The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 124

Friday, January 9, 1998 THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Bucks County B3 Bomar fiancee reportedly told detectives he confessed killing Sources said she gave details of Aimee Willard's death in a statement to authorities last summer. 11 years later. Bomar, 38, was charged on Dec. 10 with the slaying of Willard, 22, of Brookhaven, Delaware County. Willard was abducted from a Blue Route off-ramp, raped and killed on June 20, 1996.

Her body was found that day in an overgrown lot in North Philadelphia. Bomar is also suspected in the 1997 killing of Maria Cabuenos, 25, of Philadelphia, whose skeletal remains were discovered in a remote section of Bucks County on New Year's Day. She had been missing since March. According to the statement Rumer gave last summer, sources say, Bomar told Rumer that in June 1996 he was at Smokey Joe's restaurant in Wayne and followed Willard from the parking lot. Rumer said he got her to stop her car on the off-ramp of Exit 3 of the southbound Blue Route, but was not sure how ban out-of-state parolees likely to support themselves in Pennsylvania by going on public assistance.

And they would provide a jail term and fine for parolees who come to Pennsylvania illegally. Under rules of the Interstate Compact, which governs the move of parolees from state to state, Bomar after his parole in 1990 was allowed to relocate to Pennsylvania, where his mother and stepfather lived, and where he had a job waiting. Within months, though, he was charged in Pennsylvania with assaulting a woman, a parole violation. During the next seven years, Bomar was arrested numerous times on assault, theft and burglary charges. Any of the arrests could have sent him back to jail in Nevada, but parole officials in both states consistently decided to keep him under supervision in Pennsylvania.

that was done. Rumer said in her statement that Bomar took Willard to an abandoned building in North Philadelphia, where Willard was raped. Willard's body was found in a lot on Indiana Avenue in North Philadelphia. Part of Rumer's statement was apparently included in the affidavit of probable cause filed on Dec. 10, the day Bomar was charged with Willard's killing.

The affidavit says that Bomar told "a young woman who was dating Arthur Bomar at the time of Aimee Willard's murder" that he was going to Smokey Joe's on the evening of June 19 "to meet some friends. She did not see him again for a few days." In another development yesterday, State Sens. Stewart J. Greenleaf Montgomery) and Michael O'Pake Berks) appeared at a news conference at the parole office in Norristown to talk about legislation they planned to introduce that would tighten controls on parolees from out of state. "The apparent tolerance of a series of incidents involving parolee Bomar while under Pennsylvania supervision would be appalling even if he had not been charged in the murder of Aimee Willard," said Greenleaf, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

New measures would require the state parole board to seek and review psychological reports on violent offenders, as well as treatment reports and behavior histories on sexual offenders. They would also mandate that out-of-state parolees would be sent back to the state they came from at the first sign of an infraction. "That includes if they get into a fistfight in a bar," Greenleaf said. In addition, the regulations would By Ralph Vigoda INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Delaware County officials have already outlined in public documents what they consider to be an extremely strong case including DNA evidence linking Arthur Bomar to the murder of college athlete Aimee Willard. What they have kept private, though, is some icing on the cake: a statement from Bomar's onetime fiancee, Mary Rumer, saying he admitted the crime.

Rumer could have been called as a witness at Bomar's preliminary hearing, which had been scheduled for today. That was postponed, however, when Delaware County Court Judge Frank T. Hazel ordered on Wednesday that a competency exam for Bomar be conducted first. Sources say that Rumer, of Philadelphia who was engaged to Bomar, unaware that he was married gave county detectives a statement last summer in which she related details of Willard's death that she said came from Bomar. Prosecutors declined to comment yesterday.

Bomar's lawyer, Mark P. Much, could not be reached. Also yesterday, two state senators promised to plug the leaks in the state parole system that allowed Bomar to come to Pennsylvania from Nevada in 1990 and remain here despite repeated parole violations. Bomar had been convicted in 1979 of murder in Nevada; he was paroled Montco man who murdered niece faces Feb. 3 execution Thomas Hawkins molested, strangled and stabbed the girl in 1989.

A Coatesville killer also faces death. Schools win more rights on lockers The state Supreme Court moves to allow random drug searches. handled Hall's state appeal and said he was concerned about how many death warrants the governor was signing and how quickly they were going through the system. The governor has signed 105 warrants, and two have been carried out, the first executions since 1962. In September, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously upheld Hall's conviction.

"I'm pleased to see the process is moving along," Sarcione said. "In this case, as in all cases, the victim's family deserves some closure." Paoli attorney Vincent DiFabio triggerman, is the only one on death row. He is scheduled to be put to death Jan. 29. Chester County District Attorney Anthony Sarcione prosecuted Hall and said he was appalled because the robbery was so violent and the murder so heinous.

It was the week before Christmas, and the laundry was crowded with customers, including children. When Hall stood trial in 1994, his attorney argued that Hall did not intend to kill Johnson and the gun had discharged accidentally during a struggle. "It appears the victim may have reached for the gun when he was first shot in the face. But he would have survived that first shot," Sarcione said. "The second shot was execution-style and to the back of the head." The shooting happened in the back office.

