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CNN Live Today
Shoring up the Shores; Jurors Deliberating Case of Man Accused of Kidnapping, Killing 5-Year-Old Samantha Runnion
Aired April 28, 2005 - 10:30 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are right at the half hour. Good morning once again. I'm Daryn Kagan. Here's a look at what's happening now in the news.
At the top of the hour, in just about 30 minutes, police in Duluth, Georgia, are expected to hold a news conference on the disappearance of a suburban Atlanta woman. We're going to bring it to you live. Earlier this morning, they announced the case had become a criminal investigation. Jennifer Wilbanks was supposed to be married Saturday. Her fiance says she went out to jog. She didn't brings keys, a pocketbook or her cell phone. We are going to carry that news conference live when it begins in 30 minutes.
Bad weather in Southern California led to some rush hour freeway accidents this morning. Live pictures there from So. Cal. Big rigs jackknifing. There were also dozens of spinouts. At least one death was reported. The quick-moving storm left about an inch of rain in downtown Los Angeles. This is the city's second wettest rainy season on record.
President Bush will hold a rare primetime news conference tonight. Mr. Bush planning to talk about his energy plan and ideas to reform Social Security. CNN's live coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. The president will take the podium about 8:30.
Show of hands today. The Iraqi National Assembly forms a new government. Lawmakers approved a list of cabinet members for the transitional government. There was no agreement on four posts that were temporarily filled. Most of the positions went to Shiite Muslims, although Sunnis and Kurds are also represented.
We're learning important details about last week's secret appearance by convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui apparently did a lot of talking before pleading guilty conspiracy in the 9/11 attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN (voice-over): He's pleading guilty, and he says he expects to get the death penalty. But Zacarias Moussaoui is making a request to the court. He says, quote, "I have to be buried in a Muslim land, not in America."
Moussaoui is the first and only person convicted in the United States in connection with the terror attacks of September 11th. He admits to being a member of Al Qaeda, but says he had nothing to do with the September 11th plot.
The judge acknowledged some weakness in the prosecution's case. She says, quote, "There is significant evidence in this record that did you not know anything about the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or any of the specific plans."
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 plot and other terror detainees were not allowed to testify, after the court cited matters of national security.
Still, the U.S. district judge presiding over this case tells Moussaoui, he has a chance of escaping the death sentence. Moussaoui seemed to scoff at that possibility, when he said, quote, "I know you so well. You have a lynch mentality, and you won the prize. You catch the beast. You have the feather and the tar. You're going to have the party."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: The day for the penalty phase has not yet been set. If he does get the death sentence, like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Moussaoui would die by lethal injection. McVeigh was granted a request to be cremated. So perhaps that suggest Moussaoui might also be given a choice. We will continue to cover that story.
A flight student who prompted a terrorism alert in the U.S. has been arrested in Britain. Zayeed Christopher Hajaig (ph) triggered the alert after he allegedly tried to have his training rushed and his rating upgraded to fly commercial aircraft. Officials say he was in the U.S. illegally, and he's been training at the same Atlanta-area airport where two of the 9/11 suicide attackers learned to fly.
A British citizen has now been convicted in New Jersey for trying to sell shoulder-fired missiles to terrorists. Prosecutors said that Hemat Lakhani (ph) believed that the missiles were meant to shoot down commercial airliners. The people he tried to sell the missiles to happened to be undercover agents. Sentencing is scheduled for August 8th.
Shoring up the shores. The port of Oakland, California is now the first in the nation to scan cargo containers for radioactive material. Twenty-five special radiation portals have been installed in an effort to keep weapons of mass destruction from entering the country.
Our homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve examines how the technology is being used to thwart terrorists.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nuclear detectors sound the alarm. This is not a drill. Customs and border protection moves to search a cargo container for the source.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be advised, hanger No. 1, we have isotope industrial thoron (ph), 232. MESERVE: The culprit, toilets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a good example of naturally occurring radiation that comes in all the time.
MESERVE: This happens about 20 times a day here at the busy port of Oakland. So at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, scientists are trying to develop nuclear detectors that can tell the difference between naturally occurring or harmless sources of radiation, and those that could be used as a weapon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We use liquid nitrogen, which looks like this.
