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Show NorthernUtah Standard-Examiner Sports Classified Tuesday, May 6, 1997 Local News Editor: 625-4220 NEWS Suspect: Shooting BEAT accidental Accused A security guard and former L] Hearing weighslegality deputy sheriff is charged with of man’s confession to shooting motelclerk multiple burglaries. | AT AGLANCE By GEOFFREY FATTAH Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau Hearing to air bus service changes _ FARMINGTON- It was going to be like one of those robberies in the movies: point the gun, get the money and get out. If there was a problem, the robber would just wound the victim to show he meant business. But it wasn’t the movies. It was real. And Motel 6 clerk John Whicker ended up dead, bleeding to death after one of two bullets fired pierced his aorta. It was a grim confession made public in a 175-pagetranscript released Mondayaspart of a hearing to determineif the confession Todd Jeremy Rettenberger gave police was coerced andif it will be allowed in court as evidence. Along with testimony from a psychologist, the defense portrayed Rettenberger as a highly impressionable teen with a less than average intelligence. The defense claims Rettenberger was intimidated into telling police anything they wanted to hearjust to . end the two-day questioning. Rettenberger and Scott Jeremy Johnson, both 18, are accused of killing Whicker, of Kaysville, during a robbery of the Woods Cross motel last Oct. 29. Both are being charged with first-degree felony aggravated robbery and murder. Rettenberger said he confessed in an effort to show that he was cooperating and to avoid > See MOTEL/2C Gravelpit doctor says _] Dust near Mountain Green schoolsite could add to breathing problems ROY —- Northern Utah residents can discuss several proposals for changing bus service during a public hearing here Wednesday. The session will begin 7 p.m. at the Roylibrary, 1950 W. 4800 South. lf approved, the changeswill take effect in August. They include: » Addition of a Route 70 run from Ogdento Salt Lake City at 7 p.m. Saturday. > Schedule improvements on the new Brigham City service that will allow passengers on Route 35 to make more connections with southbound Route 30. > Six more trips on Route 30 and rerouting it through Perry. » Changing the morning Route 70 run, so the bus leaves the garage 28 minutesearlier. > Expansion of southbound Route 640, which leaves Ogden at 5:10 a.m. and terminates at the Layton Hills Hall, to carry DANA JENSEN/Standard-Examiner CINCO DE MAYO: Sidney Abeyta,2, holds the family Bible, which his motherCarolsaysis the family rule book, while the children of the family sing ‘Jesus Loves theLittle Children’ during the Marshall White Gommunity Center Cinco de Mayo luncheon on Mondayafternoon. Unity focus of Cinco de Mayo (J Leaders emphasize academic of Hispanic people in the area of Americans, Chicanos and African successes on day of remembrance mathematics. Americans. Despite ethnic differences, they formed a united front and nowthe holiday commemorates the coming together of a country of Hispanics. “Theystill can’t figure out how webuilt those pyramids,” shesaid, referring to the By KIRSTEN SORENSON many ruins of ancient houses of worship in Standard-Examinerstaff Mexico and Central and South America. gden’s Cinco de Mayocelebration Cinco de Mayo,or Fifth of May, is a On ona moreseriousface this year. Mexican national holiday celebrating the Monday’s event at the Marshall Battle of Puebla in 1862. In that battle, White Community Center didn’t feature Mexican forces fought the French dancing, colorful costumes or music. This occupation armyso well the battle becamea year it focused on morecerebral rallying cry for the rest of the war. The accomplishments. country eventually won independence. Dancers were replaced with speakers who But John Martinez, Smith’s Food and focused on the importanceof families, Drug Centers Human Resourcesvice children and preserving the Hispanic ___ president, said the Hispanic wayoflife is identity. “flow threatened by drugs, gangs and a “While we are proud ofthat part of our dropout mentality. cultura, we’re more than that,” said “These things create disunity,” he said. AnnaJane Arroyo, who serves on the center’s advisory committee. “We are very But unity is what people should work proud of our academic achievements.” toward,he said, like the soldiers of the Battle of Puebla, who were mixed-blood — Arroyo noted especially the achievement Martinez said although prejudicestill exists against minorities today, “we must still maintain ouridentity.” He related the story of his father