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U.S., Europe Also Consider Hamas Terror Group; Police Hunt Putin Opponent's Killer; Rand Paul Wins 2015 CPAC Straw Poll; Video Shows Nemtsov Murder Near Kremlin; Film Creators Talk "Finding Jesus"; Harrowing House-By-House Shooting Rampage in Missouri; Tributes to Leonard Nimoy from Earth, Space

Aired February 28, 2015 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow. Five o'clock Eastern. And a lot to get to this hour. We are closely watching Northern Syria to see if ISIS actually does set free dozens of a Syrian-Christians taken hostage. They were part of a group of more than 200 people that ISIS captured when they swept a Syrian village just a few days ago. But a Syrian opposition group says some sort of authority figure has ordered 29 of those people to be released. Why and is it really going to happen?

Also overseas, one of President Vladimir Putin's loudest critics shot dead last night on a sidewalk just yards from the Kremlin. Boris Nemtsov was walking home with a female friend after dinner, that was when he was shot in the back four times. Now President Putin vowing to find and punish the killer. Coming up, why Russian authorities are not ruling out ISIS involvement in this murder.

Any moment we will learn who conservatives think should win the White House in 2016. You're looking at live pictures there of CPAC, that gathering there in Maryland. We're going to bring you the straw poll results in just a moment.

Well, it was a stunning blow against Hamas today from the government of Egypt from a specific court there in Cairo declaring Hamas officially a terrorist organization. This is a label the United States and Europe has already put on Hamas. Hamas leaders, though, shocked apparently by the ruling.

Our Ian Lee joins me on the phone live from Cairo. Ian, set this up for us in terms of the significance of this to Hamas and frankly why Hamas leaders seem so surprised at the court's ruling.

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on the phone): Well, Poppy, this is a very damning verdict by the courts of urgent matters here in Cairo. But we're still trying to figure out what this exactly means. Because there is a new law, terrorism law, that was just recently passed saying this court does not have jurisdiction, that that jurisdiction lies with the general prosecutor as well with the appeals court. But what Hamas is being accused of is quite severe.

They're being accused of supporting insurgents in the Sinai Peninsula who have killed hundreds of security personnel. They're also accused of a 2011 jail break that freed members of the Muslim Brotherhood during the revolution. Now, the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt is considered a terrorist organization. Hamas belongs to the Muslim brotherhood. And for Egypt, they're really are one and the same, Hamas has denied this though and condemned this verdict. But this does create a new chapter in relations between the Hamas and Egypt which has started to deteriorate since the 2013 uprising that overthrew Mohamed Morsi who came from the Muslim Brotherhood -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Could you talk to us about the concern that you raised in the earlier hour that this could backfire on Egypt?

LEE: Well, the thing that Egypt has always done is it's always been a broker for the region between Hamas and Israel and also inter- Palestinian politics. And so this could be very damaging for Egypt because they won't be seen as this independent or impartial broker for any potential upcoming wars. The last three wars between Hamas and Israel they have brokered the peace deal. And so it is very unlikely that Hamas is going to want to listen or to work with the Egyptians now if there is another war. And so for Egypt, this is a lowering of their stature, if you will, when it comes to these sorts of talks. But for Egypt they see this as a national security issue. Hamas, they believe, has been undermining Egypt's stability. And for them they believe that this is the only way forward.

HARLOW: Ian Lee joining us on the phone from Cairo, Ian, thank you very much for that. We'll keep you posted on that.

And as we mentioned, ISIS may be ready to release 29 a few dozen, 29 Syrian Christians taken hostage in recent days. They are part of a much larger group of more than 200 Christian captives including women, children and the elderly. Information about that pending release comes from a Syrian opposition group. This all really adds up to a very troubling picture of ISIS spreading really like a cancer across the region. Jordan's King Abdullah told our Fareed Zakaria in their interview, this amounts to a third World War. Listen.

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FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How should the west handle this? Should the response to ISIS be essentially an Arab response, a Muslim response, or should the west be in the lead?

