The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 3

Itctptcr FrL, Jan. 13, 1984 3A ublic school Airman charged in Omaha-area slayings V. cf.fc Jan-limit 1" i -n fr-A- Tin -nil- i lit Composite sketch of i aspect said the car had been seen there before. The minister said the intruder didn't have a knife, although there were reports he had brandished one. "It was a short-lived thing, but she managed to push him away and she was alert enough to remember the license number, which she told me and which we phoned to the police," Kelly said.

Authorities said that Joubert had leased a car from a Sarpy County dealer. A spokesman for Beardmore Chevrolet in Belleuve said Joubert had left his 1977 tan Nova at the company two weeks ago for repairs. The spokesman said the car needed a new engine. Sergeant "Shocked" The arrest of Joubert, who is unmarried and lived on the base, was greeted mostly with disbelief. Master Sgt Clarence Dalrymple, his supervisor, said he was "shocked." "He seemed like any other guy around here.

He was just normal and easy to get along with. He didn't have any troubles," he said. Herb Hawkins, agent in charge of the Nebraska-Iowa FBI office in Omaha, said a sketch authorities had circulated closely resembled Joubert, but Dalrymple said there was "no resemblance." Former classmates of Joubert at the Cheverus school described him as "quiet and a loner" to the Portland Press Herald. A spokesman for the Portland, Maine, Police Department said there was no record of Joubert being arrested there. Joubert was a Boy Scout leader, Bob Fee, a Scout executive with the Mid-America Council of the Boy Scouts of America, confirmed.

"People like him and liked working with him," Fee said. He said that neither Eberle nor Walden belonged to Troop 499 in Bellevue, of which Joubert was an assistant scoutmaster. Sarpy County Attorney Kelly, upon seeing Joubert for the first time, said, "He looked like he could be anybody's kid." John J. Joubert Described as "a loner" private investigators hired by Gosch's parents, John and Noreen Gosch, not a shred of information has surfaced that would indicate what happened to the youngster. Chuck Wood, an agent for the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, who has participated in the search for Gosch, said Thursday "it's too premature" to link the cases if there is a link.

"Everything will have to be checked out, including the whereabouts of Joubert when Johnny disappeared," Wood said. Not in Midwest Early information about Joubert, however, indicates he wasn't in the Midwest when Gosch vanished. According to an Offutt Air Force Base spokesman, Joubert, a radar maintenance worker assigned to the 55th Reconnaissance Wing, arrived at the base July 15, 1983, some 10 months after Gosch disappeared. Joubert entered the Air Force Dec. 6, 1982, in his hometown of Portland, Maine.

He went for basic training in Texas, then got advanced training at Keesler Air Force Base at Biloxi, Miss. He has been working the 11:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. shift at Offutt He was graduated in 1981 from Cheverus High School, a Catholic Lawyer says 'outrageous environment5 oateh: 10UA Buggy ovtrturns; woman in hospital BLOOMFIELD, IA. (AP) Amanda Eash, 55, of rural Bloomfield was in satisfactory condition Thursday at the Davis County Hospital after the buggy she was driving overturned on a county road Wednesday.

Sheriffs deputies said something apparently spooked the horse, causing the northbound buggy to overturn. The woman was found lying along the roadside by a passing motorist who took her to the hospital for treatment of head injuries and broken ribs. Rural Mason City man arrested on drug charges MASON CITY, IA. (AP) Danny William Krauth, 34, of rural Mason City was arrested by state and federal agents Wednesday on state charges of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. Five agents arrived at the Krauth residence with a search warrant, and they said they found cocaine, $4,000 in currency and pure silver coins with a total face value of $410 in a metal outbuilding.

Investigators said Krauth probably paid about $25,000 for the cocaine. Officials said the silver coins were worth an estimated $20,000, but they said they did not know any connection between the coins and drugs seized. An Internal Revenue Service special agent said Krauth has been the subject of a Federal Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force investigation for a year. Officials from the Drug Enforcement Agency, IRS, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and Cerro Gordo County Sheriff's Department participated in the arrest Krauth was being held in the Cerro Gordo County jail under $5,500 bond Wednesday. He faces a possible prison term of 10 years and fine of up to $5,000 if convicted on the charge.

