Your Kid Behind the Wheel

Aired May 3, 2005 - 22:00 ET

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

AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again. This year, four million girls and boys in the country will turn 16, which means millions of moms and dads will be very proud indeed when they're not worried sick. Sixteen is when most young adults in most states become young drivers. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, teenagers are four times more likely than older drivers to be involved in crashes. Motor vehicle accidents are, by a factor of three, the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 16 and 20. Tonight, the stories behind those numbers, and some ways to turn those numbers around. By the time most teens begin learning to drive, they've already learned in physics class that force equals mass times acceleration. Well, they should have learned that already. Here's another law of physics just as important on the road: All other things being equal, a high center of gravity means a greater risk of tipping over. It is a simple fact. But not all lessons make it out of the classroom. We begin tonight with CNN's Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANDA VICKREY, SUV ROLLOVER SURVIVOR: I think I picked it because it was more durable and it was more girlie than a truck. And it was big, that's what I liked. It was real big and it wasn't low to the ground.

KANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A champagne colored 2001 Ford Explorer Sport, a gift from dad for Amanda Vickrey's 16th birthday. She couldn't wait to get behind the wheel. But just a year and a half after she got it, she almost died in it.

VICKREY: I just don't remember anything that was said. I just remember thinking, oh, God, oh God, I'm about to die, I'm about to die.

KAYE: It was a Thursday night last October, about 10:30 p.m. Amanda and a friend had been at a high school football game in Midland, Texas, about 15 miles from her hometown of Odessa. On their way back, Amanda came up on something unexpected in the road.

VICKREY: I thought it was a deer at first. Everybody makes fun of me because there's no deers in West Texas.

KAYE: It was a roll of carpet about 20 feet long, right in the middle of the highway. Amanda swerved to avoid it, but the SUV spun out.

VICKREY: I remember trying to regain control. And then I just remember like feeling it start to roll, and then like a blur until we landed.

KAYE (on camera): So you were originally going this way? VICKREY: Uh-huh. KAYE: But then you overcorrected.

VICKREY: And flipped and turned and rolled and everything else. Ended up facing this way, yeah.

KAYE (voice-over): Amanda jerked the SUV from the right lane into the left lane, then back again. The SUV fishtailed, rolled twice, and landed right side up in the grassy median.

VICKREY: I just remember looking at my car, and it was just completely gone. Like when you turned around, it looked like there was nothing there. There was no windows. And the windshield was caved in a lot. So like you could touch it, and it was just real close to your face. And the radio was on, and it was blaring. I don't know how it happened, but it was on. My lights were on. And I just remember like hyperventilating, and I couldn't catch my breath. And I was in shock, and I started shaking.

KAYE: Amanda was trapped. Police used a crowbar to get her out. Her friend got out on his own, with just cuts on his knuckles. Amanda escaped with cuts, bruises and injured ribs. (on camera): Just how lucky is Amanda to be alive? The latest federal government statistics, including all passenger vehicles, show in 2002, about one-quarter of the people killed in rollover crashes were driving SUVs. That's up 14 percent from the previous year. (voice-over): That, even though in 2002, SUVs accounted for only one-eighth of vehicles on the road. Just two days before the accident, Amanda started wearing her seatbelt. She never had before, but a driver safety presentation at school changed her mind.

VICKREY: If they wouldn't have came and talked to us, I don't think I would have had my seatbelt on. And it makes me think of, like, what could have happened. Like I could have went through the windshield or I could be dead, basically.

KAYE: It's been six months since Amanda's accident. She's back behind the wheel, a Ford Mustang this time. Dad said no to another SUV. He wanted something closer to the ground, with less rollover risk. Amanda's spirit is renewed. Not a day goes by where she doesn't marvel at her brush with death and her good fortune. But whatever went wrong on the road that October night wasn't enough to scare the SUV out of this high school senior.

VICKREY: I still wouldn't mind driving one, because I feel safer when I'm up tall and stuff.

KAYE: She hopes to be behind the wheel of another SUV some day soon. Randi Kaye, CNN, Odessa, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So what should a teen driver drive? One of our producers, a parent, of course, suggests a car without an engine. For those willing to consider a car that will actually move, "Consumer Reports" magazine has come up with some recommendations. Nothing to make your heart skip a beat, which is probably the point.

The Honda Accord and the Subaru Forester come out on top. Also in the running, the Honda Civic, the VW Passat and the Buick Park Avenue. More broadly speaking, the editors say too much horsepower is dangerous in young hands, but so, too, is too little.

Look for zero to 60 between eight and 11 seconds. Look for advanced safety features and good results on government crash tests. Common sense. And to get a break on insurance, the editors recommend shopping for discontinued or not very popular models, the kind that thieves don't want to steal and kids don't want to race.

Sometimes stating the obvious helps. In this case, we think it does. Teenagers are not adults. Their bodies are different. So it turns out, are their minds. The fact that teens think differently explains a lot about why they don't act like adults, not in the classroom or at the mall, and certainly not when they get behind the wheel. Here's medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On a country road in the state of Maine, a teenage brain makes the wrong choice. A 16-year-old boy blows through a stop sign, and then leads police on a high-speed chase that reaches 120 miles an hour.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roll over. Roll over.

COHEN: We'll show you what happens next in a moment. Now, obviously, this is an extreme case, but here's the question: What's going on in a teenager's brain that could lead to such a bad decision? Dr. Laurence Steinberg studies teens and decision-making.

LAURENCE STEINBERG, TEMPLE UNIV.: So there are changes in our brains around the time of puberty that make us want to take more risks, that make us want to seek higher and higher levels of stimulation. COHEN (on camera): Their brains are just different from adult brains?

STEINBERG: Right. Their brains are changing.

COHEN (voice-over): New research from the National Institutes of Health shows teen brains have extra synapses in the areas responsible for assessing risks and making decisions. Many of these synapses are useless and actually get in the way of clear thinking. These extra synapses die off as teens become adults. (on camera): So fewer synapses make things more efficient.

STEINBERG: Exactly.

COHEN: And that's a good thing.

STEINBERG: That's a good thing. That's a very good thing.

COHEN (voice-over): Dr. Steinberg is trying to understand how teens like the one we saw in Maine make decisions. So he's developed a test.

STEINBERG: Let's start the game by hitting

G. COHEN: Seventeen-year-old Justin Sloan (ph) has to decide if he can make it through an intersection before the yellow light turns to red. When teens play this game without their friends watching, they actually perform quite well. But put other kids in the virtual car with them, and look what happens. Alex Weinberg (ph) turned around and looked at his friends as he drove. Then he did it again and again. Three times, his friends diverted his attention. And -- he crashed. Dr. Steinberg's studies have found teens are much more likely to be distracted than adults are. (on camera): What's going on in this 16-year-old cerebral cortex right here?

STEINBERG: Let's hope it's developing.

COHEN (voice-over): As for that 16-year-old fleeing from police, he was lucky. He wasn't hurt. The teen didn't appear to be drunk or on drugs. He told the trooper he sped away simply because he didn't want to get a ticket.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you running for? You almost hit me head on!

COHEN: The decision of a 16-year-old driver with too many synapses cluttering his brain. Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Philadelphia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So at this point, you might be furiously thinking of ways to keep your child from getting behind the wheel. Any (INAUDIBLE) wheel until she's, oh, let's say, 30 or 40. Short of that, what's a worried parent to do? What's to prevent your teenager from making bad decisions on the road when you're not in the car? Some parents are taking drastic measures.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Keeping track of things is very important to John Jacobson.

JOHN JACOBSON, JOE'S DAD: This shows right here is right now in Columbus, North Carolina.

BROWN: And any time he has thousands of trucks out on the highway and with a satellite mapping system, he knows where each and every one is. And that's not all he keeps track of.

JOHN JACOBSON: Hi, Joe just left school. He'll be home in just a little bit. BROWN: Joe is his 16-year-old son. Using a device called All-Track, John and his wife Trudy can track Joe's car's every move.

JOHN JACOBSON: If you can imagine an electronic fence around his school, around our house, and around a 15-mile radius from our house, those are the boundaries that we've set. Once his car crosses any of these boundaries, we get an automated call.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Boundary. Fifth violation.

