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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Three Powerball Winners to Split Prize; Flooding in the Midwest; Where is James DeMaggio?; Court Martial Halted; Patriots Wide Receiver Criticizes Coach

Aired August 08, 2013 - 05:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN ANCHOR: On the run. Police searching for a California they believe killed his longtime friend and kidnapped her daughter. New questions raised this morning on the motive behind the crime.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: An accused terrorist on a suicide mission. Why the trial for the accused Fort hood shooter has been put on hold.

SAMBOLIN: But first. You know that jackpot? Three winning tickets sold in the one of the largest Powerball prizes ever. What we know about the winners.

BERMAN: Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. I'm John Berman.

SAMBOLIN: And I'm Zoraida Sambolin. Nice to have you with us. It's 30 minutes past the hour.

BERMAN: There has been hell to pay in the studio this morning because the crew here did not buy the winning tickets for Powerball and Zoraida is quite upset that. It is, however, a very good morning for some people in New Jersey and Minnesota. Someone there or some groups there, we don't know yet, they won or split the big Powerball jackpot. What we know is there were three winning tickets sold, two in Jersey, one in Minnesota.

SAMBOLIN: Our ticket was bought in New Jersey.

BERMAN: You are so bitter.

SAMBOLIN: I am.

BERMAN: You are so bitter. Let me tell you the numbers here with Zoraida did not win. Here they are, 5, 25, 30, 58, 59, and the Powerball number was the big 32. Zain Asher is in South Brunswick, New Jersey. Not the place where we bought our tickets here at CNN. It is a supermarket where one of the winning tickets was sold -- Zain.

SAMBOLIN: Are we jealous, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAIN ASHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Hey, guys. Yes, there's so much we don't know right now. We have no idea whether the winners were an individual or a group. But yes, we do know that there are three winning tickets across the country. Two of them in New Jersey. And by the way, New Jersey only joined Powerball back in 2010. And so far, it's already had five winners, five winning tickets.

One of them, of course, comes from where I'm standing, South Brunswick, New Jersey. You know, this is a small town. It's about an hour outside of New York, population, 43,000. I actually spoke to one of the workers at the stop and shop right behind me where the lottery ticket was actually sold. He says he literally cannot believe the amount of media attention this town has gotten in such a short pace of time, in about five hours.

But yes, that brings me to our next point that if you do win the lottery in New Jersey, you cannot remain anonymous. Some states actually allow you to remain anonymous. New Jersey says, no, you have to come forward. You do have about a year to collect your winnings, and it takes about two weeks for all those millions to hit your bank account.

I did actually do one calculation for you, guys, $448 million split three ways, by the way, is $149.3 million. You can only dream.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: That's before taxes. And then if you take the one time -- you should be happy with your 53 cents.

ASHER: I know. It's nothing. It's nothing.

BERMAN: A jump cake (ph). All right, Zain, we appreciate it.

SAMBOLIN: One of my favorite stories, lottery stories, instant gazzilionaires.

All right. Thirty-two minutes past the hour now. Today is a really bad weather, hitting the Midwest really hard as well. It seems Mother Nature just does not want to let up. Soaking rains are leading to deadly flooding.

BERMAN: Missouri seems to be getting the worst of it with several inches of rain falling in some parts of the state. The town of Waynesville there, that's where three rivers converge. It has been under water for days. Look at these pictures. At least one person has been killed in the flooding, a four-year-old boy who was in a car when it was washed away.

SAMBOLIN: Meantime, in Alabama, heavy rain left some towns near Birmingham under water. Upwards of three inches fell in about an hour. Flooded streets overwhelming the storm drains in that area. And lightning from the storm, apparently, caused a house fire. Luckily, no injuries were reported.

BERMAN: In Ohio, it was an apparent tornado that tore the roof off a home near Akron. Take a look. No one was home at time except the family pets. The pets were rescued there, which is awfully nice. You can see the people standing outside looking. Amazingly, there was little damage at the houses nearby, but some trees there, not seen here, did get snapped in two.

Indra Petersons is here with a sense of what's going to happen today. It may not be getting any better.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No, unfortunately. We're still watching, really, the stalled cold front. It's all about where it's going to be. First, I want to take to the area that just seems to be hit the hardest with heavy rain day after day, keep showing what the radar looks like in the morning rather on Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, and it almost looks like a similar picture again today.

Only difference, not as heavy as rainfall that we've seen in the last several ways, but either way, still being inundated with thunderstorm after thunderstorm. So, obviously, we're still talking about the flooding concerns in the region. Only the good news I can give you is the severe weather threat today not stretching all the way into Missouri like we had expected it to in yesterday's forecast.

