Marines Block Main Roads Into Fallujah; 'BTK Strangler'
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The set is falling apart today. Here, you want a copy of AMERICAN MORNING?</s>HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: It sure is.</s>HEMMER: You come and get it right here.</s>COLLINS: Just five bucks for that.</s>HEMMER: Cheap too. Welcome back, everybody. It's 7:30 here in New York. Welcome to Monday. Heidi is in today for Soledad. Good morning to you again.</s>COLLINS: Good morning.</s>HEMMER: Some stories this half-hour. Marines moving in on Fallujah, the operation is called Vigilant Resolve, trying to capture a group of killers in that town. Barbara Starr with much more on this from the Pentagon, watching it quite closely from there, in a moment here.</s>COLLINS: Also, the former police chief of Wichita, Kansas, with us this morning to talk about a serial killer he started hunting nearly 30 years ago. The BCK strangler is now possibly back in the Wichita area. We'll talk about how the killer has managed to stay hidden for so long.</s>HEMMER: What a story that is, too, in that part of the country.</s>COLLINS: Yes.</s>HEMMER: Top stories now this morning. A leading Republican calling on the U.S. to extend the deadline for transfer of power in Iraq. Richard Lugar, the senator, says the new government may not be able to deal with the violence by the 30th of June. He says a dialogue and a debate on that issue is needed now. Meanwhile, more violence is being reported in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. Followers of a radical Muslim cleric clashing there with U.S. patrols. At least 13 U.S. troops have died since Saturday. Much more on Iraq in a few moments here. From Paris, still overseas, more than a dozen suspected terrorists are in custody today after a series of raids by the French authorities. Those suspects are being held in connection with a deadly terrorist attack in Morocco that killed 33 about a year ago. The identities of the suspects have not yet been released. From Spain today, investigators are giving credence to a threatening letter purportedly sent from al Qaeda in Europe. The message was faxed to a Spanish paper just as five suspects, including the reported mastermind of the Madrid train bombings, blew themselves up in a suburb of Madrid this weekend. The letter vows to turn Spain into -- quote -- "an inferno" if its troops do not withdraw from Iraq and from Afghanistan. This country now. Firefighters are battling blazes in several parts of Florida. Near Jacksonville, encroaching flames and heavy smoke forced officials to close part of I-95 for the weekend. And in south Florida, a fire forced the evacuation of more than 500 homes in southwest Miami Dade County. Fires near the Everglades are finally under control after consuming about 3,300 acres there. Dozens evacuated in Texas, too, after a series of weekend thunderstorms ripped through the southern portion of the state. Heavy winds and up to a foot of hail in some places knocked out power lines. Flash flood watches also issued for parts of Texas and in New Mexico.</s>COLLINS: We want to get to Iraq now. U.S. Marines are on the move in the Iraqi city of Fallujah this morning. That's the site of last week's gruesome killings of four U.S. civilians. CNN's Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon this morning joining us with more on all of this. Barbara -- good morning to you.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you Heidi. Well, Fallujah, in the heart of the Sunni heartland, now in lockdown. Nobody in. Nobody out. The pictures have not yet come out of Fallujah, but we do know from sources that both tanks and concertina wire is now surrounding the city, controlling access to that region. As the U.S. Marines continue their effort to reassert control over that very troubled city and get a handle on the violence there. We are also told AC-130 gunships and Apache helicopters now moving in, also conducting operations from the air. All of this now expected to last for the next several days -- Heidi.</s>COLLINS: Pentagon officials are concerned about a young cleric by the name of al Sadr. Tell us what this is all about.</s>STARR: Well, this is the rest of the violence, of course, that has broken out in Iraq over the weekend. Followers of the radical Muslim cleric, Moqtada al Sadr, are having some violent activities, riots in Sadr City outside of Baghdad over the weekend. Several U.S. troops killed. And now, since yesterday, a response under way in Sadr City as well. U.S. tanks, helicopters moving in. The coalition administrator, Paul Bremer, making it very clear what the coalition plans to do about the violence incited by this cleric.</s>PAUL BREMER, U.S. CIVILIAN ADMINISTRATOR: Effectively, he's attempting to establish his authority in place of the legitimate authority of the Iraqi government. And as I said yesterday, we will not tolerate it.