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Idaho Investigation Press Conference; Interview With Convicted Sex Offender Jake Goldenflame

Aired July 05, 2005 - 13:59   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: And new pictures, live pictures from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. You're looking now at the captain, Ben Wolfinger, who will be addressing the assembled reporters in just a moment. And we'll take you there live right now.
CAPT. BEN WOLFINGER, KOOTENAI COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPT.: Thanks to the media, the tip line is active. We've had over 100 tips just yesterday come in on the tip line. This is really starting to put together a package for the -- for the investigators, talking about where that vehicle has been, where Duncan has been, and possibly and most probably, where the Groene children have been over the past -- over the past six or seven weeks.

There have been a large number of gifts coming into Kootenai Medical Center for Shasta. In fact, they have an entire room full of gifts right now. They're asking, please do not send more gifts to the hospital.

The family established two bank accounts if people want to make donations to the family. One is at US Bank in any of the Coeur d'Alene locations, the other is at the Inland Northwest Bank at both Post Falls or Coeur d'Alene locations.

Mr. Duncan's first appearance will be today at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time. At this time, we're anticipating allowing one media representative per agency in to record that. We're rather limited on time -- or on space in that facility. If that isn't going to work, we'll have to pool it.

Now, I will leave that up to the media representatives to make that final decision. But at this point, we are going to allow one per agency in to record that.

Please remember you're recording off a television monitor only. OK? It will be a monitor, you'll have sound, but it's just -- there's no feed. You're going to have to record it off the monitor.

There will not be any jail house interviews today of any inmates due to the workload at the jail, holiday weekend, a number of people having to do first appearances, court runs, things of that nature. It's a manpower tentative affair. There will not be any jail house interviews of any inmates today.

Finally, today at 4:00 p.m. Mountain Time, 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time, there will be a press conference in St. Regis, Montana, to discuss developments in the case in western Montana. The press conference will be at the Forest Service Work Center in St. Regis.

Directions to the work center: take I-90 to exit 33 in Montana. It's about 94 miles from Coeur d'Alene. At the bottom of the ramp turn left. At the four-way stop turn another left, and it's about one-eighth of a mile to the work center. It will be on your right hand side.

There will be people there to direct you to where the press conference will be held. Please remember, that's 4:00 p.m. Mountain Time, 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

I'll now take questions and answer. However, I'm not going to take any questions about the Montana part of this. Those will be answered at the press conference in Montana today.

QUESTION: Ben, have you made any progress on identifying the remains that were found yesterday?

WOLFINGER: Sorry, that's going to be a Montana question. Sorry.

QUESTION: Can you tell us who is directing the Montana press conference?

WOLFINGER: The -- my understanding is the public information officer from the Forest Service, Mineral County Sheriff's Office (ph) and the FBI.

QUESTION: Ben, has the DNA arrived at the FBI labs in Quantico? Do you know that?

WOLFINGER: I don't know that yet, Sean (ph).

QUESTION: What's the latest on Shasta? How's she doing?

WOLFINGER: I understand Shasta's doing very well. She's in good condition. We had -- we talked to the media -- or the hospital liaison this morning. She's doing very well and is being very happy having her father there close by.

QUESTION: Will he be speaking today?

QUESTION: Will she get out soon?

WOLFINGER: I don't know. That's a medical question.

QUESTION: Will he be speaking today?

WOLFINGER: Who?

QUESTION: Steve Groene. Will he be speaking today?

WOLFINGER: We don't have any word. We've asked that. We haven't had any word back if he'll be speaking or not today.

QUESTION: Can you elaborate on (INAUDIBLE)? Can you comment at all about that? WOLFINGER: I'm not a behavioral specialist. I'm not going to comment about that.

QUESTION: Can you elaborate on what led authorities toward western Montana?

WOLFINGER: Well, we really can't elaborate on the specific details. We had a lot of different sources, physical evidence, testimonial evidence that gave us several locations in northern Idaho and western Montana that we checked out. This just happened to be one of those spots.

QUESTION: Was GPS involved?

WOLFINGER: We aren't going to talk about any specifics of the evidence that led us to these different sites.

QUESTION: Ben, I believe that the FBI sent the large utility truck from Salt Lake City to start collecting evidence. Can you talk about the process of collecting evidence from each of those locations?

WOLFINGER: I'm going to let -- let Tim answer those.

TIM FUHRMAN, FBI: As Ben mentioned, we're going to be over in western Montana this afternoon, and we will address those types of questions then.

