Banner Graphic, Volume 12, Number 94, Greencastle, Putnam County, 29 December 1981 — Page 3
Focus on publicity, racial prejudice in Williams'jury questioning
ATLANTA IAFM Lawyers for Wayne B Williams are focusing on racial prejudice and the publicity stirred up by a string of 28 killings around Atlanta as they question prospective jurors for the young black mans double-murder trial,
Boy's death apparent suicide Family stunned by second gun death
LUDLOW, Mass. (API A teen-age boy apparently committed suicide after his 22-caliber rifle discharged and wounded his best friend while they were fox hunting, authorities say. The boy’s father had accidentally shot himself to death seven weeks ago. Michael Fredette, 16, was pronounced dead at Mercy Hospital in Springfield at about 9:30 am. Monday. Kevin Wojcik, 16, a lOth-grade classmate at Ludlow High School, was in critical condition at Baystate Medical Center with a gunshot wound in the head. "It appears only one gun was used," Ludlow Police Chief John Jorge said. "80th... could not have been an accident." Jorge said police believe the shootings occurred as the youths rested while a third teen-age hunting companion scouted the area for foxes. The rifle held by Fredette discharged, piercing the back of Wojcik s skull, Jorge said. Then Fredette turned the rifle on himself because he had wounded his friend, Jorge theorized. Their companion, 50 yards away, heard the gunshots and found Fredette and Wojcik lying on top of each other in a field, police said. Jorge said police have not ruled out murder-suicide but
Weather, economy aid low highway toll
By The Associated Press Good weather and a lousy economy might have helped keep the Christmas traffic death toll below estimates made before the three-day holiday weekend, a National Safety Council official says. During the holiday period, 320 traffic deaths were reported on the nation’s highways, well below the 450 to 550 deaths the council projected woul occur
Oil halted before reaching New York City water supply
c. 1981 N.Y. Times YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. A scavenging company began pumping a thick brown layer of heating oil from the Muscoot River in northern Westchester Monday to prevent any possible contamination of New York City’s drinking water. The 13,000 gallons of oil were pumped out of an oil company storage tank, apparently by vandals, early Sunday morning. The oil flowed unnoticed into a storm drain, then into a brook and. finally into the river, which supplies the Muscoot Reservoir, part of the city’s Croton Reservoir system in adjacent Somers. The oil traveled about seven miles. The Yorktown police said they had no clue as to who had broken a lock off an electrical pump at the Reliable Oil Co. yard here and turned on the pump. They said they were investigating. The incident is expected to have no effect on the city’s drinking water, according to officials of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the agency that manages the reservoir system. Joseph T. McGough Jr., acting commissioner of the department, who was directing the cleanup efforts, said the spill was “pretty well contained” in tyo coves of the reservoir and (‘Shouldn’t go beyond” that
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District Attorney Lewis Slaton and his assistants asked few questions of the prospective jurors in the initial day of jury selection, but defense lawyers Alvin Binder and Mary Welcome interrogated each one carefully, often at length. Williams, a 23-year-old free-
between 6 p.m. Friday to midnight Sunday. In Alabama, where officials had estimated that 10 people would die in holiday traffic accidents, no highway fatalities were reported. State police spokeswoman Paula Weiss said it was the first holiday period on record during which no traffic deaths were reported. No traffic fatalities were reported in 10 other states
point. McGough said employees of his department were taking hourly samples of the water for laboratory analysis. As another precaution, the Muscoot Reservoir will be lowered by two inches by reducing its input, he said, to halt the spill of water over a dam into the adjacent Croton Lake, where water enters a tunnel leading to the Jerome Reservoir in the Bronx, which serves parts of the Bronx and Manhattan. Even in the unlikely event a heavy rainfall raised the reservoir above the spillway, he said, the “dilution factor” should erase any taste or odor from the city’s drinking water before it
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lance photographer, is charged with murdering Nathaniel Cater, 27, and Jimmy Ray Payne, 21, two of 28 young blacks whose deaths over a 22month period have been investigated by a special police, task force. There have been no arrests in the other 26 slayings.
