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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Boehner Walks Out of Debt Talks; Twin Terror Attacks in Norway; Notorious Crimes
Aired July 22, 2011 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ISHA SESAY, GUEST HOST: I'm Isha Sesay with a special edition of Anderson Cooper just ahead.
We begin tonight with breaking news. Twin terror attacks in Norway. Late developments, plus an eyewitness describes what he saw.
And late-breaking news in Washington, where debt talks have screeched to a halt. Speaker John Boehner walks out of negotiations with President Obama late this afternoon, saying the President wanted to raise taxes. That set off a war of words.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My expectation was that Speaker Boehner was going to be willing to go to his caucus and ask them to do the tough thing but the right thing.
I think it has proven difficult for Speaker Boehner to do that. I have been left at the altar now a couple of times.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Dealing with the White House is like dealing with a bowl of Jell-O. And let me just say that the White House moved the goalpost. They refuse to get serious about cutting spending and making the tough choices that are facing our country on entitlement reform. So that's the bottom line.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESAY: President Obama has asked congressional leaders to come to the White House tomorrow to tell him how they plan to avoid defaulting on the nation's debt. The deadline to raise the debt ceiling is August 2nd.
Earlier, Speaker Boehner said he was confident Congress can reach a deal without help from the White House. But now he says he will be at the White House tomorrow. So is he backing off?
Chief White House correspondent Jessica Yellin joins me now.
Jessica, both sides putting their own spin on things. What exactly happened today?
JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'll tell you. From here at the White House, Isha, when the President received the call from Speaker Boehner saying the deal was off, I'm told there was a sense of actual surprise, frustration, even exasperation here that Congress cannot come to negotiate a real deal. This is now the third time what seemed directionally leading to an actual deal broke down. And in this case, it seems to be over the question of taxes.
In this instance, they had come to significant agreement over spending cuts and entitlement reform, but it broke down along the lines of just how much tax revenue is on the table.
Both sides say $800 billion had been agreed to. There was a question about another $400 billion. The President, we're told, said he's open to negotiating it. But for Speaker Boehner, that question of another $400 billion, it appears, is a deal-breaker. And now with less than 10 days to go until potential default, no deal and each side blaming the other again with this time -- this clock ticking and each side not sure how the deal will get done -- Isha.
SESAY: Yes, indeed.
Well, Jessica, Speaker Boehner appeared to raise the stakes earlier on today, saying -- making a big deal at the press conference saying that he no longer wanted to work with the White House. And yet we're now hearing he is actually going to be at the White House tomorrow morning for more meetings.
How exactly is the White House reacting to this?
YELLIN: Well, there's a lot of talk about the fact that the President had to put in repeated calls to Speaker Boehner from the White House as the White House tells it in order to get a response. I'm told the White House made -- made an outreach, an overture of this outline, and the President called Speaker Boehner's office first last night and then a series of times today and was told each time Speaker Boehner is not available to talk to the President.
This is not your standard protocol in Washington. In general, you make yourself available to talk to the President or shortly return the call thereafter. So there is again some frustration over that expressed here. But I should also say that there's still an openness and willingness on both sides clearly to negotiate, because everyone wants to get the debt ceiling raised and is determined to do that.
And here also, they still say that maybe this Obama-Boehner framework could end up being the deal in the end. So it's still not totally off the table from this perspective -- Isha.
SESAY: Yes. I mean, you say that there's a willingness on the part of both sides. That is the talk. But the bottom line is can they reach a deal? I mean, what happens next, Jessica?
YELLIN: There's a meeting at 11:00 tomorrow morning. The congressional leaders will then go off and talk amongst themselves about how they can get a negotiation done. They need some sort of handshake agreement we're told by around Sunday night so that Congress can actually take action next week -- Isha.
SESAY: All right. Our Jessica Yellin is staying on top of this story for us. Jessica, we appreciate it. Thank you.
All right, we now turn our attention to Norway, where the death toll from twin terror attacks is now at least 17. Dozens were injured. In one attack, a bomb ripped through the center of Oslo, apparently targeting government buildings. Witnesses said the blast could be felt for miles.
The other attack was outside the capital at a political youth camp where a gunman opened fire. A man from a nearby island who rushed to the scene described what he saw after his boat reached shore, dead bodies, youngsters who appeared to have been gunned down as they tried to hide.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KASPER ILAUG, RESCUER: They were actually shot and they ran down to the shore to -- to seek shelter. But they actually died on the spot there together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESAY: Well, tonight, a 32-year-old Norwegian man is in custody, and authorities say the two attacks are definitely linked. No word yet on a motive.
Ian Dutton is an American who was in Oslo when the explosion struck. He joins me now by phone.
Ian, you were actually in bed when this happened, when these blasts happened. Describe for us what you heard and what you saw.
