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FBI Gets Involved in Beheading Case; Suspect Jailed in Graham Disappearance; Alleged Cop Killer Eludes Police

Aired September 27, 2014 - 19:00   ET

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


DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: First to Oklahoma where we are tracking a dramatic and troubling story. A man is accused of beheading one of his co-workers ISIS-style, and severely injuring another.

Police say Alton Nolen will be charged with first degree murder and assault and battery with a deadly weapon, that he may also face federal charges of terrorism. We also learned today that Nolan woke up from sedation Friday afternoon after being shot by an off duty sheriff's deputy during the attack.

CNN's Nick Valencia has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Police have released some details about the suspect in this week's beheading in Moore, Oklahoma. But we're beginning to learn more about him from his Facebook page.

(voice-over): Police say this is the Facebook page of the man suspended of beheading a co-worker in Moore, Oklahoma. The images and messages on the page of Alton Nolen, who goes by an alias here, appear to support Islamic radicals and ridicule Christianity.

In recent posts, Nolen writes about judgment day and criticizes the United States and Israel. The posts are a mixed array, some more disturbing than others.

It was on Thursday that police say Nolen brought horror to his workplace. He had just been fired from his job that day, only to return shortly afterward with a knife.

SGT. JEREMY LEWIS, MOORE, OKLAHOMA POLICE: He encountered the first victim and began assaulting her with a knife. He did kill Colleen, and did sever her head.

VALENCIA: According to police, the suspect then began attacking a second woman when he was shot and stopped by an armed company executive. Mark Vaughan, son of the company's founder, is also a reserve sheriff's deputy. Officials say it was his actions that prevented more deaths.

LEWIS: It could have gotten a lot worse. This guy definitely was not going to stop. He didn't stop until he was shot. VALENCIA: The barbaric nature of the crime has led some residents and

others to speculate the act could be tied to something larger and was perhaps influenced by Muslim extremists. Adding to the theory, police say that in recent weeks, Nolen had tried to convert his co-workers to Islam.

But in a statement to CNN, Oklahoma's governor warned not to jump to conclusions before the investigation is complete. The FBI is assisting local police.

(on camera): Nolen has a lengthy criminal history, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, including briefly leading police on a manhunt. A state trooper who had a physical altercation with Nolen four years ago says after she found out what he's accused of doing, she wished she would have killed him when she had the chance.

Nick Valencia, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: Thank you, Nick.

Well, Alton Nolen has had multiple run-ins with police, including one incident where he was on the run for 12 hours. Lieutenant Betsy Randolph of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol came face-to-face with Nolen four years ago. She pulled him over for what looked like a fake tag in his car. She says after hearing what he's accused of now, she wishes she had pulled the trigger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. BETSY RANDOLPH, OKLAHOMA HIGHWAY PATROL: I walked around the patrol car, and he knew he was going to go to jail. And as I walked around the back of the patrol car, I took my handcuffs out and loaded them in my hand. And I wish now that I had taken my pistol out, because he was a felon and he was going to go to jail and he knew that. But I had had the handcuffs and as he opened that door and I snapped that bracelet on that wrist, he looked me in the eyes, and when I told him give me your other hand and he wouldn't, he began to bargain, trying to get out of going to jail.

For a brief moment, we looked at each other in the eyes. And it was almost as if I knew that we were fixing to tangle. But I had hemmed him up in the door right there and I was committed to hoping to ride this thing out and end it with him just giving me his other hand, and him complying. But again, if I had -- if there had been any way to know the things that he is alleged to have done a couple days ago, I would have killed him when I had the opportunity.

I had a lot of trooper buddies that asked me, why didn't you kill this guy? At the time, I never felt like I was -- I wasn't afraid of him. I felt like I was in control of the traffic stop. Obviously, I wasn't. I was a lot more confident in my skills than I should have been.

And I just felt terrible. I feel guilt. And I don't know that that's something that I'll ever be able to overcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Well, Oklahoma police say Nolen will be charged with first degree murder and assault and battery with a deadly weapon. He may also face federal terrorism charges.

The University of Virginia community is holding on to hope that missing college student Hannah Graham might still be found alive. She vanished two weeks ago.

