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Tennessee Police Search for Escaped Convict; Bush Signs Highway Bill; Diplomats Differ Over How to Deal with Iran's Nuke Threats; Convicted Murderer Buried in Arlington; "Smart Bomb" Targets Cancer Cells
Aired August 10, 2005 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL HYATTE, BROTHER OF GEORGE HYATTE: George, all I want to tell you is we love you. Please give me a call or give Mama a call. You know it's time for this to end. You know? One innocent man done lost his life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TONY HARRIS, HOST: A family plea and a police search for a husband and wife on the run after a courthouse shootout.
Tarnished honor. How does a convicted murderer end up buried at Arlington National Cemetery?
Pork and potholes. The highway bill signed into law that some call a highway robbery of your tax dollars.
From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Tony Harris in for Kyra Phillips. CNN's LIVE FROM starts right now.
It sounds like a summer blockbuster. A fired prison nurse allegedly guns down a guard escorting her inmate husband from a Tennessee courthouse and the newlyweds flee into the hills, or somewhere.
It's day two of a true crime story that started with a murderous ambush in Kingston, just west of Knoxville. Today authorities say George and Jennifer Lynn (ph) Hyatte are desperate, extremely violent, possibly wounded and, despite dozens of leads and tips, still on the loose.
We get an update from Catharyn Campbell of CNN affiliate WATE in Knoxville, Tennessee -- Katherine.
CATHARYN CAMPBELL, WATE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Tony. The scene looks a lot different today, but there is still a lot going on here at the Roane County Courthouse. This is where the command center is set up for law enforcement officers.
Now, we talked with lead investigators as they were leaving their morning briefing. They say they are following a lot of leads. They got a lot of calls from people here in Tennessee that say they've seen the couple and a lot of calls from people in surrounding states. They tell us it is possible that a third person was involved in this escape. Detectives are talking with George and Jennifer Hyatte's family and friends as we speak. Police believe Jennifer may have been injured during the gun fire exchange here at the courthouse, and they believe that she might be trying to treat herself. She is a trained nurse.
Now, we got some new information from investigators about that gold van they say the couple is still believed to be driving. They say the vehicle stolen from one of Jennifer's patients in Hendersonville, Tennessee. They say that she works as a home healthcare nurse there.
Now, they also believe that Jennifer may have cut her hair, and they believe she may be using a maiden name. That's Jennifer Taylor. Now, investigators say they are going to give us a briefing about 2 p.m., and we hope to learn more about this couple then.
Tony, back to you.
HARRIS: Reporter Catharyn Campbell for us. Catharyn, we appreciate it. Thank you.
And I understand, just to update you, there will be a briefing at about 2 p.m. this afternoon, and we'll take you to Kingston, the courthouse just outside of Kingston for that live briefing when it happens.
We want to get you some additional information. Just a moment ago, last hour, there was a plea, a very public plea from the brother of George Hyatte. This is Michael Hyatte.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HYATTE: He's not a cold blooded murder, you know? He's just a normal person that probably has a few mental issues he needs to deal with.
If you're listening George, all I want to tell you is we love you. Please give me a call. Give Mama a call. You know it's time for this to end. You know? One innocent man done lost his life. And let's not make it two.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Michael Hyatte, George Hyatte's brother.
If you ever wonder why they call them freeways, you'll still be wondering when you hear about the $286 billion Surface Transportation Bill President Bush signed into law today in Illinois.
Two years in the making, the mega-measure paves the way for highway and byway, bridge and boulevard, rail and trail construction and renovation through the end of the decade.
At the Caterpillar heavy equipment plant and House Speaker Hastert's home district, Mr. Bush called the bill a job creation machine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm here to sign the highway bill, because I believe by signing this bill, when it's fully implemented, there's going to be more demand for the machines you make here. And because there's more demand for the machines you make here, there's going to be more jobs created around places like this facility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: Critics say the highway bill has something for everybody. And they don't mean you and me. They mean hundreds of lawmakers who stuck in thousands of hometown projects costing millions of taxpayers billions of dollars.
CNN's Joe Johns crunches the numbers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's about highways, bridges and other transportation improvements, and it's about bringing goodies to the folks back home. Goodies that help get members of Congress re-elected. Goodies that make members of Congress look like they're doing something on Capitol Hill.
