Untested Ebola drugs pass hurdle

• NEW: Canada to offer WHO up to 1,000 doses of experimental Ebola vaccine


• WHO panel: It is ethical to offer unproven medication to try to fight Ebola


• Pair who took an experimental drug appear to be improving, but one man who took it died


• Sample doses of the experimental drug ZMapp are on their way to Liberia

(CNN) -- The first two doses of an experimental serum created to treat Ebola went to American missionaries.

Then the drug was sent to treat a Spanish priest.

The two Americans, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, appear to be recovering. The priest, Miguel Pajares, died Tuesday morning.

That's the problem with experimental drugs that have never been clinically tested in humans: No one knows whether they'll work -- and if they do, in whom.

This week, the World Health Organization gathered a group of ethicists to decide whether proven medications and vaccines should be used in the current Ebola outbreak. As the death toll from the epidemic soared over 1,000, the WHO panel unanimously concluded that it is ethical to offer medications to fight the Ebola virus, even if their effectiveness or adverse effects are unknown.

Why Ebola drug isn't available in Africa

Ebola treatment raises ethical questions

How the experimental Ebola serum works

"The large number of people affected by the 2014 west Africa outbreak, and the high case-fatality rate, have prompted calls to use investigational medical interventions to try to save the lives of patients and to curb the epidemic," the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

WHO says it believes the virus has infected 1,848 people and killed 1,013, making this the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history.

The difference between this outbreak and other Ebola outbreaks is that traditional methods of stopping the virus from spreading -- protective gear, contact tracing, etc. -- don't seem to be working fast enough, said Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO's assistant director-general. The health care systems in the affected countries are also weak, so resources are scarce.

"If these treatments can save lives ... should we not use them to save lives?" Kieny said the panel asked.

Desperation has pushed Liberia's government to ask for the experimental serum used to treat the Americans and Spanish priest, in order to treat two local doctors.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Liberia's request for access to ZMapp, which was created by the San Diego-based biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. Sample doses of the medicine will be sent to Liberia this week to treat doctors who have contracted the virus, the Liberian government said.

Mapp Biopharmaceutical said Monday that its supply has been exhausted after fulfilling the request of a West African country. (It did not name the country.) Kentucky BioProcessing, which manufactures a version of the drug, is working to increase production of ZMapp, but the process will take several months, company spokesman David Howard said last week.

"There are not adequate supplies of any of the investigational agents anywhere near ready for human use," said Dr. Jesse Goodman, director of the Center on Medical Product Access, Safety and Stewardship at Georgetown University Medical Center, referring to all drugs being developed to treat Ebola.

"Not (adequate) to treat all the patients in this outbreak, even if we knew they worked."

A vicious killer

Ebola can torment its victims with high fevers, internal and external bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea. It often afflicts multiple organ systems and can kill up to 90% of those infected.

The virus spreads through contact with organs and bodily fluids such as blood, saliva and urine.

Since the current Ebola epidemic was declared in Guinea in March, the disease has spread to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.

And the impact has spread around the world.

Cynthia Sangbai-Kwennah, a native of Liberia living in Minnesota, has lost nine family members to Ebola in less than two months.

"Every time you pick up the phone and you receive a call ... this family is dead, this person is dead," Sangbai-Kwennah told CNN affiliate WCCO.

First her father perished. Then other relatives who had been taking care of him. Sangbai-Kwennah even lost her younger sister, who had just recently graduated from college.

"Your entire family die in a month and a half," she said. "It's just so scary. I'm just so confused. I don't even know what to do."

There are several experimental drugs and vaccines being created for Ebola, Kieny said, though none has been through the necessary human trials to prove safety and efficacy. And none of them is currently available in unlimited supply. This outbreak, she said, is an opportunity to right a wrong.

"The fact that there is no drug for Ebola is a market failure. This is typically a disease of poor people in poor countries where there is no market."