QUESTION: So you can't explain the process of any of those sites, how you're collecting it?

FUHRMAN: No, we're not going to talk specifically about those sites. I mean, specifically, we do have evidence response team members over there from the Salt Lake City field office. And they are going through the evidence collection. And then we'll discuss over there what the process -- where the process goes from there.

QUESTION: Do you have investigators who have expertise in talking to children who have been traumatized? Are they in on this case now trying to talk to Shasta?

FUHRMAN: The FBI has a number of investigators who have different types of specialties. I'm not going to comment on the particular individuals that are talking to her here in this particular case. But you can be assured that the FBI and the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office and the ISP are balancing Shasta's interests with the interests of the investigation and the overall interests of her health.

QUESTION: Because Dylan's not been identified yet, or the remains have not been identified yet, are you still searching for Dylan? Is there still an active search of the northern Idaho and Montana sites?

FUHRMAN: We're still continuing processing over at the Montana crime scene.

QUESTION: What about anything more about how this guy from North Dakota ends up over here with the Groene kids?

FUHRMAN: I can't comment on that.

QUESTION: No relationship at all that you can tell us about?

FUHRMAN: None that I'm aware of.

QUESTION: Have you been able to place him at the Groene home at any time?

FUHRMAN: I'm not going to comment on that. I just don't know.

QUESTION: Do you have any idea how long he spent with Shasta?

FUHRMAN: We're assuming that he's been with her at least since last week, but I don't know. I'm assuming, you know, Shasta's been gone for seven weeks. We may, you know, determine how long that time period was at some point in the future.

QUESTION: But have any of those tips yet put them back further than a week?

FUHRMAN: We have been fortunate that some of the tips that have come in have been very helpful.

QUESTION: Can you tell us if any sort of a GPS device was found in the car?

FUHRMAN: I'm not going to comment on the nature of any of the evidence.

QUESTION: Are there additional videotapes besides the one that surfaced in Kellogg that shows...

FUHRMAN: Once again, that's potential evidence, and I can't really comment or characterize the type of evidence that we have. We have an ongoing investigation and eventual prosecution. I don't want to compromise the integrity of either the investigation or the prosecution.

We've got a lot of people out there working hard. And I definitely don't want to compromise the work -- the great work that they're doing.

QUESTION: Well, do you believe that anyone else is involved?

FUHRMAN: We're still continuing to conduct this investigation wide open

QUESTION: Has a federal hold been issued yet on UFAP?

FUHRMAN: You're going to have to check with the prosecutor, the United States attorney's office, with respect to the status of the UFAP order.

QUESTION: Can you talk about the different skills it takes to interview a child as compared to interviewing an adult?

FUHRMAN: I know we have experts in the FBI that can speak to those issues. Obviously, whenever you talk to a witness, you take the witness as they come and you tailor your interview to some extent to whatever characteristics they may bring to the interview. But I'm not going to talk about the differences between child interviews and adult interviews. But you have to obviously take into account the characteristics that a child would have.

QUESTION: Has Shasta revealed to officers the last time she saw her brother alive?

FUHRMAN: We're not going to talk about what Shasta has advised us.

QUESTION: The fact that the Forest Service involved (INAUDIBLE) discovery was made at a National Forest Service...

FUHRMAN: We'll discuss that at 4:00.

QUESTION: A lot of people have asked daily whether Shasta will be released from the hospital. And we're told that's a medical decision. Is she still in there for medical reasons, or is this just a nice, safe place to keep her, away from...

FUHRMAN: I can't comment on that. That's a medical decision. And we, as you know -- they are very strict about the privacy laws with respect to people's medical situations. So I can't really comment on that.

QUESTION: Tim, we heard numerous times after Shasta was found that you guys has a mountain of new information. Can you at least address how that's helped streamline your investigation?

FUHRMAN: I'm not going to characterize it as streamlining it. It has been very helpful to the investigation.

I mentioned yesterday we were making substantial progress in the investigation. We continue to make substantial progress in the investigation.

QUESTION: Are you searching any other sites other than (INAUDIBLE)?

FUHRMAN: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.

QUESTION: Are you looking at any other sites, are there teams still searching other sites (INAUDIBLE)?

FUHRMAN: At this point in time, we're following all of our investigative leads. We're covering leads all over the place, if you want to characterize that as searching sites. But we do have a team of DRT (ph) people over (INAUDIBLE), a team of about 15 to 20 people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) FUHRMAN: I'm not going to get into where we searched. We'll admit that we have been over in Montana, but I'm not going to get into where else we searched.

