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Muslim Flight Attendant Won't Serve Alcohol; Bernie Sanders Gains Ground in New Poll; Child's Remains Found Near Chicago Park; Refugee Crisis: Reporter's Notebook; Capturing History in a Single Photography; Admirers Profess love to James Holmes; New "Star Wars" Toys Hit Stores. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired September 06, 2015 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:18] DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Deborah Feyerick in New York in for Poppy Harlow.

We'll begin this hour with this question: should a flight attendant be required to serve alcohol to passengers if it's part of her job but if it violates her religious beliefs?

Charee Stanley converted to Islam after taking a job with ExpressJet three years ago. She says that the airline recently suspended her for refusing to serve alcohol. Now, she's filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to get her job back but without requiring her to serve alcohol.

Here's what her attorney had to say a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LENA MASRI, SENIOR ATTORNEY, COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS: The point is here that our society places upon employers an obligation to accommodate the religious beliefs of its employees. They are required by law to ensure that there's a safe environment in place and that employees can practice their religious beliefs freely. Of course there are limitations that accommodation must be reasonable but what we know here is that this is not an imposition on the airline because the airline itself made that suggestion and offered that accommodation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: ExpressJet has had little to say about the issue but a spokeswoman e-mailed this statement to us. Quote, "At ExpressJet, we embrace and respect the values of all of our team members. We're an equal opportunity employer with a long history of diversity in our workforce. As Ms. Stanley is an employee, we're not able to comment on her personnel matters."

Well, let's bring in CNN's Nick Valencia, who's been following this and CNN legal analyst, Danny Cevallos.

Nick, first to you, how did she essentially approach her company and say, "I can no longer do this, how can we work it out"?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We should tell our viewers that she's had this job for three years. And when she initially took the job, Deb, she was not Muslim. She converted to Islam about a year into having that job. And she learned more about her fate. She says she realizes that it's against her Muslim beliefs to serve alcohol. They come to an agreement, the airline and Ms. Charee Stanley, and they have this reasonable accommodation where she doesn't have to serve alcohol. Other airline flight attendants pick up that responsibility.

It seemed to be working out just fine. But then two months later, one of her co-workers complained saying Charee Stanley was not fulfilling her job responsibilities at which point, ExpressJet, they revisited reasonable accommodation. They revoked it. And then they suspended Stanley for unpaid administrative leave.

So, now, her attorney is saying that not only is her client's constitutional rights being violated, but she's also a victim of discrimination, Deb.

FEYERICK: Do you see her as being a victim of discrimination or was it simply that express jet could no longer give her this religious accommodation because it was impacting her co-workers?

DANNY CEVALLOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, in her attorney's words, the attorney said that the employer is required to accommodate religious beliefs. But that's not the complete statement of the law. But employers are required to make reasonable accommodations under Title 7.

And those reasonable accommodations are part of a balancing test. In other words, the accommodations must not cause an undo burden on employer's operations for the work of other employees. And every case is a case by case analysis.

But in the past, just to give you an idea, shift training where someone has to be home at a certain time was an observer of a particular religion, they have been able to trade shifts or maybe work from home. Those have been considered to be reasonable, good faith accommodations of religious practices.

The question here becomes, is requiring other employees to shoulder the burden of serving alcohol on a flight, does that create that undo burden and does it improperly interfere with activities of the business or co-workers? And that's the balancing test that has to be applied.

Title 7 is not an absolute guarantee of religious practice any way you want any time you want at work. It's anything but. All it requires an employer to do is make the effort and try to make a reasonable accommodation but certainly nothing of Title 7 requires that an employer must be unduly burdened by the practice.

FEYERICK: So, Nick, has Ms. Stanley suggested to her company that perhaps she wants to continue with the company but perhaps she could do another job, maybe just work the gate for example?

VALENCIA: You know, Deb, we asked the attorney that question and asked if her client was willing to compromise. She kind of dodged the question. We asked her repeatedly, at which point she said it's not up to her client to accommodate the airline. It's the other way around. You heard that sound bite we played just before starting this report.

Part of what complicates this and it really speaks to Danny's point, is that she works for a regional airline.