IAN DUTTON, WITNESS (via telephone): Well, lest you think I'm terribly lazy for being in bed at 3:30 in the afternoon, I had flown from New York to Oslo overnight. I'm a pilot with a U.S.-based airline. And we got in about noontime.
So I slept for a couple of hours before I was going to get up and go make an afternoon of it. And right about 3:30, there was this extreme concussive explosion. And I thought that maybe my bed had been struck by lightning and at the same time, an earthquake had struck. It was really so forceful that it violently shook the hotel that I was in, which is a large tower downtown.
I really instantly sensed that there must be something wrong and went and looked outside to see a wall, a giant cloud of dust and smoke rising from the plaza area where the bombing occurred. And I could see the debris spreading outwards and people kind of being covered with it in the same sense that I saw on September 11th living in New York City. I had -- many of the same -- same visual cues from the attacks of September 11th of 2001.
SESAY: And Ian, I just want to update our viewers. This is a fast-moving story. We're getting new details.
Now getting word from Norwegian police that the death toll could rise to 80. Right now, the number we have is 17. But this is the latest information we're getting from Norwegian police. They are now telling us that the death toll -- death toll could rise significantly. And they are now saying it could rise to 80.
Now Ian, to go back to what you were describing in terms of that aftermath, I have read reports of absolute panic breaking out in that city center. I mean, talk to me about that.
YELLIN: Well, from my viewpoint, actually, I didn't see so much panic as just a state of disbelief and confusion.
I think it's been reported about how safe Norway feels. And Oslo is a very tame and civilized city. And I think that there was very much the feeling that this couldn't be happening. I must be misunderstanding the situation. At least from -- from what I could see, which was in the immediate vicinity of the plaza area but not the plaza itself, people were more confused and stunned.
I didn't see people running. For a few minutes there was -- there was general confusion. And then the emergency response started to take over. And you could see that they -- they were rushing in to treat the injured and stabilize the situation.
SESAY: Yes, no doubt about it. Norway is a shocked and stunned country tonight as they take in the events that have just taken place.
Ian Dutton joining us as an eyewitness, joining us there from Oslo, Norway, we really do appreciate it. Many thanks and stay safe.
And stay with CNN for the latest developments on the breaking news in Norway and in Washington, of course.
And new developments in the Casey Anthony story this week, we will get to that in tonight's ANDERSON COOPER SPECIAL REPORT, "Crime & Punishment: Notorious Crimes". That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Sanjay Gupta. And this is an ANDERSON COOPER SPECIAL REPORT, "Crime & Punishment: Most Notorious Crimes."
Tonight, notorious con man, the social chameleon who pretended to be a Rockefeller. Also, the murders that devastated hip-hop, Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls cut down at the peak of fame. Plus, America's most terrifying cold case, the San Francisco area Zodiac killings. And a stunning new development in a murder mystery that's gone unsolved since 1947, L.A.'s Black Dahlia case.
Now a former police detective says he knows who the killer is, and it's a shocker, his own father.
A very big hour ahead tonight with America's best known crusader for justice, John Walsh. Also Anderson, Dr. Drew Pinsky and me.
We begin with Casey Anthony. A little more than two weeks after a jury in Orlando acquitted her in the death of her daughter, Caylee, a new revelation, something the jury never heard that's raising even more doubt about the prosecution's case.
The latest from Martin Savidge.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was one of the most powerful elements of the prosecution's case against Casey Anthony.
JUDGE BELVIN PERRY, ORANGE COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT: OK. Let's bring your jury in.
SAVIDGE: A clear indicator, prosecutors said, the mother of 2- year-old Caylee planned her daughter's death.
JEFF ASHTON, PROSECUTOR: This murder was premeditated. And the defendant is guilty.
SAVIDGE: A main reason the state wanted the death penalty, chloroform. But just where did the idea of chloroform originate? Authorities say they found evidence of online searches for chloroform locked in the memory of a computer in a home Casey shared with her parents.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Entry number three, the www.sci- spot.com/chemistry/chloroform. How many times was that site visited?
JOHN BRADLEY, COMPUTER EXPERT: According to the history, 84 times.
SAVIDGE: The revelation so damning, it's believed to have motivated Casey's mother, Cindy, fearing for her daughter's life, to shock the court and suddenly admit she was the one doing the searches.
CINDY ANTHONY, MOTHER OF CASEY ANTHONY: And I started looking up chloroform -- I mean chlorophyll, and then that prompted me to look up chloroform.
SAVIDGE (on camera): Then Monday, it was revealed the extensive computer searches for chloroform were based on inaccurate data. In an online statement, John Bradley, the prosecution's man on the stand who had cited the significant number of searches, said 10 days after his testimony he went back and revisited the data and retooled his software and found a mistake. There weren't 84 searches for chloroform, only one.
