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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Michael Jackson Trial Update; Deep Throat Discussion; Atlanta Runaway Bride Appears in Public; California Homes Destroyed

Aired June 02, 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, everyone. The runaway bride is back. She's had her day in court, and dramatic new audiotapes are released.
360 starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): The runaway bride faces a judge, but a new tape just released raises new questions about the lies she told her own family. Tonight, the tape and the chances Jennifer Wilbanks will have to pay cash for her alleged crime.

Closing arguments in the Michael Jackson trial. Both sides make their case one last time. Tonight, what the jury heard and how they responded inside the Jackson courtroom.

The Laguna landslide. Millions of dollars in damages, dozens of homes destroyed or in danger. Tonight, how one family is trying to rebuild their lives.

Parents beware. The government says put your baby on his or her back to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but is that advice causing head deformities? Tonight, 360 MD Sanjay Gupta investigates.

And what's up with Tom Cruise? Love is one thing, but outbursts on "Oprah"? Talk of Scientology? Tonight, why some in Hollywood may be worried about their most bankable star.

ANNOUNCER: Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is ANDERSON COOPER 360.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And a good evening to you. Tonight, a newly released tape recording of a desperate call from a lost woman to her fiance, describing a violent abduction -- an abduction we now know never happened. It was all a lie. It's the call made by Georgia runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks to her fiance John Mason, the night she revealed she was in New Mexico. It's a call we've never heard until tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MASON, WILBANKS' FIANCE: Are you sure you're not in Duluth?

JENNIFER WILBANKS, RUNAWAY BRIDE: No, I'm not in Duluth.

MASON: Are you in Georgia?

WILBANKS: I don't know.

MASON: OK. It's OK, sweetie. It's OK. We're just trying to figure out how to come find you.

WILBANKS: They cut my hair.

MASON: They cut your hair?

WILBANKS: Yes.

MASON: And that's all they did to you? Well, that's great.

WILBANKS: It was a man and a woman.

MASON: It was a man and...

WILBANKS: It was a Hispanic man and a Caucasian woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: I mean it's fascinating to listen to that when you realize it was all a lie. We're going to have more of the phone call in just a moment.

But first, the runaway bride's day in court, her first day in court. Jennifer Wilbanks appeared in the Gwinnett County Courthouse today to answer to a felony charge of making false statements to police. Her still-loyal fiance, the man you heard on that tape, was by her side today.

CNN's David Mattingly has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In her first public appearance since returning to her home state of Georgia, it was clear runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks was running no more. Choked with emotion, Wilbanks pleaded no contest to a felony charge of giving false statements to police. In turn, the judge sentenced her to two years probation, 120 hours of community service, and to continue her mental health treatment -- a somewhat quiet end to what became a sensational journey.

April 26, bride-to-be Wilbanks was believed to have disappeared while jogging, igniting a widespread search. With the nation watching, she emerged four days later, her wedding day, as she made this frantic call from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

MASON: Hello. Hello. Baby, where are you?

WILBANKS: I don't know.

MASON: Oh my God. Where?

WILBANKS: I don't know where.

MASON: Are you OK?

WILBANKS: Yes.

MASON: Sweetie, are you -- are you alone?

WILBANKS: Yes.

MASON: Are you hurting?

WILBANKS: Am I what?

MASON: Are you hurting?

WILBANKS: No, I'm OK.

MASON: Are you -- I mean, where do you think you are, sweetheart?

WILBANKS: (INAUDIBLE) just walking around.

MASON: You're just walking around? Baby, you just stay on the phone, OK?

MATTINGLY: Made public by the courts for the first time, we hear a tearful Wilbanks telling her fiance and police that she had been abducted by a Hispanic man and Caucasian woman, who took her in a blue van and cut her hair.

MASON: Settle down, baby. Where have you been?

WILBANKS: I don't know.

MASON: You don't know? OK, we're going to find you, OK? We're going to get you back home tonight.

MATTINGLY: Her story eventually included allegations of sexual assault. But that soon changed, and the case of the missing bride became the case of the runaway bride, who was overcome by stress and escaped on her own by bus.

Instead of a white veil in front of 600 guests, 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen, Wilbanks was walking by news cameras under a blanket.

In addition to her apology, Wilbanks is paying back local authorities for more than $18,000 in overtime and other costs incurred during their search. In spite of her previous history with shoplifting, Wilbanks will not go to jail, a punishment many local residents consider fair.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just even with the public humiliation, that's quite a bit right there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And as long as she stays in therapy, you know, I mean, basically that's -- you can't ask for no more.

MATTINGLY: And the county prosecutor seems to agree. In a brief written statement, DA Danny Porter called the apparent plea bargain "a good resolution." "Other than the overwhelming press scrutiny," he wrote, "this was a routine case handled in a routine manner."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Her attorney says that Wilbanks needs to get back on with her life, and she is, Anderson, still wearing her engagement ring.

COOPER: And her fiance was there by her side today. David, in your piece, you played a bit of the phone call from Jennifer Wilbanks. We also played some of it at the top of the show.

There was a lot more to that tape. Let's listen to some of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MASON: Oh, baby, I love you so much. We're going to get you home. She's on a pay phone, I think. You just stay right there with me. We're going to come find you. Oh, praise God.

Are you in Georgia?

WILBANKS: I don't now.

MASON: OK. It's OK, sweetie, it's OK. We're just trying to figure out how to come find you.

WILBANKS: They cut my hair.

MASON: They cut your hair?

WILBANKS: Uh-huh.

MASON: And that's all they did to you? Well, that's great.

WILBANKS: It was a man and a woman.

MASON: It was a man and...

WILBANKS: It was a Hispanic man and a Caucasian woman.

MASON: OK.

WILBANKS: (INAUDIBLE).

MASON: She's at a gas station. She doesn't know where.

RANDY BELCHER, DULUTH POLICE CHIEF: Can you tell me now how you got where you're at?

WILBANKS: I went running. And I think it was Tuesday night. And I was running up on the road. And that's when they got me.

BELCHER: OK. How did they get you?

WILBANKS: They -- this guy just grabbed me from behind, and I had on my headphones so I didn't even hear anything until they grabbed me.

BELCHER: OK. What do you see around you?

WILBANKS: I can't see probably because I don't have my contacts in.

BELCHER: How did you get away?

WILBANKS: They just let me go. They would say in the hotel that they wanted money and I said that we didn't have any.

BELCHER: You're in New Mexico, OK? Calm down, you're safe now. We just got to tell you. Do you happen to see a phone book in there at all?

WILBANKS: Yes, there's a phone book.

BELCHER: OK, what does the phone book say on the front of it?

WILBANKS: Albuquerque.

BELCHER: OK.

WILBANKS: Is that all you need?

BELCHER: She's in Albuquerque.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, of course we now know all that story she told was a lie, David.

Is this it? I mean, is it over? Is it done? Is this the last we're going to hear about this? Or is there another legal court appearance ahead? And what about the money?

MATTINGLY: If she sticks to the terms of her probation, this is very likely the last we will ever hear from her about this case. She is paying off all of the outstanding debt she had to the different law enforcement agencies to prevent any sort of lawsuits in the future. Everyone seems to be walking out of court today with a feeling of satisfaction that this was indeed it.

COOPER: Well, let's hope this is the last we'll ever hear of her and of this case. David Mattingly, appreciate it. Thanks very much.

Coming up next on 360, Deep Throat revealed. Woodward and Bernstein have broken their silence about how they first met W. Mark Felt and the secret world they all lived in. It is a fascinating inside look at one of the best-kept secrets of our time. We'll tell you details ahead. And the day after landslides wiped out a whole hillside of million-dollar homes, residents are learning some harsh truths of coastal living. Their insurance, it's not going to cover their losses. We're going to explain why.

And a little bit later, Michael Jackson's attorney making his closing arguments. Did he convince the jury, or is Jackson headed to jail? CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, was in the courtroom, heard the arguments. We'll talk to him.

First, let's take a look at your picks. The most popular stories right now on CNN.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well in a moment, Woodward and Bernstein are talking. We'll tell you some of what they've been saying over the last 24 hours about how they met W. Mark Felt in the first place and why they think he confided so much information in them.

But first, we're following several other stories right now. Erica Hill from HEADLINE NEWS joins us with the latest. Hey, Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS: Hey, Anderson.

Militants. We start off in Iraq where militants strike again in the northern area of the country. In Mosul, a bomb rigged to a motorcycle went off, killing a police officer, wounding 16 other people. Also in the city, the U.S. military says a pregnant woman was injured when she was shot by a terrorist.

In Richmond, Virginia, a manhunt for a suspect wanted in three murders. The killings all took place last night within 15 minutes and a few miles of each other, one on a city street, the others at a dry- cleaning shop and a convenience store. Police have released these photos from a security camera at the convenience store. They say the suspect had a grudge against all the victims for more than a year.

Along Australia's Southwest Coast, beached whales. Up to 160 false killer whales got stuck after two pods came ashore. Hundreds of rescuers tried to push them back into the ocean, but it's not easy. As far as we've heard, though, no whales have died.

And in Washington, D.C., meet the new spelling bee champ, 13- year-old Anurag Kashyap. I couldn't even spell that name. And this kid is spelling lots of other words. He beat out 272 students to take home at least $28,000 in prizes.

And you know, Anderson, since our little test went so well last night?

COOPER: I knew you were going to do this.