So, not looking for the severe weather, but definitely some still rain in the forecast. Otherwise, panhandle Texas and Oklahoma today looking for the threat of the severe thunderstorms. Large hail and, of course, strong winds. Here's the cold front we keep talking about. Notice the bottom, you see the red and blue. It is stalled on the bottom to pretty much stop here.

That's what we know all this moisture is cruising in out of the gulf and producing some heavy rain in the south. The big question mark is the top half of this cold front. We need to know how fast it's going to go. Is it going to stall out like the bottom half? All of this matters depending whether or not it stalls or if it moves faster? It's really going to tell how much rain we're expecting here over the next several days as far as the northeast is concerned.

Into the south-southeast kind of region, we're looking at Nashville about two to three inches, Atlanta, about one to two, all the way back towards Springville looking at some of the heavier rain still in that region, about two to three inches for there. Now, it's the northeast, so, that's kind of that question mark where we get the heavier thunderstorms.

We will see some heavier rainfall announcing the threat for flooding, otherwise, we're going to be talking about definitely just some scattered showers in some regions. So, kind of a mixed bag in the northeast but definitely rain in the next several days.

SAMBOLIN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Thanks, Indra.

SAMBOLIN: Thirty-five minutes past the hour.

Breaking news from Dallas where at least four people dead, several others are injured in an apparent shooting spree. The shooter went first to a home in Dallas where our affiliate, WFAA, says he was apparently looking for his ex-girlfriend.

Four people were shot there, two have died. He then went to a home in DeSoto where he threw some sort of explosive, shot three more people, two more died there. He has been arrested and some of the victims are said to be children.

BERMAN: The question authorities in California and several other states are asking this morning, "Where is James DiMaggio?" He is the 40-year-old man suspected of murdering a friend and kidnapping her daughter after his home near San Diego burned to the ground. The remains of a woman and child were found inside. It's unclear if the child's body was that of the woman's eight-year-old son. But her 16- year-old daughter, Hannah, is still missing.

And family friends tell CNN that Hannah had been troubled by DiNaggio's recent admission that he had a crush on her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF BILL GORE, SAN DIEGO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: There's just a lot of speculation right now. We don't want to go too far out on a limb one direction or the other. We know that they were lifelong friends. And, we're not exactly sure what that relationship was. We don't know if Hannah is with him willingly or not. We just don't know right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Authorities say they're following up on a number of sightings, but so far, have not located Dimaggio or Hannah.

SAMBOLIN: And this morning, the court martial of the man accused of killing 13 people and wounding dozens more at Fort Hood in 2009 is on hold. Stopped by the judge trying to sort out the latest legal twist. Ed Lavandera has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Defense attorneys appointed to assist Major Nidal Hasan say the army psychiatrist seems to be on a suicide mission after declaring "I am the shooter" in his opening statement. His stand by attorneys told the judge that Hasan is working in concert with the prosecution to achieve a death sentence.

Hasan started to object, but after hearing that, the judge brought the court martial at Fort Hood to a standstill. Military legal experts say they've never seen anything like this.

RICHARD ROSEN, FORMER MILITARY PROSECUTOR: There's no telling what he's going to do when he gets on the stand, if he testifies, which I suspect he will to tell a story.

LAVANDERA: From the start of this trial, Nidal Hasan has shown no interest in defending himself. Hasan says he switched sides in a war against Islam before killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others in a salvage attack at Ft. Hood four years ago. Hasan has only asked a few questions of witnesses. He's a quiet bystander, even though he's acting as his own lawyer. And the attorneys assigned to help say they can't let it happen.

GEOFFREY CORN, SOUTH TEXAS COLLEGE OF LAW: The defense lawyers are in a terrible predicament, because they have to stand by and watch the person they are extensively charged with assisting to represent himself, essentially put the noose around his own neck. And they view this as fundamentally inconsistent with their ethical obligation as lawyers.

LAVANDERA: Fort Leavenworth, Kansas is where Nadal Hasan would end up if he's convicted and sentence to death. There hasn't been a military execution since 1961. The legal road to the death chamber is full of detours created by appeals and ultimately needs presidential approval. Based on recent past cases, even if Hasan gets the death penalty, it's possible he may never be executed.

But military law expert, Geoffrey Corn, says the legal drama we saw unfold on this day will not derail Hasan's murder trial.

CORN: And I suspect what's going to happen is she's going to make Major Hasan acknowledge on the record, in this hearing (ph), that he understands the immense risk he's assuming.

LAVANDERA (on-camera): So, the big question now is, what will happen next? What will the judge tell these three stand by attorneys? Many legal experts, military legal experts, that we spoke with today said that what they anticipate the judge will do is essentially tell these three attorneys that they have to continue on with their duty in assisting Major Hasan as their stand by counsel.

