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CNN Live Sunday
Was BTK's Daughter Involved in Her Father's Arrest?; Rolling Out the Red Carpet
Aired February 27, 2005 - 16:00 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.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I waited 28 years for this day. Rest in peace. I would just like to thank everybody.
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ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The BTK killer took his mother's life. Family members of those murdered react to the arrest of a suspect. We have new developments in the case.
Also two years ago, I introduced you to some remarkable children in Ethiopia, lone survivors of families stricken with AIDS. Later this hour, I'll talk to two people who are changing lives quite literally in Ethiopia and show you how some proof these kids are growing up.
And on a lighter note, we are counting down to tonight's Academy Awards. We are live from the red carpet. Hello and welcome to CNN LIVE SUNDAY. I'm Andrea Koppel. We'll have all that and more after this check of the headlines.
The Associated Press reports that Syria captured Saddam Hussein's half-brother and Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al Tikriti was handed over to Iraq in an apparent good will gesture. Al-Hassan was number 36 on the U.S. military's 55 most wanted Iraqis list. A full report from our Nic Robertson in Baghdad is coming up in 10 minutes.
In the wake of Friday's deadly suicide blast in Tel Aviv, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is putting blame on Syrians and Palestinians. Mr. Sharon says the Islamic jihad in Syria carried out the attack but suggests Palestinians share the blame because they did not take, quote, practical measures against terrorism.
Pope John Paul II misses the Sunday blessing at the Vatican for his first time as pontiff. The traditional angelus blessing was conducted without him at St. Peter's Square, but the pope, who is recovering from a tracheotomy, did appear to faithful at his hospital window today.
Tracking a serial killer in Kansas. After 31 years, 10 victims and thousands of tips and DNA samples, today, there is more information about the needle in a haystack search that ended with Friday's arrest of Dennis Rader. Rader remains in custody this afternoon, accused of being Wichita's infamous BTK. That's the nickname the killer gave himself which stands for bind, torture and kill. Larry Hatteberg, who is an anchor with CNN affiliate KAKE, has been following the case quite literally since the very beginning. He joins us from Wichita Kansas.
Larry, I'm hoping that you can clarify for our viewers some of the information that I know your station KAKE broke yesterday and then we've been trying to sort of go back and forth. Let us get to the bottom of the daughter's involvement in her father's arrest. Was the daughter's DNA involved in the arrest? Did she cooperate? What do we know about that?
LARRY HATTEBERG, KAKE ANCHOR: The daughter's DNA was involved in the arrest, but not necessarily directly. What we do know is that police and FBI obtained the daughter's DNA. Now, how they obtained that is still subject to some conjecture here, but we do know they obtained her DNA and in the family part of the DNA strand, it was a match, so that they knew someone in her family was BTK. Now, just how they went about obtaining that, that is still subject to some conjecture here. We are working on that aspect of the story and we will certainly have more on that later just as soon as we verify it.
KOPPEL: Sure.
HATTEBERG: But I can tell you that the daughter did not turn her father in.
KOPPEL: OK.
HATTEBERG: That did not happen.
KOPPEL: OK.
HATTEBERG: That way.
KOPPEL: Larry, we know that BTK resurfaced about a year ago and he sent like a package to your station. He sent letters and what not to the "Wichita Eagle," one of your local papers. Do we know how police managed to narrow the field to him in the last year?
HATTEBERG: Well, the police department always said it was vital to keep BTK communicating and we feel in some of the last few communications, that he made some mistakes, that he made an error. Just exactly what that error was again, we are working on that aspect of the story, but we believe it was part of the communications that helped the police lead them to the fact that this man was, in fact, BTK. We know that in the past four weeks, they really narrowed it down. In the past five days, it got very tight. And then what you're looking at now are some of the early victims, unfortunately, from the 1970s and 1980s. But in the last four or five days, they really narrowed it down because we, as reporters, could tell that the police department was really tightening down. We knew something was happening and then all of a sudden, about noon Friday, we knew that they had BTK.
KOPPEL: You and I were chatting before this broadcast and you said that the police and some of the people in the community who knew Dennis, but didn't realize, of course that it was him or at least he's accused of this, that he had a Jekyll Hyde personality.
HATTEBERG: He really did have a Jekyll Hyde personality. From all of the people who we've been talking to in the Park City area, in one side of his personality, he was the president of his Lutheran church. We was known as a do-be in the church. They said that he would do anything in the church. He was well-liked. He dressed nicely. He was neat. He would pass the collection plate. He would run the sound system, whatever needed to be done in the church.
But in his official capacity there as a compliance officer there in Park City, some people really hated the guy and felt that he was not only not doing his job, but he was doing more than just a job. At one point, he would measure people's grass in the front yard and tell them that their grass was too high. We got that little report. We had one report of a woman said where he opened the woman's front door and walked in a little ways and said, "by the way, don't forget, you have a court date tomorrow." How scary would that be?
KOPPEL: That is scary. You know what else I find scary is what you said KAKE has confirmed and that is that Dennis went to Wichita State University and graduated with a degree in criminal justice administration.
HATTEBERG: Exactly and that fits what the police department had always thought, that this gentleman had a police and a military background. And they had developed that information over a number of years and in investigating this case. The other interesting thing about this is what the police department thought, for example, particularly former police chief Richard Lamunyon, he always said, he said BTK never left this community. He was always part of the community. He was going to the mall with us. He was eating dinner with us. He was our next door neighbor and those are prophetic words because that is absolutely what happened. BTK never left this community.
The question is, why did he stop killing for those 18 years or did he stop killing for those 18 years? There are a lot of questions here that we need to have answered that we don't know yet. This is a story that's going to keep going and going and going. There is a long road left on this story.
KOPPEL: Oh, boy. Well, listen, Larry Hatteberg, we thank you for your insight and if, in fact, this is the man I'm sure there is a lot of relief felt amongst the people of Wichita. Thank you so much.
HATTEBERG: And you can see it right here in the newspaper, "BTK is arrested."
KOPPEL: Well, he hasn't been tried yet, but they certainly hope that he is the guy.
HATTEBERG: They certainly do, but there is a huge relief in Wichita.
KOPPEL: Thanks so much.
HATTEBERG: Sure.
KOPPEL: Well, families, as you can imagine of the victims, reacted with applause and fresh anguish to word of Rader's arrest. Since the announcement, people now say 62-year-old Deloris Davis whose murder had been unsolved for years, was the last person killed by BTK. Davis was abducted from her home in January 1991. her strangled body was found two weeks later.
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JEFF DAVIS, VICTIM'S SON: It's going to take a while to reconcile the fact that my mom spent her last few minutes on this earth at the hands of the lowest form of social sewage on the ladder of evolution and it's hard to accept that that's what she last saw when -- before she died.
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KOPPEL: Prosecutors say the death penalty will not apply in BTK case. The killings occurred before 1994, when capital punishment was reinstated in Kansas. Joseph and Julie Otero and two of their children were the first BTK victims back in 1974. Their surviving son who found the bodies says justice is not being served.
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CHARLIE OTERO, PARENTS, SIBLINGS KILLED: I, myself, believe that an eye for an eye and I think that, you know he, he deserves the death penalty for what he did to my family and to the other women and then, once again, here we go with the legal matters of prior to 1994, no death penalty. Stuff like that. You know, I mean, the law is the law, I understand that, but what is the difference? The guy killed the people in '94. He can be put to sleep, but the guy who killed somebody in 1993 can't? I mean, there is no justice there.
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KOPPEL: CNN's Aaron Brown will have more on catching BTK tomorrow in a special edition of NEWSNIGHT. That's at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
On the Gulf coast of Florida, searchers today braved torrential rains to look for a missing girl. Nine-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford vanished from her own bedroom on Wednesday night. CNN's Sara Dorsey is live in Homosassa Springs, with a new development in this case. Hi there, Sara.
