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Horror Stories from Uganda; British Heist Investigation Continues; Same Teacher, Different Gender; Dogs Search Prison for Contraband
Aired March 01, 2006 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Imagine living day-to-day, night- to-night in constant fear of being kidnapped, enslaved, or tortured, or raped. That's the reality for tens of thousands of children in northern Uganda. The numbers are from the U.N., the horror stories from the children themselves.
Here's CNN's Jeff Koinange.
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JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's night time in Gulu, in northern Uganda. And the dusty roads leading into the town are busy with the patter of tiny feet rushing as if to beat a curfew.
They are coming from small villages far and wide, heading to the relative comfort and safety of the big town, running away from a man they've never seen, but who's reputation inspires terror.
His name is Joseph Kony, who operates in such secrecy, the only pictures we could find of him was this Polaroid given to us by the Ugandan military. He leads a rebel group that calls itself the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, and which claims to base its principles on the 10 commandments.
Kony continues to evade capture after a 20-year war against the Ugandan government, and despite an International Criminal Court warrant of arrest for him.
Around here the children are simply known as night commuters, leaving their vulnerable villages each evening because the LRA has a reputation for attacking after dark. The night commuters range in age from 5 to 16 years old.
Poor, frightened and hungry, children like 8-year-old Alfred, 12- year-old Anek (ph) and 10-year-old Peter, carrying his baby brother, Paul, on his back, and many, many more, all with one daily goal in mind -- just to make it through another night.
They know, and will soon hear of the sadistic horrors that await them if they are kidnapped. They arrive at one of several shelter in Gulu, exhausted but exhilarated. They've made it through the tough patch. (on camera): And it's in shelters like this that these children come to every night. Tonight we understand there's about 350 of them. This place, appropriately called the Noah's Ark Center, where the children come to seek a little comfort, a little care, a little security from what they call the madness, right outside these walls.
(voice-over): I asked the children how many of them know of someone who's been abducted. Almost every hand is raised.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): The rebels come and kill people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): They arrest people, and they kill and they destroy our homes.
KOINANGE: I ask them how many have family members who have been abducted. Just as many hands are raised.
Despite the monotony of coming here every day for the past three years, the children know this is the only place they can become kids again, if only for a few hours.
But the center is both ill-equipped and under-funded. The only comfort the children get is a canvas roof, a cold hard floor and if they are lucky, a blanket. But all they're looking for, it seems, is a place to lie down without having to worry about being the next group of child slaves.
And in the morning, the are up early, ready to take the long walk back home to their villages. No breakfast, no shower, no change of clothes.
At a rehabilitation center for escapees, not far from Noah's Ark, former kidnapped victims gather for a morning prayer session.
Many of these girls, bearing the physical scars of rape; and the boys, the mental scars of torture.
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KOINANGE: Among them, 19-year-old Alice Abalo, who recently escaped from the LRA with her 4-year-old daughter, Nancy, a product of rape. Alice shows us the physical scars of her eight years in captivity. Bullet wounds on her leg, shrapnel scars on her chest. Her younger sister was kidnapped along with her, but she later died in the hands of the rebels.
Years as a sex slave to the LRA have left Alice traumatized. But after awhile, she warms up, telling us bone-chilling stories of her past, of meeting the elusive Joseph Kony, of how, at 12 years old, she was forced to become the 12th wide of one of Kony's aides, old enough to be her father, and of how child victims were often forced to do horrible things by Kony's commanders.
ALICE ABALO, FORMER KIDNAP VICTIM (through translator): One day the group we were in had just killed about six people and proceeded to decapitate them. Then, I was asked to light a wood fire, using the victims' heads as support, the same way one would use three stones. I still have nightmares of their burning hair and brains oozing out of the burning heads. It was horrible.
KOINANGE: And if that isn't enough to traumatize a child for life, Alice tells us of the time one of the kidnapped children tried to escape, and Kony made them personally punish him.
ABALO (through translator): We were forced to bite him with our bare teeth as he screamed in pain. We continued biting him until he was dead. He took a long time to die. And I can still hear him screaming every night.
KOINANGE: As you can imagine, Alice has recurring nightmares. She attends counseling sessions twice a day at the World Vision Center in Gulu.
Florence Lakor is responsible for counseling the escapees. Her own daughter was kidnapped and help in captivity for nearly nine years, before she too escaped and eventually returned home. Lakor says the horror stories she hears are a daily reminder of man's inhumanity to man.
FLORENCE LAKOR, WORLD VISION, UGANDA: Their stories are really horrible. We have heard cases of children who were ordered to cook human beings, said to cut the body into pieces and cook it up. Then they will blaze the village. The government eats the cooked body.
