JVM transcript 10/31/11
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1110/31/ijvm.01.htmlVELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, explosive developments in the missing Baby Lisa case. Reports claim the woman says she got a mystery phone call from a cell phone, allegedly stolen from the baby`s home, has a bizarre connection to the homeless man who was questioned in this case. And a witness IDs the man seen carrying a baby through the neighborhood the very night Baby Lisa vanished. Is there something that connects all these people? Reaction from a mother who endured the kidnapping and murder of her own child.
Also, reports of a breakup that has even jaded Hollywood insiders stunned. Only 72 days after their $10 million wedding, reality star Kim Kardashian is divorcing NBA player Kris Humphries. Are they spitting on the institution of marriage?
Plus, fireworks in court. It gets personal on all fronts in the Michael Jackson death trial. Reports claim a verdict could come down as early as next week. Has Dr. Conrad Murray`s defense team done their job or will he end up behind bars?
And we have a Halloween treat for you. We`re taking your calls.
ISSUES starts now.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something is really wrong with Mom and Dad in this case. And I`m afraid that it probably is going to end up being something that led to the death of a child, I hate to say.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is putting puzzle pieces together here, you know. My suspicions, my own personal theories of what may or may not have happened that night.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He turned and looked at me, and I looked at him. I could tell he had a baby with him. She had a T-shirt and either training pants or a diaper on. It was too cold for that, I thought.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope they find whoever did it. I hope those parents weren`t involved.
MEGAN WRIGHT, RECEIVED PHONE CALL FROM MISSING PHONE: Apparently, there was a 50-second phone call made from one of the parents` phones to my cell phone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really just takes the one right nugget of information to kick this thing off in high gear, and that`s what we`re still looking and waiting for.
CYNDI SHORT, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR BABY LISA`S PARENTS: Lisa is the little girl that was going to hold this family together, that linked them together.
DEBORAH BRADLEY, BABY LISA`S MOTHER: She`s -- she`s everything. She`s our little girl. She`s completed our family, and she -- she means everything to my boys. And we -- we need her home. I can`t -- I can`t be without her.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Shocking, extraordinary twists and turns in the hunt for missing Baby Lisa.
Jane Velez-Mitchell coming to you live from Los Angeles.
The 11-month-old vanished from her crib almost a month ago. Now there are a whole bunch of new clues and new leads. We hope they will lead to Baby Lisa. Has the man carrying a baby down the road at 4 a.m., less than four miles from Baby Lisa`s house, now been identified? Let`s listen.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was that the man you saw?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know who that is?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. I don`t know him.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Music.
Now that man has been identified as a man who lives in the community. But he is not the homeless handyman who was originally questioned by police. That`s another individual. We`re going to get to him in a moment.
So who is this mystery man who was seen holding a baby? Now let`s speak about the handyman. There`s another shocking twist there. The woman who got a phone call, OK, from one of the stolen cell phones that was reportedly taken from the home of the missing child, that woman is not a random connection to this case, as we first believed. Listen to this.
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WRIGHT: He`s an ex-boyfriend of mine. We dated for about five months. I met him when I lived further down on Brighton. He was just a friend of a friend. He and I were together for, less than five months. After I ended up moving in here, we broke up shortly afterwards, and at least a couple weeks before (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They call him Jersey, right?
WRIGHT: Yes, he goes by Jersey.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: So let`s take a look at the connections. You have Deborah Bradley, the missing child`s mother. Her purportedly stolen cell phone was used to call the woman with the pink hair, Megan Wright.
Then have you a romantic relationship between Megan and this homeless man who does work in yards in the neighborhood, John Tanko (ph), who goes by the name Jersey. So can we connect the dots? Is there a relationship between Deborah and Jersey? This homeless man.
And then what about this other man who lives in the community, who a man who was driving his motorcycle at 4 a.m. said was a man holding a baby. Is there a connection? All of this happening in the same general area.
What do you think about this? There is really bizarre. Call me: 1- 877-JVM-SAYS, 1-877-586-7297.
Straight out to CNN reporter Jim Spellman, who is on the ground doing some fantastic reporting talking to all of these parties, really putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Can you spell it out briefly and simply, all these new people, and what their possible connections are?
JIM SPELLMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, they all connect right back here pretty much to this intersection, where Deborah Bradley, Jeremy Irwin lives and where Baby Lisa disappeared from.
We know that -- that this woman, Megan, and Jersey, spent time in this neighborhood. We know that Jersey cut through a yard often, a yard where we now know police have taken footprints, and it leads right from where one witness saw a man at 12:15 in this neighborhood lead straight to where there was a Dumpster fire reported at 2:30. So there`s a lot of geographic connections and a lot of interpersonal connections. But we`re just not able, really, to tie it back to Deborah Bradley or Jeremy Irwin directly at this point.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Well, let`s go through the time line, because it`s a very complicated story now. But here`s what we know from the night that Baby Lisa disappeared. Her mom, Deborah Bradley says she goes to the store and buys a box of wine and says she put the baby to sleep around 6:40 p.m. on October 3. Then she and a neighbor had been drinking. And the neighbor says that -- another neighbor says she and her husband saw a man with a baby, a man holding a baby, walking down the street at 12:15 in the morning.