[18:05:00] ExpressJet is a small carrier. It's not one of those big companies where you have full flights and other flight attendants. Often times, she's on a flight with 50 people. There's not another flight attendant onboard.

So, it does impact her other co-workers. You know, that's the point that ExpressJet may be making here during this investigation with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They have this. They started their investigation at which point ExpressJet will have a chance to respond.

But, meanwhile, Ms. Stanley, she's not working right now and she's not getting paid either. So, this has been incredibly frustrating for her and her lawyer. They had accommodations before to deal with this and now, they just want to return to what they had before.

FEYERICK: All right. Well, very interesting to see how it impacts ExpressJet's business and how it impacts her and her other co-workers.

All right. Nick Valencia, Danny Cevallos, thank you.

VALENCIA: Thanks, Deb.

FEYERICK: And a new poll in the campaign for the White House is painting a tighter race on the Democratic side. The NBC/Marist poll shows that Bernie Sanders now has a nine-point lead over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire with support from 41 percent of Democratic voters. Hillary Clinton receives just 32 percent.

In Iowa, Clinton is still in the lead but Sanders' numbers have gone up. And on the Republican side in Iowa, Donald Trump now holds a seven-point lead over Ben Carson and a 23-point lead over Jeb Bush.

I'm joined now by CNN senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Jeff, what are some of the big -- how do you explain some of these big changes that we're seeing now?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Deb, at Labor Day, this traditional start of the fall campaign, the race is different than most anyone thought it would be, starting with Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders is clearly overtaken her in New Hampshire now. This is the second major poll in a row and several others along the way show that he has command of this race in New Hampshire, leading her by nine points is a consistent lead over he's sort of grown over the summer.

So her campaign is trying to address that, trying to adapt to that. I'm here in Iowa and her lead has been cut in half. A month or so ago, she had a 24-point lead over Bernie Sanders. Now, it's down to 11 points. So, you have to ask why is that happening?

Bernie Sanders is tapping into the frustrations among liberal voters. He's tapping into what they want to hear and sort of non-establishment anti-politician environment here. So, Hillary Clinton is going to be changing her message and adapting her message trying to put that controversy aside over the e-mail server and everything else that's left her in this fall campaign in a much more wounded position than she ever thought she would be.

FEYERICK: Do you think Hillary Clinton, who has been going after the Republicans, is going to have to start going after Bernie Sanders? Or do you think she's just going to wear him down?

ZELENY: The strategy from the beginning through the "summer of Sanders" as we've called it is that she thinks the best way to rally Democrats is to show she would be the strongest challenger against Republicans. So, she's naming Republicans, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Donald Trump. She thinks the best way to galvanize support and show Democrats she's a fighter, you know, will actually appeal to them but at some point, she'll have to go after Bernie Sanders.

But, Deb, it's important to point out, her surrogates already are. The campaign headquarters in Brooklyn is watching Bernie Sanders very carefully, and there are a lot of other senators and others going out trying to remind people that Bernie Sanders is a socialist. Bernie Sanders might not be as electable as her in the general election.

So, she's letting other people do the work for now. But once the debates start, that's when we'll see a contrast. Of course, the first Democratic debate is in October in Las Vegas here on CNN, and that will be an opportunity for Hillary Clinton herself to make these contrasts. But for now, she's trying to stay out of the fray because the last thing she wants to do, Deb, is alienate these Democrats at the end of the day she will need if she wins this nomination.

FEYERICK: And it's going to be very interesting to see how she changes her strategy when she's called to testify about those e-mails. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much. We'll touch base with you later.

ZELENY: Thanks, Deb.

FEYERICK: And you will not want to miss the next Republican debate September 16th. The candidates are going to be gathering at the Ronald Reagan library in Simi Valley, California.

And as Jeff mentioned, CNN is also going to host the first of six Democratic debates October 13th in Nevada. And what do you want to hear from the candidates? I bet you have a lot of questions. So, tweet us those debate questions using #CNNDebate.

