The Greenville News from Greenville, South Carolina • Page 44

The Greenville News Charleston police 8 kill man involved in '85 slaying of Greenville constable p'Tiffl Br vy -i -ft when Corvette and his partner crashed the door, called police. When the robbers left through the broken door, officers were waiting outside. They grabbed the accomplice, but Corvette dashed back into the house and out the front door, ignoring officers' commands to stop, Francis said. Bloodhounds tracked him to some woods about 1V4 miles away, and when he and officers came face to face, "shots were fired and he ended up dead," Francis said. Francis said it's not clear who shot first, but both the officers and Corvette fired.

The State Law Enforcement Division is investigating. Corvette often shortened his prison sentences by cutting deals, with prosecutors and testifying' against accomplices. Prosecutors dropped the murder charge against him in the Greenville case when he I testified against Samuel Leroy Wodke, who now is serving a sentence of life plus 25 years in the Keith slaying. Corvette served less than two years in prison for drug smuggling by testifying against Newby Franklin Love in 1983 in the case of a $325 million cocaine seizure. "I didn't even know he was out of prison," said Greenville Sheriffs.

Office Capt. Sam Simmons when told of Corvette's death Wednesday. "He was a career criminal, a real hard case. They need to be kept locked up or else it's a good argument for the death penalty." By Bryan Gilmer Staff Writer It took five bullets to end Wilbur Rutledge "Rusty" Corvette's career of crime. Charleston police shot him Wednesday night after they say he and another man were caught robbing an elderly couple in their home.

The robbery fit the pattern of the last 15 years of Corvette's life: get arrested, serve several years in prison, get out and commit another felony within less than a year. In 1985, he had just finished a prison term for drug smuggling when he and two buddies drifted into Greenville, robbed the former Family Mart grocery store on East North Street with an Uzi submachine gun and shot Constable Val-don Keith to death trying to get away on State Park Road. At his parole hearing in 1993, Corvette, then 40, said he was ready to put his criminal past behind him. "Yes, sir. I'm getting old," he said.

But about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, less than three months after being released from federal prison, Corvette and an accomplice smashed their way through the glass patio door of the couple's West Ashley home, bound and gagged their victims with duct tape and robbed them, Charleston police spokesman Charles Francis said. The couple's daughter, who had been on the phone with her mother --'V -H-il- -i I ALAN HAWES Staff Shocking accident Emergency workers treat Robert Cope in downtown Greenville Thursday after the construction worker's jack-hammer sliced into a 12, 000-volt power line. Worker slnces imto pwer. Iodh New Simpsonville police chief to focus on forging larger force on the phones.

We lost all power except for our emergency backup," she said. Since the accident occurred so close to quitting time, Cpl. R.B. Colwell of the Greenville Police Department had to direct rush-hour traffic along Broad and Main streets. "It was busy," he said.

Cope's father, Don, who owns the 33-year-old Cope Boring and Tunneling said the accident gave him the scare of his life. "It looked like the Fourth of July. I haven't seen anything like it," said Don Cope, describing the scene surrounding his son. "I went down in the hole to get him. He got up on his own accord and I pulled him out.

"I think he'll be all right," he said. Robert Cope, 38, was in serious but stable condition at Greenville Memorial Hospital. The accident occurred about 4:30 p.m. at the site of the new Smith Barney Robinson Humphrey building at River and Court streets as Cope helped install a sewer line. The lights went out at City Hall, leaving hundreds of workers in the dark.

Traffic lights went blank and offices throughout the area lost their familiar hum of computers, copiers and printers. Charlotte Watts, convention services assistant with the Greater Greenville Convention and Visitors Bureau at City Hall, was preparing letters to be mailed. "There were people on the computers, people Pie's seriously injured; downtown Greenville thrown into darkness1 By Felicia Thomas-Lynn Staff Writer A worker whose jackhammer sliced into a power line at a downtown construction site on River Street was seriously injured Thursday, and power was knocked off in the area for more than an hour. By Cheryl Allen Staff Writer SIMPSONVILLE The city's new police chief said he will make getting more officers a priority. "Number one, we don't have enough officers," Randy Baldwin said, noting he would like to see at least three more on the force.

