hospital. avery's passing this quickly came as a complete shock to all of us as she had just been given a thumbs up at ter last doctor's appointment three days ago. he says they never lost hope despite the severity of her condition. >> we've got all the time in the world to cry. we can cry, you know, when she's no longer here. but for now, we want to try and enjoy the time we do have with her and just make memories. >> and now top of the hour, we have breaking news here. the man at the center of will international crisis between the u.s. and china is speaking now to cnn's dan grant standing by live in beijing where chen guangcheng left the sanctuary of the embassy earlier. tell me what he said to you. >> reporter: yeah, have a ordinary. we had a chance to speak to chen guangcheng over the phone from his hospital bed for the last 15, 20 minutes. we also spoke to his wife.

this has been an incredible saga. if you look back at the past week, he escaped house arrest, he took rev few in the u.s. embassy. today it looks as though there was a breakthrough. he walks there the embassy a free man, he was taken to a hospital for medical treatment, reunited with the family. but how there has been a complete back flip. speaking to him, he says he kne feels he's been let down by the united states, that while in the embassy, he was cut off from the news and he was encouraged to leave. when he left, he went to the hospital, he met his wife, and his wife told him what had been happening to her ever since he fled. she told him that the guards who were locking them down in their village took her away, tieder h to a chair and interrogated her, said they were waiting for them with weapons back in their house. chen told me very clearly that if he stays in china, he fears

for his life. initially he wanted to stay in the country. he says he can no longer live it there as a free man. he wants to leave and he wants to leave as soon as possible. he's made this appeal directly to president barack obama himself saying he must do more about human rights in china. he wants to leave china. if he stays here, he says he will not live. as far as his wife is concerned, she says will eays this is not she wants to bring her children up in and she feels they no longer have a future here. a very different story to the one we were hearing earlier from the united states. the u.s. was insisting that he was happy to leave. the u.s. was insisting that this was a deal that they would monitor and he would have a safe future in this country. he's now disputing that, saying the u.s. in fact let him down, he was encouraged to leave without all the information and now he wants to get out of china.

>> you can be more specific, when you say that he says that the u.s. let him down, let him down how? >> reporter: he says he was not given all the information about what was happening on the outside. remember, since he fled, people who have assisted him, some of his supporters, when they've spoken to the media, including cnn, they've been rounded up and arrested. some of them are still under house detention right now. others have been detained and questioned. there have been threats made against his family. he says that his wife as we mentioned was tied up and interrogated, that the message from the local com uhe list officials in his province that they were waiting for them there with weapons. he says she have been told all this pore before information be the embassy. once he beft tleft the embassy, he was at the mercy of the chinese government. they're in the hospital room and his wife ss she's not even free to leave the how was. she doesn't feel safe and the

authorities and guards won't allow her to leave the hospital. she doesn't feel safe and the authorities and guards won't allow her to leave the hospital. in that way he feels let down. he says this can be remedied if the united states opens its doors and allows him to leave here. otherwise as i mentioned before, he was very clear to me if they stay here, he feels that their lives whether be in danger. >> did he slain how he pulled off this escape from being under house arrest, blind, scaling a wall, crossing a creek? and did he have help? >> reporter: what a story, yeah. he did have help waiting to him on the outside. but this is an extraordinary sag d saga. he had planned the escape. he pretended to be sick that he would not be able to move from his bed. he spent hours on his bed asleep pretending to be ill. captors thought he was no threat to them. he used it to listen to them

outside at night. he worked out their movements, where they would go, when they would come back, what times her around. and when he saw his moment under cover of darkness, he made his run for it. remember, a blind man scaling walls, he crossed a river, he'd fallen down repeatedly, it took him one day to get clear. he then found a ran day viendez and her able to bring him to beijing and ultimately to the u.s. embassy. it took several days before the authorities, before the guards actually realized that he'd left. once he'd left, that's when the threat started. that's when the crackdown started on his family. and that's when it was made very clear to his wife if he stayed in the embassy, will they were going to be in danger. he left the embassy in good faith he says, now he feels as though that good faith has been exhausted, that trust has been exhausted. he wants to get out of here. he doesn't trust china and wants to go to the united states. >> so when you talk about how he's angry with the u.s., it that the u.s. misled him and

