All the Empty Rooms (2025)

[bunniefuu]

- [man 1] Ready?

- [man 2] Yes.

[knocking]

[wind chime chiming]

- Hello.

- Hello. How you doing?

- Hi.

- Nice to meet you.

Frank.

[woman] It's bright. [chuckles]

Wow.

[woman] It's basically the same.

- Well, I have a real good feeling for him.

- [laughs lightly]

I mean, the room reflects the personality

that you told me he had.

[man 1] This is?

[Frank] Dirty clothes.

We haven't even gone through that.

No. We washed his chonies and his socks

because I thought that was gross. [laughs]

His underwear and socks,

I pulled out and washed,

but everything else is

how it was almost five years ago,

his dirty clothes.

I don't think we wanted to lose his smell

in his room because it's distinctly him.

Yeah.

[gentle poignant music playing]

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[child] Let's go, Dodgers!

Let's go, Dodgers!

Let's go, Dodgers!

[music fades]

[unsettling music playing]

[Steve] For years, I'd been doing essays

at the end of every school sh**ting week.

Maybe it was a hero

or the country coming together.

Whatever it was, they were looking

for some kind of positive message.

She was in a meeting,

heard g*nf*re and ran toward it.

That makes her a hero to most of us.

The very first day

[Steve] I'd done so many of these essays

that I felt like I was repeating myself.

In fact, I was using the same lines

in the stories.

[sirens wail faintly]

[Steve] And I saw that America was kind of

moving on from each school sh**ting

quicker and quicker every time.

I felt like, "I've got to do

something different. What could I do?"

[sirens wail]

I feel like the media is to blame

a little bit for some of this.

Or at least, it's worth exploring.

In the beginning, especially,

it was just so overdone,

and the shooters

were mentioned way too much.

What we need to talk about is

the child that's not here anymore.

[somber music playing]

[music continues]

Can you hear and see us?

There you go.

- Hi.

- [woman] Hi there.

Hello, Gloria!

How are you?

- It's hard to answer that question.

- [Steve] I imagine it is.

Thanks for taking my call.

What I'd like to do

is come with Lou Bopp, photographer,

and just let Lou

take pictures of the room,

as it was, and try to capture Hallie

through those pictures.

I feel like we would like to share her.

- Yeah.

- [Charles] I think we're also nervous.

[Steve] Yeah, I'm nervous too.

She was the light of our family

and, um

our lives revolved around her.

[woman] I feel very, very like, blessed

that you've reached out to us, so

I feel like it's just like another

sign, you know. I get all these signs

from my baby girl, so

I feel like it's a sign that

- That this was meant to be, so

- Okay.

All right.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- We'll see you soon.

- Okay, thanks.

- All right.

- Bye-bye.

[somber music swells]

[music fades]

[Lou] I photograph people,

I sh**t action, I sh**t

lifestyle.

I don't think I've ever done a project

like this, where somebody's not there.

We've known each other for a long time.

Many people I wouldn't do this with,

but I trust Steve.

[camera clicks]

[gentle poignant music playing]

[Lou] Come on, Rose. Let's get ready

to go to school and take the photo.

- [Rose] Yeah.

- All right.

[Lou] We call it the morning photo.

Come over this way a little. Little more.

Just to

Okay.

capture the progression of life, because

anything can happen at any time

[camera clicking]

[Lou] All right.

Let's go to school.

- Ready?

- [girl] Bye.

[Steve] Goodbye. [kisses] Love you.

- Love you.

- [boy] Love you.

- See you soon.

- [boy] Come on, Birdie.

- Bye, George.

- [George] Bye.

[music intensifies]

[Steve] Some of my bosses don't even know

I'm doing this project,

but I had to do this on my own

if I wanted to do it.

[insects chirping]

[knocking]

[door opens]

- [Steve] Hello.

- [woman] Hey.

- This is Lou.

- [Lou] Hi.

[Chad] Hey, Lou. Chad.

Nice to meet you.

[Chad] I can pull up a chair over here.

[Steve] So there's gotta be something,

some benefit you see

for you or your family.

Do you see something in this?

In these pictures?

- 'Cause that's kind of important to me.

- [mom] Yeah.

It's probably

the most important thing to me.

I don't know

what the benefit is for our family.

I think about it more as, "How could

her life benefit other people now."

That's what

That's kind of

We want her legacy to be that.

So

Yeah.

[Chad] "My first tooth.

My first soccer game."

"First Tennessee game."

She made that?

She made this. Yeah.

- Was that a project?

- I'm sure it was.

- [Jada] It was a school project.

- Yeah.

[Chad] It's interesting how memory works

because I can remember to the minute

almost everything

in a three-hour period on Monday.

And then I'll lose the thread.

But do I know

that I went into her room that night.

I just laid down and

Yeah, I wept.

[gentle poignant music playing]

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[Chad] You know, what you want

is something that you can't have.

[camera clicks]

I wanted her smell back.

And I wanted to touch her, and I wanted

like, to feel her sweaty hair.

[Chad and Jada laugh]

[Chad] Her bed was the closest thing

I could get to that.