JOHN JACOBSON: We also have the ability to go on to the All- Track website. We can pull up Joe's car, get a location, get his speed, get the direction he's going. We can lock or unlock the car from home. We can shut the car on or off, and we have a speed limitation on the car also. If the car goes over a certain speed, we get an automated call.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On April 26th, 2005...

BROWN: There are fans of this approach.

JOHN JACOBSON: I've never talked to anybody that didn't think this was a great idea.

TRUDY JACOBSON, JOE'S MOM: The adults.

JOHN JACOBSON: I'm talking adults.

BROWN: And it does have its critics.

JOE JACOBSON, SON: It's kind of a neat feature, but kind of a pain. Getting your license has a sense of freedom, I suppose, responsibility. It's just really a way to get out of having your parents on you all the time, and them questioning you constantly, why you are going here? What are you doing? And more of just, all right, we trust you, go do something.

T. JACOBSON: We've learned and are still learning to allow Joey the freedom to mature and make decisions on his own and make mistakes. But you know, when it comes to safety, when it comes to reading about statistics with teenage drivers dying, I don't -- I don't apologize for trying to be more controlling in that area for now.

BROWN: By tracking Joe, the Jacobsons hope it will teach him to think before he acts.

JOHN JACOBSON: I think it makes him a safer driver. It helps him make better decisions because hopefully, from time to time, when he -- before he makes a decision, he might say, what will mom and dad think of this decision that I'm making?

BROWN: It might be working.

JOE JACOBSON: When I'm in a hurry and I'm on the highways, more or less, and there's always that slow guy keeping you down, you just want to pass him. And you normally have to speed up a bit, and that's when I mostly really think about it.

BROWN: In the end, like so many other things in life, it's a trade-off.

T. JACOBSON: We don't want our son to die, and we don't want anyone else to. For us, it gives us the confidence that our son is safe.

JOE JACOBSON: Mom, I'm home!

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Later in the program, we'll talk with a man who spent the last 20 years trying to keep teenage drivers safe. He says there are other things parents can do, short of putting chips in their cars, other ways to decrease the odds that your child will be in a fatal accident. We'll hear his advice coming up tonight. And straight ahead, making young drivers safer by teaching them to let it all hang out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: It only looks dangerous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't just take your child in the parking lot and show them defensive maneuvers.

BROWN: But it's helping teach kids to be safer drivers. Really, it is. Taking lessons from a different country where the driving is fast and the learning ain't easy. How many of those tests did you pass?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I don't remember, like, 20. Then did I them all over again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twenty out of 60, that's not very good.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're going to fail this class.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know.

BROWN: Does the home of the Autobahn have the right answer? Also tonight, a Cinderella story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't drive between the hours of 12:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. I wasn't going to anyway because I'm sleeping.

BROWN: A driver's license with limits. Should teens work their way up to full driving privileges? And young or old, now and forever, our love affair with the automobile, in stills. Because this is NEWSNIGHT.

ERICA HILL, HEADLINE NEWS: I'm Erica Hill. Here's the latest now, from Headline News.

The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has told Congress the continuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan may affect the military's ability to do battle on other fronts. A senior Pentagon official tells CNN General Richard Myers made that assessment in a classified report, but just last week President Bush said that Pentagon officials told him the military is prepared for any confrontation.

Iraq has a new prime minister. Ibrahim al Jaafari was sworn in today as were members of the new cabinet. But this historic day was marred by the continuing violence, at least 18 people were killed.

And, back stateside, the Air Force will investigate allegations of religious intolerance at its academy in Colorado. This follows a report by a Washington-based group that details what it says are dozens of complaints by Jewish cadets and Christian cadets who are not evangelical Christians. They claim there's an atmosphere of intimidation on the part of some evangelical students and staff members. And, that is the latest from Headline News. NEWSNIGHT continues right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Remember Driver's Ed in high school? Have a little trouble parallel parking, did you? Some things never change. Others do. In this case, big time: Driver's Ed. Not your dad's, not your mom's, not even yours. From Charlotte, North Carolina, tonight, here's CNN's Sharon Collins.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHARON COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Elizabeth Graper is leaving school early. It is one of those red letter days on any teenager's calendar, Elizabeth is on her way to take her driving test. She hopes to get her license today.

ELIZABETH GRAPER, TEEN DRIVER: A little nervous. But a lot of my friends have already done it.

COLLINS: Elizabeth took Driver's Ed at her high school, and she spent time driving with her mom at her side.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lizzie, you need to pay attention, honey.

GRAPER: It's 25.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, and how fast are you going?

GRAPER: 40. COLLINS: But Elizabeth also did a little something extra. Something that would ordinarily horrify any parent.

GRAPER: That's what you do!

COLLINS: It's called "Xtreme Measures," a new breed of driving schools springing up around the country. Today's class is held at a race track in Charlotte, North Carolina. Karl Kutcher started Extreme Measures six years ago after an accident that still haunts him today.

CARL KIRCHER, XTREME MEASURES: One of my older daughter's best friends got killed. She got two wheels off the side of the road, over-corrected, hit a tree. And I knew right then that there had to be something that I could do that was going to help you guys get through. Get the car to slide. Get it to slide. Get it to slide.

COLLINS; Kricher has worked around auto racing all of his life. His classes apply lessons learned on the racetrack to emergencies encountered in everyday driving situations.

KIRCHER: You can't just take your child in a parking lot and show them defensive maneuvers, car control maneuvers as they did when I grew up. You can't do that anymore. So we provide them a place to learn how to do that at our expense in an oops-free environment so that they can learn what we've learn over 30 years of driving.

COLLINS: The teens practice recovering from skids. Handling the car when it runs off the road. And avoiding obstacles. His course is not a replacement for the basics of driver's ed, but it does teach students skills they wouldn't learn in a typical course.

SHARON GRAPER, ELIZABETH GRAPER'S MOTHER: I felt like I wanted Elizabeth to have some experience in extreme conditions so that she would know what to do if she was in that circumstance.

COLLINS: After a day of driving on the Xtreme course, Elizabeth felt pretty good about what she'd learned. (on camera): So you think you got it down?

ELIZABETH GRAPER: Yes.

COLLINS (voice-over): But would it help her get a license? After her driving test, she feels pretty confident. (on camera): How did you do?

ELIZABETH GRAPER: I think I did OK.

COLLINS: Did you? Well, good. (voice-over): But the news is disappointing.

ELIZABETH GRAPER: I didn't get it.

COLLINS: Twice Elizabeth turned into the wrong lane. A relatively minor mistake, but one that could easily cause an accident. And a reminder of how even the best prepared teenager won't always make the right call. Sharon Collins, CNN, Charlotte, North Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: So lets talk about some ways that we all can improve the odds that our kids will make smart decisions behind the wheel. And perhaps ways the states around the country can help us. We're joined by Bill Bronrott, a delegate at the Maryland legislature, who spent two decades trying to keep teen drivers safe. Nice to see you. Generally, are states smarter about this than they were five years ago?

WILLIAM A. BRONROTT (D), MARYLAND STATE DELEGATE: The states are coming along, but far too slow a pace. We need parents to get involved in giving our kids more behind the wheel experience with fewer distractions. And one thing parents can do as voters and as community activists is to product states to pass strong comprehensive, what are called graduated drivers licensing laws. That, again, give our kids more behind the wheel experience with fewer distractions and phase in the full driving privilege.

BROWN: And what those generally -- I mean, here in New York, there's a series of things that happen and in Maryland and other places too, I gather. How many kids can be in the car. Because there's a tremendous relationship between the number of kids in the car and the likelihood of an accident for one thing.

BRONROTT: Absolutely. We know that with each passenger in the car with a young driver, the chance of a fatal crash nearly doubles. And so that's why we're asking parents to get involved in this. And in the meantime until states take this important action, they can lay down the law in their own households by telling their teens no other teen passengers or limiting it to no more than one. And also to restrict any cell phone use during the learner's permit phase, during the provisional license phase. Also spend more time behind -- more time with their teen during the learner's permit period to give their kids more behind the wheel practice time. And to give them a chance to experience driving at night and during different types of weather conditions.

BROWN: Some of this stuff, to me -- and I claim no objectivity here. I'm the father of a 16-year-old -- are slam dunk obvious. Not talking on a cell phone. I mean, we know that adults, experienced drivers talking on a cell phone, have high rate of accidents. Why not -- where's the resistance to just passing a law that says between the ages of 16 and fill in the blank you can't talk on a cell phone while you're driving?

