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Robert Durst Murder Investigation; New ISIS Videos; LAPD Hunting Police Officer. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired March 16, 2015 - 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: Born into one of the richest families in all of New York City, Durst has been linked to the deaths of three people, his wife, his confidant and his neighbor.

But Durst has he escaped any murder convictions. However, his arrest just this past Saturday may be the beginning of the end of his freedom. Let me show you something, his mug shot, and this just in to CNN. Durst was carrying a gun when he was apprehended. Today, he waived extradition. CNN has learned Durst may face more charges in New Orleans on top of the murder charge in California.

Los Angeles police say the victim is Susan Berman, Durst's close friend who appeared to want to talk with police about something when someone shot her and killed her back in 2000. Durst's attorney responded to that allegation today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK DEGUERIN, ATTORNEY FOR ROBERT DURST: came here to waive jurisdiction and go back to California and to get it on. Bob Durst didn't kill Susan Berman. He's ready to end all the rumor and speculation and have a trial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Investigators say new evidence has now come in to light in this case. Could it be the audio here just revealed in this HBO documentary? The documentary is called "The Jinx."

At the end of the final video, Durst is confronted with some pretty damning evidence. He goes to the bathroom, apparently totally forgetting he has got this microphone still on and this is what he says. Take a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

ROBERT DURST, DEFENDANT: What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: HBO, by the way, owned by Time Warner, parent company of CNN.

With me now, I have got attorneys Eric Guster and Bob Schalk, but first CNN's Miguel Marquez, who has more on the twists and turns of this whole thing.

In terms of background and timing, when, Miguel, did filmmakers learn about this hot mike, this audio and when did they tell police?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Amazingly, relatively recently. This was a -- this is a six-part documentary. Now it's just concluded.

And they have been working on this for about three year. They interviewed him twice for the six-part series. The first time was about three years ago. The second time with that bathroom bit -- and, by the way, when you play that clip, you hear sort of a weird sound. That's him burping. He does it on camera and then in the bathroom. And he talks about, oh, the burping. I can't believe it, like there's something just trying to get out of this man.

It is absolutely bizarre. The twists just get twistier in this case. The filmmakers, then, two years ago interview him. He says this in the bathroom. They don't even realize it's on the tape until about several months ago. An editor is going through it. They listen to it and then they pick it up.

Here's what Andrew Jarecki, the director of this film, told "CBS This Morning."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW JARECKI, DIRECTOR: But his microphone kept recording. We always leave the microphone on him. He knows that. And he went to the bathroom while it was recording. And it wasn't until months later that we had an editor listening to material that we had just sort of left behind, thinking, well, now we have got to listen to everything we have got. We're about to finish the series. And we discover that we have this shocking piece of audio.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Here they are, just gobsmacked that they have exactly what they were trying to get from him during this second interview. They confronted him with all this very finite detail about the murder of Susan Berman, a letter sent to police then and a letter that they found during their research that had the exact same block letters, the exact same misspelling of the word Beverly -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Beverly, right.

Miguel, stay with me. I have got more for you, but to Eric and Bob.

The first question in this whole moment where you hear on this mike, "I killed them all, of course," could that be used in court?

ERIC GUSTER, ATTORNEY: I believe it could.

BALDWIN: Tell me why.

The question is whether he had the expectation of privacy in the restroom. That's what they're going to argue. But he was miked up doing a documentary that was going into his life and he was willingly giving statements and being interviewed over and over about these different issues. I believe it's going to eventually get in.

BALDWIN: What would his attorneys do with this?

ROBERT SCHALK, ATTORNEY: Absolutely. They're going to argue a reasonable expectation of privacy in the men's room. Here's the problem, as Eric was saying, is he knows he's being miked voluntarily. He puts the mike on and did the interview.

And secondarily to that, this wasn't a statement taken by the police. This is a statement being taken by a private citizen. All those arguments about constitutional violations and you're invading my privacy and all my -- due to my Miranda rights, they don't apply here. Right. He's going to have a tough time getting this thrown out.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: And then I think what also baffles me, Miguel, is these filmmakers, or the documentary makers also reveal this other piece of evidence. Mind you, this has been investigated for years and years by law enforcement. But they find this letter Durst wrote to this victim, Susan Berman. Tell me about that letter.