HARRIS: And we're just listening in to the closing moments of a press conference in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, with the FBI and the captain of the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department there, Captain Wolfinger. And we can tell you that the captain reported that they're getting tips.

Tips are rolling in right now as they continue to put together the timeline of the places and locations where Joseph Duncan kept, we presume, Dylan, and certainly Shasta Groene over the last six or seven weeks, although they're still trying to figure out the exact timeline, how long Duncan may have had Shasta in his custody.

Rusty Dornin is in Coeur d'Alene right now.

And Rusty, there are a number of things we can talk about. But right off the top, we understand that there is a news conference for later this afternoon in western Montana to update us on that portion of the investigation.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. About an hour and a half after Joseph Duncan has his first appearance via closed circuit TV here in Coeur d'Alene, there's going to be a news conference in St. Regis, Montana, which is, as I understand, about 45 minutes from here.

The Forest Service is going to be involved in that, as well as the FBI. And apparently they still are processing the site where they did find the remains. And certainly they were talking about, you know, searching in northern Idaho, western Washington, and western Montana, looking for site where's Duncan and Dylan and Shasta Groene might have stayed. And, of course, then finding the remains in western Montana.

So -- and as I said, looking also in other areas. Also, I thought it was interesting, you know, they're talking about one of the ways they might have known. They wouldn't answer the question, but perhaps there was GPS on that Jeep Laredo that was a rental car that Joseph Duncan did end up stealing from Minnesota -- Tony.

HARRIS: Oh, that's right. That's right, because they are counting on folks after they've seen the release of the photographs of the Jeep. They're counting on folks who may have seen that Jeep to provide information. It would make sense that maybe there was a GPS on that.

DORNIN: And the other interesting thing, of course, another one of -- another piece of that puzzle is coming from things, again, from surveillance videos. One of the most fascinating, the most haunting was taken six hours before they did come to Coeur d'Alene and he was arrested and she was found.

You see them at a convenience store at a gas station in Kellogg, Idaho. And you see him get out to get gas, Joseph Duncan. HARRIS: That's right.

DORNIN: And then a police car actually cruises by in the background. He sort of looks like he's hiding.

Then she goes inside the convenience store, or both of them do, and she's by herself, and you do not see him anywhere around. She doesn't try to alert anyone.

He's seen in another part of the store very casually reading a newspaper, raising the idea of why on earth didn't she try to contact anyone, what kind of power did this man have over her...

HARRIS: Yes.

DORNIN: ... that she didn't try to alert them and say, hey, I'm with this man who isn't my father, I've been kidnapped, that sort of thing.

HARRIS: Right.

DORNIN: They were in there for eight minutes, Tony, before they left.

HARRIS: Rusty, but as you look at the video -- and I hope we run it back -- as you look at that video, you just -- she's just so small, and she's just so -- you're right, you have no idea at this point what kind of an ordeal she's undergone. And as you look at her there, you just -- your heart just goes out to her.

DORNIN: Yes, she's just hugging herself.

HARRIS: Yes. Yes.

DORNIN: You know? And she doesn't speak to anyone. She keeps -- and she keeps looking at the adults but never tries to make any contact.

And you have no idea what this youngster has been through over the past six or seven weeks, what she has witnessed. I mean, even from the very beginning, did she see the murder of her mother, her brother and her mother's boyfriend?

HARRIS: Yes.

DORNIN: We don't even know that. Did she see what happened to her brother? We don't know that.

So no idea what kind of trauma this young girl has gone through. But she just looks so withdrawn and so sad in that video.

HARRIS: OK. Rusty Dornin, a lot to cover in Coeur d'Alene. We appreciate it. Thank you, Rusty.

So what should be done about keeping sexual predators from striking again? In just a few minutes, we'll get some first-person insights from author and convicted sex offender Jake Goldenflame. That's at quarter past the hour right here on LIVE FROM.

Now to Aruba, where the law is one thing, a parents' pain quite another. Thirty-six days after Natalee Holloway disappeared, one day after two suspects were released from jail for lack of evidenevidence, Holloway's mother can scarcely contain her frustration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BETH TWITTY HOLLOWAY, NATALEE'S MOTHER: It is now that I ask the world to help me. Two suspects were released yesterday who were involved in a violent crime against my daughter. These criminals are not only allowed to walk freely among the tourists and citizens of Aruba, there are no limits where they may choose to travel.