KING ABDULLAH II, JORDAN: This has to be unified. I mean, I've said this to leaders both in the Islamic and Arab world and to the world in general. This is a third world war by other means. This brings Muslims, Christians, other religions together in this generational fight that all of us have to be this together. So it's not a western fight. This is a fight inside of Islam where everybody comes together against these outlaws, so to speak, together. And there's a short- term part of this which is the military part of the issue. There is the medium part which is the security element of it. And then there's a long-term element of this, which is obviously the ideological one.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HARLOW: A fascinating interview there between our Fareed Zakaria and King Abdullah of Jordan. You can see the entire interview tomorrow on "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" 10:00 a.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Also right now, police are scouring the streets of Moscow trying to figure out who killed one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken critics and why.

Our Fred Pleitgen has the latest from Moscow.

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thousands of people have been coming here to the scene of the crime throughout the entire day, many of them laying flowers down, many of them lighting candles, and many of them with tears in their eyes. You can tell that Moscow is shocked by the events that happen here late on Friday night. And one of the things that really shocks people most is the fact that we are here in the heart of Moscow. And also this is a place near the Kremlin, near the red square as well where there is a lot of surveillance. There's a lot of surveillance cameras here. There's plain-clothed police officers. Nevertheless right here in the middle of the sidewalk on this main bridge that leads away from the Kremlin across the Moscow River, is the place where Boris Nemtsov was gunned down.

However, the fact that there are so many surveillance measures in place here seems to be one thing that's helping the authorities here to try and pinpoint who might be behind all of this. The authorities late on Saturday announced that they had managed to find a car, a white vehicle that they believe might have been involved in all of this. They said that they found this vehicle through some of the surveillance footage that they got at various points. Of course a lot of that surveillance footage would be around this area. The other main thing that the authorities say they're looking at is also witness testimony. And one of their main witnesses is a woman named Anna Duritskaya, who is a model from Ukraine who apparently was with Boris Nemtsov as he was walking here across this bridge.

Now, we were able to speak to a friend of Nemtsov who says that he was able to talk to her briefly before she was taken in by the police for questioning. And she told him she was walking along here with Boris Nemtsov when all of a sudden a vehicle stopped. Someone immediately opened fire from that vehicle. And then the vehicle sped away very quickly. One of the things very significant about that is that all the bullets that were apparently fired from that car hit Nemtsov. None of them hit her.

And that's one of the things that causes authorities here to say that they believe that was a professionally organized killing that took place. Nemtsov of course was supposed to be one of the people leading a rally here in the city of Moscow on Sunday. Originally it was supposed to protest against Russia's policies in Ukraine, but now that rally after his death is going to turn into one of mourning for a man who died here on Friday night.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.

HARLOW: Fred, thank you for that. Russian investigative committee is leading this criminal

investigation. Again it's in the early hours but it's exploring a number of possible motives. For example, did Russia's enemies kill Nemtsov to create political discourse there or perhaps were Islamic extremists involved? That is one of the theories that they're working on right now. Russia's state media reporting Nemtsov had received threats like this to his views on the "Charlie Hebdo" attack in Paris.

Joining me to discuss, former CIA counterterrorism analyst Buck Sexton. Buck, thank you for being with me. When you look at the number of scenarios that the Russian authorities are looking at right now, one of them being that ISIS might be linked to this murder. Do you think that is farfetched or do you think that is really a possibility?

BUCK SEXTON, FORMER CIA COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: On its face it's preposterous from what we know right now. This was a very professional hit. It seems to be the kind of trade craft that you would expect from say an intelligence service. And the fact that Nemtsov was shot outside the Kremlin I think also indicates that these individuals knew the routes and times of their target. They shot with a tight grouping. They did not hit any bystanders. This was not meant as a spectacle in the sense that you would have expected from say a jihadist.