And Iran nuclear deal looks every bit like a done deal since a few days ago. That's when President Obama secured enough support in Congress to side with him if Republicans vote to kill the deal. Supporters of the agreement are explaining their decisions this weekend and even the head of the Democratic National Committee says her choice to back the deal was not automatic. It was one that she struggled with greatly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[18:10:01] REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D), FLORIDA: My number one goal in making this decision was to reach a conclusion based on what I thought would be most likely to prevent Iran from achieving their nuclear weapons goals and in weighing everything all of the information that I've had in front of me, I concluded that the best thing to do is to vote in support of the Iran deal.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE UNDER PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: Here's why I think it's a good deal: one of the great concerns that the opposition has that we're leaving open a lane for Iranians to go back to creating a nuclear weapon in 10 or 15 years. We're forgetting the reality that they've been on a superhighway for the last 10 years to create a nuclear weapon or nuclear weapons program with no speed limit. In the last 10 years, they've one from 136 centrifuges up to something like 19,000 centrifuges. This agreement brings them down to 500 centrifuges. All of this will be under IAEA supervision and I think this is a good outcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Collin Powell's support for the deal did not escape notice at the White House. President Obama tweeted this earlier today, quote, "Thank you, Colin, for putting your experience and expertise behind this important initiative for our country."

A number of House Democrats still have not yet announce which way they will vote on this deal.

And still to come, love letters to a mass murderer. Women fascinated with the Aurora movie shooter.

And later, the refugee crisis. The CNN reporter telling their epic story shares her own story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: We turn now to the Midwest where officials have made a grim discovery of a child's remains in a Chicago park. Police found a foot Saturday afternoon in a small lake near Garfield Park. They later found more remains and a 20-pound weight. Garfield Park is now closed.

[18:15:00] But according to "The Chicago Tribune", this is not the first time that body parts have shown up in the area.

I'm joined now by our CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes, as well as CNN contributor and criminologist, Casey Jordan. A tough story -- Casey, let me start with you. What are the next

steps looking at the evidence of this little boy to find out -- or little girl to find out who this child was?

CASEY JORDAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, as you said, Debra, the very first step is to let forensics do its job and figure out how long those body parts may have been in the lagoon, get an idea based on the elements, the temperature, the exposure to water, how long ago that child may have perished, how long -- they can even tell you how long the child may have been deceased, was it cut up before it was disposed of and so on.

And then the very next thing you're going to want to do is look for any reports of missing children. I think that's what's most disturbing to us. No one seems to be talking about any children being reported missing lately. And that reality will affect who we think of in terms of suspects and what theories could account for this.

FEYERICK: Yes. Tom, "The Chicago Tribune" article they first reported this saying the park has undergone renovations, still a work in progress. It is an area that attracts crime because of its low lighting. When you think of all that, is this a perfect area to try to hide a body effectively?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, you know, at the risk of being too gruesome, Deb, if you are trying to get rid of a body that's a toddler or very young child, you know, you can use a big plastic garbage bag to do this. It's not like trying to dispose of a 6'6" gangster, you know, and get rid of that body. That part makes it easier.

As far as lighting in the area, this is probably an indoor crime when this child was dismembered and possibly put in some kind of a container, taken out to the water with this 20-pound weight. It's going to be very difficult to get anywhere with this investigation until they find literally the head. Some possibility of putting a face to the missing child and they could put that out.

But there are so many missing children in our society, I think a lot of people don't realize how many, and a large metropolitan area of 4 million people in the Chicago area, you know, there's a lot of missing children or children that may not be known or be reported to be missing yet. If this was from a parent or somebody that did this, they're not going to report their own child missing.

FEYERICK: And that's incredible. Casey, what kind of a person does this to a child? It's -- you can't even imagine.

JORDAN: No, you can't. And as tom spelled it out, we really have two ways that we start this. It's either a stranger, which is horrifying, maybe a child predator, a misoped, which would be, you know, a sexual child predator who likes to torture and mutilate children.

You don't look for zebras in a herd of horses. It's far more likely it's somebody that does know that child. More likely it's a caregiver, a parent or a family member who would be responsible for that child's death, or in theory, maybe the child died accidentally or through neglect and abuse, and whoever knows about that wants to cover up that crime and so, disposed of the child in a nearby park.

I would look for somebody who might not have transportation and lives near the park because there are other ways to get rid of a child's body that are more foolproof and less likely the child would be found. So, I'm thinking that the people know the park, are familiar with the park and that sadly the child is probably related to whoever is responsible.