SARA DORSEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello. Earlier this afternoon, the Citrus County sheriff's office came out telling us they had a piece of surveillance video from a nearby convenience store that showed a young girl that resembled Jessica. That video was taken early Thursday morning, about an hour before Jessica was reported missing. She was shown with a man and the officials here told the media they wanted help identifying this man to see if, in fact, that could be Jessica in the video. Just minutes ago, they came back out telling us that, in fact, that man had been identified and the young girl in the video was in fact, not Jessica.
Now, the entire time that was unfolding and then again wrapped up, volunteers, hundreds of them across this area were searching for the little girl. Rain poured throughout the afternoon and these people still came out in numbers. They were fighting very bad conditions all day today, as well as trying to get through brush and wooded areas, looking for any sign of this little girl. Of course, nothing was found just yet. Police are telling us right now, they don't have a lot to go on. They are getting tips but those tips seem to be not leading them in the right direction. A lot have been sightings they say that really don't seem to have panned out. So right now, the investigation stands where it has. Unfortunately, the last couple of days, police are just waiting for the one tip that could possibly lead them to this little girl. Andrea?
KOPPEL: Such a sad story. Sara Dorsey, thank you so much.
A new twist on the capture of Saddam Hussein's half-brother. The Associated Press reports Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti was captured by Syrian authorities who then turned him over to Iraq as a goodwill gesture. Reports say al-Hassan was detained in Syria following the February 14th assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson explains now why there was a million dollar reward for al- Hassan's capture.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He was on the run for almost two years. Saddam Hussein's half brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, number 36 on the list of 55 most wanted, now, captured. When these pictures were taken in 1999, he was an adviser to Saddam. Today's interim government accuses him of supervising, planning, and carrying out insurgent operations as well as killing and torturing Iranians. During the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, he was head of Iraqi intelligence becoming director of Iraqi security during the '90s.
Then he fell out of favor and was placed under house arrest before being rehabilitated to presidential adviser several years later. Most on the top 55 list, including Saddam's other brothers, Bazan and Watban seen here at the same medal ceremony for presidential advisers, have already been arrested. Bazan, likely one of the first of Saddam's favored hard men to face the Iraqi special tribunal. Sabawi, who had a million dollar bounty on his head seems likely to face a similar fate. According to Iraqi intelligence sources, Sabawi has spent much of the last two years outside of Iraq, notably, they say, settling in Syria for a while. They also say he's been in regular contact with Izat Ibrahim Al-Douri, Saddam's most trusted lieutenant outside his immediate family, a man U.S. military officials say is a key figure behind the insurgency. Nic Robertson, CNN Baghdad.
KOPPEL: More violence across Iraq. The U.S. military today announced a rise in the death toll for U.S. forces. Two American soldiers killed in an insurgent attack yesterday east of Baghdad and a Marine was killed in a separate attack in the Babil province. 1494 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since the war began. Southeast of Mosul, eight Iraqis were killed in the town of Hamam al-Alil today when a bomb exploded at a government building. Several of the dead were Iraqi security forces. Two others were wounded in the blast. North of Kirkuk, firefighters have finally extinguished a massive blaze at an Iraqi oil pipeline. A police source says the bomb was planted to damage the pipeline yesterday.
CNN is committed to providing you with the latest news and information that affects your security. Up next, there are some of our strongest allies, so why are many European nations being used by terrorists for breeding grounds to terror cells that could threaten the United States? Also--
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I personally would not allow my family or friends to fly out of that airport now knowing what I know.
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KOPPEL: Strong words from one man on the security at one of our nation's biggest airports. And consider this -- he's a former security screener.
Plus we're going to spend a good bit of time talking about the AIDS epidemic. Hundreds of thousands of children in one country are orphans, their parents killed by the disease. We'll talk to one woman who is helping those children one at a time.
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KOPPEL: It's a question that many are asking -- will the next terrorist threat to the U.S. originate in Europe? The war on terror underlies some of the issues President Bush dealt with this week during his European tour. The leaders he met with face an ongoing ominous challenge, networks of terrorists lurking between the cosmopolitan surface in the oldest capitals of western civilization. CNN's Elaine Quijano reports.
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ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the launching point for the September 11th attacks and some believe terrorists could one day again use Europe as their staging ground for the next strike against the U.S.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: (INAUDIBLE) cells in Britain, in France, in Spain, Germany, Italy, because we've seen since 9/11 very serious plots in these countries.
QUIJANO: One of those, March 11th, 2004 in the Spanish capital of Madrid, Spain, when terrorist bombings killed nearly 200 people and wounded more than 1400 others. Europe, some experts say, provides fertile ground for terrorism.
STEVE SIMON, RAND SR. MIDDLE EAST ANALYST: Travel within Europe is much easier now than it used to be, so if you get into Europe, if you can get through that outer crust, it's pretty easy to move around. At the same time, civil liberties are a priority for the EU, which means that information about people is less easily shared.
BERGEN: What we're seeing is attempts by al Qaeda or its affiliates to come into the United States and often those attempts originate in Europe.
QUIJANO: European officials concede the challenges are great, but say open borders will not change.
PETER GOTTWALD, MISSION, GERMAN EMBASSY TO US: There is no alternative to open borders, but open borders does not mean that you do away with control.
QUIJANO: Add to the mix, different languages and legal systems among European nations and experts say parts of Europe are a breeding ground for terrorist groups. The Bush administration hopes to counteract Islamic radicalism in Europe, in part through television. U.S. officials want to expand the U.S. backed Al Hurrah satellite television channel now beaming programs to the Middle East, to Europe as well and give Arabic speakers an alternative to al-Jazeera which the U.S. believes is firmly anti-American.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will provide factual news, factual news without a spin.
QUIJANO: In the end, some analysts believe the success of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts depends partly on the success of European efforts. One more reason the U.S.'s relationships with European countries are more important than ever. Elaine Quijano, CNN, Washington.
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KOPPEL: CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. Stay tuned to CNN for the very latest information day and night.
Well, it is all about the glitter and glamour. Oh, that's right. There's some awards too. We are counting down to Oscar and our Sibila Vargas has the red carpet stake out. That is some prime real estate Sibila.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you. You must be talking about this little thing! No. But you know what? It's about the glitz and glamour, like you said. But you know what, it's going to be a showdown between two ladies and we'll have it for you coming up.
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KOPPEL: Hollywood is getting set for a night of glamour, glitz, and gold. We are just a few hours away for the start of the 77th annual Academy Awards. One of the evening's hot contests, of course, will be the best actress category and CNN entertainment correspondent Sibila Vargas is live from the red carpet of Hollywood's Kodak theater with more. So it's Annette Bening and Hilary Swank going head-to-head for the second time Sibila.
VARGAS: That's right. If you know your Oscar history, you know that five years ago, Hilary Swank took the award away - well I don't know if she really took it away -- but she got it for "Boys Don't Cry" and Annette Bening was up for "American Beauty." Hilary Swank prevailed. This time it's the second time they're going to face each other and everyone is saying that this is Hollywood's biggest showdown.
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VARGAS (voice-over): In this weighing in with almost 20 feature films, three Oscar nominations and one very famous husband, Annette "Being Julia" Bening. And in this corner, weighing in with more than a dozen films, one Academy Award and one slightly less famous husband, Hilary "Million Dollar Baby" Swank. The Oscar heavy-weights face off for best actress gold, a rematch of their original bout five years ago.
Back then, the statue made it way to Swank's mantle for her work in "Boys Don't Cry" beating out Annette Bening's performance in "American Beauty." This time around, Bening plays a prima donna theater actress in "Being Julia" while Swank plays a boxer.
HILARY SWANK, BEST ACTRESS NOMINEE: It's so rare I think to be nominated with someone and then be nominated again only a few years later.
ANNETTE BENING, BEST ACTRESS NOMINEE: It's a funny coincidence, I think.
