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Manhunt for Escaped Prisoners; More Afghan Attack Victims Identified; Farrow Contradicts Campbell's Story

Aired August 09, 2010 - 09:00   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It's because I stay away from, you know, porn queens and random women in Las Vegas. I keep -- I keep my mental --

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: That was a good idea.

PHILLIPS: My mental strength. Exactly. That guy blew his career on so many levels.

Thanks, guys.

All right, it's the top of the hour and a manhunt is on inside Yellowstone right now. Has nothing to do with bears. Two fugitives may be in the park with nothing to lose and campers with no idea of what might be out there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hit that -- oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: There goes the barn. Storm chasers catch another twister in the act. Incredible picture of nature's wrecking ball.

And it's not your every day reunion. Alcatraz alumni revisit the rock.

It's 9:00 a.m. on the East Coast, 6:00 a.m. out West. I'm Kyra Phillips. And you're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

They were in prison for murder and attempted murder and now police believe they may be in Yellowstone Park. So now a manhunt is underway for John (INAUDIBLE) and Tracy Province. Two escaped prisoners that police say could be armed and dangerous.

And this is why. McCluskey and Province are now believed to have killed a New Mexico couple since they've been on the run.

Police say they believe they could be hiding in the Yellowstone National Park. The vast wilderness creates a chilling scenario both in finding the fugitives and protecting the campers and hikers who are oblivious to the potential threat.

So just how dangerous are these men considered? Let's take a closer look at the New Mexico killings. We get the details now from Christie Ileto of CNN's Albuquerque affiliate KOAT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIE ILETO, KOAT REPORTER: State police say they are starting to connect the dots.

MAJ. ROBERT SHILLING, NEW MEXICO STATE POLICE: We have linked one of the subjects through forensics to the crime scene in Santa Rosa.

ILETO: That subject, John McCluskey who escaped from an Arizona state prison last week with inmate Tracy Province. State police say a third person, Casslyn Welch, she's a subject as well, believed to be on the run with the pair of inmates.

Thursday investigators found bodies in a burned camper in Santa Rosa. They believe they may be Oklahoma couple Linda and Gary Haas, but autopsy results have not confirmed this.

The couple's white four-door Chevy pickup was found here in an abandoned parking lot in Albuquerque. State police couldn't tell us if it was a fingerprint or a hair follicle that linked McCluskey to the crime, only that his forensics were found. But police say that doesn't mean the three aren't together.

SHILLING: We have reason to believe that they are still together because currently there's no information to indicate they are apart and separated.

ILETO: A trio that state police and the U.S. Marshalls Office considered to be armed and dangerous. But still no clarity on where they may be headed next.

SHILLING: A week after -- plus a few days from the escape in Arizona, indications of going east, then we this incident in Santa Rosa, so the trail is not linear which concerns us as well.

ILETO: And that unknown had state police urging the public to be aware of their surroundings.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: And next hour, a closer look through the eyes of one of the men in charged of that case. U.S. Marshall David Gonzalez will have the latest on the search for those men and the increasing urgency to find them.

He's going to talk to us about an hour from now.

They're the victims of a gruesome killing spree. Ten multi-national medical aid workers murdered in cold blood in a remote area of Afghanistan last week. Six of them Americans.

They are 28-year-old Cheryl Beckett of Knoxville, Tennessee, 40-year- old Glenn Lab of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Dan Terry, a long-time aid worker in Afghanistan, Brian Carderelli, and the two Americans who were previously identified are Dennis Thomas Grams of Colorado and team leader, optometrist, Tom Little of New York.

And the British Foreign Office has now confirmed the death of 36-year- old Dr. Karen Woo.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has wholeheartedly condemned the attack. The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry says that it's uncertain where the Taliban are truly responsible or taking credit for the, quote, "cowardly and despicable acts of others."

For the latest on the investigation, CNN's Jill Daugherty, live in Kabul this morning.

So, Jill, there was a news conference just a short time ago. What are you hearing right now?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, you know, partly the news conference really was a very sad event, as you can imagine, because it was held by the International Assistance Mission, which is the organization -- the Christian organization that -- for which these people volunteered.

And so they were really -- I would have to say, it's so hard by the emotion of what happened losing 10 people at one time. And then on the other side, you have these questions of how it happened. How were these 10 aid workers killed? Why were they killed?