HILL: Because you like tests, right? Hopefully we can cue the 360 band to play your test music.

COOPER: All right. Give it to me. Hit me with it.

HILL: The word -- there they are -- the word this evening is appoggiatura. Appoggiatura.

COOPER: Excuse me?

HILL: Would you like a definition?

COOPER: Yes, please.

HILL: Appoggiatura is a noun. An embellishing note or tone preceding an essential melodic note or tone, and usually written as a note of smaller size. There may be one in this little ditty here that we're listening to now.

COOPER: See, you tricked me last night by mispronouncing the word. That's why I got it wrong.

HILL: I didn't mispronounce it.

COOPER: Appoggiatura?

HILL: Appoggiatura.

COOPER: Toro?

HILL: Tura. No, you're right. Ah.

COOPER: You see? You see people what she does, this Erica Hill? I don't know A-P-P-A-G-A-T-U-R-A.

HILL: You were close.

COOPER: A-P-P-A-G-A-T-U-R-A.

HILL: You were very close. But alas, you were wrong.

COOPER: See, they can't even write it out. A-P-P-A-G-A-T-U-R-A.

HILL: No. They're trying to write out what your saying, I think.

COOPER: Oh, anyway. What is it?

HILL: The correct spelling is A-P-P-O-G-G-I-A-T-U-R-A. So, you almost had it.

COOPER: All right. Yeah. Never mind.

HILL: Next year I think you can take those kids.

COOPER: Oh, yeah. I'll beat that little kid next year. Just give me a few more years.

Erica Hill, thanks. We'll see you again in about 30 minutes, maybe.

After 30-plus years, the secret identity of Deep Throat was finally revealed this week.

We know W. Mark Felt was the second in command at the FBI who told Bob Woodward to follow the money. His tips, of course, changed the course of history.

Their relationship really began as a chance encounter at the White House. And eventually lead to a partnership as mysterious as Deep Throat himself.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): A frail and elderly man, once a top FBI official, and a veteran award-winning journalist. Their relationship three decades ago as source and reporter ultimately contributed to the downfall of a presidency.

But as Bob Woodward writes in today's "Washington Post," that relationship didn't blossom overnight. Woodward recounts first meeting Mark Felt in 1970 in a waiting room outside the White House situation room. Woodward, then a Navy courier, and Felt a rising official in the FBI.

Woodward describes Felt in that first meeting as distant and formal, yet friendly and even paternal. The future reporter was looking for career guidance and asked for Felt's phone number.

Over the course of the next year, Woodward says Felt became his mentor. And Woodward, now a cub reporter, began to learn about Felt, that he was an admirer of then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and deeply suspicious of the Nixon White House.

By 1972, Woodward had made it to the "Washington Post," and Felt, now number two at FBI, had already become a source, tipping Woodward on important stories.

But the fateful climax of their relationship began in June, with the Watergate break-in. It was Felt who guided Woodward and fellow reporter Carl Bernstein along the path that led to the White House.

BOB WOODWARD, WASHINGTON POST: I called Felt and said, is there something here? And he said, there's no doubt Howard Hunt is involved. So, with that kind of checking and back stop, you can go with the story, as Bradlee did, above the fold, saying this is the first White House connection.

BLITZER: Woodward says, as he and Bernstein continued to dig, as the scope of the scandal became evident, Felt grew nervous, and set up an elaborate system to keep their contacts covert.

As depicted in the movie "All the President's Men," they would meet only in the middle of the night in a parking garage.

Woodward could call a meeting only if it was urgent by moving a flowerpot on his balcony. Felt would summon Woodward by having his copy of the "New York Times" intercepted and page 20 circled.

Bernstein describes the meetings as furtive and brief.

CARL BERNSTEIN, FRM. WASHINGTON POST REPORTER: We had very little time one -- Bob and Felt, in the garage had very little time together. There were fewer than 10 meetings and conversations in the course of a couple of years. And the object was to get as much information, as much contacts, as much certainty to things we had obtained elsewhere.

BLITZER: Woodward says he was apologetic for pushing the source. But he says Felt encouraged him to persevere, which both reporters did all the way to the historic day in 1974, when President Richard Nixon resigned. To this day, Woodward and Bernstein remain somewhat puzzled by Felt.

BERNSTEIN: We had no idea of his motivations. And even now some of his motivations are unclear.

BLITZER: Yet, they defend his role in uncovering one of the greatest scandals ever to rock the White House.

WOODWARD: This is the old crowd, kind of relaunching the wars of Watergate and saying, oh let's make the conduct of the sources that we used.

BERNSTEIN: Or the press.

WOODWARD: ...the issue rather than their own. And the record about Watergate crimes is staggering, voluminous, and irrefutable.

BLITZER: Wolf Blitzer, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It is such a fascinating story. Tonight on LARRY KING LIVE, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are going to talk about the identity of Deep Throat, a secret they kept, of course, for decades. That's a 9:00 pm Eastern.

And at 10:00 Eastern, a special hour of Larry with his special guest Dan Rather.

Coming up on 360, parents beware. For years moms and dads have been told to put their babies on their backs in their cribs to avoid Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Now we're learning of some frightening side effects of doing just that. 360 MD Dr. Sanjay Gupta investigates and tells you what you need to know.

And the prosecution and the defense in the Michael Jackson trial both making closing arguments today. Senior Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was in the courtroom, joins us live.

Also tonight, large, beautiful homes come crashing down in a massive Laguna landslide. A fortune lost. But will insurance pick up the tab? It does not seem like it at this point. We'll tell you why. Covering all the angles. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, of course, one of the greatest fears many parents have is that their baby, their child, will die suddenly and inexplicably.

According to the CDC, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also known as crib death, is still the third leading cause of infant mortality in the U.S., even though its rates have dropped dramatically since the early 1990s, when the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that babies be placed on their backs when they go to sleep. The recommendation helped save lives, but it's also heightened another serious problem.

360 MD Sanjay Gupta explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANJAY GUPTA, 360 MD: Before little Paul Toner was old enough to wear his bicycle helmet, he donned a helmet of a different sort.

ANGELA TONER, PAUL'S MOTHER: I said, did his head look like that before, or is it different? And then the next day I called the pediatrician. And he said, he needs to have a helmet, I think.

GUPTA: First they noticed a small bump on Paul's forehead when he was three months old, first on the front, then on the back.

TONER: The back of his head was, like, sheered. It was flat. His head was resting on the pelvic bone, and it was from birth, and it just exaggerated as he slept on his back, and he would always go to the flat spot because it was comfortable.

GUPTA: It's called deformational plagiocephaly, a fancy term for a misshapen head, usually caused by infants' heads resting on the same spot. All the Toners were doing was following their pediatrician's instructions, to lie Paul on his back when he slept. It's a very common practice that the American Academy of Pediatrics started recommending in 1992 to decrease the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or S.I.D.S.

DR. HENRY SPINELLI, CRANIOFACIAL SURGEON: Babies have enormous heads per unit volume and size compared to us. They're not able to get their head turned, or lifted out of the pillow or out of the mattress, so they're probably suffocating in S.I.D.S., and that's the theory behind it.

GUPTA: And the Academy's recommendations have worked. National S.I.D.S. rates have gone down by more than 40 percent, but positional head deformities went up from one in 400 to one in 60.

All right, so just give me a sense of where the problem was here with Paul.

SPINELLI: Here you can see this flattening from about the midline, all the way out along this side, and the skull is flat, or pushed in. But you can see the other side bulges, sort of a compensation here, and so as this flattens, this bulges because the brain really needs some room to have space.

GUPTA: A lot of kids have obviously big heads, and then some kids have funny-shaped heads.

How do you know when you need to do something about it?

SPINELLI: Kids are generally born with some funny-shaped heads. And I think that, by and large, the head should be getting better, and parents should appreciate -- the pediatrician should, the physician should appreciate this head getting better in shape. If it's getting worse, there's generally a problem.

GUPTA: For babies whose heads are misshapen from their sleeping position, the treatment is purely cosmetic. The greatest risk, if not corrected by 24 to 28 months when the skull permanently fuses, the child's head may look somewhat asymmetrical. After that point, changing the shape of the head generally requires an operation.

If noticed early on, parents can often correct the problem by alternating the position of the child's head during sleep, which in most cases helps the head eventually round out to a more normal appearance, but the Toners were not willing to take the risk.

TONER: I think he would have been looked at differently and teased and that kind of thing. If your dentist told you, you needed braces, you would. You wouldn't -- if you could afford it, you would. And that was it.

GUPTA: The Toners could afford it, but not everyone can. Paul had two different helmets over the course of his treatment to accommodate his growing head, each costing about $800. And they had to go back every three weeks to have the helmet adjusted. As it stands now, some but not all insurance companies cover the costs.

Now, at four-and-a-half, Paul has no signs of his formerly flattened head and no recollection of his helmet-wearing days.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (on camera): I'll tell you as well, Paul wore that helmet 23 hours a day for nine months straight as well. That's a lot. Most people recommend it for at least 18 hours a day for about six months to a year.

Here's the thing, though, Anderson. We talked to the family. We talked to the doctors as well. They say usually the helmet's a lot harder on the parents than the child. The child often gets used to it.

COOPER: Twenty-three hours a day. I mean, that seems like an awful lot, for nine months.

