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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
New Video Shows Serial Killer`s Interrogation; Manhunt for Escaped Georgia Inmates; Verdict Watch; Bizarre Plot Uncovered; Beyond Reasonable Doubt; Murder Investigation; Feather River Mystery
Aired June 14, 2017 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST (voice-over): America`s mass shooting plague hits the nation`s capital.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`d say 50 or 60 shots at least have been fired from -- from the -- from the shooter.
BANFIELD: This time, congressmen playing baseball.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hear Steve Scale over near second base scream.
BANFIELD: Top Republicans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Five or ten shots in a row very quickly rang out.
BANFIELD: Ducking for cover.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gun was a semiautomatic.
BANFIELD: Their bodyguards outgunned.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s is a different weapon, so you hear pistol shots going back at the shooter.
BANFIELD: The shooter hit before the damage was worse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody would have survived without the Capitol Hill police.
BANFIELD: A serial killer`s chilling words.
TODD KOHLHEPP, ACCUSED SERIAL KILLER: And I shot her two, three times in the chest.
BANFIELD: Recounting his tale as though pals with police.
KOHLHEPP: I cleared it in under 30 seconds.
BANFIELD: Bragging about his murderous ways.
KOHLHEPP: You guys would have been proud.
BANFIELD: Desperately trying to impress.
KOHLHEPP: Not my best work.
BANFIELD: And trying to shift the blame to his victim, saying this woman was somehow just as bad.
KOHLHEPP: Kala has before asked me to beat up people for her or go get someone killed.
BANFIELD: A routine stop, but inside this minivan, a shocking find.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My God, thank you!
BANFIELD: A woman chained in the back, desperate to escape.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I fought so (EXPLETIVE DELETED) hard because I was, like, This is how you die.
BANFIELD: But almost as disturbing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) at him?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don`t.
BANFIELD: The man they caught and his behavior in the back of the squad car.
A man and his wife out for a cruise, but only he comes back. He claims she disappeared off the back of the boat. Then a huge red flag slapped
investigators in the face. The husband was having an affair just the day before his wife went missing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two corrections officers have been murdered, very frustrating.
BANFIELD: Somewhere out there tonight, two dangerous cellmates are running for their lives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`re not concerned with anything regarding human life.
BANFIELD: With the death penalty staring them down if they`re caught, these two have nothing to lose, and that means other victims could be next.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BANFIELD: Hello, everyone. I`m Ashleigh Banfield. This is PRIMETIME JUSTICE.
We`re following breaking news right now. Mass shootings that plagued America have finally made their way to the nation`s capital, lawmakers the
target this time of a madman hellbent on hunting politicians down at a morning baseball practice, four people shot and are tonight recovering
after that attack at a ballfield in Alexandria, Virginia.
It was the early morning practice for the members of the Republican congressional baseball team getting ready for a charity game tomorrow night
when the bullets began to fly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is this guy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do we know where he`s at? Do we know where he`s at?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s behind home plate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I assume people have been calling 911 already.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Better be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that guy OK out there? The guy -- the guy who has been shot, is he OK? Anybody talking to him? (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay down! Stay down! (EXPLETIVE DELETED) shoot him (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope that guy`s OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Noah Nathan (ph) shot that video. He was at a dog park near the baseball diamond and was recording on his phone when the shooting started.
He thought it was fireworks, but quickly realized that he also was in danger.
[20:05:06]When the bullets finally stopped, the victims included Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana, a congressional staffer, a lobbyist
and a member of the Capitol Police force. Scalise was critically wounded, and he is out of his first surgery tonight. Two police officers who were
members of Scalise`s security detail were at that practice, and they managed to take down the gunman, but not after a shootout, though.
He has now been identified as 66-year-old James Hodgkinson. Investigators say he did have a concealed weapons permit in his home state of Illinois.
A semiautomatic rifle and a .9-millimeter handgun were recovered from the scene. Despite being from Illinois, he`d been living in the Alexandria
area for months, much of it out of his car.
Hearing the shots is harrowing enough, but living through it on that field, those there told a tale of being trapped and hunted with no escape. They
described a war zone playing out before them, helplessly watching their wounded congressman as he tried to drag himself to safety.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still got shots being fired.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of a sudden, we heard a very loud shot. And the gunman was over by the third base dugout.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I never thought I`d play a baseball game for charity, go to practice at 6:30 in the morning and have to dodge bullets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shots being fired, and there are people running.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did feel a little bit like I was back in Iraq, but without the same assets around me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw a man with a very large gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody was hitting the dirt. I saw Scalise go down at second base.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), FMR. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am sickened by this despicable act.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just want to let people know that he wasn`t evil.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`d say 50 or 60 shots at least have been fired from the shooter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That he was, I guess, tired of some of the politics going on.
