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CNN Live Saturday

Missing Bride-to-Be Located; Combing for Evidence in Mass Grave in Iraq

Aired April 30, 2005 - 14:00   ET

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

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


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it's 2:00 in Duluth, Georgia; noon in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The two cities directly involved in a reported missing person case. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at CNN's global headquarters in Atlanta.
Ahead this hour:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELINDA LARSON, FRIEND OF JENNIFER WILBANKS: I'm certain that it's just a wave of emotion people are experiencing right now. It's shocking, it's overwhelming and it's baffling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Baffling, indeed. The incredible story of what turned out to be a runaway bride. What looked like a hot crime story turned out simply to be the case of cold feet.

Also, caught on tape. The anatomy of a hate crime. The inside story of how the man who threw the Molotov cocktail couldn't throw police off of his trail.

Those stories in a moment. But first, the headlines.

The U.S. Army has cleared American soldiers involved in last month's shooting death of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq. A report released today recommends no disciplinary action. The agent was shot at a checkpoint in Baghdad while trying to get out of the country with a just-released hostage, an Italian journalist.

One the key figures in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal apparently is about to enter a plea ahead of her scheduled trial. The lawyer representing Private First Class Lynndie England says she will plead guilty Monday to seven charges in a military court. Her trial had been scheduled to begin on Tuesday at Ft. Hood, Texas. England's lawyer says under the plea deal, his client will face a maximum of 11 years in prison.

Two attacks today in Egypt's capital killed at least three people and wounded seven others. The first was a bombing near the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo. The second attack came about a half an hour later, when two veiled women opened fire in an area here in the Nile river. One of the suspects was killed in a shoot-out with police.

Disappointment and embarrassment: how a family pastor says they are feeling about Jennifer Wilbanks' staged appearance and alleged abduction. Four days after the Georgia bride disappeared, the 32- year-old resurfaces, alive and well, but admitting she ran away because of cold feet. Her wedding was to have taken place tonight.

Overnight, Wilbanks turned up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, first claiming she was kidnapped. Then, admitting it was a lie. She admitted that instead of going out for a jog last Tuesday, she hopped the bus from her hometown of Duluth, Georgia, onto Las Vegas and then onto Albuquerque.

Charles Molineaux is in Duluth, Georgia, following this story that's had a whole lot of surprising twists and turns along the way.

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All kinds of twists and turns, Fredricka. And you know, police here in Duluth and in Albuquerque have both said that there are no plans for any criminal charges against Jennifer Wilbanks for what happened, but the district attorney here in Gwinnett County, Georgia, says not so fast, that there are a lot of questions that need to be answered yet about this long ordeal for families, and for that matter, for police, as well, which started on Tuesday.

An intense search combed all over this town after the word from Jennifer Wilbanks' fiance, John Mason, that she hadn't turned up after what was supposed be a jog on Tuesday night. Police and volunteers scoured this area, searching an area over five square miles. In some cases, parts of it more than five times until the cops say that they had turned over every leaf and their manpower was just exhausted. And there was a lot of despair yesterday afternoon.

Then, in the wee hours in the morning, the entire scene outside of John Mason's home erupted in celebration at the news that Jennifer Wilbanks had turned up alive and well in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a story about having been kidnapped, kidnapped by a man and a woman in a van who took her all the way across the country to Albuquerque, demanding money.

Well, that ultimately did not last very long. She made a 911 call from a 7-11 in Albuquerque and that was where the police and the FBI descended, trying to get some answers. And what they got was a bit of a surprise, when ultimately, after some questioning, she recanted her story and admitted that she had made up the part about being abducted.

Listen to what cops have to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF RAY SCHULTZ, ALBUQUERQUE POLICE: At approximately 4:00 a.m. this morning, Ms. Wilbanks informed agents and detectives that she had not been abducted, as she had originally claimed. Agents and detectives learned that Miss Wilbanks had become scared and concerned about her pending marriage and decided that she needed some time alone.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MOLINEAUX: Well, the families of both Jennifer Wilbanks and her fiance John Mason have been talking about love and forgiveness, and, of course, very much talking about how 24 hours ago, they were praying that she would turn out to be a runaway bride, because the alternative would clearly have been a lot worse.

