Geraldo Weighs In on Natalee Holloway, Michael Vick and Dog Fighting

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," July 19, 2007, that has been edited for clarity.

BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Thursdays with Geraldo" segment tonight, "The Factor" has learned from sources we have to protect that Natalee Holloway, the 18-year-old Alabama woman who disappeared two years ago in Aruba, died from cardiac arrest brought on by an overdose of cocaine.

According to top law enforcement officials, Natalee ingested the cocaine with Jordan van der Sloot and one of the Kalpoe brothers. Her body was then disposed in the ocean. With us now, FOX News anchor Geraldo Rivera, who you can see Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m. in "The Factor" slot.

And I've got to give a viewer advisory here that this is information that "The Factor" has not been able to confirm independently because there is no body. But law enforcement officials believe that exactly what I said, that Natalee took a massive overdose of cocaine and when she died these boys disposed of her body.

GERALDO RIVERA, HOST, "GERALDO AT LARGE": I think it's entirely plausible. Let me just back up. I lament the fact that the island nation of Aruba has suffered so grievously in terms of its economics because of this notorious case.

O'REILLY: Have they suffered?

RIVERA: Yes, tourism is way, way down.

O'REILLY: Is it?

RIVERA: But one of the dirty secrets of Aruba was it made Vegas, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, it made Vegas look tame. Aruba was a place where the older people could go and have access to legal prostitutes and the younger kids could go and the reason the high school graduating classes all adored it, get whatever drugs they wanted.

Shortly after the homicide and when we went down to investigate we were with Natalee's uncles, they worked as undercover agents with us at Carlos and Charlie's, the nightclub where Natalee spent part of that last fateful evening with Jordan van der Sloot. On camera we easily captured them being offered ecstasy, marijuana and cocaine. Drugs were everywhere.

That's why it is entirely plausible, especially with Jordan van der Sloot, this slick rock 'n' roll man of the hour there that she got involved with — drugs and had an accidental overdose and I don't know for a fact because as you suggest correctly the body was disposed of. But the sea disposal of the body is what the bed has been from the very beginning.

O'REILLY: Right, and again, “The Factor” has not been able to confirm what I told you, however it does come from an enormously credible source I can tell you that.

RIVERA: And the focus has to remain on Jordan van der Sloot because even in your accounting he is responsible for at least the secreting of the body and its ultimate disposal.

O'REILLY: You bet. Ok, now let's go over to the Vick thing. He is innocent until proven guilty. We just want to say that right off the jump. But the brutality involved in the indictment, you read the indictment.

RIVERA: Yes and it's very, very graphic.

O'REILLY: Geraldo is an attorney, ladies and gentlemen.

RIVERA: It's very graphic.

O'REILLY: So he can understand every word.

RIVERA: Hanging the animals that were discarded, electrocuting the animals, torturing the animals.

O'REILLY: On Vick's property.

RIVERA: On Vick's property.

O'REILLY: Right, now Vick is going to say he wasn't there. His cousins did it.

RIVERA: That's his defense.

O'REILLY: But the whole world, this whole cruel world of dog fighting we heard at the top of the program linked into hip-hop, linked into professional sports and drug dealing, is almost beyond most people's comprehension.

RIVERA: Well to me if you have more than one pit bull it's like having a crack pipe. There's only one reason for it. It's for sadistic reasons. To watch them...

O'REILLY: What if you just like the dog?

RIVERA: If you like one of the animals you have to understand that after two centuries of breeding they are genetically predisposed to abnormal violence. That is the take on it. And there's no dispute about that. You might get one at the shelter. You might be humanistic. You might care for them.

All of that is fine but the fact of the matter is if you have more than one pit bull why do you have more than one pit bull? And anybody — I'm a parent of five children. Anybody who has a pit bull around my kids is immediately shunned by me, because they are as if they are walking around with a weapon about to go off.

Now what is interesting, and I watched your discussion with the hip-hop expert, is the — you know pit bulls have become accessories to many of the kids. Not just ghetto youngsters. But many kids who feel alienated in some way, who feel that it is...

O'REILLY: It's a sense of power.

RIVERA: A sense of power. I think there's almost a sexual empowerment there. There's a sickness that goes on that I think really has to be examined. If you have one of these animals ask yourself why. What are you going to do with it and what are you going to do when he thinks of your child as a rival some day. I think it's extremely dangerous. And what happened with Vick, innocent until proven guilty, but I think this will scar his already checkered career.

O'REILLY: He is through.

RIVERA: And you know he and his brother came up hard in the ghetto in Hampton Roads and all the rest of it.

O'REILLY: He'll never get over this. He makes Barry Bonds look like Little Bo Peep.

RIVERA: Barry Bonds, two home runs today, he's going all the way.

O'REILLY: All right, Geraldo, thank you. Watch him on the weekend.

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