Daily Sitka Sentinel from Sitka, Alaska • Page 5

Hughes Memorial services are pending for Julie Christine Hughes, 15, who died Sunday at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. Julie had been receiving treatment for leukemia for the past two years. On Jan. 17 she was given a bone-marrow transplant, with her mother as donor. Her many friends held several fund- raisers for the teenager during the past two years, including two run-walks that drew hundreds of participants.

the body has been cremated, arid the girl's family-- her parents Bill and Carol Hughes and sister Susan were to return to Sitka today. A memorial service is to be held later this week arranged by Prewitt Funeral Home. Julie was born August 13, 1969 in Rochester, N.Y. the family lived in New Hampshire before coming to Sitka in 1977. An active student; she was a member of the cross country team, the High School Swim team, Baranof Barracudas Swim Club, the Sitka High Drill Team and the High School Choir She played the role of the Tin Man in a production' of "Wizard of Oz" that Julia C.

Hughes students took on tour to Japan. Survivors include her parents and sister, Sitka; her paternal grandparents Helen King and Van A. Hughes and materal granparents Frank and Melva Smith, all of Pennsylvania. Peel Defense Sees nt 'SEATTLE (AP) The complex case of a Bellingham man accused of killing eight people aboard a fishing vessel in southeast Alaska is nearly a year from trial; but the defense argues it might not come to that because of errors. Trial is scheduled for Jan.

6,1986. Ketchikan District Attorney Mary Anne Henry, who filed the charges against John K. Peel, said she expected the trial to last three months, and that she would try to have the jury sequestered. However, attorneys for the boat- builder and commercial fisherman argue that the case may never get to a trial. "it is one of the worst indictments I've ever seen," said Phillip Weidner, an Anchorage attorney defending Peel.

"It's not worth the paper it's written on." Peel, 24, is charged with the 1982 murders of his former boss, Mark Coulthurst, Coulthurst's wife and young children and crewmen aboard the fishing vessel fishily Wage hear Ketchikanv Authorises say he murdered the brew in an act of anger and retribution and then burned the boat to try to eliminate any clues. Accounts from witnesses who said a lone man resembling Peel left the burning boat in a skiff are key to the prosecution's case. Peel was arrested in Bellingham last fall and was indicted by an Alaska grand jury. Peel was moved four month's ago from the Whatcom County jail, to Ketchikan. He is being held on $1 million bail, but Peel's attorney's have asked that it be reduced to $250,000 and that be released to his parents in B'ellihgham.

Weidner said he hopes a decision on the bail will be made later this week. Peel could face up to 99 years in prison on each of eight first-degree murder counts and 20 years on a first- degree arson charge. Investigators admit the case is arid will be difficult to prosecute because 1 so much of the evidence is circumstantial. But Weidner said the evidence is flawed, and that he intends to ask the court to dismiss the indictment. He contends that: Two witnesses who invoked the Fifth Amendment at a bail hearing when asked if their grand jury testimony was true had been intimidated by people working on the prosecution's case.

Evidence showing that two witnesses who failed to pick out Peel as the suspect when he was seen in a Craig bar was kept from the grand jury. Investigators used a photo lineup that had eight pictures of Peel in it to prompt witnesses' memories. "It was like a stacked deck," Weidner said. The grand jury was not told an arson, report found the boat had been burned with a different kind of gas than Peel was seen buying shortly before the Investor was burned. The transcript interview -Peel-gave police, but Weidner said there were errors in the translation: "I think the record demonstrates the grand jury indictment is defective and wouldn't have been obtained without improper conduct by the prosecutors," Weidner said.

Ms. Henry would not comment on Weidner's allegations because the dismissal motion has not been filed. But she did say that there was an error in the transcript, adding, "There was no deliberate misrepresentation to the grand jury." The error was "a minor problem." Meanwhile, Peel's friends in Bellingham continue to insist the young father does not fit the profile of a killer. They have been raising money for Peel's defense through bake and garage sales. "It gives people something to do, rather than just sit around," said Eric Hansen, a boyhood friend.

Native Corp. Accountant Gets 10-Year Sentence ANCHORAGE (AP) A.Pakistani accountant who admitted stealing $581,000 from a North Slope native corporation was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison. Mohammed AH Nissani, 50, pleaded guilty in December to. four counts associated with illegal transportation of stolen money and mail fraud. His wife, Golchehreh Tarkeshi, 46, pleaded guilty to two similar charges and was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison.

Approximately $340,000 of the stolen money-has been recovered, Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Smith said. Nissani's sentence includes a provision he pay back the rest. U.S. District Court Judge Russel Holland said he gave Nissani a harsh sentence because he has not cooperated fully with investigators looking for the restof the coach.

"Nissani is an accountant and trained in such matters," Holland said. "I believe he knows perfectly well where every nickel is that he stole from his employer." Nissani was hired in March 1982 as financial director for the Kuupik based in the village of Nuiqsut, about 50 miles west of Prudhoe Bay. According to prosecutors, he soon began diverting company funds to banks accounts belonging to him and relatives. His wife admitted funneling the stolen money into Swiss bank accounts, Smith said. Nissani was arrested in 1983 and released on $50,000 bond.

Almost immediately he and his wife fled the country. The FBI tracked them around the world. 'Life' Panel Meets Respect for Human Life Board of Directors will meet 7:30 p.m. Feb. 12 in the Pregnancy Aid Office, 319 Katlian St.

