The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 3

ion A 4 THE COURIER-JOURNAL, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1980 igftixiYEan Bus-stop murder trial opens in Shepherdsville asked that another judge hear the case.) In his opening statement, Bullitt Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Waller said testimony would show that Miss Henry told police she had consumed a fifth of whiskey before the incident and had been drinking steadily for about three weeks. Charles Sanders said he would make his opening statement when he presented his case. He said he expected to present four or five witnesses. He said in an interview during a recess that he would show that the deaths resulted from a traffic accident, not a crime that warranted murder charges being filed. Associated Prass with Rhodesian forces in preparation for independence next month.

The country's 3 million blacks began voting yesterday in elections to choose a new government. Maj. Gen. John Acland, center, British commander of the cease-fire monitoring forces in Rhodesia, inspected former guerrillas yesterday. The blacks veterans of seven years of war, have begun training Iranian says hostages' fate up in the air until.

May Assoclatad Prass Iran's new Parliament will not be ready to decide the fate of the U.S. hostages until May at the earliest, a top Iranian official said yesterday. It would mean at least 10 more weeks of captivity for the Americans. -The official, Ayatollah Mohammed Beheshti, first secretary of Iran's ruling Revolutionary Council, indicated that only a change of heart by Ayatollah Khomeini could lead to an earlier release of the hostages. Khomeini, Iran's revolutionary leader, said last weekend that the decision on whether to free the Americans would be up to Iran's new Parliament, which will be elected March 14 and April 3.

Beheshti told reporters yesterday that it would be at least 10 weeks before the new Parliament would be sufficiently organized to deal with the hostage issue. That would be early May. Even if the hostages were the first order of business, Beheshti said, a decision would not be likely before then. Reacting to Beheshti's statements, a high-level U.S. official said in Washington, "It would be of grave concern if the process dragged on that long." Meanwhile, the United Nations investigative commission on Iran continued its work in Tehran, meeting for two hours with Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh and discussing the commission's plans for visiting the hostages.

The five-member commission was established to hear Iranian grievances about deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and alleged U.S. interference in Iran, as well as U.S. grievances over the hostage-taking. U.S. officials say it is important for members of the commission to see the hostages to make sure they are all accounted for and in good condition.

The United States "still expects them to see the hostages and we expect them to operate in such a way as to fulfill all terms" of the commission's mandate, the high-level official in Washington said. Until the commissioners see all the hostages, he said, there can be no certainty that the 50 Americans remain in the hands of the militants who took over the embassy Nov. 4. Three other American diplomats are being held at the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran. It had been assumed in Washington, that the U.N.

inquiry would lead to the release of the hostages, but the Iranians Turnout heavy as Rhodesian blacks begin choosing a new government Nine political parties have candidates National Council and a lion, a flaming torch, a plough and a cow for others. Whites make up 3 percent of the population and 20 seats are reserved for them. All were won in an election earli er this month by the Rhodesian Front, the party that rebelled against Britain in 1965 and led to a minority rule by Prime Minister Ian Smith and sparked the liberation war by the blacks. was used in were not aware until the next day that both a and a weap- on were used in the fatal shootings of Helen and Howard I. Becker Jr.

and their granddaughter Erika Higgins. Police found a Remington rifle on the kitchen floor of the Becker home shortly after David Becker called them at roughly 7:17 p.m. to report that his father, mother and niece had been shot Becker, 25, has pleaded innocent to three counts of murder and one count of rape in connection with an alleged assault on his 9-year-old niece. More than 50 pieces of evidence were introduced in the second day of the trial in Jefferson Circuit Court. They included bullets and spent cartridges, blood samples, photographs of the flagstone, redwood and glass bi-level home and photographs of the bodies of the three victims.

Howard Becker, 60, was found dressed in khaki work clothes, lying face down and on his side in the bathroom. He had been shot in the head with a bullet and in the chest with a bullet. running for the 80 parliamentary seats reserved for blacks. The voters, many illiterate, scrawled 'x's" on their ballots beside the sym- bols of their chosen parties a cock for Mugabe's Zimbabwe African Nation- al Union, a guerrilla holding a baby for Nkomo's Patriotic Front, crossed spear and noe tor Muzorewa's United African Second gun By CAROLYN COLWELL courir-juni staff writar A missing automatic pistol was the second gun used in a triple slay- ing in southeastern Jefferson County last June 25, according to police officers tes- tifying yesterday in the murder trial of David H. Becker.

