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USAID Administrator Interviewed; U.S. Ebola Efforts; Suspected Serial Killer in Custody; Dallas Health Care Workers Quarantine Ends; Cruz Criticizes Obama Ebola Strategy; U.S. Drops Aid into Kobani

Aired October 20, 2014 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. We're monitoring this news conference in Hammond, Indiana where potentially there could be a serial killer right now apprehended by local police. At least one person suspected, maybe six others, seven other women. I want to listen in briefly.

Ashleigh Banfield is standing by. We'll get some analysis. But let's listen in to the police chief answering some reporters' questions.

JOHN D. DOUGHTY, CHIEF, HAMMOND, INDIANA POLICE DEPARTMENT: Mr. Vann is cooperating with us and that is all we have at the moment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE.)

DOUGHTY: OK. It was just pointed out that only one of the victims had a missing report out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) was he registered in the state of Indiana and did Indiana have an obligation to keep track of him?

DOUGHTY: Specifically -- well, he's not a Hammond resident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What he's a -- was he a resident of the state of Indiana?

DOUGHTY: He was a Gary resident.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was he registered through the state (INAUDIBLE) state of Indiana?

DOUGHTY: State of Texas not state of Indiana.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he have an obligation to be registered under Indiana and does Indiana have an obligation to keep track of him (INAUDIBLE.)

DOUGHTY: Yes, we have to work with the county on that. Hammond -- he doesn't live in Hammond so my officers wouldn't have been following him. That's all I can offer to you (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you tell us about his whereabouts? Was he originally from this area (INAUDIBLE) Texas?

DOUGHTY: That, honestly, I don't know, as we speak. I don't know what we're expecting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you tell us --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE.)

DOUGHTY: I don't have the information with me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, can you tell us about the conditions of the bodies when they were found? Were they tied up or --

DOUGHTY: I cannot. I cannot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Also, more exactly, how you tracked him down once you found out that was the person that you were looking for? What happened (INAUDIBLE.)

DOUGHTY: Right. I can only talk about the use of the phone. I was able to use -- we got the phone number from the facilitator, and we used some electronic measures to track him down and locate him in Gary.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE.)

DOUGHTY: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE.)

DOUGHTY: Well, I guess the classification would be --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE.)

DOUGHTY: The other cases are not solved yet. If we directly attach him to it, then, you know, we can make that assumption.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE.)

DOUGHTY: He's being charged today with the Hammond.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you voluntarily give you the information?

DOUGHTY: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE.)

DOUGHTY: Volition on his part.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he including the addresses or is he physically going to the sites with you to show you where they are located?

DOUGHTY: He's been giving us descriptions, cooperating and accompanying us to locations.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were these bodies --

DOUGHTY: Are these bodies located in abandoned houses?

DOUGHTY: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of them?

DOUGHTY: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were they murdered at these locations or dumped there?

DOUGHTY: That is not known.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has a sexual abuse record --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, we're going to do a couple more questions. I want to remind everybody, this is an active investigation. We don't want to jeopardize the case. I am sure you all understand that. We're going to take a couple more questions and we're going to wrap this up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He has a sexual abuse record and he (INAUDIBLE) in Texas. Have you been in contact with the Texas police?

DOUGHTY: We have not directly as of yet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chief, can you tell me what he is telling you anything about the women? You were questioning him about the other victims. Did he indicate why he was telling you about the women?

DOUGHTY: It was just something he wanted to do. That's all I can say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there any indication that he had an accomplice or did he do this all by himself?

DOUGHTY: We have no indication that he did anything here other than alone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to do two more questions, OK? Two more questions. All right, hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Two more questions and we're going to call this. Sir, sir, hold --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What indication are you getting from him, why do you think there could possibly be more victims?

DOUGHTY: I can't go into direct statements, but his level of cooperation and things he's told us would indicate that possible other victims could surface.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And all the current victims are adult women? Is that right?

