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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
Jodi Arias` Secrets, Was Her Boyfriend Not The Real Target; Jodi Arias` Former Prison Pal Speaks Out; Scott Peterson`s New Mug Shot. Aired 6-8p ET
Aired May 30, 2018 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:00:00]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. "Crime and Justice with Ashleigh Banfield," is up right now.
ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, HOST, HLN CRIME AND JUSTICE: Good evening, everyone, I`m Ashleigh Banfield. Welcome to "Crime and Justice." She stabbed her
ex-boyfriend 27 times. Slit his throat and shot him in the head, but Jodi Arias still thinks she is the victim. Just as her cell mate reveals that
Jodi opened up with a whole new version of what happened during that murder, Jim Moret is covering the update for us. Jim?
JIM MORET, CHIEF CORRESPONDENT, SYNDICATED TELEVISION NEWS MAGAZINE INSIDE EDITION: Hi, Ashleigh. Jodi`s former cellmate said things to her that she
would never have said in court. First Jodi said, she said she didn`t kill Travis, then she said it was self-defense. But now Jodi`s cellmate says,
Jodi told her who the real target was, you won`t believe it.
BANFIELD: Whoa. OK. Join us in a moment with that, Jim Moret, thank you.
Also tonight, the teacher who slept with her sixth grade student. 20 years since the crime, Mary Kay Letourneau, and Vili Fualaau are still married
with two adult children, and she is talking. And having a real tough time spitting out an admission that what she did was a crime. Our Kyle Peltz is
covering the shocking new interview and this is just a bombshell after bombshell.
KYLE PELTZ, CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: That is right. She was sleeping with a student and apparently didn`t know it was a crime. Or that she
might need a lawyer. Ashleigh, this interview was bombshell. And we are now seeing her in a whole new life.
BANFIELD: Wow. I can`t wait to hear more of it, and actually see her, she said this things, plus she tells us how the whole relationship got off in
the first place. Thank you, Kyle.
Also, the jury has made a decision in the lawsuit against David Copperfield. The world famous magician forced to spill all those secrets
in court to prove his trick was safe. We are going to tell you what the jury decided.
And later, a brand new look at the man who murdered his pregnant wife, Laci and dumped her body into the San Francisco bay. How Scott Peterson is
doing and how he is looking on death row.
First though, the manipulative murderer who just can`t stay out of the headlines. Because we have seen plenty of killers pass through our
courtrooms and dominate our news cycle. So when the gavel comes down, and a convict is condemned to spend a lifetime behind bars. We tend to lock
them away, throw away that key and forget they ever walked among us.
Not so with Jodi Arias. She continues to catch our attention no matter how long she is been rotting in jail. And yet -- yet again she is launching
some jaw dropping headlines with reports that she is been flirting with the jail guards in order to get her way. And stashing dangerous material in
her cell that would land anybody else in solitary for a month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRACY BROWN, JODI ARIAS FORMER CELLMATE: There are a couple officers, you know, she would flirt with and play her hair with. And they would find the
tattoo equipment, things you could get in trouble for. Leave it alone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: And it`s all so that she can apparently ply her trade as a tattoo artist in prison. Selling her skin art, even tattooing her own name
on her fellow inmates. Like the woman who once shared her cell and listened to her stories and who tonight has some pretty damning stories to
tell about Jodi.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How does that make you feel to have her name on your ankle?
BROWN: That was the biggest mistake I have ever made.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Joining me now, Jim Moret, chief correspondent for Inside Edition. Jodi Arias` former attorney is also with me, Kirk Nurmi, he is
the author of "Trappe with Ms. Arias." His account of representing her, also, Dorian Bond is Jodi Arias` private investigator. Dave Hall is a
close friend of Travis Alexander, Jodis` victim. And defense attorney Randy Zelin is with me as well.
Jim Moret, first to you. It`s quite a story that you have uncovered about what Jodi has been up to behind bars. Lay it out for me?
MORET: Well, this is one person`s account. This is Tracy Brown. This is a woman who shared a cell when they were in Australia jail, before Jodi was
sent off to prison after her conviction. And Tracy recounts a woman who she has come to believe was very manipulative, and would in her words be
anything you wanted her to be, she was very controlling and at first they were very close. But they`ve since broken off.
As you saw there, Jodi, according to Tracy, would tattoo her along with other people and it was frankly during one of these tattoo Sessions that
Tracy says Jodi actually broke down and confessed to this crime. Remember this is a crime she said she didn`t commit and then later said was self-
defense. I don`t know if we have tape of that, but it was very interesting, because she said she was overcome.
[18:05:13] You saw, one of the tattoos was right here on Tracy`s chest, in Tracy`s words, Jodi got down on her knees and started crying and saying
there was so much blood, there was so much blood, and I didn`t mean to do it, I didn`t mean to kill Travis, this is what Tracy says Jodi recounted.
And what Tracy says Jodi`s real target was, was a woman that Travis was dating at the time, after she and Travis had broken up, but while she was
still sleeping with him, and according to Tracy, that woman was actually the intended target.
BANFIELD: So that is -- I think that woman as I remember from the trial was Lisa Dadone. And actually, I do want to play a piece of your interview
with this woman, with her former cellmate, Tracy Brown, where she talks about this other woman. It`s the first time we have ever heard this, Jim,
that Jodi is suggesting there was someone else in her crosshairs and not Travis Alexander that night. Have a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: She went there hoping to find this other woman and kill her. Because she took her place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: It is pretty astounding, do we have any idea how this Lisa Dadone, this other woman -- this is Travis Alexander`s girlfriend, how she
is responded to this? Does she even know it yet?
MORET: I don`t know that she would have known other than -- unless an investigator told her about this. I mean, this is the first time I heard
of it. I didn`t follow the case clearly as closely as you have but this was kind of surprising for me, to hear in this former cell mate`s words,
her words that Jodi basically said, I wanted to get her, although the cell mate also believes that Travis was also a target. And that she believes
that she was out to get Travis as well, because she was jealous that he gave his affections to somebody else.
And quite frankly, how can you believe anything out of the mouth of Jodi Arias? She is another one of these ex-exquisite liars that has come across
our global landscape in the vein of case of Anthony`s and the world as well. Just remarkable at what they do and say. I want to play one more
piece from your interview, Jim. With Tracy Brown the former cell mate, who spent, I think, upwards of five months or so in the same cell with Jodi
Arias, became quite close, they wrote to each other after Tracy, you know, left and was released. And this is where she talks about Jodi admitting to
being a stalker. Outside of Travis` home. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: She said she would lie in wait in bushes and watch him. And if she was ever caught she would tell him she was there to get her social security
card.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: So this is the account that we are getting now from the cell mate, and listen. We`ve all had our experiences in courtrooms with
jailhouse snitches and the way you can knockdown their credibility on the stand. The very nature that they`re in a jail in the first place is the
first hit that they typically take, but I can show you the other side of Jodi, one that was released by the Maricopa County jail. Because there was
a Christmas competition, sort of like American idol, where you could win a Christmas dinner if you could win the entertainment competition, Jodi won
it, and she won it by singing a Christmas carol. This is how she came across to other people behind bars. Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JODI ARIAS, CONVICTED: O holy night the stars are brightly shining it is the night of our dear savior`s birth
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Hard to believe that same sweet singer was talking about the intended target of her butchering that night was Travis Alexander`s
girlfriend, if in fact this story is actually true. Kirk Nurmi, you were her attorney for months upon months. You spent hours upon hours in her
presence. How does this new revelation from Tracy Brown. How does it strike you?
KIRK NURMI, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR JODI ARIAS: Well, there`s a couple thoughts that come to mind. First of all, it`s as you said yourself, it`s
hard to know how much credibility you`re going to put into anything Miss Arias says. She is a known liar, she is continued to lie. She has made
lies up about me, et cetera. Who knows what her motivation it was to tell this to Miss Brown, if this is indeed what exactly occurred. So, I guess
Ashleigh, my best answer is, nothing surprises me out of Miss Arias.