As Hall fled, he waved the gun in the air, threatening those in the building, Sarcione said. By Barbara Boyer INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Thomas W. Hawkins, convicted of killing his 14-year-old niece, is scheduled to be put to death next month. Gov. Ridge yesterday signed warrants for Hawkins, 34, of Montgomery County, and Darrick Hall, 27, convicted of killing a laundry manager in Coatesville, Chester County.

Both will be put to death by lethal injection unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes. Hawkins, whose execution is scheduled for Feb. 3, was convicted of the 1989 murder and sexual assault of his niece, Andrea Nicole Thomas. The girl had been strangled with a telephone cord and stabbed with a meat fork.

At the time of the murder, Hawkins had been on parole for the 1980 murder of 15-year-old Karen Stubbs of Reading. Hawkins was 16 when he slashed the throat of Stubbs, a classmate, with a paint scraper. He pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and spent six years in prison. Montgomery County First District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr.

prosecuted Hawkins for the Thomas murder. He said yesterday that it was a difficult case because it was built on circumstantial evidence, much of it scientific. Castor said he sought the death penalty and never offered Hawkins a plea bargain because of the previous murder. Hall was sentenced to death for fatally shooting Donald R. Johnson, 59, in the head Dec.

18, 1993, during a robbery that went awry at the laundry. Two accomplices are also in prison for murder, but Hall, the I If you're looking for a way to meet the state's training and testing requirements to become a PA-Certified Emissions Repair Technician, you've found it. Eastern Center for Arts Technology's Continuing Education Division is now offering a comprehensive, three-part program that meets the state's requirements. Please call today for more information. Pennsylvania Auto Emissions Repair Technician Training EASTERN CENTER FOR ARTS TECHNOLOGY 3075 Terwood Rood Willow Grove, PA 1 9090 Phone: I -2 1 5-784-4802 Fax: 1-215-784-4801 9, 'qI By Richard Jones and Connie Langland INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS officials have every right to randomly search students' lockers for drugs, the state Supreme Court has ruled, saying youngsters cannot expect complete privacy at school.

'''In the precedent-setting ruling issued Wednesday, the justices overturned a Superior Court decision that found a 1994 search of a high school student's locker unconstitutional. After a search of 2,000 lockers at Harbor Creek High School in Erie County, police arrested senior Vincent Francis Cass, then 18, on marijuana-related charges. Police had Used a drug-sniffing dog to check the lockers. Students "have a limited expectation of privacy while in the school environment," and school districts have a compelling interest in protecting students from drugs, the high court held in a SI ruling. The court said, however, that school officials must have reasonable grounds to conduct a search and the method cannot be unnecessarily invasive.

The ruling was seen as bad news by one civil libertarian but not by school districts like Philadelphia's, where officials say they tell stu- dents that their lockers may be searched at any time. Several suburban districts have been the site of locker searches, too. "The School District of Philadelphia has always had the position that it's our locker," said Harry 4Tischler, assistant general counsel with the district. In the Erie case, the search was ordered after mounting indications of drug activity that included complaints from students and parents, suspicious transactions in hallways and increased use of pay phones and beepers. The state Superior Court had characterized those reasons as "vague" and "unsubstantiated." Supreme Court Justice Stephen Zappala was the lone high court member to disagree with the majority, saying that police should rely on probable cause to search lockers.

"A student does retain a legitimate expectation of privacy in a school locker under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitu-tion. To hold otherwise would equate school lockers and prison cells for purposes of the Fourth Amendment," Zappala wrote. For students, lockers run second only to bookbags or backpacks as places to stash stuff gossipy notes, overdue library books, missing homework assignments and, rarely, contraband. Locker searches have occurred sporadically in recent years across the region.

Yesterday's ruling was criticized by Larry Frankel, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, as an intrusion on the privacy rights of students. "Schools have become places where children give up their rights almost completely," Frankel said. In the last decade, locker searches using dogs have been conducted in a few suburban schools, including Newtown, Coatesville, Upper Merion, North Penn and Spring- field, Montgomery County. Cpl. Jim Gallagher, who heads the drug task force for the Norristown Police Department, said his group "was invited into the local Catholic school several years ago.

"We've had no controversy over any of our searches that we know of," Gallagher said. "The school administrators are quite 'happy with our work." The Associated Press contributed to this story. That means great buys for you We're clearing out the old to bring in the new! LA I YUM- THROUGHOUT THE STORE OF UP TO OFF! Bedrooms, Living Rooms, Dining Rooms, Bedding, Recliners and More! MSRP I Vi A Bucks County Tradition Since 1952 (215) 757-3723 Business Route 1 Penndel 19047 Fri. ld-9 Wed. Sat.

Sunday 12-5 InPenndel (j 9 JW "wun purcnase or jiiu. your good credit on in stork items. Delivery Jan. 31sl, W8. Customer deposit on special orders..