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BTK Confession; Lack of Evidence Frees Two Suspects in Natalee Holloway's Disappearance

Aired June 27, 2005 - 13:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DENNIS RADER, CONFESSED BTK KILLER: Mr. Otero was strangled, a bag put over his head and strangled. Then I thought he was going down, and I went over and strangled...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Chilling details. Serial killer Dennis Rader calmly describes ten murders to a Kansas judge. We're live from Wichita.

Thou shalt, then shalt now. The Supreme Court issues split rulings on displaying the Ten Commandments.

Insurgent attacks in Iraq, no sign of a let-up. Live this hour, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and commander of multi-national forces in Iraq General George Casey briefing from the Pentagon. We'll take it live.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Kyra Phillips. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.

Stalking, strangulation, sadistic fantasies, in detail, on the record in the killer's own words. If you've been watching CNN, you've likely been transfixed by the chilling, nonchalant Dennis Rader admitted to a court in Kansas he was the infamous BTK attacker responsible for ten murders from 1974 to 1991.

CNN's Jonathan Freed is on the story in Wichita -- John?

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, for the last several months since Dennis Rader was arrested at the end of February, beginning of March, everybody in this community has wanted to know, is he, indeed, the BTK strangler?

Well, just after 9 o'clock this morning, the defense entered a plea of guilty for all ten counts that Rader was facing from 1974 to 1991. And at one point, the judge was adamant about making sure that Mr. Rader, a, understood what he was doing and, b, that he was, indeed guilty. Now, let's listen to an exchange that happened between Rader and the judge in court this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE GREGORY WALLER, SEDGWICK COUNTY DISTRICT JUDGE: At this time, I'm going to ask, how do you plead to these ten counts?

RADER: Guilty.

WALLER: Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty or are you pleading guilty for some other reason?

RADER: There was some reservations on that, but if we went to trial, I think it would be just a long drawn to a guilty, just a long process. So it's just a mathematical problem. It's guilty.

WALLER: Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?

RADER: Yes, sir.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREED: Now, Kyra, the judge has set the date of August 17th for the sentencing hearing. Between now and then, there is going to be a pre-sentencing investigation. That is where the depth and breadth of Mr. Rader's background is going to be investigated and laid before the judge.

And what the prosecution is hoping will happen is that the sentences -- there are mandatory life sentences where Mr. Rader would not be eligible for patrol for 15 years. The prosecution, the district attorney's office here, is hoping that all of those sentences will be laid out consecutively rather than concurrently. And they're hoping that he will spend at least 175 years behind bars -- Kyra?

PHILLIPS: All right, Jonathan Freed, thank you so much.

And if you didn't have the sound turned up, you may have thought that the nondescript man in that courtroom was describing a fender- bender or maybe fighting a speeding ticket. But if you heard Dennis Rader, you won't soon forget it, let alone understand it.

That brings us to Robert Gordon. He's a lawyer, forensic psychologist, and jury consultant based in Houston.

Good to see you, Robert.

DR. ROBERT GORDON, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: Good afternoon.

PHILLIPS: Yes, I guess it's not a great story to talk about it, is it? But it's definitely interesting. We were sitting here in the newsroom, listening to how detailed Rader was, how nonchalant he was. Were you surprised at all the details that he remembered and how he was able to basically describe every murder he committed?

GORDON: Not at all. A serial killer is a psychopathic deviant. He doesn't have the same kind of emotions, feelings of guilt, and remorse that other people. So with very flat affect, he was able to recite many of his ghoulish activities.

PHILLIPS: But is this planned? Is every single murder planned, or does it go moment-by-moment? GORDON: In the case of serial killers, it's absolutely planned. They may have a particular mission that they're trying to demonstrate, the certain people are evil and need to be eliminated, or there may be sexual implication that they're trying to act out. Or they may have other grievances or delusions.

Nevertheless, they very carefully, systematically pick their victims. And that's why it's so hard to catch them.

PHILLIPS: All right, pick their victims, and making their victims feel comfortable. This was a chilling part of his testimony in the courtroom today. Let's listen to this, and I want to get your response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RADER: They started complaining about being tied up. And I re- loosened the bonds a couple of times, tried to make Mr. Otero as comfortable as I could. Apparently, he had a cracked rib from a car accident. So I had him put a pillow down for his head, had him put a -- I think a parka or a coat underneath him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: It's just incredibly graphic, what he says in this testimony. Of course, we want to warn our viewers, too, as we roll pieces of his testimony.

