News-Press from Fort Myers, Florida • Page 3

THE NEWS-PRESS. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1 999 3 A Across the Nation murd er a conspiracy, jery finds will reopen inquiry KEY DATES Family hopes verdict The Associated Press MEMPHIS, Tenn. A jury hearing a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Rev. Martin Luther King family found Wednesday that the civil rights leader was the victim of a vast murder conspiracy, not a lone assassin. The family had sued Loyd Jowers, a retired Memphis businessman who claimed six years ago that he paid someone other than James Earl Ray to kill King.

The family's lawyer claimed that son Dexter said. This is what we've always asked for." Ray confessed to killing King and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He spent the rest of his life claiming to be innocent and trying to get a trial. He died from liver disease in 1998. Ray's guilty plea was upheld eight times by state and federal courts.

A congressional committee concluded in 1978 that Ray was the killer but he may have had help before or after the assassination. The committee did not find any government involvement in the murder. William Pepper, the Kings' lawyer, told the jury that Jowers, 73, was part of a conspiracy involving the Mafia and agents of the federal government to kill King because of his opposition to the Vietnam War and plans for a huge march on Washington. A coverup following the assassination in Memphis in 1968 involved the FBI, CIA, the media and Army intelligence, as well as state and city officials, said Pepper, who also represented Ray in his efforts to recant his confession and get a trial. Pepper told the jurors they could rewrite history.

TODAY'S TOPIC: HEALTH Qi iiips pig feoip the government, the Mafia and the military were involved. After three hours of deliberations, the jury of six blacks and six whites awarded the Kings just $100 in damages. The family had asked for a token amount because what they wanted most was for the jury to find evidence of a conspiracy and lend support to their call for a new investigation into the killing. Tm just so happy to see that the people have spoken," King's FDA's Center for Biologies Evaluation, said preliminary findings of an FDA investigation show Gelsinger had elevated ammonia in his blood, an indication of a distressed liver, when he received the gene injection. "The entry levels for ammonia (readings) were not met," Zoon said.

She also said the Pennsylvania researchers failed to notify the FDA of two other patients in the therapy experiments who suffered liver damage severe enough to halt the trial. "The investigators were supposed to have notified the FDA by call or fax immediately," Zoon said. She said the researchers also failed to mention on patient consent forms that a monkey died after receiving experimental gene therapy. Dr. James Wilson, head of the University of Pennsylvania team, said Gelsinger did meet the FDA requirements when he enrolled in the trial, but his ammonia levels were "slightly elevated" just prior to the gene therapy injection.

"We remain fully comfortable with the clinical decision to use alternate pathways to lower that level and proceed with the trial," Wilson said in a statement. In addition, he said the FDA was notified of the two other patients who suffered liver damage. While Wilson issued a statement, he refused to answer questions, promising a full discussion of the case today. Paul Gelsinger, Jesse's father, said he blamed the FDA for not supervising the experiment more closely. "I told the FDA that they had dropped the ball in overseeing Jesse's case," Gelsinger said.

He defended the University of Pennsylvania team, saying, "They have told me everything. I want them to continue their work. That's what Jesse would want." Using genes to correct or even conditions from cancer to heart disease is considered one of the most promising therapies on the medical I IK Key dates leading to conspiracy verdict on trie lawsuit filed by Martin Luther King family: April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. shot in Memphis. June 1968 James Earl Ray is captured in London.

March 1 969 Ray pleads guilty and is sentenced to 99 years in prison. He recants three days later. 1 978 The House Select Committee on Assassinations concludes that Ray was the New York City, shoppers toting their hand-held computers can get a map and directory of the store beamed to them by a concierge at the front desk. "Technology is a part of everyone's life," said Cindy Capobianco, a company spokeswoman. "We wanted to recognize that and make it part of the shopping experience as well." A new television ad for Palm Computing shows its romantic possibilities: A woman on one train locks eyes with a man on another train the next track over.

Just as they are about to speed off in opposite directions, she pulls out her computer and beams her number to him. IN BRIEF Russian diplomat ordered expelled WASHINGTON The United States ordered the expulsion of a Russian diplomat Wednesday after he was detained by the FBI in con-4 nection with a listening device discovered hidden at the State Department, U.S. officials said. The male diplomat, whom officials would not name, was caught trying to use the lis tening device, one official said. The diplomat may also be a suspect in planting the device, which was found some time before the arrest, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Undersecretary or State Thomas Pickering informed the Russian embassy Wednesday that the United States has declared the diplo-; mat persona non grata and wants him expelled by the end of the week, another U.S. official said. Violence Justifies gun suit WASHINGTON President Clinton said Wednesday that a planned national lawsuit against gun manufacturers is justified by the cost in dollars and lives from gun violence in public housing projects. The administration is readying a lawsuit on behalf of some or all of the nation's ic 3,190 local public housing authorities, charging gun-. makers with negligently allowing guns to fall into criminal hands, "The litigation has a good grounding in fact," Clinton said during a news ence.