DOUGHTY: Yes, correct.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has he been remorseful?

DOUGHTY: I have not talked to him directly, personally so I cannot say that. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One more question.

DOUGHTY: One more question and we're done.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One more question.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now, are investigators out looking at any other addresses for any additional bodies or right now are things --

DOUGHTY: My investigators are not in the field, at the moment. They are still dealing with Mr. Vann.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Gary -- what (INAUDIBLE) about Gary?

DOUGHTY: I don't know what Gary is doing at this moment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a registered sex offender, --

DOUGHTY: Excuse me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Excuse me, I just want to remind everything that if it were not for the great work of the Hammond Police Department, this could have been a murder in a Hammond motel room and from that murder in a Hammond, it turned into the Hammond police caught what I would label a serial killer. And I think that's great for the Hammond Police Department. I appreciate the fine work of all of the Hammond Police detectives and officers that worked on this case and I appreciate you all coming out today. I do want to remind you, this is an active case and we don't want to jeopardize this case. Northwest Indiana is safer because of the Hammond Police Department's fine work. So, thank you very much and have a nice day, everybody. Thank you.

BLITZER: All right. So, there you see what is going on in Hammond, Indiana. There's a suspect now. Potentially, a suspect involved with seven women in Hammond, Indiana and nearby Gary, Indiana. The suspect is cooperating. They have now found seven bodies of women in Hammond, Indiana and Gary, Indiana.

Let's bring in Ashleigh Banfield, the host of CNN's "LEGAL VIEW," who's been covering this horrendous story for us. It started off in a Motel 6 with one woman. They find the suspect. He's allegedly now cooperating. He leads them to six other bodies of women. Update our viewers here in the United States, Ashleigh, and indeed around the world on what is going on in Indiana right now.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST, "LEGAL VIEW": So, this is a very fast- developing case, Wolf, of what appears to be a serial killer allegedly operating in the Indiana area. Like you said, Friday night, a woman is killed in a Motel 6. By Saturday, the police chief just announced that they used phone tracking to find their suspect the next day who apparently, according to the chief, admitted to the officers that he, quote, "messed up" by committing the crime in Hammond. And that was the tip of the iceberg, Wolf. He, then, according to police, not only in Hammond but also in nearby Gary, Indiana, admitted to several other killings, six other killings in fact. And it's one thing to confess, Wolf. As we all know, people confess to all sorts of things they don't do but they cannot lead you to bodies unless they know something more. And apparently, according to the police, that's exactly what that suspect, 43-year-old Darren Vann did. He led the police to the bodies of those six other women at several other locations.

The police also, just telling us now in this news conference, the identities that have been made on several of them. On body number one in Gary, Indiana, Anise Jones. On body number two, I believe that the name was Taria Baby (ph). It was difficult to make out at the microphone. The body number three is an unidentified African-American female. Body number four is identified as 36-year-old Christina Williams. Body number five and body number six, Wolf, interestingly, the chief said were found together at a site and they are both unidentified African-American females.

Something else that is fascinating that the police chief just said, Wolf, was that the way that Mr. Vann is apparently speaking openly and cooperatively to the police leads them to believe that there will be other, quote, "other possible victims that could surface." He's a registered sex offender in Texas. There are, apparently, other infractions within other states that they haven't gone into.

Something that the police chief of Gary, Indiana told me just prior to your show, Wolf, and this is fascinating, is that he is not -- he has not retained counsel. He has not lawyered up and invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege to stop speaking. That said, Wolf, although he was described as cooperative, the police -- the police chief of Gary, Indiana named Larry McKinley said to me that he has stopped talking. It might be for a short period of time he said but that he has stopped talking. He doesn't have a lawyer so it's not that he's invoked his privilege but that he's just stopping with the information right now which I find very, very interesting.

