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CNN Live Sunday
John Mark Karr in Transit to U.S.; Shia Pilgrims Attacked by Gunmen in Baghdad; Vets: Job Search
Aired August 20, 2006 - 16:58 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Our top stories, murder suspect John Mark Karr is just a few hours away from touchdown at L.A.X. Airport. A crush of people saw Karr off from Bangkok earlier today. CNN's Drew Griffin is on board with Karr and will have a report.
Bullets, bloodshed and chaos on the streets of Baghdad today. Snipers open fire on Shia pilgrims. At least 20 were killed and as many as 300 injured. A live report from Baghdad straight ahead.
A military display by Iran today with the test firings of reportedly new short-range missiles and Iran's foreign minister flatly rejects any chance his country will abide by a U.N. resolution that calls for freezing Iran's uranium enrichment program.
The family of FOX News reporter Steve Centanni appeals to his captures for his release and that of his photographer. Both men were abducted Monday in Gaza.
Last minute repairs to the shuttle "Atlantis" are complete in Florida. Workers replaced two short bolts that hold the main communications antenna in place. "Atlantis" is set for lift off a week from today.
Hello and welcome to CNN LIVE SUNDAY. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
Saddam Hussein faces a new trial tomorrow. You will hear from those who witnessed the results of his deadly attack.
And the heroism of a Marine who saved lives at Ground Zero but didn't go public with his story until Oliver Stone put it on the big screen.
But first to our top story. Here's the very latest on John Mark Karr.
Karr is due to land in Los Angeles at 8:40 p.m. Pacific Time, 11:40 Eastern. How long he will remain in Los Angeles isn't clear. Eventually he will be transported to Boulder, Colorado, the scene of the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Right now on board his flight, Karr is accompanied by United States officials, including a member of the Department of Homeland Security and a Boulder police investigator.
As John Karr returns to America, his stay in Thailand is under increasing scrutiny. And like the murder he has confessed to, it's more than a little bizarre.
CNN's Atika Shubert reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Murder suspect John Mark Karr was escorted out of Thailand's immigration detention center to the flash of cameras and a barrage of questions from reporters. He answered none of them. With a blank expression on his face, officials lead him to a waiting car.
Arriving at the airport, the scene was a media frenzy as Karr was pushed through to check-in and immigration. He is flying business class on a Thai Airways flight bound for Los Angeles. But even as Karr leaves Thailand, many questions remain. What was he doing here for the last two years?
He lived a lonely life on the ninth floor of this Bangkok guest house, staff and neighbors say, and was never seen with anyone. CNN obtained a copy of his hotel bill with several phone numbers. Among the calls, a tour agency that says he traveled to Cambodia and a medical clinic specializing in cosmetic surgery, including sex change operations. Doctors there say Karr had several appointments but refused to divulge what treatments he received.
Karr taught in at least two Bangkok international schools for several weeks. Both refused to hire him full-time. One reported inappropriate behavior with young girls. Another said he was too intimidating to his students.
CNN also obtained a copy of his application to another school that declined to hire him. According to a school official that interviewed him for the job, Karr seemed "overly eger to work with elementary schoolgirls, refusing any supervision or assistance in the classroom." This school official also told CNN Karr sent the school a series of pornographic and sexually explicit e-mails.
Once in detention, Karr was monitored 24 hours a day by English- speaking guards. He ate little, only asking for the occasional bottle of water. Immigration officials say he passed the days watching television, including news reports of his arrest, and reading one book, "The Secret Garden," a children's story about an orphaned young girl who goes to live with her reclusive uncle in the English countryside.
(on camera): This detention center was John Mark Karr's home for the last four days. Immigration officials tell us he made one last request before leaving. He said he wanted to dress well, asking for a silk shirt and tie. He told them he wanted to be dressed like a schoolteacher for his final departure.
Atika Shubert, CNN, Bangkok.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And more information is surfacing about Karr's reported obsession with the 1996 death of JonBenet Ramsey. Michael Sandrock, a freelance journalist who met Karr in Paris four years ago, says Karr knew every detail about the Ramsey case and was fixated on her death.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL SANDROCK, FREELANCE WRITER: He asked me my opinion of it, and I said that, you know, some people think the parents did it, some people think there was an intruder. And he asked me what I thought. I said, "Well, I really don't have an opinion either way." And when I said something about the intruder, he kind of smiled a little bit.