lean tow ard the accident theory because Wojcik and Fredette were described by relatives and friends as long-time best friends. The youths had hunting licenses and had attended a firearms safety course, Jorge said. Fredette’s father, Lionel Fredette, 47, a gun collector and father of two boys and three girls, was killed Nov. 8 when he put a .357-caliber Magnum revolver to his forehead to persuade a friend of one of his daughters not to fear guns. Jorge said the father asked the friend, “Do you think I would do this with a loaded gun?” and put the revolver to the bridge of his nose, pulling the trigger three times. The third time, it fired, killing him, Jorge said. After his father’s death, Fredette tried to establish himself as the “man of the house,” Rev. Homer Goslin said. “After his father died, Michael took it upon himself to fill his shoes,” Goslin said. The youth “started out doing the chores and trying to become the man of the house. ’ ’ Rose Willard, the youth’s aunt, said, “Michael was a good looking, healthy boy who was always there when you needed him.”
Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin. The highest state death tolls were in California and Florida, with 32 each. Although it is impossible to pinpoint factors that cause traffic death statistics to fluctuate, the effects of the current recession and the weather may have played a role in holding down the number of
gets to New York City. Another barrier to the oil, McGough said, is the underwater location of the gate to the city water tunnel. This is 25 feet deep, well below the oil riding on the water’s surface under the ice. Hitchcock Oil Pollution Systems of Bridgeport, Conn., is removing the oil under contract with Reliable Oil. Company officials say most of the clean up should be completed by Wednesday. An oil-containment boom was put down Sunday across the river’s mouth, officials said. A second boom was put down Monday under the Route 100 span.
“Have you had any experience or relationship with a black person that would make it difficult for you to sit in judgment in this case?” Binder and Ms. Welcome asked Monday. While none admitted to racial biases that would affect
highway fatalities, according to Barbara Carraro, supervisor of motor vehicle statistics for the council. “It could be that the condition of the economy is keeping some people home,” she said Monday. “Also, we’ve had fairly decent weather.” In 1978, the most recent year with a three-day Christmas holiday, 454 traffic deaths were reported.
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judgment, each told of reading newspaper stories or seeing television reports about the series of slayings and Williams’ arrest. “If you were charged with a crime, and a juror in your frame of mind was trying you, would you feel comfortable?”
Carmichael burial set in Indiana BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) Hoagy Carmichael, who . studied law in college but became a millionaire through his music, will be buried in his native Indiana, officials say. Indiana University officials said a memorial service for Carmichael, who graduated from law school here in 1926, was being planned for Monday featuring some of the swing music he composed and other “dignified and appropriate” music. “We will certainly include some of Hoagy Carmichael’s music in the service,” said Charles Webb, dean of Indiana University’s school of music, who is organizing the memorial service along with IU Chancellor Herman B Wells, Carmichael, 82, died Sunday in California. A hospital official said he had suffered a heart attack at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif, and died in the emergency room. Jon Cherkala, director of the Allen Funeral Home of Bloomington, said Monday that visiting hours at the funeral home are tentatively set for 7 to 8 p.m. Sunday. Carmichael will be buried in Rose Hill Cemetery at Bloomington, he added.
the defense lawyers asked. Some 700 prospective jurors have been called for the trial, but only 47 were questioned Monday. Of that group, 17 were excused because of medical or family hardships, and two were dismissed because they acknowledged they already had
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December 29,1981, The Putnam County Banner-Graphic
formed opinions about Williams’ guilt or innocence. Of the remaining 28, 11 were qualified for the jury pool from which the 12 jurors and alternates for the trial will be selected, and the other 17 faced individual questioning today by defense lawyers.
Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty for Williams, who has pleaded innocent. Under Georgia law, it cannot be imposed unless a murder is accompanied by another felony, such as rape or kidnapping, or the defendant has a previous conviction in a capital case.
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