Since the trial was still going on, Bradley said he immediately notified the prosecution of the error. In a statement on his website, he said, "I even offered to fly down there overnight at my own expense to set the record straight, since the fate of a woman's life could lay in this critical piece of information."
Bradley told "The New York Times" his revelations were never presented to the jury and the record was never corrected, leading defense attorney Cheney Mason, to fire back to "The Times": "If in fact this is true and the prosecution concealed this new information, it is more than shame on them. It is outrageous."
But the prosecutor's office said it did tell the defense of the error. It also says a second software program used to analyze the Anthony computer showed only one chloroform search as well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Showing the sci-spot one time.
SAVIDGE: In a statement, state attorney Lawson Lamar said, "Court records show that the defense was completely aware of the issues, utilizing these facts at trial."
In fact, defense attorney Jose Baez did bring up the discrepancy in his closing arguments.
JOSE BAEZ, ATTORNEY FOR CASEY ANTHONY: There are no such searches of being 84 times for chloroform.
SAVIDGE: Mysteriously, Wednesday, Bradley stopped talking, declining our request for an interview, instead, issuing another statement, this time through his attorneys.
It read: "Mr. Bradley denies making any comments that either determined and/or implied any wrongdoing on behalf of the prosecutor's office."
The debate may be pointless, given the jury's verdict that Casey Anthony was not guilty of murder, but it's another unanswered question in a trial that had many.
Martin Savidge, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And plenty to talk about now.
With me, defense attorney Mark Geragos and San Francisco prosecuting attorney Paul Henderson.
Welcome to both of you.
This is a fascinating revelation. I mean, Mark, had Casey Anthony been convicted this issue with the chloroform searches would have been grounds for a new trial. I mean is that right?
MARK GERAGOS, ATTORNEY: It would certainly would have led off any motion for new trial, this and all of the other junk science that the prosecution presented. I think this just kind of points out to the fact that the jury got it right. And this just supports everything that I kind of suspected from the get-go. This idea that somehow there were 84 searches or this or that just reeked at the time of somebody who just didn't know what they were doing when they were looking at the searches.
GUPTA: I mean, would you have said -- as a defense lawyer, what would you have done in this situation, if it just smacked of making not -- no sense? GERAGOS: Well, I've had -- I've had this precise case twice over with murder cases, where somebody has gotten up and purported to be an expert, and then taken a look at the search. And it's really just the fact that they can't read it properly.
GUPTA: Paul, needless to say, a lot of people were paying attention to this. And I think a lot of people paid attention to that particular part of this case. According to the post that Bradley put on his website, he said he thought the 84 searches seemed odd, but didn't bring it up because he didn't have details about the investigation and didn't investigate the evidence himself.
Could he -- should he have brought this -- these misgivings up at the time?
PAUL HENDERSON, PROSECUTOR: Yes, absolutely.
I mean the police and the prosecuting attorney were using the information from his program. I mean that's how they got it. And obviously that seemed very relevant for Casey. If she had searched chloroform 84 times, that means something. That's why they were trying to introduce this evidence in the first place.
GUPTA: I mean it seems like everyone found this particular fact odd. I mean is this one of those situations where the prosecution just says, you know what, it's odd, but let's just throw it out there and see if it sticks?
HENDERSON: It might not be odd if that was what happened. So if someone searches for chloroform 84 times, that does mean something.
(CROSSTALK)
GERAGOS: I've got -- a totally different view of that.
GUPTA: OK. Go ahead.
GERAGOS: Yes, the prosecutor would want to get it in, but only because the prosecutor suspended all common sense because they're so invested in the theory. Anybody who had any kind of experience with a computer or computer searches should have known and bells and whistles should have gone off telling you that there's no way somebody was going to do 84 searches within that time period.
GUPTA: Paul, let me ask you a question as admittedly a non-legal person. Just what's your take on expert testimony from paid witnesses in general? I mean, is this a necessity for certain cases? And should jurors view the testimony of someone who's getting paid any differently than they would from a witness who isn't receiving money for their testimony?
HENDERSON: Oh, believe me, every time you have a trial and you have the witnesses on there, that's always part of the line of questioning as to how much you're getting paid and how many times you have testified either for the prosecution or for the defense. And we trust jurors to understand that and evaluate if there's a bias or if there's truthfulness in the testimony. But in a case like this, where you have so little evidence, I think you're always -- you can always expect as a juror that both sides are going to be throwing experts at you one way or the other, trying to influence your decision, and trying to give you a lens at looking at what other evidence exists in the case in association with the incident to try and get you to a conclusion that either side is going to fight about.
GERAGOS: Does it come out in a wash, Mark Geragos, I mean, both the defense and the prosecution do this?
GERAGOS: I call it the knockout rule. You put on your expert. They put on their expert. The jury disregards both.