But now we have word from the -- Danny Porter (ph), the district attorney here in Gwinnett County, that this is not necessarily the end of the story and criminal charges are not necessarily out of the question. He says this is a time for celebration. They are glad that she has turned up alive and all is well. However, there are there questions yet to be answered and any decisions about what legal steps might have to be taken next have yet to be made.

He wants to go over some of the statements that Jennifer made to the police and to the FBI when she was in Albuquerque for deciding whether or not there may, in fact, have to be some charges against her for this entire ordeal, which of course, has been a rough one for people in this town, as well as for the police, who are now getting a little down time. And we're standing by for more on that -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And a little bit later on in this hour, Charles, we'll talking about some of the legal ramifications of this case with our legal eagles that we usually see on Saturday.

Meantime, Charles, let me ask you about many of these 600 guests that were invited for this wedding this evening. Have you seen many of these folks who made their way to Duluth, anticipating there just might be a ceremony this evening?

MOLINEAUX: Well, it was amazing, the silence that crashed down when we heard the real story this morning. It was quite the dramatic scene when word got out that Jennifer was actually OK. John Mason's home had become a scene of a real anxious vigil as people waited for some news. And then, a wild party as they found out that she was all right and had this story about being abducted and then being released and ending up in Albuquerque. There were people hugging, there were spontaneous outbursts of applause.

But over the course of the next couple of hours, suddenly we heard the story was a little different than what we had gotten earlier and a great silence came in. We had one friend who talked to us saying that they still had a love for her and very much concern over her. The pastor who was dealing with this couple was saying that this is a time of disappointment and some embarrassment.

But they clearly do have some issues to work through at this point. A lot of silence from a lot of people, though, who have come a long way and worked very hard, hoping to resolve this story safely.

WHITFIELD: Understandably. Thanks so much. Charles Molineaux in Duluth, Georgia.

And coming up, we'll get reaction to this shocking story from Jennifer Wilbanks' hometown. And a special programming note to tell you. Tune in at 8:00 Eastern for "Runaway Bride: Jennifer Wilbanks." It's only here right on CNN.

Another violent day in Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers have been killed by a roadside bomb. The attack happened in Tal Afar, west of the city of Mosul. A fifth soldier was killed today in a separate attack. Elsewhere in Iraq today, car bombs and roadside attacks killed at least 11 Iraqi citizens. Three of them were children.

Forensics experts are combing a mass grave in Iraq today. Evidence from the site in the southeastern part of the country could be used in war crimes trials.

CNN correspondent Ryan Chilcote reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The tiny skull of a child lies next to a bag of clothes. The longer bangs of a woman still cling to her skull skull.

BAKHYAR AMIN, INTERIM HUMAN RIGHTS MINISTER: There are over 1,500 people buried here. They are mostly women and children. They are just five men.

CHILCOTE: All 1,500 here were shot dead at the edge of 18 trenches, many of them in their finest clothes, a sign they were expecting to be resettled.

GREGG NIVALA, REGIME CRIMES LIASION: We know they're Kurdish victims because of the clothing and artifacts that were found with the bodies.

CHILCOTE: These archaeologists and detectives are providing hard evidence to Iraq's special tribunal that will try Saddam and his associates for crimes against humanity. The judge who presided over Saddam's first hearing say it was part of a campaign to push Kurds out of Northern Iraq in the late 1980s.

Large numbers of families were detained, he says. Including women, children, and the elderly. They were moved from peaceful villages in Kurdistan to detention centers. Many of them, then, went missing.

AMIN: They destroyed 4,500 villages, 26 towns, and half a million people in Kurdistan were perished in the hands of Saddam and his henchmen since they came to power.