SANDERS: Real change can only come about through non-violent action, and anything else runs counter to our most deeply held American values.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have another one down. Total of five down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay down! Stay down! Stay down!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This could be the first political rhetorical terrorist act.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it was confusing because you couldn`t imagine that this could actually be happening, but it was.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I watched my friend and my fellow member, Steve Scalise, laying motionless on the field.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: CNN national correspondent Ryan Young joins me from James Hodgkinson`s hometown of Belleville, Illinois.
They talked about getting his electronics. They talked about searching high and low to figure out what drove him to do this. Do they have any
answers?
RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That really is the big conversation right now. We`ve talked to the sheriff. We talked to his neighbors, But one
thing I want to show you is the continuing investigation that is ongoing as we speak.
As you look behind me, you can see FBI investigators and ATF investigators who have that van back there who`ve been collecting evidence throughout the
afternoon. We saw this group arrive around 3:30 this afternoon. We know FBI agents have been here since about 10:30 this morning.
And speaking to the sheriff, we did learn that a few months ago, that neighbors called about shots being fired in this neighborhood. When you
talk to people in this community, they say that`s not always something that would raise suspicion, but a man across the street who has grandchildren
said, look, he heard the shots and wanted someone to come out here and talk to the man. When they came out here, they realized that he had a license
for it. It was a deer rifle. That deer rifle, apparently he was trying to adjust the sight.
So they just talked to him, and from that moment on, everything was OK. He wasn`t cited or arrested or anything like that.
Talking to other neighbors, they were just really pushing on the fact they never had issues with him. He never had any outbursts. He did have Bernie
Sanders signs in his yard, but outside of that, they talked about a man who seemed to be a good community steward who every now and then on this
private driveway would make sure the snow was cleared when it got above a foot. So that was a conversation that was being had today, people in shock
about what they hear about one of their neighbors.
BANFIELD: So Ryan, obviously, everyone`s been digging through every ounce of this man`s social media history to try to find a clue. I`m not sure if
this is a clue or not, but I`m going to read some of his posts because this is what`s been surfacing among the many messages.
"Trump is a traitor. Trump has destroyed our democracy. It`s time to destroy Trump and company. I want to say, Mr. President, for being an a-
hole, you are truly the biggest a-hole we ever had in the office." I think we have these messages. Let`s put them up, please.
He also went on to say about Steve Scalise specifically, "Here`s a Republican that should lose his job, but they gave him a raise." And then
on Trump again, "Trump is a mean, disgusting person." And then about a Trump cartoon, he actually said, "This is exactly how it works," as though
to make a joke about the process.
[20:10:24]There`s also reporting, Ryan, that he reached out to his own congressman, I`m not sure if the number is correct, but about 10 times. Is
the picture being created about a guy who was more than just angry with a few Facebook posts but had sort of descended into madness about some kind
of political anger?
YOUNG: You know, that`s a great question. And of course, when you arrive here and after reading the Facebook posts and social media, you think maybe
neighbors would have that sort of clue.
One of the things I want to describe to you is there`s barely any houses around here. So when you walk this neighborhood, most of the homes are
back there where the FBI is, so we`re not allowed down that private drive. But his neighbors up front here that we talked to said the one thing they
really never cross the line with is politics and religion, and you can understand that.
Really, we`re standing right across the street from a cornfield, so you can get the idea that sometimes neighbors are separated by this land. And the
conversations they always had were very pleasant. In fact, the man next door tells me the one conversation he did have is he felt like he was
getting too old to do his job anymore, his business. He was closing up. He was putting everything that he had on Craigslist and selling it. He
wasn`t even aware that he had disappeared for the last month. So that was a conversation that we all were having to try to figure out...
BANFIELD: Ryan...
YOUNG: ... were there any signs of this. When we talked to the sheriff and asked some questions...
BANFIELD: These neighbors -- I just got to jump in...
(CROSSTALK)
BANFIELD: These neighbors and these friends say he was a nice guy. He wasn`t evil. And then I hear he had behavioral issues and he was fired. I
heard all sorts of things about him being troubled. I read those posts. They just don`t sound like they`re coming from somebody who`s -- who`s
perhaps not unhinged. There has to be a lot more to his background that shows something that at least could have given a clue towards this
propensity for this kind of murderous violence. Thank God, it didn`t turn into murder.