Under cross-examination by the de- fense, the witnesses revealed that the Jefferson County police investigators Pinto jury sees of crash tests Associated Press WINAMAC, Ind. The Ford Motor Co. tried to prove to a jury yesterday that the 1973 Pinto is no more vulnerable to explosion on rear-end impact than com- parable vehicles, The automaker showed color films of tests in which the Pinto and five other cars were nit Dy a van Th toate nracpntori lacnitA nhiw. tinno frnm tho nrnuuMitinn that thotr HiH UVIllJ A Will I.UV fSA UtJVV UUUU UMi HV-J VAAVA not deal with the central issue in the tri- al, showed that the rear ends of all six cars were crushed and that the fuel tanks leaked. Ford is charged with reckless homi cide in the August 1978 deaths of three teen-agers whose Pinto exploded after it waa im iiuiu ucuiuu vy a van uu a Northern Indiana highway.

The state contends Ford knew that defects in the Pinto's fuel system made the car likely to explode in a rear-end collision but did not modify them or warn the public. Ford hopes to show that it was the force of impact, rather than any defect in the car, that caused the Pinto to burst into flames. Pulaski Circuit Judge Harold R. Staf- iHfo w.iino oHmittino tha ftimo considered a major victory for Ford. In By LESLIE ELLIS Couriar-Jeurnal Staff Wrlttr The trial of Linda Jane Henry, who is charged with murder in the Nov.

16 deaths of two 6-year-old Bullitt County girls, opened yesterday with the prosecution saying it would prove she was intoxicated when her auto struck the children at a school bus stop. In the morning session of the trial, about 80 people packed the Bullitt Circuit Court room in Shepherdsville, though by late afternoon the crowd had dwindled to about 30. Among them were the fathers of the two girls, Carrie Ellison and Lorenda Lundgren, both of the Wheel Estates mobile home park. The girls were playing in a drainage ditch near their school-bus stop when they were struck. Parents of three boys injured in the incident also watched.

The boys are Eddie Phillips, Richard Scoggins, and Patrick Diener III, 6. Miss Henry, 18, is charged with three counts of assault in connection with their injuries. During the trial. Miss Henry sat nearly motionless, her gaze focused toward the floor. Occasionally, she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

She has been held in Bullitt County jail since the incident more than three months ago. Eighteen prosecution witnesses testified yesterday. The trial is expected to last through tomorrow. Jury selection took about an hour. And during that process, Charles C.

Sanders, Miss Henry's court-appointed attorney, requested a change of venue after several prospective jurors were elimnated because they said they had already formed opinions about the case based on news coverage. The motion was denied by Judge Charles V. Sanders, who is the father of Miss Henry's attorney. (If the prosecution had felt there was a conflict of interest it could have 3 slayings house, but the other two are still missing, Smith said. Smith, who was in charge of the evidence detection unit sent to the Becker home, spent more than five hours on the witness stand explaining the collection of evidence.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Steven Strepey said Tuesday that the three homicides resulted in "one of the most extensive police investigations and collections of evidence of any crime that has occurred in this county." Yesterday Gilbert H. Nutt Becker's chief defense counsel, appeared to be trying to discredit Strepey's claim about the police's thoroughness. Under cross-examination, Smith and other officers testified that the county police did not realize until the next day, June 26, that both a and weapon had been used. The search for the weapon was not begun until sometime in the after- noon of the 26th, Smith said. The search proved unsuccessful but was not abandoned until July 3 when a pond on the Becker property was drained and Smith said no sample was taken of a small blood stain on the living room carpet because he thought it was too light to be tested.

Under cross-examination by Nutt, he also said he did not collect or have tested the charred french fries found in the oven in the Becker kitchen. Smith said he did not observe the temperature settings on the stove burners on which pots of green beans and peas had been cooking. The trial will resume at 9:30 this morning before Judge Laurence E. Hig- gins. is disappointed help on tourism adding, "They're all in budget hearings now." And he said that Allen Worms of the Amartrntxni of tha nt Kentucky will go to Taylorsville today.