CHILCOTE: The killers left behind a wealth of evidence. This desert grass only grows where soil has been disturbed and there are nutrients, in this case from the dead, to help it grow. Then there are the exceptionally shallow graves. Bedrock prevented the murderers from digging deeper. The blue flags indicate bullets; red, shells; yellow, body parts. About 15 percent of the bodies have I.D. cards, key finds to buttress a wealth of anecdotal evidence.

NIVOLA: You can have witnesses that --- let's say that an event occurred, that somebody was seized, somebody was sent to a collective settlement. But until you have the actual remains of the victim, you don't have the complete story of what happened in that crime.

CHILCOTE: There are other mass graves that contain thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Shiites, Kuwaitis and political activists killed under Saddam's regime.

AMIN: We believe that more than half of the Iraqi population of someone who is missing in their family.

NIVOLA: It looks like probably a total of, in the neighborhood of, 300 gravesites across this country and so far, we have been able to do two.

CHILCOTE: Investigators say they've just begun to scratch the surface.

Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: A white supremacist is facing 35 years in prison for fire bombing a synagogue. But this security tape of the crime isn't what led police to his capture. We'll have the inside story straight ahead.

And on this 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, how one refugee has lived the American dream and how he's saying thank you.

ROBERT NOVAK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Coming up next in "The Novak Zone," one of the great American trackmen all time, Jim Ryan, who is now a Republican Congressman from Kansas.

(COMMERCIAL ZONE)

WHITFIELD: A white supremacist will be sentenced this summer for fire bombing a synagogue in Oklahoma City. CNN's Rick Sanchez has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICH SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What you are looking at is an act of terror. A masked man with a Molotov cocktail fire bombing a synagogue in Oklahoma City last April.

ANN DEE LEE, TEMPLE B'NAI ISRAEL: I think this is a discoloration where the fire bomb was thrown.

SANCHEZ: Ann Dee Lee is a member of the temple that was bombed.

LEE: This ticks me off, if you want to know the truth.

SANCHEZ (on camera): Make you feel more vulnerable?

LEE: Of course. You can't help but feel that. You can lie and be big and tough and say no, we're fine. But it does have an impact. SANCHEZ: See that camera? That's the actual surveillance camera that recorded the fire bombing here at Temple B'Nai Israel. It did what it is supposed to do, it caught the act. What it didn't do because of the ski mask was capture the man. Two weeks later, though, authorities had a suspect.

(voice-over): The suspect Sean Gillespie had plenty to say to the FBI when they arrived to question him. He said nothing, though, about the synagogue bombing. In fact, he thought he was being arrested for a string of racist attacks in Little Rock, Arkansas.

(on camera): He bragged about running over black people. Bragged about this.

ROBERT MCCAMPBELL, U.S. ATTORNEY: Right. And I don't know if that actually occurred or not. But somebody who would want to brag about that and would want people to know, he thinks that's the right way to act. That's somebody we've got to send an unmistakable message too.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): He also bragged about disrupting a Martin Luther King Day march in Spokane, Washington, beating up a homeless man in Philadelphia, and attending a Klan rally in Arkansas. Sean Gillespie was, in fact, so busy boasting he told agents it was OK to check his truck. And that's where they found his video camera.

MCCAMPBELL: He had been making a tape which appears to be like a training tape that he would later want other people to see about how to go about these acts. And, of course, in the course of that he admits the crime.

SANCHEZ (on camera): How important was this tape?

MCCAMPBELL: It was incredibly important. I mean you see his face. He says I'm getting ready to commit this crime. And then you can see the flame where he actually committed it.

SANCHEZ: We asked the U.S. attorney to play the tape Gillespie had made.

GILLESPIE (INAUDIBLE) training center. I am going to fire bomb it with a Molotov cocktail. Destroy a window first, and then throw a molotov cocktail in for maximum damage. I will film it for your viewing enjoyment. My kindred white power. You see the damage.

