The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 26

D6 The Pittsburgh Press Friday. June 5. 1987j METRO NEWS Disaster drill monitor compliments city on response1 the leak had to be done from the river. The city chose South Side Park as its base of operations and borrowed an LTV towboat to bring rescue workers and the hazardous materials staff to the accident scene. Three "survivors" with sulfuric acid burns were transported to hospitals to test emergency room procedures.

As the leak was plugged, a fake bomb "exploded" in a vacant waterfront building and a box resembling another bomb was found close to "dangerous chemicals," causing officials to consider whether an evacuation was necessary. similar program." Miklaucic said training is expensive 11,000 a week for each trainee in a hazardous materials program but said he has applied for federal money and hopes to begin training hazardous materials teams in Allegheny and surrounding counties in the fall. Next year, he hopes to have a similar drill outside the city to test the reactions of the county forces. The Public Safety Department knew there would be a drill yesterday, but not where. The call was placed through the city's 911 system at 9 a.m., and firefighters quickly decided both the rescue and sealing in an hour and 45 minutes, that's a doggone good response." Two men "died" and three were "burned" in an explosion on the barge.

Had the same drill been held outside the city, Miklaucic said he doubted the county could have handled it as well. "The county has some new equipment but has not done a lot of training," Miklaucic said. "It's a difficult problem. "County forces depend on a lot of help and don't have a lot of money. Five years ago, the city began bringing its personnel up to speed, and it has made tremendous progress.

Now the county needs a a ruptured pipe and onto the barge's access ladder. Cmdr. Gene A. Miklaucic, commanding officer of the Coast Guard station here, helped set up the drill His job was to monitor the city's response and decide whether federal forces were needed to help the "I didn't come close to calling in any other forces," Miklaucic said. "I determined the city bad the capability, equipment and training to handle it.

"If it had been a real disaster, their 'hazmat' (hazardous materials) team could have done the job. There were some small procedures that were wrong, but to complete the drill By Dan Donovan The Pittsburgh Press The city "survived" a disaster on the Monongahela River, but federal officials are not so sure the county would have. The U.S. Coast Guard set up a knotty series of problems for the city's public safety forces to solve yesterday in a mock spill of sulfuric acid on a barge being unloaded at the Hazelwood LTV plant on the Mon. The city had to transport firefighters, police and paramedics by boat to handle the mock disaster.

Shoreside rescue was impossible because sulfuric acid "sprayed" out of The Coast Guard used a new computerized device called CAMEO Computer Aided Management of I Emergency Operations to the disaster. If yesterday's drill had been a real1 disaster, the river water supply5 would have been cut off and fish would have been killed for 1W miles downstream, nearly to Point State Park. But there would have been little' air pollution and no evacuation. 1 The drill was witnessed by some" early arrivals to this weekend's Na-0 tional Fire and Burn Education ference at the David L. Convention Center.

3q Cashman Jrom page Bl rlJ one ear." Eskridge's police reports said Burns had blue eyes. The psychic drew him with brown. 6 The sheriff's department publicized the picture. Ii And a brown-eyed Wilford Paul Cashman, living as Steven Vance, his hearing failing, lived on undisturbed io2 his secret life. ni ul When Ramona Cashman married Wilford Cashman's.

son 12 years ago, she was amazed to find her father-ims law living atop a mountain. Her husband, Wilford had been raised by his grandfather after Wilford Sr. went to prison. Ramona and her husband reside in Buffalo, Y. When Wilford returned to Mill Run as Steven Vance, the son reestablished the relationship, and Ramona would go along for visits where she heard her father-in-law talk at length about the Bible.

"We would have discussions for hours on the This was a man who knew the Bible inside and out. He's just one of the greatest people on earth," Ramona saidj The neighbors could rarely escape Wilford Cashman's evangelizing. He would ride his bicycle down the mountain and visit) relatives, often stopping at the home of Dan and Naomi) Haines, where the subject was God and man's inability to, understand His will. On the Thursday before Memorial Day, Cashman. stopped to chat with Dan Haines.

