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Erin Burnett Outfront
White House Grilled Over Benghazi; Benghazi Talking Points Raise New Questions; DNA Shows Suspect Fathered Child; Ohio Suspect May Face More Charges; Knight Not On FBI's Missing Person's List; Neighbors Say They Raised Flags About Castro
Aired May 10, 2013 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: "OUTFRONT" next, the White House under fire. The press secretary today getting grilled by reporters on Benghazi. Why his briefing may have raised more questions than answers.
And a DNA match between Ariel Castro and the 6-year-old child found in that house, more on their relationship and what it means for the legal case against him and the death penalty. And what's it like to grow up with a monster in your life? The daughter of a serial killer is OUTFRONT with her story. Let's go OUTFRONT.
Good Friday evening, everyone. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, the president's press secretary is under fire.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is not a single adjustment as you said back in November. That is a major, dramatic change in the information.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, he acknowledged that your initial confrontation of the White House is involved to some extent and mischaracterization of the extent to which the White House was involved.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Listen, I think it's really important to -- again, what role did the White House play not just in making but directing changes?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: The topic was Benghazi. This was not a friendly Friday press briefing. There were sparks, tension, and the press secretary explaining himself got snippy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Jim, if I could -- I answered this question several times. I'm happy to answer it again if you'd let me answer it. The intelligence community led by the CIA -- John, can I finish? You had a long time there.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: Now adding to the drama. The prescheduled press conference was delayed twice. Carney finally arrived at the podium three hours later than first planned. There was a lot of tension in the room when he walked in. Why, because a lot was at stake, everyone.
Today, we formally learned that the White House and the State Department were heavily involved in the editing of the talking points used by the administration following the attacks in Benghazi. Something they previously denied.
In fact, today, Jay Carney doubled down saying that the White House made only one edit, changing the word consulate to the word diplomatic post. The thing is there were 12 rounds of edits.
Among the things taken out of the first draft was a line saying Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack. Jim Acosta who you just saw there was in the room asking questions and he's OUTFRONT tonight.
Jim, that was an intense press briefing. We don't usually see them like that.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Erin. And I think that's because of what the White House said back in November when Jay Carney went to the White House press briefing and told reporters that only a single adjustment had been made and then when you go through the e-mails, you discover very quickly, Erin, that several adjustments were made and that they were not stylistic as the White House said repeatedly.
They were content based. They had to do with as Victoria Nuland, the State Department's spokeswoman indicated in one e-mail that there was a concern about even mentioning this group that was linked to al Qaeda because that might lead members of Congress to beat the State Department for not heeding CIA warnings.
And you heard Jay Carney repeatedly throughout that briefing today say it was the CIA that was drafting these talking points. But the reality is, Erin, is that, yes, the CIA was drafting these talking points, but it was an interagency process.
There were a lot of people involved including the White House, including the State Department and this was a product that really all these folks should be held responsible for and I think that's why you heard so many questions today. I think that's why the questions got heated.
That's also why you're hearing from members of Congress saying they would like to see new hearings. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Republicans on that committee put out a statement this evening saying there needs to be another hearing.
BURNETT: Pretty amazing, that the State Department, you know, in the e-mail said the spokeswoman said they wanted to take something out because Congress may beat the State Department up for not heeding CIA warnings. The original draft included that the CIA had warned prior. You asked a lot of questions, Jim, of the press secretary. You had a prior exchange with him. I want to play a little of that for our viewers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: That is not a stylistic edit. That is not a single adjustment as you said back in November. That is a major, dramatic change in the information.
CARNEY: I appreciate the question and the opportunity again to make clear that the CIA produced talking points as a result of an interagency process on the -- that Saturday morning and in --
ACOSTA: You say talking points.
CARNEY: Jim, let me just finish and from that, we --
ACOSTA: From pressure from other parties that were involved.
CARNEY: There were numerous statements.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Jim, you and another reporter seemed fully satisfied with his responses, why not?
ACOSTA: Well, I think there is a sense among all reporters in that room and mind you we're not adversaries. We're just there to do our job that there was a lot of spinning going on. When that happened, you try to get into it. Speaking of spin, I mean, you heard Jay Carney repeatedly during this news conference accuse Republicans of trying to politicize this process of saying this all goes back to Mitt Romney, the GOP candidate last fall.
