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AMERICAN MORNING

Searchers Heading Back into Utah Wilderness Looking for Missing Cub Scout; KKK Murder Trial

Aired June 21, 2005 - 07:00   ET

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

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Miles O'Brien.
Firefighters battle all night to put out a massive five-alarm fire in Detroit. The fire is still burning. Several businesses destroyed, including one with a storied past. A live report from the scene ahead.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Soledad O'Brien.

Deadlocked jurors in the KKK murder trial of Edgar Ray Killen are told to get back to work this morning. We're live in Philadelphia, Mississippi on the 41st anniversary of the crime itself.

M. O'BRIEN: And searchers heading back into the Utah wilderness this morning looking for a missing Cub Scout, Brennan Hawkins. Police say this is now potentially a criminal investigation. The live report is ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

S. O'BRIEN: Good morning. Welcome, everybody.

Have you seen the pictures of this fire that took place overnight in Detroit? Pretty unbelievable.

M. O'BRIEN: Spectacular stuff. Five alarms. They're still battling it. Good morning to you. We don't know how it started. Take a look at that firefighter sliding down that ladder there. But word is the thing is still smoldering. Fire crews aren't done by a longshot. We'll have a live report from Detroit just ahead. Much more on that this morning.

S. O'BRIEN: First, though, the search for that missing Cub Scout in Utah. A criminal investigation now under way in the disappearance. The missing Cub Scout, Brennan Hawkins, he was last seen Friday afternoon. The 11-year-old was at a popular scout camp in a rugged mountain area east of Salt Lake City.

CNN's Ted Rowlands live for us in Kamas, Utah.

Ted, good morning to you.

Any leads in the search?

TED ROWLANDS, CNN ANCHOR: Nothing, Soledad.

The search will begin in earnest at daybreak here in just a few hours. According to a family representative, Brennan's family, parents specifically, got some much needed rest overnight after spending another gut-wrenching day without their son.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS (voice-over): Along with hundreds of volunteers, Toby and Jody Hawkins spent another day searching the Utah wilderness for their 11-year-old son Brennan. Described by his parents as shy but experienced in the outdoors, Brennan hasn't been seen since Friday evening.

JODY HAWKINS, MISSING SCOUT'S MOTHER: The days stretch on to eternity, and all of a sudden night falls, and you learn to hate the moon. When the moon comes up, you don't want to see it come up.

ROWLANDS: Brennan Hawkins was last seen near a climbing wall at a Boy Scout camp high in the Uintas Mountains, about 80 miles east of Salt Lake City. Brennan is the second scout in less than a year to vanish from this area.

Last August, 12-year-old Garrett Bardsley disappeared about 15 miles from where Brennan was last seen. Garrett has never been found. His family is now helping to look for Brennan.

KEVIN BARDSLEY, GARRETT BARDSLEY'S FATHER: When I got the call at 6:30 in the morning, we were on the road within a half hour. We were gone. We were moving. And all of my friends were in place and moving the same way.

ROWLANDS: Authorities hope that Brennan Hawkins is lost, but they fear he may have gotten caught in the nearby Bear River, or they believe he may have been kidnapped.

SHERIFF DAVID EDMUNDS, SUMMIT COUNTY, UTAH: There's always hope, and every day we have that renewed hope, and that's why we get out in the woods and we do what we do.

ROWLANDS: The Hawkins, too, say they remain hopefully hopeful but very worried. When he was last seen, Brennan was wearing shorts, a sweatshirt and tennis shoes.

TOBY HAWKINS, MISSING SCOUT'S FATHER: He actually had reservations about doing an activity like this for fear of something like this happening. He doesn't like the cold. He's particularly temperamental about that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS: The weather last night cooler than other days, down into the 30s at some point, but still mild considering how harsh it could be in this area. We're at about 8,000 feet.

Meanwhile, as the search continues, so does a criminal investigation. The FBI is involved. And according to the sheriff here, more agents have been dispatched to the area to interview people who were around when Brennan went missing -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Ted Rowlands for us this morning. Ted, thanks. Coming up in our next half hour, we're going to speak with the missing scout's sister and uncle about the search so far.

