Mexico Ledger from Mexico, Missouri • Page 1

12 PAGES CLOUDY AND COOLER Mexico, Monday, March 31, 1975 Phone Year No. Fifteen Cents Red Advance In Vietnam Halts US Refugee Rescue SAIGON, South Vietnam (AP) The Communist advance through South Vietnam today threatened the Saigon government's last remaining enclaves on the central coast, touched off an evacuation of Americans from Saigon and suspended the American rescue of an estimated IVfe million Vietnamese refugees from Da Nang. Heavy fighting was reported 25 miles northwest of Qui Nhon, the country's third largest city, as North Vietnamese forces from the Central Highlands pushed eastward toward the central coast. Radio contact between Qui Nhon and Saigon, 270 miles to the southeast, was reported broken. But sources said the city was still in government hands.

Associated Press correspondent Peter O'Loughlin reported from aboard the last rescue ship to leave Da Nang harbor that City-School Vote Begins At 6 A. M. Mexico voters will choose two city councilmen and two school board members Tuesday and if absentee voting is any idication, the voter turnout will be light. Only two absentee votes have been cast in the city election and only one in the school board election by noon today. The polls will open at 6 a.m.

and close at 7 p.m. Results of the election will be carried on See-Tv, Channel 12, beginning at 7 p.m. City council candidates for two three-year terms are Dr. John Boyce, Lewis Brooks Russell Blackburn and Robert Knipfel. School board candidates are Mrs.

Howard Copeland, Mrs. Edward Hodge and Jay Gourley IE. Voters may vote for two candidates in each election. Although candidate financial disclosure statements are not required before Tuesday's election, they will be required before winning candidates can be sworn into office, and two city council aspirants and one school board candidate have filed the statements. The complex 11-page forms, containing 455 blanks, were approved last week by the Missouri Elections Commission and were received Wednesday by City Clerk, Mrs.

Cheryl Ligon and school board secretary Mrs. Fran Hobelman. Mrs. Hobelman said instructions from the commission say the forms are not required before the election, but must be filed within 30 days after the election and that no candidate can be sworn into office before the statement has been filed. All candidates have been given copies of the form.

The school board meets to re-organize Wednesday night and the city council on April 14. Jay Gourley III has filed his statement showing income over $500 from Jay's IGA and the Shell Store. The two council candidates who have completed the forms are Robert Knipfel, 1219 E. (Continued on Page 5) American crew members said South Vietnamese marines trying to escape the city shot and killed about 25 people Sunday on another ship, claiming they were Viet Cong suspects. O'Loughlin, who was on the cargo ship Pioneer Contender, said the mass killing was reported from the sister ship Pioneer Commander.

He also reported people dying aboard barges on which they had stayed four days without food and water and others tumbling into the choppy sea when overloaded vessels overturned trying to reach the ships. "Bloated bodies floated in the harbor," he said. Refugees told O'Loughlin that anarchy prevailed in Da Nang itself. An escaping merchant told him South Vietnamese soldiers took off their uniforms and hid. Others said some troops went on the rampage, looting rice stores, robbing warehouses of tin goods and setting buildings afire.

U.S. officials said all Americans had been evacuated from Qui Nhon and from Tuy Hoa, 50 miles to the south. American civilians and their families were being evacuated from Nha Trang, 60 miles south of Tuy Hoa, but the U.S. Consulate there was still open, officials said. Informed sources said the U.S.

Embassy began the evacuation of staff members and their families from Saigon on a semiofficial basis as a precaution because of the possibility of political turmoil and anti-Americanism as well as an attack on the city. The sources explained that the Embassy was not asking or ordering its personnel or their families to leave but was paying for their travel if they chose to go. U.S. officials estimate there were about 6,000 Americans in Vietnam when the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong offensive began a month ago. Most of them were in Saigon.

U.S. military sources said the evacuation of Vietnamese refugees by sea from Da Nang in American ships had been suspended because the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were firing on the ships. American officials estimated that from 30,000 to 50,000 refugees managed to escape from Da Nang by sea and another 2,000 to 4,000 fled by air before the North Vietnamese occupied the city Sunday, completing their conquest of the northern part of South Vietnam. North Vietnam termed the American refugee sealift and President Ford's order for four U.S. Navy ships to participate a "brazen provocation." It demanded that all U.S.

