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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

Examining the Notebook of Accused Colorado Theater Killer James Holmes; Natalee Holloway Case Still Haunting. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 28, 2015 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[12:30:09] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: This is the cover it looks pretty innocuous. Its people exhibit 341. Are you believed one of the most important to most telling pieces of evidence in this entire trial. The name James Holmes the course of life, that what he titled it.

And on the next page these question, what is the meaning of life, what is the meaning of death and then the infinity symbol. We see this a lot throughout the entire notebook it was also on a calendar in his apartment with 20th circled, it was on that date back in 2012 that these 12 people you see on your screen including 6 year old Veronica Moser-Sullivan all lost their life.

70 more people not pictured right now were injured terribly. Many of those injuries life altering. And Holmes defense, there he is in the white shirt center left, live picture in the courtroom in Centennial Colorado, his defense is "I was insane at the time I shot all those people and killed all those people."

I want to bring in Dr. Helen Morrison who is the forensic psychiatrist to walkthrough some of the entry. Helen, I have to be honest, I can't show some of the things in the diary. But the things that I am going to show, I'm hoping you can give me some forensic insight in to them. I'll just hold one thing up and then I'm going to get it graphic. It just pages and pages of why, why, why, why, why, why, literally pages of it.

Does this tell you anything, I know you'd look it up close. Is there anything you glean from this?

DR. HELEN MORRISON, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: No I really can't he is just seemed to be asking the same thing over and over and over again, in an obsessive kind of way. But he doesn't really answer anything that he's done in that notebook.

BANFIELD: So I tried to gain insight. And I know forensic psychiatrist. I'm not a lawyer either but I feel like I get it at least some idea of what kind of person this is.

And I wanted just draw your attention to page 27. And I'm just going to pull it up here but there's a bunch of stick figures if we can go to the full graphic of it.

MORRISON: Yes. BANFIELD: So our viewers can get a better impression of it, a whole bunch of stick figures inside, into the mind of madness. Some of the stick figures with ones below them are standing upright. Some of the stick figures are lying what looks like presumably dead with zeroes. Can you explain any of that that you saw?

MORRISON: Well that he basically was drawing what he was going to do. He was planning meticulously this whole attack. He made a decision to not do the airport because it had better security. But to do the movie theater because it was going to definitely cause a tremendous impact. And he would get his message across.

BANFIELD: So there's another page that I want to direct your attention to, and I don't think you need to be a forensic psychiatrist to make pay of this one that the headline at the top says crazy concept.

And then he goes on to list, you know, somethings that just seem like, they're just not really, they're amusing that don't make a lot of sense. But I think it's the crazy concept at the top. I want to get you to weigh in on.

And if you could explain to our viewers, why crazy isn't necessarily insane.

MORRISON: You know, crazy is a word that we always use for someone who's bit utter unusual. Insane is a legal concept and what it means in the legal field is the person who may have a mental illness doesn't he, does he appreciate the difference between right and wrong. And can he conform his conduct to the law.

So insanity in the legal sense is a lot different than insanity in psychiatry.

BANFIELD: Yeah. And, you know, what it's hard for the lay people who are chosen for jury duty and pulled that out of their life all of the sudden, get their head wrapped around this. You took many, many years of very difficult program and university to get there.

And it's always a real struggle. But I want to thank you for at least giving us here your insights, on this program. I'm going to go in to the legal neck. So Helen, thank you very much.

MORRISON: Thank you.

BANFIELD: One of the more disturbing things in James Holmes' notebook. It's hard to say a touching twisted dedication to his family. And here it is to Goober (ph) and Christie (ph) and Boo boo (ph) love you.

What to say about the state of a tormented mind that would dedicate a book of killing to his family in such a delightful way.

[12:35:04] You're going to read between the lines, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BANFIELD: Inside James Holmes' notebook, we can see diagrams of the movie theater. You can actually read the pros and cons that the came up with of attacking each different theater and why he may have chosen one over the other.

You can even see a shopping list of sorts' things that he decided he needed to buy, in order to be able to carry out the attack. The prosecution says, these are all signs he knew exactly what he was doing was wrong.

But the defense has a lot of material to choose from as well. For the legal view I want to bring in CNN Commentator Mel Robbins and Former Federal Prosecutor Paul Millus.

All right guys I want to go through a couple of things just like I did with Helen, but this really pertain more to the legal argument not so much the mind of the man, let's go page 35, I want to start with -- I keep holding up the map because that's really what it looks like, it just looks like a scribbly notebook mess.

But if we get to page 35, this is significant to me the real me is fighting the biological me. The real me namely, the thinking me does things not because I'm programed too, but because I choose too. Mel I choose too, I know something can be wrong and I'm going to do it anyway. I don't see that cutting both ways do you?

