The
ews
Journal
The 7th issue of our 84th year
RAEFORD, NORTH CAROLINA
25 CENTS
Wednesday, May 27,1992
Dumpsters to remain part of the neighborhood for awhile
Residents of a row of houses up the road from
North Raeford Fire Department continue to
complain about rats, flies and stench, all coming
from a county garbage dump site across the way.
Recent warm temperatures have made the
problems worse, residents along Mockingbird
Hill Road say, and they wonder why county
officials have not closed or moved the site as they
asked two years ago. And as they asked again
earlier this year.
But Barry Reed, Hoke’s county manager, says
the county can do little until a new site is found
for a garbage collection facility for the whole
county.
Reed said he would like to find such a site in
the next two months. The collection facility — or
Vi
I
r
‘Touch my ice cream and die”
Seven-month-old Rebecca Burwell discovered ice cream at the Sunday performance of the Sandhills Community
College Jazz Band. She was not about to part with her first cone, and didn’t much appreciate a photographer eyeing
it. '
Man, shot by brother, dies
A Fayetteville man, shot Satur
day in Hoke County, allegedly by
his brother, died early Sunday at
Cape Fear Valley Medical Center.
Richard Wayne Blue, 24, of
Fayetteville is charged with the mur
der of his brother Steven Blue, 19,
also of Fayetteville.
Blue allegedly shot his brother in
the back Saturday in front of a mo
bile home behind the Raeford Inn on
U.S. 401 North, said Bob Conerly
Jr., a detective with the Hoke County
Sheriffs Department.
Steven Blue died 3:59 a.m. Sun
day, according to a sheriffs report.
Blue is also charged with firing
into the home, which was then occu
pied by Reuben Sinclair and Tina
Homer.
The shooting apparently stemmed
from a dispute between the brothers
and involving Sinclair, Conerly said.
Blue allegedly went by Sinclair’s
home Friday and fired at him with a
.32 caliber pistol, according to a
sheriffs report.
Blue then returned, according to
the report, and asked to talk with his
brother Steven outside. When Steven
left the home. Blue allegedly pointed
his pistol at him, according to the
report.
Steven Blue ran back to the home,
according to the report, when his
brother shot him in the lower left
back.
Sinclair then ran out of the home
with a 12 gauge shotgun and re
turned fire, according to the report.
Blue fired four more rounds into tire
mobile home as he sped away in a
white Monte Carlo belonging to
Sandra Morris Sinclair.
Sinclair was charged with tiring
into that car.
Blue was later arrested by John
Pandure, a sergeant with the sheriffs
department, when he saw Blue jump
(See CRIME, page 14)
transfer station — probably won’t be built until
next spring or summer.
The green box site across from the angry
residents’ homes is privatey owned.
“Only the owners can technically force us to
close the site,” Reed said.
“It’s been extremely difficult to find the land
for these sites,” Reed said. If that site were closed
now, he said, many northern Hoke residents
would have no convenient place to take their
trash.
“They’d be just as bad off if we moved the site
and didn’t have anywhere to replace it,” he said.
Meanwhile, the search for a site has gone on
quietly, he said.
(See DUMPSTERS, page 4)
^ Morston found guilty
Life or death decision expected soon
K erry Morston, found guilty last week
in the shooting death of Southern Pines
police detective Ed Harris, awaits his
fate of life in prison or death.
District Attorney Jean Powell asked the jury
this morning for a death sentence: “Sentence him
for what his crime deserves. Sentence him to
death.”
Powell described Morston as “a little man with
a big gun” who left the Harris family to “clean up
the blood, the glass, and their broken lives.”
Mrs. Harris cried as Powell told jurors that
Morston and Terry Evans “joked the next day by
saying ‘Ed’s dead, Ed’s dead.’”
Powell said Morston “intended to kill Ed
Harris stone cold dead and that’s exactly what he
did.”
According to Powell, Morston is a “friend of a
drug dealer” with “no remorse, no regret, noth
ing. Just bragging and celebration.”