$15,000 in furs stolen; 2 Ruthven men arrested Tin RmMh'i tow Nawt Sarvtc EMMETSBURG, IA. Two Ruthven men have been arrested in connection with the theft of $15,000 worth of furs. A spokesmen for the Palo Alto County Sheriffs Department identified the men as John A. Christoffer, 26, and Nicholas P. Kunz, 28.

The men were arrested in Madison, and are being held in the Dane County jail there. The two men are charged with second-degree theft in connection with the disappearance of raccoon and fox furs from the Dean Scott farm. The thefts occurred on Dec. 16 and Jan. 7.

Authorities said between 270 and 290 pelts were stolen. The two men were being held in Madison on possession of stolen prop erty charges. The Palo Alto County Sheriffs Department is arranging for the extradition of Christoffer and Kunz. Their bond has been set at $20,000 each. University of Dubuque given $500,000 Tlw Rwittor't tow totw Sarvtc DUBUQUE, IA.

The University of Dubuque has received $500,000 from a member of the school's board of directors. The gift from Elizabeth Corbett of Evanston, 111., will be used to endow the Edward Blair Lindsay chaplain's post on the campus. Corbett estab lished the post in 1980 in the memory of her late husband. UI1I president to hoad study By JONATHAN ROOS RMr Stoll Wrltor A task force formed by the State Rnard of Public Instruction to study Iowa's system of teacher training and i-tux'v uicusiiiK mil in "fM chaired by Cons tan tine Curris, presi 1 dent of theUniversi- mT ty of Northern Iowa. The IB-member fcff 1 fW-.

3 committee is expec- ted to hold its first meeting in early February and make recommendations to the state board by Sent. 1. said State CONSTANTINE CURRB Superintendent for Public Instruction Robert Benton in a report to the board Thnnvtav. The panel is expected to examine such issues as teacher competency testing, lengthening teacher preparation programs and changing the kinds nf teaching certificates granted. Legislative and education leaders examining ways to improve schools have indicated that teacher training and licensing are areas in which changes likely will be made.

Phoebe Tapper, president of the in state Education Association, will co-chair the committee, Benton told the state board. Other members include teachers, school administrators, college officials and citizens out side the teaching profession. school for boys with an enrollment of about 400, in Portland. School officials declined to discuss him. Authorities said Joubert was a student at Norwich University in Northf ield, Vt, a military school.

But a spokesman there said she had no record of his attendance. Police were led to Joubert by a series of events that Sarpy County Attorney Patrick Kelly described as "leading from one thing to another." The events began 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. School Intruder A woman, in her mid-30s, was opening the Aldersgate Pre-SchooL where she is an instructor, when a man pushed her into the building. The school is some 10 blocks from Christopher Walden's home The Rev, David Kelly, pastor of Aldersgate United Methodist Church, said the woman fought off the intruder, mentally noted the license number of the car the man was driving, and ran to the parsonage a block away for help.

"She was frightened, but she is a courageous lady," Kelly said, adding that she is very perceptive. Kelly said the woman, whom authorities declined to identify, noticed that the car had been circling the school, which is in the church. Kelly Eaton left Neal Berlin, Assistant City Manager Dale Helling and Fire Chief Robert Keating said the defendants "dis-, pute these claims fervently" and forwarded a simple defense. "We didn't do it," Hayek said. "We didn't discriminate against Linda Eaton.

We didn't mistreat her." Oleson opened what is expected to be a lengthy trial by alleging that the city subjected Eaton to work conditions she "would not have suffered if she were a man," and made unreasonable attempts to solve disputes between Eaton and other firefighters arising from several incidents. Though Oleson did not detail those disputes, Hayek listed five incidents between February and May 1980. Some were relatively minor: salt put in Eaton's orange juice, her picture defaced on a bulletin board, and an argument over use of a ping-pong table. But in a scuffle with another firefighter over which TV channel to watch, Eaton was "pushed or knocked to the floor," Hayek said. Hayek said the most serious incident happened two weeks before Eaton left the department Someone cut the middle fingers from a pair of rubber safety gloves Eaton used to clean up after fire calls, an act the city took "very seriously." Since Eaton quit while the city was "actively investigating" the glove incident, her resignation was "the result of her own wishes, apparently, not to be on the fire department She freely and Voluntarily resigned," Hayek told District Judge Ansel Chapman.