SANCHEZ: Interestingly enough, the synagogue was not Gillespie's intended target. Before the crime he opened an Oklahoma City phone book, like this one, started looking for a Jewish-sounding name and found one. Headed over there but somehow got lost along the way. Frustrated, he saw a synagogue, decided that instead would be the place where he would vent his hate.

(on camera): In fact, he called the synagogue a target of opportunity and talked about wishing he'd thrown the fire bomb on the roof where it would have done more damage. But Gillespie didn't stop there. The U.S. attorney says while in jail, awaiting trial, he made five phone calls, all recorded. And each time he boasted about his attack on the synagogue.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What'd you do?

GILLESPIE: They got me videotaped. I fired -- I made bombs and blew up a Jewish synagogue.

SANCHEZ (on camera): What kind of person talks like that?

MCCAMPBELL: Well, my reaction as a prosecutor is there's lines you have to draw in society. And the people who want to cross those lines need to be incarcerated.

LEE: I don't have anything good to say about the man. I don't understand his thinking.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): When it came time for Sean Gillespie's day in court, his video stole the show and sealed his fate. His lawyer didn't even call a single witness. He told jurors his client was sorry for what he had done. In less than two hours the jury returned with a verdict. Gillespie cried, then screamed, cursing at government attorneys.

(on camera): Did he get what he deserves?

LEE: I think so. I think the penalty was very just.

SANCHEZ: Sean Gillespie will be sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in federal prison.

Rick Sanchez, CNN, Oklahoma City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And after this break, you're about to meet a man who has come a long way since end of the Vietnam War 30 years ago today. He came here with nothing, now he feels like he has it all. And he's looking for ways to thank American military men and women. His story, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A look now at some live pictures of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Like every weekend, a main attraction, but today with special significance. The Vietnam War came to an end 30 years ago today as the North Vietnamese entered Saigon and U.S. personnel left what is now known as Ho Chi Minh City.

When the U.S. left Vietnam three decades ago, many Vietnamese refugees went with them, beginning their lives over again in America. Many have been able to build successful lives and as Barbara Starr found out, some have not forgotten the costs of war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good to see you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Thirty years later, a thank you to today's veterans of war in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are very honored to have you here tonight.

STARR: From a man who worked with American Marines as an interpreter long ago in Vietnam. Ca Van Tran left when Saigon fell 30 years ago, and came to the United States penniless.

CA VAN TRAN, VIETNAMESE IMMIGRANT: I work as janitor, clean the mall, mop and pick up trash and things.

STARR: Now he owns this restaurant and is thanking today's veterans with a special banquet.

STAFF SGT. MICHAEL MARINKOVICH, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: I thought, like, it was awesome. I was surprised that -- I mean, it was a Vietnamese community, I didn't really expect them to be so, you know, putting out their hand to give us, you know, clap for us and give us support.

STARR: But there is much more to this story. On a trip to his homeland he saw what the physical ravages of war did to his countrymen. Tran began an organization, Vietnam Assistance for the Handicapped. He has raised more than $3 million to deliver 84,000 wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs and other devices to the people of Vietnam.

CA VAN TRAN: War victim, or land mine victim and mostly just soldiers that fought alongside of us, our allies, were crawling around, begging and things, on the street.

STARR: One man in his village had lost both legs.

CA VAN TRAN: He was walking around with two piece of wood, and he covered, you know, the bottom with rubber.

STARR: Now this refugee of the war so long ago wants the disabled from America's latest conflict to know their sacrifice today is appreciated.

CA VAN TRAN: We have come so long that we can help them, you know, at the beginning.