KOINANGE: Alice and the other kidnapped victims are allowed to stay here for 45 days, a brief period to adjust, before going home. That is, if their home has survived the rebels.
As for the others who've managed to evade the Lord's Resistance Army, the tiny feet of the night commuters remain on the move.
Jeff Koinange, CNN, Gulu, in Northern Uganda.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And we'll be right back.
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WHITFIELD: British police investigating last week's huge cash heist are searching for Mr. Big. There have already been several arrests and some money recovered, but CNN's Paula Newton reports police still need to track down the missing $90 million and the folks who stole it.
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's unfolded like an old-fashioned game of cops and robbers and the stakes couldn't be higher. Hundreds of British police officers are on the hunt for $92 million in stolen cash and the criminal gang that pulled it off. They have been searching this farm in Kent, about 30 miles southeast of London, trolling through trash, diving into wells, combing through cars, walking the fields. They've found a small amount of cash buried here and believe this could be the hideout where the cash was divvied up.
A crucial clue -- empty money cages were found on the site. Cages like these were used not just to hold cash, but imprison hostages during the holdup.
PAUL FULLICKS, SECURITAS: Our staff have described their ordeal in the hands of criminal gang in words such as brutal, horrific and traumatic.
NEWTON: It's been more than a week since this cash warehouse was targeted. It's manager, Colin Dickson (ph), abducted by criminals posing as police, criminals who held his wife and 8-year-old son hostage for hours.
Police now have the getaway truck, the 7.5 ton white van that carried away literally tons of cash while back inside the warehouse it was left to a little boy handcuffed to a cash cage to wiggle his way out and call for help. And while more than $2 million was found in this abandoned delivery truck, most of the money has vanished.
ADRIAN LEPPARD, KENT POLICE: There may be people watching this who know where some of that money is now.
NEWTON: Deputy Police Chief Adrian Leppard is trying to draw out the bit players in this crime hoping for a snitch. He's a cop right out of central casting for a crime that could have been ripped from the pages of fiction. Jeffrey Archer should know.
LORD JEFFREY ARCHER, AUTHOR: It is stranger than fiction, and heavy crimes like this always are.
NEWTON: Archer is a bestselling author who says in dreaming up this crime there must have been months of research and some skilled thieves.
ARCHER: It wouldn't surprise me if we were having a discussion in 20 years time about who Mr. Big was, or if they knew who he was, where he is because he could be under an assumed identity. He could be in a country where you can't extradite him. He could have placed the money in several different places. That's quote probable, and that's why this story will run forever.
NEWTON: Two composite sketches have been released. Authorities say known crime figures with nicknames like Mr. Big and the A-Team are being hunted down, a $3.5 million reward offered. The criminal gang responsible has made some mistakes. This has not been the perfect crime but with most of the cash still unaccounted for, it has come pretty close.
Paula Newton, CNN, London.
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WHITFIELD: A father's broken promise, a child's shattered hope, and now the manhunt. Kentucky's so-called bad dad, Byron Perkins, is still on the loose. He disappeared after being allowed out of jail for medical testing to see whether he could donate a kidney to his son, Destin.
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CHUCK GILBERT, U.S. DEPUTY MARSHAL: The court is taking it upon itself to help with the family in this humanitarian effort, released the gentleman based upon his promise in court to come back. And, basically, he stood up his family which I think is very, very low.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Perkins and girlfriend Leanne Howard (ph) were last seen in a 1994 blue-green Crown Victoria with a Kentucky license plate of 784BHS. Perkins faces life in prison on federal charges of robbery and use of a firearm during a robbery, and selling drugs. He's considered to be armed and dangerous.
From he to she at the tender age of 70. A transgender teacher gives some parents a headache in New Jersey. LIVE FROM dives into the controversial career of Ms. McBeth straight ahead.
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WHITFIELD: Well, Lady McBeth she is not -- at least she didn't used to be, and that's what's causing all the drama in Eagleswood, New Jersey. Mr. McBeth was a beloved schoolteacher but some parents don't want Ms. McBeth anywhere near their small fry.
Lucy Yang of our affiliate WABC has that story.
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LUCY YANG, WABC REPORTER (voice-over): 70-year-old Lily McBeth began teaching nine years ago and wants to get in front of the class again.
LILY MCBETH, TEACHER: I mean, a good teacher is a good teacher.
YANG: However, it is not that easy for this Ocean County substitute teacher. Until last year McBeth was a man, William McBeth. He underwent a sex change operation and since, the teacher not been asked back to work.
