Banner Graphic, Volume 13, Number 93, Greencastle, Putnam County, 24 December 1982 — Page 2

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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, December 24,1982

Four-year-old girl, kidnapped in 1979, reunited with mom ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) Clutching a Miss Piggy purse and surrounded by gaily wrapped gifts, a little girl kidnapped three years ago flew home with her mother, who said she would observe Christmas by giving “thanks to God.” “It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful to be with my little girl again. I can't believe it,” Claudia Serna said Thursday after being reunited with 4-year-old Christina at the police station in Kingman, Ariz. The girl was abducted when she was 18 months old from a baby sitter s backyard. She was abandoned in Kingman on Sunday by a man she thought was her father, and who had given her the name Kim. At a hastily arranged court hearing in Kingman on Thursday, Mrs. Serna was awarded conditional custody of her daughter. The girl could be heard crying in the background and Police Lt. C.E. Doherty explained that she “was upset. She doesn’t know her mother.” In Phoenix, meanwhile, FBI agent John Hinchcliffe said Wiley Gene Wilson, 33. was wanted for questioning in the case. He said there was no warrant out for Wilson, but the FBI released a photograph. Mrs. Serna acknowledged there would be a period of readjustment for her daughter, saying, “I think it’s going to be hard, but I can handle that.” A happy fluke led to identification of Christina. Police in Reno, Nev., spotted an FBI flyer describing her after being asked to check whether she w-as a different girl who had disappeared in that city. Judge Gary Pope of Mohave County Superior Court awarded Mrs. Serna conditional custody after mother and child met in a room at the Kingman police station. Pope said there would always be doubt about the child’s identity, but said he was satisified “that the law enforcement people made that identity. And there is no question in my mind that the mother recognized the child. I sort of conditioned my order on that...” Before the reunion, Mrs. Serna said she could identify her daughter, primarily from a scar above her right knee caused by a hot iron that tumbled from an ironing board. The FBI flier described Christina as having a burn mark on her knee, a scar on her back, pierced ears and green eyes. Doherty added that Christina “looks just like her mom.” Police said the girl was kidnapped Nov. 17,1979, by a man driving a red pickup truck. Albuquerque police Detective David Garcia said authorities believed the child had been living in Riverside, Calif., until recently. “These people abducted her because they wanted a child they gave her whatever name they wanted to,” he said. “... We started checking leads and they started getting real scared and abandoned her in Kingman.” Police said the man Christina thought was her father sent her into a fast-food restaurant in Kingman on Sunday to check out restrooms, but the man was gone when she came out, and the girl burst into tears. When Christina and her mother arrived here Thursday night, they were met by the girl’s divorced father, James Serna, and her newfound brother, James Jr. The boy said he remembered having a sister, “but she was kidnapped a long time ago. ”

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Death toll 14 as storm heads east

By DEAN FOSDICK Associated Press Writer A “life-threatening” storm packing heavy snow and high winds menaced Christmas travelers as it crossed the Continental Divide today and took aim at the Midwest, while tornadoes spun across the lower Mississippi Valley, injuring at least three dozen people.

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Employees of Buckeye Gas Products haul ashore stray propane tanks floating in the flooding Meramec River near Valley Park, Mo. The tanks pose little danger of explosion, but could do further damage in the swift river current. Residents of Times Beach, Mo., another community on

Grumbling senators pass gas tax hike, head home

WASHINGTON (AP) - The lame-duck 97th Congress has gone, leaving behind a nickel increase in the federal gasoline tax and a residue of bad feeling among senators forced to work until the day before Christmas Eve. “In the name of God, let us vote and go,” pleaded Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, as the Senate quashed one more conservative-led filibuster on an 81-5 vote Thursday and then voted 54-33 to send President Reagan the 5-cent-a-gallon

The storm dumped up to 6 inches of snow, with winds gusting to 50 mph, as it moved into Wyoming, National Weather Service forecaster Hugh Crowther in Kansas City said today. “It looks like the snow will spread over much of the central Plains region by late today,” he said. “It should be a white

$236 million for Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Passage of the increased federal gasoline tax will more than double federal funds available to Indiana for road projects. Gov. Robert D. Orr says. He said Thursday Indiana’s allotment from the gas tax will climb from sll2 miillion to $236 million in the current fiscal year. This will allow the state to resurface 100 miles of interstate highway, replace about 60 bridges and expand constuction projects on U.S. 30 in Lake County and on U.S. 30 between Avon and Danville, Orr said.

