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A Soldier's Story; No Federal Charges to be Filed in Emmett Till Case

Aired March 17, 2006 - 14:30   ET

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

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PHILLIPS: U.S. Army Sergeant Chuck Call is not on the list of soldiers killed in Iraq, but his family believes that their son, who went off to war, never really returned.

This heartbreaking story from Mason County, West Virginia and reporter Jake Glance of CNN affiliate WCHS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE GLANCE, WCHS REPORTER (on camera): Describe him to me.

BETTY SUE BAKER, CHUCK CALL'S MOM: Happy-go-lucky. Always wanting to help somebody.

CHANCE (voice-over): It was that feeling of wanting to help that led Chuck Call to join the military. He served four years with the 101st Airborne Assault Division, then one year with the 458th Combat Engineer Battalion.

B. BAKER: He believed in what he was doing. He believed that it was for a cause.

CHANCE: But the cause wasn't the only reason Chuck wanted to go. He believed a soldier's life meant sacrifice.

B. BAKER: If he could keep a father from going, then, you know, that's what he wanted to do. He was very unselfish.

CHANCE: That unselfishness took Chuck to Iraq. Almost immediately, though, his family noticed a change in his behavior. Their happy-go-lucky mountaineer was slowly fading, gradually being replaced by a sad, fear-filled soldier who was witnessing death nearly every day.

In this letter, Chuck wrote home to his mother and which appeared in the "Charleston Gazette," Chuck wrote, "I have seen the closest thing to hell," and "is this the day I'm going to die?

B. BAKER: There was an explosion over there over a year ago, and they had to go in and clean up body parts. And he was a gunman on all the convoys. And just the constant fear of being shot at. Like he said, you don't know who the enemy is over there.

CHANCE: But Chuck would survive the hell. He came home in time to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with his family.

B. BAKER: You know, things was going so good for him. He got a good job. He had a girlfriend and they planned on getting married. And then everything went -- started going bad, and got worse.

CHANCE: His family had no idea how bad it was going to get. Chuck's stepfather noticed something strange at the beginning of deer season.

DENVER BAKER, CHUCK'S STEPFATHER: Cleaning his hunting cap off before he goes down on deer hunting. And he said he'd probably never be able to deer hunt again.

B. BAKER: I think one night he even got in his camouflage clothing and thought he was back in Iraq. Then in December, he just realized he needed to do something. He realized it was him. The nightmares, the dreams, the flashbacks. And so that's when he went to the V.A. in December.

GLANCE: Chuck finally realized he desperately needed help. The war, the death, the destruction, the images, the memories, all of it was more than he could bear alone. He went through an evaluation at the veterans affairs office in Kanawha City. But on January 3, Chuck received this letter from the V.A. in Atlanta. Officials there decided Chuck did not qualify for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

B. BAKER: He says, they don't care about me, was the words he used. He says, they don't care about me.

GLANCE (on camera): He felt cheated?

B. BAKER: Hell would be better. He made the statement to me. Mom, he said, I'd be better off dead. I would be better off in hell. And I said, no, son, you don't want to talk like that. I said, hell is not better. He says, I think it would be.

GLANCE: Exactly one more after receiving the V.A. letter, Chuck Call committed suicide.

B. BAKER: My world came to an end, is all I can tell you. My world came to an end. That was my baby boy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Corresponding to that report, the Veteran's Administration says, and we quote, "we've launched a thorough review of the administrative process to see if anything could have been done differently."

Well, starting next week, coinciding with the third anniversary of the war, we're going to salute the fallen heroes in Iraq. It will be a new daily segment. And to be honest with you, we're just tired of reporting the numbers, so we came together and decided we wanted to bring the faces and the names to tell you more about those who are dying in this war. We're going to start doing it this Monday, right here on LIVE FROM. We sure hope you'll join us.

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PHILLIPS: Pardons for Rosa Parks and anyone else who violated Alabama's long-defunct segregation laws. A bill is in the works that would clear the name of anyone arrested during and before the Montgomery bus boycott. That, of course, arose from Parks' arrest for refusing to give her seat on a city bus to a white man.

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THAD MCCLAMMY, ALABAMA STATE HOUSE: Once the various laws that they were convicted on at the time were no longer the law, then the charges should have gone away. The convictions should have gone away, because one of the features of the bill, it would expunge their records.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: The bill has approved by Alabama's House Judiciary Committee and sent to the full House for debate. If enacted, it would become the Rosa Parks Act.

No case, at least no federal case, in the murder 50 years ago of Emmett Louis Till. Federal investigators say too much time has passed to bring civil rights charges, leaving any further legal action to the state of Mississippi. That's where Till was killed, brutally murdered, and where his death sparked a movement that changed history.

CNN's Kelli Arena looks back.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Emmett Till's mother made the extraordinary decision to leave the casket open at her son's funeral in Chicago to allow the world to see the brutality of the crime committed against him.

REP. BOBBY RUSH (D), ILLINOIS: That photograph remains etched in my memory. I can see it today in all of its detail. And I -- it's incited me to get involved.

