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AC 360 LATER

Remembering Nelson Mandela; Congress Reaches Budget Agreement; Nevada Family Rescued; NYPD Reveals New View of Kenya Mall Shooting; Newlywed's Lies Exposed at Murder Trial; Doctor: Family Rescued from Sub-Zero Conditions Doing Well

Aired December 10, 2013 - 22:00   ET

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


JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: There is breaking news from the Capitol tonight on a deal to head off another government shutdown and, everyone hopes, keep this economy moving. Details, though, could be an issue, as could getting it through Congress. We will have more on that shortly.

First, we have a story that's good news with no strings attached whatsoever, two adults and four children rescued after two days stranded in the bitter cold of northwest Nevada. That upside down in a ravine is their jeep which skidded off the road on Sunday in what for all intents and purposes were arctic conditions, 21 below.

We have a survival expert on the program to talk about how they made it and in a moment one of the rescuers. He and his partner were the first to reach the scene.

Before we do that, though, let's get the very latest from Stephanie Elam in Nevada.

Stephanie, we know the family was rescued earlier today. What's their condition right now?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we are hearing is that the family is resting comfortably. There was no frostbite issues. Apparently, the adults here did a good job of keeping these children warm. We hear that they started a fire outside of the car and that they were warming rocks and then bringing them into the car.

All of them resting well right now here in this hospital in Pershing County.

BERMAN: And this was a huge rescue effort with several hundred volunteers involved, not to mention people in the air as well. How exactly in the end were they found?

ELAM: It's pretty amazing how they were canvassing looking for this car.

What actually at the end helped them out is the fact that they were able to look at cell phone forensics. Some specialists in this area were able to ping where they last got a signal from their phones and were able to then change their search from air and from land about the same time. They said they were able to spot the car and able to rescue this family after two days in this bitter, bitter cold out here in northwestern Nevada.

BERMAN: That is simply astounding.

Stephanie Elam, thank you very much.

Stephanie is at the site, where we're expecting a news conference from doctors at the hospital where that family is. We will go back to that the second it happens to get the latest update on their condition.

In meantime, I want to go next to one of the rescuers, Chris Montes, who joins us by phone.

Chris, you were one of the first people to get to them. What kind of condition were they in when you first saw them?

CHRIS MONTES, RESCUER: Great. They were all in perfect condition.

BERMAN: Perfect condition. That must have been such a relief after this search that involved so many people for so long.

Tell me about the kids, ages 10, 4, 4, and 3. It must have been such an ordeal for them to go through this.

MONTES: They didn't seem too bothered. They were in good spirits. They just figured they were camping.

BERMAN: And what did they all say when they first saw you?

MONTES: They just -- the littlest girl started telling me about a cartoon that she was watching the other day. And the boys were just hanging out asking me if I knew their mom and dad.

BERMAN: Obviously deeply concerned about the ordeal that they'd been going through for awhile now. You do know this family, correct?

MONTES: Yes.

BERMAN: And do they know how to behave out in the outdoors, in the wilderness like this? Obviously, it seems they did almost everything right out there.

MONTES: Yes. Obviously, they knew what to do. They kept those kids safe for 48 hours in subzero temperatures.

BERMAN: Now, when you reached them, were they hungry at all? I understand there was a candy bar that you had or your team had with you that was passed around to just about everyone there.

MONTES: I gave the kids a granola bar. And they ate that. But they had food yesterday. They were just running out today.

BERMAN: When you were searching over the last day, how did you keep hope that you would find them? We have been talking about this since yesterday, 21 degrees below zero out there.

It seemed to so many people that the chances were for survival were so small. How did you maintain the hope?

MONTES: Oh, this is just a really tight-knit community. And everybody was involved. And nobody was going to give up until they were found, period.

BERMAN: And that sight, how far away were you when you first caught sight of that vehicle which was overturned? We're looking at a picture of it right now. It's just completely turned over.

MONTES: Oh, we were probably about 500 yards from it.

BERMAN: And it looks -- honestly, it looks like the type of thing it's no guarantee that people would a flip like that.

