Whiteorchids
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2012
- Messages
- 6,953
- Reaction score
- 18,744
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1804/02/ptab.01.html
But we begin with this, that fatal crash on the California Coast where investigators are still searching for three missing children. They may or may not have been in that family SUV that flew off a cliff last Monday and came crashing down into the Pacific. Unlike their two moms and their siblings, those bodies have yet to be found, but investigators have found out some truly disturbing new details, both about these family`s private life and about the crash that claimed their lives, like the car data that told the California Highway Patrol, they may have just driven off that cliff on purpose.
With me now, CNN National Correspondent, Miguel Marquez. So Miguel, I`m going to ask you some details in a moment, but also with us is Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman and Defense Attorney Parag Shah and clearly a lot to sort out in this with you two as well. Miguel, first, the very latest.
What`s the story on the missing three children?
MARQUEZ: Yes. Authorities believe still that they were in the car, because the other three children were in that car. They were also -- they were not wearing seatbelts and were thrown into the water. They believe that the three missing children went -- also went into the water and they have now expanded the search zone along the Pacific Coast. The tides, the waves, and the murkiness of the water making it difficult for searchers to find them, but they are expanding the search, hoping to find out where those children are.
BANFIELD: Some of the automated forensics in this case, Miguel, are extremely disturbing, I think all of us wanted to think this was an accident, a tragic accident. And maybe now that we are learning -- it is showing that might not be so.
MARQUEZ: Yes. This has gone from just tragedy to absolute disturbing story. The officials releasing information from the airbag computers indicating that the car stopped on that roadway along the Pacific Coast Highway. And then 70 feet later it went careening into the ocean essentially without braking. There was no furrowing, there was no indication that they hit anything whether it was an animal or another car or there was a technical fault in trying to stop or trying swerve in any way. So, it increasingly looks to authorities like this was an intentional act, Ashleigh.
BANFIELD: So, like you said, the car came to a full stop. And then 70 feet later was the edge of the cliff. Some of the mechanics have shown that the car was going 90 miles an hour and it seems hard to believe, Miguel.
MARQUEZ: This is something that police had sought and the sheriff`s officials had sought to explain a bit further. The odometer was pin at 90, so if you imagine an old school odometer with an actual pin in the crash, and get stuck in one place. This was an electronic odometer that registered 90, but it is not clear it was going 90. In fact, officials say it most likely wasn`t going 90 and probably no way it was going 90, because it only had 70 feet of room after it stop and then went into the ocean. So, they believe it was maybe a technical fault either in the crashed itself or where they tried to pull the vehicle up that it registered this false 90 mile per hour number.
BANFIELD: Yes, I mean, a 2003 GMC Yukon XL does not accelerate --
MARQUEZ: Correct.
BANFIELD: -- to 90 miles an hour in 70 feet at the point where the car took off from the cliff`s edge, so that may be something a glitch.
Nevertheless the tire tracks indicate that this car went straight off. There was no attempt to veer -- there was no attempt to braking, what did they see?
[18:05:16] MARQUEZ: This is really the disturbing part is that they don`t see any of the tell-tale signs that you would normally see if someone was trying to avoid something that is horrible as going off a 100 foot cliff into the Pacific Ocean. It also rained a little bit in that area during the day, so literally almost all tracks had been washed away and it was many hours after it went into the ocean that the first person as you looked over, saw the vehicle down there. It is so steep, this particular part of the -- highway that you literally have to get up right to it and look directly down to actually see anything down there. So, it was very difficult even for passersby to see that the car was down there.
BANFIELD: Miguel, don`t go away. I am going to ask you a little about Sarah, one of the moms. We`d know, you know, discovered that she got a passed, there is a domestic assault guilty plea in her passed, involving one of the children. I want to ask you about that in a moment, but first, Sheriff, maybe you can help me out, because I know you had been to the scene, you know, from the lay person, that just looks beautiful, but knowing what happened off that cliff, those photos are ominous. I know you`d been in the scene as well. Were you able to personally find out anything, collect any evidence or get -- get any further along in this investigation when you went to that cliff edge?
