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CNN Live Today

News Conference on Case of Two Missing Milwaukee Boys; Grad Student Slaying; Missing Texas 5-Year-Old Found Dead

Aired March 23, 2006 - 10:59   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: They disappeared without a trace and right now we are standing by for the latest word on the case of the two missing boys in Milwaukee. A massive police search has turned out no sign of the boys. When this news conference really gets under way we will go live to Milwaukee to get the latest.
Twelve-year-old Quadrevion Henning and 11-year-old Purvis Parker vanished while playing on Sunday afternoon. Family members say the boys are not the type to run away. Now a local company has posted a reward for their safe return.

And while we stand by for the news conference -- actually, let's just go in to Milwaukee and listen in.

ANNE SCHWARTZ, MILWAUKEE POLICE SPOKESWOMAN: The FBI has contributed resources to us since the beginning of the search, but now they are going to -- to bring out their command post, which will also be out here with our command post in order to assist us with the investigation.

The search is a very massive effort. And as you can see, our command post is not, you know, that big of a vehicle. So we need some more help, we need some more space in which we can work, look at maps, and do out work.

We have Milwaukee police officers, we have Milwaukee police recruits out here today. I think you all saw them earlier standing there with their little baseball hats on. Those are recruits that are in our academy. They are going to be here today to help us continue with our ground search of areas where we need more people. We also have a lot of on and off-duty officers that are coming by with ATVs, with vehicles that can help us get to spaces that we might not be able to go without a vehicle like that.

We have a lot of cooperation from other departments. I've mentioned a number of them.

I can tell you today we're going to be diving at the McGovern Park lagoon. It's a massive area. It's a very large area of water, and so we have a number of dive teams helping us.

The Milwaukee Police Department's dive team will be out there, as will the Milwaukee Fire Department, Racine County, and the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office. All of those agencies will be working together. They all have different teams, and we're all going to be in the water doing a search of a lagoon there. We're not doing that because there's any sort of tip or information. But we need to eliminate locations where these boys could possibly be.

We also have some tracking dogs coming in from northern Illinois. Those dogs are able to track humans, and we're going to be using them to assist us in the search today.

Our resources are very taxed. People were asking me -- we have a very large-scale protest going on in downtown Milwaukee today. Our resources are taxed.

Any time you have a massive search effort like this, that's what's going to happen. We're going to keep this level of search up as long as we have -- as long as we have reason to believe that, you know, that what we're doing is getting us somewhere. So for the very near future here, we're going to continue this effort.

Our search area right now is about 100 square blocks from the playground where the boys were last seen. It's about one mile in each direction where they were -- from where they were last seen. And we're going to probably expand that search area some more today.

We're asking parents, any parents that have children that go to school with these two boys, if your kids go to Elm Creative Arts or if they go to Labru Military (ph), we're asking parents of any children that go to those schools to search their own homes. One possibility, of course, could be that maybe the boys are with a classmate.

You know, we find that hard to believe at this point, this has been so many days now, but we don't know. But we're looking at all possibilities, we're looking at all options for where they could be.

So we're asking those parents of any children that have, you know, children that go to school with these boys to search their attics, the crawlspaces. We want them to look in garages, in cars, in the trunks of cars. We want them to look anywhere they can where small children might hide.

Also, we have -- we have an aerial search continuing today. One of our local news stations is helping us out with our their helicopter. And we'll be up in the air again today doing an aerial search.

That didn't turn up anything yesterday, but we have to keep looking. And again, we're grateful not only to the help of other agencies that have helped us, but the media has been a great help to us. And we thank you for keeping this number up and keeping this story going.

Again, we'll keep the search going as long as we feel that we're accomplishing something. And I want to give you one more piece of information about rewards.

Dean Foods has now given us $10,000 for a reward. So now the total amount of reward money that's available is -- let me see here -- total amount of reward money that's available is going to be $17,000.

We have $10,000 from Dean Foods, we have $2,000 from the state of Wisconsin, from the Department of Justice. And then we have another $5,000 from Dawes Crane Rental. It's a Milwaukee company.

The president of that company has five children. He came forward and said, "What can I do?" And he established a reward fund, also. People who want to contribute to that can go to any M&I Bank to do that.

That's what I have for you for an update for today. If you want to ask me any questions, I can help you if I can.