When did you know? How soon after you first saw it did you know that all six of them were alive and OK?

MONTES: Not until I was probably 20 yards from them and I could actually see them all and count six of them moving around.

BERMAN: That must have been an incredible relief when you first had that vision.

MONTES: Yes, because I wasn't expecting the best.

BERMAN: In your community now, you say it is such a tight-knit community, and there were so many people involved with this search. What now? A giant party, indoors perhaps?

MONTES: Yes, definitely indoors.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: All right, Chris, Chris Montes, thank you so much for being with us. Congratulations. We are so happy for you and everyone involved here that this ended the way it did. Appreciate it.

MONTES: Thank you.

BERMAN: Again, we're waiting to go hear any minute now from the hospital where this family is recovering, and by all indications recovering well. Surviving subzero temperatures in a wrecked car with young children and no indication how long you will be stranded, this is a situation no one expects to find themselves in.

Here to talk about what this family did and what anyone can learn how to do if it come to this, former Green Beret and special operations veteran and survival expert Joseph Teti, co-star of Discovery Channel's "Dual Survival."

Joseph, it was 21 degrees below zero Sunday night into Monday morning. That seems like no margin for error here.

JOSEPH TETI, "DUAL SURVIVAL": You're absolutely right. One of the things about a winter survival situation is that Mother Nature will not allow you to make too many mistakes at all. BERMAN: And it seems like they did a whole lot of things right. Heating rocks, bringing them into the car, was that a life-saving move?

TETI: Absolutely.

I got to tell you, this guy made all the right decisions. And what's really crazy is we did an episode last year on "Dual Survival" almost exactly what these people went through. And I can tell you, it's not the one big decision that he made for his family. It's all those little decisions that lead up to that big decision, staying with the vehicle, letting people know where you went, staying warm, making a fire.

He made all the right decisions. And even more so, he didn't panic, because if he would have panicked, I can almost guarantee you he would have done what the people in the scenario that I was involved in did. He left his vehicle. That's not what you want to do in a situation. And he didn't.

BERMAN: Don't go looking for help seems to be the advice you have. Look, you were in the special forces. One of the things you do not have to work with in special forces, at least out there in the field, 3- and 4-year-old kids. There were four kids here, 10 years old and younger. How difficult do you think that must have been to deal with?

TETI: Boy, I got to tell you, the salute to this guy. I'm quite sure his kids were more than a little alarmed for their ages. I think they were between the ages of 3 and 10 from what I read.

But what I do understand about his family is this wasn't their first time out in the snow, which definitely helped and increased their chances of survival, without a doubt.

BERMAN: No, this family clearly knew what they were doing. We're so glad they're all OK. Joseph Teti, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

TETI: Yes, sir. Thanks, man.

BERMAN: So, the conditions that sent that jeep sliding off-road in Nevada were part of a storm system that is still tormenting a huge swathe of this country.

Before we bring in Chad Myers, I want to show you video we just got in today of a huge pileup in Germantown, Wisconsin. Look at this. This happened on Sunday. A traffic camera caught all of it, just awful picture to see, the cars skidding off the road, others slamming into one another. Dozens of cars and trucks were involved. And by the time it was all over, one person was fatally injured.

From there, as you probably know too well, the storm has been dumping more ice, more snow, causing more havoc all the way to New England.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

BERMAN: Next for us, the breaking news on a deal that could prevent another government shutdown mess.

Also, President Obama's deeply personal tribute to Nelson Mandela. And, later, his handshake at the ceremony with Cuban President Raul Castro -- there it is -- it's setting off a storm back home, but can you really compare this, as John McCain did, to shaking hands with Hitler? Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Big news, breaking news, if you like Washington actually getting something done, welcome comes if you were prefer Democrats and Republicans compromising, rather than fighting, potentially good news if you believe that all those forced across-the-board budget cuts known as the sequester are choking the economy, not so good news, though, if you're one of an army of Americans looking for work who will be losing jobless benefits soon, also not good news if you wanted to see some entitlement cuts.

