Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 11

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC POLICE DEATH Longtime Chandler policeman Richard Felix dies on duty. B2. KERRIGAN WEDS Olympic medalist Nancy Kerrigan marries her agent. B6. 1 SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 10, 1995 Editor, Sieve Knickmeyer 271-8222 blitoLabLnbbLabtobbLnbbLab 1 Accused killer had mizzlin rr ly 1 fall I Lriiiinnar mS' l.

Trrr EJJONTINI Republic Columnist Elkins and Arizona Department of Public Safety Sgt. Mike Crowe. Part of the question was answered in many minds on Thursday, when results of a urine test given to Hudson the night of the July 4 crime were released. The test was positive for methamphetamine and amphetamine. But that doesn't account for why a deputy and ex-Marine with a sterling record would plunder his See RESPECTED, page B2 By David Fritze Staff writer YUMA Alone in a jail cell, Jack Hudson Jr.

betrays no hint of the killer who, police say, slaughtered two fellow law officers and then slept the next day. He is quiet and clean-cut. He exchanges letters daily with his wife, Becky, and lingers over photographs sent to him of his two daughters as well as drawings from one of them. He reads books and practices basketball or exercises for ar hour a day. please do not hesitate to ask.

Any time, any place." A great guy, many had thought. The up-and-coming star of the Yuma County Sheriffs Department. Wilbur so far has answered Hudson only with silence. But if he does write a letter, he says, it may contain only one haunting question: "Why?" It is a puzzle that continues to confound many in this desert griddle of a city of 60,000 two months after the slayings of Yuma Police Lt. Dan Ten days after the brutal murders he is charged with committing, Hudson wrote a letter to a sheriffs officer in a polished style that had so impressed his colleagues.

"I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for all the support and kindness that you have shown my family during this time of great sorrow and pain that I have found myself in," Hudson wrote to Sgt. LewiS Wilbur. "I want you to know that if there ever is any way that I can repay you, Before his arrest, the formerly clean-cut Jack Hudson Jr. had begun dressing and looking the part of an undercover drug agent. Conference in Beijing not a guy thing Demonstrators rally in defense of the Serbs A fter traveling halfway around the world, sloshing through torrential rains, enduring long delays, KP't WW II I iv never felt like a hero, unless the definition of hero has changed to someone fr-C vV- A1 Ik 1r 4v being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Robert C. ode IN A 1989 INTERVIEW R.C. Ode dies, was hostage in Iran Dou' KILl OUR IKVIX- Sertaf Chiloten 'f Mona ReederStaff photographer protest recent NATO attacks on Serbian forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Meanwhile, NATO warplanes took a second swipe at repaired Serbian air defenses, and U.N. officials acknowledged for the first time that their attacks probably had killed Serbian civilians.

Related story, A21. Outside the Arizona Capitol, 2-year-old Ana Frigo of Phoenix takes a break during a rally in support of Serbs. Ana, who was 7 months old when she was adopted from a Serbian orphanage, was at the rally with her mother, Sharon Frigo, and about 200 other people Saturday to Convicted killer nears execution By Anne O'Rourke Staff writer Robert C. Ode, who survived a 444-day ordeal as a hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran, died Friday.

He was 79. The Sun City West resident was one of 52 U.S. citizens locked away in the embassy in Tehran by Iranian militants on Nov. 4, 1979. Ode, a retired State Department Foreign Service officer, had accepted a six-week assignment that landed him in Tehran just before the militants seized the embassy.

He endured four months of keeping silent and being blindfolded by the terrorists. Ode, who was the oldest of the 52 hostages, later maintained his composure by reading books, studying Spanish and writing letters to his wife, Rita. In April 1980, the United States sent a military mission to rescue the hostages out, but it failed. His captivity would last more than a year. Ode and the 51 other hostages were freed on Jan.

20, 1981, and he was in the limelight for months, downplaying talk that the hostages were heroes. "I never felt like a hero, unless the definition of hero has changed to someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Ode said in a 1989 interview. Although the details of his imprisonment remained vivid in Ode's mind, he said the experience didn't have any negative effect on his life. See R.C. ODE, page B4 scheduling problems, poor accommodations, impossible ground transportation and bad food, then participating in a barrage of meetings, seminars, demonstrations and discussion groups, the 50,000 delegates attending the fourth World Conference on Women in Beying concluded last week that the countless profound problems faced by female citizens of all nations can be condensed, translated and summed up in one word: Guys.

They're correct, of course. It's just that they didn't have to go all the way to China to figure it out. They could have reached the same conclusion at home. He's sitting right there on the couch, staring at the TV, holding the remote control. Delegates returning from a week in the Far East will be able to test this theory for themselves when they walk in the front door.

Chances are, he hasn't moved. "Honey, I'm back from China." "Great," he says. "Did you remember to pick up some beer?" Some people might say that such a description is not fair and accurate. And maybe they're right. Maybe it's too broad and exaggerated.

Maybe every man in the world isn't sitting on the couch, staring at the TV, holding the remote control I'm sure there's a large percentage of sensitive, open-minded, '90s kind of guys who are, in fact, lying on the couch. The kind of guys who, when greeted with the words, "Honey, I'm back from China," would understand the need for open and thoughtful dialogue between man and women, and say, "Great, did you buy chips, too?" Where the men are If I had to guess, I'd say that more than a few delegates to the conference knew this already and decided to travel halfway around the world for the express purpose of getting as far away as they possibly could. But, as luck would have it, Beijing has guys, too, which explains the long delays, scheduling problems, poor accommodations, impossible ground transportation and bad food. This is not to say men in general aren't concerned with women's issues. The day Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered her stirring address to the delegates, I'm convinced there were many, many fellows glued to their television sets, each one giving his undivided attention to pro beach volleyball, arena football, a monster truck rally or, for those of more refined taste, Baywatch.