QUESTION: Would you characterize this as a criminal investigation at this point?

SCHWARTZ: This is not a criminal investigation. We still do not have any evidence that a crime has been committed.

We have two young boys who have been missing for a long time, for more time than anybody is comfortable. But it's still not a criminal investigation because we do not have any evidence that a crime has been committed.

QUESTION: At what point (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHWARTZ: No, we didn't find anything like that.

QUESTION: Have you found anything, has someone helped you, direct you at all as to what you're looking for (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHWARTZ: You know, we have exhausted every -- every effort possible, and when you see the command post behind me, I can tell you that people are constantly sitting in there, putting their heads together, thinking of new places we can look, new places we can go, new sources of information. But right now, we don't have any information on -- you know, there was no strife between the children and the family that we know of, which is sometimes the reason children may run away.

We don't have any evidence that these kids were skipping school. They have very good school attendance and they were good students.

We don't have any information they were having conflict with any other kids. We absolutely don't have any information about where they would be and why they would leave of their own accord. We absolutely don't know. We just simply don't know where they are.

QUESTION: At what point did you decide to bring in the FBI?

SCHWARTZ: The FBI volunteered their resources from the beginning, volunteered to help us in any way possible. They have given us resources, and now they're bringing in their command post, their mobile command post to help us out.

It's become clear with the magnitude of this search that we do need as much help as we can get. We don't have enough space available to us in the vehicle that you see behind me in the command post, so we're going to be using their mobile command post, as well. And as I say, we're so grateful for the help from other agencies to help us try to -- you know, try to get this search together.

QUESTION: Can you talk more about the dogs (INAUDIBLE)?

SCHWARTZ: The dogs will be used to track -- they're used to track humans. And what we'll do is we'll have them -- we'll get them concentrated in areas where we think that the boys may have been last, see if they can pick up a trail, although we've already done that. And we'll also have them in some of the more wooded areas and some of the more remote areas that we're trying to search, the parks, the Havenswood forest.

That's one more thing that I'd like to tell people, too. We're getting a lot of volunteers that are reporting here from 11:00 until 2:00 today. We'd like volunteers to stage at Havenswood State Park. That is at Douglas and Sherman here in Milwaukee.

And what we're doing is we're going to ask those volunteers to do a canvas of the park, another shoulder-to-shoulder search. We have searched the area. We're just thinking we -- you can never search too many times. We're going to keep looking until perhaps somebody comes across something that might have been missed.

KAGAN: We've been listening to Anne Schwartz. She's the spokeswoman for the Milwaukee Police Department. The search goes on for these two boys in Milwaukee that have been missing since Sunday.

Purvis Parker and Quadrevion Henning described as good boys who don't have a history of running away, simply disappeared in the late afternoon on Sunday. The latest developments here.

The FBI is now involved. They're going to be looking, divers looking in a park lagoon later today. And they've expanded the search area and there's now a reward.

Our Jonathan Freed has been covering this case. He joins us now live from Chicago.

Jonathan, the FBI getting involved. It sounds like their stepping the search up.

JONATHAN FREED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Daryn. And I spoke to the FBI earlier this morning and I have some details of what their involvement is going to be that we haven't heard at this news conference.

The field office in Milwaukee has told me that, among other things, the FBI's bringing in its child abduction response team, or their CART team. And they say that this is a relatively new team and that this case is actually going to be one of its first deployments. And the team is made up of officers, agents that are plucked from various parts of the country because they have specific training and experience in this kind of thing. So one of these child abduction response teams is going to be put into play in this case.

As well the FBI tells me, that the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, otherwise known as the FBI profilers, that's a second team, are also going to be involved. The profilers are coming from Quantico, in Virginia. That would be the headquarters level of the FBI.

And they -- they do point out, though, that just because the title "violent crime" is in the profiler's name, that doesn't indicate that they necessarily suspect that there has been a violent crime. But they just feel that they need to look at all aspects of this, and that these people have an expertise that should be brought to bear on this.

We're also told that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, we heard a little bit about this yesterday, Daryn, but I've got some more information. We know that a liaison team is going to be put in place to work between law enforcement and the parents of these two kids. And what's interesting about this is that the team that's coming from the Missing and Exploited Children's group is going to be made up of parents who have been through this themselves -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Any idea why they're focused on this lagoon in this local park?

