THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2006
NEWS
5A
CRIME
Text message tips off police
Suspect arrested in kidnapping girl rescued after texting her mother BY JEFFREY COLLINS The girl was found Saturday ASSOCIATED PRESS a'
LUGOFF, S.C. — A man suspected of kidnapping a 14-year-old girl and keeping her in an underground bunker was charged Sunday with raping the teen, Kershaw County Sheriff Steve McCaskill said.
Kershaw County Sheriff Steve McCaskill said Vinson Filyaw had eluded police with an elaborate system of hideouts and bunkers since November 2005 when he was charged with criminal sexual conduct on a 12-year-old girl.
He surrendered Sunday morning to police as he walked along Interstate 20 near Columbia, about five miles from where investigators found the teenager.
Police say Filyaw, 36, abducted the girl as she walked home from a school bus stop on Sept. 6.
Investigators arrested Filyaw in neighboring Richland County about 24 hours after rescuing the girl, who sent a text message to her mother on Filyaw's phone while he was asleep Wednesday, McCaskill said. The sheriff said Filyaw woke up and the girl still had the phone, but she told him she was simply playing with the phone.
Investigators used cell towers to determine a general location of the phone and deputies began searching for Filyaw on Friday night. McCaskill said the girl cried out as searchers approached the bunker.
"This little lady getting that message out was really the break in the case," the sheriff said. "She helped herself as much as we helped her."
Police say they still have not interviewed the girl, whose name was previously released when she was a missing person. The Associated Press is not using her name because police have identified her as a victim of sexual assault.
The girl was found Saturday about a mile from her home, hidden in a booby-trapped, 15-foot-deep hole carved out of the side of a hill and covered with plywood. The bunker had a hand-dug privy with toilet paper, a camp stove and shelves made with cut branches and canvas.
McCaskill said it looked like Filyaw was trying to dig another bunker under that one as a possible backup hiding place, but had to abandon it when it filled with water.
Filyaw had dug two bunkers in his own yard and two in the woods and had used them to hide out since he was charged in the assault case in November.
His girlfriend Cynthia Hall has been charged as an accessory and with neglect in the earlier case, McCaskill said. Investigators say she allowed the earlier assault to take place in her home and provided Filyw with supplies to live in the bunker.
Police were tipped off to Filyaw's location Sunday after getting a call from a woman who said he tried to carjack her about 2 a.m. outside a pizza restaurant, authorities said.
Filyaw was on foot about five miles from his house carrying a pellet gun, a Taser and a long hunting knife when police captured him. He gave up easily, McCaskill said, adding that he doesn't think the suspect had any help escaping.
"If he had help, he would have gotten much farther away," McCaskill said.
Filyaw was being held Sunday at the Kershaw County jail. The sheriff said he was not aware of Filyaw having an attorney.
Investigators said Filyaw posed as a police officer when he met the 14-year-old girl and the teen was walked around in the woods by her captor until she became disoriented.
Dance for a cause
Stephanie Altoro, vice president of Hispanic American Leadership Organization and Newton junior, dances with Eloy Gallegos, vice president of Sigma Lama Beta fraternity and Garden City senior, during the Hispanic Heritage Month Kickoff Friday on the Kansas Union Plaza. The event featured music, dancing and a limbo contest. The month will include information booths, banquets and other events celebrating Hispanic heritage. HALO Movie Night is at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, which is free in the Multicultural Resource Center, south of Anschutz Library.
Vanessa Pearson/KANSAN
HEALTH
E. coli outbreak kills one California spinach sickens 102 people
BY JUSTIN M. NORTON ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO — Federal agents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention intervened this weekend to help investigate an E. coli outbreak tied to tainted spinach from California's Salinas Valley.
The greens, which appear to be grown by the world's largest producer of organic produce, have sickened 102 people, including the death of a 77-year-old woman, according to health officials.
CDC officials said Sunday they've started an Atlanta-based emergency operations center to help state health agencies with E. coli testing.
Epidemiologists are helping test spinach samples and stool samples of those who have been infected, center spokeswoman Lola Russell said.
The center is helping when state health agencies can't perform the tests or when a second opinion is needed, Russell said.
E. coli cases linked to tainted spinach have been reported in 19 states, with a majority of cases in Wisconsin.
Other states reporting cases were California, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming, according to the CDC.
The Food and Drug Administration continued to warn consumers not to eat fresh spinach or fresh spinach-containing products until further notice.
SCIENCE
Shuttle departs from space station Atlantis will return to Earth Wednesday after work to expand space station
BY RASHA MADKOUR ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON — Space shuttle Atlantis pulled away from the international space station Sunday for a return trip to Earth after its six astronauts bade farewell to the residents of the orbiting lab with hugs, handshakes and the traditional ringing of a bell.
"The crew of Atlantis is departing" station resident Jeff Williams radioed to Mission Control in Houston.
Pilot Chris Ferguson carefully eased Atlantis through a tight corridor away from the station. About 450 feet away, he fired jets to maneuver Atlantis around the space lab so the crew could take photos of their handiwork - a newly expanded station. The space station gleamed in the reflection of the sun.
In three arduous spacewalks with the blue-green Earth as a backdrop, the crew unpacked and installed a 17
"I hope you guys have a nice view up there." Mission Control-radioed.
It has been years since NASA and its international partners have gotten a complete view of the orbiting space lab, and the space station is quite different from how Atlantis' crew found it six days ago.
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1/2-ton addition which contained a pair of solar wings that will ultimately generate a quarter of the space station's power.
The wings are the first addition to the orbiting space lab since the 2003 Columbia disaster. NASA will affix two more pairs of solar wings on the space station before it is completed in 2010.
The crew woke up to Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone." Pilot Chris Ferguson, whose family requested the song for him, told Mission Control in Houston: "That's great music for ... what will be a bitter-sweet day for us today, undocking from the station."
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The crew spent the earlier part of their day hauling supplies and equipment from their spacecraft to the station, and getting ready for the undocking and fly-around.
Atlantis returns to Earth Wednesday morning after 11 days in space. The next space station mission dedicated to construction is slated to leave Earth in December.
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