60 Minutes (1968) s45e24 Episode Script
The Newtown Massacre | Basketball Player Jeremy Lin
[Engine 1, 2, 3.]
Back in 1970, 28 people died when a fire swept through the Pioneer Hotel, in Tuscon, Arizona.
While the fire was still smouldering, police arrested a 16-year-old boy for setting it.
The evidence was weak, but Louis Taylor was convicted and has spent nearly 42 years in prison.
Significant testimony has recently emerged, that questions just about everything in the case.
So we decided to track down the county prosecutor Steve Kroft, from 60 minutes.
to see what was being done about.
I just have a couple of questions to ask you about the Louis Taylor case.
This is a rare story.
So rare that 60 minutes have been following it for 12 years now.
It's about the lost boys in Sudan.
and how they found their way out of a country where civil war claimed 2 million lives.
Thousands were allowed to travel to America to make new homes.
I would say this is one of the most successful resettlements in U.
S.
history.
They'd come to a new world in every possible sense of the word.
They've never even imagined things that are part of our lives.
Wonderful machine.
A story of survival and hope on this Easter Sunday.
The week before Christmas, back in 1970, an historic fire swept through an Arizona landmark, the Pioneer Hotel in downtown Tucson.
some of whom were forced to jump to their deaths to avoid being burned alive in their rooms.
It was front page news all over the country, and the following morning, a 16-year-old boy named Louis Taylor was charged with setting the fire and later convicted of 28 counts of murder.
The evidence was weak, and even the trial judge later admitted he would not have voted to convict.
We first looked into the case back in 2002, along with Court TV, and found evidence that the 16-year-old had been railroaded; a convenient suspect for police and prosecutors eager to resolve the city's worst disaster.
Taylor is still serving his life sentence, but new developments in fire science and new testimony from a key witness, may now change that and shed new light on a tragedy that's haunted Tucson for nearly 42 years.
Today, the Pioneer is a non-descript office building near the center of town.
But behind the precast concrete slabs, you can still see the bones of the old hotel, built when Tucson was still a frontier outpost, and on December 19th 1970, it was still the heart of the city.
[Somebody's yelling, "Fire," over near the Pioneer Hotel.
.]
[Engine 1, 2, 3, Pioneer Hotel.
Fire reported.
.]
When the first alarm sounded the hotel was packed with Christmas revelers.
No one had noticed smoke on the upper floors.
And by the time firemen arrived, it was already too late.
The Pioneer was a death trap: no sprinkler system, fire exits padlocked shut for security reasons, and the tallest ladder the fire department had reached only between the fourth and fifth floors.
Trapped hotel guests could be seen at the windows and on ledges.
Some people tied sheets together and climbed to safety; others tossed mattresses out the window and died trying to land on them.
As rescue teams fought their way up the stairwells, they encountered 16-year-old Louis Taylor on the third floor landing.
Police officer Bill Briamonte put the boy to work.
I said, "Come with me.
There's a fire in this building.
Start banging on doors," and I sent him to the left, and I went to the right.
To many fireman, Louis Taylor was a hero that night.
But the police weren't looking for a hero.
While the fire was still smoldering, and before the fire department even had time to begin an investigation into the cause, the police department decided it had the answer: Louis Taylor.
One officer who had been with the boy during the fire, went up to thank him a few hours later at police headquarters only to be told to stay away - that Taylor had set the fire.
The officer, Klaus Bergman, said he was dumbfounded.
I don't know how, in God's name, somebody could declare a fire to be an arson, and arrest and book somebody for setting the fire before the fire is out.
Louis Taylor had voluntarily gone to police headquarters as a witness, but after an all-night interrogation by eight different police officers without a lawyer or a guardian present, Taylor had gone from cooperative witness to prime suspect.
My conclusion was that Louis Taylor was evasive, and that he was involved in the incident.
Juvenile Detective David Smith was the last police officer to interrogate Louis Taylor.
He said the boy was seen near the place where the fire started, had five partial packs of matches on him, and was unable to give a legitimate reason for being in the hotel.
We interviewed Detective Smith back in 2002.
I asked him, "Louis, did you set this fire?" And he said, "No, I didn't want to kill those people.
" Immediately there was a look of-- one of those looks of "I wished I hadn't have said that," or "I didn't mean to say that.
" That doesn't sound like an admission.
It certainly isn't a confession.
Smith says Taylor told him something else that would provide the prosecution with a motive for Taylor setting the fire.
He said, "You know when you go into a hotel, and you take change of your pockets and your wallet, and you lay it on the dresser?" And he said, "That's why they set the fire, so that they could steal from the rooms when people would panic and run.
" Did you know that Sergeant Gastaway, one of the officers who had questioned Louis Taylor before you, reported that at about 4:15, he went in and told Louis, "You set that fire so you could rob some of the guest rooms, didn't you?" No.
- You didn't know that? - No.
So you don't know if that's the first time that Louis Taylor ever heard that theory? No.
I--I--I don't.
Not one word of Louis Taylor's interrogation was recorded, and if police officers took notes, they were never produced.
Yet based on his inconsistent statements and circumstantial evidence -- and the since discredited testimony of two jailhouse snitches -- Taylor was charged with 28 counts of murder and convicted by an all-white jury, sentenced to life in prison.
And that is where we found him a decade ago when we first began looking into this case with Court TV.
He was 47 years old.
Did you set that fire that night Louis? No I did not.
In a brief phone conversation, Taylor said he'd gone to the hotel hoping to hustle food and free drinks.
His mistake, he said, was trusting the police.
At the time we reported that important information that might have helped Louis Taylor was never heard by a jury and never investigated by the police: like this letter from the assistant fire chief, which acknowledged a number of suspicious fires at the Pioneer Hotel in the months leading up to the tragedy, along with the description of a suspect that did not match Louis Taylor.
Detective Smith said he didn't know anything about it.
But you didn't turn up in your investigation the fact that - there had been previous fires at this hotel? - No.
And the fact that they had a description of somebody - who had been setting these fires? - No.
I can guarantee you that if I knew that, then that's something I would have followed up on.
The description was much closer to a serial arsonist named Donald Anthony, who left the state the day after the Pioneer fire and was never questioned.
Did it ever dawn on you that perhaps that Mr.
Anthony might have something to do with the Pioneer fire? Don wasn't a suspect in the Pioneer.
The fact is, that there was never any information of any type that was received indicating that anybody else but Louis Taylor was there acting suspiciously.
When our first story about Louis Taylor aired back in 2002, it attracted the attention of the Arizona Justice Project, a nonprofit legal organization that helps people it believes have been wrongfully convicted.
The group took on the case and after a decade of work, it has discovered some striking new evidence that could get Louis Taylor out of prison.