This was just a cold hard execution and it was done with the professionalism, it really indicates intelligence service or someone trained by intelligence services or Special Forces. And when you look at the motives and you also look at some of the recent history here with for example this target saying he expects Putin is going to kill him, I think people are starting to draw their own conclusions.

HARLOW: And we don't want to draw conclusions. Again this is early going. Let's talk about some of those. I mean, this is Nemtsov as someone who has recently been critical of the Kremlin's handling of the Ukraine crisis, this is someone who issued a massive report in 2013 about bribery and fraud ahead of the Olympics in Sochi. This is someone who knew he had a target on his back and walked around without protection, without bodyguards. At the same time, Putin coming out today and saying this is horrendous and we're going to hunt down the killer. What do you make of that?

SEXTON: This is what we would expect. Of course Putin is going to say he's searching for the real killers. But the truth here is that, when you look at the motivations for taking out an opposition politician like this and you look at Russia's history particularly with Putin at the helm of journalists mysteriously dying and no killers are ever found. Opposition politicians dying or being imprisoned on flimsy charges. And there's never any justice for those who seem to find themselves on the wrong end of an assassin's bullet in Russia. This is a long-standing issue.

But I have to say this kind of a brazen assassination of Nemtsov, and it clearly is an assassination. We know that just a question of the perpetrators. This kind of brazen hit opens up Russia into probably a whole new level. Because this was so out in the open for people to see and so clearly only going to benefit the sort of Russian nationalist that we're seeing on the scene now and who are pro-taking Eastern Ukraine and who believe that what they're doing is somehow bettering Russia. When you add motive, you add recent history, you add the tactics used in this event, it's certainly not ISIS. And I think we all know that it's somebody from inside of Russia.

HARLOW: But this coming as President Putin has sky high approval ratings at 86 percent among his own people. Stay with me. You're going to join us later in the hour. We'll discuss this more.

Coming up next, we will soon know who hardcore conservatives think should win the White House in 2016, our Chris - is live at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. Hey, Chris.

CHRIS FRATES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Poppy. So conservatives has voted and we're awaiting the results. We'll tell you who they like for president and why it matters after the break.

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HARLOW: All right. This just in to us here at CNN, we now know who conservatives think should win the White House in 2016. Voting at the Conservative Political Action conference of CPAC just wrapped up. Several potential 2016 candidates along with thousands of activists elected official and party leaders have been waiting for the results of this annual straw poll.

And we bring in our Chris Frates, he is there. So who won?

FRATES: I'll tell you who won, Poppy, Rand Paul made his three-peat. This was expected.

HARLOW: Wow!

FRATES: This is a very libertarian crowd, young crowd. You can hear them in the back behind me. Very excited to get the results here. But what was interesting, number two, Scott Walker. He had a very strong performance here a few years ago. He took number two. And he was at seven percent last year. This year he had 21 percent of the straw poll. He lost to Rand Paul who had 25 percent. And there you go. They just announced Rand Paul is the winner. You can hear the excitement behind me, Poppy. People are very excited in the background here.

HARLOW: Yes. I think, Chris, it's really interesting we've seen this momentum behind Scott Walker recently. But when you look at the reality of how this plays out in predicting the next president, what's the history there?

FRATES: Well, it doesn't always have a history of predicting the next president. The poll is very good as a snapshot for where this particular conservative group is right now. This is a very conservative face, very libertarian. And you start to see who has momentum going into the election season. Certainly Scott Walker has that momentum. He is up in the polls in Iowa. And he's coming out of this looking very strong. Rand Paul held on. He needed to make sure that he held his crown for a third year in a row. He did that.

And another thing to mention here, Poppy, Jeb Bush came in fifth place with eight percent. That's not surprising. He came, in had a very strong showing. Kind of walked into the lion's den here. And had a strong respectable showing. But this is not his crowd. This crowd is much more conservative, much more libertarian. So not a surprise there, and certainly Jeb Bush has other advantages such as a donor classes behind him, the establishment is pretty excited about Jeb Bush, so just because he came in poorly here doesn't mean that he doesn't have a shot. This is just a snapshot in time. I think it's important for people to remember that.

