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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Battle Over Terri Schiavo; Oil Refinery Explosion Rocks Small Texas Town

Aired March 24, 2005 - 19:00   ET

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

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


ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Good evening from New York. I'm Anderson Cooper.
A ruling expected any moment in the fight to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

360 starts now.

The battle over Terri Schiavo. Courts refuse to intervene to keep her alive. Her parents say there is new evidence, but how did the doctor make that diagnosis? Tonight, the latest on the case to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

A massive oil refinery explosion rocks a small Texas town. The death toll climbs to 15. Tonight, we take you beyond the headlines. What caused the blast, and what was like for eyewitnesses on the ground?

Survivors of the Red Lake rampage break their silence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CODY THUNDER, SHOOTING SURVIVOR: I turned around, and there's Jeff Weise pointing a gun at me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Tonight, what it was like inside the school when the shooting started.

And should this cartoon, made by the gunman, have been a warning to the community?

A deadly plane crash caught on video. But what's happened to the survivors? Tonight. reliving a terrible crash, and how those who survived have been forever changed.

And CNN reporters on assignment in Iraq get caught in a bomb blast. Coming up, their account of the hair-raising ordeal, and how they kept the camera rolling.

ANNOUNCER: Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is a special two-hour edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360.

COOPER: Good evening again. What began years ago as the ordeal of one woman in a hospice bed, one woman whose eyes frequently are open, but who may or may not really be able to see, has now become a passionate cause, a political football, and a millstone for more than a few courts.

That's a live picture outside Terri Schiavo's hospice bed, where she does not know, according to her husband's family, what is happening outside.

Protesters there waiting to see what will happen. One more judge remains to be heard from. His decision may come at any moment over the next two hours. We, of course, will bring that to you live.

Meantime this afternoon, the Supreme Court declined to take up the case of Terri Schiavo, dashing the hopes of her parents, who wanted their brain-damaged daughter to begin to be fed again.

Terri Schiavo has had no nourishment since a court ordered her feeding tube removed last Friday. As we say, one more judge will be heard from tonight, anytime over the next two hours. But a great many other voices, some of them angry, have made themselves heard already.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDALL TERRY, OPERATION RESCUE: If she dies, there is going to be hell to pay with the pro-life, pro-family Republican people of various legislative levels, statewide and federal wide, who have used pro-life, pro-family conservative rhetoric to get into power, and then when they have that power, they refuse to use it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: John Zarrella is standing by in Pinellas Park, Florida, where one way or another, one day or another, this sad drama must come to an end. John?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, that's right.

And, in fact, Terri Schiavo's now approaching and may be already at the longest she has ever been off the feeding tube, six days in 2003 and two days in 2001.

And despite all of the odds against them, her family, her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler and her brother and sister, are continuing the fight in court, and the federal court right now, the hearing has begun in the federal court.

What we understand about that hearing is it is an expansion of the issues raised by the Department of Children and Families to the state court judge earlier today, which he rejected, those issues being neglect and abuse of Terri Schiavo, and this doctor, this neurologist's report that she may not necessarily be in a persistent vegetative state, but, rather, that she is in a state less than that, and perhaps has some degree of minimal consciousness, he said.

And beyond that, though, there is another court action that may well be taking place later. The Department of Children and Families has also gone now to the Florida Supreme Court on similar issues, an expansion of those same issues that I just described.

And while the courts have continued to beat down every attempt by the family to have the feeding tube reinserted, Governor Bush, late this afternoon, told people gathered at the capitol that he may not have the power to do anything more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: I have talked to a whole lot of people that I respect, not just now, but the first time, that when Terri's Law was passed to make the determination of what my powers are, and they are not as expansive as people would want them to be. And I understand what they're -- They're acting on their heart. And I fully appreciate their sentiments and the emotions that go with this.

But I cannot go -- and as I've been consistently saying, and I guess you guys haven't been listening and repeating it back -- I've consistently said that I can't go beyond what my powers are, and I'm not going to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZARRELLA: Now, the governor is certainly in a hard position, because it may well be that he cannot do anything, and many people believe that he is the last option.

Now, the protesters continue to hold vigil here, about 200 of them during the course of the day, a little bit more subdued today than they have been in the past. And the family, Bob and Mary Schindler, were not allowed in to see their daughter for about 12 hours today, because we understand that Michael Schiavo and his family were in there, and the two sides do not go to visit Terri Schiavo at the same time, which underscores the bitter divide that has come from this entire saga that's played out over 15 years.

But the Schindlers, late this afternoon, did go into the hospice to see Terri, and they did go that federal court hearing. They are there, Anderson.

COOPER: And from all reports, this was a very tight-knit family before all this began, and even the first couple of years into this.

ZARRELLA: Yes.

COOPER: The atmosphere where you are, I mean, we're seeing some of the signs behind you, supportive, obviously, the people behind you, of the Schindlers, some very vicious signs toward Michael Schiavo. Is, are, is it all, you said there were about 200 people there. Is it all people on the Schindler side of this?

ZARRELLA: No, I would say, but the vast majority are. There have been periodically a handful, as compared to the 200, a handful of people who have supported Michael Schiavo and who are here with signs saying, Let her die, let her die with dignity. So there are a few people that have come out here and supported Michael Schiavo, but certainly nowhere near the numbers that are out here in support of the family wanting to keep her alive, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, John Zarrella, appreciate that. We'll check in with you a little bit later on in the broadcast.

To help us through the legal labyrinth that the Terri Schiavo case seems to have become, we're joined now in Orlando, Florida, by attorney David Cardwell.

David, thanks very much for being with us.

It seems like there's two basic tracks going on right now. Let's talk about the federal judge who's being asked to restore her feeding tube by the parents. How do you think the judge is going to rule?

DAVID CARDWELL, ATTORNEY: Well, I think the outcome of that hearing may have been determined Tuesday morning, when Judge Whittemore issued the first federal ruling after the law was passed by Congress and signed by the president, when he said that the standard he was looking at was it -- a substantial likelihood that the Schindlers would prevail when this case actually went to trial.

And he said he was not going to issue the injunction. I think that was really the signal that the federal courts were not going to get into this. He's been upheld. I'd be very surprised if he retreated from that position and then, in essence, reverses himself and allows an evidentiary hearing to proceed.

COOPER: OK, so if he, assuming he, that front doesn't work for them, legally speaking, what options do the Schindlers have left?

CARDWELL: I don't think they have many legal or judicial options left. Obviously, they can appeal Judge Whittemore's decision, should he turn them down at this hearing, but he -- they're going right back to the 11th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, who have turned them down. I think one of the...

COOPER: What about the Florida Supreme Court?

CARDWELL: The Florida Supreme Court's got the case from DCF, and that's the one that's probably the one that is the most unclear at this point. There is a statute in Florida, an emergency intervention provision, that allows the Department of Children and Family to take custody of what's called a vulnerable adult if there is some evidence of abuse or neglect, and they can keep that person for 24 hours, or keep them through a weekend if they get them on a Friday.

And then they have to petition a court at the end of that 24-hour period to either retain custody for the state to hold that person, or some other relief.

That statute has customarily been employed at the beginning of a process, before there is any judicial action. This time we've got it at the end, after numerous judicial actions, so it may be that the Florida Supreme Court, when faced with the issue, may say, DCF, you're too late. If you'd been here a few years ago, that would have been different, but this has already been vetted in the courts.

COOPER: And a spokesman for the Schindlers said that Governor Bush is now the only practical hope here for Terri Schiavo. We plead with the governor, we plead with Governor Bush. We just heard Governor Bush saying, though, his hands are basically tied. It doesn't seem like he is willing to make that step of actually intervening.

CARDWELL: And I agree with the governor in terms of constitutional law in Florida. And we have historically limited the powers of the governor, though they've been increased in recent years. But we don't have a long history of very expansive, broad gubernatorial powers.

And the problem here is that he's also said that he will not interfere or override a judge's decision. So so long as Judge Greer's restraining order remains in place, the governor has indicated he's not going to disregard it and send DCF in to take custody of Terri. And I think that was probably the last executive action he could take, unless the Florida Supreme Court says that Judge Greer was wrong.

COOPER: All right. Well, we are awaiting, really, any moment now, this, this, this ruling from the, from the judge. We will bring that to our viewers, of course, live. And David, we'll be checking with you a little bit later as warranted. Thank you very much, David Cardwell...

CARDWELL: OK.

COOPER: ... appreciate it.

Coming up next, though, on 360, before this controversy, before the battle over life and death, before Terri Schiavo lay in that hospice bed, there was a love story of Terri and Michael Schiavo. We're going to take a look at their life before it all fell apart.

Also ahead tonight, a massive explosion rocks a small town in Texas. We're going to take you beyond the headlines, found it, find out how it all unfolded.

And a little later, school shooting rampage. A victim of the 16- year-old killer describes for the first time what happens moments before he was shot.

All that ahead. First, your picks, the most popular stories right now on CNN.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY WOLFSON, FORMER SCHIAVO GUARDIAN: It's not about Governor Bush. It's not about the Schindlers, who are wonderful people. It's not about the caring people who are outside of the hospice. It's not about Congress, it's not about our state legislature, and it's not even about our federal court system, though that's there to help adjudicate the disputes.

It's about Terri, and what her intentions were determined to be in a civil procedure that used Florida law and some fairly carefully crafted guidelines. We may not agree with that, and we don't want Terri to die, but here we are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that was Jay Wolfson, Terri Schiavo's former legal guardian. We're going to talk to him a little bit later on in this special two-hour edition of 360.

He believes, based on the 30,000 pages of court documents that he read, because he was assigned by the court to look after Terri Schiavo, he believes that her wish would have been to die.

Before Terri became a cause celebre, however, she was just a young woman who had a lot to live for, an awful lot to live for.

Tonight, we take you beyond the headlines for more about the life she had and the life she shared with her husband, Michael.

Here's CNN's John Zarrella.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA (voice-over): You would probably never recognize the photographs. Just a young couple in love. But today, the world knows their story of star-crossed tragedy, the stuff of Shakespearian drama.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO, TERRI SCHIAVO'S HUSBAND: We loved each other tremendously. She was shy. She was warm. She was sweet.

See the water squirting up there?

ZARRELLA: Now, the lives of Terri and Michael Schiavo are forever changed.

M. SCHIAVO: Look at those ducks (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

ZARRELLA: Before Terri became disabled in 1990, she and Michael had the dreams and plans of any young couple in love.

M. SCHIAVO: We had wanted kids, and that's what we were trying to have when all this occurred. She loved kids. We wanted to have a house full, just to have a happy little normal life. We didn't want anything big. we weren't into the glimmer and the shine. We just wanted to have a nice little comfortable life together.

ZARRELLA: The two met by chance in school in the early 1980s. It was, Michael says, love at first sight.

M. SCHIAVO: I met Terri in community college. And we just happened to start a new semester, and she was -- I believe it was my psychology class. Don't quote me on that, but I believe it was. And she just happened to be sitting there, and I was over on one side of the room, and she was over on the other. And I heard this little laugh, and I looked over, and there she was.

I fell in love with her the instant I saw her.

ZARRELLA: And it wasn't long before they were dating.

(on camera): How did you ask her out? What did you, what was it?

M. SCHIAVO: I just -- we got to talking, and I just asked her, I said, We're having a family get-together, would you like to go with me? And she said yes. She was just -- she -- like I say, she had this persona, this aura about her that just attracted you. She was just the -- beautiful smile. I mean, just shy and outgoing at the same time.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): They dated, Michael says, about a year and were married in 1984.

(on camera): Wedding day was special?

M. SCHIAVO: Oh, yes. Yes. When I saw her walking down the aisle, I said Oh, my God, look at that. There was just a vision of beauty. I'm telling you, she was gorgeous. And all's I saw was her big smile, just laughing at everybody and, you know, but that shy little laugh, but just outgoing, and...

ZARRELLA (voice-over): For six years, Terri and Michael lived their storybook life, until February 25, 1990, when Terri suffered heart failure, believed to be caused by a potassium imbalance.

Michael has moved on and is in a new relationship. But he never divorced Terri, in order to carry out what he says were her wishes never to become a burden to people. And, he says, he will never forget the time they had together.

(on camera): You still hold those memories of those days very dear.

M. SCHIAVO: Oh, they're in my heart forever, my heart and my mind forever. Terri will always be in my heart. She will never leave it. She was a piece of my life, and she'll always be a piece of my life.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): John Zarrella, CNN, Clearwater, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, of course, there's another angle to this story. Terri Schiavo's parents now doubt the veracity of her husband, doubt what he says, doubt his intentions. We're going to look at all the allegations later on in this special two-hour edition of 360. John Zarrella will be back for that.

Right now, though, a lot of other stories to cover.

People power sparks another political upheaval. Erica Hill from Headline News has the latest on that and the other top stories right now at about 18 past the hour. Hey, Erica.

ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Hi, Anderson.

Yes, people power indeed. In the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, the president has fled the country, his whereabouts at this point unknown, after protesters overran and seized the country's seat of government. Unconformed reports -- unconfirmed reports, rather, say the president is in Russia. Kyrgyzstan's parliament, meantime, has elected former opposition leaders as interim president and prime minister and has given them until tomorrow to present a new government.

The woman whose 911 call led police to suspected Atlanta courthouse shooter Brian Nichols has collected her reward. Governor Sonny Purdue today in Georgia praised Ashley Smith as she received more than $72,000 in reward money from various law enforcement agencies. Nichols held Smith hostage for seven hours before freeing her.

Canada is denying the plea of a former American paratrooper. Jeremy Hinzman fled to Canada and asked for refugee status there, saying if he were sent to Iraq, he would be forced to commit war crimes. But a Canadian court refused to grant Hinzman's request. The ruling could affect at least eight American service members and possibly dozens more.

And that's the latest from Headline News. Anderson, back to you.

COOPER: All right, Erica. We'll see you in about half an hour. Thanks very much.

Coming up next on 360, a massive explosion rocks a small Texas town. Fifteen people have died. We are going to take you beyond the headlines to where it happened and talk to people who are blown by the blast.

Also tonight, inside the mind of a teen killer. The boy who opened fire in Minnesota school leaves behind some violent animations. Allegedly these cartoons right here, he made. Very disturbing. Was there a clue someone should have caught? We'll take a look.

Also a little later tonight, a plane barrels down the runway, bursts into flames. It's all caught on tape. Find out how the pilot became a hero and lived to tell the story. And how it has changed his life. We're covering all the angles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, it began with ball of fire. One big boom, as an eyewitness called it, that turned day to night in a matter of seconds in Texas. The refinery explosion that blew out windows miles away yesterday is still smoldering right now. Today, another body was removed from the rubble, raising the death toll to 15.

There are some astonishing accounts, however, of bravery and survival. CNN's Rudy Bakhtiar has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUDI BAKHTIAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was 1:30 yesterday afternoon when, suddenly, the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas was rocked by a massive explosion. Fifteen people died, at least 100 others were injured. Some Texas City residents said they could hear or feel the explosion from miles away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hear a big boom, real big. A lot of fire and a lot of stuff flying in the air - pipes and a lot of dust. And you could feel the heat from a lot of feet away.

BAKHTIAR: The petroleum plant looked more like a war zone. One worker wandered into the smoldering rubble searching for a friend. Rescue workers rushed in. Listen as KPRC reporter Steven Dean describes the dramatic scene.

STEVEN DEAN, KPRC REPORTER: In the first few minutes, firefighters poured water from all angles. Then more smoke as an entire row of work trucks erupted in flames. Then we saw the sheer desperation among the vast pile of debris where most of the victims were trapped.

BAKHTIAR: The plant employs 1,800 workers many of them married or related. And today, they gathered at a grief center set up by the company to wait for word on their loved ones, to find comfort and support and sometimes to express their anger at this unfathomable tragedy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was in a building -- in a building, in a little office area. And this shouldn't have happened.

BAKHTIAR: The blast tore through the part of the plant used to raise the octane in gasoline, considered a very dangerous process, that made the job even more treacherous for rescuers.

DEAN: Eight minutes later, more rescuers fight through the smoke looking for survivors as well, one fireman rushing in hoping for any sign of life.

One hour after the explosion, a full team of 20 rescuers can finally dig into the rubble now that the fire has died down. A backboard is moved into place as workers dig into a hole and finally survivors are reached.

BAKHTIAR: Today, loved ones began the gruesome task of identifying the victims. Neither the company nor the FBI believes terrorism was involved in this tragedy. But they're still at a loss to say just what caused a part of the plant to suddenly burst into flames.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BAKHTIAR: And Anderson, this isn't the first time that BP has gotten into trouble like this. It was the site of one of the worst industrial accidents in U.S. history...

COOPER: The same site?

BAKHTIAR: ...the same site back in 1947. We have some pictures to show you. Those are black and white's from 1947. Same place. A fire on board a tanker caused this massive explosion. That whole town, as you can see, was just leveled. Parts of it were leveled. 576 people died.

And then, just last March, same company, fined for $63,000 for safety violations. Let's see if we can have -- can we roll that video? Explosion there causing the plant to shut down for hours.

And then, again last September, they were fined for $110,000. Two employees burning because of overheated water.

COOPER: Terrible. All right. The investigation is ongoing to this incident. Rudi Bakhtiar, thanks very much for that.

Robert Collier's first day at work almost became the last day alive. He was at the refinery at the moment of the explosion. He joins me now from Webster, Texas.

Robert, it's good to see you. How are you doing?

ROBERT COLLIER, BP REFINERY WORKER: Oh, I'm just pretty sore. My back is hurting, they're trying to find out what's wrong with it. And I'm waiting on some test results, waiting to do more tests.

COOPER: You were standing a trailer when the explosion happened. What happened?

