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Rescued Cub Scout Doing Well; BTK Suspect Complains About Life Behind Bars; Reporter Who Urged Prosecution Responds to Killen Conviction

Aired June 22, 2005 - 08:00   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Lost and found. The missing Cub Scout in Utah back home with his parents, released from the hospital overnight. A live report on his condition just ahead.
The accused BTK serial killer speaks out from behind bars, about his life in prison and his upcoming murder trial, just days way.

And just minutes after a guilty verdict, a former Klansman lashes out the media at he's taken to a Mississippi jail. That's where he awaits sentencing on this AMERICAN MORNING.

ANNOUNCER: From the CNN Broadcast Center in New York, this is AMERICAN MORNING, with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody.

Also ahead this morning, the battle in the Senate over the president's nominee for U.N. ambassador, John Bolton.

M. O'BRIEN: It's a struggle that has everything to do with the president's ability to get things done in Washington right now. We'll look at whether his influence might be slipping. That's ahead.

S. O'BRIEN: But first, we get a look at the headlines this morning with Carol Costello.

Good morning again.

CAROL COSTELLO, ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you.

Now in the news, arms experts say there is a high chance of an attack with a weapons of mass destruction. A new survey out says there's a 70 percent chance of a WMD attack somewhere in the world within the next 10 years. The survey also showed that four out of five experts say their countries are not spending enough on nonproliferation efforts. The survey was commissioned by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair, Richard Lugar.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Iraq deserves the world's support as it works to rebuild. Rice is attending a one-day international conference on Iraq. She, along with other foreign ministers, have gathered in Belgium. In the meantime, Egypt says it will send an envoy to Iraq. It will be the first Arab country to do so since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

More help for the search for a missing Alabama teenager in Aruba is on the way, but there's been a slight delay. Volunteers from a Texas-based group will not arrive at Aruba until Friday now. They were initially expected to join the search for Natalee Holloway today.

In the meantime, Holloway's mother's says she's met with the parents of a 17-year-old Dutch boy, one of the four people being held in the case. None have been formally charged.

The drugstore chain CVS says that it's temporarily pulling Internet access. There are concerns personal data on some 50 million of its loyally guarded customers could be accessed online. CVS says it's working to create more security hurdles like passwords but says there is no sign anyone's information was breached.

And the world first's ever solar spacecraft has apparently failed. The Cosmos One was supposed to open up eight solar sails and orbit the earth. But a few hours ago, Russia's space agency announced the spacecraft never made it that way. They say a booster rocket engine broke -- a booster rocket engine broke down shortly after Tuesday's launch.

And to see more on this and all of our other top stories, just go online to CNN.com. Click onto "watch" to see free video of our most popular stories. And the No. 1 story is that U.S. spy plane crashing somewhere in southwest Asia. Don't know what happened to it.

M. O'BRIEN: What do you have, a little ticker there that keeps track of the No. 1 story?

COSTELLO: You just hit on "most popular."

O'BRIEN: There you go, most popular.

COSTELLO: Go to CNN.com and then you go to the right. It says, "most popular," and you click on that and there, voila, top 10 stories.

M. O'BRIEN: You, too. All right.

S. O'BRIEN: Interesting. Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: Sure.

M. O'BRIEN: Prayers are answered and children come home, the words of 11-year-old Brennan Hawkins' mother. The lost Cub Scout is now home this morning, safe and sound after four days alone without food and water very high in the rugged mountains of Utah.

He was released from the hospital overnight, just 12 hours after arriving, waving to reporters there. And a greatly relieved community, all of us as well. Hawkins' four-day ordeal ended Tuesday when a rescuer found him cold, wet and hungry in the mountains in Northeast Utah. The fact that he came through in such good shape is surprising to survival experts.

Dr. Ed Clark is the medical director of Primary Children's Medical Center.

Dr. Clark, good to have with you us. Know you've had a long night. Tell me, how is he doing?

DR. ED CLARK, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, PRIMARY CHILDREN'S MEDICAL CENTER: You know, Miles, it's been a remarkable night. About 12:30 this morning, Brennan was absolute ready to go and checked out by our medical team, and Brennan is now home.

M. O'BRIEN: Fantastic! That's a great outcome to know he's already home. What has he told you all along the way about his story? Has he given any explanation?

CLARK: You know, Brennan has just been so happy to be with his family that we've not pressed him for the stories. That will come out over the next days and weeks. Our focus here was assessing his medical condition, treating the medical problems that he had, which was sunburn and dehydration, and making sure that he could eat and tolerate food. And that went very well over about a 10-hour period here.