"There are 10,000 gun crimes every year in the largest public housing author-, ities," while public housing projects spend $1 billion on security, Clinton said. Worker hailed as hero for disarming killer KNOXVTLLE, Tenn. A one-day, self-defense course paid off for a computer tech-t nician confronted by a former 1 colleague who had just shot to I', death the office manager. Gary Lingle on Monday wrestled the assailant's gun away, pushed him out the door and called police. He likely saved three co-workers, including the gunman's wife, authorities said.

I "I don't feel like a hero," Lingle said. "Somebody I I loved dearly died. A hero is supposed to save everyone." William Manies, a 52-year-: i old accountant fired last I month from Lawhora Associates for poor job per-J formance and alcoholism, shot Lorraine Lawhorn, 45, in I the head as she sat at her desk, police said. I Manies fled in a car and I remains on the loose. I Blind man charged I with bank robbery I MEMPHIS, Tenn.

A blind man tried to rob a bank as a security guard who -) helped him to the teller's win-i dow stood nearby, police say. I Bruce Edward Hall, 48, entered the bank Tuesday, accepted the guard's help, then gave a teller a note demanding money, police said. The teller mouthed, "It's a robbery" to a guard, then gave Hall some money, i The guards stopped him as he walked away. Condemned inmate executed in Texas HUNTSVILLE, Texas '1 Despite a recent suicide 1 attempt and a last-minute effort by his lawyers to have his execution postponed, i David Long was executed by injection Wednesday for the i -hatchet slayings of three women in 1986. In a strong voice, Long, 46, I apologized for the murders.

"I was raised by the I California Youth Authority," I he said, looking at the niece of one of his victims watching through a window a few feet away, i was in their reforma- tory schools and their peni- tentiary, but they create mon- sters in there." Student suspended I for compiling hit list I WEST JORDAN, Utah -A I sixth-grader drafted a list of i 12 "people to kill" after I enduring months of taunting from classmates and has been kicked out of school, administrators said. I The boy was indefinitely suspended last week pending a final decision by a panel of district administrators, said Kirk Denison, principal of Terra Linda Elementary School south of Salt Lake City. I Denison said the boy admitted he was "angry and frustrated" but denied he intended to actually kill the students on the list, who had bullied him and threw dog manure in his face. 1 The Associated Press shooter, but that a St Louts-based group of bigots may have helped turn before or after. December 1993 Former businessman Loyd Jowers tells ABC he was paid by a former associate to hire a hit man to kill King, and was not Ray.

April 23, 1 998 Ray dies of Sver disease in prison. Oct. 2, 1 998 The King family files a wrongful death suit against Jowers and "other unknown conspirators." Boy, 9, hides mom's death Fearing foster care, child resumes life The Associated Press MEMPHIS, Tenn. A 9-year-old boy whose mother died at home lived with the corpse for a month, fixing his own meals and attending school without fail, because he was afraid he'd be put in foster care if anyone found out. When Crystal Wells died Nov.

3, her son, Travis Butler, covered her body with her coat and placed sheets of notebook paper over her face. After that, Travis cut his hair, prepared meals mainly frozen pizza, cereal and soup and went to school every day until her body was discovered Monday by family friends Dorothy Jeffries and. her husband. Jeffries said Travis begged them not to call police. He told them he lived with the body on the living room floor because he was afraid of being placed in.

a foster home. "When the ambulance came he ran to his mother because he didn't want her to be taken. I will never forget that sight," she said. Police have not released a cause of death for Wells, 30, but said foul play is not suspected. Jeffries said Wells had various health problems, including high blood pressure.

"I just don't know how that baby survived in there for a month with that smell," she said. "It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life." Jeffries and her husband went to Wells' apartment after becoming concerned about being unable to contact her. When they arrived, Travis answered the door. "At first he said his mother was at work and wouldn't let us inside," Jeffries said. "When we kept asking he finally just broke down and said, 'Mama can't talk anymore because she got really sick and I think she is Jeffries said Travis told her that after his mother died he would take the bus to school, do his homework and watch TV.

His mother had some money in the house and when he ran out of food he walked to the grocery store and bought more, she said. "I asked him if anybody came to check on him during Thanksgiving break, and he said he was OK because he had a big frozen pizza for Thanksgiving dinner," Jeffries said. She said Wells was very private, so neighbors probably didn't notice anything was wrong. Tm not surprised they didn't check on her because she kept to herself, and I guess she taught Travis to do the same," Jeffries Jeffries also said Wells never mentioned Travis' father, and the boy said he didn't have a father. Travis spent Monday night at a county emergency shelter for juveniles.

