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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Acting IRS Commissioner Resigns; White House Releases Benghazi E-Mails; What Really Happened in Watertown; Boston One Month Later

Aired May 15, 2013 - 20:00   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Erin, thanks.

Good evening, everyone. We are live from Boston tonight. One month after the bombings that changed so many lives here. Tonight we have new details about the manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers. What exactly happened that night in Watertown in the shootout with police. New details. Also the latest in the investigation.

And I'm going to speak with Adrienne Haslett Davis, the dance instructor who lost a leg in the attack and find out how she is doing one month into her recovery. She's remarkably inspiring.

We also have new information about what allegedly went on inside Ariel Castro's house in Cleveland. How the three women were treated, new word from law enforcement source about the horror that they endured.

All that ahead but we begin, of course, tonight with the breaking news on two fronts. The IRS scandal and the response to Benghazi attack that left four Americans dead. Just a short time ago, President Obama spoke out on the IRS scandal over charges that it singled out conservative groups and targeted them for extra scrutiny.

The president announced that the acting commission of the IRS was fired and the president promised that his administration will work with Congress to make sure nothing like this happens again. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've reviewed the Treasury Department watchdog's report, and the misconduct that it uncovered is inexcusable. It's inexcusable and Americans are right to be angry about it and I am angry about it. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS. Given the power that it has and the reach that it has in all of our lives.

And as I said earlier, it should not matter what political stripe you're from. The fact of the matter is, that the IRS has to operate with absolute integrity. The government generally has to conduct itself in a way that is true to the public trust. That's especially true for the IRS.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Also today, the White House released more than 100 pages of e-mail correspondence, showing how officials came up with a response to the Benghazi attack. The administration's response. The e-mails are between the White House, the FBI, the CIA and the State Department and other agencies showing how the so-called talking points changed over time as officials worked on what to tell Congress and the American people about the attack.

A lot to talk to -- talk about tonight. And joining me now are chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellin, also chief political analyst Gloria Borger and senior political analyst David Gergen.

So, Dana, let me start with you. The resignation of the acting IRS commissioner came out very quickly after that audit was released yesterday. What do -- what do we know about it? What more can you tell?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, there is so much outage that the president tried to express today and there were really a lot of unsatisfied Republicans and Democrats with the fact that the inspector general didn't assign blame, despite their wrongdoing at the IRS. So a head needed to roll. They knew that.

Steven Miller seems to be the one who got fired for several reasons. First of all, he's only the acting commissioner now, but he was the number two, and we learned this week that he was told about targeting Tea Party and other groups a year ago. And he never disclosed that to members of Congress who were investigating this very thing. So they weren't happy about that. That was a big black eye.

Also, the IRS is an agency that purposely has very few political appointees, only two. So it was easy to let him, a political appointee, go, than a civil servant, who has a lot more protections.

COOPER: So they can't fire a civil servant?

BASH: No, no, they can. It's just not as easy. It's just -- there are a lot more protections for civil servants and especially so for IRS employees. It's definitely doable. It's definitely possible. But it's just not as -- you can't do it as swiftly without perhaps having some repercussions, as the president wanted to do, clearly, with Steven Miller.

COOPER: And Miller was supposed to testify Friday at the hearing at the House. What's going to happen there now? Is he still going to testify?

BASH: I'm told that he is. I talked to a spokeswoman for the House -- House Ways and Means Committee, rather, who said that he is still planning to come. Question, though, is whether he will really answer questions because, Anderson, he is somebody who is potentially going to face a criminal probe. So does he want to answer questions about, like, what I just talked about, why he didn't tell Congress or did he mislead Congress or even lie to Congress about what he knew.

So it's going to be interesting to see how he plays that when he -- when he appears before this committee on Friday. COOPER: But, I mean, there must have been -- I mean, sure, he knew about it a year ago and didn't say anything. But there must have been a whole bunch of people within the IRS who knew about this, who came up with the idea, who are executing it if the idea in fact came up with -- through the IRS.

BASH: Yes.

COOPER: So has anyone else been disciplined?

BASH: You're absolute right. Well, our Drew Griffin, our colleague, learned today, he broke the story that two agents, IRS agents who -- Steven Miller actually told congressional investigators were rogue agents. They have been disciplined. We don't know who they are, we don't know much more than that but it is clear that they are just two of many who made mistakes.

We do know that. But we also understand that they -- that the -- in general, the whole issue of being disciplined is one thing. And they're also, again, facing potential criminal charges and the attorney general said today, Anderson, that he is going to make this investigation very wide. He's going to take the facts where they lead them. And it could be pretty detrimental for a lot of people there.

