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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Text Message Abduction?; Stalking Teens Online; Teen Blogs: Secret Lives; Dubai Deal Dead; Student Murder Mystery; Neverland Nevermore?
Aired March 09, 2006 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): ... including this one, sent later that day.
STELLA BROWNE, MOTHER: He is making me do disgusting stuff I don't want to do.
CHO: Her mother lost contact with her until Thursday morning when the girl called home from New York City, dazed. A cab driver brought her to police. She told them she had been raped. Even before she was found, authorities had been questioning three young men, including the 20-year-old she met with Monday.
Police say the girl voluntarily went with him, and that all of the young men were cooperative when questioned.
Were the text messages then merely a hoax?
ROBERT TROY, CHIEF, JERSEY STATE POLICE: The credibility to what has occurred here is in doubt, and -- but we'll give her every benefit of the doubt, to make sure that if anything did occur, that she gets the help that she needs.
CHO: Her mother is standing by her.
S. BROWNE: We don't doubt anything, so right now she's fine. That's the most important thing.
CHO: Police say the girl was examined at a New York hospital. The results are not yet available, but could put many of the questions to rest.
For now, authorities are advising parents to learn from what happened.
TROY: Let's make it a wakeup call. You know, let's make it a wakeup call with parents, relative to computers, relative to cell phones, relative to who your teenage kids hang out with, who do they meet? Who are they with at the mall? Know it all. Know it all.
CHO: The girl's father vows life around here will change.
ROBERT BROWNE, FATHER: Her computers days are over. There's no more computer for her because I'm taking it out of her room. A cell phone -- I'm getting a cell phone that has, you know, where you can contact the parents on it. That's the one she's going to get now. I'm going to be extra strict.
CHO: Hard lesson learned in this home.
Alina Cho, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, whatever happened to that 13- year-old girl in New Jersey, this much is true -- her story is a sign of the times. The worldwide web has made the world smaller in countless ways, sometimes dangerously so. The secrecy that makes cyberspace so irresistible to many people, well that can have unexpected consequences.
Just ask these teenagers in California.
CNN's Dan Simon has their story.
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DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They thought it would be a good prank. These California teens went to the trendy website, myspace.com, created a profile of a fake 15-year-old girl, and started e-mailing a buddy, who started to think the girl had a crush on him.
But it was no joke when a 48-year-old man started messaging their fictitious female.
MITCH, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: We just made up this girl named Stacy. At first, it was just a real random name. And then we started getting these messages from this guy.
SIMON: The boys played along for several days, e-mailing back and forth with the man. Then the exchanges turned to sec.
MITCH: He was saying, you know, age doesn't matter to me and stuff.
SIMON: The teens, being teens, invited the man to a park for an encounter. Remember, the man thinks he's meeting a 15-year-old girl.
(On camera): The boys never really expected the man to show up at this park, but sure enough, there he was. They recognized him from his picture online. That's when the teenagers decided to call police.
ARIF, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: I was surprised. My face was like, (facial expression). 'Cause he -- I was -- I wasn't thinking that he was going to actually show up.
WILLIAM MEGENNY, SERGEANT, FONTANA POLICE DEPARTMENT: Thank God, they had the foresight to call the police department and explain what was going on.
SIMON (voice-over): Police arrested Michael Ramos on a felony charge of attempting to commit a lewd act on a child, and two misdemeanors. He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment and is still in custody.
This is just the latest incident involving myspace.com, a free website where teens can do things like blog and post pictures.
In Laguna Beach last month, police arrested 13 men, who they say solicited minors on myspace.
Also, last month in Delaware, a 16-year-old girl was reported missing after apparently communicating with an adult on myspace.
And in September in Port Washington, New York, authorities say a 16-year-old girl was molested after meeting a man on the site.
Myspace told CNN it's taking measures to address sexual predators online. It tells us, it's quote, "working with hundreds of law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to address potential issues quickly and effectively."
As for the boys who conducted that prank...
MEGENNY: It was an accident that turned out favorable to us.
SIMON: But, it may have actually backfired on the teens. One parent said he's restricting his son's activities on the computer.
Dan Simon, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, for those who don't have a teenager in the house, the teens you just met are typical, in that the internet is really part of their daily life, pretty much like breathing. When they're not text messaging or instant messaging their friends, it's a good bet they're blogging. And when they're blogging, there's another reason to be worried.
CNN's David Mattingly has that angle to the story.
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DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She was only 15, but for years, Caeli had been living a double life. To her parents, she was the typical smiling teenager, but in the secretive world of blogging, she was known as a partier.
CAELI HIGGINS, TEEN BLOGGER: Everyone who has a blog does sort of live a separate life because by making a blog, you create this whole image of yourself and most of the time, it's not actually, you know, what you come off as or who you seem to be, but online, you can be anybody.
