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CNN Live At Daybreak
Preventing Crimes Against Children
Aired August 16, 2001 - 07:10 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.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: We want to return to the Chandra Levy case and Larry King's interview with her parents.
We're going to show you a little bit more of it now. Here Larry asks for their reaction to a report that Chandra's body was buried under a parking lot at Fort Lee, Virginia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, HOST: We're back with the Levys. I guess you are happy the Fort lee thing turned out to be nothing.
ROBERT LEVY, CHANDRA LEVY'S FATHER: Yes.
KING: Because that could have only have been a body. There was nothing...
(CROSS TALK)
R. LEVY: No.
SUSAN LEVY, CHANDRA LEVY'S MOTHER: Well, the whole thing was just terrifying.
R. LEVY: We were crying, and our son was comforting...
(CROSS TALK)
R. LEVY: ... and other, you know, other friends were around. And it was just -- you know, we go through that, but on the other hand, not knowing for a long period of time, you know, is just...
KING: Worse.
R. LEVY: Just worse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCEDWARDS: Well, that tip about a body at Fort Lee turned out to be false.
Marc Klaas knows what it's like to lose a child. His 12-year-old daughter was kidnapped and murdered in 1993, taken by a complete stranger from a slumber party at her own home. Her killer was caught and convicted.
Marc Klaas set up the KlaasKids Foundation to prevent crimes against children. He joins us now from San Francisco.
Mr. Klaas, thanks for being here this morning.
MARC KLAAS, KLAASKIDS FOUNDATION: My pleasure.
MCEDWARDS: I know that you watched the Levy interview on "LARRY KING," and you just heard them talking about the difficulty of not knowing.
As you were watching this, what were you thinking?
KLAAS: Well, I was thinking several things. First of all, they are really deteriorating. I mean, it's been over 100 days now. They are obviously not eating very well. They are not sleeping. They are being driven by fear, and they are being driven by anger. And the fuel that's keeping them going is adrenaline, and ultimately those kinds of things are going to take a toll on you. And it's just as obvious that they are really reaching their emotional limits right now. And it just breaks my heart, and I guess everybody else's heart as well.
They have also got this whole deal with Gary Condit -- and I can totally understand why they are looking at him with great suspicion.
MCEDWARDS: Is that how it felt for you? Is that the same kind of thing you went through in the 65 days...
KLAAS: Yes, it is.
MCEDWARDS: ... when you didn't know what happened to your daughter?
KLAAS: It's exactly what I went through for 65 days. And it was just the worst ordeal of my life. I just can't even tell you.
But you know what? In our situation, we had a law enforcement liaison, and they told us everything prior to our hearing it on television. So we knew that if a report would come on the television, and it was something we hadn't heard before from law enforcement that it was a false report. And that gave us great comfort down the line when they started going into various areas looking for body parts and talking about various bones and things that had been reported, because we knew in our hearts that it wasn't true if we hadn't heard it from the police first.
MCEDWARDS: So was it more difficult for you, Mr. Klaas? Because your case got a lot of media attention too. This was a young girl taken...
KLAAS: Yes.
MCEDWARDS: ... from her home. But did there come a point where you just had to ignore all the reports out there? Or how did you cope with that?
KLAAS: Well, you can't ignore it. I mean, that's the thing. You live with it constantly. It's in your mind 24 hours a day. You sit there in the dead of night with nothing else on your mind trying to figure out a way to bring resolution to the situation, hoping against hope that somehow your child is still alive. So it's a horrific ordeal. And most people have absolutely no idea.
And quite frankly, Colleen, it becomes very difficult to criticize parents that are in a situation like that, because they really are fighting against the most insurmountable odds, and they are really by themselves, more or less, trying to lead a battle for the safe return of a child who may not be able to come home alive.
MCEDWARDS: And we keep hearing, too, that police say -- reports say that the longer it goes on, the longer someone is missing...
KLAAS: Oh, yes.
MCEDWARDS: ... that the less chance there is. That must have gone through your mind.
KLAAS: Well, you know what? I didn't really know that much about it at the time, but certainly that was reported back to me on a regular basis. And it does become kind of obvious after a while. You run out of all the scenarios where your child may have run away or maybe held someplace against their will and be coming home.
What you don't want to do is you don't want to admit the nature of evil when you are in a situation like that, because once you admit the nature of evil, then you are almost forced to start giving up hope. And hope is the thing that keeps this whole thing alive, and it gets the Levy's to get up every morning and try to do something else to bring their daughter back.
MCEDWARDS: Are the media making it worse for them, do you think?
KLAAS: No. The media is doing absolutely the right thing -- right down the line. I mean, you know, in our case, Larry King was absolutely wonderful. He is fabulous, as are many people in the media on this kind of an issue, because if you didn't have the media driving this story, there is no way law enforcement would be putting resource into it. And what we are realizing now is this is a much larger story. In essence, the Levys are the poster children or the poster parents for this kind of a tragedy. There are families all over America who are going through what the Levys are going through right now. They are just not doing it as publicly.
MCEDWARDS: Marc Klaas, thanks for your thoughts this morning -- appreciate it.
KLAAS: Sure.
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