VARGAS: As far as Annette and Hilary are concerned, the battle exists only in the media. The only jabs they're taking at each other are compliments.
SWANK: Annette is such an inspiration.
BENING: She's fantastic.
SWANK: She is, I've had the opportunity to meet her and she's so generous and lovely.
BENING: I love the movie, "Million Dollar Baby," and I loved Hilary Swank.
VARGAS: The only gloves worn at this year's Oscars will likely be made of satin.
SWANK: I think in the end there's so many other great performances this year and just to talk about us is just unfair to them.
BENING: Whatever happens.
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VARGAS: And we'll certainly see what happens tonight at the 77th annual Academy Awards. And don't forget to watch our Oscar special tonight at 7:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Andrea, back to you.
KOPPEL: All right. Listen, have fun Sibila. Ahead on CNN LIVE SUNDAY, real live million dollar babies. We're going to visit the gym where dozens of women are stepping inside the ropes.
But, first, they're the young faces of the AIDS epidemic sweeping Africa, orphaned and struggling to survive. We're going to talk in- depth to two people who are helping change these young lives for the better.
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KOPPEL: Imagine this, young children who, in an instant, are given all of the responsibilities of an adult. They're living on their own, they're feeding and clothing themselves, often taking care of younger siblings. In Ethiopia, they don't have to imagine it, because many are living it. Hundreds of thousands of children there are orphaned after their parents die of AIDS. I traveled to Ethiopia two years ago and met these remarkable children and their personal heroes, community members who are changing their lives for the better.
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KOPPEL (voice over): Eleven year-old Matuka Migusa's (ph) key unlocks a room of nightmares. Here in this dark, damp, dirt-filled shed, suitable for animals, but certainly not a child, Matuka lives all alone. Mituka's father and mother and both brothers have all died of AIDS, leaving this traumatized little boy on his own.
Not far away, 15-year-old Inalin (ph) wipes away a tear. Since her parents and step-parents died of AIDS, this shy, soft-spoken teenager must now somehow raise two small children, one of whom is HIV-positive. These days, you can say I'm thinking of myself as an old woman, she says. There is a big change for me. My previous friends won't talk to me. No one knows the exact number, but the best estimate is that there are about a million Ethiopian children just like these who have lost either one or both of their parents to the AIDS epidemic.
A tiny fraction are fortunate enough to find shelter in an orphanage like this one, run by Abana (ph) in Ethiopia's capital. Abana (ph) is a big-hearted woman who started with two children 23 years ago. Today, 150 orphans, some only days old, find food, shelter, and love under her roof. A handful of the orphans are themselves HIV-positive and although they don't know it, likely to die. I like it because I get milk and special things to eat says 6- year-old Ionotisa (ph). He and the other HIV-positive orphans thinks they're in a special club that gets to eat alone.
We don't tell the other children says Abana (ph). There may be a stigma. We feed them a good diet, but we don't have medicine. VEWOINSHET MASRESHA, "HOPE FOR CHILDREN'S" FOUNDER: When it comes to AIDS for orphans, most of them face long illness and no support. And it's not easy to lose two parents within very short time.
KOPPEL: Vewoinshet Masresha founded "Hope for Children," a small community-based support program for about a hundred AIDS orphans and some mothers who are HIV-positive.
MASRESHA: I feel like my work is just like help, because there are a lot of, I know, I know it's really, I know there are a lot of children even in this area who need great support.
KOPPEL: Unlike some African countries, Ethiopia has declared a national emergency over the HIV epidemic and says 13 percent or three million of its citizens are infected. There is a no awareness or prevention campaign and the government says a new program will be rolled out soon. But it's too late for this 23-year-old widow and mother of four who tested positive for AIDS just last month. Yes, I feel that I'm dying, she sobs. If there were one or two children, it would be easier for me to find them homes, but there are four.
KOPPEL (on camera): That was two years ago. So whatever happened to that young mother of four and what about Mituka (ph) the little boy we met at the beginning of the piece? Where he is now? We have an update with this in-depth interview with the head of "Hope for Children" and a young photographer who captured the children's stories in a series of gripping photos.
And it is my great pleasure to be joined here in the studio with Vewoinshet Masresha who is the founder of "Hope for Children" and Eric Gottesman who is a young activist and documentarian who has spent about a year and half photographing the children of "Hope for Children." I want to tell people that "Hope for Children" was started back in 2000. Ms. Masresha started it with nothing. Today there are 500 children, orphans who -- some of whom are HIV-positive and some of whom are not and many women, some of whom are HIV-positive and some who are not.
And one of them I want to take you back and give you an update on one of the kids. Not one of the kids but one of the women in my story. This is Nagus (ph) who when I met her two years ago thought she was going to die. Today, she's still well and still HIV-positive and her four children are still doing well. Vewoinshet I want to ask you. You see these kids every day, even though you're helping 500. In your community alone, you were telling me there are two schools where there are 1500 either orphans from HIV or kids in need. What is that like for you?
MASRESHA: It's very, very sad. It's really sad to see them, to see tears in their eyes and no smile on their faces and desperately erased, no shoes and no exercise books for them to go to school. Some are quitting schools because they don't have parents to take care of the process of registration or something. So they are really needy. They needed our help. They needed our help. That's why. KOPPEL: Eric, you spent a year and a half taking pictures of some of these children and I know since I was there, in just two years, you guys have started these group homes.
ERIC GOTTESMAN, PHOTOGRAPHER: Uh-huh.
KOPPEL: Tell us about the group homes and while we look at one of the pictures, I want to tell our viewers that the little boy that you see singled out there is the boy that was at the beginning of my story, Mituka (ph) who is now 13 years old and he's in one of these homes.
GOTTESMAN: Yes. The group homes are a model. They found extremely helpful to kids who parents have died of AIDS. When kids' parents die, somebody needs to take care of them and if it's possible to place them within the community with their relatives or with another person within the community, that's the first -- that's the first preference. But if it's not possible, like in the case of Matuka, "Hope for Children" collect the kids into groups of five to eight children put one mother, a house mother to live with them and take care of them, and they live together as a family.
One of the things kids lose when their parents die of AIDS is that sense of family and other children in the home to kind of counsel each other and this model allows the kids to reconstitute a family.
KOPPEL: Vewoinshet when you meet these kids sometimes, they are really at death's door. And we have photographs of some of these children. Tell us how you have nursed them back to life.
MASRESHA: Right there, the little baby, which I see is 2 1/2 years old and totally malnourished. And my heart was really run at that time. And I told she wouldn't come back to healthy, but in five months' time, there was a great change for her and this is very sad when you see her, but when you see the change, it's...
KOPPEL: This is the picture in five months?
MASRESHA: Yes.
KOPPEL: Five months?
MASRESHA: Just with only one little of milk every day was what we -- all we did. We provided it to her and she came back.
KOPPEL: Eric, you said you've got these group homes but there are only 30 of the 500 children that you're helping that are in the group homes. How does "Hope for Children" help through the community support, through the counseling and things of that nature.
GOTTESMAN: The group homes are really cost intensive and they cost about $5,000 a year to run for all of these kids. And so we try to support children within their community in different ways. We provide food support to families taking care of kids and taking care of extra kids, orphans who are -- whose parents are gone, but the families have decided to take them on. We also provide school supplies, school materials, school uniforms, health care, especially counseling is a really important thing for kids who have lost their parents to AIDS.
KOPPEL: We have some photographs that you've taken that are just so moving. In one instance, you bring a child to his mother's grave.
GOTTESMAN: Yes. This is Douweed (ph) he was 4 years old when we to visit his mothers grave. He wasn't able to go to the funeral. The community members didn't want him to go. He had a hard time really understanding what death meant so there was an American psychologist that was helping us and Dr. Gupta who suggested we take him to his mother's grave to have him understand this is where she is and where she's staying. Once he came away from there, he began to smile and understand that his mother was not with him anymore, which was hard for him to believe before that.