COLLIER: Yes, sir. We were working a material trailer, myself and another man. And he was towards the back of the trailer and I was at the front where we hand materials out the window to the contractors. And there is a counter there. And I heard a rumbling on the trailer like somebody was banging on the side of the trailer, so I turned around to ask the man I was working with what that noise was. And as I was turning, I saw the window fly open like the wind had blown it open.

And before I could even get any words out of my mouth, I heard this big boom. It sounded like maybe a skyrocket or something, 4th of July displayed, ten times that noise or more. And it just felt like something hurled me across the trailer.

The next thing I know, I'm laying there. And the man I'm working with is shaking me, telling me, man, we need to get up and get out of here and go outside. I said I don't think I can move. I think I messed up my back. He said we got to get out of here.

COOPER: How far from the blast were you?

COLLIER: Well, the man I worked for said we were like 120 feet from where it actually happened.

COOPER: Wow! And, yet, you were blown off your feet. That's amazing.

COLLIER: Yes, sir. It was like -- I don't know. I felt like just somebody kicked me in the back or something, you know. I don't really remember flying across the trailer, but I wound up face down right where my -- the man I was working with was at, you know? I guess I must have.

He told me I did. It looked like somebody shot...

COOPER: I'm sorry. Go ahead. It looked like somebody shot...

COLLIER: He said it looked like somebody shot me in the back with a shotgun. And he said it looked bad.

COOPER: I know you saw a lot of other injured people. What kind of injuries were you seeing?

COLLIER: I seen people hurt real bad. We went to where they call the muster point. And a lot of people I worked with -- everybody gathered there. And a lot of people I worked with came in there with cuts on their face and people were burned and it was ambulances everywhere. And I seen people sitting on the ground, looked like they were hurt, and it was bad. It looked kind of like a war zone, you know? It was real bad.

COOPER: I know your wife was worried sick about you. I'm sure you weren't able to contact her for a while.

COLLIER: Right.

COOPER: You finally made a phone call to her. How was that?

COLLIER: Right. No, it was like three hours before I got ahold of my wife because nobody's cell phone would work. I think they had all of the phone lines jammed up or something. But, no one could get out on 409 number, and so I couldn't call her. And then I got sent up to what they called triage, because I'd hurt my back and no one had a phone up there. The next thing I know, I was on a bus to go to the hospital, and I was in the hospital before I could call her, before I finally got to a phone.

COOPER: Well, I'm glad you're safe and sound, and I'm sorry with your back. I hope you get better soon, and the other people who've been injured as well. A horrible thing. I know the investigation is still ongoing.

Robert Collier, appreciate it. Thank you.

COLLIER: You're welcome.

ANNOUNCER: Survivors of the Red Lake rampage break their silence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THUNDER: ...pointed a gun at me and he started shooting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, what it was like inside the school when the shooting started, and should this cartoon, made by the gunman, have been a warning to the community?

A deadly plane crash caught on video, but what's happened to the survivors? Tonight, reliving a terrible crash, and how those who survived had been forever changed. This special two-hour edition of 360 continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THUNDER: I heard a shot, and then that scared me and made me jump, and -- I was really close, and then I looked at the clock and then I turned around and there he was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: It was just three -- before 3:00 p.m., close to the end of the school day on Monday, when 16-year-old Jeff Weise got to Red Lake High School. Within just a few minutes, a guard, a teacher and five students and Weise were all dead. Today, some of the students who survived Weise's shooting spree talked about the ordeal for the first time.

CNN's Sean Callebs was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was too soon for 15-year-old Lance Crow. He couldn't bring himself to talk about Monday's shooting rampage. He left it to his 15-year-old cousin, Cody Thunder, to describe the horrific moments trying to escape alleged killer Jeff Weise.

THUNDER: I just remember shots going off and then I looked at the clock, and it was just a little bit before 3:00 and I turned around and there's Jeff Weise. He pointed a gun at me and he started shooting.

QUESTION: What'd you do then?

THUNDER: I just -- the glass shattered, and -- I don't know. I was just in shock. And then -- as soon as he shot a couple of times, I got up and ran. I didn't know I was hit until I looked.

CALLEBS: At first, the teen says, he didn't know Weise had a real gun.

THUNDER: No. I thought he was messing around. I thought it was a paintball gun or something.

COOPER: Thunder says he heard that Weise had made vague threats, taunts he didn't take seriously, that is, until Monday.

THUNDER: I never thought he'd do this. I never thought that he'd come up and try to shoot up the school.

QUESTION: What did he say about the guns?

THUNDER: He just talked about them, talked about shooting people and stuff. And I never thought that he would come up here.

CALLEBS: Thunder says Weise was a loner, perceived as an oddball who changed his hair -- orange one day, and devil-like horns the next. Yet, he said he felt compelled to reach out to the outcast.

THUNDER: I don't know. He was just -- he didn't really have any buddies. That's why I went to talk to him, because he seemed like a loner and I just felt it would be good to go talk to him.

CALLEBS: Thunder, who still has a bullet lodged in his hip, was asked about reports that Weise made his way through the school laughing and grinning as he killed.

THUNDER: He had a mean face.

QUESTION: A what?

THUNDER: A mean face.

CALLEBS (on camera): Crow, Thunder, and Ryan Auginash are recovering in this hospital, their lives changed forever. They are getting support, but not enough according to Ryan's uncle.

DARRELL AUGINASH, STUDENT'S UNCLE: We need our tribal leaders here, to come here, too, to see these guys. They haven't been here yet.

CALLEBS: And lest we forget, these are just children, forced to cope with a crisis. Thunder was asked, what is the first thing he'll do once he leaves the hospital.

THUNDER: See my kitties.

CALLEBS: Sean Callebs, CNN, Bemidji, Minnesota.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It appears that Jeff Weise spent an awful lot of time on his computer, and he seems to have left a lot of tracks across the Internet. Reports now link him with violent and disturbing postings on a number of Web sites. There were multiple postings to a neo-Nazi site -- we talked about that yesterday -- and in a moment we're going to show you an animation believed to have been created by Weise. It is raising questions about why his apparent anger and depression and fantasies weren't called to somebody's attention. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): You'll probably find this animation repulsive, although we're not showing you the worst parts. It shows a gunman taking aim, shooting people, throwing a hand grenade into a police car. He eventually shoots and kills himself. At the end, it says "Animation & Art by Regret."

Now, look at this. A typical Web profile page someone who calls himself "Solitude" and he's anything but typical. Under "A little about me," quote, "16 years of accumulated rage, suppressed by nothing more than brief glimpses of hope, which have all but faded to black." Take a look at "Hobbies and Interests," quote, "Planning. Waiting. Hating."

We don't know that "Regret" and "Solitude" are the same person, but a number of reports say investigators are looking into these and other Web postings that are thought to be the work of Jeff Weise. Today's "New York Times" reports Weise apparently posted short stories on the Internet as well. One about a shooting spree at a small school.

Now, in the wake of real shootings at Red Lake High School, you're probably asking, didn't anyone try to help this kid? Apparently they did. The "Washington Post" says Weise voluntarily went to a hospital psychiatric ward for treatment last year, that he was suicidal and was on an anti-depressant for a while. That raises another red flag: there's been a lot of controversy lately about whether anti-depressants increase the chances of a young person committing suicide. There is no conclusive medical evidence so far, but a lot of concern.

Cyberspace is a place some go to, to disappear, but if what we're learning is true, it was the place where the real Jeff Weise emerged, and plenty of people watched or read about it, but nobody raised a red flag.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, coming up next on this special edition of 360, "Caught on Tape," the final seconds before a DC-10 explodes in Sioux City, Iowa. We're going to catch up with a captain who, despite saving so many lives, refuses to be called a hero. How his life has been forever changed.

Also, tonight: is your memory fooling you? Dr. Sanjay Gupta stops by to show us why we often cannot trust our own eyes.

And a little later, we separate fact from fiction, truth from lies, in the battle over Terri Schiavo. We continue to wait for court's decision, any moment now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAVE BOXUM, FRM. REPORTER/PHOTOGRAPHER: I didn't know what to expect. It was -- but I had to be ready for whatever happened. I mean, we knew this was serious.

That first year, I probably thought about the crash every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: That was former reporter Dave Boxum recalling the 1989 Sioux City, Iowa plane crash, a moment he and we will never forget. When you see the video of the plane tumbling in a ball of fire, it's really hard to believe that anybody walked away from that wreckage, but 184 of the 286 people aboard the crippled DC-10 did survive.

Now their lives were saved, no doubt about it, by Captain Al Haynes, and his extraordinary crew, who at 37,000 feet lost virtually all control of the aircraft.

All this week, we're bringing you up to date on what happened to the people involved in breathtaking moments like this one, moments that were caught on tape and how their lives have been forever changed.

Tonight, CNN's Kimberly Osias has the story of the hero of Flight 232.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now just slightly to your left, sir, to make the turn to Fannel (ph), and also that will take you away from the city.

CAPTAIN AL HAYNES, RETIRED UNITED PILOT: Whatever you do, keep me away from the city.

KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anyone who saw video can't forget the image. United Flight 232 barreling nose-first into an Iowa runway, bursting into a ball of flames. It was a crash unlike any other. By all accounts, no one should have survived.

HAYNES: We had a situation that you can't train for, you can't practice for. You don't do it because it can't happen.

OSIAS: But it did happen. The man behind the controls, Captain Al Haynes, won't ever forget July 19, 1989. Moments after careening into the runway, he blacked out.

HAYNES: Terrible screeching, the noise, the fire, the rolling. I was unconscious. I didn't go through any of that.

BOXUM: I set up my camera at the north side of the terminal.

OSIAS: Former CNN affiliate reporter Dave Boxum remembers everything about that day.

BOXUM: For a split second, I saw the plane coming in. It was very level, very low, but it looked fine. And then it disappeared behind some hangar buildings. And At that time, it seemed like an eternity.

I heard, you know, this eerie roaring sound, whining sound, explosions. And I didn't know where it was going to come out. And, then all of a sudden I saw it cartwheeling from behind the hangar buildings and it cartwheeled down the runway.

OSIAS: Boxum was listening to police scanners before the DC-10 went down. He was the only photographer to capture it all on tape.

BOXUM: Like, I'm looking through a view finder that's black, white so I'm not even seeing this in color. And what's going through my mind is I'm totally in a reporter mode. And I don't want that to sound callous, but I'm thinking whatever happens, I need to document this, I need to capture this.

OSIAS: The plane bounced on its nose three times and broke apart in four places scattering debris across the vast Iowa cornfield. But the problem started far earlier at 37,000 feet, when the tail fan broke of, disabling the rear engine. Shrapnel thrusted forward severing the hydraulic fluid lines, giving the crew no way to steer the plane.

HAYNES: We really never thought about crashing, we never thought about dying. We thought about we got to get this thing on the ground somehow.

OSIAS: So they tested and tried everything they knew. Alternating thrust on the remaining two wing engines, defying aeronautical laws to bring the DC-10 down.

HAYNES: Can't explain why it worked. We just did it. We had to do it. It was either that or we couldn't just sit there and give up. We had to keep trying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cleared to land on any runway.

HAYNES: You don't want to be particular, huh?

OSIAS: A calm Captain Haynes even used humor to break the tension.

HAYNES: Just give us Iowa, you know, just get us down in Iowa somewhere it's OK with us.

OSIAS: Although the video aired all over the country, Haynes didn't see a frame for three days. When he did, he couldn't believe it was his plane. But soon after the crash, he got back in the cockpit, flying two years before retiring in 1991.

HAYNES: That was my job. That's what did for a living. I wasn't about to quit on a note like that.

OSIAS: These days, Captain Haynes travels the country as a motivational speaker. It's part of his therapy, part of his mission to help others deal with traumatic stress. Every time he lectures, he shows the video, says it's never bothered him. As for Dave Boxum, the video is more troubling than ever before.

BOXUM: As I get older, it's harder for me to watch the video now than when it first happened. I think it's because of the maturity level. It's something that will stay with me forever.

OSIAS: Boxum's television career now behind him, he works in public relations. He's married with two daughters. Al Haynes has a daughter, too, Laurie Arguello, who needed a bone marrow transplant. But insurance failed to cover the cost. It was the passengers from 232 that came forward, raising over $500,000 to make the procedure possible.

LAURIE ARGUELLO, AL HAYNES DAUGHTER: People who have wanted to thank him and couldn't really find ways to do it and a lot of people said that that was their way to try.

OSIAS: Haynes says he needs no thanks. And refuses to be called a hero.

HAYNES: I don't believe it. To me, the definition of a hero is someone who puts their life in jeopardy to benefit someone else, voluntarily puts their life in jeopardy. There is no way on Earth we did that voluntarily.

OSIAS: Although Captain Haynes doesn't consider himself a hero, to the 183 others who survived the crash, he defines the word.

Kimberly Osias, CNN, Seattle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Amazing man.

The investigation into a political murder mystery yields very few answers. Erica Hill from Headline News joins us now with the latest at about 12 to the hour.

Hey, Erica.

HILL: Hi, Anderson. Yeah, and this is one that you've been following, of course, with your time in Lebanon. Those behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri have not been caught. But Syria and Lebanese security forces share some responsibility.

That is the conclusion of the United Nations report which says the forces failed to provide adequate protection for Hariri. The report also criticizes Lebanon's investigation into the killing, calling it seriously flawed.

The U.N. report asks for an independent investigation. Lebanon's Syrian backed President Emile Lahoud, called on U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to do whatever is necessary to solve the crime. The New York State Court of Appeals will not allow the release of most of the 911 calls made by people trapped inside the Trade Center on September 11. The judges said the tapes would include callers' last moments of terror and agony. And that grieving families might be offended by hearing them on television or reading transcripts in the newspaper. The court said it will allow the release of calls from relatives of eight families who sought full disclosure of the tapes.

The prosecutor in the Robert Blake murder trial says jurors who acquitted the actor were quote, "incredibly stupid." Steve Cooley says, Blake was "Guilty as sin" of murdering his wife, Bonny Lee Bakely. A juror on the case says Cooley has a case of sour grapes.

I have one idea of maybe why, Anderson, maybe he didn't get invited to go cowboying. And then I'm going to leave it alone. No more cowboying, I promise.

COOPER: I might mention cowboying from now on, on every episode.

HILL: That's fine.

COOPER: Thanks very, Erica. Appreciate it. We'll see you back in about 30 minutes.

Coming up next on 360, emotion and politics. The many sides of the Terri Schiavo case. Our John Zarrella has a fact check. Looking at the details, there are so many different versions of events. We're going to try to sort out the facts from the fiction. We're doing a special hour on Terri Schiavo coming up.

Also tonight, we continue our series on memory: how the smallest details can be pulled from deep within our memory. It's an extraordinary look inside our brains. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has that.

And a little later, the background of the doctor whose disputed diagnosis led the Florida governor to intervene, yet again, in the Schiavo case. Exactly who is this guy? All that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: You've been watching all this week, we've been looking at memory, how it works and how sometimes it doesn't. Tonight we want to focus on eyewitness testimony. Now, the words have the very ring of truth, but just how reliable really are eyewitness accounts? It turns out they can be mistaken very easily.

In fact, many prisoners convicted on eyewitness accounts have been freed because DNA proved they weren't guilty at all. As we continue our series "Refresh your Memory," our 360 M.D., Sanjay Gupta shows us how one woman helps solve crimes by coaxing the right memories to the surface.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jeanne Boylan makes a living by mining the very details of memory. A top-ranked freelance artist, she sketches thousands of subjects for the FBI and police departments around the country. From the Unabomber to the Oklahoma City Bombing to the Polly Klaas kidnapping, she's worked the biggest cases around.

In 1987, a bomb badly wounded the owner of a computer store in Salt Lake City, Utah. Minutes earlier, a worker there had caught a glimpse, just a two-second glimpse of the man leaving the suspicious package. Seven long years later, Boylan was called in to meet the lone eyewitness. The result was this famous sketch, the hooded Unabomber. A good likeness, judge for yourself.

JEANNE BOYLAN, ARTIST/CRIMINAL PROFILER: Your memory may have been distorted in the interim, but the odds of that original memory being there are extremely good.

GUPTA: At most police departments, a witness to a crime either looks through mug shots or picks and chooses from menu of facial feature until an artist or computer creates a composite. But researchers have found that these techniques actually impair memory as the witness concentrates on each new image, the original memory is blurred.

BOYLAN: I hate those mug books. An imprint into memory is not unlike a fingerprint on a murder weapon. So when police show witnesses, you know, eyes and lips and noses in books full of facial features and expect that memory to be static, what they're doing is overlaying the imprinted memory with all these new additional prints, just as they would be overlaying fingerprints on a murder weapon if they handed it to bare handed people.

GUPTA: Boylan's method is different. Her interviews are long, about 12 hours. But most of the talking has nothing to do with the crime. She relaxes the witness and lets memories come to the surface. She's careful not to suggest details which is tougher than you might think.

(on camera): The contamination of an eyewitness. So -- I mean, how subtle can it be? You just said, if the investigator says were his eyes brown, is that contamination?

BOYLAN: That's absolutely contamination, yes.

GUPTA: When it comes to memory, we often can't trust our own eyes. \

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Tomorrow, 360 M.D. Sanjay Gupta wraps up the series with a look at how you can develop a stronger memory. You'll even learn some tricks from a champion memorizer. I definitely need that!

Next on 360, protest continue outside the Florida hospice where Terri Schiavo now lies. We're going to have the latest facts in the controversial case. You're looking at a live shot right there. We're devoting the next hour to this case. An in depth look at issues on both sides covering the angles.

Also, the parents of Terri Schiavo heartened by a doctor's diagnosis. We're going to check on his medical background.