New in Aruba this morning, the family of a missing Alabama girl taking matters into their own hands now, hiring a Texas-based search- and-research group. The group's director says it will leave for Aruba tonight, taking three search dogs and sonar equipment as well.

Natalee Holloway has been missing for more than three weeks. According to the Associated Press, her family is preparing to sue Aruban authorities to access to information in this case. A judge on Monday ruled that investigators can continue holding a fourth suspect in the case, party boat deejay named Steve Croes. So far, though, no one has been formally charged -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Today marks 41 years since the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. Eighty-year-old former Klansman and part-time preacher Edgar Ray Killen is on trial for this. The jury got the case on Monday. But after just two hours of deliberation, they announced a deadlock.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is at the courthouse in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Ed, what can we expect today?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, the jury will return here to the courthouse in Philadelphia, Mississippi to resume deliberations in just a few hours, and this entire city is waiting to hear what the verdict will be.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Edgar Ray Killen struggles to stay awake as attorneys argue over his fate. Even his own attorney says he has to nudge Killen to keep him awake at times. But the 80-year-old recruited Klansman woke right up when Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood lashed out, repeatedly calling him a coward.

JAMES HOOD, MISSISSIPPI ATTY. GEN.: That coward wants to hide behind this thing and put the pressure on you. He wants one of you to be weak and not do your duty, to find him guilty of this crime.

LAVANDERA: Prosecutors are counting on the testimony of five Ku Klux Klan members to prove Killen was behind the murders. Killen is accused of rounding up a mob of almost 20 Klansmen and instructing them how to carry out the attack against the three civil rights workers.

MARK DUNCAN, PROSECUTOR: Only because they wanted to help others, they paid for it with their lives.

LAVANDERA: One witness even described how Killen knew that Michael Schwerner's last words were to an angry Klansman were, "I understand how you feel, sir." But Killen's attorneys say he's only guilty of knowing about the crime, not carrying it out. And a former mayor of the city testified that Killen was a good man, and that the Klan wasn't all that bad.

HARLAN MAJURE, FORMER MAYOR: I know some things about the Ku Klux Klan that many people don't know.

Do you know that they're a violent organization?

MAJURE: Not necessarily so. They did a lot of good, too.

LAVANDERA: Defense attorneys attacked decades old testimony that had to be read from transcripts during the trial, because many of the witnesses in this case have already died.

HOOD: From what you've heard, members of this jury, the truth still hasn't been told to the citizens of the state of Mississippi. The truth's out there.

LAVANDERA: It will take another day to determine the fate of Edgar Ray Killen. After deliberating three hours, the jury told the judge it was evenly split so far.

JURY FOREMAN: In the last vote that we had, it was 6-6.

LAVANDERA: A sign perhaps of just how much this case has divided the city for 41 years.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: You know, Miles, you often hear a lot of attorneys say that what happens inside a jury room is a complete mystery to them. So when the judge asked the forewoman how they stood at the time after almost three hours of deliberations and the forewoman saying that they were tied 6-6, it's a rare glimpse, and it was an unexpected glimpse into just how this jury is thinking -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: And also, Ed, it seems they just got started deliberating with only three hours. Given the speed of this trial, maybe they felt they had to go fast.

What was the overall reaction to the announcement they were deadlocked?

LAVANDERA: Well, you know, you got a sense -- there wasn't much of a reaction from Edgar Ray Killen inside the courtroom. But afterwards, when we were speaking with his attorney, you can kind of sense -- and this is what I was sensing after being around them for the last week and a half or so, is that you could -- they seemed a little bit -- they seemed upbeat about what they had heard. Of course, it just takes one juror to hold out to make this a hung jury. So perhaps that is what they are at least looking for in the back of their minds.

M. O'BRIEN: Ed Lavandera in Philadelphia, Mississippi -- Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: Another Lebanese leader was assassinated today. The former secretary general of the Lebanese Communist Party, George Hawi, was killed in a car bombing in Beirut this morning. Hawi opposed Syrian influence in Lebanon, as did former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. He was assassinated in a car bombing last February.