But, it's not exactly sure at this point. The judge has ordered everyone to reconvene Thursday morning, and perhaps, we will find out what then what the judge has said.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Fort Hood, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: More questions this morning about the deaths of two young boys in Canada apparently asphyxiated by a python as they slept at a family friend's home. At a somber vigil Wednesday night, the community in New Brunswick, Canada remembered Noah and Connor Barth (ph), that as pictures have emerged showing the boys playing in glass tanks that held snakes. The great uncle says the boys simply loved animals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID ROSE, VICTIMS GREAT UNCLE: They played with llamas and goats and horses. They played with dogs and cats in the hay loft. They went for a ride in the farm tractor which on float and we let (ph) them stir the tractor. That's the type of life they had and that's what we're going to try to remember.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: Investigators say the snake escaped from the tank, crawled into the ventilation system and fell on the boys after a pipe broke. And Canada's QMI news is reporting the snake had escaped before. One expert calls this all an accident that was waiting to happen.

SAMBOLIN: A tragedy.

More information now being demanded in the investigation of the IRS targeting of some political groups. House Oversight Committee chairman, Darrell Issa, wants the Federal Election Commission to turn over records of its communications with the IRS claiming there have been inappropriate coordination between those two agencies.

All of these after an FEC vice chairman told CNN he saw an e-mail from an investigator at his agency to a former top IRS official asking questions about a conservative political advocacy group.

BERMAN: San Diego's mayor won't have to give a deposition yet in a sexual harassment lawsuit. A judge has postponed Bob Filner's testimony as the mayor undergoes what's being called intensive therapy. More than a dozen women now have come forward alleging that Filner made unwelcome sexual advances toward them. He insist it was not sexual harassment, and he has refused calls, so far, to step down.

SAMBOLIN: Forty-one minutes past the hour. New York mayoral hopeful, Anthony Weiner, is downplaying his grandpa moment after calling 69- year-old Republican challenger, George McDonald grandpa at a voter forum sponsored by the AARP. It was a heated exchange with the pair coming face-to-face after Weiner put his hand on McDonald's chest. Weiner now says he's been called a lot worse.

BERMAN: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

SAMBOLIN: And you have to have thick skin if you want to be a politician. Another yes, yes. McDonald is calling Weiner a punk who can doesn't respect women or seniors. AARP, by the way, says the comments were unfortunate.

BERMAN: I guess, the glass is half full for Anthony Weiner. No matter what you call him, he's been called worse.

SAMBOLIN: Right.

BERMAN: It's a statement of fact. Simply true. All right. Forty- two minutes after the hour.

Coming up, a daring swim, 22 miles while pulling a ton of bricks.

SAMBOLIN: Why? Why?

BERMAN: Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? We will tell you why this happened, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: It took him 51 hours to do it, but Jim Drier (ph) kept his word and completed a 22-mile swim across the lake to Detroit all while towing a dinghy filled with a thousand pounds of brick. Drier is a marathon swimmer known as the shark. He battled stiff waves and hallucinations to get it done. He finished 21 hours later than he expected. It was kind of hard. He made the swim to raise money for habitat for humanity. Good for him.

SAMBOLIN: How sweet. Yes. Congratulations.

All right. It is confirmed. A Virginia fisherman has set a world record after catching a really big Frankenfish. Caleb Newton (ph) hooked the 17-pound, six-ounce northern snake head during a fishing tournament in June. All the guys here are riveted by this. You should see the way they're looking at this fish. Is this a big deal, guys?

BERMAN: It's a big fish. It's kind of slimy.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: It looked a little slimy to me.

SAMBOLIN: Well, it can breathe air, apparently. I don't know. Newton's catch beat the old record by two ounces, I understand. So, how big was it? Seventeen pounds, 6-ounce northern snakehead.

BERMAN: It's big for a Frankenfish, I'm told. That's what it says --

SAMBOLIN: I don't fish, but these guys were riveted.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: It was your delivery more than anything else. It was very compelling. Let's take a look at what's coming up, speaking of compelling, on "NEW DAY." Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan join us now. What's up, guys?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": I think those snakeheads are an invading species.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Oh, really?

CUOMO: Yes. I think in some places, they're actually a problem because they come in and they eat up and screw up the ecology in the area. But you know what to a fisherman, it's just big.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: I'm in the business of knowing, Z. I'm in the business.

BOLDUAN: He's in the business of knowing often inaccurately, but, this is a topic he knows a ton about.

CUOMO: It's just knowing at all.

