The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 17

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1988 The Palm Beach Post SECTION Local I Channel 12 demotes Bange as ratings plunge 'We're not blind. When you see a continuing downward trend, it's time to start making some changes and DONN COLEE, Channel 12 marketing director ivy A year. At 6 p.m. the station has lost 29 percent of its audience. By comparison, rival WTVX's share of the local news audience has climbed 57 percent at 5:30 p.m.

and 26 percent at 6 p.m. "We're no longer saying the (ratings) books are wrong, because they're obviously not. We're not blind. When you see a continuing downward trend, it's time to start making some changes and improvements," said Donn Colee, director of marketing and community relations for Channel 12. Bange said she has kept up with the ratings, so the reassignment wasn't totally unexpected.

Please see CHANNEL 124B By BOB MICHALS Palm Beach Post Staff Writer WEST PALM BEACH WPEC-Channel 12 news anchor Jacqueline Bange a surprise replacement for popular anchor Laurel Sauer eight months ago will be replaced on the station's evening newscasts beginning Monday by weekend anchor Chandra Bill, Channel 12 owner Alex W. Dreyfoos said Monday. The reassignment comes in the wake of a ratings tailspin that has seen Channel 12 lose nearly half its news viewership since Bange and co-anchor Steve Wolford took over for Reg Miller and Sauer on Jan. 11. Miller was fired in the shakeup and Sauer, who since has left the station, was reassigned to the noon news.

"We took some deserved heat from the changes we made in January and the perception was that perhaps those changes might have been made too hastily," Dreyfoos said. Bange, 26, will move to co-anchor of the noon newscasts with Gary Tuchman, in addition to reporting on the evening broadcast. Wolford, 30, will continue anchoring the 5:30, 6 and 11 p.m. weeknight newscasts with Bill, 30, who joined the station two years ago from Shreveport, La. "I fully understood why they did it and it isn't killing me to do the midday," Bange said.

"Most of all, I'm excited about getting back to reporting, which is something I've missed more than I thought." One of the factors that led to the replacement of Miller and Sauer was concern that in the preceding months, third-place WTVX-Channel 34 had been rapidly closing the ratings gap that separated it from No. 2 WPEC in the West Palm BeachFort Pierce television market. According to A.C. Nielsen, Channel 12's share of the local news audience at 5:30 p.m. has dropped 58 percent since this time last Jacqueline Bange will move to the noon newscasts.

Suspect's prints linked to truck in police killing i 'i X- 1 ni By MEG JAMES Palm Beach Post Staff Writer WEST PALM BEACH Fingerprints found on a silver Mazda pickup truck pulled from a canal last week belong to the man police say shot and killed a West Palm Beach motorcycle officer, law enforcement sources said Monday. West Palm Beach police say Norberto Pietri, 25, is the prime suspect in the Aug. 22 murder of officer Brian Chappell, 31, but they refuse to say what evidence they have linking him to the crime. "I cannot comment on this case until after charges are filed," Sgt. Mike Fulk, department spokesman, said Monday.

But sources said the prints from the truck matched those of Pietri. Chappell was shot through the heart after pulling over a silver Mazda pickup near Dixie Highway and Southern Boulevard. Pietri was arrested Wednesday after a three-hour police chase. Later that night, he was charged with escaping from the Lantana Community Correctional Center. No new charges were filed Monday.

West Palm Beach police have said they plan to charge Pietri with the murder this week. On Monday, divers searched the canal where the Mazda was found for the 9mm gun police say was used to kill Chappell. For nearly four hours, 11 divers from the West Palm Beach Police Department Even though the Mazda had been submerged for 30 hours, experts still were able to identify fingerprints by using a blend of glue and sodium peroxide and a laser. and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office sifted through 3 feet of silty sand, bottles and seaweed on the bottom of the 12-foot canal just west of Florida's Turnpike and north of Lantana Road, but did not find the weapon. The semi-automatic handgun was stolen from a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy's home in Riviera Beach early Aug.

22, police say. The Mazda was pulled out of the canal last Tuesday night. When the truck dried out, sheriff's fingerprint experts used a blend of glue and sodium peroxide and a laser to highlight any fingerprints left on the truck. Even though the Mazda had been submerged for more than 30 hours, investigators were able to identify fingerprints, sheriff's Capt. Bennie Green said Friday.

Green refused to say whether the prints matched those of Pietri. Pietri has been held without bail since Thursday in the Palm Beach County Jail. ins LOREN G. HOSACKStaff Photographer Nancy Varsallone and son John Louter look for his name tag on opening day at Delray's new Banyan Creek Elementary School. School bells ring for 97,000 in county State moves 21 inmates to calm Lantana's fears By VIOLA GIENGER Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Emerging from a quiet week of preparation, Palm Beach County schoolteachers and administrators were swamped Monday with about 97,000 students who made their way to the first day of classes.

At four brand new schools, students were funneled through shiny hallways, roomier cafeterias and newly decorated classrooms. They were Banyan Creek Elementary in Delray Beach, Canal Point Elementary, Wellington Landings Middle School and Paho-kee JuniorSenior High School. Elsewhere, students attended their first day in portable classrooms on older premises, awaiting construction of permanent buildings. A new elementary school in Wellington opened in portable classrooms that last year housed Wellington Landings Middle School, which has moved into permanent quarters next door. The middle school attracted more students than the 1,100 predicted, Principal Jo Reynolds Arts school popular 2B School expenses jump 2B mer to lessen the confusion.