Canada to send its own vaccine

Canada is offering to help fill the void.

Health Minister Rona Ambrose announced her government will donate between 800 and 1,000 doses of an experimental vaccine to WHO. A "small supply" will be kept at home "in the unlikely event it is needed for compassionate use in Canada," the Public Health Agency said in a news release.

The drug -- called VSV-EBOV -- is Canadian-made and owned, having been developed by the National Microbiology Laboratory.

It's never been tested on humans, "but has shown promise in animal research," the agency states. A Canadian government ethics advisory group and the WHO panel of medical ethics experts both "informed" the decision to give out VSV-EBOV, despite its "unknown efficacy and adverse effects."

Will it work is just one of the key questions surrounding VSV-EBOV. As with ZMapp, other questions include how and on whom it should be used.

Questions about drug access

The gulf between developed and developing nations appeared to some to widen last week as reports emerged that the Ebola drug was being used to treat Westerners but not West Africans.

"What if it had killed both of them?" Paul Root Wolpe, director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University in Atlanta, said about the two Americans first treated with ZMapp. "It is only because it worked, seemingly very well, that people are screaming, 'How come people in Africa didn't get it?' "

Wolpe said that considering the converse situation could provide some perspective.

"If the first people (to receive doses of ZMapp) would have been Liberian, headlines would have screamed, 'Experimental drug tested on poor Africans,' " Wolpe said.

But the nagging question for some: Was giving the serum to Africans even a consideration? Should it have been?

"Why didn't Dr. Sheik Umar Khan, the chief Sierra Leone physician who died while treating Ebola patients, receive this medication?" Harriet Washington wrote in a recent CNN Opinion piece. "Because another method of determining who gets medications is at work here -- the drearily familiar stratification of access to a drug based on economic resources and being a Westerner rather than a resident of the global South."

WHO will convene a panel at the end of the month to discuss who should get priority access to the experimental drugs, Kieny said. WHO will not broker access, she noted, meaning it will not be responsible for doling out doses. It will simply provide information about companies that have quantities available to people or government agencies that are asking.

Drug safety concerns

More relevant than who got what and when, experts say, are questions about the safety of the current crop of experimental Ebola drugs. For ZMapp and other Ebola drugs currently in the pipeline -- like TKM-Ebola by Tekmira Pharmaceuticals -- there are not good, substantive data in humans to support their use.

"Usually, you treat large numbers of sick people to be sure something isn't going to hurt them," said Goodman, former chief scientist with the Food and Drug Administration. "So while it seems at first glance that two individuals getting something promising in animals and then improving, is convincing, I don't think it's yet convincing. I think it's hopeful."

Wolpe, Washington and Goodman agree that careful study should precede widespread dissemination of any Ebola drug and that Africans should be represented in those studies.

"If (ZMapp) turns out to be as effective as it seems to be, and it's possible to make much more of it, then we end up with a situation where it becomes unethical to withhold treatment," Wolpe said.

"We should do everything we can to nip this epidemic in the bud."

Ebola outbreak likely started with 2-year-old in Guinea

Nine things to know about the Ebola virus

Treating Ebola in Sierra Leone: 'We are two steps behind'

CNN's Carol Jordan, Greg Botelho, Nana Karikari-apau, Hazel Pfeifer, Danielle Dellorto and Samuel Burke contributed to this report.

Campaign flight charged to taxpayers

Sen. Mary Landrieu used government money to charter a plane to travel to a campaign fundraiser, in violation of federal law.

• $3,200 plane flight bill paid from Senate budget instead of campaign account


• Landrieu's office says vendor billed wrong account, mistake has been fixed


• Aide says media scrutiny of expense reports spurred a review of travel records

(CNN) -- Sen. Mary Landrieu made headlines last November when she hitched a ride home on Air Force One with President Obama, but chose not to attend his event in New Orleans. Another lesser-known flight Landrieu took that same day mistakenly cost taxpayers more than $3,000.

