Renisha McBride Murder Trial Opens
JEAN CASAREZ, GUEST HOST: We do begin with breaking news tonight in the Renisha McBride trial, the 19-year-old gunned down on a porch after crashing her car and making her way to a neighborhood home for help. According to prosecutors, the home owner, who fired first that fatal shot - - his actions were unnecessary, unjustified, unreasonable, the prosecution said. The defendant, 55-year-old Theodore Wafer. He claims self-defense, that he was in fear for his life. Now a jury is set to decide, self- defense or murder.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Defendant came to the door with a shotgun.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard</s>OPERATOR: You just shot</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wafer`s accused of shooting teenager Renisha McBride in the face on his front porch.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His first thought was to bring the gun, not call for help or not answer the door.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When 19-year-old Renisha McBride was shot and killed.</s>CASAREZ: And we go to Dallas, Texas. A 10-year-old boy already battling Asperger syndrome, forced to live off military rations of just bread and water. He is locked in his room and starved to death by his stepmother, going from 90 pound to 60 pounds. The big question tonight is why.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: According to police records, her stepson, Jonathan, was on military rations of food and water. She told investigators that he was really thin and unable to walk at times due to the loss of strength. He lost his life, police say, at the hands of the people he trusted.</s>CASAREZ: Airbnb has become one of the most popular travel sites, providing low-cost vacation homes. But now an Airbnb host says she cannot get rid of the guests vacationing in her Palm Springs condo. They have become squatters who will not leave or pay up. But you`ll be shocked to learn California law -- it`s on their side.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A nightmare for one woman.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Corey Shagle (ph) says she rented out her stunning 600-square-foot condo in Palm Springs, California, through that popular web site, Airbnb. She says the guy who rented it won`t leave.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He`s basically turned into a squatter and actually knows his tenant rights.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And is threatening to sue her.</s>CASAREZ: And that was video you were watching from ABC`s "Good Morning America." A Florida pharmacist busted in a $40 million illegal prescription drug ring gets house arrest, but (ph) because he`s so (ph) obese for prison. But now he wants the judge to give him another break. Good evening. I`m Jean Casarez, in for Nancy Grace. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. We begin with the Renisha McBride trial, the 19-year-old gunned down on the porch of a neighborhood home. Was it self-defense or was it murder? Roop Raj -- out to Roop Raj, a reporter with WJBK television. You are in court now for this trial. You were in court today. The trial is under way. Tell us the latest from the courtroom, and start with the two sides because there are two distinct sides in this trial.</s>ROOP RAJ, WJBK (via telephone): You mentioned one of them, Jean. One of them is, Was it reasonable? Was it OK for Theodore Wafer to open fire on somebody when he felt like his life was threatened? The prosecution will tell you no way. That`s not something that should have happened. But the dramatic beginning actually came in court this week, with Cheryl Carpenter (ph). She`s the attorney for Theodore Wafer, the man at the center of this. She was incredibly dramatic. She was lowering, raising her voice, trying to get into the mind of Wafer, trying to bring the jurors into the mind of Wafer. In fact, her first comment was, you know, we finally get to hear Wafer`s side because so many people had heard from Renisha`s family about that fateful night in November. You know, the most dramatic part was what Wafer must have been thinking when the door was being banged on. That attorney, Ms. Carpenter, actually lowered her voice, and then brought it back up to say, "Bang, bang, bang, bang" on the front door, the side door, back to the front door. All he could see, she described, was a shadowy figure. He thought there was more than one person out there. He ended up crawling on his knees, searching for his cell phone. The question, of course, that everybody had been asking is, why didn`t he call 911? Well, this attorney said the reason, he was on his knees searching for the cell phone, couldn`t find it, and ultimately grabbed the shotgun, ending her life. Prosecutor Danielle Hagman (ph) -- she wanted to paint the picture about what Renisha would have been going through at the same time. She had jut crashed her car, was looking for some help, had been wandering for blocks for hours. Her mother took to the stand, too. It was pretty dramatic...</s>CASAREZ: You know, Roop, let me ask you...