HARLOW: Of course, Chris Fate, I appreciate the reporting live as it was announced there at CPAC. Thank you very much.

Coming up next, we're going to continue on politics and talk about your nation's capital. Our nation's capital. Guess what? At the last minute they came up with a way to fund the Department of Homeland Security but only for one week. What happens after that? We'll discuss next.

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HARLOW: Two arrests in New York, one in Florida, another in Indiana. All people suspected of conspiring to fight for or to support ISIS. Court documents released just yesterday suggest this man captured in Central Indiana bought military equipment for terrorists and in one point intended to fly to Syria to fight with ISIS. While he and others were stopped many more have slipped through the crack. This week I went to Minnesota to sit down with the U.S. attorney there Andrew Luger to talk about this problem and what's being done to counter it.

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HARLOW: From the intelligence that you have at this point in time, is ISIS targeting the Somali community in Minnesota?

ANDREW LUGER, MINNESOTA U.S. GENERAL: Yes.

HARLOW: No question.

LUGER: No question.

HARLOW: How aggressively?

LUGER: They're recruiting westerners but they're recruiting here.

HARLOW: Approximately how many young people from Minnesota have left to go fight with terrorists?

LUGER: Well, over two dozen during the al Shabaab days. And then more now during the ISIS days. Each one is a tragedy for their families, for their community, for Minnesota. And so we're trying to turn it around.

HARLOW: Do you have a number? I mean, are we talking 30, 40, 50?

LUGER: It's too many. And I'm reluctant to give you an exact number because the investigations are ongoing. But each person who travels or tries to travel is a tragedy. And it's a failure of all of us that we need to turn this around.

HARLOW: One community activist told us that one day instead of leaving the U.S. to fight for al Shabaab or ISIS they're going to fight here. Does that keep you up at night?

LUGER: Everything keeps me up at night. But we have no indication. There's no intelligence to suggest that anybody's planning anything in Minnesota. But obviously we're vigilant about that on a daily basis.

HARLOW: Because what we saw play out in the recent attacks in Paris, and likely although it's early going in Copenhagen, is that there was no direct order, attack this place at this time, kill these people. It was this propaganda-driven, here's what a mission you should carry out when you deem the time and target are correct. Do you worry about that here?

LUGER: We're watching for that kind of activity on a daily basis. There is no indication that anyone is making such a plan of attack here. But we have some of the best FBI investigators in the world right here to keep Minnesotans safe.

HARLOW: Why here?

LUGER: Well, it started in 2007, 2008 with al Shabaab from Somalia recruiting young Somalis. ISIS has now picked up on the successes of al Shabaab and they're trying to improve upon it. It's not what we in Minnesota want to be known for. But we have to tackle this and we have to break the cycle of recruiting.

HARLOW: If you were to boil down the solution, how you're attacking this, how would you describe it?

LUGER: The way the community described it to me. They wanted more community engagement by law enforcement. They want to get to know us and learn who we are better. So, that's point one. Point two is address the root causes through more mentoring, through more job opportunities, after-school programs, in-school programs. So, that's point two. Point three is early intervention teams that grow out of the community with the Imams and the parents and the youth leaders working together at the early signs of radicalization. Those are the three pillars of our plan.

HARLOW: But is it happening right now? Because ISIS is recruiting from here right now.

LUGER: We're already working on this. The community is already working on this. The pilot program is to take it to the next level.

HARLOW: Do you have the money to do it?

LUGER: We have some money coming in right now. We have corporate and nonprofit support here in Minnesota. And I was just in a meeting at the Justice Department to talk about grant funds that we're expecting in the near future.

HARLOW: Do you think you're going have enough money? Because this is something we hear often from government agencies, whether you're talking about the SEC or you guys, we don't have the funds. We don't have the staff to combat the criminals.

LUGER: We're going to have the fund, we're going to have the staff. And most importantly we're going to have the community's leadership.