M. O'BRIEN: Sunburn and dehydration, that's all he has to deal with right now?

CLARK: That's all we had to deal with. Some scrapes and burn -- bruises from falls, obviously, while he was in the wilderness. He came through in remarkable medical condition, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: That has to surprise you, a little bit.

CLARK: It was very gratifying. Of course, here, because we're the regional medical center, we see children with all sorts of trauma falling, all sorts of injuries. We hoped and prayed that we would be able to take care of him. But we were very worried in what condition he would come to us. And we were very happy to see that he came out of the ambulance talking and with his family.

M. O'BRIEN: And as you say, you see a lot of these cases. I don't know if you have the statistics handy, but generally speaking, in a case like this, four days in the woods, no food and water, is his condition kind of remarkable?

CLARK: It is. He is very remarkable, Miles. Because after four days like this, we really worry that we're not going to see the children come through.

M. O'BRIEN: And a final thought here, if Mother Nature hadn't cooperated through all of this, if the weather was a little colder.

CLARK: That's right.

M. O'BRIEN: Or it had rained, what might have happened?

CLARK: Well, you know, we've had such a rainy and wet spring and early summer that, if he had been up there in thunderstorms, he would have become hypothermic, and it would have significantly decreased his chances of survival.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Dr. Ed Clark, thanks for your time.

CLARK: Thank you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: In his first recorded interview since his arrest, the accused BTK suspect is speaking out about life behind bars and his upcoming murder trial. Sixty-year-old Dennis Rader is accused of being the serial killer who terrorized residents in Wichita, Kansas, for more than 30 years.

Here's national correspondent Bob Franken this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOB FRANKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From anyone else, these would be routine complaints about life behind bars, but they're chilling when they come from Dennis Rader, the man charged with at least 10 murders over four decades.

DENNIS RADER, BTK SUSPECT: I can't tell you what's going to happen.

FRANKEN: He was coy about his upcoming court appearance Monday, accused of being the so-called BTK serial killer starting back in 1974. Other homicides are still being investigated.

In a wide ranging telephone interview Sunday with Wichita station KSNW, Rader charges his legal rights are being violated and that he's being harassed as his hearing gets closer.

RADER: Yes, and they're putting a lot of pressure on me. I don't know whether -- I think it's coming from the prosecution or from the jail, but I don't know where it's coming from, but anyway, it's about to rip me open.

FRANKEN: He would not discuss specifics of the case at all, but he complained he's had trouble getting mail. The sheriff's office acknowledged that it does examine the mail for contraband. Rader said he had heard from his wife.

RADER: Yes, Paula has opened up more and more. She's -- she's writing a little bit more. The kids are hit and miss, you know. They're busy, but yes I'm getting some letters and phone calls.

FRANKEN: When Rader was arrested last February he was living a relatively unobtrusive life: a family man, married over 30 years and president of his Lutheran church.

Sometimes, strangely, as he complains, he describes himself in the third person. Other times, as "we."

RADER: We haven't had a haircut for almost two months. We haven't had a pair of clippers in two months.

FRANKEN: The sheriff's office says it routinely provides hair clippers to inmates. Officials have not given any further response to CNN.

And the man who is charged with 10 murders so far, who allegedly named himself BTK for bind, torture, kill, is worried about how he looks to the community.

RADER: Remember, not too much negative. I don't like to see too much negative, I mean you know, on my family or you know.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: That was CNN's Bob Franken reporting.

Rader is charged with 10 counts of murder. His trial is set to begin on Monday. Rader would not face the death penalty if he is convicted because all the murders he's accused of happened before 1994, and that's before Kansas had the death penalty -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Well, it was a hail of a mess in Colorado Springs. Snowplows in June there. That's what it took to clear the streets. A slow moving thunderstorm dropped up to a foot of hail. That's not snow you see. That is hail.

It, of course, drenched the city as well with rain. Streets became lakes. Dozens of drivers are trapped. Check out this guy. Nobody injured, but I know a car you can buy in Colorado Springs kind of cheap.

Chad Myers, it's a little flood damaged but it's available.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: We're only, what, two days, isn't this just the second day of summer?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: Total bummer.

MYERS: There will be a big cold front that comes and pushes this away and mixes it up, but right now there's just no mixing going on.