BRONROTT: A number of these laws have been trying to make their way through state legislatures, and there's been a lot of resistance to that. But I think there's a certain amount of sympathy when it comes to our least experienced drivers, because highway crashes are the number one cause of death and disabling injury of teens. They make up only about 7 percent of licensed drivers, but they're involved in 14 percent of fatal crashes. And so there's this disproportionate over involvement that is very easy to focus on. And with this new research talking about the so-called immature brain, I think that there's a lot more political will to pass these kinds of strong graduated driver's licensing laws that includes the cell phone restriction. That's what we did in Maryland this year.

BROWN: Back -- I'm sorry, back in ancient times when I was 15, the state of Minnesota was discussing whether to raise the driving age to 16. And the battle essentially came down to the city and the rural areas. Rural areas wanted a younger driving age than I think city legislators did, by and large. Is that still the case?

BRONROTT: Well, I think it's still an issue. But a lot of parents say to me in Maryland, in a very suburban area outside of Washington, D.C. raise the driving age to 18. And the plain answer is, it already is 18. And that's the way it is in many states. It's only when a parent decides perhaps under duress to sign on the dotted line to allow their 15 half or 16-year-old to go after that learner's permit that their young teenager can do that. They can delay by simply saying no for a year or two, and let their child gain more maturity and use their own power to phase in the full driving privilege.

BROWN: Oh, if it were so easy. Thank you. It's good to talk to you. Thank you for your work on this.

BRONROTT: My pleasure. Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: In a moment, we'll have more on the graduated licenses that Mr. Bronrott has been talking about. A look at a young driver in a state where the laws are among the toughest in the country. And what can we learn from driver's ed in a country that allows drivers to cruise along at over 100 miles an hour. The Germans have a better idea. We'll take a break first. From New York, and on the interstate, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The good thing about being young and inexperienced is it doesn't last forever. The bad thing is, you have to survive it. In recognition as we've been talking about tonight, slowly but surely, states have made it so very few teenagers can go straight from 16 candles to four on the floor. The journey now more and more takes time. And it comes with a catch, sometimes more than one. Reporting for us tonight, here's CNN's Alina Cho.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sarah Davie is a new driver.

SARAH DAVIE, TEENAGE DRIVER: I love driving. It's amazing.

CHO: After six months of a learner's permit, where she could only drive with an adult in the car, Sarah at age 17 now has a license, but only a provisional one. First, there's a curfew.

S. DAVIE: I can't drive between the hours of 12:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. I wasn't going to anyway because I'm sleeping. CHO: The so-called Cinderella license also prohibits Sarah from driving with more than one friend in the car, something her dad thinks is an excellent idea.

KEN DAVIE, SARAH'S FATHER: When you have three or four friends, then the natural tendency to talk to someone, is to go like this, go like that, and that could be a little distracting.

CHO: Mom worries that Sarah still has a lot to learn.

EDNA DAVIE, SARAH'S MOTHER: She's brand new, brand new at it. And so her senses aren't tuned.

CHO (on camera): Graduated licensing programs which put restrictions on teen drivers have become the norm across the U.S. Maryland adopted the first such program in 1979, and, since then, 47 states have followed. (voice-over): New Jersey is among the strictest. One of only a handful of states that requires teens, like Sarah, to wait until their 18th birthday to get an unrestricted license, and even then, only if they have a clean driving record. The National Safety Council says the graduated licensing program is having an impact, that teen crash rates in states with tough teen licensing laws have declined by as much as 60 percent. Another finding -- that real enforcement begins in the home.

K. DAVIE: You just can't let the kid -- let the child just have the license and then just go carte blanche and just go from there. You have to have a certain type of restriction on them in order for them to be able to learn responsibility themselves.

CHO: In the Davie household, Sarah's curfew is 11:30, a half hour earlier than New Jersey's.

E. DAVIE: So the number of times that she goes out and comes back all in one piece with no scratches or dents, the more we trust her.

CHO: Her parents admit Sarah's ability to drive on her own with her busy schedule is convenient.

K. DAVIE: I can sleep a little bit later. CHO: She studies dance and theater. She's also captain of the boys soccer team. When she gets her unrestricted license, her parents say they'll give her a little more freedom. The whole family agrees driving...

S. DAVIE: (INAUDIBLE).

CHO: ... is a privilege, not a right. Alina Cho, CNN, Carnie (ph), New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We turn now to a simple question: Does how and where you learn to drive make a difference? If an American teenager were to learn to drive in another country, where the rules are different, what kind of driver would he or she be? We wondered, and our wondering took us to Germany. Here's CNN's Chris Burns.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Eighteen-year-old Alan Look, an American born in Berlin, takes the hot seat, going through a German meat grinder, driving school. This is only one of at least 40 required hours behind the wheel at this school, (INAUDIBLE). Plus, 14 hours of theory classes, eight hours of first aid classes, and all those signs to remember. While most Americans get a driver's license at age 16, Germans must wait until they're 18. That, along with tougher driving instruction, contributes to safer driving and less bloodshed on German roadways. The traffic death rate here is about half of what it is in the United States. Consider that Germany's freeways, or autobahns, have no speed limit, and the statistic is even more remarkable. (on camera): First time on the autobahn, Alan?

ALAN LOOK, DRIVING STUDENT: Second time.

BURNS: How does it feel, though?

LOOK: Well, I have to say the first time I was pretty nervous, but now it's -- I'm getting more used to it. It doesn't even seem that fast.

BURNS: Wait until you have to go about 180 miles an hour. (voice-over): Alan also has 60 practice tests to bone up for the written exam. (on camera): Look at number 30 here. Are you allowed to overtake the black car on this autobahn on the right?

LOOK: No, in Germany, you are not allowed to overtake any cars on the autobahn from the right.

BURNS (voice-over): Rules, rules, rules. It's enough to make you scream. It's no cakewalk either for 18-year-old German Antonia Brosch. She got her California driver's license when she was 16. Now she's going for the German one.

ANTONIA BROSCH, DRIVING STUDENT: We have to learn how long it will take us to stop if we're like 100 kilometers an hour, or we have to know how long it takes us to react when we're driving like 16 kilometers an hour. Or -- and we have to know how much weight you can put on your car.

BURNS (on camera): How many of those tests did you pass?

BROSCH: Oh, I don't remember. Like 20. And then I did them all over again...

BURNS: Twenty out of 60, that's not very good.

BROSCH: No, I know.

BURNS: You're going to fail this class.

BROSCH: I know.

BURNS (voice-over): Night driving is also required instruction here in Germany. What's more, driving school here can run into the thousands of dollars. (on camera): You don't think it's really worth the money?

BROSCH: No. I would like to pay $350 like I did in America.

BURNS (voice-over): So getting a driver's license in Germany is much tougher than in the U.S., on several counts. Not only is the minimum driving age 18, but driving school includes up to 24 hours of theory, plus about 40 hours of driving instruction, including four hours on the freeway and three at night. There's also an eight-hour first aid course. And the classes are only offered in privately run driving schools that can cost thousands of dollars. But if the traffic death rate here is any indication, driving school that's more like a college course and tougher rules seem to be producing results, helping teens like Alan and Antonia become better drivers, eventually. Chris Burns, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Still ahead on NEWSNIGHT, making sure teens don't drive drunk. One teenager's life-saving solution, and how she got it off the ground. Also ahead, we switch gears to the other side of driving. The sheer joy it brings when you're 16. We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Nearly two years ago Mallory Jones experienced something that high schoolers should never experience, but unfortunately, too many of them do. A friend was out drinking, got behind the wheel of a pickup truck and died when he crashed into a tree. She and two friends then started a designated driver program for kids at Gulfport High School in Mississippi. Mallory joins us. Nice to see you.

MALLORY JONES, FNDR DESIGNATED DRIVER SERVICE: Thanks.

BROWN: Is it simply not practical, even after you have this terrible experience, to say to kids, just don't drink?

JONES: I would say it is, yes. Drinking is not necessarily something that is new. I think it's been going on throughout the ages.