HENDERSON: Right. The interesting thing is how both sides argue about the experts afterwards, because that's where you really see what the experts did. You wait for the attorneys both for the prosecution and the defense to summarize both their experts' testimony and the other side's testimony. That's when the decisions get made.
GUPTA: Well, just a fascinating revelation, weeks after the fact, though. I appreciate it, both. Mark Geragos, Paul Henderson, thanks so much.
GERAGOS: Thanks, Sanjay.
HENDERSON: Thanks for having us. It's a pleasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: And up next: another notorious criminal, the man who claimed to be Clark Rockefeller, a member of an elite American family. That was a lie and there many were, many more. Now he's accused of murder.
And later: the killings of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, and the street code against cooperating with police, even to get justice for a friend. Crime fighter John Walsh weighs in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN WALSH, "AMERICA'S MOST WANTED": Somebody helped orchestrate that BS gangster crap and they have literally gotten away with murder.
I do believe that somebody is going to man up at some point in their life and say, this isn't right. Biggie had friends, relatives. He had a mother, people that loved him. Tupac had lots of people. He has surviving children. They need justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUPTA: You're watching a special report tonight on acts of crime that make it onto the pages of history. For years, he went by the name Clark Rockefeller. He pretended to be a member of the wealthy American family. His true identity came to light when he was charged with kidnapping his own daughter. And that's when police say they uncovered a web of lies that went back decades. And now he's accused of killing a neighbor more than 25 years ago.
Here's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They say pictures don't lie, but this one did and this one and maybe thousands more of the man called Clark Rockefeller. Because investigators believe he was almost never whom he claimed to be. And in his rocket rise to the top of society, they think he committed murder.
MARK SEAL, AUTHOR, "THE MAN IN THE ROCKEFELLER SUIT": Well, he's a man who built his life on fiction.
FOREMAN: Mark Seal wrote "The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor."
SEAL: He didn't just do this with one name or one persona. He did it repeatedly, time after time after time after time, in increasing grandiosity and increasingly intelligent, learned, successful circles. That's what makes him different.
FOREMAN: His story starts long ago in 1978 when under his real name, Christian Gerhartsreiter, a working class German teen he came to America and found the life he wanted on TV.
ALAN HALE, ACTOR: Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Howell. Beautiful day, isn't it?
JIM BACKUS, ACTOR: It's ideal flying weather.
SEAL: And if you remember the television show "Gilligan's Island". He started watching that. And apparently began to emulate the eccentric East Coast millionaire, Thurston Howell III, mimicking his speech and his accent and his way of life in a way.
FOREMAN: Police say that started a decades-long odyssey of moving and new identities. In Wisconsin he was film student, Chris Gerhart, dreaming of fame and rooting for Ronald Reagan. In California he said he was Christopher Chichester, a member of the British royal family, hobnobbing with Hollywood insiders.
In Connecticut, he became Chris Crowe, former film producer, and he actually landed a job as a bond trader. Investigators say he was smart, quick-thinking, and all of his credentials, connections and histories were elaborate frauds.
(on camera): Still, authorities say, he rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful, joined their churches and clubs, and then lived off of the generosity of people who thought he was the one with all the money and contacts. When they grew suspicious, he simply slipped away.
(voice-over): Then, in New York in the early '90s he took on his biggest role, Clark Rockefeller. He assembled an impressive art collection, almost all fakes, and he met a woman who was attracted to this charming, secretive, quirky member of one of the country's most powerful families.
SEAL: Well, he was entertaining. He was educated, seemingly. He was fun to be around. He knew a little bit about everything.
FOREMAN: They married, had a daughter, and the child became the center of his life. So much so that when the couple divorced after 12 years and his wife got custody, he kidnapped the girl from a Boston street.
SEAL: This man had built a life on lies. And the only true thing in his life was his love for his daughter. And that's what blew the lid off of a 30-year con.
FOREMAN: He and the girl were picked up in Baltimore less than a week later where he was building yet another alias, this time as a ship captain. He was convicted of the kidnapping, but it was much worse than that.
As his trail of deception was revealed, authorities in California realized he was the man they had hunted in a missing person's case. A couple had been involved with the long-gone royal Christopher Chichester. He has pleaded not guilty to a single charge of murder, and he sits in jail today, one man with many pasts, awaiting trial.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: And now Dr. Drew Pinsky joins me to talk about this man who claimed to be Clark Rockefeller.
That's extraordinary stuff.
Dr. Drew, you believe, first of all, that you actually crossed paths with this man years ago. What happened there?
DR. DREW PINSKY, HLN HOST: Well, I was working in a psychiatric hospital. And I got a call, a very peculiar call from a woman. Never really understood who she was or identified herself, but she kept me on the phone for a good half-an-hour going on and on about how she had this very special person with a special relationship, that he was so powerful and had so much money that he needed all this sort of -- be brought in under the cloak of darkness, but that he was suffering and he had pain and he had this; he had all these different things.
