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Chism Indicted; "Catching Fire" in Theaters; Mrs. Kennedy's Iconic Suit, 50 Years Later
Aired November 22, 2013 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Warning about the economy. And Black Friday, Christine, just a week away. Expectations aren't high for consumers getting out there and spending a lot this holiday season. So some are saying you know what, the market may have got a little ahead of itself, maybe so as actually the Dow opens a little bit lower.
Christine.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Ah, a little bit lower. We'll continue to watch it throughout the day. Alison Kosik at the big board. Thanks, Alison.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's take a look at some of the top stories of the day right now.
Three college students have been charged with a hate crime against their black roommate.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Justice!
CROWD: No peace!
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BERMAN: The case of racial bullying has triggered demonstrations on the campus of San Jose State University. Prosecutors say the students decorated their four-bedroom suite with a confederate flag, Nazi symbols and a white board with the "n" word scrawled on it. The three are also accused of chaining up the 17-year-old with a bike lock.
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ERIN WEST, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Three roommates took a u-shaped bicycle lock and the three of them forced it around his neck. And once they had it locked around his neck, they forced him to remain in it, saying that they didn't know where the key was.
SHAMARI BELL, STUDENT: The chain around the young man's neck, that's something that can be -- that's not forgivable to me because that represents the oppression that our people have gone through.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: Prosecutors say the defendants face a maximum sentence of one year in jail if convicted. This is a pretty shocking story. And we'll have a live report from San Jose in the next hour.
Thousands of child abuse reports in Arizona have been ignored. That's according to the state's welfare system director. Governor Jan Brewer released a statement regarding the report saying, quote, "the most urgent priority is to ensure that each one of the children involved in these cases is safe. Every case must be investigated, no exceptions, no excuses." The cases date as far back as 2009. The state director says it is unknown if any of those children are still at risk.
ROMANS: All right, a hearing is underway this morning, this hour, for a Massachusetts teen accused of killing a teacher. A grand jury indicted 14-year-old Philip Chism yesterday. Investigators say that Colleen Ritzer, his teacher, was killed in a girl's bathroom at Danvers High School. Then her body was dumped outside. CNN's Pamela Brown has been covering this story really from the beginning and she's covering the case for us this morning.
Good morning.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: You are right there, Christine and John. I was actually in Danvers right after this teacher was murdered and it really stunned the community and now we're learning now - of we're learning more horrific details in this story. In fact, we have obtained the murder indictment. We obtained that yesterday for 14- year-old Philip Chism. And he will now be tried as an adult in superior court for that charge.
And we're also learning that he faces two additional charges for aggravated rape and armed robbery. As of now, he's being charged as a youthful offender for those. The armed robbery indictment alleges that Chism, armed with a box cutter, robbed Ritzer of credit cards, an iPhone and her underwear. The aggravated rape indictment alleges that he sexually assaulted her with an object. So this is new information we're learning and it just - you know, this story, from the beginning, has been so devastating, so horrific, and it's just --
ROMANS: It's a teacher that everyone really loved.
BROWN: She was beloved.
ROMANS: And it's a community where no one thought something like this could happen. I mean that sounds cliche, but that's exactly what so many people who knew her are saying.
BROWN: Right. I mean it just doesn't make sense to anyone. She was a beloved math teacher, so enthusiastic about her job. Everyone I spoke with truly loved her and Philip Chism, her student in her math class, was a quite student. Apparently didn't talk much. But no one thought he was capable of allegedly doing something like this. And what we still don't know is why he did it, the motive.
BERMAN: That's exactly what I was going to ask. And the more details that come out, it's more and more deeply troubling, but authorities still give no reason what may have triggered it.
BROWN: No. And, honestly, they don't have to give a reason in court. I spoke to the D.A.'s office and they said, we may never find out what the motive is.
ROMANS: Do we know anything about the moments leading up to this attack?
BROWN: Well, we know that he was in class with Colleen Ritzer, math class. It was the last class of the day. And I actually spoke to a student who saw the two together after the class, about an hour after class ended. Fifteen minutes late, according to a source, Chism followed Ritzer into a regular girls bathroom on the second floor and he allegedly beat her and assaulted her with a box cutter before putting her body in a recycling bin and dumping it in the back of the school.
ROMANS: There's video surveillance that the police have gone over.
BROWN: There's video surveillance that they've been combing through and obviously they have spoken to him and he apparently has incriminated himself in some of the interviews he's done with police, which we learned in the very beginning. But again, we don't know whether he has actually admitted to why he did it yet. That's just not - that's not publicly available information at this stage.
BERMAN: We may never know. Pamela Brown, thanks so much.
BROWN: Thank you.
BERMAN: Appreciate it.
ROMANS: All right, still to come this hour, "Hunger Games," the film's sequel now in theaters and living up to its name.