CNN has learned that the vulnerable Louisiana Democrat used government money to charter a private plane to travel to a campaign fundraiser, in violation of federal law.

Landrieu spent more than $3,200 in taxpayer money to fly 400 miles round trip from New Orleans to Lake Charles, Louisiana, where she attended a $40-per person fundraising lunch with hundreds of women, according to Senate records and Landrieu campaign information. It is illegal to spend government money campaigning.

Landrieu's campaign spokesman, Fabien Levy, said in a statement that the charter company mistakenly billed Landrieu's Senate office instead of her re-election campaign. Levy said the campaign noticed the error a few weeks ago and asked the company to refund the Senate office and bill the campaign, which the company did. Levy said Landrieu's re-election campaign paid for the flight August 4, almost nine months after the November 8 trip.

"We take our finances very seriously and are glad we caught the vendor's mistake and were able to rectify the matter as soon as possible," Levy said.

The campaign didn't notice the mistake until July 29. Two days later, on July 31, USA Today published a story showing that Landrieu was one of the Senate's most frequent fliers, spending $47,000 last year on taxpayer-funded charter flights. Levy told CNN that media scrutiny of Senate office expense reports spurred the campaign to review its travel records.

Even though the mistake was corrected, the campaign still violated federal law and could face civil fines, said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan campaign watchdog.

"It is the senator and the senator's staff responsibility to comply with federal laws. It's not the job of the vendor, per se," Ryan said. "It sounds like their excuse is, 'We didn't do anything wrong; it's the vendor.' It's the job of the senator and her staff not to pay bills out of a Senate office account if those bills were not for Senate business."

Ryan argued that even though Landrieu fixed the error, the law should still be enforced.

"If senators were allowed to pay for their campaign expenses out of taxpayer dollars that challengers don't have access to, that's a major unfair advantage to incumbents," he said.

Landrieu took the charter flight the same day Obama delivered a speech on the economy in New Orleans. The senator cited her busy schedule as the reason she didn't accompany the President in her hometown.

"I was hosting a lunch in Lake Charles for 300 women and I wasn't going to stand them up. I'm sorry I couldn't be with the President," she told CNN's Wolf Blitzer a few days later.

At the time, Obama was under fire for the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov and breaking his promise that people could keep their health insurance coverage under Obamacare.

Landrieu's decision not to attend his event was widely seen as an acknowledgment that the President, who was already deeply unpopular in Louisiana, was a political liability for the vulnerable Democrat, especially since she cast a pivotal vote in support of Obamacare.

2013: Jesse Jackson Jr., wife plead guilty to charges involving campaign funds

Facebook makes games reveal charges

Games on Facebook will be required to reveal in-app purchases and quit bonuses for liking their pages under new rules.

• Facebook will make games that have in-app purchase announce it up-front


• Games also can no longer give rewards for liking their page


• Developers have 90 days to comply with the new rules

(CNN) -- Facebook games will have to reveal any in-app charges and will no longer be allowed to give players bonuses for "liking" their pages under new rules rolled out for developers this week.

The changes were part of a new version of the platform developers use to build games and other apps and share them with Facebook users. The developers will have 90 days to comply with the new rules.

So-called "freemium" games and other apps have become a popular choice for developers using Facebook or other platforms, like Apple's iOS and Google's Android mobile operating systems.

Instead of paying for an app up front, players may download a game for free. In most cases, they can then play a basic version of that game, but get access to new content or in-game items that help their progress by paying.

Facebook experiment rankles users

Bride: Here's why you're NOT invited

'Likes,' 'pokes' and more: Facebook at 10

In addition to being arguably deceptive, this approach also has brought attention through several cases in which children have unknowingly racked up thousands of dollars worth of charges by making purchases in games that their parents didn't realize allowed that option.

"If your game includes mandatory or optional in-app charges, explain this in your app's description," Facebook's new rule reads.

