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ISIS Operative Killed in Raid; Wife of ISIS Operative Captured; New Report Indicates Amtrak Trains Struck by Projectiles Before Derailment; ISIS' Source of Revenue Examined; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Sentenced to Death; Cellphone App is Hearing Aid; Preakness Taking Place in Baltimore; Father Leaves Infant Daughter in Car Where she Dies. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired May 16, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:27] FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, everyone, and thanks so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. More on this breaking news we are following. We are learning that Abu Sayyaf, the key ISIS figure killed in a U.S. raid overnight, may have had deep knowledge of ISIS hostage operations.

We have team coverage of this story. Barbara Starr was the first to break this story. She is joining us from the Pentagon. Sunlen Serfaty is at the White House with official reaction. Former Navy Seal and FBI special agent Jonathan Gilliam is also here with us to put some context to all of this. And we also have with us justice correspondent Evan Perez with the latest news about Abu Sayyaf. So Evan, to you first. Tell us more about the reach of Abu Sayyaf. We know that U.S. officials have described him as sort of the CFO, the chief financial officer of ISIS, but you are learning there is even more to him than that.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Fred. The importance of Abu Sayyaf and now his spouse, his wife, who is being interrogated by the FBI team, which is the high value interrogation group, is that they have, according to U.S. official, they're believed to have deep knowledge and involvement in the ISIS hostage-taking operation. And so the expectation is or the hope is from this interrogation of the spouse, of the wife, is that they are going to learn more about how that worked, the movement, the treatment of the hostages. As you know, some of the hostages, the U.S. hostages have been killed, murdered, beheaded in very gruesome ways. And so now the hope is that they can begin to gather evidence, both intelligence and possible evidence for a prosecution if that is the route they want to take.

Right now the wife is being held in military custody. I believe Barbara Starr reported earlier that she was taken to military custody in Iraq. But that's not the long-term plan. Obviously the plan is to figure out a way to bring her to justice for whatever role she may have played in the ISIS hostage-taking operation. The hope was to try to bring him as well, but that failed. He was killed in this raid earlier, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Evan Perez, we'll check back with you. Thank you so much.

Let's go to the Pentagon now and get more information from Barbara Starr who broke this story. So Barbara, tell us more about how this operation was carried out, how long it's been in the works, and why officials are calling this so successful and counting on it for lots of information.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: This was an intelligence operation beginning, middle, and end, Fred. It was about trying to capture both these people, capture their laptops, their computers, their cell phones, their electronic media, get everything they could about them because of their potential involvement in hostage operations, but also because Abu Sayyaf not just involved in ISIS oil and gas, but he had taken on an increasing role in operations, ISIS operations, ISIS planning, ISIS communications, and the U.S. believed he may have been in some sort of communication with Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS.

So when they went to the president and wanted to get his approval to do this operation, it was very much about this trade-off, the risk of sending U.S. troops in on the ground deep inside Syria, and the payoff, the intelligence that they might be able to get out of this. Clearly the president signed off on it, feeling it was worth it. There were some issues. They were able to reassure they could minimize civilian casualties. And indeed when they went to the residential site, there were a number of women and children there. The U.S. special forces ensured that none of them were hurt.

But make no mistake, this was a firefight of the first order between ISIS and the U.S. Army Delta Force. We know it even got to the point of hand-to-hand combat at one point in the firefight on the ground. Fred?

WHITFIELD: And in terms of this information that was extrapolate extrapolated, at what point will officials feel like this is information they could use to their advantage to perhaps further cripple ISIS?

STARR: Well, I think that's a fascinating question because they are going to have to move very quickly to analyze, essentially exploit all the intelligence they have.

[14:05:01] We know that they move quickly when they get this kind of intelligence because of the very fact any potential ISIS operatives in Syria or Iraq would now be changing their locations, changing their passwords, changing how they communicate. So this will be to some extent a race against time of the first order, go through everything they have as fast as they can. At least go through it all once, see what there is, see if there is anything that they potentially can act on immediately and carry out any additional raids, any additional air strikes or missions.

