Return to Transcripts main page

Paula Zahn Now

Protecting Your Children; Growing Meth Crisis; Nation Focuses on Missing and Abused Children

Aired April 25, 2005 - 20:00   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.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good to see you. Welcome, everybody. Glad to have you with us tonight.
Tonight, a deadly crisis in middle America, an illegal drug that is easy to make and is most likely already in your home town.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN (voice-over): Crystal meth, a homemade high that kills.

DARYL HICKMAN, UNCLE OF CHARLES HICKMAN: It's just unreal.

ZAHN: Tonight, a town that looked the other way until it was too late.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: If anybody wants these, they can still get them?

ZAHN: Plus, a possible way out of the meth crisis.

MARK WOODWARD, OKLAHOMA BUREAU OF NARCOTICS: The rest of the chemicals are worthless if you don't have the pseudoephedrine. They need the pseudoephedrine tablets.

ZAHN: One state's radical solution. But will your state act in time?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Tonight, we are tackling two problems that most Americans consider even more important than fighting terrorism.

According to a recent CNN/"USA Today" Gallup poll, 65 percent of Americans are very concerned about the drug crystal meth, and 66 percent say the same thing about child molestation. We're going to get to that in just a moment.

We begin tonight though, with crank, ice, poor man's cocaine and a dozen other names. Methamphetamine is powerful, addictive and deadly. It can be smoked, snorted or injected. And it has silently crept out of rural America and is now widely available from coast to coast, with increasing use in the Great Lakes, mid-Atlantic and Southeastern parts of the country. There's a pretty good chance someone you know is affected by it.

And here is a frightening statistic. According to the government, more than 12 million Americans over the age of 12 have tried it. And in one small town in Indiana, it took a little girl named Katie and a terrible tragedy for people to wake up to the scope and the cost of the meth problem.

Here's Drew Griffin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Traffic jams in Crothersville, Indiana last only long enough, but at Louisville/Nashville passed through on its way to Chicago. If bad things happen in this town of just 1,500 people, it's hard to keep them a secret.

CHIEF NORMAN FORD, CROTHERSVILLE POLICE DEPT.: It's pretty close-knit town. Usually, if something's going on, you know, most people know about it.

GRIFFIN: But that doesn't always mean people do something about it, as you're about to see. On January 25, 10-year-old Katie Collman was having a typical day.

JOHN NEACE, FARTHER OF KATIE COLLMAN: It's something that she's done hundreds of times literally, block-and-a-half away, and never had a worry.

GRIFFIN: Katie's father, John, says she left home at 3:10 that afternoon, one block to the corner, turn left to the sidewalk, across the railroad tracks to the store. A five-minute walk. The family needed toilet paper. But Katie didn't come home.

And after five hours of searching, the family was panicking. Five days later, the search ended here.

NEACE: We got the news that Sunday that they had found a body.

GRIFFIN: Dumped face down in a ditch, hands tied behind her back, a shocking crime, even more shocking when Crothersville learned one of their own was now confessing. Charles Hickman, 20-years-old, he told police he killed the girl because on her journey from the store he says she saw him making methamphetamine in the apartments across the tracks.

And behind that confession, a lot of people in this small Indiana town have their own confessions to make. The path to Katie Collman's death had been paved long before she walked down this street.

(on camera): Is meth destroying southern Indiana?

HICKMAN: Oh, yes, it's destroyed it. It has just flat destroyed this community around here. It's just unreal. It's unreal.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): And only now, says Katie's father, after a child has died, is this town starting to admit it.

NEACE: Naturally living in a small community, nobody wants to stand up and say, yes, our town has a problem. GRIFFIN (on camera): The fact is, Crothersville knew it had a meth problem and apparently looked the other way until it was too late. This is a house that burned just a month before she died, a meth lab inside was the cause of that fire. Weeks before she crossed these railroad tracks to go to the general store, police in this town received calls that methamphetamine was being burned inside those apartments. Not one call, but two.

(voice-over): The first call made to police was December 30. The caller happened to be Katie Collman's uncle concerned about the smell of chemicals from an apartment building just a block from Katie's home. A week later, January 5, the apartment building's owner calls police. A similar suspicious odor.

What happened? Police Chief Norman Ford.

FORD: We Checked the area, did not smell anything, had no reason to, you know, knock on anybody's doors or anything like that because, you know, we've got to have probable cause.

GRIFFIN: Despite a history of problems at the Penn Villa Apartments, despite two calls from people who thought they smelled meth, despite the fact that this county had the sixth highest number of meth labs seized in the state last year, at least three right in town, the police chief said the officers couldn't find a reason to investigate further.

Spend a little time with Chief Norman Ford, and you'll see why Crothersville is having problems tackling meth.

FORD: We've got three officers who -- you know, we patrol, we do traffic, we do accidents, we do everything else, and then when it comes to happen to work drugs, drugs is something you have to put time in, and you can't be, you know, bothered with something else when you're working drugs, and that's where my problem is right now.

GRIFFIN: He brought us to the local farm co-op where tanks of anhydrous ammonia sit right out in the home.

FORD: It's used to fertilize crops with.

GRIFFIN: The chemical inside is also used in making meth, yet, there are no locks, not even a fence. There have been many thefts.

(on camera): I'm dumbfounded that this is just out here. I just can't believe it. It's just here.

FORD: It's like your batteries in your flashlight. They use household batteries, they use Drano, they use Sudafed.

GRIFFIN: So how are you going to stop this?

FORD: I don't know. It's going to have to be a legislation, I guess.

GRIFFIN: Two weeks before Katie's disappearance, Chief Ford and his 2 officers were ordered into this room behind closed doors in a special executive session with the town board. Board members weren't there to hear about new legislation.

Board member Vaughn Isenhower says he and the other board members thought the town's drug problem was out of control. They wanted some old-fashioned arrests.

VAUGHN ISENHOWER, TOWN COUNCIL: All three of them were told to step up the patrol and...

GRIFFIN: Bust meth users.

ISENHOWER: Bust meth users -- any suspicious activity. And they said, well, by the time you take them to the county jail and fill the paperwork out, they're already back on the streets. Somebody's come and picked them up. So, it's kind of a futile effort, but that's their jobs.

To me, that's an excuse.

GRIFFIN: The town leaders decided simply to talk about it again in a few weeks. Nothing had changed. Then everything had changed, even for Debbie Hofricter, the aunt of the man now accused of murdering Katie Collman.

DEBBIE HOFRICTER, AUNT OF CHARLES HICKMAN: It could have been anybody in this town.

GRIFFIN: What happened to this town?

HOFRICTER: That, I don't know. They're shutting their eyes to it.

NEACE: This is one of Katie's friends.

GRIFFIN: John Neace and his family have lost their 10-year-old angel. He now believes his daughter died, because so many shut their eyes to the grip meth has on this small town and as a warning for other small communities.

NEACE: Come to realize that it -- all it takes is for the town, a community to stand up against the riff-raff in their town. And take their community back away from these individuals.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Well, they certainly are trying. That was Drew Griffin reporting.

And while police said Charles Hickman at first confessed to the killings, he has since pleaded not guilty. And there's a new twist to the case. Earlier this month, a man named Anthony Stockelman was charged with child molestation after police said his DNA was found on Katie Collman's tiny body. Investigators in Indiana are trying to figure out if Stockelman was involved in Katie's death and if he had any connection at all to Hickman. And since Katie's death, the town of Crothersville has shut down four meth labs.

Coming up in a minute, one state takes some drastic action to put meth labs out of business. And it appears to be working.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOODWARD: The very first month this law passed, last April -- it passed April 6 -- at the end of April, we had a drop of about 40 percent in meth labs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: A simple but radical solution when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Methamphetamine abuse has grown from a rural to a national problem, thanks, in part, to how easily it's made. How big a problem? Well, again, according to a recent CNN/"USA Today" Gallup poll, 65 percent of you say you are very concerned about meth. But some communities have found aggressive and effective ways to fight back.

Here again, Drew Griffin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Linda Green's perfect family

LINDA GREEN, WIDOW OF NICK GREEN: Our life in general was just picture-perfect, and just had a wonderful marriage, three beautiful daughters. And Christmas Day was just, you know, such a picture- perfect day.

GRIFFIN: This is that picture of Christmas Day 2003. But every family photo from that day on would be without Nick Green. December 26, Trooper Nick Green woke to the sound of a knock at his door. A woman delivering newspapers saw a motorist in trouble. It was 6:15, still dark.

(on camera): Was he scheduled to go to work?

GREEN: That day at 9:00 in the morning. But he came in there and kissed me goodbye and said, I am going to go ahead and go to work.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): What Nick Green found on that rural road was captured on his patrol car's camera. A meth addict was using a car as a mobile meth lab. Addicts and meth labs were sweeping across Oklahoma that year; 1,200 labs had been dismantled. The state patrol had already lost two of its troopers in the fight against meth. And Trooper Green often told his wife of the devastation the drug was leaving in its wake.