FREED: We were talking to Anne Schwartz about that yesterday as well, and they're just simply trying to tick off every possible option for what may have happened to these kids. They have the resources right now. They're out everywhere, as you can see, and have been for the last couple of days.

And they are just -- they're frustrated in the command post, we're told. These kids are gone, there's no trace, so they figure they have to look absolutely everywhere. They say they're not going to be able to sleep at night if they haven't just turned everything possible upside down.

KAGAN: Clearly, the community getting involved here as we watch the reward fund grow each day.

FREED: That's right. That's right. Originally, it was $550, a very modest amount, and yet it's grown now to some $17,000 as businesses and even the state Department of Justice are getting involved.

This case is catching people's attention. At first, it read like very much a local story, something that you unfortunately all too often. But it is starting to grow and capture people's attention because these are two good kids.

And I spent time in both of their homes yesterday. Both families, I walked into the kids' rooms. You can get a vibe off of these wrongs. You could be wrong about it, but when you look people in the eye and you listen to what's going on, the feeling that all of us had in our crew that were there is that these seem to be good families doing the best they can with these kids.

The kids aren't normally in trouble. They're the kind of kids -- one of them was described -- Dre Henning is described as a kid that wouldn't even be able to take the city bus on his own. So...

KAGAN: Jonathan, thank you. I'm going to have to cut you off, Jonathan. Yes. Thank you, Jonathan Freed, live from Chicago.

FREED: Thanks.

KAGAN: We have another news conference we want to get to. This one in New York City. This is the latest on the murder charge filed in the death of Imette St. Guillen.

Let's listen in.

CHARLES HYNES, KINGS CO. NEW YORK DISTRICT ATTORNEY: group of extraordinary detectives who did such a great job in this case, and the -- Kenneth Taub (ph), who's head of the homicide bureau in my office. And I'd like to introduce the police commissioner first for an overview, and then I'll discuss the details of the grand jury announcement.

RAY KELLY, NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER: OK. Thank you, Charles.

Accompanied by the chief of the department, Joe Esposito (ph); our chief of detectives, George Brown (ph); executive officer of detective division, Chief Robert Gianelli (ph); chief of Brooklyn detectives, Ray Ferrari (ph); and the detectives who did a great work on this case, the detectives Brooks (ph), Crenonus (ph), Kennedy (ph) and Matigue (ph).

When Imette St. Guillen left The Falls bar in Lower Manhattan at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 25, she had every expectation like so many other young people in this city of arriving home safely. Instead, her body was discovered by police officers from the 75th Precinct at 8:43 p.m. at Fountain and Sea View (ph) avenues at east New York, Brooklyn.

The officers were responding to a 911 call made 20 minutes earlier at 8:23 p.m. by an anonymous caller who reported a body there. That caller has yet to be identified.

Imette's hands and feet were bound and her mouth gagged with a white athletic sock. She had been sexually abused and asphyxiated. Plastic packing tape covered her eyes, her nose and her mouth.

Imette was last seen leaving The Falls bar with Darryl Littlejohn, according to witnesses interviewed by our detectives. A DNA match was made with Littlejohn's blood on the plastic ties that bound her hands.

Red polyester rug fibers from carpeting in Littlejohn's residence, along with brown mink hair from a jacket in his resident and blue rabbit hair from a jacket collar in his residence were consistent with rug fibers, mink and rabbit hair that were found on the tapes used on Imette's head, in the blanket in which her body was found, and in the Windstar van used by Littlejohn.

A cell phone used exclusively by Littlejohn had been in close proximity to where her body was found. Records indicate his phone was used there at 7:31 p.m., less than an hour before the body was reported by the 911 caller. Further, a witness said he saw a van that matched the description of the one used by Littlejohn, a Windstar without license plates making a U-turn at about 7:30 p.m. at the place Imette's body was found.

Finally, there are no witnesses or other evidence to support Littlejohn's claim that he visited his mother in a nursing home on the day Imette was killed.

I want to thank the detectives and prosecutors who worked so diligently to bring us here today. While the horrible death of Imette St. Guillen has been the subject of intense media interest, detectives and prosecutors team up every day to pursue justice for victims whose cases have not attracted so much attention to bring some measure of comfort to their surviving loved ones.