FEYERICK: As Tom says, it's just for a child to go missing like that.

All right. Tom Fuentes, Casey Jordan, thank you both so very much. Appreciate it.

FUENTES: You're welcome, Deb.

FEYERICK: And the week we have seen the tortured passage of migrants literally walking mile by mile in search of a better life and of a place to call home. They've come from the Middle East and they're going to Europe. CNN's Arwa Damon has been with them and tells us what she has seen, what she's experienced and how it has touched her, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:22:49] FEYERICK: This weekend, parts of Europe are in a full scale refugee crisis. An estimated 12,000 people traveled into Germany from Austria in the past couple days. Their desperate journeys began in places like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. They are refugees caught between deadly conflicts in their homelands and European nations are safer but not always welcoming. After weeks of travel, many of these migrants are finding not rejection but open arms at train stations in Munich and Vienna.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

FEYERICK: Although thousands of refugee families have reached the places where they plan to seek asylum, it's important to recognize their excruciating journey and what they've been given up.

No one has covered this story like CNN's Arwa Damon. She's climbed into the same small boats that these refugees have taken across the Mediterranean. She has boarded the crowded trains and she walked with them for hours alongside the Hungarian. She traveled from Turkey through Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary.

Watch this. It is Arwa's reporter notebook.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the Greece-Macedonia border, four days spent under the rain after Macedonians shut it down.

The children's clothes did not have enough time to dry before the showers started again, and no one, not a single nonprofit, not the government, to even provide something as simple as a tarp.

A pregnant Syrian woman who did not want to be interviewed grabbed my arm in the crowd, eyes welling up. She pleaded, "Please, do something. I don't want to lose my baby."

Hours after we met, the Macedonian police started letting people through. Some so desperate they threw themselves across. Others making a run for it.

A mother lost her son. She's frantic, begging the police to let her through.

[18:25:01] It just didn't make sense. How could they be treated like this?

Brief flashes of relief. Trains departing carrying them through Macedonia, small faces pressed up against the glass, hands waving.

But the respite short lived. The farther into Europe they moved, the worse their treatment became, often traveling overnight on foot. Train tracks lead the flow of humanity from Serbia into Hungary. Here, the real nightmare for most begins.

Parched, they arrive. But there is no water. Just hours of waiting under the beating sun, where buses finally arrive to take them to the transit camp where all say the conditions are inhumane and they are treated like animals.

Herded around like sheep and forced to scramble for food and water. And we are not allowed in.

At the Budapest train station after having waited for days, if not over a week sleeping on cement, a moment of slight hope as a packed train departs. Also short lived.

An hour into what should have been a journey to the Hungary-Austria border, it stops. Whatever hope they had shattered. A little girl inconsolable, her mother unable to speak, all they want to do is get out of Hungary. Police ordered refugees off and into a camp, but they refuse.

Bedding down for the night, up in the overhead compartments, parents trying to make their children as comfortable as they can, still struggling to believe that in Europe, they are finding themselves reduced to this. It is heartbreaking to witness.

Thousands take matters into their own hands and start walking from Budapest to the Austrian border, no longer willing to exist at the mercy of European leaders. We are in awe of their resolve.

Here they see the compassion of some of the Hungarian people, ashamed of their government's treatment of the refugees, handing out water, food and more.

(on camera): He was on crutches the entire way but then again, someone stopped and actually gave them a child's stroller. The injury is from a barrel bomb.

(voice-over): The men have children living under ISIS in Syria, getting to Germany means a chance of bringing and saving them.

Almost all of these people have fled the war zones of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan -- homelands that no longer offer a future for them or for their children. The world yet unable to resolve those wars, the people suffering the consequences deserve better than this.

Arwa Damon, CNN, Hungary.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:31:08] FEYERICK: Well, we have been watching Europe's refugee crisis all weekend. 12,000 men, women and children, mostly from Syria, many from Afghanistan and Iraq, they crossed into Germany through Austria. Two countries who have opened their borders to those people who are fleeing the conflict back home. German and Austrian leaders are strongly urging other EU countries to follow suit.

Well, every now and again you see an image that sticks with you and never leaves your mind like this. The young man who stopped those tanks at Tiananmen Square.