"He'd talk about man trying to change things. He'd say man can't do it. He said, 'God's the only one that will, have to change Haines recalled. ty Cashman had a favorite biblical figure Saul oj Tarsus, the brutal tax collector struck by the power of God and transformed. On Memorial Day, Ramona and her husband traveled Larry FieldJohnstown Tribune-Democrat Secluded hillside cabin in Mill Run, near Altoona, where Cashman lived from Buffalo for one of the three or four visits they made kA and husband's reclusive father.

to Mill Run her As always, the discussion was the Bible. As always, Cashman limited himself to odd jobs at the homes of friends, and he took meals and small amounts of money in return. Although he was absorbed in the Bible, he would not attend services that packed the Mennonite church but, in solitary labor, did painting there. When he had a heart attack three years ago, he resisted going to the hospital but finally relented. He returned to the small cabin to recover, tend his two dogs and cats, and gather the oak bark, sassafras and mint leaves that sustained his love of health food.

Then, on Saturday, a team of Logan Township police, armed with automatic rifles, clambered through the thick woods on the mountainside above Mill Run. A group of detectives walked cautiously into the wet heat. A neighbor, known only to police, called Cashman, who just two days earlier had gotten his first telephone. The neighbor asked Cashman to stop by. John Reeder, local police chief, met him on the path.

"Stop. You're under arrest," Reeder shouted to the nearly deaf man. A Michigan detective, William Eskridge, who had quietly, unceasingly, sought Cashman for 12 years, said he wanted to ask about a shotgun murder in Michigan on Sept. 22, 1970, by a man who called himself John Burns. "Yes," Cashman said quietly.

"I remember that." They walked back to the cabin to get Cashman's heart medicine. Later, Eskridge returned to honor a request from Cashman: Would he get the man's eyeglasses and Bible? "There were several Bibles in the house," Eskridge said. He looked through the place, finding religious publications, biblical quotations on paper, a small decoration bearing a Bible passage. "I'm old, I'm tired and I'm sick, and I just want to get it over with," Cashman told Eskridge during the ride to the police station. Eskridge began to wonder whether he had arrested the right man.

"I felt a certain amount of remorse after having caught him, finding out he wasn't the armed and dangerous crazed killer I might have thought him to be at one time," Eskridge said. "I can honestly say I felt a certain twinge of remorse." As Cashman was booked at the Blair County Jail, Eskridge began leafing through the massive case file on Mrs. Farver's murder. He saw the coroner's photograph of the scene, with the woman's face obliterated by the shotgun blast. "It puts things in proper perspective," Eskridge said.

Perspective appears to be the one thing that has yet to be captured with Cashman, a godly man with lives hauntingly distinct. As long as anyone can remember, Cashmans have lived on the mountain outside Altoona. They predated the shining brick Mennonite Church that greets a visitor. Police routinely send two officers at a time to calls at Mill Run, where people are called clannish, private, elusive. The Cashmans were known to be religious, holding firmly to biblical principles.

"He was a strong believer, you know," said Dan Haines, a friend of Wilford from childhood. Mina Cashman remembered how, more than 50 years ago, she traveled to Mill Run as a Mennonite missionary. Several of the Cashman brothers and cousins, raised as members of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, quickly took to the Mennonite faith. "He witnessed at work. He really appreciated being a Christian and he shared his testimony about the Lord," said Mina, remembering the days in Jhe late 1930s and early 1940s when Cashman would preach gospel to fellow workers at the Pennsylvania Railroad shops in nearby Altoona.

Wilford married a local woman and fathered four children. He rose to the position of Sunday School superintendent at the Mennonite Church. "Then," said Mina Cashman, "he slipped away." What happened, according to relatives, was Wilford's affair with a young woman. The pair fled the area and were believed to have gone to Michigan. They returned to Altoona where Wilford was arrested for passing bad checks.