SHERIFF TOM ALLMAN, MENDOCINO COUNTY SHERIFF`S OFFICE: I was. Good evening and thank you. You know, as was said, the crash scene is slowly becoming a crime scene. And the more information that the Highway Patrol has determined is -- is allowing us to very possibly turn this into a situation where we have a suicide and up to seven homicides and so -- that we are taking this very seriously.
BANFIELD: And when you say up to seven homicides, I think that is such a mystery at this point as well. Where are those three children? Sheriff, are you a bit conviction those three children plunged into the ocean below or do you think perhaps they may be somewhere else either dead or alive?
ALLMAN: Well, we are certainly hoping that they are somewhere else alive, but the family -- the neighbors have told us and their friends have told us that family was a very cohesive family and they always stayed together. So, we have no indication that at any time those other three children were taken out of the vehicle and if they were taken out of the vehicle, were they left alive? We have gone through every possible scenario, but I`m very comfortable with are -- where our investigation is going. We had some incredible information and some contacts from the FBI yesterday and today, the Highway Patrol and I`m certainly in contact with the Park County Sheriff`s Office in Oregon and those detectives who has served the search warrants in Oregon are helping us and we are trying to get all this information, because if this is a crime, Ashleigh, listen, there is no need to hold back any information from the public.
BANFIELD: Right.
ALLMAN: We are not going to court on it. Everybody has perished.
BANFIELD: Everybody`s dead, there is no prosecution coming and show, I think there`s so many answered that the public, you know, you see this photograph, but it look like an extraordinarily happy family, two mothers who are definitely living an alternative, you know, alternative family, but what looked like a very giving, loving family. So, this is very uncomfortable. And I just want to ask you Sheriff a little about the tides, because it has been a week at least now, and the tides can be a finicky thing, but is evidence still washing up on shore and helping you to piece together the clues?
ALLMAN: We haven`t had any evidence in the last three days washing up on shore. We are looking for suitcases or pillows or clothing or anything from the children that might washed up on shore, but we haven`t had that. And we had been out there constantly. We have flown it with unmanned
aerial aircraft, we certainly had the helicopter from the Highway Patrol and the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard even very helpful in this, but we start finding the evidence that we`d like to find.
And if you look at the temperature of the ocean, Ashleigh, and this is a gruesome conversation here, but if you are looking at the temperature of the ocean and the currents, we are making predictions where if those three bodies were in the ocean, where they might be now and that is where we are sending our search team.
So, upwards of 20 or 30 miles away. This is a very ragged coastline, Mendocino`s coastline is horrendously rugged and we don`t know when this vehicle went off. It could have been there for 24 hours. It was witnessed and the fact that when the first initial searchers got down to check on the status of the passengers, they said the engine was cold. So, was the engine cold, because the ocean waters had cooled it fast or had the vehicle had been there overnight? We don`t know the answer.
So, I`m pleading with the public. If anybody saw this vehicle getting gasoline or going to a gas station or getting food in a restaurant, please call. Our Sheriff Office phone number is 707-463-4086. We want to hear from people who have seen this family. It is a very distinct family. I think if somebody saw this family at a gas station or restaurant, they would remember seeing this family.
BANFIELD: You are right. It`s a huge family. Six children, Sheriff with two moms.
[18:10:00] It is not a typical family. You know, it sort of reminisce of a TV shows now that are -- are showing, we all look different, we are all unique, but still even in today`s culture this stands out. So, if anybody saw this family either arguing or talking or no issues at all, every piece of information is helpful. No matter how insignificant. I think most people believe that their information wouldn`t make a difference and you can bet your bottom dollar, the crimes are solved at the molecular level, any details, you know, can help to figure this one out. Sheriff, before I let you go and I do have a couple other questions also for Miguel and for Parag. That warrant, you talked about that warrant that you served. Warrants at the home, correct? And where there other warrant and if so, what have you found?