CNN's Tom Foreman looks back at some of the images that have changed the world including one from a tragedy very fresh in our minds.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Look at photographs that have changed our perception of the world. The unleashed power of nuclear weapons. A migrant family caught in the dust bowl. A single Afghan refugee who seemed to be the face of millions. She was found again by the photographer 17 years after his shutter clicked.

STEVE MCCURRY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHER: She had never been photographed before then and has never been photographed since. She looked at the picture and being illiterate, not familiar with magazines and newspapers in general was a little bit indifferent. She didn't know quite what to make of it.

FOREMAN: In 1930, long after the worst days of lynchings, this photo from Indiana spurred an uproar as proof that brutal racism was not a thing of the past, and it pairs with this one from 1957 of angry whites shouting at one of the first black students at a formerly white high school in Arkansas.

Protests have produced some of the most enduring images. In 1989, after a massacre by Chinese troops in Tiananmen Square, one man squared off against a line of tanks. His identity has never been known. His brave stand, never forgotten.

Pictures of war have had immense impact from the birth of photography. The Civil War, World War I, World War II. In Vietnam, modern media gave them even more power, a monk setting himself ablaze. A Vietcong assassin being executed by a South Vietnamese officer. A 9-year-old girl running from Nepal. She spoke many years later about that haunting scene.

KIM PITUC, ANGUISHED GIRL IN PHOTOGRAPHED: It's my message to people when they see that picture, try not see her as crying out in pain, in fear, and try not to see her as a symbol of war, but try to see her as a symbol for peace.

FOREMAN: And so another symbol joins the sad collection of split seconds in time that prove timeless, unimaginable and unforgettable.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: And our next guest is an award-winning photographer. Steve McCurry captured the haunting image of a young Afghan girl and as you just saw it quickly became one of the most iconic images from that era. To this day, it still evokes a strong visceral response.

Steve McCurry joins us from Prague, in the Czech Republic. And thank you so much. You know, when you think of that photograph of Aylan Kurdi, it has become an image of what this Syrian refugee crisis is all about. When you're behind that lens, are you thinking, this is it, this is the image, or is it just something you don't even understand the impact until after you've distanced yourself?

MCCURRY: Well, I think you're working on adrenaline and working on instinct and you're working on -- it's an intuitive feeling of what is in front of your lens and in the case of my picture of the Afghan refugee girl, as soon as I saw her, I knew that she spoke to the story of the three million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan that haunted her.

[18:35:20] She had a sense of beauty at such a young age, at 12, yet she had this haunted look. Yet she had this dignity and this respect, and the way she came to symbolize the Afghan refugees at that point in time.

FEYERICK: You have been all over the world. You have photographed many wars and other troubled places. What is that elusive quality of a single still photograph that suddenly hits us and makes us gasp?

MCCURRY: Well, you know, it's incredibly hard to describe. There are pictures that would suddenly just reach out and grab us and we can't forget them. They burn into our psyche, into our soul, into our mind and it's something which suddenly everybody is talking about and everybody can't forget. And they just stay there and they become a symbol or representative of a particular era. You know, we talked about the ones -- pictures in Vietnam. There's a handful of pictures which speak to that whole era. And we still to this day can't forget those pictures.

FEYERICK: When you looked at that picture of the 3-year-old boy washed ashore in Turkey after he and his family were unable to get to Turkey safely, what struck you about that? How did that resonate with you on a personal level?

MCCURRY: Well, you know, the tragedy and the -- looking at that small child who was completely innocent, who was with his parents trying to find a better life, it was completely something which we were all kind of devastated to see that picture and somehow it summed up the whole situation. It's a picture which within hours the world suddenly just gasped and within, you know, camera on and the German government decided to let these people into their countries and I think the profound effect is just that, you know, and that one picture that can make such a difference I think is remarkable and, you know, unforgettable.

FEYERICK: Yes. Images that are so mesmerizing that just demand that we look.

Steve McCurry, thank you so much for such brilliant work over your life. We appreciate it.

MCCURRY: Thank you.

FEYERICK: And as horrific as those images are, how long can they impact society? Will we be focused on the migrants a week or even month from now or will it fade from memory?