We certainly hope this applies to Imette's grieving family -- Charles.

HYNES: This last Wednesday, March 15, and ending yesterday, March 22, Kenneth Taub (ph), who is the chief of our homicide bureau, has been personally presenting evidence to a Kings County grand jury in connection with the murder of Imette St. Guillen. Over that period, the grand jury witnesses included several forensic scientists, as well as civilian and police witnesses. In addition, the grand jury has heard extensive testimony concerning forensic evidence, including cell site locators which identified cell towers which recorded the locations of a specific cell phone.

The evidence before the grand jury included a timeline which began at approximately 4:00 in the morning of Saturday, February 25 of this year, the last contact Ms. Guillen had with The Falls bar on Lafayette Street in Manhattan. That timeline ended 17 hours later when her body was found dumped on the side of a deserted stretch of Fountain Avenue, just north of the Bell Parkway (ph) in the east New York section of Brooklyn at approximately 8:30 Saturday evening.

I will not comment about any specific evidence heard by the grand jury. But I want to emphasize the exceptional partnership in this investigation between our homicide bureau led by Mr. Taub (ph), detectives of the 75 Detective Squad, as well as the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad, detectives from the Major Case Squad.

I also want to single out the extraordinary work of the crime scene unit and the police laboratory of the NYPD and the exceptional work of the office of the chief medical examiner and its forensic biology laboratory.

And I'm grateful of Police Commissioner Kelly that he assigned overall supervision of the various detectives to Chief Robert Gianelli (ph), executive officer of the Office of Chief Detectives of the New York City Police Department.

After the grand jury heard all of the evidence in this case, they returned a three-count indictment charging Darryl Littlejohn with two counts of murder in the second degree and one count of murder in the first degree. The charge of murder in the first degree, which carries a sentence upon conviction of life without any possibility of parole, alleges that the defendant intentionally caused the death of Ms. St. Guillen during the course of committing or attempting to commit one of four enumerated felony sex crimes: rape in the first degree, criminal sexual act in the first degree, sexual abuse in the first degree, or aggravated sex abuse in the first degree.

I will not comment on the specific findings of the grand jury with respect to the particular sexual act.

The defendant will be arraigned later today before Justice Cheryl Chambers (ph) of the state Supreme Court here in Kings County. And when the case proceeds to trial, Kenneth Taub (ph), the chief homicide bureau, will personally try the case as the chief prosecutor.

And I'd like President Jeremy Travis (ph) to say a word.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much, District Attorney Hynes and Commissioner Kelly.

KAGAN: We've been listening in to a news conference in New York City on the arrest of Darryl Littlejohn. He's been charged with the murder of Imette St. Guillen, a grad student in New York City.

They say there's physical evidence that links him to the murder of this grad student. And if he is convicted on these charges, he will face life without parole. He is in custody on previous parole violations, as well.

There are also new developments in this case that captured national attention. It terrified this community. More now -- we'll actually have more in just a moment on this case.

Right now, a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Let's take a look at how the markets are doing. Not so great on this Thursday morning. The Dow is down 38 points. The Nasdaq in negative territory. It is down more than 6 points.

More news just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Depression. Many of the 15 million Americans who battle the disease take billions of dollars worth of antidepressants. But new findings this morning show the drugs did not stop symptoms in half of all patients. The government study focused on Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Exfedera (ph) and Selecsa (ph). It shows all four drugs work on the brain in different ways.

Researchers found that a particular drug, let's just say Zoloft, may not work in one patient. But if that person switched to one of the others, they might feel better. Still, other sufferers had to take antidepressants as part of a drug cocktail in order to get relief.

We've been talking this week about how critical sleep is for your life. Well, dreams are important for your mental health, as well. Experts say they're a way for your mind to work out problems. And looking at the kinds of dreams that we have, there is a lot on our minds.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta checks out the most common dreams and what they mean.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight as we dream, what we experience may seem uniquely person. But how unique are our dreams really?

PATRICIA GARFIELD, AUTHOR, "THE UNIVERSAL DREAM KEY": Whatever we have in common with other human beings, I think in part, form what I have called the universal dream themes.

GUPTA: Author and Psychologist Patricia Garfield has spent most of her career studying dreamers and dream cultures around the globe. She says the people who may be worlds apart in their waking life, share a common culture while sleeping.