The Taliban did take responsibility. But was it really the Taliban targeting these people, or could it have been a robbery that eventually the Taliban took responsibility for? There are a lot of questions about it.

But there is no question that they went into a very, very remote part of Afghanistan. They were trekking, we are told, for 100 miles into the Hindu Kush Mountains. It was extremely dense. And they were literally, you know, on foot hiking into the mountains, bringing medical assistance to people who have no medical care - Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right. Well, it's a story that we're going to talk about throughout the next two hours, Jill.

Friends of those victims joining us live to remember some pretty remarkable people giving of their time.

Jill, thanks.

In the House lawmakers are putting their summer vacations on hold to return to Washington today. They are taking up a $26 billion measure to avoid teacher layoffs. The Senate approved the bill last week. The House is expected to vote on it tomorrow. If it passes, the bill goes to President Obama to be signed into law.

It's day 112 of the Gulf oil disaster and the so-called bottom kill operation is getting closer. A relief well to permanently seal the broken well from below the sea floor is expected to be finished by the week's end. BP says it has now spent $6.1 billion on expenses linked to the clean up. Admiral Thad Allen, the government's point man on the response says that BP did a good job on capping the spill but not on public relations.

And a caravan of concerned St. Louis residents leaves today on a week- long tour of the Gulf. They'll be spending money to support small businesses in the region.

Well, we are going to take a look at some astonishing video of a tornado. Let's take a listen. This is in Minnesota as it just splinters a farmhouse.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no.

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PHILLIPS: That looks like a bomb exploded. As you can see, pieces of it are flying everywhere. And believe it or not, nobody was hurt. The man behind the camera can't believe what he was seeing through that view finder, and it's one of those times when a storm chaser is caught what he was chasing. And you can see the result.

Pretty amazing pictures, Rob. And more rough weather on the way? What do you think?

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I think across the northern -- northern Midwest once again today and also we're looking at heat. That's going to be the ongoing weather story -- heat today right on for the rest of the well.

We'll talk more about that tornado and who's going to be under the gun for it. That was measured to be an EF-3 which means winds of at least 150 miles per hour.

Weather is coming up when the NEWSROOM comes right back.

PHILLIPS: Mia Farrow, starring on a new stage. The witness in a war crimes trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miss Farrow, did you tell Naomi Campbell that the diamond or diamonds came from Charles Taylor?

MIA FARROW, ACTRESS: Absolutely not.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Hmm. That's not what the super model said. The plot thickens. Mia Farrow telling what Naomi Campbell knew of dirty diamonds and when she knew it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIPS: The dictator, the super model and now the actress. Mia Farrow has been the star witness today in the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor. He's the former leader of Liberia accused of stirring up the brutal civil war across the border in Sierra Leon and using diamonds to pay for those atrocities.

Prosecutors have been trying to link Taylor to those blood diamonds to help their case. Last week they put Naomi Campbell on the stand. She said that some mystery men gave her diamonds back in 1997 after a dinner with Charles Taylor in south Africa, but she claims she didn't know for sure that the brutal dictator had actually sent them.

And that's where Mia Farrow comes in. She was at the dinner, too. So was Charles Taylor for that matter. They were all guests at a dinner hosted by Nelson Mandela. Farrow told the court that Campbell knew a big fat diamond came from that dictator and said so. Kind of throws a wrench in Campbell's testimony.

CNN's Phil Black has been following the trial and joins us now live from London.

So, Phil, Mia Farrow really disputed Naomi's testimony last week.

Yes, indeed, some key differences between what Naomi Campbell told this court in The Hague last week and what we're hearing from Mia Farrow today.

Mia Farrow is essentially being flown to The Hague to giver version of a very specific moment in time. And that is the moment that Naomi Campbell came down from breakfast following that dinner that you just mentioned.

And Farrows says that Campbell was excited and she very hurriedly told people who were there that she had received a knock on the door in the middle of the night and some of Charles Taylor's men -- the accused war criminals' men -- had presented her with a gift, which she knew was one large diamond.

Now that is different from what Campbell said in the sense that she acknowledged the knock on the door, said she was given a gift, but she said she didn't know they were diamonds and did not know that they came from Charles Taylor.

And that is really the key point. That is why this trial is hearing from witnesses -- from these witnesses in particular right now -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So Phil, let me get this right. So according to Mia's testimony, she says that Campbell was excited about this diamond arriving that night?

