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CNN NEWSROOM

Jaycee Dugard Honored in D.C.; Interview with Bryan Cranston; Discovery of Three Ohio Women Fuels Hope; Inside the Quest to Map the Brain

Aired May 8, 2013 - 10:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello, thank you so much for joining me. Its 30 minutes past the hour.

We'll have more special coverage out of Ohio in just a minute, but first, it's time to check other stories we're following right now.

In Boston, protesters have been demonstrating outside that funeral home where alleged marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev's body is being kept; officials still looking for a cemetery willing to bury him. Tsarnaev's uncle is asking the government for help. Boston's mayor says laying Tsarnaev to rest in the city would not be dignified.

In just about an hour, a witness will testify in the September 11th terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens. House Republicans say this man, Gregory Hicks, a State Department official is a whistle-blower and he'll bolster their claims of a White House cover-up. You can see special coverage of that hearing right here on CNN. Wolf Blitzer will anchor our coverage that begins at 11:30 a.m. Eastern.

And former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is celebrating today after winning a House seat he once held in the '90s. Despite his highly publicized affair, Sanford beat his Democratic rival by a 54 percent vote. He ran against Elizabeth Colbert-Busch who as you know is the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert.

Jurors in the Jodi Arias murder trial are set to resume deliberations today. Arias is accused of killing her boyfriend, Travis Alexander, nearly five years ago. She claims self defense. The jury must decide between first and second-degree murder, manslaughter or not guilty.

And several days of heavy rain have caused flooding in parts of North Carolina. Emergency crews have asked some people to voluntarily evacuate. Power has been shut down in effective areas. We'll be back -- NEWSROOM will be right back.

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COSTELLO: And you're looking now at a picture of Amanda Berry's home. Her family's home as you can see is decked out with flowers and the balloons welcoming her home from -- well from ten years of hell. As you can see there's also a police officer standing out front to keep people away and to we assume, that she's reuniting in a good way with her family, at least we hope so.

No one knows what the three kidnapping survivors in Cleveland are going through quite like Jaycee Dugard. Dugard was abducted in 1991, she was held captive for 18 long years. She even gave birth to her abductor's children while she was in captivity.

Last night the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children honored Dugard for her work helping other families of missing children. And she did reference the Cleveland case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAYCEE DUGARD, HELD CAPTIVE FOR 18 YEARS: It's hard to believe that story is me. It's just, thank you for tonight and I want to say what an amazing time to be talking about hope with everything that's happening.

I feel like I have come full circle. And we are all finally together celebrating the wonderful hope that you at NCMEC keep alive every day. I am so thankful for the team of people that have supported me throughout these last few years. I am so grateful to all of you. I can't say they have been easy, but anything in life worth doing is sometimes hard, like speaking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Oh but she spoke so very well.

Also awarded last night, a man you might recognize from TV shows like "Breaking Bad," and "Malcolm in the Middle" we're talking about actor Bryan Cranston and his wife. They were honored for their support of the center which they've worked with for more than a decade.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRYAN CRANSTON, ACTOR, "BREAKING BAD": This is indicative of what is possible in the human condition. This is hope is not to be short changed. It is --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's never too late.

CRANSTON: Never too late. It is a -- it is a wonderful thing to hold on to. It's a very human experience right? To be able to say, we have hope, we have faith.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: It is. Bryan Cranston joins me now from Capitol Hill where he's attending the congressional breakfast for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Welcome, Bryan.

CRANSTON: Good morning, Carol. How are you?

COSTELLO: I'm great. And thank you so much for being with us. I wondered what it was like listening to Jaycee Dugard? CRANSTON: Well, she's a remarkable young woman who not only took her ordeal and began to put the pieces back together for her life, but she's also now extending that to help other victims of abduction and how they assimilate back into society.

And she's a remarkable young woman, received a standing ovation last night at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Hope Awards. And it's -- it's a lesson in grace and courage.

COSTELLO: Oh, she looks -- she looks fantastic. But you know, in just her short remarks that we listened to, she said it's not been easy. It's been very difficult. But she did reassure us all that there's hope. But it makes you wonder about the recovery of these three young women in Cleveland.