Prison at Rockview quickly followed. "It's a mystery," Mrs. Cashman said. A log book at Rockview records Cashman's escape, saying the prisoner climbed over a stockade fence at 3:30 p.m. Aug.

15, 1947. Police searched the area and made some inquiries, and then Cashman faded into memory for 23 years. "FBI, they come around a couple times," said Edna Clapper, Cashman's sister. "My mother always said he was dead. She said, 'They killed Mrs.

Taylor's 4-year-old daughter rushed into the house and told her mother, "John's here." Mrs. Taylor said she looked outside to see Burns loading a shotgun, talking angrily in the direction of the chicken coop. As Melody ran to get the family's shotgun, she heard three shots. Potts, Mrs. Taylor recalled, rushed outside and found Mrs.

Farver dead. Police searched the area, but John Burns had vanished. Ten days later, farmer Merle Kern was cleaning out hay in the barn across the street from the Farver home. In the middle of the bale he found some food wrappers and cans. On the barn wall, facing toward the Farver home, was a confession.

"Sept. 22, 1970 at the little red school house across the way or road, I shot and killed the only woman I ever loved, Eleanor Farver. I myself will be dead when this is found. I could have killed the son many times from here. I hid in this barn for 10 days and nights." William Eskridge remembered the Farver killing when he went to work at the Washtenaw sheriff's department in 1975.

Shortly afterward, he dusted off the file, obsessed with finding his old high school janitor, and learning what had happened the day Mrs. Farver was slain. He began searching for the records of John Burns, finding five different birthdates on applications ranging from job files to a Michigan driver's license. Eskridge interviewed Burns's wife, Anna. "The only thing he ever told her was he was from Altoona, Pa.

And over the years they'd never corresponded with anyone from Altoona," Eskridge said. Anna Burns also told Eskridge her husband had said he was once married in Altoona and had children. On his marriage license, Burns had listed his birthplace as Cheyenne, Wyo. At one point, Eskridge searched records from the military, figuring Burns had assumed a new identity because he had deserted the military. Eskridge also contacted immigration authorities on the off chance Burns was a former Nazi fleeing justice in Europe.

Eskridge tried to keep the case alive in Michigan newspapers. He made inquiries in Altoona, where police had never heard of John Burns. Five years into his search, Eskridge turned to a psychic and asked her to draw a likeness of John Burns. There had been one photograph taken, in 1970, and Eskridge doubted his quarry would look familiar. "She told me certain things that came into her mind.

She said I would find two men who would be intertwined. Cross reference them and I would find out who he was as the third man. She said the name Paul comes to mind. She said he had an inner ear blockage, and he is deaf in Eleanor Farver was living in a converted schoolhouse in Washtenaw County, Mich. Luck had been hard on her.

Her first marriage ended when her husband disappeared. A second husband burned down the couple's home, police said. In 1969, she met a quiet, affable man named John Burns, a custodian at the high school in South Lyon, 15 miles away. "They started dating, and she had no idea he was already married, because he came from a different town," said Mrs. Farver's daughter-in-law, Melody Vance Taylor.

Mrs. Farver and her children quickly took to Burns's warm approach. He did jobs around the school house, helped Mrs. Farver tend animals, and brought presents for the children. "They became real close friends, and they were Elanning to get married.

He was very good to her and the ids," Mrs. Taylor said. "He bought them things, took them places. They would go to the park. He bought them a pony." But Burns began to show a different personality after he and Mrs.

Farver had blood tests performed as the time neared to apply for a marriage license. He became argumentative and started fights, and Mrs. Farver considered calling off the wedding. This was not the kind of man Eskridge had seen when he was a high school student in South Lyon in the early 1960s. John Burns, the custodian, was known as a friendly, quiet man.

One day Burns and Mrs. Farver stopped by the Burns house in South Lyon on an errand, Mrs. Taylor said. Bums told Mrs. Farver to wait in the car because he lived there with an aunt who did not like visitors.

