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North Briefs: 8/7/01
Tuesday, August 07, 2001
School officials are awaiting advice from their solicitor before deciding the status of a high school teacher who was found guilty Friday of a series of burglaries in 1999 near his remote Centre County hunting camp.
For now, visual communications teacher Joseph Williams, 52, of Arnold, remains on paid leave, school Superintendent Mark King said yesterday.
Williams, a 20-year veteran teacher, faces the possibility of being sentenced prison after a Centre County jury found him guilty of burglary, theft and receiving stolen property. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 21.
State police said they broke the case involving thefts of outdoor gear while investigating the October 2000 murder of Williams' cousin, David Williams, 45, a Clearfield-area man who was found dead under firewood and brush near a cabin owned by Joseph and wife Sandra Williams.
Police said Joseph Williams acknowledged hunting at the camp with his cousin in October. Williams said he returned home, then came back a week later to find his cousin's van still there, according to police.
Investigators have identified no suspects in the homicide.
More than 150 people attended a rally Sunday at McConnell's Mill State Park to protest a proposed landfill that could be located nearby.
Sechan Limestone Inc. has asked the state for a permit to open a 91-acre landfill to hold nonhazardous industrial waste. The landfill would straddle Butler and Lawrence counties.
Some people who live nearby and who use the park complain the landfill poses a risk to Slippery Rock Creek, which flows through the park and is a water source for some communities.
Sechan officials have said the landfill does not pose a risk and that the waste that would be put there is less harmful than household waste.
State police have accused a New Castle man of abandoning a 6-year-old boy he was baby-sitting.
Jeremy Lee Hurd, 19, is charged with endangering the welfare of a child as the result of an incident that took place Aug. 1 at a McDonald's restaurant in Union.
Hurd was baby-sitting the boy for his girlfriend, whose mother is the child's legal guardian, when he and a 16-year-old male brought the child to the McDonald's at about 9 a.m.
When the boy went to the bathroom, Hurd and his companion drove away. State police arrived to investigate, and an hour later the juvenile returned without Hurd.
Lawrence County District Attorney Matthew Mangino is planning to charge the 16-year-old with the same offense as Hurd.
A preliminary hearing for Hurd is scheduled for Aug. 15 before District Justice J.V. Lamb of Union.
A 27-year old Wexford man is believed to have drowned Saturday while on a rafting trip in Georgia.
Cobb County Police yesterday suspended a search for Guruswamy Babu Gurusubramani. Gurusubramani was on a white-water rafting excursion down the Chattahoochee River with four friends from his native India.
Gurusubramani and two other friends were swimming back to shore from an island in the middle of the river when he was swept away by the current, the Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal reported.
A team of about 25 rescuers from the Cobb County Police Dive Team, the Cobb County Rangers Unit and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources covered about half a mile of the river by boat and about 500 yards of underwater rapids where Gurusubramani was believed to have disappeared. The water levels in that area are between 15 and 20 feet deep.
Police suspended the search after three unsuccessful recovery attempts.
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