M. O'BRIEN: The days are getting shorter, the air is getting dirtier. Woe is us.

S. O'BRIEN: Thanks, Chad. Thanks, Chad.

M. O'BRIEN: Sniff, sniff.

S. O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.

Still to come this morning, 41 years after the killings of three civil rights workers, a former Klansman is convicted of manslaughter. The reporter who helped reopen the case will join us to talk about that.

M. O'BRIEN: Also, an interesting tale of two cities separated by a river on the U.S.-Mexico border. One of them, consumed by violence; the other nervously looking on.

S. O'BRIEN: And the fight over John Bolton's nomination. What is at stake for both sides in this battle? A look at that's all ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Anger from Edgar Ray Killen Tuesday. He slapped a news camera while being taken to jail only moments after a guilty verdict was read in a Mississippi courthouse. The former Klansman convicted of three counts of manslaughter in the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman.

Jerry Mitchell, reporting for the "Clarion Ledger" in Jackson, Mississippi, and he helped really put this whole story on the map and helped this trial come to be by some of his writing.

Jerry, good to have you with us this morning.

JERRY MITCHELL, "CLARION LEDGER": Good to be with you.

M. O'BRIEN: I assume you're quite gratified that there was a guilty verdict.

MITCHELL: Yes, I mean, in the sense of as a reporter, you know, 95 percent, 98 percent of what you write about no one reacts to, or does anything about, and to see something happen like this, I'm particularly happy for the families.

M. O'BRIEN: Take us back 16 years ago when you first started writing about this, began your crusade, if you will.

MITCHELL: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: What were you thinking then? Did you truly think that it would take 16 years and that you would get to this point?

MITCHELL: No, no, I held no such illusions. And I was a young, stupid kid, so -- at that point in my life.

I wrote about the case. I really knew nothing about the case and kind of began writing about it, got interested in it. I knew little enough about the civil rights movement, to be honest with you. And got curious about it and began writing about it and the Mississippi Sovereign Commission, which is sort of a state segregation spy agency, which actually spied on Mickey Schwerner and his wife three months before he and the two others were killed.

So that kind of began the journey, talking about, well, could this case be reopened, what kind of evidence exists? The state wasn't particularly interested at that time.

And then fast-forward to 1999. The families called for the case to be reopened after it was revealed that Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers had said that he was happy to be convicted in the federal conspiracy trial and have the main instigator of the entire affair walk out of the courtroom a free man. And he was, of course, referring to Edgar Ray Killen.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. I guess you must be an outsider. You don't come from that part of the world, right? You moved there 16 years ago?

MITCHELL: Originally, I grew up -- I grew up in Texas. I grew up in Texas. I moved to Mississippi in '86. So I consider myself part of Mississippi, too.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. I guess the point, what I'm trying to get at here, is it's a small community. Everybody knows Preacher Killen.

MITCHELL: Yes. Absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: And for years and years, they just -- for whatever, either consciously or subconsciously, protected him. Why?

MITCHELL: Well, I think it's one of those things that -- that people just consider it the past, and you know, let's just...

M. O'BRIEN: Bygones be bygones or something? I mean, really, it's hard to imagine that. They really felt that way?

MITCHELL: I think so, and obviously, the '60s were very turbulent times. And I think -- I think what you have here in the south and the nation as a whole, really, what's been taking place through this case and many other cases is kind of a re-examine of that.

It kind of took a new generation of prosecutors, a new generation of citizens, in this county, to step up and say, "Hey, we want our -- we want this case to be revisited. This should have been done a long time ago." And that's what happened here. That's the reason for the case.

M. O'BRIEN: Of course, in waiting 41 years to the day -- you can't make that stuff up -- actually on the anniversary.

MITCHELL: I know, it's amazing.

M. O'BRIEN: That, of course, undermined the case, and as a result the jurors kind of came up with this, you could call it a tepid verdict, saying manslaughter, when in fact they lit a fire to lure the people to town. They chased them down. They'd already predug the grave. I mean, it's hard to say this wasn't a premeditated murder, if you assume he was involved. So a manslaughter conviction must upset some people.

MITCHELL: It does. Some of the families are not happy about that, but they're also happy they did get a conviction.

I think the manslaughter was probably a compromise verdict. I think it's pretty obvious from what some of the jurors are saying. And they just felt -- some of them felt like, well, we just don't have enough proof. We wish we did, but we just don't have enough proof to prove murder.

Some of the things that you and I know about in some of these statements, not all of these things got into evidence so the jurors obviously had to consider what they had before them.