And I thought, wow, this whole thing sounds mysterious, shady, not right to me. And I remember hearing about this when it sort of came to light. And I thought, boy, that's probably who this guy was.
GUPTA: Yes. PINSKY: Another con man out there bringing people around him to support his con.
GUPTA: That's pretty -- it's pretty remarkable to think about.
I mean, you think about all the lies that he told and then his manipulation obviously of so many people. And how do you put that together? Is there a component of mental illness? Or is this a guy who -- is this just a guy who was really good at lying?
PINSKY: Well, one of the things -- through covering the Casey Anthony case, I did -- reviewed a lot of literature on lying per se.
And one of the things that's very clear about lying is that it doesn't -- pathological lying, persistent lying, lying where it involves really distorted distortions of reality, it doesn't exist as an isolated phenomenon. It always exists in the setting of other issues, psychologically, psychiatrically.
GUPTA: Do you -- if you take that a step further, Dr. Drew, I mean, we know that sometimes people lie to create alternative -- alternate identities, maybe to escape something, perhaps something painful. Is that -- is that common or a prerequisite, even?
PINSKY: Well, lying, again, to distort reality towards some particular ends, again, in fact, I hate to keep hearkening back to Casey Anthony but we've all been very preoccupied with that --
GUPTA: Sure.
PINSKY: -- people are suggesting that she was lying, too, in order to protect herself from something horrible that she did.
As opposed to say somebody with, again, these personality disorders for whom their version of reality just begs no alternative. They just don't see anything different.
Now, in this case is the man next to me here in this particular window, my suspicion is it's more something in the sociopathic spectrum where they take on that identity as a means of manipulating other people to their own ends because they really don't care about people. Feelings aren't important to them. Other people aren't important to them. Only getting what they need from other people is what counts.
GUPTA: And they always know that they're lying, though. I mean they're always aware of that.
PINSKY: In this case, yes. I certainly -- I think you've encountered people, too, where certain parts of the brain are involved in this kind of distortion, where people are questionable whether they actually believe their own lies or not. In situations like this, they're very astute at taking on a character, but they know.
GUPTA: You know, you saw the end of this piece. And some say that this man's love for his daughter is sort of the truest thing in his life. A life that's full of lies. Do you think that -- is he capable of having this true thing in his life in the form of his daughter?
PINSKY: No. There's just no way that he had a real or healthy relationship with the daughter, given his past. I worry about what that relationship was, obviously.
And certainly -- again, you know, the people that have terribly vacant or abusive childhoods can become over-idealizing of their own children, overly enmeshed with them. They don't have to be abusive and abandoning. They can go the other direction and as such cannot tolerate being out of their presence, even.
GUPTA: That's really fascinating stuff. Dr. Drew Pinsky, thanks so much.
PINSKY: I appreciate it. Thanks.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: Still ahead, the unsolved murders of two rap rivals. Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls; both shot dead in their cars six months apart. More than a decade later, both cases still making headlines.
Plus, the Zodiac Killer, a cold case that remains as baffling as ever almost five decades later. A serial killer who terrorized California's Bay Area, taunting the police and the press with letters. Cold case crusader John Walsh describes how the Zodiac may have personally threatened him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN WALSH, HOST, "AMERICA'S MOST WANTED": When I first profiled the Zodiac Killer, I got a letter sent exactly like his code. It was signed in blood, in human blood. It said, "I will kill you. You will be the ultimate victory."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GUPTA: The unsolved murders of two icons of rap still make headlines more than a decade later. Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, also known as Notorious B.I.G., were gunned down six months apart. The way they were killed is eerily similar. Former friends who were rivals when they died, they were signed with dueling record labels. Both cases still open.
At the end of last year, law enforcement was pursuing new leads in Biggie Smalls' murder. Both cases still generate speculation, but few clear answers.
Anderson talked to cold case crusader John Walsh about both cases. But first, let's give you the facts about what we do know.
Here's Ted Rowlands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Las Vegas, September 7, 1996. Mike Tyson is fighting Bruce Sheldon at the MGM Grand Hotel. Multi-platinum rap artist Tupac Shakur is there to watch Tyson, his friend.
After the fight, Shakur rode with his boss, Suge Knight, the CEO of Death Row Records, to a party just off the Las Vegas strip. Their security team went in separate cars. Knight was behind the wheel, Shakur in the front passenger seat when witnesses say a white Cadillac pulled up next to them at the intersection of Flamingo and Cobalt.
Witnesses then say a gunman in the Cadillac extended his arm out of the backseat window and fired a semiautomatic pistol at Shakur from close range.
(on camera): After the shooting the white Cadillac made a right- hand turn here on Cobalt, speeding away. Suge Knight with Tupac bleeding in the front seat made a U-turn on Flamingo and started driving back towards the Strip.