But there has been a bipartisan budget deal hammered out by GOP Congressman Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray. It touches on all the above.

Dana Bash joins us now with what is in it and how it came about.

And I suppose the big question whether it stands a snowball's chance of actually becoming law.

Dana, tell us, what is in this deal?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is modest, but it is a start, as you said.

Any time we're talking about compromise in Washington is a breath of fresh air, frankly, especially somebody who covers Congress and is not used to using that C-word, compromise, very often. It is two years, and it sets the budget levels for two years.

And what it does is, it takes away some of those arbitrary or forced spending cuts and replaces them with different cuts. That is something that pleases some conservatives, for example, those who don't want arbitrary defense cuts, and some liberals who don't want arbitrary cuts to social spending programs.

But then on the flip side, it makes some conservatives who want deficit reduction and want those forced cut caps in place unhappy, and some liberals also unhappy because they don't like the fact, as you alluded to, John, that unemployment benefits are not extended as part of this package.

BERMAN: So there has not been a unanimous standing ovation yet for this, Dana. The White House has already come out and indicated it is supportive of the deal, but Marco Rubio has said he's against it on "CROSSFIRE" earlier today. Congressman Adam Schiff was not so sure where he would stand.

So, I heard Democrats and Republicans both murky at best on this. Is it a sure thing that it gets through?

BASH: Is it a sure thing? No, nothing is a sure thing.

I think the best way to answer that question, at least the first step, is going to be to look at what happens tomorrow morning in a meeting of House Republicans. They are going to get together and go over this and going to see how much resistance there really is first and foremost among House Republicans. Paul Ryan said tonight that he feels confident that it will pass, that as a conservative he feels comfortable with this.

But we are seeing grassroots group after grassroots group coming out, even before this deal was announced, John, and bombarding conservative members who they have a lot of sway over saying, this is not the way to go. You should not support this. And you're certainly seeing to a lesser extent some of that opposition on the Democratic side.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: But you know what? That's what compromise is.

BERMAN: Well, don't get too used to compromise, because even if this does go through, the debt ceiling discussion, passing a hike on that still by no means guaranteed. That would be in February. Dana Bash, thank you so much, on top of this, as always. Appreciate it.

President Obama heading home from South Africa tonight, memorial services today for Nelson Mandela bringing heavy rain, the tears of heaven, one woman said, South Africans of all colors and dignitaries spanning the globe, paying tribute.

President Obama made it personal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Over 30 years ago, while still a student, I learned of Nelson Mandela and the struggles taking place in this beautiful land, and it stirred something in me. It woke me up to my responsibilities to others and to myself, and it set me on an improbable journey that finds me here today. And while I will always fall short of Madiba's example, he makes me want to be a better man.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: He speaks to what's best inside us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: There's no firm word yet on how many people around the globe watched the ceremonies, though when a "Free Mandela" concert was televised 25 years ago, an estimated 600 million people watched.

So how many eyeballs saw this next moment is for now impossible to say. This is it, President Obama and Cuba's President Raul Castro. And that, folks, was a handshake. Also, you sort of saw a smile in there as well. The White House is calling it unplanned and uncomplicated, others reading much more into the gesture, to Cubans, a sign of hope.

There were smiles and approval on the streets of Havana. To some Cuban Americans, though, it is a sign of surrender. And today on Capitol Hill, a prominent Cuban-American congresswoman let Secretary of State Kerry know it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (R), FLORIDA: Mr. Secretary, sometimes a handshake is just a handshake. But when the leader of the free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raul Castro, it becomes a propaganda coup for the tyrant. Raul Castro uses that hand to sign the orders to repress and jail democracy advocates.

In fact, right now, as we speak, Cuban opposition leaders are being detained and they're being beaten while trying to commemorate today, which is International Human Rights Day. They will feel disheartened when they see these photos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, Arizona Senator John McCain went even further, all the way back to Munich in 1938.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Why should you shake hands with somebody who's keeping Americans in prison? I mean, what's the point? Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: OK. To be clear here, Chamberlain met with Hitler three times and essentially gave away a chunk of Czechoslovakia. That did not seem to happen on stage in South Africa today.