The curb on encouraging "likes" appears to be an effort by Facebook to keep developers from artificially inflating the popularity of their games.

On Facebook, a page's popularity is judged, in part, by the number of likes, posts, comments and shares it gets. More popular pages rank higher in the site's search results and are shown to more users.

It's not uncommon for games to offer players extra in-game items for liking their page.

But intentionally pumping up a page's popularity is a problem Facebook has been working to control. In the worst case scenario, "like farming" is being done by someone who shares content with no other purpose than to make it go viral.

Once the page has gotten lots of likes, the owner can strip it down and change it to a page promoting a product or service or even sell it to someone else on black-market sites.

Facebook has worked to crack down on that practice with tools including one that devalues any post that specifically asks users to like or share it.

Facebook: Get Messenger app or else

Facebook treats you like a lab rat

This matters? It's a ... zonkey

New baby zonkey Telegraph hangs out with his zebra mom at the Taigan zoo park in southern Crimea. Strange. No sign of his deadbeat donkey dad. What an ass.

Telegraph's identity crisis will ultimately result in years of therapy.

"Are you looking at my mom's butt? That's just gross, dude."

"Mom, why do the other kids call me Zebroid?"

"Seriously? No XBox for a week? I said I was sorry."

• A baby zonkey was recently born at a zoo in Crimea


• The mother was a zebra, and the father was a donkey


• The newborn is named Telegraph in honor of a local newspaper

Editor's note: Each week in "Apparently This Matters," CNN's Jarrett Bellini applies his warped sensibilities to trending topics in social media and random items of interest on the Web.

(CNN) -- Despite all the political tension in Crimea, it's nice to know things are still safe enough at the zoo for a zebra to get it on with a donkey.

Because, really, in some weird, small way, it's a symbol of hope. Like an olive branch. Except, in this case, it's a zebra ... getting it on with a donkey.

But as odd as it may sound, things (ahem) worked out, and now we have an adorable new reminder of what can happen when we put aside our differences for the shared goal of peace and love.

And Doing It.

That living, breathing reminder is a beautiful baby "zonkey" named Telegraph, who recently came into the world at the Taigan Zoo park near Crimea's main city, Simferopol.

"Apparently This Matters" Is Jarrett Bellini's weekly (and somewhat random) look at social-media trends.

Of course, a zonkey is just what it sounds like. Half zebra. Half donkey. Possibly even part lion depending on what kind of shenanigans were going on inside the stall.

(And if you accept my rather misguided understanding of how conception works.)

But one thing that's perfectly clear is that this little guy is ridiculously cute. And everyone is talking about him.

So, it sort of makes sense that Telegraph was named for a local newspaper, honoring the publication's fifth anniversary. Though, when you think about it, that may or may not be a compliment to the publication.

"Congrats. We named an ass after you."

Either way, Telegraph is just lucky to be alive. Although cross-breeding of equines is not unheard of, it is rather rare and unconventional. And proper zoos aren't overly keen on the idea.

Photos: Zonkeys and ligers and pizzles

But this facility says that toying with nature was never a part of the plan.

You see, Telegraph's mother -- the zebra -- was uncomfortable in her enclosure and had been without a mate for quite a while. Presumably, she spent most of her time being bitter with the other single girls in book club.

View my Flipboard Magazine.

Eventually, the zoo moved the lonely zebra into a different part of the complex where she could be surrounded by other hoofed animals.

This included her dream donkey.

Mind you, it's also possible that she was simply desperate and the donkey was drunk.

"I like your stripes."

"What?"

"I SAID I LIKE YOUR STRIPES!"

No matter how it all went down, we're all thankful. Because now we have this silly looking thing with a brown upper body and zebra legs. And visitors to the zoo are absolutely loving him.

Of course, to be fair, all baby animals tend to be a big draw. Especially when you look like you've been pieced together with spare parts.

Think about it.