BANFIELD: Do you believe any part of this, that there was another intended target that night, and it wasn`t Travis alexander? It was this other, you
know, poor long suffering girlfriend, Lisa Dadone.
[18:10:00] NURMI: Ultimately, what I believe is it what I`ve seen, from the facts and that is the way I try to approach this situation, and what
those facts show me. And what those autopsy photos show me is that Travis Alexander was the true victim.
BANFIELD: And when I say long suffering, Lisa Dadone wanted no part of this, she had no idea, any of this would be in her future. She never
thought that she`d be sitting on a witness stand in any kind of a, you know, litigation regarding a murder. She just liked a guy, she like a nice
guy named Travis, and Travis probably liked a nice girl named Lisa, and then this woman entered their orbit, and launched them both into a future
they never expected.
Travis is dead, Lisa Dadone now coming back into the news, potentially the intended target of Jodi Arias. Dorian Bond, as her private investigator.
Again, you have a better insight into the mind of Jodi Arias than any of us. Because you spent time with her, you communicated with her, she hired
you, do you believe the story she apparently or allegedly is telling to Tracy Brown, her former cell mate.
DORIAN BOND, JODI ARIAS` PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: Well, I think, you got to first look at where the story is coming from. Is that somebody that was
with a jail with her, you don`t know if she was a cell mate with her? You just know that she was in this jail with her. And she is coming out with a
story, just maybe to get on the news, she is probably embellishing a lot of the story. There`s no telling who this person is or why she is telling
this story, what her motive is in telling this story.
BANFIELD: Well, I can tell you this, I mean, we can all say she is allegedly a cell mate, but what she is holding in her hands right there
with Jim Moret, for this "Inside Edition" piece is a letter that was written by Jodi Arias. It sure looks like its Jodi Arias` handwriting.
And actually let me play a short clip of the relationship that she says she has with Jodi and how the letter really sort of seals that. Have a look as
she reads it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Tracy, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height of my soul can reach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You think all of this --
BROWN: Garbage.
BROWN: She will use you to get what she wants and when she is done with you, she will throw you away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: So does that to Kirk Nurmi, for a moment. Kirk does that strike you as the kind of writing that Jodi was prone to do?
NURMI: Well, I would say this. I would say that it`s all consistent with the idea that one of the things I lay out in my book is about Miss Arias
has a cult leader personality. And I see the verbiage she uses and interaction, and tattooing her friend with her name on her is just
consistent with that, so nothing about Miss Brown`s story is inconsistent with the person I know.
BANFIELD: So Dorian Bond, this notion of this tattoo. And I think we have a close-up look of this tattoo as we can get. It`s pretty small, it is not
the greatest artwork in the world in terms of being able to read the signature, Jodi Arias. It`s not the tattoo you`re looking at there or this
one. It`s the other tattoo that looks like a bird and it`s the bottom of the bird that is supposed to be the tiny little -- there you go -- where
she is pointing her finger now that is supposed to be the signature of Jodi Arias. Dorian, does this surprise you that she would be inking her name on
fellow inmates?
BOND: Well, I don`t think it surprises me. She likes the attention that she is gotten from this case. Why the person will allow somebody tattoo
them, I don`t know, that what happens in jail and what happens in prison. There`s a lot of things that go on that that people on the outside don`t
understand. But for her to come out and make us a big story about why she got a tattoo, and she regrets it, but she is still on TV showing everybody
the tattoo.
BANFIELD: And you know what, that sort of brings to light those who might want to seek some of their own notoriety for their relationship with the
notorious Jodi Arias.
Maybe she allowed it, maybe she didn`t. But maybe she allowed Jodi to leave her mark on her, you know, on her tattoo. Who knows, but there is
still a lot more to this story. For instance, and this is another bombshell. Jodi may have been behind bars for years now, but she still
doesn`t have an appeal that is come, you know, into a courtroom. An appeal of this verdict. And an appeal of this life no parole sentence. That is
still in the offings and there`s drama, of course, with the appeal itself.
She is actually saying that this appeal has contents that may endanger some members of the public if it were to be made public. And true to form, Jodi
Arias has wound us all up again, more about that right after this.
[18:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: We are still talking about that famous femme fatale Jodi Arias, who is serving life for butchering her ex 10 years ago, but she is still
catching our attention. From the darkness behind bars. She allegedly keeps manipulating more people all while we await her big appeal. Her
appeal, because she doesn`t like that murder verdict, doesn`t like that life sentence. It could have been death, but apparently she doesn`t like
life either. My panel is still with me.
[18:20:12] Kirk, I know you can`t get into the appeal, and I understand, you were her defense attorney, and you may be very well become a big part
of that appeal. Often times one of the Hail Mary`s is ineffective assistance of counsel. They will go after your attorney to say I just
didn`t get the right defense and that is why this trial results should be thrown out.
But I will ask you this, there is something very strange that has been released in terms of keeping the appellate brief sealed. And the only
nugget that we got was this, because it could endanger members of the public. Do you have any idea what that means?
NURMI: I have no idea.
BANFIELD: It`s as simple as that, you just have absolutely no clue what Jodi`s attorneys, her new attorney`s -- her appellate attorney`s mean when
they say, Judge, you got to keep this brief, this opening appellate brief secret or people could be in danger? You have no clue what she is
referring to?
NURMI: If I could elaborate, I would, but ultimately I have no clue. That is between Miss Arias and her attorneys.
BANFIELD: Yes. Dorian Bond, do you have any idea what that means?
BOND: I haven`t spoken to her about that, but I can understand where she might be coming from, I know a lot of her defense team, I know I have
received death threats and I`ve received e-mails and all kinds of phone calls and things, just because we`re associated with her on her defense
team. What people don`t understand, is that when you`re hired as a defense team, have you to do what the law says. You got to provide a good defense
for a person, it doesn`t say that you endorse exactly what the person did. But have you a job to do, and you have to do it, and so people in the
public they send death threats, they send emails, they make all kind of phone calls and things like that, so that could be part of it, I just don`t
know. That is part of her defense team right now that can explain more.
BANFIELD: Well, according to Tracy Brown, her former cellmate, there`s certainly at least -- at least one male visitor who may be seeing her, you
know, at least when she was in the jail, Maricopa County jail. And while she was doing this, what you`re seeing right now is the makeshift tattooing
where you use pencil shavings and mascara, and these illegal devise which she apparently was stashing in her cell and flirting with guards so that
they wouldn`t take it away. And that is that this relationship she said to her cell mate about her parents, how her parents would come all the way
from California to see her, and she`d refuse to see them for a particular reason, have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: She was so mean to her mom. Coming all the way from California to Arizona, you know, it`s a long trip. And there`s times that she`ll deny
their visits, because she wants to visit with a guy that she is manipulating.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Visit with a guy. To our knowledge, we do not know who that guy may be. Dorian, do you have any idea who her male visitor might be, where
she would forgo a visit from her parents and see a male instead.
BOND: I haven`t talked to her about that, but there`s been lots of people across the country that claim to be the boyfriend of Jodi Arias, we have
people from the Howard Stern show that said they were the boyfriend of Jodi Arias, so there`s a lot of people that claim that, so I just don`t have any
proof of who that person is, and I haven`t talked to anybody like that.
BANFIELD: So Dave Hall, in the circus that is Jodi Arias, and the saga that doesn`t end, this must just be infuriating. You`re Travis Alexander`s
friend, does he get lost in all of this, and does the victim of her wrath get lost in all of this?