Police say Graham was last seen leaving a restaurant/bar with suspect Jesse Matthew. He was arrested Wednesday while camping out on a beach in Texas. He is now in custody in Virginia.

CNN's Jean Casarez has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Today has been a really big day in the search for Hannah Graham. Professional searchers have gone to rural areas in this community to search by helicopter, also looking in vacant buildings along the roadside, anywhere they can find to see if any of the belongings of Hannah could be found.

The police chief in this city believes that Hannah will it actually be found within the county, because at 740 square miles, he does not believe that she is beyond that.

While searchers continue that aspect of this case, Jesse Matthew remains within the county jail. He is in protective custody, for his own safety, and for the safety of the other inmates. At this point, he has been charged with one felony. It is abduction with intent to defile. And it can land him many decades in prison.

But meanwhile, the chief is asking even professionals to come out and search for Hannah.

CHIEF TIMOTHY LONGO, CHARLOTTESVILLE POLICE CHIEF: If you're a realtor that serves the greater Charlottesville Albemarle region, and you know that you are responsible for the sale of a piece of property that's vacant, we want to ask you to go back to that property and inspect it.

CASAREZ: Matthew's first court appearance in Virginia will be next Thursday. And the lengthy time is because the court is closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: Thanks, Jean. And, of course, Hannah Graham's family is distraught.

Well, 1,000 officers now scouring an area southwest of Scranton, Pennsylvania, for suspected cop killer Eric Frein. They've been searching the area for two weeks.

CNN's Alexandra Field explains why police say they are still confident that he is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: After two weeks on the run, police still have not found Eric Matthew Frein, but a parallel investigation is telling them a lot more about their suspect. Law enforcement officers now say they have evidence to support their theory that he was planning for a confrontation with officers for years.

A hard drive has been searched over the last week, and it shows officers that Frein had spent an extensive period of time researching police manhunts, survival skills, law enforcement techniques. Officers who are a part of the search for Frein had been warned to be on the lookout for booby traps in the areas they have been combing through every day. Investigators say that Frein had experimented with homemade explosives. The suspect is believed to be armed and dangerous.

Police are also asking for help from the public, asking people to continue to survey their property here within the search area. According to investigators, they found several homes now empty and abandoned that appear to have been tampered with. They say that is evidence coupled with recent sightings that Frein remains in this area.

In Monroe County, Pennsylvania, Alexandra Field, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: Alexandra, thank you.

Well, Phoenix is getting slammed right now by a desert storm. You are looking at live pictures of this incredible lightning and thunder that simply rolled in. Witnesses say it sounded like dynamite. Wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour. We'll have a full report up ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Airports across the country still reeling from more than 2,000 flight delays in Chicago caused by Friday's fire and apparent suicide attempt at an FAA control center.

Now, there's more trouble, but this one has to do with weather. Air passengers just taking the hits. Flights in and out of Phoenix have come to a stand still following a powerful storm that caused considerable damage to the city's international airport.

Adam Longo is with affiliate KPHO. He joins us on the phone.

Adam, you have been speaking to a lot of folks there. What is the situation on the ground? ADAM LONGO, KPHO REPORTER & ANCHOR (via telephone): Yes, that's

right, Deb. A considerable ground stop for an hour between 2:30 and 3:30 Pacific as this massive line of storms just ripped through from the west. Our meteorologist here at the station reporting there was a wind gust there at Sky Harbor, 67 miles per hour, trying to confirm a report that at one point the control tower at the airport actually had to be evacuated because it was seen swaying around.

There is a number -- there's a considerable amount of debris there on the ground, on the jet way. I'm told from a gentleman who works over there at the airport, that flights just started taking off again the airport, reporting to us that between that hour window of time during the ground stop, 30 flights had had to be diverted and a lot of them that were lined up on the runways had to be taken back and parked at the jet ways.

FEYERICK: When you think of the number of air passengers and what's going on there, were any of the planes ever at risk? The ones that were rounded away from the storm area?

LONGO: I don't have any certain information on that specifically, but I can tell you looking at pictures sent to me by viewers at the airport, there is a considerable amount of debris on the ground at least the photos that I was were from the terminal 2 area, which is the united airlines terminal. A lot of debris on the ground.

