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Dozens of Homes and Businesses Destroyed; First Case of MERS Transmitted In The U.S.; War of Words Over Inmarsat's Raw Data; Battling Fire Tornadoes; Man Solves Zodiac Killer Mystery; Cracking Zodiac Killer's Cryptic Message; The Worst Apologies Ever

Aired May 17, 2014 - 17:00   ET

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

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Miguel Marquez in for Don Lemon. Wildfires are chewing through large parts of Southern California right now including many houses and businesses. But fire crews there are giving us some very welcome news. One, it looks like firefighters are finally getting the upper hand on the half dozen fires burning right now.

And, two, despite the massive destruction, no major injuries and no deaths are being blamed directly on the fires that started spreading four days ago. CNN's Paul Vercammen is north of San Diego right now. San Marcos, California, where some homes were lost, others spared. Paul, what's going on there right now?

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, as you can see behind me, this is one of those homes that was lost in this fire, eight in all in this Coco's fire as they call it in San Marcos. But the good news is, we got 70 percent containment today and they say that number is sure to go up on this fire as well as other fires throughout the county. The largest on Camp Pendleton, for example, is a 15,000-acre fire and that's now 40 percent contained. Not in this neighborhood but we are starting to see a trickle of residents return and our Andrew Peterson is caught up with someone earlier today who is getting back into her home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VALERIE CHABUX, EXECUTIVE HOME IN SAN MARCOS: And right as we finished packing our suitcases we heard a helicopter overhead saying get out, get out now! Walked out the door. Helicopter was hovering right over you saying you need to evacuate now. And you could see a plume of smoke and flames coming down the corridor, flying down the corridor this way. Like, when you see on -- pictures of tsunamis and people running from that, that's what it was like.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: Sad to look at this devastation, but the good news is it could have been worse. We've seen fires, of course, that just whipped through neighborhoods and consume hundreds of homes. That numbered about 20 in San Diego County. Not as dire as it could have been. And the weather is certainly cooperating. Temperatures dropping, winds calmer and the humidity, Miguel, is way up. MARQUEZ: Well, that certainly helps a heck of a lot. But what are firefighters saying about when they hope to have these fires fully contained?

VERCAMMEN: They think that they can get most of them fully contained in the next two days or so. One fire in this county Rancho Bernardo for example is already fully contained. So, those containment, figures go up by the moment, and as you know from covering fires, sometimes it's not that they are stalled on the containment, it's that they are working so hard and so diligently that not all the battalion chiefs have gotten back to the command center to stay how much more containment they have. We're waiting for another update on the containment number and that will come in about 6:00 or 7:00 west coast time to go.

MARQUEZ: -- go up very quickly once they start to rise, let's hope they got the best of it. Thanks very much, Paul.

VERCAMMEN: Now, a quick update from Washington on upcoming changes to the Obama cabinet. Government source confirms the President's plans to nominate San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro to be his housing secretary. Castro's confirmation would allow Obama to make the current HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan his next budget director. The budget post became vacant when Sylvia Mathews Burwell was nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services replacing Kathleen Sebelius who resigned.

And we've just learned the first case of Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome or MERS transmitted within the U.S. has been identified in an Illinois man.

Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins me now with more on the illness known as MERS. Elizabeth, what do we know about this new case?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: What we know about this case is that this is the first time, Miguel, that somebody has contracted MERS on U.S. soil. So, to back up for a minute, the first two cases of MERS they were people who went from Saudi Arabia to the United States. But now one of those patients, one of those people, has now spread MERS to someone else within the United States. So, this new person, he is from Illinois. He had one 40-minute business meeting.

Just one 40-minute business meeting with the infected person, and now he is also testing positive for MERS. So, it tells us a little bit more, you know, this virus isn't incredibly easy to catch. It's not like the common cold, but now we know it appears that it can be spread just from a 40-minute business meeting. Then he had a shorter meeting the next day, but really not a whole ton of contact.