BLACK: Yes. That's right. That's the word she used this morning. She said she remembers it clearly. It was and unforgettable story. She admits that she's a bit hazy on of the other details from that particular trip to South Africa. But on this point she has no doubt. Naomi Campbell came down excited -- in her words. And again in her Web site she released a torrent of word. It was not a conversation, it was very much Naomi telling the story in a very excited way saying that she had received one large diamond from Charles Taylor.

And this trial is this afternoon. You are going to hear from Naomi Campbell's former modeling agent Carol White who's expected to give fairly similar sort of evidence to Mia Farrow backing up the claim that, yes, Campbell knew this was diamond and knew that it came from Charles Taylor.

And this is all about cutting -- I'm sorry, tying a link between those uncut diamonds and Charles Taylor, proving that he owned them, used them as currency and that the prosecutors ties him back to the conflict in Sierra Leon where so many died and where blood diamonds came out. And in the word of the prosecutors, thundered the rebels fighting there in the arms that they use -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: We'll keep following the testimony in the trial as it continues.

Phil Black, thanks so much.

Scanning our morning passport now. First stop, Moscow. Not that you can actually see it through the heavy smoke. Hundreds of wildfires have created toxic air and the death rate from breathing it has doubled.

So far the government hasn't released exact numbers, but breathing that air for a few hours can be compared to smoking two packs of cigarettes. It has forced people to wear masks and stay indoors.

Remember this chaotic scene from May? Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish aid ship headed for Gaza, come under attack and wind up killing nine people. An Israeli inquiry has already started and the U.S. investigation begins tomorrow. Israel says it operated within international law. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the soldiers -- soldiers rather, showed great courage acting in self- defense.

Torrential rain triggered landslides in northwest China. They've killed at least 127 people with more than 1300 people missing. Earth- moving equipment will try to clear that debris and help the floodwaters recede.

And take a look at this. In the middle of all the destruction and debris, a small victory. A survivor, pulled from the rubble of a building.

And more on the floods in Pakistan They've already killed 1200 people, and that number keeps rising. Millions of people have been affected by some of the worst flooding. And the UN Commissioner for Refugees calls it catastrophic. Pakistan's president only returns today from a trip to England greeted by criticism that he should have returned immediately. Monsoon rains are by no means limited to Asia. Just ask folks in the desert southwest. Meteorologist Rob Marciano at the CNN Weather Center with more on that. Rob?

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Kyra, you're right about that. Especially this time of the year in the desert southwest and the Four Corners region. That's the area that gets -- it's really not so much a season as a flow of monsoon flow.

Last week they had it pretty good. It's a little bit weaker this week. The flow has more shifted toward the east. And what that's doing is it's feeding more heat and more humidity into the central plains and even the northern plains.

And it spawned some thunderstorms over the weekend that were pretty strong with big tornadoes. We will see that threat again today, I think, from the Dakotas back to parts of Montana and maybe once again into Minnesota, which saw that EF-3 come through the western part of that state.

We are looking at some thunderstorms that are rolling through the lower Great Lakes right now. It was kind of a rough morning for folks who live in Chicago. And back through Iowa, these thunderstorms produced some flash flooding in spots.

And again, south of those storms is where we expect to see the heat rebuild again today. There's more pink on the map, which means we've got more in the way of heated advisories that are out for this area. One hundred degrees in Kansas City, 101 in Dallas, and 92 degrees in New York City. So even the Big Apple getting into the act.

Speaking of heat, or at least, if you want to talk about cold, there's a huge iceberg or -- this glacier right here. This is in northwest Greenland over the weekend. A big chunk of ice came off of this. It's four times the size of Manhattan. This is the biggest iceberg to float away here since the 60s. They thought this would happen because it's been such a war summer. The waters in the Atlantic have been relatively warm as well, but this is a pretty intimidating sight.

Here's another shot of it to give you some perspective of size of this thing. The glacier flows this way, it will calve pieces of ice off into the ocean from time to time, but not usually this big. Hopefully -- on a good news scenario, it might get into this area and block more in the way of calving happening and maybe let that sea ice in the wintertime form a little bit more easily, but that's the best good news I can find from that particular story. We don't like to see huge chunks of ice flying off Greenland like that. And this is the biggest one since the 1960s.

Kyra, back over to you.

PHILLIPS: All right, Rob, thanks.

MARCIANO: You bet.

PHILLIPS: An elderly driver leaves the road, plunges into a waterway, and watches helplessly as she sinks deeper and deeper.