So, I'm certain there are folks out there investigating and inspecting some of these planes to see if they were certainly struck by any of this debris and need to be looked at.

FEYERICK: Is this the kind of storm that frequently rolls through the area, or is this sort of unique, given all those that you've covered?

LONGO: Well, from my meteorologist, it is unique in the sense this is a storm in our monsoon season that's coming from the Pacific, it's coming from the west. And it had a considerable outflow, which is what prompted a lot of this wind and these intense winds. A lot of our storms from the summer -- they come up from the southeast and kick up dust in the desert. That's what you've seen this summer, a lot of shots of these intense dust storms coming into the area.

But then, they're followed by more mild periods of wind and rain in storms. This has certainly been, at least what I have seen, the most intense we have seen all summer.

FEYERICK: All right. Adam Longo of affiliate KPHO, thank you so much. We appreciate your reporting there from Phoenix.

And the U.S. isn't alone in its fight against ISIS. Arab nations have joined the coalition. More in the West have as well. How unusual is it to have so many countries united against a single threat? That is coming up ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Over the past two days, fighter jets and bombers from the United States and several European and Arab nations destroyed ISIS targets 10 separate times, both in Iraq and Syria. Well, the number of countries now signed on to fight against ISIS numbers 50 -- 50 different countries, including Denmark, Belgium and now the United Kingdom.

British pilots flew into Iraqi air space just hours after their parliament gave the go ahead for U.K. forces to join the fight to engage.

Robert McFadden is a security consultant who has been in the federal law enforcement field and counterterrorism communities for more than 30 years.

Robert, we look at this coalition of 50 countries. The U.S. appears to be doing the heavy lifting, but at least you've got a broad array of nations that have skin in the game. How do they all perceive this threat, both separately but also collectively to the region?

ROBERT MCFADDEN, SENIOR V.P., THE SOUFAN GROUP: Well, I mean, you have us and our European partners as the coalition continues to grow. But the real key, though, and actually, kind of a master stroke was able to form the coalition with the neighbors right into the surrounding country -- countries. That part of it is essential, because you have the Sunni countries involved in fighting in extremist Sunni elements. So, the coalition really is the key as the White House has been saying, for the longer road ahead.

FEYERICK: You know, when we think about it, earlier today, I -- having a fascinating conversation with some of our military analysts who you know well. Who said that Bashar al Assad, president of Syria, has orchestrated this magically, perfectly, that, in fact, letting ISIS get as big as it did, there was a certainty that other countries would have no choice but to engage.

Do you believe that's true?

MCFADDEN: Absolutely. I mean, none of us who have been watching the Middle East for any length of time could ever really envision a scenario like this, because if you think about it, in cold and antiseptic terms, anything the coalition does against ISIS or the other extremist groups that are fighting the al-Assad regime falls into the regime's hands. But that's just the bizarre nature of what's going on right now.

And we would expect the al Assad regime and its allies to bluster quite a bit about violations of sovereignty and air space. But we know behind the scenes that they're all high-fiving each other, in effect.

FEYERICK: Well, that is what is so amazing, because when you look it at the spin that's coming out, the insurgents are saying, well, this is a good thing, because now they're going after ISIS. But they wanted to go even further and take out President Assad. President Assad and his team is saying, hey, guess who is fighting alongside our generals. There is a lot of spin going on.

Who is right?

MCFADDEN: Absolutely. I mean, just the amount of -- that kind of rhetoric that's going on amongst all sides is just incredible. I mean, even if you can imagine this, amongst ISIS and the other hard core Sunni extremist groups, they too are complaining about the coalition, of course, and what it's doing and their, claim, of course, it's trying to tip the balance in the sectarian side to the Shia for the al Assad regime, Hezbollah and Iran.

FEYERICK: You know, when we -- last question, when you think about sort of, you know, shock and awe and air bombing campaign against these particular forces, but these are insurgents. They knew it was coming. They have gone under ground. They have taken their toys, their weapons with them.

How effective do you ultimately think an airstrike can be within the next month or two months to really interrupt what is going on with these terrorists?

MCFADDEN: Well, as the administration has said, and our military experts, the strikes are not designed to ultimately destroy groups. We know that. We would expect that there would be a big impact in the earlier part of it, because it's able to hit groups like ISIS that have been able to move with impunity across wide swaths of land.

