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CNN Saturday Morning News

Vatican Arrests Man Leaking Documents of the Pope; Suspect in Etan Patz Case Charged; Gunman Dead in Indiana Standoff; No Verdict Vet in Edwards' Trial

Aired May 26, 2012 - 9:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE (voice-over): Fires out West, tornadoes in the Breadbasket, and now tropical storms heading towards the East Coast. The entire country seems to be under siege by Mother Nature this weekend. We'll check in with a storm chaser.

After three decades, a cold case may be solved. A former New York stock clerk charged with the murder of Etan Patz, 33 years to the day after the 6-year-old disappeared.

And in today's bullying segment, the troubling trend of suicides is hitting younger and younger children. I'll ask a psychologist how a child as young as seven could have taken his own life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: Good morning, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye. It is 9:00. Thanks for waking up with us. Let's get you caught up on some of the morning headlines.

A wild start to the Memorial Day weekend for some residents in Kansas where a series of tornadoes ripped through parts of the state. Earlier I spoke with a meteorologist and a storm chaser, Tony Laubach about what he saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY LAUBACH, METEOROLOGIST, STORM CHASER (ON THE PHONE): It was a very busy day in Kansas. A conditional day. Got up this morning, actually, I hadn't planned on chasing, and I was on the road within 15 minutes of waking up from Denver to go out to Kansas today, and it was - it was tornado central. There were tornadoes that touched down all over the place. There were more than seven, and it was certainly a busy day for chasers.

KAYE: How close were you able to get?

LAUBACH: I was within a quarter of a mile of several of the tornadoes this evening. Most notably one that tore up a bunch of trees on a farmstead, fortunately missed the buildings on the property but did some damage to some fences and a lot of vegetation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: And from tornadoes to wildfires. Extreme weather is taking a toll across the U.S. more than 20,000 acres have burned near Lake Superior in Michigan this week. Meanwhile in Arizona, officials are reporting some success with the so-called gladiator fire. They say the blaze, which is burning about 40 miles north of Phoenix, is now 35 percent contained.

Meteorologist Bonnie Schneider joining us this morning. Bonnie, so firefighters, they're now battling not just the flames but also high winds, right, and some dry conditions helping to keep this fire alive?

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right, Randi. For days this part of Michigan has been facing very strong wind gusts. Some of them have been as fierce as 30 miles per hour. But today's weather improves a little bit. Right now you can se 17,000 acres burned so far. Scattered showers and thunderstorms in the forecast.

So, what does that mean? Well, it could be twofold. We could get a little bit of rain, and that will help the situation. However with the thunderstorm comes strong gusts of wind. Generally speaking the winds will be out of the east at five to 10. So that's better than what we've seen. But notice the temperatures are also very, very warm out there. And that's going to continue as we go through.

Well, here's some news. A subtropical storm. That's kind of a hybrid. We talk about hybrids with cars. We have hybrids in the tropics. Meaning we have characteristics of a tropical storm or just an area of low pressure off a cold front that's brewing here off the Atlantic. It looks very disorganized. That's typical of a subtropical storm where most of the circulation is about 100 miles from the convection. As you can see it's off into the ocean. But that's not the track of this system. It's actually forecast to move westward and because of that we have tropical storm warnings and watches in effect for coastal areas of the Carolinas, and northern Florida.

So this will be a rainmaker as it comes onshore, with tropical storm force winds or less. It's actually going to be beneficial, Randi, because we are looking, as you can see here, at a very drought- stricken area particularly for northern Florida and southern Georgia. So that's going to help things with the incoming precipitation.

KAYE: Yes, a lot of people though watching they maybe heading out for some Memorial Day travel, how is the weather going to look overall, you think?

SCHNEIDER: Well, I think for the beaches in this region as we go towards Sunday and Monday, we are looking for the chance of thunderstorms. That includes the city of Jacksonville and even into Miami, we're looking at some stormy weather with afternoon showers and thunderstorms popping up. So for those of you that are heading somewhere, and many of you are traveling today, airport delays are anticipated in the midwest, with thunderstorms in Minneapolis, windy weather in Denver, Colorado, we're also looking at windy weather in Salt Lake City.

And as you can see, Miami, Florida, and really much of the east coast of Florida will face that chance of thunderstorms. The West Coast, and into the Gulf coast, as you head towards Alabama, Mississippi, and even into Texas, you are going to see some really nice weather for this holiday weekend. Randi?

