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UVA Case Now "Death Investigation"; Nightmare On Wall Street: Is It Over?; Playing Politics With Ebola Crisis; U.S. Airdrops Arms to Kurds Fighting ISIS; Alleged Serial Killer Arrested In Indiana

Aired October 20, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Happening now in the NEWSROOM, out of quarantine, breaking new details from Dallas as dozens of patients are being released today. But is 21 days enough?

Also, the search is over. Police in Virginia this morning say they're trying to identify remains found over the weekend. They're believed to be that of missing UVA student Hannah Graham.

And help is on the way. More Kurdish fighters can now enter the fight against ISIS in Syria, just as the U.S. drops weapons and ammunition to the Kurds fighting for the city of Kobani.

Let's talk live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (on camera): And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We begin this morning in Virginia where police are awaiting forensic tests on a set of human remains found over the weekend, remains found during the search for missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham. Authorities announcing they have canceled public searches for Graham and changed the focus of the case to, quote, "death investigation."

CNN's Jean Casarez has more for you. Hi, Jean.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, we're here outside of Charlottesville and several miles down the road is the crime scene itself that is being processed this morning as we speak.

Now, yesterday 25 law enforcement crime scene investigators from all around the state were there processing almost until the sun went down last night. They stood vigil over that crime scene. They are at it again today. And the big question is, is the search over for finding Hannah Graham?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ (voice-over): The five-week search for University of Virginia student, Hannah Graham now suspended after a shocking discovery turned this missing persons case into a death investigation.

CHIEF STEVE SELLERS, ALBEMARLE COUNTY POLICE DEPT.: Today's discovery is a significant development and we have a great deal of work ahead of us.

CASAREZ: Saturday, a search team scouring an abandoned property in Albemarle County, Virginia found human remains, eight miles from where 18-year-old Graham disappeared.

SGT. DALE TERRY, CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, VIRGINIA SHERIFF'S OFFICE: I believe got wanted us to find what we found. I don't know how else to explain it other than something inside me told me just continue to look.

CASAREZ: Shortly after Charlottesville police relayed the news of the discovery to Graham's parents.

CHIEF TIMOTHY LONGO, CHARLOTTESVILLE POLICE DEPT.: Forensic tests need to be conducted to determine the identification of those remains, but nonetheless, we wanted to be quick and timely to share that information with the Graham family.

CASAREZ: Graham vanished in the early hours of September 13 from Charlottesville's downtown mall, last seen in surveillance videos with 32-year-old Jesse Matthew. Matthew is the only person detained in connection with Graham's disappearance. He is behind bars, charged with abduction with intent to defile.

The remote location where the remains were found is within miles of the farm where the body of another missing coed was found in 2010, the 20-year-old Virginia Tech student, Morgan Harrington. Law enforcement has connected Matthew to Harrington through DNA evidence, calling it a significant break in her case.

Police have since seized a cab he was driving the night she vanished. No word on how long it will take to identify the remains found over the weekend, but if they are those of Hannah Graham, Jesse Matthew could be facing a murder charge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: Sergeant Dale Terry of the Chesterfield Sheriff's Department actually found the remains and this is very difficult to listen to, but this will be evidence, Carol, and it's extremely important.

It was skeletal remains, there was no hair, there was no flesh, the remains were scattered, he says, and there was a very long vertebra. But the fact remain there is has been no identification of the remains, collection continues to happen.

And at some point there will be an autopsy, a forensic autopsy by the chief medical examiner in Richmond, Virginia, to identify conclusively if this is Hannah Graham -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So hard to listen to. Jean, the young man standing beside you is Jalen Ross, a University of Virginia Student Council president, we welcome him. Also joining us, Tom Fuentes, he is our crime analyst.

Jalen, I just want you to get into how students are feeling because this wasn't the outcome that people had hoped for.

