The News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 11

I ONLINE POLL www.delawareonline.com Q. Do you avoid going out to movies because of the behavior of theatergoers? YESTERDAY'S QUESTION Q. Are you a fan of NASCAR? Yes: 40.1 No: 599 UNSCIENTIFIC POLL TOTAL VOTES: 1,519 TUESDAY FEB. 20, 2007 The Newsjournal WILMINGTON, DEL Updates and latest news wwwdelawareonlineiom mm News tips: 324-2882 or newsdeskdelawareonline.com Cooke trial to resume iii court wioniit After outbursts, defendant to watch on video from holding cell James E. Cooke Jr.

is charged with the rape and murder of UD sophomore Lindsey M. Bonistall in 2005. 1 1 fl Cooke was banned by Herlihy after exploding during Wood's questioning of his younger brother, Rickie Patillo. Two corrections officers, two bailiffs and lead investigator Detective Andrew Rubin of the Newark Police Department wrestled Cooke to the floor. Superior Court's rules of criminal procedure allow for a defendant to be removed if he or she is disruptive.

"Judge Herlihy gave the issue a lot of thought and made a very difficult decisions," said Brendan O'Neill, one of Cooke's attorneys. O'Neill said, however, he would prefer his client could remain in the courtroom. See COOKE B2 ByESTEBANPARRA The News Journal James E. Cooke Jr. will not be in court today when his capital murder trial heads into its third week.

And Cooke won't be back until it's almost over unless he testifies. After repeated outbursts, back-talking and an episode Friday when bailiffs and officers wrestled Cooke to the floor, Superior Court Judge Jerome 0. Herlihy ruled that Cooke would have to watch his murder trial from a television monitor in a nearby holding cell. While Cooke's absence from the courtroom may speed up the trial, Cooke's outbursts four of them in front of jurors may damage the 36-year-old man's case, said attorney Joseph A. Gabay, a longtime criminal defense lawyer who practices in Delaware.

"It is not a help to him. It is not a help to the lawyers. It's not a help to the court," said Gabay. "If I'm prosecutor Steve Wood, I'd get the most comfortable chair I can find and let him sit at my table." Cooke is charged with the rape and murder of Lindsey M. Bonistall a University of Delaware sophomore whose body was found May 1, 2005, in her charred Newark apartment.

If found guilty, Cooke could face the death penalty Since his trial started Feb. 2, Cooke has had 10 flare-ups that resulted in his removal from the courtroom. Trying to protect Cooke's constitutional right to be present at his trial, Herlihy permitted his return each time, until Friday's debacle. KALMAR NYCKEL GETS PREPARED FOR SAILING SEASON lir A Pioneering gay rights advocate Gittings dies By ROBIN BROWN The News Journal National gay rights pioneer Barbara Gittings, formerly of Wilmington, died Sunday after a long fight with breast cancer. Gittings, 75, an activist since the 1950s, died at an assisted living center in Ken-nett Square, said friend Mark Segal, V- -r I The crew of the Kalmar Nyckel guides the "fighting top" onto the foremast a tricky task on a windy Monday.

The Kalmar Nyckel, docked on the Christina Riverfront in Wilmington, is a replica of the tall ship that brought the first permanent European settlers to what is now Delaware in the 17th century. The News Journal FRED COMEGYS i IV VIEW A PHOTO GALLERY AT WWW.DELAWARE 0NUNE.COM 1 publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News. Her partner of 46 years, Kay Lahusen, was at her side. The couple, who also lived in Philadelphia, moved to assisted living from their longtime home on Harrison Street in Wilmington. In the late 1950s, Gittings helped start the first East Coast chapter of a pioneer lesbian rights group.

Daughters of Bilitis. Elected the New York City group's first president, Gittings edited The Ladder, a lesbian publication, and went on to fight the federal government's policy of firing homosexuals, author Jonathan Katz said in his book "Gay American History." In the New York group, she met Lahusen and, together, they 1 1 "There were scarcely 200 of us in the whole United States." Barbara Gittings, gay rights pioneer Moms read to children from behind bars Inmates' recordings help them bond with kids how to help Although there is a freeze on accept preschools and nurseries. June Peterson, who lives near Greenville, said she visits the Baylor prison about twice a month to assist inmates as they read into a cassette tape recorder for their children, and she is touched by their efforts to reach out to them. "They sing and talk and say, miss and 'I love It's very heartwarming," said Peterson, who has volunteered for a couple of years. "They'll say, 'Now it's time to turn the page.