Also, we should note that Winston Churchill shook hands with Stalin. Richard Nixon shook hands with Fidel Castro. So did Bill Clinton. And Ronald Reagan embraced Mikhail Gorbachev not long after calling the USSR an evil empire.

Presidents always take heat for kissing sheiks and bowing to emperors. This always does seem to be an issue.

Let's talk about it with CNN commentator Ana Navarro, national Hispanic chair to the Huntsman 2012 presidential campaign, also political analyst David Gergen.

Ana, you are from Florida. You are no fan, I know, of the Castro regime. But what do you make of Senator McCain's comments comparing this to a Hitler moment and also of Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I don't think John McCain was comparing it to a Hitler moment. What his question was, what is the point? You can shake hands with dictators. You can shake hands with tyrants, but that doesn't mean they're going to change their ways. And people need to understand, John, that for this community, this cuts very, very deep.

There's a number of political prisoners, Cuban political prisoners who served even longer than Mandela, 30 years, 29 years, 28 years. Today is International Human Rights Day. And as Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said, there are people, dissidents getting harassed, getting jailed, getting attacked in Cuba today.

So people need to understand, this is something that the Cuban community feels deeply. It is a community that has felt this pain now for 55 years. This duo of brothers are going to have had an iron grip tyranny on Cuba for 55 years come January 1. Do I think a handshake is going to be heard all over the world? Is it going to lead to policy changes? Is it going to lead to changes within Cuba?

I don't think so. And I think we should focus on the big picture and the big price, what's happening in Cuba today.

BERMAN: I don't think anyone questions the depth of the feelings in Florida and of many Cuban Americans, Ana.

Also, it should be noted that President Obama, while he did shake Raul Castro's hand, in his speech seemed to include words that were at least indirectly very critical of the Cuban president. He criticized people who stood on the stage to honor Nelson Mandela, but also repressed people back home. So, I do think that message got out too.

NAVARRO: I do, too. I agree with you. And I think it's an important message.

And I think part of honoring Mandela is frankly remembering what he should for in the latter part of his life, freedom, democracy, equality, justice. And I think those are the things that we have to aspire to today. And if we're going to honor Mandela, we need to aspire for those conditions being so everywhere in the world, including places like Cuba.

BERMAN: David, it seems to me that this was inevitable, that sooner or later they were going to shake hands on that stage. Sooner or later, there were going to be people who were upset about it and it was going to create a controversy.

How does a White House deal with this? Was there any way to avoid it?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the president might have decided, as Jimmy Carter did some years ago, that he would not go to a funeral, Tito's funeral, in that case because he didn't want to shake hands with Brezhnev after the Russians invaded Afghanistan.

But, listen, a couple things. First of all, it was not rehearsed, but I'm sure it was intentional. The White House scripts these things out. It knows that there's a good chance the president is going to shake hands with Raul Castro. There's also no question that the Castro regime, the Cuban regime engages in odious practices that will have to stop if it has any hope of restoring relationships with the United States.

But it's also fair -- and with due respect to my good friend Ana -- to point out that for every Cuban American who feels deeply aggrieved, there are a lot of Cuban Americans who feel the isolation of Cuba has not worked. And they would like to see an easing of tensions, they would like to see a different approach.

The Council on Foreign Relations released a report earlier this year that pointed out that a majority of Cuban Americans, Cuban Americans, believe the sanctions regime embargo hasn't worked and they would like to see an easing.

BERMAN: Ana, do you want to respond to that?

NAVARRO: Yes, look, I think David has a good point. There is some change going on within the community.

However, the Cuban Americans that are in Congress, including the guy who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee in the U.S. Senate, are all against lifting sanctions, unless there are democratic elections. So I would tell you, I know Bob Menendez quite well. If conditions do not change in Cuba, if political prisoners are not released, if democratic elections are not scheduled, I think you're going to have to go through the cold dead body of Bob Menendez to get policy change. And that is the reality.