MESERVE: Simon Lebeau (ph) heads up the radiation-detection center. In his lab right now, a device to actually identify even minute amounts of radioactive material, like the uranium oxide in this rock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just told me, suspect, norm, OK naturally occurring radioactive material.
MESERVE: Quickly identifying sources of radiation might prevent overreactions, like the recent closure of a roadway in California after detectors picked up radiation, radiation it turns out from a man who had recently received medical treatments.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We call this ultraspect (ph).
MESERVE: Also in the lab, this machine, which might be able to lead investigators back to the source of material used in a terrorist crime.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think this is going to be a very powerful tool for what we call nuclear fingerprinting.
MESERVE: Lebeau is also experiment with putting a chip, circuit board and GPS in cell phones, creating a computer-connected network of radiological detectives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some examples might be delivery people or -- that would be going to a lot of place, the Postal Service, every street, every day.
MESERVE: Dennis Slaughter is another scientist at Livermore.
DENNIS SLAUGHTER, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATL. LABORATORY: We're trying to address the problem, what if the stuff is really well- shielded and other people don't see it, we think we do.
MESERVE: He hides uranium, or plutonium, encased in lead deep inside sample cargoes, like this plywood. When bombarded with neutron, a tiny amount of nuclear fission occurs, producing intense radiation, which detectors can pick up.
SLAUGHTER: I was happy as a pig in mud doing nuclear physics up until a couple years ago, and then 9/11 came along, and I quit that, said I'm doing that anymore, I'm doing homeland security.
MESERVE (on camera): Why?
SLAUGHTER: I really wanted to work this problem.
MESERVE: Why?
SLAUGHTER: Because I don't want Oakland to go up in a mushroom cloud.
MESERVE (voice-over): Top U.S. officials warn that it is just a matter of time until terrorists try to use radiological or nuclear weapons. The hope is that innovative science will help find them, and stop them.
For CNN's America bureau, Jeanne Meserve, Oakland, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.
Let's go ahead and take a look at other stories making news coast to coast. First to suburban Chicago, a mother and a father have been held for questioning in the stabbing deaths of their two children. Police say they were called to the home when the father claimed to have found the bodies of the 3-year-old girl and her 9-year-old brother.
Outside Washington, a 50-year-old fast food worker is linked to a string of arson fires in and around the nation's capital. Thomas Sweat (ph) is charged with several fires in D.C., Virginia and Maryland. A senior law enforcement official tells CNN that Sweat confessed to at least 33 fires.
Hampton, Virginia, talk about the honeymoon being over. A newly married couple returned from their post-wedding getaway to find their home had burned down. And here's the rub, the best man is charged with the crime. Police have not given the motive.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, the FBI is investigating a hate crime, a cross that was burned into the lawn of an interracial couple. Reverend Jesse Jackson, who was in town and heard about the incident, met and prayed with the couple yesterday. The couple moved into the home six weeks ago. They also have had their tires slashed.
In Santa Ana, California, jurors are deliberating the case of a man accused of kidnapping and killing 5-year-old Samantha Runnion. That happened back in 2002. Alejandro Avila is accused in the crime that helped spawn a nationwide awareness of child killings and abductions.
Our Miguel Marquez has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Her name was Samantha Runnion. As soon as she was abducted, Sheriff Mike Carona knew he was in a race against time.
MICHAEL CARONA, ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF: If you don't find that child within the first three hours, 74 percent of the children are dead.
MARQUEZ: But this sheriff was ready, a deputy at Samantha's house just four minutes after she was taken, a sketch of the suspect widely circulated. And he used what was then a new method to tell the county a child was missing, an Amber Alert.
CARONA: During the early hours we were very, very hopeful, again because we had such a quick response. Unlike a lot of other law enforcement agencies across this country, we had already run an Amber Alert.
MARQUEZ: So hopeful he made a promise to Samantha's mother.
CARONA: Where it became personal for me is the first time I had to sit down with Erin Runnion and ask her for a picture of Samantha so we could get that out to the public and telling her, much like I'm looking you in the eyes and saying, "I'll bring Samantha home alive."
MARQUEZ: Carona all but begged the public for help and he got it, thousands of phone calls, tips, but soon came the call no one wanted to hear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God we found a dead body. Please hurry. OK. I'm in the Ortegas, OK? Ortega Mountains I'm in Riverside County, OK?
MARQUEZ: The sheriff, a self-described by-the-book man, went into denial.