COOPER: So just very briefly, when we hear they have been disciplined, do we know what that means? I mean, have they been fired?

BASH: We don't.

COOPER: We do not.

BASH: We don't know the answer to that yet.

COOPER: Wow. OK. That would be kind of amazing if they haven't been fired, they've just been -- well, anyway. We'll find out more, I guess. We don't know.

Jessica, walk us through the e-mails in particular. These -- the key changes that were made to these talking points and why those changes were made.

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, what the e-mails indicate is that some of the most controversial changes were made by staff-level officials at the CIA, before the White House or the State Department ever saw them. It does underscore that what -- that's what the White House said all along and these e-mails do indicate that's the case.

So, one, in stints the word "al Qaeda" was in the original talking points and the phrase "Islamic extremists" participated in violent demonstrations, that was in the original set of talking points. It came out of the later talking points at the -- at the request of the CIA.

The word "attacks" was changed to "demonstrations" at the request of the CIA. And "Islamic extremist" was in the original talking points, came out in later talking points, also because of the CIA.

All of these things are -- are issues that the critics of the administration said were done for political reasons because the State Department wanted it or the Obama administration didn't want it seen as an al Qaeda attack ahead of the 2012 election. In fact, it does look, if you look through these e-mails, definitively like the CIA said no, we don't want this information in there because it will imperil an investigation as it's ongoing -- Anderson.

COOPER: So let's just drill down on that a little bit. So if it's the CIA taking out the words "al Qaeda" and taking out the words "Islamic extremist," changing the word from "attack" to "demonstration," I mean, those are all things which kind of muddy it, which kind of make it seem less -- well, not like an attack but just a demonstration, why again would the CIA want all those words taken out?

YELLIN: Because the way it was explained to me and other reporters by senior administration officials is they didn't want to finger any one group for the attack in case they were wrong. Because it was just days after the attack. And what if, for example, they said this was done by al Qaeda and it turns out it wasn't. And then they have to go back and try to accuse someone else, that it makes it more difficult later on when they try to proceed with a later investigation. So they don't want to be wrong early and publicly.

Now I'll point out that Victoria Nuland, these e-mails do show, however, that the State Department asked for a different change, which was that Ansar al Sharia, which is an the al Qaeda affiliate, as you know, is named in the talking points. The CIA was fine with that and the State Department asked for that to come out and that did come out.

So, look, there is something for the critics to point to and say the State Department wanted some the al Qaeda affiliate taken out and you took it out for state and you really can't argue with that. You know, we're told the CIA was fine with that. But there's something for everybody to find in these.

COOPER: So Gloria, you've been talking to your sources, what are they saying about this?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, if you sort of take a step back here, what was really going on and what we didn't know at the time, was that Benghazi was a CIA outpost. It was not -- it was -- the State Department was essentially providing the cover there for the CIA. So the State Department is taking a look at all of these -- at all of these iterations of these talking points that are going to go to Congress.

And they say, wait a minute, this makes it look like we were asleep at the switch. That we've gotten all of these warnings, and we didn't do anything about it. When, in fact, the State Department was saying, wait a minute. You can't say we messed up when this was your outpost. So that's kind of the back story that's going on here. That you really don't see spelled out.

I mean, General Petraeus had gone to the Hill, Anderson. He told them what was going on, they had a classified briefing. Members from the Hill said, gee, can we say some of that in public? He said, sure, let the -- let our folks get together what you can say.

The result of that was all these iterations of talking points. And the real problem, really, I think, was between the State Department and the CIA. And what the White House is trying to say is that this was not politically driven. But it was actually driven by intelligence and people trying to get on the same page.

COOPER: David Gergen, I mean, you've worked in a lot of White House, for Republican presidents, for Democratic presidents. What do you make of this? I mean, you said last night it's a precious moment for the Obama administration.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: This is a precious moment because he has to get things done domestically in the next few months or his power is going to disappear almost completely.

But I do think, Anderson, today the big picture is that the president and his team took good and significant first steps in tackling this IRS mess, as well as the Benghazi affair. Fired -- they fired the IRS commissioner swiftly, but more than that, they also did it out of anger. And what that really suggests is that they have no fear of him knowing something that he may go public with because he's angry at them.