JALEN ROSS, STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: That's definitely true. Thanks for having me. I think the first thing that everyone feels is it's a reviving of this sort deep sadness that we all had from the very beginning.

This time, though, I thinks sort of a healthy perspective to see we're thankful at this point about the amazing work that police have done, that everyone has supported each other in the community, the administration and that we're still getting news.

I think a lot of us were worried we'd go a long time without hearing everything so every day is closer to close your for us.

COSTELLO: Tom, are you surprised, if these are Hannah Graham's remains, I should make that clear, but it's likely they are, are you surprised police were able to find them so quickly?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Actually, in a way, Carol, yes. Because given the large area that they had to look and the number of people searching, it's such a densely forested area. There are lakes, ponds, rivers, mountains, there's a lot of area to get rid of a body, frankly. So I was surprised that they were able to find it that way.

COSTELLO: How long do you think, Tom, it will take to positively identify those remains?

FUENTES: It's possible it could take the rest of the week, Carol. And the reason is that the crime scene work at that scene is going to be extremely meticulous. The searchers are looking for items almost microscopic, small skin particles, hair follicles, pieces of finer that might have come off the perpetrator's clothing.

And the search obviously for any kind of body fluid that would link back to the person that is responsible for her being there. So that type of work is just -- I mean, it's literally inch by inch.

Plus the surrounding area looking for additional evidence, if she was murdered, the murder weapon, all of those types of things take a lot of time. Contrary to popular television shows.

COSTELLO: That's true. We always get incorrect information from them. It's over in an hour, right, and that will not happen in this case. Jean, was there any weapon sound in are they still searching that property? And is that property in any way connected to Jesse Matthew?

CASAREZ: You know, the search has been "discontinued," quote/unquote. But what we saw yesterday along this highway, which the perpetrator would allegedly have to drive to then deposit the body or be with the victim. We saw law enforcement searching either side of the road and common sense tells me they were searching for something that may have been thrown out of the car or something along the way.

So the search is still going on because everything and anything could be potential evidence critical to a prosecution.

COSTELLO: And Jalen, a final question to you. Has behavior changed at the University of Virginia in light of Hannah Graham's disappearance?

ROSS: It definitely has. Right now, we're all thinking critically about what Hannah's legacy is going to be here. I can say pretty confidently I think that is -- it's a safer UVA, it's a safer Charlottesville. We're thinking about safety in a way we never did before.

We started this year with a campaign we were calling "Who's got your back" about bystander intervention, keeping track of your friends and keeping each other in your minds.

That's a campaign we know Hannah was engaged in so we like to believe and we hope that wherever she is, however she is it's something she would be happy to see us doing in her name.

COSTELLO: That's terrific. Jalen Ross, thanks for being with me. Jean Casarez, thanks to you and also Tom Fuentes. I appreciate it.

Is the nightmare on Wall Street over? The Dow right now is down. Investors are hoping for a big change, though, from last week's gut- wrenching roller coaster ride. A ride that may have ended on a high note, but it's not erasing all the Dow's gains for the year.

CNN's Christine Romans is with me with the latest. Good morning.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, Carol. Don't worry, don't freak out, everybody. Markets go up and markets go down. Last week, they really went down. Wednesday was the worst day of the week, but it bounced back sharply from those lows.

And since then this is a market that has been reacting to earnings news and concerns about growth in Europe and slowing growth in China. I mean, look how much you're up, Carol, from those Wednesday lows.

The market, the Dow basically flatter, it's a little lower on the year. The problem today, the problem today is IBM lowered its earnings targets. IBM is spinning off a chip making business. IBM is one of the 30 Dow components. It's down sharply and so that's dragging the whole Dow down.

So we have a lot to get through this week, Carol. There will be housing numbers. Mortgage rates are below 4 percent for the first in a year, by the way. You're going to see Apple after the bell. We're going to hear from GM and Ford and all these other earnings reports so I think it could be a choppy week quite frankly. So if you're biting your nails about today, my advice is to look at your risk tolerance, figure out how long you have to retirement and make sure that you are adequately positioned for how long you have to retirement for how much risk you can take. It's going to be choppy around here.