Do you think Louis Taylor set the Pioneer Hotel fire? No, I don't.
- You think he was railroaded? - Yes.
Edward Novak, a prominent Arizona attorney, is now leading Louis Taylor's defense team which is made up of volunteer lawyers, students and law professors from the Arizona Justice Project.
They've dug into old court records and revisited the testimony of key witnesses like Cy Holmes, the original fire investigator, who testified that the fire had been intentionally set.
- How important was that testimony at the trial? - Critical.
Absolutely critical.
Do you swear or affirm to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? - I do.
- Thank you.
Just five months ago, Novak conducted a sworn court deposition of Holmes and got him to reveal some startling new information.
For the first time, Holmes said that he did a quick-walk through of the hotel then told the city council that he'd already reached some preliminary conclusions about the type of person who set the place on fire.
What was your reaction when he gave this testimony? I was trying to maintain my composure so that Holmes wouldn't know that he'd said something that really startled me.
How did he determine that it was a young man of color? I asked him that.
That new deposition has destroyed the credibility of a key witness against Louis Taylor.
And, in fact, the very idea that the Pioneer Hotel Fire was even an arson is now under serious challenge, because the science of fire investigation has changed dramatically over the past 40 years.
The Arizona Justice Project put together a panel of the country's top five fire experts and had them evaluate the evidence and the testimony in the Pioneer case records, using today's science.
John Lentini was one of them.
He has conducted more than 2,000 fire investigations and has been at the center of the most important developments in fire investigations over the past 30 years.
He took this case on for free.
What was the state of fire science 40 years ago? Terrible.
Particularly when it-- as it related to fire investigation.
What was your reaction when you looked at all the material? Just another false accusation of arson.
It's a shame.
It has been very common for people to start with the proposition that the fire's set and if they can't find an innocent cause for it then they say, well, somebody must have set it.
That presumes that we're good enough fire investigators to find the cause of every fire and that's simply not true.
What caused the Pioneer fire? Undetermined.
- Undetermined.
- Undetermined.
Could have been a cigarette.
It could have been an overhead light.
Did you find any evidence of arson? No.
You can't have a murder conviction based on arson if there was no arson.
Take away the arson, there's no murder.
Based on the new evidence and testimony, Ed Novak and the Arizona Justice Project petitioned the county prosecutor and the court to vacate Louis Taylor's murder conviction, release him from prison, and conduct a new trial.
The current prosecutor, Barbara LaWall, then commissioned the Tucson Fire Department to do its own reinvestigation of the Pioneer fire, using the latest science.
It, too, concluded that the cause of the fire should now be ruled undetermined.
So the report that she requested-- Didn't back her up.
Not only didn't back her up, it solidified the defense's case? Yes.
Yet in spite of the fire department's report and the embarrassing testimony of the original fire investigator, the county prosecutor is holding her ground.
She offered to release Louis Taylor from prison, but only if he would plead no contest to arson and murder charges.
- Not much of a deal? - It's not a deal.
It stinks.
All to protect a conviction? Yes, exactly.
I'm not sure I can do it.
What do you mean you're not sure you can do it? I'm not sure I can stand in the courtroom and let a prosecutor tell a judge that there's sufficient evidence for a judge to accept a plea of no contest when I don't think a crime occurred.
We asked an interview with County Prosecutor Barbara LaWall, but her office declined our request.
So we decided to approach her on the street.
Steve Kroft from "60 Minutes.
" - How do you do Steve? - How you doing? I just have a couple of questions to ask you about the Louis Taylor case.
What about this report from the Fire Department that you requested That came back and said that there's no evidence that this fire was intentionally set? I don't believe that that's exactly what the report said -- No conclusive evidence.
But they said it was undetermined, but you know, we have a hearing, this is a pending prosecution.
And it's not the practice of this office to speak about pending prosecutions But you've got somebody who's in prison for arson and murder and now it's not clear whether it was even an arson.
Well nobody can say for sure whether it was or whether it wasn't.
The law says that if you're going to convict somebody of arson you have to have conclusive proof that it was in fact arson.
Steve! We did, 42 years ago! That's not what this legal issue is about right now.
We also asked the prosecutor about the controversial racial views of fire investigator Cy Holmes.
What about Cy Holmes? I've seen that deposition.
Cy Holmes can make a determination as to whether or not it's arson or not arson.
He said some pretty embarrassing things.
Yes, he did.
Ms.
LaWall says the fate of Louis Taylor should be decided by the court.
And she says just because the latest fire science finds the cause of the Pioneer fire to be undetermined, doesn't rule out the possibility of arson.
And the last time I checked we don't convict people on a possibility.
We convict people on proof beyond a reasonable doubt -- which you would never get in a retrial of this case.
It's now almost certain that the retrial will never happen.
Louis Taylor, who is now 58 and has spent more than two-thirds of his life in prison, decided this past week to accept the prosecutor's deal.
On Tuesday, he is expected to plead no-contest to the charges in exchange for his freedom.
Taylor told his lawyers that after maintaining his principles for 42 years, he is tired, uncertain of the appeal process, and wants to begin living the rest of his life as a free man.
He still maintains his innocence.
who fought off unspeakable dangers and then flew off to the United States.
It all began in the 1980s, during Sudan's civil war in which more than two million people died.
The boys' parents were killed; their sisters often sold into slavery.
Many of the boys died too.
But the survivors, thousands of them, started walking across East Africa.
Alone.
Five years later they walked into a refugee camp in Kenya.
That's where we first met them, when many were hoping to go to the United States.
as part of the largest resettlement of its kind in American history.
We followed the boys for more than a decade and couldn't resist revisiting them, to see how they're doing.
But first, we'll take you back to northern Kenya, to the Kakuma Refugee Camp.
Springtime 2001.
Nothing drew a crowd like the list.
Once a week, the Lost Boys saw their destiny on a bulletin board.
The staples of life.
On this day, 90 learned they'd be going to America.
Boston.
I'm going to Flororida - Flororida? - Flororida.
Every Sunday, a plane arrived at the camp to take the boys from nowhere to somewhere, from Kakuma to JFK and beyond.
Not all of the Lost Boys got to go.
Joseph Taban Rufino had walked to the board so many times, he tried not to get excited.
What's new? Something new.
I've seen my name on the board.
Your name is on the board.
Where are you going? That's Kansas City.
- Kansas City? - Yeah.
- Do you know where it is? - I don't know.
Abraham Yel Nhial was taking this walk for the 25th time.
He was an ordained minister of Sudan's Episcopal Church at Kakuma.
He looked at the board as if it were a holy scroll.
I'm going to ChicagoIs it interesting? Oh, it's very interesting.
It's very interesting.