Now, as time goes on, and they further embed themselves into the biggest urban areas, Raqqa and Syria and Mosul and Iraq, it will get tougher and tougher. Now, the airstrikes will certainly serve a purpose in supporting the ground elements that have to get in there and get in the fight against them.

FEYERICK: Yes. No question. Well, certainly we are keeping an eye on this. Everybody is keeping an eye on this. It will be very interesting to see how prolonged the airstrike is and how effective it ultimately will become.

Well, hearts are breaking worldwide. Yeah, one of Hollywood's most famous bachelors, he's tied the knot. George Clooney, a married man. And you know what? They make a gorgeous couple. We're going to be bringing you details of the ceremony in Italy.

Also, another joyous occasion, Hillary Clinton and hubby Bill have a new job. That's right. That's right, they're babysitters.

(COMEMRCIA BREAK)

FEYERICK: Well, hundreds of Venetians cheered George Clooney as he arrived by boat to his long-awaited wedding. First, Brad Pitt, now, George Clooney, what is going on here?

Clooney married British human rights attorney Amal Alamuddin in Venice today.

CNN's Erin McLaughlin -- God, does he look good -- has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Hollywood couldn't have scripted or cast this wedding any better. George Clooney and his now- wife Amal Alamuddin were married, according to his publicist in a private ceremony right here along Venice's Grand Canal. They were married in a lavish hotel, and the guess list was star-studded, including Bono and Emily Blunt and Matt Damon, Cindy Crawford, among others.

The paparazzi were swarming all over the place in speed boats, hoping to catch a glimpse of the happy couple. And this was a series of elaborate events that began on Friday. George Clooney arrived with Amal, fittingly aboard a boat called "Amore." They were whisked away to one of his favorite hotels where the celebrations began in earnest.

And last night, there was a his and her bachelor and bachelorette parties. George Clooney celebrated at one of his favorite restaurants and then, tonight the private ceremony in which they officially became man and wife and people here are really celebrating, couldn't be happier for the couple.

Erin McLaughlin, CNN, Venice, Italy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: You cannot argue with happiness when it's right.

Well, another extremely good-looking man, in the second last game of his career, New York Yankee Derek Jeter got sent to the dugout early. It was rumored he may have been hurt. But yet, according to Yankees coach Joe Girardi, he only wanted two bats today. Jeter told reporters that he will absolutely play tomorrow. We're going to break down the final game with PBS MLB analyst Cal Ripken Jr., right after the final pitch.

Well, we also have a birth announcement, because we want to end this segment on a very happy note. Chelsea Clinton and husband Marc Mezvinsky, became parents to a new baby girl late last night. She tweeted, quote, "Marc and I are full of love, awe and gratitude as we celebrate the birth of our daughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky."

Grandpa Bill Clinton said Chelsea is well and glowing, Marc is bursting with pride, Charlotte's life is off to a good start. No word yet on whether the baby has any political aspirations.

Well, thousands of people signing up for mutually beneficial relationships with a little sugar on top. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: Lisa Ling officially joins the CNN family with her show, "THIS IS LIFE" tomorrow night. First up, she's going to take a look at the world of sugar relationships. Here's how one sugar master got his start.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LISA LING, CNN'S "THIS IS LIFE": A surprising number of Americans are hungry for an old-fashioned kind of love where men financially support women in exchange for companionship. And one man is capitalizing on that desire. Here, if you don't mind -- Seeking Arrangement founder, Brandon Wade.

OK. Why did you start seeking arrangements?

BRANDON WADE, SEEKING ARRANGEMENTS: I was just having so much difficulties in my dating life. I would try the normal dating Web sites and I realized it was really difficult for me to stand out. And that's when I remember something that my mom told me when I was growing up, being the nerdy boy that I was. She said just study hard, focus on your school and someday when you're successful, you can really use your success and generosity to turn your dating game around.

LING: So you started seeking arrangement because you were having difficulty with your dating life?

WADE: That's absolutely right.

LING: You're a very nice, smart guy. Isn't that enough?

WADE: Apparently not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: A little bit of sugar.

I'm Deborah Feyerick in New York.

"CNN SPOTLIGHT: Denzel Washington" begins right now.