We are told nothing is in the works at this point, but everybody should really keep their eyes open because we don't know what they got in the way of intelligence in this raid and what it might lead them to. Fred? WHITFIELD: It all makes perfect sense. Barbara Starr, thank you so

much. Let's bring in Sunlen Serfaty now at the White House with more on the White House reaction. Now, unanimous support from the national security team supporting the president's decision. What support is he getting from Congress now?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, it's a mixed bag so far. I have to tell you we just got a statement from Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California. He's a top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. And he said that operations like this and of course the coalition air strikes have helped put pressure on ISIS.

But I should say that he poured a little cold water on the significance of this raid, saying in a statement, quote, "While Sayyaf was a significant figure and his loss and that of other senior leadership is a serious setback to ISIS, we should be under no illusions about the long-term impacts of any particular operation. This terror group, like Al Qaeda, has proven adept at replacing its commanders, and we will need to keep up the pressure on its leadership and financing."

And Schiff said he looks forward to having further briefings from the White House this week, and I expect that will be one of many questions coming from Capitol Hill as this debate over risk versus reward about the specific mission starts to be uncovered.

WHITFIELD: And this is clearly a risk that the president has the power to take without any kind of congressional approval. However, even the house speaker, John Boehner, is also kind of pouring a little cool water on it, isn't he?

SERFATY: That's right, he is, and of course praised the U.S. forces that went about this mission, saying that he has utmost gratitude for those forces. But he added, quote, "While I am encouraged by todays' good news," I remain gravely concerned by ISIL's assault on Ramadi that threatens the stability and sovereignty of Iraq, which is vital to American interests."

Iraq forces of course are desperately trying to hold on to control of Ramadi right now as ISIS has made significant gains in the last few days. On Friday, Fred, ISIS forces raised their trademark black flag over some government buildings. We do know from the White House announced last night that they expediting weapons shipments to Iraq specifically for Ramadi, and that was announced via a conference call between Vice President Biden and the Iraqi prime minister yesterday.

WHITFIELD: All right, Sunlen Serfaty, thanks so much at the White House.

Let's talk more about this with former Navy Seal and FBI special agent Jonathan Gilliam back with us now. OK, so Jonathan, it does seem very impressive that this operation would take particularly under the learned going deep into eastern Syria with these special ops forces descending, essentially being dropped in by helicopter, making it to their target and then extracting, what Barbara Starr reported, reams of information, that this individual, Abu Sayyaf, is like the CFO of ISIS with his expertise in oil and gas.

At the same time, you heard Barbara just now reporting that now it's a race against time because the information that was gathered by special ops forces now has to be extrapolated very quickly because ISIS is likely to scramble quickly and change its operation. So how quickly is quickly in terms of this race against time in your view?

JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER NAVY SEAL: Well, before I get into that, let me just correct you on one thing. He was the CFO. He is no longer the CFO of ISIS, so that's a good thing.

But I would say very quickly, Fred, this stuff, especially considering the fact that this new light has been shed that they may have been involved in the hostage movements, or at least the -- whatever the missions that they may be doing to either collect or hold on to hostages, that is a big thing, because all of the hostage scenarios are time sensitive. And the quicker they can get that information back, scrubbed, and then actually put out to any of the groups that are going to run the missions or coordinate these types of operations, the faster they can get that, the better.

[14:10:02] WHITFIELD: And so help me understand what you mean by that, scrubbing this information. Like if the grabbed cell phones, it's a matter of quickly trying to grab numbers, because all those things would likely change if one of the top dogs in the operation is to be killed or apprehended, then lots of changes are going to take place in terms of all those communications.

GILLIAM: Right. You know, again, some of this stuff is very guarded and I can't get into a lot of it. But I will tell you that this is the part of, you know, the spy groups that everybody is angry of the potential spying on the United States, this is where they shine, the same groups. And they're able to carry out missions very quickly because of what they do.

This shows you where they're -- how important these different, you know, non-ground combat troops really are, these intelligence groups, the people who go through the Intel and just a simple phone, going through it and matching it up. Do we have phone numbers for these individuals, because very quickly what typically happens is, when it comes to phones, those phones are dropped and nobody -- everybody drops their phones. Radio frequencies are very important because those are a little bit more difficult to mess with.

But, you know, I think this wife may actually have better Intel than what we were thinking before, because if she was involved in human trafficking or smuggling, and there's a difference between those two, but probably trafficking, where they're forced, then she may actually have knowledge of these hostages or at least some knowledge of where they are or how they're being moved.