And now I realize that his education, his knowledge of the drug is why he was so fearful of what it was going to do, fearful of the things that it caused, and fearful for our youth, for our society in general. GRIFFIN: This May, jurors will see the rest of what was caught on this tape, a trooper and a drug addict in a deadly struggle, the voice of Nick Green pleading for his life, the sound of a gunshot and, on the day after a picture-perfect Christmas, the death of a third Oklahoma State Trooper.

(on camera): It was the day Oklahoma state lawmakers decided they had had enough. There was already a bill working its way through this capitol to deal with meth problems, but now that bill had a new name, actually, three new names of each trooper killed, including Trooper Green. The bill also had the backing of a widow who wasn't about to see a fourth trooper die over meth. That bill became a law almost a year ago. And the results in Oklahoma have been astounding.

WOODWARD: The very first month this law passed, last April -- it passed April 6 -- at the end of April, we had a drop of about 40 percent in meth labs.

GRIFFIN: What changed? Mark Woodward of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics says it turned out to be as simple, in fact, as simple as making meth itself. This, believe it or not, is all you need to make meth, typical household products like matches and plastic cups and household chemicals like drain cleaner. But the key ingredient for all of it is the common cold medicine pseudoephedrine.

WOODWARD: The rest of the chemicals are worthless if you don't have the pseudoephedrine. They need the pseudoephedrine tablets.

GRIFFIN: And sales of pseudoephedrine were soaring in Oklahoma, products like these being bought or stolen by the cartons. The solution was to take it off the shelves.

(on camera): So, here is it now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We keep it behind the counter now, as the law dictates.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Since April 6 of last year, all pseudoephedrine tablets in Oklahoma can be sold only by a licensed pharmacist like Danny Lynch (ph).

(on camera): So, if anybody wants these, they can still get them?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure.

GRIFFIN: They can see them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure.

GRIFFIN: But they've got to...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come in and produce a driver's license, a valid driver's license. We fill out the form with their name, address, the amount of milligrams that they're purchasing, so we can keep track of that, because they're allowed nine grams for the month. GRIFFIN (voice-over): Before the law, police were busting an average of 92 meth labs a month. Now that number is down to 19. Meth makers are forced to drive to neighboring states like Texas to buy pseudoephedrine. But those states are moving to pass similar laws. Once Oklahoma's neighbors put pseudoephedrine behind the counter, Mark Woodward expects almost all of his state's meth labs to go out of business.

WOODWARD: Well, we've said all along that, as good as the numbers are, they're only going to get better if these other states pass this law.

GRIFFIN: Linda Green and two of her daughters were there the day Oklahoma legislature approved the bill. They were there the day the governor signed it.

GREEN: I felt like, if there was anything that I could do to help the safety of the next trooper or the next law officer or the next wife or children of a law enforcement officer, that this was it. I had to be active in getting something done about the meth problem that we were having statewide and even national.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And look what that action has led to -- Drew Griffin reporting.

While overall meth use is up, there is some good news. According to an annual survey by the Partnership For a Drug-Free America, meth use among teenagers actually fell last year from 12 percent to 8 percent.

In just a minute, predators targeting our children. We're going to look back at how a little girl's abduction led to a nationwide system to track missing children.

But, first, moving up on just about 18 minutes past the hour, Erica Hill is standing by at Headline News to update some of the other top stories tonight.

Hi, Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Paula.

We start off with news of two autopsies tomorrow for those of the bodies of two Georgia toddlers. The 2-year-old girl and her 3-year- old brother disappeared from their home in rural eastern Georgia over the weekend. Their bodies were found this afternoon in a sanitation pond about 100 yards from their house. Police say at this time they don't suspect foul play.

A key decision at the Michael Jackson trial today. The judge ruled Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, will be allowed to testify for the prosecution later in the week. She's expected to say she was under duress when she gave a television interview in early 2003 praising Jackson. Sky-high oil prices were on the agenda when Saudi Arabia's crown prince visited the Texas ranch of President Bush today. The Saudis say they have a long-term plan to pump more oil, which should eventually bring down prices. The emphasis, though, here is on long term.

Rescuers are still looking for survivors of a horrible train wreck this morning in Japan. A commuter plane derailed, crashed into an apartment building. At least 71 people died. More than 440 were injured, many of them seriously. It happened about 250 miles west of Tokyo.

And that is the latest from Headline News at this hour -- Paula, with that, we'll turn it back to you.

ZAHN: See you at the back end of the hour. Thanks, Erica.

It's time for you now to vote for our person of the day. Your choices, Senate Bill Frist for forcing the issue of judges, filibuster and religion at a controversial conference, the Hubble space telescope for celebrating 15 years in orbit by sending back two beautiful new space images, and Martha Stewart for possibly violating probation and showing us that, even under house arrest, she has a more active social life than lots of us do.

Cast your vote at CNN.com/Paula. We're going to tell you who wins later on in the hour.

When we come back, a mystery that has gone unsolved for more than 20 years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANICE MCKINNEY, MOTHER OF MISSING GIRL: I think my guilt started at that point, because up, until that day, I was there. And, if I would have been there, she wouldn't -- I wouldn't be going through this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Coming up next, how one little girl's disappearance has saved so many other innocent children.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: A recent CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll found that 66 percent of you say you are truly concerned about protecting our children from sexual molestation. With Amber Alerts and Megan's Laws, the nation's attention has clearly been focused like a laser beam on missing and abused children.

So, tonight, we begin a series of special reports called "Protecting Our Children," part of our commitment to giving you the information you need to keep your kids safe.

You're about to hear the story of one missing child, a girl whose face was the very first to appear on a postcard that asks, have you seen me? That was 20 years ago.

Here's Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCKINNEY: The past 20 years probably has been a real torture.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Words spoken by a mother in pain.

MCKINNEY: Four o'clock, the bus came and we heard it. And she just never came up the driveway.

KAYE: A mother overwhelmed by grief and guilt.

MCKINNEY: I should have been there when Cherrie got off the school bus, and I wasn't.

KAYE: February 22, 1985, Cherrie Mahan went to school and never came home.

MCKINNEY: I think that the last words that I probably told her was, you know, have a good day and I do love you. And that was probably as I took her down to the bus stop and she got on the bus.

KAYE (on camera): Did she tell you she loved you back?

MCKINNEY: Yes. She always told me that.

KAYE (voice-over): That day, Janice McKinney went from being the mother of a bubbly 8-year-old who loved rainbows and reading to the mother of a missing child. It was Cherrie who helped put a face on missing children nationwide, the first child on ever on a "Have you seen me?" mailer, delivered to homes around the country.

(on camera): What is that moment of panic like, that first moment when you realize your child has disappeared?

MCKINNEY: It's the most scariest thing. I think my guilt started at that point, because, up until that day, I was there. And if I would have been there, she -- I wouldn't be going through this.

KAYE (voice-over): Ever since Cherrie was old enough to go to school, Janice says she walked her daughter to and from the bus stop.

(on camera): It was a day just like this one, snow on the ground, the sun shining. Cherrie got off her school bus right here. She had to go about 200 feet around that bend to get to her driveway, then another 300 feet to her front door. Investigators never found any footprints, which means Cherrie never got very far.

KAYE: Janice called state police and tracked down Cherrie's school bus. She had to be sure Cherrie wasn't still on it. Children on the bus told Janice and police Cherrie got off at her regular stop with other children. Those young witnesses described a blue van right behind the bus with a snowcapped mountain and a skier painted on its side.

Investigators checked out hundreds of leads, no van, no Cherrie.

(on camera): Is there indication as you walk this way how far she got?

GLENN HALL, FORMER PENNSYLVANIA STATE TROOPER: No, there was no sign of any tracks or anything.

KAYE: So, what does that tell you?

HALL: That apparently someone picked her up.

KAYE: Pretty quick?

HALL: Yes.

KAYE: For retired trooper Glenn Hall, who worked the case from day one, there is also guilt.

HALL: I feel that maybe there's something I overlooked at the time, but I followed every lead that I thought that night.

KAYE (voice-over): With the case now entering its third decade, Trooper Hall remains convinced a stranger abducted Cherrie, a stranger who knew the little girl's schedule and who knew the area. Such crimes are rare. Of the thousands of children each year who are officially described as abducted, the vast majority are taken by someone they know. But every year, about 100 children are taken by a stranger.

MCKINNEY: That was her dog much and that was her cat.

KAYE: Janice gave birth to Cherrie when she was just 16. They grew up together, she says. This year, Cherrie would be 29 and this is what investigators think she might look like.

MCKINNEY: I don't know. Cherrie could be married and have children and have graduated and I could be a grandmother.

KAYE: Cherrie's mom works two jobs, barely sleeps, anything to keep out the dark thoughts. Five years after Cherrie was kidnapped, Janice had another child, Robert, now 15.

After losing Cherrie, Janice says she didn't want to go through life without being a mother. Her son Robert is a soccer player with big plans to go away to college, something that doesn't sit so well with his mom.

MCKINNEY: He's never, ever gone anywhere without somebody. I mean, from the time he was able to walk until this day, I mean, I go to every soccer game. I stand by the door, you know, worried that somebody could come in and take him.

KAYE: Janice works hard to keep Cherrie close and her memory alive. There is an angel at the family's cemetery plot. Two decades and countless tears later, Janice is still not ready to place a gravestone here.

