6A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
FRIDAY,AUGUST 30,2002
19th century ship found
The Associated Press
BOSTON—Underwater explorers have located the wreck of a 19th century steamship that sank in one of the worst hurricanes in New England's history, taking more than 190 people with it.
The Portland, known as the "Titanic of New England," sank off the Massachusetts coast Nov. 26, 1898, after it sailed from Boston, ignoring forecasts of an impending storm.
Its whereabouts were never firmly established until Thursday, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the wreck was found in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, an area about the size of Rhode Island between Cape Ann and Cape Cod.
"This discovery closes the chapter on one of the greatest maritime disasters in New England," said Ben Cowie-Haskell, NOAA's primary investigator of the Portland
expedition.
Researchers were able to identify several distinctive features of the wreck that prove it's the Portland, Cowie-Haskell said, including the rudder assembly, paddle guard, wheel hub, and the twin side-by-side smokestacks.
The wreck was first located in 1989 by two underwater explorers, Arnold Carr and John Fish, but they could never prove it was the Portland.
NOAA researchers used sonar equipment and remotely operated machines that were able to take high quality video footage of the wreck.
Cowie-Haskell said the ship is sitting upright on the sea floor with its hull largely intact, though much of the ship above the main deck is gone. No bodies or artifacts with the Portland's name on it were found, he said.
Cowie-Haskell would not reveal the exact location of the ship.
The 291-foot Portland 140
Boston's India Wharf for Portland, Maine, as scheduled, ignoring forecasts of an impending storm and the decision by the captain of a sister ship to stay in port.
Captain Hollis Blanchard may have believed the Portland could outrun the gale, but the storm was actually two separate storms that collided at sea and grew in force. Winds reached 100 mph,and waves crested at 60 feet.
Scientists estimate 192 passengers and crew died, but no one really knows how many lives were lost because the only passenger list went down with the ship. Only about 40 bodies from the vessel were recovered.
Bodies and wreckage began to wash up on the shores of Cape Cod shortly after the storm, which eventually became known as the "Portland Storm."
The Portland's sinking prompted a change in the designer of all coastal ships from paddlewheel to propellor.
The Associated Press
RUTLEDGE. Ala, (AP) — An unemployed man and the 16-year-old mother of its child were sought for questioning Thursday in the massacre of six members of her family, whose bullet-riddled bodies were found at their isolated farm.
Slaying suspects missing
Pictures of Wastley Devone Harris, 22, and his girlfriend, Janice Denise Ball, were displayed on "Wanted For Questioning" posters around the south Alabama crossroads community where the six bodies were found.
The couple's 11/2-year-old daughter, called Shea Shea by family members, also is missing. State investigators said a nationwide alert was put out for a red Pontiac Grand Am in which Harris and Ball were believed to be traveling. The car belonged to Ball's father, Willie Hasley, 40, whose body was found near a hog pen after deputies were summoned to the rural homestead Tuesday night, according to relatives.
Law enforcement officers were at the home of Harris' mother yesterday, blocking traffic on one point on a road
that passes by her residence. Coleman Ball, whose mother and sister were among those killed, said someone talked with Harris on Wednesday "but they did not pinpoint where he was." He did not know whether phone contact was made by law enforcement or a family member.
Maj. Ken Hallford, chief of the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, would not comment on whether phone contact had been made with Harris. Gail Perdue, a store clerk who attended Luverne High School with Harris before he quit, described him as "strange." Dorothy Maye Hasley, sister of the slain Willie Hasley, said Harris had not been employed lately.
The crime, one of the worst multiple-victim homicides on record in the state, shattered the tranquility of this farm community about 40 miles south of Montgomery after the first bodies were discovered Tuesday night.
Relatives of the dead said the family matriarch, Mila Ruth Bull, 62, was found with a grandson in the tinroofed wood home where she lived.
Lawyers and friends defend Westerfield's life
The Associated Press
SAN DIEGO — Friends of David Westerfield testified on his behalf Thursday, seeking to convince jurors to spare him the death penalty for kidnapping and killing his 7-year-old neighbor, Danielle van Dam.
Two men who worked and socialized with Westerfield for more than 20 years described him as a talented engineer who helped design devices used in physical therapy and underwater photography.
"He's a very creative guy ... a very talented guy," said Carmen Genovese, a San Diego businessman who winked at Westfield as he took the stand in the second day of the penalty phase.
Westerfield, 50, was convicted Aug. 21 of kidnapping Danielle from her second-floor bedroom and killing her. The same jury that convicted him will be asked to recommend whether Westerfield should be sentenced to life in prison or be put to death.
Westerfield's attorneys sought
to undo the emotional testimony presented earlier by the prosecution. On Wednesday, jurors heard Danielle's parents tearfully recall her short life and the painful toll of her death.
"She was one of the most precious gifts anyone could ever receive," said Danielle's mother, Brenda van Dam.
On Thursday, Westerfield's lawyers sought to portray the defendant as a man whose work has benefited society.
Genovese and Ron Lawrence, a former business partner of
Defense attorney Steven Feldman has he would call witnesses to talk about his client's "wonderful, caring" side.
Westerfield's at Spectrum Designs, both said the devices the defendant helped create have played important roles.
"We don't try to excuse the crime. There is no excuse," he said Wednesday.
The remote underwater camera, Lawrence said, has spared deep-sea divers from potentially risky work. The medical devices Westerfield helped design aided thousands of people recovering from surgery, Genovese said.
Both Genovese and Lawrence visited Westerfield at his home the days before his Feb. 22 arrest "to show a little support," Lawrence said.
"But David Alan Westerfield is not the worst of the worst."
He also appealed to jurors who may hold lingering doubts about their guilty verdict.
"We don't question your verdict, but we do continue to have doubts," he said. "This is now a life or death decision."
New evidence in Hoffa case
The Associated Press
PONTIAC, Mich. — New DNA evidence in the disappearance of ex-Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa 27 years ago is insufficient to bring state criminal charges, a prosecutor said yesterday.
"We concurred that there is insufficient evidence to authorize the issuance of warrants at this time." Goreyca said yesterday.
"Unfortunately, this has the markings of a great 'whodunit' novel without the final chapter." Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca said. Hoffa disappeared from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Oakland County's Bloomfield Township in July 1975.
but he said the prime suspect remains Charles O'Brien, a former friend of Hoffa's. O'Brien has denied any involvement in Hoffa's disappearance.
FBI scientists used new technology to match the DNA from Hoffa's hair with that of a strand of hair found in a vehicle driven by O'Brien on the last day Hoffa was seen.
O'Brien told investigators in 1975 he had borrowed the car, owned by the son of reputed Mafia figure Anthony Giacalone, to deliver a frozen salmon to the home of Robert Holmes, then president of Teamsters Local 337. The delivery put O'Brien in the area near the restaurant, where Hoffa was supposed to meet with Giacalone and New Jersey Teamsers boss and underworld associate Anthony Provenzano.
Investigators believe Hoffa was picked up outside the restaurant and killed. Hoffa's family has said that only a close friend, such as O'Brien, could have persuaded Hoffa to get in the car.