BERMAN: "Catching Fire" is already a hit with teens and their parents and we will hear from star Jennifer Lawrence, like one of the biggest stars on earth, coming up next.
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BERMAN: May the odds be ever in your favor. I've been dying to say that. Katniss Everdeen is back as "The Hunger Games" heads into theater this weekend.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Katniss Everdeen is a symbol. You don't have to destroy her, just her image. Show them that she is one of us now. Let them rally behind that.
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ROMANS: "Catching Fire," the second film in "The Hunger Games" trilogy. Right now it's the easy favorite to take the top spot at the weekend box office. Nischelle Turner has the story for us. And, you know, she has become -
NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
ROMANS: Five years ago we didn't know who she was. Now she's, what, the top grossing, you know, heroine on TV.
TURNER: Yes. You know, we were all sitting here talking about it and there were so many wows, wow.
ROMANS: Right.
TURNER: Did you - did you believe that. But, yes, the odds are definitely in favor that this movie is going to clean up at the box office this weekend. There won't be anything close to it this weekend. The film could potentially bring in over $150 million domestically, $300 million plus worldwide over the weekend. That's crazy. Exactly, John Berman.
BERMAN: No one's going hungry at "The Hunger Games."
TURNER: Nobody's going hungry from "The Hunger Games." It's in more than 4,000 theaters and most of them had 8:00 screenings last night, trending already very well. The first "Hunger Games" made $152 million in its opening weekend. That was back in March of 2012. The first movie in all made $691 million. It also made Miss Jennifer Lawrence a superstar. She is the "it" girl in Hollywood. Only 23. Already has a best actress Oscar. And according to "Forbes," she's the second highest paid actress in Hollywood, just behind Angelina Jolie. That's crazy. She made an estimated $26 million last year. Also, the first "Hunger Games" movie, she made $500,000. For this "Hunger Games" movie, she made $10 million.
ROMANS: Yes. That's pay for performance, baby.
TURNER: That - yes, it is. That's quite a raise.
But as far as loving the lime light, guys, she doesn't so much. She's still trying to figure all of that out. And we talked about that when I sat down with her last week. Listen to this.
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JENNIFER LAWRENCE, ACTRESS, "HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE": It literally the day the movie was released, I had no idea I was like famous yet or that anybody had seen it. I don't actually think I knew the movie came out that day. Drove (ph) to Whole Foods, had the worst experience of my life. So I will not go to Whole Foods -
TURNER: What happened? That's hilarious.
LAWRENCE: Whole Foods had to call the police and I had to go down the like - the like cargo elevator and I was crying. It's just really sad.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Geez.
LAWRENCE: Yes. Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whole Foods makes me so happy.
LAWRENCE: And I saw my ex-boyfriend there and he's like, how's your life? And I was like, really bad. He was like the worst.
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TURNER: Now, huh? That fellow still looking at her saying, "how's your life"?
ROMANS: She's so down to earth.
TURNER: Exactly. By the way, she's also the new face of Miss Dior, the handbag line.
BERMAN: That's different than regular Dior.
TURNER: That's regular - that's different than regular Dior, but this also reportedly an eight-figure deal.
ROMANS: What?
TURNER: She's money in Hollywood. And you all know if you're money in Hollywood, that's gold. I mean --
ROMANS: And she is 23 years old, so she's got to be so smart about what she does next, how - what -- the film she picks, the endorsements she does, because at 23 she's got a very long multimillion-dollar career ahead of her.
TURNER: Right. Well, she's got the "X-Men" coming out, the next "X- Men" movie -
ROMANS: Right.
TURNER: Which is going to be another huge blockbuster. She's also reuniting with David O. Russell and Bradley Cooper, which she won the Oscar with them for "Silver Linings Playbook" last year, reuniting with them for "American Hustle" that comes out in December.
ROMANS: That already looks good.
TURNER: It does. It's also Amy Adams and Christian Bale.
ROMANS: Yes.
TURNER: It looks really, really good.
BERMAN: Here's the thing. She's very talented also.
TURNER: Oh, indeed. And she lets her work speak for herself a lot. I mean she's very candid and refreshing, and that's what Hollywood loves about her too. I mean she'll tell you, I don't diet, I don't want to, leave me alone. She talked to me openly about, you know, the issue she has with the paparazzi, how she has anxiety when she goes out and she's really trying to come to grips with being OK saying no. She's very refreshing. And that's what people love about her. And she - you know, she just seems like a good spirit. She's from Louisville, Kentucky. She's a regular girl. She's got a great family that has definitely supported her. She was just with her brother at "David Letterman" the other night and she just seems like a very grounded girl.
ROMANS: There's two ways you can go when you strap on that rocket.
TURNER: Indeed.
