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Campus
Opinion
Sports
New laws strives for equality in rape
cases.
COLUMNIST DEBATE: Should Pattie Gilbert
have received season football tickets?
Lady Aggie Soccer to face No. 1
itNorth Carolina Tarheels.
Page 7
FRIDAY
September 9, 1994
Vol. 101, No. 10 (14 pages)
“Serving Texas A&M since 1893”
Courtney Phi
Classi
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harges upgraded against former student Pennsylvania plane crash kais 131
O JL O O USAir iet nosp-diVPS into they lost contact with the plan
Vioore faces murder trial,
ccused of disposing
newborn baby in trash
3y Michele Brinkmann
The Battalion
A Brazos County grand jury upgraded
barges Thursday against a 21-year-old
Texas A&M student accused of killing her
Infant girl in Mosher Hall in March.
Stephanie Moore, a sophomore general
studies major, was indicted in July on a
charge of voluntary manslaughter, but was
charged Thursday with murder.
Brazos County District Attorney Bill Turn
er said that after the grand jury indicted
Moore in July, his office decided to upgrade
the charges after an internal investigation.
“Two people in my office did an in-depth
investigation into the law,” he said, “and
found that the evidence was sufficient for
the charge of murder.”
On Thursday, the district attorney’s office
re-presented its evidence to the same grand
jury that decided in July to indict Moore on
the charge of voluntary manslaughter.
Turner said no new evidence was presented
to the grand jury.
Turner said it is not unusual to reindict
a person.
“It happens from time to time,” he said.
“It is not frequent nor infrequent.”
Moore will stand trial on charges of
killing and disposing of her newborn baby in
a garbage bag in Mosher Hall.
A Mosher Hall resident called Emergency
Medical Personnel, who found Moore in her
room with blood on the floor.
Moore told EMS that she was “just ill”
and did not mention the birth. An autopsy
determined the infant was born alive and
died of suffocation.
The University Police Department con
ducted the investigation and reported its
findings to Turner earlier this year.
UPD Director Bob Wiatt said Turner
thought the original charge of voluntary
manslaughter was inadequate.
“Turner thought the original evidence
presented to the grand jury warranted a
greater charge,” Wiatt said. “He presented
the same evidence to the grand jury, and it
returned a higher degree of charge.”
Under the new Texas Penal Code, which
took effect Sept. 1, the penalty for first-de
gree murder is five to 99 years or life in
prison and a possible addition of a fine not to
exceed $10,000.
A trial date has not been set.
USAir jet nose-dives into
field killing all aboard
ALIQUIPPA, Pa. (AP) — A
USAir jetliner nose-dived into a
ravine while trying to land near
Pittsburgh on Thursday, killing
all 131 people on board. It was
the deadliest crash in the Unit
ed States in seven years.
Flight 427 originated in
Chicago and was to stop in
Pittsburgh before continuing to
West Palm Beach, Fla.
“I looked up and there it
was,” said Tom Michel, who
was at a gas station near the
crash site. “It was just coming
straight down. I was screaming
for everybody to run. It looked
like it was under full power and
he just went straight in.”
Air traffic controllers said
they lost contact with the plane
when it was about seven miles
from the airport, said Pat
Boyle, a spokesman for the Al
legheny County Department of
Aviation. There were no indica
tions of any problems on the
flight and a report of an explo
sion before the crash could not
be confirmed.
Michel said there was a ‘Trig
boom and the sky lit up. There
was black smoke everywhere
and that was it.”
Witnesses reported a grue
some carnage in a clearing on a
heavily-wooded ravine.
Emergency crews put out the
fire and the search was called
off about two hours after the
crash. The area was sealed off
for the night, but off-road vehi
cles were spotted heading to
the crash site.
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Class of
MSC’s Open House gives organizations,
students chance to expose themselves’
By Amanda Fowle
The Battalion
Students searching for organiza
tions to join this semester can visit
the MSC’s Open House Sunday
from 2 to 6 p.m.
About 300 organizations will
have booths set up throughout the
MSC with the theme “Expose Your
self.”