that after speaking with his wife, that interrogat interrogated, am i to assume that the interrogations happened after he fled house arrest? >> reporter: yeah. there's been a history of brutality and violence. he says this has been going on for some time thousanow. that the guards had scoffed at them and said we're above the law, there's nothing you can do to us. he said this has been going on for a t for the 18 months he was under house arrest. what has happened since is that they increased those efforts, they wanted to know how he got away, who helped him, which is why they took his wife, tied her he says and interrogated her for many hours. which is why he says the message now from the officials is if you stay at the embassy, we're waiting for your wife and family here with weapons in your house. he also said that the guards have said that they installed cameras inside the house where they can watch their every move

and that will be taken back there and never be able to leave again. you must remember, though, of course this is an emotional man. it's 3:00 a.m. here in the morning now. and he is been up for many, many hours. he's been in this extraordinary situation. escaping, hiding out in the embassy, a man whose health has not been great, a man who has been the center of this extraordinary attention around the world. obviously emotion is running very high right now. >> as you bring up husband frustrationses with the u.s. embassy, have you reached out to the embassy, what is the embassy telling cnn? >> reporter: yeah, we've spoken to u.s. officials a little bit earlier in the night and they were insisting that he left the embassy in good faith, they say that they have protocols and that they followed those protocols. they asked him three times separately are you willingly -- are you able to willingly leave the embassy, do you want to go. he said yes to each those requests. i think what we're seeing here is that all sides are telling the truth, but each side does not have the full information.

when he says when he left the embassy, he did not know how bad the situation was outside. he did not know about the threats. he did not know what was being done to his wife. he said what he wished for was that the people inside the embassy had been who are honest with him, that they had kept hick abreast of the news. he was cut off from the news. he didn't knoware honest with him, that they had kept hick abreast of the news. he was cut off from the news. he didn't know the whole story swirling around him and he wanted more information. he feels he made the decision without having all the information in front of him and that he was also encouraged to leave having left the embassy, he's now at the mercy of the chinese government. >> so now even though he feels misled by the united states, he doesn't want to stay in china, he wants to come to the united states as you point out, he's making this appeal to president obama, we heard president obama in a news conference with the prime minister of japan, he was asked about that and the president didn't say very much. just said he was aware of the news reports and that obviously the issue of human rights come up every time the u.s. is speaking with china.

stan grant, i reerappreciate yo reporting there beijing in this whole week even when you were chased away from their home. in the meantime, i want to move along. we have just gotten word that an nfl superstar has reportedly died of a suicide. [ male announcer ] citi turns 200 this year. in that time there've been some good days. and some difficult ones. but, through it all, we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our anniversary matter to you? because for 200 years, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. and the next great idea could be yours. ♪

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i tell you what i can spend. i do my best to make it work. i'm back on the road safely. and i saved you money on brakes. that's personal pricing. cnn has now confirmed the death of nfl superstar junior seau, played something like 19 seasons in the nfl. played for the dolphins, the chargers, the patriots. very, very sad day for i'm sure many of his colleagues within the league. in fact want to bring in mark mcmillion who i understand,

mark, you were friends? just to be clear, junior has passed away reported lly by suicide. i'm sure this is tough to hear for you. >> yes, like i said, i'm still getting texts and phone calls from guys from around the league. so with all the stuff that's coming in, like i said, it's a shocker. this is a long list of guys that continuing to go down this path. i lost another dear friend years ago to a suicide, as well. so it's a tough blow and it's just another wake-up call for the nfl to figure out some ways to help out guys that built this

league and made it the league that it is and make sure these guys have care for once they're done playing. >> help me understand, and as we continue our conversation, i understand there are live pictures now outside of junior seau's home in oceanside. wow, you can see i'm sure this is members of the press, police trying to keep everyone back. so as we look at these pictures, when you bring up that it this should be a wake-up call to the nfl, you have so many fans at these superstar players and you think, wake-up call? these guys are living the dream. what do you mean by that? >> because it's happening more often. like i said, within our era that we played the game and we see the '70s, '80s, '90s, and this won't be the end of it. there will be who are guys that will go down this same path. i know espn did the special on jim mcmahon a couple weeks ago and we played together in

