on the governor winning his trust, playing on his sympathy even though their crimes are horrific. governor barbour remains unavailable to answer questions on our program. his office issued a statement. when he has spoken about this, not on this program, the governor suggested they committed crimes of passion and experts say such killers are the least likely to reoffend. we have shown you he is wrong on both accounts. this man, one of the four killers shot a clerk three times on his way into the convenience store he was robbing. on his way out, he shot twice more. he got away with $60. he was spared a possible death sentence when he ratted out his partner in the deadly robbery. it was not a crime of passion. david acted alone when he shot and killed his estranged wife, tammy and badly wounded her friend. he stalked her before seeing his opportunity to strike. tammy was holding on to their baby in her arms when she was shot. doesn't sound like a crime of passion. stalking, then killing someone and trying to eliminate the witness. >> i think he's a barbaric individual that can cold-bloodedly shoot someone like that and holding his child, his own child and him leave that child laying in the floor not to at least pick him up and take him with him. this individual is not where he belongs. >> you think he's still dangerous? >> i think he's very dangerous. >> and he's free. they are expected in court where the legality of the pardons have been questioned. governor barbour appeared on john king usa. he played a clip of tammi's mother. their anger grew after what he said. >> she was 20 years old when she died and had her child laying in her arms when he shot her in the head. he's pardoned. >> governor barbour going to pardon us for our aches, pains we have to suffer. is he going to pardon a child that had to grow up without a mother. >> the family met with my lawyers two years ago. they understood if any of these men, including that one successfully served at the mansion, they have been serving almost 20 years. on average, they served 20 years. if they successfully completed it, they would be pardoned. >> he claims his office met with betty and tiffany ellis. we asked them if that's true. governor barbour claims his lawyers met with your families two years before their release. is that true? >> no. that's absolutely false. we have had no contact with the governor or his lawyers, any of his people. no one has made an attempt to contact us. >> when you hear the governor refer to this as a crime of passion, what goes through your mind? >> rage. i mean, this is not a crime of passion when somebody rents a car in georgia, buys a gun, drives to mississippi, stalks my daughter and then shoots her. i don't believe that is a crime of passion. >> so, randy walker, the man he wounded fears for his life now. he's going to join us shortly. the closer we look, the worse this gets. when the state parole board review reviewed the case, they voted against releasing him. that was late 2010. he was working at the governor's mansion and the parole board recommended he not go free. the governor disregarded all that and pardoned him anyway. it happened without notification to the dead victims family. nothing for randy walker, the wounded man. when we learned he was going to the governor's mansion, they tried to meet with someone, anyone with the power to stop him from working in the governor's mansion. they finally got that meeting after he was placed at the mansion. governor barbours office sent a statement that reads. this process is solely at the discorrection of the department of corrections and public safety. the governor had no role in deciding who served at the mansion nor did he have personal knowledge. the governor is saying he had no control over who gets into the mansion. what about the decision of who gets out of the mansion and who gets free and pardoned? did governor barbour know about the parole denial that happened while he was serving him in the mansion? the parole board is required to investigate all applications for pardons and clemency. only if the governor asks them to. did he ask? we don't know and he's not talking. randy, how did you find out david was serving as a trustee in the governor's mansion? >> i have never been contacted by anybody about that. the way we found out was a website for the department of corrections in mississippi. you can look up an inmate by their last name. ic constantly kept a check on him. there for awhile, he was being transferred around to different facilities as a trustee. it was quite a shock when i saw in november, 2009, he became a trustee at the governor's mansion. >> you knew if he was a trustee, that was a road, eventually to getting pardoned in the past. did you try to contact him, try to tell them he should not be working in the governor's mansion? >> we tried to plead our case. when i found out in november, we tried for four months before we got a meeting with one of hailey barbours legal advisers. it was a pat you on the back meeting. they listened to what we said, said that's not going to happen. he's a trustee, live with it. that was their attitude. since then, we have written numerous letters around 20 phone calls just really being relentless. we have not had anymore contact with them. we think if we could have gotten to haley barbour and pled our case, we thought we could change the outcome on this. we never got that opportunity. >> as you know, what the former governor is saying, this is a crime of passion. because of the so-called crime of passion, according to the governor, experts say he's not likely to do something like that again. we found no experts who say that. they say it's silly. to you, was this is crime of passion when he pointed that gun and shot you? when he shot the woman you were friends with clutching her baby? >> absolutely not. if you take that further back in the time line, three or four days before he came, he told a girlfriend he was involved with in georgia he was coming to do the same thing. she would be subpoenaed in court to testify. he told somebody before he left georgia. if you look at his statement, his own words at the time he wrote the confession out, he point-blank says it's premedita premeditated. a crime of passion for me is if you come home, a spouse comes home early from lunch