Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 4

ANAL B2 THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 1987 El Burned body of missing Valley restaurateur found near El Mirage Identification made day after teen-ager spots victim in wash By NEAL SAVAGE and ALAN ARIAV The Arizona Republic The partially burned body of Valley restaurateur Jose L. Ochoa, who had been reported missing last week, was identified-Wednesday, a day after it was discovered in the desert west of El Mirage. Sheriffs detectives refused to divulge the cause of death. The body was spotted Tuesday at about 4 p.m. by a teen-age boy riding an all-terrain cycle along West Cactus Road near the alignment of 188th Avenue.

The body was found lying face down on its right side in a near-fetal position in a 3-foot-deep wash about 50 feet north of Cactus. i "There was some burning on the face and the left leg" that was examined by an arson investigator, said Sgt. Jay Ellison, a sheriffs spokesman. The body was clad in jeans and stacked-heel boots, detectives said. Ellison said the cold weather prevented faster decomposition of the body.

It was unclear how long the body had been in the desert. "Whether he was killed there or dumped there, I don't know," Ellison said. Ochoa, 32, of Ahwatukee, had been reported missing Friday night by a brother, Phoenix police said. The disappearance was treated as a homicide after Ochoa's bloodstained 1986 Corvette was discovered Monday by another brother in a parking garage at Sky Harbor International Airport. Police said there was a bullet hole through the car's windshield and blood on the driver's seat.

Rosa Moreno, manager of one of, three El Taquito restaurants the Ochoa family operated, said the family "didn't want to believe" that he had been found dead. "Nobody has any idea what happened," said Moreno, who has known Ochoa for four years. Abel Ochoa, a brother of the victim, has said he suspects that the disappearance may be connected to an $8,500 debt his brother was owed for a catering truck. He said Jose Ochoa sold the truck about a year ago to a man who had fallen behind on payments. The victim's wife, Delia, "will continue to raise the family with whatever is left," Moreno said, adding that the couple had five children, the oldest of whom is 12.

Moreno described Ochoa as a hard-working businessman who often slept in one of his restaurants. She said his workers sometimes would find him still in the restaurant at 6 a.m. "He was a complete businessman," she said. "He dedicated all his time to the business. Sometimes, he ran all three restaurants" 'in Phoenix, Mesa and Guadalupe.

Jose L. Ochoa Had been reported missing Friday night by a brother, police say. row Mavajos let MacDonald keep appointive power Uof A praises defeat of animal-rights vote of Churchrock, N.M., Larry Beck of Pinon and Virgil Kirk of Shiprock, N.M., indicated after the vote that they favored allowing the chairman to appoint the members of the tribe's Advisory and Budget committees because each has been selected by MacDonald to be on one or the other committee. Don Benally, a council delegate from Shiprock and a MacDonald supporter, said the old policy should stand because the committee assignments were drawn up as fairly as possible. Every four years, the question of who should name the members to these committees comes up and some members of the council try to change tribal policy to give the power of selection to the council instead of the chairman.

In the past, however, the attempt has failed by wider margins. This time, MacDonald won because several members who are supporters of former Chairman Peterson Zah voted for MacDonald's position. Such council delegates as Anne Deschenny By BILL DONOVAN Arizona Republic Correspondent WINDOW ROCK Navajo Tribal Chairman Peter MacDonald has survived the first challenge to his power. The Tribal Council defeated an attempt Tuesday to take away his authority to name members to the council's two most influential committees. The vote was 45-36.

This was the first session of the council since the inauguration of MacDonald and the new council last week. lacks Continued from Bl some groups here, Marks said. He said that many years ago, when Arizona's legislators failed to ratify the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, several convention groups boycotted the state. "It's difficult enough to sell business in this very competitive environment. We hate to lose conventions," Marks said.

"The governor, on the one hand, has really been very positive in early remarks to the tourism industry not only positive but suggest ing additional revenues to generate promotion. He really is a very positive governor. Yet this Martin Luther King Day has a very negative effect." Marks said he is especially concerned about what would happen if Arizonans voted on whether to have a King holiday and decided not to- "What if the state 6peaks, not just an individual? Then we're really sending a message. Then we really could be in for a cold winter," he said. scheduled to hold a convention here in the early 1990s that it may withdraw because the holiday was rescinded.

Marks said that group, involving 3,000 to 4,000 people, doesn't want to make a public announcement yet. He said that although he doesn't yet feel the convention business is in great jeopardy, he is concerned. The fact that Phoenix observes the slain civil-rights leader's birthday as a paid holiday might help keep by animal-rights groups. Marshall said of Sierra Vista voters, "They feel the use of unwanted animals is best for medical research, and they realize that advances in medicine are due largely to research on animals." Steve Carroll, secretary of the Incurably 111 for Animal Research, which sponsored radio commercials and other efforts in Sierra Vista in opposition to the animal-rights' initiative, said voters "looked through the emotion raised by animal-rights groups." Those groups had contended that the dogs and cats used at the UofA suffered unnecessarily in animal experiments. Les Rosenbaum, president of Cochise County Defenders of Animals and the leader of the effort to end the arrangement with the UofA, pledged Wednesday that the fight will continue.

"We don't intend to drop the issue," he said. "It will go on and on and on." Frieders, however, said it is "a dead issue" because "the people have spoken." He said he supported the initiative because "I thought the UofA was neglectful of informing the public on what they were doing with the research." However, he said he does not believe that the use of animals in medical research is inhumane. The election drew 31 percent of Sierra Vista's elgible voters to the polls, compared with 21 percent in! 1985, when the community first selected a mayor. By GENE VARN Southern Arizona Bureau Overwhelming approval for donating unwanted dogs and cats to the University of Arizona for medical research was a victory of rationality over emotion, UofA officials said Wednesday. Voters turned out in record numbers Tuesday for a Sierra Vista election that rejected by more than a 2-1 ratio a proposal backed by animal-rights groups to end the practice of sending dogs and cats from the city's animal shelter to the university.

Sierra Vista is the only city in the state that donates its animals for research. According to city figures, it donated more than GOO dogs and cats to the UofA last year. Those donations constituted 70 percent of the cats and 80 percent of the dogs used in research at the UofA College of Medicine, according to UofA figures. Carl Frieders, who was elected mayor Tuesday by almost a 10-1 ratio despite backing the so-called animal-rights initiative, said Wednesday that the decision on who would govern the city took a back seat with Sierra Vista voters. Frieders, 65, said that in his 20 years in Sierra Vista, voters had "never faced such an emotional issue" as the initiative on the dogs and cats.

Hal Marshall, associate to Dr. Louis Kettel, dean of the UofA College of Medicine, said Wednesday that the rational explanations for the use of dogs and cats in medical research by UofA officials triumphed over the emotion raised tion in 1989 because of the controversy. The National Baptist Convention of America announced in November that if Mecham went forward with announced plans to cancel the holiday, the group would consider holding its 1989 convention elsewhere. Shortly after taking office this month, Mecham canceled the holiday, which former Gov. Bruce Babbitt had declared a paid holiday for state employees.

Mecham contends that Babbitt did not have the authority to declare the paid holiday. He says only the Legislature does. The Legislature failed to pass a bill last year making it a state holiday. The Nashville, Baptist group is expected to bring 7,000 to 10,000 people to Phoenix and $4 million to $6 million to the local economy. 'That is a major convention," Marks said.

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