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Arthur Hammers Coast with Strong Winds; Toddler Dies Inside Car; Police: Dad was "Sexting" as Son Died in Car; Hurricane Arthur Leaves Flooding Behind

Aired July 04, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Obviously the wind gusts are getting very strong right off of the coast here.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The winds are extremely strong and if you take a look at the skies, you could see them lighting up and that is not lightning. Those are transformers blowing up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: With winds of 100 miles per hour, Arthur now churns its way up the East Coast.

Plus gut-wrenching testimony in a case of Justin Harris, accused of leaving his little boy Cooper to die in a hot car.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DET. PHIL STODDARD, COBB COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT: Evidence is showing us right now that he's got this whole second life that he's living with alternate personalities and alternate personas. He was having up to six different conversations with different women, the most common term would be sexting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: And that's not all. Police now say Harris and his wife were in financial trouble, and took out life insurance policies on their son.

The clashes will continue today over immigration. Protesters vowing to halt the arrival of any undocumented immigrants in the small California town of Murrieta.

And happy Fourth of July. The festivities already under way. Beautiful pictures from the skies of Boston overnight.

NEWSROOM starts right now.

Good morning. Happy Fourth of July. Happy Friday. Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm Ana Cabrera in for Carol. Great to have you with me on this Fourth of July.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Arthur is crashing the party for millions of Americans on this Independence Day. This morning Arthur is still a category 2 storm whipping treacherous winds and dangerous waves.

Here it is, slamming ashore with 100-mile-per-hour winds slashing the central coastline of North Carolina. Power lines toppled, 20,000 homes and businesses left in the dark. Now by dawn Arthur churned up the coast pounding the northern edge of the outer banks. The state's Barrier Islands are as fragile as they are vulnerable.

We are covering all the angles. We have team coverage you can see. We've got meteorologist Indra Petersons. Here she's in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, Karen Maginnis is standing by in CNN's Weather Center tracking the storm's path as it continues today, and Alina Machado is there, the calm after the storm in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.

Let's begin with Indra.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You know, Ana, we just got breaking news from the latest hurricane update that now Arthur has weakened to a category 1 hurricane. Those sustained winds right now at 90 miles per hour. Remember at a point we were talking about winds over 100 miles per hour which did make it a category 2 hurricane, it would have made landfall this morning.

Now remember Arthur, this is the biggest or strongest hurricane we've seen make landfall here on the mainland of the U.S. since 2008. We definitely had some big impacts this morning, a lot of beach erosion originally in the early morning hours here. We saw the winds coming in from the east. We saw a lot of beach erosion and all this water from the ocean went all the way up onto the beach.

Now we're switching on the backside. The direction of this system is pulling out of here. And you're seeing all of this water now recede back into the ocean. But I keep reminding everyone these are the outer banks. We have two bodies of water to be concerned about, on the opposite side we have the opposite effects because we have the sound, a more shallow body of water.

So with that, that's where we saw all the surge that came in this morning. Because all those easterly winds knocked all that water far out to the west then it came back in and brought a good three, four feet of water into the area and of course the wind knocked out power to many all up and down the Carolina coastline.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETERSONS (voice-over): At least 20 counties here in North Carolina now in a state of emergency. Hurricane Arthur making landfall at 11:15 Thursday night.

CNN's Rene Marsh camped out at Atlantic Beach when it hit.

MARSH: The winds are extremely strong. And if you take a look at the skies, you can see them lighting up, and that is not lightning, those are transformers blowing up. That means people are without power most likely at this point.

PETERSONS: Despite the darkness along the outer banks, North Carolina's governor told the thousands without power to stay inside.

GOV. PAT MCCRORY (R), NORTH CAROLINA: Wait for this storm to leave for a long period of time before you venture to the outside.

PETERSONS: The now category 2 hurricane living up to emergency managers' fears.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tree broken and crash into this -- part of this house here.

PETERSONS: Sustained winds of at least 100 miles per hour. Storm surges and dangerous rip currents are warding off Fourth of July beach-goers.

MCCRORY: We want to warn our citizens up the coast and our thousands of tourists who may be dealing with this for the first time, that this is a serious storm.