An adorable baby polar bear with a tortoise shell would pretty much stop the world from spinning. Darwin would be cheering from his grave. And scientists might go crazy trying to figure out just how the hell that actually happened.

Now, picture them with tortoise shells.

Steve would finally own up to it.

"I'm sorry! I was bored. I fed them bourbon."

But, no matter the species, whenever you get a cute baby cross-breed, you sort of have to enjoy it while you can. Generally speaking, hybrid animals don't reproduce.

They tend to be infertile.

(It's a science thing. I don't quite get it. Mr. Ware tried to teach me in high school, but I was far more interested in depriving others of their education.)

That said, being infertile might not be such a bad thing if, say, you're a rather confident liger and you do well at the clubs.

Child support ain't cheap. Liger on!

Anyway, that's the story of a cute little zonkey who is currently enjoying his 15 minutes of worldwide Internet fame.

Telegraph, we like your stripes.

"What?"

WE LIKE YOUR STRIPES!

Follow @JarrettBellini on Twitter.

See more content with questionable news value at CNN Comedy.

Boy missing since 1940 ID'd

• George Owen Smith went missing in 1940 after being sent to Florida boys school


• After bodies exhumed from site, Ovell Krell learns that one is long-lost brother


• Dozier School for Boys closed in 2011 after ex-students reported decades of abuse


• Krell says even at age 12 she never believed claims her brother died of pneumonia

(CNN) -- On their deathbeds — her father's in the 1960s and her mother's in the 1980s — Ovell Krell's parents made her promise she'd never stop looking for her brother.

"Will you find Owen and bring him back?" she recalls her dad asking.

"I'll try until the day I die, Daddy," she replied.

After more than seven decades, the 85-year-old has found Owen. She hopes to soon lay him to rest at the Auburndale, Florida, cemetery where her parents are buried.

Digging up answers to a 50 year mystery

Florida to exhume bodies at former school

Unmarked graves at school to be exhumed

Boys' graves might hold answers

Her mom, after all, instructed her, "Put him with me and daddy."

George Owen Smith was sent at age 14 to the Florida Industrial School for Boys in 1940 for car theft. Krell never saw him again, and her family was told he died of pneumonia after running away from the school and hiding under a house in town.

The school, located in Marianna, about 65 miles west of Tallahassee, is now known as Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. When it closed in 2011 for budgetary reasons, it capped a chilling, 111-year legacy of brutality.

The dig

Aware of the school's history, Erin Kimmerle, a University of South Florida forensic anthropologist, led a team in 2012 that unearthed remains on the former campus. That bodies lay there was no secret -- 31 rusty, white crosses marked the resting places of victims who died from a dormitory fire, influenza, pneumonia and other causes -- but Kimmerle's team found 55 bodies on the 1,400-acre property.

Owen's body, the team found out last month, was the first to be pulled out of the ground. The university announced the finding Thursday.

"We hope it's the first of many identifications to come," Kimmerle said.

After sending DNA samples to the University of North Texas' Health Science Center, Kimmerle got a call July 25, telling her that one of the samples was a positive match for Krell, who, like other family members, had provided reference samples to researchers.

Kimmerle, who was chief forensic anthropologist for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and has worked to excavate mass graves all over the world, including in Nigeria and Peru, was elated.

"Two years ago, (Krell) was inspirational to us to get involved and do this work. To find her brother and to find him first, we were all a little bit in shock," she said.

She drove to Lakeland with officers from the Hillsborough Sheriff's Department to tell Krell in person -- out of respect, but also because she didn't want Krell to be alone when she got the news.

"It was a total and complete surprise. It shocked me totally numb for a moment. I couldn't say a word. I just looked at her," Krell said. "This, to me, is a miracle because when I think of all the boys and all the graves -- I know they sent 55 remains to be tested, and I'm the only one where they found a match?"