STARR: Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(WEATHER FORECAST)

WHITFIELD: Well, everyone thought she was the victim of foul play, but it turns out Jennifer Wilbanks was the victim of cold feet. Are her friends, family, and fiance feeling anger or forgiveness? And might she face some criminal charges? Also, how damaging to Michael Jackson are two books found in his home and brought into his trial? Our legal roundtable will have some answers when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired April 30, 2005 - 14:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Well, it's 2:00 in Duluth, Georgia; noon in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The two cities directly involved in a reported missing person case. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at CNN's global headquarters in Atlanta.
Ahead this hour:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELINDA LARSON, FRIEND OF JENNIFER WILBANKS: I'm certain that it's just a wave of emotion people are experiencing right now. It's shocking, it's overwhelming and it's baffling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Baffling, indeed. The incredible story of what turned out to be a runaway bride. What looked like a hot crime story turned out simply to be the case of cold feet.

Also, caught on tape. The anatomy of a hate crime. The inside story of how the man who threw the Molotov cocktail couldn't throw police off of his trail.

Those stories in a moment. But first, the headlines.

The U.S. Army has cleared American soldiers involved in last month's shooting death of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq. A report released today recommends no disciplinary action. The agent was shot at a checkpoint in Baghdad while trying to get out of the country with a just-released hostage, an Italian journalist.

One the key figures in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal apparently is about to enter a plea ahead of her scheduled trial. The lawyer representing Private First Class Lynndie England says she will plead guilty Monday to seven charges in a military court. Her trial had been scheduled to begin on Tuesday at Ft. Hood, Texas. England's lawyer says under the plea deal, his client will face a maximum of 11 years in prison.

Two attacks today in Egypt's capital killed at least three people and wounded seven others. The first was a bombing near the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo. The second attack came about a half an hour later, when two veiled women opened fire in an area here in the Nile river. One of the suspects was killed in a shoot-out with police.

Disappointment and embarrassment: how a family pastor says they are feeling about Jennifer Wilbanks' staged appearance and alleged abduction. Four days after the Georgia bride disappeared, the 32- year-old resurfaces, alive and well, but admitting she ran away because of cold feet. Her wedding was to have taken place tonight.

Overnight, Wilbanks turned up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, first claiming she was kidnapped. Then, admitting it was a lie. She admitted that instead of going out for a jog last Tuesday, she hopped the bus from her hometown of Duluth, Georgia, onto Las Vegas and then onto Albuquerque.

Charles Molineaux is in Duluth, Georgia, following this story that's had a whole lot of surprising twists and turns along the way.

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All kinds of twists and turns, Fredricka. And you know, police here in Duluth and in Albuquerque have both said that there are no plans for any criminal charges against Jennifer Wilbanks for what happened, but the district attorney here in Gwinnett County, Georgia, says not so fast, that there are a lot of questions that need to be answered yet about this long ordeal for families, and for that matter, for police, as well, which started on Tuesday.

An intense search combed all over this town after the word from Jennifer Wilbanks' fiance, John Mason, that she hadn't turned up after what was supposed be a jog on Tuesday night. Police and volunteers scoured this area, searching an area over five square miles. In some cases, parts of it more than five times until the cops say that they had turned over every leaf and their manpower was just exhausted. And there was a lot of despair yesterday afternoon.

Then, in the wee hours in the morning, the entire scene outside of John Mason's home erupted in celebration at the news that Jennifer Wilbanks had turned up alive and well in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a story about having been kidnapped, kidnapped by a man and a woman in a van who took her all the way across the country to Albuquerque, demanding money.

Well, that ultimately did not last very long. She made a 911 call from a 7-11 in Albuquerque and that was where the police and the FBI descended, trying to get some answers. And what they got was a bit of a surprise, when ultimately, after some questioning, she recanted her story and admitted that she had made up the part about being abducted.

Listen to what cops have to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF RAY SCHULTZ, ALBUQUERQUE POLICE: At approximately 4:00 a.m. this morning, Ms. Wilbanks informed agents and detectives that she had not been abducted, as she had originally claimed. Agents and detectives learned that Miss Wilbanks had become scared and concerned about her pending marriage and decided that she needed some time alone.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MOLINEAUX: Well, the families of both Jennifer Wilbanks and her fiance John Mason have been talking about love and forgiveness, and, of course, very much talking about how 24 hours ago, they were praying that she would turn out to be a runaway bride, because the alternative would clearly have been a lot worse.

