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Thursday, April 7, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Bizarre sodomy case unfolds
Police search for connections to 11 unsolved disappearances
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Police yesterday continued looking for clues that might link a man to the unsolved disappearance of 11 men after his arrest for assault and sodomy led to the discovery of skulls and bone fragments in his back vard.
The bizarre case of Robert A. Berdella began unfolding during the weekend when a man wearing only a dog collar told police he had jumped from a second-story window after four days of torture and sexual assault at Berdella's midtown home.
At a hearing Tuesday, in which Berdella the $500,000 bond was revoked, police said they had found 57 photographs showing the 22-year-old man being tortured and sexually abused.
Detective Ashley Hurn showed 12 of the photos to Associate Circuit
Judge Charles Stitt and said police had found about 200 pictures showing similar abuse of other young men.
Detective William Wilson said one of the pictures showed a man who appeared to be dead suspended by his ankles in the basement of Berdella's
nome.
Berdella, 39, is charged with seven counts of forcible sodomy and one each of felonious restraint and first-degree assault, all involving the 22-year-old man.
Police said yesterday that their excavation of Berdella's back yard was complete and that they were reviewing the material found there and in the home. They said they didn't know yet whether bone fragments found in the yard Tuesday afternoon were human.
discovered in the house Saturday. The buried skull still had some skin and hair attached to it, and all three are believed to be human, although one is thought to be a relic.
A skull was found buried in the ondary on Sunday, and two others were
Police said they were looking for any link between Berdella and the disappearances of Gerald D. Howell in 1884 and Walter James Ferris in 1985. Members of their families have said Berdella was among the last persons with whom the men were seen.
The police have chosen the cases of nine other young men, most of whom disappeared in 1884 and 1895, to look for any similarities. Sgt. Jon Perry, who has been in training since January with the Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., is heading up that effort.
KanWork stalled between houses
The Associated Press
TOPEKA - The House yesterday refused to accept Senate amendments to a bill creating an experimental program aimed at putting welfare recipients to work and sent the measure to a conference committee to resolve differences.
The KanWork program, developed by a special legislative committee last interim, was passed by the Senate 40-0. Later, it was shipped to the negotiating committee on voice
vote in the House.
No meeting of the conference committee had been scheduled by yesterday evening.
Members of the conference committee are State Reps. Robert H. Miller, R-Wellington; Robert Vancrum, R-Overland Park, and George Teagarden, D-LCygne, and State Gus. Sensor Bogina Jr., R-Lenaxe; Merril Werts, J-Runction City, and Frank Gaines, D-Augusta.
require welfare recipients to take job training or work in government agencies or facilities to gain work experience, preparing them for jobs.
The KanWork Program would
Skeptics said during hearings that welfare recipients would be able to get only minimum wage jobs that wouldn't permit them to support families but supported them by jobs and stepping stones to better-paying jobs and that the program offered hope for people who would break out of the welfare rut.
SOME PEOPLE RETIRE WITH MORE THAN JUST A GOLD WATCH.
You work hard all your life and what do you get?
Well, depending on where you work, you could get cancer.
Over the next several years the American Cancer Society will be conducting more research into certain lifestyle and exposures which could increase cancer mortality.
So know the risks.
Don't smoke
Don't smoke
AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY
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How you live may save your life.
This space contributed as a public service.
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