WHITFIELD: So now let's talk about the parameters of those discussions they're trying to get this information from this wife, Umm Sayyaf. Right now we understand that she is in Iraq, they're interrogating her. To what extent would those interrogations go, if you could share on that? And then if the amount of time in Iraq has been exhausted, would she

be transferred to somewhere like Guantanamo, even though the president is trying to close and reduce operations at Guantanamo? Is that still a place that would be considered U.S. soil in which to conduct operations?

GILLIAM: Well, that last question, that's -- you know, I really don't know, because there's been so much fluctuation in the way the political atmosphere of the way we deal with these hostages, that I think they have kind of clamped down on where they're sending people and how they're being held. And rightfully so, because the more that gets out -- see, what happened in Guantanamo was that the prisoners learned, they learned our system. They learned how to deal with our system, and so did the groups over -- that are battling against us overseas. So it's time that we clamp down on the information, and I think that's what we're seeing a lot. And tell me the first question again there, Fred.

WHITFIELD: I was asking if she would be transported. I mentioned U.S. soil. I've been to Guantanamo before, so I know it's a U.S. naval base, and while it's in Cuba, that space is considered U.S. soil, so to speak. So would she be transferred there because perhaps they have exhausted all possibilities while in country in Iraq?

GILLIAM: It all depends on how much they can get out of a person at the point that they're taken. And I think that's very crucial, because right now while they are going through this Intel, how much is s willing to tell? A lot of people, once they go through a firefight, they're just like an open sieve of information. Sometimes they clamp down, and in those cases, you know, the interrogators have to use their skills to get the information out of these individuals.

So I think it's hard to tell at this time. We're kind of at crucial point here as to whether or not she's basically coming clean on a lot of stuff.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jonathan Gilliam, thanks so much. Always good to talk to you, appreciate it.

GILLIAM: You got it, Fred. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right, CNN takes an inside look at the impact of ISIS. Be sure to watch "Blindsided" a Fareed Zakaria report, CNN tomorrow night, 7:00 eastern.

And also just in to the CNN newsroom, the storm prediction center has issued a tornado watch for parts of Texas and now western Oklahoma. More than 577,000 people are under the watch, which is in place until 8:00 p.m. tonight. Residents in the affected area need to be on the lookout for tornadoes, large hail, and damaging winds. We'll continue to update you throughout the afternoon. And we'll be right back right after this.

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[14:17:34] WHITFIELD: All right, now more breaking news just into CNN on the investigation into the Amtrak crash. The Federal Railroad Administration is ordering Amtrak to improve the safety on its heavily traveled northeast corridor. This is the same route where the accident took place.

Erin McLaughlin is live for us now in Philadelphia following the investigation. So help us understand what this means, because Amtrak has been requesting to the federal government it needs more money to improve safety, and now you've got this Federal Railroad Administration telling it to improve safety?

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Fredricka. We're just hearing the FRA putting out instructions to Amtrak to take a number of safety steps to improve safety along a very busy northeast corridor. They're going to issue, they say, an emergency order in the coming days that includes the following, instructing Amtrak to install technology to control train speed, something called automatic train control, which detects when a train is above a speed limit and is capable of automatically stopping that train. It's currently used along the northeast corridor for the southbound trains in the area of that deadly derailment, but not in the northbound. They want to change that.

We're also hearing the FRA saying that they're instructing Amtrak to assess the risk of all curves along the northeast corridor. And then finally they are recommending speed limit signage. They want Amtrak to increase its wayside signage, alerting engineers of maximum speeds throughout the northeast corridor. These are being described as initial steps.

Now the route from New York to Washington has been suspended. We understand that that suspension will be through Monday. It's possible, we were told by Amtrak, that service would be continued on Tuesday, at least partially, but still questions now with these new instructions that that's going to happen. We have yet to hear Amtrak comment on these latest FRA instructions, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: OK. And then now, Erin, more on the investigation, now focus is being made on the windshield because of some reported projectile that may have hit this Amtrak train as well as two others that same night. What more is being said about that and what the FBI is learning, since they are now involved as well?

MCLAUGHLIN: Yes, absolutely. Investigators are very interested in some circular-patterned markings the size of a fist that's located on the lower left-hand side of that front Amtrak windshield on the Amtrak 188 train.