Thus the damages she claims are products of her own decision to resign, not of the actions of the city and these defendants." Lawyer David Brown, representing the city, said the city would rely on the same evidence that Hayek described. "We look forward to having our story told," he said. enrollment still dropping By JONATHAN ROOS The number of students attending Iowa's public schools has slipped under a half million this school year, according to state Department of Public Instruction figures released Thursday, with no end in sight to the decline. DPI analyst Leland Tack said the enrollment slide that began 13 years ago as children of the postwar baby boom aged apparently will continue into the 1990s because of low birth rates and the migration of young Iowa families to other states. Tack expects the pace of the decline to accelerate in 1987-88.

If the forecast holds, small schools will feel increasing pressure to merge with their neighbors, and large districts may be faced with closing still more build ings. Public school enrollment in Iowa peaked during the 1969-70 school year at about 660,000. About 497,000 public school stu dents were enrolled last fall in kinder garten through grade 12 a drop of nearly 8,000, or 1 percent, from a year earlier. Officials in Iowa's 439 school districts counted about 39,000 kindergarten students, which was 1,100 fewer than the DPI had estimated. Tack said the actual number may have been lower because families with young children were moving from the state.

At the opposite end of the grade spectrum, nearly 39,000 high school seniors were counted 1,000 more than projected. That may reflect a decline in the dropout rate as students chose to continue their schooling rather than looking for scarce recession-era jobs, Tack said. Public school enrollments fell in every grade except the first, third, eighth and ninth. Enrollments ranged from 32,742 in fifth grade to 39,940 in ninth. Approximately 50,000 pupils are attending the state's private schools a figure that also is slightly lower than last year.

However, not all private schools submit enrollment information to the DPL Private school enrollment also is expected to decline for the next several years. But changing birth rates and economic conditions often force revision of enrollment projections. Four years ago, DPI officials were projecting that public school enrollment would level off in 1984 at about 500,000. Mom says boy not in school is persecuted By MARK HORSTMEYER Knitter Stall WrHw A rural Bloomfield woman who has been charged with failing to send her son to school said Thursday she has kept the boy home because of religious persecution. Elaine Roulet said in a letter to Davis DES MOINES Bloomfield County Magistrate Rex Steinkruger that she is a born-again Christian and that school officials have been harassing her and her son, Brent, for her religious beliefs for years.

She also said that she keeps Brent home because he suffers from allergies. Roulet has been charged with failure to require her son to attend school, a simple misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail and a $100 fine. Superintendent Edward Hutchcroft and Principal Roger Wyese Thursday denied Roulet's charge of persecution. In fact they said, in the talks school officials have had with her she has never complained about religious persecution. Hutchcroft said Roulet sent him a letter saying that she was keeping the boy out of school because of his allergies.

"She wouldn't give us any doctor's excuse. In fact we had a doctor say he was able to go to school" Attempts to reach Roulet by telephone for comment Thursday night were not successful Roulet did not appear at a court hearing Thursday when school officials testified Brent has attended only 45 of the 87 days of school this year. Hutchcroft said the boy missed 29 days last year. Steinkruger said Roulet has been subpoenaed to appear in court next Thursday. "My motive is to bring this to a head and get the boy in school," he said.

Roulet's letter was delivered to Steinkruger by her husband, Dwight. In the letter, Roulet also said that her son did not want to go to school because school staff members had harassed him and children made fun of him. Dwight Roulet said during the hearing that when be talks his son into going to school his wife talks the boy out of it according to Steinkruger. Superintendent Hutchcroft said the youngster is a good student but has fallen behind his fifth-grade classmates because of his absences. School officials testified that the boy has been teased by classmates for missing so much school, according to Steinkruger.