HARLOW: Some from this community in Minnesota call this a terrorist hot bed in the United States. Is that fair?

LUGER: I don't use terms like that. We're the focus of terror recruiting overseas. We're doing everything we can to turn it around. So, I don't use inflammatory terms. We have a problem. We're addressing it. That's what Minnesotans do and we do it very well.

HARLOW: I would agree with you on that one. Thank you.

LUGER: Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

All right. You can watch our full story and the immense efforts to tackle ISIS recruiting in Minnesota. Our story airs on CNN tonight Monday evening 10:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 pacific right here on CNN.

Coming up next just in to CNN, new surveillance video that may show the murder scene of a significant Russian opposition leader on the streets of Moscow last night. See what you think. That's next. But before that, this week's ones to watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Jennifer Lopez hired him as a choreographer but she's found he's dancing so captivating that she has pulled him from behind the scenes to perform with her center stage. So what is it that makes him so irresistible to the stars?

FRANK GATSON, CHOREOGRAPHER: Chris Grant is the best dancer in the world, okay? I think the thing that makes Chris and people like Beyonce and J-Lo and Michael Jackson is the fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The spins, the hips, the thrust. Chris spent his childhood studying Michael Jackson's every move and performed his routines at talent contests across the state. The king of pop had a magic he was desperate to understand.

CHRIS GRANT, DANCER: The way he performed, the way he transformed when he got on the stage, the way he owned the stage was amazing to me. And he really made me feel how he was feeling. It's one thing to learn something and to move and do all the stuff. But for you to really embody it and feel it and have the emotions, you know, it's really, it's tough. I was taught to always rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse until it just becomes you. Where you don't have to think.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. Brand-new video may show, may show a murder yards from the Kremlin. Outspoken Putin critic, Boris Nemtsov, was shot four times in the back. Murdered last night as he walked home from dinner. Look carefully at this video. This is just into us at CNN. It's hard to see. Pretty grainy. This is bridge surveillance video that comes to us from Moscow city government-owned TV station, TV center. They say it was shot by a low-quality camera that records weather and the bridge around the clock. In the video the reporter says the camera captured two people believed to be Boris Nemtsov and his companion.

Then a reporter explains that what the footage shows is the two people walking. Then they're blocked by a snowplow. The video then shows this one person left at the scene, presumed to be Nemtsov's companion. Also a person running into a car, the car speeding off.

I should note CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity of this video. It is coming to us from basically Moscow's government television station.

Joining me now to talk about it, former CIA counterterrorism analyst, Buck Sexton.

Buck, no one can really tell what is going on here. But as someone that was formerly with the CIA, when you're looking at this what do you make of what we're seeing?

BUCK SEXTON, FORMER CIA COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: There's one difference here based upon what we heard from the earlier reports, is that it seems that there may have been a getaway car that came and picked up the assassin as opposed to what would have been really a drive-by shooting. So you're talking about a difference in perhaps tactics based upon this new video and what the Russian government or Russian government-owned TV station is saying here.

But it doesn't change any of the other factors, the fact that there was supposed to be an opposition rally mere days after this that Nemtsov was going to play a very prominent role in, that was going to criticize openly Russia's policies in Ukraine. Everything else more or less stays the same. In terms of the difference in tactics here, it all still points towards a high level of proficiency, a high level of proficiently, training and trade craft. That does not suggest some terrorist or some sort of a lone-wolf one-off situation.

HARLOW: Right. Which we know is one of the theories the investigators are looking at right now. You think it's ludicrous.

SEXTON: So far. Right.

HARLOW: But let me ask you this. This is something, Boris Nemtsov, who was pushed out of government in 2003, continued to be very vocal about his opposition, was vocal about his opposition of Russia's Ukraine strategy and policy, published this damning report in 2013 about basically fraud within the government, bribery, et cetera. So if he was targeted for his political beliefs and work, why now?

SEXTON: Well, as I said, there was a rally that's supposed to happen in just a few days in which Nemtsov was supposed to play a rather large --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: That's not the first of these kinds of rallies.

