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American Morning

Senate Close to Passing Ban of Flag Desecration; One Dead, Nine Rescued in Missouri Building Collapse; Documentary Explores Priest's History of Abuse

Aired June 27, 2006 - 08:30   ET

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

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. Senate is closer than ever to passing a constitutional amendment banning flag desecration. The Senate is set to resume debate this morning and could vote tomorrow.
More now from congressional correspondent Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The House has passed a flag desecration amendment six times in the past decade, most recently last summer. But the Senate never has. This week, however, supporters believe it actually could pass. They believe they are one vote shy of the 2/3 majority needed to amend the Constitution.

Now, this effort began just after 1989 when the Supreme Court ruled that any law banning flag desecration is unconstitutional because, the court said, it violates the First Amendment. Since then, Republicans and some veterans groups have been working toward this constitutional amendment to overcome that decision.

Now, they note that this measure wouldn't actually ban anything. This amendment simply says that Congress should have the power to prohibit desecration. Now, more than a dozen Democrats are expected to actually vote for this constitutional amendment. Despite that, they say that the Republicans bringing this up at this time, four months before the election, is nothing more than a political ploy to reach out to their base when they should be focusing on other issues that are more pressing before this country.

Dana Bash, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHO: All right, Dana, thank you.

The surgeon general is set to release a major new report on the effects of second-hand smoke on non-smokers. It's the most comprehensive study since the first surgeon general's report some 20 years ago.

And we move one step closer to another space shuttle launch. The crew of the shuttle Discovery is expected to arrive at Kennedy Space Center this afternoon. Discovery is scheduled to be launched on Saturday. And fingers crossed. This is something that all of us will be watching very, very closely. That's a look at the news at this hour.

Soledad, back to you.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: All true. All right, Alina, thank you.

S. O'BRIEN: Something else we've been watching all morning, unfortunately. It's a story we've been following for you, that building collapse in Clinton, Missouri, about 80 miles southeast of Kansas City. One person killed, nine rescued. About 50 people were in the three-story building for an Elks Club ceremony last night. Forty of them were able to get out.

Earlier this morning, we spoke with Don Eaton. He's one of the Elks Club members who was pulled from the rubble.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: Mr. Eaton, thanks for talking with us this morning.

First, how are you feeling? How are you doing?

DON EATON, PULLED OUT OF BUILDING COLLAPSE: I'm doing as good as can be expected under the circumstances, Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Can you describe for me what happened?

EATON: Well, it was our typical Monday night meeting at night. So we're on the second floor in the dining room, and we're all eating, and I'm sitting with my back basically to the -- well, the west wall.

And all of a sudden, there was a loud noise, and I turned to see what it was. And the floor had disappeared. And so, as I turned back around, before I had a chance to move, the floor underneath me caved in and myself and nine other members of the Elks Lodge, dropped with the floor down, halfway between the first floor and the second floor, with the third floor and the roof caving in on top of us.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh my goodness.

EATON: So, it all happened so fast, but yet it seemed like everything was moving in slow motion. That's basically what happened.

S. O'BRIEN: Now, were you pinned under debris? Were you in a space because of the way things fell that you sort of had a pocket of air or space to move around? What was that like?

EATON: Yes, we were in a -- in a large pocket -- excuse me. We were in a large pocket. There was two of the nine gentlemen that was in this area with us, which was basically, I'm just kind of guessing, about 25-foot square, and there were two of them that were pinned in underneath tables and chairs and debris that had fallen in. But the other seven of us were basically somewhat free. We weren't pinned in by debris, necessarily.

S. O'BRIEN: How were you able to get out? The rescuers obviously came immediately to the scene and started digging you guys out.

EATON: Yes, we were -- we were blessed that over 300 emergency evacuation people and EMTs, and so forth, came from communities within an hour or two hours away, including the disaster team from Whiteman Air Force Base.

And it was probably somewhere around 10:30 when the rescuers finally were able to shore up the building to where they could enter. And then they dropped a flashlight to us and some things like that, while they kind of checked out the area, and then made more, oh, attempts to shore the walls that were about to cave in so they could get in and do the work.

And it was around 12:15, 12:30 in the morning when they finally started pulling us out. And -- but -- it's just amazing that any of us got out of there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: The one man who's been confirmed dead, Tony Komer, is the Elks Club president -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: In Houston, the second trial for the woman who drowned her young children in a bathtub resumes today. An appeals court last year threw out Andrea Yates' murder convictions. This time, the dispute is once again not over what she did, but rather her state of mind when she did it.

CNN's Ed Lavandera reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Art Dietz has made a lucrative career of studying some of the craziest people on earth. He's a forensic psychiatrist, often hired by prosecutors as a medical expert witness. When Park Dietz talks, juries listen.

PROFESSOR GERALD TREECE, SOUTH TEXAS COLLEGE OF LAW: Park Dietz is a very powerful witness, and he is a professional witness.