Also, the police chief in Hammond just announced that they're working with this suspect and that they don't have field officers out scanning additional abandoned properties to find other victims, at this time. He said he was unsure of what's happening in Gary, Indiana where these six victims were found.

But I actually asked the mayor of Gary, Indiana, what are you doing? What are your dispatches right now? How are your officers out scanning and looking at abandoned properties for additional victims? And the mayor was only able to say to me, Wolf, that we're doubling down on our efforts now to demolish many of these abandoned properties. That's difficult in terms of noting whether that means demolish them on an existing program or to demolish them by identifying those properties, clearing them and then demolishing them.

One last thing I can tell you, Wolf, from this news conference, a fascinating note. Why would a man just release all of that information in one fell swoop and lead authorities within a 48-hour period to seven different bodies? The police chief said that he was looking for a deal. There will be nary a deal that will come close to someone not spending the rest of his life without parole behind bars. But looking for a deal and that's, perhaps, why he's been cooperative. Short of that, anybody's guess as to why he would confess to all of that now. BLITZER: The 43-year-old Darren Vann under arrest right now but,

apparently, cooperating and that there have been four -- there have been seven bodies of women in Indiana now found. Ashleigh, thanks very much for that report. We'll stay on top of this horrendous story for our viewers.

There's other important news we're following, dominating news including Ebola. Today, we heard that the head of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases saying that new protocols for health care workers dealing with Ebola patients here in the United States could just be hours away. They are meant to keep them from contracting the virus.

The 21-day quarantine period for those who came in contact with America's first Ebola patient is over. At a news conference this morning, officials said 44 of the 48 health care workers are now off quarantine. The remaining four soon will be but there is certainly lingering concern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLAY JENKINS, JUDGE, DALLAS COUNTY: Whether they would be seen as disease carriers or oddities, there is zero risk that any of those people who have been marked off the list have Ebola. They were in contact with a person who had Ebola and the time period for them to get Ebola has lapsed. It is over. So, they are -- they do not have Ebola.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The military is creating a 30-person quick strike team to treat Ebola patients here in the United States, and it will include doctors and trainers that, according to the Pentagon, it could deploy within 72 hours.

Calling it a spectacular success story, the World Health Organization now says Nigeria is Ebola free. There have been no new cases in Nigeria in six weeks. And on CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION," Senator Ted Cruz of Texas criticized the Obama administration's choice of wrong playing as the Ebola czar or administrator or coordinator, as he prefers being called, for failing to suspend flights from Ebola zoned countries in West Africa.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: We don't need another White House political operative which is what Mr. Plain has been. What we need is presidential leadership. Two weeks ago, the president should have stood up and suspended flights from these countries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. Let's go deeper into the Pentagon's plan for a so-called Ebola quick strike team. The Pentagon said -- says they want an aggressive response to the Ebola threat (INAUDIBLE) which will supplement civilian medical professionals is part of the answer, according to the Pentagon.

Barbara Starr is our Pentagon Correspondent. Barbara, how soon will this strike team be operational?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, these people are now headed down to Fort Sam Houston, Texas where they are going to join up, get some training on how to use that personal protective gear and be ready to go in a little bit more than a week. And they will be on orders, military orders, for about 30 days that will require them to be ready to go to deploy to any location in the United States within 72 hours or less if more Ebola cases erupt. So, this is really stand by, making everybody feel better, at this point, be ready to go if there are more cases. Thankfully, right now at least, there are none.

BLITZER: The U.S. military moving forward, thought, with deploying, what, as many as 3,000 or 4,000 troops to West Africa. Right now, that's still moving forward, right?

STARR: That is moving forward. There's been another development on that, of course, which is now the Pentagon has authority to call up reserves to handle some of those jobs as they go over to West Africa to work on building hospitals, building training centers, building more capacity, especially in Liberia, to treat Liberian patients there, to treat health workers that might get Ebola as a result of the crisis there. So, that is still all going on.