or a business trip and you walk in and catch them in bed with somebody and you beat them to death with a lamp on the side of the bed. haley barbour, his definition and mine of crime of passion are not in the same dictionary. >> the fact while he was working at the governor's mansion, his parole was denied tells you a lot. >> it tells you a lot. the united states has something called pardon attorney. there are procedures. it's complicate and takes a long time. i think they probably give too few pardons but they avoid this problem. there's a system in place where, you know, everybody gets a chance to be heard. instead, haley barbour ran out of his back pocket, decided on his own without input from anybody and this is the result you get. complete madness. >> did anyone tell you he was being pardoned? >> no. well, the saturday -- i got that letter saying he was declined parole on friday. i forget what the date is. like the 5th, i think. or it might have been the 6th. whatever the friday was before the 6th. that's friday. saturday, about 10:00, i get a phone call from the lady at the corrections department, the victim's coordinator saying that he had been unconditionally pardoned. i get this letter and 24 hours later a phone call saying the worst possible thing happened. i didn't get a say in anything. i didn't get to plead anything. my rights have been violated. >> does it seem odd, the pardon files that contain letters and other documents about this process, they don't exist for the trustees working in the governor's mansion. >> it's even more odd when you consider the people working in the governor's mansion were not just any old criminals, they were murderers. they are the kind of people you want to take extra care, not rely on just their good works and the fact they appear to have done a good job. you want to take extra care because you don't want to release murderers lightly. there were no procedures. it was barbour making up his mind and these are the consequences. >> remind the viewers how many years he was sentenced to. he avoided the death penalty. how many years he was sentenced to. >> he was charged with capital murder that would have carried the death sentence. we were getting ready to go to trial. he pled guilty to simple murder, a lesser charge. he got a life sentence on that. consecutive to that, aggravated assault, 20 years on that, then consecutive to that house burglary, a ten year charge. so, i read it to be one after the other, consecutive life plus 30 years. he did 17 years, 6 months and three days. >> two years in the governor's mansion. >> two years in the govern's mansion. he's never been a behind bars inmate. from the first time i started seeing him on the website, he's always been a trustee. so, you know, he's never really been what i consider to be incarcera incarcerated. >> randy, i'm sorry you are in this position where you have to talk about this. this shouldn't be the case. we will continue to follow it. thank you. >> thank you for having me, mr. cooper. >> we are going to continue to follow this case. we are on facebook. follow me on twitter at anderson cooper. let me know what you think of this case. up next, what are the keys to victory. we crunch the numbers. the headline statement that romney made. it's taken out of context. later, one young survivor of the florida highway tragedy that lost her family. there's another dimension to the story. let's check in with isha. >> an amazing story of heroism. a driver is saved from his car that is engolfed in flames when 360 continues. ble to use your in to open a bank account in ordern to make your money his money. 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[ male announcer ] you do, business pro. you do. vacations are always wasn'ta good ideaa ♪ priceline negoti - - no time. out quickly. you're miles from your destination. you'll need a hotel tonight we don't have time to bid you don't have to bid. at priceline you can choose from thousands of hotels on sale every day. save yourself... some money it's what he would have wanted.on my jou, i've learned that when you ask someone in texas if they want "big" savings on car insurance, it's a bit like asking if they want a big hat... ...'scuse me... ...or a big steak... ...or big hair... i think we have our answer. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. politics now. what happens next of romney's crushing victory in florida. no sign the other challengers are getting out. now the road lies west. let's check in with john king. john? >> we begin february with a map that should favor romney. i say should because there are mine fields. romney won it in 2008. watch ron paul. sometimes passion can beat organization. that's one place to watch. then next tuesday, colorado, missouri. romney favored in all these places. watch colorado. watch minnesota. santorum and paul looking to spring a surprise. no delegates at stake. speaker gingrich is here. he didn't make the ballot. that would have been a good state with a lot of conservat e conservativ conservatives. the main caucuses watch up here. romney is a new englander, should be his state. ron paul working hard. it could be a ron paul win. these are the prizes of the month, michigan and arizona. they are both established as romney states. they look good for him. we'll have to see if the situation looks the same at the end of the month. say we go that far and gingrich doesn't have a victory. watch paul. why did speaker gingrich say he would stay in the race? super tuesday. some delegates not on the ballot at all. it's a place newt gingrich could have had. he thinks he'll win georgia and oklahoma. it's why he stays in until march. if gingrich and nobody else gets wins, romney is raising more money after florida. no one else is close. they are spending it as the calendar gets more crowded. >> thanks. the victory lap interrupted today. he was talking to soledad o'brien. >> i'm in this race because i care about americans. i'm not concerned about the very poor. we have a safety net there. if it needs repair, i'll fix it. i'm not concerned about the very rich, they are doing fine. i'm concerned about the heart of america, the 99% of americans who are struggling. i'll take that message. >> the headline went on a lot of blogs. romney is not concerned about the poor. listen