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

I Sl-D EPk luin VOL. 113, NO. 265 Copyright 1991 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1991 (6) FINAL 5-STAR Sa A k-v IVY- a lit- 7 'Fight's (Dyer Freed From Prison, Patricia Stallings Tries To Start Life Again By Virgil Tipton Of the Post-Dispatch Staff Patricia Stallings blinked, took a breath and held back tears for a few more seconds. "I've talked to psychiatrists about It, and I don't fully accept the fact that Ryan's gone," Stallings said, her expressive hands, still for once, resting In her lap. "I really still don't.

"I can go to his gravesite, and it's a piece of ground." On Saturday, a day after she was cleared in the death two years ago of her 5-month-old son, Ryan, Stallings said in an interview that she had never had a chance to grieve for her son. She couldn't because she was behind bars when he died. "I've not concentrated on that a lot because I knew that would break my strength, and I needed what little bit of strength I had left to make it through this," Stallings said, and the tears finally came. "Maybe now I can start accepting this, now that the big fight's over." On Friday, Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney George B. McElroy said he was dismissing all charges against Stallings, 26, of Hillsboro.

She had been charged in the death of Ryan in 1989. Police and prosecutors had charged that Stallings had poisoned her son with antifreeze. She was convicted Jan. 1 of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. In all, she had spent 14 months in jail.

McElroy said Friday that experts had convinced him that Ryan's death was caused by a genetic disorder. The See STALLINGS, Page 8 Federal Military Leaders Give No Public Response To 2 Appeals For Truce Compiled From News Services ZAGREB, Yugoslavia The Yugoslav armed forces launched the civil war's broadest and harshest assault against Croatia on Saturday. Yugoslav army tanks battered Croatia's easternmost garrisons with shell fire, and warplanes struck its Adriatic coastline. Croatian officials appealed twice to federal military leaders in Belgrade for a truce, but there was no public response, suggesting that federal authorities seemed bent on expanding territorial control in a weakened Croatia. By midevening Saturday, scattered gunfire rippled through the suburbs of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, with sol- Li An lllini Romp: Illinois' Steve Feagin on the loose against Houston.

lllini Roll; Missouri Is Beaten Illinois rolls to a 51-10 victory over Houston while Missouri bows to Baylor 47-21. diers at two besieged army barracks apparently firing fugoslavia's Yugoslavia's i it i I TTcf armed forces apparently have decided that this is the moment for a major push on several fronts. heavy machine guns. The shooting stopped after 40 minutes. After a week of humiliating Croatian blockades of federal army barracks in the secessionist-minded republic, the Yugoslav armed forces appar-.

ently decided that this was the moment for a major push on Wendi BrownPost-Dispatch Patricia and David Stallings taking a break Saturday at St. Louis Children's Hospital, where they were visiting their son, David. IE McDonnell Layoffs Still Being Felt Fifty-five percent of the company's laid-off workers had not found full-time jobs by'July. IF i i i If i i i 1 I Neither Judgment Nor Character (editorial) Rep. Gephardt's New Trade Policies (EDITORIAL) 2C 11 -V'l I rv uW V'tVV on COLLEGE FOOTBALL Illinois 51 Houston 10 Baylor 47 Missouri 21 Washington 36 Nebraska 21 Notre Dame 49 Michigan St.

.10 Oklahoma 55 Utah St 21 Colorado 58 Minnesota 0 Syracuse 38 Florida 21 Tennessee ..26 Miss. St 24 Clemson 37 Temple 7 Wisconsin 7 Iowa St 6 Oklahoma St. 24 TCU 21 NHL Blues 4 Chicago 3 NL New York 5 Cardinals 3 Pittsburgh 7 Philadelphia. .0 Cincinnati 4 Houston 1 At Boston 12 New York 1 Cleveland 10 Baltimore 1 Milwaukee 5 Detroit 2 California 4 Chicago 3 Minnesota 8 Texas 4 Oakland 4 Toronto 0 several fronts. Witnesses along the Adriatic coast said warplanes and artillery had pounded the towns of Sibenik and Split.

A frantic radio broadcast from Radio Split to the outside world said: "We are without water and any lights. Our ports, roads, airports are closed off. Call your ministries. Stop the war in Croatia!" The Tanjug news agency said federal troops trying to take Sibenik were backed by warplanes, artillery and 1,300 Serbian volunteers. "There is still fighting all along the front from Novigrad to Sibenik, but it has been fiercest in the town and around it," Tanjug said.

Since Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia on June 25, the army and Serb militants who live in Croatia have engaged Croatian forces in bitter clashes. There were no casualty reports from the fighting on Saturday, but more than 500 people have been killed in the battles since Croatia announced its independence. There were reports Saturday from witnesses that the See FIGHTING, Page 12 Cable Chief In County Forced Out Audit Assailed Militello On Work, Procedures By Virgil Tipton Of the Post-Dispatch Staff 1991, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Leo Militello, the longtime chief of cable TV operations for St. Louis County, has lost his job after an audit blasted a commission he directed for buying almost $1 million worth of equipment and services last year without bids.

The audit also said Militello apparently had few if any other significant responsibilities. "Clearly, our investigation showed that he wasn't working," Larry Mooney, executive assistant to St. Louis County Executive George R. "Buzz" Westfall, said Friday. "There was nothing that county government was going to gain by his continued employment." Militello was laid off in July as a result of the audit, said Richard Daley, the acting director of public works.

