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Starting Point with Soledad O'Brien

Leila Fowler Investigation; U.S. Diplomat Detained In Moscow; Man Dribbling Soccer Ball To Brazil Killed; Prince Harry's A Hit; Starting The Cancer Dialogue; Diagnosis: Breast Cancer; Spurs Roll Over Warriors; Catch And Release; Woman Pulled From Rubble After 17 Days; Bracing For An Eruption; Prom Night Heroes

Aired May 15, 2013 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to STARTING POINT, everyone. I'm John Berman.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christine Romans. Leila Fowler's 12-year-old brother will be in court today for the stabbing death of his sister. The 8-year-old girl was found dead in her Northern California home last month and police have released now the 911 call that brought officers to the scene. The children's stepmother, Crystal Walters, was not at home when she dialed 911.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRISCILLA RODRIGUEZ: My children are at home alone and a man just ran out of my house. My older son was in the bathroom and my daughter started screaming. When he came out there was a man outside of my house.

UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER: Of course, how old are your kids?

RODRIGUEZ: They're 12 and 9.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The Fowler family hired a defense team to represent their son. They visited the boy Tuesday at a juvenile detention center.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's actually doing very well right now as well as can be expected in these really difficult times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Leila Fowler's brother will be tried as a juvenile on second degree murder charges.

BERMAN: Russia is calling an arrest of a U.S. diplomat in Moscow a cold war provocation. The Russian security agency, FSB, says U.S. Embassy employee Ryan Christopher Fogle tried to recruit a Russian intelligence officer and was caught red handed with spy gear including wigs, recording devices and what appeared to be a stack of euros. So far there's been no comment from the U.S. Embassy. The State Department will only say that an officer at the embassy in Moscow was briefly detained and then released.

ROMANS: So his plan was to dribble a soccer ball 10,000 miles from Seattle to Brazil in time for the 2014 World Cup, but tragically Richard Scuanson made it only as far as Lincoln, City, Oregon. He was struck and killed by a pickup truck while walking along a highway on the Oregon Coast. Before leaving on his trip, he spoke to CNN affiliate KCPQ.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll be surrounded by new and interesting people all the time. Yes, the road will be long and lonely and I will utilize podcasts as much as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: He was out to promote the "One World" football project that donates soccer balls to kids in developing countries.

BERMAN: Prince Harry closed out his U.S. tour today with charity polo match today. There's little doubt that Prince Harry's visit has been something of a smash. The British Royal stepped up to the plate in Harlem yesterday going 3 for 3 hitting everything that was thrown at him yesterday. Not bad for the prince given that baseball is not his game. The British Royal impressed Hurricane Sandy ravaged New Jersey and he was impressed by the American spirit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRINCE HARRY: It's fantastic. American spirit everyone getting together and making things right.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: It puts smiles on people's faces that they get to meet the prince. It was cool that he came and helped support what happened in Hurricane Sandy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That girl put smiles on our faces.

The prince's visit has been dubbed Harry's rehab tour. You might remember the last time he was in the United States, naked photos of him at a Las Vegas hotel surfaced on the internet. This one has been a little bit different.

The woman who survived 17 days buried beneath rubble from a factory collapse in Bangladesh is speaking exclusively to CNN. Rescuers found her alive and well. She is now recovering at a military hospital and describes what it was like when she was finally found. Remarkably, she suffered no broken bones or serious injuries in that calamity.

ROMANS: Angelina Jolie revealed yesterday she had both breasts removed as a preventive measure to reduce her breast cancer risk. For us here at CNN, breast cancer is something that hits very close to home. Our very own Zoraida Sambolin is here to share her personal story. Good morning, Zoraida.

ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, ANCHOR, CNN'S "EARLY START": Good morning to you. Angelina Jolie's candor really inspired me. It's been five weeks since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I have decided to have a double mastectomy as well, and now we would like to focus on empowerment. Talk to your doctor, talk to each other.

It could save your life. It could maybe just make you feel better as it did with me. We brought together four women who became empowered patients and we are hoping that they will now be a source of inspiration to you and to all of you that are struggling with a cancer diagnosis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAMBOLIN: All right, so Angelina Jolie comes out with this amazing op-ed piece that she has had a preventive double mastectomy. I just want you all to chime in on how you took that news when you found out.

VICTORIA FLYNN, UNDERWENT DOUBLE MASTECTOMY: Well, I found out pretty early as I was getting the kids ready for school and I kind of heard it on the TV. I said, well, we don't share the gene for legs. We don't share the genes for getting skinny right after you have many pregnancies, but we do share one gene and it's this one.