Sure, we have problems. But even in these difficult times, there are women who appreciate and actually seek out exactly the kind of men I'm talking about. You can see these women every night in the audience of Rush Limbaugh's television show. You may have a little trouble picking them out, of course, since the women in a Limbaugh audience tend to look a lot like the men in a Limbaugh audience, who, in turn, tend to look an awful lot like Rush Limbaugh. But, trust me, they're there.

Taking the blame Not that it's easy to trust me, given the fact that my gender is undeniably responsible for some of the world's worst disasters, not the least of which include war, pestilence, pollution, political persecution, the "new" Coke, leisure suits, disco and Bob Packwood. But I believe there is clear evidence that some of us are attempting to redeem ourselves and do the right thing when it comes to male-female conflicts. It's my understanding, in fact, that President Bill Clinton, upon hearing that there'd be a gathering of 50,000 women in Beijing, wanted desperately to attend the conference in person. Which is why Hillary went. Still, I expect the president to put forth his best effort in dealing with the concerns expressed in China.

He'll no doubt use the power of his office and the resources of the U.S. government to find workable solutions to many of the legitimate female grievances. I'd guess he began to do so the moment Hillary walked into the White House and said, "Honey, I'm back from China." Just after he determined if she'd remembered to buy beer. out of jail. A week and a half later, Cheney died of a massive overdose of heroin.

Now, Jeffers is set to die from a lethal dose of state-administered drugs. Barring court intervention, the 49-year-old silversmith will be executed at 12:05 a.m. Wednesday. His last chances to stop the execution are a request to the Arizona Supreme Court for a new attorney to review Jimmie Wayne "Fuzzy" Jeffers Lethal injection adds morbid irony to case By Pamela Manson and Brent Whiting Staff writers Jimmie Wayne "Fuzzy" Jeffers bought a ticket to death row after finding out his girlfriend had snitched to police about his drug deals. The Tucson man received the bad news in 1976, while in Pima County Jail on a charge of receiving stolen property.

Furious, Jeffers tried to pass a note to another inmate, offering quick cash for getting rid of Jeffers' talkative woman, Penelope Cheney. "Name your price and it will be paid the day after it is in the papers," his note said. "I want to do it myself but I am not sure they will set bond. I am in a hurry. I don't want her to get out of town.

An O.D. would be fine. Nice clean." The note, however, was intercepted by a jailer and never made it to the other inmate. A few months later, Jeffers made bail and got "If, in fact, he committed the murder, then he deserves to be punished," Siebens said. "But I don't think the death penalty is appropriate for anybody." Neither Siebens nor Cheney's mother, who declined to be interviewed, will attend the execution.

Jeffers also has refused to be interviewed. The tragic chain of events, outlined in court records, began with the May 1976 arrest of Jeffers and Cheney on charges of narcotics possession and receipt of stolen property. Jeffers, who had previous convictions for forgery and drugs, posted bail for Cheney but didn't have enough money to bail himself out. Then he got word that Cheney, 25, with whom he had a love-hate relationship, was trying to work a deal with police to get the charges against her dropped. That's when Jeffers tried unsuccessfully to set up the hit.

Jeffers was convicted of the stolen-property charge but was released from jail Oct. 9, 1976, See MURDERER'S, page B3 the case for evidence that his lawyers were ineffective, an expected round of appeals in the federal courts and a plea for leniency to the Board of Executive Clemency. However, his prospects seem grim, according to Paige Siebens, Jeffers' pen pal for the past two years. Siebens, 25, a graduate psychology student at Syracuse University in New York, says Jeffers expects to be put to death. Many of BIA's schools in 'disgraceful condition' i i I' it' 1 v.

I' By Carol Sowers Staff writer FORT APACHE Carrie Watahomigie, principal at the once-graceful Theodore Roosevelt School, jokes that she has a real mouse for her computer. Hers is the gnawing, varmint variety that darts into her office through a hole in her baseboard. The hole is one of dozens that need patching in the school, which is funded and operated by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. Roofs leak in many of the buildings. Ceiling tiles are water-stained and drooping.

Water drips from a steam table in the dilapidated cafeteria. The 1948-vintage mess hall needs so much work that boarding students have to be bused to a restaurant for some meals. The U.S. Environmental Protec deficiencies that threaten the safety of students and staff. The price tag to fix those items in Arizona's 19 BIA schools is nearly $2 million.

That total doesn't include the cost of fixing dozens of other less-serious problems. BIA officials have compiled a 26-page report on the most dangerous hazards at the Arizona schools, but there isn't enough money to fix them. Some repairs are under way. For example, Theodore Roosevelt's classroom heaters are to be fixed. And the White Mountain tribe has received about $600,000 in BIA funds to rehabilitate the cafeteria and make other repairs.

But the backlog of unfunded repairs at the school takes up 4Vi pages of the Sept. 5 report and totals See BIA SCHOOLS, page B5 tion Agency found lead in the water in the cafeteria's kitchen and school drinking fountains. Electrical wiring throughout much of the school needs to be replaced. Radiators, used to heat classrooms, produced hot water instead of steam last winter. "The kids were freezing to death," said Joe Waters, a planner for the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

The school, in the high country of the White Mountains, 200 miles northeast of Phoenix, is in "disgraceful condition," Waters said. Theodore Roosevelt School at historic Fort Apache is just one of 187 BIA schools throughout the nation's Indian country that is suffering from neglect. The schools nationwide need $650 million to $800 million in repairs to correct Principal Carrie Watahomigie is frustrated by the condition of Theodore Roosevelt School. "I am tired of being Cinderella, mopping up puddles of water," she said. "I should be focusing on curriculum." Michael GingStaff photographer.