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American Morning

Wife of Murdered Preacher Apologizes to Community; Abu Ghraib Blame Game; Search for Bodies Continues in New Orleans

Aired March 27, 2006 - 08:30   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: You're watching AMERICAN MORNING, with Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, a beautiful day here in New York. Look at that sun.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Gorgeous. It's just great to be back.

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. Nice to have you back. Appreciate it.

M. O'BRIEN: Just say it over and over, it's good to be back. No, it's Monday. And we're back.

(NEWSBREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Mary Winkler is due in court today. And she will plead not guilty to a murder charge. There are reports she confessed to killing her preacher husband, shooting him in the back with a shotgun. At this point, we don't know why, but we do know this. Mary Winkler wants people to know she is sorry.

She offered her written apology to her friend and co-worker Pam Killingsworth, who visited her in jail. Ms. Killingsworth joining us now from Selmer, Tennessee.

What was that meeting like, Ms. Killingsworth?

PAM KILLINGSWORTH, FRIEND OF MARY WINKLER: It was a very emotional meeting, seeing Mary for the first time after all of this had happened. She looked very well. She said she had been well taken care of, that everybody had treated her better than really what she had deserved.

M. O'BRIEN: Better than she deserved. What do you think she meant by that?

KILLINGSWORTH: Well, I think it's just that -- I think she was expecting people to be mean to her or make remarks to her. But she said everyone had been nice. The jailers that had brought her down were very -- treated her very well and made her feel at ease.

M. O'BRIEN: What did she admit to you happened? KILLINGSWORTH: She did not admit. We did not discuss that. I was sheerly there to offer my support and to tell her that I loved her and I had forgiven her, and that if I could help her in any way, that to please call me and that the church members were praying for her. We were behind her. We love her. And I told her just to read her bible and pray and ask for forgiveness.

M. O'BRIEN: Tell us about the apology.

KILLINGSWORTH: Just repeatedly, through our conversation, she was asking me to apologize to this one or that one for all the problems that she had caused them, that she was so sorry that she had caused the church all the problems that we're going through right now. She was just -- she was very sorry. She kept repeating how sorry she was, and that she wanted me to apologize to this one and that one.

M. O'BRIEN: Now, over the past year, you got to know her pretty well. She worked as a substitute teacher, same school where you're the assistant principal. You knew her on a fair number of levels and fairly closely. I'm sure you've been reflecting back on your relationship with her to see if there were any sort of clues, any sense that something was amiss.

KILLINGSWORTH: We all have been reflecting back. Actually, Mary was only -- had only been a substitute -- had signed up in the last couple of weeks and Tuesday had been her first day to sub at our school. She had done volunteering in the school and helped in the girls' classrooms doing different things.

But she -- no one saw any of this coming. We have sit back and tried to think what could have happened, actions that she could have possibly showed that we didn't pick up on. There just was -- there wasn't anything that anyone can remember.

M. O'BRIEN: This is a tragedy on so many levels. How is the congregation dealing with it? And, I mean, this is the kind of time when you want to turn to a preacher for some solace, sadly and ironically.

KILLINGSWORTH: We're consoling one another. We had an excellent preacher that preached two wonderful sermons yesterday and last night on grief and how to deal with it. And he was very, very good. Our elders are very supportive. They're pulling us all together. We're consoling one another. But we just want -- we wanted Mary to know that we still love her, we're praying for her, and she needs God at this time more than any other time in her life.

M. O'BRIEN: Do you have plans to see her again?

KILLINGSWORTH: Yes, I do.

M. O'BRIEN: OK. How soon will that be?

KILLINGSWORTH: I don't know. I didn't really have any clue that I was going to get to see her yesterday. It was just spur of the moment. I had called and asked the night she was brought in, but I was not allowed to see her that night.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Pam Killingsworth, we wish you and the congregation and the whole town of Selmer well as you deal with this. Thank you for your time.

KILLINGSWORTH: Thank you so much.

S. O'BRIEN: With demolition underway in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, the search for human remains takes on an even greater urgency. Firefighters found the body of a little girl on Friday and another body nearby. Since March 1st, in fact, a dozen bodies have been found.

Dr. Louis Cataldie is Louisiana's medical examiner. He's in Baton Rouge this morning.

Dr. Cataldie, nice to talk to you, as always. Thanks for being bus.

DR. LOUIS CATALDIE, LOUISIANA MEDICAL EXAMINER: Good morning.

S. O'BRIEN: Is another -- are these discoveries over the weekend -- is this an indication that searches were just not properly conducted?