Students have the opportunity to
“expose” themselves to organizations,
and organizations can “expose” them
selves to students at the event.
Liz Rayburn, director of public
relations for the MSC Council, said
many types of organizations will be
represented at Open House.
There is a total range of organiza
tions represented at Open House,” she
said. “It would take students years to
find out about this many organiza
tions on their own.”
Open House is held at the begin
ning of each semester to give stu
dents an easy way to see the differ
ent organizations that are a part of
A&M.
“Open House was started so that
students wouldn’t have to feel in
timidated by walking into a meet
ing for a group without knowing
anything about it or anyone there,”
Rayburn said.
She said that 20,000 students are
expected to walk through the MSC
during Open House.
Freshman Cameron Slocum said he
will attend Open House to visit the
booths and choose which organizations
he will join.
“1 don’t know what kinds of orga
nizations the University has to of
fer,” he said, “so this will give me
the chance to see most of them and
decide which ones I want to partici
pate in.”
Open House also benefits the or
ganizations by giving them expo
sure they would not otherwise get,
Rayburn said.
“The organizations could not
have a better outlet to expose them
selves,” she said. “There is no other
way to reach that many people in
that short amount of time.”
Eric Gruetzner, president of Ag
gie Democrats, said the organiza
tion has sponsored booths at Open
House for many years because of
the exposure it gives them.
“We’ve had good feedback every
year,” he said. “It gives us a chance to
tell people face-to-face what our club is
all about. We can toll them what we
are working on for this year.”
This year, during Open House,
the Off-Campus Aggies and the
Residence Hall Association will host
a Welcome Back Bash outside in the
Rudder Fountain area.
ies with
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es (most
Texas crime rate on the decline, DPS reports says
AUSTIN (AP) — Crime in Texas declined in all cate
gories during the first half of 1994, the Department of
I Public Safety reported today.
“We are encouraged to report that for the last 2 1/2
I years, Texas has experienced a continuous decline in the
volume of crime,” said Col. James R. Wilson, DPS director.
The number of crimes reported in the state’s crime in-
Idex was down 7 percent from January to June, compared
I with the same six-month period of 1993, the DPS said.
I The 1994 figure was 530,561 compared with 570,367 the
I previous year.
The crime rate — crimes per 100,000 population —
I dropped 8.9 percent.
Wilson said that for the first time since 1976, when
I the DPS began collecting Uniform Crime Reporting sta-
Itistics, all seven of the major crime categories showed
I declines.
However, he said, a major worry to law enforcement
officials is a rising number of juvenile arrests.
“It is clear from the rising arrest figures that juvenile
activity is increasingly a problem for law enforcement,”
he said.
Overall, the state’s rate for violent crime was down
5.6 percent.
The rate for murder fell 10 percent, reported rapes
dropped 7.5 percent, robbery showed a 6.9 percent de
crease and aggravated assault was down 4.7 percent.
The property crime rate dropped 9.3 percent, with
burglary down 11.9 percent, larceny-theft down 7.7 per
cent and motor vehicle theft down 13.5 percent.
As for the volume of crime, the total number of violent
crimes showed a 3.6 percent reduction from 67,306 to
64,864, and property crimes showed a 7.4 percent drop,
from 503,061 to 465,697.
Pope calls off public Mass in Bosnia, cites
fear of safety for crowds as reason for absence
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina
(AP) — Tearful and angry faithful
gathered at Sarajevo’s cathedral
Thursday for a Mass left hollow by
the absence of the pope, as John
Paul II, grounded in Italy by security
fears, called on Serbs, Croats and
? Muslims to forgive.
The Vatican this week called off a
one-day visit to the Bosnian capital
| planned for Thursday, saying the pope
j feared for the safety of the crowds that
| would have turned out to see him and
‘ worried that his pilgrimage could ag
gravate tensions in the besieged city.
TocmyTB^
Campus
2
Classified
6
Extra Mail Call
12
Opinion
13
Sports
7
Toons
5
What's Up
11
The pope addressed the people of
Sarajevo on radio and television and
delivered the same sermon he had
planned to give if he had been pre
sent in the Bosnian
capital.