CARONA: To a person we didn't want to believe it. There was an absolute sense of denial by all of us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They believe they found a small child, the body of a small child here in this ravine.
MARQUEZ: The race to save Samantha had failed. Now Mike Carona's mission was a manhunt. Again, he made it personal.
CARONA: Don't sleep. Don't eat because we're coming after you. We will take every resource that's available to us to bring you to justice.
MARQUEZ: Within days the hunt was over. Alejandro Avila was arrested. Again, the sheriff didn't mince words.
CARONA: I am 100 percent certain that Mr. Avila is the man who kidnapped and murdered Samantha Runnion.
MARQUEZ: Later when thousands came to mourn the little girl and the sheriff rose to speak, something remarkable happened. First they applauded. Then they stood. Later, even the president would thank the sheriff.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to congratulate you for your good work in helping make your community as safe as possible.
MARQUEZ: The race to save Samantha was not in vain. Just days after her death, California made Amber Alerts a state law. Congress and the president soon followed. Samantha's mother, Erin, became an advocate for child safety.
ERIN RUNNION, SAMANTHA'S MOTHER: Since then there have been 40, over 40 Amber Alerts issued in the State of California and every single child has been recovered alive.
MARQUEZ: But almost two years later the case that grabbed Mike Carona's heart still doesn't let go. He gave his word to Samantha's mother and he failed to keep it.
CARONA: I did make a commitment to her mother and I failed in that original commitment and that part, that's the -- that's the one that you just grapple with and sticks with you. I mean, the rest of your life, probably will the rest of my life.
MARQUEZ: This sheriff will always remember the little girl he never met.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Beautiful, beautiful little girl.
You are feeling the high prices at the gas pumps, but the oil companies are expecting -- get this, they are expecting major big-time profits. That's "Your Money." Gas price watch is just ahead.
Plus how about this hot couple -- Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes? Why the superstar is being seen with somebody, well, come on, it's not half his age. There's a little bit of an age gap there. We'll look at that just ahead when CNN LIVE TODAY returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Morning.
For those of you at home, this next story kind of might make you pretty mad. While you are paying record prices at the gas pump, guess who is raking in record profits?
CNN's Chris Huntington has the numbers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While American motorist grit their teeth at the numbers they see at the pumps, oil company executives and investors are grinning ear to ear. In the first quarter, Exxon-Mobil made $7.8 billion, up 44 percent from a year ago. Its stock is up nearly as much in the past 12 months. BP, which moans Amoco and Arco, earned a record $6.6 billion, up 35 percent. Royal Dutch Shell pulled in $5.5 billion, up 28 percent.
No surprise it's as simple as supply and demand. The big oil producers are profiting from the big jump in crude prices, up nearly 30 percent in the past year, due to sharply higher global demand led by the United States, China and India.
But the oil companies are making even more money on what they do to that oil.
JOHN KILLDUFF, FIMAT: The secret to a lot of the profits going on right now, though, is the refining business, turning crude oil into gasoline, heating oil, jet fuel and everything else, for the first time really in years, for the most part, has done extraordinarily well.
HUNTINGTON: For decades, refining was a low-margin business, a big reason why no new refineries have been built in the United States in nearly 30 years. But with gasoline demand rising and refining capacity virtually maxed out, the margins have shot up in the past two years, particularly for Valero, the nation's biggest independent refiner, which specializes in refining the high sulfur so-called crude from the Middle East, that often costs $10 to $15 a barrel less than the benchmaker light sweet crude. Valero's profits more than doubled in the first quarter. It's stock has done the same in the past year.
In 2004, Valero CEO William Greehy took home more than $44 million in salary and stock options. Analysts say oil industry's big profits and big paychecks simply come from being in the right business at the right time.
BARBARA SHOOK, ENERGY INTELLIGENCE: They happen to make their money by producing oil and natural gas, and refining it or otherwise turning it into products that consumers can use, gasoline being probably the primary product. They are in business to make money. They are not public servants.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNTINGTON: Now, you may feel like you're getting gouged when you go to the gas pumps, and Congress has periodically looked into the pricing structure of the oil industry, most recently in 2002. The Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations looked into it extensively. And their report is online, if you want to find it, and their conclusion, Daryn, was that there is no predatory pricing in the oil industry. They certainly do make the most of market conditions, but nothing that would be considered untoward, or even illegal.