KEITH ASHDOWN, TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE: It's packed with pork for every congressional district in the nation. It's too expensive, and it really doesn't deal with the nation's transportation problems like congestion.
JOHNS: The numbers are staggering. More than 6,300 projects worth an estimated $24 billion, according to a watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense.
A $200 million bridge in Alaska named for Don Young, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee. More than $16 million just for bike paths in the Minnesota congressional district of the committee's top Democrat, Jim Oberstar.
All told, Oberstar's district will get more than $120 million for transportation projects, almost 10 times more than the average congressman. Why?
REP. JAMES OBERSTAR (D-MN), TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE: Because I've put in the most time, put in 31 years in the Congress.
JOHNS: The bill also funds horse trails, traffic lights and transit systems, even a day care center in Illinois.
Many members of Congress defend the bill as a creator of jobs.
OBERSTAR: This legislation is a real shining example of using our transportation funds to make society better. JOHNS: While watchdog groups complain that the bill costs too much, some states are already arguing that they did not get their fair share.
Joe Johns, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Well, Joe mentioned a few of the pork projects in the transportation bill, but there are many more.
There are actually two bridge projects in Alaska. Joe mentioned one. The other is a $230 million bridge in Ketchikan. The bridge will replace a 7-minute ferry ride from the town of Revilla Island where the local airport is located.
Alaska Congressman Dan Young fought for the funds, saying his state means more money to catch up with the rest of the country in developing its infrastructure, but critics call it the bridge to nowhere, to an island where the number of residents are counted in dozens.
Another project highlighted by watchdog groups, $2 million to add landscaping to the Ronald Reagan Freeway in southern California. The local congressman argues that the road needs static upgrades, but one of the bill's chief opponents, Senator John McCain, says Ronald Reagan would certainly not be pleased.
And one more item of note: the bill earmarks $50 million to reconstruct a road in Montana's Glacier Mountain National Park. Going to the Sun Road runs through the park's high mountain passes where, due to winter snow, it is impassable for at least six months out of every year.
Breaking the seals, raising the stakes, crossing a line. Iran today took a symbolic and sobering step toward resuming its controversial conversion of uranium, even while declaring nuclear weapons off limits under the dictates of Islam.
The U.N. nuclear monitoring agency is taking stock from Vienna. And CNN's Walter Rodgers is there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The International Atomic Energy Agency is having the devil of a time grappling with the Iran nuclear conversion issue. The Iranians have restarted that nuclear conversion at their Isfahan plant, a great worry to the west.
And now, the diplomats here in Vienna are sharply divided. Britain, France and Germany, the European big three, we're told, are inclined to go to the United Nations' Security Council now with the threat of sanctions against Iran. The United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are also on the same side, marching in lock step with the European big three. The nonaligned countries, however, are disinclined to have any confrontation with Iran. Yesterday, the Iranian minister here at the International Atomic Energy Agency threatened the members of the IAEA, threatened the west with higher oil prices if there's any confrontation with Iran over its nuclear conversion program.
He went on to say that Iran could be cooperative with the west on Iraq, on Afghanistan, in Syria, but implicit in that, according to one western diplomat, was the thinly veiled threat that Iran could also make mischief for the west in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria if, indeed, there was a confrontation.
(on camera) Diplomats here are expected to come out with a mild, watered down statement, which at best only calls on Iran to cease and desist from that nuclear conversion at the Isfahan plant.
Walter Rodgers, CNN, Vienna.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: So is this a mountain or a molehill or something in between? We'll dig a little deeper in just a few minutes with international security expert, long time friend of LIVE FROM, Jim Walsh. That's at half past the hour right here on CNN.
A Pakistani imam is persona non grata in California while denying any links to al Qaeda or plots against America. Shabbir Ahmed is charged only with overstaying the visa while heading up a mosque in Lodi south of Sacramento. But at a hearing yesterday in San Francisco, the FBI claimed Ahmed acted as a contact for a follower who trained at a terror camp in Pakistan.
Ahmed was held without bail until a deportation hearing in October.
CNN is committed to providing the most reliable coverage of news that affects your security. Stay tuned to CNN for the latest information day and night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP0
HARRIS (voice-over): Next on LIVE FROM, nuclear ambition. Iran takes a new step towards processing uranium. Is it also a step closer to making an atomic bomb?
