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Whitey Bulger Trial Continues; George Zimmerman Resurfaces
Aired July 22, 2013 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A possible serial killer is behind bar as we learn he idolized a monster.
As Michael Jackson's mother fights a concert promoter in court, she cries on the stand and reveals private conversations with her son.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happens now?
BALDWIN: Plus, a woman sent to prison after telling police she was raped -- now a dramatic twist.
And F-bombs fly, tempers flare and an outburst interrupts the trial of the reputed mob boss Whitey Bulger.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BALDWIN: And we continue on. Good to be with you. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
In Cleveland, police have identified one of three women whose bodies were found wrapped in plastic in East Cleveland over the weekend and while the bodies were badly decomposed, authorities have been able to identify one of them as 38-year-old Angela Deskins of Cleveland.
And 35-year-old Michael Madison is charged with three counts of aggravated murder and kidnapping and is currently being held on $6 million bond. The police suspended the search for more bodies after scouring these empty homes in one neighborhood amid fears that Madison may have been inspired by a convicted serial killer.
East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton had expressed concerns there could be more victims.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY NORTON, MAYOR OF EAST CLEVELAND, OHIO: A sick individual who appears to be influenced by another sick individual. It is absolutely horrible and it is atrocious, and again, we believe that this individual that we are dealing with killed three women in a span of about 10 days. That is insane. And we know that if he had been out for one more hour, there's no telling what would have happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: I want to bring in Shaeaun Child.
Shaeaun, you live in this neighborhood. And you are the one who called the police because you smelled something and you first thought it must have been a dead animal. Take me back to last week.
SHAEAUN CHILD, NEIGHBOR: Last week, on Monday, we all came into the work, all of the employees of East Cleveland Cable, and we started the smell the smell when we came into work inside the building.
That smell carried on all of the way up to Tuesday. On Wednesday, the smell went away when we came in, but what happened was I had to go into one of the garages to get some cable to stock up my truck that I work for East Cleveland Cable, and started smelling the smell on Wednesday in the garages and went back on Thursday into another garage, smelled the smell again, on Friday, came into work.
One of the employees normally park in one of the garages, and he backed out of the garage and the fact that he said that the smell was real horrible, I started laughing , not knowing what was going on. I told him, yes, I smelled it on Thursday. After that, he went inside of the office and I came back out and pulled up in the garage, and went in there and looked around, and ran back out. Another employee came in named Micki (ph).
We went out and I grabbed the Lysol and went to spraying it trying to look if see if there were any dead animals under some crates that we have inside the garage, realized that there was a lot of flies that was on the wall. They were actually trying to like go from one side of the garage into another garage. So from that point, I knew that it had to be something else besides an animal.
I called the authorities up and told them that I was smelling a horrible smell, and would they send out -- you know, could they send out an officer out? And also, Micki, another employee, gave them a call, and they came right out, and we tried to get access into the garage. They made phone calls, couldn't get access in.
BALDWIN: Let me just jump in, because not only did you and your colleague call the police and you actually called -- if I am correct, you called Mr. Madison, who is now charged with some of the crimes. What did you say to him and what was his response?
CHILD: Well, Micki, the other employee, asked him to -- called him and told him that we need access to the garage, and she asked was he upstairs and he said he was not upstairs.
And so, you know, she asked him to -- me and him had a conflict with each other, so Micki did all the talking. And she asked him to come out, and could he open up the garage, because the authorities wanted to, you know, see what was going on in the garage, and he said he was not around, and from there they had to get access another way.
BALDWIN: And why did you have conflict with him? What kind of man is he? What kind of neighbor was he?
CHILD: I mean, you know, we talked at first. He was a good man to me. And we just had a conflict, you know, traffic that, you know, trying to get my truck out of -- to move equipment from back and forth and it was blocking me in, and he got upset.
We had our words, and from there, we had to like men among men. And we carried on. He went his way. I went my way. We saw each other everyday, and that was it.
BALDWIN: I had read that you heard that Madison had a lot conflicts with different girls and he was real upset with some and got real loud. Can you be specific?
CHILD: Well, when he got upset with one of the friend girls, he would get loud. And you might hear him like up to two blocks away, got a deep voice and he gets real loud. I guess that was him, the way he responds when he get upset.
BALDWIN: And just quickly, how is the neighborhood responding to this?