</s>RAJ: ... inside the courtroom</s>CASAREZ: ... this, because you are painting the picture inside that courtroom. And I think we want to go inside that house. We want to go on the front porch. We want to feel what Renisha McBride may have been feeling that night after she got into this car wreck, hitting a tree and a car and just trying to find her way home. I understand in the prosecution`s opening that they put a picture for the jury and the courtroom to see of a smiling Renisha McBride, and then next to it, her body?</s>RAJ: Absolutely. The first lines out of the prosecutor`s mouth, the assistant Wayne County prosecutor, Danielle Hagman, was, This was Renisha McBride before November 2nd. And then she clicked, and the next slide was Renisha McBride`s body, laying flat with a bullet in her head. And then she said, This was Renisha McBride after November 2nd. What happened in between that is what...</s>CASAREZ: So what was the reaction in the courtroom...</s>RAJ: ... she was -- sorry?</s>CASAREZ: Roop, what was the reaction in the courtroom at that pivotal emotional moment?</s>RAJ: You know, it was one of those surprise moments. I don`t think so soon in the testimony, anybody expected to see such dramatic pictures. And it has not lost its drama since. Day two, just today, earlier, jurors -- some of them actually looked exasperated after they saw pictures of the closeup of Renisha McBride after she had been shot in the head, shot in the face. That picture was also shown. No shortage of gratuitous pictures. The prosecution is trying to make a point. This, according to them, was a brutal murder.</s>CASAREZ: That`s right, and the burden is on the prosecution. But yet this is, Matt Zarrell, a case of self-defense. That is what the defense is saying. Now, there was something in regard to the 911 call that came out because this was the defendant`s voice shortly after he shot and killed Renisha McBride. And that`s not an issue here. He shot and killed her. He`s saying he did. What was that 911 call that came shortly after the shot?</s>MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): Yes, so one of the witnesses that testified today was actually the 911 dispatcher who took the call. The call came in about 4:42 AM. And Wafer tells him, quote, "I just shot somebody on my front porch with my shotgun, banging on my door." Now, it`s interesting to note, though, Jean, that he told them something slightly different afterwards, when the dispatcher called back. Unfortunately, it wasn`t recorded, but the dispatcher testified that Wafer said that he shot by accident and that he thought the gun was unloaded.</s>CASAREZ: OK. Matt Zarrell, let`s keep going with this. I want you to take us into that home based on the evidence that we`ve heard. It`s 4:00 o`clock in the morning. The defendant had fallen asleep downstairs in his chair, right? So he`s woken up? What does he hear?</s>ZARRELL: Yes. Exactly. He is woken up at about 4:30 AM when he hears a bang, bang, bang on the side door of the house where he lives. Then he hears another sequence of bangs at the front door. He searches for his phone. He can`t find it. He turns off the TV. Now, this is important, Jean, because prosecutors have said before trial that one of the reasons that Renisha McBride went to the home is because she saw -- she may have seen the light from the TV and thought someone that was home that could help her. He turns the TV off, and he`s crawling on the floor, as he claims that he`s hearing banging on the front and side doors, leading him to believe there were several people. He looks through a peephole and claims to see a shadowy figure coming off the porch. Banging continues. He feels like they`re coming to get him. He reaches and grabs his shotgun, he opens the front door because he doesn`t know what else to do. And he sees a shadowy figure less than two feet away coming at him from the side, and he shot.</s>CASAREZ: All right, Dwane Cates, defense lawyer joining us tonight out of Los Angeles -- there are always bad facts that come out for one side or the other. The bad fact that I see for this defendant right here is he opened the door. If he`s crawling around on the floor in fear and he hears what he believes may be more than one person banging on multiple doors in his home, yes, he could be scared for his life. But Dwane Cates, how can you reasonably say that you then open up the door?</s>DWANE CATES, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, Jean, he didn`t have a duty to retreat. He didn`t have a duty to hide in his house. He can open his door and defend his house if he feels that there are people coming to get him. He`s armed. And so he opens the door. There`s repeated attempts. Remember, there`s not just one attempt. And it`s several different doors they`re banging on. So he feels that he can`t just wait in his house for them to come get him. So he`s being proactive, and he`s going to eliminate the threat that`s coming to his house. And that`s what he did. That`s why he opened the door, because he thought that they were coming in.</s>CASAREZ: But Kelly Saindon...</s>CATES: Not that they were just outside...