You know, he -- there's no retaliation expected from him. When you fire somebody like that, you -- he goes with humiliation. You're worried about, what is he going to say about us? And they obviously feel he doesn't have anything to say which will implicate the president or the White House. So I think that's significant. It does not end the public clamor. This is going to go on. There are going to be congressional hearings. There's be this criminal investigation. This story has more legs but they did take an important first step.

On Benghazi, I actually think that the -- when you get all of these e- mails released, there are more still to come, but all these e-mails are so complex. And it makes it -- you know, you're down in the weeds with this stuff. I think most people will say, you know, there doesn't seem to be a smoking gun here, doesn't seem to be a fire here. And I think that one is diminishing in size. The IRS one is really still burning.

COOPER: Yes, David, I mean, because even though they -- fine, the acting commissioner they get rid of, but, again, it goes back to what I was talking to Dana about. I mean, there must have been half a -- I mean, there must have been a bunch of people, not only who were executing this plan against Tea Party groups and 912 groups and patriot groups, but -- I mean, there just must have been a lot of people who -- somebody who came up with this and a bunch of people executing this. And it seems like at this point we don't know anybody's names or really the chain on this.

GERGEN: That's exactly right. I think that's why one of the reasons why this story has legs. There's going to be more to come, who knew what when. There is a second part of this, Anderson, and that is, did the White House know anything from somebody else in the agency. One of the general counsel or somebody else.

It's really hard to believe in Washington that this kind of thing is so contained. It's only a handful of people knew. I would imagine that more people knew. But there is a third issue here too, Anderson. There are a number of conservatives coming forward now, fairly deep pocket donors who were saying, you know what, I was audited over the last year, I was audited going into the election. My personal income taxes were audited. I was suspicious then. But I'm even more suspicious now.

We're going to hear more of that kind of thing, I think, in the days ahead now.

COOPER: All right. David Gergen, Gloria Borger, Dana Bash, Jessica Yellin, appreciate it all.

Let me know what you think about all these scandals and investigations going on. Follow me on Twitter, @Andersoncooper. I'll be tweeting tonight.

Coming up, Boston strong. One month later, we're here on the one- month anniversary of the bombings. New information tonight about the manhunt for the suspects and what really happened the night of the shootout in Watertown, next.

Take a look at some of the memorial behind me. People walking by, dozens, if not hundreds of running shoes that people have left outside. Teddy bears, all sorts of signs. Boston strong, people coming by and paying their respects on this, the one-month anniversary.

Also ahead tonight, the latest from Cleveland where authorities took more evidence from Ariel Castro's house today. We are getting some new information from law enforcement source about what allegedly went on inside that house. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Hey, welcome back. We are here in Boston. It's been a month now since the bombings at the marathon, the month of grieving for the three lives that were lost at the race. A month of starting to heal for the hundreds more that were changed forever.

At 2:50 p.m. today, the moment of the bombings a month ago, the Boston Police took the black mourning bands off their badges and observed a moment of silence. Boston Police also put their flags back to full staff.

There has been an outpouring of support for the victims. The One Fund Boston has raised more than $30 million to help the victims and their families. Today the One Fund said that payments will be made at the end of June.

Now there are still a lot of questions, a lot of work to be done in the investigation into the bombings. The widow of the suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Katherine Russell, is said to be speaking with investigators. We're going to have more on that in a moment.

Meanwhile, we've learned a lot more about the manhunt for Tamerlan and his brother Dzhokhar, and the shootout with police. We now know that nearly 300 rounds were fired, almost all of them coming from police.

CNN has learned although the Tsarnaevs had bombs, they had only one gun between them, which was a pistol.

Drew Griffin has more on what happened that night.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is all police knew at the time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officer down.

GRIFFIN: An MIT officer had been shot and killed. Hours earlier, the FBI had released these pictures of suspected bombers. Tensions were high all across this city when this alert went out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shots fired at Watertown. Shots fired at Watertown. All officers, use caution.

GRIFFIN: Get to Watertown. Police raced to the intersection of Laurel and Dexter Streets to face what amounted to chaos.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have explosives. Some type of grenades. They're in between houses down here. Loud explosions. Loud explosions. Loud explosions. Shots fired. Shots fired.

GRIFFIN: The Tsarnaev brothers were in the middle of the street, firing bullets, throwing their home-made bombs and in return facing a massive barrage of police bullets.

Two local law enforcement sources tell CNN, the Tsarnaevs had just one gun between them. And when the older brother, Tamerlan, was tackled by police, that one gun was empty. It was the moment his younger brother tried to make a run for it in a stolen SUV.