Two police officers who were on duty heard the gun shots. But when they responded, they followed Suge Knight and Tupac, which allowed the white Cadillac to get away.
(voice-over): There were several possible motives for the murder. Three hours before the shooting, this MGM casino surveillance video shows Shakur, Suge Knight and their entourage attacking Orlando Anderson, an L.A.-area gang member. Many believe that Anderson, seen here after the beating, and his friends shot Shakur in retaliation.
CNN asked Anderson about the accusations.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you involved in any way in the death of Tupac Shakur?
ORLANDO ANDERSON, FOUGHT WITH SHAKUR THE NIGHT HE WAS MURDERED: No, I was not involved.
ROWLANDS: Anderson was shot and killed months later in a gang- related shooting.
Another theory focused on the gangster world that Tupac sang about. Many believe the murder was part of an East Coast-West Coast rap war and a dispute between Shakur and this man, a one-time friend named Christopher Wallace.
Made famous with his hits like "Big Papa", Wallace, a New York rapper, was known as Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G. During an interview with San Francisco radio station KYLD, Smalls denied any involvement in Tupac's death and seemed to want to put any rap war to rest.
BIGGIE SMALLS, RAPPER: I'm just getting over, you know, seeing this whole situation with this East Coast-West Coast thing. And going through their things and we going through our things. That just came over. You know what I'm saying? I want to, like, basically squash it.
ROWLANDS: Four days later, on March 9, 1997, Biggie Smalls was shot and killed in Los Angeles.
Smalls was leaving a music industry party. He was shot at a busy intersection while riding in the passenger seat of this Suburban.
The shooting was eerily similar to Tupac's six months earlier.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Given the fact that they were both gangster rap artists, naturally our people will be contacting the Las Vegas authorities to see if there's any connection in the two.
RUSSELL POOLE, FORMER LAPD DETECTIVE: Where this blue vehicle is where Biggie's suburban was. He was stopped just like this vehicle right here.
ROWLANDS: Former LAPD Detective Russell Poole was one of those assigned to the Biggie Smalls case. Witnesses say the gunman looked like this. He was alone, drove up next to Smalls, and shot him at close range.
Poole is convinced that Suge Knight ordered Biggie Smalls' murder, even though Knight was behind bars at the time. He also believes that off-duty LAPD officers, who were working for Knight's Death Row Records helped plan the murder.
POOLE: Suge Knight ordered the hit. Reggie Wright Jr., the head of security for Right Way Security in Death Row, organized the personnel to plan the hit. And I believe police officers were a big part of the hit.
ROWLANDS: Poole says he believes Suge Knight also had Tupac Shakur killed, because the rapper was planning to leave Knight's Death Row Records. Poole says he retired early from the LAPD out of frustration because of this case, saying the department didn't allow him to pursue leads that involved other cops.
POOLE: I think I was getting too close to the truth. I think they feared that the truth would be a scandal.
ROWLANDS: Poole later assisted Biggie Smalls' mother in a lawsuit claiming L.A. police covered up officers' involvement in the shooting.
The FBI looked into potential police involvement but didn't find any evidence of it.
We couldn't get Suge Knight to sit down for an interview, but he has told CNN he had nothing to do with either murder.
Reggie Wright Jr. did agree to appear on camera. He was Death Row Records' head of security, who says he ran the company while Suge Knight was in prison.
(on camera): Did you have anything to do with Tupac's murder?
REGGIE WRIGHT JR., HEAD OF SECURITY FOR DEATH ROW RECORDS: No, sir.
ROWLANDS: Or Biggie's?
WRIGHT: No, sir.
ROWLANDS (voice-over): Wright says he believes that Tupac was simply killed in retaliation for the casino fight. And Suge Knight, who he says he no longer talks to, was not involved.
WRIGHT: I know that he 100 percent had nothing to do with the murder of Tupac Shakur, Suge. Suge Knight. Biggie Smalls, I honestly do not know.
ROWLANDS: CNN learned earlier this year that local and federal authorities received new information that reinvigorated the investigation into Biggie Smalls' slaying. As of now, both rap stars' murders remain a mystery.
Ted Rowlands, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: With the killing of Tupac Shakur and also Notorious B.I.G., there are clearly people out there who witnessed this, who witnessed both of these killings and yet have not come forward, have not said anything.
WALSH: You know what bothers me is this BS thing, the "stop snitching," where some of these rappers say, you know, "Don't tell, don't cooperate with police. We'll retaliate."
I remember going to Boston and doing a case where there was a gang banger in jail. And his defense attorney got the witness list. And he had one of the witnesses killed in South Boston from jail. So they couldn't testify against him. Then came the "stop snitching" T- shirts and all this crap.
It could be your neighbor. It could -- I don't care where you live. Yes, if you're afraid of retaliation. But if you witnessed a murder or you know something about it, then do the right thing. You can remain anonymous. You can be protected. God forbid it's your brother that's the next victim or your father or your cousin or your daughter or your wife.