When he did, in fact, try to politicize this for his own personal again, but if you look at what the White House is saying and what was said in these State Department e-mails that were going back and forth with other members of the administration, they were making political considerations. They were making political calculations in terms of what these talking points were to say and when they were to go to Susan Rice.
This is how they want those talking points to be laid out. So I mean, I think it would really defy credulity for anybody to argue that there weren't political considerations as a part of this process. The White House says, no, no. This is because we want to preserve the integrity of the investigation. They said that all day long today. But if you look at these e-mails, it does feel like there is some politics also involved as well -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right, Jim Acosta, thank you very much. Nick Burns is the former undersecretary of state for political affairs. Reihan Salam is a CNN contributor and writer for the "National Review."
Reihan, you just heard, you know, what Jim Acosta said, it would defy credulity to say that the administration was not political about this. Certainly, when you hear the State Department saying we took out the fact that the CIA had warnings about terrorist attacks in Benghazi because they thought they would get beaten up because they didn't heed the warnings is clearly political.
Two days ago, the White House Jay Carney said something he said before. The only edits that were made by anyone at the White House were stylistic and non-substantive and our Jim Acosta questioned that aggressively today so did ABC's Jonathan Karl who first reported the 12 rounds of changes this morning. I just want to play both of them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said that the only changes that were made via the White House or the State Department were stylistic and a single word. That is not a stylistic edit. That is not a single adjustment. It is a stylistic change to take out all references of previous terrorist threats in Benghazi?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: It's not a stylistic change.
REIHAN SALAM, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think that's right. It's not a stylistic change, but it also say this, Victoria Nuland is a professional --
BURNETT: The spokeswoman for the State Department that wrote that e-mail, right.
SALAM: She was under a Republican and Democratic administrations. I don't blame her. The CIA wanted it to be known that they had provided warnings about how dangerous Eastern Libya was becoming. I think that it behooved the White House to let the American people know that there were warnings as well. I think that's why there is a lot of frustration and anger.
So again, the State Department is going to look after itself. They want to make sure they're not undermining themselves and what have you. That's fair enough, but to the extent the White House was involved in this process, I think that was important information that shouldn't have been left out, that there have been warnings.
BURNETT: Nick, why would they have taken that out? There were warnings. We've reported on them before. That was in there. It left the CIA's hands saying that there were warnings of these attacks. And then it got removed by the State Department, according to the reporting now by someone in the administration. How is that justifiable?
NICHOLAS BURNS, FORMER UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS: Well, I don't know all the facts. I'm sure that no one knows all the facts right now. I'm not in Washington, wasn't part of the administration. All I can say, Erin, is I've been in the position as State Department spokesman, certain Republican administrations as well. And in general, it's not unusual. In fact, it's very common, for administrations of both parties to have a process for talking points on any issue as new information is developed, as new people look at something. It's not unusual to have talking points for a public appearance to be gone over six, seven, eight, or nine times. I don't find that unusual.
I also agree that Victoria Nuland is one of our finest diplomats and a person of real integrity. So I wouldn't jump to conclusions here until all the facts are known. And obviously, there will be more hearings. Much of this will come out.
What disturbs me as a former diplomat is now the attention is completely off embassy security. We have embassies that are on point and risk for the Middle East. The Congress ought to be voting full funding for embassy security. That to me is a real issue.
BURNETT: It's a very fair point. It's also a fair point that edits will be made. I think what strange to people is that there was a denial that edits were made in a very aggressive denial. Jay Carney, Reihan, also implied that any blame to changes in the talking points, yes, there were edits. The White House only made that one. He was sticking with State Department and, you know, it was muddy. If you have a problem, blame the CIA. Here's Jay.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARNEY: The CIA was the agency that made changes to the edits and to the talking points and then produced the talking points. The CIA on Saturday morning said we're going to draft these points. I mean, I would ask the CIA. The CIA --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Jonathan Karl from ABC pushed back. I want to play that quickly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The original version included references to al Qaeda. The original CIA version included extensive discussion of the previous threats of terrorist attacks in Benghazi. Those were taken out after the CIA wrote its initial draft.
CARNEY: And the CIA wrote another draft.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Based on input from the State Department.
CARNEY: But here's what I've been saying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you deny that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: How can you blame the CIA when even David Petraeus in his testimony (inaudible)? Someone did take it out. SALAM: You can see why resentment builds in this kind of situation. I think it's fair to say that we absolutely, all the folks on the failures in diplomatic security that occurred before the Benghazi incident. Here's the thing. It was CIA personnel who were under attack in Benghazi.