KAGAN: All right, Chris Huntington, thank you for a look at that. The wedding date is set for an infamous couple, Mary Kay Letourneau and her former student. But which television show is actually paying big money to be there?
Well, "People" magazine names its most beautiful people. We'll take a look at who made the cut, when CNN LIVE TODAY returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Let's show you some live pictures right now. This is Dana Point, California, an area between, oh, if you're driving from San Diego to L.A. or back that way, that's where you drive through. Really severe weather in Southern California today, about an hour away from here in downtown Los Angeles. Over an inch of rain fell, second wettest rainy season on record for Southern California, and this is just yet another walloping that the area received this morning.
(WEATHER REPORT)
KAGAN: All right, now we go to the salacious part of our newscast, the wedding of Mary Kay Letourneau and her former sixth- grade student will be a big lead for "Entertainment Tonight". The TV show has snared exclusive rights for the event. The wedding is expected to go on next month. Date and location haven't been announced. Letourneau served seven-and-a-half years in prison for raping her future husband. Their relationship became sexual when he was 12 and she was 34.
And a new Hollywood romance is off and about. Actor Tom Cruise and actress Katie Holmes are apparently an item. Cruise's publicist says the couple has been going out for a few weeks. For those of you keeping score at home, Cruise is 42, Holmes is 26. Hey, if they're happy, leave them alone. That's what I say.
All right, no need to ask the mirror. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most beautiful of them all? At least according to CNN's corporate magazine. They have their annual issue of the most stunning stars around. Here is CNN's A.J. Hammer with a look at who that is.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
A.J. HAMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is not the first time Julia has made the cover of "People's" beautiful issue. It's the third, but certainly the first since becoming a mom.
Julia also ties Halle Berry for making it the most times. Berry is back for number nine.
Lindsay Lohan, who made the list last year, is back again, and this time poses with a screen legend she's been compared to, Anne Margaret, who's made the issue for the first time.
Hilary Duff is another teen queen called oh, so beautiful by people. This is her first time.
Another teen first-timer, tennis champ, Maria Sharapova. Also saddling on "People's" beautiful list, "Desperate Housewife" hunk...
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(INTERRUPTED BY BREAKING NEWS)
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Aired April 28, 2005 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are right at the half hour. Good morning once again. I'm Daryn Kagan. Here's a look at what's happening now in the news.
At the top of the hour, in just about 30 minutes, police in Duluth, Georgia, are expected to hold a news conference on the disappearance of a suburban Atlanta woman. We're going to bring it to you live. Earlier this morning, they announced the case had become a criminal investigation. Jennifer Wilbanks was supposed to be married Saturday. Her fiance says she went out to jog. She didn't brings keys, a pocketbook or her cell phone. We are going to carry that news conference live when it begins in 30 minutes.
Bad weather in Southern California led to some rush hour freeway accidents this morning. Live pictures there from So. Cal. Big rigs jackknifing. There were also dozens of spinouts. At least one death was reported. The quick-moving storm left about an inch of rain in downtown Los Angeles. This is the city's second wettest rainy season on record.
President Bush will hold a rare primetime news conference tonight. Mr. Bush planning to talk about his energy plan and ideas to reform Social Security. CNN's live coverage begins at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. The president will take the podium about 8:30.
Show of hands today. The Iraqi National Assembly forms a new government. Lawmakers approved a list of cabinet members for the transitional government. There was no agreement on four posts that were temporarily filled. Most of the positions went to Shiite Muslims, although Sunnis and Kurds are also represented.
We're learning important details about last week's secret appearance by convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui apparently did a lot of talking before pleading guilty conspiracy in the 9/11 attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN (voice-over): He's pleading guilty, and he says he expects to get the death penalty. But Zacarias Moussaoui is making a request to the court. He says, quote, "I have to be buried in a Muslim land, not in America."
Moussaoui is the first and only person convicted in the United States in connection with the terror attacks of September 11th. He admits to being a member of Al Qaeda, but says he had nothing to do with the September 11th plot.
The judge acknowledged some weakness in the prosecution's case. She says, quote, "There is significant evidence in this record that did you not know anything about the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or any of the specific plans."
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 plot and other terror detainees were not allowed to testify, after the court cited matters of national security.