Later on LIVE FROM, kids playing a deadly game.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like, hyper ventilating and going -- that kind of. Just like right here on each side.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's almost like a drug. They crave it. They crave the high that they get from the -- from the lack of oxygen.
HARRIS: How to spot the signs if a child you know is playing the choking game.
Also ahead...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How could you not know you were six months pregnant?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's a good question.
HARRIS: Meet the baby whose birth surprised everyone, especially her mom.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place for a quarter million military veterans and American heroes. It's also where a convicted killer has just been buried, sparking outrage and an Army investigation.
CNN's Kimberly Osias explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wilda and Daniel Davis had been married for 63 years. Their lives were suddenly cut short on Valentine's Day 1994 when they were stabbed to death in their own home by this man, Russell Wayne Wagner.
VERNON DAVIS, VICTIM'S SON: We was devastated.
OSIAS: Wagner managed to walk after his first trial ended in a hung jury in 1996. Six years later, DNA from a single strand of hair helped to convict him. Wagner was sentenced to two consecutive life prison terms. This past February he was found dead in his cell from a heroin overdose. What happened next started a new controversy.
(on camera) Wagner served in the Army and was honorably discharged. He qualified to have his funeral here at Arlington Cemetery.
(voice-over) His ashes were placed in a vault above ground. Cemetery officials told us they didn't know about Wagner's' background. According to federal law, any veteran, including a convicted killer, would be eligible for burial, provided the sentence included the possibility of parole. Wagner would have been eligible after 15 years.
And one Army veteran, the victim's son, is outraged. He says the law needs to be changed. Vernon Davis served in the 1960s and was part of the honor guard at President Kennedy's funeral.
(on camera) In some ways, is this a slap in the face? DAVIS: It's more than a slap in the face. It's just -- it's just completely uncalled for. Uncalled for. There is no honor there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The way he took my mother and daddy's life.
OSIAS (voice-over): An act Vernon Davis considers unforgivable.
DAVIS: Well, for a guy that -- that was in the service and fought for his country, for our freedom and then he come home and took freedom away from two people. That he -- that he had no right to do.
OSIAS: But Wagner's ashes are kept in a place of honor along with the remains of nearly 300,000 others who sacrificed for their country.
Kimberly Osias, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: Well, we were wondering, what are the rules for being buried at Arlington National Cemetery? We did research. Here's what we found out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS (voice-over): Among those eligible for burial at Arlington, active duty members of the armed forces, those retired from the armed forces, presidents and former presidents and certain other former members of the military who may not have served until retirement. In some cases, close relatives are eligible, as well.
Nothing there to exclude convicted criminals, but there's more to it. In 1997, Congress passed a law aimed at keep Persian Gulf War veteran and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh out of Arlington. The law was designed to keep anyone convicted of a capital crime from being buried at Arlington.
But a check of congressional archives reveals very specific wording. The law says, "A person who has been convicted of a state capital crime for which the person was sentenced to death or life imprisonment without parole."
Russell Wayne Wagner was sentenced to serve two life terms for his crimes by a Maryland circuit court. He was not yet eligible for parole at the time of the death. But his sentence did not specifically preclude the possibility of parole.
So under the current system, he is eligible to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HARRIS: And did you know this? About 60 non-Americans are also buried there. Tomorrow, the first Iraqi will be laid to rest at Arlington. Captain Ali Abbas (ph) and four U.S. Air Force troops died in May when their plane crashed near the Iranian border. Since some of the remains could not be separated, they'll be buried in one coffin, five names on the gravestone.
Every day, people of all ages, all races are in a fight for their life. The enemy, cancer. All this week, our senior medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is bringing us inside views of that very personal battle. Today, he looks at experimental therapies known as smart bombs, designed to zero in on cancer cells.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Allan, you break the glass and remember --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In Judaism, when you break the glass, it means no matter whatever happens in your life, there's been shattering.
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Allan and Nancy Lusky, life shattered with the diagnosis: brain cancer.
Cancer has not been kind, nor gentle, to Allan Lusky. Parts of his brain ripped away. Nobody knew then, but Allan had the deadliest form of brain cancer you can get: malignant lea blastoma (ph), stage four. He had a year, if he was lucky.
