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DALLAS (AP) — Prosecutors
ested their case Wednesday in
he trial of a woman accused of
osing as a baby sitter to kidnap a
loppell infant.
Brenda Graham of Crosby, an
x-employee of Susan O. Miller,
lestified that Miller took the child
;o a suburban Houston home 10
ays after the abduction and pre
ended the baby was her own.
Graham testified Tuesday in
he trial’s first day that Miller, 40,
ad not appeared pregnant in the
tenths before the abduction. But
Ihe appeared at her home on
ov. 23, 1985, with an infant girl
he called Stephanie.
“I said, ‘Sue, where did you get
:hat baby?’ She said, ‘Ask me no
uestions and I’ll tell you no
|ies,’ ’’Graham testified.
Miller, a former Houston-area
self-esteem lightclub owner, could face a
naximum 10-year prison sen-
ence if convicted of the third-de-
pee felony.
Mallory Sutton, then 2 months
)ld, was abducted from her Cop-
jell home on Nov. 13, 1985. She
as found one month later in
fampa, Fla.
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Authorities allege that Miller
posed as a baby sitter, then kid
napped the child in an attempt to
win back her former husband.
The child’s mother, Jennifer
Sutton, identified Miller in court
Tuesday as the woman she had
nired through an advertisement
:o baby-sit her daughter.
The restaurant report will not
appear in The Battalion this week
cause Brazos County Health
Department sanitarians did not
inspect any College Station res
taurants between Mar. It) and
Mar. 20.
State and Local
GSS presents film promoting
‘safe sex’ between gay men
Movie shown off-campus to avoid attention
By Kysa Anderson
Reporter
Three places filled in runoff
of Faculty Senate elections
Editor’s note: Wednesday’s
Battalion incorrectly identified
Frank Thomas as the winner of
the regular election for the Texas
A&M Faculty Senate’s Place 3 in
the College of Education.
Thomas had the highest number
of votes, but not the majority re
quired to prevent a run-off.
Three run-offs in the Faculty
Senate regular elections Wednes
day filled one seat in the College
of Education and two seats in the
College of Engineering.
The following Senate seats
were filled:
College of Education
(101 ballots cast)
• (Place 3): Patricia A. Alexan
der.
College of Engineering
(81 ballots cast)
• (Place 9): S. Bart Childs.
• (Place 12): Richard M. Alex
ander.
Nomination dates will be an
nounced at the Senate’s April
meeting for Senate officers
(speaker, deputy speaker, secre
tary and treasurer) and for mem
bers of the Senate Executive
Committee. Elections for these
positions will be held in May.
Teenager sent to TYC
for killing his mother
Eighteen males crowded into a
College Station apartment to view a
film promoting “safe sex” between
gay and bisexual men Wednesday
night.
The film was part of Texas A&M
University’s Gay Student Services’
regular meeting which was in Rud
der Tower.
However, because of its “sexual
explicitness,” the film had to be
shown off-campus.
GSS President Scott Sage said
showing the film on campus would
have caused “unwanted attention.”
“The film was not designed just
to watch, but for educational pur
poses, also,” Sage said. “The film is
designed to help and reorient peo
ples’ sense of sexual habits.”
The film, produced by the Gay
Men’s Health Crisis Center, was to
educate gay and bisexual men on
bow to have “safe sex.”
“Safe sex is having sex without
the exchange of body fluids,” Sage
said.
Dr. Thomas Edwards, a Bryan
psychologist who also viewed the
film, said no other organization
would give information to the gay
community on how not to spread or
contract the Acquired Immune De
ficiency Syndrome (AIDS), so the
Gay Men’s Health Crisis Center
produced the film.
“The 1980 founding people of
the center are trying to draw atten
tion to the fact that there’s a danger
to the community and to the pop
ulation as a whole,” Edwards said.
Edwards also said the disease is
becoming more prominent because
it no longer affects only the gay
community but heterosexuals too.
“The center wants us to examine
our feelings and our personal re
sponses to what we see on the film,”
Edwards said.
The film featured relationships
between gay men. It showed the
men having sexual intercourse and
the precautions they used to avoid
contracting and spreading AIDS.
One man in the film had contracted
the AIDS virus.
After the film Dr. Edwards sug
gested that the males get into
groups to discuss what they had just
seen in the film.
