Etan Patz Investigation to Resume Today
BANFIELD: It is now 30 minutes past the hour. Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Ashleigh Banfield.</s>SAMBOLIN: And I'm Zoraida Sambolin. It's time to check the stories that are making news this morning.</s>SAMBOLIN (voice-over): George Zimmerman no longer behind bars and in hiding. The man who shot Trayvon Martin to death in Florida makes bail and is out of jail this morning.</s>BANFIELD (voice-over): The family of Etan Patz is awaiting results of an FBI investigation 33 years after their six-year-old son disappeared. A possible new clue removed from the basement of a New York City building over the weekend. A stain that could be blood.</s>SAMBOLIN: Iran says it has cracked the code of a captured U.S. spy drone. The surveillance plane was packed with top secret technology. We will ask on expert whether this development poses a threat to American military personnel overseas.</s>BANFIELD: And call it a sign of the times. A job hunter thinks big, and we mean really big, in terms of getting his name in front of potential employers to see how far some people plan to go. I love this. To get their career back on track during tough economic times.</s>SAMBOLIN: Sometime you have to make an investment.</s>BANFIELD: Heck yes.</s>SAMBOLIN (on-camera): Thirty-one minutes past the hour. In case you are wondering what happened to winter? A dangerous storm is targeting the northeast right now. It is triggering winter storm watches and warnings from West Virginia all the way to southwest New York. Here's a look from Dubois, Pennsylvania, about 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. This video shot within the hour with the flakes falling but not sticking to the pavement, at least, not yet. Meteorologist, Rob Marciano, is tracking this incredible storm, and he joins us now live from the weather center. This is kind of kooky and crazy, isn't it?</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is. And you know, you mentioned, it's not sticking in the payment, but the last shot that we showed was it sticking to the trees. And the key is, just like the storm we had -- the last snowstorm we had which was in October pretty much, leaves are on the trees. Back then, it was because of fall, this time, an early spring. Full foliage. So, that's going to be the key is the weight of the wet snow taking down tree limbs, and in some cases, entire trees, knocking out power, maybe even blocking some roadways. New York to Providence to Boston, you're not going to get any of this, although, you're getting some -- you have the rain already, and you're going to get some wind. That will continue. It's a big storm as far as that is concern. The snows are starting to fall interior parts of Western New York and Western Pennsylvania. Temperatures are right around the freezing mark, Binghamton 34 degrees, 35 degrees in state college, almost 40 in Pittsburgh and just around the freezing mark across the Pennsylvania and New York border. So, that's why temperatures are -- it's not quite sticking to the roadways just yet, but eight to 16 inches of snow possible and to points south and east of Buffalo and certainly to the north and east of Pittsburgh at the higher elevations. So, that coupled with the weight and the wind, with winds gusting 30 to 40 miles an hour, that's going to make for a dangerous situation. We've, obviously, had some rainfall, in some cases, a couple of inches of rainfall already falling. So, flood watches have been posted for some of this part of the world. Beautiful, warm temperatures across the Rocky Mountains. So, the Appalachians now getting it as we try to get rid of what was a mundane winter, but we're certainly book ending it with two big winter storms.</s>SAMBOLIN: We're going to have a travel mess, aren't we?</s>MARCIANO: Yes. And you know, it's not snowing. It's going to be very, very windy. So, the bigger airports along the I-95 border will have delays just because of the winds, and the winds will continue right through tomorrow morning.</s>SAMBOLIN: I guess, everybody suffered. Rob Marciano, thank you so much. We'll check in with you again.</s>MARCIANO: Sounds good.</s>SAMBOLIN: Ashleigh.</s>BANFIELD: Thirty-four minutes now past 5:00 on the east coast and the search for a clue that could crack a decade's old mystery of Etan Patz. It's expected to resume this morning here in New York this morning. Investigators having called off the search yesterday due to inclimate weather, but not before finding a, quote, "stain of interest" that tested positive for organic material, possibly blood. A section of the wall where the stain was found was taken to an FBI lab in quantico, Virginia for further testing. Six-year-old Etan vanished 33 years ago from New York's Sojo neighborhood, near the basement that being torn apart, actually, just half of block away. He was the nation's first milk carton boy. The building is the former workplace of a local handyman name Othniel Miller who made contact with Etan shortly before he vanished. Miller has been questioned by law enforcement but has not been charged in this case. His daughter, Stephanie, spoke to reporters yesterday.</s>STEPHANIE MILLER, DAUGHTER OF OTHNIEL MILLER: The FBI has been here to investigate the case. He cooperated with them, went to the site, and he doesn't have anything to do with it.</s>BANFIELD: We're joined now by Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky who is the forensic scientist who was at the scene of the investigation on Friday. Larry, you had a chance to go down there. It's swarming with reporters, with people from the FBI, New York local investigators, as well. It's quite remarkable to see this 33 years after the fact.</s>DR. LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: It was a huge number of resources being thrown into this case. It shows you that this case is still alive in the minds, not only the public, but certainly, of law enforcement.</s>BANFIELD: So, still alive in the minds. Now, I want to talk about the nitty-gritty, all the CSI, because what they're doing in that basement involves evidence that could be three decades old. This is your area of expertise. How good could that evidence possibly be if there is any?