Kendrick Johnson: What The Tapes Say
CUOMO: Now for a story CNN has been following from the beginning. Brand new evidence in the death of 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson. You remember his body was discovered at his school rolled up inside a gym mat. His death was ruled an accident, but his family suspected murder. Soon, details suggesting sloppy forensic work emerged. It was discovered that Kendrick's body had his internal organs removed and replaced by newspaper. CNN obtained surveillance videos from school cameras, and our Victor Blackwell has been going through them to see what he can find. Victor joins us now from the CNN center. Victor, you brought those surveillance videos to experts. Talk about what they found in that gym.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, three answers to the Johnsons and their attorney's questions. First, the Johnsons did not see a time stamp in any of the video to organize the hundreds of hours of video. Our expert found one. Also, the Johnsons and their attorneys were questioning the jumpy video. Now, our expert found that that's indicative of motion activated system. So, that was not indicative of editing. Also that single angle that showed where Kendrick Johnson was found dead, that image was blurred. The Johnsons thought that was done intentionally. Our expert said no. Now, answers to those questions, but he found an even bigger question.</s>GRANT FREDERICKS, CERTIFIED FORENSIC VIDEO ANALYST: There are four cameras in the gym that records motion from when the lights turn on in the morning until when the lights are turned off at night except for the area of interest.</s>BLACKWELL (voice-over): The moments before Kendrick Johnson enters the gym, look at what happens to the recordings from these four cameras in the gym. The time is recorded with the video. The first camera captures images from the start of the day until 12:04 p.m., then, nothing. It picks up again at 1:09 p.m. There's consistent surveillance from the second camera until 11:05 a.m., then it stops and picks up again more than two hours later at 1:15 p.m. The third camera also drops at 11:05 a.m., it picks up again at 1:16 p.m., and from the final camera, there's surveillance until 12:04 p.m., no recording for more than an hour, then it picks up again at 1:09 p.m.</s>FREDERICKS: I would absolutely expect there to be some record of that activity and we don't have any here.</s>BLACKWELL: Here's why Fredericks would have expected the motion activated system to record during that time. During that hour and five minutes, several students are seen walking into and out of the old gym from the surveillance camera just outside the gym door. We count seven male students, and three of them walk into the gym within three minutes prior to Kendrick Johnson walking in.</s>FREDERICKS: I can't tell you whether there was no information recorded in the digital video system or whether somebody made an error and didn't capture it or whether somebody just didn't provide it.</s>BLACKWELL (on-camera): We sent a long list of questions a week ago to attorneys for the school district, and the sheriff's office. No answer yet from the sheriff's office, but the attorney for the school district says no comment. However, that attorney has offered to make the hard drive, the original hard drive available to the court, Chris.</s>CUOMO: Well, that's key, Victor. I mean, each one of these discoveries, you have to follow them down the road and the question here, I guess will be, can they find this video that fills in the gaps, anything on that, any suggestion?</s>BLACKWELL: No guarantee, and Grant Fredericks, the expert you just heard from says that there's a possibility the video is gone forever. You know, this happened on January 10th and 11th. The attorney for the family didn't request that the hard drives being preserved until February 26th, more than 45 days later, and depending on the system's rotation, seven days, 15 days, 30 days, old information could have been recorded over long before that request came in, Chris.</s>CUOMO: All right, Victor, thank you so much for staying on the story. Certainly demands answers, way too many questions. At least, we're starting to find our way in a direction. Thank you very much -- Kate.</s>BLACKWELL: Sure.</s>KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Chris. It took him less than two seconds to reach the Kennedy's car during the presidential motorcade, but it took secret service agent, Clint Hill, 12 years to break his silence to "60 Minutes" about that fateful day in Dallas. Listen here.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You couldn't have gotten there. You don't, you surely don't have any sense of guilt about that?</s>CLINT HILL, SECRET SERVICE AGENT TO THE KENNEDYS: Yes, I certainly do. I have a great deal of guilt about that. Had I turned in a different direction, I'd have made it. That was my fault.