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At This Hour

Jesse Matthew Indicated; Democrats Running from Obama in Midterm Elections; British Man Walks Again after New Treatment

Aired October 21, 2014 - 11:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: The man charged with abducting University of Virginia student Hannah Graham is now charged in another woman's abduction. This all comes as a lab tries to determine if a skull and bones found in a creek bed are, indeed, the remains of Hannah Graham.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A grand jury indicted Jesse Matthew on charges of sexually assaulting, abducting, and attempting to murder a 26-year-old college student nine years ago. The woman in that case escaped and her description created a suspect in a third woman's disappearance.

Joining us from Charlottesville is Jean Casarez. We're also joined by forensic psychologist, Jeff Gardere.

Jean, nine years, that's a big chunk of time, nine years, between these two cases. And there's also a third.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Nine years. It's so significant, though, because when you look at the 2005 case -- and we've known about this case, a sexual assault case. Well, guess what? That indictment returned yesterday now it is an attempted capital murder case. That's different right there because what prosecutors are saying was this was not someone that wanted to sexual assault someone, this is someone who intended and with premeditation tried to kill somebody that is significant. The second thing that's significant is there was DNA that was able to be gotten from that living victim and that's significant, too. There's a living victim here.

That DNA has been unknown for nine years because there's been no one in the database to match it up with. In 2010, they were able to get DNA from Morgan Harrington. They couldn't have gotten it from the skeletal remains but they got it from an article of clothing or something else associated with her. That matched the unknown DNA from the 2005 sexual assault case but still it was unknown DNA they didn't know who it was. Now here in Charlottesville because of the Hannah Graham case -- and they searched that car and the apartment of Jesse Matthew, we have not been told they got his DNA but how easy is it to get DNA from a cup or straw and that could have been the missing link.

PEREIRA: Now we know they're working to identify those skeletal remains. You can hang tight. We want to turn to Jeff Gardere who's here in studio with us.

We look at this case where Jean is and we look at the alleged Indiana serial killer and it's striking to me that these are two men who targeted young women, targeted women, we don't know the ages in the serial killer in Indiana, if it is a serial killer. These are men who targeted women and flew under the radar for a very long time. This is shocking to us that they could operate under the radar.

JEFF GARDERE, FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: That happens with people we categorize as serial killers. Unlike spree killers who kill one person after another in a short period of time, these are individuals who kill every few years or every few months, sometimes 10, 15 years may go by before they kill again. So this fits the profile. We tend to think of them as being very intelligent, but they get away with these murders for the most part because they're choosing people who are indigent, people who are drug abusers, prostitutes. In this case we see a college student perhaps being involved in this and this is a bit of an aberration.

BERMAN: The guy in Indiana, obviously, was in and out of the justice system for a long time Jesse Matthew Jr, not so much and now charged or allegedly connected. To go on with your regular life in between these alleged violent acts is troubling.

GARDERE: Well, these are people who don't have a conscious. We see farce the biological of this there's something called the amygdala, which is the emotion center of the brain and quite often it's not connected to the ventral medial prefrontal cortex that processes this so at times they have flat affect, they don't have the feeling of guilt. They can manage rage but they don't understand what it's like to live in someone else's shoes so they don't care about the victims and therefore they can go on with their lives day to day as if nothing happened.

PEREIRA: Chilling to say the least.

Jeff Gardere and Jean Casarez, thank you for joining us.

This is a story CNN will continue to follow. We'll bring you updates when we can get them.

BERMAN: Ahead @THISHOUR, is the president a pariah? And if Democrats are working so hard to create distance from him, why does he keep dragging them back so close?

PEREIRA: Imagine this. After being told he would never walk again on his own, a British man is up and walking with the aid of a brace. The treatment we'll tell you about and how potentially it's being seen as the cure for paralysis. We'll discuss.

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BERMAN: President Obama not really out on the campaign trail much during this election season and it's not an oversight or because the calendar is full. It's because the president's approval ratings are at near record lows so most candidates out there really don't want him.

PEREIRA: The president did make a rare appearance Sunday night in Maryland, supporting lieutenant governor, Anthony Brown, who is running for governor. Turns out, some people at the rally ended up kind of running from the president.

Here to explain what may be going on or at least give an opinion about what he thinks is going, Dana Milbank, op-ed columnist in from "The Washington Post" whose latest piece is entitled "Obama, the Pariah President."

Dana, I don't think anybody would call you a conservative pundit but, OMG, that's harsh even by your standards.

