The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 42

izL. ir SECTION Few babies need Social Security More local, regional news coverage, 4B Weather, 2B Deaths, 3B The TENNESSEAN SATURDAY, May 3, 1986 Complaints -orchestot tion by his disciplinary committee for "shoddy work," and the commit-, tee recommended she be fired. He said he overruled that decision. 1 McPherson refused to answer any specific questions about allegations made by the two clerks, Jewell and Pallie A. Rose.

They said they were being made to campaign Tuesday for their boss at the polls although Metro would pay them for those hours. "We're not going to make anybody do anything," McPherson said in the hall outside his office. "That's all I have to say." -In addition the two women charged that their supervisor referred to employees as "bubble head" and "nigger," and said McPherson made them participate in the taping of a television commercial where McPherson tells viewers not to believe what is in the newspa sclera the emission testing, but went through it anyway. Those slips are then used for vehicles that did not pass the test "If you're a buddy of Mr. Mac's or Mr.

Jim Foutch, and you don't want to go through MARTA, you come out and he'll take care of it and give you a MARTA slip," she said. "I've seen it done." McPherson said those allegations are "absolutely not true. Nobody dislikes MARTA more than I da" "I've had two months of it and I can't handle it anymore," said Rose, who worked in the clerk's office before McPherson's first term and came back recently. "I'm tired of the illegal things, abuse and harassment You've got to work on the campaign, contribute, or you go work for someone else." In addition, she said two employees have worked full time on the re- i jit, Jj7: I GAIL Mc KNIGHT and KEVIN ELUS Staff Writers County Clerk Bill McPherson said it was "irrelevant" that two of his employees resigned yesterday and said the whole thing is an "orchestrated campaign to make me look bad" The two employees, however, said the pressure of being forced to work the polls from 7 am until 7 p.m. Tuesday, and continual harassment led to their resignations.

"If they wanted to resign, why now at this time?" McPherson asked during a 10-minute afternoon press conference. "The public has got to be more intelligent than that This is an orchestrated attempt to make me look bad before the election." McPherson said one of the women, Nancy Jewell, came under ques Creativeness at fingertips Farmer's Market offers col- orful produce and flowers for shoppers who are looking for 1 tonight's supper or tomorrow's garden. George Patterson, right, bags onions and a poke sallet for a customer while Cyrus and Ruth Geb-hard, lower right, pick out packages of flowers. v-, i i 7 Judge delays libel trial in Gallatin ELLEN MARGUIJES State Writer GALLATIN, Tenn. A Sumner County Circuit Court judge said yesterday a ruling on a request to dismiss a slander lawsuit against former Portland councilwoman Bettye Glover, will be delayed about two weeks.

Judge Thomas Boyers IV told attorneys during a hearing yesterday he needs additional time to study evidence before deciding whether to. grant a motion for summary judgment on a $2.1 million slander and libel suit filed against Glover. Nashville attorney John Kitch asked for dismissal of the suit claiming that the 21 Portland council members and area businessmen who filed it have no basis for their allegations. After listening to nearly an hour of testimony, Boyers asked plaintiffs attorney Norman Lane to submit to the court taped telephone conversations between Glover and a former Portland police officer and transcripts of Glover's Jaa 30 ouster hearing. The suit's charges stem from telephone conversations between Glover and former Portland police officer Dean Bates, during which Glover told Bates that elected city and county officials were involved in drug trafficking, taking bribes and covering up crimes.

Bates tape recorded the conversations. "By reporting her suspicions to Bates, she was doing her duty as a citizen and an alderman," Kitch told the court "If she had not reported them, she would have committed a crime." Lane argued however, that "in the tapes she is not making suspicions known, she is making allegations to Bates." Lane said he agreed with Htch's argument that statements made in the ouster hearing, during which the taped conversations were played are privileged information because of the judicial nature of the proceedings. "But certainly statements are not privileged when they are made to a police officer," Lane said The suit also claims the plaintiffs were libeled when Glover wrote in 1 983 to a state Health Department employee a letter In which she allegedly made similar accusations to those on the taped telephone conversations. The statute of limitations on libel is one year, but Lane argued that the charge was renewed Glover mentioned the letter in a prepared statement she read during the ouster hearing even though she did not mention names at that time. Accidents kill 4-year-old girl, Wilson fanner WARREN DUZAK State Writer Separate accidents yesterday killed two Wilson County residents, a 4-year-old-girt who feU out of the ve-: hide her mother was driving and a man whose tractor overturned Jessica Johnson, daughter of Wayne and Cheryl Johnson of 336 Sunrise Circle in the Belinda City subdivision near Mount Juliet died after she was pinned under the rear wheels of a truck her mother was driving.