One of the young men said that
he was afraid of contracting AIDS.
Another of the men who saw the
film said that selecting a partner
who you can trust is important.
“The most important part is get
ting to know your partner,” he said.
When asked what scares him the
most about the AIDS epidemic, one
of the men expressed that there is
not enough known about the virus.
“There’s too much uncertainty
concerning the AIDS epidemic,” he
said.
Dr. Edwards said practicing “safe
sex” has its merits.
“It reduces AIDS anxieties,” he
said. “It also protects you and your
partner and makes you feel better
about yourself. And it reduces the
fear of spreading AIDS.”
PORT LAVACA (AP) — A 14-
year-old boy who admitted killing
his mother because she accused him
of lying has been committed to the
custody of the Texas Youth Council.
Howard Lee Shafer Jr. was sent to
the state agency by order of Calhoun
County Judge Mike Fricke at a juve
nile hearing Tuesday.
The youth had told the judge
charges that he committed a delin
quent act by shooting his mother to
death were true.
Fricke’s action will keep the youth
under the TYC’s control as long as
his 21st birthday, but the TYC will
be the sole judge of how long Shafer
will be confined.
According to a statement Shafer
gave to Calhoun County sheriff’s in
vestigators, he shot his mother, Patsy
Ann Shafer, 40, on the morning of
Feb. 23, 1987, after she accused him
of lying to avoid going to school.
“I was tired of her always lying to
Daddy about me and getting me
whipped all the time,” Shafer said.
“All she ever did was lay in her bed
and accuse me of doing wrong.”
He told investigators he took a
.22-caliber rifle and went back to his
mother’s room and shot her in the
back of the head “maybe three or
four times.”
He said he intended to make it
look as if someone else had killed
her by putting her in the back seat of
her car and abandoning the vehicle
in a ditch about a mile away from his
house,
Foreman's record leads to drop of charges
BROWNSVILLE (AP) — A judge dismissed
indictments Wednesday against Mayor Emilio
Hernandez because the foreman of the special
grand jury that issued the charges of corruption
at city hall has a criminal record.
State District Judge Darrell Hester tossed out a
spate of charges against the mayor, including so
liciting a bribe and official misconduct, when spe
cial prosecutor Sharon McRae agreed with de
fense motions to dismiss the indictments.
On Monday, another judge dismissed indict
ments against former City Manager Kenneth
Lieck and Municipal Judge Kip Van Johnson
Hodge after finding that jury foreman Arnold©
Garcia had a lengthy criminal record.
Hernandez, Hodge, Lieck, City Commissioner
Tony Zavaleta and three city employees indicted
by the panel before it disbanded last month were
accused in an on-going probe, of corruption at
city hall.
District Attorney Ben Euresti Jr., meanwhile.
said he would not fight the dismissals but plans to
pursue the case again.
He said he would present another grand jury
with the same evidence, which was gathered in a
five-month probe by three Texas Rangers and
one of his investigators.
Last week, Garcia said he was so troubled by
the corruption at city hall he was having trouble
sleeping. But it was discovered he had several
convictions for misdemeanor crimes.
Grand jurors must be of sound moral charac
ter and have no felony convictions or pending in
dictments against them.
“This is not a blow to the office,” Euresti said.
“Because of this individual’s background and be
cause of what he’s done ... it has tainted the
cases. We would probably support motions to
quash in these cases.”
In addition to his criminal record, Garcia, a
37-year-old school monitor, held a news confer
ence last week, calling the indictments “the tip of
the iceberg.”
The mayor was named on five separate indict
ments handed up on three occasions by the 12-
member grand jury. Charges against him in
cluded two counts of official misconduct, two
counts of soliciting a bribe, two counts of solicit
ing a gift, and four counts of tampering with a
witness.
Hernandez said he was relieved by the judge’s
action but will wait and see what happens next.
“What has happened has happened,” said the
two-term mayor and used-car dealer who
claimed the charges were politically motivated to
derail his re-election campaign this fall. He says
he is innocent of wrongdoing.
Many of the charges against the seven men in
volve the awarding of a lucrative garbage-dispo
sal contract.
Euresti called Garcia a “bad link in the system.
We won’t change the system, we’ll just remove
the bad link.”