Volume LVII - No 12 Edenton, North Carolina, Thursday, March 21,1991 Sinolo Copies 35 Cents I' UNDER CONTROL—Smoke still billowed as Edenton firemen used hooks to pull off siding to get at smoldering embers of a house fire on Carteret St. Tuesday afternoon. The fire was at the home of Maiy Creesey. Kelly Attorneys File For Dismissal 9 By JACK GROVE As the Little Rascals Day Care trial approaches, argu ments are scheduled to be heard Monday in Farmville in what may be the last pre trial motions hearing. The trial of Robert F. Kelly Jr. on 248 child sexual abuse V charges is set to begin on April 8. His trial precedes : - . • those of six others facing over 400 charges (including Kel ly's) in the case involving 29 children at the former Eden ton day care. Scheduled to be heard are two defense motions and at least one by the prosecution. According to District Attor ney H.P. Williams, one de fense motion will ask the court to provide, at state ex pense, a medical doctor and a psychiatrist to examine the* children involved. A copy of the second de fense motion was obtained from defense attorney W. Mi chael Spivey. The motion asks dismissal of all the charges against Kelly. Spivey points to the latest bill of par ticulars provided by the pros ecution, listing offenses, loca tions and times committed. A principal defense com ' plaint is that the state has ex panded the time frame in which the offenses are alleged to have occurred. The motion states, "Thus, the state has engaged in a ’whole-cloth’ alteration and tailoring of its accusations . . and it has attempted to ma nipulate the allegations from offenses declared by grand jury indictments to have oc curred principally at the new (day care) facility after Sep tember 30,1988 into an amal gam of allegations of offenses occurring over a period of al most three years . . . ." from T June, 1986 to April, 1989. The motion also asks that a single offense be charged in each alleged abuse incident. (Many of the indictments charge Kelly with three of fenses for each incident with a child — first degree sex of fense, crime against nature and taking indecent liber ties.) The motion also calls on the court "To dismiss the in dictments and to sanction and disqualify the prosecutors for gross, willful, wanton and/or reckless conduct in failing to comply with this court's or ders, failing to comply with discovery obligations and other misconduct in the prose cution of this cause." The state expects to file a motion this week to quash de fense subpoenas issued for 40 or more families of alleged victims, special prosecutor William P. Hart said Tues day. The subpoenas require both parents of each child and the children to appear and bring health care records of the chil dren. The subpoenas order the families to attend the trial on a day-to-day basis. Earlier this month, Hart called the subpoenas "an at tempt to intimidate and ha rass" the families. Hospitality Seminar Planned To Better Serve Area Visitors By MARGUERITE MCCALL During Tuesday’s meeting of the Tourism Development Authority, Chamber of Com merce Executive Director Richard Bunch told the board of a "Hospitality" seminar being planned by the cham ber, Historic Edenton, and Historic Albemarle Tours. Bunch said its purpose is to give information about lodg ing, restaurants and tour sites to persons working in local businesses where such in quiries are likely to be made. The seminar is scheduled for Tuesday, April 9, from 2-4 p.m. A location will be an nounced later, Bunch said. Board Vice-chairman Livy Goodman produced a copy of Historic Preservation, a pub lication of the National Trust, to show the group an article about four North Carolina ports. Edenton was prom inently featured in the text and by a colored photograph of the Cupola House. Board media committee members Arch Edwards and Anne-Marie Kelly reported on the progress of the visitors' information signs. Edwards said he received a quote from local carpenter Morgan Francis for the Continued On Page 6-A 'Fabulous Forties' To Return The 1940's were some of the most unforgettable years in American history. In ad dition to World War II, it was a time when neighbors were truly friends and people shared what they had to sur vive tough economic times. But, there were lighter mo ments as well. Flag pole sit ting was a major fad, and television was just beginning to be available to the masses. Dance marathons were a well - known pastime, and couples moved to the music of the "Big Band" sound. Now, area businesses are bringing back those memo ries with a "Fabulous 40’s Celebration" April 18-20. De tails are on page 7-A of this week's edition. kTING-The almost completed new bleachers at the high school’s athletic complex seem to beckon sports fans. Hus is the home section with the visitor section across the field not yet begun. The track around the football field has been roughed in and work has begun on the field house. The sports complex is scheduled to be completed in time for fall competition. Woman Loses Possessions, Pet Afternoon Blaze Destroys Home Edenton firemen respond ed to a house fire at 109 W. Carteret St. late Tuesday aft ernoon, but were too late to save the residence. "Flames were coming out of the roof when we got there. It was fully involved," said Fire Chief Lynn Perry of the 4:42 p.m. call. The small frame house was the home of Mary Cree sey, an elderly woman who lived alone. She lost her home, all of her personal pos sessions and her dog, Terry, to the flames. Perry said that Ms. Cree sey told him that she discov ered the fire when she noticed a chair next to a wood