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Volume 110, Issue 154
Sing, Tepper Kick Off Final Push
BP JB
DTH ALLISON MONEY
Candidate Sang Shin (left) speaks with sophomore
Brandon Neal about his campaign goals.
Gates Sentenced
To 3 Life Terms
For July Murders
By John Frank
City Editor -- •- -
HILLSBOROUGH - An Orange
County man was sentenced to life in jail
for a triple murder as part of a plea
agreement that spared him from the
death penalty.
Alan Douglas Gates, who was
charged with the July 1 slayings of his
daughter, her friend and her friend’s 2-
year-old son, was sentenced to three con
secutive life sentences in Central Prison.
District Attorney Carl Fox said a
month after the crime that he intended to
pursue the death penalty, but Wednesday
in Orange County Superior Court, he said
he was satisfied with the plea agreement
After five family members of the vic
tims read poems and spoke tearfully
about the tragedy, Judge Wade Barber
accepted Alan Gates’ guilty plea,
“It was a sad day,” Fox said.
With the sentence, Alan Gates, 50, will
die in prison. The first time he even could
be eligible for parole would be 2078.
During the hearing, Fox entered an
evidentiary report from a psychiatrist
that declared Alan Gates competent to
stand trial.
Alan Gates’ defense attorneys argued
Apartments Warned Of
Possible Terrorist Threat
Complexes, hotels
may be insecure
By Jenny Huang
Staff Writer
With the recent national terrorist
threat level raised to “high risk,” the
National Apartment Association has
notified local apartment complexes of a
possible terrorist threat targeting apart
ments and hotels.
On Friday, Attorney General John
Ashcroft, Director of Homeland
Security Tom Ridge and FBI Director
Robert Mueller elevated the national
terrorism threat level to “orange,” indi
cating a “high risk” of terrorist attacks.
Ashcroft announced Friday that
recent intelligence reports suggest that
al-Qaeda might attack “apartment
buildings, hotels and other soft or light
ly secured targets in the United States.”
When will I learn? The answer to life's problems aren't at the bottom of the bottle; they're on TV.
Homer Simpson
Welcome to Springfield
Long-running animated classic "The Simpsons"
hits 300th episode mark.
See Page 5
By Rachel Hodges
Staff Writer
Student body president candidates
Matt Tepper and Sang Shin have anoth
er week of campaigning ahead of them,
but they definitely
aren’t complain
ing.
Because neither
candidate received
more than 50 per
cent of the vote in
Tuesday’s general election, the two will
continue to compete until the runoff
election next Tuesday. Tepper led all
candidates in the general election with
35.35 percent of the vote, while Shin
edged Nathan Cherry to finish second
with 24.54 percent.
Both candidates said they would con-
that he is not the
monster he was
made out to be.
They said Alan
Gates was drunk
at the time and did
not intend to kill
anyone in his
estranged wife’s
mobile home,
located in south
western Orange
Alan Gates
County. Alan Gates has a history of
alcohol abuse problems and was highly
intoxicated at the time of the killings.
Court records show that Alan Gates
told prosecutors he went to the trailer to
have sex with his estranged wife one last
time before he killed himself.
The separated couple had a long his
tory of domestic issues, and Alan Gates’
wife had a domestic order against him.
At the time of the incident, Alan Gates
was waiting for his wife, who he believed
had anew boyfriend, Fox said.
Instead, his daughter, Valerie Gates, 24,
her friend, Cordae Lee, 21, and Lee’s son,
Kendall Dianis, came to the residence.
Alan Gates surprised them and
See GATES, Page 13
The NAA alerted its members of the
potential threat last Friday, including
Highland Hills of 180 BPW Club Road,
Rock Creek Apartments of 100 Rock
Haven Road and Laurel Ridge
Apartments of 1100 N.C. 54 Bypass.
Highland Hills property manager
Lindsey Waudby said that she received
the NAA’s official notice Monday and
that she sent letters alerting residents to
the potential threat on Tuesday. “(But) at
this point, we haven’t been notified by
our home office to take any additional
precautionary measures,” she said.
Vicki Schudel, Rock Creek and
Laurel Ridge property manager, said
that she received the NAA alert and
that she is considering the next steps in
resident notification.
In light of the increased risk, NAA
officials want apartment residents to
remain alert and to take action if they
notice anything out of the ordinary.
See ALERT, Page 13
Serving the students and the University community since 1893
Thursday, February 13, 2003
tinue to run their campaigns as they had
before.
“We’re just going to be out there, talk
ing to people one-on-one and just making
sure that I get my campaign out there,”
Tepper said.
“We worked really hard for this;
everybody did, so I was pleased. I was
happy.”