philly, as well. and just to see the condition that he's in, you though, just not knowing what to expect and what's going to happen next. >> but forgive me for interrupting, but what path? what path that they're going down? >> guys committing suicide, guys taking their own lives. last week it was another player from the past on the falcons who committed suicide, as well. i can't remember his name off the top of my head. but this is two suicides within the last two weeks from former nfl players just going trhrough the depression. and i have a good friend who played a long time who is going through lou gehrig's disease. he has als. and from the head trauma from him will, something i worry about with him, as well. hopefully he feels the love and support that he doesn't have to go down this path. and no one knows what was going on in junior's mind but junior. and it's sad and there will be

all kind of speculations and stuff. so hopefully we can get some answers after everything settles down and find out what exactly was going on and with the research that they're able to do now a days on guys' brains, they're able to come to some conclusions. >> mark, forgive me, i know you've justless your friend. i have to interrupt you. we'll follow it up. i have to interrupt you because we have to go to this, newt gingrich speaking live about quitting the race for president. >> -- 179,000 donors who helped us at newt.org. i should single out my brother, randy, and his wife, jill, who are here. randy has gone all over the country campaigning for me and i'm very grateful. and i want to mention that bob walker's wife, barbara, bob was our chairman, we go back to the days in the house. we co-invented the concerted opportunity society. i think we helped co-invent

c-span. we did an amazing number of continui things for a long period. and i also want to thank members of the team who are here who stuck with us through the whole process, which was truly a wild ride. and absolutely despite all the experiences over the years, i could never have predicted either the low points or the high points. it was all just sort of amazing and astonishing. there are key elected officials i want to thank. i talked this morning to majority leader in in iowa who stayed with us through the whole process was the period when we were supposedly dead to when we rebounded to the massive weight of advertising and linda was just spectacular and solidly campaigning all across the state of iowa. and i also want to thank speaker paulson of iowa who was a tremendous help and speaker bill o'brien in new hampshire who

worked very hard and who by the way is a model of balancing the budget the right way. in new hampshire, they first get the revenue number and then they appropriate up to the revenue number. and so they don't start with a spending number and then try too figure out how to find the taxes. they start with what's coming in and figure out what not to spend. and it is a remarkably successful program. and i particularly want to thank governor nathan diehl and the georgia house members who worked for me and in the state ledges late chur in the house and senate. i think one of the high moments of the campaign was carrying georgia by 156 counties to 3 and it gave us a good feel has gone back home we had a very solid base and it was pointed out to me by my daughters today, in carroll county where they both went to high school, we got 60% about of the vote. so it was nice to feel that we had a very strong base of support from the people who knew

us best. i couldn't be here and not thank governor rick perry who he and anita were tremendously helpful and he stood with us all the way through. and towards the end when things got difficult, he said i'm with you until the cows come home. and he said and i'm pretty comfortable as a farmer in texas understanding that. so he stuck with us. and i also want to thank herman cain who was tremendous in campaigning with us. particularly super tuesday. and michael reagan who campaigned for us. and communicated pretty clearly the relationship we had with his dad. and then todd palin who also worked very, very hard. and of course while they weren't directly associated with the campaign, it would be impossible for me on be here and thank everybody without mentioning shelton and maria adelson who came close to matching romney's super pac. and we share a combined concern about the middle east and

combined concern about american security and the survival of israel and they're very good friends. finally, on the thank yous, i have to thankt voters of south carolina and i have to apologize to them. we will have broken their tradition of always picking the nominee. this will make me feel slightly guilty every time we go through south carolina. but they were tremendous. terp we they were well coming. the size of the victory was historic. and we'll always remember south carolina. i suspect our whole people will always remember south carolina because it was a tremendous experience. today i'm suspending the campaign. but suspend aboutiing the campas not mean suspending citizenship. calista and i are committed to being active citizens. we owe to america, we owe to maggie and robert. and in my case, i've been an active citizen since august of 1958. between my freshman and sophomore years in high school, when my dad was serving in in