And I just started getting an uncomfortable feeling because it was just a little bit too much. And at the time I was reading -- I always take a book with me to Paris -- to Europe if I go on a long trip, and I had "The Brothers Karamasov," and I just remember thinking -- I said, this is -- this is straight from the Dostoevsky novel, because when I was talking to him, I always got the feeling that there was something else that he was ready to talk to me about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Sandrock says he eventually put Karr in touch with Michael Tracey, a Colorado professor who had produced a documentary on the Ramsey case. Tracey reportedly gave police e-mails Karr had sent him about JonBenet, which led to Karr's detention in Thailand.
And on Monday, Larry King will have an exclusive interview with Ramsey family attorney Lin Wood and that Colorado professor. That's on Monday at 9:00 Eastern.
Despite security perimeters and a vehicle ban in Baghdad, gunmen took aim at Iraqis today. Snipers opened fire as Shia pilgrims headed to a sacred shine. At least 20 people were killed, more than 300 others wounded.
Our Michael Holmes is in Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Violence had been expected and insurgents obliged. Gunfire and panic. Hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims marched on the streets of northern and central Baghdad Sunday to mark the anniversary of the death of the revered 18th century imam, Moussa al-Kadhim.
Last year, rumors of a suicide bomber in the crowd sparked a stampede that killed nearly a thousand people. This time the threat was no rumor. Despite high security and a total vehicle ban, gunmen struck from at least half a dozen locations, many firing on the crowd from rooftops and inside houses, even from a cemetery.
U.S. helicopters were in the air, but ground troops stayed back, leaving security to Iraqi forces and, in some cases, Shia militiamen who fought insurgents in often prolonged gun battles. Among the dead, some of those militiamen and several insurgents. Several police officers among the wounded. But the pilgrims were determined to proceed, and by the time they had reached their destination, the biggest Shia mosque in Baghdad, many of their fellow marchers were dead, hundreds wounded.
Violence had been anticipated by authorities in part because the Shia march wound its way through several Sunni neighborhoods, and that's where most of the ambushes took place.
(on camera): The march took place during a major U.S.-Iraqi security operation aimed at curbing Shia-Sunni violence, as well as attacks by foreign fighters. But at the end of the day, the toll of dead Iraqis had risen, yet again.
Michael Holmes, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: And back in this country, U.S. troops face a daunting task as they transition from the role of warrior to worker. Many of them are having a hard time finding a job.
Our Gary Nurenberg has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The transition from this job to a civilian job back home can be tough.
GARETT REPPENHAGEN, VETERAN: A lot of the skills really don't translate at all. I mean, I was a sniper. I was a combat soldier.
NURENBERG: Part of Garett Reppenhagen's new job is to help other veterans find jobs.
REPPENHAGEN: A lot of these guys are infantry soldiers that have been in the infantry maybe eight years from the time they graduated high school. They never had a real job. They never had a college education.
NURENBERG (on camera): The problem is most acute for younger veterans. While the nation's unemployment rate as a whole is less than 5 percent, the most recently available numbers show unemployment for veterans between 18 and 24 at more than 17 percent.
JAMES NICHOLSON, VETERANS AFFAIRS SECRETARY: That's significantly higher than their counterparts in the civilian sector, and that bothers me.
NURENBERG: So the Department of Veterans Affairs has what it calls transition assistance programs.
NICHOLSON: We send teams all over the world really to talk to them for several months before they -- they get out to get them thinking about employment.
NURENBERG: But there is a sales job to do at home as well.
STEVE ROBINSON, VETERANS FOR AMERICA: Ninety-nine percent of America doesn't know that these soldiers have honorably served and that they're finding difficulty coming back home.
JASON MCGEE, VETERAN: D.C. Army National Guard and the positions I'm looking for are for international project management.
NURENBERG: Veterans like Jason McGee can use special job searches facilities like this one in Washington, D.C...
MCGEE: We have to also work for it.
NURENBERG: ... where counselors tell employers...
ROBINSON: These people are -- will be good employees when they come back. They're willing to do what they have to do to get the job done.
NURENBERG: If they could get just the job in the first place.
Gary Nurenberg, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Will the cease-fire hold in the Middle East? Straight ahead, a report from Lebanon on the latest threats to peace in the region.
And President Bush heads back to Washington facing many national security challenges. We have a live report from the White House coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: On the quarter hour now, here's what we know about the nearly week-old cease-fire in the Middle East.
