The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 3

A12 IMika THE COURIER-JOURNAL FROM PAGE ONE SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1999 rTi SI W.r -'--in 1 'I A 4k IMllilf'A PHOTO BY PATTI LONGMIRE, SPECIAL TO THE COURIER-JOURNAL This charred computer and printer removed from the library building appeared to have come from the area where the fire started. BY PATTI LONGMIRE, SPECIAL TO THE COURIER-JOURNAL A firefighter checked around the library's northeast wing, where the blaze was discovered in the basement. A total damage estimate was not available yesterday. fire's cause remains under investigation igrr wjt, --74 Although it is rare, there have been instances where sprinklers accidentally discharged and damaged library collections. In January 1996 at the Peoria (111.) Public Library, a malfunctioning sprinkler wreaked havoc in the library's government-document room.

Although he could not offer an exact count, Buthod said sprinklers are installed in at least seven of the Free Public Library's 16 branches. In some cases, he said, they were installed because the branches were constructed after The fire also knocked one of Louisville's three public radio stations off the air and forced the Public Radio Partnership the umbrella agency that runs the non-profit stations to postpone the final day of its fall funct raising drive. Cary Willis, a disc jockey at WFPK radio, said he had just begun his weekly show "Saturday Morning with Cary when a security guard rushed into the studio, located in the old library building, and told him to get out. put ON a' CD and walked out, Willis said. "It was a 50-minute CD, which 'S.

4 codes began requiring them or because the branches are housed in leased space. Brinkman said there is no consensus within the library community on the sprinkler issue. Neither the Kentucky association "It's a setback. Everything in there is pretty much toast." Craig Buthod, director of the library I hoped would, be enough to cover us while we wereoiitj-side. It did not.

By the time firefighter allowed Willis-. and fellow staff members back into the libraiV, the compact disc by the band Flat Duo Continued from Page One not require sprinklers when the library first opened at 301 York St. in 1908 or when it was expanded in 1969. About 23 people were in the library when a security guard discovered the blaze in the Technical Services Department, located in the northeast corner of the 30-year-old concrete-and-glass addition. All were either library staff members preparing for the 9 a.m.

opening or employees and volunteers with the two public radio stations housed there. THE GUARD suffered minor smoke inhalation but was not hospitalized. One firefighter suffered exhaustion fighting the blaze, Buthod said many of the volumes were lost to water damage as firefighters extinguished the flames. In addition to the books, flames consumed desks, computers and other office equipment. "It's a setback," a shaken Buthod moments after he surveyed the damaged area.

"Everything in there is pretty much toast." The fire prevented the library from opening yesterday and will keep it closed again today. Buthod said officials hope to reopen at least some of the main library's public areas tomorrow. The first firefighters arrived at the main library at 8:14 a.m., two minutes after they received the call, Frederick said. The fire prompted a second alarm at 8:28, he said. It took 47 firefighters about 55 minutes to bring the fire under control, Frederick said.

Buthod said the main library passed a fire-safety inspection conducted last month by the Louisville Fire Department. He said the department periodically inspects all library facilities. 't S'-A J- ills 4 '7 BY BRIAN BOHANNON. SPECIAL TO THE COURIER-JOURNAL Building supervisor Wanda Sego helped Louisville firefighter James Frederick find a master key to the library to check it after the blaze. nor the American Li- brary Association has a policy on the issue.

"There's no right or wrong here," she said. "There's no 'best' way of doing it." The library will be scrambling to find a place to house the Technical Services Department and its 40 employees while the area is cleaned and repaired. Buthod said the main library is already cramped, and branch libraries offer few options. "WE'RE JUST trying to regroup," he said. "The first question is, 'Can we reopen and then, 'Where do we put these Jets had mn out and WFPK listeners had endured about 30 minutes of dead The library's other public radio station, WFPL, was more fortunate.

At the time of the blaze, it was airing t'hj National. Public Radio program "Weekend Edition," which comes to the station via satellite, said Gerry Weston, Public Radio Partnership president. Weston said dozens of volunteers who had gone to the library to tak telephone pledges for the fund-rais' ing drive were sent home. He said the partnership will resume- the pledge drive next Saturday. "We'll call it a 'fire sale Westofi said.

cidental discharge. "One of the most damaging things for a book is moisture," said Brink-man, who said her facility has sprinklers because the university requires them in its buildings. "Do you risk losing a collection to fire or to water damage? Even if the sprinkler contains the blaze, you may still lose the collection because of the water." Buthod said the fire's immediate impact will be felt when patrons cannot get copies of new books that had been acquired during the past few weeks and were awaiting placement on the library system's shelves. In addition, the fire interrupts the replacement of books that have been damaged or have simply worn out, Buthod said. The fact that the main library isn't equipped with sprinklers is not unusual, said Carol Brinkman, president of the Kentucky Library Association.

Brinkman, director of the University of Louisville's science and engineering library, said many libraries opt not to install sprinklers because of the potential damage they can do to fragile books in the event of an ac Paducah honors mystery man who fell from airplane "JOHN DOP HI5 DEATH ffiOm fiO H--3siti 3 JU I.J I JL I II 11.11 f-1 AFTER flEHRiy 0 VERRS. On JURE 8. 1999 HE UJRS IDENTIFIED AS 1 BRIflTl STfiflLEy DUECKER BORn cincmnRTi 9.1963 i HIS fllEIUORy WILL FORMER REPRIO ifi OUR HLfiRTS 'V' solved Mysteries" flickered. The story, a rerun of a 1992 show, was about a young man who had tried to grab hold of a plane as it took off and plunged to his death. To Dee Duecker, something rang familiar.

