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CNN Live Today
Former Senator Looks for Smart from the Skies
Aired June 18, 2002 - 14:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, in Utah, among the volunteers searching for missing teenager Elizabeth Smart is a former U.S. senator who's been combing the landscape from above.
CNN's Jeanne Meserve explains this story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The father and son fly past mountains, down canyons, over water and marsh, searching and hoping for any clue that could lead to Elizabeth Smart.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we're looking for is just anything out of the ordinary, anything unusual.
MESERVE: It could be a car where you don't often see one, unusual activity around a hunting cabin, or a glimmer of red, like the red of Elizabeth's pajamas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's some roads down here, dirt roads and so on, to particularly take a look at.
MESERVE: Many are giving their time and effort, but this volunteer pilot searching from his vintage 1948 Naveon (ph) is 69- year-old Jake Garn, a three-term veteran of the United States Senate.
In the '50s, as navy pilot, his mission was to patrol the skies over Asia. In the '80s, his mission was in space, where he served as a payload specialist on the shuttle Discovery.
His mission now: find a young girl.
JAKE GARN, VOLUNTEER: You can't fly in space without recognizing that we're all children of God traveling on spaceship Earth together, and we ought to treat each other a lot better than we do.
And so this has given me a lot of hope for the goodness of people, to see this massive demonstration of volunteers -- people that didn't even know Elizabeth.
MESERVE: Jake Garn does know Elizabeth. He went to high school with her grandmother, owns a house with an adjoining backyard. For a couple of years, Elizabeth and her family lived in the grandparent's home and Garn's wife, Kathleen (ph), drove the child to school. GARN: She was such a beautiful little girl, and they're such an incredibly good family, a model family. And to see this happen to you, just, when you know them, is just awful.
MESERVE: Garn has a special understanding of their pain. His first wife died in a car crash.
GARN: I don't mean to minimize that event in my life, but it's got to be worse to have a child missing and possibly gone forever. Your children are supposed to outlive you.
MESERVE: Garn is sure he will search again, and yet again if necessary, looking for that glimmer of red, looking to bring some peace to a family.
Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Salt Lake City, Utah.
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