gasoline tax increase he supported. The administration's interest

Suit claims drugs prompted wife's murder

KENDALLVILLE, Ind. (AP) A Fort Wayne doctor says there is no prohibition that would prevent a doctor from prescribing the combination of drugs Nardil, Ativan and Lorazepan and-or Mellaril for a patient. The combination of the drugs is the crux of a $2.2 million malpractice suit filed by Steven T. Rider of Kendallville against his former psychiatrist. The suit alleges the combination of

Kroger asks one-year wage freeze

By The Associated Press Employees in 13 Kroger Co. stores in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan have been asked to accept a one-year w'age freeze. A contract between Kroger and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 10R, which represents employees at the 13 stores, expired Nov. 7. However, employees

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Christmas from western Kansas and eastern Colorado to Minnesota.” The winter storm, which pushed east Thursday into the Rockies from the Pacific Coast, has already caused 14 weatherrelated deaths and briefly blacked out hundreds of thousands of homes in California, Arizona and Nevada.

the Meramec have been warned not to return home because of contamination caused by high levels of dioxin. The dioxin is believed to have been in oil used to control dust on rural roads. Floodwaters carried it into Times Beach. (AP Laserphoto)

in the measure was evident. Vice President George Bush presided over the Senate as it

drugs the doctor prescribed drove Rider to stab his estranged wife to death in January 1981. The suit was filed Wednesday in Noble Circuit Court bv Kendallville attorney David L. King one day after Allen Circuit Judge Hermann F. Busse released Rider from the Allen County court’s jurisdiction. The Kendallville man also filed a complaint with the Veterans Administration,

have agreed to work on a aay-to-day basis during negotiations, officials said. Bill Ross, secretarytreasurer of the local, said Thursday Kroger asked for the one-year wage freeze and a cut in Sunday pay. The union, dissatisfied with health benefits and contract duration, has asked for in-

Northbound traffic on Interstate 5, the main Pacific Coast highway between Mexico and Canada, was halted late Thursday at the CaliforniaOregon border because of traffic accidents caused by snow, authorities said. “Winds will be getting strong, wind chill factors low,” Jim Schultz, a Weather Service

voted, and the White House had offered military planes to fly some senators back to Washington for the vote. The Department of Transportation assisted others by making reservations for them on commercial flights. There was also an obvious lack of Christmas cheer among senators still at work two days after the House had adjourned. There was almost unanimous agreement that the president should never have summoned the Congress back into a postelection session which ac-

charing the VA and VA Medical Center in Fort Wayne and psychiatrist Dr. Martin Palmaz improperly administered medication and failed to care for him properly. The suit states Rider received at least three drugs: Nardil, Ativan, and Lorazepam; all three when taken together result in severe mental disorders; and that a fourth drug. Mellaril, may also have been administered.

creased health and pension benefits, Ross said. Indiana employees negotiating with the grocery chain work at three stores in Fort Wayne plus stores in New Haven, Auburn, Columbia City, Wabash and Warsaw. Also involved in the talks are employees at operations in Defiance, Ohio, and Sturgis, Mich.

Banner-Graphic "It Waves For All" USPS 142-020) Consolidation ot The Daily Banner Established 1850 The Herald The Daily Graphic Established 1883 Telephone 653-5151 Published dally except Sundays and holidays by LuMar Newspapers. Inc. at 100 North Jackson St.. Greencastle. Indiana 46135. Entered in the Post Office at Greencastle. Indiana, as 2nd class mail matter under Act of March 7,1878. Subscription Rates Per Week, by carrier ‘I.OO Per Month, by motor route '4.55 Mall Subscription Rates R.R. in Rest of Rest of Putnam County Indiana U.S.A. 3 Months '13.80 *14.15 '17.25 6 Months '27.60 '28.30 '34.50 1 Year '55.20 '56.60 *69.00 Mail subscriptions payable in advance . . . not accepted in town and where motor route service is available. Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use tor republication of all the local news printed in this newspaper.

forecaster in Denver, said today. “It will be fairly dangerous for travel ...if people get stranrW it’s a lifethreatening storm” with windchill factors of 15 to 30 degrees below zero. The Colorado State Patrol reported most highways were snow-packed or icy in upper elevations, with chains required