the army in europe. this august, it will be 54 years that i have worked essentially on three things. one, what does america need to do to be free, safe and prosperous. two, how would you explain that to the american people so they gave you permission to do what is needed. and three, how would you implement the change if the american people gave you permission. starting in 1960 in columbus when high dad was assigned to ft. benning and i was a volunteer in the nixon lodge campaign to the 1964 when i dropped out of college to run a congressional race, to 1974 and '76 when which my daughters remember because we lost twice for congress, once in the middle of water gate and once with jimmy carter at the head of the ticket in georgia. and then from 1978 to 1994, 16 year period of working to build a majority. starting with the capital steps event with ronald reagan will september of 1980, helping

reagan in the eight years he was president with bob walker and others founding the conservative opportunity society, developing a generation of solutions and training through go pac, building the contract with america, which led to the largest one party increase in american history in an off year election. nine million additional votes because the positive campaign actually attracted people and mattered to them. and in that process, we won control of the house for the first time in 40 years and we passed welfare reform working in a bipartisan manner with a democrat in the white house. 19 1996, an even more difficult election. we were the first reelected republican majority since 1928. standing pifirm for lower taxes smaller government and reform.

in that period, we were then able to work with president clinton on four consecutive balanced budgets for the only time in your lifetime. and we did it in a bipartisan manner because we represented the will of the american people. not the will of washington, d.c. from 2001 to 2006, i worked as a volunteer on national security and health issues in the bush administration. and in 2008, we developed an american solutions drill heerks drill now, pay less. and began to raise to the american people the central importance of an american independence energy plan so that no future president would ever again bow to a saudi king. and that we would not be dependent on the strait of hormuz and dealing with the iranians. all over my lifetime, i've tried to move the national debate including 24 books starting with window of opportunity in 1984. calista and i have done seven documentaries.

she's entered the author phase in trying to lead and educate with sweet land in liberty in which the elephant introduces four to eight-year-olds to american history, an effort to fill the vacuum left by all too many modern educators. we're now going to put down the role of candidate and candidate spouse and take back up the roles of active citizens. i actually thought today i happened to get an e-mail and i thought congressman tom cole of oklahoma who i had worked with for many years and had once been the head of the congressional campaign committee, actually captured this moment when he said the following. he said "newt is liberated to do what does he best, adapt conservative views and values to the challenges of the 21st century. in some ways his best days may be ahead of him." we'll focus on a series of key issues and try to find ways to help educate and move the country and to try to educate and move policy in washington, d.c. probably central to awful this

is our deep commitment on american exceptionallism and american history. and our sense that we can't truly be americans if we have amnesia about who we are, where we came from and what principles have made us great. in addition, we'll spend a great deal of time on religious liberty. my newsletter today is specifically on the whole issue of religious liberty a and i appreciate the working relationship we have with human events in developing issues like this. i'll continue to work on american energy independence. this is central to job creation, it is central to our balance of payments. it is central to the strength of the american dollar. it is central to radical islam and if we do it right, we will not only create energy independence with millions of new job, but we this create trillions of dollars of royalties which if we impose discipline on washington could be put into a fund to repay the

national debt and could leave maggie and robert's generation debt free by having a disciplined serious approach to first balancing the budget and then using american energy to pay off the national debt. so in a very real sense, we could be free of both radical islam, saudi king, and chinese bond holders all with the same strategy. in addition, we're going to go to college campuses and talk about personal social security savings accounts for maggie and robert's generation and the historic reality of how brilliantly chile and galveston and who other texas counties have used that model so that people in their generation can have two to three times as large a retirement account while growing the national economy independent of political influence and interference in a system that's much fairer than the current system. we're going to also reemtake size the work ethic. something i know was controversial in each one of our debates. and one of the proposals for