CATALDIE: There obviously have been search failures for lots of reasons, but the bottom line, this is just continuing to promote and prolong the grief process for the families. And we will continue to try to do what we can do there.

S. O'BRIEN: God, the details are so brutal. This little girl whose body they found, they estimate her age is about seven years old. She said she had pigtails and was wearing a backpack when her body was found under all that rubble. Are you surprised that seven months later, that you're still making grisly discoveries like this? Seven months someone has been looking for this little girl, probably.

CATALDIE: Well, I think we're going to find more, unfortunately. And according to our information, we have approximately 16 children between the age of six and 10 who are still missing, so, Soledad, I don't know what we're going to discover there. I just know that it's horrific. And it's very horrific for the families and for the recovering personnel who are finding these kids.

S. O'BRIEN: It's just brutal. The death toll, if you count those 16 kids, which I think you are counting -- how much higher do you think it's going to climb, then? I mean, how many more bodies do you think you're going to find in the Lower Ninth Ward and elsewhere?

CATALDIE: Soledad, I can't tell you that. You know, the answer to that is too many. The bottom line is we've got to get some closure for these families.

S. O'BRIEN: Is the bulk of the problem in the Lower Ninth Ward -- I mean, obviously, the devastation there is particularly bad. But is that where you think you're going to find hundreds of bodies? CATALDIE: Hopefully not. We certainly have a high index of suspicion that we're missing a hundred folks. I don't think we'll all find them there. Hopefully, they're alive somewhere else. But again, the search has to continue and will continue. We're not going to allow our people to be bulldozed off into a trash pile. .

S. O'BRIEN: Well, you know, as grisly as that is, I mean, that's the real concern. And I -- it sounds to me like a realistic concern. As you bring bulldozers through the Lower Ninth Ward now, isn't there a chance that those bulldozers could pick up bodies, human remains, and kind of just plow them into, you know, the debris fields?

CATALDIE: Well, that's why we're there with our dogs to make sure that doesn't happen, to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen. And we're going to continue to be there and we're continue to do what we need to do for our people.

S. O'BRIEN: How is this whole process going in your mind? I mean, has this just been a disaster from start to finish? Or have you been pleased with -- at least of late --- how this has been going?

CATALDIE: Well, Soledad, it's overwhelming and, you know, our time is running out. We've got another hurricane season looking us right in the eye. My DNA contracts run out in June. The pressure is on, but we've still got to do a complete, thorough job. And we've got tremendous guys in the field and New Orleans Fire Department. I can't say enough about those guys.

S. O'BRIEN: When your DNA contract runs out in June, what happens?

CATALDIE: That's what I'm worried about. I'm trying to develop some plans now to see if we can get a continuance and whatever else we can do, because we're going to continue to find human remains and we're going to have that contract terminated, we got a problem.

S. O'BRIEN: So as it stands right now, come June, if you find a body July 1st, there's no way to get someone to pay for...

CATALDIE: Oh, no. We're not going to give up and throw away. The Louisiana state police and the state will do whatever we need to do. We've got to reunite our folks.

S. O'BRIEN: Dr. Louis Cataldie is Louisiana's medical examiner. Thanks for talking with us, Dr. Cataldie. Appreciate it.

CATALDIE: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: Coming up, we are "Minding Your Business." In case you haven't noticed, it's starting to get a lot more painful at the gas pump. Yes, you've noticed. We've noticed!

S. O'BRIEN: I noticed.

M. O'BRIEN: We will look at why it's happening and what it means for your wallet. I'm sorry, we don't have good news for out that front.

S. O'BRIEN: Then later, we got this guy for you, Matisyahu. A Hasidic Jewish reggae artist.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow.

S. O'BRIEN: He's a star, making hits, making history. He's going to talk about mixing his faith and his music ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MARKET REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: We're following up this morning on that investigation at the Red Cross. Three volunteers have already been dismissed, accused of fraud, but is the problem bigger than that? We'll ask the president of the Red Cross.

Plus, remember Janice Karpinski? The former commander of Abu Ghraib prison says she is a scapegoat. We're going to hear her side of the story next on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Almost two years since those infamous Abu Ghraib photos emerged, blowing the lid off an abuse scandal inside the U.S.- run prison in Iraq, the poster child for that horrible chapter in U.S. military history, one PFC Lynndie England. The Sundance Channel has been airing a fascinating documentary about England. Its final airing is today at noon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYNNDIE ENGLAND, CONVICTED IN ABU GHRAIB ABUSE: They wanted me to get in the picture and I said no. And he said, oh, come on, just get in the picture and point at him and embarrass him. So after persistence, I decided, fine, just do it. And as you see, I'm leaning in. So I leaned in and then quickly got away from him. It's not like I wanted to stand there all night by him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. O'BRIEN: Joining us now is the former commander of the Abu Ghraib Prison, Janice Karpinski. Good to have you with us.