[12:40:03] MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR: Well it depends, I mean let's talk about the legal standard in Colorado. Unlike many states, the prosecution has to prove that he is legally insane at the time of the act. And so while he's ramping and clearly under the grips of severe, severe mental illness, I'm not sure that something that he scribbled in this notebook before the actual act and uses the word choose is going to help the prosecution in proving that beyond a reasonable doubt.

BANFIELD: And what you said...

ROBBINS: Because it's at the time of the incident.

BANFIELD: The prosecution has to prove that he is sane?

ROBBINS: Yes.

BANFIELD: Not the defense having to prove his...

ROBBINS: Correct.

BANFIELD: ... insane which is the standard in most other state.

ROBBINS: And by the way, sane when he...

BANFIELD: Did it.

ROBBINS: ... walked into that theater.

BANFIELD: Right. ROBBINS: Not sane when his doing his...

BANFIELD: So he can sober -- he could be sober as a ghost right now folks. Sitting there, happy as a clam and fine and that's not the issue. They are going just with the moment that he was pulling the trigger over and over and setting those incendiary devices.

Paul, I want you to look at the next one, because I think it might be more telling and on page 36. This one was the one stuck out to me the most the most. You're going to have to bear with me, because it really messy, but I will read it for you.

And finally the last escape, mass murder at the movies. Not obsession, onset 10 years ago. So anyway that's my mind, it's broken, I've tried to fix it. I made it my sole conviction, but using something that's broken to fix itself proved him (inaudible).

Neuroscience seemed like the way to go, but it didn't pan out. In order to rehabilitate the broken mind, my soul must be eviscerated. I could not sacrifice my soul to have a normal mind. Let me just repeat that. I could not sacrifice my soul to have a normal mind. Just like my biological shortcomings I have fought and fought always defending against predetermination and fallibility of men. There is one more battle to fight with to face death, embrace the long standing hatred of mankind and overcome fear in certain death.

PAUL MILLUS, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Look, here's the point and this is what people can understand. If you got choice and the ability to choose, then you are sane. That's what makes us human.

And what this book shows in so many ways. Not only did he choose certain methods and methodologies, not that he choose certain weapons.

He knew that he had a serious problem. There's no question the man has serious...

BANFIELD: And he didn't want to sacrifice his soul to have a normal mind. He chose another path instead

BEGALA: And he chose to escape. Some people may choose suicide. Some may chose other means. In the end, this was a choice. He knew what he was doing...

ROBBINS: See, I think what's interesting about the question choice. The prosecution is going to argue that. The defense is going to say, actually, the entire 60 pages of this book are going to show you that he was so gripped by psychosis, he wasn't choosing anything. He's mind had overtaken every action. He didn't know right from wrong.

I also think another interesting argument is he had been thinking about this for ten years and did nothing and I believe that defense is going to argue that it was psychosis that took over that made him tip into this.

MILLUS: Mel, if you go into any bookstore and buy a book on philosophy. You're going to find these sorts of debates written by the author, someone who doesn't kill someone. These are the types of thoughts that everyone has. He just took them to an extreme level. He was debating the existence and why he was existing. But in the end what Colorado statute says is look, they have to prove mental disease a defect, but you have to make sure that, does a person have a motive?

ROBBINS: No, they have to prove that he was sane. They actually don't have to have prove the defect. They have to prove that he was sane at the time legally.

MILLUS: But they have to demonstrate a part of the rule that in fact, he was -- he had --

BANFIELD: Guys, I often liking this too. If somebody goes out and kills people thinking they're using a banana and it's a gun and thinking they're sending them to heaven to protect them from the masses of the demons that are coming. That's someone who thinks they're doing good. That's someone who doesn't know the difference between right and wrong.

This guy, protected himself from the oncoming police forces wrote about how he was going to need to escape. Armed himself with armor, because he knew the police were going to come for the bad guy and shoot him dead. How can you argue with that?

MILLUS: You can't and you hit it exactly on the note. Someone who is insane who doesn't understand what they're doing. Doesn't understand that its wrong thinks that they're doing good, he knew he was doing bad. He felt he had no choice, but that was his choice to be that way.

BANFIELD: Mel, 10 seconds, it's a real high standard.

ROBBINS: Well, it is a very high standard. I do think they're probably going to meet it. I think the more interesting phase is actually going to be in the death penalty phase because they're going to look at the fact that he had 20 different diagnoses for schizophrenia and the mitigation aspect of it.

BANFIELD: I think that's the huge point of this all and that is that, well it may night escape these jurors, this whole notion that he was legally insane. They will look how sick he was at some point and he will have some benefit to escape the death chamber maybe from that.

ROBBINS: Maybe.

BANFIELD: All right, well, Mel and Paul, thank you it is ...

MILLUS: Thank you.

BANFIELD: ... very complex but in the end it's a simple question. Did he know right from wrong?