But now we have word from the -- Danny Porter (ph), the district attorney here in Gwinnett County, that this is not necessarily the end of the story and criminal charges are not necessarily out of the question. He says this is a time for celebration. They are glad that she has turned up alive and all is well. However, there are there questions yet to be answered and any decisions about what legal steps might have to be taken next have yet to be made.

He wants to go over some of the statements that Jennifer made to the police and to the FBI when she was in Albuquerque for deciding whether or not there may, in fact, have to be some charges against her for this entire ordeal, which of course, has been a rough one for people in this town, as well as for the police, who are now getting a little down time. And we're standing by for more on that -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: And a little bit later on in this hour, Charles, we'll talking about some of the legal ramifications of this case with our legal eagles that we usually see on Saturday.

Meantime, Charles, let me ask you about many of these 600 guests that were invited for this wedding this evening. Have you seen many of these folks who made their way to Duluth, anticipating there just might be a ceremony this evening?

MOLINEAUX: Well, it was amazing, the silence that crashed down when we heard the real story this morning. It was quite the dramatic scene when word got out that Jennifer was actually OK. John Mason's home had become a scene of a real anxious vigil as people waited for some news. And then, a wild party as they found out that she was all right and had this story about being abducted and then being released and ending up in Albuquerque. There were people hugging, there were spontaneous outbursts of applause.

But over the course of the next couple of hours, suddenly we heard the story was a little different than what we had gotten earlier and a great silence came in. We had one friend who talked to us saying that they still had a love for her and very much concern over her. The pastor who was dealing with this couple was saying that this is a time of disappointment and some embarrassment.

But they clearly do have some issues to work through at this point. A lot of silence from a lot of people, though, who have come a long way and worked very hard, hoping to resolve this story safely.

WHITFIELD: Understandably. Thanks so much. Charles Molineaux in Duluth, Georgia.

And coming up, we'll get reaction to this shocking story from Jennifer Wilbanks' hometown. And a special programming note to tell you. Tune in at 8:00 Eastern for "Runaway Bride: Jennifer Wilbanks." It's only here right on CNN.

Another violent day in Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers have been killed by a roadside bomb. The attack happened in Tal Afar, west of the city of Mosul. A fifth soldier was killed today in a separate attack. Elsewhere in Iraq today, car bombs and roadside attacks killed at least 11 Iraqi citizens. Three of them were children.

Forensics experts are combing a mass grave in Iraq today. Evidence from the site in the southeastern part of the country could be used in war crimes trials.

CNN correspondent Ryan Chilcote reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The tiny skull of a child lies next to a bag of clothes. The longer bangs of a woman still cling to her skull skull.

BAKHYAR AMIN, INTERIM HUMAN RIGHTS MINISTER: There are over 1,500 people buried here. They are mostly women and children. They are just five men.

CHILCOTE: All 1,500 here were shot dead at the edge of 18 trenches, many of them in their finest clothes, a sign they were expecting to be resettled.

GREGG NIVALA, REGIME CRIMES LIASION: We know they're Kurdish victims because of the clothing and artifacts that were found with the bodies.

CHILCOTE: These archaeologists and detectives are providing hard evidence to Iraq's special tribunal that will try Saddam and his associates for crimes against humanity. The judge who presided over Saddam's first hearing say it was part of a campaign to push Kurds out of Northern Iraq in the late 1980s.

Large numbers of families were detained, he says. Including women, children, and the elderly. They were moved from peaceful villages in Kurdistan to detention centers. Many of them, then, went missing.

AMIN: They destroyed 4,500 villages, 26 towns, and half a million people in Kurdistan were perished in the hands of Saddam and his henchmen since they came to power.

