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CNN International: Stephen Smith's Family Wants Body Exhumed for Autopsy; Damning Report on London's Met Police; Flight Attendants Want to Ban "Lap-Babies on Planes. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired March 21, 2023 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Bianca Nobilo.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Max Foster. if you're just joining us, let me bring you up to date with our top stories this hour.
Law enforcement officials tell CNN if charges are brought against Donald Trump in the Manhattan grand jury investigation, any courthouse appearance or arrest of the former president wouldn't happen until next week.
Schools in America's second largest school district are closed for the next three days after the Los Angeles Unified School District was unable to reach a deal with labor unions on higher wages. More than 60,000 school workers and teachers are set to strike in the coming hours.
And a massive fire in New Jersey destroyed a church on Monday, flames engulfed the entire front of the building causing the roof to collapse.
NOBILO: More than 100 firefighters and emergency crews battled the fire for hours. They also stopped it from spreading to an adjacent school building. No injuries have been reported and the cause of the fire is still unknown.
New details now on the investigation into the 2015 death of Stephen Smith in South Carolina. Smith was a classmate of Buster Murdaugh, the surviving son of convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh. Smith's death was initially deemed the result of a hit and run. But in 2021, state investigators said that they were reopening the investigation into his death based on information that they had learned while investigating the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. Now a new legal team for Smith's family is seeking to launch a fresh probe into his death and his family has raised about $80,000 to have his body exhumed for a private autopsy. CNN's Randi Kaye has the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANDY SMITH, STEPHEN SMITH'S MOTHER: Heartbreaking. You know, he was a human and he deserves justice.
RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sandy Smith now one step closer to what she hopes will be justice for her son.
RONNIE RICHTER, LAWYER FOR SANDY SMITH: It's going to be hard to open an investigation after eight years, but it has to start with an examination of his body.
SMITH: It's important to me because I mean, I just love my son. And since I couldn't protect him, I'm going to fight for him.
KAYE (voice-over): Stephen Smith, a 19-year-old with dreams of becoming a doctor, was found dead about 4:00 a.m., July 8, 2015, on Sandy Run Road in Hampton County.
CALLER: He's in the roadway. He's laying in the road. Somebody gonna to hit him, and it's dark.
KAYE (voice-over): At the time, a pathologist said it appeared Stephen was the victim of a hit and run. But the South Carolina Highway Patrol's Incident report noted they didn't find any vehicle debris or injuries consistent with someone being struck by a vehicle.
According to the case notes, Stephen died from blunt force trauma to the head. He had no broken bones and evidence from the scene shows Stephen's loosely tied shoes remained on his feet.
ERIC BLAND, LAWYER FOR SANDY SMITH: If you're hit in -- by a vehicle that's going fast enough, it's going to project you, your shoes are just going to falloff under the best of circumstances.
KAYE (voice-over): Along with exhuming Stephen's body, Sandy's lawyers also hope to gain access to her son's phone calls and text messages in the months and hours leading up to his death. A crime scene investigator is also expected to take a fresh look at the forensics and determine if he was struck by a vehicle or something else.
Sandy told me last year she has never accepted her son was the victim of a hit and run.
KAYE: What do you believe happened to your son?
SMITH: I believe he was beaten to death.
KAYE (voice-over): The case file obtained by CNN shows even the lead investigator at the time didn't believe this was a hit and run.
TODD PROCTOR, SOUTH CAROLINA HIGHWAY PATROL: Typically, you don't see the Highway Patrol working a murder, and that's what this is. There's no doubt, we're not classifying this as anything other than a murder.
KAYE (voice-over): Yet Stephen's case went cold until June 2021. That's when the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, known as SLED, opened an investigation into Stephen's death based on information gathered while investigating the murders of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh. SLED has not said what was found.
KAYE: Did your son know the Murdaugh family?
SMITH: He went to school with Buster, yes, and they played like little League ball together.
KAYE (voice-over): During interviews in the case file released by Highway Patrol to CNN, the Murdaugh name is mentioned dozens of times by both witnesses and investigators, including the name of Alex Murdaugh's surviving son, Buster. During one audio interview, then South Carolina state trooper Todd Proctor says this.
PROCTOR: Buster was on our radar. The Murdaughs know that.
KAYE (voice-over): Why exactly Buster was on their radar is still unclear. Neither he nor anybody else has been charged in this case. And now, for the first time, Buster Murdaugh is commenting publicly about the case.
