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CNN NEWSROOM

Court Docs Say Grand Jury Indicted JonBenet's Parents; Director Secretly Shot Film Inside Disney Parks; Gypsy Willis to Take Stand in MacNeill Murder Trial; Zients Says HealthCare.Gov Fixed by End of November; JPMorgan Chase Wants FDIC to Help Pay Settlement; Volunteer Grows Food for Inner City; Girl Charged in Cyber Bully Suicide Makes Court Appearance; Boston's Man in the Cowboy Hat Speaks Out, Six Months Later

Aired October 25, 2013 - 15:30   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN: New revelations 17 years after little JonBenet Ramsey's death. The 6-year-old beauty queen was killed in her home in 1996, remember? She was found strangled for a murder that is still to this day a mystery. No one has ever been charged in this case.

But, today, court documents just released show a grand jury voted to indict her parents on abuse charges.

HLN's Nancy Grace joins me now.

And, Nancy, here's the thing, because I read what was released, these four pages, and I didn't see a whole heck of a lot in these four pages, no smoking gun. Am I missing something?

NANCY GRACE, HOST, "NANCY GRACE": Well, what you're seeing is very simply only the documents that the grand jury foreperson signed.

This judge ruled -- and this is the state law there -- that official actions by the grand jury cannot be kept secret. Now, all of the documents -- I mean, this grand jury investigation of the Ramseys and the death of JonBenet cost over $2 million back in the 1990s.

BALDWIN: Wow.

GRACE: That's a lot of money.

It went on for months. Their ultimate action was that they chose to indict the parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, not for murder, but for basically aiding and abetting or creating a situation where JonBenet could be killed. It's basically child abuse leading up to the time of the death.

Now, here's the kicker. All of the witnesses, all of the testimony, all of the exhibits, we don't have any of that because that is not deemed under the law an official action by the grand jury.

The only reason we're getting these four pages is because the foreperson actually signed them, so we don't know what went before the grand jury to support these indictments.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: These are the four pages out of 18, 19. I know Patsy Ramsey passed away a couple years ago of cancer.

John Ramsey said, I don't want these released, but if you're going to release any of them, release the entire file. Why?

GRACE: I'm speaking now for John Ramsey, which of course I'm not equipped to do, but I believe that John Ramsey thinks that if the public saw what was put in front of the grand jury, it would work to his benefit in exonerating him and Patsy.

But he doesn't have a say over what the judge releases, so he did send a letter to the judge stating this, but I don't see that that's going to be released anytime soon. We do know what a grand jury thought.

BALDWIN: So where do we go from here? Doesn't the bits and pieces released today lead to more questions? However many years later, this is still a mystery.

GRACE: Get a glass of water because you're going to need one. It's a bitter pill to swallow. Where do we go from here? Nowhere. It's over. We're never going to know what happened to JonBenet Ramsey.

The case was bungled from the get-go, from the very beginning by the police there. We're never going to have an answer.

Think about it. If they did find the right person, the first thing defense would say in opening statements, guess what, the prosecution, they thought Santa Claus did it, too. Remember they thought Santa Claus did it?

Then they thought John Mark Karr did it, then they thought this, then they thought that. Practically speaking, you're never going to get a verdict, a guilty verdict.

There's never going to be justice in this case. That's why you cannot bungle the case at the get-go. You've got to handle it correctly. They did not.

BALDWIN: Nancy Grace, watch "Nancy Grace," 8:00 p.m. Eastern on our sister network, HLN. Thank you very much.

The new film, "Escape From Tomorrow," is about a family vacation to DisneyWorld that takes a dark turn. The movie's twisted and undecidedly un-Disney-like plot won't exactly make any executives at Disney stand and cheer for this thing.

So how the heck did this cast and crew make this movie inside "The Happiest Place on Earth?" Two words for you, "guerilla filmmaking.

CNN's entertainment correspondent Nischelle Turner has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: It's billed at "The Happiest Place on Earth," but DisneyWorld is anything but in a daring new feature film.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People come here because they want to feel safe. Bad things happen everywhere.

: The Magic Kingdom has turned into a black-and-white nightmare in "Escape From Tomorrow," the story of a man who comes unglued during a family vacation to the Orlando theme park.

Amazingly, first-time director Randy Moore shot his movie on the sly inside DisneyWorld and DisneyLand over a period of weeks without Disney ever catching on. It's one of the most brazen acts in recent cinematic history.

RANDY MOORE, DIRECTOR, "ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW": There was high anxiety the entire time. I lost a ton of weight.

TURNER: How could Disney not notice a film crew and more than half a dozen actors had infiltrated their parks?

Well, it had a lot to do with the camera Moore used. One that looks like the kind any tourist might carry.