And when it seems the CIA is being left to hang in this situation, you can see why there is a lot of resentment and that's part of why this has become an issue. It's not purely because political partisans on the other side are trying to make hay out of it.
It's because there are a lot of people internally as well who are frustrated with the sense that they're being held accountable and blamed.
BURNETT: Nick, just quickly. Would you agree with the bottom line? Obviously Republicans were making politics out of this in the fall. There were clearly politics from the administration as well. This was an election season. They didn't want this to blow up either.
BURNS: Well, you know, I think -- I don't know what the inside baseball was. All I know was that it was a confusing week. There are a number of other American embassies under -- being demonstrated against that week across the Arab world. There were some -- there was a hateful video out there and definitely a terrorist attack in Benghazi.
Since I've served in government, Erin, I can understand why the administration would have trouble piecing together over several days exactly what happened in Benghazi. But it's clear now. It was a terrorist attack. A specific group attacked our embassy. We lost four great public servants. I think we should take the politics out of this and focus on embassy security.
BURNETT: All right, we're going to leave it right there. Everyone, please let us know what you think and whether you think there should be more hearings to determine why changes were made to the CIA's assessment.
Still to come, what DNA results tell us about the relationship between the Cleveland kidnapper and child, a little girl 6 years old found in his home.
Plus, tensions between the Cleveland neighborhood where the women were found and the police department. An OUTFRONT investigation.
And what it's like to live with a monster. The daughter of a serial killer, serial killer known as the happy face killer who killed eight women comes OUTFRONT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: New details tonight in the case of the three women who escaped from captivity in Cleveland. The FBI began boarding up the crime scene as they're wrapping up their search for evidence at the home of Ariel Castro, the suspected kidnapper. This comes as state investigators have confirmed through DNA testing that Castro is the father of Amanda Berry's 6-year-old child. Police believe she was born in the house where they say Castro was holding Berry captive.
Our Susan Candiotti is OUTFRONT in Cleveland tonight with the latest. Susan, what else have investigators learned from Castro's DNA? I know they've been doing exhaustive testing.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Not only that he is the father of that 6-year-old little girl, but they also run his DNA against all other unsolved crimes in the state of Ohio, found no match. But they're also running it against the FBI data base to see whether he might be linked to any other unsolved crimes throughout the United States. No results back on that as yet -- Erin.
BURNETT: And, Susan, do you have any idea where Ariel Castro is tonight?
CANDIOTTI: Well, he is still in the jail here, the Cuyahoga County Jail. The conditions are described to me like this. He is not on a suicide watch. He's on suicide prevention as any high profile inmate would be. There is someone watching him 24 hours a day sitting right outside his jail cell, which is just outside of a pod of other jail cells.
So someone's looking at him through window in a steel door in a cell that measures about nine by nine and is equipped with a bed and a toilet and sink. That's about it. No access, of course, to television of any kind -- Erin.
BURNETT: Susan, thank you very much. Of course, we're waiting to see as we have reported he is confessed to some crimes. We don't know which ones or how many and whether there will be some sort of a plea. Ariel has been charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape.
The attorney general for the state told me that there will be a lot more charges. Now that there are proof that he is the father of Amanda Berry's daughter, will all the charges hold up?
OUTFRONT tonight, CNN legal analyst, a criminal defense attorney, Paul Callan. All right, through DNA testing, they have proved he is the father of the 6-year-old little girl. There are reports that 6- year-old girl misses her father. There is a relationship there. Can be charged with kidnapping his own child even if she was conceived and raped by a woman that he was holding captive?
PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, this is a very, very difficult question. There was a big controversy about this a few years ago, the parental rights of rapists. Because two-thirds of American states really have no laws about this. There is always a fear that a rapist would come around and demand joint custody of this child.
Well, now can this individual, can Castro be charged with kidnapping her because she's his natural child? I say, yes, because judges are allowed to interpret the law where there is a gap, a hole in the law.
And here I think a judge could say by raping this woman, by holding her captive for 10 years, you through criminality conceived this child and, therefore, you forfeit your parental rights. That's how I would view it if I were on the bench. It's a difficult question. I don't know how a court will look at it.
BURNETT: All right, obviously a crucial question. Paul Callan, thank you very much. Of course, there are also saying they're going to consider going for the death penalty. It will be a crucial question whether they can prove that.