Navy ships stay (Continued on Page 5) Easter Is Stormy In Northern States 1 V' 4 Epperson Inquest Waits On Reports By The Associated Press Easter Sunday storms swirled across the northern tier of states from the Rockies to New England. A storm threatened to dump more snow on North Dakota, where the snow pack totaled as much as 26 inches early today. Ousting winds hit 50 miles per hour under cold arctic blasts across Montana, Wyoming and parts of Nebraska and some gusts were clocked at 70 m.p.h. in the central Rockies. Heavy snow squalls were blowing off the lower Great Lakes, gusting up to 50 m.p.h.

on the Cleveland lakefront. Up to five inches of snow'was expected in western New York state. Light rain dampened the southern Atlantic coastal states where many rivers and creeks are already over their banks in parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia and West Viginia. Flooding continued in the Midwest and the middle Mississippi Valley. At Paces, North Carolina, the rain-swollen Dan River was expected to crest at 14 feet above flooding level today before winding its way back into Virginia.

A National Weather Service spokesman at Raleigh-Durham Airport said the river level was expected to reach 29 feet in some areas. No injuries have been reported but officials said nearly 2,000 campers were stranded in Rockingham County where driving rains damaged a bridge in Union Grove and left the town of Dalton with 4.4 inches of rain within 24 hours. Three persons died in stormrelated incidents in North Dakota Saturday. A Good Friday tornado left seven person dead and many others injured around Warren, Ark. One in four of Warren's residents were homeless Sunday as cleanup operations got underway.

All persons missing had been located by Saturday night, authorities said. A windstorm in British Columbia left three persons dead and several others missing and presumed dead. Nebraska Gov. J. J.

Exon said Sunday it was almost impossible to realize the disaster brought on by a spring blizzard in western Nebraska without having seen it. He spoke of at least four deaths attributed to the storms and extensive cattle losses, especially in the northwest Nebraska area. Today's For fixing things around the house, nothing beats a man who's handy with a checkbook. SPRING ON THE the April wind and the tirst glimpses of warm weather on her swing is Jada Thompson, 10, daughter of Mr. and Mrs.

Charles Thompson, 928 W. Harwood. April events include April Fool's Day, April Sir Winston Churchill Day, April Thomas Jefferson's birthday, April 13; Pan American Day, April 14; Earth Week, April 21-27; National Arbor Day, April 25. It's National Home Improvement Month, which will bring cleanup and fix-up days, and National Baby Week occurs during the month. President James Buchanan was born April 23 and so was William Shakespeare.

President Grant was born April 27 and President Monroe April 28. The month is also Cancer Control Month. (Calendar Photo by Richard Vance) Officers investigating the slayings last week of Mrs. Fern Epperson and her two children, met this morning at the Mexico Public Safety Department to confer on the search for the missing husband and father, Russell Epperson. He has been sought on suspicion of murder since the three bodies were found at their home about noon Wednesday.

He was last seen about 9:15 that morning. The mother and children, Richard, 6, and DeAnn, 4, were buried Saturday afternoon at East Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery under surveillance of law officers. Alpine Avalanche Kills Vacationers KLAGENFURT, Austria (AP) An avalanche roared down on a group of Alpine bungalows early today, killing eight Austrian Easter vacationers in their beds and seriously injuring two others, officials said. Other avalanches blocked road and rail traffic as heavy snowfalls caused a near disaster situation in many parts of Austria, with the south hardest hit, they said. Christie Michelle Heim Christi Michelle Heim is the name chosen by Mr.

and Mrs. Leo R. Heim, Route 2, Mexico, for their eight pound 14 ounce daughter born at 12:51 p.m. Sunday at the Audrain Medical Center. Grandparents are Mr.

and Mrs. Leo Heim of Mexico and Mr. and Mrs. Sol Shaheen of Erie, 111. Mr.

Heim is employed at the Audrain Medical Center. Meanwhile the local search and the long distance alert has yielded no reported leads. And officers are awaiting laboratory reports before resuming the inquest into the deaths begun by a coroner's jury summoned by Sheriff Arthur (Bud) Riley, acting coroner. FUNERAL CORTAGE led by three hearses wound its way from the Arnold tuneral home to East Lawn Memorial Cemetery Saturday afternoon, bearing the bodies of Mrs. Russell Epperson and her son Richard Lee and daughter DeAnn.

Not all of the funeral procession is shown, as cars around curve were beyond camera view. (Ledger Photo by Richard Vance) Western Kansas Wheat Farmers Plan To Plow Under This Week Figure Your Tax Cut With Page 2 Table OBERLIN, Kan. (AP) Western Kansas farmers say they will begin plowing under part of their 1975 winter wheat crop this week after waiting two weeks for cooperation from the weather. "It still looks pretty miserable out there, but we're going to go ahead," said Gaylord Shields, an Oberlin area farmer leading the northwest Kansas group. Shields said he hopes about 300 farmers will begin plowing Tuesday as part of an organized effort to reverse the downward slide in grain prices that farmers blame on government export controls and "market manipulation." Farmers in southwest Kansas say they will begin plowing on Wednesday around the Dodge City area.