"Daily Beast" foreign editor Christopher Dickey talks about what it will take to help end the suffering of the migrants. I caution you, some of the images in this report are disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, WORLD NEWS EDITOR, THE DAILY BEAST: The ability of the public to forget a crisis like this is maybe one of the most terrifying aspects of it. The danger of a photograph like the photograph of little Aylan Kurdi, the danger of those photographs is that they create outrage, they create a very intense emotion but those emotions are short lived. I've seen that for almost 40 years as a foreign correspondent. People become outraged. They cry. And they do nothing.

I've seen a lot of suffering. But I've never seen a crisis on quite the scale that we're looking at now in Europe. There are more and more people who are more and more desperate. It's not that they don't want to work. It's not that they don't want to do things. Hell, the people who become migrants, immigrants, refugees, those people are very often the smartest, most capable people in their societies.

It's all about one central issue. It's about hope. It's about people who want to have hope and they lose hope in the lens where they were born and they think that they can have some kind of hope for themselves and their families if they go to Europe or for that matter if they come to the United States.

There are things that can be done that can begin to help to control the situation. One is to have more open paths for refugees and migrants to move. Other things that can be done are helping to develop the countries that these people are coming from. [18:40:03] Something has to be done coherently in a coordinated way to

end the war in Syria. Syria is the single country sending the most people abroad now. They want to stay in Syria if they can. What are we doing to end the Syrian war? What we are doing is talking a lot about it. And what we are actually accomplishing is almost nothing.

Do people care? Yes. They care about Aylan Kurdi. Are they going to do something to alleviate the larger refugee crisis? They'll talk about it. Maybe they'll throw some money at it but probably they're not going to do anything that will solve the fundamental problem which is to give people hope in their own countries and until that begins to happen, not much is going to change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: You can find out a lot more about this crisis and learn ways that you can help the people who are leaving their homes and possibly help to prevent another tragedy at CNN.com/seekingrefuge. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: James Holmes received one of the longest prison sentences in U.S. history. Multiple life terms plus 3,318 years.

[18:45:00] He's sentenced for the horrors he committed inside the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater. Yet he has amassed, shockingly enough, quite a fan club. His jail cell covered in notes like this one claiming, quote, "You're in my thoughts each and every day." And yes, it ends with a happy face.

Well, another friend sending Holmes $5 to spend on himself and one saying, "Be strong. Love from your stronger friend across the water."

Now I want to bring in criminologist and CNN contributor Casey Jordan.

Casey, there's a phenomenon actually and it's called hybristophilia. We saw it a little bit also with Joyce Mitchell who helped those two prisoners escape.

CASEY JORDAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.

FEYERICK: What are we talking about besides crazy?

JORDAN: OK, crazy is a little bit of a nonclinical word. But I'm not sure that it's -- you know, pathetic comes to mind. Hybristophilia, think of it as a spectrum. It can be an innocent kind of fascination based on media coverage of a particular crime and it can go all the way up, of course, to a deep sexual obsession where women want to marry these men, go to prison, have conjugal with them. But what's interesting with James Holmes is that he's not a very charismatic character. And usually the women who fall in love with these heinous murderers and inmates have a sense of them being a celebrity. So --

FEYERICK: Like Charles Manson. JORDAN: Yes, like Charles Manson and Henry Lee Lucas, you know, both

of the Menendez brothers got fans and got married in prison. I mean, this isn't a new phenomenon. We've been studying it for 20 or 30 years in depth. But what's interesting about Holmes is he doesn't speak in court. There's almost nothing magnetic about him.

FEYERICK: Right.

JORDAN: And yet that lack of magnitude and it's something that some women relate to. They are usually isolated and introverted, low self- esteem, and they think they understand him.

FEYERICK: You know, it's interesting because when I was covering the Tsarnaev trial, the marathon bomb trial, there were a number of women who did show up at that court and they really -- they showed up as if they had this deep connection with this man they had never met. But is it just insecurity? Were they themselves perhaps victims of some kind of abuse or do they connect with him?

JORDAN: That is a sad fact that in studies we've done on women who fall prey to this hybristophilia, at least three-quarters of them do report having been abused. Most of them sexually but some of them just verbally or psychologically or physically as well. And the psychology of their abuse is that they think they can see it in other people. That they have a connection or a bond with somebody.

