The Indianapolis Star du lieu suivant : Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 2

City1 The Indianapolis Star THURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1987 Comics 2 TVRadio 30, 31 PAGE 25 State Witness tells how he found slain daughter Save-plaza coalition steps up efforts ruvfrJ WEST rJ Is L-l SiY IT iff TU I STAR STAFF PHOTO KIM TRAVIS the murders occurred. Baird, wearing an open-necked blue shirt rocked slowly back and forth In his chair. Steele told the Jury the Balrds lived in a mobile home on a farm owned by his parents. Baird and his wife routinely went to shop for groceries in Lafayette on Fridays and visited with the Altics on the return trips. But Friday.

Sept. 6. 1985, was different. Steele said. "Nadlne lies down on the bed and not too long after that the defendant gets on top of her and begins strangling her.

He wraps a shirt around her neck and gives it a tug," Steele told the jury. Baird spent the next 12 hours watching television. Around 6 a.m. on Sept. 7 he walked the few yards to his parents' home.

After his father had walked outside and his mother finished cutting her son's hair. Baird grabbed a seven-inch butcher knife and attacked his mother. Hearing his wife's screams, his father rushed back into the house but was stabbed to death by Baird on the porch. Baird fled but was arrested later at a softball game In Jasper. Slamas described Baird.

who once lived in Indianapolis and attended Ben Davis High School, as an "oddly quiet" youngster who retained his shyness even after he married in 1976. But Baird. an active member in the Darlington Christian Church, was an excellent worker even though he had some strange habits, Slamas said. The couple's dreams were to have a child and to buy their own home, Slamas said. Baird.

who was laid off shortly before the slayings, was to have presented a $50,000 check to a real estate agent on Sept. 7 for a down payment on a 250-acre farm he and his wife had hoped to buy for 8575,000. By ROB SCHNEIDER STAR STAFF WRITER A coalition bent on sidetracking a proposal to construct a 10-story office building on the City Market's west plaza stepped up its efforts Wednesday to convince city officials the public is against the development. Several members of the Coalition to Save Vital City Spaces one wearing a sign around his neck proclaiming "No West Plaza? Say It ain't so" spent nearly two hours on the plaza Wednesday seeking signatures on petitions from the market's lunchtime crowd. The group was formed after the Metropolitan Development Commission conditionally approved a proposal by Cornerstone Cos.

last December to take over the management of the century-old market. Part of Its proposal calls for the construction of an office building to help subsidize the cost of operating the market. The coalition is made up of a number of groups including Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, Historic Indianapolis the Indianapolis Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Indiana Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, downtown neighborhood residents and market standholders. Since it began soliciting petitions last month, the group has gathered more than 1 ,000 signatures, said Tina Connor, a spokeswoman for the coalition and a staff member of Historic Landmarks. Earlier in the day, coalition members met with Michael Higbee, director of the Department of Metropolitan Development, to review the city's position on the building proposal.

By DAVID J. REMONDINI STAR STAFF WRITER Crawfordsville. Ind. Barely keeping himself in control Wednesday, LeMoyne N. Altic recalled the September evening when he discovered his pregnant daughter strangled in her bedroom.

"I went on in and flashed my light on her. Her face was as black as coal. She was dead," Altic said, his voice shaking. Altic was the first witness in the case Montgomery County Prosecutor Wayne K. Steele is bringing against Arthur P.

Baird II. Baird, 41, faces three counts of murder for strangling his 32-year-old wife, Nadlne Sue Baird, and then stabbing his parents, Arthur P. and Kathryn Baird, In September 1985. Baird, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, is also charged with feticide because his wife was seven months pregnant when she was strangled at the couple's Darlington home. Baird's attorney, Henry Sla-mas, argued In his opening remarks that the absence of any apparent motive for the triple homicide should lead the eight-woman, four-man Montgomery Circuit Jury to believe Baird was Insane.

"The key to this is going to be the motive or the lack of it. Motive will lead you to one place Arthur's mind. What was Arthur Baird thinking on Sept. 6 and Slamas, who was Steele's college roommate, will argue Baird had no concept of right and wrong on those days. Three court-appointed psychiatrists gave "preliminary opinions" that Baird was sane.

But Steele told the jury that one psychiatrist "slipped" since giving that Initial opinion and will testify Baird was insane. While Steele explained how 1959 and now running for an eighth term. A bank vice president, Geshwiler will turn 75 the day after the Nov. 2 municipal election. His likely GOP opponent Is Beech Grove City Councilman Nelson S.

Hart, 60, long active in civic groups and chief financial officer for a construction firm. Hoosler Co. Inc. Hart confirmed he will file. Marcella L.

Mlcell is running for re-election as clerk-treasurer. Council members expected to run again Include Warner Wiley, Neal H. Earleywine. William F. Stewart and Richard H.

Templin. all Democrats, plus Republicans Mary A. Bates and Charles E. Holder. Hart's seat would be vacant.