GARFIELD: It's both universal and particular in the sense that everyone has dreams about being chased, for instance. It is the most common negative dream theme around the world of any age, bar none. Little kids dream more often about wild animals after them. Adults dream more often about wild people after them.

GUPTA: Garfield says it's the particulars that vary from culture to culture.

GARFIELD: I did a study of children in India, and there were -- in their dreams, many vultures were attacking the dreamer, compared to American kids who had more super heroes and no vultures at all. But if they had seen the movie "Jaws," there were many shark dreams. GUPTA: According to her research, the other most common universal dream themes include flying, transportation trouble, natural disasters, menacing spirits, falling, and being naked in public.

GARFIELD: Dreams of falling or drowning which often occur when we feel disappointed by someone or like our emotional ground has fallen out. The dreams of being naked are frequently when we're feeling particularly vulnerable. Dreams of taking a test, being back in school, being examined. That kind of dream often occurs when we feel we're being tested right now by something.

GUPTA: Testing us, in perhaps more ways than we realize.

GARFIELD: Our dreams are more negative than positive in general. It's because, I believe, that we are attempting to solve our problems and we always have new problems, so, you know, we have to keep coping in the best way that we can.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: That was Dr. Sanjay Gupta reporting.

Sanjay has these tips for helping remember your dreams. Keep a notepad by your bed. And when you wake up, don't move for 90 seconds. Dream recall can be linked to the position you were in at the time that you had the dream.

A reminder that Sanjay's primetime special on sleep is coming up this weekend. You might want to stay up for it Sunday night at 10:00 p.m. Eastern. If you can't sleep, good thing to watch.

A police officer springs into action in the face of deadly flames. He pushes personal safety aside. It's all to save a man. The dramatic rescue and the story is just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Let's take a look at what's happening right "Now in the News."

A reward for the safe return of two missing Milwaukee boys is now up to $17,000. Twelve-year-old Quadrevion Henning and 11-year-old Purvis Parker disappeared while playing Sunday. So far, there's been no sign of the boys. Local police plan more searches today. They're getting help now from the FBI.

A desperate search is under way this hour for another missing child. This one in Texas.

An Amber Alert has been put out for 5-year-old Anthony Turner. It was last -- he was last seen yesterday afternoon riding his bike near his home just south of Fort Worth. Anthony is 3 feet tall, weighs 45 pounds, has brown hair and brown eyes.

A fire aboard a cruise ship has killed one person and at least 11 others suffered smoke inhalation. This happened on the Star Princess on a trip from Grand Cayman to Jamaica. The crew put out a fire inside of a cabin. The Princess cruise's Web site says the fatality was due to a heart attack.

And with more on the accident that took place on board a bus with cruise passengers in Chile, here's our Carol Lin -- Carol.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Daryn, 12 elderly passengers in their 60s and 70s were killed. They were heading back to their cruise ship after an excursion in the Lauca National Park, south of Santiago, Chile.

Now, this is what we know. According to The Associated Press, which had an interview with the head of the ministry office there, Jorge Caseras (ph), he said that this bus was not registered with the Transportation Ministry, so not registered to carry passengers, and yet it was driving back to the cruise ship on a mountain road. It swerved to avoid a truck, and then the passengers, the bus, careened down the mountainside by about 300 feet. What we know about the passengers so far, very elderly. Apparently a Jewish group traveling on this cruise ship. Very sad story to report to you, that that trip ended so tragically -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Carol, thank you, Carol Lin.

And with more on that story, when you travel, how do you stay safe when you travel off the beaten path? Joining us to discuss that Rudy Maxa, a veteran journalist who's also an expert on travel.

Rudy, good morning.

RUDY MAXA, TRAVEL JOURNALIST: Good morning.

KAGAN: What's the number-one thing to check when you head out and want to book an extra excursion?

MAXA: Well, really there's not a whole lot to check. I mean the A.P. report that said the truck was not licensed by the Transportation Department in Chile. I mean, at every port call you can't go into the office of the tour company that's contracted, supposedly contracted with the cruise line, and say, can I see your Transportation Department certificates? I mean, you know, you don't know what the local rules are, what the local regulations are.

I'm shocked that a cruise line would have a contract, if, in fact, this was a tour that the cruise line arranged, I'm shocked.