M. O'BRIEN: The prosecutors said yesterday no longer will Philadelphia, Mississippi, be known for a movie. But I'd be willing to guess it still will be linked to this in some way forever. Do you feel it closes a chapter in any way?

MITCHELL: Well, I think it's an important step, and I think that's what needs to be said. It's a step toward, you know, making things better. I think Bobby DeLaughter, who's a prosecutor in Medgar Evers' case, asked is it ever too late to do the right thing, and the answer, of course, is no it's not. And I think that's what this is all about.

m. O'BRIEN: Jerry Mitchell, Philadelphia, Mississippi, good work, good writing, good outcome.

MITCHELL: Thank you very much.

M. O'BRIEN: Thank you for your time.

MITCHELL: Appreciate it.

M. O'BRIEN: Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, a look at Laredo, Texas. It's just over the river from Nuevo Laredo in Mexico, and there's lots of violence there, south of the border. So how can they keep it from spilling into Texas? We're back with AMERICAN MORNING just after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: So what are you pointing your mouse to on our web site? Here's one of the top stories at CNN.com. A civil trial aims to solve the mystery behind who killed the Notorious B.I.G., the rapper. His given name was Christopher Wallace, and he was gunned down eight years ago in Los Angeles.

No one has ever been charged with that crime, but his family is suing the city of L.A. They hope to prove that a rogue LAPD officer was involved and the city helped cover it up -- Soledad. S. O'BRIEN: Police in Laredo, Texas, are trying to keep violence in Mexico from crossing over the borer. Laredo in Texas and Nuevo Laredo in Mexico are sister cities right across the Rio Grande. Bill Tucker reports now on growing fear along that border.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Lawlessness, violence, Nuevo Laredo is a city out of control. More than 70 people have been killed in the city so far this year. The latest murder, a man killed in a hail of bullets outside a hotel.

Despite being under the control of Mexico's federalis (ph), the violence conditions, and only a river separates the dos Laredos, Laredo and Nuevo Laredo.

SHERIFF RICK FLORES, WEBB COUNTY, TEXAS: I've never seen anything like this before. It reminds me of watching television, you know, where there's rocket-propelled grenades, bazookas, automatic weapons and gunfire, right in the middle of broad daylight, with 50 calibers mounted on Suburbans. You know, I've never seen any of that. I thought it was only in the movies.

TUCKER: So far the violence of Nuevo Laredo has not spread to Laredo, but fear of the violence is scaring the tourists away.

DANIEL PEREIDA, RIO GRANDA PLAZA HOTEL: We have seen some cancellations. The entire city has seen cancellations.

TUCKER: The ties between the two Laredos are deep: cultural, personal and economic. Eight thousand trucks come across the border into the U.S. daily, loaded with goods made in Mexico. Tens of thousands of people cross over from Mexico every day to work, shop, or go to school.

The Laredo police are diligent in their efforts of preventing the spread of violence north, assigning officers to work with customs and border patrol, immigration and customs enforcement and the Drug Enforcement Agency. The strategy is working, but resources are strained.

AGUSTIN DOVALINA, LAREDO POLICE CHIEF: There's been an enormous amount of violence. There's been an increase, a very marked increase in the homicide rate, and the crimes of violence that occurring across the border, obviously. And it causes us grave concern over on this side.

TUCKER (on camera): It all comes down to this river. The Rio Grande is the only thing that divides the two Laredos. And if people can cross it illegally to come into the United States, there is no reason to believe that violence won't, as well.

Bill Tucker, CNN, Laredo, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE) S. O'BRIEN: Nuevo Laredo's mayor in Mexico said on Tuesday that 150 police officers will be fired and that a new police chief will be appointed this week -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come, the John Bolton controversy, the prospective U.N. ambassador, the spotlight, still the Senate's top Republican making an about-face as Democrats watch for the president's next move. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Get the latest news every morning in your e-mails. Sign up for AMERICAN MORNING quick news. That's CNN.com/AM.

Still to come for years, doctors prescribed antibiotics to street bronchitis. But how well do those drugs work? Surprising health news for you, ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Good morning. Welcome back, everybody. It is almost half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING.

Coming up, we're going to take a look at two big battles in Washington, D.C., and just how those battles are testing the Democrats' strength against the president and the Republicans in Congress.

M. O'BRIEN: One of them is an apology from a key Democrat, the other the battle over U.N. nominee John Bolton. We'll look at who may come out on top.

S. O'BRIEN: Not very clear at this moment, is it?

M. O'BRIEN: No. No.

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