</s>CASAREZ: ... former prosecutor joining us tonight out of Chicago, I still can`t wrap my head around that if you are scared and you believe someone`s breaking in, that you open the door and you make it, in essence, that much easier for them? Because we`re looking at whether there`s an imminent threat of death, that he believes there is. And if he`s locked inside his home, where is the imminent threat of death at that point?</s>KELLY SAINDON, FMR. PROSECUTOR: That is 100 percent a bad fact for the defense. That is a prosecutor`s dream because you`re saying that he became the aggressor, that he had an intent to inflict bodily harm when he opened the door and pulled the trigger, that he knew he was creating more problems than fixing anything. He could have hunkered down, he could have waited, he could have looked for his cell phone, he could have gotten in a closet, sat in a corner with the shotgun. Instead, he decided to become the aggressor. And that`s why the prosecutors are really going to hammer that and make sure the jury understands he had a variety of options and he picked an aggressive option. Therefore, that`s why he`s being charged with intent to harm and/or kill.</s>CASAREZ: You know, let`s look, Rene Sandler, who is joining us from Washington -- the devil`s in the details here because I just want to feel that he is scared. He believes someone is breaking into his home. He has the gun. He opens the door. How would you as the defense attorney justify that he`s opening the door? The defense attorney in this trial is saying he didn`t have anything else that he could do, so he opened the door?</s>RENE SANDLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Look, he heard sounds that he couldn`t discern. He heard them in two different directions. He`s looking for his cell phone. He grabs his shotgun. He`s scared. You know, thought process at that moment, when your heart`s racing, you`re scared, you`re fearful -- it doesn`t make a lot of sense as we sit and look back on it. In the moment, this man did what he thought was reasonable under the circumstances. And so you started the show by saying we need to go through what the victim was feeling on the front porch. We need to go inside that home to the recliner where he was sitting, what he heard, how he could hear the sounds, and what he was thinking because this is going to turn on his state of mind.</s>CASAREZ: Extremely important, his state of mind because that`s what self-defense is all about.</s>SANDLER: Exactly.</s>CASAREZ: And in the state of Michigan, as in many states, the burden has been thrust on the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this was not self-defense. And that is not as easy as you might think it is.</s>SANDLER: That`s right.</s>CASAREZ: To go back out to Roop Raj, who is joining us from Detroit, Michigan. He`s a reporter for WJBK. Let`s talk a little bit more about the victim here because we have shown that she was in a car accident, that we believe that she was just trying to find her way home. But she`d been drinking that night, and she`d also been doing some drugs, right?</s>RAJ: You know, I was surprised that the prosecution opened up its argument yesterday by talking about how much she did drink. That was the opening statement by the prosecutor just yesterday, painting a picture of a disoriented and perhaps confused young lady, who is angry, upset at her mother when she first left the house that night, and then went on to play drinking games with friends, and from there, proceeded to drive. Now, here`s the point at which today comes about. Today, they talked about what was her state of mind when she got out of that car after getting in that accident. Not only did she sideswipe a car and knock into a tree, causing, obviously, damage to the front end of the car, she was bleeding. Clearly, she was disoriented from that. But think for a moment about what the prosecution -- what the defense has been talking about, which is her blood alcohol level, according to investigators, three times the legal limit at the time. And you know what? The family -- they don`t like it when we talk about that, and I can understand why. It obviously is not fun to listen to and it`s not a pleasing part of the story. But that is part of the story that came up in court today.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is awoken.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just shot somebody on my front porch with a shotgun, banging on my door</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has said that he shot by accident.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s no evidence of any prying. There`s no evidence of any kicking. There`s no evidence of any breaking.</s>CASAREZ: So the focus at this point is on Theodore Wafer. Who is he? He`s the man you`re looking at right there. He`s the defendant in court facing life in prison, a home owner that had a shotgun and decided to shoot when he says he believed someone was breaking into his home. Well, that person was a 19-year-old female, Renisha McBride, who lost her life on the front porch of this man`s home. And joining us tonight is a spokesperson for Renisha McBride and her family. Ron Scott is joining us. He is the co-founder for Peace Zones for Life. Thank you, sir, for joining us. This young woman, 19 years old, still a teenager, she lived at home with her mother. She had seen her mother that night before she went out with friends. Tell us a little bit about Renisha.