YOUNG: You know, one of the things that somebody mentioned in passing was sometimes you really don`t know what`s going on inside someone`s head. And
you have to kind of say that out loud now when you think about maybe someone living right next door to you would have these thoughts and you
didn`t even know it.
One of the men who lives nearby says, Look, I checked his background, realized that he had been before, but it wasn`t for anything that would
make me feel unsafe as a neighbor. So I understood that. Going from there, when you talk to the sheriff, the sheriff was, like, We haven`t had
any contact with him in over 10 years.
And of course, when you talk about those old incidents that happened -- there`s one in 2006 where it talks about a case that was dismissed where he
may have struck his daughter in a domestic case, and of course, the charges were dropped. There was an accusation that he maybe fired a shotgun during
that time, but they could never prove it. That`s what the sheriff said. So that case...
BANFIELD: Boy, and if you followed everybody in America who has something like that in their background, we`d have nobody to actually watch the
store.
Hold that thought for a minute, Ryan, if you will. I want to bring in James Gagliano, who`s a retired FBI supervisory special agent and CNN law
enforcement analyst.
Listen, James, there`s a guy who has some posts that are questionable. There`s a guy who`s had trouble at work. There are millions of people like
that. But there`s a guy living out of his car and people know that in the neighborhood, for a couple months, and then he`s asking around the baseball
field, Which party is this team? Are they Democrats or Republicans?
Are these warning signs that could have yielded anything?
JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: It`s all part of the complex puzzle of putting the investigation together, Ashleigh. Yes, that forensic
evidence that`s going to be harvested from the social media sites is critical and important. I don`t think the FBI or any of the other
investigative agencies should pigeonhole themselves into that. They`re certainly going to interview witnesses. As we just saw, they`re going to
be interviewing folks that lived around this man that might have known him a little bit better because...
BANFIELD: And what`s the point? He`s dead. What`s the point of investigating further?
GAGLIANO: Exactly, because we can`t interview him. And so we`ve got to piece this thing together without being able to interview this man.
The FBI`s involvement in this is threefold. First of all, you can still treat this as a terrorist act because terrorism is actually a violence or
intimidation for the pursuit of political aims, which his Facebook posts indicate, or political assassination, which is something that the FBI got
involved in after John F. Kennedy was killed 1963 and there was no federal statute that gave the FBI purview. The Dallas Police Department handled
it. And thirdly, those two intrepid, brave, courageous...
BANFIELD: Unbelievable.
GAGLIANO: ... unbelievable Capitol police officers...
BANFIELD: Unbelievable.
GAGLIANO: The assailant basically conducted an assault on federal officers, and that gave the FBI purview there, too.
BANFIELD: Can I just that the witnesses have talked about those officers as being like warriors, that they were themselves wounded and continued the
hunt to put that threat down, despite the fact that they were already in grave danger themselves and had taken on fire. So I don`t think there`s
dissent among anyone about the bravery of those officers.
[20:15:08]We`re going to leave it there. We have another story that we`ve been following a lot this week, and it is unbelievable. A man named Todd
Kohlhepp, and admitted murderer, serial killer, rapist, who`s going to spend the rest of his life in prison, but when you hear his interrogation
with police, it is nothing short of chilling how callous he was about his kills.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOHLHEPP: And I shot her two, three times in the chest. Not my best work. Pattern was horrible. I was actually surprised.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: And the multi-state manhunt is continuing for two inmates on the run after allegedly killing two of the corrections officers who were
transporting them. Police say they might be traveling in a white F-250 truck. Latest on the search and why these men are so dangerous because
they have nothing to lose.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:20:00]BANFIELD: It is rare if ever at all that you hear a serial killer describe his brand of evil in detail and it`s something that stops
us in our tracks, like the BTK killer who casually detailed his tortures. And remember Richard Kuklinski, the Iceman, coldly described dozens of
contract murders in an HBO series?
Well, you can now add Todd Kohlhepp to that list of humanity`s rejects, seven murders that we know of are on record, though he claims numbers are
much higher. But this serial killer was finally stopped after his final victim, Kala Brown, was rescued from his property, chained up inside a
metal storage container, and she`d been kept there for months.
Her boyfriend Charlie lasted only minutes, shot point blank in the chest right in front of Kala. And while Charlie was buried in a shallow grave
nearby, Kala was kept prisoner and raped daily, sometimes upwards of three times a day by this beast.