Thank you for that.
They were known as the Lost Boys because they were between five and 11 when their Christian villages in southern Sudan were attacked by Islamist forces from the north.
When they saw their villages burning, they started running.
Streams of boys became rivers.
Hundreds became thousands until an exodus of biblical proportions was underway.
They walked for three months across Sudan, barefoot.
But after four years, they were chased out at gunpoint, chased to the Gilo River where the waters did not part.
For Joseph Taban, that day will never go away.
We saw so many people who were just floating on the river.
- Dead bodies? - Dead bodies.
Yeah.
who are floating on the river.
Many were shot.
Many drowned.
Many were eaten by crocodiles.
Zachariah Magok was there.
- 1,000 or 2,000 died in that river? - Yes.
It wasn't much better on the other side.
They walked across deserts, over mountains.
They had no food or water.
Paul Deng was seven when he started the walk.
You have to urinate so that you drink your own urine.
Did you ever do it yourself? Yeah.
I didn't want to die.
Other people didn't want to die.
In the spring of 1992, after walking more than a thousand miles, the boys made it over the border into Kenya, to a desolate place called Kakuma.
For the UN, it was an emergency of vast proportions, these emaciated children.
For the boys, it was the safest they'd been in five years.
Joseph became a medical assistant at the camp clinic.
Abraham found a job, preaching the gospel in a church built of mud.
The Lost Boys couldn't go home to Sudan and Kenya didn't want them.
Then, in the year 2000, the State Department decided they deserved a break and invited them to come live in the United States.
What we want to do is give you a correct understanding of what life will be like in America.
Before they took off for their new lives in the new world, Sasha Chanoff, a teacher from Boston, gave them a crash course: America 101.
Does anybody know who the president in the U.
S.
is now? George Bush W.
Things they could not imagine, like winter.
This is a little what winter in America feels like.
What does it feel like? It's very cold! Will you die because of that coolness? No, you will not die because of the coolness.
He had three days to prepare them for a leap of a thousand years.
Many of them have never been exposed to lights or to a fork and a knife.
Or seeing a TV.
It's a group that's lost in time.
They had four days to pack their luggage.
They took little, left less behind.
Abraham was taking a book he'd been carrying for 10 years.
You still have the bible that you carried from Ethiopia here? Yes.
It's my life.
I have been called a lost boy.
But I'm not lost from God.
I'm lost from my parents.
As in any farewell, the lost boys were saying, "See you soon," but they knew better.
Kakuma was losing its doctor and its priest.
The boys had never been on a plane before.
They'd never even been on a bus.
Five planes in two days.
First initiation rite: airplane food.
And then changing planes in Brussels -- getting their feet on the ground in the Western world.
Next stop for Joseph Taban and his brothers: Kansas City.
- There it is.
- Oh yeah.
- You see the buildings? - Yeah yeah.
- That is Kansas City.
- I see.
I didn't know that this place is so big like this.
Abraham the preacher man was supposed to go to Chicago but at the last minute that was changed to Atlanta.
Volunteers introduced them to their new apartments, to American mysteries like a sink or a stove.
Don't touch because it burns.
It's hot.
A vacuum cleaner or a can, let alone a can opener.
- You wanna try? - Wonderful machine.
Within a few weeks, Joseph had his first job in a sweltering fabric factory when he got home from work at 11 at night, he stayed up studying for that medical career he'd always dreamed of.
You won't be surprised to learn that Abraham found his salvation in church.
All Saints, one of the largest Episcopal churches in Atlanta.
A month after his arrival, he was invited to be a guest deacon.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
You were terrific Abraham, you were so good.
A big problem was the sheer size of America and everything in it.
Home Depot was a long way from home.
- This store is too big.
- Oh, I know it is.
This is confusing.
Confusing? Try to imagine what a fountain looks like to a man who walked a thousand miles through a desert.
Sasha Chanoff, who taught the boys back in Kenya, said it was not easy for them to distinguish between what was real and what was pure fantasy in America.
They're hearing that people have gone to the moon.
If you're telling me people have gone to the moon, then they're seeing on TV that a horse can talk.
Why is a horse talking so different from someone going to the moon? It's hard for people to distinguish what is reality and what is not.
Some boy saw a street sign that said, "Dead end.
" And they thought, well, if I go down there, am I going to die? Then came 9/11, just a few months after the boys got here.
They thought they had left that kind of thing far behind, forever.
And it seem that war is following us.
Wherever we go, war came after us.
Let's pray.
As it did once again.
The boys weren't surprised by it, not the way Americans were.
For them, Islam and terrorism went together.
Always had.
Their reaction was immediate.
Help the victims.
In Atlanta, they offered to donate blood for the survivors in New York.
But they were turned away.
So, what we did, we did collect some money, two dollars, five dollars.
Because we have nothing.
And we give about four hundred.
- 400 dollars? - Yes.
And that's amazing.
- It really is.
- Yes.
A community with nothing.
People just come from Africa.
But they weren't coming any more.
After 9/11 the flights scheduled to bring over more lost boys were stopped And the boys already here were having a tough time of it.
That dreaded American winter was now upon them.
They'd been warned, but it still came as a shock.
Look! Look! Look! Winter gave them fun times, as well, though -- ice capades.
What Americans call: a learning experience.
And, Christmas, their first.
In America, we call him Santa Claus.
Santa Clau--I've heard of Santa Claus.
He lives in the North Pole and rides reindeer.
Is he from--how do I call these people? - Eskimos.
- Eskimos, yeah.
Well, he's the guy who brings presents to all the children on Christmas.
- He makes kids happy, that's the important thing.
- That's good.
Within a year, a Kansas City investment banker, Joey McLiney, took Joseph under his wing and put him in the saddle.
McLiney offered up his brand new car for Joseph's first driving lesson.
Here we go.
Okay.
Stop, Joseph.
Stop, brake.
Brake, brake, brake.
Brake.
OK don'tLamp post! Hit the brake.
That's the brake.
- Relax.
- I'm so sorry what I make.
Relax.
I'm sorry I made a mess.
That was nearly 12 years ago.
In a moment, we'll give you a picture of the road the Lost Boys have been taking in America.
Before their arrival in America in 2001, the Lost Boys of Sudan knew very little about what would be a totally new world for them.
For the U.
S.
government, it was quite a social experiment.
America may be a country of immigrants, but it's not often that the State Department organizes an airlift of people who know virtually nothing about the modern world.
The Lost Boys were sent all over the place from Fargo, N.
D.
, to Phoenix, Ariz.
Joseph Taban Rufino landed in Kansas City.
Abraham Yel Nhial was sent to Atlanta.
We never forgot about them and their fellow Lost Boys and we felt good when it appeared they hadn't forgotten about us.