</s>RON SCOTT, FAMILY SPOKESMAN (via telephone): Renisha worked for Ford Motor company with a contract organization. She was in school, you know, loved puppies, loved to play with, you know, and hang out with her family. And like a number of 19-year-olds, occasionally, she did some things that are not the best in terms of discretion, like drinking. I think many of us have done that. But that`s no reason to criminalize her.</s>CASAREZ: She`s a very, very pretty young lady. And this trial is under way now. We want to take you into that courtroom and have you listen to some testimony from police sergeant in regard to dashcam video. Watch this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the gun discharged.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like it`s a neighbor girl or something.</s>CASAREZ: OK, Dwane Cates, defense attorney, this defendant here immediately called 911 once he found his phone. It was in his pants pocket, which was in the bathroom because, remember it was 4:00 o`clock in the morning and he was asleep in the chair. So he calls 911. They take him out to the squad car. And that`s what you just heard right there on dashcam video. Dwane Cates, what does the defense have to show this jury and make this jury believe so that he`s acquitted.</s>CATES: Well, first of all, he has an absolute right to open that front door and be armed, do (ph) it (ph). He has an absolute right to take an aggressive stance when somebody`s trying to break in your house. I guarantee you, you come at my house at 4:00 o`clock in the morning, it`s -- you know, there`s going to be a problem.</s>CASAREZ: You know, I know he has a right, Dwane...</s>CATES: No, as far as the...</s>CASAREZ: Dwane, I know he has...</s>CATES: What?</s>CASAREZ: ... a right. But in the eyes of the jury, will they say he`s not afraid if he opens the door?</s>CATES: Well, he`s not afraid because he`s armed because he has -- because he`s trying to eliminate the threat before they come in the house and get him. He`s being proactive about -- about what he -- what he perceives and believes is an intruder that`s trying to get in his house at 4:00 o`clock in the morning. You know, as far as the statements go, you got to understand it`s 4:00 o`clock in the morning. He just shot somebody on his front porch. I mean, it`s a chaotic -- his mind has got to be racing. I mean, that explains the statements.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Renisha McBride`s life ended here on this front porch.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was 4:42 in the morning. The blast hit McBride in the face and killed her. The defense is expected to argue that Wafer thought someone was breaking in.</s>CASAREZ: I want to go straight out to Matt Zarrell because the facts in this case are critically important, evidentiary facts, facts on the forensics. I want to ask you about this front door, the screen door because the screen door stayed locked the whole time. The defendant opened the inside door, screen door locked. I want to know what fingerprints, Matt Zarrell, were found on that front door because if she`s trying to break in, I want to see fingerprints.</s>ZARRELL: Well, that`s one thing that the defense actually made a point on is that the fingerprints were not taken from the screen door that night. The police officer testified about that. But Jean, the screen door`s pivotal because the defense is saying that Renisha had been banging on the door so strongly that it knocked the screen door insert out of place. The state says that the rip in the screen door is from the shotgun going through the screen door and into the victim`s face.</s>CASAREZ: All right. To Rene Sandler, just very quickly. They`re going to have to have screen door experts take the stand right here...</s>SANDLER: Exactly. Exactly.</s>CASAREZ: ... because the jury`s going to want to know, is this from this young woman banging on this door so hard that the screen gets dislodged from the frame, or is it solely because of the shotgun shell?</s>SANDLER: Critical piece of evidence, expert-driven in terms of the analysis of that evidence and how a jury interprets it. But I actually think that the opening of the door with the locked screen door is a strong fact for the defense. It shows fear. It shows a hesitation. It shows that something was there that scared him, and he reacted. So I actually think it`s a good fact for the defense.</s>CASAREZ: All right. We`ve got the 911 call that this defendant made right after he found his phone, which was almost immediately after he shot Renisha McBride. Let`s listen.</s>OPERATOR: 911. What`s your emergency?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I just shot somebody on my front porch with a shotgun, banging on my door. 911</s>OPERATOR: What`s your address?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My address is</s>OPERATOR: OK, what city are you in?</s>OPERATOR: What city are you in?