irch 18, 1996
ion
Even Stephens: A&M first
baseman excels at the
plate and in the field.
SPORTS, PAGE 7
Miller: Southwest
Airlines doesn't fly
high with passengers.
OPINION, PAGE 11
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XThe Batta
102, No. Ill (12 pages)
Serving Texas A&M University Since 1893
Tuesday • March 19, 1996
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Former student indicted for sexual assault
SyLily Aguilar
The Battalion
The man charged with raping two
Texas A&M students in 1995 was in
feed March 14 by a Brazos County
gand jury on four counts of sexual as
sault.
Bob Wiatt, University Police De
partment director, said enough evi
dence was found to indict Don Richard
Davis, a 22-year-old A&M graduate,
after the Department of Public Safety
Jetermined that Davis’ blood sample
matched evidence found in the cases of
two women he raped.
Wiatt said the grand jury’s decision
to indict Davis on two counts of sexual
assault for each victim reflects the se
riousness of the crime.
“It is unusual to have two counts of
sexual assault for each victim,” Wiatt
said. “(The attacker) kept both victims
for 45 minutes, committing several
sexual activities.
“The grand jury issued one indictment
for each type of sexual act, which is kind
of unusual. They wanted to show this
was not a hurried instance, but one
where the victims were abused extensive
ly over a prolonged period of time.”
The grand jury recommended a $2
million bond for Davis, Wiatt said, but
Judge John Delany reduced the bond
to $100,000 on March 15.
“The grand jury usually does not
recommend a bond for $2 million,” he
said. “The judge recognized the grand
jury was trying to send a message, but
it was without legality. So he reduced
the bond.”
Wiatt said Davis remained incarcer
ated Monday, unable to make the bond.
In January, Davis was arrested in
Dallas after his first victim recognized
"The grand jury issued one
indictment for each type of
sexual act, which is kind of
unusual.
— BOB WIATT
University Police Department director
him in a Bryan supermarket where
Davis was working as a cashier. He
was later released on a $50,000 bond.
Wiatt said UPD hopes Davis’ arrest
will deter others from committing sim
ilar crimes.
“We have had no stranger rapes in
several years,” he said. “We really
wanted to catch the rapist because the
frequency of stranger rapes might in
crease if people know they won’t get
caught.”
Wiatt said that in both rapes, which
occurred in January and May 1995,
the attacker used a knife to threaten
the women but did not harm them
with the weapon.
Dave House, The Battalion
GUIDING THE FRIENDLY SKIES
Dylan Sullivan, an air traffic controller, clears two T-37s for take-off at Easterwood Airport. Sullivan has been working at Easterwood for
seven months and his job is to keep all planes clear of each other.
Salvi receives
life in prison
The defense s plea of insanity was
rejected by the jury Monday
DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — Rejecting claims that John C. Salvi III
was driven by delusions of a vast anti-Catholic conspiracy, a jury
Monday convicted him of murdering two women in a shooting ram
page at two abortion clinics.
The 24-year-old loner received the mandatory sentence of life in
prison with no parole for the 1994 attacks in the Boston suburb of
Brookline.
As the verdicts were read, Salvi, who had repeatedly disrupted
proceedings earlier in the case with demands to air his conspiracy
notions, stood quietly, staring vacantly or bowing his head, his dark
tie crooked.
The jury deliberated nine hours over two days. Four of the six
women on the jury cried as the verdicts were read, as did friends
and relatives of the victims, and Salvi’p mother.
The drama was extended as victims and their relatives read “vic
tim impact statements” to the court just before the sentencing.
“You were A little man with a big gun,” Ruth Ann Nichols, mother
of one of the victims, said as she stared at Salvi. “I hope you have
sheer misery for every day of your life.”
Salvi’s lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., had argued that his client was in
nocent by reason of insanity, and he repeatedly had asked Judge
Barbara Dortch-Okara to declare Salvi incompetent to stand trial.
The defense contended that the aspiring hairdresser envisioned
himself a warrior fighting a worldwide, anti-Catholic conspiracy led
by the Mafia, Freemasons and the Ku Klux Klan.
Prosecutors argued that Salvi was in control of his senses and
deliberately planned his crime. They noted Salvi practiced at a
firing range the day before the killings, stocked up on 1,000 su
per-deadly hollow-point bullets and cut his longish, curly hair
hours after the attack.
In closing arguments, prosecutor John Kivlan asked: “Every
terrorist in this country we should excuse because they have
strange beliefs?”
See Salvi, Page 5
Vaccinations offered at Beutel
By Danielle Pontiff
The Battalion
Texas A&M students, faculty and staff who
have never had chicken pox or who will travel
abroad this summer might benefit from a new ser
vice offered at the A.P. Beutel Health Center.