KAYE: All right, Bonnie. That is good news. Thank you very much.

SCHNEIDER: Sure.

KAYE: In Indiana, a hostage standoff with police has ended with the gunman's death. All of the hostages are safe. Though one woman was injured. Officials say the man entered an office building looking for someone who owed him money. He ended up taking hostages, after police arrived. Police say that he shot and killed himself.

The jurors in the John Edwards trial are off for the long holiday weekend. They'll return Tuesday to resume deliberations. Edwards is accused of misusing campaign contributions to cover up an affair. He denies he did anything wrong. The jury has already deliberated for six days.

In Egypt the votes have nearly all been counted and now the country appears headed for a runoff. A Muslim Brotherhood candidate seen here on the left could face off against former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq on the right in the country's first free presidential election. There may not have been two more polarizing figures among the 11 candidates. Some in Egypt fear that either candidate could chip away at democratic gains made during the uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak's regime.

Saddened and shocked. That's how a Vatican spokesman describes Pope Benedict after the pontiff learned of the arrest of one of his closest aides. Investigators say that man stole and then leaked some of the Pope's private documents to a member of the media. Joining me by phone is journalist Barbie Nadu. Barbie, hello to you. What is the scene like given this news at the Vatican? I mean has something like this ever happened before?

BARBIE NADU, JOURNALIST (ON THE PHONE): No. This really is the first sort of breach of this magnitude of any kind of Vatican secrecy. You know, hundreds of documents were leaked that talked about, you know, many of them give evidence with the power struggle within the Vatican. There were allegations among members of the hierarchy at the Vatican about corruption, about money laundering, about covering up crimes, including murders, things like this. It's really serious stuff.

The butler Paulo Gabriele was arrested on Wednesday night in what I guess amounted to a sting operation. They arrested him in his apartment and he had documents there with him. Now the question, of course, is a conspiracy theorists dream because everyone wants to know was he acting alone? Or was he a conduit for these documents for someone else. You know, these are questions that we may never, you know, know the answers to, because what happened inside the Vatican walls is their business. Vatican city is, of course, a sovereign nation. And we, on the outside, don't have access to their court system, to their tribunal. If they can manage this in any way they can, they have their own jails. According to the spokesman at the Vatican resting in a cell. He's interrogated by their prosecutors. And he's been appointed a couple of lawyers, and even those are from within the Vatican state.

KAYE: So did they recover the leaked documents, then? What happened to them?

NADU: Well, he had documents, according to the Vatican spokesman. He had documents in his possession, so that was one would assume that's what they used to get him. But hundreds of documents have been leaked since the spring of last year to a journalist named Gianluigi Nuzzi who wrote a book that came out last Saturday called "His Holiness" in which all of these documents were published.

And you know, that was really the beginning, I suppose, of the end of the leaking of the documents. But again, the Vatican is so secret. It's so hard to penetrate. So it's going to be sketchy what we get out of there in terms of what's really happening to this butler. And whether or not someone else is involved.

KAYE: All right. All right. Barbie Nadu, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Are some of the biggest dangers your children face on the playground and in the school classroom? In today's bullying segment, too many kids have lost their lives because they were tormented, and teased.

Ahead, a top psychologist tells me how a child as young as seven can take his own life.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back. Let's talk about bullying. I like to talk a lot about bullying on the show because we're just losing too many children to this. And this week was really no different. A Detroit community is mourning the suicide of a seven-year-old boy, seven years old. Authorities say he was bullied and teased and became depressed over the recent separation of his parents.

Chauncey Glover from CNN affiliate WDIV has some reaction from friends and neighbors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LATONYA GARRETT, DAUGHTER WAS FRIENDS WITH BOY: Very outgoing. Played with my kids all the time. Just seemed like he loved life.

CHAUNCEY GLOVER, REPORTER, WDIV (voice-over): Latonya Garrett says she'll never forget the bright smile of her daughter's seven-year-old friend, especially when he was riding his bike along this sidewalk.

GARRETT: He waved. And spoke to her. And not knowing that that would be the last time. GLOVER: But Wednesday evening came with horrifying screams coming from this Pingree Avenue home. The boy locked himself in a bedroom, his mother broke through the door, only to find her little boy hanging from his bunk bed, by a belt. The mother and first responders tried to revive the boy, but it was too late.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean it was unfathomable to me that a seven-year- old even had the capacity to, you know, plan out a suicide. So obviously we are going to investigate it very intensely.

