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Tornado Aftermath Coverage Continues; London Terror Attack Detailed; A Look at Saferooms; Oddly Prescient Video from a Woman Who Later Disappeared

Aired May 23, 2013 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back here to special coverage of the tornado aftermath in Moore, Oklahoma.

We're going to take you back to that in a moment, but first, to the terror attack in London, not a bombing but the bloody public murder of a British soldier.

London Metropolitan Police have just tweeted they arrested two more people they say are connected to the killing. The ministry of defense has now identified the victim, Lee Rigby was a father of a two-year- old boy, an infantry machine gunner in the British army as well as being a drummer.

His captain said, as they called him, "Riggers" was, quote, "cheeky and humorous" and, quote, "always there with a joke to brighten the mood."

The two men who allegedly ran him over and hacked him to death with knives used him as payback for as, one explained it, Muslims killed in the world.

The British domestic security service says investigators had heard of the suspects from previous investigations. However, the two men, ages 22 and 28, arrested yesterday after being wounded by police were not under surveillance.

Their names have not been released, but a friend of one of the suspected terrorists is defending the man he knows.

Senior international correspondent Dan Rivers was the one who talked to the friend. He joins me now live from London.

And, Dan, what did this friend tell you?

DAN RIVERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting. We know that Michael Adebolajo has been on the periphery of these extremist groups since about 2006. We know he converted to Islam from Christianity in 2003.

Abu Barra, who is someone that I have interviewed several times before, said that he knew him and, in fact, this guy, Abu Barra, had been put in prison for encouraging his followers to kill British soldiers in Iraq and, in fact, this guy, Michael Adebolajo who is the main suspect in this case, was arrested, we understand, at a protest during that trial for Abu Bara.

Here's what Abu told me about his so-called friend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABU BARRA, FRIEND OF ALLEGED KILLER OF SOLDIER: I mean, he's always been very vocal and very concerned about the affairs of Muslims and people being oppressed, and he could never tolerate anybody to be really be oppressed and without to do or say anything and really felt very frustrated and helpless when he couldn't.

As a person, he was always very caring, very concerning. He's always had a heart for other people and just wanted to help everybody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERS: Pretty difficult to listen to him describing him as caring and thinking about the people when you compare that to the images of Michael Adebolajo covered in blood, holding a meat cleaver and a knife after killing that soldier.

BALDWIN: Absolutely disgusting and gruesome. Dan Rivers in London, Dan, appreciate it.

Back here in Moore, Oklahoma, many, many schools, in addition to all of these homes and neighborhoods, the schools suffering major damage.

But today, schools are still opening their doors, at least the schools, I should say, that are still standing, opening their doors to young people, to the students from all schools on what would have been the last day of classes.

Brand new video of these reunions, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You know today was scheduled to be the last day of school for many kids in Moore, Oklahoma. Typically it's a happy time for your kids, right? Usually time to celebrate?

But after Monday's storm destroyed two elementary schools here in town, hundreds of those kids didn't have a school to go to.

So two schools in the area were absolutely untouched by the storm so they today opened their doors to the survivors of the tornado, to these young people to come together.

Ed Lavandera has that story. Ed, how was it? What were the students telling you?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, we had some great conversations with the students, first of all. We'll get to that in a moment. But we spoke with a lot of the parents who were coming here who really kind of felt like they needed to be. This is first time that they'd had a chance to reunite with those teachers that jumped into action, did whatever they could do to keep as many students safe as possible.

And so an extremely traumatic situation that they've been going through. They had a couple hours today.

What was interesting is, Brooke, is that a lot of these kids walked toward this school this morning. As we watched them, a lot of them were clutching cards and letters that they had written for their teachers and were walking in with them.

And when they came out of the school this morning, they were all carrying either stuffed animals, they had been given new backpacks, they had been given balloons as well, things that would help them soothe them, make them feel better and a lot of crying, a lot of talking about what they had been going through.

And really what we heard from one mother you will listen to here, it's been so chaotic in the last few days that they have spent so much time just trying to figure out how everybody is doing, getting in touch with other friends, classmates and teachers, just to get a sense of how everyone has made it through and how they're doing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLIE RAMIREZ, MOTHER OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENT: I just kept telling her everything is going to be OK.

She asked, what about my friends? I said your friends are fine. They all left school when you left school.

And then her next thing was, my teachers, and then they have fifth graders who are their "book buddies" that go to the library with them and read books, and that's all she wanted to know about was her "book buddy" and her teacher.

So I contacted another teacher through Facebook and found out that they were all OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: Brooke, you know I had a chance to speak with several little stunts this morning, first graders, third graders. And I just kept asking them over and over, what is it that you wanted to tell your teacher?

And almost every single one of them simply responded by just saying, I just wanted to tell them that I love them. And that was about it.

BALDWIN: Incredible. Ed Lavandera, thank you.