"I'm going to put more officers out in the community and have more visi Government paying heed to mistake at Los Alamos in building SRS facility said. "The first is when I served my country in Vietnam." A Simpsonville native, he has been with the department for more than 23 years and has 'no plans to' leave the growing town of more than 13,000. "Simpsonville is my hometown," he said. "My idea was to stay right here." Baldwin graduated from Hillcrest High School in 1965. In 197.4, he attended the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy in Columbia and later received an associate degree in criminal justice from Greenville Technical College.

He was in the Army for two years. He has been a member of New Hope Baptist Church in Maul-din since 1955. He is married with two adult children. Baldwin will oversee 45 employees, 30 of whom are sworn officers. He said Thursday he wants his officers to have more advanced training and education.

"This can and will be the best police force in South Carolina, and I will not accept nothing under that," Baldwin said. The salary for the Simpsonville police chief is $37,000, Hickman said. Cheryl Allen writes about the Golden Strip. She can be reached at 298-4026. ble patrol." Baldwin, who has been serving as acting chief for six months, said he doesn't see crime as a major problem in the city but hopes to head off any potential trouble by inrrpasinir na- Randy Baldwin trols in neighborhoods and around schools.

"I think the more visibility, I think the less trouble you'll have," he said. Baldwin, 50, replaces Larry Boyes, who retired last year for health reasons, said City Administrator Barry Hickman. "This is probably the second greatest time in my life," Baldwin Some parks may lose state status, become local or privatized FORT MILL South Carolina's parks system is struggling, and turning over part of it to private compa-- rues or local governments to run is under consideration. The Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department says 11 mostly rural parks could lose their state park status unless it can find someone else to run them. Other parks will be expanded, and there could be higher fees in some areas.

If the department holds to its practice of managing all parks as equals, though they have different resources and attractions, the system will go broke, PRT Executive Director Grace Young said Wednesday at the annual governor's tourism conference. In addition, the department recommends that the state seek proposals from private companies to operate or develop Hickory Knob, Lake HartweU and Sadlers Creek state parks. That could include adding hotels or golf courses, Young said. "We have unrealized potential for attracting tourism," she said. While the plan doesn't suggest raising park admission prices, fees for hotel rooms and campsites should be market-driven, she said, "Business as usual is not an option," Young said.

"We know the product is threatened. We are in a i downward The parks system had a budget last year. But $32.3 million in capital improvements related to the Americans With Disabilities Act and other projects are needed, Young said. The Associated Press ing has stood vacant since its completion. The inspector general's review was prompted by a tip in a 1994 letter from an unnamed person, who wrote: "It is imperative that the public receive some assurance that this waste will not recur and that the facility will be made safe." The problems, however, were not news to DOE officials in New Mexico, the inspector general's inspectors found.

A DOE task force already had done its own investigations and concluded as the inspector general did that there was no one to sue, because the government employees who inadequately designed the facility and managed its construction were at fault for its problems, not the contractors who built it. "It was much reported several investigations were done before," Danneskiold said Thursday of the storage building's problems. "We self-identified most of it." Because the storage vault never opened, Los Alamos has had to keep all its plutonium officially declared in 1994 to be something less than 3 tons in a vault designed for short-term, working storage, Danneskiold said. But Los Alamos now is getting yearly funding that will allow the 1987 building to be renovated and in operation by 2002, he said. The inspector general's inspectors noted "a more capable management team" was overseeing the renovation.

some potential problems. The New Mexico storage building, for example, was so poorly designed its ventilation system couldn't dissipate the heat generated by radioactive decay of the stored materials, the DOE inspector general's Jan. 16 report said. At the SRS facility, Gunter said, the vault ventilation system is being designed to be able to take care of 30 watts of heat generating from each of a maxi-mum of 5,000 items, even though many items will generate considerably less heat and not that many items may be stored. The SRS facility's basic design also will be more logical, Gunter said.

