The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 30

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Thursday, November 30, 1995 B2 VwSv lr Facing trial in sale of son Snow takes by area surprise Two to five inches fell. Some suburban schools closed; others opened later than usual. Metropolitan Area News in Brief i i Boy, 12, shot in Camden; suspect captured at scene Shawn Lowe, 12, of the 1000 block of Louis Street in Camden, was shot in the stomach Tuesday afternoon near his home. Police arrested Wallace Cooper, 21, of the 1000 block of Princess Avenue. Charged with aggravated assault, Cooper was being held in the Camden County JaU after failing to post $50,000 bail.

Police said they were in the 1000 block of Louis Street at when they saw Cooper fire, two shots at Lowe. Cooper was chased by police and caught near a parked car. The gun was recovered. 4 Investigators said that they found more than $9,500 in cash and seven bags of suspected drugs inside Cooper's car but that they did not know the motive for the shooting. They said Lowe was in stable condition at Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center last night.

t) Flu reported in Bethlehem; 1 vaccinations are available 1 The state Health Department said yesterday that had had its first confirmed case of pne of three influenza strains likely sweep the country this year. A 26-year-old Bethlehem woman came down with Type AJohannesburg flu last week, the department said. That strain and two others Type ATexas and Type BBeijing are the flu strains most likely to hit the nation this winter. People at risk for the flu, the Health Department said, include the elderly, residents of nursing homes, those with chronic lung or heart problems, and those who are in regular contact with high-risk people. Health Secretary Peter Jannetta said there is still time to be vaccinated before the peak flu season hits the state.

I TODDLER from B1 my hands," Vanderhorst said. Vanderhorst said the woman gave her a paper with a number, which she never looked at, and told her she would be in touch to let her know when she could visit Ke-Shaun. The woman handed her $500 in $20 bills and picked up the child. "When she took him to the door, he was screaming," Vanderhorst said in her statement to police. She told police that the woman drove off in a blue, four-door sedan with KeShaun strapped into a white baby seat.

Vanderhorst said she had not heard from the woman or seen her son since. "I hated myself for what I did," Vanderhorst said in the statement. "My sister will never forgive me." One of her sisters, Kim Vanderhorst, testified yesterday that she had reported Ke-Shaun missing Oct. 13 after she had been unable to find the child or her sister. Kim Vanderhorst said she had last seen Ke-Shaun in her sister's apartment Sept.

24. Kim Vanderhorst said that when she and a detective later found Tina Vanderhorst on Cecil B. Moore Avenue, Vanderhorst was upset that she had called the police. "She said I shouldn't have gone to outsiders," Kim Vanderhorst said. "We should have kept it inside the family." Paul Askins, who lives in the third-floor apartment of Tina Van- t- til derhorst's building, in the 1400 block of North 17th Street, said that he used to see the child nearly every day but that he hadn't seen Ke-Shaun since late September.

He said Vanderhorst and Ke-Shaun "were always together." He described Vanderhorst as a conscientious and concerned mother who took good care of her son. "She didn't neglect him," he said. Askins said he was surprised once when he saw that another neighbor was holding Ke-Shaun, with Vanderhorst nowhere in sight. "I just couldn't picture her leav By Anthony R. Wood INQUIRER STAFF WRITER There was plenty of milk available at area grocery stores Tuesday night, and no road salt on the Schuylkill Expressway.

By those barometers anyway, 1 the two to five inches of snow that fell early yesterday were quite unexpected. "I think it got everybody by surprise," said Kevin Koch, highway engineer for the Philadelphia Department of Streets, which contracts with two private weather-forecasting companies. It closed some suburban schools and caused others to open later than usual, but the season's first measurable snow- fall was essentially harmless. Officially, two inches fell at Philadelphia International Air-. port, which broke a 94-year-old record for the date.

Two inches also was measured in Cherry Hill and Mount Holly; three in Pottstown and Valley Forge, and five in Perkasie. Even so, the main roads, warmed by the 60-degree-plus temperatures of Tuesday, remained mostly wet. "It was a nice starter storm," said Gene Blaum, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, who said that PennDot had begun salting after 2 a.m. I By then, a steady rain had turned to snow, which is not ex-; actly what forecasters had in mind. They had said that rain overnight would mix with wet snow during the day.