Is there anything parents can do from the beginning, really, to avoid or prevent, I guess, flattening before it actually happens? GUPTA: Yes. You know, as the doctor mentioned, there's a lot of children who are sort of born with, as he called it, funny-shaped heads, even out of the womb. What happens -- this happened recently -- is there's been a "Back to Sleep" campaign for S.I.D.S., so getting kids to sleep on their back has been the mantra for a long time, but what they recommend is, you can still sort of switch from side to side, even though the child should sleep on their back to avoid S.I.D.S. If you can put them back and forth, from side to side a little bit, that may help with the flattening, at least on the back of the head.

COOPER: But this is purely cosmetic. I mean, are there any times a baby's misshapen head is a sign of something more serious? I mean, I'm -- I have a bizarrely shapen head, but I have a weird, like, bulge in the back of my head.

GUPTA: I don't know what that's from, Anderson. But you know, there's actually one condition called craniosynostosis.

The name's not important, but basically what it means is there's sutures that go from the front to the back of the head and from the side to the side of the head. Sometimes -- those expand as your head gets bigger, as you grow. And sometimes your head actually reaches its full adult size at about 36 months of age, which is why kids have such big heads and small bodies. Your body sort of grows into it. But if those sutures are fused too early, your head will start to grow in funny directions and then that suture sort of needs to be opened up, and that's a little bit more serious, but still can be taken care of pretty easily, Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Well, my head is shaped like E.T. I don't like that. I don't do profile, otherwise I'd show it to you. Sanjay, thanks very much.

Coming up next on 360, the prosecution and defense make their closing arguments in the Michael Jackson trial. Speaking of E.T., we'll talk with CNN's senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who was in the courtroom.

And the day after the massive landslide in California, reality sets in. Will insurance cover the damage?

I think he liked the movie, that's what I meant.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, it sounds hard to believe, but Michael Jackson's fate is about to be put into the hands of the jury that has spent months now listening to more than 140 witnesses and, finally today, closing arguments from both sides.

Rusty Dornin reports on the parting shots of the prosecution and defense, and what happens next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Flanked by family, Michael Jackson blew a kiss to his small but determined crowd of fans, a crowd that has grown as his final days in court draw near.

Inside the courtroom, prosecutor Ron Zonen wrapped up the state's case as painting Jackson as a sexual predator, a man he claimed has serious alcohol problems who lured young boys into his bedroom. Zonen called it a fortress - quote -- "a room of the forbidden." He told the jury Jackson plied young boys with pornography and alcohol.

At one point Zonen showed a photo from what he called Jackson's pornographic collection, and asked jurors, "Are you comfortable with a middle-aged man who possesses this book getting into bed with a 13- year-old boy?"

Again and again, prosecutors have urged the jury to believe Jackson only groomed young boys from vulnerable families, poor ones where father figures were nonexistent. At one point he showed a photo of Jackson surrounded photos of four young men prosecutors say were molested by the superstar, a powerful image, say some legal analysts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's giving these jurors a sharp contrast in their mind. He says one, two things is true -- either all four of these young men are liars and perjurers, including this young man now a pastor in a church, they all lied, they all perjured themselves in front of you, or Michael Jackson is a child molester.

DORNIN: Less than three hours later, Zonen finished, trying to convince the jury to believe the jury and hold Michael Jackson responsible.

For the defense, it's always been a question of credibility. Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau launched an all-out attack on the accuser's family, especially the mother. He called her a pathological liar who used her children to extort money, but the mother wasn't Mesereau's only target.

JIM MORET, LEGAL ANALYST: This is about the accuser. There's only one accuser, only one alleged victim in this case. And if you don't believe that accuser and don't believe his brother, Michael Jackson has to be acquitted.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN (on camera): But both sides really laid out their arguments very passionately and very concisely.

Now, the defense has less than two hours to wrap up its argument by tomorrow morning, then it's the prosecution's turn for a rebuttal and the last word. Most people here believe that it will go to the jury sometime on Friday afternoon, and then the waiting for Michael Jackson begins.

Anderson?

COOPER: It certainly does. Rusty Dornin, thanks.

CNN's senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was in the courtroom today. Jeffrey, good to see you again.

The prosecution painted a frightening portrayal of Jackson as a predator, took advantage of a 13-year-old cancer survivor. They say he groomed his victims -- and I quote -- "with methods to seduce boys into his confidence, his bedroom and into his bed."

How did they do?

TOOBIN: Well you know, I was here for opening statements, too, where the district attorney, Thomas Sneddon did a lousy job, I thought. But his assistant, Ron Zonen really did a superb job today. It was an excellent, low-key, but very forceful summation. And its best part was the way he tied these prior accusations to the current accusation, and showed, at least the way he told the story, that this was a pattern, it was -- all of these stories fit together very well. It was powerful stuff.

COOPER: And you either believe that all of these kids or people who have been kids at one point were lying or Jackson is not telling the truth.

On the other hand, Jackson's attorney, Thomas Mesereau says the boy's mother is just looking to win money, in the past got her children to solicit money from celebrities.

How effective was he?

TOOBIN: And Mersereau was terrific as well. This really was a very good day for the lawyers in court. And what I thought Mesereau was so powerful on was using the prior lawsuit that this family filed against J.C. Penney, a case the jury surely knows is fraudulent, and showed how parallel the accusations are in this case and not just that the mother's testimony was false in the J.C. Penney case, but also that the boy lied, and that the boy lied in another separate criminal investigation, several years earlier, showing that this is a family with a pattern of lying, and I think that is something the jury's going to have a lot of trouble with.

COOPER: Very briefly, we've seen Michael Jackson coming into the courtroom. Just today, he does not look good. He looks emaciated. He's walking sort of stunned.

TOOBIN: I haven't seen him in a few weeks. He looks awful. He's sort of hunched over, he's emaciated, his skin is a terrible gray pallor. I don't really know how he would survive a guilty verdict, much less imprisonment.

COOPER: All right. We will see. It probably goes to the jury tomorrow. Jeffrey Toobin, thanks very much.

Still ahead on 360 tonight, Tiger's in trouble, the Tonys and the Tiggers once abundant, on the verge of extinction. What has happened? And is it too late to save them? We're going to take a look in the "The World in 360."

Also, the aftermath of that massive landslide in California, how people are recovering, and why insurance is not going to be picking up the tab.

First, a CNN at 25 quiz.

March 21, 1980, fans of "Dallas" gather around their TVs, tuning in to see the finale. Oil tycoon J.R. Ewing was shot in his penthouse office. Who shot J.R.?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: More than 80 million people tuned into "Dallas" in 1980 to find out who shot J.R. The answer -- Kristin Shepard, J.R. Ewing's jilted mistress, played by Mary Crosby.

Ah, yes, Kristin Shepard.

The muddy water slipped out from under a lot of expensive homes in Laguna Beach, California, yesterday, taking those homes and the dreams they represented for a devastating downhill ride. Here's what the hillside looked like when the homes and dreams were intact. Here's the scene as it looks now.

CNN's Sean Callebs catches us up on the houses and dreamers who lived in them, how they're doing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Controlled chaos in the narrow streets of Bluebird Canyon in Laguna Beach. And for 74- year-old Albert Trevino (ph), concern that the saying could be true -- that you can't go home again.

ALBERT TREVINO, DISPLACED RESIDENT: I have asthma medicine for my wife and diabetes and heart medicine in my home. It's 1015 Madison Place.

CALLEBS: But just as Tevino fears, his neighborhood was hit hardest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay Madison, nobody's allowed on Madison at all, whether it's for medication or not.

CALLEBS: We went to as close as he could get to his home, a neighbor's deck. Trevino's home is the one with the fireplace hanging on the edge of the cliff. It all happened early Wednesday as this landscape developer was answering emails.

TREVINO: And I heard the shake and the house cracking. And I looked around, walked to the corner, looked down, and the earth just opened up in front of me.

CALLEBS: On paper he was a millionaire yesterday before the slide. His home was worth at least $1.8 million. But Trevino (ph) says, like all other home owners here, he cannot get insurance for devastating earth slides caused by nature.

So is it a total loss?

TREVINO: Yeah. It's a total loss. And that's why you place your hopes that maybe five years, ten years from now, there will be some ingenious way to rebuild all of that land that has sloughed off.

CALLEBS: Trevino built the first home in these hills more than 40 years ago, paying $750 down for the land. That's right, $750 for this view. And you guessed it, he wants to rebuild.

TREVINO: We don't have any, you know, any great amounts of money, so I have to -- I can't afford to pay you know, a couple million for a house.

CALLEBS: For the time being, Trevino and his wife Delores (ph) gaze at their home on the front page of the newspaper and try to stay focused, at times doing little things like buying a cell phone charger so they can talk with their 11 children.

This is the family a couple months ago in happier times at their 50th wedding anniversary. Right now it's the personal treasures they dearly want to recover. Photos, birth certificates and momentos from Trevino's service in both the Nixon and George W. Bush administrations, working for HUD.

Even though he risked losing everything, Trevino calls himself a lucky man.

(on camera): How can you be so upbeat?

TREVINO: It's not being upbeat. It's just the realities are -- look at that view, look at this climate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Sean, are any of them going to be able to get any money from insurance? Or is this thing just not covered?

CALLEBS: At this point, all the information we have gathered and talking about it with Trevino, this is somebody who's lived in the area. He's done real estate and landscaping work around this area for a long time. And basically there is no way to get insurance in California for your home for a natural disaster involving a landslide -- whether it be from the heavy precipitation that punished this area during December, January and February.