(CROSSTALK)

GERGEN: That's not true. That's not true. Hold on just a second.

(CROSSTALK)

GERGEN: Listen. She's right about legislation.

This Congress is not going to lift the embargo. That's absolutely right. But there are steps the Obama administration has already taken to ease some travel restrictions, and they can take steps, and I think they have signaled their plan to take steps before he leaves office.

John Kerry and Barack Obama have both given speeches signaling that they're going to move toward a thaw in relations. Is that a good idea or bad idea? We can debate that, but I think that's the direction in which the administration is moving.

BERMAN: Well, I guess one thing is clear.

(CROSSTALK)

NAVARRO: I think David is right. There are modest steps that the administration can take.

The embargo used to be an executive order, but it was codified into law under Helms-Burton. And so now lifting the actual embargo requires an act of Congress. And I think that is going to be a very difficult road for any administration while Cuba continues doing the things it's doing.

BERMAN: I think any handshake that elicits this kind of discussion, it's clear it's more than just a handshake.

So, David Gergen, Ana Navarro, thank you so much for being with me this evening and talking about this.

GERGEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Really appreciate it.

Another reminder: We are waiting to go hear from the doctors treating the family rescued in Nevada. That's the hospital we're looking at right now. We will go back to this news conference as it begins, and we will speak to another key figure in the rescue.

Next: new details about the terror attack inside a shopping mall in Kenya, why officials say there may have been only four gunmen and how they may have escaped alive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Today, a drastically different picture of the deadly Kenya mall shooting. it came to light in a report by the New York Police Department. How different a picture, you ask? Well, in 360 terms about a 180.

According to the report, just four gunmen -- four, not 15 -- may have pulled off the attack that left 67 people dead. This surveillance video shows some of the suspected gunmen holed up in a storage room in the Westgate Mall. The report says some attackers may have gotten away, possibly all of them.

There's also new tantalizing information about the female terrorist known as the White Widow.

The NYPD sent two detectives to Nairobi to investigate the assault and to analyze the response. The report questions much of what Kenyan officials said about the siege, including claims that hostages were held.

Susan Candiotti joins me now with the latest. Susan, this account of the attack is hugely different than the one we've been hearing for the last few months. Why so many discrepancies here?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'll tell you, a lot of it has to do with the passage of time. They've had time to analyze this videotape, among other things. There's human intelligence. But there are still a lot of questions out there.

All these new questions and findings are coming and being raised by the NYPD and U.S. federal law enforcement officials. And it's hard to forget all this riveting mall surveillance video you're seeing that shows terrorists almost casually firing their weapons and talking on their cell phones while they're cutting down, shooting down innocent victims. Evidence now appears to show the attack was pulled off by only about four to six terrorists using AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, not the 15 to 20 originally thought to be involved. And it's entirely possible some escaped.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMMISSIONER RAY KELLY, NYPD: We don't know. And again, that was mentioned in the presentation. We're not certain if people got away. We're not certain of the total number of people killed. Because it was shown in the presentation RPGs were used, rocket-propelled grenades. The floor collapsed. And we believe that people certainly were injured and perhaps killed as a result of the floor collapsing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: The Kenyans suggest they have DNA evidence that four attackers are dead. But my sources tell me that evidence may not be complete. One source wondering whether mangled guns were retrieved from the rubble of the roof collapse, and if so why didn't they show those?

Other sources saying during and after the attack, the mall perimeter had giant holes in it, and it's entirely possible suspects could have slipped through those cracks, John.

BERMAN: Wow, it is such a different picture. So what about the so- called White Widow, the British woman who at one point was suspected of perhaps being involved?

CANDIOTTI: That's right. She's Samantha Lewthwaite. Her husband was a suicide bomber in London's 2005 subway attack.

Lewthwaite had been living in Kenya, and at first Kenyans suggested she was at the mall and on video. But the NYPD and FBI sources say it appears she did not actively participate at the mall itself or that any women took part in the massacre.