SEXTON: I understand that. But there's also been a pretty strong consolidation that Putin's been engaged in for some time. And why now? I think that he may have finally just reached a point where both Putin or whoever may have been behind this -- I don't want to suggest that we know. We don't know. But whoever may have been behind this inside of Russia, it certainly points towards some kind of official involvement of some kind whether it's from the top of the government or from somewhere else. But if that had been the case, I think eventually they decided Nemtsov was too much of a liability. They were able to get Alexi Novali jailed and sidelined for a time. He was going to miss this rally.

HARLOW: Right.

SEXTON: It seems they decided to act. And this has the hallmarks of, as I said, a contract hit.

HARLOW: With the caveat, as you just said, we have no idea whether the Putin government was involved in any way in this, he's clearly coming out and saying we did not and we are going to find and hunt down whoever did this, this comes at a time when Putin's approval rating is through the roof, 86 percent.

SEXTON: Certainly, the thuggishness of the Putin government has been on display for some time in Ukraine and interior, inside of Russia, there's been as I said a pretty strong consolidation. And for a variety of reasons he does have popular support despite the sanctions and the economic pain that that country's been under, because of its Ukraine policy specifically. There is a rise in really a Russian ultra nationalism right now. So Putin also, because of the polls and because of the support he's been able to build up through these very aggressive policies outside of Russian borders, he may have felt he was in a position to do this, possibly, conceivably, or somebody in the government may have felt they were in a position to order this kind of a hit now.

But again, this is very early on in the investigation. We'll certainly get more facts. The Russians may produce, in mere hours, someone. The question is will it just be a scapegoat or some kind of a patsy, but we'll see.

HARLOW: I do wonder, very quickly, do you think we will ever really know who carried this out? SEXTON: There's unfortunately a history of people being killed in

Russia, whether it's investigative journalists or opposition politicians or anyone who essentially gets in the way of the state, being killed and the killers are never found. So this would not be an anomaly if we actually had nobody who was arrested for this. Certainly, if it didn't ever go beyond one person who we're told is the killer but there's not very much evidence that it goes beyond that.

HARLOW: Buck, thank you. Appreciate the insight. And that video we're seeing just for the first time here of what may be the murder scene.

Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Coming up, it is the subject of scientific obsession and religious devotion. The Shroud of Turin may be Christianity's holiest relic. We will see the hidden clues found in what some believe is the burial cloth of Jesus.

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HARLOW: One of the greatest mysteries woven through the Christian faith, and now a new CNN series takes an in-depth look at the scientific findings. Watch.

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ANNOUNCER: An unprecedented CNN event. He didn't vanish without leaving a trace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the first time in history, we're able to place these relics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And grasped something that changed the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is really the moment of truth.

ANNOUNCER: This is the story of Jesus.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The rock upon which the church is built.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An icon of scientific obsession.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's extraordinary to find an archeological piece.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do we really have here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did Judas betray Jesus?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Somebody chose to write this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The science does matter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this the burial shroud of Jesus?

ANNOUNCER: What are the clues he left behind? "Faith, Fact, Forgery."

"Finding Jesus" premiers Sunday night at 9:00 on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: How could you not watch that? I promise it is fascinating.

This week's episode, the Shroud of Turin. This is a mystery that has eluded both Christians and non-Christians all over the world. What did Jesus look like? And does this burial cloth reveal his very face?

Let's talk it with David Gibson and Michael McKinley, creators of the series.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. It is absolutely fascinating, as I said.

David, let me begin with you.

As you take it, without giving away too much about the premiere episode, do you believe that we come to an answer at the end of this first episode over whether or not the Shroud of Turin is, in fact, the real thing or a forgery?

DAVID GIBSON, FILM CO-AUTHOR: I think we get closer to an answer than anybody has gotten before. That's not to say that we're going to get final resolution. And that's part of the mystery and the beauty and the allure of the Shroud of Turin. As scientific technology has grown and we've made so many breakthroughs, science hasn't been able to explain this image, how it got on there, how old it is, and above all, who it is.