MATTINGLY: Online, Caeli was blogging about real-life experiences of smoking pot, getting drunk, and passing out. She found plenty of others who claimed to be doing the same, validating her own destructive behavior.
C. HIGGINS: It sort of desensitizes you to it, especially when you're reading about a million other people doing it. You don't look at it as something that's so uncommon and bad anymore, because you see everybody else doing it, so...
MATTINGLY: And her parents had no idea. It is a password- protected, no-grownups-allowed party, where 60 percent of online teens say they share personal information they would never share with their parents. With dozens of blogging sites to pick from, a teen could choose to be faceless, anonymous and almost untraceable by the people closest to them.
(On camera): How easy is it to hide from your parents?
C. HIGGINS: Really easy.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): The Pew Research Center estimates 4 million teens have a blog, 8 million teens read them, and 3 million read the blogs of strangers.
Before 18-year-old David Ludwig allegedly murdered the parents of his 14-year-old girlfriend, Kara Borden, police in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, believe the two developed a relationship while blogging on a church network.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because it's unsupervised and because there's no guidance from adults, the kids don't really necessarily make the right decisions when it comes to the people that they're meeting through their blogs.
MATTINGLY: Studies find most teens become interested in blogs as early as the seventh grade. Caeli was 13 when she started. By 15, she was spending up to four hours a day online, blogging, messaging, and withdrawing from her family, all the while reading about the darkest exploits of her circle of friends.
C. HIGGINS: Drugs, and drinking, and parties, and stuff that went on at school, like, you know, people -- girls, like, having sex and all this stuff, just all, like, the really bad details of high school life.
MATTINGLY (on camera): About half of parents in a recent national survey say they electronically monitor their children's access to the Web. But if Caeli's mother hadn't decided to investigate last year by clicking on one of her daughter's open journals when she wasn't looking, then Caeli's substance abuse could have remained a secret.
PAT HIGGINS, DAUGHTER IS A TEEN BLOGGER: The worst thing was when I found in a journal that she wrote online that she and a bunch of kids had gone to -- one of the kids had a boat, his family had a boat out in the bay. And it was February. And apparently, she was so drunk, she passed out and they tucked her in on a bed on the boat and then they all left her. I just couldn't believe, you know, how terrified I was when I read that. And I thought, my God, she could have died.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): And the confrontation that followed was traumatic. Caeli's parents were devastated by the years of deception. Caeli herself felt betrayed by the intrusion into her private world.
C. HIGGINS: She made me go to this therapist in my town. And then she printed out my whole journal and highlighted everything and gave it to my therapist. And that's when I got really mad.
MATTINGLY: The family then agreed to some changes. Now 16, Caeli's in a new school and her online activity is closely monitored at home. Pot and alcohol are in the past, but the blogging, she shows us, is as feverish as ever, giving her parents still plenty of reasons to worry.
David Mattingly, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: As if parents need one more way to worry about their kids.
Coming up, the president dodged a disaster on that deal to turn American ports over to a Middle Eastern company. The deal may be dead, but the question is, is the political and diplomatic damage already done? We'll look at it from all angles.
Also ahead tonight, new developments in the brutal murder of a graduate student here in New York, that's drawing national attention.
And remember the line, don't let the bedbugs bite? It turns out, they're hungry little gremlins. You're going to meet a woman who is -- well, she's trying to bite back.
All ahead on 360.
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COOPER: Well, you can talk all you want about the merits to the deal that would have let a state-owned Dubai Company run some American port operations. President Bush firmly believed it was a good deal on the merits. Politically, though, it was radioactive. And tonight it is dead. Before Congress could block it by what was shaping up to be a veto-proof majority, Dubai Ports World said it would transfer the operations to an American company.
So the question is, what happens now? Here to talk about that, our State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel; Dana Bash, our White House correspondent; and Chief National Correspondent John King.
Good to see you all tonight.
Dana, what or who actually killed this deal?
DANA BASH, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: As you can imagine, Anderson, it depends who you ask. But if you ask the White House, they'll say it was essentially members of their own party who were just absolutely against this. When you ask them, they will say that it was their constituents who were overwhelmingly against this. It's not very often you see poll numbers that are 66 percent, 70 percent to one side on this.
But also, members of Congress simply say that it was the White House as well, because they didn't go through the process that they should have gone through to make sure that the safeguards were there, to make members of Congress feel that this was appropriate to happen.
But I can tell you, Anderson, that even this time last night, they didn't think that this was going to have to happen because they were working very hard to try to find some other way to try to assuage or allay the concerns of those Republicans in Congress, but really, the bottom line is, once they started getting those votes down in Congress, they thought that it was probably going to be too late.
COOPER: Well, John, Dubai Ports World had a whole bunch of, you know, high price consultants. Senator Bob Dole, I think was working for them. Why did they agree to throw in the towel on the U.S. side of the deal?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Why did Dubai...
