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CNN Live At Daybreak

Some 09-11 Cases Continue to Baffle Investigators

Aired August 29, 2002 - 05:55   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Initial estimates of those killed on September 11 were between 5,000 and 6,000. But as the investigation has progressed, the numbers are actually dropping. There are now about 2,800 names on the list of victims. And it has continued to shrink as duplicate names are removed and missing person cases are solved.
Still, some cases continue to baffle investigators.

CNN's Hillary Lane takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. RON LIEBERMAN, HUSBAND OF MISSING WOMAN: Do you also deal with handling of, with the death certificates, like who is -- without finding evidence of a body?

HILLARY LANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than 11 months after his wife disappeared, Dr. Ron Lieberman has come to a heartbreaking conclusion.

LIEBERMAN: I believe my wife is dead. I don't know how she died, but I believe she's dead. It's been almost a year.

LANE: Dr. Snai Phillip (ph), 31 years old, was last seen shopping at a department store across the street from the World Trade Center, just a couple blocks from their home. But that was September 10. She never came home that night and by morning, the world around their home had crumbled to pieces. Dr. Phillip is still considered missing, yet counted among the victims.

The disappearance of Juan Lafuente is similarly mysterious. The husband of the mayor of Poughkeepsie, New York, Lafuente took his usual train to Manhattan on September 11. 8:06 a.m. his fare card shows he went into the subway at Grand Central Station. But the trail ends there.

He worked two blocks from the Trade Center. Detectives believe he may have gone to a breakfast meeting on top of the North Tower. Lafuente's family requested a death certificate late last year and just received one last week, investigators finally concluding he died in the attacks.

Dr. Phillip's family is still waiting, her case among the 40 or so that still puzzle detectives and attorneys.

FLORENCE HUTNER, NEW YORK CITY LAW DEPARTMENT ATTORNEY: If they haven't been resolved by now, it means that there are really tough investigative problems.

LANE (on camera): Problems in trying to determine whether some of those still considered missing would have been at the Trade Center complex that morning and trying to rule out fraud.

(voice-over): Still, 11 months later, there has been progress and the list of missing continues to shrink. Take off Albert Vaughan. He was tracked down to a psychiatric hospital 25 miles from New York City. And George Sims, a sidewalk vendor who never returned to his New Jersey home but turned up last week at a Manhattan hospital with amnesia.

ANNA SIMS, RELATIVE FOUND: We didn't get a death certificate. I never received anything that said no, I don't know for sure that he was down there. I just thank god that he's alive.

LANE: The city medical examiner tells CNN there may be more cases resolved soon, meaning more names off the victims' list. And while some believe in miracles, others are just depending on good police work.

Hillary Lane for CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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