This is a rush transcript from "On the Record ," July 05, 2007. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: This is a "FOX News Alert." Zina Linnik is
missing tonight. The last thing anyone heard from her was a blood-curdling
scream. Twelve-year-old Zina Linnik was heard screaming outside her
Tacoma, Washington, home around 9:45 PM last night. A witnesses then saw
an Asian man drive away in an old gray van. The witness got a partial
reading of the van's license plate number of 1677. The young blond girl is
about 4-foot-10. She was last seen wearing a pink T-shirt, capri pants and
red flip-flops. An Amber Alert is in effect. If you have any tips or any
— please contact Tacoma police at 253-830-6508.
And tonight, explosive new secrets about Anna Nicole Smith's sudden
death. Do you remember Tas, the woman who unsuccessfully gave CPR to Anna
Nicole Smith? Tasma Brighthaupt, who goes by the name Tas, was inside the
Hard Rock hotel room with Anna Nicole Smith in the late morning hours of
February 8. Tas is the wife of Big Mo, Anna Nicole's former bodyguard.
She was there. She saw everything. Now Tas is going "On the Record" about
what happened in that hotel room.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VAN SUSTEREN: Tas, when did you first meet Mo?
TASMA BRIGHTHAUPT, NURSE WHO FOUND ANNA NICOLE'S BODY: I met Mo about
12 years ago.
VAN SUSTEREN: How long have you guys been married?
BRIGHTHAUPT: About two years now.
VAN SUSTEREN: When was the first time, you know, before Mo or after
Mo, that you ever heard the name Anna Nicole Smith?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Years ago, from her "Playboy" days.
VAN SUSTEREN: So you'd heard of her before.
BRIGHTHAUPT: I'd heard of her long before.
VAN SUSTEREN: When you married Mo, did you know that Mo knew Anna
Nicole?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: How did you understand that they knew each other?
BRIGHTHAUPT: In a working sense. He worked with her as a bodyguard.
VAN SUSTEREN: When did you then first actually meet her?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I met Anna about two years ago, a year-and-a-half ago.
VAN SUSTEREN: Where?
BRIGHTHAUPT: At the Hard Rock.
VAN SUSTEREN: And that's where she ultimately died.
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: What was your impression of her?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I thought she was beautiful. She had a wonderful sense
of humor, very smart, intelligent, very friendly. And she was very, very
happy to meet me.
VAN SUSTEREN: How about Howard? Was he there at the time, Howard K. Stern?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Howard was there at the time.
VAN SUSTEREN: What was your first impression of Howard K. Stern?
BRIGHTHAUPT: He was quiet.
VAN SUSTEREN: Friendly?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes, very friendly, but quiet.
VAN SUSTEREN: About how much time did you spend with them that first
time?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I'd say about a half an hour.
VAN SUSTEREN: And then afterwards, between the time that you first
met them about two years ago until the time she died, about how many times
did you see her?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Once.
VAN SUSTEREN: And where was that?
BRIGHTHAUPT: At the Hard Rock.
VAN SUSTEREN: Again?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes, because every time she would come, that's where she
would stay.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, let's jump ahead to February of this year.
She died on February 8. Was that the first time you'd seen her, or had you
come up here on the days leading up to it?
BRIGHTHAUPT: No, that was the first time I'd seen her on that trip.
VAN SUSTEREN: And the last time you'd seen her was before she moved
to the Bahamas?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: So you and your husband — you joined him. You drove
up yourself?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Right.
VAN SUSTEREN: Take me through what happened. You park the car, and
who's the first person that you recognize and where?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I parked the car on — my husband told me to meet him at
a restaurant called the Blue Plate. And I met him there, and that's where
we had breakfast.
VAN SUSTEREN: Had he seen Anna Nicole at that point, that day?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I don't know.
VAN SUSTEREN: Did he mention anything about Howard K. Stern at that
point?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Well, while we were eating breakfast, Howard called us.
Actually, Howard called him and asked him to pick up some friends that were
coming in from the airport. And he said that he would go pick them, up and
then — but at that point, our breakfast hadn't come yet. A few minutes
later, he called us again, or he called Mo again and asked him — I guess
asked him if, you know, if we were gone, or you know, what was going on.
