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Westergren found guilty
Eugene E. Westergreen, charged in the November 17 testing death of an elderly woman, was found guilty late day yesterday of first-degree murder and attempted rage.
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Tuesday, November 7, 1978
Westergreen, 51, was found guilty by Franklin County Judge Floyd H. Coffman in the death of Vamera Smith. 84
Smith was found beaten to death in her home at 823 Kentucky St. Last Nov. 8.
Westergren had undergone four psychiatric examinations since charges were filed but was found competent to stand trial each time.
The defense said it would appeal the verdict, Coffman set Dec. 7 as the deadline for filing motions for a new trial in district court.
COFFMAN SAID the main issue in the case was the credibility of an oral confession in which Westergren last December admitted to the murder.
The state said the confession proved beyond reasonable doubt that Westergreen was at the scene of the crime, the victim's home. However, Westergreen claimed he gave authorities the confession so he could be held to sleep and shelter during cold weather.
Jerry Donnelly, a court-appointed defense attorney, denied the defense on the validity of the confession, saying that Westergemer, who has a 20-year history of mental illness, was in poor mental and condition when he made his confession.
Under direct examination from Donnelly, Westergren reconstructed his actions for several days before the crime.
WESTERGREN SAID he was at the apartment of Laucher Hicks, 818 Kurtley St, across the street from the Smith home. He said he never left the Hicks apartment
that night and eventually went to sleep on the divan.
Westergreer said he first learned of Smith's death the next morning, when two Lawrence police officers came to the apartment. They asked him if he had heard anything suspicious the night before, he said.
He said that when police officers interrogated him, he had not slept in three nights. He said he spent the nights of Dec. 19 and 20 standing in a hallway of the Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement complex for four free of death outdoors.
Westergreen described his physical and mental state on Dec 21, 1977, the day he gave Lawrence police officers his confession.
WESTERGREN SAID, as he has maintained throughout the case, that he
gave the confession so he could spend some time in jail, out of the cold.
"I knew I was getting in over my head," Westergren said. "But I decided I would rather spend II years in Lansing than one more night out in the cold."
Under cross examination by Harry Warren, Douglas County assistant district attorney, Westergreen had he realized that he was wrong when he was confessing to, but he had not cared.
The defense rested after Westergren's testimony, but Warren said the state wanted the court to hear testimony against Westergren's character. Demonly objected to the grounds that the defense never pressured him in support of Westergren's character.
Coffman, who heard the case without a jury, overrailed the objection and allowed the state to present the evidence.
Committee evaluates IHP merits
Letters are trickling into the office of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences concerning the pros and cons of the Integrated Humanities Program. ...
Earlier this fall about 1,000 letters were sent soliciting responses to the question:
"Is IHP at the University of Kansas a desirable and appropriate educational environment?"
Friday is the deadline for interested persons to submit their signed responses to
Written responses were solicited from current and former IHP students, faculty members teaching in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and others from outside the University who had expressed interest in IHP.
The written responses are a part of an evaluation of HIP that is being made by the teacher.
THE COMMITTEE, appointed by the College Assembly in 1975, was recently elected President.
IHP by the College Committee on Undergraduate Studies and Advising.
Tom Beissecker, chairman of CUSA, said yesterday that the IHP Advisory Committee requested last spring that its purpose be spelled out more clearly.
On Sept. 26, CUSA asked the committee to investigate all aspects of HP through http://www.cusas.org/about.html
As a part of the investigation, CUSA requested that the IHP Advisory Committee "write oral testimony supported by written documents and other forms of documents from all interested parties, both from within and outside the University."
CUSA said the IHP Advisory Committee should report the results of its evaluation and make recommendations to CUSA regarding IHP by Jan. 1.
WIL. HLKUGEL, chairman of the IHP Advisory Committee, said the first public hearing was held from 9 a.m. to noon in the Regionalist Room of the Kansas Union.
The first hearing will be for the committee
Spanish theatre company to perform in Swarthout
The production is sponsored by the International Theatre Studies Center, the department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Center of Latin American Studies.
The Spanish Theatre Reporter Company will perform a 15th century classic, "La Celestina," by Fernando de Rojas, at 8 ontight at Swatworth Reunct Hall. Tickets are available at the Murphy Hall box office. All seats are £2.50.
The company's production of "La Celestina" is done somewhat freely, according to Andrew Tsubaki, professor of speech and drama.
"La Celestina" is a love story in which medieval and Renaissance ideals clash. The warrior, an exorcist Calisto and Meliben, inevitably clashes with the pesternium of the masses, portrayed in
"THE COMPANY," he said last week, "is
not too concerned about the play in a cradleid, classic manner.
"If somebody expects to see something like the Comedie Française, the French classical theatre company, would perform, they will be deceived. It's a little more
Tsaukii said the performance also would be a rare opportunity for theatre students to perform.