MCKINNEY: We live in a society where we need to see something. And until I see something or hold something or know something, I can't put it to rest yet.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: I think we can all understand that -- Randi Kaye reporting for us tonight.

To be specific, there are about 800,000 children a year reported missing, according to the most recent federal study. Most are runaways or taken in family abductions, such as custody disputes. As Randi Kaye also pointed out, about 100 children are taken by total strangers. Of those 100, about 40 of them are murdered.

Your choices now again for the person of the day, Republican Senate Bill Frist for forcing the issue of judges and religion, the Hubble space telescope on its 15th anniversary, and Martha Stewart, whose social life may violate the rules of her probation. Cast your vote at CNN.com/Paula.

Coming up next, in our quest to protect all of our children, some new techniques to stop the very worst kind of abuse, child pornography.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DET. SGT. PAUL GILLESPIE, TORONTO POLICE SEX CRIMES UNIT: When you look at one of these horrific pictures of abuse, unless you put your thumb over it, you just can't even concentrate on anything that might be in the background.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Coming up next, the key that may unlock the case and stop the abuse.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Child pornography is a huge criminal business. Billions of dollars are being made on the abuse of our children and we still know next to nothing about it.

And why not? Well, because we're actually trying to protect the victims. But the people fighting this horrible crime are starting to believe that staying quiet might be doing more harm than good.

Here's David Mattingly on protecting our children.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that's identified? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the girl with the rubber ball in her mouth, right?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every week, detectives in the Toronto Police Department child exploitation section try to identify child pornography victims from some of the vilest Internet postings imaginable.

(on camera): Do you remember clearly that first time you saw this kind of material?

KIM MOIR, TORONTO POLICE DEPARTMENT: I thought I was going to cry. It took a lot to still hold it in. My stomach just flipped. And that still happens.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): But out of the 50,000 anonymous faces that officers have to endure, there is one that offers hope.

GILLESPIE: I do believe she's grown up with this. I don't think this is new to her. You can often tell when children appear to be abused or when they are abused whether or not it's the first time or not.

MATTINGLY: She's a girl but no more than 12. But when Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie directed officers through dozens of the girl's photographs in search of clues, they came up with an idea.

GILLESPIE: When you look at one of these horrific pictures of abuse, unless you put your thumb over it, you just can't even concentrate on anything that might be in the background. So, when we see these images, we actually paint out the victim ourselves. And that led to, well, let's try to rebuild the picture without her in it.

MATTINGLY: It was so simple, they wondered why no one had done it before, erase the girl from the photograph and then fill in the parts of the room that her image had covered up. What they got were surprisingly accurate pictures of crime scenes, pictures they could release to the public, something police rarely do with evidence of cases of child sexual abuse.

(on camera): Were you taking a risk when you went to the public with those photographs?

GILLESPIE: I think you have to recognize there is a potential risk, the risk being that what happens if the offender sees them and recognizes that we're on to him. Could he do something? Could he do something to the victim?

MATTINGLY: Oh, my gosh.

(voice-over): Gillespie believes the girl is being sexually abused by someone as close as a father or an uncle. But with the reconstructed photos, he decided the chances of a breakthrough were too great to keep the photos from the public.

GILLESPIE: We now know where a crime scene was. MATTINGLY: And the gamble paid off. It was this picture of a hotel room that was the turning point. Someone recognized this bedspread from a Disney resort in Orlando and tipped off the police.

GILLESPIE: I do believe, in this large list of names that we have of people that were at the hotel within this time frame, I absolutely believe he's in that list.

MATTINGLY: But it could still take precious time, perhaps months, before police could check out the thousands of guests who stayed there during that time. All the while, Gillespie is forced to sit on even better evidence that he knows could possibly end his search tomorrow.

(on camera): It has got to be so tempting, knowing that you could just put her picture out there and almost instantly maybe get a tip.

GILLESPIE: Yes. And I do sense that's the way this has to go.

MATTINGLY: For Gillespie and the Toronto detectives, it is an agonizing dilemma. Releasing the girl's face to the public would almost certainly help find her, but could easily put her life in jeopardy. And the shame of being revealed could do her lasting harm.

(on camera): The one thing that could break this case wide open is the one thing police have been so afraid to do. They fear that, in holding back, they have made a decision that may haunt them for many years to come.

GILLESPIE: Is that worse than allowing them to suffer for the next five years every day of their life?

MATTINGLY (voice-over): At a recent conference in Texas, law enforcement and child welfare professionals made clear to Gillespie that they believe the time for caution is over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If they're being put in these positions that they're putting in with this child pornography, I mean, my word, what could be worse than that?

MATTINGLY: It was exactly the answer he wanted to hear. By traveling and raising the question, Gillespie is building support for more aggressive use of the public in child pornography cases.

(on camera): There were people in that audience who strongly believe that you need to put that girl's picture out there right now.

GILLESPIE: Yes. I was -- I was truthfully shocked that there wasn't one person in the audience made up of law enforcement and child protection workers that didn't think we should.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Authorities in the U.S. and Canada may soon put faces of child pornography victims among those of missing children and make them public without revealing why. But, for now, while the girl's face remains out of the public eye, pedophiles around the world daily seek out her photographs, depicting acts of graphic sexual abuse. Toronto police say they weren't surprised when her photos turned up in the computer of a local scout leader, busted after allegedly sending child pornography to an online officer. Out on bond, the man has yet to enter a plea.

GILLESPIE: But every other seizure, every other arrest that we make, we find men people that have some, and different pictures of her. We have about 200 that we have recovered so far. And it's not unusual for when we -- during the course of a month to find two or three new pictures that we'd never seen.

MATTINGLY: And the pictures are never easy to look at. After years of peering into thousands of young tormented young faces, Gillespie complains of nightmares and wonders how much longer he'll last.

GILLESPIE: I don't know if I have too much longer to be able to do the hands-on work.

MATTINGLY (on camera): Why is that?

GILLESPIE: I don't know if I can look at too many more of the pictures. It's been almost five years now. And just when you thought you had seen the worst, you come into work the next day and then some other depravity occurs which you can't just go there.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): So, in the time he has left, Gillespie waits for a break in the case, as a young girl grows up on the Internet enduring unspeakable humiliation. And he hopes this is one child out of thousands whose rescue could be close at hand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: We hope so. David Mattingly reported -- reporting, that is. If you have any information that might help identify the young victim in our piece or any other child victim, you can call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-the-l-o-s- t, 1-800-the-lost. When we come back, we'll go inside the mind of a child molester.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm the guy that's going to take the long way around a group of kids in the shopping mall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Can pedophiles ever be cured? An abuser and the experts weigh in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: When we hear about sex crimes against children, we all ask why? It's just unimaginable. To better protect our children, we need to understand the mind of a sexual offender. We're about to hear from one. In our "Protecting Our Children" report, now from senior medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

"STEVEN," CONVICTED PEDOPHILE: It involved several young male boys, over a period of time, from the time I was about 20 to 47, 48 years old. And it wasn't a continuous thing. It was something that went like a broken tire, a flat tire in a car. You'd go along and things would be OK, and then you'd hit the flat spot and you would abuse.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's no doubt this 52-year-old man is a pedophile. The bigger question, is he a criminal or a patient?

"STEVEN": I'm the guy that's going to take the long way around a group of kids in a shopping mall.

GUPTA: "Steven," who asked for his name to be changed and to be interviewed in silhouette, spent three years in prison after being convicted of acts of pedophilia as a crime. Today, he's being treated for pedophilia as an illness.

Admittedly, it is blurry. Increasingly, we medicalize bad behavior. Alcoholism, violence, even murder may all be due to imbalances of chemicals in the brain. But the risk is we may let criminals pay a lesser price for monstrous deeds, or punish patients for whom treatment could prevent future crimes.

"STEVEN": It's not a disease, as it's not a bacteria or a virus. It is a mental illness. OK? It's a cognitive dysfunction that people can get. Is somebody born with it? Some people might be born with it.

GUPTA: As for "Steven" himself, he's not sure whether he was born with it. He is sure that for almost 30 years, he molested more than a dozen children. It was only the combined force of the police, court and prison that could break "Steven's" cycle of abuse.

Pedophilia has been a diagnosable mental illness for decades, simply defined as an abnormal sexual attraction for children.

And while there are no brain scans or blood tests to confirm the diagnoses, there is a battery of treatments, ranging from psychotherapy to antidepressants to forms of chemical castration with anti-androgens, aimed at reducing testosterone and sex drive.

DR. PAUL FEDOROFF, "STEVEN'S" PSYCHIATRIST: The aim of treatment in pedophilia is not for people to stop having sex, but rather to modify their sexual interests so that they become non-criminal.

GUPTA: "Steven's" course involves two strategies, antidepressants to curb sex drive and psychotherapy to understand why he has abused. Now six years after being convicted, he says he no longer thinks of children sexually. "STEVEN": I don't spend enough time thinking about them to have fantasies. So, it's like a guillotine coming down. There's a child. I remember terrible things happened. I don't want to go there, clank, done, out of it. Let's change our thought pattern, go someplace else.