However, there are some residents up there who are concerned that some recent construction may have triggered this -- the hillside movement, and they are considering trying to pursue action that way. Also, we've heard some reports that you can also get insurance through Lloyds of London, but so far we haven't heard from anybody who had done that.

And you can see behind me, Anderson, this massive line here. They've just opened up the area for some of the 350 homes that have been evacuated. However, for all the ones damaged or destroyed, it will be days or weeks until the people can get up there.

Now, for anybody to get up there to that area, you must have one of these that shows temporary residential entry. It's a long, painful process. Tempers are on edge out here, just like the homes on the hillside.

Anderson?

COOPER: Understandable. Sean Callebs, appreciate it. Thanks. Erica Hill from HEADLINE NEWS joins us with the latest about a quarter to the hour. Erica, you there?

HILL: I am, Anderson.

COOPER: Was that you on the phone? Did you hang up the phone?

HILL: No, no, that wasn't me. I mean, you know, I'm only here for you. I don't have other things to do.

COOPER: I know. You don't have your own program to prepare for.

HILL: No. So I'll get to the news for you, how's that?

Lebanese opposition leaders calling for the resignation of the country's pro-Syrian president, this after a car bombing today in Beirut kills a prominent anti-Syrian journalist. Now the bomb was apparently planted in the journalist's car. The explosion happened just three days before the next round of parliamentary elections. Opposition leaders say it was an attempt to derail their movement to rid the government of Syrian influence.

Shelbyville, Indiana, now, where a gunman holds a hostage for 20 hours. Police ended the standoff by storming the store and pulling the hostage away. The gunman was killed in a shootout.

In Scottsdale, Arizona, Basketball Hall of Famer George Mikan has died at the age of 80. The Minneapolis Lakers center was the original big man, standing tall at 6'10". In fact, he's credited with revolutionizing the game of basketball. He was so dominant, the NBA changed the rules to make it more difficult for him to score. That led to an expanded key size and the 24-second shot clock.

And a Santa Rosa, California, sea lion goes camping. This critter somehow made his way upstream, past some downtown shopping outlets and onto a campground. The rescuers dubbed him "Country Camper" and they brought him to a marine mammal center for testing and rehabilitation. There's your cute animal story, Anderson.

COOPER: I'll see your cute animal story, your animal kicker, and I will raise you an animal kicker. Yesterday we brought out that Twiggy, the water-skiing squirrel?

HILL: Right.

COOPER: Well, these are the greatest moments in Twiggy history. Let's take a look. HILL: Okay.

COOPER: Where is it? There it is.

HILL: There he is.

COOPER: Not only is he waterskiing, this is him water-skiing with Joe Lieberman.

HILL: Stop!

COOPER: Yes.

HILL: Stop!

COOPER: This is from last year in Oklahoma at an event.

HILL: Really?

COOPER: Yes. Twiggy water-skied with Joe Lieberman.

HILL: Talk about hobnobbing.

COOPER: I'm telling you, what's great about Twiggy, too, is when he gets too old to water ski, you could just cook him up.

HILL: You know, that's something my dad would say.

COOPER: What? Anyway ...

HILL: Squirrel stew, it's a specialty.

COOPER: Erica Hill, thanks very much. I appreciate it. I was just kidding.

Coming up next, the puzzling performance of Tom Cruise. What is going on? Can anyone tell me this? We'll try to get the bottom of it "Inside the Box."

Also tonight, saving the big cat. Tigers are supposed to be protected. Why are so many of them being killed? We'll see what's being done to save them.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: In "The World in 360" tonight, we take you to the jungles of India, where some of the biggest cats in the world roam. Tigers, they're certainly beautiful. They can be terrifying as well. And soon sad to say, tigers may be just a memory.

CNN International's Becky Anderson joins us from London to tell us more about the race to save them.

Becky? BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, in the past 70 years, three tiger subspecies have become extinct. Now efforts are under way to protect the endangered animals, one cat at a time, but will it work?

Well, CNN's New Delhi Bureau Chief Satinder Bindra has the report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet Guda (ph), a 12-year-old tigress and her cubs. They live in this jungle in western India with only a handful of other tigers. Just 50 years ago there were so many that they were easy to spot. Not anymore. It took a conservationist weeks and 38 tries to film this family. We had no such luck. After hours of searching, all we found were tiger tracks.

Most tigers in India have fallen prey to the greed of poachers. The Indian government says 114 Royal Bengal tigers have been killed just in the last five years.

The tiger population is falling worldwide. Just 6,000 tigers now live in the wild. More than half are in India. Conservationists like Belinda Wright are fighting to save them from extinction.

BELINDA WRIGHT, CONSERVATIONIST: What we're up against is organized wildlife crime, and we have not been able to get that message across to the government.

BINDRA: For poachers, each dead tiger is worth about $140,000. Tiger skins still fetch $20,000 each. The animals' bones and body parts are in great demand, for making traditional Chinese medicines.

Thirty years ago, New Delhi won international praise for launching a preservation program called "Project Tiger," but those trying to save the tigers say complacency, less and less acres of habitat for the animals, and poaching have resulted in fewer and fewer tigers.

(on camera): Recently the Indian prime minister's office was embarrassed when it was revealed that all tigers living in a prestigious wildlife park were killed though the census bureau still showed several tigers still living there.

(voice-over): After that, the prime minister set up a special task force charged with saving the tiger.

WRIGHT: They're extremely endangered as a species. Their last chance of survival is here in India.

BINDRA: That's why many people are trying to help Guda and her cubs, putting more pressure on the Indian government to save its national animal, one adored around the world.

Satinder Bindra, CNN New Delhi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: And it's not just tigers that poachers are after. Belinda Wright, the conservationist in Satinder's report there, also says that other animals are being killed off including leopards, rhinos, bears and fresh water turtles.

And by the way, Anderson, a tiger in captivity can live up to 20 years. One in the wild can live to about 15.

COOPER: Sad reality. Becky Anderson, thanks very much.

Let's find out what's coming up at the top of the hour now on Paula Zahn. Hi, Paula.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN HOST: Hi, Anderson. Thanks.

At the top of the hour, actor Robert Redford, who brought the story of Watergate to the big screen in the movie "All the President's Men." We get his reaction tonight to the fact that Deep Throat has now revealed his true identity. And he has some very interesting things to say about the paradox he sees in Mark Felt. On one hand he feels sad that he's gone public with it. And also talks, Anderson, about how he tried to portray this man onscreen, even though he had so few details from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein when he worked on the movie. He really has some interesting things to say.

COOPER: I'll look forward to it. Top of the hour, about seven minutes from now.

Thanks, Paula. Coming up next on 360, what is up with Tom Cruise, huh? Turning heads, getting mixed reviews with his latest on-air performance, the one on "Oprah." You know the one I'm talking about. We'll take a look, "Inside the Box."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, we of course are big fans of Tom Cruise, but have you noticed a change in him lately? The mega movie star has been showing a new side of himself recently. And I have to tell you it's kind of freaking some people out. He's been talking about love and religion all over the airwaves all over. The problem is he's supposed to be promoting his movie the movie. "Inside the Box."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): The movie is called "War of the Worlds," in case you were wondering. See, you might have missed that despite the seemingly endless television interviews. All the talk about Tom Cruise and his -- well, some call it his bizarre behavior, started with the visit to Oprah last week. Oprah saw Cruise jump, Cruise pump, Cruise climb on the furniture, and then there was that Katie moment.

TOM CRUISE, ACTOR: I'm in love. I'm in love.

COOPER: Now, they actually did talk a bit about the movie.

CRUISE: Don't we have "War of the Worlds", too?

COOPER: But you never would have known it from the press coverage of Tom's tour. Even the late-night comics talked about Cruise in a light that was, well, less than flattering.

JON STEWART, TV SHOW HOST: Tom Cruise went on TV and declared his love for declaring his love. And I think in many respects scared the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of America.

COOPER: And there's that seemingly endless speculation that this new relationship may be less about romance and more about hype.

R.J. SIGESMUND, US WEEKLY MAGAZINE: Most of it has to do with the fact that these two actors came together at the beginning of the summer in which they both had major blockbusters about to come out. But at the same time, Tom and Katie do maintain they're in love, it's all real, and they are happy, happy, happy together.

COOPER: Of course, like any good hotshot, Tom Cruise didn't just promote his picture, he went on "Access Hollywood," too when he talked about Scientology. He then took his one-time costar Brooke Shields to task for treating her post partum depression with drugs, something Scientology strictly forbids.

CRUISE: Now, she doesn't know what these drugs are.

COOPER: But could this new effusiveness have the film's producers a little concerned?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I just hope that Tom will say more about "War of the Worlds" and you just don't obsess about Tom and Katie, Katie and Tom.

COOPER: When you pull in $20 million plus a picture and your pictures often pull in nine figures, you get a bit more leeway from the studios. Still, they would probably be happier when they stick to the scripts when they're "Inside the Box".

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (on camera): I think the movie looks cool. That's 360 for tonight. Thanks for watching. I am Anderson Cooper. CNN primetime coverage continues right now with Paula Zahn.

ZAHN: Hey, so Anderson, why don't you tell us about the movie?

COOPER: I haven't seen it yet. I am looking forward to it.

ZAHN: Mr. Spielberg will probably be happier with you than Tom Cruise right now.