ARENA: Two white men, Roy Bryant J.W. Milam were charge and acquitted by an all-white jury. The next year the two confessed to the killing of the 14-year-old in some detail in "Look" magazine. But because they had been acquitted, they could not be charged again.

Both have since died, but recent documentaries have put the case back in the limelight and suggests at least eight other people may have been involved. Five of those may still be alive.

KEITH BEAUCHAMP, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: I was in Mississippi and I realized that I was gathering interviewing that was not necessary interviews. It was actually depositions because the people to whom I was speaking with -- it was the first time they had anyone come to them and ask questions about this case. ARENA: Some legal experts say the odds of coming up with enough corroborating evidence to prosecute anyone are slim.

DAVID SCHERTLER, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: You may be able to get more information about what really happened than we ever had before. Even if it doesn't lead to charges, it may tell us more about the crime.

ARENA (on camera): And setting the record straight is at least a start to addressing what has been called an ugly mark in U.S. history.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: She's no Georgia peach. One day after voting to honor Jane Fonda for her charity work, the Georgia State Senate took it back. When senators passed a series of resolutions marking Women's History Week, many of them didn't realize that one of them honored Fonda, a transplanted Georgian and Vietnam-era peace activist who many called her Hanoi Jane. One Georgia senator compares Fonda to Benedict Arnold.

First the best-selling book, then a big budget movie. Now the final scenes in the copyright case involving "The Da Vinci Code." Closing arguments today in London's High Court where the publisher of Dan Brown's hugely successful novel is being sued by the authors of an earlier work, "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail." They accuse Brown of lifting their ideas. Brown says he researched lots of ideas but his work is his own. A verdict is expected next week.

Straight ahead, entertainment news with Sibila Vargas of "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT." Sibila, what's on tap?

SIBILA VARGAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch shuts down.

And it's Hollywood meets Motown. I will explain when LIVE FROM continues.

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PHILLIPS: March happens to be Irish Heritage Month. As you know in the United States, a country where more Irish descendants than any other place, well except for Ireland. Here's a pot full of facts related to St. Pat's Day.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The world' first St. Patrick's Day parade was held not in Ireland, but in New York City in 1762. The New York parade is now the world's largest, bringing around two million people. The second-largest parade is held in Savannah, Georgia. The smallest St. Patrick's Day parade is held in Hot Springs, Arkansas and lasts less than a single city block. Ireland's largest parade occurs in Dublin. In addition to parade, St. Patrick's Day traditions include dying city rivers green, brewing green beer and of course, wearing green.

Last year, more than 93 million people reportedly planned to wear green for St. Patrick's Day. And eight million St. Patrick's day cards were exchanged. The popularity of this holiday in the U.S. may have something to do with the fact that over 34 million Americans claim Irish ancestry. Compare that number with Ireland's current population of only about four million.

St. Patrick himself was born in the late fourth century A.D. and historians believe he died on March 17th in the year 460. St. Patrick is famous for driving all the snakes out of Ireland. Of course, historians say that's only a myth. The other explanation, that Ireland is free of snakes because it was separated from Britain at the end of the last Ice Age.

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PHILLIPS: Well the real-life fate of the land of make believe and wedding bells, real or imaged, for one of Hollywood's hottest couples. Let's head west and check in with Sibila Vargas, she's got the latest entertainment news from L.A. Hey, Sibila.

VARGAS: Hey, Kyra. Well Neverland Ranch seems one step closer to being no more. And that's because Michael Jackson has laid off some of his workers and temporarily closed down his Neverland Ranch. The move came one day after state officials announced Jackson had agreed to pay his Neverland Ranch employees hundreds of thousands of dollars in back wages and that prevented the state from filing a lawsuit against Jackson. Jackson's publicist says it is public knowledge that Mr. Jackson currently resides in the Middle Eastern country of Bahrain. He therefore decided to close his house and reduce his work force. The publicist also says the ranch is still operating on a limited basis.

OK, so publicists say it's not happening this weekend in Italy. But that isn't stopping the paparazzi from speculating. The Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie wedding rumors are in full force. Speculation is that the two may marry somewhere on the Italian shores this weekend. One Italian newspaper says that actor George Clooney's home, which is a lakefront villa nearby, could be used as the place. But Pitt's publicist told CNN that the rumors are not true. Clooney's representatives say that rumors are rumors. Jolie is expecting Pitt's child this summer. Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, you may remember, divorced last fall.

And what do you get when you mix Hollywood with Motown? Well you get one big old party in the Big Apple. The "Hollywood Meets Motown" event was hosted by Katie Couric. Couric was mistress of ceremonies for the event, which featured a long list of stars, some even performing. Money was raised for the Entertainment Industry's Foundation, Cancer Research Alliance.

Now tonight on "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT," Cruise control. How Tom Cruise may have used the power of "Mission Impossible" to shield the Church of Scientology. That's a mouthful. "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" separates the fact from figures at 7:00 and 11:00 p.m. Eastern on CNN "Headline Prime." Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right, Sibila, thanks so much.

Well you feel like you never get a human on the phone? You are not alone. Now one man is trying to bring back that person-to-person contact. Wonder who Jim LeMay is talking to there? I sure hope it's his wife. The news keeps coming, we'll keep bringing it to you. We'll be back.

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