So I said to my husband, I said, Howard called you two times, maybe we
should leave. What if he comes down and you're still here, you're not
gone? So he says, Oh, Howard's not going to come down here and leave Anna.
So at that point, I got relaxed and we ate breakfast and we left to go to
the airport.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why did he think that Howard wouldn't leave Anna?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I guess because she wasn't feeling well.
VAN SUSTEREN: So Mo knew that when you sat down to breakfast, that —
at least at some point, that Anna wasn't doing particularly well.
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes, I think so.
VAN SUSTEREN: He had been up — he had been at the hotel how many
days in advance of you?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I think one day.
VAN SUSTEREN: Did he call you on the phone and tell you how Anna was
or talk about her being sick?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes, he did.
VAN SUSTEREN: The day before?
BRIGHTHAUPT: The day before.
VAN SUSTEREN: Tell me what he said in the conversation, how he
described things.
BRIGHTHAUPT: Well, he just called and he asked me if I thought it was
a good idea for him to let them put Anna in ice because Anna's temperature
was 105. And I said, Well, no. I said, In the hospital, we don't do that
anymore. We give a tepid bath and we give a sponge bath in the bed. You
can put her in tepid water, but you don't put ice in the water.
So he says — and I heard him, you know, screaming and saying, My wife
said not to put ice in the water. And I heard her in the background, like,
Please, please, take me out, take me out, and, I'm cold, or something to
that — something to that — you know, she said. And my husband said, My
wife says not to put ice in the water. And then he said, Tas, I have to
go, and let me try to convince them, you know, not to put ice in the water
and to get her out of water, so...
VAN SUSTEREN: When he said "them," who did you understand to be
there?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Howard was there, and I think Khristine Erosevich, who
was her psychiatrist, I think she was also there with them.
VAN SUSTEREN: Do you know if Khristine was acting as a psychiatrist,
spending time with her, or more as a friend over the preceding months?
BRIGHTHAUPT: You know, Greta, I have no idea.
VAN SUSTEREN: Your impression of her was what?
BRIGHTHAUPT: She was kind of friendly. She didn't have very much to
say. She just said, It's great to finally meet you, I've heard a lot about
you. And that was pretty much it.
VAN SUSTEREN: Did you discuss Anna's condition at all?
BRIGHTHAUPT: No.
VAN SUSTEREN: Did you think that she was attending to Anna — I mean,
she's a psychiatrist, but she's a medical doctor, a medical degree. Did
you think that she was attending to her sickness?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I don't know. But from what I understand, Anna asked
her to not leave. And she left anyway.
VAN SUSTEREN: Who told you that Anna asked her not to leave?
BRIGHTHAUPT: My husband, Mo.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why did she leave?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I have no idea. I have no idea. They said something
about some business she had to take care of in California.
VAN SUSTEREN: Did it bother you that she left?
BRIGHTHAUPT: It bothered me that she left because that was pretty
much the only medical professional that was with her all the time.
VAN SUSTEREN: Was there ever any discussion about taking her to the
hospital on the day before she died?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Well, I told my husband to make sure that they take her
to the hospital because if you — even if you give someone a tepid bath,
you give them Tylenol, no matter what you give them, they need antibiotics.
They should be on some type of IV antibiotics.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why wasn't she taken to the hospital?
BRIGHTHAUPT: She refused. She would not let them take her. She did
not want to go.
VAN SUSTEREN: Where was Howard that day before — when you're having
a conversation with your husband about the ice in the bath, do you know
where Howard was?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I understood that he was there.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. So that's the day before she dies. You
then come the fixture day to see your husband. And you're having
breakfast. And is this restaurant in the hotel?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes, it is.
VAN SUSTEREN: Howard makes the second phone call to you about going
to the airport. Did you go to the airport?
BRIGHTHAUPT: We went to the airport soon after the second phone call.
VAN SUSTEREN: What time did you get back to the hotel after picking
up the friends at the airport?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Just before 12:00.
