Cliff Bride Pleads Guilty to Murder Two
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST: Tonight the so-called "cliff bride" cuts a deal. Jordan Graham fesses up, admitting she shoved her husband of eight days off a steep cliff to his death. Now late this afternoon, right before closing arguments were set to begin, she suddenly pleaded guilty to murder two. Good evening. I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell coming to you live. Now the question: What kind of punishment will this murderous lying newlywed get?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jordan, did you kill Cody? Did you mean to push your husband off a cliff, Jordan?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A deal has just been struck in which she has agreed to plead guilty to murder two.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jordan, what`s your defense?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And pushed him off a cliff.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want justice for Cody.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jordan Graham is a calculating killer.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To escape their eight-day-old marriage.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She admitted to pushing him off this cliff.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But a regretful bride planned to kill.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: In return for the killer bride`s plea deal, prosecutors dropped murder one that could have sent her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So what kind of sentence is she facing now? Well, it`s a huge range. The guidelines are very fluid. It could be anywhere from 19 years to life in prison. She`s going to be sentenced in March. After uttering the word "guilty" in court, the judge asked Jordan to finally tell the truth about what really happened on that cliff. And Jordan said, quote, "I wasn`t thinking of where we were. It was a reckless act. I just pushed." Here is my rant, people. This girl is still lying through her teeth, even after pleading guilty. I do not believe for one second that she wasn`t thinking. Quite the opposite. I believe she planned and plotted her husband Cody`s death, and then staged an elaborate cover-up. On the very day he died Cody turned down invitations from friends, telling them, "Oh, my wife has a big surprise for me." I think Jordan lured her groom to the cliff`s edge to deliver that big surprise, a deadly shove off the cliff, 200 feet down. In my book, that`s first-degree. Premeditated murder. Given that, this woman got the deal of the century. So do you think she got away with premeditated murder? Call me: 1- 877-JVM-SAYS, 1-877-586-7297. Straight out to CNN correspondent Kyung Lah from Missoula, Montana. Kyung, you were in court for all the action. Tell us about the emotional reaction in court when this Jordan Graham, this bride, pled guilty to murder two.</s>KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, remember, this is quite the about face. Throughout the week, the attorneys, the defense attorneys had been arguing that she simply did not mean to do this, that this was an accident and that no one actually saw her doing this, that no one was there other than the bride and the groom. And so that was their point. That was what they kept arguing. But this is certainly an about face. Everyone in the courtroom was simply surprised. It was unexpected. And so when that was announced, then Jordan Graham got up. She faced the judge, and then she said that single word, "guilty." And then you could feel the ripple through the courtroom, Jane. You saw her -- Cody`s mother. She was sitting right in front of me. She crumpled. A female relative sitting next to Cody`s mother, you know, dropped. She was listening to the judge through, like, a hearing device, dropped it and said, "She pled guilty." She was crying. Cody`s friends standing up and nodding in satisfaction, Jane, as she was cuffed and led away by U.S. marshals.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: So let me get this. You say there`s a very emotional reaction. Cody is the groom, the dead man. Was there approval of the deal or outrage, like "Oh my God! She got away with something"?</s>LAH: No, certainly what everyone felt, at least the friends that I was right near and his mother, it looked like there was palpable relief. They are very, very pleased. At least at the point that the decision was made inside that courtroom, they looked very relieved. They looked very satisfied. And one of Cody`s friends, as he was walking out, we asked him, "Do you have anything to say?" He says, "It`s in God`s hands now." And so they certainly feel like this is at least closure in some measure.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I`m glad they feel that way. I am not satisfied, however. I mean, this is -- it`s such a plot. It`s out of a bad movie. Cops found what looked like a black cloth near Cody`s body. It has been described as a blindfold. A blindfold. Prosecutors suspect Jordan blindfolded her husband, and then said, "Hey, honey, I`ve got a big surprise for you. Hasta la vista, baby," 200 feet off the cliff to his death. If that`s true, that is premeditation right there. Of course, the bride`s attorneys argue the blindfold theory wasn`t true, but Cody`s friends made up their minds.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want them to do the right thing. I want justice for Cody. He didn`t deserve whatever end she gave him. He never earned anything that Jordan did to him.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Lisa Bloom, legal analyst, Avvo.com, is this justice, or did she essentially get away with something because she`s not found guilty of murder one, premeditated murder? She`s found guilty of murder two. She pleaded to murder two, which is precisely not premeditation.</s>LISA BLOOM, LEGAL ANALYST, AVVO.COM: Jane, you make a very powerful case for first-degree murder and for premeditation. And it`s not as though the state had to wait a long time to bring this thing to trial. They were already in trial. They were about to go into closing arguments. You know, why not let the jury decide? I find the timing especially very, very odd. I mean, what was it about this particular moment where all of a sudden the state said, "You know what? We`ve got to do a plea deal"?</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I think it`s the Casey Anthony effect, frankly. And I`ll go to you, Sierra Elizabeth. You never know -- You`re an attorney. You never know what the outcome is going to be. This became a high-profile case. Just because it`s such a freaky story. The nation started listening to it. And that means that everybody`s careers are on the line. And so these prosecutors know, even if they have an open and shut case, look at the Casey Anthony case. She walked. Why not go for something that`s, you know, a solid deal? You know she`s going to get time, as opposed to seeing her waltz out of there a free woman?</s>SIERRA ELIZABETH, ATTORNEY: Absolutely, Jane. I think that the defendant in this case is as disgusting, as we all do. But this is a great result. Listen, the jurors get to go home to their families. It`s the holiday season. We have the courtroom open for other cases that need to be tried. And the family in this case is going to get justice. So I think this is a great result. Let`s get it over with. She was going to be found guilty. And she still faces up to life in prison. So I agree totally with this result by the state.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, listen, Robi Ludwig, psychotherapist, boy, do we need you tonight. Let`s take a look at the wedding video. According to friends, Jordan and Cody did not have sex before they got married. I guess you might say this is an argument for premarital sex. Cody told friends that, when they finally did have sex after they got married, it was awkward. OK. You know what else is awkward? This first dance at the wedding. You`ve got to take a look at this. There`s something odd about the entire relationship. I don`t know. Is this -- it just doesn`t look -- it looks like something is off from the get-go. Why on earth would you marry somebody that you don`t want to marry? And then why would you eight days later push them off a cliff? I mean, it makes the runaway bride look good.</s>ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: It absolutely does. And listen, we know that many people get married, not for quite the right reasons, and I wonder when I look at this woman, if she felt pressure somehow. Either pressure from society, culturally, from her family, that this was the next step that she needed to take. She needed to get married in order to have some kind of family approval or status. But she really didn`t want to be with this man and didn`t know how to get out of it. It seems like this is a woman who really wanted her husband out of the way. And the only way he could really be out of the way and she gain acceptance is if he`s dead. And he was very young. So it didn`t look like he was dying naturally any time soon.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: It`s better to leave them at the altar than leave them at the bottom of a cliff.</s>LUDWIG: Absolutely.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`re just getting started. Phone calls coming in. More on the other side. And the song, the wedding song that will blow your mind.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Johnson plunged to his death off a steep cliff at Glacier National Park. Graham`s lawyers called the death an accident, says the couple was fighting on the cliff, Johnson grabbed her. She pushed, and he fell to his death. The prosecutors have a different version. They say Graham wanted out of her marriage and plotted to kill her new husband.