In Southport. Anderson con Most metro area officials expected to Dan Carpenter Reporter won war; still fights 1 battle "The bad man," Elaine Shepard calls him. Some Pentagon official, a general by now. Their paths first crossed during the Eisenhower era, and she still hasn't forgotten or forgiven him. Some day, perhaps, she'll name him in a book.

The bad man. He had a problem with the idea of Elaine Shepard. He couldn't understand how a woman blonde, beautiful, a former actress with 12 films to her could become a foreign correspondent on merit. Besides, she had beaten him at stud poker. He was macho, he tried to bluff, she had three queens.

For decades, she says, he lashed back. He ran checks on her in investigatory files. He put out the rumor, after she won a berth on Dwight Eisenhower's first world tour as president, that she was Ike's girlfriend. So she says, after all these years. Whoever the bad man is, whatever he may have done, he was much on Elaine Shepard's busy, busy mind Tuesday.

Overall, it was a happy trip from her New York City home. The reporterauthor once described as a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Ernie Pyle was treated to a standing ovation by some 200 military personnel at the Defense Information School at Fort Benjamin Harrison. Swollen with anecdotes like a robin with morningsong, she regaled the audience with large names and laser wit. There was Fidel Castro, with whom she shared a bathroom mirror so they could comb their beard and hair, respectively, for a photograph. There was China's Chou En-lai, "the most attractive head of state I've ever met." There was Mary Hemingway, whom she interviewed while skinny-dipping off her novelist husband's boat.

Nikita Khrushchev, Richard Nixon, John Wayne, King Hussein. Eleanor Roosevelt. Mother Theresa. The roster of choice interviews and celebrity friends goes on and on. Yet, this is no Barbara Walters.

No way. Elaine above all, has been a war correspondent. She went to Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles, checking Into a hotel room days after a bomb had been found outside the door. She went to Zaire when it was the bloody Congo, padlocking her coveralls against assaults on virtue. She won two medals for valor by Jumping onto combat-bound gunships in Vietnam.

The Air Force flyers at Da Nang. whom she celebrated in one of her two books gave her a cigarette lighter engraved. "The Last Of The Great Broads." They had to love her. She was gutsy, she was an absolute knockout In those jumpsuits, and she was on their side. She wasn't part of that all-powerful liberal press establishment, out to undermine the war effort, the presidency, the nation's sense of civility.

Censors, she calls them the CBSs, the Washington Posts. Hypocrites. She was never accepted by them, never won their "back-slapping awards." She went off alone and got her scoops. The bad man taught her that. He was, she said, the worst and best thing that ever happened to her.

He made the "dense and naive" cover girl from Olney, 111., realize she would have to fight for self-fulfillment. If her resum6 and their applause, are the measures, she has won. But there is pain in her still-pretty face, and the bad man still shares the stage with Nehru and Jackie O. and the rest. Maybe she'll have to drop his name to be at peace.

Imagine. Elaine Shepard and peace. By BRUCE C. SMITH STAR STAFF WRITER All of the mayors and most other city and town officials of the largest communities in metropolitan Marlon County are expected to run for another term in the municipal elections this year. Mayors Robert E.

Sterrett of Lawrence. Elton H. Geshwiler of Beech Grove and Robert E. Anderson of Southport confirmed Wednesday they will seek another four years In office. And most of Speedway's elected Town Board is expected to run again.

Few of them have filed official candidacy declarations with the Marion County clerk's office yet. but they have told Republican and Democratic party leaders they plan to seek re-election. Precinct committeemen of Patrick Hauk and Julia petition against 10-story office Higbee told the group no decision has been made on the development and won't be until there is an open public discussion of the proposal. He told the group that If there is no consensus to build the building, "then It won't be built." Connor said. Connor said she hoped the-meetlng settled some "bad blood" between the coalition and Higbee that has existed since the group formed in January.

To show good faith, the coalition revised its petitions following Wednesday morning's meet-ing and before seeking signatures at the market, after Higbee contended several of its claims were in error. "Everybody's Interest Is to keep what is a really wonderful public space and a unique his both parties are meeting this week to endorse candidates In the suburban cities and towns for the May 5 primary election. The official close of filing for candidates is March 6. The hottest of those local primary races will be Lawrence, where Sterrett. a Republican, said he will buck the county GOP machine and seek a second term.

He will not go though the party's endorsement process and plans to field a slate of city hall and council candidates also without party endorsement. Among them, he said, is An-netta Rose Sweat, 30-year deputy town clerk-treasurer, who will run to replace William D. Hall, who is retiring after seven terms as clerk-treasurer. out destroying property and others." He said the incidents might "galvanize people of good will to do something about It (racism). Conflicts can lead to revolt, so we must learn to control internal conflict." King noted that if his father-were alive today, he particularly would be displeased to see 33 million people still living below the poverty level.

Rev. King was starting a "poor people's" campaign to eliminate poverty Just before he was assassinated In April 1968. King added that while blacks have made gains since civil rights legislation was passed in the mid-1960s, they still have not gained political and corporate clout. He criticized the Reagan administration for its massive military spending with the sacrifice of social programs, saying the government "seems to be using the military to solve economic and social problems." He also noted that there needs to be a mechanism to help senior citizens who are forced to O'Connor seek signatures on building at City Market. toric building that everyone seems to enjoy," Connor said.