KOPPEL: And you also had -- you handed out cameras and you had them take pictures so that they could actually act out something that they didn't talk about, which was the loss, what it was like to watch their parents die. I think we have some of those pictures as well. What is this one?
GOTTESMAN: This a picture that one of the girls that I was working with made. I asked them to take photographs of their dreams and here one of the dreams of the girls, this happened while her mother was sick, was that they were sitting in their house and, all of a sudden, the house started burning. Just spontaneously combusted and it kind of shows the fear and using the photography is a way for the kids to express themselves, got to things that we couldn't really get at in some other ways. This was helpful for the kids and for me, it was an amazing experience to see what kind of visual images they could come up with.
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KOPPEL: If you want more information on "Hope for Children" and how you can help fight the AIDS crisis in Ethiopia, log on to www.hopeforchildrenorganization.com that is one word. Excuse me .org.
Our safety in the skies is once again being questioned. Ahead on CNN LIVE SUNDAY. What this former airport screener claims about security breaches and cheating at one major airport is coming up.
And coming up at 6:00 Eastern on CNN LIVE SUNDAY, an openly gay student fights for the right to wear a tuxedo in her yearbook photo. The latest on the clash between student and school at 6:00 Eastern.
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KOPPEL: You would think with all the security measures instituted since the 9/11 attacks, airports in the U.S. would be among the safest in the world. Well, not so, says one former airport screener. From CNN's America Bureau, Homeland Security correspondent Jeanne Meserve reports now on allegations of greed, cheating, and security breaches.
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JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): With all this security, San Francisco's airport looks safe. But Gene Bencomo says it's not.
JAMES BENCOMO, FORMER GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE: I personally would not allow my family or friends to fly out of that airport now, knowing what I know.
MESERVE: At the airport, known as SFO, screening is done by a private firm Covenant Aviation Security as part of the transportation security administration pilot project. Bencomo was a supervisor for Convenant and in a wrongful termination lawsuit, he alleges the company's security is full of holes.
BENCOMO: Individuals who are not certified by the federal government are sitting at x-ray machines, walk through metal detectors, working explosive detection machines. I remember a small chain saw made it through one of our checkpoints. Ice picks, firearms, knives, box cutters.
MESERVE: But then Bencomo's most explosive allegations that when undercover federal auditors with concealed weapons showed up to test screener performance, Covenant cheated.
BENCOMO: They would take physical descriptions of the auditors at the airport. For example, what they were wearing, how tall they were, were they blond, do they have blue eyes. The rest of the checkpoints throughout the airport were tipped off to look for these individuals.
MESERVE: Bencomo claims the auditors' movements were tracked with surveillance cameras so Covenant management could tell screeners auditors were coming their way. He also alleged that TSA officials knew what Covenant was doing and did nothing to stop it. The TSA is denying to comment on Bencomo's allegations and is referred the matter to the Department of Homeland Security inspector general for investigation. The former inspector general now a CNN consultant, won't comment on SFO specifically but says at some airports, his auditors did feel they had been given away.
CLARK KENT ERVIN, FORMER DHS INSPECTOR GENERAL: We got the sense on occasion that we had been recognized and that might have compromised the integrity of our tests.
MESERVE: Ervin's testing concluded that private and federal screeners performed equally poorly and Covenant says if it cheated, they would have done better. The firm also says internal and external investigations have not substantiated Bencomo's claims. Asked directly if the company cheated on tests, here is what Covenant's president said.
GERRY BERRY, PRES. CONVENANT AVIATION SECURITY: I'm saying that it's certainly not my policy. I can't absolutely say that nobody has ever been tipped off. MESERVE: Covenant claims Bencomo is the only person who has complained about the company's security practices but Bencomo's lawyers showed us a letter purportedly from another former employee making many of the same allegations and say others may join the suit. Covenant suggests Bencomo is a disgruntled former employee motivated by money.
BERRY: His lawyer contacted our lawyer and said there would be no lawsuit and there would be no publicity if we were willing to come up with $3 million prior to Christmas.
MESERVE: Bencomo's lawyer says the case is not about cash, it is about security.
ANGELA ALIOTO, BENCOMO'S ATTORNEY: There is a problem there. It has to be fixed and has to be fixed now and this lawsuit is going to fix it.
MESERVE: SFO management says it is happy with Covenant's performance.
MIKE MCCARON, SFO SPOKESMAN: I think SFO is the safest airport in the nation. We have the most advanced security systems and great training and the screeners here do an excellent job and I feel 100 percent confident bringing my own family through this airport.
MESERVE: Convenant claims that where ever auditors work, word spreads quickly amongst screeners. Raising questions about the validity of testing and the quality of security at many airports, not just this one. For CNN's America Bureau, Jeanne Meserve, San Francisco.
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KOPPEL: CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. Stay tuned to CNN for the latest information day and night.
Well, still ahead on CNN, we're stepping into the ring with a new generation of boxers women.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Time now for the cold/flu report. The latest now 33 states have reported widespread activity as far as cold and flu is concerned. That means a lot more red popping up on the map. States joining the fray this week, Oregon, Washington, Alaska to name just a few and the blue states, no bargain either. Nice places like California and Hawaii reporting regional activity. Hope you're feeling well today. I'm Rob Marciano, enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
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KOPPEL: Boxing has long been the dominion of men, but many women are now training and stepping into the ring. For a woman boxer, life is full of hard knocks. Not surprising if you seen Hilary Swank in the movie "Million Dollar Baby." Why did they do it? Our Alina Cho visits Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn for some answers.
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ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When Maureen Shea started boxing five years ago, she had no idea what to expect.
MAUREEN SHEA, AMATEUR BOXER: I heard it can calls paralysis and death, it's extreme but a fact.
CHO: But the warning didn't stop her. The 24-year-old amateur boxer has dreams of being a world champion one day and works at it every day.
SHEA: A normal day of training. I'm up at 4:30 in the morning and in the gym at 6:00 a.m. And three-hour workout.
CHO: Followed by a four to six-hour run on the Brooklyn Bridge and Shea works out at the world famous Gleason's Gym where Hilary Swank got in shape for "Million Dollar Baby."
SHEA: When I first started out training, I wasn't taken seriously. I was a pretty girl and pretty and tough, I guess, like they say in the movie, pretty and tough don't go together.
CLINT EASTWOOD, ACTOR: Girly, tough ain't tough.
CHO: In the movie's Swank's character, Maggie Fitzgerald, convinces legendary trainer Frankie Dunn played by Clint Eastwood to work with her. In real life, the man who trained Swank Hector Roca (ph) was reluctant to train Maureen.
Did you want to train her at first?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who?
CHO: Maureen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
CHO: At Gleason's one in seven boxers is female but boxing has long been dominated by men. Raul Frank is the current Latin American champ.
RAUL FRANK, PROFESSIONAL BOXER: Women put up more fight than the men.
CHO: Why?
FRANK: They afraid.
CHO: Why?
FRANK: For some reason, they got to prove a point.
CHO: Alicia Ashley is a world champion. What do you say to the people who say women don't belong in the ring. ALICIA ASHLEY, IWBF CHAMP: Get in one with a woman. You know? Get in one and see.
CHO: And what does 8-year-old Erika Fagan, champion in training, think?
ERIKA FAGAN: I think it's really cool now that women get to do a mans sport.
CHO: But don't let Maureen Shea hear you call it a man sport. She works just as hard as the men, she says. And she's prettier.
Alina Cho, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOPPEL: I'll tell you what I wouldn't get in the ring with either Maureen or Alicia. That is all for this hour of CNN LIVE SUNDAY. Straight ahead, an encore presentation of "Paula Zahn Now." An hour long special on breast cancer. Paula is going to introduce you to several people affected by this disease both survivors and their loved ones. Among them is Carly Simon and Lynn Redgrave and Tommy Thompson and Paula's own mother. "Breast Cancer Survivor Stories" next only on CNN.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 27, 2005 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I waited 28 years for this day. Rest in peace. I would just like to thank everybody.