Hey, Bob Simon! How're you doing? Long time no see.
How you doing buddy? - Good to see you, man.
- It's been a long time.
We visited the Lost Boys from time to time over the last 12 years -- wanted to be there for the moments they never could have imagined.
- I hereby declare.
- I hereby declare.
On this day, Abraham was one of 92 people from 37 countries to get a new piece of paper.
- Congratulations, you are a United States citizen.
- Thank you.
A Lost Boy who now belongs somewhere.
Do you think of yourself as an American? Yes.
This, this home for me.
Abraham is so proud of his American passport he carries it with him wherever he goes.
The only papers we have-- are from America.
Are you telling me, that passport in that jacket pocket of yours is the first identity paper you've ever had? This is it.
- Before that you had no document at all? - No.
Joseph still hasn't gotten a passport.
His driver's license was stolen from him in Kansas City.
And that was just the beginning.
- You've had your car flooded.
- Right.
- You've been stabbed.
- Exactly.
- You've been hit by a car.
- That's right.
- Your kitchen was set on fire.
- Indeed.
And you like it here.
You know, things, things happen.
There was more bad news at work.
Joseph was laid off a few times from his job at a grain company, a victim of the tough economy.
He's back at work now, and in his small, dimly lit apartment still studies medical books, even while his dream of going to med school is slipping away.
- Do you feel like you've been successful in America? - Not at all.
My main aim was to go to the school in order to be what I've said, to be a doctor.
But things fall apart.
So unless you're a doctor, you will not feel that you are successful? That's true.
Abraham did graduate from college.
It's been a long journey but god blessed me.
After many 4 a.
m.
bus rides to school, he got a degree in biblical studies from Atlanta Christian College.
So, how did you make those roofs? Sasha Chanoff, who led those orientation classes back at Kakuma, now runs an organization called RefugePoint which champions refugees in Africa.
He still stays in touch with the Lost Boys.
I would say this is one of the most successful resettlements in U.
S.
history.
Some of them are in law school.
Some are in medical school.
But of course when you have 4,000 guys or so who arrive, some don't do as well.
Some struggle.
Some have had problems with drugs and alcohol.
A few are in jail.
But some Lost Boys who were orphaned by war, have been wounded fighting for the U.
S.
military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Daw Dekon made it out unscathed.
- So you were in Iraq? Three times? - Three times.
Yes.
He joined the Army after 9/11.
I'm a young man able to hold a gun or to go with other young men in this country who were born here, why not? That's my duty.
So you joined the Army because you wanted to give something back to America? Yes.
Thank you America, I want to let the whole world know Dominic Leek, a friend of Joseph's in Kansas City, wrote a song he says represents the feelings of many Lost Boys.
When I came to this country, I was helped by the government of this country and the people of America.
So, what I did was, I thank them for the opportunity they gave to me and my fellow lost boy.
And we were forced into the river.
Abraham feels he has a mission - to make sure people will not forget.
He speaks at universities across the country.
Here he was at Yale, explaining to students why he believes God kept the boys alive.
God kept us alive to be witness of what took place in Sudan.
That the only thing.
It's not because we were more important than the others, than our mothers, our fathers and brothers who have dies.
But simple is so that we will be witness.
It happened a long time ago, so the Lost Boys don't have too much trouble talking about it, but at night time - Do you have a lot of nightmares? - Oh, indeed, a lot.
During the young age where we were when I was there, we're not supposed to see the dead body, or bury the dead body.
And we did that.
And we did that.
And that's all come, like sometimes in form of dream.
For the Lost Boys, the most momentous news came in July of 2011.
Their long-suffering homeland, South Sudan, was declared the world's newest nation.
- You saw the independent celebrations on your cell phone.
- Yeah.
- How did it make you feel? - Oh, I was overwhelmed, going into tears.
- They were an important factor that led to that independence.
- Hang on.
- They were an important factor that led to that independence? - I think so.
They created a political environment in the U.
S.
where people were finally realizing what was happening in this remote genocide in Sudan that nobody had really heard of on a large scale before.
Not long ago, Sudanese flocked by the hundreds to a town called Aweil for a celebration.
It wasn't Independence Day or anything like that.
They came to a newly built brick cathedral to witness the installation of that preacher named Abraham as the first Episcopal bishop of his region in South Sudan.
A lost boy no more.
It's Bishop Abraham now and who knows what's coming next.
Maybe your next name will be Archbishop? I--I don't know about that.
Abraham divides his time now between Africa and America.
Not only is he an Anglican bishop, but a husband and a father.
Oh, my heavens.
- This is your family.
- Yes.
He goes back to Africa whenever he can to visit his new family.
He got married in Kenya, has four kids, He wants them to join him in Atlanta but red tape keeps getting in the way.
Well, I would love that to happen, Bob.
I've been trying for them to come but they not came.
Maybe one day somebody will, will surprise me, that you and your kids come to America.
Joseph hasn't gone back to Africa, has had no reason to.
His whole family was dead, as far as he knew.
Then, incredible news: his mother Perina was alive, had survived the war, had made it to a refugee camp in Uganda.
And there was another miracle: Skype.
So, a few months ago, Joseph ironed his best suit and went over to his mentor's house.
His mother had been driven three hours to the offices of IOM, the international resettlement agency in South Sudan.
It was the first time mother and son were going to see each other since they were separated by war 25 years ago.
His mother had thought Joseph was dead, had held a funeral service for him.
Even now, she had no idea what he'd been through.
When Joseph tried to tell her, he just couldn't get through it.
But there were light moments too, shared memories of Joseph's happy childhood in a country village before the war ended childhood and everything else.
And, of course, his mother wanted to know why, after all these years, Joseph had not married a nice American girl.
After almost an hour, their time was almost up.
His mother asked Joseph what all mothers ask their sons: When will you come see me? And Joseph answered the only possible answer: As soon as I can mom, as soon as I can.
Go to 60Minutes for the amazing twelve-year journey that our team took with the lost boys.
Now an update on a story we first reported on Easter Sunday, a year ago.
called "Joy in the Congo".
That's when Bob Simon introduced us to one of the most extraordinary musical ensembles we've ever seen.
The Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra of Kinshasa, the capital city of one of the poorest country in the world.
Maestro Armand Diangienda, a former pilot, began the orchestra with neither teachers, instruments, musicians nor anyone who could read music.
But miraculously, they played.
Earlier this month, members of the Kimbanguist Orchestra left their usual home, a rented warehouse in the Congo, for Los Angeles and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
There, the string ensemble performed an original composition for the L.
A.
Philharmonic's conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
These sound great.
Sound great.
Wonderful.
I want to listen more.