They know exactly. People know exactly who killed Biggie. We did Biggie's case on the show. And we had big, big push back from the hip-hop community about not doing Biggie's case. And nobody would cooperate with police.
I say one thing. You can remain anonymous. If it was your brother and somebody shot him cold-bloodedly, wouldn't you want to do the right thing?
COOPER: That's the thing. There were people, I mean, in Tupac's -- Tupac Shakur's case, there were people sitting right next to him. And, you know, in Biggie Smalls' case there were people who witnessed this.
WALSH: Yes.
COOPER: And these are people who claim to be his friends. They were people who, you know, made money off him, made money from him. And yet refused to say anything because they're afraid -- maybe they're afraid for their own life. But I don't even give them that much credit. They're just afraid of being seen as being a snitch, which is just absurd.
WALSH: Takes a lot of courage to do the right thing. It takes a lot of guts to say, "I know who did that. This is the person. This is what happened."
You know, I've been on the streets. Most of the people in those areas where these gangsters operate, they're terrified. They're good people. They're trapped there by poverty. They would do the right thing.
COOPER: Do you have any insights when you've done Tupac Shakur's killing? Do you have any insights on who killed him or why?
WALSH: You know, all this East-West rivalry between the different hip-hop factions and the gangster thug stuff? I really believe that maybe people that were with Tupac or people that were with Biggie didn't see who the shooter was, didn't see who drove by and did the shootings, didn't see who shot Tupac. But somebody knows. Somebody helped orchestrate that BS gangster crap, and they've literally gotten away with murder.
I do believe that somebody is going to man up at some point in their life and say, "This isn't right." Biggie had friends, relatives. He had a mother, people that loved him. Tupac had lots of people. He has surviving children. They need justice. And you're just a coward if you don't man up and say, "I think I know who did it. This is who it is. This is what happened. I don't want to leave my name. Get you back on track. You can break this case."
GUPTA: Still ahead, two of the oldest and most notorious cold cases of all-time. The vicious murder known as the Black Dahlia case, a 22-year-old woman tortured and killed by someone police said could wield a knife like a surgeon.
Plus the Zodiac Killer, blamed for a string of murders in northern California. The killer's coded letters to police have inspired countless theories. John Walsh believes the Zodiac may have threatened him personally. He's going to weigh in on both these cold cases next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) GUPTA: Tonight a new look at one of the country's oldest unsolved mysteries, the Black Dahlia case. It was and remains one of the most vicious murders on record.
In a moment Anderson talks to John Walsh about this baffling cold case and also about the Zodiac Killer. First, though, Ted Rowlands has more on the crime that shook Los Angeles 64 years ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROWLANDS (voice-over): Twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Shorts' gruesome 1947 murder shocked Los Angeles. Her naked body was found surgically cut in half and carefully placed out in the open in a vacant lot.
R.J. SMITH, AUTHOR: It was a body horribly severed in two. Blood completely dry, face disfigured. And left in a vacant lot, arms up to the sky, as if she were communicating a message from the killer to Los Angeles and the nation. And we're still trying to figure out what the message was.
ROWLANDS: The press ran with the name "Black Dahlia" after learning it was Elizabeth Short's nickname. An aspiring actress, the paper said, she'd come to Los Angeles from Medford, Massachusetts. The story not only dominated the front pages back then but has inspired dozens of books and movies, including the 2006 motion picture "The Black Dahlia".
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are these the guys? Guys, please. Don't trample all over everything, please. Easy. Secure the area. All right. Listen up. No reporters view the body.
JAMES ELLROY, AUTHOR, "BLACK DAHLIA": We are all looking for a language to explicate the remorseless, horrifying, arrogant and narcissistic rage perpetrated upon her.
ROWLANDS: After the murder the killer taunted police with letters, but the case was never involved. This box of evidence still sits with L.A.'s other cold case files.
STEVE HODEL, FORMER DETECTIVE/AUTHOR: The suspect drove up here probably about 6:30 in the morning.
ROWLANDS: Former LAPD detective Steve Hodel showed us the area where Elizabeth Short's body was found. Hodel worked hundreds of homicide cases during his 30-year career. He's convinced that he knows who the Dahlia killer is.
He believes it was his own father, Dr. George Hodel.
HODEL: He hated mankind. And this was his way of getting even.
ROWLANDS: Hodel says when his dad died in 1999, this mysterious photograph he believes is Elizabeth Short turned up in his father's personal effects. Hodel says that sparked an interest in the Black Dahlia case. Then he saw one of the old letters that the killer had sent to police.
HODEL: That's my father's handwriting.
ROWLANDS: He'd set out to clear his father's name, but the more he probed, other things started falling into place.