GUPTA: But can treatment work for everyone? Can pedophilia ever really be cured? Many are cautious, including Dr. Gene Abel, director of behavioral medicine at Emory University.

DR. GENE ABEL, BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE INSTITUTE: Rheumatoid arthritis never goes away. Congestive heart failure is never cured. Diabetes is never cured. This is not cured. This behavior, inappropriate behavior, is not cured. We just help the person stop this behavior.

"STEVEN": I would say when you get to the definition of cured being I don't want to, I don't feel like it and I have no interest, if that's your definition of cured, then you have got a lot of people out there that have been cured. If your definition of to be cured, never ever having had a pedophilic thought in your life, then there is no cure. An alcoholic isn't a drunk if he never drinks again, all right? Is he cured? Well, might as well be.

GUPTA: As far as pedophiles go, though, for now, at least, they will be treated as both patients and criminals.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: That was Dr. Sanjay Gupta reporting.

We'd like to hear your thoughts on what you think should be done to protect our children from sexual predators. Go to ourchildren@cnn.com, and please, send us your ideas.

Coming up in a little bit, is being nice really the best way to get ahead at work? Well, some controversial research may prove what you've always suspected. First, though, just about 45 minutes after the hour, time to check in with Erica Hill of HEADLINE NEWS. Hi, Erica.

HILL: Hi again to you, Paula. We start tonight with a very tragic story out of rural eastern Georgia, where authorities spent the weekend searching for a 2-year-old girl and her 3-year-old brother. They vanished from their home. About noon today, the children's bodies were discovered in a sanitation pond just 100 yards from their home. Investigators say there's no sign of foul play here. Autopsies, however, will be performed tomorrow.

If you're looking for lower gas prices, Saudi Arabia has a long- term plan to pump more oil. But we're talking real long-term here, folks. Try 2009. U.S. gasoline prices, by the way, now averaging $2.24 a gallon. Saudi Arabia's crown prince came to Texas today for talks with President Bush, but apparently made no promise to increase oil production any time soon. And some drama at the Michael Jackson trial. Brian Oxman, one of Jackson's attorneys, is now off the case. He's the man you see on the left of your screen. In an animated and apparently angry conversation with Jackson's lead attorney, Tom Mesereau. The court document says Oxman is no longer representing Jackson. No explanation, though, was given.

Just another twist out of Santa Maria, California, Paula, to keep things interesting and exciting.

ZAHN: Would have loved to have been a little fly sitting on that chain-link fence this afternoon.

HILL: Yeah, you and me both.

ZAHN: Animated discussion to say the least. Thanks, Erica.

Coming up, our person of the day. Will it be Republican Senator Bill Frist for forcing the issue of judges and religion? The Hubble Space Telescope, which has been flying for 15 years now? Or Martha Stewart, whose social life may have violated the rules of her probation.

Find out, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: And for those of you looking at your clocks, 10 minutes away from "LARRY KING LIVE." Lots of developments in the Michael Jackson case today, including warring attorneys and perhaps ex-wives being compelled to testify, a lot for to you cover. How are you, Larry?

LARRY KING, HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: Yes, a lot of people would do it, too. We've got six guests, Ted Rowlands, Raymone Bain, Michael Cardoza, Stacy Horowitz, Cynthia McFadden -- your old friend from ABC -- Jane Valez-Mitchell (ph) of "Celebrity Justice" -- they're all going to be here. Two of them were at the courthouse, and inside, today and the judge has permitted the first wife to -- she will testify, but it'll be limited testimony. The judge says he will limit it. I have no idea what he will limit it to. We'll try to unravel it all, Paula, in just a scant nine-and-a half minutes.

ZAHN: We will watch you try to unspin the mystery surrounding this whole case. Thanks, Larry. See you at the top of the hour.

KING: Thanks, Paula. Like the necklace, too.

ZAHN: Oh, well, thank you, appreciate that.

So who did you vote for for our person of the day? Your choices were Senator Bill Frist for his stand against filibustering to block judicial nominees, the Hubble space telescope for making its 15th year in orbit with some amazing pictures, and Martha Stewart for her act of social life, even on probation, and you chose -- drum roll, please -- the Hubble space telescope.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Liftoff of the space shuttle Discovery with the Hubble space telescope.

ZAHN (voice-over): When the space shuttle Discovery lifted off on April 24th, 1990, a cosmic dream came true. For the first time ever, a telescope was going where none had gone before, into orbit, above the obscuring clouds and light of the earth's atmosphere. We knew then that we were in for something good. We never dreamed, though, that it would be this good. Flawed first images cast some doubt on this eye in the sky, but after a comprehensive repair job, pictures beyond our imagination started coming in.

MICHAEL SCHAVA, AMER. MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: The impact, I think, on all of human culture has been fantastic by the Hubble telescope. There are these gorgeous images which show us that we live in as cosmos that is vast, that is very, very beautiful.

ZAHN: For 15 years, the Hubble telescope has kept an eagle eye on the universe, snapping an astounding 700,000 celestial images. Some of the images are veritable works of art. These are the latest two, presents from Hubble on its birthday: a giant swirling disk of stars, appropriately named the whirlpool galaxy, and the eerie looking spire of gas and dust named the eagle nebula.

During its 15 years of life, the Hubble space telescope has helped answer some of astronomy's biggest questions. It has helped scientists more accurately calculate the beginning of time, some 13 billion years ago, based on the discovery of so-called "clockwork stars" in our own galaxy.

But the biggest question now is, what does the future hold for Hubble? The ailing telescope is in need of major repair and scientists are looking at ways to extend Hubble's life. There's no doubt, Hubble is out of this world, and you've made it our person of the day.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): I don't know about the rest are of you, but whenever I see those pictures, my jaw drops. They are just awesome!

Back down on earth, if you want to climb the corporate ladder, should you smile more or growl more? Jeanne Moos has the answer, coming up next.

Oh, be careful, Jeanie.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: John Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador is on very thin ice, at least in part because some of his critics say he's mean to people who work for him. He's even been described as a tyrant. But if all that's true, well, he might be onto something, according to Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pity the poor, nice guy: not only do nice guys finish last, they finish poorer.

MICHAEL DOUGLAS, "WALL STREET": Because they're sheep, and sheep get slaughtered.

MOOS: If you believe the latest study, guys like this earn more.

ALEC BALDWIN, "GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS": You can't close the leads you're given. You can't close (EXPLETIVE DELETED)! You are (EXPLETIVE DELETED)! Hit the bricks, pal, and beat it because you are going out!

MOOS: Maybe you wouldn't be going out if you'd read the Journal of Economic Psychology.

(on camera): Now there's an actual study that says niceness doesn't pay, literally, doesn't pay, if you want to climb the corporate ladder.

(voice-over): In a study of 3,000 people, economists found the friendlier you are, the less you'll earn.

"Agreeableness has a negative association with wage, which indicates that helping other people...is punished in the labor market."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?

MOOS: Contrast that with "'Machiavellian intelligence,' the ability to manipulate others, which has found a positive effect on earnings."

Folks like this restaurant manager agree.

You think you could make more money if you were a bigger jerk?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hopefully, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It takes a bigger mentality to crush whoever is in your way to get somewhere.

MOOS: Do nice guys finish last?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they do. They do.

MOOS: They finish last?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to be a manipulator.

MOOS: Are you a nice guy or manipulator?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm both. MOOS: The study's authors say there also a chance agreeable people don't demand higher wages. But, did we need a study to confirm a cliche?

BILLIE JOE, VOCALS/GUITARIST, GREEN DAY (SINGING): Nice guys finish last. You're running out of gas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, "OFFICE SPACE": Well, it looks like you've been missing quite a bit of work lately.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, "OFFICE SPACE": Well, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's just a straight-shooter with upper management written all over him.

MOOS: Not everyone we talked to believed the study.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not going to be less friendly to make more money or less agreeable to make more money.

MOOS: In your experience, do the jerks kind of rise to the top?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, the jerks go out the door.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the nicer you are, the universe compensates for it.

MOOS: The universe may, but maybe not your employer. The study also says agreeableness is significantly associated with lower wages for women. The theory being, they're more agreeable then men. All of this left us wondering about the Bush administration's famously abrasive nominee for U.N. ambassador John Bolton.

CARL FORD, FMR. STATE DEPT. INTEL. CHIEF: He's a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy. There are a lot of them around; I'm sure you've met them.

MOOS: Yes, met them headed for the executive suite.

DOUGLAS: And if you need a friend, get a dog.

MOOS: Or better, yet treat your co-workers like one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the hell are you wasting my time with this, you idiot?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And, Kevin, what's with that teleprompter? It's running backwards. Just kidding.

That was Jeanne Moos reporting tonight.

Thanks for being with us tonight. Tonight, more on sexual predators and pedophilia on "NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN." He's going to take a look at some of the laws being considered in Miami Beach that would actually keep sex offenders out of the city by denying them the right to live there, and CNN prime time continues with "LARRY KING LIVE" with the very latest on the Michael Jackson case. Lots of developments today -- he'll have them all for you straight ahead.

Thanks for joining us tonight. Good night.

