Banner Graphic, Volume 14, Number 174, Greencastle, Putnam County, 29 March 1984 — Page 2
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The Putnam County Banner-Graphic, March 29,1984
Child arsonist: 8-year-old goes from playing with matches to murder charge
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) —An 8-year-old boy, believed to be the youngest person in Virginia ever charged with murder, fidgeted and fiddled with a matchbox-sized fire truck as Fire Inspector John Anderson questioned him gently. If you find some matches, what are you going to do?” Anderson asked the first-grader, who was charged with murder for a 1982 fire that killed an elderly woman and was convicted of setting a separate fire. “Give them to my mom,” the boy answered, sounding like a pupil eager to show his teacher that he had studied his lessons. “Now, if your best buddy gives you some matches, what are you going to do? What if your mom’s not around? What if he asks you to play?” The boy wriggled in his chair, his eyes roaming the conference room upstairs from the Roanoke Fire Prevention and Training Bureau. “Are you going to go home and tell somebody?” Anderson asked as he leaned closer, putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Yes.” The boy nodded enthusiastically. Anderson and Fire Marshal Rawleigh Quarles met with the youth and his grandmother in the first session of a new program to help children who have set fires. The boy’s parents are separated, and his grandmother is his legal guardian.
16 twisters injure 600 others
Tornadoes kill 71 in Carolinas
By The Associated Press The governors of North and South Carolina sent the National Guard to keep order and aid rescue efforts today in shattered towns where 16 tornadoes killed at least 71 people, left at least 600 others injured and blasted thousands more out of their homes. Hospital emergency rooms overflowed in North Carolina, where the death toll was at 57 today, and in South Carolina, whe e the 14 known dead included seven people in a Bennettsville shopping center. “Some buildings just aren’t there any more. No buildings, no nothing,” said Police Chief Luther W. Haggins in Red
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Springs, N.C., where a 3-year-old child was killed in a building demolished when a twister hit Wednesday evening. The twisters struck late Wednesday afternoon, cutting a swath across northern South Carolina and hitting the towns of Anderson, Winnsboro, Newberry and Bennettsville. At nightfall, they tore through 13 counties in the North Carolina sandhills and coastal plain, walloping the towns of Maxton, Shannon, Red Springs, Parkton and Mount Oliven before racing out to sea. The tornadoes were spawned by a wild spring storm that swung out of Texas and was bringing up to 3 foot of wet,
At least 23 killed in Beirut as new agreement to end shelling made
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) Lebanon’s civil war rivals agreed today to halt artillery attacks on residential areas after fierce barrages killed at least 23 people and wounded more than 150, the state radio reported. The agreement was reached early this morning at the first meeting of the “higher securitypolitical committee” led by President Amin Gemayel, the radio said. The committee was formed to disengage combatants and bring about a stable cease-fire. The meeting came after a day
Tim Butters, fire program specialist for the U.S. Fire Administration, said there are 700 Juvenile Firesetter Counseling Prevention Programs being developed across the country, including 125 complete programs. The first was developed in Los Angeles in 1979, he said. Roanoke started its program with Mental Health Services of the Roanoke Valley and the Department of Social Services because of the youth, whose name is being withheld because of his age. He was charged with murder for setting a July 1982 fire that killed Kathleen H. Turner, 73, and seriously injured her granddaughter. The fire spread to the Turner home from an abandoned house nearby. A juvenile judge ruled in November 1982 that the boy was too immature to stand trial, and the murder charge was finally dismissed on Jan. 4 of this year. The boy was convicted in February, however, of setting a shed fire in December 1983 and was put on probation under supervision of a social worker. Quarles said the first step in the program was to determine whether the youth, who had a learning disability, started fires out of curiosity or because of a more severe problem. The evaluation will be used to decide whether the boy needs fire safety education, psychological help, or both.
heavy snow to the Northeast today. “Some of these homes were blown all over the fields and there were people blown all over the fields, too,” said Mark Tartis of the Scotland County, N.C., emergency division. A sunset to sunrise curfew was imposed in Newberry, S.C., a town of 10,000 where the National Guard headed first. “The entire city is a mess," said Ollie Moye of the Newberry County Civil Defense office. Forty people were treated at hospitals in Mount Olive, N.C., but Police Chief John Hodges said at least 200 people were injured there and “I don’t know how many (are) dead.”