</s>CASAREZ: All right, Bethany Marshall, this defendant was asleep on the couch when he was woken up by this banging on the door. Being asleep in the middle of the night, could that have affected at all his state of mind one way or the other to be reasonable or not to believe that somebody`s breaking in the house?</s>BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Jean, of course. I once had this happen to me. I was asleep in the middle of the night. I was in my middle 20s. A drunk neighbor tried to get in through my front door. I was so terrified, I did not believe that I had time to call 911 and wait for the police to come. I thought this person would come in and kill me before I could do anything. Now, unlike a man who goes to the front door with a shotgun, I jumped out my back window naked and ran barefoot to a neighbor`s house to call the police. So I think the opening of the door speaks to a very fearful state of mind, where he felt that he had to do something, rather than just sit and wait.</s>CASAREZ: A 10-year-old Dallas boy already battling Asperger`s syndrome is forced to live off only bread and water. He`s locked in his room and he`s starved to death. And tonight police say it is at the hands of his evil stepmother.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Jonathan Ramsey`s grandfather went to Dallas Police after not being allowed to see his grandson for 14 months.</s>ED RAMSEY, 10-YEAR-OLD BOY`S PATERNAL GRANDFATHER: I wanted to see my grandson.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: His father and stepmother kept him giving excuses. Alleged abuse began. He put him in a sleeping bag and dumped him in Ellis County.</s>CASAREZ: All right. Let`s go straight out to the reporter for the "Dallas Morning News," Tasha Thaperas. So all of a sudden this little boy is just gone. He`s missing? Start from the beginning.</s>TASHA THAPERAS, REPORTER, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Well, his parents, Elizabeth and Aaron Ramsey, had kept him locked in a bedroom for about four months, feeding him very little food, basically bread and water. After he died, they wrapped him in a blue sleeping bag and drove his body out to Ellis County where they dumped him.</s>CASAREZ: But why? Tasha, why?</s>THAPERAS: Yes.</s>CASAREZ: I mean, why would they feed him just bread and water?</s>THAPERAS: Well, during police interviews, his father said that the boy had punched Elizabeth Ramsey in the stomach, causing her to lose or rather miscarry triplets that she said she was carrying at the time. And he said that he was trying to teach the boy a lesson and that he never meant for him to die.</s>CASAREZ: So Justin Freiman, this little boy went from 90 pounds to 60 pounds to teach him a lesson. Now talk to us about that finally this little, little boy, 60 pounds, his father walks in and finds his body motionless?</s>JUSTIN FREIMAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: That`s right, Jean, motionless, foaming from the mouth even. They take the body -- the father washes the body, clothes the body, puts the child`s favorite T-shirt on, then puts the child in this sleeping bag with a drier sheet for the smell. And then brings the body to a vacant home next door where it stays for a few days before it`s finally moved again to a creek and not found for close to a year.</s>CASAREZ: And here`s the thing that we`re learning, Justin. We`re learning that they took this little boy out of school saying he was going to be transferred to another school. They never transfer him to another school, another jurisdiction. No one ever tries to find out if he`s actually going to another school. And that`s how the system really failed this little boy. We`ve got a special guest today. This is this little boy, the little boy you`re looking at right here, his grandpa. His grandpa who wanted to know where he was, wanted to see him, but was given every excuse in the world. Ed Ramsey, thank you for joining us tonight. I first want to ask you, what were you told when you said I want to see my grandson? I want to see Jonathan?</s>RAMSEY: Numerous reasons or excuses, including that he was with a Boy Scout outing, he had school activities, he was with family, Elizabeth`s family. Many, many different reasons or excuses.</s>CASAREZ: And so how long was it before you realized something isn`t right here and you called police?</s>RAMSEY: The first time that I tried to have contact with them probably was in mid to late January of 2011 after they had moved to Dallas. And the last time that I tried to make contact was in March 2012, and various times throughout the year.</s>CASAREZ: So you are the one that called police to report that something is not right here. And it went from there. Everyone, we`ve got a very special guest also today who is the prosecutor on this case, Eren Price is joining us from the Dallas County District Attorney`s Office in Dallas, Texas. Thank you so much. This must have been a very difficult case for you to learn the evidence on, to prosecute. But I want to ask you, how did the case first come into your hands? Was it because of the call the grandfather made?</s>EREN PRICE, ASST. D.A., DALLAS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY`S OFFICE: Absolutely. Because Jonathan`s grandfather was tired of accepting the excuses. The Dallas Police Department received his call and started the investigation from there.