PETERSONS: This is a photo from inside the eye of the storm. Of concern, the inner eye wall, now shrinking in size. The danger? The smaller the eye gets the stronger the winds become.

MCCRORY: So we're most concerned now about flooding inland and also storm surges in our sounds and our rivers further inland.

PETERSONS: Governor Pat McCrory says rescue and emergency crews are at the ready to assess damage and begin the cleanup effort.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PETERSONS: And remember now, Arthur has weakened to that category 1 hurricane, and it's picked up speed so it's bolting out of here very quickly to the northeast at about 23 miles per hour, so when you look to the sky behind us, starting to see a little bit of a clearing here and there. Of course these gusts are still strong. We're still getting some good 40-mile-per-hour gusts out there, really kicking that sand up right in our faces.

But I'll tell you what, the biggest concern now is location, because it is the Fourth of July. Everyone is waking up this morning, we're seeing a lot of beach-goers now up and down the beach. And I know what they're thinking, the sun is about to come out, we're going to go for a dip in the ocean. That is going to be the biggest concern here moving forward because so many deaths occur every year when people underestimate the risk of that rip current.

All this water that came in and that's now receding, well, down low those sandbars block all that water coming in from a uniform motion so look for that little break in the sandbar and it enhances that current going right back into the ocean in small, tricky spots. That takes lives. That is the fear as it's Fourth of July, expected to be very hot out here today and many people are going to be trying to go in the water.

Of course the other side as you guys know this is heading off to the northeast. So right around Cape Cod this evening it's going to be closest to you, still looking for some 90-mile-per-hour winds out there. Yes, south of the area but with that cold front, you've been seeing all that severe weather the combination there is going to bring even more severe weather in your direction as this guy heads out to you.

CABRERA: Wow, Indra Petersons, thanks for braving the storm for us and giving us that latest update.

Now let's head over to the CNN Weather Center and meteorologist Karen Maginnis.

So, Karen, the question for millions of people who are still north of the storm, where exactly is it going and when?

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, it is moving. I wanted to reemphasize what Indra just said, and that is this is a category 1 now. It was category 2, the winds now associated with this to 90 miles an hour, but the fact that it was moving along rather rapidly, that's the good news. The bad news is, yes, these areas across the mid-Atlantic and eventually across southern New England as we go throughout the evening and into the overnight hours, that is going to be critical.

Here's the latest information, moving northeast at 23 miles an hour. If this were slower, that would be dumping a whole lot more rain, produce a whole lot more in the way of erosion along the coast, but look at some of these wind gusts that we saw, Cape, lookout, this was about 10 hours ago. This has made landfall in that vicinity. There was a wind gust of 101 miles per hour.

Now this is looking a little more ragged especially along the southern edge. There may be a little bit of dry intrusion, dry air intrusion or it could be just because of the interaction with land but now that it's shifting more out into the ocean, this is where we're looking at to that ragged western-southwestern side.

Here are some of the wind gusts that we've seen over the past hour. Wouldn't say that these are necessarily dramatic, but once you've been battered from one side and then from the other, it can weaken structures and also for that fragile seashore, National Seashore, that's going to be kind of devastating for that ecologically kind of fragile region so we'll keep you updated.

CABRERA: All right. Certainly could have been a little bit worse.

Thank you so much, Karen Maginnis. We know you'll stay on top of that.

And while some parts of North Carolina continue to get hit by Arthur, others are now recovering from the effects of this storm.

For more on the aftermath, I'm joined on the phone now by North Carolina Emergency Management deputy director Joe Wright.

Joe, thanks so much for joining me.

JOE WRIGHT, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NORTH CAROLINA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Thank you.

CABRERA: What is your biggest concerns this morning?

WRIGHT: Yes, ma'am.

CABRERA: Joe, what is your biggest concern this morning?

WRIGHT: Our biggest concern this morning is Ocracoke Island. Right now they're without power and without communications. It seems that some of the other areas that we've had of concern, those concerns are being alleviated. We're hearing from their county this morning that they have no major issues. That's not to say there's not issues out there, it's just to say they are kind of handling their issues without any state support.