But the jury is still out on whether she helped plan the attack. And she's completely disappeared. So Interpol has a red notice out for her capture, John.

BERMAN: All right. Susan Candiotti, thank you so much. As I said, it's a vastly different picture than what we've been told for so long there.

Coming up, the woman accused of murdering her husband by pushing him off a cliff just eight days into their marriage. At the trial today testimony about the alleged lies she told police and her friends and the fake e-mail account that investigators say was created to support these lies.

Also ahead the latest on our breaking news tonight, a family of six rescued after being stranded for two years in the frigid mountains of Nevada. I will speak with someone from the civil air patrol about how they were finally found. It's fascinating. That when 360 continues. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: In "Crime & Punishment" tonight, day two in the trial of a woman accused of murdering her husband just eight days after they got married.

Jordan Graham pushed her husband while they were at Glacier National Park, and he fell off a cliff. That much is known. The defense says she pushed him in self-defense and that his death was an accident. The prosecution says it was murder.

One problem for the defense is that initially Graham lied about what happened and went to pretty dramatic lengths to cover her tracks. And those lies took center stage at the trial today. Kyung Lah reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jordan Graham walked into what would be a damaging second day for her defense in her murder trial. Prosecutors played video of police interviews where the jury saw and heard Graham lying to police.

In the first video, Graham was matter-of-fact and unemotional as she tells police a story, that her husband Cody Johnson took off from home in a dark car with Washington plates. Johnson had been missing for two days. Police were searching for him.

The reality is Graham knew her new husband of just eight days was already dead at the bottom of the sheer cliff at Glacier National Park, because she watched him fall.

Sergeant Chad Zimmerman says on video to Graham, "I'm getting the feeling you're not being 100 percent honest with me."

The very next day police videotape Graham again. She went to police because she received an e-mail dated July 10, three day after her husband's death. The e-mail came from a mysterious friend named Tony. It reads, "Hello, Jordan. My name is Tony. There is no bother in looking for Cody anymore. He is gone." The e-mail claims Johnson died during that car trip.

The officer who saw the e-mail says to Graham "seems kind of sketchy," because it was. The e-mail traces back to a computer at Graham's father's home. A fake e-mail created to support Graham's story to police.

She also lied to friends like Jennifer Toren, who was clearly shaken after testifying.

(on camera): What it was like to be in that courtroom and see Jordan?

JENNIFER TOREN, FRIEND: Honestly, it was very nerve-wracking.

LAH (voice-over): Graham also lied to her own 16-year-old brother. He testified that Graham brought him to the cliff to discover Johnson's body. The teenage boy son sobbed, saying, "She told one lie, was asked to tell the truth. She said it again. She had to keep adding more lies to cover it up."

Graham even lied to her best friend and matron of honor, Kim Martinez. She testified that before Johnson's death, Graham claimed her new husband would grab her and had a terrible temper. That was hard to hear for Johnson's friends, who call it another lie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a great friend of mine. He's a really good guy. Just a tragic situation that we're in right now. Just want some closure is all.

LAH: The night of Johnson's death, Graham texted Martinez: "Dude, I'm freaking out. I'm about to go for a walk or something, jump off a fricking bridge. IDK" -- meaning "I don't know" -- "I've lost it."

At the same time, Graham texted happy, bubbly messages to another friend about dancing: "Dude, you better work those sweet moves. Although you are pretty amazing already!!"

The friend replied, "Yes, I know I'm a pretty good dancer. I think I'm the best dancer I know!"

Graham texts, "Whoa, whoa! Too far, homie!"

Those texts sound immature, because defense attorneys say Graham is exactly that: a naive, socially inept, sheltered young woman, just 21 at the time of her husband's death.

The fall, says the defense, was just a terrible accident. Graham says they were fighting. He grabbed her. She pushed him away, and he fell.

So why the lies? The defense argues Graham was an awkward young woman who married the popular guy in town, and she feared no one would believe her.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Kyung Lah joins me now live from Montana. Kyung, you were there in court. They're playing these tapes of Jordan Graham lying to police. Her brother breaks down crying. What's she doing through all this?