COOPER: Yes.
KING: ... agree to throw in the towel? Well, you can -- all the great hired help you can have, simply can't turn the boats around. As Dana just noted, there was a great deal of emotion in this debate. And it's more complicated than just the ports controversy. Republicans are very frustrated with this White House. The president's at 38 percent approval rating in our CNN polling. Republicans are nervous about their prospects this year. The Democrats are way ahead when you ask voters right now who they will pick for Congress this time. So, many Republicans have been looking for a fight, if you will, with the Bush White House, and this was the perfect opportunity.
All the money Dubai and anyone else could have spent on lobbyists, was not enough. It was too late to change the dynamic in this debate.
COOPER: Andrea, let's listen to what General John Abizaid said about the controversy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GENERAL JOHN ABIZAID, COMMANDER, U.S. FORCES, MIDDLE EAST: I'm very dismayed by the emotional responses that some people have put on the table here in the United States that really comes down to Arab and Muslim bashing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The overall impact on this controversy on U.S. relations with the United Arab Emirates, who, you know, the Bush administration says is a good friend in the war against terror.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: I think fundamentally, the relationship with the UAE, Anderson, will be fine. I think that when it comes right down to it, the UAE isn't hurting for cash. This is an incredibly wealthy country. And so long as they're able to salvage the money that the North American part of DP World is worth, which I think is somewhere in the neighborhood of $680 million, I think everything will be OK on that front.
But the question is, what impact will this have, not just on the U.S. reputation in the Middle East, but on getting investment in this country. Remember, Capitol Hill -- both on the House and the Senate side, they're talking about enacting legislation that would make it illegal to have foreign investment in critical infrastructure in this country. Well guess what? There aren't a lot of countries -- excuse me, American companies, that are in the business of ports and things of that nature, which is why you have the Singaporians and the UAE in this country doing business here.
COOPER: John, how can this not be a slap in the face or seen as a slap in the face in the United Arab Emirates?
KING: Well, it's certainly a slap in the face. I talked to a diplomat tonight, who said that the government was very hurt there. But I think Andrea is right in saying fundamentally, the relationship is strong. But let's look more broadly across the Arab world. This is a president, an administration, that has to be kind, allow the image across the Arab and Muslim world because of what is perceived in the Arab community to be a bias in favor of Israel, the Iraq war, and other policies.
Here's an editorial in the Arab news, I'll read you a quick line from it. It's an English language newspaper, published in Saudi Arabia. This action, the Arab news says, is quote, "glaringly, provocatively anti-Arab. The treatment of Dubai Ports undermines everything the administration says. There are good American companies, good American people working here in Saudi Arabia and in the region." American politicians have stabbed them in the back. So this will contribute to what is already an American image problem in the region.
COOPER: Tough words there.
John King, Andrea Koppel, Dana Bash, thank you.
Erica Hill, from "HEADLINE NEWS," joins us right now with some of the other stories we're following -- Erica.
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi Anderson.
We start off with a scary prediction about the bird flu. Today, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, saying the deadly virus could reach American soil soon. How soon? Well, he believes it may happen in just a matter of months. Chertoff, however, said the government is equipped to deal with an outbreak, but did not cite specifics on just how. The H5N1 strain of the virus has killed at least 95 people worldwide.
In Iraq, a deadline for moving inmates out of an infamous jail. The U.S. military says it will transfer some 4,500 prisoners from Abu Ghraib to a new detention facility at the Baghdad airport. The Pentagon says the transfer should be completed within three months.
In Arkansas, you are just looking at some of the damage left from a dangerous storm that swept across the southern plains. High winds and heavy rains caused extensive damage in several states. Thousands were left without power. And in Oklahoma, the nasty weather created hail the size of baseballs.
And finally, he wasn't good enough for Donald Trump, but maybe, just maybe, Congress or the voters, actually, will take him. You may remember Raj Bhakta, his bow ties, from "The Apprentice" -- until he was fired, of course. Well, now he's running for office. Bhakta is challenging Democratic Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz for a seat representing suburban Philadelphia. Now, he admits he's no politician, but he says his background in business can help shake things up in Washington. Also, Anderson, he promises that if he's elected, he'll limit himself to just three terms.
COOPER: What is his background in business, I really wonder.
HILLS: Bow ties?
COOPER: I'm not sure either. All right, Erica, thanks very much.
Stronger stuff ahead. A potential setback in the search for a young woman's killer. A horrific sex crime and why the results of a police lineup may spell trouble for the police. We'll have the latest on that.