END

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 June 2, 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, everyone. The runaway bride is back. She's had her day in court, and dramatic new audiotapes are released.
360 starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): The runaway bride faces a judge, but a new tape just released raises new questions about the lies she told her own family. Tonight, the tape and the chances Jennifer Wilbanks will have to pay cash for her alleged crime.

Closing arguments in the Michael Jackson trial. Both sides make their case one last time. Tonight, what the jury heard and how they responded inside the Jackson courtroom.

The Laguna landslide. Millions of dollars in damages, dozens of homes destroyed or in danger. Tonight, how one family is trying to rebuild their lives.

Parents beware. The government says put your baby on his or her back to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but is that advice causing head deformities? Tonight, 360 MD Sanjay Gupta investigates.

And what's up with Tom Cruise? Love is one thing, but outbursts on "Oprah"? Talk of Scientology? Tonight, why some in Hollywood may be worried about their most bankable star.

ANNOUNCER: Live from the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is ANDERSON COOPER 360.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And a good evening to you. Tonight, a newly released tape recording of a desperate call from a lost woman to her fiance, describing a violent abduction -- an abduction we now know never happened. It was all a lie. It's the call made by Georgia runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks to her fiance John Mason, the night she revealed she was in New Mexico. It's a call we've never heard until tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MASON, WILBANKS' FIANCE: Are you sure you're not in Duluth?

JENNIFER WILBANKS, RUNAWAY BRIDE: No, I'm not in Duluth.

MASON: Are you in Georgia?

WILBANKS: I don't know.

MASON: OK. It's OK, sweetie. It's OK. We're just trying to figure out how to come find you.

WILBANKS: They cut my hair.

MASON: They cut your hair?

WILBANKS: Yes.

MASON: And that's all they did to you? Well, that's great.

WILBANKS: It was a man and a woman.

MASON: It was a man and...

WILBANKS: It was a Hispanic man and a Caucasian woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: I mean it's fascinating to listen to that when you realize it was all a lie. We're going to have more of the phone call in just a moment.

But first, the runaway bride's day in court, her first day in court. Jennifer Wilbanks appeared in the Gwinnett County Courthouse today to answer to a felony charge of making false statements to police. Her still-loyal fiance, the man you heard on that tape, was by her side today.

CNN's David Mattingly has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In her first public appearance since returning to her home state of Georgia, it was clear runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks was running no more. Choked with emotion, Wilbanks pleaded no contest to a felony charge of giving false statements to police. In turn, the judge sentenced her to two years probation, 120 hours of community service, and to continue her mental health treatment -- a somewhat quiet end to what became a sensational journey.

April 26, bride-to-be Wilbanks was believed to have disappeared while jogging, igniting a widespread search. With the nation watching, she emerged four days later, her wedding day, as she made this frantic call from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

MASON: Hello. Hello. Baby, where are you?

WILBANKS: I don't know.

MASON: Oh my God. Where?

WILBANKS: I don't know where.

MASON: Are you OK?

WILBANKS: Yes.

MASON: Sweetie, are you -- are you alone?

WILBANKS: Yes.

MASON: Are you hurting?

WILBANKS: Am I what?

MASON: Are you hurting?

WILBANKS: No, I'm OK.

MASON: Are you -- I mean, where do you think you are, sweetheart?

WILBANKS: (INAUDIBLE) just walking around.

MASON: You're just walking around? Baby, you just stay on the phone, OK?

MATTINGLY: Made public by the courts for the first time, we hear a tearful Wilbanks telling her fiance and police that she had been abducted by a Hispanic man and Caucasian woman, who took her in a blue van and cut her hair.

MASON: Settle down, baby. Where have you been?

WILBANKS: I don't know.

MASON: You don't know? OK, we're going to find you, OK? We're going to get you back home tonight.

MATTINGLY: Her story eventually included allegations of sexual assault. But that soon changed, and the case of the missing bride became the case of the runaway bride, who was overcome by stress and escaped on her own by bus.

Instead of a white veil in front of 600 guests, 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen, Wilbanks was walking by news cameras under a blanket.

In addition to her apology, Wilbanks is paying back local authorities for more than $18,000 in overtime and other costs incurred during their search. In spite of her previous history with shoplifting, Wilbanks will not go to jail, a punishment many local residents consider fair.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just even with the public humiliation, that's quite a bit right there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And as long as she stays in therapy, you know, I mean, basically that's -- you can't ask for no more.

MATTINGLY: And the county prosecutor seems to agree. In a brief written statement, DA Danny Porter called the apparent plea bargain "a good resolution." "Other than the overwhelming press scrutiny," he wrote, "this was a routine case handled in a routine manner."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Her attorney says that Wilbanks needs to get back on with her life, and she is, Anderson, still wearing her engagement ring.

COOPER: And her fiance was there by her side today. David, in your piece, you played a bit of the phone call from Jennifer Wilbanks. We also played some of it at the top of the show.

There was a lot more to that tape. Let's listen to some of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MASON: Oh, baby, I love you so much. We're going to get you home. She's on a pay phone, I think. You just stay right there with me. We're going to come find you. Oh, praise God.

Are you in Georgia?

WILBANKS: I don't now.

MASON: OK. It's OK, sweetie, it's OK. We're just trying to figure out how to come find you.

WILBANKS: They cut my hair.

MASON: They cut your hair?

WILBANKS: Uh-huh.

MASON: And that's all they did to you? Well, that's great.

WILBANKS: It was a man and a woman.

MASON: It was a man and...

WILBANKS: It was a Hispanic man and a Caucasian woman.

MASON: OK.

WILBANKS: (INAUDIBLE).

MASON: She's at a gas station. She doesn't know where.

RANDY BELCHER, DULUTH POLICE CHIEF: Can you tell me now how you got where you're at?

WILBANKS: I went running. And I think it was Tuesday night. And I was running up on the road. And that's when they got me.

BELCHER: OK. How did they get you?

WILBANKS: They -- this guy just grabbed me from behind, and I had on my headphones so I didn't even hear anything until they grabbed me.

BELCHER: OK. What do you see around you?

WILBANKS: I can't see probably because I don't have my contacts in.

BELCHER: How did you get away?

WILBANKS: They just let me go. They would say in the hotel that they wanted money and I said that we didn't have any.

BELCHER: You're in New Mexico, OK? Calm down, you're safe now. We just got to tell you. Do you happen to see a phone book in there at all?

WILBANKS: Yes, there's a phone book.

BELCHER: OK, what does the phone book say on the front of it?

WILBANKS: Albuquerque.

BELCHER: OK.

WILBANKS: Is that all you need?

BELCHER: She's in Albuquerque.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, of course we now know all that story she told was a lie, David.

Is this it? I mean, is it over? Is it done? Is this the last we're going to hear about this? Or is there another legal court appearance ahead? And what about the money?

MATTINGLY: If she sticks to the terms of her probation, this is very likely the last we will ever hear from her about this case. She is paying off all of the outstanding debt she had to the different law enforcement agencies to prevent any sort of lawsuits in the future. Everyone seems to be walking out of court today with a feeling of satisfaction that this was indeed it.

COOPER: Well, let's hope this is the last we'll ever hear of her and of this case. David Mattingly, appreciate it. Thanks very much.

Coming up next on 360, Deep Throat revealed. Woodward and Bernstein have broken their silence about how they first met W. Mark Felt and the secret world they all lived in. It is a fascinating inside look at one of the best-kept secrets of our time. We'll tell you details ahead. And the day after landslides wiped out a whole hillside of million-dollar homes, residents are learning some harsh truths of coastal living. Their insurance, it's not going to cover their losses. We're going to explain why.

And a little bit later, Michael Jackson's attorney making his closing arguments. Did he convince the jury, or is Jackson headed to jail? CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, was in the courtroom, heard the arguments. We'll talk to him.

First, let's take a look at your picks. The most popular stories right now on CNN.com.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well in a moment, Woodward and Bernstein are talking. We'll tell you some of what they've been saying over the last 24 hours about how they met W. Mark Felt in the first place and why they think he confided so much information in them.

But first, we're following several other stories right now. Erica Hill from HEADLINE NEWS joins us with the latest. Hey, Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS: Hey, Anderson.

Militants. We start off in Iraq where militants strike again in the northern area of the country. In Mosul, a bomb rigged to a motorcycle went off, killing a police officer, wounding 16 other people. Also in the city, the U.S. military says a pregnant woman was injured when she was shot by a terrorist.

In Richmond, Virginia, a manhunt for a suspect wanted in three murders. The killings all took place last night within 15 minutes and a few miles of each other, one on a city street, the others at a dry- cleaning shop and a convenience store. Police have released these photos from a security camera at the convenience store. They say the suspect had a grudge against all the victims for more than a year.

Along Australia's Southwest Coast, beached whales. Up to 160 false killer whales got stuck after two pods came ashore. Hundreds of rescuers tried to push them back into the ocean, but it's not easy. As far as we've heard, though, no whales have died.

And in Washington, D.C., meet the new spelling bee champ, 13- year-old Anurag Kashyap. I couldn't even spell that name. And this kid is spelling lots of other words. He beat out 272 students to take home at least $28,000 in prizes.

And you know, Anderson, since our little test went so well last night?

COOPER: I knew you were going to do this.

HILL: Because you like tests, right? Hopefully we can cue the 360 band to play your test music.