CHILD: Well, you know, they were shocked. We all were shocked just knowing that, you know, it was happening right above us, and nobody know what was going on, and it is surprising.
You know, I still think about it every time I get a second to myself. You know, I say to myself, wow, how could this happen, and why? I guess I will never know.
BALDWIN: Yes. A lot of wows it seems like from similar instances happening in Cleveland.
Shaeaun Child, thank you for sharing what you saw and what you know.
I should tell you that the mayor of East Cleveland was in the streets trying to calm the fears of folks who live there this weekend and he will talk live to Erin Burnett tonight 7:00 Eastern on "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT."
And now to some sad news this afternoon out of Hollywood. Actor Dennis Farina has died. He starred on "Law & Order" and in several movies over the years, including some big ones, "Saving Private Ryan," "Get Shorty." And before becoming an actor, Farina worked as a police officer in Chicago for years.
And his publicist sent us a statement. Let me just read part of this -- quote -- "He will be greatly missed by his family and friends and colleagues and we hope that he finds a new life where the great roles are plentiful, and the Cubs are always winning the pennant."
Six Flags over Texas is investigating Friday night's deadly accident involving one of its biggest roller coasters. A woman fell to her death while riding the Texas Giant, this 14-story high-speed coaster. And local media reports -- quote -- "Witnesses who say she told an employee that her safety restraints had not blocked properly before the ride began. The woman identified as Rosy Esparza was riding the coaster with her children, last hour, I talked last hour to a roller coaster safety expert about what accident investigators will be honing in on at first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT SWINT, ROLLER COASTER SAFETY EXPERT: I would be looking at the ride and the design of the seat. We're dealing with a dynamic situation here which ejection can occur. Anything over 0.2 g's can cause you displacement.
This individual, the woman that was ejected, Ms. Esparza, was a person of a woman of very stature. And you would look at the seat, you would look at the design of the seat and the design of the retention mechanisms and try to determine if in fact she fit properly in that seat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Six Flags has issued a statement promising a full investigation, but said it would be a disservice to the family to speculate on the accident.
All eyes on London at St. Mary's Hospital, where Catherine, the duchess of Cambridge, has reportedly been in labor now for more than 14 hours. We have been waiting for the birth and you know she is waiting for the birth of the newest member of England's royal family, a baby who might some day sit on the British throne.
Right now inside of this fairly ordinarily looking building in London is the duchess of Cambridge, the wife of Prince William. You see Catherine went into labor this morning and soon the world will find out if the royal family is welcoming a possible future king a possible future queen.
Royal historian Kate Williams is in London just outside of Buckingham Palace where we know the standard is flying high and the queen is in residence and waiting for the news just like the rest of the world.
She is the one who will announce it, but, Kate, it is just after 8:00 your time, and what happens if she dozes off to sleep?
KATE WILLIAMS, CNN ROYAL HISTORIAN: Yes. Well, the queen is not a late bird, we know that. She is in residence and we saw her coming in earlier today.
And the flag is as you say flying beautifully, but the queen likes to move to go to bed around 9:00 p.m. U.K. time. So we really only have about an hour for the baby to be born. So what I think we are suspecting is that probably it's not going to be until tomorrow morning, because the queen is the first person who must be told.
When the baby is born, the first thing that William will do apart from holding his new child in his arms is to pick up a specially encrypted phone so no one can hack it, and he will phone the queen and he will say, hello, granny, it is a baby. And that's the first -- so, if the queen doesn't know, no one can be told, not the prime minister and not the archbishop of Canterbury and not the heads of the commonwealth state, and certainly not us members of the public waiting out here for the news.
So when the queen knows that is when the information will come from the hospital, and it will be taken by the private secretaries and brought to the palace just here behind us, and then that is when it will be written on the golden easel as it has been from time memorial, and shown to us over the years.
BALDWIN: And that's when we know the sex, the weight, maybe not the name. I know that could take days, possibly two weeks, but let me ask you ask you about a big fancy word, primogeniture, which is a fancy way of saying that the rules are changes. So if this is a little girl and she even has a younger brother, because of the change, and this is history here, she would be the queen.
WILLIAMS: Yes, that is the exciting thing that previously monarchs could only come to the throne as a woman. If they had no male siblings or only female siblings just like Queen Elizabeth II has only Margaret, Victoria was an only child, now it does not matter whether William and Kate go on to have five boys after this. If it is a girl, she will come to the throne.