The girl apparently had opened the pickup truck door and fallen beneath the wheels as her mother was pulling into the driveway of their home about 10:15 am, said state trooper Joe Agee. Joe Wilkerson, 72, of Locust Road was killed when a tractor he was driving overturned at his home at about 3 p.m. Wilson County Civil Defense officials said Wilkerson was carrying dirt to fill a pond on his property when the accident occurred Jessica Johnson was pronounced dead from massive chest injuries at IM p.ra after being taken by helicopter to Vanderbitt HospitaL Agee said the child was pinned beneath the truck for a short time after falling out 9' I ry Bill McPherson "Why now at this time?" election campaign during Metro office hours and have used Metro's $22,000 word processor to produce re-election materials. "Mr. McPherson has no respect for bis employees or the public," Rose said.

the killings." He said the short, stocky woman was polite and well-spoken during the Interview. "There's no doubt In my mind that the bodies are there," Parham said "She wanted to straighten herself out She said it was torturing her ln-sldes out" The three slayings apparently were tied to a drug and auto theft ring In Chattanooga and Michigan, Parham said The three victims were apparently never reported missing. "These three people were Involved knew too much and talked" IX' pers, and has his female employees pledging their support at the polls. "I just couldn't worry anymore about whether my contract would be renewed after the election because I didn't buy his barbecue tickets," Rose said. "Everybody in that office was told they would work the polls.

We had to sign up where we register to vote. We had tp make a video for him." "We had to put our little hats on, and say, Tm voting for Bill "It was a farce," added Jewell, who said she is divorced, with chil- dren, and has no idea what she will do without a job, "but you can only take so many names being called," shesaid In addition, Rose charged that McPherson's other employees routinely keep MARTA inspection slips on new cars that did not need ill 73 Jiui, mm TP x'1 '-x of human lives. "I can give your department valid, tangible evidence concerning these murders, for not only was I connected, but I'm personally responsible for taking these lives. In other words, I pulled the trigger of the guns," she wrote. The woman is serving a life sentence at the Julia Tutwiier Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Ala, for a 1978 first-degree murder conviction in an Alabama contract killing, said Sneed "She just wants to clear her conscience.

She said she had no conscience back then and after being in- carcerated the killings began tp work on her," Sneed said. "Snejust j. Ij. T-ZZ t3. 1 lice say they fear the man who hired and paid her to commit the three slayings in 1976 and 1977 may try to get back at her in prison.

Sneed said that if the bodies are found, he believes the woman may identify the man. "According to her, he's still out on the streets of Chattanooga," the detective sail "The Information win not only benefit your department but this also will benefit me," the woman wrote in describing her guilt pangs. "For the weights I have carried all these years of the wrong I have done of taking another's life, I can finally declare what wrong I have done and try and make amends for the killing KiWten Smith Start A display of strawberries, grapes and pole beans, above, is designed to catch some buyer's eye. The blooms of garden plants attract Daine McNaron, her son Samuel, 4, and neighbor Evan Singer, 4. Gtdlt-ridden convict admits to Mllings CHATTANOOGA A female contract killer who developed guilt pangs while serving a life prison term In Alabama has confessed to three hired killings here nearly a decade ago, authorities said yesterday.

Sheriffs officials and divers since Monday have searched five abandoned wells in a remote northern area of Hamilton County where the woman claims to have dumped the bodies of a woman and two men, said sheriffs detective Larry Sneed. Investigators would not release the name of the woman whose confession to the shootings came in a two-page handwritten letter to the Hamilton County sheriffs office. Po-, wanted it cleared up." The woman has described the area and the killings In detail during interviews earlier this week with sheriffs officials, who received her confession a week ago, said Sgt Roy Parham, Parham said the woman, originally from Michigan, told authorities she was paid $200 each to kin the woman and one man within about two months In 1976, and then was paid $5,000 for the third slaying in 1977. "We fed she's on the level," Par-, ham said "She has nothing to gain by tote, wyhout opening her mouth, Me ceT taboil t-1 MMIV- I "Her mother stopped and got out of the truck, but the child was stiU under the wheels," he said Wilkerson was pronounced dead on the scene of the tractor accident by Wilson County Medical Examiner George Martin. "It looked like he got on this hillside and the tractor just rolled over on him," said Ullsoo County Civil Defense Director Bedford Johnson Funeral arrangements for both victims were Incomplete last night-Wilkerson's body was taken to Nave i if Home in Lebanon..