MARQUEZ: Well, that's a little concerning, isn't it? Because we had learned that it was contact, close contact, between these individuals, but business meeting and I guess two contacts over two days between these two individuals. But in a business-typesetting and that is it? COHEN: That is it. The two men we're told were within six feet of each other. We're told that they didn't hug. We're told that they did shake hands. So, two meetings, one 40 minutes, one shorter than that. There were handshakes. They were within six feet of each other, but it wasn't like let's say, you know, a family member, they weren't hugging, they weren't eating off each other's plates, they weren't, you know, doing anything of that kind of thing, they weren't sleeping in close quarters, so it definitely tells you that there's more that we need to learn about how much contact you need in order to spread this virus.

MARQUEZ: Amazing. Well, that's what my mind went to the families and now what happens to them and how it all that plays out and how the government then reacts to all this. Fascinating stuff. Thank you very much.

COHEN: Thanks.

MARQUEZ: A game of he said, she said between the satellite company Inmarsat and the Malaysian government over data from Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

And last night, a big disagreement over that same data among CNN aviation analysts. We'll play it for you next.

And later this hour, the non-apology this week from Clippers owner Donald Sterling that only stirred up more controversy. Where does his "I'm sorry" rank among the worst apologies ever? We'll let you decide when we bring them to you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUEZ: Now to the hunts for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. A war of words is erupting over the most valuable clue driving the entire search operation. Malaysia says it does not have the raw Inmarsat satellite data used to create every single search area off the west coast of Australia. For weeks heartbroken families begged Malaysia over and over to release that very data. Inmarsat says not so fast, Malaysia. The British satellite company says, it gave Malaysia all the relevant data and it's up to the Malaysians to decide whether to release it publicly.

Three of our top aviation analysts got into an explosive debate themselves about whether Inmarsat was holding back information.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: And, I'm sorry, this whole thing is starting to sound a little childish to me frankly. But let me just tell you. I'm going to try to translate what I've gotten some mathematicians would give me a lot of complicated stuff or what they are wanting. But basically what they want are information on the algorithms which underlie all of this. The offsets, the margin of error on some of the distances traveled on the ground. It's incredibly complex stuff which goes to how they got to those numbers. And here's a key one. This is -- this one I think we can all understand.

How does Inmarsat know that the failures on board that aircraft do not in some way change the data? In other words, if all those communication systems were failing, how do they know that doesn't affect the way that that information was being returned and the Doppler Effect was figured and the direction was teased out? So, it's the narrative behind the 14 numbers.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Go ahead, Richard.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN HOST, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: Because that's why they did the specimens of the other 777s both on the northern corridor and on the southern corridor and that's why they're able to conclude that it was the southern corridor because the correlation between others and MH-370 was connected.

BURNETT: Arthur? Mediate.

QUEST: Richard, hold on a sec.

BURNETT: Go ahead.

ARTHUR ROSENBERG, AVIATION LAWYER: Richard, that's the whole point. First of all, Inmarsat is a multinational billion dollar corporation whose corporate credibility and trustworthiness is on the line. They said we did not have the data. The Malaysians have it. The Malaysians said Inmarsat has it.

QUEST: No. Hold on a second.

BURNETT: Hold on Richard one second.

ROSENBERG: Right now, there's no reason, there's no preclusion ICAO, Annex 13 or otherwise why they should not release the data and the analysis that Miles is talking about, the BFOs which I call the Doppler shifts, the Doppler fingerprint, they must release it and there is no good reason why they shouldn't.

BURNETT: Yes.

ROSENBERG: And -- and if Inmarsat is worried about their business, their shareholders on a worldwide basis are going to be a lot more upset with the way they've handled this if they don't come forth.

BURNETT: All right, Richard, so first, I want to take it as two parts. Let's just start first with at least -- can we all agree that there is more data than 14 data points? I mean, there is the analysis. Now, they're saying they submitted that. But I mean, everybody, there's more than 14 data points here. You're saying no, you really do think that.