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JOHN CONLEY, RESCUER: I dove down, I couldn't get her out. I went down again, I still couldn't get her out. I went down a third time, she came out through the window. Oh!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: And you won't believe what happened after that. We've got the story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Checking top stories. The manhunt for two Arizona prison escapees underway, and around Yellowstone National Park. The feds believe the two may be hiding out there with a woman accomplice. The escapees are suspected in the killings of a couple in New Mexico.

An international aid group that lost members in a violent attack in Afghanistan will not be pulling out of the country. A total of six Americans were among the ten aid workers gunned down one by one last week.

And actress Patricia Neal has died. She was 84. Neal won an Academy Award for her performance in the movie "Hud."

They're boat was dead in the water. But after three days adrift at sea, their prayers were answered. We'll have the story of a remarkable rescue off the coast of Florida.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Time now to hit the road and catch the headlines from coast to coast. First stop, Bedford, Massachusetts. An 86-year-old woman loses control of her car and plunges into a marina. That's when witnesses became heroes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONLEY: I dove down, I couldn't get her out. I went down again, I still couldn't get her out. I went down a third time, she came out through the window. Oh!

JILL SIMMONS, DAUGHTER: When she got in the hospital, she started arguing with the doctors, which is a good sign.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE SPEAKER: Yes, it is.

SIMMONS: She's your basic Yankee. Stubborn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: The daughter is a dive rescue expert, and she commended the bravery of the men who saved her mom's life. The 86-year-old woman is just fine. And we have another water rescue to tell you about, this one off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. These two sunburned men and a pal of theirs spent three days bobbing along on their disabled boat. The Coast Guard returned them to shore and the joy of familiar sights.

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JOHN LAND, BOATER: It's good to be -- I mean, I'm looking at buildings and trees and stuff. That's a beautiful thing. Because out there, we couldn't even see the glow of the city lights anymore.

KEVIN WOOD, BOATER: A little scary, you know, but we were making due and surviving with what we had.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: And we end our travels in Santa Clarita, California. A 14- year-old boy has confessed to starting the wildfire that threatened dozens of homes. He told investigators he was smoking marijuana when he accidentally ignited the blaze. Forty acres burned, but no homes.

Toyota's troubles mean recalls for a lot of car openers, but those troubles also mean one driver gets his life back after three years in prison.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOUA FONG LEE, DEFENDANT: Sometimes I dream, and I wake up still in that little room. But now my dream come true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: He always said he was innocent, that the fatal crash wasn't his fault. Now justice believes him.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: The Dow finished higher for a third straight week last week. Felicia Taylor at the New York Stock Exchange with a look at how the market is set to start the new week. Hopefully, it's going to be pretty good. Hi, Felicia.

FELICIA TAYLOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kyra. We are expecting a positive open, although just slightly. We've got a pretty eco -- a quiet economic schedule today. Investors are looking ahead to tomorrow's decision from the Fed.

I should note, though, it is pretty much a given that the Federal Reserve is going to leave interest rates at the historic lows that we've seen, pretty much close to zero, as it has in every meeting since December of 2008. What investors really do want to know, though, is what steps the central bank might take to support what's evidently a slow economic recovery.

Shares of Hewlett-Packard, though, are rebounding after tumbling more than nine percent on Friday. The rebound comes after HP's CEO, Mark Hurd, resigned late Friday in the wake of a sexual harassment investigation. HP says Hurd failed to tell the board about a personal relationship with a female marketing contractor hired by his office. And that he also filed inaccurate expense reports to keep that relationship secret.

Sarah Lee's CEO is also stepping down so she can focus, though, on her health. Brenda Barnes suffered a stroke in May and will leave the company for medical reasons. It ends a six-year tenure for Barnes, who is credited with streamlining Sarah Lee's business and turning the company around. Sarah Lee is obviously famous for its name brown baked goods -- name-brand baked goods, many of which I love, as well as Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farm sausages.

As I said, the market is expected to open to the up side today and, hopefully, we will keep it that way all day long. Kyra?

PHILLIPS: All right, Felicia, thanks.

We're learning more about the ten kind-hearted volunteers who were part of the medical aid team murdered last week in Afghanistan's remote province. Six of the victims were Americans. One being Dr. Thomas Grams, a dentist from Durango, Colorado who, among his many benevolent efforts, is being remembered for hiking halfway up Mount Everest to deliver dental care for Buddhist monks. We're told the good Dr. Grams worked a third of the year free of charge as a volunteer dentist helping those who needed so much and could only pay with their gratitude.