Still, the U.S. district judge presiding over this case tells Moussaoui, he has a chance of escaping the death sentence. Moussaoui seemed to scoff at that possibility, when he said, quote, "I know you so well. You have a lynch mentality, and you won the prize. You catch the beast. You have the feather and the tar. You're going to have the party."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: The day for the penalty phase has not yet been set. If he does get the death sentence, like Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, Moussaoui would die by lethal injection. McVeigh was granted a request to be cremated. So perhaps that suggest Moussaoui might also be given a choice. We will continue to cover that story.
A flight student who prompted a terrorism alert in the U.S. has been arrested in Britain. Zayeed Christopher Hajaig (ph) triggered the alert after he allegedly tried to have his training rushed and his rating upgraded to fly commercial aircraft. Officials say he was in the U.S. illegally, and he's been training at the same Atlanta-area airport where two of the 9/11 suicide attackers learned to fly.
A British citizen has now been convicted in New Jersey for trying to sell shoulder-fired missiles to terrorists. Prosecutors said that Hemat Lakhani (ph) believed that the missiles were meant to shoot down commercial airliners. The people he tried to sell the missiles to happened to be undercover agents. Sentencing is scheduled for August 8th.
Shoring up the shores. The port of Oakland, California is now the first in the nation to scan cargo containers for radioactive material. Twenty-five special radiation portals have been installed in an effort to keep weapons of mass destruction from entering the country.
Our homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve examines how the technology is being used to thwart terrorists.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nuclear detectors sound the alarm. This is not a drill. Customs and border protection moves to search a cargo container for the source.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be advised, hanger No. 1, we have isotope industrial thoron (ph), 232. MESERVE: The culprit, toilets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a good example of naturally occurring radiation that comes in all the time.
MESERVE: This happens about 20 times a day here at the busy port of Oakland. So at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, scientists are trying to develop nuclear detectors that can tell the difference between naturally occurring or harmless sources of radiation, and those that could be used as a weapon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We use liquid nitrogen, which looks like this.
MESERVE: Simon Lebeau (ph) heads up the radiation-detection center. In his lab right now, a device to actually identify even minute amounts of radioactive material, like the uranium oxide in this rock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just told me, suspect, norm, OK naturally occurring radioactive material.
MESERVE: Quickly identifying sources of radiation might prevent overreactions, like the recent closure of a roadway in California after detectors picked up radiation, radiation it turns out from a man who had recently received medical treatments.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We call this ultraspect (ph).
MESERVE: Also in the lab, this machine, which might be able to lead investigators back to the source of material used in a terrorist crime.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think this is going to be a very powerful tool for what we call nuclear fingerprinting.
MESERVE: Lebeau is also experiment with putting a chip, circuit board and GPS in cell phones, creating a computer-connected network of radiological detectives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some examples might be delivery people or -- that would be going to a lot of place, the Postal Service, every street, every day.
MESERVE: Dennis Slaughter is another scientist at Livermore.
DENNIS SLAUGHTER, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATL. LABORATORY: We're trying to address the problem, what if the stuff is really well- shielded and other people don't see it, we think we do.
MESERVE: He hides uranium, or plutonium, encased in lead deep inside sample cargoes, like this plywood. When bombarded with neutron, a tiny amount of nuclear fission occurs, producing intense radiation, which detectors can pick up.
SLAUGHTER: I was happy as a pig in mud doing nuclear physics up until a couple years ago, and then 9/11 came along, and I quit that, said I'm doing that anymore, I'm doing homeland security.
MESERVE (on camera): Why?
SLAUGHTER: I really wanted to work this problem.
MESERVE: Why?
SLAUGHTER: Because I don't want Oakland to go up in a mushroom cloud.
MESERVE (voice-over): Top U.S. officials warn that it is just a matter of time until terrorists try to use radiological or nuclear weapons. The hope is that innovative science will help find them, and stop them.
For CNN's America bureau, Jeanne Meserve, Oakland, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security.
Let's go ahead and take a look at other stories making news coast to coast. First to suburban Chicago, a mother and a father have been held for questioning in the stabbing deaths of their two children. Police say they were called to the home when the father claimed to have found the bodies of the 3-year-old girl and her 9-year-old brother.
