Illinois Democrat accused
of lurins teen into sex
CHICAGO — A prosecutor ac
cused Rep. Mel Reynolds on Monday
of luring a 16-year-old campaign vol
unteer into a sexual relationship “like
a hunter stalks his prey.”
“He used everything he had, his
position... his office, to get her to have
sex with him,” Assistant State’s Attor
ney Colleen Hyland told the jury dur
ing closing arguments at the 43-year
old congressman’s sex-abuse trial.
The jury began deliberations
around 4:30 p.m.
After four weeks of trial, both sides
focused final arguments on just two
witnesses - Reynolds and Beverly
Heard, the former campaign worker
who says she had sex with the con
gressman when she was an underage
16 and 17.
The Illinois Democrat has denied
having had sex with Heard, now 19;
saying they engaged only in fantasy
sex talk on the phone.
Defense attorney Ed Genson said
Reynolds was targeted by a lying,
“bizarre” teen-ager who tried to use
telephone sexual fantasies to extort
money from the two-term lawmaker.
His voice rising, Genson shook his
fists and shouted to the jury that Heard
“lied in this courtroom in front of your
very eyes!”
“A whole life is being taken down
by this girl, a girl who cannot be be
lieved, who they cannot believe!”
Genson shouted.
Genson earlier noted that Heard
had at one time recanted her story of
having sex with Reynolds. She agreed
to testify after beingjailed for 11 days.
Genson also urged jurors not to
accept at face value tape recordings of
phone calls between Reynolds and
Heard. The recordings were made with
police help after Heard went to au
thorities.
“When is she telling the truth?
When is she telling you the same
malarkey she told Mel Reynolds on
those tapes?” Genson said. “How are
you to believe one word that woman
says beyond a reasonable doubt?”
He told jurors he wasn’t there to
defend Reynolds’ sins, ethics, hor
mones or “middle-age crazies.”
Reynolds is charged with sexual
abuse, sexual assault, child pornogra
phy and obstruction, for allegedly try
ing to get the girl to recant.
Conviction on the most serious
charge, sexual assault, carries a man
datory sentence of at least four years
in prison.
“Much like a hunter stalks his prey,
Mel Reynolds was driving his Cadillac
down the street” when he met Heard,
Hyland told the jury.
The prosecutor reminded jura's that
in one of the conversations, Reynolds
spoke with Heard about how he “used
to” have sexual relations with her.
“He can’t escape his own words,”
Hyland said. “They may be stupid and
immoral, but under our law they are
criminal.”
Plane crashes in Georgia;
2 confirmed dead, 27 injured
CARROLLTON, Ga.—A com
muter plane flying from Georgia to
Mississippi crashed in a hay field
and cracked open Monday, killing
two people and injuring 27, many
of whom fled the wreckage with
their clothes on fire.
The Atlantic Southeast Airlines
turboprop went down around mid
day about five miles from
Carrollton, breaking into three large
pieces as it plowed across the green
field.
The pilot had radioed that he
was having engine problems and
may have been trying to land at
West Georgia Regional Airport, six
to eight miles from the crash site,
said Christy Williams, a Federal
Aviation Administration spokes
woman.
Polona Jeter, who lives nearby,
said she saw the front of the plane
“rolling and tumbling and on fire”
as the aircraft came apart.
“I could see about 10 people
getting out,” she said. “Some were
burning. They were running. People
were trying to get them down and
get it out.”
One injured man arrived on her
front porch and used the phone to
leave a message for his wife in
Maine. “His clothes were burned
off. His undershorts were all that
was left,” she said. “The skin just
rolled Off his body.”
Twenty-six of the injured were
hospitalized, at least one in critical
condition.
The two-engine Brazilian-made
Embraer 120 was about 15 minutes
and 50 miles into a flight from At
lanta to Gulfport, Miss., 362 miles
away. It had 26 passengers and three
crew members. The weather was
cloudy and rainy.