VAN SUSTEREN: And where did they go?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Mo — well, when we got back from the airport and we
walked up to the elevator, Howard was coming off the elevator. And we all
went back upstairs. He said he was coming down to use his phone, but he
just got right back on the elevator with us and never used the phone. We
all went back upstairs. He went through Anna's door of the suite, and the
rest of us went through my husband's door of the suite.
VAN SUSTEREN: And?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Now, I stayed in the room. Me and the guy that was
going to captain the boat, we stayed in Mo's room. And Mo went in the —
like, the little, I guess, living room area of the suite with King Eric and
his wife. And I don't know, maybe they wanted to say hello to Anna or
whatever. I don't remember. I don't actually know what went on when they
all went on that side because I stayed on the other side.
And about five minutes later, my husband came and got me. He said,
OK, I'm ready to go, because he had to go and help his brother move, and
Howard was going to pick up the boat. So he told me to come on. He got
his computer and told me to come and sit in the room with Anna at the — in
the chair at the foot of her bed, just sit there with her until they come
back.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Because they didn't want to leave her alone.
VAN SUSTEREN: So did you do that?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I did that. And while I was on my way to the room,
Howard stopped me. He said, Are you going to stay with Anna? So I said,
Sure. He says, You don't mind? I said, No. He says, Would you help her
to the bathroom if she needed help? I said, Of course, I would.
And he left, and my husband set me in the room and set the computer up
on the table, and everybody left but me and the wife of King Eric. She
stayed out in the living room area. And that was the set-up.
VAN SUSTEREN: So when you went into the room, did you have a
conversation with Anna when you entered her room?
BRIGHTHAUPT: No conversation at any time. I was told that Anna was
asleep.
VAN SUSTEREN: Did you take a look at her when you walked in?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I could barely see her. The way she was covered up, her
— I could see a portion of her head. And the way she was laying, it just
looked like someone that was asleep.
VAN SUSTEREN: At some point, though, there — at some point, you went
over to her.
BRIGHTHAUPT: No. Well, at some point, when I was told — when the
other person came in the room because I was on my phone speaking to my
husband — Mo, he called to see how everything was. And I was speaking to
him. And I had an earpiece on, and she thought I was talking to Anna. And
she just came into the room, and she said, Oh, hi, Anna's awake. I said,
No, she's not awake. And she walked up to the bed and just peeked. She
said, Well, let me just take a look at her. And she came in and she
looked, and she didn't like what she saw. And she told me to come up to
the bed and take a look.
VAN SUSTEREN: And?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I was a little adamant about going because I figured she
was sleeping. I didn't want to wake her, and I didn't want much stirring
around, you know, to wake her up. So she says, No, you've got to come over
here. She says, I don't like the way Anna looks. I got up and I went
halfway, and I peeked over. And I said, Look, Anna's sleeping. She says,
No, come a little closer. And I got a little closer, and I didn't like
what I saw.
VAN SUSTEREN: How did she — I mean, when you say you didn't like —
I mean, you thought she was dead at that point?
BRIGHTHAUPT: No, not at that point. When I got closer and I asked
her to, you know, flick some lights on — we went, like, a little berserk
looking for lights to flick on. And I didn't — if she was sleeping, I
didn't want to, like, startle her with lights. So when we flicked on, I
think it was a closet light that was closest to the bed, then I could see
her, then I knew that something was wrong.
I pulled the covers back a little better, and then I kind of shook her
a little bit and tried to wake her up, and she didn't wake. And I moved
her head a little bit, and it kind of flopped back, and I knew that
something was wrong. When we got more lights on, then I noticed her skin
was looking kind of pale and she had, like, purple blotches on her skin.
And that's when I knew, and that's when I hit my earpiece and I called my
husband and I said, I can't arouse Anna. She's not — you know, she's not
waking up. She's not responding to me. You need to call 911 and get back
here.
And that's when I went to the CPR, you know, thing where I opened up
the airway, and (INAUDIBLE) listened (ph) and feel, and I couldn't hear
anything. I — there was no air exchange at all. So I started the CPR. I
gave her the two breaths. They didn't go in. I repositioned her head,
gave her another two breaths. They went in. And I felt for a pulse, no
pulse. So I did CPR.
