The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 19

6M THE PES M01NKS RFG1STFR Wednesday, March 13, 1991 Pleasant Hill delays action council on budget Prosecutor: Slaying suspect ate breakfast after shooting Investigator testifies he lied to grand jury if burn picked up a baseball bat and handgun and they drove to Davenport, she said. Long said Ashburn dropped her off ((Somehow it was meant to be that Ed Bumgardner survived all this to come and tell you about itJ) William Davis Scott County attorney at the Denny's Restaurant and left When he rejoined her, they had breakfast, she said. In his opening statement, Ashburn's lawyer, Eugene Dwyer, told the jury that "the story Mr. Davis just told you is accurate in many respects," but he hinted that another person did the shooting. Costs soar to help babies hurt by drugs David Phelps Recanted story to TV crew Missing Youth Foundation in Omaha, Stephens was brought into the investigation at the request of Jill Cutshall's family after police didn't file charges.

The missing girl's mother, Joyce, led a petition drive that convened a grand jury, which handed up an indictment. Stephens testified Tuesday that he fired the handgun out of frustration. The girl's clothing was found at the wildlife preserve but there were no other traces of her. Phelps told Stephens and a television crew from Omaha that he and a roommate, Kermit Baumgartner, had driven the girl to Wood Duck. Phelps said he restrained the girl but left Baumgartner with the girl.

Phelps later recanted the story in a police interview. Baumgartner, who now lives in California and is expected to testify, denies he was involved. 'Mi i Continued from Page One ney'i office had agreed to drop that charge in return for his testimony Tuesday. No Idea Shults, who still faces a first-degree arson charge in Missouri, testified that he had no idea there were two men in the trunk of Ashburn's Cadillac when Ashburn asked him to go for a ride. When Ashburn told him about the men, Shults said he didn't believe him.

After they pulled up to the farmhouse, Shults said he helped Ashburn carry the two men, both of whom he thought were dead, inside. "Jerry asked for help and I helped him," said Shults. After disposing of the bodies, Shults said, Ashburn stopped in southern Iowa to change clothes and threw his bloodstained shirt and shoes into a ditch. According to Shults, Ashburn stopped again at the McDonald's restaurant in Osceola to eat and then went to a car wash to wash the blood out of his trunk. Earlier Tuesday, Long Ashburn's girlfriend testified that she and Ashburn spent the night of Nov.

8 drinking and playing pool at Des Moines bars. Baseball Bat After the bars closed at 2 a.m. Nov. 9, Ashburn asked her to ride to Davenport with him because "he had to pick up some money," Long said. Ash- Boyfriend says woman's death was accidental By CHRIS OSHER Rtotittr Stiff Wrtttf Steven Long testified Tuesday that he loved his girlfriend and that he killed her by accident.

Long told Polk County jurors his girlfriend's revolver discharged accidentally during the morning of July 26. Long said that when he woke up for work that morning, he saw the revolver on the bedroom floor of their south-side apartment. "I reached down and picked it up and said, 'I'm tired of seeing this Long said. "She reached for it and the gun went off." Long, 25, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend, Janet Christine Noe, 26. He said he and Noe were not fighting when the gun fired.

He also denied that he had ever seriously physically abused Noe. "She'd slap me and I'd slap her, but it was nothing technical or anything," Long said. Long also said his girlfriend used cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana, and said the drugs made her paranoid. In later testimony Tuesday, Paul Bush, an agent with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said it was "highly unlikely" Noe could have been shot in the bedroom, as Long had claimed. Bush, whose testimony came outside the presence of the jury, said blood spatters found 2 to 3 feet from the floor on a kitchen wall and stove indicated Noe may have been shot in the kitchen while she was in a low position.

Earlier in the trial, another DCI expert testified that Noe's head was no more than 3 inches from the muzzle of the gun that killed her. Long's lawyer, John Wellman, asked Judge George Bergeson to exclude Bush's testimony from the trial. Wellman said the prosecution should not be able to use Bush's testimony to rebut defense testimony. Wellman said that if the evidence is submitted, he should be allowed to prepare a defense for it. The judge said he would rule on the matter today.

Ml GRAND PIANOS DIGITAL KEYBOARDS budget doesn't demonstrate a need for the maximum rate. City officials also used a questionable formula for arriving at the rate, they said. There was some confusion earlier Tuesday between city and Polk County officials over the city's tax rate for the current fiscal year. City officials believed the rate was $9.04 per $1,000 of assessed valuation the rate they proposed last year, But Ron Carzoli of the Polk County Auditor's Office said that rate was brought down to $8.04 per $1,000 including a levy covering debt service after state officials reviewed the city's budget. City officials later acknowledged the current rate was $8.04.