The Cleveland police are facing tough questions about their handling of this investigation. Why was Melissa Knight's name, for example, removed from the missing person's database just 15 months after she vanished?
Plus, inside the mind of Ariel Castro, we're learning new information tonight about his past.
And 16 days after the factory collapse in Bangladesh, a miracle.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: The Cleveland Police Department is facing serious questions about its handling of the three missing women held captive for a decade. We now know that police also removed Michelle Knight's name from the FBI's missing person's database only 15 months after she disappeared.
Authorities say though that they were just following protocol, which is if they can't reach the family, the entry is canceled. But this is not the only instance where neighbors in this part of Cleveland accused police of dropping the ball.
Tom Foreman is OUTFRONT with the tensions between the police and the community.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jubilation greeted the rescue, but now frustration is rising from neighbors who say over the years they heard frantic pounding on the walls, saw mysterious faces in the windows --
NINA SAMOYLICZ, CASTRO'S NEIGHBOR: It just strange to see a little girl up there.
FOREMAN: A naked woman in the backyard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We thought it was funny at first and then we, like, we thought it was weird. So we called the cops.
FOREMAN: And from police who insist some of the incidents people now remember simply never happened or at least were never reported. MARTIN FLASK, CLEVELAND DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SAFETY: There is no evidence to indicate that any of them were ever outside in the yard in chains without clothing or any other manner.
TUCHMAN: Cleveland's crime rate is well over twice the national average according to the FBI. Citizens groups have repeatedly criticized the police for not paying enough attention to the most crime riddled and poorest neighbors citing the case of serial killer, Anthony Sole, who was arrested four years ago with the bodies of 11 murdered women on his property. So it resonates when people on Seymour Avenue say even when police came nothing happened.
ISRAEL LUGO JR., CASTRO'S NEIGHBOR: He knocked on the door like 20 good hard times. There was no response. They got back in the car and went up on their way.
TUCHMAN: Yet, police insist it's just not true. No one ever called about anything in that house and they never let up in the hunt for those missing women.
DEPUTY CHIEF ED TOMBA, CLEVELAND POLICE DEPARTMENT: They checked every single lead and if there was one bit of evidence, one shred of a tip, no matter how minute it was, they followed it up very, very aggressively.
TUCHMAN: There were other potential red flags, domestic violence accusations years ago against Castro involving his ex-wife, some of which he didn't even show up in court to answer, his occasional encounters with police on other unrelated matters, but nothing that ultimately led investigators into his house. It is so maddening some criminal psychologists suggest some people may now be remembering things they never clearly saw and calls they only wish they had made.
STACY KAISER, PSYCHOTHERAPIST, AUTHOR, "HOW TO BE A GROWN UP": Part of what we know about memory is that it's very biased. What we call false memory syndrome is literally a scenario where a person thinks they remember something in a particular way and it didn't happen in that way at all.
TUCHMAN: This, however, is clear, precisely how things did happen on Seymour Street will be debated a long time. OUTFRONT, Tom Foreman, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Still to come, inside the mind of a monster. What may have caused Ariel Castro to commit these terrible acts he's accused of?
Plus, a woman who knows firsthand what it's like to live with someone who's been convicted of horrible crimes. It was her father, the daughter of the man known as the happy-faced killer. He killed eight women over five years of her childhood. She's OUTFRONT with her story.
And a Grammy nominated Christian rock star facing charges, police say he tried to hire a hitman to kill his wife.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Welcome back to the second half of OUTFRONT on a Friday.
We start with stories where we focus on our own reporting from the front lines. And tonight, I want to begin with the amazing news in Bangladesh. Sixteen days after that factory building collapsed, 10 days since rescuers gave up hope searching for signs of life, a survivor. I'm alive, the 19-year-old Rashma (ph) called out. It took about an hour before rescuers could pull her from the rubble. She was taken to a hospital shortly after.
The death toll meanwhile is 1,043. Not including eight others who died in another factory fire this week in Bangladesh. In a recent report, the government citing a deadly fire last year at a factory said it was taking steps to increase factory worker safety.
The problem is without unions or people in the West being willing to pay more for clothes, they might not happen.