Cell phone data and social media posts led investigators to the land. That`s when the rescuers heard Kala banging on the inside of that container
and started doing this, started the process of breaking her out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know where your buddy is?
BROWN: Charlie?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
BROWN: He shot him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who shot him? Who did?
BROWN: Todd Kohlhepp shot Charlie Carver three times in the chest, wrapped him in a blue tarp, put him in the bucket of the tractor, locked me down
here, and I never seen him again. He says he`s dead and buried. He says there`s several bodies dead and buried out here. And he says that the dogs
would be ruined if they go looking because there`s red pepper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m going to (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s what?
BROWN: Red pepper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) people, though.
BROWN: He said there`s people everywhere around the car (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: After being rescued, Kala was rushed by ambulance to the hospital. And during that ride, she spilled every detail to the
investigators about what she went through inside that container at the hands of a monster. And the district attorney gave us the tapes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: He would get there between 1:00 and 3:00 o`clock every day, take me up to the mean building, feed me, make me do whatever he wanted sexually.
And then he`d put me back in the building. And then he would always come back between 5:00 and 7:00 and take me back up to the building and make me
again (INAUDIBLE) whatever he wanted sexually again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: While Kala was en route to the hospital, here`s what was going on elsewhere. Sheriff`s deputies took Todd Kohlhepp to and investigation
room. And for some reason, he opened up. He was not upset. He was not nervous. He didn`t cry. He wasn`t sorry.
In fact, he became a total suckup to the investigators, casually chatting them up about all the horrors that he`d committed. And in stark display of
his brazen crowdedness, he even blamed his victim, Kala, the woman that he raped day after day in a filthy prison container, suggesting that she was
somehow as bad as he was!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOHLHEPP: Kala has before asked me to beat up people for her or use my resources, which she thinks my resources are go get someone killed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?
KOHLHEPP: Yes. With people that she doesn`t like.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, have you do it or have you hire somebody to do it?
KOHLHEPP: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both?
KOHLHEPP: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Curious to see how that information`s going to sit with his brand-new fellow prison inmates, the ones who hate rapists. Todd Kohlhepp
spewed all sorts of greasy self-importance on Kala while she was chained up in front of him. He terrorized her with tales that he`d killed dozens of
people, that he wasn`t sure if he was going to kill her or sell her.
But the coward was just dumb enough and narcissistic enough to give investigators information that only the serial killer would know about the
murder of Kala`s boyfriend. He even bragged about the unsolved murders of four people at a bike shop nearly 13 yeas ago and just how fast he could
kill them all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOHLHEPP: That was a one-day doing. I cleared it in under 30 seconds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You what now?
KOHLHEPP: I cleared that building in under 30 seconds. You guys would have been proud. I`m sorry, but you guys would have been proud.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: And Todd wasn`t done yet. He went into intricate detail on the way that each victim died at that bike shop, and he started with the
mechanic who was in the back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you pulled out the Beretta, and what happened?
[20:25:02]KOHLHEPP: Shot the mechanic twice, downward angle. He was beneath me. He was down, crouched down on this side of the bike. Bike was
here, I`m on this side. So I leaned over the bike and released two shots.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
KOHLHEPP: It may have been two, it may have been three, but it definitely was two in a downward angle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You shot the mechanic twice at a downward angle -- maybe twice?
KOHLHEPP: Twice, maybe a third time. I don`t remember the count. But once I realized that he was no longer a threat, I immediately proceeded
towards the front of the building.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I just want to stop there for one moment, and I want to bring in Joey Jackson, criminal defense attorney, and Wendy Patrick, who`s a veteran
prosecutor, because the two of you probably watched these tapes and wondered how on earth does this happen? How on earth does someone just so
casually give it all up?
And before I get an answer from you on that, I want him to continue that narrative because when he was done with the mechanic in the back, that`s
when he turns his attention to the last two people in the bike shop after shooting the mother in the front. And here`s how he described it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOHLHEPP: They came back to see what happened. I had -- all of a sudden, I had three people in front of me. Mom was closest and...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mom was the closest.
KOHLHEPP: And I shot her two to three times in the chest. Not my best work. Pattern was horrible. I was actually surprised.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Said he was actually surprised at that -- actually surprised, but then he decided to give them a little bit more detail about what it was
like for him to go after the other two, and he actually likened it to a video game. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOHLHEPP: The son and manager -- the owner and the manager ran for the door, took off. I mean, at that range, they should have ran to me, not
away. They were way too close.
