The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 3

Philadelphia Inquirer 3-CJ METROPOLITAN- Wed. July 25, 1979 MlfMI H4i i if I i 1 ii I I i Jr Ransom search goes on; victim recalls kidnap Philadelphia Inquver MICHAEL VIOLA Stanley Thornton (center) shows a piece of Skylab that he recovered to youngsters outside the Franklin Institute Trash collectors Australians rocket into Skylab stardom she said. She said that prayer and forming visual pictures in her mind of family and friends helped sustain her during the harrowing experience. "I was praying a lot," the mother of two sons said. "I really think it was the prayer that got me through." Mrs.

Dedrick, 46, was kidnaped Friday morning while her husband, William, a vice president of the Franklin Bank in Paterson, was at work. She said she had just taken a shower and was getting ready to leave her home for her part-time job at a gift shop in town when the front doorbell rang. "I went to the front door and opened it," she said. "I was grabbed. "Something was put over my head a hood or maybe a sheet or pillow case.

I was grabbed and blindfolded and carried out and put in a vehicle," she said. Mrs. Dedrick said that even after she was released, "it didn't come to me that it was going to be all right until I was actually here" at home. She also thought of minute household details during her period of captivity. "I remember thinking the iron was on.

I had left the iron on, and I was worried about that. And you know what? I got home here and that iron was still on. It's funny what you think about," she said. Why did the suspects choose Mrs. Dedrick as their victim? "Who knows?" her husband said.

"They could have picked a hundred other bankers' wives." Associated Press NEWARK, J. Law enforcement authorities were continuing their search yesterday for the $217,300 that was paid for the safe return of a West Milford kidnap victim, federal officials said. William Dedrick, 50, paid kidnapers the ransom Saturday to release his wife, Joan. Four men have been arrested in the case, but the ransom money has not been found. "There's no further developments and nothing else we can say at this time," an FBI agent in Newark said.

Dedrick was told to leave the money in a wooded area in Fort Lee during a series of calls made to several public telephone booths along a circuitous route in North Jersey and New York City. His wife was released unharmed at a deserted Teaneck service station about 4 a.m. Sunday. Four Paterson residents were arrested for the kidnaping and held in lieu of $250,000 bail each. They are: Guillermo Jesus Caceres, 22; Angel Humberto Cedano, 22; Salvatore La-cognata, 23, and Gaetano As FBI agents and state and local police worked to complete their investigations, the Dedricks were trying to resume their life in this quiet Passaic County community.

Talking yesterday about the nearly two days she spent as a kidnap victim, Mrs. Dedrick said she saw her whole life flash before her eyes during the 42-hour ordeal. "I thought of all the people I love," Fr. Pagano loses plea to suppress evidence By Jane Shoemaker Inquirer Staff Writer It is always annoying to find someone else's trash in your yard. Unless, of course, that trash can be converted into thousands of dollars in cash and a free trip halfway around the globe.

That is precisely what happened to the Thornton family of Esperance, Australia, when Skylab littered their lawn with hundreds of pieces of charred metal and burned insulation. In just two weeks, they have been turned into instant celebrities by publicity-seeking businesses an Australian airline, a San Francisco newspaper, a Philadelphia furniture store that have paid their expenses and given them rewards. The Thorntons, a working-class family who had never been outside western Australia, were in Philadelphia yesterday to present a charred piece of Skylab to the Franklin Institute and collect $1,000 from a local merchant for being the first ones to retrieve fragments of the craft. Elsie Thornton recalled that she was in bed, nearly asleep, when a thunderous boom and a shower of light filled the sky about 12:30 a.m. July 12.

Objects pelted the roof, but it was a rainy night so she didn't go outside. "There were big lights and little lights coming out from it," she said. Skylab fragments were scattered across the Thorntons' lawn "like mushrooms little black specks everywhere" when she awoke later that morning, she said. Stanley Thornton 17, caught the first plane he could to San Francisco to collect a $10,000 reward offered by a newspaper there. His family followed, then they all headed east to visit Philadelphia, Washington and Florida.

The teenager, a somber youth who clearly was uncomfortable at yesterday's impromptu ceremony, was the official bearer of the Skylab chunk. He gave the charred metal, which resembled a piece of charcoal, to George Hamilton, director of the Fels Planetarium, who handed back a T-shirt, a miniature bust of Benjamin Franklin and an anti-Skylab protective helmet, complete with a pin-wheel on top, to "protect you from any other falling objects." Hamilton said that there was no way to tell for sure whether the chunk was a piece of Skylab. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) examined the Thorntons' bounty and concluded that the pieces were "in all probability" fragments of the U.S. spacecraft. "You have to have some faith in the people who bring them in," said Hamilton.

"We put moon rocks on display here. We didn't know where they came from. I had to trust the people at NASA." ByRolfRykken Special to The Inquirer WILMINGTON A Delaware Superior Court judge yesterday denied motions to suppress certain evidence against the Rev. Bernard Pagano, who is accused of being the "gentleman bandit" who robbed five northern Delaware stores earlier this year. Judge Andrew Christie said that Father Pagano, 53, had made statements voluntarily to police and had given his consent to police to seize a hat and coat belonging to him.

Christie described the priest, who wore a clerical collar to court, as "an apparently intelligent, educated man" who understood his constitutional rights, which the police were "very specific" in reciting to him. Father Pagano was charged Feb. 27 with robbing five Wilmington area stores and the attempted armed robbery of another. The crimes occurred from Jan. 11 to Feb.