END

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 April 25, 2005 - 20:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Good to see you. Welcome, everybody. Glad to have you with us tonight.
Tonight, a deadly crisis in middle America, an illegal drug that is easy to make and is most likely already in your home town.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN (voice-over): Crystal meth, a homemade high that kills.

DARYL HICKMAN, UNCLE OF CHARLES HICKMAN: It's just unreal.

ZAHN: Tonight, a town that looked the other way until it was too late.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: If anybody wants these, they can still get them?

ZAHN: Plus, a possible way out of the meth crisis.

MARK WOODWARD, OKLAHOMA BUREAU OF NARCOTICS: The rest of the chemicals are worthless if you don't have the pseudoephedrine. They need the pseudoephedrine tablets.

ZAHN: One state's radical solution. But will your state act in time?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Tonight, we are tackling two problems that most Americans consider even more important than fighting terrorism.

According to a recent CNN/"USA Today" Gallup poll, 65 percent of Americans are very concerned about the drug crystal meth, and 66 percent say the same thing about child molestation. We're going to get to that in just a moment.

We begin tonight though, with crank, ice, poor man's cocaine and a dozen other names. Methamphetamine is powerful, addictive and deadly. It can be smoked, snorted or injected. And it has silently crept out of rural America and is now widely available from coast to coast, with increasing use in the Great Lakes, mid-Atlantic and Southeastern parts of the country. There's a pretty good chance someone you know is affected by it.

And here is a frightening statistic. According to the government, more than 12 million Americans over the age of 12 have tried it. And in one small town in Indiana, it took a little girl named Katie and a terrible tragedy for people to wake up to the scope and the cost of the meth problem.

Here's Drew Griffin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Traffic jams in Crothersville, Indiana last only long enough, but at Louisville/Nashville passed through on its way to Chicago. If bad things happen in this town of just 1,500 people, it's hard to keep them a secret.

CHIEF NORMAN FORD, CROTHERSVILLE POLICE DEPT.: It's pretty close-knit town. Usually, if something's going on, you know, most people know about it.

GRIFFIN: But that doesn't always mean people do something about it, as you're about to see. On January 25, 10-year-old Katie Collman was having a typical day.

JOHN NEACE, FARTHER OF KATIE COLLMAN: It's something that she's done hundreds of times literally, block-and-a-half away, and never had a worry.

GRIFFIN: Katie's father, John, says she left home at 3:10 that afternoon, one block to the corner, turn left to the sidewalk, across the railroad tracks to the store. A five-minute walk. The family needed toilet paper. But Katie didn't come home.

And after five hours of searching, the family was panicking. Five days later, the search ended here.

NEACE: We got the news that Sunday that they had found a body.

GRIFFIN: Dumped face down in a ditch, hands tied behind her back, a shocking crime, even more shocking when Crothersville learned one of their own was now confessing. Charles Hickman, 20-years-old, he told police he killed the girl because on her journey from the store he says she saw him making methamphetamine in the apartments across the tracks.

And behind that confession, a lot of people in this small Indiana town have their own confessions to make. The path to Katie Collman's death had been paved long before she walked down this street.

(on camera): Is meth destroying southern Indiana?

HICKMAN: Oh, yes, it's destroyed it. It has just flat destroyed this community around here. It's just unreal. It's unreal.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): And only now, says Katie's father, after a child has died, is this town starting to admit it.

NEACE: Naturally living in a small community, nobody wants to stand up and say, yes, our town has a problem. GRIFFIN (on camera): The fact is, Crothersville knew it had a meth problem and apparently looked the other way until it was too late. This is a house that burned just a month before she died, a meth lab inside was the cause of that fire. Weeks before she crossed these railroad tracks to go to the general store, police in this town received calls that methamphetamine was being burned inside those apartments. Not one call, but two.

(voice-over): The first call made to police was December 30. The caller happened to be Katie Collman's uncle concerned about the smell of chemicals from an apartment building just a block from Katie's home. A week later, January 5, the apartment building's owner calls police. A similar suspicious odor.

What happened? Police Chief Norman Ford.

FORD: We Checked the area, did not smell anything, had no reason to, you know, knock on anybody's doors or anything like that because, you know, we've got to have probable cause.

GRIFFIN: Despite a history of problems at the Penn Villa Apartments, despite two calls from people who thought they smelled meth, despite the fact that this county had the sixth highest number of meth labs seized in the state last year, at least three right in town, the police chief said the officers couldn't find a reason to investigate further.

Spend a little time with Chief Norman Ford, and you'll see why Crothersville is having problems tackling meth.

FORD: We've got three officers who -- you know, we patrol, we do traffic, we do accidents, we do everything else, and then when it comes to happen to work drugs, drugs is something you have to put time in, and you can't be, you know, bothered with something else when you're working drugs, and that's where my problem is right now.

GRIFFIN: He brought us to the local farm co-op where tanks of anhydrous ammonia sit right out in the home.

FORD: It's used to fertilize crops with.

GRIFFIN: The chemical inside is also used in making meth, yet, there are no locks, not even a fence. There have been many thefts.

(on camera): I'm dumbfounded that this is just out here. I just can't believe it. It's just here.

FORD: It's like your batteries in your flashlight. They use household batteries, they use Drano, they use Sudafed.

GRIFFIN: So how are you going to stop this?

FORD: I don't know. It's going to have to be a legislation, I guess.

GRIFFIN: Two weeks before Katie's disappearance, Chief Ford and his 2 officers were ordered into this room behind closed doors in a special executive session with the town board. Board members weren't there to hear about new legislation.

Board member Vaughn Isenhower says he and the other board members thought the town's drug problem was out of control. They wanted some old-fashioned arrests.

VAUGHN ISENHOWER, TOWN COUNCIL: All three of them were told to step up the patrol and...

GRIFFIN: Bust meth users.

ISENHOWER: Bust meth users -- any suspicious activity. And they said, well, by the time you take them to the county jail and fill the paperwork out, they're already back on the streets. Somebody's come and picked them up. So, it's kind of a futile effort, but that's their jobs.

To me, that's an excuse.

GRIFFIN: The town leaders decided simply to talk about it again in a few weeks. Nothing had changed. Then everything had changed, even for Debbie Hofricter, the aunt of the man now accused of murdering Katie Collman.

DEBBIE HOFRICTER, AUNT OF CHARLES HICKMAN: It could have been anybody in this town.

GRIFFIN: What happened to this town?

HOFRICTER: That, I don't know. They're shutting their eyes to it.

NEACE: This is one of Katie's friends.

GRIFFIN: John Neace and his family have lost their 10-year-old angel. He now believes his daughter died, because so many shut their eyes to the grip meth has on this small town and as a warning for other small communities.

NEACE: Come to realize that it -- all it takes is for the town, a community to stand up against the riff-raff in their town. And take their community back away from these individuals.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Well, they certainly are trying. That was Drew Griffin reporting.

And while police said Charles Hickman at first confessed to the killings, he has since pleaded not guilty. And there's a new twist to the case. Earlier this month, a man named Anthony Stockelman was charged with child molestation after police said his DNA was found on Katie Collman's tiny body. Investigators in Indiana are trying to figure out if Stockelman was involved in Katie's death and if he had any connection at all to Hickman. And since Katie's death, the town of Crothersville has shut down four meth labs.

Coming up in a minute, one state takes some drastic action to put meth labs out of business. And it appears to be working.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOODWARD: The very first month this law passed, last April -- it passed April 6 -- at the end of April, we had a drop of about 40 percent in meth labs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: A simple but radical solution when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Methamphetamine abuse has grown from a rural to a national problem, thanks, in part, to how easily it's made. How big a problem? Well, again, according to a recent CNN/"USA Today" Gallup poll, 65 percent of you say you are very concerned about meth. But some communities have found aggressive and effective ways to fight back.

Here again, Drew Griffin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Linda Green's perfect family

LINDA GREEN, WIDOW OF NICK GREEN: Our life in general was just picture-perfect, and just had a wonderful marriage, three beautiful daughters. And Christmas Day was just, you know, such a picture- perfect day.

GRIFFIN: This is that picture of Christmas Day 2003. But every family photo from that day on would be without Nick Green. December 26, Trooper Nick Green woke to the sound of a knock at his door. A woman delivering newspapers saw a motorist in trouble. It was 6:15, still dark.

(on camera): Was he scheduled to go to work?

GREEN: That day at 9:00 in the morning. But he came in there and kissed me goodbye and said, I am going to go ahead and go to work.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): What Nick Green found on that rural road was captured on his patrol car's camera. A meth addict was using a car as a mobile meth lab. Addicts and meth labs were sweeping across Oklahoma that year; 1,200 labs had been dismantled. The state patrol had already lost two of its troopers in the fight against meth. And Trooper Green often told his wife of the devastation the drug was leaving in its wake.

And now I realize that his education, his knowledge of the drug is why he was so fearful of what it was going to do, fearful of the things that it caused, and fearful for our youth, for our society in general. GRIFFIN: This May, jurors will see the rest of what was caught on this tape, a trooper and a drug addict in a deadly struggle, the voice of Nick Green pleading for his life, the sound of a gunshot and, on the day after a picture-perfect Christmas, the death of a third Oklahoma State Trooper.