The school district office that takes questions about school boundaries has been handling about 200 calls a day for the past week or so, said Howard Johnson, assistant director for facilities planning. Most of the calls were from parents trying to find out where their children were supposed to attend school. New schools and boundary changes added to the confusion, as in the case of several high schools in central and northern Palm Beach County. The new Palm Beach Lakes High, for example, opened on the old Twin Lakes High campus in downtown West Palm Beach. About 2,600 of the expected 3,000 students were in class with schedules by the second hour of classes, Principal Norman Shearin said.

Some of the rest won't arrive until after Labor Day. Please see STUDENTS4B "We're just trying to help defuse the situation. We're trying to cooperate and to do whatever is possible to resolve some of the fears of residents," Landress said. Tensions have been high in Lantana since July 25, when four inmates escaped from the Lantana Correctional Institution, near the work release center. Emotions peaked last week after reports revealed that Norberto Pietri, a suspect in the shooting death of West Palm Beach police officer Brian Chappell, had walked away from LCCC on Aug.

18. Please see INMATES4B By MARK JOSAITIS Palm Beach Post Staff Writer LANTANA Twenty-one convicts transferred last week from a work release center met guidelines for eligibility in the program but were moved to ease residents' fears, a state corrections official said Monday. Inmates with convictions for violent crimes, including armed robbery and second-degree murder, were relocated Friday from the Lantana Community Correctional Center to similar programs elsewhere in the state, said C. Dale Landress, regional director for the Department of Corrections. LANNIS WATERSStaff Photographer Lois Dziedzic, Wellington Landings PTA president, is surrounded by sixth-graders as she hands out schedules Monday morning.

said. With more than 1,200 youngsters showing up, the school district had to add three buses for future routes, she said. An official count of enrollment at all schools won't be taken until the 11th day after school starts. Many of the students had attended orientation sessions or open-house tours during the sum- Inside Local News Choosing your jail: Check salad har first Buying guns too easy, man says in suicide note mm, 'Irs Scary' Robert Edward Park, disfigured and depressed after a 1984 car wreck, wrote a 5-page letter to his Boca Raton family before he shot himself in a Georgia motel last week. The following Is an excerpt from that letter: 'I found out very recently how simple it is to buy a gun in Florida, it's actually scary.

No wonder the crime rate is so high. This may be an interesting case for gun control, although, I don't think it's a crime to take one's own life. And so I'll close. I want you to know I love you all very much. I hope you'll remember me kindly.

Please remember me with humor, my wits and my ability to laugh at my own shortcomings. Don't dwell on my tragedy. I know they were my own choice. I know you all cared for me. You cared even when I couldn't; for that I am grateful.

'Love, By CAROL MARBIN Palm Beach Post Staff Writer WEST PALM BEACH John Fornaby preferred jail food to the stale peanut butter sandwiches he says were served at a community drug treatment center. Fornaby, a 6-foot-l cocaine trafficker, weighed 265 pounds when he checked out of the center in April and into a federal jail in hopes of finding a better menu. At the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Miami, Fornaby found it: three square meals a day, with unlimited soup and salad bar, dessert and second helpings. But Monday, three months and 40 pounds later, Fornaby was ready to check out. He asked a federal magistrate to release him.

"We do have the weight of the evidence on our side," said Fornaby's attorney, Arthur Levine. "I see the weight of the evidence," replied U.S. Magistrate Ann Vitunac. Fornaby, 43, was charged March 1 with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. He was released on a personal recognizance bond, but placed in the treatment center after flunking two drug tests.

A few days later, he walked into the Palm Beach County Jail and asked officials to book him. Fornaby, who pleaded guilty July 6, was released on a $100,000 bond and ordered to stay at his sister's Boynton Beach home until sentencing. "Is she willing to have you?" Vitunac asked. "Yeah," Fornaby replied. "But she's not going to feed me." Babbitt said.

Park was critically injured in a 1984 car accident that left him severely disfigured. He lost his left ear and broke his jaw in eight places, Babbitt said. Reconstructive surgery helped, but Park was still chronically depressed, Babbitt said. He sent his family a letter by overnight mail Aug. 22 that covered five steno notebook pages and bore an Atlanta postmark, Babbitt said.

When they received it Aug. 23, family members called Atlanta police. But authorities didn't find Park until a maid walked into his Marietta motel room Thursday. In his letter, Park wrote that he was astonished to find it so easy to buy a gun in Florida. A state law passed last year eased restrictions on purchasing handguns and wiped out a Palm Beach County law that required applicants to submit to criminal background checks and wait seven to 14 days to buy guns.

Please see SUICIDE4B By ANGELA BRADBERY Palm Beach Post Staff Writer DELRAY BEACH For Robert Edward Park, buying a gun was so simple it was scary. "No wonder the crime rate is so high," Park wrote in a suicide note last week to his family. "This may be an interesting case for gun control." Park, 31, disappeared from his Boca Raton home Aug. 21. He was found Thursday, shot to death in a motel room in Marietta, after sending his Boca Raton family a five-page handwritten letter by overnight express.

"He wasn't a gun-type person," Timothy Babbitt, Park's brother-in-law, said Monday after a memorial service in Delray Beach. Park never previously owned a gun. Family members say they figure he bought the weapon several days before his death. A Pennsylvania native, Park waited tables at The Original Pancake House in Delray Beach and lived with his mother in Boca Raton. He "had a lot of problems," JOHN J.

LOPINOTStaff Photographer ROAD TO OPEN TEMPORARILY Lantana Road at the damaged turnpike overpass (above) will open in about 10 days, but will close again for more repairs. ELECTION '88 2B STREETWISE 3B AREA DEATHS, OBITUARIES 48.