Finally, we have really updated an outdated law that men can be monarchs and women only get to come to the throne if they are leftovers and they're the kind of second choice, and that's because we have seen so many of our monarchs, our best loved monarchs in Britain, Victoria, Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II, they have been women.
BALDWIN: Kate Williams, thank you. We look forward to news hopefully before the queen falls asleep in an hour's time. Kate, we appreciate you outside of Buckingham Palace.
Coming up next here, a night out turns tragic, five women killed when their rented limo burst into flames and now we are hearing from a woman who says she was on the phone with the driver when that limo ignited. And we called the drive to get his response to what she is now saying.
Plus, George Zimmerman is in the headlines again this time for what he did at the scene of a Florida traffic accident. That is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Nine days after George Zimmerman disappeared after a jury acquitted him in the death of Trayvon Martin, he has reappeared on of all places a Florida highway.
CNN producer Vivian Kuo following this one for us.
And you were in Sanford for the last month. You're back. There for a month and now back on George Zimmerman again but in a much different way. Talk to me about this traffic accident.
VIVIAN KUO, CNN PRODUCER: Yes, very, very different.
There's very limited information here, but here is what I can tell you. This is last Wednesday, four days after the verdict, Seminole County Sheriff's Office got a call about a single vehicle accident in Sanford, Florida, and when the deputies responded to the accident, what do they see? They see a blue Ford Explorer SUV overturned on its side and off of the road and two men helping the vehicle's occupants out. One of those men was George Zimmerman, himself.
(CROSSTALK)
BALDWIN: And a little bit of color, you say this location of this tragic accident was how far from...
(CROSSTALK)
KUO: Yes. What we know is that it occurred near the intersection of State Road 46 and Interstate 4 in Sanford, Florida. That is just barely a mile away from the Retreat at Twin Lakes, where George Zimmerman first encountered Trayvon Martin and where he was shot and killed.
BALDWIN: Wow. We have understood from the defense team that they have been fearing for his life and the safety and that he would go underground metaphorically speaking, and you talked to the defense team on the phone just a little bit ago. And what did they tell you?
KUO: Well, what they said is, for the media, for us, we have no idea where George Zimmerman was, and there has been open speculation that he would get out of town again because of the death threats. It is surprising to us to know that he was still in Sanford.
(CROSSTALK)
KUO: The defense team is saying they did not know about this incident and George Zimmerman talked to them at length Friday and never breathed one word.
BALDWIN: Vivian Kuo, thank you very much.
And now to this, shocking revelations here about a deadly limo fire in the Bay Area. Remember this from last May? The driver's estranged wife now talking to "The San Jose Mercury News" saying that she was arguing with him on the phone as the limo was on fire, killing five women as they tried to escape.
She told the paper -- quote -- "The music was really loud and I said, I kept yelling, I hear you, turn it down, and I said, you are not paying attention and like, get off of the phone, and stop calling me and I would hate to have a limo driver like you." She directly contradicts what driver Orville Brown said to me when I interviewed him in May.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: When you were driving this limo and you're crossing this bridge and you're minutes away from the final destination and hear the tapping on the partition, were you listening to music?
ORVILLE BROWN, DRIVER OF LIMOUSINE THAT CAUGHT FIRE: No. BALDWIN: Were you on your cell phone?
BROWN: No.
BALDWIN: I have read that your brother has been quoted that you keep saying that you could have done more, you could have done more.
Do you still feel that way?
BROWN: I mean, you always -- I think in this situation, you always -- you always would feel you could do more. You could have done more. I don't know. You know, it is just -- everything happened so fast, I just wish that, you know, there could have been something done more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Brown's wife raises the question, did the music and his wife distract him from the fire?
Speaking through his brother, Orville Brown had no comment today except to the fact that he looks forward to the findings of the complete investigation. That people killed were a bride and her friends celebrating her upcoming ceremony.
Just a short time ago, we can tell you the pope officially landed in Brazil and there is a historic twist to this visit and we will tell you what it is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: For the very first time in the history of the Catholic Church, a Latin American pope will touch down and has already touched down on his own continent.