Unfortunately, researchers still don't know how Owen died. It's unclear whether the medical examiner will be able to determine a cause of death, Kimmerle said, and Florida's District 14 medical examiner Michael Hunter did not return a call seeking comment.

Krell said she can't muster enough kind words for Kimmerle and her team -- "Through cold and hot weather, they kept digging away" -- but Krell's persistence shouldn't be discounted.

Dogged pursuit of the truth

Years ago, Krell became worried that her brother's story might go to the grave with her, so she thought, "I've got to write all this down while it's in my mind."

This is a stupid story to tell. ... It was all a bunch of lies.

Ovell Krell

She jotted down what she knew and sent it to the governor, media, FBI, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, anyone she thought might be able to help find out what happened to Owen.

The St. Petersburg Times produced a 2009 special report, "For their own good," and the FDLE opened a 2008 investigation at the behest of then-Gov. Charlie Crist.

Though ex-students provided detailed accounts of vicious beatings, sexual abuse and disappearances (Kimmerle's team found records indicating 22 boys who died at the school weren't accounted for), guards and administrators who are still alive denied the beatings.

The FDLE concluded there was insufficient evidence of physical or sexual abuse or that anyone died as a result of a criminal act.

"I really had begun to give up hope that they'd ever find him," Krell said.

At age 12, Krell thought the stories about her brother were baloney. Even his arrest seemed fishy. Car theft? Owen was 14 and had never been behind the wheel of a car. Automatic transmissions weren't as prevalent in those days. You had to know how to work a clutch and shift gears.

Despite coming from a loving but poor family, Owen ran away more than once. He always wanted to play in Nashville's "Grand Ole Opry." His passion was guitar, but "he could walk into any music store and play any instrument" without taking a single lesson, Krell said.

Krell suspects he was en route to Tennessee when he was arrested in Tavares, Florida, with a 19-year-old man.

"Owen had the wanderlust because he had so much in his body to give, and he just wanted to go out there and give it," she said. "He had God-given talent coming out of the pores of his skin. ... I never understood why God let him be born with that talent and let him be taken away like that."'

'I got what was coming to me'

Owen ran away a few weeks after arriving at the Florida Industrial School for Boys. He was quickly apprehended and wrote home to tell his family about it.

Krell remembers one chilling sentence in the letter: "I got what was coming to me."

"Those were the most ominous words," she said. "After that letter, we never heard from him again."

Her mother wrote the school, inquiring as to his whereabouts. She was told he'd run away again.

"So far we have been unable to get any information concerning his whereabouts. We will be glad to get in touch with you just as soon as we are able to locate George, and in the meantime, we will appreciate your notifying us immediately if you receive any word from or concerning him," Superintendent Millard Davidson wrote in January 1941.

Her mother wrote the school and said she would be traveling to Marianna, a five-hour drive today, "and she would not leave until she knew what happened," Krell recalled.

Was he really dead or was he out there wandering around, afraid to come home?

Ovell Krell

"Four months he was missing before my mother threatened to start investigating, and the day before she arrives, they very mysteriously find his body under a house, totally-and-completely-beyond-recognition decomposed."

School officials told the family they'd found Owen under a house in Marianna, where he'd caught pneumonia and died. Nonsense, a younger Krell thought.

"What 14-year-old boy would lay under there, get pneumonia and not come out?"

And why would Owen stay in Marianna after escaping the school? Wouldn't he want to get as far away as possible?

Also, her brother was terrified of the dark. Krell wasn't -- "I've never been scared of the devil himself" -- and her brother knew it, so when the two came back from errands or the theater as night fell, Owen would clutch the hand of his little sister, two years his minor, to calm his own fears.

"They told us he crawled under a dark house to die. ... This is a stupid story to tell," she said. "It was all a bunch of lies."

A blessing to be shot?

One of the students at the school would later tell Krell he was with Owen when he ran away from the school a second time. The two were caught, the former student told her, and Owen took off running, three men firing rifles at him as he scampered across an open field.