KAGAN: And I think that the cruise line has come out and said that these people set this up independently, that it was not...

But in any case that's actually even more important, if you are traveling. I was in Mexico in November. I went on with different companies and tried different adventures. But I was just kind of trusting.

MAXA: One does. I mean, what choice do you have? I mean, I was in New Zealand a couple months ago, you know, going down -- human body surfing in a river, and of course, a bus to get there provided by the company. I mean, I don't know what New Zealand regulations are for licensing. And there, everyone spoke English. In Chile, of course, perhaps these passengers didn't speak Spanish. I guess the moral from this instant story is that take a land excursion that is provided by the cruise line, because hopefully they will have done that kind of checking out before they enter into a contractual relationship with a local company.

KAGAN: So that's one place. So by the way, I've done the body surfing. I enjoy that, as well. You have a soulmate in adventures here.

MAXA: You're a lot younger than I am. I was the oldest guy on the old guest list.

But you know, generally before you travel, you should check and see if your health insurance covers you, particularly if you're going outside of the country.

KAGAN: Good tip.

MAXA: And medical evacuation. I just did a thing on my blog, maxablog.com, about this crash. There are companies like medjetassist.com that will cover you for an entire year for like $195, and will take you back to your hometown, or any hospital of your choice, by private medically equipped Learjet if you're injured. A lot of people think they have medical evacuation coverage on premium credit cards.

In fact, if you read the small print, they'll get you to the nearest medical facility. In short, your cab fare. And you may not want to go for that facility. There were several people injured in that bus plunge, and I hope they had medical evacuation insurance so they can get out there. You can buy short-term insurance for, like, 70 bucks if you're only going to travel for a week.

KAGAN: Very good tip. Check your medical insurance ahead of time, and if you need extra to cover you while you are overseas or on a trip, go ahead and check on that.

Rudy, thank you.

MAXA: Nice talking to you. Thanks.

KAGAN: Rudy Maxa with savvy traveler.

Think about this, a day without Latinos? That's the plan today in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Latino rights activist Christine Newman Ortiz says she has convinced some 200 business owners to close their doors for at least part of the day. The idea, to demonstrate what life would be like without illegal immigrants in the city. The issue here is a bill introduced by Wisconsin Senator James Sensenbrenner that would crack down on businesses hiring illegal immigrants.

A former hostage in Iraq is going to share his story. He's going to do that with us when we come back here on CNN LIVE TODAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: We've been teasing you with these incredible pictures. Now the story of a police officer puts his life on the line to save a man from a fiery death. Turns out he saved a fellow cop. And the amazing rescue was caught on tape.

Reporter Christina Garza (ph) of our affiliate KIRV brings us the action from Deer Park, Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINA GARZA (ph), KIRV REPORTER (voice-over): Deer Park Police Officer Del Wilcoxson was transporting an inmate when he drove up on this fiery three-car accident just over the ship channel. The whole ordeal was captured on Officer Wilcoxson's dash-cam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody's in this truck?

GARZA: They were talking about the red pickup truck.

OFC. DEL WILCOXSON, DEER PARK, TEXAS POLICE DEPT.: And we learned that there was a Hispanic male that was in the driver's seat, and he was lodged between the guardrail and between the burning vehicle.

GARZA: You can hear bystanders screaming for the officer to get that driver out.

WILCOXSON: What are you talking about? What's up?

(SCREAMING)

GARZA: To get to the driver, the officer had to straddle the guardrail from the passenger's side. Below that guardrail was a 30 to 40-foot drop.

WILCOXSON: You OK?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I'm fine.

WILCOXSON: Can you break that window and crawl out?

Watch out.

Here, here, take my flashlight, and try to break the window, but be careful.

GARZA: Finally Officer Wilcoxson managed to pull that driver out.

WILCOXSON: OK, we got you, buddy. We got you. Are you OK? Your legs hurt?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: Absolutely incredible. That report from Christina Garza of our affiliate KIRV in Deer Park, Texas. The daring police officer, by the way, calls his rescue something police just do on a daily basis. Well, good for you. A good day at the office.