[04:35:00]
He released this statement, which reads, in part: These baseless rumors of my involvement with Stephen and his death are false. I unequivocally deny any involvement in his death and my heart goes out to the Smith family.
Randi Kaye, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Intriguing.
Now a Colorado dentist arrested in connection with the poisoning death of his wife was, quote, searching for ways to kill someone undetected. That's according to a police affidavit filed on Monday.
NOBILO: It alleges that James Toliver Craig had, quote, gone to great lengths to try and end his wife's life and that he had researched undetectable poisons and that he bought arsenic online. Police say that his wife Angela Craig was brought to a hospital last week with severe headaches and dizziness and her condition quickly got worse. Formal charges are expected Thursday and CNN is working to identify legal representation for James Craig.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has issued an alert about the threat of mixing fentanyl with a veterinary tranquilizer xylazine. The drug is not approved for human use and it doesn't respond to an opioid overdose antidote. The DEA says that it makes fentanyl, quote, even deadlier with users potentially developing skin wounds that can lead to tissue death or amputation. The deadly mixture has been found of 48 out of 50 states.
FOSTER: Still to come, a shocking report on London's Met Police that lays out the wide failings within force. What else the report says, next.
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NOBILO: A top United Nations official is disputing Iran's claims about the cause of death of Mahsa Amini. A report by the Special Rapporteur found that the 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman was killed as a result of beatings by state morality police.
FOSTER: This is contrary to Tehran's claims that Amini died from pre- existing medical conditions.
[04:40:00]
The expert also says the scale of the rights violations committed by Iranian authorities since her death may amount to crimes against humanity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAVAID REHMAN, U.N. SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN IRAN: The scale and gravity of the violations committed by the Iranian authorities especially since the death of Ms. Amini points to the possible commission of international crimes notably the crimes against humanity of murder, imprisonment and forced disappearances, torture, rape and sexual violence and persecution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: Amini's death in the custody of the morality police sparked widespread protests across Iran.
FOSTER: A damning report on London's Metropolitan Police paints a bleak picture of Britain's largest police force. London's mayor says the review finds, quote, institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia within the force. The review commissioned in 2021 after an officer was sentenced to life in prison for rape and murder, condemns the force and recommends it should be overhauled or even broken up. CNN's Katie Polglase looks at the case of one Former Met officer who's been sentenced to 32 years in prison.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police! Everywhere! Safety! Nowhere!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police! Everywhere! Safety! Nowhere!
KATIE POLGLASE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE PRODUCER (voice-over): In February, former Metropolitan Police Officer David Carrick was handed 36 life sentences.
For almost 20 years, Carrick abused his position in the force to coerce and attack women. Carrying a gun became a unique feature of his abuse, using it to threaten his victims. He had been a member of a rare armed section of the U.K. police, tasked with defending high- profile government buildings and ministers.
NATHAN BUSH, FORMER OFFICER, METROPOLITAN POLICE DIPLOMATIC PROTECTION GROUP: It's still baffles me how a monster was able to wear that uniform.
POLGLASE (voice-over): Nathan Bush served in the same unit while Carrick was there.
POLGLASE: Does it make you reflect differently on your time?
BUSH: It makes me question, probably every single person that I work with.
POLGLASE (voice-over): After Carrick pleaded guilty to 71 sexual offenses, the Met Police admitted Carrick had previously come to theirs and other forces' attention nine times.
DAME CRESSIDA DICK, FORMER METROPOLITAN POLICE COMMISSIONER: We have missed opportunities over time, to identify a pattern of abusive behavior.
POLGLASE (voice-over): CNN has spent more than a month looking into those missed opportunities, and found that on at least two occasions, police did not follow their own procedures for handling misconduct. And therefore, did not miss Carrick's violence but failed to treat it with the severity it deserved, leaving him free to meet further victims.
We spoke via text to one of those victims, Darciane, who met Carrick in 2020. After months of abuse, she reported him to a police station outside of London in July 2021.
DARCIANE, VICTIM OF DAVID CARRICK: It's not easy for you to arrive at a police station and tell a policeman, I was raped by a policeman.
POLGLASE (voice-over): Carrick was placed on restricted duties and his gun removed while they investigated. But he was not suspended. Darciane ended up withdrawing her complaint.
DARCIANE: I didn't feel protected. And whenever I went to the police station to make another statement, I asked, and nobody told me anything so I was very shaken and thinking that they didn't believe me.