For more information, call 747-6955. WE ARE BACK! Re-Open Tomorrow! The Finishing Touch and Northern Lights Foster Dad Convicted Of Abuse PALMER (AP) After just 2 hours of deliberations, a jury convicted a Palmer man of sexually molesting a foster child staying in house last year. Michael Daniels, 33, faces an eight- year presumptive sentence for trying to rape the 13-year-old girl as she slept in her room last March. "The state had a good, case," Assistant District Attorney Gene Cyrus said Friday. accumulation of a lot of little evidence did it." Defense attorney M.

Ashley Dickerson said Superior Court John Bosshard's pre-trial ruling suppressing any information about the victim's past sexual activities "put me in a straitjacket. It completely barred us from making any reference to it." Daniels' wife, Deborah, was jailed for 55 days last year on a contempt to court charge for refusing to testify before a grand jury'about her husband's case. Murderer Wants To Change His Plea AMPWrm Anir A i ANCHORAGE (AP) In a bid to have his conviction and 634-year prison sentence set aside, Louis Hastings is asking that a jury -listen to his claims that toxic poisoning prompted him to murder six people in the Wrangell Mountains community of McCarthy. In papers filed in Anchorage Superior Court, Hastings says copper residue in the almost abandoned mining town caused a psychosis that may have contributed to the murders. In December 1983, Hastings pleaded no contest to killing six McCarthy-area residents and attempting to murder two others.

He was sentenced to the maximum penalty on each count last July. The 40-year-old Hastings now wants to withdraw his plea, and have the question of his sanity determined at trial. The former computer programmer Protection Urged for Moose Feeding Area ANCHORAGE (AP) Continued destruction of critical winter moose feeding habitat. by subdivisions and agricultural projects could decimate the animals on the southern Kenai Peninsula, state biologists One of the biologists and citizens' group has asked that an area of the Peninsula be set aside so the animals would have a sufficient winter food source. Once the feeding are wiped out, they.

cannot be replaced, said Dave Holderman of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. None of the winter feeding areas Holderman said. Almost all are on private land "that is being developed at a pretty good pace." Holdermann and the citizens' group have proposed creating a critical habitat area that includes parts of the Anchor River and Fritz Creek drainages. Population densities as high as 23 moose per square mile have been recorded in the area. All the land covered by the proposal belongs to the state.

"This is the last opportunity to set aside a big portion of public land for the VT aaiue a oig portion or public land for rtiA southofTusturaenaLakelieswithmthe benefit of towildlifepopulaUons onto Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, Monday, February 4,1985, Page 5 GQP, Demos Fight Over DEC Nominee JUNEAU (AP) Democrats Republicans are squaring off over Gov. Bill Sheffield's nomination of a self- described socialist to a Cabinet post, with the GOP condemning the move and the Democrats supporting the nomination. Meeting in Juneau on Saturday, the GOP Central Committee said the appointment of Bill Ross to head the Department of Environmental Conservation "would send an unwelcome and hostile signal to private industry and business throughout Alaska." The Democratic Central Committee on Saturday passed a resolution supporting Ross. "Efforts to discredit Mr. Ross based on his personal beliefs are counterproductive to the Democratic ideal of a just society," the resolution said.

Senate Rules Chairman Tim Kelly, R- Anchorage, said today he was "a little upset" at Sheffield's remark following passage of the GOP resolution to the effect that Kelly and other Republicans were "out looking for communists" in Kelly's words. "He (Ross) is an admitted socialist. It seems the burden is on the governor, not on us," Kelly said. "If you a person who doesn't believe in the free enterprise system in that position (DEC commissioner), you're going to deny the state hundreds of jobs in the future," Kelly contended. Sheffield has defended Ross as highly qualified for the job and capable of carrying out his duties in an apolitical fashion.

Ross has said his political views would not affect his work. Resources Listed Revised Community Resource Guides are now available for the public. They may be picked up at the Community Schools Office, Room 114 of Blatchley Junior High. says his former defense attorney failed to pursue the "copper toxicity" defense. "A thorough investigation of this claim may have explained the defendant's criminal conduct as being the product of a psychosis, or, at the very least, it may have nullified the mental state necessary to prove first- degree murder," Hastings says.

He also says his original attorney, John Salemi, mistakenly believed he was on one of Hastings' hit lists, and, therefore, unable to defend Hastings wholeheartedly. According to testimony at his sentencing hearing. Hastings planned to kill all of the less than two dozen people in McCarthy, hijack a fuel truck and crash it into the trans-Alaska oil pipeline to strike a blow against what he perceived as environmental degradation by the oil industy. Hastings claims laboratory tests after the murders showed he had high levels of copper in his body. In the summer.of 1982, Hastings says, he inhaled fumes while applying preservative to logs at his McCarthy cabin.

He also says that during the winter he had inhaled a substantial amount of dust while scraping paint off the cabin windows. During his a week-long sentencing 4 hearing, Hastings tried unsuccessfully to convince Judge Ralph Moody that, although he was guilty, he was mentally ill and should be sentenced to treatment instead of prison. Assistant District Attorney Stephen Branchflower says the doctor who found the traces of toxins in Hastings' system concluded they might be a sign of low sugar levels in his blood but "by themselves do not seem sufficient to cause Hastings to be unable to appreciate the nature and quality of his conduct." A hearing on Hastings' request was postponed indefinitely Friday when his new lawyer, David Grashin, moved to disqualify Judge Victor Carlson. Alaska Airlines and the American Card have a bright idea for you this winter: California. Alaska Airlines wants to show you the Golden State-from redwood forests up north, to the sunny fairways of Palm Springs.

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