DAVE HALL, TRAVIS ALEXANDER`S FRIEND: Well, I don`t think that Travis gets lost in any of it. Travis is still very much remembered by his friends and
family members and stuff, he is just remembered for all the good things that he did, the friends he made. The humanitarian things he did. The
causes that he was behind. We think about Travis a lot more than we ever think about Miss Arias. And I am just going to say, it feels -- it sounds
really good to hear Mr. Nurmi over on the good side now. I know that he had a job to do and he had to defend Miss Arias. We had to fight back the
gag reflex listening to a lot of that trial. It`s nice to hear Mr. Nurmi talking the truth. It sounds like a guy I could actually like, now that
truth is coming out.
BANFIELD: You know, it`s an adversarial process, but it doesn`t have to be adverse, if that makes sense. Randy Zelin, if anybody understand that is
you, the defense attorney. And if you understand something, it`s when people talk about jailhouse conversations that might not bode well for
future litigation. Do you see these conversations as entering into her appellate process? If she is talking about another intended target, might
that make a huge difference as she moves forward this with this case? If she does?
[18:25:00] RANDY ZELIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Two things, first of all, the only thing that gets heard in the appeal is what is in the record, so these
conversations that took place outside of the record, were not part of the trial process, and the pre-trial process, technically have no place in the
appeal, but I will tell you, if I were the defense, I would be like bring this on.
Because first of all, any notion that Miss Brown would make up this confession is ludicrous. If she was going to make something up, she would
say, Jodi said to me, I did it, and I`m glad I did it, I would do it again. To suggest that Jodi Arias was lying in wait for someone else takes the
wind out of the sales of this whole notion of premeditation. It is the greatest news that I have heard as a defense attorney, if she was meant to
do this to someone else, how could she have the premeditation to kill Travis?
BANFIELD: I mean, it is a great point, he also brings up that fact that Jodi apparently had this story ready to go and she was caught and say she
was there for her social security card and I have not heard that yet. Listen, there`s so much more to this story. Jim Moret, great reporting,
great interview, thank you for doing this for us today. And all of you, I`d like to have you back as well, because I think this story -- well, it`s
Jodi Arias, let`s just leave it at that. I am going to ask you to stay on if you will Randy Zelin, in Las Vegas.
Drama in the courtroom when the wife of the man who was suing magician David Copperfield reportedly passed out. As the verdict came in. David
Copperfield found negligence, but not financially responsible for the injuries that Gavin Cox sustained after being a part of the Lucky 13 trick.
The show stopping illusion, featured 13 audience members picked at random, but agreeing to it, and then vanishing from the stage, but then reappearing
moments later in the back of the theater.
Mr. Cox claimed that he suffered severe injuries after he fell while making that run underneath the theater to the back of the theater. The jury said
Cox was 100 percent liable for his own injuries.
Over 20 years ago, and it`s hard to believe it`s been that long, that Mary Kay Letourneau became a household name. When news about of her affair with
a sixth grade student of hers rattled the nation and went right overseas too, now she is speaking out in depths. And boy does it sound like she is
still a love sick teenager. And to hear her tell the tale that he was the aggressor. He pursued her. A 13-year-old, Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili
Fualaau in their own jaw dropping words, next.
[18:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: They call it their love story. Meeting at school, kissing in the car, and going on to get married and start a family. And the funny thing
is, it was probably the same story for husband number one as it was for husband number two. School, car, kissing, married, family.
Only Mary Kay Letourneau met husband number one when they were in college together. She met husband number two much later when she was his second-
grade teacher. More than four years alter after sixth-grade was letting out for summer, she would be kissing that boy, Vili Fualaau in a car and having
sex with that boy on her couch.
And then pleading guilty to child rape. Seven years behind bars and two babies later, they walked down the aisle into marriage number two, in a
relationship that lasted over two decades. It was a scandal that went international. He was about 12 when they first flirted, 13 when they first
had sex, and she had four little babies and a husband at home.
But to hear them talk about it now, in a brand new interview with A&E, well, Vili, we can understand. But according to Mary Kay, it was nothing
close to a rape and barely even a crime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VILI FUALAAU, HUSBAND OF MARY KAY LETOURNEAU: We`re in the car and all I could think about was kissing her. And I said, I asked her, I said, what
would you do if I came over and gave you a kiss? And she said something like, only a coward would ask. That was my green light to go in and give
her a kiss and that`s what I did.
MARY KAY LETOURNEAU, FORMER SCHOOLTEACHER: I accepted the kiss, you know. I did.
For some reason, the kiss seemed very right.
BANFIELD (voice over): But a lot has changed for Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau. A separation was filed by Vili about a year ago, only to be
withdrawn.
[18:34:58] The question remains will their love last forever even though it started as a crime? And is Mary Kay finally ready to call that crime
what it was? Wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I want to bring in David Gehrke, Mary Kay Letourneau`s former attorney and also her friend. On the phone is defense attorney Anne
Bremner, who is also one of Mary Kay`s friends. Clinical psychologist Seth Meyers is with me, and Randy Zelin, defense attorney, is still with me as
well.
Thank you to all of you for being part of this panel. That two- hour documentary on A&E, I mean, holy cow, that was one of the insightful things
I think I`ve seen in this story since it started 22 years ago.
I want to show this first clip of Mary Kay talking about the whole sixth grade thing and the fact that it made such headlines because she was a
teacher, around 34, 35 years old. And he was a sixth grader, which she seems to think is an unfair characterization. Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LETOURNEAU: It`s not how it is portrayed, sixth grade, in the media. When anything developed in our relationship, he was entering the eighth grade.
Vili at the time shouldn`t be going into eighth grade. I believe I saw in the records that he did kindergarten twice. So he was older than the
students in their class.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I could watch this entire A&E documentary all over again. David Gehrke, I have to ask you as her attorney, watching that, I was so struck
by the splitting of hairs. Maybe he looked two years older than a typical sixth grader and had a small little peach fuzz mustache, but that would put
him at eighth grade.
And my son is going into eighth grade and he still needs to be cuddled at night sometimes. Why on earth is this her reality that that makes it more
OK?
DAVID GEHRKE, FORMER ATTORNEY AND FRIEND OF MARY KAY LETOURNEAU: Marriage reality is different for most people. In her mind, yes, that makes it OK.
If you have an opportunity, any of you listeners, and if you look on the net, you will find some. But how Vili looked in sixth grade, in seventh
grade, he did not have peach fuzz.
He looked like the androgynous little boy/girl in "The Crying Game." You couldn`t tell if he was a boy or a girl. No masculinity at all at sixth
grade. The pictures out there on multiple accounts on your program showed it. The only thing that mattered and --
BANFIELD: David, I`m having such a hard time. Our Skype setup with you is so sketchy. We`re going to reconnect with you because I want to hear what
you have to say. You know her so well. And you were very, very profound in the A&E documentary. So we`re going to reconnect with you so I can get
absolute clarity from you.
In the meantime, I`m going to play this other soundbite from the documentary, from the A&E documentary, that I thought really stood out to
her state of mind. Most of us now, it`s just a no-brainer, we`ve seen so many teacher-student stories in the news, the deadly face of the world, et
cetera, that we now just we know it`s wrong. It`s rape, it`s a crime, right?
But back then, if you hear Mary Kay talk about it even today, she absolutely was so naive about it, she didn`t have any clue that what she
was doing was any more wrong than just say cheating on her husband. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LETOURNEAU: I didn`t imagine that I would need an attorney. Maybe there would be some consequences, but I didn`t imagine they were criminal
consequences.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Anne Bremner, help me get inside the woman`s mind, the 56-year- old Mary Kay`s mind. Because I -- I can almost understand back then, before all the teacher scandals, maybe she didn`t know, but I really have to say
he was 13, she had to know. What do you say to that?
ANNE BREMNER, FRIEND OF MARY KAY LETOURNEAU (via telephone): Well, you know, I handled the case, a civil case where Vili and his mom sued the
police and the school for not protecting him from Mary. That was on 11th week on trial. Vili`s lawyer (INAUDIBLE) in Manhattan. So that explored a
lot of their relationship too.