And some are calling it a wonder drug for adults. It's used to help men and women focus and get their concentration back. But is there a dark side to it as well? That story and more when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: You are looking at a picture of a young woman who should be alive, but is not. Imette St. Guillen, a 24-year-old criminology student. She was murdered in New York. She was strangled and sodomized, her body mutilated. Police have a person of interest in custody, and he is no stranger to crime or to violence. The question is, is he the wrong man?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): Handcuffed and in leg irons, Darryl Littlejohn made his way into a Queens, New York courthouse today. He was there under a judge's order to take part in a lineup for a sexual assault committed in Queens County nearly five months ago.
To the disappointment of detectives on the case, the assault victim did not identify him. His court-appointed attorney says Littlejohn is a victim, himself, of too much media scrutiny.
KEVIN O'DONNELL, ATTORNEY FOR DARRYL LITTLEJOHN: He absolutely maintains his innocence. He feels that he's a scapegoat. His picture's been all over the paper. It's been all over the media, nationally. So he's the easy -- well, he's the easiest target right now.
COOPER: Littlejohn has made headlines, not for the October assault, but because he's been named a person of interest in the brutal murder of Imette St. Guillen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The first forensic and DNA test results they need to pin down the killer of Imette St. Guillen...
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: New lead this morning in the gruesome slaying of a New York City graduate student...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New details about the investigation into the murder of a John Jay grad student...
WILLIAM SHERMAN, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: We have reporters who are talking to cops every day, whether it's homicide cops, you know, major case squad cops, other detectives...
COOPER: The body of the 24-year-old honor student who was studying criminal justice, was found by the side of a desolate Brooklyn street on February 25. She'd been raped and tortured and suffocated and strangled. She was out partying into the wee hours, and police say the last place she stopped was here, The Falls bar in SoHo. The bar, where Darryl Littlejohn worked as a bouncer.
The bar's manager waited a week before telling police he had Littlejohn escort Imette out of The Falls, making him the last known person to see her alive. And that put the New York press all over the story.
SHERMAN: Well, you have a good looking, young single woman, very bright, a grizzly murder, a horrifying rape, where someone stuffed a sock in her mouth and then bound her face with packing tape and tortured her. That is the kind of story that captures the imagination. I mean, it doesn't happen every day. It's particularly brutal. And it's very, very, very shocking.
COOPER: Police have been searching both the bar and Littlejohn's home, collecting evidence, even confiscating this van.
But Pulitzer Prize Winning Daily News Reporter William Sherman says his sources tell him forensic tests have so far shown no matter who the killer is, this won't be an easy case to make.
SHERMAN: The packing tape, reels of packing tape found at his house, tan tape, match the tape that was found wrapped around her mouth and parts of the rest of her body. And a fiber from the carpet in his house was found on that tape. Unfortunately, however, it's a very common carpet. COOPER: The Falls bar hasn't fared well either. The state liquor authority has already charged the bar with serving alcohol to minors, and says it could broaden the investigation to look into why an uncertified security guard with a criminal record was manning the door. And that could end with The Falls losing its license and shutting its doors.
Darryl Littlejohn is still behind bars for violating his parole by working in a bar and missing his curfew.
O'DONNELL: His face is all over the place.
COOPER: Littlejohn's lawyer says there are very good reasons to look somewhere else for the killer.
O'DONNELL: Police are under a tremendous amount of pressure to solve this crime. And because he was there that night and because of his extensive record, which includes no history whatsoever of abuse towards women -- none, whatsoever. Which is unusual for a 42-year-old man to start doing something of this nature.
COOPER: All of this does little to help comfort Imette St. Guillen's mother, who lost her beloved daughter and now can only wait for her killer to be caught.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (on camera): Well, we're going to have some medical stories when 360 continues, including hope for adult sufferers of attention deficit disorder. But there are dangers as well.
And a pill that may make falling asleep a little too easy. Just ask the police who have been pulling over all these nodding drivers.
Also ahead tonight, a story that will make your skin crawl, about a hotel guest, a lawsuit, and a whole lot of bedbug bites.
You're watching 360.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Well, not at all long ago, a lot of lives were ruined by any number of mysterious, untreatable, nameless afflictions. The good news is that modern science has drastically shortened the once very long list of such conditions. Nowadays, sufferers who might have been given up on before are diagnosed, they get a prescription, they take a pill and they're fine. It's magical, really. But then, magic has a dark side as well.
CNN's Tom Foreman explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In her home near Baltimore, Kimberly Majerowicz remembers struggling to get out of bed, running late, postponing work, living in chaos as a spouse, a parent and a person, feeling like a failure.
KIMBERLY MAJEROWICZ, ADHD PATIENT: It's a horrible feeling. I hated myself.
FOREMAN: And she remembers the first time she took the pill that changed everything.
MAJEROWICZ: It was like a light bulb went off. Within 20 minutes of taking my first dosage of medication, it was like wow, is this what it feels like to be normal? It was amazing.
FOREMAN: What were you feeling at that time?
MAJEROWICZ: I was feeling so engaged and like I wanted to do everything.