This team back in the United States will not go to Africa but it's very interesting that there is another Ebola case in the U.S. and they are called into action for the first time. That would put the military in the position of possibly being in direct case of Ebola patients in this country.

BLITZER: All right. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Thanks very much.

When we come back, Raj Shaw, the administrator for the Agency for International Development, he's here with me in Washington. He's just back from Liberia and other countries in West Africa. We're going to talk about what he saw, an eye-witness account of what he saw over there. Thousands of people have contracted Ebola there.

Also, the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, is learning its lesson. But the White House, well, that's a different story. That according to one of our guests later this hour. It's Levy Troy (ph). He just wrote an op ed in "The Wall Street Journal" about what the CDC is doing right and what he says the White House is doing wrong.

And for the first time, the U.S. is now dropping aid directly into the city of Kobani. We're going to go live to the Syria-Turkish border and find out if it's really making a difference in the fight against ISIS.

All that and a lot more coming up. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

The United States certainly at the forefront right now in the effort to try to fight the spread of Ebola in West Africa. Among those leading the effort is Raj Shah. He's the head of the United States Agency for International Development, AID. He's joining us here in our studio.

Administrator Shah, thanks very much for joining us.

RAJ SHAH, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTL. DEVELOPMENT: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit about -- you just came back from, what, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Senegal. You're a very courageous guy. What happened?

SHAH: Correct. Well, you know, I went to -- the purpose of my trip was to intensify and accelerate an international response. The way we protect ourselves is to stop Ebola at its source. And the United States is leading an international coalition to really tackle this crisis by helping to build Ebola treatment units, build out community care centers throughout West Africa and support the kind of behavior changes. You know, the whole time I was there, we were not shaking hands. We were bumping elbows. We were washing our hands (INAUDIBLE) all day long.

BLITZER: Because we're showing our viewers, Raj, we're showing viewers pictures of you there. You can see some of those pictures. I assume when your family, your friends, your colleagues, they heard you were going there, they got pretty nervous?

SHAH: People do get nervous, but, you know, the guidance is quite clear. I was not in contact with Ebola patients and took all the necessary precautions and so I'm -- and my temperature is just fine. So the important thing is that the American response and the global response is really accelerating. And what I saw were real signs of progress. I met with 11 - I met with survivors who had come out of one of our facilities and talked about the hope they were bringing to their communities.

BLITZER: We're showing pictures. Take a look at that picture. You're wearing a mask there. Tell us what -- who you were talking to, why you needed that kind of protective gear. This is in Liberia?

SHAH: Yes. That was in Sierra Leone. That's a training facility that we are supporting the World Health Organization to train 120 local Sierra Leonean community health workers every week to learn how to put on and take off protective gear. It's a very strict protocol. We're helping all of them learn that so that they can be the ones that provide care in Ebola treatment units that we're helping to build and they can be the ones that come into contact with Ebola patients to both save their lives and prevent the spread of this virus.

BLITZER: We know that about 3,000 or 4,000 U.S. military personnel are either there or on the way over the next few weeks and months they'll be over there. How many U.S. civilians, though, are there in the hot zone, as it's called, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, dealing with this?

SHAH: We have almost 200, including the largest ever deployment of Centers for Disease Control, disease control experts. We have the United States Agency for International Development Disaster assistant specialists. And what they're doing is they're really helping each country say, here's our strategy, how do we operationalize it? We're building out, you know, 28 Ebola treatment units, 17 by the United States military in Liberia. That means 3,300 beds are going to be available within weeks to months to help make sure patients get in, get treated.

And I visited one of these. These are complicated facilities with piping for chlorinated water and incinerators out back to get rid of bio hazardous materials. And very special design to lower the infection risk for the mostly Liberian health workers that will power that site.

BLITZER: So you're back now from several days - you don't have to go into quarantine for 21 days, is that right?

SHAH: That's correct. I do not. I was not in contact with an Ebola patient.