In the process of that, I emptied, popped a few rounds, popped one -- I don`t know which one was which -- and got one of them in the back. Did a
tactical reload and (INAUDIBLE)
I will tell you once I was engaged, I was engaged. At that point, it was almost like a video game. It`s not a game, but it`s almost like -- you`re
focused on -- you`ve been there, sir. You know what I`m talking about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: No, you`re not one of them, so don`t pretend you`re one of them. And if I were one of those investigators, my skin would be crawling, but I
think they just humored him, guys. I think they kept him talking by pretending that he was in the good ol` boys club in that room.
I can`t imagine, though, what it would have been like for them to listen to all this and take it down.
Joey Jackson, you`re a defense attorney. This is a cut-and-dried death penalty. Why wouldn`t they just go for the death penalty, just do it, wipe
him out! Why give him a deal?
JOEY JACKSON, HLN/CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, oftentimes, what you do -- and not to suggest that this is right, but you know, you save families a
lot of grief an aggravation when you get finality, you put an end to it. The death penalty, oftentimes, there are multiple appeals. It goes on
forever and ever and ever.
And so you want to get somebody like this, you want to put them away. You want to put them away forever. You want to give the family some semblance
of peace in knowing that he`s gone. There`s not going to be any appeals, and he`ll spend the rest of his life in jail, which is where he belongs.
He actually doesn`t belong in jail. We know where he belongs, but you alluded to the death penalty, and that`s not going to happen.
BANFIELD: There`s a special place in hell after jail, though. Wendy, hold on one second because when you see this next piece of interrogation
confession, I want you to think about the punishment he will get when he`s in jail because he really likes to lecture everybody as though he`s the
king of the castle. And nothing can be more obvious than how he lectures the police about how to go about their work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KOHLHEPP: And the reason you have no (INAUDIBLE) on any of the shell casings is I wear two pairs of gloves when loading every firearm, even in
practice. If you wear one pair, you can still have a latent print because of the acids on your fingers. (INAUDIBLE) you still get that, you get any
chemicals on the outside of that when you touch a person or you touch (INAUDIBLE) you can`t put a print on it, even though you didn`t have
gloves. (INAUDIBLE) causes friction between the (INAUDIBLE) negates that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: What you call a classic know-it-all. And if that wasn`t bad enough, guys, earlier, you heard him alluding to something like, Oh, yes,
Kala wanted me to kill for her, too. But here`s the real conversation that Kala reported herself in that ambulance ride to the hospital about the
things Todd told her while she was chained up in front of him. And here it is. Listen up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He said if I was a good girl, he would teach me how to kill and I would get to be his partner. I`ve always been in the medical
field and I don`t know why he would think I would want to hurt someone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST OF PRIMETIME JUSTICE: So, I think, Wendy, a lot of people watching would want to know that the punishment would be worse than
just the rest of his life in prison. Will it be -- will someone like him who is a know-it-all and a complete dog, will he be treated poorly by his
fellow inmates?
WENDY PATRICK, VETERAN PROSECUTOR: He will be probably in solitary confinement for the rest of his life. There is no way this is somebody who
is going to be put in the general population. I`m going to call this, Ashleigh and Joey, homicidal narcissism. The only positive thing about the
confession and part of the reason that the investigators were egging him on, is this is a guy that remembers like it was yesterday when he did an
unsolved crimes from so many years ago.
That is of such value as you said to the victims of those other cases to have that level of detail which they can then take and match up with the
forensic evidence. That is going to help bring justice. Justice delayed is not always justice denied when you have somebody like this, you call him a
know-it-all, this narcissist who is willing to provide the level of detail that will help close those old cases.
BANFIELD: Such a coward, right? (inaudible) with a girl chained up in front of him, can`t say that to anybody else, but when you got someone chained up
in front of you and she is terrified, you say sort of things to make yourself look big and important. I just wonder how his smugness will play
out against those cold white walls in solitary or against those fellow inmates who may not appreciate that kind of smugness. Joey and Wendy, hold
on for a moment.
Tonight in central Georgia, multi-state manhunt for Donnie Rowe and Ricky Dubose is continuing. They are of course the ones who are wanted for the
killings of the corrections officers after they busted out of the prison transport bus early yesterday. No sightings of the pair yet, but the police
say they think that green Honda, the Accord that the pair allegedly carjacked, that`s been found. So they are not in that one. Now, the
investigators say they are searching for this.