This past week, "Joy in the Congo," our original report on the Kimbanguist Symphony, was named a winner, of the Peabody Award.
Back in 1970, 28 people died when a fire swept through the Pioneer Hotel, in Tuscon, Arizona.
While the fire was still smouldering, police arrested a 16-year-old boy for setting it.
The evidence was weak, but Louis Taylor was convicted and has spent nearly 42 years in prison.
Significant testimony has recently emerged, that questions just about everything in the case.
So we decided to track down the county prosecutor Steve Kroft, from 60 minutes.
to see what was being done about.
I just have a couple of questions to ask you about the Louis Taylor case.
This is a rare story.
So rare that 60 minutes have been following it for 12 years now.
It's about the lost boys in Sudan.
and how they found their way out of a country where civil war claimed 2 million lives.
Thousands were allowed to travel to America to make new homes.
I would say this is one of the most successful resettlements in U.
S.
history.
They'd come to a new world in every possible sense of the word.
They've never even imagined things that are part of our lives.
Wonderful machine.
A story of survival and hope on this Easter Sunday.
The week before Christmas, back in 1970, an historic fire swept through an Arizona landmark, the Pioneer Hotel in downtown Tucson.
some of whom were forced to jump to their deaths to avoid being burned alive in their rooms.
It was front page news all over the country, and the following morning, a 16-year-old boy named Louis Taylor was charged with setting the fire and later convicted of 28 counts of murder.
The evidence was weak, and even the trial judge later admitted he would not have voted to convict.
We first looked into the case back in 2002, along with Court TV, and found evidence that the 16-year-old had been railroaded; a convenient suspect for police and prosecutors eager to resolve the city's worst disaster.
Taylor is still serving his life sentence, but new developments in fire science and new testimony from a key witness, may now change that and shed new light on a tragedy that's haunted Tucson for nearly 42 years.
Today, the Pioneer is a non-descript office building near the center of town.
But behind the precast concrete slabs, you can still see the bones of the old hotel, built when Tucson was still a frontier outpost, and on December 19th 1970, it was still the heart of the city.
[Somebody's yelling, "Fire," over near the Pioneer Hotel.
.]
[Engine 1, 2, 3, Pioneer Hotel.
Fire reported.
.]
When the first alarm sounded the hotel was packed with Christmas revelers.
No one had noticed smoke on the upper floors.
And by the time firemen arrived, it was already too late.
The Pioneer was a death trap: no sprinkler system, fire exits padlocked shut for security reasons, and the tallest ladder the fire department had reached only between the fourth and fifth floors.
Trapped hotel guests could be seen at the windows and on ledges.
Some people tied sheets together and climbed to safety; others tossed mattresses out the window and died trying to land on them.
As rescue teams fought their way up the stairwells, they encountered 16-year-old Louis Taylor on the third floor landing.
Police officer Bill Briamonte put the boy to work.
I said, "Come with me.
There's a fire in this building.
Start banging on doors," and I sent him to the left, and I went to the right.
To many fireman, Louis Taylor was a hero that night.
But the police weren't looking for a hero.
While the fire was still smoldering, and before the fire department even had time to begin an investigation into the cause, the police department decided it had the answer: Louis Taylor.
One officer who had been with the boy during the fire, went up to thank him a few hours later at police headquarters only to be told to stay away - that Taylor had set the fire.
The officer, Klaus Bergman, said he was dumbfounded.
I don't know how, in God's name, somebody could declare a fire to be an arson, and arrest and book somebody for setting the fire before the fire is out.
Louis Taylor had voluntarily gone to police headquarters as a witness, but after an all-night interrogation by eight different police officers without a lawyer or a guardian present, Taylor had gone from cooperative witness to prime suspect.
My conclusion was that Louis Taylor was evasive, and that he was involved in the incident.
Juvenile Detective David Smith was the last police officer to interrogate Louis Taylor.
He said the boy was seen near the place where the fire started, had five partial packs of matches on him, and was unable to give a legitimate reason for being in the hotel.
We interviewed Detective Smith back in 2002.
I asked him, "Louis, did you set this fire?" And he said, "No, I didn't want to kill those people.
" Immediately there was a look of-- one of those looks of "I wished I hadn't have said that," or "I didn't mean to say that.
" That doesn't sound like an admission.
It certainly isn't a confession.
Smith says Taylor told him something else that would provide the prosecution with a motive for Taylor setting the fire.
He said, "You know when you go into a hotel, and you take change of your pockets and your wallet, and you lay it on the dresser?" And he said, "That's why they set the fire, so that they could steal from the rooms when people would panic and run.
" Did you know that Sergeant Gastaway, one of the officers who had questioned Louis Taylor before you, reported that at about 4:15, he went in and told Louis, "You set that fire so you could rob some of the guest rooms, didn't you?" No.
- You didn't know that? - No.
So you don't know if that's the first time that Louis Taylor ever heard that theory? No.
I--I--I don't.
Not one word of Louis Taylor's interrogation was recorded, and if police officers took notes, they were never produced.
Yet based on his inconsistent statements and circumstantial evidence -- and the since discredited testimony of two jailhouse snitches -- Taylor was charged with 28 counts of murder and convicted by an all-white jury, sentenced to life in prison.
And that is where we found him a decade ago when we first began looking into this case with Court TV.
He was 47 years old.
Did you set that fire that night Louis? No I did not.
In a brief phone conversation, Taylor said he'd gone to the hotel hoping to hustle food and free drinks.
His mistake, he said, was trusting the police.
At the time we reported that important information that might have helped Louis Taylor was never heard by a jury and never investigated by the police: like this letter from the assistant fire chief, which acknowledged a number of suspicious fires at the Pioneer Hotel in the months leading up to the tragedy, along with the description of a suspect that did not match Louis Taylor.
Detective Smith said he didn't know anything about it.
But you didn't turn up in your investigation the fact that - there had been previous fires at this hotel? - No.
And the fact that they had a description of somebody - who had been setting these fires? - No.
I can guarantee you that if I knew that, then that's something I would have followed up on.
The description was much closer to a serial arsonist named Donald Anthony, who left the state the day after the Pioneer fire and was never questioned.
Did it ever dawn on you that perhaps that Mr.
Anthony might have something to do with the Pioneer fire? Don wasn't a suspect in the Pioneer.
The fact is, that there was never any information of any type that was received indicating that anybody else but Louis Taylor was there acting suspiciously.
When our first story about Louis Taylor aired back in 2002, it attracted the attention of the Arizona Justice Project, a nonprofit legal organization that helps people it believes have been wrongfully convicted.
The group took on the case and after a decade of work, it has discovered some striking new evidence that could get Louis Taylor out of prison.
Do you think Louis Taylor set the Pioneer Hotel fire? No, I don't.