[14:20:14] And they say they're going to bring in the FBI, forensic experts to take look at that. They think that that was there prior to the train crash, possibly caused by some sort of projectile that struck the train before the crash.

They also have been talking to an associate conductor who was in the fourth train car of Amtrak 188. She said that in the moments before the crash she heard some radio transmission take place from a nearby SEPTA train talking to an Amtrak dispatcher in which the SEPTA train engineer says that his train was hit by a projectile. She says that she hear from the Amtrak 188 engineer that he said prior to that crash that his windshield had also been hit by some sort projectile.

And then sort of deepening this mystery around this very same time and the very same area, an Amtrak Acela train, passengers say, was also hit by some unidentified projectile. So investigators previously discounted the reports of these projectile hitting other train now are taking a look at this very seriously, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, Erin McLaughlin, thanks so much for that news, appreciate it.

All right, also, coming up, the appeals process for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev begins after he is sentenced to death. Survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing react, next.

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WHITFIELD: Legal experts say a long, drawn out appeals process is next for Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. That after a federal jury in Boston sentenced Tsarnaev to death. CNN's Deborah Feyerick has details.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fred, two months and one day after the terror attack on the Boston Marathon, the jury found that death was the right punishment for the bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

[14:25:06] The verdict was read. The mood in that court was extremely somber as survivors and their relatives dabbed tears, some of them feeling that justice has now been served.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left federal court under heavy guard after the jury sentenced the 21-year-old to death on six of 17 counts. All six related to the bomb Tsarnaev himself placed in the crowd in front of the restaurant. That bomb killed eight-year- old Martin Richard and graduate student Lindsay Lu, injuring many others.

STEVE MELLIN, ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: These people forever will be affected by what happened to them on that day. So we tried to project that and we tried to show them that these cases just are so full of emotion.

FEYERICK: It took jurors 14-and-a-half hours to decide death. As the verdict was read, a heavy silence fell over the courtroom. Tsarnaev stood and showed no emotion, glancing at his lawyer. Several survivors and their relatives wiped away tears.

LIZ NORDEN, SON INJURED IN BOMBING: It is bittersweet. You know, there's no winner today, but I feel justice for my family.

FEYERICK: Of 12 jurors, only two believed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was remorseful. Only three believed older brother Tamerlan planned and directed the terror attack. CARMEN ORTIZ, U.S. ATTORNEY: It was a political crime designed to

intimidate and to coerce the United States. Although the defense claimed that the defendant was himself intimidated and coerced by an older brother, the evidence did not bear that out.

FEYERICK: While the jury was unanimous in sentencing Tsarnaev to death, they did not hand down that penalty for counts relating to the first bomb carried by Tamerlan or to the murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: Tsarnaev barely moved when the word "death" was said out loud in the courtroom. The judge thanked the jury, the lawyers, even Tsarnaev himself for, in his words, comporting himself with propriety. Now, many interpreted that as a lack of remorse, and the majority of jurors simply did not buy a nun's testimony that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev seemed genuinely sorry. He is now on his way to death's row. Fred?

WHITFIELD: All right, Deborah Feyerick, thank you so much.

Coming up, we're following breaking news out of Syria. U.S. forces killing a key ISIS figure in a dramatic raid.

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[14:31:28] WHITFIELD: All right, hello again, everyone, and thanks so much for joining us. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

Our top story, a U.S. special operations raid overnight in Syria overnight killed a key ISIS figure. U.S. officials tell CNN that Abu Sayyaf, a Tunisian citizen, was the equivalent of ISIS' chief financial officer, also involved in military operations. A source tells CNN that he may have had contact with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. Sayyaf's wife was also captured in the raid. An official saying that she and Sayyaf were suspected to be involved in or have deep knowledge of ISIS hostage operations. ISIS operates all over the world, and to maintain those operations, it needs money. Last year alone the group made nearly a half a billion dollars. But where does that money come from? Here now is CNN's Miguel Marquez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's the best-funded terrorist organization in history. ISIS controls big territory in Syria and Iraq, and it runs its pillaging machine like a business to fund its ultimate goal -- one ginormous Islamic state.