Tepper said he was going to empha
size the things that set him apart from
other candidates, such as his proposed
student wish list, because they are unique
to his platform.
Shin said he will focus on raising his
visibility and being available to students.
“You can always better a lot of things,”
Shin said. “I’ll be getting my face out
there.”
See CAMPAIGNING, Page 13
ML
**
4g ...
DTH PHOTOS JESSICA FOSTER
Kathleen Fuller holds a photograph of her son, Robert Earl Fuller, 29, who was injured in January's
explosion at the West Pharmaceutical Services plant in Kinston. Robert Fuller is now at UNC Hospitals.
VICTIMS' FAMILIES
SHARE PAIN WITH EASLEY
By Lindsey White / staffwriter
Gov. Mike Easley visited victims of the Kinston phar
maceutical plant explosion, along with their friends
and family, at UNC Hospitals on Wednesday.
While touring the N.C. Jaycee Burn Center facility, Easley
commented that he was surprised by the patients’ upbeat atti
tudes given the severity of their injuries. He said he never had
seen burns as extensive as those of the victims of Kinston’s
West Pharmaceutical Services plant explosion. Easley attrib
uted the patients’ high morale to the bum center’s caring and
committed staff.
See BURN VICTIMS, Page 13
y
Payback
Tar Heels avenge earlier
loss to UVa. in 81-67 romp
See Page 11
t'
f r - 7
EOTI/ALUSON MONEY
Candidate Matt Tepper (left) talks to junior Dusty
Heist while campaigning Wednesday in the Pit.
Weather
Today: Sunny; H 51, L 29
Friday: Light Rain; H 48, L 30
Saturday: Rain; H 46, L 46
James Edwards, father of a
victim, is comforted by Easley.
www.dailytarheel.com
Sing Gains
Support of
Former SBP
Candidates
By Billy Ball
Staff Writer
Former student body president candi
dates Nathan Cherry and Ben Pickett and
former write-in candidate Dan Pickel all
announced Wednesday that they will
endorse Sang Shin for the coveted office
in next Tuesday’s runoff vote.
Cherry, Pickel
and Pickett all said
that they had
become friends
with Shin during
the campaign and
that they think he
is the best choice
for president.
Pickett, who said he sat down with
Tepper earlier in the day to break the
news to him, said he thinks the student
body needs a president who will work for
the interests of all students.
“I feel that Sang can best represent the
University as a whole,” Pickett said.
Cherry said he is throwing his support
behind Shin because he thinks Shin would
be a leader who would get things done. “I
see (Shin) as a fire,” Cherry said. “I see him
as the type of leader this University needs.”
Cherry also offered any part of his
platform to either of the candidates foT
possible absorption and said that he
hopes students will understand the impor
tance of one eliminated candidate sup
porting a remaining candidate.
Meanwhile, former senior class presi
dent candidates Zack Mansfield and
Haroun Habib have weighed in on oppo
site sides of the two remaining tickets for
the position, while Jordan Campbell
declined to weigh in at all.
Mansfield said he would endorse the
team of Liz Manekin and Doug Sue for
senior class president and vice president,
and Habib said he was endorsing George
Leamon and Doug Melton.
Campbell declined to endorse either of
the candidate pairs but said he would
endorse Shin for student body president
“I feel like a lot of things I stood for, Sang
stands for,” he said.
Campbell said that among those qual
ities was Shin’s effort to be visible and
open with the student body and that such
visibility was one of Campbell’s own
goals for the senior class president office.
Mansfield said he was impressed that
Manekin and Sue had not tried to change
their ideas to play to different venues. “I
feel like they have a good platform that’s
been consistent,” he said.
Mansfield also said he would send an
e-mail to his supporters encouraging
them to vote for “Liz and Doug” and
would share some of his platform ideas
with the two runoff candidates.
“Our whole platform revolves around
the idea that senior class officers are ser
vants of the senior class,” he said.
Habib said he was endorsing Leamon
and Melton because their platform is the
closest to his own agenda and that,
through endorsing them, he would be
able to help the rising senior class despite
having lost the election.
“I thought their platform was the clos
est to what I had,” he said.
Habib added that he would do what
was necessary to help Leamon and
Melton win, including wearing a T-shirt
supporting the duo or simply telling his
supporters to vote for them.
Running mates Kimberly Turner and
Jordan Hardy are not sure who they will
be endorsing and are planning to discuss
the issue.
The effect of losing candidates’ endorse
ments had significant results last year. Jen
Daum received all of the losing candidates’
endorsements before the runoff and ended
up beating out Will McKinney for student
body president.
The University Editor can be reached
at udesk@unc.edu.