DANA MILBANK, CO-ED COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: I guess so. I'm really talking about from the point of view of where the Democrats are and they've -- not only have they asked him not to show up in their districts, a lot of these vulnerable Democrats running for the Senate and for the House, they're actually actively distancing themselves from him in ads and you've got the Democratic Senate candidate in Kentucky refusing to say whether or not she even voted for the guy. So you almost felt bad there. I was there in Prince Georges County. It's a very supportive area for Obama. I was there in Maryland Sunday night and to see them walking out before he finished his speech, he was sort of like, you know in the seventh inning when your team is down by five runs and you just want to get a jump on the traffic and it just -- it just feet like that sort of encapsulate what is this year had been for President Obama.

BERMAN: The president says he understands this. He says he gets politics, he knows candidates may have to run away from him to a certain extent but if he knows that, why does he say things like this? Let's listen to what he told Al Sharpton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (voice-over): The bottom line is these are folks who vote with me. They have supported any agenda in Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So once again there you have the line out of the president's mouth that's almost certainly going to end up at some point in a Republican ad.

MILBANK: It can be a Republican ad without adding anything to it. It's very similar to what he said a couple weeks bag when he said my policies are on the ballot. That's exactly what these Democrats don't want to hear the dynamic here is this isn't a national election. If the president were on the ballot, if this were a 50-state election Democrats would be in a different position. These are red states where these people are running for the most part, they're Republican states so it makes sense they would want to distance themselves what doesn't make sense is why the president is grabbing them by the ankles and saying, "No, no, these guys are actually with me." one thing that's interesting, in Georgia you've got Michelle Nunn who embraced Obama in a sense, put the photo that has been used against her of President Obama and her in an ad and said, yeah, I've worked with this president and the presidents before him, too.

PEREIRA: I keep hearing that song "After the Love is Gone." We'll have you back and talk about that at another time, Dana Milbank, because I feel like you have another article in you or two.

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MILBANK: I hope so, or they'll stop paying me.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: Good to have you with us today.

BERMAN: Great to see you, Dana. Thanks.

All right, we have some big political news coming up on CNN tonight. The debate the sequel. Jake Tapper moderating the debate of the Florida governor's race between Rick Scott and Charlie Crist. There will be many jokes made leading up to that debate but it's a very serious, serious matter. It will be moderated again by the icy cool Jake Tapper here at 7:00 on CNN.

PEREIRA: Also it's going to be a long road but after receiving a new form of treatment a British man walks again. We'll speak with the doctor behind this amazing break through.

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BERMAN: We have a startling headline that could help millions of people suffering from paralysis. In Europe, a firefighter, paralyzed from the chest down, is recovering and learning to walk. Doctors implanted nasal cells from the patient's own body and, for the first time, a complete spinal paralysis has been reversed.

PEREIRA: It was a collaboration of British scientists and Polish surgeons.

Joining us right now - what an opportunity for us -- the man who led the research team in the U.K., Geoffrey Raisman.

What a pleasure, Professor, to have you here.

I think we have to ask, are we closer to a cure for paralysis today? We say this is one of the greatest challenges in medical science. Are we close to a break through?

GEOFFREY RAISMAN, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON INSTITUTE OF NEUROLOGY: Yes, I think we are. I think we have opened the door to a future treatment.

BERMAN: Opened the door for how many? Does this now work for anybody and how soon will people be able to get it? There are lots of people out there perhaps watching this saying this guy's cured paralysis, will it work for me?

RAISMAN: OK, well, let's say this is the end point of a large number of laboratory researches in which the procedure has worked in rats. This is the first time that a neurosurgeon in Poland has applied it, the exact procedure, to a patient, a human patient. It so it's the very first. It's news because it's the first. Because it's the first, there is only one. Until we repeat this in a number more patients, it's just that, it's one patient. So all we can do -- yes, go ahead.

PEREIRA: No, I want to hear. Because I think many people are so hopeful. We know how many people around the world are waiting for such a miracle, if you will. I think the next question, if you can help us non-scientists and non-medical professionals, explain it to us how it works.

RAISMAN: The problem with spinal injury is that nerve fibers are severed by the injury so that impulses to carry movement, the desire for movement down from the brain to the body are cut off. Impulse is carrying sensation to the brain are cut off. So from the level of the injury, in this case the level of the chest, the waist, Derek, our patient, had no movement, voluntary movement, and no sensation. So he was in a wheelchair.

PEREIRA: Right.