Outside Washington, a 50-year-old fast food worker is linked to a string of arson fires in and around the nation's capital. Thomas Sweat (ph) is charged with several fires in D.C., Virginia and Maryland. A senior law enforcement official tells CNN that Sweat confessed to at least 33 fires.
Hampton, Virginia, talk about the honeymoon being over. A newly married couple returned from their post-wedding getaway to find their home had burned down. And here's the rub, the best man is charged with the crime. Police have not given the motive.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, the FBI is investigating a hate crime, a cross that was burned into the lawn of an interracial couple. Reverend Jesse Jackson, who was in town and heard about the incident, met and prayed with the couple yesterday. The couple moved into the home six weeks ago. They also have had their tires slashed.
In Santa Ana, California, jurors are deliberating the case of a man accused of kidnapping and killing 5-year-old Samantha Runnion. That happened back in 2002. Alejandro Avila is accused in the crime that helped spawn a nationwide awareness of child killings and abductions.
Our Miguel Marquez has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Her name was Samantha Runnion. As soon as she was abducted, Sheriff Mike Carona knew he was in a race against time.
MICHAEL CARONA, ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF: If you don't find that child within the first three hours, 74 percent of the children are dead.
MARQUEZ: But this sheriff was ready, a deputy at Samantha's house just four minutes after she was taken, a sketch of the suspect widely circulated. And he used what was then a new method to tell the county a child was missing, an Amber Alert.
CARONA: During the early hours we were very, very hopeful, again because we had such a quick response. Unlike a lot of other law enforcement agencies across this country, we had already run an Amber Alert.
MARQUEZ: So hopeful he made a promise to Samantha's mother.
CARONA: Where it became personal for me is the first time I had to sit down with Erin Runnion and ask her for a picture of Samantha so we could get that out to the public and telling her, much like I'm looking you in the eyes and saying, "I'll bring Samantha home alive."
MARQUEZ: Carona all but begged the public for help and he got it, thousands of phone calls, tips, but soon came the call no one wanted to hear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God we found a dead body. Please hurry. OK. I'm in the Ortegas, OK? Ortega Mountains I'm in Riverside County, OK?
MARQUEZ: The sheriff, a self-described by-the-book man, went into denial.
CARONA: To a person we didn't want to believe it. There was an absolute sense of denial by all of us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They believe they found a small child, the body of a small child here in this ravine.
MARQUEZ: The race to save Samantha had failed. Now Mike Carona's mission was a manhunt. Again, he made it personal.
CARONA: Don't sleep. Don't eat because we're coming after you. We will take every resource that's available to us to bring you to justice.
MARQUEZ: Within days the hunt was over. Alejandro Avila was arrested. Again, the sheriff didn't mince words.
CARONA: I am 100 percent certain that Mr. Avila is the man who kidnapped and murdered Samantha Runnion.
MARQUEZ: Later when thousands came to mourn the little girl and the sheriff rose to speak, something remarkable happened. First they applauded. Then they stood. Later, even the president would thank the sheriff.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to congratulate you for your good work in helping make your community as safe as possible.
MARQUEZ: The race to save Samantha was not in vain. Just days after her death, California made Amber Alerts a state law. Congress and the president soon followed. Samantha's mother, Erin, became an advocate for child safety.
ERIN RUNNION, SAMANTHA'S MOTHER: Since then there have been 40, over 40 Amber Alerts issued in the State of California and every single child has been recovered alive.
MARQUEZ: But almost two years later the case that grabbed Mike Carona's heart still doesn't let go. He gave his word to Samantha's mother and he failed to keep it.
CARONA: I did make a commitment to her mother and I failed in that original commitment and that part, that's the -- that's the one that you just grapple with and sticks with you. I mean, the rest of your life, probably will the rest of my life.
MARQUEZ: This sheriff will always remember the little girl he never met.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Beautiful, beautiful little girl.
You are feeling the high prices at the gas pumps, but the oil companies are expecting -- get this, they are expecting major big-time profits. That's "Your Money." Gas price watch is just ahead.
Plus how about this hot couple -- Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes? Why the superstar is being seen with somebody, well, come on, it's not half his age. There's a little bit of an age gap there. We'll look at that just ahead when CNN LIVE TODAY returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(STOCK MARKET REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Morning.
For those of you at home, this next story kind of might make you pretty mad. While you are paying record prices at the gas pump, guess who is raking in record profits?