</s>CASAREZ: So where was this little boy`s body found?</s>PRICE: He was found eventually on the side of the road, but in a creek in a rural part of another county.</s>CASAREZ: And when he was found, was there any tissue left or DNA analysis? Was it just skeletal remains?</s>PRICE: Sadly there was DNA analysis performed but it was not from a tissue sample. We basically were able to recover his skeleton.</s>CASAREZ: So you could never determine a cause of death then, your medical examiner.</s>PRICE: The medical examiner was able to call the cause of death a homicide by considering the confessions that the Dallas Police Department obtained from both the mother and the stepfather. So using that information, the evidence that they recovered in the skeleton was consistent. But basically there were no medical findings.</s>CASAREZ: And of course, the stepmother and father, biological father, by the way, said that they starved him to death. Here`s the question that everybody wants to know, Miss Price. What was the motive here? Why? Because I don`t know if you believe or not that this little boy hit her stomach and so she had to have a miscarriage, right?</s>PRICE: No.</s>CASAREZ: So that was just a cop out. Why did they want this little boy gone?</s>PRICE: I don`t know. I mean, you know, I`ve prosecuted child abuse cases for a long time now. And I frequently say that the day I understand the why, the why people do what they do to children is the day that I need to find another job. I never know why.</s>CASAREZ: Yes.</s>PRICE: And they both gave different reasons and different excuses. And, you know, both of his caretakers, his father and his stepmother, rarely tell the same story twice. So they gave different justifications for why this boy was tortured the way that he was. I suspect we will never really know the reason why.</s>CASAREZ: Yes. And I guess in the broad sense we can say they didn`t want this little boy to live. They didn`t want this little boy. To medical examiner Dr. Panchali Dhar who is joining us from New York. When they found this little boy he was foaming from the mouth, when his biological father found him. What does that indicate to you?</s>DR. PANCHALI DHAR, PHYSICIAN: That can indicate that he had a seizure recently and that would lead to foaming from the mouth, or maybe he had a lung injury from a beating which could have caused foaming in the mouth. So there could be various reasons that there was foaming and saliva accumulating in the mouth area.</s>CASAREZ: Bethany Marshall, we`ll never know why. But this little boy went through hell, absolute hell. As he was being starved to death, psychologically what did he go through?</s>BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST, AUTHOR OF "DEALBREAKERS": Well, enormous suffering, and not being sure whether he was a bad little boy or his parents were bad. You know what, Jean, I disagree with everybody. I think we do know why parents do this. He was a child with disabilities. They resented his needs. They were malicious sadists. They didn`t want him around. They wanted the relationship primarily between the two of them. They needed somewhere to direct all of their hate. They were out of control, couldn`t control themselves, and there was pleasure in starving the child. They felt he was bad when he needed food. Neglect is a form of abuse, and when parents starve a child it`s because they resent that the child has a need. Whether it`s a need to go to school, the need to eat. We hear all these stories where parents put padlocks on refrigerators because they don`t want their children to eat. So I think it`s just resentment, malice, sadism and not wanting him around.</s>CASAREZ: Airbnb. It`s one of the most popular travel sites. But now an Air B and B host says she can`t get rid of the guest vacationing in her Palm Springs condo. They have become squatters who will not leave. Why? Because of California law?</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A standoff for one woman who rented out her home using the popular Web site Airbnb.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She described the whole situation as a nightmare.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Cory Tschogl says she rented out her stunning 600- square-foot condo in Palm Springs, California, but now more than 30 days later she says the guy who rented it won`t leave.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The guest has refused to leave. He`s basically turned into a squatter and actually knows his tenant rights. He started sending her threatening text.</s>CASAREZ: And that was video from ABC "Good Morning, America." This sounds like an absolute nightmare. I want to go out to the "San Francisco Chronicle" staff writer Carolyn Said who joins us. Start from the beginning. Because I want people to really understand this Web site, what they do and what`s happened now.