In Iraq, a roadside car bomb killed a U.S. soldier today. The soldier was on patrol near Ar Rutbah, 200 miles west of Baghdad.

In northwestern Iraq, Operation Spear is over. U.S. Marines hunting for insurgents near the Syrian border say they've killed 50 people. They also report destroying a car bomb factory during that four-day operation.

Senate Democrats are still blocking an up-or-down vote on President Bush's nominee for U.N. ambassador. The Senate did not get the 60 votes they needed to end debate on the nomination of John Bolton last night. Democrats are pressing the White House for documents that might reveal details of Bolton's work in the State Department.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: It has been alleged, as I said, that Mr. Bolton has been spying on rivals within the bureaucracy, both inferior and superior to him. While I doubt this, as I've said publicly before, we have a duty to be sure that he did not misuse this data.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Some Republican supporters are urging President Bush to use a recess appointment to install John Bolton. That could happen when Congress takes its July 4th break -- Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Fire officials in Detroit looking into what sparked a massive blaze at a warehouse on the city's north side. The picture is incredible, as you see here. What an inferno. The four-story structure was home to a meat market, a furniture store, and several other businesses. About 60 percent of it was vacant, however. The fire was visible for miles. About 150 firefighters called in. Two were taken to the hospital with only minor injuries.

Michael Rosenfield from our affiliate WXYZ in Detroit is on the scene.

Michael, I assume the firefighters are still here?

MICHAEL ROSENFIELD, WXYZ REPORTER: Still here. They've been here since 10:00 last night, so several hours of course.

You can see behind me, this is a very historic site. This is actually where the first Studebakers were built way back in the day. Today, until it burnt down last night and early this morning, a complex here called the Paquette (ph) Marketplace. They sold everything here from meat and food to all sorts of furniture, and it burned to the ground late last night and early this morning. Really a sad situation, because it's a really popular part of town. A lot of people from the church right across the street were helped out by the grocery store, a lot of low-income people. That grocery store would help them out with free groceries. People with food stamps would go there all the time.

Not sure on a cause at this point, although it happens a lot here, unfortunately, where some vacant parts of town and vacant buildings, where you have squatters, people have no place to stay, and they make their home in the vacant parts of buildings here, and that's one of the things that's been talked about this morning. It may have been started by a squatter, a homeless person late last night. Really not sure. It's going to take days to figure out what exactly happened here. Firefighters have a long way to go.

This was a really scary situation earlier this morning. I know when I first got here around 1:30, 2:00 a.m., the flames were shooting very high into the air, and the building walls were crumbling and falling down onto the street. And you could really feel the ground shudder. You could hear it as well. There was a lot of fear as well that this fire was going to spread to the complex next door. If we're still live on these pictures out here, my photographer, Sam, will take a shot of the warehouse next door.

This is a complex that has upwards of 10 million medical records from the Henry Ford Medical Center, one of the largest hospitals in Detroit. They've got records that date back decades. Of course, some of those records are active files they pull every day for patients. Some are decades old, that they just use for research purposes. And there was a lot of fear that this building would burn down. In fact, at one point early this morning, the flames were so intense that they spread to this building for a short time. Some of the windows burst. But firefighters did a phenomenal job putting out that fire, and then they were able to redirect their efforts back to the marketplace complex.

Before we wrap up, just want to let you know that down the street here, another building with historic significance is a building where they made the first Model T. So obviously, this is a really historic part of town. That building was spared. Unfortunately, this one, where the first Studebakers were built way back when, not spared at all. This building burned down to the ground late last night and early this morning, and firefighters still have their hands full.

Reporting live from Detroit this morning, I'm Michael Rosenfield. I'll send it back to you guys.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much, Michael.

(WEATHER REPORT)

M. O'BRIEN: Coming up, we'll meet two U.S. soldiers who stood guard on Saddam Hussein, telling us about their surprising relationship that they developed with the former dictator.

