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Breaking His Silence

Aired May 03, 2005 - 13:31   ET

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

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


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now in the news, a milestone for Iraq. The country's first democratically elected government sworn-in today. Some of the key positions filled only temporarily until a dispute over how to include Sunni Muslims in the government is resolved.
The body of one of two missing Marine Corps pilots recovered in Iraq. Navy officials believe the pilots were killed when their F/A-18 fighter jets collided yesterday over southern Iraq. The search for the second pilot temporarily halted because of a sandstorm.

A fan charged with throwing a chair during the infamous Pacers/Pistons' basketbrawl learns his punishment. Brian Jackson sentenced today to two years probation, ordered to pay $6,000 in restitution. Jackson was the only person charged with a felony in that November melee.

The family of a Buffalo, New York firefighter is amazed, and so are doctors. Almost 10 years ago, Donald Herbert suffered brain damage in a fire. And days ago, out of the blue, he spoke.

Reporter Michelle McClintic (ph) from the CNN affiliate WIBB has the incredible story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHELLE MCCLINTIC (ph), WIBB REPORTER (voice-over): Simon Manka (ph) is hesitant to use the word "miracle" when talking about his nephew Don Herbert, but he says it was nothing short of amazing to see the former firefighter converse for the first time in nine-and-a-half years.

SIMON MANKA, DON HERBERT'S UNCLE: Donnie was hooking out the window at the facility, and he said, "I want to talk to my wife." OK, at which time the staff here put him on the phone with Linda.

MCCLINTIC: Out of nowhere, he said, "I want to talk to my wife," according to Manka. And before long, Don was talking to a roomful of family and friends, catching up on lost time.

MANKA: He did initiate a question, how long have I been away? And we told him almost 10 year. And his response to that was that he thought it was only three months.

MCCLINTIC: It was December 1995 when Herbert became trapped under a collapsed roof while fighting a fire. Twelve minutes without oxygen caused a serious brain injury that doctors considered permanent. Video from years past showed Herbert as conscious, but unable to communicate.

LT. ANTHONY LIBERATORE, BUFFALO FIRE DEPT.: Yes, typical Donnie Herbert, he was really concerned about his family. He was worried, were the bills being paid? Was his wife being taken of? How were the boys doing?

MCCLINTIC: Fellow firefighter Lieutenant Anthony Liberatore visited with Don over the weekend. He said they talked about high school football and their firefighting days, but that Don spent most of the time focused on his four sons.

LIBERATORE: He spayed up until early morning, talking to his boys and catching up on what they've been doing over the last several years.

MANKA: Donnie's family requests that Don's many friends and the public respect their privacy, as Donnie is being re-evaluated and the scope of this recovery is being determined.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, Neil Keane was Buffalo's fire commissioner when Donnie was injured in that fire, and he joined me on the phone from Naples, Florida with reaction to this amazing development.

Can you hear me OK, Neil?

NEIL KEANE, FMR. BUFFALO FIRE COMMISSIONER: Yes, I can.

PHILLIPS: Well, you've got to tell me your first reaction when you saw this story and you found out that Donnie was speaking.

KEANE: Well, first of all, we received a phone call from a very dear friend of ours whose son is a firefighter and who worked with Donnie. And it's just -- so full of emotion to see that Don is, you know, talking. We never thought -- a lot of us -- that he would ever recover. And it was just so devastating to us.

PHILLIPS: Oh, Neil...

KEANE: And it's absolutely miraculous.

PHILLIPS: I can hear it in your voice, it gives me chills, because I can tell it's still affecting you, even when you look at the video right now and talk about it.

Take me back to that night that this fire happened. I know you remember it well. You were called to the scene. Give me a play by play.

KEANE: Yes, it was in the inner city, and it was a very old house, two-and-a-half-story frame building. The fire was in the attic. It had -- the building had about 10 or 11 layers of roofing on it, and had about a foot and a half of snow on top of the roof, which added an enormous amount of weight to the structure. Two firefighters were in the attic at the time. One was in the stairwell. He was knocked down the stairs when the roof caved in. And he yelled to the rest of the team that was at the fire, about 30 firefighters at the time. And they rushed to the attic and they chopped a hole in the roof to get the one fellow firefighter out. He was relatively uninjured. He said Donnie Herbert is 10 feet over there. They started chopping away and -- and they got him out...