CRANSTON: Well, I don't think any of us can really imagine what an ordeal like that would be like to be captive by someone for even a week let alone 18 years in Jaycee's situation or nearly ten years or over ten years in the situation in Cleveland. We're very fortunate that we got that news right before the Hope Awards. And it really illustrated that hope is alive and that is the main message that we want to send to families who are -- who are grieving right now around the world, whose loved ones are missing that hope is there still and faith and keep that. And you never know what kind of break is going to come.

It's very fortunate for these three women in Cleveland and -- and now there's a big road ahead of them. Physically, they're -- they're now back together with their families. But emotionally, intellectually, they need a lot of support and help to get through these next several months and years.

COSTELLO: Absolutely. You've been involved in the national organization for a very long time. I'm sure there was talk last night about how Cleveland police handled these cases. What was said?

CRANSTON: Well, there's a lot of discussion about what's going on. And I think it's not a bad thing to do. It may be Monday morning quarterbacking, but in this case, law enforcement needs to do that on a regular basis. To look back, look at the things that they did right, look at the things they did wrong, and figure out how to make those corrections for future cases.

I can't comment on what the Cleveland police were able to do or not do. I'm not privy to that information. We're just at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, we're just excited that these three women and four, in fact, the little girl have been reunited with their families and hopefully will have a fruitful life ahead of them.

COSTELLO: And just tell me why you've been involved with this organization for such a long time.

CRANSTON: I'm a parent. And I think it's every parent's nightmare to think of what happened to John and Reve Walsh's son Adam many years ago. They needed to turn their anger and frustration into something positive and they created the National Center almost 30 years ago in their garage.

And they did the right thing and they (inaudible) their grieving process to something that was positive. Once you become a parent, you realize that they're -- they're living my nightmare of something happening to my child. And so that's all the impetus I needed for my wife and I to get involved in the National Center many years ago and continue working for their progress.

COSTELLO: Bryan Cranston, thank you so much for being with us this morning.

CRANSTON: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Coming up next in the NEWSROOM more of our special live coverage out of Cleveland, Ohio -- another family still waiting for good hopeful news about a -- about a family member who has been missing since 1995. We'll tell you about that.

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COSTELLO: The discovery of three missing women in Cleveland has sparked new hope for a family of another woman who disappeared in the same neighborhood almost two decades ago. Christina Adkins vanished on January 10th, 1995. She was 18 years old at the time and she was five months pregnant.

Zoraida Sambolin is live in Cleveland with some family members to talk more about this case.

ZORAIDA SAMBOLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know what, Carol, I was walking through the streets here and I actually saw the sign that this woman is carrying and I thought, my gosh we need to talk to them. What brave women to show up -- because they really do want to keep hope alive.

We have Tonia Adkins and Mary Adkins. Tonia, you're the sister and Mary is the stepmother. And Tonia, I want to start with you. You're thinking that maybe all of this can be connected. This abduction happened not too far from here. Can you talk to me about that?

TONIA ADKINS, SISTER OF MISSING WOMAN: Yes, my sister's abduction only happened four streets away. You know, there's a good chance that they know something or they've seen something or they're involved somehow with my sister's being missing.

SAMBOLIN: You feel very strongly about that. Because what you said to me is that one of the brothers lives not too far from where she was abducted.

T. ADKINS: He lives on the other end of the street from where she was abducted.

SAMBOLIN: All right. So talk to me about what happened. How she disappeared. T. ADKINS: She was living with her boyfriend, going from the house on the corner, two houses up to her boyfriend's house. She was going home for the night and she disappeared. We don't know if she got in a car, we don't know what happened. We have no clue. We have not had any leads. We just really want to find out where she is and is she ok, you know.

SAMBOLIN: You've kept this alive since 1995, where do you get the spirit, the wherewithal to continue this fight to try to find her?

T. ADKINS: We can't give up. If we give up then nobody's going to look for her and she's not a forgotten person. She's loved very much by her family. You know, she just -- it's not her to turn around and just leave, you know. If she would get into a fight with mom or dad, she would go to her friend's house for a couple hours and cool off. Normal teenager -- you know.

SAMBOLIN: How did you feel when you heard about what happened here?

T. ADKINS: I was hoping and praying that my sister was the third one in there. I really was hoping for it. It could have only been the best Mother's Day present ever.