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ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The BTK killer took his mother's life. Family members of those murdered react to the arrest of a suspect. We have new developments in the case.
Also two years ago, I introduced you to some remarkable children in Ethiopia, lone survivors of families stricken with AIDS. Later this hour, I'll talk to two people who are changing lives quite literally in Ethiopia and show you how some proof these kids are growing up.
And on a lighter note, we are counting down to tonight's Academy Awards. We are live from the red carpet. Hello and welcome to CNN LIVE SUNDAY. I'm Andrea Koppel. We'll have all that and more after this check of the headlines.
The Associated Press reports that Syria captured Saddam Hussein's half-brother and Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al Tikriti was handed over to Iraq in an apparent good will gesture. Al-Hassan was number 36 on the U.S. military's 55 most wanted Iraqis list. A full report from our Nic Robertson in Baghdad is coming up in 10 minutes.
In the wake of Friday's deadly suicide blast in Tel Aviv, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is putting blame on Syrians and Palestinians. Mr. Sharon says the Islamic jihad in Syria carried out the attack but suggests Palestinians share the blame because they did not take, quote, practical measures against terrorism.
Pope John Paul II misses the Sunday blessing at the Vatican for his first time as pontiff. The traditional angelus blessing was conducted without him at St. Peter's Square, but the pope, who is recovering from a tracheotomy, did appear to faithful at his hospital window today.
Tracking a serial killer in Kansas. After 31 years, 10 victims and thousands of tips and DNA samples, today, there is more information about the needle in a haystack search that ended with Friday's arrest of Dennis Rader. Rader remains in custody this afternoon, accused of being Wichita's infamous BTK. That's the nickname the killer gave himself which stands for bind, torture and kill. Larry Hatteberg, who is an anchor with CNN affiliate KAKE, has been following the case quite literally since the very beginning. He joins us from Wichita Kansas.
Larry, I'm hoping that you can clarify for our viewers some of the information that I know your station KAKE broke yesterday and then we've been trying to sort of go back and forth. Let us get to the bottom of the daughter's involvement in her father's arrest. Was the daughter's DNA involved in the arrest? Did she cooperate? What do we know about that?
LARRY HATTEBERG, KAKE ANCHOR: The daughter's DNA was involved in the arrest, but not necessarily directly. What we do know is that police and FBI obtained the daughter's DNA. Now, how they obtained that is still subject to some conjecture here, but we do know they obtained her DNA and in the family part of the DNA strand, it was a match, so that they knew someone in her family was BTK. Now, just how they went about obtaining that, that is still subject to some conjecture here. We are working on that aspect of the story and we will certainly have more on that later just as soon as we verify it.
KOPPEL: Sure.
HATTEBERG: But I can tell you that the daughter did not turn her father in.
KOPPEL: OK.
HATTEBERG: That did not happen.
KOPPEL: OK.
HATTEBERG: That way.
KOPPEL: Larry, we know that BTK resurfaced about a year ago and he sent like a package to your station. He sent letters and what not to the "Wichita Eagle," one of your local papers. Do we know how police managed to narrow the field to him in the last year?
HATTEBERG: Well, the police department always said it was vital to keep BTK communicating and we feel in some of the last few communications, that he made some mistakes, that he made an error. Just exactly what that error was again, we are working on that aspect of the story, but we believe it was part of the communications that helped the police lead them to the fact that this man was, in fact, BTK. We know that in the past four weeks, they really narrowed it down. In the past five days, it got very tight. And then what you're looking at now are some of the early victims, unfortunately, from the 1970s and 1980s. But in the last four or five days, they really narrowed it down because we, as reporters, could tell that the police department was really tightening down. We knew something was happening and then all of a sudden, about noon Friday, we knew that they had BTK.
KOPPEL: You and I were chatting before this broadcast and you said that the police and some of the people in the community who knew Dennis, but didn't realize, of course that it was him or at least he's accused of this, that he had a Jekyll Hyde personality.
HATTEBERG: He really did have a Jekyll Hyde personality. From all of the people who we've been talking to in the Park City area, in one side of his personality, he was the president of his Lutheran church. We was known as a do-be in the church. They said that he would do anything in the church. He was well-liked. He dressed nicely. He was neat. He would pass the collection plate. He would run the sound system, whatever needed to be done in the church.
But in his official capacity there as a compliance officer there in Park City, some people really hated the guy and felt that he was not only not doing his job, but he was doing more than just a job. At one point, he would measure people's grass in the front yard and tell them that their grass was too high. We got that little report. We had one report of a woman said where he opened the woman's front door and walked in a little ways and said, "by the way, don't forget, you have a court date tomorrow." How scary would that be?
KOPPEL: That is scary. You know what else I find scary is what you said KAKE has confirmed and that is that Dennis went to Wichita State University and graduated with a degree in criminal justice administration.
HATTEBERG: Exactly and that fits what the police department had always thought, that this gentleman had a police and a military background. And they had developed that information over a number of years and in investigating this case. The other interesting thing about this is what the police department thought, for example, particularly former police chief Richard Lamunyon, he always said, he said BTK never left this community. He was always part of the community. He was going to the mall with us. He was eating dinner with us. He was our next door neighbor and those are prophetic words because that is absolutely what happened. BTK never left this community.
The question is, why did he stop killing for those 18 years or did he stop killing for those 18 years? There are a lot of questions here that we need to have answered that we don't know yet. This is a story that's going to keep going and going and going. There is a long road left on this story.
KOPPEL: Oh, boy. Well, listen, Larry Hatteberg, we thank you for your insight and if, in fact, this is the man I'm sure there is a lot of relief felt amongst the people of Wichita. Thank you so much.
HATTEBERG: And you can see it right here in the newspaper, "BTK is arrested."
KOPPEL: Well, he hasn't been tried yet, but they certainly hope that he is the guy.
HATTEBERG: They certainly do, but there is a huge relief in Wichita.
KOPPEL: Thanks so much.
HATTEBERG: Sure.
KOPPEL: Well, families, as you can imagine of the victims, reacted with applause and fresh anguish to word of Rader's arrest. Since the announcement, people now say 62-year-old Deloris Davis whose murder had been unsolved for years, was the last person killed by BTK. Davis was abducted from her home in January 1991. her strangled body was found two weeks later.
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JEFF DAVIS, VICTIM'S SON: It's going to take a while to reconcile the fact that my mom spent her last few minutes on this earth at the hands of the lowest form of social sewage on the ladder of evolution and it's hard to accept that that's what she last saw when -- before she died.
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KOPPEL: Prosecutors say the death penalty will not apply in BTK case. The killings occurred before 1994, when capital punishment was reinstated in Kansas. Joseph and Julie Otero and two of their children were the first BTK victims back in 1974. Their surviving son who found the bodies says justice is not being served.
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CHARLIE OTERO, PARENTS, SIBLINGS KILLED: I, myself, believe that an eye for an eye and I think that, you know he, he deserves the death penalty for what he did to my family and to the other women and then, once again, here we go with the legal matters of prior to 1994, no death penalty. Stuff like that. You know, I mean, the law is the law, I understand that, but what is the difference? The guy killed the people in '94. He can be put to sleep, but the guy who killed somebody in 1993 can't? I mean, there is no justice there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOPPEL: CNN's Aaron Brown will have more on catching BTK tomorrow in a special edition of NEWSNIGHT. That's at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
On the Gulf coast of Florida, searchers today braved torrential rains to look for a missing girl. Nine-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford vanished from her own bedroom on Wednesday night. CNN's Sara Dorsey is live in Homosassa Springs, with a new development in this case. Hi there, Sara.
