6A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2002
Autopsies reveal victims beaten
The Associated Press
WICHITA, Kan. — Autopsies on victims of a quadruple killing in December 2000 showed the three men were beaten and the woman was sexually assaulted before all were shot in the back of the head while kneeling on snow, a coroner testified yesterday.
Mary Dudley, chief medical examiner for the Sedgwick County Regional Forensic Science Center, offered the testimony in the capital murder trial of brothers Reginald and Jonathan Carr of Dodge City.
The Carrs are accused of fatally shooting a Wichita woman on Dec. 11, 2000, and four of five people who were abducted from a Wichita home on Dec. 14 of that year and taken to a soccer field, where all were shot execution-style. One person survived and has testified against them.
Dudley said all four of the people found dead on the soccer field died of a gunshot wound to the head. Bruising on their bodies indicated separate blunt force trauma, with some of the injuries consistent with blows from a golf club, she testified.
A partial autopsy on a dog found at the home where the abductions occurred indicated it had been beaten to death, possibly with the golf club found near it, Dudley said. The dog, a small schnauzer named Nikki, belonged to the woman who survived the shootings and had been left alive and muzzled in the home when the victims were taken to the soccer field.
Killed in that attack were Aaron Sander, 29; Brad Heyka,
27; Jason Befort, 26; and Heather Muller, 25. The four, along with Befort's 25-year old girlfriend, had been forced to withdraw money from automated teller machines and forced to engage in sexual acts before they were shot.
The fifth person whom the Carrs are accused of killing, 55-year-old Wichita Symphony Orchestra cellist Ann Walenta, was shot three times while sitting in her motor vehicle on Dec. 11, 2000. She died weeks later.
Dudley said her autopsy showed Walenta died as a result of complications of multiple gunshot wounds, and ruled her death a homicide. She testified that a pulmonary embolism that caused the death was a result of the gunshot wounds.
Befort's autopsys showed a gunshot wound to the back of the head, with the bullet exiting below his eye. Dudley testified. Injuries on his buttocks, legs and toes had a pattern similar to the raised edges of the golf club, she said.
Heyka also was shot in the head and had separate head injuries showing blunt force trauma to the head and neck. Dudley said.
Sander's autopsy showed a contact gunshot wound to the head, meaning the gun was touching the skin when it was fired, she said.
He, too, had separate abrasions to his forehead, possibly from being hit with a gun, and he had several bruises on his legs. Dudley testified.
Muller also showed signs of having been shot while the gun was placed against her head.
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KUJH anchors Heather Atiig, Shawnee senior (left and on monitor), and Kodi Tillery, Kansas City, Kan., senior, discuss their lines before a taping of Tuesday's KUJH news inside the studio in the Dole Center. Taped shows are broadcast every hour on TV channel 14 and 66 from 5:30 p.m. until 11:30 p.m.
John Nowak/Kansan
Toxic solvent found in some Kansas wells
The Associated Press
mental Protection Agency standards.
WAMEGO, Kan. — Twenty-one private wells near a former missile site have been found to contain high levels of a toxic solvent used by the military to clean engines, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment says.
KDHE identified 67 water wells east of the former Atlas-E missile site. At 21 of the wells, tests showed the water contained levels of trichloroethylene, or TCE, that exceeded Environ-
TCE, a possible carcinogen has been linked to liver damage and can cause vomiting and abdominal pain, according to the EPAs Web site.
Officials have told residents they are developing plans for cleanup.
Meanwhile, bottled water is being delivered to homes where well水 contained high levels of TCE and the Army Corps of Engineers is analyzing ways to
provide a permanent water source, officials said.
One option would be to hook the homes to rural water district pipelines. The corps would pay to hook up the homes, but property owners would then be responsible for their monthly bills
"This is usually the practice followed by the federal government," said Dan Gravatt, KDHE unit chief for the EPA fund that pays for such transactions.
Saqiv Khan, corps project manager, said officials hope to
schedule a public meeting within the next month to answer residents' questions, including what health problems they could face.
"We're trying to locate an expert on health issues," Khan said.
Completed in 1961, the 28acre Wamego installation is one of nine Atlas-E intercontinental ballistic missile sites operated until 1965 by the 548th Strategic Missile Squadron headquartered at the former Forbes Air Force Base in Topeka.