FOREMAN: Kimberly is among 9 million American adults believed to be living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD That same problem, long associated with children who can't focus, can't sit still, can't succeed.
In the past six years, the number of adults using prescription drugs like Ritalin and Adderall to treat this condition has more than doubled.
And Kimberly's doctor, Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist David Goodman, says that's good.
DAVID GOODMAN, JOHNS HOPKINS PSYCHIATRIST: It is not a character weakness. It is not a personality disorder. This is a neuroscience abnormality in your brain. I believe and know that there are millions of adults with this condition. I, myself, treat hundreds of patients with ADHD, and their improvement with treatment is absolutely remarkable.
MAJEROWICZ: What you got?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just show me, girl.
FOREMAN: But where he sees a solution, others see potential problems. Because while these stimulants certainly seem to help ADHD patients focus, doctors like Alexander Lerman say they'll do the same thing for anyone. And so he's worried about busy college students, overworked professionals, overcommitted families which may be using -- abusing these drugs as performance enhancers.
DR. ALEXANDER LERMAN, PSYCHIATRIST: There is a explosion of narcotics prescriptions in this country. There is also a ongoing explosion of illicit narcotic use in this country, and both are very worrisome.
FOREMAN: What's it like taking these drugs if you don't need them? Like landing in the middle of a New York rush hour -- at least that's what Belinda Luscombe says.
BELINDA LUSCOMBE, SENIOR EDITOR, "TIME MAGAZINE": It was not a dreamy drug, it was like, oh come on, get something done kind of a drug.
FOREMAN: A writer and editor at "TIME Magazine," Belinda is not ADHD, but she is very busy. So she obtained Ritalin through a doctor and took it for five days as an experiment.
LUSCOMBE: It's a results oriented kind of a drug. It's all, you know, one way straight street, you know, to a goal. There's no cul- de-sacs when you're on Ritalin. There's no wandering around. I couldn't even enjoy television because television is such a -- in a way, what makes it enjoyable, it's so pointless. And everything I felt I ought to be doing needed to have a point, an end product.
FOREMAN: She was more focused, but also more irritable, less patient, and plagued by nightmares. Last month, and advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration recommended the strongest possible warning label on drugs like Ritalin and Adderall. Studies have shown that abuse of stimulants can cause emotional instability, obsessive behavior, depression -- they're even implicated in 4 percent of emergency room deaths.
LERMAN: I think there are a lot of stress related issues that disrupt people's concentration, cause them to work too hard, cause them to sleep too little, and then start turning to stimulants for help. And oftentimes receiving a short-term benefit that can be very dangerous.
FOREMAN: Still, Dr. Goodman says it's just as dangerous for people with a lifetime of ADHD to struggle and despair because friends and family say they don't need medication, they just need to change.
GOODMAN: That is an erroneous and egregious argument that was applied to patients with depression when therapists said you'll get better when you want to.
FOREMAN: You don't buy it?
GOODMAN: I don't buy it at all.
FOREMAN: Since going on medication, Kimberly Majerowicz has started a business, improved relations with her family, so don't even ask if she's ever going to give up on her pills.
MAJEROWICZ: If you told me that I could take my medication, but I'd live 10 years less than what I would if I didn't take medication, I'd opt to give up the 10 years, to live every day the way that I live now.
FOREMAN: Now, she says, she is finally productive, happy, and focused on the life she always wanted to live.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Baltimore.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, still on the subject of pills, getting a good night's sleep, indeed getting to sleep at all, is a tall order for a lot of people. Which explains why millions of Americans regularly take sleeping pills. In particular, a new one called Ambien -- not so new. It helps them wake up refreshed, and that's a good thing, of course -- unless they wake up refreshed behind the wheel of their car, out on the road somewhere.
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks into a troubling new trend.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The man in this police video looks drunk, but he may actually be asleep. He says he was sleep driving the night he was arrested, after taking two Ambien tablets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I went to bed. I was reading. The next thing I know, there's a policeman at my car door.
GUPTA: He doesn't want us to use his name or show his face. According to him, he doesn't even remember getting into the car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At some point, I got up. I got dressed. I came downstairs, got my car keys. I drove to a grocery store that is probably three minutes away from home. I went in the store. I bought three packages of cookies. As I was leaving the grocery store, that's where the police report says the policeman first saw me.
GUPTA: His case is on appeal, after being convicted with driving under the influence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the first time I really kind of came to, was when they put me in the first cell and I saw a telephone and I called a friend of mine who's an attorney.
WILLIAM C. HEAD, ATTORNEY: He took it for the first time, and the next thing he knows, he's in handcuffs.
GUPTA: All of this might sound a little bizarre, but Judy Evans knows just what these people are talking about. Six years ago, the 59-year-old grandmother started taking Ambien for insomnia.