QUEST: Hang on, hang on. The raw data upon which everything else cascades, and I agree with both Miles and Arthur, that the cascading effect coming from that is clearly much greater.

BURNETT: Yes. QUEST: But this idea that there is somehow a vast treasure trove of information being withheld, my understanding is simply it's not the case. Now, to Arthur's point, they say they don't have the data. Of course, they say they've got the data. What they are saying is they've got the data. Malaysia's got the data. Everybody involved has seen the relevant data. That's what they're saying --

BURNETT: What about the point that Arthur is saying which is they have the ability, Inmarsat, to share the data with you, with Miles, with Arthur, with scientists around the world and they are hiding behind this treaty saying, only Malaysia can. Arthur says, that doesn't add up. The three doesn't work that way, they can't release the data, you're saying no.

QUEST: Listen very carefully.

ROSENBERG: I am.

QUEST: Arthur is wrong. Right? Section 5.12, section 5.26 brackets "b," section 6.2, time and again in the treaty annex 13 makes it clear the responsibility for the release of information rests with the state of current -- registry and if Arthur is now suggesting that somehow there can be an implied content because Malaysia has said that -- that it's OK to do so, that won't wash with Inmarsat.

BURNETT: Arthur, very quick response.

ROSENBERG: Richard, first of all, you are just wrong. Here's the bottom line. First of all, Icao Annex 13is a framework which Malaysia has played foot loose and fancy free with throughout this investigation. Now, even if this information were somehow not prohibited from disclosure by Malaysia, which they have said it's OK, get it from Inmarsat, the only two pieces of information that are precluded are the progress of the investigation and the findings of the investigation.

QUEST: No, no.

ROSENBERG: Whatever parenthesis you are reading from, my good English friend, I say go back and read a little closer because you are missing a point.

BURNETT: OK. Hold on, I got to give the final word on Miles.

O'BRIEN: I have so say one thing, all this talk about Icao Annex 13, subchapter, whatever, it is positively inhumane. Where is the humanity of Inmarsat and the Malaysians, release the data, the narrative, the analysis, the algorithms, lay the cards out on the table once and for all, this is childish and inhumane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: And then there is this -- remember those pings that searchers for Flight 370 said they detected? Now, there are questions about whether that's really what they heard. An audio forensics expert joins us next to talk about it. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUEZ: As the search for Malaysia Flight 370 enters its 72nd day there are new concerns on whether the signals detected in the South Indian Ocean actually came from the missing plane's black boxes. It could have huge implications for leaders trying to determine where the next search phase should be focused. Let me take you back to last month. That's when the ocean shield pinger detected four acoustic signals and most everyone agreed the sounds detected from the ocean floor were most likely pings from the plane itself.

Our Randi Kaye interviewed the president of the company that makes the black box pingers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So you actually heard the pinger sound that the ship picked up?

ANISH PATEL, PRESIDENT, DUKANE SEACOM: They've sent us some data.

KAYE: And how did it sound to you?

PATEL: Just like one of our pingers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Well, now the U.S. navy is calling for those pings to be reanalyzed, if signals heard by the ocean shield were not pings, then what in the world were they?

Our Rosa Flores joins us to hopefully shine some light on this.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, I talked to sound engineers from around the country and they told me that when it comes to the ocean, you can say that the ocean is a loud place. There's a lot going on there, and it can create some confusion.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES (voice-over): This is what a ping sounds like.

JAMES MILLER, HOST OF OCEAN ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND: Very high frequency.

FLORES: And that's the critical sound searchers say they heard in the deep and rough waters of the Indian Ocean.

MILLER: It's deep and it's dark. So it's salty. It's high pressure. It's hard to work.

FLORES: Here on Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, researchers show us the challenges search crews face as they try to hear the ping from Flight 370's data recorder.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: So this is a hydrophone.