LAH: Well, let's start with watching herself on videotape lying to police. Throughout this trial, she's been very difficult to read, John, almost like a statue, stoic. That was the same when she was watching herself on those tapes.

But it did change when her brother started sobbing. He was sobbing into the microphone. It was heart-breaking. Many of the people in the courtroom, John, were moved. That includes Jordan Graham. It does appear at least she did wipe a tear away. So that's about the most emotion, John, we've seen from her.

BERMAN: All right, Kyung Lah. What a day and still more to come. Thank you so much from Montana. Let's dig deeper now. Joining me now live CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, Mark Geragos; CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin; and forensic scientist Lawrence Kobilinsky of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Mark, I want to start with you here. Videos showing Graham lying to police. Bogus e-mails. Her brother sobbing on the stand. This seems to be tough for the defense.

MARK GERAGOS, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY/CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, look, it's not easy when you're charged with murder in any case. So there is always a reason why they charge you with murder. And in this case it's because they didn't have much physical evidence that proved it, but they did have all of these changing stories.

So the defense, I think, did a pretty good job about fronting all of that with the jury. She's got a plausible explanation for why she was saying this. And ultimately, I think -- I'm going to make a wild guess here -- that she may take the stand in this case.

BERMAN: Taking the stand, you know, always a drastic measure. And you say they have a plausible defense. That's essentially that she was nervous that she would be misunderstood for what happened there, that they wouldn't think it was an accident.

Sunny, you think this is more of a slam-dunk in this case. However, no one saw it happen. There's no video camera footage of her pushing him off the mountain. Is that tough for the prosecution?

SUNNY HOSTIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR/CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, it isn't. It isn't. This is -- I never like to say a case is a slam- dunk, and I know Geragos is going to come back at me and say I'm being crazy. But this is that kind of case where you argue who does that? Who behaves this way?

And when juries look at the kind of behavior that she exhibited -- she pushes her husband off of a cliff with both hands, she says, and then just leaves him there. He could have been suffering, anything. Leaves him there, drives home, and then starts lying. Starts making all of these things up and then leads her friends to his body but yet still lies about what happened.

The argument that it's an accident is just so unbelievable, so incomprehensible that I can't imagine that a jury is going to let her get away with it.

And if she takes the witness stand, Mark Geragos, you've got to admit that this jury has watched her lie not once, not twice, but several times to friends, to police officers. How does she get on the witness stand and be credible? They're never going to believe her.

GERAGOS: Sunny, when you say you can't believe the jury is going to let her get away with it, doesn't that assume that she did commit the crime?

HOSTIN: She admitted it. GERAGOS: She admitted that he grabbed her, and she pushed him back and he fell. You know, if this was such a slam-dunk, I'd ask you why do they need 35 witnesses and why did they need forensics?

BERMAN: Let's -- let's bring in the scientist here for a second. Lawrence, you know, we know juries love the science. They love the facts. They want to grasp onto something here. But where is the science in this case? Again, there's no footage there. Can a coroner prove whether the push was intentional, it was a murder or was an accident?

DR. LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: These types of cases are very complicated for a medical examiner to diagnose.

However, I think the case will turn on whether the prosecution can demonstrate that Cody Johnson went over that cliff face first. He -- if you look at the body, the body was found at the bottom of the cliff face down.

And basically, the experimentation, by taking a mannequin of equal dimension, size and weight to Cody Johnson and tossing it over the cliff and seeing how it lands, I think that's going to be some suggestive physical evidence that will support the prosecution.

BERMAN: That's what it's going to take. Pushing a mannequin off a cliff?

KOBILINSKY: I think experimentation is part of the way we do things in forensics. And yes, that probably will have to be done.

BERMAN: All right, Lawrence Kobilinsky, Sunny Hostin, Mark Geragos, thank you all so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.