MARQUEZ: This was a letter that was written before her murder, obviously, that she used to be his publicist. They were good friends.

<15:05:00> He writes her a letter from his downtown office in L.A. and says good luck, hope everything is great. See you in the future. Bob.

But on the envelope, on the outside, the address exactly the same as the letter sent to police after her murder telling police where the murder where the victim was, saying this address, cadaver was the only thing the note inside the letter said. But the addresses on the letter, the exact same block lettering and the same misspelling of Beverly.

When the filmmakers confront him with this, he gets very nervous, noticeably nervous. He starts burping and then sort of says well, that could just be a common misspelling. Anybody can misspell Beverly and then goes to the bathroom. The first thing he says when he goes to the bathroom is, that's it, you're caught. It's incredible.

BALDWIN: What do you do with this?

GUSTER: This is the type of case that we see all the time where clients have just so much rope that they eventually hang themselves. He went to this interview. And I would have never allowed a client to do this. There is no way...

BALDWIN: To do the documentary?

GUSTER: Absolutely not, because that is essentially a police interrogation on tape, and you don't have the police rules intact. You don't have your lawyer who has to guide the questions or lawyer who can object to the questions.

It's just him and a filmmaker asking him questions. And that is so much rope to hang himself and he probably did.

BALDWIN: And right-wing talking about -- final question. We're talking about three murders here. The first wife, her body has never been found. Now that he's in jail, they have to be asking, right, about other instances?

SCHALK: He's already got his lawyer. He's not going to be giving any more statements. The issue that is going to come is what has now come from the reopening of the investigation in Los Angeles?

BALDWIN: OK.

SCHALK: But what will happen is I think those cases are cold. This case in Los Angeles is now hot with the new admission. If they get a conviction in California, I would think that would be the end of this, because he's going to be spending the rest of his life and probably die in a prison cell. So, it will be very interesting to see what new information they have, because they're not disclosing it yet, that ties him to this crime, other than the letter and his statement.

But those two things alone, right then and there, is enough for a jury to convict him.

GUSTER: And the letter is damaging. It's horribly damaging.

SCHALK: I'm not a comparison expert, but...

(CROSSTALK)

SCHALK: You don't need to hire an expert to tell you.

(CROSSTALK)

GUSTER: And those are the type of details that get people either convicted or found not guilty, get them acquitted, because those small details of what a jury would look at and say, how could this happen but for this person doing this? That is what gets them convicted.

BALDWIN: A lot of rope here.

GUSTER: Oh, yes. And he shouldn't audition for "How to Get Away With Murder." He could have done it, but he talked too much.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHALK: Yes, he got too complacent.

GUSTER: He got too relaxed.

SCHALK: Way too relaxed.

BALDWIN: All right, Eric and Bob, thank you very much. Miguel Marquez, thank you as well. Coming up next here, Los Angeles police right now, they're searching

for one of their own in this investigation of a deadly shooting, this rookie officer, his gun missing. Find out why he is wanted.

Plus, as ISIS destroys Saddam Hussein's tomb, all eyes are on Babylon. Can this precious place be protected?

And Creflo Dollar, he is this mega pastor. Have you heard about this? He's asking his congregation to pay 300 bucks apiece so he can buy a new private jet, a jet with the cost of $65 million. Why does he want to do this? We will explore that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

<15:12:04> BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let me take you to Los Angeles for this. Police there are searching for one of their own in connection with this deadly weekend shooting. Officers say they believe rookie LAPD officer Henry Solis knows they want to talk to him. He was off duty at the time of the shooting, has not reported for work ever since.

Investigators were tipped off to Solis' possible involvement by this odd clue, his car, a Volkswagen Jetta, found abandoned blocks from the crime scene. Witnesses reported seeing the compact car speeding away while the victim lay bleeding in the street.

CNN's Paul Vercammen joins me live from Los Angeles with more on this.

And, first, Paul, just the victim's family, what are they saying?

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're saying that they think this was a case of mistaken identity. They say from what they understand, their relative had gone out, that's Salome Rodriguez, that he was out with friends, he went to a club, he went and had pizza.