Look at the It's like they're having a conversation. "It's a great satisfaction to have contact with these young girls," she said of the inmates. "They really look See READ B2 "played important roles in the gay liberation movement emerging in the 1950s," according to the Cornell University Library, which has a collection of materials about them. In early gay activism, Gittings said, "there were scarcely 200 of us in the whole United States. It was like a club -we all knew each other." In 1965, she got global attention in gay rights protests at the White House and Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

"These were the first such demonstrations in American history and began an era of gays coming out of the closet," Segal said. She led the American Library See GITTINGS B2 who is serving time for drug offenses at the Baylor Women's Correctional Institution near New Castle. "Even though I might not be able to see her every week or every month, at least this opportunity gives her a chance to hear my voice and let her know I'm thinking about her." Pennington talks and reads to her 3-year-old daughter Lindsey through the Read-In, Read-Out program, which enlists volunteers to audiotape the inmates reading children's books and mails the tapes and books to the inmates' children so they can listen and read along. The program By EDWARD KENNEY The News Journal One of the toughest aspects of incarceration for Michele Pennington and other mothers is the separation from their children. But some of them can reach out and perhaps give their children the head start they did not get through a program that lets inmates read aloud to their children.

"The time I've been incarcerated, this has been a great opportunity for me to keep that bond and connection with my daughter," said Pennington, ing new volunteers for the Read-In, Read-Out program because of overcrowding at the prison, people are welcome to volunteer for Read Aloud Delaware's statewide initiative of reading to children in preschools and nurseries. To find out more, call 656-5256 or visit www.readalouddelaware.org. is run by the Delaware Center for Justice and volunteers from Read Aloud Delaware, a nonprofit organization more widely known for providing volunteers to read at Ancient sycamore once shaded Gen. George Washington verybody knows George Washington slept all over the rmlnnioc nv cr Via cirmc cat. 7, but citizens led by Marguerite Boden successfully fought the plan.

Tidewater refinery rescued the tree (split and eyed for axing) by paying for cable repair credited The First State has its share of first-nrez sleen-over sites, but also a tree that could boast with saving its lite. 1'TtTIM "George Washington sat here. And Delaware's schoolkids today are expected to be the last with a chance to see it. The old tree faced felling agam about a EQa Wllmbigt 2w. year ana a halt ago.

"SWV The state site -once owned by the 'Tju Cooch's Bridge Chapter, National let. Nawark telegraph ro. Society Daughters of the Ameri- Christianard. can Revolution uses state land- Online extras Visit the Delaware Back-story page at www.de laware online.com to: MeetW. Truxton Boyce III Check the reporter's blog Help identity old buildings photographed by artist-educator-historian Nancy Sawin "It not going to last generations, said Ralph Cavanaugh, curator of the Hale-Byrnes House in Stanton, where the craggy, hollow sycamore stands.

After the Battle of Cooch's Bridge the only Revolutionary War battle on Delaware soil -Washington held a nm itinnr war council there. I scapers. They recommended the I old tree should eo. as a safetv I Delaware Ssf.v I measure because of its progres-f sive deterioration. Eutijcuucua Vvuue.pi tMueiii of a nonprofit citizens' board supporting the house since it was IjUUU VdU Robert Kirkwood (then hero, now high way) picked the site.

BACKSTORY robin brown spared razing, said a fine compro mile Quaker preacher mise was reached. The state agreed to let the tree stay Daniel Byrnes, a miller, lent The News JoumaLCARLA VARtSCO W.Truxton Boyce III, whose family owned the house, says it's amazing a tree Washington sat under remains standing. for at least a few more years as living history with brick walls added to avert the possibility of his stately brick home, bought four years earlier from potter Samuel Hale. Hale's father built it about 1750 at a bend of White Clay Creek, just upstream of Churchmans Marsh. As space there was being set up for the Sept.

6, 1777, war council, Washington sat under the sycamore and the Byrnes kids fetched him cool water from the springhouse, a family diary recorded. Rich history, right? Nearly destroyed. The state planned to raze the house in the 1960s to widen Del. guests suffering branch-fall injuries. "We can't guess how long the tree has left," White said.

"We don't know how old it was then." The Byrnes' diaries didn't say And in another history-mystery, diary passages about some family matters were scribed in code, Cavanaugh said. "No one ever cracked it, either," he added. The house where a new display room honors the Boyce family, its last owner-residents is open, free, noon to 3 p.m. the first Wednesday of each month. A detailed history of the house is for sale there as a booklet, along with crockery jars bearing the house's nama White says corporate sponsors are needed for overdue window repairs, landscaping and other projects such as the famous tree's upkeep for as long as it may last.

For information about the HoJe-Bvmes House, volunteer opportunities, donations or rental, call 737-5701. Tax-deductible donations may be sent to the Hale-Bvrnes House, 606 Stanton-Christiana Road, Nemarfc, DE 19713. Comments? Ideas? Write to robin brown at The News Journal, Box 15505, Wilmington, DE 19850; fax 324-5509; call 324-2856; or e-mail backstorydelawareonline.com..