Mrs. Farver went into the house and found Anna Burns, Cashman's wife, hanging out laundry. A tearful Mrs. Farver returned home and told her daughter-in-law about what she learned. "She asked her, 'Aren't you John's Mrs.

Taylor recalled. "Is that what he told you?" Mrs. Burns replied, laughing. After Mrs. Farver broke off the engagement, Burns made threats against her.

At one point he approached the house and "had something in his hand that looked like dynamite. He started threatening, swearing at us, saying he was going to blow us all to hell." The family went to the Washtenaw County Sheriff's office, Mrs. Taylor said, but were told there was little the police could do. "To them, it was a lovers' quarrel." On Sept. 22, 1970, Mrs.

Farver, her daughter-in-law, a granddaughter and Mrs. Farver's 9-year-old daughter had company. A nephew, Bobby Potts, had stopped to visit. At 11:30 a.m., Mrs. Taylor said, Mrs.

Farver walked outside to an attached building to tend some chicks that had hatched recently. Ramona was struck by how easily Wilford Sr. took the walk up and down the mountain. "The man acted like he was 50 years old. To him age was nothing," Ramona said.

"We'd go up the hill and huff and puff and he'd be waiting for us at the top." After a quiet weekend, Ramona and her husband packed for the Memorial Day drive back home. ') When they arrived, she thought briefly about turning on the TV One of her favorite programs was about to come on, on NBC-TV "Unsolved Mysteries." But there was no time. 'A ODD i When Eskridge returned to his office the morning after "Unsolved Mysteries" detailed the Farver murder; telephone messages were waiting. Amid the scattered reports from around the nation, he received six telephone calls from Altoona. People, he said, told him to look for a Steven Vance.

By Saturday night, police had ringed the cabin. Reeder, chief of the Logan Township force, was surprised at the gentleness of his quarry. I Eskridge and Reeder took Cashman down the mountain, talking about the man's long journey. -q Eskridge showed Cashman a copy of his marriage license to Anna, the one in which he listed his birthplace as Cheyenne, Wyo. "Well, I told a lie there," Eskridge recalled Cashman as saying.

') Then Cashman asked a question. "Whatever happened to Anna?" "She died about a week ago," Eskridge said. "I didn't have anything against her," Cashman responded. "She was a good woman. But I didn't love her.

Never did." Cashman told Eskridge he truly loved Eleanor Farver, that she had grabbed the gun and it went off. "He couldn't explain how it went off three times, though," Eskridge said. Inside the cabin, the next day, Reeder searched through the Bibles that Cashman had requested. Sometimes, he thought, family histories are recorded, Who was he? Where had he been? Reeder turned through the pages. Passages of scrip ture were underlined.

Beyond that, Cashman's life was a blank. Wilford Jr. arrived the next day to discuss the case with police. On one wall was a frame with three black and white photographs of children. Who, Reeder won dered, might they be? "Oh my God," the younger Cashman gasped.

"That's my family." p.m. Sunday during Allegheny West Civic Council's block party. Motorists are asked to use Ridge and Western avenues. METRO BRIEFS wold Drive, Moon, as key figures in an alleged operation that handled more than $100,000 in wagers in a three-day period in November 1985 Ferritto and Xenakis were charged with three counts of pool-' i selling and bookmaking, one count, of corrupt organizations and one count of criminal conspiracy. They were arraigned before Dis-' trict Justice Larry R.

Fabrizi of Erie and released on $10,000 bonds pending hearings on June 10. ine L. Thomas, 42, of 3201 Caughey Road, Erie, will be sent a summons will be widened to dual 12-foot lanes as a continuation of the PennDot-sponsored improvements of Route 837 into the Mon Valley. Inbound traffic, including from Becks Run Road, will be detoured via the Glenwood Bridge and Second Avenue through Hazelwood. PennDot spokesman Dick Skrin-jar said one-lane of outbound traffic will be maintained.

ordering her to appear for a prelim inary hearing on similar charges. charged a North Side woman with civil rights violations in a 1984 incident in which she allegedly conspired to keep a black man from buying a home in her neighborhood. Deborah Burstion-Wade, spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said Janice Bochter, 42, of 3857 Evergreen Road, is charged with housing interference and conspiracy. Mrs. Burstion-Wade said Ms.