ANDREW KITZENBERG, WATERTOWN RESIDENT: There was a lot of gunfire at that point. That was probably the highest point in gunfire. And really as soon as that -- as soon as the SUV turned around in the street, it was just accelerated gunfire. All coming from the officers.

GRIFFIN (on camera): You grabbed your iPhone and --

KITZENBERG: Yes, I grabbed my phone and just immediately jumped on to the bed and started taking pictures.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Andrew Kitzenberg, crouched in his second floor window and taking these dramatic pictures, saw that escape. So did an eyewitness named Jane Dyson looking down on officers from a third floor window. At that moment, she told "The Boston Globe," "It appeared to me that an individual at the corner fell to the ground and had probably been hit by gunfire."

(On camera): That would have been Transit Officer Richard Donahue who was standing right here. At the time he was shot, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was laying on the street. His brother, Dzhokhar, was driving away. Only the police were firing.

(Voice-over): Officially, State Police tell us the matter remains under investigation. Law enforcement sources tell CNN, Officer Richard Donahue was struck by a bullet fired by police. Only the heroic actions of his fellow officers to stop the bleeding in his thigh saved his life. It was a close call. There would be many.

That's because when all the shooting finally finished, neighbors surveying the damage in and out of their homes found bullet holes everywhere. In this apartment above the street of the firefight, at this home across the street.

(On camera): This is a half block behind where the Tsarnaevs made their last stand. The home has three bullets. Unless the brothers turned around and fired away from police, these bullets, too, came from law enforcement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the bullet here that penetrated into our dining room.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Harry Ohennassian wasn't home the night of the shooting but his niece was, and says she heard and felt the bullets whizzing by inside his house.

(On camera): These are two bullets found in your home.

HARRY OHANNESSIAN, WATERTOWN RESIDENT: Yes, the one -- this one here came through, that landed near our staircase, near the pedestal, and then the other one up in the closet went through one, exited that one, went to the other closet in the other side of the entrance to the house, and landed in front of the staircase, as well.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Those bullets were later recovered by the FBI.

On that night, officers from several police forces converged on this chaotic scene. Nearly 300 rounds of ammunition were fired in minutes. Almost all of them by police. A shooting barrage described by experts in just one word. Contagious.

JOHN DECARLO, CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAVEN: In contagion shooting, and if you look back at some cases of the past, we find that if one person starts shooting, it immediately causes a contagion or other people to start shooting.

GRIFFIN: John DeCarlo is a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven. He spent 32 years as a cop, seven of those years as a police chief in Branford, Connecticut. He says he was reluctant to be interviewed because he, like other critics of what happened on this street, still believe police responded heroically.

DECARLO: In a situation like this, it almost becomes a warzone. And things that occur in the very dynamic moments of a situation like the one that was unfolding in Boston and Watertown are not necessarily -- no matter how hard our police work, what they are trained to do.

GRIFFIN: DeCarlo tells us what several experts who wouldn't go on camera also told us. They believe police do not receive enough firearms training and that local and state forces do not train together enough. The shooting has not dimmed the praise for police who put themselves in harm's way.

OHANNESSIAN: It's right underneath my son's bedroom.

GRIFFIN: But at Laurel and Dexter Streets, each bullet hole is a reminder of just how close those heroes came to causing a tragedy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: And Drew Griffin joins me now.

And it is important to look at what happened, not to criticize police, but to understand and help for the next time in a situation like this because that contagion shooting really is an issue.

GRIFFIN: It is an issue. It's under investigation. And like you said, not to lay blame on anybody, but, you know, god forbid, somebody in those houses was struck, and somebody in those houses was killed. It would be bad for their family, obviously. But also very bad for the officer who shot it.

Now the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office and state police are investigating the shooting of Officer Donahue. Unclear if they're investigating the shooting of the homes. But there was a third shooting that night, even scarier. We have learned that a Boston SUV, unmarked SUV, racing to Watertown, was fired upon and hit by state troopers. As it was racing to the scene.

We have a statement from the Massachusetts State Police says, "While it's still under investigation, the theory behind the report of an unmarked truck being fired upon is, yes, that in the chaos an officer or trooper or some combination of personnel mistook it for one of the two suspect vehicles."

Nobody hurt, thank goodness.

COOPER: Yes.

GRIFFIN: But, again, Anderson, you have officers firing on a vehicle they have no idea who is even driving.

COOPER: Well, you know we saw the same thing in the search for Dorner, remember, in California, a couple of vehicles were fired upon, just in that chaos and that fear of that.

Fascinating. Drew Griffin, appreciate the investigation.