BROWN: Oh, I can assure you of that. Yes. So they're going to drink, even -- and so, you're -- as you approach this and as you talk to teachers and adults, you said we need to do something that acknowledges that they're going to drink?

JONES: Exactly. I went to a teacher sponsor, Coach Campbell, who was wonderful and encouraging us to do this and helping us with the legalities of the situation, and we've had an enormously positive response to the program.

BROWN: Let's talk about how it works. Kids are out at a party and they're drinking.

JONES: Right.

BROWN: What happens?

JONES: Well, the program runs from 8:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m., and two volunteer teenagers are on call, and they have a cell phone that we've designated and all the student body knows the number, and they can call and confidentially get a ride home. It has worked out really well.

BROWN: And I have two questions about that. Is it the same kids every weekend who are the designated drivers?

JONES: We have 30 volunteers. So, it's split up pretty fairly.

BROWN: And are they considered, like, the town geeks or not?

JONES: No. Not at all. They're kids from every group, kids of all different kinds, so...

BROWN: Every parent, or most every parent, I think, will say to their kid at some point, look, I'm not going to be happy if you're drinking, but I don't want you driving, because I don't want you dead, so call me. That doesn't work.

JONES: Right. I think it's unrealistic to ask kids to call their parents, because even if a parent is not -- says that they're going to be okay with it and that it's OK to call them, typically you're going to get a lecture, you're going to get -- maybe some form of punishment, even. So, I don't think kids -- and I don't hink anybody wants their parents showing up at a party saying, hey, we're here to pick you up.

BROWN: So, where are the kids dropped off then?

JONES: At a house.

BROWN: At a house or at their house?

JONES: Right. Typically at their house. There have been situations where they might be staying with fraend.

BROWN: But their parents aren't told.

JONES: No. It's confidential. Their parents are not told that this service picked them up.

BROWN: So the parents might not know they were drinking?

JONES: No, sir.

BROWN: Does that bother you at all? Maybe I should ask your dad if that bothers him.

JONES: It doesn't bother me because the way for teenagers to respond to a program like this, you can't let them think that in any way their parents are going to find out what they've been doing because, our policy is that we don't condone or condemn underage drinking, and really, this program doesn't deal with underage drinking. It deals with drinking and driving, because there are other programs like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Students Against Drunk Driving, that deal with underage drinking.

BROWN: You're just trying to get them home.

JONES: Right. We just don't want them driving.

BROWN: Are there costs involved here?

JONES: It is relatively a low-cost organization, because the only thing you mainly have to pay for is the cell phone. So, but, to honor the businesses who have so graciously donated money, our program is called Businesses United to Save Youth.

BROWN: So, you call businesses, you say we need $39 a month or whatever it is for the cell phone?

JONES: Yes. Well, we just went out at the beginning and asked for donations, and we had a good response to that. And we haven't really had to go any further with it, because the cost of the cell phone is not that expensive. It is about $50 a month, ours is.

BROWN: Do people know you're doing this, outside of your town and your high school?

JONES: We had a lady from California that called after seeing the article in "People," and she's going to set up a website for us, so that's really exciting.

BROWN: It's a terrific idea. As a parent -- and I think in truth I want to know if my kid's been drinking -- but I hear what you're saying.

JONES: But the kids don't want you to know that they've been drinking.

BROWN: Well, among other things they don't want me to know. You think you've saved a life?

JOENS: You know, even if we prevent someone from getting a DUI or prevented somebody from getting into an accident or just, you know, it's not a good situation to be in at all, I don't think. So maybe we've saved a life.

BROWN: Nice going.

JONES: Thank you.

BROWN: Nice going. You know, people all the time saying these kids today this and these kids today that. You did great.

JONES: Thanks.

BROWN: Nicely done.

JONES: And so did all the volunteers that helped me, too. Because it was a team effort.

BROWN: Nicely done. Thanks for coming in tonight. Thank you. Ahead on the program, the romance of driving. We'll take a break first, from New York. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: I'm Erica Hill. Here's the latest at this hour from Headline News.

The man accused of being the BTK serial killer sat in silence at a Wichita, Kansas, courtroom as the judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. The trial date for Dennis Raider is set for June 27th. He was arrested earlier this year and charged with 10 murders, some committed 30 years ago.

Prosecutors in the Michael Jackson trial are expected to wrap up their case tomorrow. Then the defense takes over. Jackson's attorneys are expected to call actor Macaulay Culkin as one of their first witnesses. Culkin denies old allegations that Jackson sexually abused him.

And former president Bill Clinton is joining the fight against obesity amongst children. His foundation is launching a program to improve the quality of food in school cafeterias and in restaurants. He also says children need to be more physically active both in and out of school. That's a look at the headlines.

We'll return to NEWSNIGHT after the break. But first, a look for you at the day on Wall Street.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, so far we've devoted the better part of the hour to the perils of driving. Now a bit on the joy, a bit on the freedom, and a whole lot on the nostalgia and the chrome. Cindy Lewis is a photographer with a love for the automobile that is matched only by our love for still photos. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CINDY LEWIS, AUTHOR, "ROADSIDE AMERICA": America definitely has a love affair for cars. I mean, after all, this country was founded on the premise of freedom, and what better expression of freedom than the automobile?

Cars define us. Cars show our position in life, our wealth or lack thereof. Our idea of what is cool, what is hip, what is unique about the particular person driving it. I can think of no greater influence on American culture than the automobile.

Orson Welles made a prophetic statement. He spoke about automobiles, and he said something to the effect that they will alter war, they will alter peace, and they will change men's minds in subtle ways. And what a statement, how true it has become. We've all been changed by the automobile. We remember the first car we learned to drive in. We remember the car we dated in. We remember the car we were married in, and the car we brought our first child home from the hospital in. We define our lives by the automobile.

The evolution of the automobile was initially deemed as the devil's work by religious entities in America. No longer were couples courting in the parlor under the watchful eye of mom and dad. They had a living room on wheels, and they were hitting the road. And mom and dad could not watch. It changed everything. I'm sure everyone has experienced the transforming power of a two-lane road driving through the sunset. What could be better? I know for myself, when I was learning to drive, the automobile was my ticket to ride. As long as I had four wheels, a full tank of gas, anything was possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A new feature tonight. A new way of looking at the news. But we'll take a break first.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: This week, we begin a new feature which may grow into a tradition, one that springs from an age-old premise, the making of a story can be just as interesting as the telling of it. So, too, are the impressions and the perspectives a correspondent gathers along the way. So a few of each now. We'll call the segment "Newsbeat." And tonight, CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: We went out driving with a teenager, a young girl named Tanesia Gallett (ph), who had never driven before. She was very confident, she got behind the wheel, she drove on the highway, she drove on the sidestreet, but she really wasn't scared.

And apparently that's part of what a teen's brain is all about. They don't have the same kind of fear that adults do. Teens are different from adults for some really basic physiological decisions. Their brains are simply different. They are wired differently. And we're not sure that everybody realizes that.

So we wanted to share that with people. This story is important because car accidents are a leading cause of death for teenagers. And so it's important to figure out how do we make teen drivers better. There is an interesting intersection between science and public policy. States have to decide how are they going to regulate teen driving, and really, they can look at the science to help them make rules.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: CNN's Elizabeth Cohen. Good to have you with us tonight. We'll see you again tomorrow, 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

Special Edition: Hoaxes

Aired May 2, 2005 - 22:00 ET

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

AARON BROWN, HOST: Tonight we begin with a simple fact, my friend, people who are facing embarrassing or awkward situations, sometimes plain and simple, make bad decisions. Dr. Phil was just talking about that. And as a result other people can get hurt. Usually these dramas, thankfully play out in private. But over the last six days the saga of Jennifer Wilbanks has unfolded in the most public way, starting with one story and ending up as something completely different. She isn't the first bride-to-be to get cold feet. So why then the uproar? We'll spend the next hour on her story and other fantastic tales. In some cases the media and police were fooled, at least for a while. We begin with the young woman who seemed to have it all and CNN's John Zarrella.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If Jennifer Wilbanks was unhappy, it was very deeply hidden.

MIKE SATTERFIELD, UNCLE: Very happy and very festive about what all was going on. And that was the mood. And she was Jennifer. She was a smile from ear to ear. You see a picture with Jennifer smiling, that's not a pose. That's her natural personality.