</s>BOLDUAN: Wow. Now, on the 50th anniversary, Clint Hill has penned an insider account into the days before and after President Kennedy's assassination called "Five Days in November." Clint Hill, former secret service agent to the Kennedy family, is joining us now this morning. Mr. Hill, thank you so much for your time.</s>HILL: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.</s>BOLDUAN: Of course. So, 50 years to the day, do you still feel that sense of guilt?</s>HILL: Well, I have some sense of failure on my part because of the responsibility we were given to protect the president and we were unable to do so. The true sense of guilt has somewhat been alleviated and that's a bit helpful to me, especially since I've had the help of a young lady named Lisa McCubbon to write a couple books and the last one being "Five Days in November." That's given me a chance to kind of unload the baggage that I was holding deep within me and it's been beneficial, cathartic to help me a great deal.</s>BOLDUAN: Of course, no one would ever think that there was anything more that you could have done in those moments that no one could expect what happened. Fifty years later do you still remember it with the clarity like it was yesterday?</s>HILL: Yes, I do remember it, every moment of it, just like it just happened.</s>BOLDUAN: Can you walk us through what you saw? What was it from your perspective? What did you see that day as you were in Dallas near Dealey Plaza?</s>HILL: Well, I was on the car immediately behind the presidential vehicle on the left-hand side running board in the forward position. We had been scanning the area as we proceeded down the streets, and when we got to the corner of Houston and Elm, we had noticed that there was this building in front of us, some of the windows were open, but there was nothing unusual there. We had faced that same situation all the way up and down Main Street in Dallas. The crowds kind of dropped off there on Elm Street. But I was scanning to my left and all of a sudden, I heard this explosive noise over my right shoulder. I didn't recognize it is a shot immediately, but I knew something was wrong, because when I looked toward that noise, I only got as far as the presidential vehicle. I saw the president react. He grabbed at his throat, he moved to his left. I knew something was wrong, so I jumped and ran, trying to get up on the back of the presidential vehicle to form a shield or barrier behind president and Mrs. Kennedy to prevent anything further from happening.</s>BOLDUAN: And then when you saw the president's face, what did you see?</s>HILL: Well, just before I got to the car, there was a third shot that rang out, hit the president in the head, and when that happened, because it was so explosive and caused eruption of material out of his head, Mrs. Kennedy got up in the trunk trying to retrieve some of the material. I got up there and pushed her back into the back seat, and then the president's body fell to its left into her lap with his head, the right side of his face was up, and I could see his eyes were fixed. I could see through the skull area. The brain matter was gone. I assumed it was a fatal wound and that he was dead.</s>BOLDUAN: Do you remember what you were thinking in that moment when you saw what happened in front of you that had never happened before, no one would ever think that this could happen to any president especially someone as loved as him?</s>HILL: Well, my thought process immediately was let's get to a hospital just in case he can be resuscitated or revived, but I was sure that that would not be the case. I was very upset and -- but I had a job to do and I placed myself up in a position to prevent any further damage from being done because I had no idea if there were going to be more shots fired, but I assumed there would be but there were not.</s>BOLDUAN: And you saw the Kennedy family through their mourning even having to tell Robert Kennedy that his brother had died. You were assigned to Mrs. Kennedy's detail after the death of her husband. What was that like? How was she changed after that day, because you were in such close proximity?</s>HILL: Well, I stayed with her for a full year after the assassination. And the spark until her eyes was gone, that wonderful smile she had was very, very few times you ever saw it again. So she changed remarkably. She really wanted to do whatever she could to make sure people remembered her husband and worked to establish a library up in Boston, in his name. So her primary focus was making sure the children are OK and making sure she did whatever she could to help the president's memory be retained by as many people as possible.</s>BOLDUAN: And you did the very same. Clinton Hill, thank you for your service and thank you for your time this morning, a former secret service agent, also the author of "Five Days in November," on this 50th anniversary, thank you so much.</s>HILL: Thank you. It's been a pleasure to be here.</s>BOLDUAN: Thank you very much. Coming up next on "NEW DAY", a wreath laying ceremony is about to begin at Arlington National Cemetery to honor President Kennedy. We're going to take you to it live right after the break.