COSTELLO: Everybody's been saying a market correction is coming. Is this it?

ROMANS: You know what? Less so. As of what happened after Wednesday, that was about a 7.4 percent pullback from the recent high in the S&P 500 to that trough last week. That's not it. That's a healthy pull back. That's not even a technical correction.

We've gone more than a thousand days, Carol, without a 10 percent pull back in the S&P 500. That's almost unheard of. You've had a great run for the past five years, having trouble finding the reasons to keep the momentum going.

COSTELLO: Thanks as always, Christine Romans, I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, playing politics with the Ebola crisis, former President Bill Clinton said now is not the time to play the blame game. But is anyone listening?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Let's put the so-called Ebola crisis in perspective. There are nearly 319 million people in the United States and two people -- two -- both nurses at a Dallas hospital have contracted Ebola in the United States, two people out of 319 million people.

You would think our lawmakers would point that out every time they talk about Ebola. So there is no panic. Not so. As you know, the midterms are coming up. Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbert has called for a 42-day incubation period, twice the time required by the CDC for those possibly exposed to Ebola even though health experts say it's unnecessary.

Here's a list of all the senators and representatives calling for a travel ban, more than 80 in total. Also, Republican Senator Ted Cruz says President Obama's Ebola czar is nothing more than a political operative. As former President Bill Clinton says "Why can't we all get along in a time of crisis?"

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: What we all need to do is do what we all do best every time a tornado strikes, we need to settle down, figure out what the challenges are and solve them together. I don't think for a minute that the Republicans in Congress would have denied the World Health Organization the funds they did to organize emergencies or cut back on the NIH's research budget. I'm not out here blaming them. I don't think this is the time to blame.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: With me now, Republican strategist, Rich Galen, and CNN political commentator, Hilary Rosen. Welcome to both of you.

HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: Glad you're with me. Rich, I'm going to start with you because you said this is President Obama's Katrina moment, really? About 1,800 people died after Katrina. One person has died of Ebola in the United States and he caught Ebola in Liberia, really?

RICH GALEN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes. Because it -- I'm not talking about the number of deaths. What I'm talking about is neither of these two presidents had anything to do with the crisis that confronted them. But both, I think, have found -- we know what happened with President Bush, FEMA became kind of the laughing stock.

Now with President Obama, CDC is sort of a laughing stock. It's not the event and it's not the actual effects of the event, it's the political out fall from the event. Here's what happens and I think Hilary will agree with this.

You have to guard against something that triggers the public's mind a specific example of what they sort of thought anyway. And I think that's maybe where we are with the president and the administration now that they have been worried that he's disengaged and then it took two weeks for him to kind of get his arms around it. I'm not blaming him for Ebola.

COSTELLO: I thought that Obamacare was President Obama's Katrina moment, Hilary.

ROSEN: Well, for the six and a half years he's been in office there have been multiple times Republicans have claimed that the president was going to have a Katrina moment. But the CDC is not a laughing stock.

We had an unfortunate situation in Dallas where somebody did not have full coverage on their protective gear and so we have Ebola there. And -- or maybe they didn't take it off properly.

COSTELLO: Come on, Hilary, the CDC didn't react quickly enough. That's valid criticism.

ROSEN: Let me talk. What we've had, though, is kind of non-stop five days' worth of media, politicians, everybody talking about the coming crisis. But the truth is, actually, that the administration has been talking about this, thinking about this, planning for this, working on vaccines, working on cures for a long time.

The president is very much ahead of this problem. And so I do think that what we have is, you know, a cacophony of things, of politicians talking that we would not have if we weren't going to have an election in three weeks.