Bochter allegedly paid two teenagers to spray-paint racial slurs on a house at 3907 Dewey St. on Oct. 14, 1984. Mrs. Burstion-Wade said a black man, Mack Williams, 26, was planning to buy the house.

If convicted of the charges, Ms. Bochter could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. DJ off hook Disc jockey Trapper Jack Elliot, who faces 30 days in jail on a contempt of court charge, has been given a reprieve by state Superior Court. The appellate court yesterday postponed the jail sentence and fine imposed on Elliot by Common Pleas Judge Silvestri Silvestri for refusing to honor his contract with WWSW-FM radio. Suspect surrenders Norman A.

Batson of Bloomfield, sought in the slaying of a Highland Park man found strangled in his home Sunday, has surrendered to police in Las Vegas, Nev. Batson, 27, of 4 O'Hara Place, has been charged with criminal homicide in the death of Theodore Levi, 60, of 6020 Grafton St. Pittsburgh homicide detectives said they linked Batson to Las Vegas after they fed his name into the national crime computer network and learned that he had been arrested there in November 1985 on minor charges that later were dropped. The arrest report showed that Batson had been living in Las Vegas at that time, detectives here said. Homicide detectives said they contacted police there and asked them to check if Batson had returned.

But, in the meantime, Batson turned himself in to Las Vegas police. Batson worked in Pittsburgh as a laborer for a Lawrenceville company that makes garage doors. Racial charge The U.S. Justice Department has Jarvik implanted Porno charge A Whitehall man has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he imported child pornography from Portugal and West Germany. David V.

Bold, 35, of 1821 Park-line Drive, was charged yesterday with two counts of receiving child pornography and two counts of importing child pornography. He faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and a $510,000 fine. Betting charges Two men and a woman have been charged in what state police call a "multimillion dollar" sports gambling operation in Erie and Allegheny counties. Attorney General LeRoy S. Zimmerman said yesterday that a state grand jury presentment identifies Raymond W.

Ferritto, 56, of 724 Brown Erie, and Manuel "Mike" J. Xenakis, 40, of 100 Hayes- In response to an appeal Elliot filed, Superior Court postponed the punishment until it hears argument on the dispute at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday and makes a decision. Last month, Elliot left WWSW to work for WLTF-FM in Cleveland. He was in the fourth year of a five-year contract with WWSW.

Elliot said he felt free to leave WWSW when it did not give him written notice 45 days before the anniversary date of his contract that it wanted him to continue working at the station. East Carson traffic Several miles of Route 837 (East Carson Street) will be closed to inbound traffic after 9 a.m. Monday, until sometime in November, while the two-lane road undergoes a $3.6 million rehabilitation. The work zone extends from the Glenwood Bridge to Sarah Street, near the Steel plant. The road Surgeons at Presbyterian-Univeri siiy nospiiai implanted a Jarvik-70 artificial heart into a 47-vear-Alrl New England man to keep him alive Traffic affected The city has announced these weekend traffic restrictions: Frankstown Avenue from Brad-dock Avenue to Brushton Avenue in Homewood will be closed from 9 a.m.

to 7 p.m. tomorrow during a community event sponsored by the Sickle Cell Society Inc. Traffic will be rerouted to Bennett Street. Beech Avenue from Galveston Avenue to Brighton Road, North Side, will be closed from 4 to 10 unui a aonor neart can be found, hospital officials said. The patient, whose name and hometown were not released, was critical condition, which is normal following implant surgery, said Ja net Toth, administrator on duty.

The eight-hour operation was completed yesterday. 4.