Officials have released the death certificate of Boston marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. He was pronounced dead at 1:35 a.m. on April due to, quote, "gunshot wounds of torso and extremities", and, quote, "blunt trauma to head and torso." The certificate also shows that Tsarnaev has been buried at a Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Virginia. That has upset some residents. Officials there are looking into the legality of that burial. But the owner of the funeral home that prepared Tsarnaev's body meanwhile says that he was washed, placed in a shroud and buried in a plain wooden box per Muslim tradition.
In Mali, two suicide attacks proved that al Qaeda continues to be a threat in the region. Military officials say three suicide bombers carrying explosives inside water bottles blew themselves up at a checkpoint this morning. A fourth was shot and killed. Three hundred miles away then were killed when they charged a military camp. A colonel with the West African force tells CNN he believes these attacks are far from over.
Expert Rudy Attalla tells us that Malian soldiers are currently getting all their help from the French and are not capable of fighting the Islamists on their own.
Tonight, the IRS is under fire for admitting it targeted Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status. An IRS director said many cases were grouped together for further review because they had names like Tea Party and patriot in them. But she blamed workers for taking a short cut. She said it wasn't, quote-unquote, "political bias".
Former IRS attorney tells us it's possible they tried to centralize some cases to optimize processing. But says the question that remains is, why did the IRS apply extra scrutiny to these applicants?
Now, the White House today called the behavior inappropriate and added that an investigation is ongoing.
Well, it has been 645 days since the United States lost its top credit rating. What are we doing to get it back? Well, the Treasury Department reported that the U.S. government ran a budget surplus of $113 billion in April, $54 billion more than the same month last year and actually the biggest monthly surplus in five years.
Well, a chilling picture continues to emerge tonight of who Ariel Castro is. And the abuse his victims allegedly endured in his Cleveland home. Police say DNA tests prove that Castro fathered a child with Amanda Berry. She, of course, one of the women freed this week from captivity, the one who ran out the door and made that call. We're also learning new information tonight about Castro, how he was brought up and what made him into the man that he is.
Martin Savidge is OUTFRONT.
And, Martin, what have you learned about Castro's early days which obviously could be important?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is important, Erin. But I also want to point out here that as we research and do this investigation, it's not trying to find any reasoning for what he does. We're not trying to give him excuses for what he has been accused of.
But we did want to know who was he before the world knew him as what many people accuse him of being a monster? And so, we started talking to relatives. We started talking to people in the neighborhood.
He was born in Puerto Rico in a very small rural town, eventually made his way to Cleveland when he was 6. His family moved here. And even though his father was actually successful businessman, ran a car dealership down the street, he didn't have any real influence on Castro's young life. In fact, the father really wasn't around. He was raised by his mom.
He lived on the streets here. He worked pretty much in this whole community. He went to school here. And then in high school, he made it all the way to 10th grade and then he dropped out.
But one of the things he loved to do in high school, wrestling. After he dropped out, he couldn't find a job so he taught himself how to play the bass and then he became part of a band. He traveled around the Cleveland area performing in nightclubs.
And this is what many people tell us is that there were sort of -- there was one Castro who you would talk to, who would be very shy, very polite. And the other person you talk to when he got on stage, he was gregarious, very outgoing. Music seemed to be something he was really drawn to.
But then we also know he has this incredibly dark side. The violence that he committed, at least according to court documents against his wife is savage.
And there are other incidents of problems in his life.
So you begin to see a fuller picture here and you begin to look at a man differently, because you see him not just as when he was a monster but when other people looked at him and just a neighbor.
BURNETT: And, Martin, you know, you talk about how his dad wasn't around much but had a car dealership. You know, in the notes they found in the home that Ariel Castro allegedly wrote where he talked about being abused as a child. Is there any evidence that that happened at this point, or do we not know?
SAVIDGE: We don't know. And I press that point to a number of family members. You know, is this really possible? We saw the note. We saw, you know, what he claims happened to him in his life.
There's not a single family member I've spoken to that has ever said that they had heard of this before that they ever knew of this before, that there was any relate they've could have been involved. They say they know him.
BURNETT: Well, there's still so many questions. When you put that together and you hear what Martin saying and then you know what this man is alleged to have done, it is impossible to put those two things together.
And Ariel Castro's children are now trying to process the kidnapping and rape charges against their father. One of Castro's daughters Angie Gregg spoke exclusively with our Laurie Segall about how she is coping.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGIE GREGG, DAUGHTER OF ARIEL CASTRO: My father's actions are not a reflection of everyone in the family. They're definitely not a reflection of myself or my children. We don't have monster in our blood.