I'm asking all mothers and fathers in all nations to hear my plea. I implore you, do not allow these two suspects, the Kalpoe brothers, to enter your country until this case is solved. Do not allow these criminals to walk among your citizens. Help me by not allowing these two to get away with this crime.

It is my greatest fear today that the Kalpoe brothers will leave Aruba. I am asking the Aruban officials to notify the United States State Department in the event these suspects try to leave this island. I'm asking all nations not to offer them a safe haven.

I am asking this in the name of my beautiful, intelligent and outstanding daughter, who I haven't seen for 36 days and for whom I will continue to search until I find her. Thank you all so much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Some points of order. No one, not even the lone suspect still in custody, has been charged with anything in Holloway's disappearance. And all the suspects insist they're innocent.

The Kalpoes, moreover, have every legal right to leave Aruba. That lone man in custody is Joran Van Der Sloot, the last person known to have seen Holloway in the wee small hours of the day. She was supposed to fly back to Alabama.

Barring some new twists, he'll be held for another 60 days, at least. CNN prime time takes a closer look at the search, the law and the anguish of the Holloway case on a special edition of "PAULA ZAHN NOW." That's at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, 5:00 Pacific, right here on CNN.

A rocket veers off course during a fireworks show. Oh, man. We've got details of what happened ahead on LIVE FROM.

How can we keep convicted sex offenders like Joseph Edward Duncan from striking again? The answer from another convicted sex offender and author, it might surprise you. We'll talk with him next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Now more on our top story. The man police accuse of kidnapping Shasta Groene is scheduled to make an initial court appearance via closed-circuit TV in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, later today.

Joseph Edward Duncan has a violent history. He's a high-risk convicted sex offender with a rap sheet dating back many years.

In the book "Overcoming Sexual Terrorism," author and convicted sex offender Jake Goldenflame offers advice to parents who want to protect their kids. And he has some ideas on what could be done to keep offenders from striking again. Jake joins us from San Francisco.

Jake, good to see you.

JAKE GOLDENFLAME, AUTHOR, "OVERCOMING SEXUAL TERRORISM": Thank you.

HARRIS: Well, give me that one piece of advice. I'm a dad with two small children. What is that top priority piece of advice that parents should keep in mind that would help them in protecting their children?

GOLDENFLAME: See us as who we really are instead of who we're sometimes portrayed as being. See us as people who themselves have been damaged and seek only a place to start over again. Not an honor, but to begin again.

Ask about us. Care enough about us when you see us on the street. Ask, "How's it going?"

Listen very carefully to what we tell you so you can hear whether there are any danger signs or not. Encourage us when you can. We remain law abiding in your communities. And when you have concerns about how we're doing, contact your local police and let them know so that they can check on us and make sure there are no problems requiring other kinds of assistance.

This man could have been saved. He got out of prison, he lasted some five years before he struck a second time with regard to that case that he got bail on.

During those five years, if the right work had been done in his community, as has been done in my community, he could have remained re-offense free. I've been in San Francisco now since 1996. This month I begin my 15th year of remaing re-offense free, and I know men who got a lot longer.

What it takes is caring. Caring produces caring by us. That's how it works.

HARRIS: Jake, but you understand that for a lot of folks, when a convicted sex offender re-enters a community, the last thing they want to do is care and hug and love them up.

GOLDENFLAME: No, not...

HARRIS: And ask how that person is doing. We expect that person to have come out of the system, have changed, have reformed.

GOLDENFLAME: Right.

HARRIS: And have made up his mind not to do anything like this again.

GOLDENFLAME: That's right. And what I'm saying is, I'm not asking you to get warm and fuzzy with him. I'm simply saying, care enough to -- number one, you should let them know who you are anyhow.

You should go and let the person know, we know who you are, and while we wish you well in your recovery, we're going to be keeping our eyes on you. I think that that's important, that the former offender know he's being watched.

At the same time, when you see him on the street, "How's it going?" I think you should make it your business to know how those kinds of people are doing, because otherwise, they could harm your children.

HARRIS: Yes. Well, that makes a certain amount of sense. You're right about that, Jake.

All right. You recognize some things in this Duncan character? Let me read something from his own blog.

GOLDENFLAME: Right.

HARRIS: And tell me what you -- tell me what you hear in it.

GOLDENFLAME: Right.

HARRIS: Let's start with this: "Because of my appearance and family circumstances, I was molested so often and by so many different people that, up until the time of my offense, I thought it was normal."

GOLDENFLAME: Yes. Tony, that is such a common story.

