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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

Did Andrea Yates Know Wrong From Right?; What Should U.S. Do When Americans are Kidnapped?

Aired February 18, 2002 - 19:00   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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS, did she know wrong from right? Does it matter? A Houston mother goes on trial for the drowning deaths of her five children.

In rural Georgia, the fraud charges mount against a crematory operator, so does the grisly evidence, and the anger.

When U.S. citizens are kidnapped abroad what should the U.S. government do? Is more aggressive action needed? I'll ask journalist Terry Anderson, who spent nearly seven years as a hostage.

BLITZER: Good evening. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting tonight from Washington. There are times when the nation is shocked by a spectacular trial. One of those times began today in Houston with the start of the trial of Andrea Yates. She's the mother who drowned her five little children last year. And now is facing a possible death sentence. Yates has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. But the prosecution says it needs only to show that she indeed killed her children. For more, let's go live now to CNN's David Mattingly, he is in Houston -- David.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, Andrea Yates on trial for her life here in Houston today. And the prosecution making it clear that the state is seeking death penalty has to prove one thing, and one thing only, that Andrea Yates beyond a reasonable doubt murdered her children.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOSEPH OWMBY, PROSECUTOR: Officer Knapp of the Houston Police Department arrived at the house, and Andrea Yates told him that she had killed all of her children. He went to the back bedroom and saw in a bed on a mattress on the floor that was made for a bed, those children laid out; Luke, John -- Luke, Paul, John, Mary. Mary's head cradled on John's arm.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Yates listen in silence as prosecution detailed her crime. And soon after, launched into a testimony from officers first on the scene.

Now great deal of attention is being paid to what the officers saw in terms of the state of mind that Yates' was in when they arrived. Officers at one time today testifying that she was unresponsive when husband tried to call to her through a window.

It is entirely the burden of the defense to prove that Yates is not responsible for her actions. They're hoping that dozens of medical witnesses will prove that Yates should be found not guilty by reason of insanity.

GEORGE PARNHAM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Doctor Ringholts (ph) has tested Andrea Yates for days and weeks, with every available test at his command. He will tell this jury, that among other things that in his opinion, she not only did not know on June the 20th what she was doing was wrong, but believed it was right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And this is the last we will see or hear of any of the action in the courtroom as it occurs. The judge in the case deciding not to allow cameras back into the courtroom until closing arguments, which should be weeks away -- Wolf.

BLITZER: David Mattingly, thank you very much in Houston for that report.

And there's another horrific story we're covering tonight. The remains of at least 130 people have now been found at a rural Georgia crematory. And the operator is facing new charges of fraud. The state's chief medical examiner says he cannot begin to guess how many more bodies will turn up. CNN's Holly Firfer has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. KRIS SPERRY, GEORGIA MEDICAL EXAMINER: As I mentioned yesterday, we had opened one of the vaults, and found it was filled with human remains. The other four had been opened now for initial valuation, and all of those are filled with human remains.

HOLLY FIRFER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Identifying the hundreds of remains is no easy task. Some bodies were already mummified, making it difficult to gather DNA. Authorities are taking samples from family members to try to make a match. Over 400 people are involved in the operation. From mapping the site, excavating and testing remains and counseling family members.

ROCK THOMAS, RELATIVE OF DECEASED: I was shocked that anybody could walk around and conduct business, and go home to what we now know are hundreds and hundreds of bodies scattered out and behind their place.

FIRFER: Twenty-eight year-old Ray Brent Marsh, the director of the family-run Tri-State Crematory sits in a Walker County detention center as charges pile up. One count of theft by deception for every body identified.

Marsh claims the incinerator did not work, but for how long no one knows. The county medical examiner says some of remains could be 20-years-old, expanding the investigation. (on camera): There's a federal mortuary response team on its way here, with an 8,000 square foot temporary morgue. They are hoping that they can help the folks here manage, what could only be termed as the incomprehensible.

In Noble, Georgia, I am Holly Firfer, back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Thank you very much, Holly.

On a first stop of a three nation visit to Asia, President Bush continues his tough talk on terrorism. But he is also lending a sympathetic ear when it comes to Japan's long-standing economic woes. Our senior White House correspondent John King is traveling with the president -- he joins us now live from Tokyo where it's Tuesday morning.

John, how is the president doing out there?

JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the president is serving as a cheerleader for the Japanese prime minister, Juniziro Koizumi. Mr. Bush yesterday saying he was very up beat about the prime minister's leadership. And his main event today, a speech to the legislature here, the Japanese Diet, in which we're told the president will talk again about his efforts to confront nations developing weapons of mass destruction. But he will do so very quickly and focus much of his speech on the Japanese economy, and we are told once again, Mr. Bush will urge this country, whether it be the Japanese people, the Japanese legislature or the government's bureaucracy, to rally around the prime minister's plan. And in doing so hold he will hold out the United States as an example. Saying the United States learned 20 years ago that cutting taxes, and cutting regulation helping the banking system get out from under the burden of non-performing loans, is the way to get an economy growing again.

So Mr. Bush focusing largely on the economy, here, and aids say for good reason, the United States economy just beginning to come out of a recession, they say they need the Japanese economy, the world's number two economy to get growing again, they say. So the world will avoid a period of stagnation, at least, and perhaps even more recession. About the main event for the president today; he also sits down for lunch with Japan's emperor and empress.

Then it is on to Seoul, South Korea, much tougher dialogue, there of course. The South Koreans rattled by the president's use of the term "axis of evil" to describe North Korea, Iran and Iraq. They want a clearer explanation of just what the president means. And whether that will at all undermine South Korea's so-called sunshine policy toward the north -- Wolf.

BLITZER: John what are you hearing about the administration's plans to change its -- the U.S. government, the federal government's policy in dealing with kidnapped American citizens around the world?

KING: Wolf, senior administration officials telling us the president last Saturday signed off on this new policy, it stems from a review that dates back to the Clinton administration. Right now, if an American private citizen is kidnapped overseas, there is not necessarily even a government review. Under this new policy, the Pentagon, the National Security Counsel, the State Department and other relevant agencies will meet and have a review. On the table, possibility of a much more muscular U.S. response, including commando raids to rescue Americans. Also, in this new policy, the government still says it thinks it is a bad idea for private companies to pay ransom, if there employees are kidnapped overseas. But there's no outright prohibition on paying ransom in the new policy.

U.S. Officials say they don't want to discuss the details, because they are afraid they might actually encourage kidnappings of Americans overseas. But they do acknowledge a new policy, and one of the main items in it, it guarantees a review by agencies including the Pentagon. And the Pentagon wasn't too happy with that, we were told, to see if perhaps military options should be considered by the government in kidnapings -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And, John, you mentioned that there is not a lot of happiness out there to the president's comments about an "axis of evil;" North Korea, Iran, Iraq -- certainly in Europe that's the case, as well.

Have you sensed any indication from the president's public comments or privately behind the scenes, any backing away from the president's tough talk when it comes to that "axis of evil," since the start of the trip?

KING: Mr. Bush, Wolf, has not backed away from the principle. He says he will stand up to nations developing weapons of mass destruction, especially those he believed might -- in his words -- quote -- "made up with terrorist organizations like al Qaeda."

But the president has toned down the language, a bit. He has not used the term "axis of evil," on this trip. We are told he will not do so here in Japan today. And he also made it clear, as a spoke at news conference with the prime minister here yesterday, that obviously peace and diplomacy would be his first option. So a change in the tone of the rhetoric, if you will, the president still insisting, though, that the United States will stand up and defend its interests . He says, in time, he hopes the world will rally around him. He understands, he certainly is well aware of the criticism in Europe.

The biggest test will come in the day ahead, as the president travels on to Seoul. Again, they believe the president's remarks, perhaps undermining the sunshine policy of President Kim Dae-Jung -- Wolf.

BLITZER: John King in Tokyo. Have a good trip to Seoul. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you tomorrow.

And it's been nearly four weeks since "Wall Street Journal" reporter Daniel Pearl was abducted in Pakistan. The alleged mastermind, told police last week, that Pearl is dead, but investigators, family and colleagues are holding on to hope. As our John King just reported, the Bush administration has now quietly adopted a new policy, requiring the federal government to examine every kidnapping of an American citizen abroad, for possible action. Does that mean negotiations, or commando style raids? I spoke earlier with Terry Anderson, a journalist who spent almost seven years held hostage by Muslim radicals in Lebanon. He was freed in 1991 and is now with the Committee to Protect Journalists. Terry Anderson joined me from Athens, Ohio.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Terry Anderson, thanks for joining us once again. You've had a chance to assess what this new government directive might mean? What's your immediate reaction?