As we mentioned earlier, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow continues to meet with investigators and she's added a new attorney to her team. CNN's Deborah Feyerick has learned that the team is working to make sure that Katherine Russell does not get charged but Deborah's sources say that Russell is not off the hook entirely.

Investigators say her future depends on the kind of information, cooperation that she provides, or also sources say the stakes are high for Russell since she has a 3-year-old daughter, she obviously wants to see grow up.

Now earlier I spoke with John Miller, senior correspondent of "CBS This Morning."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: So John, this news that Tamerlan's widow is not off the hook quite yet, does that line up with what you're hearing?

JOHN MILLER, "CBS THIS MORNING" SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it does. There are a number of hoops that she has to jump through to get off the hook and her lawyers are going to have to work through that with the U.S. attorney and ultimately the FBI. But it still boils down to, she was living with a person who was plotting for at least a couple or a few months in a small apartment where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators they actually made the bombs.

So there is the question of how could all of that go on, either without her knowing about it or having at least some suspicions that things that were going on were suspicious. She has said she had no idea about the plot.

COOPER: And you know, 30 days into this, from what you're hearing, how much progress are investigators actually making, trying to figure out the extent of these brothers' alleged plot, particularly any overseas connections?

MILLER: Well, the --

(CROSSTALK)

MILLER: The overseas connections are being filled out. You know, the FBI traveled with the FSB and got some of their documents and the results of some of their interviews over in Moscow. But it appears as of now that Tamerlan Tsarnaev traveled to Russia for six months in the Dagestan, Chechnya region, that he made contact with one, possibly two, radical people over there. Both of whom ended up being killed in subsequent attacks.

That he tried to join three separate fighting groups and was rejected. One was suspicious of him. Another felt he didn't measure up. The third didn't take him. So it appears he went home after that time, thinking, A, it's really dangerous here, the two guys I came to work with were killed. None of the groups want me. And I can -- I can launch my fight at home.

COOPER: And these indications that the wounded MBTA officer was likely hit by friendly fire at the Watertown shootout and the other damage to residential homes at least one police vehicle came from officers, no one is criticizing the police, but they are -- they were that night particularly under an enormous amount of pressure. And it does speak to the chaos of how things unfolded, doesn't it?

MILLER: Well, the police are used to that criticism. They had criticized for an awful lot. But you know, this certainly was the fog of war. You had people who were shooting at you with one 9millimeter handgun in the case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but also a wild card here. They're throwing improvised hand grenades. So that is a scene of tremendous chaos.

Now in a normal tactical environment, you figure out where your -- where your subject or suspect is, you make a tactical entrance, you come in from one direction and you deploy in a planned matter. This wasn't that kind of thing. This was a kind of thing where they were engaged in a firefight, they call for help, and help comes from whatever direction it comes from.

So if you take Officer Dick Donahue and his partner, they end up on one side of the street, many of the other officers who came from the direction -- the other direction end up on the other side of the street. So that's right for the possibility of crossfire. It's entirely possible he was hit by friendly fire or by one of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's bullets. But the bullet is still in his leg so until the doctors decide there is a time to take that out, we won't really know.

COOPER: All right. John Miller, appreciate you being on. John, thanks.

MILLER: Thanks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, just ahead, we have new details in the Ariel Castro investigation. More evidence was taken from the house where he allegedly held three women captive for close to a decade. We're also learning more about what the women may have endured.

Also ahead tonight, three weeks ago dance instructor Adrienne Haslett Davis was still in the hospital. She lost her foot in the Boston bombings, part of her left leg and she told us she would return to the dance floor one day. We're following her journey. We'll talk to her tonight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back. We'll have much more ahead tonight from Boston, including my interview with Adrianne Haslet Davis. She is the young dance instructor. You may remember we talked to her three weeks ago. A week after the Boston bombing, part of her lower left leg had to be amputated. We'll update you how she is doing now. She dreams of one day dancing again. We'll tell you how much progress she has been making.

But first we want to bring you up to date on the latest from Cleveland, a lot going on there today. Today, investigators went back inside the house at 2207 Seymour Avenue, where those three missing women were held captive for close to a decade.

One of the women we've learned is just now discovering what an iPhone is. They had no idea up until this point. Ariel Castro who owns the house has been charged with four counts of kidnapping, three counts of rape, very possible more charges will be added on later.

His relatives have said they never suspected anything was wrong. Many people find that hard to believe, but some family members have described Castro playing loud music when they came around and not letting him walk around freely around his house, not letting him out of the kitchen as a matter of a fact.