PHILLIPS: Oh, Neil...

KEANE: But, you know, it's the worst nightmare of a fire chief, to have to go to someone's family afterward, and all I can say is, you know, I'm so full of emotion for his family, for his wife, and his boys and his mother, the people who cared for him, all of those years. And truly this is a miracle.

PHILLIPS: It's OK, don't worry. The fact that -- you know, this is live television. It's wonderful to hear the emotion in your voice, because you can imagine, Neil, everybody was feeling the same way when they heard this story and saw this videotape. So hang in there with me.

KEANE: Well, I can't think of any better news in years that I have heard.

PHILLIPS: Well, you remember the moment when the guys got Donnie out of there and we see it in the videotape. Were you -- what was going through your mind? You were just praying he was OK.

KEANE: Well, I raced to the scene, because I had received a phone call from home and -- at home are, and I race from home to the scene. And he had been transported already to the hospital, and I rushed over there, and there were dozens of firefighter on duty and off duty, you know, very concerned about him. And we have -- we're a family, firefighters. We're a family. We eat together. We sleep together. We party together. And we fight dangerous fires together. And you know, it's almost like your brother or your son even. And the older fellows, like myself, I treated those men and women like they were my children almost. And you were very concerned about them.

PHILLIPS: Let me ask you, Neil, that night, did you get everybody out of that house?

KEANE: Yes, everybody was safely removed from the house.

And by the way, there were some good came from this, because the city council shortly thereafter changed the city ordnance and said you can not have any more than three layers of roofing on a house.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

KEANE: So, you know, really, some good came from this tragedy.

PHILLIPS: And I know, too, you said that Donnie always went into the most dangerous situation and never balked, was truly a courageous firefighter...

KEANE: Oh, he was. He's a great firefighter, no question about it.

PHILLIPS: Are you going to get a chance to see him, you think?

KEANE: I can't wait to get up north. We're leaving Thursday to come up north, and can't wait to get to see him.

PHILLIPS: Well, how about we talk again after you see him. Does that sound good?

KEANE: It sounds terrific.

PHILLIPS: Buffalo's fire commissioner during the time, joining us live from Naples, Florida, Neil Keane. What a pleasure to talk with you, sir. Thank you so much for just sharing the story with us.

KEANE: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Our pleasure.

We're going to take a quick break. More LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right. Jackson trial time. Santa Maria, California, is where we're headed. Prosecutors in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial close to resting their case. We've been saying that for a while. But maybe this time it's for real.

CNN's Rusty Dornin on what the jury's heard so far and the state's final witnesses.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Michael Jackson, the time to go on the offense draws near. For the prosecution, it was a day of who talked to whom and when, all designed to convince the jury that Jackson conspired to hold the accuser's family hostage. The jury heard hours of testimony regarding a flurry of phone activity by Jackson's team in California and Florida in February and march of 2003. There were 64 calls on February 6th. That's the same day that the now infamous Martin Bashir documentary aired in the United States. There were another 83 calls on the day the accuser's family allegedly fled the Neverland Ranch. There was another spike in calls the day the accuser's family taped a rebuttal video that portrayed Jackson in a positive light.

JIM MORET, LEGAL ANALYST: If the prosecution is trying to show that Jackson's involved in a conspiracy in order to make the rebuttal video, then essentially everybody in Hollywood is guilty of a conspiracy when they make a P.R. type of video too. So they really haven't shown any sinister motive. The fact that there's a lot of activity doesn't, in and of itself, prove that there's a criminal conspiracy.

DORNIN: The defense argued that no one could prove that Michael Jackson himself was involved in any of those calls. The jury also learned that one of Jackson's advisers, Mark Shafle (ph), cashed two checks for a million-and-a-half dollars. Jurors were never told what the money was used for.