COOPER: All right. Give it to me. Hit me with it.

HILL: The word -- there they are -- the word this evening is appoggiatura. Appoggiatura.

COOPER: Excuse me?

HILL: Would you like a definition?

COOPER: Yes, please.

HILL: Appoggiatura is a noun. An embellishing note or tone preceding an essential melodic note or tone, and usually written as a note of smaller size. There may be one in this little ditty here that we're listening to now.

COOPER: See, you tricked me last night by mispronouncing the word. That's why I got it wrong.

HILL: I didn't mispronounce it.

COOPER: Appoggiatura?

HILL: Appoggiatura.

COOPER: Toro?

HILL: Tura. No, you're right. Ah.

COOPER: You see? You see people what she does, this Erica Hill? I don't know A-P-P-A-G-A-T-U-R-A.

HILL: You were close.

COOPER: A-P-P-A-G-A-T-U-R-A.

HILL: You were very close. But alas, you were wrong.

COOPER: See, they can't even write it out. A-P-P-A-G-A-T-U-R-A.

HILL: No. They're trying to write out what your saying, I think.

COOPER: Oh, anyway. What is it?

HILL: The correct spelling is A-P-P-O-G-G-I-A-T-U-R-A. So, you almost had it.

COOPER: All right. Yeah. Never mind.

HILL: Next year I think you can take those kids.

COOPER: Oh, yeah. I'll beat that little kid next year. Just give me a few more years.

Erica Hill, thanks. We'll see you again in about 30 minutes, maybe.

After 30-plus years, the secret identity of Deep Throat was finally revealed this week.

We know W. Mark Felt was the second in command at the FBI who told Bob Woodward to follow the money. His tips, of course, changed the course of history.

Their relationship really began as a chance encounter at the White House. And eventually lead to a partnership as mysterious as Deep Throat himself.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER (voice-over): A frail and elderly man, once a top FBI official, and a veteran award-winning journalist. Their relationship three decades ago as source and reporter ultimately contributed to the downfall of a presidency.

But as Bob Woodward writes in today's "Washington Post," that relationship didn't blossom overnight. Woodward recounts first meeting Mark Felt in 1970 in a waiting room outside the White House situation room. Woodward, then a Navy courier, and Felt a rising official in the FBI.

Woodward describes Felt in that first meeting as distant and formal, yet friendly and even paternal. The future reporter was looking for career guidance and asked for Felt's phone number.

Over the course of the next year, Woodward says Felt became his mentor. And Woodward, now a cub reporter, began to learn about Felt, that he was an admirer of then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and deeply suspicious of the Nixon White House.

By 1972, Woodward had made it to the "Washington Post," and Felt, now number two at FBI, had already become a source, tipping Woodward on important stories.

But the fateful climax of their relationship began in June, with the Watergate break-in. It was Felt who guided Woodward and fellow reporter Carl Bernstein along the path that led to the White House.

BOB WOODWARD, WASHINGTON POST: I called Felt and said, is there something here? And he said, there's no doubt Howard Hunt is involved. So, with that kind of checking and back stop, you can go with the story, as Bradlee did, above the fold, saying this is the first White House connection.

BLITZER: Woodward says, as he and Bernstein continued to dig, as the scope of the scandal became evident, Felt grew nervous, and set up an elaborate system to keep their contacts covert.

As depicted in the movie "All the President's Men," they would meet only in the middle of the night in a parking garage.

Woodward could call a meeting only if it was urgent by moving a flowerpot on his balcony. Felt would summon Woodward by having his copy of the "New York Times" intercepted and page 20 circled.

Bernstein describes the meetings as furtive and brief.

CARL BERNSTEIN, FRM. WASHINGTON POST REPORTER: We had very little time one -- Bob and Felt, in the garage had very little time together. There were fewer than 10 meetings and conversations in the course of a couple of years. And the object was to get as much information, as much contacts, as much certainty to things we had obtained elsewhere.

BLITZER: Woodward says he was apologetic for pushing the source. But he says Felt encouraged him to persevere, which both reporters did all the way to the historic day in 1974, when President Richard Nixon resigned. To this day, Woodward and Bernstein remain somewhat puzzled by Felt.

BERNSTEIN: We had no idea of his motivations. And even now some of his motivations are unclear.

BLITZER: Yet, they defend his role in uncovering one of the greatest scandals ever to rock the White House.

WOODWARD: This is the old crowd, kind of relaunching the wars of Watergate and saying, oh let's make the conduct of the sources that we used.

BERNSTEIN: Or the press.

WOODWARD: ...the issue rather than their own. And the record about Watergate crimes is staggering, voluminous, and irrefutable.

BLITZER: Wolf Blitzer, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It is such a fascinating story. Tonight on LARRY KING LIVE, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are going to talk about the identity of Deep Throat, a secret they kept, of course, for decades. That's a 9:00 pm Eastern.

And at 10:00 Eastern, a special hour of Larry with his special guest Dan Rather.

Coming up on 360, parents beware. For years moms and dads have been told to put their babies on their backs in their cribs to avoid Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Now we're learning of some frightening side effects of doing just that. 360 MD Dr. Sanjay Gupta investigates and tells you what you need to know.

And the prosecution and the defense in the Michael Jackson trial both making closing arguments today. Senior Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was in the courtroom, joins us live.

Also tonight, large, beautiful homes come crashing down in a massive Laguna landslide. A fortune lost. But will insurance pick up the tab? It does not seem like it at this point. We'll tell you why. Covering all the angles. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, of course, one of the greatest fears many parents have is that their baby, their child, will die suddenly and inexplicably.

According to the CDC, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also known as crib death, is still the third leading cause of infant mortality in the U.S., even though its rates have dropped dramatically since the early 1990s, when the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that babies be placed on their backs when they go to sleep. The recommendation helped save lives, but it's also heightened another serious problem.

360 MD Sanjay Gupta explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANJAY GUPTA, 360 MD: Before little Paul Toner was old enough to wear his bicycle helmet, he donned a helmet of a different sort.

ANGELA TONER, PAUL'S MOTHER: I said, did his head look like that before, or is it different? And then the next day I called the pediatrician. And he said, he needs to have a helmet, I think.

GUPTA: First they noticed a small bump on Paul's forehead when he was three months old, first on the front, then on the back.

TONER: The back of his head was, like, sheered. It was flat. His head was resting on the pelvic bone, and it was from birth, and it just exaggerated as he slept on his back, and he would always go to the flat spot because it was comfortable.

GUPTA: It's called deformational plagiocephaly, a fancy term for a misshapen head, usually caused by infants' heads resting on the same spot. All the Toners were doing was following their pediatrician's instructions, to lie Paul on his back when he slept. It's a very common practice that the American Academy of Pediatrics started recommending in 1992 to decrease the incidence of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or S.I.D.S.

DR. HENRY SPINELLI, CRANIOFACIAL SURGEON: Babies have enormous heads per unit volume and size compared to us. They're not able to get their head turned, or lifted out of the pillow or out of the mattress, so they're probably suffocating in S.I.D.S., and that's the theory behind it.

GUPTA: And the Academy's recommendations have worked. National S.I.D.S. rates have gone down by more than 40 percent, but positional head deformities went up from one in 400 to one in 60.

All right, so just give me a sense of where the problem was here with Paul.

SPINELLI: Here you can see this flattening from about the midline, all the way out along this side, and the skull is flat, or pushed in. But you can see the other side bulges, sort of a compensation here, and so as this flattens, this bulges because the brain really needs some room to have space.

GUPTA: A lot of kids have obviously big heads, and then some kids have funny-shaped heads.

How do you know when you need to do something about it?

SPINELLI: Kids are generally born with some funny-shaped heads. And I think that, by and large, the head should be getting better, and parents should appreciate -- the pediatrician should, the physician should appreciate this head getting better in shape. If it's getting worse, there's generally a problem.

GUPTA: For babies whose heads are misshapen from their sleeping position, the treatment is purely cosmetic. The greatest risk, if not corrected by 24 to 28 months when the skull permanently fuses, the child's head may look somewhat asymmetrical. After that point, changing the shape of the head generally requires an operation.

If noticed early on, parents can often correct the problem by alternating the position of the child's head during sleep, which in most cases helps the head eventually round out to a more normal appearance, but the Toners were not willing to take the risk.

TONER: I think he would have been looked at differently and teased and that kind of thing. If your dentist told you, you needed braces, you would. You wouldn't -- if you could afford it, you would. And that was it.

GUPTA: The Toners could afford it, but not everyone can. Paul had two different helmets over the course of his treatment to accommodate his growing head, each costing about $800. And they had to go back every three weeks to have the helmet adjusted. As it stands now, some but not all insurance companies cover the costs.

Now, at four-and-a-half, Paul has no signs of his formerly flattened head and no recollection of his helmet-wearing days.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (on camera): I'll tell you as well, Paul wore that helmet 23 hours a day for nine months straight as well. That's a lot. Most people recommend it for at least 18 hours a day for about six months to a year.

Here's the thing, though, Anderson. We talked to the family. We talked to the doctors as well. They say usually the helmet's a lot harder on the parents than the child. The child often gets used to it.

COOPER: Twenty-three hours a day. I mean, that seems like an awful lot, for nine months.