S. O'BRIEN: And some bizarre facts about his interest too.

M. O'BRIEN: Cheetos, Doritos, we'll tell you more. S. O'BRIEN: Also this morning, a lot of computer users love the freedom of wireless Web surfing, but that freedom comes with a hidden security risk. We'll explain.

M. O'BRIEN: And more on our top story as well. That missing scout in the mountains of Utah. His sister and uncle tell us how the family is holding up. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Well, suddenly, we know a whole lot more about Saddam Hussein. For instance, he loves Doritos. He hates Fruit Loops. He's a clean freak who has to wash after he shake hands. Saddam grows flowers and date palms, writes poetry on yellow legal pads and smokes Cuban cigars sent by his daughters. The man who insists he's still president of Iraq admired Ronald Reagan, thinks President Clinton is OK, says both President Bushes, no good. He also says he doesn't hold any hard feelings and would like to make friends with the current President Bush. These are just a few of the details told to "GQ" magazine by the people who spent the most time with Saddam since his capture, his prison guards. They spent nine months with the once feared dictator and developed a personal relationship with him.

Two of them with us now, Specialist Sean O'Shea and Corporal Jonathan "Paco" Reese, and Lisa DePaulo, who wrote the story for "GQ."

Good job, Lisa, getting this story out.

Gentlemen, let's begin with you. You obviously had a lot of interpretations with Saddam Hussein before you met him. How did your expectation compare to the reality?

SPEC. SEAN O'SHEA, GUARDED SADDAM HUSSEIN: It was so different. Like when we met him, he just stepped right out of his cell and shook my hand, said nice to meet you. But like everything I've ever known about him, I never would have expected that.

M. O'BRIEN: So Saddam Hussein was actually a polite person. And when he says nice to meet you, of course what we would reflexively say would be nice to meet you. But is it nice to meet him?

CPL. JONATHAN REESE, GUARDED SADDAM HUSSEIN: Definitely not. When you first meet him, he comes off as a good guy, and in the back of your mind you're thinking that he's a total dictator, so...

M. O'BRIEN: So did you have a hard time squaring that? What you read and knew, all the atrocities, the genocide, all the things that he's done over the years, and then here's this guy who called you -- he said you were like sons to him.

O'SHEA: At first, it was difficult because, like I said, he was the reason why we were over there, and it was just hard to grasp like -- it's hard to want to be nice to him. But after a while of just getting used to each other and spending every day with him, and you know, we had a job to do, so we just pretty much did our job. M. O'BRIEN: So you'd be nice to him, but that's sort of part of your job, I guess, to do that, right? I mean, if you're going to do your job, you want to maintain some kind of working relationship.

REESE: Yes, we're nice to him. He's nice to us. Everybody's good.

M. O'BRIEN: Was he moody? was he consistently nice to you? Did he get angry at any time or become sullen?

O'SHEA: He would always say hello every day. There would be days where he'd just say hello, and then that was it for the whole day. There were times where he'd talk all day long, and it was hard to get him to be quiet. So he had his good and bad days.

M. O'BRIEN: Let's talk a little bit about the day in the life of Saddam Hussein. We actually -- I think it was in your journal, that they sort of ticked off the day. He gets up in the morning. Let's go through it, if we could. We got a full screen, which kind of lays out that full day for him. All right, he wakes up, 0700, military term, right? Wake up -- that's 7:00 in the morning for civilians, right? Then 7:30 breakfast. Then after that, we go into little medical visit. He has some ailments with high-blood pressure and so forth, right?

O'SHEA: yes. Just the medics check him out every day, just in case something did -- were to happen.

REESE: Happened over the night or something.

M. O'BRIEN: Yes.

All right, then lunch is next. What's the typical lunch for Saddam Hussein?

O'SHEA: He pretty much -- he got whatever we got, but double portions. So he was he eating pretty well.

M. O'BRIEN: After lunch, he had some recreation time.

O'SHEA: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: And what kind of recreation typically would he do?

O'SHEA: He was just walk back and forth. He had a rec area where there was room for him to walk and exercise. He would sit, and he would pray, or write or smoke.

M. O'BRIEN: And on the day goes, 10:00 lights out.

Some people would look at that say, and that's pretty good treatment. That's not a bad day. In a sense, is he getting too light a time in prison?