Furnish said Worms is "the recog nized expert on local planning for tourist influx." He said that Worms "can advise them on all kinds of things." Zl "Kelley did call up for help and we cess for the new staff here in the de- panmeni. n't want to go in there with a buncn a freshmen-type people and give them the lmoression we didn.t know hQf th onina nn prnih said. Kelley said local officials are trying to get grants for community improve- ments, but he didn't know of any grant money available to help communities deal with increased tourism. "We're working on a rural health clinic through the Rural Development Association and we're working on grant money for a park near the site where we hope to have a new school," Kelley noted. More than 100 Spencer County residents attended a meeting at the court- house in Taylorsville Tuesday night to discuss future changes.

Another meet- ing is planned on March 11. in- Trie lost umbrella IS now a LONDON (AP) Travelers on London's red double-decker buses and underground "Tube" trains are leaving behind a classier category of lost property these days, London Transport reported yesterday. Careless passengers are losing calculators, executive briefcases, squash toaltoavrtrtartUework. JSZlliSSS tniiah Moussavi Khoeini the spiritual TSSSStSlM ing between the commissioners and the hostages, saying the U.N. inquiry is not connected with the captives.

The last outsiders known to have met with the hostages Khomeini's son and a Greek archbishop visited them Feb. 8. The commission members also con- tinued hearing testimony yesterday from scores of disabled Iranians identi- fied as victims of torture at the hands of me inji.i Fu.iv, v. Helen Becker, 57, was found, barefoot searched with a metal detector, he dressed in patchwork blue-jean cut- ed. Yesterday, five witnesses, one mother and four teen-agers who had been waiting at the bus top, gave the same, general description or tne incident.

They said they saw a white Chevrolet pull from the mobile home park and turn left onto Barricks Lane. une gin lesunea uuu sne neara ine -tires squeal and saw the car's right wheels go off the roadway. The car swerved to the left, she testified, and struck the children as it went into the ditch. The three bovs who were injured each described the accident simply 1 uuu uiiccuy. "we were lumping across tne ditcn and a car hit us," said Richard Scoggins.

Their parents testified about the children's injuries. Under cross-examination, several witnesses said children often played in the ditch while waiting for the school bus. Charles Sanders questioned a woman who witnessed the accident about par-; ental concern over the safety of the bus stop. Mrs. Cora Goodlett said that after the deaths parents asked the county school board to move the bus! stop to what they considered a safer -area well inside the mobile home Dark.

Another prosecution witness. Dr. George R. Nichols, the medical exam-' iner who did autopsies on the two girls, said the Ellison girl died as a re-; suit of complications from a fractured skull. The Lundgren girl died of suffo-) cation, he said.

While pinned under the car she apparently was unable to I breath, he said. William Flowers, a Jefferson County police officer, testified that Miss Henry was uncooperative, combative and re-'. fused efforts to help her at the scene of the incident. Flowers said she was taken to Norton Infirmary in Louisville and told him there that she had con-. -sumed a fifth, of whiskey that morning and had been drinking continuously for three weeks.

Under cross-examination, Flowers said Miss Henry appeared to be alert and rational, but was upset. Flowers testified that he had been unable to determine if she was intoxicated. However, Kentucky State Police Trooper Nellis Willhite, who investigated the deaths, said she smelted of al-: cohol when she was pulled from the car. The alcohol content of her blood was .26 percent, according to testimony by Margaret Hoffman, a medical technologist at Norton Infirmary who performed the blood test. Commonwealth's Attorney Waller cited a state law that says a person, with an alcohol level of .10 percent or' more is considered under the influence of alcohol.

Leader spells out I I Wtiat tO be dOtie at family meeting Jim Guy Tucker laid it on the line for participants in Kentucky's White SST have to sav on Families yesterday: No- interested in what they. have to say about abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment. He told them they'd be wise not to waste their time fighting about those things, or about other issues that have been "debated and debated and debated." What the government wants to he told about 700 people gathered at the; Gait House in Louisville gathering, is what people can agree on. If partici-' pants can "come up with good, solid recommendations you'll get the at-! tention of the politicians, the corporate presidents, and the union leaders, and you'll get action." It was a sort of pep talk to kick off. the Kentucky part of the White House conference.

The conference is intended to draw out grass-roots opinion on what government and private institutions do to families. Tucker is national chairman of the' conference. State conferences will select issues and delegates for three national confer-, ences this summer. In a handful of states that have held conferences. Tucker has said, conservative groups, that call themselves "pro-family" have attempted to take over for their own ends.

Tucker's remarks yesterday didn't single out any particular group as troublesome. But he cautioned participants to make sure that "organized constituencies" don't dominate. And he added that it is not the aim of. the conference to set up "some kind of bureau of family happiness" to monitor, the way people interact in their homes. vanishing phenomenon rackets, credit cards and passports on the city's buses and trains.