SARA DORSEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello. Earlier this afternoon, the Citrus County sheriff's office came out telling us they had a piece of surveillance video from a nearby convenience store that showed a young girl that resembled Jessica. That video was taken early Thursday morning, about an hour before Jessica was reported missing. She was shown with a man and the officials here told the media they wanted help identifying this man to see if, in fact, that could be Jessica in the video. Just minutes ago, they came back out telling us that, in fact, that man had been identified and the young girl in the video was in fact, not Jessica.
Now, the entire time that was unfolding and then again wrapped up, volunteers, hundreds of them across this area were searching for the little girl. Rain poured throughout the afternoon and these people still came out in numbers. They were fighting very bad conditions all day today, as well as trying to get through brush and wooded areas, looking for any sign of this little girl. Of course, nothing was found just yet. Police are telling us right now, they don't have a lot to go on. They are getting tips but those tips seem to be not leading them in the right direction. A lot have been sightings they say that really don't seem to have panned out. So right now, the investigation stands where it has. Unfortunately, the last couple of days, police are just waiting for the one tip that could possibly lead them to this little girl. Andrea?
KOPPEL: Such a sad story. Sara Dorsey, thank you so much.
A new twist on the capture of Saddam Hussein's half-brother. The Associated Press reports Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti was captured by Syrian authorities who then turned him over to Iraq as a goodwill gesture. Reports say al-Hassan was detained in Syria following the February 14th assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson explains now why there was a million dollar reward for al- Hassan's capture.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He was on the run for almost two years. Saddam Hussein's half brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, number 36 on the list of 55 most wanted, now, captured. When these pictures were taken in 1999, he was an adviser to Saddam. Today's interim government accuses him of supervising, planning, and carrying out insurgent operations as well as killing and torturing Iranians. During the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, he was head of Iraqi intelligence becoming director of Iraqi security during the '90s.
Then he fell out of favor and was placed under house arrest before being rehabilitated to presidential adviser several years later. Most on the top 55 list, including Saddam's other brothers, Bazan and Watban seen here at the same medal ceremony for presidential advisers, have already been arrested. Bazan, likely one of the first of Saddam's favored hard men to face the Iraqi special tribunal. Sabawi, who had a million dollar bounty on his head seems likely to face a similar fate. According to Iraqi intelligence sources, Sabawi has spent much of the last two years outside of Iraq, notably, they say, settling in Syria for a while. They also say he's been in regular contact with Izat Ibrahim Al-Douri, Saddam's most trusted lieutenant outside his immediate family, a man U.S. military officials say is a key figure behind the insurgency. Nic Robertson, CNN Baghdad.
KOPPEL: More violence across Iraq. The U.S. military today announced a rise in the death toll for U.S. forces. Two American soldiers killed in an insurgent attack yesterday east of Baghdad and a Marine was killed in a separate attack in the Babil province. 1494 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since the war began. Southeast of Mosul, eight Iraqis were killed in the town of Hamam al-Alil today when a bomb exploded at a government building. Several of the dead were Iraqi security forces. Two others were wounded in the blast. North of Kirkuk, firefighters have finally extinguished a massive blaze at an Iraqi oil pipeline. A police source says the bomb was planted to damage the pipeline yesterday.
CNN is committed to providing you with the latest news and information that affects your security. Up next, there are some of our strongest allies, so why are many European nations being used by terrorists for breeding grounds to terror cells that could threaten the United States? Also--
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I personally would not allow my family or friends to fly out of that airport now knowing what I know.
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KOPPEL: Strong words from one man on the security at one of our nation's biggest airports. And consider this -- he's a former security screener.
Plus we're going to spend a good bit of time talking about the AIDS epidemic. Hundreds of thousands of children in one country are orphans, their parents killed by the disease. We'll talk to one woman who is helping those children one at a time.
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KOPPEL: It's a question that many are asking -- will the next terrorist threat to the U.S. originate in Europe? The war on terror underlies some of the issues President Bush dealt with this week during his European tour. The leaders he met with face an ongoing ominous challenge, networks of terrorists lurking between the cosmopolitan surface in the oldest capitals of western civilization. CNN's Elaine Quijano reports.
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ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the launching point for the September 11th attacks and some believe terrorists could one day again use Europe as their staging ground for the next strike against the U.S.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: (INAUDIBLE) cells in Britain, in France, in Spain, Germany, Italy, because we've seen since 9/11 very serious plots in these countries.
QUIJANO: One of those, March 11th, 2004 in the Spanish capital of Madrid, Spain, when terrorist bombings killed nearly 200 people and wounded more than 1400 others. Europe, some experts say, provides fertile ground for terrorism.
STEVE SIMON, RAND SR. MIDDLE EAST ANALYST: Travel within Europe is much easier now than it used to be, so if you get into Europe, if you can get through that outer crust, it's pretty easy to move around. At the same time, civil liberties are a priority for the EU, which means that information about people is less easily shared.
BERGEN: What we're seeing is attempts by al Qaeda or its affiliates to come into the United States and often those attempts originate in Europe.
QUIJANO: European officials concede the challenges are great, but say open borders will not change.
PETER GOTTWALD, MISSION, GERMAN EMBASSY TO US: There is no alternative to open borders, but open borders does not mean that you do away with control.
QUIJANO: Add to the mix, different languages and legal systems among European nations and experts say parts of Europe are a breeding ground for terrorist groups. The Bush administration hopes to counteract Islamic radicalism in Europe, in part through television. U.S. officials want to expand the U.S. backed Al Hurrah satellite television channel now beaming programs to the Middle East, to Europe as well and give Arabic speakers an alternative to al-Jazeera which the U.S. believes is firmly anti-American.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will provide factual news, factual news without a spin.
QUIJANO: In the end, some analysts believe the success of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts depends partly on the success of European efforts. One more reason the U.S.'s relationships with European countries are more important than ever. Elaine Quijano, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOPPEL: CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. Stay tuned to CNN for the very latest information day and night.
Well, it is all about the glitter and glamour. Oh, that's right. There's some awards too. We are counting down to Oscar and our Sibila Vargas has the red carpet stake out. That is some prime real estate Sibila.
SIBILA VARGAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thank you. You must be talking about this little thing! No. But you know what? It's about the glitz and glamour, like you said. But you know what, it's going to be a showdown between two ladies and we'll have it for you coming up.
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KOPPEL: Hollywood is getting set for a night of glamour, glitz, and gold. We are just a few hours away for the start of the 77th annual Academy Awards. One of the evening's hot contests, of course, will be the best actress category and CNN entertainment correspondent Sibila Vargas is live from the red carpet of Hollywood's Kodak theater with more. So it's Annette Bening and Hilary Swank going head-to-head for the second time Sibila.
VARGAS: That's right. If you know your Oscar history, you know that five years ago, Hilary Swank took the award away - well I don't know if she really took it away -- but she got it for "Boys Don't Cry" and Annette Bening was up for "American Beauty." Hilary Swank prevailed. This time it's the second time they're going to face each other and everyone is saying that this is Hollywood's biggest showdown.
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VARGAS (voice-over): In this weighing in with almost 20 feature films, three Oscar nominations and one very famous husband, Annette "Being Julia" Bening. And in this corner, weighing in with more than a dozen films, one Academy Award and one slightly less famous husband, Hilary "Million Dollar Baby" Swank. The Oscar heavy-weights face off for best actress gold, a rematch of their original bout five years ago.
Back then, the statue made it way to Swank's mantle for her work in "Boys Don't Cry" beating out Annette Bening's performance in "American Beauty." This time around, Bening plays a prima donna theater actress in "Being Julia" while Swank plays a boxer.
HILARY SWANK, BEST ACTRESS NOMINEE: It's so rare I think to be nominated with someone and then be nominated again only a few years later.
ANNETTE BENING, BEST ACTRESS NOMINEE: It's a funny coincidence, I think.
VARGAS: As far as Annette and Hilary are concerned, the battle exists only in the media. The only jabs they're taking at each other are compliments.