Israel is saying it won't allow Lebanese troops within two kilometers of the border unless accompanied by U.N. forces. Three thousand Lebanese soldiers are already deployed in southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah supporter, Iran, is flexing its military muscle by conducting a series of war games exercises in its country.
There was no fighting today between Israel and Hezbollah, but that wasn't the case yesterday, when Israel launched a commando raid into south Lebanon. U.N. and Lebanese officials call the operation a violation of the cease-fire.
Today, Lebanon's prime minister got emotional when he toured areas that had been bombed by Israel before the cease-fire took hold.
CNN's Beirut bureau chief, Brent Sadler, has that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRENT SADLER, CNN BEIRUT BUREAU CHIEF (voice over): Amid fears of a crumbling cease-fire, top Lebanese officials walked through devastated neighborhoods of Beirut's southern suburbs Sunday, a place where the homeless and the hysterical curse Israel and exalt their peers. On one day alone, Israel dropped more than 20 tons of explosives to destroy Hezbollah's power base here, but in going after Hezbollah, Israel laid to waste thousands of civilian homes.
The prime minister lashes out at Israel for committing, he claims, a crime against humanity.
"There is no other way to describe what we are seeing," says a visibly shaken Fouad Siniora, "but as a criminal act that depicts Israel's hatred, wanting to destroy Lebanon and its unity."
The week-old cease-fire may now be hanging by a thread after Israel launched a lightning raid deep inside Lebanon Saturday, justifying the attack as enforcement of a new arms embargo to stop Iran and Syria resupplying Hezbollah. The United Nations has condemned Israel for the raid, warning it could endanger the fragile calm.
TERJE ROED-LARSEN, U.N. ENVOY: We are at the tilting edge, still. And this can easily start sliding again and lead us quickly into the abyss of violence and bloodshed.
SADLER: Lebanon's defense minister, meanwhile, sought to strengthen faith in Hezbollah's commitment to the cease-fire for not retaliating.
ELIAS MURR, LEBANESE DEFENSE MINISTER: They will respect the U.N. resolution and there will be no rockets. And I trust them.
SADLER: In response to the renewed Israeli military action, though, Lebanon threatens to pull back or slow down the deployment of its army, now enjoying some popularity in the south close to the border with Israel.
(on camera): A move that could start to unravel the truce, though conditional on U.N. assurances Israel will comply with the terms of the cease-fire.
(voice over): In another move to allay growing anxiety, the truce could be sabotaged by extremist pro-Syrian Palestinian groups in Lebanon. The defense ministry fired a warning shot.
MURR: Anybody who would throw a rocket when the army will be fully deployed, the army will deal with these people like if they were criminals.
SADLER: A week into the cessation of hostilities, and the cease- fire may be hanging in the balance as nations dither over the terms and conditions for sending more U.N. troops into the danger zone. The longer that takes, warn officials here, the greater the risks.
Brent Sadler, CNN Beirut.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Israel's incursion into Lebanon was aimed at neutralizing Hezbollah, but many observers say the conflict has turned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah into a hero in many parts of the Middle East. On "LATE EDITION" today, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked an Israeli spokesman whether Israel would kill Nasrallah if it had a chance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK REGEV, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: Nasrallah has been involved in countless acts of terrorism against Israelis, against Jews. I think we would have the right to hit Nasrallah. Having said that, Israel will do nothing to upset the cease-fire. We want to see the cease-fire move forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Lebanon's justice minister also appeared on "LATE EDITION." He says it should be up to the Lebanese government, not Israel, to deal with Hezbollah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES RIZK, LEBANESE JUSTICE MINISTER: Our view is we that should solve the problem of Hezbollah, the Hezbollah resistance, and the Hezbollah weapons at its roots. And the root is the Israeli occupation.
As you know, Hezbollah started only in the middle of the mid '80s. The Israeli occupation started long before. So Hezbollah is not the cause of the Israeli entry into Lebanon, it's exactly the consequence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Two very different takes from the Middle East earlier today on CNN's "LATE EDITION."
