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American Morning
Repeat Offender?; Evacuation Safety
Aired August 05, 2005 - 08:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Just about half past the hour on this AMERICAN MORNING. Coming up, new details about the man captured in Idaho with 8-year-old Shasta Groene and the suspect in the murders of four people in the same case.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, same guy. Now the question is, was he, Joseph Edward Duncan, responsible for any other missing and murdered children? Police are studying new evidence, and we're going to talk about that as well this morning.
First, though, another check of the stories making news this morning with Carol Costello. Good morning.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning to all of you.
In the news this morning, the U.S. military launching Operation Quick Strike in Iraq. The operation aimed at targeting insurgents in the Anbar province, which is west of Baghdad. About 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and U.S. Marines working to disrupt insurgent activity here. At least 21 Marines were killed in three separate attacks in this region this week.
A prayer vigil is being held today for those Ohio-based marines killed in Iraq. That's taking place in Cleveland. A makeshift memorial is already building up. People have been paying their respects, laying out cards and flowers. Today's prayer service is only one of a series of memorials planned over the next few days.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair wants British immigrants that quote -- warned them, rather, the rules of the game are changing, he says. Blair announced new deportation and asylum policies this morning, added that the government may also amend its human rights laws.
Under the proposal, authorities will be able to deport those involved in extremist organizations. Blair also said that asylum will be denied to individuals who have any history of terrorist activity.
NASA says the Discovery crew will not need to make a fourth space walk after all. Officials have cleared the shuttle for reentry, saying the damaged thermal blanket will not pose a major risk. The crew is currently packing up for their return trip. discovery set to land on Monday. We are expecting to hear from the shuttle crew later this hour.
Back to you. M. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Carol. Appreciate it.
S. O'BRIEN: A major break this week in an unsolved murder/abduction in Southern California. As FBI agents were questioning the sex offender who is suspected in the Idaho slayings and kidnapping of Shasta and Dylan Groene, they stumbled upon a new twist. The suspect, Joseph Edward Duncan, might also be responsible for the murder of a 10-year-old boy back in 1997.
Peter Viles has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice over): He spent much of his life in prison, then surfaced last month in Idaho where he's now accused of killing four people and kidnapping Shasta Groene. Now the big question for law enforcement, where was Joseph Edward Duncan when he wasn't in prison? And was he involved in the disappearance of other children?
MISTY COOPER, AUNT OF SHASTA GROENE: They would have kept him in and he would have never got out, then none of this would have ever happened to any other child.
VILES: Investigators are looking at Southern California where eight years ago a boy disappeared and authorities looked for this man and never found him. And now suspect that the killer was Duncan.
SHERIFF BOB DOYLE, RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: Credible evidence has been developed in the Anthony Martinez case that makes Joseph Edward Duncan, of the Idaho case, our prime suspect.
VILES: Anthony Martinez was a 10-year-old boy abducted from the small town of Beaumont in April, 1997. The whole town prayed for him and searched for him on horseback and with dogs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to assign you a specific area to go to.
VILES: But after two weeks it was over. The boy's body found in a canyon 70 miles away. A partial fingerprint taken at the scene led nowhere until new fingerprinting was ordered for Duncan this summer.
DOYLE: The print on Mr. Duncan was actually that was able to be validated was on the side of his thumb. Not on the actual part of the finger that we think about, you know, when we fingerprint.
VILES: The connection was made by FBI agents. During questioning in the Groene case, Duncan mentioned the Martinez case, according to the sheriff. On this Web blog, believed to be written by Duncan, strong hints of previous crimes. "I was in prison for over 18 years. All those years I dreamed of getting out. I got out and got even but did not get caught."
DOYLE: This was one, sick individual. I'm talking sick. VILES: Eight years ago, Anthony Martinez's mother lived a nightmare.
DIANA MEDINA, MOTHER OF ANTHONY RAMIREZ: Just every minute passes by, you know, waiting for the phone to ring and you just it's just a horrible wait.
VILES: Now there is finally a suspect and the mother has mixed feelings.
MEDINA: Your life will obviously never be the same. You'll never feel safe. You'll never have the security that you have, so you'll never have closure but you'll have answers to questions that you had before. Maybe not all of them but some answers that you were looking for.
VILES: The FBI isn't saying much about this case, except that it is trying to figure out exactly where else Joseph Duncan has been and whether there are any children missing in those places.
Peter Viles for CNN, Riverside, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Anthony's mother has since moved from Beaumont to the San Francisco Bay area. She's raising her 14-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter as well.