In Los Alamos, the inspector general reported, uncrated plutonium had to be carried through administrative offices to reach the storage area, and the garage where special transportation trailers would dock is too narrow to allow their doors to be opened and secured. Additional problems at the Los Alamos site include peeling throughout the building of a special paint that is supposed to make decontamination easier; office ventilation ducts that receive air from the plutonium storage areas; and two gas boilers inside the facility that are fire and explosion hazards. "Deficiencies in the facility were so serious that they rendered the facility unusable for its intended purpose," the inspector general's inspectors said. A spokesman for Los Alamos, Jim Danneskiold, said the build- By Chris Collins Gannett News Service WASHINGTON The federal Department of Energy, which now is designing a large plutoni-um storage facility at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, a decade ago built a plutonium storage vault in New Mexico that was so shoddily designed and constructed, it never was used, the agency's internal watchdog says. The saga of the mistake at Los Alamos National Laboratory which will take some $45 million to rectify should be a lesson for those overseeing the construction of other nuclear facilities, said DOE officials who earlier investigated what went wrong in New Mexico.

That warning, in fact, is being heeded by those working on a new storage facility at SRS, where DOE plans to house more than 9 tons of surplus plutonium until the nuclear material can be "irreversibly" disposed. Now in the design phase, the $165-million facility is scheduled to be finished by the year 2002. "We are aware at Savannah River of the problems Los Alamos has had with its vault," Allen Gunter, of DOE's nuclear materials stabilization division, said in a telephone interview from SRS. In fact, he added, the "screwups" at Los Alamos have been widely acknowledged by DOE for years and are one reason the SRS facility is being built for "the worst case scenario" of 1 Greenville County road work Lswr' 253. State 8: Detour from Pelzer to Ware Place onto Garrison Road to U.S.

25 back to southern part oj Greer! fTravelefs State 8 because of road construction and bridge work for the next few months. Rest nn y. E3 Pleasant Retreat Road: Closed to through- trnffo between White Horse Road Extension Greetwle -v and Valley Road until March. a 0- Mauldin Batetville Road: Closed at the bridge over Rockjt .1 Creek until May 1 while crews replace the bridge Simpsonvile Tubbt Mountain Road: Under construction for Fountain Inn the next six months. Memorial Drive Extension: Road closed to 28 through-traffic between State 101 and U.S.

29 for bridge replacement until Feb. 1 7. Cross Street Closed for an undetermined amount nfHme. WILL FROM PAGE 1D fr Rutherford Road: Traffic traveling between Waddell Street and Tanner document that can be put to good use," Toal said to Wile. Wile responded that state law places permanent value on original documents.

"So Mr. Hill's good-use argument is completely trumped by the sum of the requirements of the law," Toal said. "It's always preferable for a researcher to see the original documents," Wile said. Wile also raised the difficulty for a judge who might be asked to choose between many heirs in returning a document to private hands. Ken Woodington, a lawyer for the state Attorney General's Office, urged the court to rule that wills have an important state purpose forev- Noting he had an ancestor who died in Edgefield County in 1835 and who has many heirs, Woodington asked, "Who gets his will? Does the first one who walks into the courthouse get the will and everyone else just sees microfilm?" Attorney Gary Hill, Leo Hill's son and law partner, said the courts would have to determine ownership in the same way they divide any other piece of personal property.

"We've heard that this is a public treasure. But the state has no idea what they will do with it," Hill said. James T. Hammond can be reached in the CaortaJ Bureau of The Greenville News at (803) 256-73JJ. Drive will shift to the newly constructed stae of the road as part of tne widening project Road construction on the other side is expected to last until March.

Richardson Street Reduced to two lanes from College Street to Washington Street while a parking garage is built. West North Street One lane closed from Academy Street to Main Street while a parking garage is built. To report rosd wort, eontad stal! srter Tmt K3ng 23-4299. SUZE R1DOLE StsO'J cords must be transferred to the state archives after 75 years, or after 10 years if microfilmed at the county records office. Justice John Waller said state law specifies that courts have control of wills.

Jeff Wile, assistant Greenville County attorney, said one state law even prohibits any probate judge from removing any record. "There are no exceptions," Wile said. Toal probed for arguments on both sides. "Mr. Hill argu that here sits this valuable.