Plus, a doctor's most difficult decision, how to know when you can do no more for a patient. Dr. Sanjay Gupta on a doctor's dilemma. All that ahead in our special edition of 360 continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDALL TERRY, OPERATION RESCUE: If she dies there is going to be hell to pay with the pro-life, pro-family Republican people of various legislative levels state wide and federal wide, who have used pro-life, pro-family conservative rhetoric to get into power, and then, when they have the power, they refuse to use it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: We're going to be spending the next hour looking in- depth at the Terri Schiavo case. Now, we're expecting developments at any moments in the case. We anticipate in about 10 minutes or so a press conference in Tampa, Florida.

A federal court has been petitioned by Terri Schiavo's parents. We were -- as I said, we have been expecting all -- for the last hour. We have been monitoring the situation. And we're going to take you to Tampa as soon as that press conference begins, that is, the latest maneuvers.

Right now, though, we want to talk with Brian Schiavo, who we understand has just come from seeing his sister-in-law Terri.

It's impossible to imagine how difficult this must be for you, Brian. We appreciate you being with us tonight.

How was Terri? How is she doing?

BRIAN SCHIAVO, BROTHER OF MICHAEL SCHIAVO: Well, like you said, I just came here from seeing her.

And the only way -- how I can describe this is, she is peaceful. She is laying there. Sometimes her mouth is agape and, you know, she's peaceful. She is not writhing in pain. You know, she is really not too different than I saw her the day before. So...

COOPER: There are -- in the last 24 hours or so, I have seen so many interviews with people on all sides of this issue. The Schindlers say that she is responsive in some ways, communicative. That's not the Terri Schiavo you see?

B. SCHIAVO: No, not at all, not at all.

I have -- I have called to her. I'm inches from her face. She does not communicate. She does not try to communicate. She does not respond. You know, unfortunately, there's just nothing there.

COOPER: I want to play just a piece of tape from Bobby Schindler, something he said earlier, and if possible just get your response to it. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBY SCHINDLER, BROTHER OF TERRI SCHIAVO: I saw her last night. And, I have said it before, I think the best way to describe the way she looks is, it's reminiscent of seeing pictures of people in concentration camps. It's just absolutely horrific, what I'm seeing happen in front my eyes, and just the dehydration -- death by dehydration and starvation is just absolutely barbaric. And it's almost a surreal sight when I walk into my sister's room. It's hard to explain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: I don't know how well you could hear that.

B. SCHIAVO: It was muffled. I didn't hear much of it. But I think he was referring to how she looked now and...

COOPER: He equated it to someone in a concentration camp.

B. SCHIAVO: Well, if you saw -- I'm sure you saw all the video of her before she had the tube removed. She didn't look all that well. So -- but I don't -- she does look a little withdrawn now, obviously. I mean, she has not had food or nutrition -- or nutrition or hydration for seven days now. So -- but the point I want to make is, he's wrong.

Death by starvation, as he puts it, is a very natural -- it's part of the death process. You cannot equate this with someone such as a Biafran child sitting on the sands in a desert with a bloated belly in pain because they have not eaten. You can't equate that. People die every single day across this planet in this fashion. And I will tell you, I will take a lie detector test if you need to. She is not in pain. She is not writhing back and forth. And she is not in pain.

COOPER: Do you think she is capable of feeling pain?

B. SCHIAVO: I can't say for sure.

I doubt it very much. I doubt it very much. I don't see that she's made any -- any type of -- you know, when my brother goes in and moves her or turns her head or anything like that, she doesn't yell out in pain, because I would imagine her joints are pretty stiff, so anybody tries to move that, that would cause pain, in my opinion. But I have not seen any characteristics that she would be in pain.

COOPER: When you are inside that room, in that hospice room -- I know Michael has been there since the feeding tube has been removed. What is the atmosphere like? Do people talk with Terri?

B. SCHIAVO: Sure.

COOPER: Paint a picture for us, if you can.

B. SCHIAVO: Well, I mean, we're -- my wife and I go into see her. We talk with her. My brother, you know, he caresses her hair. He kisses her. I was just there with -- before I left to come to the studio here.

You know, he adjusts her blankets and pets her shoulders and her arms and, you know -- and touches her. Inside the room, it's very quiet. You know, as far as them having -- the Schindlers made a comment that they don't have any personal time alone with her. They have personal time alone with her. There a bathroom door that you can close -- or open, actually, that will block off the vision from anyone outside of the room.

So, they do have privacy with her.

COOPER: Brian, what was it that changed for your brother? Because, for the first several years he was really fighting -- when Terri was first taken to the hospital, he was fighting to have her resuscitated, fighting to have her put on life support. What was it that made the change for him?

B. SCHIAVO: Well, I mean, I don't -- he wasn't fighting to have her resuscitated. She was resuscitated when she first came in. She was dead when she came into the hospital. They revived her.

But I think his whole position is, you know, he was very much in love with Terri. And I think any person -- I know I would. If, God forbid, this ever happened to my wife, I would make comments. I would, you know, practically sell my soul to the devil to have her back. And that's -- that was his position. And he was -- in his heart, that's what he wanted. He wanted her to come back. And he tried everything he could.

You know, and the doctors after a while just basically told him, Mike, there is nothing more in modern medicine that is going to bring Terri back to any semblance of any normalcy, let alone being able to recognize somebody. She will never be -- she will never recover from this.

COOPER: Is your sense that the end is near for Terri?

B. SCHIAVO: My sense, I would concur with the original -- it's probably -- seven to 10 days is probably very correct. I say that because of my father. My father -- my father didn't eat or drink anything for, oh, I don't know, close to a month. So, you know, in Terri's condition, she's weakened already. I'm sure her immune system is very weak. So, it could be another few days.

COOPER: Well, Brian, I appreciate you being with us. I know it's been a long day for you. And we do appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. Thank you very much.

B. SCHIAVO: I appreciate you having me. COOPER: Brian Schiavo, brother of Michael Schiavo.

We now -- as you know on 360, we don't take sides. We like to look at stories from all angles. We asked someone from the Schindlers' camp to speak with us. They did not get back to us. We had an interview scheduled, as we did last night. We talked to Brother O'Donnell, who is the spiritual adviser to the Schindlers. We spoke with him last night. We were supposed to speak to him today. He didn't show up for the interview.

So, again, we have continually put out offers to the Schindler side to speak tonight, because we're spending this hour looking in- depth at this case. And we're trying to do it not taking any sides, just looking from all the angles.

The old saying about every story having two sides is entirely inadequate really, though, in this case. This is a story that has countless sides, medical, legal, political, emotional, religious. We're not taking any of those sides in the show. But we want to stick to the facts of the story. We want to find out the facts. And there are so man, so many allegations flying back and forth. We want to try to separate the facts from the fiction.

Amid all the noise, all the emotion, finding those facts, it can be very, very hard. We called on John Zarrella to give us a 360 fact check.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Michael Schiavo, Terry's husband and legal guardian, has said repeatedly that Terri would want to die.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO, HUSBAND OF TERRI SCHIAVO: She wouldn't want to live like this. She wouldn't want to survive like this. And that's all she is doing is just -- she's surviving. There's nothing there. She's -- her conscious is gone.

ZARRELLA: But her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, say she would want to live and, though severely disabled, would be capable of rehabilitation.

BOB SCHINDLER, FATHER OF TERRI SCHIAVO: The prognosis for her is that, if she was given any kind of treatment, therapy, she could improve. And that's what we've been told by dozens of doctors.

ZARRELLA: But most doctors involved in the case say she wouldn't improve with therapy, that she is in a -- quote -- "persistent vegetative state." And the courts have agreed.

JAY WOLFSON, FORMER SCHIAVO GUARDIAN: The fact is that the competent medical evidence that was presented in court, again using the rules of evidence and the rules of civil procedure in Florida, established that the medical evidence indicates she is in a persistent vegetative state. ZARRELLA: As with many family disputes, this one involves money, who got it, what to do with it, where did it go, all connected to a $1.2 million medical malpractice settlement that Michael Schiavo won years ago. But just $300,000 went to him personally. The rest has gone for medical and legal bills and to pay for Terri Schiavo's funeral.

M. SCHIAVO: They are very angry that they didn't receive any money from the malpractice suit.

ZARRELLA: The parents deny that claim, saying they only want to help their daughter. More recently, her parents have charged that Terri has been abused through lack of treatment and confinement. And the courts, most recently today, have rejected the abuse claims. Jay Wolfson, Terri Schiavo's former guardian, supports that finding.

WOLFSON: I saw no evidence in the files that I reviewed, more than 30,000 pages of legal notes, medical evidence, that there was abuse.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA: Anderson, as you look at that live picture of the crowd here gathered at the hospice keeping vigil, I can tell you that the interview you just did with Michael Schiavo's brother highlights what has been such a contentious battle over Terri Schiavo for so many years.

He is saying that she is resting peacefully and her family having said something else. So, somewhere in the middle in all of this over the years, the truth lies. Now, you asked me about an hour ago, Anderson, about the crowds and if there were supporters of Terri -- of Michael Schiavo. And we did see some a little while ago. Their signs have moved now, but people saying things like, we're not voting for Governor Bush again and that they are upset with the fact that Michael Schiavo has had to fight so long to have his wife disconnected from the feeding tube -- Anderson.

COOPER: And then, of course, on the other side of the debate, those upset with Governor Bush for not intervening more.

ZARRELLA: Exactly.

COOPER: They would like to see him to -- try to do more and take physical custody, really, of Terri Schiavo.

John Zarrella, appreciate it. Thank you so much.

We'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): The battle over Terri Schiavo. Her parents say there's new evidence, but how did the doctor make that diagnosis? Tonight, the latest on the case to keep Terri Schiavo alive. And CNN reporters on assignment in Iraq get caught in a bomb blast. Coming up, their account of the hair-raising ordeal and how they kept the camera rolling.

360 continues.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. SCHIAVO: Every person in this country should be scared. The government is going to trample all over your private and personal matters. It's outrageous that these people that we elect are not letting you have your civil liberties to choose what you want when you die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that was Michael Schiavo, the husband of Terri Schiavo.

Now, the situation that he and Terri and her parents find themselves in is unique in the amount of attention and the political involvement it has generated. It's not, however, the first time something like this has happened, not the first time a patient was said to be in a persistent vegetative state, not the first time the spouse has made an ultimate choice, and not the first time a family has been torn apart by that choice. It's the story of Terri Schiavo, but it's also the story of a man named Hugh Finn.

Here' CNN's Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The story of Hugh Finn's controversial death begins on this road outside Louisville, where the popular local TV host was in a horrific accident on an icy morning. The wreck left Hugh Finn in a permanently vegetative state and his wife, Michele, in a terrible spot.

MICHELE FINN, WIFE OF HUGH FINN: And we had talked about the fact that we would not want, neither one of us would want to live in that type of condition.

FOREMAN (on camera): So, you never had any doubt about what his wishes were?

M. FINN: No.

FOREMAN (voice-over): So, more than three years later, she decided to remove his feeding tube at his nursing home in Virginia. His parents challenged the decision in court, and they lost.

THOMAS FINN, FATHER OF HUGH FINN: When he was in that hospital, we could touch him. There was hope. Now that he's in the hole, there's no hope for him, none whatsoever.

FOREMAN: But with the tube removal only hours away, Michele could not believe what happened next. Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore went to the state courts to try to stop it.

M. FINN: I was just hysterical. I couldn't believe it. It never occurred to me that it would happen. I kept saying, how can he do this? How can he do this?

JAMES GILMORE (R), FORMER VIRGINIA GOVERNOR: Well, I think that public officials have a duty to make sure that those who are disabled, those who are vulnerable, make sure that they are properly protected. That I think is a proper role of an elected official. And the law supported that type of intervention at the time.

FOREMAN: The governor lost, too. The feeding tube was removed and nine days later, Hugh Finn died.

T. FINN: It was a murder, because you put him to death.

FOREMAN (on camera): The rift between Michele Finn and her husband's family has never fully healed, despite efforts on both sides. And she points out, even her own mother disagreed with her decision.

(voice-over): Michele understands. She does not apologize.

M. FINN: I felt like I had one more commitment that I had made to him that I needed to fulfill.

FOREMAN (on camera): You didn't think you could walk away?

M. FINN: No, absolutely not. I could not walk away from that, because I knew...

FOREMAN: Even though the family wanted to say, we'll take care of him, just leave him alone?

M. FINN: That's right, but that's not what he wanted. And that's what I was afraid of, was I knew what he wanted and if I did not do it, nobody would. And he would not get what he wanted.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Like the rest of the nation, Michele Finn is following the saga of Terri Schiavo. But, unlike most, it is a road she has traveled.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Louisville, Kentucky.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, you may be wondering how many people are in persistent vegetative states. According to the Brain Injury Association of America, there were between 30,000 and 45,000 people last year.

Our in-depth coverage of the Terri Schiavo case continues. Any moment, we're expecting the judge to rule on the case. We're going to bring that to you when it happens.

But, right now, let's get you up to speed on the other stories making news. Erica Hill from Headline News has the headlines.

Hey, Erica.

HILL: Hey, Anderson.

In the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan, opposition protesters took over the presidential compound and government offices today, forcing the president to flee the country. Now, there are unconfirmed reports he's now in Russia. Meantime, the opposition and political observers allege corruption and flawed parliamentary elections recently. Kyrgyzstan's Parliament has appointed an interim president and prime minister and has given them until tomorrow to form a new government.

Search crews found another body today at the site of the BP oil refinery explosion outside of Houston. That brings the death toll from yesterday's blast to 15; 100 people were hurt. It's not known what caused the blast. BP officials, however, say there is no evidence of sabotage or terrorism.

Florida health officials say nine kids may have picked up a life- threatening kidney infection at petting zoos. They warn the number of cases could rise. Five children are in the hospital in critical condition. "The Orlando Sentinel" reports each of them recently touched animals at local fairs.

And 2,500 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, what remains of largest diesel electric submarine ever built.

University of Hawaii scientists discovered the remains of the Japanese I-401 sub last week. It is five stories high, 400 feet long. It carried three airplanes. Remember, this is a submarine. Two such subs were captured by the U.S. a week after Japan surrendered in World War II. The U.S. Navy torpedoed the subs to prevent Russia from getting ahold of them. Imagine the size of that thing. It's amazing.

COOPER: Yes, I mean, cool pictures. Erica Hill, thanks very much for that. We'll see you back in 30 minutes.

We're covering all the angles. 360 next, our special in-depth coverage of Terri Schiavo's case continues. The doctor whose latest diagnosis seemed to hold out a little hope for Terri Schiavo's parents, we're going to take a look at his background. Exactly who is this guy?

And, as the vigil continues, I'll also talk to a man who was Terri Schiavo's legal guardian, not on either side, not on her husband's side, not on her parents' side. The courts appointed him her legal guardian. We'll try to see his view of the case.

And a little later, the doctors' dilemma. How do they know when to keep treating someone or when to let them die? We'll talk about that ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THADDEUS MALANOWSKI, MONSIGNOR: You know, when I began to pray over her, I sprinkled her with some holy water. And that went on her right arm. And suddenly, she is so sensitive. When the drops of holy water touched her right arm, her whole right arm lifted right up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that was Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski on the time he spent with Terri Schiavo earlier today.

Religion has become so entwined with medicine in this case. And it has prompted questions about the choice of a neurologist whose diagnosis seemed to hold out a bit of hope for Terri Schiavo's parents. He was picked by the state of Florida and Governor Jeb Bush discussed his findings yesterday. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Governor Bush, I was wondering, could you tell us how Dr. Cheshire was selected to be on the APT, and how were the other members of the APT chosen?

LUCI HADI, FLORIDA CHILDREN AND FAMILIES SECRETARY: We did extensive work in terms of identifying individuals who had the whole set of competencies. Let me be sure, Steve, that you understand.

We have a lengthy list of individuals with a variety of skill sets, and individuals are selected to participate on adult protective teams, to volunteer for adult protective teams, in which their expertise is particularly applicable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that was at Governor Bush's press conference. That was the head of the Department of Children and Family Services.

Now, we don't take sides, but we do care about facts. So, our Elizabeth Cohen decided to check into the background of the Dr. William Cheshire, who didn't physically examine Terri Schiavo, but still made a diagnosis on her condition.

Here's what she found out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is all we have seen of Dr. William Cheshire. He dropped a bombshell and refused to say anything more.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: The neurologist review indicates that Terri may have been misdiagnosed. COHEN: Many neurologists have testified in court that Terri Schiavo is not aware of what is going on around her. Dr. Cheshire, a board-certified neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, joins a few doctors who disagree.

In an affidavit Wednesday, he wrote that he visited Terri Schiavo, but did not examine her. "When I first walked into her room, she immediately tuned her head toward me and looked directly at my face. Several times, I witnessed Terry laugh in response to a humorous comment someone in the room had made."

Dr. Cheshire said he watched videotape from 2002 and made these conclusions: "When asked to close her eyes, she began to blink repeatedly. She did appear to raise her right leg four times in succession each time she was asked to do so."

So, who is Dr. William Cheshire? Not much is known about him. He declined to speak to CNN or other media. A search of the medical literature found no articles by him on the vegetative state. He has published on headaches, the nervous system and the rights of embryos. After receiving his medical degree, Dr. Cheshire got his masters degree in bioethics from Trinity International University.

The school says its mission is forming students to transform the world through Christ. He's director of biotech ethics at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, a group that says it was established to counteract the noticeable lack of explicit Christian engagement in the crucial bioethics arena.

All of this makes some doctors and bioethicists we talked to nervous. Father John Paris is a Jesuit priest and a bioethicist at Boston College.

FATHER JOHN PARIS, BIOETHICIST: I thought the affidavit was bizarre. Here's a physician, well-trained physician, making a diagnosis on an individual who is not his patient, without a full examination and without doing any of the diagnostic tests and imaging tests that would be necessary to make an adequate and complete diagnosis.

