St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 1

pin VOL. 119, NO. 243 Copyright 1997 SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 1997 (6) FINAL 5-STAR 50C ft) OraT IT--. 1 Ji.v, -1 htf- 1 t- ft AP The wreckage of the Mercedes sedan in which Princess Diana suffered fatal injuries and her companion and chauffeur died early Sunday. Loved By Millions, Hounded By The Harsh Glare Of Fame Auto Was Being Pursued By Photographers On Motorcycles Compiled From News Services PARIS Diana, Princess of Wales, died Sunday of injuries suffered in a car crash in which her companion, Egyptian millionaire Dodi Fayed, was killed.

Diana, 36, the ex-wife of the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, died at the Salpetriere hospital about four hours after the crash. Dr. Alain Pavie said she had died of cardiac arrest. Police had earlier described her injuries as including a concussion, a broken arm and a serious injury to her thigh. The crash occurred shortly after midnight in an expressway tunnel under the Place de l'Alma along the Seine River.

Fayed, 42, son of the billionaire Egyptian owner of London's famed Harrod's department store, had been linked romantically with the princess in recent weeks. A police spokesman said the accident happened while the princess's car was being pursued by freelance photographers on motorcycles. Police said five motorcyclists were detailed for questioning. The high-speed pursuit ended in a crash in the tunnel, trapping several people in a pileup. Police cars and vans with flashing lights filled the site outside the tunnel, and authorities blocked off the area.

The driver of the princess's car, a security officer at the Hotel Ritz owned by Fayed's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed was also killed in the crash, police said. The fourth person in the car, one of the princess's bodyguards, was injured and freed from the wreckage. Diana died on the eve of a conference in Oslo at which about 100 countries will try to agree on a treaty to ban anti-personnel land mines, a cause of Diana's, for which she traveled to war zone in Angola and Bosnia. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who is on an Asian tour, said in Manila that the accident would be "doubly tragic" if it did emerge that this accident was in part caused by the persistent hounding of the princess and her privacy by photographers." Tom Richardson of San Diego, interviewed by CNN, said the car in which Diana was traveling "looked like it hit the wall." He said that he and another man ran into the tunnel after the crash to see if they could help. He said he saw a photographer on the scene immediately af- I 1 Diana in December 1995 at a dinner in New York.

7 -i 1 AP years ago when he and Prince Charles played polo on opposing teams. Fayad's father was a friend of Princess Diana's father, the late Lord Spencer. AJ-Fayed was enroute to Paris from England, a spokesman said. In the first week of August, British newspapers speculated that Dodi and Diana were in love. On Aug.

10 a tabloid newspaper published blurred pictures of the couple kissing. On Aug. 21, Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed flew to the French Mediterranean resort of St. Tropez for their third holiday together in five weeks. Diana lashed out at the press last week.

"The press is ferocious," she said in an intereview with the French newspaper Le Monde. "It pardons nothing. It only hunts for mistakes. See DIANA, Page 9 Playboy Dodi Fayed: Quiet man with lavish lifestyle 9A Key dates in the life of Princess Diana 9A A. lIso killed in the crash were her companion, Egyptian millionaire Dodi Fayed, and a security guard.

ter the crash. Colm Pierce, a photographer for the British newspaper the Daily Mirror, said at the accident scene that the couple had eaten dinner at the Hotel Ritz in the Place Vendome in central Paris. They left through a back entrance to avoid the 30 or so photographers waiting for them in front, and abandoned their own car in favor of a Mercedes 600 apparently owned by the hotel. Fayed and Princess Diana's close friendship became clear to the outside world over the past five weeks, as the couple took a series of holidays together in the Mediterranean. Diana first met Fayed almost 10 Compiled From News Services LONDON Princess Diana, beautiful, famous and wealthy, won the admiration of millions but found simple happiness elusive.

Her death at 36 in a car crash in Paris brought to a tragic close the life of a woman who had gone from being a shy young society girl to one of the world's most glamorous women. Her marriage to Prince Charles, heir to the British throne and 12 years her senior, on July 29, 1981, was one of those events that people remember as a timepost in their own lives, a moment of old-fashioned romance and royal splendor seldom seen in this century. Fifteen million people in Britain joined millions around the world to watch the wedding on television. The unraveling of that marriage was just as public, with the extraordinary occurrence of candid television interviews by the two partners about their separate adulteries and the descent of the young princess into eating disorders and suicide attempts. Though the royal couple's marriage ended officially with their divorce a year ago Aug.