FLORES: We drop an underwater microphone, a hydrophone, off the back of the boat as it moves farther away from a pinger that's already been submerged.

And even less than 100 yards away, the ping starts to fade. Distance isn't the only problem out in the Indian Ocean. There are other noises competing with the sound of the pinger, like sea life. One dolphin species sounds like a black box pinger, and this is the sound of rain underwater.

(on-camera): Let me get away from the loudest part of the boat, so I can show you one of the biggest obstacles that searchers have in the open sea, just ship noise. Even here, listen to how loud it is. There are, at a minimum, 15,000 ships on the world's oceans on any given day, creating even more obstacles in a search that's already daunting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: Now, the sound doesn't travel equally underwater. When it comes to low-pitched sound that travels much farther than high- pitch sound. Now, the ping that we've been talking about is the high- pitched sound. So, Miguel, so, when we talk about, you know, how the radius of the ping is and how, you know, searchers have been looking for it and it's really not too big of an area that you'd actually be able to listen to the ping --

MARQUEZ: Right. Well, there's been a lot of questions about these pings and what they really are. They're clearly concentrating on the first two. The last two were of lower quality. But, you know, the shape of the ocean bottom as well, that the tides, the currents, all those can play into this as well. Yes?

FLORES: Well, definitely so. Because you've got waves that travel -- that sound not only travels but it bounces off of different things. If you've got a mountain range at the bottom of the ocean then, you know, the sound would be bouncing off perhaps. And then, I mean, from talking to a lot of industry experts they say, you know, initially they felt very good about these pings because of the length of the ping. Because they had been listening and the reports that we've gotten from investigators was that the pings had lasted for a really long time.

MARQUEZ: And even though, these were at 37.5 megahertz, they were picked up at 33. That didn't raise any concern with folks?

FLORES: Well, I think it depended on how the information was released because initially we just heard, oh, they heard the pings for this amount of length. So, when you talk to oceanographers, they say, OK, yes, so then it would probably not be sea life. We talked about sea life about, you know, rain that can cause a lot of static in the ocean, the sound of static, and also the rumbling of ships. OK, yes, no. If it's a two-hour ping it's not going to be a dolphin just hanging out listening to you. Probably not.

MARQUEZ: All right. Rosa Flores, thank you very much.

FLORES: You're welcome.

MARQUEZ: Very helpful.

I want to bring in a forensic audio expert now, Paul Ginsberg who has worked with the FBI and Homeland Security Department. Paul, the ocean shield detected four separate pings. Why is the U.S. navy only questioning the last two?

PAUL GINSBERG, FORENSIC AUDIO EXPERT: Well, it turns out that the first two pings, the ones that were two minutes, 20 seconds and so on, were really very, very much closer to the stated specifications of the manufacturer of the pinger device. They were, in fact, 33.331 kilohertz instead of 37.5. Whereas the other two were far more departed than, you know, from -- from the really what's supposed to be the really stable 37.5 kilohertz. In other words, these were closer and for a longer period of time where they detected and also the pulse repetition rate was very close to a second.

MARQUEZ: Right. And as I understand the biggest problem they had is that because of the way they tow that pinger, they were able to get sort of a horizontal pickup on these pings but they weren't able to get them the vertical which would allow them to zero in exactly on where that ping was coming from, is that correct?

GINSBERG: Well, it's very difficult. Because they have to try to mow the lawn and, in fact, go left, right, up and down, you know, and forward and back. And also you have other noise-making, human-made noises in the ocean as well as marine life. And it's very difficult. It's a lot of noise there, you know?

MARQUEZ: But I take it you believe that these two pings, the first two pings, are good. I mean, if they rule out the last two, will that really affect the search much?

GINSBERG: No. I think they're going to try to focus on the loudest and longest duration pings that they have. And also the fact that over a period of two hours and 20 minutes which is thousands of pings, we had a very stable pulse repetition rate of 1.106 seconds in between each of these pings. And for sea life to do that for that period of time would be very unlikely.