COHEN: But a lawyer for the Florida Department of Families and Children said Dr. Cheshire was highly qualified to issue the affidavit.

HADI: Dr. Cheshire has also done considerable research on the aspects of pain and how those aspects are manifested in people in persistent vegetative state versus those with minimal consciousness.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: CNN tried repeatedly to contact Dr. Cheshire. The Mayo Clinic released a statement saying that the affidavit reflected Dr. Cheshire's views and not the views of the Mayo Clinic -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thanks.

Want to dig a bit deeper into the mix of medicine and religion.

Dr. Tim Johnson is a man of medicine and a man of faith. He's medical editor for ABC News and an ordained minister. And he's the author of "Finding God in the Questions."

He joins me now from Needham, Massachusetts.

Dr. Tim, good to see you.

Dr. Cheshire is a fellow at the Center of Bioethics and Human Dignity. And he's also a member of the Ethics Commission of the Christian Medical Association. Is there a conflict in those organizations and him being a doctor and ruling in this case?

DR. TIM JOHNSON, ABC NEWS MEDICAL EDITOR: I don't think there's a conflict between him being a doctor and a member of those organizations. His medical credentials on paper are in order. He's not well known in the national neurology community, but he certainly is a respected neurologist in the local community, from what I hear.

Now, being a member of those organizations does not automatically make him a good or a bad doctor or anything in between. It does suggest that he might have a point of view when it comes to these issues. And, in fact, some of his writings and even some poetry that he has written suggests that he is strongly in the so-called culture of life camp or pro-life camp.

COOPER: Well, and I know you read the affidavit and found some areas of concern, in your opinion, regarding his -- his statements. What struck you?

JOHNSON: Well, it was a fascinating document to read. It's well written. It's thoughtful. It's passionate. But it's very ambiguous and contradictory. And there was one sentence in particular that just sticks out indicating that ambiguity.

And if I may, I'm going to read it. The sentence is this -- and it comes near the end of the document, "although Terri did not demonstrate during our 90-minute visit compelling evidence of verbalization, conscious awareness or volitional behavior." In other words, he's saying she really is in a permanent vegetative state in terms of his objective observation. He then quickly switches to a subjective assessment and says, "yet the visitor has the distinct sense of the presence of a living human being who seems at some level to be aware of some things around her."

So objectively he didn't find any evidence that she is not in a persistent vegetative state according to his own words, but subjectively he felt this sense of awareness.

COOPER: Well that's fascinating. Because those particular things -- I mean, you know, response, verbalization, response to stimuli and stuff, those are the exact things which qualify someone for being in a vegetative state as opposed to just being in a state of minimal consciousness. JOHNSON: Now, there is a fine line between one end of the vegetative state spectrum and minimally conscious. And so she may be in that sort of netherland between the two. But ultimately, all of the experts that we have consulted, dozens of them in the last several days have said whether she is exactly in one or the other, the important medical fact is that her prognosis is virtually the same, meaning no chance for recovery.

COOPER: Dr. Tim Johnson. The book again, "Finding God in the Questions." It's an excellent read. Thank you very much Dr. Tim, appreciate it.

Coming up next on 360, he was Terri Schiavo's attorney. We're going to talk to her former legal guardian, not the parents' guardian, not the parents' lawyer, not her husband's lawyer, his -- her guardian. That's ahead.

Also later on tonight, a brush with terror in Iraq. American troops and a car bomb all caught on tape.

First your picks of the most popular stories on CNN.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JEB BUSH, (R) FLORIDA: They are acting on their heart. And I fully appreciate their sentiments and the emotions that go with this. I cannot go, and as I have been consistently saying, and I guess you guys haven't been listening and repeating it back. I have consistently said that I can't go beyond what my powers are. And I'm not going to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: That was Florida Governor Jeb Bush clearly frustrated, but saying he won't overstep his powers to do more for Terri Schiavo. She, of course, at the center of this wrenching national debate.

In Miami right now, Jay Wolfson, professor of public health and medicine at the University of Southern Florida. An attorney who served as Terri Schiavo's court appointed legal guardian in 2003.

Appreciate you being with us.

As you see this now, I mean, there has been so much back and forth on both sides. Today the judge denied the Department of Children and Family Services access to investigate possible allegations of abuse. You examined Terry in 2003. Did you see any signs of abuse or neglect?

JAY WOLFSON, TERRI SCHIAVO'S LEGAL GUARDIAN 2003: Well Anderson, I reviewed more than 30,000 pages of legal documents and medical documents. I spent -- I only had one month to do it. I spent the better part of 20 of those days with Terri in her room. Sometimes as much as four hours with her parents, with her husband, with the staff at the facility.

I got to know her parents. These are really decent, kind, loving people. They are wonderful people.

I go to know Michael. He is not warm and fuzzy, but he really loves his wife.

And I would spend time in her room. And I would hold her hand. And I would stroke her hand. And I would hold her head. And I would look at her eyes and I would stroke her hair. And I would ask her, I would beg her to give me some consistent indication that she was responding rather than reflexing.

And as you demonstrated, the definition of a consistent vegetative state includes these waking and sleeping cycles. And then her eyes are open when she's awake. She makes noises. These are sometimes sounding like crying, sometimes they sound like laughter, sometimes they are moaning. All of that is consistent with what the scientific literature says characterizes a persistent vegetative state along with a lack of a consistent pattern, or any consistent evidence of interaction with her environment.

The competent medical evidence based on the laws of Florida, rules of civil procedure, rules of evidence and the guardianship laws that were drafted over 15 years of bipartisan political and religious participation, served as the basis for how this was interpreted. And by all the standards, Anderson, she is diagnosed in a persistent vegetative state. That -- it meets all those criteria.

And there was no evidence either -- I had people come to me friends of the family and people who become very verbally and vocally advocates for Terri saying we've got evidence that she was physically abused by Michael. She was beaten, she was strangled. There is no evidence in the record to indicate that, Anderson.

COOPER: Were you -- we just saw a sound bite from a priest who said she was in her room today, sprinkled holy water on her. And when the holy water touched her arm her arm went up. He seems to be indicating she was responding to the holy water. When you hear that, what do you think?

WOLFSON: Well, Monsignor Malanowski has been with the family for a long time. He's a man of great belief. And you know, hope is an extraordinary thing, Anderson, for all of us. It's the one thing that I think if you remember Dante's "Inferno" he had the signs outside the gates of Hell that said, Abandon hope all you who enter here.

The idea of abandoning hope here for your own child, the prospect of your child predeceasing you -- both the parents and Michael for many years refused to accept what they had been told early on.

COOPER: And they were very close on this.

WOLFSON: Oh, they were very close. This family was really tight together on this. They spent 24/7 taking care of her for years.

COOPER: So what happened, what caused that split?

WOLFSON: After about four years there was an adjudication of a malpractice suit which resulted in a $300,000 loss of consortium award for Michael for losing his ability to have relations with his wife. And about a $760,000 trust fund was established for Terri's medical care. That was out of Michael's control, it was under the control of a court-appointed trustee.

And it was at that point -- and maybe it was a water shed, Anderson, it's hard to say. Maybe it was at that point after four years that Michael was able to stand back. It was a water shed. And he said, people have been telling me, the physicians have been telling me, that she is in this state. And there's no reasonable likelihood of recovery. Maybe it was then that he stood back and said maybe there isn't. And I need to let go.

Hard to do, because he really took exquisite care of her for 15 years. She never had a bed sore. In fact...

COOPER: She never had a bed sore in 15 years?

WOLFSON: In 15 years. 15 years she never -- which is extraordinary. And he got in trouble at one of the nursing facilities because he was so aggressively demanding attention to her that the administration sought a restraining order against him for demanding attention by the staff that was distracting them from other patients.

You know, this is such a tough case, Anderson. These are people caring for their daughter. It's the idea of losing somebody. As you said, this happens -- there are other cases where things like this has happened. It's so tragic.

But the bottom line, as you may have heard me say, this is not about Governor Bush who I have tremendous respect for. And he's a great leader and a visionary. It's not about the Florida legislature. It's not about the Senate or the House of Representatives of the United States. It's not even about the judicial system. It's not about Michael. It's not about the Schindler. This is all about Terri. And my job, to the best that I could do it, was to take the best science that I knew was out there, the best medicine that I could get my arms around and apply the best law that we have.

And just as Rehnquist said in Cruzan, we take the best law that we have, we apply it as honestly and as good as we can. And I think we extrapolate that to science and medicine.

This is a terrible tragedy. And I just pray and hope that the best will come for Terri because that's what this is all about. It's her.

COOPER: It certainly is. Jay, if you could just hold on one minute. I understand we have on the phone -- we had been trying to get a spokesperson from the Schindler family earlier in the program. I'm just joined on the phone by Robert Destro, an attorney for the Schindlers.

Mr. Destro, as you listen to Jay Wolfson speak, where does this -- what happens now? Where do you go next?

ROBERT DESTRO, ATTORNEY FOR SCHINDLER FAMILY: Well, I mean, you've actually got two questions there, Anderson. So if I could just take one of them at a time.

I mean, this is -- I know that Mr. Wolfson had a big job. He had 30,000 pages was a thousand pages a day. And one of the -- one of the things -- let me ask him because I'd like to know the answer -- is did you just limit your examination to the record?

COOPER: Well, actually Mr. Wolfson said that he spent some 20 days in the room with Terri Schiavo, met with both members of the family repeatedly. Spent up to four hours a day in her room communicating, trying to communicate with her, touching her, in her presence.

DESTRO: This is the -- this is the -- part of the problem that we have, the family has, with all of this is that the -- since all of this has taken place. I mean, Dr. Wolfson has looked at the record, he went into see her. But we haven't had -- we need up to date -- you know, we need up to date medical examinations of her.

The nurses -- there are nurse records in there that say they actually have been feeding her JELL-O. There's all kinds of tantalizing evidence in the record. In fact, even in Dr. Wolfson's report there's an indication that certain things weren't followed up, that she actually spoke at one time to her rehab people but it was never followed up.

And I think the parents' problem and certainly my problem as a trial attorney is I would like very much to get really into these facts and to actually find out what her condition is today.

You have Dr. Cheshire's affidavit yesterday. And I have to say, I was really personally very offended when -- when all of a sudden they start dissecting Dr. Cheshire's religious background. And you say, see, where is all the dissection of all the other people involved?

Dr. Wolfson himself says I'm not going to dissect Michael at all. And he notices -- and this is true. The family has noticed it, too. He notices that the judge credited only Michael's doctors but completely blew off the Schindler family doctors.

COOPER: But both sides had presented their own neurologists, who had differing viewpoints. And the court also appointed its own neurologist who seemed to rule that she is in a persistent vegetative state.

DESTRO: I can tell you that the judge had the opportunity to -- at the time, when they did the last set of medical diagnostics, he could have had a PET scan. But he didn't pick that.

I spoke with Dr. Cranford, who was the -- was Michael's expert. And I spoke to him a couple months ago. And he agreed with me. He said, look, the best kind of diagnosis here would have been done with a functional MRI machine. He says but neither Michael nor the court would have gone along with it, because you couldn't do that kind of a test in Florida. You'd have to do it in New York. And he didn't think that either the judge or Michael would go along with it.

But he agreed that that -- what you really needed is an accurate medical diagnosis of her present condition.

COOPER: And that is -- and I know that's -- I know that's what you're fighting for legally right now. Robert Destro, we're going to have to go. We have to take this commercial break. We appreciate you joining us. Thank you very much.

We'll be right back. Our special edition continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Our special coverage of the Terri Schiavo case continues in a moment. But first let's get the headlines from Erica Hill and Headline News.

Hey, Erica.

HILL: Hey, Anderson.

American chess legend Bobby Fischer is home in Iceland. He landed there a short time ago. Iceland granted citizenship to Fischer earlier this week. Now, he had been in detention in Japan for months now on charges he tried to use an invalid passport to leave the country. Fischer is wanted in the United States on charges of violating sanctions on the former Yugoslavia when he played a chess match there in 1992. Fischer won the world chess title in Iceland in 1972.

Actor Tom Sizemore will spend almost two years in jail for repeatedly failing drug tests while on probation. He's been on probation for a domestic violence conviction involving his ex- girlfriend and former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. He will remain free while he appeals that conviction.

"American Idol" judge Paula Abdul will serve two years probation and pay over $1,600 for a hit and run accident in December. Pretty good, though, because she could have faced six months in jail. Authorities say Abdul was changing lanes on an L.A. area freeway when she struck another car.

The driver took a picture of Abdul's car with a camera phone, wrote down the license plate number. Her attorney says the pop singer wasn't aware of the contact between the vehicles.

The camera phone. Never know when it's going to come in handy -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Thanks very much, Erica. Appreciate it.

Coming up, our special coverage of the Terri Schiavo case continues. We're going to look at the loss of a child for a parent, how devastating it is and how dangerous it really can be. New medical evidence on that.

Also in a minute, we're going to explore the grieving process. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: You know we brought you a lot of stories about death tonight: the Terri Schiavo case, the Red Lake school massacre, the Texas City refinery explosion. In these and other instances there are parents who are left behind to grieve. And new medical research shows that that grief can be deadly. Parents who lose a child are at an increased risk of dying themselves or developing mental illness.

We wanted to talk to someone who knows about the parental grieving process all too well. Darryl Scott's daughter, Rachel, was among those killed at Columbine. We talked to him earlier this week, and he joins us again tonight.

Darryl, thanks very much for being with us.

DARRYL SCOTT, DAUGHTER KILLED AT COLUMBINE: Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: There is no grief worse, I think, than a parent's grief for a lost child. My mom lost a child. You lost your daughter. What separates those -- those parents who are able to move on and continue living from those who aren't?

SCOTT: I think there's two issues that I've seen. I travel around the country and speak all the time. I'm out three to five day as week. And we have a program for schools, middle schools, high schools, called Rachel's Challenge based on my daughter's life and some of her writings.

And when I speak a lot of times I meet with parents after a meeting who've lost their children, a lot of them to violence. And I see -- I see two categories of parents, one group that's bitter and angry and consumed with somehow trying to find closure. And I see another set of parents who celebrate their children's life and have moved on and in many cases have seen good things come out of something so horrible, so tragic.

And I think there's two common elements that I find when I talk with parents and it is those who don't forgive and let go and move ahead and those who do.

COOPER: And I hate that word closure. I mean, I think especially for a parent who lost a child, I'm not sure there is any such thing. But it's a tough thing. I mean, celebrating the life of your child and as opposed to getting focused on how -- how your child died.

SCOTT: Well, it is a tough thing. And the normal and natural thing to do is to be angry, to be bitter and to focus on the negative. And I certainly understand that with parents who lose their children.

But in the long run, if we don't -- if we don't learn to let go, if we don't learn to forgive -- forgiveness is an attitude of the heart. I would have -- our family chose to forgive and let go and celebrate Rachel's life, but I would not have pardoned Eric and Dylan. There's a big difference between forgiveness and pardon.

Forgiveness is an attitude of the heart and it's for your own good, as well as the offender's. And pardon has to do with the judicial responsibility type of choice. And I would have gone so far as to kill Eric and Dylan if that's the only solution there was to prevent my daughter and others from being killed. But it has to do with attitudes of the heart.

And what we focus on eventually consumes us. And if we focus on revenge or if we focus on trying to somehow get even or get back, ultimately it destroys us.

COOPER: Well, Darryl, I appreciate you being with us again tonight talking about -- talking about Rachel and the work you're doing and also a lot of help for other parents who are out there in the grieving process, as well. Darryl, thanks very much.

SCOTT: You're welcome.

COOPER: I want to find out what's at the top of the hour in about six minutes with the legendary "LARRY KING LIVE" -- Larry.

LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": Legendary, means you're old.

COOPER: No, it doesn't.

KING: Yes, what else could it mean? There's no 23-year-old legend.

COOPER: You can take me in a second.

KING: Anyway, we have an extraordinary show tonight. In addition to the standard debate between yes and no on the Schiavo matter, we have three people all of whom were victims of so serious an injury they were given up for dead. Two think that Mary Schiavo -- that Terri Schiavo should live and one, a victim who came out of a coma, thinks she should be allowed to die.

All that's ahead with phone calls at the top of the hour.

COOPER: And that's five minutes from now. Larry, thanks very much.

Three-sixty next. It has been a very rough week. Time to take a deep breath. That is ahead on "The Nth Degree." We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Tonight taking a deep breath to "The Nth Degree."

The news has been particularly hard to bear this week. The sadness at Red Lake, the struggle over Terri Schiavo, a very great deal of private pain made so terribly public.

We're not apologizing. A reporter's job is to present reality, however grim it may be. And that is what we have done this week and especially tonight.

On the other hand, the week was full of other realities, as well. And we can't be specific about time and location. We can't give you names or exact numbers, but we know absolutely that these things also happened this week. Often, we're betting in a lot of places.

Children went down playground slides, squealing with delight. Dogs chased pigeons. Old friends sat by side -- side by side for hours saying almost nothing at all. Long lives ended peacefully this week, and proper farewells were said.

Here and there this week passers-by were surprised to see the first sign of a crocus coming up or perhaps a daffodil. People stopped to look at tall buildings rising in cities across the country.

Candy bars were shared, as were laughs and memories. Babies were born. Birds looked for crumbs under outdoor tables. The sun disappeared behind a cloud and then came out again. A toddler in a stroller pointed at a balloon and laughed.

Yes, terrible things happened this week and so did many other things, as well. Ordinary things, unremarkable things and things worth remembering exactly for that reason.

Thanks very much for watching this special two-hour edition of 360. I'm Anderson Cooper. Paula Zahn will be off tomorrow night again. We'll have another special two-hour edition. "LARRY KING LIVE" is next.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired March 24, 2005 - 19:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Good evening from New York. I'm Anderson Cooper.
A ruling expected any moment in the fight to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

360 starts now.