ZARRELLA: The brunette with the ear-to-ear grin, Wilbanks grew up in Gainesville, a serene Georgia town on the banks of the Chatahuchi River (ph). A cheerleader and a cross country runner, someone you remember says teacher Jim Lofton.

JIM LOFTON, TEACHER: Vivacious, you know, full of life, involved.

ZARRELLA: In a way, Wilbanks ran into the arms of John Mason, another runner. A meeting that was, like most of her life, part of a web of loving friends and relatives. John Mason's father told Nancy Grace about an introduction made by an aunt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She says, oh, I've got a niece that runs a marathon. They might have something in common. My wife said, don't do it. Don't do it. I don't want you to play matchmaker. But she did anyway. And they hit it off immediately.

ZARRELLA: Mason came from a prominent well-heeled medical family with deep roots in the nearby town of Duluth. Everybody there knows the name Mason.

CHERYL HENNING, DULUTH RESIDENT: John's grandfather delivered me in the hospital here in Duluth.

ZARRELLA: The 32-year-old Wilbanks had a good job as a medical assistant, commuted daily. She seemed in love and was planning to get married. (on camera): Jennifer Wilbanks appeared to have everything. Duluth, Georgia, is an idyllic southern town, all about community and family. And a relationship appeared to be everything she wanted. The church wedding would be special. Indeed, it would be spectacular, 600 invited guests, 14 bridesmaids, two families who could afford to spoil their children. But was it too much too fast?

MELINDA LARSON, MASON'S FRIEND: No deep dread. Stress, absolutely. Weddings are extremely challenging, overwhelming. A wonderful occasion, but tend to consume your time, your life and all of your energy in the actual planning. So stress is a definite.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): But to friends and family, the young woman with the ear-to-ear grin kept smiling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our top story at 11:00, a family prepares for a prayer vigil in place of a wedding.

ZARRELLA: Tuesday Wilbanks went jogging and did not return. Frantic calls were placed to anyone who might know where Jennifer had gone. Very quickly, worry evolved to fullout panic. The search was on.

MAJOR DON WOODRUFF, DULUTH POLICE: We started by interviewing family and friends and trying to backtrack her movements and see what was going on in her life.

ZARRELLA: The tightly knit community dropped everything to join in the search for Jennifer. The owners of the park cafe...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The least we could do was provide food and water, you know for the volunteers.

ZARRELLA: And a meal for Wilbanks' mother and step-father who came in for a few moments of peace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They came in with one of the sheriffs just to get away from everything and relax. You could just see the anguish and despair on their face. And it was very sad.

ZARRELLA: In days, the small town of Duluth was searched end to end. Nothing. Police began to wonder.

RANDY BELCHER, DULUTH POLICE CHIEF: That's a very good possibility that she did get cold feet and run off. You know, how many husbands have gone out to get a pack of cigarettes and never come back home?

ZARRELLA: But this was a woman who was completely happy. Everyone said so. So the search continued, flyers went out, posters went up. The bridegroom questioned, too.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He stated in the beginning of the investigation that he would voluntarily submit to a polygraph.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My son took a polygraph examination this morning, a private one. He passed.

ZARRELLA: Together, the families put up a $100, 000 reward.

HARRIS WILBANKS, FATHER: We love Jennifer very much. We would give our life and everything that we own to have her returned. ZARRELLA: By week's end, a day before she was to be married the mystery and the misery deepened.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We love you, please call us. I've got on your shirt that you gave me for father's day. And I'd love to walk you down the aisle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Albuquerque 911 operator 44, what is your emergency?

JENNIFER WILBANKS: I'm at the -- I don't know where I am. I'm right here (INAUDIBLE) Street at the 7-Eleven.

ZARRELLA: From a pay phone at a 7-eleven in Albuquerque, more than 1,200 miles from her emotionally shattered family, Wilbanks called 911.

WILBANKS: I was kidnapped earlier this week. And I'm here now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is your name, ma'am?

WILBANKS: Jennifer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you hurt, Jennifer? Do you need medical attention?

WILBANKS: No, I don't need any medical attention.

ZARRELLA: She also called home, collect.

JOHN MASON, FIANCE: I was crying, I was laughing. I was trying to stay calm to talk to her to keep her calm.

ZARRELLA: New hope that life would return to normal, that everything could be as it was.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody's invited to the wedding. I'm not sure when it is going to be or -- like I say, we're going to get Jennifer home and make sure she's okay. And then we'll go from there.

ZARRELLA: Then another twist in the story. Wilbanks admitted to police she had lied.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At approximately 4:00 a.m.this morning, Ms. Wilbanks informed agents that she had not been abducted as she had originally claimed.

ZARRELLA On the 19th, police say, Wilbanks purchased a bus ticket to Texas for the 26th, the day she disappeared. Wilbanks came to this office park, this is where she cut her hair. This is where a taxi met her. The taxi took her to the Greyhound Station at the Atlanta Airport where she boarded a bus first to Texas. She rode the bus to Dallas, Texas, changed buses, went to Las Vegas, Nevada. Spent a little time in Las Vegas got another bus ticket, took it to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

ZARRELLA: There was no kidnapping. Just a runaway bride who flew back to Georgia hiding her emotions behind a beach towel. A flight attendant read a statement from Wilbanks to reporters on the plane. She has spoken to her fiance, the statement read, he cannot wait to see her. She says the wedding is not called off, just postponed. Ryan Kelly (ph), one of the owners of the Park Cafe -- who had given so much to the search, was in a way glad for the turn of events. He feared Wilbanks had been hurt or worse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unfortunately, I thought the absolute worst at that particular point in time.

ZARRELLA: For the town of Duluth, there is a degree of embarrassment to deal with, anger, too. Mayor Shirley Fanning- Lasseter has heard plenty from townspeople.

MAYOR SHIRLEY FANNING-LASSETER, DULUTH: They had suggested in e- mails that she do community service or pay back some of the debt or even one suggested she work at a crisis center and a hot line to see how other people deal with situations.

ZARRELLA: It will be tough, the mayor says, to decide what, if anything to do.

FANNING-LASSETER: Whatever is legally correct and proper is what we'll do. What is improper, we won't do. It doesn't make any difference if it's myself or an ex-mayor or anyone else. Wrong is wrong.

ZARRELLA (on camera): The name isn't above the law, bottom line?

FANNING-LASSETER: Absolutely, no. No name is.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): So the young woman with the ear-to-ear grin, the marathoner who ran a thousand miles, has to confront the fears she can't hide behind a smile. Face a future, even she may not be able to outrun. John Zarrella, CNN, Duluth, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On the first day that Jennifer Wilbanks disappeared, 400 volunteers -- 400 -- combed the area where she was last seen looking for clues. Police and other city workers in Duluth, Georgia worked frantically, as you saw, to find her. The mayor says the search cost the city as much as $75,000. Ms. Wilbanks' decision to run away turned out to be costly for those who assumed the worst. But did she commit a crime? And if it was a crime, at what point did it become a crime?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BELCHER: I asked her then, what had happened? She stated to me that she was jogging, she had her head phones on, she wasn't exactly sure where she was at, but an Hispanic male and a white female jumped her from behind and placed her in a van and drove off. And she was not sure where she was at. At this point, she did violate Georgia law by advising me of this situation that she was kidnapped. Based on that information, I will defer all criminal investigations or prosecution to Danny Porter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So, just to be clear on this, what is criminal in life and what is not, we talked to Danny Porter, who is the district attorney in the county where Duluth is, the man who will decide on whether or not to press charges against Ms. Wilbanks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Is it a crime in any way, shape, or form, for an adult to run away from home?

DANNY PORTER, GWINNETT COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Absolutely not. There's no crime involved in that at all. BROWN: So, if I, just, for whatever reason -- I've had enough, and I decide to get on a bus and go someplace and not tell anyone and they worry sick about me and the county spends a lot of money looking for me, the only thing I'm really guilty of is being a jerk, aren't I?

PORTER: Or being a self-absorbed narcissistic individual who doesn't care about the consequences, but you're not guilty of a crime.

BROWN: That's essentially -- that's a technical way of saying a jerk I think, but yes, I'm with you on that.

PORTER: That -- I think you're right. I think you're right.