"If they shot him and killed him that night, I'd consider it a blessing because I know now what they did to him if they got him back to that school alive," she said.

Though the state investigation said there insufficient evidence of abuse, dozens of men, many of them now senior citizens, have come forward with their stories. A support group for ex-students, dubbed The White House Boys, takes its moniker from the structure where boys say they were taken to be beaten with a leather strap attached to a wooden handle.

The White House Boys say they were whipped until their underwear was embedded in their buttocks. Some were beaten unconscious. Crying or screaming out would earn you extra lashes, they say.

"The more I learned, the more I knew his death didn't happen under that house. It just didn't," Krell said.

The mystery surrounding Owen's death -- and the fact his family never received his body; school officials said he'd been buried on campus -- robbed the family of any closure.

Krell's mother would stay up till midnight at times, listening for Owen whistling as he walked down the road. Decades after his death, when Krell and her mother saw a country music singer named George Owens on TV, they thought, "Could it be?"

They investigated. It wasn't.

I wanted so bad to do what I promised my parents.

Ovell Krell

"Was he really dead or was he out there wandering around, afraid to come home?" Krell couldn't help but think, "One day, I'll have a knock at the door." It never came.

"Everyone ought to be ashamed"

Owens' death may have guided Krell into a career in law enforcement. She spent 23 years as a Lakeland police officer, and she often spent her free time in the detectives' bureau and forensic department studying things like decomposition times in different weather conditions.

She had a chance to go into forensics. She was even invited to the FBI school, a six-week program. She never pursued it because she had to care for her quadriplegic husband and three children, but her time in law enforcement reinforced one thing: Owen didn't die under a house.

She parses no words discussing the "piss-poor" state investigation that never brought an investigator to her door and that flew in the face of a century-long paper trail of barbarous discipline (a 1903 report stated boys were kept in leg irons, while a 1911 report said the boys were "brutally punished" with a leather strap, according to the St. Petersburg Times special report).

"The town of Marianna, they ought to be ashamed. Everyone ought to be ashamed, the whole state of Florida," Krell said.

Though she's overjoyed at the prospect of giving Owen a proper burial after 74 years, it's bittersweet. The week after Owen was identified, she lost her brother, Carlton, 70, after a long battle with illness.

Krell will look on the bright side, she said.

"Maybe this is better. Now, we can get both of them laid to rest, and we can relax," she said.

Despite losing Carlton, she's still buoyed by fulfilling her parents' dying wish, and she believes in her heart that they'll be smiling down on her when Owen is placed in the ground between them.

"I wanted so bad to do what I promised my parents," she said. "I can't help but believe it in my soul: I believe my mom and dad are going to know about that. ... They always were proud."

In 2013: Dig at former Florida reform school yields parts of coffin, bone fragments

CNN's Rich Phillips and Ed Lavandera contributed to this report.

J.K. Rowling writes to grieving teen

• Stay had quoted Dumbledore at memorial


• She is the sole survivor of her family tragedy


• Rowling sent a care package including a wand and an autographed book

(CNN) -- J.K Rowling has recast her "Harry Potter" magic and reportedly brought Dumblebore back to life.

A spokesperson for the author confirms Rowling sent a letter and a package to a Texas teenager who optimistically found strength in the words of a "Harry Potter" film after witnessing the murder of her immediate family.

Fifteen-year-old Cassidy Stay lost both parents and four siblings to a gunman in Texas last month. Cassidy was shot in the head and survived the gunshot wound only because she played dead. Authorities have called her survival a miracle.

Cassidy had seen the unimaginable, but was still thinking about happiness. At a memorial for her family, Cassidy gave a speech in front of media saying she believed her family was "in much a better place."