Two hours later, 2:15 a.m., a gas station surveillance camera catches man, matching the same description with a white T-shirt walking down the road. Finally, a man on a motorcycle says he saw a man carrying a baby, a baby that was wearing only type diaper in 45 degrees temperature, walking down the street at 4 in the morning, just about three miles from Baby Lisa`s house.
Now, we have this bizarre connection about this woman with the pink hair who got the phone call having a relationship with the handyman that cops had questioned in the case.
And Jim Spellman, is it not true that the handyman was doing work just around the corner from where the baby disappeared, and that the place that he was doing work is very, very, in a direct line to a garbage dump that was set on fire at 4 in the morning -- Jim.
SPELLMAN: At 12:15, somebody walking up the street says that person then turned left off of the street and walked into a yard. In that yard, where this person walked, we know that this handyman, John Tanko, a.k.a., Jersey, was doing work that evening in that timeframe of about 9:30 to about 11. The next-door neighbor tells us that he was working for this family, moving sprinklers around on some fresh grass seed.
If you walk right through that backyard to the fence of that backyard, you are looking directly at the Dumpster that was set on fire. The geography is tricky, but it`s very important here, I think, Jane.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. And then, we have another suspicious fact. We`ve got to set it up, and then we`re going to get the analysis.
A 50-second phone call that the woman with the pink hair, Megan Wright, got from Deborah Bradley, the missing baby`s mother`s cell phone, that Deborah Bradley said was stolen from her house, Megan says she has in idea who called it or who answered it. Listen to this.
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WRIGHT: I didn`t hear my phone in time, but apparently, there was a 50-second phone call made from one of the family`s phones to my cell phone. About 50 seconds in length. I don`t know what was said or who called or who answered my phone. But that`s what the police have been questioning me about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So -- so the police told you that this happened?
WRIGHT: My phone -- we have eight people that live here and only one cell phone at the time, so it was pretty much community, whoever needed my phone.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Steve Moore, former FBI, house full of eight people and it`s a prepaid cell phone, because that`s cheaper. And then she tries to sell a GPS device, and she lists that same phone number, apparently, and a whole bunch of FBI agents swarm in to interview her for six hours. What do you make of this mess?
STEVE MOORE, FORMER FBI: Well, what I make of it is that the whole case is falling into place for Kansas City Police, for the FBI. You`re getting such an avalanche of clues coming in, of connections coming in, that I think it is collapsing.
And I think that the police in Kansas City have more than a hunch. They polygraphed the mother but then said that they didn`t need to polygraph the father, which to me says they`ve got more than a hunch. They`ve got a theory as to how it happened and when it happened. I think - - I think you`re going to see things moving fairly rapidly very soon.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. And let`s remember, a couple of other facts. The mother admits she was drunk and had at least probably five glasses of wine and was taking anti-anxiety meds. And the cadaver dogs hit on the scent of a dead -- dead human in her bedroom.
We`re taking your calls: 1-877-JVM-SAYS.
On the other side of the break, we`re going to talk to one of my heroes, Erin Runnion. Her daughter was viciously murdered, and now Erin has taken her grief and turned it into action. She`s going to weigh in on this case, coming up in a moment.
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JEREMY IRWIN, BABY LISA`S FATHER: I came home from work, the front door was unlocked. Most of the lights were on in the house. And the window was, in the front was open. Obviously, all very unusual. I started checking on the kids, checking on the boys first. And then went and checked on her and that`s when we realized she was gone.
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BRADLEY: He said, "She`s not in her crib."
I said, "What do you mean she`s not in her crib?" And I just knew, you know. I something was really wrong. And we were running around the house, and we were screaming for her, and she was nowhere. And then, I said, "Call 911. Call 911."
And he said, "Where are the phones?" And they weren`t on the counter where I left them. They were gone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Definitely, you could tell they were probably in drugs. She was shady (UNINTELLIGIBLE). But he was a nice guy.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: So you heard the issue of drugs come into the equation. That`s a woman who lives in the neighborhood, who says she knows this handyman, Jersey, who by the way, cops say is not a suspect. He`s behind bars on some kind of burglary allegation. But he is not a suspect, they say, in this case. But he`s in the neighborhood, according to this woman, that night. She thinks so, because he`s turning on and off sprinklers for a home that he watches.
And he used to go out with the girl with the pink hair, who got the call from the phone that was purportedly stolen from the home along with the baby.
Edith Fine-Duskin, you are in touch with Baby Lisa`s family. What do you make of all these bizarre connections? All of these people coming out of the woodwork who have kind of odd stories?