reemphasizing the work et sihic to modernize unemployment compensation to attach to it a training component so if you sign up to get the money, you have to sign up to learn because if you're currently unemployed, you need better job skills. and if you look at north dakota, 3.5% of the population is unemployed and there are 16,000 jobs they can't fill in the oilfield, because the people unemployed don't have the skills for the people in the oilfield. well, there's no reason should you get people 99 weeks for doing nothing. and this is an important national debate about a country which was founded in 1607 by captain john smith saying to aristocra aristocrats, not the poor, citing st. paul, if you don't work, you won't eat. a conversation which led all the aristocrats adopt work as a behavior. but beyond that, i want to come back on one of the projects i feel saddest about not communicating very well and talk about brain research and talk about regenerative medicine. if we reorganize the national

institute of health and if we reorganize the food and drug administration, we can have in a remarkably short time absolute revolutions of better health, more independent living, longer living, and dramatically lower costs. part of the great challenge of washington is how do you take an idea like that and move it from the scientific world where everybody i meet with says it's right into the political governmental world where nobody has a clue what it means. this an enormous challenge to us. and i'll also focus on what a post-obamacare personal health and health care system should be like and take back up something eye work order my entire career and i was before i ran to president the longest serving teacher for one and two star generals in the military. spent 23 years at the national defense university. i will focus again on national security in tli zones. radical islamists, it's nice

that the president broadcast from afghanistan, the center of al qaeda today is yemen. i'm not sure the white house has gotten that briefing yet. but they will eventually. the fact that we assume our opponents are as stupid as our bureaucracy is very dangerous and i think you have to recognize we do not have a grand strategy in this zone. we have to deal with the rise of china which is not automatically a threat, but is a reality. and we have to deal with new technologies that do in fact threaten us, whether it's cyber warfare, electromagnetic pulse. finally on that topic, new technologies, i want to just say i'm cheerfully going to take back up the issue of space. my wife has pointed out to me rox l approximately 219 times give or take three that monday colony was probably not my most clever comment in this this campaign. i thought frankly in my role as providing material for "saturday night live" it was helpful but

the underlying key point is real. the fact is if we're going to be the leading country in the world, we is to be the leading country in space. the fact is our bureaucratic red tape ridden system doesn't work. what i called for is beginning to happen. you may have noticed in the last week the founders of google are now talking about a private sector effort to mine an asteroid and somebody's pointed out it's actually less red tape to mine an asteroid than it is to get through epa in the united states. the space adventure program hopes to actually have a private sector opportunity to circle the moon by 2015. branson has many of you know has a low earth orbit project under way in the private sector. and next week, the nasa building on something george w. bush started and obama has expanded on, nasa this actually be launching a private sector rock rocket in an effort to broaden our capacity. this is a fundamental question

about when this is a country that still dreams and has the courage to say to young people, yes, you ought to go into math and science. that's a better future than methamphetamine and cocaine and i'll argue for a romantic american future of doing things that matter that get to the human spirit. we also they'd to have new models of effective affordable life time learning. and we have to replace the 130-year-old civil service model with modern management systems. this is a big issue that is fundamental to the functioning of the united states. we have an obsolete bureaucratic system that is impossible to make work effectively and yet the forces that support it are going to fight every inch of the way. this may be too big a challenge, but we to need to have a national discussion about how to get congress to be effective. congress has decayed dramatically in the last 20 years. the senate in particular has

become a stunningly dysfunctional institution. this is a really big problem. under our constitution in the long run, if congress doesn't understand things, and can't legislate thing, you can't fix it. and it's really important that we have a much bigger national debate about what an effective 21st century congress would be like and it's something that we will be involved in. because we're going to pursue solutions, we want those solutions to be real. that's going to lead calista and me to campaigning for a republican president, a republican house, a republican senate, republican governors, republican state legislatures. we have to recognize america is a complex mosaic of self government. the presidency matters. but so do all the other offices of self government. if you truly will have a wave of change in america, that wave has to occur in many, many places simultaneous simultaneously. as to the presidency, i'm asked sometimes is mitt romney

conservative enough. and my answer is simple. compared to barack obama? you know, this is not a choice between mitt romney and ronald reag reagan. this is a choice between mitt romney and the most radical leftist president in american history. if you simply take judges and ask yourself who are the kind of people governor romney would be inclined to appointment and who are the kind of people we know barack obama appoints? the gap is as wide as at any point in american history. i would argue it's wider than between ray dweagan and carter. if you look at romney's pledge to cut spending and balance the budget, to work with paul ryan and others on the entitlement crisis, to focus on economic growth by creating private sector jobs, something i would suggest governor romney knows about 60,000 times more than