The cause of the crash was un
der investigation. In Washington,
the National Transportation Safety
Board assembled a team to investi
gate.
It was the fourth fatal commuter
plane crash in 10 months.
Paul Butler, who lives about 75
yards from the crash ate, said he
rushed out of his house when he
heard two loud booms and saw the
plane skidding to a stop.
“People were already out, some
on fire, going in every direction,”
Butler said.
He watched as others emerged
through a gaping hole in the air
craft. Everyone he saw was burned,
Butler said, some had no clothes
on.
The pilot or copilot was trapped
in the cockpit, and Butler said
firefighters used axes from his bam
to rescue him.
“One ofthe firemen chopped the
glass out of the cockpit and they
turned the firehose on him and
chopped the glass till they could get
him out,” Butler said.
One passenger also helped pull
a hose off the first fire truck to
arrive, said Carroll County Fire
Chief Steve Chadwick.
On Oct. 31, an American Eagle
commuter plane crashed in Indiana
while waiting to land at Chicago’s
O’Hare Airport, killing all 68
aboard.
On Dec. 13, another American
Eagle commuter plane crashed in
fog and drizzle as it approached
Raleigh-Durham International Air
port in North Carolina. Fifteen of
the 20 people aboard were killed.
On Jan. 7, a United Express com
muter plane crashed on approach to
Port Columbus International Air
port in Ohio. Five people were
killed.
Rapist sentenced to 100 to 200 years
OMAHA — A man convicted of
raping eight people in Omaha during
the spring and summer of 1993 has
been sentenced to 100 to 200 years in
[Nison.
Thomas Freeman was sentenced to
10 to 20 years on each of eight counts
of rape and five to 10 years on each of
four counts of using a knife to commit
i..
a crime. Douglas County District Judge
James Murphy ordered the sentences
be served consecutively.
The prison time will be added to
the time Freeman already is serving
for two counts of attempted rape and
one count of using a knife.
Five of the rape victims were in the
courtroom Monday. They wept dur
ing the proceedings and as they left.
One victim spoke before Freeman was
sentenced. “I hope you rot in hell,
Thomas Freeman,” she said.
The victims said they were threat
ened with a knife and ordered to be
quiet or be ki Ued. They said they were
blindfolded so they could not see their
assailant.
Editor J. Christopher Hain
472-1786
Managing Edlor Rainbow Rowell
Assoc. News tditore DaDra Janssen
Arts & Entertainment Editor
Photo Director
Night News Edtors Mitch Sternum
L.IU flnhn-miir
JMWaOOCiyK
Doug Piters
Publications Board Chairman Tim Hadagaard, 472-2588
Professional Adviser Don Walton, 473-7301
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Woman beaten, stripped,
then falls to her death
DETROIT — As dozens of
onlookers cheered, three men pulled
a woman from her car, ripping off
her clothes, then chased her until
she either jumped or was forced off
a bridge to her death.
None of the 40 or so passersby
tried to help Deletha Word during
the confrontation that began with
two minor traffic accidents early
Saturday on the Belle Isle bridge,
said police Sgt. John Morel.
A man who arrived late tried to
rescue her from the Detroit River
but couldn’t reach her. The 33
year-old woman’s body, missing a
leg, was found several miles down
stream later that morning.
“My baby was down there all by
herself. I know she was scared to
death,” the woman’s mother, Dortha
Word, said as she cried Monday.
“How could they be so cruel?”
Trouble started around 3 a.m.,
Morel said, when Word was in
volved in two minor traffic acci
dents on Belle Island. One car with
three men inside chased her onto
the bridge connecting the island to
the city and rammed her car, forc
ing her to stop.
One of the men smashed her car
with a crowbar and pulled her from
the car, ripping off some of her
clothes, Cmdr. Gerald Stewart said.
The man pushed her against the car
and beat her, he said.
