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New Video Timeline of Person of Interest in Brown University Shooting; Survivors Brace for DOJ's Release of the Epstein Files. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired December 16, 2025 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We have breaking news into CNN. The FBI, in coordination with the Providence Police Department and Rhode Island State Police, releasing a video timeline showing the movements of a person of interest in the mass shooting at Brown University. Let's go live to Brian Todd in Providence. Brian, what are you seeing in this timeline?
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: OK, Boris, we're just going through this series of videos that the FBI just posted moments ago. It shows him at various points in the hours before the shooting in it. One of them could be showing him walking in the in the approximate area of the building where the shooting occurred, possibly right after the shooting. I'll take you through what we've been able to go through.
There are a few videos that show him walking on Cook Street, on George Street, and on Benevolent Streets in the two o'clock p.m. hour at at least one of the videos appears to be from a ring cam on a door of a home. At least one of the videos shows him jogging along a sidewalk at one point. I believe that video shows him jogging along a fence along a sidewalk.
There are -- there's one time there's -- the timeline indicates there's a 30 minute gap where he does not have a satchel with him between 2:20 p.m. and 2:50 p.m. on on that day. And at about 2:51 p.m., there are images of him carrying a satchel. The Providence Police also a couple of hours ago released a still image of this person carrying a satchel.
And you get kind of a good look at the kind of build he has of him carrying a satchel with kind of a two-tone jacket in those still photos. Also, Boris, there's one video with a timestamp showing that the shooting occurs at 4:03 p.m. on Saturday. The next video shows the person of interest walking right in front of a police car that's pulling up with its lights on. That would possibly, and again, we're not sure about this, possibly indicate that that might be right after the shooting, that the police car could be responding to the shooting.
But basically, Boris, this is a series of timestamped videos. Most of them, I believe, are in the two o'clock p.m. Eastern time hour. And that would be a couple of hours before the shooting occurs at just after four o'clock p.m. on Saturday. And again, I'll go through what we've been able to see in these timestamp videos. The person of interest is shown walking along Cook Street, along
George Street, along Benevolent Streets in Providence at various points in the two o'clock PM hour. At certain points, I believe there is one video that is similar to a video that was released yesterday showing him walking across the street. Most of these videos show him walking fairly casually.
There is one video that shows him turning abruptly.
[15:35:00]
Actually, there are two videos that I saw, excuse me, one showing him turning abruptly and then jogging the other way, and another video just showing him jogging. Again, we seem to have a 30-minute gap between pieces of video between 2:20 p.m. and 2:51 p.m. where he does not appear to be carrying a satchel, but then there is one image of him from 2:51 p.m. on Saturday where he is carrying a satchel.
And again, there is one video with the time stamp showing that the shooting occurs at 4:03 p.m. The next video shows the person of interest walking right in front of a police car that's pulling up with its lights on, seemingly indicating that he is walking in front of that police car just after the shooting, but it's not quite clear. We're going to get some of these specifics and some of these answers from officials who will hold a news conference at about 5 o'clock p.m. Eastern time today, Boris, and we can kind of give you a little bit more detail of this.
But between these time stamp videos, Boris, and the still picture that was put out a couple of hours ago by the Providence police, you are getting many, many more looks at this person of interest now, and the way he walks, and the way he's dressed, and his build, and the fact that he, in certain images that they've released, is carrying a black satchel strapped over his shoulder, and at other times during these videos and still images, he is not carrying that satchel.
So, you know, again, why that is, we're going to hopefully get some of those answers a little bit later today, but the bottom line here is, Boris, that now the public has many, many more images of this person to go by as far as the way he looks, what he was wearing, his build, the way he walks, and of course, police and the FBI and others are hoping this will really speed up the timeline here for his capture.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yes, and really interesting, as you point out, Brian -- and I want to bring in John Miller to this conversation. There are, for instance, there's one video, and Brian mentioned it, John, and that was, I think, at 2:16, where you see him kind of moving slowly and making an abrupt turn, and it almost appeared as if he was turning away from someone he might have directly encountered on the sidewalk. I just wonder, what kind of patterns of movements are you seeing in these videos?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, we're seeing someone who is walking slowly and deliberately in some cases, but we're seeing someone who is walking very quickly in other cases, and then at least in one segment, we see somebody who's running, and this is all prior to the shooting. Running might make more sense after the shooting, but it raises a number of questions, which is, how is he gauging his time? I mean, this starts in the two o'clock hour, crosses over into three o'clock, but basically, they're tracking him for what appears to be until the shooting at 4:03 p.m.
An hour where he's covering a large amount of ground, walking, walking quickly, running through the streets, you know, that lead to where the shooting occurs. It's actually very curious. Now, what is the utility of it? The utility of it is, now they have done a video compilation, and here we see where the shooting occurs, the police response, and he is apparently walking off the set, you know, at this point.
It says to people, OK, now I have a map. Look at this guy here. He's walking down the street.