A 2008 white Ford F-250 with tool boxes on each side, tag number BCX 5372. The police believe that Rowe and Dubose stole it last night or maybe
sometime early this morning. Just in case you`re wondering if it`s worth it for you to keep your eyes peeled, there is a $90,000 reward, $90,000 for
information that leads to their arrest and police are saying if anyone knows anything, it`s an easy number to call, 911.
Tonight in Pennsylvania, jurors in Bill Cosby`s trial for aggravated indecent assault are into their 24th hour of deliberations. He`s accused of
drugging and then assaulting a Temple University employee in 2004. Earlier today, the jurors had a question. They asked for Andrea Constand`s
testimony about the night of the alleged incident.
They wanted it read back to them. She`s of course the person that testified against him in this case. He`s charged with three counts of felony
aggravated indecent assault. If he is convicted of that, he could spend the rest of his natural life in jail.
We are also standing by for the verdict of Michelle Carter trial. She`s the person who is charged with involuntarily manslaughter in the suicide death
of her boyfriend, Conrad Roy. She decided she wanted the judge to decide. It`s called a bench trial. So, that judge has the case and her fate is now
in his hands.
A bizarre plot is uncovered when police rescue a woman who was found once again chained in the back of a mini van.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God, thank you.
(CRYING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chained down, by the neck.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He dragged me out of the place and I fought so (beep) hard because I was like this is how you die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: This is how you die, she said. But she did not. Her miraculous survival story, next.
[20:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: On a Monday night in January, a group of neighbors in Las Vegas had no idea what to make of what they were witnessing. They heard a
commotion at their apartment complex. But once they actually got a beat on the action, it was like something out of a movie. A woman clad only in her
underwear being dragged down the steps and violently thrown into the back of a van and then everything went silent.
For nearly 24 hours, police searched frantically for that woman. And they zeroed in on her ex-boyfriend`s cell phone. And then they started
triangulating. And those electronics took them more than 600 miles away to Espanola, New Mexico, where wouldn`t you know it, they spotted the van and
the ex.
And once that van was pulled over, a brand-new scene played out just like in the movies. That woman still in her underwear was chained in the back of
the van by her neck, by her legs, and for good measure she was handcuffed. You can only imagine her relief when those doors flew open.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God, thank you.
(CRYING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chained down, by the neck.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He dragged me out of the place and I fought so (beep) hard because I was like this is how you die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: So there were two men in the van, both arrested. Jack Morgan was the ex-boyfriend. And then there was Samuel Brown. And this is where it
gets strange. His new lover, yes, I said Samuel Brown, says he prefers to be called Sophia Brown. According to the court documents, this pair had
been planning the kidnapping for more than a year. Once in the back of the cruiser, Samuel Brown, the new lover didn`t have a whole lot to say about
it.
[20:40:00] (START VIDEO CLIP)
SAMUEL BROWN, SUSPECT FOR KIDNAPPING: I`m really frightened. I`m Samuel Brown, but I prefer to be called Sophia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: So, while Sophia didn`t say very much, Jack Morgan, the woman`s ex, well, he just opened right up. In fact, he broke into song.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Got a favorite hymn?
JACK MORGAN, SUSPECT FOR KIDNAPPING: No, I don`t. Amazing grace. I once was lost.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s pretty good.
MORGAN: Yeah, I do what I can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wear shoes next time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: And enjoy those last moments of freedom. Singing went on for several minutes and police say the two men admitted that they were going to
take the woman to a cave somewhere and then brainwash her so that she would eventually marry Jack. Both of these guys are now being held in federal
custody on kidnapping charges.
I want to bring Joey and Wendy back in. I don`t even know where to begin. I honestly just don`t even know where to begin. They go to the planning
stages allegedly for a year, Joey, only then to just let it all out in the back of the cruiser?
JOEY JACKSON, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY, CNN AND HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Just when you think you heard it all, apparently you have not. But I think this
is a story and I credit this, you know, to when we say always see something, say something. The neighbor locates the police or otherwise
calls the police. The police respond through brilliant police work and interviewing hard, determining what happened. They ultimately get to the
cell phone. They contact the authorities in New Mexico.
They stop. She`s ultimately taken out of that van safely and soundly and securely. And then on top of that, Ashleigh, you get the confession. And so
to your point about singing and making your -- sing all you want now because you`ll be singing a different tune in prison. These are life
felonies. Kidnapping as a federal matter is up to a life sentence and conspiracy to commit kidnapping is up to a life sentence. So, good luck,
gentlemen.