Laurie Matthews, group director and co-founder of Global Dental Relief, joins us by phone from Denver with more on the charitable works and and contributions of the late Dr. Tom Gram.

Laurie, good to have you with us.

LAURIE MATTHEWS, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, GLOBAL DENTAL RELIEF: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Why don't you tell us more about Tom. I mean, just talking about his hike up Mount Everest to help these Buddhist monks, about 100 other people, I understand, also, is just the tip of what this gentleman did.

MATTHEWS: That's right. Tom was our very first volunteer in 2001. He immediately dedicated himself to the work. He gave four months a year. He led our groups of volunteers. He was the intake dentist. He was the face that every child saw as they entered the clinic. He's just a remarkable and someone who knew he could make a difference and that matter to him (ph).

PHILLIPS: And tell us some more stories. I understand, ten years ago, it started with he wanted to fix the teeth of Muslim torture victims. How did that start?

MATTHEWS: You know, actually, that was before I knew Tom. What I can tell you is that by making that connection with people in that kind of need, I think it really opened Tom to wanting to go international and to help people in remote areas. He was always thinking about how he could go further remote. Within label a dock (ph) after 20 hours of flying, we'd run a clinic there helping 500 kids and when it was over, Tom would want to go over the next 18,000-foot pass and reach as full even more remote.

PHILLIPS: And I want to talk more about the kids that he helped, but one thing that also caught my attention, he was very sensitive towards the women in the Middle East. From what I understand, women with burkas, the men didn't want them removing the burkas to get any kind of dental care, but he was able to explain to husbands and to women how important it was to get that care. And he worked within the burka.

MATTHEWS: That's right. These are stories he told me when he came back from Afghanistan, but it was very important to him that he not just help the older men in the village. He slowly worked with them, regained their trust, and by having the leader's mother come in was a real break through because she could sort of be the leader of all the women, and after they negotiated, how he could give her dental care and still respect the Islamic laws, then he was so delighted because slowly one by one the other women in the village came to see him.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

PHILLIPS: And I was also reading that he used to travel with a bodyguard, and he wore the native dress. He decided to go on this trip at the last minute, right? So, was it different this time around? He didn't have a bodyguard.

MATTHEWS: Tom never had his own bodyguard. At different places where he would work, sometimes, they would ask -- they would supply him with someone and ask him to stay with that person. In those countries, you know, the host is responsible for his guest. And there was a lot of concern about Tom's safety. And often, he was given someone who would go on hikes with him or spend all their time with him.

Tom was very nervous about going this time but just compelled. I mean, he's so committed to helping people., and he had such a love for that country.

PHILLIPS: And the number of children -- I was reading, over the course of nine years, he treated about 25,000 children. How did they respond to him, Laurie? Did they run towards him? I can just imagine that they looked at him as way more than just a doctor.

MATTHEWS: They loved Dr. Tom. You know, our motto is that the children come back every two years. So, they would be peering around the corner, waiting their turn in line and all pointing to Tom. And my favorite story, I watched it over and over, Tom with each child would pull down that dental mask and give them a big smile, and those children would walk all the way across the room with their mouths already open.

PHILLIPS: That gives me chills. Oh, Laurie Matthews, group director and co-founder of Global Dental Relief. What an amazing human being. Thank you so much for sharing the stories with us, Laurie.

MATTHEWS: OK, thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: You bet.

Koua Fong Lee is getting to know his wife and four children right now. He's making up for a lot of lost time. Lee spent three years in prison for a fatal crash. He was driving an older Camry, a 1996 model, not part of any of the recent recalls, by the way, and it accelerated suddenly, crashed and killed three people. Lee was convicted of criminal vehicular homicide and sentenced to eight years. But his claims of innocence combined with Toyota's recalls prompted to review of the case. Now, he's a free man.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOUA FONG LEE, RELEASED FROM PRISON: Sometimes, I dream and I wake up still in that little room, but now my dream come true.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: A family member of the people killed in the crash believe Lee, too. They can now turn their attention to Toyota and the possibility that a faulty Camry was responsible. One of Lee's kids was born after he went to prison. So, you can just imagine how much catching up he has to do, but he still had time to talk with our John Roberts on "American Morning." John, he got his life back, but boy, it got to be bittersweet.