I talked to a mom today who sent her two kids off to school, and she was thrilled that they could speak with other students but she also said she wanted to send them off because she needed to cry. Ed Lavandera, thank you so much.

And, as Ed mentioned, some students and teachers huddled in their schools to stay safe from tornadoes, that the winds from Monday.

So now there is a growing push to make these buildings safer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Living in Oklahoma, tornado shelters should be in every school.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Coming up next, we are going to talk to a safe room expert about how to build a room that can possibly protect hundreds of kids at one time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You are watching CNN's special coverage here of the disaster in Oklahoma.

Some people rode out the storms in their basements, those who had basements, or in a vault like safe room. One place that didn't have the safe rooms, the elementary school where seven children lost their lives.

And now a lot of parents are coming forward and they're saying that every school should absolutely be required to have some sort of safe room.

Andrew Zagorski joins me now. He's a co-owner of OZ Saferooms, which are these huge concrete structures to, as you say, they've been proven to avoid destruction from an EF-5 hit.

ANDREW ZAGORSKI, CO-OWNER, OZ SAFEROOMS: Correct.

BALDWIN: Explain how they work.

ZAGORSKI: What separates us from any other mason in the world is the process in which we pour the concrete. We pour the footers, the floors, the walls, and the ceiling in one continuous pour.

My father has been working very hard with RIT and, actually, before we go out and tell families, look, here, get inside this safe room, we test our structures to make sure that they work because that's what we're running into, a lot of fly-by-night companies that are playing a guessing game.

So we worked with RIT, Rochester Institute of Technology, to do extreme testing on our safe rooms.

BALDWIN: Because we should point out, I said, you're not an Okie. You don't sound like an Okie. You're from upstate New York.

ZAGORSKI: I'm from upstate New York.

BALDWIN: Your dad was contacted by FEMA, actually, to do this and so you all have now moved to Oklahoma.

ZAGORSKI: Yes.

BALDWIN: But I'm thinking and I'm thinking our viewers are thinking, you've got to be kidding me. The idea of a concrete structure, above ground, is going to withstand the wind power of an EF-5?

ZAGORSKI: Well, you know, our smallest safe room weighs over 40,000 pounds. Our ceilings are 18-inches thick, our walls are eight-inches thick, and our footing and floor is 28-inches thick, and we form it and pour it in one piece.

There's no joints in the structure. Whenever you have a joint in a structure, it will come apart.

BALDWIN: What's the price tag?

ZAGORSKI: We start them at $8,000 installed for our single-family unit.

BALDWIN: So the issue with the schools, Andrew, at Plaza Towers Elementary School, for example, there was no safe room. There was no shelter whatsoever.

The question is, when you have a school, right, a first, second, third, fourth, fifth -- let's just give an example -- of hundreds of kids, how do you build one single room to hold them?

ZAGORSKI: Well, that's what my father is working on right now. He's working with Rochester Institute of Technology on designing community shelters, and we're going for funding, so we can test these structures before we actually go and put lives in them.

They have to be tested before we use them, so that's what they're working on right now.

BALDWIN: Good luck. I know a lot of parents are saying, we have to get those shelters ASAP.

Andrew Zagorski with OZ Saferooms, thank you very much.

ZAGORSKI: Thank you very much.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, we are getting new video of a woman last seen back in 2009, and what Susan Powell says is raising a lot of eyebrows about her disappearance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POWELL: Covering all my bases, making sure that if something happens to me or my family or all of us, that our assets are documented.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: In addition to this video, we're also learning about some telling things in her diary.

We're going to talk to Susan Powell's sister. Did she know about this? We'll get her reaction, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: For more than three years, you have seen her face in news stories and on missing posters, but now you can hear Susan Powell, a Utah mother who vanished in Utah back in 2009.

She's in this home video that investigators just released along with 30,000 pages of documents as they are officially end their search for her.

I want to play part of this. This is Susan Powell, talking about her husband, Josh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POWELL: And Josh felt the need to bust a hole in the wall. We're hiding it with this picture.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: See that? The hole in the wall? Just a hint of the violence many suspect Josh was capable of.

And Utah police say Josh was a prime suspect in her disappearance, but no body has ever been found.

Josh will never be arrested. Last year, he blew up his rental home, killing himself and the couple's young sons, Braden, just five, and Charlie, seven-years-old.

You catch glimpses of the boys in the video that Susan shot. This was back in 2008 during her inventory of her home.

And while the video is most definitely telling, it's Powell's diary, the pages on the diary, even more so. She talks about the possibility of something happening to her.

Brian Carlson from our Utah affiliate, KTVX, has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POWELL: This is me, July 29th, 2008.

BRIAN CARLSON, KTVX (voice-over): It's as if Susan Cox Powell is speaking from beyond the grave.

POWELL: Covering all my bases, making sure that if something happens to me or my family or all of us that our assets are documented.