By FRANK SANTIAGO A 20-year-old Of utt Air Force Base airman, described by some who know him as "just like any other guy," was charged Thursday with the vicious killings of two Omaha-area youngsters last year. John J. Joubert, slight and soft-spo ken and wearing a bright orange prisoner's jump suit, was whisked under heavy guard into a packed Sarpy County courtroom in Papillion, for arraignment on two counts of first-degree murder and related charges. Looking small among the sheriff deputies who towered over him, the 5-f oot 6-inch, 135-pound airman and Boy Scout leader listened to the charges read by County Judge Jeffrey Campbell He didn't enter r. plea but wasn't required to make such statements at the arraignment Campbell ordered him held on a $10 million bond, the largest in memo ry in Sarpy County.

It would require a minimum of $1 million cash for him to be released from jaiL Sarpy County Sheriff Pat Thomas, who led the investigation, declined to say whether suspected murder weapons had been recovered or whether Joubert made a statement But Thomas said he was "confident" about the case against the airman. Gosch Case The arrest of Joubert, following one of the biggest manhunts in recent Nebraska and western Iowa history, didn't encourage Investigators about a link to the mysterious disappearance of West Des Moines newspaper carrier Johnny Gosch on Sept 5, 1982. Authorities suspected a connection because of apparent similarities. Danny Joe Eberle, 13, disappeared while delivering the Sunday Omaha World-Herald in Bellevue. His body, which had been stabbed several times, was found Sept.

21. The body of Christopher Walden, 12, also stabbed several times, was found Dec. 5, three days after he vanished while on his way to school in Sarpy County and near Bellevue. Gosch, who had set out on his route to deliver the Des Moines Sunday Register, vanished without a trace some two blocks from his home. Despite a massive search by authorities and by Gossip 'hard' on Wood family Continued from Page One Bowl trip, Wood sold 38 pigs for $4,300 under his wife Anne's name at a Rutland livestock center.

He also made arrangements with his brother Duane to have the remaining pigs fed and watered, but made no similar arrangements for the cattle. Authorities believe some of the cattle may have been dead since Thanksgiving, and others perished in the severe December cold. Robert Chris tensen, station manager at KHBT-FM in Humboldt and one of a few people to make telephone contact with the Wood family Thursday, said Anne Wood told him her husband would consider explaining his reasons for refusing to feed the cattle after contacting an attorney. Christensen said Anne Wood told him the explanation would cast a different light on the story, but she failed to elaborate. Mrs.

Wood said she and her husband had not been aware of the controversy that had arisen in their absence. Mrs. Wood also said the controversy has been hard on daughter Cathy, a freshman basketball player at Bode-Twin Rivers High School. She stayed behind while her parents and siblings were on vacation. Cathy, who among other things heard rumors that her parents and brothers and sisters were found shot in Florida, did not suit up for Tuesday night's basketball game.

That gossip and public sentiment has been hard on the Wood family is not under dispute. County Attorney Lee said he has received at least a half dozen angry letters, and more phone calls, about what action the prosecutor should take against Wood. And to add to the ire, the Humboldt County Board of Health voted Tuesday night to have county taxpayers pay for removing the cattle carcasses from the Wood farm. At last count, 167 carcasses have been located, with the' potential for more under deep snow drifts near farm buildings. Wood "Under Pressure" Wood, whose livestock, crops and machinery were under liens filed by lenders, was under a lot of pressure to pay his bills, his brother Duane has said.

In fact, when one Fort Dodge bank learned Wood had sold the pigs at Rutland on Dec 26 before leaving on the trip, it tried unsuccessfully to stop payment on the check. On Thursday, officers at the First American State Bank in Fort Dodge refused to comment about whether they've tried to contact Wood since his return to Iowa, or whether they plan to file civil action in district court At the Wood farm, five miles north of Humboldt a hastily-erected gate blocks entrance to the property, giving notice the Humboldt County sheriff has ordered no trespassing on the premises. But while there was plenty of speculation in Humboldt as to why the cattle were allowed to die, no one from within the Wood house was providing any answers to the peculiar case, at least not yet Caucus flap in District Court By MELINDA VOSS Rtsflf SMI WftMr A squabble among leaders of the Iowa Democratic Party over the date for the 1984 Iowa caucuses moved to U.S. District Court Thursday. The suit was filed by three party leaders against state Chairman David Nagle and the Democratic State Central Committee, asking that the cau cuses be held Feb.