Yet to come, a financial expert expected to testify Michael Jackson was in dire financial straits. Prosecutors say that was his motive to keep the family captive, because Jackson couldn't afford any more bad publicity. Sources tell CNN the prosecution's final witness is likely to be Rudy Provencio. He is a business associate of Jackson's close adviser, Mark Schafle (ph). Prosecutors hope that Provencio can implicate Jackson directly in the alleged conspiracy.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, Santa Maria, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, another freeway shooting, another police investigation, and more anxiety on Southern California's freeways. It happened Monday afternoon in Santa Clarita, shortly before rush hour. No one was injured in this case, but two major freeways were shut down for at least an hour. There have now been eight such incidents in this area over the past two months. Four people have been killed.

California assemblyman John Benoit joins us from Los Angeles. In addition to his concerns a resident and a state official, John Benoit is also a former patrol commander for the California Highway Patrol. Nice to have you with us, sir.

JOHN J. BENOIT, CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLY: Great to be here. Thanks.

PHILLIPS: Well, first of all, from a CHP perspective, how do you go about investigating such a scenario and looking into case-by- case...

BENOIT: Well, you look...

PHILLIPS: Each incident?

BENOIT: Well, you look at them just like you do any other crime. And the issue on these particular cases is that there's a shooter, there's a victim, trying to tie the knots together, figure out who the shooter was. In some cases, you have a lot of leads. Other cases, you have none at all. But it's a matter of taking them each individual case, one at a time. And what I would be really be worried about, what we're looking for in this kind of event, is a tie-in, where we see this looks like something that happened two months ago or three weeks ago. And that has not shown itself in this series of events that we're talking about.

PHILLIPS: SO from your experience within law enforcement, also from a political perspective, in looking back, let's say in the past ten years -- I mean, every year it averages, you know, 30 to 40 of these situations. I even remember when I was living there, there was an intense problem for a period of time. How do you know if it's stressed out drivers, gang violence, just punks on the road? I mean, I remember all, you know, all of these scenarios when I was there and working as a reporter.

BENOIT: Yes, and it's -- that's the dilemma, trying to put those together. But the interesting thing is that what's missing and not mentioned very often, is that the first four months of this year, LAPD reported 718 victims of shootings. That's just the city of L.A. They're 70 other cities in the L.A. basin that we're talking about. So we're talking about eight incidents that occurred somewhere near a freeway and now become sort of tied through the discussion about is this some unusual problem or -- it's a terrible tragedy and it's a huge problem for the people involved.

But is it really that much more significant than all those 700- plus? That's actually a decline from 747 in the first four months of last year. So you got to keep those things in perspective. Certainly, you want to caution people to use caution, avoid road rage and avoid situations on the road. But it is certainly something that people need to put kind of in a -- what are the odds and who's involved?

And when you talk about the gang thing, frequently, the officer on the beat has a very good idea that this is related to a gang, but he can't prove it. So that never makes it into the story, because until you can prove it, you don't want to say it.

PHILLIPS: Sure.

BENOIT: So there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes and people should be careful to not superficially react and say, oh, now the freeways are unsafe. Nothing could be further from the truth. And these facts, at least, don't tend to point to that direction.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's look at the urban planning for a second. And you're a politician. You know the traffic problem. You know how crazy it gets on the roads. Is there anything in the works to decrease, you know, the possibility of this type of violence because of the -- you knows, hours and hours, I remember, people had to commute to get to work, even, you know, just getting to dinner with friends across town. I mean, it is extremely -- I mean, it's one of the worst places to drive.

BENOIT: It is.

PHILLIPS: Are there efforts to help decrease that road rage by making traveling a little easier and less complex?

BENOIT: Well, we're working closely with the Governor Schwarzenegger to make transportation funding and infrastructure funding a huge priority. Because we -- frankly, with our budget crisis over the last several years, have neglected that part of the budget. In fact, we've taken that money and put it into other priorities and it's -- it's showing itself very definitely on our freeways in L.A.