LAURIE SEGALL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You would call him a monster?
GREGG: Yes. Yes. There will be no visits. There will be no phone calls. He's dead to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT tonight, Melissa Moore, her father Keith Jesperson is the serial murderer known as the "Happy Face Killer". He killed at least eight women, signed his anonymous confession letters with a smiley face. He is currently serving life sentences in prison.
Of course, she saw him there with her when she was just a little girl.
Melissa, thank you so much for coming OUTFRONT and talking to us tonight. You just heard Angie, Ariel Castro's daughter, say "we don't have monster in our blood." You were just a teenager when your father did these things and then when he was convicted. Did you have a hard time conveying that about your family?
MELISSA MOORE, AUTHOR, "SHATTERED SILENCE": I did, Erin. What was really difficult was when the news broke I was 15. I went to high school the next day after I found out about my dad. And then to my surprise, my peers, my friends, their parents had watched the news, too. And so when I arrived to school that next day, they were advised by their parents to not associate with me, to not be my friend.
And so I took this like guilt by association and I thought, well, maybe there is something wrong with me. Why are they dissociating with me? Not that this is my dad and that's the reason why. I started to internalize it.
BURNETT: I mean it must be terrifying. You look at that. You don't understand it's someone that you loved and then you see these things and so horrific.
You know, your father did these -- killed these eight when you were the ages of 10 and 15. How long did it take before anyone would treat you normally after that?
MOORE: Well, I started to keep it a secret. I changed high schools. I did change my last name like my dad suggested. He asked me to change my last name while he was in prison.
Well, actually, started jail when I went to go visit him to find out if this was really true. Was this really the case that he was wanted for all these murders? I had a hard time believing it.
And then so after I talked to my dad and then the first thing he said to me is change my last name, I knew that this was true, that I had to settle into this new reality that my life was no longer going to be normal.
BURNETT: I mean, Melissa, it's impossible to imagine what you went through. And yet you have with grace.
In that interview with Laurie Segall, Angie also talked about her feelings towards her father. And it sounds like yours. They were complicated. Here's Angie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREGG: Love doesn't go away. But I just don't feel it right now. And I, like I said, I can't forgive him. Like there is no way.
You know, the main emotion that I have besides gratitude that these girls are home is disgust. You know? When I really sit down and start thinking about him, I literally want to vomit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Melissa, you were last communicated with your father I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, when your 17. You're 33 years old now. Have you ever been able to forgive him?
MOORE: Forgive is complicated. I -- I feel what Angie feels. I feel disgust for my father's actions. I feel embarrassed. But I was also a victim of abuse and violence, I witnessed it.
It sounds like from what I've been reading that she's also witnessed her mother being abused. And those are things that you can't erase. And so when I think about Amanda Berry's young daughter, I think about what her future lies, what is going to happen to her?
I can only reflect on my life and for me, there has been a light at the end of this grim circumstance. I found a happy new normal. It's maybe different than your normal or anybody else's normal. But it's way better than the horrific childhood I grew up.
BURNETT: And, of course, you know, you have children off your own. You have your own life now. You know, also another thing that Angie said was that even though, you know, she knew her father was beating her mother and you were talking about -- you were talking about that, she would never thought her father could do something like this. I mean, she's in the moments of grief and terror right now.
But here's how she expressed that feeling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREGG: Why did you take these girls and why did you never leave? And why did you never -- why didn't he ever feel guilty enough to let them go?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So do you -- did you ever have suspicions about your own father? I mean you were between the ages of 10 and 15. I mean, you obviously have a lot going on in your own life at that point. But did you ever have suspicions?
MOORE: I did, not to the fact that he was a serial murderer. But when I was 6 years old, he tortured my animals in front of me. And mind you, he was my dad. He's my only frame of reference as with Amanda Berry's little girl, her dad Castro is her only frame of reference.
So I thought that was normal but it didn't feel right. That's the best way I can describe it.
But when I heard the news that my dad had strangled and killed his fiancee, then I had the memory back of when he killed and tortured by strangulation the stray cats that came on our property. That's when I knew -- and that's when it sunk in that he's really capable of killing people.
BURNETT: Melissa, I know this is a hard question to ask. But, you know, humans are -- human feelings are so complicated. Do you still love your father? MOORE: I don't know if I would use the word love. There's a parental bond there. So that's why I cut communication with him via phone and via letters, because when I would go to the mail box and I would see a letter that was from him, it would bring back to the surface that oh, yes, I do have a dad and that he is serving time in prison. And that oh, yes, he is a serial killer that I -- that my normal life is interrupted then.