One of his daughters, Emily Castro, is serving a 25-year sentence for the attempted murder of her own child. Here's what she recently told a private investigator about visiting her father's house.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMILY CASTRO, ARIEL CASTRO'S DAUGHTER: The upstairs was blocked off with a big bass speaker. So I figured that since he lived there so long that he didn't have any need for those -- what, there's four bedrooms upstairs. He didn't have any need for them. So I just kind of like -- I was like, can I, you know, sleep upstairs in my old bedroom. And he said no, because it's cold there. It's blocked off. You know, dusty, and so I just was like, OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Just to be clear, Emily Castro there says looking back, all three women were inside the house at the time of that visit. Tonight, we're also learning more about what Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight and Gina Dejesus may have endured at the hands of their alleged abductor.

Randi Kaye joins me now live. Randi, last night, you mentioned there were reports that Michelle Knight may need facial reconstruction after all of the beatings. You're learning more about that today. What have you heard?

RANDI KAYE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, we spoke with an agent for the FBI here in Cleveland and the agent said that it is absolutely not true that there is no deformity at all. In fact, she said none of the victims look weird, that was her word, except for the fact that they haven't seen the sunshine in so many years and they're especially thin.

But keep in mind, we also learned today from law enforcement that Michelle Knight had been beaten by Ariel Castro with all sorts of objects including hand weights. This FBI agent also clarified some reporting out there, there was some sort of hierarchy in the home because Amanda was treated slightly better and that maybe the women were divided and not so close, even though they had been locked up together for so many years.

The agent told us all of them were walking around and talking at the hospital. They were all equally concerned about each other. And CNN's Pamela Brown has learned Gina and Michelle have actually communicated by phone at least once since their release.

And the agent also today added the only reason Gina and Michelle didn't follow Amanda out of the house the day she escaped was because they were so afraid of Ariel Castro. It was not because they didn't trust Amanda -- Anderson.

COOPER: And Castro's attorneys are also speaking out about their client. What do they say?

KAYE: They apparently talked with Castro for about three hours at the county jail here where he is being held in isolation and they say he will plead not guilty. They're a bit worried about him getting a fair trial. But they say they have no fear of repercussion about representing someone who has been vilified in this community. Listen to what they told our affiliate, WKYC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRAIG WEINTRAUB, ATTORNEY FOR ARIEL CASTRO: I think that the initial portrayal by the media has been one of a, quote, "monster," and that's not the impression that I got when I talked to him for three hours.

JAYE SCHLACHET, ATTORNEY FOR ARIEL CASTRO: He is a human being, and what's offensive is that the media -- and I don't mean it towards you, but the media and the community wants to -- wants to demonize this man before they really know the whole story. And I think that it's unfair, and it's just not equitable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Anderson, you may remember one of those attorneys, the last guy right there, Jaye, also represented Cleveland serial killer, Anthony Sowle, another very high profile case.

COOPER: I should point out, Randi, the term monster has been used by relatives of Ariel Castro. His brothers in an interview with Martin Savidge condemned him. Also, I talked to people who were related to his ex-wife who had nothing but similar words to use for him. So to say that the media is using those words is not quite accurate. Randi, appreciate your reporting on that today.

Just ahead, you may remember Adrianne Haslet Davis. She is an amazing woman, dance instructor, lost her foot in the Boston bombings. Her leg had to be amputated below her lower left knee. She has a great attitude. She agreed to let us follow her journey back to the dance floor. There is a lot of work ahead, no doubt about it. A lot of rehab, but Adrienne can already see the future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: When you listen to music now, do you visualize yourself dancing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

COOPER: It makes you smile a lot. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It does. It does.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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COOPER: Believe in Boston. That's what the sign says behind me. There is a lot of pride in this city here in Boylston Street where there is a memorial where still people are on this one-month anniversary of the bombings, stopping by to pay their respects. There is a lot of pride as I said in this city about how far this city has come and how far the individuals who survived the bombings have come.

For so many people, this stretch of pavement here on Boylston Street has a lot of meaning, a dividing line between what was and what will never be the same. The 275 people were injured here one month ago. Tonight, six are still hospitalized, and we think of them tonight. More than a dozen bombing survivors lost limbs.

Among them, Adrianne Haslet Davis, the 32-year-old dance instructor. She lost her left foot in the second explosion. Her left leg had to be amputated below the knee. Just a week after the bombings, I talked to Adrienne in the hospital. She's one of those people you can't forget her determination and spirit.