So

- [children's music playing]

- [Hallie] Oopsies.

Okay.

[Jada] Sometimes I'll just

go and look around, and look at

all her little trinkets, stuffed animals,

and shells that she collected, and, um

go and just, like, smell her blankie

that she slept with every night.

[camera clicks]

And

I feel like a lot of crying happens

in that room.

[Chad] Yup.

I think the room helps

because there's a lot of moments

where you want to be sad.

[coach] Good job, Hallie!

[girls cheering]

[Chad] Because the sadness

is a part of connecting with her.

[boy] I mean, she was really

outgoing.

So, like, she was also like

a little sister.

So she, you know, would always, like,

get a little annoying, you know

- Yeah, funny, a little annoying.

- It was good, though.

[Charlie] She was pretty competitive

with us in sports too.

That's, like, kind of how

we hung out around her.

She was kind of always with us.

- [Jada] Let's see.

- [Chad] It's a pink one.

You finally have your own.

You can take it everywhere!

And you boys cannot use it.

- [Chad] Yeah!

- [Jada laughing]

[Chad] One of the funniest things

is she begged

- [Jada] This is the best.

- for this.

She wanted a kitty cat hoodie on Amazon.

Jada was like, "I don't wanna get this."

- [Steve] You had to talk her out of it?

- [Jada] We couldn't.

- [Jada] She wore it everywhere.

- She wore it a lot.

[poignant music continues]

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[children playing]

[camera clicks]

[Steve] What do you want the world to know

about Hallie

when they look at those pictures?

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[camera clicks]

[music fades out]

I would want

the world to know that she was a

[softly] Oh, I can't do this.

[sobbing]

I would want the world

to know that she was

a great person, just a good little sister.

[somber music playing faintly]

Our next guest is a CBS News

correspondent. Here's Steve Hartman.

[audience cheering]

My name's Steve Hartman,

and I'm from CBS News.

Steve Hartman has found

a prescription for happiness.

[Oprah Winfrey] As a CBS correspondent,

Steve doesn't cover politics

or natural disasters or wars.

We're now just 129 to go.

- See my two legs?

- Yes.

They still move.

They sure do.

- Every time your stories come up

- We all cry. [laughs]

- [Steve] Hello.

- Hey!

[kids] Hey!

[Steve] I've been typecast as, you know,

the feel-good, happy news kind of guy.

I'm the guy that they bring in at the end

to, like

restore people's faith in humanity.

[male newscaster] We had planned

to end the week

with one of those wonderful stories

from Steve Hartman.

Steve has some thoughts tonight

about this tragedy.

[Steve] And what I'd been doing is just

whitewashing the whole thing.

Imagine that. Trying to find good news

in a school sh**ting.

And a lot of mass shootings,

that's been my job.

At the end of the week,

remind us that life is still worth living.

I'm not gonna look at a school sh**ting

and try to find a positive angle to that.

Not anymore.

[Steve] This is it.

[knocking]

- [Steve] Hello.

- Hi.

- [Steve] How are you?

- [woman] Good. Come in.

[Steve] Thank you.

[woman] Yep.

You guys ready?

Here they were going

on a father-daughter dance.

[Jackie] here for our

father-daughter dance.

[Gloria] Are you so excited?

[Jackie] Uh-huh!

[Gloria] You can't wait?

[Jackie] Uh-huh!

[Gloria] Awesome.

- Who's doing your hair for you?

- [Jackie] Christy.

[Gloria] Is she gonna do your hair

on your wedding day too?

- [Jackie] Uh-huh!

- [Gloria] Yes?

[Christy] I am.

Who are you gonna marry?

[Christy laughs]

[Gloria] You don't know?

Is he gonna be cute, though?

[Jackie] Wait, is it Dada?

[all laughing on video]

[Javier sniffles]

[Gloria] This is her room.

[Steve] Love the lights.

- [Gloria] She loved the lights.

- [Lou] Yeah.

[Gloria] They've been on

since she left them on.

We haven't turned them off.

And then the stuffed animals.

Just these two

have her voice in it, right?

[Javier] Yeah.

[Jackie laughing]

[Javier] That's the video

where she's outside with the dog.

[laughing continues]

[Gloria] There's this one video that, um

That's probably

one of our last videos that we have

of her with her dogs before May 24th.

- [Steve] And she wanted to be a vet?

- [Gloria] Yes.

Because of the love of animals

that she had,

there's no way she would have done

anything besides helping animals.

That was her dream,

to become a veterinarian.

[Jackie laughing]

[camera clicks]

[Gloria] Her room,

it played a very big role in her life.

- [camera clicks]

- You know, that was her safe place.

[Jackie singing]

Maybe it's the way you play your game

But it's all good

I've never known anybody like you

[Javier] I go in there every day.

That's why I have the chair,

right next to the bed.

So it brings me

some comfort to go in there

just to chat sometimes.

[sniffles]

[camera clicks]

[water splashing]

[cell phone ringing]

- [Steve] Hi.

- [Steve's daughter] Hi.

[Steve] How are you doing?