JOHN ROBERTS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, it's really tough. He spent almost three years in jail. He got to spend his first weekend at home with the newest addition to his family that was born after he went to prison. He got to catch up with his wife again. Obviously, he's seen them while he's been in prison to come to visit, but to be backed home again was very, very special for him. You know, it was back in 2006, the family was coming back from Sunday services.

They were taking an exit ramp off I-94, and Koua Fong Lee says that he tried to apply the brakes, the car kept on moving, moving, moving. He tried to apply the brakes, nothing happened and then he smashed into that Buick that was carrying three people. Two of them died within hours of the accident. The other one died a little while later. And while he's very happy to be home, he carries with him the tragedy of that day.

He says that he understands how the family, even though they support his release, must feel, and it's something that really he's struggled with over this in the past three years. Here's what he told me this morning about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Yes, today I'm free now, so I feel very good to reunite with my family and to be with my family. But still in my mind -- this incident caused life, and even though I'm returning to my family, I'm free, but three people died on that day. They cannot return to their family.

ROBERTS: Yes. I'm sure it's difficult to deal with. You know, the family has supported your release from jail. I know that you haven't talked to them yet, but do you plan to have a conversation with them at some point?

LEE: Right now, it's - it's too soon, but in the future, I will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: You know, John, what's so disheartening is that if the recall would have never happened that this poor guy would probably still be in jail. And I understand, too, that even communication issues, he was judged by communication and told that he was just a bad driver and couldn't communicate what he needed to say, which it makes matters even worse.

It was sort of a double whammy against this guy, but his lawyer came forward and talked about this hot shock theory and how that plays into his case. Can you explain that?

ROBERTS: There are a couple things, Kyra. First of all, the prosecution insisted that the 1996 model Camry, which, we should point out by the way, was not subject to the recall, but suspicions have been raised about it after this and other incidents, but the prosecution said that this car was not equipped with ABS brakes, which meant that there should have been a skid mark if he indeed had applied the brakes and tried to stop before hitting the Buick carrying that family.

The car did have ABS brakes, so that would account for the lack of skid marks or very small ones, potentially, but what they're really focused on was what happened with one of the rear brake lights. Typically in a crash, the shock could break the filament inside the light. If the light hadn't been activated, the filament would be whole and would break off inside its mountains (ph) and just rattle around inside the dead bulb, but this filament actually kind of blew.

It disintegrated, which his attorney, Koua Fong Lee's attorney, suggests is proof that the brake light was activated and had been held down long enough that the filament got red hot. So that when the shock hit it, it disintegrated as opposed to just breaking off. And that's what Koua Fong Lee maintained. I had my foot on the brakes, the car just would not stop, and we know from hearing from other people, Kyra, that the engine can override the power of the brakes. So, it could be that then effect (ph) was what happened back in 2006.

PHILLIPS: As you mentioned, he got a lot of time to make up for with that new child and his family. Glad you had a chance to talk to him. We've been following the story for a long time, and it was great to finally hear from him. Thanks, John.

ROBERTS: You bet.

PHILLIPS: As far as reunions go, this one is a little different, shall we say. Alcatraz Alumni, yes, Alcatraz Alumni revisit the rock after many, many years. A nice place to visit, but they're glad they're not living there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Checking top stories. The manhunt for two Arizona prison escapees is underway and around Yellowstone National Park. The feds believe the two maybe hiding out there with a woman accomplice. These escapees are suspected in the killings of a couple in New Mexico.

Actress, Patricia Neal has died. She was 84. You remember, she won an academy award for her performance in the movie "Hut."

An international aid group that lost members in a violent attack in Afghanistan will not be pulling out of the country. Total of six Americans were among the ten aid workers gunned down one by one last week.

We all know the president has a passion for sports, especially basketball, but this was no ordinary pickup game. We'll explain coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Some pick up game. President Obama and some big name basketball stars. Let's face it. The man loves basketball. He plays it all the time. But this time, it was different. The pros played ball with the president at Fort McNair in Washington before an audience of wounded warriors. You can bet they didn't throw any elbows either and probably let the president a.k.a. the big O take any shot he wanted.

Checking stories in our0 political ticker. Mark Williams says he is rejoining the tea party movement. Williams tells CNN he is working to form a political action committee to elect conservative candidates. Williams recently resigned as Tea Party Express spokesperson after committing with he called a stupid and horrible gaffe. Williams came under fire for posting a blog of a fictional letter from what he called colored people to President Abraham Lincoln.