Flood-swept town contaminated too

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) Federal health officials told residents of Times Beach on Thursday not to return to their flood-damaged homes because preliminary test results show the area is contaminated with high levels of dioxin. The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control said in a statement released here that residents who already have begun returning to their homes in the eastern Missouri community “are encouraged to leave.” The CDC also said all nonemergency, flood-related cleanup efforts in Times Beach should be halted to prevent workers from coming in contact with the chemical. Before the floods ravaged Times Beach, the Meramec River town’s population was about 2,400. But officials of the State Emergency Management Agency have said they are not sure how' many of the residents

complished little and stirred personal animosities in place of holiday spirit. “We have no reason for pride as we tuck our tails and slink out of this city,” said Sen. David Pryor, D-Ark. “Shame, disgust and ridicule have been visited upon this body.” There also were personal attacks on conservative North Carolina Republican Sens. Jesse Helms and John East, as well as a few others who tried tenaciously to block the tax legislation. “The country burns, while

Because of the power and influence of the drugs, the suit states, Rider was “uncontrollably driven to commit the attack upon his wife which resulted in her death.” The suit asks $1 million actual damages, $1 million punitive damages and $200,000 in attorneys fees. Dr Charles Pancner, a Fort Wayne psychiatrist who examined Rider and testified at his trial, said Lorazepam is actually a generic name for Ativan, an anti-anxiety agent, which he described as a minor tranquilizer. Nardil is an antidepressant and meloril is an anti-psychotic drug used to combat paranoia and sudden severe swings of emotion, Pancer said. The psychiatrist said he knows of no medical prohibitions against using the drugs in combination. Dr. Palmaz left Fort Wayne’s VA Hospital in January. Reached at his Williamsburg,

Dogs' owner fined in fatal mauling

PAOLI, Ind. (AP) - A Paoli man whose stray dogs fatally mauled a 10-year-old girl last month pleaded guilty to criminal recklessness and was fined SSOO, authorities say. Marilyn Thacker was killed Nov. 10 when a pack of dogs attacked her as she rode her bicycle past the home of Clifford Bird near Paoli enroute to her grandparents’ house, police said. An Orange County grand jury indicted Bird, 7s, Nov. 29 for not following an Indiana law that says an owner must keep dogs confined or under control. Bird faced six months in jail and a SI,OOO fine.

on most mountain passes. Elsewhere, tornadoes accompanying a system of thunderstorms injured at least three dozen people Thursday in seven Arkansas cities from Texarkana northeast to Benton. Some livestock were killed and structures also damaged in south central Missouri, authorities said.

are still living there. Gov. Christopher Bond’s press secretary, Nancy Vessell, said late Thursday the governor’s office had been assured that the Environmental Protection Agency would send in additional personnel on Monday to conduct more soil tests. Fred Lafser. director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said the state had no plans to require the town’s remaining residents to leave. “It’s strictly a voluntary thing,” Lafser said. “It’s not a question of forcing people out. It’s basically a thing of advising the residents not to go back.” ! The EPA tests concentrated on city roads where a waste hauler is known to have sprayed oil to control dust in the 19705. The roads have since been paved, but health officials believe the oil was contaminated with dioxins, useless bypfoducts of chemical manufacturing processes.

Congress fiddles,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., calling for a reform of “arcane rules” which he said “invite a tiny minority of the Senate to defy their colleagues by tying chamber into a Gordian Knot.” The legislation passed Thursday raises the gasoline tax from 5 cents to 9 cents, effective April 1, to provide $5.5 billion a year for a program of highway, bridge and mass transit improvements. Supporters said 170,000 construction jobs would be created, as well as 150,000 more in related industries.

Va., home Wednesday, Palmaz said he didn’t remember Rider and would have no comment in the suit. Andrew Onderko, associate director of the medical center, also declined comment. Charles Mains, VA district counsel in Indianapolis, said the agency has six months to investigate Rider’s complaint. If the VA finds the complaint valid, it will pay the damages, Mains said. But if it judges the complaint invalid. Rider will have six months to take the case to U.S. District Court. Judge Busse Monday made the necessary notations on the court docket to release Rider from the court’s jurisdiction, according to John R Wilks, Rider’s Fort Wayne attorney. The judge found Rider not guilty by reason of insanity last July in the death of his wife, Suzanne. Rider was sent to Logansport State Hospital.

Although Bird originally pleaded innocent, he changed the plea to guilty Thursday in Orange Circuit Court. In exchange. Prosecutor Arthur Dillard recommended Bird be fined SSOO and the case be closed. Dillard said the Thackers, who were neighbors of Bird, decided not to ask for a jail sentence because of Bird’s age, his clean record and their belief he wouldn’t do the same thing again. The prosecutor said authorities destroyed the 14 dogs believed to be in the pack that killed the girl.