We're hearing from our other counties that they're in pretty good shape, they're able to handle their issues. Actually we're in the process of standing down some of our state swift water teams, our state urban search and rescue teams, our medical support teams and some of our helicopter assets that we had stood up for life-saving missions, and so it seems that we're weathering the storm fairly well.

CABRERA: Good to hear it. So glad to hear that, Joe. You mentioned Ocracoke Island being an area of concern and they do not have power there. I know those folks were only under a voluntary evacuation.

Do you know if a lot of people got out of the storm's path there?

WRIGHT: We think that a lot of the visitors got out. We'll know more when we are able to reach the island today. We're in the process right now of putting together a communications package and coordinate to get a utility restoration crew over on the first day. We expect that to happen right around noon to get their resources over to that island.

CABRERA: OK.

WRIGHT: (INAUDIBLE).

CABRERA: OK. Joe Wright, we know you guys are still assessing the damage. We hope you'll check back. Thank you so much for your time.

WRIGHT: Thank you.

CABRERA: Now our hurricane coverage will continue. But also still to come the father accused in that hot car death of his toddler son will stand trial. You'll hear the shocking details that led the judge in this case to deny him bail.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: We continue to follow Hurricane Arthur. But first let's get to some other news this morning.

Startling and salacious new allegations in the case of Justin Ross Harris. He's that 33-year-old Georgia man charged with murder in the death of his 22-month-old son Cooper. The toddler died after being left in a hot car for hours while his father was at work and allegedly sexting with half a dozen women.

Harris pleaded not guilty to murder and child cruelty charges but a judge says there is probable cause to move forward with this case. He denied bail and ordered Harris to stand trial.

CNN's Victor Blackwell takes us inside the courtroom.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What was Justin Ross Harris allegedly doing while his 22-month-old son, Cooper, suffered in the back of his scorching SUV?

STODDARD: He was having up to six conversations with different women. The most common term would be sexting.

BLACKWELL: Stunning claims of raunchy text messages, suspicious Internet searches and a plan to kill his son.

STODDARD: Evidence is showing us right now that he's got this whole second life that he's living with alternate personalities and alternate personas.

BLACKWELL: Harris sat shackled and sullen, as Detective Phil Stoddard with the Cobb County Police Department detailed X-rated messages allegedly exchanged the day Cooper died, including with a then 16- year-old girl.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were photos being sent back and forth between these women and the defendant during this day while the child was out in the car?

STODDARD: Yes, there were photos of his exposed penis, erect penis, being sent. There were also photos of women's breasts being sent back to him.

BLACKWELL: No visible reaction from the 33-year-old's wife Leanna Harris, who sat with her family and supporters in the packed courtroom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a loving father. He loved his son very much. We went on family vacations together. He was a good dad.

BLACKWELL: But just five days before Cooper's death, Detective Stoddard says Internet searches revealed that Harris watched videos online about the dangers of being trapped in a hot car and that Harris visited a web forum devoted to the child-free lifestyle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, there's no -- you don't have any evidence that he actually typed in a Google search or Reddit search or anything for child free?

STODDARD: True.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are getting so far afield from the events of June 18th. This has got nothing to do with those events whatsoever. The status of his marriage and his fantasy life has got nothing to do with the events of June 18th. We're just getting so far afield, Judge. This isn't relevant to anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Judge, this goes to the state of mind to the two weeks leading up to the death of this child.

JUDGE: So, this occurred within two weeks?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, Your Honor.

JUDGE: Overruled the objection.

BLACKWELL: The detective also testified the couple had financial problems and took out life insurance policies on Cooper.

STODDARD: They had two policies on Cooper. The first policy is a $2,000 policy, through the Home Depot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The second one, was this something that they got back in 2013?

STODDARD: Yes. Well, yes, November 2012 is when he signed up for it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. And was this something that he still had at the time of the child's death?

STODDARD: That is correct.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And how much was the policy?

STODDARD: It's $25,000 policy.

BLACKWELL: Stoddard laid out the strange way he saw Harris reacting the day Cooper died.

STODDARD: He started off trying to work himself up. And we're watching him on the cameras he's doing this. And he's walking around, and he's rubbing his eyes, and he's -- you know, trying to -- look like he's trying to hyperventilate himself. No tears, no real emotion coming out of him except for -- you know, the huffing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And through the time you are talking with him about his son and his son's death, did you ever see any tears coming from him?