One of the men weighed nearly
300 pounds, according to a police
source quoted in The Detroit News.
Word, who was 4-foot-11, weighed
115 pounds, her mother said.
'When Word tried to'Tuil &way,
police said the man with the crow
bar chased her. What happened af
ter that is unclear.
Police are not saying whether
Word jumped or was forced off the
bridge, but Mrs. Word said she is
sure her daughter was forced into
the Detroit River.
“They... made her leap over that
bridge and beat her hands. She was
holding onto the bridge, and beat
her hands away from that banister,”
she said said, citing an account she
said police gave her.
Word’s cousin Carol Neely said
Word would have never jumped
because she did not know how to
swim.
Lawrence Walker, 21, was in
the bumper-to-bumper traffic that
had formed on the bridge when he
noticed a crowd running to the edge.
He got out of his car and followed,
jumping into the river after her.
“I wasn’t trying to be Superman
or anything,” he said. “I just saw
something and jumped in without
thinking about it.”
But Word moved away from him
and a friend in the water and he
quickly lost sight of her. He wor
ried afterward that perhaps she
thought he was one of the people
after her.
“I think my trying to help her
maybe made her swim a little fur
ther out than she could,” he said.
Walker said about 50 people
were gathered when he ran up, many
of them laughing about the men
beating Word. He said one person
had a cellular phone but would not
call police.
“It seemed like people didn’t
care,” he said.
*" 'By Sunday afternoon, police had
arrested three men, two age 20 and
one age 19. It was not clear what
charges they faced.
News...
in a Minute
Mantle remembered
GREENSBORO, Ga.—Friends and fans of baseball Hall of Famer
Mickey Mantle recalled the former New York Yankees slugger as a fun
loving neighbor and compassionate friend during a memorial service in ?*£
the small Georgia town he sometimes called home.
About 300 people, including Gov. Zell Miller and home run king
Hank Aaron, gathered Sunday at the First United Methodist Church
where Mantle sometimes attended services. Those on hand heard tales
of his fondness for practical jokes.
“That humor - hilarious. And sometimes a little raunchy,” said
Miller, who became friends with Mantle in recent years and has called
him one of his heroes.
Mantle died Aug. 13 of liver cancer, shortly after he received a liver
transplant.
Mantle came to Greensboro in 1994 after being released from the
Betty Ford Clinic, where he was treated for alcohol abuse.
Tnere, he embraced Christianity and the First United Methodist
Church in late 1993 at the behest of his friend and agent Greer Johnson,
who fed him communion by hand when Mantle’s ailing knees didn’t
allow him to walk to the altar. She wept as she sat next to Aaron at
Sunday’s service.
The church’s pastor, the Rev. Edward R. Nelson, said Mantle sat on
the back row the first time he came to the church with Johnson, but later
“became one of our best parishioners.” Nelson said support from the
community gave Mantle the strength to overcome his alcoholism.
Mantle was also remembered for his generosity, from raising money
for Georgia’s 1994 flood victims to providing Christmas gifts and
dinners for Greene County’s poor children.
Danza shows who’s the boss
MALIBU, Calif. — Television celebrity Tony Danza
smashed a car window and grabbed a video camera from two men who
had
taped the actor and his kids cm the beach, authorities said Monday.
Chris Williams, 25, and Alan Zasi, 34, told deputies Danza pursued
them Sunday and got them to pull over by bumping their car with his
Cadillac.
Danza kicked and broke the window and made off with the camera
after a struggle in which Williams received several scratches, the
sheriff s report said.
Danza wasn’t arrested, but the case will be forwarded to prosecutors
for possible robbery and battery charges. Deputy Fidel Gonzales said.
Calls to Danza’s publicist Kate Chester were not immediately re
turned.
The former star of “Who’s the Boss?” and “Taxi” will star this fall in
the new ABC series “Hudson Street,” in which he plays a divorced New
Jersey detective sharing custody of his son with his ex-wife.