EDITH FINE-DUSKIN, KNOWS BABY LISA`S FAMILY: I think, my personal opinion, is I think this should have been taken care of in the first days that it`s been, that she got reported missing. Then I believe, in my heart and in things I`ve been seeing since I`ve been out here day one, that if we had all of this in the beginning, we would have our little Baby Lisa back.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I think the cops knew about a lot of this from the very beginning and I think that -- I want to bring in Erin Runnion for a second. I think you`ve worked with cops very, very closely. And they obviously solved the case of your precious, precious daughter`s murder. And again, my heart goes out to you, and you`re my hero.
ERIN RUNNION, MOTHER OF MURDERED GIRL: Thank you.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: What do you make of this story from a mother`s perspective?
RUNNION: Well, it is a mess, and my heart breaks for this baby. And I just don`t know what to make of the family. And I`m hesitant to jump to conclusions, because the investigation is continuing. But it seems to me that, with drugs and alcohol being involved, anything could have happened.
You know, one thing that pops out to me is there were two sightings of a baby barely clothed in 40-degree weather in the middle of the night. Call the police. That is child endangerment. It`s worth a phone call. It might have saved a life.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely.
Edith, what do you think, hearing about these connections between the woman who gets the phone call -- it`s hard to keep up. It`s complicated. She gets a phone call, OK, but there`s eight people living in the house. She doesn`t even answer. The phone goes on for 50 seconds. It`s a prepaid phone. When she get to it, she says, it`s -- the actual logs are erased.
She went out with this guy, named Jersey, nickname, who is doing yard work in the house. He was questioned by police, and apparently, he`s behind bars on a burglary allegation.
What could the explanation of this phone be? Could it be that -- that the mother, when she was drunk and passed out, somehow let other people into her house to party?
FINE-DUSKIN: No.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: People do that when they`re drunk sometimes, Edith. No? Why not?
FINE-DUSKIN: Well, that could happen, yes. But I don`t think -- I don`t think Debbie let anybody in the house. I think this is somebody out here that`s wanting it make a name for themselves. Because you know, I do believe in the sightings now. You know, from -- the ones from the street and the three sightings. But I believe this is just a -- just a thing, you know...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: So you don`t think the mother let anybody into the house?
FINE-DUSKIN: That was a no.
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WRIGHT: They took me downtown on the 8th. I was interrogated for about six hours by a couple different police officers. They told me that my number was written on the palm of her hand, and it was shown to a detective. And they had looked at the call logs between my phones and as well as the families.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know Deborah Bradley?
WRIGHT: No, I`ve never met her or anyone else in that family that I`m aware of.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: That is the woman who got a call on her prepaid cell phone the night that Baby Lisa went missing, about 8 to 8:30, by the way, which is very early in the evening. And she`s saying that cops told her that the mother of the missing child had her number written on her hand. We don`t know if that`s true, because sometimes cops will make up stories to get information. But if it is true, if it is true, what does it say to you?
RUNNION: It says to me that she`s lying. And it ties all of it together. Really. I mean, if that number was on the mother`s hand, and she supposedly didn`t know this woman, who formally dated the handyman, all of it kind of ties them closer together.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And when you say she`s lying, you`re talking about who?
RUNNION: The mother.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: That`s hard to say, I know.
RUNNION: It is.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: We don`t know that for a fact, but...
RUNNION: I just know that if it were my baby, I would not be grieving yet. I would be hoping, and praying and begging for people to be looking for my baby.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. She did use that phrase, grieving. That was something a lot of people found interesting.
Sugar Lee Lewis, you were searching for Baby Lisa in Kansas City. What do you make of these developments, Sugar Lee?
SUGAR LEE LEWIS, SEARCHING FOR BABY LISA: Well, one of the things that I had been watching very closely, been out here on the run, looking for Baby Lisa and following the police and the FBI reports very, very closely. There`s many opinions here in Kansas City.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: What do you make of the fact that there are now these other figures? The mystery man, with the baby, spotted by three people, in the area. When it`s 45 degrees, the baby is wearing almost nothing.
Then you have a handyman in the area, who is the former boyfriend of the woman who gets a call in the -- at 8 at night, the night the child disappears, from a cell phone that the mother said was taken, was stolen when whoever, the mystery abductor, took her child.
Do you see a connection that Erin Runnion is seeing, that all of these people may be connected, and that in Megan Wright`s case, she also has eight roommates, and the man who goes by Jersey, the neighbor, says that she thinks he might be on drugs. Right now, he`s behind bars on a burglary charge.
I want to go to Steve Moore -- Steve? OK. I`m going to go back to Sugar Lee. Your thoughts on it?
LEWIS: Well, what I really feel like, directly at the end, there`s all kinds of information that`s circulated. But I definitely feel like we have the best FBI and also the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department in the world.
I think that, after all of this information, everything going to be put together. Sooner or later, everyone is going to know exactly what happened to Baby Lisa. That there is many things that are out here. There`s -- many people have seen and sighted. Probably not all of that information...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`re going to have to leave it right there, Sugar Lee. But I just want to say that the mother and the father are not considered suspects. The police have made a point of...
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