MARQUEZ: I want to turn to that other big mystery now for the search for Flight 370, the Inmarsat data, families want to see the raw data used to determine the search area, they want to see it for themselves if they can track it. Malaysia says, don't look at us for the satellite company. Inmarsat says, hey, we handled it over. Someone is not telling the truth here. What's your sense of what's happening?

GINSBERG: Correct. And I listened to the heated discussion that you had just before the break. I'm glad I'm a few miles away from that. OK. It turns out that the Malaysian government has a very, very poor history. They've changed what they reported as the aircraft's altitude, direction, the transcript. Remember, they first said that the last transmission was, all right, good night. Where clearly it wasn't. The release of the transcripts was first withheld, then it was -- then they were released. Then the actual communications were released. And, in fact, I looked at those transmissions, and what they released was edited.

In fact, there's even a very low voice. Neither pilot nor tower in that released audio that they gave us. As far as who has the permission or the authority to withhold or release the information, really, whoever -- I don't care who it comes from, we need the data. And as far as I'm concerned with respect to the Malaysian government, I would not buy a used car from them.

MARQUEZ: Well, that's -- that's saying quite a bit there. Paul, stay right where you are. We're going to have you back in just a few minutes to talk about a man's claim this week that his father was the famous zodiac killer. Paul is going to tell us how experts actually cracked the cryptic code that the zodiac killer left behind.

In those wildfires in California this week have produced some spectacular images. Next, how quickly shifting winds push flames to what's called a firenado.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Our IReporters in southern California have been sending us some incredible images of the wildfires. These were taken by IReporters, Patrick Merritt and Lisa Tomey, in Carlsbad, on the coast of San Diego. Firefighters in the middle of the fight in getting some rest wherever they can.

Thousands of acres are still burning right now, but fire officials say the weather is cooperating, and they're confident they have the upper hand. If you're in the wildfire area, we want to see your photos, too. Go to ireport.CNN.com to share your images. But, please, keep yourselves safe. Don't put yourself in harm's way to take those pictures.

Over the past few days, we couldn't stop watching images like this -- the fast-moving wildfire, the winds whipping, twisting the flames into an angry-looking funnel of immense heat. Firefighters call these things fire tornadoes and they both respect and fear them, for good reason.

Here's Tom Foreman.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One of the most dangerous circumstances for wildfire fighters is the day when the weather and the winds are unstable and fires can be pushed one way very quickly or they can be pushed back the other way. But how does all this come together to create a fire whirl or some people call it a fire tornado? Essentially the fire burns into a very hot source of fuel, 1,500 to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit would be typical. And then in this changing environment a pocket of cold air appears overhead. And all of that heat starts rushing up toward it. And as it meets the cooler air, it does what they do in tornado situations, the two types of air start swirling around each other and you get that circular motion. Meanwhile, it starts sucking in more combustible gases from the ground. And as they rise up, as they burst into flames, it tightens in and gets faster and there you get your fire tornado.

It's not actually a true tornado in that a tornado would be hundreds of miles an hour and it would be much more powerful than this. They do occur that way but very, very rarely. This is more like a dust devil with fire in it. But it's still dangerous because it can go horizontal at any moment and basically start spraying out across the ground like a blowtorch with thousands of degrees, very dangerous for firefighters nearby. But even if it keeps going straight up, along with those combustible gases, it is pulls in tiny bits of particulate, bits of plants and things, which can also burst into flames up there. And in this rapidly swirling environment, be thrown out and carried by the wind starting other fires.

So, if you're too close to the fire whirl itself, you can be trapped between that and the other fires that are started. And imagine those fires going all the way around. That's one of the reasons why these have to be treated with so much respect and kept at such a distance as fascinating as they are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Thanks to our Tom Foreman.