BANFIELD: So, Wendy, does it make any difference at all? We started this program with Kala Brown who was in the terrible container being raped daily
multiple times for over two months. This young woman to our knowledge had not been sexually assaulted, had been missing for 24 hours, but was
terrorized in that episode. Is there a big difference between that in terms of the law and how long they served?
PATRICK: Absolutely. I`m going to call this one, Ashleigh and Joey, pathological courtship. This is a case that is as bizarre as you can
imagine, you can`t make this up, Joey, and I see it everyday. But, to the average viewer, this is incredible that it could have gone down this way.
In terms of punishment, one doesn`t know what could have happened. Thank God, they were so messy at pulling this off. There were so many bread
crumbs, they were found fairly quickly. But you got to wonder whether or not all of this is going to factor into some kind of a mental defense
because unlike the pathological narcissism.
BANFIELD: Don`t tell me, Wendy, that they won`t serve a lot of time because if they had the propensity to do this, allegedly.
PATRICK: Oh, I`m not saying that, Ashleigh.
BANFIELD: You don`t want them walking amongst the living.
PATRICK: Oh, yeah, no, no, I`m not saying that, Ashleigh. But one of the things that distinguishes the two cases that will bear upon the amount of
time they spend in custody is whether or not there is going to be some kind of a mental defense in the latter case. So you got to look at all this in
context and it is true that while thankfully these guys were caught much sooner, you don`t know what could have happened.
BANFIELD: You have no idea.
PATRICK: . but you also have a set of facts. That`s right. Thankfully it didn`t progress to rape and murder.
JACKSON: If a mental defense is used, it will fail.
BANFIELD: Yeah, I agree.
JACKSON: There is nothing to suggest.
PATRICK: We can only hope.
JACKSON: And you know.
BANFIELD: You know right from wrong if you are scooting over state lines and hiding her and locking her
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: You planned it for 15 months. You know something.
BANFIELD: Thanks for that. I don`t even think we need to update this one. I think we should say good-bye, honestly. So we heard this a million times
before. Be careful about what you text. Be careful about who you text. Police in Pennsylvania say this man`s phone could be the key evidence to
solving his wife`s mysterious disappearance. But it doesn`t bode well for him. Friday night, this Friday, HLN original series "Beyond Reasonable
Doubt" takes an in-depth look at a cold case that was cracked by DNA found on the suspect`s cigarette butt.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to be able to get as much evidence as possible before we make the initial contact with the suspect. So, we know he`s a
habitual smoker. We know that, you know, from a discarded cigarette, you can get very valuable DNA from it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the time California allowed us to do this, we put a tracker, vehicle tracker on this car so that we would be able to follow
him. Every time his car moved, we followed him. He, for like five straight days, went to work and straight home. I believe it was on a Saturday.
[20:45:00] I was not at work. My team was following him. He took off for work and as he`s driving to work, he threw a cigarette butt out the window
on the freeway. We had the team shut down the entire freeway.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: This show is going to be great. "Beyond Reasonable Doubt." Left for dead. It airs this Friday at 9:00 p.m.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Nothing quite like a beautiful day out in the water on a 50-foot boat. Nothing but the breeze and spray to keep you dizzy. In Pennsylvania,
that may have been what Christopher and Karen Leclair were thinking when they cast off over the weekend and took the fishing boat out on Lake Erie.
[20:50:00] But only Christopher came back. No sign of Karen. Christopher made a distress call to the coast guard saying, "my wife fell overboard."
He says he turned around for about 15 minutes, and she was gone. Thirty hours of searching and still no Karen. So, the coast guard called it off,
and declared her dead. State police stepped in.
They wanted to ask a couple questions about the whole thing. At first they really didn`t think it sounded suspicious. But then something curious
popped up. Police say Christopher let it slip that he was having an affair and had cheated on his wife less than two days before Karen went overboard.
One warrant later and Christopher`s phone was seized and low and behold, just a whole swath of texts between Christopher and his girlfriend that
weren`t there.
They had been deleted. Cops said that that girlfriend told them Christopher had suggested that she could move into his home, quote, soon. So,
Christopher was arrested. And Christopher was charged with criminal homicide. Karen, for her part, has still not been found. Sergeant Jeremy
Barni is the criminal investigator for -- a supervisor, in fact, for the Pennsylvania State Police.
He joins me from Erie, Pennsylvania. Sergeant, am I correct that the inconsistencies in Christopher`s Leclair`s story starts with a bunch of
video surveillance at the actual marina where they took the boat out? He says they went out on Sunday, but the boat shows the two of them going out
on Saturday, is that correct?