While the group Is pessimistic that it will be satisfied by any Cornerstone plan that includes an office building on the west plaza, "we're willing to look at whatever comes down," Connor said. "The trouble Is there Is no plan." At a meeting with stand-holders Jan. 15, Robert N. Whi-tacre, president of Cornerstone, explained his firm was still In the process of determining how best to renovate the market. "While It's welcome knowledge there is an open process, if there is nothing to consider there is no process," Connor said.

Cornerstone officials have Indicated they will meet with standholders and coalition members next week to review their plans. For City Council. Sterrett said, the expected candlates are: George E. Keller, George F. Callahan Lou Kennedy, Richard W.

Mosler and R. Douglas Reeser, all Incumbents, plus Paul T. Whitehead, an Indiana-polls Police Department lieutenant in charge of Mayor William H. Hudnut's security. The likely GOP slated candidate for mayor Is Thomas D.

Schneider, a lieutenant of the IPD criminal intelligence unit. Schneider, currently on the Lawrence City Council, has dueled with Sterrett for three years about money, the location of a new fire station, and a proposed landfill. Beech Grove's Geshwiler. a Democrat, is the dean of Indiana mayors, first became mayor in UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Martin Luther King III criticized Reagan administration. survive on Medicare and Medicaid.

The King portrait project was started last year by a multiracial group of I.U. students representing several fraternal councils on campus. The students said they picked Rev. King as a project theme because he stood for equality and peace. The group put together several fund-raisers to finance the project.

The painting will be hung near the Tudor Room In the I.U. Memorial Union. Delay in appeal prompts questions Son says poverty, recent racial conflict would trouble King run again firmed he will seek re-election and expects all but one council member to run again. However, clerk-treasurer Marilyn Mayfleld wants to leave that Job. Former Southport Mayor Eugene A.

Wilson Is to run to replace council member Priscilla "Pat" A. Moore, who is moving. Incumbents on the council Include Ronald C. Rleck, George G. Julius, Byron P.

Morris and Nan-nette F. Tunget, all Republicans. And in Speedway, Clerk-Treasurer John R. Sneyd is running for re-election along with Town Board members Randy J. Sham-baugh.

Robert L. Farts. Charles E. Bowling and John E. Kramer.

However. S. Robert McMahon is reported to be undecided. AH are Republicans. Democrat challengers have not yet announced.

The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday at 9 a.m. Clark said Volls was responsible for drafting the appeal. He said a proper transcript has not been available until recently. Voils was not available for comment. On Jan.

29. 1985. the two defense attorneys requested a stay of their client's execution, and court reporters were ordered to provide the attorneys a transcript of trial testimony. Two months later the transcript was provided, although no appeal papers have been filed, court records show. Jones imposed separate sentences of 90 years In Jail and death for the rape and slaying of Miss Weaver.

Officials said the victim was stabbed 113 times by Weaver after he abducted her from her Northeastslde Indianapolis residence April 2. 1984. Her bound and gagged body was found two days later under a railroad bridge about 175 yards from her home. Police said Davis forced the victim to leave her home with him. but he denied responsibility for the rape and murder.

By R. JOSEPH GELARDEN STAR STAFF WRITER A Marlon County deputy prosecutor Wednesday asked a judge to order two defense lawyers to explain why they have taken two years to begin the appeal of a death penalty for a convicted murderer. On Oct. 26. 1984.

Marion Superior Court Judge Roy F. Jones sentenced Greagree C. Davis to die in the electric chair for murder in the stabbing of Debra D. Weaver of Indianapolis. The judge, who presides In Criminal Division, Room 5, had ordered Davis' defense attorney to Immediately begin the appeal process, an automatic procedure in Indiana death penalty cases.

As of Wednesday, no appeal had been filed. Since sentencing, Davis' case passed from attorney Timothy Bookwalter to lawyers Alex R. Volls Jr. and J. Murray Clark.

David E. Cook, chief trial deputy prosecutor for Marion County, asked Judge Jones on Wednesday to order the defense attorneys to appear In court to explain why they should not be held In contempt of court for their inaction. STAR STATE REPORT Bloomlngton. Ind. Martin Luther King III said Wednesday that if his father were alive today, he would be troubled at recent racial disturbances and what he considers a lack of concern for the poor and elderly.

King was visiting the Indiana University campus to speak at the unveiling of a portrait of his father. Dr. Martin Luther King who spearheaded the civil rights movement in the 1960s. "He would be saddened and a little displeased by where we are today." King said. "He fought for freedom.

Justice and equality for all citizens, black and white." But King noted that incidents such as the death of a black youth who was being chased by whites in Howard Beach, N.Y., and the disruption of a black march in Forsyth County, may help to sensitize people about racism. "We're living in a racist society, and we're a nation of many ethnic groups," he said. "We must learn to live together with.