And Sarah Palin is stumping today for Georgia gubernatorial candidate, Karen Handel. Handel faces former congressman, Nathan Deal, in the GOP runoff tomorrow. Deal has another national Republican star in his corner, Mike Huckabee.

Now, this story outraged me, and it's going to outrage you, too, and you're going to want to help. Low lives steal a bicycle from a legally blind student, and guess what, this comes just a few months after an even more outrageous crime against this kid.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: Oh, yes, we couldn't resist playing a little Connery here from "The Rock". Remember his character as an ex-Alcatraz inmate who went back to help save San Francisco from annihilation?

In real life, another group of former Alcatrazers has been back to the island to remind the nation of the prison's place in history before it became a tourist attraction.

Ken Prichard of KTVU has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEN PRICHARD, REPORTER, KTVU (voice-over): Those who chose this day for a tour, their timing --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 76th anniversary of the opening of U.S. Penitentiary Alcatraz --

PRICHARD: -- was great.

At his desk in the main cell block was 75-year-old Jim Albright who still fits into his original uniform.

JIM ALBRIGHT, FORMER ALCATRAZ GUARD: I stayed here until '63 when it closed and I was the last guard out.

PRICHARD: The National Park Service calls Albright and other officers, inmates and residents the alumni of Alcatraz, a group which grows smaller with every passing year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bill Long (ph) passed away a couple of weeks ago and also Ned Uben (ph) --

JOHN CANTWELL, RANGER, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE: The average age is 80 years or better. So little by little we are losing some of that alumni.

PRICHARD: Park Ranger John Cantwell says Albright and others represent a living history, not just of the federal prison but also when it was a military prison prior to 1934.

BETTY LOU VICKERY, FORMER ALCATRAZ RESIDENT: When it was military, it was just perfect. Now I'm looking at all the paint peeling off the walls and I think, oh, good grief.

PRICHARD: Ninety three year-old Betty Lou Vickery says Alcatraz was pristine when she moved here in 1929 with her Army family. This is the first time she's returned since leaving at age 17.

VICKREY: I guess it is because I wanted to relive a little more of my life at that time. I'm getting old now and I just thought it would be nice.

ROBERT LUCAS, FORMER ALCATRAZ PRISONER: I come from Leavenworth; we were trying to escape.

PRICHARD: Robert Lucas says he felt trepidation returning to Alcatraz on this anniversary.

LUCAS: It looks probably about the same.

PRICHARD: The former prisoner has not set foot on "The Rock" since 1959. Today he shared his story with fascinated tourists. LUCAS: If can get it out. I'm not used to talking in front of people.

PRICHARD: But talking is what the Park Service hopes these alumni will do. Former Guard Albright put his story to paper and suggested former prisoner Lucas do the same and share his history of Alcatraz.

ALBRIGHT: I told him, you better write a book because once you're gone all the memories are gone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: All right, let's take a look at what we're working on in the next hour here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Phil Black in London, what do you have?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, another celebrity who's given evidence at the war crimes trial of the former Liberian leader Charles Taylor. This time it's the actress Mia Farrow. I'll have the details on what she said in court coming up at the top of the hour.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'm Matthew Chance in Moscow where wildfires continue to blanket the Russian capital here behind me in a thick, choking smog.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Elizabeth Cohen in Atlanta. Girls hitting puberty at age seven? A new study says it happens much more than you'd think. I have that at the top of the hour.

PHILLIPS: Thanks, guys.

We're about to start the top of the hour, a quick break. We'll be right back.

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PHILLIPS: Well, if you've gone through an airport in the past nine years, you know all of the efforts to discover terrorists before they strike; X-rays, metal detectors, body scans.

But what if the most dangerous thing they have hidden is in their minds? Researchers say they may be closer to be revealing that too.

CNN's Josh Levs is here to explain -- Josh.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there Kyra, you know, the researchers behind this are saying imagine a technology that lets you get inside the minds of terrorists and even learn specifics: how, when, where an attack might be attempted.

These researchers at Northwestern University say the idea is actually not that farfetched, given a study that they have just completed.

Now, here is the idea behind this. They asked some students to play mock terrorists, basically to sit down and plan an attack and for an example they used Houston. They said either plan a big attack in a city like Houston or plan a vacation, then in some other city, anywhere.