20. Each of the crimes was committed by a polite, well-mannered man wearing a dark hat and an overcoat and brandishing a small silver-plated handgun. More than $700' was taken in the early-evening robberies. Father Pagano's lawyer, Carl Schnee of Wilmington, decided not to question the state's use of statements allegedly made by the priest to an off-duty Delaware state policeman the day of his arrest. State prosecutors consider the statements damaging to Pagano.

On Monday, Detective Warren Schueler testified that, during a 45-minute conversation at a suburban health club, Father Pagano showed unusual interest in police investigations of robberies. Schueler said the priest, an infrequent racquetball partner, advised the detective not to believe any ac cused robber who might use "blackout spells" as a denial of knowledge of any crimes. Later that day, when police confronted Father Pagano about the armed robberies, he reportedly acted as if he did not recognize Schueler. When asked about this by another investigator, Father Pagano allegedly said, "I have these blackout spells and don't remember things." Yesterday Sgt. Robert Shannon, a polygraph examiner with the Delaware State Police, testified that Father Pagano had failed a lie-detector test about his alleged involvement in the armed robberies.

Pagano is scheduled to go on trial Aug. 6. Court convicts 4john' at shore Associated Press ATLANTIC CITY A Canadian visitor was convicted of soliciting for prostitution yesterday, the first "john" to be found guilty of a prostitution charge in the city's history. Yvon Heppel, 50, of Montreal, was given a supended 30-day jail sentence after undercover policewoman Roberta Sandrou testified that Heppel solicited her for prostitution two weeks ago. Municipal Court Judge Chaim Sandler suspended Heppel's sentence on the condition that he leave town.

Officer Sandrou said that Heppel approached her on Pacific Avenue at 1 a.m. on July 10. She said Heppel rubbed her hand and offered her $30 for sex. The number of prostitutes in the city has increased greatly since the opening of casino gambling. Dozens are arrested each week.

Heppel's conviction marks the first prosecution of a customer, police said. 2 if fyf-. Thornton and Hamilton examine a charred chunk of Skylab treasure Tot' picnic perturbs township fathers Agency probed on aid to bankrupt builder 4 Aitoclated Prtu TRENTON The State Commission of Investigation has begun an inquiry into the apparent commitment by New Jersey's Housing Finance Agency (HFA) of $11 million in bond funds and up to $52 million in federal funds for a Camden County apartment oroiect. SCl'spokesman John Davies confirmed yesterday that the commission is investigating HFA's financial Involvement in construction of the Mansions complex in Pine Hill. According to the Trenton Times, the commission wants to know why HFA apparently was so willing to bail out bankrupt developer Kingdon Westerlind in 1973 after the $5.8 million luxury condominium project encountered mysterious financial problems.

Davies confirmed that Wester-lind's activities are included in the Investigation, but he declined further comment on the inquiry. HFA reportedly put $11 million into the project, which was valued at $3.5 million in' 1973, and committed up to $1.3 million annually in federal rent subsidies for 40 years. Westerlind needed a $3.7 million bond, but HFA provided the amount through 14 smaller bond sales. That was a move the agency had never undertaken with its 124 other projects, according to published reports. The Trenton newspaper reported that federal bankruptcy court records involving Westerlind and his Alkon Industries firm fail to detail what happened to an estimated $1 million that HFA advanced to Westerlind.

Bruce Coe, HFA's new executive director, suggested it may have been funnelled elsewhere. "It was apparently used for other interests of Alkon Industries," Coe told the newspaper. Coe said HFA discovered in 1974 that Westerlind had not used the money for the Mansions or for any of the three other HFA-backed projects he was building. "When the HFA required that the money be paid back, the bankruptcy was begun," Coe said. "A 'rock and roll concert for marijuana law reform' is what we mean by 'rock for he added.

"The group chose a very unfortunate name which concealed, rather than revealed, their intent," Mrs. Kavett said. Although the township committee cannot directly prohibit the picnic at the private park in Monmouth County, it can, and did, ask the promoters to post bond for damage and additional police protection, Mrs. Kavett said. Picnic planners estimate that about 500 people would turn out for the festivities.

But other problems at the park could cancel the Rock for Pot picnic anyway. The Board of Health is testing water from a park ditch "having an odor and the appearance of sanitary sewage effluent," Township Health Official Ray English said. English is recommending that "no use other than normal camping be permitted at this site until a determination cpn be made as to the source of this effluent AsocUiled Preu HOWELL TOWNSHIP, N.J. A "Rock for Pot" picnic planned for Sunday has conjured up visions among township officials of a park full of marijuana-smoking people swaying to rock and roll music. The New Jersey chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), sponsor of the picnic, says that just is not so.

The group wants to stage the afternoon event at Deep Hollow Park, but owner Earl Murphy said he would not permit the festivities without the township committee's blessing. Mayor Phyllis Kavett said the committee would consider the picnic at a public hearing tonight. "NORML advocates a change in marijuana laws, but it does not in any way advocate breaking any ing laws. And our group does not intend to violate any laws at the site of the picnic," George Baier, the group's legal adviser, said. The picnic was planned as a fundraiser, he said, and would Include Softball and other sports and music by three local bands.

Philadelphia Inquirar VICKI VAURK) WHEN A BEE lies sleeping, an apiarist like Randy Murray, 10, gets a fine opportunity to explore what makes the insects so busy. Showing marked agility, Randy improved some shining hours himself yesterday, catching bees along Philadelphia's East River Drive and observing them before letting them go..