(on camera): It was the day Oklahoma state lawmakers decided they had had enough. There was already a bill working its way through this capitol to deal with meth problems, but now that bill had a new name, actually, three new names of each trooper killed, including Trooper Green. The bill also had the backing of a widow who wasn't about to see a fourth trooper die over meth. That bill became a law almost a year ago. And the results in Oklahoma have been astounding.

WOODWARD: The very first month this law passed, last April -- it passed April 6 -- at the end of April, we had a drop of about 40 percent in meth labs.

GRIFFIN: What changed? Mark Woodward of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics says it turned out to be as simple, in fact, as simple as making meth itself. This, believe it or not, is all you need to make meth, typical household products like matches and plastic cups and household chemicals like drain cleaner. But the key ingredient for all of it is the common cold medicine pseudoephedrine.

WOODWARD: The rest of the chemicals are worthless if you don't have the pseudoephedrine. They need the pseudoephedrine tablets.

GRIFFIN: And sales of pseudoephedrine were soaring in Oklahoma, products like these being bought or stolen by the cartons. The solution was to take it off the shelves.

(on camera): So, here is it now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We keep it behind the counter now, as the law dictates.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Since April 6 of last year, all pseudoephedrine tablets in Oklahoma can be sold only by a licensed pharmacist like Danny Lynch (ph).

(on camera): So, if anybody wants these, they can still get them?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure.

GRIFFIN: They can see them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure.

GRIFFIN: But they've got to...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come in and produce a driver's license, a valid driver's license. We fill out the form with their name, address, the amount of milligrams that they're purchasing, so we can keep track of that, because they're allowed nine grams for the month. GRIFFIN (voice-over): Before the law, police were busting an average of 92 meth labs a month. Now that number is down to 19. Meth makers are forced to drive to neighboring states like Texas to buy pseudoephedrine. But those states are moving to pass similar laws. Once Oklahoma's neighbors put pseudoephedrine behind the counter, Mark Woodward expects almost all of his state's meth labs to go out of business.

WOODWARD: Well, we've said all along that, as good as the numbers are, they're only going to get better if these other states pass this law.

GRIFFIN: Linda Green and two of her daughters were there the day Oklahoma legislature approved the bill. They were there the day the governor signed it.

GREEN: I felt like, if there was anything that I could do to help the safety of the next trooper or the next law officer or the next wife or children of a law enforcement officer, that this was it. I had to be active in getting something done about the meth problem that we were having statewide and even national.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And look what that action has led to -- Drew Griffin reporting.

While overall meth use is up, there is some good news. According to an annual survey by the Partnership For a Drug-Free America, meth use among teenagers actually fell last year from 12 percent to 8 percent.

In just a minute, predators targeting our children. We're going to look back at how a little girl's abduction led to a nationwide system to track missing children.

But, first, moving up on just about 18 minutes past the hour, Erica Hill is standing by at Headline News to update some of the other top stories tonight.

Hi, Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Paula.

We start off with news of two autopsies tomorrow for those of the bodies of two Georgia toddlers. The 2-year-old girl and her 3-year- old brother disappeared from their home in rural eastern Georgia over the weekend. Their bodies were found this afternoon in a sanitation pond about 100 yards from their house. Police say at this time they don't suspect foul play.

A key decision at the Michael Jackson trial today. The judge ruled Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, will be allowed to testify for the prosecution later in the week. She's expected to say she was under duress when she gave a television interview in early 2003 praising Jackson. Sky-high oil prices were on the agenda when Saudi Arabia's crown prince visited the Texas ranch of President Bush today. The Saudis say they have a long-term plan to pump more oil, which should eventually bring down prices. The emphasis, though, here is on long term.

Rescuers are still looking for survivors of a horrible train wreck this morning in Japan. A commuter plane derailed, crashed into an apartment building. At least 71 people died. More than 440 were injured, many of them seriously. It happened about 250 miles west of Tokyo.

And that is the latest from Headline News at this hour -- Paula, with that, we'll turn it back to you.

ZAHN: See you at the back end of the hour. Thanks, Erica.

It's time for you now to vote for our person of the day. Your choices, Senate Bill Frist for forcing the issue of judges, filibuster and religion at a controversial conference, the Hubble space telescope for celebrating 15 years in orbit by sending back two beautiful new space images, and Martha Stewart for possibly violating probation and showing us that, even under house arrest, she has a more active social life than lots of us do.

Cast your vote at CNN.com/Paula. We're going to tell you who wins later on in the hour.

When we come back, a mystery that has gone unsolved for more than 20 years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANICE MCKINNEY, MOTHER OF MISSING GIRL: I think my guilt started at that point, because up, until that day, I was there. And, if I would have been there, she wouldn't -- I wouldn't be going through this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Coming up next, how one little girl's disappearance has saved so many other innocent children.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: A recent CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll found that 66 percent of you say you are truly concerned about protecting our children from sexual molestation. With Amber Alerts and Megan's Laws, the nation's attention has clearly been focused like a laser beam on missing and abused children.

So, tonight, we begin a series of special reports called "Protecting Our Children," part of our commitment to giving you the information you need to keep your kids safe.

You're about to hear the story of one missing child, a girl whose face was the very first to appear on a postcard that asks, have you seen me? That was 20 years ago.

Here's Randi Kaye.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCKINNEY: The past 20 years probably has been a real torture.

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Words spoken by a mother in pain.

MCKINNEY: Four o'clock, the bus came and we heard it. And she just never came up the driveway.

KAYE: A mother overwhelmed by grief and guilt.

MCKINNEY: I should have been there when Cherrie got off the school bus, and I wasn't.

KAYE: February 22, 1985, Cherrie Mahan went to school and never came home.

MCKINNEY: I think that the last words that I probably told her was, you know, have a good day and I do love you. And that was probably as I took her down to the bus stop and she got on the bus.

KAYE (on camera): Did she tell you she loved you back?

MCKINNEY: Yes. She always told me that.

KAYE (voice-over): That day, Janice McKinney went from being the mother of a bubbly 8-year-old who loved rainbows and reading to the mother of a missing child. It was Cherrie who helped put a face on missing children nationwide, the first child on ever on a "Have you seen me?" mailer, delivered to homes around the country.

(on camera): What is that moment of panic like, that first moment when you realize your child has disappeared?

MCKINNEY: It's the most scariest thing. I think my guilt started at that point, because, up until that day, I was there. And if I would have been there, she -- I wouldn't be going through this.

KAYE (voice-over): Ever since Cherrie was old enough to go to school, Janice says she walked her daughter to and from the bus stop.

(on camera): It was a day just like this one, snow on the ground, the sun shining. Cherrie got off her school bus right here. She had to go about 200 feet around that bend to get to her driveway, then another 300 feet to her front door. Investigators never found any footprints, which means Cherrie never got very far.

KAYE: Janice called state police and tracked down Cherrie's school bus. She had to be sure Cherrie wasn't still on it. Children on the bus told Janice and police Cherrie got off at her regular stop with other children. Those young witnesses described a blue van right behind the bus with a snowcapped mountain and a skier painted on its side.

Investigators checked out hundreds of leads, no van, no Cherrie.

(on camera): Is there indication as you walk this way how far she got?

GLENN HALL, FORMER PENNSYLVANIA STATE TROOPER: No, there was no sign of any tracks or anything.

KAYE: So, what does that tell you?

HALL: That apparently someone picked her up.

KAYE: Pretty quick?

HALL: Yes.

KAYE: For retired trooper Glenn Hall, who worked the case from day one, there is also guilt.

HALL: I feel that maybe there's something I overlooked at the time, but I followed every lead that I thought that night.

KAYE (voice-over): With the case now entering its third decade, Trooper Hall remains convinced a stranger abducted Cherrie, a stranger who knew the little girl's schedule and who knew the area. Such crimes are rare. Of the thousands of children each year who are officially described as abducted, the vast majority are taken by someone they know. But every year, about 100 children are taken by a stranger.

MCKINNEY: That was her dog much and that was her cat.

KAYE: Janice gave birth to Cherrie when she was just 16. They grew up together, she says. This year, Cherrie would be 29 and this is what investigators think she might look like.

MCKINNEY: I don't know. Cherrie could be married and have children and have graduated and I could be a grandmother.

KAYE: Cherrie's mom works two jobs, barely sleeps, anything to keep out the dark thoughts. Five years after Cherrie was kidnapped, Janice had another child, Robert, now 15.

After losing Cherrie, Janice says she didn't want to go through life without being a mother. Her son Robert is a soccer player with big plans to go away to college, something that doesn't sit so well with his mom.

MCKINNEY: He's never, ever gone anywhere without somebody. I mean, from the time he was able to walk until this day, I mean, I go to every soccer game. I stand by the door, you know, worried that somebody could come in and take him.

KAYE: Janice works hard to keep Cherrie close and her memory alive. There is an angel at the family's cemetery plot. Two decades and countless tears later, Janice is still not ready to place a gravestone here.