I will say that one of the things that is a - I think a perception that the response has been slow there, I'm now seeing the response accelerate. And one of the things that has been most hopeful was, we have helped build out 56, six-person burial teams. They go and within 24 hours of a body being identified as died from Ebola, they go in and safely remove that body. That was the number one vector of transmission in Liberia. And because they're now getting more than three-quarters of all dead bodies within 24 hours, we're starting to slowly see the rate of growth of Ebola come down.

BLITZER: So you're seeing some progress. We know Nigeria has been declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization. Senegal as well. But there's enormous fear, including the Secretary of State John Kerry last week said, if not enough is done, this could go on for decades, this crisis over there.

SHAH: Yes.

BLITZER: But you've come back a little upbeat?

SHAH: I've come back with an understanding the plan and strategy and how the United States can help accelerate performance on the ground. I also would note, President Obama, Secretary Kerry have made a lot of phone calls in the last few weeks to get others to do more. We're now seeing more than $400 million of commitments from international partners. Part of my trip was with the foreign minister of Norway who committed 160 Norwegian health care workers to this fight. So the whole world has to tackle this together, but we know how to overcome this disease. We're working to get the resources and the people in place at scale to do it effectively in West Africa. BLITZER: Well, Raj Shah, thanks very much for going over there. A

pretty courageous move on your part. Pretty courageous for all those Americans and others who are going over there to deal with obviously what is a huge international crisis. And let's hope it can be contained. Appreciate it very much. Good luck to you.

SHAH: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Raj Shah, the administrator for the Agency for International Development here in Washington.

When Ebola showed up in the United States, the president confidently said that the United States knew how to handle this crisis. Then came all the criticism and there has been a ton of it. Just ahead, an expert talks about rebuilding faith in the institutions dealing with the virus.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: On the Syrian and Turkish border right now, Syrian fighters are getting unprecedented help. The United States has been airdropping military and humanitarian aid directly to Kurds who are defending the city of Kobani from ISIS militants. And now Turkey says it will begin allowing Kurdish Peshmerga fighters to pass through its borders and into the city for the battle as it continues. Nick Paton Walsh is watching all of this develop. He's just outside Kobani.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we're told by those inside Kobani that those three C-130 aircraft dropped their 27 bundles of aid, mostly to the city center and also slightly to the west. Now, they contained medical supplies. One doctor rejoicing in how, after weeks of struggling with a makeshift hospital here, he now had a ton of medical aid in which to treat patients. One fighter also saying substantial amounts of weaponry were in those too.

We know that one extra bundle landed off target, making the total 28. And that of the six coalition air strikes that have hit around Kobani, one was, in fact, used to destroy that stray bundle, presumably to make sure it didn't fall into ISIS' hands.

But the pressure's still certainly on the Kurds. A senior leader inside, (INAUDIBLE), saying that 200 mortar rounds have hit in the last three days, almost at random. It seems ISIS still trying to exert some kind of authority there. They have about a third of the city under their control, pushed to the east and the south. But another key development today, Wolf, Turkey, who presumably wasn't happy at the notion of Washington directly giving arms to Syrian Kurds, who they considered to be allied to terrorists, Kurds here inside Turkey, Turkey has said they will in fact permit Iraqi Kurdish fighters, the Peshmerga, to travel from Iraq, through Turkey, and move into Kobani and assist with that fight. That's something that hasn't happened yet. We understand from those inside Kobani, but will add to the Syrian- Kurdish demand for resupply. They accept that they'll gain (ph) more territory, but they know ISIS could come back and they are presumably very glad to see Washington resupplying them last night.

Wolf.

BLITZER: Nick Paton Walsh on the border between Turkey and Syria, watching that story. Nick, thank you.

Still ahead, should nurses be allowed to avoid high-risk patients like those infected with Ebola? I'll talk with a U.S. congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee. She's from Texas. She's got some strong views. Stand by.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)