BROWN: So, if in fact there was a crime committed here -- and I think that's sort of an open question -- but if there was, it is only at the point, essentially, where it's all over, where she calls and says she's been kidnapped, is that right?

PORTER: That's right. At the instant that she gave the false statement to Chief Belcher, the crime was complete, and all the rest of it -- all the rest of it merely has to do with the state of mind in her actions, in the lead-up to it. Everything else has to do with her state of mind, whether she was predisposed to lie, whether it was all sort of a plan to evade responsibility. And that's all the rest of it has to do with.

BROWN: That's not the crime.

PORTER: There's no crime if -- but, what I'm saying is, even though I acknowledge that it's not a crime, that's going to be important to me in making the decision whether to charge her with a lie, because I want to know something about her state of mind. I want to know what she was really thinking, and you can only know people's state of mind through their actions.

BROWN: I agree with that. You're absolutely right about that. If the crime is -- would be -- more, might be filing a false police report, is that what we might be talking about?

PORTER: It is actually called false report of a crime or the felony crime is actually called false statements. That's the Georgia term.

BROWN: And sir, realistically, is this a felony? I think a felony, that's a big deal, if I get a felony on my record, that's more than I was stupid one week?

PORTER: Well, it could be a felony, but it doesn't necessarily mean that that's a case that justifies imprisonment. I think that's why I'm trying to insist that I'm gathering all the evidence because if I charge then, yes, I'm going to have to weigh between a misdemeanor and a felony.

BROWN: Final question, when all is said and done, will you be just as happy to get back to the business of prosecuting bank robbers and all sort of -- and drug dealers and those other thins you literally spend every day thankfully doing and letting this moment, this kind of wacky sad moment end?

PORTER: Yes. But, I told somebody earlier today, this is not really any more trouble for me than anything else, because I would be here whether I was trying bad check case or murder cases. I go to work every day, I try the same cases. As hard as it is to believe, in most respects, this is just another case to me.

BROWN: Well, we appreciate -- I can't imagine all these other cases require as many television appearances. I hope they don't.

PORTER: No, they don't.

BROWN: As this one does. We would like to think you are able to spend most of your time actually in court or heading that way. We appreciate you talking to us tonight, thank you, sir.

PORTER: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Danny Porter, the prosecutor down in Gwinnett County in Georgia. In just a bit on the program, why it is that police first look at the immediate family, the boyfriend or the husband, when someone is reported missing. Right now, around a quarter past the hour, Erica Hill is in Atlanta with some of the day's other headlines.

ERICA HILL, CNN HEADLINE NEWS: Hi, Aaron.

A search is under way tonight for the pilots of two Marine Corps FA-18 fighter jets that the Navy believes collided on a mission in Iraq. The Navy says the jets were flying a routine mission. The weather though, was bad. There is no indication at this point hostile fire was involved.

Meantime, a violent day in Iraq: eight car bombs killed at least 23 Iraqis and wounded dozens more. Six of the bombs exploded in Baghdad. Violence has intensified since Iraq's transitional government named a new cabinet on Thursday. More than 100 Iraqis have died since then. The army is having a tough time reciting soldiers. April was the third month in a row the army failed to reach its monthly recruitment target. Officials acknowledge the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are keeping young adults away, but summertime is typically the army's best season for recruitment.

And in Ft. Hood, in Texas, today, a guilty plea if a key figure in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. Army Reservist Lynndie England pleaded guilty to seven charges. She told a judge it was wrong to pose in photos next to naked Iraqi prisoners. Now, under the plea deal, she could face as little as two years in prison.

And, that's the latest from Headline News at this hour.

Aaron, back to you.

BROWN: Erica, thank you. Nice to see you. More to come tonight on the runaway bride, starting with the reason everyone was so worried.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: : They run the entire gamut. From, I simply do not want to pay for a divorce, money matters, jealousy.

BROWN: He's talking about motives for murder and who is usually first suspect.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's become about the party and how we can impress and how grand it can be and how much money we can spend and how competitive we can be with our friends.

BROWN: She's talking about her wedding, and why she would have run if she had the chance. Also tonight, those other moments when the story that looks like one thing...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: : We put it on the front page with the headline "Backyard Bonanza."

BROWN: ...turned out to be something else.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: : I call it a Hardy Boys adventure that turned into a Larry, Curly and Moe misadventure. BROWN: This, on the other hand, will always be NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Back now to the runaway bride. Here is the truth of this: whatever she did was silly or thoughtless. Whatever happened afterward was something else, because when someone disappears, our first instinct is to suspect foul play. When a woman disappears, cops' first suspicion is on the husband, or the boyfriend. That was true in this case: the boyfriend had to take a lie detector test. So, why do they suspect the boyfriend or the husband? Experience. Here's CNN's Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's smiling, but his message is sobering.

LT. DONALD BENDER, INDIANAPOLIS POLICE DEPT: Those are fingerprint kits for your family. OK? Follow the instructions on those.

ARENA: Lieutenant Don Bender is handing out fingerprint and DNA kits, important to have if someone in your family turns up missing. He helps run the Indianapolis police department's missing persons unit and says simply knowing the facts could save your life. The most important, that people closest to you are the most likely to do you harm.

BENDER: Tragically, we know that missing persons cases many times involve a family member or a friend.

ARENA: Bender is still emotional when he talks about Karen Jo Smith. Her ex-husband, Steven Halkon (ph), was recently convicted for her murder, but her body is still missing.

BENDER: If Steven Halkon got out of jail and said, can I come back, I love, you, I need you, all those things that he told her, despite the threats, that she was giving him another chance.

ARENA: The minute someone is reported missing and foul play suspected, Bender says that everyone in that person's inner circle is considered a possible suspect.

BENDER: Well, we check everything that we can find: insurance policies, mortgages, who owns what, who gets what, wills, phone records.

ARENA: The investigation of the Jennifer Wilbanks' case was no exception with focus immediately placed on her fiance, John Mason.

JOHN MASON, JENNIFER WILBANK'S FIANCE: Her being gone and not knowing where she was -- is tough enough to deal with, and then to have people point the finger at you.

ARENA: While Mason and others were the victims of deception, too often that early attention on loved ones pays off as demonstrated by the Laci Peterson case.

BENDER: Within a matter of hours, there were law enforcement officers who were looking at Scott Peterson as a major person of interest, developing him as a suspect. Simply because of his actions.

ARENA: The most unnerving thing about all that this is that no one can decisively say why it happens, just that it does.

BENDER: They run the entire gamut, Kelli, from, I simply do not want to pay for a divorce, money matters, jealousy, insurance -- domestic violence is a very large cause.

ARENA: Lieutenant Bender says, as shocking as these cases seem, there are usually warnings.

BENDER: As human beings we broadcast warning sign just like animals. When a cat gets ready to attack, the hair on its back goes up, it arches, the claws come out, the ears go back. There are warning signs that we as humans give off.

ARENA: But love, as we've heard, is often blind. Kelli Arena, CNN, Indianapolis, Indiana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The story that began in the small town of Duluth, Georgia, ended more than a thousand miles away in New Mexico. We're joined in Albuquerque by FBI special agent Bill Elwell. It is good to see you. How long after the agents met Ms. Wilbanks did they kind of suspect that she had made the whole thing up?

BILL ELWELL, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, Aaron, that initial interview took about an hour, and what they allowed her to do is two things. They allowed her to basically put her story on the table.

Another thing it allows a victim to do or an alleged victim is to kind of vent, especially if they've been the victim of a violent act, and they were allowing her to do that. After about an hour of her putting out her story and us trying to get the information for investigative purposes, the agents and the Albuquerque police officers that were in on the interview, confided and realized that there were some very big inconsistencies in their story.

After they put together their method as to how they were going to attack the story they went back in. Probably about 20 minutes into the second interview or the second contact with her, they were able to get her to basically do the right thing and tell the exact story as to what had transpired.

BROWN: What do they say? Do they say, this doesn't make -- is it like Columbo, one more thing, this doesn't quite make sense? Or you said this but that doesn't quite square with that? Do you know how literally that conversation went?

ELWELL: Well, basically what you do -- and all officers and our agents are taught, you want to give the victim a chance, especially if you think they're not telling you the truth, you want to give them an opportunity or an out, so to speak, to kind of be able to give the response you're looking for with as little embarrassment as possible. Give them an opening, so to speak. And in this case, I thing one of our agents looked at her and said, we shouldn't be looking for a blue van, should we? And at that point, I think she realized, you know, I've got to come clean, and she did.

