University Daily Kansan / Thursday, December 7, 1989
Campus/Area
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Trial set for Ridpath murder case
By Jim Petterson Kansan staff writer
The Blue Springs, Mo., man charged with the Oct. 1 shooting of an 18-year-old Independence, Mo., man in northern Douglas County must must be on charges of first-degree murder in district court judge ruled yesterday.
Christopher W. Mitchell, 19, stood quietly by his attorney, Dennis Moore, as Judge Mike Malone ruled the state had presented sufficient evidence to show that Mitchell could have committed the crime. Mitchell's trial is set to begin Jan. 22 in Douglas County Court.
The body of Timothy K. Ridpath was discovered Oct. 2 next to his car on Douglas County Road 1250E south of U.S. Highway 24-59.
in testimony yesterday, Carol Moddrell, Douglas County coroner, said Ridpath had been shot five times, once in the head, twice in the neck and twice in the abdomen, with a 22-caliber handgun.
The bulk of the evidence against Mitchell came from his girlfriend, Cindy Springs, 17, of Blue Springs, interviewed Mitchell and Scaturo.
Scaturo testified that she had lied to police when she told them she and Mitchell had gone to a movie the
night Ridpath was killed. She said she and Mitchell had made a story about their actions that night to serve as an alibi for Mitchell.
Carrol Crossfield, Lawrence police officer, testified that Scalatro maintained her story through four interviews. He said Scalatro changed her story during a fifth interview on Nov. 23. Crossfield said Scalatro admitted to had accompanied Mitchell out of Blue Springs the night Ridpath was killed.
In her testimony, Saturro said that when she called Mitchell at his father's business from work on Oct. 1, Mitchell sounded unset.
"He sounded weird, different than normal," she testified. "I could tell something was bothering him, and he wouldn't tell me. Finally he told me that he had had it with Tim and was sick of the threats from him."
Scaturo testified that she was aware of a few threats Ridpath had made to Mitchell.
"Tim said he was going to get me back and Mrs. Mitchell (Mitchell's mother) back," she said. "Tim knew me, and Mrs. Mitchell didn't like him. I think he thought we were taking Chris away from him."
In other testimony, Crossfield said Mitchell had told him he was homosexual and had had intimate sexual contact with Ridpath on five
separate occasions.
The last incident, during an evening in May 1898, was succeeded the following morning by a fight between the two men. The fight resulted in a police report being filed and Ridpath sent to the hospital, Crossfield said.
Seaturo testified she knew Ridpath had been harrassing Mitchell in person and over the phone. She said she had known about Ridpath and Mitchell's relationship and said she thought Ridpath had harbored bitterness following the relationship's demise.
Scaturo said Mitchell and Ridpath had planned to meet Oct. 1, the same night Mitchell had taken a gun from his father's business place. At about 7 p.m. that night, Mitchell picked her up at work, she said.
"I got in his truck, and he told me to put these pillows and blankets on top of me," she testified. "I didn't know where we were going. About how we were going. We stooped, heard Tim's voice, and Chris said, 'Follow me.'"
She said she sat on the floor because Mitchell thought Ridpath wouldn't follow them if he knew she was there. Ridpath followed the two in his car.
According to Scaturo's testimony, she remained on the floor as they
drove for about an hour on a highway and stopped at a toll plaza.
Scaturo said that about three minutes after Mitchell left the truck, he turned around and pulled over.
"We stopped, and Chris said not to get out of the truck and not to make a noise, and then he left."
"I had no idea where we were or in what direction we were going," she testified. "I could tell we left the highway because the road got bumpy. Then we went onto a gravel road.
Mitchell soon returned to the truck and drove away from the scene, she said.
"It sounded like someone tapping on a table," she said. "I closed my ears because I assumed it was a gun going off."
"About three to four minutes later I sat up and saw he was shaking." I sat up and saw he was shaking. "About an hour back to Blue Spruce. I can't believe I shot him."
Upon returning to Blue Springs, the couple agreed on a chronology of events that they could use to explain whereabouts that night, she said.
When asked by Martin Miller, assistant district attorney, why she lied to protect Mitchell, Scaturro said she felt she had to be loyal to Mitchell by not turning him over to police.
Engineers make new dune buggy
By Beth Behrens Kansan staff writer
Jerry Kordonowy works on the car he is building with the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Despite conflicts with schedules and conceptualizations, students from the KU chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers will culminate a year's worth of work on a dune buggy prototype Jan. 1.
Jerry Kordonowy, Lawrence senior, said the group would be working on the car during the semester break so they would have time to train in Baja-West competition, April 12-14 at Norman, Okinawa.
David Engel, president of the student chapter, said he decided to work on the project to gain practical, hands-on experience.
"We're building the prototype now. That was the hardest thing because there were so many controversies and so many problems. After the competition, we'll modify and redesign it with a lot more knowledge."
Kordonowy, said that about 10 students had worked on the car since the beginning, but he was one of four students working on it this semester.
"With all of our other design projects, we never see it coming into real life," he said. "We've had ideas that sound good on paper, but when you work with a limited budget, some things just don't work."
He said building the car was difficult because of the number of people involved. Integrating ideas to design a vehicle that would work was hard because of the students' schedules.
Kordonwy said two of the students had graduated since the project began.
"It's hard for a lot of kids to get motivated to work on it," he said. "Some of them, like me, have 16 hours this semester. When the kids come down and see that it still isn't kind of makes motivation difficult.
"The actual time you can work on it is another factor. We can only work on it when the supervisor of the shop is here. We can't work on weekends either, so that kind of limits our time
from eight to five during the week. If the shop would be open during weekends, I'm sure we would have been done a long time ago."
Kordonyou said he had spent about 60 hours working on the car since Spring.