MCKINNEY: We live in a society where we need to see something. And until I see something or hold something or know something, I can't put it to rest yet.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: I think we can all understand that -- Randi Kaye reporting for us tonight.

To be specific, there are about 800,000 children a year reported missing, according to the most recent federal study. Most are runaways or taken in family abductions, such as custody disputes. As Randi Kaye also pointed out, about 100 children are taken by total strangers. Of those 100, about 40 of them are murdered.

Your choices now again for the person of the day, Republican Senate Bill Frist for forcing the issue of judges and religion, the Hubble space telescope on its 15th anniversary, and Martha Stewart, whose social life may violate the rules of her probation. Cast your vote at CNN.com/Paula.

Coming up next, in our quest to protect all of our children, some new techniques to stop the very worst kind of abuse, child pornography.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DET. SGT. PAUL GILLESPIE, TORONTO POLICE SEX CRIMES UNIT: When you look at one of these horrific pictures of abuse, unless you put your thumb over it, you just can't even concentrate on anything that might be in the background.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Coming up next, the key that may unlock the case and stop the abuse.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: Child pornography is a huge criminal business. Billions of dollars are being made on the abuse of our children and we still know next to nothing about it.

And why not? Well, because we're actually trying to protect the victims. But the people fighting this horrible crime are starting to believe that staying quiet might be doing more harm than good.

Here's David Mattingly on protecting our children.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that's identified? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the girl with the rubber ball in her mouth, right?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Every week, detectives in the Toronto Police Department child exploitation section try to identify child pornography victims from some of the vilest Internet postings imaginable.

(on camera): Do you remember clearly that first time you saw this kind of material?

KIM MOIR, TORONTO POLICE DEPARTMENT: I thought I was going to cry. It took a lot to still hold it in. My stomach just flipped. And that still happens.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): But out of the 50,000 anonymous faces that officers have to endure, there is one that offers hope.

GILLESPIE: I do believe she's grown up with this. I don't think this is new to her. You can often tell when children appear to be abused or when they are abused whether or not it's the first time or not.

MATTINGLY: She's a girl but no more than 12. But when Detective Sergeant Paul Gillespie directed officers through dozens of the girl's photographs in search of clues, they came up with an idea.

GILLESPIE: When you look at one of these horrific pictures of abuse, unless you put your thumb over it, you just can't even concentrate on anything that might be in the background. So, when we see these images, we actually paint out the victim ourselves. And that led to, well, let's try to rebuild the picture without her in it.

MATTINGLY: It was so simple, they wondered why no one had done it before, erase the girl from the photograph and then fill in the parts of the room that her image had covered up. What they got were surprisingly accurate pictures of crime scenes, pictures they could release to the public, something police rarely do with evidence of cases of child sexual abuse.

(on camera): Were you taking a risk when you went to the public with those photographs?

GILLESPIE: I think you have to recognize there is a potential risk, the risk being that what happens if the offender sees them and recognizes that we're on to him. Could he do something? Could he do something to the victim?

MATTINGLY: Oh, my gosh.

(voice-over): Gillespie believes the girl is being sexually abused by someone as close as a father or an uncle. But with the reconstructed photos, he decided the chances of a breakthrough were too great to keep the photos from the public.

GILLESPIE: We now know where a crime scene was. MATTINGLY: And the gamble paid off. It was this picture of a hotel room that was the turning point. Someone recognized this bedspread from a Disney resort in Orlando and tipped off the police.

GILLESPIE: I do believe, in this large list of names that we have of people that were at the hotel within this time frame, I absolutely believe he's in that list.

MATTINGLY: But it could still take precious time, perhaps months, before police could check out the thousands of guests who stayed there during that time. All the while, Gillespie is forced to sit on even better evidence that he knows could possibly end his search tomorrow.

(on camera): It has got to be so tempting, knowing that you could just put her picture out there and almost instantly maybe get a tip.

GILLESPIE: Yes. And I do sense that's the way this has to go.

MATTINGLY: For Gillespie and the Toronto detectives, it is an agonizing dilemma. Releasing the girl's face to the public would almost certainly help find her, but could easily put her life in jeopardy. And the shame of being revealed could do her lasting harm.

(on camera): The one thing that could break this case wide open is the one thing police have been so afraid to do. They fear that, in holding back, they have made a decision that may haunt them for many years to come.

GILLESPIE: Is that worse than allowing them to suffer for the next five years every day of their life?

MATTINGLY (voice-over): At a recent conference in Texas, law enforcement and child welfare professionals made clear to Gillespie that they believe the time for caution is over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If they're being put in these positions that they're putting in with this child pornography, I mean, my word, what could be worse than that?

MATTINGLY: It was exactly the answer he wanted to hear. By traveling and raising the question, Gillespie is building support for more aggressive use of the public in child pornography cases.

(on camera): There were people in that audience who strongly believe that you need to put that girl's picture out there right now.

GILLESPIE: Yes. I was -- I was truthfully shocked that there wasn't one person in the audience made up of law enforcement and child protection workers that didn't think we should.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Authorities in the U.S. and Canada may soon put faces of child pornography victims among those of missing children and make them public without revealing why. But, for now, while the girl's face remains out of the public eye, pedophiles around the world daily seek out her photographs, depicting acts of graphic sexual abuse. Toronto police say they weren't surprised when her photos turned up in the computer of a local scout leader, busted after allegedly sending child pornography to an online officer. Out on bond, the man has yet to enter a plea.

GILLESPIE: But every other seizure, every other arrest that we make, we find men people that have some, and different pictures of her. We have about 200 that we have recovered so far. And it's not unusual for when we -- during the course of a month to find two or three new pictures that we'd never seen.

MATTINGLY: And the pictures are never easy to look at. After years of peering into thousands of young tormented young faces, Gillespie complains of nightmares and wonders how much longer he'll last.

GILLESPIE: I don't know if I have too much longer to be able to do the hands-on work.

MATTINGLY (on camera): Why is that?

GILLESPIE: I don't know if I can look at too many more of the pictures. It's been almost five years now. And just when you thought you had seen the worst, you come into work the next day and then some other depravity occurs which you can't just go there.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): So, in the time he has left, Gillespie waits for a break in the case, as a young girl grows up on the Internet enduring unspeakable humiliation. And he hopes this is one child out of thousands whose rescue could be close at hand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: We hope so. David Mattingly reported -- reporting, that is. If you have any information that might help identify the young victim in our piece or any other child victim, you can call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-the-l-o-s- t, 1-800-the-lost. When we come back, we'll go inside the mind of a child molester.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm the guy that's going to take the long way around a group of kids in the shopping mall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Can pedophiles ever be cured? An abuser and the experts weigh in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: When we hear about sex crimes against children, we all ask why? It's just unimaginable. To better protect our children, we need to understand the mind of a sexual offender. We're about to hear from one. In our "Protecting Our Children" report, now from senior medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

"STEVEN," CONVICTED PEDOPHILE: It involved several young male boys, over a period of time, from the time I was about 20 to 47, 48 years old. And it wasn't a continuous thing. It was something that went like a broken tire, a flat tire in a car. You'd go along and things would be OK, and then you'd hit the flat spot and you would abuse.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's no doubt this 52-year-old man is a pedophile. The bigger question, is he a criminal or a patient?

"STEVEN": I'm the guy that's going to take the long way around a group of kids in a shopping mall.

GUPTA: "Steven," who asked for his name to be changed and to be interviewed in silhouette, spent three years in prison after being convicted of acts of pedophilia as a crime. Today, he's being treated for pedophilia as an illness.

Admittedly, it is blurry. Increasingly, we medicalize bad behavior. Alcoholism, violence, even murder may all be due to imbalances of chemicals in the brain. But the risk is we may let criminals pay a lesser price for monstrous deeds, or punish patients for whom treatment could prevent future crimes.

"STEVEN": It's not a disease, as it's not a bacteria or a virus. It is a mental illness. OK? It's a cognitive dysfunction that people can get. Is somebody born with it? Some people might be born with it.

GUPTA: As for "Steven" himself, he's not sure whether he was born with it. He is sure that for almost 30 years, he molested more than a dozen children. It was only the combined force of the police, court and prison that could break "Steven's" cycle of abuse.

Pedophilia has been a diagnosable mental illness for decades, simply defined as an abnormal sexual attraction for children.

And while there are no brain scans or blood tests to confirm the diagnoses, there is a battery of treatments, ranging from psychotherapy to antidepressants to forms of chemical castration with anti-androgens, aimed at reducing testosterone and sex drive.

DR. PAUL FEDOROFF, "STEVEN'S" PSYCHIATRIST: The aim of treatment in pedophilia is not for people to stop having sex, but rather to modify their sexual interests so that they become non-criminal.

GUPTA: "Steven's" course involves two strategies, antidepressants to curb sex drive and psychotherapy to understand why he has abused. Now six years after being convicted, he says he no longer thinks of children sexually. "STEVEN": I don't spend enough time thinking about them to have fantasies. So, it's like a guillotine coming down. There's a child. I remember terrible things happened. I don't want to go there, clank, done, out of it. Let's change our thought pattern, go someplace else.