I'm in touch with convicted sex offenders in prisons across the country who write to me, and again and again and again I hear a similar background. In almost every case, we've been damaged in some kind of way in our childhood, either sexually or emotionally or physically. I don't think it takes a psychologist to know that a man who molests children or rapes women is not well.

We have to treat them as people who have been damaged, not just as people who are demonic. What they do is demonic. What they are is damaged.

HARRIS: Convicted sex offenders in prison are telling you that either we change the path we're taking in this nation or we can kiss our children good-bye? What's that about?

GOLDENFLAME: Yes. Yes. I got a report three weeks ago from the first of these prisons.

The man who wrote it is a convicted sex offender himself doing time there. He's telling me that what he's hearing out on the yard from the other convicted child molesters is anger and frustration at a society that seems determined to never let them begin having a life again, that we'll discriminate against them forever. And in that anger, what he's hearing them say is, "Next time I'm take some kids with me."

HARRIS: You know, you harm a child, maybe a lot of folks will say you don't deserve to have a life again.

GOLDENFLAME: I can't argue with that sentiment. I really can't.

About a month ago, a younger adult relative in my family let me know that when he was 12 or 13 years of age, somebody sexually abused him. And Tony, in that moment, I swear, I really understood for the first time why the public wants to kill us.

I wanted to, too. But I understand enough to know that if you go ahead and you say, fine, we'll take these guys, lock them up, throw away the key, never let them out again, what you'll do is so terrify the ones you haven't caught yet that every one of them will kill the victim rather than take a chance on getting caught. And we dare not take that chance.

HARRIS: All right. From Joseph Duncan's blog once again, "I am scared, alone and confused. And my reaction is to strike out toward the perceived source of my misery, society. My intent is to harm society as much as I can, then die."

GOLDENFLAME: Right. This is a man who has become overwhelmed by shame.

There's nothing wrong with saying what he did was shameful. That's appropriate. But if you overwhelm a person with shame, if you heap them with so much shame that they can never see beyond that, that they can never believe they'll ever be accepted again as anything else, it's not impossible they'll give up.

I had such a moment myself. I had been out of prison and finished with parole for a couple of years. I had gone abroad, I came back. In a short amount of time of being back, the atmosphere around me was so hostile toward registered sex offenders, that I, myself, felt that same air of defeatism. And I thought to myself, you know -- I mentioned it in my book -- I'm going to give up and just going back to being what I was.

And I left this country with the intention of doing that. But a short time after leaving, my good mental health came back to me and I never offended again. So what that tells me is, if you make the atmosphere around the guy too defeatist, if you demonize him too much, if you confuse the term "registered sex offender" with "sex offender," he'll give up, and he may go down Joe Duncan's path.

HARRIS: Hey, Jenny (ph), let's run those pictures again of Shasta in the convenience store. This is surveillance video, Jake.

GOLDENFLAME: Yes. HARRIS: And I want to ask you, as we're watching the video, what is the exercise that the sexual offender goes through to gain the kind of -- what appears to be mind control over a victim so that Shasta, as we see her here...

GOLDENFLAME: Right. Right.

HARRIS: ... is free of him but won't go to someone and say, "Help me?"

GOLDENFLAME: She's not free of him in her mind. You've got to remember that if this man is guilty as we think he is, this is the man who killed the most powerful people in her life, her parents.

He's god. He's a god gone mad, but he's god. And in that kind of person, with that kind of person, you're not -- a little 8-year-old girl? She's not going to take any chances.

He may have told her, "If you try anything anywhere, I will still kill you before they" -- and he could have told her anything. And at 8 years of age, she'd believe it. She's in his spell, yes.

HARRIS: So you're not surprised that she never took a moment -- I mean, she's walking...

GOLDENFLAME: No.

HARRIS: ... walking to the Jeep. You're not surprised by that at all?

GOLDENFLAME: Not at that tender an age. I think that would be asking the extraordinary of a child of that age.

I think she did the right thing. She did what she needed to survive. She hugged herself, she stuck to herself. She did was she was supposed -- she's playing a survival game, and good for her.

She was -- she was brave enough to keep doing it without cracking, and as a result she did survive. Good for her.

HARRIS: Wow. Jake, that is a good perspective. She did what she needed to do to survive.

Jake Goldenflame, we appreciate it. Thanks for the time today. Good insights.

GOLDENFLAME: Thank you. All right.

HARRIS: We'll take a break. More LIVE FROM after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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