COSTELLO: I don't know that you could argue that the president has been ahead of this. Although I think you could argue that -- ROSEN: Of course, you can. There's some hysteria amongst members of

Congress about this. I mean, am I wrong?

ROSEN: No, you're not wrong. There is hysteria. But I think even -- we do this, too. Like you opened the segment with 21 days in quarantine, is that enough? We all do this. Politicians don't live in a vacuum. They're living in the world that everyone else is living in and getting the same kind of messages.

But the judge in Texas today had the right thing when he said "let's just calm down, let's just focus on the fact that people who have been in quarantine have not shown more symptoms." We actually don't have an Ebola crisis in the U.S. at all.

GALEN: No, but there's a political crisis that attaches here.

ROSEN: No, there's not.

COSTELLO: Well, let Rich finish. Go ahead.

GALEN: Sure there is. Because it -- what the Democrats appear to be facing -- we'll be a lot smarter in 15 days, but what Democrats are facing is an enthusiasm gap between what Democrat voters are looking and Republican voters are looking at.

And this is a problem I think for Democrats running for public office because they have to separate themselves from President Obama, I know what you're saying, but it's not been sold to the public, I don't think, that President Obama has been thinking about Ebola for two and a half years because it looks like he just caught up.

COSTELLO: Is it any surprise that the president appointed Ron Klain as he Ebola czar, which a lot of people say is a political operative.

GALEN: Well, I don't know what his job is going to be. Look, after 9/11, President Bush appointed a governor, Tom Ridge, to be the head of Homeland Security. He wasn't renowned as a counterterrorism expert, but he was a really good manager. If Klain is a really good manager, he's probably perfect for this job.

ROSEN: Look, I think everybody agrees that both Tom Frieden and Tony Fauci, the two doctors in charge of the American response in Ebola are the best public health and epidemiologists and infectious disease experts you can have and that's who you want on this problem.

But is Tom Frieden the best witness before a congressional committee? No, he's not. Is he going to communicate with as many different constituencies as need to be talked to about this? No. That's not going to be his strength.

So Ron Klain is going to bring those pieces together and do that. But I don't think that you could argue that the fact that he's just coming to this job means that we have had a significant problem in the United States. All we're doing, really, is stemming the potential for future harm.

GALEN: But you know as well as I --

ROSEN: But the crisis is in Africa and Republicans and folks who want to pile on to Democrats, looking for desperation, looking for issues, are trying to make this seem like America has --

GALEN: The reason -- stop, Hilary, just for a second. The treason president appointed Ron Klain is because there is a political problem with the way this thing has been rolled out, the way this thing has been handled. It's not -- we don't expect him to be a doctor and epidemiologist.

But for you to say that everybody else doesn't -- that the White House doesn't feel any political pressure wrong on the facts. The fact is, they had to hire a Ron Klain to come in to at least put some space between the news cycles so that we have somebody that can tell the story as they want it to be told.

COSTELLO: I've got to leave it there. Sorry, I've got to leave it there. Hilary Rosen, Rich Galen, thanks to both of you for a spirited conversation. I appreciate it. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Just within the last couple of hours, we've gotten new information from inside the besieged town of Kobani. A city official tells CNN U.S. military planes have successfully dropped weapons and ammunitions to Kurdish fighters, who have been pinned there.

They're trying to stop ISIS terrorists from devouring yet another town in Syria. It also marks a shift in Washington's campaign to destroy ISIS. Jim Sciutto is CNN's chief national security correspondent. He joins from Washington with us more. Good morning, Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This was a significant air drop, 28 bundles of weapons, machine guns and ammunition. Just as a sign as to how close the fight is down there, one of the bundles fell outside of the area controlled by the Syrian Kurds, too close to ISIS front lines.

So another plane came back and destroyed that bundle so those arms would not get into the hands of ISIS fighters. But, you know, it's significant as well because coupled with the air strikes, Kobani is now the most struck target in the U.S.-led air campaign in either Syria or Iraq.