But Tsauki said that underlying the advantages of bringing a foreign production to KU was the need for people to know different cultures.
"KNOWLEDGE ALWAYS prevents flasco," he said. "A good example is Sadat and Begin. Once they knew each other, they held hands." Peace can never be broken down. Such peace is never broken down.
"The only way to understand people is to speak the same language."
meet with the committee and discuss various subjects that had been brought up.
to listen to invited speakers who have submitted written responses to the com-
The next meeting will be to hear positive views from invited speakers concerning
LinkedUp said there would be at least one more meeting when the committee would convene.
"We're trying to focus on those people who have critical statements about HP." I laughed. "How do you know?"
Panel passes bill giving committee vote to students
Procedures for the hearings have been drafted by the IRP Advisory Committee and are to be submitted on Tuesday, May 20.
"THIS EVALUATION is really not different from any other evaluation of a University program. Linkukel said, in that there is a public interest in HIP."
The Student Senate Rights Committee passed a resolution last night that would assure full voting rights for student members of all governance committees.
The bill was submitted by four senators after one of those senators, Bill Remmers, graduate senator, was asked in September to nominate a faculty Research Committee meeting.
Remmers is the student member on the Research Committee, but the University code provides that he only be there during policymaking portions of the meeting.
Mark Bernstein, graduate senator and coauthor of the bill, said he thought the Research Committee dealt with matters that were of importance to students.
"AND IF that student member is willing to put in the time and effort," Bernstein said, "then I think he ought to be an equal member of the committee."
McMurry left before the vote, in which the remaining 10 members of the $s$-member committee voted for him.
He said he thought that students should just be allowed to ask in and offer input.
The bill will go before the full Senate tomorrow night and must be approved by a simple majority before it can go to the University Council for approval.
Steve McMurray, a member of the Rights Committee, said he was not sure whether students should be given a vote on what he should be to primarily faculty committees.
Bernstein said the bill would provide full voting rights for student members of the Research Committee and four other faculty committees. No more than 20 percent of faculty committees can be composed of students, he said.
Election Day Specials
Paid for by Committee for Solbach Lance Burr, Chairman, I. J. Stoneback, Treasurer
University Dafly Kansan
Oread neighborhood to elect new officers
Members of the Oread Neighborhood Association voted last night to elect new officers because they say the present administration is incompetent.
Staff Reporter
MANY TIMES during the meeting, members took the floor to explain different proposals and to handle legislative duties, in particular by speaking, speak and decasing the order of the agenda.
The election will be at the association's monthly meeting in December.
Warden vetoes prison frat
Mike Young. 1064 Tennessee St, made the proposal to the association, which has not been satisfied by its members the motion because the officers had not functioned well since they were elected in
The ONA has been marked by controversy since an election Oct. 5 when landlords, voting as a bloc, were able to put their representatives in office.
By LORILINENBERGER
"I did it to calm the fury." Young said. "I didn't want to do it, but I thought the
Young inexperienced was evident in the lack of communication and chaos at the museum.
The prospective "house father" of a proposed fraternity for the University of Kansas has vetoed the idea because it would be too much work.
To qualify as a member of the ONA, one must be a resident of the neighborhood or an owner of property in the area. The Orad Aboveground Campus is located at Massachusetts streets and the KU campus.
YOUNG SAID he hoped the election would out an end to the problems within the ONA so that the members could work together efficiently and effectively.
Many called the election invalid because no bylaws had been written before the election, as required by ONA rules. Many homeowners and tenants said they were upset with the results because they thought words would abolish some of their programs.
David Holroyd, 1224 Louisiana St., appeared upset with the vote, but said later. It means that if people are totally in charge of the community, they should be able to do this."
Young said he did not want to stir up controversy again, and to avoid this, he wanted the executive committee of the ONA to select a slate of new candidates that would be acceptable to both the landlords and homeowners.
The house father, Ira Day, Leavenworth prison warden, told Interferenza Council president Dave Baker in a letter that establishing a fraternity at Leavenworth prison was not feasible because the prison would cause staffing inconveniences.
Day said an employee of the prison would have to monitor the functions of the fraternity, causing inconveniences for other prison employees.
The idea of organizing a fraternity at the prison arose after Theodore Williams Sr. a, Leavenworth inmate, sent a letter to Baker asking for help to form a fraternity.
Williams said in the letter that he wanted the fraternity to be open to all prison inmates enrolled in the KU continuing education program there.
"SOME OF THE students here, because of the length of their sentences, may never attend classes on the campus of a regular college or university and may miss some important and meaningful college experiences. Students can provide." Williams said in the letter.
After receiving the letter, Baker said he presented it to the members of IFC for their
IFC members decided to send several representatives to Leavenworth to discuss the fraternity with interested inmates, upon approval from Day.
A spokesman for the prison said that the creation of a fraternity woll overlap with the functions of several other social organizations at the prison.