</s>CAROLYN SAID, STAFF WRITER, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: Sure. So Airbnb, as you said, is wildly popular. It is a marketplace where people can rent out a room in their home or their entire home on a temporary basis to travelers. It has over 600,000 listings worldwide in something like 190 countries. And many people have been using it successfully for many years. It has hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital backing and the company is valued at $10 billion with a B, more than Hyatt Hotels and many other large hotel chains.</s>CASAREZ: So the owner of this condo in Palm Springs used this Web site, right? And she rented it out to what she believed was a very reputable and would follow the rules, right? This renter. What happened?</s>SAID: And then the nightmare guests arrived. They asked to rent it for 44 days and they moved in, in late May. On the very first day things started to go a little funny. The guests said they didn`t like the water, that the tap water was cloudy. And she explained, well, that`s the reality in the desert, the water is hard water with minerals. And they also didn`t like that it was a gated community and had to buzz to let in their pizza delivery guy.</s>CASAREZ: Right. So Clark Goldband, let`s take it from there. This man`s name is Maksym Pashanin, Maksym Pashanin, who is the renter. And suddenly she realizes that he`s not paying the rent.</s>CLARK GOLDBAND, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER, COVERING STORY: Well, that`s right, Jean. And according to reports, this woman sees, she believes that look, there might be some problems here. And she says she offers a refund to this gentleman. But he complains and says it`s not good enough. Then the woman starts to threaten after the time has expired. Look, I`m going to cut the power, I`m going to cut the water. The gentleman, according to text messages and published reports, says, wait a second. I make between $1,000 around $7,000 a day. You can`t cut anything. I know my rights. And, Jean, the reality of the situation is, no matter what side you`re on in this story, in California if you`re there over 30 days, and remember this was for 44 days, if you`re anywhere for over 30 days, you are on a month-to-month lease and formal eviction proceedings must take place. This could take three to six months, Jean, and cost thousands of dollars.</s>CASAREZ: And you know, this lady named Cory, who is the owner, her father lives in the area. And she purchased this condo so she could be close to her father that`s getting older. And she decided to rent it out for a few months, 30 days, so that she could get some income. And now suddenly she can`t even go visit her father because this guy`s in here and he says I`m not moving out. To Kelly Saindon, as a lawyer, this is California law. Where are the property rights that this woman should have?</s>KELLY SAINDON, FAMILY LAW ATTORNEY: She doesn`t have any. That`s the problem.</s>CASAREZ: Yes.</s>SAINDON: Once she agreed to get in this situation, she now has to go through all the pros and all the cons. So she has a great tenant, she gets the good side. She has a bad tenant, now she has to go through eviction laws. So it`s the flipside of the coin where she loses and she should know that and everyone that gets involved with bnb should know the state`s specific laws before. Because this is what you could be facing.</s>CASAREZ: And there`s a bigger question, too, with all of these Web sites, is it better just to go the old-fashioned way rather than to use a Web site? It is time now for tonight`s CNN Heroes.</s>LEELA HAZZAH, CNN HERO: Sixty years ago, there were probably half a million lions in Africa. Today there`s less than 30,000 lions in all of Africa. If we don`t do something soon there are going to be no lions left maybe in 10, 15 years, who knows. I spent a year living in the Maasai community to understand why people were killing lions. It brings a huge amount of prestige to the warrior. And they were killing lions in retaliation for livestock that were killed. They started opening up and telling me stories. That`s when it clicked. If we want to conserve wildlife we have to integrate communities. Our organization hires Maasai warriors and it converts lion killers into Lion Guardians.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (Through Translator): Before I became a Lion Guardian, I killed eight lions. I realized that I don`t benefit from killing lions.</s>HAZZAH: When we first hire Lion Guardians they don`t know how to read or write. We provide all of that literacy training and technical training. They track lions so they can keep very accurate ecological data on lion movement. The Lion Guardian model is founded on Maasai cultural values. And it is just being tweaked a bit for the 21st century. We never really even imagined that we could transform these lion killers to the point where they would risk their own lives to stop other people from killing lions. When I first moved here, I never heard lions roaring. But now I hear lions roaring all the time.</s>CASAREZ: A Florida pharmacist is busted in a $40 million illegal prescription drug ring. He gets house arrest because he is too obese to go to prison and he is still asking the judge for more special treatment.