MOORE: It was when I learned about the Canon 5-D Mark 2 camera that I realized that this is possible I could make this film.

TURNER: Moore added he's not out to promote Canon and got no money to use the product.

And he certainly is not out to praise Disney. In fact, his film slams everything the parks represent.

MOORE: It's manufactured happiness, that you know, people save their whole year's salary to come and basically pay other people to smile and make them happy.

TURNER: Even the poster, a bloody mitt that looks like it belongs to Mickey Mouse, but surprisingly, despite every opportunity to respond, Disney hasn't lifted a finger against the filmmaker.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's something going on here.

TURNER: When CNN asked Disney for a comment, a spokesman replied only, "We are aware of the film."

Perhaps it's decided making a fuss would only attract more attention to the film.

MOORE: We still had no response from Disney.

TURNER: On the film's Web site, a clock is ticking, labeled number of hours since release that we haven't been sued.

Moore previously told us he's been pleasantly surprised he hasn't heard from Disney's attorneys.

MOORE: If you're asking if I'm happy I'm not being sued and dragged over the coals, absolutely.

TURNER: He's vowing his next film, whatever that becomes, will be a whole lot easier to shoot.

Nischelle Turner. CNN, Anaheim, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Coming up, her look of disgust says it all, Rachel MacNeill tells a jury about her father's mistress, a mistress by the name of Gypsy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RACHEL MACNEILL, DAUGHTER OF MARTIN MACNEILL: It was just obvious she was goo-goo eyes at my dad and wasn't doing anything a nanny would do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Today, this mistress, Gypsy, here she is, she's supposed to take the stand about this affair, the family, and how she met this doctor from Utah.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We are watching this trial out of Utah very, very closely because any minute now, this mistress here in this Utah doctor trial is about to take the stand.

This is a murder trial playing out in Provo, Utah. Prosecutors say this woman by the name of Gypsy Willis is the reason Martin MacNeill murdered his wife, so he could be with his lover.

But the defense says the mother of his eight children, Michele MacNeill, died of natural causes. Keep in mind, this happened six years ago, back in 2007.

MacNeill has already proven he will break the law for his mistress, and the doctor served four years, we should tell you, in a federal prison for stealing his adopted daughter's identity and giving it to his mistress. He then sent that child overseas.

A lot of moving parts in the trial, good thing we have Ryan Smith to walk us through what's happening.

Again, we're watching this stand, watch for Gypsy Willis, this mistress, to testify. What do we expect her to say?

RYAN SMITH, ATTORNEY AND HOST, "HLN AFTER DARK": She could be the biggest witness in the trial because she's the motive, what this is all about.

The prosecution says Dr. MacNeill got rid of his wife in order to be with his mistress, so she's going to talk about the relationship, how it developed around 2005-2006, how they got together, how it intensified and what happened around the time of Michele's death.

In the preliminary hearing, she talked about how their relationship was casual. We knew we were hanging out, having a good time, but the doctor tried to move her in under the guise she was going to be the kids' nanny, and the identity theft, which by the way, I have to tell you, the jury is not supposed to hear about that part. That's something we know that they might not know.

BALDWIN: Interesting.

SMITH: So all this plays out, this will come to a head because if the jury believed Dr. MacNeill loved this woman and wanted to be with her instead of the wife, that could hit on the defense's case.

BALDWIN: And just to be clear, Gypsy Willis has an alibi so she's --

SMITH: Not at all.

BALDWIN: We heard the daughter on the stand talking about the googley eyes, then you have this 6-year-old, now 12, Ada.

The judge made a pretty key ruling on her potential testimony. What happened with that?

SMITH: This is decided. She had given an interview about three or four years ago in a child services office about what she said she saw in the bathroom.

When she came home, she went to look for her mom and she's the first person to see her mom in the bathtub, 6-years-old. What she saw is critical because it differs from what Dr. MacNeill says.

The judge has decided to let in her interview from a couple years ago. The defense can examine her and the prosecution can cross-examine. They want a chance to get her on the stand, humanize her.

But the judge said she was improperly influenced by her sister Alexis who she now lives with. Alexis was coloring her testimony, I think our dad did it. I think this is what happened, and that might have influenced her.

So the prosecution doesn't get the chance to build her up, yet the defense will have a chance to get her on the stand and hear her story. She was 6-years-old.

She's going to have -- maybe she won't have inconsistencies, but it's tough to stand up against cross-examination.

BALDWIN: We're watching right along with you.

SMITH: Oh, yes. Going to be a big day in this case.

BALDWIN: Big day, as you mentioned the motive with Gypsy Willis. Ryan Smith, thank you.

Now you're looking at a live picture, we're awaiting the president of the United States, live picture from Brooklyn where the president will be speaking any moment.