POLGLASE (voice-over): Within two months, Carrick was preparing to return to full duties, armed once again. That should never have happened.
From our own research into the Met's protocol for handling misconduct cases, Darciane's allegations should have been investigated further, despite her withdrawing the complaint. And the officers assigned to the case would have had access to a searchable database that logged at least one previous incident in which Carrick was violent towards a woman. It happened just five months before Darciane met him.
POLGLASE: In September 2019, a neighbor reported they'd seen Carrick grabbing a woman by the neck during a domestic incident in Hertfordshire. Police there told us they sent a crime report to the Met Police, specifically to the department handling complaints against officers, known as the Directorate of Professional Standards, or the DPS. Now according to the DPS' own guidelines, an allegation as serious as this should have been escalated.
NUSRIT MEHTAB, FORMER SCOTLAND YARD SUPERINTENDENT, NORTH AREA: It's domestic abuse, third-party reporting, so clearly, it was done in view of other people. And the fact that in 2019, Carrick was carrying a gun, so it should have been escalated, because there's a red flag there.
POLGLASE (voice-over): But no further action was taken. The victim did not want to pursue charges at the time, but Hertfordshire Police tell CNN, that since Carrick's sentencing, they have now come forward with allegations against him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Understand you're under arrest, OK? Just --
POLGLASE (voice-over): In October 2020, Carrick was finally arrested again, when another woman came forward with a rape allegation, three months after Darciane's complaint.
DAVID CARRICK, FORMER METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFICER: (BLEEP) sake, I've only been a police officer for 20 years.
POLGLASE (voice-over): He was charged, and Darciane's case was reopened.
DARCIANE: And I told God and myself, thank you Lord for showing up another victim, so now they believe me.
POLGLASE (voice-over): She's not alone in this experience. Out of 573 Met Police officers accused of sexual offenses by the public over 11 years, just two were charged.
To add to the horror, the Met has confirmed that two of Carrick's colleagues have been placed on restricted duties after contacting one of his victims. Sky News reported they'd been sending sexually suggestive messages to her.
[04:45:03]
As yet, no police officer has faced any consequences for failing to stop Carrick for so many years. The U.K.'s police watchdog has now reopened a review into the handling of Carrick's case, despite previously saying they had no cause to investigate.
And the force continues to struggle to prove it can keep women safe and hold its officers to account.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: And Katie joins us now live. We had this major investigation, haven't we, years -- a year long investigation and they discovered that the public hasn't been protected by the police, manager's staff haven't been protected against abusive officers effectively and it is institutional.
POLGLASE (on camera): Yes, I mean in the words of London's Mayor, Sadiq Khan, the evidence in this report is damning. It calls for institutional racism, institutional misogyny, institutional homophobia. And I should note for our piece we did asked them about our findings. We asked them if they had any comment. And they simply referred us to their recent statement on David Carrick. They said they would not be commenting further while there are ongoing reviews.
Now that is partly the case of a review but it is also another review by the Independent Office of Police Conduct, the IOPC. They are looking to see if there's any misconduct, any potential criminal proceedings for officers handling David Carrick's case.
The number of reviews, the scale of this issue is really quite evident. And I think Louise Casey makes an important point in her report. And not only has this been raised by them but it all those by previous reports as well. This has been always an issue. And the issue is whether it's going to be implemented in the recommendations listened to. And what she identified is a culture of denial. That these issues are not taken seriously on what she called a, quote, the best culture and their force they're the complaints she's identifying.
FOSTER: A boy's culture you could argue. A boy's club -- that's what she talks about, isn't it.
POLGLASE: Yes, absolutely. And I think that one the things we noted was that our reporting really match what they found. This idea of reports not being listened to. Women not feeling believed by the police. Complaints being dismissed. And identifying preemptive behavior just not happening despite multiple reports to the police over decades. And unfortunately, she said publicly there are enough cases that some other offenders, some other potential offenders may yet still be within the Met police.
FOSTER: Scary stuff. Katie, thank you very much indeed.
NOBILO: Taiwan's president will transit to the U.S. twice during an upcoming trip overseas.
FOSTER: Tsai Ing-wen is expected to leave Taiwan for New York at the end of the month before going to Guatemala and Belize. Then shall pass through Los Angeles on her way back home. China's Foreign Ministry says it's supposed to the visit to the U.S. in any name for any reason.
Earlier this month, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would meet with the President Tsai in the U.S. but didn't specify a date.