SWANK: Annette is such an inspiration.
BENING: She's fantastic.
SWANK: She is, I've had the opportunity to meet her and she's so generous and lovely.
BENING: I love the movie, "Million Dollar Baby," and I loved Hilary Swank.
VARGAS: The only gloves worn at this year's Oscars will likely be made of satin.
SWANK: I think in the end there's so many other great performances this year and just to talk about us is just unfair to them.
BENING: Whatever happens.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VARGAS: And we'll certainly see what happens tonight at the 77th annual Academy Awards. And don't forget to watch our Oscar special tonight at 7:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN. Andrea, back to you.
KOPPEL: All right. Listen, have fun Sibila. Ahead on CNN LIVE SUNDAY, real live million dollar babies. We're going to visit the gym where dozens of women are stepping inside the ropes.
But, first, they're the young faces of the AIDS epidemic sweeping Africa, orphaned and struggling to survive. We're going to talk in- depth to two people who are helping change these young lives for the better.
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KOPPEL: Imagine this, young children who, in an instant, are given all of the responsibilities of an adult. They're living on their own, they're feeding and clothing themselves, often taking care of younger siblings. In Ethiopia, they don't have to imagine it, because many are living it. Hundreds of thousands of children there are orphaned after their parents die of AIDS. I traveled to Ethiopia two years ago and met these remarkable children and their personal heroes, community members who are changing their lives for the better.
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KOPPEL (voice over): Eleven year-old Matuka Migusa's (ph) key unlocks a room of nightmares. Here in this dark, damp, dirt-filled shed, suitable for animals, but certainly not a child, Matuka lives all alone. Mituka's father and mother and both brothers have all died of AIDS, leaving this traumatized little boy on his own.
Not far away, 15-year-old Inalin (ph) wipes away a tear. Since her parents and step-parents died of AIDS, this shy, soft-spoken teenager must now somehow raise two small children, one of whom is HIV-positive. These days, you can say I'm thinking of myself as an old woman, she says. There is a big change for me. My previous friends won't talk to me. No one knows the exact number, but the best estimate is that there are about a million Ethiopian children just like these who have lost either one or both of their parents to the AIDS epidemic.
A tiny fraction are fortunate enough to find shelter in an orphanage like this one, run by Abana (ph) in Ethiopia's capital. Abana (ph) is a big-hearted woman who started with two children 23 years ago. Today, 150 orphans, some only days old, find food, shelter, and love under her roof. A handful of the orphans are themselves HIV-positive and although they don't know it, likely to die. I like it because I get milk and special things to eat says 6- year-old Ionotisa (ph). He and the other HIV-positive orphans thinks they're in a special club that gets to eat alone.
We don't tell the other children says Abana (ph). There may be a stigma. We feed them a good diet, but we don't have medicine. VEWOINSHET MASRESHA, "HOPE FOR CHILDREN'S" FOUNDER: When it comes to AIDS for orphans, most of them face long illness and no support. And it's not easy to lose two parents within very short time.
KOPPEL: Vewoinshet Masresha founded "Hope for Children," a small community-based support program for about a hundred AIDS orphans and some mothers who are HIV-positive.
MASRESHA: I feel like my work is just like help, because there are a lot of, I know, I know it's really, I know there are a lot of children even in this area who need great support.
KOPPEL: Unlike some African countries, Ethiopia has declared a national emergency over the HIV epidemic and says 13 percent or three million of its citizens are infected. There is a no awareness or prevention campaign and the government says a new program will be rolled out soon. But it's too late for this 23-year-old widow and mother of four who tested positive for AIDS just last month. Yes, I feel that I'm dying, she sobs. If there were one or two children, it would be easier for me to find them homes, but there are four.
KOPPEL (on camera): That was two years ago. So whatever happened to that young mother of four and what about Mituka (ph) the little boy we met at the beginning of the piece? Where he is now? We have an update with this in-depth interview with the head of "Hope for Children" and a young photographer who captured the children's stories in a series of gripping photos.
And it is my great pleasure to be joined here in the studio with Vewoinshet Masresha who is the founder of "Hope for Children" and Eric Gottesman who is a young activist and documentarian who has spent about a year and half photographing the children of "Hope for Children." I want to tell people that "Hope for Children" was started back in 2000. Ms. Masresha started it with nothing. Today there are 500 children, orphans who -- some of whom are HIV-positive and some of whom are not and many women, some of whom are HIV-positive and some who are not.
And one of them I want to take you back and give you an update on one of the kids. Not one of the kids but one of the women in my story. This is Nagus (ph) who when I met her two years ago thought she was going to die. Today, she's still well and still HIV-positive and her four children are still doing well. Vewoinshet I want to ask you. You see these kids every day, even though you're helping 500. In your community alone, you were telling me there are two schools where there are 1500 either orphans from HIV or kids in need. What is that like for you?
MASRESHA: It's very, very sad. It's really sad to see them, to see tears in their eyes and no smile on their faces and desperately erased, no shoes and no exercise books for them to go to school. Some are quitting schools because they don't have parents to take care of the process of registration or something. So they are really needy. They needed our help. They needed our help. That's why. KOPPEL: Eric, you spent a year and a half taking pictures of some of these children and I know since I was there, in just two years, you guys have started these group homes.
ERIC GOTTESMAN, PHOTOGRAPHER: Uh-huh.
KOPPEL: Tell us about the group homes and while we look at one of the pictures, I want to tell our viewers that the little boy that you see singled out there is the boy that was at the beginning of my story, Mituka (ph) who is now 13 years old and he's in one of these homes.
GOTTESMAN: Yes. The group homes are a model. They found extremely helpful to kids who parents have died of AIDS. When kids' parents die, somebody needs to take care of them and if it's possible to place them within the community with their relatives or with another person within the community, that's the first -- that's the first preference. But if it's not possible, like in the case of Matuka, "Hope for Children" collect the kids into groups of five to eight children put one mother, a house mother to live with them and take care of them, and they live together as a family.
One of the things kids lose when their parents die of AIDS is that sense of family and other children in the home to kind of counsel each other and this model allows the kids to reconstitute a family.
KOPPEL: Vewoinshet when you meet these kids sometimes, they are really at death's door. And we have photographs of some of these children. Tell us how you have nursed them back to life.
MASRESHA: Right there, the little baby, which I see is 2 1/2 years old and totally malnourished. And my heart was really run at that time. And I told she wouldn't come back to healthy, but in five months' time, there was a great change for her and this is very sad when you see her, but when you see the change, it's...
KOPPEL: This is the picture in five months?
MASRESHA: Yes.
KOPPEL: Five months?
MASRESHA: Just with only one little of milk every day was what we -- all we did. We provided it to her and she came back.
KOPPEL: Eric, you said you've got these group homes but there are only 30 of the 500 children that you're helping that are in the group homes. How does "Hope for Children" help through the community support, through the counseling and things of that nature.
GOTTESMAN: The group homes are really cost intensive and they cost about $5,000 a year to run for all of these kids. And so we try to support children within their community in different ways. We provide food support to families taking care of kids and taking care of extra kids, orphans who are -- whose parents are gone, but the families have decided to take them on. We also provide school supplies, school materials, school uniforms, health care, especially counseling is a really important thing for kids who have lost their parents to AIDS.
KOPPEL: We have some photographs that you've taken that are just so moving. In one instance, you bring a child to his mother's grave.
GOTTESMAN: Yes. This is Douweed (ph) he was 4 years old when we to visit his mothers grave. He wasn't able to go to the funeral. The community members didn't want him to go. He had a hard time really understanding what death meant so there was an American psychologist that was helping us and Dr. Gupta who suggested we take him to his mother's grave to have him understand this is where she is and where she's staying. Once he came away from there, he began to smile and understand that his mother was not with him anymore, which was hard for him to believe before that.