This week's "CNN Hero" has been busy battling the brush fires that have engulfed San Diego County, forcing thousands to evacuate their homes. But when she's not protecting her community as a firefighter, Robyn Benincasa is an adventurer and inspiring women around the world to move beyond their medical traumas for happier and stronger lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I initially got hurt in 2005. I had 46 surgeries and attempts to salvage the leg. I people decide on amputation. A lot of people view it as a loss, but I got my life back.

(SHOUTING)

ROBYN BENINCASA, CNN HERO: Very often people are saying, OK, I survived, but now what. And we want to be that now what.

(SHOUTING)

BENINCASA: I was a world-class adventure racer in the world championships. I hit the deck, and the doctor said, you're never going to run again.

I've had four hip replacements. After my first, I said, I'm just going to put something on my calendar so that I'm still training for something.

It just make use realize it's not about the setback. It's about the comeback. So I thought, let's do that for other women.

(SHOUTING)

BENINCASA: I started an organization that helps survivors of medical or traumatic setbacks live an adventurous dream as part of their recovery.

This is about you going out there and being the badass that you are.

A strong kid. That a girl.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was in a place of such uncertainty, so finding the website was such a message of hope to me. Here was a group of women who understand it on a different level.

BENINCASA: Athena Girls.

(SHOUTING)

BENINCASA: Yeah, baby.

Being an Athena, you're not just a survivor. You're an adventurer, we give them a different label to put on themselves, and it's something they become on their way to the finish line.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: The comeback, not the setback. If you know someone like Robyn who deserves recognition, well, go to CNNheroes.com and let us know about them.

Next, an emergency at one of America's most famous ballparks when a fan takes a fall down an elevator shaft.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUEZ: State and local inspectors are trying to pinpoint the cause of a horrifying incident at Boston's Fenway Park a 22-year-old fell two stories down an elevator shaft landing on the roof of the elevator, it happened after a Red Sox game. Rescuers say they found the woman unconscious with serious injuries but the hospital has not released her condition.

And we now know what killed a woman at the center of a baffling murder case in Georgia. The body of 87-year-old Shirley Durman was found yesterday five miles from the waterfront home she shared with her husband. His decapitated body was found two weeks ago inside the home, triggering a massive search for her. Authorities say she died of blunt impact injury to her head. Her body was then put into the lake. Investigators say they have no idea who would want to hurt the couple.

Now, after decades of mystery, has the identity of a northern California Zodiac Killer be revealed? A Louisiana man believes his years of research has solved the string of murders in the 1960s.

CNN's Dan Simon reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Zodiac Killer has come to San Francisco.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The zodiac case has fascinated both the public and Hollywood for years. But the killer has remained at large, ever since the bay area killings began in December of 1968.

Now in a new book, called "The Most Dangerous Animal of All," author, Gary Stewart, a businessman from Louisiana, says he has finally cracked the case. A search for his biological father, he says, led him to San Francisco and to conclusively identify his father was the Zodiac Killer, according to publisher, Harper Collins.

Stewart writes, "I felt it was my responsibility to share the truths that I had learned in a way that would leave no doubt as to the identity of this killer."

Take a look at this picture of his father, identified as Earl Van Best Jr, now deceased, and an old sketch of the zodiac. They do seem to bear a striking resemblance. So far, police aren't saying much, because in part because over the years others have come forward purportedly to name the killer and no credible leads have emerged.

But in his book, Stewart points to this as one piece of evidence, a cipher or cryptogram the Zodiac to a newspaper with the, E.V. Best Jr, the name of his biological father.

BRIAN HARTNELL, ZODIAC KILLER SURVIVOR: I feel the knife bearing in my back.

SIMON: Brian Hartnell was one of only two survivors who could give the description of the killer. He's rarely spoke publicly.

HARTNELL: He had some clip-on glasses that were either affixed to the hood or affixed to glasses underneath.