Let's follow the money. At its heart, ISIS is a criminal enterprise. In 2014 the U.S. Treasury Department says it made at least half a billion dollars from seizing banks in norther and western Iraq. But banks aren't the only target. ISIS fighters loot houses, they steal cars, chop them up for parts. They trade weapons and people. It's a revenue stream that thrives on territory. The more they control, the more they can steal. There's a reason ISIS has been compared to the mafia. It extorts

protection money from the people it lords over. You want to move a truck down the highway? Pay a tax. You're want to move money out of your own back account? It will cost you. You're a farmer with 100 sheep? ISIS takes five. The extortion game earns it several million dollars every month.

ISIS has made millions selling oil from fields it controls in Syria and Iraq, as much as $100 million in 2014. It's less now that the price of oil has fallen and the U.S. and its allies started bombing refineries. But ISIS doesn't need refineries to make money from oil. The unrefined crude it pumps out of the ground is worth plenty. ISIS fighters smuggle it in barrels across the border or in containers small enough to fit under a truck. A middleman buys it the crude or whatever ISIS has managed to refine and sells it on the black market.

Kidnapping for ransom also big business. In 2014 ISIS made at least $20 million that way. The United States says it won't negotiate with terrorists, but some European countries do, and so do wealthy Arab families whose relatives are targeted. ISIS has taken sledgehammers to ancient artifacts, but it also makes money looting and selling stolen treasures. A giant sculpture of an Assyrian idol might be destroyed while a gold Babylonian coin is sold because the coin was never worshipped.

And that's how ISIS makes its millions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, joining me right now with more, CNN global affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier. Good to see you. So the significance of Abu Sayyaf's connections to ISIS' oil and gas operations really can't be overstated. As we just heard, that group earns millions of dollars because of black market oil or various ways. But can it bow that that kind of revenue is really what keeps this operation afloat?

[14:35:11] KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, that kind of revenue is key to paying the ranks of recruits that have been coming in, thousands month by month, to Syria and to northern Iraq joining the cause.

It also pays for weapons, ammunition, and for keeping the peace in the towns and cities that ISIS holds sway in. They have to -- you know, they hand out traffic tickets. They keep the lights on. They keep the water running. All of that needs money. So ISIS does need this constant influx of cash to keep its operations going.

So if you get the guy who's been managing that money, he is the one who's been writing the checks to all those people. And that is part of what U.S. officials used as their key argument to President Obama, to say this is an intelligence-rich target. It's worth the risk.

WHITFIELD: And then on the black market, who is buying this oil, because it's not like you just buy enough for your vehicle or, you know, for fueling your home, but it has to be in sizeable quantities in order to make a dent, to really earn any money, right?

DOZIER: Well, yes and no. You've got a lot of local consumption in northern Iraq, in Syria. Large parts of that country are cut off from the outside world, and even in remote parts of Turkey. So you do have a ready source of people to sell this to.

Now, but the more important part of this raid, I think, was his connections to military operations. They also believe that his wife was an active member of ISIS. So interrogating her, looking at the laptops and the cell phones that they got from the compound, that is intelligence they hope to exploit that may lead to future raids very soon by the U.S. or by its allies in this fight.

WHITFIELD: All right, Kimberly Dozier, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

DOZIER: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: And be sure to tune in to CNN tomorrow, 7:00 p.m. eastern time, to see Fareed Zakaria's CNN special "Blindsided, How ISIS Shook the World."

Also coming up, just weeks after protests and rioting shook the city of Baltimore, the Preakness is getting under way. And there's new tensions over the Freddie Gray case.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[14:41:25] SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So walk me though and show me how you're using the watch with your hearing aid and your phone.

STEVE DELUCA, HEARING IMPAIRED: This is actually my hearing aid, the app. Because it's been using it, that's the first one that comes up. So there are four settings.

BURKE: What are the four different options?

DELUCA: There's an all-around setting. I can adjust the base and the treble in that setting also. There's a restaurant setting. There's a music setting, and then there's an outdoor where I can actually block out some of the wind noise.

BURKE: One of the big concerns that a lot of people have about the watch is the battery. What happens if the battery on these die?

DELUCA: The hearing aid still works. The hearing aid batteries are completely separate from the phone and the watch.

BURKE: Can you adjust them?