The next day, a court awarded temporary custody to his maternal grandparents, who live in Carthage, Miss. diversity HARVARD MAN: Associate professor Pedro Noguera Is seen in his office at the University of California at Berkeley in October. The Associated Press But researchers defend procedure that killed teen The Associated Press BETHESDA, Md. An Arizona teen-ager who died in a gene therapy experiment never should have been part of the study, and researchers who conducted it violated at least two rules of the testing, federal officials said Wednesday. Food and Drug Administration officials said Jesse Gelsinger, 18, "did not meet, the entry criterion" for partici-' pation in an experiment in which his liver was injected with a virus carrying a corrective gene.

Researchers. at the University of Pennsylvania, where the experiment was part of a series of gene therapy trials, denied the accusation and said they would defend their work at a hearing Thursday at the National Institutes of Health. The allegations were announced Wednesday after a daylong hearing before an NIH advisory committee investigating the death and looking at safety issues in gene therapy experiments. The panel, called the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, or RAC, also is considering new guidelines that would sharpen federal control and force the public disclosure of problems in gene therapy experiments. The RAC's hearing, before a packed auditorium, is to resume today and is expected to continue through Friday.

Gelsinger's death, the first directly blamed on a gene therapy experiment, prompted the review of the emerging medical treatment. The Tucson teen-ager suffered from a genetic liver disorder and was enrolled in a University of Pennsylvania trial designed to correct his condition by inserting normal genes into his liver. Gelsinger died within days of the experiment. Kathryn Zoon, chief of the The Associated Press BEAM EXCHANGE: A Palrri Pilot, foreground, displays information available for download via an infrared beam to another. AP file photo LOST LIFE: Jesse Gelsinger, 18, of Tucson, mimics a statue at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in this undated family photo.

The death of Gelsinger, who had an inherited liver condition, was considered the first caused by experimental gene therapy. 'Beaming' replaces cards, notes Handspring's' Visor can send memos, business cards, and even software with a touch of a button. "It's kind of the geek handshake," said Kan, a management consultant in Los Angeles. When members of his family get together with their Palm computers, "we swap information all the time." It is just one more way that technology is making it easier for people to exchange information quickly, without a lot of conversation or writing. Technology tools also make it easier for people to share very specific information, said Scott Chadwick, assistant professor woman.

"We are doing everything that can be done within the law to retain and enhance the diversity of our faculty and students." Nonetheless, Pedro Noguera, 40, is going to Harvard next year. Noguera and Munoz are among 39 Hispanics who make up about 3 percent of Berkeley's 1,261 tenured faculty in a state where Hispanics comprise 29 percent of the population. "Unless something is done about it, California runs the risk of being both the most diverse state in the country but also an apartheid state, a place where power is held by white and Asian people," said Noguera, who won Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1997. of organizational communication at Iowa State University. "People intentionally select and edit what they are going to communicate," Chadwick said.

"Beaming is a perfect example of that." Exchanging business cards is perhaps the most common use of this technology because the "beamed" information can automatically be stored in the computers address book. But the ease of beaming and the growing sales of hand-held computing devices are making it popular beyond the professional realm. At retailer Banana Republic's flagship store in Why so few minority professors at an institution perceived by many as a petri dish for progressive movements? Higher education experts said the reality is that Berkeley's figures aren't unusual for a premier iretitution. Nationally, Hispanics made up 1.6 percent of full professors and 2.1 percent of associate professors, according to a 1997-98 report from the American Council on Educatioa Overall, minorities comprised 9.6 percent of full professors and 1 1.9 percent of associate professors. "The numbers of faculty of color are just dismal at that level," said Deborah Wilds, deputy director of the council's office of minorities in higher education.

The Associated Press WASHINGTON Forget the pen and paper. It's all about beaming information. When Steve Kan and his mother sat down one recent afternoon to swap family addresses and phone numbers, they simply lined up their hand-held computing devices, pressed a button and instantly beamed complete lists to each other. The phenomenon of zapping information via infrared beams is catching on for its novelty and convenience. Standing a few feet apart, people with portable devices like 3Com's Palm Computing series or students of color said Carlos Munoz, a 60-year-old ethnic studies professor who cites a lack of diversity as one of the reasons he's retiring next spring.

But Chancellor Bob Berdahl said Berkeley is far from homogeneous, noting that black and Hispanic admissions rebounded some this year, the second without affirmative actioa Asians, who did not get preferential treatment under affirmative action, make up the majority of the freshman class. "It is true that the impact of Proposition 209 has been felt at Berkeley, but to suggest that Berkeley is no longer a place of diverse viewpoints and multicultural experiences is quite wrong," Berdahl said through a spokes UC-Berkeley receives failing grade on teacher The Associated Press BERKELEY, Calif. Issues of race and racism are swirling at the University of California at Berkeley, stirred up by the imminent departures ot two Hispanic professors and protests over the future of the ethnic studies department. At issue: Is prestigious Berkeley's Ivory tower a bastion for white professors? Some on campus think things are headed that way nearly nine out of 10 tenured faculty are white, and black and Hispanic student admissions have dropped with the implementation of new anti-affirmative action policies. "Berkeley has changed, and it's a dismal place for faculty and 1 NArV.

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