The battle over Terri Schiavo. Courts refuse to intervene to keep her alive. Her parents say there is new evidence, but how did the doctor make that diagnosis? Tonight, the latest on the case to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

A massive oil refinery explosion rocks a small Texas town. The death toll climbs to 15. Tonight, we take you beyond the headlines. What caused the blast, and what was like for eyewitnesses on the ground?

Survivors of the Red Lake rampage break their silence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CODY THUNDER, SHOOTING SURVIVOR: I turned around, and there's Jeff Weise pointing a gun at me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Tonight, what it was like inside the school when the shooting started.

And should this cartoon, made by the gunman, have been a warning to the community?

A deadly plane crash caught on video. But what's happened to the survivors? Tonight. reliving a terrible crash, and how those who survived have been forever changed.

And CNN reporters on assignment in Iraq get caught in a bomb blast. Coming up, their account of the hair-raising ordeal, and how they kept the camera rolling.

ANNOUNCER: Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is a special two-hour edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360.

COOPER: Good evening again. What began years ago as the ordeal of one woman in a hospice bed, one woman whose eyes frequently are open, but who may or may not really be able to see, has now become a passionate cause, a political football, and a millstone for more than a few courts.

That's a live picture outside Terri Schiavo's hospice bed, where she does not know, according to her husband's family, what is happening outside.

Protesters there waiting to see what will happen. One more judge remains to be heard from. His decision may come at any moment over the next two hours. We, of course, will bring that to you live.

Meantime this afternoon, the Supreme Court declined to take up the case of Terri Schiavo, dashing the hopes of her parents, who wanted their brain-damaged daughter to begin to be fed again.

Terri Schiavo has had no nourishment since a court ordered her feeding tube removed last Friday. As we say, one more judge will be heard from tonight, anytime over the next two hours. But a great many other voices, some of them angry, have made themselves heard already.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDALL TERRY, OPERATION RESCUE: If she dies, there is going to be hell to pay with the pro-life, pro-family Republican people of various legislative levels, statewide and federal wide, who have used pro-life, pro-family conservative rhetoric to get into power, and then when they have that power, they refuse to use it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: John Zarrella is standing by in Pinellas Park, Florida, where one way or another, one day or another, this sad drama must come to an end. John?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, that's right.

And, in fact, Terri Schiavo's now approaching and may be already at the longest she has ever been off the feeding tube, six days in 2003 and two days in 2001.

And despite all of the odds against them, her family, her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler and her brother and sister, are continuing the fight in court, and the federal court right now, the hearing has begun in the federal court.

What we understand about that hearing is it is an expansion of the issues raised by the Department of Children and Families to the state court judge earlier today, which he rejected, those issues being neglect and abuse of Terri Schiavo, and this doctor, this neurologist's report that she may not necessarily be in a persistent vegetative state, but, rather, that she is in a state less than that, and perhaps has some degree of minimal consciousness, he said.

And beyond that, though, there is another court action that may well be taking place later. The Department of Children and Families has also gone now to the Florida Supreme Court on similar issues, an expansion of those same issues that I just described.

And while the courts have continued to beat down every attempt by the family to have the feeding tube reinserted, Governor Bush, late this afternoon, told people gathered at the capitol that he may not have the power to do anything more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: I have talked to a whole lot of people that I respect, not just now, but the first time, that when Terri's Law was passed to make the determination of what my powers are, and they are not as expansive as people would want them to be. And I understand what they're -- They're acting on their heart. And I fully appreciate their sentiments and the emotions that go with this.

But I cannot go -- and as I've been consistently saying, and I guess you guys haven't been listening and repeating it back -- I've consistently said that I can't go beyond what my powers are, and I'm not going to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZARRELLA: Now, the governor is certainly in a hard position, because it may well be that he cannot do anything, and many people believe that he is the last option.

Now, the protesters continue to hold vigil here, about 200 of them during the course of the day, a little bit more subdued today than they have been in the past. And the family, Bob and Mary Schindler, were not allowed in to see their daughter for about 12 hours today, because we understand that Michael Schiavo and his family were in there, and the two sides do not go to visit Terri Schiavo at the same time, which underscores the bitter divide that has come from this entire saga that's played out over 15 years.

But the Schindlers, late this afternoon, did go into the hospice to see Terri, and they did go that federal court hearing. They are there, Anderson.

COOPER: And from all reports, this was a very tight-knit family before all this began, and even the first couple of years into this.

ZARRELLA: Yes.

COOPER: The atmosphere where you are, I mean, we're seeing some of the signs behind you, supportive, obviously, the people behind you, of the Schindlers, some very vicious signs toward Michael Schiavo. Is, are, is it all, you said there were about 200 people there. Is it all people on the Schindler side of this?

ZARRELLA: No, I would say, but the vast majority are. There have been periodically a handful, as compared to the 200, a handful of people who have supported Michael Schiavo and who are here with signs saying, Let her die, let her die with dignity. So there are a few people that have come out here and supported Michael Schiavo, but certainly nowhere near the numbers that are out here in support of the family wanting to keep her alive, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, John Zarrella, appreciate that. We'll check in with you a little bit later on in the broadcast.

To help us through the legal labyrinth that the Terri Schiavo case seems to have become, we're joined now in Orlando, Florida, by attorney David Cardwell.

David, thanks very much for being with us.

It seems like there's two basic tracks going on right now. Let's talk about the federal judge who's being asked to restore her feeding tube by the parents. How do you think the judge is going to rule?

DAVID CARDWELL, ATTORNEY: Well, I think the outcome of that hearing may have been determined Tuesday morning, when Judge Whittemore issued the first federal ruling after the law was passed by Congress and signed by the president, when he said that the standard he was looking at was it -- a substantial likelihood that the Schindlers would prevail when this case actually went to trial.

And he said he was not going to issue the injunction. I think that was really the signal that the federal courts were not going to get into this. He's been upheld. I'd be very surprised if he retreated from that position and then, in essence, reverses himself and allows an evidentiary hearing to proceed.

COOPER: OK, so if he, assuming he, that front doesn't work for them, legally speaking, what options do the Schindlers have left?

CARDWELL: I don't think they have many legal or judicial options left. Obviously, they can appeal Judge Whittemore's decision, should he turn them down at this hearing, but he -- they're going right back to the 11th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, who have turned them down. I think one of the...

COOPER: What about the Florida Supreme Court?

CARDWELL: The Florida Supreme Court's got the case from DCF, and that's the one that's probably the one that is the most unclear at this point. There is a statute in Florida, an emergency intervention provision, that allows the Department of Children and Family to take custody of what's called a vulnerable adult if there is some evidence of abuse or neglect, and they can keep that person for 24 hours, or keep them through a weekend if they get them on a Friday.

And then they have to petition a court at the end of that 24-hour period to either retain custody for the state to hold that person, or some other relief.

That statute has customarily been employed at the beginning of a process, before there is any judicial action. This time we've got it at the end, after numerous judicial actions, so it may be that the Florida Supreme Court, when faced with the issue, may say, DCF, you're too late. If you'd been here a few years ago, that would have been different, but this has already been vetted in the courts.

COOPER: And a spokesman for the Schindlers said that Governor Bush is now the only practical hope here for Terri Schiavo. We plead with the governor, we plead with Governor Bush. We just heard Governor Bush saying, though, his hands are basically tied. It doesn't seem like he is willing to make that step of actually intervening.

CARDWELL: And I agree with the governor in terms of constitutional law in Florida. And we have historically limited the powers of the governor, though they've been increased in recent years. But we don't have a long history of very expansive, broad gubernatorial powers.

And the problem here is that he's also said that he will not interfere or override a judge's decision. So so long as Judge Greer's restraining order remains in place, the governor has indicated he's not going to disregard it and send DCF in to take custody of Terri. And I think that was probably the last executive action he could take, unless the Florida Supreme Court says that Judge Greer was wrong.

COOPER: All right. Well, we are awaiting, really, any moment now, this, this, this ruling from the, from the judge. We will bring that to our viewers, of course, live. And David, we'll be checking with you a little bit later as warranted. Thank you very much, David Cardwell...

CARDWELL: OK.

COOPER: ... appreciate it.

Coming up next, though, on 360, before this controversy, before the battle over life and death, before Terri Schiavo lay in that hospice bed, there was a love story of Terri and Michael Schiavo. We're going to take a look at their life before it all fell apart.

Also ahead tonight, a massive explosion rocks a small town in Texas. We're going to take you beyond the headlines, found it, find out how it all unfolded.

And a little later, school shooting rampage. A victim of the 16- year-old killer describes for the first time what happens moments before he was shot.

All that ahead. First, your picks, the most popular stories right now on CNN.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY WOLFSON, FORMER SCHIAVO GUARDIAN: It's not about Governor Bush. It's not about the Schindlers, who are wonderful people. It's not about the caring people who are outside of the hospice. It's not about Congress, it's not about our state legislature, and it's not even about our federal court system, though that's there to help adjudicate the disputes.

It's about Terri, and what her intentions were determined to be in a civil procedure that used Florida law and some fairly carefully crafted guidelines. We may not agree with that, and we don't want Terri to die, but here we are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that was Jay Wolfson, Terri Schiavo's former legal guardian. We're going to talk to him a little bit later on in this special two-hour edition of 360.

He believes, based on the 30,000 pages of court documents that he read, because he was assigned by the court to look after Terri Schiavo, he believes that her wish would have been to die.

Before Terri became a cause celebre, however, she was just a young woman who had a lot to live for, an awful lot to live for.

Tonight, we take you beyond the headlines for more about the life she had and the life she shared with her husband, Michael.

Here's CNN's John Zarrella.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA (voice-over): You would probably never recognize the photographs. Just a young couple in love. But today, the world knows their story of star-crossed tragedy, the stuff of Shakespearian drama.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO, TERRI SCHIAVO'S HUSBAND: We loved each other tremendously. She was shy. She was warm. She was sweet.

See the water squirting up there?

ZARRELLA: Now, the lives of Terri and Michael Schiavo are forever changed.

M. SCHIAVO: Look at those ducks (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

ZARRELLA: Before Terri became disabled in 1990, she and Michael had the dreams and plans of any young couple in love.

M. SCHIAVO: We had wanted kids, and that's what we were trying to have when all this occurred. She loved kids. We wanted to have a house full, just to have a happy little normal life. We didn't want anything big. we weren't into the glimmer and the shine. We just wanted to have a nice little comfortable life together.

ZARRELLA: The two met by chance in school in the early 1980s. It was, Michael says, love at first sight.

M. SCHIAVO: I met Terri in community college. And we just happened to start a new semester, and she was -- I believe it was my psychology class. Don't quote me on that, but I believe it was. And she just happened to be sitting there, and I was over on one side of the room, and she was over on the other. And I heard this little laugh, and I looked over, and there she was.

I fell in love with her the instant I saw her.

ZARRELLA: And it wasn't long before they were dating.

(on camera): How did you ask her out? What did you, what was it?

M. SCHIAVO: I just -- we got to talking, and I just asked her, I said, We're having a family get-together, would you like to go with me? And she said yes. She was just -- she -- like I say, she had this persona, this aura about her that just attracted you. She was just the -- beautiful smile. I mean, just shy and outgoing at the same time.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): They dated, Michael says, about a year and were married in 1984.

(on camera): Wedding day was special?

M. SCHIAVO: Oh, yes. Yes. When I saw her walking down the aisle, I said Oh, my God, look at that. There was just a vision of beauty. I'm telling you, she was gorgeous. And all's I saw was her big smile, just laughing at everybody and, you know, but that shy little laugh, but just outgoing, and...

ZARRELLA (voice-over): For six years, Terri and Michael lived their storybook life, until February 25, 1990, when Terri suffered heart failure, believed to be caused by a potassium imbalance.

Michael has moved on and is in a new relationship. But he never divorced Terri, in order to carry out what he says were her wishes never to become a burden to people. And, he says, he will never forget the time they had together.

(on camera): You still hold those memories of those days very dear.

M. SCHIAVO: Oh, they're in my heart forever, my heart and my mind forever. Terri will always be in my heart. She will never leave it. She was a piece of my life, and she'll always be a piece of my life.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): John Zarrella, CNN, Clearwater, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, of course, there's another angle to this story. Terri Schiavo's parents now doubt the veracity of her husband, doubt what he says, doubt his intentions. We're going to look at all the allegations later on in this special two-hour edition of 360. John Zarrella will be back for that.

Right now, though, a lot of other stories to cover.

People power sparks another political upheaval. Erica Hill from Headline News has the latest on that and the other top stories right now at about 18 past the hour. Hey, Erica.

ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: Hi, Anderson.

Yes, people power indeed. In the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, the president has fled the country, his whereabouts at this point unknown, after protesters overran and seized the country's seat of government. Unconformed reports -- unconfirmed reports, rather, say the president is in Russia. Kyrgyzstan's parliament, meantime, has elected former opposition leaders as interim president and prime minister and has given them until tomorrow to present a new government.

The woman whose 911 call led police to suspected Atlanta courthouse shooter Brian Nichols has collected her reward. Governor Sonny Purdue today in Georgia praised Ashley Smith as she received more than $72,000 in reward money from various law enforcement agencies. Nichols held Smith hostage for seven hours before freeing her.

Canada is denying the plea of a former American paratrooper. Jeremy Hinzman fled to Canada and asked for refugee status there, saying if he were sent to Iraq, he would be forced to commit war crimes. But a Canadian court refused to grant Hinzman's request. The ruling could affect at least eight American service members and possibly dozens more.

And that's the latest from Headline News. Anderson, back to you.

COOPER: All right, Erica. We'll see you in about half an hour. Thanks very much.

Coming up next on 360, a massive explosion rocks a small Texas town. Fifteen people have died. We are going to take you beyond the headlines to where it happened and talk to people who are blown by the blast.

Also tonight, inside the mind of a teen killer. The boy who opened fire in Minnesota school leaves behind some violent animations. Allegedly these cartoons right here, he made. Very disturbing. Was there a clue someone should have caught? We'll take a look.

Also a little later tonight, a plane barrels down the runway, bursts into flames. It's all caught on tape. Find out how the pilot became a hero and lived to tell the story. And how it has changed his life. We're covering all the angles.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, it began with ball of fire. One big boom, as an eyewitness called it, that turned day to night in a matter of seconds in Texas. The refinery explosion that blew out windows miles away yesterday is still smoldering right now. Today, another body was removed from the rubble, raising the death toll to 15.

There are some astonishing accounts, however, of bravery and survival. CNN's Rudy Bakhtiar has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUDI BAKHTIAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was 1:30 yesterday afternoon when, suddenly, the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas was rocked by a massive explosion. Fifteen people died, at least 100 others were injured. Some Texas City residents said they could hear or feel the explosion from miles away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hear a big boom, real big. A lot of fire and a lot of stuff flying in the air - pipes and a lot of dust. And you could feel the heat from a lot of feet away.

BAKHTIAR: The petroleum plant looked more like a war zone. One worker wandered into the smoldering rubble searching for a friend. Rescue workers rushed in. Listen as KPRC reporter Steven Dean describes the dramatic scene.

STEVEN DEAN, KPRC REPORTER: In the first few minutes, firefighters poured water from all angles. Then more smoke as an entire row of work trucks erupted in flames. Then we saw the sheer desperation among the vast pile of debris where most of the victims were trapped.

BAKHTIAR: The plant employs 1,800 workers many of them married or related. And today, they gathered at a grief center set up by the company to wait for word on their loved ones, to find comfort and support and sometimes to express their anger at this unfathomable tragedy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was in a building -- in a building, in a little office area. And this shouldn't have happened.

BAKHTIAR: The blast tore through the part of the plant used to raise the octane in gasoline, considered a very dangerous process, that made the job even more treacherous for rescuers.

DEAN: Eight minutes later, more rescuers fight through the smoke looking for survivors as well, one fireman rushing in hoping for any sign of life.

One hour after the explosion, a full team of 20 rescuers can finally dig into the rubble now that the fire has died down. A backboard is moved into place as workers dig into a hole and finally survivors are reached.

BAKHTIAR: Today, loved ones began the gruesome task of identifying the victims. Neither the company nor the FBI believes terrorism was involved in this tragedy. But they're still at a loss to say just what caused a part of the plant to suddenly burst into flames.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BAKHTIAR: And Anderson, this isn't the first time that BP has gotten into trouble like this. It was the site of one of the worst industrial accidents in U.S. history...

COOPER: The same site?

BAKHTIAR: ...the same site back in 1947. We have some pictures to show you. Those are black and white's from 1947. Same place. A fire on board a tanker caused this massive explosion. That whole town, as you can see, was just leveled. Parts of it were leveled. 576 people died.

And then, just last March, same company, fined for $63,000 for safety violations. Let's see if we can have -- can we roll that video? Explosion there causing the plant to shut down for hours.

And then, again last September, they were fined for $110,000. Two employees burning because of overheated water.

COOPER: Terrible. All right. The investigation is ongoing to this incident. Rudi Bakhtiar, thanks very much for that.

Robert Collier's first day at work almost became the last day alive. He was at the refinery at the moment of the explosion. He joins me now from Webster, Texas.

Robert, it's good to see you. How are you doing?

ROBERT COLLIER, BP REFINERY WORKER: Oh, I'm just pretty sore. My back is hurting, they're trying to find out what's wrong with it. And I'm waiting on some test results, waiting to do more tests.

COOPER: You were standing a trailer when the explosion happened. What happened?