DELUCA: I can still cycle through the programs, I just won't be able to fine tune. Honestly the hearing aid batter batteries or more important than the watch battery. I have batteries at home. I have batteries in my car. I have batteries in my locker at work.

BURKE: Do you ever feel like you have too much technology?

DELUCA: Yes.

BURKE: Between the hearing aid, the watch, and the phone or are you grateful?

DELUCA: I'm so grateful. God has blessed me with so much different technologies like this because it really has opened up so much. If it means that I'm tied to these gadgets to improve the way that I'm hearing things, then so be it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, today is a huge day in the world of horse racing, a major event in a city trying to recover from weeks of unrest. We're talking about the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, the second leg of horse racing's crown.

CNN's Sara Sidner is at the track. So Sara, you covered some of the protests over the Freddie Gray death while in police custody, and quite the contrast now, same city but a very different situation. So was there ever a feeling or has there been a feeling that today's running of the Preakness is a turning point for Baltimore?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I don't know if it's a turning point, but it's certainly bringing a different kind of energy to the city. We talked to some of the folks who live around here. We're in northwest Baltimore. We're a ways away from where the major unrest happened. But in talking to some of the residents, there are going to be protests today. Not here at the Preakness, but downtown. There's a planned protest in about half an hour.

But there's a lot of folks around here who say, look, we need to get back and bring Baltimore together and this whole initiative called one Baltimore. This is kind of what this is all about. I'm going to give you a 360 look at what is going on here. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of people here, and lots of folks from all over the place who are here. Some folks here to bet, a lot of folks here to wear their fancy hats and great outfits, and they're enjoying themselves, really. And you really do have a plethora of people, black, white, Hispanic, people from all over.

These two gentlemen here are from Baltimore.

(APPLAUSE)

SIDNER: They're happy to be here, obviously. We talked to some of the residents who live here and see this every year, and they are happy to see the crowds, they're happy to see Baltimore back in a different place. But there is definitely a sense things need to be worked out and changed, the community needs to come together. Obviously there's lots of people here for the horse races. They're absolutely beautiful and it's a perfect day for all of this. Fredricka? WHITFIELD: Sara Sidner, had lots of good times there at Pimlico in Baltimore. Thank you so much for the Preakness Stakes.

Coming up, a 16-month-old girl is dead after being left in a hot car in Florida. And the father says he just forgot to take her to daycare? More on that, next.

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[14:48:38] WHITFIELD: It is a tragedy that is becoming all-too- familiar. A child left in a hot car for hours, forgotten. This weekend the parents of a 16-month-old Florida girl will bury their daughter. And in this case the parents happen to be a public defdnder and an assistant state attorney. Here now is CNN's Alina Machado.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: An attorney for the family tells us they are trying to get through this very difficult time as they prepare for the child's funeral this weekend.

A family in northern Florida in mourning after losing their 16 month- old girl in what their attorney says is a tragic accident. The father, according to authorities, forgot to take the girl to daycare, leaving her inside a car until just after 3:00 Tuesday afternoon. Temperatures that day reaching the 90s. Paramedics responding to the man' house found the child dead inside the car.

ERIN KIRSCH, NEIGHBOR: I just think it's awful, like so sad. There's not even words. I can't even imagine.

MACHADO: The girl's mother, Wendy Kwon, an assistant state attorney, the father, Young Kwon, a public defender. His colleague tells CNN, quote, "They just don't make them any better than Young and Wendy. He was great with his kids. There's absolutely no way that this is anything other than a horrendous accident."

[14:50:03] A day later, hundreds of miles away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You left what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My little daughter.

MACHADO: A panicked father in Massachusetts dials 911 asking for help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I left my child by accident at a station. I'm on my way back.

MACHADO: The child in this case rescued and unharmed. Police believe the baby had been in the car 35 minutes, and thankfully temperatures were cool. The father, meanwhile, released a statement to CNN affiliate WBZ explaining that his typical day involves two day care drop-offs and a train ride, adding, quote, "The baby had fallen asleep in the child's seat and I went into autopilot. While this is one of the worst days of my life, I know that we were also very fortunate, as it was a mild temperature day and I had come to my senses before too long." No charges have been filed against the Massachusetts father.