COL. JANICE KARPINSKI (RET.), FMR. ABU GHRAIB COMMANDER: Glad to be with you.

M. O'BRIEN: Lynndie England is described in this documentary as being the kid you remember from school who was always the follower. She was the follower, you were the leader. Does that mean -- does that imply that she was following direct orders from you?

KARPINSKI: No, it doesn't imply that at all. I have spoken out about Lynndie England and the other soldiers that were assigned to the company that were subordinate to one of my battalions, assigned to the 800th MP Brigade, because they don't have a voice and they've never had a voice. They were tried and convicted in the world court before they ever set court into a courtroom for a fair trial.

M. O'BRIEN: Is it fair, what happened to Lynndie England, do you think?

KARPINSKI: Lynndie England, like the other soldiers that were pictured in the photographs -- and the civilian contractors I might add -- were wrong. Certainly they were wrong and she should be disciplined. But the first line of discipline in the military is the commander. And the chain of command for Lynndie England was never given the opportunity to evaluate or to discipline her.

In fact, when I found out about the investigation, before I even saw the photographs, I went out to Abu Ghraib immediately, even though the prison was no longer under my control, to -- you know, to try to put this thing together and figure out what we were looking at.

And I tried to speak to any of the soldiers, only to discover that they had been removed from their positions. So I went over to the headquarters and asked to see the soldiers. I was never given the opportunity to speak to any one of them.

M. O'BRIEN: So what you're implying here is that this was an effort at the higher levels to muddy the waters and really, in essence, lay the blame on the underlings?

KARPINSKI: Right. They perhaps didn't plan from the beginning that they needed scapegoats, but they certainly had a fallback procedure when the thing went bad, when all of the interrogation operations -- you know, the curtain was lifted on them in the form of those photographs.

M. O'BRIEN: So the question remains. Lynndie England felt she was doing a good job. Classic follower. Whose instructions was she following? How did this happen?

KARPINSKI: Well, without ever having the opportunity to speak to any one of them, I've relied almost completely on sworn statements, court testimony and documentaries like the one that is produced on Lynndie England specifically.

But Lynndie England was not a military policewoman. She was a clerk. She was well-trained to do her job and, in fact, believed she was doing a good job because people told her repeatedly she was doing a good job. She had some difficulties, and most of them were related to her relationship with Sergeant Graner. But Sergeant Graner could influence Lynndie England more effectively than anybody else.

M. O'BRIEN: Graner, of course, being her lover at the time. Let's get into some of the reports that came out of this. One of them was pretty scathing, focusing on you.

This one came from Major General Antonio Taguba. He said this. "What I found particularly disturbing [in Karpinski's testimony] was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles amongst it soldiers."

As you reflect on that and go back to that statement and happened there, do you take any of that as being valid?

KARPINSKI: I do not. I know it's not valued. General Taguba was given an objective. He was told to go out and investigate the 800th MP Brigade and out what was wrong with Janice Karpinski, not told with a wide parameter to go out and find out how these pictures could have happened or what led to the pictures at Abu Ghraib. He was given a very narrow focus, and the target was the 800th MP Brigade, the soldiers that were in some of those photographs and, in particular, me.

M. O'BRIEN: You feel your were scapegoated. Why?

KARPINSKI: Absolutely.

M. O'BRIEN: Why?

KARPINSKI: Because there were was no support for anything that we did. Up until the time that all of these security detainees started to arrive at Abu Ghraib, our plan was to close Abu Ghraib because of its notoriety. We were handling Iraqi prisoners, criminal -- the criminal element. And remember that most of the soldiers that were there were there before I arrived in Iraq, and were planning to go home because the war was over, the prisoner of war operation was finished and that was their original mission.

M. O'BRIEN: Once again, that documentary is called "Big Storm: The Lynddie England Story." Airs today on Sundance at noon.

Top stories are ahead. At least 30 are killed in an attack on an Iraqi army recruiting center.

We could learn today whether Zacarias Moussaoui will testify in his sentencing trial.

A Senate committee tackles immigration reform.

The woman accused of killing her preacher husband appears in court.

And allocations of post-Katrina fraud at the Red Cross. How big is the problem there? We'll ask the president of that organization. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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