GLOVER: Police sources tell me the boy was being bullied at school, constantly being teased because he was the only boy in his home. Sources say the seven-year-old was also depressed over the recent separation of his parents. Friends of the family tell us the mother was aware of the problems, and had her son in counseling with their church pastor.

GARRETT: The mother, very, very, very involved with her kids. Just took my niece, her son, went to a Tigers game with some other neighbors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Such a sad story. Bullying can drive people to a very dark place in their life. I've reported on these stories far too often. And for all those parents or kids looking for some answers we're glad you're watching because in studio with us we have psychologist Erik Fisher, also known as Dr. E.

So let's talk about this. I mean what is going on inside the mind of a child who is being bullied? What happens in the brain?

ERIK FISHER, PSYCHOLOGIST: I think we have to look at it as the idea of what are the resources they feel they have? Because when somebody feels bullied, they feel threatened. You know, when I talk about the idea of bullying, and even the idea of suicide as this happens, we have to look at how people feel. In life I say we have victims, persecutors and rescuers, and beyond that instigators. Somebody who feels bullied becomes a victim. You know, the bully becomes the persecutor.

And in this way this child is starting to see the world as a threatening place. The fewer resources they feel they have to help them to make it through life is the fewer options they feel they have. So often what I say, when somebody wants to commit suicide, they feel like there are no options and they just want the pain to stop. And they don't see any other way.

KAYE: But I mean I've covered these stories and I've covered 12 and 13-year-olds who have done this very same thing, taken their lives. But a seven-year-old. Does a seven-year-old even understand what they're doing, that this is going to end their life?

FISHER: You know, it's going to depend in part on his life history. You know, what has he experienced? What has he seen around him? So if he's experienced or seen death around him he may understand the permanence of it. But it seems if there's some impulse issues here. You know, men are more likely - and boys are more likely to attempt suicide and complete it. Women are more likely to have attempted a suicide and girls, and it not be completed. It's more of a cry for help. So that's what we have to consider here, too.

KAYE: So is there anything a parent who might be watching today who maybe is convinced that their child is being bullied, what can a parent say to save their child's life to convince them that it will get better?

FISHER: You know, when we look at our own lives and we see kind of the dark days of our souls, so to speak, you know, I think we can use some of those examples with our kids and not give them all the details but say, you know, there are times in my childhood when I felt this way and this is happening in my life and this is what I did to work through it. We have to see that it's our role as a parent to help see - help our kids to see their way through these things and to help empower them and give them strategies and ways to support them.

Make sure they get counseling. Make sure you're talking to the teachers and seeing what's happening in school, as well as making sure the teachers are able to report back to you what's going on and seeing that people in their life are significant. In this situation where he's going through a separation of his family, the difficulty might be where's my dad going to be? We don't know anything about his relationship with his father, relationship with his mother and sisters. So there are all these other factors we have to look at. And we have to make sure, like I said, that there's support across the board in different areas of their lives.

KAYE: Just so tragic. A seven-year-old. Erik, I do want you to stay with me. Because I want to continue the conversation with you and bring us some more tips for parents at home and then we're going to talk about the signs that all parents should be looking for.

But first tomorrow on Dr. Sanjay Gupta's new show "The Next List," she's been called the real-life Indiana Jones but space archeologist Sarah Parcak says Indy has nothing on her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PARCAK, SPACE ARCHEOLOGIST: I tell my students on day one, a picture is worth a thousand words. A satellite image is worth a million dollars. My name is Sarah Parcak and I am a professor of archaeology. I'm an Egyptologist, and I'm a remote sensing specialist and I'm a space archaeologist. Imagery is powerful. Imagery is provocative. Satellite imagery much more so because it is from space. And it allows us to get this perspective that we wouldn't have otherwise. When you add on top of that the ability to see a little bit differently, all of a sudden you have an amazing scientific tool.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN COSTNER, ACTOR: I went to a lot of different schools and I remember there was tension, sometimes, and it wasn't so simple just negotiating your way from one class to another when the bell rang. You know, that there was tensions ran really high. I was involved in (INAUDIBLE) and you know, I've experienced it and understand it. You know, and anybody that's experienced it not on a daily level, you can se why they can just sink into the great depths, because when you're just trying to get by as a kid in a school, you can't think. All you're thinking about, how am I going to get to my next class without running into these guys or this situation? You can't even concentrate on what you're supposed to be. I really hold the - the teachers responsible, because you can see what's happening out there. You can bring that to a stop in my mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: And we're back now with psychologist Erik Fisher. So, that was Kevin Costner talking about being bullied himself. But bullying, as we know, can lead to depression. That's why so many kids are taking their lives. What are some signs that parents can look for?