Payroll records say that Militello later took early retirement. He had spent 10 years in the position. Militello disputed the contention that he did little work. "They really didn't investigate what I did and what I didn't do," Militello said. "I ran cable lock, stock and barrel and I had plenty to do." Militello said Friday that he had yet to see the audit, despite repeated requests to county officials.

County Auditor Jolene Lampton conducted the audit in May at Westfall's request. County officials kept the audit out of public view until Thursday, when County Counselor John Ross agreed to release the document to a reporter. Mooney said the audit turned up no evidence of anything illegal. "I think it's a case of non-feasance," Mooney said. Militello would not be replaced, Mooney said.

The audit focuses on Militello's job and on the county's Cable Television Public Education Commission. The commission, whose members are appointed by the county executive, distributes money to encourage educa- See CABLE, Page 8 Wendi BrownPost-Dispatch Dietrich Smith makes contacts with gang members by getting out in the streets in his wheelchair. Here he is at Maffitt and Taylor streets. He says his wheelchair has been an icebreaker in tough neighborhoods. Details In Sports, Section Scholar Seeks Out Answers On Tough Streets ArtsEntertainment 35H Automotive 5Q Books I II i uci as pai i oi a lcucr-V II I ally funded project.

ll 1 Young men who claim 1-8F Business Classified 2-68H 3C Commentary 2C Editorials allegiance to the Crips, Bloods and other gangs that have turned large tracts of St. Louis into war zones call him "Street Daddy." Everyday 1-14Q 8Q Movie Timetable yjj News Analysis 7B Obituaries By Peter Hernon Of the Poet-Dispatch Staff 1991, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Dietrich Smith was 8 years old when a rapist grabbed his mother from the shadows as she walked to the bus stop. Fortunately, she was wearing what she liked to call her "old faithful" girdle and carrying a straight razor. Her attacker was unable to rip off the tight girdle, and in the struggle, Helen Marie Smith pulled out her razor and slashed him across the throat.

Her assailant ran off, trailing blood down the street. For years, Dietrich Smith has studied throats. "Every man I look at today who's got a line on his neck, I wonder, 'Is this the Now 35, Smith's job is to find gang mem- scarred. He counted out 11 wounds. The last bullet, the one that shattered his spine at belt level, paralyzed him from the waist down.

Nearly a decade later armed with a cellular telephone, a stack of business cards and a talent for rapping with strangers he warily drives the worst streets of St. Louis. Smith has pulled to the curb and climbed into his wheelchair in neighborhoods where the joke is that babies are taught to run before they crawl. For more than a year he has been the point man for a team from the University of Missouri at St. Louis that is making a three-year study of gang activity in the metropolitan area.

The project is funded by a $296,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. See GANGS, Page 7 1H Real Estate 2B Reviews 1-8B St Louis 1-16E Sports 1-8S Style Plus Wise to the street ever since his mother was attacked, Smith almost died there. He was riddled with gunfire in 1982 as he sat in a car at a drive-in bank downtown. The attack was in revenge for court testimony he had given in another shooting.

Lifting his shirt, he pointed to the putty-colored scars neatly bunched under his right arm. His chest and back are also 1-8T Travel 10A BIRTHDAY GAME Scattered Storms Members Of Clay's Staff Are Getting Top Salaries The Good Life U.S. Standard of Living Ranked Best GfWHTl FORECAST: Sunday: Partly cloudy, scattered storms. High 75. Wind southwest at 12-22 mph.

Scattered showers Sunday night. Low 52. Monday: Cloudy, cooler. High 70. Other weather, 2A i i -Is: -3- By Robert L.

Koenig Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau WASHINGTON After John F. Bass left the Missouri Senate in June, William L. Clay then a state representative, moved into Bass' old Senate seat and Bass moved into a six-figure salary in Washington. House payroll records show that Bass is being paid $101,331 a year as staff director of a subcommittee headed by Clay's father, Rep. William L.

Clay D-Mo. Bass, 64, directs a staff of four people in a job whose previous occupant earned $67,000 last year. Clay Sr. acknowledges that Bass is making more than the staff post paid last year. "But the salary caps went up this That quality-of-life index was derived from responses to Roper and Gallup polls done in 1988 and 1990 on what mattered most to Americans.

Money magazine noted that the data didn't reflect the reunification of Germany. The United States ranked eighth in health care and was the only one of the 16 countries that doesn't provide nationalized health care from cradle to grave. Americans also get the least amount of vacation of any of the 16 nations, the survey said. But Americans top the list for car ownership and send more children to college than any other country except. Canada.

NEW YORK (AP) U.S. residents still enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, Money magazine says. The magazine ranked the United States first among the world's 16 wealthiest nations. The United States was followed by Australia, Canada, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Japan, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Britain and Spain. The countries were ranked on the basis of health care, job opportunities, home ownership, income and purchasing power, access to a college education, leisure time, car ownership, personal safety and luxuries.

year," Clay said in an interview last week. "That's what staff directors make now." Meanwhile, payroll documents show that two other longtime associates of Clay from St. Louis also have joined the growing "six-figure club" of House staffers on Capitol Hill: Doris Moore-Glenn is being paid $108,837 a year as deputy staff director of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee. Moore-Glenn joined the staff after Clay became chairman of that panel this year. Last year, the committee's deputy staff director was paid $90,804.

Moore-Glenn was an instructional coordinator for the St. Louis public See CLAY, Page 10 POST DISPATCH WEATHFHBIRD 0 lillfjlill 3 I William L. Clay Sr. St. Louis representative I 1-.