The Battalion
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Friday • January 31,11
Wall in Houston mall collapses
HOUSTON (AP) —Two people were killed,
six injured and as many as six others were
feared missing under tons of concrete and steel
rubble Thursday after a wall collapsed at a
shopping mall.
The collapse sent dozens of other early morn
ing “mall walkers” scrambling for their lives.
Northline Mali’s doors had just opened
around 9 a.m. when a wall being torn down to
make room for a Magic Johnson theater com
plex collapsed, sending those inside, many of
them elderly, fleeing for cover.
“It just all of a sudden went crackling. I ran,”
said Dorothy McCann, who was among people
who exercise daily by lapping the inner
perimeter of the shopping center.
Rescuers using police tracking dogs
searched through the debris for other victims.
By early afternoon, cranes had been brought in
to begin moving wreckage.
“We’re pretty certain there may be other
people under the debris,” Fire Chief Eddie Cor
ral said at a news conference. “We won’t really
know until we get in there and pull it off. Some
of it is rather large and heavy.”
Corral speculated from four to six people
may be missing.
Demolition crews working at Northline’s
south end were removing the last sections of
an old Joske’s department store when a wall
common to the old store and the mall caved in.
Authorities described the wall as about 20
feet high with the fallen section about 150 to
200 feet long.
“I just heard a loud rumble,” said Mary
Shields, 59, who was inside the mall. “I could
see dust flying. I turned around and looked
back. I saw people running out of the offices
saying somebody got hurt. The dust was so
thick ...You couldn’t see.”
Five of the injured were “mall walkers,” most of
them in their 60s and 70s, including a man who
ran through a glass window to flee the avalanche
of debris and a couple who were pushed to the
ground by force of the wall’s collapse.
The most seriously injured — a 67-year-old
woman with a broken ankle—was expected to
be the only person kept overnight and require
surgery. The others were treated and expected
to be released later Thursday.
Mayor Bob Lanier said the immediate
search by firefighters was being slowed while
crews made certain rescue crews were in no
additional danger.
“They’ve got to make it safe,” Lanier said.
"When they do, we think they will find some
more (bodies).”
Investigator testifies in Routier trial
KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Darlie Routier
never denied killing her sons when she was
interrogated at the Rowlett police station the
day of her arrest, an investigator testified
Thursday.
“She always had the same verbal re
sponse: ‘If I did it, I don’t remember,’ ” said
private investigator Bill Parker, the only re
buttal witness called by prosecutors.
Parker is a retired Dallas police officer who
helped the Rowlett Police Department in its
investigation of the June 6, 1996, stabbing
deaths of Routier’s two sons.
Prosecutors allege Routier, now 27, used a
kitchen butcher knife to attack 5-year-old
Damon and 6-year-old Devon Routier then
slashed herself to cover the crime.
But Routier contends an intruder assault
ed her and her boys before fleeing through
the garage of the family’s suburban home
near Dallas.
Her capital murder trial was moved to Ker-
rville because of publicity in North Texas. If
convicted, Routier could face the death
penalty.
Parker testified he met with Rowlett police
officers to review the evidence against Routi
er before interviewing her.
“The evidence was in direct contradiction
to the way the crime was reported to have oc
curred,” Parker said.
“She (Routier) always had
the same verbal response: ‘If
I did it, I don’t remember.’”
Bill Parker
Private investigator
During a three-hour interrogation on June
18, Parker said he told Routier at least six
times he thought she killed her sons.
“Did Mrs. Routier ever deny killing her
children?” prosecutor Greg Davis asked.
“No sir, she did not,” Parker replied.
Defense attorney Doug Mulder ques
tioned why Parker did not record the inter
view.
Parker said he would have liked to record
the session, but the Rowlett officers told him
there was no room available with a recording
device. He also said there was no room
equipped with a microphone so that other
officers could listen.
Outside the courtroom, Mulder said
Routier has denied making the statements
that Parker claimed she made. Mulder, a
friend of Parker’s, praised his skills as an in
terrogator.
“If Darlie were guilty, I think Bill Parker
would have gotten a confession from her,”
Mulder said.
The defense rested its case Wednesday af
ter Routier took the witness stand and firm
ly denied killing her sons.
Finger
painting
Pat )ames, The B*muo'
Jayson Owens, a senior environmental design
major, and Aimee Llewellyn, a senior pschotof
major, work together in their painting class.
-FsJjJJlIiJ ilWMJ.