HARLOW: Michael, when you look at this episode, it goes down to the fines of the cloth. And it talks about a number of different lab experiments that were done all over the world, frankly. And they come to different conclusions. Talk to me about the significance of the blood stains.

MICHAEL MCKINLEY, FILM CO-AUTHOR: Well, the blood stains are huge. It's important to remember the shroud was found with another piece of linen, called the Sudarium of Oviedo, which is a face cloth that the gospel tells wrapped the head of Jesus after he had died. Again, without giving away the entire show, the blood stains compared from the Sudarium to those on the shroud were found to match, not only in terms of pattern but in terms of blood type.

HARLOW: But what's also really interesting, I think, and to you, David, is that later in the program, you get this other expert that comes on and says actually he believes that this is the world's first photograph. What?

GIBSON: Yeah. Absolutely. Some people have called this the world's first selfie. Not to be too irreverent, but again, it is a photographic image essentially. And again, that's part of the mystery of this thing. You know, they knew for centuries there was an image of a man on this cloth and it was revered as that of Jesus. It wasn't until the 1890s or so that an Italian photographer had taken the first pictures of the shroud. As he was developing them in his dark room, the negative images came out. And all of a sudden, this image of the man of Jesus, whoever it is, popped out at him. So they suddenly realized, this wasn't just painted on there or just impressed on the linen somehow. This is an actual photographic image. But look, even if it's only 800 or 900 years old, how did a photographic image get on there eight centuries before the invention of photography?

HARLOW: And how is it the only one of its kind if that it is.

To you, Michael, on a personal level, what you may have struggled with. Because you're dealing with people's faith here. You're dealing with somebody so sacred to people. I wonder how you walk that line.

MCKINLEY: Well, with the greatest of respect. And I think the thing that -- remember, Poppy, we came in with questions and not answers. And so in using that approach we always had room to learn. And we did. And I certainly learned a lot more about the shroud that I thought I knew, or than I actually did know. And I might have come in a little more skeptical than I went out of the shroud episode. So I think my own sense of that particular artifact was strengthened by doing this episode.

HARLOW: David, did you struggle with that at all through this?

GIBSON: No. I think it's one of these things that, look, this isn't going to disprove anyone's faith. It's one of those things that that -- the Christian faith does not rise or fall on the veracity of the Shroud of Turin. But what it can do, I think, is, if you're a person of faith, it can deepen your faith. It can certainly provide a lot more information about Jesus, about crucifixion, about what he or someone at that time went through up on the cross. Jewish burial systems. This is not going to debunk anyone's faith. And if you're a skeptic, it won't make you a believer, either.

HARLOW: You just left me wanting to see episode number two.

Thank you, both. Congratulations. It is a beautiful series. I'm glad we can air it here on CNN.

GIBSON: Thank you.

MCKINLEY: Thank you.

HARLOW: For all of you watching, you're not going to want to miss this new CNN original series. It talks about the science and the faith, all of it. "Finding Jesus, Fact, Faith, Forgery," tomorrow night, only here on CNN, 9:00 eastern.

Coming up, police now think they know what triggered a deadly shooting spree in a tiny Missouri town. What happened? The details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Investigators may know the motive in a grisly massacre that wrought a tiny town in Missouri, the city of Tyrone, Missouri, population 50. On Thursday night, nine people were found dead after a harrowing house-to-house shooting rampage.

Our Will Ripley has the latest.

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WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Police in southeast Missouri are awaiting the results of a postmortem examination of the mother of the gunman. They believe she died of natural causes. And they're wondering if her death somehow triggered this shooting rampage.

(voice-over): There's no stoplight in Tyrone, Missouri, no post office or a gas station, but this tiny town is the scene of the deadliest mass shooting in recent Missouri history.

John Schreiber got a phone call to go to his cousin's house down the street.