By ing, snow had blanketed tree limbs, power lines and car roofs with their thickest coats of white in about 10 months. Michael Mhoon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly, said that forecasters were off slightly on the timing of the overnight storm and had miscal-. culated the rain-snow line by less than 40 miles. Unfortunately, 40 miles can be a big deal in these parts. "You're dealing with an enor-I mous amount of economy and people," said Mhoon, who used to work for the weather service in Montana.

"Out yonder, this would be an extremely good forecast." The two' inches that fell at the airport topped the 1.2-inch snowfall of Nov. 29, 1901. For those worried that the snow is an omen of things to come this winter, stop worrying. Heavy November snows in 1989 and 1967 were followed by uneventful winters. The weekend is supposed to be mild, and the U.S.

Climate Pre-'. diction Center is still calling for a mild winter. The Philadelphia Inquirer DIRK SHADD Jack Lewis, of Germantown, rides his bike down Kelly Drive on his way to work at the University of Pennsylvania. Lewis tries to ride to work everyday and said the snow didn't cause him any problems yesterday morning. Philadelphia got two inches, but the suburbs got more.

ing him," he said. He was the most lovable kid I have ever seen," Askins said. Although police are still search ing for the child, they have no solid leads and the investigation is being handled by the Homicide Division. Ridge says Pa. will look into raising speed limits Following the elimination of the national speed limit, the Ridge administration announced yesterday that it was examining whether more Pennsylvania highways could be boosted to 65 m.p.h.

The highway bill signed Tuesday by President Clinton drops federal restrictions on speed limits. Some states plan to increase their speed limits to 70 m.p.h. or 75 m.p.h., and Montana will have no limit at all. But Gov. Ridge said he had no plans to raise the limit above the current 65 m.p.h.

i "The new 65 m.p.h. speed limit takes our highways to the maximum speed these roads were de--signed to safely accommodate," he said in a news release. Instead, Ridge said he had asked Transportation Secretary Bradley L. Mallory to recommend additional state roads where the speed limit could be safely increased to 65 m.p.h. Ridge signed legislation in July that increased the speed limit to 65 m.p.h.

'on 1,440 miles of rural interstates and expressways. Homicide Detective David Baker, who took Vanderhorst's police statement, said that he had contacted the numerous Virginia Grahams in the area and that none fitted the description of the woman Vanderhorst maintained bought her child. He said police had found no trace of Ke-Shaun, despite scouring the neighborhood and circulating posters throughout the East Coast. Vanderhorst's family has posted a $1,000 reward for information about the missing toddler. The TV show America's Most Wanted plans to show a segment on the missing toddler, Baker said.

Vanderhorst has been jailed at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center since Oct. 16 for violating terms of her parole stemming from an earlier drug conviction. "SI ,11 -r The Philadelphia Inquirer TOM GRALISH In South Jersey, the region's first snowfall of the season left more leaves on the sidewalks than snow. Kim D'Orazio (left) with son Dominic, 3, and Noreen Rymal with son Tommy, V2, take a walk with their sleds on a snowless sidewalk in Haddonfield by trees still filled with leaves. Pa.

postal worker held i in threat to kill bosses James A. Rook, 62, of Williams-port, a former Marine sharpshooter, has been jailed without bail on charges of threatening to shoot 14 supervisors at the Wil-liamsport post office, where he has been employed for 30 years. He was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury. Rook admitted that he threatened to kill the supervisors but said it was meant as a joke. Such threats are not taken lightly, said Postal Inspector Joseph H.

Elliott. Rook, who worked the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift as a registry clerk, has been suspended without pay. He faces a maximum of five years in prison if convicted, Coworkers told postal investigators that Rook said he had been depressed for several weeks and on Nov.

20 had left a suicide note with another worker. Rook said that he felt management was out to get him and that there were approximately 14 people at the post office he would "blow away" and then kill himself, according to court documents. There are 14 supervisors at the post office. DRPA lines up bond deal to replenish coffers In addition to the money saved because of the drop in interest rates, the authority benefited from intense investor interest in the bonds, which are tax-exempt in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The authority eliminated any risk to investors by paying $3.4 million to insure the bonds so buyers could have confidence in them despite the DRPA's precarious financial condition.