Tonight, she met with the board of education and the community to decide her fate with 4 to 12-year-old students, the community hotly divided.
VINCENT MUSTACCHIO, PARENT: Why then would she want to take that abnormality and subject it to this age of school children?
YANG: Mark Schnepp took out a full page ad against her reinstatement.
MARK SCHNEPP, PARENT: I will not allow you to put my kids in a petri dish and hope it all turns out fine.
YANG: However these students, who had McBeth as a male, believe her teaching skills earned her an invitation back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was completely competent. I don't see how this is an issue.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can remember when she was he. She was really cool and entertaining.
YANG: In the end, the Board of Education did not take a formal vote on McBeth. I'm told she is currently approved and on the roster as a substitute teacher, which means she hasn't been called in yet. But she will when her name comes up.
MCBETH: I think it was magnificent. You saw diversity in action.
YANG: So whether parents want her or not, William McBeth can return to school as Lily McBeth.
In Eagleswood, New Jersey, Lucy Yang, Channel 7 Eyewitness News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And on the topic of making a gender change so late in life, Lily McBeth says quote, "It's never too late to be yourself."
Well, you may remember a story LIVE FROM told you last week about two bears that were euthanized at a park in Richmond, Virginia, after one of them bit a boy who stuck his arm through the fence around their pen. Well, neither animal had rabies, and the park's decision to put them down outraged animal lovers. Well, today those bears were remembered in a service at the park. They've both cremated and their ashes placed in bronze urns, which were buried in a spot overlooking the bear habitat. Critics say the boy's parents should have been punished instead.
Well, in today's "Animal Adventures," a pair of Death Row dogs are on the job jail, sniffing out something called pruno.
Jaime Garza of our affiliate KCAL in Los Angeles has the story.
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JAIME GARZA, KCAL REPORTER (voice-over): Meet Gunner, a one and half-year-old black lab that has a unique nose for crime fighting. He and his counterpart Toby are the first scent detection dogs in the country to be able to sniff out a homemade jailhouse brew called pruno, a booze that L.A. County sheriff's deputies say is a bigger problem than drugs.
DEP. ROBERT STAGGS, TOBY'S HANDLER: The majority of serious incidents, such as assaults, riots and suicides, the inmates were under the influence of alcohol.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good year.
GARZA: This bottle containing the potent hooch was confiscated from a jail cell. Deputies say it's made from combining simple ingredients like fruits and bread, and it's been so popular with inmates that those who make it and sell it behind bars have gone to great creative lengths to hide it.
Here's one example.
DEP. TRACY PALMER, L.A. COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPT.: They'll put it in bag and they'll put it down the toilet, so when the people can flush the toilet, it's connected so that we can't find it and it's down in the toilet.
GARZA: You can imagine how surprised those illegal brewmasters must have been when this dynamic duo found the first stash on February 4th. On the job less than a month and they've already seized 11 gallons of pruno, along with three grams of marijuana. Not bad for a couple of dogs that were rescued from the pound just before they were about to be put to sleep.
DEP. JOHN EIDEM, GUNNER'S HANDLER: Due to Gunner's puppy-like excited disposition, he wasn't adopted. And I don't think that kennel cough that he had or how underweight he was helped him out either.
GARZA: Deputy Staggs says he's just amazed at how two unlikely candidates for this police work are now helping to put inmates on the wagon.
STAGGS: I couldn't ask for a better partner. We've been together for ten weeks, and he was definitely born to do this job.
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WHITFIELD: Well, it is the end of an era in Chicago, as one famous restaurant shuts its doors for good. The story and the closing bell when LIVE FROM returns.
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WHITFIELD: Well, when you think of dangerous sports, sky diving, spear fishing or maybe even NASCAR come to mind. But in the Netherlands, safety officials are worried about darts. The sport is huge there, and a Dutchman is world's darts champion. But it all comes at a price, including darts in eyes, at least a dozen cases a year and concussions caused by poorly hung dart boards. The Dutch Consumer Safety Association blame overeagerness for many of the wounds. Players tossing before opponents finish retrieving. Nowhere in the report, though, is the word alcohol mentioned.
Well, no more bratwursts at the Berghoff. The landmark Chicago restaurant has dished up its final knockwurst, schnitzel and streudel, shutting down after 107 years. There were long lines for the last day yesterday. The German restaurant opened in 19 -- or rather 1898, and moved to its current location in Chicago's loop in 1913, eventually taking up two buildings on West Adams. The owner's daughter will now operate a cafe at the historic location.
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