CHILCOTE: The killers left behind a wealth of evidence. This desert grass only grows where soil has been disturbed and there are nutrients, in this case from the dead, to help it grow. Then there are the exceptionally shallow graves. Bedrock prevented the murderers from digging deeper. The blue flags indicate bullets; red, shells; yellow, body parts. About 15 percent of the bodies have I.D. cards, key finds to buttress a wealth of anecdotal evidence.

NIVOLA: You can have witnesses that --- let's say that an event occurred, that somebody was seized, somebody was sent to a collective settlement. But until you have the actual remains of the victim, you don't have the complete story of what happened in that crime.

CHILCOTE: There are other mass graves that contain thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Shiites, Kuwaitis and political activists killed under Saddam's regime.

AMIN: We believe that more than half of the Iraqi population of someone who is missing in their family.

NIVOLA: It looks like probably a total of, in the neighborhood of, 300 gravesites across this country and so far, we have been able to do two.

CHILCOTE: Investigators say they've just begun to scratch the surface.

Ryan Chilcote, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: A white supremacist is facing 35 years in prison for fire bombing a synagogue. But this security tape of the crime isn't what led police to his capture. We'll have the inside story straight ahead.

And on this 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, how one refugee has lived the American dream and how he's saying thank you.

ROBERT NOVAK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Coming up next in "The Novak Zone," one of the great American trackmen all time, Jim Ryan, who is now a Republican Congressman from Kansas.

(COMMERCIAL ZONE)

WHITFIELD: A white supremacist will be sentenced this summer for fire bombing a synagogue in Oklahoma City. CNN's Rick Sanchez has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICH SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What you are looking at is an act of terror. A masked man with a Molotov cocktail fire bombing a synagogue in Oklahoma City last April.

ANN DEE LEE, TEMPLE B'NAI ISRAEL: I think this is a discoloration where the fire bomb was thrown.

SANCHEZ: Ann Dee Lee is a member of the temple that was bombed.

LEE: This ticks me off, if you want to know the truth.

SANCHEZ (on camera): Make you feel more vulnerable?

LEE: Of course. You can't help but feel that. You can lie and be big and tough and say no, we're fine. But it does have an impact. SANCHEZ: See that camera? That's the actual surveillance camera that recorded the fire bombing here at Temple B'Nai Israel. It did what it is supposed to do, it caught the act. What it didn't do because of the ski mask was capture the man. Two weeks later, though, authorities had a suspect.

(voice-over): The suspect Sean Gillespie had plenty to say to the FBI when they arrived to question him. He said nothing, though, about the synagogue bombing. In fact, he thought he was being arrested for a string of racist attacks in Little Rock, Arkansas.

(on camera): He bragged about running over black people. Bragged about this.

ROBERT MCCAMPBELL, U.S. ATTORNEY: Right. And I don't know if that actually occurred or not. But somebody who would want to brag about that and would want people to know, he thinks that's the right way to act. That's somebody we've got to send an unmistakable message too.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): He also bragged about disrupting a Martin Luther King Day march in Spokane, Washington, beating up a homeless man in Philadelphia, and attending a Klan rally in Arkansas. Sean Gillespie was, in fact, so busy boasting he told agents it was OK to check his truck. And that's where they found his video camera.

MCCAMPBELL: He had been making a tape which appears to be like a training tape that he would later want other people to see about how to go about these acts. And, of course, in the course of that he admits the crime.

SANCHEZ (on camera): How important was this tape?

MCCAMPBELL: It was incredibly important. I mean you see his face. He says I'm getting ready to commit this crime. And then you can see the flame where he actually committed it.

SANCHEZ: We asked the U.S. attorney to play the tape Gillespie had made.

GILLESPIE (INAUDIBLE) training center. I am going to fire bomb it with a Molotov cocktail. Destroy a window first, and then throw a molotov cocktail in for maximum damage. I will film it for your viewing enjoyment. My kindred white power. You see the damage.