So as I cut that communication, those feelings diminish and I can live my normal life that way. If I continued on talking to him, he's still playing psychological games and trying to control and manipulate me. So I have to cut ties. And that's the only way I can recover and move on. That's what I feel like is best for this family, too.
BURNETT: And just before we go. Since do you have your own children and, you know, we look at this little girl now, this 6-year- old girl, who is the child of Ariel Castro. How do you talk to your children about who their grandfather is?
MOORE: And that's a tough thing, because you want to protect their innocence. You want to make them believe that there really aren't monsters under the bed. That everybody is a good person. You don't want to diminish that reality that they have for just a short period of time that as my daughter she's almost 12 now and she's curious.
She wants to know more. And she does know that he's in prison and that he's killed multiple women. She doesn't know the details. And there's no way I can protect her from that knowledge with me being an advocate and going out and speaking, those are some of the things that I have to share.
BURNETT: Melissa, thank you very much for sharing it with us and with our viewers. We really appreciate that. I know it's not easy.
Well, still to come, a Grammy nominated Christian rock star caught in a police sting. He was trying to hire a hitman to kill his wife.
And the U.S. has the second largest stash of nuclear warheads in the world. Why 17 men charged with protecting them have been stripped of their duties? An OUTFRONT investigation.
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BURNETT: A religious rock star charged with trying to hire a hitman. Tim Lambesis will likely have to put his Christian music and career on hold after police arrested him this week for an unholy crime, attempting to take out his wife.
Nischelle Turner is OUTFRONT with the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tim Lambesis is best known for the front man for the Grammy-nominated Christian heavy metal band As I Lay Dying. He is a full fledged rock star with a big following.
BRANDON GEIST, EDITOR, REVOLVER: They've been on the biggest tours. They tour with the biggest bands. The perception of Tim and As I Lay Dying as the band were just that they are just the nicest, coolest, chillest dudes.
TURNER: So when San Diego authorities arrested and charged the singer this week for attempting to hire a hitman for $1,000 to kill his estranged wife, no one could believe it was the same guy.
GEIST: Like just absolute shock.
TURNER: The 32-year-old father of three appeared in San Diego County superior court Thursday to face the felony count and hear the allegations against him.
CLAUDIA GRASSO, SAN DIEGO COUNTY PROSECUTOR: He sent an email to Mrs. Lambesis, telling her that he doesn't love her and he does not want to be with her anymore. He also told her that he no longer believes in God.
TURNER: Meggan Murphy Lambesis with who he shares three adopted children filed for divorce in September after eight years of marriage. According to "The L.A. Times," she alleged he was emotionally distant, preoccupied with body-building and touring and said he spends money irresponsibly, including on numerous tattoos.
The prosecution claims he asked members of his gym if they knew anyone who could murder his wife. Police were tipped off to the request and set up a sting operation.
GRASSO: He gave a hitman, posing, you know, our undercover agents an envelope with $1,000 for expenses, pictures of his wife, the address where she is living including gate codes on how to get in and wrote down specific dates where he could go kill her.
TURNER: Lambesis pleaded not guilty. His band mates, seemingly as stunned as everyone, posted a statement on their Web site, reading in part, the legal process is taking its course, and we have no more information than you do. There are many unanswered questions, and the situation will become clearer in the coming days and weeks.
Nischelle Turner, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: And now nuclear danger. So, the United States has the second largest stash of nuclear warheads in the world after Russia, and some of them are kept at Minot Air Force Base.
Just each one of these -- OK, just one of these, everybody, is capable of killing 100,000 people or more. One weapon, more than 100,000 people. And even more concerning, this week, 17 airmen guarding the nuclear launch controls of the base scored a deeper performance. They were stripped of their duties. Our Kyung Lah went to the heavily guarded facility in the middle of nowhere in North Dakota, and tonight, she's OUTFRONT with an investigation into what the military is doing to fix this crisis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Buried beneath these pristine North Dakota plains lie America's missiles and the people who control them now under fire.
(on camera): The nation's nuclear missiles, were they ever compromised?
COLONEL ROBERT VERCHER, U.S. AIR FORCE: They were not.
LAH: You don't believe they were ever?
VERCHER: They were not compromised.