We had the evidence, we had the witnesses, all the different things in that case, surrounding the relationship. We tried back in 2001. And, you know,
she thought it might be immoral, but she didn`t -- it`s like -- she thought it was a love story. She didn`t think it was a crime story.
She was in prison when we had that case, and we tried that case. She was helpful to me during that case in defending the police. And she basically
thought it was a once in a lifetime love that no one could really understand it. And she thought that he came to her like a man would to a
woman.
[18:40:00] And she was going through a really tough time. Her dad was very sick. He was diagnosed with cancer. She was very close to him. He had been
a congressman in California. So it was kind of a consolation of event that kind of came together at once.
But the criminal part, don`t forget, Ashleigh, like you said, this was the first case, this is a case that shocked the world. That`s what I argued in
my civil case in terms of probability and, you know, any requirement we had to protect her or him from her, no one would have --
BANFIELD: Anne, it shocked the world, yes. And for a while, I would have said, maybe there`s a possibility where she wouldn`t have known the massive
implications of what she was doing. But for the fact, I learned in this A&E documentary last night that her father was a prominent Washington
politician, excruciatingly conservative.
Her mother was a (INAUDIBLE), so conservative, she thought a woman`s place is in the home. And ultimately this facade of a family, he was fathering
two illegitimate children with a student of his. So if anybody should have known, it was Mary Kay Letourneau who should have known.
And yet listen to this soundbite where she talks about her own naivety about that first kiss that she was sharing with the sixth grader she was
teaching about a month or two prior in that classroom. And there she is talking about being in the car with him and the first kiss and maybe not
knowing what she should have known. Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LETOURNEAU: Maybe I am just naive in that area of life. Maybe it could have stayed just a kiss. I always thought, what if it could have.
FUALAAU: I definitely wanted to go further. The age difference, all of that stuff wasn`t going through my mind. Although it was going through my
mind, it`s like this is a girl I like and I hope she likes me too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Seth Meyers, you`re going to have to do two things, get me off the ledge, and then you`re also gong to have to explain this, because I am
so sick of hearing grown-ups like Michael Jackson and -- I can`t say the Tad Cummins of the world except that he`s admitted to his -- he has plead
guilty to kidnap and sexual assault of Elizabeth Thomas when he ran off with her as a teacher of here.
Kevin Esterly is going to face charges related to his running off with Amy Yu, another young student. I`m so sick of hearing we were in love, when the
grown-up might have felt really good about it, to them it was love. But I can`t put Mary Kay and Vili in that basket. It`s 22 years and they`re still
together. Can you help me sort it out?
SETH MEYERS, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, first of all, are they still together because it`s a good healthy relationship, or are they still
together because they are still -- it`s the two of them against the world and they`re going to prove everybody else wrong. You know, we don`t know
the reasons they stay together. Here`s the main point with this.
Do I buy that she did not know that she committed a crime, that it`s illegal to have sex with a 13-year-old boy? We don`t even need to get into
that. But so many years later, she still stands by her position, right? So no lessons learned, no greater insight.
What that tells me is this is about an oppositional personality style, that she is getting gratified by still the fight. She will never let anybody
else tell her that she was wrong. It`s oppositional ultimately.
BANFIELD: I`ll tell you what, I highly recommend watching this documentary because there is so much insight when someone is let loose and allowed to
just speak. And it`s stream of consciousness, straight to camera. No interruptions from interviewers. It is so telling to see her. I thought I
knew this story. I had been covering it for 22 years.
I didn`t know the story. I didn`t know this woman until I saw this. And it was really jaw dropping. And I will tell you something else that was jaw
dropping. Some of the secrets that she let out, coming up after the break. I need you all to weigh in on this.
The communication that she was forbidden to have when she was sent off for her light six months, and then ultimately when she broke that and went away
for seven years. The communications that she had with that young man and how she used breast milk that she was sending out of her cell to feed her
newborn that she had with Vili. How she put codes and messages to Vili in the breast milk, that`s next.
[18:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: We`re still talking about the relationship that rocked the nation and the world, in fact, the husband and wife now describing their
two decades long love story that started when they were teacher and student, sixth grade student.
My panel is still with me. I want you to listen to this moment from the A&E documentary where she talks about being in prison. They got a baby
together. And they`re about to have two babies together. And so she`s sending breast milk out of her cell and putting codes in it. Have a listen
to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[18:50:00] LETOURNEAU: I got some good behavior time.
(LAUGHTER)
LETOURNEAU: I lost some time too for apparently for sending messages out on breast milk bottles.
(LAUGHTER)
FUALAAU: She would communicate with codes that we had shared with each other on the breast milk. She was sending breast milk from prison. There
would be little number codes.
LETOURNEAU: My secret codes -- I`m very -- yes, clever.
(LAUGHTER)
FUALAAU: Just a message like hey, hello, hi, I love you. Things like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Hey, I love you. Violation -- I mean, violation, violation, violation. She`s so intransigent about this process, about this very
serious process. Why didn`t they hit her up with a second rape when she was out on parole and was found in a steamy car having sex with him? Why didn`t
they hit her up with the second rape and put her away for longer?
ZELIN: Because three months turned into seven years. That is an incredible change in terms of a sentence. So why put him through that ordeal of now
being a witness against her? They would have to perform testing as far as she`s concerned to determine the paternity of the child. It wasn`t worth
it, just give her seven years.
BANFIELD: Yeah, and she did them all. She did them all. Hard time, she said, with hard surfaces. Mommy`s far away place, apparently, her kids call
it. I want you all to listen to this other moment from the A&E documentary in which she talks about the moment when they first realized the spark and
crossed that line.
Mary Kay is very quick to say, I never did anything with my student. It was the summer after he was my sixth grade student. But this moment is when
they are in class. This is after Vili has admitted to having a bet, a $20 bet that he could bag the teacher. And he goes up to her desk when she is
the teacher and he is the sixth grade student. And you be the judge as to whether the relationship started here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LETOURNEAU: I do remember that I felt he was crossing a line. But he did corner me and said, I`m in love with someone. And I am like, oh, my gosh. I
know he`s not talking about me, he can`t be. I said, does she know that you`re in love with her? And he said, I don`t know, does she? And I looked
in his eyes for the first time. I said, can you hold that for a long, long, long time?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: David Gehrke, I go back to my original question to you because I`m still perplexed. Why does she split hairs and say, it wasn`t that bad.
I mean, it wasn`t like he was my student at the time. Clearly she admits right there, he was her student and she went there.
GEHRKE (via telephone): Mary can do no wrong, and it`s all your fault that she splits hairs, because Mary had sex with a sixth grade student and she
can look you in the eye and say, no, I didn`t have sex with my sixth grade student. That makes it OK because she is disagreeing with you.
Any of us, who cares, summer vacation, seventh grade, sixth grade, she had sex with a kid. But to her, she can show that you`re wrong, that
automatically makes her right. I think that`s part of the splitting hairs that she has. It`s childish, it`s immature, and there is something that has
not been fully explained here on the show yet.
When I first started representing her, I got a phone call from the recently retired chief psychiatrist from the Department of Corrections. He was
following this as everybody in the state was. He said, something happened to Mary when she was a child, 12 or 13, and it was traumatic. She never got
over it. She has to get back on the road to maturity.
BANFIELD: Did you find out what it was?
GEHRKE (via telephone): Yes. She was watching their youngest child at home, and she was like 10 or 11, and the baby drowned, fell in the pool and
drowned. Mary got the blame for that.
BANFIELD: Wow. You know what, I had no idea. I`m learning so much more about this story. I have to cut it there because I have another story that
I have to fit into the program. David, thank you for being on. Anne, thank you. Seth, Randy, I am going to ask you to stay as well. I`m going to keep
following the story. I think there is more to it. We`ll be back right after this.
[18:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): The cold blooded killer who butchered her ex.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Sticking a knife in his chest. She slit his throat, putting a bullet in his head.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Jodi Arias is trying to get out of jail.