He could be one of those people that police are saying, you may have passed this guy. You may have seen this guy. You may have driven by this guy. You may have a dashboard camera.
So, it's just one more tool in their quiver to say, we're trying to keep the public engaged, trying to keep them focused, and trying to keep those tips coming in.
SANCHEZ: John, please stand by. Let's bring in CNN law enforcement analyst Steve Moore to get some more perspective. Steve, I wonder what you make of the FBI releasing this video timeline and just how much of it shows this suspect walking around the same area over and over again, hours before opening fire.
STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, obviously, I think the reason the FBI is releasing it is that they have a dearth of evidence. They really need some help on this. But what it kind of makes me wonder, as an investigator, is he's there for like two hours before the shooting, and it seems to me he's timing how long it takes to go from one place to another place.
It's almost as if he's working on an escape route and timing it. That would explain why in some portions he's running, why in some portions he's strolling.
[15:40:00]
I think it's possible that he's trying to figure out an escape route and figuring how long it'll take to go each different way. Again, that's speculation. But right now, speculation is all we've got.
KEILAR: Yes, and I wonder, Steve, when you look at this video, there's so much of it. I would wonder if you know this person, if you would know this walk, you know, if you would know sort of this body.
And if you think with all of these videos out there now, if it's really just a matter of time before this person's identified.
MOORE: Well, it certainly is a distinctive walk. And if people who know him are watching this, there's no doubt in my mind that somebody is going to say, wow, you know, that look, that reminds me of so-and- so. And so that could be a way this ends.
And the other point on these videos is that most of the time he was not carrying that, as John called it, a satchel, which means that he didn't want to be caught, right, that he didn't want to be vulnerable at that point, which would indicate to me more casing. And then when you see that satchel, what it looks like to me more than anything are the old fanny packs that off-duty law enforcement wore in the late 90s, early 2000s that had a holster in it instead of a wallet. So it to me brings a lot of intriguing aspects to it.
SANCHEZ: And leads to many more questions investigators are trying to answer right now. Steve Moore, please stand by.
We're going to sneak in a quick break when we come back more on this new video timeline released by the FBI in collaboration with state and local officials in Rhode Island of this person of interest who opened fire on Saturday at Brown University killing two people.
CNN will be right back.
[15:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: We're following breaking news right now on CNN. The FBI and state and local officials releasing a new video timeline showing the movements of a person of interest in the mass shooting at Brown University.
KEILAR: That's right, Brian Todd, none of these videos appear to come from campus. Only two are recorded after the shooting. Is that something that is sort of standing out to a lot of folks who are observing these videos?
TODD: Yes, Brianna and Boris, that does stand out to a lot of people including the Attorney General of Rhode Island who was visibly frustrated the other day when he talked about the fact that there were not very many cameras in the building itself on the campus of Brown University inside the building where the shooting occurred. He was frustrated with that. Officials from the mayor to the police to the Attorney General have said that basically whatever footage they were able to review from inside that building was not of much use to them at all, if maybe any use at all.
These videos that the FBI has just put out are -- they cover much more ground. They do show him actually physically covering much more ground. Now, I will say in some of these videos some of them are from a bit of a distance where he's just kind of a figure in the distance and you don't see much of him, but there are other videos that do show him fairly clearly and show kind of the way he walks. He has a certain gait.
We've had analysts on our air talking about whether kind of asking the question based on previous videos that were seen of him, does he have a limp? Now, in these videos he does not necessarily appear to have a limp, but he does have a certain gait in the way he walks. There's a casual nature of him walking that is shown in some of these videos, and again, we'll just kind of go over in general. These videos, most of them cover the two o'clock p.m. eastern time hour on Saturday the 13th, which is roughly two o'clock was roughly two hours before the shooting occurred. But these videos, these timestamp videos show him from early in the two o'clock hour until late in the two o'clock hour at various points along Cook Street, George Street, and Benevolent Street, and I believe there might have been one other street that they show him on in Providence.
This is not far from the scene where the shooting occurred, and again, this is in the two o'clock hour. At least one of these videos appears to be from a ring cam on a door of a residence. There is one video that appears to be maybe from a camera -- a surveillance camera in the backyard of one of the homes there, and another video also from a surveillance camera on a house.
There is, of course, also one video showing a timestamp showing the shooting occurring at 4:03 p.m., and right after that, there is a video of a police car pulling up with its lights on and the person of interest walking by that police car seemingly right after the shooting. Again, giving the public many more looks at this person in addition to the still picture that they released a couple of hours ago showing him carrying a black satchel -- guys.
SANCHEZ: Brian, please stand by. Let's go to John Miller now who's been watching these videos on loop alongside us. John, something that strikes me here is that none of these videos actually come from Brown University.
Is it strange? Why would there not be security cameras or at least security footage in the building where the shooting took place?