In January, the latest chicken pox and hepatitis
A vaccines were made available at Beutel. The vac-
tines, which can be billed to student fees, cost $110
and consist of two shots. The chicken pox shots are
spaced four to eight weeks apart, and the hepatitis A
shots are spaced six to 12 months apart.
Sharon Arnold, Beutel assistant director for
nursing services, said the vaccines will protect stu
dents who come into contact with the diseases.
“Sometimes chicken pox can be serious and
cause a person to become severely ill,” Arnold said.
‘Adults who get the chicken pox risk complications
like pneumonia and bronchitis.”
The new chicken pox vaccine is a live, diluted
sample of the varicella virus that causes the disease.
Chicken pox is spread by direct contact with
someone who is infected or with respiratory tract
secretions.
The communicability rate among adults who
did not have the disease as children is 86 percent.
Lois Carpenter, a Beutel registered nurse, said
the chicken pox vaccine causes minimal side effects.
“Severe reactions are rare,” Carpenter said.
“The most common are pain, redness or swelling
at the injection site. It is injected in the upper
arm or in the thigh.”
Beutel policy requires people to stay at the
health center 20 minutes after receiving the shot
to make sure they do not have severe reactions.
Patients are administered a live virus in the he
patitis A vaccine as well. Hepatitis A is a serious
See Vaccinations, Page 12
FDA unveils new tobacco evidence
Affidavits detail nicotine research, allege levels adjusted
WASHINGTON (AP) — Philip Morris created a
Machine to watch smokers’ brain waves react to
ticotine, former company scientists contend —
Part of a rash of fresh allegations that the world’s
largest tobacco company has researched and con-
'folled nicotine in cigarettes.
Affidavits by former employees, unveiled Monday
V the Food and Drug Administration, contradict
'tinpany executives’ sworn testimony to Congress
tat they have not manipulated nicotine content.
Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes,
! aid it had not reviewed the affidavits, but it
[ailed the latest allegations “similar to those made
Vothers in the past.”
The Justice Department opened a perjury in
stigation of tobacco executives based on the ear-
bar accusations.
Last week the industry’s fifth-largest company,
jbe Liggett Group, settled its part of a'nationwide
Writ claiming tobacco firms manipulated nicotine
!°hook smokers. And the new accounts by company
Aiders could help plaintiffs in the continuing law
suit against Philip Morris and other firms.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a longtime in
dustry critic, said Congress should conduct further
investigations in light of the latest findings, but he
asserted lawmakers had “been silenced because of
payoffs from the tobacco industry.”
“It’s important for the Justice Department to
conduct its inquiry because Congress is not going
to do its job,” Waxman said.
Philip Morris’ stock skidded $4 a share on the
New York Stock Exchange. Other tobacco stocks
also tumbled.
The FDA released the statements by two former
top scientists and a newly retired plant manager
under a federal law that requires it to make public
evidence it plans to use in its pending crackdown
on cigarettes.
The scientists alleged Philip Morris built an “ol
factometer” to give smokers precise amounts of
nicotine and other chemicals. The machine, when
See Investigation, Page 12
Republicans
dominate
state
local,
primaries
By Michelle Lyons
The Battalion
The Texas Republican Party had reason
to celebrate last week after pulling in over
one million votes in the Republican
primary, the largest Texas Republican
primary turnout in history.
Besides breaking records by obtaining a
whopping 1,017,000 votes, the Republican
primary received 94,000 more voters than the
Texas Democratic primary.
This trend was apparent in Brazos
County as well.
According to the Brazos County Voter
Registration Office, as of March 1, almost
61,000 Brazos County citizens were
registered to vote.
Of that number, the Democratic primary
pulled in 2,585 votes and the Republican
primary pulled in 7,850 votes.
These numbers do not include Brazos
County residents who voted from Feb. 21 to
March 8 in the early election, in which 758
people voted Democrat and 2,646 people
voted Republican.
Tom Pauken, Texas Republican Party
chairman, said the dramatic numbers were
encouraging for his party.
“We are clearly now a two-party state,”
Pauken said. “For the first time ever, more
people voted in the Republican primary than
in the Democratic party.”
Pauken said there has been a significant
increase in the number of Republican voters
since 1992, attributing the increase to the
number of conservative Democrats who are
changing parties.
These Democrats are discontent with
the ideals of their party leaders, Pauken
said, and are looking to the Republican
party for a solution.
In addition, Pauken said it is becoming
more “acceptable” to be a Republican now
than it was in past years when Texas was
predominantly a Democratic state.
Pauken said Texas is experiencing a
significant growth in the Republican party,
especially in rural areas and mid-sized cities.
Dave Brown, College Republicans
president and a junior political science major,
See Primaries, Page 5