JUDIE EVANS, USES PRESCRIPTION AMBIEN: I would go to sleep and I would sleep all night long -- at least I thought I was sleeping all night long.
GUPTA: A few weeks later, her son caught her turning on the oven and the stove and taking food from the refrigerator -- in her sleep.
EVANS: I had the burners on, and that I could have started a fire and put so many people at risk.
GUPTA: Strangest of all?
EVANS: I don't remember a thing about it.
GUPTA: Evans says she stopped taking the Ambien, and the sleepwalking stopped as well. DR. CARLOS SCHENCK, MINNESOTA REGIONAL SLEEP DISORDERS CENTER: These people remember nothing.
GUPTA: Dr. Carlos Schenck says he has documented 32 cases of people with no previous history of sleepwalking who began sleepwalking, including walking, eating, even driving while sleeping under the influence of Ambien.
SCHENCK : Ambien does increase the percent of slow wave sleep, which is the stage of sleep that promotes sleepwalking.
GUPTA: Doctors wrote more than 26 million prescriptions for Ambien last year, making it far and away the most used sleeping pill. In a statement, Ambien's manufacturers, Nothi Aventis (ph), says it could not comment on specific cases, adding this, "It is important to emphasize that although sleepwalking may occur during treatment with AMBIEN, it may not necessarily be caused by it. It is difficult to determine with certainty whether a particular instance of sleepwalking is drug induced, spontaneous in origin, or a result of an underlying disorder."
There is no large study to gauge the risk, but for the vast majority of Ambien users, Dr. Schenck says, don't worry, and to follow the warning labels provided with prescriptions.
SCHENCK: Even a sip of alcohol with Ambien could be dangerous. So, I would strongly discourage any use -- even a sip.
GUPTA: And if you ever do sleepwalk after taking the drug, you should stop taking it.
This man wishes he had.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had no intention of driving. And I would just like people to know that -- in particular, the judge that hears my appeal.
GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: That's a bizarre case.
Well, before you go to bed tonight, we hope this doesn't scare you. Look -- take a look at this. Hundreds of bedbug bites. Wait until you hear how the victim says she got them. And she is suing, seeking $20 million. It may not be a slam dunk case. We'll explain why, ahead.
Plus, another bedroom danger. You won't believe you were -- well, who you're sharing a pillow with when you hit the hay. Yikes, there really is no escape tonight.
And more trouble for battled Pop Star Michael Jackson. The state shuts down his ranch. We'll explain why when 360 continues.
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COOPER: OK, so remember that old saying, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite? Unfortunately, one woman found out the hard way that bedbugs are back and biting. The alleged scene of the attack was a resort, which the woman is now suing, seeking some pretty big bucks -- $20 million. But there is a twist that actually could hurt her case.
CNN's Heidi Collins reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eight hundred acres, a 27-hole golf course, the Nevele resort and hotel is only two hours away from New York City. And it promotes itself as a relaxing getaway.
What happened to guest Leslie Fox is hardly the endorsement the hotel wants.
LESLIE FOX, PLAINTIFF: On the fourth morning that we awoke in our very lovely room, I was very distressed to see red marks all over my body.
COLLINS: A hotel manager came to check and tried to figure out why she was covered in red bumps. And everyone agrees when they checked the bed, nothing. There were no visible bugs.
(On camera): Tell me exactly what happened with Leslie Fox.
JOSEPH O'CONNOR, ATTORNEY, NEVELE RESORT AND HOTEL: I had spoken to the general manager who investigated her room, and he found no evidence of bedbugs immediately after her complaint.
COLLINS (voice-over): But the itching continued. The welts got bigger. So Fox reexamined the bed. And this time, she says she saw something. Dozens of bedbugs. She claims these pictures are what she saw.
FOX: I saw brown spots and black spots. I lifted the queen size mattress myself and there, to my surprise, were bugs crawling in the bed.
COLLINS: Dr. Philip Tierno is a microbiologist at New York University Medical Center, a bedbug expert.
DR. PHILIP TIERNO, MICROBIOLOGIST, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: They generally confine themselves, since they're nocturnal, to areas of sleep, finding it very easy for themselves to access a meal during the night.
COLLINS: A meal. In other words, sleeping people. Grossed out yet? There's more. You can expect more stories to creep out in the future. Recent federal pesticide bans have made bedbugs harder to kill. Fox photographed hundreds of bites on her body.
Today, she says they are mostly healed. But she claims the infestation so traumatized her, she's suing for $20 million.
FOX: You know, it used to be that air travel wasn't fun anymore. For me, staying in a hotel isn't fun anymore either.
COLLINS (on camera): Even after Leslie Fox claimed she suffered more than 500 bedbug bites here at the Nevele resort, she made another reservation. She came two weeks later and stayed for five nights.
(Voice-over): The hotel has the paperwork to prove it. Joe O'Connor, the hotel's attorney, is still waiting to be served with the lawsuit, but says Leslie Fox's return visit to the Nevele only strengthens the hotel's case.