GUPTA: But can treatment work for everyone? Can pedophilia ever really be cured? Many are cautious, including Dr. Gene Abel, director of behavioral medicine at Emory University.

DR. GENE ABEL, BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE INSTITUTE: Rheumatoid arthritis never goes away. Congestive heart failure is never cured. Diabetes is never cured. This is not cured. This behavior, inappropriate behavior, is not cured. We just help the person stop this behavior.

"STEVEN": I would say when you get to the definition of cured being I don't want to, I don't feel like it and I have no interest, if that's your definition of cured, then you have got a lot of people out there that have been cured. If your definition of to be cured, never ever having had a pedophilic thought in your life, then there is no cure. An alcoholic isn't a drunk if he never drinks again, all right? Is he cured? Well, might as well be.

GUPTA: As far as pedophiles go, though, for now, at least, they will be treated as both patients and criminals.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: That was Dr. Sanjay Gupta reporting.

We'd like to hear your thoughts on what you think should be done to protect our children from sexual predators. Go to ourchildren@cnn.com, and please, send us your ideas.

Coming up in a little bit, is being nice really the best way to get ahead at work? Well, some controversial research may prove what you've always suspected. First, though, just about 45 minutes after the hour, time to check in with Erica Hill of HEADLINE NEWS. Hi, Erica.

HILL: Hi again to you, Paula. We start tonight with a very tragic story out of rural eastern Georgia, where authorities spent the weekend searching for a 2-year-old girl and her 3-year-old brother. They vanished from their home. About noon today, the children's bodies were discovered in a sanitation pond just 100 yards from their home. Investigators say there's no sign of foul play here. Autopsies, however, will be performed tomorrow.

If you're looking for lower gas prices, Saudi Arabia has a long- term plan to pump more oil. But we're talking real long-term here, folks. Try 2009. U.S. gasoline prices, by the way, now averaging $2.24 a gallon. Saudi Arabia's crown prince came to Texas today for talks with President Bush, but apparently made no promise to increase oil production any time soon. And some drama at the Michael Jackson trial. Brian Oxman, one of Jackson's attorneys, is now off the case. He's the man you see on the left of your screen. In an animated and apparently angry conversation with Jackson's lead attorney, Tom Mesereau. The court document says Oxman is no longer representing Jackson. No explanation, though, was given.

Just another twist out of Santa Maria, California, Paula, to keep things interesting and exciting.

ZAHN: Would have loved to have been a little fly sitting on that chain-link fence this afternoon.

HILL: Yeah, you and me both.

ZAHN: Animated discussion to say the least. Thanks, Erica.

Coming up, our person of the day. Will it be Republican Senator Bill Frist for forcing the issue of judges and religion? The Hubble Space Telescope, which has been flying for 15 years now? Or Martha Stewart, whose social life may have violated the rules of her probation.

Find out, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: And for those of you looking at your clocks, 10 minutes away from "LARRY KING LIVE." Lots of developments in the Michael Jackson case today, including warring attorneys and perhaps ex-wives being compelled to testify, a lot for to you cover. How are you, Larry?

LARRY KING, HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: Yes, a lot of people would do it, too. We've got six guests, Ted Rowlands, Raymone Bain, Michael Cardoza, Stacy Horowitz, Cynthia McFadden -- your old friend from ABC -- Jane Valez-Mitchell (ph) of "Celebrity Justice" -- they're all going to be here. Two of them were at the courthouse, and inside, today and the judge has permitted the first wife to -- she will testify, but it'll be limited testimony. The judge says he will limit it. I have no idea what he will limit it to. We'll try to unravel it all, Paula, in just a scant nine-and-a half minutes.

ZAHN: We will watch you try to unspin the mystery surrounding this whole case. Thanks, Larry. See you at the top of the hour.

KING: Thanks, Paula. Like the necklace, too.

ZAHN: Oh, well, thank you, appreciate that.

So who did you vote for for our person of the day? Your choices were Senator Bill Frist for his stand against filibustering to block judicial nominees, the Hubble space telescope for making its 15th year in orbit with some amazing pictures, and Martha Stewart for her act of social life, even on probation, and you chose -- drum roll, please -- the Hubble space telescope.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Liftoff of the space shuttle Discovery with the Hubble space telescope.

ZAHN (voice-over): When the space shuttle Discovery lifted off on April 24th, 1990, a cosmic dream came true. For the first time ever, a telescope was going where none had gone before, into orbit, above the obscuring clouds and light of the earth's atmosphere. We knew then that we were in for something good. We never dreamed, though, that it would be this good. Flawed first images cast some doubt on this eye in the sky, but after a comprehensive repair job, pictures beyond our imagination started coming in.

MICHAEL SCHAVA, AMER. MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: The impact, I think, on all of human culture has been fantastic by the Hubble telescope. There are these gorgeous images which show us that we live in as cosmos that is vast, that is very, very beautiful.

ZAHN: For 15 years, the Hubble telescope has kept an eagle eye on the universe, snapping an astounding 700,000 celestial images. Some of the images are veritable works of art. These are the latest two, presents from Hubble on its birthday: a giant swirling disk of stars, appropriately named the whirlpool galaxy, and the eerie looking spire of gas and dust named the eagle nebula.

During its 15 years of life, the Hubble space telescope has helped answer some of astronomy's biggest questions. It has helped scientists more accurately calculate the beginning of time, some 13 billion years ago, based on the discovery of so-called "clockwork stars" in our own galaxy.

But the biggest question now is, what does the future hold for Hubble? The ailing telescope is in need of major repair and scientists are looking at ways to extend Hubble's life. There's no doubt, Hubble is out of this world, and you've made it our person of the day.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): I don't know about the rest are of you, but whenever I see those pictures, my jaw drops. They are just awesome!

Back down on earth, if you want to climb the corporate ladder, should you smile more or growl more? Jeanne Moos has the answer, coming up next.

Oh, be careful, Jeanie.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAHN: John Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador is on very thin ice, at least in part because some of his critics say he's mean to people who work for him. He's even been described as a tyrant. But if all that's true, well, he might be onto something, according to Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pity the poor, nice guy: not only do nice guys finish last, they finish poorer.

MICHAEL DOUGLAS, "WALL STREET": Because they're sheep, and sheep get slaughtered.

MOOS: If you believe the latest study, guys like this earn more.

ALEC BALDWIN, "GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS": You can't close the leads you're given. You can't close (EXPLETIVE DELETED)! You are (EXPLETIVE DELETED)! Hit the bricks, pal, and beat it because you are going out!

MOOS: Maybe you wouldn't be going out if you'd read the Journal of Economic Psychology.

(on camera): Now there's an actual study that says niceness doesn't pay, literally, doesn't pay, if you want to climb the corporate ladder.

(voice-over): In a study of 3,000 people, economists found the friendlier you are, the less you'll earn.

"Agreeableness has a negative association with wage, which indicates that helping other people...is punished in the labor market."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?

MOOS: Contrast that with "'Machiavellian intelligence,' the ability to manipulate others, which has found a positive effect on earnings."

Folks like this restaurant manager agree.

You think you could make more money if you were a bigger jerk?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hopefully, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It takes a bigger mentality to crush whoever is in your way to get somewhere.

MOOS: Do nice guys finish last?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they do. They do.

MOOS: They finish last?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to be a manipulator.

MOOS: Are you a nice guy or manipulator?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm both. MOOS: The study's authors say there also a chance agreeable people don't demand higher wages. But, did we need a study to confirm a cliche?

BILLIE JOE, VOCALS/GUITARIST, GREEN DAY (SINGING): Nice guys finish last. You're running out of gas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, "OFFICE SPACE": Well, it looks like you've been missing quite a bit of work lately.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, "OFFICE SPACE": Well, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's just a straight-shooter with upper management written all over him.

MOOS: Not everyone we talked to believed the study.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not going to be less friendly to make more money or less agreeable to make more money.

MOOS: In your experience, do the jerks kind of rise to the top?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, the jerks go out the door.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the nicer you are, the universe compensates for it.

MOOS: The universe may, but maybe not your employer. The study also says agreeableness is significantly associated with lower wages for women. The theory being, they're more agreeable then men. All of this left us wondering about the Bush administration's famously abrasive nominee for U.N. ambassador John Bolton.

CARL FORD, FMR. STATE DEPT. INTEL. CHIEF: He's a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy. There are a lot of them around; I'm sure you've met them.

MOOS: Yes, met them headed for the executive suite.

DOUGLAS: And if you need a friend, get a dog.

MOOS: Or better, yet treat your co-workers like one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What the hell are you wasting my time with this, you idiot?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And, Kevin, what's with that teleprompter? It's running backwards. Just kidding.

That was Jeanne Moos reporting tonight.

Thanks for being with us tonight. Tonight, more on sexual predators and pedophilia on "NEWSNIGHT WITH AARON BROWN." He's going to take a look at some of the laws being considered in Miami Beach that would actually keep sex offenders out of the city by denying them the right to live there, and CNN prime time continues with "LARRY KING LIVE" with the very latest on the Michael Jackson case. Lots of developments today -- he'll have them all for you straight ahead.

Thanks for joining us tonight. Good night.

END

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