- You think he was railroaded? - Yes.
Edward Novak, a prominent Arizona attorney, is now leading Louis Taylor's defense team which is made up of volunteer lawyers, students and law professors from the Arizona Justice Project.
They've dug into old court records and revisited the testimony of key witnesses like Cy Holmes, the original fire investigator, who testified that the fire had been intentionally set.
- How important was that testimony at the trial? - Critical.
Absolutely critical.
Do you swear or affirm to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? - I do.
- Thank you.
Just five months ago, Novak conducted a sworn court deposition of Holmes and got him to reveal some startling new information.
For the first time, Holmes said that he did a quick-walk through of the hotel then told the city council that he'd already reached some preliminary conclusions about the type of person who set the place on fire.
What was your reaction when he gave this testimony? I was trying to maintain my composure so that Holmes wouldn't know that he'd said something that really startled me.
How did he determine that it was a young man of color? I asked him that.
That new deposition has destroyed the credibility of a key witness against Louis Taylor.
And, in fact, the very idea that the Pioneer Hotel Fire was even an arson is now under serious challenge, because the science of fire investigation has changed dramatically over the past 40 years.
The Arizona Justice Project put together a panel of the country's top five fire experts and had them evaluate the evidence and the testimony in the Pioneer case records, using today's science.
John Lentini was one of them.
He has conducted more than 2,000 fire investigations and has been at the center of the most important developments in fire investigations over the past 30 years.
He took this case on for free.
What was the state of fire science 40 years ago? Terrible.
Particularly when it-- as it related to fire investigation.
What was your reaction when you looked at all the material? Just another false accusation of arson.
It's a shame.
It has been very common for people to start with the proposition that the fire's set and if they can't find an innocent cause for it then they say, well, somebody must have set it.
That presumes that we're good enough fire investigators to find the cause of every fire and that's simply not true.
What caused the Pioneer fire? Undetermined.
- Undetermined.
- Undetermined.
Could have been a cigarette.
It could have been an overhead light.
Did you find any evidence of arson? No.
You can't have a murder conviction based on arson if there was no arson.
Take away the arson, there's no murder.
Based on the new evidence and testimony, Ed Novak and the Arizona Justice Project petitioned the county prosecutor and the court to vacate Louis Taylor's murder conviction, release him from prison, and conduct a new trial.
The current prosecutor, Barbara LaWall, then commissioned the Tucson Fire Department to do its own reinvestigation of the Pioneer fire, using the latest science.
It, too, concluded that the cause of the fire should now be ruled undetermined.
So the report that she requested-- Didn't back her up.
Not only didn't back her up, it solidified the defense's case? Yes.
Yet in spite of the fire department's report and the embarrassing testimony of the original fire investigator, the county prosecutor is holding her ground.
She offered to release Louis Taylor from prison, but only if he would plead no contest to arson and murder charges.
- Not much of a deal? - It's not a deal.
It stinks.
All to protect a conviction? Yes, exactly.
I'm not sure I can do it.
What do you mean you're not sure you can do it? I'm not sure I can stand in the courtroom and let a prosecutor tell a judge that there's sufficient evidence for a judge to accept a plea of no contest when I don't think a crime occurred.
We asked an interview with County Prosecutor Barbara LaWall, but her office declined our request.
So we decided to approach her on the street.
Steve Kroft from "60 Minutes.
" - How do you do Steve? - How you doing? I just have a couple of questions to ask you about the Louis Taylor case.
What about this report from the Fire Department that you requested That came back and said that there's no evidence that this fire was intentionally set? I don't believe that that's exactly what the report said -- No conclusive evidence.
But they said it was undetermined, but you know, we have a hearing, this is a pending prosecution.
And it's not the practice of this office to speak about pending prosecutions But you've got somebody who's in prison for arson and murder and now it's not clear whether it was even an arson.
Well nobody can say for sure whether it was or whether it wasn't.
The law says that if you're going to convict somebody of arson you have to have conclusive proof that it was in fact arson.
Steve! We did, 42 years ago! That's not what this legal issue is about right now.
We also asked the prosecutor about the controversial racial views of fire investigator Cy Holmes.
What about Cy Holmes? I've seen that deposition.
Cy Holmes can make a determination as to whether or not it's arson or not arson.
He said some pretty embarrassing things.
Yes, he did.
Ms.
LaWall says the fate of Louis Taylor should be decided by the court.
And she says just because the latest fire science finds the cause of the Pioneer fire to be undetermined, doesn't rule out the possibility of arson.
And the last time I checked we don't convict people on a possibility.
We convict people on proof beyond a reasonable doubt -- which you would never get in a retrial of this case.
It's now almost certain that the retrial will never happen.
Louis Taylor, who is now 58 and has spent more than two-thirds of his life in prison, decided this past week to accept the prosecutor's deal.
On Tuesday, he is expected to plead no-contest to the charges in exchange for his freedom.
Taylor told his lawyers that after maintaining his principles for 42 years, he is tired, uncertain of the appeal process, and wants to begin living the rest of his life as a free man.
He still maintains his innocence.
who fought off unspeakable dangers and then flew off to the United States.
It all began in the 1980s, during Sudan's civil war in which more than two million people died.
The boys' parents were killed; their sisters often sold into slavery.
Many of the boys died too.
But the survivors, thousands of them, started walking across East Africa.
Alone.
Five years later they walked into a refugee camp in Kenya.
That's where we first met them, when many were hoping to go to the United States.
as part of the largest resettlement of its kind in American history.
We followed the boys for more than a decade and couldn't resist revisiting them, to see how they're doing.
But first, we'll take you back to northern Kenya, to the Kakuma Refugee Camp.
Springtime 2001.
Nothing drew a crowd like the list.
Once a week, the Lost Boys saw their destiny on a bulletin board.
The staples of life.
On this day, 90 learned they'd be going to America.
Boston.
I'm going to Flororida - Flororida? - Flororida.
Every Sunday, a plane arrived at the camp to take the boys from nowhere to somewhere, from Kakuma to JFK and beyond.
Not all of the Lost Boys got to go.
Joseph Taban Rufino had walked to the board so many times, he tried not to get excited.
What's new? Something new.
I've seen my name on the board.
Your name is on the board.
Where are you going? That's Kansas City.
- Kansas City? - Yeah.
- Do you know where it is? - I don't know.
Abraham Yel Nhial was taking this walk for the 25th time.
He was an ordained minister of Sudan's Episcopal Church at Kakuma.
He looked at the board as if it were a holy scroll.
I'm going to ChicagoIs it interesting? Oh, it's very interesting.
It's very interesting.
Thank you for that.