Previously, the article most frequently lost was the traditional furled umbrella. The growing popularity of fold-up umbrellas probably accounts for the change. iirc uuuug uiiu-siiau uciuuiuuauuus party an(J hundreds of Mugabe support-1978-79. ers threw stones at police vehicles, tin another development, a group of Argnan residents oi iran oneiiy took over their country's embassy in Tehran, Associated Prass SALISBURY, Rhodesia Armored cars and troop carriers loaded with rifle-carrying soldiers cruised through cities, towns and countryside to ensure law and order as war-weary black Rho- desians began voting yesterday. Ahnnt a mini hinriro pUpimp tn vote during the three-day parliamentary elections.

At one polling station, in the township of Pumula, police reported 15,000 voters in a line four miles long in mid-afternoon. Sir John Boynton, the elections commissioner, told a news conference that more than 800,000 people voted during the first day. "If this goes on it's going to be a big poll," he said. This report suggested that many more voters lined up at polling stations than on the first day of elections last year. The 1979 elections excluded guerrilla leaders Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, and thrust Bishop Abel Muzorewa into power as prime minister.

Nkomo, Mugabe and Muzorewa considered -the front-runners signed an agreement in London last December which ended seven years of war with a cease-fire and paved the way for independence for Britain's last African colony next month. The eIectlon results are t0 be an srhed next whichh the Bntisn governor, Lord Soames, who re- 2 on tne the maJoritv Partv t0 torm a government. Muzorewa, Mugabe and Nkomo all have claimed they will achieve an out right victory. But observers believe none of the parties will receive a major ity of seats and a coalition will have to be formed before Soames invites any leader to set up a government. 0ne agent for Mugabe's party was beaten up yesterday, troops used tear- gag l0 Beal DacK supporters or anotner first dav of Lthe first day of Western diplomats in New Delhi, India, said the shopkeepers' general strike, which signaled the start of the uprising on Feb.

21, showed few signs of letting up. One diplomat in New Delhi, quoting Afghan sources, said only 20-25 percent twtentaS The Trike Twas still rrii pling the economic life of the city, he added. Underground organizers of the strike a' a. th if h. have given no indication when it will end- The Afghan sources described the capital as very rense.

Some U.S. analysts believe the Soviets would have to send 400,000 troops into Afghanistan to quell the insurgency. One military specialist, who asked not to be identified, said, "The smart mon- ey says the Russians have a very diffi- cult ballgame ahead of them" if they stay in Afghanistan. The Moslem insurgents are now believed to be in control of two central provinces and much of the countryside in eastern and northeastern Afghani- troops. The sources, who asked not to be identified, said the Afghan soldiers escaped the villages in Laghman Prov- calling upon the soviet union to witn- draw its estimated 70,000 troops fro- During the five-day elections last mAfghanistan.

They left the building year, 218 guerrillas and 43 black civil-peacefully several hours later. ians were killed. It was the second time Afghan resi- Hundreds of blacks in Salisbury, dents occupied the embassy since the swelled by thousands of war refugees, Soviet Union sent large numbers of camped out overnight in order to vote troops into Afghanistan in late Decern- as soon as polling places opened on the ber. gray, drizzly day. Reprisals are reported after Afghan uprising light or that ruling, chief prosecutor Mi- chael A.

Cosentino tried one more time hasnt reached hls commny-yesterday to subpoena data on Ford Tom Kelley, who runs the chamber's crash tests of '71, '72 and '74 Pintos. economic-development committee, said Staffeldt turned down the request. that local people have been meeting on The six Ford tests were oresented bv offs and a blouse, lying on her back on the floor of the master bedroom. She was shot in the neck and head with bullets. CitrA TJi net ine itnyltfttAsI ntoa fstunsl ---r caliber bullet was recovered from her head and a bullet from her heart.

Only six bullets were recovered from the bodies while 10 spent cartridges were found in the Becker home, R. L. Smith a rnnntv nnlirp Hptprtivp tocti- fied Two other bullets were found in the Spencer booster over FranKfort By THOMAS S. WATSON Associated Prost TAYLORSVILLE, Ky. A spokes- man for the Spencer County Chamber tVtp.a tnnriTnHi.

how to deal with changes coming when advice on how to get the county ready for the influx of tourists that's expected, He said he also wondered if any money was available. There was little response, Kelley said. "It's been kind of disappointing with all this hype about what Brown is going 1 i to do for tourism. I thought Kentucky tourism was a pretty big item in this state," Kelley said. "I would think they would have all kinds of staff." Kelley said the state Department of Tourism told him "they didn't have any other communities that have had man- made lakes put in," Kelley said.