[15:50:00]
MILLER: Well, that building is a significant building. That is a 220,000 square foot, seven story building that has 117 laboratory classrooms and three of these amphitheater classrooms, including the one where the shooting took place. It underwent a major renovation connecting an old wing to a new wing. And Boris and Brianna, you would think that in this day and age during a renovation like that, that's when you would upgrade technology, add cameras and security features and so on.
In fact, the classrooms are all wired to send and receive video and audio because in the post-COVID world, they wanted to make sure that people could attend class remotely. But authorities have been quite certain about the that they have not been able to get from that building any productive images regarding this case from those cameras.
Now, one last factor is students at Brown University have had a say in where cameras are placed, about their own privacy. I don't know what influence, if any, that might have been placed on having so few there. But what we're seeing here from these private cameras in the neighborhood is giving us a lot more. KEILAR: And Steve Moore, if you can look at this one video that has kind of caught our eye, let's go with this one. You see the person of interest moving. They kind of stop as they're walking.
To the right, you see someone starting to come down the street toward them. And so the person of interest kind of runs over. It was shaded there by the bushes.
And then, I don't know, I wonder what you're seeing here. Is this sort of an attempt on their part to avoid someone walking right up next to them and seeing them?
MOORE: Well, that's that's possible, Brianna. I mean, you have to -- it begs the question, does he know people around the area and did he recognize somebody? I'm not alleging that, but that's something that you have to put in in the big -- in the big mixing bucket of this whole thing.
So that's possible. Could also be that he's walking along looking for potential hiding places if he is being pursued at the time. I think that's a very good possibility.
So there are so many things that this brings out, so many possibilities. And you start to get an idea of how complicated the investigation is. What was he doing there?
Why was he turning around? It's going to go to pretty incredible lengths to try to identify this guy.
SANCHEZ: Steve Moore, John Miller, Brian Todd, thank you all. Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We're going to take a quick break.
We'll be right back.
[15:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEILAR: Hundreds of women believed to be victims of Jeffrey Epstein are bracing for the expected release of the Epstein files. The Department of Justice has until Friday to release them.
SANCHEZ: But some survivors say the agency hasn't reached out to them ahead of the deadline, leaving many of them entirely unaware of what is set to be revealed.
CNN's MJ Lee joins us now. MJ, you've spoken with survivors. How are they preparing for this?
MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the anxiety is really, really high. You know, there's no guidebook for how to prepare for a moment like this. They don't know when exactly the files are going to be released, what kind of information and how much information is coming.
But talking to these survivors, you know, one thing that they feel really strongly about is that they want to make sure that victims and survivors' names and any identifying information is protected. And they said, we don't want our stories to be sensationalized. We want to make sure that we get the information on the people around Epstein who might have helped him, who might have even just been his friend and maybe turned a blind eye.
And one thing that really stood out to me in talking to these survivors is that the drip drip of the disclosure so far, including from some of these congressional committees, that has been really triggering for them. I just want you to listen to a little bit of my conversation with the survivors.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHARLENE ROCHARD, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: So when the first set of pictures came out last week, that really kind of threw me for a loop because I was on the island. And one of those pictures was the room I was in. And so and I kept going back telling people, no, there was a phone, there was a phone.
I know I called somebody. When I saw the phone, I was like, no, my memory is correct. I am correct.
So some things are validating when you see them. And then other things are just actually completely traumatizing.
JESS MICHAELS, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: And doesn't this lend to why it is so frustrating that the survivor's experience is not centered in all of this? Because there's a lot of context that survivors could be giving to those photos right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEE: And I spoke with a doctor who is a trauma expert, and they said, you know, traumatic experiences are encoded in our brains differently as images, smells, bodily experiences. So when somebody experiences that later in life as a cue, it can be really triggering. Your body can go into sort of danger mode.
And that's why even the anticipation alone has been really hard for some of these women.
KEILAR: Especially when they're being, as they describe it, left out of the process.
LEE: Yes, they're being left out of the process. At least the women that I spoke with said that DOJ has not reached out to them in any way. So they have no heads up about timing or what kind of information.
I've reached out to some of the lawyers representing them as well. A mixed bag. Some of them said that they did hear from the DOJ at least to discuss the redactions.
Just one more thing I wanted to play from our conversation. You know, they were talking about how they feel like the justice system has by and large really, really disappointed them over the years.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEE: At this point, do you all feel confident? Do you trust that the DOJ is going to release everything?
(THEY ALL LAUGH)
DANI BENSKY, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: No, for me, the answer is no. The answer is like, yes, I don't feel confident in this at all. I feel like we've been waiting for, this all felt way too easy to pass in one day.
So I think we've always been like looking behind our back, looking over the shoulder, what's coming next, right?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEE (on camera): Speaks for itself. I think very little trust there.
KEILAR: That's right.
[16:00:00]
SANCHEZ: Well, we'll see if potentially in the next 48 hours or so, something changes and DOJ reaches out to these women. They should, right? MJ Lee, thank you so much for your reporting. Appreciate it.
Thanks so much for joining us this afternoon. THE ARENA with Kasie Hunt starts right now.
END