Cassidy Stay 'needs a lot of support'

Lone shooting survivor remembers family

July 23 marks Daniel Radcliffe's 25th birthday. He and his "Harry Potter" co-stars graduated from the franchise in 2011, but there's a plan for additional films set in the Potter-verse, including a spinoff based on a fictional Hogwarts textbook. Radcliffe, who has been busy with movies such as "Kill Your Darlings," doesn't plan to make an appearance. But what's the rest of the cast up to these days?

Since portraying sharp witch Hermione in the "Harry Potter" series, Emma Watson has broken away from the supernatural with roles grounded in the (mostly) real world. After "My Week With Marilyn," "The Perks of Being A Wallflower" and "The Bling Ring," the 23-year-old actress also showed her sense of humor in Seth Rogen's outlandish summer comedy, "This Is the End."

Rupert Grint kept it fairly low-key after he ended his 10-year run as one of Harry Potter's best friends, Ron Weasley. The 25-year-old will took on a risky role with 2013's "CGBG" -- if you need proof that Grint's all grown-up, check out the trailer.

Bonnie Wright began playing Ginny Weasley at age 10, and since leaving the franchise has been on a steady diet of dramas. Wright appeared in "The Philosophers," followed by "Before I Sleep" with Tom Sizemore.

Just enough time has passed for us to stop cringing at the sight of Tom Felton, who came to be known as the weakling bully Draco Malfoy. Even while working on the "Potter" franchise, Felton dabbled in other films, like "The Disappeared" and "Get Him to the Greek." Felton has been busy since "Potter" wrapped, and appeared in the World War II movie "Ghosts of the Pacific."

By the time the "Potter" movies wrapped, Matthew Lewis -- and his character, Neville Longbottom -- had morphed into quite the charming young man. Now 24, Lewis initially migrated over to TV for a spell with 2012's "The Syndicate."

The brothers who played the elder Weasleys -- George and Fred -- don't have the trademark ginger hair anymore, but they're still recognizable as the prankster pair. James (left) and Oliver Phelps are still happy to talk all things "Potter," even as they move on to other endeavors. James has been recently active on stage, and Oliver has been traveling in support of his website, JopWorld.com.

Evanna Lynch's Luna Lovegood showed up halfway through the "Potter" saga, but her character was so wonderfully strange she's easily among the most memorable. And if there's anyone who's eager for the "Harry Potter" spinoff films, it's Lynch: "Maybe 'Fantastic Beasts' will turn into a long ting like HP did & I can play Luna as an old lady?" she tweeted. "Even if I'm too old to play Luna, can I go through 10 hours prosthetics to play a crumple-horned-snorkack. Please??"

Jamie Waylett's Vincent Crabbe appeared in the first half of the franchise, and life post-"Potter" hasn't been so easy for the actor. In May 2012, he was sentenced to two years in jail for his participation in the 2011 London riots.

Devon Murray's Seamus Finnigan was an easy character to love, and fans have missed seeing Murray (and hearing his accent) on the big screen. The 24-year-old actor assured a supporter from his unverified Twitter account in late September 2013 that he's "been offered a lead role in a new movie so could be seeing my mug soon :)"

'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

Photos: 'Harry Potter': Hogwarts class of '11

Quoting the words of Dumbledore, the wise headmaster of Hogwarts, she said "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."

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The same day Cassidy gave her speech, a Facebook page called "We want JK Rowling to meet Cassidy Stay" formed and quickly gained traction.

While the group page acknowledges that Cassidy is not a follower of the page, the creator claims to know a friend of Cassidy's who "confirmed that JK Rowling did, in fact, write her a personalized letter from 'Dumbledore' (hand-written with purple ink). She was also sent a wand, an acceptance letter to Hogwarts with a school supply list, along with the 3rd book with JK's autograph" the group post said.

Rowling's spokesperson told CNN: "We can confirm that J.K. Rowling sent Cassidy Stay a letter and package, but the contents of the letter and how it came about are private and between her and Cassidy. We're not commenting any further on the letter or what it contained."

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