Got more now on our breaking news. We have just heard from the doctor treating the rescued family in Nevada. You will hear from him next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: A quick update now on the Nevada family rescued after two days in sub-zero conditions. Two adults, four young kids. Just moments ago, their doctor spoke to reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DOUGLAS VACEK, PERSHING GENERAL HOSPITAL: The father and mother and the four children are all doing very well. Remarkably well considering how cold it's been and the fact that they've been out in the elements for these past two nights.

I think, as you guys have already been briefed earlier, that they did a lot of things right by staying with the vehicle, and they did have food and water available with them. And as soon as the vehicle suffered this slow rollover accident, the father jumped into action, knew they had to stay warm.

And the first thing he did was built a fire. And he was able to keep that fire going the entire time while they were out. And I think that really prevented any serious medical problems for them to develop.

They do have some exposure and, understandably, dehydration issues. It's very hard to stay very well-hydrated out here in the elements. The air is very dry. Even when it's very cold, it's very dry.

But in general they're doing very, very well. No evidence of frost bite, which is of course, what we would have expected. We were obviously braced for much worse, considering the cold temperatures we've had. But -- but they're doing very well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Terrific news. Also in their favor, he says they were already dressed for a day outdoors in the snow. So they had that going for them.

Joining us now, another key figure in the rescue, Major Justin Ogden of the civil air patrol and lead cell-phone forensic expert for the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center.

And Major Ogden, you did get a key clue through the cell phone that belonged to Christina McIntee. This happened 2 a.m. What was this clue you got?

MAJ. JUSTIN OGDEN, CIVIL AIR PATROL (via phone): Good evening, John. We had a clue that came in that showed that the phone was used at about 2 a.m. Monday morning. And that was a key clue for us that once we found that out we knew that the vehicle had to have been stopped by that time. And wherever they were at 2 a.m. Monday morning had to correspond to where they were -- probably we're there at right now. And that shifted the search area quite a bit for us when that clue came in.

BERMAN: You say it shifted the search area. We're all used to watching "24." the cell phone didn't give you an exact pinpoint GPS location, did it?

OGDEN: That's correct. We don't get a dot on a map. We get a big area. We draw a big shape on the map and say this whole area might contain them. We've got to search the whole thing.

BERMAN: And in one sense ruling out areas was probably the most effective and efficient for you.

OGDEN: Yes. That's right. It gets played together with a bunch of other clues that are coming in, like eyewitness reports and what they told the family where they were going. And that's just another piece to the puzzle. And this clue helped move the search area from where it was initially going on to about 20 miles further to the east.

BERMAN: How comprehensive was this effort? We know there were hundreds of people on the ground searching. We know there were air resources also deployed. How big was the search?

OGDEN: This search was massive. There was a great -- a great presence there by a bunch of different agencies. State and local resources, federal resources like civil air patrol and aircraft. They were flying. There were Navy helicopters that was in there. Neighboring counties were bringing in their assets to help out. Teams on the field, coordination by the sheriff's office. Coordination by the big czar coordinator. Amazing effort. Clues coming in from the cell phone team. You've got people all over the country literally working on this search.

BERMAN: And be honest with us here. I know you always hold out hope and you guys are all very good at what you do, but were you surprised when they were found?

OGDEN: There were a lot of us that were surprised. Yes, we really were. This search went on much longer than any of us would have liked to have seen. And we've had -- we see too many of these end with a bad outcome. And we're so excited for a great outcome for all six.

BERMAN: I think everyone's excited. Major Ogden, thank you so much. Congratulations. Great work with everything you did there.

OGDEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Up next, remembering Nelson Mandela with photos representing his legacy, his extraordinary life, and today's extraordinary tribute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: In South Africa and throughout the world it was a day for celebrating the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela. There's a song called "Senzenina," translation "What We Had Done." It was an anthem during the anti-apartheid movement and is often sung at funerals and demonstrations. We leave you this hour with that song from the Cape Town youth choir.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC: "SENZENINA")

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What a smile. What a life. Lovely.

That's it for this edition of 360. Thank you for watching. "THE 11TH HOUR" hosted by Don Lemon starts right now.