- What did you do today?

- Went swimming.

And

we drove Birdie to the groomer,

and then I ran two miles.

- You ran two miles?

- And then...

Yeah.

-And...

-And then

And then we drove to Leanna's.

Birdie, it's Daddy.

[Steve] I love you guys very much.

- I love you too.

- I miss you.

I miss you more than you know.

Bye.

- Bye.

- Bye.

- Bye, guys.

- Bye.

[somber music playing]

[keyboard tapping]

Classes were canceled, and grief

counselors brought in to Perry, Iowa

the day after a sixth grader was k*lled,

and seven other people were injured

in a school sh**ting

[Steve] Before I started this project,

I was growing more and more numb

after every school sh**ting.

And I think all of America

has been going through,

you know, that same process.

And now, when I hear

about a school sh**ting,

I know that room is out there.

I feel like

I can place myself in the room,

and it hurts a lot more

than it did before.

[Lou] Hair on a brush,

cap of a toothpaste

and hair ties on a doorknob.

[mouse clicking lightly]

It is f*cking surreal.

- [sighs]

- [Steve] What's surreal?

Just, you know,

that we're here talking about this.

Like, it just

That this is even a real thing.

[man] Hello. Nice to meet you.

- [Steve] You too.

- [man] I'm Bryan.

- [Steve] Hi.

- [woman] Nice to meet you.

- [Lou] You too.

- [Steve] Thanks for having us.

[woman] Of course.

[woman] She was just so much fun.

Hey, girlfriend. It's a lovely day.

[Bryan] I walk by her room

and I still see her.

She liked to just

do somersaults off the bed.

I can still hear her laughing loud.

[Gracie] Trick or treat, smell my feet!

[woman] Her room was kind of a stage.

That's where everybody

would go and watch her perform.

She'd pass out little invitations, and

what time we were supposed to be there.

Set up chairs

so we'd sit and watch the show.

Mm-hm.

[Bryan] She went through

elementary, middle school, and

15 weeks of high school in that room.

And it was

her private sanctuary of space where she

was her pure self.

Uh, it was a sunny Thursday morning.

She was planning to buy her ticket

for her first high school dance.

And then she had plans

to get her dress on Friday.

Unfortunately, she didn't get to do

either one of those two things.

[somber music playing]

[Bryan] That's the outfit she had out and

[Steve] This is what

she was gonna wear on Friday?

[Cindy] She was either gonna wear

this outfit or this outfit.

- [Bryan] She had two set out.

- [Cindy] And this dress.

So

[Steve] Did she do this often?

Prepare the next day's clothes?

Yeah. Monday through Friday.

- Yep.

- Yeah.

[Bryan] And we had given her

this little trinket box,

and when we had opened it,

she had these letters in here.

And these letters were notes

to her future self that she had written.

[Steve] Wow.

[Bryan] "First day of high school."

"Dear future self,"

"OMG, it's high school."

"I've been waiting for this day forever."

[Cindy] Hm.

"Don't be nervous.

You will meet some of your lifelong"

"friends and also some enemies."

"Don't focus on the negativity."

"You'll get through this.

Keep the people that make you happy,

and lose, well, others. Haha."

"Wear something cute, obviously."

"I love you. Good luck.

Gracie from the past."

[sniffles]

[poignant music playing]

[camera clicks]

[Steve] Do you go in there a lot?

- [Cindy] Oh yeah. A lot.

- [camera clicks]

All the time, every day. [laughs lightly]

[Steve] Yeah?

[Cindy] Every day I tell her good morning.

Every night I tell her good night.

[camera clicks]

- [Cindy] So

- [Steve] Still.

- [Cindy] Still.

- [Steve] To this day.

[Cindy] Yeah.

Hi.

[poignant music rises]

[Bryan] When that time comes

that that room is not there,

does she go away?

So as long as that room exists,

she exists, in a way.

Okay, guys, so here's the outfit.

Looking real cute.

[music continues]

[Steve] My boss now knows

about this story,

and he's agreed that he'll run it.

But they'll see it when it's ready to air,

and we'll go from there.

[music fades out]

[door creaks]

[Steve] Wow.

This is where you go

- Right?

- [girl blowing]

[laughing]

[girl] There. All better.

[poignant music playing]

[Steve] I want the project

to remind people that

these were our children.

That these were your children.

These could be your children.

[Lou] Rose, you ready?

[Rose] Yeah.

[Lou] All right.

Camera's so slow. Okay.

[camera clicking]

[camera clicks]

[Steve] Giving photo books to the families

is a crucial step in this project.

Because at this point, I feel like

I've done nothing but take, you know?

We took pictures, you know.

We took their time.

This is something tangible

that we can give.

[music intensifies]

[Steve] The whole point of this is

to not have to say much.

I just want people to see the pictures,

and just let the pictures

speak for themselves.

I wish that we could

transport all Americans

to stand in one of those bedrooms

for just a few minutes.

We'd be a different America.

[music fades out]

[female news host] Steve Hartman

starts us off this morning

with something very different

and deeply troubling.

[poignant music playing]

[music fades out]