Thomas Dooney, managing director of Bear Stearns Co. a lead underwriter on the deal, said more than $1 billion worth of orders were requested within the first three hours the bonds were on the market Monday. That enabled the authority's financial advisers to negotiate a more favorable interest rate by day's end. The lower rate will save the authority $3.8 million over the life of the bonds, he said. To meet its obligations to repay the bonds, the authority will have to raise bridge tolls in four years.

An increase of 25 percent is tentatively scheduled for April 1, 1999 after gubernatorial elections have taken place in both states. While proceeds from the bond sale will ease the short-term financial crisis at the authority, it will not resolve the underlying problem of expenditures that continue to outpace revenue. That problem was underscored yesterday as commissioners, after hearing a report on the bond deal, met behind closed doors to discuss ways to save money next year. Among the suggestions were reductions in staff through retirements, buyouts and possibly layoffs. Commissioners also discussed the possibility of trimming or eliminating some consulting contracts.

jjf Ke-Shaun Vanderhorst was last seen in September. A stranger took him, police were told. DRPA from B1 "It's been referred to by some as the bond deal from hell, and there's a. lot of truth in that," the Rev. Nicholas S.

Rashford, chairman of the DRPA board, said at the meeting yesterday in Camden. As time passed, the DRPA's financial picture worsened and its obligations grew, increasing the amount of money needed for a rescue. Earlier this year, officials said they expected to borrow $200 million. By yesterday, that figure had ballooned to $357 million. The authority's underwriters put the bonds on the market, and negotiated interest rates with buyers, on Monday.

Terms of the deal were then submitted for board approval. The DRPA will get the money at a closing scheduled for Dec. 12. The bonds will be repaid over 30 years at rates ranging from S.35 to 5.6 percent. DRPA officials said the delay in putting together the deal actually benefited the authority, because interest rates have dropped in recent months.

As a result, the DRPA will save $20 million to $25 million in interest over the life of the bonds, according to Mitchell Ziets of Public Financial the DRPA's financial adviser. "Every once in a while, God is good to those who procrastinate," said Father Rashford. FOP rhipf savs ritv nolipp HpmrmiliVpH mav fpar apfinn Lit cigarette likely cause of blast that killed 2 teens A lit cigarette probably caused an oil-tank explosion and fire that killed two 14-year-old boys, police in Bradford Township, said. A pack of cigarettes and a lighter were found near the body of John Blouser. according to police.

He and Kevin Cams apparently had been playing atop the tanks. Yesterday, McKean County Coroner Frank Ca-hill said they died of severe body trauma. One tank exploded about 4:40 p.m. Tuesday. It caught on fire and ignited a nearby tank.

Several witnesses reported having seen two teenage boys playing on the tanks shortly before the blast. Billows of black smoke were visible for miles, and heat warped metal pipes near the site. The tanks hold up to about 80 barrels of crude oil. Bradford Township is about 95 miles east of step in a bid to reform a police force that has been rocked by the 39th District corruption scandal. After the transfers, Costello said, he asked FOP lawyers to research whether police could go out on strike.

State law forbids it, so that tactic was abandoned, he said. Street's comments only deepened the union's disillusionment, Costello said. COSTELLO from B1 tough month for the police union. The FOP-backed Republican mayoral candidate Joe Rocks was thrashed by Mayor Rendell in the Nov. 7 election.

Rendell had angered the union early in his term when he won new contracts that froze wages and cut holidays. Two weeks ago, Neal infuriated union when he announced the transfer of scores of veteran police officers. The commissioner took the courage officers to sit passively in their patrol cars, he said. "Unless this current trend is reversed, it's just going to happen out of basic human nature, and there's nothing I or anyone else can do to stop it," he said. The fear, he said, "is that our troops are getting dangerously close to the point where they feel there's no harm in sitting in the car and every harm in taking any action whatsoever." I'm seeing no morale." The cost is enormous when you gut the morale of city workers entrusted with the public safety, he said.

"Every officer is the eyes and ears of the Police Department," he said. "If they choose not to see or hear anything, then where are we? When we create a situation where we're encouraging police not to get involved, where are we?" The union is doing nothing to en "I've seen bad morale over the years," Costello said. "Right now, r.TiiMi(iii-rrB;rn"TniifllrWiiii.ji( if i -aflft.