SIMON: On his chest, he also wore what became known as his symbol, crosshairs and a gun site. At least five people were killed during the yearlong spree.

The killer claimed responsibility in a series of letters to newspapers. He called himself Zodiac. As the investigation continued, different persons of interest would emerge. This 2007 film focused on the chase and the clues leading to one suspect, named Arthur Lee Allen, a schoolteacher. The evidence seemed promising, including Allen's watch with the zodiac symbol. But his fingerprints and handwriting didn't match the killer's. Allen died in 1992. He always maintained his innocence.

ARTHUR LEE ALLEN, ZODIAC KILLER SUSPECT: I'm not the damn Zodiac.

SIMON: And while theories continue to proliferate in books like this one, authorities are still no closer in naming the actual killer than they were many decades ago.

Dan Simon, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Thanks to our Dan Simon.

Next a look at the cryptic letters the Zodiac Killer left behind. We're asking an expert, just how do you crack the code.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUEZ: Well, before the break, we told you the story of the man who said his father is the infamous Zodiac Killer but he's not the first to say he's descended from the man suspected of killing at least five people in northern California in the late '60s. The Zodiac Killer craved publicity, taunting the public with creepy letters to the media in which he said he'd killed 37 people. Those letters often written in a cipher he seemed to invent himself.

I want to bring in Paul Ginsburg. He is a forensic audio expert who has worked with the FBI, the CIA, and the Homeland Security.

Paul, do you think the way these letters are written is one of the reasons the Zodiac Killer still hasn't been identified after all of these years?

PAUL GINSBURG, FORENSIC AUDIO EXPERT: Well, that's a matter of speculation. The first one was, in fact, decoded by a husband-and- wife team. And it had details of some of the murders, and it was really what identified him, and he called himself Zodiac. A number of letters that he had sent in, in plain text to the newspapers and law enforcement, showed lots of misspellings, so we don't know whether he was very educated. But in the area of ciphers and texts, codes, that was his expertise.

MARQUEZ: Possibly the misspellings were even part of the whole ruse. What do these cryptograms even look like? How do you go about solving them?

GINSBURG: Well, there are a number of ways. First of all, each letter in the alphabet has a certain frequency within common text. The order of frequencies from the most common is E-T-A-R-I-O-N-S-H, and so on. So we know what we're looking for. We know common one- letter, two-letter, three-letter words, and we start to make sense of a cryptogram. And I've brought along a sample to show you how we go about that.

MARQUEZ: Yeah. Now, we have one of the Zodiac Killer's actual cryptograms. Why would someone use this particular type of communication?

GINSBURG: Well, this is to send a message to a recipient without anybody in-between being able to decode it, decipher it. Sending a secret message to a girlfriend at school or to a military commander across the field and so a number of different reasons.

MARQUEZ: Do you think --

(CROSSTALK)

GINSBURG: Oh, I'm sorry.

MARQUEZ: Do you think these are real? Do you think they are real cryptograms? Do you think there's actually a message in there or is this gobbledygook he's sent out to confuse people?

GINSBURG: Well, that's what I was getting at. It may be that his plan was to -- to taunt, as he had in other ways, the news media as well as law enforcement by putting out what really is just nonsense, just noise. Nothing -- no real content. And that's been a matter of speculation. And, in fact, the remaining three codes have not been broken, as yet.

MARQUEZ: Have you ever taken it upon yourself to look at these codes and try to figure out whether they might be real or not?

GINSBURG: Well, very briefly. He does use some sophisticated techniques. He does not have the actual words lengths displayed. What he has done is run them together. He also doesn't use English letters. He uses symbols, so it's very difficult and you have to do a one-to-one accordance for each of the letters that you take. Now, they may be out of order. There are codes where you go up and down rows and columns, and the positions are what determine the order of the text, in addition to the substitution. So it can become very sophisticated.

MARQUEZ: Fascinating stuff.

Paul, thank you very much for joining us today.