Pope Francis arrived in Brazil a few moments ago. And take a look at these pictures. That is the pope just cruising down the highway window down. This is his first foreign trip as pope moments ago. Look at this.
You have millions of young Catholics there in Brazil for this particular day here, and they are hoping that they can reenergize Catholics in his native Brazil, just amazing, looking at the pictures, window all the way down just catching the breeze in Rio.
Let's go straight to Shasta Darlington, who is standing by in Rio.
I don't know if you have seen the pictures, Shasta, but I can't say I have ever seen a pope -- we have seen the popes in popemobiles and we have seen him walk among the people, and they say this is the pope of the people and now here he is officially in his home continent of South America.
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is right, Brooke.
These are amazing pictures and it is really only going to get better. He is driving to this car to the center of Rio where he will switch to the back of an open jeep and drive around the streets there. Hundreds if not thousands of people are already lining the streets and they are on the highway and they are lining the highway all the way to the center, and they're waiting for him there.
And this is a man who came out and said that I don't want to ride around in the bulletproof popemobile, and I want to be out in the open. He really is a man of the people, and he is showing that here in Rio de Janeiro today. In fact, there is a huge storm moving in, so we will have to see if he is able to do this, but so far, he is following the plan that he has set, and it was pretty amazing when he stepped out of the plane.
I'm here on Copacabana Beach and it is lined with these huge screens so that people can watch his every move. When he appeared there, this roar went up along the beach, people just shouting it's the pope, it's the pope. He is one of their own and he is a man who is coming home for so many South Americans, and so it a really exciting moment, Brooke.
BALDWIN: And we could see, and the camera is honing back on back closer, and you could see his right hand out of the window that is all of the way down, and we saw, as you mentioned, Shasta, some of the people lining the highway and the traffic at a standstill on the other side.
Have you ever seen a pope, and I don't want to call him rogue, but just so comfortable with the people? And for me, I think that I would be nervous.
DARLINGTON: Well, Brooke, I have to say that Pope John Paul II was comfortable with people in a different way.
I think what really sets Pope Francis apart is this humility and is this willingness to sort and try to be on the same level with the people, and in fact, this trip was actually planned when Pope Benedict was still the man in charge and it was expected to be much shorter and he was going to arrive three days later and many fewer stops. So, the fact that Pope Francis wants to get out on the streets -- apparently, there are 16 trips in the open-backed jeep already planned.
He keeps on changing the schedule and adding more and more and really been making people nervous in fact for security reasons.
BALDWIN: Right.
DARLINGTON: There are more than 30,000 security people standing by so this has definitely got people a little on edge. But for Brazilians, for Argentines, for Spaniards, for Italians who are flying into Rio de Janeiro to see him, it is just so exciting, Brooke.
BALDWIN: It's incredible. That will be quite the photo-op, the pope in an open-back jeep. We will wait to see that one.
Shasta Darlington, of course live in Rio, Shasta, thank you. Coming up next, social media support for the officer who leaked those photos of the Boston bombing suspect, remember those, from Watertown. He could lose his job for breaking protocol, but now there is a growing number of people who are supporting him online -- his story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Oh, it is getting exciting, near the bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin.
Maybe not exciting for Kate Middleton -- duchess of Cambridge, I should say, because it's been 14 hours that she has been in labor. And the duchess of Cambridge, Catherine, went into labor early, early this morning and now the world awaits word whether it will be a little girl or a little boy.
Traditionally, the announcement is posted up on the gates of Buckingham Palace, the sex and the weight on a framed gold-trimmed easel just outside of the palace doors, but now we are hearing suddenly there has been a change of plan, a change in protocol. And now a formal press release containing the details of the birth will be released before the traditional easel announcement.
Max Foster is our royal correspondent. He's the one who got the scoop on that and he has been waiting outside of St. Mary's Hospital.
Max, we are waiting right along with you.
You, first, tell me about the change in protocol. Why?
MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'm gripped. I have got my iPhones in front of...
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
FOSTER: ... Brooke, because we are expecting announcement here.
I think we're going to get an announcement very soon. Basically, what we have been told is that the plan has changed. So, the whole easel moment, when the press secretary was going to come out and hand a note to the messenger, take it to Buckingham Palace, it may still happen, but what we are being told is that there will be a press release issued before then.
So, we are all glued to our iPhones. Could it happen tonight? It seems very likely.