JODI ARIAS, CONVICTED OF FIRST-DEGREE MURDER: Longevity runs in my family and I don`t want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): But her former cellmate has some damning stories.
[19:00:02] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There were a couple officers she would flirt with. She wants a visit (ph) with the guy, that she is manipulating.
Sociopath (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Did Jodi really tattooed her name on other prison inmates?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was the biggest mistake I ever made.
BANFIELD: And who else is she now involving the night of her murderous rampage?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She went there hoping to find this other woman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was completing on me.
BANFIELD: A teacher gets pregnant by her sixth grade student.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I plead guilty to a crime, I guess.
BANFIELD: And they are so called love story becomes a nationwide scandal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The make believe is that this was a teacher/student relationship, it never was.
BANFIELD: Twenty years later Mary Kay Turno and Vili (INAUDIBLE) reveal how their secret affair started.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What would you do if I came over and gave you a kiss? All that was going through my mind is, this is a girl I like and I hope she
likes me to.
BANFIELD: How it didn`t seem illegal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It seemed very right.
BANFIELD: What it is become today?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is a labor in love.
BANFIELD: But does Mary Kay finally admit what she did was wrong?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe I am just naive in that area of life.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BANFIELD: Good evening, everyone. I`m Ashleigh Banfield. And welcome to the second hour of CRIME AND JUSTICE.
At one time they were the most notorious killers ever caught. The names that dominated the news cycle. But you would probably have to Google them
now.
Susan Smith, all but forgotten. Gary Richway, (INAUDIBLE) on the radar. It`s been 10 years though since Jodi Arias knifed her ex-boyfriend to death
and left him with a gunshot wound to the head, stabbing him 27 times, slitting his throat and yet Jodi Arias is still making news, because even
though Jodi was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of ever getting out, she has been a busy bee behind bars. Reportedly flirting with
her jail guards so that she can stash dangerous tattooing equipment in her cell and ink her fellow inmates for money. Something that would almost
surely land any other inmate in solitary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRACY BROWN, JODI ARIAS` FORMER CELLMATE: There were a couple officers, you know, she would flirt with and play her hair with, and they would find
the tattoo equipment, things you can get in trouble for. Leave it alone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: That`s Jodi`s former cellmate talking. And she has a lot more to say. Like Jodi, apparently confessing to killing Travis Alexander, but
with a completely different twist than we heard before.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: I`m just watching her, and she kind of goes down to the knees on the floor. And I was looking at her, so what are you talking about? And
she started crying. Just a couple tears coming out of her eyes and it was done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Joining me now, Jim Moret, chief correspondent for "Inside Edition." Also, Jodi Arias` former attorney Kirk Nurmi is with me. He is
the author of "Trapped with Miss Arias," his account of representing Jodi Arias. Also, Dorian Bond, Jodi Arias` private investigator and defense
attorney Randy Zelin is still with me.
Jim Moret, you are going to have to help walk me through this whole notion that she fell to her knees and a couple tears came out, but that was about
it. She is referring to Jodi confessing to her, this cellmate is referring to Jodi confessing to her that Travis wasn`t the intended victim. Another
woman was. Explain?
MORET: OK. Let me tell you first who Tracy Brown is. She shared a cell. She was in the top bunk, Jodi was in the lower bunk of the Astraea county
jail. This is before Jodi`s conviction, before she was sent to prison, they were in the county jail. And for a period of five months they were
cell mates. And according to Tracy, they were very close.
Tracy tells me for that for a time, even after she got out, she managed Jodi`s social media. They have had a falling out since. But one of the
things that Jodi would do behind bars to make money is she would do her artwork. She would be -- an artist, she would draw and sell some of the
pieces. And she would also perform tattoos on other inmates.
And the equipment that they were talking about in that sound bite you just played was really rudimentary. It was a staple, it was pencil led, it was
shampoo and it was mascara. And with those simple household items, you could have a makeshift tattoo making equipment. But you are not allowed to
keep that. And that`s why Tracy says that Jodi would flirt with the guards, play with their hair a bit, flirt with him and they would look the
other way, according to Tracy.
When Tracy was having the first tattoo done, that was on her chest, a little bit of blood came out on Tracy`s chest and she said that the sight
of that blood caused a change in Jodi. She went down to her knees and went into what Jodi -- Tracy described almost a trance and says, I didn`t mean
to kill him. I meant to kill her and her was Lisa Dadone, the woman that Travis was dating. And on the side he was still seeing Jodi whom he had
broken up.
[19:05:51] BANFIELD: So this is the woman on the left hand side of the screen, Travis` girlfriend, Lisa Dadone. And if we are to believe this
cellmate, Tracy Brown, who shared a cell with Jodi Arias for five months. The target of Jodi`s wrath according to Jodi`s own version now, brand-new
version, was that woman on the left, and not Travis, correct?
MORET: That`s what Tracy believes, based upon what she says Jodi told her.
Now, you know, we have heard so many stories from Jodi Arias. First she said she didn`t kill him, then she said it was self-defense. And you know,
the stories keep changing. I believe that Tracy Brown could be telling the truth but that this may simply be a new story that Jodi is telling.
So, it`s really -- it is not an issue for me whether Tracy is being truthful. But because I believe that Tracy could be perfectly honest, that
this is what she was told or what she believes she heard. But that Jodi is simply changing her story which she has done before.
BANFIELD: You have to use your spidey senses when you are talking to fellow inmates or even current inmates because often times the first thing
to happen when they are jailhouse snitches and they walk up on the stand is their credibility gets just sliced into smithereens by the very fact that
they are inmates.
I do want to play a couple things, though, from your interview, Jim. It is really great. Doing this interview for "Inside Edition."
Tracy Brown, this former cellmate, talks about this other woman we know to be Lisa Dadone and how she was apparently the target according to Jodi,
have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: She went there hoping to find this other woman and kill her because she took her place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: It`s just fascinating to hear that. And then there`s this, Jim, your interview went on to Tracy Brown talked about Jodi lying in weight.
That she admitted she was a stalker, that she stalked Travis Alexander, and that she even had a story in case she was caught. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: She said she would lie await in bushes and watch him. And if she was ever caught, she would tell him she was there to get her Social
Security card.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I want to bring in Kirk Nurmi, again, because Kirk, I mean, you spent so much time with Jodi Arias. You probably know her better than
anyone, even her own parents. This story about Jodi allegedly telling her cellmate that she had an alibi or she had a story ready to go in case she
was caught while stalking. And it was, I`m here for my Social Security card. Correct me if I`m wrong, Kirk, but I covered your case. I covered
everything in the story. I never heard that before. Is that new?
NURMI: That is something that certainly never came out in court. Ms. Arias` testimony in court, if we all remember those agonizing 18 days, was
that she acted in self-defense against Mr. Alexander.
BANFIELD: And to suggest now -- I mean, look. we can all make up stories on the fly, but if we are questioning Tracy Brown, this cellmate, and the
veracity of what she`s saying, it`s an odd thing to bring up that she said she was just going to say she was there for her Social Security card and
that she wasn`t there for stalking. It`s always unique when you hear a bizarre detail brought into a story, if you are wondering if it`s true.
There is this other aspect, Kirk. And that is the relationship that Jodi had with her parents. Her parents were there. They supported her. They
still do. But to hear her cellmate talk about Jodi`s relationship with her parents is whole in a ball of wax. Have a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)[
BROWN: She was so mean to her mom. (INAUDIBLE) always in California and Arizona, you know. It is a long trip. And there`s a time she would deny
their visiting because she wants to visit with the guy that she is manipulating.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Kirk, did you get the impression that she was manipulating her parents or mean to her parents during the trial?
NURMI: Well, that`s hard to say. Certainly, her mom was there all the time. And you know, her mom was always there to support her and do her
bidding, if you will. We see -- you are showing a tape where her mother wrongly stated that the defense team was supporting this appellate fund,
things like that. Sandy Arias had wrote letters to the judge on her behalf when I wanted to leave the case in 2011. So we definitely see that Sandy
Arias does do her mom`s bidding -- excuse me, her daughter`s bidding regardless of the relationship.
