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American Morning

Missing Florida Girl

Aired February 04, 2004 - 07:19   ET

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

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


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Federal agents in Florida are getting help from NASA in their search for a missing 11-year-old girl. The space agency is trying to enhance the videotape from a surveillance camera that apparently caught the abduction of Carlie Brucia on tape. She was last seen on Sunday evening.
There's now a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

A bit earlier today, I talked with Colonel Terry Lewis from the Sarasota County Sheriff's Department about whether or not police are satisfied with the number of leads they have received now from the public.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COL. TERRY LEWIS, SARASOTA SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: We are very satisfied. In fact, the number of calls we're getting is a direct result of the wonderful media coverage we're getting. Since our last briefing, we've got 62 additional leads. Of those leads, 10 percent of them are from outside the state of Florida. So, yes, it takes a lot of time and a lot of investigative staff, but that's generally how we'll be able to get a successful resolution to this.

HEMMER: You mentioned that yesterday also in your briefing about the possibility of going out of state. Do you have hard evidence that says that Carlie may have left the state of Florida?

LEWIS: No, sir, we have no hard evidence that she has left the state. We don't close that out as a possibility, because we want our investigators thinking of every possibility, rather than trying to have a single or a dual focus. So, no, we haven't rule that out.

HEMMER: I know the videotape on the surveillance is getting a lot of attention. You've taken digital photography and tried to enhance it. How much can you glean from that picture?

LEWIS: We still don't know. We've gotten wonderful cooperation from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In fact, in our local Florida Department of Law Enforcement, their experts are working on it and up to. And as you may have heard at the briefing, people from NASA, working with the FBI, are trying to do everything they can. We're truly blessed, in fact, to have the tape to begin with, and now we're just trying to do a little bit more with it, but it's still too early to tell.

HEMMER: Colonel, you can see clearly this man's profile, if you look at that image closely. Is that enough for someone to make a positive identification, do you believe, on him?

LEWIS: I wouldn't want to speculate on that. For me personally, it would be very difficult to make a positive I.D., but it would certainly be one investigative tool that we'll use.

HEMMER: Well, there are certain characteristics. If you certainly look, part of that is the tattoos the man might be wearing. What more can you add on that?

LEWIS: OK, you look at everything from the shoes to the name tag to the -- try to estimate height, weight. We will see, hopefully, perhaps get some more off the digital enhancement as that becomes available.

HEMMER: Carlie's father told us yesterday and then later in the day he repeated the same thing. He says there were several people about 300 feet away from where this occurred. Has any of those people come forward?

LEWIS: I'm not aware. I haven't talked to the individuals, except of the new 62 leads. We've gotten a tremendous response from the public, so I haven't been able to decipher if those came from the people that were around. There's a golf driving range right next door to where we were at, next to the site. And I haven't had a chance personally to find that out, but we will have that information for the morning briefing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: That morning briefing is scheduled at 9 a.m. Eastern Time down in Florida about an hour and a half from now. We'll have it live for you when that occurs right here on AMERICAN MORNING.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.







Aired February 4, 2004 - 07:19   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Federal agents in Florida are getting help from NASA in their search for a missing 11-year-old girl. The space agency is trying to enhance the videotape from a surveillance camera that apparently caught the abduction of Carlie Brucia on tape. She was last seen on Sunday evening.
There's now a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

A bit earlier today, I talked with Colonel Terry Lewis from the Sarasota County Sheriff's Department about whether or not police are satisfied with the number of leads they have received now from the public.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COL. TERRY LEWIS, SARASOTA SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: We are very satisfied. In fact, the number of calls we're getting is a direct result of the wonderful media coverage we're getting. Since our last briefing, we've got 62 additional leads. Of those leads, 10 percent of them are from outside the state of Florida. So, yes, it takes a lot of time and a lot of investigative staff, but that's generally how we'll be able to get a successful resolution to this.

HEMMER: You mentioned that yesterday also in your briefing about the possibility of going out of state. Do you have hard evidence that says that Carlie may have left the state of Florida?

LEWIS: No, sir, we have no hard evidence that she has left the state. We don't close that out as a possibility, because we want our investigators thinking of every possibility, rather than trying to have a single or a dual focus. So, no, we haven't rule that out.

HEMMER: I know the videotape on the surveillance is getting a lot of attention. You've taken digital photography and tried to enhance it. How much can you glean from that picture?

LEWIS: We still don't know. We've gotten wonderful cooperation from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In fact, in our local Florida Department of Law Enforcement, their experts are working on it and up to. And as you may have heard at the briefing, people from NASA, working with the FBI, are trying to do everything they can. We're truly blessed, in fact, to have the tape to begin with, and now we're just trying to do a little bit more with it, but it's still too early to tell.

HEMMER: Colonel, you can see clearly this man's profile, if you look at that image closely. Is that enough for someone to make a positive identification, do you believe, on him?

LEWIS: I wouldn't want to speculate on that. For me personally, it would be very difficult to make a positive I.D., but it would certainly be one investigative tool that we'll use.

HEMMER: Well, there are certain characteristics. If you certainly look, part of that is the tattoos the man might be wearing. What more can you add on that?

LEWIS: OK, you look at everything from the shoes to the name tag to the -- try to estimate height, weight. We will see, hopefully, perhaps get some more off the digital enhancement as that becomes available.

HEMMER: Carlie's father told us yesterday and then later in the day he repeated the same thing. He says there were several people about 300 feet away from where this occurred. Has any of those people come forward?

LEWIS: I'm not aware. I haven't talked to the individuals, except of the new 62 leads. We've gotten a tremendous response from the public, so I haven't been able to decipher if those came from the people that were around. There's a golf driving range right next door to where we were at, next to the site. And I haven't had a chance personally to find that out, but we will have that information for the morning briefing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: That morning briefing is scheduled at 9 a.m. Eastern Time down in Florida about an hour and a half from now. We'll have it live for you when that occurs right here on AMERICAN MORNING.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.