But last summer, Justin Ross Harris made national headlines after he was arrested and charged with murder for leaving his 22 month-old son in the car all day. Police say he researched online how to kill a child in a hot car. He remains in custody. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Because the parents in the Florida case work for the third judicial circuit, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is handling the investigation. So far there's no word on whether any charges will be filed in this case.

Alina Machado, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, let's talk more about this now with legal analyst Philip Holloway. All right, so we just heard Alina explaining because we have two lawyers, they're very familiar and intimate with law enforcement there, so now the state, FDLE, is involved in this investigation. So what are they looking for? How are they going to get to the bottom of accidental or something else?

PHILIP HOLLOWAY, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's absolutely appropriate for them to bring in the state, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, because of the at least maybe appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest. So that's the good news.

A good investigator is going to follow the evidence to the truth wherever that may lead, Fred. And if it turns out to be simply an accident, like the situation we just heard about where the father called 911, then there won't be any charges. But if the evidence suggests that perhaps the father was criminally negligent or, God forbid, did it on purpose, then of course we would probably see some charges.

WHITFIELD: And I wonder what that evidence would be, because we all remember in the case of Harris here in Georgia, what helped lead to charges in his case is that he was searching on the Internet and they were able to see that there was -- there was some interest in how long would a child die if left in a car, information like that. What would be the kind of information that might reveal something about intent when looking at these attorneys?

HOLLOWAY: They're going to interview everybody involved in this. They're going to interview the parents, the mother and the father, if they're willing to speak to them. They don't have to, but they may. And they're also going to do a similar investigation to what we saw here in Atlanta in the Ross Harris investigation. They're going to look at computers. They're going to do a forensic analysis of cell phones, computers, anything like that. They're going to find out what was in the mind, if they can, of this father at the time he left the child in the car. It's not yet clear who put the child in the car in the first place in the morning. There seems to be some discrepancy about that. WHITFIELD: So the sequence of events is going to be very key, because

we also saw how Georgia investigators were looking at -- Ross Harris went to a fast food restaurant, and the child was in the car. Did the child fall asleep, something that he alleged? So in this case of this it would be the sequence of events. Who put the kid in the car, like you mentioned? How long was the distance of the driving? Were there any stops, who saw what, all of that.

HOLLOWAY: Well, the initial reporting is that the father did not notice the child deceased in the back seat until he arrived home from work. So what's going to be important --

WHITFIELD: So after getting in the car, did he come from the rear, the side, tinted windows, Florida?

HOLLOWAY: He works around the court house and so there's bound to be some security videos. That's another thing investigators are going to pull. They're going to look at any evidence like that, just like they did in the Ross Harris case, to try to piece together exactly what happened. And as I said, a good investigator is going to objectively follow the evidence to the truth, wherever that may lead, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Gosh, this is a disturbing case. No matter how many times you hear about this reportedly happening anywhere. You know, it's still so unsettling with a small child in the car.

HOLLOWAY: As a father myself and a parent, I just -- these things really just eat at your heart strings, they really do.

WHITFIELD: All right, Philip Holloway, thank you so much. Good to see you, appreciate that.

We'll have much more from the Newsroom right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:58:34] WHITFIELD: All right, another look at our top stories before we go. An Egyptian court has sentenced former president Mohamed Morsi to death. He was convicted over a mass jailbreak during the 2011 uprising. More than 100 other supporter received the same sentence. A judge will decide whether to finalize the verdict next month.

And authorities have found the gun used in the shooting of two Mississippi police officers who were killed in April. And two new suspects were arrested in connection with the shooting, 21-year-old Douglas McPhail and 19-year-old Anquanette Alexander are charged with obstruction of justice. A total of seven people have been arrested so far. Officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate were making a traffic stop when they were shot at April 9th in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

And a tornado watch has been issued for parts of Texas and western Oklahoma. More than 577,000 people are under the watch until 8:00 p.m. tonight. People should be on the lookout for tornados, large hail, and strong winds. Thanks so much for being with me this afternoon. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Much more of the Newsroom straight ahead with Poppy Harlow.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: It's 3:00 eastern here in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you from New York. We have breaking new that we begin with. We are learning new details about a top ISIS commander who was killed during a daring U.S. special operations raid deep inside Syria.

[15:00:01] Officials say Abu Sayyaf is believed to have had deep knowledge of ISIS hostage operations.