“The spiral of
‘wrongs’ and ‘pun
ishments’ will never
stop if forgiveness
does not come at a
certain point,” he
said. “To forgive
does not mean to
forget. If memory is
the law of history,
forgiveness is the
power of God.”
Matilda Sagolj said she cried when
she heard the pope’s words in Serbo-
Croatian, broadcast from the court
yard of his summer residence in Cas-
tel Gandolfo, near Rome.
“I am sorry, I am so sorry,” she
said, breaking into tears again. “His
arrival meant almost everything to
me, and now I feel terrible.”
A papal envoy, Monsignor
Francesco Monterisi, said in Sarajevo
that the pope still hoped to visit “in
one of the next few days, in the near
future.” But with security still a
nightmare, it was unclear what would
make the pontiff change his mind.
Sarajevo has been under Serb siege
since April 1992, when Bosnia’s Serb
minority rebelled against a decision
by the republic’s Muslims and Croats
to secede from Serb-dominated Yu
goslavia. In the weeks preceding the
pope’s planned visit, shelling and gun
fire around the capital intensified.
As if to underscore the danger,
United Nations planes approaching
the Sarajevo airport were fired upon
Thursday, and two British NATO
warplanes were targeted by surface-
to-air missiles, apparently fired by
Serbs. None of the planes were hit.
Sarajevans of all faiths, who had
looked forward to the pope’s visit as af
firmation that they had not been forgot
ten by the world after 29 months of
war, were angry over its cancellation.
Most of their wrath was directed at the
Serbs, who had said they could not
guarantee the pope’s safety, and the
United Nations, whose security con
cerns contributed to the cancellation.
Archbishop Vinko Puljic, co-cele
brant of the Mass, alluded to the pope’s
absence and the pain it had caused.
“The Holy Father was already in our
minds, in our feelings, in our prayers,”
he told worshippers. “We are begging
the powerful ones ... who prevented the
Holy Father’s visit ... don’t allow the
evil to spread further. Stop the evil so
we could live like human beings.”
Saying he was praying to God as
the first Slavic pope, the Polish pontiff
called for forgiveness on all sides in
the conflict in former Yugoslavia, and
offered a spiritual embrace to the
city’s Serbs and a wish of peace to Or
thodox hierarchy.
Pope John Paul II
Stacy Cameron/THE Battalion
A little to the left
Lucia Bale, a Texas A&M computer science graduate student and pottery in
structor at University Plus, begins work on a new project for her pottery class
Federal charges dropped against
suspects in cross-country crime spree
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — While an
ex-convict and his teen-age companion
suspected in a cross-country crime
spree face prosecution in at least two
states, federal authorities have for now
dropped charges against them.
Federal charges of unlawful flight to
avoid prosecution were dropped
Wednesday against Lewis E. Gilbert,
22, and Eric A. Elliott, 16, both of New-
comerstown, Ohio, Assistant U.S. Attor
ney Robert Gorence said.
Both were charged Wednesday with
first-degree murder in Oklahoma,
where a police affidavit says the pair
admitted shooting someone to death.
They were jailed Tuesday in New
Mexico after troopers tracked them to
a dusty highway culvert and arrested
them.
They are charged with burglary and
kidnapping in Ohio in the disappear
ance of a 79-year-old woman.
They are also suspected in the slay
ing of an elderly couple in Missouri,
though they have not been charged
there.
“Now we have three states, from
what I’ve heard, who can all fight over
them,” Gorence said.
And the federal investigation contin
ues, with carjacking charges a possibili
ty, Gorence said.
Federal authorities often use unlaw
ful flight charges as a way to let the
FBI help police track down dangerous
fugitives, FBI agent Doug Beldon said.
“When that mission is accom
plished, such as here, the unlawful
flight charge is often dismissed. This
enables the state to proceed against the
suspects judicially,” Beldon said.
Authorities believe Gilbert and El
liott met Aug. 15, the day Gilbert was
released from prison in Ohio after serv
ing time for boat theft. Elliott was
awaiting trial on charges of breaking
into a bowling alley.