LAVANDERA: But his testimony in two Texas cases involving mothers who killed their children has baffled legal experts. In Andrea Yates's case he determined the suburban Houston mother was not legally insane at the time she drowned her five children.

ANDREA YATES: I killed them...

LAVANDERA: She was sentenced to life in prison. A few years later Dietz testified that Deanna Laney, who killed two of her children by beating them with stones, was legally insane. She was spared prison and sent to a mental hospital.

DEANNA LANEY: I feel like I obeyed God, and I believe that there will be good out of this.

LAVANDERA: The Yates and Laney cases are eerily similar. Both women are devoutly religious. They home-schooled their children. And both called 911 to report the killings. Dietz was the only medical expert in the Yates case who ruled she was not insane. Almost a dozen other experts testified she was insane. Park Dietz refused our request for an interview. But he has said he reached differing conclusions because Laney and Yates were responding to different voices. Laney said God told her to kill her children. Yates said that Satan was threatening her children, so she killed them to send them to heaven.

But Yates also said she knew she'd be punished, and to Dietz that meant she knew right from wrong. Knowing right from wrong is what often determines whether someone can be found guilty for their crimes or held legally insane. But other experts say Dietz's testimony was wrong because Yates clearly was insane.

JIM COHEN, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: The underlying disease is that you're hearing voices, you're hearing command hallucinations, and you act on those hallucinations because you're psychotic. So it shouldn't have made any difference whether a farmer told her or whether Satan told her or whether God told her.

LAVANDERA: It's also because of Park Dietz that Andrea Yates is on trial again. He wrongly testified that Yates was influenced by a "Law & Order" television show that featured a woman who got away with drowning her children by claiming she was insane. In the first trial prosecutors used that to their advantage.

JOE OWMBY, PROSECUTOR: She watches "Law & Order" regularly. She sees this program. There is a way out. She tells that to Dr. Dietz.

LAVANDERA: But that episode never existed. Dietz said he misspoke. And an appeals court threw out the conviction. Park Dietz is expected to testify again in the second trial. But the prosecution has hired another medical expert just in case the star witness falters again.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

S. O'BRIEN: There are more concerns in several East Coast cities today about flash floods. Some federal buildings in Washington, D.C. are now flooded. Many government workers have been told not to bother to fight their way into work. Drivers are also being told to avoid Harford County, Maryland, which is northeast of Baltimore. The roads there are underwater and trees are down and they are anticipating some mudslides, too.

Then out west, lightning starting a half dozen new wild fires today. Two towns near Elko, Nevada, have been evacuated. Flames are just a couple hundred yards from homes near Reno. A huge fire in Arizona north of the Grand Canyon National Park has cut off the only way out for hundreds of tourists. Officials say those tourists are not in danger.

Wildfires are burning in 11 states across the country. Most are in the large -- of the large ones, rather, are in Nevada and New Mexico and Utah and in Arizona.

(WEATHER REPORT)

S. O'BRIEN: Could it be a bombshell from Harry Potter? Author J.K. Rowling has a little hint for us. The boy wizard could be getting the ax. Rowling says that the last chapter of book seven, the final book of the series, is written. Two characters do not survive. The manuscript is now locked away in a safe to prevent any leaks. There is no word on the release date. Meantime, the next movie, which is off of book number five, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is going to hit theaters next summer. Or is it all a just big old P.R. ploy?

M. O'BRIEN: Oh, you think? Potentially, potentially, yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Could be. Could be.

Still to come this morning, billionaires joining forces for charity. We brought you that story yesterday. But are there pitfalls to having $66 billion all tied up in just one foundation? we're going to look at that this morning.

M. O'BRIEN: I'm trying to think what they would be. We'll find out. And later, actor and comedian Stephen Colbert will have a report about his movie "Strangers With Candy" and of course that fabulous sensation of a spinoff he has there on the Comedy Central channel.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: He was an abusive priest who preyed on children in California for two decades. Now his story is told, in his own words, is the subject of a documentary that's debuting this week at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The film a disturbing view of abuse through the eyes of the abuser.

Investigative correspondent is at the CNN Center this morning with more.

Good morning, Drew.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Good morning, Soledad.

It is a remarkable documentary. His name to so many children in California, his victims, was Father Ollie. Now in this disturbing film former Father Oliver O'Grady is trying to apologize to these children, though he admits he can't even remember them all.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: (voice-over): The film is not just a horrific story, but also the confession of former Priest Oliver O'Grady.

OLIVER O'GRADY, FMR. PRIEST: I want to promise myself that this is going to be the most honest confession of my life. And in doing that, I need to make the long journey backwards, to understand what I did, to acknowledge that, in some way to make reparation for.