BROWN: Oddly, sort of like parents with children, isn't it? I mean, it's important to give them the chance to tell the truth without sort of pounding on them?

ELWELL: Exactly. And we were dealing with an adult here. And I think realistically, she was kind of having to deal with this stressful situation, and, eventually, to relieve that stress, the agent gave her the opportunity to do that.

BROWN: Was she relieved?

ELWELL: I think so. And you mentioned a child. I think, even a child, when they finally have to come clean with what they've done, there is a big sense of relief. And I think it was a lot easier for her to disclose what had really transpired. I think it's just a burden off of her that, OK, now I can really tell what's happened and then go on.

BROWN: I don't know to ask this question sort of delicately. But on a scale of one to 10, was it a well-constructed lie or was it pretty easy to see through?

ELWELL: Well, the agents and the police officers, after that initial interview, I think when they came out, they were pretty well convinced that there were just too many inconsistencies. I don't think this was something that was well rehearsed on her part.

BROWN: You know, I -- and I'll bet you do, too, I wish they all ended so benignly in tend as this one did. Mostly, of course, in life they don't, not the stuff you deal with. So, it is nice when the worst thing we're dealing with is a kid that got scared, ran away and lied about it. Thank you for your time.

ELWELL: Thank you.

BROWN: When we come back, what another woman paid for scaring her friends and family half to death and how she's still paying the price for that today. And later, the case of buried treasure, not. We'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It's probably not fair to say that Jennifer Wilbanks perpetrated a hoax. She just ran away, and we suspect was overwhelmed by the events that followed, even if she no doubt could have and should have anticipated them. Audrey Seiler, on the other hand, is something else. She too disappeared, was found, talked about kidnapping. But her case, whatever the motives, there was more. Here's CNN's Keith Oppenheim.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the very point Noble Wray became police chief in Madison, Wisconsin, a major case erupted. Audrey Seiler, a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Wisconsin, had vanished.

KEITH SEILER, AUDREY'S FATHER: We'll continue to look for Audrey for as long as it takes. OPPENHEIM: With her parents giving interviews and the national media pouncing on the story, the pressure to find the missing woman was intense.

NOBEL WRAY, POLICE CHIEF, MADISON, WI: We had anywhere between 60 to 80 officers in the general vicinity looking for her.

OPPENHEIM: For four days, the search continued, with relatives and classmates worried Seiler could have been kidnapped.

Then a major break and a major twist. (on camera): Audrey Seiler was found in these woods, ironically right near the hotel where her family and search parties were gathering.

According to the police report, two officers responded to a sighting of Audrey and approached her here. They said she was frantic, turning her head back and forth, looking over her shoulder, making statements like "he's out there. You've got to help me." Saying her abductor had a gun.

That fabricated story was a turning point, because suddenly a missing persons case mushroomed into an all-out manhunt. (voice-over): The search for a kidnapper went into high gear. A composite sketch was made. Traffic in Madison practically came to a halt. But to detectives, many things didn't add up.

Audrey Seiler was seen on security tapes leaving her apartment, but there was no sign of a kidnapper. Another tape showed her at a Target store, where police would learn she bought duct tape and rope. In less than two days after police found Audrey Seiler, the new chief announced this on live TV.

WRAY: That, in fact, she had not been abducted at her apartment at all. Audrey stated that she just wanted to, quote/unquote, "be alone."

OPPENHEIM: Audrey Seiler had faked the story of her abduction, and the price was high. Chief Wray estimates the cost to police agencies and the public was $97,000. Police records explain why Seiler left her life without notice. She was upset about a potential breakup with her boyfriend. She later pled guilty to two counts of obstructing justice and is now serving three years probation, paying a fine of $250 a month, or $9,000 for her actions. (on camera): Do you think that Audrey Seiler had some understanding of what she was doing while it was happening, or she was disconnected from the consequences?

WRAY: I think she had some sense that people obviously were looking for her, but I don't think that she had any idea that the situation would escalate to the point that it did.

OPPENHEIM (voice-over): Chief Wray says the price of lying goes far beyond the impact on law enforcement agencies. WRAY: Those that get involved in these things, they also have to realize that this is going to stay with them for the rest of their life, especially when they get this type of attention.

AUDREY SEILER: I plead guilty, your honor.

OPPENHEIM: Attention which means in the end, the person who lied has to live with the results. Keith Oppenheim, CNN, Madison, Wisconsin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On now to Massachusetts and another story that was unfolding last week as the search for Jennifer Wilbanks was under way, a story that also ended with an incredible twist. It's indeed a reminding that boasting can sometimes backfire. From Boston tonight, CNN's Dan Lothian.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What was not to like about this tale? Antique cash dug up in a Massachusetts backyard by a group of friends. The little guys suddenly striking gold. But sometimes truth has a way of turning an amazing story upside down.

BILL KEITER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, EAGLE-TRIBUNE: I call it the Hardy boys adventure that turned into a Larry, Curly and Moe misadventure.

LOTHIAN: "Eagle-Tribune" editor-in-chief Bill Keiter says his local paper broke the story when one of the treasure finders called. KEITER: Saying they had a great story to tell us, and they're sure we'd be interested. LOTHIAN: The paper jumped at the scoop.

KEITER: We put it on the front page with the headline "Backyard Bonanza."

LOTHIAN: The story spread from the paper to local stations to national television. Tim Crebase, Barry Billcliff, Kevin Kozak and Matt Ingham gushed about their find.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was like, wow.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was like, this is just my dumb luck.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LOTHIAN: A box of rusting cans filled with 1,800 bank notes and bills, some more than a century old, unearthed in the backyard of the house Crebase rented from Kozak. The value to collectors?

BARRY BILLCLIFF, TREASURE FINDER: And we didn't know if they were worth the paper they are printed on, or if it's you know, a huge find.

LOTHIAN: A local coin shop owner determined they were authentic, and collectors valued it at more than $100,000. But if the money was real, at the local newspaper, they were a lot more suspicious of the story.

KEITER: Just some things that, again, caused our sniff meter to sort of start sniffing a little harder.

LOTHIAN: In different interviews, the story seemed to change. For example, what were they digging up in the backyard when they hit pay dirt?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was digging up the tree.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were going there to rip up a bush.

LOTHIAN: The editors noticed other holes.

KEITER: The history of the house where they found it. Where they had dug up the treasure in the backyard, the location of the backyard, the time that they had done it.

LOTHIAN (on camera): It wasn't just reporters and editors at the newspaper who were getting suspicious. Police in Methuen, the city where the friends said they had found the money, were noticing inconsistencies. They began asking questions, and this amazing story began to unravel. (voice-over): Helped by an anonymous tip, investigators concluded the friends had actually found the treasures while doing a roofing job at a barn on this farm 25 miles away. Police say Crebase confessed that the cans fell out of a gutter.

CHIEF JOSEPH SOLOMON, METHUEN POLICE DEPARTMENT: It would be our belief that it is -- belongs to one of the ancestors of the current family.

LOTHIAN: Last Friday, all four men were charged with receiving stolen property, conspiracy, and accessory after the fact. Despite any evidence to the contrary, some of the treasure finders are sticking to their original story.

MICHAEL RUANE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Our position is basically they found it where they said they found it. It was found in the backyard.

LOTHIAN: Some wonder why they would want to attract so much attention in the first place, if, as police say, the story was a hoax.

MATT INGHAM: I just wanted to be on TV.

LOTHIAN: And according to Keiter, one more reason.

KEITER: And they said, if we go public, we believe that there will be much higher bids coming in, people that value this kind of collection will offer much more money.

LOTHIAN: Big offers for the old bills are coming in. But police say the real owners, who never even knew about the hidden treasures, will be the only ones cashing in. Well, maybe the local paper, too, which has gotten a lot of ink...

KEITER: This is the one where...

LOTHIAN: ... out of what was to have been a one-day feature story. Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: The quote of the night, I just wanted to be on TV. Still to come tonight, what police now say was another kind of hoax. Still the question remains -- how did the finger get in the chili? And how is Wendy's handling it? Also ahead, a hoax that involves racist threats and a young African-American woman that police say was making them. We'll take a break first. For real. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Not every hoax or suspected hoax is goofy or harmless or victim-free. Police in the suburbs of Chicago say that in order to persuade her parents that the college she attended was dangerous, Alicia Harden herself mailed threatening letters to minority classmates.