But, Robert, he's talking about making his victims comfortable before he gets ready to kill them.

GORDON: This is characteristic of a sadomasochistic personality. And by torturing, mutilating and binding in a ritualistic manner, he fulfills his own depraved and deviant urges.

PHILLIPS: Does this mean -- does it necessarily mean that something happened to Rader as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, or is this something that happens at birth?

GORDON: Most assuredly, whether there was a genetic predisposition that maybe one day found or some metabolic or neurologic disorder, nevertheless, it's clear from case histories that serial killers are themselves part of a dysfunctional family and abused or disabused as children.

PHILLIPS: All right. Another part of this testimony with no emotion, with very matter-of-fact attitude, he talks about the trolling part of his life. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORDON: If you read much about serial killers, they go through what they call different phases. That's one of the phases they go through, is a trolling stage. Basically, you're looking for a victim at that time. And you could be trolling for months or years. But once you lock in on a certain person, you become stalking. And that might be several of them, but you really hone in on that person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: OK, Robert, if I didn't know who this was, I'd think that I would be talking to maybe your colleague. He's talking about serial killers like he wrote a book.

GORDON: Whether it's trolling, chumming or murdering, it's evidence of an out-of-body experience where he's looking in on himself and recognizing his own psychopathic deviance. And only a person who is without moral conscious and the development of guilt and remorse as we know them is capable of talking with such flat affect in this way about human life.

PHILLIPS: Speaking of victims, there was a part where he talked about how he picked some of his victims, specifically his neighbor. Let's listen to this one part.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALLER: You indicated this woman lived down the street from you. Did she know you?

RADER: Casually. We would walk by and wave. She liked to work in her yard, as well as like to work. It's just a neighborly type thing. It wasn't anything personal, I mean, just a neighbor.

WALLER: All right. So she was in her bed when you turned on the lights in the bathroom?

RADER: Yes, bathroom, so I could get some light in there.

WALLER: What did you do then?

RADER: Well, I manually strangled her when she started to scream.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: OK, so it wasn't anything personal. She was just a neighbor. So he decided to kill her. Does it matter whether the individual has angered the serial killer or not?

GORDON: That's correct. And the serial killer is incapable of forming emotional attachments. And so what's so frustrating to law enforcement officials is that they often lead normal lives, they have ordinary appearances, or better than ordinary appearances, and they're able to deflect and diffuse their guilt being directed at them.

PHILLIPS: Robert, why didn't someone like Rader kill everyday?

GORDON: Characteristic of a serial killer. And this is a very sophisticated man. He's even studied the subject and the pathology of which he, himself, experiences. But part of their platform, and scheme, and strategy is not to kill consistently. And this diminishes the likelihood that they will be caught. PHILLIPS: Why would he study the way a serial killer conducts him or herself? Does he realize he has problems, and so he wants to study about himself? Or...

GORDON: It's both a recognition that he, himself, can identify with a serial killer in a depraved way, but also because he wants to act out or fantasize how he intends to lure, troll, chum his victims and then destroy them for his own pleasure.

PHILLIPS: Forensic psychologist Dr. Robert Gordon. Pretty amazing day in the courtroom today. We thank you for your analysis. Thank you.

We're getting word of what may be another shark attack in the Gulf of Mexico. Our affiliates in Florida are reporting that the victim may be a teenager and that it happened in the waters just off Cape San Blas. That's about 40 miles east of Miramar Beach, site of a deadly shark attack over the weekend.

Well, the victim in Saturday's attack was just 14-years-old. Jamie Marie Daigle was swimming on a boogey board about 100 yards off shore when she was bitten. Witnesses say that that shark appeared to be about 8-feet-long. Another who encountered that shark was the surfer who tried to save the young girl.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM DICUS, SHARK ATTACK WITNESS: I heard a scream from that direction and looked over and saw one of the girls swimming towards the beach and the other one was gone. And where they'd both been, there was a dark pool, which I immediately recognized as blood.

I swam over to see what I could do for her. And when I got over there, the blood pool had expanded probably to about 20 feet across. She was in the center of it, face down, and I could see that the shark was in the blood pool somewhere. I could see the water swirling, but couldn't tell exactly where he was.

Usually a human attack with a shark -- it's a simple bite and they swim off. And that's kind of what I was hoping when I got out to the blood pool, was that he had swam off, but when I got out there, I found out that he was still there.