GRIFFIN: In "Deliver Us From Evil," filmmaker and former CNN freelance producer Amy Burke travels to Ireland and is granted unlimited access to this convicted child molester, who for nearly two decades was shuttled from parish to parish in northern California's Catholic Church. And during those decades, O'Grady claims in this film the church knew about the abuse and did little to stop it.

O'GRADY: Basically what I want to say it should not have happened. Should not have happened.

GRIFFIN: The story tracks the lives, then and now...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need to acknowledge to you face-to-face that I have molested you sexually.

GRIFFIN: ... of O'Grady's child victims, their formerly trusted parents and the church hierarchy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was so excited to meet somebody from home.

GRIFFIN: Maria and Bob Jyono welcomed Father O'Grady in their home when the priest was new to California. Their daughter, Ann, was only five.

O'GRADY: Little Ann was one of the first people I met there.

GRIFFIN: Throughout the film, O'Grady deflects blame from himself, points blame at others for allowing him to abuse. He blames the church for not stopping him. He even blames the parents, like the Jyonos, for allowing him so close to their daughter.

O'GRADY: I was often invited to sleep over there, and that's when some of the problems began, in Ann's situation.

GRIFFIN: The Jyonos would learn only years later, after their beloved priest was arrested, that their daughter Ann may have been his first victim.

BOB JYONO, DAUGHTER ABUSED BY PRIEST: He had the Bible in his hand and said morning prayers, said good morning all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And would be in there at nighttime molesting Ann.

JYONO: During the night, he's molesting my daughter, raping her, not molesting her, raping her! At five years old! God sakes! How can that happen? That's just what he did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: As disturbing as it is, the film is getting rave reviews. Oliver O'Grady was finally convicted in 1993, served seven years in a California prison. He was released and, Soledad, deported to Ireland, where most disturbing of all he now he walks the streets a free man, and his past virtually unknown to all of those he interacts with.

S. O'BRIEN: Drew, how many children is he believed to have molested over time?

GRIFFIN: There is no telling. I think it's in the dozens. He was convicted of molesting two boys, but the church in various places has settled cases dealing with you know, several, maybe six to eight children, but he does admit there must be dozens out here.

S. O'BRIEN: Is there a sense that he has any -- you don't get the sense from the little snippet that we've seen of that documentary that he feels any personal culpability for what he did,

GRIFFIN: When you watch this film in its entirety -- it's over 100 minutes long -- you really get a sense that he is still either in denial or just doesn't believe what happened has anything to do with him, that he wasn't a part of it. He kind of asks for forgiveness, but really doesn't offer much in the way of a real confession and really being sorrowful. It's a disturbing look at a person who, in my view, is still very troubled.

O'BRIEN: So he's now in Ireland, where nobody knows he's a child molester who raped maybe a couple dozen kids and nobody is sort of following up on him?

GRIFFIN: He apparently was deported to Ireland before Ireland had any kind of a reporting law. So there is no kind of sexual registration that he has to go through, sexual-offender registration, and he literally is just living as a free man, kind of from home to home. Some people do find out about him, and then he moves on to the next place. But basically he just walks the streets.

O'BRIEN: Oh, gosh. That's horrible. Well, what an interesting documentary if you can sit through it and make it through it.

Drew, thank you for that information.

GRIFFIN: You're welcome.

O'BRIEN: Drew's full report is going to be on tonight on PAULA ZAHN NOW at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and we'll have a business update for you as well as AMERICAN MORNING continues.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BUSINESS HEADLINES)

S. O'BRIEN: Coming up in just a moment, our top stories, including hundreds of Iraqi prisoners now released from Abu Ghraib prison.

Democrats charging the Bush administration's troop withdrawal plan is politically motivated.

The "New York Times" under attack for publishing a story about a secret government program.

The East Coast bracing for more rain and flooding.

And the very latest on that building collapse in Missouri. Rescue workers now confirm one person killed, nine others rescued.

Stay with us for more on all those stories on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, Stephen Colbert talks about his role in the new movie "Strangers with Candy." It's based on the Comedy Central series which he helped create. Tell you what inspired him to create the show. Our pretty funny conversation is just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: One dead, nine people rescued in that Missouri building collapse. A first-hand account from one man who made it out alive.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'm Suzanne Malveaux at the White House, where the debate over when to bring U.S. troops home is heating up. I'll have more in a moment.

M. O'BRIEN: A health warning from the World Cup. One of the world's biggest sport events could leave the U.S. vulnerable to measles for kids.

Warren Buffett's big gift is signed, sealed and delivered to Bill Gates, but is there really a downside perhaps to a donation of this size?

Plus this...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, ACTOR: I know this is hard on you. It would be hard for me, too, if I broke up with me. I know what you're losing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, he's so funny. He has a new movie out. It's really a cult comedy coming from Stephen Colbert. It's coming to the big screen now. He's the man behind "Strangers with Candy" and "The Colbert Report." He's going to join us right here on AMERICAN MORNING.

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