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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 29, 1984)
Eight years later Still comatose, Karen Quinlan is alive as 30th birthday hits United Press International TRENTON, NJ. — Eight years after the New Jersey Supreme Court allowed her parents to pull the plug on a respir ator doctors said she could not live with out, Karen Ann Quinlan remains com atose as she turns 30 on today. Her adoptive parents, Julia and Joseph, friends and other family mem bers are marking her birthday as they have in past years, with a bedside mass in Ms. Quinlan’s nursing home room in Morris Plains. “I never regretted the decision (to pull the plug),” Mrs. Quinlan said in an inter view. “We made the decision as a family after months of prayer and dialogue and were very comfortable with the de cision.we know it’s morally correct.” Miss Quinlan lapsed into a coma April 15, 1975, after apparently mixing tran quilizers and alcohol at or after a party the night before. At the time, doctors said she would never regain consciousness and would continue breathing only with the aid of a repirator. But she kept breathing after the re spirator was turned off and lives in a shrunken skeletal form, twisted into a fetal position and weighing between 40 and 60 pounds. “Essentially her condition is the same. There really isn’t any change,” said a spokeswoman for the Morris View Nurs ing Home. Miss Quinlan is bathed every day and her body rotated to prevent bed sores. A feeding tube drips a high-calorie liquid and antibiotics through her nose and into her stomach. Her mother said the family intends to keep the feeding tube in place, no matter what the state Supreme Court decides in a pending similar case. The court earlier this month heard arguments in the case of a man who sought to disconnect his terminally ill aunt’s feeding tube. The woman, Claire Conroy, 84, died in February 1983, but the case continued to the high court. Despite the time elapsed since the April 1976 decision allowing the Quin lans to remove the respirator, interest in Ms. Quinlan has not faded. “In Morris County she’s not forgotten. There’s a flurry of notoriety now because of her birthday,” said the Rev. Thomas Trapasso, a longtime friend of the Quin lans. stimony in Lucas trial ilated to begin Monday ity to clean ii| ike the BigE can do this t time youit ss or from t couple of ave to carry tki an enjoy itnl Terry I iUnited Press International estimony in the capital mur- trial of Henry Lee Lucas is to start Monday, court ials said, adding attorneys {mished selecting 12 jurors 1 two alternates late nesday. "en women and four men a d — try it. IT 1 ' 1 ' selected out of a group of r it really wi fentialjurors that started with his place reacIP^P 16 more than l V° weeks , r .1 go. Two women and a man tn parents > ? picked Wednesday to con- b this is a - ^ ^ | en gthy jury selection s AocM rCfliij it’s a shamei/Mucas, 47, received a change . Benue from Georgetown to though you find trial in West Texas for the )W come pn:laying of an unidentified >ick upthetr® 1211 hitchhiker whose body - ■ “found along Interstate 35 Georgetown on Halloween n b* 11979 ' uaii lmtorneys individually ques- itied about 80 potential jurors , I J13 days. District Court Clerk 31 S IGVfeiueBramhall said attorneys had Kcted 11 people when they B to dismiss one woman Tuesday. g down to tlif A no ther woman was selected g and engawhly after Judge John Carter r "lleorgetown approved the missal. Ms. Bramhall said the missed juror’s husband re tted the woman, 44, was not , .Jing well, i those a 8 «er doctor submitted a note xans are respf lly the deaths j Irian. KF t difference a ie man who l no remorse, gal murder, your legist 3 help eradio Alice!* Class to Judge John Carter outlining her previous health problems. Lucas has confessed to more than 150 slayings across the country and already has been convicted of two Texas mur ders, but the Georgetown case is the first capital murder case against him. If convicted, the drifter and former Michigan mental patient faces a sentence of life in prison or the death penalty. Defense attorneys have said they will argue that Lucas is innocent by reason of insanity. Carter ruled confessions Lucas gave Williamson County authorities about the George town slaying will be admitted as evidence despite objections from defense attorney Don Hig ginbotham. Lucas was sentenced to life in prison for murdering his 15- year-old common-law wife Frieda “Becky” Powell and to 75 years in prison for the slaying of an elderly Ringgold woman. Ottis Toole, a Florida inmate and former traveling compan ion of Lucas, will be called as a defense witness during the trial, Higginbotham has said. Toole was transferred last week from Florida to a Georgetown jail awaiting his appearance in San- Angelo. Higginbotham also has said he will call an expert witness to testify about Lucas’ mental state, but Higginbotham has refused to name or discuss details about that witness. , a form of pi , the citizen! e the power t. Consequ®] DEFENSIVE ^ DRIVING COURSE April 2 & 3 RAMADA INN Pre-register by phone: 693-8178/846-1904 FEE $20 Ticket Deferral and 10% Insurance Discount J by Jim 6 DOMINO’S PIZZA DELIVERS To Fast, Free Delivery" 4407 S. Texas 260-9020 1504 Holleman 693-2335 Hours: 11:00 - 1:00 Sun.-Thurs. 11:00 - 2:00 Fri. & Sat. Our drivers carry less than $20.00. Limited delivery area. ©1984 Domino’s Pizza, Inc. $-| 00 off! $1.00 off any 16” 2-item pizza. One coupon per pizza. Expires: 4/6/84 Fast, Free Delivery™ I .Good at locations listed. I Thursday, March 29, 1984/The Battalion/Page 3 Hill Country hit hard Orossfiros scorch Tgxqs United Press International KERRVILLE — Firefighters in the Texas Hill Country Wednesday were spared pre dicted high winds, and brought under control five grass fires that scorched some 3,000 acres and destroyed seven homes, officials said. Kerrville Fire Marshal John Mann said firefighters worked through the morning to exting uish two fires and had hopes of tamping out three more by late afternoon. “We’ve just about got on top of the ballgame,” Mann said. “We’re looking real good. We haven’t had high winds we were expecting, and that’s helped.” OFF THE CUFF A man begins cutting his wis dom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew. One thing you can’t brag about is your modesty. Why can’t scientists develop a serum for tax bite? Sure we love professional sports. What else gives you the chance to boo a bunch of mil lionaires to their faces? We’re batting a thousand at Hertiage Men & Boyswear. See us for easy-care slacks by Haggar & Sansabelt that keep their good looks. THE VALUE PLACE HERITAGE DOWNTOWN BRYAN The fires broke out Tuesday, whipped up by winds that gusted up to 60 mph. Firefigh ters worked through the night, taking advantage of lulls in the wind to dig fire breaks and hose down hot spots in the highly- flammable cedar that covers much of the Hill Country. Mann said aerial surveys Tuesday had initially estimated up to 10,000 acres blackened by the fire. But he said the surveys were obscured by smoke, and the revised estimate was down to 3,000 acres. In San Antonio, 60 miles east of Kerrville, smoke from the fires spread over the city. “It looks like something’s on fire here but it’s all coming from those fires in Kerr County,” said one witness. Kerrville Fire Chief Raymond Holloway said seven homes had been destroyed. Mann said there were no structures threatened by the fire as of midday Wednesday. Mann said there had been minor injuries and cases of smoke inhalation to a few fire fighters, drawn from 17 depart ments, but no injuries to civi lians. “We’re using bulldozers to help establish fire lanes, and we have four-wheel drive vehicles up in the hills to extinguish hot spots close to the perimeters,” he said. - “We haven’t had much rain lately, and we have a lot of cedar. Cedar burns a lot like gasoline. If it’s hot enough and the humidity is low, it’ll take a whole cedar tree in a matter of_ seconds.” Police spokesman Charles _ Collett said firefighters reduced the number of fires from seven to five. 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