FISHER: Well, if we're looking for issues of depression, we want to look for changes in mood. We want to look for if they're withdrawing from situations. Are they maybe getting upset or crying more frequently? In younger kids, though, what we sometimes see is an increase in hyperactivity because kids don't know what to do with that energy, their emotions. So sometimes they'll avoid by acting maybe a little goofy in situations like that or trying to be funny to make light. We look at our situation of having a real or feel an our ideal self. The real is the one the we present, what we really interact with the world, other people see. Our ideal is what we want to try to present. Kids are often learning to present their ideal at earlier ages. And the feel is what we really feel inside and that's what we're not getting to.

KAYE: So, that's what parents should look for. But we know that if the child is being bullied, a lot of them aren't coming forward. They're not telling school officials. They're not telling their parents. Why don't kids come forward? Are they afraid of something?

FISHER: Well we look at our issue of power in our culture. And being bullied, somebody who wants to bully people wants to look strong. I talk about four dichotomies, good and bad, right and wrong, strong and weak and win and lose. And when you have people who want to look strong, it's about having power over people. That comes from all of our culture. So if I'm feeling weak and I feel like I'm not getting anything I don't want to show it. I feel ashamed, embarrassment, humiliation. And I think in my culture if I want people to love me, I can't look that way who is going to love me if I feel that way. So I have to hide that.

KAYE: It almost makes it even worse.

FISHER: Exactly.

KAYE: If they're going to come forward - what about boys and girls, is there a difference in terms of how bullying makes them feel or how they bully? FISHER: Well, I've written a blog a couple of years ago called bullying pigtails where I actually talked about the emergence of girls in bullying and why that happens. And what's happening is we see - where girls are more socialized and women were more socialized in the past to look good. They're being more socialized to look strong because they're playing in the same playing fields, they're in the classroom, they're in the boardroom, and we're competing, men and women are competing for the same positions of power in a lot of ways. So we're suddenly and obviously socializing our girls to look strong.

You sometimes have your queen bee that might lead the bullying in girls situations and you have sometimes almost a pack mentality. But you are getting more overlaps in the girls being more aggressive, and being more physical in these things. And I think also it goes back to the home. We have to look back at our attachments. Our attachments are crucial in development of healthy kids and healthy adults. And the quality of this attachment I see waning. That's why I also think we see an increase in bullying too.

KAYE: Yes, because it's certainly - it can begin at home or anywhere else. I know you talked to a lot of kids who have been bullied and there's certainly a common theme there right -

FISHER: Exactly.

KAYE: - among all of them. Dr. E., thank you.

FISHER: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

KAYE: Nice to have you in the studio this morning.

Well if you'd like to share some stories about bullying, or share your thoughts on bullying, you can tweet me now or any time. Use #bullyingstopshere. And you can find me on Twitter @randikayecnn. I'd like to hear from you. I love to hear your thoughts on what's happening to our children.

It has been a heartbreaking mystery. What happened to six-year-old Etan Patz. His disappearance and murder 33 years ago changed how missing children cases are treated. Now a suspect finally charged. We'll tell you what he says happened when he lured allegedly Etan away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Checking top stories.

The suspect in the 1979 killing of Etan Patz is being held on suicide watch. Fifty one-year-old Pedro Hernandez is charged with second degree murder. He told police that he lured six-year-old Etan away with the promise of a soda and then strangled him. Etan's disappearance sparked a national movement to raise awareness of missing children.

Indiana authorities are trying to figure out why a gunman took several people hostage at a real estate office and then held police at bay for seven hours before turning the gun on himself. Police say the man released the hostages before he killed himself, ending yesterday's day-long standoff. They say he apparently had been looking for someone who owed him money.

John Edwards will have to wait until at least Tuesday to find out if the jury in his corruption trial has reached a verdict. Jurors are home for the Memorial Day weekend. After wrapping up a sixth day of deliberations yesterday, the judge says that she may need to speak with both sides' attorneys Tuesday about an issue involving a juror. No word on what that issue is.

We'll have much more news for you at the top of the hour.

Meanwhile, let's get you started here with "YOUR BOTTOM LINE."