She was face down and unconscious. When I grabbed hold of her, the shark surfaced right next to her and broke off to the left. So apparently I'd disturbed his feeding. And he circled around for another attack, but by the time he got around, I had her up on the board.

He came back around, got underneath me, and tried coming up underneath me to get her hand. So I pulled her hand up on the board and smacked the water, and I guess that scared him enough to make another loop, which gave me time to paddle out of the blood pool.

I'd assume there was probably half a dozen attacks between the outer and inner bar. The first three I fended him off with, just splashing the water. And the last couple, I had to actually hit him.

Two very brave gentlemen waded out into waist-deep with a raft and a booger board and managed to got her up into the raft, which stopped the bleeding into the water, and the shark broke off the attack on her. And he immediately turned on me, and then I fended him off with one more blow to the nose, and he swam off.

If it would have been my daughter, I would have wanted someone to do that for me. I talked to her father briefly yesterday afternoon, and he expressed his gratitude for what I'd attempted to do. And he knew I had given it my best shot, and he was also glad that he had his daughter's body recovered so that he wouldn't have to worry about where she was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, some people believe a bull shark attacked that girl, and they tend to be aggressive and can be found in shallow water. We could know more about it next hour when Florida authorities release the autopsy results. We'll bring you more as soon as we get it.

Well, a lack of evidence means freedom for two more suspects in Natalee Holloway's disappearance. One walked out last night, the other just moments ago. Chris Lawrence joins us now live with the latest from Aruba -- Chris?

CHRISTOPHER LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, we're told that Steven Croes, one of the suspects, is on his way home right now and that his family has a very big celebration planned for him to welcome him back home.

Now, Croes is that deejay on a local party boat that docks near the hotel where Natalee Holloway was staying. We saw him yesterday still in handcuffs, but he was all smiles because he had already heard the judge's order that he be released and knew that it was just a matter of time.

A few hours after that, the judge also ordered the release of Judge Paul Van Der Sloot. He is suspected to be involved in Natalee Holloway's disappearance through his son, Joran, who is still in custody.

Now, the family thought when Judge Van Der Sloot was arrested that that was a significant break in the case. But after he was released yesterday, a lot of them are very disappointed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE HOLLOWAY, NATALEE HOLLOWAY'S FATHER: My focus has always been the search-and-rescue efforts. Basically what I've seen in the investigative side of it has been what has been portrayed on TV and through Natalee's mother. So my role in this has always been, you know, to find Natalee. And if we find her, that will resolve the entire case. That's where I stand on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE: While the investigation is playing out in the courtrooms and in interrogation rooms, the search teams are continuing to do their work. That volunteer search team from Texas got here over the weekend and have been working almost non-stop ever since.

They have some of the best search dogs in the United States, we're told, and also very specialized sonar equipment which can see up to 800 feet down. They've been putting it to use ever since they got here, trying to find anything, any piece of evidence that may have been missed the first time around -- Kyra?

PHILLIPS: Chris, just real quickly, with all these individuals being brought in, and released, and questioned, I mean, is there a prime suspect, when we get down to it?

LAWRENCE: Well, if you follow the stories and you get down to what people are saying -- and we're getting this from Joran Van Der Sloot's own mother -- it puts him basically as the last known person to see Natalee Holloway that night. He says that he was alone with her on the beach, but that, at some point, he wanted to leave, she wanted to stay, and he left there alone on the beach. From that point, we don't have a story that can continue from that point on.

PHILLIPS: Chris Lawrence live from Aruba. Thank you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Next on LIVE FROM, decision day at the Supreme Court. Can the Ten Commandments be displayed in courthouses? What about online file sharing? What these decisions mean to you.

Just ahead, deadly insurgent attacks and the question of women in the war-zone. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld briefing reporters live from the Pentagon.

Later on LIVE FROM, inside Gitmo. What did members of Congress actually get to see in their tour of the military prison? We'll talk with two representatives who went there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Well, the highest court in the land calls it a term, rather, but none of its members calls it quits. Confounding the court-watchers who've long anticipated the retirement of at least one Supreme Court judge, in particular the cancer-stricken chief justice, William Rehnquist, no such mention was made as the court issued its last major rulings of 2005.