GINSBURG: Pleasure.

MARQUEZ: Next, the non-apology apology this week from Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, that only stirred up more controversy. Where does his, "I'm sorry" rank among the worst apologies ever?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUEZ: San Diego Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, has hired a high- powered attorney. He has been banned for life from the NBA and fined $2.5 million from the league because of racist comments that went public. CNN has learned that the attorney, Maxwell Blecher, has sent the NBA commissioner a letter threatening a lawsuit if Sterling's punishments are not withdrawn. The attorney argues that Sterling's due process rights have been violated and tht Sterling has done nothing to violate NBA bylaws. Earlier this week, Sterling spoke exclusively with CNN's Anderson Cooper. He apologized for his recorded remarks remarks. But created new troubles when he criticized wealthy African-Americans in general and NBA legend Magic Johnson, specifically.

The Sterling apology, such as it was, landed with a thud. But he is hardly the first business leader first to say I'm sorry and have it fall short of expectations.

Our Christine Romans has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there.

Donald Sterling delivered his apology in our interview with Anderson Cooper and it backfired and he may lose his team despite saying sorry.

Sterling could have learned a thing or two from those before him. Instead, he lands on top of the list of the worst apologies in business.

LARRY DAVID, COMEDY WRITER: I'm really sorry. I am. I'm sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It doesn't matter if you apologize if it's not sincere.

DAVID: Apologies don't have to be sincere. It's just the act of the apology itself.

ROMANS (voice-over): The art of the apology may be lost on Larry David but the corporate suite doesn't get it right either. After dealing with the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, BP CEO Tony Hayward offered this.

TONY HAYWARD, CEO, BP: We're sorry. We're sorry for the massive disruption it caused to lives. And there is no one who wants this thing over more than I do. I want my life back.

ROMANS: He got his life back. He was replaced less than two months later and Comedy Central's "South Park" rubbed it in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARTOON CHARACTER: We're sorry.

CARTOON CHARACTER: We're sorry.

CARTOON CHARACTER: Sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Nothing says "I'm sorry" like free pizza. That's what Chevron offered residents of Bobtown, Pennsylvania, after a gas well exploded killing a worker.

"The Daily Show" mocked Chevron's attempted apology. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED COMEDIAN, THE DAILY SHOW: OK. All right. Everyone calm down, OK? Sounds like you're hungry. I know just the trick. Pizza!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Comfort food couldn't help Paul Deen. She took a seat on the "Today Show" to apologize for making racist comments and she got Biblical.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAULA DEEN, CELEBRITY CHEF: If there is anyone out there that has never said something that they wish they could take back, if you're out there, please pick up that stone and throw it so hard at my head that it kills me!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: But Deen couldn't butter up her sponsors. They fled and her food network show shut down. Deen is attempting a comeback.

But for Lululemon's former chairman, there was no coming backs from comments about the company's high-priced yoga pants.

CHIP WILSON, FORMER CHAIRMAN, LULULEMON: Frankly, some women's body actually just don't work for it.

ROMANS: Co-founder Chip Wilson tried to apologize after offending customers but his mea culpa was only to employees.

WILSON: I'm sorry to have put you all through this.

ROMANS: The sales stalled and stocks plunged and Wilson resigned.

At Target, the CEO Gregg Steinhafel apologized for a hack that exposed tens of millions of customers' private information. "I'm sorry" came with free credit monitoring and 10 percent off for a whole weekend! Sales fell and the hack expanded and he resigned.

DONALD STERLING, OWNER, LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS: And I'm so sorry. And I'm so apologetic.

ROMANS: The lesson for Donald Sterling, in business, saying "sorry" isn't enough. It's how you say it.

(on camera): Donald Sterling's mea culpa likely won't be the last bad apology in business, but the pressure of social media and the possibility he may be forced to sell his team may cause business leaders to take note of how not to say sorry Sterling style.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Thanks, Christine.