Still to come, could parents be forced to buy separate plane tickets for their babies? A look at the renewed focus of banning infants from laps during flights.
[04:50:00]
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JASON SUDEIKIS, ACTOR, "TED LASSO": If you can ask for that help from a professional, fantastic. If it need to be a loved one, equally as good in a lot of ways. So, just sometimes you just need to let that pressure, that pressure valve release. The president is working on his own team, although that is real, ours is make believe. (END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: The cast of Apple TV's "Ted Lasso" there at the White House on Monday to meet President Joe Biden and First Lady Joe Biden. The actors discuss mental health with the Bidens, the topic that the president has made part of his unity agenda.
FOSTER: He's also discussed it in the past two State of the Union addresses. But the topic has also played a large topic in the popular streaming show with the main character attending therapy to help manage his panic attacks. Actor -- the actor who plays the --
NOBILO: Jason Sudeikis.
FOSTER: -- says there's been a positive response from viewers. Which is good.
NOBILO: It is good.
FOSTER: And we're talking about it. It's good is that it matters.
NOBILO: Yes, that's the point.
FOSTER: Recent incidents of severe turbulence in the skies has put safety in focus and renewed a call to get all passengers and seats including the youngest of travelers. CNN's Pete Muntean takes a look at the push to ban lap babies on planes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Major flight attendant unions have been calling for a change of this policy for more than 30 years. They want children under 2 years old strapped into a car seat and attached to the seat of an airplane instead of being allowed to be held by their parents. That is a huge shift from what the current policy is. Something that the FAA strongly discourages but there is no rule against.
This recently came up last week at the FAA safety summit where turbulence incidents became a topic. Severe turbulence appears to be on the rise. In fact, back in December 36 people were injured on a Hawaiian Airlines flight that was descending into Hawaii. One of the injured, a 14-month-old baby. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy says changing the policy of lap babies is just one recommendation the NTSB has to put into place new regulations by the FAA to make these turbulence incidents less dangerous.
JENNIFER HOMENDY, CHAIR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION: It's the most common issue experienced on airliners. And it can be very dangerous especially if you are not belted in. Make sure that you are wearing your seat belt the entire flight. Not just portions of the flight. The entire flight.
MUNTEAN: Think about this example, a 20-pound infant under extreme forces in a plane crash, 10 Gs or more, is 10 times the force of gravity that would effectively make that infant weigh 200 pounds. The FAA says that your arms are simply not strong enough to hold on to a baby on your lap in these extreme conditions.
The FAA points out that you should get a car seat forward facing or rear refacing to hold a baby under 2 years old on board a commercial airliner and make sure that it has the red text that says on the label on the side of the car seat that it is able to be used on board an airliner.
Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: Another popular movie from the 90s is getting a second life thanks to the world of streaming.
[04:55:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: Actors Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell are reprising their roles from the film "Good Burger." The film was inspired by a sketch comedy bit that the duo performed on TV about fast food workers.
FOSTER: Both Thompson and Mitchell made the announcement about a sequel on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon." "Good Burger 2." Imaginative. It's set to debut on Paramount streaming service later this year.
Julianne Hough is returning to "Dancing with the Stars" as a cohost. She'll replace Tara Banks who's leaving after three seasons. Banks told TMZ she wants to focus on her business ventures.
NOBILO: We've not stop talking about this.
FOSTER: It's like the story of the day.
NOBILO: Hough joined the show as a professional dancer in 2007 winning two seasons and then she finally left in 2009 but has appeared as a guest host over the years.
FOSTER: There you go. And now to the NBA, where about Monday night matchup between the Chicago Bulls and the Philadelphia 76ers went to double overtime. Zach LaVine led the balls with 26 points and Chicago came away with the crucial 109-105 victory. Philadelphia is currently third in the east. Chicago is 10th place. Fighting for the playoff spot.
NOBILO: And the sweet 16 is set for the NCAA women's basketball tournament. And it wouldn't be March Madness without a major upset. The ninth seed Miami shocked the one seed Indiana, Miami hit a shot with just three seconds left for the 70-68 win. They'll face the four seed Villanova in the next round. FOSTER: Meanwhile, 2-seeds UConn cruised into the next round beating
Baylor 76-58. UConn will face 3-seed Ohio State in the next round after the Buckeyes escaped with a 71-69 win over the 6-seed North Carolina on this late basket just before time expired.
Thanks for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster.
NOBILO: And I'm Bianca Nobilo. "EARLY START" is right here on CNN coming up next.
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