Somewhere around 2:45 a.m., this is the morning of Friday the 13th, he's with a woman, he opens the door for her and then he confronts this possible suspect in this case. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIDIA RODRIGUEZ, MOTHER OF VICTIM: Witnesses said that the person started like arguing with him. And my son right away raised his hand and said it wasn't me. It wasn't me. That was the witness that said that. And the guy just started yelling at him more and started arguing with him and my son that the guy kept on saying to him that, it wasn't me, it wasn't me. That's when he heard the shots, five times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: And she and other another relative said that this -- just a great person who volunteered in a local church, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So then it's horrible for this family. But what about this officer? What is the Los Angeles Police Department saying?

VERCAMMEN: Well, they now have an officer who is AWOL. They're trying to actively find him. They have tried to call him. It was Saturday morning that he didn't show up on his dayside shift. He's a probationary officer. He works with an older, more seasoned training officer out of the Devonshire Division. That's in the Valley.

They his record was unremarkable and that no significant discipline, no commendations and he would have come off probation in November. But it was a concern. Let's see what Andrew Smith had to say. He's the commander here. He said this was so unusual that basically he got contacted before the Pomona Police Department even contacted them saying what do I do here? I have a situation in which one of my officers has not shown up for work, we have tried to contact him. We cannot reach him and that alone is enough for some disciplinary action, Brooke.

<15:15:00> BALDWIN: OK. Stay on it for us. Paul Vercammen, thank you in L.A.

Next, the chilling account of these mock executions by a man who was held by ISIS and managed to escape alive. He says Jihadi John held a sword to his throat and the words he spoke are haunting -- more of his story coming up.

Also, a minister asks his congregation for hundreds of dollars that would ultimately go to buy a $65 million jet. Folks, this is not the first time this pastor has been criticized for his spending. Don Lemon confronted him. We will talk to Don about that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: ISIS has smashed precious, priceless ancient statues in Mosul, bulldozed the ruins of Nineveh, and dynamited centuries-old churches and mosques and shrines.

<15:20:09> And just today, new images of ISIS militants destroying crosses in the Nineveh province. Even the tomb of Saddam Hussein isn't safe. This battle between Iraqi forces and ISIS over control of Tikrit, it was squashed to rubble, though it's not clear which side did it.

So far, the ancient city of Babylon has been out of the extremists' grasp.

Here's CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman with more on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The city of Babylon has seen empires come and empires go, built, destroyed, rebuilt, and ransacked time and time again.

It dates back almost 4,500 years, and remains a symbol of the glory of Mesopotamia. Babylon was last rebuilt, if you can call it that, by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. One of his palaces looms over the ruins. The renovated ruins include bricks stamped with his name describing him as the son of the great Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.

Adnan Abul Fatami (ph) has come with his family to see the ruins.

"This wasn't Saddam's," he says. "It belonged to our grandfathers, the Babylonians, not Saddam."

But ISIS' reign of terror has eclipsed Saddam's megalomania. Last month, ISIS posted footage of the destruction of priceless artifacts in the Mosul Museum. They have reportedly bulldozed the ancient cities of Nineveh and Hatra in Northern Iraq.

"The Mosul museum was destroyed. Why?" asks Adnan, addressing ISIS? "That is the heritage of your grandfathers. Why did you do that?"

South of Baghdad, Babylon is out of ISIS' reach.

(on camera): For ISIS, monuments like these are from (SPEAKING ARABIC) Arabic for the age of ignorance before the advent of Islam, and, therefore, must be destroyed. But, for most Iraqis, they're the achievements of their forefathers and a great source of national pride.

This is the victory sign against God.

(voice-over): Sayed (ph) is a leader of the Iraqi scouts movement. He and other parents are preparing for a campout, intended to teach Iraqi boys and girls about their history.

"We have to preserve our heritage to show how advanced Babylonian civilization was," says Mona (ph). "It was the pinnacle of ancient civilization."

The assault on Iraq's history is taken personally here.

"When I saw what happened, I was determined to preserve our antiquities from ISIS," says Safa Adin (ph), who fled Mosul last year when ISIS overran the city.

Iraq's very identity is tied up with its ancient past. In a land where history is measured not in centuries, but in millennia, sites like these have a deep personal resonance.

"Babylon is our soul," says Mohammed Hektub (ph) from the antiquities department. "It's our heritage, our history. And we will defend it."