The average hour, hour and a half, that someone spends on our freeway in Los Angeles is certainly bad time for everybody. It's bad time for the economy, bad for those individuals and sometimes, it leads to serious situations like this. But I think those are rather rare. I think these are probably more related to the gang activity that spills out onto the freeway than the average citizen, frustrated that he can't get to work or get home.

PHILLIPS: Interesting. So you think it is largely gang-related. Well, we'll follow up on it, definitely bring you back. It will be interesting to see if these shootings do affect what's happening with the governor and plans to expand the roadways. California assemblyman John Benoit, thank you for your insight. Appreciate it.

BENOIT: You bet.

PHILLIPS: All right. We're going to take a quick break. More LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: News around the world right now.

O'BRIEN: Ooh, geez.

PHILLIPS: Come on, help me out. Catch a wave and you're sitting -- come on, come on.

O'BRIEN: On top of the...

PHILLIPS: All right, look out. A surfer almost ended up hanging 10 with a toe tag thank to a riderless personal watercraft.

O'BRIEN: That's my line of the day, by the way, hanging 10 with a toe tag. Love that line.

PHILLIPS: There he goes again, narrowly escapes. This cat, only eight lives to go now.

O'BRIEN: Gnarly nude.

All right, and line one for King Tut. It's Captain Ahab. A team of paleontologist near Cairo, Egypt has unearthed a nearly complete fossilized skeleton of a primitive surfer? No, a primitive whale, 50 feet long, and about 40 million years old give or take. They found the whales remains in Egypt's western desert, an area that used to be -- guess -- a seabed, OK. That's where you'd find a whale.

O'BRIEN: Hello? Whale of a tale.

Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY LENO, COMEDIAN: Pretending to be kidnapped to avoid getting married. Guys everywhere are going, she's a genius. Why didn't we think of that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: All right. There you have it. The runaway bride story proves that as much as everybody loves a wedding, everybody love a wedding gone awry.

PHILLIPS: Probably even more.

O'BRIEN: Would you have predicted the conversation would still be going on about this? Here we are.

PHILLIPS; Jennifer Wilbanks turns up under stripes instead of tool (ph), and it still has everybody talking, including CNN's Jeanne Moos. She looks into the noble tradition of a bride or groom gone AWOL.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She never made it down the aisle, but she did make it on to eBay, where jokesters are selling the runaway bride wedding kit, featuring hair color, fake hair and sunglasses. You can buy a "Jennifer Wilbanks missing poster" T- shirt. Or even size 9 runaway bride running shoes. And of course, the runaway bride's image on toast.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think the boyfriend's going to take her back?

MOOS: If she had cold feet, you think his would be frozen by now. But getting cold feet happens a lot, and we don't just mean in the movies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bride seems to be a bit hesitant. She's turning. She's turning. Oh, she's running.

MOOS: Without the last-minute drama of "The Graduate," Rachel Sophia (ph) and her fiance broke it off two weeks before the wedding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was engaged to a great guy who was not the guy for me, and I felt physically ill and wrong.

MOOS: Out of this came this, "There Goes the Bride: Advice on How to Break Off Your Engagement." For instance, what to do about the ring?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've got to give it back. It belongs to the person who bought it.

MOOS: But what if your fiance call off the wedding via a text message? That's what a soccer player allegedly do to his Malaysian bride to be, typing, "We were not meant to be together." Then there was the New York woman who made headlines for being left at the altar.

(on camera): You don't hate this guy's guts?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't. MOOS (voice-over): The best man showed up at the church saying the groom wasn't coming. He resurfaced in Tahiti, where they were supposed to honeymoon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I discovered that she still had feelings for another man.

MOOS: While we can't measure cold feet,there are stats for broken engagements.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Broken engagements, the Catholic Church reports it is 15 percent to 20 percent of all engagements a year.

MOOS: Rachel says men are less sympathetic to the runaway bride.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think she should go to jail.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All she should need some psychotherapy.

MOOS: A New York woman who got left at the altar went ahead with the reception, leading guests on to the dance floor to "I Will Survive," a tune so catchy, even cold feet unthaw.

(SINGING)

MOOS: But will the runaway bride survive all the jokes about her wedding veil?