of heavy shelling between Christian east and mostly Moslem west Beirut. There were conflicting reports on the number of dead, ranging from 23 to 37. The conferees, meeting at the presidential palace in suburban Baabda, also agreed to keep open the museum crossing between Christian east Beirut and the mostly Moslem west under the supervision of the national police. In addition, they agreed on a plan for reopening Beirut’s port and airport with the police
Farm bill veto threatened
WASHINGTON (AP) - Reagan administration officials are warning House and Senate negotiators that if they add to the cost of legislation rewriting major farm subsidies they will risk a presidential veto. “We are strongly opposed to any changes that would reduce the budget savings offered by the bill as it passed the Sedate” last week, wrote Agriculture Secretary John Block and administration budget director David Stockman in a letter sent to conferees on Wednesday. Members of the House and
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As many as 800 people were left homeless in Bennettsville, S.C., a northeastern city of 9,000, where more than 600 rescue workers picked through the remains of the shopping center today. The National Weather Service said thunderstorms produced at least eight tornadoes in Georgia, 10 in South Carolina and six in North Carolina. Another was reported by police in Chesapeake, Va., that damaged a farm house and blew a car off the road but caused no injuries. Winter storm warnings were in effect today for much of northern Pennsylvania, New York State, northern New Jersey,
guards. About 300 police are expected to take over from departing French troops on positions along the “green line” dividing the city’s two sectors. The French, the last remnant of the multinational peacekeeping force, began their withdrawal from Beirut last Sunday and expect to complete it by Saturday. Troops from the United States, Britian and Italy withdrew in February. A ceremony was scheduled today to symbolize the takeover of French positions by the
Senate agriculture committees were meeting today, in an atmosphere thick with electionyear political smoke, to work out differences between versions of the bill passed by the two chambers. Several House members said they were prepared to offer amendments changing the bill’s cotton, rice and corn provisions. The Senate bill, which the administration estimates would save $3.2 billion over the next four years by freezing 1985 target price supports at 1984 levels, affects wheat, corn, cot-
According to Butters, juveniles who set fires are typically from broken homes and are trying to get attention. Anderson showed the boy a film featuring a fire engine named “Snuffy,” while Quarles took the grandmother into a separate room to question her about the boy. He asked whether the boy seemed hyperactive or had any neurological problems. He wanted to know how she disciplined the boy and how frequently, and whether the youth was fascinated by cigarettes, matches or lighters. “I don’t think there was a malicious intent on his part,” Quarles said, He said coercion and the boy’s home environment appear to have contributed to the fires; the grandmother told him that the boy had recently come home and said another child had encouraged him to set a fire, but that he had refused. When the film ended, Anderson started quizzing the boy about fire safety and about himself. “Now tell me again why you set the fire. You can tell me. We’re buddies now,” he said, pinching the boy’s cheek. “Did it make you happy when you started the fire? ” “No,” the youth answered, shaking his head. “You didn’t mean to do it?“ “No.” “Do you dream about fires at night? ”
southern New England and the southern half of Vermont. Travelers’ advisories for snow and wind remained over portions of southern Pennsylvania through northwestern Virginia. Flash flood watches extended over the eastern half of West Virginia. In South Carolina, emergency worker Ross Miller said the tor nadoes were the most he had seen at one time since joining the state emergency preparedness agency in 1960. South Carolina Gov. Dick Riley ordered National Guard troops to Newberry, a city of about 10,000 people which was sealed off after a twister lighted on Main Street,
police at the French headquarters on the green line. A contingent of 40 retired French military and police officers arrived in Beirut on Wednesday to help retired Lebanese officers monitor the cease-fire with a force of police and army reservists. The unit will man disengagement zones along the green line, in the suburbs, and around the strategic mountaintop town of Souk el-Gharb. The four-party “higher security-political committee” is made up of two representatives from each faction
ton and rice subsidies. The House bill addresses only the wheat program. In return for freezing target prices the price farmers are guaranteed they will get for their crops farmers are to be paid not to plant part of their normal crop acreage. The amount of land to be idled and the payment rates vary with the commodity. Senate approval came last week on a 78-10 vote after days of wrangling in closed-door sessions and in floor debate.