ROMANS: You know, you can either go, you know, right to the top and your personal life falls apart, or you can be yourself and we hope she can be herself and make a lot of money and enjoy it.
BERMAN: She's doing OK.
ROMANS: And not get ruined by how -
TURNER: I've seen the movie twice by the way, guys, it's good.
BERMAN: Yes.
TURNER: It's good.
ROMANS: Is it?
TURNER: Uh-huh. Very good.
ROMANS: All right, Nischelle Turner. Thank you, Nischelle.
BERMAN: Thank you so much.
All right, moving on now. It has been locked up and hidden from the public. How the pink suit that Jackie Kennedy wore the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated, how it won't be made public for 100 years.
ROMANS: This as we remember JFK's life 50 years since his assassination on CNN today.
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ROMANS: Forty-six minutes past the hour. Checking "Top Stories" this morning.
Police say a bomb was put inside a child's teddy bear and then left in a North Carolina neighborhood. According to CNN affiliate WSOC a man on a paper route found this bear, took it home and then called the cops later when he saw wires were attached to the toy and said it smelled like gasoline. Police are investigating.
BERMAN: Disturbing.
A safety warning for parents, 600,000 baby monitors are being recalled after two infants were strangled to death. A government watch group says cords on the Angel Care movement and sound baby monitor can be dangerous if a child pulls it into the crib and wraps it around the neck. Consumers can contact the company for a repair kit.
ROMANS: $290 million, that's how much a jury has ordered Samsung to pay Apple after Samsung was found guilty of patent infringement. These two tech giants are locked in a series of lawsuits over smart phone technology. This latest judgment is on top of the $640 million Samsung already owes Apple from an earlier settlement in the same suit. Both sides will likely appeal.
BERMAN: Prosecutors are appealing a ruling granting a new trial for Michael Skakel. Skakel walked out of a Connecticut courthouse after he was granted $1.2 million bail. Skakel spent more than a decade in prison for the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley. A judge overturned Skakel's verdict last month ruling that he was poorly represented.
ROMANS: All right 50 years ago today First Lady Jackie Kennedy dressed up in a bright pink suit as she accompanied her husband on what would be a fateful trip to Dallas. Now the suit is an iconic image of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, it's a symbol not only of what happened in Dallas but also of her grace in the face of unspeakable tragedy.
BERMAN: CNN's Randi Kaye has more on where that suit is now.
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RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In the words of President John F. Kennedy she looked smashing in it, which may be why the President asked Jackie Kennedy to wear her now famous watermelon pink suit to Dallas on November 22nd, 1963.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The usual welcoming committee presents Mrs. Kennedy with a bouquet of red roses.
KAYE: It looked like Coco Chanel but her suit was actually a knock off made in America. The First Lady had worn it at least six times before that fateful day. Here she is in 1962 awaiting the arrival of the Prime Minister of Algeria, that's John Junior in her arms.
In Dallas on November 22nd at this Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce breakfast, the President even joked about his wife's fashion sense.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Nobody wonders what Lyndon and I wear.
KAYE: Later that day, President Kennedy would be dead, and the First Lady's stunning pink suit, stained forever with her husband's blood, would begin a long and mysterious journey. When aids suggested she change her clothes after the shooting, she refused. Philip Shenon wrote a book about the Kennedy assassination.
PHILLIP SHENON, AUTHOR, "A CRUEL AND SHOCKING ACT": Her remark and I think she made it more than once "no, I'm going to leave these clothes on I want them to see what they have done.
KAYE: Hours later, Mrs. Kennedy continued to wear the suit during the emergency swearing in of Lyndon Johnson as president.
SHENON: That whole scene is obviously just surreal. She arrives in the cabin of Air Force One in these clothes covered with the President's blood and expected to stand there and witness the -- the swearing in of her husband's successor.
KAYE: Mrs. Kennedy was still in her suit when she arrived later that evening at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland where she received her husband's body. The President's brother at her side in the middle of the night.
Once at the White House, her personal maid put the suit in a bag so Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't have to look at it. Then, sometime in 1964, the blood-stained suit arrived here, at the National Archives Building in the nation's capitol. It came in a box along with a handwritten note from Jackie Kennedy's mother on her personal stationary. It read, simply, "Jackie's suit and bag, worn November 22nd, 1963."
KAYE (on camera): All this time Mrs. Kennedy's pink suit has been forbidden from public view and will likely stay that way for a very long time. In 2003 after her mother's death, Caroline Kennedy gave the suit to the people of the United States with the understanding that it wouldn't be put on public display for 100 years until 2103. And even then the Kennedy family must be consulted before any attempt is made to display the suit. All in an effort to avoid sensationalizing that horrible act.