COLLIER: Yes, sir. We were working a material trailer, myself and another man. And he was towards the back of the trailer and I was at the front where we hand materials out the window to the contractors. And there is a counter there. And I heard a rumbling on the trailer like somebody was banging on the side of the trailer, so I turned around to ask the man I was working with what that noise was. And as I was turning, I saw the window fly open like the wind had blown it open.

And before I could even get any words out of my mouth, I heard this big boom. It sounded like maybe a skyrocket or something, 4th of July displayed, ten times that noise or more. And it just felt like something hurled me across the trailer.

The next thing I know, I'm laying there. And the man I'm working with is shaking me, telling me, man, we need to get up and get out of here and go outside. I said I don't think I can move. I think I messed up my back. He said we got to get out of here.

COOPER: How far from the blast were you?

COLLIER: Well, the man I worked for said we were like 120 feet from where it actually happened.

COOPER: Wow! And, yet, you were blown off your feet. That's amazing.

COLLIER: Yes, sir. It was like -- I don't know. I felt like just somebody kicked me in the back or something, you know. I don't really remember flying across the trailer, but I wound up face down right where my -- the man I was working with was at, you know? I guess I must have.

He told me I did. It looked like somebody shot...

COOPER: I'm sorry. Go ahead. It looked like somebody shot...

COLLIER: He said it looked like somebody shot me in the back with a shotgun. And he said it looked bad.

COOPER: I know you saw a lot of other injured people. What kind of injuries were you seeing?

COLLIER: I seen people hurt real bad. We went to where they call the muster point. And a lot of people I worked with -- everybody gathered there. And a lot of people I worked with came in there with cuts on their face and people were burned and it was ambulances everywhere. And I seen people sitting on the ground, looked like they were hurt, and it was bad. It looked kind of like a war zone, you know? It was real bad.

COOPER: I know your wife was worried sick about you. I'm sure you weren't able to contact her for a while.

COLLIER: Right.

COOPER: You finally made a phone call to her. How was that?

COLLIER: Right. No, it was like three hours before I got ahold of my wife because nobody's cell phone would work. I think they had all of the phone lines jammed up or something. But, no one could get out on 409 number, and so I couldn't call her. And then I got sent up to what they called triage, because I'd hurt my back and no one had a phone up there. The next thing I know, I was on a bus to go to the hospital, and I was in the hospital before I could call her, before I finally got to a phone.

COOPER: Well, I'm glad you're safe and sound, and I'm sorry with your back. I hope you get better soon, and the other people who've been injured as well. A horrible thing. I know the investigation is still ongoing.

Robert Collier, appreciate it. Thank you.

COLLIER: You're welcome.

ANNOUNCER: Survivors of the Red Lake rampage break their silence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THUNDER: ...pointed a gun at me and he started shooting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, what it was like inside the school when the shooting started, and should this cartoon, made by the gunman, have been a warning to the community?

A deadly plane crash caught on video, but what's happened to the survivors? Tonight, reliving a terrible crash, and how those who survived had been forever changed. This special two-hour edition of 360 continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THUNDER: I heard a shot, and then that scared me and made me jump, and -- I was really close, and then I looked at the clock and then I turned around and there he was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: It was just three -- before 3:00 p.m., close to the end of the school day on Monday, when 16-year-old Jeff Weise got to Red Lake High School. Within just a few minutes, a guard, a teacher and five students and Weise were all dead. Today, some of the students who survived Weise's shooting spree talked about the ordeal for the first time.

CNN's Sean Callebs was there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was too soon for 15-year-old Lance Crow. He couldn't bring himself to talk about Monday's shooting rampage. He left it to his 15-year-old cousin, Cody Thunder, to describe the horrific moments trying to escape alleged killer Jeff Weise.

THUNDER: I just remember shots going off and then I looked at the clock, and it was just a little bit before 3:00 and I turned around and there's Jeff Weise. He pointed a gun at me and he started shooting.

QUESTION: What'd you do then?

THUNDER: I just -- the glass shattered, and -- I don't know. I was just in shock. And then -- as soon as he shot a couple of times, I got up and ran. I didn't know I was hit until I looked.

CALLEBS: At first, the teen says, he didn't know Weise had a real gun.

THUNDER: No. I thought he was messing around. I thought it was a paintball gun or something.

COOPER: Thunder says he heard that Weise had made vague threats, taunts he didn't take seriously, that is, until Monday.

THUNDER: I never thought he'd do this. I never thought that he'd come up and try to shoot up the school.

QUESTION: What did he say about the guns?

THUNDER: He just talked about them, talked about shooting people and stuff. And I never thought that he would come up here.

CALLEBS: Thunder says Weise was a loner, perceived as an oddball who changed his hair -- orange one day, and devil-like horns the next. Yet, he said he felt compelled to reach out to the outcast.

THUNDER: I don't know. He was just -- he didn't really have any buddies. That's why I went to talk to him, because he seemed like a loner and I just felt it would be good to go talk to him.

CALLEBS: Thunder, who still has a bullet lodged in his hip, was asked about reports that Weise made his way through the school laughing and grinning as he killed.

THUNDER: He had a mean face.

QUESTION: A what?

THUNDER: A mean face.

CALLEBS (on camera): Crow, Thunder, and Ryan Auginash are recovering in this hospital, their lives changed forever. They are getting support, but not enough according to Ryan's uncle.

DARRELL AUGINASH, STUDENT'S UNCLE: We need our tribal leaders here, to come here, too, to see these guys. They haven't been here yet.

CALLEBS: And lest we forget, these are just children, forced to cope with a crisis. Thunder was asked, what is the first thing he'll do once he leaves the hospital.

THUNDER: See my kitties.

CALLEBS: Sean Callebs, CNN, Bemidji, Minnesota.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It appears that Jeff Weise spent an awful lot of time on his computer, and he seems to have left a lot of tracks across the Internet. Reports now link him with violent and disturbing postings on a number of Web sites. There were multiple postings to a neo-Nazi site -- we talked about that yesterday -- and in a moment we're going to show you an animation believed to have been created by Weise. It is raising questions about why his apparent anger and depression and fantasies weren't called to somebody's attention. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): You'll probably find this animation repulsive, although we're not showing you the worst parts. It shows a gunman taking aim, shooting people, throwing a hand grenade into a police car. He eventually shoots and kills himself. At the end, it says "Animation & Art by Regret."

Now, look at this. A typical Web profile page someone who calls himself "Solitude" and he's anything but typical. Under "A little about me," quote, "16 years of accumulated rage, suppressed by nothing more than brief glimpses of hope, which have all but faded to black." Take a look at "Hobbies and Interests," quote, "Planning. Waiting. Hating."

We don't know that "Regret" and "Solitude" are the same person, but a number of reports say investigators are looking into these and other Web postings that are thought to be the work of Jeff Weise. Today's "New York Times" reports Weise apparently posted short stories on the Internet as well. One about a shooting spree at a small school.

Now, in the wake of real shootings at Red Lake High School, you're probably asking, didn't anyone try to help this kid? Apparently they did. The "Washington Post" says Weise voluntarily went to a hospital psychiatric ward for treatment last year, that he was suicidal and was on an anti-depressant for a while. That raises another red flag: there's been a lot of controversy lately about whether anti-depressants increase the chances of a young person committing suicide. There is no conclusive medical evidence so far, but a lot of concern.

Cyberspace is a place some go to, to disappear, but if what we're learning is true, it was the place where the real Jeff Weise emerged, and plenty of people watched or read about it, but nobody raised a red flag.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, coming up next on this special edition of 360, "Caught on Tape," the final seconds before a DC-10 explodes in Sioux City, Iowa. We're going to catch up with a captain who, despite saving so many lives, refuses to be called a hero. How his life has been forever changed.

Also, tonight: is your memory fooling you? Dr. Sanjay Gupta stops by to show us why we often cannot trust our own eyes.

And a little later, we separate fact from fiction, truth from lies, in the battle over Terri Schiavo. We continue to wait for court's decision, any moment now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAVE BOXUM, FRM. REPORTER/PHOTOGRAPHER: I didn't know what to expect. It was -- but I had to be ready for whatever happened. I mean, we knew this was serious.

That first year, I probably thought about the crash every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: That was former reporter Dave Boxum recalling the 1989 Sioux City, Iowa plane crash, a moment he and we will never forget. When you see the video of the plane tumbling in a ball of fire, it's really hard to believe that anybody walked away from that wreckage, but 184 of the 286 people aboard the crippled DC-10 did survive.

Now their lives were saved, no doubt about it, by Captain Al Haynes, and his extraordinary crew, who at 37,000 feet lost virtually all control of the aircraft.

All this week, we're bringing you up to date on what happened to the people involved in breathtaking moments like this one, moments that were caught on tape and how their lives have been forever changed.

Tonight, CNN's Kimberly Osias has the story of the hero of Flight 232.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now just slightly to your left, sir, to make the turn to Fannel (ph), and also that will take you away from the city.

CAPTAIN AL HAYNES, RETIRED UNITED PILOT: Whatever you do, keep me away from the city.

KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anyone who saw video can't forget the image. United Flight 232 barreling nose-first into an Iowa runway, bursting into a ball of flames. It was a crash unlike any other. By all accounts, no one should have survived.

HAYNES: We had a situation that you can't train for, you can't practice for. You don't do it because it can't happen.

OSIAS: But it did happen. The man behind the controls, Captain Al Haynes, won't ever forget July 19, 1989. Moments after careening into the runway, he blacked out.

HAYNES: Terrible screeching, the noise, the fire, the rolling. I was unconscious. I didn't go through any of that.

BOXUM: I set up my camera at the north side of the terminal.

OSIAS: Former CNN affiliate reporter Dave Boxum remembers everything about that day.

BOXUM: For a split second, I saw the plane coming in. It was very level, very low, but it looked fine. And then it disappeared behind some hangar buildings. And At that time, it seemed like an eternity.

I heard, you know, this eerie roaring sound, whining sound, explosions. And I didn't know where it was going to come out. And, then all of a sudden I saw it cartwheeling from behind the hangar buildings and it cartwheeled down the runway.

OSIAS: Boxum was listening to police scanners before the DC-10 went down. He was the only photographer to capture it all on tape.

BOXUM: Like, I'm looking through a view finder that's black, white so I'm not even seeing this in color. And what's going through my mind is I'm totally in a reporter mode. And I don't want that to sound callous, but I'm thinking whatever happens, I need to document this, I need to capture this.

OSIAS: The plane bounced on its nose three times and broke apart in four places scattering debris across the vast Iowa cornfield. But the problem started far earlier at 37,000 feet, when the tail fan broke of, disabling the rear engine. Shrapnel thrusted forward severing the hydraulic fluid lines, giving the crew no way to steer the plane.

HAYNES: We really never thought about crashing, we never thought about dying. We thought about we got to get this thing on the ground somehow.

OSIAS: So they tested and tried everything they knew. Alternating thrust on the remaining two wing engines, defying aeronautical laws to bring the DC-10 down.

HAYNES: Can't explain why it worked. We just did it. We had to do it. It was either that or we couldn't just sit there and give up. We had to keep trying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cleared to land on any runway.

HAYNES: You don't want to be particular, huh?

OSIAS: A calm Captain Haynes even used humor to break the tension.

HAYNES: Just give us Iowa, you know, just get us down in Iowa somewhere it's OK with us.

OSIAS: Although the video aired all over the country, Haynes didn't see a frame for three days. When he did, he couldn't believe it was his plane. But soon after the crash, he got back in the cockpit, flying two years before retiring in 1991.

HAYNES: That was my job. That's what did for a living. I wasn't about to quit on a note like that.

OSIAS: These days, Captain Haynes travels the country as a motivational speaker. It's part of his therapy, part of his mission to help others deal with traumatic stress. Every time he lectures, he shows the video, says it's never bothered him. As for Dave Boxum, the video is more troubling than ever before.

BOXUM: As I get older, it's harder for me to watch the video now than when it first happened. I think it's because of the maturity level. It's something that will stay with me forever.

OSIAS: Boxum's television career now behind him, he works in public relations. He's married with two daughters. Al Haynes has a daughter, too, Laurie Arguello, who needed a bone marrow transplant. But insurance failed to cover the cost. It was the passengers from 232 that came forward, raising over $500,000 to make the procedure possible.

LAURIE ARGUELLO, AL HAYNES DAUGHTER: People who have wanted to thank him and couldn't really find ways to do it and a lot of people said that that was their way to try.

OSIAS: Haynes says he needs no thanks. And refuses to be called a hero.

HAYNES: I don't believe it. To me, the definition of a hero is someone who puts their life in jeopardy to benefit someone else, voluntarily puts their life in jeopardy. There is no way on Earth we did that voluntarily.

OSIAS: Although Captain Haynes doesn't consider himself a hero, to the 183 others who survived the crash, he defines the word.

Kimberly Osias, CNN, Seattle.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Amazing man.

The investigation into a political murder mystery yields very few answers. Erica Hill from Headline News joins us now with the latest at about 12 to the hour.

Hey, Erica.

HILL: Hi, Anderson. Yeah, and this is one that you've been following, of course, with your time in Lebanon. Those behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri have not been caught. But Syria and Lebanese security forces share some responsibility.

That is the conclusion of the United Nations report which says the forces failed to provide adequate protection for Hariri. The report also criticizes Lebanon's investigation into the killing, calling it seriously flawed.

The U.N. report asks for an independent investigation. Lebanon's Syrian backed President Emile Lahoud, called on U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to do whatever is necessary to solve the crime. The New York State Court of Appeals will not allow the release of most of the 911 calls made by people trapped inside the Trade Center on September 11. The judges said the tapes would include callers' last moments of terror and agony. And that grieving families might be offended by hearing them on television or reading transcripts in the newspaper. The court said it will allow the release of calls from relatives of eight families who sought full disclosure of the tapes.

The prosecutor in the Robert Blake murder trial says jurors who acquitted the actor were quote, "incredibly stupid." Steve Cooley says, Blake was "Guilty as sin" of murdering his wife, Bonny Lee Bakely. A juror on the case says Cooley has a case of sour grapes.

I have one idea of maybe why, Anderson, maybe he didn't get invited to go cowboying. And then I'm going to leave it alone. No more cowboying, I promise.

COOPER: I might mention cowboying from now on, on every episode.

HILL: That's fine.

COOPER: Thanks very, Erica. Appreciate it. We'll see you back in about 30 minutes.

Coming up next on 360, emotion and politics. The many sides of the Terri Schiavo case. Our John Zarrella has a fact check. Looking at the details, there are so many different versions of events. We're going to try to sort out the facts from the fiction. We're doing a special hour on Terri Schiavo coming up.

Also tonight, we continue our series on memory: how the smallest details can be pulled from deep within our memory. It's an extraordinary look inside our brains. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has that.

And a little later, the background of the doctor whose disputed diagnosis led the Florida governor to intervene, yet again, in the Schiavo case. Exactly who is this guy? All that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: You've been watching all this week, we've been looking at memory, how it works and how sometimes it doesn't. Tonight we want to focus on eyewitness testimony. Now, the words have the very ring of truth, but just how reliable really are eyewitness accounts? It turns out they can be mistaken very easily.

In fact, many prisoners convicted on eyewitness accounts have been freed because DNA proved they weren't guilty at all. As we continue our series "Refresh your Memory," our 360 M.D., Sanjay Gupta shows us how one woman helps solve crimes by coaxing the right memories to the surface.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jeanne Boylan makes a living by mining the very details of memory. A top-ranked freelance artist, she sketches thousands of subjects for the FBI and police departments around the country. From the Unabomber to the Oklahoma City Bombing to the Polly Klaas kidnapping, she's worked the biggest cases around.

In 1987, a bomb badly wounded the owner of a computer store in Salt Lake City, Utah. Minutes earlier, a worker there had caught a glimpse, just a two-second glimpse of the man leaving the suspicious package. Seven long years later, Boylan was called in to meet the lone eyewitness. The result was this famous sketch, the hooded Unabomber. A good likeness, judge for yourself.

JEANNE BOYLAN, ARTIST/CRIMINAL PROFILER: Your memory may have been distorted in the interim, but the odds of that original memory being there are extremely good.

GUPTA: At most police departments, a witness to a crime either looks through mug shots or picks and chooses from menu of facial feature until an artist or computer creates a composite. But researchers have found that these techniques actually impair memory as the witness concentrates on each new image, the original memory is blurred.

BOYLAN: I hate those mug books. An imprint into memory is not unlike a fingerprint on a murder weapon. So when police show witnesses, you know, eyes and lips and noses in books full of facial features and expect that memory to be static, what they're doing is overlaying the imprinted memory with all these new additional prints, just as they would be overlaying fingerprints on a murder weapon if they handed it to bare handed people.

GUPTA: Boylan's method is different. Her interviews are long, about 12 hours. But most of the talking has nothing to do with the crime. She relaxes the witness and lets memories come to the surface. She's careful not to suggest details which is tougher than you might think.

(on camera): The contamination of an eyewitness. So -- I mean, how subtle can it be? You just said, if the investigator says were his eyes brown, is that contamination?

BOYLAN: That's absolutely contamination, yes.

GUPTA: When it comes to memory, we often can't trust our own eyes. \

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Tomorrow, 360 M.D. Sanjay Gupta wraps up the series with a look at how you can develop a stronger memory. You'll even learn some tricks from a champion memorizer. I definitely need that!

Next on 360, protest continue outside the Florida hospice where Terri Schiavo now lies. We're going to have the latest facts in the controversial case. You're looking at a live shot right there. We're devoting the next hour to this case. An in depth look at issues on both sides covering the angles.

Also, the parents of Terri Schiavo heartened by a doctor's diagnosis. We're going to check on his medical background.