STODDARD: No.

BLACKWELL: Even more bizarre, how witnesses say Leanna Harris reacted at the day care when she was told that Cooper was never dropped off. STODDARD: And in front of several witnesses, all of a sudden, she

states, Ross must have left him in the car. And, they are like, what? There's no other reason. Ross must have -- no other explanation, excuse me, Ross must have left him in the car.

And they tried to console her. They're like, no, there are 1,000 reasons. You know, he could have taken him to lunch or something. We don't know yet. And she's like, no.

BLACKWELL: Then, another shocker.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were there any injuries to the child's face?

STODDARD: There were.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what were those?

STODDARD: The way it's explained, there were several marks on the child's face that would have come from the child or a scratch being made while the child was alive and then not healing, not scabbing over or anything like that just soon after he passed away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were there any injuries to the child back of the child's head?

STODDARD: Yes, there were abrasions to the back of the child's head.

BLACKWELL: After three hours of stunning testimony, Judge Frank Cox denied Harris bond. The defense maintaining.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not criminal negligence. It's a horrible tragedy and accident.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: OK. Victor Blackwell is joining me now, along with criminal defense attorney Page Pate.

Thanks to both of you for coming in this morning to discuss this.

Victor, let's start with you because I know you were inside the courtroom. So many people around the country had their eyes glued to television since we were streaming a lot of that here on CNN. What was it like there in the courtroom?

BLACKWELL: Well, first, it was packed. Lot of those people were supporters of the Harrises. There are churches across the street. We walked in, people saving seats, climbing over some of the benches trying to get everybody packed in. It was standing room only.

Expected to go 90 minutes, it lasted just over three hours and no one moved. There was a moment the punctuation and I know Page is going to talk about this.

When we heard the defense attorney ask the investigator, would it surprise you to know that Justin Ross Harris is deaf in his right ear? Everybody perked. Maybe only his wife and close friends knew that. If you think he's in the driver's seat is it possible he did not hear his son right next to him?

CABRERA: Right.

And so many of the details as far as the allegations against Harris were so jaw-dropping and people's ears perked up.

Page, let me turn to you. We heard from some of the character witnesses on the stand there talking about this man and the man they knew and they say so much of what they're hearing from this detective goes against what they know of this man, they talked about sort of a split personality or double life. Your thoughts on that?

PAGE PATE, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And that's what's important to remember. It's easy to listen to this very damaging evidence and say close the book, he's guilty. It's over with.

This was not a trial. This was a probable cause hearing. The state gets to run the show. They have put up their best evidence. It went much longer than these hearings normally go.

I think they overdid is for probable cause. The point was to get the judge to deny bond and it worked.

What we now have to see is, does the defense have a defense? Can they come up with reasonable explanations as to why he did these searches as to why he said what he said? That's what I'm looking for.

Now the defense will now have an opportunity to investigate the case and try to come up with a defense, if they can.

BLACKWELL: And (INAUDIBLE) makes a strong point when he asks what do the searches have to do with the intent -- although, I don't think anybody went there expecting all of what we learned about this sexting with these women during that day, but does that indeed show that he intended to leave his child in the car? We'll find out what the case is. We know that there have been eight more search warrants released within the last hour.

What we learned from them in addition to just reinforcing what we heard yesterday was that not only were these two life insurance policies, one for $2,000, one for $25,000. According to investigators, Ross Harris started to ask relatives questions how to file for those, how to get that money after Cooper's death.

CABRERA: Well, I want to play some sound from just this morning we heard from a friend of Justin Ross Harris. Let's play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTIN RIKER, COLLEGE FRIEND OF DAD ACCUSED IN HOT CAR DEATH : Before this tragedy, I had never heard anyone say a bad thing about him. He was just an overall great guy.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: So, I can imagine you were probably quite surprised when you heard the news. Tell me about the day you found out about this.

RIKER: I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw people that I know posting about it. We were all in shock because we all knew him. It's just still disbelief not knowing what to think.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So, so much focus has been on who this man is, and it seems like that's what the prosecutor is really targeting in their attack of Harris. How do you defend against the sexting, the strange Internet insurance and the life insurance policies?