JILL STEINBERG, UNDERWENT DOUBLE MASTECTOMY: Making a decision to have the double mastectomy was the no-brainer. It was the easiest decision. For me what type of reconstruction I was going to have was a much harder decision.

GERALYN LUCAS, UNDERWENT SINGLE MASTECTOMY: I feel shallow. It was a hard decision for me.

VICTORIA FLYNN: You were at a different time a little bit.

LUCAS: A little bit. I was 27. The word mastectomy wasn't in the culture.

SAMBOLIN: By nature as journalists we tend to be control freaks. We like control everything and know how it will happen and plan it and all of that so that's been a big struggle for me is losing control. The only thing that I can control is I decided to have a double mastectomy and so that to me was complicated. How did you all feel about that, about that lack of control?

STEINBERG: Well, I felt that I did have control and like Angelina Jolie I could take care of this now instead of sitting around and waiting for cancer, which is how I felt. I felt like a ticking time bomb. I didn't want to sit around and wait for cancer. Now I don't have to wait around to be a survivor.

TARA FLYNN, UNDERWENT DOUBLE MASTECTOMY: It's so hard. I survived. My mother didn't have that choice. It was such a crazy cancer and it was such a strong cancer. It was going to kill her. We never knew she was going to die. She was so strong that she never got sick in front of us. When she did pass away, what? What do you mean our mother is not here? That wasn't happening to my kids. My kids were always going to have a mother here always.

SAMBOLIN: I want to deal with this BRCA gene. This test is really expensive almost $3,000.

TARA FLYNN: I thought it was even more when we took it. Our insurance covered it.

SAMBOLIN: Why? Because you had a history, a strong history of it?

VICTORIA FLYNN: I think because we were in a special surveillance program.

STEINBERG: I found out through 23 and me which is an at home generality genetic test. I wasn't testing positive even though my sister had breast cancer. I had forgotten about it by the time the results came back. I was shocked that my sister had breast cancer, but I had the gene.

SAMBOLIN: To me the decision was not simple. It was in a sense that my first -- when I got diagnosed by my first team are doctors they were talking mastectomy. I walked out saying cut them out. Can we do it tomorrow and then I got a second opinion and started thinking differently. I thought about my kids right away and fear of not being there in the future. That's powerful.

TARA FLYNN: That touched me with Angelina Jolie.

SAMBOLIN: Right, from that standpoint, it is a no-brainer.

LUCAS: This is what makes me so sad is that women have to think we're vain. So many women say to me I feel so vain. I lost my hair. You're not vain. That's a horrible thing to lose your hair.

SAMBOLIN: That to me -- I was embarrassed by how difficult that decision was.

LUCAS: It's a terrible decision to have to make. It's terrible.

SAMBOLIN: So it makes you start thinking about your sexuality. I have thought more about than I ever have before in my life. How this will affect that.

STEINBERG: You'll get through all of the drains and the yuckiness and the surgery and then that will be part of your past. And you won't think about that again. I moved on and you don't look back.

SAMBOLIN: You're different now.

STEINBERG: With clothes on and a bathing suit on, nobody knows.

VICTORIA FLYNN: What helped me is I buy pretty bras. I could buy bras I couldn't buy before. I buy the prettiest bras and feel pretty in them. STEINBERG: You're no less feminine before or after. I think femininity comes from within.

LUCAS: It's normal to be overwhelmed by the mortality of it and what you did makes me think that you know how to take care of yourself. You have already probably saved a life as a result of your experience.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAMBOLIN: Those are incredibly brave women. I'm so grateful that they shared their stories and so much more because they actually showed me their mastectomies because at the end of the day the reconstruction all of them have reconstruction I needed to see that. I needed to understand it. Not just in pictures.

So now I want to bring in someone who has been very important to me throughout this journey. She's my doctor. She's my second opinion. Monica Morrow, the chief of breast services at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Thank you so much for being here.

I want to start right without with the BRCA gene test because three women I talked to tested positive and made this decision to go ahead and have a double mastectomy. Is that typically the decision that you would recommend?

DR. MONICA MORROW, MSKCC BREAST AND IMAGING CENTER: Women with BRCA have a really high risk of breast cancer development and in that case, I think that decision makes perfect sense, but women need to know there are other options.

If you are done with your family, you have your ovaries removed and it reduces risk in half. Some women choose to be followed more closely and hope that if cancer occurs it's detected early. But in this case, most women don't have BRCA.

So what we're talking a lot about BRCA because of Angelina Jolie, most women even those with a mother or a sister with breast cancer don't have that gene.

SAMBOLIN: All right, I just want to clear up one other thing. We talked about the cost of that test, $3,000, $4,000. One of the women in that piece said she did a spit test that was $99. It came back positive for her. I thought that's a huge difference in price. Is that an option?