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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Aired May 3, 2005 - 13:31   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now in the news, a milestone for Iraq. The country's first democratically elected government sworn-in today. Some of the key positions filled only temporarily until a dispute over how to include Sunni Muslims in the government is resolved.
The body of one of two missing Marine Corps pilots recovered in Iraq. Navy officials believe the pilots were killed when their F/A-18 fighter jets collided yesterday over southern Iraq. The search for the second pilot temporarily halted because of a sandstorm.

A fan charged with throwing a chair during the infamous Pacers/Pistons' basketbrawl learns his punishment. Brian Jackson sentenced today to two years probation, ordered to pay $6,000 in restitution. Jackson was the only person charged with a felony in that November melee.

The family of a Buffalo, New York firefighter is amazed, and so are doctors. Almost 10 years ago, Donald Herbert suffered brain damage in a fire. And days ago, out of the blue, he spoke.

Reporter Michelle McClintic (ph) from the CNN affiliate WIBB has the incredible story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHELLE MCCLINTIC (ph), WIBB REPORTER (voice-over): Simon Manka (ph) is hesitant to use the word "miracle" when talking about his nephew Don Herbert, but he says it was nothing short of amazing to see the former firefighter converse for the first time in nine-and-a-half years.

SIMON MANKA, DON HERBERT'S UNCLE: Donnie was hooking out the window at the facility, and he said, "I want to talk to my wife." OK, at which time the staff here put him on the phone with Linda.

MCCLINTIC: Out of nowhere, he said, "I want to talk to my wife," according to Manka. And before long, Don was talking to a roomful of family and friends, catching up on lost time.

MANKA: He did initiate a question, how long have I been away? And we told him almost 10 year. And his response to that was that he thought it was only three months.

MCCLINTIC: It was December 1995 when Herbert became trapped under a collapsed roof while fighting a fire. Twelve minutes without oxygen caused a serious brain injury that doctors considered permanent. Video from years past showed Herbert as conscious, but unable to communicate.

LT. ANTHONY LIBERATORE, BUFFALO FIRE DEPT.: Yes, typical Donnie Herbert, he was really concerned about his family. He was worried, were the bills being paid? Was his wife being taken of? How were the boys doing?

MCCLINTIC: Fellow firefighter Lieutenant Anthony Liberatore visited with Don over the weekend. He said they talked about high school football and their firefighting days, but that Don spent most of the time focused on his four sons.

LIBERATORE: He spayed up until early morning, talking to his boys and catching up on what they've been doing over the last several years.

MANKA: Donnie's family requests that Don's many friends and the public respect their privacy, as Donnie is being re-evaluated and the scope of this recovery is being determined.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, Neil Keane was Buffalo's fire commissioner when Donnie was injured in that fire, and he joined me on the phone from Naples, Florida with reaction to this amazing development.

Can you hear me OK, Neil?

NEIL KEANE, FMR. BUFFALO FIRE COMMISSIONER: Yes, I can.

PHILLIPS: Well, you've got to tell me your first reaction when you saw this story and you found out that Donnie was speaking.

KEANE: Well, first of all, we received a phone call from a very dear friend of ours whose son is a firefighter and who worked with Donnie. And it's just -- so full of emotion to see that Don is, you know, talking. We never thought -- a lot of us -- that he would ever recover. And it was just so devastating to us.

PHILLIPS: Oh, Neil...

KEANE: And it's absolutely miraculous.

PHILLIPS: I can hear it in your voice, it gives me chills, because I can tell it's still affecting you, even when you look at the video right now and talk about it.

Take me back to that night that this fire happened. I know you remember it well. You were called to the scene. Give me a play by play.

KEANE: Yes, it was in the inner city, and it was a very old house, two-and-a-half-story frame building. The fire was in the attic. It had -- the building had about 10 or 11 layers of roofing on it, and had about a foot and a half of snow on top of the roof, which added an enormous amount of weight to the structure. Two firefighters were in the attic at the time. One was in the stairwell. He was knocked down the stairs when the roof caved in. And he yelled to the rest of the team that was at the fire, about 30 firefighters at the time. And they rushed to the attic and they chopped a hole in the roof to get the one fellow firefighter out. He was relatively uninjured. He said Donnie Herbert is 10 feet over there. They started chopping away and -- and they got him out...