They were known as the Lost Boys because they were between five and 11 when their Christian villages in southern Sudan were attacked by Islamist forces from the north.
When they saw their villages burning, they started running.
Streams of boys became rivers.
Hundreds became thousands until an exodus of biblical proportions was underway.
They walked for three months across Sudan, barefoot.
But after four years, they were chased out at gunpoint, chased to the Gilo River where the waters did not part.
For Joseph Taban, that day will never go away.
We saw so many people who were just floating on the river.
- Dead bodies? - Dead bodies.
Yeah.
who are floating on the river.
Many were shot.
Many drowned.
Many were eaten by crocodiles.
Zachariah Magok was there.
- 1,000 or 2,000 died in that river? - Yes.
It wasn't much better on the other side.
They walked across deserts, over mountains.
They had no food or water.
Paul Deng was seven when he started the walk.
You have to urinate so that you drink your own urine.
Did you ever do it yourself? Yeah.
I didn't want to die.
Other people didn't want to die.
In the spring of 1992, after walking more than a thousand miles, the boys made it over the border into Kenya, to a desolate place called Kakuma.
For the UN, it was an emergency of vast proportions, these emaciated children.
For the boys, it was the safest they'd been in five years.
Joseph became a medical assistant at the camp clinic.
Abraham found a job, preaching the gospel in a church built of mud.
The Lost Boys couldn't go home to Sudan and Kenya didn't want them.
Then, in the year 2000, the State Department decided they deserved a break and invited them to come live in the United States.
What we want to do is give you a correct understanding of what life will be like in America.
Before they took off for their new lives in the new world, Sasha Chanoff, a teacher from Boston, gave them a crash course: America 101.
Does anybody know who the president in the U.
S.
is now? George Bush W.
Things they could not imagine, like winter.
This is a little what winter in America feels like.
What does it feel like? It's very cold! Will you die because of that coolness? No, you will not die because of the coolness.
He had three days to prepare them for a leap of a thousand years.
Many of them have never been exposed to lights or to a fork and a knife.
Or seeing a TV.
It's a group that's lost in time.
They had four days to pack their luggage.
They took little, left less behind.
Abraham was taking a book he'd been carrying for 10 years.
You still have the bible that you carried from Ethiopia here? Yes.
It's my life.
I have been called a lost boy.
But I'm not lost from God.
I'm lost from my parents.
As in any farewell, the lost boys were saying, "See you soon," but they knew better.
Kakuma was losing its doctor and its priest.
The boys had never been on a plane before.
They'd never even been on a bus.
Five planes in two days.
First initiation rite: airplane food.
And then changing planes in Brussels -- getting their feet on the ground in the Western world.
Next stop for Joseph Taban and his brothers: Kansas City.
- There it is.
- Oh yeah.
- You see the buildings? - Yeah yeah.
- That is Kansas City.
- I see.
I didn't know that this place is so big like this.
Abraham the preacher man was supposed to go to Chicago but at the last minute that was changed to Atlanta.
Volunteers introduced them to their new apartments, to American mysteries like a sink or a stove.
Don't touch because it burns.
It's hot.
A vacuum cleaner or a can, let alone a can opener.
- You wanna try? - Wonderful machine.
Within a few weeks, Joseph had his first job in a sweltering fabric factory when he got home from work at 11 at night, he stayed up studying for that medical career he'd always dreamed of.
You won't be surprised to learn that Abraham found his salvation in church.
All Saints, one of the largest Episcopal churches in Atlanta.
A month after his arrival, he was invited to be a guest deacon.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
You were terrific Abraham, you were so good.
A big problem was the sheer size of America and everything in it.
Home Depot was a long way from home.
- This store is too big.
- Oh, I know it is.
This is confusing.
Confusing? Try to imagine what a fountain looks like to a man who walked a thousand miles through a desert.
Sasha Chanoff, who taught the boys back in Kenya, said it was not easy for them to distinguish between what was real and what was pure fantasy in America.
They're hearing that people have gone to the moon.
If you're telling me people have gone to the moon, then they're seeing on TV that a horse can talk.
Why is a horse talking so different from someone going to the moon? It's hard for people to distinguish what is reality and what is not.
Some boy saw a street sign that said, "Dead end.
" And they thought, well, if I go down there, am I going to die? Then came 9/11, just a few months after the boys got here.
They thought they had left that kind of thing far behind, forever.
And it seem that war is following us.
Wherever we go, war came after us.
Let's pray.
As it did once again.
The boys weren't surprised by it, not the way Americans were.
For them, Islam and terrorism went together.
Always had.
Their reaction was immediate.
Help the victims.
In Atlanta, they offered to donate blood for the survivors in New York.
But they were turned away.
So, what we did, we did collect some money, two dollars, five dollars.
Because we have nothing.
And we give about four hundred.
- 400 dollars? - Yes.
And that's amazing.
- It really is.
- Yes.
A community with nothing.
People just come from Africa.
But they weren't coming any more.
After 9/11 the flights scheduled to bring over more lost boys were stopped And the boys already here were having a tough time of it.
That dreaded American winter was now upon them.
They'd been warned, but it still came as a shock.
Look! Look! Look! Winter gave them fun times, as well, though -- ice capades.
What Americans call: a learning experience.
And, Christmas, their first.
In America, we call him Santa Claus.
Santa Clau--I've heard of Santa Claus.
He lives in the North Pole and rides reindeer.
Is he from--how do I call these people? - Eskimos.
- Eskimos, yeah.
Well, he's the guy who brings presents to all the children on Christmas.
- He makes kids happy, that's the important thing.
- That's good.
Within a year, a Kansas City investment banker, Joey McLiney, took Joseph under his wing and put him in the saddle.
McLiney offered up his brand new car for Joseph's first driving lesson.
Here we go.
Okay.
Stop, Joseph.
Stop, brake.
Brake, brake, brake.
Brake.
OK don'tLamp post! Hit the brake.
That's the brake.
- Relax.
- I'm so sorry what I make.
Relax.
I'm sorry I made a mess.
That was nearly 12 years ago.
In a moment, we'll give you a picture of the road the Lost Boys have been taking in America.
Before their arrival in America in 2001, the Lost Boys of Sudan knew very little about what would be a totally new world for them.
For the U.
S.
government, it was quite a social experiment.
America may be a country of immigrants, but it's not often that the State Department organizes an airlift of people who know virtually nothing about the modern world.
The Lost Boys were sent all over the place from Fargo, N.
D.
, to Phoenix, Ariz.
Joseph Taban Rufino landed in Kansas City.
Abraham Yel Nhial was sent to Atlanta.
We never forgot about them and their fellow Lost Boys and we felt good when it appeared they hadn't forgotten about us.
Hey, Bob Simon! How're you doing? Long time no see.