27. In November, the committee voted 20-10 to set the date for Feb. 20, a move that national party leaders say violates party rules. The issue affects whether Iowa will keep its first-in-the-nation caucus sta tus. But national party leaders have said if Iowa holds the caucuses early, the state's delegates to the national convention will not be seated.

Speaking for the plaintiffs, James Thorn told U.S. District Judge Donald O'Brien that the state central committee based its action on a state law that is unconstitutional. The suit was brought by United Auto Workers regional director Charles Gifford, former state Democratic Chairman Edward Campbell and Jean Haugland, a member of the Democratic National Committee. Responding for Nagle and the party, Frank Becker, a Dubuque attorney, said, "The defendants' position is that this whole matter is a fight within the Democratic Party and has no business being in federal court. If the court does what is asked, the court will be infringing on the constitutional rights of the party and all the Democrats in Iowa." Before hearing the arguments and testimony, which is expected to continue into Saturday, O'Brien, who is from Sioux City and once was active in state Democratic politics, asked the parties if they had any objections to having him hear the case.

"I have no preconceived ideas. There's no one who owes me anything. I know most of the people (involved in the case). Who I've known the longest is Frank Becker. But I know people on the other side," he said.

on the farm all their lives and were reclusive people. The home was without heat, electricity and running water, but there was food, Griggs said. He did not believe they had money problems. Cole said the home was lighted by gasoline and kerosene lamps. "It looked like it had been that way for ages," he said.

"It's sort of hard to think that thing can happen this close to home" Griggs said several people had stopped at the farm home, but Liska "wouldn't let them on the place. He would drive them off." The sheriff said there were no relatives living near the Liskai He said he plans to interview neighbors. "I guess It's kind of a long story we haven't finished writing yet," he said. By TOM HANSEN IOWA CITY, IA. Linda Eaton left an "outrageous environment" when she quit her job as a firefighter here in May 1980 because of discrimination by male co-workers and city officials, Eaton's attorney said Thursday in Johnson County District Court.

Eaton, 31, testified that when she took the job in August 1977 as Iowa City's first woman firefighter, she did the minor extra tasks expected of a fire department "rookie" as an "opportunity to show that being a rookie didn't bother me." Eaton won an earlier legal battle with the city over her right to breast-feed her infant son during breaks in a 24-hour work shift In this suit, she seeks an unstated amount of back pay and lost future wages, plus recovery for emotional distress and exemplary damages for the city's actions, according to Clara Oleson, Eaton's attorney. In opening statements Thursday, Oleson said Eaton was subjected to a "general pattern of ill treatment" by other firefighters "for two factors that should not have been significant because she is a woman and because she filed a civil rights complaint" When Eaton quit the firef ighting job in May 1980 after 2Vi years with the city, she did not voluntarily resign, but had been "constructively discharged" by the city's inefficient attempts to end discrimination against Eaton, Oleson said. John Hayek, representing three city officials, estimated Eaton's claim at more than $940,000, while Oleson told the eight-member jury that the amounts sought would be revealed in later testimony. Hayek defending City Manager Woman dead By KEN FUSON The body of a 77-year-old Webster County woman who lived with her brother in an unheated home near 1 Callender was dis- Cttondr V. covered Thursday about seven weeks des moines alter sne naa aieo.

authorities said. Rose Liska had been dead since Nov. 21, said Dr. Daniel Cole, the Webster County medical examiner. Cole said Uska apparently died of natural causes and there was "nothing suspicious." Cole said the woman was found in an upstairs hallway at the home, located about two miles northwest of Callender.

Webster County Sheriff Charles Griggs said he and a deputy dlscov-, i I 1 UNOA BATON 7 weeks in brother's home ered the body Thursday morning when they went to the home to serve civil papers. Griggs said he asked the woman's brother, Albert Liska, 72, if he had seen his sister. "He just said he hadn't seen her for a while," Griggs said. "He said, 'She just The sheriff said Albert Liska was taken to Trinity Regional Hospital in Fort Dodge for a medical and psychiatric examination. Hospital workers would not give his condition.

"He wasnt feeling well," Griggs said. Cole and Griggs said Liska did not seem to know his sister had died. "It's really a sad case," Cole said. Tm not sure if he really understood. He was about half In touch and half out of touch with what was going on." The sheriff said the Ltskas had lived.