to him try to clarify. >> you've got to take the whole sentence. that sounds different. i have said throughout the campaign, i focus my concern. my energy devoted to the people. we have a safety net for the poor in the country. if there are holes in it, i will work to repair that. there are people falling through the cracks, i want to fix that. >> we think it's fair to show context of things. you can make up your mind if that clarifies it. the fact he spent a campaign day dealing with a fall out you decide. ari joins us on the phone and james. james, is it fair for the headline to be all over today about what governor romney said? >> it was an eruption among conservatives in the national review. i saw three or four comments. he was a really -- on a very good candidate. by the way, he doesn't understand conservative doctrine. i live with it in my house. these kind of programs hurt the poor. not only does it come across as voters in the middle, it's callous. to conservatives, it's dumb and doesn't represent what they say. >> ari, what is your take? >> caller: it's why politicians are politicians. everybody knows that was a mistaken statement. people have heard him on the campaign trail talk about how he want s wants to focus on the middle class. they need the most help in this country. it's an accurate statement. it was a slip. he shouldn't have done it. president obama had his own slip that i thought was bad this week, too. he was introduced to jennifer's husband. he couldn't understand how her husband couldn't get a job in the industry he was working in. line them up. romney had a slip of the tongue. president obama doesn't understand how bad the economy is. >> james? >> mitt romney is not a very good candidate. i said that before. yeah, if he outspent somebody 5-1 he's going to win a primary and be a nominee. ari knows there's zero chance of gingrich or santorum gets close. did he mean that? a slip of the tongue? he has a lot of slips of the tongue. he says things that scare people. it's a problem he has. i don't think his campaign can trust him on his own. he's okay if he's scripted and five to one money. >> let's talk about what happened last night. you have 24 hours distance on it. how do you look at his victory? >> caller: if you step back, give romney increasing credit. he's won 2 3/4. he lost votes as they came in in iowa. huge win in florida. most republican candidates don't have that kind of big gap between them and second place finisher. february is a strong month for him. he is in a very well positioned place. he has problems with the conservative base. he hasn't satisfied the base, yet. independents like him. he's running neck in neck with president obama. no other candidate is running that close to president obama. he's neck in neck. >> he made inroads with evangelicals and tea partiers. >> he's not running against them. none of these people had a chance to be the nominee. a breakdown if he can't get to 50. it's almost impossible to see. he's going to be the nominee. the problem romney has is he's not that good a candidate. the guy is not good on his feet. politically, he comes across as a detached doofus. i said politically. showing he's a bright guy. politically, he's out of it sometimes. >> caller: this is where james has a short memory and why politics are tough. four years ago, barack obama thought no one was listening and said blue collar voters cling to their guns. i want to say romney is a bad candidate. he's what every candidate is, someone who made a mistake. you learn from it, go on and do better. >> first of all, i never worked for hillary. secondly, he paid a price for that. he paid a price for that. romney -- you look at the comments to date among conservatives. look at the concern. he always conforms. he has a stereo type that he is kind of out of touch. that's why i said politically, he comes across as a detached doofus. this comment today feeds that. he's not able to deal with it. he's not that good on his feet. obama is not the greatest candidate ever. he paid a price for that. romney is going to pay a price again and again. it fits the existing suspicion. >> thanks very much. an alarming morning about iran. what u.s. intelligence officials told congress. a florida teen who survived the horrific highway crash involving a dozen cars and trucks. she lost her family and then her story took another frightening twist. we'll explain. a 360 follow about the horrible multivehicle crash sunday in florida. an 11th body was found inside a truck pulled from the wreckage. one of the survivors was a 15-year-old girl named lidiane carmo. her family perished in the crash. her and her family were in the country illegally. they are ridoriginally from bra. there's word on her status. martin? >> here is the way it broke down. they were here illegally 12 years ago. the visa expired. the federal government stepped in and said absolutely not. it's not going to happen. i.c.e. released this statement saying our thoughts and prayers are with her as she deals with the tragic loss of her family. the rumors of her deportation are false. there you have it. no prosecution, no deportation. >> you were able to speak with a pastor who spoke to family members when she heard the information. how is she doing? >> she does not have any memory of the accident. so, she was told yesterday what happened to her family. we talked to aaryn, a close family friend. here is how they told her. >> she waked up. the first thing she was looking for was laticia, her older sister, mom, dad. what happened to me. where am i? what happened? so, they explained to her what happened. she's simply cried a little. we know she's trying to process everything. but, she's doing well so far. >> 15 years old. to lose your parents, your sister like that. have we learned anything more about what she'll be facing? any challenges? >> she has to heal. she has a lot of broken bones, burns. probably going to need surgery. she has no health insurance. money is a factor. five members in the vehicle, they all died. the church does not have the money to transport the bodies back here to atlanta where they live. there is a lot of suffering going on. the church is so small they don't have room for all the casket that is will be there when the funeral is eventually held there. they are looking for