Plus, a doctor's most difficult decision, how to know when you can do no more for a patient. Dr. Sanjay Gupta on a doctor's dilemma. All that ahead in our special edition of 360 continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDALL TERRY, OPERATION RESCUE: If she dies there is going to be hell to pay with the pro-life, pro-family Republican people of various legislative levels state wide and federal wide, who have used pro-life, pro-family conservative rhetoric to get into power, and then, when they have the power, they refuse to use it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: We're going to be spending the next hour looking in- depth at the Terri Schiavo case. Now, we're expecting developments at any moments in the case. We anticipate in about 10 minutes or so a press conference in Tampa, Florida.

A federal court has been petitioned by Terri Schiavo's parents. We were -- as I said, we have been expecting all -- for the last hour. We have been monitoring the situation. And we're going to take you to Tampa as soon as that press conference begins, that is, the latest maneuvers.

Right now, though, we want to talk with Brian Schiavo, who we understand has just come from seeing his sister-in-law Terri.

It's impossible to imagine how difficult this must be for you, Brian. We appreciate you being with us tonight.

How was Terri? How is she doing?

BRIAN SCHIAVO, BROTHER OF MICHAEL SCHIAVO: Well, like you said, I just came here from seeing her.

And the only way -- how I can describe this is, she is peaceful. She is laying there. Sometimes her mouth is agape and, you know, she's peaceful. She is not writhing in pain. You know, she is really not too different than I saw her the day before. So...

COOPER: There are -- in the last 24 hours or so, I have seen so many interviews with people on all sides of this issue. The Schindlers say that she is responsive in some ways, communicative. That's not the Terri Schiavo you see?

B. SCHIAVO: No, not at all, not at all.

I have -- I have called to her. I'm inches from her face. She does not communicate. She does not try to communicate. She does not respond. You know, unfortunately, there's just nothing there.

COOPER: I want to play just a piece of tape from Bobby Schindler, something he said earlier, and if possible just get your response to it. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOBBY SCHINDLER, BROTHER OF TERRI SCHIAVO: I saw her last night. And, I have said it before, I think the best way to describe the way she looks is, it's reminiscent of seeing pictures of people in concentration camps. It's just absolutely horrific, what I'm seeing happen in front my eyes, and just the dehydration -- death by dehydration and starvation is just absolutely barbaric. And it's almost a surreal sight when I walk into my sister's room. It's hard to explain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: I don't know how well you could hear that.

B. SCHIAVO: It was muffled. I didn't hear much of it. But I think he was referring to how she looked now and...

COOPER: He equated it to someone in a concentration camp.

B. SCHIAVO: Well, if you saw -- I'm sure you saw all the video of her before she had the tube removed. She didn't look all that well. So -- but I don't -- she does look a little withdrawn now, obviously. I mean, she has not had food or nutrition -- or nutrition or hydration for seven days now. So -- but the point I want to make is, he's wrong.

Death by starvation, as he puts it, is a very natural -- it's part of the death process. You cannot equate this with someone such as a Biafran child sitting on the sands in a desert with a bloated belly in pain because they have not eaten. You can't equate that. People die every single day across this planet in this fashion. And I will tell you, I will take a lie detector test if you need to. She is not in pain. She is not writhing back and forth. And she is not in pain.

COOPER: Do you think she is capable of feeling pain?

B. SCHIAVO: I can't say for sure.

I doubt it very much. I doubt it very much. I don't see that she's made any -- any type of -- you know, when my brother goes in and moves her or turns her head or anything like that, she doesn't yell out in pain, because I would imagine her joints are pretty stiff, so anybody tries to move that, that would cause pain, in my opinion. But I have not seen any characteristics that she would be in pain.

COOPER: When you are inside that room, in that hospice room -- I know Michael has been there since the feeding tube has been removed. What is the atmosphere like? Do people talk with Terri?

B. SCHIAVO: Sure.

COOPER: Paint a picture for us, if you can.

B. SCHIAVO: Well, I mean, we're -- my wife and I go into see her. We talk with her. My brother, you know, he caresses her hair. He kisses her. I was just there with -- before I left to come to the studio here.

You know, he adjusts her blankets and pets her shoulders and her arms and, you know -- and touches her. Inside the room, it's very quiet. You know, as far as them having -- the Schindlers made a comment that they don't have any personal time alone with her. They have personal time alone with her. There a bathroom door that you can close -- or open, actually, that will block off the vision from anyone outside of the room.

So, they do have privacy with her.

COOPER: Brian, what was it that changed for your brother? Because, for the first several years he was really fighting -- when Terri was first taken to the hospital, he was fighting to have her resuscitated, fighting to have her put on life support. What was it that made the change for him?

B. SCHIAVO: Well, I mean, I don't -- he wasn't fighting to have her resuscitated. She was resuscitated when she first came in. She was dead when she came into the hospital. They revived her.

But I think his whole position is, you know, he was very much in love with Terri. And I think any person -- I know I would. If, God forbid, this ever happened to my wife, I would make comments. I would, you know, practically sell my soul to the devil to have her back. And that's -- that was his position. And he was -- in his heart, that's what he wanted. He wanted her to come back. And he tried everything he could.

You know, and the doctors after a while just basically told him, Mike, there is nothing more in modern medicine that is going to bring Terri back to any semblance of any normalcy, let alone being able to recognize somebody. She will never be -- she will never recover from this.

COOPER: Is your sense that the end is near for Terri?

B. SCHIAVO: My sense, I would concur with the original -- it's probably -- seven to 10 days is probably very correct. I say that because of my father. My father -- my father didn't eat or drink anything for, oh, I don't know, close to a month. So, you know, in Terri's condition, she's weakened already. I'm sure her immune system is very weak. So, it could be another few days.

COOPER: Well, Brian, I appreciate you being with us. I know it's been a long day for you. And we do appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. Thank you very much.

B. SCHIAVO: I appreciate you having me. COOPER: Brian Schiavo, brother of Michael Schiavo.

We now -- as you know on 360, we don't take sides. We like to look at stories from all angles. We asked someone from the Schindlers' camp to speak with us. They did not get back to us. We had an interview scheduled, as we did last night. We talked to Brother O'Donnell, who is the spiritual adviser to the Schindlers. We spoke with him last night. We were supposed to speak to him today. He didn't show up for the interview.

So, again, we have continually put out offers to the Schindler side to speak tonight, because we're spending this hour looking in- depth at this case. And we're trying to do it not taking any sides, just looking from all the angles.

The old saying about every story having two sides is entirely inadequate really, though, in this case. This is a story that has countless sides, medical, legal, political, emotional, religious. We're not taking any of those sides in the show. But we want to stick to the facts of the story. We want to find out the facts. And there are so man, so many allegations flying back and forth. We want to try to separate the facts from the fiction.

Amid all the noise, all the emotion, finding those facts, it can be very, very hard. We called on John Zarrella to give us a 360 fact check.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Michael Schiavo, Terry's husband and legal guardian, has said repeatedly that Terri would want to die.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO, HUSBAND OF TERRI SCHIAVO: She wouldn't want to live like this. She wouldn't want to survive like this. And that's all she is doing is just -- she's surviving. There's nothing there. She's -- her conscious is gone.

ZARRELLA: But her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, say she would want to live and, though severely disabled, would be capable of rehabilitation.

BOB SCHINDLER, FATHER OF TERRI SCHIAVO: The prognosis for her is that, if she was given any kind of treatment, therapy, she could improve. And that's what we've been told by dozens of doctors.

ZARRELLA: But most doctors involved in the case say she wouldn't improve with therapy, that she is in a -- quote -- "persistent vegetative state." And the courts have agreed.

JAY WOLFSON, FORMER SCHIAVO GUARDIAN: The fact is that the competent medical evidence that was presented in court, again using the rules of evidence and the rules of civil procedure in Florida, established that the medical evidence indicates she is in a persistent vegetative state. ZARRELLA: As with many family disputes, this one involves money, who got it, what to do with it, where did it go, all connected to a $1.2 million medical malpractice settlement that Michael Schiavo won years ago. But just $300,000 went to him personally. The rest has gone for medical and legal bills and to pay for Terri Schiavo's funeral.

M. SCHIAVO: They are very angry that they didn't receive any money from the malpractice suit.

ZARRELLA: The parents deny that claim, saying they only want to help their daughter. More recently, her parents have charged that Terri has been abused through lack of treatment and confinement. And the courts, most recently today, have rejected the abuse claims. Jay Wolfson, Terri Schiavo's former guardian, supports that finding.

WOLFSON: I saw no evidence in the files that I reviewed, more than 30,000 pages of legal notes, medical evidence, that there was abuse.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA: Anderson, as you look at that live picture of the crowd here gathered at the hospice keeping vigil, I can tell you that the interview you just did with Michael Schiavo's brother highlights what has been such a contentious battle over Terri Schiavo for so many years.

He is saying that she is resting peacefully and her family having said something else. So, somewhere in the middle in all of this over the years, the truth lies. Now, you asked me about an hour ago, Anderson, about the crowds and if there were supporters of Terri -- of Michael Schiavo. And we did see some a little while ago. Their signs have moved now, but people saying things like, we're not voting for Governor Bush again and that they are upset with the fact that Michael Schiavo has had to fight so long to have his wife disconnected from the feeding tube -- Anderson.

COOPER: And then, of course, on the other side of the debate, those upset with Governor Bush for not intervening more.

ZARRELLA: Exactly.

COOPER: They would like to see him to -- try to do more and take physical custody, really, of Terri Schiavo.

John Zarrella, appreciate it. Thank you so much.

We'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): The battle over Terri Schiavo. Her parents say there's new evidence, but how did the doctor make that diagnosis? Tonight, the latest on the case to keep Terri Schiavo alive. And CNN reporters on assignment in Iraq get caught in a bomb blast. Coming up, their account of the hair-raising ordeal and how they kept the camera rolling.

360 continues.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. SCHIAVO: Every person in this country should be scared. The government is going to trample all over your private and personal matters. It's outrageous that these people that we elect are not letting you have your civil liberties to choose what you want when you die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that was Michael Schiavo, the husband of Terri Schiavo.

Now, the situation that he and Terri and her parents find themselves in is unique in the amount of attention and the political involvement it has generated. It's not, however, the first time something like this has happened, not the first time a patient was said to be in a persistent vegetative state, not the first time the spouse has made an ultimate choice, and not the first time a family has been torn apart by that choice. It's the story of Terri Schiavo, but it's also the story of a man named Hugh Finn.

Here' CNN's Tom Foreman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The story of Hugh Finn's controversial death begins on this road outside Louisville, where the popular local TV host was in a horrific accident on an icy morning. The wreck left Hugh Finn in a permanently vegetative state and his wife, Michele, in a terrible spot.

MICHELE FINN, WIFE OF HUGH FINN: And we had talked about the fact that we would not want, neither one of us would want to live in that type of condition.

FOREMAN (on camera): So, you never had any doubt about what his wishes were?

M. FINN: No.

FOREMAN (voice-over): So, more than three years later, she decided to remove his feeding tube at his nursing home in Virginia. His parents challenged the decision in court, and they lost.

THOMAS FINN, FATHER OF HUGH FINN: When he was in that hospital, we could touch him. There was hope. Now that he's in the hole, there's no hope for him, none whatsoever.

FOREMAN: But with the tube removal only hours away, Michele could not believe what happened next. Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore went to the state courts to try to stop it.

M. FINN: I was just hysterical. I couldn't believe it. It never occurred to me that it would happen. I kept saying, how can he do this? How can he do this?

JAMES GILMORE (R), FORMER VIRGINIA GOVERNOR: Well, I think that public officials have a duty to make sure that those who are disabled, those who are vulnerable, make sure that they are properly protected. That I think is a proper role of an elected official. And the law supported that type of intervention at the time.

FOREMAN: The governor lost, too. The feeding tube was removed and nine days later, Hugh Finn died.

T. FINN: It was a murder, because you put him to death.

FOREMAN (on camera): The rift between Michele Finn and her husband's family has never fully healed, despite efforts on both sides. And she points out, even her own mother disagreed with her decision.

(voice-over): Michele understands. She does not apologize.

M. FINN: I felt like I had one more commitment that I had made to him that I needed to fulfill.

FOREMAN (on camera): You didn't think you could walk away?

M. FINN: No, absolutely not. I could not walk away from that, because I knew...

FOREMAN: Even though the family wanted to say, we'll take care of him, just leave him alone?

M. FINN: That's right, but that's not what he wanted. And that's what I was afraid of, was I knew what he wanted and if I did not do it, nobody would. And he would not get what he wanted.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Like the rest of the nation, Michele Finn is following the saga of Terri Schiavo. But, unlike most, it is a road she has traveled.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Louisville, Kentucky.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, you may be wondering how many people are in persistent vegetative states. According to the Brain Injury Association of America, there were between 30,000 and 45,000 people last year.

Our in-depth coverage of the Terri Schiavo case continues. Any moment, we're expecting the judge to rule on the case. We're going to bring that to you when it happens.

But, right now, let's get you up to speed on the other stories making news. Erica Hill from Headline News has the headlines.

Hey, Erica.

HILL: Hey, Anderson.

In the former Soviet Republic of Kyrgyzstan, opposition protesters took over the presidential compound and government offices today, forcing the president to flee the country. Now, there are unconfirmed reports he's now in Russia. Meantime, the opposition and political observers allege corruption and flawed parliamentary elections recently. Kyrgyzstan's Parliament has appointed an interim president and prime minister and has given them until tomorrow to form a new government.

Search crews found another body today at the site of the BP oil refinery explosion outside of Houston. That brings the death toll from yesterday's blast to 15; 100 people were hurt. It's not known what caused the blast. BP officials, however, say there is no evidence of sabotage or terrorism.

Florida health officials say nine kids may have picked up a life- threatening kidney infection at petting zoos. They warn the number of cases could rise. Five children are in the hospital in critical condition. "The Orlando Sentinel" reports each of them recently touched animals at local fairs.

And 2,500 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, what remains of largest diesel electric submarine ever built.

University of Hawaii scientists discovered the remains of the Japanese I-401 sub last week. It is five stories high, 400 feet long. It carried three airplanes. Remember, this is a submarine. Two such subs were captured by the U.S. a week after Japan surrendered in World War II. The U.S. Navy torpedoed the subs to prevent Russia from getting ahold of them. Imagine the size of that thing. It's amazing.

COOPER: Yes, I mean, cool pictures. Erica Hill, thanks very much for that. We'll see you back in 30 minutes.

We're covering all the angles. 360 next, our special in-depth coverage of Terri Schiavo's case continues. The doctor whose latest diagnosis seemed to hold out a little hope for Terri Schiavo's parents, we're going to take a look at his background. Exactly who is this guy?

And, as the vigil continues, I'll also talk to a man who was Terri Schiavo's legal guardian, not on either side, not on her husband's side, not on her parents' side. The courts appointed him her legal guardian. We'll try to see his view of the case.

And a little later, the doctors' dilemma. How do they know when to keep treating someone or when to let them die? We'll talk about that ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THADDEUS MALANOWSKI, MONSIGNOR: You know, when I began to pray over her, I sprinkled her with some holy water. And that went on her right arm. And suddenly, she is so sensitive. When the drops of holy water touched her right arm, her whole right arm lifted right up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that was Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski on the time he spent with Terri Schiavo earlier today.

Religion has become so entwined with medicine in this case. And it has prompted questions about the choice of a neurologist whose diagnosis seemed to hold out a bit of hope for Terri Schiavo's parents. He was picked by the state of Florida and Governor Jeb Bush discussed his findings yesterday. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Governor Bush, I was wondering, could you tell us how Dr. Cheshire was selected to be on the APT, and how were the other members of the APT chosen?

LUCI HADI, FLORIDA CHILDREN AND FAMILIES SECRETARY: We did extensive work in terms of identifying individuals who had the whole set of competencies. Let me be sure, Steve, that you understand.

We have a lengthy list of individuals with a variety of skill sets, and individuals are selected to participate on adult protective teams, to volunteer for adult protective teams, in which their expertise is particularly applicable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that was at Governor Bush's press conference. That was the head of the Department of Children and Family Services.

Now, we don't take sides, but we do care about facts. So, our Elizabeth Cohen decided to check into the background of the Dr. William Cheshire, who didn't physically examine Terri Schiavo, but still made a diagnosis on her condition.

Here's what she found out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is all we have seen of Dr. William Cheshire. He dropped a bombshell and refused to say anything more.

GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: The neurologist review indicates that Terri may have been misdiagnosed. COHEN: Many neurologists have testified in court that Terri Schiavo is not aware of what is going on around her. Dr. Cheshire, a board-certified neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, joins a few doctors who disagree.

In an affidavit Wednesday, he wrote that he visited Terri Schiavo, but did not examine her. "When I first walked into her room, she immediately tuned her head toward me and looked directly at my face. Several times, I witnessed Terry laugh in response to a humorous comment someone in the room had made."

Dr. Cheshire said he watched videotape from 2002 and made these conclusions: "When asked to close her eyes, she began to blink repeatedly. She did appear to raise her right leg four times in succession each time she was asked to do so."

So, who is Dr. William Cheshire? Not much is known about him. He declined to speak to CNN or other media. A search of the medical literature found no articles by him on the vegetative state. He has published on headaches, the nervous system and the rights of embryos. After receiving his medical degree, Dr. Cheshire got his masters degree in bioethics from Trinity International University.

The school says its mission is forming students to transform the world through Christ. He's director of biotech ethics at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, a group that says it was established to counteract the noticeable lack of explicit Christian engagement in the crucial bioethics arena.

All of this makes some doctors and bioethicists we talked to nervous. Father John Paris is a Jesuit priest and a bioethicist at Boston College.

FATHER JOHN PARIS, BIOETHICIST: I thought the affidavit was bizarre. Here's a physician, well-trained physician, making a diagnosis on an individual who is not his patient, without a full examination and without doing any of the diagnostic tests and imaging tests that would be necessary to make an adequate and complete diagnosis.