City officials also acknowledged that the proposed budget for the next fiscal year placed revenues in one category that belong in other categories. They have corrected the discrepancy on forms they will submit to the state after the budget is approved. Blumberg and City Engineer Allen Schoemaker said City Clerk Howard Hanson mistakenly put the figures in the wrong categories on the published budget. But they said the error was corrected and never affected the city's total revenue, still proposed at $2,237,244. WE'RE BRITISH CALL St FfiSiSk lili ll'v 3 Continued from Page One tioned or criticized the budget, which calls for an increase of about 25 percent in the city's tax rate despite a nearly $24 million increase in the city's assessed valuation.

State officials who looked over the budget say it doesn't contain enough information to judge whether the proposed tax rate $10.09 per $1,000 of assessed valuation is necessary. Under the proposed budget, the city would levy the state's maximum regular rate of $8.10, plus $1.99 to service debts. But state officials say the Verdon-Roe to speak Ttw Rtfiittr's lowt Ntwi Srvkt OSKALOOSA, IA. Vivienne Verdon-Roe, an Academy Award-winning film producer and activist, will speak at William Penn College at 10:15 a.m. Monday in Spencer Chapel.

h-ii iLl (ill 1 'V i i. 1 I i i SmcW DtiMtdi TIM Rtaiiftr NORFOK, NEB. A private investigator who is a key figure in the kidnapping trial of former Iowan David Phelps testified Tuesday that he lied to a grand jury before it handed up an indictment against Phelps. Roy Stephens, whose investigation led to the kidnapping charge, said he told the grand jury that he contacted police about his plans to bring Phelps to a wildlife preserve to interrogate him. Stephens testified Tuesday that had not communicated with the police.

At the encounter at the Wood Duck Wildlife Management Area on Jan. 4, 1989, Stephens shot a handgun into the air and got a statement from Phelps, 27, a Perry, native. Phelps told Stephens he had been with 9-year-old Jill Cutshall on Aug. 13, 1987, the day she was believed to have been abducted from Norfolk, Neb. No trace of the girl has been found.

David Domina, Phelps' lawyer, tried to discredit Stephens. Asked Domina, "Did you in that instance lie to the grand jury?" Answered Stephens, "It appears that I did." The testimony in the Madison County District Court came as the state continued to press its case against Phelps, who was arrested in June. In charge of investigations for the 4 tt If I i HW-T Continued from Page One and 1990, the study shows. In spent $38,871 to treat sX drug-affected newborns. In 1990, this rose to $393,324 to treat 55 newborns The average cost of treatment, pef child, also rose, from $6,478 in 1988 to $7,151 in 1990.

Eugene Fracek, executive director of the Iowa chapter of the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse, said Iowa spends thousands of dollars to treat abused children but only a fraction of that amount to pre-' vent child abuse and neglect. "If we provide the money up front now for prevention programs, we! may not have to pay as much later for' the treatment," Fracek said. Medical care for a drug-affected newborn also costs dramatically, more than for a normal newborn, ac-" cording to the study. The average cost for a drug-affected newborn was $5,425, compared to $1,513 for a normal newborn. The study broadly defined drug-affected newborns as those exposed in the womb to illegal drugs, alcohol or tobacco.

The study's authors said one shortcoming was the study's inability to pinpoint the specific drug affecting most of the newborns. Of the 89 cases during the past, three years, 22 involved alcohol, 22 narcotics, one a hallucinogen. Only in' six cases were substances such as marijuana, amphetamines or cocaine pinpointed. A state law passed last year re-, quires doctors to alert child-abuse au-, thorities when a newborn tests positive for drug exposure. But critics say the law has many loopholes, hamper-, ing efforts to provide drug treatment and to better define the scope of the problem in Iowa.

John Holtkamp, who oversees the human services department's child protective services, said that since the law took effect in July, fewer than 50 cases of Iowa children born affect-' ed by illegal drugs have been report-1 ed only a fraction of the 500 sucty births estimated to occur during this period by medical officials. Architects to study building dorm at UNI TM RMMtr't ltw Ntwi Swvlct CEDAR FALLS, IA. The archk tectural firm of Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck of Des Moines is conducting a feasibility study on construction of a dormitory at the University of Northern Iowa. The Iowa board of Regents, selected the firm at a cost of $30,000. AND ORGANS TOO! W'tfiiyW' r- If a 1AFREEDLM0D I I 1 i 1 1 LARGEST IU THE MIDWEST All Leading Manufacturers Represented 11 i i 1 Des Moines Convention Center 501 Grand Ave.

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