KOPPEL: And you also had -- you handed out cameras and you had them take pictures so that they could actually act out something that they didn't talk about, which was the loss, what it was like to watch their parents die. I think we have some of those pictures as well. What is this one?
GOTTESMAN: This a picture that one of the girls that I was working with made. I asked them to take photographs of their dreams and here one of the dreams of the girls, this happened while her mother was sick, was that they were sitting in their house and, all of a sudden, the house started burning. Just spontaneously combusted and it kind of shows the fear and using the photography is a way for the kids to express themselves, got to things that we couldn't really get at in some other ways. This was helpful for the kids and for me, it was an amazing experience to see what kind of visual images they could come up with.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOPPEL: If you want more information on "Hope for Children" and how you can help fight the AIDS crisis in Ethiopia, log on to www.hopeforchildrenorganization.com that is one word. Excuse me .org.
Our safety in the skies is once again being questioned. Ahead on CNN LIVE SUNDAY. What this former airport screener claims about security breaches and cheating at one major airport is coming up.
And coming up at 6:00 Eastern on CNN LIVE SUNDAY, an openly gay student fights for the right to wear a tuxedo in her yearbook photo. The latest on the clash between student and school at 6:00 Eastern.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KOPPEL: You would think with all the security measures instituted since the 9/11 attacks, airports in the U.S. would be among the safest in the world. Well, not so, says one former airport screener. From CNN's America Bureau, Homeland Security correspondent Jeanne Meserve reports now on allegations of greed, cheating, and security breaches.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): With all this security, San Francisco's airport looks safe. But Gene Bencomo says it's not.
JAMES BENCOMO, FORMER GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE: I personally would not allow my family or friends to fly out of that airport now, knowing what I know.
MESERVE: At the airport, known as SFO, screening is done by a private firm Covenant Aviation Security as part of the transportation security administration pilot project. Bencomo was a supervisor for Convenant and in a wrongful termination lawsuit, he alleges the company's security is full of holes.
BENCOMO: Individuals who are not certified by the federal government are sitting at x-ray machines, walk through metal detectors, working explosive detection machines. I remember a small chain saw made it through one of our checkpoints. Ice picks, firearms, knives, box cutters.
MESERVE: But then Bencomo's most explosive allegations that when undercover federal auditors with concealed weapons showed up to test screener performance, Covenant cheated.
BENCOMO: They would take physical descriptions of the auditors at the airport. For example, what they were wearing, how tall they were, were they blond, do they have blue eyes. The rest of the checkpoints throughout the airport were tipped off to look for these individuals.
MESERVE: Bencomo claims the auditors' movements were tracked with surveillance cameras so Covenant management could tell screeners auditors were coming their way. He also alleged that TSA officials knew what Covenant was doing and did nothing to stop it. The TSA is denying to comment on Bencomo's allegations and is referred the matter to the Department of Homeland Security inspector general for investigation. The former inspector general now a CNN consultant, won't comment on SFO specifically but says at some airports, his auditors did feel they had been given away.
CLARK KENT ERVIN, FORMER DHS INSPECTOR GENERAL: We got the sense on occasion that we had been recognized and that might have compromised the integrity of our tests.
MESERVE: Ervin's testing concluded that private and federal screeners performed equally poorly and Covenant says if it cheated, they would have done better. The firm also says internal and external investigations have not substantiated Bencomo's claims. Asked directly if the company cheated on tests, here is what Covenant's president said.
GERRY BERRY, PRES. CONVENANT AVIATION SECURITY: I'm saying that it's certainly not my policy. I can't absolutely say that nobody has ever been tipped off. MESERVE: Covenant claims Bencomo is the only person who has complained about the company's security practices but Bencomo's lawyers showed us a letter purportedly from another former employee making many of the same allegations and say others may join the suit. Covenant suggests Bencomo is a disgruntled former employee motivated by money.
BERRY: His lawyer contacted our lawyer and said there would be no lawsuit and there would be no publicity if we were willing to come up with $3 million prior to Christmas.
MESERVE: Bencomo's lawyer says the case is not about cash, it is about security.
ANGELA ALIOTO, BENCOMO'S ATTORNEY: There is a problem there. It has to be fixed and has to be fixed now and this lawsuit is going to fix it.
MESERVE: SFO management says it is happy with Covenant's performance.
MIKE MCCARON, SFO SPOKESMAN: I think SFO is the safest airport in the nation. We have the most advanced security systems and great training and the screeners here do an excellent job and I feel 100 percent confident bringing my own family through this airport.
MESERVE: Convenant claims that where ever auditors work, word spreads quickly amongst screeners. Raising questions about the validity of testing and the quality of security at many airports, not just this one. For CNN's America Bureau, Jeanne Meserve, San Francisco.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOPPEL: CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. Stay tuned to CNN for the latest information day and night.
Well, still ahead on CNN, we're stepping into the ring with a new generation of boxers women.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Time now for the cold/flu report. The latest now 33 states have reported widespread activity as far as cold and flu is concerned. That means a lot more red popping up on the map. States joining the fray this week, Oregon, Washington, Alaska to name just a few and the blue states, no bargain either. Nice places like California and Hawaii reporting regional activity. Hope you're feeling well today. I'm Rob Marciano, enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KOPPEL: Boxing has long been the dominion of men, but many women are now training and stepping into the ring. For a woman boxer, life is full of hard knocks. Not surprising if you seen Hilary Swank in the movie "Million Dollar Baby." Why did they do it? Our Alina Cho visits Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn for some answers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When Maureen Shea started boxing five years ago, she had no idea what to expect.
MAUREEN SHEA, AMATEUR BOXER: I heard it can calls paralysis and death, it's extreme but a fact.
CHO: But the warning didn't stop her. The 24-year-old amateur boxer has dreams of being a world champion one day and works at it every day.
SHEA: A normal day of training. I'm up at 4:30 in the morning and in the gym at 6:00 a.m. And three-hour workout.
CHO: Followed by a four to six-hour run on the Brooklyn Bridge and Shea works out at the world famous Gleason's Gym where Hilary Swank got in shape for "Million Dollar Baby."
SHEA: When I first started out training, I wasn't taken seriously. I was a pretty girl and pretty and tough, I guess, like they say in the movie, pretty and tough don't go together.
CLINT EASTWOOD, ACTOR: Girly, tough ain't tough.
CHO: In the movie's Swank's character, Maggie Fitzgerald, convinces legendary trainer Frankie Dunn played by Clint Eastwood to work with her. In real life, the man who trained Swank Hector Roca (ph) was reluctant to train Maureen.
Did you want to train her at first?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who?
CHO: Maureen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
CHO: At Gleason's one in seven boxers is female but boxing has long been dominated by men. Raul Frank is the current Latin American champ.
RAUL FRANK, PROFESSIONAL BOXER: Women put up more fight than the men.
CHO: Why?
FRANK: They afraid.
CHO: Why?
FRANK: For some reason, they got to prove a point.
CHO: Alicia Ashley is a world champion. What do you say to the people who say women don't belong in the ring. ALICIA ASHLEY, IWBF CHAMP: Get in one with a woman. You know? Get in one and see.
CHO: And what does 8-year-old Erika Fagan, champion in training, think?
ERIKA FAGAN: I think it's really cool now that women get to do a mans sport.
CHO: But don't let Maureen Shea hear you call it a man sport. She works just as hard as the men, she says. And she's prettier.
Alina Cho, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOPPEL: I'll tell you what I wouldn't get in the ring with either Maureen or Alicia. That is all for this hour of CNN LIVE SUNDAY. Straight ahead, an encore presentation of "Paula Zahn Now." An hour long special on breast cancer. Paula is going to introduce you to several people affected by this disease both survivors and their loved ones. Among them is Carly Simon and Lynn Redgrave and Tommy Thompson and Paula's own mother. "Breast Cancer Survivor Stories" next only on CNN.
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