TERRY ANDERSON, COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS: Well, I'm encouraged by it. I think it's a good thing on the whole, depending as always on how they carry it out.

One of the problems over the past 10 years has not been that the government has refused to negotiate with kidnappers. I think that's a proper attitude to take, and discourages from the kidnapping. It's been their equating not negotiating with doing nothing, which has been their attitude in far too many cases.

And here, they've developed a program which continues the refusal to negotiate, but comes up with some other things that they can do in kidnapping cases. And I think most of them are useful. I think most of them are proper things to do. You could lean on the host government. You can assist the government in the country where the kidnapping takes place to do what we do in the United States.

Look, do you know what the success rate of kidnappings for profit in the United States has been over the past 50 years? Virtually zero. Putting aside parents who take their children off in custody cases, which is legally kidnapping and perhaps morally so, but kidnappings for profit don't succeed in the U.S. They always get caught.

Why is that? That is because of the anti-kidnapping programs, I guess you could say, that the police and the FBI and the government have developed. If we can help other governments which are not perhaps so efficient develop ways to handle kidnapping, that's all to the good. It can't hurt.

BLITZER: As you well know, though, some believe this heightened U.S. involvement in dealing with private American citizens who are kidnapped around the world might make matters worst by elevating, by enhancing the value potentially of these private Americans to these various kidnappers.

ANDERSON: I don't agree. I don't agree at all. What does the kidnapper get out of his kidnapping? What does a group get out of kidnapping an American? If it's for political purposes, they have to know going in by now that no political purpose is going to be served. There is no way they can effect the political agenda of the United States, it's policies or its action, not going to happen. If it's publicity they want, they're going to get it. They always do get it, but it's always bad publicity. Look at the Danny Pearl case. How many people are paying attention to the demands of the kidnappers? How many of them are looking at those demands and saying, regardless of the terribleness of the crime, is there any value of what they're saying is wrong? Nobody is doing it, and nobody should and nobody will. It's universally bad publicity. So that doesn't work either.

And I don't see that this policy, if this is accurate and this is what the U.S. government is going to do, is going to change that. Yes, they're going to pay attention. They're going to do what they can, but the no-negotiate rule remains in place.

BLITZER: If this policy had been in place when you were kidnapped in Lebanon, do you believe it would have made any difference in your particular situation?

ANDERSON: I don't know. That's a tough one, you know, because it was such a strange situation. First of all, Lebanon had no government to speak of. There was no police or military power in place to impose any kind of rule of law. It was chaos. It was ruled by militia, and that contributed greatly to the kidnappers' success.

And, you know, the U.S. government made a couple of mistakes in the case of Lebanon hostages. First, while President Reagan said he wouldn't negotiate, he actually did negotiate. We all know that, the arms for hostages business where he traded weapons to Iran for the release of some hostages. And the predictable thing happened. The kidnappers went out and got more hostages because they were valuable.

Then when they did finally decide they were not going to negotiate, and we mean no negotiation, there was a period of a couple of years when that meant that they effectively did nothing. People in Washington didn't want to know. They didn't want to deal with it. They were scared of it. There were Senate hearings. There was Ollie North's trial and nobody wanted to touch it with a 10-foot pole. Did that serve any purpose, those two years? I don't know that it did.

There is a difference between negotiating and communicating. There is a difference between no negotiations and doing nothing. And perhaps this policy is a result of the past 10 years study. People have been working on this for a long time, thinking about it, trying to draw lessons from it. And when I look at the outline of the policy, and that's all we have now, is the outline, I can go along with it. I think it's a good way to approach things.

BLITZER: And you, of course, are very involved in the Committee to Protect Journalists. A lot of journalists have been endangered. We've seen recently in south Asia and Afghanistan and elsewhere, the Danny Pearl case, one case in particular. This new policy as it applies to journalists, to American journalists, is it going to be helpful?

ANDERSON: I hope so. I certainly hope so. You have to understand that the Danny Pearl case is a very unusual one. American journalists don't very often get kidnapped, perhaps because most of the radical groups learned in the mid '80s and in the early '90s that those kinds of things don't work. But here's a group that didn't get message, that did kidnap Danny Pearl. And for our government to assist the Pakistani government, for our government to assist the family, I think is good thing and I don't think it compromises us. And just maybe, just maybe, it will help us to find Danny and get him released.

BLITZER: Let's hope that that happens soon. Terry Anderson, as usual, thanks so much for joining us.