Ex-Legion chief says
Salvadoran vote was 'inspiring'
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Albert Keller Jr., a former American Legion head who was in El Salvador for its presidential elecions Sunday, came home this week impressed with that nation’s desire for democracy. Keller, a member of the U.S. delegation that was among the group of international observers at the elections, said Wednesday that he saw large, orderly crowds waiting to vote at each of the nine polling places he visited. “The opening of the polls was one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever seen,” he said, adding that voters were “lined up in droves” even before the voting places opened at 6 a.m. At a Wednesday news conference at Legion headquarters here, Keller said that he saw steps the Salvadoran government was taking to prevent
Hart, Mondale in debate over U.S. military forces
NEW YORK (AP) the most personal and acrimonious matchups of the 1984 presidential campaign, Walter F. Mondale and Gary Hart tangled in an hour-long debate in which the Democratic front-runners argued openly about the risks of sending American troops overseas. Mondale accused Hart of misrepresenting his record as an international negotiator for peace and insisted that the Colorado senator withdraw television and newspaper ads “that suggest I’m trying to kill” young American soldiers. Hart said Mondale has failed to learn the lessons of the Vietnam War and is too willing to use U S. military force in the Middle East and Central America. The third Democratic presidential candidate, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, played the role of peacemaker, at one point banging a water glass to close off a bitter exchange between his rivals. The intensity of the nationally televised debate Wednesday night sponsored by CBS reflects the importance of Tuesday’s New York state primary election where 252 delegates to the Democratic National Convention are at stake. Held in the Low Library hall at Columbia University, the debate focused more on foreign policy than any of the preceding verbal confrontations of the race for the Democratic nomination. Hart, Mondale and Jackson, along with questioner and moderator Dan Rather of CBS, sat at a round table facing and addressing one another and the television cameras. Rather drew the most vivid
election fraud. He said election workers stamped voters’ thumbs to prevent them from voting more than once, and that even though many voters were illiterate, most understood the system. He added that he saw no signs of guerrilla interference with the elections, and noticed “a spirit of cooperation at the polling places between representatives of the eight different political parties.” Keller, who headed the Legion from 1982-1983, concluded El Salvador “very definitely had a free and democratic election.” But inefficiency at polling places, such as the late arrival of ballots and difficulty matching voters’ ID numbers with names on registration lists, slowed the process, said the 57-year-old Keller, now the county clerk of Kankakee County, 111.
The boy nodded yes as his fingers explored the toy fire truck Anderson urged him to talk about the dreams. “I dreamed that 10 houses got burned up,” the youth answered. “Can fire do magic?” Anderson asked. The boy responded with a long-winded “No-o-o-o-o.” “What does it do?” “It burns up,” he responded. Anderson asked the boy to draw a picture of himself and some of his family members. The result was a series of happy-faced figures with long arms and elaborately drawn hair “Which one do you like the best?” Anderson asked. “This one,” the boy responded, tapping the picture of himself “Tell me why you like yourself the best. ” “Because I’m good.” Quarles said the youth probably will be given educational assignments such as looking for fire hazards in his home and coloring pictures dealing with fire safety. “We have not done our jobs when we lock these children up and they get out and set other fires. I’ve seen that happen too many times. Instead of treating the symptom we need to treat the problem. You can’t do that by locking a child up.”
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contrast between Hart and Mondale when he asked under what circumstances either would use American forces abroad if elected president. Hart said he would use U.S. forces to carry out American treaty obligations in areas like Western Europe, Japan and Australia where vital national security interests are on the line. Then he added: “I don’t think the issue is where we would fight. The issue of leadership is also knowing when not to fight... I think some of us learned a lesson from Vietnam and that is that military might in the Third World is not always going to work.” While campaigning, Hart has accused Mondale of failing to learn from the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and said the former vice president’s proposed Central America policies might cost American lives in Honduras. In his reply Mondale said:
Noting that Salvadoran law required voting in the election and that non-voters risked “a nominal fine,” Keller said that none of the people he talked with seemed concerned with legal ramifications. All genuinely wanted to take part in the election, he said. No candidate won a majority in the election, necessitating a runoff election to be held in April or May. Former president Jose Napoleon Duarte, a Christian Democrat, is the leading vote-getter in the stillincomplete returns, ahead of former army major Roberto d’Aubisson of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). Current Legion commander Keith Kreul, 55, said he visited the war-torn Central American country three weeks ago, where he met with incumbent President Alvaro Magana and military leaders.
“There is a lesson to be learned from Vietnam. I was late in opposing that war. I’ve admitted it. It was the worst mistake of my life. I think the problem with what you (Hart) are saying is that you learned the wrong lesson.” “There is a proper role for American power in the world. The toughest test of presidential leadership is the sophisticated, knowledgeable use of that power.” Mondale took the offensive through most of the evening, at one point challenging Hart’s ads, one of which ran in TheNew York Times on Wednesday and said Mondale’s statements on keeping U.S. troops in Honduras “chillingly recalls the Vietnam era.” “Why do you run those ads that suggest that I’m out trying to kill kids when you know better?” Mondale asked angrily of Hart. “ I’m a person who believes in peace.”
Kreul said the pre-election campaigning at that time was “reminiscent of what we’re having here in the Democratic primary,” with a “heated debate” occurring among the candidates. Kreul, who last fall testified before the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America headed by Henry Kissinger, said the Legion would also be willing to send an observer to the Nicaraguan elections scheduled for November if asked. Kreul said that the Legion had been following Latin American developments carefully since 1979, when it commissioned a special task force on the region. “If El Salvador would fall, then peaceful little Costa Rica would be in real trouble, or perhaps then Honduras,” he speculated.