You're seeing an enormous allocation of resources to saving Kobani from ISIS. It's become a real focus of this campaign.

COSTELLO: So doesn't this mark a shift in policy as well as in tone? After all, didn't Washington tell the world Kobani really wasn't that important?

SCIUTTO: No question, Carol. I can't tell you how many conversations I had with U.S. officials early on in this fight when Kobani looked like it was going to fall and they said "Listen, Kobani is not strategically important. The only reason you reporters are paying attention to it is that your cameras are able to see it because we have a lot of reporters, including CNN reporters, on that Turkish border there watching this fight, sometimes on live TV."

But now in the last couple of weeks there's certainly been a shift because you've had a tremendous number of airstrikes focused there like I was saying, more than anywhere else in Iraq or Syria.

And I'll tell you what U.S. military officials tell us. They say the reason for that change is that ISIS wants this is town so badly, that's why the U.S.-led coalition is keeping it from them. So that in effect is the justification for the change.

COSTELLO: So how much of Kobani does ISIS control? Do we know?

SCIUTTO: Well, we do because we're in contact with Syrian Kurdish fighters fighting them from inside the city and there's been progress in the last several days where ISIS has been pushed out of the sent other of the city.

They're on the outskirts of the city, but more of that town -- city, town, it's quite small -- is under the control of Syrian Kurds so you can say the air campaign is working there. But you also know it's going to have to stay up to keep the city safe.

COSTELLO: All right, Jim Sciutto reporting live from Washington. Thanks for your insight as always.

Police in Indiana have a possible serial killer suspect in custody. Officials say 43-year-old man who was taken into custody for the Friday night killing of a 19-year-old pregnant woman at a motel has also confessed to killing other women, at least seven deaths are now being investigated.

CNN's Miguel Marquez joins us with more. Good morning.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the big question here is whether or not there may be more deaths out there that they may be investigating. This 43-year-old man is known to be a -- or at least the mayor is saying he is a sex offender from Austin, that there may be other cases.

The mayor of Hammond is easily calling him a serial killer. Police there were able to stop this individual. The mayor of Gary, interestingly enough, where these bodies have been found, is not saying that yet. We expect to hear more about this individual.

COSTELLO: Did this man confess to police when he was arrested for the 19-year-old's killing?

MARQUEZ: This all began on Friday night at a Motel 6. This 19-year- old woman was found, Africa Hardy, and then he was taken into custody shortly thereafter. Led police to three different abandoned residences in the Gary area where different women were found. In all, seven women were found. One of them had been reported missing for about two or three weeks. A woman named Anneth Jones. Some of them may have been prostitutes as well. It is a very, very disturbing story that I think the police there it seems they think they may have only found the tip of the iceberg.

COSTELLO: So this man is in Indiana, but I understand he has a connection to Colorado. So what might that mean?

MARQUEZ: Well, one of the victims has a connection to Colorado. He has a connection to Texas as far as we know. But he may have been operating in other places across the country as well so I think police want to have their ducks in a row.

They want to figure out where this guy has been, whether or not there are other victims out there. Apparently, he is talking in a cool, calculated, intelligent way and he is telling all.

He led police directly and specifically to these spooky abandoned houses where other women were found, knew exactly where they were. It is a disturbing case and my guess is we're only hearing the beginning.

COSTELLO: And I understand we have the Gary mayor on the phone right now, Karen Freeman? Do we have Mayor Freeman? Mayor Freeman, welcome.

MAYOR KAREN FREEMAN WILSON, GARY, INDIANA (via telephone): Thank you. This is Karen Freeman Wilson, how are you today?

COSTELLO: I'm good. Thank you so much for being with us. I really appreciate it. Tell us what you know about this suspect at the moment.

WILSON: We know that on Friday the police of Hammond, Indiana, began investigating a Hammond murder that led them to a suspect in Gary, Indiana.