RAISMAN: Now, there is only so -- my idea, which I followed for many, many years, is that actually nervous system is capable of repairing itself. Actually, the cut nerve fibers are capable of growing but they lack a pathway to cross. The cars still know where they want to go but there is no roadway for them to go across. So the question -- thinking that way, the question is, what could we use to make a bridge? Now, we don't know how the bridge would work, we don't understand the basis of this. So our idea was, is there somewhere else where they can relay the road. The only place we know is the olfactory system, the sense of smell. So the underlying thing is can we get something out of on area where repair works and transfer it into an area where repair doesn't work? Will it then cause a repair? That's the basic --

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Professor Raisman, we congratulate you on your work and we thank you for coming on. We wish you the best of luck in repeating this work in the future because it does hold out great hope for so many people around the world.

So many people. Really remarkable.

Ahead for us @THISHOUR, what does the singer, Lorde, have to do with the World Series? If you listen to the radio, you have watched a baseball game, you've heard it about 10 billion times. It's all about her song "Royals." There's a baseball team with the name named. All of it banned in San Francisco.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: We have breaking news on the Ebola front. An announcement from the Department of Homeland Security that any travelers coming from the three nations in West Africa, Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, known as the hot spots for Ebola, any travelers coming to the United States from one of those countries will now be required to come through one of the five airports in the United States that has advanced screening.

PEREIRA: We have them listed for you right now -- JFK, Chicago's O'Hare, Dulles in Washington, Newark in New Jersey and Hartsfield- Jackson in Atlanta. There were calls for banning flights outright. But they've decided this is the way the states are going to go now. You have to fly in from West Africa to one of those international airports.

BERMAN: Not a ban but a restriction. Rene Marsh, our aviation correspondent, is looking into this right now. We'll have more in a few minutes.

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PEREIRA: Unless you live under a rock, you've probably heard that on the radio playing everywhere, everywhere except for the city by the bay or at my house. Radio stations have banned this song during the World Series. Why? Because Lorde says the song was in part inspired by George Brett.

BERMAN: Who is George Brett? Perhaps one of the greatest third basemen of all time. He threw out the first pitch for the Kansas City Royals. He was on the only Royals team to ever win a World Series, which was in 1985, 29 years ago which leads us to tonight, game one of the World Series. The Kansas City Royals are playing another team in game one of the World Series.

Here's Any Scholes --

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Who? Who, Andy?

BERMAN: Andy Scholes, you're a reporter. Facts are your business. It is a fact that everyone is rooting for the Royals tonight, correct?

PEREIRA: No, that is not a fact.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Everyone outside of San Francisco, if you're in, from there, from California, like Michaela. 29 years is how long these fans in Kansas City have waited to get back to the postseason. It was the longest playoff drought of the four professional sports. They have just been amazing so far. They've won eight straight games to start the postseason. A lot of those games in extra innings. Such excitement here in the city of Kansas City. And we say 29 years is how long they've been waiting. You can tell how excited they are about this game just by ticket prices. Just to get in, just to stand, it's going to cost you around 500 bucks. That's incredible, incredible stuff right there.

PEREIRA: Ouch, ouch, ouch. You were talking to us earlier on "New Day" about the fact that it's an even year. So that means the giants must be in the World Series. If it's an even year, they're also likely going to win, right? I have to show Giants love here.

BERMAN: I like the Dodgers, the Giants, the Blue Jays --

(CROSSTALK)

SCHOLES: You're from California.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: Take a stand.

PEREIRA: I have a stand. But we'll talk about that after.

Talk to me. We could be talking dynasty, don't you think?

SCHOLES: We certainly could. The Giants fans, I'm sure, are excited to be here. Not as excited as the Royals fans. They're getting used to this in even years. In 2010 and 2012, they won the World Series. Now they're back again this year. They have such clutch players. Good pitching at the exact right time. Hunter Pence, Buster Posey, the Kung Fu Panda, at third base. They don't have the superstar that's going to hit the 35 home runs and get 100 RBIs. But whenever they need the hit or eight innings of shutout ball, they get it. If they win in the third World Series in five years, it's going to be pretty incredible. They'll be a dynasty.

BERMAN: Pretty incredible, as you say. Royals in five, Andy, I know you think that is correct.

Andy Scholes, thanks for being with us from Kansas City.

PEREIRA: Sorry. Thanks, Andy.

Before we go, just a reminder tonight, I am hosting "Roots" with our friend Anderson Cooper.

(CROSSTALK)

No, but you can set your DVR. There are more letters for you. Check out our website, CNN.com/roots, for more.

That's it for us today @THISHOUR. I'm Michaela Pereira.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.