stove beginning to blaze. When she couldn't put out the flames, she went to a neighbor's home to call the fire department. Returning to the house, Ms. Creesey had to be restrained from entering the burning building for her dog, Perry said. A friend of Ms. Creesey’s, Phone System At County Jail Gets Updated A new phone system for the •Chowan County Detention Facility will benefit both jail ers and inmates, according to Chief Jailer Walter Linhardt. The new system, to be in stalled by the end of the month, will allow inmates access to telephones and free jailers from placing calls for them. The system, to be installed by Paytel Communications of Greensboro, will feature a tel ephone installed in each of the jail's four cellblocks. Prison ers will be able to use the phones from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Jailers will shut the system down outside those hours. The calls will not be free, however, even locally. The person receiving the call will be told by an automated oper ator the it is a collect call from the jail. Also the call recipient must have a touch tone phone. The recipient will be told to press "1" if the call is to be ac cepted. The charge is 88 cents for each local call. "The beauty of the system," Linhardt said, "is that before, jail personnel had to dial each call for an inmate and then pass the receiver into the cell block." He said that until the new system goes into opera tion, inmates can only call from 9 to 11 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays. Calls have been limited to ten minutes each. Under the new system, calls will be un limited every day. Linhardt stressed that this is a call-out system only. Prisoners are not allowed to Pickup Times Are Changed Since the Town of Eden ton is observing its Easter holiday on Friday, March 29, the following, revised trash pickup schedule has been issued. Monday, east side col lection. Tuesday, west side col lection. Wednesday, limbs and waste will be picked up on both east and west sides. Thursday, collections on both east and west sides. Friday, no collections. Mrs. J.B. Pruitt, said at the scene that a new house was to be started on Ms. Creesey's Carteret lot next week under the ongoing Community De velopment Block program. CDBG officials were unavail able Wednesday morning to confirm this. Mrs. Pruitt said that her friend could stay with her un til a new home is completed. Perry said 19 firemen re sponded to the fire call. Plan To Be Updated I The Edenton Planning Board will begin updating the town's Land Use Plan on Tuesday, March 26. This update, required by state law, helps the town es tablish programs for manag ing its coastal resources, Town Manager Anne-Marie Kelly said in a prepared state ment this week. Twenty coastal communi ties are required to prepare land use plans which estab lish policies to guide growth and development. "Citizen participation is the key to a successful up date," Ms. Kelly said. A citi zens workshop has been scheduled to kick off the up date on Tuesday at 7 30 p.m. in the town council chamber. "This will be an opportu nity for Edenton citizens to discuss their opinions on such issues as economic develop ment, waterfront access and any other land use planning issue they wish to discuss," Ms. Kelly explained. She said that opinions will be used by local officials as Continued On Page 6-A FACELIFT-Cupola House was given a new coat of paint this week by an Edenton painting contractor. The spruce up i» just in time for spring. Holmes Concert Choir Performs At Carnegie By MARGUERITE MCCALL Years from now, John A. Holmes Concert Choir mem bers can tell their grandchil dren they performed in New York City's famed Carnegie Hall. On Sunday, February 24, the thirty-two member choir joined with eleven other choirs from high schools across the state to give a con cert on the hall’s venerated stage. Billed as "The North Carolina Youth Chorale," the youngsters (420 total) were directed by Ronald Shirey. Accompanied by Choir Di rector Shelby Strother and seven chaperones, the Holmes group departed Edenton at 4 a.m. on Friday, February 22, via chartered bus. They ar rived in the "Big Apple" that afternoon. Between rigorous rehear sals on Friday night, Satur day and on Sunday morning, they managed to go sight-see ing. "We saw plenty," Shaun dell Satterfield exclaimed. "We saw everything." Mrs. Strother said that as impressed as her students were with the World Trade Center, they were more im pressed with the building's elevator attendant. "He was shocked when the kids thanked him for the ride," she said. "He told us, 'No one ever does that.' "And this was what I ob served about the group as a whole, how polite and man nerly they were and how ap palled they were at others' lack of manners." In spite of waiting in line for an hour and 45 minutes at the "Hard Rock Cafe," Bran don Wohn and Trey Adams felt the time spent was just ified. "Jimi Hendrix's guitar was there," Wohn said. "I got to touch it." Robin Lichtenwalner con fessed she wanted to touch the keyboard of the piano on stage at Carnegie Hall. Unfortu nately, she couldn't get close enough to do so, she said. All of the kids agreed that attending a performance of "The Phantom of the Opera" at the Majestic Theater stood out as a highlight of their trip. "It was the icing on the cake," Adams commented. The choir will sing three of the show's tunes in their May 21 spring concert at Holmes auditorium, as well as selec tions they sang in New York.’ Because fear of a terrorist Continued On Page B-A

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view