who went to work each day with a lunchoftacos, tortillas and beans madebyhis wife. But oneday, his father asked her to stop making lunches for him because people at work made fun of him. “He ate bologna sandwiches on white bread until he died,” Martinez lamented. | | workers to the Freeport Center | for the 6 a.m. shift. > Modification of Route 15 so { | it passes the Intermountain Health Care Clinic in South Ogden. Hearing-impaired people who plan to attend may contact Kathy McCune at 262-5626, | | | Ext 2121): | Utah monument prompts newbill SALT LAKE CITY — A senator from Alaska hasintroduced legislation requiring public input before certain federal land | |_ preservesare created. Republican Frank H. But he had some advice for those gathered to avoid a loss of identity. “We must integrate ourselves as a power to be dealt with in the community.” Murkowski said President Clinton's creation by executive | orderof the 1.7-million-acre ; Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monumentin Southern By CHARLES F. TRENTELMAN Standard-Examinerstaff MORGAN - A 55-acre gravel pit in Mountain Green could do serious harm to children living in the area, a Primary Children’s Medical Center physician said Monday. Dr. Margaret Kluthe, a pediatric doctor and resident of Mountain Green, said she is concerned . because Mountain Green,andall of Morgan County, is a high risk area for dust. That dust, especially microscopic dust particles, increases the numberof children who have coughs and asthma,shesaid. The gravel pit recently approved in Mountain Greenis just east of the city’s residential areas and adjacent to a proposed site for a new elementary school. Thepit is at the intersection of Old Highway and Trappers Loop Road. Jack B. Parson Companies is going to mine gravel from the site over the next 13 years, The Morgan County Commission ap- > See GRAVEL/2C 2c Utah promptedhis bill. Murkowski’s Public Land ManagementParticipation Act would require public hearings and congressional OK of any national monuments, world heritage sites or biospheric reserves. Vargas won’t see Board of Pardons until 2016 L] New policy allows board to postpone review of heinous criminals By TIM GURRISTER Standard-Examiner staff Convicted killer Stephen Vargas’ first glimpse of the Utah State Board of Pardons won’t comeuntil the year 2016. Vargas was found guilty by jury last December in 2nd Dis- trict Court for the Dec. 27, 1995 murderof his estranged wife Rebecca Weaver Vargas, formerly Vargas present. Before the board passed the new policy, Vargas would have sat for an original hearing within the first three years of his 5years-to-life sentence. Parole board member Cheryl Hansen said Vargas’ is one of only a few cases where an original hearing has been set so far down the road since the administrative reviews began last year. “There has to be a really good reason for putting someone out that far,” she said. “It says the crimeis so heinousthat of Brigham City. it won't matter for a while how The board of pardons set.an original hearing date of May 1, 2016 after an administrative review last month ofhis case file. Under a new board rule effective February of 1996, regarding handling of the prison’s most serious cases involving a death, the board madethe decision without well the inmate progresses in the system. “Tt means he couldn’t do less than that for the crime that was committed no matter how productive he is.” Hansen and the board’s administrative assistant, John Green, said in Vargas’ case, the time he is going to serve would likely have been the same under the old policy. “This cuts down on the pain for the victims” who wouldfirst be confused at why a parole hearing is set in three years for someone before they’ve even served the first five years of a 5to-life term, Hansen said. Plus there would be the pain of reliving a killing for a victim’s family so soon after it occurred by having to testify before the board at the hearing. When Judge Michael Lyon sentenced Vargas last Dec. 19, he told Vargas he would recommend to the parole board that he never be paroled. “This is a tragic case in which the children have lost both parents,” Lyon said. “It was a monstrous act to kill the mother of your two children.” Vargas maintained his inno- cence, but after two weeks of testimony, a jury took only four hours on Nov. 14 to find him guilty in the bludgeoning death of his wife. She was found dead outside her Capitol Street apartment. She had just started to move into the apartment after leaving Vargas. Several witnesses testified that Vargas said numerous times he would kill his wife rather than let her