(WEATHER REPORT)
M. O'BRIEN: Hypertension, that's not a good thing. But what about a thing called pre-hypertension? It seems that close to having high blood pressure can be a problem after all. We'll have more on this in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: A new study says pre-hypertension can triple your risk of a heart attack.
Dr. Elaine Peeke (sic) from the University of Maryland School of Medicine here. Author of the book "Body for Life for Women." But this is not just applying to women here. She's here to explain all this.
Dr. Peeke, good to have you with us.
DR. PAMELA PEEKE, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: How are you?
M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk numbers, first of all. Pre-hypertension. What are those numbers? It's 120 to 139 and 80 -- let's see 120 over 80 to 139 over 89. See, I can't get these fractions right. I did terrible in math. But if you have those numbers, should you be worried?
PEEKE: OK, here's the deal. When I went to medical school, we used to think 140 over 90 was the hot number. Anything from there on up, whoa, high blood pressure. Guess what? New study of the Framingham Group just found out the numbers below -- that's 120 over 80 up to 139 over 89 -- actually increase your risk for what? Heart disease. And we didn't know that. Not for stroke, interestingly, but for heart disease and heart attacks.
M. O'BRIEN: And that Framingham study, that's usually good statistics.
PEEKE: Huge, huge.
M. O'BRIEN: That's a long-term study.
PEEKE: Over 30 years, men and women also.
M. O'BRIEN: So, what are you to do if you have those numbers? Is that something that should give you immediate concern? And what kind of risks are posed by all of this?
PEEKE: Well, here's the deal. I mean, should everyone now just freak out and say, oh, my gosh, I'm 120 over 80, what does that mean? I'm going to have a heart attack tomorrow?
M. O'BRIEN: Up goes your blood pressure right there.
PEEKE: There you go, absolutely. No, actually, what you do is this. Lifestyle check. What else are you doing? All right. Because you see, you may have a genetic tendency toward high blood pressure, but are you making it easier by having a lifestyle that needs a little help here?
For instance, diabetes increases the risk here. So if you're a diabetic with one of those blood pressures in the pre-hypertensive range, well, guess what? Up goes your risk. So maybe if you control your diabetes or maybe even get rid of it by a better lifestyle, guess what? Reduce the risk.
M. O'BRIEN: Interesting because I think a lot of Americans immediately think, well, I'll go get a pill to fix this. It's kind of the American solution, right?
PEEKE: Absolutely.
M. O'BRIEN: Let's give people a little bit of advice here. Some of the things you can watch out for. Too much salt, too much alcohol, too much weight, not enough exercise. These all sound like common sense, but it's worth restating, isn't it?
PEEKE: Right. Well, also, everyone should just, you know, be forewarned. We're talking about don't wait until there's a crisis at 140 over 90. What's going on before then? We're trying to act in prevention.
M. O'BRIEN: Can you really do something about it? I mean, if you get one -- and you go to the drug store and you get a number like that. If you go start running a little more, will you really get those numbers down?
PEEKE: Absolutely. You know, all -- we have so many studies now show you don't even have to run, forget that. Take a walk.
M. O'BRIEN: Even a walk?
PEEKE: Thirty minutes a day. Thirty minutes a day will decrease your risk of high blood pressure and heart disease by guess what? Fifty percent. Same thing with cancer, too. So that's why it's really important here to get up and move a little bit more, but do that lifestyle check.
M. O'BRIEN: That's worth saying again. Thirty minutes a day.
PEEKE: Absolutely.
M. O'BRIEN: Even just walking. Reduces your risk and heart disease and cancer by 50 percent.
PEEKE: By 50 percent. That means just get up. Medicate with movement instead of medicating with pills.
M. O'BRIEN: How big a problem in general is this in this country right now?
PEEKE: Well, we have 50 million people right now with high blood pressure that we know of. Now, we have a lot of people walking around who don't know, or basically, on the launchpad. And they're thinking, well, gosh, I'm just 130 over 80, so whatever. No. I'm saying stop and look at this study. What you're getting is a warning sign. Little neon that says, wake up. Do that check.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, well, hopefully doing that. Get you -- you know, when you're at the drugstore next time you see that machine...
PEEKE: You got it.
M. O'BRIEN: Put your hand in there...
PEEKE: Right in there.
M. O'BRIEN: ... see what your numbers are.
PEEKE: You got it.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, Dr. Pamela Peeke, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.
PEEKE: And thank you.