She is determined to dance again. I have no doubt she will. We're going to be following her recovery in the months ahead. Here is how far she has come in just four weeks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER (voice-over): This was Adrianne just one week after the Boston marathon bombings.

(on camera): How close were you to the second explosion?

ADRIANNE HASLET-DAVIS, BOSTON BOMBING SURVIVOR: I was right in front of it, right in front of the business where it was. So I felt the direct impact and it immediately blew off my left foot.

COOPER: How far away was the bomb, do you know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My guess would have been about five feet.

COOPER: Five feet.

DAVIS: Yes. We're lucky to be alive.

COOPER (voice-over): Her strength, along with that of her husband, Adam, who just returned from a tour in Afghanistan with the air force and was also injured in the bombing, inspired people around the world.

(on camera): You're determined to dance again, though.

DAVIS: I am, yes. Dancing is the one thing that I do that when I do it, I don't feel like I should be doing anything else ever. I feel so free.

COOPER (voice-over): Adrienne agreed to let us follow her recovery on the long road to dancing again.

DAVIS: Seventeen, 18, 19. 20.

COOPER: And while she faces months of grueling therapy, her physical training as a dancer helped to better prepare her for learning to navigate the world with one leg. She also agreed to videotape her everyday life, her new normal.

DAVIS: I am getting my very first manicure and pedicure in 20 days today since the marathon. And feeling more and more like a girl, and feeling more normal, even though only one of my feet are getting painted. Check those babies out.

COOPER: There are those simple milestones and others that are hard.

DAVIS: I'll be going home tomorrow and it makes me really sad, because I don't feel like I'm ready. I'm nervous and scared to walk the streets of Boston for the first time after all of this. And I've been living in this bubble of safety. Now I'm just going to go out into the real world and a world with bombs and strangers and -- memories. That I don't know if I'm ready to face.

COOPER: But two-and-a-half weeks after the bombing, it's time to go home.

DAVIS: I really appreciate your encouraging words. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody -- show them what can happen.

DAVIS: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Instead of the bad guys.

DAVIS: Instead of the bad guys is right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good guys.

DAVIS: Totally agree.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You go, girl.

COOPER: And the next day, despite her fears, she returns to Boylston Street, where it all happened.

DAVIS: After seeing the memorial and seeing people there and just paying their respects and hearing people tell me that I was an inspiration, it's very sweet, first of all, that they would want to give me their support. But I think it's also for them, it's important to see that all of us that were affected are moving on and trying to find some sort of normalcy. And for them to be able to kind of have that knowledge that life goes on after such a horrible tragedy.

(END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: Well, a lot of people here and around the country are rooting for Adrienne and others injured. Her co-workers at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio set up a fund for her expenses. If you would like to contribute, go to fundme.com/adriennefund. We're excited about following her in the months ahead. I sat down with her again today, a first time since a week after the bombings.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: It's been a month. How are you doing?

DAVIS: Yes, I'm doing better and better every day, lots of learning about myself and kind of how to function, especially just in the past, gosh, in the past week or week and a half since leaving rehab hospital.

COOPER: What's been the hardest part?

DAVIS: I would say the hardest part on a daily basis, as far as just the function -- day to day function is just the simple things, like getting up to go to the bathroom. And showering and getting ready in the morning, just the simple little things that you have your daily routine. And in the middle of the night, if you have to get up and use the rest room, it is a task.

COOPER: So right now you're using a wheelchair.

DAVIS: Yes, yes, I am, mostly using the wheelchair to get around the city and such. I took a pretty bad fall about four or five days ago. I was not behaving, meaning I was hopping between the bed and the closet, because I just need to get one thing.

COOPER: So hopping is not behaving.

DAVIS: Is not behaving, no, no, not at all. And I hopped and lost my footing and landed directly on to my left leg, and it was excruciatingly painful.

COOPER: So you actually fell right on --

DAVIS: I fell right on it. All of my weight right on to the top of it, all that tender muscle and stitches and -- nerves that are already painful and angry and just screamed almost a surprising scream. Where you scream and you don't really realize it's you because it's that painful.

COOPER: Does it feel real to you at this point? Has it all sunk in?

DAVIS: It's interesting. It felt so much more real since I fell. I don't know if it was me just kind of realizing physically that my leg wasn't there anymore, but it was really hard for me. I think it sort of made me realize that I was a lot weaker than I thought I was, which is a hard thing to think about, it definitely woke me up and made me realize that I am -- I need to take a little bit better care of myself and slow down.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: As you may have noticed, Adrienne is not a sit back and wait kind of person. She is the first to admit, she tends to be impatient. Just ahead in part two, we talk about the goal she has set for herself to dance again and how listening to music no longer makes her sad, which is a sign of healing, she says.