VAN SUSTEREN: Do you think Howard or anyone else knew that before
they left the room, that she was dead?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I can't say.
VAN SUSTEREN: You pause as though something's bothering you.
BRIGHTHAUPT: A lot of things are bothering me. I have a lot of
suspicions.
VAN SUSTEREN: Like what? And based on what?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Well, because I was told that Howard would never leave
Anna, you know, if she was feeling sick or whatever, the situation was
going on with her, he would never leave her. And when we went to the
airport and we came back, he was coming off the elevator with his phone.
And my husband says, Where are you going. What's going on? And he
says, Oh, I came to use my phone. And he just turned right around and went
back upstairs with us. He never used the phone. That's one suspicion.
My other suspicion is that why didn't he wake Anna before he left? I
mean, you can sit here and say to me, How do you know that he didn't wake
Anna? I know that he didn't wake Anna because when I went in the room,
there was no movement. There was no — nothing.
VAN SUSTEREN: How about drugs? Did you find any in the room?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I found — I found a box of Tamiflu and I found a bottle
of antibiotics. I don't remember the name.
VAN SUSTEREN: Both consistent with a flu and an infection. That's
normal.
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes, that's normal.
VAN SUSTEREN: Any other drugs?
BRIGHTHAUPT: No. Nothing else.
VAN SUSTEREN: Any — was there a package of drugs that — or a
package mailed to your house at one point for Howard?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: When was that?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Not too long before Anna's death.
VAN SUSTEREN: Like days or weeks?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Days.
VAN SUSTEREN: Do you know what was in that box?
BRIGHTHAUPT: No.
VAN SUSTEREN: Was it peculiar?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Quite.
VAN SUSTEREN: In what way?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Why was it mailed to my house? Why wasn't it mailed to
the Hard Rock?
VAN SUSTEREN: Why do you think?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Personally? Set up.
VAN SUSTEREN: Meaning?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I just — you know, I personally feel like we were being
set up. That's the way I feel.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAN SUSTEREN: Were Tas and Big Mo being set up? And what horrifying
thing did Tas see on Anna Nicole Smith's bed in that Hard Rock hotel room?
It's disturbing, but it may be an important ignored piece of information.
We have much more of our interview with Tas in a moment.
And then it's your turn to investigate. Did Tas say or see something
that has spiked a question in your mind? Here's your chance. Forensic
pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, and former LAPD homicide detective Mark Fuhrman are here to answer your e-mail questions tonight. E-mail us right
now, Ontherecord@foxnews.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAN SUSTEREN: What happened inside that Hard Rock hotel room the
morning Anna Nicole died? Tas knows. She was there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VAN SUSTEREN: Tas, explain to me, the drugs that were found in her
body at her autopsy — did you see any of those drugs in her hotel room?
BRIGHTHAUPT: No.
VAN SUSTEREN: You didn't see any empty bottles?
BRIGHTHAUPT: No. But then again, you know, Greta, I wasn't looking,
so they could have been around. They could have been in the bathroom, you
know? But no.
VAN SUSTEREN: And it strikes you as odd, based on the description
that you had of Anna and what you saw that she could have gotten up and
taken them herself.
BRIGHTHAUPT: She could have gotten up and taken them herself, but I
doubt it.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Because I was told that she had to be walked to the
restroom. So how could she have gotten up and dug up medications? And
where did she put them? Where were they? They could have been somewhere
in the room, like I said, and I just didn't see them, you know, but -
VAN SUSTEREN: Do you — did you talk to Dr. Perper?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I spoke with Dr. Perper.
VAN SUSTEREN: How long did you speak to him?
BRIGHTHAUPT: About an hour-and-a-half, close to two hours.
VAN SUSTEREN: What kind of questions did he ask you?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Well, he wanted to know if I was the private duty nurse,
had I given her any medications, how long have I been there. He asked me
to describe how I found her, who else was in the room, those types of
questions.
VAN SUSTEREN: Anything that you thought that he should have asked
you?
BRIGHTHAUPT: No. He asked pretty much what he — what I would think
a medical examiner would ask someone in the medical profession.
VAN SUSTEREN: Did you see Howard when he came back to the room?