SANCHEZ: Interestingly enough, the synagogue was not Gillespie's intended target. Before the crime he opened an Oklahoma City phone book, like this one, started looking for a Jewish-sounding name and found one. Headed over there but somehow got lost along the way. Frustrated, he saw a synagogue, decided that instead would be the place where he would vent his hate.

(on camera): In fact, he called the synagogue a target of opportunity and talked about wishing he'd thrown the fire bomb on the roof where it would have done more damage. But Gillespie didn't stop there. The U.S. attorney says while in jail, awaiting trial, he made five phone calls, all recorded. And each time he boasted about his attack on the synagogue.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What'd you do?

GILLESPIE: They got me videotaped. I fired -- I made bombs and blew up a Jewish synagogue.

SANCHEZ (on camera): What kind of person talks like that?

MCCAMPBELL: Well, my reaction as a prosecutor is there's lines you have to draw in society. And the people who want to cross those lines need to be incarcerated.

LEE: I don't have anything good to say about the man. I don't understand his thinking.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): When it came time for Sean Gillespie's day in court, his video stole the show and sealed his fate. His lawyer didn't even call a single witness. He told jurors his client was sorry for what he had done. In less than two hours the jury returned with a verdict. Gillespie cried, then screamed, cursing at government attorneys.

(on camera): Did he get what he deserves?

LEE: I think so. I think the penalty was very just.

SANCHEZ: Sean Gillespie will be sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in federal prison.

Rick Sanchez, CNN, Oklahoma City.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And after this break, you're about to meet a man who has come a long way since end of the Vietnam War 30 years ago today. He came here with nothing, now he feels like he has it all. And he's looking for ways to thank American military men and women. His story, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: A look now at some live pictures of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Like every weekend, a main attraction, but today with special significance. The Vietnam War came to an end 30 years ago today as the North Vietnamese entered Saigon and U.S. personnel left what is now known as Ho Chi Minh City.

When the U.S. left Vietnam three decades ago, many Vietnamese refugees went with them, beginning their lives over again in America. Many have been able to build successful lives and as Barbara Starr found out, some have not forgotten the costs of war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good to see you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Thirty years later, a thank you to today's veterans of war in Iraq.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are very honored to have you here tonight.

STARR: From a man who worked with American Marines as an interpreter long ago in Vietnam. Ca Van Tran left when Saigon fell 30 years ago, and came to the United States penniless.

CA VAN TRAN, VIETNAMESE IMMIGRANT: I work as janitor, clean the mall, mop and pick up trash and things.

STARR: Now he owns this restaurant and is thanking today's veterans with a special banquet.

STAFF SGT. MICHAEL MARINKOVICH, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: I thought, like, it was awesome. I was surprised that -- I mean, it was a Vietnamese community, I didn't really expect them to be so, you know, putting out their hand to give us, you know, clap for us and give us support.

STARR: But there is much more to this story. On a trip to his homeland he saw what the physical ravages of war did to his countrymen. Tran began an organization, Vietnam Assistance for the Handicapped. He has raised more than $3 million to deliver 84,000 wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs and other devices to the people of Vietnam.

CA VAN TRAN: War victim, or land mine victim and mostly just soldiers that fought alongside of us, our allies, were crawling around, begging and things, on the street.

STARR: One man in his village had lost both legs.

CA VAN TRAN: He was walking around with two piece of wood, and he covered, you know, the bottom with rubber.

STARR: Now this refugee of the war so long ago wants the disabled from America's latest conflict to know their sacrifice today is appreciated.

CA VAN TRAN: We have come so long that we can help them, you know, at the beginning.

STARR: Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(WEATHER FORECAST)

WHITFIELD: Well, everyone thought she was the victim of foul play, but it turns out Jennifer Wilbanks was the victim of cold feet. Are her friends, family, and fiance feeling anger or forgiveness? And might she face some criminal charges? Also, how damaging to Michael Jackson are two books found in his home and brought into his trial? Our legal roundtable will have some answers when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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