SCHREIBER, TYRONE RESIDENT: Driving by, you know, it just -- you can tell that he was dead already.

RIPLEY: Schreiber thinks his cousin and his wife were killed quickly. Their car and washing machine still running. Their 13-year-old son alive and terrified in a back bedroom.

(on camera): He's in shock.

SCHREIBER: I would say.

RIPLEY (voice-over): The house, one of six crime scenes and nine deaths. Seven people shot and killed, four from the same family, less than three miles apart.

The gunman's mother apparently dead of natural causes. Police investigating if her death somehow triggered the rampage.

JEFF KINDER, SPOKESMAN, MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL: You know what, that's -- in our job we see a lot of bad stuff, and this is bad. This is also hard on the police officers who are working there. It's not natural to see that sort of thing.

RIPLEY: The Missouri State Highway Patrol says the gunman, Joseph Aldridge, killed himself. Authorities say he had only a minor criminal history, nothing to foreshadow something like this.

Many in this quiet corner of southeast Missouri say they don't even lock their doors.

SCOTT DILL, TYRONE RESIDENT: My concern is children, and so our kids are having a really tough time. You know, a wide variety of emotions, some shock, some tears, a lot of questions.

RIPLEY: Investigators working to figure out why someone would want to kill nearly an entire family. Hoping the sole survivor, now in the hospital, can provide answers. (on camera): How is your community going to move forward from this?

DILL: One day at a time, as a family. This community is based in faith and based in family, and I've seen them come through some very difficult situations. Nothing like this, of course.

RIPLEY (voice-over): A massacre in a Missouri town. The few left behind left to wonder why.

(on camera): As investigators in Tyrone try to answer that question, why, they continue talking to the sole survivor of the shooting, a woman who remains in the hospital. And we're told she is cooperating with investigators, giving them whatever information she can.

Will Ripley, CNN, in southeast Missouri.

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HARLOW: Will Ripley, thank you for that.

Quick break. We'll be back in a moment.

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HARLOW: All right. Now to "CNN Heroes," and a young inventor with a very big idea.

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LILY BORN, CNN HERO: My grandfather has Parkinson's disease that causes him to shake. He spills all the time. So I decided to make the Kangaroo Cup.

I came up with the idea when I was around 8 or 9 years old.

I wanted to put legs on the cup because I figured that it wouldn't be as likely to spill.

The original cup was made out of porcelain. We decided to make a plastic version so it can be used by anybody, like little kids, people with mobility issues.

I have a design team, and they really do help me so much.

Color-wise?

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Yeah.

BORN: The blue?

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: Mm-hmm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lily has sold about 11,000 cups total. Many of her classmates and teachers don't even know what she's doing.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: It'll be like the next one. BORN: We really do keep the Kangaroo Cup talk to a minimum.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: I remember reading about it.

BORN: Now the word is getting around school. Like, wait, Lily? She did what? She invented this cup? Oh, my gosh!

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UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: That is so cool.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Lily. How you doing?

BORN: Good.

My cup has changed my grandfather's life because that's the only cup he uses now. Like, once the Kangaroo Cup came, the other cups that he used, they were just out of the picture.

One day, I want to give money from the Kangaroo Cup to Parkinson's research and hopefully we'll find a cure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here's to you.

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HARLOW: Here's to you, Lily. I love that idea.

Now this. He lived long and prospered. The death of Leonard Nimoy prompted an outpouring of tributes both on earth and from space. Astronaut Terry Virts, on board the international space station, tweeted this picture from orbit giving the Vulcan salute made famous by Nimoy's character, Mr. Spock. The president, President Obama, writing, "Long before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy. Leonard was a life-long lover of the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with his talent and his time. And of course, Leonard was Spock -- cool, logical, big-eared and level headed, the center of "Star Trek's" optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity's future."

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LEONARD NIMOY, ACTOR: Live long and prosper. Image of Shirack (ph), father of all we now hold true.

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HARLOW: Leonard Nimoy died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 83 years old.