does president obama, just think about appointing common sense regulators as compared to the obama epa regulator who said it's nice to occasionally crucify an industry because it teaches them a lesson. it would be nice if somebody said it would be nice to work with an industry so they can create jobs. now, you can't get a much bigger gap than those kind of things. a republican sweep this fall would revitalize america just as the reagan sweep of 1980 revitalized america. we have done it before. we can do it again. i always tell people economic recovery will begin late on election night when people realize that obama is gone. and by the next morning, people will make new decisions about investing in hiring. but beyond this election, and i say this to everybody, the

election is just an interim step and then you have the next struggle. we had to work for eight months in 1981 to pass the reagan tax cuts. i mean, look at what's scott walker is going new in wisconsin. if you want really big change, the election just starts the dants. it doesn't end it. and so every conservative should be prepared to work every single day, long beyond this election, to bring to bear the best ideas and to develop the best future. now, i think in the reagan tradition that there is a shining future ahead. i think has gone dmaggie and ro generation whether live in a treer, more prosperous america with greater opportunities. i'm not totally certain i will get to the moon coal lony. i'm certain maggie and -- >> there you have it, 15, 20 minutes new that, somewhere in the middle we did hear newt gingrich say he is suspending his campaign for the nomination for president. i want to bring in matt, patient

sitting alongside with me, adviser of former speaker of the house. so here's my question to you. he finally mentioned the r record, r being romney, and said if people are asking me is he conservative enough, his answer was compared to barack obama. is that a winning endorsement sf is. >> here's what newt was doing. he was building himself up to help mitt romney, but i don't consider that a ringing endorsement. i think he still wants to hold a little bit back. but let's give the man some credit. he ran a strong campaign. he has been a strong leader for r republicans. barack obama is a strong candidate. don't take him lightly. and they better all get together in a stronger around or they're not going to wthis white house. >> he mentioned sorry south carolina. they always pick the nominee.

is this stuff for him to bow out? >> it's absolutely tough. newt gingrich out he was going win. he was so stunned by what happened in florida and the barrage of ads he took on and he couldn't carry it. i think he never really recovered. but he'll be back. he never goes away. >> matt, thank you so much. appreciate it. more on our breaking news here. we have just gotten word nfl superstar junior seau has died. in fact his mother just broke down outside his home. this is $100,000. we asked total strangers to watch it for us. thank you so much, i appreciate it, i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money ?

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tragic loss for the nfl. cnn has confirmed death of junior seau, superstar linebacker, former player for the nfl. the san diego chargers just released a statement, "everyone at the chargers is in complete shock and disbelief right now. we ask everyone to stop what they're doing and send their prayers to junior and his family." and just moments ago, junior seau's mother and sister spoke to the media. here it is. >> junior never do nothing to you guys. but i say today thank you.

i appreciate you show your love to my son. i don't understand who would do this to my son, but i pray to god, please, take me. take me. but it's too late. too late. that's all i say. thank you. thank you so much. god bless you. drive carefully. drive carefully. i don't know what i'm going to do. only god, god give me the power, give me the strength. monday, tuesday, me and my house come and visit him, but he out of town. he talking to me, he joking to

me, now i hear the bad voice on a wednesday morning. he never said something to me. junior -- i break down. take me. take me. leave my son alone. thank you. thank you so much for everybody. god bless you guys. >> on behalf of my brothers and sisters, especially my parents, we would appreciate as a family that you give us some kind of privacy. i know the media, i'm sorry, media, but i know you guys will overblow this. my brother was a loving brother, a caring citizen, so i would appreciate it if you would just honor his last day and give us some kind of peace and privacy.

