great series, that kind of thing.

And this is one of those moments where he's going to have to do that.

We've seen he's a guy who can win a ring, but he's going to have to be a guy who wins multiple rings to be the kind of athlete he wants to be remembered as. He's got to win tonight to do that, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Rachel Nichols in Miami. Rachel, thank you. Enjoy the game.

Coming up next, Angelina Jolie on the red carpet for the very first time since her double mastectomy, her very public opinion piece in "The New York Times" here about her decision to go through with it.

We will hear from her from the red carpet, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We are mere minutes away from the closing bell. You see the Dow up 128 points on this Monday. Let's go to Alison Kosik at the New York Stock Exchange for a quick check.

Hey, Alison.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Brooke.

It looks like stocks are beginning June on a high note after what was a marvelous May for the major averages.

Investors look like they still want to buy in. They don't want to miss out on this rally despite a weaker than expected manufacturing report that came out earlier today.

You know, as far as the mindset here on Wall Street, It looks like we could be kind of be getting back to this bad news is good news mentality, meaning weaker economic numbers means the Fed is less likely to ease up on its bond buying anytime soon, that it would keep pumping stimulus money into the financial markets, pushing interest rates lower and making stocks the best place for investors to go.

So I guess you can see it as a way that Wall Street sees the bad economic data as glass half full.

Brooke?

BALDWIN: Alison, thank you so much.

And now to some of the hottest stories in a flash, we call it "Rapid Fire." Roll it.

One of the executives of AEG Live, the concert promotion company being sued by Michael Jackson's mother and children, returns for day five of testimony.

Today Paul Gongaware testified that he never saw any indications that Jackson used drugs. His testimony is a key issue as the wrongful death trial enters its sixth week.

The Jackson family says AEG Live is liable in Jackson's death, contending it negligently hired Dr. Conrad Murray who you know was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of the pop superstar.

Jury selection begins tomorrow for reputed mob boss Whitey Bulger. The alleged former head of a notorious Boston gang is facing 19 murder charges. He is also accused of extortion, money laundering and narcotics distribution.

Bulger was arrested two years ago in Santa Monica living blocks from the beach after being on the run for 16 years.

Before he left Boston, he cooperated as an informant with a disgraced ex-FBI agent.

And check your tickets. We know somebody won the $590 million Powerball almost two weeks ago, but still don't know who.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a rumor that it's a --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- young girl --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- that works at Walmart.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That's the rumor going around Zephyr Hills, Florida, where the winning ticket was sold. The winner must come forward by November 19th, so there's still a little time before you lose it all.

If you are smart, you get some expert financial advice before claiming the dough.

Are DNA samples the new fingerprint? That is basically what the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today. In a five-four decision, the high court decided that it's OK for officials to take DNA samples of criminal suspects after an arrest.

The case brought up all kinds of privacy issues. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Anton Scalia said the decision sets a, quote/unquote, "terrifying principle."

And finally, Angelina Jolie has made her first red carpet appearance after undergoing a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery.

Jolie was in London Sunday for the premiere of her husband Brad Pitt's new zombie thriller, "World War Z."

She told reporters she feels great. She also says Brad Pitt has been extraordinary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGELINA JOLIE, ACTRESS: I've been very happy just to see the discussion about women's health expand, and that means the world to me.

After losing my mom to these issues, I'm very grateful for it and I've been very moved by the kind of support from people, really very grateful for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The actress revealed just last month in an op-ed in "The New York Times" that she had the surgery.

That does it for me today. I'm Brooke Baldwin. See you back here tomorrow.

In the meantime, "The Lead With Jake Tapper" starts right now.