The News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 1

76ERS: NEED OVERTIME TO TOP MEMPHIS A founder, mmn DOW'S BIGGEST DROP IN 9 MONTHS LIFE www.delawareonline.com 500 SATURDAY Jan. 21 ,2006 FINAL EDITION MORMON Hie Hews yroia Three teen passengers, Including Candace Socorso, were killed In this 1997 collision.The teen driving them pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide. News Journal file ROBERT CRAIG Bank tax bill could save MBNA jobs Proposal in Del. might sway Bank of America decisions 'Is. 3f.f 1 1 if tflifwik.

tk Hitchhiker charged slaving Teen drivers often leave deadlier toll By TED GRIFFITH The News Journal A proposed overhaul of the state's banking tax laws could do a lot more than just preserve tax revenue it could also save jobs of former MBNA employees, one of the architects of the planned legislation said Friday. The proposal unveiled Thursday by Gov. Ruth Ann Minner appears at first i blush to deal only with technical banking taxation issues. But the bill also was DNA evidence links lifelong convict to fatal stabbing of Harrington woman By TERRI SANGINiTI The News Journal DOVER In the end, it was the hitchhiker's bloody palm print on the banister at the scene of a gruesome murder in Harrington that helped cracked the case. ONLINE: Read a draft copy of the proposed amendment at www.

delawareonline.com. aimed at limiting some of the major -1 st After baffling state police homicide detectives for nearly 15 years, the case of the slain 70-year-old grandmother came full circle Friday as investigators announced Gilbert E. Cannon was arrested and charged in her slaying. Cannon, 41, was the hitchhiker who had received a ride from the woman's son hours before Dorothy May Donovan was killed. Thp arruspH.

nf Dplmar. had job losses related to Bank of America's buyout of MBNA. Wilmington lawyer David S. Swayze, who played an advisory role in drafting the proposal, said the legal changes could persuade MBNA's new owner, Bank of America, to keep banking charters in Delaware. The location of the charters influences where a bank has jobs, because banks traditionally have their major offices in the state where they are chartered.

But at least one outside analyst expressed skepticism about whether the strategy would work. Richard D. Pomp, a University of Connecticut law professor, said he doubts the traditional connection between a charter been serving time in Maryland for a VICTIM: Dorothy 1997 robbery conviction and was May Donovan, 70, wanted by authorities for violating was slain in her his parole. bedroom at her Police said they were able to match farm property. See BANK A2 -1 K'1 im the blood tound at the scene ot the 1991 crime with DNA collected from Cannon before he was released from prison in September 2004.

In addition to the DNA confirmation, officials said they also determined that his palm print matched one found in blood at Donovan's home. "It proved to be a match linking Cannon to the homicide," state police Superintendent Col. Thomas Mac-Leish said Friday, announcing Cannon's arrest on Wednesday afternoon at a Selbyville apartment complex. "We hope this news will give Donovan's family some sense of comfort that Delaware State Police investigators never forgot their mother's tragic SUSPECT: Gilbert E. Cannon was serving time for robbery in a Maryland prison until 2004.

.1 i-1-- death." Donovan's daughters Diana Abbott, of Ellendale, and Brenda Alexander, of Camden lauded detectives for their perseverance. See ARREST back page 'Z it' i-' vv, t'r' ii irftfn. it i The News JoumalBOB HERBERT Donna Parker has left the book bag of her late daughter, Candace Socorso, in the same place since police returned it to her family in 1997. At right is Candace's sister Heather. In Delaware, stats show their passengers are more at risk; tougher rules are in the works Losing billions in U.S., Ford could slash 25,000 jobs By DEE-ANN DURBIN Associated Press DETROIT In a survey released this week, Ford Motor Co.

ranked last among big automakers in the use of its North American plant capacity. Gannett News ServiceBILL CLARK Robin McMullen, mother of guardsman Sgt. Michael McMullen, hugs Sgt. Randal Divel during her son's funeral Friday. At funeral for Md.

soldier: man he saved Blasts occurred Christmas Eve By JENNIFER BROOKS News Journal Washington Bureau ARLINGTON, Va. Beside a flag-draped coffin in Arlington National Cemetery, a pale young man in a wheelchair embraced "the parents of the man who died while saving him from a roadside bomb in Iraq. It was a hero's funeral for Maryland National Guard Sgt. Michael McMullen, a 25-year-old firefighter from Salisbury, who died Jan. 10 of wounds he suffered while rescuing fellow guardsman Sgt.

Randal Divel, of Middletown, Md. Still recovering from second- and third-degree burns, Divel left a rehabilitation center in San Antonio to attend the funeral. McMullen received the Silver Star for gallantry under fire and a posthumous promotion to staff sergeant. His body was See FUNERAL -A5 AUTO CUTS The company aims to change that with a restructuring plan to be announced Monday that likely will in FRIDAY Reports say Ford clude closing some U.S. plants, cutting jobs and changing the company's product lineup.

Already some are wondering if shutting 10 plants and laying off will cut 25,000 or more jobs and close 10 plants. NOVEMBER By MIKE CHALMERS The News Journal Candace Socorso's green canvas book bag sits beside the couch in the bright, breezy family room of her family's New Castle home. A police officer returned the bag, stuffed with textbooks and decorated with the graffiti of a 15-year-old girl, to her family after Candace died in a car crash Nov. 13, 1997. Her mother, Donna Parker, set it there, then couldn't bear to move it.

"It's been in the same exact spot for eight years," Parker said. "That was the only thing I got back from her. I've never moved it, never taken anything out of it." The bag is just one reminder of Candace, who was a backseat passenger in a classmate's car when it slammed into a van on Old Porter Road. Two other teens in the car Chris Wallace and Katy Aukamp, both 16 died in the crash. The driver, Joey FATAL ACCIDENTS Between 1995 and 2004, 116 deaths in Delaware were attributed to accidents that involved a teen driver.

Of the fatalities, 59 percent were people other than the teen driver, compared with 64 percent nationwide. DellAversano, then 17, survived and later faced criminal charges. The crash also injured five people in the van, including the 60-year-old driver, who underwent psychological counseling. The crash was among thousands studied by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety for a report released this week on the dangers posed by teen drivers. The nationwide study of crashes involving teen drivers between 1995 and 2004 found that See TEENS A2 25,000 hourly workers, as The Detroit News and the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, will be enough to reverse the automaker's billion-dollar GM announces plans to cut 30,000 jobs and close 12 facilities.

losses in North America. Ford spokesman Tom Hoyt refused to comment Friday on details of the plan, including the number of jobs that will be cut from Ford's North American work force of 122,877. Catherine Madden, an auto analyst at the Global See FORD -A5 TODAY'S FORECAST INDEX 2006, The News Journal Co. A Gannett newspaper 1 27th year, No. 248 04 COMING SUNDAY Looming a few miles to the north could be Delaware's first taste of gambling competition.

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