PHILLIPS: Oh, Neil...

KEANE: But, you know, it's the worst nightmare of a fire chief, to have to go to someone's family afterward, and all I can say is, you know, I'm so full of emotion for his family, for his wife, and his boys and his mother, the people who cared for him, all of those years. And truly this is a miracle.

PHILLIPS: It's OK, don't worry. The fact that -- you know, this is live television. It's wonderful to hear the emotion in your voice, because you can imagine, Neil, everybody was feeling the same way when they heard this story and saw this videotape. So hang in there with me.

KEANE: Well, I can't think of any better news in years that I have heard.

PHILLIPS: Well, you remember the moment when the guys got Donnie out of there and we see it in the videotape. Were you -- what was going through your mind? You were just praying he was OK.

KEANE: Well, I raced to the scene, because I had received a phone call from home and -- at home are, and I race from home to the scene. And he had been transported already to the hospital, and I rushed over there, and there were dozens of firefighter on duty and off duty, you know, very concerned about him. And we have -- we're a family, firefighters. We're a family. We eat together. We sleep together. We party together. And we fight dangerous fires together. And you know, it's almost like your brother or your son even. And the older fellows, like myself, I treated those men and women like they were my children almost. And you were very concerned about them.

PHILLIPS: Let me ask you, Neil, that night, did you get everybody out of that house?

KEANE: Yes, everybody was safely removed from the house.

And by the way, there were some good came from this, because the city council shortly thereafter changed the city ordnance and said you can not have any more than three layers of roofing on a house.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

KEANE: So, you know, really, some good came from this tragedy.

PHILLIPS: And I know, too, you said that Donnie always went into the most dangerous situation and never balked, was truly a courageous firefighter...

KEANE: Oh, he was. He's a great firefighter, no question about it.

PHILLIPS: Are you going to get a chance to see him, you think?

KEANE: I can't wait to get up north. We're leaving Thursday to come up north, and can't wait to get to see him.

PHILLIPS: Well, how about we talk again after you see him. Does that sound good?

KEANE: It sounds terrific.

PHILLIPS: Buffalo's fire commissioner during the time, joining us live from Naples, Florida, Neil Keane. What a pleasure to talk with you, sir. Thank you so much for just sharing the story with us.

KEANE: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Our pleasure.

We're going to take a quick break. More LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right. Jackson trial time. Santa Maria, California, is where we're headed. Prosecutors in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial close to resting their case. We've been saying that for a while. But maybe this time it's for real.

CNN's Rusty Dornin on what the jury's heard so far and the state's final witnesses.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Michael Jackson, the time to go on the offense draws near. For the prosecution, it was a day of who talked to whom and when, all designed to convince the jury that Jackson conspired to hold the accuser's family hostage. The jury heard hours of testimony regarding a flurry of phone activity by Jackson's team in California and Florida in February and march of 2003. There were 64 calls on February 6th. That's the same day that the now infamous Martin Bashir documentary aired in the United States. There were another 83 calls on the day the accuser's family allegedly fled the Neverland Ranch. There was another spike in calls the day the accuser's family taped a rebuttal video that portrayed Jackson in a positive light.

JIM MORET, LEGAL ANALYST: If the prosecution is trying to show that Jackson's involved in a conspiracy in order to make the rebuttal video, then essentially everybody in Hollywood is guilty of a conspiracy when they make a P.R. type of video too. So they really haven't shown any sinister motive. The fact that there's a lot of activity doesn't, in and of itself, prove that there's a criminal conspiracy.

DORNIN: The defense argued that no one could prove that Michael Jackson himself was involved in any of those calls. The jury also learned that one of Jackson's advisers, Mark Shafle (ph), cashed two checks for a million-and-a-half dollars. Jurors were never told what the money was used for.