Those include two conflicted decisions on the Ten Commandments. Justices ruled 5-4 against commandment displays in two Kentucky courthouses, but they also ruled 5-4 in favor of commandments on the grounds of the Texas Capitol. In both cases, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was the swing vote. And in both cases, the key issue was promotion of religion versus reflection of legal culture. The latter, it seemed, constitutional rather.

The court also held Internet file-sharing services potentially liable for copyright infringement by their users, but it refused to hold police departments liable for harm that results when they don't enforces restraining orders. Well, finally, justices overturned a ruling that had opened cable TV Internet lines to rival ISPs.

Well, we may still here of a Supreme Court vacancy before the members close-up their offices for the summer, and the White House is ready, and congressional Republicans are ready, and Democrats are ready, and activists, and lobbyists, and interested parties on every conceivable issue are ready.

Ed Lazarus, he's ready, too. He's a former Supreme Court clerk who's now a lawyer and author in Los Angeles. Ed, great to have you with us.

ED LAZARUS, LAWYER AND AUTHOR: Well, thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, looking at a number of articles, reading up to the point of where we are today and the talk of a replacement for Rehnquist, is it true -- well, do you believe that liberals are a bit nervous about Rehnquist and his replacement? Because they believe he pretty much preserves a current division in the court, because he's not as conservative as other conservatives in the court.

LAZARUS: That's right. Liberals will not want to see someone more conservative than Chief Justice Rehnquist. Although Chief Justice Rehnquist is quite conservative, he's not as conservative as a Thomas or a Scalia. And if President Bush names someone in the more Scalia-Thomas mold, the court will move incrementally to the right, absolutely.

PHILLIPS: Well, once replaced, where do you think we will probably see the most, you know, transformative changes in the court? Would it be abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, the death penalty? What would be the immediate changes, do you think?

LAZARUS: Well, so many of those decisions are 5-4, but they're 5-4 in situations where Chief Justice Rehnquist is with the four. So his moving off doesn't change Roe v. Wade. It won't make affirmative action unconstitutional. It won't suddenly do away with the limited amount of gay rights that the court has recognized. It really is going to take an O'Connor or a Stevens to step off before that would happen.

PHILLIPS: All right, let's take a list for the Supreme Court, the short list, if you will. A couple of interesting people we've been hearing a lot about. But then I also want to hear who you think the real players are when it comes down to it.

Samuel Alito, you know, called Scalito for his... LAZARUS: Correct.

PHILLIPS: ... you know, I guess his bent, of course associated with Scalia. How much of a player do you think he is?

LAZARUS: I think he's a definite possibility. This administration seems to like young, energetic, very smart judges. He fit that mold, and he is strongly conservative. They could count on him not evolving into a more moderate justice the way Harry Blackman or currently Anthony Kennedy seems to have done.

PHILLIPS: What about Alberto Gonzales, another individual we've heard a lot about?

LAZARUS: Well, the current attorney general, former White House counsel, he's very close to the president, comes out of Texas, a real protege in the president's. He's not thought to be quite to be as conservative as some of the other candidates, but he'd be the first Hispanic. And that would be a truly historic appointment by the president.

PHILLIPS: Of course, that being the unique asset there, with regard to diversity. Now, speaking of diversity, Edith Jones, you know, the talk about possibly another female being brought into the court.

LAZARUS: Right. And she's also from Texas, very well-known to the president. Judge Jones is someone who has been named pretty much every time a Republican president has had a potential appointment over the last 15 years or so. So any list that doesn't have her on it is incomplete.

PHILLIPS: Now, reality check, when it came down to it -- and I mentioned all these names to you -- you said, "Kyra, we have got to definitely talk about McConnell."

LAZARUS: Yes, Michael McConnell out west. He's a very, very smart judge. He would have probably less trouble with confirmation because a lot of academics, including liberal academics, think very highly of him. And he's someone who really led the charge for lowering the wall of separation of church and state, which plays to the Republican base. So I think he's a serious contender.

PHILLIPS: Looking at all the various issues coming out of the Supreme Court, issues that even went to the Supreme Court in the past number of years, let's just talk about how crucial this replacement would be and what you think -- whoever it is, whoever it is from this short list that, indeed, does replace Rehnquist. You think we'll see any -- I guess, how much of an impact will we see, and how pivotal is this?

LAZARUS: Well, the chief justice plays a very, very important role on the court. And this is a very closely divided court, 5-4 on most of the hot button issues of law.