CNN's Chris Huntington has the numbers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): While American motorist grit their teeth at the numbers they see at the pumps, oil company executives and investors are grinning ear to ear. In the first quarter, Exxon-Mobil made $7.8 billion, up 44 percent from a year ago. Its stock is up nearly as much in the past 12 months. BP, which moans Amoco and Arco, earned a record $6.6 billion, up 35 percent. Royal Dutch Shell pulled in $5.5 billion, up 28 percent.
No surprise it's as simple as supply and demand. The big oil producers are profiting from the big jump in crude prices, up nearly 30 percent in the past year, due to sharply higher global demand led by the United States, China and India.
But the oil companies are making even more money on what they do to that oil.
JOHN KILLDUFF, FIMAT: The secret to a lot of the profits going on right now, though, is the refining business, turning crude oil into gasoline, heating oil, jet fuel and everything else, for the first time really in years, for the most part, has done extraordinarily well.
HUNTINGTON: For decades, refining was a low-margin business, a big reason why no new refineries have been built in the United States in nearly 30 years. But with gasoline demand rising and refining capacity virtually maxed out, the margins have shot up in the past two years, particularly for Valero, the nation's biggest independent refiner, which specializes in refining the high sulfur so-called crude from the Middle East, that often costs $10 to $15 a barrel less than the benchmaker light sweet crude. Valero's profits more than doubled in the first quarter. It's stock has done the same in the past year.
In 2004, Valero CEO William Greehy took home more than $44 million in salary and stock options. Analysts say oil industry's big profits and big paychecks simply come from being in the right business at the right time.
BARBARA SHOOK, ENERGY INTELLIGENCE: They happen to make their money by producing oil and natural gas, and refining it or otherwise turning it into products that consumers can use, gasoline being probably the primary product. They are in business to make money. They are not public servants.
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HUNTINGTON: Now, you may feel like you're getting gouged when you go to the gas pumps, and Congress has periodically looked into the pricing structure of the oil industry, most recently in 2002. The Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations looked into it extensively. And their report is online, if you want to find it, and their conclusion, Daryn, was that there is no predatory pricing in the oil industry. They certainly do make the most of market conditions, but nothing that would be considered untoward, or even illegal.
KAGAN: All right, Chris Huntington, thank you for a look at that. The wedding date is set for an infamous couple, Mary Kay Letourneau and her former student. But which television show is actually paying big money to be there?
Well, "People" magazine names its most beautiful people. We'll take a look at who made the cut, when CNN LIVE TODAY returns.
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KAGAN: Let's show you some live pictures right now. This is Dana Point, California, an area between, oh, if you're driving from San Diego to L.A. or back that way, that's where you drive through. Really severe weather in Southern California today, about an hour away from here in downtown Los Angeles. Over an inch of rain fell, second wettest rainy season on record for Southern California, and this is just yet another walloping that the area received this morning.
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KAGAN: All right, now we go to the salacious part of our newscast, the wedding of Mary Kay Letourneau and her former sixth- grade student will be a big lead for "Entertainment Tonight". The TV show has snared exclusive rights for the event. The wedding is expected to go on next month. Date and location haven't been announced. Letourneau served seven-and-a-half years in prison for raping her future husband. Their relationship became sexual when he was 12 and she was 34.
And a new Hollywood romance is off and about. Actor Tom Cruise and actress Katie Holmes are apparently an item. Cruise's publicist says the couple has been going out for a few weeks. For those of you keeping score at home, Cruise is 42, Holmes is 26. Hey, if they're happy, leave them alone. That's what I say.
All right, no need to ask the mirror. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most beautiful of them all? At least according to CNN's corporate magazine. They have their annual issue of the most stunning stars around. Here is CNN's A.J. Hammer with a look at who that is.
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A.J. HAMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is not the first time Julia has made the cover of "People's" beautiful issue. It's the third, but certainly the first since becoming a mom.
Julia also ties Halle Berry for making it the most times. Berry is back for number nine.
Lindsay Lohan, who made the list last year, is back again, and this time poses with a screen legend she's been compared to, Anne Margaret, who's made the issue for the first time.
Hilary Duff is another teen queen called oh, so beautiful by people. This is her first time.
Another teen first-timer, tennis champ, Maria Sharapova. Also saddling on "People's" beautiful list, "Desperate Housewife" hunk...
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