(On camera): Why didn't you just stay home that second time and let your husband fulfill his obligation?
FOX: I wanted to be at his side, for business reasons. He wanted to be at my side, to comfort me.
COLLINS (voice-over): One more fact about bedbugs. Itchy and icky as those bugs look, experts say they're not much worse than a mosquito bite; and long-term, the scars tend to be more about fear of tiny, tiny bugs that go bite in the night.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS (on camera): Yuck, right? All right. So, did you also know that bedbugs can go for an entire year without eating? So, they can just sort of hang out for a long, long time in a tiny crevasse somewhere until their next food source comes along, and come right back out and feed again.
And -- I'm full of them Anderson -- a female bedbug can lay up to, yes, 500 eggs throughout her life. They are terribly persistent and really hard to get rid of.
COOPER: It's amazing that they can last for a year without eating. What can you do to actually get rid of them?
COLLINS: Well, it's kind of tough. I mean, it's very intelligent to hire a professional extermination company. These guys know exactly what chemicals to use and how to get rid of bedbugs in particular, because it's a different sort of process.
Also, if you travel and you're staying in a hotel room, it's a good idea to maybe, if you can, find a hotel room that doesn't have a lot of carpeting, not a lot of upholstery, because these are hiding places for bedbugs.
And then finally, while you're at home, find some sort of -- and you can find these things in your common linen stores -- protective coverings for your pillow, your mattress and your box spring that is impenetrable.
I'm telling you, they're persistent and disgusting.
COOPER: So disgusting.
COLLINS: I know.
COOPER: That is so gross.
Heidi, thank you. I appreciate it. I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight.
Well, we'll see your bedbugs actually, and we'll raise you -- it's not just bedbugs you have to worry about. There's another potential danger in your bed. And I shouldn't say danger, but it's unpleasantness in your bed. Something else could have you tossing and turning at night and could actually make you sick.
CNN's Gary Tuchman investigates that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The young, the old, and all those in between sleep. And while most rest their heads on a comfortable pillow to do so, few realize that while they're dreaming, they're feeding an entire ecosystem.
DR. DAVID DENNING, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER: We lose a lot of skin scales every day and we sweat in our beds, so that combination of product, if you like, drives both the house dust mite and the fungus.
TUCHMAN: Those house mites and fungi are feeding and reproducing from our body's castoffs, creating a legion of fungus and bacteria that could potentially make you sick.
ASHLEY WOODCOCK, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER: We also know that fungi produce toxins occasionally. And we really have no idea of the health effects of the exposure of fungal toxins directly in front of your face. What I'm worried about is fungi in your lungs.
TUCHMAN: After reading Doctors David Denning and Ashley Woodcock's study on pillow problems, we decided to do our own test. We took pillows from an airplane, to posh New York hotels, a retired couple, the CNN producer I worked with on this story, and several pillows from the Klainberg family of New York City.
The Klainbergs were particularly interested in participating because with two small girls at home, colds are fast and furious and the father, Josh, has asthma.
JOSH KLAINBERG, PILLOWS TESTED: When I've, you know, purchased pillows or mattresses or things like that, I've tried to get things that are hypoallergenic or covers for dust mites, and so that's always a concern of mine, making sure that things are not going to be triggering my asthma.
TUCHMAN: So Josh and his wife gave us pillows from their room, his daughter, Shanias (ph), bed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you get me that pillow?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No!
TUCHMAN: And a 20-year-old big pillow they call, Marvin. It was virtually a member of the family. All three pillows, never to be seen again.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Time to say good-bye, Uncle Marvin.
JOSH KLAINBERG: Good-bye, Uncle Marvin.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Say good-bye.
TUCHMAN: And when we asked them what they thought we might find, well, Josh was optimistic.
JOSH KLAINBERG: I'm hope you'll find sweet dreams in there -- not nightmares.
TUCHMAN: We bagged up all the pillows, including Marvin, and shipped them off to the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio where they put our pillows to the test. Three tests, in fact. One used an Anderson air sampler which uses air to suck out the bacteria and fungi from the pillows. The two other tests involve a culture broth and a bulk (ph) culture of both the inside and outside of the pillows. Then we waited two weeks to see what lurked inside them.
ANNETTE FOTHERGILL, FUNGUS TESTING LABORATORY: And the results, I thought, were surprising...
TUCHMAN: Annette Fothergill is the technical director of the fungus testing lab that conducted the tests for us. She found thousands of bacteria and fungi in nearly everything we sent to her. With names like Penicillium, Rhizopus, Aureobasidium pullulans, Cladosporium, Aspergillus niger. All sound pretty scary.
(On camera): Let's say you have severe allergies and your pillow has a lot of these organisms on them. What could happen?