To buy time, Allan quickly entered a clinical trial. Out of 13 patients, one lucky survivor.
ALLAN LUSKY, CANCER PATIENT: Me.
GUPTA: Two years ago, Dr. Fred Lang removed some of the cancer and now he may have found a better way to destroy Allan's tumor. Dr. Lang and Dr. Wan Fao (ph) have developed a viral therapy, code name Delta 24. It's one of a new generation of targeted therapies, the very latest in man's arsenal against cancer. It's called the smart bomb.
DR. FRED LANG, SURGEON: It was called smart because it could distinguish tumor cells from normal cells. So it wasn't just, you know, something that was going to injure everything. It's a bomb in the sense that it can explode within a cell. So, the virus enters the cell, increases its numbers, replicates and then essentially blows up that cell to release it -- more virus into the environment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See?
GUPTA: At least that's what they hope will happen. So far, the smart bomb has only been successfully detonated in mice. Allan is willing to give Delta 24 a try.
LUSKY: Once you have cancer, you get rid of it two ways. One if they find a cure. And two is when you die. Until one of those two things happen, you have cancer.
GUPTA: Allan Lusky prays he's alive to see his daughter get married and his grandchild born. No one knows if time is on his side.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HARRIS: Don't forget, we have a doctor in the house even on the weekends. Watch CNN Saturday and Sunday mornings at 8:30 Eastern for all of the latest medical news on "HOUSE CALL WITH DR. SANJAY GUPTA."
When we come back, we will hear from a member of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations. We'll get the latest information on the ongoing search for George and Jennifer Lynn Hyatte. That's after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARRIS: We're going to spend a few minutes now talking with Mark Gwyn. He is the director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, and he's joining us from Nashville, Tennessee.
Mark, good to talk to you.
MARK GWYN, DIRECTOR, TENNESSEE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIONS: Good to be here.
HARRIS: Mark, give us a sense of where you stand now in this search effort to find George and Jennifer Lynn Hyatte.
GWYN: Well, we have launched an all-out man hunt here in Tennessee to try to locate George and Jennifer Hyatte. We've received numerous leads all night last night, on into the morning this morning. And now we're in the process of following those leads out to see if they won't lead to the capture of George and Jennifer Hyatte.
HARRIS: Are you at all surprised that you haven't been able to locate them to this point? It's more than 24 hours now. Are you surprised?
GWYN: Well, obviously, we would -- we wish we had captured them by now, but there's many different directions they could have exited in. And we're just going to have to follow the leads out until we -- until we do capture them.
HARRIS: The fact that you haven't caught them, does that give you any indication as to how well this escape was planned?
GWYN: Well, we think it was very well planned, very well thought out, which leads us to believe that it will be a little harder maybe to capture them. But we do believe Jennifer or George Hyatte was injured in the gun fire, so obviously, at some point we feel like one or both will have to seek medical attention, and we've got all the local hospitals on alert for that.
HARRIS: Mark, have you been able to learn anything that's been helpful in this investigation from what we call the friends and family network?
GWYN: We have. I can't discuss it right now, but we're in constant contact with friends, family, and I hope shortly we'll be able to bring George and Jennifer into custody. HARRIS: Without compromising much of your investigation, can you at least confirm for me whether or not George or Jennifer has reached out to family members?
GWYN: I really can't. I really can't at this time. It's just at a critical point and it would be irresponsible for me to say anything about that.
HARRIS: OK. I understand. Can you give us any more information about the vehicle they may be traveling in?
GWYN: We think, based on our intelligence, they're still in the gold Chevy Ventura. We have no reason right now to believe that they have swapped vehicles. So that's still the vehicle we're looking for.
HARRIS: I'm just sort of curious at this point. Law enforcement seems to be fairly confident that they will find these two. Is this something that you expect to happen imminently?
GWYN: Well, I don't know if imminently, but we're working hard. We're running a lot of leads and in normal fugitive investigations like this, when you do that and something good happens. So we feel like that we'll be able to bring these two fugitives into custody within a reasonable time.
HARRIS: OK. Mark Gwyn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, joining us from Nashville. Mark, we appreciate it. Thanks for your time.
GWYN: Thank you.
HARRIS: More LIVE FROM after this.
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