And now a Middle East kidnapping and a family's plea for mercy. FOX News correspondent Steve Centanni and his cameraman, Olaf Wiig, were abducted from their news van in Gaza last week. FOX News has asked CNN to run this appeal from Centanni's sister and brother.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN CENTANNI, STEVE CENTANNI'S BROTHER: Our brother Steve Centanni was kidnapped on August 14th, last Monday. I would like his captors to know that Steve is an honorable man who always tries to do what is right. Steve has strong respect for the Palestinian people and their culture.
Steve was in Gaza with Olaf Wiig to report the truth. He is far more valuable to the Palestinian people free as a journalist than as a captive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: And major Palestinian militant groups have denied involvement in the kidnappings, and Palestinian officials say there are no firm leads on who is holding the two journalists or where.
Murder confessions through time have taken some rather strange turns. We'll share some of the more well-known examples straight ahead.
You are watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Much debate is swirling around last week's confession by John Mark Karr in connection with the JonBenet Ramsey murder case.
CNN's Rick Sanchez explains why confessions of other crimes have so many of us wondering how to discern truth from fantasy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The BTK killer, otherwise, known as Dennis Rader, pleaded guilty to murdering 10 people.
DENNIS RADER, CONVICTED MURDERER: And then I killed them.
SANCHEZ: Robert Chambers, convicted of killing a woman he picked up at a bar. Gary Ridgeway confessed to murdering 48 women in a killing spree in the 1980s.
GARY RIDGEWAY, CONVICTED MURDERER: Then I got behind her and I killed her.
SANCHEZ: These are the chilling words of men who became famous for their confessions. All of their confessions feeding a media circus, making them twisted rock stars of murder.
But not every confession carries the truth. Some just want the fame. In the 1930s, when Charles Lindbergh's baby was infamously kidnapped, hundreds of fake confessors lined up at police departments to take the credit.
SAUL KASSIN, PROFESSOR, WILLIAMS COLLEGE: There are voluntary false confessions where people often have a pathological need for attention or recognition or fame. These are people who walk into a police station and volunteer a confession.
SANCHEZ: For that reason, convicted criminals such as Texas drifter Henry Lee Lucas originally claimed to murder 350 people.
HENRY LEE LUCAS, CONFESSED TO 350 MURDERS: It didn't matter. I mean, I didn't have no feelings about killing them. SANCHEZ: But instead of going down in history as a prolific serial killer, as he bragged, he instead went down as a prolific serial confessor, ultimately found guilty of 13 murders.
But false concessions don't always come from those seeking fame. Sometimes they come from hours spent on interrogation room, where suspects are made to feel like a confession is the easy way out. KASSIN: It is OK for an interrogator to say to a suspect that they have evidence, when in fact that's not true. And once you've got that suspect feeling trapped, then the interrogator is likely to shift gears to make confession sound as if it is not going to have such devastating consequences.
SANCHEZ: In 1989, the Central Park jogger rape case had already become a media circus. And in a turn that stunned New Yorkers, suspect Kharey Wise made this famous confession after he'd been interrogated for hours.
KHAREY WISE, FORMER RAPE SUSPECT: This is my first rape.
SANCHEZ: He spent years in jail until the real killer confessed, backed by DNA evidence.
In fact, according to the Innocence Project, more than a quarter of all the cases later exonerated by DNA were originally convicted after a false confession.
KASSIN: And so it's important, I think, for people to understand they can't always tell a false confession when they see one. And therefore, an in depth analysis is necessary.
SANCHEZ: So are John Mark Karr's words to the media an effort to become another rock star of murder? Or is he a real murderer?
Rick Sanchez, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Other headlines "Across America" now.
Federal aviation officials investigate a crash that killed two people last night near Fort Collins, Colorado. Witnesses and wreckage on the scene suggest the craft may have been an ultra light plane.
A disturbing story for pet owners. A 30-year-old Florida woman is dead after her own dog fatally mauled her yesterday in the family's back yard. Adding to the tragedy, the victim's young daughter witnessed the attack.
Children of polygamists unions rallied yesterday for equality in Salt Lake City. More than two dozen kids of plural families say society and state laws treat them and their multiple parents unfairly. While polygamy is outlawed nationwide, it's still practiced in certain enclaves of Utah and other western states.
And from New York, legal troubles for rapper Busta Rhymes. The 29-year-old performer is charged with assault. He was arrested a week after the alleged incident.
And straight ahead, what do John Mark Karr's public statements say about him? We will hear what an expert profiler has to say.
And a hero from Ground Zero goes public with his story later on CNN LIVE SUNDAY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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