A heritage and a history now under assault from latter-day barbarians.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Babylon, Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Ben, thank you for that.

Also, this story. The words are absolutely chilling, the Spanish journalist who is speaking about his harrowing experiences as an ISIS hostage in the presence of this infamous killer by the nickname of Jihadi John.

In an article that was published in "The Sunday Times of London," Javier Espinosa gives his account of this mock execution conducted by ISIS. And just to warn you, some of it is pretty graphic. But just to show what he was explaining, what happened to him -- quote -- "He caressed my neck with the blade, but kept on talking. Feel it? Cold, isn't it? Can you imagine the pain you will feel when it cuts? Unimaginable pain. He was brushing my jugular now. The first hit will sever your veins. The blood mixes with your saliva."

He goes on to tell of the second and third graze from the sword and how the man known as Jihadi John also practiced the execution with a pistol. Espinosa, a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper "El Mundo," was captured in 2013.

Let me to bring in David Rohde, investigative reporter for Reuters, who was once held and kidnapped prisoner by the Taliban.

<15:25:03> David, welcome back.

Let's just begin with we knew with ISIS, we knew these mock executions were happening. But this is really the first time we have ever heard from anyone who has escaped captivity who talks about what they do, what it feels like. Why?

DAVID ROHDE, FORMER TALIBAN PRISONER: We don't know. This is an amazing story. Javier Espinosa, who wrote this, is a decorated war correspondent.

He explains why people have been talking. They were told by ISIS that if they talked about their captivity, all of the remaining captives would be punished. There's essentially only one captive left, John Cantlie. And that's why Javier wrote this piece and talked about it.

BALDWIN: The British man?

ROHDE: Yes. And using Javier's own words in the piece, he talks about these being demented people, psychopaths.

These are the words and the acts of a criminal. And we have talked about this before. This has nothing to do with Islam. This is the sort of demented ISIS crucible, the strange world they have created for themselves.

BALDWIN: You obviously came in close contact with the Taliban. I think of different branches of al Qaeda.

And I'm just wondering with this notion of faking out someone, what -- you don't know if you're going to live or die with this sword to your throat. Why is ISIS doing this?

ROHDE: Well, Javier in the story talks about this love of theater and this love of drama. Again, it seems like something a criminal would do. There's been some speculation about why some of the captives seem very

calm in these execution videos. Some thinking is that they have went through many mock executions like this, so they didn't know it was coming. They may have frankly accepted their fate.

I thought about what would happen, what I would try to do in that kind of situation. You don't want to...

BALDWIN: What would you do?

ROHDE: Well, you don't want to show panic or fear. You're thinking about your family and the people that are going to have to watch this tape. And you don't want to let your captors win, because, again, these are demented people. It reminds me of David Koresh, the sort of cult approach, this belief the world is going to end, the Khmer Rouge.

BALDWIN: You keep talking about the Khmer Rouge.

ROHDE: Yes, where they were killing everyone who had glasses, because they were going to create a paradise for peasant farmers.

And that's honestly, I think, a fair analogy towards the Islamic State. And I do think this behavior, these stories is going to backfire on them, not just in the West, but in the region. As Ben showed in that story, people are proud of their history and they're destroying it.

BALDWIN: It has a deep personal resonance. You think about the statues when you see the videos posted of them smashing the statues, these precious artifacts. He goes through this city of Babylon. It's something we haven't seen before from a group to do this.

ROHDE: It isn't. I think they're gambling that they will attract more demented people who believe these things like Jihadi John.

It might help them in terms of short-term recruitment, but...

BALDWIN: Backfiring.

ROHDE: ... as I said, it's going to backfire. This isn't human. We don't act this way. It's not normal human behavior. No God supports it, no culture, no -- I think no accountable government. But it's just very sad.

BALDWIN: Criminal. Criminal. David Rohde, thank you very much, as always.

ROHDE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next here on CNN, a minister asks his church members to give him money to buy a new jet. CNN's Don Lemon confronted this minister before. Don will join me live next.

Plus, fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana in the thick of this controversy after they have come out and said in vitro fertilization produces -- and I'm quoting them -- "chemical babies," and they, two gay men, oppose gay adoptions. "American Idol" star and gay father Clay Aiken joins me with his response coming up.

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