Is there anything parents can do from the beginning, really, to avoid or prevent, I guess, flattening before it actually happens? GUPTA: Yes. You know, as the doctor mentioned, there's a lot of children who are sort of born with, as he called it, funny-shaped heads, even out of the womb. What happens -- this happened recently -- is there's been a "Back to Sleep" campaign for S.I.D.S., so getting kids to sleep on their back has been the mantra for a long time, but what they recommend is, you can still sort of switch from side to side, even though the child should sleep on their back to avoid S.I.D.S. If you can put them back and forth, from side to side a little bit, that may help with the flattening, at least on the back of the head.

COOPER: But this is purely cosmetic. I mean, are there any times a baby's misshapen head is a sign of something more serious? I mean, I'm -- I have a bizarrely shapen head, but I have a weird, like, bulge in the back of my head.

GUPTA: I don't know what that's from, Anderson. But you know, there's actually one condition called craniosynostosis.

The name's not important, but basically what it means is there's sutures that go from the front to the back of the head and from the side to the side of the head. Sometimes -- those expand as your head gets bigger, as you grow. And sometimes your head actually reaches its full adult size at about 36 months of age, which is why kids have such big heads and small bodies. Your body sort of grows into it. But if those sutures are fused too early, your head will start to grow in funny directions and then that suture sort of needs to be opened up, and that's a little bit more serious, but still can be taken care of pretty easily, Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Well, my head is shaped like E.T. I don't like that. I don't do profile, otherwise I'd show it to you. Sanjay, thanks very much.

Coming up next on 360, the prosecution and defense make their closing arguments in the Michael Jackson trial. Speaking of E.T., we'll talk with CNN's senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who was in the courtroom.

And the day after the massive landslide in California, reality sets in. Will insurance cover the damage?

I think he liked the movie, that's what I meant.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, it sounds hard to believe, but Michael Jackson's fate is about to be put into the hands of the jury that has spent months now listening to more than 140 witnesses and, finally today, closing arguments from both sides.

Rusty Dornin reports on the parting shots of the prosecution and defense, and what happens next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Flanked by family, Michael Jackson blew a kiss to his small but determined crowd of fans, a crowd that has grown as his final days in court draw near.

Inside the courtroom, prosecutor Ron Zonen wrapped up the state's case as painting Jackson as a sexual predator, a man he claimed has serious alcohol problems who lured young boys into his bedroom. Zonen called it a fortress - quote -- "a room of the forbidden." He told the jury Jackson plied young boys with pornography and alcohol.

At one point Zonen showed a photo from what he called Jackson's pornographic collection, and asked jurors, "Are you comfortable with a middle-aged man who possesses this book getting into bed with a 13- year-old boy?"

Again and again, prosecutors have urged the jury to believe Jackson only groomed young boys from vulnerable families, poor ones where father figures were nonexistent. At one point he showed a photo of Jackson surrounded photos of four young men prosecutors say were molested by the superstar, a powerful image, say some legal analysts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's giving these jurors a sharp contrast in their mind. He says one, two things is true -- either all four of these young men are liars and perjurers, including this young man now a pastor in a church, they all lied, they all perjured themselves in front of you, or Michael Jackson is a child molester.

DORNIN: Less than three hours later, Zonen finished, trying to convince the jury to believe the jury and hold Michael Jackson responsible.

For the defense, it's always been a question of credibility. Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau launched an all-out attack on the accuser's family, especially the mother. He called her a pathological liar who used her children to extort money, but the mother wasn't Mesereau's only target.

JIM MORET, LEGAL ANALYST: This is about the accuser. There's only one accuser, only one alleged victim in this case. And if you don't believe that accuser and don't believe his brother, Michael Jackson has to be acquitted.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DORNIN (on camera): But both sides really laid out their arguments very passionately and very concisely.

Now, the defense has less than two hours to wrap up its argument by tomorrow morning, then it's the prosecution's turn for a rebuttal and the last word. Most people here believe that it will go to the jury sometime on Friday afternoon, and then the waiting for Michael Jackson begins.

Anderson?

COOPER: It certainly does. Rusty Dornin, thanks.

CNN's senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was in the courtroom today. Jeffrey, good to see you again.

The prosecution painted a frightening portrayal of Jackson as a predator, took advantage of a 13-year-old cancer survivor. They say he groomed his victims -- and I quote -- "with methods to seduce boys into his confidence, his bedroom and into his bed."

How did they do?

TOOBIN: Well you know, I was here for opening statements, too, where the district attorney, Thomas Sneddon did a lousy job, I thought. But his assistant, Ron Zonen really did a superb job today. It was an excellent, low-key, but very forceful summation. And its best part was the way he tied these prior accusations to the current accusation, and showed, at least the way he told the story, that this was a pattern, it was -- all of these stories fit together very well. It was powerful stuff.

COOPER: And you either believe that all of these kids or people who have been kids at one point were lying or Jackson is not telling the truth.

On the other hand, Jackson's attorney, Thomas Mesereau says the boy's mother is just looking to win money, in the past got her children to solicit money from celebrities.

How effective was he?

TOOBIN: And Mersereau was terrific as well. This really was a very good day for the lawyers in court. And what I thought Mesereau was so powerful on was using the prior lawsuit that this family filed against J.C. Penney, a case the jury surely knows is fraudulent, and showed how parallel the accusations are in this case and not just that the mother's testimony was false in the J.C. Penney case, but also that the boy lied, and that the boy lied in another separate criminal investigation, several years earlier, showing that this is a family with a pattern of lying, and I think that is something the jury's going to have a lot of trouble with.

COOPER: Very briefly, we've seen Michael Jackson coming into the courtroom. Just today, he does not look good. He looks emaciated. He's walking sort of stunned.

TOOBIN: I haven't seen him in a few weeks. He looks awful. He's sort of hunched over, he's emaciated, his skin is a terrible gray pallor. I don't really know how he would survive a guilty verdict, much less imprisonment.

COOPER: All right. We will see. It probably goes to the jury tomorrow. Jeffrey Toobin, thanks very much.

Still ahead on 360 tonight, Tiger's in trouble, the Tonys and the Tiggers once abundant, on the verge of extinction. What has happened? And is it too late to save them? We're going to take a look in the "The World in 360."

Also, the aftermath of that massive landslide in California, how people are recovering, and why insurance is not going to be picking up the tab.

First, a CNN at 25 quiz.

March 21, 1980, fans of "Dallas" gather around their TVs, tuning in to see the finale. Oil tycoon J.R. Ewing was shot in his penthouse office. Who shot J.R.?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: More than 80 million people tuned into "Dallas" in 1980 to find out who shot J.R. The answer -- Kristin Shepard, J.R. Ewing's jilted mistress, played by Mary Crosby.

Ah, yes, Kristin Shepard.

The muddy water slipped out from under a lot of expensive homes in Laguna Beach, California, yesterday, taking those homes and the dreams they represented for a devastating downhill ride. Here's what the hillside looked like when the homes and dreams were intact. Here's the scene as it looks now.

CNN's Sean Callebs catches us up on the houses and dreamers who lived in them, how they're doing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Controlled chaos in the narrow streets of Bluebird Canyon in Laguna Beach. And for 74- year-old Albert Trevino (ph), concern that the saying could be true -- that you can't go home again.

ALBERT TREVINO, DISPLACED RESIDENT: I have asthma medicine for my wife and diabetes and heart medicine in my home. It's 1015 Madison Place.

CALLEBS: But just as Tevino fears, his neighborhood was hit hardest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay Madison, nobody's allowed on Madison at all, whether it's for medication or not.

CALLEBS: We went to as close as he could get to his home, a neighbor's deck. Trevino's home is the one with the fireplace hanging on the edge of the cliff. It all happened early Wednesday as this landscape developer was answering emails.

TREVINO: And I heard the shake and the house cracking. And I looked around, walked to the corner, looked down, and the earth just opened up in front of me.

CALLEBS: On paper he was a millionaire yesterday before the slide. His home was worth at least $1.8 million. But Trevino (ph) says, like all other home owners here, he cannot get insurance for devastating earth slides caused by nature.

So is it a total loss?

TREVINO: Yeah. It's a total loss. And that's why you place your hopes that maybe five years, ten years from now, there will be some ingenious way to rebuild all of that land that has sloughed off.

CALLEBS: Trevino built the first home in these hills more than 40 years ago, paying $750 down for the land. That's right, $750 for this view. And you guessed it, he wants to rebuild.

TREVINO: We don't have any, you know, any great amounts of money, so I have to -- I can't afford to pay you know, a couple million for a house.

CALLEBS: For the time being, Trevino and his wife Delores (ph) gaze at their home on the front page of the newspaper and try to stay focused, at times doing little things like buying a cell phone charger so they can talk with their 11 children.

This is the family a couple months ago in happier times at their 50th wedding anniversary. Right now it's the personal treasures they dearly want to recover. Photos, birth certificates and momentos from Trevino's service in both the Nixon and George W. Bush administrations, working for HUD.

Even though he risked losing everything, Trevino calls himself a lucky man.

(on camera): How can you be so upbeat?

TREVINO: It's not being upbeat. It's just the realities are -- look at that view, look at this climate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Sean, are any of them going to be able to get any money from insurance? Or is this thing just not covered?

CALLEBS: At this point, all the information we have gathered and talking about it with Trevino, this is somebody who's lived in the area. He's done real estate and landscaping work around this area for a long time. And basically there is no way to get insurance in California for your home for a natural disaster involving a landslide -- whether it be from the heavy precipitation that punished this area during December, January and February.