Invariably, when I interviewed these women they say, when I saw him on TV, I just knew him. I could see it in his eyes. They always say they see it in his eyes, that they understand something about them. And very often they just presume that person has also suffered abuse based on their introverted behavior in the case of James Holmes.

FEYERICK: Right.

JORDAN: So, you know, every woman has got her own story about why she's drawn to -- to these men they see on TV. A lot of it has to do with the way they are presented by the media and that celebrity aura that we give to these murderers that a lot of it has to do with a deep isolation, insecurity of these women that they want to connect with this man because they think they can rescue him or understand him.

FEYERICK: Right. Exactly. The whole rescue theory. And it's fascinating. I mean, they send seductive photographs and money and these love letters.

Casey Jordan, thank you so much. All right. Appreciate it.

And a check of the headlines next and this weekend, yes, if you are a "Star Wars" fan, oh boy, are you going to be happy. The new movie, "The Force Awakens" means new toys and that could be a multibillion dollar business.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:52:56] FEYERICK: And here are some of the hour's top stories on CNN. Pope Francis is directing all Catholic organizations in Europe.

Monasteries, parishes and sanctuaries to take in the people who are fleeing conflicts and streaming into Austria and Germany this weekend. The Pope says as an example, even the parishes of Vatican City will host several refugee families.

A new poll in the race for 2016 likely put Democrat Bernie Sanders in a good mood today. The NBC-Marist poll shows Sanders now has a nine- point lead over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. In Iowa, Clinton is still in the lead but yes, Sanders' numbers have gone up.

And on the Republican side it's still all about Trump. He is holding on to his leads in both New Hampshire and Iowa.

And today is the 20th anniversary of an iconic moment in American sports history. On September 6th, 1995, Cal Ripken Jr. played in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking the epic streak of Yankees legend Lou Gehrig. His achievement is widely seen as helping baseball reconnect with fans after the 1994 strike.

And "Star Wars" fans rejoice. The toys for the new movie are here and, well, arguably, they are pretty cool. Among them is this app controlled rolling droid just like the one from the movie trailer.

Our Paul La Monica takes us inside the midnight tour release nicknamed "Force Friday."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL LA MONICA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, no, no. Toys. Merchandise. Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are waiting for.

LA MONICA: Yes, the stores are going to open at midnight. Yes.

(Voice-over): But I got a little sneak peek.

(On camera): I don't know who Constable Zubio is but he looks pretty cool.

(Voice-over): I also got a bit of Jedi training.

JOE NINIVAGGI, GLOBALK MARKETING, HASBRO: This is nothing like getting a light saber in your hand. You feel like you're in the movie. To be able to have different forms of light saber like Kylo Ren, it's such an awesome light saber that we've never seen. We saw it and we're like we're blown away. Just totally inspires us to go into totally different direction.

LA MONICA: What characters can you talk about in the new movie that might be something we should be keeping an eye out for.

[18:55:04] NINIVAGGI: Well, I mean, there are a whole bunch of different Storm Troopers. there are types of desert creatures that we have figures of that, you know, you've seen them in sort of teasers and trailers that JJ would put out but you don't know much about yet. They're all in the line.

LA MONICA: So given that you guys are making toys about the movie, there's got to be things that are still coming out that hint at plot developments. What -- is there anything you know specifically about plot in "The Force Awakens" that you probably can't tell me?

NINIVAGGI: Do you seriously want to see me get force choked on camera right now? Is that what you're asking?

LA MONICA: A line outside Toys R Us was eight hours in the making. At midnight the early birds reaped the rewards.

(On camera): So why are you here when, you know, just buy this stuff online.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where the fun in that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Get ready for the TV edition of the "CNN QUIZ SHOW." Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It's a quiz show on television. People are on television. It's very meta.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are we qualified to do this?

COOPER: These are TV dramas.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: It's too much television.

COOPER: Your category is animated TV stars.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: You think, television. That'll be easy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is awkward. It turns out this is really hard.

COOPER: I hope they study.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: I'm Deborah Feyerick. Have a great Labor Day. The "SEVENTIES" marathon starts right now.