[19:10:22] BANFIELD: I mean, it`s fascinating to think that these parents would drive all the way from California to Arizona, only to be rebuffed
because there might have been someone else visiting, which leads to whole other story that we have yet to uncover. And that is who is visiting, who
might have been visiting Jodi in the jail? And does she have visitors at the state penitentiary.
I`m going to ask you all to stay on if you can. I can`t imagine what it would be like to get a letter in Jodi Arias. Handyman (ph), what would it
say? Can`t imagine if she quote "lyric and verse` or sing somehow in her letter. But coming up after the break, you are going to hear a letter from
Jodi being read by the person she sent it to. And we will find out if there`s anything in it that gives us more insight into this monster`s mind.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:15:] BANFIELD: We are still talking about Jodi Arias, the cold blooded killer who slaughtered her ex-boyfriend but apparently kept using her sex
appeal to get away with what she wanted in jail like flirting with the guards to make money off the tattoos she was giving her fellow inmates.
Flirting with the guards meant she could keep the gear, and apparently if you believe her former cellmate, they let her keep the tattoo gear. It`s
all pretty surprising.
My panel is still with me.
I want to play this one moment from Jim Moret from your interview with Tracy Brown, this former cellmate. She spent five months locked up as a
celly with Jodi Arias. I personally can`t imagine what that would be like, but she did. And Tracy Brown a letter from Jodi Arias and in true Jodi
Arias dramatic flair, it`s like a sonnet. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Tracy, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love you to the depth and breadth of my soul can reach.
MORET: You think all of this is lies.
BROWN: Garbage. She will use you to get what she wants and when she is done with you she will throw you away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: She will use you to get what she wants and when she is done, she will throw you away. Somehow I sort of fee, Kirk Nurmi, like that`s how
she feels about you. She had all sorts of terrible things to say about you after the trial. I know you didn`t want to be on the case with her, and
try to, you know, get off the case several times.
Dorian Bond, she hired you because she felt like she didn`t get a fair trial and she wanted you, and you correct me if I`m wrong, he wanted you to
find things that would support her case. Did you ever at any time or do you now feel as though Jodi Arias used you as well and has dispensed with
you?
BOND: No, I don`t feel that way at all. I was hired and I did my job and did what she asked. I don`t have that feeling. And I`m not sure, I
haven`t talked to the other members of the defense team, but when I have talked to them, they don`t have that feeling as well.
I think the big question is, what is the reason why Miss Brown is coming forward with this information? I think you said earlier it was -- they had
a falling out. I think that might -- that information would probably explain why she is coming out with this information now.
BANFIELD: Yes, I mean. I don`t know about the falling out.
Jim Moret, do you have any more insight into the falling out other than Ms. Brown, this former cellmate with annoyed that Jodi cut-off contact with her
or toss her out in her vernacular?
MORET: Yes. The letter that she read was just one of the half a dozen letters that she showed me written she said by Jodi Arias. And she said,
they did have a falling out. She -- Tracy was handling her social media, and when she said when went off to the other prison, she basically cut off
all ties. She felt as if -- you heard, you know, that she should described her as a chameleon, someone who could be anyone you wanted her to be. That
she would use whenever she had to do to get what she wanted. And when she felt like she used you up, she threw you away. That`s what Tracy Brown
seems to believe.
And you`re right, that may be why she is talking now, although the things that she said were also things that we never really heard before. So she
got them from somewhere and theoretically she got them directly from Jodi.
BANFIELD: She certainly used up Travis Alexander and threw him away, literally buried him. And you know, that isn`t lost in all of this, there
is a victim.
Dave Hall spoke with us just a short time ago, a good friend of Travis Alexander because you know, when it comes to all of this circus like
atmosphere that Jodi Arias provides, it`s important to remember, there is a man who died here, who had a lot of friends and who have a lot of loving
family members that spent every day in that courtroom. And Dave Hall talks about the fact that, you know, sometimes that can be forgotten, but in
Travis`s case, no way. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE HALL, FRIEND OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: Well, I don`t think that Travis gets lost in any of it. Travis is still very much remembered by his
friends and family members. And stuff, highs just remembered for all the good things he did, the friends he made, the humanitarian things he did.
The causes he was behind. We think about Travis a lot more than we ever think about Miss Arias.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[19:20:10] BANFIELD: Kirk Nurmi, as her defense attorney. And I know there is no love lost between the two of you. How did she refer to him,
when -- I don`t know if you can even answer that, but can you give me a sense of the presence of the victim in that case, Travis Alexander, when
you were with Jodi Arias? .
NURMI: I don`t know that -- I can`t speak to that, Ashleigh, you know. Anything she said about him would be privileged information.
BANFIELD: Yes. But she did write a book did it, and she certainly had a of -- made a lot of beef about that, saying that was broken privilege.
NURMI: Well, I -- yes, indeed she did. But I didn`t talk about those aspects. What I did in that book in my opinion was respond to some of the
lies she told me. We talk about this pattern for her using people and throwing them out. It`s exactly what she did with me. She begged in 2011
for me to stay on the case. She had her mom write a letter, all these things. And then when the verdict didn`t go the way she wanted, she goes
down, while she`s waiting to be sentenced and does an interview in the bottom of the courthouse and lies about me saying it was my defense, it was
the things I raised. I was the one that wanted to say these things about Travis Alexander, that was not only a lie, but it was a lie that put my
safety and the safety of other defense teams -- our lives in jeopardy. And that`s why I wrote the book, to stand up to that. I was going through
chemo, and I said, I am not going to let these words stand. I will always stand unto Jodi Arias, and that`s what I did in this book, and that`s why
I`m here today.
BANFIELD: Now, Jodi Arias certainly has lots of stories to tell. And in fact, a trip down memory lane now sort of looking through the prism of this
cellmate who says Jodi has a brand new version of what lapped the night of the murder. Travis wasn`t the intended target. It was Lisa Dadone, his
girlfriend. She replaced Jodi. And Jodi wanted her out of the picture. That`s Jodi`s new story according to the cellmate.
But you go down memory lane and you look at all the things that Jodi has said and all the times she has denied, denied, denied. It`s worth taking a
look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill Travis Alexander?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely not, no, I had no part in it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill Travis Alexander?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I absolutely did not kill Travis Alexander.
I didn`t commit a murder, I didn`t hurt Travis. I would never hurt Travis. The evidence is very compelling, but none of it proves that I committed a
murder.
I know I`m innocent opinion. God knows I`m innocent. Travis knows I`m innocent. If I killed Travis, I would beg for the death penalty.
No jury is going to kill me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I`m innocent.
I would be shaking in my boots right now if I had to answer to God for such a heinous crime.
I have no idea.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BANFIELD: I have no idea.
And then we got to the courtroom, it was me, but I have a different version of why.
Randy Zelin, we are still waiting, years later after that famous verdict to find out what her beef is now, because she has the right to appeal. She
is, you know, put away for life, no parole. But we don`t know what the appeal is going to be. We have lots of hints along the way, the digs she`s
taken at the prosecutor. The digs that she has taken at her own attorney, Kirk Nurmi, who is on with us. What do you think this appeal will entail?
ZELIN: If nothing else, what is so outrageous about the process is how long that is has taken. It has taken years. Excuse after excuse. Whether
you love this woman, you hate this woman, you think she is a monster, whatever it is, she is entitled to justice. She`s entitled to due process.
And the number of years it`s taken for this case to come to an appeal is really shocking.
What she`s got to say. We know that she has thrown rocks at Mr. Martinez`s way. Mr. Martinez, the prosecutor has been the subject of a number of
ethics complaints with regard to how he has behaved both in this trial and other trials. She has gone after her defense attorney. And then again, if
there is anyway to be put into this new jailhouse confession, it completely destroys any notion that this was premeditated which means she shouldn`t
have been convicted of murder one.