Back in September of 1991, when her stepson Brian disappeared, she had had "a premonition that he had fallen from some high place" and told police that "he has fallen to his death," said her husband. The last time anyone in Brian Duecker's family saw him was on Sept. 26, 1991, when his sister, Pam Clark, visited him at his apartment in Cincinnati. He was a dedicated runner sometimes jogging for miles and miles because the exercise eased the symptoms of his illness paranoid schizophrenia. Realizing that her brother seemed unusually agitated, she called her father.

By the time the Rev. Duecker arrived, Brian was gone and would never return. During those years, the Duecker family "looked and looked and looked and looked," said Duecker, a Methodist minister. Finally, he said, they came to believe that Brian was dead. They'd had no contact with him and his federal disability payments went untouched.

Dee Duecker was convinced that the "Unsolved Mysteries" segment she saw in the middle of the night was about Brian. She called police, but they said the description didn't match. Still, it nagged at Dee Duecker. In June, searching the Internet for information about that death, she came across a 1998 story from The Paducah Sun written, at the urging of Jerry Beyer, on the seventh anniversary of the death. Dee Duecker e-mailed the Sun reporter and provided the newspaper with a photograph and other key information about Brian.

The newspaper forwarded the information to Beyer, who contacted the Duecker family and police in Ohio. Fingerprints from an arrest for a pettv memorial services. At the first service, about six weeks after John Doe died, his body was placed in a mausoleum, in the hope his family would come forward. When that didn't happen, John Doe was buried during a second memorial service about a year after his death. All told, about 150 people from the community came to pay respects to a young man they never knew.

A donated headstone that read "John Doe" was placed over the donated burial plot at Oak Grove. Claudia Speed, a local florist whose own son had died, sent a spray of red roses with a card that read: "From your mother. I know she cares." Geary, who gave the eulogy, preached from the Book of Leviticus, "where God calls on the faithful to welcome a stranger or the alien at your gate." "In a town of 30,000, in a county of 70,000 with still largely a 'small town grown-up' feel, family is extremely important. It's inconceivable that someone could die in such circumstances and be alone," he said last week. "It's a deeply religious community, and people felt a very strong, moral obligation to provide for him the same thing they would provide for one another." In the meantime, Beyer visited the grave every year at Christmas.

He came on the anniversary of the death and other holidays. "Very seldom was there not already flowers on his gravesite," Beyer said. FINALLY, THE ANSWERS Late-night rerun gave man's family first clue Beyer's persistence paid off on a sleepless night in Ohio. Dee Duecker tossed and turned one night about 2 'a years ago in the Duecker family home just east of Cincinnati. She got up and turned on the TV.

She tuned to a station she said she never watched. On the screen, an episode of "Un Continued from Page One As people came through town circus performers, dancers and the like Beyer made inquiries about whether they knew the young man who wore expensive running shoes and had been in great physical shape. When Beyer went on vacation or to out-of-town meetings, he took along flyers to pass around. He called Reader's Digest and television's "Unsolved Mysteries," pestering them to feature the Paducah case. He continued to called news conferences to remind reporters that the case had never been solved.

Through it all, the files on John Doe that Beyer always kept by his desk grew fat. "Those brown mail folders that keep about 18 or 19 file folders, I had four of those," he said, "just full of leads." No one knew where John Doe had come from, how he got to Paducah or why he was trying so urgently to leave. Even Beyer's church got involved. "We knew that he was a desperate person, we could certainly surmise that," said Dr. Joseph A.

Geary, then-pastor of Concord United Methodist Church in Paducah, who now lives in Tennessee. "But we were saddened that in our community even though we had a social safety net of community and churches and other relief services that somehow this young man did not avail himself of those, but simply tried to get out of town in this bizarre way." Probably any church in town would have bought him a bus ticket to his destination, Geary said. AM HONORED STRANGER In the absence of family, community cared for man As Breyer pressed the search, the community embraced John Doe. The story of the young man who fell from the plane had touched hearts Wherever Bever went, to football "vy-saM--1 BY PAM SPAULDING. THE COURIER-JOUpNAj The old headstone on Brian Duecker's grave is now supported by one with his name on it.

Both were made by Walter Beasley of Paducah. Jerry Beyer said when he visited John Doe's grave at Christmas and other important days, "very seldom was there not already flowers." games or to restaurants, he said, people would ask, "Did you hear anything about our John Doe? They would bring in catalogs, they brought in newspapers, they brought in porno magazines" to show him photographs, saying with hope, "this looks like John Doe." Beyer and others remained convinced someone was searching for the. young man. The town came together, determined that what the man's family could not provide, they would. Roth Funeral Chanel donated two help but feel that sometimes God provides a connection in death' thai we're not aware of in life." For the Dueckers, the decision tp leave Brian buried in Paducah was difficult some in the family wanted to bring him home.

But the people of Paducah, Jerrj' Duecker said in an interview, "prap-ticed what they preached. They livel the faith. That has touched our family deeply." i He said yesterday, at the close the service, "Brian, we love you, we always will. And I hope you will lovfc these people. Because of them, v-y have chosen as a family to leave, yoii here.

Because of them, we will nevi-be able to express enough thanks tj the people of Paducah. May God bless you." crime Brian had committed years earlier solved the mystery. When the case finally was broken, the Duecker family was overwhelmed to discover others had been caring for Brian all along. Jerry Duecker said Beyer's persistence in searching for his son is "amazing" and "has certainly touched our hearts." Those involved with the case also can't help but draw a religious connection. "For me, one United Methodist pastor doing his funeral, not knowing who this boy really was, and to find out nine years later that he was the son of another United Methodist minister, is an incredibly eerie thought and feeling," said Geary, the minister who had been in Paducah.

"I can't.