HODEL: I started looking and researching the crime itself and discovered that the killer was actually a surgeon. Couldn't have been anybody else other than a surgeon. Well, dad was a skilled surgeon.
ROWLANDS: The police file reveals that Dr. George Hodel was an original suspect. His home, this Frank Lloyd Wright mansion on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood, was even bugged by police.
During the same time period, Hodel was arrested for raping his 14-year-old daughter. He was found not guilty at trial.
But the most damning evidence Steve says against his father may be a receipt found at Dr. Hodel's home for 50-pound cement bags dated a few days before the murder. The same type of bags were found at the scene and used to transport the body, according to investigators.
Dr. Hodel moved to the Philippines before he was ever interviewed by police. Steve says his father made frequent trips back to California. In his book "The Black Dahlia Avenger", Steve Hodel says he believes his father was a serial killer. He argues that there's even a chance he may have been the Zodiac Killer.
HODEL: This was a classic sadist who, you know, was very evolved.
ROWLANDS: "Los Angeles Times" writer Larry Harnisch doesn't think George Hodel had anything to do with the Dahlia murders or any others. Harnisch, who spent years researching the Dahlia murder, believes the killer was another doctor whose daughter was friends with Elizabeth Short's sister. He lived a block away from where the body was found.
LARRY HARNISCH, WRITER, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": It ties together the neighborhood, the crime scene, and the house a block away, and the connection between the two families. And he was a surgeon, and he was having a lot of mental problems. He was the one individual who certainly could -- was perfectly capable of doing that.
ROWLANDS: There are other theories. Mobster Bugsy Siegel is suspected by some who believe he had Elizabeth Short killed as part of a mob turf war.
Unfortunately, there's no crime scene DNA, and as time goes on, the likelihood drops that anyone who knows the truth is still alive. The Black Dahlia likely will be a cold case that's never solved.
Ted Rowlands, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: The Black Dahlia case. I mean this is a case which has fascinated Hollywood and the country for -- for decades.
WALSH: Best-selling book, movie, you know, all that spin. But I do believe that who killed the Black Dahlia, the main suspect they have, the doctor who is now deceased, I believe he got away with that. They never charged him. He was -- he was a stalker. He was the main suspect. They never had enough to indict him. She was dismembered by someone who had great knowledge of anatomy and had skills in surgery. He was the logical suspect. But back in those days, they didn't have the tools that we have now.
COOPER: It was obviously sensationalized, the case, not just because the victim was beautiful but because of the gruesome way that she was killed.
WALSH: The way he displayed her. He displayed her as a trophy, like lots of serial killers and horrible narcissistic murderers do. He displayed her in the field for the whole world to see his work. In my heart and in my gut from doing this so many years, I believe it was that doctor.
COOPER: It's also interesting that there were so many false confessions, people coming forward and saying they were involved.
WALSH: Look in the JonBenet Ramsey, look at that creep that confessed.
COOPER: John Mark Karr.
WALSH: Yes, exactly. Look at that low life. All of them. They want their 15 minutes of fame, Anderson. They want to get on ANDERSON COOPER 360 and say, "I killed that person." They were a low life scum bag here. Now all of a sudden somebody's paying attention to them. People confess to murders they didn't do all the time. Only for the notoriety.
COOPER: The Zodiac Killer's probably the most famous cold case in the U.S. Why do you think there's so much fascination with it?
WALSH: Because he terrorized and held San Francisco captive for so long. They locked down that city. When he said, "If you keep looking for me, I have a sniper's rifle. I will kill kids getting off of the buses." He claimed to have killed multiple victims. They believe he killed seven people.
It actually paralyzed a city, a United States city. One low-life coward paralyzed that city. People are fascinated.
He always sent this cryptic code around. And everybody analyzed it.
When I first profiled the Zodiac Killer, I got a letter sent exactly like his code to me in the same type of envelope that he sent to others -- I had to give to it the FBI. It was signed in blood, in human blood. It said, "I will kill you. You will be the ultimate victory. I got away with it. I've committed mayhem since I murdered those people. You will be my ultimate prize. I still have the ability to kill people."
It's fascinating. We don't know if it was the Zodiac Killer. Nobody knows. I mean, but it fascinates -- it fascinates people when somebody gets away with murder and they brag about it.
COOPER: The Zodiac Killer has seven confirmed victims, five of whom died. But he's suspected possibly to have dozens more.
WALSH: He claims to have had dozens more. Police have certified him -- I don't know how you do that -- but certified him with those seven. I have a feeling -- my gut feeling is that he moved somewhere else, that he moved places like the Green River Killer did, and they continued. We have so many unsolved serial killer clusters in the United States.
I mean, there's an FBI trucker serial killer unit now and believe that there are 17 serial killers at large that have killed multiple victims as long-haul truckers. So why couldn't the Zodiac move somewhere else?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GUPTA: And that's our report for tonight. Thanks for joining us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