BRIGHTHAUPT: When he came back to the room from...
VAN SUSTEREN: After the medics had been summoned, after they'd been
called, did you see Howard when he came back to the room?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes, I did.
VAN SUSTEREN: Tell me what's going on in the room. You're doing CPR.
Your husband returns. He called 911. The medics arrive. Did they try to
revive her in the room, as well?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes, they did.
VAN SUSTEREN: Was she pronounced dead in the room or not?
BRIGHTHAUPT: No. No, there was no doctor. We couldn't pronounce her
dead.
VAN SUSTEREN: OK. So what — so tell me what happened. The medics
are working on her and — bring me through the timeline.
BRIGHTHAUPT: Well, from the time that I found her and I started CPR
and I called my husband, it took him, I don't know, I guess less than 10
minutes to get back because where he went was not that far from the Hard
Rock. So he came back and wanted to know what happened, and why was she
still on the bed? Because CPR is not effective on the bed.
Anna was dead weight. I could not get Anna off the bed and put her on
the floor because if she was just unconscious to the point that she was
still OK, by the time I got her on the floor, I would have probably knocked
her out because she was heavy. I could not move her. And that's what I
tried to explain to my husband, and he was quite upset about that.
But anyway, he picked her up and put her on the floor, and you know,
we did interchangeable CPR at that point, and we did CPR until the medics
arrived.
VAN SUSTEREN: And then what happened? The medics arrive, and how
soon after did Howard arrive?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I don't know, about maybe 10 minutes or so because they
had already intubated her and I guess give her whatever they had to give
her to reverse the effects of whatever she had taken. So we — and they
hooked her up to the life pack, and they pretty much had her ready to go by
the time he got there.
VAN SUSTEREN: And then what happened. He arrived and...
BRIGHTHAUPT: He arrived. They wouldn't let him in the room. He was
outside. By the time I got outside after they were wheeling her out, I
went out of the room, and he was, like, on the floor, inconsolable.
VAN SUSTEREN: When you went into that room, was the room — anything
unusual about the room? Was it in reasonably good order or...
BRIGHTHAUPT: The room was a mess. The room was an absolute mess.
The way Anna was covered up, now that I think about it, or after a couple
weeks of thinking about the way that the room looked, I got suspicious.
When I first (INAUDIBLE) I figured, Oh, maybe that's just the way she
sleeps, you know, all covered up and her head halfway covered up. And I
mean, sometimes that's the normal way people sleep.
But now that I think about it, you know, the way she just laid there
and just laid there covered up the whole — pretty much the whole time.
There was a baby bottle on top of her. There was a pillow on the floor.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why was there a baby bottle — I mean, Dannielynn
wasn't even there.
BRIGHTHAUPT: No, Dannielynn was not there.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why was the baby bottle there?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I have no idea. You know, sometimes people travel with
memorabilia. She didn't bring her baby with her, so maybe that's one of
the reasons. But it was on top of her.
VAN SUSTEREN: On top of — she had a blanket pulled up on her, pulled
up — top — close up on the top of her head.
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: And then the bottle was on top of it, like, balancing?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Yes. The bottle was, like, on her — closer to her
thigh area.
VAN SUSTEREN: And it didn't fall?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Not that I can remember.
VAN SUSTEREN: Which means she wasn't moving. Anything else, you
know, stand out in your mind?
BRIGHTHAUPT: It's just that when my husband pulled all the covers off
of her and picked her up to put her on the floor, she was completely naked.
She had no clothes on, and there was a bunch of feces in the bed.
VAN SUSTEREN: You're a nurse. Would that be consistent with someone
who had already died? Did it appear that, you know, she'd been in the
feces for a period of time? I mean, what was — what did you — what did
you think?
BRIGHTHAUPT: Well, usually, when a person dies, their what you call
sphincter muscles would relax and they would have their last bowel
movement. It would relieve the — that area of what's in it.
VAN SUSTEREN: Did you observe — I don't think it's too graphic, but
did it appear that this was a recent event, within half an hour, or this
had happened, you know, a couple hours before?
BRIGHTHAUPT: I didn't really read into it that much, but it could
have happened a while because it looked like it was dried up.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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