In response, officials at Trinity University moved dozens of black and Latino students off campus last week. Ms. Harden who is 19 and African-American confessed to authorities after being asked to take a polygraph test. She's charged with disorderly conduct and hate crimes.

Now to California and the story that makes nerve the NEWSNIGHT 4:00 editorial meeting cringe. The woman who claimed she found part of a finger in a bowl of chili at Wendy's. We still don't know who that finger belongs to. But here's what we know for certain, the woman is accused of attempted grand theft because once her claim was made public, the public, imagine this, stopped going to Wendy's. From Los Angeles tonight, CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're eating breakfast right now, we apologize if this turns your stomach.

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a quirky local story at first, a woman eating at this Wendy's in San Jose claims she bit into a human finger that was in a bowl of chili. Wendy's spokesman had their first statement out within hours, but it wasn't always mentioned.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Other diners who also ate the chili took pictures of it with their cell phone cameras.

BUCKLEY: A Wendy's crisis team was assembled to manage the public relations crisis, senior management, corporate communications, quality assurance, supply chain, security and risk management, legal and marketing all had spots at the table. While local papers were publishing the finger in the chili allegation, local Wendy's employees were taking lie detector tests. The entire supply chain was being examined. Company officials were literally counting the fingerers of employees. And within 48 hours, they say, they knew the finger didn't belong to them. But when these photos of the finger were released by local authorities, Senior Vice President Denny Lynch told us the world changed at that moment. It became late show fodder for David Letterman.

DAVID LETTERMAN, "THE LATE SHOW": It's so sunny here in Manhattan today. Listen to this. The finger in my Wendy's chili was wearing sunblock.

BUCKLEY: Anna Ayala, the woman who claim shed bit into the finger, appeared on "Good Morning America."

ANNA AYALA, CLAIMED SHE FOUND FINGER IN CHILI: Knowing there was a human remain in my mouth, something in my mouth, it's disgusting. It is tearing me apart inside. It's nasty.

BUCKLEY: The Wendy's finger story had become water cooler talk. (on camera): And sales at Wendy's restaurants went down across the country. In one police affidavit, senior managers were quoted as saying, "The company was losing $1 million a day." Here in California, sales Were off by up to 50 percent at some restaurants.

TOM MUELLER, PRESIDENT, WENDY'S NORTH AMERICA: This has been an extremely difficult time for all of us at Wendy's. Our independent franchisees and their employees in the San Francisco area are the real victims.

BUCKLEY: Wendy's president went up on satellite with a video news release to tell the company's side of the story. Spokesmen tried to reassure the public.

STEVE JAY, WENDY'S SANTA CLARA COUNTY: We're very confident that it did not come from any employee or any supplier.

BUCKLEY: But the damage continued. Wendy's couldn't test the finger themselves. It was in the custody of county officials. And until an independent authority could say it wasn't Wendy's fault, advertising, the crisis team decided, wouldn't work. We could proclaim it, Lynch told us, but then people in the news media are going to say we're putting corporate spin on it. Then Anna Ayala herself became the story. Police discovered she had a history of suing people. They went to her home and served a search warrant.

AYALA: I'm sick of it! I'm tired of it! I am tired of it!

BUCKLEY: On Friday, April 22, exactly one month after the story broke, police announced that Ayala was in custody. Investigators didn't believe her story. She was charged with attempted grand theft.

CHIEF ROB DAVIS, SAN JOSE POLICE: Evidence suggests that the truest victims in this case are, indeed, the Wendy's owner, operators and employees here in San Jose who have suffered financially throughout this investigation.

BUCKLEY: Ayala denies the allegation, but now Wendy's is left to regain its reputation, which it started to do immediately after Ayala's arrest. That Friday, Wendy's gave away 100,000 Frosties in the Bay Area. Sales rebounded significantly, according to the crisis team. But they're not where they were before. Still, one crisis management consultant said the public is more likely to forgive Wendy's if it believes the company is the victim.

ERIC DEZENHALL, CRISIS MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT: I think Wendy's has been assertive, they've been cooperative with the media for the most part. And I think that, eventually with time, they are probably going to fully recover.

BUCKLEY: But Wendy's is not the only victim, because somewhere out there someone is still missing a finger. Frank Buckley, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Headlines in a moment. The Jackson trial, no hoax that. Morning papers just ahead as well. No hoax that either. A break first from New York. And there is it, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It would be somewhat of a hoax to tell you that it's a quarter to the hour. But it is time for Erica Hill in Atlanta -- Erica.

HILL: Just a couple of minutes late, but we're still here. Thanks, Aaron. Prosecutors in the Michael Jackson trial spent the day analyzing telephone records that contend that associates of the pop star tried to intimidate and control the family of Jackson's accuser. The prosecution may rest its case as early as tomorrow. Now a moment from a quarter century of CNN bringing you the news. Heidi Fleiss "Then & Now."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Heidi, do you think you'll give the names in the black book?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the 1990s, Heidi Fleiss was one of Hollywood's most notorious characters. The then 20-something daughter of a wealthy pediatrician used her family's connections to attract and service rich and famous clients as the Hollywood madam. Her arrest and trial became headline news. But she never did reveal the contents of her black book, and was sentenced to three years in prison for procuring prostitution and selling cocaine. When Fleiss was released from prison, she started capitalizing on her notoriety legally. Fleiss has a line of clothing called Heidiwear and owns a West Hollywood boutique called the Little Shop of Sex. She also invested in her looks, undergoing plastic surgery.

HEIDI FLEISS: I had the party, did the party, threw the party, was the party, I'm partied out. And I live every day to its fullest. And there's lessons that I've learned.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fleiss wrote a book about her experiences called "Pandering." She's also opening a legal brothel in Nevada. On the personal side, she recently faced off in court against former boyfriend and actor Tom Sizemore, accusing him of abuse. The Hollywood madam turns 40 this year and would like to be remembered for one thing. FLEISS: That I took the oldest profession on Earth and did it better than anyone on Earth. That's it, and that's all. Alexander the Great conquered the world at 32. I did it at 22.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Lieutenant Columbo was on to something when he said "just one more thing." TV detectives always have one more question. And after reporting a story, correspondents also can't help getting the itch to say, "just one more thing." Now they can. We call it "Newsbeat." Stories behind stories. Tonight, CNN's John Zarrella.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA (on camera): For more than a year now, I've covered at least three cases of missing people, children and those cases. And in all three cases, they did not come out with happy endings.

And so our immediate reaction is to cover the story certainly until you find out what has happened. For the past several days, I've been covering the Jennifer Wilbanks story. Many details of the story began to evolve over the weekend, and it's time to put it all into one encapsulated form for the viewers so they get a good idea of what this bizarre, very bizarre story was all about.

While people were certainly glad that Wilbanks was alive and well, the mood had changed to one, in some cases, certainly in Duluth, where many of the people who had given of their time in the search for this missing woman, were now, to put it mildly, very angry. It is clearly a strange tale that still requires many, many answers, and who knows how long it will be before we get those.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: I don't know, we'll check morning papers, see if any answers show up. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: OK. Time to check morning papers from around the country, and around the country -- I'm going to talk very fast because we hardly have any time tonight.

We're so pleased to have "The New York Daily News." We never get "The Daily News." Maybe we'll get it now.

The headline: "He Does? 'I Do,' Says Jilted Groom of Runaway Bride, Let's Get Married." I don't know about that, OK? I also wondered today if Greyhound was going to try and turn this into a promotional spot. Feeling at the end of the -- well, you know."

The Washington Post," very good story. "Tyrants' Lobbyist Flamboyant to the End." Van Kloberg -- Van Kloberg -- this is Edward Van Kloberg. After a career of image makers for the reviled. He had Baby Doc and Saddam Hussein. He was their PR guy. That would be a task.

"New Arena for Birth Control Battle," the headline in "The Star Tribune." A drug store not giving out birth control pills.

Weather tomorrow in Chicago, "incremental."

We'll see you at 10:00 Eastern time. Until then, good night for all of us.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com