M. O'BRIEN: All right -- Soledad?
S. O'BRIEN: Canadian safety officials are sending the Air France data and voice recorders to Paris for analysis. The plane, you'll recall, burst into flames after skidding off a runway, then crashing into a ravine in Toronto. The Canadian team doesn't have equipment they need to download information from those so-called black boxes. The downloading and data transcription could take another three days or so.
While many experts say the evacuation after the Air France crash was textbook perfect, it's not always the case. Federal safety officials say improvements need to be made to avoid an unnecessary loss of life.
Kathleen Koch takes a look at this problem.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The fireball of Singapore Airlines Flight 006, October 31, 2000, after it crashed into a construction barrier at Taipei Airport.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were flames everywhere and smoke everywhere.
KOCH: Business passengers on the 747 rushed to the exit but found no functioning emergency supply.
CAI VON RUMOHR, CRASH SURVIVOR: There ended up being a piece -- a piece of slide. And once I made the decision to go out that route, I did have to hang down and then jump about 25, 30 feet.
KOCH: Cai Von Rumohr was injured, but 81 people died. At least one slide also failed in 2002 at JFK Airport, in 2001 in Detroit. In 1998, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Manchester, United Kingdom. In 1993, in Guatemala City. There are among 46 accidents the NTSB studied to spot evacuation problems.
MARK ROSENKER, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: In one- third of those at least one slide didn't work. That's unacceptable.
KOCH: Another issue, passengers struggled to open exits over the wings.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The passengers sitting in the over-wing did have difficulty or have trouble with over-wing exit, or they won't -- once they do remove the hatch from the aircraft fuselage, they'll end up leaving it on the floor right there by the exit, and that ends up slowing things down.
KOCH: Other findings, pilots and flight attendants have problems communicating and knowing when to evacuate a plane.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes we had cases where passengers have actually initiated an evacuation. And consequently, nobody -- none of the crew was prepared for it.
KOCH: And as seen in this astonishing video of an actual evacuation...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go! Leave! Leave the aircraft! KOCH: ... the NTSB found too many passengers tried to leave with their carry-on luggage, unaware that every second counts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Move it! Get out!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the systems aren't all working and the people aren't all cooperating, it's a recipe for disaster.
KOCH (on camera): The government wants more regular checks to make sure emergency slides work. Flight attendants want more realistic evacuation training.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Leave the aircraft!
KOCH (voice-over): And everyone wants passengers to listen and act as if their lives depended on it.
Kathleen Koch, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
M. O'BRIEN: You know, that's a good time to leave the carry-on bag behind.
Still to come, Andy has the big jobs report for July, hot off the presses. He'll give us the low down in "Minding Your Business." That's next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. They've been holding their breath on Wall Street, waiting the arrival of the government's latest unemployment figures. Drumroll, please, because Andy Serwer's got them. He's "Minding Your Business."
Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning.
S. O'BRIEN: Good news or bad news?
SERWER: The wait it over. Good news, very good news actually. We were expecting 180,000 jobs to be created in the month of July. And instead, we got 207,000. Unemployment rate holds steady at five percent.
May and June also revised upward, 42,000 more jobs created in those two months. That's good stuff. Sometimes when you see a good report like this, Soledad, people are concerned the economy's overheating. I don't think that will be the case. It's sort of right in the middle, the Goldilocks number, not too hot, not too cold. So good stuff there.
Speaking of jobs, Lee Iacocca's job as a spokesperson for Chrysler, the company he famously led years ago. He's doing these TV commercials with Jason Alexander. They've been very, very successful. Chrysler is a little bit concerned, though. Is it speaking to the younger generation? To address that, they've hired one of Chrysler's most famous customers to do commercials with Lee. It's Snoop. How about this? I mean, is this an odd couple?
S. O'BRIEN: Will you look at Snoop. What's he wearing?
SERWER: That's golf attire, Snoop style. They're on the golf course, Soledad. It's a commercial that begins tomorrow. And Snoop and Lee are on the golf course talking. Of course, Snoop is talking in his usual, or unusual vernacular. Lee is shaking his head. I have no idea what this guy is talking about. And then what does he say? And then Lee says something, you know, you should buy these cars. And Snoop says fo shizzle, Ike-a-sizzle. So that's Lee Iacocca's new name, Ike-a-sizzle.
(CROSSTALK)
S. O'BRIEN: That's going to catch on, for sure.
SERWER: I think it's going to work.