Then what they did was, they showed them computers with one thing reading the names of these cities and they studied the brain waves to see how these people responded to those cities appearing given what they had just planned.

And believe it or not, what they discovered here was that when they tracked the brain waves based on these responses that they got, they were actually able to detect which people among that group were planning terrorist attacks and which ones were just planning vacations in other cities.

And not only that, where they started to them some specific details as well, they track other brains' respond to that. They presented different kinds of weapons and explosives and they were presented different kinds of possible -- sort of specific scenarios and sites. And they watched their brain waves, and they are saying they accurately matched 20 out of 30 details and the test was 83 percent accurate in predicting concealed knowledge.

Now of course, I'm going to tell you it's not perfect science at this point and you do have to have a base of information to start with to even know what questions to ask, but the big idea here is that this could be a big step beyond just lie detectors. It could be a move forward in this realm of reading minds, ultimately reading brain waves.

Now, if you want to read more about this, this whole idea what they achieved, I've taken the study itself and also a write-up from our partners at Time.com. I put it up on my Facebook page that you can see. I'm at JoshLevsCNN.

And what you can do is learn more about the science and how this works. If you want to know the real science, they are called P-300 brain waves. And they send out these powerful signals.

So short version here, there certainly is a long way to go in developing the science to where it needs to be but a lot of people are very dissatisfied with the state of our lie detectors. This could be a big step forward and either way it is just one step towards a much larger realm where we're heading, Kyra.

More and more researchers out there, trying to learn how to read our minds. Back to you.

PHILLIPS: That's interesting.

LEVS: It is.

PHILLIPS: If we only had that ability, boy, what an interesting world it would be -- kind of scary.

LEVS: I was just thinking -- like it's not big brother enough these days with the cameras everywhere like you and I were talking about.

(CROSS TALKING)

PHILLIPS: The last thing we need to do is how to read people's minds, although some people claim they can do it -- kind of frightening.

LEVS: Yes. You got it.

PHILLIPS: This story just outraged me and I hope it will outrage you, too, and make you want to help.

Listen to this. Twenty-year-old Phil Sporer is a college student in St. Paul. He's legally blind but he can ride his bicycle for short distances when it's bright outside. It actually helps him see better, obviously.

Some low lives actually picked the lock on his bike last week and just rode off with it. This was a bike that he worked very hard to buy with his own money in an attempt to lead as normal of a life as possible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL SPORER, BIKE WAS STOLEN: Came over to where I locked my bike up, and the bike was gone. It sucker punched me in the side of the head. I had a part time job in the spring and finally made up enough money to buy it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would like to have the persons that did it return the bike.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: So would we. That was Phil's mom, by the way.

What makes this all the more infuriating, six months ago, two men approached Phil downtown, punched him and stole his especially made laptop that cost $2,000. This just takes bullying to a whole new level doesn't it -- punks with no conscience picking on someone with limited sight, who is actually trying to make something of his life and be a productive citizen?

We want St. Paul police to find these guys responsible. And we want Phil to get all his stuff back.

So we're going to talk to Phil next hour, but if you want to help out right now, you can actually send donations to Phil's church, Our Savior's Lutheran Church care of Claudia Brumm, 674 Johnson Parkway, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55106.

Let's start with trying to get him a bike.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIA FARROW, ACTRESS: Miss Campbell entered the room. My children and I were already eating breakfast, and as I recall it, she was quite excited and said, in effect, oh, my God, in the middle of the night last night or last night I was awakened by knocking at the door, and it was men sent by Charles Taylor, and he sent me, as I recall, a huge diamond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: The dictator, the supermodel and now the actress. Mia Farrow has been the star witness today in the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor. He's the former leader of Liberia accused of stirring up the brutal civil war across the border in Sierra Leone and using diamonds to pay for those atrocities.

Prosecutors have been trying to link Taylor to those blood diamonds to help their case. Last week, they put Naomi Campbell. She said some mystery men gave her diamonds back in 1997 after a dinner in South Africa but she claims she didn't know for sure that Taylor sent them.

That's where Mia Farrow comes in. She was at that dinner also, and so was Charles Taylor for that matter. They were all guests at a dinner hosted by Nelson Mandela.

Farrow told the court that Campbell knew a big, fat diamond came from the dictator and even said so. And that throws a wrench in Campbell's testimony.