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COOPER: We were playing part of my interview with Adrianne Haslet Davis and we'll play more in a second. I promised if she started dancing again, I would take dance lessons with her, which I badly need. She is determined to hold me to that. I little regret making that promise to her, but I look forward to those dance lessons. Here is part two of our interview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Do you think about dancing a lot?

DAVIS: Yes.

COOPER: Do you listen to music?

DAVIS: I just recently started listening to music again and being able to really enjoy it. I think I realize now that I am in a process of healing more so than I was before. And I --

COOPER: That's interesting. You're in a process of healing more than you were before.

DAVIS: Yes.

COOPER: How do you mean?

DAVIS: I think starting to see the swelling going down, and having, you know, graduated from the therapy and becoming stronger physically, because of the physical therapy and I think all of that combined, I feel like I'm closer and closer to my prosthetic, which means I'm closer and closer to dancing again. Even though I knew all along I would be dancing, I had all these people telling me I would, I think now I'm starting to see it more so.

COOPER: You can envision yourself dancing again.

DAVIS: Yes, I can. Which in turn helps me listen to music and possible for me, as I said before, listen without choreographing in my head. And because of that, it was very sad.

COOPER: So when you listen to music now, do you visualize yourself dancing?

DAVIS: Yes.

COOPER: It makes you smile a lot.

DAVIS: It does. It does.

COOPER: One of the things we talked about in the hospital, you had said that because you danced for so long, your foot was like a muscle. And that the prosthetics weren't really built to kind of I guess balance in that way.

DAVIS: Yes.

COOPER: Have you learned more about it? Do you think you will be able to -- to dance?

DAVIS: You know, I -- I -- I definitely remember talking about that. And I don't know -- I haven't learned anything differently since then. So I still have that same concern that I know I'll be able to dance, for sure. And that makes me ecstatic.

But as far as dancing to the level that I was before, which was what we were talking about with using my muscle in a certain way and using, you know, the inside edge and outside edge of my foot and pushing off of those muscles and having it work the same way. I'm not quite sure yet.

I have a lot of prosthetic companies that are being just as curious as I am on wanting to build and learn and sort of figure that out with me. So I'm excited to make that happen hopefully. And kind of maybe kind of figure it out together and design it together.

COOPER: I know your husband who was injured also in the blast was relieved because he didn't have to take dancing lessons. He was just about to start dancing lessons. Has he started dancing lessons?

DAVIS: He has not started dancing lessons. He has an excuse. He cannot bear weight on his foot yet. Your only excuse is that I don't have a foot yet.

COOPER: Yes, I know. I know. I mean, I want you to get a foot, but I'm nervous about our dance lessons.

DAVIS: I know. I'm well on my way. It will take me a while to walk and dance again, though. You're lucky.

COOPER: I might need some -- maybe I'll take some lessons before so I can say these are my first lessons. So many people have come up to me and said on camera you're now going to have to do it.

DAVIS: People have come up to me and have been more excited for you to dance than me to dance, which is funny.

COOPER: I look forward to it.

DAVIS: Me too, me too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: I definitely look forward to it. There's a lot more happening tonight. Isha is here with the "360 Bulletin" -- Isha. ISHA SESAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, jurors in the Jodi Arias trial ruled today, she should face the possibility of the death penalty. The same jury that convicted Arias of first degree murder last week ruled her actions were, quote, "especially cruel." Today's verdict sets the stage for the sentencing phase of the trial.

North Korea says he has begun his 15 year sentence of hard labor in what's being described as a special prison. The regime convicted him of hostile acts against the regime and gave no specifics.

And Anderson, work is half finished building the scaffolding around the Washington Monument. Helicopters captured their work as they prepare to fix the damage from the 2011 earthquake. Anderson, it's expected to last 12 to 18 months to get this all done.

COOPER: That's cool, those helmet cameras. Isha, thanks very much. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: The month since the Boston marathon bombing, we have been watching this memorial behind me grow. Some people leave personal items, some leave messages. Tonight, we want to give you a look at their tributes.

It is a remarkable spot in this remarkable city. That does it for us. We'll be back one hour from now, another live edition of 360 starting at 10:00 Eastern Time tonight. "PIERS MORGAN LIVE" is next.