The
ews
J oumal
The 19lh issue of our 83rd year
RAEFORD, NORTH CAROLINA
25 CENTS
Wednesday, August 21,1991
Six escape from jail; five recaptured
F ive inmates who escaped from the Hoke
County Jail over the weekend are back in
custody; a sixth man is still on the loose.
Three of the escapees—charged with the early
April murder of Southern Pines policeman Ed
Harris—were arrested at a motel in Bennettsville,
South Carolina about 5 p.m. Monday.
Bernice Hugh McDougald, 21, Terry Lee
Evans, 21, and Benjamin Jones, 23, (three of nine
men in Hoke Jail charged with Harris’ murder)
were arrested at the Bennettsville motel after
investigators followed their trail from Raeford
through Aberdeen and Rockingham, interim
Sheriff Frank Grumpier said.
One escapee, Clyde Strickland, turned himself
in Monday and deputies and Fayetteville
S.W.A.T. team members arrested Kenton
Lawson, 17, of Raeford, near the corner of Main
Street and Vass Road around 8:15 p.m. Monday.
Bruce Harris, whom detectives say was with
Lawson, ran from the arrest and they have not
caught up with him yet.
Glenda Blue, the jailer on duty during the
jailbreak resigned 9 a.m. Monday.
“The jailbreak was due to negligence,” said
interim Sheriff Frank Grumpier.
He said he hoped Blue’s resignation would
take care of any security problems at the jail.
“We’re doing extra security over there now,”
he said.
Terry Evans
Bernice McDougald
Benjamin Jones
Kenton Lawson
C ounty commissioners voted Monday
night to adopt a zoning law which will
define what uses are and are not legal for
different tracts of land in Hoke County.
The vote followed a public hearing in which
citizens asked—as they did in the three public
meetings on zoning—about how much the law
will restrict owners of mobile homes.
“We’re not trying to restrict, we’re trying to
protect,” Commissioner Tom Howell said shortly
before he moved to adopt the law, effective
October 1.
Howell was joined by Chairman Wyatt
Upchurch in voting for the law; Commissioner
Neill McPhatter was present, but did not vote.
Under state law, a failure to vote is taken as a
vote in favor.
Commissioners Cleo Bratcher and L. E.
McLaughlin voted against the law.
“1 think there was some question in some
people’s minds that needed to be answered,”
Bratcher said, who said he supports zoning.
“But 1 think we need time,” he said.
“When you’ve got a group of people that’s still
questioning fact, 1 think you need to find out
what the questions and what the problems are,”
he said.
Lund} b i
Shoe Shop
'71 t fi
s.
r
L
Hits house
A.J. Lundy awaits transport to a hospital after his truck
crashed into the home (background) of Mary Hill on
Reaves St Monday Lundv was charqed with driving
Cnimpler had Blue in his office several times
in the two weeks prior to the escape to due to
reports of negligence.
“We had been getting reports in and etcetera
from different people,” he said.
The jailbreak
J’he escapees probably planned the jailbreak by
using a phone in the cell block to call friends
outside. Grumpier said. Only collect calls may be
made on the phone.
Inmates in one of the jail’s cell blocks appar
ently stopped up and overflowed a sink and toilet
in the block’s shower stall about 1:30 Sunday
morning, said interim Sheriff Frank Grumpier.
(See ESGAPE, page 3)
J
County adopts zoning
Mobile homes still citizens’ chief concern ^
McLaughlin also said he supports zoning but
was not ready to vote for the proposed law.
“I like to be precise with what I’m doing,” he
said.
Upchurch said commissioners have had since
April to look at the proposed zoning law-; it
changed little since then in the hands of Planning
and Development Gommissioners who were
drafting it.
The PDC did add provisions to protect people
who already own single-wide mobile homes.
“Zoning certainly is controversial in its best
times,” Howell said. But he said zoning is needed
“to have some kind of control over the growth of
Hoke Gounty.”
“Hoke County is going to be one of the eight
fastest growing counties in the state,” he said.
Citizens question board’s role
in sheriff’s ouster
A crowd of about 30 waited until the end of the
commissioners’ meeting when a Bowmore
woman was scheduled “to be heard concerning
Sheriff’s Department matters.”