thank you. >> your name, please. >> i'm junior's sister, annette. >> that was hard to watch. >> yeah. >> junior's mom there obviously distraug distraught. let's go to the police. >> i'm the police chief here in the city of oceanside. this morning at approximately 9:35 hours, our police department received a call from a young lady who indicated that she was junior seau's girl friend. she indicated that she returned to the residence to find mr. seau unconscious, suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest. oceanside police department, fire department, responded to this residence where we located mr. seau in one of the bedrooms. life saving efforts were performed on mr. seau, however,

they were not successful. mr. seau has deceased. this case at this point is being investigated as a suicide, a handgun was found near the body. as you can see, this is still a very fluid situation and our investigators are continuing their investigation in this matter. our hearts and prayers as a city go out to the seau family. i will not be answering any questions at this point, however, lieutenant motta will be back in about 15 minutes to answer any other questions that you may have. thank you very much. >> first you heard from an obviously incredibly distraught mother saying take me, leave my son. you heard from the sister, from the police chief there in oceanside essentially saying that this this was junior seau's girlfriend who found him around 9:30 in the morning unresponsive, found him -- there was a gunshot wound to his chest, tried to perform cpr. ultimately called police.

we'll be talking to another nfl player about the life, the superstar linebacker, and the legacy of junior seau. i'm walt gale, i worked at the colorado springs mail processing plant for 22 years. we processed on a given day about a million pieces of mail. checks, newspapers, bills. a lot of people get their medications only through the mail. small businesses depend on this processing plant. they want to shut down 3000 post offices, cut 100,000 jobs.

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breaking news on the death of nfl superstar linebacker junior seau. he played for the patriots, the chargers, the dolphins. according to the police chief there in the oceanside community in california in which he lived, they are investigating this death as a homicide. i want to bring in a former player, played for the bills and falcons. forgive me, what did i say? excuse me. being investigated as a suicide. as a suicide. i misspoke. coy, on the phone with me, just in terms of his passion as a player, junior seau, he was an inspiration on the field, yes? >> he was the inspiration for the teams of which he was a

part. his unbridled passion was really unpre unprecedented. you see the way he played the game, he played with such vigor, inspiration, motivation for not being there for himself, but players around the league and tried to emulate this guy. he played the way it was meant to be laid. >> he w played. >>est in in the moth pro balls of any player. >> that's right. there has not been a player take who has been to more pro bowls than this guy. so aside from the passion and the way he played the game, just from a performance standpoint, stellar, stellar career. there wasn't a linebacker or any other player for that matter in this sport that did it better than him. 12 pro bowl appearances for junior seau. >> off the field, coy, what kind of man was he? >> off the field, you know, you

hear all about his philanthropic efforts and the foundation he established especially in the san diego area. did so much for the community there. that's the second thing you think about when you hear the name junior seau, what kind of person he was from a philanthropic standpoint. he was paramount in the nfl for setting the tone and the standard for what an thfl laynf should be on and off the field. >> i was talking to another player and he was bringing up the point that too many players recently are going down this path, this path being suicide. again, they're investigating this as suicide and my question was it's just difficult for fans to understand you're living this amazing life, you point out he was so inspirational on and off the field. and it just begs the question why. what could happen to someone perhaps deep down within a player to take a turn? >> it's only speculation that this is a brain trauma related, but if it is, this is going to

speak volumes about what we're speak s seeing through the bounce itity scandal and other issues that we're finding to be prevalent among former players when it comes to long term adverse effects of playing the game. when you talk about chronic repetitive blows to the head. if there a link, brooke, this is going awareness and cognizance to the reality of playing the sport of football and that we're in an evolution, a necessary evolution of the game to make it safer for the future as players. >> we don't know. that is speculation, so i'm not going to go there, but we will continue to watch the investigation and see what details do begin to emerge. again, just to reiterate, according to oceanside police where the neighbors were responding to an emergency call from seau's girlfriend saying he apparently died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. junior seau was 43.