However, there are some residents up there who are concerned that some recent construction may have triggered this -- the hillside movement, and they are considering trying to pursue action that way. Also, we've heard some reports that you can also get insurance through Lloyds of London, but so far we haven't heard from anybody who had done that.

And you can see behind me, Anderson, this massive line here. They've just opened up the area for some of the 350 homes that have been evacuated. However, for all the ones damaged or destroyed, it will be days or weeks until the people can get up there.

Now, for anybody to get up there to that area, you must have one of these that shows temporary residential entry. It's a long, painful process. Tempers are on edge out here, just like the homes on the hillside.

Anderson?

COOPER: Understandable. Sean Callebs, appreciate it. Thanks. Erica Hill from HEADLINE NEWS joins us with the latest about a quarter to the hour. Erica, you there?

HILL: I am, Anderson.

COOPER: Was that you on the phone? Did you hang up the phone?

HILL: No, no, that wasn't me. I mean, you know, I'm only here for you. I don't have other things to do.

COOPER: I know. You don't have your own program to prepare for.

HILL: No. So I'll get to the news for you, how's that?

Lebanese opposition leaders calling for the resignation of the country's pro-Syrian president, this after a car bombing today in Beirut kills a prominent anti-Syrian journalist. Now the bomb was apparently planted in the journalist's car. The explosion happened just three days before the next round of parliamentary elections. Opposition leaders say it was an attempt to derail their movement to rid the government of Syrian influence.

Shelbyville, Indiana, now, where a gunman holds a hostage for 20 hours. Police ended the standoff by storming the store and pulling the hostage away. The gunman was killed in a shootout.

In Scottsdale, Arizona, Basketball Hall of Famer George Mikan has died at the age of 80. The Minneapolis Lakers center was the original big man, standing tall at 6'10". In fact, he's credited with revolutionizing the game of basketball. He was so dominant, the NBA changed the rules to make it more difficult for him to score. That led to an expanded key size and the 24-second shot clock.

And a Santa Rosa, California, sea lion goes camping. This critter somehow made his way upstream, past some downtown shopping outlets and onto a campground. The rescuers dubbed him "Country Camper" and they brought him to a marine mammal center for testing and rehabilitation. There's your cute animal story, Anderson.

COOPER: I'll see your cute animal story, your animal kicker, and I will raise you an animal kicker. Yesterday we brought out that Twiggy, the water-skiing squirrel?

HILL: Right.

COOPER: Well, these are the greatest moments in Twiggy history. Let's take a look. HILL: Okay.

COOPER: Where is it? There it is.

HILL: There he is.

COOPER: Not only is he waterskiing, this is him water-skiing with Joe Lieberman.

HILL: Stop!

COOPER: Yes.

HILL: Stop!

COOPER: This is from last year in Oklahoma at an event.

HILL: Really?

COOPER: Yes. Twiggy water-skied with Joe Lieberman.

HILL: Talk about hobnobbing.

COOPER: I'm telling you, what's great about Twiggy, too, is when he gets too old to water ski, you could just cook him up.

HILL: You know, that's something my dad would say.

COOPER: What? Anyway ...

HILL: Squirrel stew, it's a specialty.

COOPER: Erica Hill, thanks very much. I appreciate it. I was just kidding.

Coming up next, the puzzling performance of Tom Cruise. What is going on? Can anyone tell me this? We'll try to get the bottom of it "Inside the Box."

Also tonight, saving the big cat. Tigers are supposed to be protected. Why are so many of them being killed? We'll see what's being done to save them.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: In "The World in 360" tonight, we take you to the jungles of India, where some of the biggest cats in the world roam. Tigers, they're certainly beautiful. They can be terrifying as well. And soon sad to say, tigers may be just a memory.

CNN International's Becky Anderson joins us from London to tell us more about the race to save them.

Becky? BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, in the past 70 years, three tiger subspecies have become extinct. Now efforts are under way to protect the endangered animals, one cat at a time, but will it work?

Well, CNN's New Delhi Bureau Chief Satinder Bindra has the report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet Guda (ph), a 12-year-old tigress and her cubs. They live in this jungle in western India with only a handful of other tigers. Just 50 years ago there were so many that they were easy to spot. Not anymore. It took a conservationist weeks and 38 tries to film this family. We had no such luck. After hours of searching, all we found were tiger tracks.

Most tigers in India have fallen prey to the greed of poachers. The Indian government says 114 Royal Bengal tigers have been killed just in the last five years.

The tiger population is falling worldwide. Just 6,000 tigers now live in the wild. More than half are in India. Conservationists like Belinda Wright are fighting to save them from extinction.

BELINDA WRIGHT, CONSERVATIONIST: What we're up against is organized wildlife crime, and we have not been able to get that message across to the government.

BINDRA: For poachers, each dead tiger is worth about $140,000. Tiger skins still fetch $20,000 each. The animals' bones and body parts are in great demand, for making traditional Chinese medicines.

Thirty years ago, New Delhi won international praise for launching a preservation program called "Project Tiger," but those trying to save the tigers say complacency, less and less acres of habitat for the animals, and poaching have resulted in fewer and fewer tigers.

(on camera): Recently the Indian prime minister's office was embarrassed when it was revealed that all tigers living in a prestigious wildlife park were killed though the census bureau still showed several tigers still living there.

(voice-over): After that, the prime minister set up a special task force charged with saving the tiger.

WRIGHT: They're extremely endangered as a species. Their last chance of survival is here in India.

BINDRA: That's why many people are trying to help Guda and her cubs, putting more pressure on the Indian government to save its national animal, one adored around the world.

Satinder Bindra, CNN New Delhi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANDERSON: And it's not just tigers that poachers are after. Belinda Wright, the conservationist in Satinder's report there, also says that other animals are being killed off including leopards, rhinos, bears and fresh water turtles.

And by the way, Anderson, a tiger in captivity can live up to 20 years. One in the wild can live to about 15.

COOPER: Sad reality. Becky Anderson, thanks very much.

Let's find out what's coming up at the top of the hour now on Paula Zahn. Hi, Paula.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN HOST: Hi, Anderson. Thanks.

At the top of the hour, actor Robert Redford, who brought the story of Watergate to the big screen in the movie "All the President's Men." We get his reaction tonight to the fact that Deep Throat has now revealed his true identity. And he has some very interesting things to say about the paradox he sees in Mark Felt. On one hand he feels sad that he's gone public with it. And also talks, Anderson, about how he tried to portray this man onscreen, even though he had so few details from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein when he worked on the movie. He really has some interesting things to say.

COOPER: I'll look forward to it. Top of the hour, about seven minutes from now.

Thanks, Paula. Coming up next on 360, what is up with Tom Cruise, huh? Turning heads, getting mixed reviews with his latest on-air performance, the one on "Oprah." You know the one I'm talking about. We'll take a look, "Inside the Box."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Well, we of course are big fans of Tom Cruise, but have you noticed a change in him lately? The mega movie star has been showing a new side of himself recently. And I have to tell you it's kind of freaking some people out. He's been talking about love and religion all over the airwaves all over. The problem is he's supposed to be promoting his movie the movie. "Inside the Box."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): The movie is called "War of the Worlds," in case you were wondering. See, you might have missed that despite the seemingly endless television interviews. All the talk about Tom Cruise and his -- well, some call it his bizarre behavior, started with the visit to Oprah last week. Oprah saw Cruise jump, Cruise pump, Cruise climb on the furniture, and then there was that Katie moment.

TOM CRUISE, ACTOR: I'm in love. I'm in love.

COOPER: Now, they actually did talk a bit about the movie.

CRUISE: Don't we have "War of the Worlds", too?

COOPER: But you never would have known it from the press coverage of Tom's tour. Even the late-night comics talked about Cruise in a light that was, well, less than flattering.

JON STEWART, TV SHOW HOST: Tom Cruise went on TV and declared his love for declaring his love. And I think in many respects scared the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of America.

COOPER: And there's that seemingly endless speculation that this new relationship may be less about romance and more about hype.

R.J. SIGESMUND, US WEEKLY MAGAZINE: Most of it has to do with the fact that these two actors came together at the beginning of the summer in which they both had major blockbusters about to come out. But at the same time, Tom and Katie do maintain they're in love, it's all real, and they are happy, happy, happy together.

COOPER: Of course, like any good hotshot, Tom Cruise didn't just promote his picture, he went on "Access Hollywood," too when he talked about Scientology. He then took his one-time costar Brooke Shields to task for treating her post partum depression with drugs, something Scientology strictly forbids.

CRUISE: Now, she doesn't know what these drugs are.

COOPER: But could this new effusiveness have the film's producers a little concerned?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I just hope that Tom will say more about "War of the Worlds" and you just don't obsess about Tom and Katie, Katie and Tom.

COOPER: When you pull in $20 million plus a picture and your pictures often pull in nine figures, you get a bit more leeway from the studios. Still, they would probably be happier when they stick to the scripts when they're "Inside the Box".

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (on camera): I think the movie looks cool. That's 360 for tonight. Thanks for watching. I am Anderson Cooper. CNN primetime coverage continues right now with Paula Zahn.

ZAHN: Hey, so Anderson, why don't you tell us about the movie?

COOPER: I haven't seen it yet. I am looking forward to it.

ZAHN: Mr. Spielberg will probably be happier with you than Tom Cruise right now.

END

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