BANFIELD: Boy. There will be people screaming and throwing their dinners at the TV set right now, you know, Randy. She is certainly one of the most
hated women in America. Probably next to Casey Anthony.
But I have ten seconds left, and as the defense attorney that you are, do you think she has a shot?
Do you think Jodi Arias actually has a shot at winning an appeal and having her trial thrown out?
[19:25:01] ZELIN: Is no less than 10 seconds.
BANFIELD: You don`t think show has a shot?
ZELIN: No.
BANFIELD: Thank you to all of you. And Jim, you are great at what you do. You are really great.
MORET: I`m glad to finally be on your show too. I`m a big fan.
BANFIELD: You are invited every day, by the way.
Thank you to all of you. Kirk, we look forward to talking to you again. Dorian, thank you as well. And Randy, I`m going to ask you to stay on.
In Las Vegas, drama in a courtroom, when the wife of the man who is suing that man, David Copperfield, reportedly passed out. That was when the
verdict was read. And David Copperfield was found negligent but not financially responsible for the injuries her husband Gavin Cox sustained
after he was part of the lucky 13 magic number. That show stopping illusion features 13 audience members picked at random but who agreed to
it. They all vanished from the stage and reappear moments later in the back of the theater. And Cox said he suffered severe injuries when he fell
when making that crazy run to the (INAUDIBLE) the stage. The jury said that Cox was 100 percent liable for his own injuries. But not before a lot
of David Copperfield secrets were let out in public.
They met at school and they got married, and they had kids. Would be normal except for she was his sixth grade teacher. And now two decades
later, they are calling their so called love story not so bad. The question is whether she is ready to admit it was a crime. Are you, Mary
Kay, ready to admit it? That`s next.
[19:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: They call it their love story. Meeting at school, kissing in the car, and going on to get married and start a family. And the funny
thing is, it was probably the same story for husband number one as it was for husband number two. School, car, kissing, married, family, only Mary
Kay Letourneau met husband number one when they were in college together. She met husband number two much later, when she was his second grade
teacher. More than four years later, after sixth grade was letting out for summer, she`d be kissing that boy, Vili Fualaau, in a car and having sex
with that boy on her couch, and then, pleading guilty to child rape. Seven years behind bars and two babies later, and they walked down the aisle into
marriage number two, in a relationship that`s lasted over 2 decades. It was a scandal that went international. He was about 12 when they first
flirted. 13 when they first had sex, and she had four little babies and a husband at home. But to hear them talk about it now, in a brand new
interview with A&E, well, Vili, maybe we can understand, but according to Mary Kay, it was nothing close to a rape and barely even a crime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VILI FUALAAU, MARY KAY LETOURNEAU`S HUSBAND: We were in the car and all I could think about was kissing her. And I said -- and I said, what would
you do if I came over and gave you a kiss? You know, and she said, something like, only a coward would ask. That was my green light to go in
and give her a kiss, and that`s what I did.
MARY KAY LETOURNEAU, FORMER SCHOOLTEACHER: I accepted the kiss, you know. I did.
For some reason, the kiss seemed very right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: But a lot has changed for Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau. A separation was filed by Vili about a year ago only to be withdrawn. The
question remains, will their love last forever even though it started as a crime? And is Mary Kay finally ready to call that crime what it was,
wrong?
I want to bring in David Gehrke, he`s Mary Kay Letourneau`s former attorney and also her friend. On the phone is Defense Attorney Anne Bremner, who is
also one of Mary Kay`s friends. Clinical Psychologist Seth Meyers is with me and Randy Zelin defense attorney, is still with me as well. Thank you
to all of you for being part of this panel. That two-hour documentary on A&E, I mean, holy cow. That was one of the most insightful things I think
I`ve seen in this story since it started 22 years ago.
I want to show this first clip of Mary Kay talking about the whole sixth grade thing and the fact that it made such headlines because she was a
teacher, around 34, 35 years old, and he was this sixth-grader which she seems to think is an unfair characterization. Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[19:34:58] LETOURNEAU: It`s not how it`s portrayed, sixth grade in the media. When anything developed in our relationship, he was entering the
eighth grade, age wise. Vili at that time should have been going into eighth grade. I believe I saw in the records that he did kindergarten
twice. So, he was older than the students in the class.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: I could watch this entire A&E documentary all over again. David Gehrke, I have to ask you as her attorney, watching that I was so struck by
the splitting of hairs. Maybe he looked two years older than a typical sixth-grader and had a small little peach fuzz mustache, but that would put
him at eighth grade. And my son is going into eighth grade and he still needs to be cuddled at night sometimes. Why on earth is this her reality
that that makes it more OK?
GEHRKE(through Skype): Mary`s reality is different from most people`s. In her mind, yes, that makes it OK. If you have an opportunity -- any of you
listeners, and if you look on the net, you will find some -- what how Vili looked in sixth grade, in seventh grade. He did not have peach fuzz. He
looked like the androgynous little boy/girl in "The Crying Game." You couldn`t tell if he was a boy or a girl. No masculinity at all (AUDIO
GAP). Pictures out there, I don`t know if you`ll have a chance for the program to show it. The only thing that mattered, it wasn`t fifth grade,
sixth -- (AUDIO GAP) eight grade but she --
BANFIELD: No, David, I`m having -- I`m having such a hard time -- our Skype setup with you is so sketchy. We`re going to reconnect with you
because I want to hear what you have to say. You know her so well and you we`re very, very profound in the A&E documentary. So, we`re going to
reconnect with you so I can get absolute clarity from you.
And in the meantime, I`m going to play this other soundbite from the documentary, from the A&E documentary that I thought really stood out to
her state of mind. Most of us now, it`s just a no-brainer, we`ve seen so many teacher-student stories in the news, the Deb Lafaves of the world, et
cetera, that we now just we know it`s wrong. It`s rape, it`s a crime, right? But back then, if you hear Mary Kay talk about it even today, she
absolutely was so naive about it. She didn`t have any clue that what she was doing was any more wrong than just say cheating on her husband. Have a
listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LETOURNEAU: I didn`t imagine that I would need an attorney. Maybe there would be some consequences, but I didn`t imagine they were criminal
consequences.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Anne Bremner, help me get inside the woman`s mind, the 56-year- old Mary Kay`s mind. Because I -- you know, I can almost understand back then before all the teacher scandals, maybe she didn`t know, but I really
have to say, he was13, she had to know. What do you say to that?
BREMNER,(through telephone): Well, you know, I handled the case, the civil case, where Vili and his mom sued the police and the school for not
protecting him from Mary. That was in the 11th week on trial. Vili`s lawyer was Cyrus Vance (INAUDIBLE) D.A. in Manhattan. So, that explored a
lot of their relationship too. We hand the evidence, we hand the witnesses. All the different things in that case surrounding the
relationship was tried back in 2001. And you know, she thought it might be immoral but she didn`t -- it`s like she thought it was a love story. She
didn`t think it was a crime story. She was in prison when we had that case and we tried that case. You know, she was helpful to me during that case
in defending the police.
And she basically thought, you know, it was a once in a lifetime love that no one could really understand it, and that she talked about how he came to
her like a man would to a woman, and she was going through a really tough time. Her dad was very sick (INAUDIBLE) diagnosed of cancer and she was
very close to him. He had been a Congressman in California. So, it was kind of like a constellation of events that kind of came together at once.
But the criminal part -- I mean, don`t forget, Ashleigh, like you said, this was the first case. This is a case that shocked the world. That`s
what I argued in my civil case, in terms of probability and, you know, any requirement where you had to protect her or him from her, because no one
would have (INAUDIBLE) because it`s (INAUDIBLE)
BANFIELD: But you know something, Anne, it shocked the world, yes, and for a while I would have said maybe there`s a possibility where she wouldn`t
have known the massive implications of what she was doing. But for the fact, I learned in this A&E documentary last night, that her father was a
prominent Washington politician --
BREMNER: Right.