ANDERSON: My pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: And remember, I want to hear from you as well. Please go to my Web page at cnn.com/wolf. Click on the designation for comments. They'll reach me and my producers. We'll read every single one of them. Not necessarily though on the air, but we'll read them.

BLITZER: And when we come back, on the heels of controversy, the bosses of the figure skating world figure out a new way to keep score.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

There are some major developments resulting from the skating scandal that rocked the Winter Olympics with charges of misconduct by a judge. The International Skating Union now says it's time for a radical change.

CNN's Rusty Dornin joins us now live from Salt Lake City with details of these very dramatic changes. Rusty, they wasted no time in moving forward, did they?

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They really didn't, Wolf. And I think it surprised everyone here that they recommended these very radical changes so quickly. I don't think anybody thought this would happen for a few months.

Now, what they're suggesting is that they change the scoring system and the number of judges. In terms of the scoring system, since figure skating's inception, it's always been the 6.0. That's the perfect number. And then skaters are deducted for, you know, all along in their performance during an event. But what they are proposing is that each element, like a double axel, a triple axel, be given a certain point value, and then the judges will assign how they think the skater did on that. And what that is is it's making it more like diving, like other subjective scores, scoring in events like that.

The other very radical change that they're suggesting is an increase in the number of judges, which they feel could have put a stop to vote swapping.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OTTAVIO CINQUANTA, ISU PRESIDENT: Instead of nine judges, there will be 14 judges. The 14 judges will be seated at the ring board and a sophisticated, sealed, secret, computerized system will practically assign to seven of the 14 seats the power, the role to form the result.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DORNIN: So it would be very difficult. Someone would have to convince all 14 judges to vote in a particular way. Otherwise, no one will really know if their scoring will count because the seven will be picked at random after each performance. So they're really hoping that this will be something that will correct some of the problems and also gain them some credibility back, Wolf.

They've lost a lot of credibility during this Olympics, and it looks like the International Skating Union will be talking about this at their meeting in June in Japan. So it's not going to affect any of the events here. Also, meantime, of course, the French judge, Marie Le Gougne, who was dismissed for -- or suspended for misconduct, she had actually asked to speak before the International Skating Union vote, was denied that. They said that she will have a time sometime later to do that. She is now saying -- at first she said that the French Skating Federation pressured her to change her vote or to vote the way she didn't. Now she is saying she voted with her conscious. So it'll be interesting to find out if we ever discover what the truth about that -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And, Rusty, so when specifically will all these dramatic changes go into effect?

DORNIN: Well, they still have to vote in the entire congress of the International Skating Union. Apparently, there have been suggestions previously to make some changes like this, and they were never approved. So this year, they will be meeting in Japan, in Kyoto, and they will vote on all of these different changes. Now apparently, the council that met did apparently vote unanimously on them. So it's expected that it will carry, but we'll just have to see.

BLITZER: And the whole decision to move from nine judges to 14, but then have a computer decide which seven of those 14, their decisions will actually be used in the performance of these skaters, that was designed to do away with what they call block voting, right?

DORNIN: Right. That's correct, because this way, you can't make a deal with somebody else and pressure their vote because you don't really know if your vote is going to count. You don't know if the computer is going to accept your vote or which seven votes will be accepted. So this would be very difficult to do, this kind of deal swapping, unless like I said, someone makes a deal with all 14 judges.

BLITZER: What a week it's been. To think, it's only been a week since that competition, the Canadians and the Russians. Rusty Dornin, thanks for joining us from Salt Lake City. And coming up, he promised to do all, but is -- tell all, that is. But is the former FBI agent convicted of spying for Russians coming clean? That and more in our "News Alert" when we come back. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back.

Topping this hour's "News Alert", a former FBI agent convicted of spying for Russia reportedly lashed out during an interrogation. According to a "Washington Post" reporter and biographer, Robert Hanssen got so upset with the man giving him a lie detector test that he punched him in the face. Hanssen has reportedly been failing polygraph tests about what he gave Moscow. He originally offered the information in a plea bargain agreement that spared his life.

And Peru's highest court has upheld the 20-year prison sentence against American Lori Berenson. She was convicted of collaborating with leftist rebels in a botched attempt to take over Peru's congress. This ruling exhausts all legal avenues, but Berenson's mother says she will appeal to Peru's president.

That's all the time we have tonight. Please join me again tomorrow twice at both 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. "CROSSFIRE" begins right now.

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