ALLMAN: So the Cook County Sheriff`s Office has served a search warrant on the house and it was -- they found a regular house. They found food in there, so, all the stories we heard about withholding food, and so forth. I don`t know if that is true or not. But I know there was food inside the house.
BANFIELD: let me ask, so real quickly, to that, but that is interesting. I only want to -- interrupt you for a moment, because we actually interviewed on this program, Bruce Dekalb, is a neighbor of the Hart family talking about some very disquieting incidents with at least two of the children in the recent past. Have a listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRUCE DEKALB, NEIGHBOR: One of the girls came to the door at 1:30 in the morning and said that she needed help. The parents were not treating her properly and wanted us to protect her. Devonte, he started coming over asking for food and saying that they were taking meals away from him due to punishment. And it started out as one time a day and escalated up to three times a day until a week went by and we decided that we needed to get professional help.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BANFIELD: So, Sheriff, are you finding other witnesses either the two moms, extended families, other neighbors, other friends who can sort of extrapolate and expound on these claims?
ALLMAN: No, but remember Ashleigh, those witnesses are in Oregon and Washington and we are down in California. So those search warrants are executed in two different -- two state away. Our search warrant had been for electronical information. We are also looking on trying to track the credit cards, any cell phone pinging that we can find out their track. We don`t know if they were northbound or bound. We have actually false reports of where they were, we had gone in and police spent dozens of hours looking at video of where they were supposedly at a grocery store, and so forth, but nothing has been substantiated. So we are hoping that someone saw.
BANFIELD: This is such a mystery. This is such a mystery. Stand by Sheriff, if you will please, Miguel, real quickly, back to that idea that we were discussing earlier. Some potential trouble in the past for at least Sarah, one of the moms pleading guilty to domestic assault involving one of the children back in 2010, it was in Minnesota. What do you know about it?
MARQUEZ: Yes. This, -- there were two charges, this was over a case of spanking of one of their daughters who went to school and complained about her chest, sort of the front being in pain. The teacher with her permission lifted up her dress and saw bruising on the front and this then prompted an investigation by not only Child Protective Services in Minnesota, but also from the police there in Alexandria, Minnesota.
They went to the house and interviewed the mom. She admitted to spanking the girl, bending her over the bathtub essentially and spanking her, causing that bruising on the front of her body. And then she ended up -- they charged her with two different counts and she pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of hitting the child. And that was the end of it. They then moved a couple of years later to Oregon and then up to Washington State.
Child Protective Services in Washington State had no idea about the Minnesota situation, but last Friday they did have a call come in saying that the neighbors were concerned about the neglect and abuse of the children.
BANFIELD: Parag, real quickly, the issues of the bio parents, all six of these kids were adopted as we understand. Is there any legal requirement to notify the biological parents of these children as to what`s happened?
PARAG SHAH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I`m not 100 percent sure whether there are any legal requirements, but probably, I think it would be difficult if they even know who it is. But I think, probably the right thing to do would be to contact the biological parents. I`m sure there is somebody out there that probably wants to know, but legally, if the adoption has all gone through, I`m not sure legally if there is any responsibility.
BANFIELD: Parag Shah, I am going to ask you to stick around. Sheriff Tom Allman, do you have that number again? You want to say it again real quick?
ALLMAN: I have two numbers. If though they want to speak to a dispatcher, 707-463-4086, but if someone has information and they do not want to give their name, no worries. We have a unanimous tip line, 707-234-2100.
BANFIELD: 234-2100, area code 707 for the unanimous and 707-463-4086, if you want to talk with an investigator.
[18:15:05] ALLMAN: Thank you.
The CNN National Correspondent Miguel Marquez left out AH had bruises on her front AND back according to the complaint.
OUCH. 