SAMBOLIN: And what made you come here today?

T. ADKINS: We need to get awareness out that my sister is missing. We need to take advantage of the fact that we do have so much media available to us right now. We need to try and push and let everybody know she's still wanted. She's still loved.

SAMBOLIN: Well, I commend you for that. I think, you know, it's very courageous what you did and also very smart.

I want to point something out if the camera can zoom in on it. You've been working with the FBI and you actually have pictures of her at the time and then they did an enhancement of the picture that you have in the middle. And you created this shirt that you wear --

T. ADKINS: Yes.

SAMBOLIN: -- so that everybody is aware. So this is what Christina Adkins, what they believe she would look like right now.

And also, you had mentioned, Mary, that she would have a child at this stage of the game that is about to turn 18?

MARY ADKINS, STEPMOTHER OF CHRISTINA ADKINS: Yes, would be turning 18 this month.

SAMBOLIN: All right. Well, we wish you a world of luck. We're going to keep this alive, as well. And we're very grateful that you stopped by today. And, you know, one last thing I want to mention because we were talking about this earlier, Jaycee Dugard. She said keep hope alive. And at the end of the day, really, that's your message also.

M. ADKINS: Yes. T. ADKINS: Keep hope alive.

SAMBOLIN: Never give it up. Never give up.

M. ADKINS: Anybody with missing children, keep the faith.

SAMBOLIN: Yes, keep the faith. So we heard it from Jaycee Dugard and, Carol, I know you were talking to somebody earlier who also said the same thing. That at the end of the day, look, after 18 years, 18 long years as they write here, they are still hopeful that, you know, this will maybe rekindle an interest and hopefully she will come home.

Christina Adkins -- we wish you all the best in the world -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I sure hope so. I sure hope so, Zoraida. Thanks so much.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Mapping the brain may sound like science fiction, but one UCLA lab is making that happen. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta gives us an inside look at the science behind mapping the brain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: How much progress had been made in neuroimaging over say over the last ten years?

DR. ARTHUR TOGA, UCLA NEUROIMAGING LAB: I think it's been amazing because the technology to acquire detailed images of structure and function has been unprecedented. We can look at very small regions, as small as a millimeter or even smaller in a living human individual and we can relate not only what we see in terms of its anatomy, that person's anatomy, but how it works.

GUPTA: The function.

TOGA: The function. How those cells are interacting with other regions in the brain to allow that person to behave.

GUPTA: This is -- this is pretty spectacular. What are we looking at?

TOGA: You're looking at tracks. You're looking at the fibers themselves that connect different regions and it allows us to see what region is connected to where and how much of a connection is there.

GUPTA: When we talk about function like movement and sensation, people generally understand that, but what about things a little bit more nebulous -- self-awareness, happiness, pain, reward -- is this going to help better identify those areas of the brain?

TOGA: I hope so. Obviously one has to start with a cruder map initially. It's just like making a map of the earth. We create a coordinate system. We find where the continents are. But now we can with our GPS systems -- we can find specific roads. We can even look at the amount of traffic on those roads.

That's a very good analogy because it holds when we're studying the human brain, as well. We first have to create these big maps that show us the overall picture of how the brain is wired. But then we go down and look at the finer details.

GUPTA: What does this mean for the average person?

TOGA: I think it's very important for us to undertake a challenge like this because we suffer from a number of neurological disorders. The population is getting older. There's an increased percentage of people that have Alzheimer's disease, for example. This kind of science lays the foundation for us to look for targeted therapies and really is instructive in terms of proving the health and well being of everyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Many thanks to Dr. Sanjay Gupta. And thank you for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello.

"CNN NEWSROOM" continues after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield reporting live in Phoenix on day four of jury deliberations in the Jodi Arias murder trial. And I'm going to bring you up to speed on that in just a moment.

But once more, we do begin in Cleveland, Ohio where charges could be filed at any moment against a fired school bus driver and his two brothers. They are suspected in a ten-yearlong kidnap drama that only gets more astonishing as the facts continue to come out.

Here's CNN's Martin Savidge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Investigators scour the home on Seymour Avenue searching for evidence in this house of horrors. Throughout the day, and late into the night, FBI agents meticulously search, removing the front door, searching the crawl space, parting away --