PATE: Well, Victor is right about the sexting, that may actually be a separate crime but it is not killing your child. The two are completely separate.

Obviously, the prosecutor said, I'm going to put this evidence up because, number one, I want to convince this judge, Judge Cox, to deny him bond. I want him to stay in jail.

And number two, I want to go ahead and start turning public opinion against him. I'm going to quash these online positions. I'm going to make sure whatever character witnesses he may bring to the next court hearing, they're going to twice before they stand up to this guy. And it was effective.

CABRERA: And we know that his wife was defending him prior to this hearing.

PATE: And I'm really interested to see if she's going to be charged. We heard some evidence come out during the hearing she may have known about this. And if she did, even if she wasn't the one that left him in the car, she could also be charged with felony murder as a party to the crime.

CABRERA: I'm curious to hear what she was like in court.

BLACKWELL: You know, the only moment I saw that she showed any emotion, that she really teared up, was when some of the character witnesses described how much Ross Harris loved Cooper. That's when we heard -- we saw rather Cooper, sorry, Ross Harris wipe tears from his own eyes three times but only when they talked about the response that day, his screaming there in the parking lot, but also when his friends said how much he loved this little boy, how much he loved to show him off.

But also about the mother here, there was that moment in which the detective described their being together in this room with the double mirror, and he says that it's recorded that she says, mom says to dad, "Did you say too much?" And that was a moment at which people perked up. There was no audible gasps, there were gasp-inducing moment.

However, people started to kind of look around at one another and this is a room filled with media types of course but also their supporters. We'll see how many of those supporters continue to show up at these hearings. CABRERA: It's strange to me that there wasn't more emotion from the

parents of this little boy, especially if their defense is this was a total accident. I'm a parent, and it makes me sick to my stomach to even think about something like this happening to my child.

PATE: I hear that, and I heard the officer testify that he was surprised by his reaction, but is that really fair? Can any of us say what a parent should act like when their child just died? I mean, unless you've been through that --

CABRERA: We don't know.

PATE: -- I don't know the detective can say I know how he should have acted and he didn't act that way. So, I don't know that was fair.

CABRERA: OK. We have to go, but real quick, what's next?

BLACKWELL: Well, what's next? We know that this now goes to trial. We'll continue to get more information about what the investigators believe from the release of these search warrants. Again, we received eight more today and we know the investigation into the computers and the phones and the laptops that will continue. We'll learn about the narrative they're building.

CABRERA: Yes, more evidence to come. Page Pate, Victor Blackwell, thanks to you both.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Turning to our coverage of Hurricane Arthur, the first hurricane of the season.

And this morning, we are seeing pockets of flooding left behind by Hurricane Arthur.

CNN's Joe Johns is in Nags Head, North Carolina, where some of that flood damage is occurring.

We see it right there behind you. Looks like there's a river running down the road, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It sure does. This is Nags Head, North Carolina, Ana. And I just want to give you some sense of where we are.

We're looking out right now at Roanoke Sound and you can see what happened here, the wind which is still tremendous basically brought all that water in off of the sound and has pushed it this way toward the road which is right out here.

Now, to my left and farther down, that's where the biggest concerns are that is where there is a bridge and a lot of potential problems, the highway folks are trying to check it out right now. You never want to say the worst is over, even after a crazy night here in the outer banks of North Carolina. You never want to say the worst is over until the authorities fully assess the damage.

There are some scattered reports of problems with the road. The question on North Carolina Highway 12 is whether it's impassable, because that leaves people down there who did not evacuate cut off from people up here -- a big problem, a big concern.

And we do know from previous hurricanes in the area the road can be cut off and people can be cut off from getting here for days, even weeks. It's a big problem for rescue officials and others.

So, as I said, you can just look and see what kind of wind we've got right here. It's pretty incredible. Officials are hoping they dodged a bullet here, but we won't know for several hours, Ana.

CABRERA: And you're there on the outer banks. We know that's one of the areas hit hardest at least at this point.

Joe Johns, thanks for monitoring this for us. Stay safe out there.

And we'll have more on Hurricane Arthur when we return.

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