"He said a fellow named Worms is coming 4a A II. a Dr. John D. Habberstad, an independent a dam on Salt River just upstream from OKlccu uu rui uau aam-mechanical engineer and specialist in Taylorsville is finished in 1982, forming "The initial agreement was that accident reconstrucion from Spokane, a Worms wanted to use it (the Taylors- UFacS n.nWA aammaIaaI am aJ hit tnllml nnij A nrl. aa CmnblAvt a 11 1 1 A nlfl eltllotfn a a laarfllflO 1-a Associated trass ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Afghan authorities engaged in widespread repression and executions after last week's anti-Soviet uprising in Kabul, according to a report published yesterday.

The Associated Press of Pakistan's report quoted diplomatic sources who said an Islamic scholar was among those killed by authorities in the aftermath of bloody, rioting in the Afghan capital. Mass arrests also were made, according to the report. The Afghan government radio yester- day asked parents to pick up their chil- dren at the prime minister's building, former headquarters of the secret po lice, thereby acknowledging that children were arrested during the anti-Soviet rioting. Eyewitness reports said children, some as young as 8, were detained after throwing rocks and bottles at Soviet tanks. The government said, without further explanation, that the children were "misled by reactionary propaganda." The Pakistani news agency, quoting Ford and conducted at its Dearborn, test track.

In all tests, the van was moving at be- tween 50 and 51 mph and the vehicle was stopped. Cosentino has insisted that the fatal craSh occurred when the van was going 30 t0 35 mDh faster tnan tjie Pinto, and five prosecution witnesses testified that the Pinto was moving at the time of the accident Besides the '73 Pinto, '73 models of the Dodge Colt, Chevrolet Vega and Im- pala, American Motors Gremlin and funds to help us out I just asked for Toyota Corolla were subjected to the some expert advice and said we would crash test. figure it out from there. In each test three dummies, weighing "Tourism will bring some revenue in between 103 and 107 pounds each and if we can get the business commu-the approximate weight of the girls nity jacked up one way or another, we were placed in the car. Another dum- will be all right We may have to create my, weighing 150 pounds, was placed in some new businesses to bring the tour-the van.

ists in," he added. In each test a camera was placed in "I told this guy with the Department the van, and a camera was on each side of Tourism, Bill Furnish, that I would of the crash vehicle, Habberstad said, like to find out what has happened to reports from Soviet-occupied Afghani- stan. One source said the Afghan gov-stan, said Moslem rebels and Afghan ernment army "no longer exists as a troops "sustained heavy casualties and viable fighting force" against the rebels, losses" in "bitter fighting" the past few U.S. intelligence sources in Washing-days, ton said the Soviets bombed two Afghan Medical sources said at least 300 ci- villages for two days earlier this month vilian and an undetermined number of in retaliation for the murder of 13 Sovi-Soviet and Afghan troops were killed in et advisers by regular Afghan army The van weighed at least 4,000 pounds and the cars weighed between 2,100 and 4,300. The Pinto weighs about 2,400 TTn L-1 Jt 1 the strife that led to the imposition of martial law in Kabul.

During the revolt, the Soviet military commander became iwuiius, nauucisuu saiu. tu una. iu us. In all tests, as in the case of the fatal "The Kentucky Chamber of Corn-crash, there was considerable leakage merce played dumb on me. I would from the fuel tank.

The test vehicles have thought they would have had some used a non-flammable solvent instead of resources, like information from the gasoline. Grayson Chamber of Commerce when In the Toyota Corolla, the solvent was Rough River went in." splashed up on the windshield of the Furnish responded yesterday that van. "nobody in Frankfort has any money," the nead or tne Aignan government. ince, east oi K.aDui, ana joinea reoei In one incident, the report said, reb- tribesmen in the area, eis ambushed a caravan of government There have been reliable reports in troops on a road between Kabul and Ja- recent weeks of Afghan troops opening lalabad, and "killed 400 troops and de- fire on Soviet units near Khost, Kanda-stroyed a number of armored vehicles." har and Herat..