</s>STARR: But here at Pentagon, officials early this morning are saying absolutely, no change in U.S. policy, no additional U.S. troops planned to be sent, and that the coalition will stick with the plan of turning sovereignty over to the Iraqis by June 30 -- now less than 100 days from now. Even as the security situation continues to deteriorate, officials say they have no choice but to move forward, stick with that plan. They say that they understood there would likely be more violence as that date approaches, that various factions would be jockeying for position, but they will deal with it. And they say no plan to change the U.S. strategy at this point -- Heidi.</s>COLLINS: All right, Barbara Starr live at Pentagon this morning. Barbara, thanks.</s>HEMMER: It's about 23 minutes now before the hour. Thirty years ago, a serial killer stalked the usually quiet streets of Wichita, Kansas. He killed seven people, and now someone claiming to be the BTK strangler has sent a letter to a local newspaper in Wichita revealing information only he could know. From Wichita, the city's former police chief, Richard LaMunyon, is with us. He was in charge during the spree of the so-called "bind, torture and kill strangler." Chief, welcome to AMERICAN MORNING. Nice to have you here.</s>RICHARD LAMUNYON, FMR. CHIEF, WICHITA POLICE: Thank you, Bill.</s>HEMMER: Is there any doubt that the killer responsible for these murders is now trying to get back in touch with authorities?</s>LAMUNYON: No, there is no question that this latest communication is from the strangler, and it referenced a 1986 case that we investigated regarding...</s>HEMMER: And what are the details, chief, of the communication on March 19? What did he send?</s>LAMUNYON: Well, basically in that particular case, he sent a driver's license of the victim and a Polaroid shot of the crime scene. So, we're confident that it's from the BTK strangler.</s>HEMMER: In total, there are eight murders attributed to him. What links these eight murders?</s>LAMUNYON: Well, basically there is no commonality in terms of the individual victim. However, the M.O., the methodology in which the murders were perpetrated were very clear that they're all from the same individual. This individual also craves attention, obviously. He even sent us letters suggesting names that we might give him and things of that nature. And so, as we went through the investigative process, of course, we solicited the help of many, many behavioral science people and did everything within our power at the time to try to isolate that individual and identify him. We were successful in putting together a good foundation, a background, but we were never able to specifically identify the individual.</s>HEMMER: Why do you think now, chief, 25 years later, why emerging from this silence?</s>LAMUNYON: You know, I've thought about that. I really think that there is a real distinct possibility this person wants to tell his story. He's obviously in his late 50s, perhaps even up into his 60s now. And he's been dormant, so to speak, for many, many years. So, I think there is a real possibility at this point, at least given my impression of him over the years, that he'd like to tell his story.</s>HEMMER: Wow! About 30 years ago, the first murder, a husband was killed, a wife was killed, two of their children were killed inside of their home. Police have said consistently that that is the one case that they believe the most clues lie. Why do you believe that may be the case going back to 1974?</s>LAMUNYON: Well, we believe -- we're fairly confident in our mind that that was, in fact, his first murder scene. And we believe that at that point, for lack of a better term, he was learning his trade. He was going through rituals. We also know that the father came back in that particular case and interrupted what was going on. We also have evidence from that scene. We were very careful during those days to preserve everything that we could on film, as well as preserve items that were taken from there. So, also today we have a lot more technology that's available to us that was not available 30 years ago, so the department is refocusing on that one, as I think they should do.</s>HEMMER: Richard LaMunyon, thanks for talking with us. Best of luck to you and everybody else there in Wichita, Kansas.</s>LAMUNYON: Thank you very much.</s>HEMMER: Appreciate it. Thank you, sir.</s>LAMUNYON: Thank you.</s>COLLINS: Still to come this morning, what really happened among the jurors behind closed doors at the Tyco trial. Two of the jurors are going to sit down and talk with us about it.</s>HEMMER: Also the practical joker Ashton Kutcher. Did he put one on over everyone? Find out next in our "90-Second Pop" in a moment here.