We'll bring this to you live. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: The management ace trying to fix the president's healthcare site now says late November, late November to get the bugs worked out or enough of the bugs, in the word of Jeffrey Zients, to serve the vast majority of people who want ObamaCare.

He put the success rate at 90 percent for creating new accounts, but only 30 percent for creating applications.

Big, big deadline looming, December 15th, that's the enrollment date for coverage effective the first of next year.

Question, should the government help JPMorgan Chase pay a $13 billion -- that is billion with a "B" -- settlement?

That question is being debated as lawyers are trying to figure out how to handle huge settlement costs and fines in the wake of what we saw in 2008, the massive financial crisis.

Evan Perez joins me now from Washington. So I guess the question is, why would the government, Evan, why would the government be on the hook for something like that?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Brooke, this is a big deal, going back to 2008. This is when Washington Mutual was a bank that was in trouble, and the government needed someone to buy it.

JPMorgan stepped in and bought it. And there were some liabilities that the government assumed that the FDIC, which insures deposits and banks, kept as part of the deal.

JPMorgan is negotiating a $13 billion settlement with the Justice Department. This is over mortgage securities activities, and what is happening is lawyers are arguing over whether or not JPMorgan can go back to the FDIC and have them pay for some of -- essentially reimburse JPMorgan for some of the costs.

In essence, it would be taking from one pocket of the government and putting it in the other.

BALDWIN: JPMorgan said it bought Washington Mutual as a favor to the government. Is that part of the discussions, the debate happening right now?

PEREZ: Right, well, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan has repeatedly said one of things he did was try to rescue the financial system in 2008.

If you remember, there was a big crisis at the time and this was something done as a favor to the country.

Well, what's at issue here is there's also mortgage securities JPMorgan itself was selling, so the government says, look, we're trying to cut a deal whereby you can get out of these legal problems. And they don't want that JPMorgan should be able to go back to the FDIC and have them be reimbursed for this. They say that's not part of the deal. That's where the Justice Department is trying to draw the line, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Evan Perez, thank you.

And each and every week, we take a closer look at one of the top 10 CNN Heroes of 2013.

And so this week, we meet Robin Emmons who created a unique solution for people in her North Carolina community to get access to fresh produce.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBIN EMMONS, CNN HERO: There's magic in gardening that you can drop a seed into the earth and from that, there's an amazing fruit that is delicious and so good for your body. That's a miracle.

Here in Charlotte, 73,000 people live in low-income neighborhoods that don't have access to this fresh fruit. You can call this the miracle mile, pretty desolate in the way of healthy food options.

There are barely any supermarkets. Once they get there by bus or a neighbor's car or on foot, they are paying a very high price for the food.

I'm Robin Emmons, and I believe everyone should have access to fresh fruit, so I grow up and bring it to communities in need.

We want our market to be abundant tomorrow, so let's hit it.

We have about 200 volunteers that come out and help us harvesting the food --

These are heirloom tomatoes over here.

-- bringing the food to the community and cutting the cost in half compared to what they would pay in a grocery store.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Six months ago, I was diagnosed with diabetes.

Let's see if we can find something a little better.

I am unemployed right now, so sometimes you have to buy the cheaper things.

These are beautiful.

I couldn't believe all the fresh vegetables and the price was phenomenal. It's making me and my family healthier.

EMMONS: I started growing food in my backyard. Today I grow on nine acres of land. Since 2008, we have grown 26,000 pounds of food.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. Have a good day. Bye-bye.

EMMONS: I feel like I am giving them a gift, a healthier, longer, more delicious life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And one of our top 10 CNN Heroes will, of course, be chosen by you this year. I want you to help in that decision process.

Here's the Web site, CNNheroes.com. Hop online. Hop on your mobile device, Vote once a day every day for, in your opinion, the most inspirational hero and the winner receives $250,000 to then further their work.

And, of course, all 10 of these heroes will be part of the star tribute with Anderson Cooper on December 1st.

Coming up next, I am fresh off a plane from Boston here, and I want to talk about Boston Strong, personified.

Do you recognize this man? It's become an iconic photograph. He's the man in the cowboy hat and is one of those who is recognized for his heroism in those crucial moments after the blast went off on Boylston Street.

As I was in town last night, for World Series, Game Two, I found him and we caught up.

We talked about how his life has changed over the last six months since the bombings. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A Florida case involving a 12-year-old girl's suicide may be a tipping point for bullying cases really across the nation.

It was just last month that Rebecca Sedwick went to an abandoned cement plant, climbed a tower and jumped.

Authorities say before her suicide, she was cyber bullied relentlessly, and today, one of two girls accused of felony stalking in this case appeared in court.

Twelve year-old Kaitlyn Roman did not enter a plea because the state of Florida did not formally charge her with anything.