Yet to come, a financial expert expected to testify Michael Jackson was in dire financial straits. Prosecutors say that was his motive to keep the family captive, because Jackson couldn't afford any more bad publicity. Sources tell CNN the prosecution's final witness is likely to be Rudy Provencio. He is a business associate of Jackson's close adviser, Mark Schafle (ph). Prosecutors hope that Provencio can implicate Jackson directly in the alleged conspiracy.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, Santa Maria, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Well, another freeway shooting, another police investigation, and more anxiety on Southern California's freeways. It happened Monday afternoon in Santa Clarita, shortly before rush hour. No one was injured in this case, but two major freeways were shut down for at least an hour. There have now been eight such incidents in this area over the past two months. Four people have been killed.

California assemblyman John Benoit joins us from Los Angeles. In addition to his concerns a resident and a state official, John Benoit is also a former patrol commander for the California Highway Patrol. Nice to have you with us, sir.

JOHN J. BENOIT, CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLY: Great to be here. Thanks.

PHILLIPS: Well, first of all, from a CHP perspective, how do you go about investigating such a scenario and looking into case-by- case...

BENOIT: Well, you look...

PHILLIPS: Each incident?

BENOIT: Well, you look at them just like you do any other crime. And the issue on these particular cases is that there's a shooter, there's a victim, trying to tie the knots together, figure out who the shooter was. In some cases, you have a lot of leads. Other cases, you have none at all. But it's a matter of taking them each individual case, one at a time. And what I would be really be worried about, what we're looking for in this kind of event, is a tie-in, where we see this looks like something that happened two months ago or three weeks ago. And that has not shown itself in this series of events that we're talking about.

PHILLIPS: SO from your experience within law enforcement, also from a political perspective, in looking back, let's say in the past ten years -- I mean, every year it averages, you know, 30 to 40 of these situations. I even remember when I was living there, there was an intense problem for a period of time. How do you know if it's stressed out drivers, gang violence, just punks on the road? I mean, I remember all, you know, all of these scenarios when I was there and working as a reporter.

BENOIT: Yes, and it's -- that's the dilemma, trying to put those together. But the interesting thing is that what's missing and not mentioned very often, is that the first four months of this year, LAPD reported 718 victims of shootings. That's just the city of L.A. They're 70 other cities in the L.A. basin that we're talking about. So we're talking about eight incidents that occurred somewhere near a freeway and now become sort of tied through the discussion about is this some unusual problem or -- it's a terrible tragedy and it's a huge problem for the people involved.

But is it really that much more significant than all those 700- plus? That's actually a decline from 747 in the first four months of last year. So you got to keep those things in perspective. Certainly, you want to caution people to use caution, avoid road rage and avoid situations on the road. But it is certainly something that people need to put kind of in a -- what are the odds and who's involved?

And when you talk about the gang thing, frequently, the officer on the beat has a very good idea that this is related to a gang, but he can't prove it. So that never makes it into the story, because until you can prove it, you don't want to say it.

PHILLIPS: Sure.

BENOIT: So there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes and people should be careful to not superficially react and say, oh, now the freeways are unsafe. Nothing could be further from the truth. And these facts, at least, don't tend to point to that direction.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's look at the urban planning for a second. And you're a politician. You know the traffic problem. You know how crazy it gets on the roads. Is there anything in the works to decrease, you know, the possibility of this type of violence because of the -- you knows, hours and hours, I remember, people had to commute to get to work, even, you know, just getting to dinner with friends across town. I mean, it is extremely -- I mean, it's one of the worst places to drive.

BENOIT: It is.

PHILLIPS: Are there efforts to help decrease that road rage by making traveling a little easier and less complex?

BENOIT: Well, we're working closely with the Governor Schwarzenegger to make transportation funding and infrastructure funding a huge priority. Because we -- frankly, with our budget crisis over the last several years, have neglected that part of the budget. In fact, we've taken that money and put it into other priorities and it's -- it's showing itself very definitely on our freeways in L.A.