S. O'BRIEN: That's pretty funny. I bet that's a pretty funny ad.
SERWER: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: All right, Andy, thanks -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, the latest on the shizzle -- that's the shuttle. Or the shuttle mizzle. I don't know. A lot of interesting challenges up there. And once again, I'm proving I'm terminally white here. From foam falling off to all the other problems, to pesky gap fillers, even a puffed-out thermal blanket. But so far, the Discovery crew has been able to clear every obstacle, and a special group of men and women has been with them every step of the way.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
M. O'BRIEN (voice-over): At the outpost bar on the edge of the Johnson Space Center, the walls are lined with family portraits, the NASA family, that is. This is where the steelly eyed rocket men, and women, come to unwind at the end of the day. And these days, there's an air of uncertainty here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think everybody was real disappointed when we saw the (INAUDIBLE) foam come off.
M. O'BRIEN: Nasa had spent two-and-a-half years trying to stop the falling foam, which pierced Columbia's heat shield and caused it to burn up on reentry, killing the crew of seven. So seeing it happen again struck a nerve, if not Discovery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think there is a certain sense of disappointment and a real hope that we can find out what this problem is. Go off, find a solution to it, fix it, and get to flying again before the end of the year. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Moving out, clear the tower.
M. O'BRIEN: If it sounds like wishful thinking, it is, but this is a place built on believing in big dreams. How else would they have gotten to the moon?
Veteran flight director Glynn Lunney was there in the trenches during those glory days, there for the triumphs and the tragedies. And this time the grounding seems more poignant.
GLYNN LUNNEY, FMR. SHUTTLE PROGRAM MANAGER: I was kind of upset. I thought that should not have happened after all that we've been through over the decades with this shedding problem, and then for two- and-a-half years after Columbia.
M. O'BRIEN: The NASA he worked at as a young man was a different place. He says they succeeded because they never flinched in the face of anguish, and never allowed the optimism to gloss over reality.
TUNNEY: You still have a problem, and you got to go fix it. And you're going to have to be harsh about what you have to do to fix it. I don't know what that means exactly, but you got to demand a proper answer to this problem. And you can't let it continue.
M. O'BRIEN: And certainly, the people who strap themselves into the rocket would agree.
JIM WETHERBEE, RETIRED ASTRONAUT: The crew doesn't worry about launch delays. In fact, the crew would rather delay to make sure that everything was right as best we can make it and then launch.
M. O'BRIEN: Jim Wetherbee commanded five shuttle missions before retiring last year.
WETHERBEE: Our business is a dangerous business. Many of us are involved in testing of airplanes, and jets and space vehicles, and so we're used to having the ups and downs on the technical side, and, of course, the emotional side as well.
M. O'BRIEN: Jon Clark knows this all too well. He lost his wife Laurel on Columbia two-and-a-half years ago. And his grief was compounded when he saw that foam fall off.
JON CLARK, COLUMBIA FAMILY MEMBER: My heart goes out to the external tank folks. I mean, they were the problem with Columbia. I mean, they brought the bird down. And now they're still having a problem with it, because they haven't fixed it yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Standing by now for burnout and jettison of the twin solid rockets.
M. O'BRIEN: Even before the problems with Discovery, the shuttle fleet was slated for a trip to the Smithsonian in 2010. At best, there were going to be 15 shuttle flights remaining. Now, who knows?
For NASA, a new vehicle and a trip to the moon or even Mars may lie in the future. But for unflown astronauts like Terry Vitz (ph) -- and there are about 55 of them -- the odds of getting the ride of a lifetime any time soon are not good. But remember, this is a family that believes in dreams.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a lot better to be in line, even if the line is moving slowly.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
M. O'BRIEN: Got to stay in line.
S. O'BRIEN: I bet it is.
M. O'BRIEN: Even if it's moving slowly. The question is now, once the shuttle lands safely -- and we hope it does that. We'll have special coverage for you on Monday morning. The question is, how long will it be on the ground before they can rectify these problems? And no one seems to have a good answer just yet.
S. O'BRIEN: Well, it's a couple years before they were able to tweak the first problem.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, I don't think it will be a couple-year type of scenario. It's a very focused thing on that foam, and those gap- fillers, but nevertheless, you know, to reengineer something that goes into space takes some time, so we'll be watching that for you. And the landing is slated, the first opportunity, 4:46 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday, and we'll have extensive coverage on this program later that morning.
S. O'BRIEN: And you'll be there live.
M. O'BRIEN: And I'll be there. And hopefully Discovery will be right behind us, safe and sound, and the wheels stopped.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, that'll be great.
Coming up in just a moment, we're going to take a look at really what's been a tragic week for U.S. forces in Iraq. Is the death toll beginning to make the White House nervous? A look at that's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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