FOTHERGILL: Well, a child or adult that is laying on a pillow with lots of fungal -- with a heavy fungal burden or load, it could be a trigger to set off an asthma attack.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Our worst offender was something of a surprise.
FOTHERGILL: That is the most that we saw from any of the organisms, 34 on a one-centimeter square.
TUCHMAN: It was my producer's pillow.
FOTHERGILL: Because nothing else was that high.
TUCHMAN: So that's not great.
FOTHERGILL: If I tested my pillow and it had 34 Penicillium, I would think, OK, fine, I'll just get a new one.
TUCHMAN: But before you throw out all your pillows, a colleague of Annette's cautions that fungus is normal and not always harmful.
MICHAEL RINALDI, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO: There is nowhere on earth where there's a pillow where there isn't fungus. The nature of these fungi is that they are truly ubiquitous. They are everywhere.
TUCHMAN: Dr. Michael Rinaldi says those who are immunocompromised, asthmatic, or sick are at the most risk. The researchers say it could be a concern for anyone.
WOODCOCK: The issue really is that you spend eight hours of your -- of every 24 -- a third of your life -- with your face in your pillow. We think there might be a specific risk which could be quite large.
TUCHMAN: If all this pillow talk is making you wonder what you can do to have healthier pillows, we can tell you the solutions are rather simple.
FOTHERGILL: It's a good idea to have an additional case between the pillow case and the pillow that can be taken off and laundered regularly and put back on. That's the best way to try and protect the pillow.
TUCHMAN: We took our results to the Klainbergs to see what they thought. The age of the pillow didn't seem to matter in the Klainberg house. We had Shania put her hands over her ears as we told the family her pillow, less than six months old, was teaming with bacteria and allergy producing fungi and the same amounts and types as 20-year- old Marvin.
(On camera): And does that make you never want it use a pillow again?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not that one.
JOSH KLAINBERG: Not that one. And I'm sorry that Marvin had to go the way he did, but I think it was for the best.
TUCHMAN: Are you surprised at the results?
JOSH KLAINBERG: With the older pillow, not terribly surprised. But with the newer ones, I am very surprised.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very much so.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): The Klainbergs vow to put an extra pillow case on their pillows and at least surface clean them more regularly, which is exactly what the experts advised to anyone who wants to get a healthier night's sleep.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Wow. I'm going to have my pillow tested.
So, is this the end of Neverland? That story is coming up. We're learning tonight Michael Jackson's surreal California home may be being closed. We'll tell you what's behind the shutdown, next on 360.
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COOPER: Some bad news tonight for Michael Jackson. If he thought his legal troubles were behind him, well, they're not. In fact, Michael Jackson may want to go home and meet with his attorneys because -- well, he may not have a home here anymore.
Today, authorities in California shut down his lavish and -- well, his lavish estate. We'll just call it that. Does this mean it's nevermore for Neverland? Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER (voice-over): This is the highlight of Michael Jackson's Neverland valley ranch. The 16 amusement park rides, or maybe it's this -- the zoo, housing giraffes and elephants and tigers. Or perhaps the railroad around the property. The singer bought the ranch in 1988 for $17 million. He turned it into a children's paradise and hosted parties for underprivileged kids -- as well as some of his more privileged friends.
It seemed an innocent playground, if not a little odd. OK, very odd. But then the allegations, the legal woes, and Neverland Ranch would forever lose its innocence.
MICHAEL JACKSON, OWNER OF NEVERLAND: I am totally innocent of any wrongdoing. And I know these terrible allegations will all be proven false.
COOPER: In 1993, Jackson faced an investigation into what went on behind the closed doors of the fantasy mansion. He later settled those charges, but it began a decade of questions surrounding his relationships with children.
Then, came the wild carnival that was his trial last year on molestation charges. Jackson, holed up in what prosecutors said was the scene of the crime. He was acquitted on all counts.
After, he hosted a party for his family and supporters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just pulled up here to see, you know, the ranch and everything, and luckily we came at the right time because they were handing out these tickets for tonight.
COOPER: Jackson has left the ranch behind. Now he spends most of his time in Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf. He has barely begun building his new personal paradise in Bahrain. According to gulfnews.com, Jackson's already made a few purchases -- enough land to build a mansion and two villas for his closest friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now that he's made Bahrain his permanent home, you can rest assured that wherever he lives there, he will try and recreate Neverland.
COOPER: But back at Neverland Ranch, it's no longer fans and children waiting at the gates of his former sanctuary, but bill collectors, lawyers, and some irate employees.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, this evening we tried to reach Michael Jackson, and in the course of our calls, learned he's actually in London, putting the finishing touches on a Katrina charity single at Abbey Road Studios.
We're going to have more on 360 in a moment. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Coming up, "LARRY KING" is next. Donald Trump talks about his feud with Martha Stewart.
See you tomorrow.
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