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: In the land of logic, which would be here or this world, which is some other kind of weird, yellow world. We're going to talk about the news now. We have been trying to cover this as intensely as we can since it began. There's a manhunt underway. There are amber alerts now that is spreading up the Pacific West Coast looking for this man named DiMaggio.

We know that a mother has been killed. His home was burned down. They believe it was intentional. A 16-year-old is missing. An eight- year-old boy may also be missing. And James DiMaggio is in the middle of all of it. The missing children's father is going to be live on the show this morning. We're going to have a police on the show this morning just trying to figure this out. It's been going on for days now, a very active case. Police needs your help.

BOLDUAN: Just think of what the father is going through. He's going to be joining us. We're going to talk to him and find out what everyone needs to know in order to try to bring his daughter back safely.

And then, we're going to talk about this, a town living in fear, some say. Residents of a small town in Pennsylvania say the concerned about their police chief who you're looking at right here. He was suspended for making profanity-laced pro-gun laced videos. Why they're now asking for help. What is going on here?

CUOMO: I don't get it. But I'll tell you, you know, gives a bad name to gun owners.

BOLDUAN: Believe me, it gives a very bad name to gun owners. This is not how gun owners --

CUOMO: I know.

BOLDUAN: -- many gun owners act. Me speaking from experience coming from gun owning family.

CUOMO: -- want to be portrayed. It's like a bad stereotype. We'll get you into the story and figure out what's going on.

And then we have a CNN exclusive. We told you about an American man who woke up in the hospital with amnesia and forgot how to speak English. Well, Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us live with an update on his remarkable condition. How's that?

BERMAN: That sounds like some show. Appreciate it, guys. Look forward to seeing it.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Coming up here, a home plate collision. The move that took a Chicago Cubs catcher. Look at that. That is a tough play at the plate. The catcher, out of the game.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SAMBOLIN: Welcome back. The PGA Championship begins later this morning. And all eyes will be on Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

BERMAN: Andy Scholes joins us now with more in the "Bleacher Report." Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: Hey, good morning, guys. Well, Tiger and Phil have been on top of the golf world for more than a decade now, and they are considered the two favorites to win this weekend's PGA Championship. Tiger who won last week at the Bridgestone Invitational is still looking to win his major tournament in five years.

Phil, meanwhile, is looking to win back-to-back majors for the first time in his career after winning the open championship just last month. Round one begins a little after 7:00 Eastern this morning. And a cool part of this year's tournament is that fans are going to get to pick where the hole is going to be placed on the 15th green for the final round. To cast your vote, you can head over to PGA.com.

We rarely hear any form of Patriot players criticizing Bill Belichick and his coaching ways. Well, that's exactly what wide receiver Wes Welker did in an interview with "Sports Illustrated." Welker said he grew tired of Belichick calling him out in front of the team last season. He also said that Belichick is still in his head.

When he talks to reporters, Welker said, quote, "I'm not worried about what the Broncos people are going to think, I'm worried about what Belichick will think." Isn't that crazy? Welker will make his Broncos debut tonight as Denver takes on San Francisco in their pre- season opener.

Well, Cubs at Phillies last night. The game, tied at two in the seventh inning, take Utley (ph), attempting to score from second base on this hit. And he's going to barrel into Dioner Navarro. Amazingly, Navarro held on to the ball for the out. He paid for it. Cubs catcher had to be carted off the field. Lucky for Navarro, x- rays were negative on his ankle. He should be OK.

One of the top stories in the line-up section on BleacherReport.com, today comes from last night's Real Madrid and Chelsea match up at Sun Life Stadium. Check it out. A fan runs on the field to give Ronaldo a big hug and Ronaldo hugs him back. Usually, this can be a pretty scary thing, but Ronaldo embraces the fans. Guys, look how long this lasted. It took security about 45 seconds before they finally ran over and escorted this fan away.

You know, lucky for everyone, the fan just wanted a hug. You never know what someone's intentions are.

SAMBOLIN: No kidding. That could be very dangerous.

SCHOLES: It could have been a very different outcome, but luckily, everyone knew it was OK.

(CROSSTALK) BERMAN: Ronaldo showed a lot of poise there, but it is scary.

SAMBOLIN: And a long hug.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: All right. Andy, appreciate it.

All right. Coming up here next, I don't know. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: I have to say goodbye because Zoraida is eating right now.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: That is all for EARLY START. It's time for "NEW DAY." Chris and Kate, take it away.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDUAN: Good morning. Have your breakfast just like everyone else is watching and then come join us. We'll see you guys in a little bit.

CUOMO: Almost like to watch Berman flinch. Look at that, almost the top of the hour. Here at "NEW DAY," that means it is time for your top news.