The motive for murder, Powell said was a
threat of jail. “Bernice McDougald said if Ed
Harris wasn’t kiUed they’d all be in jail before
the summer,” she said.
Yesterday marked the final admittance of
evidence in the case of the shooting death of the
narcotics detective.
As a sheriff’s deputy led Morston from the
courtroom Tuesday, the two had a heated ex
change before another deputy, along with the
defense counsel, ended the skirmish.
Final arguments are expected to last most of
today. After Superior Court Judge Craig Ellis
instructs the jury on the points of law in question,
jurors will decide whether Morston faces life in
prison or the death penalty.
“It’s hard to say when a verdict will be handed
down,” Powell said. However, she said that the
difficulty of the decision could possibly delay a
verdict beyond Thursday.
Cumberland complaints could
send a four-lane through Hoke
A group of resistant Cumberland County residents
could change the course of a proposed four-lane highway
so it runs through Hoke County.
The state Department of Transportation (DOT) is
considering paving an extension of US 13 from 1-95,
through Fort Bragg, around the western side of
Fayetteville and back to 1-95.
That proposed road — called the Fayetteville Outer
Loop —would come within two miles of Hoke County’s
border.
But a group of angry home owners in Cumberland
County wants the road to go into Hoke County — and
avoid their neighborhoods.
Gene Taylor, a Cumberland resident spearheading the
resistance, says the road would go right through his, his
son’s and his daughter’s houses in Wendover, a subdivi-
(See BYPASS, page 5)
Hoke
for
13?
Rockfish*
o
Rockfi»
■'
I 'G
>•
Five arrested in Hoke drug sting
Five people were arrested on dnig charges and
two cars were seized in a Hoke-Robeson Drag
Task Force reverse sting operation on Jones Hill
last week.
Mark Locklear, supervisor of the Task Force,
said the arrests were made after under-cover
officers sold drags “on the hill.”
Those arrested and the charges filed against
them were:
John Moore, 28, Rt. 1 Box 555, Raeford, pos
session of drag paraphernalia;
Lawrence Ivey, P.O. Box 667, Raeford, felonious
possession of cocaine, maintaining a drag vehicle;
Randy Williams, 26,116 Debnam Rd., Aber
deen, felonious possession of cocaine;
C^is McKoy, 41, Rt.2 Box 29-C, Red Springs,
felonious possession of cocaine; and
Leon Townsend, 29, Rt. 1, Box 199-C, Red
Springs, felonious possession of cocaine, main
taining a drag vehicle.
ArouniJ Town
Get 'em while they’re hot!
Jackie Lynch, director of the N.C. Turkey Festival, shows off the new Festival
T-shirt. The shirts are available at the Depot downtown for $7.
by Sam C. Morris
The weather over the Memorial
Day weekend was hot with the tem
peratures on Saturday and Sunday
in the 90s. Monday was different and
the mercury dropped to the low 70s.
These low readings stayed around
for Tuesday and there was a chance
of rain.
The forecast calls for the tem
perature to be in the low 70s Wednes
day and Thursday with the lows in
the SOs. Friday and Saturday we will
see readings in the high 70s during
the day and maybe in the low 60s at
night
We need rain badly, but the chance
for rain is almost nil. Maybe as the
temperatures warm up we will have
some afternoon thundershowers.
• • *
Next Tuesday, June 2 is the day
for the second primary. Four candi
dates are running for two seats on the
Beard of County Commissioners.
There is also a run-off for Superin
tendent of Public Instruction on the
Republican ticket The polls will open
at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m. If
you are going to be out of the county,
then go by the Board of Ele^ctions
office and get an absentee ballot.
The deadline for these ballots is Fri
day, May 29.
'The primary results will once
again be kept at The News-Journal
office. -You are invited to come by
and join with the candidates and other
political leaders in keeping up with
the results. It shouldn’t take too long
to count these ballots.
* * *
The 4Sth annual meeting and ban
quet of the Raeford-Hoke Chamber
of Commerce was held last Tuesday
night. May 19, at the new West Hoke
Middle School cafeteria. There was
a large crowd on hand for this affair
and the meal served by the school
(See AROUND, page 14)