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>> time now for the "help desk" where we get answers to your financial questions. greg olson is from lennox advisers and lynnette is at the moneycoach.com. thanks for coming in today. lynette, first question to you. this comes from aaron in michigan and is a member of the u.s. navy. he wants to know how he can start planning for retirement. always good to start at 30. hats off to him for starting to plan at such an early age. a couple of things he should keep in mind, go ahead and get

started for whatever it is you want to do, mutual fund, individual stocks and bonds. sometimes people who are younger think they have to have a big lump sum or a lot of money to invest. take the slow and steady approach. also, he wants to take advantage of any potential military benefits that might be available over the long haul and those kind of things can add up over time. he has decade, potentially, until retirement and take the slow and steady approach and make she's he's broadly diversified and don't just jump into one asset class or one individual investment. >> even if it looks attractive at the moment. >> greg, your question comes from trace ney wheaton, illinois. tracy wrote in that she's planning on getting marri soon. how should she and her fiancee merge their finances and i guess the question is should they? >> as a financial adviser and a happily married man i'm amply qualified to answer the question. i would say slowly. >> okay. >> take baby steps. this is not a hard, fast rule here. this is more of a feel question. maybe start by opening a joint

checking account together and paying the bills and maybe switch to opening an investment account together. the best advice i can give you, though, is do it slowly and wait until you get married. planning for the wedding is stressful enough. >> it certainly is, i can tell you that. thank you guys both very much. if you have a question send us an e-mail to cnnhelp desk@cnn.com.

we are continuing our breaking news here. it's a sad, sad day for the nfl, for both the league and fans as well of junior seau. he was just 43 years of age and according to oceanside police he was found dead by his girlfriend early this morning in his oceanside home by an apparent gunshot wound to the chest and they are investigating this as a

suicide. he was a superstar both on and off the field from what i'm understanding from folks who have already been on the show, former players. i want to bring in someone who knew him, neil man was the executive producer of the show called "sports jobs." this was a show where you featured different athletes and you featured junior seau at one point in time. tell us about the piece you did on him. >> actually junior was the star of the show. it was called "sports jobs with junior seau." it aired on versus and he was the star of the show. >> forgivy me me for not knowin that. he was the star on the field, philanthropically and the star on the show. "sports jobs." what kind of person was he? >> i used to refer to him as the mayor. everyone knew who he was. he was well liked by everybody.

he had just retired the season -- he had just finished the season and retired from the nfl and we started shooting in the summer and he got picked back up by the patriots and we were shooting a show while he was playing in the nfl at the same time and i saw him as a regular person and as a player. it was very interesting. >> when you talk about his time in the league, how would you speak about his time on the field? he loved it longingly. how would you qualify that? >> actually, longingly is a great word because we started shooting the show in the summer and he was technically retired and he was in talks to go back with the patriots for one more season, and i could tell that he sort of missed being on the field and he wanted it back on and he would do one more season with the patriots which he ultimately did, but i knew even after that he would be thinking about it forever and he was a big surfer and every day he would go surfing and he was talking about playing in the nfl. >> he was a surfer.

you call him the mayor. i was reading a newspaper article in the commercial calling him a local hero and he gave so much to the community and it was the junior seau foundation. why does he care so much about people, it sounds like? >> he just had a connection. he was one of those guys who just, you know, you could meet him for a second and you could feel like you knew him for years. he really lit people up in the room, and i think he really, genuinely enjoyed being that guy that people looked up to and so, you know, he was a perfectionist for sure, no question about that with his work in television and also in football. he could become super simple and make everyone be a teddy bear. >> a teddy bear off the field and rough guy on the field doing as well as he did. the most pro bowls of any professional player. when was the last time you talked to him, neil?

>> last year. >> how did he sound? >> i'm sorry? >> how did he sound? >> you know, fine. we communicated obviously all of the time during the show and then after the show finished it was just sort of e-mails and occasional conversation. he talked about his golf tournament that he had coming up and we talked about that. >> i'm sorry -- >> he was enjoying his retirement. >> he was enjoying his retirement. what was he up to? >> surfing. that was his thing. he had a real passion for surfing, and so every time -- it seemed like every time we talked about oh, he was hitting a wave and that seemed to be it for him. >> neil as you hear this news, what are the first few thoughts that cross your mind knowing this is a fairly gregarious guy off the field, a good guy, loves to surf and now you hear police are investigating his apparent death, reported suicide, what was your first thought? >> you knot'