A former Army helicopter pilot is taking the lessons that she learned in Iraq to a new battlefield.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nothing is as tough as surviving a rocket- propelled grenade blowing up in your lap. That's what I tell myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: She's one of the vets seeking votes in a tough political fight. We'll introduce you to her when LIVE TODAY continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: Four agonizing months at the hands of kidnappers. Now three Western peace activists are free men in Iraq today. The men are British and Canadian citizens. They had been held at a house in the western part of Baghdad. Coalition forces went in to get them this morning, and the kidnappers weren't around. Not a shot fired in this rescue. The U.S. military says a man they arrested last night gave them information on the hostages' location.

American Tom fox was also kidnapped with the group. His body was found two weeks ago. It showed signs of torture.

More blood on the streets of Iraq today. Insurgents appeared to keep up a week-long assault on Iraqi police. Four car bombs tore through the capital today, killing 33 people. At least 13 were police, or security officers. Earlier this week, insurgents raided two police stations, killing nearly two dozen officers.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will likely have more to say about what happened today in Iraq. He plans a briefing at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. Our Kyra Phillips will have it for you on CNN's "LIVE FROM."

The congressional midterm elections, they're just a few months away, and you can expect a major political battle. Among those joining the fight, a handful of Iraq war veterans. Almost all of them are Democrats who are looking to challenge Republicans on the war issue. Of those candidates, one in particular stands out because of what she stands for.

Our senior CNN political correspondent Candy Crowley has her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D), ILLINOIS CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: Well, thank you. It's good to meet you.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She's the Polaris in a galaxy of Democratic hopes this election year, running in the once solidly Republican, now evolving, west suburbs of Chicago for a seat long held by Republican Henry Hyde.

DUCKWORTH: Vote the issues. That's all I'm going to say.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I know.

DUCKWORTH: Vote the issues. And, you know, we will probably find that we share a lot more...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In common.

DUCKWORTH: ... in common.

CROWLEY: Tammy Duckworth is a natural, a newcomer, young, female, an Iraqi war veteran, who says she opposed the war and proudly served.

DUCKWORTH: When I came home and I had all that time to think, I -- I started thinking more and more about different ways that you can serve and -- and the changes that needed to be made.

CROWLEY: Duckworth won her primary bid, fueled by national Democratic dollars and power endorsements: Kerry, Clinton, Cleland.

DUCKWORTH: Good to meet you. This is Senator Max Cleland.

CROWLEY: Max Cleland, a Vietnam vet and a triple amputee, campaigned for her recently.

MAX CLELAND (D), FORMER U.S. SENATOR: You're taller than I am now.

DUCKWORTH: I know. I don't think...

CROWLEY: They hadn't seen each other for about a year, since the day he visited Walter Reed Hospital.

DUCKWORTH: They just fitted me the other day. They put this cover on the last time I was out. And they fitted me for the cosmetic covers. And I will get that. Then I will get the runway feet, which will allow me to wear a little bit of a heel.

CROWLEY: She was a Black Hawk pilot with the Illinois National Guard, flying at treetop level near Baghdad, when a rocket-propelled grenade landed in the chopper.

DUCKWORTH: Listen, my legs are gone. They're never going to grow back, and if this gives me a platform to talk about those issues that are important to people of this district, to talk about education, to talk about health care, then that's fine.

CROWLEY: Cleland is the ex-senator from Georgia, proof that war hero credentials are not a political guarantee, but he gets why she has to try.

CLELAND: When you lose so much, you get back, in terms of your own healing, what you give out to others.

CROWLEY: It will be a brass-knuckle marquee race against a tough opponent. Duckworth is up for the run.

DUCKWORTH: Nothing is as tough as surviving a rocket-propelled grenade blowing up in your lap. And that's what I tell myself.

CROWLEY: Like most of the veterans running, Duckworth says her race is not about her service or her injuries, but if that's what makes them listen, so be it.

Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: So you've heard the story about the coyote that was loose in Central Park? You heard the story yesterday. But you haven't heard Jeanne Moos tell you the story in a way only Jeanne can. We're going to get to that just ahead.

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KAGAN: We've been watching an Amber Alert out of Texas on a missing 5-year-old boy. Carol Lin has the latest.

LIN: Oh, Daryn, I'm afraid we've got some bad news. We're not going to show you some pictures that are coming in to the CNN Center because of the sensitive nature of these pictures. But they have now recovered the body of this 5-year-old. He was found in a pond behind his father's house. Little Anthony Turner, only 5 years old, was last seen riding his bike yesterday late afternoon, about 4:30, 5:00.