28, the rivalry See DEATH, Page 9 INDEX Philadelphia He was bright, Vermeil burned into doing football Shockingly, he late January, After spending flames, a supposedly coaching comeback Dome, when the against the New Vermeil is "This is our first we're all starting And the Saints AP Diana became Princess of Wales at her "fairy tale" wedding to Prince Charles in 1981. For Rams, 'It's Time To Stop Making Excuses' 0 emergency brake. When Hunt brought up the incident later, the woman couldn't remember it and asked: "What's a pedestrian?" A man in his mid-70s who suddenly stopped his car when he saw someone a half-block away cross Oakland Avenue near Tamm Avenue. Why did he stop so far away? "Because somebody was crossing the street," the man said. All three of the drivers had a mijd form of Alzheimer's disease.

"We stopped the test many times when we felt it was too dangerous to continue," said Hunt, an occupational therapist and one of the leaders of the See DRIVERS, Page 10 Eagles. young and dynamic, but the hyper up in his own energy. He then settled commentary on network television. accepted the Rams head coaching job in rejoining coaching's front line at age 60. 14 seasons safely away from the calmer Vermeil makes his official at noon Sunday inside the TWA Rams open the 1997 regular season Orleans Saints.

about to release 14 years of stored energy. game that counts," he said. "And to get edgy, myself included." will be introducing their own returning See RAMS, Page 8 By Bernie Miklasz Of the Poft-Dispatch Staff THE RAMS are the lost colony of pro football. They moved to St. Louis in the spring of 1995, and it's a wonder they got here at all, considering all the wrong turns they've made.

The Rams have won 13 of 32 games, and only eight of their last 25, since completing the most expensive franchise transfer in professional sports history. The Rams haven't had a winning season since 1989. The team escaped Los Angeles but couldn't outrun its problems. The St. Louis Rams have continued the woeful tradition They have fired a head coach, dumped a manager, juggled quarterbacks, wasted money, talent, bailed players out of jail.

It's been of comedy, chaos, crime. As Season Opens, Here's Hoping Vermeil Can Make A Difference The Rams have made enormous profits, playing before sold-out crowds in the $300 million Trans World Dome. The taxpayers have funded the team's 13 wins at a cost of about $23 million per victory. Can this business transaction be saved? The Rams and the New York Jets are tied for having the worst record (36-76) in the NFL during the 1990s. Is there a reason to believe that this year will be different? Enter Rams coach Dick Vermeil, who will lead his team into the most anticipated Rams' home game since their debut in St.

Louis on Sept. 10, 1995. Vermeil stunned the National Football League after the 1982 season, when he retired from coaching the 1 Waiting ion Alzheimer's Disease Poses Traffic Hazard Study Here Examines Impaired Older Drivers Airport Expansion Delays Put Bridgeton In Holding Pattern BERNIE MIKLASZ COMMENTARY WEATHER Chance Of Storms FORECAST Sunday Partly cloudy with a chance of storms. High 88. Chance of storms overnight.

Low 69. Monday Partly cloudy. High 89. Other Weather, 8B POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRO Rtq PT. OFF of losing.

general squandered two years ArtsEntertainment 3-4C Books 5C Business 1-8E Classified 1H Commentary 3B Everyday 1-14C Movie Timetable 13C NationWorld 3A Obituaries 12D St. Louis ID Sports 1-8F Travel Leisure 1-1 OT EDITORIAL PAGE By William Allen Post-Dispatch Science Writer Linda Hunt saw some disturbing things from the back seat of the test car during a Washington University study of older drivers: A woman, 75, who saw nothing wrong with making a left turn in front of oncoming traffic at the intersection of McCausland Avenue and Clayton Road. "They're supposed to stop," the woman told Hunt. Another woman, in her 70s, who was about to plow through an occupied pedestrian crosswalk on Belle-vue Avenlie, near St. Mary's Health Center, when the driving monitor in the passenger seat slammed on the Carrollton subdivisions.

But that plan still is just a plan. The Federal Aviation Administration has postponed for another couple of months the release of a study that will show how W-1W would affect the St. Louis area. Even if the plan gets agency approval, Bridgeton is among those vowing to stop the plan in court meaning the possibility of more waiting. In the middle of this uncertainty are the people who work, live and pray in Bridgeton.

Some want expansion. Some don't. See AIRPORT, Page 8 By Mei-Ling Hopgood Of the Post-Dispatch Staff ON HOLD. For years, residents, businesses and churches in Bridgeton have lived this way, waiting to find out what will happen to them if and when Lambert Field expands. The wait started in 1988 when Lambert officials pursued an expansion plan called F-4.

That plan died, and, today, a new expansion plan known as W-1W hovers near. That plan would put a new runway southwest of the current airfield, right through the Cambridge Crossing and The Sex Offender Down The Block Compromise? Shuttle The Thought 2B.