How you doing buddy? - Good to see you, man.
- It's been a long time.
We visited the Lost Boys from time to time over the last 12 years -- wanted to be there for the moments they never could have imagined.
- I hereby declare.
- I hereby declare.
On this day, Abraham was one of 92 people from 37 countries to get a new piece of paper.
- Congratulations, you are a United States citizen.
- Thank you.
A Lost Boy who now belongs somewhere.
Do you think of yourself as an American? Yes.
This, this home for me.
Abraham is so proud of his American passport he carries it with him wherever he goes.
The only papers we have-- are from America.
Are you telling me, that passport in that jacket pocket of yours is the first identity paper you've ever had? This is it.
- Before that you had no document at all? - No.
Joseph still hasn't gotten a passport.
His driver's license was stolen from him in Kansas City.
And that was just the beginning.
- You've had your car flooded.
- Right.
- You've been stabbed.
- Exactly.
- You've been hit by a car.
- That's right.
- Your kitchen was set on fire.
- Indeed.
And you like it here.
You know, things, things happen.
There was more bad news at work.
Joseph was laid off a few times from his job at a grain company, a victim of the tough economy.
He's back at work now, and in his small, dimly lit apartment still studies medical books, even while his dream of going to med school is slipping away.
- Do you feel like you've been successful in America? - Not at all.
My main aim was to go to the school in order to be what I've said, to be a doctor.
But things fall apart.
So unless you're a doctor, you will not feel that you are successful? That's true.
Abraham did graduate from college.
It's been a long journey but god blessed me.
After many 4 a.
m.
bus rides to school, he got a degree in biblical studies from Atlanta Christian College.
So, how did you make those roofs? Sasha Chanoff, who led those orientation classes back at Kakuma, now runs an organization called RefugePoint which champions refugees in Africa.
He still stays in touch with the Lost Boys.
I would say this is one of the most successful resettlements in U.
S.
history.
Some of them are in law school.
Some are in medical school.
But of course when you have 4,000 guys or so who arrive, some don't do as well.
Some struggle.
Some have had problems with drugs and alcohol.
A few are in jail.
But some Lost Boys who were orphaned by war, have been wounded fighting for the U.
S.
military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Daw Dekon made it out unscathed.
- So you were in Iraq? Three times? - Three times.
Yes.
He joined the Army after 9/11.
I'm a young man able to hold a gun or to go with other young men in this country who were born here, why not? That's my duty.
So you joined the Army because you wanted to give something back to America? Yes.
Thank you America, I want to let the whole world know Dominic Leek, a friend of Joseph's in Kansas City, wrote a song he says represents the feelings of many Lost Boys.
When I came to this country, I was helped by the government of this country and the people of America.
So, what I did was, I thank them for the opportunity they gave to me and my fellow lost boy.
And we were forced into the river.
Abraham feels he has a mission - to make sure people will not forget.
He speaks at universities across the country.
Here he was at Yale, explaining to students why he believes God kept the boys alive.
God kept us alive to be witness of what took place in Sudan.
That the only thing.
It's not because we were more important than the others, than our mothers, our fathers and brothers who have dies.
But simple is so that we will be witness.
It happened a long time ago, so the Lost Boys don't have too much trouble talking about it, but at night time - Do you have a lot of nightmares? - Oh, indeed, a lot.
During the young age where we were when I was there, we're not supposed to see the dead body, or bury the dead body.
And we did that.
And we did that.
And that's all come, like sometimes in form of dream.
For the Lost Boys, the most momentous news came in July of 2011.
Their long-suffering homeland, South Sudan, was declared the world's newest nation.
- You saw the independent celebrations on your cell phone.
- Yeah.
- How did it make you feel? - Oh, I was overwhelmed, going into tears.
- They were an important factor that led to that independence.
- Hang on.
- They were an important factor that led to that independence? - I think so.
They created a political environment in the U.
S.
where people were finally realizing what was happening in this remote genocide in Sudan that nobody had really heard of on a large scale before.
Not long ago, Sudanese flocked by the hundreds to a town called Aweil for a celebration.
It wasn't Independence Day or anything like that.
They came to a newly built brick cathedral to witness the installation of that preacher named Abraham as the first Episcopal bishop of his region in South Sudan.
A lost boy no more.
It's Bishop Abraham now and who knows what's coming next.
Maybe your next name will be Archbishop? I--I don't know about that.
Abraham divides his time now between Africa and America.
Not only is he an Anglican bishop, but a husband and a father.
Oh, my heavens.
- This is your family.
- Yes.
He goes back to Africa whenever he can to visit his new family.
He got married in Kenya, has four kids, He wants them to join him in Atlanta but red tape keeps getting in the way.
Well, I would love that to happen, Bob.
I've been trying for them to come but they not came.
Maybe one day somebody will, will surprise me, that you and your kids come to America.
Joseph hasn't gone back to Africa, has had no reason to.
His whole family was dead, as far as he knew.
Then, incredible news: his mother Perina was alive, had survived the war, had made it to a refugee camp in Uganda.
And there was another miracle: Skype.
So, a few months ago, Joseph ironed his best suit and went over to his mentor's house.
His mother had been driven three hours to the offices of IOM, the international resettlement agency in South Sudan.
It was the first time mother and son were going to see each other since they were separated by war 25 years ago.
His mother had thought Joseph was dead, had held a funeral service for him.
Even now, she had no idea what he'd been through.
When Joseph tried to tell her, he just couldn't get through it.
But there were light moments too, shared memories of Joseph's happy childhood in a country village before the war ended childhood and everything else.
And, of course, his mother wanted to know why, after all these years, Joseph had not married a nice American girl.
After almost an hour, their time was almost up.
His mother asked Joseph what all mothers ask their sons: When will you come see me? And Joseph answered the only possible answer: As soon as I can mom, as soon as I can.
Go to 60Minutes for the amazing twelve-year journey that our team took with the lost boys.
Now an update on a story we first reported on Easter Sunday, a year ago.
called "Joy in the Congo".
That's when Bob Simon introduced us to one of the most extraordinary musical ensembles we've ever seen.
The Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra of Kinshasa, the capital city of one of the poorest country in the world.
Maestro Armand Diangienda, a former pilot, began the orchestra with neither teachers, instruments, musicians nor anyone who could read music.
But miraculously, they played.
Earlier this month, members of the Kimbanguist Orchestra left their usual home, a rented warehouse in the Congo, for Los Angeles and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
There, the string ensemble performed an original composition for the L.
A.
Philharmonic's conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
These sound great.
Sound great.
Wonderful.
I want to listen more.
This past week, "Joy in the Congo," our original report on the Kimbanguist Symphony, was named a winner, of the Peabody Award.