LAH (voice-over): Our questions to Colonel Robert Vercher, the commander of the combat-ready Air Force officers at Minot Air Force Base known as missilers. Teams of two enter these Cold War era silos 100 feet underground, this immense door locking them in. In 24-hour shifts, they sit with the launch button to 100 minutemen 3 land-based intercontinental nuclear ballistic missiles that stretch through a complex the size of New Jersey.
But now, we're learning some of the officers with their fingers on the button fell short.
VERCHER: We take those seriously, and we expect that we'll be at 100 percent.
LAH: He's talking about this. CNN obtained the executive summary of an extensive outside inspection of the missile wing issued in March that found performance was marginal for the intercontinental ballistic missiles operations, or ICBM.
Still satisfactory overall, but the grade the equivalent of a "D." The Air Force says it was marginal performance in the classroom and in simulations. When pressed, the colonel would not give further specifics.
The report triggered an immediate overhaul -- 17 out of a total of 170 missilers decertified, taken out of these critical rooms and sent back to training. In a scathing email to his wing, a deputy commander ranted about, quote, "rot in the crew force" and that the unit needed a "reset".
(on camera): Are we talking about guys falling asleep at the switch? What are we talking about here?
VERCHER: I think the e-mail yourself that you're referring to, you have a very capable leader, assessing his own force internally, as we said critically, what you would expect, and that leader is making the determination that there's some things that you need to change. LAH: Those are very strong words.
VERCHER: I think strong and appropriate words from a commander with very serious responsibilities and very high standards.
LAH: It certainly seemed to alarm quite awe few people in Washington as well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Respect for all airmen.
LAH (voice-over): Two days of congressional hearings this week where lawmakers demanded answers from military brass.
REP. RODNEY FRELINGHUYSEN (R), NEW JERSEY: With all due respect, if this were the nuclear navy, somebody would be cashiered out.
LAH (on camera): If there's a threat, the president picks up the phone, calls you guys, and there has to be an immediate response. This is certainly very alarming. People are asking, how could this happen?
VERCHER: What you see is not in an operational environment. In a day-to-day training environment, the standard is not being met by a small portion of the force.
LAH (voice-over): A very high standard that the colonel says has a very small margin of error. All 17 of the decertified airmen are being retrained and could eventually be back on the job, hovering over the nation's nuclear arsenal.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Minot, North Dakota.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Every night, we take a look outside the at the day's top stories for something we call the OUTFRONT "Outtake".
So, tonight's story comes to us from Chicago, specifically the city's airport, which has a problem with grass. O'Hare has a lot of grass and dense brush apparently. So, they launched a bid process for someone to cut it.
Goats won. That's right. A Chicago area restaurant is sending 25 goats to eat the airport grass. They eat a lot of grass.
Now, look, I get it. Right now you may be laughing, maybe you're rolling your eyes. This is, after all, the second busiest airport notorious for congestion, and yet they have the time to vet and hire a bunch of goats.
But there might be an important reason Chicago is turning to goats before you laugh. That reason is the World Series victory. In 1945, Chicago Cubs fan and owner of the Billy Goat Tavern was asked to leave Wrigley Field during a game because his goat smelled so bad it was bothering other people.
As he left, he allegedly cursed the team. Since the goat curse, the Cubs haven't won a World Series.
So, what better way to show your goat-friendly that have a herd of those goats welcome tourist at the airport. Here's hoping for a World Series. Maybe not this year.
Still to come, it's been 1,570 days since President Obama signed an executive order to promptly close Gitmo. So why is it still open? The essay is next.
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BURNETT: Gitmo, a word known round the world. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp opened by President Bush in January 2002 continues to operate under President Obama despite this promise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And promptly to close the detention facility at Guantanamo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: It's been 1,570 days since that promise, and Gitmo, of course, is still open. Not one of the 86 detainees cleared for release has been released. And while President Obama hasn't put new detainees into Gitmo, he has put a lot of money into it, about $150 million a year, and 4,700 people have been killed in U.S. drone attacks, some of whom might otherwise have been Gitmo bound.
But the president is frustrated. Congress has blocked his efforts to close the prison. Now, Gitmo is at a tipping point. Detainees have been on a hunger strike for 100 days, dozens fed with feeding tubes. And there are serious questions about America's war on terror.
The story matters. That's why all next week on this program, we'll bring you an OUTFRONT investigation from inside the prison.
"A.C. 360" starts now.