Most unsolved murder cases are simply forgotten as the years split by, sometimes one or two or three years, but not the case of this young lady, Natalee Holloway. Why her case is suddenly back in the headlines after exactly a decade. [12:45:04] Do investigators finally have a lead that they can use, that can find out what happened to that young lady when she went on vacation with her school?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: Most cold cases that drag on for years slowly fade from the lime light and eventually they're forgotten. If they even noticed in the first place but that is not the case of Natalee Holloway, this beautiful young lady behind me because this weekend is the 10th anniversary of Natalee's disappearance.

And once again it is back in the headlines not just because of the 10 year mark because a mysterious man came forward claiming that he knows where the Alabama high school student was buried in Aruba.

CNN's Martin Savidge sat down with Holloway's father to talk about this possible new lead and the status of his daughter's case a decade later.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In the 10 years since Natalee Holloway vanished in Aruba, her father has never stopped looking for her.

It's been a decade of false hopes and dead ends.

DAVE HOLLOWAY, NATALEE HOLLOWAY'S FATHER: Pons and cons over their numerous times. Search cemeteries, I probably know that terrain better some of the residents who lived on the island.

SAVIDGE: May 2005, Natalee Holloway is on a high school graduation trip to Aruba and disappears.

[12:50:04] Suspicions fall on three young men, she seemed leaving a night club with, two brothers and a Deutsch national the son of a judge 17 year old Joran van der Sloot.

They first say that they got Natalee off at her hotel, then the story changes.

The brothers say that, actually, they drop Joran and Natalee off at a different hotel. And Joran says that's where he left her, on this beach alive and well.

Hundreds of tourists and locals search for her. Authorities detain a number of people then let them go. Deutsch fighter jets are even flown overhead, scanning with sensors. Nothing is found.

Many, including her father, believed Natalee is the victim of foul play, her body thrown into the ocean.

Joran Van Der Sloot is never charged. The case goes cold.

Then three years later, Dave Holloway gets a call from mysterious man, telling him...

DAVID HOLLOWAY: She's on land, and I know where her body is hidden. And my initial thought was, "Oh, this is another crazy."

SAVIDGE: You have -- had a lot of those in the story.

HOLLOWAY: Quite a people.

SAVIDGE: Holloway dismisses the lead. And the years dragged on.

In 2010, Joran van der Sloot is arrested and eventually convicted of the murder of 21-year old Stephanie Flores Ramirez in Peru, five years to the day Natalee Holloway vanished.

To Holloway, it's more proof van der Sloot's responsible for his daughter's disappearance, but his no closer to finding her.

In 2012, a judge legally declares Natalee dead.

Then in March, he gets a phone from a Deutsch journalist, who tells him of an amazing lead, an eyewitness to his daughter's death.

Did you know who he was referring to?

HOLLOWAY: I did not. At the time, I said, "Who are you referring too?" and he started bringing me up to day. And so, it seems like the same guy who contacted me back in 2008.

SAVIDGE: And justice in 2008, the witness says Natalee is buried on land. After years of disappointment, Holloway is afraid to believe it.

HOLLOWAY: And I thought, "I can't go here because I've gone through so many of this, where they had details and facts and turned out to be nothing."

SAVIDGE: So, he asked a private investigator to check the witness out. And soon the investigator calls back.

HOLLOWAY: And he say "Hey Dave" said the guy passed this voice analysis test. And I thought "Oh my gosh."

SAVIDGE: Now, for the first time in nearly a decade, the dad who never gave up there's the hope. He may finally bring his daughter back home.

Martin Savidge, CNN Aruba.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: I just want to add a little to Martin's reporting. The spot where Natalee Holloway is allegedly buried on Aruba is beneath the 12 story Marriott Club Vacation Tower in the area of a stairwell.

And because it's on island, the water table and coral prevented the hotel from building a traditional basement instead pylons (ph) or -- set deep into the grounds supporting a flat concrete floor or foundation for that building. It's a -- few inches, two times the foot above the ground with some movement.

The witness claims that Holloway's body was put in that space under the foundation while the hotel was being built.

Stay tuned because there is still movement. That family is working with that hotel and they want what they say simple test to be done.

There is discrepancy though on how they feel about when the construction was happening.

Joining me to talk about this possible new lead in Holloway's disappear, the CNN's Law Enforcement Analyst Tom Fuentes, who just so happened within the FBI's lead investigator on Holloway's case.

Tom, I worked with you almost everyday and I didn't realize that this was you. This was your case. You went -- you had it the whole -- you spearheaded this, right, in Aruba?

TOM FUENTES, FBI LEAD INVESTIGATOR ON HOLLOWAY CASE: Well, in a way, but in another way, not really because I was running FBI International Operations at the time in 2005 and that means being in charged of all of the FBI offices around the world that are outside the U.S. And the nearest FBI office to Aruba was in Bridgetown Barbados in the U.S. Embassy.