MORROW: You know, I can't tell you about the accuracy of that spit test to know, but I think women should understand if you have a reason to have a BRCA test that most insurance companies will cover that cost.

SAMBOLIN: All right, here's a sensitive subject that I'm going to let everybody in on. Because when I left my first set of doctors, my decision was I'm having a double mastectomy. There's all there is to it. It's complicated for them to follow. I'm done with it.

When I went to see you on the other hand, you have a very different opinion about how women should deal with breast cancer. I want you to talk about that. That diagnosis and the options and how you present them.

MORROW: So now we're talking about women who have cancer in one breast and who don't have a BRCA gene. In the United States, we're seeing incredible increase in double mastectomies in those women paradoxically at a time when the risk of getting breast cancer in your other breast is going steadily down.

Because the medicine we use to treat the cancer you already have reduces that risk. So I think it's important for women to understand that having their other breast removed does not prolong their life. Many women believe that's true. Unfortunately it's not.

Breast cancer doesn't spread from breast to breast. So removing one breast doesn't reduce the risk of your cancer spreading. It means more surgery. It obviously means a smaller chance of ever getting breast cancer, but again that chance is not zero.

So you have to ask yourself, why do you want to have it done? And if understanding those things that still feels like the right choice for you, then it's the right choice for you to make.

SAMBOLIN: I know that when we had our conversations, fear came up repeatedly. The idea of I am scared about what is happening now. I'm scared about what my future holds and you said fear should not be a motivator in making this decision.

MORROW: I think that's true. I think something you said earlier about loss of control is very important. People don't like to lose control. They certainly don't like doctors telling them what to do so this is something you can still have control over. It's true.

Surgery is a bad way to treat fear. Knowledge is power here. Understanding your level of risk I think is the best approach to fear even though we know we don't always make these decisions logically.

SAMBOLIN: I agree with you that knowledge is power. When I sat with you, you talked me through this. I went for another opinion. My third one at North Western in Chicago and she actually decided to show me also. This is exactly what you're going to go through. What should I expect as a patient from my doctor?

MORROW: Well, I think what you should expect is first of all to get the information on what are your options? What does each option involve and what are the outcomes? That's the very basic thing. Then what your doctor would like to know from you to help you make this decision as much as possible is what's most important to you and what are your concerns?

Because we know in today's world of access to information everybody comes to us knowing as much as I've known about breast cancer having spent my whole entire life studying it because they were on the internet for 20 minutes. Some of what you read is just simply not true. If you're concerned about radiation, for example, ask. Ask the questions. What are you concerned about? Take the time to meet with the radiation oncologist. There's no emergency to be in the operating room tomorrow when you're diagnosed with breast cancer.

SAMBOLIN: All right, Dr. Monica Morrow, I so appreciate you. I appreciate you coming in this morning to clear some of these things up for us.

MORROW: Thanks very much.

BERMAN: We should tell you while you were talking there was one piece of news about Angelina Jolie. "People" magazine is reporting that Jolie will have her ovaries removed as well. We knew this was a distinct possibility. Jolie, "People" magazine reports will have the ovaries removed and she will do it as soon as possible.

It's 44 minutes after the hour right now. Ahead on STARTING POINT, what are the chances of this? A foul ball goes to the same place in the stands twice. Two fans handle the situation very differently.

ROMANS: And then these teens may have the best prom story of all time. How they helped save seven lives before the first dance. You're watching STARTING POINT.

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BERMAN: Welcome back, everyone. Shortly after the Boston marathon bombings, Red Sox DH David Ortiz had a message for the terrorists. He said, this is our -- city.

ROMANS: Now Ortiz is using the same colorful language to raise money for bombing victims. Joe Carter joining us this morning with the "Bleacher Report." Good morning.

JOE CARTER, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hi. Good morning, guys. Yes, Ortiz is going to take that memorable quote and put it on baseball bats and sell it for charity. Now we all remember just a few weeks back just after the Boston bombings, Ortiz stood in front of the Fenway crowd live on TV and basically said exactly what was on his mind.

Now in addition to the quote this is our -- city, it has a silhouette of Ortiz pointing to the sky and words never forget and Boston strong are on those bats. For 125 bucks you can get one that's unsigned, $500 you can get one that's autographed and buy them at bigpappy.com. And the 100 percent of the proceeds are going to the bombing victims.