(voice over): And it's believed only a handful of people, maybe only as few as two, have seen the suit since. Along with the suit and also hidden from view in the new archives in Maryland, the blue blouse Mrs. Kennedy wore in Dallas, her stockings, blue shoes, and blue purse. What they don't have is the First Lady's pink pill box hat.
SHENON: The hat is a mystery. The hat apparently goes to the Secret Service initially and the Secret Service turns it over to Mrs. Kennedy's private secretary and then it disappears. It has not been seen since.
KAYE: The archive is making every effort to preserve the suit. It's stored in a windowless vault in an acid free container where the air is changed every 20 minutes or so to properly maintain the wool and cloth. It is kept at a temperature of 65 to 68 degrees, which is best for the fabric.
The suit story, a perfect ending for a First Lady who craved privacy after so much pain.
Randi Kaye, CNN, Los Angeles.
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ROMANS: That was last bright moments of American history and then it was dark and gray for a very long time.
BERMAN: A metaphor (inaudible) we'll continue to remember JFK throughout the day as we mark 50 years since the assassination. Do not forget to watch our documentary, "The Assassination of President Kennedy." That starts tonight at 10:00 right here on CNN.
ROMANS: New next hour a Massachusetts state chemist fakes tests results in criminal cases, putting thousands of convictions at risk. And now she may be headed to jail. We're going to have the latest in this stunning case coming up.
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BERMAN: Two teams going in very different directions showcased on Thursday night football. Drew Brees and the red hot Saints is taking on the struggling Atlanta Falcons.
ROMANS: Andy Scholes has the highlights in this morning's Bleacher Report. Give it to us.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Hey, good morning guys
Before this season, it was the Falcons, not the Saints that were the super bowl favorites. But it certainly hasn't worked out that way. Second quarter last night jimmy graham is going to haul in a 44-yard touchdown. And he's going to celebrate by dunking on the field goal post, but check it out. He's going to accidentally bend the post. Stadium workers had to come out and fix it causing a brief delay. And the New Orleans high-scoring offense didn't put up huge numbers in this game but they did enough to beat the Falcons 17-13 sending that young fan home very said.
A-Rod's grievance hearing Major League Baseball wrapped up yesterday with both sides resting their cases. This comes just a day after the Yankee's third baseman angrily storm out of the hearing and decided not to testify in his own defense. A decision from the arbitrator is expected in late December or early January A-Rod's lawyers are already vowing to challenge the ruling in federal court if it doesn't go their way.
Turning on BleacherReport.com, it happened again in Oklahoma City. For the second straight day, a fan hit a half-court shot to win $20,000. And this is getting pretty ridiculous. Brad Brocker (ph) is the fifth Thunder fan to knock down the shot this calendar year. But hey guys, he's the only one that got to celebrate with Jay-Z and Beyonce; they were sitting courtside at the game.
All right, want to own a piece of Red Sox History? Here is your chance. Gillette and a few Red Sox players teamed up to shave their beards and they're auctioning off the razor, along with the facial hair for charity. Take a look, this is a ball of hair that came straight from the favorite Shane Victorino. It's on eBay right now. Going for more than 16,000. Big Papi's beard right now is at $4,500.
And Christine it's weird. Big Papi's have beard auction has over a hundred bid and half the bid are a J. Berman.
BERMAN: There's something so gross and so awesome about this all at the same time. I just don't know how to react.
ROMANS: You already bought the locket. SCHOLES: Yes, exactly, the lot.
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: Andy Scholes -- thanks Andy.
SCHOLES: All right. Appreciate it.
ROMANS: Next hour of CNN "NEWSROOM" begins after a real quick break.
All right. I lied. We're back right now.
Good morning everyone. I'm Christine Romans.
BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. Carol Costello is off today. And this morning everyone cross this country remembering the moment when President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed r50 years ago today. Flags at half staff this hour. This, a picture of the White House live right now.
ROMANS: and for the first time ever, Dallas, the city of Dallas will officially commemorate the assassination. This afternoon the bells will toll at Dealy Plaza. Then at the exact moment of the shooting, 1:00 Eastern Time; there will be a moment of silence.
Meanwhile, at Arlington National Cemetery, a wreath laying at the graveside of JFK. That of course, is the eternal flames still burning. And today, CNN, has a new snapshot about how Americans today are remembering the President.
ROMANS: A new CNN or poll shows he has a 90 percent approval rating today among people, far higher than any other president in the last half of the century.
BERMAN: Obviously still people -- people still holding very close to their hearts. So let's go live to Dallas right now where a lot of the activity will go on today. CNN's Ed Lavandera is there. Good morning Ed.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN HOST: Good morning guys well, the ceremony is expected to start here in about two and a half hours. And already we're seeing the crowd beginning to fill up. 5,000 invited people. You have to have a ticket to get into Dealy Plaza today. All streets surrounding Dealey Plaza cordoned off for this ceremony.