Engel said time spent on the car was volunteered unless students chose to help build it as part of an art course or designed course, as Kordonny had.
Kordonowy said the competition would test the car in appearance, acceleration, climb, and endurance.
Don Gyorog, faculty adviser for the group, said the students would compete for national recognition.
Kordonayne said, "The motors are all the same. Judges check them to make sure they all run at the same speed and that there were no modifiers or glitchs in the track, we can find out what we did wrong and modify it for next year."
He said that the KU car would be at a disadvantage because some of the cars were still working with cars they had built years before and had been modifying.
Kenneth Stoner, director of student housing, said that he received a list of hazardous chemicals, including chemicals used in darkrooms, that caused him to question whether the residence hall dark
By a Kansan reporter
"The first thing we need to do is count what we have got and see how many people are really using them," he said.
The five darkrooms are at Oliver Hall, McColm Hall, Lewis Hall, Hashinger Hall and Templin Hall. Would you would not be closed immediately.
The people who use the photography darkrooms in the KU residence halls soon may not have a place to develop their film.
rooms were being used safely
Fred McElhene, associate director of student housing, said that he wanted to find alternative ways for residents to have access from a dorm room on campus so the residence hall rooms could be closed.
Another option being considered is consolidating the darkrooms, Stoner said.
if not enough students were using the rooms.
He said he would consider closing the darkrooms by Jan.1, 1990.
Disorientation gets money from Senate
After lengthy debate, Student Senators last night voted to finance Disorientation, one of KU's longest-standing alternative publications
By Chris Evans
Kansan staff writer
This marks the fifth year that Senators have given money for Disorientation, which covers topics from recycling to rock 'n' roll. The magazine has raised some controversy for its use of profanity and articles such as one concerning masturbation.
A bill financing Disorisonation was voted down by the University Affairs Committee three weeks ago and then approved by the Finance Committee. The issue was brought before Senate last week.
Christine Stanek, University Affairs Committee chairman, opposed financing the magazine. She said the magazine's editors should have gone through budget hearings last semester to receive money this year. Instead, they asked for supplemental funds, which traditionally are given to new organizations.
Until this year, no senator had made an issue of the group's methods to get money. Brian Schwegmann, Disorientation editor, said he would go through budget hearings next semester.
"This is not a new organization," she said. "I'm really getting sick of seeing them come through supplemental. It's time to send a clear message to them to 'Get your act together.'"
"I'll be part of that next year," he said. "The reason we didn't go through it this year is because we're totally disorganized. We're clueless. The only thing we really care about is the magazine."
Many of the rules and regulations common to senators confused the issue for the Disorientation staff members, he said.
"The only people who care about the 'system' are the people right here in this room." he told the senators.
Aaron Rittmaster, Disorientation bill sponsor, said senators had asked that student organizations were more important than Senate procedures.
Stanek said that those rules should have been followed and that financing Disorientation this way circumvented the committee system.
Schwegmann said he thought that was partially true.
"I don't think very much of it had to do with rules and regulations," he said. "I think there was a lot of politicking going on."
Rittmatter said issues concerning personal feelings about the magazine and those concerning loyalties to finished rules were closely intertwined.
"The thing at issue is our own internal system and a service to students," he said. "In that case, it's got to be the service to students."
Graves claims elections in Taiwan are success
Darkrooms developing unsure fate in 5 halls
By Derek Schmidt Kansan staff writer
TOPEKA—Taiwan's first competitive elections were a triumph for democracy, the Kansas secretary of state said yesterday.
Bill Graves, secretary of state, was in Taipei, Taiwan, from Nov. 28 until Tuesday to monitor the elections at the House of the Taiwanese government.
"The Taiwanese are very aware of the progress made in Western democracies, and they want that." Graves said in an interview. "If somebody says, 'Well, we can't have that because our political system is the way it is,' they'll say, 'Fine, let's change our political system.'"
During Saturday's voting, the ruling Nationalist Party won only 58 percent of the total vote, down from 70 percent in 1986. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party gathered more than 30 percent, and the balance went to independent candidates.
Graves and four other secretaries of state were among dozens of delegations and hundreds of journalists who descended on Taiwan for that period. In the ensuing elections since the nationalists fled to England China during the 1949 revolution
Allegations of vote fraud have been widely reported, and opposition voters in Tainan, a southern suburb of Taipei, demanded a recount after losing a closely contested race. The recount would take several days.
Graves said that he saw no evidence of vote fraud and that reforms in the vote tabulation process made it easier to track what the process used in the United States.
"We concluded that even if you attempted to manipulate figures,
you're going to get caught because there was enough public observation of the raw totals," he said.
On election night, the secretaries of state were to monitor tabulation at an election booth chosen by the government.
"We thought we got a chance to see just about everything we needed to see to make valid observations about what was on goon." Graves said.
Ruling party candidates tried to label opposition candidates as dangerously provocative to the Chinese, Graves said.
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A higher-profile issue was Taiwanese independence from mainland China, which has threatened to militate against Taiwanese independence movement.
"When we got there, we could see that there were a slug of cameras," Graves said. "We think they had agreed to bring all these observer teams to this one place to kind of get a PR kick out of the thing."
Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., said yesterday at a state-house news conference that he had not been briefed on the outcome of the Taiwan elections. He said a Chinese invasion was not likely.
Voters in Taiwan, a rapidly industrializing country, were concerned primarily with quality-of-life issues, such as transportation systems, sanitation, the environment, housing and health care. Graves said.
"The business and industrial development have just taken off, and in the meantime you've still got this country an underdeveloped country," he said.
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"The People's Republic of China, they have enough problems of their own," Dole said.
The observers were allowed to monitor a different polling place.
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