JEREMY BARNI, CRIME SECTION SUPERVISOR, PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE: That is correct. We have surveillance of them both entering the marina, getting out
of their vehicle, and then entering the boat on Saturday. And then the boat.
BANFIELD: That same surveillance show them coming back in with just Christopher and no Karen on board?
BARNI: Yes. Once the boat docked, you see Christopher getting off the boat. He goes to his vehicle. She`s not there. He heads home.
BANFIELD: Did he answer to that, like oh, oops, I got my days mixed-up or did he clam up?
BARNI: The first time we interviewed him, we didn`t have that surveillance. We got it soon after. Then when we did take him in custody last night, last
night, we were going to interview him. At that time, he requested a lawyer.
BANFIELD: Lawyer, clammed up is the same thing. So the other inconsistency if I`m not mistaken and let me know where I`m wrong. When he was asked
where he had last seen his mistress, he said they were together Friday night. But she said they were together and in the, you know, biblical way,
Saturday night. And that she stayed over Saturday night, which would not jive well with his story about when Karen went missing.
BARNI: That`s correct. She said he came to her house around 6:00 o`clock that evening on Saturday. She did not see him Friday night. They made plans
to see each other on Saturday, when he showed up at her house.
BANFIELD: How is his girlfriend panning out? Are you curious at all about her behavior? Are you questioning her? Is she sort of shocked about all
this?
BARNI: She`s shocked about it. She`s cooperating with the investigation. She`s providing us with all the details at this point. She is very
surprised with the whole situation.
BANFIELD: I`ll bet. Not something you want to hear about. Sergeant Barni, stand by for a moment. Joey and Wendy, I want you to come back in here
because we`re also learning that Christopher Leclair had some financial difficulties. Christopher Leclair had taken out a life insurance policy on
his wife. And, Wendy, as a veteran prosecutor, these are just sort of (inaudible) heaven, aren`t they, for you, if you`re building a case or are
they?
PATRICK: Ashleigh, no, this case is an illustration of why circumstantial evidence is just as powerful as direct evidence in court. In other words,
we don`t need to have a videotape of the murder to be able to circumstantially use these cases (inaudible). I don`t think a lawyer even
as good as Joey Jackson could get this guy out of trouble.
BANFIELD: Oh, I don`t know.
JACKSON: I`m ready.
BANFIELD: You underestimated Professor Jackson.
PATRICK: I hope I`m never in court with Joey.
JACKSON: I hope I`m never go with you.
(LAUGHTER)
PATRICK: Thank you. Thank you. You do have to put it together, Ashleigh, exactly this way. All of the pieces, the timeline. You know, this is a case
that if it goes to trial is going to be so filled with evidence including his own statements were going to be used against him. So, I`m almost unsure
how he`s going to get out of this. Let me give you one more fact. That boat, 52-foot boat.
BANFIELD: Real quick. Right, safety equipment.
PATRICK: She was not wearing a life vest.
BANFIELD: I don`t wear a life jacket all the time in a boat, either. I can explain that one away. Really quickly, I only have 30 seconds. Those
deleted texts, is that a problem?
JACKSON: All right. Absolutely very powerful evidence. But, look, that in and of itself says nothing. Who witnessed this? Did anybody witness it at
all? What`s the answer? No.
[20:55:00] Is DNA otherwise relevant to this case? Answer, no. Is there a smoking gun here because there are text messages or because he is otherwise
doing things outside of his marriage? Does that make him a murder? Answer, no. And so, are there inconsistencies?
Did he take out a policy? When did he take out a policy? When in time, many people have policies on their spouses. Does it make them murderers? They
have a lot more work to do to build a powerful murder case.
BANFIELD: And that what makes these two great lawyers. We`ll be back right after this.
PATRICK: Thank you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Quick update from Northern California. We told you this story about Terry Blake last week, that mom who went missing, fishing along the
Feather River. Sadly, to report tonight, her body was found along the river`s edge three quarters of a mile from her car.
Very sad story that family vacationing, wondering where she disappeared to. The mystery solved along the Feather River tonight. My thanks to Joey
Jackson and Wendy Patrick for being with me tonight. Great, both of you. Appreciate it.
[21:00:00] We`ll see you back here again.
JACKSON: Thank you, Ashleigh.
PATRICK: Thank you.
BANFIELD: You`re invited back any time. We`ll see you back here at 8:00 for more of "Primetime Justice." Bye, guys, see you later. "Forensic Files" is
next.
END
