>> BOARDWALK TRIAL
Jury deliberates after closing remarks
BY ERICK R. SCHMIDT
Nineteen months after the deadly Boardwalk Apartment fire in October 2005, the fate of defendant Jason Allen Rose is in the hands of a 12-person jury.
Verdict for Rose will be decided soon
Rose's defense attorney, Ron Evans, and assistant district attorney Amy McGowan each delivered their closing statements Wednesday afternoon after seven days of witness testimony.
Rose is accused of starting the October 2005 Boardwalk Apartments fire, which killed residents Jose Gonzalez, Helen "Yolanda" Riddle
and KU student Nicole Bingham. Rose is charged with aggravated arson, three counts of murder and seven counts of aggravated battery. The case originally went to trial in February but was declared a mistr! u because of a late-surfacing witness.
McGowan began the prosecution's closing just before 3 p.m. by showing video of the fire that had previously been presented to the jury.
"The hottest, angriest, hugest fire you've ever seen", McGowan said, quoting fire victim Leigh McHatton's
testimony. "As we're watching this, three people are dying behind that wall of fire."
McGowan reviewed eyewitness accounts that she argued proved the fire started exactly where Rose confessed to starting it. She discussed the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' final report that the fire was set intentionally and Rose's confession of an exact apartment where the fire began.
"What we're looking at, ladies and gentlemen, is that he knew where
the fire was before anyone else did", McGowan said.
The prosecution spoke for 45 minutes. McGowan reminded the jury of Rose's reported history with fire, a witness who put him at the spot of the fire and the disputed confession, in which Rose said he started the fire after hours of questioning.
"This is not a sympathy vote," McGowan said. "There's plenty of sympathy for the people who were hurt in the fire. This is not a sympathy vote. What the issue is, is 'Did you intentionally set this fire?'
SEE TRIAL ON PAGE 5A
Rose faces several different charges
For him to be convicted of:
— Second-degree murder, the Jury must find Rose unintentionally killed the three victims by showing a reckless disregard for human life. Each of the three charges are separate.
— Involuntary manslaughter, the jury must find that Rose killed the
— Involuntary manslaughter, the jury must find that Rose killed the three victims and that it was done recklessly.
— Aggravated arson, the jury must find that Rose intentionally damaged the building with fire, that the damage was done by means of fire or explosion, that the damage was done without the permission of the Boardwalk Apartments' owners and people were in the building. — Aggravated battery, the jury must find that Rose feloniously and recklessly caused bodily harm to each of the seven victims. Each of the charges are separate.
》 TEXT MESSAGING
Emergency contact will change in future
BY JOE HUNT
The University of Kansas will be utilizing a new text messaging alert system to quickly inform students of dangerous situations. The system is a response to the lack of communication the morning of the Virginia Tech shooting in April.
Beginning today, students should receive e-mails directing them to a Web site where they can update their emergency contact information and submit their cell phone number and service provider to the University. The site can also be reached from the main University Web site by clicking on the emergency contact link.
The information gathered will be as secure as student database information and will not be given out to advertisers, said Todd Cohen, Director of University Relations.
"The Virginia Tech massacre brought to light the need to have an Amber Alert system," Cohen said. "This system will work with all cell phone providers."
Dr. Marlesa Roney, Vice Provost of Student Success, said that the system will definitely be used in situations of imminent danger, but she did not know if it would be used for non-threatening situations like snow days.
"What we need to do is discuss with students what they want to be notified about," Roney said. She estimated students could sign up for the service in two to three minutes.
David Mucci, Director of KU Memorial Unions, said that other methods of communication were still being discussed.
"Text messaging is a system that I think makes a lot of sense in terms of students," Mucci said. "But I don't think there is any one answer. It might serve a lot of people but it might still miss numbers of people."
A Vintage Hand Local calligrapher gives ancient art of text new life
BY MATT ERICKSON • PHOTOS BY AMANDA SELLERS
SEE TEXTS ON PAGE 5A
Cathy Ledeker sits on her living room couch underneath three of her favorite art pieces. Ledeker has been doing calligraphy and other arts, including the two pictures below, for more than 25 years.
Cathy Ledeker grasps the skinny, wooden pen, dips its metal tip, or "nib," into a small jar of black ink, and leans over a thick, wooden-covered Bible. Ink flows out of the gap between the nib's two points as she inscribes the name of the book's future owner. Her pen moves smoothly but carefully so that it joins the book.
Her pen moves smoothly but carefully — she can't just throw the expensive Bible away if she makes a mistake.
She pushes down to give the middle slant of an uppercase "S" a wide, snakelike body, and lifts up to leave a light, airy curl on the tail of a lowercase "j." The phone rings, and she sets the pen down to answer.
She hears a man's gruff East Coast accent on the other end, asking her to paint a sign for his Kansas City strip club, complete with naked female silhouettes. Ledeker accepts. Though she practices an ancient art form, she sees no problem stepping away from inscriptions in holy books to sketch shapely female forms.
When you're a professional calligrapher in an increasingly electronic world, you take whatever work you can get.
More than 500 years after Johannes Gutenberg's printing press supplanted pens as the
"If you don't feed them they're going to eat the birds and eventually starve to death," Mitchell said of campus' stray cats.
In her years as cat curator, Mitchell said she had taken six cats as pets, one of which had three legs. She found it near the old powerhouse — now the Hall Center for the Humanities — with a scraggly look and a nasty infection on its leg.
On Thanksgiving morning a starving cat approached Carol Mitchell on her daily walk through campus. Mitchell, a retired Shawnee teacher, returned later that day with food for the calico, which meowed and rubbed against her legs. She eventually took it home as a pet.
》 UNIVERSITY CATS
Nearly five years later Mitchell still walks campus every day, but now she carries bags of cat food and birdseed.
"She's so sweet," Mitchell said. "She's a really nice cat."
Retired teacher provides food shelter to help campus strays
BY NATHAN GILL
Amansa Sellers/KANSAN
SEE CALLIGRAPHY ON PAGE 8A
SEE CATS ON PAGE 5A
Carol Mitchell, Lawrence resident, walks behind Wescoe Hall with a bag of fresh food and water for the cats that live on campus. Mitchell has been feeding cats on campus for more than five years.
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jayplay
speaker
A decrease in rap music sales has led many within the local rap community to consider a change in the current hip-hop culture.
Kansas defeated Missouri State 8-3, hitting two home runs.
A distinguished professor talked about the change that Kansas may see in the environ-
3A ment during the next century.
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