An Amber Alert went out to some 7,000 people in that community in Johnson County, in Texas last night at about 10:30. But unfortunately, a very sad discovery. Investigators are so far are not suggesting any foul play, according to our Texas affiliates. But they're saying right now it looks like he may have fallen into the pond by accident.

KAGAN: Very sad ending, indeed. Carol, thank you for that.

With stories like that, it's not a wonder people looking for faith and something to believe in. For some churchgoers in a small town in southern Alabama, Hurricane Katrina, they say, brought them a miracle. They claim drywall in their storm-damaged church has buckled into an image of Jesus. And they say their prayers are being answered after kneeling below the framed image. The church is now open six days a week to allow believers to pray. As the church pastor put it, it's like God trying to show people that it's real.

Now, Reynolds (ph), can you get a good look at that and see if you can see?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't see much. I don't see much at all. But you never -- do you see anything?

KAGAN: Well, this might be hard on our...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I see a few bumps.

KAGAN: Maybe it's a cross. I can kind of see the out -- making of a cross. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, something like that. Whatever it takes. You know, I mean, that's the...

KAGAN: Reynolds, sorry, I'm going to have to get back to you in just a minute. Actually want to go back to Carol Lin with more on what's happening in Texas.

LIN: That's right. Daryn, we're going to go back to Johnson County. With me on the telephone right now is Corporal Pam Jetsel. She's with the Johnson County Sheriff's Department.

Corporal, such a sad story about this 5-year-old boy, Anthony Turner. Can you tell me what you think happened? What happened to this missing boy?

CPL. PAM JETSEL, JOHNSON CO. SHERIFF'S DEPT: This is probably every parent's nightmare, every search and rescue person's nightmare, to actually find a small child's body after searching for hours on end. But apparently, cording to investigators, when the search and rescue team had their apparatus in the (INAUDIBLE) tank, which is about 50 yards from the home, they did find the little boy and his bicycle. So it just appears that he had ridden up and down the steep bank and couldn't stop and went into the water.

LIN: Corporal, how deep was the water where you found the boy?

JETSEL: I do not have that information.

LIN: So he was last seen yesterday at around 4:30 in the afternoon, but our information has it that the Amber Alert did not go out until 10:30 that night. Did your investigators or anybody search that pond area?

JETSEL: Well, they were searching all ponds, culverts (ph), all sorts of things. It got dark pretty quickly, so they had covered a lot of ground in and around the area. But that pond itself, that stock pond itself, they were going to wait until this morning to search.

LIN: Corporal, forgive me, but that pond is so close to the house. I mean, when we look at these pictures, you see the trampoline and some of the toys in the backyard. Was that not an obvious place to look for the boy?

JETSEL: Oh, it was. And our investigators -- in fact, we had one very insistent on we need to search this pond. But I don't know who told him you just need to wait until tomorrow. But that's what -- we had to wait until this morning.

LIN: What about the parents? They know the news now. I'm wondering if they had any comments about the investigation and how it went down last night.

JETSEL: Oh, I don't know about that. I have talked with them. I know they're very distraught, upset, of course. The whole family is. So -- but we are just from a very strong community of people, and Johnson County's probably got a population of about 140,000. We have wonderful law enforcement agencies from all around who come in immediately on any kind of -- particularly involving a child. But any type of thing that we call for, we have immediate response. People are just so kind and wanting to give of their time and resources.

LIN: Understood.

JETSEL: We've had thousands of calls.

LIN: Understood. Corporal Pam Jetsel of the Johnson County Sheriff's Department, confirming now, Daryn, that little Anthony Turner, only 5 years old, his body was found in a pond just outside -- just behind his father's house. Sad news, indeed, Daryn.

KAGAN: Absolutely. Carol, thank you.

Then there's the story of the missing boys out of Wisconsin. A reward for the safe return of two missing Milwaukee boys is now up to $17,000. Twelve-year-old Quadrevion Henning and 11-year-old Purvis Parker disappeared while playing on Sunday. So far, there's been no sign of the boys. Local police do plan more searches today. They're getting help from the FBI.

I'm Daryn Kagan. International news is coming up next. Stay tuned for YOUR WORLD TODAY and then we'll be back with some headlines in about 20 minutes.

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