The average hour, hour and a half, that someone spends on our freeway in Los Angeles is certainly bad time for everybody. It's bad time for the economy, bad for those individuals and sometimes, it leads to serious situations like this. But I think those are rather rare. I think these are probably more related to the gang activity that spills out onto the freeway than the average citizen, frustrated that he can't get to work or get home.

PHILLIPS: Interesting. So you think it is largely gang-related. Well, we'll follow up on it, definitely bring you back. It will be interesting to see if these shootings do affect what's happening with the governor and plans to expand the roadways. California assemblyman John Benoit, thank you for your insight. Appreciate it.

BENOIT: You bet.

PHILLIPS: All right. We're going to take a quick break. More LIVE FROM right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: News around the world right now.

O'BRIEN: Ooh, geez.

PHILLIPS: Come on, help me out. Catch a wave and you're sitting -- come on, come on.

O'BRIEN: On top of the...

PHILLIPS: All right, look out. A surfer almost ended up hanging 10 with a toe tag thank to a riderless personal watercraft.

O'BRIEN: That's my line of the day, by the way, hanging 10 with a toe tag. Love that line.

PHILLIPS: There he goes again, narrowly escapes. This cat, only eight lives to go now.

O'BRIEN: Gnarly nude.

All right, and line one for King Tut. It's Captain Ahab. A team of paleontologist near Cairo, Egypt has unearthed a nearly complete fossilized skeleton of a primitive surfer? No, a primitive whale, 50 feet long, and about 40 million years old give or take. They found the whales remains in Egypt's western desert, an area that used to be -- guess -- a seabed, OK. That's where you'd find a whale.

O'BRIEN: Hello? Whale of a tale.

Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY LENO, COMEDIAN: Pretending to be kidnapped to avoid getting married. Guys everywhere are going, she's a genius. Why didn't we think of that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: All right. There you have it. The runaway bride story proves that as much as everybody loves a wedding, everybody love a wedding gone awry.

PHILLIPS: Probably even more.

O'BRIEN: Would you have predicted the conversation would still be going on about this? Here we are.

PHILLIPS; Jennifer Wilbanks turns up under stripes instead of tool (ph), and it still has everybody talking, including CNN's Jeanne Moos. She looks into the noble tradition of a bride or groom gone AWOL.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She never made it down the aisle, but she did make it on to eBay, where jokesters are selling the runaway bride wedding kit, featuring hair color, fake hair and sunglasses. You can buy a "Jennifer Wilbanks missing poster" T- shirt. Or even size 9 runaway bride running shoes. And of course, the runaway bride's image on toast.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think the boyfriend's going to take her back?

MOOS: If she had cold feet, you think his would be frozen by now. But getting cold feet happens a lot, and we don't just mean in the movies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bride seems to be a bit hesitant. She's turning. She's turning. Oh, she's running.

MOOS: Without the last-minute drama of "The Graduate," Rachel Sophia (ph) and her fiance broke it off two weeks before the wedding.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was engaged to a great guy who was not the guy for me, and I felt physically ill and wrong.

MOOS: Out of this came this, "There Goes the Bride: Advice on How to Break Off Your Engagement." For instance, what to do about the ring?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've got to give it back. It belongs to the person who bought it.

MOOS: But what if your fiance call off the wedding via a text message? That's what a soccer player allegedly do to his Malaysian bride to be, typing, "We were not meant to be together." Then there was the New York woman who made headlines for being left at the altar.

(on camera): You don't hate this guy's guts?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't. MOOS (voice-over): The best man showed up at the church saying the groom wasn't coming. He resurfaced in Tahiti, where they were supposed to honeymoon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I discovered that she still had feelings for another man.

MOOS: While we can't measure cold feet,there are stats for broken engagements.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Broken engagements, the Catholic Church reports it is 15 percent to 20 percent of all engagements a year.

MOOS: Rachel says men are less sympathetic to the runaway bride.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think she should go to jail.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All she should need some psychotherapy.

MOOS: A New York woman who got left at the altar went ahead with the reception, leading guests on to the dance floor to "I Will Survive," a tune so catchy, even cold feet unthaw.

(SINGING)

MOOS: But will the runaway bride survive all the jokes about her wedding veil?

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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