leave him again. The couple divorced in 1993 and had remarried in 1994. Prosecutor Gary Heward, who played basketball with Vargas at a local gym, testified Vargas had told him after the O.J. Simpson trial that if a black man could get away with killing his wife a Mexican could. Prosecutors say, Vargas, who is Hispanic, killed his wife two months later. Officer identified in campusfatality _ County to pay funeral expenses LOGAN - The funeral expenses of an inmate who hanged himself with a bedsheet in the Cache County Jail were Taketime to see past in restored Box Elder clock Ou gotta go see my towerclock. It’s in BrighamCity, up in the old courthouse. They've got it in a nice glass case, all hooked up and ticking awayandit even keeps pretty good tim c. Last week it was only seven minutes fast. Not bad for 110 years old, I say “my” clock although, technical ly, it does belong to the people of Box Eld er County, Give mea little credit. I wassitting around the courthouse two years ago, when an old lawyerin a dust y suit asked to see the 1887 clock in the bell tower, I tagged along as he dug aroundthe attic and marveledat the dirty collectio n of gears and wheels we found there The resulting article caught the eye « yf Richard DuPont, an Ogden watchmaker, Beneath the crud of decades he saw a golden opportunity and volunteered to fix it, Which he did, donating thousands o | dollars worth of his time, DuPont is quick to praise the people sal y WASATCH RAMBLER Charles F. Trentelman Standard-Examinerstaff Morton Auto Safety Products in Brigham City, (now Autoliv ASP Inc.) who did much of the grunt work. The company pretty much gave DuPont, and the clock, a blank check. A Morton/Autoliv carpenter, Randy Stokes, helped build the clock’s glass and wood case, Stokes is also a cowboy poet, While helping install the clock case someone suggested he write about what the clock means, His poemis now engraved in brass and mounted on the clock’s case. They started that ancient clock again In her courthouse home once more But now, instead of serving the tower She sits uponthe floor In. a showcase now for all to see Her clock works areall in view Restoredto herfines detail Bycraftsmentried andtrue. But the beauty of this moment Lies not in the timepiece herself Butin the fact that sheis working, Not languishing on someshelf. Shefills her post in the county. An ambassadorfromthe past She's part ofour countytradition, Where our treasures are madeto last Weare the ones who benefit Witheachpriceless relic preserved They are benchmarks to our prosperity And the ways our forbearers served Like Ole’ Jupiter and 119 Near the wedding of the tracks, They teach us of our heritage Andthe wisdom of noble acts Our courthouse clock is our mentor And her pendulous movement demands, That our faces reflect what we are inside And what we have done with our hands Finishing has been a mixed blessing for DuPont. “I’ma bit sad, to tell you the truth,” he said, “a bit let down that something I've been working on so long andgotten so close to is done. Parting is going to be a little bit difficult.” Ofcourse, the clock’s not going anywhere, It’s right there on the secondfloor of the courthouse, tucked behind the elevator, There's a benchto sit on and watch it go. The pendulumswings slowly back and forth, the escapement ticks and the seconds go by, one... by one... by one That's my clock. And DuPont's clock, and Morton's clock, and Box Elder's SALT LAKE CITY - Salt Lake City police haveidentified the driver of a University of Utah police car that struck and killed a pedestrian after the U2 concert as officer Mikal Wersland. ‘Police said the patrol carhit and killed Samuel A. Storey, 33, of Glendale, Ariz., early Sunday. To avoid any conflict of interest, Salt Lake City police are investigating the accident. paid by county officials in exchange for a written pledge by the man’s wife not to sue. Cache County Attorney Scott | Wyatt said Leopoldo Foitzick’s widow came to countyofficials shortly after her husband's death April 22 about his funeral County officials say they were notat fault in Foitzick's death, but there was some discussion about the county's liability, said Cache County Executive Lynn Lemon Foitzick's funeral expenses, he said, were paid “out of an effort to resolve the issue.” Standard-Examinerstaff and wire service: STANDAR ee) oe clock, And we'dall be pleased to have you go seeIl, | “Wasatch Rambler” weleomes your comments and suggestions, Call Charles Trentelmanat 625-4232, or write to him at P | message, comment, question O. Box 95], Ogden UT &4d02 Call 625-4240to leave a or news tip STANDARD 24 HRS. A DAY |