</s>KOBILINSKY: Well, first of all if we're looking for DNA, DNA is one of the most stable molecules. After 33 years, it should still be intact, and we should still be able to use it for human identification.</s>BANFIELD: Even if it's been walked over, brushed over, painted over.</s>KOBILINSKY: I think there are some issues, some environmental factors can destroy DNA in a moist environment. Bacteria can break down. This molecule soil will degrade the molecule. But, essentially if there's a skeleton, they can obtain might mitochondrial DNA which will help establish the identity of the body.</s>BANFIELD: So, the different between regular DNA that most people understand and then mitochondrial is --</s>KOBILINSKY: Yes. Mitochondrial DNA is present in so many more copies than nuclear. In other words, you stand a better chance of getting a result. And with soft tissue gone, you have bone. Bone has a substantial amount of mitochondrial DNA. It's related maternally to the individual. So that, for example, checking his mother, Etan's mother, Julie, you can then see if there's a match or not, and then, focus on Etan.</s>BANFIELD: You and I covered the Casey Anthony case together. You were actually part of the Casey Anthony case on defense team for a while.</s>KOBILINSKY: Yes.</s>BANFIELD: And one of the issues in Casey Anthony's child's death was that she was in a swamp. And she was so far decomposed that they couldn't get a cause of death on that.</s>KOBILINSKY: Yes.</s>BANFIELD: But they could determine it was the child.</s>KOBILINSKY: Yes.</s>BANFIELD: In this particular case, if they just find skeletal remains, they can determine that it's the child.</s>KOBILINSKY: Yes, in a number of ways. Certainly, the anthropologists at the scene will be able to determine the height, the gender, the ethnicity, there's a lot of information just from a physical examination of the bones. There's going to be an autopsy if they do find bones, but ultimately, it will be</s>DNA. BANFIELD: You can autopsy just bone fragments?</s>KOBILINSKY: You have to. You have to.</s>BANFIELD: Just fragments?</s>KOBILINSKY: TAs was done in the Casey Anthony case. Yes, fragments, they need to be examined, because, look, you might find a tool mark which would tell us the child was stab or you might find the hyoid bone broken, which would tell us the boy was strangled.</s>BANFIELD: That was my next question. They just find bones. Can they find the cause of the death. In Casey Anthony's child's case, they could not find a cause of death.</s>KOBILINSKY: They could not. But here, if you find a fractured skull, you might say blunt trauma here. We really don't know for sure because we don't know whether we're going to find a skull or not, but if do, there may be a lot of information there that most people aren't expected.</s>BANFIELD: I remember you and I also covered a case together where there was a skeleton, a skeletal remain and what you just mentioned, a tool mark was found in the bone and they matched that tool mark to an actual murder weapon. It was a dagger.</s>KOBILINSKY: Precisely.</s>BANFIELD: So, that's something that can connect someone to an actual murder weapon and a crime.</s>KOBILINSKY: For sure. And for all we know, besides a body, they may be looking for a weapon that may be something buried at that site. They used ground-penetrating radar to determine if there was any weapon or skeletal remains.</s>BANFIELD: Let me get to the luminal, because it's also been a lot of court rooms together where luminal is terrific in terms of the detectives being able to check something out, but then, you get into a court of law and you always -- I mean, so frequently you hear presumptive, not conclusive.</s>KOBILINSKY: Absolutely. Luminal, first of all, is a presumptive test for blood. It's used because you can spray large areas, and in that way, determine if blood might be present, but the operative word is might, because there are other things that will give you a false positive. There's another chemical which, perhaps, the FBI is using called blue star, which is more specific than luminal. It's a luminal-like chemical, and it will give you results. It gill glow. It gives off what we call a chemiluminescence if blood is present. But, even if it were positive, even if it were blood, we don't know it's human.</s>BANFIELD: And we're not going to be able to tell that.</s>KOBILINSKY: We will not be able to tell, unless, we can do DNA, then we'll know, because DNA only works on human or primate</s>DNA. BANFIELD: But not other animals?</s>KOBILINSKY: That's correct.</s>BANFIELD: There's so much more we can talk about. You'll have to come back on that.</s>KOBILINSKY: I promise.</s>BANFIELD: Especially as we continue to see what happened. They're resuming the search today.</s>BANFIELD: Lawrence Kobilinsky, Dr. Kobilinsky, it's good to see you. Thank you.</s>KOBILINSKY: Thank you. Pleasure, Ashleigh.</s>BANFIELD: Zoraida.</s>SAMBOLIN: Forty minutes past the hour. Meteor shower is usually a spectacular sight to see, but one out west was seen and it was heard. People from Northern California to Nevada reported hearing a loud boom yesterday morning. That sound occurred at the same time as a meteor shower that happens every year on the same day. Some thought it was a satellite or some other space junk falling to earth. Others had no idea what it was.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was enough to shock me into, man, what was that?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard a big boom. It sounded like my daughter fell out of bed.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kind of felt it, didn't you? Almost like felt something.</s>SAMBOLIN: Wow. Well, astronomers estimate the meteorite that made the noise was probably about the size of a washing machine when it struck the earth's atmosphere. And it's 40 minutes past the hour. Ahead on EARLY START, cracking the code. Iran claims to have inside knowledge from a captured U.S. military drone. We'll ask an expert what is at stake.