BANFIELD: -- excruciatingly conservative, her mother was a (INAUDIBLE) devotee, so conservative she thought a woman`s place is in the home. And
ultimately, this facade of a family, he was fathering two illegitimate children with a student of his. So, if anybody should have known, it was
Mary Kay Letourneau who should have known.
[19:40:05] And yet, listen to this soundbite where she talks about her own naivety about that first kiss that she was sharing with a sixth-grader she
was teaching about a month or two prior in that classroom. And there she is talking about being in the car with him and the first kiss, and maybe
not knowing what she should have known. Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LETOURNEAU: Maybe I am just naive in that area of life. Maybe it could have stayed just a kiss. I always thought, what if it could have.
FUALAAU: I definitely wanted to go further. The age difference, all of that stuff wasn`t going through my mind. All that was going through my
mind is like this is a girl I like and I hope she likes me too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Seth Meyers, you`re going to have to do two things. Get me off the ledge and then you`re also going to have to explain this because I am
so sick of hearing grown-ups like Michael Jackson and you know -- I can`t say the Tad Cummins of the world, except that he`s admitted to his -- well,
he`s pled guilty to kidnap and sexual assault of Elizabeth Thomas when he ran off with her as his -- as a teacher of her. Kevin Esterly is going to
face charges related to his running off with Amy Yu, another young student. I`m so sick of hearing, we were in love, when the grown-up might have felt
really good about it. To them it was love, but I can`t put Mary Kay and Vili in that basket. It`s 22 years and they`re still together. Can you
help me sort it out?
MEYERS: Well, first of all, are they still together because it`s a good healthy relationship? Or are they still together because they are still --
it`s the two of them against the world and they`re going to prove everybody else wrong? You know, we don`t know the reasons they stay together.
Here`s the main point with this. Do I buy that she did not know that she committed a crime, that it`s illegal to have sex with a 13-year-old boy?
We don`t even need to get into that. But that so many years later, she still stands by her position. Right. So, no lessons learned. No greater
insight. What that tells me is, this is about an oppositional personality style that she is getting gratified by still the fight. She will never let
anybody else tell her that she was wrong. It`s oppositional, ultimately.
BANFIELD: Yes. Well, I`ll tell -- I`ll tell you what, I highly recommend watching this documentary because there is so much insight when someone is
let loose and allowed to just speak. And it`s stream of consciousness straight to camera, no interruptions from interviewers. It is so telling
to see her. I thought I knew this story, I`ve been covering it for 22 years. I didn`t know this story. I didn`t know this woman until I saw
this, and it was really jaw-dropping. And I`ll tell you something else that was jaw-dropping, some of the secrets that she let out. Coming up
after the break, I`m going to get you all to weigh in on this. The communication that she was forbidden to have when she was sent off for her
light six months, and then, ultimately, when she broke that and went away for seven years. The communications that she had with that young man and
how she used breast milk that she was sending out of her cell to feed her new-born that she had with Vili, how she put codes and messages to Vili in
the breast milk, that`s next.
[19:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: We`re still talking about the relationship that rocked the nation and the world, in fact. The husband and wife now describing their
two decades long love story that started when they were teacher and student, sixth grade student. My panel is still with me. I want you to
listen to this moment from the A&E documentary where she talks about being in prison, they`ve got a baby together, and they`re about to have two
babies together, and so, she`s sending breast milk out of her cell and putting codes in it. Have a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LETOURNEAU: I got some good behavior time. I lost some time, too, for apparently -- for sending messages out on breast milk bottles.
FUALAAU: She would communicate with the codes that we had shared with each on the breast milk. You know, when she was sending breast milk from
prison. There would be like little number codes.
LETOURNEAU: My secret codes, I`m very -- yes -- clever.
FUALAAU: Just a message like hey, hello, hi, I love you. Kind of things like that, codes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: Hey, I love you, violation -- I mean, violation, violation. She`s so intransigent about this process, about the very serious process.
Why didn`t they hit her up with a second rape when she was out on parole and was found in the steamy car having sex with him? Why didn`t they hit
her up for the second rape and put her away for longer?
[19:49:58] ZELIN: Because three months turned into seven years. That is an incredible change in terms of a sentence. So, why put him through that
ordeal of now being a witness against her. They would have to perform testing as far as she`s concerned to determine the paternity of the child.
It wasn`t worth it. Just give her seven years.
BANFIELD: Yes, and she did them all. She did them all. Hard time, she said, with hard surfaces. Mommy`s faraway place, apparently, her kids
called it. I want you all to listen to this other moment from the A&E documentary in which she talks about the moment when they first realized
the spark and crossed that line. Because Mary Kay is very quick to say, I never did anything with my student. It was the summer after he was my
sixth-grade student. But this moment is when they`re in class. This is after Vili has admitted to having a bet, a $20.00 bet that he could bag the
teacher, and he goes up to her desk when she`s the teacher and he`s a sixth-grade student, and you be the judge as to whether the relationship
started here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LETOURNEAU: I do remember that I felt he was crossing a line, but he did corner me and said, I`m in love with someone, and I`m like, oh, oh my,
gosh. I know he`s not talking about me. He can`t be. I said does she know that you`re in love with her? And he said, I don`t know, does she?
Then, I looked in his eyes for the first time. I said can you hold that for a long, long, long time?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: David Gehrke, I go back to my original question to you because I`m still perplexed. Why does she split hairs and say it wasn`t that bad.
I mean, it wasn`t like he was my student at the time. Clearly, she admits right there he was her student and she went there.
GEHRKE: Mary can -- Mary can do no wrong and it`s all your fault that she splits hairs because its Mary had sex with a sixth-grade student and she
can look you in the eye and say, no, I didn`t have sex with -- sex with my sixth-grade student. That makes it OK because she`s disagreeing with you.
Any of us, who cares? Summer vacation, seventh grade, sixth grade, she had sex with a kid. But to her perhaps she can show that you`re wrong, then
that automatically makes her right. I think that`s part of the splitting hairs that she has.
BANFIELD: Yes.
GEHRKE: It`s childish, it`s immature, and there`s something that has not been fully explained here on the show yet. When I first started
representing her, I got a phone call from the recently retired chief psychiatrist for the Department of Corrections and he was following this as
everybody in the state was and he said something happened to Mary when she was a child, 12 or 13, and it was traumatic and she never got over it and
she has to get back on the road to maturity, yet, otherwise --
BANFIELD: Did you find out what it was?
GEHRKE: Yes, she was watching their youngest child at home and she was like 10 or 11 and the baby drowned, fell in the pool and drowned. Mary got
the blame for that. And --
BANFIELD: Wow, I -- you know what? I had no idea. I`m learning so much more about this story. I have to cut it there because I have another story
I have to fit in to the program. But David, thank you for being on, and thank you, Seth. Randy, I`m going to ask you to stay as well. I want to
keep following this story. I think there`s more to it. We`re back right after this.
[19:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BANFIELD: Got "ONE MORE THING" for you tonight. Father`s Day is coming up in a couple weeks and it`s generally a time of special dinners and dad
jokes and goofy cards. But not for this guy, not for Scott Peterson. At a time when his son Connor should be 15 years old and wrapping up his
sophomore year in high school, his dad, only has a brand-new mug shot to celebrate. Surprisingly, looks pretty normal. Especially after 13 years
on death row. The brand-new picture for inmate number V72100 looks more like a driver`s license photo or maybe a work I.D. Peterson is now 45
years old. He`s been sitting on California`s death row since `05. He was sentenced to death for murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and that unborn
child, Conner, on Christmas Eve of 2002.
We`ll see you back here tomorrow night, 6:00 Eastern. Thanks for watching. "FORENSIC FILES" begins right now.
END