A chief justice, particularly one who's come from outside the court and can bring new ideas, sort of break away from the old coalitions that have been built, might be able to shake things up. These justices have been together for a long, long time, as long as any group since the early 1800s.

So having a new chief justice, even a conservative one, might, you know, might create a new dynamic within the court and you might see some shifting in what have been very hardened factions over the last decade or so.

PHILLIPS: Ed Lazarus, thank you so much.

LAZARUS: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: We'll be watching the court. We'll be watching those names, and we'll talk to you again. Thank you so much.

LAZARUS: Excellent.

PHILLIPS: As I was doing that interview, I was being told that we are actually working a reporter right now, from WMBB, on this second shark attack that we've been hearing about that took place in Florida just a short time ago.

As you know, we've been talking a lot about the shark attack that happened over the weekend in Miramar Beach, that 14-year-old girl that was attacked, possibly by a bull shark. We're still actually waiting on the autopsy results.

Now we're getting word that another shark attack has taken place about 40 miles from where this initial attack took place. Right after the break, we hope to talk to Kira Mathis with WMBB. She's working the story for us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: More now on that second shark attack that we've been talking about in Florida. This coming just after the death of a 14- year-old girl attacked by a shark at Miramar Beach. We're talking about Cape San Blas now, about 40 miles away from that original attack.

Kira Mathis, with our affiliate WMBB, is on the phone. Kira, what can you tell us? Bring us up-to-date.

KIRA MATHIS, REPORTER, WMBB-TV: Well, so far, I just arrived out here about 20 minutes ago. And right now, actually, people around here seem to be pretty calm.

From what I'm told, a young boy, around teenage, 16-years-old, was out fishing on a sand bar, probably about, I'd say, about 50 yards out. And he was attacked by a shark. As far as I know, he has some injuries to his leg.

I think he was fishing with someone else, from what witnesses have told me. He was fishing with another person. That person pulled the shark off of him. They were able to get the boy back to the shore, and it took an ambulance about 30 minutes to get here.

And they took him to another location and LifeFlighted him to a hospital over in Bay County near Panama City, in Panama City area. The witness that I spoke with said that he was in and out of consciousness. We really have no word on his condition at this point.

PHILLIPS: Now, Kira, as you know, we've been talking a lot about this because of the attack that happened and, unfortunately, the death of this 14-year-old girl. There was talk about how many sharks could be out in these waters, could we see another attack.

As you've been working this story and talking with marine biologists, and life guards, and various people, what are you learning about the possibility of this becoming a problem, more of a problem in this area this summer as people are heading out on vacation? Is there a concern that there'll be more of these sharks in this particular area?

MATHIS: Well, I've heard a number of things over the past three days here. I was surprised to learn the amount of sharks that people see. I've spent a number of days out here on the water, and I have never seen one.

But yet many surfers that I've been speaking to say that they see one every other day, which is very surprising to me. Also, a lot of people are often catching sharks when they go fishing. So it's pretty amazing to learn about the number of sharks that are actually out here, but it's been a number of years since we've had a fatal shark attack here in the panhandle.

PHILLIPS: So have you been able to find out -- is there any explanation that's out there about why these attacks are happening? I know shark fishing is popular out there. They have festivals out there. And these surfers say that they see them quite a bit.

So why do you think they're attacking? Is it, you know, something that's taking place due to weather patterns or any kind of shifting in the waters?

MATHIS: Well, we heard also that, due to Hurricane Ivan last year, that a lot more sharks are being seen in the area because the sand bars have been wiped out.

Another thing is, the attack on Saturday, from what I've been told, the girls were out much too far. They were out, you know, 150 yards-plus from the shore line, which is a very unsafe distance to be. This teenage boy, he was fishing. That attracts the sharks, having that bait out there.

PHILLIPS: Interesting.

MATHIS: So those things could have contributed to these attacks.

PHILLIPS: Yes, all factors. Kira Mathis, great report. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you calling in, giving us the update on this second attack that has now happened off the waters there in Florida. Kira, we'll keep in touch with you.

We're working both stories, actually. We're getting word that we may definitely get these autopsy results from the 14-year-old girl that died over the weekend, from the shark attack at Miramar Beach. As soon as we get them, we'll let you know. We're particularly interested in what type of shark this was that attacked this young girl.

And now, with this second attack, we'll be working the details on what's taking place there and the condition, possibly, of this teenage boy who was fishing.

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

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