O'SHEA: You take it.

M. O'BRIEN: Go ahead, Paco. You try that one.

REESE: Too light of a time? Let's see here. I don't know how to answer that question.

M. O'BRIEN: I mean, do you think it's appropriate given all the allegations?

O'SHEA: I think it's a really sensitive situation. So too light, I don't know. But if we were any heavier, maybe it would be worse.

M. O'BRIEN: Now, Lisa, the way you hooked up on this story is you share a hometown, Scranton, and the word was kind of filtering around Scranton that these guys had some interesting duty over there. What was it like telling this story?

LISA DEPAULO, CORRESPONDENT, "GQ" MAGAZINE: It was fabulous. The insight they had into Saddam Hussein, I mean it was just amazing. We can never learn enough about someone like him. And I just thought it was great that these young men were able to connect with him and learn about him in a way that, you know, world leaders haven't.

M. O'BRIEN: I mean, on the one hand, you're kind of repulsed by Saddam Hussein, and yet by the same token, you become very curious about him, don't you?

REESE: I definitely became curious. It was tempting to ask him questions about him as a dictator and maybe some small personal things the world doesn't know about. But you know, you've just got to hold your composure and remember you have a job to do. We weren't supposed to talk to him at all, initiate conversation with him.

M. O'BRIEN: Don't take this the wrong way, but did you end up liking him?

O'SHEA: I wouldn't say liking Saddam Hussein, liking the person -- getting along with the person that he was in prison. We got along with him in prison. But that's as far as it went.

REESE: Yes.

DEPAULO: Sean said something great to me early on, which was he has to be charismatic and charming to have manipulated millions of people.

M. O'BRIEN: He's a manipulative person. And you must have felt at times you were being manipulated.

REESE: Oh, definitely, yes.

O'SHEA: You always had that on your mind. It was always a thought.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, gentlemen, thank you very much.

(CROSSTALK) M. O'BRIEN: Appreciate it. That's Sean O'Shea, Jonathan "Paco" Reese, and Lisa Depaulo with "GQ" magazine. Great job on the piece -- Soledad.

DEPAULO: Thanks.

M. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, going wireless. It's fast, it's easy and it's convenient. But computer users beware, you could be opening the door for anybody to see what you do online. We'll tell you what you need to look out for just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN": Welcome back, everybody. Oil hits an all-time high, and there's word we might soon see gasoline hit $3 a gallon. Here with some details this morning, Andy Serwer, he's "Minding Your Business."

Good morning.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning, Soledad.

Some unsettling news on the business front, I gather. The price of oil spiked yesterday, nearly $60 a barrel. That's a record high. Concerns over strong demand for next winter's heating oil is what caused the increase. We seem to have enough oil, it's just refineries are working full tilt producing gasoline and heating oil.

Let's break down the numbers a little bit. Price of oil at $59.37 a barrel, and you can see inflation adjusted, we still have a long way to go, Soledad, before we hit the $90 a barrel inflation- adjusted price in 1980. Gas at $2.13 a gallon, and inflation adjusted it would have to be $3. I know we said that before -- it would have to hit $3, which we got in 1981. We use about 9.5 million barrels a day, up 3 percent from last year at this time.

And interestingly, oil tycoon Boone Pickens yesterday said we'd better get used to $50 a barrel oil and $2-a-gallon gasoline. And he said probably next year, we're going be looking at $3 a gallon gasoline. And economists say that would really start to impact the economy and the behavior.

S. O'BRIEN: hat's the number, as you pointed out, where people really start to panic.

SERWER: And they start to not go on trips and not buy things in stores as much as they have before. So the real concern would be if it gets to that level, and we still have a ways to go there.

S. O'BRIEN: But if he's right, we'll be talking about that next year for sure. Andy, thanks a lot -- Miles.

SERWER: Indeed. You're welcome. M. O'BRIEN: Still to come on the program, surviving the game. Our series on kids and sports. Today why so many young athletes are burning out and begging to be benched.

Stay with us for more AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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