COHEN: But a lawyer for the Florida Department of Families and Children said Dr. Cheshire was highly qualified to issue the affidavit.

HADI: Dr. Cheshire has also done considerable research on the aspects of pain and how those aspects are manifested in people in persistent vegetative state versus those with minimal consciousness.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: CNN tried repeatedly to contact Dr. Cheshire. The Mayo Clinic released a statement saying that the affidavit reflected Dr. Cheshire's views and not the views of the Mayo Clinic -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thanks.

Want to dig a bit deeper into the mix of medicine and religion.

Dr. Tim Johnson is a man of medicine and a man of faith. He's medical editor for ABC News and an ordained minister. And he's the author of "Finding God in the Questions."

He joins me now from Needham, Massachusetts.

Dr. Tim, good to see you.

Dr. Cheshire is a fellow at the Center of Bioethics and Human Dignity. And he's also a member of the Ethics Commission of the Christian Medical Association. Is there a conflict in those organizations and him being a doctor and ruling in this case?

DR. TIM JOHNSON, ABC NEWS MEDICAL EDITOR: I don't think there's a conflict between him being a doctor and a member of those organizations. His medical credentials on paper are in order. He's not well known in the national neurology community, but he certainly is a respected neurologist in the local community, from what I hear.

Now, being a member of those organizations does not automatically make him a good or a bad doctor or anything in between. It does suggest that he might have a point of view when it comes to these issues. And, in fact, some of his writings and even some poetry that he has written suggests that he is strongly in the so-called culture of life camp or pro-life camp.

COOPER: Well, and I know you read the affidavit and found some areas of concern, in your opinion, regarding his -- his statements. What struck you?

JOHNSON: Well, it was a fascinating document to read. It's well written. It's thoughtful. It's passionate. But it's very ambiguous and contradictory. And there was one sentence in particular that just sticks out indicating that ambiguity.

And if I may, I'm going to read it. The sentence is this -- and it comes near the end of the document, "although Terri did not demonstrate during our 90-minute visit compelling evidence of verbalization, conscious awareness or volitional behavior." In other words, he's saying she really is in a permanent vegetative state in terms of his objective observation. He then quickly switches to a subjective assessment and says, "yet the visitor has the distinct sense of the presence of a living human being who seems at some level to be aware of some things around her."

So objectively he didn't find any evidence that she is not in a persistent vegetative state according to his own words, but subjectively he felt this sense of awareness.

COOPER: Well that's fascinating. Because those particular things -- I mean, you know, response, verbalization, response to stimuli and stuff, those are the exact things which qualify someone for being in a vegetative state as opposed to just being in a state of minimal consciousness. JOHNSON: Now, there is a fine line between one end of the vegetative state spectrum and minimally conscious. And so she may be in that sort of netherland between the two. But ultimately, all of the experts that we have consulted, dozens of them in the last several days have said whether she is exactly in one or the other, the important medical fact is that her prognosis is virtually the same, meaning no chance for recovery.

COOPER: Dr. Tim Johnson. The book again, "Finding God in the Questions." It's an excellent read. Thank you very much Dr. Tim, appreciate it.

Coming up next on 360, he was Terri Schiavo's attorney. We're going to talk to her former legal guardian, not the parents' guardian, not the parents' lawyer, not her husband's lawyer, his -- her guardian. That's ahead.

Also later on tonight, a brush with terror in Iraq. American troops and a car bomb all caught on tape.

First your picks of the most popular stories on CNN.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JEB BUSH, (R) FLORIDA: They are acting on their heart. And I fully appreciate their sentiments and the emotions that go with this. I cannot go, and as I have been consistently saying, and I guess you guys haven't been listening and repeating it back. I have consistently said that I can't go beyond what my powers are. And I'm not going to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: That was Florida Governor Jeb Bush clearly frustrated, but saying he won't overstep his powers to do more for Terri Schiavo. She, of course, at the center of this wrenching national debate.

In Miami right now, Jay Wolfson, professor of public health and medicine at the University of Southern Florida. An attorney who served as Terri Schiavo's court appointed legal guardian in 2003.

Appreciate you being with us.

As you see this now, I mean, there has been so much back and forth on both sides. Today the judge denied the Department of Children and Family Services access to investigate possible allegations of abuse. You examined Terry in 2003. Did you see any signs of abuse or neglect?

JAY WOLFSON, TERRI SCHIAVO'S LEGAL GUARDIAN 2003: Well Anderson, I reviewed more than 30,000 pages of legal documents and medical documents. I spent -- I only had one month to do it. I spent the better part of 20 of those days with Terri in her room. Sometimes as much as four hours with her parents, with her husband, with the staff at the facility.

I got to know her parents. These are really decent, kind, loving people. They are wonderful people.

I go to know Michael. He is not warm and fuzzy, but he really loves his wife.

And I would spend time in her room. And I would hold her hand. And I would stroke her hand. And I would hold her head. And I would look at her eyes and I would stroke her hair. And I would ask her, I would beg her to give me some consistent indication that she was responding rather than reflexing.

And as you demonstrated, the definition of a consistent vegetative state includes these waking and sleeping cycles. And then her eyes are open when she's awake. She makes noises. These are sometimes sounding like crying, sometimes they sound like laughter, sometimes they are moaning. All of that is consistent with what the scientific literature says characterizes a persistent vegetative state along with a lack of a consistent pattern, or any consistent evidence of interaction with her environment.

The competent medical evidence based on the laws of Florida, rules of civil procedure, rules of evidence and the guardianship laws that were drafted over 15 years of bipartisan political and religious participation, served as the basis for how this was interpreted. And by all the standards, Anderson, she is diagnosed in a persistent vegetative state. That -- it meets all those criteria.

And there was no evidence either -- I had people come to me friends of the family and people who become very verbally and vocally advocates for Terri saying we've got evidence that she was physically abused by Michael. She was beaten, she was strangled. There is no evidence in the record to indicate that, Anderson.

COOPER: Were you -- we just saw a sound bite from a priest who said she was in her room today, sprinkled holy water on her. And when the holy water touched her arm her arm went up. He seems to be indicating she was responding to the holy water. When you hear that, what do you think?

WOLFSON: Well, Monsignor Malanowski has been with the family for a long time. He's a man of great belief. And you know, hope is an extraordinary thing, Anderson, for all of us. It's the one thing that I think if you remember Dante's "Inferno" he had the signs outside the gates of Hell that said, Abandon hope all you who enter here.

The idea of abandoning hope here for your own child, the prospect of your child predeceasing you -- both the parents and Michael for many years refused to accept what they had been told early on.

COOPER: And they were very close on this.

WOLFSON: Oh, they were very close. This family was really tight together on this. They spent 24/7 taking care of her for years.

COOPER: So what happened, what caused that split?

WOLFSON: After about four years there was an adjudication of a malpractice suit which resulted in a $300,000 loss of consortium award for Michael for losing his ability to have relations with his wife. And about a $760,000 trust fund was established for Terri's medical care. That was out of Michael's control, it was under the control of a court-appointed trustee.

And it was at that point -- and maybe it was a water shed, Anderson, it's hard to say. Maybe it was at that point after four years that Michael was able to stand back. It was a water shed. And he said, people have been telling me, the physicians have been telling me, that she is in this state. And there's no reasonable likelihood of recovery. Maybe it was then that he stood back and said maybe there isn't. And I need to let go.

Hard to do, because he really took exquisite care of her for 15 years. She never had a bed sore. In fact...

COOPER: She never had a bed sore in 15 years?

WOLFSON: In 15 years. 15 years she never -- which is extraordinary. And he got in trouble at one of the nursing facilities because he was so aggressively demanding attention to her that the administration sought a restraining order against him for demanding attention by the staff that was distracting them from other patients.

You know, this is such a tough case, Anderson. These are people caring for their daughter. It's the idea of losing somebody. As you said, this happens -- there are other cases where things like this has happened. It's so tragic.

But the bottom line, as you may have heard me say, this is not about Governor Bush who I have tremendous respect for. And he's a great leader and a visionary. It's not about the Florida legislature. It's not about the Senate or the House of Representatives of the United States. It's not even about the judicial system. It's not about Michael. It's not about the Schindler. This is all about Terri. And my job, to the best that I could do it, was to take the best science that I knew was out there, the best medicine that I could get my arms around and apply the best law that we have.

And just as Rehnquist said in Cruzan, we take the best law that we have, we apply it as honestly and as good as we can. And I think we extrapolate that to science and medicine.

This is a terrible tragedy. And I just pray and hope that the best will come for Terri because that's what this is all about. It's her.

COOPER: It certainly is. Jay, if you could just hold on one minute. I understand we have on the phone -- we had been trying to get a spokesperson from the Schindler family earlier in the program. I'm just joined on the phone by Robert Destro, an attorney for the Schindlers.

Mr. Destro, as you listen to Jay Wolfson speak, where does this -- what happens now? Where do you go next?

ROBERT DESTRO, ATTORNEY FOR SCHINDLER FAMILY: Well, I mean, you've actually got two questions there, Anderson. So if I could just take one of them at a time.

I mean, this is -- I know that Mr. Wolfson had a big job. He had 30,000 pages was a thousand pages a day. And one of the -- one of the things -- let me ask him because I'd like to know the answer -- is did you just limit your examination to the record?

COOPER: Well, actually Mr. Wolfson said that he spent some 20 days in the room with Terri Schiavo, met with both members of the family repeatedly. Spent up to four hours a day in her room communicating, trying to communicate with her, touching her, in her presence.

DESTRO: This is the -- this is the -- part of the problem that we have, the family has, with all of this is that the -- since all of this has taken place. I mean, Dr. Wolfson has looked at the record, he went into see her. But we haven't had -- we need up to date -- you know, we need up to date medical examinations of her.

The nurses -- there are nurse records in there that say they actually have been feeding her JELL-O. There's all kinds of tantalizing evidence in the record. In fact, even in Dr. Wolfson's report there's an indication that certain things weren't followed up, that she actually spoke at one time to her rehab people but it was never followed up.

And I think the parents' problem and certainly my problem as a trial attorney is I would like very much to get really into these facts and to actually find out what her condition is today.

You have Dr. Cheshire's affidavit yesterday. And I have to say, I was really personally very offended when -- when all of a sudden they start dissecting Dr. Cheshire's religious background. And you say, see, where is all the dissection of all the other people involved?

Dr. Wolfson himself says I'm not going to dissect Michael at all. And he notices -- and this is true. The family has noticed it, too. He notices that the judge credited only Michael's doctors but completely blew off the Schindler family doctors.

COOPER: But both sides had presented their own neurologists, who had differing viewpoints. And the court also appointed its own neurologist who seemed to rule that she is in a persistent vegetative state.

DESTRO: I can tell you that the judge had the opportunity to -- at the time, when they did the last set of medical diagnostics, he could have had a PET scan. But he didn't pick that.

I spoke with Dr. Cranford, who was the -- was Michael's expert. And I spoke to him a couple months ago. And he agreed with me. He said, look, the best kind of diagnosis here would have been done with a functional MRI machine. He says but neither Michael nor the court would have gone along with it, because you couldn't do that kind of a test in Florida. You'd have to do it in New York. And he didn't think that either the judge or Michael would go along with it.

But he agreed that that -- what you really needed is an accurate medical diagnosis of her present condition.

COOPER: And that is -- and I know that's -- I know that's what you're fighting for legally right now. Robert Destro, we're going to have to go. We have to take this commercial break. We appreciate you joining us. Thank you very much.

We'll be right back. Our special edition continues in a moment.

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COOPER: Our special coverage of the Terri Schiavo case continues in a moment. But first let's get the headlines from Erica Hill and Headline News.

Hey, Erica.

HILL: Hey, Anderson.

American chess legend Bobby Fischer is home in Iceland. He landed there a short time ago. Iceland granted citizenship to Fischer earlier this week. Now, he had been in detention in Japan for months now on charges he tried to use an invalid passport to leave the country. Fischer is wanted in the United States on charges of violating sanctions on the former Yugoslavia when he played a chess match there in 1992. Fischer won the world chess title in Iceland in 1972.

Actor Tom Sizemore will spend almost two years in jail for repeatedly failing drug tests while on probation. He's been on probation for a domestic violence conviction involving his ex- girlfriend and former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. He will remain free while he appeals that conviction.

"American Idol" judge Paula Abdul will serve two years probation and pay over $1,600 for a hit and run accident in December. Pretty good, though, because she could have faced six months in jail. Authorities say Abdul was changing lanes on an L.A. area freeway when she struck another car.

The driver took a picture of Abdul's car with a camera phone, wrote down the license plate number. Her attorney says the pop singer wasn't aware of the contact between the vehicles.

The camera phone. Never know when it's going to come in handy -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Thanks very much, Erica. Appreciate it.

Coming up, our special coverage of the Terri Schiavo case continues. We're going to look at the loss of a child for a parent, how devastating it is and how dangerous it really can be. New medical evidence on that.

Also in a minute, we're going to explore the grieving process. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: You know we brought you a lot of stories about death tonight: the Terri Schiavo case, the Red Lake school massacre, the Texas City refinery explosion. In these and other instances there are parents who are left behind to grieve. And new medical research shows that that grief can be deadly. Parents who lose a child are at an increased risk of dying themselves or developing mental illness.

We wanted to talk to someone who knows about the parental grieving process all too well. Darryl Scott's daughter, Rachel, was among those killed at Columbine. We talked to him earlier this week, and he joins us again tonight.

Darryl, thanks very much for being with us.

DARRYL SCOTT, DAUGHTER KILLED AT COLUMBINE: Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: There is no grief worse, I think, than a parent's grief for a lost child. My mom lost a child. You lost your daughter. What separates those -- those parents who are able to move on and continue living from those who aren't?

SCOTT: I think there's two issues that I've seen. I travel around the country and speak all the time. I'm out three to five day as week. And we have a program for schools, middle schools, high schools, called Rachel's Challenge based on my daughter's life and some of her writings.

And when I speak a lot of times I meet with parents after a meeting who've lost their children, a lot of them to violence. And I see -- I see two categories of parents, one group that's bitter and angry and consumed with somehow trying to find closure. And I see another set of parents who celebrate their children's life and have moved on and in many cases have seen good things come out of something so horrible, so tragic.

And I think there's two common elements that I find when I talk with parents and it is those who don't forgive and let go and move ahead and those who do.

COOPER: And I hate that word closure. I mean, I think especially for a parent who lost a child, I'm not sure there is any such thing. But it's a tough thing. I mean, celebrating the life of your child and as opposed to getting focused on how -- how your child died.

SCOTT: Well, it is a tough thing. And the normal and natural thing to do is to be angry, to be bitter and to focus on the negative. And I certainly understand that with parents who lose their children.

But in the long run, if we don't -- if we don't learn to let go, if we don't learn to forgive -- forgiveness is an attitude of the heart. I would have -- our family chose to forgive and let go and celebrate Rachel's life, but I would not have pardoned Eric and Dylan. There's a big difference between forgiveness and pardon.

Forgiveness is an attitude of the heart and it's for your own good, as well as the offender's. And pardon has to do with the judicial responsibility type of choice. And I would have gone so far as to kill Eric and Dylan if that's the only solution there was to prevent my daughter and others from being killed. But it has to do with attitudes of the heart.

And what we focus on eventually consumes us. And if we focus on revenge or if we focus on trying to somehow get even or get back, ultimately it destroys us.

COOPER: Well, Darryl, I appreciate you being with us again tonight talking about -- talking about Rachel and the work you're doing and also a lot of help for other parents who are out there in the grieving process, as well. Darryl, thanks very much.

SCOTT: You're welcome.

COOPER: I want to find out what's at the top of the hour in about six minutes with the legendary "LARRY KING LIVE" -- Larry.

LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": Legendary, means you're old.

COOPER: No, it doesn't.

KING: Yes, what else could it mean? There's no 23-year-old legend.

COOPER: You can take me in a second.

KING: Anyway, we have an extraordinary show tonight. In addition to the standard debate between yes and no on the Schiavo matter, we have three people all of whom were victims of so serious an injury they were given up for dead. Two think that Mary Schiavo -- that Terri Schiavo should live and one, a victim who came out of a coma, thinks she should be allowed to die.

All that's ahead with phone calls at the top of the hour.

COOPER: And that's five minutes from now. Larry, thanks very much.

Three-sixty next. It has been a very rough week. Time to take a deep breath. That is ahead on "The Nth Degree." We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Tonight taking a deep breath to "The Nth Degree."

The news has been particularly hard to bear this week. The sadness at Red Lake, the struggle over Terri Schiavo, a very great deal of private pain made so terribly public.

We're not apologizing. A reporter's job is to present reality, however grim it may be. And that is what we have done this week and especially tonight.

On the other hand, the week was full of other realities, as well. And we can't be specific about time and location. We can't give you names or exact numbers, but we know absolutely that these things also happened this week. Often, we're betting in a lot of places.

Children went down playground slides, squealing with delight. Dogs chased pigeons. Old friends sat by side -- side by side for hours saying almost nothing at all. Long lives ended peacefully this week, and proper farewells were said.

Here and there this week passers-by were surprised to see the first sign of a crocus coming up or perhaps a daffodil. People stopped to look at tall buildings rising in cities across the country.

Candy bars were shared, as were laughs and memories. Babies were born. Birds looked for crumbs under outdoor tables. The sun disappeared behind a cloud and then came out again. A toddler in a stroller pointed at a balloon and laughed.

Yes, terrible things happened this week and so did many other things, as well. Ordinary things, unremarkable things and things worth remembering exactly for that reason.

Thanks very much for watching this special two-hour edition of 360. I'm Anderson Cooper. Paula Zahn will be off tomorrow night again. We'll have another special two-hour edition. "LARRY KING LIVE" is next.

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