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American Morning

Missing Body Murder Cases Unusual

Aired July 22, 2003 - 07:07   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Gehring and Dotson cases have something unusual in common: murder charges with no bodies.
Let's turn now to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

Good morning. Nice to see you.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: How difficult is it, or is it just impossible for a prosecutor to tackle a case where you have suspects, you have them in custody, but you have no actual confirmation of a dead body?

TOOBIN: Missing body murder cases are certainly unusual, but it's by no means impossible. The government's obligation is the same as in any other case. They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a murder took place. You can do that without a body. You have to prove it by circumstantial evidence that the person hasn't been seen, that the circumstances suggest that there is no reasonable explanation except that they are dead. But there is absolutely no restriction on the government from pursuing murder cases if there is no body.

O'BRIEN: And you don't need a body to get a conviction in a murder case.

TOOBIN: You don't, as long as the jury believes that the person is actually dead. That's just a burden that the government must meet in a case.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the Gehring case first. Police have said that there is a gun. The only information you can get from that weapon would be that it's been fired, period, right?

TOOBIN: And usually in a murder case, you have the shell casing or the bullet itself in the body of the victim. Here, obviously, since you have no victim, the gun is of less significance. But the fact that someone has a gun is a piece of circumstantial evidence that could lead a jury to convict.

O'BRIEN: A shovel the police say that they've also recovered. Does that potentially take the case a little bit further for them if there is some kind of physical evidence on there?

TOOBIN: Again, it's a piece of circumstantial evidence that suggests that someone was digging. If, of course, there is any hair, fiber, blood on the shovel itself that becomes a much more important piece of evidence. We don't know in this case if there is that.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the Dennehy case.

TOOBIN: All right.

O'BRIEN: In this case, no body, but a gun has been recovered, not necessarily linked to the case yet, but police have recovered a 9 mm Glock, which was found in Waco. It's been turned over to investigators. How difficult will it be to link that gun to this case?

TOOBIN: Again, it's harder when there is no body to link a gun to a specific murder. Of course, the big issue in the Dennehy case is that there is, apparently -- and I stress "apparently," we don't know this for sure -- some sort of confession, some sort of statement by the defendant to the police, which, you know, makes the case a lot easier to bring.

O'BRIEN: "The Dallas Morning News" is saying that police have told them that there was a confession. Why haven't police come out and said, yes, there was a confession?

TOOBIN: Police are generally reluctant to do anything that might call -- might lead to a charge by the defense of excessive pretrial publicity, the jury being biased. You don't see the cops often saying that there is a confession. Different police offices have different procedures relating to dealing with the press. But just because they didn't say that doesn't mean there wasn't one.

O'BRIEN: Very, very interesting in both of these cases to see how they turn out. Jeff Toobin, thanks.

TOOBIN: It's odd that they would both come up on the same day.

O'BRIEN: Very strange, isn't it? All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.






Aired July 22, 2003 - 07:07   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The Gehring and Dotson cases have something unusual in common: murder charges with no bodies.
Let's turn now to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

Good morning. Nice to see you.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.

O'BRIEN: How difficult is it, or is it just impossible for a prosecutor to tackle a case where you have suspects, you have them in custody, but you have no actual confirmation of a dead body?

TOOBIN: Missing body murder cases are certainly unusual, but it's by no means impossible. The government's obligation is the same as in any other case. They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a murder took place. You can do that without a body. You have to prove it by circumstantial evidence that the person hasn't been seen, that the circumstances suggest that there is no reasonable explanation except that they are dead. But there is absolutely no restriction on the government from pursuing murder cases if there is no body.

O'BRIEN: And you don't need a body to get a conviction in a murder case.

TOOBIN: You don't, as long as the jury believes that the person is actually dead. That's just a burden that the government must meet in a case.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the Gehring case first. Police have said that there is a gun. The only information you can get from that weapon would be that it's been fired, period, right?

TOOBIN: And usually in a murder case, you have the shell casing or the bullet itself in the body of the victim. Here, obviously, since you have no victim, the gun is of less significance. But the fact that someone has a gun is a piece of circumstantial evidence that could lead a jury to convict.

O'BRIEN: A shovel the police say that they've also recovered. Does that potentially take the case a little bit further for them if there is some kind of physical evidence on there?

TOOBIN: Again, it's a piece of circumstantial evidence that suggests that someone was digging. If, of course, there is any hair, fiber, blood on the shovel itself that becomes a much more important piece of evidence. We don't know in this case if there is that.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about the Dennehy case.

TOOBIN: All right.

O'BRIEN: In this case, no body, but a gun has been recovered, not necessarily linked to the case yet, but police have recovered a 9 mm Glock, which was found in Waco. It's been turned over to investigators. How difficult will it be to link that gun to this case?

TOOBIN: Again, it's harder when there is no body to link a gun to a specific murder. Of course, the big issue in the Dennehy case is that there is, apparently -- and I stress "apparently," we don't know this for sure -- some sort of confession, some sort of statement by the defendant to the police, which, you know, makes the case a lot easier to bring.

O'BRIEN: "The Dallas Morning News" is saying that police have told them that there was a confession. Why haven't police come out and said, yes, there was a confession?

TOOBIN: Police are generally reluctant to do anything that might call -- might lead to a charge by the defense of excessive pretrial publicity, the jury being biased. You don't see the cops often saying that there is a confession. Different police offices have different procedures relating to dealing with the press. But just because they didn't say that doesn't mean there wasn't one.

O'BRIEN: Very, very interesting in both of these cases to see how they turn out. Jeff Toobin, thanks.

TOOBIN: It's odd that they would both come up on the same day.

O'BRIEN: Very strange, isn't it? All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.