Last night, the Knicks has found themselves in a bigger hole. They are certainly in trouble. They lost by 11 points to Indiana last night. They are now down three games to one. Indiana's George Hill on the other hand was solid again. He's really been the driving force behind the Pacers playoff success. After the game, Carmelo gives his take on the Knicks situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARMELO ANTHONY, KNICKS ONE GAME AWAY FROM ELIMINATION: At this point, you know, it's do or die. We got to win the next game and take it one game at a time, but there's no need for nobody to hang their heads at this point. We still got a game to play. We still got to play basketball.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: All right, the most competitive series you can say going right now has got to be the Spurs and Warriors. Last night, it was anything but competitive. The old man Spurs ran the floor like they were in their early 20s again, they hammered golden state one of the youngest teams in the NBA by 18 points.

San Antonio is now in control of that series up three games to two. Game six shifts back to Oakland. That's Thursday night. This next piece of tape proves not everyone is built for perform under pressure. At the Indians/Phillies game a fan sitting upper deck reaches over the railing and snags a foul ball barehanded. Great job, right, unbelievable catch.

The very next pitch another foul ball is hit to nearly the exact same spot but this time the fan just drops it. Embarrassing considering the guy who caught the ball is just a few seats over and the Philly fans didn't let him forget that unmemorable moment because they booed him as Philly fans do to people. I hate to rag on the guy. It's hard to catch a ball like that. Dumb luck that to get caught by a guy a few seats away one play earlier.

BERMAN: Getting booed by Phillies fans wasn't enough. We're showing it again this morning, salt in the wound. Joe Carter, thanks so much.

ROMANS: All right, ahead on STARTING POINT, ash spewing out of a dangerous volcano in Mexico. Now the surrounding towns are on high alert.

BERMAN: Find out how brave teams helped rescue car crash victims right before their prom, look at them. You're watching STARTING POINT.

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ROMANS: Welcome back to STARTING POINT. The woman who survived 17 days buried beneath rubble from a factory collapse in Bangladesh is speaking exclusively to CNN. Rescuers miraculously found her alive and well. She is now recovering at a military hospital and describes what it was like when she was finally found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Suddenly I've heard the call to prayer then I heard sounds. I heard the sounds of voices and I wondered where is the sound coming from, where is the sound coming from? I was really, really happy and I said, God, save me, God.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: Remarkably she suffered no broken bones or serious injuries.

BERMAN: Mexican authorities are getting ready for possible evacuations now that a volcano near Mexico City has started blowing steam. Hundreds of soldiers are now in the area to help out in case the volcano erupts. It has been quiet in recent years. Its last major eruption took place in the year 2000.

ROMANS: What you didn't see was John Berman practicing that word for 3 minutes in the break, very well done.

All right, let's move to Florida now where some high school students are praised for their heroic efforts on prom night. They were all dressed up, but the teenage heroes didn't think twice about helping the victims of a devastating auto accident.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where's the baby?

ROMANS (voice-over): A date with disaster. Twenty high school students on their way to prom find themselves caught in the middle of a horrific accident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the baby?

ROMANS: When their limousine came to a screeching halt, narrowly missing this flipped van, with groceries strewn across the interstate, with five adults and two children trapped inside.

ASHLEY WOLF, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: We're in the limo and all dancing having a good time. Decide to go to prom and all of a sudden the bus slams on his brakes. I was the first to think call 911 so I stepped to the side and called 911. I was calm.

ROMANS: Undaunted decked out in tuxes and gowns the teens jumped into action. High school senior Peter Kim was one of the first on the scene.

PETER KIM, HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR: I opened up the trunk and then the first person I saw was the 12-year-old or 11-year-old boy. I grabbed him and then I gave him -- set him down and told him to sit down and he would be all right.

ROMANS: Peter, seen here, carrying the youngest child, who he pulled out of the vehicle.

KIM: She was laying there and, like, it got to me a little bit because she wasn't moving at all. And I saw her baby girl just laying there and I went to go reach for her and she turned around and said take my baby. Take my baby. Save her.

ROMANS: The limo driver, along with his young but brave passengers, are credited with saving lives.

DANNY IZZI, LIMO DRIVER: We pushed the van and pulled the baby out then we started pulling the mother out from the back of the truck.

ROMANS: All of the injured taken to an area hospital and expected to make a full recovery. The teen heroes went on a bit dishevelled but still with high hopes.

WOLF: We were OK and happy to know everyone was alive and we enjoyed our night.

ROMANS: A night they're sure to never forget.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: Good for them. I just love that Peter Kim holding the baby. I got her. It's all right.

BERMAN: They looked so nice too. They are the real kings and queens of that prom no doubt.

Ahead on STARTING POINT, they are one percenters who appear to be 100 percent shameless reportedly hiring the same old tour guides so their kids can cut the lines at Disneyworld. You have to be kidding.

ROMANS: Boston's fire chief and his handling of the Boston marathon scene. Hear what he is saying about it. That is top of the hour. You're watching STARTING POINT.

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