Russell Fischer, a Wright, farmer, said the southwestern group definitely will go ahead on Wednesday. "There are more and more producers in the southwest and across the country who are concerned about over production," Fischer said. Fischer said wheat would be plowed under, pastured to feed livestock or cut for hay in an effort to bring production into line with projected demand. Flareup Along Mideast Border By The Associated Press Lebanese artillery- drove back a 20-man Israeli force that crossed the border into southern Lebanon twice today on a mine-laying mission, the Lebanese Defense Ministry reported. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli command.

A communique issued in Beiurt said Israeli troops came under intense Lebanese fire about 00 yards from the border near the small village of Bustan. "Enemy ground gunners later struck at Lebanese forward positions but scored no hits and inflicted no casualties," the communique added. The border action flared as a leading Egyptian analyst sought to reassure Arab radi- cals that President Anwar Sadat's decision to reopen the Suez Canal does not amount to an end to the state of war with Israel. Israel will be barred from using the canal on grounds that the Constantinople convention of 1888 permits Egypt to prohibit use of the waterway to states with which it is at war, a Cairo govern(Continued on Page 5) Man Is Eddie Edwards Jr. 1 Wife Says She Will Stand By Arrested Escapee "My man is Eddie Edwards don't know this man they call Charles Edward Lucas," says Mrs.

Anna Edwards of Uddonia. "For seven years he has been a fine husband to me and father to my children." Last Wednesday evening he was arrested at his Laddonia home while working on his dog pens in the back yard. He faces federal charges of escape eight years ago from a correctional institution in Texarkana, where he was serving a five year sentence for interstate transportation of a motor vehicle. Mrs. Edwards told The Ledger she had never known of his other identity "but for the last two years I've known something was troubling him.

He's aged a lot in those two years. He's just 45 but he looks a lot older." In an interview with a Edwards said she was in the house when a well-dressed young men carne to the door and told her Eddie said he was going to work awhile at Cannon Dam. "I know now he was still trying to protect me," she said. "I waited up for him and as the hours passed I began to worry. At about 1 a.m.

my brother came in with Eddie's coat and an envelope with his personal effects. 'Is Eddie dead? Is he I cried." Her brother then told her he had been arrested, about his former identity and life, his prison escape, and how he had been found through an FBI flier. "I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it. The man I know and love with all my heart is a changed man from Charles Edward Lucas," Mrs.

F.dwards says Jt i-ai of tragedy for Mrs. Edwards. A month ago on Feb. 20, her father, William Henry Kitsen, the marshal of Silex was gunned down defending the town from burglars. One of the burglars shot him in the chest at pointblank range with a magnum charge from a pistol.

Dust on his coat, showed he was knocked over in the street. "But somehow he managed to get to his knees and shoot one of the burglars. They think there were three. Then he crawled across the street and died leaning against a snowplow. The blade was smudged where he tried to wipe his own blood off the blade.

"He was found there the next morning. He had a hero's funeral with highway patrolmen and policemen filling the first two rows. He was buried with the badge he loved so much." Six months before, his wife had died of cancer. Mrs. Edwards said her father had been a strong influence on Eddie, who arranged for the funeral and made the down payment.

The people of Silex raised a fund to take care of the rest of the expenses. Mrs. Edwards and her three children were living in O'Fallon seven years ago. She had just been through a bitter divorce which left her and the children in terrible mental and financial straits. A friend whose husband was a truck driver one day called and brought Eddie with them.

He was an over-the-road truck driver then. Mrs. Edwards said he quickly fell in love and they were married April 20, 1968. "He wanted to get us away from O'Fallon and the bitter memories there," she said, so they moved to Mexico for two years ami then to 1-aiidonia, for the last five years. They were buying a home but were involved in legal difficulties over it.

Eddie continued truck driving. "He helped a lot of young truck drivers, helping them get loads and telling them about road conditions." A few months ago he quit driving so he would not be away from home so much. Mrs. Edwards said her health was not good. He worked part time when the weather permitted at Cannon Dam.

He worked with his registered coon hounds which he loved. The family finances now are so bad "the dogs he loved may starve to death," Mrs. Edwards said. At first, after her husband's arrest, Mrs. Edwards said she thought that everything would work out all right, that the court would be lenient with Eddie and they could go on (Continued on Page 5).