CARLSON (voice-over): Before she disappeared in December 2009, Susan went around her west valley home and documented all of her and her family's belongings, just in case.

POWELL: And I had necklaces, too. I don't know where those are. Got in a rage as you can see and broke this. There's studs and pearls and opals in there.

Broke this and threw all my DVDs and made a mess because he was angry at me. This was about a year or two back.

CARLSON (voice-over): Susan was so afraid of what her husband Josh Powell might do she wrote a secret will and testament dated just one month earlier and kept it in a safety deposit box with explicit instructions Josh was not allowed to see it.

Inside, she writes, "For mine and my children's safety, I feel the need to have a paper trail at work which would not be accessible to my husband."

She says, "I want it documented somewhere that there is extreme turmoil in our marriage."

She says Josh threatened her that if they got a divorce, quote, "There will be no lawyers, only a mediator, and I will ruin you. You, Susan, would be destroyed. Your life would be over, and the boys will not grow up with a mom and dad."

That may explain why Susan next wrote, "I want my marriage to work out."

But Susan describes how nothing she tried seemed to work. "He doesn't want to do counseling and says, if I were to buy groceries for cheap sale prices that he would be happy with this well-purchased bargain- deal food in his stomach, would make him happy and our marital problems would be solved."

As if believing her efforts would fail, she finishes the letter saying, "If I die, it may not be an accident, even if it looks like one."

Then when she appears to run out of room, she goes back to the first page and in the corner writes to two names that were blacked out, saying, "I would never leave you."

POWELL: I hope everything works out and we're all happy and live happily ever after as much as that's possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: And she rolls her eyes there at the end of the video. That is Brian Carlson from our affiliate, KTVX reporting.

We should mention at least Josh Powell maintained his innocence.

I want to bring in now Susan Powell's sister. She is Denise Cox, joining me now, Denise, thank you.

First question, when I was seeing this video and reading these diary entries, did you have any idea that your sister Susan was feeling this way?

DENISE COX, SUSAN POWELL'S SISTER: Oh, plenty. We talked a lot.

We were experiencing similar situations and she was talking about leaving him, giving him until their anniversary, their wedding anniversary, and if things didn't change, she was going to leave him because things were really bad.

BALDWIN: How did you advise her, sisterly advice, when she would tell you those things, that she wanted to leave?

COX: Getting out of a relationship myself that was abusive, I told her that she needs to get away. It's going to get worse. It's not going to get any better. He's not going to change, and he's set in his ways.

She refused to believe it. She thought that she could change him and counseling would solve everything. Even though she was going to counseling by herself.

BALDWIN: By herself.

Let me just take you back to one quote that we pulled from Susan's will as KTVX was reporting.

This is what your sister wrote. Quote, "If I die, it may not be an accident even if it looks like one."

How do you interpret that as her sister?

COX: On more than one occasion, she would tell me that Josh would say that if she left him over his dead body or over her dead body would she ever get the boys from him.

And that was the main reason I believe she didn't leave him, because she believed him.

He had put her down enough, emotionally and mentally, where she actually believed that she wouldn't get custody of the boys no matter what I told her.

BALDWIN: Denise, we know that this case is still open but the west valley city police say the search for the body is over. Is that good enough for you?

COX: No. No, I believe three-and-a-half years with such a high- profile case, with all the ups and downs we've been through, three- and-a-half years is not nearly enough.

I don't believe they've finished searching and I don't believe they should stop searching. They need to dig deeper and need to work harder.

I believe that we are -- it's coming up, I'm hoping we're coming really close and I don't want to give up now.

BALDWIN: I hear you use the word "hope" and I'm sure you hang on to it as much as you can.

Have you at all come to terms with the fact that Susan's body, your sister's body, may never be found?

COX: I have, but that doesn't make me give up hope that it will be found or the thought of wanting to keep looking for her.

I will never give up looking for her because she is a -- she was a huge part of my life and I'm not going to give up on her. She wouldn't want me to. She would want to be laid to rest with her boys.

BALDWIN: Denise Cox, I wish you well in finding that. Thank you so much.

I should also point out we reached out to Josh Powell's sister, regarding some of the video and diary entries and she has not gotten back to us.

Once again, switching gears, we're back in Moore, Oklahoma, in the aftermath as people are picking up the pieces. I had a chance to walk one of the neighborhoods. This is what I found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: You walk down the streets and you look left and you look right and it's just destruction as far as the eye can see. But this just shows how crazy the wind was.

This is the first time I've seen -- this is obviously some sort of VW Bug picked up by the winds, put on its side right here on the street and then obviously the contents spilling out of it.

High heels, a handbag, some crayons maybe from a child, but this, this is what people are coming home to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And thank you so much for being with me. We will be back here tomorrow live in Moore, Oklahoma. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

For now, "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts now.