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: 551-pound former pharmacist who`s under house arrest for his part in a massive scheme to illegally distribute prescription drugs has gone back to court asking to have his sentence reduce. According to his attorney, 70-year-old Steven Goodman is so ill and so obese that he really can`t leave his home, so the house arrest restrictions are actually unnecessary. Should Goodman`s sentence be lifted because of his weight?</s>CASAREZ: All right. Let`s go out to Meredyth Censullo, she is an investigative reporter in Tampa, Florida. First of all, he`s a pharmacist. It`s a very respectable profession. What did he do to get home confinement?</s>MEREDYTH CENSULLO, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, he`s accused or has been charged and found guilty of supplying more than one million oxycodone pills to this pill mill operation, so he was found guilty of that and sentenced to 30 months, but he`s allowed to do those 30 months in his home because, as you said, of his size. And he wanted that sentence reduced. He has about seven months left.</s>CASAREZ: You know, Michael Christian, he`s already getting a real big benefit for being able to have home confinement rather than being in prison, but I guess the prison believes it`s a benefit to them to have him at home.</s>MICHAEL CHRISTIAN, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Well, he just doesn`t fit in prison, Jean. That`s the problem. He can`t, for example, fit in a prison bed. He`s got a myriad of very expensive, I would think, health problems. And it would be the state`s burden to deal with those if he was in prison. So it was to his benefit and the state`s, I believe, for him to get home arrest.</s>CASAREZ: You know, Dr. Panchali Dhar, who is joining us, medical examiner, out of New York, I want to ask you. I want to you ask you. He is saying I want compassionate release because I`m so sick, I`m going to die in six to 10 months. How is that to be believed?</s>DHAR: OK, so my understanding is he`s 70 years old. He made it to the age of 70 and he`s 500 pounds, that`s pretty good. Most people who are 500 pounds never make it to the age of 70. So there`s hope there for him. Maybe he can get gastric banding or gastric sleeve and lose 100 pounds and go back to jail. Help us all.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A Florida man who is part of a multimillion dollar pill mill ring has asked the federal judge to lift his house arrest because he`s so fat he says he can`t leave home anyway. 70-year-old Steven Goodman, who weighs 551 pounds, argues that given his weight and poor health his sentence should be reduced, but will a judge agree?</s>CASAREZ: Out to Meredyth Censullo, investigative reporter out of Tampa. Here is what I`m confused about. He wants the compassionate release of being allowed to not have the home confinement, the seven months that`s left. But he says I`m so large, I`m not going to leave home anyway. But yet can`t he go to the doctor? Doesn`t he have to go to the doctor with all these health ills? And he wants to visit some relatives.</s>CENSULLO: Right. He`s allowed to go to the hospital, to religious ceremonies, and he also left his home actually to get married in the past two years. He wants, though, this last seven months available for him to make a trip, he says, to Ohio to say good-bye to family because he believes that he will die in the next six to 12 months because of his health conditions.</s>CASAREZ: So to Rene Sandler, defense lawyer, why can`t those relatives come to him?</s>RENE SANDLER, DEFENSE LAWYER: Well, you would think they can. I mean, it`s kind of a silly argument, it`s a bit inconsistent. I have to concede that. But it`s a reasonable request to make to sort of commute his sentence if there are certifications from doctors who are familiar with his care that can accurately and adequately provide to the court, you know, an end-of-life situation and that being imminent.</s>CASAREZ: Kelly Saindon, another thing they looked at is risks to the community. I mean, he`s got his networks. Why can`t he keep selling those pills illegally if he`s got seven months to live, make some money?</s>SAINDON: You know, arguably he can. And that`s something that they`re looking at. And this is sort of a nonsensical argument. So the fact it`s like I can`t be confined to my house under your guidance but I`m confined to my house because I`m so ill. Oh, but I need a trip. He doesn`t make sense and the judge is going to tell him to take a hike.</s>CASAREZ: All right. Thank you to all of our guests. Everybody, we remember American hero Marine Staff Sergeant Edgar Heredia, 28 years old from Houston, Texas. He was awarded the Purple Heart, the Combat Action Ribbon. He loved his Ford Mustang and his Harley Motorcycle. He named that Harley motorcycle Heather, by the way. He leaves behind his parents, Alex and Rosa, his brother, Sam. Edgar Heredia, an American hero. We`ve got a new photograph of Nancy`s son John David. He is on the beach. He is the sand castle king. Good for you. And here are the twins, John David and Lucy. They`re searching for pirate treasure. And it`s another day, another pirate kid day treasure hunt. For more pictures go to Nancygrace.com. Dr. Drew is coming up next. Good night, everybody, and thank you. END