As of January 30,1997,
3,900 students have
signed a petition calling
for a referendum on yell
leader run-offs. If 10
percent of all students J
sign the petition, the
results of the referendum^
would be binding —
possibly forcing run-off j
elections for yell leaders j
this spring.
SOURCE: Liz Rayburn
► State
Students just say no to
random drug tests
VIGO PARK, Texas (AP) — Hollister Gard
ner says he reacted to his school’s random
drug testing program just like he’s ap
proached dope all his life: He just said no.
Barely a month after his 18th birthday,
Gardner drafted a federal lawsuit challeng
ing the policy — and sued his father in the
process.
Gary Gardner is among the Julia Inde
pendent School District board members
named as defendants in the lawsuit. But
Gardner, the only board member to oppose
the policy, has been happy to help his son
by providing tapes of board meetings and
other district documents.
“Boy, you think you raise them right, and
as soon as they turn 18 they up and sue
you,” Gardner joked.
This rural district, about 45 miles south
of Amarillo, asked parents and students
last fall to sign permission slips agreeing
to random drug testing as a condition of in
volvement in extracurricular activities.
Gramm angered over
voting rights challenge
tary personnel to vote in local elections.
“Is there no shame?” he thundered, de
manding that the Justice Department intervene
in a West Texas voting-rights case that has blos
somed into a cause celebre for conservatives.
Texas Rural Legal Aid, which represents thou
sands of poor Texans, filed suit in December
challenging some 800 out-of-town ballots cast
in Val Verde County races by military personnel
and their families. As a result of that suit, a fed
eral judge in San Antonio has temporarily barred
two Republicans from taking office as sheriff
and county commissioner.
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I Dark Side.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — His voice rising in
anger, Sen. Phil Gramm on Thursday denounced
as “outrageous” a taxpayer-funded legal chal
lenge questioning the right of out-of-town mili-
Letter to Simpson civil
trial jurors angers judge
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP)—Two jurors from
the first OJ. Simpson trial and an enfM
agent are under investigation forall<£®
tacting jurors in the civil trial, soured
Thursday.
An angry Superior Court Judge Hirost
jisaki ordered the probe after two ciVil-triai Wars and will d
rors reported receiving a letter at their hor ' SkywaIker (|);
from criminal trial jurors Brenda Moran andC
Rosborough, sources told The Associated Pie
on condition of anonymity.
In the handwritten letter, Moran andBE
borough praise the civil trial jurors and»if
them to consider contacting an enter!®
ment agent-publicist named Bud Sterf
fering to represent them in media detf
sources said.
It was this letter that caused Tuesdayswi
session to be delayed about an hourwliie
judge interviewed all of the jurors, sources^
► This day in history
Today is Friday, Jan. 31, the 31st day of 1997. There are
334 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On Jan. 31,1958, the United States entered the Space
Age with its first successful launch of a satellite into orbit,
Explorer 1.
In 1606, Guy Fawkes, convicted for his part in the “Gun
powder Plot” against the English Parliament and King James
I, was executed.
In 1797, composer Franz Schubert was born in Vienna,
Austria.
In 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee was named general-in-chief
of all the Confederate armies.
In 1917, Germany served notice that it was beginning a
policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
In 1944, during World War II, U.S. forces began invading
Kwajalein Atoll and other parts of the Japanese-held Mar
shall Islands.
In 1945, Private Eddie Slovik became the only U.S. sol
dier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion. He was
shot by an American firing squad in France.
In 1950, President Harry Truman announced he had or
dered development of the hydrogen bomb.
In 1971, astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell
and Stuart A. Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14.
In 1990, McDonald’s Corporation opened its first fast-
food restaurant in Moscow.
Weather
Today
Tonight
Tomorrow
Highs & Lows
Today's birthdays
Today’s ExpectedHf.
76°F
Actress Carol Channing is 74. Author Norman Mailer is
74. Actress Jean Simmons is 68. Baseball Hall-of-Famer
Ernie Banks is 66. Actress Suzanne Pleshette is 60. House
Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo. is 56. Actress
Jessica Walter is 53. Baseball pitcher Nolan Ryan is 50.
Singer Phil Collins is 46.
Sunny and pleasant. SW
winds at 10 mph.
Clear and cool.
Mostly sunny. SW winds
at 10 mph.
Tonight’s ExpectedLc
50°F
Tomorrow’s Expects
High
78°F
Tomorrow Night’s
Expected Low
58°F
Information courtesy of TAM?-
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The Battalion
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Brad Graeber, Cartoon Ed®'
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