Donna McLaughlin, a cousin of commissioner
L. E. McLaughlin, questioned board members on
(See COUNTY, page 4)
v J
Members of a S.W.A.T. team from Cumberland County
prepare to depart from Tacker’s Store for a house on the
fringe of Robbins Heights late Monday to search for
escapee Bruce Harris.
Three more apply for sheriff
while impaired, careless and reckless driving and trans
porting open liquor Story, page 4.
Three more men have applied for the
job of sheriff of Hoke County.
Jim Knott, William Gary Lowe and
David A. Stewart have put in their appli
cations for the job.
“1 have a lot of management skills,”
Jim Knott, a retired Amiy sergeant ma
jor said.
“To my way of thinking, it’s not that
you have to know so much about law
enforcement, you’ve got to manage,” he
said.
“I could just kick back and stay re
tired, but I diink Hoke County needs
someone who can run the department,”
he said.
“It needs to b' run a little tighter than
it’s been run,” he said. “From what I can
Volunteers
put Festival
together
Organizers are pulling into the final
Sirelch of preparations for over 50,(XX)
people to bring them the best N.C. Tur
key Festival yet.
The festival board of directors—and
lots of volunteers—arc finishing plans
and fine-tuning preparations to ensure a
smooth-running event September 19-
21.
Much of Raeford’s participation in
the lestival comes before it begins.
Board members, who plan each festi-
\ al, have met each montli since January.
The\ have arranged magicians and mu
sicians, sites, food and drink and all the
artisLs and craftsmen w ho will grace this
(See FFSTIV XL, paee S)
see, they have no standard ways of doing
things. 1 don’t think the senior detective
is used the way he’s supposed to be.”
“Their investigative techniques stink,
1 know that from personal experience,”
he said.
Knott said he wouldn’t put up with
sloppy appearances.
“You see some sloppy bum, you say,
this guy’s going to arrest me?”
Knott, who also applied for the job in
1988 after Dave Barrington announced
he would retire, said he wasn’t sure if
commissioners would lake all the appli
cations seriously.
“I put in for it last time and it was a
real farce,” he said.
“One of the questions they had was is
there anything in your past that would be
an embarrassment to the county?”
“Alex Norton was reprimanded the
day before he took the office. Now, it
that’s not an embarrassment to the
county, what is?”
An investigation in 1988 revealed
Norton failed to serve papers and orders
for arrest “in a timely manner” on court
house employee Becky Coxe, who was
then charged with writing bad checks.
The district attorney recommended
the incident be handled by SheritI Dave
Barrington, and Norton was named by
commissioners November 28, 1988, to
succeed Barrington.
Another candidate for the job, John
(Sec SHERIFF, page 8)
Around Town
By Sam C. Morris
Hurricane Bob came up the coast of
NonhCarolina, but itdidn’t do the dam
age that many expected. The eye of the
hurricane stayed out over the ocean, so
the winds were not as strong on the
coastline. The w arning was in plenty of
lime for people to seek shelter from the
storm. It seems that the New England
states look the brunt of the storm.
We didn’t get any of the hurricane in
Hoke County and that was good because
w e didn’t need the rain.
The weather has been nice here for
the past week except for the rain. .Many
fanners still can’t get into ilieir fields.
Ihe forecast calls for the tempera
tures to be in the high 80s and low 90s lor
the remainderofihe w eek during die day
and in the high 60s and low 70s at night.
Tficre could be some thunderstorms on
Friday and Saturday.
* * *
John Roper pitched last Saturday
night in Fayetteville in a game between
the Generals and die Charleston, W. Va.
Rctls. He was the winning pitcher even
though he got off to a shaky start. 1
believe his ra'ord for the year is 12 wins
and 6 defeats.
♦ * *
Have you purchased your ad for the
Turkey Festival tabloid that will run in
The News-Journal on Wednesday, Sept.
11. If you haven’t been contacted, ilicn
call Tammie Ellis at 875-2121 and she
will be glad to assist you with an ad.
The deadline is this week and it will
be too late after die tabloid goes into
production. Besides being in the news
paper, 6,0(X) additional copies will be
printed and they will be furnished to the
N.C. Turkey Festival Committee for dis
tribution.
* ♦ *
1 found a folder on my desk last week
and inside the folder was a picture of tfie
(See AROUND, page 10)